Revenge of the Sith

Father's Day was "Star Wars" day at the Jackson house, as my Father's Day gifts included a variety of Star Wars-related stuff (Attacktix, Legos, DVDs)... and the gift of going to see Episode 3 in the theater. (By myself... Shari couldn't care less about seeing Star Wars.) Here's just a quick list of random impressions:

• the special effects are amazing
• Hayden C. (Anakin) actually didn't irritate me as much as he did in Attack of the Clones
• it's a near impossible task to make a "connecting" movie, but George Lucas managed to pull it off with style
• as usual, the philosophy/theology behind the films is a mixed bag... what with quotes like "only Sith believe in absolutes" - sigh
• it made me want to go home and watch the original films again

For two more thoughtful takes on Revenge of the Sith by two Star Wars-loving friends of mine, check out Zion Red's Head (Paul Durham) and Theology Journal (Scott Rushing). There's also two very good articles on Get Religion: Star Culture Wars and Star Wars "R" Us?

Theological Worldview Quiz

Found this quiz posted on a couple of different blogs I follow. Interesting to think about my theological roots... but I really don't see myself as much of a Wesleyan. Interesting that the whole emergent thing popped up, though. You scored as Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan. You are an evangelical in the Wesleyan tradition. You believe that God's grace enables you to choose to believe in him, even though you yourself are totally depraved. The gift of the Holy Spirit gives you assurance of your salvation, and he also enables you to live the life of obedience to which God has called us. You are influenced heavly by John Wesley and the Methodists. Emergent/Postmodern 64% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 64% Neo orthodox 50% Reformed Evangelical 50% Charismatic/Pentecostal 46% Fundamentalist 39% Classical Liberal 32% Roman Catholic 14% Modern Liberal 14% What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

Smarty Party

There hasn't been much gaming-related content on the blog lately... what with me writing the "War & Peace"-like series on my history in ministry. Figure I needed to remedy that today.

But there's been a little problem. Between family vacation & Vacation Bible School at church & getting adjusted to a new baby, I haven't been meeting with my gaming group all that much. So I haven't been playing that many games.

Of course, there's gaming with Braeden... which is quite enjoyable. He got Buckaroo for his birthday last week - it's more fun than I remember, and he does pretty well at it. For those who don't remember, Buckaroo is an old-school (1970) "stack something on a spring-loaded contraption" game - in this case, an ornery mule - and try not to be the one who sets it off.

So the majority of gaming has been with the Under 30 small group that meets in our home on Wednesday nights. In recent weeks, we've played Taboo (still good after all these years), Squint (which continues to inspire mixed reactions), Loopin Louie, Take 6 (with 10 players, even!) and, of course, their favorite...

Smarty Party. We've now played enough games of Smarty Party to go through BOTH the original deck of cards and the expansion box... but we're still not done playing, so we've restarted through the original box.

I was a little worried that some people (well, me) would have an unfair advantage from having heard all of the questions before... but so far, it doesn't look like it will work quite that way. Because we play with 7-8 players, the chances of your answers being gone by the time it gets to your turn is much bigger; if you don't have the cards memorized, you could be in the soup even if you'd heard the question before.

I'm still winning the majority of our Smarty Party games - though I went through a losing streak in May that really bugged me. (Don't you hate being GOOD at something and then not doing well at it?!)

Most irritating moment: the question was "location of first 7 Survivor seasons" and I answered "Borneo"... which was wrong. The correct answer (according to the card) was "Pulau Tigu". However, I had the Survivor first season DVD rented from Netflix (we'll talk about my strange fascination with reality television another time) and was able to show the group that it was now called Survivor: Borneo - printed right on the DVD! They still didn't give it to me. Grrrr.

If you haven't played Smarty Party, I recommend it highly as a party game for 4-8 folks (it will work with 3, but it's more fun with the larger groups). Whoever is in first place (which is bad in this game) gets to read. They receive a card with one or two categories on it, and 9-12 answers to those categories. (Example: "The names of the seven dwarves in Snow White (7) and the countries that mine the most diamonds (5)".) The card also a pair of pants on it with a number.

The reader considers the difficulty of the category and the answers, then decides whether he thinks the group can get X number of correct answers (the number on the pants on the card) or if they will run out of penalty chips first. After he bets, he then chooses a starting player for the round and reads the category.

Beginning with the starting player (wow, is that redundant?), players give ONE answer that they think is on the card. If they're correct, they get to hold the Smarty Pants (a pair of very cute plastic pants). If they're wrong, they receive a penalty chip. (There are 7 chips... 3, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1.) Play continues around the table, with players taking possesion of the pants or taking chips until the group completes the card or all of the penalty chips are gone. (There is a 30 second timer which is used at the discretion of the reader: if he wants you to get answers correct, he'll leave it alone; if he bet against the group, he'll use to pressure wrong answers.)

Then you score. The reader goes back 1 space if he bet correctly, and goes forward 1 space if he was wrong. All of the other players move forward the number of spaces equal to the value of their penalty chips... except the player holding the pants (the last person to answer correctly). They get to cancel one of their penalty chips, or, if they didn't take any chips, move back 1 space.

The new "first place" player becomes the reader... and the game continues until someone hits the "game over" space. At that point, the player closest to Start is the winner.

I've played this over 50 times now (we got roughly 20-25 plays out of each box of cards) and still have a blast each time it hits the table.

Oddly enough, I playtested an EARLY version of this game (called Idealist at that point) at Gulf Games 7 in Orlando. The scoring hadn't been worked out and the game went on way too long, but the idea was there - it's really fun to see it work so brilliantly in it's published form.

Now, we're all wondering if there's a 2nd expansion box planned...

Freakishly Depressing

I'm in the middle of reading Next Wave's article on George Barna's "State of the Church: 2005" report. It's a bit snarky (the article, not George Barna) but it does a good job of conveying one of Barna's recurring themes - the church in America is not doing what God called it to do.

In 2002, Barna suggested that there are greater than 300,000 Protestant and 20,000 Catholic churches in the U.S. He contrasts this with the 50,000 post offices and 15,000 McDonald’s that serve our nation. He writes, “the church has less impact on our culture than any of those less prolific entities, despite missions that are much less significant or compelling.”

Hmmm…I guess the old “location, location, location” mantra has fallen to the wayside here. Imagine having a business with 320,000 locations in the U.S. amidst a population of over 100 million customers who have never sampled the fare, and you can’t seem to break the cycle of those folks consciously avoiding your locations. In fact, their numbers are increasing.

Again, if the church were a publicly traded company, I can assure you that the Board of Directors would be screaming for an immediate “corporate restructuring” that would likely require the immediate downsizing of the existing physical plant, sweeping changes in strategic plans, and a wholesale housecleaning of present management. Perhaps it’s time to act upon the agenda of the shareholders within the Christian franchise who agree with Barna that, “We have learned that maintaining the status quo serves neither God nor the people He loves.”

The quote is from Bill Dahl's article, Chef Barna's State of the Church: 2005, found on the Next Wave e-zine website.

How In The Heck Did I End Up Here? (part six)

This is the sixth post in a series of posts about my history in ministry. This time around, I'm just printing portions of the two "e-things" that I sent in the month following the dissolution of the church @ hickory hollow.

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The Artist Formerly Known As...

For a long time at the church @ hickory hollow, we joked about changing names if we changed locations, a la Prince (he of "Purple Rain" fame): "Why don't we call it the 'the church formerly known as the church @ hickory hollow?'"

Well, now we are the church formerly known as the church @ hickory hollow...and the joke's not nearly as funny as it was before. (Some jokes are like that - the old "you had to be there" principle in action.)

Oddly enough, though, we are still the church. Those of us who claim Christ as our Savior & Lord are parts of the body - even if we're not sure exactly which part of the body we're going to be playing this time around. (Sounds like a bad school science play: "I'm the tooth, Dad. A molar.") So our assignment now is to find our what role we've been cast in...

Church Hunting 101

1. Don't look for "the church @ hickory hollow".

There are a lot of great churches in the Nashville area, but none of them are going to look or feel "just like" tc@hh did. So start out by realizing that it will be impossible to locate 'another' tc@hh. It doesn't exist.

Here's why: church is NOT, despite our tendency to feel & act otherwise, primarily about the builiding or the music or the nursery or whatever. Church is about the people God brings together to be His body. Since you won't be with the same group of people, no church will ever feel exactly like tc@hh.

2. Don't rush to experience the same "feeling" as tc@hh.

Most of us who are searching for a new church home have been at tc@hh 3+ years... so it's going to be very easy for us to dismiss a church we visit because it doesn't "feel right". Of course it doesn't! We've been a part of authentic Biblical community for 3+ years - and we're comparing the warmth of that experience with the edginess of visiting somewhere for the first time.

Those kind of feelings will come in time as we commit & get involved in the life of a particular church. Prayerfully consider your emotional reactions to a church - they may be warning of you something wrong - but they may also be you trying to compare apples & oranges.

3. "What's in it for me?" is a lousy way to look for a church.

In fact, it's a lousy way to live. (But that's a topic for another e-thing.) In church hunting, it's that tendency we have to compare church "features" (music, childcare, personal comfort, parking, etc.) like we're shopping for a new car. In the whirlwind of comparison shopping, we can lose sight of the spiritual dimension of this kind of decision.

Note: I am NOT saying that you shouldn't make informed decisions about the quality of childcare or any other aspect of a church. I'm simply advocating that you approach church hunting with a healthy dose of humility & servanthood. Your primary question should be: "What can I contribute &give?"

4. You need to be praying like crazy.

This is like every other issue we've raised at the church @ hickory hollow - you aren't good enough or smart enough to do this on your own. You need God to be a key part of this search. So ask Him - He loves to do stuff like this! (Matthew 7:7-11)

5. Don't delay.

You don't have to choose a church this week - it's not like a bomb you have to defuse. But...
...you don't need to "take a break" from being a part of regular worship, either.

With the emotional & physical exhaustion that most of us have felt over the last few months, it would be easy to decide to "take some time off" of church. The logic is tempting: "I'm tired and jaded - it would be really difficult to make objective decisions about a church right now - I deserve a break after all the work I've put in - etc., etc., etc.")

But the logic is flawed. We've spent the last five years of our lives building a church... because we believe that God uses the local church to build his Kingdom. To cut ourselves off from the church would be a mistake that denies the very things we've stood for.

There's a second problem: if you choose to take a long break, it will get more & more difficult to start going again. It's the physics principle of inertia: "bodies in motion tend to remain in motion; bodies at rest tend toremain at rest."

6. I know this isn't easy.

I don't want to pretend that the process of finding a new church home is simple. Or painless. It's likely to be complicated, emotional & a bit draining.

But ultimately, it's gonna be worth it. While nothing will replace tc@hh, God has some incredible things out there for each of us - stuff we couldn't anticipate and never would have experienced without this painful process. (1 Corinthians 2:9)

Prayer

Father, This evening, as we celebrate the church @ hickory hollow,
we celebrate You because

You made it possible for us to have authentic Biblical community.
You gave the original vision for a church of this kind in Nashville.
You enabled this church to begin and take root, even though we had little more than a direction to go and an urgency to go there.
You brought together people like me who were tired of hiding behind masks and longed to know more of You.
You gave us a safe place to express how we hurt and struggle.
You gave us each other to carry our burdens, to share our hopes, and to celebrate our joys.

But most of all You drew us closer to You, to live more fully and to grow more deeply than we've ever dared before.

We've seen You do so much in and through the people of this church;
Which makes us all the more perplexed why You seem to see fit that this church should disband.
We don't understand. We don't know what lies ahead for us.

Calm us, Father, because sometimes we grow anxious and worry.
Steady us when our faith wavers.
Strenghen our hearts, because when things are uncertain it's easier to doubt and fear than to trust.
Father, protect our tender roots as You replant us into new soil.
Hold each one of us close to You. Let no one be forgotten or neglected.
Help us to tune out the noise in our lives so we can hear Your soft, gentle voice.

We can't see where You're leading us, but we count on You to take us there.

Thank You for Your undying love for us.
Thank You for community and for families that model our love relationship with You.
Thank You for forgiveness and for restoration.
Thank You for giving our lives meaning and purpose.
Thank You for the promise of eternal life.

Help us to share the hope of restored life today and eternal life after death with those who do not yet know You.

God, You are our everything.
We thank You
And we praise You
In Your Son's name,
Amen

written by Dennis Mills and used as a part of the closing service of tc@hh on 9/21/02

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What If...?

Marvel Comics had (maybe "has" - I haven't followed comics too well lately) a series of books titled "What If?"... one-shot stories that explored odd questions about the Marvel Universe:

• "What if Daredevil got his sight back?"
• "What if the Incredible Hulk was cured?"
• "What if Professor X was evil?"

DC Comics mined some of the same territory with it's Elseworlds series... placing classic superheroes in different historical contexts:

• "Gotham by Gaslight"... with a 1800's Batman fighting Jack the Ripper
• a Civil War story with Clark Kent as a Union hero
• a Wonder Woman story set in a Victorian England gone wrong

And a bunch of historians got together to write two best-selling works of historical speculation entitled WHAT IF...? Each book is filled with essays about critical moments in history:

• what if the Normandy invasion had been stopped because of weather?
• what if George Washington was captured after the Battle of Long Island?
• what if Alexander had died before he conquered most of the known world?

I love this kind of stuff... graphic novels like Mark Waid's KINGDOM COME, works of fiction like Harry Turtledove's THE GUNS OF THE SOUTH, historical books like the two I mentioned above. It's fascinating to play "what if"...to wonder about what might have been.
Unfortunately, that same tendency in my own life has the distressing side effect of paralyzing me, rendering me useless to family, friends & Christ.

Yep, "what if?" is fun on the fictional side, but can be devastating when it's plugged into reality. It's all too easy to speculate about how good it would be not to be married - "What if I'd married that girl I dated in high school?" - and then plunge into a full-blown fantasy of how much better my life would be.

The problem? I didn't marry Ann Henderson. I married Shari Becknal... and for 12 years, through the good, the bad, the ugly AND the beautiful, we've followed God hand-in-hand. Even on Shari's worst days - heck, even on MY worst days, God put us together. Playing "what if" is the worst kind of emotional lust... there's no way to satisfy it (because I can't go backwards and do something different) and it sours the goodness that is mine right now.

The same thing goes for tc@hh... all of us involved in leadership at the church @ hickory hollow have flirted with the "what if?" game in the last couple of months:

• what if we'd moved to South Gate back in the fall?
• what if we'd convinced Robert/Stephen/whoever to stay?
• what if we hadn't spent $3000 on the movie slide? (OK, we've been playing"what if?" on this one for a couple of years) :-)

But "what if" is futile... the church @ hickory hollow is disbanded, the equipment is getting ready to be handed on to a new church plant (more on that in a minute), and all of us have to keep following God.

I am not suggesting that we stop evaluating what's gone in our lives, our jobs, our church - healthy self-examination & evaluation are vital to further growth. I am suggesting that going from evaluation to spinning gossamer webs of "what if" fantasies is flat-out stupid. And not very Biblical.

Let the "what if" scenarios go... and lean into God.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:12-14 (NIV)

Giving It Away...

Our church constitution called for our assets to be distributed to other church starts in case of dissolution... and that process is beginning to happen. If it all works out, Keith Adams, pastor of River Community Church in the University of Memphis area of, well, Memphis, will be coming to pick up most of the sound & video equipment, along with a good bit of the Kid's Place & food table stuff. (That could be as early as Monday!)

We've got two more established 'innovative' churches looking at the big board, and any money we receive from selling it will be channeled into helping church starts.

Please be praying for Keith & his church - their first 'preview' service (a rehearsal for their actual launch) is in November. This, as some of us can remember, is an exciting and scary time. I'm just glad our loss is their gain in the process of following Christ.

To be continued...

How In The Heck Did I End Up Here? (part five)

This is the fifth post in a series of posts on the history of my ministry. This one is very long... and sad. Still, it's an important part of my ministry journey, so read on... 

We spent the next few months (fall of 2001) at the church @ hickory hollow staggering forward, trying to keep it together. Our guitar player (Paul Durham) volunteered as our worship leader, and we talked through making some major changes to keep both financially viable and better able to reach people. But the exhaustion of the last few months and their own lives became too much for a few of our key families, who left in February of 2002. The financial issues of their departure forced us to move our service out of the elementary school and into South Gate Baptist on Saturday nights. The last few months of the church's life were painful - it was a shadow of what it had once been, yet the folks who were there still wanted it to grow and be what it was called to be.

By late July, though, the metaphorical writing was on the wall, and I sent the following e-mail to our folks in early August.

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Tag & tc@hh

Brian was chasing me through his backyard... the game: Tag. I was not the fastest kid on the block but I cornered pretty well and came roaring through his side yard toward a low (maybe 3 foot high) retaining wall. My mind planned the maneuver perfectly: shorten my stride to hit the wall at the right speed, plant both hands on the top of the cinder block wall, swing my legs over, land on the other side and keep running.

One problem: I hadn't played Tag at Brian's house before. Which means I didn't know that the retaining wall was only 3 feet high on the backyard side, but nearly 12 feet high on the front yard side. So, as the plan was executed to perfection, I slung myself over the wall into thin air. Kind of like Wiley E. Coyote in the Road Runner cartoons.*

Over the last few months, pastoring the church @ hickory hollow has felt a bit like playing Tag at Brian's house... plans that seemed perfect in theory have been less than perfect in execution. "Sure things" have ended up crumbling like a sand castle at high tide. Wiley E. Coyote all over again. I realize I'm not alone in this... there is a core of people who continue to make tc@hh 'happen' who've had roughly the same experience. This group of folks has been watching our dreams collapse just like me, stunned as our hopes melt in the face of reality & time.

Home Depot & Hope

Home Depot promises a whole lot more than it can deliver... if you only spend enough money on the right tools and supplies, you can do Bob Villa-like projects on your home with the greatest of ease. (Heck, they'll even sign you up for classes on how to do this stuff - surely that should make a home improvement expert.) Just wander the aisles of Home Depot one day and look how many times the words "simple" or "easy" appear on the packaging.

I'm thankful, in light of my Wiley E. Coyote-like life, that the Bible (and by extension, God) never promises more than it/He can deliver. What He promises is His presence, His strength, and His unfailing love. There's no promise that I can find that we will not experience frustration & failure - as individuals or as local church bodies. What is promised is that He will not leave us alone... that whatever happens to our plans & dreams, our hope is too small if it is placed in anything but Him.

No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength. A horse is a vain hope for deliverance;despite all its great strength it cannot save. But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him,on those whose hope is in his unfailing love,to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine. We wait in hope for the LORD; he is our help and our shield.In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD,even as we put our hope in you. Psalm 33:16-22 (NIV)

Wiley E. Coyote & What Happens Now?

When the Coyote ends up shooting over the edge of the cliff, he hangs in mid-air for a moment, awaiting his doom. Sometimes, he gets enough time to whip a sign out from... well, I'm not sure where it comes from. (I don't remember coyotes having "pouches" from anything I've ever read. Anyway...) That's kind of where we are - hanging in mid-air waiting to find out what happens next. Just remember - whatever happens, however bad the "fall" looks, we can trust in a God who loves us more than we can ever know.

If you'd like to know more about the possible decisions that we're facing as a church, you are invited to call and/or e-mail me. As always, questions are welcomed & encouraged... and it's very easy to have questions when we've (metaphorically speaking) just shot over the edge of the cliff.

*Amazingly enough, I only managed to sprain my ankle from the fall... 12 feet into a planter full of ivy.

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In August of 2002, we set aside 6 weeks to specifically pray for God's will about what should happen next with tc@hh - and His answer was silence. Well, except for causing our paid nursery worker to resign. :-) So at a congregational meeting in September, we decided to close the doors on tc@hh. 

It was a difficult decision, to say the least. I realized as I sat there that if I said, "Let's keep going", these people would follow my lead. But I didn't feel God calling us to do that. I kept hearing the main reason people wanted to keep tc@hh alive - they were scared of what would come next if there was no tc@hh. Fear is not a good enough reason to do church - we were not inspired by what God was calling us to do but by what we didn't want to happen.

Then I had to let the whole church know what was going to happen...

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Announcement

After much prayer & discussion, the membership of the church @ hickory hollow has decided that tc@hh's last service will be Saturday night, September 21st. Following that, the church @ hickory hollow will be disbanded.

Explanation

I know that one of the first questions has to be "Why?" I'm not sure there's a simple answer to that question, but I do want to be clear about some of the realities we have been facing.

• Attendance at weekend services has been dwindling over the past 6 months. The move to Saturday night solved a financial problem but was one of the factors in causing us to lose more attenders.
• Since the majority of our folks are not in white-collar careers, giving has always been an issue - and less people means less giving.
• Doing quality ministry with children has been difficult... especially so since our wonderful Kid's Place person, Vanessa Arellano, resigned in early August.
• All of these things (and other smaller issues) have contributed to a growing lack of momentum.

In response to all of these issues, the church @ hickory hollow spent major time over the last two months in corporate prayer for God's leadership. The result of that time: no discernable signal from God that we were to continue.

That was confirmed personally for me in a pair of feelings coming out of my time with God:

1. That I loved the people who made up tc@hh and wanted the best for them.
2. That I was tired & stretched thin by the process of watching the dream of tc@hh slowly fade away.

With all of those factors (and more), we undertook a long discussion Wednesday night and came to the consensus that it was time to end. The official decision was originally to be made on September 18th, but we realized that all of the membership was present and could make the decision at that time.

Some Thoughts

More than one person has expressed their belief that tc@hh did what it was here to do - what God had created it to do. And that's true whether it was everything we wanted/hoped it would be or not. And that's also true, even with it ending.

---

Yes, this is painful. How could it not be? The relationships that make up tc@hh have been gifts from God - no other church I've served has been as much a part of me & my life. 

But I'm sure of this: no matter how sad I am right now, I would not trade the five years of planting tc@hh & living out the dream. If my choice was:

• no tc@hh OR
• only 5 years of tc@hh

I'll take the five years. It's been a wonderful ride in the presence of God.

It really has been an authentic Biblical community - just like we hoped... the challenge in front of all of us is carry that vision away from here. Our job now is to be seeds that live out a real, Bible-based relationship with Christ & with others, no matter where we end up.

---

I'm afraid of sounding too "chipper" in this e-mail... too "God's given me all the answers." On my best days, I really do see Him at work, even in this painful process. On my worst days, I'm convinced He's left me, my family & the church I pastor high & dry, stranded without hope. My worst days, as you can probably guess, are not days on which I'm much fun to be around.

But my worst days are garbage - because that hopelessness is based on lies. (In the words of my friend, Dave Foster, "that's a lie that comes straight from Hell and it smells like smoke.") God has NOT taken off... He has not abandoned us. The organization known as the church @ hickory hollow may be done, but the Church is still very much alive and Jesus Christ is it's head. We're all just moving on to work for different 'departments' in the same incredible Company.

September 21st - A Celebration

Our last service will be a celebration of what God has done in our lives & relationships through the church @ hickory hollow... and we want to make sure that EVERYONE who has been a part of tc@hh knows that they are welcome to join us for that very special time. If there is any way possible for you to attend, please come & worship with us that night as we thank God for tc@hh.

Giving?

We still owe $312 to Metro Schools. Otherwise, we have no outstanding liabilities. I encourage you strongly to continue giving to tc@hh, as our constitution/by-laws require us on dissolution to give our remaining assets to another church plant(s) in order to assist them. By giving to tc@hh, you're acting as seed money for starting a new church - which is a VERY good thing.

All the Sound Equipment?

No, Mark is NOT getting a boffo home entertainment system... all of the sound equipment and the other resources (Kid's Place supplies, Food Table stuff, etc.) will also be given to new churches to assist them.

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Our final service was on September 21st, 2002. Many of the folks who helped make tc@hh what it was were able to be there... it was a massive celebration of what God had done in the five years we had been around. A bittersweet but wonderful night... we all went back to Paul & Amy's place (which, off & on, we'd called the "official meeting place" for tc@hh) and had a party.

To be continued...

Look Out, Ansel Adams... Here Comes Braeden

My son, budding photographer... taken, btw, at the incredible Monterey Bay Aquarium.

The Force Is Strong In This One (part two)

This time, he's the Emperor.

And for those of you who were wondering, the answer is "No." As in, "No, he hasn't seen the movies yet."

The Force Is Strong In This One

Braeden is really into Star Wars right now, thanks to his dad collecting Attacktix figures (it's seriously addictive). It also doesn't hurt that we've been playing the Episode 1: Racer computer game for nearly a year now. Anyway, he's Darth Vader in this picture... complete with heavy breathing noises.

Blame It On Keith

He's the one who sent me the link.

That's right, kids, Paul Anka's new album is coming out, Rock Swings. Don't miss his cover of Van Halen's "Jump."

Really.

Of course, while you're at it, you might want to check out Pat Boone's In A Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy.

I love rock'n'roll... throw another dime in the jukebox, baby. noted philosopher Joan Jett

Dig Hay Zoose

The title of this article will make more sense later, but for now, you just need to know that it's the name of one of the oddest bands I admire. Their album "Magentamantalovetree" is an epic blend of art rock & punk (one website calls it "funk-punk/alternative-metal"), filtered through a deep love for Jesus Christ. Their cover of Steve Taylor's "I Wanna Be A Clone" was so good that Steve himself co-opted their arrangement for his live shows. And word on the street says they're getting back together, which means more weird music for Mark's CD collection!

But a cool & too long defunct Christian band is NOT what I'm writing about today. It's actually a vacation story.

Shari, Braeden, Collin & I packed up Monday morning (Memorial Day) and headed out to Monterey. (OK, Collin didn't do much packing.) After a stop at Casa de Fruta (which is Spanish for "tourist trap with yummy food"), we got into Monterey and promptly headed for the beach. Braeden & Shari splashed in the waves while Collin & I chatted up some folks on the beach. (OK, Collin didn't do much chatting.)

Dinner on Monday night was at this great place called The Fish Hopper down on Cannery Row, where Shari & I split Macadamia Halibut & Coconut Prawn, served on sweet potato with a citrus sauce. It was one of the best meals I've ever eaten. (And Shari, noted seafood hater, actually loved it, too. Of course, I got both the prawns, which was fine by me!)

We then headed back to the minivan, loading up the boys & driving down the coast a few miles to Lover's Point in Pacific Grove. It's a big rock outcropping that was just screaming for Braeden & I to go rock-climbing on. I got Braeden out while Shari got ready to feed Collin a bottle. And then she said, "Where'd you put the diaper bag?"

Well, I'd put the bag behind her on the sidewalk when she was loading up Collin... and told her it was there, but she was legitimately distracted. After a quick check of the car, we realized we'd left the bag behind. I almost threw Braeden back into his car seat & we took off down the winding streets back to Cannery Row.

But it wasn't JUST a diaper bag - Shari had also put her car keys & wallet (do girls call it a wallet?) with ID and credit cards in the bag. So now we were facing not only the inconvenience of losing Collin's diaper bag, but also the total crash of our vacation, as we would have to cancel our credit & debit cards.

This is going to sound a lot more spiritual than I meant it at the time, but I asked Shari to pray as I drove. (Here's the not-so-spiritual part: it really wasn't about finding the bag but keeping me from being a rear end and blaming my wife for not picking up the bag... prayer's still a good idea, but my motives were less than pure.) Shari asked Jesus to intervene, to protect our belongings, to keep us safe...

When we got back to our parking space, not more than 15 minutes since we'd left it, the bag was gone. I ran into a restaurant and a store nearby, but no one had turned in a diaper bag. The lady in the candy store even called up the closest parking garage, but they hadn't found it, either. (She also let me know that Cannery Row has a lot of homeless people, and she wouldn't be surprised if one of them picked it up.)

Through all of this, Braeden kept saying things like "Don't give up"... which was cool but a little weird. Shari & I both found ourselves listening to him - later both realizing we felt like God was speaking through him.

Anyway, Braeden's encouragement caused Shari to stop a guy trying to get into the Edgewater Packing Company (which was closed) to ask him about the bag. No luck there, but as she stood next to the van, a couple ran up to tell her their odd story. The woman had overheard me in the candy store asking about a diaper bag, but hadn't thought much about it. Meanwhile, her husband was loading their child (and stroller) into the car when a guy in a black truck pulled up and asked if they'd lost a diaper bag. When she returned from the store and her husband told her about the guy in the black Ford truck, she put two & two together and made a beeline for us.

We gave her our cell number (in case she saw him again) and then began to cruise around Cannery Row, looking for a black Ford pickup. Which, now that I think about it, is kind of funny, as I couldn't pick a Ford pickup out of a line of trucks. After 10 minutes of this fruitless search, we headed back to the hotel. I was convinced I was getting ready to spend the rest of the night talking to credit card companies.

When we arrived, I checked our cell phone messages (nothing there) and then called our home answering machine. In classic Jackson family fashion (we forget to check the answering machine sometimes), there were 11 messages. I waded through each one, finally getting to #11.

"Hi, this call is for Shari... my name is Jesus."

Only, when he said, it sounded like Hay Zoose (which explains, finally, the title of this article).

Turns out, Hay Zoose managed the Edgewater Packing Co building (which we'd parked next to) and on his way out from work had found the diaper bag. He'd tried to find out who had left it behind, but he was tired and headed home... and on his way home, he'd used information to find our home number and let us know he had the bag.

As well, Hay Zoose had had to fight with his cousin (recently out of lockup) who wanted to ransack the bag for cash & credit cards... while we were praying, Hay Zoose/Jesus was protecting our stuff. Wow.

I drove out to Salinas that night to pick up the bag... meeting Hay Zoose and getting to talk to him for a minute. I'm not sure how many times I told him that he was an answer to prayer. Before I left, I let him know that I was a follower of Christ, and that I appreciated what he'd done. He told me that he also believed in Jesus, but that he was, well, "sidetracked." So I asked him if I could pray for him... and we stood in the middle of the street & I got to talk to God on his behalf. Very cool.

Shari's still laughing about trying to write this up in her journal... "Thank you God for sending Jesus" - which has a serious double meaning in this situation.

We'd like you to pray for Hay Zoose - that God could use this crazy little incident where he did the right thing to draw him back to Christ.

Anyway, I dig Hay Zoose. And Jesus. Not necessarily in that order. :-)

This article originally appeared in the 6/2/05 edition of "the Grapevine", the e-newsletter of NewLife Community Church.

"Contemporary" Worship

When I was hunting for a new church to serve back in 2002-2003, one of the questions I got asked was "What do you think of contemporary worship?" I was just looking over my answer again the other day & thought it was worth sharing.

I'm assuming by 'contemporary worship' that you mean that the music used in the worship services is more than just the same 50 hymns out of the Baptist Hymnal and involves more musically than a piano and an organ. In that case, the answer is that I both personally enjoy contemporary worship and believe it's a more effective way to reach people with the truth of the Gospel.

To expand a bit, I think that contemporary worship at it's best is more than just a change in musical style. It's a conscious effort by a church to break down the artificial wall between "performer" and "spectator", to use all of the senses in a whole-hearted attempt to honor the God who has lavished us with His grace. Nothing is out of bounds - the most recent cutting edge technology or the most ancient practice of the faith - when it lines up with Scripture and helps us to give Christ the glory He so richly deserves.

We have to move from the concept of those on stage as "performers" and the people in the congregation as the "audience". Soren Kierkegaard describes a better model - where the members of the congregation are the performers, the people 'up front' are the prompters, and the audience is God - an audience of One. That, more than musical style, is at the heart of contemporary worship.

How In The Heck Did I End Up Here? (part four)

This is the fourth post in a series of posts on the history of my ministry. It's been strange and interesting to look back in this way. Hope you've felt the same way! 

When we returned to Nashville in late July of 1997, Shari & I rented an apartment on in the Hickory Hollow area and began meeting with the initial core group of 4 people (besides us) who helped plant the church @ hickory hollow. Jim Williamson (who I mentioned earlier) had worked with me as a youth sponsor at Dalewood - and was in the process of becoming Nashville City Director for the Center for Student Missions. Allen Troxler was a seminary student who became our first associate pastor. (The folks here at NewLife had the pleasure of meeting him & hearing him teach early this spring.) Michelle Mattox had also taught youth Sunday School for me. Finally, Sheridyn Smith (who would, a few years later, end up marrying Jim!), worked for the youth ministry company Interl'inc (whom I did some writing for).

What an incredible time that was... meeting together to pray and dream and think and plan about a church to reach our generation. God kept confirming that we were headed in the right direction - no more so than when He led us to Robert Grisham, our first worship leader. We met with Robert 3 or 4 times before we ever heard him play a note - our first concern was his heart for God. (Which was no problem - Robert is/was one of the most on-fire guys I've ever known.) Robert joined us in November as we headed towards our official launch in January.  

This is about the same time I met Mark Puckett, the pastor of South Gate Baptist Church. We both attended a seminar at Belmont University where Richard Jackson spoke. I don't remember much about what he said (except that he seemed pretty clueless about generational issues), but I do remember meeting Mark in the shuttle bus on the way back to our cars. That began a friendship which God has used in my life over the past five years. (Mark is currently on Prince Edward Island, doing missions work - for more information on Mark & his ministry, check out his blog, Missionary Musings From The Great White North.) 

 The seven of us (the original 6 plus Robert) launched the church on January 25th, 1998. Our first Sunday had 37 people (no kids... we didn't have a nursery for the first 8-9 months, as we only had one family with a nine month old.) We quickly settled into 40-45 each Sunday morning, and we started a small group ministry that ballooned to 20+ people in a couple of weeks, forcing us to divide into two smaller groups to keep it manageable. 

Through all of this, God took such good care of us - we were all "wet behind the ears" but He provided equipment, energy and favor with school administration and with new people. It was during these early months of the church that Steve & Shane Oakley joined us. Over time, Steve became part of our Leadership Team, while Shane sang with the worship band and ended up as the leader of our Kid's Place ministry. 

The darkest moments in our first year were with our sponsor church - Dalewood. (Yep, the church I had been on staff at for the last five years.) The crowd who wanted Bro. Tim's head on a platter reached a fever pitch in the summer of 1998... and culminated in his forced termination in October.

This was no ordinary forced termination - not only did they give him less of a severance package than they had given the pastor who had resigned due to an adulterous affair, but they also dismissed the entire deacon body, as they were supporting Bro. Tim. Needless to say, Dalewood suffered another immense hemorrhage in membership, losing over 100 people in the next month.

As Bro. Tim was one of the church @ hickory hollow's main supporters, along with a number of the deacons, the core group of tc@hh quickly worked to find an alternate sponsor church. Mark Puckett stepped in, and South Gate Baptist Church unanimously voted to take us under their wing later that month. (We had to fight with Dalewood to get the last of our state convention funds for almost 4 months... it was an extremely difficult situation.) 

Interestingly, the greatest growth in the life of tc@hh occurred in the early part of 1999... things were finally hitting their stride. At our largest, we averaged 60-70 attenders each week (not counting children).

Of course, growing pains were just around the corner, as we shifted from the leadership of the core group to the official leadership of the Leadership Team (an elder board of sorts). Looking back, we should have spent a longer period of time with the core group - our elders weren't seasoned enough in the faith and in life to deal with everything that was thrown at us.  

The high point of the life of tc@hh was in the spring of 2000... our small groups were functioning pretty well (though they never worked as well as we had hoped). The worship service was creative and, well, rockin'... we jammed. People were coming - mostly folks who had been burned in traditional churches, but a few radically unchurched folks as well. 

It's funny to say "high point" as it was one of the lowest points in our married life - we suffered our first miscarriage. The emotional pain was intense as we'd waited so long to try to have a baby. The church came along side us and loved us - and that was a part of how good it was at tc@hh, if you get my drift. 

It was around this time that our friends, David & Amy Hughes, moved in next door to us. Lay people from a more traditional Baptist church in the area,they still loved on us and encouraged us (and mowed our yard nearly the entire first summer of Braeden's life!). 

The next year was a year of transition, as Robert left us to attend seminary- but he helped us choose Stephen Weaver as the next worship leader before he was gone. The Leadership Team reduced in size as Jim & Sheridyn got married and Steve stepped down due to life pressures. We moved the service into the school cafeteria, which made set-up easier, but wasn't nearly as conducive to building community. Numbers were falling some, but we'd all gotten on a bit of treadmill - we were just pushing on, not always thinking about what came next. 

Then what I refer to as the "Chinese water torture" of circumstances caused major upheaval in our lives and the life of tc@hh. Braeden was born in early June of 2001, which was wonderful, but took my focus off of tc@hh. 4 weeks after he was born, Shari's dad was diagnosed with cancer in his throat. We piled Braeden into our Honda and headed to Houston for his surgery - which was aborted on the table. It was inoperable.

Shari & Braeden stayed in Houston while I flew back to Nashville for two weeks, then back to Houston to bring them home. By this time, I'd spent most of the summer with my focus barely on tc@hh.

And then my grandfather died. We were gone to his funeral and family gathering for nearly a week in late August... which left me emotionally exhausted. Drip... drip... drip... one of the results of my inattention was my lack of awareness of Stephen's growing emotional exhaustion. 

So it came as a complete surprise when Stephen resigned as worship leader in early September. The day he came over to talk to Shari & I about it in more detail was...9/11/01. I hate to blame a national tragedy for causing church problems, but we didn't experience the same "balloon" of people that many other churches did. Instead, the whole experience made our folks edgy and scared. And the same financial difficulties that plagued the U.S. hit us... a small church with a tiny budget.

Finally, the final straw - one of our families in the church had been through the wringer with their young son. Parker Anderson spent 11 of his 13 months in & out of the hospital with a variety of horrific medical problems - finally dying in October in the midst of a liver transplant. The folks of tc@hh had done so much to help the family and Parker - and it was a loss we all felt.

A minute ago I called this all the Chinese water torture - because it wasn't any one of these circumstances that caused us so much trouble, but the relentless drumbeat of them one right after another. I've gone over and over this in my mind - what could we have done different? What could I have done different? There are some basic things - paid more attention to Stephen's emotional health, done a better job of tracking the situation from afar - but much of what happened was out of our control.

We spent the next few months staggering forward, trying to keep it together.Our guitar player (Paul Durham) volunteered as our worship leader, and we talked through making some major changes to keep both financially viable and better able to reach people.

To be continued...

How In The Heck Did I End Up Here? (part three)

This is the third part of what is becoming a longer & longer series of posts of my history in ministry. Unlike the previous two posts, this one is pretty much original to the blog, as it tells the story of our summer adventure.

In the spring of 1997, I resigned from Dalewood to spend the next few months preparing to plant the church @ hickory hollow. I attended conferences on GenX ministry (the prime one in Mt. Hermon, CA!) and Shari & I took a 7 week trip across the western U.S., visiting GenX church plants, seeing family, and camping.
That trip was an adventure in itself...

• we drove through 10 states: Tennesse, Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, California, & Texas
• we saw 10 national parks: Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Colorado, Arches, Canyonlands, Bryce Canyon, Cedar Breaks, Grand Canyon (North Rim), Zion, Sequoia, & Kings Canyon
• we visited 10 churches: 3 in the Denver area (none of which were particularly impressive... but the most interesting had an intermission in the service so folks could go & get coffee and Italian ices), 3 in San Francisco (Highway Community, Graceland & The River Church Community), 2 in Los Angeles (NewSong & Calvary Church Newport Mesa), 1 in San Diego (Coastlands), and 1 in Waco (UBC)

Strong trip memories:

• hanging out with Shari's very cool great-aunt in Shawnee, OK
• looking (in vain) for a bathroom in northeastern New Mexico
• hiking to the mythical gold mine (which we NEVER found) in the mountains above Pueblo, CO
• visiting a charismatic church's "GenX" service in Denver... complete with a "word of prophecy" (we should read our Bibles more) and a message guaranteed to draw GenXer's closer to God (on the current nation of Israel's place in the end times... sigh)
• the aforementioned church with the Italian ices
• stopped on a two lane road high in the Rockies, we are approached by a Jehovah's Witness who wants to, well, witness
• Shari sunbathing at 7,000 ft without sunscreen... and the 3 days of misery that followed
• racing up the slickrock at dusk to catch an incredible sunset view at Arches National Park (UT)
• carrying a gallon of water (heavy!) across slickrock spines in one of the most amazing hikes I've ever been on (again at Arches)
• the air mattress springing a leak on the same night it rained so hard the tent was weeping (at Bryce Canyon, UT)
• hiking down the winding switchback into Bryce Canyon, then climbing back out to avoid a thunderstorm
• eating dinner in the hotel overlooking the North Rim of the Grand Canyon... on the way to dinner, we walked along the canyon edge and managed to walk within 5 ft of a baby deer
• trying to set our tent up just outside Zion National Park (the ground was so hard it broke our tent stakes)... and having one of the most memorable marital fights in our marriage (I refused to ask for help - and Shari was righteously ticked at me
• holing up in a hotel in St. George, UT, to recharge our emotional batteries
• watching people robotically play slots in Vegas (a sick fascination)
• climbing Moro Rock to the top for the first time (I'd frozen trying to climb it in high school)... which meant defeating a personal fear of heights (Sequoia National Park, CA)
• spending time with Keith & Melissa for the second time in 3 months (Keith was/is my best friend from high school)
• buying games (El Grande & Siedler DSK) from the best game store on the West Coast, Gamescape... which sits on the dividing line between Haight/Ashbury and the Castro (wild area!) - the clerk had multiple piercings & green hair, but as soon as we started talking games, all the cultural barriers dropped
• visiting Graceland in Santa Cruz, CA... feeling like we were the nerdiest/least hip people in the room but still feeling welcomed to worship God (still remember the solo by a girl dressed in a top that showed off the rose tattoo on her shoulder, apologizing to the crowd that they might not know the song by this artist, Sandi Patti... he he he)
• eating one of the best burgers I've ever tasted at a bar in Big Sur, CA... btw, the only cheap place to eat in Big Sur
• fighting with a hotel clerk in San Simeon, CA, because Shari was sick and she wouldn't let us into the room we'd reserved early
• the worship music at NewSong Covina
• the surreal experience of Calvary Church Newport Mesa... an odd but wonderful blend of Willow Creek and GenX
• hanging out with my Grandpa in Pomona, CA - letting him drive (which was a major mistake... it's a wonder we're still here)
• enjoying major time with Aunt Nancy & Uncle Richard in San Diego... Shari's first "intensive" experience with the wonder that is my Aunt Nancy
• visiting Coastlands Church and feeling hope - these guys were starting a church on a shoestring just like us (and Evan Lauer is still one of the coolest godly dudes on the planet)
• exiting a buffet in Tuscon, AZ, at 8 pm and it STILL being 105 degrees
• time with Shari's family in Houston (teaching my nieces & nephew to play Sindbad)
• hanging out with my best friend from college (Tim Formby) as he showed me the house they were restoring in Tyler, TX
• going to Six Flags over TX with Tracy (Shari's cousin) and Chris Herndon & Mark Hollingsworth, who'd road-tripped down from Nashville to join us
• getting home, exhausted, and moving into our apartment

I'm still glad we got to experience that trip... it formed so much of what we were thinking & feeling about ministry & church. And it was an incredible marriage experience as well. (Can't imagine doing the same kind of trip with 2 kids... wow.)

To Be Continued...

How In The Heck Did I End Up Here? (part two)

This is the second part of the stuff I wrote to Nancy & the Search Team at NewLife (then called Easton Southern Baptist) back in the spring of 2003. It does a really nice job of telling the story of my ministry... yes, I've edited it a bit.

Three months to the day from my resignation from FBC Fordyce, I went on staff at Dalewood Baptist Church in Nashville, TN, as the minister of youth. A larger church (running around 500 when we arrived), a stable pastorate (Bro. Ken had been there 10 years), following an excellent youth minister (Debbie Harned, whom Group Magazine voted Youth Leader of the Year the next year!)... we were abit gun-shy from our experience in Arkansas and we worked hard to make sure that E.G.B.O.K. (everything's gonna be OK).

As far as the youth and college ministry went, Dalewood was a dream. Debbie had trained an excellent bunch of youth workers, which I had the privilege of leading. There were a number of kids who wanted to grow deeper - and there was a history of taking God seriously, as well as a strong tradition of having fun. The best of both worlds. (A number of the very special folks first came into my life during this period. Chris Herndon was a tremendous junior high Sunday School teacher as well as a good friend. Jim Williamson was a part of our fledgling young adult Bible study group, as was Jeff Smith.)

What we didn't realize is that our pastor was in the throes of an adulterous affair with a prominent choir member. During the summer and fall of 1992, he often seemed distracted and busy, but I appreciated his "hands-off" approach to leading me, following the lists of rules & regulations I'd been forced experienced at FBC Fordyce. I interpreted his aloofness as approval. The affair was over in the late fall, but only came to light in early 1993 when the wronged husband finally followed through on his threats to tell other leaders in the church. So, in late January, the pastor sat the staff down and revealed his affair and attempts to cover it up to us.

It was like a bomb had gone off in the church... my youth were devastated, as Bro. Ken had baptized many of them - and he was their "ultimate" picture of a Christian. We spent a number of youth nights discussing sin and forgiveness and making wise choices... and just letting kids vent some of their fears and feelings about the whole situation. I'm still proud that the youth ministry was the only group in the church not to lose numerically following the "explosion."

Other parts of the church didn't react in quite as healthy a manner. There was a contigent who believed that Ken should be "forgiven" and all of this brushed under the carpet. There was a group who wanted to string him up off the church sign as a warning to future pastors. A larger group wanted to blame the woman involved. Tremendous amounts of kingdom time & energy were wasted on speculating what happened when and what was happening now.

About this same time, Shari began the long walk through dealing with clinical depression. So, here we were, struggling with the throes of depression AND the absolute insanity of the fallout of Ken's resignation. (We as a staff got regular anonymous notes from all sides, telling us what we were doing wrong.)

Still, God was big. Shari began to heal emotionally... and the three of us left (the minister of education, the minister of music and myself) split up the pastoral responsibilities and kept going.

Obviously, the church lost a number of folks (over the next year we dropped from 500 to 400 attenders), but it was not as bad as it could have been.The interim period lasted from early 1993 until September of 1994... a VERY long time. We had two interim pastors, who both did a great job helping us struggle through a difficult time.

The church called Dr. Tim Walker as it's new pastor... with the mandate to finish the building campaign we had begun in 1992 (about the time I was hired). Even with the body blow of the adulterous affair, God had still inspired people to give over $800,000 towards a $1.2 million dollar goal.

But Tim's leadership was not everyone's cup of tea - and there was a group of folks who had been blocking this particular project for nearly 20 years. When we went ahead anyway, Tim began to develop a formidable opposition in the church.

It was during this time that I was feeling the call (late 1996) to plant the church @ hickory hollow - and Chris Herndon (now a deacon) and Bro. Tim were the first two people I approached with my vision. Their prayer and encouragement helped me keep after the vision God had given me. In the spring of 1997, I resigned from Dalewood to spend the next few months preparing to plant tc@hh.

To be continued...

How In The Heck Did I End Up Here? (part one)

This is part of the stuff I wrote to Nancy & the Search Team at NewLife (then called Easton Southern Baptist) back in the spring of 2003. It does a really nice job of telling the story of my ministry... yes, I've edited it a bit.

After graduating from seminary in December of 1989, I worked for a few months at Dillard's (selling men's underwear) before being called to serve as the minister of youth at First Baptist Church (Fordyce,Arkansas). We were there from April 1990 - February 1992. (In the middle of all that, I managed to end up married! Shari and I were engaged in January of 1990 and got married in June.)

The first year at Fordyce was amazing - God moved in some pretty neat ways, as I had the opportunity to help rebuild a youth ministry that had struggled under a previous youth pastor. 

But by the time our first wedding anniversary rolled around in June of 1991, the storm clouds were brewing. The parents who made up the youth committee were primarily interested in:

1. a good safe social place for their kids
2. having lots of kids come to their church

You'll notice that "having kids deepen in their faith" wasn't on the list. The result of this conflict in ministry visions became insidious... I had parent volunteers contradicting my directions to kids on trips (Mark on a canoe trip: "Put your life jacket on, please"; Parent: "You don't need a life jacket." Sigh.)

While Shari & I were on a one-night first anniversary vacation, the Youth & Personnel Commitees met to discuss my "situation". What resulted was a 3 page set of instructions that were loaded with false accusations and unreasonable demands. (A decision to keep a 14 yr old girl from flirting with a 20 yr old drunk was construed as "restricting evangelistic opportunities." Hmmm.) 

We decided to begin seeking another church, while continuing to minister there at Fordyce. God encouraged us in so many ways (I developed a love for Philippians 2 during this time that has never really abated) while the situation at the church continued to deteriorate. My pastor did little to help, as he was under attack from the negative/controlling group himself.

We sent out nearly 100 resumes - with NO response. I've joked before that seeking a ministry position by sending out resumes can be like throwing paper down a black hole, but this really WAS like throwing paper down a black hole. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. We began to doubt that we were even listening to God correctly. Were we supposed to stay and tough it out?

Early in October of 1991, we sat together one morning and prayed that God would show us if we'd messed up. That day, I found out that I (and the rest of the staff) were being called into "special" individual meetings with the Personnel Committee that night.And I got fired. Well, not really - they "ended the youth ministry position" effective the end of December, which essentially meant they were firing me without firing me. The reasons were murky and the meeting odd, but Shari & I took it as confirmation of what we'd prayed.

Then, in a show of what deacons SHOULD look like, the deacons got involved. A series of meetings ensued in which all of the staff and the committees involved were grilled by the deacon body - and the lameness of the accusations against me exposed. My position was reinstated by the deacons and I was finally given the choice of what I wanted to do.

We chose to resign at the end of February. The 'hidden' conflicts had done terrific damage to the youth ministry and my personal effectiveness... even though the majority of the congregation has no idea what was going on.

Three months to the day from my resignation, I went on staff at Dalewood Baptist Church in Nashville, TN, as the minister of youth. (One of the ladies in the congregation in Fordyce had let us know that she wanted us to get every penny of the severance package - and Arlie Ruth was a major prayer warrior. My first day in Nashville was the last day of severance. Two weeks later, Arlie Ruth went home to be with Jesus. I'm still thankful for her encouragement and her prayers.)

To be continued...

Rob Suggs Would Be Proud

From Scott Rushing's blog, Theology Talk:

You might be liturgical if...

you're watching Star Wars and when they say, "May the force be with you,"

you reply, "and also with you."

For a more serious/thoughtful Star Wars story, check out Get Religion's Star Wars R Us?.

And if you don't know who Rob Suggs is, you're really missing out. (Couldn't find the cartoon "Liturgical Fads of the 1950's" - which inspired the title of this post - online where y'all could see it... but you can get a taste of Rob's mad cartoon skillz here.)

3 Weeks (part two)

...and this is Braeden at 3 weeks. You be the judge if they look alike.

3 Weeks (part one)

This is Collin at 3 weeks...