Response from Jeremiah & Cori Herbert

     Jeremiah & Cori Herbert are the Pastors at The Intersection Church in Gettysburg, PA. They both co-lead as the Pastors of the church.

     I learned so much from Pastor Jeremiah & Cori today about how they evangelize and disciple through their ministries. Jeremiah and Cori run The Intersection Church and Cori teaches dance as well. They both have beautiful imaginations and are so very creative which is what i love about them both. One thing you have to learn in the ministry is that serving is huge and there are ministry leaders that believe in you but if you want to do what they do, you have to work for it. It won't come easy, it takes work to get where you want to be. For instance, me personally, i want to be in the mission field somewhere but i have to learn how to organize events, how to pull together a team of people to go somewhere on a trip. There is a lot that i need to learn and i am interning with the Missions Pastor which is teaching me all of that, but along with that internship comes work and serving. 

     Everything that Jeremiah and Cori do is discipleship. In their thoughts, a disciple is someone who learns about God and teaches it. Sometimes we put Jesus into this box where you can only teach about God a certain way but that isn't how it is. Everyone disciples people in different ways and Jeremiah and Cori happen to do that in a very unique way which i think is so awesome! Relationships are so key to when it comes to the ministry. As leaders of a church or of whatever it may be in the ministry, the relationships are what builds in a church. You need to be able to build relationships with your church members and not just be a great pastor to them but a friend to them. Being a friend allows your congregation to feel like they can be more real with you and you hang out as friends and i think that's what makes your congregation feel more comfortable with you and not just look at you as the person who teaches them about God and that's it. As Jeremiah puts it, "Discipleship is a life-long obsession with Jesus."  In the words of Cori, "It's not just about the church, it's about what Jeremiah and i present as Jesus." I love the statement she made because it's so true; see when we present Jesus in a way that people see Jesus in us and through us in how live and act, that speaks so loud. I could have interpreted this statement differently than from what they meant but that is what i get out of this statement.
     I never really thought about it, but when you ask a Pastor or a ministry leader 'what can i do?' and they ask you 'what would you like to do?' and you answer, 'whatever you need,' it makes it hard for them to really be able to give you a job because they want you to be able to have a job in a place that you have a passion or a gifting in. I didn't really realize that that was something that i could do, i mean working in the ministry that i want to be in is awesome but as i serve under a pastor in the area i want to be in, i can serve where i know that my strengths are and that can help them out even more! When you know what your passions are and you go to a leader that you trust and tell them what you are gifted in or passionate about something then you can ask them if they could use you or what they would need.
     Cori said, "Jesus can be first in your life, but that doesn't mean that you bend for somebody every time they want your time." Balancing between family time and the ministry can be hard but you have to make sure that you give yourself the time that you need to yourself or with your family depending on if you have a family yet like a husband, kids...so with that being said i know that i will learn to balance my time and my ministry time and also learn to be careful not to let people entice me to do things that they think may be an emergency but really isn't and God i'm asking that you will help me to distinguish between that as i'm working in the ministry now just as an intern.