Painful Paths
In my bio to the right it says that I'm planting a church with my husband. While that is true, it's not entirely accurate. Or at least it doesn't tell the whole story.
We have served as youth ministers for 3 years at a local church, and have loved doing it. Our degrees and passion and calling has been youth ministry for as long as we've known each other. However, the church we were working at started going through a lot of changes, and the elders invited us to start visioning not only for the youth ministry but also for the church as a whole about a year ago. Through that process, they also asked my husband to start preaching occasionally, so that his personality and passion could come through to the larger congregation. Those two invitations opened up a new passion in my husbands heart. He began to pray and seek God on vision and on preaching pastorship, and soon, he felt a burdening call to be a preaching pastor. God had really stirred his heart for a larger group of people beyond the teens, and he began to see ways to give the Gospel that was both powerful and effective.
Finally, he could not resist the call anymore and approached the elders with his dreams and calling. He offered to apply for a preaching pastorship at our current church and start to implement these God-given dreams and vision there. The elders prayed about it and returned to us and answer. They felt like his vision was godly, his model for leadership biblical and effective and that he was in fact gifted to preach. They didn't feel like the current church could handle the changes necessary to implement that vision however, so they blessed us and told us to plant a church.
That was a scary and liberating announcement. I went through all of the normal roller-coaster emotions when they told us: fear, anxiety, excitement, anticipation, doubt, betrayal, exuberance, hopefulness, hurt, sadness, etc. It was the most painful thing in the world to tell our teens that we were leaving this church to plant another. And they gave us until school starts up again to finish out our curriculum and find other means of income.
However, we had not annouced it to the congregation at large until today. And now, I'm going through another dark valley as it's sinking in that we really are going to be out on our own in a few weeks. My husband has some job leads, but he's not actually hired anywhere yet. And that terrifies me. We have 2 kids and one on the way, and we need to provide for them. We have a mortgage, bills, student loans, gas, cars, insurance, all the normal demands of any family. And here we are walking away from our sure-thing job to chase this calling by God! Holy cow! What are we thinking? Are we insane? Is God? Maybe.
But I just keep praying for peace. I keep asking for faith. "Oh Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief!" Like the father in Mark 9, I need Jesus to build the faith in me that He says I need to move mountains. I can't even drudge up in myself the faith I need to follow Him. Even that He has to give me! This is so hard and desperate for me. I think about all those faithful witnesses in Hebrews and I have a lot of sympathy for them all over again. Did Abraham have sleepless nights as he led Sarah out across the desert to "a place I will show you"? Did Noah, as he pounded on his boat for 120 years decide to throw in the towel ever? Did Samson, Elijah, Isaiah, Rahab ever think they must be totally insane? If this is what it means to be a fool for God, am I that foolish? Or as Mother Theresa said, "If this is how You treat Your friends, no wonder You have so few!"
So, we're chasing Him. Chasing Him into I don't know where to do I'm not sure what. But where else can we go? He has the words of life! He's got the only way! He offers the only hope. So, as Steven Curtis Chapman says, "Sink or swim I'm diving in."
Please pray for us! Pray that we are faithful. Pray that He increases our faith that we can see His face and His glory! Pray for a job. Pray for God to build this church he called us to plant. Pray for the Gospel to go out among these people in new and effective ways, with us and others as the tools.
We have served as youth ministers for 3 years at a local church, and have loved doing it. Our degrees and passion and calling has been youth ministry for as long as we've known each other. However, the church we were working at started going through a lot of changes, and the elders invited us to start visioning not only for the youth ministry but also for the church as a whole about a year ago. Through that process, they also asked my husband to start preaching occasionally, so that his personality and passion could come through to the larger congregation. Those two invitations opened up a new passion in my husbands heart. He began to pray and seek God on vision and on preaching pastorship, and soon, he felt a burdening call to be a preaching pastor. God had really stirred his heart for a larger group of people beyond the teens, and he began to see ways to give the Gospel that was both powerful and effective.
Finally, he could not resist the call anymore and approached the elders with his dreams and calling. He offered to apply for a preaching pastorship at our current church and start to implement these God-given dreams and vision there. The elders prayed about it and returned to us and answer. They felt like his vision was godly, his model for leadership biblical and effective and that he was in fact gifted to preach. They didn't feel like the current church could handle the changes necessary to implement that vision however, so they blessed us and told us to plant a church.
That was a scary and liberating announcement. I went through all of the normal roller-coaster emotions when they told us: fear, anxiety, excitement, anticipation, doubt, betrayal, exuberance, hopefulness, hurt, sadness, etc. It was the most painful thing in the world to tell our teens that we were leaving this church to plant another. And they gave us until school starts up again to finish out our curriculum and find other means of income.
However, we had not annouced it to the congregation at large until today. And now, I'm going through another dark valley as it's sinking in that we really are going to be out on our own in a few weeks. My husband has some job leads, but he's not actually hired anywhere yet. And that terrifies me. We have 2 kids and one on the way, and we need to provide for them. We have a mortgage, bills, student loans, gas, cars, insurance, all the normal demands of any family. And here we are walking away from our sure-thing job to chase this calling by God! Holy cow! What are we thinking? Are we insane? Is God? Maybe.
But I just keep praying for peace. I keep asking for faith. "Oh Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief!" Like the father in Mark 9, I need Jesus to build the faith in me that He says I need to move mountains. I can't even drudge up in myself the faith I need to follow Him. Even that He has to give me! This is so hard and desperate for me. I think about all those faithful witnesses in Hebrews and I have a lot of sympathy for them all over again. Did Abraham have sleepless nights as he led Sarah out across the desert to "a place I will show you"? Did Noah, as he pounded on his boat for 120 years decide to throw in the towel ever? Did Samson, Elijah, Isaiah, Rahab ever think they must be totally insane? If this is what it means to be a fool for God, am I that foolish? Or as Mother Theresa said, "If this is how You treat Your friends, no wonder You have so few!"
So, we're chasing Him. Chasing Him into I don't know where to do I'm not sure what. But where else can we go? He has the words of life! He's got the only way! He offers the only hope. So, as Steven Curtis Chapman says, "Sink or swim I'm diving in."
Please pray for us! Pray that we are faithful. Pray that He increases our faith that we can see His face and His glory! Pray for a job. Pray for God to build this church he called us to plant. Pray for the Gospel to go out among these people in new and effective ways, with us and others as the tools.
