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by Richard Gazowsky

Many of the things I am accused of now, such as following God down pathways that I truly don’t understand, happened because of the day I lost control as leader. What you are about to read may seem like either the ramblings of a man on the verge of insanity or a healthy monologue from a sound mind. I feel the strong necessity to be honest with you, because I sense that some of you leaders are facing the same crossroad.

Early in the month of July of 2007 the church that I pastor in San Francisco had gone through a series of unpredictable catastrophes that had rendered our physical church building in bad shape. Our heating system was completely useless… it had been so cold in the building that the congregation could see my breath when I spoke. Coats and blankets were necessary attire. A city water main broke underneath our church lobby, flooding the building, destroying our carpet, knocking a six foot hole in our floor, and disabling the bathrooms. Two weeks later a flash flood filled the main sanctuary with a foot and a half of water destroying the remaining section of the carpet that had not been destroyed by the water main break. We continued to have services even though the building smelled like mildew. People had to leave the building to find a bathroom.

At the time, the Lord had been dealing with me about the words of Jesus who said, “The Son can do nothing unless he sees the Father doing it.” These words totally consumed me, because one of the pleasures I found in leadership was my ability to make decisions based upon my feelings of favor or dislike. Now God was asking me to turn over this personally satisfying area of control in my life. I had just began to work with a well connected member of our church and had hired an architect to begin a five-step plan for remodeling that would take years to complete. I knew I had to ask the Lord’s permission to do this in front of the congregation. To me, this meant the casting of a lot. If the lot (coin) came up heads, I’d pursue and if it came up tails I wouldn’t. On Sunday morning I obeyed the Lord and cast the lot. As I stood there, I knew that by doing this publicly anyone on my staff could now question my decision and could ask me to cast a lot concerning my decisions. This was an extreme loss of power in a personal way. When I cast the lot, it came up “No”. To further confirm the decision, I asked the member of our church who had hired the architect to open his Bible randomly and to see if he got a confirming word. The scripture he got was a warning to Israel not to let the heathen touch the remodeling of the house of God. The entire congregation was amazed by the accuracy of the word. We obeyed the Lord and dropped the remodeling plans from the architect.

When the third week of July came, the prophet Timothy Snodgrass prophesied, “Pastor Richard, God is going to immediately remodel this building. He is tearing out the old wine skins, and is going to give you new wine skins, and then He will pour in the new wine.” I kind of chuckled when I heard the word, because I knew how fascinating God could be, but I was also staring at the cold hard facts: our church had literally no money, for we had just given what we had to a missionary. Four days after this prophetic word, I was feeling an immense level of stress over the condition of our building. I opened my Bible looking for encouragement and it fell open to Ezekiel 7. I read what must be one of the most devastating scriptures in the entire Bible. The prophet says, “It’s over! You are finished…doomsday is here…five…four…three…two…”. I couldn’t understand it, but as I read this verse of scripture, I felt the warm, loving, presence of God, even though I was reading about my own demise. Then the Lord spoke to me and said, “Will you continue this service daily until all things are fulfilled?” I said, “Yes”, and immediately walked in front of the congregation and spoke to the evangelist Pastor Victor Emenike who was our guest speaker for the evening and asked, “Are you willing to continue this service tomorrow?” He immediately canceled his plane flight out and said he would stay.

When I went back to my seat, brother Ken Ealy, a painting contractor from Palm Springs and a member of our church, whispered in my ear, “The Lord just told me to carpet and paint the church. Can I do it my way?” I had no clue what he meant by “his way”, but I was acutely aware of my leadership, and that the Father was now calling the shots.

At home that night, I laid down and went to sleep. I immediately dreamed that I was laying on my side in the middle of a downtown city square that was surrounded by skyscrapers. Each skyscraper imploded and then collapsed until finally the last building fell to the ground. The Lord then spoke in an audible voice, “Richard, now everything that you have done to the Voice of Pentecost Church has been destroyed, even down to your former choice of paint colors. Now everything you do will be through Me.” I woke up crying, quickly opening my Bible for encouragement; once again, it fell open to Ezekiel 7. As I read each verse in that chapter, my heart was filled with inexplicable joy.

When I arrived at the building the next day, twenty construction workers were in our main auditorium, (which seats 1,500 people) taking sledge hammers to our old cast iron theatre seats. The paint I had chosen was already covered with new, white primer. There was no turning back now. Today, the church sanctuary looks elegant, complete with luxury theatre seats, carpeting, all copper plumbing and hand carved alabaster chandeliers, all completely paid for. But of course, I had nothing to do with it. It all happened the day I lost control as leader.

Richard Gazowsky pastors a church in San Francisco called The Voice of Pentecost, and is also president of Christian WYSIWYG Filmworks. He has directed the films, “Guardians” and “The Roman Trilogy.”