update

I'm currently chillin at one of my favorite restaurants/office, Cosi. Love this place! Just got back last week from leading worship @ Camp Destin 09 in Destin, FL. Yeah, sufferin for the call. It was awesome! Saw over 80 youth respond to choose to follow Christ. Really enjoyed it, except the time when I got a whompin big speeding ticket on the way back. Ouch! Guess I outta "obey the laws of the land" a little better.

God continues to amaze me. We had such an amazing service yesterday yet again. Had one person choose to follow Christ, and many lives changed. We're in week two of a new series, "Rewind...somethings are worth repeating" where we are going back and preaching some of our congregation's favorite sermons from the past year. Justin preached a great one, "Quitter" (one of my favs, you go boy). Check the podcast out @ www.fctulsa.tv. It was an awesome day.

It's crazy! Summer has been such a time of growth in attendance for our church; that's usually not the case! Can I hear a big "Amen" from my Pastor friends. It's just been very unusual. Just a few weeks ago, we had our largest yet with over 190 in attendance (just a normal Sunday), and saw 12 people respond to follow Christ. Awesome times! I'm so glad to be in the center of God's will for our lives. It's a great place to be.

Personal life:
We're doing great, so blessed. Gotta tell ya, "I love my wife"! She is so awesome. Gavin is getting too big, too fast. It's so much fun though; he says and does the funniest things. We laugh so very much. Cassandra went on a shopping trip to Dallas with her friends this weekend, so Gav and I had two days of quality time, just the guys. Took him out on the boat with some friends. The kid has little fear. Could barely keep him in the boat. He also had his first tubing experience. All he could say was "Whoohoo" in his little high pitched voice. We had a blast.


Gettin ready to go on family vacation to Orlando in August. Gonna see Mickey, we're pretty excited to stand in long lines in the smoldering heat for hours. It's gonna be worth it though.

God continues to open some pretty cool doors. We keep taking faith steps, and he keeps providing. We received an invitation to lead worship at a Youth Conference in Canada the last week in August. I know, right! So Sandy and I will be flying out there for four days. Never been up that way, so I'm pretty pumped! Also doing some Youth Camps and Conventions in the near future. It's so very humbling at how God just provides in such crazy ways.

Prayer Request:
God is always so good, but we still face trials. I love the book of James. He just tells us how we should live. A scripture I'm holding to today and the days to come is this:

James 1:2-4
2 Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. 3 For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. 4 So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

Honestly, my heart is very heavy this week. Some close friends of ours are facing one of their hardest trials you can imagine. Monday morning their world was completely rocked. Don't want to go into great detail, but they were 7 months pregnant and lost the baby. The funeral is tomorrow. I would just ask that you could remember Cory and Jen Spurlock in your prayers. They are truly gonna need God's help and peace in the days and weeks to come. Don't know why bad things happen to good people, guess it's just life. There is a good song by Building 429, "Always" that's really touched me today in this situation. It's in these times that God's word is really tested true. So please pray for this family.

Thanks:
I want to say a big thanks again to everyone who has supported us. Whether in finances, prayer, etc, we thank you so much. God uses many avenues to fulfill His plan, and you've made it possible for us to be here following the call He's placed on our lives. Couldn't do it without you. If you would like to support us financially, you can do so by sending a tax deductible gift to:

JGM
P.O. Box 1406
Jenks, OK 74037

We love you all, and pray God's continual blessing on your lives.

Shannon & Cassandra Dalrymple

Update

Hey everyone,

Well this is our first blog. Thought this might be a great way to let everyone know the progress of our lives. Let us start by saying, it's fantastic. God continues to amaze us. It seems it's when we finally come to the end of ourselves, our abilities, our failures, that He really steps in. It's like He's just saying, "Are you done yet?"

This past year has been a whirl wind. So it was in February of 2008 that we felt the call to step out in faith and help plant our church, Foundations Church (www.fctulsa.tv) in Tulsa, OK with our close friends Justin & Casey Graves. It's been a dream of both of our families for the past 8 years. Now this dream was becoming reality. What a ride it's been! In May, we resigned from a great church in Texas, Foundation of Life, packed our things, and moved on total faith. Not knowing if the finances would be there, not knowing where we'd live, and not knowing what we'd do for a job; we trusted in God. Let me tell you, he's proven so faithful. We kick ourselves today that we doubted so much. We had so many questions like, "Can we do this?", "Are we ready?", "How will we make a living?", "Will people actually come...?" This is what we faced.

History, we launched on September 7, 2008 with so many family, friends, and neighbors joining us. The response has been amazing. This weekend, we had our best service yet, with over 190 people in attendance and 6 responses to receiving salvation. In just 9 months, we've had over 130 people make a commitment to follow Christ. That's awesome! What we're seeing is people who have grown tired of what the church has become and the church machine. They've either never been a part of church or have been hurt by other ministries. We have testimonies almost on a weekly basis. For instance, Glen came for a second time this weekend. He caught me in the hallway after service with this response: "Shannon, I'm 39 and I've not been to church in over 25 years. I was just done with it. A friend invited me, so I thought, sure I'll get her off my back. Shannon, I love this place. I'm lost, I'm alone, but I gave my heart to God today." I'm sitting here writing this now in the middle of a restaurant just cryin like a little girl. Kinda embarassing, O well! But this is the kind of people we're reaching. The church continues to grow. We need to add new staff. Fixin' to start taking those next steps of faith. What's cool is...we're never done. Not gonna be satisfied with 200, or 500, or 5000. They're are so many who are lost.

Personal life: Our family is so blessed. God continues to take care of our every need. Cassandra and I love it here! We've found home in Jenks, OK. Pretty good feeling. Gavin is getting so big. He's 2 now and definitely the ladies man (at least, we think so). He is my very best friend. Love spending time with my family. We're very busy in life, but always trying to spend time with each other. It's a must! Cassandra grows more beautiful everyday. She's such an awesome wife and mom. She's raising us well! It's been pretty cool how God seems to be just opening so many doors for the both of us more than ever. On top of ministry, Cassandra's very busy with her graphic design business. I've had more invites than ever to travel, leading worship at several conferences and youth camps this year. It's so awesome! Our band, Upon Elwood, released our first demo cd this year. We're writing songs every week now. So many new ventures ahead.

It's really cool that God uses nobodys. He uses sinners that simply choose to follow Him. There's a new song by Hillsong United called "Arms Open Wide". We've made it our heart's cry as individuals and as a church. When you just let God use you, I mean really use you, he makes it so awesome. I'm finding that out everyday.

If you've received an invite to this blog, it's because you've been something special in someway to us. If you have been supporting us financially over the past year, we very humbly thank you! If you would like to start contributing to our ministry and Foundations Church, please contact us. We love you all and pray God's continual blessings on you.

Shannon & Cassandra Dalrymple