Due to a need to increase our production of Playmaker Profiles, we are in the happy position of having to add a Profile Writer. God has provided a gifted person: My name is Josephine Shay and I am a native of New England. I was born and raised in Granby, Connecticut and graduated from UCONN with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature. I am the proud mother of a precocious 17 month old and she keeps me quite busy. I am very excited to be working with Klesis Ministries. I first met Kit and Trivia two years ago when I began attending the Covenant Presbyterian Church. I went on a retreat that they led. Early in 1997, I began seeking the Lord's guidance as the supporter of my family, I had some anxiety about how I would provide. What I did not realize then was that the Lord was going to provide. Kit evaluated my gifts through the Playmaker Profile and showed me how specifically God had designed me. I was immensely blessed by the information Kit presented and clarified for me. He gave me several ideas for careers and he encouraged me not to "settle" for anything less than a job that would use my gifts. I was also very excited about the possible applications of the Playmaker Profile beyond a career search. In fact, my future house mate and I met with Kit and Tricia to compare profiles and discuss ways in which our gifts might complinient (or conflict) with each other. The result of my meeting with Kit and my interest in the profile process was a job a a profile writer. I feel so grateful to God for providing an interesting job that uses my gifts and enables me to care for my daughter full time. Please pray for God to continue blessing us in this ministry!  You know how you can be mucking along at something: working hard, taking one step at a time, keeping your nose to the grindstone. Then, you take a breather, look back at the ground covered and realize you had no idea how far you've gone? Well . . . . that's happened to us at Klesis. 1997 was a different kind of year than the six previous. We had more work to do, and new opportunities for ministry opened! Let me cite some examples for you:
This work has been a challenging delight to us. His grace is magnificent in its "more-thanenough" ability to turn His Beloved away from bondage into life. We get to see it everyday here. Not bad for a couple of middle-aged pilgrims!  We have a silo attached to our church because our building used to be a dairy barn. We worship in what was once the hayloft. Somewhere along the way a creative free-thinker thought that God would like His people to come and pray in the silo. I know why. It's because of the stillness. Stillness so present and in place that when you close the door, get on your knees and close your eyes you know you have left the dominion of noise and come to be with the silence. Sadly, not many go in there any more to pray or to kneel with the quiet. Stillness sets us on edge. We don't know what to do in it. The quiet just sits and waits there with us. It seems at home while we grow restless because we want to make something out of the time we spend. While there are times when we might long for a quiet moment, we want it on our terms. Just long enough to rev up the batteries, make a pit stop and dash back into the race before we fall too far behind. But the silo has something to teach us if we will give it a chance to rest on our shoulders for a bit. The stillness that lives within its cylinder walls carries us into a stillness that allows us to hear the conversation in our souls, and if we dare, hear the Holy Spirit speak the truth in love. Brendan Manning in Abba's Child talks of the "process of coming to stillness" such that we finally recognize, once and for all, that we truly are His Beloved. As we come to stillness -- which can only happen over time as we learn to be at home in the quiet -- life takes on a different hue. Chronic anxiety fades. The need to control weakens. The insane scramble for security and significance loses its grip because we have heard God call our names, and He wasn't yelling. Learning to be still, coming to stillness produces chronically trusting God; being in the habit of resting in Him even when chaos or suffering threatens to unravel everything you ever believed about His love or goodness, or protection. You see, being still at heart means you have come to know Jesus in a way that cannot be shaken by the ups and downs of experience. It is to say as did Paul "I know whom I have believed," (2Ti. 1:12) and live in the surety that the "Lord is near." (Php. 4:5) Learning to be still in the Presence of God is really placing knowing Him at the center of your life. It is declaring that "I will be still so that I may hear Him, and then live in a way that testifies that He truly 'is the stronghold of my life.'" Still moments expose our restless selfishness and habitual flights to fear because we have to face ourselves and let God reveal our nakedness before Him. We can't hide in distraction and doing. Our souls talk to us of desires, hurts, trivial pursuits, and superficial loyalties. In a quiet place the Holy Spirit peels us like an onion to expose true motives and illusions. But the journey to becoming still leads us to what Richard Foster has coined "The Heartıs True Home." We come to rest in the fiery love of Jesus for pip-squeaks like me and like you. A heart resting still in God is a heart that has really heard - "I have loved you with an everlasting love," (Jer. 31:3) right down to the bone. It knows because it has become freely still, and He is there waiting. Why are you afraid of surrendering to learning a still heart? What will you find in the silence that makes you so anxious? In your slavish busyness and chronic distraction is there joy, peace, and faith, or are you plain numb? When might you turn and clear out a place in your day for God? If you do there is a silo I know about and the stillness you are looking for lives there waiting for a companion. In fact, there is stillness inside of you and Jesus has made a place for you to come an rest your worn-down soul. Go there. Youıll soon get to wondering why you stayed away so long. I know that in order to grow I need conflict and trails, but ... Carlo Carretto
 The fifth installment in our series of the ministry's of Klesis focuses on: Marriage and family counselingTricia and I will have been married this February for 25 years. Those of you who know us have now just come to the shocked realization that we both must have been under 10 years of age when we wed! Anyway ... " ears and to our married not begin to send young couple in trouble to seek our counsel. We had no formal Ministry of place that time. Since then we have ministered to couples of all ages and backgrounds including folks in their 70's. We base our work on scriptural principles, in particular, the truth that couple bind themselves voluntarily to the covenant they and their when they marry. In the context of that covenant, we begin to help unravel the assumptions, expectations, offenses, selfish behaviors, the trails, and deep seated wounds of the heart that threaten to destroy the covenantal foundation on which the marital relationship rests. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and hard work done by the couple, we strive to get to truth, understanding, the healing, reconciliation, and it recommitment. Depending on what is needed for a particular couple, we might focus on:
Each couple's problems are you make, but Biblical principles of relationship brings life and maturity if they are lived. Marriage is, if not the key adult relationship for learning to be a disciple, it is certainly one of the top three. Our work with families has us helping parents and children, especially teenagers relate to each other in a godly manner. So many pressures unendingly assail families that family members soon lose each other, relational problems go untended, and hurt festers. Understanding family dynamics, and applying Biblical principles that govern all family relationships begin the process of exposing core problems. Our goal is to help family members work through pain, fear, guilt and shame to take responsibility for sinful attitudes and behaviors. Once that happens, steps can be taken to forgive, change, and rebuild. Call us if you are ready to find the way back to one another.  About Klesis Ministries:  Reasons to Shout Praises to God!!!!
Reasons we ask you to pray for us:
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