Why City?
I moved my family to City in November of 1991. My children spent most of their school years in the local system and have since moved on with their own families. And here we remained in 2015. Our home is two blocks from the eastern city limit and we were members of a church six miles to our east in City 2. I was attending Fire-Pit Worship in City 4 on Wednesday nights, and joining a ministry to feed the needy on Saturdays in City 3.
The Set-Up
After the Sunday morning service was a time of socializing in the foyer of the building at which we met. My conversation often included a testimony of something the Lord had done through the groups I was with throughout the week. Many were interested in such reports and asked questions about such opportunities to be involved for them and their families. After a while of this going on, I began facing false accusations of recruiting church members to other cities and groups.
The Call
I don’t know for sure how long and how aggressively God had been calling me to City for ministry, but the accusations heightened my awareness. Then one day, it was as if God grabbed me by the shoulders and said, “How long are you going to keep looking east when I’m calling you to look west?” Being that I lived on the eastern edge of the city, for me to look west was to see City. I knew this was a call to City, but I was unsure what that was to look like. Soon after this event I resigned my membership at the church and quit attending there while I inquired of the Lord what the new plan was to be.
The New Beginning
I thought I would take advantage of the interim by attending each of the twenty churches in City and get a feel for the nature of each of them. However, each week something happened to thwart my plans and it became obvious that my plan was not God’s plan for me. After some time I came to discover that He not only called me out of the church I had been attending, but I had been called out of the institutional church system. My only return was for events or the occasional visit to an apostolic church in City 6. I was not to attend there on a regular basis, but to attend when led to do so by Holy Spirit. When I did so, God had a solid reason for me to be there. As I will explain later, the Lord found interesting ways to prepare me for the life He was calling upon me to live.