What an amazing day we had! God is so good. We had such a great service.

We've had a desire to get the older kids involved in praise and worship. We decided we'd like to have them in the main service for part of praise and worship. But first we wanted to take a couple weeks to teach them about it...the why's and how's. So we sent Travis and Ashley in during the preaching time so they could begin teaching them. The kids got so excited and were so ready! So today we brought them in for a portion of praise and worship. It was so amazing to see these kids up in front lifting their hands and worshipping God. The parents came to the front to worship with their kids. It was so cool to see them worshipping God together. Even visitors were up in front worshipping with their kids. It was great.

We really believe we've hit a whole new level now. New people are coming in and the church is growing and their is such a stirring going on. Everyone can just sense God is doing something and we are on the verge of something great.

We're so happy to be able to share it with all of you. Thank you for you continued prayers. Don't stop! We need them now more than ever! Love you all.

M & M Night....Girls Night Out

We had such a great time last night at our Girls Night Out. We had what we called...

"M & M Night".

First we went downtown to Mellow Mushroom for dinner. It's a cool trendy place that had great food. Then we went to ice cream at Maggie Moo's. (See the M&M thing workin' here?)

We had such a great turnout. The best we've had so far. All the girls had so much fun just chatting and laughing.

Here's part of the group! April would kill me if she knew this picture of her was on a blog! (See bottom right)

Of course, we had to play a quick game....an excuse to give a prize away! But everyone went away with at least some M&M's!

(Shine, don't worry! You and Brooklin are still my Number 1 girls!)
Maggie Moo's has the best ice cream! We ended up there and we could hardly get anyone to go home. We had such a fun girl time! When I got home after 11 pm, my husband was wondering what we could be doing on a Girls Night Out until after 11! We'll never tell!

"Here's the church, here's the steeple...."

This is part of just about every corner here in Nashville. We were driving yesterday and approached an intersection here in Bellevue and this was one of the steeples seen on 3 out of 4 corners, just in that one intersection. I thought what a representation of traditional religion that is so prevalent in this area. Not that they're all bad, that's not it at all. Just tradition.

Through just about every landscape, you can look through the trees and somewhere see a white steeple peeking through. No matter how big or how small these churches are, they all have a white steeple. The architecture is beautiful, don't get me wrong. It's just funny that in such a modern society, that has advanced in every other area of technology, culture and lifestyle, we still hold on to representations of religion and spirituality of those older generations before us.

It's just incredible though to see God breaking down walls of religion and opening people's eyes to what a relationship with God is all about, which has nothing to do with a steeple!

The cool dude is 7!

Happy Birthday to Kameron!

I can't believe you are 7 today! When did you get so big?

We love you and miss you Bubba Gump! Hope you have a great day.

Watch for the UPS man!

"Can you hear me now?"

Have you ever seen such beautiful buttons and knobs?

We just have to share what God has done for this ministry in the past couple of weeks.

When we started Gateway we were blessed with a small sound system. It has been great and we are so thankful that God provided that for us. But we had already begun to outgrow that system. The sound board was maxed out and we couldn't add anything else to it. So, we have been checking around and believing God that we could find something to help get us to the next level.

Well, the people that live in the apartment above us just happen to be a Christian band. We met them when we moved in and talk to them frequently as we pass each other outside. A couple of weeks ago, the leader and the manager of the band came knocking on our door. They began sharing that they were going to be moving and the band was going in another direction. They were going to be getting rid of their sound equipment and wanted to know if we might be interested!!! Uhh, ya! Rick met with them and checked out all the equipment they had. They provided us with a list breaking down all the equipment and the copies of the pricing information from when they had purchased it.

To make a long story, somewhat shorter, they were selling over $17,000 worth of equipment! Nice equipment. They wanted to offer it to us first for only ....get this.....$1500!!! The equipment included a 32-channel sound board, several nice microphones, huge speakers, 100 ft snake, mic stands, power amps, road cases, cables galore and on an on. I don't know half of what the stuff is but I do know the sound we have now. We have more than enough to do what we need to do.

God is so amazing that He provided this awesome blessing for us. Talk about favor! We have so many things going on right now we just don't know what He's up to next. There is definitely a stirring going on here. The great thing about this is that it was presented to the church family and they rose to the occasion! They became so excited and stretched their faith with us.

We just want to give thanks to God for what He's done. I don't know if you really know what a huge blessing this is. Trust me. We've been pricing this equipment and just one of the items we were looking at was more than what we paid for the whole package of equipment.

Like we've said before, thank you for your continued prayers and support. It really is making a difference!

We love and miss you all. Thank you for rejoicing with us!

Happy Valentines Day!

Kiss someone you love!

We're looking forward to another great weekend! We have some things to share but seem to be so busy we haven't had a chance to post about it. But I promise it's coming.....

Have a great weekend!

What a difference a year makes.....

Can you believe it's been one year ago today that the caravan of moving trucks pulled into Nashville? We were unloading the trucks on this very day, just one year ago. It's been a big year for us. A year of huge transition, lots of adjustments and a whole new level of trusting God.

The difficult decision to leave Fresno, all that was familiar, everything that we had worked so hard to help build, was probably the toughest thing we've had to do. But God has brought us to a whole new place. A new place of trusting Him, a place of walking out each step and He directs. Of course, Fresno and Celebration will always have a place in our hearts! We are so grateful for the time God allowed us to be there. But we are so excited about our future here. We are in such great anticipation for the things ahead.

The past year has been amazing! What a year it has been. God is so good and He is so faithful. It doesn't seem real. God has provided everything for the journey. We feel like we've come so far. We have seen people give their lives to Christ, we've seen lives changed, we've seen a church family that has been "pulled up out of the ground". It could only be God.

Thank you so much to those who believe in what God has called us here to do. We so thank you for your love, your prayers, your support. It is truly making a difference. There is a moving of God's Spirit that you just can't deny. Don't think we haven't had our battles and fights. We have. But that's the only way to gain victory! It's been a great year but we know it's just going to get bigger and better.

Let me just say this, do not give up on your dream! Stay in the journey. Keep believing that what God has started in you, He will complete it!

We love and miss you all. Our prayers are with you and together, we can build the kingdom!

Love,
Rick & Sheri

Great Sunday!

Wow! What an incredible service we had today. We stand in amazement at how God is moving on such a deeper level in our services. Seriously, in the past 4 weeks, there has been such an intensity in our services. We can remember the Sunday that defined a turning point. It was one of those "draw a line in the sand" kind of moments. God is just sweeping through our worship services with such an anointing and powerful move. We've seen such growth in those in the body and such a hunger for a deeper relationship with God.

We have seen increase in numbers but more than anything we've seen an increase in the intensity and anointing. We feel like we're finally hitting a place where the personality and intensity of our church is becoming more and more defined. There is such a stirring in us and in people as well. The excitement is incredible. There is such an expectancy right now and it's amazing.

We have some great things in the works and we know God is going to show himself even more real. Thanks so much for your continued prayers! We love you all and miss you.