Last week I was at a conference for church leaders. It is, to me, the best conference to attend for encouragement, challenge and focus on ministry. It’s called the Leadership Summit and garners the finest in church and business acumen for a two and a half day intensive relay of personal and professional information and insight. I look forward each year for this conference knowing I’ll come away with a renewed sense of purpose and direction.
As in previous years, I went to a satellite sight in Orange County, where the event has been held for years, as an extension to the live event happening in Chicago. Usually, the place is fairly full with attendees and I’m there with the other pastors from my church (about six to eight of us) and I could usually expect to run into a few colleagues from various churches and ministries from my past… Not this year.
Although, the place was the same the venue had changed making most of the usual crowd of about 600 seem extremely small and spread out in this church’s new auditorium which seats 3500. I sat up close in the less comfortable chairs while most everyone sat in the back where the more cushiony theater seats accommodated groups gathered as staff and ministry teams from other churches which only highlighted the fact that this year because no one else from our staff could attend I was going solo. After the first few minutest there two things occurred to me; first, I felt like I should walk around with a big L on my head for loser and second, I felt like I should pretty much keep to myself. Both of which I generally think anyway.
As the opening session began, I quickly started to sense my previous concerns were not God’s concerns and my solitude was really His doing. I sat, I listened, I wept, I took notes, I wept some more, I prayed. Session ended, break began and I just sat there. “God, what are you doing to me?” I asked.
At this time I think I should give you a little background info to put things in perspective…
You see, just that week I had resigned from my role as Celebration Arts Pastor at Southwest Community Church where I have served for the past twelve years. So, walking into that conference I was asking myself… “Dan, what are you doing to yourself?” The question was more to address the decisions that left me hanging out on a cliff requiring a jump because a retreat was no longer possible.
I’m constantly reminded of the last Indiana Jones movie, you know the one with Sean Connery as Indy’s father, where he is constantly trying to please his father by being a worthy son. Together they set out to find the Holy Grail. In this movie, Harrison Ford also finds himself on the edge of what appears to be a bottomless ravine and is being asked to take a leap of faith to get to the other side… because he’s Indiana Jones, of course he does and finds himself landing on a walkway that was completely camouflaged as the ravine. He walks to the other side, gets the grail, beats the bad guys, makes up with his father and life is lived happily ever after.
I want to be Indiana Jones.
The Bible tells us without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb.11:6). Faith… it is a combination of belief, hope and trust. One without the others has its own meaning. But faith is something special. I think it is why God keeps this one thing as key to the relationship we have with Him. I can believe in God, I can hope in God and I can even trust in God but until my understanding is met with my expectation and my reliance upon God am I willing to do something that makes no sense at all. Like, jump.
Lately, when people ask me how I’m doing. I just say, “I’m free falling.” I usually get funny looks from those who don’t know about my resignation and after explaining it to them they’ll ask. “So, what are you going to do?” in other words… “Where are you going to land?” Hmmmm, good question. I believe, I hope and I trust it’s something I can’t see but is just in front of me. And like Indiana Jones it gets me to the other side and like his father… Oh yeah, mine … He’s pleased.
