Hearts in Service Blog

I love to sew and have sewn for years, both for pleasure and for business. As I have honed my craft, I have learned that I dislike sewing quilts. They are too time-consuming for my personality. However, I appreciate the beauty in little bits of cloth intricately sewn together. It especially amazes me when I see a quilt that is entirely hand-stitched. I can appreciate how much time is involved in piecing together some of the more intricate patterns.  Quilts also remind me of how the church should operate. The church is made up of a patchwork of people, sewn together into a beautiful quilt that is the body of Christ.  Each person has a different spiritual gift, personality, and talent that while by itself can be useful, but when perfectly pieced together with the rest of the body becomes something spectacular. Some have been given gifts in teaching or prophecy. Others are gifted in administration and still others have gifts in prayer. Some are encouragers and others love to serv...

Happy Labor Day everyone! It has been a wonderful weekend and super busy.  It started with a church picnic at our house on Saturday. We ended up with about 20 people because some had a conflict, but I'm so thankful for the opportunity to use my gifts in hospitality. I'm always happiest when we can gather together with others and enjoy each other's company. I was in the nursery yesterday morning and we had a busy time in there taking care of 6 little ones. One of the little girls sighed at one point and said, "There are soooooooo many children in here!" 😄 Yesterday afternoon we went to a birthday party at church for a very sweet woman who turned 80.  Then last night we walked down to the end of our street and up into the park (which is a huge blessing that it's so close) to watch the annual Labor Day fireworks. Every year the city holds day long festivities in that park which ends with a fireworks show. It's so close and it would be great to be able to wat...

Dan and I have spent the past three days at our District Prayer Conference. Pastors, ministry leaders, and men and women from around the Northeastern District gathered together for prayer, encouragement, worship and fellowship. We went non-stop from early morning until late at night, and fell into bed exhausted each night. But it was a good exhaustion. I felt like I was saturated at the end of each day and filled to the brim after hearing from the Lord in the different workshops, messages, and conversations. I came home with a full-blown head cold, and even though I can't breathe through my nose and there is a box of tissues and cough drops by my side, my inner-person has been rejuvenated! Some things I came away with:   Be bold - Don't be afraid to share my faith, live out my faith and lead. We need to lead by example.   Be enthusiastic - I have noticed a shift in myself the past few years where I have lost some of my enthusiasm for ministry because I've absor...

Dan and I struggle with dissatisfaction from time to time on the size of our church. We want to see growth. We want to reach our community with the Good News of Jesus Christ. We want growth because we want to see lives transformed. And yet, growth is slow or at times, non-existent, and not everyone seems to have the same desire in our church.  It's easy to get discouraged. We often think if only we had different personalities, were more driven, or had better leadership skills, people would come. If we had wonderful programs it would grow. Perhaps we aren't praying enough or praying the right way or doing the right things. And that may be true, but there are also many other factors involved. There are times when I want to throw in the towel and cancel a program because we only have a few people coming. Or I think we aren't making a difference. Or I'm just plain tired. And to be honest, there are days when we've both thought maybe it's time to quit church m...

Now that  my season for retreats and conferences has ended for a few months and the holidays are upon us, I'm finding that my days are flowing nicely and there is a rhythm to each day. My life has always been centered around God, ministry and my family and the flow of my days reflect that. I get up and pour my coffee, have my time with the Lord, usually catch up on Facebook after that and write a blog post (it's a bit late this morning), as well as do any email correspondence that needs to be done. I take a shower and dress, do the breakfast dishes and throw in a load of laundry. I get a general idea of what I'm making for dinner and get the meat out to thaw unless it's a larger item that needs to come out the night before. I usually do a few household chores and then I sew until lunch. I get lunch, watch a favorite show or catch up online while I eat. Then I'll usually do one big chore, work on consecration questions, read any required r...

Dan & I walk together most days and as we walk we do a lot of talking about marriage, children, ministry and life. One of the things we've been talking about lately is my desire to work on becoming a consecrated woman in ministry. I often struggle with whether this was the right choice as it is a lot of work for an uncertain future.  The reason I say it's uncertain is that I'm in a different situation than some as I work on this. My husband is a full-time pastor so any ministry position that I could obtain with this is limited because of the fact that we come as a package deal. In other words, I'm not going to go off and get a job in a church without my husband and that goes the other way around too. So there are moments when I'm wondering if I should be doing this. My sweet husband told me yesterday, "Look at the fruit from your ministry. It's obvious that God has called you so stop apologizing and feeling guilty for be...

  As a woman who craves interaction with others, I often feeling a bit lonely. We live in an area where people are fairly reserved and tend to stick to themselves and their own families. The winters are especially difficult here for me and those are the times I really struggle. I feel isolated and discouraged.  However, I cannot say that this weekend. It was such a fulfilling time for me as I got my fill of interaction. Friday night we went out to eat with members of our church board, along with their spouses. Instead of having our normal monthly meeting, it was a way to say "We appreciate you."  This afternoon we had a church barbecue at a friend's house. They graciously hosted it and it was nice to see so many turn out. I laughed a lot and it was just an overall fun day! I have come to love these people and am thankful for our ministry here. It was wonderful to see old and young all interacting together and ...

I often compare our ministry to others and come away feeling a bit deflated. It seems as if other churches are growing with record speed, have wonderful programs, a plethora of volunteers and are doing great things for their communities. It's hard not to compare when our average attendance is in the 40s, it seems impossible to get people to volunteer their time or show up on a Sunday morning, let alone on a week night. Our building is one of the smallest buildings in our district and to be honest, is quite ugly on the outside. It needs a new roof, gets flooded with water when it rains too much or the snow melts too fast. Yet, we have a difficult time in getting volunteers to help with the upkeep. It can be frustrating and I can get bogged down in what is going wrong and forget about what is going right. Our building may be ugly on the outside but it is full of beautiful people and th ere are many good things that are happening inside our church. They may seem small compared ...