Category: Ministry

Church is not a feel good place

This is something that I have touched on in the past before.   But it seems that I’m seeing, reading, and hearing of people falling into the idea that church should be a “feel good place” – they would never admit to it, they would probably not even be really aware of it.  Church should be a place of growth in God, and more times than not it seems God will use other people to cause that growth in us, that can be through a number of different ways.  Sometimes it’s simply someone who is very irritating to you, other times it’s a leader who just doesn’t quit say things very nicely.  Other times it’s God putting us in leadership and then being burnt by the leadership team.

When we commit to be in leadership, to make a church our home, or anytime we say Yes to something, we must make our yes be yes – even when disagreements, annoyances, and simple fleshly crap comes up.  This doesn’t mean we become door mats to the people around us – absolutely not.  Our no must be no as well, but we must communicate fully, and if God is giving people different visions, it’s ok – we have free will, exercise it, but do it in grace remember we are all human, even the Church leaders.

Collosians 3:12-15 [nlt]

12 Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. 13 Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. 14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. 15And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful.

GOD IS THE FEEL GOOD PLACE – Not the Church, the Church is simply the medium God uses to bring us to him, and many times it doesn’t feel good, and many times it does.  Christ is the head of the Church, not any human – remember that, and we have full access to him.  When we love him and truly love others as we do ourselves and him, then we begin to feel Good – even if it tortures us to look at people as God does.

A good kind of daily torture…

I have been doing a lot of reading lately, I’m reading my second Don Miller book – “Searching for God knows what” – and a lot of things on the Internet in the same thread as the social justice movement in and out of the church, and those kinds of things.

So now when I ride the train each day I am moved to look at people the way God does – and it humbles me, and tortures me daily.  I’m tortured by the fact that when you think about how God must love the people around you, and you hear, and see how other people treat them, all you can do is begin to imagine how God feels for us.  His love is torturing me, everyday.  I’m okay with this.

I’ve been praying for God to give me his eyes for those around me, and now I see it everyday – and it’s my heart that sees people more clearly each day.  Now I want the words, praying is great, but an encounter with God is better.

Being misunderstood…

Being misunderstood is one of the most frustrating things for me, especially between people that I sincerely love.  Sometimes I feel like a politician, where I have to explain everything, in every way possible so that no one will be offended.  Paul said some pretty harsh things, and we today read it knowing his heart, but our culture sure seems to have trouble when another brother or sister tries to express things similarly, all of a sudden we then become someone else, not the person they know in person… I’m not even sure what I’m trying to say here, I guess I’m just venting…  

But God just reminded me that it isn’t a reflection on me, it’s simply the filters that each person’s life puts on words.  Even when we know a person, and we’ve seen them work in love, our filters can twist words around – the enemy uses our past to mess with our viewpoints.  Instead of automatically assuming someone is doing something or saying something in love it comes out instead as religious, legalistic, or any number of other assumptions.

Those that know me personally, know how I am in person, read what I say, as just that, as the Travis you know.    I don’t hold anyone to any kind of measure, nor any kind of performance scale – I may be disappointed, I may be trying to express my desire for more, but I completely understand the real life situations of others – which is exactly why we have to be free to express ourselves, even disappointments – otherwise how else can we let true love for each other work if we always have to be concerned that we might offend someone – we gotta be able to speak freely at times, as long as the foundation is in love.  Otherwise without love it means nothing and the enemy will steal and destroy.

Some much needed rest

Well with the imminent inclement weather on its way I’ll be enjoying a nice weekend with zero plans.  This is much needed as I have found myself feeling a bit frazzled and not motivated to spend time with other people.  A nice quiet house sounds nice, but I also want to get some things done and get some shopping finished too.  One day at a time, we just might get marooned at home for all I know!  Blessings, merry Christmas, and happy new year.

We’re officially kicking off our long term fund raisingin January, so that’s one BIG project I’m trying to get together.  We’re aiming for 100 people to give $30.35 per month until we leave (September 2010) or 200 people giving $15.29.  I think it’s very doable!  Start praying and we’ll let you know more after the New Year!

Priority creed

Knowing my priorities in life has been the number one prevention of stress in life, that is when I actually stick to my priorities.  My number one priority is my relationship with God – this means I make a point to be disciplined in knowing God and letting God know me.  The second priority is with my wife – when my relationship with God is right it helps me be the Godly husband that flows out of a right relationship with God.  My third priority is to my family as a whole – when Alexis and I are right, our household is right, and together we can minister with compassion, love, and righteousness to others.  From there flows everything else, ministry (missions, young adults, small group, etc), friends, work, etc.

Yet what does a priority look like?  How do I actually live these out as priorities?  The most tangible way for us has been to actually schedule each priority out.  I take my relationship with God and put Him on my calendar first – for me that looks like studying His word (so I put it on my calendar to do this each morning), being on a worship team (this is personally my number one way of connecting intimately with God), and making my daily decisions prayerfully.  Then the rest of our calendar is filled based on our stated priorities, in order, and one does not supercede the other, nor do other random things that seem to fly at us from all corners.

And in other news this is my 1,001st post since November of 2002 – neat!

Trip debrief – finally

So I’m finally able to relax a bit, nothing is planned for tonight and I’ve done enough thinking and processing about our trip that I can finally put most of it into words.  In general I feel good about it, we spent significant time with people, creating new relationships, building up our existing ones, and ministering to our closest friends there.  Overall this was the most exhausting trip for Alexis and I, due to the fact that on most days we got up at 6am and didn’t get to bed until around 10pm.  We were getting up so early because we had about a 45 minute commute (via Bus and Tram) to the language school, which was from 9:30 to 2pm each day.  While we were in school the rest of our team tried to meet up with people (not very successfully), prayed for the city and churches, and explored possible future neighborhoods for us.

Speaking of language school, now that we’ve taken nearly a week break, we know we need to get back to studying – and hopefully, God providing, taking private lessons from the director of the Polish school here in Portland.  The course was very intensive and at times frustrating, however, I think we learned the concepts and with some review, and diligence on our part, God will help us get the fundamentals in our head.

Over the course of our first week we came up against some not so explainable health issues, on the first day Alexis got sick to her stomach on the tram to school, so much so she felt she was going to faint, instead she threw up.  Unfortunately the only thing she had to throw up into was Emma’s blanket, the rest of our fellow tram passengers didn’t offer much help, either because they didn’t know how, or the language barrier froze them, or both.  Eitherway I found myself a bit upset that no one offered any help – all I could do was pray, so that’s what I did.  By the time we were at the school Alexis felt better – one of the most stressful moments of my life I think!

Then on Tuesday (I think) Charis got sick (our friend who came to help watch Emma while we were in school) and threw up all night long.  After some prayer with her home-stay host she was able to sleep in, Aris and Brandon took over Emma duty that day at school and by the afternoon Charis joined us.  By then we knew something wasn’t quite right, because there wasn’t really anyway to explain these mysterious sicknesses.  The saga continues with me getting a very strange cramping in my stomach all day Thursday, Brandon getting a nasty head-cold also on Thursday, me having cramps again on Saturday, Aris with a migraine, and when Corey and Jenise joined us on Saturday, Corey got pretty sick around their second day as well.  Through prayer and endurance we didn’t miss what God called us to do, learn the language and build relationships.

In spite of all the sickness thrown at us, and some communication mishaps, God confirmed over and over and through multiple people that the Polish people, our friends, and those that we hardly know, are encouraged, excited, and ready to have more people in Kraków to work in God’s kingdom.  Our commitment to learn the language in advance of our move has spoken volumes to the Poles – and over and over we heard “the single biggest sign that God is calling you here is that he has opened the door for you to learn Polish and you are doing it” – many other missionaries in times past have not taken this important step.  Not to compare ourselves, but to contrast the difference in preparation that we feel God is very specifically asking us to do.

Enough of me blabbering – Brandon has some great photos up on facebook, below are the public links (you don’t need Facebook to see them).

 

Kraków

Frankfurt

Nowy Targ

Poland Day 5

Poland Day 2

Poland Day 1

Being real

A while back I wrote about how much I loathe the fund raising process, the ups and downs, the stress, and everything else that goes along with something based on faith.  Still, I have a philosophy about my Christian walk that I believe is important, and it’s being real.  While it may have a whiny tone, it may be jaded at times, I find it freeing to express myself (without slandering, hurting, or otherwise giving bad connotations about others), my doubts, my concerns, my opinions, and in this I find blessing from God.  I find that my relationship is something based communication and love, not just “knowledge”, pat answers, and “should haves”.

I believe too that because of this, this creates a relationship with God that I feel is real.  I am always aware of his voice, because I’m always telling him things, and hearing back how (at times) rediculous I am in my rantings.  Yet, it’s always a fatherly kind of thing (and sometimes motherly, in fact).

So what’s the result of all this?  Amazing trust, and a God who never fails to build my faith in Him.  Over the past 24 hours we have recieved four donations to our trip (which we leave on Saturday for) totaling, get this, $1,950!  I know it’s because I keep putting my faith where it belongs, even though my mind doubts, God knows our weaknesses, and He knows our stregnths, and he works in both!  Amen?  YES.

Polska w Portland

This Saturday Alexis and I (and I think some friends) will be at the Portland Polish Festival, this will be our first time there.  I’ve heard about every year and every year something has always trumped it, but this year, it’s a go!  Woot!  Can’t wait!  Then the following Saturday we’ll be flying out to Kraków!  

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about our trip, and both Alexis and I are very excited, to see our friends, see what God has in store for us and them, and most of all to be in our second home.

We’re still in need of fund raising close to $3,000 (at last official count), so be praying for that.

Running away… not a choice.

I know we’ve all had those times in ministry, leadership, family, with friends, etc, that we just want to run away from.  You know, the relational crap that makes you sick to your stomach?  While I don’t have any relationships that are in dire straights, I do have some crucial conversations on my horizon.  

What is messing with me the most is that I’m sure I communicated some things one way, very specifically to prevent the mess that has happened, but what the people in question heard was exactly the opposite of what I wanted to communicate.  I even clarified the conversations… So this seems like a case of remembering what you want to hear… or something.

So I sit here, unable to sleep, because relationships are the most important things in life, and while no one hates me, I can see where relationship growth has been hindered.  It grieves me, and all I want to do is drive far, far, away, not because it would help anything, but maybe my mind would be put at ease…  maybe.