We have a launch date!

One of the questions we get asked most about our church plant is, "When are you guys starting?" And until just recently, we weren't sure. Starting September 8th we will be meeting weekly at the DAA in Airway Heights!

If you're better at math then me, you will realize that's only a very short 2 months away. We have a lot of things figured out, a lot of things in progress and even more things we haven't thought about yet. We love and appreciate your prayers and support as we commit to bringing the gospel to the community of Airway Heights.

For more info, check out our website and watch this great video of Jacob and Kym sharing their vision!

The Best Wedding Ceremony Job

It's almost July, which means you are most likely knee deep in wedding season. There are bridal showers, bachelorette parties, gifts to purchase, dresses to buy, shoes to coordinate, travel plans to make, dates to find, dance moves to perfect. But don't let these things bog you down, weddings can be a lot of fun!

Admittedly, my zeal doesn't always make it all the way through the wedding season. When the first wedding hits in March or April, I am one of the most helpful people you will ever know: setting up, cleaning afterwards, whatever it takes. I will have spent months thinking about the perfect gift for the happy couple and how to package it just right so as to impress everyone whose eyes behold my beautiful creation. It will have taken me a week to craft the perfect words to express how happy I am for the bride and groom on the card. During the ceremony and reception I will snap a hundred pictures of the experience to make sure I remember it all.

By the time I make it to the last wedding of the year in September or October, I will pick up a gift card 10 minutes before the ceremony starts, write the card in the car and finish it during the ceremony. If I remember to pull my phone out, I might take a picture of the ceremony and although I'm really happy for you, I'm more concerned about eating your food and guessing what dessert you will be serving. This does not mean I'm any less excited for you than the people that got married in the spring, but your wedding is the 10th I've been to this year and I only have so many dance moves left in me (granted, I really only had 3 bad ones to begin with).

Despite the waning of my enthusiasm as the season wears on, I am always excited to do a reading at a wedding. Last summer, one of my former roommates got married to a great guy and they asked me to read a Scripture during the ceremony. I think this might be one of my favorite jobs in a wedding for the following reasons:

- If you like being in front of people, you get to come up in the middle of the ceremony and do your thing, but you don't have to stand there the whole time with the risk of forgetting to keep those knees loose and bent and going down in the middle of the ceremony. You also don't have to walk up and down the aisle in high heels while everyone watches you, anticipating your tripping and falling so they can post it on YouTube.

- You don't have to purchase a bridesmaid dress, rent a tux or buy a suit.

- You still get to be a part of your close friends' big day and you get to go to the rehearsal dinner - free food!

- However, I did discover one drawback at this particular wedding. I happened to be standing and chatting with the wedding party when the DJ announced dinner was ready. I tried to back away slowly, when the bride's father insisted that I was a part of the wedding party and I should go ahead in the dinner line. At first, this was great because I got to hold it over my friends' heads that I got my food before them. This greatness lasted the amount of time it took to get through the buffet line, as I found myself in a room alone, eating my dinner by myself as all my friends were in the food line together.

If you find yourself with the honored job of reading a Scripture (or a poem, song lyrics, an excerpt from Dr. Suess, etc.), there are a few things you can do to get yourself ready. I sent the following email to the bride (my former roommate) a few days before the wedding to assure her I was preparing myself for the role she had given me on her special day.

As the wedding day approached, three things happened: 1. The officiant was going to assign me the Scripture to read and had not done so as of the day before the wedding. 2. The bride was slightly afraid that the officiant just wasn't going to show up on the wedding day (it seems like all brides find at least one irrational fear for their big day and this was hers). We joked that since I am a licensed pastor, I would be the "back-up". 3. the "back-up" officiant idea quickly turned into the bride and I discussing how "great" it would be if I just hijacked the mic from the officiant and took over the ceremony. With that understanding, glean what you will from my preparation and this email. Maybe you can use this as a template to make sure your bride knows you are fully prepared to play your role. Enjoy the wedding season!


Hi (insert your bride's name here),

I thought I would fill you in on my weekend activities:

1. I practiced photo bombing as many photos as I could get into this weekend at Riverfront Park.

2. I read the entire Bible out loud, I think I'm ready now.

3. I practiced stealing the mic on Sunday at church. It was a little difficult since they use the kind that go over your ear and tape to your cheek. I might need to go to church with you guys for a couple of weeks until the whole situation blows over.

4. I am prepared to hit the officiant with my Bible while shouting, "I'm a better pastor anyways! I'll pick my own scripture!"

I can't wait to celebrate with you!

How a TV Show Planted a Church

Have you ever had a movie or TV show that you connect with a specific time period in your life? I always identified with Gilmore Girls because the main character was the same age as I was. When I was a college freshman, most of the girls in my hall watched a ridiculous show called "Average Joe". It wasn't so much about the content of the show, but that we would all gather in a tiny dorm room for an hour every week and bond. I think we could have picked a better show, I still remember way more content about "Average Joe" than I should.

One of the shows that coincides with with milestones in my life has been So You Think You Can Dance (if you've never heard of it, the show is like American Idol for dancers). I am partly fascinated with SYTYCD because I am an awful dancer, so it's great to watch people who are talented where I am not. But what really stands out about this TV show is not what was on it, but what was happening in my life as I watched it.

The first season I watched was also the first summer I spent in Spokane, in between my junior and senior years. It was one of the first times I learned to love this area and not just tolerate it. My friend would walk over to my house or I'd go over to her's and we'd watch it together. If she was busy, I'd watch it with my Grammy and discuss who we liked the best. It was a show that guaranteed a weekly time spent with friends and family, which spilled out to the rest of the week and made that summer my favorite one in Spokane so far.      

I would watch it here and there for a few summers, but I didn't have a friend to watch it with every week, so I didn't watched a whole season again until last summer. That's when I started spending a lot of time with Kym and Jacob. A couple of months after it had already been decided that I would go with them as they planted a church, I was over there for dinner and we realized we all really liked that show. We decided to dedicate our Thursday evenings to SYTYCD. Every Thursday after work, I would head over to their house. I'd play with their two amazing boys (I always ended up getting my arms and legs "cut off" by their swords), we'd eat dinner together and then after the boys were put to bed, we'd settle down to catch up with the episodes they had DVRed.

It was during these times that we would talk about our church plant. Sometimes it would take us over two hours to watch an hour long episode. We'd pause it and end up talking for an hour about how we would want discipleship to look like, how we would want to raise leaders, where we would plant the church, when we would start a small group in the area and other things like that. At times, it was fun to sit around and talk about what would happen in the future and other times we could hardly stand that we weren't planting a church the next week.It was definitely fun and it was all talk, not quite any action.

A couple of weeks ago,  the 10th season of SYTYCD premiered. And again, after the boys were put to sleep, we went downstairs to catch up on the episodes. But it's different this year. We're watching it in Kym and Jacob's new house, in Airway Heights, where we're planting the church. It no longer takes me 20 minutes to drive across town to get home after we watch it, because I live 5 minutes away in the same town. Instead of pausing the show to talk about what we hope our small group will look like, we just finished up meeting with our growing small group. We didn't spend very much time talking about our church plant because we'll do that in a week with our launch team.

A year ago it was all theory and hypotheticals. Now it's happening for real. We are being stretched as we continue to follow God's calling for this community. Some details we have figured out, some we don't have a clue about and all of it hinges on God, not us. We simply chose to say, "yes" when He asked us to do something. 

What has God done in your life in the past year? What expectations do you have of Him in the next year?

Adage #25: Location isn't everything.

When I was a little girl, my parents put me in one of those snowsuits that makes you look like the kid in A Christmas Story and set me outside to discover, for the first time, the wonder of snow. I was so excited to venture into this whole new world of white fluffiness. I touched the snow with my little hand, looked up at my parents and started to cry. This has been my basic outlook of snow ever since, especially when I have to drive in it. Given this inclination to hate snow and cold weather, you would never guess that I would have chosen to live in it for the past 9 years instead of moving back to the land of warmth, happiness and sunshine from whence I came. 

After college graduation, most of my peers moved back to their hometowns, found themselves on exciting adventures to other countries, or moving to glamorous cities such as Portland or Seattle. I stayed in Spokane - a city heralded for being a great place to raise your kids and not so much praised for being a great place to be a single twenty-something. I spent many years after graduation asking God where I was supposed to be. Was is Seattle? California? Surely, it cannot be here? This was the most important question to be answered, I couldn't get on with my life if I didn't know where I was supposed to live. I received no other answer other than that I should continue to be a part of the church family I was involved in.

Then, after 8 years God gave me an answer. He said I was going to go with my friends, Kym and Jacob, to plant a church. In Airway Heights. This is a small community (about 5,000 people) that is 10 minutes away from downtown Spokane with an air force base just down the road (with another 6,000 people). Spokane has some beautiful qualities: an exorbitant amount of pine trees, some great rivers, hills and valleys. It's full of beautiful views that I have learned to love despite being cold for half the year. Airway Heights possess none of these things. It's flat, ugly, just far away enough that I don't see my friends all that often and for the past three weeks it has been so foggy, I've almost ran a few red lights. Not so reassuringly, 3 out of 7 days a week when I have left my apartment complex for work in the morning, I have found a car that slid into an icy ditch.

Photo credit: MDP Photography

I've been told this has been a big thing with my generation, that choosing where we live has become a much bigger deal than the generations before us. I think maybe we've got something wrong. Despite all of the things I don't love about Airway Heights, there is no other place I would rather be. Not only is this the place God has called me to for this time, I am learning that being a follower of Christ means a lot more of living out God's will in the everyday mundane things and a lot less about making huge, life-altering, I'm-going-to-change-the-world decisions. It's not about me and how cool or indie where I live is, it's about losing myself in who Christ is. I can no longer wait for some big revelation about where I am supposed to live and what God is someday going to use me to accomplish for Him. I can no longer sit around waiting to be told what my future holds for me in 5 years, 1 year or next week. I should be too busy helping my neighbors take the trash out, getting to know the same cashier I see every week at the Airway Heights Wal-Mart, sharing the story of what Christ has done in my life with others, helping my friend paint their house even though I'd rather take a nap, talking with my server at the delicious Thai restaurant down the street and serving other people (friends and strangers alike) with no expectation of a reward. These things will accomplish much more for the Kingdom of God than spending hours praying and thinking about where I should be instead.

That being said, when Jesus comes back, I'm asking for some beach front property in Southern California. 


What is God asking you to do today for Him, where ever you might be?

Women's Retreat

I had never been to a women's retreat until a month ago. I had also never been in charge of running activities at a women's retreat until then. I would be lying if I told you that I enjoyed every minute of the planning process, in fact a hated most of it. But as soon as the weekend started, it all came together and it was awesome! Here are some of my personal highlights from my weekend spent with 100 women:

Pastor Laurel's messages
We spent the whole weekend going through the Jewish wedding customs and rituals. They paint such a beautiful and amazing picture of what Jesus has done for us! If you've never looked into that image (which gets used all over the Bible), here a few places to start: Isaiah 61:10; Matthew 25:1-13; John 3:29

Unexpected Friends
As I was walking down the hallway on the 1st night, I ran into one of my former college roommates. She was a part of the group of women that had come to the retreat from another town. I hadn't talked with her since she moved out of our house 6 years ago and I can't say that our relationship was left in a great place. Turns out, I had one of the richest and deepest conversations with her during the retreat. What an amazing experience!

Activities
I was basically coerced into this job, although, I happily agreed. This was the first big ministry event I had been involved in since my ministry sabbatical in the spring and it was a little rough to get into the swing of things again. However, everything turned out great! Here's the rundown of some of the things we did:

Friday Night:
We started out with taking the bridal theme of the weekend and planning a bridal shower to start out our weekend. This plan was quickly abandoned for multiple reasons and we ended up playing just one game which was bridal shower-inspired. We took the classic shower game of dressing someone up as a bride with toilet paper to a whole new level. We assigned each group a celebrity (and provided them with some pictures) that they would have to emulate. I was blown away with the creativity of these women (see pictures below)!

Saturday Afternoon: We brought back the Zumba, prayer time and massages they had done in the past, but we added some other activities this year:

- One of my team members, Tonya, spearheaded the bookmark making operation. She brought more craft supplies than I could count and helped woman make really cool bookmarks they could take away as a reminder of the weekend.

- Another team member, Sue, hung out with ladies and showed them how to make sugar scrubs. We had made this at a previous women's event and they were a hit for the second time!

- We also set up a DIY nail salon, this was my personal favorite! We supplied nail polish and Pinterest tutorials. It was so fun to watch ladies paint each other's nails and hear lots of laughter!

Saturday Evening:
This was the big event of the weekend - a wedding reception! Amber's hospitality team did a stellar job putting all the decorations and refreshments together for this! They also supplied the super fun props for our photo booth.

My Activities Team
I worked with two ladies I had never met before and they were awesome! Without them, nothing would have gone smoothly. It was great to get to know people out of my usual church circle who were better at my job than I was!

My Cabin
For the first time in my life I was not in charge of a cabin full of teenagers and it was a wonderful change of pace! Although, we did have a certain member of our cabin (cough*Meg*cough) who was a major prankster. I think there was maybe an hour of the whole weekend that she was not concocting a plan. One of them involved her dumping cold water on me while I was in the shower. It's good to know that I'm good humored enough that my response (after the quick yelp I let out) was hysterical laughter followed by a "That was awesome!" comment.

Dance Party Time!

Activites Team

Have you had a chance to retreat lately? Either with a group or solo?

Misadventures in Food: Coriander

My mom is awesome - I am grateful to have been so lucky to end up with her as my mom. There is one thing my mom did not teach me growing up: how to cook. I am not betraying her by telling you this, she knows it (and all the amazing things she has done for me have more than made up for this oversight). So I have been trying to pick up this coking thing over the past couple of years. The English muffin pizzas and Costco frozen dinners I made in college are no longer cutting it.

Turns out cooking is pretty fun! However, like many things I attempt, stuff tends to go wrong the first time I try them out. In fact, they go wrong often enough that I hope to share them with you for your enjoyment and maybe you'll learn a thing or two with me:

Recently, I decided to try a new recipe this week for a Tahini Avocado Chickpea Salad from Ohsheglows.com (one of my favorite recipe blogs). The main part of this salad is the dressing, so I took a lot of care during it's preparation, even triple checking to make sure that I had done it right. I kept tasting it and thinking something was off, so I kept adding things to it to fix it. I just could not get it right, so I checked the recipe again and I hadn't forgot anything. I decided that I must just be tired of tahini since I had it in my lunch two days in a row (by the way, tahini is pureed sesame seeds if you didn't know - I had to look it up the first time I came across it). I was doubly disappointed because the recipe had avocado in it and I have yet to find a recipe I didn't like with avocado - this was devastating!

My solution was to bring it to my co-worker in hopes that she would enjoy it and it would just confirm that I had too much tahini for one week. She tried it and immediately realized something was missing, so we went on a quest to figure out what the problem was. We looked up the recipe again and went through it step by step only to find out I had done everything right. I started looking through the pictures posted of the process where I discovered that the coriander I used looked different than the blogger's which prompted me to asked this question to my co-worker: "Uhhhhh...soooooo...are you like supposed to...ummm...are you supposed to crush coriander when you use it?" I was relieved when she did not know the answer right away, so I wasn't a total idiot. After a few minutes of Internet research , it was confirmed that you cannot just throw whole coriander seeds in a food processor and expect it to come out delicious.

I encourage to try out the delicious salad, but only after you read the link about using coriander. :)

Misadventures in Food Scale: Worth a 2nd Try Due to Chef's Ignorance

Adage #24: Lists are your friend.

As you might have guessed based on past posts, I love making lists. it's more than love, it's really a compulsion. So I have made a list of some of my favorite lists:

1. Things to never ever do in the video cafe again.

I mentioned this list in another post a while ago. During my first year of leading youth ministry at my current church, I took part in a 30 Hour Famine. The leaders collectively decided the best way to start the event involved herding all the students into our multi-purpose room (aka the video cafe), turning all the lights out, playing some loud music and bursting in with silly string. Sounds fun right? It was. Until we spent an hour sweeping and mopping the silly string off of the floor. This was the the event that started our list. For years we kept a mental list of materials we had used in the video cafe that made a giant mess or had backfired on us. We finally wrote it down and framed it and when we moved buildings, we immortalized it on the floor underneath the carpet in the auditorium. The best part of this list is referencing it when we hear of some other youth ministry using one of these items and making a mess, it's a little like an "I-told-you-so" moment.

Our list as immortalized on the auditorium floor.

2. Top ten favorite people in the world.

When my fellow youth ministry worker, Buz, realized my unhealthy love for lists, it could only go downhill from there. Buz challenged me to come up with a list of my ten favorite people in the world. I couldn't just brush it off and joke around about it. No, instead I spent weeks perfected it. I think it ended up taking me a month to report back to him with my final list. Before I finished the list, there were weekly discussions about who had made the cut so far and how I had four people I wanted to fit into two spots. It was rough. You probably want to know who's on the list, right? I can't remember who's on it. And you would be correct in assuming while writing that last sentence I am now trying to make up a new list in my head.

3. My to-do lists.

Yes, that's right it's plural because I have to-do lists everywhere. They are on my desk at work, they are on my phone, they are sticky notes by my bed, they are at the bottom of my purse and they are on the whiteboard calendar in my room. It's a disease, really.

4. Random youth ministry lists.

Along the same time Buz challenged me to come up with a list of my top ten favorite people, we also started making all sorts of ridiculous youth ministry lists. It was like the baseball stats of youth ministry: favorite message series during the spring, favorite events on a rainy Saturday afternoon, top ten Doug Field's resources used in a year ending in an odd number, etc.

My favorite list was of the people who had been in youth ministry the longest - it was topped by five leaders who had been involved in the ministry for a minimum of 7 years. These five people chose to stay involved in one ministry long enough to see the students they started with graduate from high school and often even longer than that.

Within the past year, all five people on the list have stepped out of youth ministry. What I love about this list is that these 5 people might not be doing youth ministry on a weekly basis any longer, but I know that they are all still involved in lives of young people (some who have graduated from our youth ministry) and more importantly, they are dedicated to the gospel. They understand that stepping away from a ministry program does not mean stepping away from ministry itself, whether they find that in volunteering in a different ministry, being actively involved in their neighborhood or whatever else God has called them to do. It's okay to be so committed to something that it feels weird when you miss a week of youth group. It's also okay to step away to do something else God has opened the door to. 

What kind of lists do you make? When was the last time you stayed with a commitment for 7 years? Is there something you need to commit to? Or is there something you need to be willing to walk away from?