Get up that 14er wiener!

https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/get-up-that-14er-wiener/pl.u-PDb49jZuoxV8Rx

It’s already cliche to talk about 2020 being the year that no one saw coming.  Everyone has a story for how the year has played out.  I feel it’s going to continue to be a bizarre new world before the year is out and then 2021 might bring the world back to a sense of normalcy; even if normal becomes ever changing unpredictability.

I certainly had no idea that my story was going to play out the way it has.  I am ever thankful that God brought me through so many emotional and mental valleys in the years leading up to this year.  I shudder to think what the state of the world would have done to me when the enemy had strongholds in my life, and I celebrate that Jesus set me free in time for me to be a witness in this era of history.  I have a call on my life to minister to teenagers that I have been faithful to since I was 21 years old.  When my heart was healed in early 2019 God brought my family and I to the best church we have ever been a part of, Victory in Westminster, Colorado.  Open doors led to me becoming the student ministry pastor, a desire fulfilled becoming a tree of life.  I was so satisfied and content to do my job.  When the new year started I had great expectations of seeing my ministry grow and kids lives to be changed.  It started off well enough with steady growth and testimonies of transformed lives.  Then everything came to a halt in March when the madness of COVID and resulting quarantines forced the world to bend its will to ‘experts’.  My wife and I scrambled to keep our ministry alive.  We prayed and replanned strategies to keep relationships with our students.  Our services turned into a Facebook show we did from our basement, and our leaders led small groups through zoom to stay in touch with our congregation.  For a few months it wasn’t certain if what we were doing was having any effect, but there were glimmers of hope to encourage us.  We slowly were allowed to open our group back up to meeting again in person.  There was less teenagers coming at first, but the ones that came were there for the right reasons.  It’s growing and the results are very satisfying.  Here’s where the story curves.

In July, Matt Ware (my boss and my pastor) informed our team of something different we were going to be doing.  He had it in his heart to plant campuses in nearby cities.  In 6 weeks.  This was something he had talked about for a long time, but no one thought this was still in his mind during the 2020 crisis.  It was quite shocking that he would even suggest a bold venture.  Our lead team is a group of pastors and executives that make Victory happen.  It wasn’t necessarily excitement when Pastor Matt suggested launching campuses with odds against us in a short time.  Yet everyone agreed on some level we needed to do something different than try to act like nothing had ever happened.  As we talked through what expanding would look like, my name was thrown out to pastor one of the campuses.  It was confirmed shortly after that I was being asked to take on the Victory Longmont campus.  I love and trust my pastor, but this suggestion scared me.  In faith was the only way I could say yes.  I believe in my pastor and I believe God placed me at this church in this season.  I looked at the task in front of me and my heart raced for a full week.  Maybe my immediate yes was a mistake.

Earlier in the summer I said another impulsive yes to something.  The staff at my church is into hiking and camping, something I am firmly against.  I’m not against you doing it, I just have zero desire to go along.  On the other hand I very much enjoy the company of the people I work with.  An invitation went out to hike a mountain.  In Colorado we have a bunch of mountains referred to as ‘fourteeners’, because they exceed 14,000 feet.  I have never even attempted to hike such a mountain, but when I received the invitation this time for one reason or another I said yes.  I’m not sure why.  As the date approached to summit Mt Quandary my wife gathered supplies for me and tried to explain that it was going to be intense.  I knew it would be hard but believed I was up for the challenge.  I’m not in shape, I’ve never climbed a mountain before, I don’t enjoy being in the mountains, and I have no previous experience to compare with what I’m about to do.  I saw the parallel to the challenges I have conquered in life to be much the same, so I was going to be able to win here as well.  

I wasn’t wrong about being able to finish the climb, but I had deceived myself into thinking it was as simple as that.  It was hard!  I never thought about giving up, but I kept wondering to myself what I was doing there in the first place.  As the air became thinner and my thinking became even more scattered, I arrived to the real reason I needed to do this climb.  It wasn’t about proving anything to anyone, including myself.  It wasn’t exclusively because God told me to do it, though as I climbed I felt affirmed I was right where He wanted me.  It was a picture to me to not be afraid of doing hard things.  

I was the last one up the mountain, and according to my comrades I looked like someone struggling to the top of Everest.  I could take a couple steps, then huff & puff, complain, then take a couple more steps.  Pastor Matt, who may or may not be a robot, waltzed down from the summit to check on me.  I don’t think he broke a sweat.  He told me I was close, which was relatively true.  I don’t know if it was pitiful or comical, surely it was a combination of both.  Finally I made it to the top and had a small celebration.  Only then I realized that was actually half the trip because there was no slide at the top to bring you down.  I felt sick because I thought eating would be counterproductive, a big mistake.  I forced myself to eat something after being scolded for my ignorance and trudged down the steep mountain.  When all was said and done I was sorer than I had ever been.  It seemed a pointless accomplishment for the first 48 hours. Then it dawned on me that I had done something worth being proud of.  I had more in me than I thought.  If I would have realized before what a task it would have been I would have never volunteered to go.  On the other side of it I thought differently.  Why would I have been so quick to give up before I even start something?  Some fear must have broke in me when I did my first fourteener because now I believe I’m capable of much more than I ever thought I would be.

As I looked at the task of moving out of my comfort zone of ministering to teenagers and taking on the biggest assignment in my history I became afraid.  Then the Lord reminded me of a dream I had in 2017.  It was a dream of being launched into space and landing on the moon.  When I had the dream I knew what God was saying to me. He intended to launch me into ministry again, it would be scary and exciting, and it would be full of life in Jesus.  I have held onto and rehearsed this dream through the years, it was a great encouragement during my darkest hour.  I was in a daze for a minute as I processed the new responsibility of leading my church in a new city.  The dream woke me up.  Then I was reminded of climbing the mountain.  I finally believe what God believes about me and am getting what Jesus paid for.  We have been doing services for the last 3 weeks and seeing God do incredible things!  I don’t know what the future holds but I know Who holds my future.  I don’t care if it’s a mountain, church or rocket.  I can do anything I’m called to do.  I never thought 2020 would turn out the way it has, but I’m thankful it has.  Strap in ladies in gentlemen, we are cleared for takeoff.