Big News/New Beginnings

Some of you know that Ray and I will be moving to the Buffalo area sometime this summer.  For those of you who haven’t heard the news yet, allow me to back up and start the story from the beginning.

In August of 2011 Ray received a call from a Free Methodist district leader asking him to consider pastoring a small but growing church in his district.  It was sort of out of the blue for us because we weren’t looking to leave Brockport.  We prayed about it, and confidently answered that we did not feel led to pursue the position.  But during that time of decision making, Ray felt like God asked him if he would be willing to leave Brockport someday.  Our plan had been to stay in Brockport, and our Lead Pastor had been preparing Ray to lead the church when he retires.  But of course, we told God that we’d be willing to go if He called us elsewhere.  And that was that… for a few months anyway…  In November of 2011, Ray was reading the story of Abraham one morning while in his regular daily reading plan.  Ray has always been intrigued by Abraham, particularly when God tells Abraham “Leave everything you know and go to a place I will show you” and then “And Abram left”.  Ray has often wondered out loud to me what it must have been like for Abraham to set out and go, not knowing where he would end up.  This particular morning when Ray was reading the story of Abraham, he sensed that he wasn’t just reading about Abraham.  He felt like the Holy Spirit was telling him, “Leave everything you know and go to a place I will show you.”  He wrote about it in his journal, and it’s pretty amazing what he wrote. This is from his journal- "Tuesday, November 30, 2011: You called Abraham to leave everything and go.  I feel like you're going to do the same thing with me.  You're going to ask Lisa and me to do something and it's going to require us to decide that it really is you and step out in faith into a seemingly huge unknown.  I don't know why I think this.  I don't have any inclination to what or the timing.  But if I'm right and you call us to leave what we know and what's comfortable, please help us to respond like Abraham did."  So Ray began seeking God, but didn’t feel like God was revealing anything in particular about our future.  He was learning that God doesn’t usually lead by showing the whole picture, but only the next step in front of us.  During Lent last year, Ray decided that he would fast during his lunch hour twice a week and use that time to pray.  He really thought that by Easter we would know what we were supposed to do.  Around that time we were again approached to consider pastoring another church.  We both prayed about it and felt like it was not at all what we were called to do.  On paper, it looked like a great career move but it wasn’t us.  We could have taken the opportunity as a “sign from God”, but we know who God made us to be and the kind of ministry he has called us to do.  We’ve always said that if we were to leave Brockport, it would make more sense to go to a more metropolitan area with more diversity, than to a more rural area. So at Easter last year, Ray didn’t know anything other than that he was pretty sure God was going to move us from Brockport and that we needed to keep seeking Him.  About that time I realized that God was up to something and I started really seeking too.  Which brings us to this summer… one really hot day we were out swimming in our pool with the kids, and we were talking about this stuff.  I said to him something like, “I’ve been thinking that maybe God wants us to consider church planting.”  Apparently this was the green light that set everything in motion.  About four years ago Ray was starting to get interested in church planting and mentioned it to me.  I vaguely remember this.  But Ray remembers it well, because he says I gave him a look like “Are you crazy?  I don’t think so!”  So he thought church planting was off the table for us.  But his sense of calling to church planting four years ago was not wrong, it was just the wrong timing.  Ray was excited when he realized that I was open to church planting because he felt right away like this was the answer he’d been waiting on for almost a year.  Within a couple of months of that conversation, we knew what God was calling us to do.  Let me just say, it’s hard to leave Brockport.  Ray has had many roles through his 10 years in ministry at Brockport Free Methodist Church.  He was youth pastor, worship pastor, family ministries pastor, and associate pastor.  He has done weddings and funerals for many families in our congregation.  They are our family.  And Brockport has been home for me my entire life.  We love our house.  We love living next to the play-ground and across the street from my parents.  It’s going to be so hard to give that up.  I cried when our realtor put the ‘For Sale’ sign up in our yard.  But I remind myself that God could have called us to another state or even another country, but He called us an hour away from here.  We can do this!  So, what are we going to do be doing, you ask?

We’ll be working with a great couple, Mark and Rebecca Rouse, to help start a new church in the Clarence/Williamsville area.  Ray will be the worship pastor there.  Mark and Rebecca have already successfully planted a church (the Queens, NY campus of The Journey Church) and they bring a wealth of church planting experience and knowledge.  The new church will be called Epic Church and we’ll be meeting in the movie theater at the Eastern Hills Mall.  Weekly services will start on September 15th 2013.  The vision of the church is LOVE GOD. LOVE OTHERS. EMBRACE MY STORY. SERVE THE WORLD.  We’re so on board with this! 

We’d love it if you would pray for Epic Church and for our family as we make this transition.  We need to sell our house (and since we’ve only owned our house for 3 years we need some good offers on it!) and we need to find a place to live in the Buffalo area.  I’d love to own a house again, but it wouldn’t be wise to pursue that right now.  We have a lead on a 3 bedroom, 1 ½ bath duplex (with a garage!) in Clarence, and we’re praying that it will work out for us to live there.  We will also need to find new jobs.  Because this is a brand new church, Ray will not be getting a full-time salary from the church.  So he will need a part time job, and I am hoping to only work part time as well.  I could commute to my current part time job if I have to, but the cost of gas will quickly make that annoying to do.  So there is a lot that God still has to work out for us, but we trust Him and we are confident that He will do it!  We will keep you posted!