Not my will, but yours be done.
Christians pray that a lot. We also spend even more time asking God what his will even is. Who should we marry, where should we live, what job should we take, etc.
And yet, even when we are pursuing God and what he has for us, I’ve found in my own life that I still want to do it my way.
Here is how this has been playing out for me.
Earlier this month I began my church planting residency program at Lifepointe Church. As many of you know, in order to do this Christina and I had to raise my salary. The following are 6 things I have taken away from having to raise a full salary.
1. You have no idea how God will provide
In the beginning, the idea of raising support was dreadful. I had a lot of internal objections to having to do it. And I always genuinely wondered how in the world we were going to go about it. I had never had to raise anywhere near this amount of money before.
I knew this would be the case going in, and yet I’m still blown away by it. Several people came out of nowhere to support us, and others have committed to give a large amount. This has been such a testament to how God truly provides; it wasn’t because of Christina or I’s effort.
2. Most people giving don’t quite understand how thankful you are
This past week I found out that a childhood friend had passed away. My heart breaks for his family. But what makes it so hard is not just his death, but how he died. He took his own life.
Those words are painfully hard to hear. As many of you know, I lost my father to a suicide. Knowing the long road ahead for this family is the worst part about it.
Holidays, birthdays, family vacations.
Inadequate.
That’s how many of the people God used in great ways by God felt in the Bible. There are always those who know more or are more gifted. It’s hard not to look at those who are successful and compare yourself to them.
It’s interesting trying to follow God to where you feel he is leading. In one sense, I feel confident in my gifts and the ways in which they can be used in planting a church. But there is the other sense of who am I? Why would God use me? I’m a sinner, I’m too young, there are so many things that I’m not gifted at.
But that seems to be the point. All throughout the Bible we see God put people in positions to do things that seemed impossible; until God intervened.
It’s fun and encouraging to read about these stories after the fact. Once we know that everything turned out okay and that God was faithful. But it’s not as easy when you are just starting out or if you’re right in the middle of it and you have no idea how God will move.
It’s also funny (sad really) how quick we are to move on from God’s past faithfulness and worry about the next thing. Through the selflessness and generosity of so many people, God has provided an almost complete full-time salary for me to be a part of a church planting residency program as we plan and prepare to plant a church. Yet the pull is to move right on from that and to question how all this will work.
Where will the people come to help us plant this church? What about all the financial needs that go into that? What if [fill in the blank]?
I have no idea the answer to many of these questions. I do know that God has always been faithful in the past, even in the dark times. And I do know that “if we are faithless, he remains faithful” (2 Timothy 2:13).
I end with this post with no heartwarming conclusion because this journey is just beginning, who knows how it all turns out. Like so many times before, I’m leaning on the faithfulness of God.
To many in vocational ministry, reaching and impacting as many people as you can for Jesus is a strong motivation. Pride and building a personal following can become the goal for some, but I would argue that most pastors and ministry leaders genuinely want to reach people for Jesus’ sake and not their own.
And yet it is quite easy to become discouraged when you feel as if you aren’t helping or impacting as many people as you would like.
But then I remember Jesus.
Last week I began my church planting residency at Lifepointe Church. It’s an exciting time to be able to pursue this new endeavor, and I look forward to all I will get to learn and experience.
This Sunday (September 13th) Lifepointe is launching a campus in Wake Forest. Much of my time right now is with the campus pastor for that location, and really being able to see all that goes into launching a campus. Though there are some differences between launching a new campus and launching a new church, there are many similarities as well.
I believe in a God of love.
Statements like the one above, and those similar to that, are popular today. It’s often said when someone is sharing an opposing view of how they believe sexuality is best played out or the idea that God would send anyone to hell.
Anything that comes across as even remotely judgmental today is quickly dubbed as something their God wouldn’t approve of. This is often said to Christians when discussing controversial issues (and to be clear, there are many times when Christians should be more loving in how they speak, act, and try to get their point across).
Often times people who don’t claim to be Christians but believe in some manifestation of God tell Christians that the God they believe in is more loving than the one Christians claim to represent.
But there is a dilemma here.
What you believe in most directly influences how you live. If you believe having more money will make you happy, you will try to do what it takes to make more money. Be that working extra hours to move up in your company, always looking for new jobs that pay more, etc.
If you believe a relationship is what will satisfy you most, you will spend a lot of time and energy trying to find that perfect someone. Be it spending a lot of time on dating apps, going out often, maybe even moving to a bigger city where there are a lot of people.
In both of these scenarios, the drive for what they want determines how they live. And since what they want is either money or relationships, how they are living seems to makes sense.
For every single one of us, life has not turned out exactly how we planned or thought or maybe even hoped. Even if you are happy with how things have turned out, or even if you are doing exactly what you’ve always wanted to do, the journey to this point has undoubtedly been different than you expected. And so it is for me.
In less than two weeks I will be leaving my current job at Verizon and will begin a journey to plant a church. Ever since I was 19, I felt lead to do not just pastoral ministry in general, but specifically plant a church. But the path to this point has certainly been different that what I had expected and even wanted.
Update: Multiple videos have been released since this posting.
“If the unborn is not a human person, no justification for abortion is necessary. If the unborn is a human person, then no justification for abortion is adequate.” -Gregory Koukl
As you may know by now (or not, since all of the major news outlets are taking plenty of time before mentioning anything), Planned Parenthood sells body parts of their aborted babies.
This undercover video shows Planned Parenthood’s Senior Director of Medical Services, Deborah Nucatola, selling the body parts of these babies. Mind you, this is not the first time Planned Parenthood has been reported of doing such things as there have been reports of this since 2000, so this is not new for them.
However, this video shows undisputedly their practice of doing this. And it is quite chilling to watch.