Real Crazy It Churchness

Tonight I realized that I'm reading three different books that all coincidentally cover the same topic, written by people who share a similar perspective:

• Crazy Love, written by Francis Chan--a pastor in southern California and conference speaker
  
• It, written by Craig Groeshcel, pastor of the multi-site church LifeChurch.tv and conference speaker
  
• Real Church, written by author, professor, counselor, and conference speaker Dr. Larry Crabb

I'm not far enough in to any of the books to have a firm sense of what each author is suggesting and/or prescribing. And each of the books comes stamped with the author's unique perspective and style. But even just a few chapters in to each of the books, two striking commonalities emerge:

First, all of the authors came to a point where they were dissatisfied with how church was being done, and are now writing about their journey with God through that.

Second, godly transformation in church always begins with godly transformation in someone's heart.

This gets me wondering:

Is my personal walk with Christ so compelling that if the lost saw it, they would want to follow Him?

To me, that question has four parts:

My personal walk with Christ. Just me and Him. Not my work for him, not my service to him, not my public expressions of worship and obedience. Rather, my experience of his love, my listening to his voice, my bending to his will, all flowing from my transformational spiritual journey with him through the spiritual disciplines and practices.

So compelling. First, I'm talking about living a life with God that is compelling to me. I'm talking about a personal awe at what Christ is doing in me. I'm talking about a healthy and abiding feeling of unworthiness (read: humility) that comes from knowing both the depth of my sin and the depth of God's mercy. I'm talking about a high level of awareness of the personal God's handiwork in the past, present, and even future. When I look at my life with God, is it compelling to me?

Second, I'm talking about a life that is compelling to others. Which leads me to the third phrase:

If the lost saw it. This phrase requires a story. I had a conversation today with a guy who does some contract IT work for our church. He wouldn't describe himself as a Christian, I don't think. If I were to label him, I'd label him as an agnostic. Recently he's started attending occasionally, and serving regularly on our groundskeeping teams. Anyways, we had a chance to talk today for a little bit--the latest in a series of conversations, actually, with each getting a little more personal. I asked him today: "Has this church changed your view at all on who God is?" To which he responded, "Not really." Then he proceeded to share about his view of tolerance, namely, "Who's to say who is right and who is wrong? Believe what you want, and worship however and whoever you choose."

And I thought: "Huh."

And then I thought: "Crap."

I mean, it is a good thing that he feels welcome. It's a good thing for him to feel like he wants to be a part of what is going on in our church. And it's entirely possible that in his spiritual journey, this is the first of many steps--that he needs to belong before he believes. I get that.

But at this point he hasn't seen God through our church, whether in corporate worship or personal conversations, in a such a way that he recognizes God for who he is (and maybe just as importantly, who he is not) and responds to him. And as someone who is responsible for planning and executing every single service, even the ones that my friend has attended, that is just plain haunting.

Maybe you think I'm being too hard on myself, or placing too much responsibility on myself, my team, and my church for this guy's (and others) spiritual growth. You might be right. Certainly each person's spiritual journey is unique, and certainly God is the only one who can save. I know this. But the question still remains:

Are lost people seeing in me a compelling picture of a personal and transformational God? If not, how could they possibly see it in what I create?

So that they follow Him. Here's where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. I know it's about disciples and not just conversions. But blah, blah, blah... no more pseudo-theological debates that result in no action. When it comes down to it in this life, I have to ask myself: for how many people has God used me to snatch from the darkness and usher into the Light? How many people see me and say: "You are the one who introduced me to Christ" or "You are the one who guided me into a deeper intimacy with God?" How many? How many are following because of me? How many are walking with God because I was walking with him first?

These are the questions that God is stirring in my heart. It feels like their consideration is long overdue.

leaders are busy

Busy doing good things. Managing conflict. Casting vision. Managing projects and workflow. Training. Having hard conversations. Adjusting, tweaking, evaluating. Hiring. Helping others transition well. Networking. Bridge building. Planning.

Retreating. Traveling. Team building. Conferencing. Budgeting. Purchasing. Proposing. Learning. Reading. Developing. Challenging. Teaching. Coaching. Advising. Counseling.

Of course, such is the life of a leader... at least, the life of a good leader. These are the things a good leader does, and does with excellence.

But my gosh is it a busy life.

Here's what I've noticed in myself over the past two months...

...and let me hit pause before I continue, and just camp on the phrase "the last two months" for a moment here. I've been absolutely deluged during these last 8 weeks. I've been exposed to so much, trusted to execute so much, leaned on so much that I haven't even had space to pause and reflect, much less had the energy to capture my thoughts and be motivated to write about them.

Ok. Unpause. Here's what I've noticed in myself over the past two months:

1. I have more capacity to do more things for a longer period of time without getting burned out.
2. Sometimes #1 is a good thing, and sometimes it is not.
3. I need to learn how to build a team of people that is strong where I am weak, rather than simply try to improve my weaknesses or manage them.
4. I like leading.
5. I am still very much emerging as a leader. A lot is being developed. A lot is rough.
6. The same things that serve me well as a pastor serve me well as a leader. I don't feel like I have to be a different person than who I am. I just feel like I have to keep growing into who I am... if that makes any sort of sense at all.
7. I still need to be led.

Not quite sure what to do with any of that, or even if there is a point. At this juncture, I'm just content to say "I'm new at this," capture these thoughts, and laugh at them by this time next year.