Sometimes Saying “Yes” also means Saying “No”

A few of my friends have heard this story already and encouraged me to write it out as a testimony to how following God works.  This is less a story about me and more about what it looks like when you follow God’s call.

I announced a few days ago that I had accepted a call to a church in Washington State to be an Associate Pastor.  I couldn’t be more excited because this both a huge dream and a homecoming of sorts. The church I’m going to is one I love. I’ve been attending it for five years whenever I am in Washington and we have many friends who are members and in leadership there.  It’s a great and growing church and I’m so excited to be working with children and families.  I also am stoked to have my own kids grow up there in a beautiful place near my extended family and in a church I believe will care for them.

But, there is another side to this story.  I was actually interviewing at two churches at the same time and they both decided that I was the one they wanted to hire.  And truthfully the church I said no to was a church I really liked too.

It was a very different church.  The best way to describe it is to simply say they have huge hope for the present and the future and amazing people who are following God.  I believe without a doubt that they are right on the cusp of some major transformations and will make a huge difference in their area. I liked the pastor a ton and saw him as someone that I could be both friends with and mentored by.  He liked to use the phrase “dream bigger” which is one of my favorite things to do. I met really great people there who are active and hopeful and ready to follow some new vision.

This church is only a few miles from where my wife grew up and sat adjacent to the local Middle and Elementary schools. It is in a great place to reach new families.

The kicker in all of this is that this church also offered us housing and our kids would have been going to some of the top schools in California.  If you know my current living situation you know we live in a church home now and our kids go to great schools.  This was a huge blessing.

About a year ago when we knew that I would be ordainable soon and beginning the search process the two biggest concerns that I had were for housing and schools. In fact, I prayed over and over that God would help solve this problem.  It was anxiety causing for me.  So when a church offered me a job and told me those two things were taken care of I immediately thanked God.  But, the more we prayed and consulted friends the more we realized that we felt called to the church in Washington.  Honestly it really wasn’t even a question because God made it so clear. But accepting that call would mean we didn’t have housing and didn’t know where our kids would go to school. It meant that we were going to have to trust the LORD to provide.

As Danielle and I talked about it we both felt like accepting the job with housing and schools taken care of was the worlds “expectation.”  But we asked ourselves what kind of faith did we want to model for our kids.  Did we want to model a faith that was about truly following God and stepping out trusting that he would take care of us? Or, did we want to take the easy way out and take a call we didn’t feel was right just to have our immediate needs met.

I heard a story once in a sermon about a guy sitting on his rooftop in the middle of a flood and he prayed that God would save him.  People kept coming by on boats and he wouldn’t get in. Finally he drowned and in Heaven asked God why he didn’t save him. God said “I kept sending boats what more did you want?”

As I prayed more and more about this decision I just had a sense that this wasn’t the case for us. While I did feel that God had met the need I expressed for housing and schools I realized that was the wrong thing to be praying for.  Instead I needed to pray that I would have the faith to follow God where the call led and that I would believe that he would take care of our needs.

So that’s what we did. We accepted a call that God made very clear.  In doing so we said no to a church that was also great but just wasn’t the right fit.  I feel like we are modeling the right thing to our kids that stepping out in faith is the way we are going to live our lives.  I’ll be the first to admit that I’m nervous and even a bit anxious wondering about where we will live and how we can afford anything.  I have my moments where I allow worry to creep in. But, I believe with all my heart that we did what we were supposed to do in this call process and that we are going to continue to allow God to lead us.

If anyone in the PCUSA world who is ordainable and would like to know more about this great church Click Here. The official Title is Associate Pastor of Young Families and I believe they have unlimited potential and amazing resources to do great things.  I’m a huge fan of the people I met there and would love to talk to you about them if you are interested.