Turn... Pt. 2

There's this thing about going on a missions trip, or going on vacation, or telling what you think is an amazing story (and getting blank stares 11 minutes in)... no one will identify with your experience the way you can. In fact it takes an amazing story, and an amazing storyteller to get and keep someones attention. Fact.

But since you're obviously here...

New parenthood, combined with a near-death experience puts a different lens onto the circumstance of life.  I had a trip planned less than a week after the accident to Des Moines, IA and didn't want to miss it.  The worst of my injury was a severely sprained ankle that couldn't take weight for days, but I bit the bullet and took a cane with me (through TSA security; that's a separate story).  Hope Lutheran needed lots of trained worship pastors and was considering starting their own school of worship - and wanted to talk to me about it!

Talking at length with their worship pastor Perry, I began to remember a dream from years back, the reason I went to school: to one day be the worship pastor at a church myself.  Watching him work with his team and craft fresh ways of demonstrating the gospel through song and elements in the service was inspiring to me.  As I flew home, now walking without the cane, I found myself thinking, "if not now, when?" as well as, "but where and HOW?"

When I got home something had shifted in me, and talking with Jo we decided to begin a period of directed prayer about the idea of transition along with many late night discussions to discover if we were on the same page.  Mostly, I tucked these things away in my heart - after all I was still working full time at the NLSW, and life was busy already with a two month-old!  Still, I also began to seek the wisdom (combined with coffee) of close friends.  My friend Gregg was excited for us but cautioned after working at many churches that he'd never again go somewhere in an absence of relationship.  Glenn quickly said something to the effect of "GO for it!"  Glenn is close friends with Aaron Stern, who had recently announced he was planting a church - and said "Wes, you know you should call Aaron, here's his number..."

I tucked that all away until I talked with my predecessor at the NLSW, Austin Pyle.  He had moved on from New Life in similar fashion and now was the worship pastor at Denver United.  As we talked, he encouraged me that church planting was the best thing he's ever done - and that it had even benefited his marriage!  I slowly began to better understand these lurking feeling in my heart - and he too said, "Wes, you have to call Aaron!"  Driving back from Castle Rock that day, I didn't know the end result, but I knew the next step...


The journey concludes in Part 3...

To Everything... Turn...

Everly was born on August 26th, 2011 at about 9:30am.  That was the first of several times over the following months things started to be "fishy."  Although your first guess, poop, would also be correct I'm talking about something else entirely.  In this quick little series, I want to tell you why where we are now is so dramatically different from this time a year ago.

In July, I wrote about the transition I was experiencing at New Life; I was licensed as a Pastor while simultaneously stepping back from directing the New Life School of Worship. The 10th year of the program began with a bang, Everly was weeks old, and life was suddenly different. Parenthood is a wonderful, glorious, ego-killing slap in the face. I'm not sure I was an adult beforehand.

Past readers know of my cycling adventures and enthusiasm. Fall was thickening, and the hours of daylight after work were waning. At the end of September I had purchased a head and taillight for my Bianchi road bike and embarked on my 2nd ever dusk/dark ride. Strobes ablaze I rode 16 miles, and 2 blocks from home was hit by a car.

You must understand, as shocking that sentence would be to someone who read it for the first time, I've been talking about it now for over 8 months.

A driver made a left-hand turn in of me - though I had the right of way - and I was rocketed over his car at roughly 25mph. I'm guessing as to the speed, but it was fast, my light was green, I was going downhill and was almost home. I remember thinking in the final .86 seconds that allowed normal thought, "I hope I'm OK for my family," and "I've had close calls, but this won't be one of them."

But then I was off the bike, hit the road... and I'll spare the blow by blow details. I'm alive. In short, it was all a miracle. No concussion or internal bleeding, and though I can't say I 'walked away' - from the ambulance or the hospital for that matter - I can tell you something changed in both Jo and I that night. If having a baby took away some of our ignorance about life, this took the rest.

I'm still recovering to a degree; I won't be the person I was before ever again. I regret that it happened - but now that it has I am thankful for the new awareness it brought. These were the "tickles" that began to propel us forward... toward what - we still had no idea.


The journey continues in Part 2...