Join us on Sunday, December 8th with two services at 6:00 and 8:00 p.m. for our sixth annual Christmas on The Moon service! Invite your friends and family as we transform one of Tallahassee's best known nightclubs into an incredible

CITYCHURCH service! Free tickets are available online. 

Are you new to CITYCHURCH and wondering what's next? Then join us for NEXT, an engaging 2 hour class (with a break!) for an overview of our mission, strategy, and environments to help you determine your best next step. Dinner and childcare are provided.  NEXT will take place Sunday, November 24th from 5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.  Sign up here.  

 

"We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be." - C.S. Lewis

 

February of 2010 I stepped down as the teaching pastor of a young church plant in Ooltewah, TN. Some directional and Biblically doctrinal differences left me with no choice but to step aside as I could not in good conscience head in this direction with them. Our financial situation was pretty bleak at the time and we had another baby on the way, so I began searching for another ministry or job opportunity to make ends meet. A few months later we moved to Tallahassee to take an IT job with the state where we have been ever since.

 

I didn't really consider the possibility that almost 4 years later I would still be working IT. I had gone to seminary to prepare for a life of ministry that I felt God had called me to. I am a Christian. I was called. I prepared. I did all the things I thought I was supposed to. Stuff is supposed to work out. Surely God wouldn't have me go through seminary and spend all that time, effort, and money to simply work an IT job...

 

And there it is. Pride and malcontent.

 

These have been the biggest lessons I've had to learn over the past three years:

 

First, God doesn't need me or my crap. God is amazing. God is incredibly gracious. God blesses and uses us in so many unimaginable ways every single week. I think I have had more ministry opportunities in my daily life here in Tallahassee than I ever did as a pastor in Tennessee. He doesn't have to. There's no contract. I am entitled to nothing.

 

Second, I need God and all of His grace. Sure we all know this, say this, sing about it on Sunday, and Tweet and Facebook stuff about it all the time. But how often is it a real, urgent, day-to-day reality in our lives? What does it really mean "love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind" (Matthew 22:37)? I don't know how to do that. I fail at that every day.

 

Third, God is sovereign and works in unexpected ways. Things didn't work out the way I thought they would, but God is sovereign and I know He has worked them according to His will. I really am in the best possible place I could be, whether I feel that way from moment to moment or not. Further, He wants to draw us closer and closer to Himself, transforming us into the image of His dear Son day after day.

 

I know a lot of you are at or near graduation. The job market is terrible. Bad and unexpected things happen in the lives of people at our church every day. But I also know we serve a sovereign God who is actively working out an awesome and possibly unexpected good in each of our lives, whether we see it at the moment or not. Trust God's gracious and sovereignty in our lives.  Don't let pride and malcontent keep you from realizing the work that He has you doing right now.