Dear Friends,
Happy 2023!
I have big news to share and thought of no better place to do so first than with my readers at Second Drafts. Why? Because, of course, life is a series of edits.
It’s been a long (but significant) three years getting to this particular edit, so I hope you’ll take the time to read about it in its entirety.
For those who want the TLDR (“too long, didn’t read”) version of the story:
This coming July, Megan and I will move to Springfield, IL, to help further establish Exodus Church, a two-year-old Presbyterian Church in America church plant; I will serve as Ministry Coordinator for the church’s worship, operations, and community organization until formally ordained as a pastor in the PCA (hopefully by early 2024); Megan is seeking a teaching position at one of two Christian schools in Springfield for the 2023-24 school year
I have scaled back my marketing/communications position at Montana Instruments to 5-10 hours/week and started training as a delivery driver for FedEx, the thought being that six months’ experience in Bozeman may enable initial bi-vocational ministry in Springfield (we’ll also raise some financial support); Megan has given notice pertaining to next year and is finishing her sixth year as a 1st grade teacher at Petra Academy
For more details, as well as the background and stories behind all of the above, see below.
As always, thanks for reading Second Drafts,
Craig (for Megan)
PS: This newsletter is long; you may have to click “continue reading” at the bottom.
A Vision Worthy of the Rest of Our Lives
Many moons ago, when I was involved with The Navigators as a sophomore at the University of Missouri in Columbia, God impressed upon me His words spoken in a dream to Jacob at Haran:
“I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Genesis 28:15 (NIV)
If there is such a thing as a “life verse”—a verse to cling to through life’s ups and downs—this would be mine. In it, God reassures Jacob—a scoundrel of scoundrels—of God’s presence and promise concerning the future. Jacob didn’t deserve either, but because of God’s covenant promises, He rarely gives us what we deserve (if He did, which of us could stand?).
Reading and re-reading that passage, I remember sitting in my dorm room praying two things: 1) that God would always be with me, watch over me wherever I went, and not leave me; and 2) that God would one day bring me back to “this land”—which I affectionately appropriated as the Midwest—and those I knew and loved.
After 33 years away (20 of which in the PCA, including five years of study and two degrees from Covenant Seminary), it seems good to Megan and me to invest our remaining years in pastoral ministry in “this land” of my ancestors—particularly west central Illinois and the cities of my youth: Springfield, Jacksonville, and Quincy.
In response to an invitation from the Presbytery of Northern Illinois and as part of the Midwest Alliance, Megan and I are moving this summer to further establish Exodus Church in Springfield and work to see more PCA churches planted and disciples following Jesus across the Midwest in the next 25 years. We believe it is a vision worthy of the rest of our lives.
The Back Story: Midwest Alliance, Presbytery & the Lawrences
This past October, I was invited to attend a gathering of church planting prospects to better discern if that might be a viable option and next step for Megan and me. Though we had been one of a handful of charter families who planted City Pres in Oklahoma City, that didn’t mean we were cut out to be a lead couple; plus, I am not yet licensed or ordained in the PCA, and the path to both is rigorous.
By the end of the first day, it was clear the prospect of parachuting in and planting a church in a certain northeastern Illinois city did not make sense; of course, we would have given it our best, but my gut said we would have been miserable and ineffective in the process. I communicated as much at dinner that night with Ted Powers, director of the Midwest Alliance. Thanking him for his recruiting and presenting efforts, I let him know I didn’t think we were a fit for solo church planting.
Ted understood and was glad I was honest with him. He then asked me to share more of our ministry history and life experiences. After I had walked through our story, Ted wondered aloud if coming alongside a two-year-old PCA start-up in Springfield might be a better fit?
I was interested, not only because I knew Springfield and that it was closer to where I grew up, but also because Stephen and Courtney Lawrence, the younger couple planting the church on behalf of the presbytery, were scheduled to give a two-year update the following morning. Ted suggested listening to their report about the church and, if it seemed compelling, to skip the rest of the conference and spend a couple hours with the Lawrences since we were all in the same place.
The next morning, the Lawrences and I spent two hours talking about what Exodus Church needed and how Megan and I might be able to help. It became obvious to Stephen and me that our giftings and temperaments could complement each other well, so we pledged to continue talking and praying about a next step. Then, upon Ted’s recommendation and with the blessing and provision of the Presbytery of Northern Illinois, Megan and I scheduled New Year’s weekend to visit Springfield.
Hebrew and Exegesis and Ordination (Oh, My!)
But first I had to learn Hebrew…again.
As you may or may not know, back in 2005, Megan and I moved with our girls from Colorado Springs to St. Louis so I could begin studies at Covenant Seminary. Having had a fairly low view of church during our time in the Springs, we were spiritual mutts and bounced around multiple churches until we found Village Seven Presbyterian. However, after a year-and-a-half worshipping at Village Seven, I especially wanted to learn and get more grounded in the Reformed faith with an eye to teaching and leading within the realm of classical Christian education. So, we moved to St. Louis.
Even though I was not planning to go into the pastorate, I chose the Master’s of Divinity track so as to be able to study Greek and Hebrew as part of Covenant’s most robust degree program. Unfortunately, by the end of my first two years, our financial support had run out and my (very) part-time teaching job teaching Old Testament at Heritage Classical Christian Academy wasn’t enough to support our family. I had to get a full-time job (which God miraculously provided) and taught New Testament, Biblical Ethics, and Christian Worldviews at Westminster Christian Academy. Unfortunately, though, working full-time meant needing to transfer out of the M.Div. program, which I did.
The result of this reality also meant not being able to take Hebrew Exegesis, the final of three Hebrew courses. At the time, I didn’t think too much about it (I actually remember being relieved, having come through three courses of Greek a year before); now, however, 15 years since graduating with a Master’s in Theological Studies and a Master’s in Educational Ministries, I need to retake Hebrew in order to write an exegetical paper, which is a presbytery requirement for ordination in the PCA.
Thus, this past October, I invested 10 hours a week (the time I normally spent writing my weekly Second Drafts newsletter) in an eight-week intensive Hebrew I course with Dr. Miles Van Pelt of Reformed Theological Seminary on Liberty University’s online platform. The first couple of weeks were painful, but it got better (that is, I passed).
On Monday, January 16, I start Hebrew II’s eight-week intensive, which runs through March 10. I will then take the final eight-week intensive of Hebrew Syntax and Exegesis beginning March 20. If all goes according to plan, by the end of May, I’ll write and submit my Hebrew exegetical paper for approval to begin the process of oral and written exams for licensure and ordination. Then, if all goes according to plan, by this time next year, I hope to be ordained as a pastor in the PCA, serving with that official title at Exodus Church in Springfield.
Learning to Work with Two Hands Again
The past three years (as well as the eight before those) were difficult ones that have often felt fruitless for Megan and me. We have sought to love people well and trust that God’s will would be done, but it was a hard row to hoe at times.
One of the books I received for Christmas this year was How It Went: Thirteen More Stories of the Port William Membership, by author Wendell Berry. In the chapter, “Dismembered (1974-2008),” Berry tells the fictional story of Andy Catlett’s loss of his hand to a corn picker and the years it took him to heal from that traumatic event. The story deeply resonated with my experience in Christian education. Berry writes:
“It was the still-living membership of his friends who, with Flora and their children and their place, pieced Andy together and made him finally well again after he lost his right hand to a harvesting machine in the fall of 1974. He would be obliged to think that he had given his hand, or abandoned it, for he had attempted to unclog the corn picker without stopping it, as he had known better than to do. But finally it would seem to him also that the machine had taken his hand, or accepted it, as the price of admission into the rapidly mechanizing world that as a child he had not foreseen and as a man he did not like, but which he would have to live in, understanding it and resisting the best he could, for the rest of his life.”
I share this passage because it profoundly sums up my past three years processing the eight before them. Like Andy, I had been obliged to think that I had given my hand, or abandoned it, in an attempt to unclog the corn pickers (the schools I led) without stopping them. I knew better, but my hand was taken and accepted as the price of admission into an educational world I did not like but tried to live in and understand, resisting it as best I could. I thought it would be for the rest of my life.
I was wrong.
Berry continues:
“He was forty then, too old to make easily a new start, though his life could be continued only by a new start. He had no other choice. Having no other choice finally was a sort of help, but he was slow in choosing. Between him and any possibility of choice lay his suffering and the selfishness of it: self-pity, aimless anger, aimless blaming, that made him dangerous to himself, cruel to others, and useless or a burden to everybody.”
I was 48; any new start was not going to be easy, but also like Andy, there were no other options. I took a job at Montana Instruments to ensure that our remaining two girls could graduate and that there would be bread on the table. I had been slow in choosing what might come next, taking three years not only to decide, but to deal with my suffering and selfishness from the self-pity, aimless anger, and aimless blaming. Most of this was done with God and my pastors (who were so helpful) and I tried not to be cruel or useless or a burden to others. But my hand was gone—sacrificed, taken—and until one goes through something like that—twice, in my case—one has no idea as to the pain.
One last passage from “Dismembered”:
“He would not get over the loss of his hand, as of course he was plentifully advised to do, simply because he was advised to do it, or simply even because he wanted and longed to do it. His life had been deformed. His hand was gone, his right hand that had been his principal connection to the world, and the absence of it could not be repaired. The only remedy was to re-form his life around his loss, as a tree grows live wood over its scars. From the memory and a sort of foreknowledge of wholeness, after he had grown sick enough finally of his grieving over himself, he chose to heal.”
This is what the past three years have been about for me: re-forming my life around my loss(es), getting over grieving over myself, and choosing to heal; letting all that I’ve been through inform my pastor’s heart (which has always been there for others, regardless of title or vocation), and learning to work with two hands again, even if (in Andy’s case, and perhaps in mine), one is a prosthetic—awkward but still able.
It has been a good, hard process—full of doubts and never completely confident in anything or anyone but God. Even writing this, I feel the least worthy and sure of anything I have anytime in my life, but after the past three years, like Andy, I believe I am ready to start farming again. For as Mark 4:14 says:
“The farmer sows the word.”
I’m ready to go home to do it.
The Farm
The final piece of all this has to do with home—those 600 acres of land in Pike County, IL, that God gave to the Dunham family 177 years ago. While I wouldn’t hasten the day by a second as to when my parents are not long for the farm, I also don’t want to make decisions concerning them or it from 22 hours away. I want to honor them (as well as Megan’s father, Mike, who will only be 6.5 hours away from Springfield in Tulsa) by being present and nearby for their remaining years.
Moreover, there are people in Pike County—former classmates, current friends, friends of my family—whom I have known literally all of my life (there’s even a list somewhere of fellow Pike Countians whose funerals I am supposed to preach). Pike County and her people matter to me, and I want to be close enough to matter to them in meaningful ways in my remaining years.
“I set forth again into the town of Port William—the nucleus, the navel of the country that was most intimately home to me then and has been home to me all my life, even in the years when I did not live in it. It is my motherland and the mold I was cast in. As it has held and shaped me, so I have kept and contained it. Though I may have been thousands of miles away, it has been as present to me as my own flesh.”
—from Andy Catlett: Early Travels by Wendell Berry
Megan and the Girls
Some may wonder how Megan and the girls feel about the move. I’m thankful to report that none of them are surprised (they always expected us to end up back in the Midwest) and all are very supportive.
Megan’s response (as it has for the entirety of our 26 years of marriage) has always come from Ruth 1:16-17:
“Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.”
While the girls are equally excited, they are also very much on their own now:
Maddie graduated this summer from Montana State University with her Bachelor’s in English and Literature; she and her entrepreneurial (computer science) husband, Bruce, love Montana and plan to stay in Bozeman, where Maddie serves as the Director of Children’s Ministries for our church
Chloe is engaged to her fiance, Brian, an aspiring church planter, and after their wedding on March 11, he will move to be with her in Roanoke, VA, for the remainder of her internship with Reformed Youth Ministries; she’ll graduate from Southern New Hampshire University in February with her Bachelor’s in marketing and business
Katie just moved out of the house (and Montana) after a year-and-a-half with us, her “roomies,” to Albuquerque, NM, where she will transfer into the Art History program at the University of New Mexico; she will also be closer to her boyfriend, Josiah, who is studying architecture and helps lead the Nav ministry on campus
Millie has returned to Chattanooga, TN, where she will jump back into her first year at Covenant College, studying English and Literature; she had a good first semester and has been encouraged by several to apply to be an RA (resident assistant) next year; she’s also found a PCA church she likes in “Chatt”
We had a great time together as a family over the Christmas break and processed at length the move when Megan and I returned from Springfield the day after New Year’s. It’s hard leaving Maddie and Bruce here, but the consolation is that we’ll be more geographically central to all four girls, with good access to interstates and airports in St. Louis and Chicago.
Finally (and in case anybody’s wondering), Peaches is always up for a new adventure.
Conclusion
If you’ve made it this far, please accept my sincere thanks for reading. I’ll send out more updates here (probably once a month), so if you’d like to keep in touch, we’d be honored to have you along for the ride. We’re excited for what’s ahead and appreciate your prayers as we step out in faith and move back to the Midwest.
Until next time.