The last three months have been full of novel experiences. I have done everything from helping my girlfriend move from the U.S. to the Netherlands, all the way to attending a funeral for the four year old son of a friend of mine. There have been highs and lows, singular experiences and some that are becoming normal. One thing I am learning during this time is that my “normal” is changing rapidly and drastically. I believe God is at the heart of this change.
In the past three months, I have been stretched in the areas of preaching, pastoring and organization. In preaching I spoke on the topic of contentment in any circumstance, not a light subject for anyone, but two weeks before my sermon, I attended the funeral of four year old Ian; he was the son of a friend of mine. Around this same time the earthquake in Haiti happened. These were two very traumatic events that hit at both the personal and global level. This challenged me to grow in both preaching and in pastoring. I saw how God worked through the struggle in my own life to speak into others' struggles. I also witnessed God ministering to people in their trauma, grief, and shock. This was a tremendous time of growth for my faith and my trust in God. We may not always understand, but we know that God is good, all the time. I clung to this.
The organizational challenge came in the form of our annual global leadership conference, Summit in Portugal. I was in charge of arranging all transportation and accommodation for the 100-plus guests who came from three continents. This was a huge job and a scale with which I had not previously dealt. I was stretched in many practical ways: communication, flexibility, service and patience. Along with a great team to work with, we had a wonderful conference and again I saw God working. This time not in ministering to people, which did happen, but rather in the details, in the technical details. The week of our conference there were three strikes in Europe, two airlines (British Airways and Luftansa) were on strike and thousands of flights were cancelled. Also, all the air traffic controllers in France went on strike, meaning that all planes in Europe had to be rerouted not to fly over French airspace. This happened precisely while everyone was trying to get to Portugal. The potential was for a huge problem, but God stepped into this situation to get everyone to the conference. The story that sticks in my mind is this one: we had two people stranded in Lisbon, because their flight had been cancelled, and they had no phone, nor access to internet. Therefore no way to contact us. In the airport, they happened to run into one of our church planters who was arriving and had rented a car. They made it to the conference on time. It was amazing to see God at work in the details of our conference and again my faith grew in the ways God works.
Now I am back in The Hague and am looking ahead to the coming year. Cecily, my girlfriend, is here and we are enjoying being in the same city and discovering daily life together. I am focusing more on organizing our Europe office to get it to where it needs to be to service the needs in Europe. We are also planning the next conference, Connect, which is our global conference and we expect about 400-plus people to attend. Again, I am in charge of transportation, which will be a big job, but we have another great team with whom to work.
It has been interesting to reflect on how these experiences helped me grow in my relationship with God and also in my plans for the future. God continues to stretch me through work, and I learn daily more of God's ways. I am looking forward to seeing how God will work through our Connect conference, what ways Cecily and I will grow, and what new surprises God has in store for me in the coming months.
If you are interested in receiving my weekly prayer email, please let me know at jascut@me.com.
Blessings, Jason
