The Waiting

Wasn't that a cheesy Christian band in the late 80s? Maybe?

So this is my brother. and sister-in-law too, but I'll write about her some other time.

We are...uh...not the same. He's type A. I'm type...whatever the other type is...I don't know...I'm not type A. He's 15 months older than I am. We started out on similar paths growing up. We both did soccer, band, church stuff. He discovered that he liked to kick the ball. I discovered I like to stare off into space while the ball flew past me. I discovered I loved songwriting and singing and acting. He discovered the band director in high school was a tool and he wanted to play soccer.
He's the jock. I'm the choir nerd...or theater geek. Needless to say, our paths split and we went to very different places. I kept going with music. He went with soccer, got hurt, became a pilot...I think there's car wash manager in there somewhere...I wasn't paying that much attention to be honest.

After high school and well in to college for me, after college for him, our lives began to take similar paths once again. For whatever reasons (they are many and varied) we both started down the path of vocational church ministry. His discovery of this was a little rockier than mine, but still.

He became a youth pastor, then an executive pastor, then church planter, then manager for a cabinet maker. Wait...what?

I began leading worship for students, then church camps, weekend retreats, recorded a couple of CDs, then became a worship pastor, then a full time worship pastor, then a preschool music teacher. Wait...what?

This is my dad.

His story takes a little longer to tell, so I'll give you the short rundown of ministry.
He was a music minister in a church of 3-400, then a music minister in a church or 7-800, then a church planter. This church started in 1997. At the first public service, there were 200 people or so. The church shot up to 500, 100 in kids ministry alone. They bought some land, planned to build, then the church grew to 40-50 on a weekend. Wait...what?

It's important to note that in this church's history, there hasn't been any grievous sin committed by staff. No one bought a Bentley or a hyundai for that matter. My dad has never taken a raise at this church and stopped taking retirement a few years back. If the offering wasn't up to snuff, my dad would voluntarily refuse to receive a paycheck so others could get paid or other obligations could be met.

We are an interesting group, us Webb boys. My brother and I have spent our entire lives in church ministry in one form or another. We were always leaders in youth groups, youth choirs, etc. What's more, we were never forced into leadership by our parents. We both, independently, surrendered our lives to Christ and then to serve His church. We weren't dragged to church. We weren't beaten with Bibles. We watched as our parents genuinely led people to worship God. We watched our father purposely NOT play the political and denominational games. Our parents were in vocational ministry because of Jesus and us kids noticed. We had problems. We weren't allowed to watch "the simpsons" or "Rosanne" but we're not bitter about it or anything. And there was always an uneaten box of Grape Nuts in the pantry...no clue what that was about.

I went to college and studied Christian Ministry. Leadership, Theology, Church history, Church growth. These are things I've spent a lot of time studying over the years. I purposely did this to bring a pastoral mindset to worship ministry. I've strived to approach leading worship from a theologically strong base.
My brother is all about leadership, execution, church growth, leveraging creativity to preach the gospel. He's spent a lot of time crafting his skills both in and out of vocational ministry....many times at his own expense.
My dad has been in very successful ministry for over 30 years. There are literally hundreds of people who have met Jesus directly through my dad. Did I mention my grandfather? That's a whole other long post about how awesome that guy was in ministry. All this to say that church ministry is in our blood. and I haven't even mentioned my uncles....ALL ministers.

Yet here we are. I sing songs to preschool kids, my brother makes cabinets, and my dad's 30+ years of ministry experience are being used in a church of less than 100 people meeting in a movie theater. Just seems a bit...i don't know...off.

We are not burnt out. We have not given up. We are simply waiting. Waiting on God. and you know what? waiting is not fun. We've literally done all we can do. There are many times we have looked at others in "successful" ministry and wondered "what the heck?" Over the last few years, God has been doing something in us individually and as a family. Independently, God has taken us to the desert to romance us. Independently, God has wrecked us in so many ways. He has sifted us (thanks mom) and made us totally dependent on Him. We haven't done anything that would disqualify us from biblical eldership. We've sinned, of course. we've all even made vocational ministry an effective savior in our lives...doing the work of God, yet not allowing God to work through us. But we're not done.

So my brother and I are 3rd generation pastors. We're pastors like our father and like our grandfather because of Jesus. My brother has this intense desire to introduce people to Jesus. He uses all his gifts, abilities, and resources so that he is in the best position to do that.
I have this intense desire to see people live all of their lives as a response to a Holy God who loved us all more than we can fathom.
My dad earnestly desires both of those things equally.

We're all called to vocational ministry. God has given each of us visions that only HE can accomplish. HUGE things that require so much more than we have to give. And holy moly, do we want to see those visions fulfilled. I guess we're just not there yet. But I have hope. Phillipians 1:6. Jesus will complete what he started in us. He WILL make us who He wants us to be. He WILL fulfill His purpose in our lives. Until then, we're going to wait...patiently. We've done all we know to do. So we'll stand....firmly. Ephesians 6:13


Then there's my mom. That's going to take a whole post in itself. Too much awesomeness to write about here.