Love is an Adventure

Welcome!

Welcome to our long-anticipated website!

We are so excite about all that is bubbling within us. Our primary motivation has been to resource those who are and have interest in growing in the Revelation of the Love of the Father, positionally in Christ,  in the power of the Holy Spirit. There is much we have been given from heaven, and we anticipate the blessing released as we are able to share in an ongoing manner.

We started this adventure of “full-time ministry” more than 25 years ago now. From the onset our heart’s cry came from the following text in 1 Thessalonians…

⁷ Instead, we were like young children among you. Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, ⁸ so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well. (1 Thessalonians 2:7,8, NIV) ¹¹ For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, ¹² encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory. (11,12)

Like a Child

Honestly, the depth and width of the reality and authenticity of this passage in our lives as only grown and grown. This really is a terrifying passage from the perspective of vs. 4, “we speak as those approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel.” What a responsibility to be entrusted with the gospel. Paul goes on to say, “we were like children among you.” Paul, the apostle came to a community of believers not with all the answers, but as one that still has much to learn…just a kid, but a kid entrusted with a great deal. Lesley and I have been on a journey of discovery, whereas the depths keep getting deeper and deeper. 

No End to His Love

I was scuba diving off the coast of Florida at, John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park. it was a day of 5 foot seas and nary a person around. My buddy had dropped his weight belt and we were being swept out to sea. We had started our dive in maybe 20 foot of water…as we were pulled out the sea got deeper and deeper. The current was just too strong to resist. (I won’t mention the sharks that began to circle underneath) At one point I looked down and there was a steep shelf that dropped off deeper than light penetrated…a few minutes later we were a speck in a huge abyss; no bottom in sight. This has been our experience, in particular as we are knowing God as Father. There is no end to His love in sight!

Nurture & Comfort…like a Nursing Mother

Next Paul begins to say that he (the apostle), was like a nursing mother caring for her children! The purpose (in part) of the apostle is to: equip the saints for ministry (living loved), edifying the Body of Christ (telling them who they are from the perspective of Love), until there is Oneness, Union in faith…a nursing mother bringing comfort, nuture, nutrition to facilitate growth in love. What a beautiful picture and pillar as to how to “do ” ministry.

Love

Paul then declares his love. Everywhere we have the privilege of going, we encounter a deep love for the people we are with or sent to.  I remember sitting in the mountains of Mexico, fasting and asking the Lord for a people that I could pour into. I had no idea that as love began to have its way in me, my heart cry grew for all peoples; that they would experience the love that I have always experienced,  (even while I was yet distant in my heart). (John 17:23,24; Romans 5:8) Beloved, as you tap into the Source of all love, first He begins to heal you, but then! Then the overflow begins along with the recognition that it is Him, His love, His heart, His longing for His kids that your wee heart begins to long for! We absolutely find this everywhere we go.

The Gospel & Our Lives

Paul then states that when he comes, he gives two things: the gospel and his very life. I won’t reflect on it fully here and now, but we are discovering what this gospel of love really is. It is receiving His love and allowing it to overflow everywhere you go! We haven’t always seen this. And we are so cognizant of the hurt and pain we can cause when, even with good intentions, we set out to___________. You can fill in your blank…I need several. The gospel ideally reproduces itself…love. Like Paul, like a nursing mother, we unfortunately at times, have had no other way but to give all of ourselves. We thought at times our pouring out, or our sacrifice was a badge of honor or a sign of holiness. Our lives are a gift which have been freely given, so it then becomes easy to freely give. But the giving, in its purest sense, is simply the overflow of love, not a desolation of self. Love is not stagnant, nor is it selfish. I would say that love is the most powerful substance in the universe. Love always gives itself away. When we begin to see our lives as His kids from the perspective of receiving His love, then as that love overflows; it is from this overflow that we give. I believe living the gospel should be simple & easy. If it is not, perhaps we could be missing something?

Like a Father

Then Paul shifts the conversation to being like a kid, then a nursing mother to a father! I love His definition of a Father here, “encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God.” We know we carry something of Him as we go…we see our lives as instruments to encourage and comfort and tell of His wonders; but ultimately we see our calling to connect you directly with the Source of all love in a way that you continually experience and grow in this love. In simplest terms, we seek to tell and demonstrate who He is, then as one connects with this reality, the shifts that need to be made will come through experiencing love. (more on this later)

Masculine and Feminine

God, John says, is Spirit. But God is also the full expression of masculinity and femininity. It is interesting that Paul expresses himself both as a nursing mother and like an encouraging father. Jesus did the same. Lesley and I believe the message we carry is incomplete without the combined expression form the both of us. For many years, as Lesley cared for our daughter Kelsey, I traveled alone, I carried the meetings. As we come up on the 2 year anniversary of Kelsey’s transition, Lesley and I have begun to learn to dance again together. We are co-leading this ministry, we co-lead many conferences and schools around the world. We have a high value on the gospel as expressed through both the masculine and feminine voice. There is much to be unpacked here, and honestly we are still coming into a fuller understanding of the impact we have as we stand together. What an Adventure!

Join us!

If you are new to us, we welcome you and invite you to join along this adventure of love. We are finding it to be so much more than we ever could image or dream of…we really are having the time of our lives! This Thessalonian passage has been our true north for the entirety of the past 25+ years. It has changed, in our understanding, and it’s richness only continues to grow and stun us again and again.

We see this website as a place to resource and share the adventure with a company of sojourners hungry for relationship with the Father ‘in him we live and move and have our being’ as spoken by the ancient philosophers. (Acts 17:28) You an expect podcasts, highlighting those from a range of spheres of live as well as insights and gleanings we are discovering along the way.

Again, if you are new to this revelation of love. I would recommend considering attending an “A School.” You can check our Itinerary for Schools or Conferences or also go to Fatherheart.net for A Schools around the world!

Thanks for coming on this Adventure with us!

Heaps of Love,

Leonard & Lesley