As of the last time I checked, I’m still alive

I’ve been on a blogging hiatus, or at least that’s what I’ll call it in retrospect. Mostly I’ve been tired and my brain hasn’t been functioning on a high enough level to share my thoughts with the world.

What has been encouraging is that there are still people who come to read stuff here. Not a tonne of people, but people nonetheless. That’s cool, thanks.

It seems that most of you are here for church planting stuff, more specifically Church Planting Sucks. While this thing is still more for my benefit than yours, I’ll try to write a little bit more about that.  If I can throw a little bit of hope out I’ll be more than happy to.

So, soon, something silly to get my feet back under me and back to the grind

The employer that shall remain nameless

So as I’ve mentioned before, I work for a large, multi-national coffee company that shall remain nameless. I know that they are a huge and potentially evil monolith, coating the world with sub-standard coffee products. I get it. I also get that I’ve got kids to feed. If you want to talk about how much better that little shop on the corner is and how awful its been since my employer came to town, go ahead, I’m not going to argue. But they don’t pay my mortgage.

I knew when it came time to plant our church that I would have to find another job. Altogether, I’ve spent almost ten years in the restaurant business, so I was able to put together a decent resume. I knew I wanted to be in management, because table or bar service by itself bores me now, and I knew I didn’t want to be working until 3am. That left my current employer or someplace where all the menu items start with Mc and a guys got to have some standards, right?

I’ve experienced few conversations more awkward than this one with an overdressed person judging my resume:

“So your last title was minister of urban outreach. What exactly does a minister of urban outreach do?”

“ummm… I ministered … to urban …. people… and did … out, er, reached out”

I realized then that I never wanted to have another job that I can’t explain to a two year old. I do two things. I make coffee and I talk about Jesus. I could make my job description more complicated than that if I wanted to feel important, but really, those are the two things I need to get right.

Really, any job is as simple as you want to make it. Even when you work for the company that shall remain nameless.

Listening to: My wife playing scramble on facebook

Preach it, brother

I preach. I like it.

There’s a certain peace and freedom that comes when you’re doing the thing that you were made to do. I don’t know if I’m any good at preaching. I know I’ve got a lot to learn, but I think I was made to do it.

Now, before I get letters, I don’t think that preaching is the most important thing or that preaching itself will change lives or that preaching has to be done wearing a tie or behind a pulpit or anything else. I just like it.

You can listen here or you can find it on itunes.

To warn you, some of them are terrible, listen at your own risk

52 books #5: The Living Church – John Stott

The Living Church – John Stott

I hope to grow up to be John Stott. Not that I could approach his level of scholarship or wisdom, but I hope that when I move into my ninth decade on the planet (should I make it that long or the Lord tarry, although I’m nowhere near as sure about my eschatology as I used to be, but that’s a whole other post), my mind will still be engaged with what is going on around me and that I will still be doing my small part in accomplishing the mission of God. I had the privilege of meeting Eddie Gibbs this past fall and was deeply inspired to grow into that kind of man of God. It wasn’t that long ago that I was working at a truck stop in Saskatchewan and I said to my new wife that I didn’t want to turn into an angry, cranky, old person.

“You should probably start now, eh.”

Stott declares early in the book that the marks of a church that is living and vital are learning, caring, worshipping, and evangelizing. He then goes on to discuss these in greater detail. Stott’s bias is that these marks are born into a church that is deeply engaged in listening to God through the Bible, and his bias is that strong biblical preaching is essential for this listening to take place. As a pastor and someone who invested his undergrad in Biblical Studies, this is my bias as well. I don’t believe that this biblical preaching must be tied to to the sermon act as we conventionally understand it, but the importance of the Bible cannot be understated.

I’m one of a group of Christians who could be called “emerging” and while that word seems to mean less and less all the time and the conversation has become sort of boring for me (at what point do we stop being the emerging church, and just start being the church?), I’m part of the generation for whom Stott is writing this book. He asks us to maintain our zeal for reform and change and transformation in the image of Christ rather than to cultural norms, while at the same time maintaining our connection to the roots and fellowship in the community of the saints as we seek to bring the good news to a new and old world. In the conclusion he makes and appeal for a new generation of Timothys:

“Some Christians fight the good fight of faith. They are great warriors for truth. But they do not pursue goodness, let alone gentleness.

“Others are good and gentle, but have no comparable concern to fight for truth.

“Yet others neglect both doctrine and ethics, and concentrate on their quest for religious experience.

“Why must we always polarize? All three of these are God’s purpose for us. Oh, for balanced Christians!” (p. 149-150)

I pray that for me it would be so.