"Boston, You're My Home"

The Giles family is headed to Boston!

If you’re reading this, it is most likely because you heard the news: We’re moving to Boston. I would also imagine that if you are reading this, you are reading out of a level of curiosity. Maybe the question went something like this when you heard the news, “How (or why) in the world did they decide to go to Boston?” It is a long story that we are excited to share with you. Never in our life have we been required to live in so much faith, but never have we seen God move so evidently in our life. So, I want to take some time to share our story. We obviously know it is still being written, but we hope through this you can share in the joy we have in our calling. At the end of this, we also want to invite you to join this journey with us and will share the various different ways you can do that.

FOUNDATION

Matthew 28:18-20 says, “And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Acts 1:8 says, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Ultimately, those two verses explain everything. Kenzie and I’s heart is to live out our calling as Christians in the context of ministry God has called us to. We want to “go” and we want to go where the gospel is needed “to the end of the earth.” The following will explain a lot of the specific details of our story and calling of God on our life, but these verses have been the driving force behind our decision!

BACKGROUND

Before we begin with the story, it is important for you to understand some context. Ever since I (Jacob) was a little kid, I have been a huge Boston sports fan. No one, not even myself, has really understood why or how that happened. I have loved the Red Sox, Celtics, and Patriots as long as I can remember. More than that, I have loved the city of Boston. When I was 12 years old, I convinced my mom to spend her 50th birthday in Boston so that I could go to Fenway Park. Since that trip, I have been back to Boston several times and several of those trips were with Kenzie. It is a place that we never get tired of going to.

It is also important to understand that the love for Boston does not end with me in our household. When Kenzie and I got engaged in 2018, the Red Sox went on a historic run. During that run, Kenzie and I got to watch games together for the first time and got to watch them win a World Series. A lot of people do not understand that Kenzie is a huge baseball fan. We don’t just watch the Red Sox for me. That year she fell in love with the Red Sox and found a favorite player in Mookie Betts (she also learned the heartbreak the Red Sox can bring a year later, oof). Since we got married, we watch 162 games of the Red Sox. When they are playing, they are on our TV and we are watching. In 2019, we went on a mission trip to Worcester and she got to visit Fenway for the first time. In 2021, we found ourselves back at Fenway for the AL Wild Card game against the Yankees. It is one of our favorite places in the world.

I share all of this to say, that the city of Boston has always had a special place in our heart. We love the people, the culture, and of course the sports. I used to always joke around and say, “I feel like I was supposed to be born in Boston.” BUT never did we ever think we’d move to Boston. We never talked about it and never really thought about it. We just loved the city from a distance.

PRAYER & UNCERTAINTY

Before heading into 2024, we sat down together to discuss the new year. We set some goals as a family and wrote down things we wanted to see God do in our life. Honestly, we were extremely happy. We were settling into parenthood, had just moved into a house we planned to raise our children in, and were enjoying our careers/ministry. We felt like we had a good foundation under our feet, but we wanted to make sure that we weren’t settling for comfort. So, we wrote down that we wanted God to make it clear to us what He wanted from us moving forward. We really did not think much of it and figured God was going to just confirm that we were where we needed to be for the long haul.

It didn’t take long before God began to stir in our hearts. In the beginning moments of the journey, if we are being honest, we were left very confused. We had no idea what God was doing but we sensed he was doing something. After several months and a lot of prayer, there were several conversations that were had about various different things with the leadership at the church I was serving at. Some of those conversations led to a position change, but we still never thought that God was calling us away from where we were. Even with all the changes and conversations, our hearts were still being stirred. We had no idea what was going on but were trying to be faithful where we were and trust that God would reveal to us what it was He wanted for us in His timing.

ONE… TWO… THREE…

We continued to pray and seek God, but were also incredibly busy with life and ministry. We thought at this point that it may be 2, 3, or maybe even 5 years before we fully understood what God was doing in our life. So, we just kept doing ministry where we were. Throughout my life I (Jacob) have been blessed with some amazing mentors, but there have been two that I have remained incredibly close to and have constantly gone to for godly counsel: Johnny Ellison and Jim Perdue. Throughout all of this they continued to help me navigate everything while lifting me up in constant prayer. I do not know if I would have made it through this season of uncertainty without them.

There were two months where I had three incredibly important conversations. On a micro scale they don’t seem important, but the way God used them together was pivotal. To be very clear, I have never expressed to any of these people that I wanted to live in Boston (because I did not) OR that I had wanted to church plant (never had thought about it). The first conversation came via text from my best friend. It was simple, but random. He asked the question, “You think you’d ever enjoy living in Boston?”

My response was “I would. I think I would thoroughly actually...” The conversation lasted 3-4 texts and ended. I thought nothing of it at the time. Fast forward a month or so later: I was in a coffee shop catching up with a friend of mine that is also a pastor. During that conversation he asked, “Have you ever thought about church planting in Boston?” My answer: “No.” He knew several people in the Boston area doing ministry so we talked about it for a little bit. During that conversation, I felt a fire in my heart. I ended the conversation telling him: “If you ever plant a church in Boston, let me know. I want to go with you.” I drove home and shared with Kenzie all that we talked about, but remember telling her something along the lines of: “I don’t think it is something I could do myself but I would love to go do ministry in Boston.” That conversation passed and we never talked about it again. A few weeks later, I was sitting down for breakfast with on of my mentors. We were just catching up on life when he asked the question, “Have you ever thought about church planting in Boston?” I remember saying something along the lines of, “Well, I am now because you’re the third person to ask me something like that.” He had just visited Boston that summer and met with some of the church planters there. He asked if I would want him to connect me with someone to hear about ministry there and I said yes.

FEAR & DOUBTS

We were connected with two church planters in Boston. After getting connected, I set up a phone call for two weeks away. We began to talk about Boston but we were immediately met with deep fears and doubts. We talked about how we didn’t think we, as born and raised southerners, could be effective in the north. We talked about our young family and how it be difficult (not to mention uncomfortable) to move. We talked about our friends and community we had in Pensacola and how it would hurt to leave them. Whenever we talked about it, we immediately found reasons to turn down the idea… but, somehow, we decided to entertain it. Over those two weeks we began to ask the question, “What if..?” We felt massive fears and doubts but began to watch as our hearts were filled with excitement.

On the day of the phone call, I (Jacob) was driving Kenzie and Nik to school and I asked Kenzie the question, “On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being, ‘I’m ready to move to Boston tomorrow,’ and 1 being, ‘This isn’t happening,’ how are you feeling about Boston?” Kenzie thought about it for a second and then responded, “I’m a 7 or an 8.” I almost swerved off the road when I heard those numbers. It was in that moment that we both realized God beginning to turn our hearts towards Boston but we were still filled with so many doubts and fears.

MORE PRAYER & CONVERSATIONS

I will spare all of the details of every conversation in this section, but over the course of the next month, I spoke with several church planters and Boston Send Network representatives. We knew this was starting to get way more real than just a thought so Kenzie and I began to pray together every night before bed. Honestly, a lot of those prayers sounded a lot like this: “God we have no clue what you are doing, but please make it clear to us. If this is what you want for us, open doors. We will walk through them. But if this is not what you want for us, please slam the doors shut in our face. Make it so clear that we can’t miss it.”

Ultimately, we decided to begin the assessment process through the North American Mission Board and the Send Network in order to get approved through their network to church plant. Throughout this time, we continued to have conversations with people in Boston. MacKenzie got to speak with some church planter’s wives and I got to continue to hear from more planters. Through the conversations, we began to realize just how difficult this was going to be. The craziest part of this process was that the more difficult we realized it was going to be, the more sure we felt we were being called to it.

ANSWERED PRAYERS

One of the biggest and most obvious hurdles for us was our young family. Moving to the city and church planting with a toddler was daunting, but we had always known that we wanted more than one child too. With the prospect of moving to Boston looming large we began to discuss if we wanted to have another one before we moved. I say we had conversations, but maybe that is a little overblown. We discussed it one time and never gave much thought to it after that. Looking back, we realize that this was actually a really important question to answer in the life of our family that we probably should have spent more time discussing it. We figured that we probably would not want to walk through a pregnancy during our first several years in Boston. We have always wanted to keep our kids fairly close in age and have wanted more than two so we needed to decide what to do. Ultimately, we never answered the question and to be honest, never even prayed about it.

Thankfully, God knew what we needed and what was best. We know His timing is perfect. In the midst of working through the assessment for Boston, we found out Kenzie was pregnant and would be having the baby before we were thinking about moving. This was super significant for us, of course. I asked Kenzie if she would want to rethink Boston or maybe rethink our timeline and she told me no. We knew we were right where God wanted us. Now we know that Nik will always have someone to play with. His brother, Nash, will be here in May!

CONFIRMATION

We continued to pray for clarity from God every single night and were continuing to have conversations with people in Boston. I (Jacob) was seeking a lot of godly counsel from former church planters and lead pastors that I knew. Along the way there were several moments where God answered our prayers very obviously. I remember speaking to a friend about how obviously and quickly God was answering prayers. I told them that I had never seen God answer prayers in my life like this before. Time and time again He was showing up.

Ultimately, we sat down and discussed what we felt God was telling us. We decided to put all of our doubts and fears aside and simply ask the question, “Is this what God is calling us to?” Our answer: “There’s no denying that He is.” So in that moment, on the couch of our home, we decided that we were moving to Boston. We didn’t have all the answers or even know exactly what it would look like, In fact, we hadn’t even been given the green light by the Send Network, but we knew it was His calling for us.

We ended up getting to visit Boston a week later when we went for the church planting assessment. Time and time again on that trip we felt God was confirming what we already knew: This was going to be our next home and place of influence for the gospel.

SO… HERE WE ARE

The Giles family is headed to Boston… so what now? And how could you possibly join our team and be apart of the Kingdom work that is taking place? I’m glad you asked. We know that we are not called to do this on our own. We will need a massive support system and a team of people to make it happen! We believe God is working in people’s lives right this very moment to be apart of this journey! Is that you? If so, here are some ways to pray through being on our team:

1. JOIN OUR PRAYER TEAM: We believe in the power of prayer and need A LOT of it. We want to have people that pray for us daily and people that are able to pray specifically for what is going on in the midst of this journey. We’d love to have you on our prayer team. If you’d like to join, subscribe to this Substack. We will be keeping it updated with prayer request, needs, and stories of God’s provision.

2. JOIN OUR FINANCIAL SUPPORT TEAM: In order to reach the city with the gospel, we will need people who are willing partner with us financially and invest in the Kingdom work. If you’d like to learn more about joining our financial support team to further the gospel in Boston, please email me at giles7jacob@gmail.com or text/call me at 478-731-5705.

3. JOIN OUR PLANTING TEAM: Do you feel God pressing on your heart to be apart of planting this church? We’d love to talk to you more about how you can join our team and be apart of reaching the city of Boston with the gospel! If you are interested in going to Boston, please email me at giles7jacob@gmail.com or text/call me at 478-731-5705.

Whether you join one or all of our teams, we want to say thank you for your love and support. We cannot wait to what God is going to do!