Hard Day, But One of Great Relief

Hey Guys,

This was an eventful day in my life. Bro. Roger, being one of my deacons, knew this day would be coming at some point.

For over seven years, I have been pastor of Unity Free Will Baptist Church. Last Summer, the Lord began to get my attention, and I started to pray about how much longer I was supposed to be at the church. One of the things that has confirmed the Lord's will for our lives in the past has been the Lord's unusual provision to meet our needs. Last summer, that extra provision shut off, and we began struggling financially.

A few months later, I asked my wife about what she was getting during her prayer life. After I told her about my wondering what was going one, she said, "The other day I was praying and it was like the Lord said, 'It will be O.K. if you leave [the church].'" I did not expect that reply because she really likes the church and really likes serving in the church. She also likes stability.

Notice the Lord did not tell her to leave, just that it would be all right.

Then I talked with the deacons. Every Church should be blessed with deacons such as I have had the privilege of serving this church with. I thought maybe the Lord had been "speaking" to them. If either of them had received an indication that maybe my time might be drawing close, I would have accepted that confirmation from the Lord. Neither of them had any such indication, so we agreed to pray about the situation.

During that time of prayer, the Lord confirmed some things for me about my style of ministry. One is that I often am involved in "pioneering" new things. I was in on the founding of Camp Jericho at the beginning, and Unity was almost like a new church plant, but I was not there right at the very beginning. In the past, I had started a Christian school and a College ministry. Unity has moved from being a new work to an established church.

So, in evaluating my ministry, some things I would like to do in the next few years are to go on some mission trips to Mexico, Japan and Australia. In Australia, I would be teaching some classes for a Bible College (or Leadership Institute) that one of my former college students has established over there. I also have a book on Marriage a little over half written that I would like to finish. (Some of the articles on the left side of the screen will be put together to furnish a lot of content for the book.) I also would like to have a speaking ministry along that line.

In order to go on the mission trips, I will have to be able to go to some churches to present the mission opportunities for those trips.

I presently am defining my ministry as "strengthening churches, marriages and ministries."

Once I defined that aspect of ministry for my life, the unusual provisions of God have started up again. The church raised the pastor's salary, which needed to be done whether I was to continue or not. It had only been raised once, and that was a couple of months after I became pastor. But the main source of supply is always from the Lord. He began to provide again.

Bro. Roger and Bro. Mike graciously offered to allow me to be gone quite a bit to arrange for these mission trips, and I thought for a while that would be all that would be needed to take care of the situation. But, as Rhonda pointed out, I was becoming so "fragmented" it seemed like it would be hard. That was true to some extent. Then I had some health scares that possibly could relate to trouble with my heart, and that seemed perhaps to relate to frustration and stress. One test has ruled out the heart truoble, but it is not as accurate as a heart catheterization. At this point, my doctor and I are just continuing to watch the situation.

I thought about timing too. My son, Rusty, His wife, Brenda, and their two-year old daughter are missionaries to Japan, and they had a commissioning service at church a few weeks ago (January 3, 2009) shortly before leaving for Japan. Sometime in late December or early January, I was praying and it was like the Lord said, (not in an audible voice), "You don't have to continue." Then I waited a little, and the clear direction came "Don't [continue at the church]!"

I wanted to wait until Rusty and Brenda got gone before I told Rhonda about what updated direction I seemed to be getting, but a day or two before the commissioning service she asked me about what was going on, so I told her. She was not overly excited, but she said, "Well, O.K."

So, I met with the deacons again, and told them about the direction I seem to have. We talked about how they would go about getting a new pastor. We even have someone in mind who is praying about the situation. We are all praying. We also agreed that I could stay on as pastor until the Sunday after Easter unless the church were to call a new pastor before that time.

Today was the day I announced my resignation. It was hard because this has been my favorite church. There is no earthly explanation for such a decision to leave. I am not mad at anyone. I hope no one is mad at me. Things are going well, but I know if I don't follow this direction from the Lord, things WILL get worse. I certainly don't want that to happen.

When Jonah was running from the Lord, God sent some rough circumstances to him and those that were on his ship. He finally told them that if they would throw him overboard, the storm would stop. They didn't want to do that. The storm, however, finally got so bad that they did decide to throw him overboard.

I would rather leave now while things are going well than to wait until the Lord applied such pressure that people would want to "throw me overboard."

The Church is in pretty good shape (of course there is always room for improvement). Even better days are ahead! We don't know about tomorrow, but we know Who holds tomorrow! (Sombody ought to write a song about that, Ha!)

This is a little scary because it is a cut in income on our part. It is a step of faith, which we have done many times before, but we are a lot older now. I'm sure the security of the last few years has felt good to Rhonda. I often make the statement, "Get out on a limb for God. Then saw the limb off, and watch God work!" but I really thought maybe those days were over for us. Well, we are out on the limb, and today I sawed it off. (Excuse me, time for a quick prayer) Lord, we want to see You work!

I also have mentioned about our church starting a new church. I also thought that someone from our church would go and do that. I did not think it would be me! or rather, Rhonda and me! But, who knows? Since my gifts seem to be related to the areas of pioneering maybe that will happen.

I don't know the exact "flavor" of our new direction, but it is a great relief to have things out in the open. Rhonda, my family, and the deacons and I have had months to process all this information. Today, many from the church are just hit with it and are beginning to have to process it.

We had a wonderful church service tonight where we celebrated the Lord's Supper. Since I have a little over two months left, I would like to see us again see several decisions for Christ. This last Quarterly report is the first one in a long time where we had to put "none" down for the number of conversions. I would like to see that pick up again. Really, I would like to go out "in a blaze of glory!" :) I would like to hand the church over to the next pastor with things going great guns! We'll see.

One of our teenagers testified tonight, and he showed great wisdom. He reminded us all that I am not the captain of the ship, the Lord is. He said some glowing things about me, but he realizes that all our reliance is upon God, not us as individuals.

Thanks for listening guys. Pray for Unity in the search for their new pastor. Some of you may be asked to fill in some while we are waiting.

We have been talking about perseverance, and there are times to persevere. Bro. Roger knows that we have done that many times in the past. However, there are also times to move on. This, to the best of my discernment, is one of them. In it all, to God be the glory.