Following Jesus is an adventure. I have said this quite a bit in my short life and these last few weeks I have rediscovered how very true this statement is.
I would like to share an announcement with you about some big changes coming in my life. It would be easy to write about them, but I would rather share with you what I shared with the people who have become my family over the last four years.
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I want to share about a Bomb that God has dropped in my life recently.
“57 As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” 58 Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” 59 He said to another man, “Follow me.” But the man replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” 60 Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” 61 Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family.” 62 Jesus replied, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”
When I signed up to follow Jesus and committed to following him no matter what it looked like or where it took me, I knew there would be tough days and long nights. What I didn’t know is when those days would come or what it would cost to follow where Jesus lead.
This summer in the middle of our series Know Jesus: Luke I started to hear the whispers of God that a transition was coming. I remember journaling about them in my prayer time and thinking that it would apply to a list of things… In short I created an expectation of what God would do instead of an expectancy of hope in his good and faithful character.
As the summer became the fall I began to become uncomfortable and restless, even frustrated. I began praying a prayer for clarity for what God was doing.
Through a series of conversations it became clear that what God was doing was beginning a transition for my wife and I.
These conversations and prayers would ultimately end in the realization that it is time for us to transition out of full time ministry at The Rock Church and at The Grove.
We have been praying about this season and transition for several months and have been talking with people who love us and who regularly speak into our lives.
The last four years have been some of the greatest years in our lives. We have laughed, and cried, and wrestled, and seen God do way more than we ever imagined. We know that what God is doing now is just that, God’s doing.
We have prayed a ton about this decision and know that it is a God thing. It is a painful thing. It is an exciting thing. It is a rollercoaster of emotion.
IT IS NOT AN ENDING, IT IS SIMPLY THE BEGINNING OF SOMETHING NEW.
While our time at The Grove as leaders will end, our relationships and friendships and love for this tribe will never end, it will simply change and grow.
As of this moment, Kelly and I don’t know what the next season looks like, we don’t know if it is ministry somewhere else, or staying here or what, we honestly do not know.
What we do know with all of our hearts is that we want to be where Jesus is and we want to follow where he leads even if it is uncomfortable or painful.
We would rather have Jesus than anything else in life and that means following him even if we are unsure about what it means.
Let me give you some details that you are going to need:
- Kelly and I believe that God is in the middle of all of this. We are not leaving The Grove or The Rock out of anger or bitterness or frustration. We are leaving out of Obedience to what we believe God is asking of us in this season.
- We have championed this tribe for the last four years to follow God regardless of what he asks and we would be hypocrites if we did not do the same.
- The next few weeks at The Grove are going to be incredible. We are going to continue to talk about our series "Now What" and grow as a family.
- In the next few weeks I will be sharing about where The Grove is heading.
- We are going to get fancy and eat Pancakes. We are going to laugh. We are going to Cry. We are going to continue to love Jesus and the Local Church. We are going to continue to Worship a Good Dad who is in a good mood and who gives good gifts to his kids.
- We are going to grow old together.