Faith and Change - Part 2

Sorry I didn't get my post up yesterday. Had a sick little boy and needed to focus on some work stuff too.  Today is a new day...although Jack is still home sick. Boo.  Moving on....

So, I left my last post basically saying that in June we started really beginning the process of dealing with leaving RCCC.  I really wasn't kidding when I said I cried ugly tears. I have made my life around this church. My kids, my friends, my security, my faith, my marriage.  I found my gifts there and saw God use me. The past 9 1/2 years has been a very humbling, exciting, challenging, stretching and glorious experience. So much of my "growing into adulthood" happened in this church.  And I absolutely loved what I did. I have had the privilege of leading a worship ministry that I woke up every day excited about. It wasn't just about getting to sing, but walking in the gifts that God created me to do. It felt very much like God wanted to me to open up my hand and let go of all that was good.  Around the same time our staff had started reading "The Pursuit of God", by A.W. Tozer.  Holy cow. That's pretty much all you can say when you read a book like that.  However, when I read Chapter 2 about Abraham I knew.....

"The baby represented everything sacred to his father's heart: the promises of God, the covenants, the hopes of the years and the long messianic dream. As he watched him grow from babyhood to young manhood the heart of the old man was knit closer and closer with the life of his son, till at last the relationship bordered upon the perilous. It was then that God stepped in to save both father and son from the consequences of an uncleansed love."

SMACK!! I knew that I had let this become somewhat of an idol in my life when I was faced with the idea of giving it up. The people, the church, the worship, the safety of it all.  It wasn't necessarily something I felt convicted of ever, but I knew that God was asking me to lay that down at the alter. To lay it down and give it to God.  I asked myself, "Do you love God more or do you love your safe life more? Do you love God more or singing more? Do you trust me or do you trust your bank account?" Don't get me wrong, it wasn't like we had never taken risks or steps of faith in ministry, but this was huge for both Jason and I. It was change. It was like leaving home to go away to college. Scary.   

So there I was. Tozer. Me. God.  Great....  By the grace of God I followed His voice and Jason's in this.  Jason and I were completely ready to look in other cities, states and/or wherever else God may call us.  We prayed if we were supposed to even continue doing ministry.  Once we settled on that we decided to go to Pastor Sean and begin the process of what it would like to move on.  At the same time, Sean and our elders were praying about the future of our multi-site campuses. This is the good part...

On the Sunday night before Jason had spoken to Sean I had mentioned to Jason that it would so cool to live in New Braunfels, Tx. I have always wanted to live there. I told him how cool it would be to take over that campus.  I quickly said (and I'll never forget this), "No, never mind. Pretend I never said that because it's not going to happen."  Well, it did.  That next week, Jason met with Sean.  The meeting went great and while Sean was very surprised, he affirmed everything that Jason was feeling and knew that we had to take this step of faith to go to the next level.  At the end of the meeting he mentioned the New Braunfels multi-site campus. The campuses needed to go a different direction and the wouldn't it be great if God maybe sent us there to take over as an independent church.   Um...YES!!!   How perfect that sounded. We wouldn't have to take our family far away, the kids would be close to family and friends and more importantly, I would live in New Braunfels!  Just kidding...  

While it did seem like the perfect idea, Jason and I took the next few weeks to pray and ask for confirmation.  It did feel exciting, but terrifying.  It became more apparent to me that this wasn't exactly the easy way out, which is exactly what I wanted it to be.  This was a huge responsibility. HUGE. Which meant that it probably was God asking us to do this because the whole point of it was to take a big step of faith and be obedient....

Part 3 tomorrow. ;-)