The Wilderness of No

I’m not sure how many times I’ve been asked certain questions over the last three years, but I do know the number of churches and consultants I’ve interviewed with or had conversations with that ended in a “no” since leaving Taiwan: eighteen. No’s from churches across Asia, Africa, Europe, and the U.S. It was a long stretch of hoping, waiting, being disappointed—then hoping, waiting, and being disappointed again.

Over the years, I had considered planting a church, but the no’s always shut those thoughts down. All I could see was “no.” No congregation. No building. No funding. No sending church. My internal answer was predictable: No way. There has to be another church we can join.

So I became fixed on finding a church where my family could fit—except we couldn’t find a fit.

Since graduating from college, we haven’t had a denominational home. We had been part of Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist churches—yet still didn’t have a true denominational home.

When you add in our passion for missions, our experience with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, our training at Gordon-Conwell, our biracial marriage, and our tenures with international churches, we simply didn’t have a home.

Our passion for the Word and my theological training made us attractive to some churches. But our convictions about the ministry of the Holy Spirit and women in ministry were seen as incompatible. On the other hand, our view that tongues is not the definitive sign of the baptism of the Holy Spirit meant that Pentecostal churches couldn’t accept us either.

I would have been thrilled to return to an international church, but with three boys already in school and a fourth soon to enter, the cost of international schooling for four children was prohibitive for most international churches.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” —Matthew 7:7–8 NIV

Door after door closed.

2. Unsettled Longings

In fall 2023, just as we began planning to start worship gatherings, FirstCov asked me to lead theirs—so we paused our planting plans.

Instead of planting a church in January, I led morning prayer for three weeks at FirstCov. When that wrapped up, I felt a nudge in my spirit to talk with the church about serving as an interim worship leader for one year. My thought was that I could serve for a year and then find a permanent position afterward. However, due to budget constraints, the church could only offer a part-time role. I took the position, with the understanding that I would continue searching for full-time ministry.

I began working at First Covenant Church  in May 2024 and kept searching. I thought something would open up soon—some opportunity that would finally allow us to settle after leaving Taiwan. But doors still weren’t opening.

Several months later, Patty, who leads the church’s outreach program to students at an inner-city school across the street, shared a burden with me. Students would come for open gym or Bible study, but they wouldn’t come to Sunday service. Many of the students were children of African refugees. She said they didn’t feel like they fit in their parents’ church—but they wouldn’t feel at home in ours either. She lamented the need for a church where these third-culture kids (neither fully American nor fully their parents’ culture) could worship and be taught the Gospel.

I had volunteered for open gym when I first returned to the U.S. from Taiwan. I understood what she meant and found the need exciting. But I couldn’t start that church—I was longing to leave Grand Rapids as soon as I got an opportunity to pastor somewhere else. I put the idea out of my mind.

I held out hope for a church role in Singapore—a city that felt like a hub for the nations—but the door closed just before Christmas. I was left with deep sadness, wondering what God would have us do.

3. Signs and Stirrings

In the wake of that “no,” Bo and I prayed together. I asked her, “What do you think we should do?” Her answer surprised me: “Buy a house and start a church.”

No, I thought. We can’t buy a house.
We can’t recruit people from our church—it’s not the same denomination.
We won’t have enough money to live.
How would we even get started?

I didn’t voice those concerns at the time. I just couldn’t see how we could plant a church.

Fast forward a couple of months and another round of dead ends. It was starting to feel like we would never find a church that fit. We were outliers—off-grid in so many ways—and we didn’t have the denominational connections that help smooth the path.

In the midst of that disappointment, a young man named Patrick told me he was looking for a church. Patrick is passionate about discipleship and the son of refugees. He loves the Lord deeply, and I understood how it would be hard for him to feel at home in most West Michigan churches.

I thought, If I were to start a church, he would be a great person to start with.

Bo and I began praying seriously about planting. My interim position at FirstCov was ending in a couple of months, and we needed to make a decision about what would come next.

But I was still afraid—especially about finances. How would I support our family of six?

Around this time, I stumbled across a podcast about building a ministry partnership team. As I listened, I found myself encouraged. I began to think that I could do that. I started to believe we had friends who would want to invest in the kingdom and be part of a team helping us launch a church.

Encouraged, but still uncertain, Bo and I prayed together, asking God if we should move forward with planting. Shortly after we finished praying, I checked my email—and saw a message from our bank: someone had just sent us $1,000.

We were surprised.  Deeply encouraged.

When we called the person to ask about it, they simply said they had felt led to start giving to us—and planned to continue.

4. Steps of Faith

That felt like a sign.

We shared the vision with friends. A few responded with support and interest in joining.

We didn’t have a team yet. We didn’t have a house. We didn’t have financial certainty.

But we had a couple of people.
We had some monthly support.
And we had enough faith to take another step.

We still needed to learn more about building a mission support team—and we also needed to begin prayerfully discerning what this church plant would be about. We knew the name of the church needed to include something related to the word “Nations” and express the idea of being for the nations in Grand Rapids, and going to the nations of the world.

Our next step wasn’t to choose branding or think about how to market the church to gather bodies, but to carefully select the values that would form the foundation and shape the vision of the church.

There were many things we didn’t have, but what we had were stories and scars—moments of prayer and worship, victory and disappointment, discovery and encounter. As we kept taking baby steps forward, we realized that the things that had led to so many closed doors were values that would form the foundation of the church plant.

In the pages that follow, we won’t just describe what we believe—we’ll tell the stories that shaped those beliefs: stories of tables, prayers, partnerships, and one lost sheep Jesus chased down and brought home in an overwhelmingly miraculous way.