In mid-winter, 2003, I found myself in the unusual
position of actively praying about returning to pastoral
ministry. It was unusual because parish ministry had
been my work for over 25 years, from 1972 - 2001. Throughout
most of that time I had been a senior pastor in non-denominational
churches. However, at that particular moment I was on
a sabbatical from the pastorate. My family & I had
joined Church of the Apostles (Anglican Mission in America)
in 2001, but my personal ministry had shifted to an
overseas mission organization. I was living in Raleigh
but flying monthly to Europe or Asia in order to train
pastors. It was a meaningful ministry, but increasingly
I found myself stretched between a home and ministry
separated by anywhere from 6,000 – 15,000 miles.
I longed to take the leaders I was serving further on
their spiritual journey. In other words, my “pastoral
juices” were flowing strong. So I started praying
earnestly, daily, for months throughout that winter,
for two answers: “In what church am I to serve
You, Lord, and where am I to serve?”
One February night I had what was (and still is) the
only dream I ever had in which God seemed to speak to
me directly. In the dream I found myself in a mid-sized
English city nestled beautifully underneath a ridge
of hills. I was aware of the fact that God had sent
a group of people to that city over the preceding 7-10
years – 16 of them in fact. These people’s
task was simple: to live in the city, to serve it and
bless it, to pray for it and to bring the presence and
message of Jesus Christ clearly to that place. They
weren’t preachers or evangelists per se –
just followers of Jesus Christ called to live authentically
and holistically within the community and to provide
a credible witness for Christ.
Late in the afternoon of the day of my dream, the city
was flooded with a song of heavenly beauty coming down
from the ridge onto its shops, homes and streets. There
were antiphonal portions, harmonies and descants accenting
the melody, and the song rolled down from the hills
into the city like gentle rain. People on their way
home from work stopped in their tracks to listen, wondering
at the song and its singers. The message of the song
was simple: “Come home, come home. There is a
home for you in God. Come home. Come home to Him.’
In my dream I was transported to the ridge above the
city and there I saw the 16 people gathered, not like
a choir, but standing on boulders and bluffs, scattered
over 30- 40 yards. singing the song God gave them to
sing, blessing the city with hope. I asked the Lord,
“Can I please sing with them?” And His simple
answer was, “Not yet. The time is not ready.”
When I awoke I sensed that this was an unusual dream,
and I prayed about what it meant. The answer came back
to me, “Become an Anglican, and in time I will
send you to Chapel Hill.” The “how, who
and where” of returning to parish ministry was
answered. However, being a newbie at this dream thing,
I decided the best way to test it was to wait and see
if what I thought it meant actually happened. I told
no one except Sally and one of my daughters, and then
I just put it to bed. And what happened next, as Paul
Harvey says, was “the rest of the story . . .”
Over a year later, my ministry overseas was coming
to an end and I was in conversation with the AMiA about
entering the track for ordination. I made the decision
to plunge in, was offered a position as associate pastor
at Church of the Apostles for the duration of my training
and began to pray about “what next”. I knew
that there was a team of people considering a plant
in Chapel Hill area, but I also knew that if my dream
had been from God, I was to do nothing except wait and
let Him move in their hearts to consider me for the
rector’s ministry.
In April 2005, I received a phone call that would take
the dream to reality. I was invited to apply for the
position, and after a series of interviews I received
God’s gracious call to become All Saints’
founding rector. One other detail: When I accepted the
call, and shared my dream with the Launch Team, for
the first time I was informed that there were 16 people
who had committed to be on the Launch Team!
Why tell this story? It’s simple. Tucked into
the dream is what I have come to believe is God’s
vision for All Saints and its future. Like the song
sung to the city, I sense that God’s calling for
us is to provide a spiritual home (in the fullest sense)
for those He gathers into this flock and to invite this
community to find its true heart’s home in a relationship
with Christ. Coming home to God means coming into relationship
with Him through faith in Jesus Christ. It means learning
to trust Him in areas where you cannot reason your way
through life. It means allowing the substance of your
heart-longing to direct you toward the answer that He
is and that He provides. It is the way I believe the
gospel is meant to be spoken in this culture –
authentically, credibly, and clearly, but also as a
message of love and hope to a people who try hard to
deny that they have any spiritual longings at all.
Providing a spiritual home for those who are called
together to be All Saints creates several images:
a place of preparation for mission where the “children”,
rooted in the security of home, find the freedom and
strength to take great risks to take the gospel into
our world
We gather together to worship, be transformed, experience
the love of Christ in community, and then we return
to live out our lives with integrity in the community.
We go to bless and to call people home.
Obviously there are few specifics within that vision,
but at this point, the particulars are yet to come into
focus. God is calling His people together to take this
dream into reality. You, too, can catch the heart of
it, and perhaps God will call you to bring your particular
sense of how to live it out to us. God will then reshape
our future ministry and service through you!
