Apomo

Hey, I’m still alive. Just been really busy. I think this is the longest layoff I’ve had from the blog since I started two years ago. I didn’t realize until today that it’s been two weeks. Just been really busy.

I quit my job at the insurance place last week. Not enough money. Lame job. So I’ve been working at home taking care of the kids, helping my wife with her business and getting the house ready for a daycare.

We completed all the CPR and First Aid training last weekend. My brother surprised me with a week long visit this week for my birthday. He’s here now helping me with stuff around the house which is a real blessing.

We went to a baseball game last night and got kicked out when my 10 year old jumped up on the dugout and started playing air guitar hero to the rock music they were playing. My brother and I were cracking up. It was pretty funny.

My brother and I were going to go see the band “Placebo” play in Sacramento tonight since two of the band members were high school buddies of his in Europe. But, they cancelled a sold out show because the singer has bronchitis. Darn. They’re a pretty hot band.

Lots of shit going on with the church. Same ol.

I read this today in “The Message”. It’s the intro the book of Isaiah. Good stuff. I relate to it….
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…prophets provide the help we so badly need if we are to stay alert and knowledgeable regarding the conditions in which we cultivate faithful and obedient lives before God. For the ways of the world—its assumptions, its values, its methods of going about its work—are never on the side of God. Never.
The prophets purge our imaginations of this world’s assumptions on how life is lived and what counts in life. Over and over again, God the Holy Spirit uses these prophets to separate his people from the cultures in which they live, putting them back on the path of simple faith and obedience and worship in defiance of all that the world admires and rewards. Prophets train us in discerning the difference between the ways of the world and the ways of the gospel, keeping us present to the Presence of God.
We don’t read very many pages into the Prophets before realizing that there was nothing easygoing about them. Prophets were not popular figures. They never achieved celebrity status. They were decidedly uncongenial to the temperaments and dispositions of the people with whom they lived. And the centuries have not mellowed them. It’s understandable that we should have a difficult time to come to terms with them. They weren’t particularly sensitive to our feelings. They have very modest, as we would say, “relationship skills.” We like leaders, especially religious leaders, who understand our problems (“come alongside us” is the idiom for it), leaders with a touch of glamour, leaders who look good on posters and on television.
The hard-rock reality is that prophets don’t fit into our way of life.
For a people who are accustomed to “fitting God” into their lives, or, as we like to say, “making room for God,” the prophets are hard to take and easy to dismiss. The God of whom the prophets speak is far too large to fit into our lives. If we want anything to do with God, we have to fit into him.
The prophets are not “reasonable,” accommodating themselves to what makes sense to us. They are not diplomatic, tactfully negotiating an agreement that allows us a “say” in the outcome. What they do is haul us unceremoniously into a reality far too large to accounted for by our explanations and expectations. They plunge us into mystery, immense and staggering.
Their words and visions penetrate the illusions with which we cocoon ourselves from reality. We humans have an enormous capacity for denial and for self deceit.  We incapacitate ourselves from dealing with the consequences of sin, for facing judgment, for embracing truth. Then the prophets step in and help us to first recognize and then enter the new life God has for us, the life that hope in God opens up.
They don’t explain God. They shake us out of old conventional habits of small-mindedness, of trivializing god-gossip, and set us on our feet in wonder and obedience and worship. If we insist on understanding them before we live into them, we will never get it.
Basically, the prophets did two things: They worked to get people to accept the worst as Gods judgment—not a religious catastrophe or a political disaster, but judgment. If what seems like the worst turns out to be Gods judgment, it can be embraced, not denied or avoided, for God is good and intends our salvation. So judgment, while certainly not what we human beings anticipate in our planned future, can never be the worst that can happen. It is the best, for it is the work of God to set the world, and us, right.
And the prophets worked to get people who were beaten down to open themselves up to hope in God’s future. In the wreckage of exile and death and humiliation and sin, the prophet ignited hope, opening lives to the new work of salvation that God is about at all times and everywhere.
One of the bad habits that we pick up early in our lives is separating things and people into secular and sacred. We assume that the secular is what we are more or less in charge of: our jobs, our time, our entertainment, our government, our social relations. The sacred is what God has charge of: worship and the Bible, heaven and hell, church and prayers. We then contrive to set aside a sacred place God in his place, leaving us free to have the final say about everything else that goes on.
Prophets will have none of this. They contend that everything, absolutely everything, takes place on sacred ground. God has something to say about every aspect of our lives: the way we feel and act in the so-called privacy of our hearts and homes, the way we make our money and the way we spend it, the politics we embrace, the wars we fight, the catastrophes we endure, people we hurt, the people we help. Nothing is hidden from the scrutiny of God, nothing is exempt from the rule of God, nothing escapes the purposes of God. Holy, holy, holy.
Prophets make it impossible to evade God or make detours around God. Prophets insist on receiving God in every nook and cranny of life. For a prophet, Go is more real than the next-door neighbor.

I saw a PBS documentary special on Jim Jones last night. Fascinating and terribly disturbing. I was about my sons age when the Jonestown thing happened. I remember how it disturbed my folks and others because we’re from Indianapolis and they knew him personally and knew his church from his Indy days. They weren’t friends w/him, but they’d met him, heard him preach and we all knew where his church was in Indy. So it hit close to home, especially so too because he was Pentecostal.

It was fascinating to hear and watch him preach and speak on video. He was a compelling speaker. It was disturbing in some respects in that much of what he taught in the early days of his ministry in Indy and Ukiah is similar to much of what I have come to believe in regards to racial integration, socialism, community, and love. I don’t think I’m quite the communal living type like him, but the basic theology sounded similar to what I’ve come to believe. Then they showed video of the People’s Temple worship services and it sure sounded and looked alot like what I knew as a kid.

It amazed me how one person can gain and keep such locktight control over other human beings. I’m not sure how that can happen with so many people. I have trouble understanding that aspect cults like Jone’s.

I was also disturbed personally because I can see how he went over to the dark side when he may have started out on the right side. It’s the old Star Wars Jedi knight thing where the dark side pulls you over and Jim Jones is a Darth Vader type figure in the spiritual world of ministry. Listening to him speak and hearing others talk about his foibles and weaknesses I can see enough of myself in Jim that it disturbs me. Not that I’m anything like him, nor do I see myself being like him. But we all start from pretty much the same starting point, the same set of emotions, the same lusts and it’s scary to see the end workings of the dark side if you give into those personal demons. Compromise, false doctrines, rationalizations, and justifications backed by supposed Scripture proof texts build up layer upon layer and before you even realize it (like King Saul) the spirit of God has left you and you don’t even know it and it drives you mad. It’s very sad, and alarming in some respects. But for the grace of God there go I. It was kind of like watching “The Pursuit of Happyness”.

stuff bouncing around in my heart lately…

1) Jesus said he came to divide people and set people against each other. What I take this to mean is that his teachings are so radical that when people really believe them and start acting on them that they will be alienated from other people, even those closest to them. Their friends, family, and even spouses will not understand their heart and it will damage their relationships, maybe even destroy them. In the effort to follow Christ they lose the respect of those closest to them who don’t understand what they’re doing and think they are weird, “out there”, and unreasonable. What if that person is your spouse? How do you reconcile that? How do you live by what God wants you to do when your spouse doesn’t want to do it? What do you do then? What will I advise a wife or husband who asks me that question? I don’t know.

2) Why do I seem to be drawn in against my will into controversy? I honestly have stopped being a provacatuer but it seems that when there’s drama in the neighborhood somehow I got pulled into it. A guy resigned from work yesterday and in his bridge burning resignation letter I was mentioned in two of the seven points. He wasn’t bagging on me personally but using me as a case in point of how the current managers here give me preferential treatment, in his opinion. Now, it seems I can’t win for losing. If I’m a jackass and my bosses hate me I lose. If I’m a good employee and work hard to get along with my bosses I’m now accused of being given preferential treatment because obviously I get along with the bosses and I lose again. Sigh. Somebody just shoot me now and get it over with. I’ve really been careful here to try to get along with everybody, and with the single exception I think I’ve done ok. Can’t win ‘em all I guess. 

3) Watched “In Pursuit of Happyness” the other night. Thought it was going to be a pro-greed movie so I didn’t want to watch it. I’m glad I did though, although it did engender a sense of fear as you realize how close to poverty most of us really are. But a good movie. Watch it if you get the chance. It was kind of like “The Devil Wears Prada” in that sense.

 

Had a good turnout at Sanx last night. About 60 adults plus kids. We figured it was prob going to be down since our service is in the evening. We thought all the visitors would go to earlier services. We had a bunch of regulars plus a half dozen first time visitors. The service went well and Rustin did a good job speaking plus he made a cool video to go along w/his talk. Good offering too.

We had a good turnout on Sat too for the cleanup day. We cleaned up the property, pressured washed the sidewalks, and cleaned the bathrooms and sanctuary for the other church as a token of gratitude to them for letting us use the facility rent free. They seemed appreciative. We had about 10 people show up for the work thus we had about 30 man hours of work done. It’s a good sign when people will show up to do crap work on a holiday weekend. That means morale is good, if you ask me.

Russ and I talked about starting the discipling group I mentioned the other day and he seemed to like the idea. We talked about doing some strategic planning and start planning toward doing some of the artistic/expiriential worship experiences we talked about for so long as well as develop a plan for getting our name out in the community.

I feel very strongly that we need to start doing this if for no other reason than to move our thoughts and minds beyond on that crap that’s been going on. As leaders we have to push that stuff to the side and focus on the future. Otherwise morale will slip and we’ll go into a rut and a funk. Fresh thinking produces fresh attitudes. 

We’re having our first meeting on Friday with what has been labeled “The Time Line Committee” with the main church. Two of their board members and two of our group, of which I’m one. I talked to one of their guys on Sat and it was obvious that he wasn’t prepared for this and has no idea really what’s going to happen. He was also pretty surprised and impressed with all the things we’d accomplished already in the way of preparation and planning.

 

Way cool! I love it! It felt like a live blog with everybody commenting in real time. haha.

 The class is “Developing Godly Leaders for the 21st Century”. The teacher is a former pastor, now district superintedent over 50 churches for the Evangelical Free Churches of America. He teaches with great passion and energy and involves everybody in discussion. After only an hour it felt like we all were good friends already and had been doing this for several weeks. Good teacher. Here’s his website www.ptlb.com

Although he claimed that this would be a “paradigm shifiting” approach to leadership for most students I didn’t really think, after hearing the summary of the course, that it was all that revolutionary for me. Maybe for some of the other guys and gals who believe in the CEO, business model of pastoral leadership, but not me since I don’t really believe in that model.

Basically he’s really into mentoring leaders and raising up leaders w/in a group intentionally instead of stealing other churches leaders and business leaders. He’s pretty organized and focused in his approach which is what I’m going to learn from him on this I think. But the actual idea of caring about your people, helping them identify their spiritual gifts and leadership potential, mentoring/discipling them and setting them free to do Gods will for them isn’t something that’s new to me. This is exactly what we’ve put down in writing in our Sanxtuary Consitution as the primary job of the pastor and pastoral staff.

This is excellent for me since I don’t have to bend my mind around a new concept but can take it for granted and apply my energy to figuring out practical ways to implement it in my own life as well as my ministry. I felt very validated last night as he taught because it confirmed again to me that I hear the voice of God and my faith in it isn’t in vain (a major weakeness/struggle of mine).

He also talked about developing a personal plan for development in all areas of my life. This is basically what I’ve been referring to as my “training”. It was Gods plan for me to be in this class as it will condense a year’s worth of me figuring it out on my own to being mentored by a veteran minister in this area drawing from his 30 years of experience in this area. I’m grateful.

He mentioned 10 relationships that we all have and it’s these 10 areas that we need to examine and have a plan of action to make sure that we’re living the abundant life in them. If we’re being led by God in these areas then we are “Godly” leaders.

These relationships are with:

God, self, marriage, family, work, church, money, society, friends, enemies.

I suppose that if you’re single and work full-time for the church you could eliminate the “marriage” one and combine “work and church”. But I thought it was a pretty good synopsis of our sphere’s of influence.

His definition of leadership is “Causing others to act consist with your expections”.  My wife said this sounded like controlling, power based leadership. It can be. He mentioned that this definition can be used for good or for evil. But that’s why we’re studying to be “godly” leaders. “Causing” = pursuading people through the Holy Spirit, “expecations” = make sure they’re God’s expecations not yours, and “consistent” = they find their own way to express it within the context of Gods expectations. Sounds like Ephesians ministry to me.

He talked about “disconnected” and “connected” leadership. Connected means there is discernible structure with bosses and employees, ie. Pastor and paid staff. Disconnected means it’s purely through influence and the followers have the choice to obey or not obey, to follow or to not follow, ie Pastor and congregation.

Some pretty basic stuff, but some good information too. I’m excited about the class, I’m sure I’ll come away from it a better person, a better minister, and a better leader.

It’s funny because one of our assignments is to start a leadership small group by the end of the semester. I’d already been thinking about that and I thought of approaching it not from a “leadership” angle but presenting it as a cooperative spiritual growth effort but in reality be discipling people to take their place in the church according to their gifts and Gods will for them in order for our church to be organic. He said, “You don’t even have to tell them necessarily that it’s a leadership training thing. Most people will balk at that. Ask them if they’d be interested in being part of “a deeply spiritual learning group”. haha. That’s exactly what I was thinking (see my “discipleship course” post of a few weeks ago). In the end, if it’s gone well they’ll have the God given desire to serve and God will have told them what their place in the kingdom is for the moment and you can help them gain access to that ministry.

Read this in the intro to the book of Job in the “The Message”.

“There is content to biblical religion. It is the secularization of answers that is rejected-answers severed from their Source, the living God, the Word that both batters us and heals us. We cannot have truth about God divorced from the mind and heart of God.”

 

Good stuff. Especially that last line.

I just deleted 1700 comments from my blog.  I got bombed by some porn sites and some blackmarket prescription drug sites. I upped my security settings as best I could so hopefully it’ll work. Sorry about the extra stuff you have to do to leave comments.

Details, regs, forms, yada, yada….it never ends. I have two major projects going at the same time.

I’m doing most of the legwork to get Sanxtuary incorporated, insured, and tax exempt. I’ve never done this before so the learning curve is significant.

Plus, I’m learning and putting together everything to start our own daycare. Wife and I went to the State orientation yesterday, 4 hours. Putting together the application, got CPR, First Aid, and Health and Safety training set up on the 15th and the 21st, getting my TB test done tomorrow, buying fire extinguishers, Tiny Tots stuff, yada, yada. Hopefully we can be licensed and operating by mid May at the latest.

Start school tomorrow night. I’m stoked about that!!

Sick as hell too. Allergies. I’m keeping myself going today at work by ingesting allergy meds and Mountain Dew.

We had a good planning meeting for the church on Sat night. We had a nice BBQ at Russ’s house and ended up having about 50 people there. We all hung out for awhile and then had out meeting. I was very encouraged by the meeting because even with all the shit that’s been going on with the “mother” church nobody seems to be down in the mouth. Everybody seemed to be upbeat and the discussion about the agenda items was lively and creative. I was especially impressed when Russ concluded the agenda and tried to wrap up the discussion but the group took over and keep talking about stuff for another 45 minutes. That’s organic church in action! It was cool. It’s starting to catch on. Russ has done a good job of creating the environment for this sort of participation and honest communication to happen.

The down side was that we didnt’ have a good a turnout for church on Sun night. I guess everybody was tuckered out. haha. That’s ok. In my mind the Sat thing was more important than the Sun night thing because it was our first opportunity to really socialize and make personal bonds with people outside of the Sun night context and it was on Sat night that people took ownership of Sanxtuary for themselves. If they’d panned the Sat night thing and all showed up Sun night I would have been worried. It was kind of cool because on Sat night all the ladies spontaneously went into a living room and prayed for a couple of the ladies who are ill and it turned into a extemporaneous small group experience for them. While they were in there a few of us guys gathered around a table and talked about church stuff. So I guess we had church on Sat night too.

A couple of things we’re planning to do. This Sat we’re going to clean up the church and pressure wash the sidewalks as a gift for the “mother” church. We’re trying to turn the other cheek and bless them.

Secondly, we formalized our plans to associate with the local AIDS foundation to help them in their work here in the city. We’re going to participate in their fundraisers as volunteers and we’re going to help them take patients to doc appointments and stuff like that as well. We asked for a show of hands at who thought this was worthwhile and it was unanimous save one person.

Next Fri I’m taking a day off work (assuming I still work here) and Russ and I are going to a free seminar put on by the State Board of Equalization regarding all the tax and legal issues for non-profits in our State. I’m sure it’ll be boring and tedious as hell but it’ll be profitable I”m sure as all the pertinent local, State, and Federal agencies will be present giving advice and support. One stop shopping for us. It still makes me mad that we have to spend so much time right now tending to this stuff. We should be spending our time and money on making Sanx better and bigger and get more people in the group instead of being distracted by this sort of stuff. I honestly feel that the pastor of the “mother” church is subconciously trying to sabatoge us.