Freedom, Ruts, and Ruins
Moving to Georgia in the middle of September, I joined the Center for Global Action as a worship apprentice with Adventures in Missions, after driving myself hundreds of miles south in a car that resents its own mileage with how dependable it is. When I arrived I found myself in the middle of a community that constantly engages with God in all sorts of different forms, and that same community was pushing me towards God.
When my plane hit the ground in the LAX airport, and my year long mission trip ended, I never dreamed I’d end up back with Adventures in Missions. However, here I am, an hour from Atlanta, in the South, and again on mission.
Perhaps the shift seems abrupt, and perhaps it is, but when the reality of the Ohio landscape hit me with all the nostalgia that a cornfield can I began to reach out again. Ohio held many comforts, friends, and family members, but it also held an old way of living that I had worn out deeply within myself. Coming home to Ohio was like trying to drive a truck a different way, down a dirt path, with grooves deeply worn from the common travel that you did every day since the beginning of your life. The first few days back I felt incredibly shiny and novel, as people asked me about all of my travels and what I had learned. As time inched on in the flatlands, old Stephen began to be summoned, and once more, he began to show up. There was such a battle within myself to try to figure out what the new Stephen Zenner would do in his old stomping grounds, but then the reality hit that perhaps that land could be let go.
After visiting my brother down in South Carolina, I heard a sermon from Bethel, where Kris Vallotton spoke about environments and sustainability. The main idea centered around the fact that if you leave hot water out in a room that is at 78 degrees Fahrenheit that eventually the water will be 78 degrees. That’s not the end game though, because if you have a thermostat you can change the temperature of the environment. Roughly, he broke people down into two categories: thermometers and thermostats, those who change their environments and those who read their environments. He made the point that some people go back to their old environments without having their new selves fully imparted, and that sometimes it takes much longer than one would have thought to have their lives fully given to what God would have them be—truly themselves.
My mind connected with the sermon, because I had already known that there were things that I still had not fully received that I deeply desired from the race.
The three things I desired for myself entering and coming off the Race were:
- A better understanding of God’s love
- A better understanding of my own identity
- and a clear resolution of my trajectory of life stepping into the next season
All three have been greatly grown over the past year, but I still don’t think I’m done yet.
After a good amount of contemplation, prayer, fasting, and some steps of faith, I ended up at the Center for Global Action, an 8-month leadership and discipleship program that equips followers of Christ to recreate biblical community through teachings, scripture, and activation. While that’s a mouth full, what it practically means and looks like is alumni World Race and Gap Year participants living/working together, under senior disciplers who impart their knowledge to us, as we receive training in understanding how to manage or lead from a place of health. We receive training in emotional health, spiritual relevance, practical business skills, and are activated throughout the Georgia community, serving in trailer parks, churches, neighborhoods, after school programs, and anywhere else we might find ourselves.
CGA is centered around making disciples that make disciples, and empowering its participants to take control and command of responsibilities to make their own ministries where others are not heeding the call. It is here that I am receiving and pouring out. God has been good to me thus far, and He is forever teaching and enlightening me. I am working part time at a church, and although we’ve only been here for a small amount of time I’ve been able to interact with the community.
Thank You all for your prayers and Support and God Bless.
