The Journey Begins

A strange phrase I think, "The Journey Begins". Are we going somewhere? Maybe, maybe not.
You see, the journey isn't about leaving, it's about stepping out of your front door.

"It's a dangerous business, walking out your front door. You step on the road and if you don't keep your feet, there's no telling where you might be swept off to."

For us, stepping out our front door is being willing to follow God without restriction or condition- to be passionate about Him and where He calls us, not longing for something else or moaning about our past.

We sent this letter to our elders last week.

Steven and Laura Morgan
10/29/2007

Dear friends,

Laura and I want to thank you all for allowing and enabling us to attend this past Sonship week. (It’s very difficult to describe to you the blessings of having such a loving church family.) As we settle back into this week, we thought it important to update you on our experience at the conference, as well as what we think God is beginning to do in our lives.

As most of you know, the past year has been very difficult. The journey through church planting assessment was an incredibly hard experience. There was little grace in the process, which still saddens us, but we can also now see that the assessment showed us more about ourselves than we were comfortable knowing.

The pain, of what to us was an unforgiving process and a catastrophic failure, has been the defining voice in our lives for a good portion of the past year. Progress and healing have been slow. And as time has progressed, we have waxed and waned in our spiritual lives, struggling to get our feet under us and walk with confidence again.

Over the last few months, however, we have seen God begin to heal the pain and wounds of this experience. We have also begun to feel his call to surrender our desires to him. I’ll do my best to describe to you the movement of God in us over the past months.

Coming off of the assessment experience, Laura and I have struggled with knowing what God is calling us to. While we have always been at home at Community, we have over the past year felt that God may be preparing us for a different ministry. We are not certain what God would have us do, and we are content to work for His glory at CPC, but His voice is sounding in our ears, and we feel the pull to listen.

As we’ve struggled with our call, God graciously brought a retired minister into our lives several months ago to challenge us and give us wise counsel. This new friend, James Perry, challenged us to consider God’s call in our lives “without restriction or condition.” A strange phrase, I think, but one that resonated with me.

As I talked with James, I began to realize that I was stuck in my own conceptions of what I wanted to do and be – I was limiting God. And as I heard this Godly counsel, the Spirit’s work in me was to have me say, “We’ll go wherever and do whatever you desire.” I began to pray for Laura to become excited as well.

It was on the heels of this conclusion that the opportunity to attend Sonship Week arrived. As Laura and I shared our assessment story and heartache with Ron and Gayle Clegg during their visit to CPC, they encouraged us to attend the conference for the encouragement and healing it could bring. As we shared with the Cleggs the voice of James Perry telling us to consider our call without condition or restriction, Ron naturally assumed that we were saying that we wanted to consider foreign missions as well. After hearing what we thought our gifts were, Ron concluded that we might be able to work on the field in Ireland or England as mentors on the Church Resource teams of World Harvest Mission (the creators of Sonship). We were shocked at his conclusion, yet tucked the thought away with skepticism.

Upon arriving at the conference, Laura and I were assigned a “mentor” – someone who would help us an hour each day to work through the implications of the Gospel in our lives. In our case, it was a man named Meredith Elder. On our third day of meeting with Meredith, he asked if we had ever thought about using our gifts on the mission field. UGH! What does God have in mind here?

My first thoughts would usually be fear and anxiety. Laura and I have risked enough over the past year, and exposing ourselves to something else would be too much. But God is truly gracious. He has been there, whispering to us to trust Him, and even as we sat with Ron and then with Meredith, the voice of a father who loves us could be heard. We can trust Him. We can walk down the path to which he calls us, because we don’t walk alone.

Meredith suggested that we talk with World Harvest’s chief recruiter, Dan Macha, so we met with him, told him our story, and then allowed him to consider whether we might have a place with World Harvest. His conclusion was that we might fit with the Church Resource teams in Ireland or England! Sound familiar? Dan told us to meet with the Ireland team leader who was at the conference, and then begin a courting relationship with both the Ireland and England teams.

Following this conversation, Laura and I met with Joel and Cindy Hylton, team leaders of one of the two teams in Ireland. Again, we told them our story, being very honest about our assessment experience and the conclusions of the assessment center as far as our gifts and passions. They shared information about their team and its mission in Ireland. At least initially, we have found common ground with them, and our next step is to go to Ireland for a site visit in January. As for England, we have yet to begin a conversation with them; this is still to come.

If this seems like a big thing to you, you’re absolutely right. Laura and I could never have imagined this scenario, and, to be honest, the barriers ahead of us seem huge. The financial needs to make the trip to Ireland and possibly England loom first, and the knowledge that another assessment is in our future is a haunting reality.

Scotty Smith, pastor of Christ Community Church in Nashville, speaks a lot about the “narrative of self-fulfillment” – about how we tend to give God a “bit part” in our story, instead of realizing that we are characters in His. Over the past couple of months, and especially this week, we have felt God calling us out of this narrative, to die to ourselves for Him.

We love Community, and we covet your counsel and prayers as we walk through this door He has opened and seems to be wooing us toward.


For His Glory,

Steve and Laura