This Too Shall Be Made Right...

The search is on!!

There's a lot of perks to living with your Mom as a 25-year-old and married. I can finally have a girl in my bedroom at night with the door closed, there are two other people who are likely to empty to dishwasher, I've only done like 6 loads of laundry all summer, and most importantly the price can't be beat.

Unfortunately, we can't stay in Mom's house forever (despite her best efforts to keep us here). Ministry and job opportunities are in Denver so were heading up to the Mile High City. It will still be a month or two before we move out, but the housing search is already in full effect.

We spent most of the day yesterday driving around Denver going in and out of shock. The cost of living is a little bit more than it was in Southwest Michigan (try twice as much!). It's supposedly a "buyer's market." I guess that means that you can hope to put a roof over your head and afford government cheese. In hotter times for the Denver real estate market, people must give up the cheese and their first born in order to live at 5280 feet.

With that in mind, be thinking about us and praying for us as we search for a new home. It will be pricey, but hopefully a good investment as well. We just want a place where we feel at peace and at home and where we can build new relationships. (It would also be first rate not to have to walk Mobley 10 blocks to find a spot of grass for her to "go" on.)

But we are getting excited about our move. We know that God has an amazing journey for us and that our next stop is Denver. It will be great to start my apprenticeship at City Church and begin the next phase of starting a new church!!

Welcome to our blog. If you are here, it most likely means that you want a quick update on Katie and my life. If you wondered on to this page inadvertently, feel free to enjoy the update, our apologies if you find our life uninteresting. No one is more disappointed that we are.

However, if you actually meant to come here, thanks for caring about us! If not for our wonderful friends and family, we'd have little to write about. Our blog might look like this: Katie and I woke up today...sat around...I found a peanut under the couch...it was still yummy...we went to bed.

Fortunately, we've been blessed with wonderful family and friends so that our life has more substance than the various treats I find hidden in hard to reach places.

So, here's what going on with us:

+ We're living in beautiful Colorado Springs with my beautiful Mother (Linda Brooks aka Meme). After Graduation from WTS (Western Theological Seminary) we came back home seeking more time with our families and a job in new church development (starting a new church). We've been here since June and have thoroughly enjoyed living with my Mom (despite the fact that "on paper" there's little you can do that is more lame than move back in with your Mom once you're married and done with grad school).

+ We've been assessed! About 100 times!?! Katie and I have both been through numerous assessment processes for starting a new church and we've been encouraged and affirmed each time. The assessments are basically seeking to determine if we "have what it takes" to start a new church. We've believed from the beginning that God wanted us to start a new church and now we are pretty sure that he's given us the skill sets and personality traits necessary to pulling it off. 

+ The next step for us is for me, Ben, to do a 1-and-a-half to 2 year apprenticeship. This will allow me to get some experience in full time ministry before we try and start a new church. Although we are anxious to start the work we believe God has planned for us, we recognize that this is a marathon and not a sprint. We plan on doing this stuff for the rest of our lives so we're taking time to get a little training and experience so that we can make fewer mistakes later (key word: fewer). My apprenticeship will be at City Presbyterian Church in Denver. Don't let the name fool you, this is a good ol' RCA church (if you don't know what that means, then you probably wouldn't care if I took the time to explain it). Rev. Sam Downing just moved his church from the PCA to the RCA church this summer. We are very excited to have them in our region. Sam is a wonderful pastor and man and his wife, Leanne, is even better than him. Check out City Pres' website to see where we'll be for the next couple years...

www.citypres.org/

+ WE MADE IT 4 YEARS!!! Katie and I are celebrating our 4 year anniversary today (8/8/08)! Sorry Mom Thomas and Mom Brooks, no kids yet. Just Mobley. 

Thanks for taking the time to check out our blog. Again, we couldn't be more thankful for the tremendous friends and family that we have. And if you did just happen across this blog randomly, we're thankful for you too.

Please keep us in your prayers. We need as much grace as we can get! ( I hope I didn't use up my quota during my "rebellious years")

Me(Ben) and my gorgeous bride. Proof that there is a God and that He's all about grace. How else could I have married up to her level? 

Our wonderful friends, Will and Lauren. Somehow we've convinced them to try and start a church with us. Pray for them too...they need it

Hurrah, we graduated. In your face anyone who said we'd never survive WTS (or that WTS would never survive us)!