On a Summer evening of 2014, I was inside a church in Mzuzu, Malawi, doing my nightly routine. The rest of my team had gone upstairs to their “beds,” and I stuck around to make sure the doors were locked and the lights were off. As I did most nights, I left one dim spotlight on that shone onto the church platform, and I would go up there to kneel and pray. Most nights, it was in this holy solitude that I would find the Lord, and He would encourage me, speak to me, reveal to me my future, and re-assure me that I was doing okay.
I’m not typically a man of traditional posture in prayer, but this month, I had committed to spending about 15 minutes in prayer every night like this before going to bed. I would take the posture on my knees and elbows, forehead to the ground, and pray for my team, and my squad, and Mzuzu Pentecostal Church. I would pray that God would meet us here, and He would give me dimly lit visions of people in this church building encountering Him.
One night, after praying for a while, I felt lead to stand up, and go behind the pulpit, and look out to the dark, empty pews, and imagine this was my church. In this time moment, I felt like God was showing me something — Not that this was my church, or that I would necessarily even have a church someday; But he showed me that it was in these moments of regularly seeking Him in prayer that I would find the strength to someday lead my family, and be able to find the strength and wisdom to move forward. In that moment, I knew I would be responsible for others someday even beyond a wife and kids. I knew, whether or not the gravity of what it meant hit me in that moment, that I would be a spiritual leader.
One and a half years later, I’m in a similar environment. My housemates are in their beds, but I’m up, and turning off lights, when I feel the sudden impulse, in the middle of the kitchen, to get on my knees and pray. In that moment, God reminded me of what He showed me in Malawi. He reminded me that it’s on my knees that I find my strength. And in that moment, It meant something more to me than it did in Malawi.
Because today, I am a spiritual leader.
As of a few weeks ago, I am officially the Worship Track Leader at Adventures in Missions in their Center for Global Action (CGA) program. And starting in February, in addition to my other job responsibilities, I will be tasked with teaching, training, and equipping CGA “apprentices” in a 3-4 month course on worship leadership. Over the last several years, God has put teaching on my mind as something I have a natural talent in, so this is a great opportunity to continue to develop those skills. I’m certain it will come with challenges, but I have more peace about it than I ever expected I would.
If you’d like to support what I’m doing at Adventures in Missions, please consider donating $50 monthly using the link at the top of the page. If you have any questions, or would like to get in touch, you can e-mail me here.
