Does God Really Listen?

Here are the ways that He responded to us:

• Praying for a year / given crystal clear direction on March 22nd about retiring
• We were unified in obeying God / regardless of painful loss
• God worked independantly on my wifes heart to prepare her
• He gave us mentors who could help us through the process
• My last Youth Pastor's Conference was perfectly directed towards our needs] 1) My mentor Dr. Cook was there and gave us great advice 2) The subject for the week focused on knowing when it was time to transition (1st time in 19years of the conference) 3) We were given the opportunity to say good bye to life long ministry friends in youth ministry
• We had the chance to serve at a great church locally -at the last minute (as we were praying for God's will) the job fell through.
• Faith was very supportive - the Elders, staff and students never made us feel badly for the difficult time we put them through
• We had a 7 month farewell - can I just say this is relationship suicide! It is very hard for everyone involved to have a farewell that last over 3 weeks. God made every moment enjoyable and well worth it. There was only the perfect kind of farewell for me and my family (as opposed to my former Pastor who was accused of being in sin by some people)
• I was given the best summer of my youth ministry ever. The Tanzania missions trip was without a doubt the halmark moment of my ministry at Faith for myself.
• The Lord allowed me to enjoy the Tanzania trip and stay focused on the ministry at hand.
• I was networked for a possible position with a Free Church in Redding. I sent out my resume before Tanzania - they never received it. This cost me the interview, which was frustrating at the time. Still God was at work. Just having known about that position was God's way of proving to me that in the end He was directing my paths.
• I was praying that where ever the Lord would put us, it wouldn't be too difficult on the children and Jeanine. This would be the first time they moved and they all have deep relationships with people in Santa Clarita and Jeanine's parents liver there. She has never lived more than 30min away from her parents. Bill and Nancy are a very big part of our lives. This would be very hard for Jeanine to be put somewhere in limited contact.
• In January I was scouting our winter camp trip with a friend - he and I were praying together on the top of June Mt. while skiing. He asked what I wanted prayer for and I told him I was dissappointed in the drop off in speaking engagements at camps. The previous summer I was able to speak at three camps including Hume Lake. I really thought that the Lord was opening a door of ministry there for me. So we prayed that the Lord would give me another opportunity. Two hours later, driving through the Owens valley, I received a call from a friend of mine, Wayne Herbst. Wayne is the director of Campus by the Sea high school camps and he was asking me to speak again this coming summer. This was really odd because they usually cycle the speakers every four years. It had been one year since I had spoken. As it turned out, this would be my very last camp, last time at Campus by the Sea, and the perfect end to 21 years of Youth Ministry. Much of my ministry has been out at that camp. Also, by asking me to speak, my family was able to come out as well. We were given a week together with friends for one last time. It was a great way to finish out with my students as well. Just because of one prayer!!!! I couldn't have asked for a better situation.
• No job offers by third week of August - technically I am done at with the Youth Group by mid September and I have been able to set up a transitionary team to work with the group until the next youth pastor
• August 23rd - I was contacted by Kevin Kompland -EFCA continent leader for African missions - recruiting me to be part of the team in Dar Es Salaam.
• August 23rd - I was contacted by Hume Lake about possibly being the Pastor for the staff
• August 23rd - I was contacted by Concord Bible Church about being their Sr. Pastor.
• September 1st - Interview with committee - answered prayer in helping our hearts to intantly know if we would fit with this church
• September 12th - given the best send off ever by my staff and students. Memories of years of ministry that was a blessing and more than I could have ever imagined - I had spent years praying that I would be faithful to the end / that if I was blessed with a send off, there would be integrity behind my ministry and not a negative feel - this was an answer to 20 years of ministry
• September 18th - to travel to Denver to spend a week in Seminary seminars - had been praying for an opportunity to get caught up on school.
• September 13th - was asked to give our answer to the committee about candidating. I asked to wait one more day - there was the possibility of something locally - a real long shot - friend of a friend thing - but out of my control. I would give it one more day to see if the Lord would have them contact me. No contact - I accepted candidating on the 14th - I was called on the 15th by this local possibility. It would have made our process very difficult and confusing with our flesh. We would have loved to stay in Santa Clarita and here was the chance. But the Lord made the choice for us - what perfect timing!! How do you get answers to prayer like that? It's amazing!!
• October 29th - given a wonderful send off by the church that wasn't one of those really, really sad events. Thank you for the Mariachi Band!!! The best worship time I have ever had with people I love - they all came through for me to provide a memory that I will never forget
• October 8th - voted in by the church as their new Sr. Pastor (unanimous vote).
• Remember the Redding Job? The man who was recommended by their committee had been a candidate at previously at Concord Bible. It wasn't God's plan for him to be their and instead directed him to the only job that I knew of in July. Remember my prayer to have the Lord watch over my family? Concord is next to the Ocean (my family loves the beach) it is 20 min. from Jeanine's sister and the kids cousins and 20min from our best friends in Benicia. Concord was the one place in the whole world that the Lord could have put us that would be comfortable for my family. By moving the former candidate at C.B.C. out to Redding the Lord created an opportunity for us at Concord.
• We were able to find a house in our budget and that met all the criteria that we were praying for. We wanted to be able to have a house where we could do Bible Studies and host events for the church. We wanted to keep our dog, we wanted to be in the Clayton School District and we wanted to be close to the church. All that, and only a couple of days to find a rental - the Lord provided a house that is far too much for what we need but has served in a great capacity. The best part is that the owner came down $500 per month in rent from his original posting so that we could live there.
• Someone at C.B.C. gave us a gift of $12,000.00 for us to help us with housing. This gift was so tremendous. We were facing double payments of which we could only afford for one month. We didn't have any money in savings for a $5,000.00 deposit on the house. Everything about our move was seamless.
• The last prayer request was that we would sell our house. It was on the market starting mid-June. We didn't have an offer all summer and even when we left. We left an empty house and just trusted God that He was going to sell it. Like I said, I could afford to make double payments up until December. We received the greatest Christmas gift when our realtor called and told us that we had a buyer. Then it fell out of escrow, yet we still trusted. As you can read on an earlier posting, I stated that I had the faith the God was going to sell the house by the end of the year. We closed on December 30th!!!! We paid off our cars, we are debt free, we have money in the bank, and we took a vacation to Italy!!!!!
• 
  Our close friends the Patchins are in Ministry in the Bay area. We have been praying for the past couple of years that the Lord would send them help because of the needs that their 2year old son has. Not only do we get to be reunited with them - we get to be part of that anaswer to prayer!!!!
  More than any prayer request - the Lord has made it abundantly obvious that we were meant to serve at this church. It is the perfect fit for where we are as a family and where I am in just starting out as a Sr. Pastor. They gave me a chance and I have been blessed because of it.

Now - try just stepping out of the boat would ya? I have to say, we wouldn't have experienced this unless we stepped out in faith. I am the most blessed man on earth.

There are those times in life where you have to slow down, right? O.K. I guess this is one of them. Now that I have effectively been rendered immobile, I probably should finish this blog!!! I never finished the story, actually the best part of the story. The next post will reflect how God blessed our step of Faith through so many answered prayers along the way.

Remember, the purpose of this blog is to encourage all of you that you can step out of the boat. There has never been a more difficult decision in my life; one that severely effected my family, and yet He took care of us and we see His plan in all of this. We are on the other side now and it is truly amazing to see what He had in store for us. The more important concept to wrestle with is - what would have happened if we didn't listen and submit to the will of God?

I ruptured my Achilles tendon on my right leg on April 15th in our first church softball game. While it is a little uncomfortable (I can't walk without my foot falling off) the hardest thing is to be immobile. I had surgery on April 24th and it looks to be mid July before I am out of a cast. This has given me a lot of time to pray and think and dwell on all that God has been doing in my midst. I was blessed to take my bride overseas for an eight day vacation to Rome, Florence, and Venice (don't worry - we wont be able to afford that again!) and yet that time still didn't help to really transition in my mind and my ministry from how I have served in Youth Ministry for the past couple of decades. Still missing our friends and church in Santa Clarita, adjusting to the new town, learning about the wonderful people in our church and figuring out what it means to be the Pastor of a small church left my head spinning. This injury is a blessing in disguise I guess in that I haven't been able to involve myself in too many things and that has given me plenty of time to meditate, study, pray and talk on the phone! I am learning much about what it means to be a shepherd. God is shaping me and that is a great challenge.

check out the next post where I will spend time sharing exactly all the ways that the Lord answered prayer and the journey that we traveled to get where we are. God bless you and if you would respond to the post I would love to know how you are encouraged by steps of faith.

Your servant,

P.J. (that's what they call me in the North - Stands for Pastor Jer)

Waves - Waves - Waves -- ummm I like it!

Well, I hope you had time to get a donut or bathroom break or get a latte mocha frap no fo (whatever --- )

You know that waves come in all different shapes and sizes. All of them have value and all of them can serve a purpose. Some are generated by wind and yet others by reflection and others still by major events like earthquakes. All in all, I wonder what kind of waves Peter faced when he got out of the boat? I know that once he lost his focus (Jesus) he started to be imersed in the waves. As we face challenges in life, they will come like waves. Some days we barely survive. So why on earth would be jump out of relative safety and into what seems to be the harmful and dangerous path? Because if you can do that and not just survive, but thrive, then you have overcome such a difficulty in life and hurdle that many never escape from - a lack of faith. In differnt variations, a lack of faith can be spiritually deadly!

In all honesty, it is just hard to figure out how much I should write and what you all will understand. So, in reality, it is I that needs the occasional break. Then life begins to interfere and I find that I can't get back to this for a good two to three days. Well, hopefully this will be the second to last post.

So, last March I found myself coming to the quick realization that my time in youth ministry was quickly to come to an end. That in itself can be depressing, but when it leaves you hanging with a family to take care of, that is even more of a challenge. The deepest challenge would be telling my fellow pastors and staff and students. Faith had already gone through so much as far as seeing staff move on. The sense of abondonment was enough to keep crisis counselors in ice packs around Faith! Yet, I knew that our church had really grown spiritually over the past couple of years. The Lord was teaching the families at Faith to rely on Him and not man. So far, after the loss of 6 staff members in 2 years, the church was still thriving and doing well. The Lord had protected us from fall out that many had claimed was forthcoming. The Lord had really helped me during this time understand that my time at Faith was wrapping up as well and that it would be healthy for the church and myself to go through this. Jeanine and I just really lamented over the potential loss of friends and neighbors but were ready to trust God fully.

Now, 8 months later, I can tell you that Faith is doing very well and the Lord is blessing them and that we are doing well and the Lord is blessing us. Thank you to all of our brothers and sisters at Faith and in SCV - we miss you more than you can know - but we are excited about where God has us heading.

So, here is a little timeline to help you understand the chain of events

• Sense change coming / Summer 05
• Jeanine senses that the Lord is preparing her for loss / October 05
• Begin to understand that the Lord may be leading me away from Faith / February 06
• God reveals that the summer of 06 will be the last in Youth Ministry / March 06
• Disclose information to Pastors and Elders / March and April 06
• Disclose to Youth Staff and Students my retirement / May 06
• Attend Youth Pastors Conference at Hume / subject "Transition out of Ministry" / May 06
• Focus on Tanzania summer missions trip / May - June 06
• Tanzania Missions trip / June - July 06
• Summer camp Catalina / Ausgust 06
• Contact with Concord Bible church / August 06
• Candidate with Concrod Bible Church / October 06
• Sr. Pastor of Concord Bible Church / November 06
• Counting my blessings / January 07

Now that is the abridged version - kind of like the Narative - and the next posting will reveal to you the work of God in the midst of all this journey!

You really see God in the details when you choose to look. So, go get a donut again or take a bathroom break or whatever, and tune in to the next posting. Walking on Water - the funnest form of travel - I highly recommend it!!!

Jer

and now for .... the rest of the story!

Our journey is complete my friends. I feel a little like Bilbo at the end of Return of the King writing "There and Back" accept I'm not that short and I don't have a precious - I digress.

So here we are and I have held you at bay now for several months. My last entry was a few days ago and I stated that I had every confidence that the Lord was going to "see through" the sale of our house in Santa Clarita - and He did - we closed the very next day!!! Just more walking on the water my friends. Soooo many prayers that the Lord would allow us to sell our house by the end of the year. Guess what, we closed on the very last business day of the year. It reminds me of scripture that states: Even when we are faithless he is faithful!!

So, earlier I mentioned something about dangerous prayers. I need to start there again (if you don't know what I mean look at the earlier postings). This journey all started for us about a year ago as I was driving down McBean Parkway in Valencia heading to the mall on my day off. I was spending time in prayer while I was driving and I was praying over former staff members that I served with at Faith. That's when the Lord brought to mind Peter and Becca Bunnell. They are dear friends that moved from the comforts of Southern California, family and friends to the outskirts of the world - MONGOLIA - to be missionaries. You know how you always worry that the Lord is going to send to remote places like MONGOLIA to minister? Well it happened to them.

Then something really cool happened. As I was praying for them, I started to be moved to envy. That's right - ENVY! You see, my life of excitement and passion really revolves around acting in Faith. It was at that moment that I really started to wrestle with the fact that I had maybe become to comfortable in the little bubble called Santa Clarita and my very comfortable and wonderful church, Faith. I was compelled to pray a dangerous prayer - I shook off the dusty cobwebs and let the Lord know that I was ready for change - anything was on the table.

The most telling part of that prayer was that I asked the Lord to put my family in a place where we could be most effective - remember this as you read through the journey of being out of the boat.

Ask yourself right now as you read this, " Lord, am I willing to let it all go, to give everything back to you, and be used to the greatest possible extent that my gifts and abilities can carry me through the power of Your Spirit? If not Lord, give me the faith that I lack, help me with my faith and help me to stay focused on you and please call to me and ask me to step out of the boat just like You did with Your servant Peter!"

So, if you want to live in the sweet charity of the grace and power of the Holy Spirit, I would entreat you to consider what in your life is of such great importance and merit that you should keep it from stepping out of the boat. If you can with great confidence locate such a thing, I would suggest you build a shrine in your house and treat it with the upmost importance.

You know what I mean ......... careful Jer ...... you wouldn't want to offend ......

Back to the story -

So, as we came off of a wonderful sabbatical in the summer of 05 the Lord started this work in my heart. What happened next I was unprepared for. You see, I am usually the one in my marriage that is burdened (or graced) with these epiphanies and have to spend time revealing and talking through all the details to my wife. That was about to take a great turn in Nov. of 05.

I came home from work one day and Jeanine was curled up in a blanket on the sofa with her Bible - not such a bad thing - unless she was in that same position when I left for work that day. Anyone who knows my wife knows that she just doesn't act that way, or let circumstances or thoughts overwhelm her to the point of "non-functioning". I started to make the typical blunder of questioning why she spent her entire day on the sofa (which she really didn't) and then the Spirit impressed on me that I should sit down, shut up and listen to what might be going on in my lovely wifes heart and head.

Jeanine revealed that she was deeply troubled and hurting because she believed that the Lord was asking her to prepare for great loss. She had been studying Abraham and how the Lord asked Abraham to pick up and move to a different country - a country that wasn't his own. She couldn't pin point it, but she felt as if we were either going to lose someone close to us through death or the Lord was going to ask us to move soon.

O.K. - now I know how she feels when I come home and drop a bomb on her.

So, we have a dangerous prayer - a wandering and searching pastor - an epiphany of loss -

what could be next?

Stay tuned, take a break and then come back and read more.