What is a Godly Woman?

     "What is a godly woman?" - This was a question asked directly to me after church one morning a few Sundays ago. Now I am definitely not an expert in this area. Having been raised in church when I think about a godly woman my mind usually goes to Proverbs 31. I don't know anything about sewing, I'm a terrible morning person who can barely get up and get my one kindergartner fed breakfast and to school on time, I do cook for my family if you count regularly having pancakes and grilled cheese for dinners, I am usually clothed in sweats and t-shirts and messy hair (not strength and dignity), and the list just goes on and on! However, the young woman who asked me this question was not so much looking for an exact Scripture reference as much as she was just longing to really know and learn how in the world we are supposed to live our day to day life as a godly woman in the culture and environment which surrounds us. What does that really look like for us, today, here in the Bronx?
     This, to me, is one of the most beautiful aspects of church planting and it served to remind me of just exactly why we are here. I love, and am greatly humbled, by the openness and honesty of this young lady. People here just don't pretend to be something they are not, they don't pretend to have it all figured out. If they don't know something, they speak up and ask. If they don't understand, they will let you know. And while a good percentage of people around us are open to hearing the good news of our Lord and Savior, they are not all willing to jump in and commit their lives to him. Many we have shared with who are not believers seem to be really counting the cost of becoming a Christ follower and Lord help me if this is not one of the best life experiences I've had in learning PATIENCE. Anyway, this particular woman is a believer and has given her life to Christ, but it seems things pretty much just ended there. No one has come alongside her and spent time trying to disciple her or has shown her what it means to live as a Christian, so now she is openly asking for help and just longing to understand more about her faith. She has lived in the neighborhood for awhile but did not know of many Bible believing churches around her. Now, ALL glory and praise and honor to God, this young lady has changed her work schedule to allow her to be at church most every Sunday, she is volunteering to help take care of the babies during our church services, and she is sticking around afterwards to help with all the tearing down and cleanup that goes along with renting a facility for one day a week.
     All glory and praise and honor to God, there is now a family of faith that she's connected to right in her neighborhood to help disciple her. I should also add, she doesn't have to just depend on a pastor's wife for this process either, because there are numerous wonderful, faithful, God-fearing women gathering each Sunday as part of Everlasting Church who she can also learn from and grow with as we navigate this Christian journey together. It's such a beautiful picture of God's love for his people: establishing a church in a neighborhood karate studio, moving into a community center, and bringing together people of all different backgrounds and walks of life to help each other. Again, I am humbled and often feel totally unworthy that God would choose to use me for such a task. Please keep praying, please keep checking in with us, please keep supporting us.....God is working here in Pelham Parkway!

  

     I cannot believe it's already been 3 months since my last blog update. That's pretty much how winter here in NYC goes. After Christmas, when all the holiday excitement is over, we have lots of long, cold, dreary days where we really are not out and about much. It's my least favorite time of the year. So as far as a family update goes, between 2 different ear tube surgeries for Moses we have been able to celebrate Maria's friends' birthdays, play in the snow, Jordan and I have been able to find some time together thanks to Gidgie AND Grammy coming to visit, we've made lots of visits to the park/zoo, taken a kindergarten field trip, went to a Yankees game for Jordan's birthday, and most recently spent a couple days upstate with just the 4 of us camping! God is good, spring has returned, and we are so thankful and grateful for how He continues to provide for us - through YOU, His church.   

 

 

 

 

     As far as a church update goes, I'm just overwhelmed by how God continues to move and work and lead our new little church family. One of the goals we established for this year was to bless 1,000 people in our community. So we are orchestrating some larger scale events for our church as a whole to do for our neighborhood to be a blessing. BUT the coolest part of all this has been to see our regular people who come to church Sunday after Sunday start to take ownership of reaching those around us. Many of our people are actively looking for ways throughout the week to be a blessing to our neighbors, and in doing so point them to the God of the universe who loves them and cares for them and wants to have a personal relationship with them. It's exciting to see our people really live out their faith. So as a result of our church consciously striving to be a blessing, we have done things like put together care bags for the homeless/needy in our neighborhood and gone and passed them out, we put together the "Healthiest Weekend Ever" with the help of some college groups who came and worked with us to promote the event as well as one of our partner churches, First Baptist Kingfisher, who helped out BIG TIME with the whole weekend. Most recently we partnered again with Full Element Martial Arts to have one of the largest Easter egg hunts in the Bronx, and blessed our neighbors with free donuts and church right there in the park immediately after the egg hunt. Praise God we had 9 new people come check out our church and over 40 who stayed for the service!

     

   

 

   

 

     Church planting is hard y'all. You can ask Jordan. I complain too often, and there have been many tears....most recently like this past Sunday morning right before church. However, it is much needed work. There are several people we have actively shared the gospel with just in recent days who are choosing not to accept it. Please pray for a harvest, pray for an awakening....we cannot do it without you, we cannot do it without the mighty hand of God. In spite of those we know who are not accepting the truth, Jordan and I truly believe God is doing something special here. I'll end with one more story. Just this past Sunday morning right before Jordan's message we were talking all together with our church about who had an opportunity during the week to be a blessing to someone. We had one person speak up and say he didn't know who the blessing was really for but he was taken aback that his neighbor, who he has lived by for years in the same building, showed up at church and they were sitting by each other. Neither one knew the other would be there. God is building His church here in Pelham Parkway.