A New Thing!

Isa 43:19 See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the desert
and streams in the wasteland.

It’s been two and a half years since the launch of Promise Church at our location on Old Humboldt Road. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long. We’ve seen so much happen in that short period of time. God has pulled together many very capable leaders from a multitude of backgrounds who have chosen to minister out of what they share together – a vision of the resurrected Christ! (1 Cor 1:18)

It hasn’t always been easy. Imagine getting a large and diverse group of very strong willed, very biblically and spiritually literate people in the same room and say to them, “Now decide what essentials of the faith we’re going to agree on!” And out of that conversation emerges the mission of Promise Church as priorities are identified. The things that have been important to some people take a back seat to the things that become the overarching mission of the entire body. We learn to “submit in reverence for Christ” (Eph 5:21) and in so doing we find that God has given us yet another avenue of personal and community spiritual growth. Seasons of ministry emphases emerge as the church does it best to minister “on the spot” to people who want to know if it’s really possible to have new life in Jesus Christ. Relationships change. We change. And we trust in God that it’s all for the good and in fitting with His divine plan. (Rom 8:28)

I know I have changed. I’m not the same pastor I was three years ago or five years ago. The Lord has led me through a variety of seasons of leadership, having plenty, having little, possessing a servant’s heart, possessing a warrior’s heart, being bold, being meek, being assertive, being quiet, often ministering out of wholeness, often ministering out of woundedness. In each of these seasons I’ve taken away some lesson learned of how I personally have been called mirror in my life the life of Jesus. I say that only to speak to what I know others in our body have experienced as well as they too have been taken through their own seasons and together we have learned some awesome lessons of leadership.

And now the Lord is leading us together into a “new thing!” (Isaiah 43:19) Beginning November 1, we will be worshipping and ministering in a brand new location across from Rafferty's in the Galleria Shopping Center! Every time the Lord does this for His people, he also calls them to leave behind the old. We will be taking with us some very valuable experience of being the loving body of Christ. But what will stay behind at 935C Old Humboldt Road? What will remain – just like the experience of the wandering Israelites in the wilderness – behind in the desert? For the Israelites, God was forging them in the desert to become a people who could stand and be faithful in the Promised Land and not give in to the many temptations of the surrounding pagan cultures to become like them. (Deuteronomy 29:16-18)

And so they were being called to leave behind their doubt and fear about the future. They were being called to leave behind their reliance on the provision of Pharaoh and rely instead on the goodness of Yahweh. They were being called to leave behind patterns of behavior more appropriate to their pagan neighbors and adopt ways of living that reflected the holiness of the One they worshipped. They were being called to leave behind their identity as a fractured group of bickering tribes and step into a new identity as the bold people of God. They were to become Israel. And it’s interesting to read that the season of the Israelites greatest influence and power came under kings who united the tribes in faithful submission to the delivering Lord.

I can only imagine the feelings of those Israelites who were the first to step across the Jordan river and into the place that had been promised to them as their inheritance. Elation! Relief! Weeping with Joy! Reassurance! Boldness and Courage! Worshipfulness! What would have been your emotions do you think?

As we prepare to move into a new place and a new season, I feel like we are gathered on the eastern shore of the Jordan. But we see the promise of God just across the river. It’s a good place that God has brought us to. We’ve made it through our wilderness wanderings. The time has come for the crossing. There’s work to be done still, to be sure. The people in Canaan are giant and the walls of the city loom overhead. But the land is a land filled with milk and honey and daily reminds us that our God is good and steadfast. (Ps. 100:5)