Leaving the Plant to Plant Again,
Part 1: Was that a Call, or was I just Restless?
God allowed me to plant
Soteria (now Port Gardner Community) Church in March 2005. In quick succession
I left my role as the Executive Pastor of a large church, recruited the
college-career group, raised a healthy amount of money, aligned with Acts 29
and planted ten minutes away in downtown Everett, WA. Admittedly I had no idea
what I was doing. I read a book that year, 10 Church-Planting Landmines.
Looking back I’m surprised I even have legs to stand on; I proceeded to step on
all ten (and countless other) landmines.
I also came to think (in a
self-absorbed way) that perhaps the reason our Lord had me plant Soteria Church
was so He could do a transformative work in my own life. I countered by praying
for no one else to get hurt in the process. I could go on and on for decades
describing the sins I have subsequently repented of and the lessons learned.
In 2010 I found myself
restless. I wasn’t completely satisfied with the health or advancement of our church
and mission. Everett had become a hotbed for new church-plants, including several
Acts 29 plants. This included a Mars Hill campus established just blocks away
from our Sunday gathering space. We adopted a main thoroughfare, fed under-resourced
school kids and served our neighbors. I was coaching guys in the U.S. and
abroad. And I was restless.
But my restlessness came
with a certain level of guilt, and I felt guilty; guilty that I was placing my
own expectations in front of God’s priorities; guilty over whether or not I was
abandoning God’s call on my life to move on to something else, something “better;”
guilty that I wanted to leave this church because it was no longer easy or fun
or progressing on my timetable. And maybe all I wanted was the freedom of a do
over.
But if my own past is at
all instructive, this seems to be the way God prepares me for a transition; and
this comes with two indicators: 1) God does not let me rest until I follow, and
2) Deb is on board. I have learned, the hard way, several times over that if
Deb does not agree with me it usually means Deb and God are on the same page
and I’m the one going off the rails. And, if I’m honest in my own
self-assessment I see how God has caused me to be restless before I am willing
to hear His call; and this many times over.
Meanwhile, God put Alaska
on my heart. He put it on Deb’s heart too. We were not yet Alaskans. We are
native Californians. But, and probably by God’s doing we started to devour
everything Alaska. We found ourselves reading voraciously, and watching almost
all of those Alaska reality shows (of which there are perhaps too many.) And
this all made no sense to either of us.
But we believe God to be
sovereign, and we found ourselves increasingly open to His sovereign lead. And
at this point we knew we were again on the front end of transition. But to what
end?
