Surprised, by God…

Over the next year or so the professional staff thinned. The worship pastor took a position at a church in another state. Budget issues caused some reductions. Personal issues caused another. Real estate negotiations and requests for financial assistance from denominational headquarters went forward. All the while the church did three services in its temporary home. An offer for financing came in. $1.4 million to purchase and remodel property we had been pursuing for two years.
The church council met, and decided… to do nothing! The next week the pastor met with me and told me he was burnt out and needed time off, a sabbatical. That was a very low point for me. The pastor had left town. The real estate project on which tens of thousands of dollars had been expended was abandoned. Since I had left the back pews and gone “all-in” the congregation had spent nearly $200,000, lost about 300 regular attenders and most of the paid professional staff.
I attended a leadership meeting at a mega-church in a nearby county. This movement was going through the difficulties that surround outbreaks of revival, particularly those with symptoms of charismatic excess. The leader of the movement was attempting to bring correction. I wanted to see how he would do it. One of the practices of this revival involved “resting in the spirit.” Apparently if one wanted to be blessed and ministered to in the Spirit one needed to be on the floor!
After the “business” part of the meeting there was a time of personal ministry. I stood near a wall (no floor-time for me!) and one of the prayer team prayed for me. It was nice, but did not resolve the internal struggle going on in me. I looked over and saw a spot on the floor. I thought, “That looks like a nice spot, I’ll just go lay down on the floor.”
In a flash, inspiration came and I felt that God was saying to me, “Don’t worry, I’m in control, it is my timing and you are not on the hook.” The first two ideas were certainly biblical, although in practice it is easy to forget that God is a moving force in the universe. We get so caught up in our illusion of self-sufficiency and control that we forget who the prime mover is. However, I argued with the third point. I was carrying the success or failure of the church moving project and for that matter, the success or failure of the church on my shoulders. I definitely felt I was “on the hook.”

Strangely, I got up from my floor time feeling a little better about the situation. In the next few days I got a call from one of our church members. He told me that he had done some drywall work for a church building project in a local business park. The church was having trouble paying him and he suggested that I contact the pastor about the possibility of our church moving there.
About one week from the time I had heard the whisper of God when I was on the floor, I was meeting with the pastor whose church had stopped meeting and who was unable to complete the building project. Walking through the nearly completed facilities it seemed as if this facility was designed specifically to meet the needs of our congregation. An auditorium that would seat about 400 and some classroom areas for children’s ministry. If we could pull it off, we might find a place to rest and rebuild for the future.
The next few months were a flurry of activity. Councils needed to meet. Boards needed to approve. Painting, carpeting and drywalling had to be completed. All of this activity, leadership decisions and work, done while the pastor was on leave. Finally the inaugural weekend arrived. The night before our first service in the new location the sound system was being checked out with music playing. David Ruis sang,
“There’s a wind a-blowin?, all across the land
A fragrant breeze of Heaven
Blowin’ once again
Don’t know where it comes from
Don’t know where it goes
But let it blow over me
Oh, sweet wind, come and blow over me”
I worshipped at the front of the auditorium. New paint and carpet smells filled the air. Emotion overwhelmed me and I remembered my floor-time only a few months before and God “spoke” to me again: “See, you weren’t on the hook, were you?”