What is it about church? Why do people care so much about all the little things that happen? "You have to wear this if you're going to speak in front of church" and "This is the way we've always done things." Where is God in all this confusion?
My dad asked me the other day a question. A question that has helped to change the way I look at my ministry. He simply asked me: "What is it really about?" WHAT? That's it? The it represents a lot in my life. The it is everything I'm doing. The it is everything I feel God has put before me. The it is my ministry to the church. So what is it really about? Why am I here? What am I doing? Why do I work 12-hour days? Why do I sit in my office for hours on end? Why do I plan? Why do I have very little time for a personal life outside of the church? These are some of the questions that have crowded the waiting room in my brain. These are the questions that are starting to reignite a stirring within me that has been dormant for too long.
Each time someone asks me to share my testimony, and I get to the most recent part about God calling me to TRC, all these feelings of God's active providence begin to surface again. I need the reminder. It's nice to have the reminder. Because God did call me to TRC. He made it clear this is where I am supposed to be.
It was a Saturday afternoon last year in September that would alter my life forever. I was visiting some friends back in the Detroit, MI, area. I was at my friend Mike's house and I was just chillin' in his room. My cell phone rings and the screen shows as a (616) number. I knew that was the area code for West Michigan, but I didn't recognize the number. I answered the phone and heard a female's voice come over the speaker into my ear.
"Hello, is this Kevin," the voice asked?
"Yes, this is Kevin," I said back, still a little confused about the call.
"My name is Barb and I am from TRC in Holland, MI. We would like to talk to you about a youth director opening we have."
"Ok," I said back, completely shocked.
"Would you be available next week sometime for an interview?"
"Uhhh...yes, I think I can make that work."
"Great! How does Thursday sound?"
"That will be just fine."
Now, there was more to the conversation. But I have included the important parts for the writing of this post. So I get a call on a Saturday afternoon and the following Thursday I drove to Holland, MI, from Big Rapids, MI (where my parents lived and where I headed after Detroit). I really didn't know what to expect and in all honesty I really hate interviews. I was nervous, but felt like I had so little invested in this so far that I figured what is there to lose? I prayed a lot on that drive, asking that God make His plan clear. I hung my head high and went into that interview trying to be myself. I met with the search team, consisting of 5 people. We sat around a circle table and I drank ice water and munched on a chocolate chip cookie. It was one of the more laid back interviews I had ever done. And it seemed to go very well. It was all over in probably just over an hour, but I admit that I wasn't really keeping track of time. I headed for home with a very positive feeling about the night. I remember calling my dad, during the drive, and telling him how I thought it went well. I happened to stop at my Grandma's on the way back and ended up staying the night there because it was already late at night and I was emotionally exhausted. In a totally unplanned change of weekend plans, I would spend the rest of the weekend with my Grandma and cousins at their cottage on Silver Lake, in Mears, MI. That next Saturday (two days after the interview) I was enjoying the Apple Fest with my cousins when my phone rang. It was a representative from TRC calling me with the results of the interview. I figured that the speed of the reply meant a big "NOT GONNA HAPPEN!" But, to my surprise, they wished to extend a call to me as their next Youth Director. I was beside myself. I could feel the excitement take hold of my entire body. I could barely respond to the person on the other end of the phone. I wanted to blast off from the bench I was sitting on. I wanted to scream, shout, and make a big scene for the locals. But I resisted and centered myself once again on the conversation at hand. We talked some logistical details and he asked when I could start? I probably should have responded with something like: "Well, I'll need a little time to get everything ready and find a place to live (and catch my breath from the shock of this whole process...but I didn't tell him that)." Instead, I replied with a: "I can start as soon as possible." And that I did. The following Tuesday I was in Holland, MI, meeting the staff, checking out my new office (I HAD AN OFFICE!), and eating lunch with one of the elders. The entire thing was a whirlwind experience. That is the only way I can describe it to people. In a matter of 10 days my life was completely never going to be the same again.
That was the providence of God. That was God shaping my future. That was God revealing His plan for my life...at this stage in time. And I could not have been more excited to get rolling.
That first Tuesday was Sept. 18, 2007. And my life has never looked the same since. I hit the ground sprinting, or rather galluping (if this was something a human could do). I headed in with a huge passion for God and with many ideals swirling around my head. I was ready for whatever the enemy could throw at me. How naive I was! And how humbled God has insisted I become.
Growing up a PK (or Pastor's Kid) meant that I knew what I was getting myself into. I had left my dad's church just over a year before, because of the frustration with the church. I wasn't the rebellious pastor's kid that you probably have heard talked about before. I always tried to respect my parents and knew what God had called my dad into. It was nothing my father had done at the church he pastored at that had caused me to leave, but everything about what the church had done and was doing. I had gained this passion for God's Word during the latter part of my high school years and into my first year of college. And everything I read about seemed to be so contradicted with what I saw each Sunday morning. I was confused about how things had gotten to be where they were. All I saw was tradition and structure and plans and people going through the motions in their faith. I never read about that from the extremely passionate in the Bible. In fact, the extremely passionate seemed set against those of the day who maybe were "going through the motions." I saw Jesus intentionally coming against the "going through the motions" of His day. And it seemed to me that I was surrounded by my own brood of vipers. I couldn't help but make comparisons between the "Christians" in my church and the Pharisees so pointedly talked about during Jesus' ministry. It seemed my passions and the traditions of my church home were uno-mon-uno about to battle it out. The passions God gave me won out. And I walked away from my father's church after 8 years. I headed out in search of some passionate followers like myself.
I found some of these passionate followers at the summer camp I worked for that very summer. For the first time in my life I was experiencing unhindered worship. And I was meeting with people my own age who seemed to love God with all of their heart, soul, and mind. And who wanted to be used by God that summer in the lives of thousands of kids who only God would know all the names of. It was an incredible summer of fellowship-healing for me. And the worship we entered into together on Sunday nights is to this day a bar I have yet to see again.
If I look back on all the steps in my past, I can see God holding the map that He Himself made. I know He has a purpose for me. That He wants to use me in His church. I know that God is moving and breathing life into His once-dead Bride. A Bride who has so expended herself on others that there is little to nothing left for her Groom. I know that God is in control. And that everything happens in His timing. I know that He sent His Son into the world to bring restoration to a broken order, a broken human race. I know that He is about restoration. And I know that He is not content with where His church is right now. I cannot hold back any longer that we should not be content with where His church is right now.
Some days are really hard working for that church. I still can't believe that I am actually working for the church. There is a long road ahead. And I don't know what the journey will look like. I just know that He has given me a stirring. He is stirring my heart for this restoration to take place all over the North American church. A focus-shift needs to sweep across this country and world. We need to stop seeing church as the focus of our efforts. We need to stop being obsessed with the functions of the church. We need to let go. And we need to return. Return to the place where God is the focus. Where being in relationship with Him is all that matters to us. Return to a meeting together with other Christians that draws its very existence from our love and passion for God. This is the stirring God has put inside me. And this is the stirring that I've squelched for the past few months in favor of helping to do church. But the stirring is growing. I can't hold it back any more...
My dad asked me the other day a question. A question that has helped to change the way I look at my ministry. He simply asked me: "What is it really about?" WHAT? That's it? The it represents a lot in my life. The it is everything I'm doing. The it is everything I feel God has put before me. The it is my ministry to the church. So what is it really about? Why am I here? What am I doing? Why do I work 12-hour days? Why do I sit in my office for hours on end? Why do I plan? Why do I have very little time for a personal life outside of the church? These are some of the questions that have crowded the waiting room in my brain. These are the questions that are starting to reignite a stirring within me that has been dormant for too long.
Each time someone asks me to share my testimony, and I get to the most recent part about God calling me to TRC, all these feelings of God's active providence begin to surface again. I need the reminder. It's nice to have the reminder. Because God did call me to TRC. He made it clear this is where I am supposed to be.
It was a Saturday afternoon last year in September that would alter my life forever. I was visiting some friends back in the Detroit, MI, area. I was at my friend Mike's house and I was just chillin' in his room. My cell phone rings and the screen shows as a (616) number. I knew that was the area code for West Michigan, but I didn't recognize the number. I answered the phone and heard a female's voice come over the speaker into my ear.
"Hello, is this Kevin," the voice asked?
"Yes, this is Kevin," I said back, still a little confused about the call.
"My name is Barb and I am from TRC in Holland, MI. We would like to talk to you about a youth director opening we have."
"Ok," I said back, completely shocked.
"Would you be available next week sometime for an interview?"
"Uhhh...yes, I think I can make that work."
"Great! How does Thursday sound?"
"That will be just fine."
Now, there was more to the conversation. But I have included the important parts for the writing of this post. So I get a call on a Saturday afternoon and the following Thursday I drove to Holland, MI, from Big Rapids, MI (where my parents lived and where I headed after Detroit). I really didn't know what to expect and in all honesty I really hate interviews. I was nervous, but felt like I had so little invested in this so far that I figured what is there to lose? I prayed a lot on that drive, asking that God make His plan clear. I hung my head high and went into that interview trying to be myself. I met with the search team, consisting of 5 people. We sat around a circle table and I drank ice water and munched on a chocolate chip cookie. It was one of the more laid back interviews I had ever done. And it seemed to go very well. It was all over in probably just over an hour, but I admit that I wasn't really keeping track of time. I headed for home with a very positive feeling about the night. I remember calling my dad, during the drive, and telling him how I thought it went well. I happened to stop at my Grandma's on the way back and ended up staying the night there because it was already late at night and I was emotionally exhausted. In a totally unplanned change of weekend plans, I would spend the rest of the weekend with my Grandma and cousins at their cottage on Silver Lake, in Mears, MI. That next Saturday (two days after the interview) I was enjoying the Apple Fest with my cousins when my phone rang. It was a representative from TRC calling me with the results of the interview. I figured that the speed of the reply meant a big "NOT GONNA HAPPEN!" But, to my surprise, they wished to extend a call to me as their next Youth Director. I was beside myself. I could feel the excitement take hold of my entire body. I could barely respond to the person on the other end of the phone. I wanted to blast off from the bench I was sitting on. I wanted to scream, shout, and make a big scene for the locals. But I resisted and centered myself once again on the conversation at hand. We talked some logistical details and he asked when I could start? I probably should have responded with something like: "Well, I'll need a little time to get everything ready and find a place to live (and catch my breath from the shock of this whole process...but I didn't tell him that)." Instead, I replied with a: "I can start as soon as possible." And that I did. The following Tuesday I was in Holland, MI, meeting the staff, checking out my new office (I HAD AN OFFICE!), and eating lunch with one of the elders. The entire thing was a whirlwind experience. That is the only way I can describe it to people. In a matter of 10 days my life was completely never going to be the same again.
That was the providence of God. That was God shaping my future. That was God revealing His plan for my life...at this stage in time. And I could not have been more excited to get rolling.
That first Tuesday was Sept. 18, 2007. And my life has never looked the same since. I hit the ground sprinting, or rather galluping (if this was something a human could do). I headed in with a huge passion for God and with many ideals swirling around my head. I was ready for whatever the enemy could throw at me. How naive I was! And how humbled God has insisted I become.
Growing up a PK (or Pastor's Kid) meant that I knew what I was getting myself into. I had left my dad's church just over a year before, because of the frustration with the church. I wasn't the rebellious pastor's kid that you probably have heard talked about before. I always tried to respect my parents and knew what God had called my dad into. It was nothing my father had done at the church he pastored at that had caused me to leave, but everything about what the church had done and was doing. I had gained this passion for God's Word during the latter part of my high school years and into my first year of college. And everything I read about seemed to be so contradicted with what I saw each Sunday morning. I was confused about how things had gotten to be where they were. All I saw was tradition and structure and plans and people going through the motions in their faith. I never read about that from the extremely passionate in the Bible. In fact, the extremely passionate seemed set against those of the day who maybe were "going through the motions." I saw Jesus intentionally coming against the "going through the motions" of His day. And it seemed to me that I was surrounded by my own brood of vipers. I couldn't help but make comparisons between the "Christians" in my church and the Pharisees so pointedly talked about during Jesus' ministry. It seemed my passions and the traditions of my church home were uno-mon-uno about to battle it out. The passions God gave me won out. And I walked away from my father's church after 8 years. I headed out in search of some passionate followers like myself.
I found some of these passionate followers at the summer camp I worked for that very summer. For the first time in my life I was experiencing unhindered worship. And I was meeting with people my own age who seemed to love God with all of their heart, soul, and mind. And who wanted to be used by God that summer in the lives of thousands of kids who only God would know all the names of. It was an incredible summer of fellowship-healing for me. And the worship we entered into together on Sunday nights is to this day a bar I have yet to see again.
If I look back on all the steps in my past, I can see God holding the map that He Himself made. I know He has a purpose for me. That He wants to use me in His church. I know that God is moving and breathing life into His once-dead Bride. A Bride who has so expended herself on others that there is little to nothing left for her Groom. I know that God is in control. And that everything happens in His timing. I know that He sent His Son into the world to bring restoration to a broken order, a broken human race. I know that He is about restoration. And I know that He is not content with where His church is right now. I cannot hold back any longer that we should not be content with where His church is right now.
Some days are really hard working for that church. I still can't believe that I am actually working for the church. There is a long road ahead. And I don't know what the journey will look like. I just know that He has given me a stirring. He is stirring my heart for this restoration to take place all over the North American church. A focus-shift needs to sweep across this country and world. We need to stop seeing church as the focus of our efforts. We need to stop being obsessed with the functions of the church. We need to let go. And we need to return. Return to the place where God is the focus. Where being in relationship with Him is all that matters to us. Return to a meeting together with other Christians that draws its very existence from our love and passion for God. This is the stirring God has put inside me. And this is the stirring that I've squelched for the past few months in favor of helping to do church. But the stirring is growing. I can't hold it back any more...
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