Thankful
In a previous post we listed some things that needed attention through prayer. God has been very good to us this fall, and we want to update you on how He addressed these needs.
- Annette’s back surgery was a HUGE success. The recovery period was tough (as expected), but the results from the operation have amazingly been better than anticipated even by the surgeon! Praise God!
- We have a minivan! God wove a series of events together around Thanksgiving that led to us purchasing a minivan. And some of you helped make that happen! Thank you so much! It’s old and has high mileage, but was kept up extremely well by the sellers. Annette never knew how easy carting 3 small kids around town could be until now. What a huge blessing!
- Our kids are doing great! Other than a couple of ear infections and whatnot, our kids have stayed healthy and happy this fall. They still talk about all of their friends back in Georgia, but have already made lifelong friendships here in Charleston. Out of the 70 or so folks who already make up River Church, one third of them are children under the age of 8. It’s a great community for kids!
- God has been very gracious in the area of finances. He has provided through some overwhelmingly generous gifts from some very dear people. And He has also opened the door for Stephen to begin working part time at the Apple Store on King Street in downtown Charleston. We’re still living the leanest days of our marriage, but He always seems to provide what we need to the penny at just the right time.
We’ll have a new post up shortly telling you more about what’s happening in our family and at River Church. But for the time being, we just wanted to share some specifics on how your prayers for us specifically have been answered abundantly.
Thank you so much for praying!
pray – July 2009
Happy Saturday!
Our Current Concerns
- Annette will be having back surgery on Monday, August 10 in Atlanta. Probably enough said right there. But being away from home is tough on kids, and we’ll all be away from home for at least a week during this process. We’d appreciate your prayer for Annette’s safety and 100% success of the surgery, as well as an easy transition for our kids as we stay at Stephen’s parents’ house for the week.
- We need a minivan or a large SUV. We are scaling back on expenses which means getting one of our vehicles out of our hands. That will be like getting a raise, but we are left with one small car that requires a good hip-hit to close the back doors when all three of our carseats are installed. We need God to provide a minivan or large SUV for little to no cost.
- Our kids. Moving is hard on anyone, but especially kids. We’ve had some tough days with McKenna, especially. Seen some breakthroughs, too. And we’re learning a lot in the process, which is good. But it’s still tough…and we’ve insisted that we will not allow this transition to make our kids bitter towards the Church.
- Finances. It seems that every missionary goes through a season of God stripping away the nonsense and getting focused on the fireproof stuff rather than the flammables [see this post to get what we mean]. We are not the exception. The economy has hit some of Stephen’s web/graphic-design clients hard which in turn means less work that we had been counting on to get us through the summer. Please pray that our Financial Support Team will grow.
We’re Not in Kansas Anymore
Wow. What a whirlwind.
It’s now been two months since I worked as a staff member at West Ridge. Now I’m an upstart Worship “Pastor” (still trying to get my brain around that) with barely a clue of how to get upstarted.
Since Memorial Day, we have moved into a rental house in Charleston (South Carolina), rented out our home in Paulding County (Georgia), taken two or three trips back and forth to get (most) of our flammable possessions, celebrated Caia’s second birthday, recognized Jack’s 6-month birthday, scheduled back surgery for Annette…and that’s only the first 5% of what’s taken up our time.
I say “flammable possessions” because there is no more honest time to realize just how meaningless stuff is than moving day(s). It’s all gonna burn. (a lot of it I wish would burn, quite honestly.) more »
Whole lotta packin’ going on
Well, this week is the week. We are TRYING to get motivated to pack boxes, set up for a garage sale this weekend, clean up this place, and get our final load of ’stuff’ to our new place in Charleston.
It’s moved beyond surreal and into, “We’ve GOT to get this done” mode.
So if you have any time to come help pack up some dishes or do a little painting, holler our way!
We’re looking forward to seeing many of our friends this Sunday at West Ridge. It will be our “last” day there…as Georgia residents, at least.
Things are going great in Charleston. We’ve gotten all of the “big stuff” moved in and in place. The girls LOVE their new backyard (it’s all they talk about while we’re back here at the old house…but living out of suitcases and on air-mattresses here doesn’t make it to tough to miss being there). And we’ve had some GREAT times with the folks who are already onsite in Charleston.
Here goes… Somethin’!
Well, it’s official. We have rented a house in Charleston and are headed there today to scope things out and attend our first River Church launch team cookout! Needless to say we’re very excited. The girls are ready to get out the door. We’ll stay in the new house for a couple of nights, head back here for a couple of nights, and then start moving the “big stuff” this weekend!
Please pray for safety during our trip… Some of us have been under the weather. And pray for CALM. Three kids under 5 in a crew cab pickup doesn’t make for the best travel scenario.
Thank you so much for your encouragement and support. We can’t wait to bring you some amazing stories of what God is doing in Charleston through River Church!
Wrapping up an era
Good Saturday night! Stephen here.
Well, it’s come very quickly. I knew in my head that it would, but my heart wanted to put it in slow motion. This Sunday (the 17th) is my last day as a staff member at West Ridge Church, and Monday is my first ‘official’ day as a church planter. I’ll be leading worship at WRC as I wrap up an experience that has comprised a quarter of my life.
We still have soooo much to do to prepare for our move… Fix some things around the house, pack, put it up for rent, raise support to fund my salary, find a new place to live, move… It’s a wee bit overwhelming. But our excitement is building. We really are chomping at the bit to head east.
In our last post we mentioned a house we were hoping to rent in Charleston. Well, at this point, it hasn’t worked out. Annette has had some pretty serious back problems that have slowed down our preparation for getting our own house on the rental market, so we just couldn’t pull the trigger in time. And we’d still like to have a little more certainty financially before we commit to a lease.
Regarding the back problem, Annette has one ruptured disc and another disk that’s bulging. She began an outpatient treatment process last week that we’re hoping will help relieve the pain and put off the need for surgery. But so far it hasn’t done too much to help. We’ll keep you posted. Please pray for relief for her… It’s been tough to see her in so much pain. She’s been such an encouragement to me during this process and her spirits have been so high. But the pain is visible in her face.
We have been so encouraged by the folks telling us they want to support us financially. Thank you so very much for partnering with us. We will have support kits out to you very shortly.
We’ve added a new page that lists our financial needs…both immediate and long-term. Some folks have asked for this so they can help in specific areas.
In the meantime, if you want to go ahead and begin the process, go here and follow the instructions. And beginning this summer you’ll be able to set up recurring giving through online. More about that in June.
Ponderings from our first house hunting trip in Charleston…
We got back late last night from a great trip to Charleston. The drive over took 10 hours. The drive back took 8-1/2. We figure by the 4th trip over, we MIGHT get it down to the 5-1/2 that it SHOULD take from the far side of Atlanta. Sheesh. When driving with an infant, toddler and preschooler, you might as well just hitch a covered wagon to a mule and shout “hee-yah!”
Our Little Dream House
Anyway, we DID find a house that we LOVE. We’d obviously have to pay a deposit right away to secure the spot. But we weren’t expecting to find something so quickly. So we’re just rolling on a load of faith that God will help us get our ducks in a row before someone else grabs it…if that’s the neighborhood God wants us in. And if it’s not, then we’ll just keep looking!
But the truth is we felt like this particular house would fit our family perfectly. There’s a great open area where the upstairs bedrooms converge that would be a phenomenal playroom for the kids, and there are enough bedrooms for us to have a guest room (a VERY important feature for us). There’s a garden tub for Annette, a deep “low-country” front porch, and a large, flat driveway for neighborhood cookouts (a core part of our strategy at River Church for reaching our community in West Ashley). The neighborhood has a playground, several little ponds, and a reputation for being one of the safest, friendliest neighborhoods in town (in spite of the “beware of alligators” sign near the entrance).
That's a Gator on the far bank of a lake in the neighborhood. Don't worry...there's an electric fence.
But most important to us is being placed in a community that will be strategic for building the team for River Church and for reaching the folks we’re there to reach. As the Arts and Innovation Pastor, I’ll be recruiting musicians, visual artists, IT professionals, etc., so as long as those kinds of folks are our neighbors wherever we roost, we’re good to go.
It IS interesting, though, that while we were visiting this particular house, the man living across the street pulled a cello out of his car. And the next morning at breakfast, another local pastor told me of a professional photographer who lives in the same neighborhood. Hmmmmm…
So please continue to pray for our home search. If this particular house doesn’t work out, we’ll take another trip sometime in May to do some more hunting.
For a good laugh about another house we looked at on this trip, check out Annette’s post.
And so it begins
For me, the preparation for moving to Charleston to plant River Church couldn’t really begin until Easter had passed. In my line of work, Easter is THE big event of the year. For all the spiritual reasons, obviously. But also because I am a worship service program director. It represents a day where everything is on the line.
I guess Easter in the Church today is not so different from the first Easter… Eyes seem to be more aware of Jesus than normal, and the significance of the day is more apt to fall on listening ears. So the bar gets raised a notch to make sure we do all we can to clearly tell the story of what Christ accomplished for us that day.
So, now that the preparation for Easter is past, Annette and I are beginning to turn our focus more towards preparation for our move. We’re feeling a bit overwhelmed, to be honest. We need to find a place to live in Charleston, begin identifying our financial support team, prepare our house for selling or renting, pack, toss, paint, fix… Lots of major projects.
Step one is to make another trip to C-town. We leave this afternoon with the fam in tow and will be there through Saturday. There are a few rental houses we want to visit…one in particular that we’re very interested in. I’ll be spending a lot of time with Todd (our Lead Pastor) and Mark (our Community Pastor) developing a schedule for the next several months and thinking ahead to our launch and how the team should be structured. And I’ll be connecting with some like-minded folks in the area over coffee.
We feel the excitement growing! Let the games begin!
Going, Not Leaving.
About a year ago, we started getting that “feeling” that God was about to do something new with our family. Well, shortly thereafter we found out we would be having our third baby. That was definitely something “new,” so we carried on with business as usual. But as Jack’s arrival came closer, we found ourselves growing even more aware that there was something else on the horizon.
About that time, I sat down with a church planter named Todd Magouyrk who was headed to the West Ashley community of Charleston, SC, to plant River Church with his wife, Lori, and their three kids. Todd had been a part of West Ridge in its early days before leaving for college and then serving ministries in Chicago and Cincinnati. Now he was attending the Church Planting School at West Ridge while serving as a Church Planting Intern.
During our conversation, I asked Todd to tell me about River Church. What was his vision? That question sent him into a casting of vision that could have come from my own journal. I was floored by how similar our passions and hopes were for the Church and how we felt God had shaped us to help fulfill our callings. From that moment, I knew something was up, and I immediately took my thoughts to Annette. We began to pray, “are You asking us to go?”
Battery Park in Downtown Charleston
Well, Christmas came and went, and then Jack was born. Needless to say, we were a bit distracted from the idea of River Church. Yet God kept our minds and hearts loosely attached to the thought. And as the craziness of having a newborn in the house began to slowly settle, the curiosity we had continued to grow.
To make a long story short, there was one particular week where God finally urged us to pray specifically and fervently and to more intentionally seek wisdom from others who know us well. When that process began we found ourselves caught in a wave of conversations, scripture, and prayer that confirmed unanimously that River Church in Charleston, SC was where God was calling the Parris Family.
Specifically, He has asked me to serve as the Arts + Innovation Pastor. I will be responsible for equipping our community for all aspects of Worship, and equipping River Church to be constantly improving its processes, awareness and technologies.
So…crazy, huh? I’ve lived in the metro-Atlanta area all my life. And Annette has lived in the same county all her life. Our parents live in Atlanta. Our kids were each born in Atlanta. We own a home in Atlanta. It’s a huge change for us! But what trumps all of the safety, certainty, and joy that staying the course in our “hometown” and at West Ridge is a calling to take the Kingdom of God to a city that needs to know the love of Jesus Christ.
What’s the timeline? Well, it depends on a few factors. We have a house to sell or lease (or lease/purchase). And since River Church is being built from the ground up and does not yet have a budget to pay us a salary, we need to raise financial support. That being said, our hope is to be heading to West Ashley by early June. That’s audacious! But it’s necessary. We will begin preview services at River in August or September and launching in January of 2010. That doesn’t give much time to find a location, meet and connect with dozens of musicians, technicians, artists…
Cooper River Bridge
Please pray for us. And get involved! We are not called to go to Charleston on our own will and power. This is a positioning of the Kingdom, and we are merely the do-ers. This task still needs pray-ers, financiers, encouragers, investors, equippers. And needs them by the hundreds!
We hope you’ll stay in touch through this blog. Take a minute to read the other pages we’ve posted, please leave us comments from time to time. We’ve set up a “ParrisFam E-letter” mailing list, and provided ways for to to commit to prayer and financial support. And we’ll be adding information about West Ashley and Charleston, the progress of the church…all kinds of fun information.
Thanks for reading! See you real soon! (Sorry…the girls are watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse as I write this.)