Grace & Gratitude; Competition, NOT Comparison

            I’ll be taking a 4-month sabbatical from my daily and weekly ministry activities in 2017.  I am excited and a bit apprehensive.  It’s like I am just taking a break and releasing control of my church (as if I have control now).  My associate pastor has repeatedly told me this sabbatical is part of my vocation.  While I am not preaching sermons, leading meetings, counseling members, and casting a vision for our church, I am still within my calling while on sabbatical.  And the church is what it has always been: God’s not mine.

            In order to prepare to adjust my daily rhythms from work to rest, I have begun seeing a spiritual adviser and she has me praying the prayer of examen.  In this approach to daily prayer, the one praying begins in silence building awareness of and attentiveness to the presence of God.  I do the best I can to silence all other outside noise (actual audible noise and the noise in my head).  I just get quiet and focus on the present God.  This is usually 2-5 minutes, though I would like to work up to longer periods.

I have done this before, but the examen has been particularly beautiful for me with what comes next.  The second step is to express gratitude.   I usually do the examen when I first arrive at my office, about 7:30AM.  In my mind, I go back through the previous 24 hours and note all the moments of thankfulness, all the things of life for which I am thankful.  This has been amazing! 

Before this discipline, I rarely paused to reflect on the past (in this case the most immediate past – just 24 hours).  I was not aware at how much my life is just charge ahead. I live directionally – forward!  My life question seems to be “What’s next?”  It has been a refreshing blessing to stop, look back, and thank God.  I have always known how important it is to live in gratitude.  Prior to examen I had a thanksgiving practice, one done with my wife.  Before going to sleep each night, she and I list three things each that we’re thankful for.  This exercise centers us, forces us to go to bed in gratitude and not some other emotion (anger, bitterness, etc.).  Sometimes we have to force it, but it is worth it to keep up the habit. 

The examen prayer of gratitude has taken my discipline of living thankfully to another dimension.  My wife and I still do our thanks, but now, I am starting the day aware that I have much to thank God for.  I am a blessed guy.  I am a graced guy.  When I miss the examen on busy, rushed mornings, I feel like I have missed something very important.  I have skipped a part of my morning that normally pours life into me. 

Another effect examen has had on me is a tendency to recall why I am thankful throughout the day.  When I want to get frustrated, a voice in my head (the Holy Spirit?) reminds me to be thankful because so much grace has been poured on me and into me.  Because of the examen and my nightly ritual of gratitude (with my wife), saying thanks to God is slowly becoming a default response for me. 

A couple of ways of seeing life emerge from living with an eye toward gratitude.  First, I know my life is a result of grace.  I am because of God’s grace.  I have blessings because of God’s grace.  I serve as pastor in a wonderful church because of God’s grace.  Saying this does not negate my own hard work and accomplishment.  I put forth a lot of effort and stretching outside my comfort zone to earn a doctorate of ministry.  That degree (with a focus in counseling) equipped me as a pastor and made my resume more attractive.  I have labored for over 2o years in 4 different churches in pastoral work.  It has been a joy and at times an arduous journey. 

But, I can’t fall into a trap of taking credit for anything.  I work hard and commit myself fully to ministry because that is an appropriate response to the grace God has given.  Also, let me not exaggerate my own work ethic.  I have lazy days.  I mess up.  Whether by my good or in spite of my failure, I acknowledge that I appreciate where I am and I thank God for my life.  I pray that if extremely hard times hit, I will have the spiritual wherewithal to continue giving God glory.  I don’t know that I could do that in the face of unspeakable personal loss.  I pray that I could.

Acknowledging that my life is graced and basking in God’s grace is a first way of seeing life that comes out of living in gratitude.  A second way of seeing might seem more surprising.  My gratitude compels me to be competitive.  That’s right!  I think Christians and pastors should compete hard, the way a Michigan running back leans toward the end zone or the way my beloved Detroit Lions race to be the first to clean out their lockers after yet another season without the playoffs.

Here’s what I mean by competition.  When I attend a conference and hear about what other pastors are doing, or I talk with pastors in our area and find out churches and ministries that doing great works of compassion or Kingdom pronouncement, it should inspire me to strive for greatness in our ministry at HillSong.  We should try to help people with such effectiveness that people in our community say, “Oh, you know that HillSong, they help people.”  Our ministry should equip believers in such a way that when people in the community meet our folks out and about and marvel at how loving they are and how grace-filled and compassionate they are and then discover they are HillSong people, they say, “Of course!  That’s the type of person that comes out of HillSong.  That’s what we expect from HillSong.”

We should compete to be outstanding ministers of the gospels, disciples of the Master, and proclaimers of the word.  We live missionally and as disciples for the sake of dying to self and rising in Christ.  We become so filled with grace and with the Spirit that the Gospel pours out of us in a torrent.

However, competition should not breed comparison.  If the church up the road preaches a robust gospel and doubles its membership and begins ministries that actually reduce hunger in our community, we must not compare ourselves to that church.  We should rejoice in what’s happening there.  I must not compare myself to that pastor.  The comparison will eat me up.  In the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30), Jesus did not critique the one who had 4 talents (v.22-23).  Jesus praised that one.  He did not say, “Why didn’t you reproduce as much as the one who had 10?”  Jesus commended him for growing from the grace he had been given.  And Jesus said to him, “Enter the joy of your master.” 

We must not become jealous if the church up the road outpaces us in membership.  I cannot be down on myself because I don’t lead a ministry that is as “big” as the one led by the pastor on the magazine cover.  There are many ways a ministry can be big, and God can do big things while working through small groups.  God has lead me to my role as disciple, husband, father, pastor, and friend.  I appreciate the grace God has given me and I compete to make my 2 talents become 4, and then the 4 to become 8.  When I think of myself, it is not a downplaying of what I have done.  Come on Rob!  Why aren’t you as “successful” as that pastor 10 years younger than you who leads a 1000-member church?  No, it cannot be that.  Such a posture of jealousy would mock the grace God has blessed me to receive. 

I want to live in constant gratitude, aware that my life is full of grace.  And aware of that, I want to compete hard in all the roles I fill, so that my 1 talent becomes 2, and then 2 becomes 4, and so on.  For me this approach to discipleship is challenging, satisfying, and joy-producing.  Moreover, it lands me in the middle of God’s work in the world.

10 Years

This blog installment comes on the occasion of the 10th anniversary as pastor of my church.  This is a very personal piece and if you are one of my readers who is not associated with my church, I wanted you to know the personal nature of what I write here.  My approach to ministry is hands-on, and it is invested in personal relationships.  Some pastors lead large churches.  They are more like corporate executives.  I am a leader, but I am also a member of a family - a church family.  It is an approach to ministry that has been a blessing and it is the approach I believe God has mandated for me.

10 Years

            I began as pastor of HillSong Church on September 17, 2006.  Dina Sit had started as our ministry assistant one month before I began.  I was father to just one child, 4-year-old I__.  I had just started a Facebook account.  George W. Bush was president.  No one knew who Michael Brown or Trayvon Martin were.  ISIS did not exist.  No one used the phrase “Arab Spring.”  HillSong Church had one pastoral staff member. 

            Since then, our family has added H and M.  Heather Folliard got married, became our associate pastor, had three children, and is about to welcome number 4 into the world.  Our church has had 3 wonderful youth pastors (4 if we include Jen Moss, and we should include Jen Moss for the simple reason that she’s awesome).  I miss Jonathan & Krystal, love that Emily B. is still in the church as an elder and worship leader, and am happy for Nathan as he and his new wife Emily W-H start their life together.  I am excited about our new youth pastor Enam and her husband Carlin. 

            As I think about the changes and the journey our church is on, I am grateful we are on it together.  In 2006, none of us knew where Kombolcha, Ethiopia or Puerta Plata, DR were.  Now, we’ve been to those places and the people there are as much a part of our church as the people here.  I am grateful for HillSong.

            I am grateful for the leaders in our church.  Each chairman/chairwoman of elders and deacons have been different in personality and method, and I have enjoyed working with each.  Will Allen, Tamara Baker, Todd Baker, Susan Dunn, Patricia Johnson, Nelson Keller, Jess Ostrowski, Nancy Parker, Laura Shrewsbury, Tabitha, Storm, and Betty Thompson: I love each one of you and am grateful that I have been able to be in ministry alongside you. 

            I am grateful for the people I have come to know at HillSong, and there is no way I could name you all.  Many of you have been a mentor to me.  Many have been prayer warriors, going before God on my behalf.  Many have gone out of your way to show love to my family.  There are people who have been essential to our wellbeing and I cannot name all here.  But, you know who you are.  And I promise, before we go to bed at night, Candy and I thank God for you.  We do this all the time. 

            I am not going anywhere, I don’t think.  Beth Roberts and I joke about this, but with the Lilly Grant, I am contractually obligated to HillSong through the end of 2018.  But, it is a pleasure, not an obligation.  It is a joy to be pastor of this church.  I suspect that when January 2019 rolls around, I’ll be enthusiastically working with our pastoral staff and our elders on the vision for our church as move into the future together.  I am very, very excited about that future.  If God told me to leave tomorrow, I would.  But everything I have heard from God is that there are plans for HillSong and I have a role in those plans.  I believe this is true and am working toward a future in which our church is a powerful witness that testifies about the Kingdom of God to our community.  God is at work among us and I thank Him that He lets me be a small part of it. 

            

A Pastor's Mind during Holy Week

                I don’t know why I cannot sleep.  More and more lately, I have found myself awake at times when I ought to be sleeping, like now, 11:25PM.  Last night, from 2-4AM, it was fitful, odd dreams, waking every 20-30 minutes.  I have consumed a lot of coffee lately, but at other times in life, I have drunk just as much and without the sleep problems.  Am I (at 44) getting older and processing caffeine differently?  My 70-year-old father drinks coffee like water and it seems to have no effect on him.  I don’t get it.  I don’t know if it is the coffee.  I don’t know what it is.

          I know I am having real anticipation regarding Easter.  I have spent the last year reading a lot of the writing of N.T. Wright, and in the process, I have re-read many passages of scripture.  I think Wright is right (I had to!).  Christianity is not about ‘going to Heaven when we die.’  It is about declaring Jesus is Lord and living in the Kingdom of God as made possible by Jesus’ coming.  I don’t know if Wright would say it exactly that way.  I do think though that his writings clearly determine the pivotal event to be Jesus’ bodily resurrection.  For Wright, and he believes for the Apostle Paul, the resurrection has to be a bodily resuscitation, one fully dead then fully alive in a risen body that cannot die again.  And the resurrection of Jesus changes everything. 

          We live differently because the future (we followers of Jesus being resurrected) breaks into the now.  Jesus has been raised so we can live as raised people and we must, even though our resurrection is a future event.  I have been thinking a lot about this, trying to preach it, and I don’t understand it.

          I do know this, though.  All this pondering of resurrection, Jesus’, and because of his my own, leads me to long for it.  It also colors my mind in the days leading to Easter.  For me Easter is more of a New Year’s celebration than January 1.

          The dictionary reference website defines the word ‘new’ in many ways including the following: “unfamiliar or strange;” “occurring afresh;” “other than the former or old.”  If these descriptions were tacked onto the word life, they would describe resurrected life.  It is not like the old and it is quite strange.  I fully believe in resurrection, something I was not there to see and have not yet understood.  Increasingly, I understand my own life in terms of resurrection.  And Easter is a time for me to rethink about what it means to live resurrected even though my own future life is just that, in the future.

          It’s almost like experimenting, almost.  I recall being engaged.  My fiancé and I ate meals together.  We cuddled on the couch together.  There was hand holding and kissing.  We did not go beyond that until our wedding night, but beside being in love and thoroughly enjoying every second together, we were practicing our future lives together.  We were anticipating our lives together.  Being engaged was almost like being married, almost.

          Yet, it was nothing like being married.  After the wedding, when the evening ended, I did not return to my apartment.  We went to bed together.  After the wedding, I did not wonder what life with her would be like.  I discovered it.  And what a time of discovery it has been and continues to be.

          I imagine that step from anticipating life together to living it serves as small hint of anticipating life in the resurrection and then living into it.  Of course my metaphor may be woefully off.  I can’t know until I die and am then raised.  But I am so convinced that it will go that way and that I and all who follow Jesus will be resurrected, that as I know think toward Easter, I am full of excitement. 

          The excitement is not for all the worship services.  At our church, there are three worships times we do not normally have and I am eager for each.  I think they will be special and I am giving my own effort to be at my best for each.  Anticipating these extra times, times when the people of the church seek an extra special worship experience, probably is one reason I am struggling to sleep.  But it cannot be the only reason because this is my 17^th holy week as a senior pastor.  It is always an adrenalin time for me, but one I have been through before.

          The anticipation is maybe a minor cause for my insomnia, but only a minor cause.  The excitement of resurrection, I think, is a bigger matter for me.  What will it be like?  I don’t know.  Yet, I think it is the biggest news we have and I want to tell it.  As a pastor, I preach weekly, so I have the opportunity to tell it.  How do you tell something you think is more important than anything else and yet you don’t understand it?  How do you do that?

          I don’t know. 

          It is 11:50PM.  My kids will be up for school in about 6 hours.  I am going to go and try to sleep.  Maybe God will give me Easter dreams.  

Whitey Davis: An Appreciation

Most of the people who read this don’t know Whitey Davis, and won’t know him this side of Heaven.  He died on Sunday, September 28.  It has been at least five years since I last spoke with Whitey.  I last worked with him in 1997.  He was the pastor of Oak Forest Baptist Church where I was the youth minister from 1993-1997. 

            I am thankful for something very specific as I remember him.  Whitey gave me chances.  When I became a senior pastor, I had already baptized someone.  I had already preached sermons and participated in church leadership meetings.  I was not doing those things for the first time.  I did not receive my first flight instruction while the plane was in midair.  Whitey gave me chances.  He trusted me and I’ll always be thankful.

            It is more than just gratitude though.  I vowed back then to follow his example.  I knew the day would come when I was an experienced pastor with young, eager seminarians around me, and was determined to give them the chances I was given.  I have never wavered on that.

            Maybe that’s why God brought me to a college town.  This principle applies to many situations, not just the pastorate.  We have talented teenagers and people in their early 20’s all around us in Chapel Hill.  We need to trust them, accept the mistakes they make, and help them grow as leaders and as Christ followers.  If you are reading this on the blog and you live somewhere else and there are fewer young adults, you might have to look a little harder, but there are potential protégés around you too. 

            Think of Barnabas taking John Mark under his wing after Paul rejected the young disciple (Acts 15:36-40).  Or Paul; though he would not tolerate John Mark’s failure (Acts 13:13), did in fact mentor Timothy (Acts 16:1-4).  Mentorship never looks the same twice; Paul was a different teacher than Barnabas.  I am very different than Whitey.  But I hope I am as dedicated to the Gospel as he was.  And I know I am the type of leader I am because of the opportunities he gave me.

            I thank God for Whitey Davis.  I thank God I was fortunate enough to be a youth pastor with him as my supervisor.  I am thankful I could call him friend.  As his daughter put it with simple eloquence, he is now with Jesus.  There is sadness and joy, the appropriate emotions that come when we say farewell to a man of God.