We Began As A Couple
My name is Cathy Chester. I am a church planter and, very unexpectedly, the lead pastor of Carolina Coast Vineyard Church in Wilmington, North Carolina.
My husband, Jon, and I led a small house church before God made it clear that we were supposed to be part of the Vineyard family. At first we asked about adopting our church into the Vineyard, but after working on us, God made it clear that we were called somewhere south, not to Columbus. After about three years of God clarifying the details, including many trips to South and North Carolina to figure out specifically where God wanted us to be…then preparation and assessment by Vineyard Columbus…we became one of the first of its vision to plant 20 new churches in the next 10 years.
God closed the door on my job, and I retired a year earlier than planned. But an offer was made on our house within two days of putting it up for sale (during February-in-Ohio weather!) and we moved in with our daughter and slept on an air mattress while we waited for VC to give us the go-ahead to relocate.
While we were waiting, we found a new home in Wilmington and our first grandchild was born within a 24-hour period. God definitely expedited things!
We moved three weeks after our grandson was born, and three weeks after that we had our first meeting with some neighbors. The following four months were amazing. Our group began to grow. We started to encourage weekly neighborhood Friday night driveway gatherings: we would show a movie on a big screen in our driveway and give out popcorn.
But after those four months, God turned my life upside-down. Jon began to have excruciating abdominal pain right after we had returned from a four-day motorcycle trip to Myrtle Beach, and we had to call the squad. He was admitted to the hospital and learned that he had to have his gallbladder removed. Surgery was successfully performed, with some small complications, and I left that night to get some rest.
But I wasn’t to see my dear Jon alive again. About 4 the next morning, staff found him barely alive. Despite their efforts, they were not able to revive Jon. That 4:20 a.m. call just stunned me. They didn’t tell me until I got there that he was gone, but I knew…
He had bled internally, excessively and fatally. We still don’t know why.
Then It Was Just Me
This is where the God story becomes mine, not ours as a couple. God called both of us to plant this church. So, not once have I had the temptation to pack it up and go home to my family in Ohio. This is home now. Despite my dear grandson Caleb and my only daughter being 600 miles away, I know that I am to stay here. By staying and obeying God, I am not able to be an active part of this dear little boy’s life as his only living biological grandma. But I know I am obediently doing what God wants me to be doing: Stay and grow this church.
[bctt tweet=”I am obediently doing what God wants me to be doing: Stay and grow this church.” quote=”But I know I am obediently doing what God wants me to be doing: Stay and grow this church.”]
It hasn’t been easy. I am grieving, and still God has placed this calling on me. Passionately. I have learned over these past months that this move, occurring before Jon died, was about placing me in this leadership role and journey.
I have been asked if I would have still come here had he passed away in Ohio. I have honestly answered, “Probably not.”
Jon planted the seeds. He was loved by so many here in only four months. But despite very minimal training, no Vineyard Institute or seminary experience–but simply having a strong call from God and the passion to continue this ministry–I get up every morning and ask the Lord to show me what I am supposed to do that day. How to serve Him. It is actually very difficult to shut it off, which isn’t necessarily good for me. But that’s where I am.
We are now a VI site with one student, and I am able to take the classes too. We are still small and have our struggles just like any other church plant, but we are ready to move to the next level. We are beginning to look for lease space.
I do cry still and miss my husband intensely. We had fun together, and I miss our talks every morning about what we were going to do to meet people that day. There are times I just want to quit, but it is temporary. I know that I wouldn’t quit unless God tells me to.
Leading By Faith
And God is beginning to bring new people into my life. Some are moving here from Ohio! God told me months ago that He was preparing 50 hearts. I have been asking Him, “When? Please send me just one!” It has been a challenge of my faith.
At the national conference in Anaheim this summer, more than once I was prayed for and told that people won’t trickle in; they would start coming all at once. And that it would begin around the end of the summer. Thank you, Lord! I need those people! Especially Vineyard folks! (I am the only one in my church right now with any previous experience in the Vineyard).
I will never understand God’s way in this, nor will I ever like that Jon isn’t with me doing this ministry side by side. We had planned on growing old together in ministry.
I don’t even have his personality to gather people. I am more “quiet and gentle in spirit.” I am definitely not a “front person” who can easily get out there and meet people. I am being forced way out of my comfort zone.
But God is using me. I know that He is in this every second of every day. He hears my cries, my praises and my pleas. I have often been told that I am brave and courageous in not just giving up our dream and call for CCVC. But I have never thought of myself as courageous. I just see it as being obedient. I have hope. I have my faith that my wonderful Lord is with me in this. I do not question that He wants this Vineyard community to be here and serve Wilmington’s Carolina Beach area known as Pleasure Island. We will be the hands and feet of Jesus. We will be that “flip-flops church” that this little coastal community needs. No frills, but a church based on relationship and love with each other and with our wonderful, faithful God.
I know that my own testimony as a young widow who stayed the course to love Pleasure Island will be heard and shared. I am humbled and honored by this huge role that God has placed on me. I don’t feel prepared for it, but God will give me what I need.
Doing What God Said To Do
Jon and I were called to a city where we knew no one. We had no personal agenda to come here.We just knew that this was where God was calling us. So we did everything that we had to do to get here. We had to. God told us to. And I haven’t heard Him change His mind.
[bctt tweet=”God told us to. And I haven’t heard Him change His mind.” quote=”We just knew that this was where God was calling us. So we did everything that we had to do to get here. We had to. God told us to. And I haven’t heard Him change His mind.”]
So I will continue to serve Him. He will see me through my grief, through my emptiness, without my best friend here with me by my side. This was our life journey, and now we aren’t doing it together. But as I mentioned before, I will never understand or like it, but I accept it. God is so good, and I am amazed at how well I have been able to deal with my new life. God holds me up, and He has blessed me with more friends than I ever had in Ohio and placed me in a neighborhood that is truly my community. I asked for God to bless me with good friends before we ever moved here, and boy, has He blessed me in abundance!
I am an unexpected church plant pastor. Crazy how God takes those people that you would never expect and uses them to do powerful things for the kingdom. We see it in Scripture over and over again. I feel that on a small scale I am one of those people. I am a retired special education teacher, the sibling of a special-needs brother. I’m closing in on 60 in a couple of years. And God is using ME.
What an amazing “second career.”
Thank you, Lord, for Your confidence in me.
Cathy Chester – Lead Pastor, Carolina Coast Vineyard Church, Wilmington, NC
