Wise Words From Great Leaders

I shared on here previously that my wife Karrie and I are pursuing a thing called "Church Planting". Basically, that means I am starting a church. I'm working with a church planting organization and we have our final assessment in the 1st week of August. After that, there are a lot of unknowns, but we are going to do it. I've been doing a lot of studying, praying, journaling, and reading in preparation of church planting.

With that, I have felt a clear call to plant a church. You can scroll down to the blog post "Fasting - the end of the story" to check that out. As for the location, we still aren't completely sure. It could literally be in any city across the U.S. However, I have a burden on my heart for the west/south side of Indianapolis. These are the communities I have spent most of my life in and God is laying a vision on my heart for this place and I'm chomping at the bit to get started.

Another thing I've been doing is praying for Godly leaders to come into my life that I can learn from. I've sought out 3 men in particular and some of the wisdom they have shared has amazed me. Many times they have said a sentence or shared a thought and my jaw will drop because of the magnitude and importance of what they just said. I've written a lot of their words down and want to share some of their insights over the next 3 days. These are men that are all Lead Pastors and have a combined 67 years experience in leading churches.

Trent Renner (Lead Pastor at Parkway Christian Church in Surprise, AZ) said this to me last night, I'm paraphrasing, "Aaron, I'm willing to bet in the past year or so you have experienced a lot of heartbreak. That's good. You need that because being a lead pastor of a church means you will constantly experience heartache and you needed the practice."

Karrie and I both agree that the past year of our lives has been the hardest for many different reasons. We experienced an enormous amount of pain, frustration, and loss. I'm sure many of you reading this have experienced heartache. I'll bet, like me, you asked God or yourself (if you're like me I talk to myself a lot), "Why did I go through that? What was the point? This sucks and I don't understand!" I've uttered those phrases many times in the past year or so.

And last night, for the first time, I felt complete peace about the past year. To quote a favorite author of mine (Donald Miller), Trent's words were like "water to my soul." Even though I don't completely understand every circumstance and struggle, I do know I needed to go through it. I read a verse in Malachi 3:3 about God, "He sits as the refiner and purifier of silver". I know God has been refining and will continue to do that. I got a cool email one time explaining the process of "refining silver" and you can view the contents of that email here.

Specifically, I have learned a lot about working through forgiveness and heart-wrenching loss this past year. Is it a coincidence that some of Jesus's last words on the cross were, "Father forgive them..." while God looked on and felt the heart-wrenching loss of His Son? No. God has layed an awesome vision on my heart and refining needed to take place before I could lead it. How could I possibly lead His church effectively if I could not relate to God's loss and Jesus's forgiveness?

How is God refining you? What are you going to do with it?

Check back tomorrow and Thursday for some more "wise words from great leaders".