Social Media, Blogging, Ministry and Work

Monday night was not the first time that is happened, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.  All it is is the most recent.  It wasn’t a public rebuke.  I don’t know if you could even consider it a rebuke per se.  More than anything it was an encouragement to be better and to be a more effective successful pastor.  Now mind you, I have been rebuked before.  I have also been just asked questions about this before.  This was somewhere in between.

The issue, and I’ve probably been asked this 5 or 6 times, has to do with blogging, ministry, social networking, etc.  If someone is a pastor or a minister, is it “work” to be on Facebook, Twitter, blog, etc.?  This brings up a much broader question about what is and is not work.  If I’m out to eat with my family and someone from the church comes up and talks to us for 10-15 minutes, is that work?  If I am at home sort of watching TV, but rehearsing my intro to my sermon in my head, is that work?  Is having coffee with a guy from the church talking about sports work?  Is it only work if it’s in an office with papers and/or computer?  Some of my job can easily look like fun, does that make it “not work?”  If a pastor is going to be honest, he will often admit that this issue is a struggle.

However, we are talking about something specific–social networking.  If I am on my computer, replying to people’s emails or working on a sermon, and I click over to the Facebook (friend me here.) or Twitter (here) and talk about what I am doing, is that work or not?  If I blog about something related to church, and ask people to read it, is that work?  What if it’s a devotional?  What if it’s silliness?  What if it’s all three? Let me give you my reasoning (defense?) for why I do what I do.

I view my job as being somewhat complex and relatively nebulous (vague, undefined).  However, the goals are pretty clear.  I am to help people have a relationship with Jesus, grow in that relationship, and then help them help others have that relationship.  How one best does that is a matter of style, effectiveness, personality and a lot of factors.  I believe that I need to teach and inspire.  I also believe that the best way to do that is through relationships.  I want to know people and for them to know me.  I believe that gives me a stronger platform for teaching and influence.

Therefore during the day, I will take time out to post something about what’s going on with me and will check on what people are doing.  Sometimes it’s informational.  Sometimes it’s humorous.  Sometimes it’s an invitation to church, a ministry or to read something that I wrote on my blog.  Most of what I write on cloften.com are short devotional thoughts that I hope can help people grow in their walks with God.  Short, on-line devotionals.  To me, there is little doubt that the writing of a devotional and the encouraging the reading of said devotional is “work.”  If not, then the preparation and delivery of sermons would have to be called into question.  To me that is an easy way to take a few minutes and connect with about 200 or so people and help encourage them.

FB posts and Tweets that are not of an overtly spiritual nature feel like a good thing for me to do as well.  I am connecting with people where they are–on-line.  If there were a few hundred people gathered somewhere and I went to talk to them, I would consider that productive, even if it were just to say hi.  If I then got to share a thought about God with them, all the better.  It is my desire to be with people, connect with people, be it “live,” on-line, on the phone, whichever.  To me Social Networking is a highly effective ways to do what God has called me to do as a pastor.

Now, let the debate begin.  Does this ring true to you?  Does it seem like the ramblings of a guy who likes to justify goofin’ around on the computer?  What do you think when you see a pastor that does a lot of that?

Please, let me know what you think.  My guess is there are churches our there banning FB at the church office and those that require Twitter accounts for all staff and everything in between.  What do you think?  If you want to say something that you feel would be a public rebuke, don’t sweat it.  If you want to make it anonymous, you can.  I will make sure it still ends up in the comments.  Now…go!

That’s Not My Job

I was planning on blogging this morning.  I had a few ideas in mind.  I was going to possibly talk about how hard moving is on kids and the importance of Dad stepping in to engage (still probably will) and was possibly going to talk about my neurotic issue of how often better isn’t good enough, a rambly post about impatience and trust (may not make the cut this week).  Then I strolled in to a local fast food restaurant for some tea and some free wi-fi.  It was not my usual local hangout and will not come here again. (No plug ins, spotty internet)  However, even if it had been computer friendly, I would still be out.  Why? (Let the rant begin)

I am standing at the counter waiting to order.  There are 9, yes I said 9, people behind the counter that I can see.  That doesn’t count the people behind that are cooking (?) the food and the one dude that is also behind the counter but is going on break.  One person was “supposed to be” on the register, but she was bagging an order with a scowl that said, “I hate my job and may beat everyone to a bloody pulp with a sleeve of cups.”  I am not sure what the two people at the station where they bag the orders were doing.  One person seemed to be in charge of holding a sleeve a cups (protecting herself from the register girl, to be sure).  One person was in charge, seemingly, of making sure the smoothie machine didn’t move.  There were two managers who were in charge of keeping certain tiles on the floor from moving.  One person was in charge of telling funny stories near the drive-thru.  Of course, we also had a floater.  Is that 9?

I noticed all of that, because I had time.  Plenty of time.  Some of the workers (?) made the mistake of making eye contact with me, but they held strong and never left their positions.  Others knew better and stayed locked in on their position.  As many of you know, I did a year and a half at a Chick-Fil-A in Colorado.  This never would have flied if you were on my crew.  There was only one thing that I truly cared about and that was making the customers cranky.  We had positions, but you did whatever you had to do to serve the customer.  If someone was waiting at the counter, wanted a refill, whatever, you helped the customer, quickly and with a smile.  You never got to say “that’s not my job.”  We did whatever it took to make it work and serve customers.

This kind of attitude should follow us wherever we go, whatever we do.  You are not too good, too special to do even the smallest of tasks.  God has called each of us to be servants.  There is no task beneath us.  If you see a piece of trash where you work, live, worship, wherever, pick it up.  If someone needs help, help them.  We don’t graduate or promote from roles of serving others.  In fact as we get promoted, all the more reason to be servants and do whatever it takes.

Mark 10:44-45
and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

Did I mention that when she finally did come to the register that she glared at me and said nothing?   But that’s a rant for another day.

When God Vetoes Your Plan (Prayer and Sovereignty)

If I had known that for the 3rd time in a row that we would move before selling our house, I would have kept a journal or something and recorded those thoughts in a handful of blog posts.  Since I didn’t, these thoughts are going to be a little more reflective and rambly (more rambly? than what? your usual posts?  not possible.  Agreed)  The reason I didn’t keep a journal is that, in all seriousness, I never believed that it would go down this way.

A little history.

The first house that we tried to sell was when we moved from Conway, AR to go to seminary.  The house sat empty for 6 months.  At the time I was a pizza delivery guy and then a Chick-Fil-A night manager with a max income of about $1000/mth.  Meanwhile, I’m a full-time student with two kids and Heidi is a full-time stay-at-home mom.  It was a huge stretch for us.  I didn’t think we would make it.  Meanwhile our only car blows up.  The car we get to replace it turns out to be a lemon.

Result: We left seminary with more money than we came with.  God showed himself to be much bigger (and complicated) than I ever realized.

The second house was when we moved from St. Louis to Cabot to start Fellowship Cabot. That house sat empty for 5 months (We’re improving).  Fortunately, we were going to make more money and felt confident financially.

Result: A builder/realtor that was part of the plant team allowed us to move into a house he built before we could buy it (for free!) until our house sold and we closed when we sold our house.  We lived in a house that was bigger and nicer than we ever thought we would live in.  God showed himself to be in control and had a plan worked out so much better than the one we were praying for.

This brings us to the present and we have not, as of this post, sold our house in Cabot.  We moved to Fayetteville last week.  We have had more showings than we did before, more “almosts” than before, we had it sold for about 14 hours.  However, here we are, where we have always been.  We left a house.  There have not been many things that we have prayed for more than this.  Many people all over have been praying for us.  If you could “pray your way” into a certain outcome, this would be it.  If God’s hand could be forced by faithful, diligent, believing prayers, we would have sold our house 2 months ago.

So what does this mean?  Best I can figure there are two groups that believe that they have prayer all figured out.  First are the ultra-sovereignty (my word) people.  God is going to do what he is going to do regardless.  We pray because God says we should, and prayer changes us, not what’s going to happen.  My problem there is that the Bible says so much about how when we ask in faith we receive.

This leads us to group two.  If you believe and pray, you will get what you ask for.  Not getting what you ask for means there is something wrong with you.  Very clever.  Any time I don’t get what I ask for, it’s my fault.  That way I chase my disappointment with guilt and failure.  Problem here is, Paul, who I’m guessing had more faith than me, prayed for an affliction to be taken away and God said no.  Furthermore, God is not a puppet on a string that submits himself to the whims and wills of sinful people.

So where does that leave us?  That leaves us in the murky middle.  I believe that God is in complete control.  I believe prayer changes the world.  I believe God answers prayer.  I believe God’s plan is better than mine.  Sometimes these truths collide.  Sometimes God vetoes your plan and we are left with a crisis of sorts.

Is there something wrong with me?  Does prayer not work? Does God not care? Is God really not in control?

No, no, no, no.

Is God working out a plan more complicated and better for me than mine? Do I need to learn trust?  Is a good, loving, sovereign God got this?

Yes, yes, yes.

Details to come (soon?) on how God worked all this out.

(BTW, You can find earlier ramblings on this topic here)

3 Defining Words–(Some) Characteristics of a Healthy Church Part 3

I will have to admit that I’m not sure if word number three is a word.  Can you hyphenate any two words and then call the result a word no matter what?  Is lactose-intolerant a word?  If so, then is Bieber-intolerant also a word?  Who is in charge of deciding this?  Is it all the English teachers I had in High School and college that unjustly didn’t like me just because I was obnoxious and resented every minute I was in their class?  That hardly seems fair.  I’m sorry, what were we talking about?

Ah yes, the third defining word.

Outward-focused

You’re right dude that’s not a word.  Would you prefer I use the more intriguing, non-hyphenated missional?  I don’t like the word missional.  Why?  My reasons are numerous and ridiculous.  We’re going with outward-focused.  Wait, wait, wait!  Shouldn’t it be outwardly-focused? Shouldn’t it be the adverbial (also possibly not a word) form?  Weren’t you paying attention?  I didn’t like English class growing up.

Anyway, just like me and this post (or this post and me), I find myself easily distracted.  My purpose in writing this post is to give and explain the 3rd of the three defining words for church.  Then I was going to inspire you.  However, I can’t stop rambling about a lot of nothing.  I’m too busy trying to be cute and clever to get to the point.

I feel church can be that way.  Jesus told us what the most important commands were–loving God and loving people.  He then gave us a mission–to tell the whole world about him, to make disciples, to take his love to people who desperately need it.  But we get distracted.  We start focusing on being busy with church activities.  We start focusing on what we don’t like about each other and we lose sight of all the people outside of church who desperately need to see, feel and hear about the love of God through his son Jesus.

Churches can become petty and start fighting within about music styles, theological minutia and, legendarily, carpet colors.  In the meanwhile, there is poverty and desperation and people separated from God that need us to love them.  When a church turns it’s attention outside of the walls, incredible things happen.  I’m too busy working along side of you to be bothered by your quirkyness.  I’m loving and serving people and I notice God transforming my character.  Most importantly, people who are far from God feel and experience God’s love, they hear about God’s Son and they begin to have life in his name.

People, both believers and not, want to be a part of a church that is showing love to people outside of their church.  They want to be a part of a church that is not waiting for people to come inside but is going “outside” to find and love people, a church that turns its energy toward needs in the world rather than turning on each other.  God is using these churches in amazing ways.

They are world-changeable.

Giant Curveballs, Control Issues, Closure and Forgiveness

There may be a conspiracy afoot.  The conspiracy is out to derail my productivity.  Well, that may not be entirely accurate.  The conspiracy I believe is against my particular plans and my definition of productivity. Furthermore, it is most likely targeting my need to control.

I had a great plan.  I mean a great plan.  We were going to sell our house in late May or June, move into a house in Fayetteville and be “settled” by August 1st when I started the new job.  That plan was demolished and we moved into an apartment 3 days ago.  Apartment living with 2 pre-teen girls sharing a bedroom is interesting(?), challenging(?), exhausting(?), awesome(?).  Whatever it is, it is not consistent with productivity.  I have a lot to do.  Becoming the lead pastor of a church right before school starts gives one a to-do list of epic proportions.  When life is so chaotic that you can’t even make the list, much less start executing it, even a low control guy such as me can start to get the shakes.

However, Monday was going to be different.  The first official workday.  Get up, leave the apartment (sadly of course), and go get it done.  Chick-Fil-A has free wi-fi and I have a sweet new MacBook Pro.  So we are in business.  Then the afternoon before, I get a phone call.  There are hundreds of people I would have expected to hear from before this person.  (This enters the intentionally vague portion of the program).  This person wounded me pretty deeply a few years ago.  I worked for restoration and never really got it.  Through Jesus and his love for me, I found legitimate forgiveness for him.  No bitterness.  No residual anger, but nothing close to a restored relationship.  He didn’t (at the time) want it.

Then at the least opportune time it would seem, he calls and we are going to have breakfast the next morning.  He left me plenty of opportunities to say no.  “I’m sure that you are still busy” (Yes) “You’ve got a lot to do” (Yes) “and you don’t have time” (Yes).  How do I say no? Answer: I don’t.  I can’t.  I have my plan.  God has his.

At first, we are chatting like nothing has ever happened, which is fine.  Whatever God has planned and whatever this guy has planned is great.  Then he starts reflecting on the past, apologizing for stuff, and expressing a desire to reconnect.  I’m blown away.  We have a great conversation, and it might be fair to say that we are friends again.  I don’t know what to say or think.

God has his own time table and plan.  I had an idea about what “needed” to happen this morning and God had another.  I had an idea about when this relationship would be restored, and God had another.  My heart needs to be ready for what God has for me.  Is my heart ready to forgive? to restore relationships? to respond to his priorities in my life?  Or do I have a closed heart that is focused on my ideas and plans and can’t sense what God may be up to in my life?

I want to be the person that can release what I want and think I need for what he wants for me.  But if it’s all the same, I would like to get my to-do list going.  However, there is nothing, nothing, that will happen today as significant as what already has.

3 Defining Words–(Some) Characteristics of a Healthy Church Part 2

If ever a list were made of the top ten words that are most overused at church (and I just may), this word that helps define healthy churches would most likely be at the very top.  By the way, at the bottom?  Apothecary.  I want to use a different word, find a good synonym, but this is the best word to describe what I mean.  Since it is overused, it is therefore often misused.  I will, unfortunately have have to devote some time to what I don’t mean by the word.  Wow Cloften, could you please put in a few more vague disclaimers before you tell us what the word is?  No I will not.  Here is the word.

Relevant

(Yeah, dude.  That word is overdone.  You should have given more disclaimers) 

What do I mean by relevant?  Relevant means that it matters to people’s lives.  What we say and do in church makes a difference in the way that people live.  Maybe applicable is a good synonym.  Being relevant answers the “so what?” question.  Something can be true but irrelevant (Most American car horns honk in the key of F).  When we teach the Bible, we want what we teach to be relevant.  It needs to produce life-change (#7 on the list).  One might think that this is the same as contemporary (#2 on the list), but it’s is not.  Contemporary typically speaks to doing programs, worship, etc. in a way that is similar in style to the culture (#5 on the list).  While that is something that churches that I lead do, it is not the same.  Your church can be contemporary in style, but irrelevant in content.  Your church can be traditional, but relevant in content.

“Easy heretic.  The Bible is always relevant.”  It sure is.  The question is why do we sometimes teach the Bible as if it isn’t.  I think you have to try really hard to not be relevant, but we do it.

Here is an example:

If I told you that in the time that Revelation 3:14-22 was written that Laodecia had no direct access to hot or cold water, that would be true but so what? 

I’ll go a step further.  If I told you that they had to pipe in water from outside the city and by the time it got to them it was lukewarm water which was nasty, would that be relevant?  What if I told you that they hated that water, because it was too warm to drink and not hot enough to be used for hot baths?  Would that make you a better Christian?  Would that draw you closer to God? 

One more step further, since all of that is true, then we can know that in Revelation 3:15-16 when Jesus says he wishes they were hot or cold and not lukewarm, he’s not saying that hot is good, cold is bad, lukewarm is worse.  He is saying cold is useful, hot is useful, lukewarm water is nasty.  I still haven’t been relevant.

Relevant comes when I then in some way try to explain to you that when we sit around and become stale and useless, we become repulsive to God.  We were designed to be used by God.  How is God using you? What is your purpose?.  All the way up until I said that, what I was saying was true, perhaps insightful, it was also helpful in understanding a passage of the Bible, but it was not yet relevant.  However, if we come up short in our teaching, small groups, community (#9), ministries in helping people see how their lives need to be different, we are not helping people.  Life with God becomes an academic exercise, not one where God is changing our lives.

We need to be a church that is helping people become real (#4), authentic (#3) followers of Jesus Christ, where is he is changing people every day.  We must be relevant.

3 Defining Words–(Some) Characteristics of a Healthy Church Part 1

OK, this is going to be a little risky.  Anytime you start talking about characteristics of a healthy church or church values, there is always one more.  There is one that is the “most important” and “I can’t believe you left that one out.”  Then the discussion gets hijacked.  So here is what I would like to do.  I would like to start with a basic definition of what makes a church and then talk about some specific characteristics of what I believe make a healthy church.  Ok? Ok.

A church:

1. Primarily exists to bring honor and worship to God and secondarily to love people (the great commandment)

2. Believes that the Bible is God’s word

3. Trusts in Jesus alone for hope, life and salvation

4. Depends completely on the Holy Spirit to lead and guide and bless

5. (That one thing that’s really important to you that I forgot)

I know that not all churches hold to those, but these are what make a church, evangelical if we must have a category.  Go to 100 churches in 100 weeks and 90+ of them will believe and value those.  Yet some churches are growing and healthy and others struggle.  There are a lot of different ways to do church, different programs, leadership styles, etc., and many (most, all?) of those can be very effective.  However they can all be quite ineffective as well. 

After a less than great experience at a church in St. Louis, an amazing experience in Cabot, and talking, interacting and learning from some of the top church planters around, I have come to believe that there are certain characteristics of churches that make churches grow, be healthy and thrive.  To repeat the disclaimer, this is not an exhaustive list.  These are simply three that echo loudly in my mind.  We will tackle them one at a time.

Friendly

Great churches love people.  They especially love people who are brand new.  They mostest especialliest love people who are new and far from God.  When new people walk in, that church very quickly does everything that they can to make that person not feel new.  The church lets them know that they are wanted and are invited to be a part of that family.  There are no strangers, no outsiders, no lonely people at this church.

How do you know if your church is friendly?

1. The members leave the best parking spaces for new people.

2. New people have been greeted, welcomed, shown around, multiple times before the service starts.

3. You have a hard time starting on time because people won’t stop talking in the cafe, lobby, back of the worship center, etc.

4. The “meet and greet” just won’t end.

5. The person that has to lock up the building never gets to eat lunch at a reasonable time.

6. Everyone, not just the greeters and ushers, welcomes and meets new people.

7. New people come back.

It is troubling the number of churches that say they want to grow but seem to resent at worst,and are  indifferent at best to new people.  But not your church.  Your church loves people.  It greets everyone.  It creates a welcoming environment for everyone, visits people in the hospital, surrounds people that are hurting.  Your church loves people.  At least it can, starting now.

August 1st is Coming, AKA Help Me!

Wow.  We are moving in 8 days.  It really is hard to believe.  It has been an amazing four years at Fellowship Cabot.  I have learned so much about being a pastor and leader.  It has been overwhelming.  As I look to make this transition, I’ve been trying to categorize and put into words what I believe God has taught me about church and what it means to lead a church.  Over the next days, weeks and months that vision will come out in blog posts, sermons, staff meetings, and random meetings at various coffee shops around Northwest Arkansas. 

In the meantime, I am overwhelmed by how close August 1st is.  In a short few days, I start a new job and an incredibly opportunity to lead a great group of people and prepare for another God adventure.  I am “pre-working” over these next few days to get ready, and I need your help.

Everyone

Please pray that our house will sell quickly.  We’re moving into an apartment until our house sells.  We believe God has a great plan for us, the people he wants to have our house, and has prepared a house for us in Fayetteville.  On the other hand, this is stressful.  I know many of you have been praying.  Please keep doing so.

Those who don’t live in NWA

Everyone seems to know someone who lives in Fayetteville or NWA.  If you do and they don’t have a church home, let them know about the Grove Church.  www.thegrovechurch.org  We are going to be spending August getting to know each other and talking about what kind of church we want to be and what we hope to see God do in and through us.  That would be a great opportunity to get to know us and be a part of what God is doing. 

If you know a student at the U of A, same thing.  We want lots of college students to be a part of the Grove and hope that God will continue to use as to reach and minister to U of A students.

If you live in Fayetteville or NWA and don’t go to the Grove

If you are not connected to a local church there, you can imagine what I’m going to say to you:  “see you soon.”  Come August 1st and say hey, check us out.  God is doing cool things at the Grove and will continue to.  I would love to have you be a part.

If you are connected to a local church, the invite gets a little trickier.  I would still love to see you one Sunday.  Come by and say hi.  We would, of course, love to have you, but we don’t want to be known as a recruiter from other churches.  There are so many people in Fayetteville and NWA that are not connected God and/or to church and those are the people that we want to reach.  Many of you I have been friends with for years, and I would love the opportunity to partner and minister with you at the Grove. 

On the other hand, I do not want to take you from a church where God is using you and blessing your family.  One of the best things that happened to me in Cabot is having friends and fans at other churches.  We want to partner with other churches in reaching people.  We are all on the same team.  If all you do is love us, pray for us and our churches can work together, then that would be great.

If you go to the Grove.

Pray, pray, pray.  The Grove is a great church and is doing some great things.  I believe he is going to build on that.  We are going to be a church that is reaching people who are far from God, strengthening believers, and launching missionaries around Fayetteville, NWA and the world.  You have a role to play in that.  You are going to be hearing all throughout August opportunities to be used by God to help us move forward.  God wants to use your talents and passions to reach and serve people.  Be praying now that God will show you what your part is.

Wow.  10 days and I will be preaching my first official sermon at the Grove as pastor.  Please be praying.

Offloading Your Kids, Early and Often

We met my parents at Fergusons restaurant near Marshall for lunch on Saturday.  They then took our girls back to Branson for a few days.  It’s been about 36 hours now and this is when I really start to miss them.  They say they miss me, but water slides and roller coasters tend to make my girls forget that they even have parents.  I digress, as always.   We have done this a lot over the last 12 years, not the meet at Fergusons, but the offloading of kids to grandparents for days of eating bad, partying hard, and sleeping rarely.

Being at Fergusons reminded me of one of the first times that we did this.  Maylee was 2 and Lauren was still internally attached to her mom.  We met my folks there and we had not told Maylee that she was leaving with Mimi and Rowr (my parents).  She had spent the night with them before and been fine, but we didn’t know how she would react to know in advance, so we said nothing.  After lunch (It might have been a late breakfast.  Does that even matter?), we walk outside.  Maylee gets ahead of all of us, opens Mimi’s car, sits in the back middle seat, buckles herself with the lap belt and then doesn’t make eye contact with anyone.  We all start laughing.  She has this look on her face that says, “I don’t know what you think the plans are, but I am going wherever the people in this car are going.”  Lucky for us, that was the plan.

From the time both of our children were little, they have had no anxiety about spending the night or a week with either sets of grandparents, other family friends, going to camp, whatever.  They both are very adventurous and brave.  A summary of your likely reactions :

1) “You evil ogre of a father.  You left your kids with other people over night at age 2?  You should be ashamed”  It’s worse than that.  They were both 15 months when we first did that, as soon as they were no longer externally attached to their mom (We’re all adults here, right?).

2) “I’m so jealous.  I can’t get my spouse to agree to stuff like that.”

3) “You are so lucky.  My kids would never do something like that.”

I have heard all three of those reactions.  People have said, in one form or another, all of that to me.  Here is what I believe–whether or not spending the night away from parents is scary to a kid is almost exclusively a function of the parents’ attitudes.  Little kids think that anything that is new is scary.  Anything that is different is scary.  Anything that is unknown is scary.  It is our job to tell them what is our is not scary. (I have talked about this before, with regard to speaking to adults and roller coasters.  See here.) 

Be honest, it is you that are scared to leave your kids with family for a couple of days.  It is you that gets nervous when you drop your kid off at their class at church.  Right?  “No Cloften, you big judgmental jerk.  You should see how scared they get when I drop them off.”  Of course they do, they are feeding off of you.  You tell them that they are going to have fun, that you love them and walk away.  Then, they have fun and are significantly less anxious the next time.  Hopefully you will be too.

Now I know that even the most confident of kids will go through some separation anxiety.  Some day I will tell you about the time when toddler Lauren literally tore down the walls in her class (It was a make-shift hallroom class made of temporary walls.)  You know what fixed it?  Consistently dropping her off with no drama from us, never going to “check on her” (which translated means, calming my own nervous heart), and lots and lots of Teddy Grahams.

In what I want for my girls, closely behind passionate love for God, respect and kindness, is confidence.  I want my girls to believe that they can go through life, depending on God and believing confidently that they can be and do whatever it is that God has called them to be.  I never want their fear and insecurity to hold them back.

There are some things that are scary.  Snakes–scary.  Dudes in trenchcoats with candy–scary.  Life–not so much.

Selling Houses and the Will of God

My history with selling houses is well-known.  For those who don’t know, we have moved twice when needing to sell a house, once from Conway, AR to Colorado for seminary.  The second was from St. Louis here to Cabot, AR.  When moving to Colorado, our house sat empty for almost 6 months before it sold.  When moving to Cabot, we did a little bit better.  The house only sat empty for a little less than 5 months before it sold.

I don’t know if you have ever been in that kind of a situation before.  You may be one of those people with those stories of how you sold your house in an hour for a more than full price offer.  If you are, I’m not sure this post is for you. You can wait for the “People That Annoy Me” post (just kidding…mostly).  If you’ve been in this situation before, you know that it can become quite a serious time of theological reflection.  Our house is on the market for the third time as we prepare to make a move.  We are far from the theological crisis time, but this topic is just on my mind now as we try to sell our house again.

Here are the choices that most people have:

1) I must be making the wrong decision.  If this move were God’s will, my house would have sold.

2) God is punishing me because I am in some kind of sin.

3) God is trying to teach me something.  As soon as I learn it, the house will sell.

Let’s see if we can break these down and still keep this to the size of a blog post.  The first option, I believe, is a very dangerous theological perspective to have.  I evaluate whether or not I am making, or made,  the right decision based on if my circumstances are working out well, i.e. the way I want them to.  There are many times that Paul followed God’s call on his life and ended up beaten, shipwrecked, emprisoned, etc.  Following God is not a guarantee that everything is going to go smoothly.  In fact, often the opposite is true.  The path that God calls us to is often riddled with trials.  You have to do the work of prayer and discernment on the front end, asking God if this is the right move, change, etc.  Then you have to move forward with confidence, because very often difficult circumstances await.

The second option is a little difficult.  I certainly am not going to say that there is no way that you are experiencing a trial because of sin in your life (I’m not going to say you are, either).  Evaluating yourself and your sin is a great idea.  Asking God if there is any sin that is damaging your relationship and keeping him from blessing you–also a good idea.  One note of caution, if God can only bless us if we have no sin in our life, you know who is in trouble?  That’s right.  All of us.  Sometimes our sin can bring judgment in our lives.  Deal with it, if that is the case.  However, don’t assume that every obstacle in your life is connected to sin.

The third option, I have ranted on before.  It in fact, kicked off the Stuff Christians Should Stop Saying series (see here).  What I was not saying then and don’t what to say here is that trials, don’t exist (at least in part) so that God can teach us something.  God was definitely teaching Paul dependence on Him.  Joseph learned a lot about humility in a pit, as a slave, in prison.  Here is the thing, God is always teaching us and refining our character.  However, most of the things that God is teaching and shaping in us, aren’t things that we “learn” as if it were Algebra.  When do you “learn humility?”  I am learning about humility.  I will never “learn” it as if I have completly conquered that issue, just as I will never learn patience and dependence on God.  God will be refining me in that area for the next 50 years of my life.  God is teaching us during trials.  The danger comes when we believe we can learn our way out of a trial, as if we are in control.

Maybe you have made a wrong decision and that’s why things are going badly.  Maybe your sin has caught up with you.  Maybe God is using this as an opportunity to refine a major area of character in your life to prepare you for something great.  But, it may just be that we live in a fallen world where bad stuff happens.  I believe that we, read I, spend way too much time worrying about why and not near enough time listening to God and learning to trust and depend on Him. 

What if we took all of the energy that we wasted stressing about “why” and turned that into prayer, reading and studying about Joseph and Paul who went through worse trials than most of us?  What if we took that time to connect with God’s Son, Jesus who endured the worst of trials so that we could have life in him?

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