Accidental Pastor

I think the most important thing a follower of Jesus can learn is to hear from God. Walking in the Spirit in our daily lives requires a cultivation of this ability. However, when you hear God about the big things, that is always overwhelming and very re-assuring.

In the fall of 1995 I was in a rough patch in my journey. My friends and fellow church colleagues had rejected my missionary proposal: To plant churches to reach teens to twenty-somethings and their parents. I had no clear direction about what was going to happen next. In support of my mission I had been attending weekly meetings of a “New Church Incubator” sponsored by the Vineyard Church in Palm Desert. Each week a group of pastors, church planters and others would gather to learn, plan, pray, strengthen and encourage one another. I had formed some relationship with one of the pastors in the group. He had suffered a significant decline in his church over a number of years and was trying to get strength for the journey.
I felt led to make an appointment with him to spend some time and get to know him and his situation better. While my proposal was pending before the church council I spent an afternoon in the nearby city where his church was located. I listened to his story. There was struggle and pain. We cried together. We prayed together. I left that day with a deeper connection with this brother.
In this in-between time I traveled down south to hear a minister preach and received an encouraging word describing my situation. She said, “You are like a ship traveling from one harbor to another. Your next destination is near.”
My pastor-friend’s situation was on my heart and mind. It seemed that the Lord was asking me to spend some time attending his church, to help him. After enough prompting I decided to do just that and attended a Sunday morning service.
At that time the church had about 75 attenders. I arrived about ten minutes before the service was scheduled to start and found the doors open, but no one there. I could hear some voices from another room, but the foyer and auditorium were empty. I walked in and found a seat and waited. Around ten o’clock a few more people began to trickle in. The worship team took their places, prayed and began to lead worship. There were more people on stage than in the congregation at that point. Over the next twenty minutes or so more people began to arrive during the worship. Finally about 30 minutes after the scheduled start time the pastor and his family arrived and took their places in the front row. About ten minutes later the music stopped, and without a word, everyone left the room! I wasn’t used to “coffee” time. There I sat alone in the auditorium for about fifteen minutes until about 1/2 of the people re-gathered in the auditorium.
The pastor was preaching a series in the gospel of Mark, and he was about to preach on Mark 5. The offering was taken and then he began to give announcements. While he talked about the events happening and about to happen in the church’s life, I read ahead in the Gospel of Mark until I got to Mark 9. Mark 9 has one of my favorite faith passages in the New Testament. Jesus is dialoguing with the father of the boy who is overcome with seizures. Clearly the situation is critical. At one point Jesus says: “Everything is possible for one who believes,” and the father replies: “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” That’s about as much faith as I have most of the time!
While I was reading I received this clear impression, “Charlie, you are going to preach the sermon on Mark 9 in this series in this church.” This was a startling concept to me. While I knew the pastor, I didn’t think I knew him well enough that he would invite me to speak in his church. While this thought settled in, the pastor continued to give the announcements. He was excited about a city-wide prayer event that was coming up. So excited in fact, that he never preached a sermon at all that day, he preached the announcements! I walked out of the church and got in my car thinking, “That was kind of a weird experience.” I had very little interaction with the members of the congregation. I really wondered what that was all about.
Just a few weeks later I got a call in the middle of a weekday afternoon. It was the leader of the “New Church Incubator” group. He asked me, “Do you have any vision for Moreno Valley?” I honestly answered, “No, I don’t.” “We want you to be the interim pastor of the Vineyard church there.” I could spell interim, but I really didn’t know what an interim pastor was supposed to do. But my answer was: “Yes.” This was the next step of ministry for me, I was convinced. Three weeks later I was installed as the pastor. The next week I delivered my first sermon there: The chapter I spoke from was Mark 9!