I just got done doing another workcamp for Group Workcamps Foundation. This is the 7th or 8th year I've done them. I usually MC the evening program and lead worship (they call it song leader). As always it was an incredible time, and has now brought up some stuff again I didn't want to deal with.
Just in case you don't know, basically what happens is about 300-400 students from all around the country come to fix up homes for those who have been forgotten. There is an evening program, put together by the youth ministry "experts" at Group Publishing and Group Workcamps Foundation, that are very experiential, practical, and life-changing. It is such a tightrope when you have Pentecostals and Baptists in the same room and you start making theological statements. The program really ties together what's happening out there on their worksites.
Students and adults are separated into crews of 6 with people they don't know. By the end of the week it's amazing to see them come together.
As always, every time I do these camps, I get this sense on this is what I was wired to do. I am at my best in front of groups teaching and being a communicator. Leading worship in song is also something that God has gifted me with as well (and usually is filled by another person, but there are about 5-6 MC's who do both), and the Spirit does some incredible things while we sing.
Of course, this brings up a lot of things that I really didn't want to deal with right now. Every year I get a couple of job offers from churches, asked to plant churches wherever by staff members, and many comments on how naturally gifted I am at doing what I do.
Tonight at house church I was sharing with my friends, thinking about my current job. Like I've said before, it's not a dull job, but I can't stand sales. I can't stand people only caring about numbers. In business I know that's how things are, and I hate it in churches that much more, but I just can't stand being fake for an extra buck.
Of course that gets me down other places I don't want to go, like big picture stuff, which I don't want to think about...I hate it. It just gets me depressed. There are a lot of things I miss about my former job. The students, the volunteers, the daily grind of doing what I feel I was made to do. Of course there are many parts of I don't miss as well: the politics, members caring only about preservation of the institution, attractional models, being alone in how I think about church.
My wife and I were talking today about all of these things. She thinks that I shouldn't be a lead pastor, but maybe that God is calling us to start something up that is entirely different while being able to stay in GR and at Mars Hill. I don't know what that would be at all.
I've thought about the speaking thing, but that model of conference is pretty much defunct in youth ministry. The people that are making a living at it are the big names at big conferences, otherwise not much is happening that way like it did several years ago.
So I feel blessed to be doing what I'm doing, but I feel stuck thinking that there's something else I'm not seeing, or getting, or whatever. It's these moments where I feel like such a failure in my positions, although I have many testaments to the contrary from students and volunteers over the years.
I'm also noticing that advice I give seems to speak to people. That somehow I can cut to the real heart if issues people are struggling with. I just don't know where that's going.
I've thought about teaching in school, and that requires more education, which requires more money, which we don't have. I'm just trying to get up enough money to do something special for our 10th anniversary next month.
Workcamp has a sense of getting a glimpse of heaven on earth. Coming alongside those who no one else wants to touch, and knowing that these relationships will continue with the local co-sponsor helps me have faith that this isn't a one-time deal.
There are so many stories I could tell, but I'll save it for another post. I guess it just got me thinking about down the road, and that just kills me every time I go there, so I need to leave it somewhere else and get back to the daily grind again.
Alright, I'm going to spend some time with my wife. Grace is with the grandparents this week so we can get some alone time! :)
"Okay, I just watched the clips of Rob at the Seeds of Compassion event. As a follower of Jesus and a member of Mars Hill I must say I am very proud of how Rob spoke beautiful truths in response to those questions. I am blessed to have the privilege to be engaged in those truths each and every time I hear him teach. I am blessed that he has spoken such truth into my life personally and directly. To say that he did not share Christ is absurd! As Christians, aren't we supposed to share Christ with our lives? If all truth is God's truth, then when we speak truth are we not sharing Christ?
As for not sharing the power of the cross, I am in complete disagreement. I have no idea whether he gave a "gospel presentation" off camera, but the words he spoke were indeed the power of the cross! Redemption and forgiveness and resurrection were the issues he spoke on - if that's not the power of the cross, I don't know what is! He did not need to use the specific phrases we are so used to hearing in our churches to share the power of the cross. There are those people who somehow seem to think that the depth of our faith can only be felt and heard with those certain words. How that shortchanges the ability of God to penetrate into the hearts and minds of all people! Rob may have gained more respect from his honest, thoughtful, and poignant responses than if he had done nothing but preach a mini-sermon. He may have lost respect. What if his answers encourage people who wouldn't normally take interest in what Christians had to say to listen to him and be curious about his writings and teachings? From my own personal experience, people who are dis-interested in or turned off by Christians are more than likely to take an interest in Christ from the Christ they see demonstrated in my life, not the the "Christian" words I speak to them."
Some think that because some of these words were not mentioned, the message of the gospel (which could be one of the issues, as that word in itself needs defined) has been "watered-down." If I speak on the power of forgiveness, of death, and resurrection, do you think it would have any possibility of speaking of Christ, and especially the cross?!
I think people come to listen to Rob, or Doug Pagitt, or whoever else you want to label as a heretic, evil, or bad (or you fill in the blank), already come with an agenda to nitpick anything they can find (and will take things out of context quickly) without considering that they can speak some truth. I am always trying to be aware when I take that posture with those whose views I don't totally adhere to (a certain seminary prof comes to mind), but at the same time, I am asking God for the humility to be open to truths that emerge.
If your mind is too shallow to not even consider the person speaking truth, then you are shutting off the Holy Spirit. What are you so afraid of?
I think people like Rob are showing those who don't profess in Jesus that there are Christians who do want to make the world a better place, who in my mind actually put love on display. What powerful words Rob spoke in those few minutes regarding violence in our world. It was a tough question, and he handled it beautifully and spoke with such hope.
So please, for the love of Christ and His Kingdom, please consider this plea to be humble; to acknowledge that God can teach us from anybody, anything, or any circumstance, no matter what our feelings toward them are. We will become more like Christ because of it.