Archives for March 2013

What I want you to know about: Church Planting {and waiting….}

My family has been "called" to become church planters in another town.

The Rothachers thevalleychurch.org

There are so many things I'd like you to know. What is a church planter? Why do we need more churches? What all does that involve? How do you know your "called"? But first I need you to know what it's like to wait..........

We finished our youth pastor position in May of 2012 with a sign in our yard that had been there since, awaiting the swift sale of our gorgeous Victorian, 3000 sq ft, 4 bed, 4 full baths, living & family rooms, dinning & eat -in kitchen home plotted in the middle of 3 lots in an adorable neighborhood with 2 parks and tennis courts. It's January. 2013! We're still here. In our 2 story beaut'. The walls are moving further and further in on us as our 'close friends' dwindle along with our anticipation of the giant move of God in the next town we plan to plant our lives and new church.

That may sound extreme but it's where we're at. I think we are right where Satan wants us. Sad. Huge lack of enthusiasm and energy. Becoming scared. Withdrawn. Depressed. Anxious.

With so many with very little knowledge about the who's, what's, whens, wheres, and hows of Church Planting; we sit lonely. People scared to talk to us. We're "Those weird people. A little less odd than the foreign missionaries type but getting close." With lack of knowledge comes hatred; or at least lack of love. Now that I've depressed all the readers here at Rage Against the Minivan, let me show you our true personality and shed some light on me, my family, and the world of Church Planting.

My husband, Matt & I have been in full time ministry together literally since we first met in 2003. We have been married since 2004 & actively serving the Lord throughout the state of Arkansas. We've added to the Rothacher clan with 3 beautiful blessings; Magdalene (6/08), Isabella (1/10), and Benjamin (1/11) also known as Maggie, Izzie, and Jamin. We have a deep desire to see God move in and through our generation. Matt loves the Word of God and is passionate about preaching it and helping people apply it to their lives. He is particularly concerned with being someone that takes the Gospel to the ends of the earth and to be a part of the epic story that God is writing throughout the history of the world.

We are going to be instruments for a new move of God through the realm of church planting. Meaning that we are not about starting a church so much as being a catalyst for an outpouring of the Spirit of God, resulting in a new expression of the church. We are going to accomplish that by being about:
“Authentic Biblical community, Strong Biblical teaching, creating Gospel centered lifestyles, and mobilizing to reach the world."

I'm not gonna lie to ya, I don't know if I could explain church planting as concise and as well as Tim Keller so I just want to quote him:

We want to be true to THE BIBLICAL MANDATE

Jesus' essential call was to plant churches.

Paul's whole strategy was to plant urban churches.

We want to be true to THE GREAT COMMISSION.

New churches best reach a) new generations, b) new residents, and c) new people groups.

New churches best reach the unchurched.

We want to continually RENEW THE WHOLE BODY OF CHRIST.

First, the new churches bring new ideas to the whole Body.

Second, new churches are one of the best ways to surface creative, strong leaders for the whole Body.

Third, the new churches challenge other churches to self-examination.

Fourth, the new church may be an 'evangelistic feeder' for a whole community.

As an exercise in KINGDOM-MINDEDNESS

New church planting is the only way that we can be sure we are going to increase the number of believers in a city and one of the best ways to renew the whole Body of Christ. The evidence for this statement is strong--Biblically, sociologically, and historically. In the end, a lack of kingdom-mindedness may simply blind us to all this evidence. We must beware of that.

Find the entire resource at Why Plant Churches.

Thanks for reading. I pray that now that you know about church planting you can better support those starting a church, educate those ragging new plants, or possibly be inspired to be a part of a new church plant! We're all one body with the same goal in mind: Share Christ!

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You can download and listen to my interview on our plant HERE or just head on over to The Valley site. Of course The Valley is on Twitter and Facebook as well!

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The Adventure That IS The Christian Life.

I showed up two days late. I was wearing a t-shirt with a giant tweety bird on the front of it with matching tweety bird print cotton shorts that were very possibly viewed as pajama shorts. Not exactly how you should probably start out junior high.

Not exactly how you should probably start out junior high

That first day was hard to say the least. All my peers {including familiar friends from elementary school, had already worked out some of those first day hiccups. I was just now experiencing them. I’m not sure if it was while I sat next to the kids with a mustache who’d already done his share of 7th grade…a couple times, or if it was sitting among a huge classroom full of nothing but other 7th grade girls. They all seemed to know exactly who they were, or at least who they wanted to be. Confidence oozed whither they were strut’n a ‘stache or rock’n a new do while singing. {as much as a 7th grader can really strut and rock in their lankiness- but I didn’t know that then}

Not me. Sitting in my cartoon-clad, cotton monstrosity, I was very aware that I didn’t even have enough confidence in who I was to tell my grandmother, while birthday clothes shopping, I was sorta…fading out of my Tweety phase.

As I trudged through 7th grade I tried to find myself; not only in my new found fashion sense {or at least awareness} but in the, I’m-now-a-Christ-follower sense.

God’s timing is so perfect. What an amazing time to have found Christ- Old enough to understand larger concepts of lordship but not so set too much in my selfish this-is-who-I-am personality that I was still moldable.

After my backseat conversion, realized I couldn’t just live as an ‘undercover’ Christian. God has set me apart. There is no way for me to blend in; fly under the radar; be just like everyone else ever again. Working my way through junior high as well as high school, I joined every Christian group I could find trying to be apart of the greater story I wanted to be a part of so desperately.

Now, there is nothing wrong with Christian clubs and organizations but somehow this way of organizing my ‘faith’ wasn’t as extreme as I dreamed. It seemed to help me compartmentalize God in a separate box from everything else in my life. It wasn’t as unmistakable as the Bible described. I was gaining much-needed discipline in my life but not living the adventure that is the Christian life.

Awe, poor junior high, just another part of God drawing me closer to him.

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Activities for Littles & Winter Sanity {Thoughtful Thursday}

Thoughtful Thursday a weekly series on asJulesisgoing.com

I know its supposed to be turning spring...really! Any day now. But if you live in Arkansas or any state with bipolar weather like AR then you know you're gonna need some tricks up your sleeve this month {and maybe next month as well} for those days when the brisk wind is more like ice daggers. Today I wanna share 3 silly things my kids love that cost little to nothing and entertained them for quite a while.

Pipe Cleaner Art

pipe cleaner art toddler activities for winter sanity

I had some construction paper, pipe cleaners, and {glitter} glue already in our craft supplies. My 4.5-year-old just went at it! Twisting and gluing. My 3-year-old was having a little more trouble. I ended up cutting lots of different colored pipe cleaners into tiny pieces. Then she told me what picture she wanted to make. I sketched the picture she described with a marker then I helped her outline the sketch with the glue, adding different colors to each part of the picture. They both really enjoyed it!

 Indoor Water Play

You may remember we recently went to an awesome indoor playground called the Wonder Place. It was filled with numerous educational centers to play in, one of which being the giant water table. My kids spent the majority of our visit there. This reassured me that my plan to make a homemade outdoor water table for this summer was definitely gonna be worth it! BUT seeing as how we are still in transition and the weather is not exactly conducive to wet outdoor play, we modified our water play.

I filled our kitchen sink with warm water and dish soap. Simply giving them a few "tool" {strainer, spoon, fork, whisk, different sized cups & bowls, grater, etc} to do "experiments" with kept them more than busy.

I wasn't quite comfortable with my 2-year-old standing on a chair, step, or sharing the bench with his sisters for a prolonged period of time...there may or may not have been shoving involved. I chose to give him his own small tray of water with soap, and some safer tools on top of a drop clothe. #winning

indoor water play toddler activities for winter sanityindoor water play toddler science activites for winter sanity

Playdough Art

My kids all three love Playdough, like most kids. They do seem to get bored with the same ol' roll, smash, etc. They haven't quite mastered the molding concept yet. Soooo, I have saved a silly amount of cardboard circles from frozen pizza and we decided to use them in our playdough-play. We made, pizzas, faces, several other meals, and lots of "imaginary" things...

playdough art toddler activities for winter santiy

feeding babies playdough dinner feeding babies playdough meals

playdough birthday cake

Once I got them going on these activities and gave general 'rules', they played interdependent very nicely. Giving them a "new game" seems to help them play well together as well as stay focused for a little longer.

Hope these help spark some ideas in these last few weeks of wacky weather and indoor boredom!

 

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Adopt a Baby – Only $10

Today I have a guest post from a sweet friend Christie, of Satisfaction Through Christ. We both run in the same circles among bloggers, both contribute to the Homemaker's Challenge and both have hearts for adoption. Many of you may think I'm crazy for always talking about how much I support adoption, seeing as how I've only birthed all 3 of my children, but don't you worry! When God gives the "GO!" we're on it!!! In the mean time, I wanna do all I can for the families who are already in that phase of life. I ask Christie to share part of their story with you all because I know you would love an opportunity to support others until its your turn as well!
A month ago we received a phone call saying that we'd been chosen by a young birth mother in Florida. Chosen for what? To adopt her baby!  A story that started on January 10 from a simple Facebook message has turned our world upside down, for the greater!  For the full story and our adoption announcement, please visit here.
A few weeks ago our adoption agency gave us 15 days to come up with the first $10,000 needed for our precious baby girl's adoption.  To say that we were not prepared for this is an understatement!  As you read in our adoption announcement, we were waiting on fertility results the day that my friend contacted me.  So, to need $10,000 in such a short amount of time was a bit overwhelming.  But, the Lord soon laid an idea on my heart -- Operation 10:10:1 {10 Days: $10: 1 Baby Girl}!
I knew that friends and family were just as overwhelmed with the cost of adoption as I was and I figured, let's just chip away $10 at a time!
In 10 days we raised $10,019....what an awesome God we serve!In addition to fundraising we've sold our own things and cut down on our spending.  We are committed to doing all that we can to bring our baby girl home.  We've almost met our next goal of $6,100 but we're fervently in prayer for the final $17,000 we will need when our little girl is born around April 6.Currently, we are doing online auctions to help raise funds and we continue to believe that the Lord will provide every bit of what we need to accomplish His will for our lives.

So, will you join us today as we seek to be obedient to the call that the Lord has on our lives?  We knew when we said, "Yes", that this was so much bigger than ourselves. But, we knew that the body of Christ was big enough to accomplish it! We are so thankful for any size donation that you'd like to give and we assure you that every bit of it will go towards loving a little baby girl for life!

My PhotoChristie is a Pastor’s wife, adoptive mom to a beautiful little girl, and an aspiring homemaker! She daily strives to keep her home tidy, but fails miserably! God’s grace continually proves enough. She and her husband, Quintell, live in North Carolina where they have been serving at a local church for 3 years! In her spare time she enjoys spending time with family, blogging, and Clemson football! After five years of marriage, she’s still getting the hang of homemaking! Follow along as she seeks to please Him in all that she does!

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