September Update!

Getting into a rhythm.

As of today, we are just over a month into our residency program at Grace Church. We are already learning so much about…so much! If you are still unsure about what “Church Planting” is, just think about starting a new business. You need to decide on some major things before that business starts, like what will you actually do, what is your mission, what do you want to accomplish, what will your name be…the list goes on. These are the things we are learning about, talking through, and brainstorming with our mentors and peers. One of the questions we get asked the most is what do you do each week. So here’s what a typical week in our life looks like right now:

Our favorite spot to read. Amigo likes it too 🐶

Monday: This is our work from home day. We are usually reading, praying, walking, brainstorming, and making phone or video calls. Considering we have to read about 5 books per month, we decided we needed this day to have undistracted time to tackle our reading list.

Tuesday: We are usually at Grace Church working out of the cafe from 8:30-4:30. (below you’ll see a picture of us working in our “office”). We spend the day researching, processing, and taking notes on what we are learning. We also meet with our Church Planting Supervisors, Chase and Justin, for about an hour every Tuesday afternoon. This meeting is where we brainstorm big ideas and get direct and specific mentoring and guidance.

Wednesday: Another full day of reading, planning, and dreaming. We usually use the afternoons for filming videos for our blog. Things like staff meetings, department meetings, sermon reviews, networking meetings are also mixed in throughout the week - so we are pretty flexible!

Love Jesus is a book of letters to help people understand the basics of following Jesus.

Thursday: We are back in the Grace cafe from 8:30a-1:30p to read, dream, and create. In the afternoon, we have time with all of the other residents at Grace Church. There are 9 of us who meet with our senior pastor, Tim Howey. We are currently reading through a book he wrote called Love Jesus. We are loving it! After an hour with all the residents, Tim meets with just us Church Planters to tell stories of his experiences as a pastor and answers any questions we have. This is one of the best parts of our week!

Friday: This is our rest day! We do whatever the day brings 😊

Saturday and Sunday: The weekend is full of church services. We try to get to as many weekend services as we can to meet people and make valuable connections. Lately, we’ve also been able shadow another church planter, Russell, as he launches his new church, Mission City!

Here’s a look at the first part of our reading list! As you’ve noticed, we spend a lot of time reading and researching. We will get into more hands-on stuff early in 2021.

“That’s a lot of time reading and learning!” Yea, we know. Make sure you follow Church Plant Journey on Facebook and Instagram! We post weekly with videos or thoughts on books we have read and what we are learning.

Snail-mail coming your way!

It took us about 3 days to get these ready to mail 😅

We had lots of fun creating and mailing out cards to our friends and family this month. Hopefully you received yours in the mail. If not, be sure to visit our website, hit “partner with us”, and sign up for our mailing list. We are looking forward to meeting with every one of you in person to share the exciting plans and vision God has put in our hearts. But until then, we hope our card found a good spot on your fridge 🤓

Teacher Training - Church Edition

Something Michael was really hoping to find before we plant was hands on training for teaching and preaching. Right off the bat we were invited to participate in Sermon Reviews. On a weekly basis, we get to sit in while other pastors deliver their message in a small group (4-5 people). We then present feedback, positive and negative, and help the pastor craft a powerful message. Wow. This is right up our alley! It speaks to excellence, preparedness, and teamwork when it comes to preparing the best message possible. We are so thankful to participate in this every week.

We were also invited to the yearly Sermon Planning Retreat with all of the campus pastors to plan out messages through 2023! We were blown away at the organization and planning that went into mapping out the direction that the church will be moving over the next 2 years. It reminded me of my days as a High School teacher - unit planning, collaborating, and brainstorming lessons for the school year (just a little less painful…where are my teacher people? 🙋‍♀️). At the end of the 2-day retreat, we agreed that this has got to be better training than we could have ever found in a seminary or bible college. We are so grateful.

Getting ready for sermon planning with our other church plant resident friends Paul, Nate, Roxanna! This is a good peek into our “office” 👀

Each giant sticky note on the wall is a quarter of Sundays at Grace Church. So fun dreaming and planning with the team!

Friends on the weekend!

I can’t forget to mention all the fun we are having on the weekends when our friends and family come up to visit from Lake of the Ozarks. We hit the jackpot when it comes to our people. Seriously. They can’t be beat! Not to mention what an encouragement it is to see how much they love our church when they visit! It gives us so much confidence that we are just where God wants us right now.

Family fun at the Louisburg Cider Mill with the Chrzasteks

Surprise visit from the Bowmans 🥰

Sunday visits from Mom and Dad are great too!!!

Prayer Requests

We continue to feel like God is hearing and answering so many of our prayers!  It’s years worth of prayers that we are seeing unfold before our eyes. Here are some specific things you can be praying about for us right now:

Here’s our Grace Group (minus 2 couples!)

- We started a Grace Group! It’s a group with 4 other couples. We are meeting weekly on Monday nights. Pray for us to develop strong, lifelong friendships.

- Still waiting for paperwork to go through to start substitute teaching. I’m not complaining though, because this allowed me to be 100% in at the church, but subbing 3 days a week for extra income is our prayer.

- We’re beginning to network with other churches and pastors on Long Island. So far this has been an incredible blessing! Please pray that we talk to “the right people” and that we gather exactly what we need from those conversations in order to prepare well.

- Our church family in Lake of the Ozarks. For their continued search for the next Senior Pastor and all of the transitions being made there. 

Thank you for following us on our journey! If you haven't done so already, you should hop on over to our Facebook and Instagram pages.  This is where you can find more frequent updates. 

We are looking forward to all that God has for us, for you, and for Long Island! 🌱