I am not a salesman

When I was little it seemed like I was always raising money for something. (I guess some things don't change - see storychurch.org to give now!) I remember one time standing out front of the grocery store selling candy for yet another church trip. I think this time it was chocolate eggs, large tasty eggs, for $6 a piece. I remember the man who felt bad for me and bought my last 5 eggs which meant I got to go to Disneyland for free. But it wasn't because I was a great salesman. It was pity. I didn't have a smooth sales pitch, an engaging question, or even a sweet catch phrase like "BINGO!" (see yesterday's post if you don't understand)

I still hate selling stuff. In fact, even watching someone sell someone else on something is kind of awful to me. I hate the fact that it feels like someone is getting manipulated. I hate the false sense of excitement, the way the product gets talked up as if it's the greatest thing ever, and the feeling I get when I've been totally bamboozled into buying something I didn't really want or need.

I fear this about being a pastor. I never want to be a salesman. I don't want to have to give a pitch for Jesus. I don't want to have to talk Him up like "He slices, He dices, He blesses." I fear this because I guess there's enough of it in the church world that it makes me afraid to become that. There's certainly a reality to the fact that I want people to come to Jesus because of what He can do for them - heal them, restore them, redeem them. But Jesus isn't a product, and the church isn't just the packaging, and as the pastor I'm not Billy Mays (RIP). If Jesus isn't attractive enough on his own, lived out by his followers, then we're probably doing something wrong.

With that said, I'm all for churches making Sunday morning worship an attractive thing. It would kind of be counter-productive to say that we shouldn't do that. But don't invite your friends to church so that the professional salesman can sell them on Jesus. It doesn't matter what I say as the pastor - the message they will hear the loudest is what they see in you. And frankly, I'm out of the chocolate egg industry.

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BINGO!

I was sitting in Starbucks the other day working on my laptop when it happened. I've seen it unfold probably a dozen times in coffee shops over the years. Some young couple is meeting with some slick salesman who wants them to join his pyramid scheme (close enough anyway) with the promise that what they are about to do is easy and will make them tons of money in almost no time at all. This time, the salesman was selling Identity Theft Protection. He was good I must admit. He knew how to make a sale. He had this young couple saying "yes" a lot. They were excited. It seemed so easy. And to back it all up - he had a catch phrase. "BINGO!" Just about every 30 seconds he'd ask them a question with an obvious answer, and as they responded he would excitedly say "BINGO!" I have to admit, I started looking forward to it. I was anticipating it every time. I even said it with him a couple of times under my breath. I was getting so caught up in all of this that I was ready to join his scheme.

I learned several things from observing this whole thing go down. This week I'll try and unpack some of them for you. In the meantime, let's start with something a little lighter. As far as catch phrases go, "BINGO!" is pretty awesome. What are some great catch phrases that you and I can work into our vocabulary? I'll go first and stay in the classic game department. How about "YAHTZEE!?"

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Drops Like Stars

It arrived by UPS yesterday. I wasn't really prepared for what I was about to experience. Rob Bell's latest book Drops Like Stars is a work of art. From the second I opened the box I knew that this would be quite an experience. The book is large. Not in terms of page numbers or content - but in actual size. It's huge. Think yearbook, or coffee table book. It's pages are bright red. Throughout the book you will find stories, incredible photos, and great insight from Bell.

In its pages, Bell addresses the issue of suffering. But rather than addressing it in terms of "why?" he instead focuses on the "what now?" that comes from suffering. When the unexpected happens, and our frame of reference gets thrown out of whack - what is the result? Bell sees that art and beauty and creativity are the result of suffering. It's from experiencing pain that enables someone to create something that resonates so deeply with an audience.

One part of the book is called "The art of elimination." Bell talks about how when we strip everything away that isn't necessary, something beautiful emerges. In the arena of sculpture for instance, it was Michelangelo who said that his "David" was clamoring to be freed. I loved the story of Johnny Cash that Bell includes. By the early 90s Cash had been almost forgotten by the music industry. Rick Rubin took Cash, stripped everything away except for the man, a microphone, and his guitar. All of his band and everything that gave him comfort were gone. He shares that at the first solo acoustic show in Los Angeles, Johnny Cash was terrified. After thousands of shows all over the world, the idea of playing by himself was almost too much to bear. It was in that terror that something beautiful emerged - the honest, simple voice of an aging legend.

Though I hadn't planned to do it, I read the book from cover to cover in about an hour (maybe less). In terms of written content, there is very little - hardly enough to be called a book. But between his thoughts and the amazing photos, I feel as though I've experienced something great. I'll end with this excerpt:

"I want desperately for things to go 'how they're supposed to.' Which is another way of saying 'how I want them to,' which is another way of saying 'according to my plan.' And that, as we all know, isn't how it works. But it's that disappointment, in that confusion, in that pain - the pain that comes from things not going how I wanted them to - that I find the same thing happening, again and again. I come to the end of myself, to the end of my power, the end of my strength, the end of my understanding, only to find in that place of powerlessness a strength and peace that weren't there before. I keep discovering that it's in the blemish that the Spirit enters. The cross, it turns out, is about the mysterious work of God which begins not with big plans and carefully laid out timetables, but in pain and anguish and death."

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Plans vs. Vision

"Plans change, vision stays the same." I listened recently to another Andy Stanley leadership podcast that hit me at just the right time. I asked on twitter last week for people to be praying for me as I had some pretty big decisions to make. I feel like God really answered many of those prayers by allowing me to hear this particular podcast. In it, Andy talks about how many of us fail to realize that our particular vision is not the same as our particular plan. I know for me this church planting adventure that I am on is one where my plans and the vision God has given me sometimes get confused. I think this is common for many of us. Maybe your vision is about a particular ministry, or about your business, or even a particular vision for your family. Our plans become so important to us. After all, we pray about them, we align our finances around them, we follow our plan to the greatest detail. But which is more important - the plan (how I will accomplish the vision), or the vision itself? Sometimes we have to be willing to be flexible with our plans. Plans change, vision stays the same.

In my context my church planting plan has had some significant changes along the way. The vision has continued to stay the same. Our vision is to plant a life-giving church that encourages people to embrace the story they were meant to live. It's a vision that calls people out of boredom and into the life God intended for them. And yet my plan has often gotten confused with that vision. Originally my plan was that this would happen primarily in downtown Durham. When God began pointing me closer to the Grove Park area, I struggled with that. How could we change our focus like that? Oh yeah - downtown isn't the vision, a life-giving church is the vision. More recently I've wrestled with a new change of plans. For a year I've been planning on launching Story Church on September 13, 2009. And yet recently, I've come to terms with the fact that we aren't ready to launch. At first this was a devastating reality for me. How can I change my launch date?? Oh yeah, September 13 isn't the vision - a healthy, life-giving church is the vision. September 13 is a plan. And it can change without affecting the vision.

How about you? What's the vision you have for your life, your career, your family, your marriage? Is that vision married to a particular plan, or is the plan flexible? If we don't learn to flex the plan, our vision can die with a bad plan. Good vision thrives at the right time with the right plan - but it's not the same as our plan. We die for vision, but not for our plans.

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Date Night

To all my married friends out there, what's the rhythm of your marriage? How often do you go on a date with your wife? How much do you spend? What are some of the creative things you've done for cheap? My wife and I would like to go out every week, but we have basically no money - so we need some creative ideas. Help a brother out!

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Trust me

I was reading a very familiar proverb today when something occurred to me that I never noticed before. It comes from Proverbs 3:5-6 in the Old Testament of the Bible. It says this:

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight."

You see, I've always pictured trust as being one of things we do when, based upon the facts at hand, we make an intellectual decision to go along with the situation at hand. We decide to trust, and in doing so, we trust with our heads. But today I noticed something different. This particular verse says to trust "with all [our] heart." Our hearts are the center of our will. It's the place where we sit on the throne. It's definitely an area of decision making, but it's not an intellectual decision per se. It's a decision to place our will in submission to someone or something else. We "trust" when we submit our will. Solomon (the writer of Proverbs) places this trust in direct contrast to "our own understanding." He knows that all too often we want to fall back on our own wisdom, our own experience, our own understanding. Trust is difficult. Trust is required when we don't have all the answers, when things don't make sense, or when things are outside of our control.

The other thing I find interesting here is this: Solomon is said to be the wisest man who ever lived. And yet Solomon is saying that we shouldn't lean on our own understanding. If anyone could have done some leaning on their own wisdom you would think it would be Solomon. Which basically tells me, I'm in trouble if I think I can do life on my own.

I love the promise here that if we trust God, and acknowledge Him in all our ways, he will make our paths straight. He'll clear the road. He'll take care of us. I've experienced that so many times. The times of biggest stress in my life are when I look around and realize that I'm depending on myself instead of Him.

How about you? What do you think of trust coming from the heart? What do you think that looks like?

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Declaration of Dependence

Independence is overrated. Don't get me wrong, I love living in a free country, but I'm a bit over the individualized existence so many of us live. Somewhere along the line we as Americans, maybe even as Christians, have come to the conclusion that we are the center of our world, and that we don't need anyone else. We have become our own masters, and even those of us who call ourselves Christians have become very independent of each other - after all, all I need is Jesus, right? In what has been a very difficult, trying, and stressful time - I'm declaring today my complete and utter dependence. I am learning just how dependent I am on others. Kimi and I live and pay our bills because of the generosity of others. We live on their monthly support which allows us to focus on ministry here in Durham. So we are dependent upon so many in that regard. I'm also learning more and more what it meant when God said "It is not good for man to be alone." We were created for relationships. None of us can live the kind of lives we were meant to live without investing in relationships. We left California 11 months ago now. That's hard to believe. I've learned over these months just how dependent I am on having friends that I can lean on, and friends that lean on me. I've really missed that. None of us is created to do this life solo. I am learning more and more about the depth of relationship available in my wife as well. She is my closest friend, my greatest ally, my strongest supporter and encourager. I am dependent upon her in so many ways.

Ultimately, I am dependent upon my God. I am dependent upon him for his provision, for his love, and his grace. I've made some pretty huge mistakes along the way in my life, and it's my dependence upon him that has sustained me through those times. I'm dependent upon him for hope, for forgiveness, for restoration. I'm dependent upon him for direction, for wisdom, and for guidance. I am trying to plant a church with people I don't yet know, and money we don't yet have. I'm dependent upon him to build his church.

In our finances, we're dependent. In our marriage, we're dependent. In our parenting, we're dependent. In our relationships, we're dependent. In this church plant, we're dependent.

I think we're afraid of being dependent, or maybe just of admitting it. In doing so, we admit our weaknesses, and our need for others. That's not usually the kind of thing we like to announce or celebrate. But I wonder what we're missing by being so independent? In the midst of celebrating a country that is free this weekend, I'd challenge you to celebrate and embrace your dependence.

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Veggie Tales

Sometimes God uses the strangest things to speak to me - like a Pirate who doesn't do anything. There's a movie theater near our house that shows free movies for kids all throughout the summer. Today's movie was the Veggie Tales "The Pirates who don't do anything." I thought I'd spend some time with my daughter today so I took her on a date to see the movie. The place was packed with mom's, snacks, and hobbit-like children. Hannah and I sat down in the middle of the theater and settled in for the movie. To be honest, I was fading in and out throughout the movie - dozing off a couple of times.

Anyway, the story was about three "pirates" who really aren't pirates at all. They get magically whisked away to a time and place where real pirates are threatening a kingdom. There is a call that goes out for some "heroes" to come and save the day, and here come these pretend pirates. They are wrestling with their own insecurities, their fears, and a general laziness that comes with the title of "Pirates-who-don't-do-anything." The story is basically about these pirates slowly embracing this opportunity to live out an adventure, to overcome their own fears and insecurities, and to truly live out heroic lives.

In the end (and yes, I'm spoiling it for you - but come on, were you really going to see it?), the three vegetables in question receive medals for their bravery. This is the point that God began to speak to me. After receiving their rewards, one of the characters declares that the king had called the wrong veggies - that they weren't in fact real heroes. The king then tells them that it was no mistake that they were called - that they were exactly who he wanted. He reassures them that they had all that was needed in order to fulfill the roles they were called to in this adventure.

I don't know about you, but I personally wrestle with fears and insecurities all the time. I wonder if God has called the wrong person to plant a church here in Durham. I compare myself to other more capable people. I struggle with doubt and fear. Just last night my wife and I were talking and I was confessing these things to her. She is constantly reminding me of all the ways that God has seemingly called us to do what we are doing. God speaks to me through her all the time. In the Bible God speaks through some crazy things - a burning bush, angels, hands writing on the wall, a cloud, even a donkey. This morning, God spoke to me through a vegetable.

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