Exhaustion or Exhilaration

God has blessed my family with a new home. Yay! It has a bit more space, an extra bedroom and fit our price range exactly.

I love when this happens, when the creator of the universe coordinates seemingly unrelated events to execute a blessing in the lives of His children.

For those of you who don't know, we live in a small home, 2 bedrooms, and have ago long outgrown this situation. While we love our house and have enjoyed making memories here, we began to pray for a bigger, more suitable home for our family size. Since all four of my daughters share one bedroom, and have done so for years, we are a very close knit group with little privacy.  Our tiny home has been enjoyable for years and we have moments when we just scream inside that we are out of space. We have never been the couple that wanted a huge home, just room to put our feet up as we watch our girls live and grow around us. This newer home is that perfect solution for us. It has three bedrooms, a bigger living area and a beautiful sliding glass door in the eat-in kitchen.

 I can't wait until we can be there creating new memories.

During this transition, we moved into our camper and began the packing process. This was going to be a very short term temporary living arrangement, think 4-5 days, that went on for over a month. (I thought the old house was small aaahhhh)

This blessing has brought me to my knees. Literally in exhaustion and spiritually in prayer for energy to make it through,. 

One Sunday after service was over and we said our goodbyes to everyone, I sat at the computer in the church office to type in four short numbers for some record keeping tasks and fell asleep, as did my whole family. I didn't realize how tired I have become in all this back and forth, staying in the camper, continuing on our regular schedule and being faced with delay after delay in the process of actually getting into our new place.

While it is an exhilarating thought to have more living area I have to ask myself, "Am I really living?"

In between soccer practice, painting, organizing kids church classes, preparing camper meals, teaching art classes and all the other worthwhile causes, I have lost it again,. Every so often I have to take an inventory of my life and do some serious cuts to the things I love. There are so many great causes to get behind, endless activities for my children to join, and less and less of myself to give to these things. So I ask myself again, am I really living? This amazing new home will be a major blessing for my family, but at the moment all I can do is beg God for the energy to get out of bed and the grace to deal with my wonderful kids. 

All to often I am here, listing the obligations I have taken on. And each time I narrow down the number to a reasonable amount, I find myself living a life of beauty and grace. 

A life where God seems to be around every corner, under every blade of grass, in the eyes of my daughters and husband. 

When was the last time I felt that way, that God was right here and I had nothing blocking my communication with Him? So I pray for all of us in this busy lifestyle, where things are so easily added, that we can all make the right choice on what is and is not important. I pray that each of us can live life the way it is meant to be, not just piling on the "good stuff" to say we have it, but really looking at those in front of us, living and growing together. God is right here with us

Reproducible Discipleship

Two years ago when my husband was hired as the pastor at our church, he was given a vision to disciple all the world as Jesus commissioned the church in Mark 15:16. Ok, so realistically, he is not going to every door in the entire land and walking them through spiritual truths and life lessons. So how does this vision come to fruition?

How do you disciple the world when you live in a small town, extremely unconnected from any metropolis and don't have a large online following? 

Through months of prayer, studying the Bible and opening conversations with other church leaders, it comes down to the easiest job ever given to the church. Discipleship is not hard, it is incredibly natural, it is an organic part of our walk in this life. Even if you are not into the Christian lifestyle, discipleship is happening, but outside the church walls it is known as mentoring. 

Here it is, the easiest way to create disciples. Develop relationships.

Let's take all the nonsense out of discipleship by making it reproducible for anyone who is interested in mentoring someone. Start by knowing that each of us should have a mentor and be a mentor. You can mentor more than one person although, I tend to only disciple a few people at a time. Considering Jesus had 12 full time disciples and didn't have a 100% success rate (remember Judas) I keep my group to no more than 5. This is not a hard cut off, because if the door was opened I would prayerfully take on more. 

Where are the disciples coming from? Those you work with, those you live next to, youth in your family or your neighborhood, really anywhere you are living, there is an opportunity to teach your skills to someone. Start with common ground. I have started mentoring through teaching someone to knit, hiking with people, creating art, cooking together; something tangible that gives the relationship a reason to exist. Then you open your heart and open a dialogue.

Begin to share life lessons, Biblical truths and always love. 

While there is a place for organized discipleship study, there is also a place for that daily learning, sharing hearts and doing life together. To share Biblical truths, start in the Bible, read through Matthew together. Study it and let it play out however long it takes. You can use a curriculum, just remember to let programs go when they have served their purpose. 

Don't let a good program take place of great relationships. 

As you walk through either one, teach those you are mentoring to find someone to mentor. The goal is to create disciples that create disciples. This is how we are going to reach the whole world. Each of reaches four or five, who all reach four or five. 

The love of God can be heard of through sermons, podcasts, videos or curriculum; however the love of God is experienced in relationships with each other.