Growing up in a Christian home, going to Christians schools, and attending Christian churches this was a phrase that I heard often: Jesus Died For Your Sins. Because I heard it so often, I never really THOUGHT about it. I always just knew it. Looking back, I feel like growing up in a Christian home, while a tremendous blessing, also has it's set backs. Now I know that sounds stupid... "Poor little Christian girl grew up in a home where she knew the Savior of the world loved her, died for her, and wanted to know her before she could talk..." I get it. THAT WAS A HUGE PRIVILEGE. But stay with me... Because of this, I was never really forced to consider the magnitude of that sacrifice. I never had a huge testimony where one day I was an alcoholic, drug addict living on the streets until Jesus rescued me. I was never a party girl looking for love in all the wrong places until I found the love of Jesus. I was just a normal kid, growing up in a two parent family, that was raised in a Christian bubble. And I am so grateful for that, but I'll be honest, sometimes I have wished that I had one of these "testimonies." It's hard to share Jesus with those who are in rough circumstances when you haven't lived those same circumstances. Now that's not to say that I've never sinned or that I'm perfect. Because that's far from the truth. I have sinned, still sin, and will continue to sin for the rest of my life.. because I'm human, and that's what us flawed humans do. But I've grown up my whole life knowing that I shouldn't sin, and I would try not to... when I did, I would confess that sin, ask Jesus to forgive me, know that I was forgiven, and try not to again... and the cycle continues. I had never REALLY examined WHY that worked...WHY I was able to be forgiven and move on. It wasn't until very recently that the weight of that phrase sunk in. But it wasn't the fact that Jesus DIED, that caused the enormity of this to really hit me. Everyone dies. Every man, woman, and child will one day die. So the fact that Jesus died is not the biggest deal of the story. I found myself thinking.. "If all Jesus had to do was die... well, any of us could do that. We will all do that one day, we don't really have an option on that one." That's why I think the phrase "Jesus Died For Your Sins" does not give Him the credit He is due. The more accurate phrase would be: "Jesus lived a PERFECT life. He never sinned, never messed up, never made a mistake, and then he CHOSE to be beaten, ridiculed, and was crucified (essentially suffocated to death) while people watched, mocked, and belittled him... FOR OUR SINS." But even that phrase does not paint the entire picture. That phrase only portrays the physical sacrifice that Jesus made. This was not the worst of what Jesus endured. Jesus felt the wrath of EVERY sin EVER committed by EVERY person that has EVER existed. Let that sink in for a moment. Jesus was rejected by his Father that he had a perfect relationship with. But not only that, Jesus endured the rage and fury from God, whom he loved, BECAUSE WE MESSED UP. Now I don't know about you, but for me, that is heartbreaking. To think, that a person would love me so much, that they would choose to not only endure that physical pain, but the mental anguish that comes from literally having the weight of the world on their shoulders... So that I could live somewhere perfect for eternity, so that I did not have to endure any pain after life on Earth. WOW. Think about that. Someone who didn't deserve ANY pain, but endured EVERY pain, just so we wouldn't have to. That is huge. Now, if someone you knew right now did that for you, wouldn't you feel as if you owed them EVERYTHING. Wouldn't you dedicate your entire life to that person and their cause. Don't you think you would do everything in your power to make sure that you made their sacrifice worth it? Well, why don't we? Most Christians I know, including myself, don't live as if we know that this very thing happened. We don't live as though someone sacrificed everything, endured the worst kind of torture there is, so that we don't have to. Because, I don't know if you've really thought about this before but, that WILL HAPPEN to every person who doesn't believe that Jesus did this, and choose to follow and have a relationship with Him. When non-believers die, they will be rejected and they will feel the wrath that comes from being separated from a perfect God, and then they will be tortured for eternity. And all they had to do was believe that Jesus already went through all of that for them, ask forgiveness for all that they've done wrong, and follow Jesus and pursue a relationship with him. THAT'S IT. Doesn't it seem like a no-brainer that we would do everything we could to share that with every person we could? I wouldn't want that kind of fate for anyone.. not even my worst enemy (okay I don't really have one of those, but if I did, I wouldn't). I definitely don't want that for someone who is just trying their best to get through life, and God doesn't either. He desires that "[none] should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). The best news is that Jesus didn't just die, undergo all that wrath, and then stay dead. And he charged us, who know the truth, who know that he did all of this IN OUR PLACE, to go and tell everyone what He did (Matt 28:18). That is why we, the Hudsons, are joining Real Hope Community Church and are giving up the security of a steady paying job. The Ft. Bend County area is full of people who do not know what Jesus has done, or who may have heard of Jesus, but do not realize the sacrifice and real hope that Jesus has provided them. But we know the truth, and we owe Jesus everything. We owe him our time. We owe him our finances. We owe him our lives. Because he gave His for us. Jesus didn't die for your sins...Jesus died for YOU, in YOUR place, and received the punishment for YOUR sins. what are you doing for him? If you know this truth and would like to help share it with the people of Ft. Bend County, please consider joining the launch team at Real Hope Community Church.
If you would like to help us share the truth and real hope of Jesus, please consider supporting us by joining our prayer team and/or making a monthly donation commitment so that we can invest in sharing the Gospel full-time. We are jumping head first into dedicating our lives to make his sacrifice worth it, would you join us, however that looks for you?
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Like Marin said, I won't usually post, she is the brains of the operation here for sure, but I wanted to take some time to reach out and explain my heart for a moment. It's so hard, especially when you are supposed to have faith, to be vulnerable to the people around you. Most of the people who stumble onto this blog right now are people that I know or know of, so you've known me as a certain type of person. I'm going to take some time here to share a small part of my testimony so that, hopefully you will know why I feel so deeply drawn to the area we are on mission to minister to. The Child: There are some who will travel to this page who only knew me as a child. You didn't get to see me mess up, but you knew my family. We were the Stitts at that time, and I didn't know any Hudsons. These were difficult times for my family. My mind has actually done a fairly good job of blocking most of these memories, but 2 things I know: 1) my dad had walked out (praise the Lord he is back in our family with no intention of parting ways again!), and 2) we were poor. I don't mean that bologna sandwiches were a staple and we had hand me down old clothes. Not that kind of poor. No, we got to the point that I remember going to our next door neighbor's house to get water in 5 gallon buckets so that we could drink water and bathe. I share this story so that people who visit this site don't see a family, or a pastor, who doesn't understand need. I share this story so that people who visit this site don't see a family, or a pastor, who doesn't understand need. I have felt need, I've lived without running water, I've had family members who had teen pregnancies, I've been a child of divorce and seen all sides of that hurt, I have seen kids (heck I've been a kid) who missed a parent, and I've seen parents who miss their kids. I've been a child who longed for things that other kids took for granted. When I was 11, Child Protective Services relocated me and my 3 younger siblings, and I even felt what it was like to be alone without family around me at all. I was placed in a temporary home away from all my siblings and family. Now we got to visit but it's not the same as living with them. From there, I got put into foster care and was eventually adopted into the Hudson family. The Punk Kid: My early teenage years were some of the weirdest years of my life. I was polite, I knew by the time I was 13 to say "yes sir, yes ma'am, no sir, and no ma'am," but I was a bit of a rebel. I identified as a Hudson more than a Stitt by this time, and I hated that about myself. It felt like the state had tried to wipe away my family through this adoption (even though I had the option to refuse it and instead had agreed to it. Welcome to the logic of teenagers). I got mixed up with what I now identify as the "stoners," but at that time I called them friends. I wound up slipping some of my prescription medicine to one of them, because we thought that kind of junk was cool. He had an allergic reaction and I turned myself in out of fear for his life, and to be honest a little bit of fear that he would turn me in anyway. Which landed me in alternative school for the remainder of the year. At that point, Mr. Hudson, who I call dad now, showed me the roughest form of discipline I have ever experienced, even to this day. When we got home that day, he silently closed the door, turned on the light, looked at me, and said, "I am so disappointed in you. You have more potential than this." It cut like a knife, and a part of me wanted to rebel. But that summer, he sent me to spend 2 weeks with my aunt in Duncan, Oklahoma. She then sent me to Falls Creek, a youth camp, with her church. That's where I really met Jesus for the first time. If that hadn't happened when it did, I honestly believe I would have run off the deep end. As the Lord would have it though, that desire to rebel was replaced by a desire to change and live for Him. The Teen: I dove into church after that. My dad bought me a guitar and paid for lessons and over the next two years I led worship (ish) for 3 different churches. It was during this time that I made some of my most influencial Christian relationships with those who I still call my role models and closest friends today. At 17, I received and accepted the call to vocational ministry and immediately began training under my youth pastor, Brent Baskin, in Student Ministry. I attended every Bible Study, every conference, every camp I could find. College Boy: After a 1 year internship at First Baptist Wills Point my senior year, I made my way to the University of Mary Hardin Baylor. Even though I would have to pay my own way, and it seemed crazy not to go to a cheaper state school, I knew that I had to follow my call to ministry at a Christian University. I immediately took a job as the Youth Pastor at FBC Moody where I quickly realized that I actually knew nothing about pastoring and I needed to spend more time under someone more experienced. I also realized that I needed to be able to explain my faith much better. I then interned for a year and a half at FBC Belton (see a Baptist church trend yet?) during which time I took the time to examine what I considered to be the most important parts of my faith and I discovered why I believe what I believe in that time. At the end of that short stay, I became the Youth Pastor at FBC Trimmier where the Lord allowed me to minister for 3 years to the day, Feb. 1st 2011- Feb. 1st 2014. At the beginning of that job, while praying to figure out how I should run and style this ministry, the Lord had revealed to me that I would be there for 3 years and that my job was to lay the ground work for that youth ministry to begin growing. Then, I got married. (It didn't happen quite like that but that's a different story...) Husband, Dorm Parent, Dad, Teacher: I got married to Marin McNeill Robinson on December 14, 2013, and on February 2, 2014 (two months later) we started our first family adventure as Relief Staff at a children's home in Weatherford, TX. Shortly after starting, we were asked to take over the boy's dorm at the facility, so we became Dorm Parents to 11 boys (throughout the course of a year) during our stay there. (We typically had 5-7 boys at a time). Throughout that year, I trained under the NRGen Pastor at New River Fellowship to take on that role at a new campus in Mineral Wells, TX. The Lord had other plans for our little family though and, instead, after the birth of our first child on June 8, 2015, we wound up in Katy, TX where I became a High School Bible and History teacher at Faith West Academy. Church Planter: Though I enjoyed this time of teaching, the Lord reminded me that my calling was in vocational ministry, therefore I decided to seek out a full time ministry job again. While interviewing for a job at a church in Katy, the Lord led me to let my school know that I would not be returning for the 2016-2017 school year. Cool, right? Wrong, because that church job didn't come through. Marin had been having some revalations about her heart and calling to work with kids, so I told her that she should seek counsel from someone that she knew had the same heart for kids that she did. The person that came to mind was Jenny Jones so Marin set up coffee to talk about that. Meanwhile, we knew that Jenny was working with another Pastor friend, Ryan Lokkesmoe, to plant a church in Richmond, TX (Fort Bend County) and when talking about it one day, Marin said, "It would be really cool to work with them. I love their vision. Too bad it's a church plant and they couldn't pay us." I still don't know why I responded with this, other than the Spirit took over and started talking because my idea was totally insane. I said, "What if we raised money and lived like missionaries until the church is able to support staff through tithing?" So when Marin met with Jenny, even though she intended to talk about something completely different, the Lord led the conversation in that direction and Marin was able to bring up this idea. Jenny encouraged Marin to pray through that and it was from there that our conversation with Real Hope began. The Lord guided our steps, and now I am in the position of Student Pastor at Real Hope Community Church. This leads me to the point of this blog and to this website. The vision of RHCC is, "To be continually transformed by the Gospel and share the REAL HOPE of Jesus Christ with the world around us." The shortened version of that is "Find hope. Give hope."
My vision for this ministry is the same as the vision for the church. I want this to be a fun, exciting, and truth-filled place where students with hurts, doubts, fears, and scars, from different socioeconomic backgrounds, who struggle with their own sins, and whose parent's sins are affecting their lives as well can come to find healing and answers. I want the Student Ministry at RHCC to be a place where ANY student can come with questions, pain, and doubt of any kind and find hope in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But I don't want to stop there. I want to show these students, by how my family lives, that living out your faith is more than a Sunday morning and a leather bound book. That "The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and lay his life down as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45). This desire has put our family in a place of faith that we have never been in. We are fully relying on the Lord to provide for our finances because we fully believe that His work for us is going to require so much effort that there will not be time for a divided mind and heart when it comes to work. That's where this website comes in. This is not us begging for money. This is a declaration of our faith to the world around us, that we fully believe that the Lord will provide. We are living out James 2 where we are called "to be right with God by what we do, not by faith alone." We are trusting in His promises, and living in such a way that we will look insane if God does not come through. That is how much we believe in his faithfulness. What we need more than anything now, even above monetary support, is prayer, prayer, and more prayer. Prayer for people to be faithful to give when the Lord calls them to, and prayer that the Lord would bless their generosity. Prayer for us, that our anxiety would not overtake us and that we would trust the Lord to provide at all times. Prayer for those who hear the vision of Real Hope Community Church, that they would be drawn to the Savior that we serve. For those of you still reading this, thank you so much for getting through till the end! I pray that you are encouraged and inspired by what you have read! Please head over to our support page to learn how to give and to sign up for our email list to receive regular updates on how you can be joining us in prayer. In Christ, Percy One of the most common phrases we hear when sharing our new adventure is: "That's cool that God is calling you to do this, but how are you going to raise enough money? It's one thing for people to support you in order to move to Africa... but this is different." Is it though?Yes, it is different in that we won't be moving to a new country. But really, that's the only major difference. We will still be living in an area where people need Jesus, just as much as the people of Africa do. Their struggles may be different, their financial situations may be different, their current beliefs and opportunities may be different... but lost people are lost people. "All have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God (Romans 3:23), but "[God] wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth (1 Timothy 2:4)." "Everyone" includes the people of Ft. Bend County. "But don't they already have churches in that area?" Yes, and those churches are doing a phenomenal job of reaching the lost. But there are too many people and not enough churches:
In Ft. Bend County alone, nearly 350 thousand people don't declare a religious affiliation at all. This number is astounding! It breaks our hearts to know that there are so many people who don't know the Real Hope of Jesus, living right in our backyard. What would be an even bigger tragedy is if we could not pour everything into reaching these people with the gospel because we "can't afford it." This is why we cannot be bi-vocational or have a full time job outside of ministry and volunteer on Sundays. We realize that God does call people to do this, and they do it well. But we believe that in this season, God is calling us to depend entirely on Him for our finances, while spending all of our time and focus on his lost sheep. We know that God has opened our eyes to this specific group of people, in this specific area because he truly loves them and wants us to put everything into making disciples in this area. When Jesus said "Go into ALL the world," he meant ALL the world, even if that means the county just south of where we currently live. If you too feel led to physically join what God is doing in the Ft. Bend County area, check out Real Hope Community Church to join our Launch Team. If this information gave you a desire to join in but you do not live in the area or already have a home church, please consider financially supporting our family so that we can focus entirely on building the Kingdom in this area. We love you guys and are so thankful for all of the support and encouragement we have already received! "I am generously supplied with the gifts you sent me... They are a sweet-smelling sacrifice that is acceptable and pleasing to God. And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus." We would love to have coffee with you and tell you all about this awesome life that God has called us to! But just in case you don't have time for that, here's the jist:
Every time we would visit Marin's family in Katy, Texas, we would both feel as if God was calling us to the area, we still can't really tell you why.. we just knew that one day, we would end up there! In the Summer of 2015 we were living and working at a children's home in Weatherford, Texas and decided that it was time for us to move and a teaching job in Katy was offered to Percy, so we took it! During this time, we got really plugged in to a local church and began leading the youth small group on Wednesday nights, and Percy led youth worship and table time on Sunday mornings. Fairly quickly, Percy realized that, although he enjoyed teaching, it was not his calling and he needed to get back into full time ministry. It was about this time that a job opened up at our current church and Percy felt God was leading him to apply. Percy was offered an interview and this was the catalyst that set us on our new journey. Funny enough, it was also this same week that we first heard about the start of Real Hope Community Church. While preparing for this interview, both of us began to really dig into the Word and seek out what God's purpose and plan for our next season of life would be. To be honest, this job seemed like a stretch for Percy, but God only told him to interview, he did not say that he would get the job. We were never really sure if that was truly the path we would be heading down, but Percy stepped out in obedience and interviewed. About this same time though, we both kept hearing many different things about Real Hope Community Church and felt a real pull in that direction but we did not see how that would be possible because hiring staff was not going to be in the near future, and Percy needed a new job now. The timing just did not seem like it was going to work out. While waiting to hear whether Percy would be offered the job or not, Percy received his letter of intent for the next school year for his teaching job (perfect timing, right!?). We did not have any new job lined up yet, but Percy really felt as if God was telling him to go ahead and let them know he would not be coming back, and oddly enough, Marin felt completely at peace with the decision, even though it would mean we had no more income after August. Right after letting go of next year's teaching job, Percy received the call that he would not be offered the job he had interviewed for. We believe this was God removing all of our options in order to say "Do you still trust me?" After learning that Percy would not get the job, we decided that this was God closing the door for a job opportunity at our current church and that it was time to seek out another option. While living in Katy we had the opportunity to live in a master planned community among many wealthy families, all the while still seeing the hurt and struggles of those in the community who are marginalized and vulnerable. We began to feel a deep desire to do something about leading these groups of people to Jesus, but we weren't sure what that would look like- and then we learned that this is the vision for Real Hope Community Church. We then contacted the pastors at Real Hope to let them know that we would love to discuss coming along side and working with them, even though they could not pay us, if they would have us. This is when Percy had the idea of raising our salary, just as overseas missionaries do. After meeting to hear about vision and ideas we knew that this is a door God was leading us to explore because their vision and ministry beliefs lined up almost perfectly with ours. After several weeks of prayer and talking, we were still unsure if this was something that God was asking us to do because it just seemed crazy. Not many people live as missionaries in America and it did not seem like the logical thing to do. But one day, it clicked. God has already called us to make disciples, God has already called us to trust Him and not lean on our own understanding, Jesus has already called us to follow His lead no matter what the cost. We were essentially standing in the middle of a huge mission field asking "God, what do you want us to do?" and we feel like his response was "You see what needs to be done, I've already told you in My Word what I want you to do." It was then that we decided to say "Here I am Lord, Send me." No matter what this season looks like, no matter how tough it is going to be, no matter how much faith is going to be required, no matter how many sacrifices are going to be made. Our answer is "Yes!" because leading others to Jesus is so worth all of it! |
Marin HudsonMarin likes to stay up late and write. But sometimes Percy will write as well. :) Archives
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