Hello My Name Is

Intro

If you’re a fan of Matthew West like I am, then your mind immediately started singing the rest of the chorus to his song of the same name. Yes, I’ll admit it, I got the idea from that song. But it felt appropriate to me since this is my first blog post and I need to introduce myself and what my blog is all about. And since I’m generally a man of few words, I’m just going to jump right in.

Growing up

Starting off, my name is Cory Lewis. If you’ve already seen my About Me page, then you got a taste of who I am. But just a taste. Here I will expand upon that.

Home

I grew up in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Not a small city (roughly 70,000), but not huge either. Oshkosh feels more like a small town than my current city of residence (Eau Claire, Wisconsin), even though they are roughly the same size. My parents homeschooled my 4 sisters and I through high school. Crazy, right? That’s a lot of work to homeschool 5 children. It still amazes me how my mom managed to do it. It couldn’t have been easy when someone didn’t understand something, and she had to explain it multiple ways. Or someone was in a bad mood and then had math problems to solve. Or girls getting emotional (love you all!). But we made it through, and no one regrets it.

Church

Church was a regular part of our lives. Sunday School, youth group, Awana, and more. During this time, I found I was good at extracting meaning and information from various Biblical topics. In high school, I attended a guy’s Bible study and was recognized as having the most solid grasp on the Bible in the group. In fact, if you could go back and read the Facebook messages between one girl from youth group and I, you’d see that most of them are answering her questions about God and the Bible.

I clearly had a reputation in high school. And honestly, I didn’t care. I enjoyed talking about the Bible and explaining it to people. In fact, one youth leader said I “didn’t talk much, but when I did, it was worth listening to.” And I heard more than once I “had wisdom beyond my years.” I have since come to recognize it as the spiritual gift of Wisdom found in the Bible.

Post high school

After I graduated high school in 2013, I took a year to figure out what I wanted to do and what school I wanted to go to. I started working at Menards in Oshkosh during this time as a carryout and cashier – a couple of years later I would be promoted to Head Cashier. I ended up deciding to attend the University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh and major in Computer Science with an emphasis in Software Engineering. In 2014, I started my freshman year of college.

The University

While going to college, I lived with my parents and commuted on the city bus to and from school. Once I started attending, I got plugged into Chi Alpha. Chi Alpha is the Assembly of God’s student ministry organization. Two of my older sisters also attended the university and encouraged me to attend Chi Alpha. I learned and grew a lot in my faith there.

As I attended college, I continued to work at Menards. All throughout, my managers and HR Coordinator told me to apply to Corporate after graduation because they were always hiring in IT. In my senior year, I did so and less than two weeks after putting in my application, they offered me a job. For years, I didn’t want to move outside the Oshkosh area. And Menards HQ is in Eau Claire, which is three hours west of Oshkosh. After getting the offer, I prayed and felt God nudging me to accept it. So, after I graduated at the end of May 2018, I moved out here and haven’t regretted it.

New Church

Once out here, I quickly found an amazing church and got plugged into the young adult ministry. I later volunteered for the tech team and have been serving in that capacity since. In 2020, I agreed to join people from church in putting on a kid’s camp designed for those in foster care called Royal Family Kids. I enjoyed my time doing it; it is an exhausting week, but I can’t imagine not doing it. What God does in those kids’ lives is incredible. Stacy came down from Superior to help us with this camp since she had prior experience doing it elsewhere. It took a few years, but we started dating on August 19, 2022, and got married April 29, 2023.

What about the blog?

You may be wondering, “That’s great, but what’s the point of the blog?” And that’s a good question. The story starts back in September 2022. I attended a weekend of worship at a local church. While there, the pastor of the church (whom I had never met), came up to me and told me that when he saw me the word “Author” came to mind. At that time, I had no thoughts of writing anything to publish at all. Didn’t think I would be any good at it or that anyone would want to read anything I wrote – which is funny considering how universally recognized I was in youth group as a very intelligent person with a great understanding of the Bible. For the most part I dismissed it. And even forgot about it for a while.

The Nagging

It started coming back to me sometime later and I wondered if it could refer to something else other than book writing – like a blog. However, it wasn’t until the end of February 2024 that I felt God telling me to start a blog with the purpose of helping people understand the Truth in a deeper way – much like I had done in youth group. After going back and forth on the timing, I realized I just needed to do it.

The first thing I needed was a name. The word “seed” came to mind, but every combination of “Seeds of Faith” or similar, didn’t feel right. Plus, the domains that fit were taken or crazy expensive. When I asked Stacy about it, she suggested Tilling and Planting. I immediately felt this was the name I needed to go with. I immediately went and bought the domain and a hosting package and started building this site. And now, a couple of weeks later, I am publishing my first blog.

And finally, the key verse I thought of as I built this site, is found in 1 Peter 3:15 (NIV), “But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”

Additional Things

I should probably also point out my Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions. They can be found at the bottom of every page along with links to my About Me and Contact Me pages.

Wrapping up

So, this is me in a nutshell and my blog in a nutshell. I don’t know how far this is going to go, I only know that God called me to it. And even if I have a small audience, I trust that the impact I have on that audience will have ripple effects that I may never know about.

And that’s really all any of us are called to do. Obey God in what He says and trust that He knows what He is doing and that what we do will not be in vain: “so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:11).

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope you will stick around for more. Please subscribe (it’s free!) so you don’t miss any postings. And to make you aware, I plan to post twice a month. With the power of scheduling (and because I need hard dates to make sure I don’t procrastinate!), my posts will automatically publish on the 10th and 25th of every month. I figure this schedule will not only keep me accountable but will make it easier for my readers to keep track. This may change in the future once I get in the swing of things – and depending on how many ideas I come up with.

Speaking of ideas, I plan on my first posts being a series called The Trinity Trilogy. In this series, I will go over each of the three members of the Trinity and give a high-level overview of who they are.

With that, I say, “Goodbye for now” and I hope and pray you will all find meaning, comfort, or confidence in what I write. God Bless you all!