a birthday and a baptism: shoreline update

But first: today we were twinning…

Shoreline is 2! Can you believe it?

If you’ve read this blog for a while, you know we have spent our whole marriage in the ministry, that this church-planting journey has not been easy (click here, here, and here), and that life for our family is never boring.

On Sunday, February 3rd, we celebrated two years of Shoreline Church.

That’s two years of worshipping every Sunday.

Two years of setting up and taking down in a movie theater.

Two years of hard work and reliance on faithful volunteers.

Two years of adapting to (constant) changes.

Two years of navigating challenges and learning and growing through them.

Two years of celebrating, both the small wins and the big things God has done through this church.

Two years of living life on the roller coaster that is church planting. Technically, we’ve been on that roller coaster for more like 3 years, but who’s counting? (I am. We are.)

Two years.

106 Sundays.

Special events, lunches at the community center next door, our first two 101 (membership) classes, our second Easter (post from our first here), our first Christmas Eve service, and our first baptism…

If you read alllll the way through my 2018 highlight post to the text at the very end, you know that we are no longer supported by the Methodist Church and are operating as an independent body. Because of our situation with initially being under the UMC, we were unable to take on members and do baptisms (kinda confusing and boring details so I’ll spare you). Once we were on our own, as of June last year, we were able to get that process started. Finally!

The logistics of doing a baptism at the movie theater are difficult. We can’t have water in the theater, obviously! And of course you have to have something to put the water IN and the logistics of all that. So, we relocated to a Shoreliner’s home for an intimate little ceremony. We had one profession of faith and two affirmations of baptisms (renewals).

It was perfect and we are looking forward to many more!

…birthdays and baptisms, God willing.