Beautiful Mess

I just started reading the book “Beautiful Mess” by Rick McKinley the pastor of Imago Dei Church in Portland. The basic premise of the book is that the Kingdom God has set up here on earth is a beautiful mess.  God has chosen to use us, broken, imperfect people to carry out his will and reflect him in this messy, broken world.  So while we might wish, when God saved us he chose to clean us up and make us totally perfect, but that’s not the way he’s chosen to work.

The insight I want to share today is what he said about studying theology.  He said he loves to study theology but he compares it to a scientist studying anatomy.

“It’s like cutting up a corpse to figure out what it means to be human — sure you’d end up with identifiable body parts… but the wonder of pulsing human life would elude you.  Do you think in some piece of brain you’d find clues to friendship and falling in love?”

He follows the analogy up like this: “You can study God expertly in His parts and miss Him entirely in His Being.”

His point is that we must be careful; that in studying God, putting God in our own terms, we can come to a place where we think we know God, and yet have failed to discover him in his essence.

I have been learning more of this point being fresh out of Bible College. So often you see students of the Bible (myself included) go through courses upon courses teaching us the parts of God, the parts of the Church (the Body of Christ), the step by step instructions of our Mission, and yet… many times we miss the simplicity and the beauty of this Loving God.  We learn and know, but fail to experience.

I want to experience God. I want to be diehard for his mission, not because I have learned all the reasons it’s the right mission to be on, but because I am totally sold out to this God I have experienced for myself.  It’s good to know.  It’s great to have knowledge.  But we should not sacrifice the relationship, the experience of God in our lives, for theological saavy.  As I’ve heard it said, “We are saved by grace, not by being the most right.”

Reading today

I don’t have much to add today, but I found this quote worth sharing:

“May You alone enlighten me, You alone speak to me. May all that I know apart from You be nothing more than a chance traveling companion on the journey toward You.” -Karl Rahner

I’d love if this depth of relationship with/reliance on God were always true for me.

Highlights of my week

Here’s some of the things that happened in the last week or so:

• Finished my internship at Suncrest Christian Church
• Ordained into the ministry by that same Church.
• Reading “ragamuffin Gospel” by Brennan Manning along with reading Proverbs.  Great balance, Manning talks about the constant grace that is needed in our lives and Proverbs talks about the practical ways to honor God with our lives and live the best lives we can in this grace we have.

• Saw LOTS of my wonderful friends in St. Louis.  Lots of parties including Gabe Brazle’s 18th complete with Fitz’s rootbeer keg (so great), and the grad parties of Tricia Cantrell and Tyler Stricklan.  I try not to do what people do when they get older and talk about how “I knew you when you were this big” ha, but I’ve known those two for quite some time.

• Having so many friends and family that support me so readily (in general for as long as they have known me and now especially as I am stepping into this new adventure with Lifepointe)
• I had to add to the last the friends that I have picked up along the way.  I find it so funny how God brings people together out of know where and for (seemingly) no reason.  I celebrated that with a couple friends this week.
• 6 hour drive with a 4 year old and a 1.5 year old… let me tell ya…

• beginning the process of packing up my material life for the move.  I’ve found old letters from dear friends, great pictures, my yoyos, my magic tricks, my star wars monopoly, all the essentials, ha ha.

Seriously though, some of the letters I found from friends and family were pretty touching.  A story my friend Collin Loveless wrote me as I was leaving for Johnson about our friendship and the adventures we lived (slightly embellished on), a letter sent with a hacky sack because I had lost mine and my friend said it just wasn’t right for me to leave without one, a letter of encouragement written 5 years ago about how much my friendship meant and how we would keep up through the years (got to see this friend this past week).  These are the things that remind me why I am heading in the direction I am…

They remind me of the lives I have tried to impact and have succeeded.  The times when I may even fall short and yet somehow God revives and renews.  The hope that it really is possible to change lives for the better and that God is the catalyst.  It’s the stuff that gives you goosebumps.

And that is my week…

Ordination

So on Tuesday June 2nd, my friends and collegues at Suncrest Christian Church, along with my parents, little sister, and some dear friends of mine joined me for a pretty meaningful night in my life. We gathered so that I might be ordained by the elders of Suncrest and sent on my way to do what I believe God has called me to do as I join LifePointe and their mission and ministry.

This night models for me exactly what ordination is supposed to be.  There’s definitely the legal side of it (where I can marry people and fall into a certain tax bracket), but the real heart of it is in the relationships.  These are people who have been able to work with me, know me, witness my ministry, and now they see that God is leading me to a particular ministry and put a particular calling on my life and so they choose to acknowledge that and support me wherever God leads.

So on one side, I finished my ministry at Suncrest Christian Church, but on the flip side, they have committed to stay a part of my life and ministry; provide support when I need it, celebrate wins when God does amazing things, and extend accountability and a network of friends whenever the situation calls for it.  I could not think of anything more meaningful they could choose to give me.

Thanks Suncrest and leaders for your incredible support and friendship that I know will endure!

supporters blog

Hey!  Just so you all know, I just launched my blog that will be specifically devoted to informing my prayer and financial supporters on what is going on within my ministry.  I plan on keeping the two going and separate.  This is will still be my blog where I write novels about things God is teaching me at the time and similar such things.

So, if you haven’t seen it and you’d like A) to check it B) to commit to pray for me and my ministry intentionally or C) to consider helping me financially as I follow where God is leading me, then click HERE.

Fort Mills Campus Launch!!!

Hey, thought you’d be interested to know that I”m flying out to Charlotte this weekend to lead worship with Blake as we launch the Fort Mills campus of LifePointe Christian church.  I’m crazy excited about what God might do with this body of believers we have out there in Charlotte.  They had a preview service this past weekend to work through some of the kinks and things and they had around 200 people show up for it!  So awesome.

I’d love if you would join me in praying for LifePointe and this exciting next step of faith through this weekend, thanks!

BUSY!

hey all, sorry I haven’t had any updates in awhile, everything has been FLYING and my task list for the month gets longer and longer!  I’m sure you can relate.  But you know, even with all the craziness, God’s been keeping me (as far as I go) sane.  He’s placed some good reminders around me to enjoy the people around me, practice times of solitude and quiet to center myself on what’s important.

He’s also been reminding me nearly every day to live in the Present.  Sometimes, as I’m sure you know, when things gets busy, it’s easy to constantly be looking ahead and multitasking like working on a paper while in class or a graphic while in a meeting… checking e-mails as someone is talking to you.  er, not that I’ve ever done any of that… in the last two days… *cough*   But I think when we do this, we often miss the joy in the moment because we are trying to fill it with too much.  And if you’re anything like me, when you’re doing two things at once, neither is necessarily as fulfilling, rewarding, or high quality as I would have liked.

So even when things are busy and stressful, be present where you are.  Be engaged in the meeting, add to discussions, enjoy the outside, turn off the TV if you’re talking with a good friend, look up from the computer when someone walks in the room.  These little things have helped me enjoy every moment much more even when it is “work” and there is still a pile waiting to fall.

some of my tasks for the next week as I look toward LifePointe:

-> Fly out and Lead worship at the Fort Mills Campus launch!! woo hoo!

-> design the rest of my support material.  Bring it to kinko’s.

-> Let EVERYONE know what I’m doing next and what it entails for me; includes mailings, presentations, travel, and facebook events galore!!

-> Set up the blog for my prayer and financial supporters to look in on what’s going on with me and LifePointe.

-> Let God keep me from freaking out with my jumble of notes, tasks, and deadlines.  D  He’s so good.

I’m so excited about what’s next, I’ll be sure to let everyone know when some of these tasks get set in place and how you might be able to come along side me as I start this crazy new God thing!

Diversity

So, here’s something that’s really cool about Charlotte:  The city itself gives great value to recognizing diversity.  And above that, LifePointe has the belief that the Church should reflect the diversity of the community.  Both of these points attracted me to LifePointe.  For this to be a value ingrained in them means a lot to me because as I look in the Word, I see all the times Paul talks about equality in Christ.  That once we choose to follow Christ “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Gal 3:28).”

This is what I hope to uphold in my own life.  Sometimes it is so hard for us to live this out.  For some it is racial issues; for others it is economic issues; for some it political ties; for others allegiances different than their own; for some it is doctrinal stances.  Sometimes its cultural differences that we just do not understand, musical tastes that seem outlandish, social habits that are completely foreign to us (whether the people themselves are “foreign” or not).  When we get down to it, I think this is a struggle for all of us one way or another even when diversity does not just mean race.  So in my effort to step outside of myself and see the universal nature of Christ’s call to ALL people, I am excited about entering a culture that is very intentional about diversity.

Here’s a PDF Matt McGue (the lead Pastor at LifePointe) sent me from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools that I thought was just so need.  It explains some of the great diversity in Charlotte and the School district’s efforts to celebrate it:

Diversity

LifePointe Christian Church – Part 2

The last couple values of theirs that I told you I would share are Relevance in presenting the Gospel to the culture in which their community is in, Excellence, Spiritual Growth and Fun & Celebration.  They really were convicted that in their culture there needed to be this emphasis on Fun & Celebration; that many think Christians are supposed to be stuffy and defined by what they can’t do, but LifePointe believes that as the people of God, there will be times of seriousness, but that we are called to be joyful in the Lord always and to party because of this great grace we have been shown.  I love their outlook.

Here are a couple things that really attracted me to Charlotte, NC and LifePointe CC

> The Community: Both at Lifepointe and in the surrounding churches.  Something unique about LifePointe is that their main gatherings take place around tables together — no rows, no pews.  Their conviction is that with this emphasis they have on community and relationship, they wanted everything they did to reflect that value and the way this worked out in their community was to seat people at tables together (with communion on each table).  So as they go through their main gatherings they go for a very casual, as intimate as possible, feel.

>Unity: One of the surprising things in Charlotte is that there is a lot of inter-church and even inter-denominational community.  Many of the leaders from churches around the city come together to meet and support each other.  There are several ways this works out, one really cool way is in this college/young adult ministry in which over 34 churches partner together for a worship experience and teaching in Charlotte called Charlotte One.

No doubt some brave and couregeous leaders sacrificed somewhere along the lines to make this unity a reality, and God is using this in incredible strides for the city of Charlotte.  There is a common goal to see the Kingdom advanced whether it directly benefits your individual church body or not.  Great stuff.

>Risk factor: If you’ve talked to me at all about life direction stuff, this may have come up.  I’ve always had this conviction in my life that I never wanted to let myself settle or get too comfortable.  Part of it is that I know in my being I am often a Maintainer and its easy for me to rationalize myself out of taking risks.  So one of the outworkings of my own faith is that I wanted to find a place that was taking some big risks in their faith community.  I wanted to make myself be a part of something bigger than myself –that I knew I could not control on my own, as is my human tendency to desire.  I wanted to come along side of a church because of a mission.  I also wanted to find a city that I could get passionate about reaching.  And I think LifePointe and Charlotte embody this well.

I’ll share in my next post what some of the risky faith steps they’ve been taking which was one of the biggest reasons I chose to come on board and also the biggest cause of struggle in my own spirit.  Because I’m sure many of you know that to say you want a risky faith and that you want to be a part of something you can’t control is all easy to say, but when you start seeing the actual, real-life outworkings of that you just stand there looking up and say, “… oh.”   ha. But God is good and he is working something incredible, I’ll let you in on more of that next time.

-NM-

LifePointe Christian Church – the beginnings

Just a little bit about how LifePointe Christian Church – the Church community I will be joining this coming summer [see previous post]:

This community began southwest of the city of Charlotte in 2004 as a small group of families met in the home of Matt McGue.  Matt McGue and his family moved from ministry in Ohio to partner with the church planting organization called Stadia.  From that time on, Lifepointe has attempted to honor God and trust his guidance in every of the journey.

Here’s some of the things this faith community has been built on (their values):

Relationships: This value tapers much of what they do.  Frankly its half of their missions statement, which is Love God, Love People.  Very straight forward, very biblical.  They believe that healthy relationships honor God and that life change happens when people build these healthy relationships with those in their lives.

Authenticity: They believe authenticity, acceptance and honesty create an atmosphere where people can be themselves and find wholeness.  Being open and real about the struggles of life and never pretending to have it all figured out is so important in conveying the grace God has poured out to all of us.

Prayer: They believe that nothing of eternal value can be done apart from Christ, so in every step of their life as a Church they try to cover everything in prayer

Love: (again, major part of their overall mission as a church) “We believe the church is to be an active agent of change in society by loving, caring and serving all people, especially those who are hurting, oppressed or devalued. We believe the church should represent the ethnic diversity of its community.”
That’s about half the values they publically profess.  I’ll share more in the next post (hopefully) along with some stats of the community they are a part of and fun stats about the church community itself.

So there’s about half of their professed values as a body of believers.  I’ll talk about the others in the next post along with (hopefully) some stats about the community they are a part of and some fun facts about the church community itself.  (If you want to jump ahead, you can always check out some of that stuff on their website)