Yep, we’re in Rochester!

May 1, 2018 by Paul

The question everyone is asking us is: “How is it going?”

We are making a difference, one life at a time.
Sometimes the life that you see changed is your own. Sometimes it’s the life of your fellow church planter. Sometimes it’s the life of the person you’ve just met or the neighbor across the street. Here are the lives that God is changing-

Students

We’re seeing more students on campus come around to what has now become two different Bible studies. One young woman named Sophie even came to house church! Our efforts on campus were bolstered by two spring break teams that came to labor with and for us. One group came from our sending church in Ames and another trekked in all the way from Purdue University in Indiana. These teams were a huge encouragement to us and resulted in those new folks joining the Bible studies and a new couple coming to our house church.

Neighbors

Personally, my family and I have connected with our neighbors across the street from us. They have been friendly and we have jumped in to serve them by snow blowing their massive driveway and cleaning up a mess of downed limbs on their property. We also had them over for coffee, scones and a chance to share what we’re doing here on a church plant. I think it weirds them out quite a bit so we’re taking it slow and building towards a full explanation of how we feel that our Christianity should be lived out and how that’s different from the Christianity that they grew up with and see around them. They’ve been burned by the church and it shows.

Church Planters

A few Sundays ago we were “sent” by our other sponsor church, Evergreen up in Lakeville. My co-pastor Charlie has pastored there for 20 years and therefore it was an emotional time as his church said goodbye for now. Our team has been weighted a bit towards the Iowa side for a while and we’ll be getting several more from Iowa as well as a bunch more from Lakeville and the Twin Cities area. I admire these church planters as they step out in faith and endure hardship just like Christians from the book of Acts. They are growing toward God and they are growing toward one another. It’s marvelous to see!

Our Lives

Let’s just say that we’re taking it a day at a time. Our house is still under construction, many of our belongings are still in boxes and we are still building our routine and daily structure. We’re getting done what needs to be done and there isn’t much time or space for anything beyond that.
This is stretching our faith and teaching us once again that we need to rely on God. He’s got this and he knows what we need to do next. If we rely on him we can do what he tells us to do and have peace knowing that what hasn’t gotten done – well, it just doesn’t need to get done right now.

Kiddos

Our kids are tons of fun! God is moving each of them along through life and we get to be an active part of it! Sign for our email list for more details on how the family is doing. >> https://paulandchristie.org/contact/

We are gifted by God with our family, our church, and all that he has given us!

Thank you for being a part of God’s blessing in our lives!
Please let us know how we can be praying for you as well!
Much Love in Christ,
The Johnsons

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Rochester Update!

March 30, 2018 by Paul

Here’s an update on our church plant to Rochester!

Rochester, MN is growing like crazy! Since 2013 the state of Minnesota, the Mayo Clinic, the city of Rochester and various other business have started investing in the city with the goal of putting over 5 billion into growth, doubling the workforce and making Rochester a destination medical center.

Through work with other churches and multiple survey trips to the area we determined that there is not only a huge need for more churches but an openness to spiritual conversations and the gospel here in Rochester. We have spent time downtown, in neighborhoods and on the Rochester Community and Technical College campus and have found people to be very friendly and available to discuss life, religion and faith.

My family and I moved here in late 2017 to help get Living Hope Church started with a team of over 30 adults from Ames, IA and Lakeville, MN. We are working to get a church established that has a mix of all generations with a focus on young people and families. God is using us to get the gospel out and disciples made! Thanks for your support as we partner together to honor God with our lives!

Spring Update!

March 26, 2015 by Paul

Adoption Update

As you know we’ve been pursuing adoption for a while now and we think that we’ve found our girl! (We have pictures but can’t share them publicly on the web.)

We will call her Lily and she just turned two years old. She came into care at 9 months of age with pneumonia, a heart condition and an issue with her colon. She quickly had heart surgery and slowly got healthy in the hospital and then in foster care.

We first learned about her through our agency’s photo listing late last November. We requested more information and then ran her medical status past a couple of doctors who suggested that we ask some questions. We then sent those questions out and heard back from them in early January. We then took the expanded medical information back to our consulting doctors, prayed a lot and sought council on whether it would be wise to continue to pursue her.

Currently she is very small because of her health problems but gained an encouraging pound and a half in the six weeks between the updates. Her heart problems seem to be fixed but her colon will still need surgery. Lastly she has some developmental delays because of her hospitalizations and health problems. She’s making progress but still has a long way to go before she’s where she’s supposed to be for her age.

Last month we decided that despite the unknowns we felt confident in choosing her!

Next we’ve got a lot more paperwork to fill out for the Chinese government and the US government. We are awaiting official approval from China. Then we’ve got more paperwork, documents and fees to get through before we finally get to go get her. Our agency is estimating 5-7 months until we get to travel to pick her up. That puts us into July at the earliest.

Please pray for patience throughout the process, that our paperwork goes through as quickly as possible (with no mistakes) and for her continued progress and good health.

Freshmen Dinner

We are committed to working with the college student age group! There is not only a continuing need to share and disciple people in this time of life but in Ames (as a college town) there is a continuing influx of new students.

I need to stay current with my relationships with the students and one big way that I do that every year is our freshmen dinner, which is coming up this week. We invite all the freshmen and new students over to ou
r house for a meal with my family. This enables them to get to know me, Christie and the boys on a more personal level. They get to see our home and how we live our everyday life.

It obviously also enables me to connect with them, hear what’s on their hearts and what they are concerned with as it pertains to the church, classes, relationships and their future. It’s always a great time!

Training Leaders

If you’ve been keeping track of my ministry you know that I love (absolutely love) working with leaders. Having the chance to discuss the word together, pray together, share vision and strategy, troubleshoot problems and just spend time together is one of my favorite parts of the job.

This year we’ve combined our student leadership training time with the community aspect of the church. I help lead and coordinate what we call the Stonebrook Community Underground and it happens weekly on Wednesday nights. We use this time to do all the things in the paragraph above with the chance to interact with those outside of college as well. This has been great for building multigenerational relationships within the church!

The wisdom of those who have been walking with Christ for 25 plus years is so beneficial for the students to catch a hold of and the excitement and zeal of the students is a good boost for those who have been serving in the trenches.

Theo and Elliott

We can’t leave off without updating you on how the boys are doing. Elliott (now 2) is in the midst of potty training and it’s taking time for him to get it down. Some days he seems to be excited about it and some days he wants nothing to do with the bathroom. Otherwise he is speaking in three word sentences and enjoys grabbing his little red Cars guitar whenever I’m playing my guitar and gets a thrill out of playing along.

Theo is Mr. Creative and is always drawing pictures and cutting out shapes to create characters. He loves to script out what his stuffed animals or other toys are saying to one another. Theo loves to include us or the students in on this little game and tell them what to have the toy that they are holding say or do.

Both boys are excited for their little sister to come over from China and pray for her regularly!

Please pray that we make the right decisions for these little guys and challenge them to learn and grow in character, devotion to God as well as knowledge and life skills!