For 10 years I prayed and hoped that my family’s spiritual life would be different than what I grew up with. I had a great childhood, a mom who loved Jesus, and we went to church. But it ended there. We didn’t talk about Jesus at home at all. I saw my mom reading her Bible and praying but I was never apart of any of it.
I knew I wanted different for my family. But no matter what we “tried” it wasn’t that different. We would go to church on Sundays and anything outside of that felt forced or awkward. My husband and I tried to pray together, we tried Bible studies together, nothing stuck and I ended up feeling more and more frustrated.
Once we had kids I thought maybe that could change things, maybe doing things as a family would “work” better. But the same result-we went to church on Sunday’s and anything outside of that felt awkward, forced, and wildly inconsistent.
After 9 years of marriage, some old college friends were moving to the same city we lived in. They were telling us about this missional community they were hoping to start in St. Louis. I instantly knew I wanted to be apart of it. They weren’t even “pitching” it to me, they were just telling me about it, but I knew it I wanted in.
Over the past year since we started doing missional community our lives have changed drastically. It honestly doesn’t seem believable outside of Jesus working in our lives through missional community. Jesus being a part of our daily lives is so natural now. It’s natural for me, it’s natural in our marriage, it’s natural for our kids and how we parent. My kids pray, my kids ask questions, my kids really know Jesus at such young ages-what a gift. I am living what I have been praying for for 10 years.
I’m not implying that we’re perfect or that we’ve “figured it out”, I’m just talking about a really beautiful way of doing life. I see it changing our lives and I know this has generational effects. I know my kids will grow up with a different perception of God because of this. I know that it’s God that has worked in our lives and changed us, but it has been made possible through missional community. We see the Holy Spirit moving and working in this group and I am forever grateful to be apart of it.
Testimony from the St. Louis Missional Community that Anthony and Kylie Watts are planting using Inspire principles and practices. If you’d like to know more connect with the Watts HERE.
