A Collection of memories...

I love a good family tradition, and there are many that i love with the holidays! Jake and I are so blessed to have wonderful families who love spending time with us and who love us so much! For thanksgiving this year, the Owens family and the McCoun family got together for a thanksgiving meal. It was such a fun time for me to have everyone together at one time! I so enjoyed it! Along with thanksgiving, I got to spend some quality time with Lindsay shopping on Black Friday! We started around 1130 Thursday night and headed to the outlets, then moved on to Old Navy at 330, then met mom at the Mall at 6! I got lots of goodies for my family, friends, and myself. However, there was definitely some sin action happening...saw tons of ties to this world and so much selfishness in my heart. As the word says, do not love the world or anything in the world, if anyone loves the world the love of the father is not in him. (1 john 2:15) So i think, well i don't love "the world" i just like to shop right? Then this verse comes to mind: No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. (matthew 6:24). So i am humbled and brought to my knees in weakness when i see the reason why we even give gifts at Christmas-because God gave us Jesus as a gift so we can actually have a relationship with him. Even more awesome about the gift of salvation through Jesus is that I get to be with God eternally-and not in hell where i deserve. that's crazy. So i see my sin and the gift is even bigger because I know i can't earn God's love-He gives it to me freely, as a gift. The gospel becomes more real to me daily as i see so much sin in my heart and in my life and continually have to confess to Jesus i need Him, i am His needy daughter. I have been studying an advent reader from church, and the verses yesterday were on the brightness of His light -Revelation 21:23-26. It is so awesome to me, so mind boggling to even think about what it will be like in heaven with God forever where there will be no sun and no moon because He is light to us, and His light strips us of burdens and sorrows. I can't fathom it, but so long for it at the same time.
Jake and I have also been busy preparing for our conference in DC in a few weeks! Last week was a whirlwind of conversations and tons of time praying for those who were still deciding to come. I am so excited that my little sister, Kasey will be coming this year!!! I think she will really enjoy learning more about who Jesus is and why He is the most important person in our lives!! This week, we will be traveling to Virginia to prepare for DC on tuesday and wednesday. Please pray for our staff team and for safe travel.

This past weekend, my family went to the Nutcracker Ballet in Winston Salem! This is a family tradition every year, and i absolutely love it! I think it is so fun to dress up and go out to dinner and stay at a hotel for a night! I also just love visiting and driving through my old neighborhood (i lived here til i was 5), and driving through wake forest's campus, and visiting Old Salem every year and going to the Candle tea! I love traditions and am so excited that we get to start our own this year :) Tonight was our student "Cousin Eddie" Christmas party. We had a potluck dinner and a secret santa! Someone wrapped a little white mouse and gave it as a pet! It was a ton of fun to connect with students before exams start this week! Jake and I dressed as granny and grandpa McCoun :) I've put a few pics up from everything that has been going on!!!

The pics are from

We Wish YOU a merry Christmas!

Just wanted to get in the festive spirit early by posting our staff "wreath pics". A wreath pic is when you stick your head in a fake wreath and smile or frown or...make a face. Anyway, hope these get you in the holiday spirit.

Black Friday!!

I don't know anyone who loves shopping more than I do. No, seriously, i get the fast heart beat, sweaty palms feeling whenever I am racing for a good retail deal. Take last weekend at Forever 21 for example- cute skirts for $20??? I was all about getting to the last medium before the girl behind me. Every Thanksgiving, the Owens (and now McCoun) family has a little family tradition of hittin' up the Belk Black Friday sale right when the doors open: 4 am. Why? One word: JEWELRY. give me the jewels. Every year we race in and push through the 12344555 other ladies who are looking for that perfect ring or necklace for 5.99, and we always come out with some steals! This year will be no different ;). However, since this is truly my first Christmas of shopping on a budget, i'm tracking some deals with these 2 fabulous websites, so I thought i'd pass them along to make your holiday shopping easier! Enjoy! :)
The first site is www.gotadeal.com

The next site is bfads.net

New Blog! ;)

Hey yall! i have decided to switch from wordpress to blogspot so here is my new blog! you can read our old one at www.themccouns.wordpress.com, but we will be updating this one from now on! To start, i wanted to share a little something with yall that i shared with my d group last week:

What does it mean to be a woman who shares her faith?


Mark 1: 16-20 "As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen.17"Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." 18At once they left their nets and followed him."

From the beginning of calling the disciples to Him, Jesus had a plan. His plan was that they would follow Him and that He would make them fishers of men.

Matthew 28: 16-20: "Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
--> When we became believers, we became Jesus' disciples, so this applies to us.

What does it mean to go and make disciples?

What does it mean for us to teach them to obey all that Jesus has commanded?


The Need:

Romans 10:14-15: 3for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."[a]
14How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"[b]

-No one can become a Christian without HEARING the gospel.



What is the gospel? Define it in your own words:
-OUr Sin
-Christ's Birth, PERFECT life, and death (the great exchange)
-the Resurrection
-Christ's return for His men and women


How? How do we share the gospel?

1 Corinthians 9:19-23: "9Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. 20To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. 22To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. 23I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings."

Who can share the gospel?

1 Corinthians 2:1-4:

1When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.[a]2For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, 5so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power."

WHY share the gospel?

Obedience!
The risen Lord Christ commanded his disciples to go and make disciples of all nations. That is exactly what the early disciples did. Paul spoke of a compulsion to share the gospel. To evangelize is to obey. Don’t wait for your affections. Work at them, but don’t wait for them.

In Acts 8:4, we see that those who had been scattered preached the gospel wherever they went. One of the clearest examples of evangelism being commanded is in 1 Peter 3, where Peter commands believers to “always be…prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.”


Reason 2: A Love for the Lost

It almost sounds quaint to use the word “lost.” One half of one percent of Americans said that there is the slightest chance that they’ll end up in hell. Although it’s not felt very deeply in our time, is there any more serious business? Jesus spoke of God’s wrath remaining on those who don’t believe on him. Richard Sibbes said that, outside of Christ, God is terrible. He wasn’t morally evaluating God. He was saying that God will cause terror in us if we appear before him apart from Christ.

The experience of hell will be worse than any abuse any of us has ever felt in our lives. Heaven is lost. The conscience is awakened. Remorse and regret are given rule, as desires run free in our lives that remain unsatisfied. God will inflict extreme and unnatural pain on them forever. I am at a loss to describe how horrible hell will be. As preachers of the gospel, we have no business making God seem more humane to sinners who are in rebellion against him. Tell unbelievers how horrible it is. Think about if hell were unleashed on you forever. Paul in Philippians 3describes the non Christian in the present as those whose “end is destruction,…[whose] god is their belly,…[who] glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.” God is truly and forever good. All of those wrongs no one else has ever noticed, God notices. God is good, and we by ourselves are not. We are fallen in Adam.

Jesus himself at least implies that the pains of the damned will endure as long as the joys of the redeemed.

We have to understand what conversion is. Biblically, while we are to persuade, our first duty is to be faithful to present the same good news that God has given to us. God’s Spirit will convert. We can’t make conversions. I think knowing this will make us better evangelists. Some people think that Calvinism makes bad evangelists. I think that is true, but I think Arminians are bad evangelists. We are all bad evangelists because we don’t want to offend people.

I think we can confidently tell people the basic message of the gospel and trust that God’s Spirit will faithfully pick up our message and use it to convert people.

Reason 3: A Love for God.

We want to see God glorified. We want to see the truth about him told in creation. The desire to see God glorified was the motivation for all Jesus’ actions.

Everything exists for God’s glory (Romans 11:36). Our salvation is “to the praise of his glorious grace” (Ephesians 1:6). God does everything he does for his own glory, and we should do all we do for the glory of God. God is glorified in the gospel. Is there a more amazing message? To tell the truth about some people is not to honor them, but to tell the truth about God is to honor him.

The call to evangelism is a call to turn our lives outward from focusing on ourselves and our own needs to focusing on God, to focusing on those others made in his image. We bring glory to God in this way. This is our one special privilege on this earth. We can bring glory to God in this way in a way we won’t be able to do in heaven.

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new blog! cool!