“This could go terribly wrong.” Every faith journey comes with freak-out moments where the familiarity of the present feels far more appealing than the uncertainty of what lies ahead. In the days leading up to our transition, I turned deeply introspective and thought, “What if our kids hate the area?” “What if the job doesn’t work out like I hope?” “What if this is that moment in the film when everyone gasps and thinks, “Why would he go through that door!?”
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How do you make the right transition, to the right place, at the right time, for the right reason, and in the right way? The question itself is fear-inducing enough to stay where you’re at, isn’t it?
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Our oldest daughter is about to turn 13 and we’re crossing new bridges at an alarming rate. She got a phone today, is at a sleepover tonight, and there have been quite a few times lately where we’ve had to say, “Hold on! We’ll get back to you on that one…”
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Relationships grow through healthy conflict, but growing through conflict has become a lost art. We need to learn to view and engage in necessary conflict as Jesus did, “full of grace and truth.” How do we do it? Force yourself to sit in the “Awkward Chair”
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Ten years ago this week I started my first full-time job as a pastor at Cape Christian Fellowship, here in SW Florida. At the time, I thought it was going to be a short detour before completing my education and moving on to fulfill other dreams. God had a different idea. Instead, we fell in love with this church and embraced God’s call to put down deep roots in this city. I came in with great confidence, and a perfectly polished “philosophy of ministry” that had received an “A” and was ready to be field-tested. Ha! The months and years ahead would be a time of great undoing. There were moments when I agreed wholeheartedly with critics and thought, “It’s hopeless.” Yet it’s at the place called “bitterness” (Exodus 15:22-26) where we truly meet Jehovah Raphe, God our healer. It’s at that place of undoing, that place when we’re searching…
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Wesley Furlong is the founder and director of City of Refuge (refuge.life), a network for community transformation and the director of Church Development for the EVANA Network, an evangelical Anabaptist network of churches across North America.
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