My name is Steve. My wife and I are pastoring a small church in the San Diego, CA area. The very fact that we are in the ministry at all is something of a miracle. If I had had my way, we wouldn't be...but hold on, I'm getting ahead of the story.

Prior to coming to our current place of ministry, I was an associate pastor at another church near here. My areas of ministry were with the Youth and with the Music Ministries, initially, and later, Christian Education and Evangelism. I had worked at the church for roughly three and a half years, when things came to a screeching halt. One day the senior pastor walked into my office and told me he was "letting me go." I was shocked to a state of numbness, like I was in a bad dream and couldn't wake up. When I asked why, he was vague and noncommittal. We found out later that we were getting some seriously bad press from a disgruntled board member. Less than 3 weeks later, we were gone.

To say that I was in a "blue funk" would be an understatement. I went through the classic "5 stages" of grief. I experienced denial (It ain't just a river in Egypt!). I was angry...angry at the pastor, bitter at the church board, depressed at the hand I had been dealt, and yes, mad at God. I didn't darken the door of a church for over 2 months. That was a long time for a guy like me. And then began a process that, in hindsight, may be one of the most profound moves of God in my life that I have ever known.

It didn't start off with a bang. It was more like a whimper. And the whimpering was coming from me. In my "freshly-burned" and self-pitying state I had rationally decided that when we returned to church attendance, it would be in a large (over 1,000 people) church where we could go and just soak up God's love and healing. In reality, I was more afraid that in a smaller church, we'd be more likely to have to answer potentially embarrassing questions, or even worse, be RECOGNIZED by someone! Of course, a church of the same denomination as our last church was out of the question! One way or another, I wanted to "get lost" (translation: "hide") in a large, and hopefully somewhat impersonal, church.

Well, it didn't happen quite that way. My in-laws, who had been fellowshipping with us at the church we were on staff in, had checked out a small Foursquare church in Carlsbad. After their first week, they convinced my wife to come and check it out, but not me. Oh, no...I was stickin' to my guns. I was a dedicated holdout. I stood my ground firmly...for a whole week. My wife convinced me to try the church "just once, for me," so I did. I figured I can stand almost anything for 2 hours, right?

We showed up to the church, which met in a small community center. The people were friendly, but not pushy, and they obviously took a lot of pride in fixing up the multi-purpose room to be "worship-friendly." They took time to interact with each other in a way that seemed genuine (hey, I've been around...it's not always like that!). The music was contemporary and appealing to a former youth/music pastor--these guys were good! OK, so far so good. And then things took a left turn. The pastor (I thought he looked a lot like George Zimmer, that guy from the Men's Wearhouse commercials) sat down on a stool and just laid out a 10-minute teaching from the Word. To this day I can't remember what he said, probably because of what happened next. He just opened the floor up to whoever wanted to share their thoughts or feelings on the day's topic. Look, I've been in formal ministry for less time than others, but even I know that you just don't do that! Who knows what kind of ringers might have shown up in church that day? That kind of behavior scares the hooey out of most preachers. But my shock turned to surprise and then to interest as I heard one after another share their thoughts with grace, authority and refreshing honesty. I was intrigued enough that I decided I'd come back another Sunday to see if this could happen again, or if it was just some sort of Twilight Zone fluke.

Well we came back, and on the second or third Sunday we were invited out to Souplantation by the pastor and his wife. It was meant to be a light "get-to-know-ya" kind of dinner, but it turned out to be a "spill-your-guts" cry for help. Instead of recoiling in horror from the lepers they had unknowingly invited to a meal, the pastor and his wife reached out with compassion and love to us. I don't think that they will ever know, this side of heaven, how deeply they were "God with skin on" to us that night. What began over soup and salad was a process that in a few short months took us from a place where we were seriously considering leaving the ministry altogether, to a place where, when asked to consider stepping in to the pastorate (when the current pastor left to plant a church) we were more than open to the idea!

In this strangely informal and intensely relational model of church life, we discovered the reality of how members of a body of believers can and should have a safe place to heal. We also found that that process can be greatly accelerated by the Holy Spirit in the context of just such a group of Christian brothers and sisters. We have seen the same dynamic occurring in the lives of others in our little church since then, and it is my mission in life and in ministry to do nothing to mess up the atmosphere of relationship, grace and healing we share. If we can see God do the same in every church in our community, there'll be far more people in church on Sundays than at the mall or beach!

So here we find ourselves pastoring the very church I was so reticent to visit. The entire process, from the firing to our appointment to this church took just over a year. God has seriously "fast tracked" the healing process in us. We look upon that period in our lives with great joy, some wistfulness, and not a little bit of irony. God has a great way of redeeming these tragedies in our lives that are far different from what we'd imagine. And sometimes he simply blows our minds. I guess that's kind of what it means in Isaiah 64:3--"When You did awesome things that we did not expect, You came down, and the mountains trembled before You."

Be encouraged, beloved. I've been burned, big time. I've dealt with all the junk that comes with it. I've walked a tough road and been disfigured by scars. And I'm able to write this testimonial to God's grace and power only because He demonstrated both to us at Golgotha's bloody travesty of justice. The scars that my wife and I bore, He healed quickly. But His scars, like His great love for you, will remain forever.