Experiencing the Power of Prayer

Oscar started stuttering during the summer. We figured it had something to do with anticipating a new school year--starting kindergarten. Our basic tactic was to not bring attention to it and see what happened. Once school started, the stuttering got worse. After a couple weeks, though, things seemed to settle down and he was able to find his words again. Oscar has been doing really well academically and socially at school. You can tell he is about to break into the world of reading and he really loves to learn. He's also found a few good friends and seems to get along well with most of the kids at school.

This is why a week or so ago, we became concerned when the loss of words seemed to come back--with a vengeance. It wasn't so much that he was stuttering, but you could tell it was really bothering him. It was almost like he was being oppressed or held down by some weight, which is hard as a parent and especially tough with a kid who is pretty introverted to begin with. Last week, Jenn and I had been talking about some of the things we've seen God doing around us and while I was in Farmington for the worship service, it occurred to her to pray for Oscar. I'm a little embarrassed that this didn't occur to us sooner, but there's not a lot I can do about that! Anyhow, Jenn prayed for Oscar and you could instantly see a difference. It was as if something had been lifted from him. He spoke clearly (even on the phone to tell me what happened) and his entire countenance improved. For the past several days, we've continued to pray with him every morning, asking God to help him find his words and give him the peace he needs to be able to relax in his talking. He still gets caught up sometimes in what he's saying, but the amazing thing to me is the difference in his spirit. He seems more calm and less "turned in" on himself.

The best thing about this for me is the fact that Oscar has always been our thinking kid. The whole concept of God as been a little strange to him and he's always hesitated to pray (in fact, he still doesn't like to pray out loud). I love the fact that God had mercy on us and met the boy in a very real and very tangible way. Whatever Oscar does from here on out in his faith and relationship with God, he will always be able to remember a time when God moved in a big way in his life. It inspires me to seek God out in my own life as well.

Settling Down

Things are starting to settle down a bit for our family. Jenn is getting a rhythm at school and developing relationships with the kids. Oscar just celebrated his sixth birthday (we had a couple kids over and carved pumpkins), and Piper walks around all day saying she loves you to "bits and pieces". I'm even gaining some equilibrium as my mom has offered to take the kids to school M-W-F which gives me a little margin in the morning to do work. It's good to see the kids feeling more secure and Jenn and I are able to communicate more and bring each other down less.

I also bought a car. After ten years of living by the philosophy of, "I'd rather fix it than make a payment" I finally caved and decided I'd rather have a payment than spend my life under a car on the side of the road. I opted for wisdom over ego and ended up with a Mitsubishi Outlander (imagine a minivan and a station wagon having a baby). It's a good car, but by no means what I am used to. I'm realizing that part of my comfort level with driving kids to school and buying groceries has had a lot to do with the fact that I still drove a badass Jeep. Now that that's been stripped away, I'll have to find my identity in something more appropriate.

Church is going great. Last night we had Food Night (can you guess what happens there?). I love just hanging out with our community "on God's time". There is no sermon or program we could launch that could ever legitimize relationship like a food night! Farmington is going well too. We are about to start some small groups out of the main worship that's been happening on Wednesday nights. It's pretty neat to have these guys coming to me saying, "hey, we're ready to start some small groups!"

Family Camp

This weekend Jenn and I took the kids to Moab, UT to go camping. Moab is about three hours away in the red desert of Utah. It is a beautiful place with massive red cliffs and tons of natural arches. It's pretty much the next mecca for mountain biking, off-roading, and river activities after Durango (maybe before Durango depending on who you ask). We had a great time checking out the town and looking for future camping spots. The highlight was our trip through Arches National Park. The place was a mind-bending overload of desert rock scenery. I can't wait to go back.

The Good, The Bad, and now for some Ugly

It's been a few weeks, now, since school has started. The kids are doing well. Oscar is adjusting to kindergarten and Piper loves her preschool. Jenn and I are still struggling with our transitions. The logistics and administration are not going well at her school which is a new program this year. Teacher morale is extremely low and the students are pretty under motivated, to say the least. Add to this the change from being with the kids all day long to only seeing them in the evenings and things begin to get a little muggy. She's handling all this with grace and doing a good job of surviving work and making good use of her time with the kids in the afternoons. It is difficult to watch. I would much rather be going through the stressful stuff myself than have to watch Jenn suffer.

We decided to go this route so that I could continue to pastor our campuses when there is not enough funding to support us. This arrangement allows me to work my office hours around school schedules and not be required to work another job part time. I guess the bottom line is that we've chosen a difficult path. I believe we made a good decision, but it is going to be a tough year.

Day 1: Farmington

Wednesday night we had our first meeting in Farmington, NM. A few of the guys from Durango came and led worship which was cool. We had about sixteen people there which is encouraging after last year when one single person came to our first Durango meeting (and she only came to explain to us how evil the NIV version of the Bible is).

We talked about acceptance, love, and forgiveness. Actually, we talked mostly about acceptance through the eyes of Levi and the notorious sinners who had dinner with Jesus. I think the sixteen people there that night are set to reach out to Farmington with the acceptance that Jesus modeled. We are quite the group of ragamuffins, but I think that's what will make this campus effective.

It will be exciting to see how things develop over the next few months.

A Thought On Scattering Seed...

In our staff meeting this last week, we had an interesting conversation about evangelism. We were talking about different methods of sharing the gospel and complaining about some that we didn't think were very effective. It got me to thinking about Jesus' parable of the seeds. In Jesus' story, a farmer scatters seed in a bunch of different places...thorny soil, rocky soil, the path, and good soil. The parable basically describes the process of sharing God's love and how different people respond to the Message.

This parable has taken on new significance to me recently. I've often become excited about some new way of sharing Christ and equally as animated about evangelism that I don't agree with or like. One of my greatest frustrations has always been with guilt or death motivated evangelism. I can't bear to watch Kirk Cameron brow-beat some poor guy on the street until he agrees that he's scum. Of course, there is truth to Kirk's method--we are scum. We've all sinned and fallen short of God's glory. I believe, however (you may see a pattern in my posts here) that what you win people with is what you win them to. If you spend all your energy convincing someone how horrible they are (as if we need someone to point out where we fall short!), the faith they live out will be one of always looking over their shoulder wondering if their salvation ever really took or if God is going to give up on them because they keep sinning. On the other hand, if you introduce someone to Christ through his love and sacrifice, the next thought on a person's mind is how unworthy they are of that kind of love which leads to the idea of grace. This person will live out their faith with a sense of God's acceptance for them. Seeking forgiveness will become a matter of reconciling relationship as opposed to "settling accounts" with God.

This is where the farmer sowing seeds comes in. In Jesus' story, the farmer seems to be walking around throwing seeds all over the place. Some of it doesn't get off the path, some goes in the thorns, etc. What if the farmer chose a fertile setting, plowed the ground, planted the seeds purposefully, and then irrigated the field? He might experience a more effective harvest. This is not to say that Jesus' farmer was mistaken, lazy, or incompetent. Sharing the message of God's love is a beautiful thing in any form--inspired by love. Too many people never even go as far as the farmer scattering seeds. Fewer people, however, go one step further to purposefully bringing Christ into fertile places, taking the time to build relationships and trust and model the gospel as well as share it. Too many of us are so anxious to seal the deal, we end up throwing seed out that only gets picked up by the birds a minute later. In my opinion, using a Sunday church service as a faith community's primary form of evangelism is scattering seed. How one man speaking for 37 minutes can say what a thousand people need to hear is beyond me. It seems to me that the Christian friends and families of the thousand people would have a better shot at knowing what they need than the one preacher. Of course, being a preacher, I believe there is evangelistic as well as other kinds of profound value to preaching, but is the sermon or the Sunday service, for that matter, the best place to put all our evangelistic energy?

This is a motivating thought to me. I want to be sure I am sowing seed where it will be most effective. I suppose the bad end of this spectrum of thinking would be to "withhold" the gospel from someone we imagine will not be receptive, but I'm not sure that's a good enough argument to not be purposeful in how we go about communicating the great mystery of God's love.

Countdown to Farmington

Next Wednesday, we start our new Farmington, NM campus! I'm pretty excited and everyone seems to be working hard to get things ready. Music is pretty much the only thing we really don't have, but it has been amazing to see some old guitars and keyboards being dug up to give it a try. I absolutely love our Farmington crew. I can see people doing what they are gifted and empowered to do and I can only assume this means God has some big intentions for this new community.

This last Sunday night, we got to commission Melissa and Christine, two of our key leaders in the new campus. It was so fun to pray for them and see the Durango group embrace these new leaders.

World Speed Record For Bad Day

Learning how to be the "stay at home--while working in an office--and driving Hummer tours" Dad is definitely presenting it's challenges. I love the time I spend with the kids. Piper and I, in particular, are getting to hang out a lot in the office--days full of coloring pictures, picnics on the floor, and designing tiaras on the My Little Pony website.

This morning, however, was not fun. I've been having trouble getting Oscar to school by 8am. Today I was stressed out because we didn't have any groceries, so I was sending the boy to school with no lunch (of course I was going to bring him one later). On the way down the hill, we stopped to help our neighbor who was broken down on the side of the road. This set us back a little, but we made our way to Starbucks (did I mention we didn't have any breakfast food either?). With school only a mile away and only two minutes late, I was feeling pretty good about myself. I pulled up in front of the school ready to get on with the day only to find a police car stopped behind me with his lights on. Admittedly, I was driving 30mph in what I thought was a 25mph zone, however, kind officer Murphy informed me that during school hours the limit is 20mph putting me a heinous 10mph over the legal limit. The officer was kind enough to let me walk Oscar to his classroom while he wrote me up.

Needless to say, this took all my emotional energy and coping skills to manage myself--not to mention meriting the all-time speed record for ruining a day before 8am (actually, it says 802am on my ticket)!

What you win them with...

This flyer was stuffed in my front door this morning.

It may not be completely clear in the pictures, but it is a flyer advertising a competition at a local church to win a gameboy. It's not clear if this is for children or anyone, but the idea is that if you show up and do well in the competition, you will win a video game. My favorite part is where it says you get 10 points for wearing church clothes!

I do have a point (besides just thrashing on the flyer). This is what people who equate numbers of attenders with church success call a "growth engine". A growth engine is an event or series of programs designed to get people in the door of a church in hopes of netting new attenders, and therefore, new Christians. I have two problems with growth engines (besides the silly corporate terminology birthed out of businesses trying to sell stuff):

1) "What you win them with is what you win them to" Ironically, I think I got that phrase from the same organization that taught me about growth engines. The idea (in a church context) is that the methods you reach people with are the same things they will look to later for their continued spiritual growth. In this case, people who show up to win a gamebooy with their church clothes (10 points) and their neighbor (30 points) are going to see church as a competition. How do you explain to "Jonny Gameboy" that salvation is a free gift through Jesus and we don't have to accumulate points to win his grace? Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't have the world's largest banana split at Sunday School. All I'm saying is that is not a good evangelism tool.

2) My second problem with this growth engine tactic is that, besides the name of the church (which I tried to black out), you wouldn't know that this is a church event. There is nothing on this flyer indicating the ultimate purpose for getting these kids to show up, which to me, is and underhanded and basically dishonest way of getting people to church. This church, in my opinion, has shown their greatest priority to be getting people to show up, followed closely by illustrating the church as a place to earn points for great prizes, and somewhere after all that (my guess is at the end of the campaign when the kids will get bonus points for bringing their parents to church) Jesus.

This may seem petty and mean to you. You might be thinking that I am a bitter and jealous guy (probably some disgruntled pastor who can't get more than 30 people to show up to his worship services). You might think I'm being a little hard on a church who is just trying to reach out to their community. Well, Jesus' harshest words always seemed to be reserved for church people who's priorities were out of whack, and somehow, Jesus managed to have kids all over him and, as far as I know, never gave away a gameboy in his life. It seems to me that his authentic love for them was somehow attractive--to everyone.

Stuff I See Everyday...

I recently got to snap a bunch of pictures on the trails around here. Enjoy!