I have a lot I want to say in this post, so please forgive me if I jump around to much here. There is just so much I want to share and don’t want to leave anything out.
You know that we each go through “seasons” in our lives. Most of us have gone from the season of living with our parents to either getting married or just having our own place to live. Then there comes the season of having children, maybe a change in jobs or even a big move to another city, state or country for some people.
About five or six years ago Chuck felt the call to go into full time ministry, which meant he would leave his job in the secular world and pursue the call of Associate Pastor with the Church we are members of (a new season of our lives). Our Church voted to call Chuck as a full time associate Pastor ( he was leaving a job that paid very well and going to something that didn’t know how much they would be able to pay. Talk about living on faith, but that is what we did. To look back on that time in our lives it is so neat to see how God provide for our needs.) The finance committee came up with an amount for his salary and we have been blessed with the way God worked everything out.
Lets look at the spring of 2009. Chuck felt the call of God to go, and plant a church. The Great Commission of Jesus, found in Matthew 28 to “go and make disciples of all nations”, has become more than a goal of church life, but a personal commission requiring radical obedience. After God spoke to Chuck about this calling, he spent the next six months in prayer that God would call me as well. I can remember sitting across the table from Chuck at a restaurant and he asked me, “What do you think about church planting?” my response to him, while shaking my head no was, “I don’t think about it.”, meaning I don’t want to do that. Well Chuck didn’t say anything else to me about it and he just continued to pray that God would call me to church planting. You know God is faithful, and this past May, we surrendered to the Lord to go wherever God would lead us. We have answered “YES!” to the call, we will let God determine the place.
We have had people in our church praying for us, some knowing our call to go and some just praying, based only on the knowledge that God was working something out in our lives, and we have coveted those prayers.
Now that the call of God to go and plant a church is clear to us within our spirit, and we as a family are together committed to go; the question at hand now is “when do we go?”.
As Chuck was giving his “resignation” to our Church family last Sunday he shared this:
In Luke 9:59-62, Jesus was walking along the road and He called out to a man and said “Follow Me.” But the man replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Still another said, “I will follow You; but first let me go back and say good-bye to my family.” Jesus replied, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”
So to our church family he announced that the time for us to go is now. Chuck is resigning his position as Associate and Youth Pastor (our last Sunday will be October 3rd) in order to devote his full focus on actively pursuing our call in church planting. As with any new ministry, there is training and equipping that is needed, and we will pursue this immediately. As Chuck and I and our children are being equipped for the mission field of North America, we desire your prayers as a continual bond of support that can never be separated by distance or time. Please pray for God’s leading in our lives that we live in obedience, faith and with clear vision of where God will lead us.
In Isaiah 6 God had a plan, and then He called a man to take part in carrying out that plan. God asked, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for Us?” Isaiah’s reply was, Here am I. Send me!”.
As things become more clear and we start to see the direction that He is leading us in, I will share that with you as well. This is going to be in exciting time in our lives and I am looking forward to see how God is going to use me and my family to reach out to others and share the Gospel with different folks. I know that it is going to be a lot harder than what I imagine it could be but I also know that it is going to be so much greater than what I ever expect it could be.
