HeavenEarth Conversations: Jenn Rice

What would it look like to start a community that was really,

it's for the people like Jesus would be for. Welcome to Heaven Earth

Church. I'm Ross Stackhouse, the founding pastor of Heaven Earth

Church. From the start, our heart has been to be a church for

people who don't fit neatly into church. We want to meet people

where they are and know their stories. Because in every story,

there is God's story. And this podcast, podcast is just about that.

It's about inviting you into the stories of the people of Heaven

Earth Church. So let's turn to the story.

Hello, good people, and welcome to the Heaven Earth Church

podcast. This is the church we look to make a lasting impact in

our community. I am the one of the producers of the podcast. My

name is Brad Miller. And one of the joys we have here at Heaven

Earth Church is to connect up with people in our community. People

who attend are part of the church and they use this podcast

as a tool to try to reach out and extend the good news about people

in our community to others who may be kind of checking us out and

see what Heaven Earth Church is all about. And so it's really

a privilege today that we have Jen Rice with us today here on the

Heaven Earth Church podcast to learn more about her and about her

connections, about her life, what's going on with her and about

her connections here to Heaven Earth Church. Jen, welcome to our

conversation.

Morning.

Yeah. Great to have you with us. Hey, Jen. And Jen is short for

what?

Jennifer.

For Jennifer and Jennifer Rice or Jen Rice. And she as everybody

around here knows her as Jen. And so glad we've been with. With

the church here for several months.

Five months.

Five months, six months, something like that. And getting

involved right away, some of those small groups and some of the

regular tender and worship and some of the other things that we

have going on around here. But it's a good opportunity for us to

get to know a little bit more about. About you. So let's just start

with hometown. Where are you from? A little bit about that for

you.

Yeah. I am proud to say my hometown is Union City, Indiana,

on the Indiana and Ohio border. Half the towns on one side,

half towns on the other. Super.

Oh, yeah. That's literally one of those towns where the border of

the state goes right through it. There's two or three towns like

that. I know.

Yeah. Time change is fun.

Yeah. You ever heard the town over there, that part of the world

called College Corner?

Yes.

Yeah.

Yes.

It's a similar thing there.

Okay.

Yeah. Where they in that town. I'm sorry to interrupt. In that town.

The funny thing about that town, I found out is that the. They

built the high school literally on the border of Indiana

and Ohio. And the center court line of the basketball court of the

old high school is the state line. So there you go. But I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. You're from Union City, Indiana. Tell me something

about cool about growing up in Union City.

It's a wonderful town to grow up in. Small town. We had maybe 79

in my graduating class. So, you know, you could be an important

person if you wanted to be. Safe town, you could. We rode our

bikes everywhere, you know, uptown to the pool, played all night

long. Great time.

Yeah. Neighbors and sound like you were involved with things, as

you said, what you wanted to be involved with. What were some

of the things you were involved with with your family or

the school growing up?

Yeah, lots of stuff in the school. Always in the convocations

and the plays. And I had a job when I was 16 at a drugstore a lot

of times in student council, particularly in the choir.

Just stuff like that, all that kind of thing. Do you have mom, dad,

brother, sister?

Is this mom, dad, one sister?

Yeah.

Good family. Yeah.

Awesome, awesome. So from Union City, where did life take you

from there?

I went to Ball State.

Okay.

I have a degree in special ed, teaching the deaf. But when I graduated,

I decided that the teaching aspect wasn't what I really wanted

to do. I was more interested in maybe helping parents with a newly

discovered deaf child, something like that. But I took what

I thought was a temporary job for an insurance company in downtown

Indy and ended up staying there four years. And then I had

my children and I was basically an at home mom for the

most part. My husband I knew in school, we started dating my junior

year in high school. We dated all through college, which is difficult.

I was at Ball State, he was at Rose Hulman in Terre Haute. So we

had to get through that. Finally got to marry him. And we've

lived in the Indianapolis area for a number of years in Brown county

for about 27 or 8.

And your husband's name and how long you been married?

His name is Dave Rice. Been married, let's see. Been together

50 years between dating and married. Married about 46.

Wow.

Long time.

Good for you. Yeah, that's awesome in and of itself, so. Well,

that's wonderful. And you've got some children.

Yeah, we have two children. My son Evan is 41. My daughter's 39.

She lives with us. Us My son lives in Indianapolis also with his

wife, who's a hairdresser.

Okay.

They have two children of their own adopted daughter, guardianship

of another teen, and their grandmother lives with them. So he's

a busy guy.

All right. I guess. So you've done the marriage aspect. You've

had a bit of a career. Not a bit. You've had a significant career

and you've had life with you, raising your children and grandchildren

now. So you've got some things going on with your family. And then

you've lived in Indianapolis area for most of the last 40 something

years, is that what you said? Yeah. And then. And then some years

ago, you landed in Brown county, right?

Yeah, yeah, we've been. We were there for seven years. Moved

back to Indy area for another seven, and then we've been here since.

Yeah. So you've been living in Brown county for. Wow. And so. And

so that's just. Just better context. It's 25 plus miles from

where we go to church here or something like that. I don't know.

It takes me 37 minutes. I don't know what the message is.

Okay. But I mean, it's not a. It's not a hop, skip and a jump.

It's. It's, you know, it's a little drive.

Close as anything.

Yeah. There you go.

Everything's 45 minutes.

So it's close and so. But tell me something cool about living in

the rural area of Brown County.

We love where we live. We've been a church right before. This

one was an hour away, but we just never felt to move because we

love it there so much. We live on 17 wooded acres, have a pond.

My husband is a reloader and target shooter. So he's got a range

on the property and he can reload something, test it out on

the porch, come back in and adjust things. And it's just a nice

place to live. It's very peaceful.

Yeah. So not many neighbors around. You're kind of in your own

place.

Lane of seven houses.

Okay. That's it. All right, well, good. Sound like you've got

what many might say kind of the idyllic rural life. So. And then

that's good. But tell me a little bit about your. Your faith

life or church life. Both growing up and in. More in an adult

life.

Yeah.

Kind of start growing up. Did you grow up in church?

I did not grow up in church.

Okay.

My husband did. We didn't as a married couple, didn't go to church

until our son was about a year old. And we thought that was probably

the responsible thing to do as parents is children in church. So

we started going to a Methodist church. Ralph and Lucy

Hill. Ralph was the pastor of that church at the time. So we went

there sometime later, joined another church, a very small body,

small enough that they really didn't have a pastor. So my husband

and another man kind of co pastored the church through this

time. Unfortunately, there was a leader in that church, a narcissistic

man.

We.

Anyway, it didn't go well. It didn't end well.

So there was some sort of a conflict in the church. Yeah.

Not God's fallen, anyway. And then the last 10 years, we've been

at a church in Columbus. And I had no issue with that church. Still

like the people, like the church. But Lucy, we kind of reconnected,

had lost touch a little bit. Reconnected. And she said, well,

you know, until I go to Florida, you know, would you like

to come to church with me for a few weeks? So we just kind of spend

some time together. And so I came here, but not expecting. Really

not searching for another church, but not expecting to love

it, which I did.

Yeah.

And.

Well, let's go back to some of that initial experience there. So

you didn't grow up at church. You got involved with church. It

sounds like you were pretty involved with church, including navigating

a traumatic experience. And unfortunately, that's not an uncommon

experience for people to have traumatic church experiences. And

then Lucy Hill invited you to check out Heaven Earth Church. And

so tell me a little bit about some first impressions and about

some initial reactions when you came to Heaven Earth Church.

I assumed you came with Lucy.

I did, I did. My first impression was that it was much smaller.

The church I'd been attending had maybe 500 people in it, which

I never could get comfortable with. The. The small group was really

appealing to me. The more casual nature of it. I loved Ross's

sermons. Was really connecting with the idea of the love God, love

people. The emphasis on that. The emphasis on community, which

is something had just really been stirring in my heart just right

before I came. And so the talk of community and knowing what he

was doing with the community and what the church was doing and

just the sense of community within the church and on the outside

was a real draw for me. And that was both a blessing and a difficulty

because my husband's still involved with our. The church I just

left.

Okay.

And so that's not ideal for us right now, but that's where we are.

Sound like you're Kind of navigating that or making it work

in one way or another. Yeah. So it's a little bit what got you

attracted here and a little bit some of the points that were

interesting to you. What keeps you here?

The. Oh, gosh, just the continued community and the love

and the. I guess the biggest draw for me is rebuilding, reconstructing

who Jesus is and his heart. That I see emphasized a lot here,

and his love and his heart behind all of the teachings. I tend

to be a rule follower and want to know the rules where here I'm

learning more of the heart and the heart behind.

Interesting. You used a couple really interesting terminologies

and phrases there. I think I want to unpack with you a little

bit, Jen. Talk about rebuilding, reconstruction, reframing.

So that kind of indicates that there was kind of some set of understandings

about Jesus and about your life of faith that you have been

in the process of maybe tearing down. Not tearing down in

the sense of destroying, but tearing down to reconstruct it. Is

that a fair way of putting it? So tell me a little bit about that

experience of. For you in terms of how you have come to understand

your relationship with Jesus, your faith life, the Holy Spirit,

things of that nature. Because I've got to know you as a person

who really goes deep in these areas. What are you learning about

yourself or about your life of faith in this reconstruction phase?

The traumatic church. I hate to say the traumatic church. It wasn't

the church. The experiences.

You had a traumatic experience there, Sally. Yeah.

Yes. That constant sense of, you're not good enough, you're not

doing well enough, you're not enough. It took me a long time to

tear that down and rebuild who Jesus says I am. And so I had to

study that a lot. And coming here, just that constant emphasis

of, you are enough. God loves you where you are and will help you

through the rest. That's been a real piece to my soul.

So you felt pretty affirmed in that. So you kind of had relatively

legalistic approach to understanding your faith in life

and how, you know, I've got to adhere to certain standards or certain

laws or certain judgments, this type of thing. And it sounds

to me you're learning more about relationships, relationship

building, and how it's a complicated, sometimes messy thing

to do, and also about the primacy of grace. Is that a fair

understanding of some of the journey you're going through?

It is. And I would also say that I'm learning also that. I couldn't

for a while understand that culture changes enough through the

years that some of the things that were commands at the time have

evolved and aren't the same. The concept is the same, but culturally,

some of those things, that some of the reasons that those existed,

we don't have it here. And so I've had to kind of relearn some

of those.

Yeah. So context matters, both biblically societal in our society

and with everything else, technology, any, you know, our lives,

our relationships, all that kind of matters. And yet I sense

in you, Jen, that the Holy Spirit's doing a real work in you.

And you've seen some manifestations of the Holy Spirit

doing some work in you, in your life, in your relationship,

your family, things of this nature. Would you say that's fair,

for one thing? And if so, how is the Holy Spirit? How has this

manifestation, how's this been come to fruition? Are there any stories

that you can tell about that?

Well, not coming from a Christian background, as a child,

I am. I'm learning. I'm especially. I'm sorry we get a little

lost here on my some thoughts, but I'm especially learning lately

who Jesus, not only who he was and his miraculous life and his divinity,

but his humanity also. To address something you asked, my daughter

had been ill for about seven years with something called porphyria,

which is a blood disorder, but it causes lots of other crashes in

your body. And we had a lot of doctors and a lot of unanswered questions

and lots of prayers. But we had an evangelist at our church one

day, and he also prayed for her. And like I said, there had been

lots of prayer for her. But this particular prayer I knew hit

home. And I don't even understand, just the Holy Spirit

hit something in me, and I knew that one hit home. And just

within a couple of months, we were seeing all kinds of changes

in her. She had been very ill, housebound, certainly bed bound,

often had to be homeschooled, that sort of thing. So it was really

bad. She just felt bad all the time. But anyway, within just a few

weeks, couple of months, we were just seeing changes after change

after change. Some of the illnesses that she had

been diagnosed and the changes to the better.

Oh, yes.

Yeah, okay.

The illnesses that she had been diagnosed with were retested

and came back negative this time. And pretty soon she had two

jobs. She had graduated school, taking, you know, pottery

class, and just. It was just an amazing thing to witness. So you

can't convince me ever that God's not a healer.

Yeah, I like to call those yay, God moments. And when we just.

There's something we don't quite understand. There's a mystery

involved with this because one of the things, you know, we learned

about the life of faith and life of prayer and things like that,

we have these great moments. We also have some moments, like you

mentioned, about the church going through trauma. We have other

moments when we kind of don't get it, you know, when things go

south. And we don't get that either. So it sounds like you've

been a person who's faced your share of things in life and you're

finding some way, both good and bad, and you're finding some

ways to navigate that. And part of your experience here at Heaven

Earth Church is part of the process of helping you do that. Is

that a fair thing to say?

Yes. And I'm back in studying even more than I had been back in

a consistent Bible study. Joining the first, the Monday class

and now the Tuesday class. Getting to know people.

Yeah. Well, tell me how that's going for you. We're part of a class

together. And I know you're a very astute student of what is happening.

But tell me about that in terms of what is valuable to you

about the small group experiences that we have here at

Heaven or Church.

I started with the Monday group because that's where what Lucy

was with. So I met with her group, got to know those folks. I

call them friends now. We were studying the Beatitudes and discovered

too the Bible project and learning some really deep things

about the Sermon on the Mount. I decided at the kind of the. At

the break that we took, that the church took to join the Tuesday

group then so I would get to know them as well. Just a different

group of people. And I'm doing the homework. I'm taking notes on

the class because I don't want to lose the value of the class. And

so I'm taking good notes, and that's just the way I do.

And you're much better student than I am in terms of taking notes.

I'll give you that. Give you. I'd certainly give you accolades

that way. But it seems like you've also used this as a means

to develop a deeper relationship with other people.

Yeah, I made it a point to do that. That's one thing I wanted to

be sure to do when I came is because I left all my friends.

Yeah.

And so I wanted to make new friends.

And part of what I wanted to reflect with you about that, that

just shows some initiative on your part. You're not just waiting

for things to come to you. You know, it's one thing to be, you know,

fed. It's also another thing to be feeding ourselves through the

process of serving others, getting to know others, things of

that nature. And so that's one of the things I want to talk to you

about for a minute, Jen, in terms of how the nature of heaven

or church, at least the intent is to ours will be a place of nurture,

to be a place where people can grow interpersonally in friendships

as well as spiritually and intellectually and their biblical

knowledge and things like that. So one of the things that is

even said about heaven or church is that this is if you don't

fit in church, you fit in here. It's one of the models, is

one of the mottos that's set here from time to time out of your

experience. Do you think that's true? And if so, how so?

Well, it goes against my introvert nature to put myself out

there to make friends. But since I've come, like I said, I made

it a point to do that. So people have been very welcoming to

me. And so I'm learning, learning names, trying to get to

know people, taking the classes. It's been. It's been good.

Yeah, good. But you've also been taking the foundational classes.

You know, kind of, you're involved with the small groups, which

is interpersonal, with the foundational classes, which has to

do with kind of understanding the doctrines of the church and things

of that nature.

And I did listen to a lot of the sermons. I listened to the podcasts

that we're doing today to get to know the nature of the kind of

people who are here. And I feel like I just fit right in because.

Because of my trauma, I know there are a lot of folks in the church

had some similar experiences. I went through about four years of

pretty significant depression before I could find some medications

that worked for me. And so, you know, I'm very free to talk about.

About that or to help people who've been through that also.

And I've seen you just observing you, seen you seeking to

be not just relational, but helpful in your relationships with

people. Yeah. And so it's not just, hi, how are you? It's, you

know, really, hi, how are you? And I'm here for you at that type

of thing.

At the two churches ago, that didn't go well. One of my gifts is

the gift of the gifts of helps.

Yes.

And that was always devalued there. So since I've been here, I

Feel that resurging, that growing back.

So you took some sort of a spiritual gifts inventory type of

thing or some way to discern your spiritual gifts. Well, that

is awesome to know in terms of the life of the church. There's some

ways that we do worship here at Heaven Earth Church. It's a very

conversational style of worship. People interact with the

Pastor Ross, in many different ways. And for some people, that's

just quite different than your experience of church. Tell me what

your observation of it is. Do you think, does it work for you?

And kind of. How did you react to it when you first.

It's similar to two churches ago. My most recent church of 10

years isn't like that at all. Because it's so large. You just can't

do that. The format doesn't work for that. And so I've missed

that. I've missed testimonies or people learning other people's

thoughts on things. So I really like that. That was one of

the draws for me. Really like that very much.

Good, good, good, good. The mission, the statement of Heaver

Church Estates, and it's on banners. We have a website and other

places that we exist to make a lasting impact in our community.

Just in your observation, the several months that you've been around,

is that a true statement? And if so, how have you experienced that?

It's true, from what I've read and from what I've seen personally,

I can't participate in a lot of the outreaching things at the

moment because I'm a little careful about how much time I'm spending

away from my husband.

Sure, of course.

You know, like I said that with that being different churches

at the moment, I'm a little cautious about that. But that's something

ultimately, what I would like to do. I would like to see both of

us here and living closer because community, it's stirring

so strongly in my heart, but I can't seem to manifest it where I

live. I'm from a small town. I would much rather. I'm much more

comfortable in a small town. I'd like to get back to a small town

where I can know the people in my area. I really don't know people

in Brown County.

Okay.

And so that's something I would like to see, but something

I see emphasized here a lot.

Yeah. So the community aspect, both serving the community, but also

community in terms of developing relationships, are important

to you. And there's. It just sounds like there's a little bit

of transitions going on, learning, growing, you know, that

type of thing going on with you. Very good, very good. Well,

you mentioned that you don't have a lot of relationships in the

community where you live, but I've seen you developing acute relationships

here and I know that you've, you've family and so on that you

live with. But I want to put this kind of a scenario in your mind.

Let's just say that you have somebody in your life, Jen, who has

confided in you about something going on their life. This

may have been a co worker, former co worker, friend, family,

neighbor, whatever. They've got something distressing, it could

be whatever. It could be spiritual, it could be marital, it

could be financial, it could be job related, any number of things.

But they've confided in you and trust you in that. Do you think

you would be comfortable enough with them to say, you know,

like to invite you to have our church as a part of your process?

I'm going to be helpful to you, but it's a part of your process

of helping you to navigate what's going on in your life. Would

that be a part of. Would you be to play out this scenario with

me? Do you think that would work for you?

Yeah. This is the first church I would have answered yes to that.

The churches I've attended in the last 30 years have been more

Pentecostal and exuberant in their worship services which not

everyone, that's not everyone's taste. So I haven't always

felt real comfortable inviting people to church. But I would very

much hear, in fact, I have invited people here.

Yeah, good. Well, that's the greatest affirmation of what the

question I asked there, if you've actually done it. So then

just to kind of bring us around here and first of all, I just

want to thank you for being part of our conversation. It's been

a joy to get to know you and you know, in our small group and

things that we're involved with. But I'd like you to kind of

speak to. You're a person who has really used the tools that heaven

or church has to offer in terms of worship. The small groups,

the groups that have to do with the disciplines of the church

or with the doctrine of the church. So you're taking every avenue

to learn everything you can. You're being very assertive about

it and very affirming about it. And you know, you're a sponge

soaking things up but also sharing them with others in your

way. I know you take notes of sermons. I see you take notes with

small group. You're a part of, you've got, you know, take notes,

even the podcast episodes we've done and that kind of thing.

But I want you to speak right now for Jen for a sec for the first,

who's kind of like Jen, who is a real researcher, a real person

who says, I'm going to do my homework about this church, about

the people here, about what they're about. So I'd like to like

you to speak to anyone who may be checking out this podcast about

they're doing their research. What would you share with that person

but why they might want to check out Evner Church?

Well, that's easy because that's exactly what I did. Lucy.

Well, we used to meet for coffee every week and she would tell

me about the church and I was getting interested and I was wanting

to come and visit with her at the church. So I started listening

to several of the sermons online and then I listened to a lot

of the sermons online and then I started listening to the podcasts

like we're doing here and getting to know people so that when

I did come, I knew what to expect and I knew some faces right

off the bat and I could meet someone and say, I got to listen

to your podcast and I know a little bit about you and hoping to

get to know you better. So yeah, that was a good way to go.

And then the small groups, you can't meet someone, can't know someone

well in five minutes before church. So it's been nice having

those small groups. I really, really like that.

I think churches are, churches that work well, are healthy, basically

have two types of groups. They have large groups, which is worship,

things like that, and smaller groups which is, you know, either

small group Bible studies or social groups. You know, the people

who do some of the service projects, any number of things. And

you have availed yourself to both of those. And I think I'm also

hearing you say, given some of the things you've shared about your

past experiences, that if someone's going to check out heaven

or earth Church, it's a safe place, kind of a non judgmental place

where they would have the opportunity to check it on their

own pace. Is it a fair thing? Anything else you want to share about

that?

I would like to say also about the non judgmental. I've been judged,

so I appreciate so.

So you felt a little bit of that kind of that, you know, pressure,

that squeamishness that comes when you feel judged and you're not

feeling that here. So any final words you want to share with,

with the folks maybe listening to this before we say goodbye.

Well, come and try it. Come and try it. You've got lots of opportunity

to check it out ahead of time if you're not comfortable being in

the building. But yeah, come for the service. It's, it's just

a lot of fun.

I love that. I love what you said there, Jen, about come and try

it. Come and see. Basically that's what Jesus said, you know,

come check it out, come see what it's all about and then come,

come follow me. So I just want to say again what a joy it has been

to get to know you here on the, on the podcast and in small

groups. We are part of and in the life of the church and also you've

just brightened up my day and I see how you just brighten people

up when you're around them and that's a joy. Her name is Jen Rice.

She's one of the incredible people that you can get to know here

at Heaven Earth Church and we hope that you'll give a church that

has a mission to exist to make a lasting impact to people a try.

We are located on our main campus located on Main street in

Weyland, Indiana. Our our main Service is at 9:30 Eastern Time on

on both online and in person and you can always check us out online

here at the Heaven Earth Church podcast. I'm the producer

of the podcast and speaking for our pastor, Ross Stackhouse.

Thank you for joining us here on the Heaven Earth Church podcast.

We want to thank you for spending time with us today. My name

is Ross Stackhouse, the pastor to Heaven Earth Church and you may

think out there that your story is over, but in fact your faith

story may just be beginning. If you want more information about

our church or you're interested in the next step, you

can go to heavenorthchurch.org otherwise we look forward to being

with you next time at the Heaven Earth Church Podcast.