June 26, 2012

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...

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