Looking back from the deck of a mountain cruise . . . or "How did we get here?"

Do you ever get frustrated when you get an email from someone that assumes you're caught up with their lives, but in reality you left them three cities and four job changes back? The purpose of this monologue is to get you on board with our current situation, so you know why the "Mountain is me" (the raging mega-metaphor of my current life - see the you tube song below if you haven't heard it . . . ).  I shared much of this with our congregation at Colonial back in February - and with a few of you personally since then.  Here it is in print.

In our seventh year of ministry at Colonial Baptist Church in Cary, North Carolina we ended 2009 alive and serving, after surviving a potentially career ending vocal surgery in June, a life threatening illness for JD in July and a series of significant life changes for all of us.  I decided to use the beginning of this new year (2010) to evaluate and reset our lives, using some time honored tools. The evaluation ended up putting me on a 65 pound weight loss program, an attempt to refinance our home, (which eventually went on the market for sale) and a reevaluation of our current ministry energy.  Not that I wanted to leave Colonial - but rather I wanted to make sure the energy of our lives were focused well given the nature of the great commission and God's desire for us.  

As I went through Spring programs, missions preparations and Summer ministry plans, I continued to be bombarded by the great need in our world - 1.8 billions who don't have access to the Gospel and another 4.3 who have never responded to what they do know.  Couple that with 6000 people groups who have never had the Gospel put in their language and we have a great deal of work to do.  Especially since  all of those people groups will inevitably be represented at the Throne someday giving praise to the Lamb (see Revelation 7:9-10 - "every" means every).  My questions continued to rattle in my head - what can we do more effectively to be senders to these tribes and peoples and nations, and how do we reach our Jerusalem in the meantime?  

I struggled with these concepts with some of my partners in ministry at Colonial, and we decided to begin dialoguing about this in a monthly forum starting in September of 2010.    It all pulled up short and stopped when a series of personal events in our family came to a head, and I chose to take a leave of absence from the church to deal with them.  Someday I'll blog the details of the family crisis that began it all - suffice to say it did not involve either Carol or myself - we are more happily married and connected than ever before - and these days and events have pushed us closer together than ever.  However it did put us into a time of personal introspection, counseling and intense prayer.  It had been 28 years since I had  stopped completely and gotten off the "every weekend ministry" wheel and had been forced to evaluate in an entirely different way what my ministry was all about.  

As God worked in our situation (which He did and still is doing, to His praise and glory), He also began to work in our hearts.   During that time I read and studied Matthew 17:14-21, where Jesus healed the boy that the disciples couldn't.  In that particular miracle, the disciples came to Jesus and asked why they could not do what He did.  He taught them a lesson about prayer, and used the metaphor of the mountain moving into the sea based simply on faith - a faith backed by intense prayer and fasting.  So I began to pray that God would remove the obstacles that were preventing me from continuing my ministry and getting back into the fray of the Great Commission.  About a week into this time, a conversation with a friend seemed to be used by God to speak into my soul.  What I heard from the Lord that day was, "David you want the mountains and obstacles in this situation to be moved - what if the mountain is you?  What if you are who I need to move to get this done?"  

At that point I was stunned.  Not me.  I love my job - my ministry - my team - my partners.  I'm a sender, not a goer - I am meant to mentor young men for ministry here.  In Cary.   Me - go?  Whoa.  Over the next few days, I was not released from this burden - and as I prayed with Carol about it, and shared it with my pastor, I was also released by him to pursue what God was doing in my heart.  During this time a friend had me reading several books related to the revolution in church planting movements in our past decade, that is still rolling today.  I was excited about what I had been reading.  The Lord used a short term trip to Portugal & Scotland (see earlier blog) to direct our hearts toward how mentoring in this area was sorely needed both internationally and locally. I began discussing with Carol what this could look like for us - large city multi-ethnic church plants, where I would coach the planting teams and participate at various levels myself.  Training sessions where I would be involved in preparing and leading teams who would be used in these church plants to accomplish God's purposes.  

By January we were convinced that God was indeed moving in our lives - we presented the new direction to our elder teams, who confirmed the potential direction with us and told us they would be willing to support our launch over the next few months.  We would spend time studying the models and movements, forming alliances for our next move and then trusting the Lord for His specific direction.  We prayed together with the leadership of our church and agreed together that this was indeed the right next move for us as a couple, and on January 31, 2011 I resigned as Pastor of Music Ministries at Colonial. This was a huge step of faith for us.

Back to the goals in evaluation.  Remember the house on the market?  We had it on the market for nine months - showed it 75 times and had 5 "phantom" offers - all of which ended in futility.  When we finally made this decision to follow God's new agenda for us and settled with the church board ( this was on a Monday night) the next day we received an offer on our home.  The next day - a Wednesday (Ground Hog day, as I recall) one of the former offers came back to the table and made a higher offer than Tuesday's offer.  They proceeded to get in a bidding war for my home!  By 10:00 that night (while Carol and I were watching "Groundhog Day" - one of our all time favorite time killers - and eating Chinese food), we accepted a cash offer for our home.  Cash.  The next day the family - from Taiwan - did the inspection on our home, and we found less than $1000 of repairs to be done before a March 31 closing.  God knew His agenda - worked His plan in His time - and had us on hold until He could get total glory for it.   Just like Him, isn't it? 

So as I sit here in Starbucks catching you up, we have been ousted from our job, our home and our former lives and are in the midst of a brand new adventure. This tour guide for this adventure is a God who knows precisely what it takes to speak to His children, move them, purify them for His purposes and then orchestrate the details of their lives.  That's how we got here - now where are we?  Guess you'll have to read the next blog to find out.  Just believe this - "I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus...and my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel." (see Phil. 1:3-12)  God will do whatever it takes to get this grand word of faith out to those who need it.  And whatever it takes in this context includes moving mountains like me.  Could He move you too?