Coin-flips and Choices: Who I Am

It almost feels like a guilty pleasure to say that I like the work of a guy like Bill Hybels. You know, in that, big church-look up to big church pastors-what is missional and attractional- who has the best ideas- too many people steal from Hybels, Stanley, and Warren- get some original ideas kind of way. But he is awesome.

Sure, at times he makes me cringe. Specifically, a few years ago at the Leadership Summit he made a sexist joke, got called out on it, and then in "apology" made a worse one. I hated that day. I wasn't a fan of him for those few minutes because it's an awful way to do ministry and, really, life in general.

But then there's other times when that rawness is fresh to me ... like the talk I just listened to from Catalyst called "Courage."

In tracing his own story of finding Jesus as a teenager at camp, detailing the times in life that he has "flipped coins" over things that became a big part of who he is, how he does ministry, and how God has used him and his church, I was struck by the feeling of how true it is that one decision that stands at 50-50 determines the outcome of so much of what we do in life, in ministry, in general ...

I chose to leave a job I loved a little more than six months ago. In all honesty, I wake up a lot of mornings with a deep sadness of the relationships I left behind - a desire to know and be known like I was in that community. A selfish hunger to be recognized everywhere I go, have people hang on words, and my opinion valued greatly; a want for the times I was the best innovator and thinker in a room. But that's why I left: I wanted to be challenged to become better at the things I'm good at; to be the person being poured into and taught. I wanted mentors and people that are better at their job than I probably ever will be - and I found it here.

In missing the things that I had, I remember the things that got me to where I am. The decisions that were either made slowly over time as I reformed my theology and, eventually, my behaviors, or quickly as I decided who I wanted to be and where I wanted to go in life. God has always been where I walked, which is an obvious statement in some ways - but, to me anyway, also very profound. Because the streets I walked down in El Cajon or Santee or Littleton growing up where no thought of God was present - no desire to care that it might be real even - He was still there. He was. And I missed it, at least to the extent that I wasn't an active participant. I see now, years later, things he was up to in my life that are huge, but I missed them.

Hybels' talk brings me back to the places where I discovered God as an 18 year-old for the first time, through to today as I refine my character and theology and try to get things right as best I can. I remember a dank church basement in Greeley where I felt his presence for the first time, really, as I learned what youth ministry was.

I recall my dorm room that has since been razed, the place where I couldn't sleep and read the Gospel of John through tears and knew this stuff was real.

I think back to a random conference room at a crappy hotel in Silverthorne where God relayed to my 20 year-old heart, soul, and spirit that full-time ministry was the calling for my life and I knew something that day that I couldn't have comprehended before it. Or the club room at Crooked Creek when God called me out of hiding when I tried to leave that calling five years later.

I think back to an empty warehouse that got transformed into a 5,000 square foot skate park with 100 kids a night that were just like the 13 year-old me ...

And to the Country Inn and Suites in New Orleans that housed my life being wrecked, healed, repaired, and rebroken over and over again.

Each one was a coin-flip. I could have watched TV instead of reading John. I could have ignored God at Crooked Creek or in Silverthorne. When I felt the call and need to do something in New Orleans after Katrina, it would have been a lot easier to ignore it like I have with so many other altruistic ideas and yearnings. I could chalk all of it up to emotionalism or sentamentalism or mental illness.

But God did something that I can't explain in so many ways - but can go on and on about in so many other ways.

"As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world ..."

I was made alive, and although I choke for air sometimes, I am alive still. I was a dead man walking, walking those streets where a present God always called to me, and I finally listened. And that coin flip was a winner like none other for me.

It's True ...

I've had a tough time lately with some "Life's Not Fair" moments that I'm much too coy to share. Really, the truth is that they aren't important - because the lesson I've been focusing on is this:

It's true, life isn't fair. Bad things happen to good people. Jerks are rich and famous and have easy lives. People we dislike are treated better than we are against (what we think) is all logic and sense. And the list goes on an on.

But in my own wallowing self-pity I've had this thought occur a few times this week: I'm lucky it isn't fair in so many ways. Not to be overly church-y or didactic - but it's like this: I am a punk kid from a crappy neighborhood that acted out in every way possible growing up. I treated people like dirt, insulted them, picked on them - stole, lied, cheated (mostly in math class, true story), etc, etc. I am still prone to great fits of moodiness, judging, anger, jealousy, back-biting, scheming, coniving - well, you get the picture. I'm perfectly imperfect.

But I have an amazing life by so many standards. Without even getting too deep into it - I live in a place where I drink clean water right from a tap in my home. I eat (at least) three times a day without worry, and a lot of other things along those lines. But also - today I was watching my kids play on the playground and I realized how lucky I really am - how smiled-upon my life really is. I have a wife that no one could've predicted - why someone so kind, loving, and beautiful would find love with a guy trying his hardest to push the boundaries of decency in humor for a cheap laugh is beyond me. But it happened.

I have two ridiculous kids. Soooo cute and so fun.

I have the job of my dreams (at least since I've known Jesus) and even the hardest parts are more than worth it. I get to talk about real life with teenager that can choose the path I couldn't find until much later. They don't always respond, but what an awesome specific redemption of the punk teenager I was!

I was raised by incredible, loving parents that equipped me well (and even bail me out now from time to time).

And a lot of other things that can fit in here are true, too.

It isn't fair that I should be set up so well. Even if there is a level of worldly "fair" that I am mad about missing out on, the real fair is right in front of me, and I'm missing it as I look past all of it to see what I could have in a hypothetical, never-going-to-be world. And that's the Jesus story in a practical way that I could probably never even work into a talk - he got me here by grace, not anything I earned or did.

The goal? Wake up tomorrow without reverting back to thinking the other way.

... and here's to hoping ...

Great, Expectations!

The old adage "there are only so many hours in a day" cannot be more true in my life right now. This weekend, I'm single parenting as Josie is away at a retreat. I love it, it's so fun - and I also can't stop thinking of what has to go from my schedule in order to parent well. I'm guessing this is the dance that Josie does every day, and I can't imagine what it's like for parents who truly are alone.

For instance, I couldn't go run yesterday or today because I can't leave the kids alone. I can't go the gym for the same reason. I have a pile of work things that I need to get to, but they will have to wait until Sunday night probably. These are small things, but things that I want and need to do respectively. But, as this is the example, something has to fall in order to do the greater thing better (which is being a good dad). Even writing this requires that I let my kids fall into a TV stupor for 15 minutes. Just as I typed that Emmy started crying and climbed in my lap.

OK, back for a few thoughts - none of it is inherently bad, but every person in our life, both close and casual has expectations of us and it is impossible to meet them all because finding any kind of balance in life means sacrificing something. We have family expectations, personal expectations, job expectations, spiritual expectations, physical expectations, we have the expectations that we put onto others (which is a whole different deal and thought process). In order to do all of these things well, they have to be thought through and processed, probably daily.

I suck at managing the different parts of my life. I think I'm capable of doing a few well at a time, but not all of them. Is that normal, is that your experience?

This morning I had a Nicaragua meeting in Monument (an hour and half to two hours away depending on traffic and weather) and would have to left the house by 8:30 to get there with the kids (who would run and scream the whole time). This is impossible for me. Literally. So I had to skip, and feel incredibly guilty. Letting people down isn't something I'm used to doing, and I'm not even sure there's a way to do it well.

Most often, the people that get let down are my family, particularly Josie. This is the battle front that I am most interested in tackling going forward. However, that is way easier said than done. I want to be a good husband and a good father, and very often I'm not really. Not because I don't care or I'm too lazy or my intentions are shady. It's actually the opposite of all of those things - but the result is the same, and that's all that matters when it comes down to it.

It really all makes me dwell more and more on Jesus talking about a light yoke. I could go for a kind burden, whatever that even really means. The Message version talks about "the unforced rhythms of grace" a phrase that I find to be one of the most beautiful I've ever read ... I want that rhythm in my life - a natural, smooth, flowing grace that empowers me to be who I am and to pursue God, family, and goals in an easy way. I'm just not sure really what that looks like - and that's not even a bummer statement, I find great opportunity in that fact. I find the chance to be chiseled and shaped instead of guilt-ridden and stressed beyond what I can handle.

So, to really make a difference, I have to be organized for sure - but I also have to be ready to choose the things that get me closer to these goals and not the things that take me further away. It means refining skill in being a husband, parent, youth pastor, friend, etc. And it means giving away the parts of those things that take me down the path of overwhelmed stress and disappointment in myself and others.

Chaos!! ... and change

A new name for the blog, fittingly tied to the name of the new youth group I'm working with, Controlled Chaos (how great is that?!)

Change in one big area of life always gets me thinking about how I want to be different in other ways and places, too. Life moves quickly, and I'm often struck by how seasons end but the problems and tweaks I want to make always remain. At a base level, I'm talking about things like diet, exercise, Bible reading and prayer. I had a realization this morning that these things aren't going to get better unless I pursue them intentionally ... and that's the hard part.

Check this quote I found in a college textbook on leadership: "Chaos is order without predictability." I love it, for a lot of reasons. First, it describes a ministry to middle school so well, I think. It may seem insane, but in the chaos comes an order that we all kind of get. Second, it's my life summed up. I don't keep regular hours, sleep very well, or even always remember what day it is ... but my life has an order to it that works, and that ultimately I "get".

The adjoining principle is that chaos is organized through creativity. Which we can all relate to as true, can't we. When we haven't slept because a kid is sick or a problem is weighing on us; when everything seems out of place and crazy ... we get creative and figure out how to turn those negatives into something that on the high side is of beauty and on the low side, just works.

Here's to the continued pursuit of that kind of creativity.

Coaching + Mentoring = Better Me

2010 and into 2011 has been a big year for me in a lot of ways. The only reason that I am using a timeline of last April to this March is because of an incredible program I just finished called the Youth Ministry Coaching Program (YMCP). Teamed with the leadership class I took at the Air Force Academy on Dynamic Leadership, focusing on character development in leadership, and the weekly meetings with a mentor that shook my perspective, challenged my notions, and pushed my boundaries, I came out way ahead.

A year ago I knew a few things about myself: I loved the students in my ministry (I still do), I was pretty good at being a youth pastor, I had a wonderful family (I still do, of course), ... and I was dissatisfied, frustrated, tired, and above all, just plain wanted to get better at being all of the things I am - husband, father, pastor, leader, friend, mentor, protege, etc.

The first step happened a while earlier when the father of one of my high school guys approached me on a mission trip and told me that he saw potential in me above where I was professionally and personally and that he could tell I wasn't being developed to my maximum (which was like having someone tell me I wasn't crazy and that the emperor truly had no clothes). I began meeting with him regularly, nearly every week in September 2009. It started hard ... I had to break some bad habits and look at things differently if I really wanted to get better. After a rough, honest meeting the very first time we had coffee, I sat and gave myself the space to ask if I truly wanted to have my heart wrung out and reanimated with stronger things. I did, and I grew immediately and quickly.

Next, I found out about the Youth Ministry Coaching Program run by Mark Oestreicher, whom I have read for years and admired as the former president of Youth Specialties and a thinker that I have always wanted to be more like. After reading about the launch of it, I knew I had to be involved. My church graciously paid the tuition and Josie and I made the sacrifice to pay for the travel expenses of going to San Diego every other month for a year. It definitely helped that I got to travel to the area I grew up in. Those who know me also know how deeply sentimental and borderline cheesy I am about all things, but especially San Diego. Of all the experiences of the last year outside the program, which I'll get to in a second, the capstone was taking a run on La Jolla shores along the ocean as the sun set my last night in town after the closing YMCP. There is a metaphor about endings and beginning in there, but simply put it was inspiring and one of the moments of my life as a movie that will replay for the rest of my days. Like all of the coaching cohort experience, it was just a spiritual moment.

The program itself changed me in rich and profound ways. Marko has an uncanny ability to state things that are complex in ways that are penetrating. Or, said another way, my soul was pierced by the application of simple truths both about God, but also about myself. And the marriage of those concepts is really where ministry comes from.

I found a new confidence, a new clarity, a refreshed inspiration. I rekindled my love affair with the craft of youth ministry, challenging thinking, and vigorous application. My students benefited, my family benefited, my career has flourished and is taking new directions that have given me life in places that were at least dying if not dead. In all honestly and without hyperbole, I don't know what kind of rut I would be in if I had not pursued this opportunity.

If you are a youth pastor, go. Do this ... now, not later. Sell your car or whatever, it's well, well worth it. Your life will change, I promise.

The Beatitudes in Action

I love the Beatitudes as Eugene Peterson presents them in the Message. They are just real, and especially to middle school and high school students. I'm starting a series this week taking commercials and placing them against a Beatitude to offset the message the world wants us to get and the one Jesus does.

For instance, a food commercial, I'll use the Snickers ones with Betty White, Aretha Franklin, and Liza MInelli. The idea will be that marketers tell us that our emptiness needs to be filled with their product, like a candy bar in this case. But Jesus says in Matthew 5:6, "You're blessed when you've worked up a good appetite for God. He's food and drink in the best meal you'll ever eat."

I'm excited to start this up, as I think the implications for the application of the Beatitudes to a teenagers' life are huge. The themes will be consumerism, contentedness, and change. I'm even going to use the classic Wendy's "Hole" commercial that Mark Oestreicher uses in Youth Ministry 3.0 to illustrate the concept of turning around and doing things differently. And you can't go wrong with the commmercial posted above, it's scary funny.