Ordinary?

I've been encouraging several friends to start blogs lately which brought me back to my long since neglected blog.  As I've read back over posts from many years ago, I've found it interesting that in many cases I'm thinking and processing through very similar ideas which brings me to today's musings. If I've been thinking these things for so long and have more thoughts that might be of interest to others, why haven I shared more? 

Perhaps it simply wasn't yet the time for me to share?  Likely part of the answer, but I've also bounced between complacency and questioning God when he was putting things on my heart to share.  I was choosing to be ORDINARY.

Ordinary at first doesn't sound so bad. In fact as I've talked with God about various stories from my journey, I've used that as my excuse - "there's nothing special there," I would say, "I'm just ordinary." I thought it really made sense so didn't engage much more in the conversation. When I would listen a bit to His response, I was challenged by questions like "Do you really think that no one else has a path similar to yours?" or "Do you not relate to the stories of other people's journeys?" and so forth. Still, I was comfortable with believing I was ordinary and to be honest a bit fearful of how what "sharing ordinary" would look like or require.

I was comfortable at least until last fall when one of my pastors, Andi Andrew, announced the start of the She Is Free movement. She challenged the women of our church to search and find the things that were keeping us from truly experiencing freedom.  The night she asked us to write down what we needed freedom from, I couldn't come up with much more than surface topics/situations that were consuming my thoughts, but I knew there had to be something deeper and I wanted to find it.  I couldn't explain it, but I knew this movement was something I was called to invest in and that started with investing in myself.  This was a start of a journey to freedom, a freedom which would ultimately empower me step out in obedience to the things God has been and is placing on my heart.

As I've thought about starting to document this journey, I've struggled with describing what was at the core of what was holding me back... What was my key phrase?  How should I fill in the following blank:

"I'm thankful for Freedom from _____________________."  

In the last few weeks I've really been thinking about being ordinary and questioning if it was a truth or a lie.  One of the books I've been reading off and on for some time now is John Bevere's, Extraordinary, where he discusses that as people in relationship with God we're empowered to be extraordinary.  As I read the concept resonates with me, stirs that fire in the pit of my stomach and quite frankly just makes sense.  So how can I be "ordinary" if God calls me to be extraordinary?  As I continued to wrestle with these thoughts, I thought it would be good to see how dictionary.com defines ordinary, as I skimmed the page the following definitions jumped off the page:

"1. of no special quality or interest; commonplace; unexceptional: One novel is brilliant, the other is decidedly ordinary; an ordinary person. 2. plain or undistinguished: ordinary clothes. 3. somewhat inferior or below average; mediocre. 4. customary; usual; normal: We plan to do the ordinary things this weekend."

I was disgusted with myself for ever declaring myself ordinary and even more so for telling God I was ordinary when He was telling me He has greater purposes for me. As I read these definitions today, I can wholeheartedly say - that's not me at all. Even when I was using my "ordinariness" as an excuse for complacency, I would have told you I was a leader, a good friend, a follower of Jesus, smart, and many more things which do not agree with the definitions above. However, somewhere along the way, I had decided that as a whole I was "customary or usual" and had allowed myself to believe that was OK. In recent months, God has reminded me of the many times when people in the Bible didn't see the potential in themselves that He saw in them (Moses, Esther, Nehemiah, and David to name a few) and how He will use us in spite of ourselves - that is if we agree to make ourselves available to Him. As I've stepped out of complacency and really paid attention to what God is saying, what he's convicting me of withholding, where He's leading me next; I've faced many lies I was believing about myself and allowed the truths I knew in my head to penetrate to the deepest crevices of my heart. So, yes more stories from my journey will come as I'm able to articulate and prompted to share, but today I conclude with my personal declaration of freedom:

"I'm thankful for Freedom from being ordinary."

"Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.  Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect."  Romans 12:2 (NLT)

Passionate following

So, as have many of my fellow native New Orleaninas, I've been living on cloud 9 this year. The Saints' best season ever, yes I'm in day 10 of wearing black and gold and plan on carrying it right through next Sunday. I bought plane tickets months ago to be in New Orleans with the rest of the who dats should the Saints make it to the big dance. They did it, but to the who dat nation, we did it. We've traveled through seasons of adversity, devastation to our city, and kept on cheering and this love affair between our city, we the fans and our team. Sure the media is beginning to pick up on this a little bit now, but the diehard love for this team is not new because they're in the super bowl, its been a life long love for most of us. Wearing black & gold to a game was never an option, more like how much can you wear at one time. I think my sister and I would both list Saints 1st play-off game tickets as one of the best Christmas presents ever. So yes, we're part of a passionate following and we're thrilled to watch our boys fly off to Miami and will be among the thousands waiting to welcome them home. Our call sign "Who Dat?" even becoming subject of threatened law suit - and the fans rally and fight for our identity - true signs of a group of passionate followers.

As I think about passionate following, I also think of our call as Christians, to passionately follow Christ. That's what His call was to the disciples, drop everything and follow me. I believe God created us to need one another, to get energy from others that are passionately following Him and then that passion would attract other people. Isn't this what the church is supposed to be? A group of people bonded together by our passionate need to follow God?

I think about my life today, my co-workers will quickly tell you I'm a Saints fan, kind of hard not to if you see the signage in my office. Could they say the same of my following of Christ? I think they know I do church, but don't have the confidence that my allegiance to Christ is as apparent as to my football team. I'm not ashamed of my following of the team, but do contemplate how to match my outward passion for God without being obnoxious...

Back to the being called to be among people. As I've been a part of several churches over the last 15 years since leaving home and searching for a church home on my own, I can identify the times when I am connected with people who desire to know God more as the most fulfilling and challenging (in a good way) times of my faith journey. My current group is a great group of deeper thinkers. As I think about the corporate church with we worship, I find that I am not completely in agreement with some leadership choices, yet I'm tied to this small group of great people who really want to dig deeper and know what God is saying to us while sharing life with one anther. Our current path is to investigate what the Bible says about leaders in a church. We were most recently challenged to look at ourselves and see if we're doing the things that God calls leaders to do. Even if we're not currently serving as leaders its important for us to be doing the same things we expect of our leaders as far as spiritual disciplines and such are concerned. I've been reading the cost of discipleship off and on for the last year or so. So this discussion has prompted me to pick this back up. Yet another couple of calls to passionate following and really thinking about how my actions affect the spiritual journey of others.

After having been a part of a house church that had leaders that had been through seminary, but were also doing other things, I've given much thought over the last 8 years to the role of professional ministers, the need for complex church, is pure exegetical scripture reading enough or is there legitimate value in commentaries and books interpreting scriptures. As I've read Acts 2, it seems to describe people gathering and worshiping God while taking care of one another is church. Yet, when I tried to host a such church on top of work, school, etc I was exhausted. In the last year I've simply attended worship and been part of a small group. My service has been in the form of bringing snacks to group occasionally or helping to staff special events and I find myself not feeling fulfilled. So where's the balance between exhaustion and needing to serve more?

I was talking to a new friend yesterday who has been church hunting for years, he articulated the challenge in finding a church in a way I had never heard before yet it resounded with me. Its so hard to find the balance of the intellectual and emotional. Some denominations and mega churches seem to play on the emotional and in some cases take church to the point of being an exercise in entertainment, yet other denominations are all about the letter of the law and in some cases making up more rules because there weren't enough already in the Bible. Still other denominations make things very complicated. There's the range of pastors with little to no formal training to Bible College degrees to PhD Seminarians. In this discussion the thought of relying solely on personal interpretation of scripture to using books on the subject came up. In support of a blend, he suggested why wouldn't we read books on scripture to gain further understanding when we do the same for political documents like the Constitution? This made me think a little more on the subject - in deed if by talking about scripture helps us to ask questions, gain perspective, defend our beliefs, then why not use the books to do the same - introduce new ideas to contrast with that of our own - introduce a 3rd party to our conversations or give us another perspective to think about in our individual times. I immediately thought of the Brian McLaren "New Kind of Christian" trilogy I read early on in my simple church journey. I didn't completely agree with everything presented in the books, but boy did they spur some great conversations among our church. My current group is looking at 2 Blackaby studies for our times together over the next few months. I think they can offer the same, I just hope to keep in perspective that just because we read it in black and white, it doesn't mean we can't challenge the thoughts presented and talk through them just as we would if they were presented by another group member. For now I think that's my greatest challenge when using books written about scripture is the tendancy to take written words as truth rather than another opinion. I think the nice balance of intellectual and emotional for me would be a church with a pastor who breaks down scripture based on his study of the word and its application to life, a dynamic spirit-filled musicial worship experience, and a small group that digs down into the word, discusses it, and "takes care" of one another - yet not being focused on the programming or production of it all. Does it exist?

So, this has turned into quite the long post, so back to the concept of passionate following. I hope to renew my desire to read things related to God and scripture with the same fervor, I've read updates on the Saints. As a church, I hope we can come to a point of passionately defending our identity as Christians and defend our right to talk to God, share our love for Him with the same passion that we Who Dats are defending "Who Dat?"

reflections from a heavy heart

It was a good Sunday, worked out, did some errands, and was putting away some clothes before calling it a night and the phone rang - it was mom's ring - the normal one, but I had this odd feeling as I answered it - its not like she doesn't ever call a little before 10 - it would have only been 9 there - but I did have that fleeting thought. Answer the phone and got the normal what are doing told her and then comes the sombering moment - I have something you won't want to hear, but you do want to hear - "Mr Jim died in a plane crash this afternoon." Definitely the last words I would have expected to hear her say. Mr. Jim was one of those people who would come up in our conversations from time to time and I don't really remember the last time I actually saw him in person, yet he was still the kind of person you always knew was there if you needed him. Their current pastor really captures his spirit in his blog entry last night (http://michaelcarney.blogspot.com/).
When I was a little girl though, he did have a huge impact on my life, again always there, always smiling, and greeting you with a big hug. As my family and I have digested the news of his fateful plane ride yesterday, memory after memory that our families have shared have surfaced. My dad's most recent take on it was "its still sinking in - he was about as friendly loving person as I've ever known." The first time we really hung out, another friend had invited them to a New Year's Eve party at our house, Mr Jim parked on the curb because he wasn't going to stay long - I think the story goes that they left at 3am and thus was the first of many New Year's Eves at our house and Superbowls at their house. Then there were all of those special in between events - too many Saints games to count, who knows how many shared meals, general conversations, passing waves on the sidewalks at church, and one thing held true - Mr Jim always made me feel special. On hearing that he's gone, I do have comfort in knowing He loved Jesus and is with him now, but my heart breaks for Mrs. Adele, Jay, and Jay's family. This was honestly a life cut short and the world is now less one amazing, good God-loving man.

Crisis - mulling over some common topics

I was sitting at church last night and was able to experience church leaders yielding to a call from God to change direction from planned activities to freely follow God. What resulted was an extended time of praying and music worship while encouraging everyone to meet God and ask him what we needed to release to him. For a period, some gathered in the room took time speaking those things that most burdened them. As I listened to the cries of the heart of other to God, many mentioned family members who don't know God, there was also mention of being blessed even though jobs and houses are being lost (or could be soon), and the US having so much compared to other parts of the world. As I reflected on these pleas and confessions to God and thanked Him for this opportunity to be still and meet Him, I found myself tying this experience to many things I've thought and read in recent months.

Forgive me if this entry doesn't have the best flow, I'm trying to get these thoughts out of my head. The statement of America having so much really resonated with me, and brought my thoughts directly to 2 other topics. First, I thought wow, you know that's a hard concept to really think about and believe when every time I turn on the TV news in the morning, click on cnn.com, or listen to radio new brief I'm greeted by the new $ amount on an economic stimulus package, how much closer we are to the times of the Great Depression, a new record of foreclosures & housing price dips, and top it all off with a list of companies that filing for bankruptcy. So, I think, how did this, "the greatest country in the world" get to this point, which brought me to the thought of a statement a friend of mine has made several time over the past several years, "The responsibility of sins of one generation can be passed on to subsequent generations" - she but usually brings it up in reference to the racial turmoil we face and responsibility that modern generations have for the wrongs our ancestors, but I digress and am going to apply this sentiment in a slightly different way.

I know these aren't new thoughts and other Christ followers have probably discussed this for countless hours, but how do we bring brouader attention to the spiritual side of the crisis that our country and world faces. Why is it that we as a country will turn to prayer when we're in military conflicts, or when terrorists kill thousands of innocent people, but when our economic infrastructure is cumbling - where' s the call to unite and call to God for the wisdom to correct our actions? I'm not hearing it in the same volumes that I heard the calls to pray after 911 or seeing the masses of reminders as the yellow ribbons reminding us to pray for our troops in the early 90's. The reason, I think is probably multi-fold, but partly that we tend to put God in a box, as a society that is, God automatically comes to mind when we feel out of control, are fearful, need comfort, and/ or are hurting emotionally/physically. So why not when it comes to our money, well I think we think we can fix it or that our elected officials can fix it. We're really good at throwing money at situations and we think we understand money, so its in the bounds of things we can handle. Its this attitude that for years we as a society have begun to worship money and if there's one thing that I think we see over and over again in the Bible, its that when people start worshipping something other than God that family, tribe, country gets brought to its knees. So, why aren't we realizing this, we stumbling to our knees, but we keep trying to fix the situation ourselves. I'm not saying that we need to irresponsibly ignore our financial crisis, and I absolutely adcovate smarter spending and abondoning practices that take advantage of people and loop holes. I think we need to acknowledge God and ask Him for mercy.

Goldilocks, Dorothy, and church hunting

So, its been almost 2 months in my grand church hunt. As, I begin to summarize my options in discusison with friends, I begin to feel like I'm recounting familiar childhood stories. As I first started the grand search I attended worship with church communities fairly close to home and my debriefs after those visits could be confused with Goldilocks' visit to the 3 bears home. I found my self saying - it was just too big, the music just wasn't quite right, it was too small, and so on and so forth. I didn't like that those were my sentiments, but couldn't get past them either. So, then I ventured out a little further from home to some church families with whom friends are acquainted. These visits have given a much better idea of leading to my new church family, more like Dorothy traveiling throught OZ finally to realize there's no place like home. The 2 churches I'm feeling most connected to are ones that I had been previously connected with in some way. One I was actually a part of previously and seems to be floating to the top, it really seems like people care I'm there. The church and I have both changed a lot in our time apart, but it seems like real growth. They're really investing in a specific community and seeing some moving results. The other church has several friends as part of it and also works to reach out. I'm down to figuring out which has a small group structure that calls to me more. I think the new year will surely reveal a church with which I can connect.

Changing Course

A little over 10 years ago, I came to spend a summer in Maryland to help out a new church, well as most of you know that lead to me moving to Maryland almost 9.5 years ago to be a part of that church. My faith journey since then has been about being part of church plants in Maryland. Its been a great time of learning more about God, myself, people, and all the relationships that connect them. There have been joys greater than I could have imagined as well as defining struggles and sorrows. Its definitely been a wild ride and one that has left me with friends who will forever be part of my journey.

No, I'm not leaving Maryland, considered that a few years ago, but I'm confident that this is where I still need to be. So the change in course... seeking a new church. This is somewhat uncharted territory for me, sure I hunted for a church when I went to college, but I remained connected to and loved by the church I grew up in. So for the first time in my life I find myself without a church. So, yes a scary and exciting time ahead as I seek the people with whom God is calling me to build community, serve along side, and grow closer to Him.

This is also a sad time, tonight marked the last gathering of the last remaining house church from the network of house churches some dear friends and I started a little over 6 years ago. It was totally God though, all of the remaining 5 of us have been sensing for a variety of reasons that we were no longer really being church and that we should pursue other church communities. So, a night that had you asked me how it would of go, I would have thought of many tears and complete sadness. Though it was a somber discussion and departure, there was also a sense of peace and unity, a much needed confirmation from God that it was time to end.

We still have a few discussions to have with those who have supported over the years as well as among ourselves concerning the logistics to "officially disband," so those will happen over the coming weeks.

For now I'm thankful for the opportunity to have been part of a simple authentic church for this long and for the courage, honesty, and faithfulness of this group of friends to realize we were no longer being church, so the time has come to move on to the next phase of our faith journeys.

Perspective

I finished reading "The Shack" a few weeks ago and it has left me pondering many things - God's love and our perspective clouding our relationship with God and others being 2 of the big topics.

I don't think I can address the Love topic here without giving away more of the book than I probably should, so I'll save that for conversations with others who have read the book.

As for perspective, probably a bit of minor topic in the book, but one that life events have brought it to the forefront of my thoughts. The Shack suggests that the main character has some struggles because of his perceived reality. So if we all have a perceived reality, then what happens when our perceptions aren't in line with others sharing our reality?

I was talking with some friends tonight about a joint adventure of which 40% of us have one perspective and 60% have another. These perspectives greatly affect the direction of our adventure and are not complementary perspectives. I know our general rules of groups say the 60% rule, but how do you manage the disappointment of the 40%? (No I'm not talking about the upcoming election, but the same questions probably apply to our nation for that case - possibly with a less obvious majority)

Theses differing perspectives have been emerging for some time, but were failed to be confronted or shared in an attempt to spare one another's feelings... the result a whole lot of awkwardness and anxiety over confronting the need to embark on different adventures

So, can communication in relationships keep the difference in our perceived realities to a minimum?