In deciding to take the plunge into church planting I knew that I would be in for bumps and bruises, and my wife knew that we would pay a price and have to make sacrifices. What we didn’t know is that our first church planting sacrifice would come sooner and in a larger dose than we expected.

I found out my second day on the job as the Church Planting Intern. I was still getting used to being in a mega-church and trying to figure out how in the world I got this gig. Then I had a two minute conversation and was dealt a blow that I was totally unprepared for.

In going from being a Youth Minister to being an intern I had expected to take a significant pay cut, but I discovered that the cut was far more significant than I expected. In fact, the cut was twice I had expected. (Note: the amount of my pay never changed, it just turned out the the taxes taken out as an intern verses as a minister were much higher than I anticipated)

So, that night I went home and broke the news to my wife and basically told her that I couldn’t see any way of staying in our house because we couldn’t pay the mortgage. It was hard to swallow, but in the end, this was a sacrifice we were willing to make. The next day I got on the phones and started looking for a church with a mission house that might be willing to help out a lowly church planter.

One of my calls was to my friend and mentor Jeff Hodges. At the time Jeff didn’t have any help to offer, but then, less than a week later I got a call back. Just days after my talking with Jeff, he had been approached by a couple that owned a condo and wanted to let someone in ministry live there for FREE!

What seemed like a financial disaster has actually turned into a financial blessing as we have been living rent free for almost one week now. The only thing left is to fix up and rent out our house. We are going to have to trust God for that one as well.

I guess it’s true, when God calls you out He provides the means by which you will go…