Affirmation of Discernment, continued.
This post is continued from yesterday. I hope you hugged a preacher…
The decision to potentially pursue a ministry position with an established congregation would most likely mean moving out of the area – possibly out of Texas, yet again. We didn’t like the idea of moving away, but if the job didn’t come through with MWF, I didn’t really see what options were left. I’ve learned that you can do just about anything for a season – if it is important enough. But we all have limited energy and resources…and mine were tapped.
In late February we received the news that the MWF’s paperwork would not be finalized in time for the March grant deadline. It could be another year or more before the position would be possible (in fact, it is now May and the paperwork is still pending). It was time to initiate plan B.
Damn.
Putting together a resume was not half as difficult as getting my heart and mind to a place where A) any church would be interested in hiring me and B) I would be faithfully entering a new situation without bitterness and reservation.
I really believed that just making a decision to move forward would bring a semblance of peace. Isn’t that how it usually works? Even if it isn’t the outcome we’d hoped for, just the removal of wondering is typically a relief.
It wasn’t… at all.
The truth is, I felt fairly confident that if we accepted a position, I would throw myself into the life of that community…but it still seemed wrong somehow. This was when I started doubting just about everything in a significant way. How could I feel so strongly about what it was God had called me to and yet not be able to do that? It was as if Paul had received the vision about the man from Macedonia calling them to come help only to find that someone had extended the Great Wall of China right across their path.
An answer that seemed increasingly reasonable was that God hadn’t called me to anything, I was just making it all up in my clearly “nuts” head.
The day I sent out my first batch of resumes I had an experience which brought me more sadness about leaving Burleson and caused me to question everything all over again. Then a couple days later, I had another one (you can read about that here).
So I talked it over with Rachel and we decided to do something that neither of us wanted to do again – a path we’d even rejected in choosing to put together resumes. We decided to continue pursuing conversations with any of the churches that contacted us from the first round of resumes, but to hold off on sending any more until we tried one final round of fundraising.
Fundraising…ugh.
From conversations with MWF I felt confident that within two years I could have a full-time position which would allow to continue in our church planting work here in Burleson and also work to equip others to start new faith communities, as well as lead established ones in missional renewal. If I could just hang on for a couple more years.
At this point the “are you nuts” questions started bubbling up again.
Nuts or not, I put together a packet of fundraising materials. I posted them in pdf form here on this website, and started contacting churches in hopes of setting up a meeting to discuss our request.
I didn’t get any takers. That wasn’t really surprising – I’ve done fundraising before and I know how long it takes to get any traction with churches and missions committees. I wasn’t discouraged by the lack of folks jumping at the chance to support us…though I was starting to get a little antsy at the lack of any response at all – not even a “we’ll get back to you.”
I forwarded my material to lots of people, including several who I knew would be good at offering a careful evaluation and suggestions for how to improve.
One of those people was Larry Duggins, the executive director of the MWF. We were working together on a website project anyway so he asked if I’d like to stay a little longer in order to talk about my fundraising material.
In the two days before our meeting two separate churches (neither of which in or near North Texas) contacted me saying I’d made it past the initial “resume culling” and was invited to pursue further conversations about their ministry opening. Both asked me to fill out a questionnaire to help the search team get to know my theology and philosophy of ministry. Honestly, just trying to fill them out was difficult.
There was a (mostly) unconscious part of me that was rebelling and wanted to subtly undermine my chances of further interviews – easy enough to do. There was a more conscious part that just wanted to curl up in a ball. But I knew that if this was the door that God opened then I’d better get my head and heart into it – both seemed like good churches and if I wasn’t going to commit then, well…they deserved better than me and I needed to stop pretending like I care about following where God leads.
So I committed. I responded carefully and honestly (without being so in-your-face that they’d run in fear).
The day after both had been sent, I met with Larry. I was looking forward to some helpful insights on the fundraising process. Instead he said, “We looked over your stuff. We’d like to offer to pick up the amount you’re seeking to raise and have you start working full-time for MWF effective immediately.”
I think I was accepting the job before I’d even registered that it had been offered.
I’d like to say that my calm acceptance and conversation was simply an example of my awesome professionalism. But really, I was simply blindsided and in shock…in a good way for once.
I didn’t start shaking until the drive home.
Back to the discernment issue. If we hadn’t carefully and prayerfully made plans – and then stuck to those plans – there’s little chance that we would have been in place long enough for this to all play out. Sure, most of the plans we made didn’t pan out the way we anticipated. It was frustrating and exhausting.
In retrospect I can see how most of what we attempted over the last three years either taught us something significant about this approach to missional life and church planting (you should hear some of my stories of 2 am conversations with fellow security guards) or they kept us going until the next temporary phase came along.
In the moment it didn’t make sense that my prayers and processes of discernment lead to the perceived response of “I’ve called you to this, do it faithfully.” How? How could we keep going when the doors to support kept slamming shut? And yet, we never missed a payment.
That part really didn’t make sense. According to our budget and financial records, we should have run out of money MONTHS ago. But at the end of each month everything worked out. Every month.
I don’t think that our plans give God something to laugh about. Our plans, if they are developed through prayer and discernment, keep us moving forward when we can’t see where the road is headed. Our plans are one part of why we were still here to see God’s miraculous provision come to pass. Without prayerful planning – and sticking to our commitments even when conventional wisdom said to cut our losses – we most likely would have given up and moved on to something else entirely. Had that happened, I am confident that God would have still found ways to use our lives for his Kingdom, but we would have missed out on that which I believe God has been carefully and thoroughly preparing us. By sticking it out, we are more convinced than ever that we are doing precisely what God has called us to do.
And I wonder about those two interviews. The timing was very interesting. Was this a situation like Abraham on the mountain with Isaac where I was being given a chance to see for myself just how much I trusted God’s leadership? I don’t know if it was or not…but that’s precisely how it has impacted me.
I’ve been trying to write this post for a couple weeks…but I’ve been speechless.
Obviously, it was a short-lived affliction.
For the past 17 days I could feel the implications, lessons and reflections rolling around in my head, but they wouldn’t surface. Dan Bouchelle wrote a post recently on the danger of journaling and writing for us wordy types. I think he is absolutely correct. I needed to be silent before God in thanksgiving and praise before trying to share this story.
My role has expanded considerably within the MWF and I’m already tackling some new challenges – not the least of which being the very enjoyable task of getting to know the students and leaders who participate, serve and lead in the Epworth Houses and New Day communities. One of the aspects of my job which I anticipate bringing me great joy is coming alongside to support and encourage these folks. Their holistic approach to life, faith and ministry is inspirational and, let’s face it, somewhat nuts.
I can appreciate that.
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Affirmation of Discernment
A lot has happened since I started working on my Bare Minimum series of posts. I haven’t forgotten about that, I’ll come back to it very soon. However, after a couple weeks of vacillating between dazed and frantically busy, I need to post some thoughts about a huge development in our lives.
I’m needing help processing a particular feeling. I’ve heard of it before, I’ve even known people who claim to have dealt with it, but the very concept has always been absolutely foreign to my life experience. So, I’ll need some coaching from those more accustomed to this (for me) uncharted experience of being rendered “speechless.” Who’d have thought such a thing was even possible?
Of the spiritual disciplines I’ve sought to cultivate in my life, perhaps none has been more transformative (particularly to the way I make decisions) than the practice of spiritual discernment. Sure, I grew up in a tradition and in a family that valued praying about matters, big and small, to ensure that we were submitting to the will of God in our lives. And sometimes, not always, this got translated into a low view of planning and thinking ahead. After all, “our planning just gives God something to laugh about.”
This wasn’t always the mentality, but it certainly cropped up – usually when someone was tired of thinking, didn’t know what to do or was frustrated by rapidly changing circumstances and unpredictable developments.
Several years ago, as I began digging more deeply into the classic spiritual disciplines, someone commented on the “lost art of discernment.” The comment was made that “the only planning which is a pointless, human endeavor is that which is pointless, human planning.”
What if, instead, we viewed the process of planning as an act of prayer and discernment. To spend time with God in silence, listening deeply. To listen, meditate on scripture, bring what you feel you’ve heard back to a discerning community and “compare notes.” And then to allow our decisions, plans, etc to grow from this intentional process of listening, rather than praying over what we’ve decided…could be cool right?
Actually, as I already suggested, its been transformational. Ridiculously so. So what do you do when you’ve submitted something to prayer and discernment repeatedly, and in community with others, consistently hearing the same thing…only to have outside factors block the path over and again? What do you do when your heart, your prayers, and your praying community all agree, but other issues seem to be demanding a different conclusion?
Well, I don’t know what you do, but apparently I begin to lose confidence in whether I have ever actually been led by God at all. It isn’t an “all at once” kind of deflation, but a gradual, life-draining, slow-acting toxin which little by little even erodes one’s basic convictions about their relationship with God…I must not be walking too close if my messages are getting this crossed.
For quite some time people have been telling me I’m nuts. They’re right, of course. However I’ve always felt they had reached the correct conclusion on wrong evidence.
When I left a well paying, relatively stable (shocking in its own right, given the history) preaching position in order to pursue church planting, some said the decision was inspirational – others said it was nuts.
When we chose to do so in 2008, on the verge of a national economic melt-down, most people said we were nuts – a few said it was inspirational…but even some of them seemed to wonder if at least the timing was nuts.
When we decided that our efforts in church planting would focus on the slow, non-salary producing connection to cynical de-churched folks and the suburban poor, people rightly asked how we’d pay the bills. My response that God had called us into this and wouldn’t leave us stranded received a nearly unanimous “you’re nuts” even from those who thought it was inspirational.
When I accepted that the bi-vocational approach was necessary some believed I was starting to see the light. But when we realized that my skill set and training don’t exactly translate into many “secular” career opportunities – and certainly few that would allow us to continue church planting, even I began to think I was nuts.
When bi-vocational became multi-vocational (sometimes as many as 6 different part-time and full-time jobs simultaneously) I started thinking that “Nuts” should be printed on my business card.
Throughout this time we continued to pray and discern with others. Perhaps relocating to a new area for church planting would provide other opportunities – both for support and employment. But over and again the closest thing to an answer I felt I was receiving (and having confirmed by others) was “I’ve called you to this, do it faithfully.” It didn’t seem to matter that I was increasingly convinced that I had no idea how to do it.
I tried working in sales for both a roofing company and a security company. It was not good. I prayed with a few people as we put new roofs on their house – that was great. I had some very significant conversations about the Way of Jesus with a couple contractors. But at the end of the day, I wasn’t a good salesman…which sort of defeated the purpose.
I tried taking my experiences and education and translating them into an organization – Missional Monks – which could provide the financial support we needed. I still think that is a good idea, but it became very apparent that I would need one or both of the following to grow Missional Monks into something financially sustainable: time and money. I had neither.
According to our budget and conversations with some of our financial supporters in church planting (without whose partnership we could not have held on this long) we expected that our situation would no longer be sustainable after August/September of 2011.
But then another possibility arose. Last year I helped to launch The Academy for Missional Wisdom – one of three ministries operated by the Missional Wisdom Foundation (MWF). I was able to integrate my work with the Academy with the completion of my D.Min. project and dissertation – which I believe improved my efforts in both.
We began conversations about the possibility of a full-time position with the MWF around the beginning of 2012. Unfortunately, it seemed as though the timing was going to be a little late. We began praying that if this was the path forward that God would not only provide for our needs in the meantime but would also give us the courage to push through.
September came and went and somehow there was still enough money in the bank to pay the bills. Seriously, Rachel is fantastic with budgets and stretching a dollar but she said plainly, “I don’t understand, there shouldn’t be anything left in there.”
In November we learned that there were some IRS bureaucracy log-jams impeding the MWF’s progress toward getting the grants necessary to fund a full-time director. The job was still a possibility, but things were looking shaky on the early 2012 timeline.
Meanwhile, even those who’d been our strongest supporters began asking subtle questions like, “So…what’s plan B?” I insisted that I wasn’t interested in plan B until I had clear evidence that God wanted me to abandon plan A…and I’m pretty sure I heard “you’re nuts” in the subtext of my friends’ replies.
Others asked, “At what point do you decide that all of this is the answer to your prayers for discernment? Maybe the answer just isn’t what you want to hear.”
That one rocked me a bit. For the first time I began wondering if my friends were right in their conclusion of my mental state.
After more prayer we decided that if the paperwork for the MWF didn’t come through in time for the grant deadlines then we would begin pursuing the dreaded plan B…we just had to figure out what that was.
I’ve worked a lot of jobs these past several years and I’ve learned a few things about myself in the process. It’s not just that I’m trained to equip disciples and teach others about God, I’ve been called to do so. I know that because I’ve tried doing a lot of other things, and this is the only stuff that makes sense…and it is what I want to spend all of my working hours devoted to. This isn’t about not wanting “a real job” or only wanting to do what is pleasant – if you think differently, I’d be happy to compare time-sheets and job lists.
A line from the movie Gladiator has always resonated with me, “Sometimes I do what I want to do, the rest of the time I do what I must do.” I will do whatever I must do in order to continue doing what God has called me to do.
But if a sustainable bi-vocational situation wasn’t possible – and working a crazy assortment of random jobs was no longer sufficient, what would I do in order to continue doing what God has called me to do?
We determined that if plan B became necessary then I would once again pursue a position as a minister with an established congregation. We would pray that God would direct us to church that was seeking to equip the congregation for missional life in their community. Perhaps I would even be able to find a situation where we could work to equip and support the planting of new churches and the formation of missional-micro communities from within the congregation.
It shouldn’t be the case, but so often serving in leadership for a church is not very conducive to connecting with people who aren’t Christians. There is so much “stuff” that gets in the way of the very thing you feel called to be doing. I know its fun, and more than a little humorous, to make jokes about preachers getting paid to play golf all week. There are probably a few for whom this is accurate, but I don’t know many personally…and I know a lot of preachers. It is a rewarding job, but it is frustrating, exhausting work that comes with an oversized target as part of the compensation package.
If you’ve never served as a full-time minister or an elder for an established congregation, stop reading this, go find one and give them a hug. I’ll finish the rest of this post tomorrow, after you’ve had a chance to do so…
…
Seriously, at least send them an email…
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Parts 4, 5 and 6…of 3
This picture doesn’t really have anything to do with the post…I just thought it was a great example of Rachel’s budding photography skills. If you really need me to I’m perfectly capable of fabricating a metaphor…an unfocused Josiah in the background, a young praying mantis focused in the foreground…it would be very simple. But just enjoy the picture, jeez.
Last weekend I started writing down some thoughts. I’d been wrestling with the issue of time in discipleship/spiritual formation. Over the years I’ve encountered several books and resources on discipleship which I believe are solid in both theology and theory…but they’ve mostly fallen short in practice. Its hard to get folks to commit to even an hour or two a week – we’re all so very, very busy. And even when we do, the impact and growth we experience still pales in comparison to what we read in the Gospels and Acts.
And it struck me that our discipleship strategies – even the ones modeled specifically around the way of Jesus – differ from what we know of the early Christians in one incredibly significant area: time. Well, that and Jesus not being bodily present.
So my notes soon expanded into a blog post…then into a 2000 word blog post. When I started approaching 3000 words, I decided they’d need to be split into multiple posts or even my 2 faithful readers would abandon their journey in despair.
I scheduled the posts for Monday-Wednesday of this week and let the idea sit. Then the thoughts started coming again (I’m a little schizophrenic that way). Well, posts 4, 5 and 6…of 3 are just about finished. I’m going to let them simmer a bit before finalizing and posting, but needless to say, I believe this is an important discussion.
These posts describe the problem and only vaguely hint at possible solutions. To be honest, I’m not completely ready to rush to solutions because I’m just a little convinced that our hesitance to consider the problem is itself a part of the problem.
So I think I’ll hold off on solutions and save them for my book!
Thank you for reading, and please feel free to post some comments. I could use some help in thinking this through with others.
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The Bare Minimum: Part 1 – Faith or Works?
None of us magically arrived at this point, with our beliefs, convictions, world-views and patterns of behavior arbitrarily or objectively assigned. The old “nature vs nurture” debate is typically foolish. “Why we are” is an interrelationship between who we are, where we are, when we are, and how we are. It is nature AND nurture, as well as volition (our own choices).
Now obviously, some things are more dependent on nature – how tall we are, the color of our eyes, our predisposition to heart disease, etc. Yet, even in those instances things like diet, exercise, stress management…and colored contacts are also calculated in the equation. We may be genetically predisposed to heart disease, and despite our best efforts that dna may catch up to us. However, the lessons we learn as a child about eating and exercise, and the habits we develop into adulthood can greatly impact our heart health one way or the other.
This also applies to philosophy, world views and religion. A person born to devout parents in a Muslim country is most likely going to view the world through what lens? If they’re born to conservative evangelical parents in the southern US? Communist parents in China? Awesome parents in Texas?
This series of posts isn’t really about moral luck, determinism or free will. I just need to set the stage by acknowledging that a number of interconnected systems, in addition to our genetic makeup and conscious decisions (which can certainly run counter to how we were raised) have tremendous influence – negatively and positively – on how we view the world and even how we view God.
Even the statement, “I don’t need any of that to determine my worldview, I just read the Bible and do what it says,” is largely dependent on things outside of us. The sentiment travels back most notably to the courageous work of our good German friend Martin Luther, not to mention the invention of the printing press. The idea that everyone should have their own copy of the Bible – and in their own language – is a relatively new development…upon which our staunchly independent brothers and sisters are deeply dependent.
Furthermore, there were teams of scholars who worked for years to translate the Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic words into English phrases we can read. So, even if we literally sit in our closet to read, we do so in community with others – whether we like it or not.
There are a few inherited trait that I really want to address – because I think they deeply (and negatively) impact our attempts at discipleship, mission, and community – whether we’re in established congregations or church planting contexts.
We’ve been engaged in battle for many years on the issue of whether salvation comes by works or by faith. This was already a problem in the time that the New Testament was being written. The message of Scripture, boiled down, seems somewhat straight-forward; we are saved by God. Jesus is the hero. The Holy Spirit fills us with life.
“Yes, yes,” we say, “But how do we gain access to that salvation? By faith or works?”
And Scripture says, “Yep.”
“No,” you may say, “It is by grace we are saved, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. Our efforts have nothing to do with it, God doesn’t care about that – its the blood of Christ covering us that matters.”
Well quoted my good scholar, but there is no faith apart from what we do. In Isaiah 58, the prophet reminds us (and prepares us for the message of Jesus) that the kind of fasting (descriptive of faith and worship in this section of the passage) which God desires is to loose the chains of injustice, set the oppressed free, feed the hungry, provide shelter for the wanderer, and clothes for the naked.
James comes back later with “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if people claim to have faith but have no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”
Jesus, in Matthew 25 points to the day of judgement and says that people will discover that their faith, and their connection to Christ, is known because, “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me…Truly I tell you, whatever you did [or didn’t do] for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did [or didn’t do] for me.”
There is hardly any ambiguity on this matter in Scripture. What we believe and what we do are inextricably linked. So why does this debate continue to persist? I believe there are several reasons – but most of them are themselves still symptoms of deeper questions and deeper problems, just as is this debate. The real problem isn’t legalism vs cheap grace.
Richard Beck has an excellent, though somewhat academic, series of posts which address this matter. He makes the case that Paul’s point against The Law isn’t a problem of legalism but rather the weakness of sarx (the mortal, finite, frail, death-afraid “flesh”). You can read this series at his site – Experimental Theology and the post which specifically deals with aforementioned argument is Part 9 in the Slavery of Death series.
The problem isn’t faith or grace vs works. These go together, and when we aren’t being defensive I think most of us get that. So what keeps driving this argument? In the next post I want to continue digging deeper.
Teaching With Tadpoles
I’m already on record with thoroughly researched and documented evidence that my wife, Rachel, is ridiculously amazing. She has a fully stocked art, craft and science experiment center parked in our kitchen…and bedroom…and closet…and in corners of the bathroom…and in the storage unit…
She’s way to hard on herself, often feeling like she’s missed opportunities or hasn’t done enough with one of the kids. But the truth is, and I know I’m biased (which doesn’t mean that I’m wrong), she is both naturally and intentionally awesome. Hardly a day goes by that she doesn’t come up with some creative way to teach something.
A couple years ago while at the park, Rachel and the boys saw a family catching something in the creek (its VERY shallow and perfect for stomping around in). Rachel asked what they were doing – “We’re catching tadpoles!”
That was all it took. Rachel got some tupperware from the house and off they went to catch these little metamorphosis science lessons. Well, that first round was fun…but most of the tadpoles morphed into…dead tadpoles.
Not to worry. She did some research and last spring they tried it again with much better success. We actually raised several little frogs in a fish bowl and then turned them loose in our creek behind the house. The boys learned a lot about biology, ecosystems, caring for animals…but I think Rachel and I were at least as mesmerized as the boys.
Today was the third annual Tadpole Extravaganza.
We currently have about 30 little creatures living in a fish tank by the kitchen window.
We’d only been at the creek a few minutes when other kids, and then their parents started coming by wanting to know what was going on. So we shared our sophisticated amphibian collection devices (dixie cups) and invited them to join us. Several kids jumped in and added their catches to our bucket. But one family, after a brief conversation with Rachel and I, got a large bottle from their car and started their own collection for home.
There was only one little girl who didn’t catch a single tadpole – the one who didn’t want to get her feet wet. It’s difficult to catch tadpoles without getting in the water. (And yes, that statement has multiple levels of meaning…more on that momentarily.)
However, there were a few times the “new kids” got frustrated that their “slap-the-water-with a cup” technique didn’t yield many catches. So I’d say, “Hey, wanna see how I do it?” I’d model my craft, then watch them try it once or twice and then I’d wander off. Sure enough a few minutes later: “Hey! I got one!” The best part was that after a few catches, most of them tweaked the process to suit their own latent skills and they began catching even more.
We didn’t set out to teach anybody about our home science experiments…but tonight a couple kids and their parents are looking at their own tadpole farm, simply because we shared our experience. And really, that pretty much sums up the missional-incarnational life. We simply live our faith out in the open, trusting that God is willing and able to bring us into contact with others. Of course, we have to be willing to share what we’ve learned and also be ready to learn from others. You don’t have to walk up to strangers and begin grilling them about their sinfulness – or even tell them they need to catch tadpoles. People are often so genuinely shocked and excited to see someone doing it, they’re naturally attracted to what they see.
When we commit to actually living where we already live,
we begin to see things that we missed before.
At one point today I began walking up the creek looking for actual frogs. I came to a section that had not been disturbed by the pitter-patter of dirty little feet. As I looked at the water I could tell it was moving more swiftly – actually, because it was more shallow, I could just see the current better. I noticed some plant life and the rocks along the bottom. But at first I didn’t notice anything else. I stopped for a moment and looked more closely, then I saw one tadpole – just one. That was when the curtain pulled back.
The moment my vision adjusted to that one little critter, I suddenly realized they were everywhere. There were WAY more tadpoles in this part of the creek. The weird thing was that I’d been looking at these things all day and I still needed a moment to readjust when I moved to a new area. And yet, once I saw them it was impossible NOT to - seriously, they were everywhere.
At first we may have no idea what engaging God’s mission in our neighborhood looks like. And in all honesty, I think too many of us never stick with it long enough to allow our vision to adjust. Sometimes we need another person to model this way of life for us (and then get out of our way so we can give it a shot) – think about the Ethiopian eunuch’s response to Phillip’s question of whether or not he understood what he was reading: “How can I unless someone explains it to me?”
But other times, all we really need is to slow down long enough to see what we didn’t see when we first saw what we thought we saw.
Of course, those of you who know me well are aware that I love metaphors…I will play with them until I’ve completely destroyed them. At the risk of over-extending this one, the presence of tadpoles themselves seems very significant.
This summer was the hottest on record – with so many days over 100 degrees that it actually got too hot to swim. Along with the heat came a terrible drought. Our little creek was bone-dry for months. And then in the past couple months we’ve gotten a lot of rain – several times flooding the creeks. Neither of these scenarios seem all that conducive to producing fragile critterlings. And yet, even in the midst of hardship, life finds a way (didn’t they say something like that in Jurassic Park?)
I agree with Dan Bouchelle’s recent blog post where he challenged us to reconsider what constitutes a “receptive” location where the gospel is concerned. His claim, based on Jesus’ instructions to the disciples in Luke 10, is that a context is considered receptive if there is one family that shows hospitality and openness.
Don’t assume that the place where you already live, whether due to drought or flood, is not ready to support life. It may take a few moments to adjust, but I’m guessing that if you look deeply, you’ll find a perfect context for engaging God’s mission right below the surface.
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How will we respond?
In my last post I described our decision to begin submitting resumes to congregations searching for a minister. The reason, simply stated, is that we’ve run out of money, and we’ve run out of time to hang on until a more sustainable situation becomes available.
The very day that I put my resume together (which was an interesting process…which jobs, experiences and skills from the past 4 years do I list? I certainly didn’t have room for all of them!) I ran into a young lady I haven’t seen for about two years. She was a waitress at Denny’s when we met. With a baby on the way and stuck in low paying job, her despair was barely concealed. Over time we became friends. I gathered some baby shower gifts from Christ Journey and Conner and I attended her baby shower…at Denny’s.
I learned that she was trying to get into a medical assistant training program. So Christ Journey gathered money to pay her entrance fees. And not long after that she was gone.
I asked about her often and for a while the other servers had updates – she was doing well, progressing through the schooling. But over time the people who knew her moved on to other jobs (not surprisingly, turnover is high). So, I was shocked – and initially saddened – when I saw her standing in the restaurant one evening a few weeks ago…until she came over and filled me in. She’d completed the school but had no luck finding work in her new field. However, after some time she approached her old boss at Denny’s who respected the initiative and effort she showed in getting more schooling. They not only hired her back, but did so – as a manager!
Now she’s working 4 nights a week making more money than she previously made working 6 nights a week (without the stress of depending on tips), and has hope for more advancement. It was so encouraging to see her change in demeanor – more confident, less beaten down – and I immediately began lamenting the thought of leaving Burleson all over again.
Not long after that experience I met with the Mission Alive crew for our monthly church planter’s forum. I listened as they discussed various lessons learned in their experience equipping church planters and leaders from established congregations. They described upcoming changes and a more intentional focus on discipleship and equipping folks to disciple others more intentionally as well. I left that conversation encouraged…and lamenting again.
Two days later, one of the other two directors in the Missional Wisdom Foundation and I met with an organization to discuss the potential for a major overhaul and redesign of our website and internet presence in The Academy and the other ministries of the foundation. In our conversation he said something which caught me off guard. He stated that one of his goals in this proposal was to simplify the IT details and upkeep to free me up for other matters which make more use of what I have to offer – apparently word hadn’t gotten to him yet that I was most likely moving on to something else altogether. And again, I lament.
To top it all off, several families that we and other folks in The Gathering have been cultivating friendships with have finally begun expressing interest in joining us for worship and other activities.
In the midst of all this I began to discern a still, small voice saying, “So…how will you respond to this?”
A lot has changed since we set about raising money for church planting in 2008. We’ve learned so much about what does and does not foster discipleship and cultivation of missional community in this area. During that time I’ve gotten to know this area, the people here, the deep need. I’ve started and finished a doctorate in missional church studies. I’ve developed processes for discipleship and leadership training – both for church planting and established church contexts. I’ve walked with skeptical, cynical, angry folks and seen many of them reclaim and rediscover a faith they thought was dead and gone. And I’ve come so close to a long-term sustainable bi-vocational situation through the Academy…its just that even the short distance from here to there is beyond us.
We’ve sent out several resumes in the past month, and we’re going to pursue those conversations if they call back. However, we’ve decided not to send out any more at this point. Instead, last week I put together a new packet of fundraising material.
We’re seeking congregations to financially partner with us in church planting for up to 2 years. Just two years. In that time I will be able to get established in a full-time position with The Academy and the ministry of The Gathering in Burleson (and beyond?) will continue. I’m not asking for support hoping that by then we’ll have a congregation large enough (and wealthy enough) to pay my salary – within two years I can be employed full-time in a position that not only allows me to continue in church planting, but encourages it and is itself an opportunity to train and equip missional disciples.
Again, I have learned a great deal over the last four years. I have been immersed in the practice as well as conversation, study and wrestling with the concept of cultivating sustainable approaches to church planting in the increasingly post-Christian context of North America – specifically as it relates to this area.
One other difference between this fundraising attempt and the previous one in 2008: I feel that I have something more to offer congregations in terms of a true partnership. I hope to be able to share what I’ve learned to strengthen and encourage other congregations. Perhaps I can serve as a ministry coach or even teach coaching principles to the leadership team to use in their various ministry contexts. Maybe we can use Communitas or the Missional Imagination as an equipping process in the congregation. Or I can come in for a series of guest sermons or classes, or lead a retreat. (Read more about these here)
Furthermore, we invite partnering congregations to view our context here in Burleson as a potential training ground for individuals from their own church – how could these principles be applied within your own context?
I believe strongly that we are on the verge of a long-term, healthy and fruitful ministry here in the Burleson area, which can have encouraging implications and collaborations with many other contexts. We just need time.
I’ve uploaded several fundraising resources to this site – If you are part of a church, or know of one, that may be interested in such a collaborative partnership, please pass this along and prayerfully consider a special gift or ongoing support for up to 24 months.
View and download the resources here.
Or contact me if you’d like a hard copy sent in the mail.
Ups & Downs… and the Development of an Interesting Resume
Talk about a whirlwind of emotions. On Wednesday, February 29, Rachel and I drove over to SMU to meet with my doctoral committee. After a pleasant two-hour chat they greeted me as “doctor” and declared I had passed both the project and presentation with highest honors. That was obviously a high point for me.
Thursday was pretty awesome too. I spent several hours printing two copies of the dissertation on some pretty expensive paper and then immediately drove it over to SMU so that it would be submitted and completely finished.
Then Friday rolled around and the honeymoon was over. I received word that it seems unlikely for a full time job with The Academy to be available soon. This job was our last best hope at providing sustainable income for our continued church planting work in Burleson. We’ve officially gotten to the point that we aren’t bringing in enough money each month to cover our expenses and I just don’t have the energy to get a 6th job.
We knew this was a possibility, but it was one we have hoped and prayed against fervently.
So, now what?
We considered attempting another round of fundraising in hopes that we could get Missional Monks established in the next couple years. But honestly, after four years of raising and receiving support, we’ve pretty much exhausted our resources. After a great deal of consideration and prayer we have decided that I will once again seek to find a paid ministry position with an established congregation.
We are incredibly saddened at the thought of leaving Burleson and The Gathering. We had truly hoped to raise our kids “here, among the people whose troubles are already evident to us” as Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove says. But we also feel compelled to feed those children – and I would like to live long enough to see them grow up.
There is still a possibility that an opportunity will arise with The Academy before we accept a job somewhere else. If that happens, we will obviously stay right here and continue in the ministry opportunities God has already given us. But if we take a position somewhere else, we will do so without reservation or potential exit strategies. My personality tempts me to continuously look ahead for the next thing and I have committed to cultivating a spiritual discipline of stability…which is one reason I’ve been willing to work 5 and 6 part-time jobs at a time over the last couple years. If we go, we’re going with full conviction and commitment to cultivating life with God and others in that place for as long as we’re able.
With all that said, I do feel strongly that God has prepared me, through experience and education, to bring a unique contribution, service and leadership to the church. So we are searching for a congregation which desires to cultivate missional life and leadership in community. We don’t know where in the US this search will take us or how long it will take to get there, but we are dedicated to finding a community of faith that will embrace our family and co-labor with us for years to come.
We would appreciate your prayers in this time…as well as any “heads up” about potential churches looking for a minister.
Like this:
Mission as Organizing Principle – Not Priority
This post has been stewing for a while, but conversations in last month’s Mission Alive Church Planter Forum have prompted me to begin the process of downloading the jumble of thoughts.
When my family moved back to north Texas in order to participate in the ministry of church planting, we did so by joining with a young church plant in Burleson, TX. My first task was to develop a spiritual formation process which would equip and sustain the leading and multiplying of house churches in our community. These house churches existed as expressions of the Christ Journey Church, which also gathered for corporate worship weekly.
This task proved quite difficult. Many people within the context of the “Bible belt” culture, both long-time members of Christian churches and those who do not self-identify as Christian, have strong notions of what church participation “looks like.” In our local experience, when pressed beyond knee-jerk and reactionary statements, both groups have a similar expectation: being a faithful member of a church means avoiding behaviors recognized as sinful, being a good person and attending multiple worship gatherings/bible studies each week.
Attempts to develop a process of spiritual formation in the context of house church leadership, which would emphasize the healthy cultivation of disciples and multiplication of house churches, was met by the most unlikely (via our expectations) of adversaries: community.
Strangely enough, the concept of community can (CAN, not will or must) become its own form of passive resistance to discipleship. It should not have been surprising – this same dynamic was present in the small group ministries in every established church with which I have worked. I believe my mistake was misinterpreting the problem. People often resist the multiplication of small groups because it is an unnatural and painful dissolution of community.
We hoped that our approach of multiplying by sending would address this problem. We did not have a set point (date or number of participants) at which a house church would split and form two new groups. Instead, we attempted to take our cue from the church in Antioch (Acts 13). Each house church was encouraged to regularly pray, listening for who God may be calling to be “set apart” and sent to form a new house church.
Participants in the house churches of Christ Journey were committed to one another. This was a great blessing and should not be downplayed. Community was seen as a very high value in the Christ Journey context. But community as a value can be attained without discipleship, without participation in mission, without any real goal beyond the deepening of connection with people with whom you are already in relationship. And community proved to be a poor organizing principle.
Alan Hirsch raises the issue that we should pursue communitas (the experience of deep connection formed in the midst of a shared mission or struggle), rather than community. This shift of focus moves us away from an approach to community that “has become little more than a quiet and reflective soul space…or a spiritual buzz.” Such experiences, though important in the proper context, fall considerably short of the church’s purpose. Communitas, on the other hand, is cultivated through a shared commitment to a common struggle, ordeal or mission. Community can be a very passive concept; communitas can never be such.
In addition to the focus on community, our experience with house churches also suggested that though we had adopted a much more decentralized structure than many “established congregations,” we were still heavily entrenched in the development of internally focused ministries. The church’s obsession with developing an impressive list of ministry opportunities within the congregation is another symptom of the problem Hirsch is addressing, as well as a barrier to fulfilling our purpose.
Experience tells us that a church that aims at ministry seldom gets to mission even if it sincerely intends to do so. But the church that aims at mission will have to do ministry, because ministry is the means to do mission. Our services, our ministries, need a greater cause to keep them alive and give them broader meaning.
What we began to realize is that we had made community our organizing principle – and as Hirsch suggests, this focus stalled many of our sincere intentions of moving deeper into discipleship while engaged in mission with God.
That’s the first part of the story.
Once we began speaking of mission (rather than community, worship or ministry) as the organizing principle we also began hearing others using the same language.
A couple months ago Mike Breen of 3DM wrote a blog post titled “Why the Missional Movement Will Fail” in which he directly (and rightly) challenged any movement which attempts mission without discipleship – or begins with mission with hopes of getting to discipleship later.
That this critique is even needed is evidence of an underdeveloped concept of mission and a problem distinguishing between organizing principle and priority.
First, when we speak of mission we must guard against reductionist tendencies. Mission is more than evangelism. It is more than discipleship. It is more than social justice. It is more than community development. It is more than reconciliation… Mission is all of these things. Remember, when we use the word mission we aren’t referring to an act we initiate. We’re talking about what it is that God is up to in this world and what we’re called to join. So, in the context of God’s mission, we’re called to discipleship, evangelism, justice for the oppressed, reconciliation, new life and community in the kingdom of God – and “we” in this case refers to all those who have heard and responded to the gospel, not just the “professional” ministers or super-Christians.
And so it is important to recognize in this missional orientation of faith that mission should be our organizing principle precisely because it either involves or naturally cultivates so much of the life to faith.
When we say organizing principle we are saying something different than priority. I’m not sure that priority is necessarily a bad word here, but it may lead (and perhaps already has) to a misunderstanding. It isn’t that we begin with mission and then get to the other stuff when we’ve attained that goal. In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, an individual or community must hold the basic physiological needs as a first priority – if you don’t have food and water it is useless to run after less immediate needs like intimacy, morality, recreation, etc. But that isn’t what we’re talking about here. Mission may be our priority, as might worship, discipleship, ministry, etc. That’s a conversation for another time. But we’re not (or at least, shouldn’t be) talking about priority here.
Rather we say organizing principle because a commitment to the mission of God binds us together in a context where all of the priorities of life and faith are addressed. We not trying to make mission the priority, we’re saying that without mission as our organizing principle it is difficult to actually get to our priorities. Hirsch says that with mission as the organizing principle: “ministry is the means to do mission.” Likewise, discipleship/spiritual formation is the result of following Christ intentionally; community develops as we go out together; worship is a natural response to encountering the missional God; justice, reconciliation, evangelism, new life and kingdom ethics are the contexts in which the mission is actualized.
In most congregations, worship serves as the organizing principle – the Sunday morning hour is what holds us together and from there we try to move into the other aspects of faith. Worship is a vital aspect of our life of faith, but it falls short as an organizing principle – we can get together to worship each week without moving into discipleship, mission, community, etc. Focusing on the development of community through small groups is a good thing, but community falls short as an organizing principle for the same reasons.
However, for this to work as it is described here, we must organize around participation in – not merely discussion of – the mission of God. But that, too, is a whole other conversation…
