Although this was written pre-vacation, the vacation is now over and complete relaxation has been achieved.
Let me introduce Laquita. Her and her husband are good friends of mine and our children are nearly the same age and look like they were all separated at birth, especially our oldest daughter and their oldest daughter. Laquita has some experience being a part of church startups as well as a house church and I think it would be interesting to throw this perspective into the mix. It’s not necessarily directly related to technology, but it’s all good. So join me in welcoming Laquita!
Jim asked me if I would be a guest blogger on his site. We decided that writing about small churches and home churches would be a good jump off. As he has said before, I was involved in a home church. I am now involved in a church start up. Before I go into all that, it may be appropriate to go into some of my background.
I was born into a pastor’s family (no I’m not going into my entire childhood). My father pastored mainly smaller churches. We moved around quite a bit, growing in Christ as we moved. My parents pastored together. Daddy preached and taught while Mama led the Sunday School programs and the music departments. As my sister and I grew up, we joined the cause. My older sister has a beautiful voice and is a wonderful worship leader. I played whatever instrument I could and both of us helped teach Sunday School. There were quite a few years that our church had a Christian School. After my sister graduated, she helped out there.
We both have teaching degrees now and she teaches in the Public School system now. I have been a stay at home mom since our oldest daughter was born 9 years ago. Now our youngest will be in school this year, and I will be teaching in our new church’s preschool. I’ll get into that on a different day. But back to the subject at hand…
There were many things that happened right around the time I graduated from High School. There is not enough time or space to go into here, but I’ll touch the high points. My sister and I graduated together. She was married before we graduated. This meant she graduated a year late and I graduated a year early. Actually, she finished school a half year late. The rest of the year was spent helping in the school. As it turned out, her husband was quite abusive and an all around loser. Everything that happened as a result of their marriage hurt my parents and the church. A year after I graduated from high school saw me attend college, pursuing a degree in education. This is where my husband, Brian and I met. Jim and I also met there. His wife became a very close friend to me. Like Jim said before, he has known me longer than Mary and I have known him longer than Brian. Brian and Mary graduated from college a year before Jim and I did. Brian found a job back home in Illinois, while I completed my degree in Arkansas. It was a long year.
Once Brian and I married, we moved to Illinois. He had found a wonderful church family there and I worked in the preschool for two of the three years we lived there. I’ll go into that more next time.