Finding The Brave Way Home
We are trusting that what God is stirring in us, He is stirring in others.
For months and months, we've been praying fiercely for God to reveal our next steps...desperate, on our knees prayers for glimpses of how He might continue to use us. We’ve prayed fervently for God to give us a vision for what is next for us and the language that goes with it. We’ve prayed that He would take our gifts, take our passions, take our brokenness, take our love, take every piece of us...and use every bit of us for His eternal purposes. We’ve prayed surrendered prayers...
And in November of last year, God began to connect some dots for us through His Word, revealing some of the corners of the tapestry He is weaving together in us.
We know that what God has walked us through, held us through, shaped us through will be embedded in us forever. It will inform every sermon we preach, every song we sing, every story we tell…it will be woven into every everything from here on out. We are simply different people. Nothing in our lives goes untouched by the heartache nor the hope. Everything in our lives has been impacted by our suffering and His faithfulness...everything.
But in the midst of that all-encompassing change, our hearts have a longing to protect the distinctness of our story...a deep desire to preserve a pathway to keep our story, Calla’s story, from being lost in the embeddedness.
The Brave Way Home is the vision God has given us to capture our heartbeat for discipleship and use it to serve Him in all the ways and arenas that it can play out. We want to see heavenly thinking invade earthly living and to let that hopeful heart posture shape marriages, families, individuals, neighborhoods, communities and local churches. The Brave Way Home is our humble, surrendered response to God’s leading...entrusting every bit of our story for God's eternal purposes, believing that He won’t waste any of it.
God has been awakening our hearts to an intense longing for Home...for Heaven...and we want to point people to the same promises we are clinging to and the same Savior who calls us forward. We want to shepherd others on their journey with Jesus, to encourage, bolster and remind weary pilgrims of the joy set before us...we want to fix eyes on Jesus and set hearts on Heaven.
We have lots of ideas and practical ministry expressions in the pipeline, but we are holding all of it loosely, trusting that what God is stirring in us, He is stirring in others. We are believing that He will open doors and move hearts and provide ways for us to pour out what He is pouring into us...opportunities to stimulate a hunger for deeper things, partnerships to foster lives fully submitted to the journey and hearts yearning for the destination.
The wide range of opportunities to pursue deeper discipleship makes it difficult to define, but our heart is simply to call and equip you to deeper living in whatever season and situation you find yourself in. God has woven marriage and family and grief and ministry into our story and our shepherding hearts want to leverage all of it for the Kingdom. We want to encourage you to serve Jesus in your marriage, to resource you in discipling your family, to walk with you in your grief, to spur you on in your love for God and your service to Him. We want to partner with churches and organizations seeking to pronounce their values and culture more clearly, to help them foster deeper discipleship pathways and develop impactful, caring environments to walk with those in grieving seasons.
In the last 6 months, specifically, we have been building out a lot of foundational infrastructure, developing a ministry plan, values, and vision and creating the means to share it all. Our website presents the practical means of ministry we hold out to you and is the best way to engage with what God is doing in and through us, so please visit www.thebravewayhome.com to get familiar with our vision and pray about how you might wayfare with us. Share and connect with us on social media, commit to supporting our ministry, sign up for our mailing list, ask for specific prayer or coaching...however God is leading you to engage with us, we are hopeful that you would allow us to walk with you in some way.
In the coming days, we plan to share some of the foundational scriptures that have shaped The Brave Way Home and help you apply them to your own journey. We fully believe and attest to the truth that God’s Word is the light that reveals our path forward and we hope to give you a clearer and fuller understanding of The Brave Way Home as we engage Scripture together.
We truly are so thankful for you,
Ben and Crystal
#praiseforcalla #teamwoods #thebravewayhome
