Karla Hall

As a music minister’s daughter, I was in church every time the doors were open. During my formative years, we were members of a local Southern Baptist church. At 8 years old, my dad, along with a local pastor, started a non-denominational church. Years later, the church closing its doors left my family with a lot of hurt. After that, we visited many denominations including Pentecostal but did not find a permanent church home. With no consistent church body and a lot of hurts, I continued to bounce around churches in my teen and early adult years. I mostly landed in mega-churches to escape into the crowd. I was a hurt young woman making reckless decisions out of a desire to be seen and applauded by man, not God.

God’s work of salvation in my life started at a very young age. At 4 years old, I began asking questions about death, heaven, and sin. Over the next few years, my parents and pastor helped me grow in my understanding. At 8 years old, I had the desire to publicly declare salvation with baptism. I believe this time of my life was a genuine start to my walk with Christ. As a teenager and young adult, I tried to run away from God. In church, I knew how to act like the perfect Christian by doing and saying all the right things. In my heart, I was running. It wasn’t until after college that God got ahold of me. I was convicted of my sin and cried out in repentance. The Lord started a very slow and grueling sanctification process, and I’m so thankful He is still working in me to this day.

We were invited to CFNW (The Church at Blue Ridge at the time) by Jared and Lindsay Thomas shortly after moving back to Greenville County in January 2017. I distinctly remember telling my husband, Braden, that I did not want to attend a start-up church. I didn’t want to do the setting up and tearing down that I did in my childhood church. I still held the scars from my small church growing up and I didn’t want that for our family. Fortunately, God laid upon our hearts otherwise. We immediately jumped in and went to the first membership class within a few weeks of visiting. We began serving in CF kids and on the AV team, which we still do. I also serve as the host for our MC with the Bartas. I am very thankful for our church community and their support over the years. CFNW helped us walk through the life and death of our second daughter, Harmony. We were also supported well through our time as foster parents. We are so grateful to have a wonderful group of people who love us well and whom we can love and support in return.