::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.

::alone and in between::

Looking for something I've never seen
Alone and I'm in between
The place that I'm from and the place that I'm in
A city I never been
~The Fray, Trust Me

To dream and desire is risky, difficult business. I say this in response to my recent move to Seattle to go to grad school. Before I dive into that, I should preface all of this with the journey to this point, to choosing Seattle and to moving here.

About three years ago, a desire to live here was planted in me on a trip to Vancouver with the youth group I used to intern with. We stayed just one night in Seattle, and yet I managed to fall in love with the city and the northwest. This also lead to further dream of doing ministry in the northwest – one of the most unchurched and intellectual places in North America. For two years this desire and dream stuck with me, at times seeming unattainable and teasing me. Nine months ago, I came to Seattle to visit a school I had heard about, Mars Hill Graduate School. I went, I loved it (the city and the school) I applied, interviewed, and got accepted to their M.Div program. A dream coming true. A few months later after being accepted (June), I even had a place to live arranged. Now fast forward – I am here, I have been living here for about three weeks and this is the hardest part – leaving home and stepping into the unknown. All the other work of dreaming and getting here – re-enrolling at the University of Colorado to finish my Bachelors, attending classes, graduating, applying to MHGS, finding a place to live, etc, etc, all simple compared to my new reality. None of it so risky as packing up and saying goodbye and leaving all that I have ever known, friends, family, geography, all of that. Yet, nothing really prepares you for the reality that follows, it is exciting to dream, but stepping into the reality of dreams and desires is quite messy.

Now I find myself, isolated, alone, overwhelmed, etc, etc, wondering what the hell I’ve gotten myself into. The lyrics at the beginning of this post pretty much describe what I feel right about now. I have traded all that I know, love and am familiar with for something completely unpredictable, unknown and scary. I am wrestling with this, and yet I also know that is usually where chasing the Wild Goose, the Holy Spirit leads you, like God leading Abraham out of Ur, He has led me to Seattle. Do I know how this is going to turn out? Not really. Does it even match my expectations from even a few weeks or months ago so far? No. All I know at this point is the unknown and the uncertainty, and that somewhere in the midst of this God is there, even though it may be hard to understand. We shall see, I am still processing this, still working through it.

How Am I Doing?

Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. (C. S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory”)

This quote kind of popped into my mind as I have been reflecting on the last six months or so, mainly because I have been living a half-hearted existence. Before I get too far ahead of myself here, I should give context for these last six months. This last May was a month of transition for me, transitions that have left me searching for my heart. The first thing was I finished (pretty much) with classes at CU Boulder on my undergrad studies, so I’m no longer a full-time student, first major transition. Second, I left Flatirons Student Ministries after two years as an intern/volunteer working with high school students, second major transition. This second one threw me more than the first. First I should preface this, I left not because of the ministry or leaders or anything like that, but because I needed to confront some stuff in my life and that served as enough of a distraction to keep me anesthetized enough to keep me from confronting the crap in my life. However, instead of confronting my crap, I have been doing as Lewis talks about, living half hearted and fooling with my addictions, anesthetizing the pain of not having my heart rather than going through that pain to aliveness and awareness. So, today, that is where I am at, dealing with the pain of not having my heart back, and conversely not being satisfied with fooling about making mud pies in the slum. I’m stuck in a tricky no-man’s land, but to get out I must have both my heart and desire. As part of my loss of heart, I’ve suffered a loss of desire, where the desires and dreams I had not even a year ago seem rather distant now, so part of my problem is desiring too little and being too easily pleased. The hard part is to allow myself to desire more opens me up to failure and disappointment, I can choose to stay with the safe and predictable (and boring) or choose to desire, fall down but nonetheless live out of desire.

Here are some things about my current situation that I know to be true:

Ø The two years in FSM were the best two years in my life thus far, I enjoyed working with my guys, the other leaders, it was a blast. This was also the most unpredictable time of my life, living without a steady paycheck, yet still managing to pay everything on time. Looking back, I feel like I’ve traded desire for a false sense of security.

Ø I must be willing to work through the pain to get to aliveness and awareness, rekindle my desires and pursue them.

Ø I’m tired of living a mercenary life, working completely for myself and my comfort.

Ø I want to go back to ministry, eventually, and even pursue seminary, but I want to do this out of a heart that is full, out of the overflow of my heart.

Ø I know that to do this, I must have help, allies in this journey who can encourage me and whom I can encourage.

Thanks to anyone who reads this, I welcome your comments, criticism and challenge, more to come on this soon.

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)