Back at home

It's good to be back. I feel less torn now between this life and my life in Calgary --- they no longer feel like they're in competition with one another; they are just DIFFERENT parts of one life. Until I can learn to "conveniently bi-locate" like Saint Frances, I just need to learn to balance them, both practically and emotionally.

My Calgary children have grown some, as children tend to do. The ones that I lived with, however, still fit perfectly onto my lap and have not grown too heavy to pick up and squeeze the stuffings out of. I think when they met me at the airport I was shocked by how LITTLE they have changed in two years.

One of my most vivid memories of previous times in Calgary was when I came back the second summer and arrived while my host family (also the pastoral family) was at district camp. After several days of reorienting myself with the house and the city, they returned home, and Julia (then 6) threw herself into my arms and wouldn't let go. Her little body started shaking and I realized she was crying (as I was) because she was so happy that I was there.

This time around, I think a part of me was a little scared that the kids would play strange. And as I arrived at the bottom of the escalator, I thought I was right. But after just a few seconds I found myself with a slightly taller Julia hanging around my neck. She stayed there while I hugged everyone else hello because I couldn't (and didn't want to) detach her. My new vivid memory.

More soon.

Please welcome Chris Wilson

You will notice his brand new blog has been added to my links.

While he is not a close friend of mine, for years I have admired him from a distance. Not in a stalking kind of way, but in the way that someone relatively new to the faith (such as myself) keeps an eye on another Christian who displays a lot of honesty in his walk and consistency in his treatment of others. Way back when (i.e. pre-my-conversion) he might have been one of those who made it difficult for me to write off Christianity as a whole.

Maybe it was just because I never spent much time in direct contact with him. Maybe he really IS just a big jerk. But I doubt it. And so I will read his blog and continue to admire him as he and his wife begin a new part of their ministry journey.

And you may read, too. :)

Response #43

I'm a subscriber to "Monday Morning Insight", which is a ministry blog-type entity that have a large subscribership and a lot of opinionated people with a lot to say in response to the moderators' articles. This Monday one of the challenges was to respond to the following quotation: "If your church has been plateaued for six months, it might take six months to get it going again. If it’s been plateaued a year, it might take a year. If it’s been plateaued for 20 years, you’ve got to set in for the duration! I’m saying some people are going to have to die or leave. Moses had to wander around the desert for 40 years while God killed off a million people before he let them go into the Promised Land. That may be brutally blunt, but it’s true. There may be people in your church who love God sincerely, but who will never, ever change."

I have never responded before, but today I did; I was response #43. I'm reposting it here because I'll probably never find it again on the MMI blog, and it's something I need to keep reminding myself of.

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This quotation rings true on a practical level, however might sound harsh to those who haven’t had experience with the philisophical level. We need to remember we are dealing with a few generations of churched people raised to believe that “doing church” the way our plateaued churches have always “done church” is wrapped up with being a true Christian. Then “progressive” (to them, anyway) leaders come along with not just their Purpose-Driven-this and their new-music-that, but essentially telling them that the way they’ve always carried out their spirituality is incomplete based on their understanding of the church being incomplete.

Remember that the Pharisees didn’t reject Jesus because they were jerks (at least not all of them). Put yourselves in their shoes, and Jesus really DOES seem like a blaspheming heretic. Fast forward to now, and our churched people may very well view pastors the same way. Those people that seem to be holding the church back and keeping us plateaued or declining are often the same folks that are simply trying to hold true to what they believe to be GOD’S truth based on what the leaders that have come before have taught and modeled. 20 or 30 years ago when the church was thriving, it probably would have seemed like God’s truth to US, too.

And so the solution? We can spend years trying to change their minds, and praying that GOD will illuminate things to them where we will probably fail. But better to pray for us as leaders, that God will guard us from teaching, preaching, and modeling things that 30 years down the road our aged now-forward-thinkers will get stuck on about and plateau the church again under new, discouraged leadership. And in the meantime we need to have respect for those individuals who have a true relationship with Jesus Christ but a life time of faith experience outside of what we’re trying to do in our churches. While we can’t tolerate unchristian attitudes and actions in reaction to our efforts, we can give grace to honest questions and concerns. We can accept that they may never understand what we’re trying to do, and attempt to mobilize them in ways they DO understand but may not fit exactly into our programming plans. If they are a passionate about a programming element that doesn’t fit with our mission and vision but continues to hold great importance to them, we must encourage them to carry it out on their own terms and under their own leadership, offering support and encouragement where we can’t offer manpower from the staff. And so on.

Some may leave. And you know what? As long as they don’t stop going to church, that’s alright. Let’s face it --- there are still a lot of Jesus-loving churches that continue to do things exactly the way they’ve been done for decades. These will be Moses’ “wilderness” churches, and they will die when the people die. However, they will serve the people well enough in the meantime.

But whether they stay or leave, all we can do is continue to love and respect them, but to LEAD those who are willing to follow.

Slight change of plan

If things had gone ACCORDING to plan, Paul and I would already have been in an airplane for 2 hours by now on our way to Calgary. However, they did not. Instead of driving to Halifax yesterday and spending an evening with his parents before an early start today, we barely made it past Quispamsis before heading back into town to find a service station. Then we spent about 6 hours in the "mall" (such as it is) waiting to be able to drive it again. Poor "Little Tank"; he's been a good car, and hasn't given us a lot of trouble for being 10 years old. It wasn't his fault.

Anyway, $800+ later, he's feeling ship-shape, and we're going to try this again. I rebooked the tickets for Thursday.

So, the bright side: Right now we could afford to fix the car. That probably would not have been the case a while down the road (no pun intended). Also, apparently one of our tires was about to blow; we knew we needed new ones, but hadn't gotten around to it. Now we have new (albeit inexpensive) and SAFE tires with which to travel on.

And, if we're careful and financially modest in our entertainments while we're there, we can still afford this trip to Calgary -- all the entertainment I really need anyway are the people I love there (including two adorable children that I miss like nobody's business) and the spectacular view of the mountains.

And while I'm at it..

1. 12 sleeps until vacation in Calgary!
2. Paul and I decided not to move. AND, we just found out we're not losing the deposit, which will pay for half of the plane tickets for #1!
3. We are on a furniture buying spree - couch, loveseat, two dressers, a computer desk, and computer chair. Paul is beside himself. I just feel blessed that God has provided for us to have these things --- the couch and loveseat haven't arrived yet, but the other items have made me feel so much happier in my home. Especially the dressers; our apartment is really big (for the price, anyway), but has very little storage. Paul and I have been sharing a dresser for a year, and it's been really hard to keep the place tidy over all because we didn't really have a place for everything. But by the time #1 rolls around, that will be no more!
4. Today we paid some of our teens with McDonalds to help us clean out our car, and it was a fabulous investment, both relationally and because our cupholders are no longer filled with coffee crud.
5. I miss my roommate Selinda. It was her birthday on July 1st, and I moped.

An unlikely babysitter

We have no children, but we recently aquired a hampster. Today said hampster was running around on the spare bed when Paul left the room to get changed, and I left the room to make some toast for him (him being Paul, not the hampster, though I'm sure the latter also would have enjoyed some toast). And so we left the kitty to make sure that the hampster did not leave the bed. Which he did not.

The cat's name is Emma. The hampster's name is Ollie. Ollie is short for "Othniel", the first judge. Paul thought that we could name all our hampsters after the judges, which seemed like a good idea; we assumed that several hampsters would quickly become lunch for Emma, and it would save the time of trying to think of a name for each one.

My friend Hannie once told me that I "played well with others". I cried, because that was the nicest compliment I could imagine. I now honour my cat by saying the same about her --- she plays well with others, even our hampster.

Sometimes Emma takes a swipe or two, but I do that to Paul, so I can't blame her. But she's never tried to bite, never pounced except in fun, and she sleeps on the dresser next to his cage during the day. One day Ollie curled up behind her, buried himself under her tail, and slept there for a few minutes. That was cute.

And so the experiment continues.