The Blog Has Been Hijacked, Part 1

In the very first book of the Bible, Genesis, we read about God testing his people to see if their hearts truly do belong solely to Him. God created us to live in community with Him, and for us to love and worship ONLY Him. However, even as Christ-followers, we often get distracted by the good & bad things of life.

Back in Spring of 2004, Juli (my wife) and I decided that we were “all in” on following Jesus to wherever He led us. This included abandoning a really sweet career in the military- even though I was set and rolling to have command of my own patrol boat in the near future. This idea of following Jesus extended world wide.

We often said, “Our family will go anywhere He leads us. Even if it’s to Siberia, Florida, Africa, Haiti, or even Michigan.” We always mentioned Michigan because that was literally the last place on earth we would desire to go. We hated that state. Well, to our surprise, God led us to do full time ministry in the far off land of Chesapeake, VA as the Campus Pastor of Forefront’s second of three campuses. Into year two of the campus, the leadership of Forefront sought God’s direction and decided to close the Chesapeake Campus.  At the closure of Forefront’s Chesapeake Campus, we were once again freed up to do ministry wherever God led us. And, He had been doing a work on my heart for about 6 months previous. He was breaking my heart open wide for a certain people group, or subculture, in Detroit, MI.

This of course surprised everyone, especially Juli. The Detroit area of Michigan is one of the most racially charged areas in the United States. It is nothing less than racially evil there. We have already had people yell racist obscenities at us through their passing car window. It’s far worse than any “southern” city. And we are a biracial family…and a new one at that. We had gone from zero kids to 1 baby and twin 3 year olds that didn’t speak English, but had orphanage issues only months earlier. In addition, the weather there would do murderous things to my beat up body (2 metal rods, a plate, a wire cage, and 4 screws inside of my spine…a thanks for playing gift, from Uncle Sam).

When we looked at all of the pro’s and con’s, moving to Michigan to start a church was a terrible idea. However, we fully wanted to honor our commitment to God of going wherever He led us. We did not want to fall short. We wanted to be the type family that God would want to write about 1,000 ears from now. A family that heard the call of God, left to chase it down, and then watched as God did amazing things through our obedience. So, we prayed. We prayed, and we prayed, and we prayed. And I’m not just talking about the kind of nice and mellow, peaceful prayer that most of you are probably use to. I straight up had it out with God on many occasions. The final blow was when I went in the back yard (only in my back yard, in the pitch black at of night…otherwise my neighbors might fully believe that I had completely lost it and call the cops on me).

I had been given a nice and tasty cigar from my great friend Mike DeSelm, only a few days previous (I love cigars, but will only smoke one every 6 months or so). Well, under the cover of darkness, with the entire family put to bed and sleeping, and my cigar freshly lit, I spent the next 2 hours arguing with God. I spoke with my native tongue (those of you that know me can figure out what that means), and yelled, and cried, and I whined. I begged God to make things so obviously clear to me, so that  would not make a bad choice because of some hair brained idea that I thought up as opposed to Him.

After all the yelling, crying, flailing of arms, and a 12 inch trench trampled down into my yard from the pattern that I was pacing, God had shown me that I was supposed to either A) Start a church in the Detroit area, where many hundreds of people who are far from Him could come into a relationship with Him, or B) Work at Pizza Hut in the Detroit area and share Jesus with my co-workers and neighbors. Once I realized that I could go to Michigan, or go to Michigan, I decided to take action and follow through, and make plans to move to…yep, you guessed it, Michigan. I spoke with Juli, and we prayed a bunch. We fasted a bunch. Then, we were off and running.

With our responsibilities to the people of Chesapeake freed up, we began to pour every second of energy and time into planting a church in Michigan. We wanted to plant a church there, for people who were broken, and had given up on church. There are so many hurting people up there, and there is so much brokenness within the homes. Worse yet, with the economy diving to more than twice the unemployment rate of any other city in the United States, young families were becoming very open to hearing the gospel of Jesus in a new & refreshing way. There was something brewing in that part of the world, and we were on our way to become apart of it. We were on our journey…and we were hell bent on bashing in the gates of hell in Detroit, MI.

Then, the craziest thing happened…but, ummm…on second thought, that’ll have to wait till next time.
Chuck