Life is Change

One of the characteristics of a healthy organism is that it continuously undergoes change. Every day you lose about 200 hairs from your head (assuming you have hair) and they are (mostly) all replaced with new ones. Every minute about 300 million cells in your body die and are replaced with new ones. That’s a lot of change happening.

As followers of Christ, we should embrace change. Our very purpose is to see change happen in the people around us as we introduce them to God, and to see our own lives change as we draw closer to Him. We also willingly give up (or try to give up) control of our lives and ask God to use us as He sees fit. This often results in change in our lives as individuals and as a church.

This past Sunday, Pastor Glenn announced that he and Bonnie have accepted a call to the AGC church in Smith’s Falls. Their last Sunday with us will be June 20. While this was an unexpected change for many, we should embrace it for what it really means. In short, Glenn’s departure means that his work with us has been completed and God has a new challenge for him in Smith’s Falls. For us as a church, it means that our time of healing, re-grouping, re-visioning, and re-structuring is done, and we need to move forward to become the church God wants us to be.

We called Glenn to be our Pastor at a time when we needed someone with his specific skills and experience. We knew at that time that his assignment with us as our Senior Pastor would not be for a long time – we thought 3 to 5 years would be about right. There were some specific things that needed to be addressed: help us heal from past hurts, re-focus our mission – vision – values, re-work our constitution and organizational structure to make us more Biblically based and streamlined, review our name and identity to ensure it matches who we are and want to be, mentor a Pastoral candidate to prepare him for full-time ministry in our church or some other AGC church, and look at re-locating to a facility that will enable us to carry out our ministries more effectively. All these tasks except the relocation have been essentially completed with Glenn’s guidance. And Glenn isn’t really a “church relocation specialist” anyway so it’s not like we can’t continue that objective without him.

While I’m sad to see Glenn leave, I’m encouraged that the church in Smith’s Falls will have someone to lead them through a similar process. I’m also confident that God has equipped us as a church to keep moving forward.

So where do we go from here? Joel has been with us for about 2 years now, being mentored by Glenn first as an intern, then a part-time associate Pastor, and now a full-time associate Pastor. While it is tempting to just automatically extend a call to Joel to be our new Senior Pastor, we need to pause for a bit and seek God’s guidance on this decision. We need to spend some time reflecting on where we are heading as a church, and what characteristics we need in a Pastor to help us in that journey. We then need to compare those criteria to what Joel offers to us. There will be areas where he is strong and areas where he is weak. We will need to decide if Joel is the right fit, and Joel will need to decide if he is feeling led to take on this new role.

The AGC will help us through this process. We plan to meet as elders with George Boyd in July to get started, and I hope that by September, we will be in a position to either extend an official call to Joel or extend our search to other candidates if we determine Joel is not the best fit for us. Please join us in prayer through this process that we may follow the path God has laid out for us. Feel free to offer us your comments and questions along the way.

Don’t forget that we have a congregational meeting on Sunday, May 30 after the service regarding the new constitution. Also, we are planning a celebration dinner for Glenn and Bonnie for Sunday, June 13 at the church. Watch the bulletin for details.

As always, I welcome your comments. Prepare for change – it is one sure sign that we are alive and well.

Jac

Dandelions

On their own, dandelions are actually quite beautiful. Their flowers are the perfect shade of yellow to complement the green of their leaves (and my lawn). They are prolific, able to spread their seeds vast distances on the wind using their signature “white puff” transportation system. They are rugged, able to survive droughts that kill off most plants. And they are everywhere. Since the province banned the use of chemical weapons in the fight against weeds, dandelions have made a comeback in recent years. Many people have accepted them as part of the landscape, and let them grow wherever they appear. Everyone, except my neighbours.

I live on a mini-cul-de-sac in our subdivision. There are 4 houses in this section and the only lawn that has any dandelions on it is mine. Last summer I joined with many others in a chemical free assault on my dandelions. I bought a fancy weed puller from the hardware store and spent many hours pulling dandelions. By the end of the summer, I thought things looked pretty good. Not as good as my neighbours, but better than it was.

This year, I have even more than last year. So I did some research. The best way to keep dandelions at bay is to have a full, healthy lawn. A thick lawn prevents the seeds from making contact with the soil, which stops them from rooting. So regular watering, fertilizing, top dressing, de-thatching, aerating, and over-seeding are all necessary steps to keep your lawn healthy, which will keep out the dandelions. And when you do spot one, it must be removed roots and all, before it can seed. The hole you create needs to be filled in with top soil and grass seed – this is where I messed up last summer. All those holes in my lawn became fertile fields waiting for new dandelion seeds, and I think there are now 4 growing in every hole I made last summer.

I now have so many dandelions that I’m almost ready to give up. There’s no way I can get them all so I have a new strategy. I’m going to pick a small, manageable section of my lawn, make it weed free, then fill in all the holes I make with topsoil and grass seed. I’ll water it, and when the new grass is growing, I’ll add some fertilizer and move on to another small section. Hopefully by the end of summer, I’ll get most of the yard cleaned up.

I think we need to use a similar approach to sin in our lives. The best way to keep temptations from taking root in us and turning us away from God is to have a full and healthy spiritual life. This means regular feeding and watering by reading the Bible and spending time in prayer, fertilizing it by participating in learning opportunities such as small groups and worship services, de-thatching it and aerating it by getting out and doing works of service, and every once in a while add some new seeds by trying something different like attending a Christian concert or going on a missions trip. And just like a healthy lawn, we will never be completely “weed free”. We need to be on the lookout for those parts of our lives that are susceptible to sin, carefully removing that sin and filling in that gap with a healthy alternative.

Suppose you look at your life and you see it is as full of sin as my lawn has dandelions. It may look intimidating, impossible to fix. And in reality, on our own it is impossible to fix. We need God to guide us through this process. It’s only by His strength that we can truly make changes in our lives. While many new Christians have a strong desire to completely turn their lives around, it’s a pretty difficult thing to do. It can often mean abrupt changes to our lifestyle, breaking long-term relationships, stopping destructive behaviour. Those big changes will leave huge gaps in our lives, and if we don’t fill them in quickly with healthy options, those holes will attract those nasty weeds again.

So maybe focus on those really big weeds that affect your life the most – the ones that really prevent you from having a solid relationship with God. Start with those first, get them under control, then start working on the others. God will guide you through this if you ask Him. And don’t be surprised or disappointed to see these weeds pop up again in the future. It happens to all of us. Just get back out there, pull that weed out and ask God to help you keep it out of your life.

God doesn’t require us to have a sin-free life in order to get to heaven. Jesus paid that price for us and God welcomes us as we are. But He does expect us to be diligent gardeners, doing our best to keep our lives as free of sin as we can. So make sure you spend some time today and everyday on your own garden. Make it strong and healthy, and keep after those weeds.

Jac

The Kite Eating Tree

A few blocks away from my house there is a tree with a kite stuck in it. I see it every day on my way to and from work, and it always reminds me of Charlie Brown. If you were a fan of the Peanuts comic strip, you will recall that whenever Charlie Brown set out to fly his kite, it always ended up in the “Kite Eating Tree”. It didn’t matter how determined he was, how prepared he was, or how positive he was that it wouldn’t happen again, that kite ended up in that tree. At one point, Charlie Brown was so frustrated, he didn’t even bother trying to fly the kite – he just threw it into the tree.



I think everyone has to deal with their own Kite Eating Trees. You know what I mean. There are things we try to do that are good, but they somehow seem to always end in failure. For many of us, eating healthier and getting more exercise are frequent New Year’s resolutions, but how many us keep those promises past February? Along the way, temptation lures us back to our old habits, and like Charlie Brown, we throw our resolution into the tree and give up.

But it’s not just New Year’s resolutions that get attacked. Sometimes, it’s trying something new, something we understand to be in response to God’s leading. It could be something we do as a group or as a church. Along the way, we find ourselves at odds with other people, or circumstances, or finances. Often these roadblocks don’t go away even if we originally overcome them. Like the Kite Eating Tree, these roadblocks can keep popping up and trying to stop our progress. For example, a while ago, our church decided to take on a Pastor intern, and allow him to work alongside our Lead Pastor to be mentored for several years. This decision required a financial commitment that was relatively large given the size of our church. But we felt this was a good thing to do, and trusted that this was where God was leading us as a church. The initial financial challenge went away as we re-organized our staff - but it came back. Then we addressed it by using up our savings - but it came back. Now we seem to staring that financial challenge in the face yet again. It almost seems like the financial burden is our Kite Eating Tree, set on making sure this decision ends in failure. I must confess there are days when I want to give up, throw that decision into the tree, and say we just can’t do this anymore. But I don’t give up. I keep fighting, I keep encouraging everyone to be faithful to their promises to support the budget, and I keep praying. I will not let this roadblock get the better of me.

During a recent worship service, Ev recalled some of the Kite Eating Trees that were in her family’s lives as they were adopting two children. She made an important observation – how do we know when these roadblocks are put there by the evil one, and when these roadblocks are God’s way of nudging us in a different direction? To complicate things, sometimes when we seek the counsel of our friends in these circumstances, we can get conflicting advice. Think of Job, and what his wife told him to do in the midst of his suffering – curse God and die – sounds like throwing in the towel to me.

Often, we don’t know for sure until we can look back in hindsight and see how God was leading us and how He provided what we needed to overcome those obstacles. Sometimes, we see how God used our earthly failure to lead us to a better place. Sometimes, He used those roadblocks to reveal things about ourselves, to humble us, to point us back to Him. Sometimes, those roadblocks were simply trials and temptations designed to wear us down and lead us astray. So how do we tell the difference when we are in the midst of them? Let me know if you figure this one out because I’m still working on it.

The New Testament tells us to consider it pure joy when we face the Kite Eating Trees in our lives (James 1:2-4). Overcoming those trials and temptations will develop perseverance. Perseverance will help us stand up to those Kite Eating Trees, and continue to follow God’s leading not matter how much resistance we face.

So what are the Kite Eating Trees in your life? What’s stopping you from doing the right thing? Are you ready to throw in the towel? Or are you going to persevere?

Stay faithful my friends.

Jac

Two Tricky Questions

Glenn's message "Women In The Program of God" and Jac's blog post "A Bitter Pill To Swallow" have had much positive feedback. I agree with them and with the AGC (the group of churches of which LIFE Church is a part) that God's design as shown in His Word is for men to lead in the home and to be the elders in the church. However, knowing that not all Christians believe this, how do we as LIFE Church relate to churches who believe something differently than we do?, and how do we as individuals relate to our own church when we have differences in belief?

Let's start by looking at Scripture. Ephesians 4:3 says, "Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace" (see also Colossians 3:12-15 and John 13:34-35). We learn from God's Word that we can do this by:
i) Supporting and following church leadership (Heb 13:17), and
ii) Supporting and serving each other (Eph 5:21; 1 Pet 4:8).

Applying these things to the two questions raised, where other churches disagree in an area that is not *explicitly clear in God's Word I would still choose to respect and partner with those churches as God leads and directs.
*(i.e. though God's Word does teach about women's roles in the home and church it does not literally say "Women must not be overseers" therefore it is possible that some people may come to a different conclusion than we do).

Meanwhile, within our own church, we may have a different opinion than our elders and church membership, but in order to make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit, it is important for us to support and follow our leaders and support and serve each other. This is true for all of us. For example, if I was the only elder to disagree on something that was not explicitly clear in God's Word I would submit to the rest of the elder team's decision. Similarly, someone in our church who doesn't think it's a problem for women to be elders can still choose to support and follow the elders and the rest of the church and therefore accept the church constitution as the way our church will do things.

The truth is our knowledge is imperfect until we get to heaven (1 Cor 12:12 - "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known)." Because of this, we will have differences in understanding here on earth.

Don't get me wrong - I believe God's Word, though not explicit, when taken as a whole does clearly teach that elders should be men, however, I can also see how other Christians have come to a different understanding. I would love to see us all agree on this issue but also recognize the limitations of our earthly knowledge. Therefore, until our imperfect knowledge is made perfect I believe we need to pursue the most excellent way of loving each other (1 Cor 13) and making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace (Eph 4:3) as we strive to follow God's Word as best we can.

For His great glory!
Joel

A Bitter Pill to Swallow

In my previous post “When the going gets tough”, I mentioned how difficult it can be to follow the path of obedience when the direction of our church is contrary to our personal preferences. Even when we know the position our church has taken is right, our personal preferences don’t just simply disappear.

For me, the role of women in ministry is one of those circumstances where my personal preference conflicts with the position of the AGC church. This past Sunday, our Pastor spoke about this issue as we continued our series of messages reflecting on the Biblical foundation upon which our constitution has been drafted. The message made me uncomfortable, which I suppose is actually a good thing. I felt uncomfortable because the Biblical argument presented was sound, but it conflicted with my own sense of what is right and wrong. The purpose of this post is not to re-hash the message Pastor Glenn presented – if anyone wants to discuss this issue in greater detail, please contact Glenn, Joel, or me – what I want to do is share with you how I’m dealing with this conflict.

The origin of my conflict starts in my childhood. My mother was the spiritual head of our family. She assumed this role because my father did not. My mother made sure we attended church and Sunday school, taught us how to pray, and as we grew older, she engaged us in conversations about our faith life. Like Timothy, my mother played a key role in my decision to follow Christ. I grew up with a view that women could be as good as or even better than men at providing spiritual direction.

Up until 2003, our family attended the Christian Reformed Church (CRC), which is a denomination that is no stranger to the women in ministry debate. It has often been a divisive issue resulting in several churches splitting or leaving the denomination. Before switching to the AGC, I served alongside of female elders and attended many services where the Pastor was female. This felt completely natural to me. As with most churches, finding people to serve in leadership positions was always a challenge so opening up the role of elders to women basically doubled the pool of resources to draw from. In both the CRC and the AGC, I have heard from many women who have been active in the mission fields, as partners with their spouses, or as individuals on their own.

In my working life, I have worked with many women who have been gifted managers and leaders. The engineering profession actively encourages young women to pursue a career as an engineer, and I know of several women who are in senior leadership roles in their companies. The whole issue of gender equality in our society is one that is often referred to when looking at hiring people or promoting people.

So my life experience tells me that women are every bit as capable as men to do anything. It would seem logical to extend this to ministry roles such as elder and Pastor. Yet, the restriction of these roles to men is not based on ability or logic. It is a directive from God. A directive that is not influenced by culture or education or overridden by new revelation. A directive that doesn’t mesh with my personal preference.

So what are my options? Fight, flight, or obey. I could try to fight this and try to get the AGC to change its position. I could leave the AGC and join a denomination that permits women to be elders and Pastors. Or I can obey and follow the leading of the AGC and our church leadership.

I chose to obey. This means I must set aside my personal preference and follow a path I don’t want to walk. It’s not easy. Simply making this decision doesn’t erase my past experiences. It doesn’t mean I can just let go of what seems to be logical to me. I can’t turn off the messages from society that say women can be whatever they want to be.

This decision means that every day, I need to pray to God that His will be done, not mine. I need His help to overcome my resistance to following His lead. Like other aspects of my life, I need the constant reminder that my natural desire is to follow my own path, but I’m called to walk a different path.

It’s not easy. I don’t like it. But it’s what I need to do.

Jac