Call us "members"

Who would have guessed 5 months ago while making an extremely difficult decision that we would be where we're at today??? As I said earlier, 5 months ago, after much thought, lots of tears and endless prayers, we decided to leave the church we had called home for 5 years and I quit my job on the church staff. The process was painful, but we were walking in obedience to God's will for us. For a couple of months, I wondered what in the heck is God doing? As November came, the picture became a little less blurry and each week I was able to see a bit clearer. Now, here we are, standing amazed of God's glory and praising Him for His amazing plan.

After visiting MANY churches and searching the internet endlessly, God lead us to CCV (Christ's Church of the Valley). Never in a million years, did I think I would be at such a big church (4500 people), but we couldn't be more happy. There are no words that can come close to describing how much God has moved our hearts and drawn us closer to Him in such a short period of time. Just this evening we finished the membership classes and we are now "members" of our new church. I've never experienced community like this before. As for the girls...they LOVE it! The benefits of a big church are big programs! The girls love all the activities CCV has to offer. They are making new friends, growing in God's Word and always look forward to the next time they can go. Children's Ministries even has their own worship band that the elementary grades start their Sunday mornings off with before retreating to their grade level classes. Needless to say....we're already basking in the joy of God's Promise.

Back Tracking to Baptism

Again, I'm back-tracking a bit. This event happened last Sunday, Jan. 25th. Here is an article I posted on my Facebook page:

I Got Baptized with my Husband this Morning

If you saw my status update today, you might be thinking, “Haven’t you already been baptized? You’ve been a Christian for a long time.” The answer is “yes.” I was baptized as a young girl at the church I grew up in, but I was so young that I didn’t really understand what it meant to publicly proclaim that I am a follower of Christ. I did it because my parents wanted me to and all the other kids in my Sunday School class were doing it. Also, I spent several of my teen years wandering away from God before I came back to Him in my college years. My husband, John, was baptized as an infant in the Lutheran Church and also had never publicly proclaimed his faith through baptism in his Christian life. We thought about being baptized again several times, but until this point, never felt convicted to actually do it.

This morning at our church, Christ’s Church of the Valley (CCV), our pastor, Jeff, gave the most amazing sermon on the purpose of baptism based on the gospels of the New Testament. Jeff talked about how new believers in the Bible immediately proclaimed their faith through baptism. He reminded us that baptism in NOT a requirement of salvation, but rather a public proclamation that we have been washed of our sins and made new. He also emphasized that infant baptism is never mentioned in the Bible, so those who were baptized young are encouraged to do it again as believers. Like ALL of Jeff’s sermons, we were deeply moved and could feel the Holy Spirit prompting us. Then, Pastor Jeff challenged the congregation that if there was anyone in the room that wanted to publicly proclaim that God is their Lord and Savior, to walk forward to the stage and be baptized at that very moment. They had the baptismal ready and had also put 2 temporary baptismals (kiddy pools) on the stage and they were ready to baptize as many people that chose to come forward. Within minutes, maybe even seconds, hundreds, literally over 100 people, flooded the front of the church. John and I were baptized together at the same time and our best friends, Bill and Janet O’Malley, along with their teen son, Conor, were baptized together after us. It was by far one of the most incredible experiences of my life.

CCV is a large church with a congregation of about 4500 people with 6 services a weekend: one service on Saturday night, 3 services Sunday morning and 2 services on Sunday night. We were baptized during the 2nd service on Sunday morning. There are still 2 services this evening, 6:08 and 8:08. If you want to experience an incredible time of worship, teaching and baptism, go to one of these services! Even if you’ve already been baptized and you just want to be a witness to this incredible event, I encourage you to go. CCV is in San Dimas on Covina Blvd. across from San Dimas Hospital.

Follow-up note: Janet, Bill and I decided to go to the 6:08 evening service, this time as observers rather than participants. We were through the roof to experience such a proclamation of faith again. By the end of this 5th service well over 400 people had been baptized in just 24 hours with still 1 more service to go! There’s no doubt in my mind that all of heaven was rejoicing with us and the enemy was throwing quite a hissy fit! God has the victory!!!!

*I heard this week that over 500 people total were baptized that day!!! God is good!

Here's the link to our church website to see some of the many baptisms that day. Click on the video "Baptism Video." http://www.ccvnow.com/events/lastsunday.asp

If you'd like to see more videos from the baptisms that day or other videos from CCV, click here: http://vimeo.com/2975355

Has it really been a month?

Every day I intend to sit down and post something on my blog, but every day rushes by and I lay in bed at night and say, "I'll post something tomorrow." Now here I am, finally logged on and am frightened to see that it's been over a month since I made my first post! Has it really been a month? I will get better about this, I promise. There are so many moments in my day that something will happen or someone will say something or I'll have an interesting thought and I just know I should post it on my blog, but never do! No more....I will be intentional about posting.



So many great things have happened in this last month that I'll probably do some back-tracking in my next few posts. For starters, Christmas was fabulous. This was our first Christmas at our new church and it was an awesome way to celebrate it. On Christmas Eve Eve, our church brought in 100 tons of snow for the kids to sled. Now that may sound like a lot of snow, but it's amazing how small it packs together when making a sled run! They had horse-drawn carriage rides, hot chocolate, petting zoo, train rides, pony rides and lots of other fun things for families to enjoy. It was a blast!
Christmas Eve was spent first with John's side of the family, then church, then celebrating with our "Front Row Friends" the O'Malley Family. Christmas Eve service at church was better than anything I could have imagined in my head. The Holy Spirit is definitely active in that church!!!!! As usual, we stayed home on Christmas day to enjoy the girls and all of their new things. Makenna's birthday followed on Dec. 27th and our baby turned 9! We celebrated with a party at "Mud Shack" then my side of the family came over for our Christmas celebration.

New Years was spent with the O'Malleys....who else? We had a blast and we were blessed to ring in the new year together. We set off some fireworks (we're playing naive about them being illegal) and lots of games, food, laughter and more food. Let's just say we stuffed our faces!

So there's the "Readers Digest" version of the holidays. More to come soon...I promise!