Handing Over the Keys

Tomorrow I finally leave my beloved Ann Arbor and return to Chicago to begin raising my financial support to go on staff with New Life Church. It’s a pretty mixed bag of emotions, to be honest. On the one hand, I’m full of excitement and anticipation to see who God will bring into my life and team me up with on this crazy journey. On the other, I’m incredibly sad to leave my house church community from South Quad.

This Sunday, another leader will pitch to them the vision for the semester; a vision I was instrumental in crafting. And then they will be released to do the Lord’s work in the place I’ve called home for the last 4 years. The transformation in that dorm over the last 4 years has been truly incredible. It went from a place where I was the lone student in leadership at New Life to a dorm that has its own thriving church community (we’re looking at 7 small groups this year in that dorm alone…and many of those with more than one leader). I’ve watched a true Acts 2 community hatch before my eyes, and right when they get the legs to walk, I have to leave. I want to be there coaching, supporting, teaching, learning, loving. But it’s time they do it on their own.

I guess that’s how parents feel when their kids go off to college. Or perhaps, that’s what Jesus felt like when he considered the day when he would have to leave and let his disciples further his kingdom (Matthew 16:18-19). I’m having a hard time enough entrusting a single ministry to saints I’ve led for the last 3 years. Jesus entrusted the future of his entire Church, all of his precious adopted ones, to a handful of guys he was with for 3 years. When I consider the amazing trust Jesus demonstrated as he handed the keys to the Kingdom (John 21:15-19) to a guy who denied him 3 times just month earlier (Luke 22:54-62), my own reluctance to let go seems a bit silly. I guess that’s what grace is for.

So to you, my dear brothers and sisters of the SouthSide New Life Team, I want to tell you that I believe in you. Despite my moments of brokenness and mistrust, I really do believe you guys have what it takes to bring God’s kingdom in power to your sphere of campus. I’ve never seen a more beautiful community of saints who are wholeheartedly devoted to one another and to seeing University of Michigan students come to intimately know their beautiful Creator-Savior. God’s very Spirit is at work powerfully within you, and there is no limit to what he can do through you. I believe in my heart that you will see God do things I have only dreamt of these past 4 years. He will not do them through you because you’re talented; he will not do them through you just because he couldn’t find anyone else to do it. He will do them through you because He longs for you to know the intimacy and beauty of living inside of his glorious will and the unparalleled joy of co-writing the story He dreamt for this place before time began. Amen.

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