Farewell Gateway

Yesterday was my last day as worship director at Gateway Community Church. It was a pretty emotional day, but it was good. I was so blessed with the many stories of how God has used me in people's lives. It's not often that, as a pastor, I get to see the fruit of ministry in such a concentrated time period.

Another huge blessing was the guitar that they gave me. What an amazing instrument. I couldn't stop playing it last night (ask my wife). I've included some pictures so you can enjoy it to.

Praise God for 13 amazing years of ministry at Gateway. It has been the foundation that all of my future ministry will be built upon.

Last night we had a great time leading worship and sharing about our journey to Compass. There were about 20 people from Gateway there and I'm so thankful and encouraged by their support.

After the worship night I was able to present to a few people the way that God has brought us to Compass and a little about what we'll be doing there. One thing that we were able to share was this video that give some short snippets of testimonies from two Compass individuals. It's pretty cool to become a part of a ministry that has more than just a great vision, they have great results, too. This kind of life change is what I'm excited about being a part of.

Enjoy the show!

Meeting Micah

When the house sold, one of my first calls was to Micah Dodson. He was the pastor of a pretty young church plant in Vancouver and it made sense that if I were thinking of getting involved with something in the area that I should contact him. We sat down for coffee having never met one another and began talking about our vision for how we thought a church ought to operate. It became apparent that our sensibilities were very similar. We talked through a number of different ideas, philosophies, and doctrines and found it to be a surprisingly encouraging conversation. Near the end of the conversation Micah said this to me, "I don't want to try to tell you what God's will is for you, but..."

-Pause here for a moment-
Whenever a Pastor says, I don't want to tell you what God's will for you life is, don't fall for it. They do, they just don't what to tell you that's what they're doing. It's very tricky.
-Please continue-

At this point he began to tell me about how Compass had just been sensing a need to bring on a single point person to oversee their worship ministries. They had made the decision to begin praying about what the position might look like, and shortly after that I called and set up this meeting. I didn't know that Compass was hiring, or if what they were doing was anything that I might be interested in being a part of, but when we started putting together God's leading in both of our hearts, it seemed like something that we shouldn't just ignore.

The next time we met, I brought a list of things that I valued in a church. As Micah and I talked through that list it was confirmed again that our passion for how church should be done was completely compatible.

At that point it became clear that I should pursue the open position, so I submitted a resume and began the official interview process. It seemed that every step that we took was another confirmation. One huge hurdle for people to come from an established church to a church plant is fund raising. For me, this wasn't scary at all, it was just another opportunity for God to prove that he was going to provide for us. It was another way that we could trust Him. I was excited to do my part and then watch God do His thing. He has already begun to do that in amazing ways!

Our Next Big Move

As we prayed and sought God's desire for our lives we began to wonder what our next move ought to be. At the same time we were feeling like we were outgrowing our little 1200 sq. ft. home, so we thought maybe the next move for us was actually to move! Honestly I wasn't really excited about it, but it became clear that if we were going to do it, the summer was a good time. I also thought that if we put it on the market it would give me a little motivation to look into other jobs. The real estate market is not exactly hot right now, so I thought I would have a chance to ease into this idea of moving. As it turned out, it was highly motivating because we had a great offer the first day!

I went into full panic mode and started filling out applications and making phone calls. We began looking for houses all around Vancouver, but ended up feeling drawn once again to West Vancouver. We found a house that met our needs and our preferences and we moved in the middle of September.

So by this point we had sensed that God was calling us to minister in West Vancouver, we had a desire to move to West Vancouver and found a house that we loved there. All I needed to do at this point was find a job! I knew of two churches that were doing something that I might be interested in getting involved with. I made two calls, left two messages and just waited. A couple days later Micah Dodson of Compass Church called me back and we set up a time to meet and chat about ministry in West Vancouver.