Since I was a teenager I have been serving at the church that my father founded. One of my first big responsibilities was to bring our 1980s-era video equipment into the 1990s. This meant navigating through the emerging technology of computer-based video editing and embracing the high resolution of S-VHS ... this wasn't just VHS it was Super-VHS with its 560x480 resolution!
Through the years my role has changed many times until my most recent position of both tech director and worship pastor. This was quite frankly a comfortable situation for me—maybe too comfortable. I felt like I was doing a fairly good job at leading our volunteers and staying current with the trends and technology changes in the church world. But then everything changed....
One day, about a year and a half ago, I felt God tell me that it was time to resign. Resign? I was supposed to resign the only employer that I have had for 18 years? Not to mention the family complexities that this would cause.
Now it would be one thing if God showed me a direction to pursue along with this challenge to resign my position, but He didn't. It was as if He pointed to a cliff and said, “Go jump off it.” I felt kind of like Abraham when God told him to go to a land that he would show him. No direction, just some obscure land that God would apparently show him sometime.
Realization
Although my wife and I had mixed feelings about the decision, we agreed that we should be obedient and prayed that God would open up the doors for us. I turned in my resignation and then sat and waited ... for nearly two months without having a clear direction or idea about what was next.
Through that time God began to work in my life and re-awaken a passion for the church and for reaching the lost. I began to realize that my home state of Connecticut is the eighth most irreligious state in the country and that God again wanted to do something amazing here in the birthplace of the Great Awakening. Slowly, God began to give me a vision for starting a new church.
This new vision both terrified and thrilled me. Who am I to lead a church? In fact, one church planting organization basically told me as much. But I could not ignore the vision any longer. I finally decided to take the leap of faith. I felt like I was sitting in the stanza in Robert Frost's great poem:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Fueled with support from the church where I previously worked, we launched Thrive Church in October of 2014. Fast-forward a little bit and now we have been meeting together for nearly four months and have around 100 regular attendees meeting in a bowling alley, of all places. It has not been an easy transition, but it has certainly been exciting.
Promise
One important lesson that I have learned through this process is that when God points you in a direction, you should follow. I hear stories from people all the time who felt that God was leading them in a direction, but they were never willing to actually step out of the boat. Step out of the boat! If it were easy, everyone would be doing it. Count on the fact that it will take faith to leave your comfort [zone] and move forward with what God is leading.
In Matthew 24:14 it says, “for many are called, but few are chosen.” Why aren't many chosen? Because all too often we feel God's call but we don't have the courage to step out and follow God. Don't let sin and bondage hold you back from doing what God has called you to do.
Is God calling you toward something today? Then allow yourself to be chosen by taking the leap of faith.
