My 'let's-lead-this-church-together-to-love-unchurched-people-toward-Christ' buddy for ten years, Kyle Dillard, has resigned as worship director of our church. I woke up praising God for Kyle this morning, and want to tell you some of the things and stories I'm thankful for, below (so this post will be a bit long). But first, I will let him talk to you in his own words (this was emailed to everyone at Lake Forest Church last night): 
Dear
Lake Forest family, Have you ever had one of those
times in your life where you're really excited about a new opportunity but
really sad because something else in your life is going to have to change as
well? Something that you really love, too. It's not a fair trade
because you really want to do both those things. Like the kid at the
circus who has cotton candy in one hand, a Coke in the other and cries for one
of those spinning light things but he doesn't have anymore hands...so he has to
let something go.
Well, that's me. I have
resigned as the Worship and Arts Director at Lake Forest Church. I have given ten years of my
life to LFC and I have had a blast. If you've been at
this church since the YMCA days then you know what I'm talking about. If
you've only been here a few months...you still know what I'm talking
about. There is a lot of fun to be had when we appropriately respond to
the greatness and glory of God. Especially through music with some of the
best musicians in Charlotte.
I am blessed beyond measure to
have had this experience and I have no regrets. The things God has
done at LFC are once-in-a-lifetime moments. I have no doubt He will
continue to do that. I can't wait to see it and hear about it. I
also believe He has a new day for me as well. Lake Forest will always be
family to me and I hope you will continue to include me in your prayers. Sunday, September 23 will be my last
day leading worship at LFC-Huntersville and I hope to see all of you there.
I
pray that if there is one thing that I have left on your heart it's this:
Responding to the
greatness and glory of God is what we are made for.
Making more of His name in how we treat Him and others. There is no hope
for any of us apart from the saving blood of Jesus Christ. His death and resurrection
should change the way we live. Nothing compares. Nothing!
Your friend, Kyle Dillard
-----------------------------------------------------
Thoughts from Mike... (here is my unedited part of our letter to the congregation last night - it was shortened for the email)
For ten years, when I’ve
encountered God the most clearly and powerfully, it’s been with Kyle Dillard
hosting the conversation. This decade of leading the church together has
been the best, most fruitful time of worship in my life. Kyle has
profoundly affected and grown my relationship with the Lord. That’s
because God is found most profoundly when the church gathers together for the
purpose of glorifying and seeking him in worship together. And that’s
how Kyle has served me and Lake Forest – bringing us together into the
presence of the Living God as the most basic, profound rhythm of our
lives. He’s done this year in and year out with excellence and
creativity, all the while focused on Christ, sometimes at great sacrifice to
himself.
All that’s to say, I feel like many
of you reading this note – gratitude for long years of skilled spiritual
leadership in my life and strong sentiment over the change from a good season
in my life to a new one without Kyle leading me in worship. There are many
amazing ways in which this church is who and what it is because of Kyle’s
unique gifts and strengths. Few people have achieved the level of
fruitfulness and formative influence on a new, baby, growing church the way
Kyle has here – he leaves a permanent legacy. There are also many ways in
which I am who I am as a pastor because I’ve led with Kyle beside me during my
own formative years. Believe me, he’s a strong enough character that you
can’t lead with him and not be changed – for the better, because he’s a
genuine man of God.
I wish and pray the best for Kyle
and his family as they seek new mountains to climb in life. Sometimes you
know that’s what you are called to do, and that’s where he is. Seasons
change, tides ebb and flow all in God’s good governance – so I trust that
Kyle’s new season, and Lake Forests’, will hold very good things for all of us.
Even though we are well supplied with worship team members and leaders
for the immediate future, while we plan for our future, Kyle will return from time to time to lead us in worship as his schedule allows - I'm looking forward to those days.
Feel free
to send Kyle notes of encouragement and
stories of how you've witnessed the Lord using his ministry in
peoples' lives. In early or mid October, we will hold an evening
celebration of Kyle's ministry here, and I know many of you will want to be
there. Warmly in
Christ, Mike Moses
BACK TO REAL TIME this morning: The Psalms I prayed this morning included Psalm 16, and as I had Kyle on my heart, Psalm 16:3 led me to an extended time of rejoicing in God's gift of Kyle Dillard to me for all of these years.
Psalm 16:3 I say of the holy people who are in the land,
“They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight.”
Kyle has been a delight to me. After he came from mega-honkin' Willow Creek Church in Chicago to take this job at a baby church, he admitted 'Even though it was the perfect job - in NC, a new church that needed someone with my gifts to shape its life of worship - I almost didn't take the job because of those cheesy, horrible, ugly, shiny green fabric banners y'all had as the stage back drop in the YMCA - how could I worship God with those things behind me??' The first Sunday, we took down the green fabric. And the worship environment has gotten progressively more worshipful ever since.
Then there were the halogen
lights in the YMCA gym where we worshipped. We unthinkingly simply had them all on, all the time, as our lighting for church. Kyle began to tell me, Mitch and the elders 'the worship of God is enhanced when you pay attention to every detail, including lighting.' We were so slow about understanding this simple aspect of beauty-vs-ugliness in worship that we pooh poohed Kyle on it. So he slowly nurtured us along - adding torche lamps from Target a few at a time (one or two would break every sunday being brought in and out of storage), experimenting for a song or two, a service or two, with lighting actually designed to help folks focus on God and not the cinder block walls of a basketball gym.
I delight in these ministry stories and so many more with Kyle. I delight in Kyle being always ready to take a new risk for the sake of effectively worshipping God and speaking the Gospel. One bad risk that Kyle, me and the worship planning team took together - was a series called 'Love Survivor.' If you were there, I'm shocked you stayed at our church through that month. If you weren't, its too painful for me to go back and name the cheesiness we perpretrated on people those weeks. But we learned by failing. And Kyle led us to take many great risks - moving from one service to two, when the first one wasn't completely full, doing The Blues in church and allowing it to lead us into examining the Blues aspects of the Bible (wow - that is the best risk Kyle led us to take), and more.
Whever we were in a season of discerning God's fresh vision for our next steps as a church, Kyle was consistently a noble voice for more risk on behalf of the gospel - Dare You to Move and Love 10 campaigns, designing our initial building and last year's upfit - how can we serve and reach more people in more ways with the good news of Jesus Christ?
I have delighted in the ways the Lord has made Kyle and I different. Every few years I lead the staff through a different version of a personality test (Kyle loves it when I do that, he lives for those touchy feely meetings :) ). Kyle and I always come up with opposite, yet complimentary strengths and weaknesses. Translated: that means we can easily bug each other, and can easily even attribute that to being 'wrong' instead of 'made differently by God.' You know how that goes with people close to you. But working effectively, in unity for the Gospel together for 10 years (with Mitch with us all the time as well) speaks for itself - unity in mission, love for Christ, and care for one another has most often trumped our differences and difficulties that come from any close working relationship. And I think we've each been used by God in the other's life to assist the Holy Spirit in smoothing some rough edges.
And I have delighted in Kyle's creativity and humor. Some of our early Lake Forest videos represent the most fun moments I have ever had in ministry companionship (one series was 'God's Will Hunting' and to illustrate how illusive the search for God's will feels to us, we filmed a weekly video called 'Elvis Hunters of LKN', with glimpses of Elvis all over LKN, the hunters with their enormous big ol jelly doughnut as bait, and me in weird cameos). I wish I could tell you how many times, in our Monday planning meetings, Kyle has extended the meeting by saying 'okay, that would be a good way to communicate that truth, but we don't have a GREAT way yet - keep going, someone take us in a different direction.' Brother, thank you for that, and how its shaped me and formed me in other leadership environments.
I delight in Kyle's unique ability to do the mission of our church in the way he does his ministry - people 'who've given up on church but not on God' have been regularly folded
into our band, even before they came to faith. I could go on, but I won't.
Psalms 16:3, as I prayed it this morning: "Kyle Dillard, that holy-one-in-Christ, noble in his pursuit of faith, love of family, boldness in ministry - he is a delight to me. I delight in the past 10 years' experience together of fruitfulness in ministry, miracles in our lives and other peoples, and experiences of the abundant (not the 'easy') life found in Christ when we actually take up his cross, follow him in unity with others, to love others as they discover the good news of Jesus, including their role in God's story."
