A Little Church Planting Advice

My friend, Christine Hoover, over at the Hoover Household, has a wonderful blog that's catered to church-planting wives and has featured me on her blog today!

Hop over and check it out. Hang out awhile and check out all of her other great articles. Grab a cup of coffee. It's well worth foregoing naptime production.

Are you a Church Planter's Wife?

Current or future??? Church planter wives....you aren't alone. I wrote an article that was published on the Acts 29 website directed toward church planters' wives, specifically in the first year of church planting. The first year can be detrimental.

I originally wrote it as a help for me (to rest on those truths that I mention) and to get my thoughts together as we gained another elder and his wife earlier this year. I pray that it will be a source of blessing for a current or future church planter's wife (or simply a pastor's wife) that may be dealing with similar struggles.

5 Things I Wish I Would Have Known...

It's Official!

Check out Allen's Church Planter Profile: The Duty Family

We are now full members of the Acts 29 Network! This is exciting because we weren't supposed to become full members until this summer, and now have many opportunities open to us to that we will be able to participate in this summer.

So far, this network has been such a blessing to Allen and I. Allen has been to several conferences that have challenged, encouraged and trained him as a church planter and pastor and I went to an Acts 29 Pastor's Wives' Retreat this week in NC. I can't put into words the renewal and rest that I was afforded at this retreat. I can't explain the safe haven that it was and the ministry that took place in the quiet moments of the day, eating great food (of course!), over coffee, in the hot tub, on the couch, on somebody's bed, during craft time or during our guided prayer times.

I am thankful for a network that sees the importance of the family in church planting. It's been a blessing to turn to others who are ahead of us and able to walk us through many questions that we have had along the journey.

The Family Together in God's Presence

Allen made reference to this at our business meeting on Tuesday night, but it is worth reading the article in full if you haven't ever done so.

The Family Together in God's Presence was written by John and Noel Piper in the 90's but I feel like it could have been written 50 years ago or 3 years ago. In my experience, families used to do this back in the day and families just started doing this 3 years ago. We are some that started doing it 3 years ago and have learned so much since then.

I think Piper sums up what we have learned very well and Noel gives some wonderfully practical tips on how to do it.

State of the Duty Union

Hey friends!

Sorry it's been so long since I posted pictures! I know that is unacceptable when you have a newborn and they are growing and changing so much.

Easton is putting on some weight (especially in his cheeks!) and is quite tall. I still think he looks more like Taylor Joy did when she was a baby with the exception of his smile. That is totally Beckett. I must admit, I am so thankful to Allen for his genes since he gave all our our children adorable dimples. I always wished I had them and now I can be thankful that our children have them. Oh, the little things!

As for the other kids, they are really enjoying having weekends filled with family and friends. Allen's family came 2 weekends ago and my mom and sis came this weekend. Taylor Joy has started her weekly Bible class with Asher and is doing some preschool work on the off days.
MOPS just started up, which we go to every other Tuesday, and I am still coordinating crafts for the group. So, if you have any cute crafts that a group of women could easily do together, please let me know! I am always looking for good ideas.

New Life is really growing and we love it. Allen just started a series on Matthew (The Sermon on the Mount) called Righteousness Redefined. Last night was an overview of chapters 1-4 and Jason Kinnard, another elder, will be preaching next week.

We are also excited because we are on the verge of becoming an Acts 29 church. You can read more about what that means (if you are interested) here. Allen and I will be assessed on Thursday of this week and should know very soon if New Life will be approved. Some of our favorite pastors are of the Acts 29 variety: Mark Driscoll, Matt Chandler, and Jonathan Dodson plus they are closely tied to our other favorite pastors, John Piper and C.J. Mahaney. This would be a wonderful alliance for Allen to have with others who have been very successful at church planting.

Our second membership class starts at the end of this month so we will more than double the members we have now. For those who are visiting New Life and aren't intending on joining or those who don't really know the purpose of the church or church membership, please listen to this: Mark Driscoll's, "What is the Church?"

Now, for the pictures! Enjoy!




Nanny (Kendra's mom) with the kids


Nanny and Easton


Aunt B (Kendra's sis) with Taylor Joy


Dad's MVP



Soon-to-be Uncle Ryan playing blocks with Taylor Joy


Aunt Cathy with Easton

A Guy's Guide to Marrying Well

Allen came across this wonderful resource yesterday and we read through it last night.

It was AWESOME!

We were thrilled to see a resource like this that goes through so many of the struggles that guys have with friendship, courtship and dating that lead to marriage.

It's a series of articles about specific topics and is attributed to writers such as Al Mohler, Joshua Harris, and Gary Thomas, among others. It's around 50 pages but you can skim some articles and delve into others, it's such an easy read.

Some of my favorite articles were: Don't Stay Stuck in a Friendship, Don't Wait for a Burning Bush and Should You Settle? I think all of them are ever-so-helpful especially in our church culture where guys want specific instructions regarding how to pursue girls and quite honestly, need help because the biblical way of going about it is far different than the world's way.

I hope you find this resource as helpful as we did. We can't wait to pass it on to the single guys in our life.


http://www.boundless.org/guys/flash2.html

Swimsuit Season

Much to my dismay, swimsuit season is upon us. I walked through Target the other day and saw racks and racks of bikinis on display. Anything modest in the bunch? Nope.

Sad to say, it is difficult to find a swimsuit that covers adequately if you are a girl. I even have a hard time finding one piece swimsuits for Taylor. Crazy how young you can be and have our culture permeate your clothing choices. It's not even easy to find a shirt for Taylor Joy that isn't spaghetti straps these days.

There's an awesome link on the right side of this blog, called Modesty Survey under "Promote Modesty" in the Things I Do. It's a project of the REBELution, which was started by Brett and Alex Harris (Josh Harris' brothers...of Sovereign Grace...what an amazing family!). Anyway, this is a study that surveyed 1600+ guys about modesty and specific articles of clothing that women wear, including comments about those articles of clothing.

I went there before I purchased my swimsuit and browsed through what these men had to say about swimsuits in particular. I highly recommend reading the results of these before you head out to purchase your new swimsuit so that we can be mindful of the opposite sex this summer. They will appreciate our thoughtfulness too!

In case you are having a hard time finding a modest swimsuit like I was, check out these websites:

Lime Ricki
Shade Clothing
Academy (has lots of skirts you can wear as bottoms. I think the one I bought is actually a tennis skirt. I would recommend going there.)

Also, here's a series of great articles by C.J. Mahaney about modesty and what it says about the attitude of our hearts. I highly recommend reading these articles or listening to this sermon.

Anyway, I thought it might be a nice reminder to some of you to consider our brothers when we are making our summer clothing choices, especially swimsuits. Happy shopping and swimming! We are so excited about heading out to the pool!

Changes

Where do I even begin?

Lots of changes are occurring around here.

New baby coming in July.

New car...I need to post a picture of my hot mama minivan for those who have been asking.

New addition to our home (for baby's room now)...and later for us (a small study).

And now...a new job for Allen = NEW season of life for us!

Earlier this year, Allen was nominated to become the teaching elder (aka Pastor) of New Life. And now, several months after the whole interviewing process, it's official.

I can't tell you what relief it feels...It's relief that we are now part of a group of people who we have been praying for and who our hearts have been with for a long time now. We are excited and looking forward to this new stage in our lives.

We invite you to join us at New Life Baptist Church. The first church service is at 5 pm on Saturday, March 28th at Living Hope. The fellowship meal will be immediately following. It would be our pleasure to have you join our body of believers and see what living in community is all about.

Until then, please pray for Allen. With the triple role of Youth Pastor, College Pastor and Teaching Pastor, his life, and consequently our lives, may be a little crazy for the next few months. But we are up for the challenge! Thanks for those of you who have been praying for us. I just thought it might be time to update the rest of you on all the changes occurring around the Duty home. We are blessed to be going through these changes with many of you!

He's Back!

I'm just SO thrilled to have my hubby home after 5 days without him!

It's beautiful when we can go to Dallas like we did and spend time with our families (i.e. be distracted that we are missin' the man of the house, have someone else take care of the kids, be cooked for and waited on...).

Ha! Sounds like I got a vacation while he was gone at Youth Camp! Not really, but we were so blessed by our families while we were there and it's just so fun spending time with them. I'm never eager to have Allen away at these sorts of things, but I am always renewed of my appreciation for him while he is away and extremely giddy when he does get home.

Praise the Lord that we not only survived, we THRIVED! That's not always the case.

Taylor Joy kept kissing and hugging him, saying "I love you, Daddy. I missed you." We would start to do something else and she would come up to him and just give him the biggest kiss and hug and say it again. There's just nothing sweeter.