Holding on to Comfort
I have a confession; I have been holding on tightly to the comfort of the last season.
We do that don’t we? We are sometimes the last to recognize the major changes that have happened in our own life. We try to mix the old with the new and are surprised when we feel confused or overwhelmed. There is a grieving that needs to happen when we leave an old season behind. Even when the season is hard. Sometimes we even find comfort in the misery, living in hope feels risky.
For thirteen years I have dedicated my life to Youth Ministry. Youth Ministry has and will always have a special place in my heart. It was my first love. Emmaus isn’t going anywhere. I won’t stop teaching at retreats and camps. Leadership development in our teens is still important to my heart. I still believe that teenagers are the leaders of today.
However, I am realizing that God has expanded my call. That isn’t failure or hearing wrong. It is just another adventure that is sitting in front me. An adventure that is going to require sacrifice, risk, growth, bravery, and perhaps some heartache and hopefully lots and lots of celebration.
With that said, I am recognizing before God and my community that my call is not just to teenagers, but to adults and cities as well. (I know you are not shocked, but I am still processing!)
You might recall from my previous newsletters that this summer I started volunteering as a Local Organizer with a nonprofit called Civil Righteousness. While I got involved to support a friend, I quickly fell in love with the heart of the organization. Only a few weeks later I stepped into a volunteer role overseeing the Southern Region of the United States for Civil Righteousness. I have gotten to do a lot of amazing things in my life, but this was the greatest honor. I was so humbled to see the way that God used ordinary people to bring real transformation to peoples lives and cities.
For the last couple of months, I have been serving as the Vice President of Mobilization for Civil Righteousness. I get the honor of equipping and sometimes pastoring our 450 Local Organizers around the United States (and really the world) to be representatives of the Kingdom in their cities. While Civil Righteousness has a couple of events that we particularly train our Organizers in, the opportunities our organizers have to make a difference go far beyond that. Civil Righteousness carries the message of racial reconciliation, but what we have found is that we can’t have true racial reconciliation without Biblical Reconciliation to Jesus Christ. In this way, the conversation around race becomes a doorway to seeing the Kingdom of God manifest.
My role at Civil Righteousness has been largely volunteer, with a few gifts from my church and friends. This has limited my availability for the work of Civil Righteousness. I would like to invite you to invest in what God is doing around the world through Civil Righteousness by supporting me. This investment is far beyond what God is doing in my own life, but it is an investment into over 400 cities around the world.
Because God is good and sneaky and amazing, He has already set investing up for success. I have been serving as a missionary through Global Outreach since I started Emmaus. As I mentioned before, I will continue to serve the youth culture and the Emmaus project will remain open through Global Outreach. However, there is now an additional option to support me financially as I serve Civil Righteousness.
I am not the only one who has experienced major transition in 2020. In fact, most us have. I have dozens of newsletters in my inbox and social posts from friends to prove it. My prayer is that we all have “2020 vision” to see what God is calling us to in THIS season, so we can be right in step with His ways.
Nicole Poolman