I love that Bilbo decided to name the story of his adventures There And Back Again. After everything he had done and all the distance he had traveled, Bilbo ended back where he started: The Shire. While I haven’t battled trolls or slayed dragons, I am back where I began, at least back where I was when I began The Christian Nerd.
Yesterday I started working (again) at Community Baptist Church. CBC is the church I worked at for eight years as a youth pastor and continued attending when I left that job almost a year and a half ago. I am returning to CBC as the Pastor of Communications. In this role I will help communicate who we are as a church to the community around us. I’m very excited to take on this position as I love my church and want other people to love it as well.
Over the past 18 months, if you’ve read my website or listened to our podcast, you know that I’ve been on a bit of a journey. 18 months ago I left my job as a pastor to pursue opportunities for writing and speaking. While I still would like to pursue those passions, I got to a place of wanting to work at a church again. Part of that was wanting to put myself in the best position to provide for my family; having a baby definitely changes things. But I also wanted to be in a position to make the best use of my gifts and make an impact for God’s kingdom in this world.
I started feeling a pull back to vocational ministry at the end of last year. I looked around at a few different opportunities, but nothing felt right. Eventually I just prayed this simple prayer:
“God, I would like to use my greatest gifts at the church I love the most.”
God was faithful in answering that prayer as this opportunity to come back to CBC quickly materialized. In my new role I’ll get to help communicate who we are as a church through various platforms, utilizing my greatest gifts at the church I love the most.
I’m very grateful to all of you readers and listeners who have been following this journey for the past year and a half. The Christian Nerd has always been about the intersection of the Christian faith and nerd culture, but it’s also very much about my life. Thank you for allowing me to share some of my life with you and the journey I’ve been on.
In some ways I’m back where I started, but I’m very excited to see what’s going to happen next. I don’t know what God has in store for this new job or The Christian Nerd, but hopefully both will glorify him.
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