First new post in two months! For the few of you out there who follow my blog, I am back, sorry for the delay, it was inevitable.
You remember I had a hard summer, well I had an even harder fall. I am not some complainer, but God has seen fit to mold me some more in ways that are harder than anything I've gone through in decades. I am here, and my little church is here, and I am amazed that it survived. After a brutal summer where my little church seemed to be falling apart, I thought I was due a time of refreshment and blessing, instead I got the dial turned up. It made my summer feel like a caribbean cruise.
Basically I had a perfect storm of events all hit me and my church all at once and it left me literally homeless, broke, wandering around in a stupor for a month, completely ready to close the church, sad, lonely, cut off from desperately needed resources because I am an emergent leader by powers that be and just sitting there waiting for God to show up and teach me what I was supposed to learn, and re-direct me to where I was supposed to go. I don't want to be overly dramatic, but just so you understand why I couldn't post at all, I had a month where I was literally in a stupor. I was walking around like a zombie - the reality I was living was so far removed from anything I was prepared to understand that I didnt have anything to say or think or do but survive by looking for work to make money.
Now I've learned what he wanted me to learn, at least THE BIG THING. Cota is going forward by teaming with another church whose pastor has been a lifeline for me. Community is what I've always wanted, and it's through community that God has allowed me to resuscitate. I'm actually quite full of joy now as I look forward to many wonderful things that will come out of this new partnership.
Please pray that we will have wisdom in how to structure our relationship - something like a merge, or you could say, we will come alongside each other for some time, and later we will be launched again as our own church - something like that, it's still being worked out. But the key is that I will be doing it with more people than before, and that is wonderful.
The deep inner things God has done in me I'm not quite prepared to talk about in public, but I'm sure I will in the future. I do feel freed and glad to have gone through what I did in order to gain more of God and less of me - or a more "whole" me. Sorry to be vague on this, but it needs some time to settle.
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2 comments:
Jeff! So good to hear from you. I've been worried. This joint venture sounds like a very good situation for now. I'm thankful and relieved-- and praying for the rest of your needs. Keep in touch.
Jeff, it sounds like we've been on a similar path. At Easter we left the pastoring role at the church we served. We stayed with the wider Free Christian Church network though. At the present, our healing was facilitated by a similarly minded Vineyard community in the city. We still don't quite know where God takes us besides that our vision is to plant a "bridge" community where sinners, seekers and saints from a variety of traditions could come together and worship our Master and Creator and serve him with their lives. the process of leaving our little community of faith was very painful and we too have had to find creative ways to support ourselves in this transition. It's worked so far, with a little less money.
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