I left full-time vocational church ministry in August 2018.  I made the decision to resign and in that resignation, negotiated a severance to be paid until the end of October.  I started real estate in August, taught VIPKid (teaching Chinese children English), interim preaching at a small Christian Church in Searcy, AR, and substitute teaching.  Those jobs and more paid the bills that needed to be paid.  Later I would try end of life mortgage insurance, working with our property management team, and then eventually join a team within our company.  In September of 2020 I found Standing Stone Ministry.  It was a fresh wind that blew through my soul.  I was now able to minister in a powerful way to other ministers who feel burned out or are needing genuine encouragement.  In order to do this ministry I have had to raise my own funds.  I think I've done pretty well with the fund raising and could do more.  In the 2021-22 school year I was given a unique opportunity to sub for the same teacher every Wednesday for the school year.  Along with that I was able to sub for her and other teachers, but all at just one school. I got to know the teachers well and those 5th grade students well. I was on a real estate team within my company, subbing, and doing Standing Stone this past spring.

Several things happened at once.  I cannot remember the exact dates, but it was in April...the beginning of April.  I have been on job posting sites since 2018.  I actually thought that I would be able to grab a lucrative job in the corporate world following my ministry career.  I have the skills and experience, but church experience doesn't quite compute to other industries.  Therefore after one 200 applications for various jobs I never received an interview.  It is a bit discouraging.  Yet, my hope is in the Lord so I persevered.  Back to the story.  I was on zip recruiter, indeed, LinkedIn, and other smaller ones.  I'm not sure which one popped but two opportunities caught my eye.  The first was a real estate job in town with a different company that was to be a property manager.  The second was to be a chaplain resident at a hospital.  Since my utter failure to receive an interview has destroyed my confidence, I simply thought on these before pursuing.  Finally I reached out to the broker about the property management and we met for an interview at a local coffee shop.  At the same time I sent in an application for the chaplain residency.  The coffee shop talk was on a Friday and the following week my broker scheduled a meeting with me for that Friday.  He offered me a position at our company to be the office administrator.  Now, here I am in April of 2022 with 3 different possibilities.  What do you do?  Leah and I talked and decided that I go for all of it.  ALL OF IT!!!  So I did.  The other company never called me back. One down, two to go.  My broker offered me the position, I negotiated a higher hourly wage, and he said yes.  My start date was May 9, 2022.  There was two to three weeks before my start.  Then came the email from the chaplain residency program scheduling an interview with me for that position.  As luck would have it, it was May 11, 2022.

I start with my brokerage on May 9 and two days later I make the trek to Little Rock to interview.  The interview went well.  I really connected to these chaplains and the position.  It would be a month before I would know anything they told me.  So I kept moving on with life.  I kept doing what I knew, rather than what might be.  I must stop here and say something about these three opportunities.  With all 3 my biggest concern was my Standing Stone Ministry.  Standing Stone is my future.  It is my heart.  The first opportunity with the other real estate company could have been so time consuming, I'm not sure my ministry would've survived.  I don't really know that because I never mentioned my ministry.  I felt guarded at the interview and decided that if I take this position, I'll need to keep this ministry private.  That was a red flag right there.  When I met with my own broker about being his office administrator I was open about my ministry and that I would continue meeting with pastors and my support team while I worked there.  He was extremely supportive.  When I interviewed for the chaplain residency, we talked about my ministry. They were extremely supportive and even offered that what I could learn there could enhance my ministry with pastors.  Back to the story.

Right around 1 month after my interview I received an email from the chaplaincy. I was offered a resident position.  At the time the email came I was in Texas on a mission trip as a sponsor for the trip with my boys.  I was talking to Leah daily during the trip, but didn't want to spring it on her with a phone call.  My excitement was riding high and told her anyway.  We came back from the mission trip and a few days later we left for our family vacation.  Leah and I were on vacation and talking about it.  She was surprised I hadn't already signed the agreement.  I said I wanted for us to talk and really make the decision.  Even though we had been talking since April, it was theoretical until early June.  On vacation I signed the agreement through my phone (Leah taught me how) and the stake was in the ground.

This past Monday and Tuesday I began receiving onboarding information for my Monday start date.  Here we go! It will be a journey.  I'm thankful that you are on it with me.

It is finally time to share what is new with me!  On Monday, August 15, 2022 I will start a new position as Chaplain Resident for UAMS in Little Rock, AR.  UAMS is the only level 1 trauma hospital in Arkansas.  The program takes on 6 resident chaplains from August through the next August teaching them how to be a chaplain as the resident earns all 4 units of CPE to be a certified chaplain.  It is a great opportunity and I'm excited to start on Monday.  There is so much more to say about how God has worked in all of this, but for now the announcement is simple. 

I will say that I will continue to shepherd pastors through Standing Stone Ministry.  I will still have my real estate license, however, my work in real estate will be extremely limited.  

The logistics are as such:  I will be commuting to Little Rock Monday through Friday.  My work begins at 8am and ends by 4:30pm.  The morning is for education and the afternoon is for visiting patients.  There will be an on-call once a week where I will spend the night in the hospital for emergencies.  I will be rising early, but be home for dinner and family time.  It is a paid position and offers benefits as well.  This was not decided upon lightly.  Leah and I have been in great prayer and are hopeful for this year and the future. Our three children know and are supportive.  I just told my broker two Mondays ago and while he is sad I'm leaving as office administrator, he knows that God has called me to this.

I would appreciate your prayers if you stumble upon this blog.  I will be thrusted into very intense moments in people's lives and God might be all they have at the time.  

I learned in my first ministry position that living in the past can be detrimental to your health and spiritual life.  There was an elderly lady at the congregation where I worked who was in bad physical health and walked with a walker, yet loved to talk.  However, once you listened to her stories you quickly realized that all of them were from the past. Years had gone by and these stories were all she had.  She didn't speak of the future and the present was filled with complaints of new ailments.  She was lonely and yet she was sweet.  I felt for her and usually gave my time to listen to what she had to say.  I remember the preacher saying to me one day, "She needs to stop living in the past and we need to help her start living for today and the future."  It seemed insensitive to me at the time and yet profound.  I hadn't until that moment realized that all of her stories were about the past.  And with this new perspective I listened with sensitivity, asked a few questions about the future, but in the end we were always in the past.

I learned in my last years of ministry that the past should not be forgotten.  When crisis came (and it came often at this particular congregation), I found it interesting how the past was only seen through nostalgic lenses.  They could remember robust numbers, money in the bank, and their personal small group making memories. However, they failed to tell the stories of preachers being fired, youth ministers being fired, college ministries being halted, a split that took half the church, moral failures on the part of members and leaders, elders becoming recluse, power struggles, and an overall distaste to really engage the community.  They would cry out for 17 years ago and to return to those glory days, not realizing that it was in that same time period when half the church left over a plethora of issues and it being mishandled by the elders and leaders.  Because the past was always cherry picked the mistakes made, continued to be made.

So somewhere there is balance.  We cannot live in the past or we cannot grasp the present and the future becomes a scary unknown.  We cannot forget the past or we continue to make the same mistakes and forget the God who led us through it all. There is a balance and finding it is a continual pursuit.

While there is something coming in m future, I cannot help but be mindful and hopefully honest about my past.  So here is the past:  I went to ACU for my undergrad and graduated with a Bible degree and youth ministry specialty.  I worked while in college as a year-round, full-time youth intern.  I started my first youth ministry position a few weeks after college graduation and was there for six years exactly.  I began my second youth ministry position directly following that work and served there for six years and three months. Then I began a senior minister position and was there for six years and six months.  I was an interim preacher following that position for 8 months.  Alongside being an interim preacher I also began real estate and next week will be 4 years and counting.  Two years ago in September I joined a ministry where I shepherd pastors.  

That is the past with a bit of present sprinkled in.  Stay tuned for what the future will be.

There is something new coming my way soon.  I can't let it out of the bag just yet, but it will be a bit of a change from where I am right now.  I'm praying about it every minute it seems.  It involves calling, nerves, changes, and I keep looking up to God for how it might all turn out.  I'm posting here.  It's been two years since I've written a blog post.  No one really reads blogs much anymore and the time it took to write them is just not in my time bank.  However, I'm taking this quick minute to update myself and post this because I hope to track the changes and use this more as a personal journal than simply a public one.  If someone happens to run across the posts, then fine.  If something occurs and I think it deserves a wider audience, then I'll share it via social media.  My prayer is that what is to come will be more than just a one-time or seasonal change and rather a life-changer that will benefit me, my family, and the kingdom of God.  I guess we will see...

Here are some links to learn more about the Seder meal: 
https://www.chabad.org/holidays/passover/pesach_cdo/aid/1751/jewish/What-Is-a-Seder.htm
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​https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-seder-plate/

The first two pics are some charts explaining the plate at a Seder meal and it simple meaning.  The las pic is a coloring page that you can print out for younger children.