:: AIP#3 - How the Journey Started (part 1) ::

"It was a dark and stormy night..."

Not really at all.

The story of "how we got here" actually began on a scorching hot afternoon in July 2008. I had called a friend who is on staff at a church in Austin to ask some questions as I prepared for my ordination as a pastor. After answering my questions and a bit of small talk, he asked if I knew anyone who would be interested in planting a church. Their church was beginning achurch planting residency, bringing folks in for two years of hands-on training then sending them to to plant, in his words, "strategic churches in strategic cities." The more he told me about it, the more excited I got. The first round of training was starting just four weeks after our conversation, and they had an open spot. I told him I didn't feel like it would be wise or honoring to leave our current ministry on such short notice and at the beginning of the school year, but that I would talk and pray with Jess and let him know.

Then I told him the irony of the timing. I had finished grad school a few months before; Jess and I were two years into marriage and felt "settled in" a bit; and we both felt that Trinity Chapel, 4 years old at that point, was in a very good place (new building, new leadership, a great staff team, and it seemed the ministries – the ones I oversaw and otherwise – had found their niche). Jess and I had begun discussing our longer-term future, and on our way down to Houston and back for a wedding in June, the conversation for the majority of the car ride had turned to church planting.

Those talks continued through the summer. None of these conversations were going anywhere – they were all just random musings between my wife and myself, as we talked about our future, our ministry, our heart for God’s work, and prayed about where God was leading us. We had no plans, no specific direction, and no “next steps”: we just committed to pray to see where God would lead us. And we fully expected that it would take months – if not longer – before we had any answers.

Then I called my friend, and I became more excited than I had been in as long as I could remember. And Jess and I talked more and prayed more. Needless to say we decided not to leave at that point, and over the past year as the economy started looking less-than-stellar, the church in Austin walked us through first steps in the fall, but felt it would be wise to put a "second round" of the residency on hold for the time (more on that in a later post). But God was doing something in us; we had a passion and excitement, and already the timing and logistics seemed at least ironic, if not providential.

So that was the first specific step in how we got here. The following months propelled us down this path faster than expected, but before we get there, we've got to rewind a bit and see catch some glimpses of how God has been shaping us for this endeavor, literally for years! That's the subject of the next "adventure" post.