By Ethan Norman

Wide eyes and a trembling lower lip is what I can still picture on the faces of some staff as The WordPlayers sat with a round table of consultants, eager to help us navigate the next phase of life in a faith-based, arts-driven, non-profit organization which is realizing it has a legacy. This isn’t a question of what pill to take to relieve the aches and pains of time. No, this is a question of what nutrient rich foods to feed it as it does what it is clearly going to do, and how not to stunt its growth. It is all rather exciting, but let’s face it; it hurts a little.

You see, we don’t think of this as a business. Sure, we are meticulous with details, financial reports, board meetings, and of course excellence in our work, but it’s not business. To us it is the expression of things rooted so deep within each of us, only God could have reached to plant them. To us it is the stories that changed our lives into something worth living, retold so that others might also live. To us it is the Truth, shared in the languages God gave us to speak. To us it is family. So when a stranger with a big daytimer is supposed to sort through two decades of family-life-truth and tell us what to do now, our posture shifts.

The good news is that’s not what had to happen. The good news is that any consultant who looks at The WordPlayers is asking the question “what would you like to do now?” God has blessed us; by His hand, through His people, and through the fruit of our labors. We are not a mess that needs to be cleaned up (though we have our days), but a gifted bunch who needed to hear that we can dream a little bigger, reach a little farther, grow and grow and still honor our Father.

So pray for us as we navigate next steps. Pray for discernment, to do well with what we have been given and what is to come. Pray for the resources to continue, and the strength to wait on the Lord. Go with us to the throne of grace, committing our way to the Lord so that He will direct our path. Invest, and come along side, because who knows what’s about to unfold? Our lips are not trembling, our eyes are set. We lean into the grindstone, while offering ourselves and our organization as clay in the Potter’s hands. Growing pains? Bring it on.