North Creek Church has an abundance of 2-5 year olds!  It’s been this crazy area that consistently pulls in kid after kid after kid….We structured ourselves from the very beginning to cater to families with toddlers.  Our youngest learners get worship, Bible stories, they memorize scripture, do crafts, coloring, and games – all in one hour!  We have an excellent program that I am very proud to put my own kids into with quality teachers that love them.

My dear friend, Rachael Yonko, took over this area of ministry when we launched.  At first I think it was out of necessity in her mind, but once again, as God moved the chess pieces, Rachael became an integral part of the heart behind this ministry.

A good leader hires people around them that think in a similar way to themselves.  A great leader hires people who think quite differently.  Rachael would be that piece of the puzzle that thinks differently.  Where our grace would end, Rachael’s love and compassion is just getting started.  She doesn’t give up on people easily and still has the innocence in her heart to be completely shocked by betrayal.  She is a constant reminder on our staff that we always need to error on the side of grace.

She is kind, generous, and filled with a sensitivity that I often see well up in her eyes.  Tell her a story of a changed life and she will melt into tears.  Then she will throw her arms up and say in a chirping voice, “I just LOVE the way God works!”

Rachael’s future will be a busy one in ministry.  I know that the preschool ministry, under her caring leadership, will grow beyond imagination.  She will grow into the role of faciliator and director of many, many leaders.  And through the example of her love, they will better understand how to love the children that God has brought to North Creek.

One of the most important resources needed for World War II war production was rubber. The government decided to ask companies to invent a synthetic rubber that could be made with non-restricted ingredients. In 1943, engineer James Wright was attempting that when he discovered something unusual.  Wright had combined boric acid and silicone oil, producing an interesting gob of goo.

Wright conducted a multitude of tests on the substance and discovered it could bounce when dropped, stretch farther than regular rubber, didn’t collect mold, and had a very high melting temperature.

Though perhaps not practical as rubber, the substance continued to be entertaining.  In 1949, the goo found its way to Ruth Fallgatter, an owner of a toy store.  Her company put globs of the goo in plastic cases and added it to her catalog. Selling for $2 each, the “bouncing putty” outsold everything else in the catalog except for a set Crayola crayons. After a year of strong sales, Fallgatter decided to drop the bouncing putty from her catalog.

Advertising consultant Peter Hodgson saw an opportunity. Hodgson borrowed $147 and bought a large quantity of the putty in 1950. He separated the putty into one-ounce balls and place them inside red plastic eggs.  He decided to name the goo “Silly Putty” and to sell each egg for $1.

Hodgson got the Silly Putty stocked at both Nieman-Marcus and Doubleday bookstores.  Orders for Silly Putty started pouring in. From there, there was no end to the popularity of Silly Putty. (http://history1900s.about.com/cs/inventdiscover/a/aa122103a_2.htm)

If you’re wondering why I am telling you the story of silly putty, it’s because it relates perfectly to how we arrived at hiring Kim Goodrich as our children’s pastor.

After our first attempt at hiring a children’s pastor failed, we looked around and said, “Now what?”  Well, sometimes diamonds are hiding in plain sight.  While our first children’s pastor was at school, we had some volunteers doing the leg work to establish a foundation for what would become our children’s department.  Kim had been instrumental in the development of the theme, the name, the decorations, the curriculum…you get the picture.  She was already doing the work of a children’s pastor, but didn’t have the title.

We didn’t know Kim at all when she jumped on our church planting team.  She had been attending Glad Tidings and working in their kids department when she heard about a church starting in her neighborhood.  Looking to cut down the commute time, she introduced herself.  It would take several months for us to discover what we had just gotten. 

Mark, myself, and Kris Gray sat in the office after receiving the phone call from our “former children’s pastor”.  We talked about our options and one thing was very clear…Titles are easy to give, but ownership of a ministry comes much differently.  It was clear that God was giving Kim a mantle of leadership in our church…ready or not, here it comes.

We called her that day and asked her to jump on board officially. 

Kim is out of the park when it comes to her artistic talent and imagination.  She is a chameleon in ministry, able to adjust to whatever the situation calls for.  Kim is probably the most moldable and teachable person I have ever met.  I would probably say that when she began this journey, she knew that she had to learn a lot of leadership lessons very quickly.  She spent time listening, thinking, and applying principles that she needed to be the best leader possible.

Just like silly putty, Kim can bounce when dropped, stretch farther than regular people, doesn’t collect mold, and has a very high melting temperature.  In other words, she is strong, flexible, energetic, and resilient.  She will be amazing in ministry.

I’m still in awe at Kim’s arrival on the scene of North Creek.  We didn’t know the magnitude of what was in our “test tube”.  However, when God took ahold of the situation, Kim became the bestseller we were looking for.  We got an unexpected and brilliant surprise when we were in the midst of mixing up our team.  I’m thankful that God gave us the opportunity and the wisdom to see the gold mine in front of us.

As youth pastors, Mark and I had a wealth of connections in our world of youth ministry.  Those all proved useless in the quest for a children’s pastor.  We didn’t know where to start, who to talk to, and why would anybody come and work for us when they didn’t even know our names?  To top it off, we wanted quality leadership for our children, not just a warm body.  It was overwhelming!

So, we started knocking on every door possible to get a grasp of who was out there and who would fit into our ever expanding picture of a church.  Finally it seemed as if we had our solution.  A young woman at Northwest University was graduating in December 2006 and felt like she could commute for those first few months of the launch. 

Over the next few months we talked on the phone, kept her in the loop of our emails, and finally put on the calendar a day in July for her to come down and meet our entire team.  We were excited!  This was the woman that would invest into the masses of children that we had as a part of our launch team.  She was our hope for an amazing children’s ministry. 

So, being the type of church we are, we went all out!  We hired a giant bouncy house, got gifts that represented all of her favorite things, developed games for our kids centered around her name, and made banners to display for when she arrived.  We were ready for the carnival!!!

Our kids spent the morning playing with their new pastor, getting to know who she was, and intergrating her into our team.  We laughed together, told stories of our journey, and began the process of developing a lifelong relationship.

And the next day she quit.

So, as we sat there in July, ready to launch a church devoted to young families with kids in September, we had no children’s pastor.  And we laughed.  We laughed because the one thing we know is that God moves the chess pieces where he wants them for a reason.  We had a strong faith that God was doing His work.  And He was…

When Mark and I were first married, we were junior high youth pastors at New Life Church in Renton, WA.  As with all youth pastors, there are always certain kids who take a special place in your life.  One of those young men was Jeremy Macias.  As a seventh grader, he was awkward and insecure (like all seventh grade boys!), but also kind, eager to learn, and very much dedicated to Jesus.  He struck a cord in us of someone who would use the investment of our time in his life wisely.  And so we poured in all we could. 

We were only his youth pastors for a couple of years, but we continued to stay in touch with him throughout his high school and college years.  Jeremy had some incredible youth pastors mold and shape his life along the way, so it was no shock to us that Jeremy ended up an amazing young man with a heart for ministry.

We asked Jeremy to lead worship for our students over the course of several years at Winter Camp.  So in January 2006, as he was finishing up the music for the evening, Mark asked if he would join the journey we were about to go on.

Jeremy brought something to the table that we needed and appreciated.  He is the type of person who doesn’t talk until he has something valuable to say.  In the midst of the flood of Type A leaders around us, Jeremy brought a calm to the storm.

He lead worship for the first essential year at North Creek, before he left to finish up his degree at Northwest University.  We continue to love and adore the man who became like a son to myself and Mark. 

Sometimes you give everything you are to someone and not expect to get anything back in return.  We went into our relationship with Jeremy with that intention.  However, in the end he gave us back more than we could have ever given him.