Living by Faith

There are days when I wonder if I've lost my mind. Thankfully, those days are coming with increasing frequency.

This year I have been called to step out of a part time ministry position that I began to see as an ill fit for my personality, gifting and leadership style. I've also gone from a sales position that had greater income potential for a position in the bike shop that freed my schedule up quite a bit. In the process, I was beginning to get a little comfortable. Life was becoming a little more predictable and manageable.

Then God moved.

I wasn't really looking for it, but God was presenting an opportunity to risk again and I feel alive like I haven't in a long, long time.

I was hanging out at home one night and decided to kill some time by looking at online ministry job resources. After checking a few sites I found a listing for a position that really caught my attention. The listing was for a part-time Small Group and Teams Coordinator position at Embrace, a fairly recent church plant in Sioux Falls.

I have been a worship leader since the day I started in ministry. I may have had other responsibilities, but they always revolved around worship arts. As I read the job description though, I sensed an awakening in my spirit. The burden that I have felt for years to help people engage in close, deep relationship with one another quickly rose to the surface and I recognized in this position, an opportunity to invest in helping that happen. I reached a point where I couldn't see not pursuing it.

As we began the conversation, I was really thinking that I would stay full time in the bike shop and the ministry job would be part time. My desire for security and my conventional wisdom was really working overtime. I mean, who leaves a good, stable, full time job with benefits in a depressed economy to pursue a part time ministry position? I worked and worked and worked it through how I could make it all work. Then the dam burst.

I was really wrestling through the options one night when I talked to my parents. I love and value the input of my Mom and Dad tremendously. Both have wisdom cultivated through years of experience and both are very careful to dispense advice (also a sign of wisdom). As I told them about some of the options that I was considering, my Mom said, "Maybe God is just helping you realize what's really important." I think that was the first salvo in what would eventually break apart my idol of security and free me to pursue living by faith again. I continued the conversation with Amy later that night. She pointed out some of the things that I probably would have to give up in trying to keep it all and I finally succumbed to the reality that I could not do it all. I had to decide what was really important.

I went into my final discussion with Adam, resolved that if the position was offered to me, I would take it and would go part time at the store knowing we would be taking a big pay cut and would have no benefits. I felt such a peace about the idea that I was almost more relieved than excited when Adam asked me to come on board. It felt like the culmination of a season of searching for where I belong.

So, much like when we left Indiana with no jobs and no housing with just a belief that this was the road we were to travel, we find ourselves trusting that God is leading and knowing that we want to follow.