Making a Move

**Today's post is brought to you today by my husband, Josiah!!**

For Alissa and I, we are in a season of transitions.

*Destiny will soon be heading off to college.
*Alissa is due to have baby number 6 in around 3 weeks.
*We are looking at a house in order to fit the needs of our growing family a little better.
*My car just sipped the last gallon of it's life, in all likelihood.
*I have been in a position where I've been required to work 6 to 7 days for a while now,     and that in turn has had its effects on things.

Case in point...a season of transitions.

We have also been talking for a while as to whether or not we should visit another church, and if we did, what we would look for in one, but we always put it off thinking “but we love our friends and the connections we have made, and how on earth do we leave them?”

For weeks, because of my work schedule, we were not able to attend church on Sunday together. So understanding the difficulty my quite pregnant wife would have trying to wrangle 5 children with the 6th on the way...we decided she shouldn't be doing church by herself on Sunday morning.

Instead, we would fill the gap by visiting a church that we had visited twice before when things were in similar circumstances. On a Saturday night.

Logistically, it made a ton of sense. It's much easier to make sure everyone is functioning at a decent level, fed, clean, and dressed by 6:30 in the evening than it is in order to make the early service at 9 am, or Sunday school at 10. I also would be off of work in plenty of time to do that as well.

Not only that, but  I am not willing to sacrifice worshiping God as family, spending that time together and the conversations that it opens later, 

So, the first Saturday we walk in... the praise and worship isn't traditional, and it's not contemporary, and it's not gospel...it's all of it. The band is pouring their hearts out on stage to God, and the congregation has its hands up and tears in their eyes, singing for God's glory.

I was. My wife was. My kids were.

The message was powerful. It struck a chord with everyone in our family that heard it, and the message relayed to me after I picked up the little ones was one from the kids that “I need Jesus. I need God.”

After some time of discussion and attending the next week, seeing excitement in Emily about her spiritual growth and how some of messages impacted her, I encouraged her to visit the youth group. She left so excited she barely left room to breathe.

The ride home we didn't talk about her most recent favorite boy band or musician or somebody she met...

She was so impacted by the message. It was exactly what she needed, when she needed it, put in a way that was completely accessible, doable, and made so much sense to her.

She had a fire inside of her that I hadn't seen in her before.

Little Phinehas and Avery have been coming home and singing “Jesus loves me” in the car.

So we have had a discussion with our pastor, and told him that we felt God was calling us to a new church home: Freedom Life. He told us he was glad we were listening for God and wanting to do what God was calling us to. He was very encouraged that we were following the Holy Spirit...that's why we love him so much.

We have decided that we don't have a choice.

As the head of our household, I have to nurture spiritual growth in my children; I have to challenge them.

And I can't tell you how excited I am to see this seed planted and growing in our entire family.

There is a season and a time for everything, and we know that God has used and will use everything that has occurred and has yet to occur for His glory. We appreciate the role MBC has played and love the people we have come to know. The pastor has our utmost respect and admiration.

The only reason Alissa and I are saying any of this is because we know people leaving a church can sometimes be...well...awkward. Do you say something? Do you simply disappear? Who do you tell?

But we don't really feel like we're “leaving” the church at all. We might not still attend worship in that building, but the “church” isn't a building, it's the body of believers in Christ Jesus, and we aren't leaving the people we love at all.

We are not abandoning our friendships. We will continue to care for you and pray for you, and we would love to continue to spend time with you.

We still need you in our lives as mentors, people that pray for us, and people that we can still invest in.

We are casting our nets to the other side of the boat, so to speak, because we feel that's what God has called us to, and we already seeing some of the blessing He has in store.

We can look back and be excited and see God's hand in where we have been, and where we are going, and we trust Him to lead us.

As time goes by, there will probably be more and more references to our new church home here and on facebook, so we wanted to be clear about what was going on with us.

Wish us well and pray for us! We are praying for our church family, too...no matter the building in which they worship, or whether they worship in a building at all.