... though it was actually closer to September or August. I'm still a little fuzzy as to the exact date, but I remember where I was. It was a Sunday morning. I was in the media loft running sound and video the moment in which God began to stir something in me. That something was like a beckoning... a leading to move on... to leave the church I had been serving for 3 years prior.
To give a little background, I had been serving in the capacity of assistant pastor of youth ministry in a small church in southern Alabama. I had a senior pastor in whom I had (and still have to this day) a wealth of confidence in, a supportive wife and family (parents and siblings, no children), a house, and one and a half stable income in a down economy. We had stability. We had our creature comforts. Yet, something was amiss.
A few weeks had passed since that Sunday morning and I still had yet to share with my wife just what had been stirring in my heart. I had prayed that if this truly was the Lord's prodding and not my own emotional response to circumstances that He would begin this same process in my wife. What I hadn't fully understood at the moment I began to pray that prayer was how I'd actually know that she was feeling the same thing without talking to her about it! But that came later.
One Wednesday night, we had prepared ourselves for a night of youth ministry with our teens. I had spent the week planning and praying about the night and it was here. It was here and it was possibly the worst night of ministry that I had experienced up to that point. The music - which I was leading - tanked, the message was a disjointed flop, and the teens... teens whom I love dearly and had poured my heart, soul, mind, and strength into... had all stayed home that night and sent there evil dopplegangers to church - clones which recently emerged from some nether-dimension of zero interest in or love for being at church or with us that night! Needless to say, I made the long walk across the church parking lot to our house feeling like a defeated mess.
It was that fateful night that I broke down in tears and shared with my wife what I had been feeling: I was feeling as if it were time to leave. To my surprise, she shared with me that she had been feeling the same thing for a few weeks prior and just didn't know how to bring it up. We committed ourselves that night to begin praying for direction, again, making sure that we weren't just feeling this because of one bad night of ministry.
For the next couple months we prayed. We shared our thoughts, our fears, our uncertainties with one another. After all, who do you confide in when the majority of people you are in constant contact with are part of the church in whom you have committed to care for and shepherd?
It was about that time that I began to open up to a handful of friends about what was stirring in us and began to seek their advice and prayers. Considering that eventually I would need to be open about this, I approached my senior pastor. It's hard to put into words just how difficult it was to enter that office knowing just how much he and his family have poured into Baily and I. They had become and are to this day family to us. I remember sitting down across the desk as I had done many times before - usually to share a funny story or to talk about what God had been teaching us - to share a situation altering truth with him. What happened from that was not what I had expected:
It's funny how the Lord works. We never truly grasp what He's doing in our own heart, let alone someone else's until you begin sharing it. As I told him about what had been taking place in the couple of months prior, he began to share with me how he and his wife were in a similar situation. They too were feeling God's leading on from the church, but had also noticed that there was something going on in me as well. We began to pray that God would show us where He was leading.
In April, we resigned. With no leads or direction, we began the process of applying to different churches and preparing to leave southern Alabama. It was definitely difficult to share with our teens that we were leaving, but I still believe to this day that our resignation was part of us living by example everything that we shared with them about being a Christ-follower.
By the end of June, we were packed up and moved out from everything familiar to begin our journey into the desert.
This time has been trying. I have asked a lot of questions of the Lord. I have been asked a lot of questions about my direction and where I am headed.
All I can say is this: We have stepped a foot forward toward an unknown destination. We are headed somewhere that may not yet be prepared or have been revealed. I know that we have been prodded to leave and we have. We are confident and fully trusting that the same God who promised that He isn't in the business of leaving or forsaking will carry us through this arid land.
This is the story of our journey for those who may be entering, may be journeying through, and those who have journeyed through the wilderness.
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