Stories of Grace | Lenten Worship - March 18, 2026

I am at times in awe of the knowledge and faith some of these girls have. Through them, I learned more about Jesus and the bible, and they have opened my eyes to worship music. My faith grew with these girls and through working at Hope Harbor, and it continues to grow each year with each year and group. After attending living word for a few years, I felt the push to join the church. That nudge like Greg talked about last week. I was also looking for ways to serve at church since I didn't since I grew up with a sense of if you are a part of the church, you serve at church. It was a foundation I had as a child, and it really stuck with me. [00:26:19] (43 seconds)  #FaithThroughService

It might have been on the list of suggested verses the pastor gave us, but I'm pretty sure that I picked it because it was the verse of the week at camp one summer, and it was one of two verses I had memorized at the time. Reflecting on it now, I think it's been a pretty good verse for my life. I may not always talk about my faith outright, but I think that it shines through the most when I'm serving. Thanks. [00:27:59] (28 seconds)  #FaithShinesInService

We prayed in a big circle before every performance in New Wine, but I never volunteered to be the one to pray. I didn't pray out loud, and I didn't feel confident doing so. That first morning on my own, I had no idea what to do for a devotion. I had never done them before. I ended up picking a couple books from the bible and asked the girls which one they wanted to do. So every overnight shift, I would read through a part of Genesis and eventually Exodus with the girls. Sometimes they would ask me questions, and I would look at the study part of my study bible, And sometimes, I just say, go ask this staff. They know more than I do. [00:25:38] (41 seconds)  #LearningToLeadDevotions

I hadn't been to an Ash Wednesday service for a very long time, and I was excited to go despite the tears now. The service really pulled me in, and I thought this is it. This is the church I wanna go to. I decided to go again on Sunday, and it wasn't a if I'm up, I'll go. It was a I'm going to get up. The Wednesday service after that first s first Ash Wednesday, Heidi had me join the small group she and Darren were leading. It was my first time doing a small group or even a bible study and encouraged me to find slash dig out my bible and bring it with me to church. [00:24:19] (44 seconds)  #AshWednesdayAwakening

Living word was again different from what I grew up with. Bringing bibles to church, taking notes, digging into the bible during the sermon, that wasn't a norm for me. In fact, even in high school, I barely paid attention to the sermon. Slowly, I was growing in my faith. In 2017, I started working at Hope Harbor as direct care staff, working mostly overnights, which for a night owl was perfect. The daunting part wasn't working with teenage girls. It was the devotions in the morning and the praying out loud. [00:25:04] (35 seconds)  #NightShiftFaithJourney

When I went off to college, I kind of lost that church community. I still went to church when I was home but didn't have that connection at college. My freshman year, I was surrounded with fantastic people and made fast friends with some of the people that lived on the same floor as me in the dorm, but I wasn't really looking to go to church. Some of my floor friends had connected with people from campus outreach and invited me to go to church. I went with a couple times, and it was unlike any church that I had ever been to before. [00:20:42] (34 seconds)  #CampusChurchDiscovery

I joined the church and filled out that little sheet where you that says where you'd like to serve and marked down several areas including the sound booth even though I had absolutely no idea about anything in there, and it still kinda scares me. I think it was Dave Dinas who reached out about the sound booth, and pretty soon I was serving there too. My journey of faith is a pretty quiet one. I have always believed in God even when there has been struggles and even when I wasn't really going to church. Psalm thirty four one says, I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. It was my confirmation verse, and when I picked it, I didn't really give it much thought. [00:27:12] (47 seconds)  #ServingBehindTheScenes

My junior and senior year of college, I didn't have a church connection, and I just felt like something was missing. I thought about going to that church again because it was the only church I knew in the cities, but didn't have enough courage to go by myself and wasn't too sure about asking anyone in my friend group to go with me. Reaching out and trying to connect with the church is hard, especially when it's a new church and there isn't an established connection in some way. After graduating college, I taught in Breckenridge, Minnesota. While there, I was still missing that church connection. [00:22:19] (37 seconds)  #SearchingForChurchConnection