I No Longer Believe In Coincidences

I have detailed here recently my decision to enter the Commissioned Lay Pastor program. In that post, I mentioned how I had heard the call and then had it confirmed through prayer and the "coincidental" timing of Matt Cain's Perfect Game. Since that time, the coincidences have been coming fast and furiously.

When my power went out a month or so ago, and I couldn't watch the television program that I'd been wanting to see nor check my e-mail on the computer, I picked up a dusty volume of In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day that my good friend Andy had given me one year for my birthday, and I started to read it. Here was a book about being bold in your faith and answering God's call in your life. More importantly, here was a book that described the author's call in such a clear and concise way that I recognized it immediately as the exact same description of the way God had called me. It was the ultimate confirmation that what I had heard God tell me was authentic and that I needed to be bold. One clear line stood out in the author's reminder to me personally that often times God's call makes absolutely no sense to the person being called. It was an interesting coincidence.

After I made arrangements to begin the process of joining the CLP program, I admit that I still had no idea what God was asking me to do. I'm not Grade A religion material. God laughed when I asked whether he wanted me to go to seminary out of high school. But I had confirmation that God wanted me to go to the program even if he wasn't telling me why.

The hang up was in the idea of the CLP program itself. Its designed mostly for mission programs - when a church is trying to reach into a new community and needs someone who speaks that language (whatever that language might be) - a church might designate someone to take on the trappings of a pastor for a short period of time in order to better serve that new community. But what community did I belong to that wasn't already a part of the church? I only speak English, and then only barely... ;)

At the end of my last preaching assignment, I was asked to deliver the benediction. As of the morning of the service, I still had not thought what to say. I was preaching about why I was no longer looking for a career in film making. But I still have a passion for film and other geeky things. I was struck with a bizarre idea to use film quotes from familiar movies as my benediction - things like ET saying, BE GOOOD! Well, this was highly unorthodox... even for me... but when the time came to deliver my benediction I stood before the church thinking it was a really bad idea and realized that I had no other idea for what to say as a benediction. I delivered the benediction as I had prepared it and the congregation loved it.

Where this gets interesting, coincidentally, is that the next day at work I was telling my co-worker about my benediction and she laughed and said, "I wish my church was more like that. I'd actually want to go more often." Boy that really got me to thinking... what language did I really know, what language could I really speak? I am fluent in GEEK!

This set off a fury of thought about reaching out to my fellow Geek brothers and sisters as a community and hopefully engaging them in a dialog that led to Jesus. But wait... that's absolutely crazy, right? Is this not just my own wishful thinking? God, please send me out to talk to people, but don't send me to people I can't understand? I was looking for a way to serve God on my own terms. God clearly had other more important things for me to do. Surely he was calling me into ministry with the homeless or battered women or drug users or something. Geeks? Be serious, Will.

I put the thought aside and continued to wonder what it was that God was calling me to do. All I knew was that he would have something good for me to do and that sooner or later he would reveal that plan to me.

Yesterday our Pastor returned from his sabbatical. He had been gone for a little over three months - praying, resting, and renewing his faith in God and Christ. He had also been to the General Assembly - a gathering of the entire Presbyterian Church in the United States on a national level. It was at the GA where church policy was discussed and made and where our commitment to Jesus was always refreshed. This was the first time I had seen our Pastor since he'd left for his sabbatical and I was curious as to what he was going to preach.

Coincidentally, he told the congregation that the Presbyterian Church in the United States is committed to bringing forth over 1000 new congregations in this country in the next three years - and none of them are to be based in church buildings. The National Church has recognized the fact that we ought to be outside our church building preaching to the people out there, where the people are. This was, in fact, that subject of my first sermon. The National Church has further recognized the fact that these new congregations ought to be started by bringing together unchurched people with common interests and forming communities with them - like, say, a group of bike riders or a bunch of people who hang out in coffee shops, or... maybe... even Geeks.

PZOW! Lightning!

Here I am, about to enter classes that will allow me to preach to a new faith community and the only faith community I can think of preaching to is the Geek Community and then the national church basically jumps in and says we need volunteers to preach to the Geek Community. Total coincidence, right? Purely random.

So, I'm talking to my Kenya group about these thoughts and feelings and my pastoral advisor says to me, "Oh by the way, Will, another member of the church came to me this week and said that they had decided to become a Commissioned Lay Pastor as well." I'm telling you, there is something in the water at my church.

The more I travel the world and speak to Christians the world over, the more I read about the Christian experience, and the more I experience Christianity myself, the more convinced I am that there is NO SUCH THING AS A COINCIDENCE. This is like deja vu in the Matrix. If you experience a coincidence, you have been witness to the moving of the Holy Spirit in your life. God's motives may be mysterious, but his methods are on display for all to see. You see coincidence, I see divine appointment.

It seems as if God has given me my answer and my call. Tomorrow I meet with my official ministry liason for the CLP program and then my last step will be to bring this forward to my church governing board. I now have some idea what God has planned for me and I am eager to get started on the next step of my journey.

And now I feel safe to begin my next post... Jesus was a Geek. Come back soon.