Some people have no issue with it. They close their eyes at night and their minds fill with lucid visions and experiences, though they are fast asleep… and they usually want to tell you about it. Others rhythmically bounce between day and night, barely aware of whatever their minds are doing in the full third of their lives spent unconscious.
It may be similar with the figurative sense of the concept of dreaming. While I rarely remember any dreams while I sleep, I do have a lifetime’s worth of vision and aspiration for how things could be. Dreaming in that regard has always brought a sense of hope and energy to me. As I have learned more about following Jesus over the course of my life, some dreams have passed away, while others have been born, or intensified.
The dream for a new model of cross cultural gospel ministry is one of those faith-born visions. It is far greater than something I could dream up, and so, in that way does not feel like “my” dream, so much as a great hope shared by many, in which I get to participate for my season.
This year, I have experienced the value of the reality that this vision is not mine, because I reached a spot where I just couldn’t push it forward very well, if at all. If the vision were mine, I would have quit. I have no doubt.
I believe the Lord started stirring this many years ago, but it really began to take shape amidst the tumult of 2020. What would it look like to develop a ministry model from the ground up, within which there was real partnership and wholeness, across the fractures of our society? Isn’t this what we see as soon as the gospel takes hold in a place throughout the New Testament? What if we could position ourselves to share our resources, wisdom, and gifts together in a way that was radical, and yet replicable?
After much prayer and consideration, my family and I dove into an opportunity to inch down the road toward a ministry like this a year and a half later. I took a new job. We moved to a new town. And then we experienced a season of loss that nearly ended it all before we really began.
At first, I thought I could just keep moving, and to some extent that was true. But the losses mounted. In May of this year, my mom died.
Suddenly things shifted from “heavy but manageable” to unfathomable to take another step.
I showed up to the DreamForum retreat a few weeks later. I had no idea what God would do with this dream, or whether perhaps my season with it had simply run its course. The retreat itself, and the monthly check-ins did not simply answer that question, but they did help begin a process in which some answers slowly became clear.
Over the last six months, we have sensed the Lord calling us to remain where we are, to stay the course with this vision, yet simultaneously to have boundaries with it. I am not the one who will cause this thing to be, I am not the one upon whose shoulders it rests. I have significant weaknesses even in my strongest moments, and I am most certainly not in my strongest moment.
I have to trust that the Lord can accomplish what he wishes without me, and yet has also given me the privilege of being present within the work, and shaping it as I have opportunity and ability. Somehow it is vital that I both show up and have open hands.
Through the DreamForum I have had space to pause, reflect, and pray in community that helps aim my heart and life in that God-honoring direction. It has also helped me to interact with my local community in similar ways, inviting others into the story and listening together for how God by his Spirit might be narrating the next chapters.
I don’t claim to know how he will work it all out, or if it will be “successful.” Yet, I do believe that God has called me to be right here, right now, to steward this vision for his glory with whatever I have to give, to wait for his provision for what I don’t, and to shepherd our small community toward his vision of renewal and restoration in this season.
Garrett Moore is one of twelve Dreamers in Goldenwood’s 2024 Dream Forum. This reflection is part of Goldenwood’s #InsidetheDreamPod series. Hear more and connect with Garrett at the Dream Forum on November 14th.
About Garrett’s Dream, Empowering and Equipping ALL God’s People: I dream of a radically collaborative movement that does not merely invite minorities and marginalized people “to the table” of anglo-Presbyterians, but builds a new partnership together, sharing resources, energy, wisdom, and authority, for the common goal of empowering and equipping all of God’s people to live generatively, aligned with the gospel, in the power of the Spirit, reflecting Christ’s beauty in every sphere of life.