Open handed
I hesitate. . . I do this with many things in my life. Usually talking about myself I hesitate. I . . was . . . homeschooled. You see? I hesitate. Sometimes in the current season of people asking Anne and I, "Hey, What are you up to?", again . . . hesitation. Simply saying "planting a new church in the city of Memphis" feels weird. "God has called me to be a 'Lead Pastor'!" also feels weird. There it is again. . . that hesitation. Why? Why, when I love what God has called us to? Why, when I have come to terms with my homeschooling upbringing? (Thanks, Mom!)
The hesitation is this: instead of listening to understand, often our culture listens in order to categorize. And the things God is speaking to us aren't things I have found in church in my 36 years. You see, when I say I was homeschooled I usually follow it up jokingly with something like "...but I never took my sister on a date!" or "I bought my clothes, though. We didn't make them!". I do this because I want to reject the category.
When I was a Student Pastor and someone asked what I did, I would say something like, "I work with students". It was not in a sense of false humility, because I am very honored and grateful God has given me the vocation of "pastor", but more along the lines that I couldn't know what that person's perspective was of a "student pastor" and I didn't want to be put under a label or in a category.
So, when it comes to this new season in our lives, here is one reason why I hesitate: God planted me and my family in this city Anne and I grew up in way before He called us into this new work. Also, there are already so many churches in the city of Memphis, but what God is calling us to is something we haven't ever experienced. A Jesus Church. So after I experience that moment of brief hesitation, I usually get out something like . . . "We are starting something new here in the city of Memphis."
But the major hesitation I have found in this season is around the label "Lead Pastor". I know that the reality of my life is that I am being called into a "Lead Pastor" position but . . .
17 So I took hold of the two tablets and threw them out of my two hands and broke them before your eyes.
Prior to that interaction, God instructs Moses to come to the top of the mountain and carve the two tablets of the ten commandments. But when Moses comes back down, he sees his people worshiping the golden calf. The thing that stuck out to me is that Scripture is very specific and repetitive in talking about Moses's hands in this interaction with the first set of tablets. Verse 17 says "I...threw them out of my two hands". Even more intriguing was that the same thing happens again with the second set of tablets. Scripture once again speaks of Moses's hands multiple times. The only difference is . . .
“At that time the Lord said to me, ‘Cut out for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and come up to Me on the mountain, and make an ark (chest) of wood for yourself. 2 I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets which you shattered, and you shall put them in the ark.’ 3 So I made an ark of acacia wood and cut out two tablets of stone like the first, and went up the mountain with the two tablets in my hand. 4 The Lord wrote on the tablets, like the first writing, the Ten Commandments which the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly; then the Lord gave them to me. 5 Then I turned and came down from the mountain and put the tablets in the ark which I had made; and they are there, just as the Lord commanded me.”
The difference is, this time, these aren't Moses's tablets to carry. If Moses was "The Deliverer" out of Egypt, he was still delivering in the wilderness. He was living open-handed. He brought the tablets down the mountain and placed them in the ark. This is the Ark of the Covenant. This "covenant" wasn't to a single man but to a people. This wasn't Moses's vision for how life should be lived or his "ten habits for a good life". Moses was clear that these were God's words - God's commandments. This was God's vision for life.
Herein lies my hesitation. Selah Memphis is not my church. Selah Memphis is not my vision. God's calling on me as a "Lead Pastor" is to live life until I die open-handed. My specific gifting and anointing from the Lord fall under leading, teaching, and pastoring. But those giftings are just an eye, a toe and an elbow inside of scope of The Body of Christ. I must reject inserting any of me inside the other areas of the local body. My calling is to resource and encourage others in their giftings in order to fill out the rest of the Body of Christ (Ephesians 4).
So many of you have asked the question "How can I help?". I am so grateful for this question but I want to reject any opinions of my own and lean into how God has gifted you. So in return - without hesitation - so I ask "How can you help?".