Testimonials

Testimony from Lauren Cultrera Lowe

Hi everyone. My name is Lauren and I’ve been coming to this church since I was a newborn. I grew up in this church and coming here on Sunday morning and Christmas Eve and any other events was always a guarantee. Almost as guaranteed as knowing that once we left church we would have to change from our church clothes to chore clothes and be outside doing yard work the rest of the day. As I got older I knew I would someday be raising a family in this church. I couldn’t wait for services and baptisms and the Christmas pageant. Things got off to a rocky start because Reyna was born in the middle of a pandemic. Pastor Beth was always at the hospital with me in the past with my surgeries and I wanted to have her there for a happy reason for once. Because of the pandemic she wasn't there, my mom wasn’t even able to be there. But as soon as we were discharged and got settled at home, I logged into zoom church and propped the laptop where she was napping. TIme went on and that turned to propping it where she was learning to roll…..and then where she was playing and soon no one was able to see anything at all because she was all over the house. Then finally, things settled down and November 7th happened. I was able to bring my 7 month old baby to church and have her meet my church family.

Even though a big part of today’s service is all about Reyna, you would see that most Sunday’s don’t look much different. She walks in the front doors and heads up the center aisle leaving me and her sister in the dust. She normally seeks out my mom, sister and nieces. After she’s established her pew she rifles around each of their bags and purses for snacks. Once she’s done with that she scoots out of the pew and visits her grand friends. Linda Gove has quickly become her bestie, to the point where last week I caught her slipping her the offering money instead of putting it in the bowl.

The fact that Pastor Beth has talked me into dressing up in a variety of outfits for a story and involving my family to bring live animals into the church on Easter or having my racecar in the parking lot for all the kids and adults to sit in, handing out things like basketballs, play-dough and having us play the floor is lava just proves this church will always stay young. And watching both of my girls establish their own comfort and church family here just shows me that I’ve always been in the right place.