ARRIBA!!!

Well, finally the day has come.  I head for Mexico for a Missions Trip in like an hour...gosh I'm so stinking excited.  I haven't been out of the country in like 3 years, and if you know me very well at all, it's been killing me!!!  My heart is the world and not being able to go reach it has been death to me.  I know I know....I don't wanna hear the typical "the missions field is outside your door" stuff....I recognize that and I do minister where I"m at, but when you have a call to missions it kills you to not be in the field...and it's been hurting something fierce.  I wish I had time to respond to some of the comments listed on my last blog....they seemed to get quite heated.....Let me just say, good points and I agree with you, but I think you missed kinda what I was talking about. 

I am mature enough to recognize that our spiritual walk is not emotions driven.  It is a relationship and though I"m not married, I have been in a relationship and semi-understand how things calm down from the heightened emotional state that you are in at first.  I wasn't referring to the emotions of seeking God that we feel as a teenager.  No matter how long you have been married, there is an underlying passion and hunger for your mate that feeds and sustains your relationship.  If it isn't there, you need counseling or something, because that passion should always be there, though not always felt emotionally, it still drives you to please and take care of your spouse.  Like I said, I know I"m not married and don't understand the vast amounts of experience and understanding that come with marriage, as it relates to our relationship with the Lord, but what I was referring to is the underlying passion that somehow seems to have slipped away.  You konw how people talk about the passion disappearing from their marriage, I feel like it is that way sometimes.  I desire that constant underlying passion and hunger for God that drives me, even through the normal, hohum days of our spiritual walk.  I want that passion to be stronger than ever, driving me daily to find some way to please Him and show Him that I care.  If you want to call it emotions, fine, but I think that it is something deeper than emotion and it is something that is daily felt and sustains us continually.  That is what I was referring to. 

Anywho, I would appreciate your prayers as we embark on our adventure.  Pray for protection and anointing.  Pray that God open doors and soften hearts to His word.  Also, pray for my grandfather.  He had a heart attack a week and a half ago and was released, but he went back to the ER Monday cause he was spitting up blood.  They found that he has pneumonia and his lungs were 2/3 full, both of them!  He is on oxygen 24 hours a day and is in serious need of a touch from God.  He is so weak he can barely talk at all.  Please bombard Heaven on his behalf.  His name is Dean Sears and he si in his mid-70's.  I don't want him to die while I'm out of the country...I know that sounds morbid, but both of my mom's parents died without me being able to talk to them one last time. 

Well, I'm off.  Talk to you all when I get back....till then, the blogosphere is yours!

Dispassionate

Last night, I went to see a movie while Joel, who is a Youth Pastor here in Denver, had youth service (yes on a Friday night...weird to me too!).  I had been wanting to go to the movies for a while and so decided to go out and chill instead of sticking around for youth service.  The service started at 7 and my movie at 7:40, so I didn't get back over to the church until about 10.  I figured that Joel would be done and we could go hang out, well boy was I wrong.  I walked into the youth room and youth were sprawled out in the altars, just seeking the Lord.  I sat down and as I listened to the worship music I began to recall my days as a teenager in youth.  I can vividly remember numerous times of praying in the altars for hours after youth service, crying out in passionate hunger for God.  I remember the times being lost in His presence without a care in the world, only that I could feel him and somehow get closer to Him. 

Then, just like a flashback, I saw my life today and quickly it was like a skim over the past 8 years and saw a distant into dispassionate, common place relationship.  Or so it seems.  I thought about the differences between those youth services that lasted for hours and the schedule driven "Big-church" services, which rarely seem to breach the Noon time limit.  I even saw my own devotional times as dim reflections of those wonderful passionate times of prayer.  How does that happen?  Why is it that I have seemingly lost that wreckless abandon that drove me to my knees?  Where is that same passion and hunger in our adult services?  Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems that the older and "wiser" and more "mature" we become, we lose that incredible hunger and drive for God.  We spend our few minutes in the altar to pray over the conviction we felt from the service, but are quick to get out, so as not to miss the game or because we have food in the Crock pot.  Our schedule out shines our desire, the clock clicking loudly in the back of our minds as we attempt to fit time in for God.  Are teenagers always whole-hearted in prayer?  No.  Are all adults passionless?  No, but it does seem that somehow we lose that hunger the older we get.  In my teenage years I wasn't the best Christian and I had a lot of stuff wrong, but I can remember those numerous times on my knees.  Now, I"m older and more knowledgeable and able to avoid sin easier, yet I lack that same hunger and drive.  MAybe it was my sinful life in teenage years that drove me to seek, the sense of conviction and need driving my hunger.  But why should that drive change?  Am I any less sinful and in need of God?  If I had the choice, which would I choose?  A sinful life with constant hunger and passion, driving me to seek God for endless hours without a care for time or schedule? Or the knowledgeable maturity of a pure life that lacks the drive and fire of my younger days?  Is it merely that as we age we mellow or is there a real loss of something as we get older and wiser?  I don't have the answer, but this all struck me last night and I was forced to reconsider my life and my relatiosnhip with God.  Even though I do hunger after Him and seek Him, there seems to be something lacking, something that has gone as I have gotten older.  Where did it go?  How do I get it back?  I don't know....but I know that I want it.  I want that passionate, wreckless abandon with which I sought the Lord in my teens.  I want to be driven to His presence and His throne with only a desire to know Him more and experience His presence, regardless of time, place, or other people.  Lord, take me back to that place.  No, Lord give me that hunger fresh and new.  I don't want yesterday's hunger, I need new passion for today and tomorrow and the next day, ad infinum.  Lord, drive me to my knees with the awesome sense of your presence and glory.  Take me into the Holy of Holies, where the Shekinah Glory of your presence illuminates everything.  Wipe from my mind the pressing matters of life that pale in comparison to you.  I need you!  I want you!  Consume this dry, hollow vessel!

A Much Needed Sabatical....if you can call it that

I'm taking a few days off...much needed days off....

You know, they always tell you to be careful in ministry and not burn yourself out.  It's way too easy just to keep right on trucking through ministry stuff and forget the whole eating, sleeping, resting thing, especially when you are single.  It's so easy just to keep pushing yourself because there is so much work to be done and not nearly enough time to do it in.  I don't think a lifetime is enough time to accomplish all the ministry goals and dreams that I have.  It seems like I have spiritual ADD sometimes, because there are so many things I want to see and accomplish and so many dreams that I don't know how in the world I'm going to do them all or if they even all fit together....but that's for another day.

Since I came up here in Sept., I haven't had a weekend off...period.  I work full time during the week outside the church, then work at the church on Fridays and usually Saturdays, and we all know that Sunday isn't a day off for a pastor.  Oh well, that's life in ministry right?  It's still tiring.  I found myself becoming cynical about the church and ministry and just in need of "me" time.  So, before we head off to Mexico next Friday (please be praying for us!), I decided to get the heck outta Dodge and came over the pass to Denver for a couple days rest and relaxation.....Nothing to do but shop at REAL malls, watch some movies, and gorge myself on a Chinese buffets....nothing like enjoying the simpler things of life!  Hopefully this weekend will prove productive in stimulating my mind with more randomness to spout on the wonderful world of XANGA....

PEACE!

THE HIDDEN TRUTHS ABOUT MINISTRY

Ok, now before I write this, I want to apologize to my 6 adoring friends who are consistent in reading my inconsistent blogging...sorry to have left you for so long without my wonderful insights on shallow topics.  I've been extremely busy, as working full time and being a full time minister tends to fill up a schedule.  So much going on and just not enough time to get anything else done, like blogging, emailing, sleeping, eating...etc.  It's like since the New Year started at midnight Jan 1st, I've gone non-stop and then some, mostly feeling like I"m playing catch up.  But I'm back....at least today I am.

Well, I was thinking this week about my brief few years in ministry, and really only a little over a year in church ministry, and I realize now that they didn't do a very good job preparing me for the "real world" of ministry in Bible college.  Now, I had some wonderful teachers and enjoyed most of my classes, but the lessons I learned and things I was taught in college have been nowhere near my experience in ministry.  Allow me to expound upon these "greater insights" into the wide world of church ministry. 

LESSON #1:  WE ARE SHEPHERDS AND SHEEP ARE STUPID

Now, please, if you are not a minister and just a church attendee, or one of the sheep, please please please do not be offended.  I am making a generalization that obviously does not apply to all sheep; however, in general, sheep are stupid, pure and simple.  You know the old saying, "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink"?  Well, let me give you one for your typical church goer..."you can lead the sheep to grass, but he won't eat it.  You can cram his face in the ground, and he'll starve to death.  You can pre chew the grass into paste and then open the sheep's mouth and pour the nourishing mush down his throat, close his mouth, and work the throat muscles with your hands, and the sheep will simply lean forward and let the paste drip from his mouth.  Then the sheep will turn and complain that he isn't being fed and needs a new shepherd or will simply die."  I know that's a little long to be one of those enduring, timeless sayings that will be repeated for years to come, but allow me to explain my lesson in shepherding. 

I have been raised in church my whole life, like many typical church goers, or have at least been a Christian for many years.  I learned in Bible college the need for personal devotions and prayer and have come to depend upon on my own personal time instead of pastor's weekly message, as should be the norm not only for ministers but for EVERY Christian.  Yet, Average Joe Church Goer doesn't want to feed himself.  He wants to be fed, yet never wants to accept the life giving sustenance that the shepherd has to offer.  He doesn't want the complex or deep nutrition, but wants formula, something pleasing and smooth, not something you have to chew on.  So, you make it simple, mix up some formula, and then Joe spits it back up, claiming that he just isn't getting fed, all the while you have spent your time trying to feed Joe what he needs.  The food is prepared and sitting in front of him, and even if you shove it down his sheepy gullet, he refuses to accept it.  Stupid sheep!

The teach you in college how to prepare a sermon, how to study, how to do bible studies, etc., all the great ways of preparing the food and delivering it in exquisite arrays of culinary decor, yet they don't teach you how to deal with stubborn sheep.  They don't tell you that most of the time the food will end up splattered on the wall like a 2-year old eating Spaghetti-O's, only for them to come whining later on that they are hungry.

Also, apparently sheep have zero knowledge about how to live or be a successful little sheep, even about the basic things they learned as a baby lamb.  Things that seem so basic to me, things I have grown learning in church, apparently most sheep have no recollection of such things.  They don't realize that they too have gifts, no matter how many times you tell them.  They don't understand that they too are responsible as ministers and "shepherds" in their own right, no matter how many times you show them.  We have a bunch of ignorant, stupid sheep walking around with Alzheimer's.  They don't teach you these things in Bible college.  They teach you about how to be successful and really you walk away feeling like you are going to go into a church with hungry, active, super-sheep who are ready to conquer the world and grow and mature into powrful mountain goats, able to leap tall mountains in a single bound and send an army of wolves running with their ferocious "BAAAA".  Not true...none of it!

LESSON #2:  FULL TIME MINISTERS AREN'T JUST FULL TIME MINISTERS

Growing up in a rather large church in Oklahoma City, I was under the assumption that most churches, though exactly that size, were like ours.  The pastor was well taken care of and provided for, and he spent all his time during the week working at the church, preparing for amazing sermons and such.  When I went to Bible College, it didn't seem like it was much different a view.  Now, going to school in Dallas, where there are many good-size churches only helped feed this misinformation.  They teach you about sermon building, visitation, counseling, etc.  They prepare you for full-time ministry, so that when you leave you are ready and equipped and expect to enter a church where you are paid full time and can devote your whole time to the work of the Kingdom......  Well, in the words of a beloved professor of mine, "ERRRR...thanks for playing and may the Lord richly bless you!"  Many a young Bible college grad. leaves the campus thinking they will step into a similar situation at a good-sized church, where they can devote all their time to developing book worthy discipleship programs and sermons rivalling those of Billy Graham, Jonathon Edwards, and Spurgeon.  REALITY CHECK!!  This is not at all the situation that most ministers step into. 

Unlike the illusion of churches whose primary fiscal responsibility is taking care of every need of the pastor, including parsonage, medical, dental, 2 weeks paid vacation, and a retirement plan (man that sounds like a sweet deal), the majority of churches fall into this category:  money enough to pay bills, pay for parsonage or provide for a full time salary for the Senior Pastor and maybe a little money, if your lucky, to give to an Associate.  While the great examples of what a church should be like, i.e. Lakewood, Phoenix 1st, The Oaks, etc., are able to support like 50 staff full time plus enough for them to live in big homes and drive nice cars, the average church pastor is not able to spend every day in the church.  Many pastors, like myself, are forced to work outside the church in order to live and pay bills.  We are full time pastors, putting in nearly, if not more than, 40 hours a week at the church, while working 40+ hours somewhere else.  We bust our humps to pay the bills, buy groceries, buy clothes, and buy gas and then burn the midnight oil to prepare rushed bible studies and messages that are less prepared for than we had hoped, yet God still blesses. 

They don't prepare you for this reality in Bible college.  The ideal is what you learn and how to be the best full time pastor, but they don't teach you how to juggle full time ministry and full time employment elsewhere.  My suggestion:  require so many hours of electives, not in ministry related courses, but in life skills courses, i.e. plumbing, automechanics, masonry, tiling, painting, construction, grocery bag sacking, because these are the things that enable a pastor to sustain life so he can effectively minister to a needy congregation.  Second suggestion:  Christian Socialism and Communalism; we combine all the wages and benefits received by all pastors, and then equally divy out the money, so that we are all equally paid....sounds good to me.  Just pool it all together and give each of us the same....I know the Russians would be good for something one day....=~)

Unfortunately, we can't all be like Joel Osteen and Tommy Barnett.  The reality is that many pastors out there are buring the candle at both ends and sometimes in the middle, in order to fulfill the calling on their lives.  But thanks be to God, because He somehow always multiplies the hours, super anoints seemingly weak sermons, and adds wax continually to our ever burning candles. 

LESSON #3:  ASSOCIATE PASTOR = GOPHER BOY

TITLES MEAN NOTHING!  Let me repeat that for those of you who didn't catch it in caps the first time....TITLES MEAN NOTHING!  The only person who has a secure job title within a ministry staff is the Senior Pastor, a.k.a Supreme High Commander a.k.a Supreme Maximum Pontiff a.k.a. Absolute Ruling Dictator a.k.a. <Insert preferred authoritarian title>.  Don't get me wrong, I love my pastor (Travis is great, Travis great, all hail the mighty Bishop of Summit Bound Church), but honestly, no matter what job description you agreed upon, he/she is the only one with the secure position.  The keyword with all other staff members:  flexible!  No matter what kind of Pastor you are, Music, Children's, Youth, Jr. High, Media, Senior Adult, etc., you will never just be what your title is.  Associate pastors, I have determined, are hired on to do the jobs that either the Sr. Pastor has no time for or does not want to do.  You essentially become the Gopher Boy, and this is especially true in smaller churches.  While the Pastor spends his time preparing for Sunday morning and midweek services, counseling people, and generally running the church, the Associate does everything else that does not immediately fall within the path of the Sr. Pastor's day to day duties.  Therefore, you become the Youth Sunday School teacher, Men's/Women's ministry leader, Missions director, Part time sound man, back up singer, website manager, Bible Quiz coach, Fine Arts director, and Outreach coordinator, on top of the aforementioned challenges of working outside the church.  Associate Pastor is only an umbrella encompassing all the areas of the church that the Pastor deems off of his plate.  You, as the Associate, have the floor beneath the Sr. Pastor's plate, therefore all that gets pushed off splats onto your much larger plate, effectively making a large gelatenous blob of responsibilities and ministries, each of which should be the best there ever is, was, or shall be. 

A word of caution to all those considering entering ministry as anything less than the Big Kahuna:  GET YOUR JOB DESCRIPTION IN WRITING, CARVED IN STEEL, AND BRANDED UPON YOUR FLESH, THEN PUT INTO A LEGAL DOCUMENT SIGNED WITH THE BLOOD OF THE PASTOR'S FIRSTBORN, BINDING HIM UNDER THREATS OF BEING TORTURED "TO THE PAIN" (please see "The Princess Bride" for a description of being tortured to the pain).

Thus, you shall be able to go about ministry with all your hair, in the same color as it was when you came, without nervous tics, ulcers, or searing indigestion.  In this way, you will be able to effectively survive ministry without becoming the ministerial errand boy....let the new "Children's Pastor" suffer that fate. 

These are only a few insightful lessons I have learned in my vast ministerial experience.  I'm sure there are many more "unseen lessons" to learn and rest assured, you shall be the first ones to hear of them, like it or not.  May my words comfort those who are likewise enjoying the wonderful pains of suffering for Jesus!

BORN TALL...AS TALL AS THE TREE TOPS.....

I was inspired today by the musings of a dear friend and began to think of my life.  So, in a blatant act of plagerism, I have taken the idea of my fluffy, ACLU bound friend and adapted it to my unique situation.  So, without further adieu I present the pros and cons of being ginormously tall. 

Pros

I'm always picked first for basketball games

I can reach the top shelf

I can touch the ceiling without jumping

I get to have my own special store for clothing

I'm easily spotted in a crowd

I can see over everyone else

I get seated in the exit row on airplanes (extra leg room)

Girls love tall, dark and handsome

I don't need a ladder

Tall people are natural leaders

No one can see my bald spot

I can stand in the deep end of the pool

I can reach tall branches to pick fruit

Cons

Tall black men are athletic; tall white men are awkward, i.e. Shawn Bradley, Yao Ming, etc.  Oh yeah, and white men can't jump

Short people always manage to put the heaviest stuff on the top shelf

Most houses are made for short people and the ceiling touching is often my head slamming into it

The special clothing in the special stores have "special" prices...WHADDYA MEAN $75 for a pair of jeans!!

I'm screwed as a fugitive, spy, or any other job requiring me to "blend in"

I get stuck in the back row of pictures and no one wants to sit behind me.

I get seated in the exit row of airplanes next to the "well-rounded", fluffy guy (love ya B)

Girls love tall, dark, and handsome....I"m tall, pale, and awkward

Kids think I'm a jungle gym

My bald spot is caused by low ceiling fans

Though I'm head and shoulders above the rest, my head and shoulders make great lightning rods during a storm

Beavers think I am a tree and try gnawing on my ankles to topple me and use me for their dams

I can't drive sports cars, small trucks, small sedans, or VW bugs and beetles.  I CAN drive land yachts (lincoln continentals, lincoln town cars, etc.), station wagons and minivans

Tall people are natural born leaders, but they are also natural born targets of aggression, i.e. Frankenstein, King Kong, the Giant from Jack and the Beanstalk, Goliath, etc.

Most women need a stepping stool to kiss me

I don't need a ladder, but I get vertigo looking down at my toes.