Wide Open Spaces

I highly recommend the book Wide Open Spaces by Jim Palmer, author of another great book, Divine Nobodies. This is some of what it has inspired in me:

Following high school I attended a small junior college, met my wife, got married, and went to Bible College for full-time ministry training. After two years of working third-shift at a meat packing plant (pork - no less) I finally got my first gig in ministry at a church of about 300 people (a church that was following all the mega-church models… and I mean all of them).

That is where I spent the next twelve years of my life. I went from maintenance person/youth pastor, to youth pastor/associate pastor to executive pastor/young adult pastor. The church grew to about 1500 people… and I was running around in circles trying to help make things happen. There was huge emphasis placed on how we “did church”.

So, from twenty-three years of age until my mid-thirties, all I knew was a life of full-time ministry at that church.

I was so unsettled the last couple years there. I began to be convinced that there had to be something more meaningful to being a follower of Jesus. I began to be convinced that church was not something you “did”, but the essence of what it meant to be a follower of Jesus in community with others.

Eventually, God nudged (or shoved) me out of that place (and by “place” I don’t just mean the actual church itself, but the place I was in… my mindset and understanding of what it meant to be a follower of Jesus and my dependence on the system).

I interpreted the nudge to mean that we were supposed to plant a church – which we did in Raleigh, NC. My intention was to lead a church that would look more like the book of Acts than what I had been a part of. While that is still a passion of mine, things have gone very differently than I thought they would have (as if they were supposed to go the way I planned).

Life is happening at a much slower pace. There are many times when I feel compelled to be busier, to be doing more. But, God seems to be constantly reminding me just to “be”.

When I think of what I am experiencing in the wide open spaces… I think of the space that God now has available in my life. There is so much less clutter and business that He has to compete with. He now has the space to deal with aspects of my life that I stuffed deep down inside and didn’t have time or energy to focus on.

And that has been painful and beautiful at the same time.