Breakfast with Joe

Starbucks is where I met Joe.  Not initially, but on a particular Saturday morning.  We had arranged a meeting several weeks prior.  That meeting was cancelled for one reason or the other and I seem to remember it being rescheduled and cancelled again.  In any case, however many times it was rescheduled, it finally happened on the Saturday after I came back from Florida.

Joe had mentioned earlier in the summer of 2019 that he may want to connect me with a church plant team to grow the church's presence in our city.  I loved that idea!  As I mentioned in The Five Years, I committed internally that I would do this church leadership thing for 5 years, and we were in the last few weeks of the last year.  I was thinking in my head that Joe could connect me with the church plant team, I could identify a candidate or two who might be good longterm leaders, then I could tell Joe that I was stepping down and turn everything over to this other person or people, and have a rest from the leadership role and just enjoy being a part of the church.  I loved this plan. 

And then came my trip to Florida.  

I didn't know what the plan was now.  I didn't really have a plan.  I had recently made a call to Duane which helped bring some semblance of clarity to the options, but I didn't really have a plan.  

So, I met Joe to ask him about his thoughts, and now I had to tell him about Florida.

He knew most of the story, so we recapped briefly.  I told him about wanting more information about a church plant team and how it would ultimately work... 

... oh, and there's something else.  Florida.

He thought for a minute and then he told me he thought Florida was a "Psalm 37:4 thing."

4 

Take delight in the Lord,

    and he will give you the desires of your heart.

I told Joe a little story: back in college there was a job I didn't want.  I prayed and asked God for a different one even though I had this opportunity for a perfectly good job, I just didn't want it.  Everyone said there wasn't anything around this place but cornfields.  My grandmother sent me a little devotional right about that time, and on the front was a picture of a cornfield and two verses: Psalm 37:3,4.

Later, I was graduating and resisting the idea of going to graduate school.  I hated the idea of graduate school.  I was also dating someone that wasn't good for me, and frankly, I wasn't good for her.  I prayed and told God I would do whatever he wanted me to do even if it meant going to graduate school and breaking up with this girl--I assumed that would render me a life of solitude, but we all know what happens when we assume!  I got off my bed, wiped the tears from my eyes and decided to move on with my day.  I picked up my mail and read a letter from a friend.  At the end of her letter she wrote a verse.  Yep.  Psalm 37:3,4.  

Joe said he could see this process going like this: he would send out some 'feelers' and find out what people were thinking--who might be ready to move to Louisville and become part of this team.  He suggested the simplest way to structure the transition would be to dissolve the existing bylaws, and thus the structure of the organization, and we operate like a church plant while a new team comes into place.  

Sound familiar?

So, this was a significant verse for me and a significant meeting:

This verse had come up again when I had an 'unwanted' or really just unforeseen opportunity.

This conversation was the second time someone independently suggested the same solution: dissolve the old and create something new.