Church Planting Update

Here is an email we sent to many of our friends regarding our preparations for the move to Charlottesville, Va....

A few weeks ago, Megan and I were given the opportunity to speak briefly about the Charlottesville Vineyard church plant at our home church, the Evanston Vineyard. On that day, many of you volunteered to partner with us in praying this new church into life. We are grateful for your support and for the support of those of you who have been praying for us and for this church for many months now.

I'll just fill you in a bit on where things are at, then specifically share our prayer requests...

We are in the midst of preparing to leave the comfort of our fantastic community in Evanston and step into a new life in Charlottesville, Virginia. The past few weeks have been hectic and amazing at the same time. Megan and I have been alternating between faithfully praying and anxiously worrying about all that needs to come together (new church, building a team, selling a home, buying a home, finding a job, having a baby, wrapping up with clients, transitioning church leadership responsibilities... to name a few).

We've learned about how to depend on God, about what it means to have faith, about not needing to control everything that happens in our lives and how good that really feels. In the end, God has proven himself faithful, dependable and in control. That sounds nice, right? But, here is how that practically looks...

There was a job open at the University of Virginia (UVA) for about 6 months. I had originally dropped my resume months ago and received the standard reply - "your qualifications are not a match for the job requirements"... to which I sarcastically reply, "great, thanks! I'm in Human Resources (HR), I know better than that!!" The timing wouldn't have been good anyway. Well, I got a call from a recruiter in March (a couple of months later), saying that they had a position at the UVA and thought my background was a perfect fit. So, I interviewed over the phone. They liked me and asked me to come out for more interviews. I did. They continued to like me and decided to make me an offer. I accepted. Turns out this was the same job I was "not qualified for" only a few months earlier. Apparently I learned a lot about HR in only 2 months!! :-) ... It just so happens that the timing was exactly what we needed and prayed for and that I truly am a good fit for this job. God is in control.

On other fronts, the real estate market has been softening a bit in Evanston. There are many more properties on the market than there has been in recent years...it's getting hard to sell homes. Yet, we need to move. Some friends decided to take a look at our place about a month ago. They like it a lot. We like that they like it. We're selling it to them. No realtor fees. This was a big prayer in selling our condo and has allowed us to put 20% down on a home, which enables us to afford the monthly mortgage, which is one of the only ways we could have broken into the market out there! God is faithful, dependable and wise.

We've gotten over our initial sadness and disappointment that the team we hoped and prayed for from Evanston is not happening. There is nobody from Evanston coming to Charlottesville with us. That was hard, but we're actually doing quite well with that now…we can not only say it, but we actually believe that God knows what he is doing and we are confident he will continue to provide a team. Megan was at a National Vineyard women's conference last week. She met a woman (A) from Anaheim CA who knows another woman (B) from Anaheim who just moved to Cville nine months ago with her husband (B+) and family (B++). She (B) and her husband (B+) were just praying a couple of weeks ago that the Lord would send a team to plant a Vineyard church in Cville (no joke!). Within a week of that prayer, she (B) got a call from her friend (A) informing her that we (C) are coming to plant. Without saying too much, they're (B & B+) quite experienced-in-ministry and are a long-time Vineyard couple. We're going to talk with them and explore the possibilities of getting involved in the church plant. There are other connections we are making in the area that look promising, all in addition to a couple (D) who have been committed to our team for many months now (already in Cville). God is faithful.

Our baby is healthy (and kicking tons). Doctors are happy. We are happy. God is real.

Need I go on?
God is real. God is in control, he is dependable, he is faithful to his promises and he is providing all that we need and more as we step out into a lot of unknown and follow his voice.

So, we are packing our stuff into a truck on May 28th, driving to Charlottesville, closing on our new home on the 30th, moving in, starting my new job on the 5th, starting a new church in Charlotteville and having a baby on August 20th (or somewhere in there).