Apomo

Funny thing happened to me on my way to work today. I suddenly realized that I no longer harbor any ill feelings toward my Dad. That’s huge. For many years I resented him for working too much, for not putting enough effort into being an involved Dad, not affectionate, and stuff like that. No doubt, his inattention has been a handicap for me as a grown man and I certainly have legit gripes. But, I was thinking about him this morning and I realized that I no longer hold that stuff against him. In fact, I now hold him in esteem and respect as more than ever before. I was thinking about how much I admire his guts for standing up to the US Govt and the Army when he was in Vietnam as a commissioned, career officer on the fast track to being a General and he filed as a concientious objector from the battle field and faced dishonorable discharge, court martial, and jail. God worked it out for him and none of that happened. But he didn’t know that at the time and it took alot of guts for him to do that. I think I inherited some of that guts from him. I could use them in my situation about now. Anyway, it’s good to not have a grudge in my heart. It’s something I’ve been praying about for a long time but for some reason it just wouldn’t go away. But I guess I had to be looking the other direction for God to take it out of my heart. I don’t know how that works. God’s ways are mysterious.

Funny, my Mom mentioned in an email today that my Dad’s goal was to be a dentist. I had no idea. I always thought he wanted to be an officer and then retire and be a farmer. I guess parents are a mystery.

I talked to another office manager of an office similar to mine and layed out all my concerns. She pretty much agreed w/me that it can’t be done in a 40 hour work week and that to succeed at this job you have to order your life around the job. I was afraid of that. It’s so unfortunate that success seems too often to require you to sacrifice so much of yourself as to be anti-Christ.

We’re having a big planning meeting next weekend. I’ll get our goals for the year at that meeting. Depending on what I hear there I might have another meeting w/my boss and lay it all out and let him decide what he wants me to do.

1. Quit and go work somewhere else because working as an agent here wouldn’t be nearly enough income for me. I’d have to go back to the broker business (where I have an outstanding job offer waiting for me if I want) and just view it as merely a job that pays bills until I finish school and/or get a job in full-time ministry.

2. Accept that I have my time and energy limits/boundaries and let me work within them in my current position. As long as I can make the income I don’t have a prob w/that. In doing so though I effectively remove myself from the fast track to ownership, but I’m willing to pay that price as it’s now what I want anyway now that I’ve decided to go to full-time ministry. I’m not sure he’d go for this since he’s made it pretty clear he wants somebody who will “do what it takes” and he holds this other manager up as the role model for what he wants from his managers. She’s a great gal, but I’m not willing to sell my life to a job like she is.

3. Have me step down as manager and create a new position for me where I work as admin support staff to him. He really needs somebody to do this for him because he is overwhelmed and there’s alot of stuff that’s not getting done correctly. He’s run his business from the hip pocket to this point but he wants to transition it to one that’s more standardized across the three offices and in compliance w/our corporate procedures as well. But that takes alot of work and thinking and he really doesn’t have the time to do that effectively, in my opinion, because he has so many other irons in the fire. I am gifted in that area and could be of great benefit for him in that area if he would just pay me what the job’s worth. I’m not sure he’d do that though to be honest. It’s a long shot.

 

 

We had our fourth gathering last night and I think it was the best one so far even though attendance was down a little from last week. Everything just was really good. Zach did a fantastic job leading people in worship, Rustin did a great job teaching, and then we had a real God moment for about five minutes as we all sat quietly in the presence of God as Zach strummed lightly his guitar. It was really good.

We’re going to be purchasing our first big ticket item this week, an Apple Workbook Pro laptop computer. We’re very excited. Russ’ sister has an Apple laptop and I’ll be getting one in the next couple of weeks (fingers crossed) and then we’ll have more than enough computing power to do some of the video stuff we want to do.

We’re going to change things up a little next week as far as the set up is concerned. And then the next week I think we’re going to do the Bono interview w/Bill Hybels which will be our first real break from our current format. We’re prob going to have a Grammy party afterwards too and put the Grammy’s on the bigscreen  and just let people hang out.

We’re working with Prov to create a shizzle website which will be totally cool.

The prophet lady is going to be ministering at the main church on Sunday. I look forward to hearing what she has to say about all this.

I’m working on getting my application completed, recommendations, and transcripts together for seminary. I’m actually a little nervous about that. Can I handle it all and do well at everything? I’m having tiny doubts.

 

I’ve been thinking a bit about what I mused on yesterday in regards to not allowing pressure from a faulty set of values to affect me. I’m re-reading Brennan Mannings “The Importance of Being Foolish - How to Think Like Jesus”. Came across the following excerpt that I didn’t remember reading the first time. The idea of it is connected however to the concept of self-awareness that I mentioned last week which hit me like a ton of bricks. As I said, I don’t remember it specifically from the first time I read the book but maybe it was working in my subconcious/spirit because it’s basically saying what I said yesterday “extemporaneously” as I mused about my employment situation. I think this whole thing has been God trying to teach me about true holiness and all this stuff I’ve been going through lately (some of it I haven’t even mentioned here) is His way of bringing me into a deeper relationship with Him. He exposes our fears and pride and then asks us to lay them at His feet. Wow.

“In a very obvious sense, the security cult comprises those believers who worship more frequently at the altar of success than at the altar of the living God, who bow more regularly to the sacred cows of security and comfort than to the sovereign Lordship of Jesus Christ. The security syndrome is easily recognizable when the issue is pecuniary. One person may feel secure with only ten dollars here and now. Another person may feel insecure with $100,000 in the bank. The amount is unimportant. The kind of security we seek - whether financial, relational, career - is unimportant. What matters is the amount of time, energy, thought, and attention we invest in the unplesant struggle to achieve the conditions we believe are indespensable for feeling secure. The details of our shopping lists are quite arbitrary. But our desire for security is very demanding and pulls our minds away from the higher calling to let our minds and hearts be inhabited by Christ Jesus.

In a less obvious sense, the hunger for security is mostly a matter of our emotional programming. My feelings of insecurity are not a necessary consequence of external circumstances (such as a business recession) or the actions of other people. The power to achieve equanimity and stability lies within me. It is not at the mercy of whim, caprice, and unpredictable external forces. What keeps me feeling insecure are my addictive emotional needs, which must always be satisfied. When reality adoes not live up to my expectations, I become frustrated, angry, bitter, anxious, and resentful.

For example, say you meet me on the street and tell me you found this book to be a complete waste of your time and money. Your criticism triggers my inside programming, and I sink into a swamp of sadness, self-pity and depresson. Reality has not lived up to expectations. I anticipated at least constructive criticiism, possibly appreciation, and maybe even praise. But you are not the one who has destroyed my inner equilibrium. I did that. Inordinately attached to my preconceptions of what I need to feel secure (in this case, your approval) and willfully convinced of the way the world should run, I have needlessly deprived myself of the fruits of the Holy Spirit and the abundant life that Jesus promised.

The Lord passed through the world as a figure of light and truth, sometimes tender, sometimes angry, always just, loving, and effective, but not insescure. A word, a gesture, a few syllables traced in the sand, a command like “Come, follow me!” and destinies were changed, spirits reborn. He chatted with Samaritans, prostitutes, and children and spoke to them of truth and mercy and forgiveness with never a shadow of insecurity darkening his countenance. Spending time with those who atracted the disapproval of all, he never wavered from his desire to offer them his kindgom.

When we cling to a miserable sense of security, the possibility of transparency is utterly defeated. Just as the sunrise of faith requires the sunset of our former unbelief, our false ideas, and our erroneous and circumscribed convictions, so the dawn of trust requires the abandonment of our craving for material and spiritual reassurances. Security in the Lord Jesus implies that we no longer calculate or count the cost.”

 

Pretty good, huh? The rub for me is that in some areas of my life I have learned to not be affected inordinately by the opinions of others. Almost to a fault.  In those areas I am prophetic. But in other areas, like my employment, I’m not. Good stuff.

So as I try to make my decision regarding my current employment and life direction I’m coming to this conclusion. I need to follow what God is telling me to do in regards to preparing myself to be available and trained when the opportunity for vocational ministry presents itself again in the future and perhaps I need to stay where I am at my current job but have a different mindset that doesn’t allow the pressure from my boss affect me. I can do this because as a righteous man I realize the following:

1. My relationship with God is more important than my job performance review.

2. My relationship with my family is more important than my job performance review.

3. My relationship with myself and my personal spiritual formation is more important than my job performance review.

4. My ministry is more important than my job performance review.

5. I am a man of God before I am an insurance agent.

6. I cannot serve God and serve mammon.

7. God will provide for all my family’s needs.

With these in mind I can diffuse the pressure that comese on me. If my best efforts during the regular work week aren’t enough in terms of job performance, then so be it, I’ll step down. Until then I’ll just keep doing what I’m and let God sort it out. My job is to stay true to my understanding of God and who I am (self-awareness) and not allow these expecations contrary to God’s value system sway me and affect me negatively. I will do my job to the best of my ability while I am here, but I refuse to let it encroach on the rest of my life unnecessarily. If it does, then I step down. If I can’t perform well enough within those boundaries then that’s the way it goes. No worries, God will provide.

And so I grow. I can apply this same principle to another area of my life that’s been bothering me as well. If I can internalize this concept about 90% of the stress and anxiety I feel in my life will dissolve into nothing. That’d be cool.

I did a little investigating on the sales numbers for our office vs. our main office. It appears that I can actually make more money here than there. Our office, while less in sales volume, is actually out producing the other office in terms of sales per agent ratio. They do more but they have alot more agents to spread that share that pie than here. Our top selling agent averaged out over the year actually did $2000 a month more in sales than the top agent in the main office. That’s not a HUGE difference, but enough to make me pause. Plus, they’re trending badly right now. They’re down this month about 50% from last January and I’m not sure why. Our office on the other hand has increased sales by 100% over last year so we’re trending in the right direction.

Damn, this is so complicated. Half of the reason I wanted to go over there was that I’d escape the pressure of being the manager here. But the other half was that I’d have a better chance at making sales to not only make up for the little bit I’d lose by stepping down as manager but to help make even more money. But it now seems the edge for that to happen is here in my current office.

My wife has said all along she thinks I ought to stay put for awhile. Maybe she’s right. But what about all the expectations of my boss? Maybe I can just resolve to do my best (which seems to be pretty damn good since we’re outpacing everybody else and going to double production this month from last year) and leave it at that and not let him pressure me. I’ll just put in my 40 hours and the OCCASSIONAL late night here and there. And if that’s not good enough then so be it, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

Maybe pressure is just pressure due to our perception of it. It’s pressure because I let it be pressure because I put value on the expectations. Maybe we control the pressure by not allowing it to be pressure through being self-aware of who we are, what we believe, and what’s important. Maybe that’s something the Lord is trying teach me here. Pressure is only pressure when it’s based on something we value. If I don’t care about it, or if I value something else more then I’ll not feel the pressure from the thing I value less.

Hmmm….sounds good on paper. I wonder if it’s true. Started out talking about numbers and ended up talking about spirituality and philosophy. Only in my twisted mind.

Maybe I oughtta wait a little and exercise some patience (another virtue I lack). We’re having a big planning meeting in a couple of weeks where my boss will lay out the goals for the year. If they seem attainable without too much extra effort then maybe I’m worrying about nothing. If they’re easily attainable maybe I’ll just stay put, work my hours, hit my marks and reserve my real creativity for seminary and Sanctuary. If I’m outperforming the rest of the crew then what can my boss say? Nada.

Hmmm…..maybe the answer is not either extreme. Maybe it’s in the middle.

I was driving to work today and I prayed to God, “Please just tell me what to do. What do you want me to do? Just tell me and I’ll do it. I just gotta know for SURE that I’m doing what you want me to do and not just going after a personal desire or merely deluding myself into thinking the grass is greener on the other side when you just want me to buckle down here where you’ve put and make it work.” Ok, I don’t think I used the word “merely” but you know what I mean.

About 30 minutes later an old friend calls me that’s starting a church in AZ. He says he has $10,000 a month almost lined up from a ministerial organization that wants to invest in planting new churches and he wants me to come and help him. He has all sorts of ideas and since I’ve worked w/him in the past I know we work well together. Anyway, we talked for awhile about stuff and I said I’d consider it and get back to him.

My first impression is that it’s not a good time for me to do that. Financially I need to wait until the housing market turns and I can sell and pay off everything and have a little left over. I’m already involved in a church plant and I don’t want to leave it. I want to go to seminary before I get back into ministry full-time.

So even though it’s probably not the right thing for today I think maybe the Lord is answering my prayer and telling me that I’m on the right track in pursuing ministry (stepping down from mgmt and all that) and not to worry about the distant future because he’ll always open a door for me, like this one. They’re out there for the taking if a guy is ready for it.

Another thing my wife reminded me about that I’d forgotten. When the prophet lady was here she told me over and over that I was wasting my life, wasting my “currency”, and that my currency is time. I knew this was from God because she used the word “currency” which is a word my hero Bono uses in relation to his gift of celebrity; he says he spends the currency of his celebrity for the poor. I don’t have celebrity to spend but I do have time, i.e. my life, and God wants me to spend it on ministry. Just remembering how emphatic she was about how I need to get going now, rather than later, to stop wasting my time kind of helped me understand the urgency of my situation and helps me to see how pursuing ministry is what I ought to do right now.

What do you think? Is God speaking to me? Does God have to get a bullhorn and stick it in my ear before I really believe it’s Him?

You can see a few more photos of Sanctuary on the Sanctuary MySpace page. The guy w/the guitar is Zach.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=139867876

Ok, here’s my situation I’m wrestling with at the moment. It’s rather an important one so I’m trying to be smart about it.

When I came to my current job 5-6 months ago I was in the mindset of starting a career and building a business for myself in insurance and church/ministry was a sideline that I’d get to if I could. At the time there seemed to be no immediate possiblity of starting a Sanctuary type church and I figured maybe I could get to that down the road sometime but that my life is rapidly moving along and if I’m to have a career I need to get going on it sooner rather than later. 

So events happened and I ended up here working for an agency and having a situation handed to me where I can learn the business from the inside out as a manager and down the road have the opportunity to buy all or part of the agency when the current owner retires in 6-8 years. From a business career standpoint it’s a golden goose that doesn’t come along often. The deal is that as a manager I’m supposed to act like the owner and just run my office and “do what it takes” to get it all done. Obviously, this could involve some late hours and weekends when things are slow (as they are right now). My boss says he’s paying me more than any of his other people and he expects more from me as a result, pressure.

If I was still in the business career mindset that all wouldn’t be so bad because it comes w/the territory and I know that. However, things have changed somewhat for me since then. 

Since I struck the deal w/him the prophet lady came along and got other people excited about the alternative church vision I’d been going nuts about for so long and now it seems to be happening. As a result of my involvement in the new church I have discovered again my deep passion for ministry and understand (now that I have a viable business opportunity) that I love ministry more than business and career and I feel, as you know, that I want to now work toward a full-time ministry situation. Whether it’s w/Sanctuary or somewhere else I don’t know. But I feel (at the moment) that if ministry isn’t my primary focus in life then I’ve missed my purpose. That’s not a place I want to be when I’m old; rich but unhappy because I didn’t do what I was supposed to do.

The same is true for materialism. I’ve been blessed and have a couple of things that I thought I wanted. But now that I have them I realize I don’t need them. I need to be doing the will of God instead or I won’t be fulfilled and happy. Not that doing the will of God is all happiness and good times, I realize it’s not. But I’m willing to pay the price of materialism and comfort in order to be available for the work of God.

To this end (the goal of full-time ministry) I am more than prepared to do the following and I’m actually going to do it anyway no matter what I decide in regards to my career choice. I’m going to go to seminary, I’m going to be involved in Sanctuary, I’m going to be more diligent and focused in my thinking and spiritual formation in preparation for focused ministry, I’m going to start selling off my unnecessary stuff and as soon as the real estate market turns around I’m going to sell my properties to pay off my debts and live in a state of financial liquidity so that I can take a full-time ministry opportunity when it presents itself in the future. They say that luck is preparation meeting opportunity. That’s what I’m going to do. Prepare myself to take advantage of the next full-time opportunity God presents, whether that’s here or somewhere else.

A result of this decision is that I’m not willing now to sacrifice my time, my creative energy, my best effort for busines career. With the demands of my children, my marriage, my renewed spiritual formation, my preparation for ministry, working with Sanctuary and all that, I just am not willing to put in the extra effort for a business. 

So I’m trying to figure out what to do w/my current employment situation because I don’t have the fire in the belly to “do what it takes” and what my boss expects from my current position. But what to do? My concerns are that I may be in a rush to judgement to toss away a God given opportunity and that maybe I’m making an emotional decision. I’ve done that in the past and regretted it. I want to know for sure what to do and I don’t know if God is speaking in a still small voice or if I’m hearing my own desires disguised as the voice of God.

Here are my options as I see them:

1) Stay in my current position as branch manager and try to juggle it all and feel the pressure to perform and be held responsible when things dont’ work out. The benefit is that I’ll make marginally more money but I’d have the opportunity to have ownership in the future.

2) I talked w/my boss yesterday about this indirectly and he offered to let me transfer to his main office but I’d be a producer and not a manager. The thinking is that I need to make some money in the short term and that I could do that there and maybe in a few months he’d consider making me the manager of that office or his other office. But no promises, just a maybe. Is a bird in hand better than two in the bush? The downside is that I’m stepping down and it’s a backwards move from a career standpoint. The upside is that I’d make about the same money without all the pressure or extra demands. The downside is that I may be removing myself from ownership opportunity (maybe not) which I’m not 100% sure is a gift from God or the price of admission to ministry. If it’s a gift from God I don’t want to throw it away. If it’s the price of admission then I’m happy to pay. I’m just not sure what it is.

3) I can go to work for another company and make a little less than I would make here but it’s local (no 2 hour commute), there’d be no pressure on me to perform beyond myself, no responsiblity for other people. The downside is that it’s a crappy place to work and I would never want to advance in that company and from a business career standpoint it’s definitely a step backwards away from any sort of self-employment/ownership opportunities.

The third thing, although in play last weekend, doesn’t really appeal to me much other than it’s local and closer to Sanctuary. I could save some money by selling my commuter car, not to mention the savings in gas money. But, honestly, I can still do that if I want because I have a beater truck I can drive to work if I want.

The second one appeals to me the most, but I’m just worried that I’d be possibly tarnishing and otherwise good reputation of have here and people would certainly wonder why I stepped down from management. They’d prob thing I didn’t measure up, which isn’t the case. I couldn’t say anything because I don’t want to tell my boss that I don’t want ownership because that may change and I don’t want to burn a bridge. I can’t say it’s because I’m not making enough money because that’d piss my boss off. But, it really appeals to me because I could just focus on selling policies and not have to worry about employees, office production, marketing, growth, and all the corporate stuff that I have to worry about now. I could just do my work, go home at 5:30 and not have to worry about my boss thinking I’m not “doing what it takes” by not working late and working weekends when the agency is slow. If I’m in the top tier of sales that’s all he can and would expect of me as a producer. Right now I’m number one in the agency AND I’m a manager, so I’d have little trouble succeeding as a producer. Also, who’s to say that down the road that maybe I still couldn’t buy an agency if I decided to do that? Nobody really, so maybe it’s not such a long term bad career move.

The first option appeals to me the least for all the above stated reasons. I don’t get paid that much more to be a manager and it has alot more headache. It’s “headache” now due to my re-alignment of my values. Before it was part of the territory of “doing what it takes” to make a successful career.

So I guess my biggest question is what does God want me to do? Step down and focus on seminary, family, and Sanctuary? Or keep at it and hope for the best and deal with the pressure because he’s given me this gift and maybe I’m looking the gift horse in the mouth. That’s what I’m struggling with.

 

 

 

I like this song from Kevin Max’s latest album, “Imposter”. Thanks to Russ for giving it to me.

The question is
Where did this begin
Who authored and who finished it?
Such a beautiful world
But such a twisted plan
For it to end before we really lived in it

Oh tell me why is this happening?
Oh tell me why should I believe in anything?

And I find your beautiful mind in everything
But everything can’t make me believe
And I find your beautiful eyes see everything
So show me something beautiful please

Corporations rise
As the working man will fall
We bit the apple
Now the apple is eating us
We want our 15 minutes
And then we want it all
And watch our own image bleeding us

I feel so cold, and I’m growing old
So come on now just finish it

Oh tell me what’s the purpose of love anyway?
She looks the best when she just walks away

And I find your beautiful hands make everything
And everything is all I need
And I find your beautiful eyes see everything
So show me something beautiful please

Oh I cannot figure it ( please show me Lord)
I cannot get into it ( please show me Lord, oh let me see You)
Is there a code that I can’t crack
My life is slipping right off the tracks
Don’t even know if I want it back
So take it away from me

And I find your beautiful mind in everything
And everything is all I need
I find your beautiful eyes see everything
So show me something beautiful
I find your beautiful eyes see right through me
So show me what you want me to be