The fifth most popular post at The Christian Nerd this year was also one of my most personal. This was a big year for me as I left my job as a youth pastor to pursue a new direction in my life. I’m still trying to find that direction, but this post helped me share some of it with my readers.
Before the Jordan stopped flowing, the priests had to put their feet in the water.
Before Peter could walk on water, he had to get out of the boat.
Before he saw the fulfillment of the promise, Abraham had to leave home.
I feel like God is calling me to follow in their footsteps and take a step of faith.
I’ll be taking a step of faith and leaving my job as youth pastor at Community Baptist Church. I love my church and I have enjoyed my time working there, but God is calling me to step into something new.
The faith part comes in because I’m not entirely sure where God is calling me. My greatest gifts and abilities lie in communicating, both verbally and through writing. My church has given me so many opportunities to use those gifts and I have seen fruitfulness when I’ve used them. I’m at the point in my life, though, of really wanting to chase down more opportunities to use those gifts.
Like I said, my job has given me opportunities to use those gifts, but it’s also takes up a lot of my time. I love ministry and will always serve in some capacity, but my job required so much time and energy; it didn’t leave me any time to pursue other endeavors. I pretty much had reached my limit by posting at The Christian Nerd every day for the past four and a half years. I can’t tell you how many nights I got home from youth group at 10:30 and still had to write my post for the next day.
It’s my hope and prayer that by leaving my job and creating more margin in my life, that God will provide more opportunities for me to communicate. And not just opportunities to use my gifts, but opportunities to make a difference for God’s kingdom. I started The Christian Nerd so that I could share my thoughts about the intersection of the Christian faith and nerd culture. I find value in this intersection because it shows us that God is always reaching out and engaging with us, even through our favorite nerdclinations.
So while I don’t know exactly what’s in store, I know that The Christian Nerd will be a part of it. I love blogging and I have loved podcasting up to this point. Jesus obviously isn’t going anywhere and Disney is going to make sure that Star Wars and Marvel keep churning out content until Jesus returns.
I’m also not entirely sure about my future employment options and how I’m going to support our family. Alycia and I know that this is what God wants, though, which is allowing us to step out in faith even when there are so many unanswered questions.
This definitely is one of those “stepping out in faith moments.” I never thought that I would have a moment like this; my life has been fairly planned out. I suppose wanting to be surrendered to God’s will means going where he calls even if I don’t know where that is.
I wouldn’t be able to do it without those of you who have supported The Christian Nerd. This is just my little blog where I write about Jesus and Star Wars, but it’s also been a great way to use my gifts and hopefully make an impact for God’s kingdom. So thank you so much for visiting The Christian Nerd, commenting on my posts and sharing them with a friend.
I don’t know what stepping out in faith totally looks like, but Alycia and I are placing our trust in God. We know that he is going to lead us as long as we are following his will. I also know that The Christian Nerd will keep going, hopefully with some exciting changes and opportunities to come.
You can read the post I wrote for our church here.
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