what joe meant to say...

Just kidding. I’m absolutely thrilled to bring Joe Boyd on staff. For those of you who weren’t there, we introduced Joe as our teaching pastor. At VCC we have a fairly lengthy and exhausting interview process with our HR folks and others. Joe survived the interrogation and having to tell his story to a dozen people…twice.

Then there are the typical things that you look for if you’re working directly with someone, what’s often referred to as the three “c’s”: character, competency and chemistry.

But I like to add one more obvious “c”: calling.

That’s the mystical, spiritual, tricky-to-discern, intuitive, subjective, numinous, God-part. Let’s be honest: it’s a little easier to find candidates who are good people, love God, skilled at what they do, and seem like they’d be fun to work with, but this calling piece is a bit more, um, mysterious. Questions like these can send you to your knees: Is this the place this person is really supposed to be? Is their heart called to be broken for the broken in Cincinnati? Is this the community they’re meant to be a part of? Can we discern the design of God for this person? And the odd thing is there’s no shortage of people who came with this comment: The Holy Spirit told them they were the person for the gig.

What do you do with that?

But I do want people who feel a sense of destiny, the “you-didn’t-choose-me-but-I-chose-you” word from Jesus, and yet they never tell anyone. It’s what I call “closet Christianity”; not that you keep your Jesus-story in the closet, but your feeling of personal destiny, your calling, your spiritual secrets never go outside your prayer-closet door. And when you do leave that secret sacred place, no one else knows until after everything is confirmed. Because in the end, the personal prophetic word is not for anyone else to hear but you.

Why? I think it’s partly because God has two things He wants to constantly teach us to walk in: trust in His word to us (do we really treasure what He’s told us?*) and servanthood (will we choose the lower chair before He offers the seat of honor?**).

How would you rate your own “sense of destiny” and your ability to keep those secrets?

And please welcome Joe here.


* But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. Luke 2:19 (New International Version)

** “When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this man your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all your fellow guests. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” Luke 14:8-11 (New International Version)