Tim Clark’s Blog

Recently I was asked to contribute to an online magazine for Ex-Pastors; while I still work for the church, I happen to find myself in that category. The following is my “confession” that I submitted (and I am sure will be adjusted and edited beyond recognition).

About 8 months ago, after having been a pastor for over 22 years, my denomination asked me to resign my church, and I suddenly became an ex-pastor.

The journey has not been easy; at times I’ve had a difficult time finding my spiritual equilibrium. My wife and I want to raise our children in a healthy and effective church, so we painfully are starting to search for a suitable congregation that will be a vibrant and challenging, but non-threatening, community for our three young kids to plug into and grow in. My job will only permit me to show up about once a month, but we think it’s best for all of us to commit to life within a specific body of the imperfect people of God.

The above is my true story; a variation of this has been told many times and by many people. The circumstances may be different, but the struggle is similar. When a long-time pastor stops being a pastor, life changes.

The journey is always unique; my particular path didn’t involve a church split, somebody’s failure, or a ministry-ending circumstance. I was asked to work for my denomination as a Supervisor of about 140 other churches. This was a positive event for me, but I wasn’t prepared for the personally challenging season I would have when stepping out of the pastorate.

Pastoring, I realized, was the only really meaningful work I had ever done in my adult life. Though I have always taught against being defined by our ministry assignment, I was largely unaware how much being a pastor of a church had influenced my identity. My wife and I were shepherds of a flock, and we were involved in the progressive discipleship of people we loved and knew intimately.

Week after week, I had wrestled with the Word of God, looking for the sermon that would give some prophetic direction and encouragement to the congregation. Season after season I had prepared for the next big event or holiday that would prove meaningful to our church. Month after month I had trained, discipled, and administrated; and I had prayed over the mystery that God was unfolding among our unique local congregation.

I miss a lot about pastoring. I miss the preaching, because while I still preach, it’s often a recycled sermon (that I work to freshen up) that I spoke the week before to another congregation. Anyone can be a good guest speaker; good congregational preaching, I believe, is an act that is meant to move people, little by little, in a direction towards maturity in the Lord.

And I miss the holidays! This year at Christmas I had no responsibilities, and my wife couldn’t figure out why I was so grumpy! Honestly—and I didn’t realize this until later—it was because for the first time in over two decades I wasn’t declaring the wonder of the incarnation to a congregation. I probably should have found a homeless shelter and quietly expressed the gospel story through my actions, but it just wasn’t in me this year, and I struggled through understanding my new place.

Easter had been the “Superbowl” of my life for over 20 years; like a kid getting ready for his first trip to Disneyland, I could hardly sleep the night before. This year I could barely pull myself out of bed on resurrection morning. It is true, “He IS Risen, Indeed”, but this year I wouldn’t be the one initiating that ancient tradition by calling out “Christ Is Risen” to the congregation; I would be part of the sea of people answering the call.

I miss the little things. The other day I realized that I would no longer be transitioning a service, or leading communion, or receiving an offering, or blessing a congregation at dismissal, or baptizing new believers, or dedicating babies. These regular and sometimes mundane parts of congregational life are things that give rhythm to our communities; they are the things that provide “pace” to pastors. While I was in the middle of it, these sometimes seemed like a chore, but now I think about them and realize how vital they were—both to my church and to me.

But though I still struggle, I’ve come to live the reality, and not just teach it, that a ministry assignment should not define a person. Ministry is something all believers do; assignments are by their very nature transitional. Sometimes roles change because of job transition and sometimes they change because of a crisis. Whatever the case, God’s plan is still to work in and through us to express His Kingdom in the world.

Some of you miss pastoring; others are just glad that season of your life is over. But all of us are called to engage the message and ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5). That assignment isn’t attached to a job description, title or paycheck, but is part of a calling and identity that all believers have the privilege to embrace.

‎”The kingdom of God will be taken from you & given to those who will produce its fruit”. (Matthew 21:43)

To Jesus finding fruit was more important than being fair.

To the Pharisees who heard Jesus speaking, they knew He was talking about them.

And in order to fully appreciate this statement, you have to read what leads up to it.

The chief priests, elders, and pharisees had approached Jesus to ask Him about His authority to do what He did and say what He said. Jesus gave them the kind of non-answer-question-answer He was famous for…and then He started to ask them a couple of HIs own questions:

1. A father asked his two sons to work in his vineyard. One son said no, but changed his mind (repented) and went to work; the other son said yes, but didn’t really lift a finger towards a harvest of fruit. Which son did what his father asked?

2. A landowner planted a vineyard and did all the work to prepare it for great fruit. Then he handed temporary stewardship of that land to some farmers and trusted them to take care of it. At harvest, he sent for the fruit. The farmer-stewards wouldn’t respond; in fact they killed everyone the landowner sent, including his son. What will that man do when he comes and sees those who so dishonored his trust?

In both cases the answer was crystal clear to everyone. In the first instance, the son who declined his fathers request but who changed his mind and went to work anyways was the one who actually did what was asked. And in the second instance, even the elders admitted that the landowner would “bring those wretches to a wretched end, and rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.”

And Jesus essentially said, “you’re absolutely right, and really this story is about you; in fact, prostitutes and tax collectors are entering the Kingdom ahead of you religious leaders who have worked your whole life talking a good God-talk, but are not producing fruit God can collect.” 

That sure didn’t seem fair to them. Prostitutes—even worse, tax collectors—entering the Kingdom ahead of those with religious authority?

You know what else doesn’t seem fair? Right before this little interaction, Jesus curses a fig tree for not having any ripe fruit “because it was not the season for figs” (Matthew 20 & Mark 11:13). What’s up with that?

From afar, the tree was in leaf and looked like it should have fruit. It looked good on the outside, but there was nothing there. The Pharisees and leaders had this same problem: They had their “act” together but there was no real fruit.

There are a number of lessons we could uncover in these stories, but my point here is this: Jesus often did and said things that simply were not fair (read Matthew 20:1-16 for an epic example). In fact, as I read the Scripture, I’m pretty convinced that Jesus never really cared about being fair. He concerned Himself with being just, but fair is apparently not in God’s vocabulary.

God is looking for fruit; He is looking for return on investment; He is looking for really good, accountable and measurable stewardship. And it seems like if someone is producing fruit, He is perfectly willing to take someone else’s little fruit and give it to the one who has a whole lot of it. That’s hard for me to accept as a human who grew up in a “fair” culture, but I didn’t make this up, it’s all over the Bible (see for example Matthew 25:14-30).

Of course, if something is taken away from me, my feelings might get hurt. But that brings me to another point: God doesn’t seem to be much concerned with my feelings, either. And if He is the same God we find in the Bible, I am certain that our feelings are not His top priority.

You see, God loves you and me very much. I have no doubt about that. But He loves other people just as much, too. His love for us is never at the expense of His love for others. If we are part of His family, but are not very fruitful, He will not disown us or reject us. But Scripture makes it abundantly clear that He is concerned with people finding the wholeness and purpose for which He created them. If we are not producing fruit, we become Pharisees who could talk a good God-talk, but who weren’t helping anyone discover God’s purpose in their lives. They were not being good stewards of God’s trust.

If I ever stop producing fruit, I pray that God cuts off the branches in me or my ministry that are keeping fruit from happening (John 15) so that I can thrive and so the people God calls me to lead can thrive as well. Because the bottom line for Kingdom leadership is that God assigns us not for our sake, but for the sake of His people and for the community we serve, so that the plentiful harvest can be gathered.

“In those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions” 1 Samuel 3:1

I’m so glad the book of Ruth is positioned where it is in the Bible. It’s a very nice buffer between Samuel and Judges. But we have to remember that though Ruth gives us a beautiful prequel to the story of David, 1 Samuel is really the continuation of Judges, which is a book that ends in an absolutely brutal reality. As the capstone to murder, mutilation, deception, rape and massacre, comes this final verse “In those days Israel had no King; everyone did as they saw fit.” (Judges 21:25)

No wonder the word of the Lord was rare and there were not many visions.

In the middle of all of this comes a young boy consecrated to the Lord. You can read the story of Samuel in chapter 1 and 2 of 1 Samuel, but its enough to say that there was something special waiting for this young kid who “continued to grow in stature and in favor with the Lord and with people” (2:26).

Even then, though, Samuel “did not yet know the Lord: The Word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.”  (3:7). It took someone who understood something about God’s Word to point him in the right direction.

And that someone was Eli. I’m not sure what to think about Eli. This second to the last Judge of Israel (Samuel would be the last) sometimes seems like the kind of good guy God could use; but then, far too often, he and his family expresses just more of what got Israel messed up in the first place. In other words, if it were up to only Eli, there wouldn’t have been a radical departure from what was happening in the book of Judges and we might have had a “Judges part 2″ instead of a 1 Samuel.

We do have a 1 Samuel, however, and Eli had a lot to do with it.

“Eli realized that the Lord was calling the boy.” (3:8)

Maybe the Word of the Lord is rare in your life or ministry right now. I’m not going to tell you to throw in the towel, because I believe in continual grace that keeps giving us a second chance. Keep pursuing God’s word and His vision for your own life. He is still speaking to you!

But you also need to consider cultivating God’s Word and vision in someone else’s life. Maybe you are in a dry spell (we all go through them), but you can encourage someone who is just starting to learn to hear the Lord. You know how to hear Him; you know how He speaks, but a newer leader you are discipling may not have that kind of experience. You just may be the encouragement someone else needs in order to hear and obey the Lord.

I’ve found that when I am in a dry time, if I can refresh someone else and encourage them to hear the Lord, I often get refreshed as well. It awakens something in me. When I bless others, I get blessed in return.

But you have to have someone to bless! If you are a leader, I truly believe you must have a younger person around you who you are teaching how to lead by example and through conversation. Help them to learn how you hear the Lord and send them back to listen for Him.

Though Eli missed his opportunity for repentance, you have not! And if God could use a hardened heart like Eli to help Samuel become one of the greatest prophets and leaders of Israel’s history, God will certainly use your soft heart to both equip others to great impact and keep using you for His Kingdom as well.

I’ve been reflecting on the resurrection this week.

I like the idea of resurrection! Something dies, and then is miraculously raised to life in less than three days! There are times when I’ve lost someone or lost something (a dream, a ministry, a job) and have prayed fervently for this supernatural miracle to happen! You may be hoping for this kind of three-day resurrection in a situation right now.

But there is another kind of resurrection. It’s what happens after we have been praying for a miracle, and the three days has come and gone, and the grave is still full of something dead. It’s what happens after the hope of immediate resurrection has reached its limit. This is when a different kind of hope engages.

There is a time to pray for a resurrection miracle like we are getting ready to celebrate this week, but there is also a time to let something die…

Because there is a promise…

We are told in 1 Corinthians 15 that when a believer dies, a perishable seed is planted into the ground, and will be raised someday with an imperishable body. Jesus similarly tells us in John 12:24 that unless a seed falls to the ground and dies, it can’t reproduce a great harvest.

The trick is determining whether we are in a season of pruning or a season of transition into a new kind of life. There is no dishonor in recognizing when something has died. In fact, properly mourning and burying a dead loved one, a dead dream, a dead assignment, or a dead congregation is much more preferable than pretending it is still alive.

Dead things stink. And they decompose. Dead things are not conducive to moving ahead with life. That’s why we mourn the dead, and it’s why we bury them. We who are alive are called to keep moving on into life.

As we linger this week on the resurrection story, we need to remember that the three-day resurrection of Jesus and Lazarus isn’t the only kind we will see. The ultimate and eternal resurrection of dead things, properly buried, is scriptural as well.

If you have been faithful with your dream or your assignment, even if it is now over, the very act of mourning it and burying it may be the final piece to its ultimate and eternal impact. Jesus may just be waiting to use the imperishable and multiplied life that will come after recognizing the death of something you may be hanging onto very tightly right now.

So I want to encourage you to look at whatever is dead in your life, admit it, and then pray for a resurrection; if it doesn’t happen in “3 days” (whatever that may mean to you) then believe for an eternal impact and kingdom multiplication that can come through a righteous death and burial.

And then move on into the full life that Jesus has for you now!

Ok, I confess.

Publicly even.

(No, this is not an admission of not blogging for 6 weeks…I’m working to fix that).

Here’s the bottom line: I’m an addict. And I’m working hard to get help.

What I’m addicted to is pretty common, but I don’t want that to be an excuse or justification for my actions because it’s still an unhealthy compulsion.

Do you want to know what I’m so powerfully drawn to?

The answer might surprise you.

It’s email!

Now, don’t get me wrong. Email is a huge part of my ministry life, my work life and my personal life. I get up to 100 emails in a given day (not including the junk) and I would probably drop some balls, get fired and maybe even lose some friends if I stopped using this tool.

But like any tool, it can be misused. And like many A-type personalities, I’ve been known to radically abuse this wonderfully useful tool.

Like I said, though, I’m learning how to master it. If you find email taking control of your life instead of you being in control of it, and you are really interested in freedom, then sit down, buckle up, and keep reading, because my solution might be a bit hard to swallow.

But it’s the only thing I’ve found that works.

First let me tell you how I overcame another addiction.

When I was in my late teens, I found myself spending a lot of time indiscriminately sitting in front of the television. You see, for the first time in my life I had access to cable. And I became a world-champion channel surfer. After a few months of this—when I realized that not only did I have bags under my eyes, but also that I had stopped having any time to do anything productive—I started looking for a solution. That’s when I came across the principle of scheduling my TV watching.

This was before DVR (which makes scheduling much easier now), but the idea was that prior to even turning on the TV, first you discovered what was on that week and you scheduled what you wanted to watch. Thirtysomething. LA Law. The Nightly News. A football game. Letterman. Whatever. (Am I showing my age?) That way you only turned on the TV when the show started, and then turned it off when it was over.

It was a huge help. I’m not saying I that never channel surf anymore, but honestly to this day watching too much TV is not an issue with me.

And you can probably guess where I’m going with this.

As I was looking for a solution to my email addiction and overload, I ran across the same principle I had learned about with TV a couple of decades back. Scheduling my email!

The idea goes something like this: Email is a tool that you should control, it should NOT control you. When you spend all day answering email, it takes you away from important and thought intensive tasks that you should be focusing on. And the more emails you send, the more you receive, until you have found your day filled with multitasking multiple “conversations” and projects at the same time. And when you try to do it all at once nothing gets your full attention; and when nothing gets your full attention, you do half-hearted work, and go to be feeling like you got nothing done all day, though you worked really hard.

Any of that sound familiar?

To avoid this downward spiral, I’ve discovered a few tips that I’ve been working out in my own life over the first three months of 2012. These have been so revolutionary for me, I wanted to share them with you, even while I was still learning how to put them into practice:

1. Turn off all auto email downloads. Only allow yourself to check email manually, or, even better, schedule when you want it to come in. If you have been working with email for a few years then you have trained yourself (like Pavlov’s dogs) to have a quick little adrenaline boost when that email chime is heard…and you have a real hard time just leaving it there if you know there is an email. Not seeing that emails are piling up (even if you suspect they are) is a big step towards getting control in this area.

2. Only check email when you choose to do so. This is very, very difficult, but brutally important. I’m not going to say you have to only check it two or three times a day (though many experts recommend this). However, getting control of this part of your life means that you must have the control. Decide when it works best for you to read and respond to email. Maybe for you it’s five times a day: 9am, Noon, 3pm, 5pm, 10pm.

I’ve discovered that when I check email in batches, I can really get through them much more quickly. I’ve also found that when I’m only checking email a few times a day, I don’t generate as much email that then causes others to generate email back to me. The cycle slows down.

My advice: Take care of your devotions and other important issues first thing in the morning, don’t let work stress pile up before you have had time to wake up. And, don’t check your email within a couple of hours before you go to bed. Talk to your spouse, read a book, or even watch (scheduled) TV instead.

3. Get your in box down to 0. While this is tough, it’s also very helpful. When you have 100 emails sitting in your box that you have not made decisions on, your brain is running a background app as it’s trying to take care of all these issues waiting for your response. I’m finding each email has 4 possible outcomes; it can be:

1. Deleted without response—you’d be surprised at how many emails don’t actually demand a reply.

2. Delegated to someone who can take care of it—easier if you are working with a staff or a team.

3. Documented in a file, a to do list, or a calendar for future use—for projects, appointments, etc…

4. Simply answered when you see it. If an email demands an answer that needs some further thought, turn it into a mini-project to work on and send a quick response with a time frame attached. For instance: “I can’t answer this now, but I’ll process it and get back to you by noon tomorrow. (But honestly, most people are fine with “noon tomorrow” without you telling them).

I’m not suggesting that this is the only way to process email; there have been books written on the subject. But however you process it, do whatever you can to get your in box as small as possible to avoid the dread that opening your email could bring with it.

Honestly, I have not perfectly followed my own plan. As with any addiction, there are good days and bad days. But when I limit my email to work with and serve my schedule instead of me serving it, I have found that not only can I accomplish much more, but that my mind is less cluttered and distracted, and that I have the time and energy to focus on things that usually get crowded out of my day.

How do you rule your email? Do you have any further tips regarding how to make this tool serve you instead of you serving it?

Acts 17:24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.”

Temples built by hands.

We all have been a part of building temples. Whether it manifests in a physical building, an organizational design, or a ministry strategy, we spend our energy creating something we think will help to make way for God’s presence or that will reflect His life.

It’s not a bad thing to want to be involved in efforts that are done in partnership with the Lord. But our efforts don’t produce God’s results. We bring ourselves to Him because He invites us to do so, and He loves us. When we build a temple, it’s because we are “doing it the exact way” He showed us, but even then we must remember that God doesn’t live in the temples we build. The temple was always supposed to be a dim reflection of the reality of what’s in heaven; not a place to find God but a place to worship HIm. And our temples (whether physical or organizational) are at best simply reflections of God’s intentions in our world.

But we hold onto our temples with all our might. We get upset when someone dismantles an organizational design we created or changes a beloved strategy. We can’t imagine not “having church” in a building that our predecessors put blood, sweat and tears into.

But what happens when we hang on too tight is that our organizations or buildings become monuments to our own gods; not to the one true God. Paul preached the message about temples in the shadow of one of the most well known Greek Temples of the ancient world.  Maybe the Greek gods were served by human built temples, but the One true God’s temple in Jerusalem wasn’t where God was confined but only a type of the real and a shadow of things to come (read Hebrews).

Do we see our “temples” as the real thing, or simply as a shadow of what is to come? Many of our churches spend 110% plus on maintaining a monument that has become a mausoleum, instead of pouring money into mission and ministry. The church is not brick and mortar, but community, ministry, mission, momentum, and a message. Buildings, flow-charts and strategies can be nice tools to serve ministry, but our mission and ministry must never be servant to the property, the processes or the plans. Those are all simply temples made by human hands, and they can serve their purpose for a while, but if we hold on too tightly, we will not ready for the curtain to be torn and for a new order of things to take place.

Then we’re just religious bureaucrats.

Then we’re simply the party of the pharisees.

Then we’ve deified the temples that our hands have built and will never be ready for the outpouring of the Spirit of God.

This morning I was reading the Bible and noticed that at least 16 times in Exodus 39 and 40 we are told that Moses and the people he led built the tools for worship exactly “as the Lord had commanded Moses”. 

Then in 40:33 we read that “Moses finished the work” when he set up the tabernacle exactly as the Lord had instructed.

Then, “the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle” (vs. 34).

As Christian leaders our constant prayer should be that our lives and miniseries are marked by the Presence of God. I can think of nothing so sad as a pastor or church doing things on their own strength and wisdom, but not functioning with the presence of God.

I think that often we are praying for the manifestation of His presence, and at the same time we are ignoring specific directives God has given us. But I’m convinced that the blessing of God’s presence and glory are most often attached to precise obedience.

This doesn’t mean that every time we obey God we are going to revel in a tangible sense of His glory; most of us know seasons—sometimes years—of obedience that was attended by silence. These are the times we learn to trust God.

And it doesn’t mean that just because God’s presence seems to show up somewhere that the people where He shows up are doing everything right; we might be calling something God that isn’t Him, or He may very well be “showing up” preparing to unleash his power in judgement.

I’m not always looking for the cloud, or the pillar of fire, or the weight of His glory that does’t let me enter the tent. But I am constantly agreeing with Moses in prayer: “If your presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here” (Ex 33:18).

So it’s not that specific obedience always gets us what we are hoping for or expecting, but without obedience even though I can build a system and structure for worship, it will just be another nice tent. I want a life, and a ministry marked by God’s presence, not my nice structure or system.

So then I went on to read Psalm 15. “Lord, who may dwell in Your sacred tent; who may live on Your holy mountain?”

And the Psalm goes on to tell us what kind of person is invited into that privilege: Someone who doesn’t speak slanderously, who is honest, who keeps his word, who walks uprightly, who cares for the poor….

What this isn’t giving us is a list of requirements we have to follow if we want to be saved. On this end of the revelation of the Good News, we realize that Jesus paid the price for that. But I am keenly aware that having the deposit of the Spirit to be redeemed after I die is different than living a circumscribed life that strives towards specific obedience to God’s call on me right now.

The Israelites had been saved and delivered from bondage and “baptized” through the red sea, but they still needed to be led by the presence of God into the promised land. In the same way, I’ve been saved and delivered from slavery, but I want to discover His promise for my life as well as a sense of His presence in my life. I think the best way for that to happen is to throw myself into an obedient response to grow into the person He has given me strength to be and has revealed in Scripture that He calls me to be.

This week, today is my Sabbath.

Because of the nature of my life right now, Sabbath happens on different days, but I’m aiming for a consistent Monday. I’ve found that an expected day provides  a sense of stability for my family, and it ensures that I actually honor the day.

I think one of the reasons God proclaimed a specific day for Sabbath, and specific scheduled times for the celebrations was that if He had just said, “make sure you take a day a week, and a couple of weeks a year, to stop”, the Israelites would have been like us and not ever gotten around to making it happen. And not stopping would have killed them…just like it’s killing us!

The commands are given because God loves us. Including the command to stop.

Recently I was asked by a friend, “What gives you joy?” He wanted to know what it was that filled my tank, or what I would do regularly to provide the reserve I needed for the work I did. I think this is part of what Sabbath is about—a time to fill our tanks and not deplete them.

So I considered that, and came up with eight things that fill me with high octane fuel. These are kinds of things that you can find me doing a lot of on my once a week Sabbath, and that I try to do at least a little of once a day:

1. Worshiping: Praise and prayer must be the key to my day, and my life.

2. Word(ing): Looking for a word from God from the Word of God every day.

3. Walking: Exercise I can do without much thought or prep; good for my body, clears my head, refreshes my soul.

4. Writing: This enlivens me—and it serves others; it expresses a gift that needs to be let out for my own health, even if nobody is reading.

5. Wrestling: I love reading and tackling big concepts and then bantering with others about them; wrestling until I come away with something solid.

6. Waiting: Weekly Sabbath must be a regular part of my life. Spending a day when I’m not “in charge of the world”; spending a real day away from email, cell phone calls, and expectations to get something done; then simply loving my God, my family, and my friends.

7. Wandering: As an introvert, I have a deep need to just drive somewhere, walk around, visit a bookstore or coffee shop, watch a movie, or read some brain candy—all without any expectation of significant social interaction (unless it’s with family or close friends).

8. Wondering: If I’m not dreaming about the future, I may be breathing but I’m already dead.

What are the things that give you energy? When do you pull away from the world to recharge your life with your Lord?

Often when we approach a new leadership assignment, we want to make a big splash fast. We reason that if we can quickly make some significant contributions—a few noticeable wins—we can build equity, which can be used as a resource for future challenging decisions.

But that course of action may actually backfire.

Though we may have been given a leadership post to contribute to the greater good, trying to make that impact too soon can create confusion if we don’t really know the thing to which we are contributing. We may think we have a win, but if we are not aware of the unintended consequences of our actions, what we think of as a “W” can really be an “L”.

The other challenge with creating quick wins is that you may see it that way, but the rest of the team does not. Unlike sports, where keeping score is clear and simple, knowing when you are getting ahead in organizational leadership requires that you understand how your decisions and actions are perceived in a particular culture.

In other words, if the culture is broken, and there is a lack of clarity, our contribution may not be the victory we think it is.

One of the marks of a great leader is great patience when it’s necessary. And moving towards a point where our contribution will be more than a temporary gain may require two prerequisite intentional steps.

1. Clarity: We might have a very clear picture of what it is we want to see and why we want to see it, but if our teams are not on the same page, they might think we are taking steps backwards while we think we are zooming ahead. Ultimately even if we are “right” and they are “wrong” it won’t matter, because our ability to lead and make an impact will be severely compromised by those who don’t understand what we are attempting.

Much has been written about clarity as a leadership mandate, and in my opinion there is no way to overestimate how important this is. When your whole team is genuinely on the same page (not we just think they are clear) about what they are working to do, why they are doing it, and how they are planning to get there, you have taken your first step towards making an important contribution.

2. Culture: When there is organizational clarity and everyone understands (even if they don’t necessarily agree with) what is going on, you can then start to build or repair a culture of health. Unhealthy cultures are shaped in unnecessary ambiguity (there is always necessary ambiguity, by the way) and unmet expectations. Healthy culture is built when everyone knows the score, knows how to score, and knows the strategy and values that are being agreed upon as the game is being played.

3. Contribution: Finally you are ready to contribute. It may seem like a silly progression to have to walk through, so here is a silly analogy to go along with it:

If you stepped onto a field where everyone thought they were playing soccer, but you understood that it’s an american football team you are supposed to be coaching, you couldn’t just tell people to start making touchdowns. Even if they did it, they wouldn’t feel like they were winning at all and would become discouraged.

• First there needs to be clarity regarding what is supposed to happen (as well as why and how)…

• Then there needs to be a team culture built around accomplishing the agreed upon goals…

• After that the contributions can be and will be celebrated for the good things that they are.

It may require patience, but the long term wins will be much more effective than a couple of short term ones could ever be.

Matthew 14 includes the story of the frightening storm that was intimidating seasoned sailors. These fishermen thought this was the big one. They were going down.

But here comes Jesus, walking on the water. This confused the disciples, of course, and they had to be assured He wasn’t a ghost. Peter makes an interesting decision; “if you aren’t a ghost, tell me to walk out to you”!

Well Jesus says “come”, and Peter walks out on the water in the middle of the storm.

I wonder how often I’ve encountered a storm and feel like I am done for? Never mind walking through it, I just hope to make it through alive. But here the difference between Peter and the other disciples is the level of expectation. Peter asks for a word from Jesus. In essence he’s saying “Lord, if you really have this under control, talk to me and I’ll trust you more than I trust what I am experiencing”.

Are you facing a storm? You may understand that Jesus is there, but you are not hearing him speak. He can, with a word, calm the storm, but sometimes He talks us through it before it calms down.

But we have to hear His voice.

And He is talking. If we open up the Bible to read and open up our hearts to hear, I’m convinced we can and will perceive what Jesus is saying to us. I’ve found in the midst of a difficult time a word from God gives me the strength to walk on top of the tumultuous water instead of being sucked in by it.

If you are facing a storm–if you feel like you are about to go under–can I encourage you to ask Jesus to speak to you so you can face it without fear?

January 1, 2012

2011 is over and 2012 is here; we now have a fresh 366 days ahead of us (yup, it’s a leap year). Here are a few things I’m going to be focusing on this year. These aren’t resolutions, but more like personal targets that will contribute to my health and growth. Maybe these will encourage you to come up with some of your own targets; or you might even want to try some of the following:

1. Live in the moment: Over the last few years, I’ve spent more and more time distracted from what I’m doing. Frankly, much of that has to do with technology. It used to be, when I spent time with people, I was giving them my undivided attention; when I was working I’d be giving it all I had; even when watching a movie or game, my entire focus would be on that.

But I’ve noticed that I, and many around me, are mostly only half there—even when just taking a walk or watching a mindless show, we don’t fully enjoy it, because we are trying to do more, think about more, or handle a few more things at a time. I want to focus on living in the moment and fully embracing the life that is before me.

2. Stop multitasking: That is the “part 2″ of the first target. We multitask because we think we will get more done, but the truth is, at least for me, multitasking doesn’t work that well anyways. There have been studies that show our brain capacity actually diminishes when we continuously multitask. It will be challenging, but I’lll attempt to trade doing it all at once (and doing it poorly) with working on one thing at a time (but doing it as well as possible).

3. Rule my email, don’t let it rule me: This is one of my biggest multitasking culprits. I often check and respond to email all day long, even though I know better. I feel like if I don’t do this, I’ll never catch up with the constant barrage coming in. But on those rare times when I can’t access my email all day because of meetings, and I spend some time at the end of the day reading and responding to my email, I can actually get it done rather quickly.

So for me, this is going to mean setting a schedule to read and respond to email 3 or 4 times a day, and then sticking to it.

4. Enjoy a Sabbath: Enjoying the Sabbath has always been a challenge for me, but I’ve long understood that it can be a key to my health. One day a week turning off my productive mind and turning off all the tools of my work assignment (especially email and my cell phone), reminds me that I am not God, that God is God, and that if He could cease from His important work one day out of seven, I need to embrace His call for me to stop, too. My family, my friends, my work, and my health will benefit.

5. Laugh at myself: I’m going to start looking for an opportunity to laugh at myself every day; I think that keeping a sense of humor is vital to our health and while we should take our God and our faith very seriously, we should never take ourselves too seriously. I can tend to take everything too seriously, though, so I find it helps me loosen up if I can recognize my own absurdity and remind myself that it’s not all about me, and that all the great things I have are a total gift from God anyways!

Finally, my big idea for this year is hearing a word from God out of the Word of God every day. For the next 366 days, I’m looking forward to not only reading the Bible (I use the Life Journal plan) but also to hearing the voice of the Lord tell me something that I can reflect on all day, and look for opportunities to share and act on that one thing.

Those are a few of my targets. How about you? What are some things that you are looking to embrace for your health in 2012?

Christmas fell on a Sunday again this year, and there were more and more churches who decided to “close up shop”.

All of the pastors I know who decided not to gather as a Church on Sunday morning had a full complement of Christmas Eve (and even Christmas Eve-Eve) services that were well planned and executed and that saw many people get saved. Honestly, for some of these large churches, Christmas Eve was almost just as much work as Easter, and by the time they finished their 3rd (or 5th or 6th, etc.) service, there was not much left for Sunday morning.

The thought in not having an extra service was pure: Gift this important day to staff and volunteers who already hadn’t seen their families much leading up to Christmas; more importantly, it was thought, unbelievers don’t want to go to church on Christmas, they want to stay home with their families and friends, too.

I have to admit, though I’m not a fan of ever canceling Sunday morning Church (if Sunday is when you normally meet) I actually encouraged some of my pastor friends in their reasoning about this year’s Sunday services.

But now I think I was wrong.

A few days ago on Christmas Sunday morning, I woke up wanting to go to church. Since our family had attended service together the night before and there was extended family activity all over the house, I quietly slipped out of the house alone (with my wife’s permission) to make the solitary drive to a large church downtown in the city where my in-laws live.

I didn’t know what to expect. I walked into the foyer to find that the service had been moved out there. When I talked to one of the pastors later I discovered that they had figured maybe 50 or 75 people would show up, but by the time I arrived 5 minutes late they had nearly 400 people gathered to worship Jesus and celebrate Christmas.

It was a simple service. One very talented family led worship. A handful of ushers were quickly setting up extra chairs. There was a sound guy, a preacher and a greeter. That was it. Maybe 10 or 15 staff & volunteers. Everyone from 2 weeks old to 100 was together for about 40 minutes in a very simple service. I imagine (and later confirmed) it wasn’t that hard to pull off. The lead pastor wasn’t even there, because he had been heavily involved in the services the night before. It seems that some of the staff and volunteers had taken “shifts” so that either Christmas Eve or Christmas day could be spent with family.

But those are just logistics. What brought me to tears was sitting alone, experiencing Christmas service without any family or friends with me for the first time ever. On one side of me was an older single lady, who was very glad to be there. On my other side was an elderly couple who was there with their kids and grandkids (I gathered that the couple regularly came to church but that the rest of the family did not). As I looked around the room I saw homeless people, disabled folks, couples without kids, immigrants, college students and single parent families.

It struck me how many folks were at Church, alone, on Christmas.

And then I realized how selfish I can be. When declaring that people want to spend time with their families on Christmas day, I never fully grasped how many don’t have families or friends to spend Christmas with. For some of those people, this was the most significant experience on Christmas day that they would have. Singing praise to the Messiah; hearing the message of the gift that came from God; having the chance to receive the Lordship of the King into their lives; connecting with others who were also celebrating.

Christianity is and always has been especially concerned about the lonely, the outcast, and the disenfranchised. Repeatedly we are called on to take care of the orphan, the widow and the alien. And in our culture, Christmas still attracts those who have not yet given their lives to Jesus—one pastor friend of mine who did identical Christmas Eve and Christmas services had 60% attendance Christmas Eve (with one first-time response to Jesus) and 40% on Christmas Day (with 11 first-time responses to Jesus).

What better way to declare the message of the King who was born to temporarily homeless and outcast parents than to intentionally make time and space on this special day for those who are homeless, outcasts, or lonely, and for those who can take the opportunity to bring family members who have not yet met the King.

To host a simple service that takes a couple of hours out of our day so that someone doesn’t have to sit at home alone eating top ramen and watching old Christmas movies on TBS may be a wonderful act of grace that will brighten someone’s day, and that may just open them up to eternal life.

It’s Christmas Eve, 2011, and I’m enjoying watching my city kids play on Grandpa’s 2 acres in the country outside of Eugene.

This is the first year in a long time that we took off for Christmas vacation and didn’t have church responsibilities to distribute before we left. This year there was no Christmas Eve service to plan, no Christmas series to promote, and no Christmas sermons to preach. About four months ago, I accepted an assignment as a Supervisor over about 140 churches. Though I do a lot of preaching in those churches, Christmas, I was wisely told by a former Supervisor, is time for the pastor to preach to his congregation; it’s family time. So, as perhaps it should be, I didn’t have any Christmas preaching duties.

This was, in fact, the first time in about 23 years that I didn’t preach in front of a congregation or youth group about the incarnation.

It was always my favorite time of year; don’t get me wrong, I love Easter and I love the service and sermon that aligns with that special resurrection day! But Christmas is a whole season of celebration that accompanies weeks of anticipation (Advent) along with multiple Sunday’s of proclamation of the gospel message that started with “God in the flesh”.

Jesus came to earth! God pitched His tent among us! The darkness could not overcome it! The cradle led to a cross!

I celebrate with all the churches who are declaring this message loud and clear this weekend. I’m praying for the churches I oversee that God would touch some lost person’s heart in a fresh way at their Christmas Eve or Christmas service. I am excited to hear about the results of the Holy Spirit’s work as pastors proclaim the coming of the Prince of Peace.

But for me, this Christmas is intensely personal, and not also public. It means a lot of introspection, joy, and even some sadness and loss regrading a passionate pastoral expression I’ve manifested for over a couple of decades. Now, I get an opportunity to figure out how to manifest that passion a different way.

But if you are a pastor this year who gets to tell a group—no matter how large or small—about the coming of Jesus and His plan for humanity, I want to encourage you, and tell you that your job tonight is the best one in the world!

Merry Christmas!

“I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you…”

“On hearing it, many of His disciples said, ‘this is a hard teaching, who can accept it?’…From this time many of His disciples turned back and no longer followed Him.”

John 6

The designation “Christian” has become, for some Christians, a pejorative word. Because so much damage has been done in the name of false Christianity, these believers have decided to rebrand themselves simply as Christ-followers. It seems, to them, just a little more clear—because of culture and history, unbelieving folks may have confused notions about what defines a Christian, but it’s fairly simple to picture that a Christ-follower is someone who is walking after Jesus.

But changing words impacts more than branding, it can also shift definitions. When we consider that a disciple is one who follows after Jesus, we have to recognize that it’s just as easy to stop following as it is to follow. Human nature stirs in us the desire to jump on the latest bandwagon, to pick up the latest craze, and to celebrate the team that is in the lead; we follow a strong leader until that leader does or says something we don’t like (at best) or does or says something stupid or abusive (at worst).

Self-determination can be a powerful and a good thing. I’m glad that I can teach my kids to refuse to go along with the crowd when the crowd is heading the wrong way or to say “no” to an authority figure if that person is asking them to do something that isn’t right.

But following Jesus is different. Following Jesus is all or nothing. We can’t decide to follow Jesus when it suits us, and then, like a fickle Facebook friend, unfollow Him when He says or does something we’re not so sure about.

That’s why the term “Christ-follower” has certain implications to me that I’m not ready to embrace. Anyone can decide to follow Jesus—to follow his words, or try to reflect his positive actions towards the poor and broken—but turning back can happen at the drop of a dime, too. When we tell people they don’t have to become Christians to follow Jesus, I wonder if folks get the impression that they can jump on Jesus’ bandwagon like they would get excited about a band, or a politician, or the Green Bay Packers (well, until this week)?

Because copying Jesus (the perfect man) is a pretty decent humanistic idea, but hitching your wagon to Jesus (the perfect God) is impossible to do in the flesh. In fact, the whole story of the Gospel—the good news—hinges on the idea that since people couldn’t just decide to follow God, God became human to die on a cross and raise from the dead so that we could die to ourselves and He could live in and through us in resurrection life and power.

Following Jesus without being regenerated is impossible! I’m convinced that had the Holy Spirit not come, that even Jesus’ disciples, who spent 3 intimate years watching Him, would have fallen apart and Christianity would have only been a footnote in history.

So whether you call yourself a Christian or have adopted the term Christ-follower know that nobody can simply decide to follow Jesus, but they must come to the cross of Christ, die to themselves, and be made alive through the regenerating and life-sustaining power of the Holy Spirit.

In other words, being a Jesus-fan is one thing; being a sold-out, all in, no turning back believer is something altogether different!

My wife and I have a Starbucks mug collection that’s very special to us. We built the collection over years as we have moved and traveled and ministered all over the country and the world. In each place we’ve lived, in many places we’ve served, and in select locations where we have been impacted, we have picked up a coffee mug that bears the name of the city that has so touched our lives. Some mornings I feel like remembering Portland. Other times I want to reminisce about New York. Los Angeles, of course, is a favorite. And if anyone knows if there is a Fresno mug, we’d sure like to get our hands on one.

This morning Deborah poured her coffee into our Seattle mug! The pictures of the Pink Elephant Car Wash, the Space Needle, and Pike Place Market brought back fond memories of our first church plant (and our bi-vocation as Starbucks partners). More than the organization we started in Seattle, our thoughts turned to the people we partnered with.

It was a crazy time. It’s not a good idea to plant a church without a team, and I’d never suggest anyone try to do it the way we did. Deborah and our friend Amy Goosen and I moved from Fresno to Seattle—not knowing anybody, and not knowing the city—and we “hung our shingle” and started a church! Through some very generous Foursquare pastors and some sovereign encounters, we ended up with a core team of about 15 to 20 people in the next few months.

And none of us knew what we were dong. We just wanted to glorify Jesus and reach lost people.

After 2 years, we were meeting in a nightclub on Sunday mornings with no kids ministry space, no parking, and we had to clean up cigarette butts and hypodermic needles before service.

You’ve heard this story before: it’s the stuff of sermons and seminars and best-selling books. A small group of clueless but committed people start to meet in a challenging place and before they know it, God does a work and the church grows to thousands of people.

Except in our case that explosive growth never happened.

We did everything we could think of to minister Jesus’ life in our context, but after 2 years, our biggest service was about 40 folks in their late teens and 20′s. Despite all our best efforts and a wonderful and deeply committed core leadership team, we could never get the plane off the ground.

When the Lord called Deborah and I to Newberg Oregon to pastor the Forusquare Church there, it felt a little bit like a rescue operation. We loved the vision and the team in Seattle, but we just couldn’t give another ounce of spiritual, emotional or physical effort.

There is a saying in sports that when you give your best effort—regardless of the outcome—you have “left it all out on the field”. There is no holding back, there is not second-guessing, you don’t go home thinking you could have tried harder. You may not have had a perfect game; you may have made some boneheaded mistakes, but you know you couldn’t have done any more.

And that’s a great feeling.

We had gone to Seattle to plant a church that would bring Jesus glory, and we left it all out on the field. I know we were young and did some things that were counterproductive and worked with some wrong assumptions and philosophy and even made decisions that I would not let a young church planter get away with in my district today. But never in my life have I ever wondered if we could have tried harder. Never have I wondered what could have happened had our team been more committed. I will go to my grave satisfied that we obeyed Jesus to go and we and our team gave our whole hearts and our total effort.

And it’s been a great feeling!

I can still point to the scars that were created in that season, but I’ve never had an ounce of regret over any of it.

I want to encourage you today, whatever it is that God has called you to, give it all you’ve got. Don’t hesitate or equivocate; don’t pull your punches or hedge your bets; pull out all the stops (look that last phrase up…it’s got a great music reference).

Because at the end of the day—in the dusk of your life—you want to look back at both your successes and your failures without regrets, and the only way I know how to do that is to throw yourself fully into whatever you are doing with as much integrity and passion and energy that you can.

And then when you drink from the mug that reminds you of that season, you can enjoy your coffee, remember your life, remember your friends, smile about the life that you shared, and look with joy on both the triumphant successes and the glorious failures that came as a result of obedience to the Lord.