Grateful

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Most of you know that Christie and I are in a major period of transition.  My job at New Song Community Church is ending at the end of June. At the end of May Christie and I will be moving out of our apartment, and I will spend June living in a friend’s guest room while Christie spends a week with her parents in Sacramento before moving into our yet-to-be-located apartment in Los Angeles and preparing to start graduate school at USC. At then end of June I will step down as the leader of Seven24, a ministry that I have had the privilege of leading since its birth more than two years ago, and I will move up to Los Angeles with Christie. We are sad to be leaving, but we are excited about the next step in our journey.  At this point, we aren’t sure where we are going to live because that is somewhat dependent on where I am able to get a job.

This is a time of massive uncertainty, to be sure.  We know generally where we will be in a couple of months, but major details are still up in the air.  I will be the first to say this is not the greatest of crises that exists in the world, but the difficulty of trying to find a job in ministry in this economy in the Pasadena-ish area and otherwise shore up the details of our impending move has been challenging for us.

However, in the midst of this period of transition, I have been utterly blown away by the love and support that we have received from our church community. We have been abudantly blessed.  A couple of months ago when our impending departure became public knowledge, members of our congregation were exceedingly kind and gracious in expressing their sorrow that I was leaving (budget constraints are making it impossible for me to stay). They made Christie and I feel appreciated and valued. This has continued for a couple of months now, as I frequently have people stop me in the church lobby and say they are sad to see us go.

The love and support of our church family has been especially evident as I have been interviewing for a job in Los Angeles that I really want. It is a college ministry director job at what looks like a great church in west Los Angeles (one of a few that I am interviewing at), and it is located right next to a major university. This job appears to be a great fit for me/us. 

The first gesture of support that came from my congregation was from one of my fellow staff members, who a few weeks ago stopped me as I walked by his cubicle and insisted that I e-mail him the names and phone numbers of all of the churches that I applied to so that he could call them and tell them they should hire me.  He did that without any sort of request on my part.

Then, a few days later, I got a call from the aforementioned church, inviting me up to the church office the following Thursday for an interview. I was ecstatic. 

A couple of days before the interview, I sent out a prayer request to our church’s prayer chain asking that people would pray for the interview.  As badly as I want this job, my prayer throughout this journey (and the prayer that I asked our prayer team to pray), has been for Spirit-led discernment for myself and for those interviewing me that would lead to Christie and I eventually landing at the right church.  Not long after the prayer request e-mail went out, I got a two e-mails from different members of our staff telling me they were praying for me.  People wished me well and offered their prayers in person for the next couple of days.  

On the day of the interview, as I was nervously trying to study for that weekend’s sermon in a Starbuck’s not far from the site of my interview, I received a text message from a friend saying he had been praying for me and assuring me that I would do great. After the interview, on my drive back to Oceanside, my boss (who I count as a close friend) called to find out how the interview went.  When I arrived home, my small group was just finishing its meeting, and they all wanted to hear about it.  The following Sunday at church I had a number of people approach me to ask how the interview went.  They all assured me that they would remain in prayer for me when I told them that I thought the interview went well, but that I would not find out if they wanted me back for a second visit for a couple of weeks.  

Since then I have had people ask me almost every day if I have heard anything from the church.  Some of these people are folks I know well- staff members, parents of students in the college ministry I pastor, friends and acquaintances.  Others are folks who I don’t know terribly well, but who I enjoy exchanging a warm greeting with when we see each other on Sunday mornings- ushers, board members, other volunteers. Just this last Saturday evening during the meet-and-greet portion of our Saturday night service a dear older woman in our congregation named Shryle asked which Thursday it had been that I had had my interview, and said that she had prayed on the last couple of Thursdays just to make sure that she did not miss praying on the day of the interview. This morning I had several more people ask if I had any sort of update for them. The interest and concern that the prayer warriors of New Song Community Church have taken in this challenge and Christie and I are facing has been truly humbling.

While I don’t know how this will all turn out, the repeated prayers of the faithful men and women of New Song Community Church have given me great confidence.  They have given me confidence (and have served as a reminder to me) that the will of God will be done in this situation, and I can rest in that. They have given me confidence to know that my church family believes in me, and that they believe that God has in fact placed his calling upon my life.  They have given me confidence to know that through the many highs and lows that Christie and I have experienced in ministry over the last three years, we have in fact been able to see God use us in a way that really did make a difference on the people around us. They have shown me their love in a real and tangible way. They have shown me yet again just how valuable community is.

I know that many of the people that have prayed for me, that have lovingly inquired about the lastest news in my job hunt, and have otherwise supported Christie and I in this journey will never know that this blog post was written.  I hope that my thanks and gratitude have shown them how much Christie and I appreciate them. For those of you that have prayed and are reading, thank you.  Really, from the bottom of our hearts, thank you.  We are so grateful for your prayers, and we are humbled by your faithful intercession on our behalf.  

I would ask that you would continue to pray for us, asking that God would open doors for us to the church in the Los Angeles area where we can serve in ministry in a way that will be of maximum gospel effectiveness.  I’ve got another interview  with a different church tomorrow (Monday), and of course I am still waiting to hear from the church I interviewed at already.  

Christie and I have been truly blessed with a wonderful church family, and the memory of the love and support that has been shown to us by so many will not soon fade.

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