This is a couple of years old, but I just linked it to the website. The interview came about as a result of a brief conversation I had with Reggie Joiner around 2004. We took a group of leaders from the church in Ottawa (Now Crossbridge Community) to Northpoint in Atlanta for a Weekend at Northpoint conference. On Monday before we left we enjoyed a sit down along with about 30 other attendees with Reggie Joiner.
Reggie recognized 15 of us were from the same church and were committed to refocussing an 80 year old congregation. He smiled and asked "Does the pastor know you're here?" They laughed and pointed at me. "You know what you're doing is extremely difficult, right?," he asked. I shook my head and then bragged on the team who were present and on the church back home. We talked for a few minutes and then he said, "If you survive let me know."
The next few years were amazing at Ottawa. We grew, launched one of the first Nazarene video campuses in the midwest, participated in a couple of church plants, and brought the Peru campus onboard for a year of renewal sending several of our families over to join them.
Several times I tried to contact Reggie to no avail. A few years ago our Children's Pastor Evan Offut was taking a team to the Orange conference and at a staff meeting prior I said, “Hey, tell Reggie he owes me a conversation.” She returned with his private email address. (Thank you, Pastor Evan.) I sent him the story and he responded by referring me to Carey. Carey reached out to me and I thought my friends were playing a joke. It wasn’t a joke. Though I’ve never been comfortable with the title, the conversation may be helpful to those of you who are pastoring in small settings or just going through a rough time. Enjoy.
