As I cruise the blogging scribbles of my colleagues and friends I have to confess that there was one blog today that caught my eye. Tod and his presbytery are in the midst of doing an interesting thing that you must watch and listen to as the larger church discerns what it means to becoming a missional community, doing the mission of God out in the world.  I wonder if becoming a missional community means going to that one place in our lives that makes us feel most uncomfortable. Venturing out as Tod describes into “unchartered territory.”

Had a good time at PGF this past week. Got to spend some time with old friends from seminary. Lots of Princeton folks which was cool. Saw some friends that I haven’t seen since graduation. Also got to see some buddies from my home church. As for the content of the week I was glad I was present. The one person that I actually was looking forward to hearing was Rick Warren. I guess something happened and he wasn’t able to attend. I actually think he was sitting in his back yard hanging with his pals Obama and McCain. (Just kidding) Alan Hirsch was what I thought he’d be. My favorite Hirsch quote was, “You Presbyterians are in trouble because you have defined yourselves by your structure.”I’ve heard Labberton before and wish I could some how steal just a small bit of his brain for my preaching every Sunday.

Went to the Michael Walker seminars on whether or not one can still be faithful in the PCUSA. I really appreciated his work and his willingness to help folks find some kind of balance. Even after this conference, I know in all of my heart as a follower of Jesus, a Christian, and a pastor that I still can be faithful to the call God has placed on my heart to those I minister to, with, and alongside. It broke my heart to hear the pain this past week that many are feeling and I only pray that they continue to find the answers they are looking for in deciding whether one can still be faithful in light of the denominational things that are happening and have been happening for a long time.

As for the missional stuff during the conference? Nothing new in some ways for me. I think folks don’t realize that they have been doing things missional for most of their lives as followers of Jesus. The church I still love to this day and where I came to know Christ in as a youth was a missional body long before the word became a BUZZ word dropped over a latte discussing missional things in the church. I laughed with a friend a couple of weeks ago when she said, “The church we were part of for years, just wasn’t smart enough to label what they were doing for the kingdom of God in the City as missional.”

My fear with the whole missional thing of recent is that I start to check out when I hear it being discussed and talked about. One church this past week mentioned something about going to Tijuana and building homes. No doubt this has made an impact on the people of God. How about adopting a neighborhood church in their own city and walking alongside that church in their own work as a missional body that strives to empower and equip the people of God to becoming a sent community? How about coming alongside a city church, one breath away from death and helping them find their kingdom concept (My new buzz word I learned this week) and helping them move from survival to helping them  as people of God accept their niche, their place in the City as a church that might not be the church it once was, but a church that is living out their faith and proclaiming God’s grace to those in need of grace. Let’s stop spending money on learning about being missional and lets just do what we’ve always been doing in the kingdom of God here on earth. And the funny thing is that there are churches who are doing and living a missional life and still haven’t figured it out.

I’m the result of a church being missional. I’m confident that Jesus loves me and that it is his grace in my life that gives me strength to BE in the world doing the mission of God.

All in all? A nice time to be away. Do I have answers yet? No, but I still proclaim GOOD NEWS. News that needs to be shared. News that sometimes is awesome to hear and yet sometimes hard to hear. News that is radical and should make us feel uncomfortable. News that calls the church to WAKE UP!

My preaching professor in seminary once said, “preaching is sometimes making the people of God feel uncomfortable. You might not be preaching if you’re not moving them to a place of responding to God’s call to GO and do something with what they have heard.” (My paraphrase)

Watched the ABC special on Randy Pausch tonight.

I learned something tonight again from the guy.

I have nothing to complain about.  

I Learned a new way to preach from Randy tonight.

“Do not tell people how to live their lives. Just tell them stories. And they will figure out how those stories apply to them.”

I pray that I can be half the husband, father, and man he was.  

My birthday week is coming to an end and I must say after all of the blubbering I’m still standing. I am humbled by the mere fact that God continues to bless me. My bride of eighteen years, our three sons, and my call by God to serve as a pastor are all simple reminders of God’s abundant grace. Even in the midst of my wife being one of many public school teachers looking for employment due to state wide budget cuts and her job search, we continue to see God at work in our lives. What we’re going through is nothing compared to so many others in our churches and communities. Then I was reminded again about this guy who passed away this week and who gave a famous lecture last year about the importance of celebrating life. If not for anyone else, his lecture gives me a whole new perspective on turning 40.  

God is always at work. I affirm this with all of my heart. I believe God is still working in my life and the feeling is surreal as I think about this post. Some of these thoughts aren’t really new to some of you. I’ve shared in previous posts these reflections.

This post is unique.

A very long time ago I wondered upon the campus of a church that I’ve come to love very much. It’s my home away from home. I’ve always loved this church. It’s composed of people who’ve become some of our dearest friends.

There are people in this church who have no clue and don’t even realize how much of an impact they’ve made on my life for Christ. I am a follower of Jesus, husband, father, and pastor because of how some of these people were used in my life by Christ.

When I was a Jr. High kid there were two places I could be found.

The boulevard or at church.

This past Wednesday I had an experience that was so surreal that I felt I was in a scene out of the matrix. It happened again on Friday and even on Saturday morning.

I dropped my kids off with some friends of theirs at this church for a youth group function.  At this church there is a room where the youth function took place. This room always takes me back to my life as a kiddoe.

This room was where I learned from folks that I was loved and valued by Christ.

It was a room where I learned how to play guitar and lead worship. It was a room where I earned a Holy Land coin from my 7th grade Sunday school teacher if I memorized scripture. It was a room where I heard good news as a youth that Jesus loved me and would be faithful in the midst of the joys and struggles of life. It was even the room where I served with my wife in ministry prior to us getting married, helping her run an after school children’s program for the neighborhood.

This week our two boys got introduced to this room. They were introduced to people who continue the vision of loving kids and giving Jesus to them by showing them simple acts of kindness. Seeds of faith planted into their hearts.

As I drove off after dropping them off, I couldn’t help but remember the emptiness I had as a kid not having parents who were available and who showed up as parents. As I drove off I was overwhelmed with God’s blessing that although I didn’t have my parents, that I had the church, the kingdom of God here on earth filing that hole in my heart. As I drove off I was tickled pink that my wife and I get to be parents of some awesome gifts from upon high. As I drove off, I felt grateful that the Lord of the universe, through the work of the church, saved my life. And as I drove off I was overwhelmed with joy that the seeds of faith that were planted in my heart as a youth, were being planted and rooted in the hearts of our kids. Seeds of faith that I took from people who loved me and that we gave and still give and will give to our kids as parents.

And it all began in that room in 1982.

Surreal.

A cool ad idea that our friend Pastor Jim had at Cornerstone. Now we pray it helps attract some kiddoes for VBS.

I don’t profess to being mr. blogger extraordinaire. I started blogging because it was a way to stay connected with friends in ministry and to dump as much Christ like wisdom from folks much wiser and seasoned into my brain to assist me in following Jesus. I also started blogging to keep connected with those I ministered to and with in youth ministry. It was a way for me to have a pinky within culture and stay connected with what was happening in the world of students. I must confess that something I fear in blogging is that if I dump to much here that it would not add to the kingdom. I also must confess that I’ve always been insecure with my writing. One of my professors in seminary once said to me, “Kevin, you write like you talk.” Writing is something I’ve had to work on for a bunch of years and by God’s grace I’m still growing in the areas of writing. I guess you can say that I’m still looking for my niche in the blogosphere.

What’s on my mind tonight?

• My wife is eagerly waiting for a phone call from any school district within a 60 mile radius to find a teaching position for the fall school year. If you’re up to date with Southern California stuff, you know that my wife along with hundreds of other teachers are part of some educational budget cuts.
• Our kids are “promoting.” One is going to high school and the other is going into jr. high. I’m not ready. I’ve blinked and they’re longer in pre-school. I miss the days of pre-school and happy meals. I also praise God for our kids. They’re awesome students and have made us proud! 4.0’s baby! What a way to begin Jr. High and High School. They get their smart stuff from mommy way cool.
• Like every other pastor I worry about church stuff. I worry about budget stuff. Our leaders are trying to figure out how to do ministry with an awesome church in the midst of a struggling economy. We’re wondering what our “thing” is supposed to be in the 21st century.
• I’m worried about a paper I have to start writing for school.

There you have it! As honest as I can be and still growing and being transformed. Trusting in God and trying to be still.

Something hard to do in the midst of life’s journey as a follower of Jesus.

I’ve seen Steven Curtis Chapman on more than one occasion lead the people of God into worship. It breaks my heart to hear of his loss. Prayers for the Chapman family tonight.

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.