The Beginnings of a Lay Ministry

Editors Note: This was written back in November but never made it to this blog.

The Beginning of a Lay Ministry
Wednesday, November 19, 2008 at 12:44am
Over the last two years I have been stuck in neutral. Not really moving forward in my spiritual life but not really moving back either. I have known for a long time that God has had a plan for me (like He has for all of us) but I have been trying to guide that plan, direct that plan, and look for that plan in the place I wanted to be. What I found during that effort is that was not what He had in mind. Earlier in the year my minister Mike told me that I had to get off of neutral and just plug in with service. Just plug in, get moving forward and God's direction would be revealed.
I did that, volunteering for the set up team for Remix a contemporary service on steroids. Rather than trying to choose the direction I was suppose to be going I just became submissive to God's will. Things started to become clearer and I felt like I was finally on track with the direction. Serving and working and still searching for that direction.
Challenges began to get in the way. For many of those who know me are aware that my small property management company ran into some serious financial challenges. Combine that with an extracted pitched battle with obtaining building permits, the downturn in the economy affecting my recruiting business, and health issues in my household, my direction quickly started being totally side tracked and led away. After months of depression, frustration, and severe unhappiness, I was at my wits end, only holding things together because my family and my staff needed me to do so. It was a challenge just to stay motivated enough to go to work each day and give an effort.

Finally , when I was almost completely broke down, one night at the Sunday service I became single mindedly focused on putting in a prayer request during the response time (we have a box up front in the auditorium that during the response time you can go and put prayer request in) for God to resolve my bank issue. You see, the bank that told us they would finance our two big projects withdrew from the process and put us in jeopardy of losing our properties. I had decided that when I went up I was going to ask God to help us get the loans from another bank.

When the time came I went to the front, got down at the stage, and began to write my request. I closed my eyes and said a prayer asking for God's help and then when I was finished opened my eyes and looked down at the paper. When I read the writing on the paper that was in my hand writing I had not written one word about the loan, our business, and the need for help. Instead the words on the paper said "Dear God, if it be your will, lead me into a lay ministry".

I was dumbfounded. For the last three hours all I had thought about was writing a prayer request for a loan. All I could think about was my selfish need of that project loan. But here, on the paper, in my hand, was this request. I was so rattled I hardly spoke to anyone during the tear down after the service except to tell Chad what had happened.

The next day, still rattled by this experience, an experience like no other I had ever had in my life, I went to work still wondering where this was all coming from. And then it hit me. There was an email from George the CFO of our church asking me if I would be interested in helping with advising some of the people in our church that were job hunting due to being unemployed or seriously underemployed.
With that email and that submission to God's direction, a new lay ministry was born.

Now after teaching the second of what is to become the first phase of a Career focused ministry (tonight), a class called Job Search Basics, it is very clear that the new lay ministry is to work with a variety of career related programs that can assist our church membership and community. We hope to develop a full on career/job centered program that will offer a wide array of career development initiatives, skills training, job search skills, resume writing training, building value in the workplace, and even possibly ad full on GED program for the community at large.

I am writing this in hopes that all of my friends pray for that there be guidance and direction with this ministry and my involvement. Also, as we develop the plan, I look forward to any suggestions or ideas that you may have that could add to the different types of programs and services we develop.

It is just a start, but that direction I have been looking for and have frankly been avoiding is now clear. Now, it's all about being submissive and doing God's will. He's done all the hard work. Now it's just time to follow Him.