The Stevens Family

The below post is an excerpt from Crosspoint Staff Member Kate Stevens' blog, Hem-ology. Clint and Kate's recent upending of their lives —and Kate's words on their decision— so well illustrate our message from this past Sunday and what it means "to live is Christ."

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"We are selling our house, moving into an RV, paying off debt, and homeschooling our kids. . .

Disclaimer #1: We believe the same biblical principles apply to everyone, but not the same methodologies. Meanings, we all have the same requirements per Scripture, but different callings of how we carry those out. This is just where God has the Stevens.

Disclaimer #2: It is because of #1 that I feel like I really need to reiterate that we do not think our methodological switcheroo here should be everyone’s. 

Here is my timeline. You can ask Clint about his.

• I started praying about our schooling options in September of 2021. Two of my closest friends homeschool their children, yet they constantly pray for my daughters in public school and consistently ask how they are doing. This speaks volumes to me—they aren’t the pretentious homeschool types who believe any other method is a sin. This drew me in to want to closely watch how they did life with their children and to pray about how we do with ours.

• In February of 2022 one of those same friends talked about moving onto land and even living in their RV while their house was being built if they had to. We’ve gone on a handful of RV trips as a family, and they are amongst my dearest memories, so this was admirable—and interesting.

• I noticed a different kind of restlessness in Clint. He was a worship pastor for 10 years that ended unfavorably. For the last two years, he’s been trying to figure out what God has for him now that he is no longer bi-vocational. There was a slow simmer of “there has to be more than just an 8:00-5:00 at this job in order to pay for all the things in our lives” that suddenly seemed to turn to a rolling boil.

• I made a comment that I would sell the house and live in the RV on land with either of our parents or even with friends. We both laughed at that.

• In the beginning of March, I began reading “Lead: 12 Gospel Principles for Leadership in the Church” by Paul Tripp. In chapter five he is discussing the principle of our character. He challenges us to ask the question “Is what’s important to God still important to us?” And he follows with, “We should always be looking for subtle shifts in values that have progressively changed us and the way we do our work.” This is so simple and basic, but it hit me at a time that was life changing. I wasn’t consistently viewing life through God’s values but my own. 

• Together we started reading “Ruthless Elimination of Hurry” by John Mark Comer in mid-March. We were only reading a chapter at a time because we would have long conversations afterwards. When Comer asks the question, “What is this pace of life doing to our souls?” we both realized Comer had the words to express Clint’s restlessness and my desire for real rest and peace.

This question paired with Tripp’s charge to value what God does made me do a hard, honest stop—I hurry through everything to get to the next thing because there are more things lined up after that. I rush discipleship with my students, I rarely read to my kids before bedtime anymore, I do my Bible reading only to check it off and move on to house-cleaning or finish up work on one of my three jobs. I can easily hurry through a meal so I can tear through all the dishes so I can throw my kids in bed so I could collapse in front of the TV or a book. I love everything I am a part of—but I don’t value (or truly enjoy) any of it the way God wants me to. 

• We started praying before bed that God would direct us in what He has for us instead of this frenetic routine with very little gain and no end in sight. How can we value what He does? How can we live in an unhurried way? How can we operate in a way that we are not just paying the next bill in the queue? Somewhere along the way we accumulated so much stuff, and the responsibility and maintenance of all the stuff does absorb much physical and mental space.

The crescendo of it all

We had just read this chapter of “Ruthless…” called “Something is deeply wrong” and were de-briefing it all. There is a list of ten symptoms of hurry sickness. Workaholism/nonstop activity; hypersensitivity; and the kicker for me: slippage of spiritual disciplines—

Comer says, “…quiet time in the morning, Scripture, prayer, Sabbath, worship on Sunday, a meal with your community, and so on. Because in an ironic catch-22, the things that make for rest actually take a bit of emotional energy and self-discipline. When we get overbusy, we get overtired, and when we get overtired, we don’t have the energy or discipline to do what we need most for our souls.” 

And he ends the chapter with this thought: “Because what you give your attention to is the person you become.” 

It hit us both at the same time—we were turning into what we didn’t want because of so many big and small choices all compiled into one whopping, tired, hurried blur. 

We found ourselves quickly talking logistics and finances, seemingly to be only dreaming of what it would look like to profoundly change our family setup. 

Within an hour we had it all figured out: sell the house, upgrade the RV, move onto my parents’ land, Clint would work from a local office, I could still work from home, pay off nearly all our debt with the earnings from the house, and the girls would. . . ? Oh yea, school. If we moved away from the house then they would switch schools—that would be Harper’s 4th school in 6 years. The girl is resilient, but dang. 

This is when I confessed that I had been silently praying for months about homeschooling and if it was for us or not. Clint said he knew it—I suppose it was in the company I keep. Ha! 

Watching those two families, I realized they have a closeness with their children that is admirable and lovely. They are learning so much from one another, both actively and passively. My two big girls learned poetry this year in school, and I realized how jealous I was of their teachers.

There are so many other aspects to this like teaching them femininity in organic ways, letting them have the free play they desire and need, not serving the clock or calendar, exploring the subjects that interest them individually, walking in a biblical worldview with them daily and hourly—but the bottom line is that I wanted to keep my kids. 

And my dear husband heard me and agreed. 

Carrying on

After a three-hour discussion of all the possible pitfalls and landmines, Clint kept saying “If we can pull this off, then _____ could be the benefit” and “If we can pull this off then think of all the ______ that would come from it.” That’s when I labeled this The Heist.

It’s as if we have created a self-imposed robbery all these years of our money, emotions, energy, affections—so we are stealing it back. (Yes, cue the trite music here, but it’s a fitting analogy!)

We decided to pray again about The Heist and sleep on it. The next night we asked my parents if we could move onto their 36-acre farm in Kaufman, and they instantly said yes. 

The next three weeks went fast—our house underwent purging, a listing, inspecting, appraising, more and more purging. We are closing on the girls’ last day of school, headed to fulltime RV living. 

One major detail—we are not fulltime RV traveling. Although we now can drive our home to wherever has a 50amp hookup (and we will take full advantage of that at times), we are called weekly to the local church in the flesh and blood where we know others and we ourselves are known. 

What God values that I need to value

We are only two months into this heart change, and as of writing this we have yet to move into the RV. That happens at the end of this week. But there are a few things God is already drawing me towards. 

His glory over my comfort

Oof, this is a hard one. And as this new season unfolds I suspect another post about how God is undoing my sense of comfort. You see, I have always deeply valued a plan with as many details in place as possible: a fully-stocked refrigerator and pantry, a tidy home, a schedule with a timeline, a list of what to pack, an attendance sheet of who is coming, clearly defined roles and responsibilities—all these things have brought me much comfort in my life because then there are no surprises, and I can be fully prepared to handle whatever is next.

And when I say comfort, I really mean transient security because no one can ever be fully prepared for everything. And it has been so foolish of me to operate in that way. But the Lord is stripping this from me, and it started in February of 2021 when I went on staff at Crosspoint Community Church. We have faithful leadership that laughs at that type of faux sense of security. I’m grateful the Lord had me under their leadership then because that’s when the Lord started preparing me for this journey.

Ministry work is N-E-V-E-R predictable, especially when you work with students. If I only ever chase everyone around with a clipboard (which is sometimes necessary) all day then what am I saying about our God? That I must handle all the details because He can’t? You may think that’s a leap, but I know my heart and it’s not that big of a step.

I have always managed my home much in the same way—constantly tidying up after the girls, stressing over meal plans and preparation, bringing order more than gentleness. My comfort of having a plan so everything can stay on schedule has hijacked the joy behind homemaking.

God does not value our attempts at clairvoyance so we can juke the schemes of the devil or natural upsets that interrupt our days. He values order and trust so that He will be glorified, not an over-planning, stressed out admin.

A proper work to rest ratio

I’ve been known to suffer from mania in seasons—high bouts of productivity with no rest, just work, work, work. And then low periods of straight laziness. It is a form of depression, and whereas it’s been a few years since it has been full-blown, I see glimpses of it from time to time—always when I am not walking in spiritual discipline. 

This, again, is another form of not trusting the Lord. God showed us how His economy works before man was able to mess it all up: Genesis 2:1–3, “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.”

That’s our ratio 6:1. We work 6 days, and we rest 1. Yes, our Sabbath rest looks differently from the Jews of the OT because they didn’t have Jesus as their final rest the way we do now on this side of the cross. Nevertheless, we are still very finite and limited—honestly, it’s absurd when we think of how fragile we are. 

Surrendering our workload for the sake of rest is trusting the Lord and not ourselves. It’s not about the logistics of which day and for how long—it’s a heart posture of turning out the lights to get good rest instead of frantically staying up to finish a project. It’s rising early to meditate on the Lord and His Word. It’s fasting so we can remember to pray for a specific need or simply be grateful for our lives. It’s turning off the TV to connect with our spouse or to stay up and read an extra book to our kids or stay around the dining room table with friends, recounting the deeds of the Lord.

It's living life with joy and gratitude with eternity in view, trusting the Lord with our work and our rest.

People are immortal souls

God values people’s souls and eternity—I often do not. My comfort and to do list have left me with no margin to have eyes for people’s real needs. In Tripp’s book I mentioned earlier he has his readers meditate on 2 Corinthians 5:16–21.

The first part says, “From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” 

Goodness, this has so many implications. But let me just punch one out—people are more than flesh. They are immortal souls. If they are a new creation or if I am to be Christ’s ambassador to them, this fleeting life will surely vanish from them. And then what? Eternity with God or forever separated from Him—it’s sobering and should tether all our thoughts and affections to the Gospel. 

This distracted life we created around us has caused us to lose sight of it. And yes, that is even working and steadily serving in ministry for years. 

And there are more of God’s values impressing on us that I see on the horizon: simplicity, self-control, sober-mindedness, humility, gentleness. . . 

How our kids are doing with this

One of our daughters is struggling with leaving behind so much of her stuff. One is struggling with leaving behind neighbors and classmates. One is struggling with leaving behind the house herself (everything gets personified when you have daughters).

However, we have had excellent conversations about the temporary vs the eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:17–18, “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

We are directing them the way the Lord is directing us—we are to be more thoughtful and prayerful of the unseen.

It will take much time, patience, and maturity for that to take root. But for now, they are genuinely eager to homeschool. They are ready for more traveling adventures. For the most part, they are ready for us all to be together more. 

No pretenses

If I’ve made this all sound very romantic then just know that we are confident in the Lord and not ourselves. This will be very hard at times. 

Right now, it feels as if we are running on adrenaline, emotions, and blessings from our closest people. The honeymoon will wane, and we will be in a 43 ft. trailer with our three daughters, two dogs, and what possessions we have left. 

But we trust in our very good God and His promises. 

• 1 Peter 1:3, “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence…”

• 1 Timothy 6:6-7, “But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world”

• And all of Psalm 64 for when the enemy is shooting lies at us like an archer does with his bow. 

Remember us in your prayers and tell us how we can pray for you. Invite us over to your home, and we will cook for you while we all recount God’s deeds in our lives. If I ever look frantic and rushed, remind me to chill and slow down. Let me take you to coffee or out for drinks and we can discuss how to abandon our values for the Lord’s.

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