A Call to Duane

After A Trip to Florida I called Duane.

"Duane, you'll never guess what's happening..."

I told him all about everything.  I told him that I had a meeting scheduled with the church leader who oversees our area that very next day.  I told him I had a meeting with the two guys on our church's leadership team.  I told him about Florida.  

I was nervous about talking to Duane, but one thing I know is that Duane would tell me the honest truth.  I knew he would tell me what he truly thought and felt, even if he thought I wouldn't like it.  I knew Duane held the fulfillment of responsibility in high regard, and leaving a post to take a different position isn't something he would take lightly.  I needed to know what he thought, and I anticipated he would not like the idea of Florida.

I was surprised.

To paraphrase our conversation, Duane talked through how the transition might go.  He does hold the fulfillment of responsibility in high regard and that fact came up in our conversation.  He said he could see the 'rightness' of a transition plan under certain circumstances.  

He and I had discussed the future of the church before--years earlier, and on a regular basis including several times in the weeks just preceding the trip to Florida.  We had discussed the significance of the church's formal, but perhaps nominal ties to a larger worldwide organization.  We had discussed the potential wisdom in strengthening that connection.  We had discussed the need to bring in some folk from that organization and ways that might be possible--in cooperation with the organization's leadership.  

During this call we did an inventory.  We remembered the things we had each felt when we had those moments of the 'strong sense' over the past years.  We discussed my sense that I was supposed to find the 'kink in the hose' so it could be un-stoppered and the hose could be connected up to a new faucet.  We discussed the pruning of the trees and the nurse branch.  We discussed his sense that the existing organization may need to be 'planted' and die, as a seed dies to then sprout new growth.  The organization, after all, is only there to support what God is doing in the life of the people.  If the support is no longer effective, it needs to be reimagined, remodeled, rebuilt.  We discussed the timing as all of this was happening at the end of the 5 years.  

Duane concluded that if the current organization dissolved, my position would dissolve with it and whatever took its place would take my place as well.  Florida could very well be the next thing for me and my family.

How would we know for sure?  I mentioned it before, but it's helpful to mention here: often when I have a strong sense about something that proves to be significant, it comes up several times.  That repetition is important here.  

There were still people who needed to weigh in.