Month: May 2005

So I checked my calendar this morning to see what a cupcake week I have planned. Low and behold today is the day my extension ends for Historical Foundations. I have to write and turn in a 15-20 page research paper today. Ugh!

If I don’t, it is simple… I fail a class that cost me $700 and 9 days away from home. Yes, this is the same class I claimed to be dumber for taking and the same one I called “the worst class I’ve ever taken… Even from high school or before.”

Worse than that, I’ve since found out I didn’t need to take the class in the first place.

So I’ll be haulin’ ass today to try to turn something in. If I get to 7-8 pages I’ll be happy.

And you thought I was kidding about the flaming tower at LaShish? 

Left to Right… it’s Jacob, Allison, Zach, Paul, and Megan (Taken at LaShish after our big June birthday/anniversary dinner) 

With most of the weekend behind me, I guess it’s a good idea to look back to what I’ve been up to.

Friday’s big event was taking the kids to the Moscow State Circus in Port Huron. This was the second time our kids have gone to the circus and I do have to say that we like taking them. Of course, the biggest annoyance is the constant barrage of marketing aimed at our kids for crap they don’t need.

I won’t talk too much about the trip to Port Huron and back. Let’s just say we got lost a lot and our friends weren’t much better. Thank you God for grace!

Saturday was highlighted by going to PB’s house for a little BBQ with friends. Megan and Kezia got to play together all night long… So that was big fun for the kids. Earlier in the day Megan and I went to Play It Again Sports and picked her up a new soccer ball and baseball glove. I can’t believe she’s getting old enough to be into sports! We also went over to Stoney Creek Cycle to get a flag for the kids bike carrier. To our surprise they gave us one… There’s nothing better than FREE.

Sunday was fairly typical. We went to church [big surprise!] and afterwards went to Chili’s in Washington. As usual there were several families from the church there. Later we went up to visit some of our car camping friends to hang out, eat dinner, and chill by the fire at Metemora State Park. In all 3 of these, we got back home very late.

Today we are planning on heading down to the in-laws house after the Memorial Day parade here in Romeo. We’ll do our annual trip to LaShish to celebrate all of the June birthdays and anniversaries. (Which is a bunch!)

Other stuff:
Golf- Yep, played both Friday and Saturday. Nothing special… I can’t hit the ball straight as usual. But I scrambled well to finish with an 11 over 83 on Saturday and 5 over 41 on Friday.
Vacuum cleaner fun- My big “honey do” this weekend was getting the vacuum to work. I took the stupid thing completely apart only to discover that the problem was that one of the hoses had a nasty block. Once I got it cleaned out we were back in business.
Paul’s curls are gone- We broke down and shaved Paul’s head! He looks a lot different with short hair. In the long run everyone will be happier.
4 days until 29- Yep, my birthday is coming up this Thursday.

Every since my arrival in Romeo I’ve had the occassional random questions from the super far right fundamentalists. The weird part about this is that it doesn’t represent any thought that is currently in our little church.

Here are some examples from a few weeks ago:
– A man walked up to me upset that we were giving away Rick Warren’s “Purpose Driven Life” to visitors. He said, “I heard that he told his church that they should stop reading their Bibles and start reading his book, that’s heresy!”
– This winter, our church ceased being members of the Willow Creek Association since “some people say that those churches don’t teach the Bible and never present the gospel.

Both of those statements misrepresent the truth. Both Saddleback and Willow Creek are churches I know to be good, Bible-teaching, evangelism driven, disciple-making churches.

The moment of truth:
Yesterday, while I was waiting for B lunch to end at the high school I started listening to a “new to me” Christian radio station. WRDT-560 AM I have caught some of Moody’s programs on there occasionally, so I thought maybe I’d catch something good. I was dead wrong. What I got exposed to was hate-filled fundamentalism masked under the terms “truth from God’s word.”

Why do I call them hate-filled? At the bottom of fundamentalism is a works based gospel. In order to be truly saved you have to conform to their view of everything. Clothing. Music. Christian living standards. On and on and on. They will cite Biblical passages, generally deeply out of context to prove their point. In an attempt to make their way right and everyone elses way wrong, they will take people’s comments out of context grossly. It is works based because if you don’t comply to their 1950’s view of Christianity… you are not really a Christian. They will call you a backslider or their new term “a paganized Christian.”

So….
I’ve finally figured out where all of these weird, left field comments come from! Check them out at Southwest Radio Church Ministries.

I wish I had more time for this, but I am off to take my family to the circus. More on that later!

Anyone who has been around the youth ministry business knows that it just is a place of high turnover. For a lot of reasons… it’s a tough job to stay in for a long time.

My heart goes out
I was reading blogs last night when I came across Jonathan’s announcement that he and his wife were stepping down. Their reasons are completely legitimate. They want a family, cannot have a child naturally, and need to adopt. To adopt will simply cost more money than they could afford to pay and raise a child where they live. (In nearby Novi, MI)

For whatever reason, I’ve had a real heart to pray for Jonathon over the past year. I’ve kept an eye on the successes at 707 and I’ve even subscribed to get the Oak Point newsletter. Even though we’ve never met… I’ve become a “Jonathon fan.” [Though I have met his co-worker Joe Snyder]

Another round?
It seems that all around me are hurting youth workers or former youth workers. Just last Friday the guy who helped me out at Lenscrafters was a recovering youth pastor. He had lasted at his church less than 1 year. Double ugh.

I’ve just been reminded that it is the end of the school year… The youth workers graveyard!

Another way?
I don’t know any of the details. But there must be something, anything, that Oak Point could have done to help Jonathon/Amber around for a couple more years. If this is as it has been presented, how come no one stepped up to help them with the costs of adoption? Why couldn’t the church have locked them in for another decade with a forgivable loan or something like that? [Of course, maybe they tried and Jonathan just decided his time was done for now.]

Moving on
As far as I know, I’m not moving on. Things at Romeo seem to be settling down again, I’m helping in areas I don’t want to be helping in… But I’m helping nonetheless. Things with the new pastor are hopefully settling down.

Let’s just hope that Jonathan is the only youth worker I know this spring who is moving on. After last years craziness… I don’t think I can bear any more!

Happy 1st Birthday! 

OK, so I can take a hint
Since my readers aren’t golfers and I manage to toss out a lot of golf lingo… I thought it would only be fair to start describing some of this lingo to you.

Greenside lingo
When a golfer hits his approach shot (a shot meant to get on or near the green) there are several rules that he should observe.

1. Always aim for the center of the green.
2. Determine how far the hole is from the center vertically. (So you can measure the distance of the shot.)

Beyond that, the golfer should make a decision where he’d like to play the shot and where he’d like to avoid playing the shot.

Position A: (Called position A) This is right below the hole. Ultimately, the player is left with either a straight or uphill putt. This leaves the player with the best chance to score.
Position B: (Called leaving it long) This means that the player hit the ball on the green [good] but left himself with a long, unmakeable shot. This may require 2 or more shots to get the ball in the hole. (2 putts or less per green is the goal)
Position C: (Called short-sided) This could be OK, but is generally not a good thing. It often leaves the player with a difficult chip with little to no chance of scoring well.
Position D: (Called short-side bunker) This is death for the player. Since the sand makes it difficult to get the ball out the player generally would have to hit the ball too hard to keep it near the hole. This would be the least scorable position marked.
Position E: (Normal bunker shot) On some courses, this would be a desirable miss. But in most instances the player is still going to be happy to hit the ball from the bunker to within 10 feet of the hole. Being in this position is better than position D since it allows the ball more room to roll out all of it’s energy. The bad part is that most golfers are so terribly in the sand that they may hit the ball over the green and to position D or C.
Position F & G: (Called long or short) Both are OK misses. The player is left with a long enough chip that he has a high percentage shot of getting the ball within a makeable distance for a one-putt.

Related lingo:

– Save: This is when the player misses the green then hits the ball once for a chip and one putts for par.

– Sand save: Same as a save, just from the bunker.

– 3 putt: Taking 3 putts to get the ball in the hole. This is a dreaded mistake in golf.

The big idea
As I self-reflected a bit this morning, half-dreading my day and half-embracing the new challenge of it I began to think seriously about my “life strategy.”

I can’t lie. I think of myself and the ministry I lead in grandiose terms. Not in a bragging way or in a self-righteous/self-centered way… But I have always dreamed of running a ministry that is fantastic. Lives changed, new believers, waking up the sleeping ones, and reforming an old dusty church into one that not only believes in itself enough to think it can change their community… But actually gets out there and does it.

I’ve always felt that way about this place. I see this church as a place that can and should wake up so Christ can shine on them in a new, fresh way. But as I reflected this morning I was stricken by their sleepiness. They simple are not awake!

The Question
As I get frustrated with their “ability to sleep through life” I am also stricken by the clock. Time is a wasting. How long do I have to expose the sleepy people to light before they will wake up? (Eph 5:14a) What if they are not sleeping, but dead?

Donald Trump leadership?
What this all boils down to is this. How long should I lead people who don’t want to wake up? If I were a business person and the culture of the company took this long to reform… I’d be an idiot not to move on. In fact, while everything “business-wise” about the company could not be more perfect… When the culture is this slow to adapt… It would be better and more “profitable” to simple start over. Bulldoze the existing culture and start over.

If I were in Donald Trump’s boardroom I wonder if he would look at me and say, “PA, you are loyal and I like that… But here you are, full of talent, been educated by the very best… Yet you chose to work for a loser? I don’t get it, I just don’t get it. You could go anywhere and do great things. You’re loyalty to the loser is unforgivable. Why are you there?” My answer is that I’ve sold myself out to making this loser into a winner. In the core of my being I see potential in this place. I can see what it can be… But at what cost? 5 years? 10 years? Is it worth my best years for a risk? This is what I am going through!

Old McDonald leadership?
The flip side of this is simple. A church is not a business. Jesus never referred to his disciples as managers and his disciples never referred to the early church as a business. In fact, it wasn’t until the mid-20th century that the church became overrun with business methodology. Before that… People like myself looked at their church like a flock or a crop. From that perspective I can look at this place and say “I’ve got good soil, good location, good fertilizer, and the right equipment. I can make these fields grow a harvest!” A farmer just taking over a old farm cannot expect a full harvest in his first years. An asparagus farmer knows that his fields are worthless for the harvest the first year or two. His crowns must grow in… in other words, to get a good harvest the farmer must be patient enough to know that he’s got the right ingredients… He will be rewarded!

I am sitting here, 2 years into my lifetime investment… From a business standpoint… I am a fool. This place is bad for my career. I’m not going to be “great” here. My talents would be better served elsewhere… Where I could flourish in taking an “already winner” to the big dance. I know that. But I’m not in business am I? I’m in people agriculture now! Being patient is part of the game. Overcoming adversity, floods… Bugs… Drought…. This is all part of the process that I have to accept.

Yet the question remains… How patient can even the farmer be when there is no harvest year after year? At some point, even when all the conditions are perfect… If there is no harvest a farmer must choose… When is the field just not worth it?

Thankfully, I don’t think I am there yet.

You know, I was at a meeting tonight and I was thinking to myself… “How can I encourage these people when I don’t feel very encouraged?“

But, but, but…
It’s a weird thing to be a leader. Particularly to be a spiritual leader. Folks are always looking to me to get a “warm fuzzy.” I am happy to ablidge in doing my part 90% of the time. But what about the times when I’m feeling empty and they are looking to me for that “warm fuzzy” or that encouragement from God’s Word.

Is it OK for me to look them in the eye and say, “I know life sucks for you right now, to be honest with you, my life sucks right now too… I wake up every day and question why I do what I do… so if you want to be encouraged… look somewhere else!”

Of course, I can’t do that. I have to “force encouragement” and be professional… but as I reflect on what it means to live incarnationally with these people, I often wonder how that tangibly works out.