Today is an anniversary of sorts. One year ago, Trey and I officially opened for business as Urban Village Church (though at the time we were nameless!). That's spurred a lot of reflection for me the last few days.
One of my favorite stories happened in April of '08. Trey and I had gone to a church-planting conference in Orlando and during one particular night, I remember being filled with excitement but also a great deal of anxiety as I wondered whether we could pull this off. As I sat there flipping through the television, I came across the movie "Finding Nemo." This kind of movie was exactly what I was in the mood for. And, believe it or not, I also believe that God spoke to me through that movie.
There's a scene where Nemo's dad (Marlin) and his companion (Dory--both of these characters are fish, I should add) are trapped inside a whale, clinging to the whale's tongue so they don't fall into the whale's stomach. As they're holding on for dear life, Dori swears that she can "speak whale" and says that the whale is telling them to let go of the tongue. That makes no sense to Marlin. Of course the whale wants us to let go, he says, the whale wants to eat us! Dory insists. Marlin says, how do you know something bad won't happen? Dori exclaims, I don't! But they let go, which allows the whale to blow them through its blowhole and they get out alive.
As soon as I watched that scene, I had a strange feeling that we could pull this new church off and the first thing I had to do was let go. Let go of trying to control. Let go of fear. Let go of anxiety. Trust that God had brought us this far and God would be with us as we moved. And God has.
Letting go is one of the hardest things to do in our faith, but when we do--when we trust that God is active in our lives and cares for us deeply--it's also the most freeing.
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