Thank God for Volunteers

On Sunday night our church recognized all those who have faithfully served at Sonlight over this past year. We spent a wonderful night on the Spirit of Norfolk with an amazing buffet dinner, video presentation, talk from Hershel and dancing.  Who would have thought that baptists could tear up a dance floor non-stop for an hour and a half!  It was a great night and I loved every minute of it.  It was so awesome to enjoy a night of fun and fellowship with our church family and it was so cool to see everyone dressed up!  That was unique since our church is a casual, come as you are atmosphere.  Thanks Sonlight volunteers!  You Rock!

 

All dressed up with my hubby

12 Week Challenge

Well, I headed back to the YMCA to workout today for the first time in over three weeks.  Why now?  Because our Sonlight Church Biggest Loser 12 Week Challenge officially began last night with our weigh-in.  We have had over 60 people weigh in and have more to go.  Amazing!  I’m thrilled to see so many people want to make a positive life change to get physically fit and have a Body for God!  It will be exciting to see the results week after week and watch the pounds drop off of those who participate.  We will be divided into 4 teams and will compete against each other for the team title and then will have one overall winner.  Since I’m Hershel’s wife, I get to be on his team.  I’m not sure yet if that’s good or bad!  I guess we’ll see.  It could play into our marriage series that begins this coming Sunday.  Maybe God planned this all out to help our couples grow in marriage as we go through this 12 week challenge together!  He’s got it all figured out, as usual.

Conference Highlights

Trusty Driver, Kendra

Fun with Friends

Well, I’m finally getting time to write about the conference I went to last weekend.  What a busy week it’s been!  We started our journey out in the church van with our trusty Chesapeake school bus driver, Kendra, and before we even got out of the parking lot she tried to give us whiplash!  (I had to write about that because I told her I was going to) We only got honked at by one tractor trailer driver who was a little annoyed that we were a bit in his lane.  Just bustin’ on Kendra a little but she did a great job keeping us safe and sound all the way there and back and I sure appreciated not having to drive!

The conference itself was great.  We started the night off on Friday with some great worship led by Charles Billingsly.  Chonda Pierce was the speaker for the evening and she was hilarious as usual.  It was good to just laugh a little.  We had a full blown concert by Richie McDonald, who used to be lead singer for the country group, Lonestar.  Saturday was just as great with more awesome worship and inspiring messages by Angela Thomas, Carol Kent, Karen Kingsbury and Thelma Wells.  I am amazed at the strength and faith of Carol Kent as she deals with the difficult reality that her only son is in prison for the rest of his life.  If she can go on with faith, joy and service to God, then there’s no reason I can’t have that same attitude in my life!  It was great getting to meet my favorite fiction author, Karen Kingsbury.  I was able to tell her how inspirational her books have been for me and my daughter, Sheleena, and how much they have encouraged us to love family no matter what.  One of the highlights of the weekend was a mini-concert by Mandisa. What an incredible voice she has!  I hope I sing like that when I get to heaven.  I also thoroughly enjoyed just hanging out with the ladies from church and having some conversation about deep, spiritual issues.  I love that!  

Can’t wait for the next getaway!  It’s so good to take these opportunities for spiritual renewal and refreshing.  It helps get geared up for the next bump in the road, which by the way, came the day after I got home!  Oh well….back to real life.

Love Dare

Our church is beginning a new message series on Sept. 28th called, “Fireproof Your Marriage.”  This series is based on the movie, “Fireproof,” coming out in theaters on Sept. 26th.  We are going all out in advertising by sending out 15,000 mailers to our community, providing hundreds of invite cards for our Sonlight attenders to give out to family and friends, we have purchased 130 movie tickets for our church to attend the movie together and are giving away some of those tickets to first time guests at church on Sept. 28th. We are also offering a Fireproof your Marriage bible study for couples during the series.  But, best of all, is the Love Dare book that will be provided during this series, which challenges husbands to express love to their wives in various ways for 40 days.  With my husband being the pastor, he is taking the challenge early (to get some sermon illustrations I’m sure!) and has cleaned my car, washed the dishes and on Tuesday this week, put a nice card on my desk at work with a new Nano ipod enclosed!  Woo hoo…I love the Love Dare!  

This series is going to be amazing and I can’t wait to see what God will do through it in the marriages of those in our church and community.  Why not join us at Sonlight and take the dare yourself?  I promise it won’t be for men only…we women have to do our part too, so come on out…I dare you.

Daughter’s of the King

As the leader for the women’s ministry at our church, it is my privilege to meet with our ministry team once a month to plan out the upcoming events, activities and bible studies for the ladies of our church and community.  We had our meeting last night and packed out the office conference room with no room to spare!  How great it is when people are so committed and ready to serve the Lord and make things happen to help women get to know Him better!

I’m really excited about our upcoming year at Sonlight Church.  So much is on the agenda for women, as well as church-wide.  Our women’s ministry theme for this year is “Daughters of the King.”  Our desire this year is to let women know that they are of great value and worth to God and that as His daughter’s we are entitled to all the riches that belong to Him.  We are royalty…princesses and should accept that role gladly and joyfully.

Some of the ways we plan to teach that truth include bible studies such as, “Search for Significance,” “You Matter More Than You Think,” “When Wallflowers Dance” and a study about our position as Princesses.  Our Christmas party theme will be “Gifts Galore-Unwrapping God’s Gifts” and in turn we will be giving gifts to our local battered women’s shelter to let them know how valuable they are in God’s eyes as well.  In February we will be hosting a breakfast entitled, “A Perfect Fit” and will focus on our uniquness and how we fit together perfectly to accomplish God’s purposes.  Our year of events will culminate with our spring retreat in May where our ladies are in for a great, relaxing and pampering weekend away! 

We have many other ministry and mission projects in the mix as well so it’s shaping up to be an amazing year in women’s ministry at Sonlight.  I can’t wait to get started and see what God is going to do in the lives of women over this next year!  If you are a woman in the Chesapeake area, be sure to get plugged in don’t dare miss out on all the great things being planned with YOU in mind!

Garage Band

Tonight I attended our Sonlight worship team practice in our leader’s garage.  I guess now I can say I’ve been in a garage band!  It was great to meet with other like-minded believers and praise the Lord together.  The drummer at practice tonight was our drummer a couple of years back but fell away from the Lord for a while.  It was so awesome tonight to hear him talk about his journey back to God.  He spoke of the lonliness he felt when he wasn’t walking with God after knowing the pleasure of walking by His side.  He spoke of God being with him all the time but how his stubbornness, pride and the chip on his shoulder kept him away.  He has been in my prayers throughout his journey away from God and what a joy to see him back on track with God!  Words can’t express it. 

God is there for you too if you’ve wandered away.  He loves you just like you are but loves you too much to leave you that way.  He has much greater plans for your life than you could imagine.  I pray that you will reach out to Him and allow Him to heal any broken places in your life.  If you live in the Chesapeake area, I urge you to come to Sonlight Church this Sunday to hear a message on this very subject.  God can redeem a broken past and bring beauty from ashes.  Come find out how to live your life to the beat of a different drummer!

Gnats Unleashed!

Today I had the privilege of traveling with 32 other ladies down to Edenton, NC to attend a play at the Rocky Hock Playhouse.  As we pulled up and got out of our vehicles we were swarmed by gnats!  They were relentless and there was no escaping them until we got inside the theater.  They were even in the lobby area.  If they were not involved in any of the 10 plagues that God used to change Pharoah’s heart, they should have been! 

Once we got past the attack, we were settled in our seats and spent the next 2 hours watching the story of Ruth and Boaz unfold through some great actors and singers.  It’s kind of weird to see some of the talent they had on stage in a “middle of nowhere” little place.  As the play wrapped up, they brought to our attention the fact that Jesus is our kinsman redeemer, just as Boaz was for Ruth.  Christ paid the price to purchase us and take away our sin debt.  There’s no better news than that and today was a great reminder of what Jesus did for us.  We enjoyed great fellowship with each other, some o.k. food and alot of laughter and inspiration from watching God’s word acted out on stage.  I would say that in the end it was well worth fighting the army of gnats!

Blessed by the Body

The body of Christ, the church, is truly amazing!  I’m so blessed to be part of such a wonderful church family.  When I ask people to pray for me, I know they are praying.  On my last post I told you about Vickie Birch sharing with me that God told her I’m supposed to go to Africa.  Well, today I got another confirmation. 

I had talked to Lynn Trueblood a couple of days ago and asked her to pray for me about my decision on going to Africa, sharing with her my concerns about leaving with Jenna’s baby due so soon after our return.  She called me this morning and said when she was praying, God gave her a scripture for me to claim.  She said she felt strongly that the Lord told her the scripture was for me and she was to call me and give it to me.  The scripture was 2 Timothy 4:2, which says, “Preach the word of God.  Be persistent, whether the time is favorable or not.”  She felt the Lord was saying that the time may not be favorable for me but do it anyway and that He wanted me to go.  I was in the post office mailing my Chad support letters when she called me and I almost started crying right there.  God was so good to give me that confirmation as I was mailing my letters!  I had goose bumps and just felt God’s perfect peace about the trip.  Even if Jenna has her baby while we are away, I’m o.k. with that because the center of God’s will is the best place to be!