new season

God has taught me a lot this season. But most of it revolves around the theme of surrender. I hear him whispering to me:

Do you believe that my way is better than yours?
Do you trust where I’m taking you?
Do you love me more than fame, security or wealth?

It’s been a season of extremes. Exhilarating. Revealing. Distilling. But He’s been good to me. I might be whiny and gripey at times, but I know and feel like I am His son. And it’s my subtle reminder that I’m headed in the right direction, that I’m OK.

Snippets of life:

2 weeks… and then India
50 college-prep students
1st big EFD expenditure coming soon
see less of my dad
hand-pulled noodles
i really love my wife
understanding the world outside of the church

the best things

I was listening to a Francis Chan sermon recently and he made a statement that has been lingering in me these past few days. He said that the best things in our lives aren’t things planned by us. I’ve been thinking about it and doing little mental experiments as if to put his theory to the test. I began thinking… what are the best things in my life?

The first thing I thought of was my family. We’re far from perfect, but I have a great relationship with my family members. I had an amazing mother. I have a father that has never left the family. Next to my wife, my brother’s my best friend. My sister-in-law is a chef [that’s not even her best trait]. They love me even though I’ve been a brat most of my childhood.

I get to follow after my passions and help people know Jesus better. Even though it’s a bit financially precarious, I didn’t have to save up $10 million in the bank before I embarked on it. From day 1, the needs of my family have always been met one way or another.

My wife is perfectly suited for me. Even though she drives me nuts sometimes, she makes me want to be a better man. There are parts of her that I never saw [and couldn’t have] while we were dating but now see after 10 years of marriage. And I realize her passions and personality traits perfectly complement mine.

I wake up each day knowing that I’m embraced by God. I’m his son. He loves me and gets giddy when he thinks about me. And for what? I make tons of mistakes and I haven’t accomplished anything all that big. My best trait might be that I can make soup. And that’s not all that great.

None of this stuff I planned or spent years working for. I don’t possess any of these because of my competency or aptitude. In fact, they are present in my life in spite of who I am and what I do. The things I have accomplished are good and in many ways are very satisfying. But they aren’t necessarily the best things. They are things I could live without on most days.

In the end it puts a bit of perspective on what I can and can’t do. I’m reminded that everything doesn’t rest on my shoulders. And I don’t have to cheat today by worrying about tomorrow.

BTW, that Reuben sandwich you see. The absolute BEST Reuben I’ve ever had in my entire life. And I didn’t make it. Another proof that the theory is correct.

goop

I’ve been having this sharp pain in my upper back. I’ve had it before and it’s normally from sleeping in odd positions. I had it last week and it slowly went away as it normally would. And then this past week it made the same slow progression but in the opposite trajectory. Getting more painful and reaching sharp-pain-dom.

I woke up early this morning because my back was killing me. And I’m wondering whether there’s something spiritual to it. I began talking to God and asking whether there was anything in me that he wanted me to pay attention to. I began thinking through the little ways I would redirect attention to myself, the pride-filled responses, the glances at the hot gym girl. And I began to confess it and ask for healing. But the pain wasn’t going away. And I asked, “Father is there something else you want me to see?”

And right then I dropped into sleep. And started dreaming I was in the house I grew up in. I walked into my bedroom and there was a detached-shower stall in the middle of the room. And inside it was just nasty. Clumps of pee-ish yellow goop. Dark blotches. And a rotten apple core right in the middle.

The shower head was the detachable kind and I began spraying it down. It was slowly washing away the “goop” – but oh so slowly. I knew it would take a while. And then I woke up. And I realized that the “little deceptions” I thought of before were just the tip of the iceberg. The “goop” runs deep and that it all doesn’t disappear with a prayer.

I woke up and remarkably the sharp pain turned into a general soreness. A soreness that tells me that it’s on its way to healing. I go out to my living room and grab my Bible and I’m reading Hebrews and it says this:

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. >> Hebrews 4:14-16

And as I meditated on this passage, I began picturing Jesus and I looking at that shower stall together. He leads me in it with him. The pee-ish goop gets on his robe [why do we always picture Jesus in a robe?]. And he begins to wash away the mess and his way is faster and more thorough.

This stuff isn’t anything new, but that it was God reminding me that the goop runs very deep. That Jesus is the only one who can do it. And that he hasn’t left me. Though to realize it again is always both disconcerting and freeing at the same time.

I’ve struggled off and on with a “fame-complex”… I don’t know how to describe it but that I move in and out of this need for everyone in the world to think I’m the greatest person alive. That might be an overstatement, but you get the picture. And I wonder why some people get the notoriety and others do not. Some people who really aren’t that insightful are able to sell books by the thousands. And some who are amazingly wise and life-giving are hidden in corners of society with little fanfare.

And my little God-dream this morning reminded me that I don’t deserve anything. I’ve got too much “goop” to expect or demand any notoriety based on me. And that my only pride is what Jesus has done in and for me. I have to admit that it’s taken the edge off my “fame-complex” [for today] and that I don’t feel the need to be anywhere or be anything else other than where I am and whom I am right now. And right now I’m a guy with very little back pain who needs to go to the gym… off to the gym.

alive

I went to our weekly basketball game with the guys last night. And came in a little tired – both physically and emotionally. I wasn’t playing a clean game, reflexes slow.

On a break between games I was talking with a guy whom we rent-share with for the gym. I had gotten to know him a little bit during our weeks sharing the gym, playing basketball. And I had heard in passing a few weeks ago that he was able to come play because it was his night off from taking care of his wife.

So I asked him last night how his wife was doing, not knowing what her situation was. And he told me that she has multiple sclerosis and she’s completely bedridden. She needs help doing the simple things like eating and using the bathroom. Basically, she needs care 24-7.

I asked more about it and he told me that she was diagnosed 20 years ago. The guy looks like he’s in his early 50’s, late 40’s maybe. He’s definitely young and energetic enough to play basketball. He got married 26 years ago and she was diagnosed 6 years into their marriage after their third child.

So what do you do with news like that? I was really heartbroken for him. I was already a little down that night. Maybe just tired, maybe from just missing jumpers. But I couldn’t help but be sad for him as I imagined what his life was like.

I thought quickly to the time where we needed to take care of my mom, when she needed 24-7 care. It was tough, I felt dead in every way after that 5 months. And I couldn’t imagine what this guy has gone through and now being in this stage of caring for her day by day.

But he shared this with me… in his words… this MS thing has forced us to stay close to the Lord. And the Lord has done more for me than I could ever imagine. He said he was pretty “unruly” when he was young and his wife’s MS has done so much to mold him, train him and raise him up as a man.

The one thing he says he learned is this… never take your eyes off the Lord. The moment you take your eyes off, things start to unravel. But when you stick close to him, keep your eyes on him, begin to do what he says… you’ll see the blessing of being obedient. Stay close.

a blip

We had another monthly worship gathering today. This was our 85th worship service [we met weekly for almost a year and then switched to monthly for about four]. And when you look at it that it was just another worship service. A blip on the church time line. One that we’ll likely forget. No miraculous healing happen. No new receptions of Jesus. Under-attended because a bunch of people were out of town. Not my best teaching day. Not Warren’s best worship leading day. Just another blip?

Maybe not. I’ve talked often about having different definitions of success. Not measuring by the numbers [though numbers are not irrelevant] or the budget [this is completely irrelevant]. A more didactic blog post bullet-pointing the proper ways to measure church health may follow. But in the mean time, signs that God is truly alive in us even on a subpar-under-attended-worship-Sunday:

drops like stars

I went to Rob Bell’s speaking tour Drops Like Stars last night in San Francisco with James, Warren and Cyrus. I’m not big on the idea of pastors doing hyped up speaking tours. It’s kinda weird and seems self-serving. It doesn’t help that when he comes out, everyone is screaming and yelling, he’s raising his hands in the air. Cyrus yells, “Rock star!!” But I don’t actually know that much about RB – James got tickets and wanted to treat us and so there.

But I have to admit – he had some very compelling things to say – not so much that his premise/topic was new, but he has a way of wording things that helped me see it afresh. I thought it was really good and look forward to blogging more about it later… in the mean time, at the end of his 2hr talk [long] – he shared this quote and it’s an account of the creative process of a sculptor… ending the time with the question, is this really about sculpting… or is it about life?

Take a read:

“Of course he couldn’t forget! No creator can forget! If the blast-off’s successful you’re hooked, and once you’re hooked you’re inside the work as well as outside it, it’s part of you, you’re welded to it, you’re enslaved, and that’s why it’s such bloody hell when things go adrift. But no matter how much the mess and distortion make you want to despair, you can’t abandon the work because you’re chained to the bloody thing, it’s absolutely woven into your soul and you know you can never rest until you’ve brought truth out of all the distortion and beauty out of all the mess – but it’s agony, agony, agony – while simultaneously being the most wonderful and rewarding experience in the world – and that’s the creative process which so few people understand. It involves an indestructible sort of fidelity, an insane sort of hope, and indescribable sort of . . . well, it’s love, isn’t it? There’s no other word for it. You love the work and you suffer with it and always – always – you’re slaving away against all the odds to made everything come right… Every step I take – every bit of clay I ever touch – they’re all there in the final work. If they hadn’t happened, then this” – she gestured to the sculpture – “wouldn’t exist. In fact they had to happen for the work to emerge as it is. So in the end every major disaster, every tiny error, every wrong turning, every fragment of discarded clay, all the blood, sweat and tears – everything has meaning. I give it meaning. I reuse, reshape, recast all that goes wrong so that in the end nothing is wasted and nothing is without significance and nothing ceases to be precious to me.”

it’s been four years

Christmas has always been a tough season for me. Part of it has to do with always feeling that Christmas and Easter are like finals week for pastors. The irony is that we’re not really setup for grandiose Christmas productions and earth-shattering alter calls. But it always just adds a little stress – proof that my heart still bends towards being achievement-minded and seeking the approval of others. I’m actually very encouraged by our December… which will hopefully be detailed in another post.

But I think the primary reason is that Christmas has never been the same since my mom passed away on Christmas day of 2005. I’m not really sure what to say about it other than I really miss her. She was the glue that connected my family and there’s still something very glaringly missing when we’re together.

Like always we visited the cemetery on Christmas day and we looked at the date… December 25, 2005… and my sister-in-law remarked, “Wow, it’s been four years.” And it felt like one of those “fill-in-the-blank” statements:

Wow, it’s been four years and it still feels like she just passed away.
Wow, it’s been four years since that season of life where mom’s illness turned all of our worlds upside down.
Wow, it’s been four years and it still hurts a lot that she’s not here with us.

Not much has changed and yet so much has happened. My brother is still an architect, though he did finally pass his licensing exam. I still lead the church we started when she was alive, but I’ve learned an enormous amount and have experienced innumerable failures and successes. Dad is still single [which I’m slightly surprised], still wakes up early to walk and still longs to be with the woman he has loved almost his entire life.

There have been so many life movements where I think we all wished mom was around. Both my brother and I [and our wives obviously] struggling to have children. Me enduring the growing pains of being a good leader. Dad having to relearn so many things from the vantage point of being alone, ie. eating, friends, security, health. I still remember going to the grocery store with my dad a few months after and it was so odd. Thinking that this is all stuff mom used to do. It’s like writing with your left hand. It’s legible, but it just feels all wrong.

I’m not really sure Christmas will ever be the same – it’s not a depressing edict on my life as though it’ll never be rich and full of life. It will and has to some degree. But we still live in the wake of mom’s passing – though the shock of the waves are slowly decreasing. And we’re learning to enjoy and celebrate again. I appreciate my wife helping me learn to celebrate [not just Christmas, but life too]. I’ve learned that I don’t really understand celebrating. And I’m growing in that. It’s coming along.

But it’s getting better – my family tries much harder to find time to be with each other. We listen to each other more. We don’t get as bent out of shape by the other’s flaws. On the day where we celebrate the birth of Jesus and this birth reminding us that God has not forgotten us, has remained faithful to his promises, will not let us go… this Christmas has reminded me that God has not let us go. He’s birthing something in us. I’m not sure if it’s come out yet. But it’s on the way.

So we’re still going, moving along and working it all out. I’m looking forward to our family vacation this year. I’m looking forward to my little mini-trips back to Fresno to spend meaningful and not-so-meaningful moments with dad. I’m looking forward to celebrating Christmas with my kids and showering them with the love mom gave us from Christmas’ past.

There is still a gaping hole where mom used to be. A hole that is felt almost daily though doesn’t need to be filled necessarily. But a hole that also adds depth to the peaks of life today and gives perspective for tomorrow. I’m thankful that we made it to four years… and ready for the years ahead.

when living really means dying

Most days I’m steamrolling through… trying to “get’er done”, keep the truck moving and not stop until we get to the “prize”. I’m caught up in that pursuit most days. It’s fueled by a passion for Jesus. But I’d be lying if that higher-octane stuff wasn’t mixed in with some low-octane, dirt-filled selfish ambition to prove to the world that I’m amazing at what I do. That one day an edifice to my glory would be erected in my honor to my great accomplishments in this world. I’m no less perverted than the OG’s planning to build their tower in Babel.

My friend and I were talking about Dieter Zander recently and I asked him what’s going on with him. He was one of the first guys in North America to leave a “successful” megachurch career because he realized that there was something achingly missing. I wasn’t in tune with all his whereabouts, but he had written one of the first books about reaching Generation X people and had been slowly moving to smaller and smaller communities, rediscovering what a spiritual family really ought to be. Last I heard he was trying to start house churches in San Francisco and was no longer bent on doing the Sunday church thing. We’ve never met, but he has always been a passive role model.

I found out through my friend that Dieter had suffered a stroke in early 2008. And since then he hasn’t been the same – has not been able to resume any sort of normal ministry life. And it’s been a slow rehabilitation to just being able to speak and function normally.

Recently he had a party – a party to grieve and let go of the “old” life and embrace the “new” life. People came to share about his impact in their life. And I can imagine it being as bitter sweet as can be. He analogized it this way, “I feel like I’ve taken off my old coat, and put it down, and I’m putting on a new coat. I felt sad going to the party, like I was wearing my old coat, still wanting to do ministry the way I have for 25 years … same old familiar way. I put my coat down. It’s a transition to what’s next.”

I was talking to Sarah about it and it got me a little choked up… to have to die to something you’re not ready or wanting to die to… but you have to. It’s like having something ripped out of your hands. We experience it in small ways in a lot of things. But with something like this, it’s much more encompassing. And when it gets taken from you, you have a choice to keep dreaming of what it was like in the old days and remain in this constant state of bitterness. Or you can embrace what has come and begin looking at life from the new set of eyes you’ve been given.

life after losing it all

>> changed the title from “where does the bible talk about senior pastors?”

I remember being in seminary and a friend of mine came to me with a “huge” discovery. He said – I don’t see any where in the Bible that talks about churches needing a senior pastor. He pointed out that the early church communities functioned from a plurality of non-educated, regular Christian leaders and that we need to rethink how the church does leadership.

When he said that, I was flabbergasted. How dare he challenge the church. I couldn’t believe it – some young punk coming in and speaking against what generations of Christians have accepted. I remember a friend and I started throwing back rebuttals to his argument; of which none were biblical. We just couldn’t imagine a church without a singular pastoral head. In the end, I thought he was a loony. He can take his “infantile” ideas of church and start his own little commune.

Little did I know, I’d be taking my own advice. I’d even run with his premise and take it way further. Why was I so resistant? Here are a few reasons why:

• Threat – It threatened what I had believed in for so long and had never challenged. Because if he’s right, then I may be wrong [at least partially].
• Pride – I didn’t want to admit that he was on to something. If I gave credence to his question, I’d need to travel down the same road of questioning. And you never know where that’s going to lead.
• Fear – What’s going to happen to my master plan? My plan of getting lots of degrees and being a big shot? What if all I was trying to achieve is a waste of time? What do I tell the people who were paying my way?

I had to fight back. I had to… or else, I’d lose it all.

And in fact I did lose it all. God found a way to drive that nail of skepticism into my brain. I had to ask the questions I didn’t want to ask. I had to confront why I didn’t like asking them. I had to defend why I came to certain conclusions. And I realize that it was God’s way of helping me lose. Helping me lose it all… so that in turn I can gain something better. That seems to be a theme somewhere.

And now when I ask the hard questions to others and feel the push-back, I know the feeling. And when it’s coming from leaders who are supposedly more experienced and more knowledgeable than me… I don’t quite know how to respond. I can empathize… because they have way more to “lose” than I ever did. I’m 35… I don’t have 30 years of ministry life to reckon with.

But at the same time – I find myself assuming the elder brother role in the prodigal son narrative – and I judge. I judge the heck out of people. I wonder why they can’t see things the way the Bible so plainly states. I wonder why they are so defensive and inadvertently say things to put me down. I wonder why they are so obtuse – resistant to just asking the simple, unavoidable questions… just questions!

And then I remember myself… and how I shot down my friend and judged him for being so bold as to challenge the “church.” I want to judge some more and be angry… but I have not far to look but within myself to find the same crap that I’m so outraged by.

Lord, help me to forge ahead and yet have mercy on my friends/father-figures who may not quite see it yet.

emotional intelligence

Here’s a great summary article on emotional intelligence from MindTools.com. I find that most people don’t understand their emotions well and yet it’s so critical in being able to relate with people and function well in whatever career or social setting we’re in. And yet I read this and I realize that for most people, there’s a roadblock to being able to “do” the things they suggest. Because if you can do all the things needed for higher emotional intelligence [humbly receiving criticism, observing how you affect people, taking responsibility for your own actions, etc.] you need to already have some level of self-assuredness, confidence or character. Without those, emotional intelligence is almost impossible to develop or maintain. 

Which brings me back to that Jesus-thing. Without some transformative work by Jesus, we’re left powerless to overcome the extraordinarily selfish disposition that keeps us from enduring someone’s verbal hits, owning up to our junk and being mindful of how others feel when we do things. 

But in the end, I agree with the article that emotional intelligence is as important if not more important than any other kind of intelligence. Check it out:

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Developing Strong “People Skills”

We probably all know people, either at work or in our personal lives, who are really good listeners. No matter what kind of situation we’re in, they always seem to know just what to say – and how to say it – so that we’re not offended or upset. They’re caring and considerate, and even if we don’t find a solution to our problem, we usually leave feeling more hopeful and optimistic.

We probably also know people who are masters at managing their emotions. They don’t get angry in stressful situations. Instead, they have the ability to look at a problem and calmly find a solution. They’re excellent decision makers, and they know when to trust their intuition. Regardless of their strengths, however, they’re usually willing to look at themselves honestly. They take criticism well, and they know when to use it to improve their performance. 

People like this have a high degree of emotional intelligence, or EI. They know themselves very well, and they’re also able to sense the emotional needs of others.

Would you like to be more like this?