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.)