"Happy" for the Holidays

Psalm 13:3-6

³ Turn and answer me, O Lord my God!
      Restore the sparkle to my eyes, or I will die.
 ⁴ Don’t let my enemies gloat, saying, “We have defeated him!”
      Don’t let them rejoice at my downfall.

 ⁵ But I trust in your unfailing love.
      I will rejoice because you have rescued me.
 ⁶ I will sing to the Lord
      because he is good to me.

In my last blog I shared about my church’s difficult financial situation.  I thought by this point I would have to take a major pay cut and start working more shifts at Caddyshack—but I haven’t.  God has supplied my church’s need!

In November an unexpected check for nearly $3,000 came in to cover where we were going to be short.  It was out of the blue, something I never could have imagined!  God is so creative in how he wants to bless his children. 

Then this past Sunday a check was found in our giving box for
$5,000!  I’m told it was given by someone who hasn’t attended in several months and wasn’t even in the service this week.  How did they slip in unnoticed to give us this enormous gift?  Why did they do it?  Did they know we are hurting?  Did they feel “lead” to do it?  Did an angel take out their checkbook and write the check for them?! 

I fear I will become addicted to these kinds of miracles.  I want to simply trust that God will meet my need no matter what.  What if next month the big check doesn’t show up and I have to make up the difference with tips at Caddyshack?  Will I keep “trusting in His unfailing love?”  Will I still “sing because he is good to me?” 

That has been the struggle entering year six of “Bill’s excellent church planting adventure”.  At the beginning I was filled with hope and determined that God was going to do amazing things.  More than anything I believed that He was going to use me to shine light in a restaurant where people needed hope.  Five plus years into it, my zeal and joy and have waned.  I started to notice this a couple of years ago.  I found myself depressed and in survival mode.  About a year ago I determined that I needed to find my joy and get back to being “Wild Willy”.  (More on “Wild Willy” in future blogs!)  I needed to figure out how to be happy doing hard things.

This has always been my struggle—when life is hard I quit and just do something else and think that the “new thing” will bring happiness.  Sometimes it does for a short while, but soon the new thing has its struggles too.  I want to be like Paul who said, “I’ve learned to be content in whatever state I am in.”  He wasn’t talking about Florida, Georgia, New Mexico or Nebraska—he was talking about prison and ship wrecks and making tents to scrape by. 

All three of my kids are home now and life feels really good!  This is how I want life to always “feel”, but it doesn’t and I want to learn how to be happy no matter what.  To find joy no matter what situation God has placed me is my new quest.

Who I am and how it's going.

For 5+ years I have been the church planter of Edgewater Church and server at Murray Brothers Caddyshack in St Augustine, FL.  It has been the most oxymoronic experience of my life, filled with joy and pain, tears and laughter.

I now Pastor a church of about 100 people the majority of which are brand new to the Kingdom of God.  I cannot describe how much pain and brokenness is contained in my church.   There are marriages on the brink and teenagers in turmoil and some who struggle with substance abuse and others who battle mental meltdowns.   I often joke that I dreamed of starting a church filled with beaten up, broken people and to my horror God answered my prayers. 

In the past week I have learned of 3 marriages that are really, really struggling.  I just add them to the list of others I pray for. 

Right now we are in a major financial crisis.  I honestly worry if we will weather this storm.  A few weeks back we lost a family that was very generous in their giving.  They struggled to fit in and find community and finally they left.  Then two weeks later an outside supporter shared that he would no longer be giving.  His giving represented 20% of our budget!   So, in just two weeks time we had lost 30% of our giving.  There are basically two ways to try and compensate for this loss.  One is to relocate.  We spend about 20 % of our budget on renting a very nice school.  It costs $2,200 per month to rent.  It’s a little outrageous to spend $500+ to rent a building for 3 hours each Sunday, but it’s all we have.  There are no other building choices.

The other option is for the worship pastor and me to take pay cuts.  Big pay cuts!  50% pay cuts!   In a week our Leadership Team will be meeting to decide what to do.  In the meantime I pray that God will do a miracle.  He’s done it before and He can do it again.  It’s what gives me hope.

Last January we were in this same situation.  We were very much in the red budget wise.  The only solution was to cut my pay.  I took a 35% pay decrease and began working as many serving shifts as my restaurant would give me.  For two months God did amazing things.  I still don’t even know how we did it, but all the bills were paid and the pantry was filled.  For two months my tips were nearly double what I normally got and random checks came our way through people who knew and didn’t know about our plight.

Finally, at the end of February came the miracle.  My daughter called to tell me of a college friend of hers in Orlando who wanted to make a contribution to our church.  She had never been to Edgewater, but loved the stories my daughter Mandy told her about our church.  After getting her phone number I gave her a call hoping it might be some amazing gift like $300 or even maybe $500!  She was just a college student with a part time job, but my struggling church needed help and I was hoping that she would help us catch up a little. 

She told me that she had been in a car accident a year or so ago and that she had now reached a settlement.  She said she could easily give the money to the church she attended, but felt they didn’t really need the money and felt like God was telling her to give it to Edgewater.  Finally she told me the amount.  SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS!  I was immediately reduced to tears.  God was amazing!  Only God could think up a story like that.  To have a young woman with little financial means rescue a church in a town 90 miles away and fill a discouraged pastor with hope. 

So for six months we have rocked along and all has been well financially.  My salary was bumped back up 20% and I was able to cut back a few shifts at Caddy and then two emails came to put us back in crisis mode. 

But I hold onto hope and so do the elders of my church.  We are waiting and praying believing that God will step in again. 

The interesting thing is right before financial crisis number 2 happened I had been having my daily Bible readings in Zechariah.  Every day I would underline and copy verses that jumped out and would soon speak to my present situation.  Here’s a few of them….

"All this may seem impossible to you now, a small and discouraged remnant of God's people.  But do you think this is impossible for me, the Lord Almighty?"  Zechariah 8:6

"...I will rescue you and make you both a symbol and source of blessing."  Zech 8:13

"I promise this very day I will repay you two mercies for each of your woes!"  Zech 9:12

"When that day arrives the Lord their God will rescue his people, just as a shepherd rescues his sheep.  They will sparkle in his land like jewels in a crown."  Zech 9:16

"Ask the Lord for rain in the spring and he will give it"  Zechariah 10:1

"He will make them strong and glorious, like a proud warhorse in battle."  Zech 10:3

"I will reestablish them because I love them."  Zech 10:6

"I will make my people strong in my power, and they will go wherever they wish by my authority.  I, the Lord, have spoken."  Zech 10:12

So this is what I pray for everyday.  I hold onto hope and believe that God will rescue me and my little church!  Let me know how I can pray for you too!