Near and Far Faith

That's what I have to say about my Tuesday morning. Let me bring you up to speed... well first let me say that this tragedy has caused a lack of blogging - no that your bated breath has been overwhelming.

It was a good morning - I had some tasks to accomplish but I was confident and ready to start the day. Until I walked over to may car that was parked across the street from my house and saw only wires hanging out of my dash where my radio had been. The radio that I searched for and endlessly to get the right price AND attach my ipod to. But that doesn't really upset me - the radio. Yeah... they took my ipod too. Charger cable and all.

For any forensic experts, let me describe the scene: it was decently clean except for a bit of dirt on my seat. The radio had been carefully removed, not ripped, out of the dash.

Anyway... my ipod has left a hole in my heart. I didn't know how much I truly loved this piece of technology.

The application or lesson from this story? Godly enough, I was teaching on God as our father Tuesday night as part of our series on Romans with Ignite. It's a series I bought from Doug Field's vault on confidence. I was proud of my ipod. I admit that having one was a status symbol. Could I get a cheaper off-brand MP3 player? Sure. But I had an ipod. I have been made aware, as I shared with Ignite, of my confidence being misplaced. I'm a pastor though and that means I can really cover things like this and argue my confidence onto God, when it's really not there at all.

God's been pressing on me more and more how much clear vision is a necessity in church leadership, or any leadership for that matter. We've gone through a series of podcasts by Andy Stanley called Practically Speaking: The 7 Practices of Effective Ministry based on the book. The first one talks about clarifying the win. Here's the truth: without clear vision - meaning "This is what I expect to see - in detail - at the close of this task", interpretation is left up to any number of factors. To move forward anywhere we must know what the win is - the measurable outcome of the vision.

Financial Peace University has been changing our lives lately and it's only been a few weeks. We're in a better place financially than we've ever been. Check out Cherie's blog for more details on how we've been rocked HERE.

I'm going to try to be more consistent with some things in my life. Blogging for one - our secretary encouraged me to join her for a webinar (a web seminar... I feel more savvy - how about you?) Tuesday afternoon about church marketing. One of the points the guys made was that if you are going to reach people with relational marketing, it needs to be consistent. I'm going to do my best to blog Monday through Thursday.
Also, Steven Furtick talked about the example we set as pastors and it really echoed with some of the things that God's been pressing on me. Check it out here. My dress, my car's cleanliness, and my health are all things that I need to maintain a lot better than I am right now. They're little things that say a lot.

Like I said a few days ago though, I'm the excited monkey. I'm consistent in little. I've noticed though that I'm consistent in the things I'm passionate about - my family, golf, media. Making these changes last, for me, is all about asking God for the passion. Prayer should always be my first step.

The truth is that I know my image is shifty and inconsistent. I change my mind a lot - usually to make people happy. Time to grow forward and use the tattoo.

So this thought has been plaguing me in a morality sort of way. I feel very cold and mean for having these feelings but I feel the Lord's put them in my way to sort them out in light of proper biblical confrontation, as opposed to blog-vomiting my feelings of someone who has no immediate avenue for retort.

It's this feeling that there are some relationships that cross my path that I see no value in. Perhaps it's an acquaintance or one-time meeting with someone that I've seemed to click with, or maybe it's a faded relationship/friendship. I've been looking at these relationships for the past few years through an ongoing discussion about dual effort. Meaning that... to form a valuable relationship, both parties must put in decently equal amounts of effort. I've become calloused to the people that I always try to communicate with and see no return on. I have friends from college that I though I was close with, but close is not an event, as I'm finding, it's a constance in relationship effort.

So this has caused me to re-evaluate constantly the relationships in my life. Jesus held 12 in his circle and 3 of those in his confidence. It's not a number thing, it's a quality thing. As hard as it was at first, it has become easier to let go of friendships that are adding no value to your life. It's a big evaluation, but most relationships will show themselves out by simply ceasing communication. Those aren't worth the effort that you would sink in to re-establish time together. You will always be the one putting in more effort and it will leave you high and dry when the time comes.

There are always exceptions to every rule, but I know that the relationships that have added to my journey are the ones that put effort in equal to mine. Paul is a great example in my life. I view him as a very close friend and mentor in ministry. We worked together for a short time when I was in college and we've stayed close because of a mutual communication. Even more so then the communication and commonalities that we share though is Paul's willingness to spurn me on, honestly, in my journey. This is the kind of relationship worth keeping.

The trap is, though, to not do the right thing biblically when it comes to confrontation with the ones that we've let go. The truth is that they still deserve the same effort, despite the consequences or, often, lack of interaction, when there's confrontation at hand. God's not called us to avoidance, but to purity of motives (see Philippians 2:1-11). Taking the grown-up path is not complicated as we'd like to tell ourselves, it's just up hill.

I've been learning about Blog-frontation for the last few years - both circumstantially by watching and interacting with others AND by experiencing this phenomenon. It really goes back to root attitudes that in no way are new, but technology has allowed this snowball to grow exponentially and more rapidly. It's this idea of saying things on your blog that you won't say to people's faces.

I hate confrontation. I stutter. I stumble over my words. I nervously joke to get attention. And like most of us, I usually walk away from most of those conversations with a completely rethought version of it - thinking "I should've said it this way... that would've changed the outcome!" because I'm rarely satisfied with the result.

However, I believe that God has placed challenges in front of us to grow - move forward in spite of adversity. In other words, I believe that when we change course due to our comfort, God is disappointed in our choice. We are to offer ourselves as Romans 12 calls us too. Offering means selflessness. Turning away from confrontation is pridefully and selfishly going against the scripture and, among other things, it stunts our growth .

I want my blog to promote deepening relationships. That's my goal. I have seen both email and blogs used to simply avoid talking to people personally. It's contrary to Matthew 18 which says "go" to the other person and as The Message says "work it out between the two of you." Contextually I know that this is applicable to believers, but the principle arches over into all life.

Having to awkwardly work something out with someone says "No matter the comfort level, I'm willing to sit through that for the sake of our relationship".

It's like working out. My personality is that of the excited monkey - I bounce to the next tree when I see something slightly more shiny or tasty. So when I have worked out it has been inconsistent (which is one of my greatest faults). Because of that, I know this: I will be sore until I maintain consistency. And even when I adapt to that current routine, if I want to continue to grow I have to choose pain.

When people blog-front their thoughts on an issue that are resolvable through confrontation, it's choosing negative growth. Plain and simple. We can mask it well by calling on our necessity to "vent", which doesn't actually exist. It's a big temptation. It's easier for me to get all my thoughts down on paper and work things out there and just click send or post. Easier isn't better. Easier could be satanic. Don't over interpret that - but I believe that Satan's greatest temptation is the path that goes downhill.

I think I'll continue on this tomorrow. What about those that you don't really care if they like you or not? What about the people whose relationship you don't value?

We got back this afternoon from a much needed vacation. We left Sunday afternoon for Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Everyone said it would be cold. It was... and we loved every second of it. Here's a picture journey of the trip:

After getting lost a bunch, Rory finally took the reigns and got us there.
We practiced our faces in the awesome apartment/hotel room Mom and Mark scored us.
Got re-addicted to coffee (kids don't sleep well away from home - but we still had fun)


We saw Plymouth Rock
Went to the children's Museum in Boston.Went to the Chatham BeachAnd drove all the way out to the tip of the cape - it was cold but Tate kept trying to get in

We had a blast. I love my family - they're my best friends. My wife - she let me tour the Sam Adam's Brewery in Boston. AAAAAAND... she let me drive an hour out of the way to see Gilette Stadium (where the Patriots play). I have coated her in gold and placed her atop my mantle as my greatest prize. She is mine.
The cool thing is we're still taking the next few days off as well to round out our vacation to a full week. I was thinking of checking out another church - but I think we're going to fully disconnect and play hooky. My family is cooler than church.