My Old Kentucky Home

Today we moved out of our Kentucky home.



This house has been home to us for sixteen months. To live in such a beautiful house, with a yard and a quiet neighborhood, has been a tremendous blessing. Our thanks to Jason and Marsha for allowing us to rent their lovely home ~





Some farewell pictures (from pre-packing days, of course!) ~

We will remember this home fondly and we pray it will bless the next residents as much as it has us.

~~~

Manchester Creek

For about two years, Ken and I have been praying for the church God would have us serve. As we began getting to know Manchester Creek Community Church, we witnessed God answering our prayers.

Some things we love about the church:

• The people love, understand, talk about, and rejoice in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

• The church does not have a lot of programs to maintain. This positions the church well to respond to needs in the community.

• The church body has a warm and friendly spirit. Many people told us they were drawn to Manchester Creek because of the friendliness of the people.

• Manchester Creek is fun! Ken realized this during a phone interview with the search committee. He found himself laughing with them, telling jokes, and feeling like they were old friends. (In fact, the tag line of the church is "A fun place to get serious with God." Is this Ken in a nutshell, or what?!)

• The church has a mix of generations, a vital aspect of a healthy church.

• Local outreach is important to them.

• World missions are important to them.

• They value biblical preaching and teaching.

• Their eight core values are solid and motivating: God's word, cultural relevance, community of grace, loving relationships, inspiring worship, changed lives, ministry participation, and compassionate outreach.

• They obviously love and care about their pastor and his family. (We are receiving some of this loving care this weekend ~ Some church members are travelling to Louisville to help load up our truck. Then they are personally driving it to Rock Hill!)

• They respect and trust their leadership.

• They have highly qualified lay-leaders, including a dynamite elder board.

• The church has a realistic and honest estimation of itself.

God has now given us the names and faces of the church we have been praying for all this time! We can't wait to get there!

~~~

A Courtship Continued

Our lives have been a whirlwind over the past couple months.

It's difficult to unpack it all, but the gist is this:

We are moving to Rock Hill, South Carolina, where Ken will be the Lead Pastor of Manchester Creek Community Church!

This is the church I wrote of in January, when I said we were currently in a "courtship" with a church.

Since that January post, we have travelled to Rock Hill twice. The first trip was sort of exploratory; we felt we needed to see it and meet people face-to-face to know if we could really plant ourselves there. That trip was fantastic! We had some sweet times of fellowship with the search committee and with the elders and their wives.

We left that weekend knowing without a doubt that we wanted to be at Manchester Creek.

A couple weeks later, we drove to South Carolina once again. (Both trips were with the kids...I know some of you are wondering...and it's a nine hour trip from Louisville. The drive is through the hills and mountains of Tennessee and is really quite beautiful.) This second trip was a candidating weekend. We met more of the church families, did some house-hunting, and Ken preached for Sunday worship.

A week after that, the church voted unanimously to call Ken as their Pastor!

Coming up: Ken and I will describe the church to you a bit, explaining why we "fell in love" with it.

~~~