Go a little deeper
Kross and Marisa Knoll discuss choosing Journey Church in Bend, committing to its MORE initiative, and maintaining that commitment after a job loss.
The conversation,
in their words.
Transcript from the recording’s captions. Select any timestamp to hear the original audio.
I'm Marissa and I'm cross and we've been going to Journey for a few years now we've been able to get into some community at Journey um through just a small groups uh we joined one last fall we chose Journey out of all the churches here in Bend just because it is a very scripture focused Church teaching what the Bible actually says and how to apply it to your life at the time of Mo we were only 23 years old we had just gotten married just moved he started a master's program for teaching I had a secure job but it was not the best paying job the culture for 23 year olds is to start building your finances and holding on to things or spending money on something that's going to make you feel better God is asking to honor him
with our first fruits instead of trying to honor ourselves I think it was just us realizing that it was a great call on something practical to do in our [Music] faith when we first kind of made our commitment to the more initiative we had decided to stretch ourselves even further than what uh 10% would have been for us to give 3 days later I lost my job and that was our main bread winner so at that point we were like how are we going to even make our first tithe like we have no source of income right now we decided that we're just going to trust him and continue moving forward with what we had promised God that we were going to give him it's easy to be
faithful in the easy times but it was really like this is when the rubber hit in the road this is when great things happen and we feel the Holy Spirit saying this is right it's okay it's scary but it's going to be better because of this after I came home and told cross that I had lost my job that following month he got the most jobs and brought in the most income that he ever has to this date as I was home alone searching for new jobs and stuff I would see a job and I would just kind of be like God should I apply for this as I interviewed for where I currently work I just really felt like God saying this is the one like go for this one I found out that I
got the job in the middle of a Mexican restaurant I was just blown away that a I had gotten the job and then what my new salary was going to be I was like I can buy all the tacos now the storm right after the more commitment really was God's answer to our prayers asking for more like we got more money I have a more confidence in him I take more time to pray I am like finally starting to let go and being like no God's got this I've gotten a raise out of cycle at work most of my co-workers are atheists I'll show up with my mug with the more flame I get an opportunity to kind of tell them this is from my church it's Journey Church it's
by Goodwill you should check it out it's a boldness I've never had before to be able to talk about that we have gone from a kind of a burden of being able to provide for ourselves relinquishing that now the burden is so much lighter and therefore us so much Freer I feel like I have a stronger testimony now I can really confidently say this is how God moved in my life this is how he changed me and I'll never be the same all I have to say for someone who's looking question is that there's literally no reason to wait God's not going to fail you it's going to be so much better so much more um than anything that you could ever
dream of or hope for
