When we start being too impressed by the results of our work, we slowly come to the erroneous conviction that life is one large scoreboard where someone is listing the points to measure our worth.
Henri Nouwen
We celebrate our 101st episode and give Johnny a new nickname in this week’s episode of the GPS podcast.
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The title of this post is a short phrase I used as a “tagline” for this blog for several years. It was a subtle reminder to myself and to any reader that the goal of my writing was not to provide the final or last word on any particular subject, but to instead spark further reflection and conversation for myself and the reader.
I still believe that this is what defines great teaching. It’s an experience that we have, but also an invitation to something more.
I hope and pray is that this is how I live my life, how I teach others, and how I write. And yet 11 years into my work as a pastor and almost seven years into writing for this blog has revealed to me how difficult it is to teach and live in that way.
It’s much easier to share something good than it is to share something great.
What do I mean by good?
Good is when you share a thought that people find meaningful. It lifts them up or makes them feel better about the particular place or season they find themselves in right now. And good is just that… It’s good. It’s needed. It’s necessary.
But again great is something wholly different…
Because great is about movement, it’s about the next step, the future horizon. It’s about beginning a journey to somewhere you have not visited before. This means that the first experience of “great” often isn’t calm, but chaos. It unsettles us. It disrupts us. It creates tension; the kind of tension that is necessary for a new thought can occur, a new understanding to take shape, and a new way of living to take root within us.
What I’m learning is that I sometimes settle for good instead of patiently and persistently chasing after what might be great. Perhaps you catch yourself doing the same.
It’s an unsettling thought, but sometimes that kind of disruption is the first step towards positive and profound change.
I hope that’s what it is for me.
Is God teaching you something great in your life right now?
If so, in what way has God “unsettled” you?
Over the past five years, our church has launched five new worship services to meet the needs of our changing community. When we set this goal, it sounded like an impossible task. Looking back I can’t seem to remember what church was like without these expanded opportunities.
I’ve personally been involved in the leadership of three of these new starts. Each has been a rewarding experience, but what I’ve learned in each of those experiences is that starting a new worship service is a bit like having another child.
If you’ve had a child before, you have a working knowledge of what caring for a new baby will entail.
You’re prepared for the sleepless nights.
You’ve already learned how to put on a fresh diaper.
You’ve already mixed your first bottle of formula.
And yet what you cannot anticipate or fully appreciate before the birth is the unique personality, spirit, and giftedness that your new child will bring.
Starting a new worship service is similar.
You know there will be some singing, some prayer, some preaching, and some sense of flow, but what you cannot appreciate in advance is the unique “personality” that each new service brings. And so many things go into that personality… the space, the time, the audience, the support services like children’s ministry, etc. New services develop a life of their own and each of these factors contribute to the “vibe” of the new opportunity.
I’ve come to believe that understanding this development is critical to the long term success of the service.
Our 5 p.m. service is our most recent addition. Six months into the project we are learning a bit about the “character” of this new worship opportunity, and for those of us who have been a part of it, we’re starting to fall in love with that “character.”
Worshipping at 5 p.m. on Sunday feels dramatically different than our other evening service which is Saturday night at 6 pm. Saturday feels like a great way to start the weekend. Sunday night is a great way to start a new week.
Today, here’s the best way I know how to describe it right now.
Sunday night is an opportunity to hit the “reset” button… to step into a new week fresh and renewed. It’s an opportunity to pause and reflect on the week that has past… to celebrate those things that went well and to let go of those things that went wrong. And in that space to also recommit ourselves again to our sacred call to be a living witness of the love and grace of God in a hurting and broken world.
If you have not had a chance to attend Sunday at 5 yet, I want to encourage you to give it a try. It may not be where you end up worshipping on a consistent basis, but like the other new services we have started, it’s a unique opportunity that we are excited to share with our community.
Several people asked me for a list of the questions that I read at the end of the message this past weekend. I promised I would post them here on the blog. Here they are.
What are you afraid of? What do you find yourself worrying about again and again and again? What is the unintended outcome that you can’t seem to get out of your head? What keeps you up at night?
How do you feel when things don’t go your way? Is it OK for you to make a mistake or does one wrong move seem to send you spinning out of control? Do you expect perfection from yourself or from others? How do you deal with a situation where you find yourself disappointed with yourself or someone else?
What does fear do to you? Do you find yourself trying to speed up to keep pace when you feel afraid? Do you find yourself drawing back into yourself, pulling back from relationships that are important to you? Do you ever feel exhausted from your stress? Do you have an appreciate for the emotional and spiritual damage that fear can cause in your life? Can the people who know you best see that damage? ?
Do you ever feel helpless? Do you ever worry that you’re not good enough? Do you sometimes feel like you are somehow lacking something in your life? That in some ways you don’t measure up to a particular standard? Who sets that standard in your life? It is you, a person who is close to you? Your parent? God? How do you think God feels about you and your life? If you were to picture God’s face, what expression do you see? Is God mad at you? Upset with you? Can you picture God smiling at you?
Do you believe that God loves you, believes in you, hopes for you, and is working in you? Do you believe that God cares about you, about the people that you care about, about the future you have imagined for yourself or those you love?
Do you know what it’s like to be paralyzed by fear? What would it look like to instead be motivated by love?