Detroit Bound!

I have mentioned in a few other places that I have been accepted for a position at Kensington Church  in suburban Detroit. I’ll explain.

Anyone who has been around me for any amount of time recently knows that I have been quite eager to begin what I call my “real life.” Basically, I have grown quite anxious and tired of this holding pattern that I have been on lately, and was ready to dive in to doing Kingdom work in a more official capacity. I began looking at some of the places that I have wanted to go: San Francisco, Detroit and Nashville.

I messaged some of my friends in those areas and asked for leads on jobs, living and such. Several people replied with some good suggestions including my friend Kate who sent me the link to Kensington’s job website. Listed were some jobs that I thought I could probably be good at, but weren’t anything I was excited about: Administrative assistant to the youth minister, photocopier for the children’s minister, etc. Like I said, nothing I was excited about but being a good administrator, something that I thought I could do well.

A couple days later I get a phone call from a guy named Dan. Dan explains to me that all of the jobs that I had applied for were already filled. He did however seem interested in my resume and the things that I wanted to do with my life. We talked a bit, a couple of times and the short of it is that I accepted an internship at Kensington where I will be interning with a church plant in the inner city areas of Detroit.

Here are a couple of thoughts on this whole thing:

1) I’m nervous. In the words of Ron Burgundy, “That escalated quickly.” I want to church plant in an urban center, so I applied for a couple of jobs that I wasn’t as excited about so that I could be in an urban center. However, those jobs were full and my resume landed in the hands of the right person who thought I had potential to help with a church plant. Despite that, there is still a good amount of anxiety and caution about the work. I think that’s healthy.

2) I know this is a God thing. I am finding it hard for this random sequence of events (few opportunities in other areas, less than ideal jobs are all full, resume lands in the hand of the guy who can make it happen, he likes me enough to offer me a job) to be coincidental. I think God knows what I want to do, what I am gifted for and what my future holds and fast-tracked me into a position. Being that it is a God thing, I know two things, 1) I am going to grow a lot, and 2) that will be really hard, but good for me.

3) Reactions are mixed. My mom is concerned for safety. My dad thinks going North is about the worst idea ever. My friends in Detroit are excited. My friends here are sad. I see where they are all coming from.

The internship is unpaid, so I will need to raise my support on my own. This means drafting letters, sending emails, making calls and going to churches to tell them what I am doing. This means that in the next few months I will be doing a lot of traveling, talking, writing and conversing with different people who can help me make this possible. I am sure all of that will make its way to the pages of this blog in the coming weeks.

If anyone has any good suggestions on how to raise funds for something like this, that would be greatly appreciated.

As always, pray for the work that I am doing and that my walk may benefit others in the Detroit area.

I will have more updates soon.

If you’d like to know a little more about the city (outside of the things you hear on TV) and the kind of work that I will be doing, check out these links:

Detroit Reverse
Vision 360
Jonny Knoxville’s documentary on Detroit