The Everyday Life

So we finally got some free time the other day to just tour and shop for the first time since I have been here. We are always so so busy we have not had any time to really enjoy LA. We went shopping in Pasadena (well not really shopping because I don't have money to spend!) and it was so much fun! Incredible shops and sights. It is ridiculous how expensive it is to live out here. Money is EXTREMELY tight, especially with gas being almost 5 bucks a gallon. AGHHH. Anyways, I came across this sign when some of us went shopping and thought, "I really am made for this city"! Haha.




This is Carter (left), Mariah (middle), and Diana (right). These girls have quickly become my close friends here. There is also another girl, Suzanne, not pictured that is incredible. I love these girls so much and we have a blast. I love having these girls in this kind of environment so different for me because we all come from different places and backgrounds and can open up and be silly so comfortably.




Well, this is the man right here. The reason I am out in L.A. Pastor of Mosaic, Erwin McManus. We got to hang out his house one night for Mariah's birthday and found this cardboard cut-out of him! We had to sneak some pictures of course, lol. So this is the man behind this incredible movement here in LA...



So the best thing about LA so far is Pinkberry. No kidding. It is REAL frozen yogurt and it tastes like heaven! I have had it about 12 times by now these past few weeks. So addicting! The small cups are only 80 calories and you can add in fresh fruits, granola, candies, or cereals. It really in unbelievable! The South REALLY needs to pick up on this...




Group shot of most of the girl interns. They are ALL amazing!


I really request continued prayer for us all. We are finally getting into routines and working really hard at each of our own campuses. Pray for continued good relationships and responsibility. Please also pray for my focus out here. There are so many things I tend to focus on from home and school that need to be put to rest so that I can be fully present, right here, right now. I hate to be the one to worry and dwell on things. God is doing incredible things out here and so alive in so many people you would not expect. I wish you could all see that.

Chino

Once again, another busy week that was so jammed packed with activities and rethinking the way church has been done my enitre life. It has been an incredible journey so far and God has been completely redirecting my life and idea for what I want to be doing when I graduate.

Last night I got to hang out with the high school students in Chino for their mid-week gathering. I instantly bonded with 2 girls who are so sweet. Church just seems like a social aspect in their lives right now, but they have such sweet hearts for their age. For one of the girls it was her first time and she loved coming. I could tell immediately that they loved having me there as a college student and just loving on them. They couldn't get enough of me for the night! The 2 other interns bonded really well with the guys in the youth group and apparently this was the best mid-week gathering the students have had with being engaged, according to the youth director Scot. I can really feel the impact we are making in the students lives in the course of one week already.

This Saturday Mosaic will be starting their first gathering at South Bay beach. Please be lifting us up in prayer as we gather for the first time on the beach and that it will be yet another amazing place of rest a refuge for the broken people in LA.

This past Tuesday all the interns had a "learning lab" and it was so incredible. The theme of discussion was being a proactive person. It was such an encouraging lesson to have here. The Mosaic internship is so different from what any typical internship would be because you have almost no idea what you are doing from one day to the next. It is what we make it. We have an extreme responsibility to be active on our own- evangelism, small groups, volunteer, learning, etc. They are not giving us all these set plans and things to do. The intentions of Mosaic are to teach us how to be the most proactive that we can so we can be building relationships with the people at the church, especially the non-Christian and getting involved on our own. It is about making church the place to prepare us to live out real Love and be invited into others lives to eventually share Jesus. Because isn't this exactly how Jesus approached it? Every Sunday we all make it a goal to meet as many people as possible, get phone numbers, and make plans to reach out and build relationships. Because life is really just about relationships and conversation right? From day to day no matter where you are, you are making relationships and talking with people, good and bad. It is an incredible but awesome challenge to honestly just love on every person you meet and in a way where they feel so loved and accepted for who they are, not what they do.

My challenge for you is to do the same. Call up a friend you know doesn't know the Lord and make the plans you have been meaning to. To just sit and share life together. To reach out in love. Accept them. It is not about preaching God to everyone the first time you have the chance. If you are invited into the space of another person's life, you love on them. If you succeed in this then there is no way that Jesus will go by unnoticed in you. Because believe it or not, He is the desire of everyone's heart whether they realize it or not. This is a picture of my friend, Benji, who is a Scientologist that I met at church. He comes to Mosaic and calls it his community because he loves the community and the love he feels when he comes. He has never felt that before. He is still not a believer, but slowly asking the questions. Be praying for him.




P.S. I had to go to the hospital today because of kidney pains. Nothing severe, but I am still hurting. I would love for your prayers for my health so I can be at my best for this summer.

The "WOW" Factor

Wow. That word about sums up my days since last wednesday. It has been an incredible journey thus far, but looong and busy days. I can't breathe yet!!! But, loving life in the midst of all this =) This is the Mayan campus of Mosaic. they have 7 campuses now in L.A. I will mainly be at the campus in Chino, but we will all help out on Sunday night services at the Mayan. Its an awesome club in the middle of downtown we meet at and, in my opinion, the best service. We were literally cleaning up the club for about 3 hours that day to prepare for the service. yeah, cleaning up a nightclub you can only imagine the dirtiness of it having to clean toilets and picking up trash. Yet I was so joyful to be doing it and so was every single volunteer.







So the 18 interns are absolutely amazing. I couldn't have been paired with better people form all over the world in my opinion. There are 10 girls and 8 guys. The guys are absolutely hilarious because 6 of them are from out of the US so we have no only the great accents (haha!) but also an awesome combination of personalities and cultures. The new language for some of these mates (friends that is) is quite funny to see them try and catch on to! We all got to hang out last night for the first time with everyone here to celebrate Fabian's 24th birthday. He is from Germany and very funny. The guys got to go on a men's retreat all weekend so we surpirsed him with his first American birthday party with the most intense game of pin the tail on the donkey I have ever played!! Ha, it feels great to be a kid again sometimes...

So while the guys were away this weekend all the girls helped with a production that was performed on Sunday. One of the most POWERFUL performances I have ever witnessed or been apart of! Mosaic has the most incredible and talented community of actors, singers, dancers, and any kind of performer you can think of. Before even attending the first church service on Sunday I have never felt so apart of a church than I have here at Mosaic in L.A. of all places. THIS IS CHURCH. Just meeting new people and being apart of the team for a few days I have never met more passionate people in my life that just live to serve people because the Love of Jesus moves them so much. I mean if you read through the New Testament and try and figure out what Church is really supposed to look like Mosaic would be the picture. I mean people out here LIVE OUT THE GOSPEL every single day and in every kind of vocation you can think of! They encourage talent and creativity from every person no matter what form it takes on.I feel like I have finally found the movement of what I have been wanting to see the church live out from scripture after so much bitterness towards the church. I mean they cater to the non-Christian and church is all about them, not to have a weekly Christian gathering where everyone agrees with one another. Instead they have created this dynamic space in which every single person, race, and culture whether Atheist, homosexual, addict, broken, jaded, wounded person can call a community for themselves and feel loved and non-judged by Christians.

I actually have made an amazing new friend, among the many I have made here in one Sunday, who grew up a Scientologist. He is not a believer of Jesus but he absolutely loves Mosaic and the people at this church. He brings his non-Christian friends with him too because he loves it so much. I made friends with his roommate who is a believer and says that this guy is starting to ask questions and comes around, but he's not quite there yet. But what a true image of what Christ's intentions for people are. These are exactly the first type of people the gravitate towards Jesus as the scriptures tell us and can feel loved and accepted by him. Have a homosexual walk into a southern baptist church today and I GUARANTEE you that is the last place on earth they would ever want to be. But see, Mosaic meets the people where they are and give more into a relationship than they can get from it. It's something I could talk about for hours but I am never going to make you feel the love this church relentlessly gives to others unselfishly until you experience it for yourself.

Much of what Erwin talked about this past Sunday was exactly this. It is a series on their 5 core values and this week it was Love represented by wind. hard to explain, but please download the podcast at www.mosaic.org. On the right side click on the link for podcasts and click on the most recent one. I t really was one of the most powerful messages I have ever witnessed.

May you love people for who they are, not who they should be. May your love for them be so strong that they can't help but gravitate towards the ultimate love given to us so freely by God. And may you be a church not bounded by a day of the week or walls of a building.

Surreal Days

So arriving at LAX airport and driving to my apartment I will be staying at for the summer was mind blowing. Our driver took us the long way through the city because she wanted us to see the city lights at night. It was absolutely amazing to see the city so alive at 2 am in the morning. Anyways, we drive up to the WB Studios and right in the middle of their massive studio lands that they own....is my apartment!!!! yes, we are staying in the middle of all the studios! 1 mile from the other side of us is the Universal Studios and 2 streets away are Sunset Blvd. and Hollywood Blvd.

I got in about 130 am which would be about 430 Atlanta time. So I crashed as soon as I got here. I have met a few of the girls this morning and this could not be a MORE perfect group! We are going to go and try to hit up the beach today, in Santa Monica that is, before our welcoming dinner then work begins tomorrow. Til then, stay classy east coast =)

Hollywood Journey Begins...

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith- that you, being rooted and established in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever, Amen.” Ephesians 3:14-20


So my journey for the next two and a half months officially begins now. I am on the plane from Dallas to LAX airport! Sure I enough I get on the plane and see this guy in first class I swore I knew. He just looked so so familiar. Then I realized it was Bill Engvall. He is the famous comedian that tours with Jeff Foxworthy and has his own t.v. show. Ha. No wonder why I thought he looked familiar.
This has been quite and emotional day for me. My two best friends Christi and Lauren took me to the airport today because my parents have officially moved to Charleston, SC. I am officially a senior in college. I am officially going to Hollywood for the summer. I have officially left Atlanta for good and started a new chapter of my life. Extremely exciting, yet sad leaving this chapter of my life. So much is changing all at once and I am just free falling into the unknown hand of God.
If you know me very well at all then you might know that this is my life verse. I think that this is the most incredible commissioning prayer that Paul gives to his fellow believers. It’s a prayer of Paul begging the Lord to be magnified in us so much in a way that it goes beyond all knowledge. It is like Paul is reiterating the idea that Christ cannot just be learned, but he has to be known. Paul has tapped into this concept and it is so great that he wants us to do the same. How amazing is it that once we really come to know the Lord we can see that he can do far more abundantly than all we ask or think! In the Greek language far more abundantly is the word υπερεχπεπισσου (which probably means nothing to you, but I’m obsessed with the language). Properly translated is means infinitely more than. I like this translation better because its not just that God can do more, but INFINITELY more. I like the idea of God doing things I cannot grasp or think of. It makes him such a bigger God in my perspective.
If you are reading this I beg you to be constantly praying for me and the group of interns at Mosaic Church this summer. You have no idea how much your prayers and monetary support mean to me. I want you to journey along with me what God has in store for those that are the greatest influencers of America in Hollywood. He is God of their city and Lord of our nation. For greater things have yet to come and greater things are still to be done in this city and I invite you to see that.

Ready or Not

Goodbyes are a killer. They really are. I have never ever really had to say goodbye to anyone before because there is always a time when I am pretty sure I will see them again. But now I have to do this who goodbye for real thing over and over and over. I don’t like it.

I feel like my whole life is changing. My parents are moving out of the house here in Atlanta this weekend and I leave for Hollywood June 4th. I am not sure I am ready to leave yet. It would be so different if I had Atlanta to come back to when I get back in August, but I don’t. Charleston is the new home sweet home. I have lived in the same house for 18 years this summer. Moving is a huge deal for the whole family right now.

You never really know what you’ve got until you lose it. Such a cliché phrase but it the truest thing ever. I had a couple of final goodbyes today when I went and visited some friends and HATED it. One in particular was really hard because that person just had a place in me that I have never had with anyone else. Memories are all you have got when you leave and you can’t hold on to those too well.

You want to know what I really think it is though? Fear. I think goodbyes are so hard because part of it is the fear that we won’t have it as good as we do already. Its like the world is ending and the good part is all over. But the more I think about it that’s so not true! God would never pull you out of a season of your life then make the rest of it “not as good”. I refuse I believe that the God who works for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28) still has the best yet to come for me or for you. I just have no idea what that is yet and that is why this part of my life is so hard to say goodbye to.

I really am excited beyond measure for Hollywood. I still think about it and cannot get over the fact that God has finally called me to Hollywood for a time when ever since I was in second grade that is where I want to be. I have no idea if I will eventually live there or not, but right now I would like to. NO ONE is ever to far from the grip of the grace of Jesus and those in Hollywood need to know that. I just don’t know what to expect and I’m nervous about it. Yet it is a good fear. Im growing up and moving forward in life. That is the real scary thought.

May you be excited about the road close at hand for you and may you remember what you have learned in Jesus and take it with you as you move on, ready or not.