Repost: The Journey to Grace (From July 2009)

Posted by admin2 | Filed under Grace Community Church, Ministry, Personal

BEGINNINGS
Last night, after 5 months of “courtship,” Grace Community Church, Washingtonville, NY officially extended a call to me to be their Lead Pastor. Christie and I accepted! Washingtonville is located about an hour and change from New York City. She’s located in Orange County (the home of “Orange County Choppers!”). For those who are curious or interested in the unfolding of this opportunity I’d love to share the story with you.

About 3 years ago, God began pressing into my heart the possibility of becoming a pastor.  At first it was “no way.” Then it was, “I wonder if…”, then “you think?”, then “Yeah!”  However, doors continued to open for me to travel and speak to students.
As time passed, Christie and I began to pray more fervently. My prayer, was 3 fold: 1) that I would never tell anyone of the desire to pastor, 2) that I would never have to send out any resumes, 3) the Church would be in the Northeast. I wanted to see God miraculously do it.  My prayer was that if God had it in his plans for me to pastor, especially in the Northeast, he would “drop it in my lap” (my exact prayer words).
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A TAD OF HISTORY
For a little context: Back in 2002, I was invited to help launch and speak at a young adult gathering called Core at Walnut Hill Community Church, Bethel, CT. I was to do a summer (10 week) series.  God moved so powerfully over those 10 weeks. It’s where I met Christie too! I absolutely fell in love with the Northeast.
I sensed a deep spiritual need in there. I became deeply burdened for the Northeast. There was a spiritual darkness, yet an authentic hunger for Christ among believers, unlike I had ever seen. It was heartbreaking to leave at end of the summer to return to Seminary.  Christie and I married the next summer and moved to Birmingham, AL.  But we believed God would call us back to the Northeast one day. Indeed, I, we, have not ceased praying for it.
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FAST FORWARD
Fast forward to this past March 2009.  For quite some time, I had sensed that God was calling me to step down from my partnership with Reach Your City Ministries( formerly Vertical Ministries). Christie and I prayerfully decided that it was time. In other words, I would not renew my contract with RYC in August.  We shared this decision with our small group and dear friends the following Thursday. They affirmed us, confirmed our decision, and prayed over us. Christie and I didn’t know what that meant for us other than continuing in the ministry I had been doing the last 6 years.
Then within 24 hours of making it “official” with our friends, I got an email from a friend, Rob Strong, who I had spent time with at Walnut Hill Community Church in 2002.  Rob and I haven’t been in contact in 6 - 7 years. He’s now Lead Pastor of (ironically), Grace Community Church, in Boston, MA.
In His “out-of-the-blue” e-mail, He shared that he shared a relationship with a church in NY that was searching for “the man of God’s choosing” as their next pastor.  He shared that he’d been consulting and praying with them in their search. He’d been praying personally that if the Lord had anyone he might recommend to them that God would lay that person on his Heart.
Rob said that while he was at swimming lessons with his son my name just jumped into His head! He told me that when that happened he thought “where did that come from?” ha. God laid my name on his heart. Rob knew my ministry was going well, but thought he would write anyway just to see. Let me remind you, the Lord laid me on his heart less than 24 hours after Christie and I had shared our official decision to step down from Reach Your City Ministries.
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FLOORED
Christie and I were floored realizing this could very well have the Lord’s hands all over it.  We couldn’t help but be excited. We prayed and decided we would walk through the door until the Lord closed it. I connected with one of the staff pastors from the Church and also the Founding Pastor. I was asked to submit a resume’ (of which I had none). So I spent two days putting one together and then submitted it. I was completely up front and said, “but I don’t really qualify” (according to their outline of qualifications for Lead Pastor), but thought maybe my ten years of ministry experience would make up for some ground of lack of pastoral experience.
There is much, much more to the process that I’ll try to share later. The Founding Pastor,Pastor Terryl Delaney, is absolutely brilliant in having birthed this process of searching for Grace’s next Lead Pastor years ago and shepherding his people in it.
The Pastoral search team, and the Board of Elders, unanimously voted to present me as a official candidate before the Grace congregation two weeks ago.  After 3 days there meeting with teams, leaders, staff, and preaching, the official church-wide vote took place last night. And after nearly 5 months of “interviewing,” at exactly 8:17pm CST last night I received the call from the Chairman of the Board of Elders, and now a very close friend, Chris Boylan, extending me an official call to be the Lead Pastor of Grace Community Church. Our answer, “Yes, yes, yes! And oh by the way, yes!”
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PRAYERS ANSWERED
On another God note: Pastor Terryl, who is just an anointed man of God, visionary, and preacher of God, shared with the Grace congregation that He was beginning the process of stepping down as Senior Pastor exactly… 3 years ago. He’s shepherded the Elders, and his people, throughout this process, preparing their hearts, for 3 years. How amazing is that. Likewise, he, the Elders, and the Church began praying 3 years ago almost these exact words (from what I was told), that “God would begin preparing the heart of the man of His own choosing to be Grace’s Senior Pastor.”  Here’s the kicker: It was 3 years ago that God began stirring my heart to pastor.
Christie and I are so excited. Excitement about the opportunity! And excitement that God did it! He answered my pleas. We prayed in our prayer closet for 3 years. Never told anyone I was looking to pastor; never sent out a resume; and God dropped this amazing Church, from the Northeast, into our laps. What a God.
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FUTURE
The official start date has yet to be officially determined.  But it will be sometime after August.
I’m excited about what God has in store for Grace, Washingtonville, NY, Orange County and my family. We love Grace deeply already, and we are loved by Grace deeply already too. Overwhelmed with love. 5 months of “courting” establishes that.
At the same time, Christie and I feel the sadness of leaving family and intimate friends too. Joy and sorrow, that is the way often of following Christ. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Thanks for reading this rambling novel. I’ll keep blogging and tweeting of course. Please keep coming back!

Love you all….

Read more | Comments (0) | January 24th, 2012

Sowing Lesson #2: Ending Delusions

Posted by admin2 | Filed under Grace Community Church, Sermons

Lesson #2: ENDING DELUSIONS (1/15/2012)
God is the true owner of my money and possessions and I will be free to give sacrificially, at peace financially, and secure in accountability before Him, when I see myself as His manager of money and stuff.

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Sowing Lesson #1: FACING YOUR FEARS (1/8/2012)
If I want confidence and peace that God will meet my financial needs, then I must involve Him in my financial life by seeking Him first through sacrificial generosity toward His Kingdom work.

(To listen to podcast teachings, click on titles)

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Read more | Comments (0) | January 17th, 2012

Sowing Lesson #1: Facing Your Fears

Posted by admin2 | Filed under Grace Community Church, Sermons

Money. People, especially Christians (ironically), respond disturbedly and suspiciously when this topic, coupled with generosity, comes up. However, I don’t think the issue with authentic Christians is greed, but fear. Fear of what?

I just launched a new teaching series at Grace Community entitled “Sowing Lessons.” Below is the lesson #1 statement and the audio teaching where the issue of fear is addressed. Buckle up, and enjoy!

To listen to audio teaching, “Facing Your Fears” (1/8/12), go HERE.

Sowing Lesson #1: If I want confidence and peace that God will meet my financial needs, then I must involve Him in my financial life by seeking Him first through sacrificial generosity toward His Kingdom work.

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Read more | Comments (0) | January 10th, 2012

Don’t panic, adjust… (A day in the life)

Posted by admin2 | Filed under Grace Community Church, Ministry, Personal, Thoughts

Hurricane Irene had just hit New York. The flooding in Washingtonville, NY, where Grace Community is located, was devastating. We invited Red Cross to use our campus to help us love on our community. A “Red Cross city” was set up, basically. Red Cross volunteers were taking up a quarter of the building where they’d be bunking for 2 weeks (surprise!), as well as half of our campus, with supplies, and trailers and the like. It was the only such set up for hundreds of miles. So Grace became gloriously chaotic in a hurry.

Then, misinformation goes out that Grace is a “shelter” for any and all families affected by flooding. It was even on news websites. Not good. Hundreds of people were affected. Grace’s facilities are not even close to being equipped to house hardly anyone, especially at the capacity and for the length of time which would be needed from the flooding. In addition, let me not fail to mention that since it was on websites, if we now didn’t provide shelter, bad press was assured. New York-like bad press, I feared. Nevertheless, I had to head “the shelter” issue off at the pass.

Pressure started coming at me, personally, from a couple of local government officials to make Grace just such a shelter. However, to make Grace a shelter would undermine Red Cross’s efforts, and deeply and negatively compromise Grace’s facilities, campus, services, and even the families we’d shelter in untold ways.

So I couldn’t, and didn’t, budge. We just couldn’t be a shelter and be a church and have weekend services and house Red Cross and serve our community, and….. Still I felt the pressure. And I felt the guilt. I was preparing for the bad press that would follow too. I was preparing for how I would handle the potential unwarranted backlash from our community, but also the misunderstandings that would come from caring Grace people who wouldn’t know or couldn’t comprehend all of the inner-issues. And to top it all off, we, the Grace staff, were staring down the 10th anniversary of 9/11 services at our church that coming weekend where we were expecting record-breaking attendance. And on and on I could go.

I prayed and said, “Lord, I’m listening to you. Help me. Give me wisdom. Show me what to do for everyone’s good, and for your glory. I know you are using this to make me a better leader too, Lord. I pray you help me pass this test.”

As I stood there going over things in my mind, praying, texting, emailing, calling, praying, texting, and so on, in walked Ken Wojehowski. Ken is a retired worker of the U.S. Mint at Westpoint. He is a volunteer at Grace. Also, he has graciously allowed us to hire him a few hours a week to be a custodian for Grace.  And I’ll tell you this: What he (and another Grace servant, Denise Maroney), does to our building every day and weekend is nothing short of glorious. And an answer to many months of this pastor’s pleas to the Lord for excellence in that area. The building under Ken’s watch is spotless, clean, excellent, superbly maintained. He is a gift. He never phones it in. And he’s always serving with a gleam in his eye, a bounce in his step, and smile on his face. Always.

He walked into my office that morning unannounced (which isn’t like him). He was smiling. He reached out and shook my hand…with vigor. I shook his and hugged him, because that’s just what I do… and he’s just a huggable fella. I said, “Man, it’s crazy right now, right?” Then he shared something with me. He shared words of tremendous encouragement in two sentences that gave me great confidence in my leadership.

Then he said the three words that I repeat to myself about twice a week now. I can’t remember all that he said verbatim, but it was along these lines: “Pastor, as an athlete (wrestling), and in coaching, I was taught these words: Don’t panic. Adjust.” That’s all he said. Then he smiled at me as we stood there just kind of looking at one another for a couple of silent seconds. And then I smiled–”Don’t panic. Adjust.”

Message received.

Don’t you love people like that in your life? Ken represents the quality of people and volunteers at Grace Community Church. Ken is not only a volunteer and servant of Grace, but a friend, and a leader. He’s a leader I learned from, and will continue to learn from. I want to be more like him. I want you to be more like him.

2 Takeaways for the New Year:

1) Don’t Panic. Adjust.

2) Invest your life into people.

Will you make it a goal to invest your life in someone(s) in 2012?

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Read more | Comments (0) | December 31st, 2011

Phoning it in?

Posted by admin2 | Filed under Grace Community Church, Ministry, Thoughts

A while back a particular Grace Community group leader from our church stated how hard he worked to prepare for his weekly Bible study. He shared with me that his group was sharp and that they would know whether or not he was “phoning it in.” It made this pastor grateful and proud!

I heard that phrase repeated recently regarding a presentation by someone. There was a lot of suspicion that one of the presenters “phoned it in.” Indeed, one can always tell if presenters “phone it in” regardless of how over-the-top they try to communicate. Just watch TBN. In under two minutes you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.

Then, this past Sunday at Grace Community, instead of having three services at one hour and fifteen minutes, we only had one service at an hour. We were expecting low attendance. And sure enough we only had about 15% of our normal attendance Christmas Day. Someone made the comment about being intrigued that after I had preached five Christmas Eve services in a row the afternoon/evening before, that, in his opinion, I could energetically preach an equally strong message for a fraction of the people the next morning on Christmas Day. Then I heard it again: “You didn’t phone it in.’”

What? I had two reactions within me: 1) Praise God for the encouragement. 2) How could I not give it all I’ve got? I don’t preach for people. I preach for Christ.

If I read my Bible rightly, christians don’t work, serve, volunteer, give, sacrifice, and “show up”… for people. But for Christ alone.  Then people receive the benefit of it.

I struggle respecting anyone, especially christians, who “phone it in” in anything. Now granted, life can get difficult, workloads overflow our plates, and some things might suffer. But those things should only suffer…once, or once-in-a-blue-moon. If any more than that, one would need to do some soul-searching about the stewardship of his/her time management, health, and so forth. Likewise, some inner-wrestling would be needed to determine if one is doing what God wants him/her to do and where God wants him/her to be doing it.

We are all human, and tired, and overwhelmed. But hear me out: Even that doesn’t warrant “phoning it in.” Even in that difficult place we must still give the best we’ve got. But if it’s simply sub-par to where people say “he/she phoned it in,” then so be it. By God’s grace, you can stand before Christ with no regrets, look yourself in the mirror with a clear conscience, move on in confidence, and take measures to get yourself back at peak level (vacation, sabbath, saying “no” to good things to do the best things, etc).

A while back, Grace Community’s Worship pastor, and dear friend, Jeff Dueck, shared with me a scene from the movie Gattaca. In a nutshell, Vincent, the average-Joe human, raced his genetically super-human brother, Anton, in a swim through an expansive ocean. In the past, Anton had always won. However, this time, unbelievably, Vincent won.  Anton asks Vincent how he did it. Vincent says, “You want to know how I did it? This is how I did it, Anton: I never saved anything for the swim back.”

Please, for the love of God (literally)… don’t approach 2012 with a “phone it in attitude” toward anything. No christian leader, boss, manager, employee, pastor, minister, volunteer, need ever be suspect as having “phoned it in.”  And not because we are super motivated or disciplined, but because this is our worshipful response to a great Gospel, and breathtaking Savior.

NEVER leave anything for the swim back.

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Colossians 3:17

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
1 Corinthians 10:31

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Read more | Comments (2) | December 27th, 2011

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