::reflections::

Reflections on my first month…

I am homesick…I was honestly blindsided by that…I thought I would be ok coming out here. I loved Seattle in all my visits out here to check out Mars Hill Graduate School. The difference is this, while I love Seattle, on my visits I always knew I’d be going back home to Colorado and my friends, in other words, life wasn’t drastically changing for me. Now life has changed, my geography, my friendships, etc.

Now I live here, Seattle, Washington.

Not Broomfield, Colorado.

I am here.

My friends and home are there.

Honestly, in all my dreams of moving out here, in all my visits out here, I never thought moving out here would be so hard.

I miss my friends.

I miss the mountains.

I miss familiar places.

I miss what I knew as “church” there.

Now I find myself in a new place. A new story. New people.

And I wonder what the hell I’m doing here.

Seriously.

You’d think I wouldn’t have these doubts.

I do.

I doubt my calling. I am wrestling with my ideas on the Church (and the church). And I start Seminary in a week. Do I still want to go through with this? I say this for many reasons. One is I’ve given more thought to going to law school. Another is that I’ve given thought to working with various missionary/youth organizations. I have many many questions swirling in my mind concerning what I want to spend my life doing. There are many things I love. Many things I want to do with my life.

I want to make a difference.

I want to travel.

I love writing.

I love speaking.

I love intellectual challenge.

I love discussing law.

I love working with students.

Where does all this leave me?

Wrestling.

Undecided.

With lots of questions.

::dreams, remembering, friends::

So today I had a opportunity to hang out with my friend Melissa. It was a wonderful time of talking about life, and exploring a city that I am new to. I should probably preface all this with some history. I was born and raised in Colorado and now living in Seattle. Melissa was born and raised in Seattle (well near Seattle), moved to Colorado for middle school/high school then moved to Seattle for college and then back to Colorado. We were also neighbors for a year when we lived at the Stonegate apartments in Colorado. In the course of exploring Seattle, I was able to see where she went to college and all that, which was nice since I am fairly new to Seattle (I’ve lived here for less than a month). We then proceed to head to downtown and the waterfront, so I could show her where I will be going to school, Mars Hill Graduate School and get some fish & chips at Ivars. Now to get back to where I was going with all of this. It was a wonderful time, both seeing friends that I miss, and in the course of the conversation, recounting all that has happened in the year.

It all started with recounting how a year ago, almost exactly, we were all moving out of the apartments, which was kind of a sad time since the five of us had a rather good time being neighbors during that time (imagine Friends or something like that), so we were remembering how nice that year was (being neighbors) and how much things have changed and happened in the last year or so. Both of us have experienced the hope and eventual heartache of relationships. We have seen a friend dear to us both get engaged, married and finish law school. Dreams have started, and started to become reality. I was commenting on how crazy it is that I now live in Seattle, how even though it has been a long time dream of mine, that if someone would have asked me a year ago if I thought I would be living in Seattle and getting ready to start my Masters degree, I probably would have laughed (a bit cynically) at them. Yet, here I am, living in Seattle, and classes start September 4th. It was a wonderful time of recounting all that has happened, all that God has done in this time, and how when we forget our dreams, God still remembers. And I think it was further compounded by the fact I was recalling with a dear friend, who has also encouraged me in this dream (we used to talk about Seattle quite a bit at the apartments). I think all of this is important in our journeys, recalling the many motions of the heart and how we have seen God active in our lives, especially in remembering dreams we had long forgotten or given up on. I think I experienced more life in that afternoon than I have in many churches, in recalling all that God has done. I also think it is vitally important in our journeys, since our hearts are usually quick to forget what God has done (think of Moses leading Israel in their forty year desert trek). It is also hard, because, truth be told, those moments are usually few and far between. I guess that is all I have right now, perhaps attribute it to my normal wrestling with life and the church and all that. That is probably one of the greatest reasons why I started down this path, to help people find life in this community we call the church. Ok, I should probably post this, do some reading and head to Seatac to pick up my cousin from the airport. Adios.

Confessions of a God-Pleaser

My name is Josh and I am a God pleaser. While this doesn’t sound like something that is all that bad (for a person who considers themselves a follower of Christ), I think this is a trap that many of us fall into (myself included). Let me explain.

What I will be sharing here stems mainly from what God has been putting on my heart concerning the sort of church I should plant and from the weekend message at Flatirons Church. There are basically two routes one can follow, the route of trying to please God (hence God-Pleaser), and the route of trusting God. These essentially embody the two ideas of a relationship with God. The God-Pleaser route tells us that Jesus work covers our past failures, but now that we are forgiven, and after all, it did cost Jesus His life, we ought to get it together and try to please God, it is the least we can do, after all. The problem is, the crap in our life comes back to haunt us, we then see this as a barrier between God and us and we see it as our job to go through and eliminate it of our own effort. The problem is, try as you may, you will fail, that is guaranteed. Eventually we reduce ourselves to wearing a mask that says, “yes, I’m succeeding, got the sin thing taken care of” when inside the mask we are suffocating, because in reality not everything is alright, in fact it is far from alright, and none of the people around me have anything to offer because they are all posers. They are pretending everything is alright. This route only assumes forgiveness; it completely glosses over the transformation from Christ.

The other route, the route the Bible tells us about, involves following and trusting God, which takes away the control that makes the God-Pleaser route so tempting. It is this route that requires us to follow God, untamed and free with no guarantees beyond that of having life. On this route we still have Jesus who died to free us from our sins, to bridge the relational gap between God and man. Here is the difference, not only did Jesus build the bridge back to God, but He also came across it to us. Jesus didn’t just forgive us, He gave us a new heart, He transformed us. Here Jesus comes to us; tells us that our relationship is completely irrevocable, He will not leave. He also tells us that we can work on the issues together, that we can draw our strength from Him, because, after all, it is not the sin that still lives in you that is the truest part of you but the new heart I gave you. Chances are if you have come from the first (God-Pleaser) route, you didn’t want to sin, that is not what the truest part of you was, but since you felt like you had to have it all together, and yet you still failed, sin was the truest part of you. The good news is it isn’t, the heart forgiven by God is good. He tells us, “Let’s start with the heart, because the new heart I gave you is good. Let’s focus on that, not on the sin that is trying to discourage you, and thereby keep you from your full potential.” Paul was notorious for preaching this message of grace, and it usually got Him in trouble with the Jewish Christians. Paul argued that the restored heart is good, and will naturally seek to do what is good. It is more effective, then, not to remind the person of their shortcomings but on how to walk with God, the person who has learned to walk with God is the person who has learned the secret to life.

That leads me into what God’s vision for the church is. Church is for sinners. Yes you heard me right, or as Gil Jones, Lead Pastor of Flatirons puts it, “Church is not a museum for saints but a hospital for sinners.” Really? I mean many churches seem to be uptight, self-righteous and only concerned about themselves. Let me tell you, they have missed the boat completely, Jesus says it Himself, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but the sinners” (Matthew 9:12-13 NIV). Jesus told this to the God-Pleasers of His time, the Pharisees, who were complaining that He was hanging out with sinners. If you have it all together, you really have no need for Jesus, however, if you are discontent, hurting, lost, broken, you are the person Jesus died for, and that my friends, is all of us (even those who think we have no problem—it’s called denial). You are the person Jesus wants to wrap His arms around most. God’s vision for the church isn’t a bunch of hypocritical Pharisees who come on Sunday, put on their “everything is alright mask” and pretend they have it all together. No, God’s vision is the hurting and broken coming to be healed, to find life, and most of all, to help each other heal (ever seen the movie Patch Adams? It’s something like that) It is for those suffocating under their mask, knowing there must be something more to life, who know that everything is not fine and are looking for the healing and life that they most desperately need. God is calling the discontented, disillusioned, broken, hurting, forgotten, hopeless, lost, those who can’t quite seem to get it together, who can’t seem to “get with the program” and is offering them the something more they desperately seek--life, and life in all its fullness (John 10:10). That is what God envisions the church to be, a place of Grace, mercy, healing, life. A place to be yourself, take off your mask and still be loved, despite your flaws (because everyone has ‘em). A place to become all that God created you to be, a place to dream big and be encouraged in those dreams. That is the offer. That is the kind of place that God calls the church. That is also my dream, to take this message to the people who don’t have it together but know they want life (see my entry, Chasing the Wild Goose). If that sounds interesting, let me know! I should probably find a WiFi access point and get this uploaded, so, until next time.

~Josh

(reformed God-Pleaser)