And so far, I’ve been able to persist.  It’s been hard, but for the sake of the call we’ve endured.  We’ve persevered and pressed on despite difficulty.  But now I think things may be going too far.  Satan has taken over my iPhone:

(It did this after taking it to the Genius Bar and doing a software reset restoring system defaults. Before the software restore, it would go into my phone and call people listed in my favorites list.   They suggested the display is broken.)

For those of you who know how much I love Apple products, and in particular, my iPhone, you know how big a deal this is.  You know that ministry just might not be worth doing if the cost is losing my iPhone.

I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do.  I can receive calls, because when I answer my phone and put it to my ear the display is disabled.  But it’s really hard to place calls.  I’ll probably use Google voice to make calls for a while and replace my phone later.  Until then, I’ll daily be reminded of the cost of carrying my cross for Christ.

“Evangelicals are often portrayed as homophobic or hateful toward gays.  If you could envision the ideal relationship between evangelical churches and gays, what would that relationship look like?”

As a church planter, it is in my job description to meet with lots of people — people new to the faith, people seeking faith, and those who have been a part of the church since the day they were born. Each group brings with it their own set of questions for God and the church. One group wants to know about social justice, another about our music style, and another about our interest in doing overseas mission work. But one question that seems to be present in the minds of each person regardless of groups is, “What is your stance on homosexuality and Christianity?” This is the most common question I get no matter which type of person with whom I am talking.

What I find even more fascinating is that I have never been asked it by anyone inside the gay community. It is usually asked by married couples with kids. Rarely do they have a homosexual friend in mind. The question is not asked because there is even much interest in my position or my rationale for my position.  It’s a litmus test. This individual is trying to decide whether they want to be a part of our community, and this question seems to be the fastest way for them to group us into a sociological category. They assume they will know what type of church we are by how I respond to this question.

That’s why I never answer it.  Continue reading here…

As a church planter in a community that is attempting to be more relational and organic, Parker Palmer’s words on leadership really strike a chord.  He argues that it’s in the less rigidly defined community that leadership is most important not in the structured and hierarchical system:

Unfortunately, our idea of leadership has been deformed by a myth that links leadership to hierarchy, as if leaders were needed only in systems that operate from the top down.  But when we are in “community” — which, at a turn of the kaleidoscope, evokes the romance of an instinctive life together — we can dispense with a designated leader, allowing the role to pass spontaneously from one person to the next.  Or so goes the myth.

Yet in my experience, a community requires more leadership than a hierarchy does.  A hierarchy has clear goals, a well-established division of labor, and a set of policies about how things are supposed to run; if the machine is well designed and well lubricated, it can almost run itself.  A community is a chaotic, emergent, and creative force field that needs constant tending. And when a community’s aims are countercultural, as they are in a circle of trust, its need for tending is even greater.  Lacking a leader grounded in the principles, skilled at the practices, and granted the authority to lead, a circle of trust will fail because the relational culture it requires is so rare and so fragile.  (Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness, pg. 76)

Palmer writes about circles of trust, which are similar to a particular type of sharing-oriented small group.  His comments about leadership in these circles of trust resonate deeply with my experience in church communities.  When relationships replace rules for dictating the way we relate to one another in community, the role of the leader becomes even more important.  Her job isn’t to simply hold up the rules and make sure everyone sticks to them.  Her job is to be in relationship with the people and shape the culture of the community so that love prevails in everything.  A good reminder of the importance of leaders to shape culture.

Yesterday we successfully had our first public worship service for our new church plant New City Covenant!  It went really, really, well.  It was so much fun to see everything come together.  The praise band sounded great, the welcoming crew did a fantastic job, the volunteers who helped setup were tireless servants, the kids had a blast in the children’s ministry, the food was amazing, and the people who showed up were gracious and engaged.  It was a real privilege to have so many people join us for worship!  But perhaps the best part of the service was that God showed up!  There was a very tangible experience of the Holy Spirit that a number of people mentioned to me.  Without God’s presence it is all for naught.  I’m so thankful right now to all the volunteers and to God.  What a delight, and what a great way to get things started!

Our next service isn’t until January 10th, so that gives us a little bit of time to recover and think about how we can improve for the next one.  I look forward to getting better at what we do.  I also look forward to watching our community come into being.  There were a good number of new people with us yesterday.  I can’t wait to get to know them better and see how their gifts shaped the nature of our community.  Exciting stuff!

When I read that God said to Abraham, offer up your son as a sacrifice, I wonder if this story should have been left out of the Bible.  What does it have to do with a loving God and his relationship with his people?  Isn’t this just at best a bizarre case of emotional manipulation and at worst divine child abuse?

But recently this story has started to gain new meaning for me.  Abraham’s relationship with God is meant to be based on his love for God, not God’s promise.  Isaac was God’s promise to Abraham.  I’m sure Abraham loved God for Isaac, but when God gives you such a wonderful gift it’s hard to know if you love him for anything but the gift.  I healthier relationship would be built on Abraham’s sure love for God, not what God can do for Abraham.  I wonder if this sort of testing is God’s gift to his children to expose the nature of our relationship with him.  It’s good to know that when tested the real character of our faith emerges.  For Abraham, his deep and abiding love for God the person won out over his love for God’s promise in the testing of his faith.

I’m at a place in this church planting process where I feel like my faith is being tested.  The same question that was put to Abraham is being put to me.  Do I love God the person or the promise of what he can do for me?  Do I love God for who God is, or do I love him for what I believe he promises to do in my ministry?  I’m pretty sure I love God, the person.  It’s nice to know.

Have you heard this song by The Fray called Over My Head?  It’s a catchy tune.  I’m not really sure what the song is about, but the chorus speaks to me.  Every time I hear it on the radio it reminds me of my own inner turmoil.  Over and over throughout the song, the lead singer belts out:

“Everyone knows I’m in over my head, in over my head”

And as I hear those words I think, that’s me.  I’m in over my head.  I can’t do this church planting thing.  I am too inadequate a leader.  I’m not compelling enough as a preacher/teacher.  I can’t balance the stress I feel and how it causes me to relate to my family.  In these areas of my life and in so many more, I’m in over my head.

I am coming face-to-face with my absolute powerlessness to make this church plant work.  I can’t do it.  The only rational response is to quit.  When there is an impossible task that stands before us, there is no use struggling through it only to fail.  It’s impossible.  It can’t be done, so why try?  It’s not even worth attempting. Church planting feels like that to me — impossible.  I run through all the scenarios of how things might play out, and I struggle to see how I can make it work.  I just can’t do this!

But I can’t quit.  I can’t stop believing that despite me this is something God wants to do.  I believe that despite my personal inability to make this plant ‘work,’ God can.  Despite the fact that at times my very actions, personality, and presence may hinder the growth of the church, God can still move things forward.  He can hold our group together.  He can nourish souls.  He can show up and meet with people despite me.  I am so in over my head.  I cannot plant this church.  But I have hope that God can.

I have hope that my faithfulness as a church planting pastor is not a prerequisite for God’s work.  I don’t have to execute everything perfectly for this plant to work.  God can do this despite me.  My hope is in God alone and not my gifting or moral purity that merits God’s help.  I have nothing else to hope in because I now doubt the sufficiency of my gifting and I’m too broken to delude myself about my moral purity.   My only hope is that God helps those who need help.  He is close to the broken-hearted, and he loves to show his strength in the midst of our weakness.  This is my hope.  I hope in a God who wants to reveal his strength through my weakness, because I have am very, very weak.  I am in over my head, and now everyone knows — most importantly God knows.

Rom. 8:26 ¶ Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For bwe do not know what to pray for as we ought, but cthe Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

1Cor. 1:25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

1Cor. 2:3 And aI was with you bin weakness and in fear and much trembling,

1Cor. 15:43 It is sown in dishonor; git is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.

2Cor. 11:30 ¶ rIf I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.

2Cor. 12:9 But he said to me, j“My grace is sufficient for you, for kmy power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that lthe power of Christ may rest upon me.

2Cor. 13:4 For rhe was crucified in weakness, but slives by the power of God. For twe also are weak in him, but in dealing with you uwe will live with him by the power of God.

Heb. 5:2 mHe can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself nis beset with weakness.

Heb. 11:34 mquenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, nbecame mighty in war, nput foreign armies to flight.

It’s amazing how broken our world is.   Since I’ve started planting New City Covenant, I’ve become more aware of both my own brokenness and that of others.  I sit down with anywhere from 2 to 10 people each week and share my story and the vision of our church with them.  I also listen as people share their stories with me.  I get to hear their frustrations with the church.  I get to hear their frustrations with God.  I also get to hear about their dreams and hopes–for their lives, for their families and for their church communities.

In both our frustrations and dreams, brokenness emerges.  We are steeped in it.   In our motivations for work, in our relationships with our spouses, and in our dreams for our children the stain of sin is present, but rarely seen.   As a pastor, I sometimes get to see how hurt people are because they will share a bit more openly with me — but in generally we all keep our dark secrets hidden away.  As a culture we value strength and wholeness, not brokenness.  No one wants to let others into our broken lives.  No one wants to shine light on our own darkness by talking about it with others.

Sadly, this often happens to an even greater degree in the church.  Because the church’s primary business is salvation and healing from sin, it looks bad if people in the church can’t get healed.  Broken people in the church are a living reminder of the church’s inability to deliver on its promises of healing and salvation.

So what do we do?  What should I as a pastor do about this?  Should I stop promising salvation and healing in the church?  Should I kick people out of the church who have too many problems?  Or, should I just encourage a culture of dishonesty where people who continue to struggle with sin are silenced?  How do I deal with Jesus’ promise of salvation to us and our inability to experience it?

The reality is that God’s salvation is breaking into our world now, but only in bits and pieces — mostly we’re still stuck with our brokenness.   We experience healing now as signs of the future healing that is to come at the resurrection.  I’m not sure we are actually growing and progressing in our Christian walks, so much as we are experiencing continual reminders of God’s promise to fully heal us in the future.

In this life we cannot escape our brokenness, so let’s stop pretending we can.  Let’s actually embrace the doctrine of sin which we all say we believe.   If we did, we could be much more open about talking about brokenness in our lives.  We would be able to confess our sins instead of concealing them, and we could hopefully experience the healing that James says follows a confession met with grace (James 5:16).

Confession and honest sharing are rare in the church.  But every once and a while you interact with a person who tells it like it is.  They speak honestly.  The are truth-tellers, or to use church buzz-words, they are honest and authentic.  This type of person is like a breath of fresh air on a hot and humid day.  They are the glaring exception of truthiness in a world full of liars.  Thank God for these people.  They remind us of our need for grace.  They help us to connect with God.  They help us to connect with others.  Thank God for those who speak the truth about themselves, and by implication about you and me as well.  Jesus was full of grace and truth according to the gospel of John.  The truthfully broken people among us help us to live in truth and experience grace.   Join me in being this sort of  truthfully broken person who confesses sin honestly and extends grace eagerly.  Join me in attempting to live a life like Jesus, full of truth and grace.

Key images of God’s alternative community, the missional church, are found in the Gospel’ descriptions of the people of God as “the salt of the earth,” a “light of the world,” and a “city set on a hill.”  These images suggest that mission is not just what the church does; it is what the church is. Saltiness is not an action; it is the very character of salt.  Similarly, light or a city on a hill need not do anything in order to be seen.  So too it is with God’s “people sent.”  The visible, taste-able nature of their community is their missional purpose: by encountering that “holy nation,” others “may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven” (Matt. 5:16).  Who the community is and how it lives points to God and is an invitation to join the community in praising God.  The church by its life together shows others the nature of the reign of God.  The church is a preview of life under the rule of God in the age to come, a forerunner of the new Jerusalem, a foretaste of the heavenly banquet, a sign of the reign of God.

In North America, what might it mean for the church to be such a city on a hill? to be salt? to be a light to the world?  It means, first of all, that the inner, communal life of the church matters for mission.  Instead of separating the work of particular congregational communities or the church in general into mission and nurture, the total life of the “people sent” makes a difference to its apostolic witness.  How Christians behave toward one another, the testimony that their relationships make in the public square, and the character of their life together as a whole community are integral to their apostolic mission. (Missional Church, pg. 128)

I think he raises an interesting point about the assumed cultural values the medium of our church experience communicates.  If Sunday morning church experiences are dedicated to the “entertainment” and “comfort” of the parishioner, then it is no surprise that eventually many people will just stop attending church.  When the pastor says something that makes Suzy uncomfortable or when the praise leader fails to entertain Sam or when the parking lot gets too full for Sally or the children’s ministry makes Samantha’s kid cry, church no longer meets our needs.

As a church planter trying to recruit a launch team, I feel like I have to cater to people’s needs.  If I don’t, no one will come.  I have to sell people on an experience.  Ultimately though I want to sell people on God not comfort.  In Christian community I believe God is alive and available, but I don’t believe it needs to be a comfortable experience.  Christian community that brings God to life is the often times the hard kind of community that happens when people get close to one another.  God comes alive in the context of frustration with your friend that flows into forgiveness.  God comes alive when godly people learn to extend grace after a gaffe.  God comes alive in the uncomortable parts of our lives.  When people commit to one another in the name of Jesus and stick together through the good and the bad that is when God comes alive.

I believe church is a compelling place to be, but not because it is comfortable.  Church is compelling because its a place people can meet God.  The transcendent presence of God is compelling no matter how bad your parking situation may be, because it meets a core human need.  When a community practices the lay-down-your-life kind of love for one another that Jesus taught us, God is there.  And, a community where God is present meets a core need that every person has.

Right now Mary and I are getting ready to launch a new church and I feel particularly susceptible to these ups and downs.  One minute we are on our high dreaming about the possibilities of a new community that embodies Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount teachings, and the next minute we come crashing down as I come face-to-face with the work and potential rejection that comes with church planting.

That’s why Tim Geoffrion’s blog post, Don’t Give Up, came at such a good time.  In his post Tim points out that sometimes our greatest spiritual advances come in the midst of deep emotional turmoil.

If so, let me encourage you. You have reached a critical point in your spiritual development. Don’t lose heart. And most definitely, do not give up!

Contrary to appearances, our emotional turmoil may actually be a positive sign. Our struggles may actually be a sign of growing pains in our spiritual life—we may even be on the verge of making a major breakthrough.

This gives me hope to keep going.  It gives me hope that by digging deeper and wrestling with my inner fears and feelings of self-doubt I can have hope that I will come out the other side closer to God.  This is the kind of encouragement I need to keep going and heed his advice: “Don’t Give Up!” I hope you find it helpful as well.