Hello Friends. I know… I know… It has been an eternity since I posted anything on this page. It’s been an unusual season to put it mildly; pandemics, elections, new normals…. It’s been a season defined by tremendous fear and uncertainty. So much has been unearthed. Our homeostatic norms have been completely upended. We’re not comfortable any more. We don’t know what we thought we knew. No one does. The term “expert” has been diluted into something that has no power or credibility. We are divided. We are angry. We are sad. We look forward to a reboot in 2021 - but that too may be a mirage. Between cable news, social media, and the upgrade on wisdom and knowledge from those we drink coffee with, we find ourselves in a tangled mess of information with no clue who’s right or wrong, or what we should think or believe. Chaos… that’s what it is, chaos. And it’s debilitating if we allow it to be. For those of us who follow Jesus, none of this should come as a surprise. All of this is the natural consequence of the choice to worship and serve self and other things rather than serving God. We are depraved - sinners by nature. We’ve sown to the wind…. and now we’re reaping the whirl wind.

But, if somehow we are able to peer through the mushroom cloud of the 2020 bomb that’s been detonated; if we can pull back on the yoke and climb to a higher, safer altitude, we are afforded new perspective: clear and clean air - the chaos below us.

While the destruction and suffering is undeniable, the thing about chaos is that it always catalyzes opportunity. Good things come from the hardest things sometimes. Just like the most fruitful crops seem to grow out of the darkest, blackest soil. And if somehow we can shift our focus from the chaos around us to the opportunities that it is birthing, we can grow. We can move beyond surviving to truly thriving.

Such is the reason for my absence from this blog for such an extended period of time. You see, in the midst of this mess, God placed an incredible opportunity in front of me, my family, some neighbors, and now many, many others. A week after the Easter holiday in the Spring of this year, as the USA was starting to feel the early discomforts of a global pandemic, I descended our stairway to the kitchen for my morning dose of coffee, when my wife posed a life altering question to me. She asked, “Do you see us at our current church for the long haul?“ I was certain she’d had a bad dream. Where else would a question like that come from? “i guess… yeah…” I responded, still confused. She said that she wondered if I missed pastoring, something I had done for most of my adult life, but was not engaged in currently - at least not vocationally. The truth was that at times I really did, but I was happy to be ministering in the lay capacity that God had given me. That was it. I grabbed my coffee and embarked upon my day.

Not fifteen minutes had passed when my wife received a text from our neighbor. It read something like this…”Hey! Jim and I have been discussing and praying about starting a drive up sort of service in our pasture on Sundays and we wondered if Mick would be available to preach…”. What a coincidence! Right? I think not. Jill said I wasn’t going to believe it. It was crazy timing, but it sounded fun to me.

We came into that first Sunday with very low expectation. A few neighbors had been made aware and were invited. The utility trailer was in place along with a karaoke mic and a small Fender amp. We were ready to go… and the cars started pulling into the pasture - one, two, three…. They kept coming! 25 carloads in all! What?!!! Crazy! We preached, enjoyed some socially-distanced (but in-person) fellowship and decided to do it again the following Sunday. Again they came. I was having a blast and people were enjoying the opportunity to do something other than virtual church in their jammies. It may have been week three or four when we got rained out of the pasture. But, I knew that there were some coming to our services who desperately needed the in person fellowship, so I invited some folks to join us that evening on our covered porch for fellowship and study. Many came and we shared and studied for three hours. That night I knew that what God was doing - the opportunity he had placed in front of us - was beyond pandemics and lockdowns. He was raising up a church. We didn’t start it. He raised it out of the ashes and we were standing there when He did…..

Fast forward now as we near the end of the year and The Pasture is a growing, thriving church! We run about 100 on any given Sunday and our church family is doing life on mission together. It is incredible. I pinch myself everyday. It is a privilege to pastor this flock. I am beyond grateful and humbled by the opportunity.

Be sure to check it out. The link to our website is at the end of this post…

Here’s the truth… without the pandemic; without the chaos, this opportunity may never have been born. God is bigger than all of this. He’s sovereign over all things, and while I don’t believe He authors evil or the natural consequence it produces, He possesses, exclusively, the power to turn it into something for HIs own glory and fame, AND our good.

Can you see the opportunity in your chaos? My prayer is that you can - that you will. May God’s favor rest upon us even in the dark and deep waters, and may His great name be praised!

Much love, friends.

Pastor Mick

ThePasture.church