…to be raised.

If I were a better writer, this post would be more lengthy.

5th grade is where it all started for me, I think.  My family started to get settled into a church in Kokomo the same year I started public school in 5th grade.  Up until then, I’d been going to a local, private Christian school.  Sheltered.  It was an interesting transition… not only getting exposed to the New Testament promises and gifts in an independant, full gospel church, but simultaneously experiencing the pressures of being the new kid at Kokomo Center Schools.  I guess I was the new kid at school and at church.  I don’t recall it sucking that bad though – God is faithful even to 5th grade kids of a formerly church-seeking family.

I began to make friends in both places, although the church boys were a bit more responsive to me.  I wasn’t nearly as cool as I should’ve been for the public school boys.  Nike, Jordan, Eastland, Tommy, Ralph… I could go on about what I didn’t don.

As I began football in 8th grade, I also discontinued my piano lessons.  That same year, I was asked to start playing keyboards with the music team at the time.  I began to find my niche, my calling, my vocation, my passion and my love.  Although it was only 5 years on the team, I feel like it was more like a decade before going off to Bible college for church music.  I was so impassioned, so lit for the house and call of God that I, literally, scoffed at the idea of going on vacation to FL with my family.  I HAD to be at church.  I HAD to play.

Those years not only left me with many memories of being on stage, but of being in the altars.  Many times, the gifts of the Spirit would flow and inklings of my destiny and future were revealed to me through men of God like the pastor, Rick Burgei and other evangelists who came through the doors.  Truth be told, the first time his wife, Joyce laid hands on me in the altar, I felt a literal warmth ‘flow’ across my skull.  When I was filled with the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in other languages, it wasn’t in the altar, it was during a time of open, or free, worship.  My earthly praise got converted into an unknown tongue, I just had to keep my mouth moving.  :)  It was all genuine, although it can be hard to convey in a stupid blog.  I learned how to stand in His presence.  I learned how to praise Him with my words and songs.  I learned how to worship with my instrument.  I learned how to earn an anointing.    To say the least, New Covenant Christian Center was a great place to be raised.

After Bible college, I came home to Kokomo and to NCCC.  I was offered a job to help with the ministry and in the office.  I ended up working full-time hours a few years into my stay there.  Working at NCCC as a new 20-something was a great place to start my career.  I had the pleasure of working with people like Pastors Jacob and Tara Burgei, Pastor Chad Collins, and of course Pastor Burgei and his wife, Joyce (my last 2 weeks there I shared the office with Joel Burgei, too.  But he’s given me a whole other blog’s worth of good memories… you don’t even know.  I’ll probably write an entry solely about him and Charley – jeez).  To say the least, it was a great place to be raised.

Pastor Burgei often times had the annoying task of sitting me down and telling me how horrible a job I was doing at watering the plants, putting stuff back where I found them, not following through, and not focusing on my tasks (trademarks of genius btw).  He taught me a lot about working in the ministry.  The nuts and bolts, the rubber and the road, etc.

Now, the callings of God are without repentance (i.e. God’s not going to cancel His purposes among men just because of sin, imperfection, folly or rebellion.  He’s not going to give us seconds on our purposes, we just have to make sure we ascend to them).  Although my calling remains, who I am as a person is a concoction of much cause and effect: the grace of God, my genetic and generational behaviors and tendencies and, lastly, the ‘world’ around me.  Now knowing that for the last 17 years of my life, my ‘world’ was New Covenant Christian Center… it has had a VERY positive impact on me….to say the least, it was a great place to be raised.

After marrying the love of my life, Arielle Autumn, I had to begin to rethink my priorities in life.  My world and heart turned towards a new mission and responsibility: family.  She married me about a year after her pastor, Mark Hill had to discontinue ministering in Kokomo.  Her heart and soul was in that church…her best friends were at that church.  She could have gone anywhere, but she decided to hang with her man.

After a total of 7 years working there, I decided to leave the nest and begin a journey that is all my own (please don’t think I’m ignorant of the fact that my decisions affect others).

8 weeks later, as of this writing, I’ve had a chance to meet, share with, question, minister to and minister with some amazing people.  It’s not been easy to leave home, let alone walk this new path, but God’s providence and grace has been more than enough, albeit a second away from too late.

To my friends, mentors, Pastors and everyone whom I’ve grown to know and love there at New Covenant, I owe you all a debt of gratitude that I can never hope to repay.  Much good in me can be held to all your accounts.  With all the love in my heart, although I could not stay forever… it was a great place to be raised.

(one thing my uncle told me on my wedding day – always trust your wife’s intuition)