Building Community

I am really happy how Kyle and I are getting involved with the church in our local community.  We have been leading a married small group and already we have gotten so close to the couples in our group.  We have invested in our small group by not only meeting once a week but doing get-togethers outside of group.  Authentic friendships are formed by doing life together and we are all there for the same reason: to become friends with like minded people.

Some of my best friends have been people that have been in my small group.  It is really cool to be the leader and able to bring people together and facilitate the group growing together.  If you are not already involved in a small group, whether it is a married, singles or men's or women's group, I would strongly encourage you to look into it.

Another thing we have been doing is leading a Transit small group.  If you are not familiar with Tranist it is our church's middle school program.  They meet when adults are in "Big Church" and they have a similar schedule.  First when they arrive before it starts they have fellowship complete with donuts!!  Then once it is time to get started they have an icebreaker or game, then they listen to worship music, then they have a message tailored to their specific stage of life, then we break into small groups.  This is where we come in, as small group leaders we have the privilege to each lead a group of boys and girls.

The middle schoolers are so excited to be there and are eager to hear God's message in a relevant way that they can relate.  Then to be around adults and high school co-leaders that care about them and want to build relationships with them, they think that is pretty cool too!  They get to hang out with kids just like them from different schools as well.  It is so much fun leading these middle schoolers and it is neat to see the things they deal with were issues I faced growing up as well.  I think leaders get just as much or more out of leading the groups as the kids do.

I am just really happy with the direction our lives are going and being apart of such great communities and having such healthy relationships.  It definitely helps our marriage and brings us closer together too.  Any time you can spend time together serving common interest is always a plus! 

How do you serve and give back to your community?!

Enjoy being single

I am a big proponent that it is better to be single than with the wrong person.  How much time can you “waste” if you know in your heart the relationship is not going anywhere?  There are four seasons in the year but there is no telling how many seasons you will have in your personal life.  Another way of saying this is, you will go through many different periods in your life: from growing up, to dating, single, back to dating, back to single, then possibly marriage.  In every season of your life enjoy the moment!!  I cannot stress this enough.

 In your ministry you can do more as a single person. You will have more time to serve his Kingdom, because when you are married your ministry is to your spouse and family.  There are limitations like coordinating schedules etc.  When you are single you can pick up and head overseas to serve internationally, for example.  The most important thing you can do to honor God in marriage is to love your spouse as God loves the church.  Keeping God in the center of a marriage is imperative to keeping a healthy marriage.  If you love someone you will never do anything to intentionally hurt that person.

God never promises you will be married. As much of a desire it may be in your heart, it may not be part of your story.  If it is then it will happen on God’s timing.  You really cannot force love or a great relationship. There is either the connection that is mutual that will lead to marriage or there are not those feelings.  I dated quite a few people before I found the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with growing old together.  I happen to realize the man of my dreams was right in front of me the whole time, but it may not happen that way for you.  There is not a cookie cut away a relationship will develop and every person is different.  I never blamed one person for what the last person did.  Always keep an open mind, until they show you otherwise.

I will say I had never dated a friend, until my husband, and I would recommend it with extreme caution.  It is a tricky situation because the first thing I wanted to do was preserve our friendship.  Love developed.  Again, it was a natural progression.  Feelings became love through a purposeful dating relationship.  Timing is always everything.  You may be madly in love with someone but they may not be ready to date or be in a relationship.  At the same time I don’t recommend putting your life on hold if they expressly deny feelings for you. 

So the moral that I hope you get from this is: be content, enjoy the moment, trust the Lord that he has your best interest at heart, and stay positive!!