Journey to The Journey

It’s an absolute privilege, a gift of God’s grace that I get to minister to the people in our church.

The past 3 years of my life have been the best years of my life, they’ve also been the most challenging years of my life.  I prepared diligently to plant The Journey and felt as though God had used my pastoral career to shape me into someone who could actually lead a church.  However, as with anything else there are some things that only realtime experience can teach you.

I’ve discovered that planting a church is ridiculously complicated.  If only there was a cookie-cutter way to accomplish this task.  I’ve learned that leading a church seems so simple after reading a few books but putting biblical concepts into practice is really hard, sometimes even painful.  Despite your good intentions pastoring a church can quickly leave a guy in fetal position at the end of the day, it’s overwhelming and overbearing much of the time.  Often I’ve felt drained, unsure of myself, defeated and knocked down.  I suppose it’s the cost of doing business in a church, that seems to be the experience of elders in the Bible too.  Attempting to pay detailed attention to sound doctrine and teaching while at the same time helping to counsel someone through a broken relationship, heinous sin or even death can leave a pastor’s head spinning dazed and confused.  If I could only have the experience of a 60 year old version of myself I feel like I’d be in a lot better position to effectively minister to people.

With all of that said, I believe one of the ways in which God has sovereignly sustained me throughout the past 3 years are the people in my very own congregation.  A pastor’s relationship with his church is strikingly similar to his relationship with his biological family.  Often times your family is simultaneously the root of your greatest frustration and joy.  So while pastoring a congregation can feel brutal it also fills me with bliss.  When I’m down and out it’s often people in my church that pick me up off of the floor and help me get going again.  You all have encouraged me in numerous ways, helped to take care of my family and served so faithfully in our church.  So many of you have shown me great patience in my youth as a lead pastor (at the ripe age of 35), faithfully supporting me as I’ve attempted to make the best decisions for our church.  You guys cut me a lot of slack and I appreciate it.  I am rejuvenated by your acts of love and commitment to ministering together.

Probably what encourages me the most is your love, concern and devotion to each other as well.  So many of you show up to church early and then stay late just to help provide our worship service at the school.  Many of you open up your homes and invest so much time into others for the sake of Christ.  You show great passion and strive to help each other in practical ways that go way beyond any official programmed effort by the church as a whole, you just do a great job of meeting needs.  When you’re there for someone it’s messy and costly, most of you seem to get that and keep going.  I could tell you hours of stories to prove to you that what I’m claiming is true.

Now don’t get me wrong, I could also write about all of the things that we often get wrong too, let’s not kid ourselves here.  I know you well and I’m very aware of our shortcomings as a whole, but that comes with any family of believers.  However, I appreciate having people in my life who stick together for a greater cause, Jesus and his kingdom.  In our time together I’ve seen people deepen their understanding of the Gospel.  I’ve seen your love of God’s word intensify and flourish.  You’re willing to talk and think through difficult passages of scripture and not settle for wishy-washy Christian answers to difficult theological pursuits.  Knowing your love for the Bible gives me confidence to walk verse-by-verse through it’s teaching when I preach.

Perhaps most rewarding of all is witnessing people who begin to understand the gospel for the first time.  I’ve seen people go from not knowing Jesus to believing in the gospel of Jesus.  The joy of seeing someone put their faith in the grace of God is worth all of this struggling that we endure (well that and the doctrine of heaven of course, ha).

The truth of the matter is that we’re all struggling together and I want you to know how much I appreciate having you to struggle with.  It’s so comforting to know I’m not alone in my struggle, I have a community of believers in the trenches with me trying to proclaim the light in this dark world. It’s the best of times and the worst of times together as partners in the gospel of Jesus.  To Him be the glory.

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
(James 1:2-4)

I’m so grateful to be your pastor,

Cody