NSO... p1

Today I sat in a room full of new staff members for New Staff Orientation (NSO). Not as a newbie staff member but as a veteran, a presenter of content, a mentor helping launch them in their new careers at LCBC Church well.

Why was I chosen from among the amazing group I get to call peers to represent them? Well, its not because I'm a shining example of what to be, actually, I'm quite the opposite, I've made a LOT of mistakes over the past 13 years.  

Pearl and I've been around LCBC since 2005, we were only 22 then! We were like babies! We'd been married only 3 months. Still in the midst of our own spiritual crisis of faith, not fully sure of what we believed or where we belonged, but somehow landed a spot on the staff of a church that had just exploded, and doubled... again. 

I didn't feel like I belonged, I was a redneck colorblind kid from Georgia with a speech impediment. 

But God wanted us to belong, but more importantly he wanted us to become something. 

The past 13 years on staff have radically changed me. Reshaped my marriage, how I parent, how I believe and pray and value and close my eyes at night in peace. 

The past 13 years have drug me through some awful seasons of growth and refinement. Seasons of anxiety and panic attacks, of looking at the brink of finical ruin (or what felt like ruin), of questioning my value and belonging and worth and place and skills and all the questions that haunt closet insecurity addicts. 

But the past 13 years have also propelled me literally around the world, 9 countries to be exact (if you count airports, which I totally do). It's thrust me into a deeper understanding of myself, my talents, my value, my faith, God's acceptance and ridiculous love of me, teaching me what leadership is but more importantly what faithfulness is, faithfulness to servant leadership in a community and faithfulness to teammate, friends... and my spouse.  

The past 13 years have been simply amazing. I'm truly honored, blessed, humbled to have these memories, to be apart of these moments, to have LCBC as a part of me and to say I'm a part of LCBC. 

So why did I present today? Maybe just to remind myself, and hopefully a room full of wide eyed newbie's that God has a wild plan for our lives that we could never map out, but we can follow one step at a time, and in so following be invited into the wonderful adventure of his kingdom and our becoming fully who he's created us to be. 

Here's to hopefully another 13 years... well, that is if that's where God's map might lead... which I hope it does!