It seemed like a good teaching moment so I dove in.

I wanted them to know it is ok to feel intense emotions. Emotions help define our humanity. And we often act out from our intense emotions. Imagine my delight when I explained that Jesus had intense emotion and acted on those emotions. Laughter and crying seemed to make sense to them and help them relate to the humanity of Jesus. But when I told them the story of Jesus acting out His intense emotion in the temple they couldn’t believe it. I promised that it was in the Bible. Then they believed it.

So is it ok to feel intense emotion? Absolutely.

Is it ok to act out of that intense emotion? Yes. Joy, sadness, and everything in between will bring different actions.

If your sister steals your seat on the couch give yourself permission to feel strong emotion.

But you can’t ALWAYS act on those intense emotions. So don’t push your sister. Remember my audience? You’ll have to insert your own application.

Where do you feel intense emotion? Any actions to take? Any actions to avoid? The BEST way to avoid taking action in intense emotion that you should be avoiding is to pray or dump those feelings on God. He knows. He cares.

Here’s some that are on my mind recently and I’d love to have you pray these with me:

1. To not get “re-addicted” to the adrenaline of ministry. Been there and don’t want to go back. Working incessantly, uptight with my family, and missing intimacy with God. Honestly the temptation is strong right now. Things are going so awesome as we prepare to launch Discovery. I sense the beginning of a movement. But at the end of the day my prayer is “God you love me no matter what. I don’t want to replace knowing you with serving you. I want my service to you to be an overflow not an attempt to earn worth.” When I’m in this place I’ll watch my little pony with the girls instead of “sneaking” in some work.

2. As Discovery Church prepares for launch there is soooo much left to be done. Only a broken person who struggles knowing his limits would re-launch a church, oversee the construction of our new space, overhaul every system, launch a website, assemble a new staff leadership team and continue to pastor (while beginning a dissertation). Here’s my prayer “Help me rest in the fact that you are guiding me and have given me the time I need to get done what I need to do.” I pushed back my school work by over a year. Hard to do but great lesson for me about learning my limits. I don’t want to model something broken for the church. Our vision is built on transformation and discovering life. You can’t do that going 100 mph.

3. I continue to be burdened by assisting leaders in understanding the transformation God has for them. We were all designed and created for perfect care taking. Nobody got that growing up and this drives us to the gospel. When we lead to get something internally that the gospel has already given us we will hurt ourselves and others. God has given me a model to help leaders gain deep awareness into what is driving them so they can experience transformation and boost their performance. I did a retreat in the Spring with some leaders and I’ll probably do the next retreat this fall. My prayer is “Guide my steps for this message to go where you want and when you want Father”.

4. I’m obviously praying for our launch date as a church. It is crazy awesome to lead a church that will start out debt free with facility and construction. (It is even more awesome to lead a church with a core that has been through hell and back with me over the last year!) However, as the timing of our launch was delayed it threw off some projections. Our one gap for complete debt free is A/V. Praying about how to close that gap today and sensed the Lord say, “Be strong. Take courage. I am with you.” So my prayer is “Lord help me keep moving forward in your courage”.

Pray these with me, will you? What prayers are you praying?

Quotes to stir things up:

When a new church struggles year after year to see fruit from its activity, we should assume it’s not quite time to plant. Instead, there is tilling, watering, and cultivating to be done. pg 27

…I’m not saying that ministry is easy. We will be under constant spiritual attack when we’re trying to further the kingdom of God. But growing churches is God’s job. That’s not our burden to bear. pg 43

It doesn’t matter how good your service, your worship, or your preaching, your church is ultimately judged by social network. pg 81

Thoughts:

• The way Ben focuses the content around 3 big ideas of Good Ground, Rolling Rocks, and Deep Roots makes it easy to add a sociological filter to church start, growth, and development.
• We’re comfortable with a theological filter, leadership filter, and even economic filters in the church but not with a sociological filter. Ben’s arguments from Scripture are exegetically sound and left me saying, “How have I missed this?”
• This book will give you practical guidance on how to recognize and cooperate with God’s work among people around you.
• I read it as a pastor and leader of a church that is over 60 years old and about to re-launch. Still, it was as applicable to me as I imagine it would be for a church planter.

Implications:

• Ministry leadership has to learn from Jesus as a model and become as adept at finding good soil as we are at studying theology or being informed of the general culture.
• Pastors have to learn to acknowledge the sociological factors when recounting their stories of God working in their midst. It will help the hearts of so many leaders and give those leaders permission to follow the work of God in their context.
• If you lead 1 or 1000 you have to get this book and apply it, if you want to round out your ministry leadership with the crucial but overlooked skill of sociological discernment. Not learning to recognize the sociology as a part of God’s working will cause you to overspiritualize and overagonize while missing God’s leading in ministry efforts that don’t gain traction. For those that gain traction, not recognizing the work of God in and through the movements of people will cause you to overestimate your part and succumb to pride.

Near the end of last week I hit a wall. As we’ve been preparing for our launch (on top of doctorate work and facilitating a gathering for pastors on peak performance) I am fried. Admittedly I shouldn’t have come this close to the red line but alas, I have.

Here’s what I know:

• My kids don’t give a flip about all the things in my world and that’s ok. At 7,6, and 4 they need me giving them my best.
• My wife deserves a husband who can be sensitive and comforting, not one easily irritated.
• When I’m in the red line the grumpy factor settles in and playfulness goes away.
• I get stressed by the chaos too quickly and lose clarity.
• Spiritually I start to over question/analyze things.

I’m not breaking any new ground here. This post is influenced by Choosing to Cheat (Click for my Amazon link to order the book)

Need to cheat?

We did a bad, I mean really bad, financial deal that still complicates our lives. Lesson being learned, over and over again. It’s got a bunch of dangling loose ends that have the possibility of stressing me out. I could list lots of other examples of current chaos (the launch of the church, etc.) The one example that hits home more than any other is…home.

I am learning about my threshold for chaos as our children get older. We’re blessed with three amazing daughters but I saw a tendency within myself to power up when things got out of control or attempt to eradicate the chaos. “No loose ends” seemed to be the mantra. Why don’t we like chaos?

• It shows us our insufficiency, weakness, and lack of resources to fix everything.
• It reminds us of our lack of control and vulnerability.
• It requires an ability to navigate tension. It causes us to need empowerment and live in the moment. We want clear black/white lines. We want to be emotional or analytical. Chaos calls for us to live in both extremes and navigate both on a moment by moment basis.

What’s a better path? Embrace the chaos.

• Leading, living, and learning in chaos will grow your dependency on God as it keeps you humble with what you can’t do in your own power.
• It allows you to be accepting of yourself when you don’t have all the answers or “your act together”. In turn, you will be much more gracious and accepting of others.
• Rather than powering up you will be enter into the present moment with clarity, openness, excitement, and peace. In other words you won’t push people, including your family, away.

1.  Learn the tribe

This is where you buy the product, check out the church, or learn the lingo. You observe accepted behaviors and beliefs of the tribe whether this is conscious or unconscious to you.

2.  Conform to the tribe

You attempt to fit in. You apply what you’ve learned. You conform to the beliefs. You buy the skinny jeans to be different and yet everyone else is wearing them.

3.  Break away from the tribe or Agitate the tribe forward

This post is for leaders. Most will stop at number 2. That’s fine. Some however begin to see ways and paths of improvement. Places for innovation flash like a neon sign. You have a choice. Do you break away because those changes are too sacred to the tribe or because the tribal leader has stated your innovation is the undermining of a non-negotiable? OR if it’s a healthy environment and your innovation doesn’t undermine a key value are you willing to use your frustration to agitate tribal leadership forward?

As we prepare to relaunch Discovery and I’m walking this new path helping leaders with identity formation here are some takeaways for me:

• Are our tribal distinctives clear?
• Is there a path for tribal transformation and not just information?
• Are our tribal non-negotiables clear?
• Is there an environment for the agitators to help the tribe move forward?

Thoughts?

(This post influenced by Tribes -my amazon link to this book)

Have you ever been around someone who’s commitment to discipline shamed those around them? I have been that person. I have exhibited strong external discipline while suffocating internally. We have different personalities and react differently to people’s choices. We have different opinions as to what choices we should make. We have different backgrounds that factor into our choices. (Search the word attachment on this blog for more info.) But we must grow in our journey of healing, empowered choices, and self-discipline. Let’s just be grace-filled in our discipline.

Grace filled self-discipline:

• Makes choices because they are loved by God.
• Forgive themselves quickly when they mess up. They even find joy in their weakness.
• Is comfortable with moments of carefree play.
• Admits needs, vulnerabilities, and insecurities.
• Knows they cannot “do enough” to get close to God and live wisely. The Holy Spirit must close the gap between our lack and our resources.

Insecure self-discipline:

• Makes good choices to earn God’s love.
• Punishes themselves when they mess up because they think they deserve it.
• Wants to be seen by others as a hard, serious worker having it all together.
• Hides needs, vulnerabilities, and insecurities making other insecure people feel inferior.
• Actually believes their choices are the sole factor for good results.

May your Easter lead you to grace-filled discipline. Today, I’m moving further away from insecure self-discipline but I have a long way to go. I can only describe this because I know it deeply. Any you would add?

(I was reminded about this video through the Monday Morning Memo email.)

What do you think?

1.  Live in denial. Ignore the vulnerability and try to cover up. Quiet the emotional upheaval with addictions, habits, and manipulations. Become rigid.

2. Confess the insecurity, vulnerability, and fear in the context of a safe relationship. God, by the way, is the safest place to start.

Like Jacob of the bible, the most transformative environment is when I’ve come to end of my resources and honestly admitted the need, embracing brokenness. You can learn from Jacob and me to save yourself from some unnecessary pain.

• Look at your resources (personality, money, connections, etc) and be thankful for them.
• Face the gap between your resources while seeing who you want to be, what mission you’re trying to accomplish, and the hungers of your heart.
• Acknowledge the gap between them to God and others.

Happy risking…

Thoughts?

Below is a little grid or filter I use to help me evaluate what I’m aiming for and I’ll apply it for parenting, finances, health and spirituality:

• “A” desires represent the best or great: children that have secure identities(parenting), margin to pursue dreams(finances), feeling great(health), and overflowing with love(spirituality).
• “B” desires represent the good: children that have happy middle class lives, bills paid, no illness that gets in the way of life, and no overwhelming guilt/shame.
• “C” desires represent the base line: children that aren’t involved in illegal activities, surviving but on credit, manageable symptoms through medication, and periods of relief from internal misery.

Be honest about what you’re attempting to see happen in your life. Tease this out for yourself.

1. Classifying your desires helps you be honest about what you’re aiming for and can help you understand the results you’re getting.
2. Classifying your desires can help you elevate what you’re shooting for. I’m not guaranteeing you always get the “A” but why shoot for less. You can’t control all the factors that shape these desires. But you can BE AWARE of what you’re actually attempting.

Right now, think about something you want to achieve or see happen (parenting, career, finances, spirituality, schedule, relationships, school, marriage, etc.) and attempt to classify these 3 levels. What are you really aiming for?

Thoughts?