Coastal Callings

In my last blog post, I asked if you were running from anything.  I think for the first time ever, I hadn’t been just running from something, but I was also running towards the same thing I was running from…CHANGE.  Carter and I just entered another phase of life full of changes.  Is this a good thing?  Yes!  Is this change full of lots of unknowns? Yes! (That’s where having faith comes in.)  Does change come with a variety of emotions?  Of course!  I couldn’t have been more eager to get down to Florida to be with Carter and our new church family…BUT, I had a super hard time leaving the friendships I truly cherish as well as a job that I love!  It was so obvious that God was calling us to Boca though.  Did that make the move easier?  YES and no.  God, like always, kept teaching me and reminding me of a variety of things over these last couple months, which helped shift my mindset.  Instead of the dread of leaving some awesome buddies, I started cherishing the time I had with them even more as we continued to add memories to relationships.  I continued to be thankful for what many would call “the small things.”  I really did start to look forward to what God had in store for us and the church down in Boca.  He was The One who called us here in the first place…He always has a plan.  But back to my title, one of the biggest reassurances I received over and over again was that despite all the changes going on in our world, Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”  He isn’t going to change!  He will remain who He says He is!  He will keep His promises!

Boy was I enjoying the sunshine for all of about 5 minutes until the brightness was pushed aside by dark thunderstorm looking clouds and a cool wind.  I get up from my chair, grab my towel, chat with my friend’s dog Harlem, start heading towards the door, and guess what catches my eye?  An atleast 4 foot snake!!!!  Coming right towards me. If you know me, you know what came next…  I let out a loud screech.  Froze in my tracks for a few seconds.  Stomped my foot. Felt my heart rate jump up to about 350 bpm (okay, maybe not that high.).  Heavie geevies covered me head to toe.  Leaped (like a split I would have done back in my gymnast days).  And ran to the door hollering for little sweet Harlem to follow me.  I am pretty sure all of this happened in about 5 seconds!

As I continue to think back to all this (over and over again), God asked me what I was running from these days?  Are you running from God or anything right now?  What are you afraid of?  What’s making you run away from God instead of towards His open loving arms?

Jonah 1:10 This terrified them and they asked, “What have you done?” They knew he was running away from the Lord, because he had already told them so.

Jonah was asked to go preach repentance to Nineveh.  Instead of following God’s command, Jonah’s stubborn self ran from the Lord. God sent a storm.  Jonah was thrown overboard and then the water calmed.  Jonah was swallowed by a whale.  While in the belly, Jonah repented and cried out in prayer.  God had the whale spit Jonah out to dry land.  Before, Jonah thought he was better than God, but after 3 days in a large fish, Jonah realized how important it is to obey the One who loves him the most!  Jonah heads to Nineveh this time. He warned the people that they must confess their evil deeds to God. Otherwise, God would destroy their nation. The people obeyed Jonah. So, God forgave the people in Nineveh and did not destroy the land. God wanted nothing more than to bring Jonah back to a place of fellowship and service.  He wants the same for us!

Are you running from God’s direction?  If so, talk to God about it.  He’s listening.  He’s in control.  He knows best.  He never leaves us.  I believe He is always there ready for us to stay close to Him and not go in the opposite direction.  However, if you steer away, it’s never too late to run towards/back to Our Father.

We have news!!!!!!  Guess what?  Guess again.  No, we aren’t pregnant.  (That’s always the first guess coming from a friend, colleague, or family member with the biggest grin on their face…or we can hear the smile on the other end of the phone.)

Yep, you are right!  I feel like I could start this entry the same as I did almost 3 years ago.  “To be perfectly honest, I could begin and end this with a short and sweet sentence by saying, "God is constantly at work and continues to shower us with blessings!"  Done.  The end.”  

Boca Raton, here we come!!!!!!!  We have accepted a new church call!  Carter will be the pastor of Glades Presbyterian down in Florida.  We can’t praise God enough for His hand and guidance in this whole process.  Carter starts April 1!!!!!!  Yes, you read that correctly. ; )

Back in April of 2014, we received a random unexpected phone call asking Carter about his interest in becoming the pastor of a church plant.  Talk about being caught off guard.  We weren’t thinking whatsoever of a new church call at that time.  Next thing we knew over the next couple of months following, we had a couple other calls.  At this time, we knew God was opening a door that we kept ignoring and fighting against.  We began some hard core praying as a couple and individually.  Within the same week, Carter and I had both heard God whispering, “The doors are open; I’m sending you…!”  We agreed that when God says, “Go,” that we, as His children, need to go!   Scared. Sad. In awe and wonder.  Excited.  Eager to see where we were going next. Then, out of the blue, we were asked a few times, “Are pastor nominating committees coming to see you?”  In all honesty, we could confidently say, “Not that we know of.” (We, of course, now know that they were!!!!  This just reinforced another life lesson to us again…folks are always watching you…more of that in a future post.)  As we like to say, that was just another God wink towards this new adventure.  We eventually started truly pursuing what options were out there.

Over 6 months, we started hearing from churches galore along the southeast…ECO, PCUSA.  We met some amazing people along the way and travelled through some beautiful areas.  (You should see the +/- lists we made.  Miles long.)  We prayed to hear God’s direction throughout the whole journey.  And we definitely did.   What great experiences we had!  It was difficult to tell a few of these places that God was calling us elsewhere, but we knew that’s what we were supposed to do. We were loved from day one from so many.  We were seen as a team in ministry right away.

Bottom line: We kept coming back saying, “We’re supposed to be going to FL.”  Boca’s PNC kept calling us back, too.  Talk about an immediate, with no hesitation, loving family bond!!!!  We have already made more memories than we know what to do with with our new Boca family!!  What an overwhelming feeling it was to walk back into Glades arm in arm that Sunday, hand in hand, after being accepted by their congregation with everybody singing the Doxology!  Tears welled and streamed.  God’s presence was felt by all!  I couldn’t be more proud of my husband!  He was glowing in a way I haven’t seen in a while.  What a day!

A few of the most popular questions that have followed hearing our news are:

1-Kristin, what about your job?  I am having a difficult time saying goodbye to my awesome colleagues.  I’m finishing up my current contract, and as of now, I am going to shift from full-time back to part time and still teach a couple online courses.  : ) 

2-So are ya’ll thinking about starting a family?  OF COURSE!  Being parents is a desire of our hearts for sure!  We know that God has control of that (just like everything else).  We pray that when our day comes, we will be the parents God wants us to be!  (We can’t believe we will be celebrating our 4th anniversary in a couple weeks! Yea!)  Glades is very supportive of Carter being a daddy.  (Talk about melting my heart!)

3-Can we pray for ya’ll?  ALWAYS!!!!  People know pastors and their families spend many hours in prayer for others but forget that pastoral families need prayer as well.  

4-What about the house?  Our moving truck comes THIS WEEK!  Then, we’ll finish getting the house ready and put it on the market.  We pray that with this still being a booming, growing, newer area that it will sell quickly and for the right price. 

5-Have ya’ll found a place to live there?  With much exploring, we have found a house to rent.  Yippee!

Like always, I could continue to lengthen this storybook, but I’ll wrap it up.  Thanks to all of you who have been lifting prayers alongside of us yet weren’t 100% sure why we were asking for prayer.  (God heard all of them…even those that were about trying to keep us here in SC.)  Thanks for the sincere excitement for us and this new adventure.

LOVE YOU!

Kristin and Carter

P.S.  Duke can’t wait to run in his new fenced yard, make new friends at the big beautiful dog park, meet his neighborhood buddies, and more.  

Thanks for the prayers while I was away on my Doctoral Residency!

What was it like? It was intense! These were crazy yet awesome and powerful days. They were emotionally draining, but a COMPLETE BLESSING! God is definitely using this process for me to grow as a person and a pastor! Thanks so much for your support and prayers!

Like always, my third and final residency was AMAZING and completely relevant. This one was called “the Pastor as a Person/Leader.” Two years ago, it was “The Pastor as Counselor/Caregiver,” and last year was “The Pastor as a Preacher.” (All 3 years were totally different…I was trying to think about which year was my favorite, but I can’t begin to compare them.)

This residency focused on sustainable ministry and the pastor as a leader. We went through a variety of case studies of pastors and various situations in life. Multiple case studies related to stress and how to handle the stress. We learned from one of our leaders, who has been a pastor for 55+ years, about his break down about 50 years ago. He was trying to be everything to everyone within his church. He had a complete physical breakdown, was paralyzed and the works. Once he was able to come back to work, major changes were made in his occupational life.

We also had the privilege of learning about leadership from a Chaplain who was an Admiral and also on staff at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church. What a neat guy to meet!

Other teachings and conversations were wrapped around how different Biblical Leadership is than secular, business, and all other types of leadership. We discussed what Shepherd Leadership was and meant. We had the opportunity to hear from a professor, who spent a year in the Middle East living with the bedouin shepherds. He learned what the Bible was talking about when it talked about shepherds. It’s NOT like we think of shepherds today and is nothing like the shepherds in Scotland!

Another important topic covered was how to keep our spiritual life on track. If we aren’t the spiritual leaders that God wants us to be, then we can’t be church leaders. Spiritual formation and spiritual retreats were mentioned to help keep ourselves spiritually healthy.

This residency was full of support, prayers, advice, and encouragement as we each shared our call stories and what we are called to do. On top of that, we presented significant issue projects to the entire class, discussed them, and prayed for each other. These subjects ranged from conflict

TO denominational issues TO taking over as head pastor of a church where the pastor was there for 60 years and is still there TO a head pastor disappointed when the youth pastor rejected a sexual advance from a congregant TO church unethical financial practice TO a congregation treating

the pastors wife very mean and abusively…and this is just naming a few.

We talked about the REQUIREMENT to take a Sabbath (day of rest). Sundays aren’t going to work since that is one of the biggest work days for pastors. Taking another (on top of a Sabbath) day during the week to help care for household needs, etc. was advice given over and over again.

What is left for me? My Thesis… This will probably take me a good year or so to complete. My advisor and I kind of revamped the beginning of this major scholarly work over the residency. My thesis project will be an exploratory study of the leadership formation of first time elders on session in Presbyterian Churches.

I have so many more stories to share. Come see or call me to hear more…

“Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade others. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience. We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart. If we are “out of our mind,” as some say, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.  For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.  And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:[a] The old has gone, the new is here!  All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:  that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.  We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.  God made him who had no sin to be sin[b] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:11-21

A New Year A New Creation.

2015…Who’d have thought that there would be a 2015?

Here we are starting a new year.  It is always an exciting time.  You can do everything again for a first time in the new year.

I was also raised eating a tradition new years feast of blackeyed peas, collard greens, and hog jow, with all the trimmings also.  A meal for good luck in the new year.

The truth of the matter is we can all have something better than good luck in the new year. How amazing would it be to actually be a new creation in 2015?  To have the old life be gone and a shiny new life in Jesus Christ!

This is what happens to us when we are in Christ!!!  We are MADE NEW and He is continually renewing us!

What does it mean to be IN CHRIST?  To have completely given up our wills and surrendered our lives to HIM.  To truly have made Him LORD (we submit completely to Him) and SAVIOR (we realize we can't save ourselves and trust that HE will save us).

Those who are in Christ are a new creation, and now we must LIVE as such!  It is so easy to fall back and live in the sinful ways that we were before we were in Christ, but Jesus has so much more planned for us… He wants so much more for us!  This new life is wonderful and exciting and it is ours if we are in HIM.  Let us no longer look back to 2014 or the “old life.” We can relate to 2014 to before we new our Lord Jesus Christ.   Let us commit together as a people of God to truly live 2015 as new creations!

As we are this new creation in Christ Jesus, let everyone who sees us see the JOY that we have in Jesus Christ our Lord!

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:[a] The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” 2 Cor 5:17-18

As we start 2015, we have been reflecting on what all God has taught us and/or reminded us of in 2014.  These are in no particular order, and we are definitely leaving some out.  So many of these could be expanded on and be a blog post/posts itself.  If we shared all of them, we would have a 5 volume set of encyclopedias.  <smile>

Excitement continues to build as we see others want to grow in Christ with us.  Oh my goodness…I am smiling even bigger as I type this one.  The first time someone admits they are a sinner…YIPPEE!!!!  The time one accepts God as his/her Savior…WOO HOO!!!!  What about when someone prays out loud for the first time…leads Sunday School for the first time…participates in a study for the first time…leads a study for the first time… Shares their testimony for the first time…  AHHHHH!!!!!  HAPPY DANCE TIME!  Those who want to hold one another accountable…  Those who want to keep worshipping and digging into scripture together…  CAN’T HELP BUT SMILE and GIVE GOD ALL THE GLORY!!!!!

Joy and peace comes from Him.  There will always be those who thrive on negativity and constantly complain.  We have the choice to become a part of that or to refuse to fall in that hole.  Pray for these people and don’t let others try to steal joy nor peace from us.

God’s timing isn’t always in sync with “our timing.”  How often do we try to rule the roost?  Or how often do we want something NOW, but God has something much better to come?

Be in scripture daily.  How do we know what God’s will is for us if we don’t know what His word says?  We pray that we become more and more like Christ every day.

Be yourself.  So often, people want you to be someone else.  Hmmm…  Never understood this, but we do know that those who are supposed to be in your life will love YOU for who God has made YOU to be.  Boy would this world be a boring place if we were all the same.

We all have different talents and gifts.  God gives us all a variety and mixture of gifts and talents for us to share them with others.  We aren’t all going to be good at everything!

Friends and family are your biggest encouragers, supporters, and prayer warriors. We appreciate those who love us, encourage us, appreciate us for who we are, hold us accountable, provide constructive criticism in a loving manner with godly ‘how to move forward’ responses, and pray with and alongside us.

Smile.  You never know when a smile could make someone else’s day (or maybe even turn a rough day of your own around).

There are times to teach and times to be taught.  It’s important to know when to lead and when to step aside and let someone else lead.

Count your blessings daily.  When it’s a “good day,” sometimes, it’s easy to forget to count our blessings.  Or…if it’s a “bad day,” it’s sometimes hard to think about “our daily blessings.”  We have found that regardless of the situation, thankfulness for what we have and those we have in our lives overflows.

Pray.  Praying is an awesome way to communicate with Our Father!  He hears every prayer!  He answers every prayer! (He may not answer in the way we had wanted or hoped for, but He knows best.  He may not answer right away (or so you think), but He does answer on HIS timing.)

Share with others what God’s been up to in your life.  Most “secrets” aren’t necessary or called for.  How often do “secrets” start rumors?  Or how often do they turn into something you never meant for them to be? Share what God’s up to.  You never know how sharing could help someone else who is going through a similar situation.

Marriage is a gift.  A gift from the Lord.  However, that doesn’t mean it’s always easy.  Marriage is supposed to be an example of the relationship with God and His bridegroom.  Pray with your spouse.  Love them.  Worship together.  Don’t take one another for granted.  Read scripture together.  

Dogs are God’s greatest messengers.  Puppy kisses make all things better.  What a great example of unconditional love!  Duke has changed our life but in the best ways ever!!!!  He will always be “our first child.” 

Lift one another UP.  A braided cord is hard to be broken.  

Don’t take one another or time for granted.  We are all guilty of this at one time or another.  Cherish those you love and take in every minute you have with them.

We don’t always understand what’s going on, but we confidently know God is in control.  Trust Him! 

God’s creation leaves us amazed.  Sunsets. Flowers blooming.  Sun shining. We are also reminded of so much of God’s creation that shines underwater.  Scuba diving shows us so much that many won’t ever see.

Always speak the truth, trust scripture, be bold.  Be different.  God calls us to be holy.  

Keep on keeping on.  We are to serve Him all our days.

HAPPY 2015!!!!!!!  We pray that your year is full of numerous blessings!!!!!!!  Take time to thank God for each and every one of them!  Much love!!!!!