the next chapter

It’s time to let the dog out of the bag: on June 3, my time at Crestview is coming to an end. Crestview is a healthy church with an incredible staff and dedicated ministry partners who have taught me many lessons about what it means to be a pastor. Serving here has been a greater experience than I could have imagined! There aren’t many churches of Crestview’s caliber, so it goes without saying that this decision was many months in the making. And just as I can look back with fondness to what has been, I can also look with eager anticipation towards what will come.

In July, I’m moving to Kansas City to be closer to Lauren. This moment is a long time in coming for us, and I’m excited to prepare for the next step in our relationship! Lauren makes me a better and stronger person with every interaction we have. The chance to live in the same city as her – to be encouraged and edified by her, to serve her, to make new memories with her, to see her grow as a daughter of God – is a profound blessing. From a ministry standpoint, I’m working on a exciting opportunity in KC; I’ll tell you more about it if it works out!

Now that this process is fully in motion, I’ve been able to think about it from a long-term perspective – and the results have been humbling. God has been (pardon the Christian cliche) opening and closing doors for well over six months now. And I can see throughout that time that He has led me to take risks that will (1) prepare me to lead a family one day and (2) channel my passions and align them with my dreams for serving His kingdom. (I will be writing about the latter in much more detail once I finalize my ministry plans.) I have come to a place where I am completely confident that God has control of this whole situation, and I can’t wait to see where He leads!

Thank you for your friendship, wisdom, prayers, and all the other ways in which you have blessed my life. More updates to come!

silo summitting

Crestview’s building campaign is reaching its halfway point, so yesterday we went to our new property to be able to think about how we should celebrate that and encourage people in the church to be faithful in their commitments. It was pretty cool! Every time I go to the property I forget how big 17.25 acres actually is.

My favorite part about this property are the silos. They are the only preexisting structure on the property (although apparently it used to be a part of an airport runway for farmers?). This summer we had Visioneering Studios come out and work with us on designing a master plan for this property. And, what do you know? They found a way to incorporate the silos into the master plan!

As we roamed around the property, I walked up to one of the silos, and it was so cool inside. There are vines covering the outside of the structure and a tree growing inside it; there was even a fire pit people had used somewhat recently. Then I looked up, and the ladder to the top was in great condition, so I climbed it!

Do you see me? The views up there were pretty sweet (I could see Manhattan hill)! This was a fun way to spend my Monday morning at work.

worship leading dyslexia

Hello! I am blogging again. My awesome girlfriend, Lauren, suggested I start back up again, so I am going to try and see what happens. She reminded me that not every post has to be earth-shattering, or even spiritual in nature, and I appreciated that, because it means I don’t have to shoot for the moon every time I write. So I am going to write about whatever I feel like, and I hope that you read it because you’re my friend and I want to share these things with you, not because I want attention. (If you dislike run-on sentences, I may have lost you by now.)

Anyway, let’s start out this post by posting a picture of Lauren, just in case you haven’t seen her yet. (I don’t think I’ve mentioned her on the blog yet!) Before I post this picture, a disclaimer: please alert someone near you to make sure you don’t pass out after seeing the picture. She is really beautiful!

Are you still there? Good! Now, back to the topic at hand: worship leading dyslexia. I find that I have a mild, non-clinical problem with being dyslexic many times in life; however, the highest incidents of dyslexia per capita occurs when I lead worship. Since I’ve been at Crestview, I’ve been famous for saying things like:

• “We’re glad you came to worship us today.”
• “O death, where is your sting? O church, where is your victory?” (It is supposed to be hell instead of church.)
• “We are able to worship God freely and without confidence” instead of “consequence”
• “Turn to your neighbor and wish them a Sunday morning.”
• “Greet one another with a holy kiss.” (Just kidding, I meant to jokingly say that.)

Now I can add another saying to the list. On Sunday we did a special called “Remembrance” while the communion trays were passed. During sound check, one of the ladies at church told me I needed to enunciate the words to the bridge so it did not sound like I switched them around. I did great for the morning services, but when the evening service came, I saw her sitting in the seats and her words immediately came to mind. All I could think was, “Don’t mess up!” But of course, I did.

What was supposed to be sung = “Dying you destroyed our death, rising you restored our life.”

What I sung = “Dying you restored our death, rising you restored our life.”

Then I did the same thing on the repeat. Yikes!

one thing you can be thankful for

I opened my (Kindle) Bible today and turned to a verse that caught me off guard today. I was looking for something about thankfulness, but wasn’t thinking about it from this perspective. Check out Hebrews 10:28 12:28 (edit: sorry for the typo) =

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe.

Let me break the verse down for you:

1. Not everyone has a lot to be thankful for on Thanksgiving. Some people don’t have enough money to buy a turkey. Others are dealing with a first holiday without a loved one. Still others have to go home to hellish family situations. The list goes on and on.
   But if everything is a disaster for you this year, there is still one thing that you can be thankful for if you’ve been redeemed by Christ: you are a part of an eternal kingdom that cannot be shaken. And for that, we can be thankful.
2. Don’t miss this: thankfulness is not just an emotion or an expression. This verse tells us that it necessitates a response. If you are thankful for something today, acknowledge the source. Worship God! And not only that, worship God with reverence and awe. Praise Him for having the power to create an undefeatable kingdom and the grace to let us be a part of it.

God has blessed us in so many ways, but the truth in this verse overshadows all of them. Be thankful for that today!

we’re missing something here

Prompted by his blog post about his other blog post, I read Jonathan Acuff’s article on the CNN religion blog and paid special attention to the comments. I knew it was coming, but it still caught my eye that his post about church matters immediately sparked a large amount of negative comments about Christianity, and even religion, in general.

After reading the comments, I was reminded that a lot of people are highly educated on (for lack of a better term) their religious/non-religious views. They know what they believe and they know why they believe it – and their arguments are deeper than many Christians’ apologetics. But when I make a mental picture of people falling away from their faith, it is usually motivated by disillusionment or the pursuit of pleasure rather than logical conclusions; I bet that a lot of people in the church would assume the same things. So here’s my question: where do the unchurched/dechurched grow in their knowledge of their newfound theological views? I honestly don’t know. Also, is education more important than we are treating it in the church right now?

Please excuse any ignorance I express in this post through lack of knowledge, exposed/faulty assumptions, or poor word choice.

data visualization

Part of my job description at Crestview is to make the slides that come up each week during the sermon. I’ve always wanted to make the slides more unique, so they don’t look like they came straight out of a standard PowerPoint slide builder (we don’t even use PowerPoint). This video really inspired me in that area. What if I could come up with some type of visual presentation like this for certain parts of Devin’s sermons? That would be really cool.

Speaking of Crestview, we redid our website and launched it last week. That marks the end of one of my big summer projects!

during a monday at work?

Today, I painted out at the church from about 3:30ish to 8:00ish (with many breaks in-between). There was a time in the recent past where I thought this would be extremely monotonous and unfulfilling, and that I should definitely delegate that type of thing to other people. After all, I would be too busy saving souls, right?

Wrong. Turns out the project was a huge blessing! I stepped outside to the following conditions: clear skies, upper 60’s, leaves just starting to turn, light breeze, the occasional sound of a car passing by, and my iPod on shuffle. It was an spectacular fall afternoon that I had (almost) all to myself. Painting those 8 steel grates by myself (for our stage project, pictures to come when it’s done) made one of the most peaceful times I’ve had at work in awhile.

It felt like Sabbath-rest – you know, one of those moments where you don’t really have a care in the world, and peaceful becomes an emotion rather than a way to describe your surroundings. I love those Sabbath moments, and I’m especially glad that they can come during a Monday afternoon of what will otherwise be a very busy week at work. They are a gift from God that I would do well to take advantage of more often!

big fish

My sophomore year in high school only had a few highlights – taking the bus home every day, not enjoying trigonometry, being in the “Wolf Pups” tutoring group for a semester that worked with elementary schoolers, taking World History with the teacher who hooked up with the principal, borrowing some of my stepdad’s nice clothes and going to homecoming by myself.

Sophomore year was the last time I had to use a locker in my academic career. I still remember my locker vividly. It was in the music hall, and it was next to this really weird girl who would never talk to me (and, let’s face it, I didn’t make much of an effort either). A few weeks into the year, I looked over at her locker and saw handwriting in Sharpie that read, “Big Fish” and then wrote a date.

I wondered what it was, but I didn’t ask. Then as the next few weeks went by, she started a countdown (“Big Fish – ___ days!”). And as the days counted down, I started to worry. She was a little sketchy, my judgmental self thought. What if she’s counting down to something big that’s happening at school and she doesn’t want anyone to see? What if she knows about a school shooting?

I seriously thought about alerting a school authority at some point, or maybe faking a sickness on the specified date. Then the date came around, and I realized how much of an idiot I was being:

That’s right. “Big Fish” was a Tim Burton movie.

I didn’t watch “Big Fish” until this week, and didn’t finish it until tonight. But it is very good; I’d definitely recommend! It has a great leadership principle that I would write about if the WordPress servers weren’t going down for maintenance in 30 seconds…

friend of God?

Lately, I have struggled with the concept of having a relationship with God. Many Christians say that we were created for this, and this is how we are supposed to interact with him, but the whole concept has stopped making sense to me. Maybe it’s because I have never been in a real dating relationship (but is that the type of relationship it’s supposed to be?), or maybe it’s because I live in a culture that stifles the opportunities we have to hear God interact with us (after all, communication is supposed to be a two-way street in relationships). It could also be due to the fact that I have not taken much initiative to interact with God lately.

The ‘relationship’ with God seems like such a fundamental concept to Christian faith, but where in the Bible does it say that you are supposed to have a ‘relationship’ with God? It does introduce the concept of friendship, which is a closer relationship, but only if I obey Jesus’ commands. My friendship with God is less like an authentic one and more like a Facebook friendship… with someone you haven’t talked to since High School a
them posts an album a week of them going out partying and getting drunk. But at least they tell you Happy Birthday!

I could be missing something big here, or maybe I just need to internalize the concept better. But either way I want to do more study on this topic. Hopefully I will have more to report soon!

savannah, part 2

Finally finished going through pictures from Savannah… one month later. Here are the best of the rest.

By the way, a couple of posts ago I talked about an airplane conversation with someone I met while in route to Savannah. Well, I just told that story today at church for my communion meditation – reading 1 John 3:16 reminded me of it. It was pretty powerful! His willingness to sacrifice echoed Christ’s willingness to lay down his life, and in this passage, sacrifice is established as the definition of love.

Of course, few of us will be sacrificing our lives anytime soon, but how different would our communities be if we lived with a willingness to give up everything we are/have in order to spread Christ’s love?