Big News!
After being with Christian Challenge for 10
years we are stepping into a new role as lead church planter in Dewey, Arizona.
God clearly called us to this area and it started ten years ago (when God
called Bryan into church planting). One and a half years ago, we felt a call
away from the city and then many seemingly “chance” incidences, which were
clearly ordained by God, we were interviewed and called to start a church in
Dewey.
We
are going to get to work with young families, which is overdue because we have
been a young family for almost eleven years.
This is a group that really isn’t being reached or targeted up in the town we
are going to. One of the churches there sold their playground equipment
because they wanted to focus their efforts fully on the retirement community,
so although it is a smaller area than where we are now, there is still a great
need as there are many young families.
There
are also colleges up there where our heart will inevitably lead us to do
ministry. They will not be the single focus of our ministry, but we will have a
balance of them. We are proud and
excited to say that we have one student from Phoenix planning on coming with us
to raise support in reaching youth and college in the new church plant! Praise
God!
In this new ministry we will continue to
support raise. We feel so much security as support raisers and love seeing
God’s provision for us. We trust God to provide through His faithful
servants. We will be seeking out unchurched families, so there will not be much
tithe until they are discipled. The only church members at the start will be our
family and the student (we’re not sharing her name yet, so that she can be the
one to share her news), so we really need support to begin this work. Yavapai
and the ASBC will also be contributing to our health “insurance” (Christian
sharing plan) and retirement and the church start up.
Support raising enables us to go to an
area that the Yavapai association, which covers a large portion of Arizona,
labeled as a high priority a decade ago (which is exactly when God called Bryan
into church planting). There has not been growth in the churches, even though
the area is growing and is projected to continue to grow.
We
found this out for ourselves when we met a young family in Dewey right before a
meeting about the church plant. They had three children, like us, and said that
they didn’t have a church for their
children in their city. By the end of a 15 minute conversation Jamie had their
phone number and the kids were hugging her as they said goodbye. It was a God
ordained “chance” meeting.
Dewey is an amazing place and our
boys have prayed every night for months that God would take our ministry there
and God has answered their prayers. We are stepping into a new arena with new
obstacles, but we are ready for this Fall to be a great time of ministry for
our family and for the boys to get to be even more involved in inviting friends
to their church and sharing the gospel, which they all do in the best way they
can.
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| After sitting hours during an interview/meeting in Dewey, we took the boys to nearby Mingus Mountain for some fun |
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| One person in this picture has lived their whole life in the same square mile in Mesa, AZ, except for college! Do you think they'll be okay with the snow?! |
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| Our three boys climbing (can you see them?) when we were in Prescott, Prescott Valley and Dewey praying over where God was leading us. |
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| At Quailwood (a new neighborhood on the Dewey, Prescott Valley border). This is where they told us to drive through because this area needs a church and as we were prayer walking, we heard God speak to us! This is a picture of our second time prayer walking this community area. |
What happens to everyone else?
Knowing that transition was coming, we have
partnered with an amazing church planter, Jim Helman. We have been pulling back
and letting him be more of the face of the ministry so that the downtown
students will not be forgotten. We have been running a worship service together
that is great for students and he has no intentions of leaving anytime
soon.
Sarah is also trained and ready to do everything
that needs to be done to continue and help grow the ministry at ASU Downtown. She
has grown so much as a staff member and it will be a really loss to not have
here on my team, but I couldn’t take her from the students.
