TO GOD BE THE GLORY!!!

Hey Everyone,

WE ARE DONE WITH THE THREE CHURCHES!!! Yeah. It is exciting to have finished such a big responsibility. It was a crazy three months and Joel and I learned so much about ourselves, church in general, and life as a christian. I feel we have grown in ways we could have never if not for being over these three churches.

I think for me one of the biggest challenges was learning there is a nasty side to religion. That some people go straight by rules and judging instead of mercy and love. Oh they think they are being loving but really they are judging you and condemning you for your walk with Christ. Aww that was hard. Especially for me as a women. I felt really judge and closely looked at because I was a women talking in church and helping Joel lead congregations. I even condemned myself but when I finally studied scripture and went looking for what God thought I was blown away by things. I didn't get all the answers but I walked away feeling better about me talking in church. And that GOd wasn't going to strike me down at any moment for teaching.

For the first two months Joel and I really prayed and put it out there to God that if this is what He wanted us to do for a long season Joel and I were willing to step up if it was Dad and Mom's time to step down. Boy are we glad that God gave us the okay to move on and that it is still Dad's time to be a pastor. That was a huge relief. Joel and I don't feel even the tiniest calling to being pastors. For three months we had no idea what we were doing. But as the bible says where we are weak God is soooooooooooo strong. And both Joel and I felt when we didn't have a clue to what we were doing; God really stepped in, Got the Glory and made us look good.

If you were to ask us how we feel we would tell you that we are so glad it is over. And for the people hearing that they always ask "Oh it wasn't that great?" and we are like no it was great, the people were great, and we had a great time. But when something is not your calling or you are not trained in that thing it is a lot harder.

Then when we told people in the congregation that we are just not good at being pastors they look at us like we are crazy and tell us we are. But where they saw us suceeed and what not It was God all the way. I can't even tell you how many times Joel and I didn't have a clue to what we were doing and it ended up looking like we were called to be pastors. Which is just not the case. God is SO awesome that when He asks you to do something and you are obedient and willingly God will do the impossible through you.

So for these last three months Joel and I did 3 services a sunday, preaching and all. (No one ever taught us how to run a service, the whole service or teach us how to preach but God was there) We did three bible studies and three prayer meetings a week (again no prior schooling for this) WE had three movie night outreachs to the community and we brought new worship music to the congregation. We went to hospitals and loved on the sick. We went to two funerals of church members. I mean these whole 3 months were just out of our league But God is good and enabled us to do the impossible.

I am not saying anything of this to brag I am telling you all this because God is so good that He can use any one of you and us to do His bidding and do the impossible. He will enable you even when you don't have a clue on what you are doing. All you have to do is seek Him out. I would spend time with the Lord almost every day and God would give me ideas on what the church needed in prayer or He gave us the idea of movie nights and He gave us the idea to play one new christian worship song on Sundays. It was all the Lords idea Joel and I would have never thought of it but it turned out great. I thought they would stone us or kick us out with the new "loud and fast" songs we were bringing but they loved them and thanked us for them.

Wow our God is awesome and I am glad He showed me/us if we just step out and obey Him NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE.

To GOD BE THE GLORY,
The Butlers