If You Would Have Asked Me

If you would have asked me for an honest evaluation of my life eight years ago, or ten, I would have said that while I knew I still needed growth (as growth is always a necessary part of life), but also would have stated that I felt I was in a good place spiritually, mentally, and in relationships such as family and friendships. Life was not perfect, with some real deep challenges in that season. We were in transition. The work we had pioneered and labored in over the years we were handing over. There was pain in connection to that transition as our heart was intertwined with people and the ministry, but in it general was a good experience with positive outcomes. We were allowing others to step up and step into greater leadership, and all indicators were that we were stepping into the next thing God had for us.

Over the past eight years, I have grown as person more than I could have imagined. And from this vantage point, I see how small I was in my thinking and maturity in so many ways. My ability to love. My capacity for more. It is easy to reference our lives from a position that limits and never realize it.

I was a good husband, honoring my wife in friendship, love, and as her care giver during illness and eventual passing. In so many ways I have grown and became better at being a husband, and even now, I would be a be different man…even more understanding, compassionate, and listening. Loved my kids and sacrificially raised them, and I am learning how to do a whole lot better, to listen more, more kind when agitated, and more graceful and understanding in moments of deep longing and despair. With God, I have just scratched the surface, and after going through tremendous loss, there is a faith and direction in my relationship with Him, depths untold ahead available, more than I thought I understood by far as I am more dependent, more in need. As I open my eyes and heart more to the eternal and what is after this life, I see life in a whole new way.

I am doing several courses and reading books to help me develop in this season. Here is some of what I read yesterday:

BELIEFS are the basis for DECISIONS

BELIEFS drive DECISIONS

EXPERIENCES form BELIEFS

What am I believing about God? Myself? My future? My calling?

Part of the effects of loss and trauma is how we take a look at these kind of questions. More gentle. More caucious. More wanting genuine truth and not supposedly obvious answers. More dependence on God for the answers and less assuming I know.

This past week, two of my kids started at Bible College. One doing second year to finish and the other graduated a year early from high school to do year one. We walk a journey together. I start a course later today that will be three afternoons a week. There is a whole lot of emotions and just feeling lost that goes on when you are maneuvering the challenges of life and loss. As one writer of a book I am reading states, there is one constant in life: change. Therefore, what kind of life do you want in five years? Where do you want to be? What kind of person will you be?

These are intentional questions that require intentional actions.

I am excited to live life at a whole new level. It did not take tragedy to get me to live life to its fullest as we did our best, but I find an invitation from God…to go deeper than I have ever gone before! This all comes with an incredible awareness…I cannot get there. It has to be Divine Partnership. Divine Grace. Divine Healing. Divine Revelation.

What are the EXPEREINCES that have become the BELIEFS you have formed? How are they molding your DECISIONS…everyday…small and great! Paving the way for what your future will be? Allow God into those secret places. Allow Him to take you to His. To reveals treasures and mysteries.

TO REBUILD LIFE AND LOVE!

Adventuring Around America and Beyond (Update)

As I sat across the table sipping coffee listening to a friend’s story, I shared how grief and loss had resurfaced some of those relatable issues of a distant past to face at a deeper level. Grief leaves no stone unturned in your life, and while I never would choose this path, it has given me space and opportunity to grow in ways I have never been confronted with before.

My journey, and the experiences of being in full-time ministry twenty-six years, much of that as a church planter in Ireland, has opened a greater door of opportunity and influence. People are contacting me through social media, texts, and in conversations over these past few months in particular, looking for a listening ear and help in their own journey. Just when I felt unsure of what I might have to offer with everything that has been going on in this season, I feel a bit like a sponge. When people take the time to ask questions and spend time with me, stuff from God based upon my walk with Him and all the time Rachel and I devoted for years studying the Word and in prayer gets squeezed out. I even get surprised myself, and that is what has been happening!

In 2016, when God led Rachel and myself to hand over the churches in Portlaoise and Carlow, I was concerned about the process of starting over. I suppose we both were. But at some point, Rachel got the revelation that we would never start over. We had so much experience and that would go with us, being the foundation for what is next.

I could talk about those dreams and visions that God has been resurfacing. There IS a future, but I don’t have the details or release from God to share those things on this platform at this time, but the ministry happening now is real and impacting lives through a whole string of one-on-one type opportunities (and I did get an opportunity to preach a few times at a church in Kentucky…it was great being back in the pulpit as well using my gifts to teach and preach).

I can do this because of many of your love and support and financial giving.

This summer we have left our temporary home in Colorado to travel to Texas, Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky, and Michigan. We have been with family, friends, supporters, and churches that we have not seen in eight years! We are at the tail end of that journey, taking a few days of needed family holiday time in northern Michigan.

In a short period of time, I will be returning to Ireland for a short trip of sorting through some legal stuff, organizing other things for those staying at our home, and a pretty tight schedule of visiting with people. I expect to have an incredible trip, mixed with facing a new level of pain.

We left Ireland two months after Rachel passed away. It will now be nine months, and it hit me a few days ago that I am going home and Rachel will not be there. It will be the first time in our family home with no Rachel or children since we built it twenty-one years ago. There will be a bit of a personal pilgrimage in connection with this trip. I know God will be with me.

Plans are underway for Autumn for Benjamin and Brianna to be Charis students. I had been excepted into a third year program, but after taking time this summer to really seek God, I plan to not do it. I believe there are other things that God is wanting to focus on during this season besides the future development of the ministry in a classroom type setting, though I am in the process of registering for a special program that will require less time and have a different focus.

I felt God tell me that I already know in my heart deep down what I am called to do next, and He has been preparing me for decades for it.

I am getting near my first book rerelease. I have been working on the first book I wrote fifteen years ago, which I have pretty much sold or gave away the majority of the initial thousand copies I got printed. The more I invest into rewriting, the more I wanted to include, but I hope to be ready to release it before the end of 2024, with my two other rereleases not far behind. I have also done a bit of work on a new book.

Most of our ministry, Rachel and I have gone to more obscure places where there were few church planters and ministers. We have loved it and been connected to the most gracious and amazing people, discipling and releasing, but because of that, when God first told me to write books I thought, “Who will ever read my books? Most people do not have a clue who I am or where I am.”

Along with that, English was a subject I hated and barely got through (so thankful to this day for spell check). But as I have been obedient, I may not have had a large audience, but my writing has had a significant impact on certain people’s lives, so with that, I feel in this season to invest again and go the next level in writing.

Maybe that is you. You have a gift or talent, or perhaps God has called you to step out in an area you know there are a lot more gifted people. God is not looking at the size of your impact, but the depths of what comes out of you as you lean into Him in dependence and relationship.

It is about what comes out of you when you are squeezed.

Since Rachel passed away, by the stories I hear and as I take a look back over the past twenty-five years, I admire her. The impact she has had, the amazing faith and bravery that she lived, and the depths of relationship with God she walked each and every day.

As the pastor of the church we have been part of the past few years said on several occasions, most people suffering more then a few days with the flu would be struggling to have faith and encouragement. Day in a day out, for years, Rachel had a trust and belief that was contangeous.

Someone asked me once in a parking lot in the heat of the battle if we had a special grace because of the way we seemed to be coping and focused on God and healing. No. We did not. It was the hard work of pressing into God, leaning into His love, sometimes studying His Word and in prayer four, five, and eight hours a day, seeking Him. Rachel had Hebrews 11 kind of faith, and while we did not see what we believed we would, her total healing here and now, she lived a life of no regrets and great rewards in heavenly terms. My hero…as well as many others.

People have asked if they could be part of supporting the work, or if they could help out Brianna and Benjamin with their Charis tuition. I am putting two links below. One for the ministry and a personal one if you want to help with tuition.

I recently heard a statistic that 80% of people who start off in full-time ministry resign within the first five years and out of the remaining 20%, 80% wish they could be doing something else. The speaker did not reference a source for this, but from what I have seen over the years, this is probably not far off.

This year Rachel and I would be twenty-six years in ministry. It has not always been easy, but the passion and desire is still there to be of impact and see nations reached. This would not be possible without your prayers and gifts. And on behalf of the family, to all of you who have reached out during this time of loss, and the many of you that are still reaching out with grace and understanding…Thank you from the bottom of our hearts! We love you guys so much!

Continue to follow our journey: https://www.instagram.com/living_with_colour/

Grassroots International Ministries: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=LG8DZCUD85FRE

Personal PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?business=UALRH9TAPMCSG&no_recurring=0&currency_code=EUR

So Many Church Christian Leader’s Falling

Over the years of ministry and church planting, Rachel and I would attend ministerial meetings from time to time. Most of it was directed towards leadership development. Rachel use to wonder if something was wrong with her in our early days of church planting as she felt she did not have much vision. I would always try and encourage her that she did.

I personally over the years had learned some useful tools through teaching, books, and experiences that helped in developing vision, strategies to help us get to where we needed to be, budgeting, and breaking things down into manageable timetables and achievable goals. I found what worked and what was not for me. Rachel and I would talk and plan together and shared in every aspect the ministry, but looking ahead and dealing with these kind of details was more my strength than hers.

As she became more comfortable with herself, I remember once being at a conference where there was scheduled a brainstorming session. She said she would skip out. I told her she needed to be there, but she said she would pass (which was unusual). She said she did not feel she connected into that zone of ministry and also felt it was just people trying to do something in their own efforts. If it was a prayer meeting, she would be there in a heartbeat!

In that moment I learned something about Rachel, myself, and most of the church. Call it a “revelation moment.” Those principles I had learned and applied had helped in the ministry (and to be honest, they were tools but not my main focus), but I saw more clear than ever, Rachel actually had GREAT vision. She was 100% in the moment. She loved God. She loved her husband and children and invested heavily in them. She loved to disciple people. She loved sharing Jesus with people that did not know Him. She invested daily into these areas, and things were being built, line upon line and precept upon precept.

This is not to take away from the need for planning and vision, but what Rachel understood was that there was One thing that mattered more than all else, and that was God, and He worked with us in this reality called “the present.” She also saw that this thing called vision and leadership had worked its way up the “importance ladder” a lot higher than it should be. Churches and ministries could be built on “clever” more than Jesus, and centered around certain individuals too much.

These past few years we have been living in the reality that so many that have perfected vision and strategy and growth within the church have been involved in scandal after scandal. I get that we are all are capable of scandal and I do not have the weight of the responsibilities these people have carried, but I started to wonder in greater measure that day Rachel made that statement, how much of what happens in ministry is of the flesh and how much is connected to God? How surrendered are we? How much do we really know Him?

The exposure of these “hidden sins” we are seeing is not just about sin being brought to the forefront. If that is all you see, that is just the surface issue. It goes deeper than our morality. It is a reflection of how hard-hearted and independent of God we all can be when it comes to God. How many times did Jesus expose hardness of heart, not just of the religious leaders, but of His disciples? Do a search in the gospels of how many times Jesus rebuked His followers for unbelief and hardness of heart. How many of us who consider ourselves disciples are resistant to God in so many ways?

When I see so many fall for their places of influence and ministry, my first thought is usually fear. Not dread. Fear of God. If am not careful, that could become me. It could be any of us.

Years ago I read 2 Chronciles and underlined every reference to “heart” and “seeking God.” There was always a connection between the direction of the nation of Israel or Judah and their king, and the condition of their hearts. There is so much teaching on practical things we can do to stay protected and set boundaries to keep us from falling, such as accountability partners and not being alone with the opposite sex, but as these situations have proven as some of these people had all those things in place, if our hearts are not right and our main desire is not to seek God with all of it, overtime that likely could be any of us.

Rachel had her struggles like anyone else, but she had a simplicity, passion for God, and discernment that she lived that is rare…and she lived that consistently since I have known her. She didn’t care what people thought if she saw it interfered with her relationship with God. When I struggle in an area in my own life…it is not circumstances, it is my heart. And I believe that is what God is wanting to address in these days, if we will have ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the church. It can be easy to love the ministry and God take second. That is what is coming to the surface. Misplaced love and no longer a healthy sense of the fear of God.

We can all use continual evaluation of our personal relationship with God. Most often it was in seasons of success that the kings heart of Judah and Israel grew hard. It is an example to us all, that we need always seek God and lean into Him, and keep putting Him first…it is an everyday thing!