Pray for me

In case you can't tell, i'm struggling. I've been struggling, wresting with a few things. Not the least of which is what is Rachel's and my next step. But, I trust God is good. yes, I truly do trust that. Because good isn't always my definition, but God is good. and He asks that I trust in that, even when sometimes it appears otherwise.

No, what i'm really wrestling with here is people. I'm really struggling with a leadership team that VERY quickly tells a church that giving must increase or they will be forced to cut staff. I struggled hard with them deciding only one week later to cut me as staff. I know that even with myself and the other expendible staff person gone, they may not come even. But they did not cut her position then. She had been the most recent addition, and she was paid less than I. People assumed that she would be the first to go. But they were wrong, and I could have told them that. But no one thought to inform them that my job was going to be first on the chopping block.

I struggle with the fact that it has been two months since I was cut and she is still working away there, even though my last month there, the church broke even and since i've been gone, they've come out losing. Weekly. I do not doubt the honesty of the reason for my dismissal being funds. But I do believe that there was something else that either consciously, or subconsciously affected their decision.

I struggle with the fact that the leadership claimed this was in the best interest of the church, yet, the only positive that can be found is in the finances, which are still struggling. It is not beneficial to the church to have volunteers leading the three ministries I did. It is not beneficial to the teens to have ANOTHER leader to have to try to get to know and trust- especially since some will not try. It is not beneficial for the church to have people in the church mistrusting the leadership team and telling others that they think that the church was not honest or right in cutting me. It is not beneficial for the sheep, when they are in disarray, to lose one of their shepherds. It is not beneficial to the church that one of the volunteer leaders to fill my place is part of what many felt was the problem in the young adult ministry. And it's not beneficial that he is now leading an exclusive small group for few while the rest of the young adults are unable to be a part, and have nothing offered for them. See, small groups only work if you have them for any who want to be a part.

I struggle. I wrestle. I struggled every time i saw a member of the leadership team to not feel betrayed by them, who claimed to be behind me. I struggle even now to not feel betrayed by them. I struggle with the fact that they claimed to be on my side, they claimed to back me, but when push came to shove, twice they unanimously canned me.

I struggle with the fact that they make decisions for the whole church, but I do not think they're too connected to the people. The two young adults on the team are part of the "old crew" that new people feel on the outside of. The other man on the team has a family, but has not been involved in church life much. His connection was that his son was in the youth group. And the woman, although I believe she's truly tuned to God and is a very Godly woman, also was not too connected to some people in the church. yet, they make decisions for the good of the church. I struggle with the fact that I believe, had they been better connected to people in the church, that I believe they would have realized that downsizing me was only going to positively affect the finances, but was going to negatively affect much more. And I struggle with trying to keep a high view of the church at this point in time. I do, and I wish the best for them.

I struggle not to get bitter, although I can say that I do not feel bitter (these feelings are not resentment, or bitterness- they are my observation. I do feel betrayed maybe, but i'm not bitter about losing my job because i would not take it back if they offered it to me). I struggle, mostly, with what the next step is. They may have felt that I could find something easily. I haven't. They may have felt it would not be long- it's been too long. They may have felt that there would be no problem with me pursuing my calling beyond New Hope. But I have had problems... And this causes me to struggle. I was ready to leave because it was obvious that the leadership didn't want me there, but I wasn't ready to leave the people, who made me feel even more that they were not happy with my leaving. And I struggle because I cannot help but feel that their decision was wrong...

But mostly, I struggle with how do i fulfill my calling when i'm not even where I feel I'm called to be. Pray for me... I do not hold resentment toward my former leadership team, although I feel they were in error in their thinking. But I do struggle for the life of the church. And I struggle to know what the next step is.

maybe it's time for me to stop struggling and wrestling... maybe it's time for me to let go... maybe it's time...

Called

I am in a precarious place. I feel called. But I am not there. I feel a definite call to ministry- a desire to be a servant of the servants of Christ. My heart and my life have been dedicated and consecrated to serving God's purposes. And more specifically, I feel called to lead teenagers. Lead them to Christ, be there for them, be involved in their lives, and ultimately, see the gospel ring true in their lives. I feel compelled to use music and worship as a part of this, and yet know that some teens just aren't ready for that. But I must do what I am called to do.

But I am not doing that right now. I am searching, hard, to find the next step- since my first ministry position was cut short. It was a hard goodbye, and many people still do not feel the leadership did right by the people in the church. But that's neither here nor there. What is reality is that were i offered my old job back, I would say not. I am without a job- meaning that my passion and what my livelihood are unfulfilled. I am a man who is being dragged down because he is unable to fulfill His God-given calling. This is not due to a lack of looking, it is due to the fact that no one has felt led by the Spirit to offer me the position they have open. In all fairness, most of them have not offered me anything, even a simple acknowledgement of recieving my resume. But those who have talked with me have said no, or nothing at all. But, again, in fairness, some of the churches that have said no I have not felt as good about, anyway.

But I digress. I feel called, and yet... I am not there. However, I am here. And where I am is not where I feel called to. I'm living in lancaster county, a nice place, a nice area. But I have nothing here. Family of my wife, and a community- no- family, that I can no longer call my own. I've been, at the request of the "parents" of that family, disowned. Not that I can blame them- they are moving into volunteer leaders to fill my position, and they do not want other vying with me for loyalty. I did have a number of people who would support me even now. I do not need to make it harder on the volunteers. But I still feel like a man who has been asked to leave his family. I can still talk with some of them, but our weekly family gatherings are off-limits to me. This place can no longer be called my home. And by this place, I mean this area where I have nothing except my wife.

It is interesting- I was talking with Luke the other day and he is also leaving his position. Feeling similar things- hurts for the teenagers he leave behind, desire for community, etc... And he told me that he is still called to Presque Isle, Maine. Different calling... He is in the place he feels called to, he just needs to figure out what his role is now. I, on the other hand, feel called to the role, but have no idea what the place...

Who is right? or is there right? And whose position do you not envy? personally, i feel like i'm in the tougher place... But I suppose he may disagree...

Calling- strange... Do we ever feel "uncalled"?

Cyber Christian Church

I'm thinking of investing some decent money to begin a cyber youth church. Who's with me? We can buy a decent video camera to record worship and sermons, open a paypal account for online giving, and spend a relatively small amount of money on a website with the bandwidth capabilities for us to stream video on sundays. I can lead worship, and preach. We can post the lyrics for the planned songs each week on the website, and link to biblegateway so that people can view the bible verses if they dont' have a bible. We can have an "offering" time each week, if peopel want to do their giving so that it's a "proper" offering, and our annoucements would be almost nill! And even if I'm on vacation, I could pre-record everything and set it to play during the normal sunday morning time.

What do you think? We talk about using technology to further the gospel (not as a substitute, but as an aid). Does this make sense to you?

For some reason, I'm guessing anyone reading this might feel a little uncomfortable calling Cyber Christian Fellowship their home church. For one reason or another, most of us would shy away from this idea. Many because it's not traditional, many because it's a foreign idea, and even the most technological of people might have a hard time, although putting a finger on what the problem is might be tough.

Well, I have a problem with it, too. Tradition? Not so much- tradition is not so high that it is above reproach. The history of the Church has been filled with "bucking" tradition- and protestants are a direct result of one such occurence. Foreign idea? Some of the greatest ideas to be thought- some of the most life-changing teachings have been new, novel and majorly different. Love your enemy and Pray for those who persecute you? That's a foreign idea!

And I'm technological- I honestly believe that with a bit of an investment and a little bit of learning on my part, I can pull this off. But the money is not stopping me.

My problem with this idea comes down to this- Community. See, we can do the Christian thing in the privacy of our own home. It's possible to hear sermon's online, it's possible to "tithe" to places you don't attend, it's possible to get the most recent worship CDs. It IS possible to get everything you get at church some other place besides church. Except for one thing. Community.

You see, there are instructions, specific instructions in the Bible such as "Do not neglect meeting together" or "where two or three are gathered, there I am" that tell us that there is something about gathering with other believers. There's something intricately tied with the idea of Christianity, worhsip and our faith that has to do with gathering. It is not simply enough to have a "personal" relationship with Jesus. We must have a community relationship as well. Our individual, "modernistic" society has herarlded compartmentalization of our lives, it has heralded self-reliance and self-dependence.

But these are not the way of the true Gospel. Lots of "modernism" does not jive with Christianity, but we're unable to see it. This idea of community is the same. Christianity was begun in a pre(post)- Christian culture in which not everyone grew up knowing the gospel and being in church. We are quickly becoming the same type of world, and because there are so many who have not heard, who do not know, and who do not reflect those morals, community is so much more important. It is in communities that we find the strength to stand for our convictions. It is in our communities that we are able to explore our beliefs and have a safe-haven to come to conclusions that are faithful to the scriptures and our experience. It is in community that we can find and accept healthy tensions that normally would make us uneasy. And it is in this community that we can accept and love those who do not know Christ.

I was talking with my sister-in-law the other day about this. I was mentioning how Rachel and I are not looking for a church around here to call our home, and thus are not feeling comfortable going to many different churches. We would be looking for the same feeling of family/community we had before, if we were to look for a new church to call home around here. But because we're not looking, we're not experiencing that community. Even when we did go to church, that community eluded us because our expectation is not to be there a month from now, not to call that home, and not to get too connected so as not to have more relationships to say goodbye to.

The community we had before already provided us with enough heartbreak in saying goodbye to relationships. Our teenagers, my worship team, the young adults and the others whom we connected with. You can know if you've really been a part of that if it tears your heart up to say goodbye- especially when that goodbye is not voluntary.

So, in an effort not to have those relationships that hurt to say goodbye to, who's wants to be a "charter" member of my Cyber Christian Church? any hands?

ugh...

Just a story- for those of you who like stories.

Rachel's parent's are out of town for most of the rest of this weekend- visiting her grandparents' cabin in the Poconos. And the decision to make was to take the dog with them, or leave it home (among other decisions). And the dog stayed home.

Just a little filler for the story- the other day, Rachel's mom took the dog to the vet. The dog doesn't go in the car very well and so the vet gave her some tranquilizers for the dog that would help her to deal with car travel better- hopefully. And the vet said, try one before you actually take her in the car, tho.

So that's just what they did before they left today- fed gave the dog one of the pills. And it was kinda funny, because the dog, after it started to work- basically seemed drunk (rachel and I both joked about how funny it would be if the dog just kinda was standing there, then all of a sudden "ploomp"). The poor dog was probably just high and was like "what's going on here? huh?"...

That's fine, right? No problem with that. But bedtime came, and the dog, who is used to sleeping in rachel's parents' room on the floor, ended up following us upstairs. I've never seen this dog upstairs before, but... Before it came up, we'd come up- and I told rachel I didn't really want the dog up here with us. Rachel said, it's not like we'll have it in our bed, just in the room- it's used to being in a room with people at night... it's confusing to the dog, etc, etc... And although I didn't want it up here, i left the door open in case it wanted to follow us up. Well, when it got up here, the first thing rachel did was offer for it to join us in the bed...

I strongly opposed this, saying if the dog slept in the bed, i was going to sleep in the spare bed in the spare bedroom (currently used as our "living room" of sorts...) But, thankfully, the dog seemed to be not ready to join us on the bed, so we laid down a sheet on a pillow for the dog to sleep on... I was still not happy with this, but dealt with it- because the dog, unaccustomed to the upstairs here, was constantly walking around and her ID tag and such were jingling- which would definitely not let me sleep, if it didn't drive me nuts first... But the dog settled down and all seemed well...

I woke up around 3am and had to use the bathroom. So i started out the door and "squish"... no, I didn't end up in dog poop- just in a pile of dog VOMIT! UGH, gross! I get in the bathroom, wash off my foot, use the toilet, and go back to the bedroom and say "rachel, reason number 1 I didn't want the dog up here- this case" And explained to her the vomit thing... after she kinda got oriented from being woken up, she went downstairs and got the cleaner and paper towels and a bag and came upstairs and cleaned it up... And then she went down with the dog and let her out and... when rachel came back upstairs, she explained to me that the dog had not only pooped in the hallway downstairs (obviously between us coming up at night and the dog coming up), she had also diarrhea'd in the dining room (or the other way around- the big "D" in the hallway and normal poop in the dining room)...

see, I wasn't mean when i said that the dog could stay confused and be awake all night- i didn't want it in our bedroom... I was thinking sensically... i'm not actually mean to the dog, although it seems that rachel and her family think so. Just because the dog annoys me by randomly barking at me for no reason, standing there when i cut up food, or eat food and dances around like i'm going to give it any (because rahchel's dad WILL feed the dog when he's not supposed to- so the dog assumes everyone will... which is rather annoying when you're trying to eat and there's this little yapper dancing around you, your chair, wherever you are)... just because i get annoyed with it- i'm not mean to it...

I know that sedatives often times have sickening effects on humans... probably just as much for a little dog... And so, I hope that rachel's parents' think twice before taking that dog in the car after using that sedative again... and that dog has cost me some major sleepage- i would have went straight back to bed- instead, it's 4:30 am and i'm still awake now... good thing i don't have to go to church early or anything...