Category Archives: our purpose

My passion… and my tension

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We spent the weekend with some delightful friends.  We had fun on the beach, swam in the pool, enjoyed a great dinner at one of our favorite Marco places, Snook Inn, and had fun taking some silly sunset pics of each other : )

They made a huge brunch one day, and as we were enjoying it, we got to talking about my blog.  Or maybe more accurately, my passion behind my blog.  A blog is a blog… but the passion behind it?  Well, I’ve got a bit of that. : )  There is something the Christian kingdom desperately needs!  (says every person passionate about something! : ))

Our friend had an insight that was simultaneously helpful and frustrating.  I have all this crazy passion welled up inside of me.   But my challenge is getting it out.  This blog has been totally helpful for me to start to put words to a paradigm shift.  But sometimes I get frustrated – I wish I were farther down the road than I am.  I wish I had more clarity in putting words to my message.  There is the huge thing I think can totally change our worlds, but I really struggle with how to best convey it.  The boiled down version.  The summary.  Pardon the sometimes negative connotation, but the ‘elevator speech,’ if you will.  Putting my passion into concise, meaningful words.

As we were brainstorming a bit, one of the ideas we came up with was to just kind of ‘see if it catches on.’

I’ve had two totally conflicting responses to that.  At times, the advice is peaceful and wise.  Follow where the Lord leads at His pace and enjoy the journey.  Let it catch on as He sees fit.  Yet at other times, I wonder what would have happened if Martin Luther King, Jr., had decided to keep floating the civil rights message out there, and just see if it catches on”!

There is this crazy tension between knowing it’s got to unfold in the Lord’s timing in a way that is receivable and flows with life events.  You certainly can’t overly orchestrate some of the opportunities, like Rosa Parks’ bus boycott.  They’ve just got to unfold and happen.  So there is a helpful, peaceful, wise, chill element of ‘just see if it catches on.’  But there is also an inciting element.  A passion that it *has* to catch on!

But my passion sounds crazy.  It sounds irrelevant.  It sounds detached.  It sounds like it’s for ‘those’ people.  It took me almost a decade of wrestling with the Lord and a good 3 years to accept it.  But in actuality, it happens so crazy often in the church.  It unexpectedly, often unintentionally, and often unknowingly destroys people.  The Enemy has been crazy successful in his deception.  And we’ve got to triumph.

I’d love to help us see it clearly and quickly.  And I think with one small tweak, we can get this right.  But how to put it into words?

My challenge is this: the best way I can describe my passion so far is to eradicate verbal abuse in the Christian kingdom.  These are the best words I have so far.  But they seem so crazy!  And they sound so irrelevant.  Eradicate verbal abuse?  I definitely need words that connect better!  Ones that wouldn’t have taken me 3 years to accept!  One that wouldn’t have taken me 10 years to see!  This verbal abuse stuff is everywhere – especially during election season! : )  It’s insidious and destructive.  And if we can simply better, more palatably recognize it, draw boundaries against it, and focus on the healthy, wise stuff – wouldn’t that be delightful?  Oh I crave such health in the kingdom!  How it would flourish!

I believe it’s what the Christian kingdom desperately needs.  Coming from the perspective of a church ‘insider,’ we spend way too much time, money, energy, resources, meetings, staff time, volunteer time, emotions, and life!, on unnecessary, fabricated, hurtful conflict.  It depletes our energy.  It consumes our resources.  It wastes our tithes.  It impairs our teammates – emotionally, spiritually, and physically.  It distracts us from our mission.  It helps Satan.  Yuck.  And it makes us – and the gospel – unnecessarily unpalatable to unbelievers.  The stakes are huge.  We have got to do this well.

And we can.  We can change all that.  And it actually isn’t that hard.  Or complicated.  And it actually requires less work – not more.  It’s a tiny shift that allows a huge change.  If we simply do less, we will have healthier church cultures, healthier relational dynamics, healthier ‘loving one another,’ and a healthier, more attractive – because it is more biblical, spot-on, gospel-centered! – Christianity.

Do less and have a healthier church culture?  Yes, please.

Devote our energy towards positive things for the kingdom?  Sign me up!

Not help the devil?  Um, yep.  Pretty obvious there.

The stakes seem so obviously worth it.  With a small but significant tweak, we can make that happen.

This is totally my passion… and my tension.

Praying for ideas, resources, insights, feedback. If you’ve got any to toss my way, I’d love your input!

Thanks for journeying with me : )  You are a blessing!

Am I crazy, y’all?

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We enjoyed a great 4th of July!  We took a delightful trip to Nashville, where we got to see great people from both sides of our families.  We ziplined – so fun!, caught up with friends, and enjoyed some delicious farm-to-table restaurants.  It was a granny-slappin’ good time! : )

While we were there, it was hotter than a goat’s butt in a pepper patch.  How funny a phrase is that?  We learned a few others as well as we talked with friends and kinfolk about lots of things… including {double hockey sticks}.  Through those conversations – and with someone newfound phrases! – the Lord was gracious to crystallize a few things:

1.  What we’re fixin’ to do:  Right now, we feel like we’re knee-high to a grasshopper in what the Lord could do with {double hockey sticks}!  If we had our druthers, we would be excited to see several stages.  Down the road, we hope to work on building more of a platform, developing the ministry, prayerfully adding sort of like Board members, and hopefully spreading this goodness!

But for this stage – for where the Lord has us now, for the things He’s unpacking and the message we’re passionate about conveying, for the words we’re trying to find to best explain it, and for the refining, clarifying, and solidifying He’s doing – for this stage, it seems that our purpose is to answer this question:  Am I crazy?

Much of the {double hockey sticks} mindset is different from so many relationships, conversations, and mindsets.  So it seems that either we’re crazy… or it seems that the Lord has a refreshing refining to do in His kingdom, and He’s gracious to let us be a part!  So step 1?  Determine if we are crazy!!

2.      Not everyone will say, “Dern tootin’.”  (Apparently that’s an expression of agreement – who knew?)  The {double hockey sticks} mindset doesn’t seem to be the majority perspective, so some well seasoned people in life seem to have a different perspective.  There have been and will continue to be challenges as we navigate this mindset with those who think we’re crazy!

They may end up being right, but so far, the interactions have proven clarifying.  Every encounter – as we go back to the Word and examine its teaching and consider its application – has strengthened our understanding that the {double hockey sticks} mindset is exactly what the Lord teaches and desires.  We’re grateful for the new levels of understanding, clarity, and commitment those encounters provide… but the rockiness is tough!  For as challenging of a journey as it has been so far, we’d love to be surrounded with supporters.  Some think our dog won’t hunt, but we trust the Lord and His perfect plan, we rely on His firm Word, and we pray for His perfect peace, clarity, and will.  As one of our cousins is so wisely committed to, *Thy* will be done!!

3.      The Lord will sho ’nuff unfold His steps!  It’s tempting to want to skedaddle on down the road and unfold the next steps, but as we’ve been reminded often on this journey, we invite a heap of cattywampus into our lives when talking about conflict.  It’s oh so wise to go at the Lord’s pace!

One of our cousins has had a neat journey as a rising artist in Nashville.  And her parents have the greatest stories about how the journey is the Lord’s.  He unfolds the path.  He unfolds the next steps.  Our job is to rely on Him, trust him, and seek Him.  His job is to light the path.  When our cousin needed a new guitar, they prayed, and the Lord provided.  Their connections have been truly of the Lord.  Their meetings with the right people are because the Lord orchestrated it.  It’s a purdy picture of trust and reliance on the Lord to do His work His way in His time.  I’ll be a monkey’s uncle if it’s because of human effort!  No, it’s because God knows what He’s doing.  We simply trust Him.

4.      Our hankering keeps on growin’!  As we celebrated America with some good ol’ Nashville country artists in their inviting small town big city, I couldn’t help but well up with gratitude and joy for our freedom in America.   I love celebrating freedom!  And I especially love the freedom that the {double hockey sticks} mindset offers!  It’s a tiny tweak that makes such big difference in our freedom and joy as we relate to others.

So that’s where we are and what we’re all about right now.  We are beyond blessed that y’all have chosen to journey with us!