"Airportant Thoughts," or just travel worthy

I am currently sitting in the Tampa International Airport at 9:03 AM Florida time. As I was sitting here, wondering what to do, I decided I would do a random blog about my observations here at TIA...and thoughts, too, maybe

• First, I think it genius that they have free wireless here. It's like when you have a lap-top, your brain is wired to here all the laptop jargon. I was being jumbled through security, being asked to take my coat, shoes, and about everything else off when I heard them say they have free wireless. Bingo.
• While going through security at the airport, the security gentleman asked me to take my laptop out of my SC carry on bag. Oh boy. I unzipped it and unstrapped and hooked every corner but ONE and the guy was like, "Oh, nevermind, just put it back." No comment.
• I do appreciate all the security at airports, to say the least...especially after all the incidents over the holidays! They are really good about buckling down and making things as safe as humanly possible.
• I heard onthe radio the other day that a fad of the 2000 decade has been the growth and obsession with Starbucks. Sure. Then I saw two old ladies in wheel chairs, like 80, with their Starbucks. Okay, I wholeheartedly agree.
• I love how every restaurant in an airport turns into a restaurant that serves breakfast. Quiznos, Chili's....etc.
• I love how the "Observation Deck" is code for "Smoke Deck" -- just call it what it is!
• They always have movies about falling in love in the airport, or living in the airport. Oh, how honestly boring! The airport is SO boring.
• TIA does play good music. They played "New Soul" by Yael Naim, most of you probably know it from the IPOD commercial. I watched my bro and sis sit listening and moving silently to their IPODs, it was like a live commercial. haha.
• Over the break, I found these PINK sunglasses. They were pink rimmed, with pink lenses. I've decided that I LOVE a pink world. Everywhere you look, it's pink. I LOVE pink. Haha, I may miss color sometimes, though.
• I think it's cool how, in three hours, I will be in KS
• I could never travel for a living. Traveling makes me have narcolepsy. I fall asleep everywhere, all the time...and I am still tired! I feel like my friend, Lauren.
• Finally, when it comes to breaks, and what-not, I've decided I like being the "Leaver" rather than the "Leavee." The "leavee" always get's screwed. You, know? Like when you're little and your parents leave you with grandma to go on a cruise. They're the leavers, and you're the leavee. Now when you're the leaver, you're busy, so it's quite naturally the better position to be in. Being the leavee, you have like 2498948782 more hours in a day because you are either bored, or you miss the person that left you. As they say, the length of a minute has always depended on what side of the bathroom door you're on.

Thanks for listeing to my very "airportant" thoughts. Until next year, blessings and peace.

Name Me!

I've been thinking a lot about how God re-names people in the Bible lately. Examples: Abram is re-named Abraham, Sarai into Sarah, Saul into Paul. If God re-named me who would I be? I'm thinking Holly is a good bet. Hehe :P.

A Glorious Awakening!

It's been awhile since I have posted. I just wanted to jot this down while it was still fresh in my mind. Things have been going amazingly well with the prayer room effort. God has continuously been providing in ways that are unfathomable! This past Sunday we started decorating the prayer room with the supplies we have had donated. Jessica's home church and her Grandma's church have been amazing supports! We are also gearing up for 46 Hours of unbroken prayer this weekend. Unfortunately, because of library policy, we couldn't do our 46 hours of prayer in the library where our new prayer room is going to be, so we decided to rent out another hall on campus called "Wroten." It's a much bigger room with a whiteboard and will still require some decorating, but that's the wonderful and fun part! We are so excited about what God's going to do through this prayer weekend. After the prayer weekend, the prayer room in the library will be open for good during library hours and will be available to all students and staff. Tonight, Jessica and I led prayer group and we decided that we would ask everyone in prayer group to come down and help us "consecrate" the room for about 45 minutes or so. Usually our group runs anywhere from 5 to 7 people. Tonight there were 11 there, including one person who we've been praying specifically for! He's a guy we know on our campus who is on the brink of really committing to Jesus. Jessica started out prayer group with the purple journal I've referred to in earlier posts about the prayer room, and she read some of the prayers from years past. We told them our story and how we felt called by the Lord to do this prayer room thing, then we went down and asked everyone to help us consecrate the room. Currently we have three walls -- the "Welcome Wall" which tells people what the prayer room is about and includes some prayers from the purple prayer journal, the "Word Wall," which is for bible verses and other things the Lord's been speaking to people, and last of all we have the "Wailing Wall," which is a wall dedicated to prayer requests. While we were all off praying, writing, painting and drawing everyone was so dedicated. People were crying and praying over one another and hugging. Students were hanging their prayers and art all over the new walls. Then, at the very end, we all huddled in a circle and put our arms around one another and three students -- Jessica, Derreck, and Mariam led us in corporate prayer. IT WAS AMAZING. The spirit was so alive in the room, people were still crying silent tears and voicing loud "Yes's" in agreement to prayer. Afterwards, we had students stay around to talk to one another while a couple of other students spent time writing and drawing. The whole thing, which started at 9:15 p.m. was officially over at 11:30p.m. God is already doing an amazing work and I cannot wait to see what He does as this weekend approaches, and as this year continues. Thank you for all of your prayers! They mean the world. Jesus is changing students around here, He's giving beauty for ashes and bringing fresh restoration to those who are broken and lost in this mediocre world. It's truly a blessing.

Please keep praying! We'd love for you to pray specifically for our campus, our students, and also a couple of specific guys on campus who are really searching and finding Jesus. Pray for a breakthrough this weekend. A glorious awakening is taking place, of this I AM confident. God's moving. It's not about us, but about Him alone.

Blessings!

Seasons

For those following,

Things have been going well around here. Life, like always, has been quite busy and we've seemed to completely by-pass fall, which I am rather bummed about. 45-50 degree weather shouldn't be allowed yet ;). I am, however, enjoying the beauty of fall--especially here in Winfield and at SC. It seems like God hand paints our campus every fall, and as a girl from Western Kansas where there's no tree in sight, I LOVE it! That's been great. Our campus, over the past week has had somewhat of a hard time. One of our fellow students and his family lost his parents in a tragic car accident last week, another student lost his brother to an illness, another his cousin in a car accident, and I had a friend that lost one of her high school classmates in a car accident.

Looking back, last week was a week of challenges. As things were happening, there would be so many times that I would be in prayer asking God "why!?" Sometimes we just don't understand--sometimes we will never fully understand purpose and tragedy until we see God face-to-face. Through it all, I felt God telling me, very clearly in fact, to hold on to the knowledge that "He is good." Grief is an interesting thing. It's something that is so difficult to see and even more difficult to go through. However, it has such a bonding quality. I've never seen our campus come together more than they have since last week.

Today, chapel was quite the blessing. The student whose parents passed last week was there to sing and help lead with all of his heart in worship--a very touching sight and a testimony of faith to many. Another couple of ours at SC also got engaged at chapel today! It was very sweet. Chapel was packed out with many SC students and staff to come together and celebrate--a very different feel and theme from last week's chapel. Last week, the SC family came to grieve and realize that in life, there is a time for sadness. This week, the SC family came together to celebrate, and realize that in life, there is also a time for joy!

At the end of chapel today, I yet again heard God's voice in my heart whisper "See, I am good...." and He didn't just say that to prove a point and I don't just say that because today was a day of joy. Without last weeks sorrow, this week would have been "joyful" in a very different way. I don't exactly understand the mystery of grief, but I know there are seasons of it and those seasons contribute to the joy factor that follows. SC had a valley last week--the lowest one at that, but our "mountain" was only as high as it was this week because of our sorrow last week. I am not sure if this exactly makes sense, but I sure hope it does. I think it's important to pick up on.

May I pass on the message again, and again, and again....

God is indeed good. He's good.

And may we believe it again, and again, and again

House of Prayer, anyone?

So awhile back at the end of August (I beleive), I posted a blog about how God had really been moving through my heart and my mind to start a prayer room on the SC campus. I had talked with my friend, Jessica about it and she had some of the same feelings over the summer, too. Eventually our Greek language class got cancelled and we needed an extra class to bump our schedules back up to 16 credit hours. On a long shot, we confronted our campus minister, Ashlee Alley and told her what God was doing in our hearts. We then asked her if she wouldn't mind overseeing a 3-hour Independent Study class on prayer. To say the least, God has really been exploding lately! Jessica and I are reading a book for our class called "Deep Unto Deep" by Dana Candler. It's a book about personal prayer. Dana Candler is a prayer leader at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City. One of our assignments for our class is to interview prayer leaders. Because of that, Jessica and I decided it would be fun and beneficial to visit IHOP in Kansas City over Fall break in October and I also contacted Dana Candler to see if we could possibly meet with her. She ended up e-mailing me back saying that she would love to meet with us and if she couldn't she said she'd try to find someone else from the International House of Prayer to meet with us! Way cool or what?

Also, another organization called Campus America is headquartered in Kansas City. Campus America is simply an organization that promotes 24/7 prayer and seasons of 24/7 prayer on college campuses. I heard a man named Pete Greig speak at the June Desperation Conference over the summer in Colorado Springs about the 24/7 prayer movement. He is actually one of the founders of Campus America. I figured since they are headquartered in Kansas City, too it might be fun to try to meet with some people from the Campus America team. Just today I got an e-mail back from one of the girls on staff saying she would set up a meeting for us with some of their leaders! How exciting!

Also, today Jessica and I went to talk to Ashlee Alley about some things that had been going on in our "class time." About a week ago, Jessica and I went into the small chapel that is in the library and we found a book of prayers. The book is dated from 2000 up till now. We read the book and ended up taking to to read through the prayers. Many of the prayers ask God that He would show the chapel in the library to people and that people would use it. Also, many of the prayers ask God for a revival and revolution on the SC campus. When we found that book, we just knew that we should try to find out if we could make that small chapel into a prayer room. We asked Ashlee about it today and she was all for it. She told us to ask the library managers about it to see if we could possibly use it. Right after our meeting with Ashlee, we headed over to the SC library to meet with Veronica, the library manager. We told her about what we were wanting to do and she was all for it.

Throughout this whole process we've been asking God to make things smooth...we've been asking God to open up doors and told Him we'd accept challenges to make this prayer room a possibility on our campus. So today, when things went so smoothly...I don't know why we were surprised! We prayed.

I'd ask that all of you would continue to pray for this project and prayer room. Continue to pray for the students on the SC campus. God is doing amazing things through so many people. He is good! Very, very good.

We are shooting to open the prayer room on November 20 with a kick-off of worship, corporate prayer and then a season of continual 48 hour prayer on campus. We are REALLY excited for what God has in store. Keep praying!

Take Off Was Good

Yesterday, at 9:40 AM, Epic Church officially launched! Words cannot express how amazing it is to be sitting here right now writing this blog. I am honestly in awe of Epic's first "harvest." Over the summer, while working for Epic, I would pray continually for launch--launch was always "on the mind." There were times when, in prayer, I would feel so barren and honestly sometimes, I felt like things were never going to reach a harvest point. Launch was almost incomprehensible to me. I soon realized that, with churchplanting, you just never know. You do everything wandering if you're doing stuff right and then you realize that church planting is more a test of trust than anything else.

Yesterday morning while I was in my own little theatre waiting on my children, I was wondering how things were going, it was sooo hard for me not to leave my theatre and go into the big theatre at the Warren where the actual worship service was held. Even at 9:40 I had NO kids. I was really starting to freak-out a little bit. Then, at about 9:42 here come ten kids all at once into the elementary room. Nine boys and one girl. I was suuuuper excited to have ten kids--which was perfect for me. La Shawn, Da Shawn, La Shayla, Mason, Shay, Eli, Jacob, Ethan, Rylan, and Andrew--you're my first kids EVER. We worshipped and danced, then we watched our video curriculum "Kidmo" where we learned about how BIG God is. After that we talked about God and who He is...and then, my favorite part...we prayed together. I had one student volunteer to pray for us, listening to him almost made my cry just sitting there. He thanked God for Epic church and prayed for some other student's prayer requests and then he thanked God for freedom and our soldiers fighting overseas (where this came from, I don't know, I'm guessing home!). We ended our time with a game of Simon says, which actually turned into "Mason says, La Shawn says, Da Shawn says, La Shayla says..."

So, officially, Epic launched out with 180 people total. I'm guessing the rough break down of that is 30 volunteers, about 20 children in the children's ministry, and 130 people at service. What a GREAT day! Not to mention there were about 15 more kids in the actual service that didn't participate in the children's ministry...that's exciting for me!

We ended the day with a Brisket feed at the Smokes house...yummy!! I can't wait to see how God is going to provide in the coming months--even this morning I was looking at a bulletin from the main service that one of my friends brought home and I just couldn't believe it...we are actually a church! It's such a surreal feeling. God is good--I don't say that casually, He really is good. I'd ask that you'd continue to pray for the development of the Epic community God has formulated and still is formulating. For those who have been a part of Epic Church in prayer--thank you, seriously prayer has been the driving force. Now I'm just rambling...but I am SOOO very excited. These are exciting days indeed!

La-La-La-La LAUNCH!!! Prayer.

This Sunday, September 13, 2009 the church plant I work with, Epic, will be launching out for the first time in Andover. Now's the time to assemble, prayer warriors! I want to ask that you'd PRAY, PRAY, PRAY like crazy for launch this Sunday!! I am so excited to see how God is going to work in and through Epic Church and this Sunday is the official start of it all. Would you pray with me!!!!!??

I'll update after Sunday, until then...cheers to prayer!

Things are off...

Summer is practically over and I am back in Winfield at college. I would have to say, it's good to be back at SC. I've been as busy as ever, and thought I better write a blog to catch a few of you up ;). Move in was last Saturday. My wonderful parents drove up to Winfield to help me move in and then they enjoyed a little R & R themselves out at a bed in breakfast owned by a couple of professors here on campus. I think they enjoyed their time in Winfield. I moved in to an apartment type of dorm with Jessica S. my new roommate for the year. She is one of my best friends at college! I am so excited to spend the year with her. We've decorated our room in red, black, and white. We finished as of last night and things look pretty schnazzy. I will have to try to upload some photos later when I have the time.

Classes started last Wednesday. I am currently enrolled in: Old Testament, Introduction to the Church, Discipleship, Critical Issues in Health, and Logic. I was supposed to take Greek, but they couldn't find a teacher for it so it got cancelled at the last minute. However, God has really opened some doors for me in place of Greek. Over the summer, when I was at the Desperation Conference in Colorado Springs, a man named Pete Greig spoke. He is the founder of the 24/7 prayer movement in Britian and around Europe and he also is one of the founders of an organization called CampusAmerica. It just recently started and strives to start prayer movements on college campuses in America. When Greek was cancelled Jessica (my roomie) and I talked with our campus minister and discipleship coordinator about taking an indepedent study on prayer in place of Greek. She was quick to catch our vision and agreed to look over what an independent study on prayer would look like for us. Here are a few of the goals for our independent study:

• We really want to work on starting and eventually start a prayer room on campus, available to students at anytime
• We would like to do a campus-wide 48 hours of prayer event
• We are thinking about participating in a night of Desperation in Winfield (where some leaders from TheFurnace (a prayer house in Colorado Springs) come and lead a night of prayer/worship in our community)
• We are trying to decide books to read for our class...Here are some are thinking about: "Deep Unto Deep" by Dana Candler, "Red Moon Rising" by Pete Greig, "24/7 Prayer Manual" by Pete Greig, "Too Busy Not to Pray" by Bill Hybels, and "Prayer" by Richard Foster
• We want to visit some prayer houses and talk with some prayer leaders! Luckily for us, there is a prayer house in El Dorado! We are also thinking about visiting IHOP (International House of Prayer in Kansas City) or TheFurnace (In Colorado Springs)

All in all, things are going GREAT! I am so excited to see what God has in store for this semester. I am also continuing my work at Epic this semester, working with the children's ministry. Today was another preview service. Things went AWESOME! They're starting to come together. God's a-movin--that's for sure. Although blogs won't be as prominent this semester as they were this summer, I will still try to keep you all posted! Now onto homework...

You Know You Work With a Church Plant If...

So Trista and I were driving today and we were laughing at all of the STUFF I had in the back of my car. We decided we needed to post "You Know You Work With a Church Plant If..." Blog. Enjoy!

Here we go...

You know you work with a church plant if...

• It's not unusual to have nine 5 x 5 rugs, four 5 x7 carpets, two large plastic tubs, eight pool noodles, a broom, latex gloves, four yard signs with missing stands, and shopping lists scattered all around your car all at the same time.
• You go to Dillons and eat all their sample food for lunch (ex. cheese cubes, small roast beef sandwich, and canteloupe)
• You max the credit card out all the time
• You make the people at your printing place despise you because after the third time of re-filling the black ink, they're completely out of stock and you're not done yet
• One of the four-year old's that is a child of one of your launch team members runs around saying, "Hello everyone, I'm stressed out."
• You live in a basement and use rafters as your closet
• You and ONE other person can canvas (put flyers on cars) in an entire Wal-Mart parking lot in twenty minutes
• You're an EXPERT at rolling up a moon bounce
• You run out of milk and realize you have to make your macaroni with water. Then it tastes nasty, but you eat it anyway cause you're hungry
• You and your fellow intern have to split one muffin for breakfast
• You wear the same shirt at least four times a week
• You clean one house a week for some extra cash and get REALLY excited about twenty bucks
• You go to the movie theatre for church--not a movie because you can't afford it
• Going to Wal-Mart weekly is in your job description
• You really want to eat the church's ice cream out in the freezer, but you can't cause it's the church's
• Your pastor's garage is church storage
• A trailer takes residence in your driveway
• You can't even take a nap for twenty minutes because all you can think/talk about are the things you need to get done. The worst part is, when twenty minutes is up, you realize that you meant to take a nap.
• It's exciting to organize your portable church into color-coded tubs that are labeled with PINK duct tape
• You're writing this blog and you think it's funny
• You REALLY, REALLY, TRULY, love God and see Him move on a daily basis and realize that you wouldn't trade anything for the experience that you've had

An Epic Disaster Area + A Week in Pictures

WOW! We've been up to our ears in the to-do's lately. Last week Trista and I spent the majority of our week organizing everything for the children's ministry into tubs and loading the trailer. Talk about A LOT of work. We were running around all over the place. Kent and Jenni's basement looked like a disaster area. It was indeed an "Epic" disaster. Tuesday we continued on doing our summer fun days at the Andover Library and then we also participated in "National Night Out" Tuesday night. It was a fun night hosted by the Andover Police Department for the community. Thursday we had our first training meeting for all of our volunteers, which went REALLY well. WE had around 22 people there. It was a great time. Trista and I printed up around 700 peices of paper and made them into packets, etc. for training and other necessities for our children's ministry. Kent attended a conference on Thursday and Friday and then I went to see my good man, Kyle, in Mulvane on Friday/Saturday. Kyle finally got back from Project Transformation, an urban ministry in the Dallas, TX area that he had been working with all summer. It was soo good to catch up with one another and talk about how God moved during the summer! Kyle showed me probably 9834759876039 pictures from his time in Dallas. We went through each picture and he named every child in each picture. Talk about a guy with a good memory :), and talk about a guy who truly, truly loved his kids and God this summer. Kyle Just...I enjoyed seeing your heart come alive this summer, and I know those kids will miss having "Mr. Kyle" around. Cheers to PT.

On another note, we had our first "Trial Run" for our church plant on Sunday. There were a few hitches here and there, but altogether things went amazingly well. Honestly, we couldn't have asked for better volunteers. Everyone worked together SO well. I can't explain what it feels like to see what you've been working on become real...

Moses is My Friend: Thoughts on Prayer Lately

One of the things that I've been studying lately is prayer. If you know me, you know I love prayer--passionate prayer. I never used to be extremely into prayer until about a year or so ago. I had an experience where Jesus just touched me in a way through prayer that I never have forgotten. This past year, my prayer life has accelerated. I've had so many experiences
(just in the past year!!) where God will speak--where God will move. I've seen people healed, I've seen prayers answered, I've had God speak to me, and I've been surprised by God over and over again. I am currently doing my devotion time through the Psalms. The other night I was studying and praying Psalm 90. One of the most interesting things that stuck out to me about Pslam 90 is that it is a prayer of Moses. The first verse states "Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations." That is a verse that totally caught me, and really made me think. Biblical Moses was born (scholars say) between 1300 and 1150 BCE. Zoom all the way back into the book of Exodus and you will soon figure out that Moses is an old guy. Over three thousand years ago Moses was praying the same prayer I prayed--being taken care of by the same guy who's hearing all my church-planting prayers (and my Moses prayer verbatim). What a comfort it is to know that the place where Moses (an EXTREMELY powerful man of God) dwelled is the same place we go to dwell, where we go to hide. Just like our ancestors and those who have gone before us, we all have one common dwelling place. It says from generation to generation comfort is found there.
I've been learning a lot about prayer. One of the things God has been speaking to me lately is that prayer = persistence. You'll find parables about persistence in the Gospels. Luke 11 is a good one. One day I was praying for Andover and Epic and I just started to wonder if God ever got tired of hearing the same thing over and over again, so I asked Him. He gave me this image...I saw a child who really wanted a specific Christmas present. The child kept asking her parents for it everyday, she dreamed of it, she thought of it, she wanted it. She was persistent in her thoughts and her desires. Eventually, because of her persistence and her patient heart, she woke up Christmas morning to her present underneath the tree, her parents smiling in the background. It was then that I realized that God wants us to desire what we ask for, he wants us to be persistent in our asking. He wants us to fight for the good. We are only persistent for things that really mean a lot to us. For me, that has been Epic. It's good, it's true. I want, I desire to see people know Jesus. I trust God sees that obedience and hears that prayer.
To end on a good note, I finished going through Pslam 90, learning a lot and being very encouraged by Moses' note at the very end. His prayer, and a new one of mine is this:

"May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us--yes establish the work of our hands." (Pslam 90:17)

• (Addendum to Moses' Prayer by Molly: "Teach us to be persistent!" Someone, somewhere is putting that into the Bible. Jk of course ;))

Anyway, Good one, Moses. I like.

It's beginning to look a lot like LAUNCH...

This past week was a full one. Sunday we observed at Aviator Church (another church plant that launched a year ago in Derby, KS). We left Andover at about 6:40 AM to observe their set-up at 7:00. An early morning, but it was a great time of learning and observation. Monday we had our first official staff meeting, which went excellent. We spent some time catching one another up in our personal areas and we also spent time just praying for the community of Andover and for launch. Tuesday we hosted yet another "Summer Fun Day" at the Andover Library. The library group is starting to become a bit more consistent, so it's nice to meet new people as well as catch up with mom's and kiddos we've met before. Many are starting to really show a great interest in launch. Wednesday, I got to spend most of my day planning for children's ministry. I started planning Sunday's out and worked on reviewing our children's ministry curriculum, Kidmo. Whoo!! So wonderful. Thursday, we hosted another "Summer Fun Day" at the Library, and rested Friday. Saturday, the real excitement started. Central Christian Church, another church in East Wichita is partnering with Epic and supporting us by allowing us to come into their Saturday night Service, 5:33, and ask for volunteers on Sunday morning to help us get Epic up and running. We were officially introduced this past Saturday night during service. Central has such a heart for church planting. After service we were able to connect with some potential volunteers. It was an AWESOME time for us. God really showed us himself that night. Each person that we talked with fit in places where we need people to fit! It was so exciting. This morning, Kent, Jory, Damion and I headed out at about 10:00 AM and did some door-to-door advertising and this evening we met with our launch team for a worship service and a time of fellowship at a local park! The days are busy but good. Keep praying, harder now than ever! God is GOOD.

The Adventure Continues...

And the adventure continues. So much has been going on the past couple of weeks, I can't believe it's already mid-July and summer's closing up! Well I have done lots of traveling in the past few weeks. I went from Colorado Springs to Dallas to Joplin. I was the camp missionary at Cyokamo Camp about a week and a half ago. That was a wonderful time! I got to hang out with kids (400 or so to be exact) and talk a little bit about church planting with them. They were a pretty awesome bunch. They raised over $1,500 for Epic Missions. Such a blessing! Then, last Sunday, we partnered with the YMCA in Andover to do, what we call, "Summer Countdowns." Epic comes in and we set up our moonbounces, have free-throw contests, prizes, and homemade Italian Creme Sodas (My Personal fav). Yum, Yum! On Tuesday we hosted "Summer Fun Days" at the Andover Library and that was a wonderful time as well. Again, we set up our moonbounces, handed out free popsicles, blew bubbles, drew with sidewalk chalk and hung out with kids. We sat up to meet the kids and their moms right after story hour concluded. One of the coolest things about church planting has been getting out into the community and just meeting families. Jory, our brand new worship pastor also came on Tuesday. Our staff is now up to 5...woo! He's here for good and is preparing for launch. Wednesday night we had a "Welcome" BBQ for him and a bunch of people came over to our house for that. Also on Wednesday night, Trista and I attended our first midnight premier--yes, we went to see Harry Potter (nerds, I know)! We also went bulk shopping for our children's ministry. That was AWESOME. I can't wait to start up and meet the kiddos! As we are getting closer please be praying for this stuff:

• Perseverance, perseverance, perseverance and strength!!
• Our launch team and our new worship pastor, Jory
• The Epic community God is formulating...
• ANDOVER (seriously this is huge)
• Our mass advertising day on August 29th and youth groups/small groups to help us out
• LAUNCH on September 13, 2009 (Can't wait, I'm so antsy!)

Oh, How He Loves Us

This morning, I literally woke up singing "Oh, how He loves us." Kind of funny, but I just felt like it was God's way of telling me "Good Morning." Lately I've been reading in the Psalms and I keep noticing how David constantly asks God to pour out his unfailing love, or refers to God's unfailing love. There is something about love that makes me so...giddy, so I did a Wikipedia search.

Wikipedia says:
Love is any of a number of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection[1] and attachment. Love is an extremely powerful emotion; it can be irresistible and people are often bound to pursue their love interests.

Scripture says, in 1 John, that God is love. And also, that perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment. So many times, when I ask people what their thoughts are about God, I get the consistent thought and answer that God is kind of "scary," or that God is a "party pooper" he's just "sitting around waiting to take all of the fun out of the world." Oh, how this breaks my heart! What we are not understanding is love itself. St. Augustine says that the only one that can truly love is God because human love allows flaws, such as, jealousy, anger, suspicsion, and fear. He says that to love God is to "attain the peace, which is yours." When we truly believe we are loved people and when we truly accept God's love, we are able to grasp love fully. Love is such a divine gift, one that I only believe the Spirit can truly reveal to us. It is when we are safe and secure in that perfect love that we are able to go out and love others powerfully, and all of a sudden God isn't the "party pooper," he's not the guy that is constantly taking "fun" away...He is just, beautiful. There is no fear in Him. God pursues us constantly because we are his love interests. How many of us truly miss that? There will be times during prayer where I will just sit and repeat over and over: "I love you, I love you, I love you. You love me, you love me, you love me." And God will just explode in my heart. Love is power, it's beauty, it's fearless, and God is the epicenter of that. OH, how he loves us.

I want to share the lyrics from "Oh, how he loves us" written by John Mark McMillan. They are so very powerful!

He is jealous for me. Love's like a hurricane, I am a tree bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy. When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory and I realize just how beautiful You are and how great your affections are for me.

Oh, how He loves us so Oh, how He loves us How He loves us so.

So we are His portion and He is our prize, Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes, If grace is an ocean we're all sinking. So heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss and my heart turns violently inside of my chest, I don't have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way...

Oh, how He loves us so Oh, how He loves us How He loves us so.

Molly's Travels + Desperation Photos

These are some pictures from the Desperation Conference that we went to last weekend. Most of these are just pictures of our group! Seven girls and one boy--Russell Harp, you're a brave one, sir! Kudos to Emily Hubbard--the amazing photographer, and all around amazing girl! Anyways, most pictures are pretty self-explanatory. There are some of worship towards the bottom and also there is one of our candle lighting ceremony. That was the last night of the conference and we had a candle-lighting ceremony to symbolize the conference's theme "Light Up The World." It was pretty powerful--that all happened after our group took up a $16,000 love offering to build an orphanage in Uganda. God really showed his grace through his people that night. Pretty awesome stuff!
This past weekend was a fun time. I went to Dallas with my friend, Lauren to visit another of ours, Kyle, who is doing Project Transformation--an urban ministry in the Dallas area. We all had great fun spending time with one another again, summer is long when you're in college! You don't realize how close you've become with the people there until you have to leave them for 3 months! We went to a waterpark, a Ranger's game, and celebrated the 4th in the Dallas heat. And, of course, I didn't walk away as pale, I have a lovely sunburn from the Texas sun even after applying and re-applying sunscreen. But, then again, I guess it wouldn't have been an authentic experience without it...Kyle IS always complaining about that sun.
This week I'm headed to Joplin, MO to take on the camp missionary position at a children's camp. Should be a great time. Prayers for strength and safe travel would be much appreciated. I'll keep you posted.....with that all said....enjoy these Desperation photos!

Desperation 2009: Light Up The World

This past weekend, I had the privilege of attending the Desperation Conference at New Life Church in Colorado Springs. This is a conference I attended for the first time last year and fell absolutely in love with. It focuses a lot on passionate prayer and worship. This year, we rounded up a crew of eight and headed back. The theme this year was "Light Up The World." Pretty SWEET conference if I do say so myself, I would recommend it to anyone! The Spirit was moving and so alive, it was absolutely amazing.

Here are some highlights from the trip...

• First and foremost, I have to say I love, love, love this conference so much because of the spiritual preparation that goes into it. New Life's staff is absolutely amazing, they are so open to the Spirit. They put a lot into what they do! They put A LOT into Desperation each year and the conference itself thrives because of it.
• Friday night, during worship, everyone completely let go. It was probably one of the most amazing worship services I've ever been a part of...the sanctuary was going nuts. It was amazing. I honestly never wanted to leave. Tiny taste of Heaven!
• Kari Jobe = Amazing worship leader! She led with Desperation Band friday night and just radiated Jesus. It was so inspiring to watch her lead and worship. Such a beautiful woman of God.
• Saturday, during evening worship with Desperation band, we had a very similar experience to friday. It was worship full of complete surrender. D-Band ended up straying off of their original playlist somewhat and Jared Anderson started leading "I Surrender All." After that song, it was then that Jon Egan, the head worship leader, spoke. He said "You know I really believe what Jared Anderson just did was a form of prophetic worship. There are some people that need to surrender tonight." He started calling out certian situations and certain things people needed to surrender. People were literally just falling on the ground being renewed and accepting Jesus. It was so amazing. The Spirit was so heavy and fresh in the room.
• The Desperation June Conference of 2009 ended up raising $16,000 dollars in an offering that went towards building an orphanage in Uganda.
• Our group of 8 had an hour long prayer meeting Sunday morning before service. It was such a great way to end our conference time together. We were in a prayer huddle, with our arms around each other praying for one another. It was such a powerful time.

Here are also some key quote from the speakers! I love to recap these! Such powerful messages.

• The Following quotes are by David Perkins
• There is a level of joy that no human being can rob you of--fullness of joy is available.
• Joy in Jesus doesn't change or depend on outward circumstances
• When you're sucking joy out of the world, it's ashes
• We will be going back to a culture that mocks. If you're lighting up the world and looking anything like Jesus, they will treat you like they treated him.
• Surely as they laughed at our Savior, they'll laugh at you
• When you come in with a gospel that cuts pride, arrogance, dishonesty, etc. people are gonna be ticked
• There will be uncomfortable moments for the Christ Follower. Jesus was Mr. Awkward.
• Holiness is lonely for most. You start to set a standard and people are bugged by it.
• Don't crucify the guy you're trying to be like. Conversations of mockery are coming. Just saying. You must be ready to face the onset of mockery.
• Blessed are you, in your lifetime, when people laugh, insult and persecute you
• Brady Boyd (Lead Pastor of New Life)
• God doesn't just love, he is love
• You have to know what is true about God or you can't be free, you can't enter into worship
• As humans we fall into three categories: We are either orphans, slaves, or sons
• The church needs moms and dads, but we cannot be moms and dads until we are sons and daughters
• Sonship doesn't change in Jesus' freedom
• God isn't always interested in what we're doing, but rather, who we're becoming
• If who I am is what I do, then I am a slave. Slaves are convinced that they can be demoted at anytime.
• Sons are free to love dad. When we're sons and daughters, we are motivated because we want to please God because He's been a good father. Why would you want to disappoint someone you love? Sons aren't afraid of being replaced.
• Dan Perkins (Internship Director)
• I like the idea of flipping the world upside down
• There is depth in God to be had for those who truly want it
• There's something about others experiencing God that is inspiring
• Depth in God is cultivated, it's relationship
• Relationships diminish when you don't pay attention to them, but when you get to know someone, everything else comes alive
• Sometimes, we "football smile" our way through our relationship with Jesus
• We've heard the phrase "God loves you" so often that it's kind of unbelievable anymore.
• We know the words "God loves you." but we don't understand the reality of them
• Loved people are powerful and dangerous people. Loved people are dangerous to the kingdom of darkness
• Love is passion for someone's highest good
• God lavishes his love on us in ways we don't even realize. We turn blind eyes to blessings a lot of the time.
• It's exciting when you realize that God loves you.
• Brent Parsley (Youth Pastor for New Life Church)
• We're not going to do the things God wants us to do until we're changed. You don't have to have the best ideas you just need to be changed
• Don't argue with the blind that can see and the lame that can walk
• We try so hard and wrestle with God because we want him to love us. He already wants to give us the good things of life. WE are the ones with the issues.
• You don't have to bend God's arm, just let him love you. It starts and ends with his love.
• You don't have to impress God, he's already impressed, he made you.
• Live a life that is self-forgetful and outward looking
• Let your self-sacrifice come out of God's love for you, then pass that onto others
• A self-sacrificed lifestyle is birthed out of love
• The goal of the gospel has never been to get, but to give
• Amy Perkins
• You're heart matters, and someday, it will be rewarded
• Don't become victim to your own circumstances--don't let your circumstances immobolize you
• Jesus often says to us, "You feel dark, but you're lovely to me because you want this."
• When you say "yes" to God, it matters
• Seizing small moments can do wonders for your heart
• Live a disciplined life. Discplined people are world changers.
• Take your heart and set it before God's heart. God will come. He will start to melt and tenderize your heart if you're willing to give it to Him.
• Pete Greig (Started 24/7 Prayer Movement in England and is starting CampusAmerica)
• God's will for us is that we would pray, play, and obey
• Prayer is a lot like sex. Out of intimacy with God can come a miracle and a mess
• You learn to pray by praying
• All good youth work is a work of horomones and Holy Spirit (lol)
• It's easy to have things in life that give us second hand spiritual experiences. Cut the middle man out and get together and talk with God.
• Pray like it all depends on God and play like it all depends on you
• Prayer propels us out to speak for Jesus and be his hands and feet
• Glenn Packiam (Author of Secondhand Jesus)
• We often rely on people to walk our walk for us and we expect people to tell us who God is insteand of figuring it out for ourselves.
• Our view of God often becomes a patch-work of second hand information
• Ask yourself, "Do you know Jesus more this year than you did last?"
• Anytime we trade an active, living relationship with God for something second-hand, death enters in
• For love I will set myself apart to know God
• "BRING IT"
• We can't be lights if we've never been on the journey ourselves
• John McDonald (Youth Pastor from Illinois)
• The more you gaze on the face of Jesus with the eyes of your heart, the more you're able to fully be alive; the more you attract Heaven's attention
• We have power and authority as sons and daughters that can shake the foundations of hell
• If you're going to be filled fully, you must yield to God first
• Replace everything that is of you, with everything that is of God
• Beth Diehl (3rd year DLA intern for New Life)
• God knows our hearts need more
• We often see life through our own eyes. Looking at the world through God's eyes can be a very different experience
• Through God's lens things are exciting. There is joy in life.
• Leeland Mooring (Lead singer of the band Leeland)
• God, you love us and you like us

An Ode to the Dads!

Crazy days in the life of church planting, crazy days, my friends! All last week we spent A LOT of time gearing up for Dad Fest, a celebration to honor all the dad's in the Andover/Wichita area. Trista and I ended up printing and canvasing around 1,700 flyers! Crazy! Office This (where we do printing) probably wasn't too excited about all of our flyers. We ran their black ink completely out of stock. Haha. Anyways, we had a lot planned for Dad Fest, including free hot dogs, root beer floats, prizes, and a moon bounce for the kids. We partnered with a local restaurant called Stooges, and planned on using their parking lot and stuff for our event...

Then, Saturday came. And Saturday came with RAIN. Woot, woot for weather. We ended up doing our event under an awning at Stooges and weren't able to use the moon bounce. However, everything else went pretty well, and despite the weather we had an awesome turn out. The launch team kids decided pretty early on that moon bounces were overrated anyway,and just went out and played in the rain. They had a puddle-jumping ministry of their own and most of the kids at Dad Fest ended up going out to play with them anyway. It was so fun to watch them. They were having a blast! Dad Fest wasn't exactly like we planned, but it was great to meet new people, and honor all of the dads in the area!

So, as Father's Day is upon us, and before I close, I wanted to take a minute to honor MY dad. My dad is Russell Leroy Komlofske. He's, hands down, the best dad around. He's an awesome provider, in every way, and is just a really big goof! He also makes the best pancakes and french toast in the whole world. Did I mention that he's an excellent griller? He's also a dreamer...he likes to make things happen, and he always has a positive attitude. What can I say, I just love my dad!

So here's to today, love on those dads!

Work Worth Doing

Psalm 40. Read it. Last night, in the middle of prayer during my devo time, I was completely overwhelmed by the Spirit. I was praying for the community of Andover and I was overcome with a sense of urgency and passion. I was somewhat bothered by a comment that had been made to me earlier that day about having a job in ministry for the summer and how it's not a "real job." It made me really stop and think. Which is where Pslam 40 comes in. Psalm 40 is probably one of my favorite pieces of scripture. It was never one that stuck out to me until last year when I was at a prayer meeting at a conference in Colorado Springs. I was in a room of about 45 people and they were praying, participating in intercession and praying scripture all over the place. There was one specific moment when a woman in the room started reading Pslam 40 and my ears were just drawn to her voice as she read. Every time I read it or quote it now, I can only hear her. She read it and prayed after with such passion. As I was reading last night the Lord just kept speaking "trust" to me. That Psalm is all about trust. It's about being a sinner saved by grace who trusts in someone higher and greater.

You know, there should be so many reasons why planting this church should not work. Kent, Trista and I were in prayer this morning and we all three just kept saying, we don't have enough money, we don't have enough people, we don't have enough this, we don't have enough that, BUT what we do have is Jesus. That's enough. That seals the deal. He is someone that can't ever be taken away. To me, God has been preparing my heart for this summer and this opportunity for a very long time. It's not about money, or resources, or having it all together to me because God has never failed me before. He's always provided. He's a good dad. That makes this as "real" to me as ever.

As I was at the throne of God in prayer last night I just kept asking for God to pour out his love on the people of Andover who don't know Him. I've honestly never been so passionate about anything in my life. This stuff is real. Because of Christ's love, I can freely run to God's throne where I belong everyday, but other people cannot. People are lost. If I may blog bluntly, this world is asleep. It's asleep and the bridegroom is coming. This is the most real job I've ever had. I may not be paid a fortune, but I hope, one day, I get to see people in Heaven who otherwise might not have been there if it wasn't for Epic Church. The work that God is doing around here is real. It's important. Therefore, I trust in the one who has no limits-- my deliverer, and above all, my provider. This is work, to me, that is worth doing.

P.S. Jory said YES to the worship position! Guess what that means beautiful people? We have a worship pastor! WEEEEEEEEEEE!!

Service, burning for Jesus, Date night with Peter!

Another great weekend has come and gone! Yesterday Epic volunteered at the new YMCA in Andover. The Y just recently opened, and their outdoor water park's grand opening was yesterday. We helped grill free hot dogs, hand out free pop, baseball tickets, and sign people up for door prize drawings! It was pretty awesome to get out and serve in the community. We met tons of cool people and had the chance to chat it up with them. I also got a ridiculous sunburn on the back of my leg...burning for Jesus. The things we do...:) just kidding. But really, if you ever get the chance to check out the Andover water park...NIKE (just do it)!!!! It's pretty sweet. I wanted to trade in my epic shirt for a swim suit yesterday and take a ride on the lazy river. So fresh.

Also, last night, Kent and Jenni went out to dinner and a movie with a couple that we met at the Marble Slab one Tuesday night so Trista and I got to have a date night with our favorite 9 month-old stud, Peter Wagner! Great times at the Wagner household. Then, this morning, we headed over to attend church at Gracepoint, a 6 year-old church plant in Wichita. They meet at Northwest High School, and are gearing up and getting ready to head into a permanent facitility sometime in 2010. It was awesome to be a part of their family for a Sunday. The atmosphere was so real. People were themselves. That's what I really appreciated about Gracepoint. My favorite part of the service came when the pastor called for people who needed prayer to stand up. Then, people around them just went and laid hands on those who needed prayer. I loved that. There's such a bond in praying together.

Tonight we have a launch team meeting at the Y, and we are spending the rest of the afternoon relaxing and gearing up for another week.

Weekend, Worship and the Warren!

Greetings from our office at Panera :). This past weekend was a great time of fun and fellowship for all of us at Epic. Our potential worship candidate, Jory, came to visit from Kentucky. We got to hang with him for the weekend, so that was pretty sweeeeeeeeeeet! He was an all around awesome guy and seemed to fit in well with Epic. Please be praying for Jory and for Epic during this time. A lot of decisions will be made in the next couple of weeks concerning the worship position.

Trista and I were also able to chill with her family this weekend. They all came up for a wedding reception, so that was a blessing and a great time as well. Then, on Sunday morning, we went to Aviator Church in Derby. Aviator is a church plant that launched last August with the vision of reaching out to the Derby/Mulvane area. It was so inspiring to see God's provision in Aviator's progress. The church is headed by Joe and Michelle Boyd, Jenni's sister and brother-in-law. They are just moving right along. They meet in Derby High school and in the past few months have hired on a youth pastor and graphic designer to their team of a worship pastor and a few interns! Pretty awesome!

Also, we have been looking and trying to nail down a location for Epic to meet for services after the launch in September. Kent just informed us a few minutes ago that the location has been set. Anyone want to take a guess where Epic will be meeting? Warren Theatre!!!! Now THAT'S pretty sweet. Ha. It's been an answer to prayer for us! I believe we will have a main theatre for worship and two theatres for the children's ministry.

Please be praying for:

• Aviator Church - They are doing awesome things in Derby


• Epic, of course, and all of us here on the launch team


• That God would send His Spirit ahead of us in all that we do so that we may find and meet the people that He brought us here to reach!


• Jory and the worship position


• PRAISE: location in Warren Theatre!

SWEET!

An Epic Summer

I can't believe summer has finally arrived! It's almost JUNE! For the last few months I have been anticipating summer because of the work I get to do with Epic Church in Andover, Kansas. For those of you who don't know, Epic is a new church plant spearheaded by my high school youth pastor and his wife, Kent and Jenni Wagner. They moved to Andover in January and have been planning to do a church plant for quite awhile now. I am so stoked to love God and love people this summer and represent Epic in the most positive way possible! It's so great to be a part of team with a vision that is bigger than ourselves, and a vision that can only be fulfilled by God alone. It's amazing to see how God continually provides -- church planting is a scary thing, it's an ultimate step of faith, that's for sure. Today was my first day at work and I'm already exhausted! One of my best friends from high school, Trista, is interning with me as well so we've gotten right down to work. Both of us got jobs to head for the summer already and we've gone straight to work. Here's some of the stuff that we've worked on today and a few insights I've had already:

• I am working on heading the summer Mini-Mission teams and events that will be going on this summer. My job, in this realm, is to basically recruit groups to come help us advertise Epic to the community of Andover.
• Looking at this job, I realized how God has continually been preparing me in ways I didn't even realize throughout the school year. By being in Winfield at college for a year, I know of many potential youth groups in many of the surrouding areas that could come help us out. Everything just flowed today, it was sweeeeeet!
• I've also realized how important the power of prayer and personal relationship is during this season. I am already exhausted from work and I've only been here a day! Please pray for strength, guidance, perseverance and wisdom for all of us here on staff at Epic.
• I totally, totally dig getting to work in coffee shops and Panera bread. Woot, woot for free wi-fi AND building relationships at the same time
• Trista is working on planning block parties and other evangelistic things...pretty SWEET. This all leads up to Epic's launch on September 13, 2009. Can't wait!!

With that said, I will end this post on this note. The other day I was reading in the book of 2 Thessalonians 3:1-5, which states:

"Finally, brothers, pray for us that the message of the Lord may spread rapidly and be honored, just as it was with you. And pray that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men, for not everyone has faith. But the Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen and protect you from the evil one. We have confidence in the Lord that you are doing and will continue doing the things we command. May the Lord direct your hearts into God's love and Christ's perseverance."

Paul's request for prayer from the Thessalonians in this passage floors me, and it's really become my prayer for the community of Andover. May the message of salvation spread rapdily and be honored. And, as God's people, may our hearts be directed into his love and Christ's perseverance. What a b-e-a-utifully appropriate request!