Today will be the first Friday in 3 years that I haven’t rushed to make sure all of the elements of the CR Friday Night Big Meeting happen as planned.  It feels strange to be writing a blog posting, rather than putting together the PowerPoint slides and coordinating with the teaching minister and worship leader.  I’ve spent three years having to think ahead to what kind of message or testimony will be included.  The food coordinated through Thursday would have to be coordinated for delivery.  The tables & chairs, musical and video equipment … it all has to get set up.  Important, but none of this is highly important.

What is highly important is the relationships.  For a week, I will have done counseling sessions with folks who sought help in Christ through Celebrate Recovery.  Our members would have reached out to one another, including me, and would have encouraged each other or helped one another with accountability.  At the meeting’s beginning, I would get to meet new people seeking Christ-centered recovery.  Church staff and program volunteers would have worked shoulder-to-shoulder to make everything happen in a way that glorifies God.  I still have the relationships, but they will never work together with me like they have in the past.

New leadership will lead the ministry, and a new season will begin for everyone involved.  And I will be getting rested-up, prayed-up, and studied-up to begin a new season of teaching ministry.  It’s already a shock, but in a good way.  I know that God has blessed me to watch 22 participants pick up their 1-year medallion, and 17 members pick up their 12-step completion chip.  I have gotten a front row seat to God’s hand working miraculously in people’s lives… lives that often had awakened in the middle of their nightmare and had nowhere to turn; nowhere to turn but to God.

I’m encouraged to be led by God’s Word in this season.  The Bible gives us testimony of God doing things through His mightiest warriors; things that encourage us to seek Him even in our small situations.  Even Elijah had to deal with the shock of ministry transitioning, from the famed prophet who defeated the prophets of Baal and then ran away in fear.  After a season of God restoring him, with the brook at Kerith and then under the bush at Horeb, God gave him a season of rest and direction on his next work.  I’m certainly no Elijah, but I am grateful to the same God who gave him the power, purpose and rest.

It’s a shock to finish a season of ministry, and get ready to do the next thing God has for me.  Like Elijah at Kerith, my brook was finished and I have another ministry to get ready for.  If you’d like to know more about Elijah, please take the time to read 1 Kings 17 – 2 Kings 2.  I’d like to hear about the transitions that have happened in your ministry, or transitions to come that you may be praying about.  Please leave your concerns or praises in the comments, and thanks for reading.