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Oh , San Diego...

Oh, San Diego... land of somewhat less pleasant customer service, somewhat higher prices and difficult to find coffee shops... the place where I grew up and so the scene of both my best and worst memories. 

I'm here to clean out my dad's apartment. 

Sure feels like I've been here before.

My grandparents raised me, and though my dad technically lived with us from when I was about 11 on, we didn't have any relationship, so to speak. So, when my grandmother died in 2000, about 3 years after my grandfather, I had to clean out their house, and find somewhere to deposit my dad. That took days. Days and dumpsters. Throwing away the detritus of decades... so many things I probably would have kept if I could have, but am probably better off not having done so. 

We gathered up my dad's personal things and took the furniture that was still suitable and moved him a mile or two away. He's been in an apartment since, living with the plates, the couch and tables, the glasses and flatware of my youth. How odd is it to walk into this apartment having forgotten all we put in there and see: The kitchen table I ate on growing up. My grandfathers la-z-boy. The coffee table, lamps, end tables from my living room- all of it the furnishings of a home, a life that ceased to be almost a decade ago. 

Talk about the Green Mile... 

He's just been killing time. Or maybe I should say, it's been killing him. Not sure what he's been eating- there's food in the cupboard older than my children. Not sure what he's been doing either- 3 TVs in the apartment and none of them work- not sure I saw a working clock in the place. Just a lot of broken watches... 

They're testing him right now trying to figure out the dementia and lostness he's been displaying over the last few weeks. Pretty sure they just need to look at this apartment. 

I don't know where God's been in my Dad's life. Probably, along with the rest of us, waiting at arm's length. 

But I do know this: God worked in getting me here- I was ticketed to fly ridiculously late at night, and basically walked onto great aisle seats on two planes I wasn't ticketed on to get here. I don't travel that smoothly when I'm going according to itinerary, much less just showing up at the airport hoping to get where I'm going. Nice upgrade on the car rental, sunshine... not all of it for me, of course, but all of it appreciated. All of it contributing to being in a state where I can think: What can I do for, say to, be for my dad on this brief trip? How can I say goodbye in a way that will matter, since nothing else in our relationship these last 40 years seems to have? 

I will build MY church...

Take a guess... who's the most important person at this church? 

(hint: Note the url.)

On the anvil, again...

I think God and I are having a "moment." 

About a week ago, I began praying what will inevitably go down as one of the more stupid prayers I've ever prayed: "God show me what your discipline looks like."

I was reading in Proverbs where it says "People who accept discipline are on the pathway to life, but those who ignore correction will go astray." 

Not wanting to be one of the ignorers, I started thinking through what God's discipline looks like. What does it mean to be corrected by God? Hebrews says 

"'For the Lord disciplines those he loves,
and he punishes each one he accepts as his child.'”
As you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as his own children. Who ever heard of a child who is never disciplined by its father?

God disciplines us for our own good. Check. 

Out of love. Check. 

And that looks like...? 

What I didn't want to say was "crappy circumstances=God's discipline." That's an equation that's just too easy to abuse. The fact is, crap happens to the just and the unjust, as it were. 

But...

If it's not circumstantial, what is it? A guilty conscience (sorry... "convicted")? A sense of God's distance or some other kind of feeling? What does it look like when God lays down the smack in your life? 

So I started asking- God show me. Help me understand. 

Long and the short of it is, it's been a crappy week. 

I'm not ready to make any conclusions yet, but the loss, the "taking away" that's happened over the last week has been pretty noticeable. My health, my wallet, the work of my hands, relationships... all of it has been affected. I won't detail it all, but it's cost me a lot of time, effort, money and brain cycles. 

In the midst of this whole thing, God has been speaking to me. Last week, as I sat out on the porch (taking the day off due to nausea and throwing up the night before) I began to hear from God about growing up in my faith- about not being the kind of guy who cuts corners in the least, about a more mature, more straight approach to God, to others and to life. There are more specifics, but those are between me and Him, at least for now. 

And still I'm not sure... God speaking to me, God laying His hand on my life, God pushing me to grow up? 

Sounds like what discipline is for. 

And this sure feels like "discipline." 

I guess I'm getting an answer- the only question left is... 

Will I listen?

Twouble...

ht: Kent McKeaigg (Kobie's brother!)

My better and not so better moments...

Maybe I should just start each new blog post with "Sorry I haven't been blogging more"? 

But since it's just you and me now blog, and all those other folks who used to hang around and read this stuff have moved on to Letters From Kamp Krusty and Dustin's blog, I guess we can get back down to business, eh? 

So much and so little happening, all at the same time. 

Looks like I'm probably heading down to San Diego a week from today. So, the week before Palm Sunday, the start of our 3rd Gathering, trying to get ready for Good Friday and Easter, I'm hopping on a plane to deal with dad. 

I'm really trying to be okay with it, but it's a struggle. In my best moments, I feel compassion for him, am able to think redemptively about what it means to go and serve someone who has cultivated a careful indifference to you over nearly 40 years, about finding healing by answering the hostility of that indifference with love and trying to be Jesus to someone who seems to have missed Him...

In my worst moments I think "Screw him. I have a life, a family, a church community and damned if they are going to pay even the smallest price for this guy who just couldn't be bothered."

I try not to let that voice win... and I guess it's not, seeing as how I'm checking airfares, thinking thru who I can crash with and such. 

Free Download @ Paul Ramey.com

Worship pastor/recording artist and good friend Paul Ramey has had his album picked up for national distribution by Word/Warner Entertainment! It's a fantastic album and is set to be released May 5th. 

But you can get a free download, and pre-order the album right here. Go- do it! Now!!

Some really great stuff on here... 

		First Name Last Name Email Address Paul Ramey News

Pastoral Wisdom

"The gospel is not simply about meeting people's needs. The gospel is also a critique of our needs, an attempt to give us needs worth having. The Bible appears to have little interest in so many of the needs and desires that consume present-day North Americans. Therefore, pastoral care will be about much more than meeting people's needs. It will also be about indoctrination, inculturation, which is also- from the peculiar viewpoint of the gospel- care. Our care must form people into the sort of people who have had their needs rearranged in the light of Christ."

Will Willimon, Pastor

Notes

Aubrey takes notes on Sunday. 

Today I preached on John the Baptist's message

"Clear the way for the Lord"...

Video Venue Churches: Pay your taxes

I said here that video venues threatened the gift of preaching. 

And I still mean it- more and more people watching a screen, means fewer and fewer people engaging in the art of teaching a congregation with regularity- communities that once had (or would have had) a teaching team soon will have a campus pastor who gets to preach maybe 12 times a year... and a DVD. 

Remember- one of the main apologies of those taking this route is that there just aren't enough talented teachers to go around. But the video venue, practically speaking, means fewer people with the real, hard experience of teaching a community week in and week out- what is certainly a gift of the Spirit, but also a learned skill that takes time to "master." 

And so the cycle perpetuates itself- fewer men and women with the chops to speak to crowds who increasingly expect polished oratory and high production values means more and more will look to the video venue to fill the gaps, thus creating a self perpetuating cycle. And what was meant to extend the gift of preaching now begins to kill it. 

But as I said in my last post on this: It doesn't have to be that way, if the Church will just pay it's taxes. Or maybe another way to put this is: When we hear a heart-stirring or life-changing message, we like to thank the one who brought it. Maybe we should thank the ones who listened to/sat through all the less-than-heart-stirring, sometimes mediocre messages that person had to preach as they were learning how to use the gift God had given them without putting a congregation to sleep.

Evergreen has a team of 7 elders (soon to be six as Chip heads to Denver to be the teaching pastor @ TNL) and all of whom are, in the words of Paul, "able to teach." While Dustin and I share the bulk of teaching at our two sites, all the other elders are in regular rotation, teaching our community, sharing their insight, perspective and unique voices with the community.  And growing in their teaching skills, even as I am, and as Dustin is. 

I don't claim to be a master preacher by any stretch- but I can do it. And the way I learned is by doing it. You learn to lead small groups by watching others do it and then doing it yourself, you learn to lead others in worship by watching others do it and then doing it yourself, and you learn to teach the community, to walk through passages of Scripture, teasing out what God was saying to them and what He's saying to us by watching others do it and then doing it yourself. And really, that's the only way. 

So- while we expect a certain level of facility with leading worship, with teaching, with leading a group or serving in some other way in the community we also recognize: We are ALL engaging in on the job training. 

And the community that, for instance, pays the tax of listening to a slightly less coherent message, or one with a less-than-Rob-Bell-mind-blow factor, or slightly less entertaining/engaging than Mr Driscoll, is making an investment. 

They invest in the teacher they are being taught by. By engaging, listening, giving good feedback (both encouraging and constructive) they help that elder they love, that elder who loves them and is doing his or her best to explore God's Word with them, to learn how to do it better and better.

And in so doing they invest in the future. The future not just of that elder, not just of their community, but of the Church as a whole as we all benefit by more and more people exercising their gifts, gaining mastery in how to do what God has gifted and called them to do. 

To me, video venues are at their heart, miserly. They are a symptom of a church who refuses to pay the community tax and invest in the future. They (along with mega churches and even personality-based smaller churches) try to parlay the gift of one or two people into something bigger and bigger, and like short-sighted Americans driving bigger and bigger Hummers say: Who cares about the consequences to future generations? I got mine.

Please understand: I recognize that the vast majority of those engaged in video venues have, at their core, a passion for seeing people come to know, love, and follow Jesus. I get that. And I even get that God uses the silliest of methods to bring people to Him. I'll bet I could even find someone who has been saved through the Evangecube. 

But just because God honors our silly methods occasionally doesn't mean we shouldn't look for better ways, perhaps less silly, perhaps ones with fewer unintended consequences. 

God of the Moon and Stars

Got to see this tonight from a Dutch singer. We start the Gospel of John this next week- made me think very much of that...

U2's new Album for $3.99

Right here on Amazon!

Ecclesia Network day 1

I'm in Maryland at the Ecclesia Network National Gathering with David Fitch (with whom I am having a free-ranging, continuing argument about Tim Keller!), Jr Woodward, Todd Hiestand, John Chandler and others. We're in the pre-conference time, talking about the future of the Network, how it can resource church planters and church planting. Evergreen is not "officially" a part of this network, but they are courting us :), and honestly, I think this is our tribe. Ecclesia is Gospel-centered, missionally minded, theologically centrist and relationship focused. Some have described it as a less anal-retentive version of Acts 29 :)  They wanted me here and were actually generous enough to fly me out here, so here I am!

Already building some good connections, having some great conversations and looking forward to some good learnings this week. Here's the run down for today. 

2.00 – 3.45 - “Engaging: Missionary Strategies Then & Now” - Eddie Gibbs, Mike Breen
3.45 – 4.00 - Stretch Break
4.00 – 5.30 - “Organizing: Structures for Incarnational Church” - Breen
5.30 – 6.45 - Dinner
7.00 – 8.30 - “Challenges: Barriers to Mission in the Western Context” - Gibbs, Breen

In the next couple of days we'll also be hearing from Darrell Guder and Jon Tyson.

More in a bit...

Such an odd month...

Lots of disequilibrium right now- more like whiplash, actually. 

The last month has been rapidly cycling back and forth between some amazing highs and some much tougher lows. And the odd part has been that they seem almost perfectly synced- high then low, high then low... seems like things usually cluster a bit more than this.

The highs include an amazing combined worship gathering of all of evergreen on the 15th, feeling pretty good about some of the mentoring and pastoral counseling I've been doing recently, an Ash Wednesday gathering that just "clicked" and far surpassed my hopes for the time, good time away at NPC, finding a great house to rent and renters for our townhouse...

The lows- some Sunday gatherings that have just felt off to me, along with feeling less "connection" with those there, feeling less able physically due to a, uh, procedure, some real extended family stress, the strains of moving both physically and emotionally (wow- moving with kids? not so much...), feeling like I actually have some things to write but no time in which to write them...

Back and forth, back and forth, first one, then the other...

Right now, I'm feeling on the low end of the scale. 

But I guess I just need to wait a day, right?