I know I missed the July post. It was because I didn't have anything concrete to update. Now I do...
First, I want to say thank you to everyone who has been praying for us and Chariot Ministries. Words cannot express how blessed we feel to have such faithful supporters.
Second, we believe the Lord has given us a plan for the 2010-2011 year. It may surprise some of you to see that it isn't chalk full of stage productions and classes. For us, though, we've seen this coming for several months and feel, now that it has been confirmed, that the time has come to share our plan with you.
Chris and I will be going back to school full-time this fall. For Chris this means he will cut his work schedule down to "on-call" status, which means he will work about two days a week. It also means he will be losing all of his insurance benefits and will need to control his Ankylosing Spodylitis with diet. He is looking at about four years before he will be certified to teach math and science at the secondary level for Washington State. For me, I have two years to complete my secondary level teaching certification in reading education. My area of emphasis is ELL (English Language Learners) and I hope to take one extra year (putting me on the three year plan) to earn my masters in Adult Education. Although the Lord hasn't made it clear what he intends to use our education for, we know he has called us back to school for "something" and our desire is simply to be obedient to His will.
Due to the dramatic shift that is about to occur in our personal lives, we've been prayerfully considering what this means for the ministry. We believe God has plans for the ministry and wants us to keep it. Practically, this means we will need to scale-down a bit over the next couple of years until the Lord reveals what he would have us do. During the summer we've prayed about what that would look like. Sometimes in order for the Lord to answer one thing, he must first reveal another. I believe the Lord has revealed to me that I am called as an evangelist. Believe me, when it comes to spiritual gifts and callings THIS was NOT my first choice! But the Lord works in mysterious ways and I believe the way this is going to work itself out is through a series of classes that I will lead during the course of the next year.
Beginning in September I will lead a book discussion on Ray Comfort's, "God Has A Wonderful Plan For Your Life: The Myth of the Modern Message." This will be followed in January with a course on "The Way of the Master", which is designed to teach you how to biblically and effectively evangelize. Finally, in the Spring I will lead another book discussion on Floyd Schneider's "Evangelism for the Fainthearted." These classes have been specially organized to build one upon the other; however they also stand alone in their significance and application.
There will be more information about our classes on our new website. Yes! A brand new website! Some of you may have tried to visit our website during the summer and didn't find it. That is because we had to change web-hosting and designers; all technical stuff that I still don't quite understand. Yet, thanks to Heidi Scheibner who graciously offered to donate "all things web" to Chariot Ministries, we will have a beautiful new site up and running the first week of September.
I think that covers all the new business. Be sure to mark your calendar for our first class of the year beginning Friday, 24 September. Of course, you can always call or email me if you have any questions.
In His glorious name,
~Harvest
harvest@chariotministries.com
509.481.1929
