this past sunday was one of the most historic days in the history or the rock. if you don’t know what i’m talking about, you can read about it here, or listen to the podcast here. we have been getting a lot of supportive feedback from our church family, and pastor ron has been diligently sharing the encouraging words and emails with the rest of the staff. one particular response he forwarded to us made me wish he had a blog so everyone could read it. so i asked him if he would allow me to post it as a guest post on foolishnotions. he said yes :-).
i love the heart of my pastors. they are some of the most wise, genuine, compassionate, generous people i have ever met. it is an honor to serve them and i hope i grow up to be a lot like them. you could comment here but i would rather you email your encouraging words directly to…
pastor ron - ron [at] rockwilmington.com
pastor norma - norma [at] rockwilmington.com
pastor bryan - bryan [at] rockwilmington.com
jennifer - jennifer [at] rockwilmington.comand now… pastor ron. enjoy.
Bold faith is not often easy or peaceful because it always stretches us far beyond our comfort zones and moves us from the realm of the known into the unknown. The announcement Sunday was a bold faith move for me filled with a lot of yet unknown things. In some ways it was scarier than moving my family to Wilmington 19 ½ years ago when we knew no one here.
These are the known components of this move for me:
- It is the right thing to do
- This is the right time to do it
- It is the word of the Lord to me
- It is necessary for this church to be relevant and effective in the 21st Century
These are the unknown components of this move for me:
- I don’t know what the final picture will look like for me, my family or this church
- I don’t know who or how many will embrace this bold step of faith and move forward with us to impact our city, nation and the world in the 21st Century
- I don’t know who or how many will not choose or be able to go with us
- I don’t know how the city God has called us to make a difference in will react
As I have compared the two lists and asked the Lord to help me put all of this in proper perspective, this is what He has shown me. The unknown components are scary, but the known components are powerful, awesome and incredible! Bold faith requires me to embrace the known and release the unknown back into the hands of the God who called us here almost 20 years ago. Then, the known list was about the same as it is now, but the unknown list was long and much more intimidating.
But God was faithful, has continued to be faithful and will be faithful yet again.
I love God too much to not do this. I love my family too much not to do this. I love this church and the wonderful people who call me pastor too much not to do this. I love the lost too much not to do this
Fasten your seatbelt. It’s going to be an exciting ride!
Make Every Day a Great Day!
Pastor Ron
