When God calls us to something, He might not call us to finish it.
January, 2017.
I had just started my new job a month earlier. This role was an incredible answer to prayer: getting paid to write and be on social media all day, all to serve people with disabilities in the name of Jesus Christ? It’s a dream job to a nerd like me.
I worked there Monday through Friday, and on Sundays, I continued working at church as the interim kids’ pastor for six weeks while the new kids’ pastor settled in from out-of-state.
On my last Sunday at that church, the kids’ ministry team gathered for morning prayer and I was asked to share some parting words. I had a feeling that would happen, so earlier that morning, I looked up the verse that I had shared with this team when I first took on the role of kids’ pastor, 18 months earlier.
It was 1 Corinthians 3:6.
“I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.”
I had been compelled to share this verse with the volunteers early on to assure them that ministry is not about seeing results, but faithfully serving in the moment and surrendering the outcome to God. We may or may not see children accepting Christ as Lord and Savior on our watch; our role is to simply plant seeds of faith and water them.
Results are up to God. We’re just gardeners.
So what would be an appropriate word to share on my last day as the children’s pastor? As I looked for another verse, I continued reading that same passage in 1 Corinthians:
“So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building. By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care.” (1 Cor 3:7-10 NIV)
By God’s grace, I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. King David started preparations to build a temple, but his son, Solomon, would finish building it years later (1 Chronicles 22).
My time as the kids’ pastor may have ended earlier than I had expected it to, but maybe God had only placed me there to lay the groundwork for others to build upon. It’s not even about me: “neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything.” It’s all about God.
What an appropriate passage to share with the team on my last day, I thought. So that’s the word I left them with.
As I left church that day, I felt a need to focus forward and not look back, lest I become immobilized like Lot’s wife, who turned into a pillar of salt when she looked back at the town she had fled (Gen 19:26). It’s not that I wanted to leave and never come back — it had just become awkward for my family to remain at that church after all that happened.
I suppose it’d be like any other breakup in a long-term relationship: You used to be in love, but things just didn’t work out. What do you say to them? What do you do? It becomes difficult just to be around the other party, even if the parting was amicable.
So my family quietly left our church home of 13 years.
I personally had no desire to go to another church, as I was ready for a break from church life altogether.
With all I had experienced over the previous decade, including two years overseas, a rough transition out of ministry, and an election season that rattled my perception of evangelicalism, I wanted to walk away from it all and become a God-fearing ronin (masterless samurai), wandering around with no allegiance to anyone but the Divine Master.
But God wouldn’t let me.
After over ten years of always being on-duty during church services, I suddenly had no place I had to be on a Sunday morning. My family was free to visit any church we wanted! Where would we go first? The big church with the lake and the playground? Or the even bigger church where you ride a tram from the vast parking lot? Part of me wanted to go to such a place, where I could be anonymous and hide in the back of the crowd.
Our plan was to visit a few local churches where my friends were on staff, but the first church we went to turned out to be the only church we’d visit after my transition.
I didn’t know that my wife had been praying for confirmation on which church we should go to, and here, at this small church, on our very first Sunday away from our previous church, she’d get that confirmation.
