Day 87 - the difference between vacation and holiday!

Day 87 and Holy Week has started. We have 2 guys in Haiti (what an incredible way to engage with Holy Week); we have 27 people rehearsing every night this week - nightly reenactments of Good Friday; we have some staff camped out with 350 young people trying to bring the Kingdom of God to Fresno ...... and I'm at Carmel by the Sea!!
It's becoming a Holy Week tradition - prepare to preach Easter services with family somewhere nice and away from Reedley (it seems to also
involve golf courses!)

You might call it vacation - but the British call it holiday. Much greater than vacation (which seems very similar to 'vacant') it is "holy" day.
Makes you rethink holy.
There is something sacred about bring with family, resting, recharging and preparing by reading, reflecting and rethinking.

I guess Easter weekend will tell if it's been vacation or holiday!

But for me it's my intentional follow for the next few days.

Day 86 - death.

Day 86 and its Sunday evening and I've just found out my favorite TV series The Amazing Race has been going on for 6 weeks and I've been missing it!!!
Aargh!
I could have seen Rusty (my old friend) and me doing it ....would be a blast. Can also see my friends Tod & Traci doing this someday. And maybe .....one day when I'm old I could do it as father and son and have show these young pups up!
So today the competitors are in the Seychelles - yep 50% of the couples couldn't pronounce it yet alone know where these fabulous islands are!!! Classic Americans!! Duh!!!

Been doing a lot of reading on death these days. Partly getting ready for Easter weekend preaching, partly for a funeral and memorial service I need to lead.
Death.

I was greatly encouraged to read C S Lewis' reflections on death written not long after his second wife died of cancer.
For years I've viewed death with anger and hatred. Other pastors I know talk about death as simply a shadow (quoting Ps 23) or the way to the better life ....but for me I'd always viewed death as the enemy.
Lewis confirmed my theology (see ....I truly am orthodox!)
Lewis raged against it.
False comforters with quaint words - made him angry.
Death is not natural ....it is an invader into what God made.

This makes Easter all the more profound.
So ......on Day 86 I had my theology confirmed and I had my heart inspired and energized to focus this week on listening to the Holy Spirit as I get ready to preach resurrection and victory over the enemy death next Saturday and Sunday.
Going to be a great week being stirred by God to preach the incredible truth of Christ and his victory!!!

Day 85 and what I learned from a missed flight!

Day 85 and you may think I've been quiet because I've been on my United flight to Minneapolis and back.
The last you heard from me (Day 82 blog) was that a United operator was now talking to me and you would assume he was fixing it!
Not so.
After 3 hours on the phone, United could not get me another flight to MN ....even although they did get two of my colleagues.
But then .....it was only a flight and a meeting!

So I slept in my own bed the last 2 nights .....and ....what I thought were two extra days, became two really busy days. here were two days I was going to be gone and I had set my work for such, but I found multiple things to do in those two days.
How does that happen?

......and as I thought about that I spent tonight reading a chapter a leaders group is discussion tomorrow over breakfast: "The Seduction of Success"

Boom - there's my answer to why two extra days became two busy days!

Like so many leaders, much of my identity is tied up to not resting but being busy on the next
project, the next initiative, the next thing. The subtlety of how the idol of success grabs you. Keller calls it an "achievement addict."

To some degrees I have this.
I try to justify it as the next project is for the kingdom of god, the extending of the Gospel, the Church. But when you scratch where it itches - sometimes its more to do with my own sense of achievement than the greater cause.

So, my intentional follow of Jesus day 85 - learn from what my change of plans for Days 83 and 84 have revealed of my own heart and work it through to a healthier place.

Day 82 - intentional following on a phone!

Day 82 and at this very minute United Airlines are not my favorite company. Been on hold for 1 hour 10 minutes on one phone and 19 minutes on my other phone, and their website is not helping me. Seems they have cancelled my flight for tomorrow, but they won't answer their phones to let me rebook!
Don't you love automated answering machines!

So ....as I wait on both phones, how's my intentional following of Jesus going?

Patience ...that's a fruit of the Spirit. Being tested and beginning to crumble.
Kindness ...that's a fruit of the Spirit. Nope, that one is going as well.
Gentleness ..another fruit of the Spirit. And as I rehearse what I'm going to say to the operator when he or she finally answers me ....gentleness is slipping badly!!

Help!!

I mean, when placed alongside the important and big things of life, this is minor.
Today, I sat with a new widow planning her husbands funeral; I emailed a friend about a Muslim who I can't contact for fear of his life; I heard from a friend who is going for unexpected surgery next week.......to this add, world poverty, AIDS, and world peace ....but I'm losing it waiting a phone call being answered.

Help!

Why do I become so engrossed in my own tiny world so easily?

Help!

And here's the recent update .......one of my phones reached a United operator and after they didn't want to help me - they hung up!!!

But still.....the world is spinning and why do I let my own little spinning world make the bigger spinning world spin more!

Surely intentional following of Jesus is resting in Him and not spinning.
Surely intentional following is not losing it over cancelled flights.
Whatever it might be.......it must involve letting the big things be big and the little things be what they are little.

Now talking to nice United agent.......but hey its a little thing anyway!!

Day 81 - waiting another flight.

Day 81 and I'm sitting at the huge glass front of Seattle Tacoma International Airport watching a beautiful sunset. Spent the day with a pastor and his staff talking about how to reach people with the Gospel.
It's amazing how many times the same issues surface. A few stubborn untheological members restrict the Kingdom of God.

Why does God restrict himself to the church.
If it was me I'd bypass it. The job of saving the world is too important to leave to Christians.

Now I agree. There nothing like the local church when the local church is working right.
But when it's not working right - yuck!!

I guess however He can quit on us.
Think Revelation 2 & 3 and is there any church today in Smyrna or Ephesus, or.....
He can and does snuff out the candlestick!!

So today was all about pushing on and getting things working right.
Intentional follow of Jesus ..... encourage them not to quit, not to see all the dark days. But keep on as this generation and the next are counting on us - as is God!!!

It's a long flight home (thankfully there's free beer on Horizon flights!)
Another flight Wednesday - all worth it

Day 80 - skubalon!

Day 80 and no, this is not meant to be an 'every second day' blog. It's daily ....hopefully!

Today is Sunday.
Preach day.
Second last preach in the series called Holy Hilarity (check it out): http://www.redeemerschurch.com/dlgMediaPlayer.aspx?id=880

Skubalon.

There's something about preaching just one word.

My grandfather did this brilliantly. He could read the text (in Greek), pick out one word, and then for 50 minutes preach that one word - without a single note! Brilliant.

Skubalon.

Unsure if he ever preached this word. Normally he preached words of complexity, words of intrigue. This word is as near a profanity in the Bible as you can get. But Paul uses it very deliberately.
He uses it to shock us, to wake us up, to get our attention.
He uses it to help us see how magnificent God's salvation is.
And his salvation is Jesus.

Read Philippians 3.
It's Jesus, only Jesus, all Jesus.

Everything else is skubalon!

That's Paul's point.

And that's the point you have to get.

Intentional follow of Jesus #80 ......only Jesus. Nothing else.

Sweet!

Worship!!

Day 78 - parking lot spirituality

Day 78, yep sorry still a little sporadic. Next week will be better.

Been reading today about John Knox. A Scottish hero.
He was the leader of the Scottish protestant movement. an ex-catholic priest. He witnessed the death of George Wishart (burned at the stake in St Andrews). But rather than run away he returned to Scotland to lead the protestant movement and risked also being martyred.
After an incredible ministry he passed away and was buried.
Here's the thing. Today, if you want to see his burial spot ...its parking space #23 in a government parking lot.
That's all you'll find of Knox!

But then - that's all Knox would have wanted!

Everything I counted gain I view now as rubbish ....wrote the Apostle Paul.
Knox's burial spot becoming a parking space .....holds to Paul's epitaph.

Intentional follow of Jesus - refuse any acclaim, seek no title, make sure you've got no designated parking place...unless its a basic number built on top of your grave!

Day 76 Who is Jesus?

Day 76 and the first night of another Alpha Course, which is the 16th Alpha Course to date.
I love teaching the Alpha Course, and I love this first talk.
In some ways this is strange. In fact, one guy tonight talked to me about this.
I am centrally a postmodern in my thinking. Linear, logical and evidential teaching is not how my mind thinks. It doesn't mean I can't think this way, but its not how it best operates. In fact, some of he writers I admire would question the effectiveness of an Alpha type apologetic.
But, 16 times in doing this, and I have as much energy for this round of talks as earlier.
Every time, I get energized (inspired) to give what are clearly 'modern' style talks.

Tonight "Who Is Jesus?"

CS Lewis nails it. You can't believe Jesus was a good man or even a good teacher but not God - Jesus did not leave this route open to us. In saying he was a good teacher you are saying that the things he said and taught were good. But he taught he was more than a man. Therefore, you have to say he was/is who he said he was, or else he was a lunatic, mad man or an evil imposter.

It's such a cutting talk.
It forces you off of a fence, or to really re-examine what you think about Jesus.

It might be linear, it might be evidential - but it forces the most postmodern of seekers to take a real serious look at who He is.

As for me, my Alpha talk #1 2010 pushed me yet again to remain loyal and steadfast in my belief that Jesus Christ truly is God Incarnate. Day 76 was a day of worship.

Day 74 - Lent, a jetlagged way to keep following!

Day 74
A quick 12,000 miles, 8 time zones and sadly no air-miles all within four days.....just a regular weekend!
Add in our Guatemalan church planter preaching at Redeemer's Church; receiving an email from our Kenyan partners while I was in Scotland, and the flatness of our globe is only even more reinforced.
We, like several churches, are trying to hold tightly the global baton that 21st century churches have been handed.
I even spent time tonight Skyping ........a brilliant global communication technology (although it was with my wife who at the time was upstairs!!.....but you can use it to reach around the globe!).

Day 74's intentional following of Jesus:

I kept to my Lenten fast of no soda.

With 12,000 miles in four days, that's about all my jet-lagged brain could muster up.
But it was something.
Thank God for Lent.
Thank God for a simple way to keep following Jesus when you're knackered!

Day 70 and more jetlag, again.

I'm sorry folks I missed days 68 and 69! Flying to the UK for my mother-in-laws funeral service. This makes it Day 70.
This might happen again folks - so asking for grace in advance.
One reason - do you know San Francisco International Airport don't have free wifi!! And I'm Scottish and not paying for it.

Now at my brothers and using his for free!!

Travel is not as glamorous and people tell you. Lots of waiting, lots of strangers, lots of public restrooms, lots of hurrying between Gates.

I hear stories of incredible pastors who sit next to strangers on airplanes and by the time they land in Cincinnati the pastor has led someone to faith in Christ - often involving a napkin drawing!
But for me - the strangers on the flights I take - want their space, want their silence and the last thing they want is some nutter talking to them while they fly red-eye to London!

So ....possibly I'm a failure.

However, I did walk the corridors of SFO from 6.30 to 7.00 on Wednesday evening praying out loud for our Alpha launch taking place in Reedley. People did look at me oddly. But, God answered and people are returning next week to begin some new steps in their faith journey.

Flying, strangers, planes.

It is a very surreal world. You read your seat screen and discover that you are flying at 590mph, 39,000 feet in the air and it is -74F outside. But as you read that all you hear is a low hum and everything is silent. The most surreal moment ...when you begin to descend and you enter a fluffy bank of brilliant white clouds...and you have to then totally trust that the pilot and his equipment are sure there is somewhere down there we are heading to.

Its an analogy of so many churches - they are flying along at a crazy pace above the clouds and somewhere beneath them, where you cant' see, there is a real world below.

Healthy churches crash through the clouds. Everything is about bringing heaven to earth, not heaven staying up there. but when you crash through the clouds - you have to trust there is something down there were you can land.

More to write ....but gotta go.
Think about it some more. Just now Redeemer's Church is thinking about crashing through another cloud bank to land our plane on a new runway. This is faith. It has to be faith.

Day 67 - puff, its vanished!

Day 67 ...unsure how to write this day.
It just went.
Vanished.
Finished.
Yet, everything that happened was of the 'major' category.
The funeral service of Reedley Police Officer Behar, killed in the line of duty. Thousands attend a memorial service.
Major event #1.

Lunch meeting with a Christian leader who has started to belong at Redeemer's Church and two hours talking vision and some next steps we are considering.
Major moment #2.

Recording of Alpha Launch talk for Wednesday night (I fly home with my wife to attend her mother's funeral). Many people expected to attend and many of our church have gone out on an invitational risk.
Major event, major recording #3.

Three major things.

But its nearly 8pm .....and the day simply vanished, despite the major-ness of all that happened today.

Did I do everything knowing it would vanish, but that each part of it was loaded with eternal impact?
Do I live with an eternal perspective?
I need to.
Can you live fast and still live eternal?

Beginning to work on a talk entitled "Bowing down to the idol of busyness."
Ouch!

Sabbath .....God's invention (or gift) for fast live-rs who need to make sure we remain connected to an eternal perspective.

I think I'm learning this. I take deliberate steps to slow down on Sat & Sun. In fact I can slow down to the point that my Monday morning room is ........painful.

So ...my intentional follow of Jesus today?

A struggling, painful Monday morning run - confirming I did indeed have a sabbath, and my fastness today was still OK.

Day 66 - Sunday

Day 66
Sunday.
A truth so much bigger than yourself.
A community much bigger than yourself.
A Jesus so much bigger.

Philippians 2:6-11 WOW a christocentric profound hymn.

Makes Christian radio............... yep lets not go there in this blog about intentionally following Jesus - swearing not allowed!

Jesus:
Did not considered equality with God something to be grasped.

WOW.

You've just got to soak that one line in.
Here's the one person who could grab it - officially.
But he didn't.

I would have.

I mean it would of have been legal, even godly - according to most of today's preaching. It's just living up to who you are; its your destiny; be the real you; be who God made you to be!

The Gospel I often preach would have legalised grabbing your heritage.

But I guess I've been getting the Gospel slightly wrong, slightly off balance.

Jesus didn't grab it.
He made himself nothing.

Much to learn, much to copy, much to re-preach

Sunday, Day 66 - good day.

Day 65 - friends.

Day 65 saw us hang with friends as we coped with Carolyn's mum's passing.
That's an intentional follow.
Real simple - God made us to be community. It's some core theology. God - three but one; marriage - two but one; life - one but many.
Do life with others - friends, or even better Christian brothers and sisters.

Thanks brothers and sisters.

Day 64 - surreal.

Day 64 - and the day we received the sad news that Carolyn's mother quickly passed away. To make matters worse, Carolyn had just been home visiting her mother and was flying back to the US from Scotland as I received the news. It was left to me to break the news to her when she landed in Fresno after 28 hours of travel.

It was rather surreal.

Carolyn appeared at arrivals all happy to be home, glad she'd had a good visit with her mother, eager to see the boys joking as to them not being with me to welcome her home, talking about her flight and the fun things that happened on it, even laughing when yet again our luggage did not make the connection from LAX to FAT (yep avoid LAX if you possibly can!).

And while all this is happening I am carrying news she does not want to hear, I do not want to tell her, but most definitely, I was not going to tell her in the lobby of Fresno airport.

Surreal.

Do you enjoy her jokes; do you talk the usual trivia about what's happened in little 'ol Reedley since she left 6 days earlier; do you mention 'hey we had frost this morning!'

I'm standing there knowing the news, but not yet able to share it.

In some ways, in the relatively few minutes this all took until we were alone, I was thinking of Solomon's wise words "there is a time to laugh and a time to cry" - and we were experiencing that all in the space of a few short moments.

Surreal.

To know something, but to live in the tension of it needing to be told, but you can't tell it just yet, and the person you're with has no idea about what they need to know.

For me there was no option, I just had to wait.

But it's got me wondering of how too often I create a tension like that. Got information people
need to know, they don't know they need it but they do, but I don't (not so much can't) share it with them.
Sometimes its the full truth (blog of a few days ago), but often its the amazing essential news of Jesus Christ .....people need to know it, and I have it, but I don't tell them it.

Is that not also surreal?

"Lord, may I never hold the information of you quiet; may you inspire and embolden me to always tell people the news of Jesus Christ."

Day 63 - values are trump.

Day 63 and there's something neat about a really productive day, but there's something ever neater (is that another made up word) of a really productive evening.

Spent the evening working on some papers about values.

During two conversations this week I've been asked if our vision/mission is written down any where.
My answer is slightly surprising to some - especially fellow GHC pastors........

NO, and never will be.

Redeemer's Church is only the sum total of what we do - our values.
Aubrey Malphurs says it this way "You won't do ministry that really matters until you define what matters".

In the real world, everyone will know what your church is about not by a statement written but by seeing what it is you are actually doing, and you do what you value.

I'm not saying that at Redeemer's Church we haven't spent time thinking through our vision, even writing it down in staff and leadership settings, but it is meaningless, if not sinful, if you aren't doing it.

[Excuse me if I seem slightly distracted I am actually watching a really funny episode of The Office as I try to write this ........some distraction before heading to the sack.]

Values.

No matter what you write or say - you are only doing what you're doing!

This is my bottom line,.

So, at Redeemer's we focus on modeling our values, talking about them - formally and informally, we try to make sure our values are actionable ...they can be done, not just said.

I think part of this conviction is driven by the emerging culture where genuineness is core. To some degree vision/mission statements are from modernity - linear thinking. Today's generation do not seek linear paths, they seek authenticity - "are they doing what they say they are supposed to be doing?"

It's a bit like a church name. Do we do inside what the label says outside; are we making false promises; are we misrepresenting ourselves?

So many vision and mission statements do just this. Grand statements that have no bearing on current reality.

If you want to go this way, don't call it a mission or vision statement - call it an "aspiration statement."

Or better ...... don't print one, instead major on values.

Day 62 - a walk in the park!

Day 62 found me trying to "love thy neighbor!"
It was my day for a really fast walk - cross training and catch your breath morning. But I'm pedantic about how I exercise. I always run with my watch; I pace every mile; I know every distance down to the parts of a mile: and I know what I need to do to reach the goals I've set.
Yep - pedantic.
On my cross training walk day (which I reluctantly do but I know is good to do) a slow walk isn't helpful, a medium walk won't cut it either - especially as after my walk I was heading out for breakfast and massive calorie intake - this walk needed to be fast to accomplish what was required according to the schedule.
Only 10 minutes in I bump into a neighbor. A good neighbor; a growing older neighbor; a not so well neighbor AND....a really slow walking neighbour.
I've blown past him multiple times ....filled with guilt later that I haven't taken the time to stop and ask how life is.
Today ...my schedule was tight, real tight, and with the breakfast deal happening later I really needed fast calorie burning pace.

But I slowed.

For the next 20 minutes I walked slowly as he and I shared life, caught up and I listened. Real slowly.

For the first few minutes it hurt ......could I leave him having said hello and crank it back up to the required pace? But my spirit slowed and while a run a day gets me off to a great start with energy and momentum ....this was an even better start to the day.

Yep ...loving your neighbor and loving it going slow.

This was my intentional follow of Jesus.

Day 61 - when truth and kindness merge.

Day 61.
Someone I greatly admire as a leader once said or wrote that "the kindest form of leadership is always the truth."
My intentional follow today was to outwork that.

Why is truth always a more difficult choice?
Not that we go the route of lies - but we most often than not go the route of only 90% truth. We hold back the final 10%.
Often we hold it back because the last 10% we're thinking of isn't really the truth but our opinion of the truth.
Often we hold it back because that final 10% we can't say with grace, only with anger, prejudice or superiority.

But often we hold it back because we think 90% is good enough.

It's not.

90% is not the truth, its part of the truth.
100% (full of grace) is the truth.

What would our relationships look like; how much more authentic; how much more genuine; how much more trusting; how much more loving would they be if we took the better route of truth, not partial truth.

Day 60 House-dad and blogger didn't work.

Day 60 - and I missed it.
I was in charge .....the boys, the house, the cooking -oops something had to go and it was my blogging.
Doesn't mean my intentional following of Jesus went. Not at all.
Here's what I did.
I sent an email that I didn't want to send - but I believe God wanted me to send.
All sounds strange and somewhat cryptic. But I know it was only out of an intentional follow of my Jesus that I wrote and sent it.
So, sorry its a day late, this house-dad stuff isn't easy!