Bishop Paul Russell

 “Take a few steps into the river…” Joshua to the Israelite Priests (Joshua 3:8)

Twice a month, I join a group of pastors in Northwest Houston for prayer. Throughout the years, we have built a relationship that allows us to openly share our struggles, aspirations, and obstacles. A pastor recently expressed his challenges in ministry, including issues like finances, staffing, and church attendance. While praying and worrying aloud about the decline in Sunday morning attendance, he felt the Holy Spirit prompt him, “I’m inviting people to your church. Are you?”

For some reason, those words created a holy moment for all of us. During the next few minutes, we admitted our longing to hear from God in a new way, committing to listen and act in obedience. We concluded our prayer, asking God to instill in us a renewed passion to step beyond the ordinary and into the flow of His purpose.

When I left the meeting, my car radio was set on the Sirius FM Watercolors jazz station. The artist was belting out, “Wade in the water, wade in the water….” 

It’s an old spiritual sung by enslaved Blacks as they pursued freedom via the Underground Railroad. Harriet Tubman encouraged escaping slaves with this song, urging them to leave the well-trodden path and enter the water to avoid detection by the hunting dogs.

When the Fisk Jubilee Singers popularized the song in the early 1900s, it brought to mind the scene of Joshua instructing the Israelites to step into the waters of the Jordan River, anticipating a miracle from God. The priests were to carry the Ark of the Covenant on their shoulders, enter the waters, wait for the waters to part, and guide the Israelites to the other side. Also, the phrase, ‘God’s gonna trouble the waters’ alluded to the troubling of the waters of Siloam where Jesus healed the blind man. 

God can use music to touch us in the deepest spaces. As the singer wailed, “Wade in the Water, children…God’s gonna trouble the waters soon….” I thought about the actions I need to take to align with His purpose for this season.

OFF THE BEATEN PATH

What will your next steps in the ministry be? Can you accept the Psalmist’s promise that the Lord is guiding your path? That He takes delight in every aspect of your life? That even when you stumble, you will not fall because He is supporting you?

God is the author of your tomorrows. We do not determine His plans. As God told Joshua, true success and prosperity are found in following Him! We are meant to simply walk in the path He has set for us. Years ago, I heard some good advice from Henry Blackaby “Watch to see where God is working and join Him in his work.” 

It is normal for pastors to go through times when you second guess your current assignment. May I reassure you that God has you there for a reason. You are the answer to someone’s prayer. Someone in that community needs what you have. 

A few years ago, Delia and I decided to follow a God-dream, do it all over again, and move to Cypress, Texas to plant a new church. There are two ways to launch. You can launch like a rocket and take off with three or four hundred people first service. Or you can launch like a fishing boat. Just untie the rope and paddle out into the water. With three or four people. We did the latter. 

I admire rocket launchers. I am more of a paddler. There were moments when we doubted the wisdom of leaving the security of a mega-church to begin something new. But I am grateful we kept paddling. God sees to it that provision follows His vision. Just this morning, I sat on the front row, basking in the wonderful worship service, watching our son, Kennis, who now serves as Lead Pastor, skillfully lead the service, and thinking, “I am glad we stepped in the water.”  

Christopher Wright has pointed out, “It’s not that God has a mission for your church, but rather that God has your church for His mission!” Your next steps will not be determined by churchy trends or finally figuring out a twenty-seven-word mission statement. Your next steps will be fashioned by God’s design for you.  

THE INEXPLICABLE MYSTERY OF OBEDIENCE
 

Joshua got a word from the Lord. All the Israelites needed to do was follow directions. Today, Jesus promises us guidance from the Holy Spirit. Our task is to obey – to do the right thing.

The marvel of obedience is that it creates a vacuum that puts a draw on the favor of God. God does not call us to do something without providing the means to perform. Obedience puts a demand upon divine resources. 

Our example of obedience is Jesus, Himself. He said, “I always do what pleases the one who sent me.” I wish I could say that I have batted a thousand in this department. I can list too many occasions when I failed to obey Him and paid an abysmal price. But we learn, don’t we? Or at least, we should.

Jesus said, “If you obey me, my Father will love you.” This passage used to puzzle me. Of course, God loves me! Doesn’t He love everyone? But Jesus is pointing to a dimension of God’s love that is beyond His mercy for humanity. He is talking about something beyond the Father’s tender affection toward us. He speaks here of Affirmation and Favor! 

CHALLENGES ESTABLISH YOUR TESTIMONY

The Lord told Joshua, “Today I will begin to make you a great leader in the eyes of all the Israelites.”

Leaders will always face adversities that define their position before people. Every endeavor needs the element of leadership. It also needs the component of partnership, friends who come alongside. Someone asked me, “How do you start a church from scratch?” My answer, “You don’t.” You don’t succeed unless someone wants you to succeed. Ministry is not for those who want to be “self-made.”

But God needs someone to take the lead. The test of the unknown is an occasion for God to confirm the leader’s worth to the mission. Esther’s uncle reminded her, “Who knows. Perhaps you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this!”

In perhaps one of the best books ever on leadership, Daniel Golman elaborates on a phrase he coined, ‘emotional intelligence.’ He says one aspect of EI is self-awareness. Not self-consciousness, but self-awareness, the inner knowing of how we are being perceived by others. Someone is always watching. What do people see in you when the heat is on?

Maybe the current challenge you are facing is God’s strategy to elevate you amidst your peers. God intended to venerate Joshua, but Joshua had to be bold and steady. Your hardest difficulty may be your greatest opportunity to shine!

BIG VICTORIES ARE MADE OF SMALL STEPS

Joshua tells the priests who carry the Ark of the Covenant to take a few steps into the water. This would be the ongoing narrative of the entire conquest; people obediently taking incremental, deliberate steps. Some miracles come as unexpected surprises. Others are the result of just doing the right thing at the right time, over and over again.  

God had said that He would drive out the inhabitants a little at a time, to give Israel sufficient time to increase and possess the land. As the people matured, they would be able to handle new triumphs. We can be so enamored with ‘overnight successes’ that we disdain the day of small things.  In C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters, the devil reveals that one of his most powerful tactics against Christians was their self-destructive ‘dread of the mundane.’ Ever thought that tomorrow’s success may hinge on just being obedient today to the last thing you heard the Holy Spirit say to you? 

A young pastor I know assumed the pastorate of a defeated church the month before the Covid pandemic broke out. Forty people showed up to vote him in. He never saw most of them again. But God has used him to rescue a failing work, and today, it is thriving. He has been willing to ‘wade in the waters.’ Day after day.

Be encouraged. God is at work. Watch. Listen. And take a few steps. 

Paul and Delia Russell are the founding pastors of Christ Family Church in Cypress, Texas. They are devoted to raising up the next generation to serve Christ. Their lives are enriched with three grown children and six grandchildren, all serving Jesus. Paul holds a Masters in Practical Theology from ORU and a Doctor of Ministry from SEU.