The Hawks Are...

MOVING!! Ha! I know that some of you might have been wanting me to tell you something different like PREGNANT, but maybe I will write a note like that within the next two years!

After much prayer and counsel I have accepted the position of teaching pastor/HS student pastor at Grace Family Church in Tampa FL. Grace is a wonderful church with an amazing background of reaching people far from Christ. Some churches talk about reaching lost people, others do it! Grace is one of those churches. Starting 16 years ago in a jazzercise facility under the leadership of senior pastor Craig Altman, Grace has grown to over 4,500 and they are still growing, planting other campuses throughout the city of Tampa, with a desire to do more! Check them out at www.gracefamilychurch.org!

It has been amazing to see how this all came about. Obviously, we had no intention in only being at IBC for just 2 years. Our plans were to serve there for 4 or 5 years and then go and serve in a teaching pastor role at a church like Grace. But like scripture tells us, His ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not our thoughts, and His plans are sometimes not our plans. His plans are however, the plans that bring about life, so we must follow his plans and his dreams for our lives no matter what! Because as I preached last week at the Underground, "a God given dream will bring about God given results" in our lives.

God gave me a dream to do ministry when I was 19 years old. Pastor Steven Furtick talks in his book Sun Stand Still (www.sunstandstill.org) of his "page 23 vision" and told his readers to think of their own page 23 vision, well mine is my EXIT 42 experience. My exit 42 experience was when I was driving home from an awesome week of working at a Christian camp in the mountains of VA, I was pulling off the interstate and God spoke to me and said, "Josh, you are mine". At that point my entire life changed, my values changed, my friends changed, everything I was chasing after and thought I wanted changed. I gave up my acting career and started chasing after the dream that He was placing in my heart to serve Him, love others, and point people to Him. Why am I telling you all of this? Because I believe He has given me some amazing opportunities to do this ever since! I have gotten the privilege of serving and working with some amazing people, teams and leaders from my time as a FUGE camp pastor, to Student Life, Philly, Calvary, and IBC all the time preparing me for I what I believe to be the dream that God placed in my heart as a college junior at a Passion conference in Knoxville, TN and to the ministry that I believe God has called Ashley and I to for life and that is the ministry at Grace Family Church in Tampa FL!

I know that is a pretty audacious claim, but it is one that I believe to be true! The only reason why we are leaving a wonderful, thriving student ministry at IBC is because we believe that Grace is the place that God has prepared for us to love God and love people for years to come! We are leaving knowing that we are not running from anything but we are running toward something great!

I hope that in 5 years I will look back and read this note, (if facebook still exists) and be able to look back and see the wonderful things that God has done through a faithful servant, trying to live for a creator that is so much more wonderful than I can ever imagine! I know that God has amazing plans not only for me but for us all! His word says so! This week I was speaking to a group of students at a chapel service about this very thing and I said, "Every time I think on how the bible tells me that, HE has PLANS for my life, it is hard for me to believe". That God in His infinite wisdom, sovereignty, love, grace and mercy has "plans" for my life, totally blows me away! We believe that! We believe that He has shown us and given to us a part of His plan by going to Grace.

He has opened so many doors to show us this! He has opened the door for Ashley to continue law school at Stetson Law (www.law.stetson.edu) and she will be able to begin next semester! Most law school's will not let people transfer mid year! This was definitely a "Sun Stand Still" prayer for us that God answered! He also opened the door for me through the Vanderblomen Search Group (www.vanderbloemensearch.com) a wonderful search company that you should check out if you are a minister thinking of a move.

There were many more along the way that I would love to have conversation's with you about. But, for now I just wanted to share this exciting news with you! Please pray for us in this move, please pray for IBC and our current students in this move and please pray for Grace Family Church! Pray with us that God would begin to prepare the way for incredible movements, moments and times when we can look back at Grace Family with a wonderful team of fellow believers surrounding us and as Furtick says, "Only blame God for the results"! I love you guys!