Part 3 - Mega church Mega problems
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The beautiful thing about depending on the sovereign hand of God is that we can disagree on Ecclesiology while thanking God for those under his hand who seek to serve him. It’s easy to preach about a sovereign King and Savior, but the rubber meets the road when we are asked to submit to the pain around us. We were in God’s hand this entire time. He chose not to fix that church while choosing to grow us through it all.
Super long... sorry not sorry.
2. CALLINGS AND VOCATIONS?
“Insert record scratch noise here” Okay, so sorry to leave you hanging, but the rest of the story is void of understanding without some history on Julia and myself. I know because I was about 18,000 words into the creation of this book, and I had to back up here to add appropriate context. Let’s head back to 2009 together, shall we? I need to introduce you to a much younger version of Dave and Julia.
I was able to take some seasonal work as a lawn care technician at TruGreen while I looked for a decent job opportunity. I was able to start relatively quickly after being laid off. TruGreen was great work; running aerators, spraying weeds, spreading fertilizer, and overall just making lawns visibly better than they had been. I loved that job. Well, I actually hated the office environment, and my boss wasn’t a huge fan of mine. He was a great guy but seemed to enjoy humiliating and torturing me, but the work itself was great. One such instance of humiliating torture was in early spring when I was out hitting the aerations pretty hard. I finished my route for the day before lunch and called in for some more work. The office sent me a few more addresses, and everything was going great. Somedays, your aerator won’t start, or you can’t get it to roll up on your trailer, or the lawns are terrible, or any number of issues that can slow you down and severely impact your ability to make good time lawn to lawn. This day everything was going amazingly. There were no truck issues and no equipment issues. The air was slightly warm with a gentle cool breeze. I was working hard and sweating but not drenched. The laborers reading this know what I’m describing. I was energized, and I was making a great time. I finished the additional work they gave me quickly, and I called into the office a total of three additional times, each time getting dispatch to give me more work. All that, and still made it back to the shop by 2:30 that afternoon. We were paid by the hour, so I thought I was making my company some serious money by getting ahead of the aeration schedule and basically doing so on my dime. I was glad to be contributing. When I arrived at the office, my boss was standing there with a scowl on his face. “Hiya boss,” I said in a most cheery voice, trying to thwart his scowl game. After all, how could he be so grumpy with such a great employee like me? “Clock out and go home. Don’t come back till Monday.,” he barked. This was a Wednesday, mind you. “Excuse me? Did I do something wrong?” “Yeah, idiot. You burned up all the aeration work for the next two days, and I better not find out you were out there ghosting lawns!” Ghosting a lawn is pulling up and billing the customer without doing any actual work. Fortunately, I had just poked about 400,000 holes all across East Chicago, and my legacy was laying around in hundreds of goose poo-shaped dirt clods all over dozens of Chicago postage stamp lawns. The boss man just did not like me, and there was no explaining it, so I determined to put on a happy face, be grateful for my work, and I learned that day not to apply myself and ask for more work; at least not from that guy.
I loved seeing my customers’ lawns improve over time. I always tried to make a very distinct line between properties using weed control and fertilizer so that my customers’ lawns stood out as the greenest and healthiest lawns on the block. One of the things that I was most thrilled about with TruGreen, regardless of my relationship with my hiring manager was that I had a job there the same week I had been let go from the church. I was so grateful to have had the work so quickly after freaking out for a few minutes the day I was let go with a very small severance. If memory serves me correctly, I believe I landed the interview for that job before I ever left the old courthouse turned church office building. I reached out to my friend, Fil, (Yes, it is spelled F I L, and he would often introduce himself and say, “Hello, I’m Fil, F.I.L., Fil.”) He set me up with an interview and let me know I just needed to complete the application prior to coming in for my interview. They were looking for warm bodies that could pass a drug test and driver screening. As luck would have it, I was just such a person. The entry-level work was actually a pay increase from my work at the church, and while I was pretty bummed to have been let go, it was great to see God working and providing for us as a young couple. I remember taking credit for not being out of work for more than a few days in my naive state. I remember making statements like, “There’s always work if you’re willing to work.” Never stopping to realize that that providential hand of the Lord was on me, caring for me and watching over Julia and myself. Today, as I look back almost a dozen years, I am more grateful that He has let me see His hand in those helps than for the helps themselves. Confidence in my ability to care for my family will last about as long as my savings or health. Neither one has a particularly great guarantee. Confidence in the Lord doesn’t even blink at the grave. It transcends health, jobs, financial stability, and even marriages.
As the lawn care season drew closer to an end, BMO Harris Bank was hiring, and I was glad to jump at the opportunity. After a few interviews, I was in and acting as the newest personal banker in Dyer, Indiana. I left the appropriate two-week notice at TruGreen, and on my way out, I thanked my manager for hiring me when I needed work. As he collected my Nextel walkie-talkie phone, he looked me dead in the eye, scowling and said, “Don’t ever ask me for a job again.” I smiled back, and I let him know I never would. I turned and walked out, praying I hadn’t just burned a bridge I might need in the future.
Working at BMO was a great opportunity. Deb and Jatinder, my managers, were incredible. The teller line was made up of some of the best folks I have ever met. My job was to sit at the desk in the corner office and talk to folks about their overdraft fees. I would open and close accounts, make referrals to our mortgage and wealth partners, and handle any overall difficulties that couldn’t be handled at the teller line. I would also handle things that the tellers absolutely could handle but wanted me to convert to a new account or wealth referral so they could keep their “referral to banker” numbers up. It was basically a sales job, and I was fairly ok at it.
I was about one year into this new role, and who do you think calls? What’s the blackberry version of “brrrriiiing?” Anyway, my phone rang, and it was the college that I attended, … that was run by the church that I worked at … that laid me off … which, of course, we still attended three times a week. No blood, no foul, right? Anyway, they wanted me to come back. The Pastor mentioned earlier had started a scholarship program that would reward freshman and sophomores by allowing them to attend school “free” or “tuition deferred” for their first two years and would then forgive that loan if they graduated in four years. As the student body would now largely be on-campus after the last class at 1 pm, as opposed to the former model where the majority of students would race off to work after the 1 pm bell.
They needed Julia and me to return. I was to be the campus Pastor, and Julia would be doing various things to assist in student life. Honestly, this sounded like my dream job! I desperately wanted to be back in full-time ministry, but I knew in my gut that this was the wrong move for us. Add to this, my current value structure was still pretty screwed up, and I needed this validation. I told the academic vice president of the college plainly that I wasn’t about to be “fooled twice,” as they say. I also mentioned that the bank I worked for had spent significant time and money training me, and I didn’t feel as though I could leave them without actually hurting the testimony of the school in that town. He agreed, and while disappointed, seemed to understand, or at least I thought he did—the dean of students called next, assuring me that I was the only one for the job. While I had a little difficulty understanding how this entire program rested on the throw-away couple, I gave him the same rebuttals, and again, I thought that we had an understanding. Apparently not. The next call was from the church. The lead pastor wanted to see us in his office after the next service. All I kept thinking was, “If we are really so valuable and so indispensable, why was I so flippantly let go the first time around?”
Anyway, Sunday rolled around, and there we sat, Julia and I, uncomfortably low on his counseling sofa. Why was this sofa so low? He wasn’t tall. Why was he so much higher than us? Why was this sofa so stinking low? Didn’t he realize that some people might fall into a psychological trap seated so much lower than he was? The thoughts raced with my inability to get a comfortable eye-to-eye posture on this awful sofa. His chair was too close for me to prop up on the edge of the cushion, and if I sat back, I dropped a good four more inches! I truly was quite naïve in feeling like this might have been an oversight on his part or his office staff’s part.
He was concerned that I had now turned the job down on multiple occasions and wanted to know what the problem was. Again, I recited my well-thought rebuttals, and I waited for him to nod in agreement, pray for our future, and wish us well. After all, I was looking out for his testimony, right? Now, it was well known throughout the ministries that this guy had a penetrating gaze that could bring a grown man to tears. He stared deep into my soul with a penetrating presence that he had absolutely mastered. The rumors hadn’t been that exaggerated, this guy was good for sure, but I also pride myself in being able to go eye to eye with the most intimidating negotiators out there. I didn’t waver a millimeter, and he didn’t blink. We matched gaze for what felt like an eternity. His towering form sat several inches taller than us as we sank even deeper into this terrible sofa. I was fighting him on two fronts; I had to keep my psychological self from falling in confidence as I sunk beneath him in that cussed couch, and I also had to match his gaze and show him that he was looking at a man, not some whiny baby that he could make cry by being stern. After a long and very intense few moments, he said in his most dramatic deep preacher voice, “Well, I guess if you’re not man enough to quit a job that pays more, then you’re not the right man for this job.”
Whaaaaaat was happening? In hindsight, I was being manipulated for the first time I could remember, and I had no clue it was happening! I fell for that one hook, line, and sinker. I wanted to serve God. I wanted to be in full-time ministry. My dad is a pastor, and I wanted to be a pastor. I had two, not one, but two Bible college degrees FROM THE COLLEGE OF WHICH THIS GUY WAS CHANCELLOR! I was trying to lead my family, and apparently, I was completely off base, and now my masculinity and financial priorities were in question? I. Was. So. Conflicted. I knew in my heart that this decision was wrong, but I had sought a “multitude of counselors,” and they all wanted me to come work for them. A day later, I accepted the role with a caveat that I would give my current employer 30 days to find and onboard a new banker.
The first week back at the college was just a little different than we expected. We were informed that we would fill our time prior to the semester, starting by traveling the northeast as recruiters and meeting with youth groups and prospective students. That actually sounded pretty fun. We then met with the academic vice president, who walked us over to a rather disgusting 3,000 square foot house that desperately needed repair. This was to be the campus house. It would be fully remodeled, and Julia and I would live here. Our pay was said to be commensurate with being given housing. That’s code for $21,000 a year for us as a couple. There would be a few dozen board games and a few TVs with Xboxes. We could have a weekly men’s night and then ladies' night opening up the home to the student body so that they could be around a young married couple in a home environment. This made perfect sense to leadership as Julia, and I were key players in a Service member’s ministry and would often have Sailors at our home for the weekend who came to church with us on Sunday. “Great house,” I mentioned. “Who is doing the remodel?” The VP just looked at me and chuckled. “Well, you are, of course.” Unbelievable. You see, I had served with the maintenance crew while on student staff, repairing walls and doing mostly painting. Apparently, I had earned quite the reputation, and the college just assumed that I would be capable of fully renovating a massive house with multiple issues. “What about recruiting?” I asked. We were supposed to be on the road for 5 days to weeks at a time promoting this new “free” tuition program. The VP, a Vietnam Veteran Marine, shrugged and assured me that I would figure it out. No problem, we will simply drive all over Wisconsin and Michigan, recruiting high-school kids while we remodel this house. Got it.
Long story, but that is essentially what we did. We helped to fully remodel that house while also making weekly trips to churches throughout Indiana and Michigan to recruit students for the upcoming fall semester. We had been given a VERY small budget to remodel the entire interior of that home. Another ministry worker was tasked with the exterior, but of course, things got tight, and that guy was sent to do last-minute repairs to the dormitory. So it was down to the wire and there was my bride, my pride and joy, up on the roof, auburn hair blazing in the sun, throwing shingles while I nailed them in place to dry the house in before a massive rain storm that was headed our way. Due to the grace of God and some old-fashioned hard work and ingenuity, Julia and I managed to demo all of the mold-ridden flooring and sheetrock in bathrooms and kitchen, redo all of the flooring in the entire house, add new kitchen cabinets, and get countertops done for about $10,000. Those of you familiar with remodels know that $10,000 is a decent cabinet budget, not a whole house budget. This was tough but a great introduction to doing great-looking work on a slim budget. The house was just about complete, and Julia and I were gearing up for our new roles as Campus Pastor. We ended our lease at our affordable little rental parsonage at the country church and had just moved into the campus house when the lead Pastor, with his intimidating eyes and powerful presence, was found out in deep sin just before that fall semester. The plot, as they say, began to thicken, and things began to make just a little bit of sense.
I need to insert a paragraph here for you, not because it fits the storyline, but it fits the chronology, and you need this bit of context for a little later on. My dear sweet wife had suffered multiple miscarriages by this time. Our hearts longed for a little baby to hold, and all that we had was an ultrasound photo under the cover of her Bible, a memory of a child that only lived about 13 weeks in her womb. I was seated at our dining room table in this house reading my Bible one morning and the Holy Spirit was very clear in impressing on me that I needed to thank him for taking our children. I was astounded, offended, and angry at him for putting that on my heart. I closed my Bible and rushed out the door to work, unsure how to process what I had just experienced. I almost didn’t want to read the next morning, but I had a new spot in this new house, and I was on a role reading, and I didn’t want to throw off my devotional streak and stop reading again as I had so many times in the past. I was reading the next day, and I was impressed the same way.
This scenario repeated itself for about a week. I knew what I had to do, but I knew I wasn’t ready yet. This was an attack on my wife. It was an affront to her emotions and to her empty womb. Tears welling up in my eyes, I walked the half flight of stairs in that bi-level home to the hall bath where Julia was doing her hair. “Honey,” I began to weep in front of her, “I’m so sorry, this isn’t fair, but I’m supposed to thank God for taking our kids.” She began to cry as well. “I’m so sorry, honey, I continued. I’m not ready, but I needed to tell you.” As she sobbed, a faint “me too” peeped out from her tear-soaked lips. She whispered, “I know I’m supposed to, but I don’t think I can.” We hugged and held each other for a few moments. We were both confused and had both felt as though we were betraying the other with this morbid message we were listening to and trying to obey. We agreed to let the other know when we were ready to thank him, and we promised not to rush it, all the while apologizing to each other for this apparent betrayal of one another’s emotions. The Father worked on our hearts in that season, and eventually, we were able to come together and admit that we had been able to do the unthinkable and thank the Lord for his cruelty in taking our kids.
I want this to disturb you. It is cruel and unkind, and it makes no sense. It was incredibly hurtful, but the process was also a salve to our aching hearts and Julia’s still barren womb. In this moment, we were childless, we were hurt, we were unwanted in ministry, and we were being taught to be grateful. God was putting His Sovereignty on display for a couple who had never had to come face to face with the concept. I know that this is an odd little paragraph in the middle of a story, but I want you to let it punctuate the narrative of your heart as it accosted the flow of our lives. ~Selah
As you may have surmised, that ministry was not particularly healthy, and that characterization may be the understatement of the century. The ministry was centered on and built around the Pastor’s and his predecessor’s personalities and dynamic preaching styles. He and his predecessor, father-in-law, had been the driving force behind enrollment at the Bible College, the private school for the church kids, and the private school targeting the inner-city kids that were bussed into the church every Sunday by energetic college kids. When it came to light that he was eventually headed to prison due to crimes committed while he was serving as a pastor, enrollment for the college absolutely tanked. It was obvious to Julia and me that we would be laid off yet again. In preparation for that move, having just completed a massive remodel, we began to get excited about the prospect of buying a house that needed a little work and making it our own. As we had just left our long-term, very affordable rental in order to fix and flip the campus house, we approached the pastor presiding over business affairs, and we asked if we could have six additional months in the home. Given the impending job change, this would give us time to save for a down payment and show sufficient employment history for a mortgage loan. Pastor Brent agreed, and we started planning for our move.
Fortunately, the Lord provided work at BMO Harris Bank again by allowing my old position to reopen the same week that we had been let go. A month or so down the road, a new pastor was brought in to candidate and was quickly accepted as the new Lead Pastor. Quite cordially, actually, we were asked if we might consider moving to some off-campus apartment-style housing so that the new incoming pastor could have a few weeks to find a home and get settled. We were very happy to oblige the new pastor and his family. We boxed up some essentials, put the rest of our things in the garage, left the kitchen fully furnished with all of our dishes, pots, and pans for them to use. The new pastor and family moved into that house just a few weeks later.
This is where it got a bit convoluted. You see, a few weeks after the originally planned date for them to leave that property, my wife reached out to the Pastor’s wife to see if we could come by the garage and grab a few essentials that we desperately needed. Innocently the new Pastor’s wife said to Julia, “Wait, do you all live here?” It was then that the pieces began to come together. The incoming Pastor had not been told that we were recently separated from the ministry. He had not been told that we were currently living in that home as a transitionary move. He had not been told that we would like to meet with him to discuss whether or not we would stay at that church or move on entirely. He had been led to believe that the house was vacant for such a purpose as this and that the former tenants (us) just had quite a few personal belongings in the garage that would be cleared out shortly. It was during this time that we learned that the new Pastor’s stay would not be a few weeks but rather a few months. A house had been purchased and was now being remodeled for them. We weren’t really upset about the off-campus housing. True, it would have been nicer to stay in the lovely home that we had remodeled, but we knew we were getting a deal to transition well and save for a down payment. This also made the decision of whether or not to stay at that church quite evident. The new pastor was truly a great guy, but the ministry was far too unhealthy and had a culture of using and abusing people. My only regret was that I didn’t truly grasp the depth of that abuse until my family was the object thereof. The kicker came when the college financial office reached out and asked us to pay up or get out. Wait, what? No worries. Pastor Brent had my back. He had made the deal; he knew we had remodeled, added a massive equity bump to the church real estate portfolio, and then conceded the house to the new pastor. I was sure that he would happily explain the whole mess to the financial office, and we would be ok. Right? Wrong. Brent’s phone rang, but Brent never picked up. Brent never even called back. He had granted us permission to stay, and the financial office was kicking us out. We needed to find a place to live NOW. We started a frantic search, and the Lord showed us a lovely Cape Cod-style home right in our price range in Merrillville, Indiana. The price was right, so it didn’t matter that there was drywall missing from the ceiling on the first floor or that the bathrooms smelled … tangy, or that the bathroom floor upstairs was a bit squishy and bouncy. We had seen worse, and we weren’t scared.
*Names in this section were changed to protect those who may be living in a spirit of repentance and forgiveness. I have not written these things to criticize a local church and ministry, but rather to show God’s faithfulness to my wife and me through that time. People run Churches, and people can tend to show their humanity from time to time. I can say that by God’s grace, I have been able to let go of feelings of hurt and bitterness when they arise.
I also need to add a quick note here to honor the incoming Pastor that was moved into the ministry home that we had been occupying. When he eventually became aware of the events as they were, long after we had vacated, he invited me to breakfast. Over some eggs and coffee, he apologized profusely and actually wrote Julia and me a personal check for “rent” during the time that we were displaced from the home. He was incredibly gracious and apologetic.
The beautiful thing about depending on the sovereign hand of God is that we can disagree on Ecclesiology while thanking God for those under his hand who seek to serve him. It’s easy to preach about a sovereign King and Savior, but the rubber meets the road when we are asked to submit to the pain around us. We were in God’s hand this entire time. He chose not to fix that church while choosing to grow us through it all.
This is about the time that we visited and started attending a great little church in Cedar Lake. The pastor there was a very humble man who was on his own path of discovery in an effort to distance himself from the big church downtown, whose pastor was now in the big house uptown. He had also graduated from the same college that my wife and I had graduated from and led his church out of an ultra-fundamentalist style of worship. He was on a journey leading his church into a more balanced approach that honored people from all cultures, elevated women, took a humble approach to things not clearly stated in scripture and decided to major in things that the scriptures emphasized. He clearly stated where his church was to us and where he wanted to take it. He said it was going to be a bumpy ride but that he would love to have us along for it. We agreed and became great friends with Arlyn and Michelle. Pastor Arlyn eventually ended up in what could be described as a non-denomination framework with a Baptist emphasis. We would eventually become more specific again in our worship and practice, but as we came out of a harmful fundamentalist background, Arlyn’s preaching style and humble approach to his people was a refreshing change. We became heavily involved in that church, helping with music and even serving the teenagers after the Youth Pastor left due to differences with Arlyn’s new direction. That youth pastor left well, and I eventually pointed him to a church body that had lost their pastor and was looking for just such a family as his to come and serve.
We were enjoying our new church. I was doing well at my job at the bank, and we were slowly but surely fixing up our little Cape Cod home. Despite things going well, this was one of the darkest times in my life. All that I wanted was to serve God in “full-time ministry.” I had been taught from a young age that full-time ministry and only full-time ministry could be the pinnacle of one’s life. The very idea was ingrained in my being. Aside from the social pressures surrounding my vocation, I also felt a strong calling from a very young age to do ministry. I thought I simply had to choose between Pastor or Missionary, but those were definitely the only two choices. I was fairly certain that missions weren’t for me. I had majored in Pastoral Theology during my bachelor's program, my dad was a Pastor, and I felt that I should be doing the same. I felt as though either I had failed, or God simply didn’t want me. My theology was gaining some balance, but my value framework was still pretty messed up. I had worked in ministry now three times; once in college as student staff, then again as a married student but laid off, and then again as campus pastor and laid off again. I wasn’t angry at God for the failures; I just assumed I wasn’t usable. To complicate my inferiority complex, during our transition from the campus job, my wife suffered yet another miscarriage. I was helpless to fix this. There was nothing in my power that I could do to ease her pain. All of these melded together and became extremely hard to cope with, and I wasn’t coping well. When I’m upset, I get quiet, and that’s about the worst thing that I could have done to my sweet wife. You know I don’t love socializing, but my family is different. I’m almost normal around them, but during this time, I was quiet for weeks. Conversations were difficult. Everything was difficult. I wasn’t doing well, and I didn’t know how to make the light come back. My whole world was dark and cold, and sometimes that felt good. I just wanted to either be hired as an assistant pastor or shut everyone out and never speak again. I don’t know if I was clinically depressed or not, but ever since that time, I ache for those who suffer from depression. What they describe sounds unbearable but for the Grace of God.
In my darkness, though somehow I didn’t become cold or bitter to the Father. I look back at how many of my close friends completely left everything to do with Christianity during this time or due to similar circumstances at other similar ministries. Somehow, not of ourselves, Julia and I didn’t develop a hatred for church or for God. Somehow, I knew he loved me even if he didn’t want to use me. When God teaches you a lesson, it tends to stick. God had taught me that he loved me, and I didn’t dare doubt him.
That lesson goes back to my college days. It was a particularly difficult Sunday morning walking to my car prior to 6 am to drive 83 miles to Great Lakes Naval Base. I was supposed to pick up sailors and bring them to church. There was no bus driver or no bus available. I don’t remember the circumstances, but there were also no college students to leave campus with me on this day. I had maybe 5 gallons of gas in my car and no money to fill up when I would eventually run out on the journey. I knew I had to go pick up a much older married student and now pastor, Larry Aaron, and drive to the base. I was exhausted after making the same trip the day before and putting in over 18 hours with the ministry. I was a terrible student, and school was going poorly. Not that I had a choice with being able to study more as I was working 40 hours on top of my 18 credit load with 30 – 35 hours given to ministry every weekend. Nothing was working out, and it all seemed to be coming to a head that crisp Sunday morning. You won’t believe it after reading this book, but I’m not much of a crier. Cut me some slack; this is a highlight reel of God’s goodness, okay? Tears were streaming down my face as I walked out to the student parking lot that morning. In bitterness and selfishness, I looked up and asked God sincerely, “Do you hate me?” No sooner had the words left my mouth that I fell as my knees buckled there where the sidewalk ended and the parking lot began. I felt the Lord’s correction as though he flicked me in my heart like a mom might flick the back of a misbehaving child’s ear. How dare I make such as assertion! I was overcome in that moment by the overwhelming suffocating love of God. He did not hate me. On the contrary, he was helping me, and he was walking with me. I stayed there on my knees, blacktop biting into my skin and just let the love of God flow over me. I repented for my words and for my ungrateful heart. My car still only had 5 gallons of gas, and I was still beyond exhausted, but none of that mattered. I was loved by God, and God saw me there in my moment of grief, and he heard me. For now, that was enough. I started my route and picked up Larry, one of the most positive and joyful men you ever want to meet. As he folded himself into my itty bitty two-door Hyundai Accent, he greeted me with a great big smile, and as he was saying good morning, he immediately eyeballed my fuel gauge. “Let’s go get some gas, Dave.” Ever the self-sufficient man, I replied, “No, I’ll be fine, Sir.” As though I thought God was going to reenact the jar of oil miracle in my five-speed hatchback. “Son,” he said with some authority this time, “Pull the car over so I can put some gas in it.” I can’t type it now without feeling the emotion of that day. I tried to hide my tears as I pulled up to the pump, and Larry proceeded to fill my tank and “click, click, click” top it off until it couldn’t hold another drop. God let me know that he saw me that day, and I now walk through life in the grace of knowing that we serve a God who
Psalm 120:1
In my distress I cried unto the Lord, And he heard me.
Psalm 66:16-20
16. Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for my soul.
17. I cried to him with my mouth, and high praise was on my tongue.
18. If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.
19. But truly God has listened; he has attended to the voice of my prayer.
20. Blessed be God, because he has not rejected my prayer or removed his steadfast love from me!
Hebrews 4:14-16
14 Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Working as a banker and serving as a youth pastor, I was in a bad place. Objectively, I knew God saw me, and though I felt like my prayers were bouncing off the ceiling, I knew in my mind that God had heard me. Even when I wasn’t hearing from him or feeling him, my mind was telling me that this was for my own good, even though my heartache slowly seemed to turn to numbness. In one of my darkest moments at the bottom of myself, I was watching YouTube. Okay, to be honest, watching YouTube is often a place I find myself, but on this occasion, I was specifically watching an interview with Jace Robertson of Duck Dynasty. I will butcher his quote, but while standing in a decorative fountain somewhere in his bib waders, he basically stated that it doesn’t matter what you do in life and that wherever you find yourself, that place becomes your platform for ministry.
Have you ever been waking up slowly enjoying the dark and cozy environment you find yourself in only to have some jerk cut on the light as though rapid pupil dilation was a myth or a physical impossibility? Spiritually, this was that moment for me. The lights came on, and I was writhing in pain and squinting to catch up to what was being exposed all around me. I was a youth pastor! I had wonderful kids in need of spiritual direction all around me. I was a banker, for crying out loud! People sat in front of me with their accounts open, overdraft fees and all, with nothing to hide, asking me if I could help them. I spoke to millionaires with terrible credit, families sending their kids to school, elderly folks unsure how to connect an account to pay a bill. People that needed help came to me every single day with nothing to hide. They were open to me, and they were asking me for help. God healed me in that moment. He used a bland, poorly filmed, and poorly situated video of a self-proclaimed redneck standing in a decorative fountain to completely overcome my darkness and bring me back to the light. What a wonderful day! It was like Jesus reached through the screen and said, “Son, receive your sight.”
SEO Type jargon. Move along ...
Hello, and welcome to my not a blog blog!
So, I wrote a book, and I want the message of that book to get out regardless of whether or not anyone buys a copy of the book. A blog, so I hear, is a great way to take advantage of SEO and make sure that people who WANT to find content that my book covers will have a clear path to it’s happy little home in the Amazon marketplace and should then be able to walk away with a hard copy, kindle version, or Audible copy of said book. To that end, I will be releasing sneak previews and portions to each chapter over the next several weeks.
Can I buy the book today? No, sorry. While it is completed, edited, and proofed, the audio version is currently being recorded by a guy with a much better voice than my own. I have no idea what I am doing in publishing, but I think I want to release it all at once.
How did you get your book on Amazon? Well, I am a brilliant author, but I also used Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) that allows me to manage and upload my own manuscript(s), audio, and artwork.
So what is the book about?
Sovereign and Gentle is a window into my happy little family for those of you who don’t know us as well as a deeper look for those who do. The book will even be informative to some of my closest friends, as I don’t talk about much of this content often.
The book opens with the prospect of either Julia or myself donating a Kidney, follows that painful journey, and then backtracks to cover some of our struggles with infertility, multiple miscarriages, foster care, and adoption. I even sprinkled in some real estate investing horror stories for you guys.
The story is framed by key passages from Scripture that have been especially meaningful to me, and the climax of the book seeks to honor and praise God, who has gifted us in all things to be able to serve him in and through our struggles.
Did I discuss the big church from college days that laid me off on multiple occasions and kicked us out of a house after the pastor went up the river? I did, and I don’t think I’m bitter… I think... I’m a work in progress there, but I hope that I framed that experience in such a manner that others who have been beaten up by institutions can find comfort in the one who is sovereign over all things and in His ultimate plan.
Can't wait to read the book Dave, I can relate to alot of what ur talking about in regards to coming out of that environment and having had to adjust spiritually.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the good words! Love you, man
DeleteCan't wait to read the book Dave, I can relate to alot of what ur talking about in regards to coming out of that environment and having had to adjust spiritually.
ReplyDelete-former Great Lakes sailor/sailor ministry worker.