very medium thoughts

Jenny and I have been thinking about unplugging from Facebook for quite a while now. We’ve found that it had become a distraction and sometimes worse for us. So, just like that, we shut down our Facebook accounts.

Now, it’s not that we don’t want to stay in touch with all the wonderful people we have had in our lives. We just want to make an intentional connection with you, and know that you’re making an intentional connection to reach to us.

We still love email, and that’s honestly the best way to get in touch with us. We’ll try to do better about talking about what’s going on in our lives here. Oh, and Ellie has a blog over at http://elliecummins.com. You can also sign up for our email news that goes out every 8 weeks or so.

Lance’s email: lance -at- lancecummins.com

Jenny’s email: jennynlance -at- gmail.com

Thanks to so many of you who have prayed for us to sell our house over the last 7 months. It has been awesome to watch God provide for us even while we were continuing to pay for a house in Kansas. Now, it looks like we have a contract on our house, and we’re supposed to close in a couple of weeks! Woo hoo! That’s such a huge expense that will be lifted off of us. God has met every single need and we know he’ll continue to do that!

Again, thanks for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers.

I mentioned in my last post that our first meeting to describe what this new church will look/feel like would be April 16th. That date has actually been moved to May 7. I’m excited about getting to talk to folks about what God has placed in my heart. I’ll do my best to write my thoughts here as well. I’m considering videotaping the May 7th meeting and making some of it available on here.

Please pray that God continues to give us direction and purpose!

I have been blown away by how God has been so faithful to take care of our family in so many unique ways.

We have watched God do some incredible things that only He gets credit for, and we can just stand by and applaud. I wish I could list them all out, but for now, many of them are tucked away in my journals, so that I’ll look back on them in difficult times to remember all that God has done.

When we moved to Rockland, back in November, we knew that God had given us a unique opportunity to become a part of a wonderful community here in New England. We have been so encouraged by the wonderful people that we’ve met and we’re excited to be “New Englanders by choice.” (Even if it is pretty cold up here.) Our dream is to live out our lives in New England showing people how much God loves them and wants a relationship with them through Jesus Christ. We have not necessarily laid out a formal plan for how that might happen, but have just been open to what God wants to do.

Well, in typical God-fashion, He has showed us one small “next step” after another. One of the first steps was the decision to become self-employed in web design. I opened my business, NearlyFreeLance.com, on January 1, and God has been so faithful to help me stay quite busy with it. We have also been extremely blessed by the generosity of NewSpring Church and individuals that love us who have made it possible for us to get our feet under us. I believe that God has given me a unique opportunity to pastor without asking a young church to pay my salary. The decision to become self-employed has opened up many doors to meet people and to help people with their own businesses.

Many of our other “next step” decisions are too boring to mention, but we’ve just tried to do the next thing without worrying too much about “down the road.”

One of my desires was to begin a brand new church out here, and honestly, I thought it would be quite a while before that would happen. But, once again, God has some other plan in mind.

It has become clear, and has been confirmed by my conversations with Sean, pastor at Grace Church in Stoughton, Mass., that we have a green light to begin crafting what this local church might look and feel like, and begin making preparations for this new church very soon! I can hardly stand my excitement! I’m crazy excited and completely energized by what I believe that God wants to do in this area and across New England.

When I say “very soon,” I mean it. I will be holding a meeting at my house on April 16th to tell whomever is interested about how this church will look and feel. Many people who live in our area who currently attend Grace Church will receive an invitation to come and see what’s going on. I’ll have the chance to give details and take questions and share my excitement of what I believe God is going to accomplish through this church. I believe we will be able to join the momentum that God has created throughout this area in helping people become disciples of Jesus.

There are some tentative dates that we have created, but all of them are completely flexible with what God wants to do. They may be totally off. It just helps me know what my next steps are.

For each Saturday evening in April, we will open our home up and will talk about the potential of this church. It’s going to be radically different than what many of us who grew up in church are used to, because my dream is to attempt to live out the concept that the “church” is actually the people who follow Jesus, and that wherever those people are is the church is. I’ll attempt to flesh that out more in these meetings. These meetings do not ask for any sort of commitment from those who attend.

The first weekend of May, we’re going to have another meeting at my house, but this time, it’s for those who have decided that they’d like to help us actually start this new church. This group of people will covenant together to be the church and we’ll begin working together weekly to pray, plan, and encourage each other in this new work. For the months of May and June, those who are members of Grace Church will continue attending Grace’s Sunday service.

In July and August, we’ll begin to meet on our own on Sunday, but probably not weekly. Maybe just once a month, depending on if we’re able to access a place that’s large enough to be a reasonable meeting space.

There is potential that we would begin meeting every weekend starting the 3rd week of September: September 18.

So, please pray for us as a church that we will truly live out our calling to help make disciples of Jesus Christ and that God does this in such a way that ONLY He gets any kind of credit or praise.

The last thing I want to do is force any kind of time constraints or schedules on God. He’s quite a bit bigger than that. However, I’m eager to see what the next steps are, and I’m completely convinced that God is about to do some even-more-amazing things!

Thank you to all who prayed for us to find a rental home in Massachusetts this past week. God really narrowed it down for us because there are not that many single-family homes available in the area where we are wanting to live.

We found our home in Rockland, Massachusetts. It is a 4 bedroom, 1 bath house, and it looks like it will meet our needs perfectly.

View photos on Flickr

Now, we’re excited about meeting our neighbors and becoming New Englanders! There are a couple of donut/coffee shops within walking distance so that makes me pretty happy.

We have prayed that God will give us clear direction on the timing of our move to Massachusetts. And we believe that it is best for us to move forward quickly. God has provided, through someone’s generosity, a way for us to move to the South Shore community and rent a house even before I have secured a local job. That will give me the opportunity to interview for jobs in the area and begin building relationships immediately.

After talking with Mark, we have set the date of our move to New England to be November 20. That will give us several days to get there and get kind of settled before Thanksgiving, and let me actively look for jobs over the course of the following weeks.

We will still be out of town this weekend, so that means that November 6/7 and November 13/14 will be our last two weekends at NewSpring. It’s a bittersweet time, because we are so excited about what God is working out in our lives, but we are also already feeling the pain of leaving wonderful friends and co-workers.

One thing we need right now is for people to continue to pray for us. Jenny and I were talking yesterday that at every point, as soon as we get an answer or a solution, we immediately see that there is another huge thing that God has to come through about…and He has continued to do that.

We are currently in Massachusetts looking for a rental house, and it looks like God has pointed us right to where we need to be, but I’m going to save that exciting news for the next mailing of the Cummins Family Newsletter. (If you don’t want to miss out on the inside scoop, sign up at the top of the page… ) I know, kind of “market-y” of me…

I’ve been thinking through this quite a bit lately, with my impending re-entrance into the marketplace.

For the last 10 years, I have been in “full-time” Christian ministry. What that means for those of you unfamiliar with that term is that I have worked at a church and received my complete salary from that job. For most Christians, “full-time” ministry is the dream. I mean, what could be better than getting to work around other Christians who are pouring their lives out to make a difference for eternity? As a kid, it was always a big deal when someone was “called into full-time ministry.” While it is so true that many in “full-time” ministry have made great sacrifices financially to serve in that capacity, somehow, I feel like we’ve diminished the value of working a “real” job, and “just” volunteering, or “just” hosting a small group. It’s part of my dream to help correct that perspective in some small way.

I believe with all my being that God has placed each of us in our jobs, families, and communities, to serve as agents of mercy for God Himself. Your job is not separate from your identity as a follower of Jesus Christ. It’s not as if you are one person on Monday morning, and a different, more spiritual person during the weekend service. Well, we all know people that this certainly seems to be the case, but that’s not supposed to be the rule. Did you know that God created work and he designed us to do it well? He even says that we are to work with our whole hearts not like it’s for our boss, but that it’s for God Himself! That’s pretty awesome! Why is that, though? What difference does it make how we perform our work?

This is where you can develop an entirely new, eternal and spiritual perspective of your J-O-B. God has intentionally placed you with people that need to see what it’s like to have a life changed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Those people at work know you better than anyone besides your family, most likely. They see how you deal with frustration, disappointment, being wronged, and being celebrated. And in all of these situations, God is preparing you to be a bridge that people can walk across to faith in Jesus Christ. Sometime, I’ll talk about what that means in eternity, but it’s enough for now, to say that it’s an awesome opportunity! As we live this way, work transitions from being a necessity, to being worship!

Sure, “full-time” ministry is great, but honestly, it’s really easy to become isolated “Christian Islands” and forget that there are people all around us who are watching us and desperately want to know that there is SOMEONE out there who has hope. Sometimes, a whole week can go by and I haven’t had the chance to have even a simple conversation with ONE person who isn’t a Christian. That’s not cool. How am I going to be a help to those who don’t yet know Christ if I don’t even reach out to them?

So, now as I look for a job, the pay is not my primary focus, it’s simply about where God wants to drop me so I can represent Him well. And, I’m pretty eager to see where that is.

It’s hard to believe we’ve lived in Wichita for almost 6 years! It’s been by far the best 6 years of our lives (except for Anna, for whom it’s been only the best 3 years of her brief life). We’ve seen God work time and time again here and we are so blown away to be able to have been a part of it.
When we moved here in November 2004, little did we know how much we would fall in love with Wichita and with the people who call it home. We had decided that we would live out our lives here. We liked the idea. Our kids love it here. We were so comfortable and simply loving life. We were so convinced that we were lifetime Kansans that we decided to do a major house-upgrade project, a brand new, super cool concrete deck! But deep down, we began to hear God challenging us that He was going to ask something of us…and now we see a small piece of it. And, man, are we excited!

Life at our house is never calm. It’s pretty loud and crazy. That’s what 3 kids’ll do. One of our favorite things is to turn on “Boomin’” by Toby Mac and dance our hearts out…and that’s so we can calm down for bed. Just kidding.

But, really, all in all, our lives are pretty calm and not-too-excitingish.

Isn’t it funny how God loves to shake us up a little so we’ll depend on Him completely? Well, we’ve been getting hints that God is up to something, and we’re excited but a little scared at the same time.

I can’t go into any details at this point, but I’d sure ask each of you to pray for us as we seek God and His kingdom above everything.

I have been trying to figure out my old password and user id and all of that at Flickr. It’s been over a year since I touched it. Anyway. I’ve changed emails and stuff since then, so I’ve given up hope completely. Well, I’ll put some old photos on there, so it feels authentic and all.