At ELI we get the incredible pleasure of hearing amazing stories from church planters such as yourselves, people tearing down walls and building bridges into people’s lives. Here is a fresh story that will inspire you (from Verve church in Las Vegas, as told by Krystal Altman):
Tommy recently had the honor of baptizing our friend Mike. Who is Mike? Well, almost 2 years ago, Brodie met a little boy named Adam at Verve. I soon set up a play date with Kristina – his mom – to get the boys together. Kristina, Adam (3) and her daughter Miley (5) were living with Kristina’s boyfriend, Mike.
We hit it off right away, but soon Kristina pulled me aside.
“I have to tell you…we’re moving. We’re moving to Washington State at the end of the month.” We were bummed! They were moving. However, try as they might, they were struggling to rent their existing house in Vegas and find a new one in Washington.
About a week after our play date, Kristina was at my house in tears. Mike had gone out one night and not come home. She confided some of his story to me. Mike had a history of addiction, having just spent 7 years in prison for cocaine; he was also an alcoholic. So, occasionally, wouldn’t come home.
I immediately began to try to help Kristina and her kids. We offered our home for them to stay so she could get on her feet. It wasn’t an easy situation for several reasons. First, she had only been attending Verve for a couple of weeks, and did not know God, coming from a completely unchurched background. Secondly, she loved Mike and didn’t want to leave him. Thirdly, Mike is an engineer; he earned well and provided for them so she hadn’t had to work. Kristina decided to stay with Mike, but not move to Washington.
I spent a lot of time with Kristina, who is in one of my Micro Groups. She began to discover who God is and that he loves her unconditionally. I soon had the honor of baptizing Kristina as she made the decision to enter into a relationship with God. Weeks later, Mike finally agreed to come to church, because, “I have to meet this best friend “Brodie” that Adam keeps talking about.” Mike was very skeptical. He’s intellectual and felt he couldn’t blindly believe in God.
Over the last year and a half our families have done life together. We’ve had birthdays, Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. I was in Kristina and Mike’s wedding. We have prayed a lot for Mike. He has watched skeptically over the last couple of years and discovered that our God is real and that he wants a relationship with Him.
And so, Tommy had the awesome honor of baptizing Mike a few weeks ago.
Mike’s words? “I’ve been watching. And I’ve seen the changes in the lives of those around me. I would like to have that also.”
We say Verve is a “church for people who don’t like church” and it very much is. Because of this, we reach people who are really far from God. Most of them take a very long time to grow in their relationship with God before they are ready to trust Him and decide to follow Jesus.
Mike is a perfect example of this. It took him two years of observing the life change in Kristina and observing Tommy and I to see if the God we followed was “real.”
I have seen Mike go from the cocaine addict/alcoholic living with his girlfriend to a man who is now Kristina’s husband, completely free from drugs and alcohol, who loves God, studies his Bible, comes to church, sits in the front row (when he’s not serving in the tech booth) and doesn’t miss a week. This radical transformation never gets old. Thank you for being a part of what God is doing here. Thank you for giving sacrificially and allowing God to use us to reach those here who are very far from God.
And thank you, Altmans and Verve, for that encouragement!
[Some of the names in the story have been changed.]
One of the things I do to make church planting possible is look after my three year old daughter Layla during the day while my wife heads off to work a “banking hours” job. I get some work done during the day amongst her hugs and TV shows and then work more after she goes to bed.
Recently I made a list of 