Norman Community Church

We experienced one of the biggest changes in our ten years of marriage this Fall.  Our church, Norman Community Church, made the decision to close its doors in December.  This is the only church we have known in our married life and we knew this would be a significant season for our family.

It all started at the beginning of 2004.  There was a group of us that attended a church in Edmond and lived in Norman and we met in small groups during the week.  Ken Primrose, one of the leaders of one of these groups began to invite all of us to pray for the city of Norman.  We would get up really early every week (I laugh now because 7:30 was in fact very early at this stage in my life).  We would meet in a little shed in his back yard, and we would worship and pray for our city.  We did this for six months with no agenda in mind other than to worship and pray.  At the end of six months, we launched Norman Community Church, with a commitment to walk out Jesus' words in Mark 11:17, "my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations".  We would be a "house" that lived in deep community and shared our lives with each other, we would be committed to "prayer" and a life of listening and responding to the words of Jesus, and we would be for the "nations", committed to inviting friends to discover Jesus with us.

We got engaged the same month that Norman Community began.  It was the way we began our lives together.  Ken stood in front of all of our family and friends nine months later to marry us.  It was through Norman Community that I began to hear the voice of Jesus and walk confidently in what I was hearing.  It was at one of our times of worship that I heard the Lord tell me that a pregnant coworkers baby, who the doctors said would not live, was indeed going to live, and it was at that place that I invited my community to join me in praying for this baby, for a miracle.  When that baby was born miraculously with no birth defects, I believed deeply that the prayers of our community were a part of that baby's story.  It was at Norman Community that I truly learned how to read the word and respond to what Jesus was saying.  It was there that I began to see what it looked like to live in deep community, to "rejoice with those that rejoice and mourn with those that mourn".  I weeped for my friends when they experienced loss, and I celebrated with great joy when they received good news.  I prayed for infertility, sickness, financial breakthrough, reconciliation of relationships, and saw Jesus come through over and over again.  It was through a relationship at Norman Community that I came to my job at MidFirst Bank, and that I got to learn what it looked like to live for Jesus in the workplace.  It is because of that move that today I get to work from home a few hours a week and spend so much time with my family.  It was through Norman Community's commitment to pray for our city, week and week, year after year, that I learned what it looked like to be persistent in prayer, to believe in the promises that were coming and not what we were seeing today.  It was through Norman Community that I began to walk away from fear, worry, and anxiety and learn how to choose peace and joy, a new freedom that will forever change the way our family responds when the storms come.  It was through discipleship at Norman Community that we learned the value of bringing darkness to light, of being vulnerable and exposing the deepest places of our hearts, for that is where healing, freedom, and life comes.  It was through Norman Community that we learned that church is a place to bring your gifts and to serve one another with your gifts.  We go to church to be contributors not consumers, and walk through the doors with a heart ready to give away what we have.  It is where Jake first led worship and cultivated a heart to lead our family in worship.  It was through Norman Community that we got to experience what spiritual family could look like, when friends love your kids like their own, when families and friends live together, eat meals together, move together, intertwine their lives with one another, linking arms with one another and running the race together.  I've seen our community buy their friends cars, pay off their loans, bring countless meals, keep friends kids for days on end, drop everything on a busy schedule to show up when they are needed.  So much generosity, so much sacrifice, truly laying down their lives for each other.  Before we had kids and even as we were raising our babies, we got a front row seat to some of the best parenting imaginable.  We were invited into the process, we got to see discipleship, discipline, traditions, communication, celebration, conflict, all done by the best of the best...all of it generously available to us to watch and learn.   The fruit of these years is too deep and too wide to adequately describe.

Our family will forever be shaped by the influence of Norman Community Church.  We are overwhelmingly grateful that this is where we began, that this is the foundation that our family was built upon.  May we go from here, continue to cling to these values, and give away what we have received.