I want to invite you into something that I wrestle with deeply in my heart on a weekly basis. It goes something like this:
1) I care deeply about the formation of people into citizens of the Kingdom of God, here on earth, just as it is in heaven.
2) I think it's possible, and actually our proper place in the created order, to seek after the Kingdom of God in the here and now, discern what God's Spirit is doing in and among us, and order our lives to join God in God's work of renewing and restoring all things.
3) That means how we spend our days, what we do for work, how we raise our children, how we pursue our marriages and relationships, how we use our money and resources, how we vote, how we treat our enemies, and how we organize our communities - these ALL have connections to how we live into our faith in the present moment of everyday.
4) Faith is NOT an abstraction, or simply something that is going on inside of me. If faith is to have any value at all, it MUST have bearing on our real lives. Faith must have a tangible expression in our everyday living, from what we buy, who we spend time with, where we work, and how we order everything else in our lives.
5) Why follow Jesus? I truly believe, as Andy Stanley says, that following Jesus will make your life better, and make you better at life. I think this is true no matter where you are in your faith journey. Jesus continues to invite you to follow after his Way, which is the most difficult way, but the most life-giving way too.
6) I'm a Pastor by vocation, so I spend my working life leading, organizing, and dreaming about new and old ways of invite those connected to my church community into a deeper, more holistic expression of faith in the world in which they live and move and spend their days.
7) I know for many people who were raised in the Church, being part of a local faith community as adults has become something that has fallen to the back burner. It is not a priority For some this is because of bad experiences, which I completely get as someone who has had bad experiences in the Church world.
8) Perhaps I'm really bad at this work (see number 5), but my general impression is that the majority of folks that I'm attempting to lead, especially those close to my age (20s-40s), are not that interested in being part of a church community that would, in my opinion, help them live more deeply into their faith in a holistic way, especially in their work, their marriages, their parenting, and their normal, everyday lives.
9) I'm not sure what to do about this (above), other than to continue to make the invitation clear that our church is FOR you, that we are working hard to make this a space and a people that values you, and that we think there is a place for you to belong here.
10) My hunch, as a 36-year-old parent of two young children, is that, for many of my peers, faith has become more and more a private expression and experience, therefore many folks simply don't see the need to be connected to a larger faith community or tradition.
11) The problem with that approach, in my view, is that it ignores the theological nature and the biblical imperative of Christianity being a communal activity or expression. Meaning, you can't be a Christian all by yourself. You can't be a Christian all alone in your head. You can THINK of yourself being a Christian, but you cannot fully PRACTICE Christianity as an isolated individual. Confession, reconciliation, hospitality, care of souls - all of this only works in the context of a faith community.
12) This quote from John Ortberg has startled me out of some of my thinking and, and it's working its way into my behavior too:
"Again and again, as we pursue spiritual life, we must do battle with hurry. For many of us the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith. It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it. We will just skim our lives instead of actually living them." -John Ortberg
13) I don't want to skim my life, and I don't want you to skim your life either. I want you and I both to fully live our lives.
14) I believe many folks my age who will not commit to being part of a local church use a sort of logic that goes something like this: "I don't find the experience valuable, so I guess it's not for me." This is what I would call the mentality of a well-verse consumer. I get this, because I feel this way about so many things, including church at times.
15) But this mentality is allowing us to divorce ourselves from the community of Jesus followers that has planted itself in the middle of our lives. At the church I lead, we have done SO MUCH work over the past four years to create environments that are geared toward folks in my generation. We're continuing that work in earnest over the next two years. All that to say, we're creating a community that is FOR the missing generation, or two, that have walked away from the Church.
16) Here's my deeper concern: many of my peers are so addicted to busy and hurry, that the practice of being part of a local church is simply not high on the priority list. As a pastor to many folks in my age group, I see how busy your lives are. I feel that same weight of busyness too.
17) John Ortberg asked a mentor over 20 years ago what he needed to do to be spiritually healthy, that mentor (Dallas Willard, no less) told him one thing.
What do you suppose that one thing was?
Read your bible everyday?
Pray everyday?
Spend more time with your family?
Go to church more often?
Get involved in more causes?
Give away your money?
Volunteer your time more?
Here's what Willard told Ortberg: "You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life."
That's it.
Everything else can flow forth from that.
It must flow forth from that.
As a pastor, I want to invite you to live into this invitation today, and into this spring quarter.
Perhaps there's something (or many things) you need to stop doing in order to do what's most important?
Perhaps there are ways in which you want your life to look like, but you're choosing the easy path, the path of least resistance?
As Richard Rohr says, "What are you going to do with your now resurrected life?"
I pray that you'll slow down, so you can spend time listening to the Father, who is speaking to us, if we make space to listen. Will you pray this for me too?
I pray that you'll choose to organize your life to be part of a local church. God is indeed doing something in the world, and often that something is centered in the Church. For all of it's foibiles, I'm still here, choosing to renew and reform from the inside. I'd love for you to join me in this work.
And if you don't know where to begin, I can help with that. I am a pastor, after all, who dreams and leads on behalf of those who often can't see what God may be inviting them into. I can help.
You have to make the first move though.
See you Sunday.
The Most Difficult Path
I am a man with a foot in two places. And I think it's right where I'm suppose to be, right now.
Foot One.
Last month, Wendy and I traveled to Seattle for a few days. It was the first time we'd been back after leaving five years ago. And it was a great trip, full of memories and reminiscing and friends and longings. I love that city, and everything it holds for me. I grew up there, forged a marriage there, became a father there, and solidified my vocational calling there. Seattle holds a lot of meaning for me. And while it's no longer my home, I feel at home when I'm there.
Foot Two.
I live in rural, Northern Michigan, and have for 3.5 years. It's a beautiful, life-giving, yet sparse, place. It's full of beauty and brokenness. It's where I've grown up some more, where I'm learning to be a pastor, and a father, and a husband, sometimes in ways that are too difficult and painful for me to acknowledge. But I'm learning. I'm growing. I'm leading. I'm serving. (you should come join me here).
And I'm grateful for both these places. For all the places I've lived. Hillsdale, and Fort Wayne, and Canby, and Texas, and Huntington. I'm grateful for all these places, what I've learned, how I've suffered, how I've grown. I don't wish to go back to any of them. They taught me what I needed to learn in that season. So I'm grateful.
I'm reading this Brené Brown book called Braving the Wilderness, and it's so good. The theme of the book is all about what it takes, what it means, and what it looks like, to find true belonging, no matter where you are.
Brené says that true belonging takes an incredible amount of courage, because it often means standing alone. Knowing who you are, being confident in who you are, regardless of how people are responding to who you are. True belonging is a posture of grit and strength and steadfastness in a world that begs us to feel anxious and lonely and lost. "Be afraid" the world tells us. True belonging, on the other hand, says "know who you are, know your place in the world, and be yourself, regardless of what's thrown your way."
For me, that means lots of quiet time, lots of thinking and reflection. It means enduring the loneliness of life, knowing that I am often sized up, especially given my role in the church, but very often not truly known.
People have opinions ABOUT pastors, but very few people KNOW their pastor.
To a certain extent, that's how it is, and how it should be. But it is a very lonely place to live from.
Henri Nouwen says that "worrying causes us to be all over the place but seldom at home. One way to express the spiritual crisis of our time is to say that most of us have an address but cannot be found there. We know where we belong, but we keep being pulled away in many directions, as if we were still homeless."
We are not at home. We THINK that home is marked by worry and fear and anxiety. But to be at home, to truly make a home in the world, is to be at peace with where you are, who you are, and what you've been given. It is to truly be yourself, and to belong to where you are.
I'm still working on this. I hope you are too.
What keeps us from truly belonging to where we are and who we are is usually as simple (and complex) as one word.
Pain.
Brené Brown says it like this: "Pain will subside only when we acknowledge it and care for it. Addressing it with love and compassion would take only a minuscule percentage of the energy it takes to fight it, but approaching pain head-on is terrifying. Most of us were not taught how to recognize pain, name it, and be with it. Our families and culture believe that the vulnerability that it takes to acknowledge pain was weakness, so we were taught anger, rage, and denial instead. But what we know now is that when we deny our emotion, it owns us. When we own our emotion, we can rebuild and find our way through the pain."
At the beginning of chapter four in Braving The Wilderness there's this quote from James Baldwin: "I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain."
We are terrified of the pain we feel. It's why so many of us are overwhelmed, overweight, over-medicated, overworked, and over-religioned.
We want anything that will help us numb the pain, walk around it, and hope that it will go away.
But pain doesn't go away by ignoring it. The only way you can get pain to go away is by stepping into it.
But in stepping into it, it marks you. Deeply.
And this is where my faith in Jesus comes in.
Jesus literally embraced the pain of the world, walked straight into, and felt the entire weight of it, so that we no longer have to be controlled by it.
We will still feel pain. But we no longer have to be beholden to it. There is another way. A Better Way.
So what does this have to do with me and Seattle + Roscommon County?
Seattle was a season of deep pain, but deep healing for me. It holds so much hope in so many parts of my life.
I take that deep pain, deep healing, and deep hope with me now as I live and lead in Roscommon County. There is deep pain here, and the deep pain can only be faced by those who have faced their own deep pain.
Everything else is an inadequate bandaid.
Part of my learning here is realizing how little I actually know. I have so much to learn, and so much more growth to embrace.
There's always another invitation to step into the pain in my life. But as I do that, as I step into the pain of my life, the pain of others, what I've come to call The Most Difficult Path, that's where real healing begins to happen.
This is The Most Difficult Path.
And you're invited to step into. When you're feeling alone, and anxious, and controlled, and worried, it may be you're being invited to deal with pain. Maybe not. But, I've found for me, that's often what it has been.
You need a guide to do this kind of work, so I implore you to find one. Make it a priority. You're worth it, you know.
And if you need a place to lay down some roots, may I invite you to where you're heart comes alive and in so doing can bring some healing into the world? For me, for this season, this is Roscommon County. There's so much goodness here, even though I often feel like I don't belong.
But I'm reminded often that I belong everywhere, and nowhere. I belong to myself, the self that God is knitting together in my life, as I continue to step into pain and brokenness.
I belong there. Right where the beauty and the brokenness intersect.
This is truly The Most Difficult Path, but it is the only place I can be while I do my living, if I want to truly live.
So may you see your pain for what it is.
May you embrace it, and chose to learn from it.
May you step into The Most Difficult Path.
And in doing so, may you find something of the healing and connection that you so desperately long for.
The Way It's Always Been
This past Sunday in my message at Markey Church, I spoke about racism, love, and repentance.
I asked the question "Who is my neighbor?", and did my best to answer it with vulnerability and honesty. You can listen to that message here: http://markeychurch.org/sermons_it…/the-way-its-always-been/
After sitting with this teaching for several days, both before and after I delivered it publicly, I have a few thoughts on how it relates to where we are as a country/culture, and the role of people of faith in our national conversation:
1. I think many of us have a difficult time distinguishing between an evil act or attitude, and an evil person. For the most part, people are complex in our actions, relationships and experiences. We show a huge capacity for love and goodness, and an equally large capacity to hurt each other. I think many well-meaning people get confused and defensive when they are faced with their own actions that may have aligned themselves with the work of Evil in the world, and the good, honorable, or decent person they see in the mirror. We are all susceptible to aligning ourselves with Evil on a daily basis. It is human nature, at this juncture. And yet we are also created good, by a good and loving Father, who wants the best for us. We need to learn to hold that tension much better.
2. When it comes to race and racism in America, most folks who identify as "white" have been the primary movers when it comes to holding power, and therefore are the most to blame when it comes to racial injustice or unrest in our society at large. White folks have always held the keys to culture power and control. Many white folks I know are really good, decent people, AND they have benefitted from the systems and structures in our society that are predicated on racism, either currently, or historically. Access to wealth, to education, to jobs, to housing, and to so many other things that have benefitted me and my family have been available to me and my family first.
3. For a white person to begin to acknowledge their role in this and see clearly the powers and structures that are motivated by Evil does not mean that every white person IS evil. Acknowledgment of Evil in the world, and how Evil may have actually impacted me, is a very Christian posture. We are meant to be people of repentance. We are meant to be people of reconciliation. We are meant to be the first movers in acknowledging how we have been complicit in the work of Evil in our culture. To acknowledge our complicity is NOT to say we are equal to Evil. It is simply to speak the truth, that Evil has a hold on parts of our lives. To continue to pretend otherwise only strengthens the grip of Evil in our culture.
4. Too many people of faith, particularly conservatives, and particularly Evangelicals, and more and more Progressives, are trading the cruciform posture of Christianity that Jesus displayed, and the Apostle Paul wrote of, for a version of Christianity that is at once consumed with maintaining cultural power, cultural victory, and and an endless parade of belief in God mixed with the politics of nationalism. To be American is NOT to be Christian. To go to church is NOT to be Christian. Christians don't vote for a particular political ideology - the evidence shows this every cycle. When we confuse our voting record or our political ideology with the Way of Jesus, we bastardize the Gospel and turn it into a vehicle where we are saved by our ideological purity. In many ways, this is the opposite of what Jesus taught, and what the early church looked like.
5. The early church, as evidenced by the book of Galatians, and others, was made up of people who were both Jews AND Greeks, Slaves AND Freedmen, Women AND Men - basically, people who were DRAMATICALLY different from each other, people from all walks of life, all socioeconomic classes, all sorts of ideologies. If people in the ancient Roman world could find common ground under the banner "Jesus is Lord", then surely we can today, for our task is not nearly as daunting as theirs was.
6. To repent means to not only turn away from (metanoia, in Greek) but to also change our behavior, or turn toward something new (teshuva, in Hebrew). It is an active, outward change in our posture, behavior, and stance toward others. It is not simply an internal confession, but an external one that has deep implications for how we will live our lives.
7. I can honestly say that, as a white, straight, Christian pastor, that I'm a racist. I could tell you stories of growing up in a small, homogenous town, of watching the tv show Cops as a kid, of substitute teaching in the Fort Wayne school system, or living in the most diverse zip code in the country, etc. But I'll simply tell you this: my racism isn't signified by a flag, by nasty words, or by an outward hatred toward others, but it is simply a seed in my heart that was unintentionally planted there by my culture, and has slowly grown, unbeknownst to me, for many years. Now that I'm aware of it (I have been for at least a decade now) my work is to continually repent of it. To bring that seed before God, like a cancer patient in remission going to their six-month check up. I don't say this with abundant guilt, or shame, nor do I say it with a high-road mindset. It simply is. It is mine to bring before God, and to actively work against.
8. Love is not a feeling. Love is not an emotion. Love is a Rugged Commitment, as Scot McKnight says. It is an active choice to be WITH and FOR someone else, to pursue their benefit and blessing, at times instead of my own. Love is all we need, but it is not a sentimental feeling. It is a posture, and it looks different depending on your story, and who you are attempting to show love towards.
9. For my friends who consider themselves Christians, and yet say things like, "I don't have a racists bone in my body", I would simply say this: Self-deception is the most sinister of all sins. I know it well, and I'm sure I will continue to learn more of it while I continue to breathe. It is our time to own the injustice in our world, to see the role that we play in it, to repent of it in every way we can. Christians do this. You can still be a Conservative, a Democrat, a Liberal, a Republican, a Libertarian, etc. AND do this work. Acknowledging the racism both in your own heart AND at play in our culture should not be a partisan issue. Those who are telling you it should be that are peddlers of their own Self-deception.
This will cost you something. It may cost you a lot. But it is the beginning of setting things right. Little by little, bit by bit, this is how (one of many ways) we begin to partner with God in making all things new in the world. This is how we actively pray that God's Kingdom come here on earth just as it is in heaven.
This is what Christianity looks like - self-giving, working on behalf of others, setting our self-interests aside, and having a Rugged Commitment (Love) for those around us. Even those we don't know, don't see, and don't like.
10. I'm laying all this out, and inviting you into this part of my story, because I genuinely believe there is goodness here for you. Repentance ALWAYS begins the process of restoration. Without that beginning, we're living hollowed out lives, built on our own achievements and egos. This is not Christianity. Christians believe, and therefore act as if it were true, that repentance brings healing, restoration, and forgiveness. This works is hard, you will have to dig deep, it is not a quick fix, but it is the best way to live. Promise.
May we own our stories of racism.
May we learn to repent, to turn away from, and to turn toward something new.
May we do the hard work of reconciliation.
May we learn to listen to those we disagree with.
May we learn to listen to those who are hurting, rather than telling them "how it is".
May we have patience with each other.
And may the sin of nationalism, that potent and fiery mixture of faith and politics (and often, race), begin to subside, and quickly die in the pit of hell, where it belongs.
p.s.
If you need some help walking into or through any of this, DM me, and I can point you toward some good resources.
p.s.s
Generally speaking, when you have a strong reaction to something, it usually means that there's something there for you to learn about or grow into. From one who struggles with this to another, I'm here to help, if help is what you want or need.
p.s.s.s
I'm just scratching the surface with my own racists tendencies, so if you see something in me and I'm not aware of, I need to know. I only ask that you would be kind in letting me know. That's the best way for me to hear you, and I want to hear you.
p.s.s.s.s (this is getting ridiculous)
The cross in this photo is called a palm cross. I use it to pray in the morning. For a tactile guy like me, it's really helpful. The book Liturgy of the Ordinary is really good. You should read it.
Grace & Peace,
d
On Turning 36
Today's my 36th-birthday, and I'm reflecting on my life, as I have been for the past few weeks, with as much honesty and vulnerability that I can muster. Here's a few things I'm learning as I begin my 37th year...
1. I can't be of help to those around me if I'm not taking care of myself.
If my emotional, spiritual, and physical needs are not being met on a regular basis, then I simply don't have much to give to the world. It's like trying to go on an endless road trip for thousands of miles, and only putting $5 worth of gas in the tank (while eating small bags of cheetos and drinking endless soda) and expecting things to work out just fine. You simply don't get very far that way. We need fuel and regular maintenance to live sustainable lives.
I need this too. I'm at my best as a husband, father, leader, teacher, and pastor when I choose to prioritize my own health, growth, and healing, SO THAT I can be of service to others. Taking care of myself is FOR the sake of others
It's tragic and unacceptable to me how American culture places so little value on self-care, and how the Church follows the lead of our culture in this regard. I've had to unlearn so many bad habits that were formed in childhood and early adulthood in order to lean into this one. And I'm still unlearning. But I'm also learning to make different choices, and finding myself in new and better places as a result.
This all takes a tremendous amount of time, effort, and courage, and it costs a lot, but it is always worth it.
2. Vulnerability is the birthplace for compassion and empathy to grow in my life toward others.
I'm a super-judgmental person. I will own you in my thoughts. I'm smarter, better, more-put together, and I have an answer for everything. Most of you don't know this about me, because I'm really good at hiding it. Many of you DO know this about me, and I'm sorry.
Here's the problem with this way of living: it is devoid of connection to others in any meaningful sense. A life lived in the manner I described above is a life lived out of misery, isolation, and self-loathing. If being right (or PERCEIVED as being right) is the priority, being alone is the result.
I've been reading this Brené Brown book called Rising Strong over the past couple weeks, and I've been learning so much from her. Brené defines connection as "the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship." Man, that's good.
Brené says that shame is the thing that keeps us disconnected. I don't want you to know that I don't have my life put together. I don't want you to know that I have moments, days, where I'm a terrible father, an awful husband, a horrible boss, a distant son or brother. I don't want you to hear the cursing of others I do under by breath, or the contempt I have for you.
I want you to think I have it figured out. That I'm nice, and calm, and generous. That I'm capable. That I can conquer the world.
And I will trade meaningful relationships for the perception that you have of me, as long as you perceive me as put-together and successful.
At least I used to live this way. I used to want this. That house of cards has been tumbling down for several years now.
More and more, I could care less about what people know or see about me. I know who I am, I know who I belong to, I know what I'm here for, and I know I am loved.
In short, I know that I'm worthy of love and belonging. So I know I'm worth knowing, and I'm worthy of connection.
3. Everything about life is a gift.
I've learned from Ann Voskamp that gratitude is the antidote to fear, isolation, self-pity, and selfishness. Gratitude is the posture in life that says, "all is gift."
Everything I have, every relationship, every experience, every physical object, every desire, every longing, every heartache, every hope - these are ALL gifts. They are undeserved, yet I receive them anyway. The trick is in the receiving.
Probably more than anything these days, I'm full of gratitude for my wife, Wendy, and my boys, Josiah and Jonah. They are the most tangible expressions of God's grace in my life on a daily basis. They endure my lowest lows, my insecurity, my anger, my un-health, and my highest highs. And yet they love me.
I'm grateful for the people of Markey Church, who allow me to be their pastor. You know how imperfect I am in this role, yet you've chosen to stay. I'm grateful for that every single day.
I'm grateful for my Mom, my Dad, my brothers, my friends, my dog, good books, moving films, good food (and sometimes, bad food, which can also be good), great restaurants, traveling, time off, summer, winter, snow, sunshine, orange juice, reuben sandwiches at Zingerman's, good cheese, live music, four-part harmony, my back porch, and that sunset in East Tennessee last week (good Lord, that brought me to tears).
I'm grateful for you too. Thanks for reading. And thanks for accompanying me on this journey we call life. I hope to see you soon.
Paying Attention To My Life
The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of activity for our family.
We’ve celebrated three birthdays (Wendy, Jonah, + Luna), one anniversary (Wendy + I), one or more of our family members has taken trips to Detroit, Boyne City, Chicago, Grand Rapids, and Holland (Michigan). We’ve dug and planted garden beds, destroyed some concrete walkways, assembled a trampoline, kept on eye on baby birds, shopped at a Thai grocery store, spent time with friends, and spent many hours outside on the porch, in the garden, and the backyard, just taking it all in.
Here’s what I’ve discovered over the last two weeks as I’ve paid attention to my life:
1. I love my people. Wendy, Josiah, and Jonah are my favorite people to be with. They bring me so much joy, each one of them. I’ve had a handful of days off from work during these past two weeks, and we’ve spent lots of time together doing everything, and nothing, and it’s been the best. What a joy it is to have this family, my family.
2. Wendy is an an incredibly gracious and strong life partner. I often reflect on how Wendy is someone that I can’t believe agreed to marry me. I can honestly say that I don’t deserve this woman in my life, and that is why her presence and her love are the most tangible expression of God’s grace that I see on a daily basis. She is so good to me, so strong, so much fun to be with, and just a lovely person all around.
3. The Deep Sadness, and the longing for something more, is real. I have these days, these moments, where I’m so in tune with my longing and desire, that I ache for something beyond what I see here and now. At times, this longing can get distorted into something totally self-centered and self-inflicted, but at it’s most true, it is a longing for things as they ought to be. What theologian Jurgen Moltmann calls “Hope", or what N.T. Wright calls “putting the world to rights", or what C.S. Lewis meant when he said, "If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world." This world, as I know it, is full of beauty AND brokenness, full of light AND darkness, full of truth AND lies, full of hope AND despair. I think the Way of Jesus is to know both the beauty and the brokenness, to feel the darkness, and to trust the goodness of God, the faithfulness of God, even when you can’t SEE or FEEL it.
4. I LOVE praying the Hours. At my retreat in Chicago last week, and every retreat I take there with the Transforming Community, we pray the Hours every morning, noon, evening, and at bedtime. It is such a grounding activity, to recognize that the world and everything in it is what God has made, and to rightly position ourselves as the receivers of God’s world, and the caretakers of this place and these people. I’ve been using The Little Book of Hours at home throughout the day, praying the Hours every morning, noon, and evening, and it has been a profound experience of centering and blessing. I highly recommend it.
5. I love making food with flavors that sing. Of course I’ve known this about myself for years, having worked in the food world for so many years as deli manager, cheesemonger, cook, recipe developer, and entrepreneur, but it’s amazing to me how taking singulair ingredients or flavors, and combining them using traditional techniques, can make my heart so happy. My happiness is multiplied x 1000 when my people love what I love too.
6. I think I’m going to make brownies today. Maybe with mini marshmallows on top, which is totally Cook’s Country. And BBQ pulled pork. That is all.
7. Gardening is SO MUCH WORK, but my heart comes alive with hope as I plant seeds, transplant seedlings, shape beds, and anticipate the joys of tomatoes and peppers and basil and kale and lettuces and squash and cucumbers and ground cherries for the next several months. Growing things brings me so much joy.
8. Eugene Peterson has a new collection of sermons from his 29 years as a Presbyterian pastor to the same congregation. It’s called "As Kingfishers Catch Fire”, and it’s brilliant. Rob Bell’s new book "What Is The Bible?" is also really insightful, and fun (utterly Rob). And my spiritual director, Rory Noland, has a great book called “Worship On Earth As It Is In Heaven” all about cultivating a life of private worship, and I’ve been finding that really helpful too.
9. I miss living 5 minutes from Costco. No shame here.
10. I’m really looking forward to the next 3-4 months of the summer season. We’ll get to spend time with the Zenz family at Higgins Lake, the Ritchie family camping in West Michigan, the Dennison family in North Carolina, we'll have my Mom here with us for a week in June, and we'll go camping for a week in the UP with my in-laws. We’ve been spending hours and hours outside, taking it all in, not wanting to squander a moment away from this gorgeous season. We know how long winter is in Northern Michigan, and so we’re learning to embrace the seasonal changes with gusto. To live in the present moment. To not miss anything.
These are a few things I’m trying to live into as I listen to my life, and the God who is speaking to me through my life.
May you pay attention today too.
May you embrace what is before you.
May you turn off the tv, set aside the things that don’t matter, set down your phone (I’m looking at you, YOU), and be where you are.
Fully.
Abundantly.
And with gusto.
Three Years
Three Years.
Today marks three years since I began my role as Lead Pastor of Markey Church.
When I stepped into this role, I had a lot of hope, a lot of ambition, a lot of idealism, and no idea what I was doing, or getting myself into.
David Kinnaman from The Barna Group has identified one trait that is common among pastors who thrive over the long haul. That trait is resiliency.
When I began my work at Markey Church, my resiliency muscle was pretty underdeveloped.
I stepped into a faith community that had been led very well for 33 years by our previous pastor. Jim was and is an incredibly gifted pastor relationally, and he did an amazing job w/ our financial resources as well. His season of ministry fruitfulness was long, and abundant. He took a small, country church, and led those folks into a growing, community-oriented faith community that impacted hundreds of people over three decades. No small feat!
But, like everything else in life, seasons come to and end. Jim knew that for Markey Church to thrive into the next season of life, his leadership needed to come to and end, so someone else could step in and lead the church in a new direction, with a new vision, in order to connect with new generations.
Enter a 32-year-old me, armed w/ a small amount of experience, a couple degrees, and some big dreams.
Over the past three years, I’ve worked with and led a large group of folks as we’ve changed virtually everything about who we are, and what we do, as a faith community, all while staying true to the specific ethos of who we’ve been for over 100 years. What I call, "A Church For The Sake Of Others."
We’ve made A LOT of changes in the past three years.
We’ve changed our kids ministry.
We’ve changed our student ministry.
We’ve changed our music.
We’ve changed our atmosphere.
We’ve changed our staffing structure.
We’ve changed how we do pastoral care.
We’ve changed how we engage w/ our community.
We’ve changed how we spend time together on Sundays.
We’ve changed how we spend time together on Monday-Saturday.
We’ve changed how we give.
We’ve changed virtually every ministry within our church.
We’ve changed staff members.
We’ve changed lay leaders.
We’ve changed our communication strategy
We’ve changed our assimilation process.
You get the idea. We’ve changed…..everything.
To say this has been difficult simply doesn’t capture the complexity of how change works, and what leading change in any organization, let alone a church, can do to one’s soul.
Anytime change comes about in one’s life, we all experience that change as a form of loss. Even if the changes have the potential to benefit us in the long run, it still hurts. Change is painful. And as I’ve learned from Rob Bell and others, change = loss, loss = pain, pain = grief.
If we don’t grieve the losses in our lives, that pain will continue to resurface in unexpected ways, over the course of our lives.
I know this pain well. I know it in my own life, as I’ve had to embrace changes that came unexpectedly over the past three years (my Dad died five months into my time here, among other losses). And I know this pain in the lives of others.
Often this pain from others has been directed at me in the form of harsh personal criticism, stubbornness, gossip, put-downs, insults, and the like. As they say, hurting people hurt people. And I’ve been both on the giving and receiving end of hurt.
Many folks have been unhappy as a result of the changes I’ve led at Markey Church. Most of those folks have made their unhappiness clear to me.
But many have been eager to embrace these changes too. Why? Because they see how, as a direct result of change, we’ve been able to help people in our broader community begin to know that God is FOR them, that God LOVES them, and that being part of the local church might just save their lives.
I’ve seen people, over the last three years, come to know that God is FOR them because of the changes I and others have led at Markey Church.
I’ve had people tell me they are now ready to say “yes" to following Jesus because of the way we’ve been able to communicate and demonstrate, through our church, how a relationship with God is accessible to them, even though they didn’t grow up in the church.
I’ve seen people who thought they were far from God, realize that God is so much closer than they thought.
And because we’ve made changes - because some of YOU have embraced these changes - many of these people now KNOW they can have a life marked by the Way of Jesus.
I love telling that story. It's such a good one.
As we continue to embrace change, there will inevitably be more. More people who come to know that God is FOR them. More Christians who begin to follow the Way of Jesus (lots of Christians need Jesus too). More brokenness made beautiful. And much more change.
I know this because, 1) our community is full of brokenness, 2) God is all about taking broken things/people and making them beautiful once again. That’s what God does. And, 3) constant change is here to stay. We can either ignore it, until we explode, or we can embrace it.
So has all the pain, all the heartache, all the loss and conflict and hurt people hurting people been worth it?
Yes. Emphatically, yes!
Have I made mistakes along the way.
Yes. Emphatically, yes!
But God has been growing within me a measure of resiliency that I’ve never known before. And that has made all the difference.
I still cry at night, from time to time, because of all the hurt people who are hurting people.
But that is happening far less these days.
Also, I see a counselor, I take my days off to play with my family and have a life away from my church work, I see a spiritual director, and I’m slowly learning to care less about everything, and care more about the right things.
The painting above was commissioned by my Wendy, and was made by our dear friend Phil Nellis. Phil titled this painting “Pastoral”, and it was a gift from my family to me as I embarked on this journey of leading Markey Church three years ago today.
This painting still makes the blood rush around my body, and all kinds of emotions swell to a crescendo. It shows a small child, working with his Father, to help cultivate the land where new life can flourish. It depicts the church being the source of this life, where the Spirit of God waters the ground that the Father, with the “help” of the small child, has so lovingly tended.
I am that child. I'm "helping" God do God's work. Isn't it sweet? As if God needs my help...
I am but a child, playing at the pastoral vocation, mimicking my Father, who loves me more than I could ever imagine.
This painting reminds me that I cannot force people to embrace change, or to grow. That I cannot force myself to grow either. This painting reminds me that my ONLY job is to work alongside of the Father, “helping” as a child does, working to create the right conditions where growth can happen.
It is not my job to make people grow. To believe this is my job is idolatry. Only God can help people grow. That is what God’s Spirit does. My job is to create the right conditions, and then make the invitation. But people can always say “no” - that is their choice.
So pastors, may you remember your calling, to cultivate the conditions where those under your care have the opportunity to choose to grow.
People of God, may you know that your Heavenly Father has created the conditions you are in, because he loves you, and because there is an invitation on your life, to walk with God in relationship, even when things are terribly painful.
People who are CONVINCED God is irrelevant - may you see the local Church in your specific community who is FOR you, and who desires to help you see that God is FOR you too.
And may we all come to see ourselves as children in the garden, “helping” our Father tend to his beautiful creation. Row by row. Plant by plant. Person by person.
Here’s to another three years.