Getting Back to the Important Things

Yesterday and today I have had the privilege of spending two days away from all of my jobs - paid and unpaid - and have been attending the Catalyst leaders conference in Atlanta, Georgia. It has been a very challenging two days and while there have been a number of very informative and challenging talks given, there has not been one session of one speaker that has really shaken me, but it seems that God is using a number of the sessions to drop in a couple of lines of the picture. I thought I would jot down where I was as of tonight.

Yesterday one line that was going over and over in my head was this - we have replaced the important with the urgent. A simple statement but a very indicting statement when you delve into it. Essentially what the speaker was saying through this statement was that we have some very important things to do and things that we should be giving our lives to. There are things that we are involved in that are so important that we should be setting them as priorities and yet we have not given these important things the place that we should. We have allowed ourselves to be distracted by the latest Twitter feed, or the latest Facebook status update, or the latest Facebook game, or the latest e-mail - these are the urgent things. Through our social networking and our drive to be on top of everything we have allowed ourselves to take our eyes off of the important things in life and move from one crisis e-mail to the next, from one Twitter post to the next and we spend all of our time on the urgent.

The result can be devastating. We take a normal work day and clutter it up with urgent work and we fail to give the important work any of our time. The important work will be the work that will last. This is the life changes that we see in people's lives - if we take the time to spend time with them. If we fill our day with urgent work then we squeeze out the important and we miss out on what God has for us.

As I thought about this line, another one came to mind - "We need to fight for our families". God has placed us in families and He does not expect us to be perfect, but He wants to write His story of grace and transformation on our family. God wants to take our broken families and write His story through them as He restores them, as He builds them, as He heals the dysfunction. We need to stop trying to write our own story for our family and create the perfect 2.2 children family picture and allow God to create His family picture using our families as the lead characters.

As I pondered these two statements I was struck by a very painful truth about our church and the latest discussions that I have been involved in. We are in the process of preparing our 2010 budget and there have been discussions on costs for this and costs for that. We have discussed air conditioning and grass cutting and fought to include or exclude such items from the budget (depending on your view point). What brought me to tears during this evening's sessions was that while we fight over air conditioning, I know of at least 4 families where the husband and wife partnership is in disarray and for some has become separation. We are fighting over air conditioning and we are not fighting for our families. We are fighting over how much money to spend on grass cutting and no-one is talking about how much we should be investing into our people to help heal their marriages. We are fighting for the urgent and we have failed to see that we have set aside the important.

God please forgive me for placing the urgent in front of the important. Please forgive me for fighting over air conditioning and not fighting for our families. Help me Lord to lean all of my leadership, all of my influence, all of my energy into fighting to restore families and not wasting time on the urgent.

What a month!!

I cannot believe that it has been almost a month since I last posted a blog. Where has the time gone? Well, I know where it has gone to be honest - college started back up again, clinic takes up my other available mornings and today is the first time in a month when I have had a morning off of work/clinic/church/family to do my own thing, and guess where I am. Yup, that's right. I am sitting in my Bowie office enjoying some coffee, reconnecting with some of PG County's finest detectives, the mayor and some other church pastors who frequent 'my' office.

So this should be more of an update than a posting with an attempt at some in-depth meaning, I think. This past month has felt very hectic - only because I am teaching for 30 hours or so on three days and then treating patients for 10-12hours on two days and still trying to accomplish my tasks at church and my role as husband and dad. I have learned that trying to squeeze an extra 30+ hours a week into what was an already busy schedule doesn't really work too well. Something had to give - and the thing that gave for the first few weeks of this madness was actually sleep. For the first two weeks of college I survived (best word to describe it) on about 4hrs a night. Not too good, but just one of those things.

I have been trying very hard to not eat into family time, but I know I have sacrificed some of that too. Julie and I went out on our first date night in months two weeks ago. It was a beautiful evening and one that I would love to do every week, but at this season I dont see either of us making that regular a schedule. We just try to make the limited time we seem to have as effective as possible, knowing that Christmas is coming and a new semester with less pressure is lined up for the Spring.

Julie and I took on some additional responsibility this summer too - we are helping to coordinate our small group ministry in the church, really in the hope of setting up a good structure and format that can be taken on and run with by someone else. It seems that I have a ministry of short term fixes, ship-righting and passing the ball. Dont get me wrong, I love to start new ventures, but sometimes I wonder if we have started something that no-one else in the church wants to do. I'll talk about that in another post some day.

StreetReach continues to develop - some times in a positive way and then sometimes I wonder if we should just shut it down until next summer. The last Saturday we had arranged to go out and serve I had lined up three houses - not a large number by any stretch, and I expected about 12-15 people to show up. Pretty easy - 3 teams of 4-5 and these projects would be done pretty quickly. 5 people showed up. 5 people. Out of a church of some 200 adults and a youth ministry of some 60 teenagers - 5 people showed up. Disappointing to say the least. Having said that though, those 5 people served their hearts out and around 2pm that afternoon we completed the last of the three jobs and headed for home. So I need to be thankful that we served and reached out to three people in our community. There are three more people who know that they are loved by God. So we will focus on that instead of the paltry numbers in attendance.

Tonight we head to Catalyst 2009 - a leadership conference with some 12,000 other leaders gathering for 3 days in Atlanta for training and encouragement. I wonder what sort of challenges I will personally receive. I wonder what sort of challenges we as a church will receive. God bring it, and bring it full on!

I need it, we need it.

I'll write more later.

Well, Today You Are Five

Do you remember the evenings when you couldn't sleep, and we walked the house together in the early morning hours. You were wrapped up tight, lying on your side being slowly rocked as we moved from room to room. Well, today you are five.

Do you remember the day you lay on the living room floor, playing with your soft snail toy, and you realized that with enough effort and a little assistance you could roll over on to your back? It took a while for you to learn how to roll over on to your tummy again, well, today you are five.

Do you remember the time when you first held a spoon and smeared mashed up sweet potato all over your face as you learned to feed yourself? Well, today you are five.

Do you remember the time when you first pulled yourself up to stand at the side of the sofa? You know you wanted to take off and run, but your unsteady legs would not permit you then, well, today you are five.

Do you remember the time we took you to see grandpa Eric and grandma Carol and you were so small that you slept in the basket of the luggage cart at the airport? Well, now you are five.

Do you remember the day when you stepped away from your mommy and began to walk, ever so wobbly, but once you were up, there was no stopping you. Well, now you are five.

Do you remember the time when you came to the hospital to visit mommy and you met your little sister for the first time? You were just 2 years old when Emma came, well, now you are five.

I have so many wonderful memories of you my sweet daughter. Each day you provide me with a new memory, a new story to tell, a new lesson to learn and each day you provide me with a new reason to fall to my knees and thank God for the beautiful blessing that He gave to us when He brought you into the world. I watched you today with your friends, as you played and laughed and ran around with them. There were times when it seemed like chaos, and then there were times when you saw that someone wasn't joining in, or wasn't happy for whatever reason and you lived up to your name - you my little 'friend' would talk to the unhappy guest, or find them another toy to play with. You truly are a good 'friend' to everyone you come into contact with.

Well, now you are five - you are not all grown up just yet, but you are becoming a beautiful young lady, with princess tendancies, as long as the princess is ready at a given moments notice to climb a tree or race across the monkey bars. You have a sweetness in your smile that comes from the purity of your heart that brings warmth and comfort to everyone you meet. You have a strong personality that we will do our best to teach you how to use for great good. Even this evening you realized that you can lead and teach as you and mommy talked and you remembered that you taught Emma how to pump her legs when she is on the swing. You have a great future ahead of you and that will all fall in place in God's timing. You will have great adventures that will make me proud. You will take the gospel to places that I could never go to and you will see God's kingdom come wherever you walk.

Well, that is to come for you, but today you are five. Today you are still my little princess who climbs up on my knee for cuddles, who says, 'carry me' at the end of a long day, who climbs into our bed when you cant sleep - which means that your mommy and me dont get much sleep, but at least you feel safe.

My continuing prayer for you is that God will keep you safe and keep you close to Him as you grow up. God has great plans for you, and I pray that we will see them come about together.

Cara, I love you dearly, and as I said to you when we were first introduced in the delivery suite, I'm your dad, and I love you with everything I have. Never forget that, and never believe that there is anything that can come between us. Sleep well little princess, because today you are five.

I love you.

Dad

Get On Your Knees and Fight Like a Man

How many of you can date yourself and your music selection by knowing where that lyric came from? It is a simple line yet one filled with tremendous power and challenge. On first reading it appears to be a contradiction in terminology. If we are really going to fight then why would we do it from our knees? Why would we not position ourselves in the strongest stance or the place that would afford us the greatest advantage over our enemies? Well, the contradiction in terms is actually a truth that confounds and confuses, yet if followed releases tremendous power and opportunity.

“Get on your knees and fight like a man” could be translated as this – “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” (2 Chron 7:14) We fight for lots of things, we fight for our families, we fight for our rights, we fight for the things that we believe in. We fight in our own strength and our own power and we live in a world where the dominant win and the strong survive. However, we serve a Lord who does not follow those rules, we serve a God who is the strongest, who is the greatest, yet He does not use that force to accomplish His tasks. We serve a God who “…chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” (1 Cor 1:27) We serve a God who asks us to rely on Him. We serve a God who asks us to offer ourselves as living sacrifices, we serve a God who asks us to humble ourselves and pray and seek His face. When the God of the universe asks us to do something as simple then shouldn’t we just do what He says?

So why don’t we?

The stumbling block in this statement from 2 Chronicles 7:14 is this – ‘humble themselves’. Have you ever wondered why that is in there? It must be in there for a reason, and the reason has to be because the people refused to humble themselves. They were a “proud and stiff-necked people”. Does this verse apply to us today? Are we a proud and stiff necked people who need to humble ourselves and pray? Are we a people who desperately want to see the Lord do a marvelous thing in our church and in our community yet refuse to bend our knee and lower our heads in submission and humility to the King of Kings? I don’t know if you have thought about this, but God has been challenging me about this recently. God has been challenging me on the things that I ask Him to do for our church and yet the lack of time I spend seeking Him with other people in the church. Recently Pastor Ray challenged us on our walk with the Lord and our personal prayer life. While mine is not perfect and could do with some help, I have been convicted over our corporate prayer life at Mt Oak, or at least my lack of personal involvement in our corporate prayer life.

We have a faithful and dedicated handful of saints who gather each Wednesday night in the sanctuary of our church and every week they pray for our leadership, they pray for our children, they pray for our ministry, they pray for our church, they pray for our city and they pray for our country. They pray faithfully because the truth of the statements above has gripped their hearts. Over the past few months I have been challenged to join with them, and that is what I intend to do. On Wednesday evenings after our church family dinner I have decided that it is time for me to humble myself, time for me to pray, time for me to turn from my wicked (and selfish) ways and time for me to seek His face. Is God asking you to do the same thing at your church? Is God asking you to humble yourself and pray and seek His face? Maybe it is time for more than just me to join with faithful prayer servants and spend time on our knees fighting like warriors – prayer warriors.

Do you think that corporate prayer should be a priority for a church? Do you think that corporate prayer should be a priority for you? Would you give up just 6 Wednesday evenings from 7-8.15pm to learn about prayer and spend time in prayer? We are planning to run a 6 week training series to teach us and encourage us to pray. Why don’t you come to our family dinner on Wednesday night, drop the kids off at Awana or youth small groups and come join me as I join our faithful prayer warriors and seek the Lord together. In the immortal words of Nike – Just do it!

Do the simple, ask the question.

I have been thinking a lot recently about our recent summer mission trip, our upcoming Saturday StreetReach micro-missions, our pumpkin patch, our trunk or treat event, and a couple of other events that are in the planning stage and I cant get away from a recurring and nagging fear - "What if nobody else in the church gets what we are doing? What if nobody invites their friends? How can we be successful in reaching this city?"

Instead of getting depressed by these questions or focusing energy on events from the past that have really been disappointing I have been thinking about what the potential fundamental reason might be for a lack of excitement about church. I have come to think that this is really where we are at - there is no excitement about church. There is excitement about a lot of things that we are doing in our lives, but there does not seem to be much excitement about church. A quick trawl through Facebook status updates and you find all sorts of messages about the things that interest us, but rarely a simple message inviting people to join us for church. Now some folks may suggest that a Facebook status update is an ineffective way of inviting people to church - if so then why do people use their Facebook status update to invite people to the town center for coffee, or to the park to hang out?

Reaching people for Jesus involves one simple thing - inviting people to go where they will encounter Jesus - church. If I have friend visit me from Belfast and I ask if they would like to see some baseball, then the obvious place for me to take them is to the Baysox. If we want people to see Jesus then the obvious place to invite them is to church. Yet we do not do it.

I am convinced that the reason we have not reached this city with the love of Jesus is very simple - we haven't reached out. We have not asked the simple question like, "I know this may sound crazy, but would you be interested in coming to our church on Sunday morning?" Could it really be that easy? Could it really be as simple as asking a question? What about some great training in evangelism? What about bringing in a well known speaker? What about spending a lot of money of literature and posters?

What about just dropping a hook in the water and seeing what bites?

When we go to the lake (SML) on vacation I go to the dock with my girls to catch blue gill fish. A little piece of cheese, a small hook and a Barbie rod with flashing lights is all that is required to catch fish. No special training, no special equipment, no expense - just a willingness to put a hook in the water and wait.

It is time for the church to rise up in all of its humility and put some hooks in the water. It is time for us to ask our non-christian friends and neighbors a simple question - "Would you like to come to church with me this Sunday?"

What a difference a simple question can make.

The Scars of Being Up Front

I started back to work this week, another semester of eager young minds to fill with as much knowledge as they can hold. As I sat on Sunday evening doing some final preparations, I checked my e-mail to look for any last minute schedule adjustments. In my inbox was one of those e-mails - you know, the ones where the author has some 'friendly advice' which is designed to make you a 'better person'. Yeah, that's right - someone had an issue with a presentation I gave to my work colleagues during a meeting on Wednesday morning and decided that they needed to correct my errant ways.

On Monday morning, when I had settled at my desk and sat awaiting my lecture to print, I once again checked my e-mail. There in my inbox was another e-mail of a similar vein. When an e-mail says "this is not meant to be offensive" then you can guess what will appear in the lines that follow. I wish though that with all of the means of communication available to us that we would learn how to confront or challenge without causing offense. Being up front in a large church and leading a faculty in a medium sized university inevitably paints a large target on your back. Every word that you say, every action that you do is under scrutiny and judgment by every member of the audience. And, if this weekend is anything to go by, people are not shy about helping me 'amend my ways'.

Now, please, don't get me wrong, I am open to correction and improvement but there has to be a way that we can write suggestions for correction that are not offensive.
The advent of e-mail and electronic communication appears to have empowered people to make suggestions to those whom they hear yet do not really know. Written communication has always been around however when one writes a letter there is always some re-reading before the letter is mailed out. There may also be a little time delay between the letter being penned and the letter being sent. Often, the gap brings additional clarity to the author and many times letters of 'correction' will not be sent. E-mail however has meant that corrective advice is documented and sent and of-times in the heat of frustration by whatever has been witnessed.

If you have a word of 'correction' for me from something you have seen me say or do then can I encourage you to sleep on your thoughts and write when you are not in a state of anger or frustration. Your good message is often lost if the tone is antagonistic.

Just saying, because believe it or not, words cut deep.

The Right to Urge or the Urge to Write?

It is interesting how many people spend greater and greater portions of their life writing about what they are doing. There has been an explosion in the social networking scene with an insane notion that people might actually be interested in exactly what I am doing right at this very moment in time. The advent of programs like Twitter and facebook updates before them allowed people to communicate the most trivial of details about their lives and their real time existence however to what purpose? What do we really gain from 'telling people' how we feel at a certain moment in time - when often the people we inform can do nothing about our situation? Have we reduced our ability to communicate with other human beings in a meaningful way and to develop friendships that will stand the test of time to mere media style sound-bytes of what we consider to be relevant information?

Blogs sites like livejournal, xanga and blogspot have for a long time now been repositories of the words that ricochet around inside people's minds looking for a place to find a permanent home. When I was little those repositories were the infamous 'diary'. Teenagers everywhere (especially girls) had little notebooks where they would write their thoughts down each night before retiring to bed. These books would become like best friends and confidants who would be the only other thing that knew every deep dark secret of teenage angst. Those diaries would hold every inner thought and would consequently be placed amongst the most highly treasured and protected possessions. But can we honestly say that releasing these inner most thoughts from the closed pages of a diary equate to the world wide release through an internet blog site? Where did the secrecy go? Where did the intimacy of having a safe location where you could store your deepest dreams, hurts or fears? Have we allowed technology to create a society where there is no inner voice, no filter that sifts what is flowing out and attempts to determine whether what we produce actually shoudl be produced? Have we ultimately lost the thing that we all crave so much - have we lost our ability to cultivate and maintain friendships?

I fear that we have. I fear that we have lost the ability to pick up the phone and call another human being and to discuss the same issues that so easily appear on our Twits or FB updates. It is easier to leave a comment on a person 'wall' for them to read than it is to actually tell them in person - after all, what will they say? What if they don't like it? It seems that our insecurities have risen to such a pinnacle that we leave 'hit-and-run' messages with our 'friends' and think that we are truly developing the kinds of connections that matter.

So next time you get the urge to write, let me (ironically through my own writings) urge you to consider why you are writing. What are you trying to convey? Who are you trying to convey it to? Are you writing to encourage a friend? Then why don't you call them instead, write them a card and deliver it by hand. Engage in face to face dialogue, build your friendship - and make it last.