A SevenLakes Story! - Mark Sleeper & Dara Simmons

April 8th, 2008 admin Posted in SevenLakes Info, SevenLakes Stories |

Dara and I had been dating for some time and were realizing that we were heading down the path to marriage in the near future. Being that we had both been through divorces, we wanted to make sure we did everything right this time, and strove to resolve as many obstacles up front as possible. One main issue we both wanted to tackle immediately was religion. Dara was raised Catholic all of her life. I grew up in a Non-Denominational church as a child. During my previous marriage, we joined a Lutheran church and then transferred to a local Baptist church.Dara and I wanted to find a good local church representative of both of our beliefs and a great environment for the kids. After our first visit to CrossPoint Seven Lakes, we were pretty sure we had found just that. We really felt comfortable and found the sermons very relevant to our lives.After attending by ourselves for a few months, the next big step was to bring the four kids! After my divorce, I had continued to take my kids to the church that they attended with their mom, but every Sunday was a struggle. They never wanted to go and were always arguing not to attend. Dara continued to take her kids to a local church as well, but the kids were never excited about it and never really got anything out of it. We were ready to get them to try something new and bring them to CrossPoint, but were very worried about how they would like it. We were incredibly surprised - they loved it! Once we got them into their “JAMmin’ Hour” classes for the first time, they honestly can’t wait to go every Sunday. The older girls (7 years old) have especially enjoyed and gained from CrossPoint classes. They love the classes and really get the value of what they are being taught - and it really seems to stick. We love it when they talk about what they have learned and express their feelings - neither one of them used to do that in the past after church on Sundays. We really love the friendly, warm, family environment of CrossPoint Seven Lakes. Neither one of us had really been an integral part of a church family in the past. We really feel like that is changing now and look forward to growing our involvement in CrossPoint Seven Lakes and being an active part of the church as it continues to grow. We really enjoy Pastor Dan and are very thankful for he and the other members welcoming us and our kids into the church.