A Final 2012 Reflection On My ‘One Word’ – Follow

It is just past noon here in Northeast Indiana where I live. In twelve hours, God willing, it will be 2013 and I simply place that time frame in His hands.

2012 has been an interesting year and following God has certainly been interesting.

My family and I were sitting in a wonderful warm and comfortable town home at this time one year ago not knowing what our address would be that time next year. The journey to our current home was truly a journey in following as we navigated some uncertainty before we landed in our new home.

It has also been a very inward journey this year as I have follow God through the overwhelming depths of my soul in a period of earnest examination. One of the results was making some amends, one for an old lie and the other for a ‘more recent’ misunderstanding. In both cases, it was a liberating experience.

Probably the biggest thing that I learned this year in  following the Lord is when it gets to the hardest and even most spiritually tense and even dark moment, the necessary breakthrough is just around the corner.

For 2013 my one word is Empower. I hit the mid-50′s just over a week ago and I realize more and more that I am needing (and wanting) to empower the younger generation as well as the congregation that I serve. So I turn to God and say, “empower me to do Your will.”

Have a blessed 2013!

 

One last thing – I have created a twitter account for this blog. It is @Le_Padre_Livre and you are welcomed to follow me there. I will not be using it except for creating tweets that feature my blog feed.

 

My One Word, Follow: Adulthood and the Church

In late October, speaker and writer Margaret Feinburg posted a piece on her website with the very insightful and thought provoking title of “An Open Letter to Everyone Over 40 Who Has Left the Church” which you can read by clicking on this link http://margaretfeinberg.com/margarets-monday-musings-an-open-letter-to-everyone-over-40-who-has-left-the-church/

(By the way Margaret I thought that it was interesting that you posted it on what would have been my parent’s 57th wedding anniversary had my father lived. Talk about two people who stayed, and have stayed with, the church (my mom is 88 and still actively attends the church she and dad started attending 30 years ago!) and through thick and thin!

What struck me about this post were the responses. The post struck a chord with many readers both over and under 40. As I read them, and I contributed one myself, and as I thought about what had been said, I stepped back and reflected further on my life and involvement in a local church.

I wanted to write a post on this subject last month but the draft (which has been modified into this post) did not satisfy me and so I let it sit and allowed my thoughts to ripen and they did. As I pondered the title of this post I was drawn to the word ‘adulthood’ and something clicked! While I am very much committed to the truth and authority of scripture I am also a student of adult development which became of interest to me in my seminary days in the mid-80′s.

I used to think that adulthood was static and almost like a flatline! In other words, once you hit 21 then life setting into a predictable hum of, well, monotony. How wrong I have been!

I think that part of Christian discipleship, is to help Christians navigate the developmental tasks of adulthood in ways that are, to quote the late Erik Erikson, ‘generative’ and not ‘stagnation.’

It seems from the comments (and I acknowledge that Feinburg writes only about the issue, and a very important issue, of the empty nest in her post) that for most people, adulthood goes flatline after child raising has been done! But there is life after parenthood!

And to me this is where local churches, and the church at large, needs to take discipleship further out on the time line. Much has been focused on the young adult and parenting aspects of living. Very important to address but there is more to adulthood and adult discipleship than being twenty or thirty and being a parent.

I am going to suggest here that perhaps one of the reason many people walk away from the church after the years of ‘active’ parenting are done is that there is no community in place for those people who are navigating and have navigated the turbulance of the empty nest period when, what is now beginning to be called “The Grey Divorce” (go to this Wall Street Journal article for more information http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203753704577255230471480276.html ) is on the rise.

In short, the local church needs to help those beyond the ‘active’ parenting years discern God’s direction for them because as life-spans increases Christ’s call to ‘follow me’ is still present. Maybe then, vibrant communities of post forty year olds will develop and truly become mentors and partners for the those under forty as Feinburg calls for in her post.

These are my Thursday Thoughts

My One Word 365: “Propelled by Discomfort”

The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers. M. Scott Peck

Earlier this week I spent part of a day with my pastoral colleagues at our annual state gathering. The opening segment of our time together was spent hearing some of my colleagues talking about the values of benefits of entering into a coaching experience. As I listened to them, I moved, in turn between possibility thinking and despair. The possibility thinking was along the lines of “I could do that. I could let someone come alongside me.” The despair was, “I cannot do it by myself.”

The line of possibility thinking won the day.

And so I am making plans to entering into a coaching relationship with someone.

The above quote, title Propelled by Discomfort” was posted via email that same day by Emergent Village. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

The church that I have been privileged to serve for over a dozen years has accomplished a lot especially since it nearly closed the year before I came. Their decision to stay open and try again was the right decision. We have raised a significant sum of money for a new building, bought property, started hiring part-time ministry staff, and have thrived. I am grateful to God and praise Him for His good work.

And we have worked at discerning God’s will. But it is time, I believe, to see ‘external eyes’ to help us see forward.

A few days later another of the daily emails from Emergent Village had this gem from Anne Lamott in her book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life:

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is … based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it.

The voice of despair in my head earlier this week was my perfectionist yelling at me.

I am not perfect.

Neither were the twelve disciples.

What all of this says to me about my one word, follow, is that what has often pushed me forward in following Jesus is the discomfort of my soul. The ease of standing still and merely ‘thinking’ about making something happen has been, and continues to be, a problem.

This week the value, the cost, and the challenge of following Jesus was brought into full view.

I am choosing to keep following…

My One Word: Follow… Warts and all

The August 30, 2012 daily thought from Emergent Village featured this quote from E. Kent Rogers and his book 12 Miracles of Spiritual Growth

The goal is not perfection. The goal is love … It is not  necessary to be perfect to be loving. On the contrary, were it not for
our own imperfections and the imperfections of those around us, love would be impossible … When we continue to give to others despite their warts and flaws, then love is becoming something real.

“Hi, I’m Jim and I am a recovering perfectionist!”

I often say that to my congregation in a sermon or to someone in conversation. I often laugh after I say it because I say it half-jesting and half-serious. (Sometimes more serious than jesting.)

In this post, I am all serious. I AM a recovering perfectionist.

Perfectionism I have discovered is a joy killer in my following Christ. It also kills the ability to truly love well and that is what caught my attention in Rogers’ quote.

‘But Jim, Jesus said be perfect as I am perfect.’

You are right, but that word can also be translated as mature and, without getting preachy here (something that I do not like to do) when we read what Jesus has just said about our relationships with people, I think that a case can be made for Jesus say to His originial audience- ‘grow up!’

Perfectionism keeps us from growing up. It causes us to raise the bar on the wrong metric – that of performance. The right metric is motivational or attitudinal (re-read Matthew 5 again from the perspective of motivation and attitude and not performance). Perfectionism is fear-based not love-based. Perfectionism and shame go hand-in-hand.

As I think then about the following of Jesus by the twelve, the warts became clear. Peter with his implusiveness. Judas with his betrayal. Their ‘not getting it’ at times. And if Jesus expected perfection out of them He was, I am sure sorely disappointed.

But He didn’t, did He? He made clear in His final words before His arrest and cruxificion that love was the greatest sign of obedience to Him and NOT perfection.

I am a ‘recovering’ perfectionist. I still judge, very unfairly at times, others and how they do or not do things. I expect my kids to NOT fail. They do. Sometimes disgust is more rampant within me than patience (a great sign of love, by the way.)

But, I have been reminded by a wise person that love is the goal and not perfection… warts and all.

I can aim at that…warts and all…

These are my Thursday thoughts

My One Word: “Follow” Whose script?

“I grew up knowing I had to be a success for others.” Sandy Warman

This week I encountered this gem of a sentence and it gave me pause for reflection.

And as I write these words I am reminded of one my favorite films, Dead Poets Society, that includes the tragic death of a promising young man who could not rip up the script that had been written for him. He had to be a success for others, namely his father.

As I have continued to ponder this statement, I remembered something that I had been taught growing up. (Paraphrased after all these years, too.)

“If you are going to follow Jesus you will not please everyone and some people will simply not like you because of it.”

I have often forgotten that.

I tell people who are entering the ministry that many people will have a ‘wonderful plan for your life’ and they cannot let them dictate the script they are to follow.

There are days when I truly feel like an outsider. The community I live in, as wonderful as it is, is not the community I grew up in. I go to meetings or events and I feel like an outsider. I am not in business. I do not own a boat or a motorcycle. I do not work on a production line. I am a pastor. I deal with the unmeasurable and unquantifiable things.

Now before you are ready to jump and say, “You are feeling sorry for yourself, just join in!” please hear me carefully.

To follow Christ, I have learned requires me to follow a different script. One that is not popular at times.

I want to follow Christ and that means I want to follow His script, His mission, His purpose and not someone else’s script.

This means I will not be a ‘success’ for others. It does not mean that I will disregard people and their thoughts and feelings either. But it does it mean that I will listen to and for that quiet voice of God directing my path.

Following Christ is difficult at times. It means that some relationships will never be close ones. It means that I will not be invited to ‘join in.’
And that hurts at times.

But I found that when there is a ‘no’ as I follow Christ… there is also a ‘yes’ as well.

These are my Thursday thoughts

 

Fellowship/Hospitality: “Following” My One Word

Sarah Cunningham, who blogs at www.sarahcunningham.org , has recently written some very wonderful posts about community and fellowship and during a recent event, two images captured my and my camera’s eye that to me illustrated community and fellowship. I will simply let them speak for themselves.

;

This Past Year: My One Word “Follow”

It began this week one year ago.

“It” being the past 52 weeks.

52 weeks of joy, pain, sickness, fear, certainty, and growth.

This time a year ago had me dealing with what turned out to be, when I finally went to the doctor, a bladder and a kidney stone. I had kidney stones in the past and so I had a sense of what it was. By late September I was delivered from the discomfort.

Then the year took an unexpected turn in mid-October when we, that is my family and I, discovered we would have to move from our house the congregation I serve had rented during my eleven years and then three prior to that. It was old and falling apart and those who owned it said no more money would be put into it. We had three months to look and move.

We moved into a very nice place two weeks later. A very nice place that was for sale and then was taken off the market for five months. We wintered there in comfort.

March found me coughing and coughing and coughing and well… you get it. A severe respiratory infection had taken hold and would not let go… not until mid-June after several rounds of antibiotics. So I barked my way through the sermon on Sunday, twice and coughed my way into the record books.

April comes and the temporary residence goes back on the market…

… and is sold within a week.

Now the fun begins!

Do we rent or do we buy? Our church leadership is supportive and through what I call caring action, enables us to think buying as well as renting.

We choose the unthinkable… we start looking, with a mid-May target date to move, to buy!

There are homes that we like but they are scooped up befrore we can formulate an offer.

We make an offer, its rejected. We do not counter.

Meanwhile there is the home that keeps popping up in our search range that I like the first time I see it.

Panic and anxiety begins to set in as we enter mid-April and no place to go.

And that house I like?  Well after two trips through it we make an offer, on our anniversary no less, that is countered and we accept the counteroffer.

But we have to find a temporary place to live as it will take a while for closing and such to occur.

But while this is going on I have this growing sense that something is about to change. And it does! The sale on our temporary housing falls through!

We can stay till we move! But then the subsequent tragic deaths of two dear friends occurs and reminds us that there are weighty matters as well. We grieve and mourn their passing – one in her 30′s -mother, wife, God servant and the other on a honeymoon with his second wife.

Eventually the closing takes place and then we wait for the 30 day period afterward to come to an end. It comes early and we move in just before we make a big trip!

At the end of July, the emotional intensity of the year, notably the move, wears off and I feel like Elijah did after his time on Mt Carmel with the prophets of Baal. Exhausted and depressed I struggle to believe and hope. But eventually what I have just written to you becames clear to me and I realize where I have been and that the Lord has walked with me through illness, significant change, deep grief, and deep and essential spiritual experiences.

And I am grateful to God as I followed Him and He walked with me.

These are my Thursday Thoughts…

 

My One Word: To Follow ‘With’ or To Follow ‘For’?

“You have two options: serve the Lord or work in the church. They are not the same… Don’t work for God, work with God…Working for God will turn you into an employee of the church, but serving with God will make you a collaborator with Him.”

Jose Luis Navajo, Mondays with My Old Pastor

With summer vacation winding down in this part of Indiana, I am getting back into my blogging routine and my Thursday posts that reflect the One Word that I have chose for 2012 (www.myoneword.org) which is ‘Follow.’

It has been an interesting, at times difficult and yet at other times very, very growing year as I have focused on simply following Christ. (Simple? Sure, Jim!)

A key reason I have used the word Follow for this year is that in the past I have had the problem of blurring my faith from my line of work. And the above quote from Jose Luis Navajo’s wonderful book (which I will soon finish and post a review of) reminds me that as I follow Christ it must be with Him and not for Him. Yes, I am a pastor but in years past I realized that I must follow Him as a person who needs His grace and mercy and not because of what I do.

So the line between being a ‘professional Christian’ and a ‘simple follower’ of Him is a fine one. One that I am determined to stay on the right side of.

 

My One Word: Follow… and Grace?

Our congregation recently called a part-time associate minister whose primary responsibility is for senior adults. But he has graciously taken leadership of our Wednesday night Bible study with some wonderful results.

The main result is that the group decided to start with Genesis 1, read it aloud then offer comments and suggestions and then move on two Genesis 2, read it aloud, then offer comments and suggestions and then onto Genesis 3… well you get the idea.

It is a lecto divina practice in my opinion and it is paying dividends!

Last night we read through Genesis 27 which contains the story of Easu and Jacob and the dysfunctional family dynamics that had mom (Rebekah) deceiving dad (Isaac) by manipulating Jacob’s appearance in order to gain the blessing, a vital action in the family inheritance plan, of  Issac though Jacob was the second born.

Now I have heard this story and read this story many, many times over the decades.

But last night as I heard it read aloud and in the community of 11 other people, I asked myself “Why didn’t God counter Rebekah’s action?” The correct order of inheritance was  Esau and then Jacob. If God, would have intervened, then Esau would have been mentioned in Matthew 1, Christ’s genealogy. But God did not and I remembered Genesis 25:23:

The Lord said to her,

“Two nations are in your womb,
and two peoples from within you will be separated;
one people will be stronger than the other,
and the older will serve the younger. ”

There is a part of me that wants to say to God, “you blew it!” And, of course, this says more about me that God.

But then I thought of all the changes (detours?) in the course of my own life and I have to come to accept the possibility that God in His good and great wisdom has often said, “no Jim not this time or this way. We go this way.”

And so I have followed God, often stubbornly to be bluntly honest, only recognizing the detour for what it truly was later on.

Some would call this God’s sovereignty and I do not argue with it.

But is it not also a reflection of His grace in my following?

Thursday Thoughts: Fasting and Following

I just discovered that it has been a month since I last posted on a Thursday morning regarding my one word for 2012 – Follow.

Did not think it had been that long!

For those who are unfamiliar with the One Word campaign, this is my share to the One Word 365 emphasis that is found at http://www.oneword365.com

This Lenten season I approached fasting from an entirely different perspective.  And in keeping with the spirit of Matthew 6:16 “And when you fast, don’t make it obvious, as the hypocrites do, for they try to look miserable and disheveled so people will admire them for their fasting.,” I am simply going to say that this new approach and what I am fasting from has given me a clearer focus and some  profound spiritual experiences and for that I am grateful.

Scot McKnight’s book on Fasting,  simply called Fasting and published by Thomas Nelson, has been a great help here and his definition of fasting as a response to a “grievous sacred moment” and it is part of the perspective shift that I have had this Lenten season. Thanks Scot!

What this means regarding my one word of “follow” is that I have discovered that in following the Lord there are moments when the best response to something that has occurred is to fast. Wow. Amazing.

these are my Thursday thoughts