Last fall through early 2008, my husband and I spent several months away from the marriage ministry we loved and our church home of twenty-two years. We felt it was time to rest and simplify life for a while.

Over the course of several months, we spent our Sundays visiting new churches we have watched spring up in the area we live. We thoroughly enjoyed many of the services and meeting new people and thought,  What if God has something new in store for us?

We spoke with many pastors and prayed that we could coach them in developing marriage ministries in their churches. It would be awe-inspiring to build a church that is putting marriage and family to the forefront, as well as helping singles understand the components of healthy relationships. Unfortunately, many of the new churches we visited were focused on how many new people they could bring in the door. By February 2008, we felt it was time to return to our home church and re-engage with our marriage ministry team.

In March, we received a phone call from a pastor friend who we have known for fifteen years. His desire was to plant a new church in Schaumburg, Illinois. This has been a vision of his for many years, and he asked if we would pray about being a part of this new adventure with him. His dream was to create a church that would give the weekly tithes and offerings away to be leveraged in the community. The staff is missional by raising their annual salary support as well as the operating expenses for the church. This is crazy, how could it work? But, this is crazy enough for God to do something great with it. This young pastor is also very passionate about marriage and family and that definitely perked our interest. He asked us to be open to attending their first home meeting, which we did in April.

Over the course of the next several weeks, I prayed about this and found myself neutral. I could not make a commitment either way… until late June. This is when I heard a message one Sunday that turned me upside down. The message was called, Faith With Guts.

I immediately walked away from this message with a stirring in my gut. I was challenged by the fact that I could balance God and something else (fear) on a scale and possibly let fear win. Could I step out in faith? With guts? No sooner did we get in the car to head home, and I said to my husband, “What do we have to lose in helping this new church for six months to a year? Nothing. What might God do through us?”

Since June, we have committed our time to Waterfront Community Church in Schaumburg, Illinois that will have its first service on October 19, 2008. Check it out at www.waterfrontcc.com

The mission of this new church is Loving God and People Well. The staff and the initial team are teaching us how to live this out in our lives more and more each day. There are no regrets. We are jumping out of our skin waiting to see what God does in a community of people who are willing to have faith with guts.