Large crowd swarms to Prayer Breakfast

A record crowd came out to “eat, pray and love” at the 11th Annual Brandon Area Prayer Breakfast last week.

“God’s going to hear us big and loud this morning,” said event emcee Jeff Thue.

Friday’s event drew a record crowd of 620, and the guest speaker, Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken, may have just been the draw that guided an audience of all ages to the annual pre-school breakfast.

“This is getting to be too big of an event for this room,” TenHaken told the crowd that spanned from one end of the high school commons to the other. “You’ll have to move it to Sioux Falls; we have the space for you,” which drew a laugh.

TenHaken talked on the subject of being called by God to do “something.”

And that’s the path the Sioux Falls Mayor took to his leadership role in May 2018.

TenHaken started the successful marketing business, Click Rain. In 2009, he was presented the opportunity to travel with his church on a service trip to the Domincan Republic. It was a trip, he shares, that he was excited about going on.

“It was incredibly impactful. I saw things there that I couldn’t un-see,” he said.

That experience led the civic leader from what he calls an “inward focus” to an “outward focus.” In his entrepreneurship – a very self-centered pursuit – TenHaken said he worked diligently to grow the business and make money.

Then, he asked God if that was it, and quickly realized that God was calling him to something great, but he didn’t know what. Feeling discontent with his business, he also realized was counter-intuitive. 

“I had a really great life. I could show up to work when I wanted, my team was good, the money was good, and life was super comfortable,” he explains.

But God, he adds, encourages his people to get “uncomfortable.”

“If you look in scripture, it’s very rare – actually it never happened – that God said, ‘If you are comfortable in life, keep doing what you’re doing, don’t push it,’” TenHaken said. “It’s the absolute opposite.”

He relates his personal experience of “getting uncomfortable” to the book In a Pit with the Lion on a Snowy Day.

“Here’s this guy who was probably running from this lion, falls into a pit and decides he’s going to jump into the pit and kill the lion,” TenHaken tells. “It’s the absolute opposite of what our instincts would be. All of you, whether you’re a team, whether you’re wrestling about bad self-thoughts, it’s very rare that we jump in and attack. … to me, that lion was calling me to a bigger mission field.”

TenHaken said he often talks about sins of action versus sins of non-action. A sin of action, he exampled, would be punching someone in the face. A sin of inaction would be seeing someone punching another and ignoring it.

“Or a more practical application, knowing that God is calling you and not doing it, that’s actually a sin. 

We often think of sins as stuff we do, but sins are also things we don’t do,” he said. “For me, that sin of inaction was the calling to run for office.”

 

How do we determine if God is calling us?

First, TenHaken said, a true calling in life is probably uncomfortable.

In his role as Mayor of Sioux Falls the last 18 months, TenHaken said he’s often asked if he’s “having fun.”

“No, I’m not having fun. We have days when we’re not having fun, but that doesn’t mean it’s not rewarding and not fulfilling. If you asked Moses, Paul in the Bible and Steven when he was getting stoned and ask, ‘Are you having fun?’ He would say, ‘No, it’s not fun, but God called me to do this.’”

The next sign of a calling is that God doesn’t necessarily call people who are equipped do something, TenHaken said. 

“He will give you what you need to fulfill that calling.”

In his personal experience, TenHaken said he had no experience in public office or in government, but remained faithful that God equips people who are called.

“Your gut is the holy spirit,” TenHaken shared. “A lot of times you hear people say, ‘follow your gut,’ and if you’re a person of faith, it’s the Holy Spirit. My gut told me that I should sell my business; my mind and my bank account said don’t do that. It was very, very challenging and very, very hard.”

He stressed that God’s calling may not be your desire. 

“It may not only be uncomfortable, it may not be what you desire,” he said, “but God was stirring me to leave my business.”

Essentially, he fired himself as CEO of Click Rain and made the decision to run for office, all the while thinking he wouldn’t be elected.

“God wasn’t calling me to be the mayor, he was calling me to run for mayor,” he reminded.

Upon winning the mayoral race in May 2019, TenHaken said this has been the most challenging time of my life. 

“It’s hard on your marriage, it’s hard on your family … but whether you’re a ninth grader, a business owner, a retiree, or work at an insurance company, God has put you in your position, not just to be comfortable and collect a paycheck; you have to get uncomfortable in that calling.”