praising God glad and generous hearts Favor adding to their number daily
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Update: I’ve moved my life to Gainesville, GA and have spent the last few weeks setting up a house that will soon be filled with 10 people who make up the ComLife crew. I’ve come a month early to get the house ready making sure everyone has a bed and dresser, finding cheap furniture for our place and talking through what exactly it is we’re doing with this new program with my leadership at AIM. Each day as we make general plans, it becomes more and more apparent that we have no idea what we’re doing. I hope that’s not too brutally honest for a newsletter…but it’s the truth. I’m realizing that the only way this program will work is if it is 100% backed by the Lord. And honestly, I think it is. (insert sigh of relief here) J
ComLife exists because of the cry from my generation for something more. Young people have rejected the old model of the traditional church, but haven’t replaced it with anything of value. They’re calling out for the things the church is lacking. They’re fed up with the hypocrisy they see and want real, ragged and raw life lived together. But how do you jump out of the box and get there? Well, one answer is move to Gainesville and bunk up with us at our new house on Riverside Dr. I’ve already said that we’re not exactly sure what we’re doing, but we’re trusting God with the details. Here’s what the structure looks like so far:
- Community Living-We share rooms, we share groceries, we put some of our money in a household account and live life together. We pray and sing together every morning. We have bible studies and we have fun. We’re going to try this out and hope we’re all alive at the end. We’re going to learn about grace.
- Mentorship-Let’s face it, we didn’t move to Gainesville for the landscape. We came to have some life and wisdom poured into us by the amazing families and missionaries that make up AIM. We want what they have and honestly want to learn how to be like them when we grow up.
- Internship-We’re going to work in the office at AIM part-time. We’ll get a behind the scenes look at what it takes to run a missions agency and we’ll give back. We’ll work in the office because that’s what serving is and we want to learn how to serve another person’s dream.
- Leadership/Training-Some amazing teachers pass through the doors at AIM and we’re going to be here to glean from them all we can. Our Friday mornings are devoted to teaching times and we’re excited to grow through the wisdom of others.
- Ministry–We’re going to get involved in the community of Gainesville, which conveniently has a population of over 80,000 Hispanics. We’ll practice our Spanish, love on some children, and share the love of Christ. We’ve met some awesome ministries in this area and we’re going to seek to be a light to this place because we believe that we’re supposed to be missionaries everywhere we go.
With these five categories as our semi-structure, we’re going to trust God to mold and expand this as He would want it. It’s being held loosely in our hands and we’re just seeking to hear His voice on how it all plays out. My guess is that God’s got a huge plan for it to expand beyond what we can even imagine, beyond our personal reach, beyond Gainesville. I think he wants these types of missional communities everywhere-I mean, He did outline it all for the early church in Acts 2. They’re our heroes and we want to be like them. Would you join us in this new endeavor?
I’m in a pretty serious financial crunch these days. Since I’ll be pouring myself into ComLife and its development and mobilization, I will not have much time to get a part-time job to support myself. I’d love for you to partner with me in prayer and finances. Would you pray about becoming one of my monthly supporters as I become a full time staff member with AIM? My support goal is $10,000 for the year, but I need $3,000 to begin receiving a paycheck. I’ve got two weeks to get this money in before I need to start filling out applications at Starbucks. Thanks for praying and considering quickly! J I’ll be making follow up phone calls within the next few weeks to talk through any questions with you. Thanks for praying about this and for all your support!
With love,
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Amanda Dums
My Blog: [email protected] Email: [email protected]
