New Life Assembly

Holy Saturday

Some days I think the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday must get the short end of the stick.  While I know some traditions observe services on this day, we never have in any of the churches I've been around.  Yesterday evening we celebrated Good Friday with a number of other local churches as we gathered to remember the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross for us.  Tomorrow morning our church, along with thousands of others, will celebrate the epoch-making event of Christ's resurrection.  Some will do so with paegants, others with musicals, others with dramatic presentations, and others in a quiet, understated way.

But what about Saturday?  I thought about that this morning when I woke up, and then several times again throughout the day.  The first Good Friday would have been a brutal day to be a disciple of Jesus.  They had misunderstood so much of Jesus' message throughout his three years that they couldn't have fully understood the significance of his death at the time.  Their hopes and dreams for a restored kingdom of Israel had been crucified along with Jesus on the cross.

And the first Easter Sunday must have been equally as dramatic - just on a much more positive note.  All of a sudden the Jesus whom they had seen crucified on Friday has unexpectedly turned up again, revealing himself to restore their hopes and dreams, but in a totally different light.  There's an empty tomb, word of angels sitting on large stones in front of that empty tomb, and whispers about Jesus' appearance to Mary, and then to some others who talked with him on the road to Emmaus, and finally, there he is standing in the middle of a locked room inviting them to believe that somehow he had conquered death, and was as much King of Israel now as he had ever been.

But what about Saturday?  Did they go to the synagogue to worship, to pray, to cry out their laments in the Psalms?  Did they hear the readings from the Torah, or from the Prophets, and feel in their hearts that maybe they had been deceived all this time as they had followed Jesus?  If Friday was a dark day, I wonder if Saturday wasn't even darker - darker in the way that it feels like night falls when the reality sets in after a tragedy has occurred. 

Saturday they must have been processing what this loss of hope meant for them.  Perhaps they gathered together to talk about it, or maybe it's more likely that they decided not to see each other because to see each other again would suddenly have made Jesus' absence all the more immediate.  Maybe they spent the day weeping, or maybe they spent the day in frustration and anger, knowing that the next day they would have to get back to work, get back to life as it had been before Jesus showed up, knowing that they would now have to get on with whatever it was they were going to get on with now that he was gone.

Saturday is the in-between day, the in-between place.  It's a mysterious day because we don't really know what's happening - the Scriptures are totally silent on Saturday.  It's like a big, dramatic pause in the story.  Tension builds as the pause extends past expectation and on into the uncomfortable silence range.  And still we wait, not knowing what will happen, or when it will happen, or if anything will happen at all.  We don't like Saturday because we can't control it. 

Friday we can process with Scripture showing us that Jesus had to die, and that his death bought our salvation.  Sunday we can celebrate because it brings a satisfying, happily-ever-after ending to the events.  Saturday is much more elusive, but yet still seems necessary to the story somehow, like a Saturday morning resurrection would have been just a bit premature, like God the Father as he was telling the story wanted to make sure that there was enough tension in there for the resolution on Sunday to be all the more satisfying.

So tonight as I write, pray, and think about Sunday, I'm trying to remember not to rush there yet.  I'm trying to allow Saturday to do its work in me and my story, and to inspire me to tell the Sunday resolution in an even more hopeful, powerful, dramatic way tomorrow.

Apropos of Nothing

Here are just a few thoughts that keep coming back to the surface in my brain on life, leadership, church, and the world in general:

• Just because it's hard, doesn't mean it's wrong.  Just because it's easy, doesn't mean it's right.  This is something I have to constantly remind myself of as a man, a husband, a father, and a pastor.  The easy choices are so attractive to me, and the hard conversations, hard questions, and hard choices look so unappetizing.  I do know (from experience and observation) that the easy choice leads to a path that looks easier for a while, but which will eventually land me in a position where the right choice will be even harder to make.  If you're wondering about that, just take a look at the whole situation with the Penn State sexual abuse scandal.  If just one person along the way had the courage to make a hard choice, imagine the kids whose lives might have been altered.  But the more you hide, the more you take the easy way out, the harder it becomes to get back on track.  Big scandals don't happen with one bad choice, they happen because people or organizations get in the habit of making the easy choice rather than the hard one.
• At our last Catalyst meeting with leaders from our ministry network around Southern New England I was reminded of an idea that comes from the author, Jim Collins.  The most important question is not "what?", but "who?"  The most important choice is not your strategy for climbing the mountain, but who your climbing partners will be.  I'm very grateful to be making the climb from a good to great church with some great people here at New Life. 
• I've also been reflecting quite a bit on Andy Stanley's talk from the 2010 Catalyst Conference, where he said that not every challenge you face is a problem to be solved, but that sometimes you are seeing a tension to be managed.  The longer I lead, the more I realize that there are always tensions to be managed in church life.  Among others, right now at New Life we're trying to manage the tensions between being accessible to new and young believers and providing enough in the way of teaching and opportunities for more seasoned believers to keep growing and serving.  We're also trying to manage the tension between having freedom in our worship and having order to our service that allows un-churched and de-churched people to have a clear understanding of Jesus and the gospel.  These aren't easy tensions to manage, but they're necessary ones.  I'll always hope to have your patience as we try to navigate through them in a way that allows us to do our best work.
• When I don't read enough I get stale in my thinking.  I feel a large, book-buying binge coming on.
• We made our first significant hire here at the church about a month ago when we brought on Sally Genest to manage all of our communications at New Life.  Over time I've realized that while I'm good at communicating in a teaching environment on Sunday morning, I'm not great at communicating thoughts, ideas, and important details outside of that realm.  Sally was already doing so much work in this realm that it made sense that we would hire her to keep doing what she was already doing.  I'm so glad we made this move for so many reasons, not the least of which is that after 12 years of essentially being a one-person staff, it's really nice to have someone around the office during the day.  
• I love my new iPhone.  Siri-ously love it.
• I wish that stores would allow us to celebrate Thanksgiving before we celebrate Christmas.  Maybe as I get older I get more crotchety about stuff like this, but it really annoys me that Thanksgiving gets no play culturally while Christmas dwarfs the whole two months of November and December.  Call me crazy, but I wonder if part of the reason that we're losing the soul of Christmas as a true season of generosity is because we've forgotten how to be truly thankful for what we have received.  I wonder if the church could be a refuge from that.  In fact, that's what we'll be talking about in both the current series of messages and the four weeks leading up to Christmas.
• Speaking of Christmas - this year it falls on Sunday so we'll have both Christmas Eve service at 7:00 PM on the 24th and Christmas Day service on the 25th at 9:00 AM.  Looking forward to celebrating the birth of our Savior with the best church on the planet!

The "Old Seasons give way to New Seasons" Monday Reflections

Capturing a week in a matter of a few words here is always difficult.  Capturing the week that extended from last Sunday to yesterday may be nearly impossible.

Last Sunday, on 9/11/11 we sat in our Sunday morning service knowing that one of our dearly loved ladies from the church was in the last stages of her battle with cancer.  There was personal sadness that hung over us like something of a cloud.  We were also remembering the events of 10 years earlier, which added another layer to the sadness.  But in the midst of that, we had decided to create a happy, shining memory.  That evening a flood of New Life folks made their way down to Matunuck Beach where we baptized 7 people as a public profession of their faith in Jesus and their intention to follow him.  The surf baptized several of us multiple times, and I know a couple of times we had to time the baptisms just right so we could avoid being pummeled by waves.  But as that crowd gathered on the beach that night and witnessed those stories of life change, I can't imagine any other place on earth I would have wanted to be.  And I can't imagine any other group of people I would have wanted to be there with.

On Tuesday the 13th our dear sister Betty O'Keefe left this world behind to enter the presence of Jesus.  It was a difficult day for so many in our church who have come to love and appreciate her kindness, her sweet and comforting presence, and her beautiful servant's heart through so many years.  On Saturday we gathered at the funeral home for the calling hours and the service because we couldn't have possibly created room for the crowd that came in our church building.  We celebrated her truly remarkable life, and mourned her too-early death.  And then that same group of people who witnessed baptisms the Sunday before made their way over to the church, where all the food they made was being offered up as a gift to the family and friends who were grieving.  It was short notice to prepare the food, short notice to prepare the room, and yet I knew it would happen because I know our church is filled with some selfless, caring people who were willing to go an extra mile.

The very next day (yesterday) was a day that we had planned for a few months - a celebration of the momentous occasion of our church's mortgage being completely paid off as of June 2011!  In so many ways I can't help but think it was the beginning of a new season in the life of our church.  We ate great food (of course), worshiped together, and then I was able to give a presentation looking into the future of New Life.  We unveiled, in order, a new name, a new logo, the design for a new church sign, a new website, and some plans for changes in our building which will allow us to serve even more people as we grow into the future. 

I didn't get to share this last night, so I'll share it here.  A couple of months ago at one of our prayer nights at the church, I was reminded of a scripture reference God had spoken to me many years ago in another time of prayer for our church.  It's found in Haggai 2:8-9, and it directly refers to the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem - a temple that to the eyes of the people who had seen the former temple looked somewhat small, almost as if it was nothing to compare.  This is God's word to those people, and I believe it is God's word to New Life as we stand on the verge of our own new season:  "'The silver is mine and the gold is mine,' declares the Lord Almighty.  'The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,' says the Lord Almighty.  'And in this place I will grant peace,' declares the Lord Almighty.'"

I wasn't a part of the former glory of New Life Assembly, but I am wholeheartedly looking forward to being a part of the future glory of New Life Church!

The "Lord is my Shepherd" Monday Reflections

When I was a kid in Royal Rangers (the Christianized version of Boy Scouts) we had to memorize scriptures to receive certain badges.  One of the first ones that I can remember memorizing was Psalm 23.  It's a beautiful passage that speaks of God's presence with us even when we walk through the "valley of the shadow of death". 

For the last 15 months or so, it seems that my family has camped out in that valley rather than passing through it.  In March of 2010 my father-in-law passed away.  Then just about 2 months ago my sister-in-law died suddenly at the age of 33.  Yesterday afternoon as I got into my car to head home from church I received the call from my brother that my grandmother, Grammy Mac as she's affectionately known to her 17 grandchildren, had passed on from this world into eternity. 

Later in the afternoon I commented to Rita that in their few short years on this earth, my children have already experienced much more of death's effects than I had at their age.  They are privileged in many respects in that they were both born while their great-great-grandmother was still living, but while I was fairly insulated from family members dying until I was a teenage, they have already tasted the bitterness of death four times in their brief years. 

I was able to visit my grandmother one last time on Thursday afternoon.  She slept most of the time I was there, and I'm not sure she was exactly aware of who I was even when I told her my name.  She did talk to me for a moment before I left when I told her I had to leave to go back to Rhode Island.  I told her I loved her, and she said that she loved me; that was enough for me.  When she died Sunday around noon she was surrounded by her children and some grandchildren as well.  She left this earth as I will always remember her - the center of attention.

In the midst of this personal struggle, I've come to appreciate even more the church that God has blessed me with.  I don't claim to be a perfect pastor, and I wouldn't claim that we have a perfect church, but I will say that I believe God has perfectly matched me together with the people in our community whom I need, and who in turn need me.  God does this so well, so expertly that we could easily take it for granted and not appreciate the comfort and strength he provides to us in the form of the friends and family that surround us.

But I'm learning to appreciate this more with every passing day.  I'm sure there will come a time when our family will move out from the valley of the shadow of death, and I know that on that day I'll still have some beautiful friends who will walk with me.  I also know that some day those friends will walk through their own valleys, and God will ask me to travel with them for a while as they journey in sadness and silence. 

The 23rd psalm opens with the evocative words that the Lord is my shepherd.  When he called me to be a pastor, he laid some of that mantle on me to shepherd his people in a way that would reflect his care for them.  I've done my best to fulfill that calling with honor and respect for God and his people.  Little did I know or understand that, when I needed it most, he would shepherd me through them.

 

New Series: Who is my Neighbor?

 

If there's anything that provokes anxiety in the hearts of followers of Jesus and normal people alike, it would be the thought of a "spiritual conversation".  Over the next few weeks we'll try to take the anxiety out of those conversations, and put ourselves in a position to lead someone else into a genuine, life-giving relationship with God.

Join us for the next three Sundays at 10:30 - hope to see you there!

 

Late Bloomers

A couple of weeks ago I finished up a collection of essays by Malcolm Gladwell entitled, What the Dog Saw.  I've read all three of Gladwell's previous books, The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers.  I have never failed to be amazed by his ability to bring insight and perspective to seemingly obscure and unrelated topics.  Maybe it's the amateur psychologist in me that Gladwell appeals to, or maybe it's the part of me that believes that sometimes it's the little things that are significant, and that everything really is related.

Either way, the most compelling (because it felt personally relevant) piece in the book was called "Late Bloomers".  The essay endeavored to take on the cultural truism that genius is generally considered the exclusive province of youth, particularly in creative enterprises like art and poetry.  For examples, we were presented with the very different stories of the artists Picasso and Cezannes, interwoven (as Gladwell does so well) with the story of an author named Ben Fountain who quit his day job as a lawyer to stay at home with his young son and write.

That there are geniuses who start young and burn brightly for a time before diminishing is true.  That there are also geniuses who start young, and toil away for years in relative obscurity before ever achieving any kind of success is also true.  Gladwell writes to say both are brilliant, just in different ways.  To say this, he draws on the research of a University of Chicago economist named Davd Galenson, who theorized that there were two kinds of creativity:  conceptual and experimental.  The conceptual creatives are the ones who burst on the scene, while the experimental creatives are the ones who bloom later.  This is more than just a matter of the same kinds of creativity under different circumstances, but rather a fundamental difference in the way some people create.  So he writes, "late bloomers bloom late because they simply aren't much good until late in their careers."

The experimental creatives blooom late because it takes them a long time to hone their craft, to find what they are seeking in their creative efforts.  They are the ones who rip up canvases, burn the first drafts of their books, and then start over.  They seek understanding through the creative process, and eventually come to the place where their expressions are finally able to be realized - what they see in their mind is able to come out on the canvas, the page, or, in my case, the church community.

The reason I was so compelled by the essay is that I found myself identifying with the experimental creative.  I can't preach the same sermon twice, and I seem to have trouble even teaching the same class twice because I have this insatiable desire to change what I did the last time.  I tweak.  I adapt.  I edit.  I am relentless in my commitment to never do the same thing the same way twice.  Even as I lead the church, I often feel that I am experimenting with ideas, with concepts and even with practices in order to get to a closer approximation of what I feel the church is supposed to be.

This essay was a motivation for me to continue my pursuit of the church that I believe could be and should be in Wakefield, Rhode Island.  At the beginning of the year I confessed my desire to spend the next 30 years of my life here, and with God's grace I will do that.  Throughout that time, I imagine I will be experimenting with creating ways to connect people into a genuine, meaningful relationship with God, and with creating paths for people to grow spiritually.  I hope that with every passing experiment we'll get closer to what I see in my heart that I still can't fully express in words. 

But my creative process doesn't mean there aren't others out there who are the conceptual creatives, the ones who have these flashes of brilliance that burn brightly for a while.  They're out there, doing great things for God's Kingdom.  In fact, they're the ones you've probably heard of before.  I'll never be them, and it's good to know that God doesn't intend for me to be them. 

What about you?  Are you the conceptual creative or an experimental one?

2010 Sermons in Review (Part 2)

If you're following the Twitter/Facebook experiment, thanks for playing along!  If you're coming here to the blog for a look at the 2010 sermon tweets, thanks for coming back.

Here are the twitterized versions of my sermons from May-August:

8/22/10: What if the church stopped taking an "us vs. them" posture towards our community, and instead began to think "us FOR them"?

8/15/10: It is the job of servants to use the talents we have been given to expand the work of the one who has given us the resources.

8/8/10: In the cross we see the tremendous value that God places on us. In our service to others, we show them their value to God.

8/1/10: Jesus' service at the cross transforms us from selfish human beings into a community that serves God and our neighbor.

7/18/10: If we choose to trust God in the ordinary aspects of our lives, the accumulation of those choices will be a most extraordinary life

7/11/10: God does not promise that we will never be exposed to fear again. He only promises that he will walk with us through it.

6/27/10: What will you do that cannot be accomplished if you do not trust in the God who made heaven and earth, and is completely faithful?

6/20/10: It is possible to sing, as U2 famously did, “I will sing, sing a new song” even as we ask “how long?” in our cry for help. #40

6/13/10: When you trust in God your savior to lead you on the path to new life, he vindicates your decision to walk that way with him.

5/23/10: The goal of the growing church isn't uniformity, but true unity around the life-changing gospel at work in every unique life.

5/16/10: People who work hard and work together to accomplish God’s work form the core of a church that impacts its community.

5/9/10: The church can only move forward and grow when we respond to growth and change sacrificially, unselfishly and with true generosity.

5/2/10: The church grows when we submit fully to Jesus, allow the Holy Spirit to empower us and allow leaders to lead.

2010 Sermons in Review

Yesterday I decided to try a little experiment using the power of Twitter.  If you're not familiar with Twitter, it's a social networking application that allows you to share your thoughts or activities, but requires you to do it in 140 characters or less.  I had been listening to a recent sermon just to take the time to evaluate myself, and as I wrote some notes to myself at the bottom of the page I wrote this:  "can you sum it up in a tweet - 140 characters?"

It got me thinking.  Could I summarize an entire message into 140 characters or less?  Are my messages concise and concrete enough to be reduced to that single, defining point?  Of course 140 characters can't do justice to an entire message, but I'm guessing that what people remember (if anything) of a sermon is not the 30-35 minutes of words, but one main idea that keeps coming through.  So I decided that as a year-in-review for myself, I would reduce all of my messages into a single tweet.  It has been a challenging exercise, but one I think I'll continue because it forces me to distill the message down into its most basic and memorable form. 

Below (and running backwards from the April to January) are the tweets I created to summarize the messages.  I'll probably post the remaining ones tomorrow, or you can follow the updates on Twitter or Facebook.  Both services require an account, but both are free.

4/25/10: Grace from our lips is like salt seeping into the heart of our community, it penetrates through even the toughest exteriors.

4/18/10: because Jesus is risen, work becomes a sacred thing, a place where the kingdom of heaven may break into this world by our actions.

4/11/10: our responsibility is to order our family around the risen Christ, keeping him ultimate when so many things compete for that title.

4/4/10: In the moment of Jesus’ resurrection the unstoppable force of life breaks the stronghold of death, crumbling its strength forever.

3/28/10: the way of Jesus offers both the freedom to follow him to the father, and the restraint to keep us from going our own way.

3/21/10: the issue is not what might have happened if God had showed up earlier but what he will do now that he's here. #lazaruscomeforth

3/7/10: We would expect the Messiah to preserve himself, but instead he gives himself away for you. His sacrifice shows your true value.

2/28/10: Jesus is not a prophet, a philosopher or a religious and cultural leader, he is God who came in human form to bring us freedom.

2/21/10: when we choose to follow Jesus his life comes to enter us and begins to give light to our whole life.

2/14/10: Every other place we looked for bread to satisfy the soul has left us wanting, but in Christ our souls are satisfied.

2/7/10: we do not find salvation en masse, but in a deeply personal way because we drink deeply of his living water offered to us.

1/24/10: The gospel is not a sterile accumulation of objective truths but an invitation to consider whether or not Jesus is the truth.

1/17/10: The fairy tale gospel says that who you are now is not who you will always be - Cinderella hides under the ashes.

1/10/10: The gospel is summed up in the comedic picture of a well-dressed father embracing his filthy, pig-stink covered son (Luke 15)

1/3/10: The gospel strips us and shows us for what we are – naked, poor, pitiful and blind - but it does not leave us that way.

The Dirty Little Pastoral Secret

If you're in church leadership, please lean in closely, because if I could, I would like to whisper this to you (even while I know that the whole internet is listening):

You probably spend 7 days a week thinking about your church and its ministry.  You think about the people who make up the church, the systems that make up your church, and the ways you can help people grow and systems become more effective.  You evaluate your church using the metrics, you count the numbers of people and the dollars in the offering this week.  And I think you're absolutely right to do all those things.  And all along you harbor this desire, whether you say it out loud or not, that by doing all these things you will help your church to grow. 

You hope, as you should, that more people will show up next week than showed up last week.  Because you believe that when more people show up this week than last week, there's a better chance that someone who hasn't heard the message about Jesus before will have the chance to hear that message this week in your church.  You want your church to grow larger.  You pray for your church to grow in its impact on your community.  You work with leaders to develop their gifts and talents so they can partner with you to see your church grow larger.

There's a disconnect between you and the average person who sits in your church (and mine) week after week.  You know (and I do too), but forget, that they didn't spend all week thinking about the church.  They don't see the systems that go on behind the scenes to make your church effective.  To be honest, they probably don't know how you've prayed for them a hundred times, and how you've prayed for your community, and for the Kingdom of God to advance there.  And, to be honest, they probably are not motivated by the size of your church.  In fact, I would wager to say that if you asked the average person in your church if they wanted the church to be bigger, they might say "no".  They are simply not motivated by your vision for a larger church.

I suspect, however, that they are motivated by the dream of creating a church that would be good for their unchurched and dechurched friends.  I suspect that if you asked them, they would love to be able to know that they could bring a neighbor, a friend or a coworker to your church (and mine) and find that the church was a partner with them in helping that friend see the reality of what Jesus has done in their lives. 

You and I think about numbers of people, they think about the face of a specific person who they desperately want to see find a life altering relationship with Jesus.  We both know that the numbers represent people, and we've said it before and will say it again, but we don't often clearly communicate that.   Sometimes our grand designs for church growth get disconnected from the reality of the average life of the teachers and nurses and lawyers and students who come to worship with us every week.

So I'm trying to remember that the average person I serve is not motivated by my designs for church growth that talks about numbers but doesn't talk about life change.  I don't think anyone wants to see my building expand unless they know that it's going to create an extra seat for their coworker to experience the life-changing truth of the gospel. 

I want what they want - to see lives changed by the good news that Jesus brings us to life.  As I pray for our church to grow and work diligently on everything God has placed in my hands I hope that I will never lose sight of the reality that ministry is about people connecting to God, and no vision, regardless of how grand and compelling, can ever replace that.

 

Book Summary: 7 Practices of Effective Ministry

I was first introduced to Andy Stanley's work when I picked up the book Visioneering towards the beginning of my work as the pastor of New Life.  That book had a profound impact on the way I thought about ministry, and thought about the development of vision and direction for the church.  When I heard him speak at the Catalyst Conference in the fall of 2001 I was sold on the quality of content that he brought to the table in every message and every book.

I've never heard Andy Stanley give a bad talk, and I've never read one of his books that didn't have a significant impact on the way I approached my work as a pastor (that includes The Next Generation Leader and Communicating for a Change).  So when I started thinking about books I'd like to read to improve my game in the area of leading leaders from an organizational point-of-view, it was almost a no-brainer that I would pick up 7 Practices of Effective Ministry, which is a collaborative effort from three key leaders in the North Point Community Church organization. 

The book itself is extremely easy to read, but the seven principles are anything but breezy.  Even though they are easy to understand, I have a feeling that working through this book is going to take a long time to internalize and then to implement with our leaders here at New Life.  But I'm convinced that it's going to be a fulfilling and worthwhile process.

Here's my 2 page summary of the book:  Download 7 Practices of Effective Ministry - Review