So, after visiting Texas and Arizona, meeting the people of the prospective churches, and through much time in prayer, we feel that God is calling us to Flagstaff, Arizona. There was a lot of draws to the church in New Braunfels, TX, but we just couldn't find a peace in our spirit about heading there. We had some significant issues with the leadership style of the Senior Pastor and his wife and we just didn't feel 100% on board with their vision. That's kind of a big deal. The church in Arizona doesn't have all the nice facilities that the Texas church had, but the people are amazing and the Senior Pastor and his wife would be strong leaders and spiritual mentors for Sara and I. That aspect is way more important to us than nice buildings, large congregations, and state of the art equipment.
The momentum of the church in Flagstaff is exciting too. A few years ago, they were down to 25 members and were about to close their doors. In an effort to revive the church, they asked one of their remaining members to pastor the church. Ever since then the church has been growing strong with young families and a fairly large college age demographic. They have two packed out services now and will soon be outgrowing their fairly small facility. The passion of the people is very contagious and the heart of the leadership and elders are truly in the right place for leading people into a deeper relationship with Christ.
Pastor Paul's teaching style is more expository than most preachers I've been around lately. He doesn't put together long illustration series that we see a lot of today. He has a great gift of taking a segment of scripture and explaining the original context and then unpacking it in a way that makes it applicable today. More and more people (including us) are really just hungry for the Truth of Scripture and appreciate straight forward teaching.
We didn't take many pictures while we were there, so I found some online that will give our Minnesota friends an idea of what Flagstaff looks like. It's not desert and cactus like we typically picture Arizona to be. It actually reminds us of a more mountainous northern Minnesota kind of feel. The climate is different though. We'll still get four seasons, but it's a dry heat in the summer that rarely gets above 85 degrees; and we'll get snow but it will melt a few days after it drops. It sounds similar to what things are like where we are now in Colorado Springs. It sounds like many of the locals will travel to Sedona or Phoenix for the day if it's too cold and snowy in Flagstaff. Phoenix is almost always about 30 degrees warmer and doesn't get snow. It's about 2 1/2 hours south of Flagstaff.
Today is our 11th wedding anniversary. It's been an amazing journey together and I'm so excited to see what our joint future holds! We've got friends coming over this morning to watch our kids while we head to Manitou Springs (little town near the mountains) to get some breakfast and go hiking for a few hours. It's a perfect day today, it should be fun!
The kids did waterballon fights, hot-tubbing, trampoline, limbo, stick the shades on the flamingo (like Pin the Tail on the Donkey), ate food, and did more hot-tubbing. There are a few more pictures in the photo album.
So, after visiting Texas and Arizona, meeting the people of the prospective churches, and through much time in prayer, we feel that God is calling us to Flagstaff, Arizona. There was a lot of draws to the church in New Braunfels, TX, but we just couldn't find a peace in our spirit about heading there. We had some significant issues with the leadership style of the Senior Pastor and his wife and we just didn't feel 100% on board with their vision. That's kind of a big deal. The church in Arizona doesn't have all the nice facilities that the Texas church had, but the people are amazing and the Senior Pastor and his wife would be strong leaders and spiritual mentors for Sara and I. That aspect is way more important to us than nice buildings, large congregations, and state of the art equipment.