God’s calling

You need to ask yourself, “Based on how God wired me, what is the greatest contribution I can make? How can I make a difference?”

It is exciting and chilling when one is waiting on singlas from God to guide you, and they start to show up all over the place.

I pursued the CIO position at BSF on my own. I was alerted that it was open, but I was late (almost too late) to apply. I responded to the initial email and in some ways, it was only on my insistence that it proceeded further with the recruiter.

I connected with the CHief of HR, but again it was a Saturday late afternoon email that seemed to re-trigger the interest. I had had to work at it.

This new potential opportunity as “D-OT” Distance Online Trainer has been quite the opposite. Groundwork for the potential began happening over 2 weeks ago, at a lunch about the Kazakhstan mission trip. I became more aware how difficult it was to garner new BSF Group Leaders for the satellite group(s) from Eden Prairie, and Mark Halla, a current lead at the Outpot, asked me some detailed questions about the BSF Online experience. I di dnot know at that time that Andy was already pursuing other avenues to keep things going, and had engaged the Area Team in that same pursuit.

I met with the Area Team, Todd and Bruce, over coffee after BSF Leaders’ meeting on Saturday. I thought we were there to discuss my experience with BSF Online and Online experieces overall, NOT to be asked to consider stepping into a new avenue of leadership. I used my PC and OneNote to quickly (roughly) sketch out the onsite model of BSF, the comparison to online BSF, and then I scrolled to a new section of the page to draw what I thought could be a hybrid model: online leaders meeting collecting leaders from a broad geography, supporting Group Leaders in leading small groups in much smaller locales, not depending on the presence of a large number of people to make BSF work.

Bruce looked at Todd, Todd grinned and looked at me and said, “That is what we wanted to talk about with you today, a Distance Online Meeting D-OLM.”

All I am to do is pray about the opportunity and seek God’s will for me in this matter. In the past 36 hours I have been confronted with a number of nudges, “God Promptings” as Pastor Joel calls them, about the possibilities.

1. Couple with the Near ministry from Westwood, bringing bible study to the new churches being established in the Twin Cities
2. Introduce the Near ministry to Lamplighters as an equal alternative to BSF and with a much more approachable vector, capable of being led by nearly anyone with interest, not quite the bar of leadership in BSF.
3. Suprise to learn that Todd and Bruce approached Andy at EP about this in January, and Andy advised them of the potential CIO position. He thought they had an inside line on my status. When he became more concerned about the possible challenges at the Outpost, including loss of 1-2 leaders there, he prompted them to ask if they were moving forward now that my CIO candidacy was over. They did not know–that was at the start of this past week.
4. Potential to quite literally start with a full salte of small groups to assist in challenging situations around the Twin Cities.
5. Potential identification of an Assistant DOL.
6. The fact that the next training is in April, and the registration deadline is in 10 days, March 22. I will BE in San Antonio for David’s graduation at the end of April. Would it not be remarkable to have them work together?