What’s really been going on in my life.
It’s time to lay it all out there on the table.
My life for the past 9 months has been one of confusion and fear. Let me fill you in. I started working at a GREAT local church here in town January 2005, right after Katrina and I were married. I was brought aboard a ministry staff team and was delighted to have been given a “real church job†right after getting my undergraduate degree. This church had an amazing story that really attracted both Katrina and me. It had started with about 40 people who were committed to reaching out into people groups not necessarily being touched by other churches or ministries in Abilene. Their hearts were golden, and though they had moved from a downtown food kitchen to the suburbs of our small town, they still had a good size group of people that had been “brought in from the worldâ€.
I was given the title “Community Ministerâ€, and my basic goal was to build community within the walls of the church, as well as to develop a sense of community with the church and its surrounding neighborhoods. I began doing just that, and in the meantime, Katrina took a course at ACU entitled “Church Leadership†where she learned about an amazing group of Christians living on the horizons of God’s in-breaking Kingdom. They were a church that lived and worked together, and saw all of it as their ministry; their mission as a church. Through their belief that God answers prayer, they consistently did the impossible: raising up a decrepit hotel to house 800 homeless people, opening up an after school program for boys and girls in an impoverished neighborhood…they even developed the very first Christian coffeehouse! Katrina and I were both inspired by their missional lifestyle – they didn’t just “do church†they lived boldly as ones called by God (what the word “church†actually means).
As Community Minister, I wanted to replicate what I had read about and seen (we took a trip to meet some of the founders during summer 05). So over the next few months she and I began dreaming. We developed a program called “Anchor Teams†which was (to our best efforts) not to be a program at all. It was a group of committed friends from the church I worked at who were interested in hearing God’s call in their life and entering together into God’s mission in Abilene. We were pretty excited about the possibilities as we began. As the summer months rolled on however, we began to see just how draining something like that was on all of us. The entire team disassembled in the fall, and Katrina and I were left to try to understand why it hadn’t worked as we had hoped.
Slowly but surely, the “institution†of the church I worked for was wearing on us. I had been told by my undergraduate professors that the average minister hits a burnout point within his first two years in ministry, and then is usually set for life after that. I shrugged off my weariness and pushed on, but Katrina was beginning to ask some pretty major questions. We both could see now that the Anchor Team had failed because it was “just one more thing to do†on top of the major responsibilities we all had in order to create the “worship event†each Sunday and Wednesday. All the small and big roles we all played were just draining us, and we longed for a simpler expression of Christian community.
Enter MRNA (Missionary Residency for North America). I had little knowledge of any other paradigm for Kingdom life before joining this residency program which combined theory and praxis. Basically, the program totally deconstructed my perspective of church, community, and Jesus’ vision for reaching the world. This was not something that was to happen from the top down, adding one person at a time to already existing churches. Jesus’ Great Commission was going to happen from the ground up, starting with just 12 simple men who followed my Lord around for three years, and then were sent out to proclaim God’s Good News. My life had truly been changed, my eyes had been opened. I knew that this was what I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing – aiding others in becoming the church, and seeing these churches pop up in cultures all over the world.
It soon became apparent that my heart was not in my work at the local church where I was still a minister. I found myself becoming less engaged in meetings, and spending less and less time casting any vision for a church paradigm I did not find attractive anymore. I felt very foolish, and consequently very uncertain that this wasn’t just some phase I was going through – so I stuck it out as long as I could. I continued to implement new plans of action, incorporate new administration action plans that formalized and “programized†a church that was loosing many of its rough-around-the-edges “unchurched†friends, and replacing them with more and more people who looked like “usâ€. I felt hollow inside, like someone who knows they aren’t doing what they’re supposed to be doing, but doing it anyway. In my prayer life and in my conversations with others, I began to feel pulled and compelled by God to make this transition. I don’t know if it was just my wanting to do it, or if it truly was a calling from God – all I know is that I give him the glory for what happened next.
In the meantime, the church I worked for was facing a major building relocation decision. Because of the nature of the church, it had virtually zero funds to make any sort of transition (a new building, remodeling an older one, or even renting a facility). Some church leaders began to panic, asking members from other churches to “come over and help us!†(Acts 16:9) Others saw these efforts as the end of the churches original vision, to be a church that reflected the “unchurched†population in Abilene. In December, after a semester of silence, I finally spoke candidly to my elders, sharing with them everything I had learned in regards to simple church planting. The financial release, the missional heart, and the ecclesial empowerment of the poor were all aspects of this new paradigm I thought my church would latch on to. I knew that such a major shift would be hard to even imagine for many, but this was what I felt I needed to do.
As it turns out, it was too major a transition for my church to make. Over the Christmas break, I listened to the elders tell me that corporate worship as they had experienced it in our congregation was too important to them to give up, even with all the benefits of simple church. Being the incredibly empowering eldership that they are, they suggested, “You think about this some more, and tell us if this is something you’d still like to do.â€
Over the past 3 months, I have been thinking, and reflecting on my own and with the elders. They have asked me repeatedly not to leave the congregation, stating how much I am needed there. I have become convinced however, that I am needed infinitely more out in the harvest fields of this lost city. Almost anyone can coordinate and administrate the tasks I was overseeing. But who is working among the poor in an apartment complex on the west side of town? Who is speaking up for the homeless, allowing them to become the people they have been created to be? Last night, I asked to be relieved from my position at this church. It has been a wild ride, and it was hard to say goodbye.
What lies in store for Katrina and I as we enter the great unknown? I only pray that God continually surrounds us with men and women who can guide us into maturity in Christ, and that we can consistently involve ourselves in the mission of God in this city.
So there you have it. Sorry I haven’t been able to talk much about it on this blog until now. Confidentiality throughout the meeting process and all that. If you actually read through this whole thing, here’s a gift; something else to spend time on.
