Running out of ideas for the move to Nashville!

Well, as all of you who would ever look at this page are aware, the Allen's are moving to Nashville. The short of the story us that I have accepted a call to serve Rolling Hills Community Church as their Student Pastor beginning August 26, 2007. The long of it is a journey of God's greatness over the last eight months that both sustained our ministry in Daytona through a few rough patches all the while preparing us for what he had in store through Nashville. We are certainly excited and anxious about this new part of His plan for our life.

When we began sensing God's call on our life to move, we became increasingly aggressive about the sale of our Florida condo. You see, by not being independently wealthy we find ourselves in somewhat of a pickle. One does not on a minister's salary maintain multiple households. Moving to Nashville is a great deal risky for us because we have no place to live to call our own. As long as we bear the full responsibility of a mortgage in Daytona, even renting in TN is not an option. Insert a very kind lady who is allowing us to come and live with her...at least temporarily. Her grace in this circumstance is the kind not easy to repay.

Sum total I must have given God about 30 different ideas about how He should work this scenario out. Everything from ebay to "we buy houses" ads in the yellow pages. So far, no luck! I shake the proverbial fist in the air saying, "you don't like that idea, that's okay God, I got more!", somehow believing that He's invited me into His writing team thinktank. I just keep picthing new stories and painting new pictures, these pie in the sky ways for Him to work it out, make it possible, spare us the pain, and get us out of these rocks we're between. Zilch! Nada! Not one single bite! And so, I do it. I tell God that I am fresh out of ideas and that He's just going to have to sort this one out on His own. Now for the waiting. And that's what we're doing, waiting...and paying for it along the way. Sometimes God allows us to learn expensive lessons. Sometimes He get's glory from our laurels and other times our failures. For now, we'll be heading to Nashville and I'll be earning a living as a Student Pastor while Susan answers God's call on her life to be a mom to Lillie Cate and this new baby (scheduled to arrive in February 2007) that He has blessed us with. I'll be getting paychecks for being a pastor and doing what most Christ-followers do: tithing, attempting to save, paying my mortgage and any other necessary bills, and using the rest to sustain a family. The only difference now is that the mortgage we'll be paying for is one we won't be living in...meaning that God has to come up with an alternative plan. Me being fresh out of ideas really feels okay. Somehow I think whatever option He comes up with will be better anyway! And my how I feel blessed already as a result!

Thanks for reading. Be sure to keep in touch. Somehow, I'll try to be a more successful blogger!

Nic Allen

Clearly...

Okay, clearly we are not people who should be allowed to have a blog. There should be a written code for all bloggers stating your obligation to update more often than say, every 3 months. So, if you are one of the 3 people who sees this blog ever, then let me apologize for not posting since this sites conception in January of this year. Now, for the real topic of today. I am so stinking excited about several things that I will list now in no particular order.

Lillie Cate is turning six months old in 9 days and she literally gets cuter with every passing minute; I get to spend 2 weeks this summer with an incredible Fuge Summer Camp Team @ Union University(which judging by staff emails and the coveted summer staff letter...they rock); Melinda Doolittle is till in American Idol; I just read a great verse...2 Kings 3:18 "But this is a simple thing for the Lord, for He will make you victorious over the army of Moab." (clearly a great reminder that nothing is too difficult for God); my new haircut which was scary at first has actually turned out pretty nice; and finally, I just drank a large Coffee Coolatta from Dunkin Donuts.

Enough for today and perhaps enough for the next 16 weeks...you never know we the Allen Family Bloggers.

Summer 2007

Summer 2007 will be a very exciting summer for us Allens. I am heavily anticipating a great two week run as a Centrifuge Camp Pastor at Union University in early June. This will mark my third summer preaching at a lifeway camp. After spending a whole summer in Charleston at M-Fuge, and two weeks in Greenville last year at a combo camp, I am totally excited about Centrifuge this summer. God has really blessed me during those weeks. It's a really refreshing time and I can't wait to see what He has in store for me this year. Susan and I also have two really great mission opportunities planned for students at FBC Daytona Beach. We'll be doing a stateside mission with Group Work Camps in the Tampa Bay / St. Pete side of Florida and a week with World Changers International in Ufa, Russia in the latter part of July. God has really been intentional with us about getting our students here involved in missions locally and internationally. That has been the biggest blessing about our time here so far! If you have never had a chance to serve somewhere in a mission team capacity, what are you waiting for! God has already commanded us to GO and believe me, that's where the blessing is, in our obedience to Him!

Blessings,

Nic

Welcome to our Blog!

Hi there and welcome to the Allen family Blog for Nic, Susan, Lillie Cate, and Molly Allen of Port Orange, FL. We will be working hard in the next week to make this blog both fun and personal. It's a way for us to communicate effectively with family and friends and share our heart about life, family, parenthood, ministry, and the world. We want this to be a place where you feel special...after all you took the time to logon and see what's up with the Allen's. We also want it to be a place where, above everything else, Jesus Christ is glorified. He is absolutely everything to us. Our desire is to praise Him in everything we do. Now the phrase "everything we do" just happens to include blogging! Fun times. Oh yeah, the name, speedscrabble...I named it that because "theallenfamily" was already taken by some other Allen Family. I began by asking myself what I could name the blog that would be personal to us and not yet taken. At BigLife Student Ministry, we just started a series called "The Game of Life." To decorate the student center for the series, we hung all types of game boards from the ceiling...one of which was a Scrabble board. Susan and I (along with our BFFs Matt and Lindy) love SpeedScrabble and so the name was born! We hope you enjoy our blog. Check back from time to time for pictures and updates and be sure to let us know what you think!

Blessings,
the Allen family