as Jules is living Archives - Page 11 of 46

Sentralized 2014

September 29, 2014 by Jules Leave a Comment

My hubs, Matt and I went to an amazing conference this past week. He's attended before and we've been journeying through the paradigm of missional living. You've likely hear be bumble through trying to share what that means and how its fleshed out but this group of people helped me hear in new language and see it through practical living. I just want to start sharing with you some of those things {guess that's a good place to jump back on the blogging-wagon, ehh}. Today though, I just want to tell you a little about Sentralized, the conference we attended, and the foundational verse this years gathering was focused on.

You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew,
rebuild the foundations from out of your past.
You’ll be known as those who can fix anything,
restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate,
make the community livable again.

Isaiah 58:12 MSG

Sentralized is designed for anyone who calls him or her self a Christ follower. It's the perfect learning opportunity for pastors, church planters, individuals, and teams of church members that are working through the issues and ideas of missional living, learning, and leading.
First, we believe there is a need to continue to bring clarity to the missional conversation.
Second, we want to ensure the missional conversation moves beyond theory.

Filed Under: as Jules is living, Testimony, The DeChurched, The ones about the Rothacher Home, The Ones about The Valley Church

Five Minutes Finally

September 2, 2014 by Jules 2 Comments

I want to write. I want to say something worth saying but some days my mind doesn’t get past the mundane of the day’s chores in the silence of nap time. Other days it soars with thoughts that surpass the diaper filled trash. Thing I want to shout through the waves of the net but alas, the time doesn’t come.

So, tonight, with the time AND too many thoughts to compile, I gave myself 5 minutes. Five minutes where I begin learning to write again. Typing down thoughts. Organizing words. Trying not to focus on what needs to be shuffled together for tomorrows day 3 of the Rothacher Academy but focus on shuffling my love of words on the lines of an empty post page.

Things I’d love to share about and maybe soon will:
tons of furniture redeeming
ministry thoughts
TV shoes
depression
homeschooling, with a baby, with 3 different grades, with different learning methods
organization
decorating
exhaustion
pets…and timing
budgeting, consignment shopping, grocery/menu planning
goals, priorities, stress, perseverance, and quitting

Night 😉

Filed Under: as Jules is living

3 Practical Ways to Mobilize Aid After a Natural Disaster

June 26, 2014 by Jules Leave a Comment

Our community was recently smacked by a tornado. You might have heard about a couple little towns in the center of Arkansas, Mayflower and Vilonia? Yeah, that's us. Some of you reading this probably live in around our communities.

3 years ago, a massive but still smaller than this year's, tornado took nearly the same path through Vilonia.

As I tried to sift through the remains of my friends' home all I could think was, "How do these people know what to do? How do they know how to clean up rubble?"

After finally braving the question, I learned a few practical thing that I think might be helpful for others trying to come to the aid of those who have survived a disaster like this. I shared these three simple helps over at the Homemaker's Challenge Wednesday if ya wanna test'm out.

Filed Under: The Ones about Homemaker's Challenge, The Ones about The Valley Church

The Odd Start to a Very Fitting Adventure

June 3, 2014 by Jules Leave a Comment

Sitting in the quiet, me in my glider and hubs in his man chair across the room, we did our newly found way to unwind involving reading and writing. This hadn’t always been our thing. God had just sparked something in my husband and he began to read. That may not sound abnormal to most but we aren’t readers. I mean, we can but It’s just not something we did for leisure. I had begun writing/blogging on as Jules is going as an outlet shortly after having Jamin, my third child in two and a half years.

Seemingly out of nowhere, Matt says, “So…I think I’m supposed to be a pastor.” Again, this may not seem like a big deal to you because you either know that my husband was a youth pastor or have met us in this phase of life where he is a “grown-up pastor”. But you have to understand that we were “lifers”. We often discussed our discussed with those who used pastoring youth as some sort of stepping stone to get to the “major league” as if youth were a lesser being that earned lesser klout. Sickening, really.

We would joke about attending loud concerts and challenging young people to eat gross things all while we sported our gray hair. We deep loved {and Still do} youth. Our heart was to reach the next generation with the same timely gospel but with relevant tactics. If we ever transitioned, we thought maybe we would end up in collegiate ministry but never working with or pastoring/leading adults.

This nonchalant “I think I’m supposed to be a pastor” conversation didn’t go very far. Looking back, I wasn’t overly supportive but I wasn’t trying to be a discouragement. I literally thought, “Okay, this is his new kick. He’s got like a 6-week-timeline of excitement. I’ll wait it out and see what happens.” I nodded my head and with a slight giggle in my response said, “Okay” and we went back to what we were doing.

We’d been having a rough go with our current job. After being in a church-body for over 5-years starting when we were newlyweds, it was hard learning a new space, culture, and the expectations that come with that. I wasn’t going to let satan scare us into pastoring adults because of that. We were stronger than a few bumps in the road. I really just thought, “Things will calm down here. We’ll jump back on the wagon and get rolling soon.”

Needless to say, before even nearing the six weeks mark, Matt came to me and said, “Okay, I’ve been praying about it and not only do I think God wants me to be a pastor but I think He wants us to start a new church.” I’m not a good liar so I’m sure my face had laughter all over it. With eyes wide, I questioned like most of us do, “There are enough churches already, lots that need help, why in the world should we start a new one.”

You see, I was a firm believer that ‘lots of churches’ were just a result of The Church not being able to play-nice together. I wanted to be part of the solution, not add yet another division to the already segregated body of Christ.

Time passed. Matt read more and more on church-planting. I held out, still confused, waiting for the shiny to wear off. Over two and a half years later, the shiny has worn off, reality has set in, and it’s more evident today than it could ever be that God did/does want my husband to be a pastor. God did/does want our family to plant a new church.

We just thought Scotland was the adventure of a life time when we were given the opportunity to minister there. Boy was I wrong. I am so glad God softened my heart in a time of skepticism to get us all on the same page because if he hadn’t, I would be missing this awesome adventure. The one I’d always dreamed of. The adventure God had planned for our family. An adventure fit just for us!

Filed Under: The Ones about The Valley Church

Ministering Outside the Wall of “the church”

May 16, 2014 by Jules Leave a Comment

If you've been here for any time at all, you have heard me share about both The Church not being a building but the people chasing after Christ as well as The Valley {church} we have been blessed by helping plant here in central AR a little over a year ago.

The Valley came to this community looking for where God was at working and join Him there. Along with this, we are contentiously choosing to work where others aren't already hard at work. We are here to "build the heard not steel sheep." Because of this, it has been fun finding ways to minister in original and sometimes random ways.

Being the new kids in town, for a year now, we have been fighting to find ways to love on the people her but sometimes shut out because it "wasn't needed". Well, H.E.L.L.O. God is bigger than practicality and also a bigger redeemer than natural disasters.

The most recent storms that hit our town wiped out close to 150 homes and took the lives of at least 9 here in Vtown. We can't believe the doors God is opening through this. Oh, did I mention, God busted out of our "box" via this storm? Yeah, our meeting space was kaboshed giving us an acceptable excuse to love this community in unconventional, non-church-y ways.

Enter childcare and Mom's Night Out stage left:

The morning after the storm, it was evident to me that I wouldn't be able to serve like the rest of the valley church in the way of clean-up or collecting donations and felt useless. THEN another mom suggested maybe we could take turns watching one another children and working in town. YES! I can do that. So the next day I opened my home for childcare to those in our valley families who needed somewhere for their littles to go.

Little did I know that God was birthing this same service opportunity in the heart of an individual at a sister church in Conway. I was contacted about the idea and God birthed it into a huge community blessing. We were allowed to use the local Primary School's "big room" and outdoor playgrounds, restaurants catered for free, and tons of others including Target, Dick's Sporting Goods Store, and out-of-town friends contributed to hundreds of "summer buckets" full of simple toys that were sent home with the children attending the "Playplace".

When school started back the next week and most of our community went back to work, there was no immediate need for this ministry and again I felt helpless as I tried to "get back to normal".

Monday I has glanced at my calendar at once coveted plans and realized Mother's Day weekend was coming up and a girl's night where we were all supposed to be going to see the new movie "Mom's Night Out". That seemed to pale in compassion to the current dismal state of Vtown life.

THEN, I realized maybe I could score some tickets for "needy" women from the movie theater. I mean, Target had stepped up and even though this is way outside my comfort zone, I could try.

They could give me 4...

I decided to compose an email to the Allume team contacting a short briefing on who I/the valley was, what had happened to our town, and how I'd learned about the Mom's Night Out movie via their conference back in October.

Tuesday, I sat and cried as I tried to declutter and reorganize our play/school room. All I could think was "we have Too Much Crap!" I wanted to give it away but all those who needed it had no home to put it in. We were created to bring glory to God and sitting sifting through my stuff, I felt like I was doing the furthest thing from glorifying my God.

Taking a break from it all after my poor hubs tried to comfort my inevitable meltdown, I decided to check out during nap by gracing social media and my email. I was never so shocked to find an email from Elizabeth, of Provident Films saying among other things, "Will you please call me at your earliest convenience and we'll discuss next steps." Call? Next Steps!?

Ahhhh!!!!

I am terrible on the phone {AWEkward} but I snatched up my phone and ran outside. Never had a I been more excited to make a fool of myself if it meant I could be of use to this community in its time of trouble. My world was a world-wind from Wednesday until Saturday night but well worth it!

The night turned out to be a huge success! We ended up having a banquet room in a Chinese restaurant with comped buffet, pre-movie pampering, and a ~~therapy room~~ movie theater FULL of healing women. {That will be a post in itself.} Later, I was told by a guy from the valley that he was bragging on me to someone who expressed her gratitude for the much-needed MNO. I was excited to tell him that,

God had it all planned before me so I just had to find where he was working and connect the dots.

I really do believe it is that easy. Find where He is already at work, grab your pen, and get to work on the pieces that He has already given you the tools to connect to accomplish the ultimate goal. I have been so energized by what God has freed up the valley to do here and am loving watching our lil valley family grow closer together all while reaching out to a hurting world!