AU Chapels still…

Craig Gross ( xxxchurch  and Starving Jesus ) and I drove to work together today.  Well, I dropped Craig off about 3/4 of the way and picked Bart Campolo up for the remainder of the way.  Because of podcasts, I’ve been to and from work on my ridiculous commute this week with Craig, Bart, Shane Claiborne, John Ortberg, and a significant amount of the editorial staff at Relevant Magazine (which thanks to them I even got a couple minutes with Barack Obama last week).

More specifically this week I have been listening to the Anderson University (my alma matter) chapel podcast from the most recent school year.  As I’ve been listening, I am remembering a common theme among AU chapel speakers; at least among guys doing new and creative things like Shane Claiborne, Crag Gross, and Bart Campolo.  I always remember hearing from guys like that or reading their books and hearing a certain statement that, in so many different words, essentially said, “I never would have thought this is what I was going to do, but God…”  There’s usually a joke or two about how they had their own plans, and God’s plan didn’t fit into their plan, but God ‘has a funny way about…”

I thought about those guys today while listening to Craig, and I would love to do something so crazy and different like they are doing.  I would love to have a moment of time with God where something so different from my plans is placed upon my life.  I would go after something like that and pursue it with whatever I could.  Then I would go to chapels all over the country and say, “I would never have thought I would be doing this, but God…” These are the thoughts I was having.

Then I remembered my time at AU.  I remembered being a student in those chapels with those sorts of speakers, and I transpose that with where I am now as a pastor at a mega-church (well, a mega-church to most of my friends in the midwest).  When I look at that, I see that I have certainly come to that point.  Anyone who knew me well enough in college knows it is certainly a surprise that I would be attending a mega-church much less being on pastoral staff.  When I remember back to being a student in chapel hearing about my plans not coinciding with God’s plans, and how amazing it is when you end up where God had planned for you to be, I can say, “Oh yeah! Believe it!”

Though I am not heading up a creative nationwide ministry, I am certainly doing something I would have never thought I would do if you asked me when I was a student.  I can definitely say with confidence that God knew and knows the plans he has for me, and that my ways are never his ways.

I never would have thought this is what I was going to do, but God…