I have been teasing a lot the last few weeks about some massive news that my wife and I have to share. And finally, we get to post it and tell everyone!
Some of you reading this might know Mike and Amy Verlennich. They are pastors of an awesome church in Detroit Lakes, called eXperience church. I can’t remember exactly when or how we met them, but we think it was at last year’s Thrill & Move Conference at the Crossing. Since then, we have been following each other on Facebook and getting into each of our lives.
A little about eXperience church, their mission, vision and goals are almost parallel to the Crossing. They have very much the same style and target. They have only been around since about last September and before that, as a small group of believers getting ready to blow the doors off Detroit Lakes. But because they are so small, they have lots of needs that Mike and Amy are trying to do with few resources.
A month ago, I took my wife up to Detroit Lakes for a great vacation, not having any idea what God was going to reveal to us. I was simply thinking of an awesome place to take my wife and see some good friends. I blogged about it. What I didn’t mention in the blog was what God called us to do in real time. After spending 6 hours with Mike and Amy at Zorbas, we took the day on Saturday to drive around and experience the town (you see what I did there? pretty clever…)
We walked around the Washington Square Mall, around a couple blocks of the downtown area, had an awesome mocha and we even drove around “looking” for a place to live. We imagined what it would be like to live there. Ever since we met Mike and Amy, we said to ourselves “if we ever lived up there, we’d totally do ministry with them.”
Prior to this trip, Debbie and I looked at ourselves, wondering what was next for us. At one point in our leadership at the Crossing, we were teaching Cellar classes, doing a small group, doing a youth group and helping on Sunday’s where we could. But now, Debbie had stopped doing kids ministry, I had passed off doing Zimmerman check-in to Connor, I am in the process of handing over my jr. high small group to my apprentice, I steped down from leading the Elk River lighting team and we were left wondering why things seemed to be slowing down for us at the Crossing. The Code of the Samurai commitment, while a big challenge for us, didn’t have quite the same impact as I thought it would for us. It almost seemed as if we had come to a crossroads of sorts.
On Saturday night, Debbie and I went to dinner. It wasn’t the greatest food or atmosphere, but I think it gave us the chance to focus intently on each other. We talked about where we were at the Crossing. It is not the church plant it was when we first showed up the grand opening weekend in October of 2004. That is OK and a huge testament to what God is doing through the Crossing. (Does 6085 mean anything to anyone?) But while it is the most amazing church experience we have ever had, I think we both knew something was about to change. We then started talking about what our conversation with Mike and Amy was like the night before. The needs were apparent and we knew that we could help. “eXperience church wants to go where the Crossing is and we know the way!” I think, as Debbie polished the fake crystal lighting fixture, we skipped over the decision to make the move and started realizing that it was where we needed to be.
It’s an amazing thing when you see God reveal something to two people at the same time in real time. It’s also a very humbling thing to know that you are an answer to a long lived prayer.
The next day, we showed up to the VFW where the church used to meet and got to work. The energy was good, but we knew there was so much more potential there! Boiling Point was the band that day and there were about 70 or so people there to hear Pastor Mike bring a talk about forgiveness.
That afternoon, we told them the story of what we are feeling and asked them if they would have us if we moved. The answer, was of course yes!
So here we go. God is calling us to move from a church that we have helped grow, lead and learned so much from to do many of the same things in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. We are moving from Elk River to Detroit Lakes to help make that area the hardest place to go to hell from. Debbie and I will be eXperience church’s (unpaid) staff and who knows from there. All we know is that God has a plan for us. He prepared us through our experiences at the Crossing and now we get a chance to help another church succeed.
We move on July 30!
We are so excited and we can’t wait to get started. It’s a sad thing to leave a group of friends who have become our family, but it’s for an exciting reason. Please be in prayer with us as we prepare for this move. Help encourage us. The Crossing will always be our home away from home and we will be observing from a far at the amazing things God does in Elk River. God has some very big plans for Detroit Lakes and we are so very humbled to have been chosen to be a part of it.
This is not goodbye. We still have a couple months left to finish well. Until next time….
