I still remember the first foreign mission trip that I lead as a youth pastor. We drove down into the mountains of central Mexico to work on a youth camp that was being built by our Missionaries friends Brock and Heather Hower. It was a great trip.
Whenever we took trips outside of the US, we would open up our Youth trip to adults in the church. Lawrence “Punt” Sisung, an elder and financial investment banker, decided to come. I knew Lawrence fairly well at the time, but I had no idea what kinda “entertainment” would be waiting for us across the border.
For some reason, I think work related, Lawrence was unable to drive down with us to Mexico. He flew in the day after we arrived. So by the time he showed up, we were already getting acclimated and comfortable.
Lawrence showed up decked out for the wilderness: brand new camping jacket, sleeping bag, sleeping mat, multiple new flashlights, handheld GPS and satellite phone. Apparently he had gone to the local camping store with a map of Mexico, pointed to a spot and said, “I’m going here. What do I need?” All of the teenage boys smiled and eyed all of these camping toys that they could tinker around with for the next two weeks.
Sometime in the middle of the Lawrence’s first night, the whole camp awoke to sound of yelling outside. The boys rushed out in their boxers to find Lawrence being chased back from the outhouse by a “wolf”… the camp dog he hadn’t met yet.
Oh, we still won’t let him live that one down.
It was a great trip. As a youth pastor, I was really grateful to see this white-collar investment banker get dirty in many ways. Of course, he worked his tail off to help build the camp. More important than that, though, was the relationships I watched him build with teenage boys. By the end of the trip, he knew those boys…and I’ve watched him continue to reach out and mentor them.
By the way, we took that trip in August of 2005. Less than a month later, our hometown was under water.
And we thought building a camp in Mexico was hard work…
It quickly became apparent to the leadership at Berean that the two men would would have the time, ability and passion to lead Hurricane Recovery ministries would be Doug and Lawrence.
So we dove in together, and we have absolutely loved it. Lawrence has challenged my faith in so many ways. I think our students probably got tired of hearing me use “Lawrence illustrations” in my talks on Sunday nights. I have to admit that I have honestly never known anyone who ruthlessly trusts God quite in the way that Lawrence does. He prays a ton and then he steps out in faith. I love spending a day with him because inevitably I’ll (1) pray more than I ever would on my own and (2) be thrown into an uncomfortable and unbelievable ministry opportunity that I would never have taken.
On the other hand, Lawrence would say that he could never have survived the past four years of ministry without me by his side. He would say that many of the ministry opportunities would never have happened if I hadn’t provided the structure around him to give him the freedom to follow God’s Spirit. He would say that God has used me to challenge him.
So when the opportunity arose to plant a church. I knew that I wanted Lawrence alongside of me…I knew that I needed Lawrence alongside of me. It took Lawrence a long time to process and gain clarity on whether or not his ministry should shift to the church plant. Just recently Lawrence felt tugged to finally join our team.
So that makes three of us as full-time co-pastors/co-planters: Alf, Lawrence and I. I have to admit, I think we might quite the formidable team. The idea of planting a church together brings to us a sense of confidence that never would be there otherwise. We have all talked about what the image of a “church planter” looks like in our minds. It intimidates us. As Alf likes to say, the expectation is that a church planter is “Jesus with a red cape.” We are asking God to use our three sets of complementary gifts, passions and backgrounds together to make an impact for the Kingdom.
Furthermore, we are all friends. We love spending time together. It is difficult right now for me to be in Little Rock while Alf and Lawrence are in New Orleans. We have decided to spend every Wednesday morning on a conference call together so that God can continue to bind us together over this period of separation.
Our team, though, extends way beyond the three of us. In fact, we believe that God is calling us to weave to concept of team into every little detail of how this new church operates.
Perhaps you are supposed to be part of our team too?
