By Dave ShieldsIt’s been a full 6 months since I graduated from the Doctor of Ministry program at Liberty University. Not much has changed on the ministry front, but a lot has changed elsewhere in my life. It’s barely the beginning of 2026, and it is already full of changes.
Location Change
The first, possibly biggest change has been my family’s relocation to a new area. Granted, we have not left the Kansas City metro area, but we have moved to a different part of it. This has led to a flood of changes, including packing up our old house, moving some of it (though we did pay a mover for the heaviest stuff), and selling/disposing of much of the rest. I have squeezed more house repairs out of my mildly capable hands than I ever imagined possible. By God’s grace, we have managed to get a very fast turnaround on the sale of our house, so that has been a blessing, but we still have much to sort out in the new place.
Position Change
The next change was the loss of my primary employment. Due to several factors, including changing market conditions and internal struggles, I was released from my contract at the end of January. This means that the primary source of income for my family and for insurance was snapped out of our hands with no notice. Since then, we have registered for government assistance and unemployment until I can find a new position. Unlike previous positions where I had a severance package included, we have no backup plan aside from a small amount of saved funding leftover for house repairs. It just so happens that, at the same time I am in the market, several skilled technology workers from “Big Tech” firms, including Netflix, Zoom, and AWS, are as well. This makes an already tough job market that much harder. As it stands, I am leaning on Jehovah Jireh to provide for our needs.
Church Change
Lastly, we are floating between churches as well. We spent many years connected to Grace Church until our children became too old for Children’s Church, and there is no direct youth group during Sunday morning worship. We moved to Vineyard Community Church because they had a great youth program that offered worship and teaching during the main worship service. However, with a 30-minute one-way trip from our new home, it was going to be rough. Then their youth pastor decided to step away from his role due to family and health. We decided to try a few churches in our area to get a feel for what’s available. The first church we tried seemed very similar to Grace Church, but with a youth program during worship. However, their worship style included some questionable choices (why are we singing a Rolling Stones song about a binge-drinking manipulator on a Sunday morning?), and their message danced along the edges of the prosperity Gospel. We have now tried a new church that offers a similar youth program and seems to have a better worship approach. The verdict is still out on whether or not the church will be our new home, but we will see.
With all of these things going on, I definitely feel like I am swimming in the ocean, in a storm, at night. However, God has never let me down before, and I know that He won’t start now. For this reason, I am continuing to pray for His direction and hope the pieces come together sooner rather than later.