L O C A L S T O R Y
This Sunday Matt Vergin shared with us how God has been working in his life over the past few weeks.
“For the past several months I’ve been in a prolonged position where I’ve had to make a very
difficult decision. My first avenue for resolving this dilemma was to go to the Lord. After I had spent quite a bit of time in prayer and felt no closer to a clear decision, I then began to also seek out counsel from other believers who I knew had experience in this area. Unfortunately, the more people I asked, the wider range of opinions I got.”
Matt discovered a loss of joy in his prayer life and found that his mind was distracted away from the Lord as he became consumed by the decision he had to make.
“Then one night as I was once again in prayer asking for clarity, the Lord helped me to realize
something. I realized that I had spent so much time fretting over this decision, that it had subtly
distorted my relationship with Christ. The weight of the decision had become a third party inserted between Jesus and I that didn’t belong there.”
It was during this time that God showed Matt that as a follower of Christ the number one question in his life should’t be ‘am I making the absolutely wisest, right decision?’ But rather ‘am I close to Jesus? Do I have a thriving relationship with Jesus?’
“The Lord never gave me clarity in the sense that I 100% knew what the right call was. But he did give me clarity to know that he’s powerful enough to
use the decisions I make for my good and the good of others, even if I don’t have 100% certainty. And that because I have Christ I don’t have to micromanage my life to make sure that I absolutely avoid all suffering or difficult decisions because I know that with Christ I can be content regardless. That freed me to make a decision boldly, and trust that the Lord would use it.”
Matt encouraged us that when we’re faced with a difficult decision to pray about it and seek advice but to understand that as long as we strive to stay close to Christ, He has the power to shape our lives more than we do.
Listen to Matt share his full story at localchurchstpete.com
L O C A L S T O R Y
We love college students and we love the mission that is happening here at our two local colleges USFSP and SPC. This Sunday, college student Danielle Appleget shared her story of how, through community, God changed her life.
“You see, before my time in college, I was not a believer and didn’t grow up hearing about Jesus. Throughout my high school years, I struggled with anxiety, depression, body image issues and disordered eating, broken family relationships, addiction… you name it. Without a hope or clear vision for my life, I was blinded by the cares of this world and struggling with the weight of impossible expectations. I moved to St. Pete hoping to find my purpose and improve my life. So the grace and
good news of Jesus could not have come at a better time.”
About 3 years ago Danielle moved into the dorms at USFP. Her roommate Hannah introduced her to the COMission Family and she felt immediately loved. Over the next five months she started attending Gulf Coast Community Church, investing her time in COMission events, being a part of on-campus prayer, committing to going to East Asia with COMission and getting baptized!
“Seeing how much everyone loved and cared for one another was what first brought me into COMission, but it was revealed to me over and over that the love shared in that community was just a reflection of Jesus’s love, and that’s what drew me
in further. To this day I believe that Gods work through the community has made the biggest
impact on my faith in Him.”
Danielle shared about how recently she’s been suffering through a hard time with depression and anxiety.
“It often feels like I am walking in a deep, dark
valley where many old habits, doubts, and earthly treasures tempt me. In these times, it’s easy for me to feel alone, far from God and without any hope. It’s in places like this, though, that I appreciate my church community the most. The path of following Jesus can’t all be mountain highs. There are waves and seasons, valleys and dark places, but to have people there walking with you and holding you down with Truth makes all the difference. I am a broken person, living in a broken world, but I do have a hope, the Holy Spirit, a Father with unending love and grace, and a family to walk with.”
It’s because of the huge impact that community has had on her that Danielle is super excited to see COMission growing onto the SPC campus as well as the USFSP campus.
“College-age students like me are in a special area of life, searching for purpose and planning their futures. From my experience, SPC is an exciting mission field and SPC students are a special unreached people group, because of the diversity
of students. After experiencing the love of Jesus through community in my college years, I am eagerly anticipating the work that God will do in other students’ lives.”
Listen to Danielle share her full story on our website at localchurchcstpete.com
Chuck Redding shared how he grew up thinking his mom was crazy for becoming “born again”. He was young and rebellious and at the time was riding with an outlaw motorcycle gang in Boston called the Deacons.
“It was a dark time in my life but my mother continues to pray for me.”
He was invited to a farm in west Massachusetts for a concert and there were a bunch of young, long-haired Jesus people with paper back Bibles there, listening to this music.
“A long-haired hippy type burn out came up to me…I told him I rode with the Deacons and wasn’t interested in what he was selling. Little did I know what God was preparing. He asked me if I would read the book of John and come back the next week and talk about what I read, reluctantly I agreed and left. The next week as I read something like scales fell off from my eyes and for the first time I started to understand what was being said. It was like the words had life to them.”
Chuck went back to that farm the next week and told the guy that he knew now he was a sinner and needed a savior.
“That night, 51 years ago the Lord saved me from my sin.”
Chuck challenged us never to look at a person and decide they are too far gone or in a place beyond the reach of the Gospel.
“You never know who God is preparing to bring into his Kingdom.”
Listen to Chuck share his full story in the Talks section of the website OR on our podcast.
Deuteronomy 31:6 says that God is with us and that He will never leave or forsake us. Do you believe that? Heather Klisanin shared her testimony with us and reminded of us this Truth.
Growing up Heather shared how she was blessed to be raised in a home that loved Jesus. Through music she began to have an understanding of who Jesus is and of the power of His unfailing love.
At age 27 Heather was experiencing life in a beautiful way. She was married to a wonderful man, they were able to travel and she had a steady job.
“Marko, my husband, was polite, kind, faithful, thoughtful, honest and we were in love. Something I thought I knew about but really had no idea until Marko came into my life. This unconditional love thing become something I could better relate to now. While God’s love is even more unconditional than any person we will meet on earth, I was so blessed to have Marko in my life.”
As an International couple, there was a lot of legal paperwork that had to be done for Mark to be able to move to the States full time. When he went in for a physical exam, he came our with a diagnosis of stage 4 lung cancer. Heather and Marko didn’t know what to do, but they prayed and he received multiple rounds of chemo.
“We had plans, goals for our future and a desire to have a family. This was all put on hold. Two years later, through all the struggle and fight, Marko went home to be with Jesus. Me, a widow at 29. It was about 6 weeks before I turned 30 and I could not believe this was my life. My heart was broken, my spirit lost, I was devastated. For over a year and a half, I was in a state of depression that was practically indescribable.”
Heather had questions for God: Was she not faithful enough? Did she do something to deserve this? Did God not really love her like He promised? Was she not worthy of God’s blessing?
“One day, and the next and the next, the Lord continued to remind me of Proverbs 3: 5. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. But Lord, I am trying to understand. All of a sudden, there was a shift in my mind, my heart. What the Lord was trying to tell me was that it is ok that I do not understand.”
Heather began to trust that God was in control and that He was with her always.
“The moment I realized that God did not do this to punish me but to bring Marko home to His kingdom for something so much more than I could understand, I started to find peace. Peace in knowing that God is in control, His will is good and that He must have needed Marko with Him more than I needed him here.”
A newfound sense of thankfulness began to take hold of her heart. Thankful for the time she had with Marko, thankful that the Lord would even allow their paths to cross, thankful that God was in control. While some days are easier than others, God has allowed Heather to still have joy in the midst of it all.
“In all my brokenness, in the times I feel lost, it has become so clear that the answers always lie with Jesus. He is patient with us and sometimes, we need to be patient with Him.”
Thank you for sharing your story with us Heather. Listen to her full story in the Talks section of our website or on our podcast.
God is so patient and kind with us. He cares so deeply for us and fills our deepest desires as our hearts are shaped by His grace. Yesterday, Lance Marcin shared his testimony about God’s patient and loving grace at work throughout his life.
Growing up, Lance shared that overall he had a pretty easy time. Even though there was divorce, he knew his parents loved him and he was blessed with great siblings, friends and family. He had no real reason to go off the rails, but he did. Even in the midst of great accomplishments academically, socially and by the worlds standards his heart was still not satisfied.
“We could spend days figuring out what led me down my paths of destruction, but it really just came down to my being selfish and not wanting to live for Jesus. From about ages 13 – 31, there were very few days that drugs and alcohol didn’t play a part. I never saw myself as an addict or anything like that, but for almost two decades, I was imprisoned by the very things that I thought would set me free.”
Lance shared how he had a deep desire to leave his mark on the world, to make a difference and to live a full life that left a loud legacy. After marriage and children came into the picture he got his ‘stuff’ together and started getting ‘real’ jobs, but found that it didn’t capture him like his previous life had.
During this time his wife, Susie came to know the Lord in a pretty radical way (be sure to listen to her Local Story as well).
“The place we were when she found Jesus was a hard time for us to say the least, looking back I know that He is the only reason we stayed together. But even then, I knew it was good because I knew she needed the Lord. She was crazy. I, of course, had it all together. I can honestly say that I have been married only once but have had two different
wives. I was sincerely happy that she had this new, instantaneously stabilizing influence in her life. I knew it was all hogwash of course, but I could see that it was performing what it had been performing for thousands of years. Religion, as far as I was concerned, was a tool that satiated the fears and anxieties of those who could not do it for themselves.”
It wasn’t an exact date that Lance came to know the Lord, but rather over a period of time as God worked through his wife to provide supernatural patience with Lance during this time. He remembers how he would engage her to try to prove her wrong and explain how irrational most of the Bible was.
“A strange thing eventually happened though. Over time, I came to understand that this beautiful, calm lady, who had once been my wild and crazy wife, was standing firm on something that was rock solid to her. And slowly my eyes could see and my ears could hear the truth (with a capital T) that was contained in those pages she read night and day. After spending over a decade creating my own world view that encompassed everything and answered all the questions of the universe, I remember thinking that all I really did was rename the truths that were already contained in the Bible.”
Lance’s heart had been changed and he became compelled to place the Lord at the center and to stop trying to take His rightful place.
“I would be lying if I said that I don’t have days that I long for that crazy, free, adventurous old life, but now the emptiness, that I was once blind to, comes rushing forth to remind me of how the enemy almost had me. Ok, I guess I still wouldn’t mind being a world-famous writer or a rock star poet, but now I know that following the Lord with my wife and children is greater than anything I could have ever accomplished on my own. I fail every day, but now I know I fail within His grace, mercy, and forgiveness. Now I finally understand that for my heart’s desires to be truly fulfilled, I must live for the one who died for me, and that’s the only way I’ll leave a legacy that can endure.”
Listen to Lance’s full story on our website.
Our House Groups partner with, learn from and come alongside local ministries reaching the marginalized, hurting, abused and neglected of our city. If you want more information on how to get involved with one of the ministries please reach out to the designated point of contact. Learn more HERE.
If you’ve recently started attending Local, plan to join us for our upcoming Newcomer’s Party on November 12th @ 5:30 PM. We love seeing all the new faces here at Local Church St. Pete and we want to take some unhurried time to get to know each other better. We will meet at the Tavern at USFSP for a great time of food and fellowship.
We are passionate about our city and making Jesus’ name known here. Yesterday, Ryan Hoagland shared his story about how his life changed during his time in college. He had questions about who God was and struggled with believing lies about God. It was through a small club on campus, called COMission, that Ryan truly saw the gospel and how it informs how Christians are called to live.
“For the past 6 years my wife, Katie, and I have been joining in on the mission of reaching college students that are far from God, just like we were. We have seen God work in ways far greater than we ever could imagine. We have been blessed to be involved in students lives and to be able to call them family.”
Ryan shared how last fall, while attending SPC (St. Pete College) part-time, his heart and eyes were opened to the brokenness of the students. He began to search for college ministries at the SPC Gibbs campus but it was made clear that this campus did not have any organizations with a strong Gospel presence. This reminded him of Romans 10.
“How can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent?
Ryan began to pray that the Lord would send someone to SPC. Overtime his prayer changed, “Lord if you want me to go…then send me.”
Starting this fall Ryan will be on the SPC campus full-time making Jesus known among college students. He will be on staff with COMission, sharing the vision to see every college student equipped as a gospel driven leader for the building of God’s Kingdom.
“For this vision to be a reality Katie and I need ministry partners. I would love to meet with you, and discuss how God is fulfilling this vision and share our financial goals as we gear up for campus. Please talk with us, encourage us and pray for us as we move into this new season of stepping into a full-time ministry role. We are being sent to the campus, and you Local Church, have such a vital role to life us up and remind us of the gospel.”
Please reach out to us or Ryan Hoagland if you’d like to consider supporting him in this ministry. Listen to Ryan share his full story below.
Come celebrate with us Sundays 10a @ our new location! 2750 5th Ave N. St. Pete