call update

God has made it clear, he wants me to stay here at St. Matthew.

This has been a really neat process, mostly because i didn't know how God would make it clear, but i was trusting that he would. Last week he made it very clear and confirmed his message to me by the words of several other people.

I announced it in worship this weekend, but one of the reasons that God left me here is important. I feel strongly that i've been left here at St. Matthew to continue to help this place become a church that cares deeply about those who are not yet gathered here. I know that God wants us to make others our priority.

It feels good to know that I am where God wants me to be and to understand why he has me here. Still, please keep Christ Lutheran, Overland Park in your prayers. They are a wonderful congregation of people who is now wrestling with their next step. May God lead them!

the heart of man

In light of recent national events here is the postscript to a poem by Steve Turner entitled "Creed."

This has been rolling around in my mind for the last day and a half and i finally took the time to look it up. This part of the poem is called, "Chance."

If chance be the Father of all flesh,
disaster is his rainbow in the sky,
and when you hear, "State of Emergency!
Sniper Kills Ten!
Troops on Rampage!
Whites go Looting!
Bomb Blasts School!"
It is but the sound of man worshipping his maker.

The Call

so after the whirlwind of Easter there is another whirlwind in my life... a church called Christ Lutheran in Kansas City (overland park) has called me to be their senior pastor (i should note that i didn't intend any puns by talking about kansas and whirlwinds:) ). I got to announce it to St. Matthew this weekend and am looking forward to God giving me some serious clarity in the week(s) to come.

I realize that the concept of a "call" might not be that familiar to people today so i thought i'd explain it a little bit too.
First, i wasn't out job-hunting. The way this stuff usually works is that a church who is in search of a pastor (like Christ Lutheran) will start by gathering names. They'll get them from all kinds of sources: congregation members, church district offices, other pastors and church-workers. Then they'll go through the list and begin prayerfully removing those that don't seem to have the gift set, experience, or style to lead their church. Then many (though not all) of these churches will do phone interviews and subsequent on-site interviews. After that the team of people who is conducting the process on the congregation's behalf will prayerfully recommend a name or names to the entire congregation to prayerfully vote on. There's lots of prayer in this!

So now i've got TWO calls. God has already called me to serve at St. Matthew and that's where i've been plugging along the last (nearly) 3 years. And now I've got a call to Christ Lutheran. I think this is the place where a "call process" is pretty different than other job-change situations. I am charged with finding out what it is that God wants me to do. He's got plans for his Church and churches all over the world and his plans are best.

So instead of sitting around and matching up "pros and cons" alone, there is this other element. I believe it is possible that God could have one situation look 4x better in every facet of ministry but STILL desire a person to serve at the other.

And that's what makes this so hard. Right now i'm weighing out all the pros and cons, trying to figure out where God might be able to best use the man he's made me to be... and yet i realize that God does seemingly illogical "calls" all throughout the Bible. He does things that don't always make sense, but end up working out far better than any human imagination could've conceived.

This is the most boring post ever, i think-sorry about that.

I'll leave it at this, please pray for jocelyn and me. We want to do what will mean the most for the Reign of Jesus, Christ in the world. But we willingly admit, we might not know what that is.

An angelic messenger would sure be nice!