A leap of faith...

http://newsongchurchkpt.org/

I'm excited, anxious, and at peace all at once.  Why? Lord willing we will launch a new church this weekend.  Check out our website, above, for more info.

For some, you'll ask why do we need another church in the South; there's a church on every corner...  Others will wonder if this the best time.  Certainly people will ask other questions.  My response: What if God guided us to this point, and, what if souls will be saved that otherwise might not have?

What do we hope to accomplish?
Spreading God's Kingdom influence, period.

Who do we hope to reach?
While everyone is welcome, we have a special heart for people who have drifted away from their faith or have never entered into faith in the 1st place....

What makes us distinct?
We are Christians only, but we aren't the only Christians.  Our focus is on the core of Christianity, i.e. unity of the essentials, while leaving a lot of open areas for us to not worry about; we do not have to agree on every point to have fellowship.  Another distinction, we'll partner with other groups in our community serving local needs; we want to bring glory to God and we don't have to reinvent the wheel.  Finally, what sets us apart, we'll strive to incorporate people of all backgrounds and genders in serving and worshiping God.  

If you are looking for a breath of fresh air with something new and different and you'd like to experience freedom in Christ, we'd love to see you Sunday at 10 am, room 239 in the Kingsport Renaissance center.

What Ministry couldn't provide Concrete can:

(Picture above: Jacob is brooming & I'm on my knees troweling cement)

I love ministry immensely, I enjoy devoting my life to it and feel it's my calling.  Yet, there's something that I get out of working in concrete that ministry can't provide.  I just finished up a driveway, one I've been fitting in on weekends and evenings.  As I looked over the final pour last night, I thought about a particular reward concrete offers that I never captured in ministry.

Working concrete, daily I enjoy the outdoors -- smelling grass, fresh fields and the earthy aroma of the broken ground.  I see the stars (I leave before the sunrises and get home after dark most of the time).  Working concrete has helped me to shed a few pounds too....  There's a great feeling of comradery when a crew is on the same page.  My awareness of the weather increases, and I'm taught to appreciate the days it doesn't rain so we can work, and the rain-days so my body can rest.  My body feels fatigue, a good fatigue, and so I hit the pillow drained but the endorphins flowing from a hard day's work trick me into thinking the physical stress is good.

All of these are nice, but these aren't what I'm talking about.

In ministry one never really has a sense of accomplishment, not in the sense of completion that is.  Concrete gives this type of peace of mind.  Ah, there's the start, middle, and end of the job.  We break ground, and in a certain time, we wrap up our tools and sweep up and we're gone.  Looking back, you can see the challenges, and see the project through.  You form up the pour, dump the concrete, finish it, strip off the boards, clean up and go.  In ministry, Sunday morning always comes around; sermons don't write themselves...  There's always another meeting to attend, a bulletin article to write, a visit to make.  A new believer needs more discipleship.  Building projects need to be paid off or maintained.  On and on... Again, I love ministry, but there's that element of the ministry where there's no end in sight.  One could literally work 24/7 and never finish all there is to do in congregational ministry.

I doubt I've really explained it well.  Think of this like you were on KP duty, forever.  You're in front of a five foot high pile of potatoes that no matter how hard or how fast you peel them, there will never be a day when you are done peeling...  BTW: I actually like peeling potatoes and making homemade mashed-potatoes too.

In ministry, which is a great way of life, people need nourishment from the Word, because we are all growing in our faith we have cycles of ups and downs, people are coming into the faith, others are struggling in their faith.  Faith is a living, breathing reality that is dynamic and, and, and, well you get the picture, serving in the realm of faith doesn't have a finish-line, there's no final culmination where everything is summed up.  Let's face it, everyone enjoys the satisfaction of either finishing a homework project or remolding job around the house some time in their life.

I think God enjoys a sense of completion.  He created the creation, then rested on the 7th day.  He commands a Sabbath rest for His people.  He has a day when He will bring time to an end.

I don't think there's anything wrong with the aspect of ministry that seems more like a treadmill than a marathon most of the time; it's part of the territory.  Still, I am human, and I really enjoy the satisfaction of a job well done...

Own your faith because your forefathers deserve your best:

I'm amazed at the efforts we as Christians put forth to not offend.  Our faith is offensive; Jesus offend the defensive Pharisaical machine of His day.  Jesus says His followers with be on the ropes from friend, family and foe because of His message.  


That doesn't mean we try to be purposely offensive, immature, or obnoxious, it's simply true that the radical changes our faith calls for offends people.  If the Bible hasn't ruffled your feathers, maybe you need to re-read it.  If Jesus' message hasn't challenged you, maybe you aren't ready to challenge others to find their faith, yet.  


Our sinful hearts are prideful and stuck in a rut until God liberates us, and no one who thinks they are free appreciates being told they are a foolish slave to sin.  Therefore, our message is offensive, but not in a punitive way.  Think of it like an intervention with an addict; how many addicts start out immediately thanking the group?  No, there's the denial then defensiveness, and then the attacks they aim at the group and their refusal to accept personal responsibly.  Sharing the Gospel can sometimes have that same affect...


Oh, and for "religious people" or "intellectual superpowers" I Cor 1:23 clarifies most people are flat-out offended by our message, "but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles..."  We either risk angering people or appear looking foolish, unless we are merely snake-oil salesmen...


More to the dangerous point I really want to make, in our efforts to not offend we sometimes try to not offend the memory of those who went before us in the faith.  It's not that I'm opposed to the proper respect due to those whose shoulders we stand on; I'm against misplaced respect that nurtures nostalgia over personal growth.  "We've never done it that way before" or a host of synonymous phrases become nothing more than the sandpaper we smooth our collective coffin with.   


A personal faith that truly honors our heritage will be a vibrant faith that goes deeper, gains more individual ownership, and reaches out with more influence on unbelievers than ever before.  If we want to authentically honor our heritage and respect our heroes in the faith, we won't memorialize the past to the extent that is handicaps our creativity or mobility to learn and grow.  Or, as Solomon put it in Eccl 7:10, "Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?”  For it is not from wisdom that you ask this."


Paul wrote in I Cor 11:1-2, "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you."  Paul advocated a tradition that reproduced imitators of Christ, not a cookie-cutter program that simply defended it's own self-perpetuation.  May we learn to follow Christ through those who went before us, with a consistent fresh vitality not with stale cliches that only make sense to those within our country club.  

The hardest part of change:

One lesson I'm learning well in our wilderness wandering is that looking back is pointless.  I want to look forward, perhaps more than at any time in my life.


Let me quickly circle back for one moment and say "yes" I said wilderness wandering, it's a great metaphor for where I feel we are.  Why? Having left the security of the enslavement of institutionalism, I feel like we are on the verge of the Promised land.  I can't go back to the golden-chains of the mainline, institutional structure that I was once deeply enmeshed in.  What the future is holding, only God knows for sure.  


I mean no disrespect for people who can thrive in an institutional-mainline church setting; simply put, personally I can't.  some of the people I love & respect the most are in that type of setting.  I'm not saying I'm out of full-time ministry for life, but I am saying I can't ever go back the same-ol-same-ol structure I've been in.  I love doing ministry because I want to, not because I have to. I'm thankful for being sidetracked in the desert, it's rather liberating.


Okay, back to the point I was trying to make about looking forward...
Recently we were having a great discussion with a few friends, discussing Bible things, and someone asked a question.  We had looked at a passage in I Timothy 2 at length, and we saw it in a different light than our heritage typically has.  Someone asked, "How would you help someone see this particular point?" (my loose paraphrase of their question)    


At that point something clicked in my brain, and I said, there is a certain powerful phenomena we experience when we weave/braid together: Nostalgia over our golden-years, our Comfort-zone, and our hesitation to rock the boat/upset, or make people uncomfortable.  That emotional rope can hold us back from seeing Scriptures in a fresh way.   At that point, the person who asked the question about helping others see I Tim 2 more clearly, mimicked wrapping a rope around their neck and said, if we aren't careful that rope we weave is the noose we hang ourselves with...  


So, as I work concrete these days and feel like we are being led by a pillar of Cloud by day & a pillar of Fire by night, I've thought about change quite a bit.  I know I can never go back to the garlic, cucumber or pots overflowing with meat (Check out Numbers 11:5) and I'm looking forward to where God is leading us.  Change, even when we can clearly see it is a change for the best is still hard for most of us. The hardest part of change just might be the willingness of letting go of the one so you can grab onto the other...

In God's hands:

After a 15 or 16 year break from it, I've been back into concrete full-time for a few weeks now.  My hands are past the stage in this picture, blistered; my hands are callousing up rather well..., well accept for the tips of my fingers and creases in my thumbs that have cracked open. But this post isn't about blisters or tough skin.

I want to write about how God works out awesome circumstance in my life:

For starters, one of our former neighbors had a new concrete driveway poured just days before we moved.  Tammy saw the concrete crew doing the driveway and mentioned to me that I should check-out the company.  The company had stuck a sign in the yard, kind of like a Realtor sign.  I didn't talk to the crew, but did look up the company online.  Turns out, on their website they were looking for a finisher.  Since I really only know two areas of work, ministry and concrete, I called.  I met with the owner, at Starbucks :-) and we spent the entire morning talking.  We really hit it off, and he hired me.

It gets better.  My new boss is a Christian, and, he's interested in developing his people...  He has in the past (several years in a row) taken his employees to Catalyst in Atlanta.  If you aren't in Church leadership, you may not have heard of Catalyst.  Catalyst is a conference I'd love to go to, haven't had the opportunity yet though.  

Think about this for a minute, a concrete company taking its crew to Catalyst.  To really appreciate this, picture your stereotypical construction worker in a setting like a Bible lectureship, but instead of a general audience in mind, the speakers are bent on equipping leaders.  Picture yourself at this high-powered leadership conference with speakers like Jim Collins ("Good to great"), and instead of "just" seeing preachers and youth minsters in khakis and Polos, you see a group of guys in flannels and jeans... and scruffy work boots.  Think Acts 4:13....

It is interesting to me that a concrete crew would end up at a high profile leadership seminar, one that is mostly directed to ministry leaders.  My boss paid for everyone's ticket, meals, lodging, etc.  The economy, being what it is the last couple of years hasn't been helpful, so my boss didn't take the crew last year or this year.  Oh, By the way, my boss doesn't know I blog, so this is for your benefit, no kissing-up here!  Bottom line, my respect for my new boss went way-up when I heard about the trips to Catalyst.  

I guess what I'm really trying to say tonight is that I'm feeling so very blessed right now.  I have a boss that not only is a Christian, he's truly interested in developing his people.  It blows my mind how God works.  When things went down last Spring the way they did, our friends said time and again (as they supported us spiritually and emotionally), "God has something great in store for you."  I know what they meant was, there was some awesome church "out there" waiting for us.  There was no "out there" in the end.  God had plans for us I didn't see.  We're still here, much to the surprise of most everyone.  

Don't get me wrong, concrete is tough work.  I come home exhausted, sore, and starved most nights.  But, I love where God has brought me though.  I thank God just about everyday for my job.  As much as I miss the rhythms and cycles of full-time ministry and look forward to being back in full-time ministry, God has led me to a place I never would've found on my own -- into a place where He is growing me in new and exciting ways.

One more tidbit: My blood pressure has dropped from 149/95 to 122/84, coincidence, I think not.   

Eccl 9:10, "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going."

Baggage

Drew (our oldest) and I hiked about 12 or 14 miles on the Appalachian trail this summer.  I can't wait till we can hit the trail again!  Was it easy, no.  It was humbling.  I thought we could go 30 +  miles in three days & two nights.  Drew thought it though before we left for the trail-head & mentioned we should try out two days & one night our first go-around, he was right.

It's amazing how heavy your backpack gets when you pack for one overnight camping trip...  My pack felt like it was about 70 pounds.  Still, as heavy as that pack was, it was a liberating experience knowing you could carry everything you needed for your survival.  

In our family's recent move across the subdivision, I joked that a house fire wouldn't have hurt my feelings.  Obviously not the kind of house fire where anyone was hurt; just the type of house fire that would've removed the responsibility of packing, loading, moving, unloading & unpacking... 

Before you misunderstand me, we aren't hoarders or pack-rats.  Nor are we people who have a lot-of-lot stuff.  Also, let me add, Tammy impressed me with what she was able to pare down &  pack away for an upcoming yardsale.   

I have a new philosophy on possessions.  My new view is that I'd like to pare my possessions down to what would fit into my backpack.  No joke.  

I recently shared my new stance with a longtime mentor of mine, a dear friend Ted Matthews.  Ted pointed out how that might seem nice, but with having a family comes the responsibility of caring for them, and that requires stuff/things.  I guess Ted is right, but I still would like to be able to only own what I can carry on my back.

This is not one of those emotional rants where you are challenged to "prioritize" your possessions and share what you'd put into your backpack, like at some Summer camp devo, or Youth retreat.  I've seen those talks, I'm not going down that path.  

This also is not a guilt trip, i.e., sermonizing post, where I tell you how the Bible is full of passages (which you could read them) which lay out the truth we brought nothing into the world & we'll take nothing out of it either.  You know the old cliche about how there are no U-hauls heading into the cemetery...  Keyword, cliche. 

Finally, this post isn't some "spiritual" superiority complex where I say I want to be more like Jesus than you are.  After all, He had nowhere "to lay His head..."  This is self-centered talk here!  This is what I really want for me, I'm not pushing this off on anyone.

No, this feeling I have about wishing I could pare my junk down to what I can fit into my backpack is something that I can't shake.  Since we spent a few weeks packing, then a solid week/week and a half, trudging our stuff to our new place, and then all the getting settled in..., I really think having a bunch of stuff is overrated.  

Tonight while I was reading a historical account about one of the most successful inter-generational families, I thought to myself -- what in my life would change if I were independently wealthy, or were a millionaire?  How would I live or act differently?  I may be naive, but I can't think of much changing.  I'd still want to be with and eat dinner with my family every single day.  I'd still want to read voraciously....  I'd still want to invest my life in helping people know God.  Sure having wealth would ease some stress, and maybe make it possible to do some traveling.  But I'm guessing 99% of my existence would be about the same.  

I don't sit around wishing I could accumulate more stuff. Instead, lately I think to myself daily, maybe hobos aren't as dumb as we think they are?

It's been about 6 months since I've blogged.  A lot has gone on in our lives since I've transitioned out of the NE church.  The Lord blessed our family with a great summer together.  If you've followed any of our FB or Twitter posts, you know we hit the beach, went to D.C. for a couple of days, relaxed, Klay and I drove to AR and visited Drew & Laura once, and every week we've grilled a lot, a lot.  Want to hear something funny?  About two years ago I asked the church for a Sabbatical, at the time I didn't get it, so I'm thanking God for the sabbatical I did get this year...

Life has felt disoriented over the last several months, as you might expect.  Not working, moving, trying to find our way, wondering what God is teaching us in all of this, you name it.  Many good friends, from near & far, have come along side us in our pain and have offered much needed encouragement.  I've had a lot of heartfelt phone calls from friends out of state, and several meals with good friends in town.  I'm looking at life differently than I did one year ago, even six months ago.  Many blessings have given us glimmers of hope, and we've seen God's hand in weird ways we wouldn't have normally thought about, too.  Some people have distanced themselves, while other people have drawn closer.  I don't really expect anyone to understand how we feel, but it's true, you do find out who your real friends are.

I'm back to working concrete for the time being.  With the economy still limping along and the weather turning, well you can figure that one out.  I'm thankful for a job and hope for the best.  Nervous?  Somewhat.  It's a little bit surreal, working construction after about a 17 year break from it...

In many ways, after the experiences of the last few years, my adrenal glands and my sanity needed a breather.  So I'm thankful for the past few months.  Now, I'm looking around and I feel kind of like Mel Gibson's character in the Road Warrior after his wreak, mixed with Tom Hank's character in Cast Away.  I'm not sure where I am in the plot of Cast Away right now, I'm certainly past the plane crash, but I don't know if I'm past the scene where he knocks out his tooth with the ice-skate, or if he's back in civilization already?  I think I'm learning about myself, that's always a good thing.  I know my prayers have changed, and I appreciate the small things more.  I don't take a lot for granted these days.  I miss my old life, sometimes, but I don't want to go back, not one little bit.

Why haven't I blogged?  Honestly, my mind pretty much shut down over the last few months.  I lost a lot of creativity.  Well, let me rephrase that, I haven't felt creative.  My mind, emotionally & intellectually kind of went into hibernation.  This year, the rhythmic centering I usually experience preparing lessons, sermons, articles, etc. has all been shifted.   I'm just now lately feeling like I have a voice, or have something worthwhile to say, or an interest to write.    My mind has felt starved.  My spirit felt flat.  Now, I'm feeling the tingling sensation bears certainly must feel when it's time to wake up and feed themselves.  It's almost midnight here, my alarm clock is set for 5:55 a.m., and I probably should be in bed now.