In his position with the facilities team, Lenker spent most of his time setting up for church events, doing painting projects and cleanings bathrooms. While performing his daily tasks, his headphones would often be filled with podcasts and sermons.
Lenker said God used this time to humble his heart and set his priorities.
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“I definitely thought of myself as a leader at the time,” Lenker said, “but as a part-time facilities worker there’s not a lot of speaking or leading involved, and you cannot be very proud when you’re pushing a mop around a building.
“It was definitely a blow to the ego, but it’s exactly what I needed. I think I very selfishly wanted to use God to build my own kingdom, but God brought me to a place a viewing myself as a servant and there’s a greater joy in serving the God of the universe than my own kingdom. I think the call to ministry is also a call to service.”
Now more than a decade later, Lenker is fresh off completing Summit’s church planting residency program, called The Summit Collaborative and is planning to move his family to South Carolina in the next few weeks.
A group of 45 people – 28 adults and 17 kids – will follow soon after, and the church will officially launch in September.
Lenker acknowledged the mixed feelings that come with planting a church, but also said the sense of loss is worth it for the gain in the kingdom.
“There’s a part of church planting that is a type of death, because you are sending people, and sending people feels like loss,” Lenker said.
“There is a sense in which it is a loss, but it is not a loss in a sense of subtraction but in a sense of an investment. Money that you use in an investment will over time generate far more money than spending money in a different way. That’s what church planting is like.”
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Greear closed out the commissioning service with the same sentiment, and prayed a blessing over the teams.
“We send some of the people that we love and value the most because God promises to do more with what we give away than what we can possibly ask or imagine,” Greear said. “We believe He is going to do it again.”
This article originally appeared at Baptist Press.
