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It is sorta like a new marriage. The bride and groom think they know one another but its not until they publically covenant together (they get married) that they start their life together and discover the differences that actually exist with different personalities becoming one.

Sharon and I are breakfast people. As newlyweds, the first breakfast Sharon prepared for us was illustrative. I worked the night before at the General Motors plant and before I headed to class at Dallas Baptist University, Sharon made breakfast. She knocked on the door to tell me the pancakes were ready. So, I have visions of a stack of flapjacks, butter and sorghum syrup dripping off the sides of the golden brown delicacies.

I take the short walk from our bedroom to the eat-in kitchen. Sharon flops this huge plate-sized pancake in front of me. It was as big as the skillet. It was huge and thick–so thick that when I cut into the pancake, the uncooked batter oozed out on to the table.
I love my wife but as a 20 year old, I didn’t know how to respond to the situation other than to say, “Yuk. This is not done!” Dumb, Dumb and Dumber. Major mistake. Sharon’s response was to begin crying. She worked hard to please me and my response was less than loving. The early adjustment didn’t go well.

The good news is that we have learned to listen, to work with each other, and to guard our words so that we encourage one another with what we say. Our relationship has matured and grown deeper. We are far more effective together than either of us would be alone. Our passion is to honor the Lord with our marriage relationship.

I am deeply honored by the new role the Lord has given me with Missouri Baptists. In the early stages of this relationship (while we are getting to know one another), it is important that I communicate my vision for our future. The search committee asked me a similar question—“What do you want to see happen in the next few years?”

Here’s what I shared with them:
First-That the Lord would pour out His Spirit in a fresh way through our personal lives and our churches resulting in a great harvest of souls in the Midwest.
Second-That trust would be restored in such a fashion that the churches, the business community, the education community, the legal community and the medical community marvel at our integrity and passion to serve one another.
Third-That the churches, associations and convention function as collaborating partners for evangelism, discipleship and church planting and that our churches regain the vision for the Cooperative Program as the primary missions funding methodology. How many churches can give one percent more this next year to CP?
Fourth-That our churches sense that God has His hand on our cooperative Acts 1:8 effort with an exponential increase in churches planting churches in Missouri, the nation and the world.
Fifth-That the Convention’s leadership reflects a shift in demographic thinking with more participation from younger people, people of color and linguistic diversity.
Sixth-That bi-vocational church leaders sense that their contribution to our cooperative ministry is highly valued.
Seventh-That every church has at least one volunteer engaged in a cooperative ministry related to the MBC (Disaster Relief, social ministries, chaplaincy, coordinated prayer ministry, Christian Life Commission activism and Cooperative Program advocacy, etc.)

I hope these questions and responses encourage you and your church to join with other Missouri Baptists to embrace the Kingdom work the Lord is doing through us at such a time as this. May our cooperative relationship flourish and be a pleasant aroma to the Lord.

We were waiting on the second half of the Sight and Sound production Noah to begin. The lights flickered to signal the impending curtain rise. We checked our iphones and turned them on silent. The house lights went down and the curtain began to rise.

Then the panoramic revelation of the producer’s idea about the inside of Noah’s Ark was before our eyes. We looked to our right. straight ahead to the stage and then to our left. The panoramic scene was filled with animal stalls and bird cages, mammals and reptiles. When the stage lights came up, it was as if the entire house simultaneously whispered, “Wow. Awesome. Incredible.” It was an Ah-ha moment.

Two days later, we are in the center of a group of God’s people, namely the Missouri Baptist Executive Board and the MBC state missionaries and their support staff. They were encircling us in a ring of prayer. The Executive Board had just voted to call me to serve, as executive director of the Missouri Baptist Convention.

There was a collective sense of wonder, respect and vision that captivated our hearts. Tears flowed down our faces. We recognized this ah-ha moment as the culmination of months of intercession and as an exercise of faith to trust the Lord with our lives for a new step in the journey.

Two days following, we encountered two marvelous experiences: One was that powerful ah-ha moment in the preaching of the Word of God when there is clarity of understanding and the sense that our Lord was speaking through his man straight into my heart. One of our faithful Missouri brothers was preaching the Word that Sunday. My wife and I were guests and so glad we were.

The preaching of the Word is a sacred task. When the man of God and the Word of God are in synch with the power and purpose of God’s spirit, incredible things begin to take place in and through the body of Christ. Disciples are equipped. People are born again. Relationships restored. Dignity and honor are evident. Transformation is evidenced in the lives of people. We experienced our amazing God.

During the Sunday evening worship service, a second experience occurred. We participated in the Lord’s Supper and that is amazing in itself with the plethora of symbols demonstrating the tremendous price the Lord Jesus paid for my sin.

Then we heard the children’s leader for this particular local church explain about the church’s ministry to children and their families. The gospel was clearly articulated. The culmination of the worship time consisted of fifteen children obeying the Lord in Believer’s Baptism. Sharon and I stepped out to our truck, looked at each other and said, “Wow! The Lord is at work in this place.” An ah-ha moment!

In Mark 2, right after four friends of a paralyzed man installed a skylight in the meeting room, the Lord Jesus uses that teachable moment to demonstrate that he was sent to forgive the sins of men and women. On that day, there was a crescendo of God at work in the lives of people and “they were all amazed.” An ah-ha moment where our incredible God intersected the lives of real people. They left the house church that day glorifying God and saying, “We have never seen anything like this.”

You have studied the Scriptures. You know this was not some kind of spooky, mystical experience. The events in that passage are not something that can be conjured up or humanistically reproduced. However, God sovereignly chose that moment to make himself known, to reveal his presence in the midst of his people, an ah-ha moment.

God is at work. He may be working in your world differently than he is in mine. However, he is moving in power among his people for such a time as this to reveal his glory to a culture that has abandoned his ways and to communicate the gospel to those who have yet to hear the good news.

As Henry Blackaby and Claude King wrote in the Experiencing God study, part of the walk of faith is the discovery of where God is working and join him there. I am convinced the Lord is at work in Missouri Baptists and in our churches and in our cooperative ministries. Part of our quest is the discovery of what God is doing and who is he working through. Let’s take this journey together and be gloriously amazed at our mighty God.