Meeting in the making!

In less than 24 hours we will be boarding a plane to Ghana, Africa to meet our daughter!

The day has finally come!

I can’t tell you what kind of emotional messes Christy and I have been since we got the call a couple weeks ago. Even if it were possible, there are not enough bottles in the world to contain the anxiety, joy, fear and excitement emotions we are experiencing.

I don’t think it’s any coincidence that this morning as I was gathering up all the items I normally put in my pockets, that I noticed a piece of paper in my “stuff” basket. I don’t know why I picked up, but I did. It contained the words of a friend of mine I wrote down about a year ago. Scott Coleman, adoptive father of 3 beautiful children from Uganda said, “We are all part of this big equation. On one end there are kids needing fathers. And on the other end is us. The question is what are we going to do about it?”

Tomorrow is that day for us!

Please continue to pray for us on this journey! This is something that we literally could not
have done without the support of a countless number of people.

And we literally could not do this without the divine intervention of God. We are so far out on the limb right now we could not possibly complete this journey unless God steps in. Our only other choice is to fall. And you know what? Way out there on the limb is exactly where He wants us!! This position ensure complete dependence.

A.W. Tozer - "God is looking for people through whom He can do the impossible- what a pity that we plan only the things we can do by ourselves."

I'm horrible with math!!

The last few weeks I’ve done a lot of reflections as we just finished up a series at church on Nehemiah (check it out if you’re interested Change Your World in 52 Days www.h2ochurch.cc) We dug into what breaks our heart, how we can impact the world with our passion, understanding people will attack when we’re onto a good thing and not allowing the enemy to distract us from our God appointed mission. This topic comes just a month or so after the anniversary of my answering the call to the ministry a couple years ago. So, that has spurred some serious reflection and questions and self evaluation of what I’ve been doing for His kingdom.

My passion and what breaks my heart is people hurt by our churches! If you’ve followed me on this blog very much you know this. Those held in bondage by the rules and have never felt the emersion of grace, those who didn’t dress “good enough” for church and someone actually said something, those who sinned and their church severed ties with them, my “etc’s” could go on forever. I have a broken heart for these people, I will cry with these people, I’ll fight for these people!

But then there’s a side of me that tries to pull me away from this passion. It's this human part of me that is flawed and sinful. It's this side of me that hears the outside voices of the world and contradictory religious people. Those that say, “You’re not doing enough!” A side that says, “All this effort can’t make a difference, there too much!” Words of, “You’re not qualified. You’re just an ordinary guy with no “formal preacher training.” These words and thoughts easily creep in as a pastor because you pour tons of time into people, seeing that the return in life change is not equivalent to the energy exerted, or at least what you get to witness anyway. The physics behind that says this calling is immensely inefficient. I’m sorry but it’s a true ugly fact of ministry. And even sometimes, you start to believe it!

But here’s the cool thing! God’s math and laws of physics, and other things I know nothing about, are not the same as the math laws of this world! I’m not saying all this because I’m horrible at math and I can’t help my 4^th grader with his homework. I’m saying this because God has a way of taking the smallest things and using it to provide in an overabundance. Whether it is food (i.e. Jesus feeding 5,000 hungry people with a couple sardines and crackers) or whether that be witnessing one life change that provides a long-lasting inspiring spirit of energy. God math isn’t 1+1 = 2; it’s more like, 1+1 = 1,381!!

This last Sunday was one of those times for me. God physics allowed me to witness a person, whose church background I know very well, raise their hand in an act of praise and worship for the first time. I felt like I was watching chains break before my eyes! This person later described it to me as feeling like they had “…found a piece of a puzzle fitting into place, it always belonged there just hadn’t found it yet.” It totally and completely moved me to tears and injected a spirit of energy and blessing in me that will carry me through for a long time! Pastors, church leaders, staff, praise and worship team, children’s teachers, door greeters, ushers, people who are ministering to those where you work, play and live...this is why we do what we do!

As, we learned from Nehemiah, I WILL NOT COME DOWN from the work God has set before me! I will not let the outside world or religious people tell me the job is too big, or we’re doing it wrong, or I don’t know enough, or I’m in over my head! No, I will not come down! My work and energy didn’t change this person’s life a single bit, but it did create a path for God to. That’s why I do what I do! That’s why I will continue to fight for people hurt by church. Give up on me world and religious people for I am lost to the cause…I’ve seen God change lives!

Man, man, man...

Monday’s email read, “Wanted to let you know that I received your application 2 and everything looks great! Waiting on one more document and then moving you on to the home study! Sincerely, J” This was from the awesome Program Director for Ghana at our adoption agency!

Not that it wasn’t real before but with that email it all became very validating or maybe it’s better to say “she feels closer.” Honestly, I got teary eyed when I read it.

I know this isn’t the “manly” thing to admit, but really I’m past trying to be manly at this stage in my life (come on, I’m 35 years old, 6’2” & 156lbs soaking wet, and if I didn’t shave for a week you wouldn’t notice), I get a lot more emotional the farther Jesus leads down his path. I mean we all cry when Hickory wins the state championship in the movie Hoosiers, but this is ridiculous! You all do cry during that part right?

Seriously I was sharing with a friend last night what a big baby I’ve turned into. We started reading through the Bible at the same time and I was telling him how I was finishing up Genesis and I got really moved when Joseph finally revealed himself to his brothers who sold him into slavery so many years before.

Genesis 45:1-5

Joseph could stand it no longer. There were many people in the room, and he said to his attendants, “Out, all of you!” So he was alone with his brothers when he told them who he was. ² Then he broke down and wept. He wept so loudly the Egyptians could hear him, and word of it quickly carried to Pharaoh’s palace.

³ “I am Joseph!” he said to his brothers. “Is my father still alive?” But his brothers were speechless! They were stunned to realize that Joseph was standing there in front of them. ⁴ “Please, come closer,” he said to them. So they came closer. And he said again, “I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into slavery in Egypt. ⁵ But don’t be upset, and don’t be angry with yourselves for selling me to this place. It was God who sent me here ahead of you to preserve your lives.

That was really powerful for me! Then I thought about this adoption and our little girl I’ve yet to lay eyes on and a slew of things crossed my mind that I know are gonna tear me up!

I’m gonna cry…at the first sight of her face.

when we have to leave without her on our first visit.

at the sight of Christy seeing her face for the first time.

at the sight of my boys seeing her face for the first time.

at her living conditions.

when she cries.

when we get to share our first bowl of Ramen noodles together.

if she doesn’t want me at first b/c I’m still a strange man to her.

when she misses her friends.

when she makes new ones.

at hearing her story of abandonment.

when she is very confused by our culture.

because I can’t take them all home.

when she freaks over a dog in the house.

when I can’t get her hair right even though I’ve been practicing.

when she gets excited about flushing toilets and bathtubs full of water.

when she asks about going back.

when she falls asleep in our bed.

I’m starting to think that maybe this has nothing to do with being "manly" at all. Maybe this has to do with I’m finally seeing the world through His eyes and it either breaks my heart or gives me great joy.

The Far Side

Recently Christy was arranging books into a bookshelf we finally got for our bedroom after 13 years of marriage. My side of the bed no longer looks like the aftermath of a Christian bookstore explosion! But as I was glancing across the shelf at some of the books from a box or two that went back early on in our marriage I was reminded of just how different Christy and I really are.

Here’s what I saw and laughed out loud…

Yes, Gary Larson artist and author of the now retired Far Side comics spooning with Emily Post and her Book of Etiquette right there on the shelf in front of me! I seriously did laugh out loud. I’ll let you guess which book is Christy’s and which is mine.

I thought WOW, God had to have been setting up in heaven, needed a little entertainment and said to himself, “I’ll match these two up and see what happens!” Reminded me of what we used to do in college to the freshmen during enrollment when I was Resident Assistant in the dorms. I’m completely guilty and slightly remorseful for taking freshman that didn’t have a roommate and matching with someone “interesting”, like placing students with their former high school rivals or putting together someone from a big city with someone very country, maybe even a “polo” with a “goth” once. Then we’d stand back and watch our own little personal sociology experiment unfold! OKAY, you can quit judging me NOW! That was back in the day when I wasn’t so close to God…and I won’t tell you that right now I’m finding some humor in remembering some of their faces and the stories that followed when they came down to request a different roommate! God’s grace is BIG, I’m forgiven quit judging me!

Anyway, back to me and Christy, I know God has gotten a good deal of entertainment from watching us figure each other out over the years. I on the other hand, haven’t been as excited about some of the stumbling blocks in our marriage and there were times in first few years that I was ready to go to the front desk of the dorm and request a different roommate…truth be known, Christy had the right to visit the front desk way more than me. The night of July 4^th 2001 comes to mind.

That was the night that I came home from a party and became fully engaged in a multitasking exercise that had me with one foot on the floor making my best attempt to stop the room from spinning, as I held down the couch I had not so nicely been asked to sleep on, all while making a last ditch plea to convince my eight month pregnant wife not to go across town to stay with her parents. I think her parting words, in the kindest way possible, went something like, “…and make sure you repaint that wall that you threw-up all over last night!” At this point Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” was far far from my mind.

Today as a pastor, that’s one of the most transparent stories I can can give you about my marriage and my life before I drew close to God. Honestly, I had no intention of telling that story when I started this post it’s just where the Holy Spirit led me. I think it’s important as church leaders that we share our flawed pasts as well as our future mess ups. Church leaders are not called to the ministry because they are perfect; we are called to the ministry because God can show his power by using us through our past and in spite of our flaws.

God was disappointed in the condition I allowed myself to get into that night, but he rejoiced in the fact that Christy didn’t give up on me when it would have been very easy for her to, because this wasn’t the first time this had happened, but it was the last. That next day I made a promise to her that she’d never see me in a drunken stupor again. And she has not!

I'm confident God has enjoyed watching us stick it out together knowing we had nothing in common other than the first time I laid eyes on her she had me hooked, and when she saw me…well, I don’t know what she saw in me. It’s excites me now to look back and see what He had in mind for us all along. Now we can see the fulfillment of Jeremiah 29:11. Maybe fulfillment is the wrong word because it seems so final. I’m convinced there’s so much more that lies ahead of Christy and I. Like the line from Jesus Culture song Come Away that we sang at church last week, "I have a plan for you - It's gonna be great - It's gonna be wild - It's gonna be full of Me"

If you would have told me that night as I laid alone on the couch that Christy would still be with me after 13 year, we’d have two awesome boys, I’d be the missions outreach pastor of a thriving church, we’d be adopting a girl from Ghana and my sometimes beloved beagle Missy would still be sleeping on my back porch…well, first I may have puked on your shoes, then I would have said you were crazy! Listen to me now when I tell you God has a plan for your marriage and your life! “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

To be married to someone completely opposite means I get to learn something new everyday. But even better, to be married to someone completely opposite means she sees potential in me even when I can’t. Not a bad team, not bad at all!

I’ll close with couple Gary Larson classics, enjoy! Sorry, I don’t have any favs from the Emily Post book, just sayin’!

Keep It Simple Stupid

I’ve probably woke up more mornings with more ideas and taken more notes from things that have randomly popped in my head for this post than I have for any other since I started this blog. Actually I’m writing this while looking on the back of this receipt I’ve been keeping notes on in my pocket for weeks now; it’s from Uncle Julio’s a.k.a. Heaven on Earth in Allen, TX from 5/13/11. That's where the juices started flowing on the way back from the Catalyst conference in Dallas, an event I’m still is stirring things up in me over a month later!

But even with all my notes and ideas and just stuff rattling around in my head I couldn’t put it all together. I started this post multiple times and it would not come together. Back when I was preaching and preparing messages every Sunday I had this happen a few times. And thinking back to each of those times it was when I was putting what I wanted to say, AHEAD of what God wanted me to say.

I’m not a very smart guy to begin with, so when I realize God has decided He’s going to jumble my thoughts up, which is not a difficult task, then I know it’s time to step back and see what He’s telling me. In this case He said, “You’re making this too hard! K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple Stupid!”

If you’ve followed me on here for very long you know I’ve blogged about the church and the Church maybe more than anything because it’s one of the areas God has created a passion in me. He’s created a desire for me to see church different or maybe see church as it was originally and hopefully help others see it in a different way. I’ve quoted Acts 2:42-47, the way the very first church did life more than any other scripture…

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Let’s boil that down…

Devoted to teaching and fellowship

Devoted to breaking bread and prayer

Were together and had everything in common

Gave to anyone who had a need

Met together daily

Ate together in each others homes

Praised God and enjoyed the favor of all people

AND THE LORD ADDED DAILY THOSE WHO WERE BEING SAVED!!

So to get to what I’m trying to say is this. I woke up one morning a week or so ago and sat out on my deck with a good cup of strong coffee (God created the world over strong coffee you know…I know it’s in the Bible somewhere), read my daily devotion and scripture, reflected on the last couple months and realized, WE ARE DOING IT!

Ha! We -are - doing - it!

The family God has blessed me with is being the Church!

The friends that God has put into my life that I spend my time with are being the Church!!

The church I’m so fortunate to get be a part of, serve at and with is not just playing church, we are being the Church!!

Right now going through life looks like Acts 2 and it was so simple!! Instead of trying to act like the Acts church and recreate it - simply try acting like Jesus, see through his eyes, walk where he would have walked, do what he would have done, watch your heart be changed and without even knowing you’ll be the church in Acts and the Church He had in mind!

In the end, I never used any of the notes I carried for over a month. K.I.S.S.!!!

Ooh Yeah!

Thank you friends for all the kind messages from those of you who know I am saddened this week.

For those of you who don’t know here is the AP press release from last week:

Randy "Macho Man" Savage, a larger-than-life personality from professional wrestling's 1980s flying-elbow heyday known for his raspy voice, brash style and the young woman named Miss Elizabeth who often accompanied him, died in a car crash Friday in Florida. He was 58.

Yes, I am a child of the 80’s and I’ve seen yet another one of my hero’s go down like a bad episode of the The Fall Guy. Oops, you’re right; bad analogy. There were no bad episodes of The Fall Guy!

But seriously these wrestlers were a huge part of my life! Every weekend these guys were wrestling in my living room via antenna! Often right up until it was time for Sunday night church. Mom, who was not much of a fan, would come out of the bedroom like a villain hiding under the rink with a steel chair, and would yell, “You two quit! It’s time for church!” Each and every week saving my Dad’s bacon! I was always one crossfaced chicken wing or scorpion deathlock away from the household heavy weight belt.

In my life I’ve seen wrestling hero after wrestling hero pass…all the Von Erich’s, Andre the Giant, Junk Yard Dog a.k.a JYD, Big Boss Man, Wahoo McDaniel, Ravishing Rick Rude, Bam Bam Bigelow…who will be next? NO, don’t say it! Hulkamania will live forever!!

Fly Sally fly!!

We have now have chicken! And yes we live in town. I guess the old saying is true, “You can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy.” Now, growing up we didn’t have chickens, we ran cattle so that’s something I know a little bit about…but chickens, well this is a learning experience for me. My knowledge of chicken ranching consists of years and years of watching Foghorn Leghorn, about a 15 minute introduction to chickens training session from our friend who we bought them from, multiple semi-useless factoids that Winston quotes from the best selling novel “Raising Backyard Chickens” and an 11 minute conversation I had on the sidewalk with another chicken rancher. That’s it! Should be enough…right?

With what I felt like was equivalent to a masters degree in chicken produce engineering the boys and I had a fabulous idea, introduce Lacey Lucy and Sassy Sallie to the free range concept of our backyard. In other words, let them out of the coop for a while, they’ll go back in to roost at sunset (learned that in training). We made the necessary preparations like installing lattice along the bottom of the deck so they couldn’t go underneath, checked for any hen size holes in the fence and things like that. Now just before the release, I thought not to myself…

“Self, wouldn’t it be a good idea if we all got acclimated to the chickens roaming peacefully in the yard together?”

“Well yes Self, that is a great idea, you’re so smart!”

“I know Self, thanks for another compliment today!”

So while I was trying feverishly to pat myself on the back I told the boys to get the leashes for the dogs, after all, “all” of us getting to know the chickens a little more up-close meant the dogs too, actually, especially the dogs. The dogs did well with them in the coop but I wasn’t sure how they would do with them in the open without a chicken wire barrier between.

Wyatt was to take our small wirey mutt, Annie and Winston the larger sometimes beloved in need of a hip replace beagle, Missy. Therein lies my mistake!! Giving Wyatt a task that required good judgement, attention and responsibility.

Sassie Sally came out first like a quarter-horse out of the gate or coop if you will, while Lacey Lucy the more mature of the two wasn’t in as big a hurry. As I was encouraging Lacey, and within the first 34 seconds, Wyatt decides to let them meet up close and personal as he “accidentally” let go of the leash.

Did you guys know how well a chicken can fly when it has 7 lbs of hair, teeth and a hankering for nuggets coming at it? She was gone! And had no intension of coming back!

Days have past now and I’m feeling like a scene from the western Open Range is in my future. You know where Kevin Costner and Robert Duval are part of a dying breed of free range cattle ranchers. They wander into a little town that doesn’t take kindly to “free rangers” so they form a posse of sorts to rough them up and run them off. I am fully expecting any evening now for a posse from our neighborhood to show up on the front door to tell me that the last thing they need in these parts is another free range chicken rancher.

And out of all this, as funny as it may sound, Sassy Sally the free roaming runaway chicken reminded me a lot about grace, myself, my church and staff I so graciously get to serve and worship with. The staff from H2O and I just got back from an out of this world uplifting church leaders event called Catalyst. So much of that even spoke to me and I’m trying to mentally digest it. My mind has been especially focused on how big God’s grace is and how awe inspiring he is. For me personally this has been so evident in the fact that God chose me to work in His ministry with everything I’ve done in my past that some of you know about and a lot of stuff only me and God know about. He still chose me and I can hardly believe it! A speaker brought me to tears Friday night illustrating this.

So there I am on stage this Sunday back home at church saying a few things when I looked over the crowd and saw so many faces whose stories I heard about being set free from the coop of man made doctrine, the coop of habitual sin, the coop of religion and the coop of institutions that cling more to their denomination than they do to the cross. In a second I reflected on my life that was set free and so many others…we FLEW THAT COOP BABY, landed in the neighborhoods tallest cedar tree and are never going back!! How big is God grace? I DON’T KNOW, I haven’t seen the end of it yet and am convinced I never will! I’m convinced there isn’t an end!!

Lacey Lucy, the one that didn’t fly away, roams the yard in the evenings but makes her way back in to the coop every night like clockwork. She finds comfort in the confines of the coop. She knows that she’ll be locked up every night and it does not bother her. It doesn’t phase her in the least that by coming back every night she’s not living up to her full potential.

Sassy Sally on the other hand is gone! Is it risky for her? Yes! She has no idea what waits for her on the outside of coop. But that’s a risk she willing to take. She’s willing to choose a risky life of freedom over the comfortable and safe confines of the coop.

For us it’s the same. But once we get a good taste of grace; I mean a GOOD taste of grace, one where we look deep inside ourselves and see where we started and where Christ has taken us, well, there’s no going back to the coop! The risky unknown life outside of the coop with Jesus cannot compare to the shackles that man has created!! FLY BABY FLY!!

I heard a speaker say, “If we aren’t doing something that feels risky in our Christian walk then are we really living for Christ?” That one gut punched me this weekend and need more thought. Something for all of us to ponder!

Galatians 5:1 (New Living Translation)

So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law.