Home to Ithaca

Felicia and I at a waterfall outside Ithaca New York.

Homer's epic poem Odyssey is about Odysseus' journey home to Ithaca. In a few months I will be taking a journey to Ithaca as well. Ithaca New york for me. And my journey will include 4 other sojourners. And it also started before today.

Here's what happened:

In the spring of 2011, I stepped down from my position as lead pastor of Heritage Mountain Community Church. It wasn't something I wanted to do - but a perfect storm of circumstances led to this untimely departure.

This placed me in a season of life I had never been before. Set adrift, free from the mooring of steady employment and a ministry placement. Our family had to restructure according to this new change. In the fall of 2011, Felicia went back to work full time and I assumed the role of a stay at home Dad. I also began a job search for a new ministry placement.

Felicia and I discussed the possibilities before us. We both no longer felt tied to the Metro Vancouver area, so I set the net wide and began applying to positions internationally. I applied to churches in Canada, the United States, England, India and a few in South East Asia. My scope was narrowed to medium to large size churches. For the past 6 years, we had served a church plant and a small church where I was the solo pastor. We agreed that we needed a position that provided more stability and support than we had experienced. Church planting and solo pastoring are very demanding positions, and we simply felt we did not have the same energy as we had 6 years ago.

So, every morning, I would consult several Christian job boards and apply to positions that might prove a good fit. They were either lead pastor, teaching/preaching pastor or an associate position that focused on either spiritual formation or young adults.

I would look through these job boards and apply. Most weeks, I would average only 2-3 applications. So in a month, I might apply for about 10 positions. Out of these 10, I would be lucky if one would respond either negatively or positively. If it was positive, I would respond with whatever more information they wanted. If things progressed, I might get a phone interview. In the fall, I only had two actual live interviews with local churches. Both did not proceed with the process.

In December I saw a posting for the position of Pastor of Young Families in Ithaca New York. I read the posting closely. The church had close ties with Cornell University. I was interested. I have a young family, and I am a pastor, so that's good. Being in New York sounded pretty cool. The connection to Cornell was especially intriguing.

So, I applied. Things slowed down for the job hunt over December and January. There weren't many positions to apply for. I would have gotten discouraged except for the fact that I was preaching quite regularly at local churches by now and was now also a published writer, contributing a monthly column to a local Christian newspaper.

The church in Ithaca responded quite promptly letting me know they had my application. In February they responded again, indicating I was one of 11 final candidates (from 90 applicants). They asked me to answer some questions, supply an audio of one of my sermons. And then we arranged a time for a telephone interview with the search committee. After several months of pretty much no action from any church, this was pretty encouraging.

I was excited, as this looked like an interesting position. A couple of weeks later we conducted the phone interview. It was a bit odd, as I was alone in our basement talking into my iPhone. I think there was like 8 people on the other end. They each asked a variety of questions. I answered as well as I could. Sometimes there would be silence after I answered a question which would trigger a mild anxiety attack within me. There were a couple of answers that I gave that I didn't think were very well articulated. I played these answers over in my head that night - as I lay in bed I was convinced I had completely blown it. My anxiety escalated to the point that I felt not only am I not getting this position - I WILL NEVER GET ANOTHER MINISTRY POSITION EVER AGAIN! I was despondent for several days after, even going forward at church for prayer, because I was so bummed.

So, imagine my surprise when I was told they wanted to schedule a further interview, this time with some elders and the Sr. Pastor! I had another private conversation with the Sr. Pastor. More time passed - I kept applying to other positions, and even interviewed at a local church in Port Moody. The Search Committee from Bethel Grove Bible Church in Ithaca invited me to a "get acquainted" weekend in April. Things were really moving forward.

And so, I found myself on a circuitous flight to Ithaca. It was a packed weekend of meetings and traveling to some local sights. Ithaca is an interesting bled of rural and cosmopolitan. It is very small - only about 30 000, with an additional 20 000 students during the school year. Despite its small size, it has all the amenities of a larger center: good restaurants, coffee shops and movie theaters. It is half a days drive from every major city on the East Coast, including Canadian cities like Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa. New York City is 4 hours away.

The church itself has somewhere between 4-500 on a Sunday morning with 2 pastors and some other ministry and office staff. It has close ties with Cornell with several faculty attending the church. During the school year, a large number of students attend as well. There is a strong global missions focus with a large % of their budget supporting overseas ministries. They have a close tie to a Baptist church in Uganda with teams traveling there on a regular basis. They have seen a sharp increase in young families attending and decided to pour resources into this area of ministry - that's how this position came up. All in all, it is a solid church with good vision, great leadership and a focus on the Kingdom.

There was a follow up discussion once I get back to Vancouver with an elder and 2 of the pastors. They had some questions about if I felt "called" to this ministry. I indicated that I was still processing and that it was hard because Felicia hadn't been there yet.

So, the first weekend in June, Felicia and I traveled to Ithaca. Here, we had more meetings with a variety of groups. Felicia introduced who she was and got to get a taste for the town and the church. I preached on Sunday. The sermon went well, but a case of the nerves caused me to preach at a higher rpm, causing some to comment that I should remember to take full breaths the next time I preach.

After we left, there was a congregational meeting - some people who had not met me asked some probing questions about why I had left my last ministry. The leadership team did their due diligence and followed up those questions by calling a member of the elders board of my previous church and a denominational leader as well.

They called me and probed for more information. It was painful to revisit the reasons for my departure. I won't go into any details here - just know that I did not step down for any moral, theological or financial issues. I was a bit anxious - wondering if I had hit the end of this journey to Ithaca.

The church voted last Sunday (Father's Day). At around 1 PM my time, the pastor called. It was good news. The meeting and vote went very well. The church was very enthusiastic about inviting me to join them on the pastoral staff.

So, almost exactly a year after leaving my last ministry, I was given a new ministry. I am SOOOO excited at the new position. It's scary to leave a place where I am comfortable to a town and country that will really be brand new to us. But, we have felt a quiet confidence through the whole process that God was guiding us.

So, now we have a variety of things to do: sell our house, arrange movers, obtain my work visa, book flights, etc. This summer I will be the interim preaching pastor at Evangelical Chinese Bible Church  in Burnaby. I'd still like to keep my writing up. But, mainly, I'll be preparing myself for the new ministry role that God has prepared for me.

I am preaching a series of sermons from the book of Ephesians this summer. There's a verse in chapter 2 that says:

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.


I take it on faith and believe it to be true that this pastoral position at Bethel Grove Bible Church is one of the good works that I was created to do. And I gain great confidence that God has prepared this good work in advance for me to enter into. And I am thrilled to be able to enter into it.