Lent day 30

greetings!

i will be 51 in a few minutes...

life is good...

i am happier than i have ever been...

i am finally starting to age more gracefully...

guess there is hope for anyone -- even YOU [ha! ha!]...

50 was the best year yet...

i am hoping 51 is more of the same...

i want to do some more reflecting on last night...

especially as it relates to pastoring...

which i have spent over half my life doing in some form or another...

i think i am still a pastor...

my flock is just "different" as a hospice chaplain...

80+ families spread throughout the city...

guess my "sheep" are pretty scattered...

i am finally getting to pastor some of the folks i always tried to reach in the church...

the church "drop-outs"...

the ones who never showed up to begin with...

those who gave up on the institution...

those who abandoned religion...

they really didn't have an interest in coming to my church...

now, i go to them...

in their homes...

they are plugging back in...

to spirituality...

to faith...

to god...

simply and honestly...

reflecting on some of the stuff that oozed out of my gut last night...

an old friend questioned whether i really ever had "important person" syndrome as a pastor???

i was actually wondering about that very thing after i wrote what i wrote last night...

in one sense -- NO WAY!!!

everyone was always important to me...

as my phone message used to say [stolen strategically from bill hybels]...

"you matter to god and you matter to me as well!!!"

this was and is true...

usually the people who felt they were the least important mattered the most to me...

i have always had a bias for the lost, the least and the last...

i sometimes struggled to "please" those who thought they were really important...

the rebel in me wanted to bring them down to size...

let the hot air out of their inflated ego...

oh well...

my least favorite trait in human beings is arrogance...

but that's another story...

people always mattered to me -- still do...

so why am i happier and more fulfilled now than when i was a senior pastor???

i have been ruminating on this all day...

three thoughts...

1. leadership expectations...

when i became a senior pastor and the churches started getting bigger...

i caved to "common wisdom of the day" expectations...

stuff i was told at the church growth conferences...

[not all bad -- not being critical here -- i am grateful for my opportunities -- for instance, i am still a fan of willow in many ways...]

things like...

do the things that only you can and should do...

we pay you to do the point leadership stuff...

act important -- you are our senior pastor...

delegate the small stuff [i thought this was the FUN stuff]...

dress the part...

act the part...

why won't you park in your parking place???

here is my best thought...

over the years, i got really weary of this stuff...

this skubala...

leadership expectations like these made me UNCOMFORTABLE in my skin...

the wrong armor...

it just never fit...

i could not figure out how to get off the leadership merry-go-round for too long...

i wanted to be a different kind of leader...

visiting in homes...

holding people's hands in the hospital...

getting an ear ring and tatoo [never did -- yet...]

hanging out in coffee shops -- and bars...

engaging the campuses [even though students are poor and don't pay the bills]...

being ecumenical...

breaking racial barriers...

dipping up food in the line at the shelter...

valuing the poor...

being missional here -- not just globally...

sometimes i succeeded...

sometimes i didn't...

but being a pastoral riptide...

going against the prevailing flow...

wore me down...

wore me out...

stole my joy...

and almost got my soul...

but, my soul is healthy again now...

2. leadership is for teams not point people

i "felt" this one while i was a senior pastor...

we went to a teaching team approach even though it was the senior pastor's job to preach almost every week...

skubala...

we were always "fed" better by the variety of gifts in our teaching teams...

i am so glad to see this biblical reality "coming of age" in the emerging church...

after all, god gave people gifts to his body...

apostles...

prophets...

evangelists...

pastors...

teachers...

APEPT leadership...

each unique gift is critically important to the leadership whole...

at moments, yes, i was a visionary [apostolic]...

i had my prophetic outbursts...

i love hanging with seekers...

i can teach a little bit...

but, all of these "drain" me just a little...

i am a pastor...

wish i could have been a PASTOR on a biblical APEPT team...

i am juiced now...

because i am a hospice pastor...

a care-giver...

a spiritual care giver...

a chaplain...

i wanted a team...

i needed a team...

maybe i was just a little before my time???

3. is bigger really better?

i always wanted a mega-church...

not sure why...

maybe it was buying into the system...

you will know you are successful in serving the lord when over a 1000 people are coming to your church...

really???

when i arrived...

preaching to about a thousand in three weekend services...

it grew so impersonal...

who are these folks???

i want to know them...

maybe this whole paradigm needs to be turned upside-down [not just "shifted"]...

maybe real ekklesia moves from small to large [personal]...

not large to small [cells as an afterthought]...

maybe what happens in micro churches and simple churches is THE real deal...

after all, it was that way in the primitive church in the NT...

i can still remember the day i told nancy i was done with the mega-church deal...

[please do not hear critical here -- i am speaking for me...]

told her i would rather move back to tampa and be a greeter at wally world...

than keep trying to fit in a mold that was wrong for me...

god blessed me with this hospice job...

my life is now invested in personal ministry...

in personal mentoring...

in doing the fun stuff [that only "grunts" were supposed to do]...

what a joy!!!

no, i am not a BIG shot...

maybe i never was...

maybe i was just doing the best i could with what i had at the time...

maybe i was just growing...

growing in understanding WHO i was...

growing in becoming WHO god created me to be...

growing up...

maybe it is a perspective you just don't get until you are as old as dirt...

like 51...

blessings!!!

guy

jeep is snoring here on the couch...

soon matt and court will be here -- around midnight -- along with mac and ty [our other two boxers] -- jeep will be so thrilled [and so will the rest of us]...