A New Beginning-A New Adventure

When I left Genesis Church in October of 2005, I was so broken, so messed up and so disqualified for ministry, I was sure God would never again use me in a vocational ministry role. As Trisha and I began to heal, individually and as a couple, we began to realize that serving God wasn’t something that we did because we got paid (I got paid, Trisha always served for free), or because it was our title. We realized that our call and our desire to serve God with our time and our gifts flowed out of who He had created us to be. About two years ago, a pastor friend of mine read this passage of scripture to me:

God’s gifts and God’s call are under full warranty—never canceled, never rescinded.
Romans 11:29 (The Message)

.
Honestly, I have wrestled with this verse, questioned this verse and prayed through this verse numerous times over the past two years. As God has refined our marriage, he has also refined for me His vision for my life and ministry. We have been so humbled by how www.refineus.org has reached so many, and thankful for the numerous speaking opportunities we have had over the past few months. We had no idea that God had such a gift in mind when we started this blog. We love this ministry and will continue to serve wholeheartedly, as we share our story and are compelled to bring God’s hope to as many people as possible.

Those of you that follow our blog know our passion for the local church. Trisha and I believe that the local church is the hope of the world. We knew that God would eventually lead us back into a leadership role in a local church.

We are so excited to say that after months of prayer, dreaming and discussions, Trisha, our three boys and I will be moving to Nashville, TN to serve at Cross Point Community Church. One of my best friends, Pete Wilson is the founding pastor of the church. As Pete and I began to talk about what was next for us, and what the future looked like at Cross Point, we sensed that God was leading us to partner together to further fulfill the vision God gave Pete for Cross Point.

Here is the cool part…I am not going to be a full time staff member…at least not at first. We are going to be serving in a 4 month unpaid internship/leadership residency from July 1st to October 1st. This will give our family a chance to reenter ministry in a healthy and balanced way. It will give me a chance to get to know people and serve in a number of different areas. It will give the church time to get to know me and my family. We are so excited, so honored and so nervous, all at the same time. We will then come on staff October 1st in the role of Campus Pastor.

I resigned from my job on Wednesday, and we began raising funds for the four month internship. We have already had people invest in this dream we have to be fully used by God at Cross Point. We are still trying to sell our house, and feel an offer is coming soon. We know that God will provide for our needs as we move into the future He has for us.

If you would like to partner with us as we launch this adventure, we would be so thankful. Your donations are tax-deductible and will be used to help cover our living expenses over the next 4 months. We want our blog to be a place where people go to find inspiration and healing…so we will only have the donate button on the web site for the duration of the internship.

We are so thankful for the journey you have taken with us, and our prayer is that you see that no matter where you are, no matter what you have done, God has a plan for your life. God longs to use every part of you to bring glory to Him. That is our prayer as we move into this new beginning in our life…that God gets all the glory as more and more people come into a loving relationship with Him.