In 1994, I moved to Chicago to attend graduate school.  My plan was to be here for 2 years with the possibility of going oversees or moving back to Tennessee. Now it is 14 years later and I am still in Chicago.  Who knew? 

When I first arrived, I looked at this city and thought, “How in the world am I going to make friends here?”  It seemed like it was going to be an impossible task to get to know people. I did not know a soul in this city and I didn’t know my way around. I mean, Chicago is huge compared to my hometown in TN.  Yet, I am amazed at how many people I have had the opportunity to meet and get to know in the past 14 years, as well as experience what the city has to offer. 

Looking back at when I first came here with my 2-year plan, I would have never thought that the plan would change and evolve into me working for a church and continue to live in Chicago. The biggest and most pleasant surprise is that I would have never dreamed that I would have so many people in my life that mean so much to me. It has been my privilege to attend several churches here in Chicago and have been richly blessed by them. Yet, New Life Community Church has become something more.  It is not only a place where I worship and work; New Life has become a group of people that has developed into my family. 

During my years here in Chicago I have changed jobs, addresses, and my place of worship many times. However, I have never had the desire to change my city fromChicago to somewhere else (well maybe when it is 30 below).  Chicago has been my home for 14 years and New Life Community Church has been a part of my life for 7 of those years. Both have become a place filled with family and friends, a place for me to experience community in a way I never could have if I had stuck to my 2 year plan instead of God’s.  Who knew?

I still remember our first night in Chicago.  Gil and I had just moved into the 9th floor of the Atrium village, our stuff was inside of our little studio apartment and we were pretty tired.  We sat down on the floor in front of our sliding glass window overlooking the El tracks and Cabrini Green and I remember saying to her, “this is home.”  She smiled and I knew she felt the same.  That was January, 1995—almost 14 years ago.  We still call Chicago home. 

We gained another home within a home here in Chicago back in 1999 when we first became a part of New Life Community Church.  It was in September of that year that we began attending the worship gathering at IIT on 31st Street.  We no longer meet there—in fact we meet in a bunch of different places now—but the sense of home is still the same.  New Life has become for us a home within Chicago—a place of relationship, worship, meaning and purpose.  My role has changed over the years—at first I was a children’s ministry teacher for 2-3 year olds and now I’m a pastor—but the sense of home has only increased the longer I’m here.

Here’s my hope—that you would find the same sense of home at New Life that our family has found.  We’re not a perfect place—like any family, we have our moments and our issues.  But we are a place for people to discover, love, obey and serve Jesus in the company of others.   And there’s no place like home (right, Dorothy?)  Thanks for stopping by and come back often.