Rocky Mount, North Carolina

WOW! The Lord truly does work in some crazy-mysterious ways. My family and I are moving from our current residence in Arkansas 1100 miles East to Rocky Mount, North Carolina and accepting a full-time contemporary worship leader's position at First UMC/Rocky Mount. Completely unexpected and out from left field we have been moved by the Spirit to this area. I am excited and nervous all at the same time. On the one hand, I'm scared to death moving my family out of their comfort zone and familiarity (all the while knowing that "fear" doesn't come from the Lord) and on the other hand crazy-pumped about being able to bring the vision God gave us TWO YEARS AGO to life in a community that truly needs it.

July 5, 2006 my wife was in Dallas at a worship conference and I was at home with our son Eli. It was about 11:45 at night when I felt the Lord really speaking to me about worship and what it means to praise Him, how He needs and deserves to be praised and worshiped, and how we are commanded to praise and worship. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced and so I began writing as quickly as I could to capture it all and write it down. Around fifteen minutes later, my wife called from Dallas and said, "Stephen, I really feel like the Lord is speaking to me." So, I replied with, "Well, what did He say?" She began to recite basically everything I had written down.....almost verbatim. That, needless to say, was confirmation to us both that this is something the Lord is commanding us to do.

When she came home from the conference, we spent a few weeks in prayer and fasting and just really trying to seek the Lord's will in all of it. We then took it to our pastor at Heritage and he was pumped up about it. We were met with a lot of resistance when we tried to implement certain parts of it - and so we thought, "well, maybe right now isn't the time." So we waited. Little did we know where it was actually needed was in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Holy COW!!!!

I could go on and on about the details of this move - but I won't. I'll save it for another blog. So, for those of you who actually read my blog - keep your eyes out for another installment of the life and times of the Moad clan coming soon! Until then "Bless Big and Be Blessed Big!"

-Moad!