Our Story
PerMissional was coined back in 2009 after God spoke to Ed and said “there’s more” during a morning time with Him. It started me down a path of dreaming, seeking God, and wise, trusted leaders to speak into what God was up to in his life.
Ed shared this (God said “there’s more”) with his current pastor in Charlotte, whom I’ll call Jay, and he said, “the last time someone said something like that to me they became a missionary.” Ed replied, “I’m not sure that’s what the “more” is for me, but I’m willing to explore. Ed asked to be discipled through it, and hesitantly Jay agreed.
Fast forward…Jay and Ed met a couple of times but without much fruit. About a year later, Kensington Community Church sent Ed and Lisa (Ed’s wife) on a church planter’s assessment. Ed discovered one of his “more” was to live as a missionary-encourager where he lived. Ed asked Jay over lunch at his home, sharing his vision of living as missionaries in his neighborhood with the churches support. Unfortunately, Jay was not in support of this idea and asked Ed and his family to leave the church quietly.
Ed shared the same thing at breakfast with Steve Andrews, the founder and senior pastor at Kensington CC, a church body Lisa and Ed helped establish in 1990. Upon hearing Ed’s story of “there’s more”, he replied, I’m feeling something deep in my gut that God IS doing something here…”let’s keep in contact and see.”
Steve and I continued to correspond and additional people started contacting us from Kensington. Eventually, Steve and some others thought that maybe the “more” was Lisa and I planting a campus in Charlotte. They asked us to do some reconnaissance work about greater Charlotte and come to Michigan to report on it to the executive team. We did, and continued to come every few weeks to discuss possibilities, pray, and continue growing relationships.
At one point, 3 couples and their families came to Charlotte to hang, get to know us on a deeper level, and pray about what God was doing.
In March 2010, the executive team came to the conclusion that a church planter’s assessment was the next step. After an intense 4 days, Ed and Lisa received amazing news post-assessment.
The assessors were split down the middle, 6 “yes”, 6 “no”. Marlan Micks, the head assessor would be the deciding vote. He alone would decide our next steps in life…beginning the journey of planting a church or giving us the “bad news” that we were not fit for the role. Marlan explained the agony he felt the night he was deciding…not getting much sleep…praying for God to clearly show him. Marlan’s answer: “Can you be the lead pastor in a church plant? Sure. Should you? No.”
Upon hearing the news, it was emotional for us. Marlan shared that he felt we would “die on the vine” as leaders in a traditional church setting…most people are content to attend and warm seats, and as entrepreneurial-motivational leaders, we’d become frustrated and burn out. He was right! I felt it deep in my soul as he shared it. We were hearing from the Throne! Marlan continued…”what we’re seeing is that God has designed you to lead…we believe you’re designed to lead a national or global organization”. What? Did I just hear him right? Did he say that little ole’ Ed and Lisa were designed by our Creator to be game changers? To make a difference in the lives of countless others? I sobbed. I couldn’t hold back the deep joy and thankfulness of hearing a father figure speak those important words…’you’ve got what it takes’…’you’re enough’.
We were being propelled to something more, to dream, to fervently seek God for more answers. Where were we headed? Like Abraham, God said I’m going to do great things through you and to start walking in a direction without full disclosure of what was going to happen…and that’s where we were…not sure where our lives were headed we drove home from the assessment and called all of our friends who cared deeply about our hearts, and let them know that God has spoken to us and gave us a score off the charts for our lives. In other words, God was giving us permission to be on His Mission!