But… here I am. I changed my mind for various reasons. One is a little conceited. Last June we had a baby, and I’m convinced that everyone wants to know what he is doing and looks like ALL the time. Yes, sadly, I’ve become that deranged mother (grandparents rejoice!). The other big reason is that my husband and I are trying to start a new church in our town. We aren’t doing it alone of course. We had our first core group meeting a few months ago, and there are about 20 people committed or seriously considering a commitment. But I think I, as Sam’s wife, am going to have a unique view on how this whole thing goes down. I hope that this can someday be an encouragement to other families as they start down similar roads, or for anyone who wants to keep tabs on this crazy family.

The first week of January Jo, Gus and I traveled to visit my family in upstate New York. This gave us a nice break from alot of the busyness.

As many people know we have been planning and praying for the opportunity to plant a new church for the Lawrenceville Bloomfield sections of Pittsburgh.

Last weekend I presented my plans to our denomination’s regional leadership and they decided to endorse it.

This means a number of things for the DeSocios and thedesocios.com

1. Joanna, and I will begin working toward starting a new church for Lawrenceville and Bloomfield.
2. We will be connecting with many people who might want to join us in this new church.
3. This means that we will be pretty busy preparing for our transition, including spending alot of time finding the needed resources to realize our hopes for this new church plant.
4. Starting in July 1st I will move from my position as Assistant Pastor at City Reformed, to being a fulltime church planter. The leaders at City Reformed hope to have a potential replacement in the works by June so that there might be some overlap.
5. I will not be posting as much as I had been on our site, as I will be spending alot more time networking and updating people about our progress. Im not sure that we will be using this site for those updates.
6. When I post they are going to be shorter.
7. We are gonna spend more time putting up pictures and videos of Gus (thats why most people come to this site anyway.)
8. We need help from lots of people to see our dreams of a new church community become a reality. Please consider how you might partner with us, in support prayer or participation. Contact hopeforpittsburgh@gmail.com

1. Spend more time getting things done
Grade:C+ I got alot better at keeping track of things, but I still wasted alot of time this year.

2. Get to know more of our neighbors
Grade:B- Volunteering and being a local helped with this.

3. Network with more church planters
Grade:B+ Between Philly, Assessment and Pittsburgh, I’m beginning to get to know alot of great church planters.

4. Write on our blog more often
Grade:C While I didn’t write as often as I wanted to, I upped my posting over 2008, from under 40 to 114.

5. Finish as many of my half read books as possible
Grade: C- While I did finish some books I wanted to read, I ended up adding a few more books to my need to read list.

6. Take more photos
Grade: A- With a new baby, and a better camera phone I definitely took alot more pictures this year than 2008.

7. Pray more
Grade: B+ While a had a better pattern of prayer in 2009 than I did in 2008. I’m still not praying as often as I wish.

So what are some goals for 2010

Read and pray more systematically with my family.
Go fishing or camping at least once.
Write in a more systematic way.
Get my bike fixed and actually ride it.
Network with more community leaders and pastors.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

(Philippians 4:6 ESV)

Sometimes God’s word hit you right between the eyes and you need it to.

Monday morning Jo, Gus and I flew to Atlanta, for our denominations Church Planter Assessment. The main goal of the Assessment was to interact with Jo and I to see how well we might do at starting a new church (often called church planting). Our denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America does this kind of thing several times a year. We were with 8 other couples and one guy.
The actual assessment was an intense process. It was broken up into projects, teaching, interviews, and personality testing. The men and women evaluating us had all participated in church planting or were in leadership in similar areas. All our assessors were great–they really cared about getting to know us, and while I assumed the whole thing would be just one big job interview, I’m glad I was wrong. I made some great connections with the other potential-planters as well as the assessors.

What Assessment wasn’t

• A cake walk — It wasn’t an easy process. We probably spent 15 hours just with the application alone, and that was before the intense 3 days spent in Atlanta.
• A vacation — I’ve never been on a vacation with that kind of breakneck pace.
• Final approval — The assessment offered us a recommendation. The final approval comes from our local network of churches(presbytery).
• That scene from Armageddon — The counseling wasn’t crazy and no one went near my cooli.

Why was it important?

• It was one of the best things that Jo and I have done for our marriage.
• The process also helped shape my thoughts on my limitations as a potential church planter.
• We went away from the week with a fresh perspective on our hopes for Lawrenceville, some of which changed over the week and other which were affirmed.
• It let me see that I hadn’t been relating to Christ the way I need to. I had been offering people the church, it was Jesus’s church, but I hadn’t been offering people Jesus. This blew me away, and I so glad that it did.

Does this change anything?

• Yup, it sure does, but I’m not exactly sure of everything yet, so I’m gonna keep my mouth shut.

1. We had a counseling session with Phil Drake. It was really good. We looked at where our blind spots are, and it confirmed to us that Jo and I are working well together. It also revealed some potential challenges for church planting and pastoral ministry in general.

2. I preached a 10 minute sermon and then Jo and I talked about our call to church planting. The format was such that there was no dialogue as much as they ask and we answer. It was a bit wearing, but an important step.

3. We’ve already got to talk to some great couples about ministry they are excited about. Its interesting to find that alot of the people here are looking for affirmation and they didn’t necessarily wait till after assessment to start talking praying and planning for church planting opportunities.

On a side note I need to thank my Mom who is staying with us all week, and all those other folks who contributed to let us get here.

We should remember that prayer is a way of talking to God. It doesn’t need to be overly formalized. Prayer when when you can, and look for ways to pray more often.

The problem I have is that when I think about prayer is that I often think about all the things I should be praying for, and it exhausts me. I get so stressed thinking about the things I’m not praying about that I rather just ignore the whole thing.

I needed a basic framework where I could spend time in prayer each day without feeling guilty that I was forgetting something.

So what I did was make a small spread sheet that I’ve put in the back of my Bible. I’ve broken it down day by day. Each day I pray for different things in a few categories: Family, Friends, Neighbors, Concerns or Ministries. So for instance today is Thursday and I prayed:

• My wife and son (thats the first item each day)
• My brother-in-law
• A few members of our community group
• Three of our neighbors
• The needs of single mothers in Pittsburgh
• A few Pastors that are doing ministry around the country
• Finished with a prayer for Church Planting and Evangelism(Also each day)

That ends up being 15 item. I also leave a few spaces intentionally blank so that I can add to the list as need be. I’ve been using my current list for a few months now, and I’ll probably change it out soon.

I admit that these aren’t the only things that someone should be praying for, but its a helpful start. For instance I sometimes add to this a slow walk thru of the Lord’s prayer. You’ll also notice that I’ve omitted Saturdays, this was just because things are so varied on that day, and I wanted to make something that I could do well, rather than just make something else to feel guilty about.

What I decided to do is spend about a minute praying for each item, which means that in the end I spend about 15 minutes praying for these specific items each day. At the end the week I can look back and be encouraged that though there might be other things I could add to my list, I have prayed for a number of important areas of my life.

I’m not suggesting that you have to follow this model, but if you are looking for a framework to help you pray about lots of things while not feeling guilty that you left something out I would recommend using something like this.

I’ve included a prayer template that could be filled in as you like.(I print it out on a normal sheet of paper and fold it in half so it fits in the back cover of my Bible.)

In the end find a way to stop feeling guilty that you aren’t praying the way other people pray and just start praying.