Casey Baldwin was introduced to Christianity at a young age, but he was left with a lot of questions and not many answers.
For years, he lived content with the answers atheism provided.
But when Casey and his wife decided to start a family, they opened up to going back to church.
Being in community in small group is where we believe that you will experience the greatest spiritual growth. It’s in small group that we are able to ask our questions, be vulnerable and honest with each other, care for each other, and encourage each other as we pursue God together.
Here is the full story of Josh Yahoudy’s small group experience.
Check out more information on small groups at clearcreek.org/smallgroups
“I came with all of my questions and doubts and they loved me through it.” – Jordan
Here is the full story of Jordan St. John’s small group experience.
Check out more information on small groups at clearcreek.org/smallgroups
The Raveditti’s graciously opened the doors of their own business for the work of ministry.
Chuck deciding to volunteer with the database team that later became the IT team served as the catalyst for Chuck in growing in his faith and commitment to Jesus and his mission.
He has since joined a small group, taken multiple classes at Clear Creek, and worked on dozens of tech projects at the church.
Amy Swift and her husband, Chris, moved to Louisiana from Texas, about a year after they were married. It was supposed to be a short-term move, but it turned into five years. And it was a long, lonely five years for Amy.
The Swifts just had their first baby, she was living in a new city where she knew no one and Chris traveled a lot for work. Which meant Amy was home with the baby most days, and she began to feel the crushing weight of isolation, separation and eventually depression.
She was tired, frustrated, anxious, and alone.
Chris & Amy thought getting back to Texas might fix everything… Texas is awesome, but Amy’s dark season wasn’t over when they moved back.
But I want you to hear how God used HIS PEOPLE to bring peace in Amy’s life. How through his people she experienced the presence of God.
Take a listen.
“I can see the life I was born into, but not the life that I was destined to live. God definitely had a plan for me…”
Want to learn more about fostering and/or adopting? Visit clearcreek.org
For many of us, COVID hit and impacted our emotional and spiritual world. To varying degrees, we’ve all felt it over the last year.
For Joe Stockdale, COVID limited his freedom, but led him down a path to true freedom through the Bible, a friend, and an online worship service.
To learn more about Clear Creek Community Church, visit clearcreek.org
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Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/clearcreek.org
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Twitter – https://www.twitter.com/_cccc/
“As I look back on who I used to be, which was angry and judgmental, selfish, and just harsh with everybody, I’m just amazed at how much God’s grown me.” – Jonathan Newport
This was a part of our online service at of Clear Creek Community Church.
For more ways to participate in our online service in this season, go to www.clearcreek.org.
Follow us on social media:
Facebook – www.facebook.com/clearcreek.org
Instagram – www.instagram.com/clearcreekcommunitychurch
Twitter – www.twitter.com/_cccc
Dear Amanda, I hope you receive this holy Bible with all of my love. And that in yourfuture you study it, understand it, and grow to love the words and the wisdom andcompassion they will bring into your heart.
Amanda Milski’s father penned these words in the front pages of Amanda’s Bible when she was a girl. Love from God, within her home, and through her church, was a primary theme throughout her youngest years.
Amanda grew up in Bacliff as one of eight children in a blended family. They attended a small church in San Leon where her dad’s faith in God grew as a result of a close-knit relationship with the people of the church, specifically the pastor.
“We used to go very religiously — every Sunday the whole family would go,” said Amanda. One Sunday the church hired a photographer to take family portraits, and they all dressed nicely and smiled big for the camera — the girls dolled up in “adorable little dresses.” All smiling. All together. That was her childhood.
“One of my earliest memories was when my dad got baptized,” said Amanda. “It was one of the most incredible days of my life.”
She felt a wave of warmth as she watched her dad go under the baptismal waters. That day, she told her dad she wanted to be baptized.
“He thought I was too young and didn’t fully understand,” she said. He had her explain to him what baptism was, and she recited a version of what her dad had previously told her. Ultimately, her dad decided she should wait. There was no rush.
Shortly after her father’s baptism, their pastor was hit and killed in a motorcycle accident.
“Our church changed after he was gone,” she said. Their family eventually stopped attending, and her dad grew distant.
“My life was completely different after our pastor died,” Amanda said. “My dad stopped praying with us as much and stopped reading the Bible with us as much.”
A few years after the incident, Amanda’s mother abruptly left the family.
“When she left I took it pretty hard,” Amanda recalled. “I felt a lot of abandonment and unworthiness. I was so unworthy that my mom couldn’t even love me, so she left.”
That happy family portrait was the only picture of the entire family together, and Amanda could no longer find it.
Amanda buried her conflicting emotions — a trust and belief in God and a feeling of unworthiness — deep in her heart and struggled with them throughout her growing up years.
In middle school, Amanda again asked if she could be baptized. She had been attending a different church in her neighborhood whose student pastors had a great influence on her growth as a Christian. Her stepmom asked her to write an essay explaining what baptism meant to her, but, for reasons she did not understand, her request was again denied.
“She rejected my essay, and so I started feeling really defeated,” Amanda said. “I started doing a lot of research and started reading the Bible as much as I could because I felt like I didn’t know enough. I felt like I had to know everything.”
Then in high school, the incredible pastors of her youth group moved away, and the church changed yet again. Amanda stopped attending altogether midway through high school.
She joined the Army National Guard right after graduating and quickly became lonely and isolated, enduring two years of depression and severe anxiety.
“I just lived my life as if God wasn’t in it — kind of meaningless.”
“When I was close to graduating from job training [in the National Guard], one of my friends asked if I wanted to go check out some churches on base,” Amanda said. “I was like, sure, why not.”
They visited several different types of churches, none of them a good fit. But those visits did ignite in Amanda a desire to start a conversation with God again.
Not long after this, she met a guy on an online dating site. They talked for about two months before they met, and after their first date he asked Amanda to go to church with him.
The guy — Jordan Milski — went to Clear Creek Community Church. Amanda was hesitant at first to attend such a big church, but the service — from the music to the message — struck her in a deeply emotional way.
“I went home and asked God to forgive me for not sticking by him and trying to take control of my own life,” said Amanda.
Amanda saw how God began putting people in her life to bring her back to him. Two of those people were Jordan’s friends from Clear Creek. But since they were “church people,” Amanda thought they would judge her.
“They terrified me at first,” she recalled with a laugh. “They’re gonna see how crappy I am,” she remembered thinking. “But they were amazing, and they still are.”
Amanda began to live her life more purposefully. She worked to build a relationship with her mother and began to pray regularly for her dad, hoping to bring him back into the church.
Amanda and Jordan started attending Clear Creek regularly and eventually married. Not long after they married, the Coffeys asked Amanda and Jordan to join their small group. It was in small group that Amanda finally began to deal with her feelings of unworthiness and considered the idea of baptism again.
The group read through Missional Community, a study that explains the mission of Clear Creek and essential beliefs of the Christian faith. Through this study and the encouragement of her small group, Amanda learned what it takes to get baptized.
“The reason I hadn’t been baptized was that I still had my feelings of unworthiness, like I didn’t know enough,” she said. “Now I know I don’t know enough, and it doesn’t matter how much I know. It just matters that I know God sent Jesus to die on a cross for me and that my sins are forgiven as long as I believe. Outside of that, I have a lifetime to learn about God.”
Amanda was baptized by her husband on October 6, 2019, at Clear Creek’s Egret Bay Campus with her mother, father, many of her family members, and her small group in attendance.
What do the Astros, Texas history, and brisket have in common? They are all things Yancey Arrington loves. On this episode Ryan Lehtinen talks with Yancey about his 23 years of serving as the Teaching Pastor at Clear Creek Community Church, his family, his passions, and what he would do if he wasn’t a pastor.
Addiction can be one of the most difficult and isolating circumstances someone can walk through, but recovery and peace are possible. On this episode, Rachel talks with Jay and Jennifer Ellis and Bonnie Wilson about finding hope in Christ, and community in Pathway to Peace, as they follow Jesus and even use their pain to spread the gospel.
Resources:
Addictions: A Banquet in the Grave by Edward Welch