I love my job.

I know this may sound kind of weird, but I’ve realized over the last few weeks that I absolutely love what I do. I have never experienced that before in my entire life, and it is the most freeing, exhilarating, motivating thing I can imagine. I love my job… not because I am a pastor, but because every day I get to help lead a church that is doing what I am more passionate about than anything else.

Never before in my life have I been passionate about what I was doing. I worked, went to school, did what I did because I had to do something and those things seemed like what I should be doing at the time. In a lot of cases, I felt like I was doing exactly what God wanted me to do, but I was not passionate about it. In some cases, I was pretty miserable.

As I have grown in my faith and honed in my calling, God has given me a vision and stirred within me a passion to help the church be relevant in the midst of an ever-changing, post-Christian culture, helping unchurched people connect with the God who desperately wants to be in relationship with them. For the most part, though, my passion has been a lot more abstract than tangible. I liked the idea of bringing the vision of the church presented in Acts to life in our world today. I liked the idea of the church being a place where people really can come as they are, sin and all. I liked the idea of seeing people who have never really thought about what it would be like to live life as a follower of Jesus, or even who have been turned off by churches or Christians in the past, truly experience the Living God for the first time. I realized that most churches aren’t doing those things, so I liked the idea of pulling out all the stops, thinking outside the box, being innovative and creative and different to make those things happen. The reality, though, was that in my life those visions were never more than good ideas.

Then, a couple of weeks ago I had one of those “aha” moments and realized that right now I am actually doing what I am passionate about. It’s no longer just an abstract concept or a good idea. It is actually happening, and God is blessing it! It’s who I am. It’s what myself and a group of other believers are trying to live out in our community. For the first time in my life, I love what I am doing, and I am doing what I am passionate about. I believe in it. I am fully devoted to it. I’m willing to bet the farm for it. I’m willing to give my life to it. I’ve found my purpose, and this is it!