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My Side Of The Story

Writer's picture: Pastor BrandonPastor Brandon

Updated: Aug 31, 2020

I've told this story at least 10,000 times.


And can I be honest? It never gets old!


I love that I can glance at Ellen mid way through the story only to find that she has completely checked out. Poor girl has heard this story on repeat for almost a decade. So, I suppose she has pity laughed enough at my jokes. Regardless, it's a story that creates awe in my heart and has yet to age in my mind.


This past August (2019), I celebrated 10 years in Northern Virginia. That may not seem like a big deal for a 34 year old with a family, but I can remember when I was 3 months in and thought I'd be moving back home sooner than later.


I moved to NOVA from the great state of Mississippi in 2009. I was single and had finally surrendered my life to God's calling. How I ended up in Virginia is another story for another day, but I feel like you could read the Book of Jonah and get the general idea. Dreams of law school, marriage, politics and southern living all while serving The Lord Jesus part time. The last thing I wanted to do was become a pastor. I was determined to prove everyone wrong who told me I was being "called into ministry."


Eventually, God got His way, and I packed up what little I owned into a UHAUL and drove 1,000 miles with a few friends to Manassas, VA. I had been hired as a youth pastor for a medium-sized church right outside of Washington, D.C. All I wanted to do was seek The Lord and invest in students. God had changed my heart radically and I was "all in." After all of my running, I honestly felt like I needed to give up everything to commit to God's calling on my life. However, about 3 months in, my life would change again. "Church life" got hard and I was more lonely than I ever had been. I was fighting massive insecurities and doubts of my calling along with feeling so alone.


By feeling alone, I don't mean romantically. By going "all in" to following Jesus, part of that was surrendering my love life to Him. I had seriously found so much satisfaction in just being with God that I had little desire to be married and often boasted of my ability to serve The Lord with absolutely no distractions while I watched other married men struggle to serve The Lord because of their many excuses. When the church lost our pastor, I was asked to step into the void by preaching more on Sunday's and providing more leadership. The best part? I got to do it with two other men who had become friends, father figures and mentors. For the next 18 months, I preached on Sunday's, launched a college ministry, started more public school ministries, was a chaplain at our Christian school, ran the student ministry, developed and cast vision for the church, preached camps/retreats for other churches and finished some seminary classes. I was living the dream with my Heavenly Father!


But then I became restless. I don't remember the exact day, maybe it happened over a long period of time, but my heart was being prepared for something else. The first thing that happened was extreme intimacy with Christ. I'll never forget my closeness with Him over that season of life. Another thing that started happening was people talking to me about church planting.


I'm from Mississippi, where we have a church and a gas station on every corner, and sometimes they are attached! I hadn't heard of church planting in North America before. So, I gave them all of my typical excuses... Don't we have enough churches? Shouldn't we fill up the churches we have? Isn't church planting for overseas missionaries? Etc. Etc. Then I heard this... If we fulfilled the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20) in the D.C. area, we would be almost 600 churches shy of have anywhere to baptize and disciple them all. My heart sank like a battleship in the middle of the ocean.


The summer of 2011, I was preaching for LifeWay Camps in Lynchburg, VA. As "the old guy" I had a room to myself that had a balcony overlooking the mountains. It was a Wednesday night, and I was missing my ministry back in Manassas but thrilled by the spiritual intensity of the camp I was pastoring. I went outside to spend time with God and several things happened that give me faith in The Father to this day. I began telling Him all the reasons I couldn't plant a church. First, I didn't have money and didn't want to be poor. In a miraculous way, God answered this complaint sitting out on that balcony. Second, I was scared and unsure if God was really calling me or not. Again, He answered. The Lord told me that I would plant a church that would plant many more churches. I was speechless and nervous. So, in that moment, I went for it. I threw the ultimate hail marry pass from the back of my own end zone. I said... Father, if you want me to plant a church, then I would like a wife. And again, He answered! This time He told me, "Of course you will need a wife. For what I am calling you to do will require more than you have to give." After giving God some options, deadlines and boundaries in which to work, He just interrupted me and said... ELLEN. I was shocked and excited!




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