This morning as I was reading the bible I came across this proverb, "Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe." This verse, found in Proverbs 29 immediately struck a chord in me. As I have embarked on a journey of healing over the past 15 months, one of the recurring themes I tend to wrestle with is a people pleasing nature, a tendency to place the values and opinions of others over anything else, often at the expense of my own self worth. I do this in just about every area of my life. Yet through the process, it has become more and more clear to me that healing will not happen until I am able to firmly establish my value in Christ as "an unrepeatable miracle of God" as a friend of mine says. I have become a master at self analyzing and contempt, yet I find no basis for this in scripture.
So, that being said, I may still struggle with this tendency, but I consciously strive to reprioritize my value system, finding my identity in Christ, believing in my inherent value as one created in the image of God, and learning how to stand firm in that truth amidst all the voices, opinions, and believes of others.

The time has come! We are on the verge of the new "Third Format" service at Central. This is a new weekend worship service at Central that I have been working on for months, really years now. The last 6 months have probably been the hardest, most personally stretching time of my life, and yet I feel like God is working in amazing ways through this time...as difficult as it has been.
Aug. 20 is our second test run of this service. We had our first on the July 23, and it went very well, though there is still much to work on, but that was the purpose of the test run. I am excited though. We will begin running weekly starting on Sept. 10. If any of you are in the area on a Sunday night at 6 pm, come check it out.
More to come!