upward & inward

A fellow Christ-follower wrote me recently: I don't feel blessed. So many things in my life are not the way I envisioned them. Am I hurt? Angry? Envious? Feeling like God has abandoned me? That I'm not good enough? That I'm not a good enough person? That I'm not blessed? When I became a Christ follower, my life changed for the better. But I fail so often to be the person I think God wants me to be. I've failed so often to do the right thing. I thought I knew that God loves us unconditionally, but I don't think I know that now. I look at all the things I think are wrong with my life and I feel like I'm being punished and that I deserve that. I don't see that my life is much different than others I know who have family, friends, jobs, etc and aren't Christians. So why do I do this "Christian thing"? What am I missing here? Perhaps you've felt the same way - you look around you and see the outside of folks' liv...

Prayer Journal Entry: May 22, 2012. [Please give us] Unity on Council in tonight's meeting - effective, God-honoring! As the Executive Pastor, my role is all-encompassing.  The Senior Pastor was to lead the church and I was to run the church. He is visionary while I'm operational.  He identifies the target on the map - and I get us there.  When I arrived at the church over four years before (2007), my job description was: "If you see it, it's yours."  Which I discovered to mean later: lead everything but the vision, strategy, and the preaching. Not satisfied with that ambiguity, I adapted a more detailed job description and sent it to the Senior Pastor soon after I arrived.  I don't remember ever discussing it in much detail - only following it as I progressed into the job.  However, the key portion of the job description in a time like this is: [The Executive Pastor] ensures that the church's goals, systems, practices, and policies responsibly, st...

Prayer Journal Entry, April 26, 2012: Q & A session today - [may it be] glorifying to You, honoring to the church and Sr. Pastor, unifying to the team. On the previous day, our Senior Pastor announced his resignation to the staff. Shock, tears, stunned silence, and unspoken questions hung in the air as our team tried to grasp what this meant now and in the future. What I realized was that the team needed to be heard and as many of their questions as possible needed to be answered. I scheduled the meeting immediately for the next day - to give folks a chance to think and pray about it before discussing it - so that they would "respond" rather than "react" to the news.  And, as already stated above, this also gave me time to pray. Trying to remain positive and assuring, I reiterated what our Sr. Pastor stated the day before and then asked for questions, comments, or concerns.  They came slow at first, but eventually began streaming in.  I answered the ques...

Entry in Prayer Journal, January 13, 2012: "...that I could lead effectively and honorably during this transition and beyond." This particular entry reflected the challenges of yet another staff member leaving.  But what I didn't realize then, was the prophetic last part of the prayer request: "...and beyond." Two-and-a-half months later, I would begin to understand that God had been preparing me for a greater transition: after 18 years of service, our Senior Pastor would resign.  As the Executive Pastor for our church, my role would both change and remain the same but all the more vital if the church was to weather the storm it faced. This begins what I hope will be a series of blog posts regarding the critical approach and process of successful (and not-so successful) transitions.  I think the first lesson I learned is this: Transitions are inevitable. Like death and taxes, transitions, change, gain, and loss are going to be a large part of our l...

A few months ago, my Uncle Tom Smith passed from this life into the next one - an eternal and everlasting life spent with his "Boss", Jesus Christ. As I prepared my brief observations for that memorial service, I uncovered something unexpected. The Clean Cup. The second paid job I ever had was as the "ice boy" at a local nursing home (that's what they were called back then). Once the ice pitchers were filled, I had the job of feeding the patients and cleaning up before I went home - about 3 hours per evening.  My brief tenure at this home taught me more than I bargained for at 15-16 years of age.  I observed families in good times and bad, struggling relationships, tough decisions, and, of course, dementia. All who had dementia, struggled with it - the patient and the family. But, what I observed most was the different responses to dementia.  Some patients handled it well. Others didn't. Which brings me back to my uncle. Regardless of his battle w...