Part 4. The Conclusion. God's Call.

Finally to the conclusion of this story, although it's the beginning of a new chapter in our lives here in Wichita. 

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Halfway through the fast I was really struggling and by day 4 I stopped. I couldn’t keep it up.  On that Sunday morning Angie was scheduled to help lead worship at Hope Community. But the day before, the worship leader had sustained an injury so Angie was to lead by herself with the band.

That morning as I watched Angie lead, I wondered, why isn’t she leading worship in a church like this? She was doing so well and it was great to see her with a full band.  Then the pastor of Hope preached and was praying for people in the service. His pastoral heart touched me as I watched him minister and it made me realize how much I have missed that.

The rest of the day I processed that and thought about that morning.  At night, I was out in the community with a group from another church.  When I came home, I am not sure how this came out or why, but I told Angie, “Why don’t we just plant a church with World Impact?”  And she said, “OK”.  I was like “What?!  You have said ‘No’ to every other idea I’ve had, and now just like that you are saying ‘OK’?” 

Well, my excitement was building and we talked for a while. She went to bed and then I stayed awake, and I started to have all of these ideas for a church.  Everything was starting to make sense to me. I was getting a vision for a new church in how I could incorporate my different passions, ideas, and my gifting.  Those details are for another blog. J

After I wrote all of these thoughts down, even though I was excited, I was still wondering what was going on. I was asking God, “Are You changing my heart for church planting?” I told the Lord, that if this is real, then I needed a supernatural encounter with Him. I have had plenty of ideas in the past, and I needed to know this was from Him. 

I put on Pandora and a song from Misty Edwards came on. Immediately, the song ministered deeply to my soul and I felt the Lord so clearly speaking to me through the words. After I listened to the song a couple of times, I then found this video of the song on youtube and listened to it. 

For 30 minutes, I felt the Lord stripping away my insecurities and calling me to lead a new church plant. It was a powerful and changing time for me.

I woke up the next day and thought, “Wow! That was a weird night!”  At lunch, I shared with Angie what I felt the Lord had said and played her the song.  She was crying and confirming the same feelings.  I then shared with our leaders and they were surprised at my complete change in desires, yet confirmed the call.

God’s timing was incredible, that weekend Wichita World Impact hosted a church planting conference for 4 church plants. I attended the church plant conference and as I listened to all of the teachings, it was like every light bulb was turning on for me.  I felt like the Lord was saying that He had taught me a lot from Lighthouse and the last four years, and now He was ready to use that growth as I lead a new church plant.  It was very overwhelming to me. On the last day of the conference, I shared with everyone what the Lord had spoken to me and how I felt like He met me in the middle of my brokenness.  It was very emotional for me to share, but, again, I was affirmed by everyone there.

In the weeks that have followed, I have never felt so called to do something in my life.  There have been times of being scared and wondering what did I get myself into. But it’s so clear God is asking us to do this.

I can see now God was truly asking me to step out in faith and not play it safe, but I needed to abide and be patient on Him while He revealed the vision.  I still need to abide in Christ moment by moment and stay close to Him throughout this church plant. 

Overall, I am just amazed at the Lord. I can’t believe how He has renewed my life, changed my heart and called me to this. It’s so above what I am capable of doing, that I know it will have to be the Lord coming through to plant this church.

This is the song that ministered to me so deeply.

Part 3: A Holy Fight

This is part three of our series in our recent journey.    Here is part 1 and Part 2. 

On April 14, a tornado hit the Oaklawn area.  Lighthouse became the headquarters for relief in the aftermath. I spent the week helping there by visiting people, cleaning up and praying for people.  I felt God was engaging my heart and emotions again for ministry.  Angie and I led some nights of prayer and worship there to encourage those who were giving so much and also those who had lost so much. 

During our last night of prayer and worship at the church, as Angie was leading worship, I thought that maybe we should go back to Lighthouse to help minister while we were waiting for God to clearly call us.  God has been moving so powerfully in that church, and I thought maybe we could go back.

I came home that night and told Angie that I wondered if God was calling us back to Lighthouse to help for a season.  She listened to me and then said she didn’t think so.  She said that God had clearly closed that door for us and she sensed that he wasn’t opening it back up.  By now my frustration had reached its max. I couldn’t see why I felt God was calling me back to Oaklawn and not Angie.  I became very upset.

I now refer to this as the beginning of our “Holy Fight”.  We continued, and I yelled in frustration to Angie, “WHAT DO YOU THINK WE SHOULD DO THEN?” 

. . . Now this is what I didn’t know at the time: For over a year, Angie had felt like God was calling us back into church planting in some form, but she didn’t say anything to me about it because I was so against it. She knew I could be a pastor and that I could lead a church again, yet wondered if that was only her desire for me.  Maybe her identity was in being a pastor’s wife and not what God wanted.  She didn’t want to put any pressure on me that was not from the Lord.  So, Angie was just waiting on the Lord for the right timing. She also felt like I was trapped in my insecurity and knew I wouldn’t listen to her if the timing was not right.  She waited for her time to challenge me. . .

 

So, when I asked her, “What do you think?” this was her chance. She started to say that she thought we should be open to church planting, and that she could see me leading a church plant again.  This got me very angry and it exposed my insecurity at its deepest level.  I started to yell and argue that I couldn’t do it.  I am not a church planter, and I am not a strong enough leader to do it.  I was too insecure and I had screwed up too many times.  I yelled, “You don’t know me!  You don’t know what I deal with.”  Instead of backing down, (although inside Angie was wondering if she should stop and prayed if God wanted her to keep speaking truth)she kept at it.  I really felt like later the Lord rose up in her to challenge me that night.

We went to bed and the next morning we processed a little more from the evening.  Earlier in the week, I felt like the Lord had asked me to do a 5 day fast but didn’t start it. So on that Wed morning, I decided to do a 5 day smoothie and juice fast.  I needed to get some space to hear clearly what the Lord was calling us to…. To be continued........

God's New Call Part 2: Wrestling

This is part 2 of our blog in sharing what God has been doing in our lives these months.  

Check out part 1 here.   

In the fall of 2011, my networking role increased dramatically because of the Francis Chan event that I helped coordinate.  I have gotten to know so many people in the city and have really enjoyed that.  But there was something missing.  What I was doing wasn’t totally fulfilling my passions yet.  I wasn’t even sure at this point what my passions were.  I was confused and didn’t know what God had for us in the ministry. 

We were attending a Spanish speaking church plant with the intent to support the pastor and serve in any way we could.  However, in February of 2012, we felt like our time there needed to end and we stopped going.  Now I wondered where our family would go to church.  There was no new church plant developing within World Impact.  Neither was I feeling a desire to get back into church planting.  It just wasn’t clear where God was leading us.  We had started going to Hope Community on Sunday mornings for our kids to have a place to attend, and we decided that for now we would go there until we figured something else out.

At the end of February, I went to Moody with Don Davis. This trip really started to intensify my wrestling.  God used Don to start waking up a lot of the passions that had been laying dormant in my life.

One of Don’s messages at Moody really spoke to me.  He challenged the students that they should have such a deep love for Christ and that everything in our life should flow out of that deep passion for Jesus.  He suggested that maybe some of them had lost that passion.  Perhaps the students came to Moody with a craziness for the Lord, but now that had changed.  They might have become complacent in their faith.  He said, “What happened to you?”

I felt this message was speaking directly to me as I reflected on those words later on.  When I was younger I had dreams and visions for doing amazing things for God, and being totally wild and crazy for Him.  I dreamt of planting many churches.  But in my 20’s and as we were doing our church plant, I started to lose my craziness.  I felt trapped by sin, insecurity, etc.  Eventually I became cynical towards myself because I felt like I wasn’t having spiritual victory.  I hadn’t learned how to stay healthy in ministry and felt like ministry was taking it out of me.  

I realized that I was chasing those dreams because I wanted the glory, and not the Lord.  The problem is that my passions and dreams weren’t totally wrong, but the fact that I was doing them for the wrong reason.

When I left Lighthouse, even though we had planted the church, I felt like a total failure. I felt like a failure in ministry, and a failure in my family.  God has brought so much healing to those areas in the past four years.  Yet I have never recovered my confidence in my ability to minister.  

Ever since my brother’s death, I have struggled so much with comparisons.  It seemed like he figured it out at a young age. Why couldn’t I be more like him?  Why have I had to struggle so much? 

For me, the easiest option was to just be complacent.  I figured that God had passed over me I could no longer be in ministry and church planting.  

While at Moody, God started to break through all of these insecurities.   I realized I had lost my craziness and wildness for the Lord.  I had become complacent and comfortable. I now have a family and kids that are growing up. It’s easier to not be wild.  It’s just easier to play it safe, and that is what I’ve been doing. 

I wasn’t sure what God was saying to me during that week. But I started to dream about new things I could do. I knew that God was asking me to be ready for some kind of change.

As I came home from Moody, Angie and I processed a lot.  She recognized that God was doing something in our lives but together we weren’t sure what it was.  As I shared some of my crazy ideas with her, she said no to them because she didn’t feel called to them.

During this time, I felt like God spoke two different things to me.  First, it was that I needed to stop playing it safe and that I needed to step out in faith. Secondly, the Lord was asking me to abide deeper in Him and to be patient in the Lord. Angie initially shared with me the need to be patient, and then it was confirmed with several friends.

I was now in the middle of a big tension rod. On one hand, I was trying to get out of my complacency and be willing to do anything for the Lord that He would ask of us. Yet, in the middle of that God was saying slow down, rest in Me, abide in My presence - wait for Me to move.  This was extremely frustrating, but I knew I was where I needed to be.

Even though I had many different ideas of what God might be calling us to, being called to church planting was not one of them.  I didn’t see how my gifts fit with the new strategy of church planting World Impact was moving to.  It wasn’t clear to me, so I figured that I wasn’t to be a part of it. I was struggling with vision and seeing clearly. Meanwhile, I sensed Angie was more open to church planting and I wasn’t sure what to do with this.  

I’m thankful for my leaders at World Impact who processed with me about all of this. They were so helpful with questions, listening, and praying for us.  One of them, Andy Entz, said to keep being patient and open to what God wanted in all of this.  I needed to trust Him, even with the church planting vision that wasn’t clear yet.  That was so hard for me.  to be continued.....

God's New Call Part 1: The Past

These last months have been some incredible wrestling for Angie and me.  We have seen God wake up some passions, and speak in a dramatic way to us.  In our blog, we want to update you all on what God has done and what He has spoken to us.  To put it shortly, God has revealed how the 13 years we’ve worked with World Impact has prepared us and brought us to the specific task ahead.  Here is a quick summary of where we’ve been. 

(1999 to2007) – Church plant years in Oaklawn. We started our family and, in a sense, grew up during this time.  We both learned so much - how to pastor, preach, lead worship, raise kids, etc.  But as we left Lighthouse, we were burned out from not knowing how to stay healthy in ministry. Also during this time, as I processed with my WI leaders, we wondered if church planting was really what God called me to.  I wondered if it was in my gifting.  During this time, I realized that my identity was wrapped up in being a church planter. 

(‘08 to summer of ‘09) – The Dark Ages.  This season represents the hardest and darkest of our lives. It actually started in August of ‘07 when Angie’s mom passed away.  In the spring of ‘08, we spent four months in Costa Rica to learn Spanish and for renewal.  Right when we came back to Wichita, my brother, Phil, died and this was the knock out punch for us emotionally.  We spent the next year, grieving and emotionally raw. Yet it was also the start of God starting to bring healing to our lives.

(Fall of ‘09 to Feb of 2012) – Healing & Learning.  During this time, we felt more emotional, physical, and spiritual health returning to us.  We are learning healthy family rhythms. I have learned how to take care of my body through eating well and exercising.  We were open to different church plants and had been a part of a few different things, but each time God seemed to close the door.  In February we felt clear to, but abruptly stopped attending the Spanish church plant. After that, I thought that maybe God was calling us to not be a part of front-line church planting. 

I was doing many new jobs with WI and learning new skills.  I drove the Mobile Clinic, worked at the thrift store, led our communications team, networked for fund-raising, coordinated events, became our volunteer coordinator, hosted work groups, recruited at churches and colleges, and directed Wichita Member Care. The roles listed are every possible position available within World Impact – minus the director!  All jobs I enjoyed, some more than others, yet there was no role where I felt clearly called by God to do.  

To be continued in a couple of days......

Kansas City Triathlon - Race Report

This past Sunday I finished my first race of the 2012 season.  I am entering my 2^nd season in the sport and very much still learning so much about this crazy and amazing sport. 

My preparation leading up to the event was decent but I could tell my body wasn’t quite where I wanted it to be.  But I do not care about times at this point but rather I just want to finish.  Last year, in the events I competed in, nothing bad happened at all. They went well and I didn’t think much of it.

On Saturday, I drove to KC with my parents and registered at Longview Lake and then had a meal at Red Lobster.  I was all ready to go.  I slept well and got up early to head out to the race with my parents and my aunt who lives in KC.

Immediately getting to the race, we could tell how big of an event it was.   So much bigger than my previous races I was in.  I got set up in the transition area and got my number (1313) written on my legs and I was ready to go.  With two 13’s, I should have a good day right?

From 7am until 8:45 we waited near the water and watched the  Olympic distance athletes start their race.  The whole time waiting I tried to relax and have my mind ready to go.  I kept telling myself to relax and trust in my preparation.  It will all be okay.

It was finally ready for the Sprint Distance and my age group, the 30-39 year old males.  I had my wet-suit on, goggles on, swim cap on, and I was ready.  The horn went off, and I started running towards the water.  I love the excitement of 40 men running towards the water and starting to swim. But my excitement instantly changed to pain as my foot stepped on a rock just at the shore.  My left foot was in a lot of pain as I started to swim.  Instantly my whole outlook of the race changed.  Instead of excitement and joy, I am mad, frustrated and in a lot of pain.  My mind was telling me a lot of negative things that I was fighting off as I knew my run later would be horrible.  Yet, I was determined to keep going.

I finished my swim and got my wet-suit off.  This was my first race with my new Cervelo road bike.  I was excited to get going on those KC hills.  As I hit mile 4 and was going down a huge hill at about 25-30mph, I switched to a bigger gear and my chain fell off. I am thinking, “Are you serious? Really, my chain is off?”  I couldn’t believe it.  I am so un-mechanical that I didn’t know how long it would take for me to put it back on.  I finished coasting down the hill and slowed down and was able to get it back on after 2-3 minutes with my hands now full of grease.  Meanwhile, dozens of bikers are passing me.  Oh well!  I get back on my bike and finish the next 9 miles.  It was great on all of the hills.  I got some pretty good speed on each hill going down.  But the whole time, my left foot was hurting and I knew I had a 3.2 mile run coming up.

I transitioned off my bike and got on my Luna Sandals that I now run in.  Normally they are great for my feet. I don’t need the extra padding but on this day I did.  I started my run and yelled out to my parents that my foot was injured so they knew what was going on.  The first mile I found my pace and was okay.  I found someone to run with and we had a good chat.  My foot was hurting but I was okay. But the extra stress finally affected my body and then my left knee started to really hurt. This is the knee that slowed me down last year.  So the last half of the race was a combination of walking and running, and just trying to finish.

Finally I made it to 3 miles and soon crossed the finish line.  I met my parents and my aunt and I was spent.  I felt horrible. I was tired, my body ached, I was sunburned and not feeling well.  But I knew I at least finished.  

The rest of the day was eating, drinking fluids, and trying to recoup as I drove home.  I got home by 5:30 and Angie knew something was wrong.  She later told me she had never seen me like that.  I went to have some time by myself to rest, to process and reflect on my day.  Finally the bad energies left me and I was filled up with so much good energy.  I realized what I had done.  I finished a triathlon.  I overcame adversity.  Two and a half years ago, I weighed 210lbs. and couldn’t run for more than 3 minutes.  Now I have lost almost 40 pounds and I am in the best shape of my life.

The more I reflect on Sunday, the more I realize it is a small sample of life.  I think that is why I like racing so much.  While the sport of triathlon is so superficial compared to real life and my life as a missionary with World Impact, it still is a good comparison.  In life there are a lot of things we can prepare for and work hard for. We can make good money and save it for future things.  We can work hard in our jobs for raises, or to advance.

But life often throws us curves.  We step on rocks when we are going out to swim.  Or our chains will fall off on our bikes.  Those things do happen. We will suffer and experience horrible things in this life. It’s a combination of our own humanness, other people’s mistakes, and just sin in general.  All of us have experienced tremendous amounts of pain and tragedy, or you will at some point in life. 

I didn’t plan on getting burned out in ministry at the age of 31. I wasn’t hoping my brother and best friend would die and leave his wife and daughter behind.  My goal wasn’t to be overweight and discouraged with life…..

But those things will happen. It’s how we decide to navigate through them and choose our response in how well we will do in life.   There’s a lot more I could say about this, but that’s not the point of this blog. 

So for now, I’m back to some training for the next race in 10 days.

Church Plant School

This past weekend, World Impact Wichita hosted a church plant school for three teams locally, and one team in St. Louis.  Angie lead worship during 4 of the sessions and I helped with hospitality.   A lot of the time was spent in training and teaching the teams the strategy and philosophy of our church planting. Then each of the teams had to complete a year charter where they had specific goals they hoped to complete.  It was a very powerful weekend being with everyone.  One of our prayers was that through the time, all of the church planters would sense more comradery, unity, and support.  We all got the sense the Lord met with us in a special way through the teachings and worship.  Everyone was encouraged and had a renewed sense of vision for what God is calling us to do in church planting.  Below are a few videos of Angie leading worship.