It's Official!!!

It's Official!!!

I am beyond ecstatic to announce
Josh and I are now official members of
Ravenna Baptist Church!

Think of me saying that with absolute pure JOY!

We serve an amazing and incredible God and I'm not even sure if this blog will be able to adequately show just how much this update means to us.

We love EVERYTHING about this Church and are so very thankful God brought us to it.

Let me share the story.

Josh and I were both members of Kent City Baptist Church. I'm not sure the exact dates but Josh probably attended KCBC for more than 20 years and me probably around 15 years. It's really been the only Church I've known because I did not grow up going to Church regularly.
Around the same time we both said to each other... "What if we tried a new Church?"
We found ourselves most Sundays saying "eh, let's just stay home today!" Then I'd occasionally catch up with online sermons.

We were feeling like there just wasn't room to grow at KC. We weren't feeling connected with many and we wanted to meet new people. We also figured if we didn't find a new Church we'd just go back.

Our search began...

We tried one Church very close to home (like 5 mins away) and while I didn't want to just go one time, we knew that wasn't going to be the right fit.

I put KCBC in my GPS and it was 12 minutes away. We then googled other Churches so the we tried Ravenna Baptist Church which was also 12 minutes away (so we figured well at least we don't have to go any farther)!

(If we had to drive an hour to get to Ravenna Baptist Church... I would want to!) ;)

(I'm going to leave names out for now because I don't want to miss anyone)

So August 12th 2018 was our first Sunday at RBC. We were greeted and smiled at by many but a couple introduced themselves. The wife said "just so you know, this is not our typical Church service right now, our Senior Pastor is on a sabbatical and all of our children's ministry staff is off for the month of August". The husband did the sermon and we found out later the wife was the Church Secretary. We loved the sermon and we loved that everyone was so welcoming and friendly.
The girls were kind of bummed there wasn't anything for them to do but we knew we wanted to go back. We said that if we enjoyed it this much without all the regular stuff going on we need to at least keep coming until everyone is back in September.

I started listening to our Senior Pastor online to listen to some of his sermons and I really loved those as well.

Since August 12th I believe I've only missed 1 Sunday and Josh maybe 2.

We feel like we are a part of an extremely loving family and Sunday is my new favorite day and I can't wait to see our family. The girls have made some friends and it has been so wonderful.

We've been excited to be able to plug into many areas.

Josh and I both attend our Bible Studies.
I attended our Womens Retreat in October.
Josh will be attending our Mens Retreat in March. He will also be a member of our missions team and will be going to Manila Philippines in May on his 2nd missions trip. (Which is fully funded already) Praise God.

We are on the list as door greeters, Nursery workers (the girls too), and I was able to set up our Ravenna Baptist Women's Facebook group.

The girls went on their first winter retreat and are loving Wednesday night Awana, Youth Group, and Sunday Schools. They love it at RBC too and were very bummed when they couldn't go because of the weather recently.

I will also eventually be able to be on our Praise team and I can not wait.

I can't wait to see where God takes us with all these opportunities.

We have incredible Pastors (& families) and I'm excited to continue to get to know them all.

Let's talk about friendships...
Even just saying that almost brings me to happy tears because I can't even put into words how amazing it has been to feel like we have met so many amazing people and have so many new friends. I've never experienced the love like the love of our family at RBC. To know we have friends who pray for us. To know we have friends that we could count on if we're in need. To know we have true friends. Sometimes I think... pinch me...

Except - nope! God is so good and He knew exactly what He was doing when he pushed us here. His timing is so very perfect.

So all glory and praise be to our amazing God for  new beginnings, these people, and this Church.

I feel like there is so much more I'd like to include but for now I'll leave it at this.

Our sermons lately have been Our God is Greater. They've been exactly what I need to hear. Today was God is greater than our future.

We went through some of John 14, Matthew 6, and Philippians 4. Many verses that I need to have written everywhere to memorize them.

I decided in January that my key word for 2019 needed to be TRUST. Trust God. Trust that all will be ok. Just trust. That word was in today's sermon.

While I often pray about something, feel like I let it go, and then take it back...I want to just put my full trust in God.

There has been a new fire lit within me. I have wanted to open my Bible more than I ever have and it has made Sunday my new favorite day.

If you made it this far. Thank you to our new RBC family for being you. We are thankful for your love and friendship. I am looking forward to getting to know you all even better. You are cherished beyond words.

We cannot wait to see what God has for our future and God willing we will be members for our lifetime.

I'm going to post some pictures on Facebook. ♡