Pentecost is a time for celebration within the life of the church. The birthday of the church, the day when the God of the universe fulfills God’s promise of Holy Spirit power for his people. Monday is usually a day where I think about church and what happened during worship on Sunday and my sermon. One of my thoughts yesterday I tried to convey was that when God’s Spirit comes upon God’s people that its usually a noisy event.

What if there’s no noise though? What if we don’t feel the noise of pentecost? As Monday is now here and the celebration of mother’s day is behind me, I think about some of these questions. And I wonder that if I have these questions, maybe others in my church have the same kinds of questions about their own lives when it comes to the power that God has promised us through the gift of his Holy Spirit. 

I think to often that people are judged on whether of not a person has God’s Spirit within them by how much they are doing within the life of the church or by whether or not they act a certain way. I think this can really hurt a community of faith. Another thought that I had coming away from yesterday is that I wonder if we in the church forget that when God promised the gift of God’s Spirit, that it wasn’t meant to be a private gift. It was a gift meant for the whole people of God to be shared. It’s a gift that empowers us to do the work of proclamation, sharing with the world, the love and grace of Jesus Christ.

It’s also what keeps us above water and Its what keeps us smiling at the noise within the life of the church, even if there isn’t a whole lot of noise going on.  What I enjoy about Pentecost is that God’s Spirit is always at work. Always moving and always creating some noise. It means though that we need to stop, watch, and listen to the noisy parts of the church that people often forget to pay attention to in the day to day things of church and community.

What if pastors were to live honestly before the people of God? Lives unashamed of revealing to the world the reality that we don’t have it all together. We think, feel, and breathe the same kinds of things that every other person sitting in the pews encounters on any given day.

I was talking with a close friend of mine this afternoon and the discussion came up that the pastor needs to be able to reveal to his or her congregation a kind of authenticity that makes a clear statement that we don’t profess having it all together. To go one step further, that within the proclamation of the word, the good news of Christ’s love, that every sermon I preach should include my willingness to be authentic as a way of illustrating the message of God’s love. Transparency of mind and spirit, coming to the table, letting it all hang out, making the word come alive for the sake of the gospel being heard and received in a way that convicts the hearts and minds of God’s people.

My preaching professor in seminary always commented that he’d rather have folks leave church after every sermon with two or three ideas that were easily remembered as opposed to an exegesis of the word “chair.” I wonder if the pastor should take it one step further? How about two or three ideas that reveal God’s heart for God’s people and that are made applicable through the pastors willingness to be authentic?

What does it really mean to be authentic when it comes to preaching?

It means that somehow with God’s help, power, and the Spirit of God always working in the preparation of the sermon, that I somehow tell the ego that burdens me daily to take a hike. Get honest. Be real. And don’t be ashamed to allow my heart to speak through the word God has given me on any particular Sunday.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to live in authenticity as a Christian and follower of Jesus? Authenticity being the place we accept ourselves as a fallen and broken people in the midst of an ever changing world. Simply meaning we come to the table “letting it all hang out” before the world.

Let me explain. Recently I was with a friend who is fully aware of my work as a pastor and who we’ve become good friends with over the last couple of months. On one occasion he let out a loud sneeze and I responded with a good old “bless you.” His response along with some other things happening in my life of recent grabbed my attention. He says something like with a smile of course, “you don’t force your religion onto people?”

My authenticity as a follower of Jesus means that I am going to live my life out as an example of God’s grace. In my living out my faith before others with the recognition and acceptance that I am a broken person and that without God’s love in my life, I could not manage living on my own, that this is a much better approach to sharing my faith as opposed to giving the impression that my faith in Christ is to be pushed onto someone else. Avoiding having others see me as someone pushy or forceful. It also lets others know that I am not by know means living my life perfectly and sinless.

Too often people are faced with those who use the smothering approach to evangelism. I grew up with it. I was schooled in it in some ways by my surroundings of people I observed growing up in the church. This was the thing to do at one point in my youth as a young person and a Christian. I see this even in my work as a pastor with others who are still tied to a model of evangelism that I have no doubt God uses and has used but at times overwhelms the one on the receiving end of the “good news.” When do you begin that conversation? How do you discern that precise moment in time where “you’ve earned the right to be heard?”

I am hoping to finish a book I started sometime ago called, Just a Walk Across the Room,” by Bill Hybels out of Willow Creek. It is something that I want to go through with our leaders and begin praying about in the way we do outreach together as a church community. Obviously we adapt as opposed to completely adopting the cookie cutter approach to evangelism knowing that not every model fits or works.

I hope to blog some more over the next few weeks about evangelism and about living out our faith before others as authentic followers of Jesus.

“We normally spend 20% of the time analyzing a conflict and 80% solving it—it should be the other way around.” DA

Haven’t had time to process what I learned last week at Fuller. The class was awesome. I was overwhelmed with gratefulness that myself and 5 other pastor types had the chance to sit and listen to this wonderful pastor, teacher, and someone who truly gets it when it comes to dealing with conflict that occurs within the church. The reality is that conflict is a given; its learning how to navigate through it. Now the writing and reading begin. I believe the course should be a requirement for any pastor or leader within the church. I know I came away with the desire to get back into therapy. Needing a place to process the “stuff,” of ministry and life. Especially the “church stuff” that I have totally ignored over the last couple of years. I have lots of unfinished work I’d like to face head on. Pastors need to be able to get their hearts and soul in some kind of order to recharge and refresh the pastors heart. Anyways, the class felt like 50 hours of group therapy. I miss being in the classroom. Did I really say that? Hanging out all week at Fuller really was a blessing.

I’ve finally begun some much needed reading for a class I’m taking in March called Managing Conflict at Fuller. I’ve started with a book on church conflict using Bowen’s family systems theory approach to understanding how to deal with conflict in the church looking at the church as a family unit. Interesting thought and makes understanding how to deal with conflict when it arises a bit more manageable in the church by looking at the whole church as one big family. I’m really looking forward to the class and I’m hoping to gain some insight in managing conflict especially knowing that anyone in ministry will encounter conflict often and that it’s unavoidable.

Because of where the church is located that I pastor we tend to get visitors who happen to be just passing through. Yesterday right after one of the services I had a guy say to me, “I have a word from the Lord for you. You know there are churches that would die for the kind of intimacy that you guys have here.” He was responding to a prayer during the prayer time we usually have and wanted me to know that what we had in being a small church was wonderful and that the bigger churches might never experience the kind of intimacy we get to experience.

pretty cool.

I mentioned that some photo albums have come back to jolt my memory of what it was like to grow up as a kid especially in a place like Hollywood. It made me dig deep and some of the pictures I remember like yesterday, others I can’t remember and want to remember badly.

I can tell you this much. I miss my mom. I miss my dad. I miss my brothers. In spite of the joys and struggles of growing up in an interesting family unit I still miss them and thank God for the chance to have had a family. Even if it was just for a few years. Although I’d love to throw them and hang them from their toes and pull each of their nose hairs out one by one I am grateful that they did their best as parents.

Each picture tells a story. Each picture has a memory. Some are goofy.

Others I’d love to hide for a long time. What was neat was watching our boys pour through the pictures. Our oldest who sports the stache and some much cooler long hair said, “dad you look like a coconut head.”

I hope to find some time to blog about some of the pictures I found. It might actually be healing in some ways.

Anyways, enjoy the picture!

We recently purchased a new car that needed to have some extra gadgets installed. I took the car to the dealer this morning and I decided to kill some time and walked to the local Panera to do some work for church and to crank out around 3000 pages of reading prior to a class that I’m taking at the end of the month. As I was sitting at one of the tables a group of folks sat at the table next to me. The group was a committee from a local church meeting to do some planning for an event they were having in the community. The church seemed to be a large church because I kept hearing things like, “our four worship services.” They were speaking my language. The conversation sounded familiar.

As I sat and listened (Of course reading my book) I have to admit that the conversation they were having was very concerning to me as a pastor. It was very concerning to me as a follower of Jesus. It overwhelmed me. Their meeting gave me flashbacks of serving at a couple of other larger churches where it seemed that all we were ever doing was programming. We never really talked about the people and I wondered if I do the same thing even today as a pastor?

As the group sat and worked at planning this event, they covered every detail they could think of. They talked about child care that was needed. They talked about who was doing the food. They even talked about which committee needed to make the announcements in church and what the church secretaries job was for this event. What was concerning to me was that there was a huge element missing in their planning. I couldn’t figure it out until they left the table. They forgot to pray and to include God in the process. And I wondered if I do the same sometimes in the midst of the chaos of “planning church.” Now don’t get me wrong. They opened their planning meeting with prayer for the meal. I have no doubt these folks have a heart for the Lord and for the people they serve. Their planning seemed scattered. They were all over the map. At one point the conversation even took a turn for the worse in that the head of the committee made reference to a member in the church who had lost a ton of weight and was a huge success at a certain diet regimen and forgot that the lady sitting next to her was obviously dealing her own weight issues. I wanted to crawl out of my skin.

When they left the table I wanted so much to say, “Can I pray for you all?” I wanted so much to say, “what are you really trying to do in this event and who are you really trying to reach? I even wanted to pray that the church they were serving would come to know truly what it means to love others as Christ loves us. The church seemed stuck in some time warp in the 80’s where program and success were a priority over people and needed to be jolted back into 2008.

My prayer for 2008? That I’d include God in my planning. I want to be the kind of pastor that includes God in everything I say and do. I want to be the kind of pastor that adds the simplest of elements to planning. Prayer. I want to be a praying pastor. I want to be bold in the way I pray.

Something else in 2008? That I’d listen to the nudge of the Spirit when God tries to get my attention and wants me to do something that people usually don’t do for fear of looking silly. I should of offered a prayer for them as they were leaving.

In about eleven days I’ll have been the pastor of this awesome church for one year. So much has happened in a year. I’ve preached a bunch of sermons. I’ve done a couple of weddings, a few baptisms, a couple of funerals, and I’m learning how to build a new church building with some awesome leaders. What am I learning in my first year as a solo pastor?

I’m learning to listen. The church needs someone to listen for those God moments. Those little reminders that God is at work and that its not about us as the people of God or me as a pastor. I’m also learning to listen to those who truly are led by God. One of my jobs is to empower the people of God to be the ministers. Finding people with a heart for ministry and for bringing hope to those people who need hope. Finally, I’m learning to listen to those who really need someone to just stop and listen. I want to be the kind of pastor who doesn’t mind not trying to have all the answers as opposed to the pastor who always tries to be “super fix it pastor to the rescue” which is easy to do as a pastor.

I’m learning to breathe. Breathing is important when you’re in ministry. No matter how big or small your church is that you pastor. Others need to see you breathe. Its a sign of ones trust in God to be at the center of all things. Its our opportunity as pastors to give God thanks for everything that happens in the life of the church even if its not the way we want it to be.

I’m learning to rest. I remember the pastor who charged me at my installation. Resting and taking care of myself, my mind, and my body have not been top of the list of things to do this past year. I’ve even had some warning shots fired at my head reminding me to stop and rest in God’s restoring power. Learning mostly to spend time resting in Christ and his love for me as his own. In spending time with God being one who prays often as a way of finding rest in God. I still enjoy what Nouwen says, “what would it look like if someone called the church office and asked for the pastor and the response of the secretary was sorry the pastor is out praying.”

I’m learning to enjoy my family. I had a pastor friend tell me not to do the same thing he did in sacrificing his family over the church in his first couple of years as a solo pastor. When the six year old wants me to follow his “neatly” drawn map in finding a secret treasure in the house, I sure as better get my “button” off my chair and go play with that little guy. I’m also learning that as I sit here and write this post that the kids aren’t getting any younger and if I’m hiding behind a computer or sitting in a meeting that I’m really not needed at I will miss this ride called parenting and enjoying our kids. Finally, enjoying the blessing of being married to a woman that I love more than anything and that continues to encourage me and love me no matter what. Knowing that again she is someone that I am not willing to lose because of my need to be “super pastor dude.”

Over this next week I will do some more reflecting on lessons learned and that I’m still learning as a first year pastor.

I had some friends come and worship with us in church yesterday. Dave shared his experience in serving in another country along with his wife. You see Dave and his wife were among many who played an active role in my life as a kid. They were two of many who shared “good news,” with me that God is an awesome God who loves us. There was a point in their lives where they moved and it wasn’t until this last year that God brought us back together again. When we prayed before the services and when I could hear Dave and his wife teach Sunday school in between services I couldn’t help but think that God’s work comes full circle. It was great to have them come and speak because there were some who appreciated a different outlook on the world and the presentation of the Gospel and how we are to share “good news.”