The Depth of Doing (Or Exercising Jesus)

It has been a season of learning for me, which I hope means having an additional dose of learning rather than having seasons of stupidity. I have had the incredible privilege to attend a few conferences, most of which came at zero, or very little, financial expense. I could easily be a conference junkie, and I have enjoyed the variety of ways I have been taught through these conference experiences. Both, through these experiences as well as just the daily exercise of what I have learned. I am finding that the depth of life is found in the exhaling of what I have inhaled. In simple terms, living what I am learning. James 1:22 puts it this way, "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says."

Clear, concise.

This not only challenges me each day, but it has also been the echo of my faith community, Ecclesia, which invites people to become the hands and feet of Jesus. The church is nearly two years old and we have had upwards of 200+ people gather with us on a given Sunday, and in the beginning there was four of us sitting in a garage wondering what the church will look like. recently we have 80-100 folks on a given Sunday. The days of over two hundred folks was actually the most difficult. Difficult in that so many people wanted to sit in church and be taught new things, little nuggets of feel good spirituality. I don't say this to be negative, but to bring to light what Ed Stetzer recently highlighted as "the biggest problem with the western, American church today." The church is full of pew sitters, those who make Christianity a Sunday event, and they live the other six days as a test of whether or not they have the strength to make it to next Sunday when they can get their spiritual bucket refilled. So what was the most common request, and exit excuse, we heard as a staff during those days? "We really want to go deeper, specifically in the teaching, we need to be better fed."

What is deeper than doing what the Word says? Believe me, I am someone who enjoys reading and carving away at the beauty that is found in historical and exegetical study. I can also say that nothing I have ever read has trumped the actual experience of doing what the Word says.

The adventure lived has far surpassed the dreams only imagined.

The greatest depth I have ever experienced has come from people I have laughed with, cried with, and served along side of. I am an introvert, which can be disguised by the gift for acting, storytelling, and the ability to laugh and be laughed at in all it's glory from the platform. Yet I get re-energized from solitude, reading, and the whisper of silence. It can be incredibly difficult to look out and see the least of these, step into their shoes, and love with the otherness of Christ.

It has to happen otherwise the body of Jesus will atrophy. I'm sure Jesus would rather experience arthritis and leg cramps from the service in which we do, rather than the headache we would be if only thinking big thoughts. My friend Rob, who happens to be our lead pastor, has experienced this within his love for cycling over these past two years. When I met him I learned he loved biking and I saw his pro-style bikes... sitting in his garage, not unused, but used little. Over the last 8 months he has shaken the dust off his bikes, as well as over 60 pounds from his body due to action. He moved affection and intention into action. He has never felt better and each ride grows his appetite for the next one. Reading cycling magazines can be helpful, encouraging, and motivating, but they don't substitute for the ride itself.

That our exercise of God's Word would be the depth by which we experience church. May our appetite never quite be quenched, but let it grow with each bite of God's Word. As the church, let's give Jesus some leg cramps!

With Grace & Peace
Wally

Right or Redemptive

It always baffles me when we enter into discussion, and within said discussion, we move to a place of disrespecting and treating someone in an inhumane way, all because the end goal is we NEED to be right? I'm not a confrontational person, I do not care to argue and yet I truly enjoy great discussions. I love to debate things, which is a two way conversation. So when there is talking over the other person, raised voices, and tempered outbursts, I will choose to end the discussion.

I can say, you are right, if that comes to be. I'm OK with that. But in most cases, I would say that the point is to be redemptive. If being right means you devalue, disrespect, and dehumanize someone then count me out. I'll choose to lose. You can be right, just please don't treat another person as less than a person.

I choose redemptive conversation

Heartache

So on the surface questions are being asked about the "hot topics" of today's culture, but underneath it is so much more. On the outside I am staying calm and just listening, yet my brain is peeling this banana and finding the mush of rottenness. They keep firing questions at me in rapid succession and the faster they come the more I feel my heart splintering. "Do they know what they are asking or are they just trying to sound educated?" Simultaneously my mind is trying to stay focused on their questions and yet it is shaking free due to frustration because they just don't get it. "Do you really want an honest answer or are you just looking to be cool in front of your friends?"

This has become a typical night within our youth ministry. Lots of questions, few answers. They're asking about relative morality but this is more about humanity, about love. Not Romeo and Juliet. Creator, Father, and daughter and son. My heart aches for truth. For TRUTH. That God would chip away at the surface and reveal a fresh, new perspective.

With

Grace and Peace
Wallace D.

No Kidding

With Fall officially landing, it strikes me that I am stepping into my 14th year serving in the church. It was a little over 14 years ago that God invited me to share my journey in becoming a new kind of kid as a vocation. The idea of becoming a pastor was about as ridiculous of an idea as becoming an astronaut. But now I wonder if flying to the moon would be easier and less adventurous than being a pastor. Every day is unique and full of wonder, and laced with a thin strand of mystery. I must hand each day over to God, or else my needy, selfish hands will skewer what God intends for good. So here is to stepping aside daily, listening to the still small voice, and sketching the brilliance of God by way of words. Some day they may caress the paper and bindings of a book, or they may just glide across the back lit computer screen. They will always hover my heart and mind, teaching and prodding me to learn the way of the Father and experiencing fresh ways to become a new kind of kid.

Always learning
Wallace D.

Partnering with Parents

Being involved with children's ministry, as well as youth, I have the privilege to rub shoulders with lots of parents. Parents with all sorts of backgrounds. Many single parent homes, step-parent homes, and a smaller contingency of first marriage, two parent homes. There are days where the word privilege would not exactly be on my mind when it comes to describing my interaction with parents. In fact, it would be quite easy to have a negative bent toward parents, to view them as the enemy, or to accept my role as that of the parent.

It is here that I have been feeling more and more challenged as a leader and pastor. Parents, regardless of circumstances, want to be good parents. Are there parents who really could give a rip? Sure, but they are the exception not the rule. So if the starting point is a negative bent toward the parents, then I would be starting with the exception and not the rule. I am dong my best to partner with parents, and to teach our family team to think in these terms as well. Parents are not perfect and more than anything they need encouragement and assistance. What if parents saw the church as a people of support and encouragement, rather than condemning or conflicting with? It is also easy for me to assume the role of the parent if the parent is disconnected. I am learning to start with an invitation to involve the parents as best I can before relegating them to bystander status. I believe this could be the approach for teachers or anyone involved with instructing, mentoring and educating young people. I do not set out to be a replacement parent, nor do I want to assume the role without exhausting all options in which to partner with the parents. The reality is the average church has 40 hours a year with kids and youth, and the average parent has 3000 hours with them. Whether for good or bad, the parent is the number one spiritual influence in their child's life. This makes ignoring, disregarding, or criticizing parents as poor stewardship of time and influence. It is crucial to partner with parents, assist them, and to champion the home as best as we can. If the home life is a mess we cannot cast it aside, or see our job as just helping the young person survive it. We need to champion the family and use our influence to impact the entire home. Is this easy? A most emphatic NO! Can it be messy? A most emphatic yes! But is it healthy? I believe so, because I believe in the family. Better yet, it is God who created the family and His love for the family drives me to love and believe in the family.

This is shaping and reshaping me,
Wally

Larry Crabb's 'Real Church'

I must start by saying that this is a book that needs to be read in its entirety. Anything less and it would be easy to miss the larger message of what Larry is trying to poke at. I definitely enjoyed wrestling with this book and found myself feeling all sorts of things, challenged, depressed, irritated, challenged and comforted. Not necessarily in that order either. The first half of the book seems to be from a deep and dark place of discontent with the American, Western church of today. Larry spares no style or label of church as he pulls the rug out from under each one of them. He is not a fan of swinging the pendulum in any ONE particular direction, and he chops that tree down with brutal honesty. For the most part I think he is right on target and the church needs this feedback, BUT he also admits from the beginning that he does not spend much time in church and the churches he visits are Sunday pop ins. So he very easily could miss the heart or centrality of these particular churches. He also takes sharp aim at the wreck that is the consumer church, which he describes as people being addicted to themselves (for him it is being addicted to himself then). We want what WE want. Unhealthy for sure, yet this is very much front and center in today's American, Western church. BUT again, Larry has HIS way of laying out what HE wants in a church, which can be a little formula driven, in that the four things he wants seem to have to take place in HIS order and HIS way. For example, he wants community centered BEFORE mission, yet this dismisses the fact that a lot of people find the greatest connection points, and most meaningful, to be found in serving with and alongside one another. So does the order HAVE to be "spiritual theology," "spiritual formation," spiritual community," and then "spiritual mission?" I completely agree that ALL of these things should be present in a 'Real Church,' but that they also can be experienced together, mixed, but not necessarily ordered or formulated as Larry has them. With that, I truly enjoyed this book, and as a pastor, found it to be stirring in so many good ways. I would love to see the church in America, the West, change and move to greater health, and I think this book pushes us in a very positive direction. It is not highly practical and Larry does not lay out a specific game plan, but he does give excellent ingredients for healthy cooking. I believe if Larry finds more real churches, then he would still be less inclined to go, but it's because I believe he would be invited into a truth craving, formation applying, community centered and mission driven PEOPLE that are being the church. Which isn't found in a place, but is found in people, relationships, wherever and however they gather.

Clarity

In the previous post you can read some of my queries, frustrations and wonderings, but here I just simply ask a couple things:

What is a Christian?

What is the church?

The guy/gal walking down the street would recognize this how?

Feel free to probe more of my thoughts in the following post.
Wally

Help Please

There is a lot of emotions bottled up, questions swirling in every direction, and this results in a perplexed look tattooed on my face. I have served and/or pastored in churches that were small, big, filled with bells and whistles, and stripped down to light music with conversational teaching. The styles have changed but one thing has always been consistent: Others participating in the church has been a bit difficult. BUT, and this is a big BUT, the reasons why people have stopped participating, don't ever start to participate, or cut back on participating are relatively understandable. I say relative because they are still, mostly, excuses.

Here is where things are just really, really different and mind numbing to me. My previous experiences involved asking people to participate within a program that mostly involves those within the church, or doing small projects for those in the surrounding community. So helping with the youth and kids, participating in a small group, playing or singing in the band and maybe doing some greeting on Sunday morning. These seem to be the staples. So people are too busy or whatever it is, which, again is reasonably understandable. This leads to people leaving the church for reasons of not feeling connected, fed (whatever that exactly means), and something that has to with what they don't get. Truly, as much as it can be frustrating, there is some level of understanding.

So this leads to today, Ecclesia, and things are different. We can be found in the downtown area of Muskegon, which is very diverse in several ways, and our faith family is made up of a very diverse group of people. The area in which we are active is full of all kinds of very high needs, practical needs. People without homes, food, clothes and laced with addictions and brokenness. We have a Sunday morning gathering with music and preaching/teaching. But anything beyond attending that, so anyone who claims Christianity would involve taking care of people's most basic needs, which is not easy and can be messy.

But it is at the foundation of being human.

I know there are needs everywhere and they are all valid. But I'm wondering how you walk past your neighbor who is without food, clothes, or the most basic of needs because it makes you feel uncomfortable? So then we can go to the church that has needs, valid needs, but needs we can meet in ways that are comfortable. So you will drive out of the town you live in because it is messy and you will pull into a church that is cleaner and more comfortable, I should be OK with it?

As a pastor and a fellow human being, I understand it is not easy, it can be exhausting, and it pulls on every heart string.Yet watching God wash over people at the most basic of ways is the greatest reward one can participate in.

So when people sit in front of you and say, "We are leaving the church because we're not COMFORTABLE," it doesn't sit well. In fact it doesn't sit at all! It slithers around your neck and slowly chokes you without ceasing. "Are you a Christian?" The response, "Yes." Well then, I really need to know where you go from here? Reasons of attending Bible studies and being with people "like us," do not land. They crash. They burn. They suck.

I read my Bible and it does not make my life easier. It calls me to live. And I see the "discipleship" of those in the Bible as a place of sacrificing more, not less. It's uncomfortable to help people have food, a place to sleep, not be naked? Yep, it's not always easy, but seriously!

What is church? What does it mean to be a Christian? A list of belief statements? Bible studies that help us KNOW more? A place we attend and someone takes care of us? A group of people to do life with, but people like us?

I am not asking you to hang out with crazy youth or loud kids. You can, but I'm wondering if you can start by supporting us in sheltering people, clothing people, and feeding people. We would love to invite people into a different story that is not destructive. We're starting there. Because that is right in front of us. Too much to ask? You can ease your way in. Still too much? Oh, you're going to go to the big church. The one with good music, groups and studies.

Ok. You'll be praying for us. Thanks. We'll be waiting for someone else to be the answer to your prayers.

I need God's crazy love and grace because I'm bleeding here. This is very hard, but what can I do? Quit? Ignore it? Ecclesia is from God, but now we are looking for His body. Help. Please.

Wally