Heart of a founder: Sam Metcalf

Another in the series on how God shapes the heart of movement founders. This story comes from Sam Metcalf who heads up Church Resource Ministries (CRM).

In February of 1985, about 40 staff and friends of Church Resource Ministries (CRM) gathered at Glen Eyrie, for our annual conference.

Several months earlier, Chuck Singletary (then president of CRM) and I had attended a church planting conference at Fuller and heard Kent Anderson, a Nazarene pastor, deliver a series of messages on “The Prayer Life of Jesus.” We asked him to come and be the guest speaker for the Glen Eyrie event.

Little did we know what would happen as a result and what God would do.

What transpired in the next several days was a remarkable phenomenon that we were completely unfamiliar with. Kent Anderson, the guest speaker gently, in an understated way, unwrapped a variety of topics: How Jesus “heard from the Father”; How to visualize in prayer and; The reality of the supernatural in emotional and physical healing.

The planned agenda went out the window as we began to experience the manifest presence of God in ways that were out of our box.

Visions, healing, hearing from the Lord personally and powerfully all began to take place. People were up into the wee hours of the morning. There was a sense of awe and wonderment as paradigms that many of us had grown up with were shattered and the boundaries of other paradigms were greatly expanded. In some respects these were the markings of charismatic experiences, but without some of what, at that time, would have been considered controversial manifestations such as speaking in tongues.

I didn’t know what to make of it. My wife Patty wasn’t there. When I would call home and try to explain what was happening, all I could do on the phone was cry. God met with us in a powerful, unprecedented manner.

At the end of the week, the CRM Board came in for their semi-annual meeting. As their meeting began, they didn’t know what to make of the reports they heard about the preceding week. However, Bobby Clinton was the person of the hour. In his inevitable, professorial way, he outlined what had occurred and very objectively gave the Board and leadership categories with which to understand the phenomenon. In retrospect, what we experienced was an unusual, unplanned, outpouring of the Spirit of God.

So how did this influence CRM?

1. It opened us to a whole new understanding and experience of the supernatural. Though we were not then or now a classic “charismatic” organization, CRM has what most scholars refer to as “third wave” characteristics. The first wave was classic Pentecostalism, the second wave was the charismatic movement, and the third wave is the movement of the Spirit within orthodox/evangelical theological parameters but with supernatural practices usually associated with the first two waves.

2. Somehow, supernaturally and in the heavenlies, God’s gracious anointing fell on CRM. Despite our unworthiness, our flaws and very obvious human and sinful limitations, there was a palatable sense of blessing that descended on CRM during those days and a sense of God’s power and presence that has never lifted.

3. This event propelled us in several new ministry directions. First, it motivated us to get serious about God’s heart for the nations and our responsibility to send personnel cross-culturally which we then did within a year. Secondly, it moved us to get serious about new churches and church planters and being a catalyst in the training and development for both.

4. Prayer and intercession became a focus and many were motivated to move in new, creative directions regarding how to engage God at a much deeper level.

5. I also believe the event was a divine set-up for the unexpected, unplanned leadership transition that took place at the Board meeting that followed the conference. After serving as president of CRM for our initial five years, Chuck Singletary transitioned to the Chair of the Board and returned to a staff role with the Navigators and I was asked by the Board to assume the role of CRM president. It was a godly, exemplary leadership transition due in no small part to the unusual outpouring of God’s divine presence the preceding week.

I want to emphasize that what God did at this Glen Eyrie gathering was not manufactured. It was not planned. There were no human fingerprints on it. As much as we may long for such outpourings of God’s presence and supernatural manifestations in the present or the future, there is no way such phenomena can be manipulated, programmed or produced. Such a time is a sovereign, providential work of God where the Spirit blows as he wills and wishes.