Love God and Love Others
Our mission is simple, but hard. GO to the missing, LOVE the marginalized and LIVE as God's kids. Our hope is to create many environments and opportunities to live that out. God asks us to simply Love God and Love Others, but the work to live that out is often difficult. However, we believe that when we do that well we love people, not because they deserve it, but because they matter to God.
When we live that out individually and as a community we believe Gods love connects people in ways that are undeniable. It is then Gods story connects their story.
Have a story to share?
We believe your story is your gift. When we share our story of how God has used us or how God has used others to impact us it provides hope to others. If you have a story to share we would love to hear it. You can email us at stories@blueashcc.com. Continue reading to see how we God has used us as a church to touch others…
Your story matters…
In June 2018 we took our largest team to Haiti serving alongside Back2Back Ministries. This is just a small glimpse of what they experienced during their week of serving.
God Impacted Me
Impact: 1) come into forcible contact with another object, or 2) to have a strong effect on someone or something. This is how the dictionary defines ‘impact’ as a verb. Although we didn’t physically collide into the church, the movement on our hearts is something I consider to be an impact.
One Sunday around 5 years ago we decided to attend BACC, because one of my husband’s acquaintances attended and said we should give it a try. We had been taking his grandmother to church; and as much as we loved her, and the people, our combined ages still made us the youngest person in attendance. We were fairly new to the area; I was craving to meet people to fellowship with and to grow with. People in similar places in life.
As a couple, we had been facing some bumps in the road regarding growing our family. When we walked into BACC on that first Sunday, we were met by the Pastor, who asked if there was anything he could pray for, and he prayed over us. It was so genuine. We met another couple, who also prayed over us. We had been missing that piece from our lives….genuine connections and love. The prayers were amazing, it was like a weight had been lifted. As my grandparents always told me, remember Ephesians 3:20. Never be discouraged, because “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,” (I grew up with the New King James version of the Bible). A few weeks later, we welcomed not 1, but 2 little ones into our home. Never in a 1000 years could I have imagined so quickly and so wonderfully we would be blessed. I know the prayers from church, as well as our family, led to this. I had been doubting, seriously doubting during this time. This brought my faith closer to where it should be and had the impact of feeling God’s love on my heart.
We continued to attend and get to know other people in the church, where some of our closest friends are. Life is never what we expect it to be, be that a good thing or a bad thing. Over the last few years we have had many “life events”. Life events that were challenging. Life events that were fun. Life events that were devastating. Every time there has always someone behind us, praying with us and for us. I feel the spirit of God with each and every prayer. I know that with 1 simple text message, I can have our family surrounded in prayer in seconds. The same can also be said in reverse. We are happy to stop and pray for anyone, anytime, for anything. Sometimes one of our children asks us to pray for their favorite toy, or maybe even for their friend. That warms my heart that they can see the power of prayer. That is love. That is friendship. That is family. That is impact.
Blue Ash Community Church isn’t a place, it’s a group of amazing people…
“Where do you go to church?” is one of the most common questions that I am asked when someone finds out that we are a Christian family. This question implies that a “church” is a place. I can confidently say that Blue Ash Community Church is not a place, but a group of amazing people doing their best to live lives as Christ followers.
When our family came to be a part of this church, it wasn’t by accident. Our marriage was new, and we had created this non-traditional family that needed to be planted to grow in faith. My husband was a new follower of Jesus, and I was an established Christ follower that was frustrated, thirsty, and slightly disillusioned. We knew that we needed a new community, and we set about finding our church. The minute that we stepped into the BACC building, we knew that there was something different about this group of people. We had been visiting several churches, but there was a new kind of acceptance here – a willingness to meet us exactly where we were. Although I can’t say that I heard from God that first day, we definitely did hear from him – telling us that this is where we needed to be, and we decided to commit ourselves to being a part of this church.
The impact of this decision has been multi-fold. To start, the influence of our community, the encouragement to study and pray, and the support from BACC as a whole has truly helped our marriage to grow. We now come together to pray, seek counsel from the Lord, and have a common ground in faith that drives our discussions and decisions on a daily basis. My husband believes that being a part of this community has taught him a lot about what healthy relationships look like. We have also received tremendous support from the BACC staff. If needed, we are able to seek wise counsel from Godly people that we know will build into our family and our faith.
We have found that our prayer life has also grown tremendously. We now seek first our Lord, and we do our best not to “lean on our own understanding.” The teaching at BACC, and its prayer-centered culture have greatly influenced this. We pray with our children on a regular basis, and we are supported in teaching them these lessons by the amazing staff and volunteers in the Blue Ash Kids Ministry.
We now have a close-knit group of people that we have found to “do life” with. These people love on our family, support each other, and challenge us to grow closer to Jesus. They have quickly become some of the people in our life that we know we can turn to, and the people in our life that we can call true friends.
Finally, the acceptance that we have found at BACC has influenced the way that we see ourselves and our family. We are not judged by our pasts or the areas in which we need to grow. We have been met where we are and have been encouraged in growth by many people who don’t even realize the impact that they are having on others.
Every Sunday, our family looks forward to coming to worship at BACC. We look forward to serving others, to building community, and to have a place where our family belongs. At this point in time, I can’t imagine our family being planted anywhere else.
Go…
Thank you for the "Go" Training. In all my years as a believer, this training has been the first time I've exercised speaking my story. My flesh didn't want to as it was difficult to get my mind around to put my story into words and then humbling myself to speak confidently about who I am in Christ. I appreciate the training and support to be thinking about how to tell my story in my daily life. I'm no story teller, but I can be vulnerable in the name of Jesus so that someone else may be saved by His grace.
