On The Move

Guest Editorial: Jack & Jeanne McGee

(Jack & Jeanne McGee are dear friends to Elena, me and the entire City of Angels Church. They served the Lord with great passion and humility as our Shepherding Couple for the North Region until recently when the Spirit led them to Washington DC, where they now serve as a Shepherding Couple for the DC Church. KM)

“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And He is not served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He Himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man He made every nation of men that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.” Acts 17:24-27

Jeanne, Jared, Jonathan, Jamie, and Jack McGee are united in Christ after Jonathan’s baptism!

This very familiar passage has more meaning to us at this point in our lives than ever before. We have come to realize that nothing happens by accident. Whether we acknowledge that God is working makes no difference at all; He is still working. When we were children, we didn’t have any say about where we would live or not live, but God did. He placed us in our families and then He allowed our families to make decisions that affected the outcome of our lives. For example, I (Jack) moved to Fort Lauderdale as a child and Jeanne moved there as a young adult at the suggestion of her parents to attend college there. Later, in 1976, this is where we met and fell in love.

Shortly after getting married, in 1978, we made the decision to move to Gainesville, Florida and though our decision had nothing to do with God, He allowed it. Our goal was to move to the country and grow our own marijuana; His goal was to introduce us to His Word. We took a job at a greenhouse not knowing that the owner and everyone who worked there were members of the Crossroads Church of Christ. We wanted to learn gardening, but ended up learning about the greatest gardener of all! Our goal failed; His was accomplished.

After being a part of the “Crossroads Movement” for about five years, in 1982, Jack decided he wanted to move back to Fort Lauderdale to take advantage of a business opportunity. I (Jeanne) was not in agreement with this decision and worried that we would die spiritually, but I reluctantly submitted. At first, I couldn’t see God in this move, but shortly after we left the church in Gainesville, serious sin among the leadership there was exposed and the faith of many was shipwrecked. Although we were hurt by this information, it was not as devastating because we were already rooted in a new fellowship. We believe that we were protected by God.

Vic Jr. preaches at the Inaugural Service of the Mission Bay International Christian Church in San Diego!

Again, in 1989 we felt the call to move. At this time the church in Fort Lauderdale was about to be reconstructed by members from the “Boston Movement,” who were also planting a church in Miami. Kip came to Fort Lauderdale and challenged married couples to move to Miami, because up to this point only singles and campus students had agreed to go. I (Jack) had serious misgivings about moving to Miami. I had been in Fort Lauderdale for most of my life, but rarely ever went to Miami. Most who live in Fort Lauderdale consider Miami to be like another country. Yet, when NO ONE was willing to step up and I saw that Jeanne was eager, I took the challenge! It was a hard move and it took a while for us to see God’s blessing, but it definitely came! It was during this reconstruction that both Jeanne and I were truly baptized as disciples of Jesus!

By 1993, we had settled in and fallen in love with Miami. We were living in a luxurious, large home on a spring-fed lake, when we were asked to move into a large apartment complex to be closer to some Christians and build a Bible Talk with them. We gave up the home and the lake and moved into the so-so complex that at least had a beautiful, Olympic-sized pool. Little did we know at the time that this pool would become a very popular baptismal site in Miami that hosted multiple baptisms, the most important of course being that of our own daughter Jamie! Once again, God’s purposes in our move prevailed!

Fast forwarding five years, we were still in Miami and Jamie was still a faithful disciple, but around this time both of our boys began to rebel against us and ultimately against God. It was a time of incredible testing for us. We had suffered multiple deaths in our families and struggles on the job and in the church and our faith was weak. We made a quick move out of desperation to South Miami at the suggestion of the leader to get our boys involved with stronger teens. We were disheartened to discover that most of the teens were secretly as rebellious as ours were openly. It became hard to see God moving; we had lost heart.

Lee Bailey, the father of our new brother Cody, is baptized!

Consequently, in 2003, we decided to move back to the country, outside of Gainesville, in an effort to get our boys away from the city that we now blamed, at least in part, for their downfall, but truthfully we just wanted to run away. It took us months to make the move and Jeanne and I were separated for a large part of the time. By 2005, we had circuitously ended up back in Gainesville attending church with some of the same people we had known years ago at Crossroads. Though we had continued to attend church throughout this entire period, we had lost the joy of our salvation. We lived in despair and only went through the motions of being Christians. We had not stopped believing in God, we had just stopped believing that He was moving in our lives.

In the fall of 2006, we received a call from Megan Mathews, a sister we knew in Miami. She had moved to Portland, Oregon and was visiting Florida. She made a special trip to Gainesville to have lunch with us and though she was like a messenger bearing good news, we were skeptical. Shortly after Megan’s visit, a member of the church we were a part of gave us a CD of Kip’s message entitled, You Might Be Fighting God! We were moved from the passionate preaching we heard on that CD and decided to take a trip to Portland over Christmas break. From that visit, we decided to move to LA in the spring of 2007, thus joining the new “SoldOut Movement!” We were on the move again with the renewed faith that God moves through moves!

We offered to take the boys with us, but they turned us down; yet at the last minute, something (of course God) changed their minds. They had been living on their own for quite some time and we were amazed that they would even consider moving across country with their parents. When we arrived in LA, our first visitors were DJ and Kacie Comisford. DJ engaged Jared right away and he agreed to study. Within two weeks, Jared was baptized into Christ and became the first baptism of the City of Angels International Christian Church! We saw this as a big stamp of approval on our move. Then, Jared – having come to his own convictions about the way that God moves through our moves – went with the mission team to New York City in August of 2008. God blessed his move with a girlfriend, a dear sister – Rachel Bond!

Loidy & Sameer Frenzley share their lives during communion at the Inaugural Service of our sister church in San Diego!

Meanwhile in LA, Jonathan – who was living away from us – seemed disconnected and not very interested. Of course as his parents, we begged God to move in his life, but honestly, at times our faith weakened. Then in the fall of 2009, Carlos Mejia told me (Jack) that he and Lucy would be moving to DC to lead the church, so that the Smellies could come to LA to train to lead a team to South Africa. It was amazing to me because for nearly a year Jeanne and I had – without telling anyone – been praying that God would make it clear if we should move to DC. I think I said yes even before Carlos finished asking us to go with him and Lucy!

When the time came to move this last December, Lucy and their boys and Jeanne flew, but Carlos and I drove a car and a truck with Jonathan and Afa Maile, a brother who had just recently been restored. During the five days on the road, it was incredibly encouraging to me to watch Carlos and Afa engage Jonathan. By the time we made it to DC, they had won his heart. Carlos asked Jonathan to study the Bible and within one month after our arrival, Jonathan was baptized into Christ! He was the third baptism here since the Mejias began leading the DC Church. All we can say is, our amazing God is on the move!

Andy & Connie Guo place membership at the Mission Bay Church’s Inaugural Service! Andy was baptized in San Jose and Connie was baptized in the underground church in Shanghai, China where they met and married!

We learned that the Scripture, “Train a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it” is true. God has taught us through our children that some “kingdom kids,” like Jamie, become Christians in their teens and remain forever faithful. Others, like our boys, go through a time of darkness. However, “When [they] are old, [they] will not depart from [God’s Word].” So as Christian parents, do not become disheartened by your children’s unfaithfulness, or even by well-intended Christians who may criticize you. Rather, seek God with your whole heart and seek the fellowship of other disciples, who are on the move for God. In other words, seek to be members of congregations in God’s movement.

What God has done to unite our family in Christ, reminds us of one of our favorite hymns written by William Cowper:

Whether your faith is strong or weak, remember always that God is moving in your life. Sometimes it is obvious, but often it is mysterious. We have learned to constantly pray about God’s will for our lives, understanding that we must venture from the secure to the insecure. For it is only by obeying the Scripture, “We live by faith and not by sight,” can we be absolutely sure of God’s destiny for our lives. (2 Corinthians 5:7) And to God be the glory!

Jack & Jeanne McGee