God Knows What He’s Doing, Get Onboard or Get Out of His Way
Many of us don’t like change. We’re comfortable with a “This is the way we’ve always done it” attitude. A few weeks ago, I told you about changes happening in our church. We discussed that change is inevitable whether we embrace it or not.
The past several months our church has been dealing with a lot of change and unknowns. The unknown part is what makes us so apprehensive about change.
As a United Methodist church, our congregation had some concerns about the direction of the denomination. These concerns created questions which led to other questions. This question-and-answer process went on for months.
Were we going to stay United Methodist or we going to leave?
If we left, what were our options? Which of these options was the best? What did this mean for our property? What did this mean for the pastor? How long would this take? The questions went on and on.
This is where faith comes in.
As Christians we should trust in God and His “blueprint for life”. His Word gives us the instructions for living the life that He wants for us. This brings us to where we are now and this week’s message from our new pastor.
Welcome Lisa Buffum.
She started her message with her story and how God brought her to us to be our pastor.
Being a member of a United Methodist church and aware of what was going on in the denomination, she knew about the things our church was going through. She came to one of the meetings our church held as we were working through the process of what to do. She actively prayed for churches that were going through this process of answering the question of what to do.
The night that we had our vote for what we were going to do going forward, she drove to our church and sat in the parking lot praying.
We voted to leave the United Methodist and become Global Methodist as have several other churches in the district and conference.
There has been a shortage of pastors for a long time and with this split came the question of who would pastor these new churches. As she heard of more and more churches separating, she was concerned that there wouldn’t be enough pastors for the new Global Methodist churches.
She was thinking about this and had the thought that church laity might need to step up and fill some pulpits.
As she was praying, she heard God ask…” Why not you?”
This is a question that we all tend to push back on. Why me? Because I don’t have what it takes. Because I’m not good enough. I must have not heard that correctly. We’ve all done this at some time or another.
Why not you?
As a lay person she is going to be leading our church. She will be going through the process of becoming ordained. Becoming a pastor is not something that was a part of her life plan…surprise.
Looking back, it is clear how these things were happening separately and simultaneously. This is how God works. This is us getting onboard with His plan.
It’s up to us to do accept the changes that are part of God’s plan. If we don’t, we will suffer the consequences. In Isaiah 43:16-21 we are told to not get hung up on the past and accept the amazing new things that God is creating.
We need to remember that this is God’s story…not ours.
Life is a great adventure, and we need to embrace it. There is a time and season for everything here on earth, it’s up to us to open our minds to be aware of and embrace these changing seasons.