Category: hmm… thoughts

I’ve been noticing this lately. Not a lot, but enough times to being something I’ve noticed. I’ll be at the grocery store or some local restaurant and I’ll see someone who used to go to our church. With our church’s many changes in the last decade and its 166 year history, it’s no wonder that there are a few people in a town of 10,000 who are former members for one reason or another. These are people who I know and consider acquaintances.

And they avoid me.
It’s one of the weirdest things I’ve ever encountered, but they avoid me. They see me in the store and they quickly checkout and leave. They dodge down another aisle. They do whatever they can do to avoid what they think will be an awkward conversation.

What’s up with that?
I’ve got a few thoughts as to why this is happening. But I think I can boil it down to two categories of people who have left our church and how they intersect with avoiding me in public. First, these are people whom I’ve misconnected with or otherwise missed in my ministry. Due to the "law of unspoken expectations" they expected me to be something I wasn’t. (Or any staff member, because in people’s minds all staff members really are 1 person) Maybe I wasn’t as serious as they thought I should be. Or maybe they didn’t like the clothes I wear or my personality. Or maybe they were more conservative than me or more liberal or didn’t like the NIV or the car I drive. So, they’ve now left the church and they just want to avoid me because they can’t stand me. Second, these are people who have left the church for their own reasons. Maybe they left because of music or something that happened with a friend at church or didn’t like some leadership decision or indigestion or any other of the myriad of reasons I’ve heard. But they avoid me because of shame that they carry around about their leaving the church. Honestly, there are a lot of people who have sinned in the way they’ve left the church, and they are ashamed.

Here’s the thing. I don’t feel awkward about it at all. I’ve done ministry long enough to know that people come and people go. The days of people attending one church for a lifetime are long gone… there are simply too many options for people and they treat church as a consumable item. Church, in many people’s eyes, is just another choice in the marketplace. That’s not devaluing anyone or any decision, it is just how the landscape of church is today. (Nor am I stating that this is a good thing or a bad thing, merely a statement of what I see.)

As this happened to me last night, I really hurt for that person as they dodged me at the local grocery store. To walk around your town carrying either anger towards a person or shame about a situation is really sad. How can you live with that kind of stress?

At the same time I wonder about the logic of doing this. Because, the only way it’s ever going to get dealt with is if that person sucks it up and deals with it. They should either talk to me about how I’ve hurt them or allow me to express to them my apologies for whatever happened in the past. Otherwise, they are dodging people from the church for the rest of their lives. It’s really an immature response. It’s the same thing Paul does, and he’s 3 years old.

When Paul has done something bad, he hides. Usually we find him behind the couch or under his bed. That’s just how 3 year olds deal with shame. Kristen and I have to walk around the house and find him. When we find him we either have to talk him out of his hiding place or literally tear him from the place his is hiding as he kicks and screams. As a parent, it’s our role to teach him how to deal with it. We’re commanded by God to go there and do that… how else is he supposed to learn?

I struggle with this as I wonder, is it my role to chase people as they avoid me? Should I be running down the aisles of the grocery store after a grown person screaming "I forgive you!" or "Will you forgive me?"

Somehow I don’t think that’s it either.

OK, this is my last post on the NYWC. Monday was actually pretty simple. We woke up late, packed the room up, put everything in the car, had a breakfast at a diner that is still making me fart, and went to the last general session.

We found great seats in the 6th row and really enjoyed the last session. Carl, Chris, Mel, Jessica, and I enjoyed sitting together through the whole conference and this was no exception. Lost and Found were very silly and fun as usual. Starfield was amazing though they probably need more songs. Marko did a great job ending things with a push for humility, and then Starfield came back to end the whole thing "super fun." We sang one more song and everyone was bouncing around and dancing and having fun.

After everything was said and done I finally got a chance to meet Marko face to face, had lunch with Chris and Carl, and then took Carl to the airport before driving home.

(more…)

OK, more scattered thoughts from the convention.

1. This is when I am about ready to be home. I miss the kids and Kristen a lot at about this time in any trip. I just don’t like traveling without them. And yet we could never afford to bring them all.
2. The only thing I will miss from my hotel room here is the bed. Man, the Hyatt knows how to do beds.
3. I have really enjoyed Carl (my roomate) and Mel’s company. These are two YMX forumites I met here for the first time, and it’s been the difference between enjoying my time here and leaving early. Tonight we went and met the Wilson family at their home in the Cincinnati suburbs. That was incredible… I am so glad I went. Angie, Gracie, and Chris were great to meet.
4. What have I learned? There are 2-3 specific things I will be implementing in LF when we get back. I’ve done this long enough to know that I shouldn’t be looking for a lot of ideas but 1-2 good ideas can make a big difference. Here’s a sample… just like we do Acts 101 at the beginning of the LF talk to affirm what we know about our topic… I’m adding a LF 101 to affirm our identity in Christ. Second, I learned some important stuff about ministering to guys. I needed to sit in on that and I learned what I needed to learn.
5. I rushed my first stage ever. Coming here Bob and I talked about this phenomenon of "why do people rush the stage at Christian conference?" and we talked about it a lot in my Huntington class. Since I was already sitting in the front row this morning and since it looked like fun, when Jars of Clay came out I decided to go for it. It was loud and fun. But I felt pretty stupid up there.
6. I skipped a couple of things today. And I liked it.
7. I bought my only product of the convention today. I bought the NT in mp3 format… it looked cool and it was on sale. I can’t wait to put it on my iPod.
8. I have learned a lot in my research study. Terry Linhart told us, "study something that interests you." And as I look at my data and interviews I think I can share some insights that may lead to something much more. I won’t share anything just yet because it’s too early. But if you saw me in the exhibit hall with my yellow pad taking notes… you saw me. I know at least preliminarily I’d be interested in expanding my data to a few more locations and a using some different methods. I think this really proved to me that this is something that is worth studying more. I’d need some funding to pay my way to various locations… but I think there is something to be learned that would be valuable to both YS and vendors.

I’ve been here in Cincy since early Thursday morning. At times I’ve been distracted away from the convention itself, at times I’ve been interested in using it as a lab, at times I’ve loved it and at times I’ve loathed it. I am, by nature, a critique-er of things more than an enjoy-er of things… so it’s a struggle from the moment I park until the moment I leave to just chill out.

But here’s the thing. Part 1

I needed this. Today marks only the second worship service I’ve missed at Romeo in 2006. I don’t want to raise my hands up and say "I’m skipping church!" as a show of pride or to say that missing church is good or to give others an excuse for missing church today or something…. because that isn’t it… I just want to say to myself, "It’s probably a good thing."As Andy Stanley says, sometimes in order to work on it you’ve got to get away from it. I’ve been able to do that this week.

Here’s the thing. Part 2

This needed me. I have no real role here but to participate. But somehow in the collective spirit of it all, I needed to be here to attend and learn.

Here’s the thing. Part 3

I was and am tired. I think I needed to be here so that I could get back to just being tired… I was somewhere between exhaustion and something else on the scale of boundless energy and burn out… so I needed to step back and just chill for a few days. I want to be in this thing for the long haul… so resting is part of that. Plus, on my "time off" map… this is the very beginning of a rest period for me as I’ll have a few more days off before the end of December. That rocks!

Here’s the thing. Part 4

I don’t know how to explain this, but I think it’s actually good for Romeo that I’m not there today. In my mind I like to be there on Sunday mornings because I like to be with our people and I feel "needed." It’s good for me to be away and say "The church made it from 1840-2003 without me, it’s going to be ok if I’m not there on November 19th, 2006."

Here’s the thing. Part 5

I miss my family. I miss not having Kristen here. I see other couples here together and I wish we had been able to scrape enough money for both of us to be here. But at the same time our last vacation was "for the family" and I think there is room for me to have some time on my own.

Here’s the thing. Part 6

I’ve loved the fun times with new friends, connecting with YMX forumites, and just generally blessing people and getting blessed. I’ve loved the inside jokes and the late late late nights and butt early mornings. That said, I can’t wait to try doing this again in the future with Kristen too.

It’s after midnight now, but I wanted to leave some impression on Saturday before going to bed.

– I went to a session called "Smash Mouth Youth Ministry for Boys" this morning and learned a lot. I went there because I see we have a guy problem in LF and I want to be a part of making things more balanced. This not only gave me some things to do, it also gave me some potential reasons how we’ve gotten in this pattern to begin with.

– I went to breakfast this morning in the hotel. I was just going to bite the bullet and pay the ridiculous prices. When I sat down another convention person asked me if I’d like to sit at his table since he was alone as well. Long story short, he picked up my breakfast and I was thankful. Not only that, but I had a great engaging conversation with a person from Grosse Point. I left that time very encouraged.

– The morning session was incredible. Atmosphere and music was great, talent great, and the speaker was incredible. It was a female who talked about our identity and the identity we should be teaching our students… actually another idea I can implement into LF soon.

– I spent the afternoon doing my research. I spent about an hour at two booths just observing. I learned an incredible amount of stuff…. all very intriguing to me and hopefully helpful to the companies when I present my report later. I’m looking forward to sitting down with the heads of those booths on Sunday and doing the rest of the interview. (Holding back the "who" on this since I’ve agreed to keep stuff confidential)

– Of course, I watched the Michigan vs. Ohio State game. They set up a little tailgate area for the convention folks to watch the game and that was a lot of fun. Marko, from YS, did make good on his dare to wear the Michigan jersey here today…. I give him a lot of credit as it took some guts.

– Tonight I hung out more with my convention pals. Mel, Carl, Chris, and Angela had a great time sitting very near the front tonight. All told, I’ve met about 20-30 YMX people and really enjoyed getting to know Huntington folks and Detroit Youth Workers in a new context. I’ve really felt connected to people here… much cooler than the last time we went. (Sac 02)

– Tonight’s session was special in a lot of ways. I won’t share a lot of details because I know that there is one more to come. But I thought it was great.

– Don’t know a lot of details about this, but we took an offering for a family who does youth ministry, and who has a child suffering from leukemia, and raised $14,000.

Lots of random thoughts!

There are several categories of people who attend the typical church. (Massive generalizations)

• Casual: Hey man, I’m here.
• Here to play my part: Hey, I’m here and I want to worship and I want to serve too.
• Church is my life: Am I ever anywhere else, because all I ever do is come here?

Every staff person I know at a local church wishes they were in that second category but for the most part is in the "Church is my life" camp. I want to say this, all of those are healthy and pleasing to God.

So, it’s 6:45 am on a Sunday… what is the typical pastor doing?

I can’t speak for the hundreds of thousands of pastors out there… but this is what a typical staff person is doing.

• Praying (Crazy, I know)
• Preparing (Finalizing whatever they are doing for Sunday morning)
• Practicing (Just like any profession… pros practice)

I like to get up early on Sunday’s. I generally roll into the parking lot about 7:20 and I’ll leave the property about 12:45. My role is to help the service run as smoothly as possible. We go over all the technical aspects most people wouldn’t think about for a service. Lighting, audio, who says what and when, musicians practice, doors unlocked and lights on, make sure volunteers and paid staff are where they need to be, on and on… my personal favorite is "the unknown job." Every single Sunday something "comes up" that is new, urgent, tragic, pressing, unexpected, odd, funny, painful, embarrassing, or otherwise needs to be handled.

Someone takes care of almost every detail to make a Sunday morning service happen, hopefully smoothly. And in the typical church I’ve served in… all those little details only get noticed when someone doesn’t do something just the way it’s always done. It’s a tricky business eliminating distractions from worship and creating an environment where people can be comfortable enough to take the next step with God… but it is also quietly rewarding. Few things in life bring a pastor more pleasure than seeing the little things they do amount to or result in something really big happening in someone’s life.

Not to often in "serious graduate work" do I have an "aha moment" where something a little fuzzy in my own life gets suddenly clear. Here is a case of just that.

As the church leadership has "wrestled" with implementing our new vision and strategies we’ve been able to articulate what we hope to accomplish but sometimes floundered in articulating the difference between "quality control" and "quality enhancement."

Quality control in church programs:
"Quality control identifies and measures minimum acceptable results." In a church setting, this is simply "Is the Bible being taught reflective of our beliefs?" "Are people being led into a closer relationship with Jesus?" "Are our programs in a safe environment?" "Is the gospel being presented?" Things like that. These are minimum standards which are fairly easy to measure.

Quality enhancement in church programs:
"Quality enhancement focuses on excellence. That is levels of attainment well beyond minimums." This is what we’ve been doing for the last year or so but seen the biggest push in the last few months. "How can we create the best environment for Sunday morning worship?" "How can we best connect new people to the church?" "How can we best disciple kids, students, and adults?" "How can we effectively present Christ to the community we live in?"

Different standards…
Perhaps the hardest thing for us to communicate in the last several months is that the message of the church is not changing. In fact, we are trying to discover and ensure that our message is clearer and better understood than the way we were doing it. Oddly enough, most of our conflicts have been the result of individuals attempting to apply quality control standards to things that can only be measured in quality enhancement.

What?
Simply put… quality control is saying "This is what the Bible says the church is to do, are we doing it?" Most complaints haven’t had anything to do with this at all. Most complaints have come up when someone looks at what we are doing and says, "Since we’ve done this in the past, we have to keep doing it even if it is ineffective." That’s sliding something that isn’t the "minimum measurable" into a "minimum measurable status." For instance, when some have judged our services and said that since we don’t do altar calls we aren’t doing a church service correctly… they’ve elevated something that is a method to a status of "biblically commanded, enforced by church rule," when it is not.

Deep thoughts for the day… 

I think my students like knowing that I’m a student again. As I continue to wrestle my way through a Masters in Youth Ministry Leadership, I’ve come to a challenging class. (Let’s face it, some classes are easier than others)

Qualitative research is a lot like learning how to be a documentarian. It’s a research method that is based on personal interviews. That part, I love. I love discovering the why and how of how organizations work… I really do! What is challenging to me is the amount of terminology in our text book. I’m not lost, but I do catch myself saying constantly… "Who cares!" "Will I ever need all of this philosophical crap?" It’s the same feeling I had when taking trigonometry back in 11th grade.

Of course, having a hard class always drums up this thought… I’ve hated school since about 4th grade, why in the world am I doing graduate work? I’ve got lots of reasons for doing it, really I do.

It’s been about 2 months since the church started shifting to "the new stuff." While it’s been the hardest 2 months of my ministry career (people upset, a few departures) it has also been tremendously rewarding.

• Small groups for both Light Force and adults are going great. We have about 70 adults in small groups right now… way more than Sunday school.
• Phase 1 is essentially complete.  The building looks good and people are very happy with it.
• KidsTown is going really well. All three children’s environments are a hit.

So what’s left? We still have some living room environments to roll out (seniors and married life) but essentially all the "change" is done. At this point it is just a matter of taking what we’re doing and constantly improving and innovating to make what we’re doing better.

All around, I see wins. And it feels good to play for a winner.