Suicide, Isolation, and the Life of a Local Church Pastor

I posted this on my Facebook page today, so I thought I would cross post it here.

Warning long post ahead.

You know I don’t talk a ton about my job on here for various reasons that aren’t your business 😉, but this kind of stuff is happening far too often in our profession any more. This guy has made the headlines, but there are a lot more who don’t have a platform like he did who also take their lives. And many more who don’t commit suicide but leave ministry every day.

Pastor, author and mental health advocate Jarrid Wilson dies by suicide

I struggled with whether or not to post this, because I don’t want to upset anyone in my church by making them think they are not awesome. You are awesome. But no church is immune from the realities of that separation between Pastors and the congregation. It just happens. If you are one of my awesome PCC family members don’t take this personally. It’s just the reality of church life in this day and age.

This job is lonely. You are surrounded by people all the time, but yet alone. You live your life in a glass house. Your kids are held to a different standard than other kids and they didn’t ask for that. People talk about what you wear, you get letters, comments, criticisms, every word is scrutinized. I get it, it’s the gig.

It’s hard to maintain friendships. You can’t always be yourself, you get hurt often but can really say anything. People float in and out all the time and it’s hard not take it personal. You find yourself fighting the constant battle to base your self worth on how many people fill (or don’t fill) the seats on a Sunday. You find yourself struggling not to take it personally when people choose other things. You put hours and hours of work into people, groups, services, events, and try to make it valuable and when people don’t show up, or help, it just crushes you. You know it shouldn’t, but it does.

You work wonky hours, you live with this weird tension of having to hold people accountable who, let’s be honest, also pay your salary and aren’t getting paid a salary to volunteer. So can you ever truly be 100% honest with someone? If they get mad and leave you know it just doesn’t affect you, it affects the entire church. It adversely can affect the other staff, other ministries, etc.

And the people you take years developing relationships with that just up and leave? It’s like getting hit with a truck. For most of the other people in church it’s just a few empty seats. For us it’s like taking a piece of our hearts. The ones that leave over petty stuff, like chairs or music? Those don’t bother you so much. The ones that leave because of me? Those hurt.

It’s funny too because people just assume you agree with everything they do politically and spiritually even though most of the time you don’t. You have to walk this fine line to protect yourself and your family and them. You just nod through conversations that if you truly said what you thought you know it cause that person to no longer like you. We don’t have the luxury of compartmentalizing our lives like so many in our churches do. If I tell you how I really feel about something, or how your actions affected my family, I run the risk of losing that relationship forever. And most of the time it’s just not worth it.

And oh man, do I hate it when people out in the world find out I’m a Pastor. I always get one of three reactions; the first one, and one I get most often anymore, is contempt. People don’t respect the position anymore. And I get it. Between the Benny Hinns and the the guys who can’t keep their hands off of women and abuse their power, to the ones that can’t keep their hands off your wallet, to the ones who are so holier-than-thou and judgy we’ve done ourselves no favors. We’ve made Jesus a commodity and a product. So I get it, I really do. And honestly I don’t blame you. Sometimes I feel the same way. When Conor was in marching band and I was a volunteer there were three times over those years when another parent asked me what I did and when I said Pastor, literally said “Oh.” And never spoke to me again. So while that hurts, to be honest I get it. I’m not a big fan of most Pastors I meet either. 🤣

The second reaction people have is to immediately make you their Pastor and tell you all their problems. All of the problems. They aren’t going to come to your church or actually listen to your advice at all, but they feel better talking to me. We can handle that to a point. But at some point, like anyone else, if you really want do this I need you come be a part of our family. And I’m not a trained counselor. I’m just a dude who is pretty good at exegesis and teaching life application. The problem is they want to do it when you just want to watch a game or see your kid in something. It makes sense, it’s the only time you see me because like I said before, you ain’t coming to be in my church family. And why would you when I’m right there? And I listen. I do. And all of it breaks my heart.

The third reaction is really rare. They don’t care. They treat you the same. They don’t apologize for cussing around you (which always makes me laugh), they still treat you like anybody else. These are my people. Lol.

And then once again there are the wonderful people in your church. Because spirituality is such an intensely personal thing mistakes can be detrimental. One bad personal interaction can inadvertently push someone out the door. Many of them you only see on Sunday and Sundays, especially for me, are insanely busy. It’s hard to be able to stop and interact. One distraction that causes you to miss a handshake or a greeting can change that person’s view of you, or the church. You’ve got to have a soft heart and thick skin and finding that balance is hard. Really hard.

I love love my job, I really do. I was made for this, but it’s not easy. There are days I just want to be “normal.” And I’m lucky. Our church is not perfect, it’s made some mistakes. But by and large, compared to some of the things I hear in the trenches, I’m blessed to be in Piqua.

My point in all this is to say, if you are a part of a church make sure the staff knows you care about them. Take them to lunch sometime. Heck just ask them how they are doing and make them tell you the truth. And don’t judge them for being human. They pour everything they have into you and your church, give it back. There’s not a man or woman out there doing this who doesn’t feel the pressure or the isolation. And they spend an awful lot of time and energy making sure you are ok. Nothing, and I mean nothing, says thank you to us like your presence. Showing up and honoring the work, caring about us as actual people, not viewing us hired hands who can do something for you? That means the world.

And to you other guys and gals on here in ministry why aren’t we meeting and checking on each other regularly? How can there be 4,000 (preacher count) churches in this county and we can’t find time once a month to encourage each other?

I hesitate to say any of this, I do, but I’m tired of reading stories like Jarrid’s. I’m tired of reading stories from my fellow Pastors who are hired “to turn the church around” and then fired for having the audacity to try and “turn the church around.” Church is not a social club or something to go do. It’s not an item on a checklist. It’s not a place to go judge the world’s behaviors with discontent. Heck It’s not even for you. It’s for you to come together with a group of people who agree on this Jesus thing and be the hope of the world. We can’t do that if the men and women who have given their lives over to lead the family of God keep getting hurt by the very people who asked them lead because they are too afraid to be human. And Pastor’s we can’t keep this stuff bottled up.

If anybody out there in ministry needs to somebody to talk to I’m around. If it’s not me talk to somebody. Because I don’t want to read one more Pastor’s spouse post on Instagram how much they will miss their significant other.

I got your back.

Peace.

Wrestling With Priorities

There is a hill in Greenup County, Kentucky off of Route 1 near Oldtown with a cemetery sitting on top of it.  It is my family cemetery, though no one has been buried up there for three decades at this point.  At some point it sat on what was my family’s land, land they surely expected to be in our hands for generations, but instead now it’s owned my somebody else who won’t even let anyone go up there.  I’ve only laid my eyes on it twice, once when I was kid with my Grandmother to check the flowers, and once when I was a teenager with my Mom and Dad just to check on it.  Both times the current farmers’ cows roamed freely on the hill, the only thing separating them from the cemetery was small fence, that on occasion of my last visit had been partially trampled and the cows had gotten in.  The pristine view of the rolling hills and Little Sandy River the cemetery offered was stained with the smell of cow patties and muddied with hoof prints.

After a good year or more of construction in October of 2002 my Mom and Dad moved into their dream home they had built.  My Dad died just 3 months later.  The driveway wasn’t even finished.  Something he has worked and saved and sacrificed for so long for and he only got about 90 days.

Be it the old family farm or the house of your dreams we get so distracted by the temporary and we lose sight of what is valuable.  It’s not the land or the perfect house or the career that leaves a legacy it’s our relationships with others.  That’s what lasts well beyond the cattle trampling your grave and turning one of the most serene spots into a sewage plant.

We get way too distracted with “doing” and things that ultimately don’t matter we sacrifice legacy and moments for the temporary satisfaction of the perfect backyard or promotion at work.  I’m incredibly guilty of this.  I make my myself busy sometimes for the sake of being busy.  In my mind, If I’m not busy I’m not making progress.

I see this happen a lot for me and a lot of other people when it comes to our spiritual lives.  What happens then is we end up trying to subconsciously earn God’s approval by doing works.  Or we distract ourselves with stuff, so we don’t have to deal with God at all.  In either case the result is that we misplace our priorities.  Our life becomes accomplishing a series of tasks that may even be good, but at the end of the day we never move any closer to God by doing things.  Luke chapter 10 tells this story of Martha:

³⁸ As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. ³⁹ She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. ⁴⁰ But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

⁴¹ “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, ⁴² but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

 Now if you are like me you hate this story.  It’s my least favorite story in whole Bible because it hits home.  I can totally relate to Martha.  If you’ve hosted a bunch of people in your house, you know how much stress it can be to get your house picked-up and in order.  What Jesus is saying here though is not that you shouldn’t clean your house before social gatherings, it’s that the work should never distract you from his presence, or the presence of others.  In Martha’s case Jesus was there.  Once he was in the room the work needed to stop so she wouldn’t miss the moment.

There is a time to do the work and there is a time to be in the moment.  Martha here lost the reason to serve and what she says about sister reveals her heart.  She demands Jesus tell her sister to help and in doing so she becomes like the jealous older brother in the story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) or the workers in the vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16) who worked longer for the same wages.  She doesn’t realize that in her own desire to serve makes things just right she was neglecting the person she was “doing all this for.”  She expected everyone else to agree with her priorities and she gets needlessly frustrated when everyone else does not.

Next to Peter there is honestly no one in the Bible I identify with maybe more than Martha.  Martha is the older sister of Lazarus and Mary.  I am the oldest in my family as well.  And like a lot of oldest siblings I’m wired a lot like Martha.  I’m Type A, I’m an 8 on the Enneagram, I can be overly blunt and defensive and get extremely frustrated when people don’t see the same things I see.  While those all seem like bad traits, when given to God they can be refined and used for good.  The story of Martha is here not to make us ashamed or to tell us to stop cleaning our house; it is to help us get our priorities straight.  Because people like Martha and I end up doing a lot of things we claim are “for” Jesus and never spending any time with Jesus or with His people.

We get so caught up doing things that we miss Him and the moments with people that ultimately will define your legacy.  If you have opportunity to be with God’s people and spend time with Jesus and you skip out because community is the most expendable part of your calendar?  Your priorities are out-of-balance.  We will fill our schedules with nothing but temporary nonsense that might win us a Resident Pride award, but then we end wondering why our family resents us and we have no close friendships.  You’ve got a great lawn and a nice house, but who are you sharing that with?  When you die you don’t get to take your lawn or your house or your career with you.  You really want me telling everybody at your funeral how awesome your lawn was because I don’t have a line of people waiting to tell stories about how your life affected their life?

I’ve been reflecting a lot lately on what friendship and community is and how important it has been for me.  I’ve had some crazy opportunities lately to do some things that would not have been possible without relationships I value greatly.  And I see so many people not place importance on having those type friendships or community anymore.

We are NOT meant to go it alone.  Jesus did not go it alone.  He didn’t even only try to go at it with his just his immediate family.  He grabbed 12 guys and spent the last 3 years of life doing everything with them.  If Jesus couldn’t go it alone, or with only Joseph and his Mom and his siblings, and He is God, what on Earth makes you think you are better than God and can get by without it?

I would not be who I am, or where I am without me prioritizing relationships.  It’s a constant battle on my calendar between busyness and people and who wins that battle every week ultimately says what you truly value.  It is not your job, not your house, or your bank account that ultimately defines you.  How you choose to spend the time you have on this side of eternity will communicate to generations in your family and community what you valued.  Period.  My guess is if I could chat with my relatives at the top of that hill in Oldtown, or even with my Dad, they would suggest we not take a moment we have with he people care about for granted.

That’s what I’ve been wrestling with lately and it seems a lot of people in and around me are wrestling with the same thing.  My hope is we prioritize family and people.  They are the best investments we can make.

The Story Behind the Name Part 4

ICYMI check out Part One here, Part Two here, or Part Three here.

When I gave my life to Christ at the age of 19, I may have been saved, but I certainly wasn’t growing. I had no one to disciple me back then. I remember vividly discussing with an Elder all the things I was qualified to do now that I had been baptized. They let me teach Jr/Sr High Sunday School for some reason. I was pretty awful at it, and no one helped me. Fast forward to 2005 and this time around it was totally different. I had some help. My Pastor at the time was named Jim Matthews. I’ve written about him here, and he really invested in me. I also made a friend! The only other young couple in the church was Kyle and Theresa Russell, and my wife and I became fast friends with them and remain close despite the fact we’ve moved from the area. In 2006 I began to serve in leadership at the church and became a part of the mission team. In 2007 we led the first mission trip in the history of the church there.

Meanwhile, I could not shake the thought of that fateful message in the pew some years before. “The harvest is plenty…” I realized I had been called into ministry of some sort. I didn’t know what that looked like or what that was, but I did have people now in my life I could talk to about it. I leaned back on the college buddies, who unlike me completed there degrees and went on to serve in ministry.  They were huge sources of encouragement for me during this time.

All the while I had parlayed going back to school into a work study, the work-study into part-time job in Student Services, and part-time in Student Services into a full-time job in the college library. It seemed like I had figured out the career thing. And this guy who didn’t finish college the first time around ended up with 2 Associate Degrees and a couple of certifications. At the same time my wife was nearing completion of her long journey back to school to get her Bachelor’s degree in Education. It seemed like things were finally coming together.

Except? Well “the harvest was plenty.” Despite the fact, I served in Leadership at our church, served on the Missions Team, helped start a food pantry that is still going, something still wasn’t settled. And I’ll spare you the details, but things started unraveling at the church just as we started to pick up momentum. A phone call from college friend Ryan Shoaff that started with him asking me, “What’s God been saying to you lately” ended up with me ending the day enrolling back into seminary, this time mostly on-line to go into ministry full time.

Two months into my second and final attempt at Bible College I was at work one day when the old Google Chat app dinged and it was my friend from college, Travis Mowell, who was struggling at his church in some far away place called Piqua, Ohio. Truth be told, I had been to Piqua once where I met Travis and his wife, and we went from there see the previously mentioned Ryan who was in the hospital at the time. Piqua was not entirely foreign to me. All of the things Travis was struggling to get off the ground; missions, outreach, small groups, made my heart race. I don’t remember who floated the idea first of me coming on staff here, but two months later my family found ourselves visiting the church on a cold January morning to feel each other out.

In the non-denominational world where I’ve spent of my life individual churches ordain ministers, then it is up to other churches whether they accept those credentials or not.  There is no set criteria, it varies from church-to-church.

My Ordination Service

The Elders in my home church felt I was qualified and ultimately ordained me into ministry.  On March 28, 2010, nearly 9 years ago today, I was voted in by the folks in Piqua and accepted the position of Associate Pastor here. I started shortly thereafter and I realized about 6 weeks into this job there was no way I could balance school and work and two kids and a wife. And so I became the two time seminary dropout. And I never looked back.

Here is the thing though, that’s not a bad thing. I’m now going on a decade and a half of church leadership, from the lay side of it and the volunteer side of it. I can tell you, beyond a shadow of a doubt, I use what I learned in my jobs at Amazon.com and Marathon, etc. far more as a Pastor than what I was going to learn in Bible College. All the Bible knowledge in the world doesn’t prepare for you what awaits in the church; people. People are messy and awesome and infuriating and funny and beautiful and sad. There are, unfortunately, politics and personalities that I can handle and navigate some of my seminary friends struggled with because I had worked for a long time in the secular world before going into ministry. Messy people were nothing new.

Bible knowledge is out there. It’s accessible. I found it, over time I learned it, but people experience? That’s is what this job is about. It’s also about balancing being on call 24x7x365 with family life. It’s about learning how to live on a lot less money than a lot of other careers and how to handle that stress. I had TONS of experience in that! That doesn’t mean there is no value in college.

Me that one time I was on the TV

I went back to school and finished (just not Bible College). I use a lot of that in this job, but it is a secular communications degree. That is also not say there is no value in Seminary for that matter. We all have different paths. Please don’t think I’m saying that higher education is wrong, but I think all too often in the church world we miss the boat on some great people because the over-emphasis we put on education over experience and calling.

For me, being a two-time seminary dropout is NOT a failure. It’s a badge of honor. I’m good at this job. And I think I am good at this job because of the journey. I look back now, and I see clearly that God prepared me for, what He was preparing for me. The calling never left, and he was going to bring me back to it no matter how far I ran from it. And in the interim? He was just letting my mistakes give me the skills and competency I needed to love Him and love His people. The old adage is right, He does not call the qualified, He qualifies the called. Even though I went WAY outside His plan, and He never stopped pursuing me.

Today I serve, still at the same church, as the Executive Pastor. I handle all the day-to-day stuff, I lead our Family Groups, all the financial stuff, I preach 15-20 times a year, and I’m over all the Sunday

The Staff Photo

morning teams (Worship, Media, Stories, Guest Services). I do all of it well in spite of being a seminary dropout. Not just once, but twice. And if God can use a 2x Seminary Dropout? Well, he can use anybody. I don’t need a piece of paper to qualify me, neither do you. You just need your faith, your story, and a host of people behind you holding you accountable and taking ownership of you. You don’t earn that by spending four years in a classroom.

Regrets? No, not really. I do wish my Dad was still around, not to see me in Ministry, but to be a part of his Grandkids’ lives. It’s tough when you move away from your family because unfortunately, they don’t see their other Grandfather, my father-in-law, nearly enough. They’ve missed out on a lot. I know what that is like, one of my Grandfather’s died when I was in 1st Grade, and my other Grandfather just wasn’t around a whole lot. He wasn’t your “traditional” Grandfather type. I had always hoped my boys would grow up having a close relationship with my Dad. Sadly, that was not meant to be. But there is no doubt he is heaven right now very proud of all of us.

To close I just want to say “Thank You” to the people who stuck their neck out for me, who saw something in me when there wasn’t much to see. To my family, Travis, Ryan, Adam aka Beef, Jim, Kyle, Travis Jones, the folks back in Raceland, Ann Mullins, the Elders here at PCC, Dave Fishback, and everyone who saw a sarcastic seminary dropout and thought, “There is something special about that guy.” Thank you.

To everyone else who ever doubted me? I love you too! Haters. I showed you!  Lol!

I am Jeff Ratliff, the 2x time Seminary Dropout. And dang proud of it.  Now if you’ll excuse me I’ve got to get back to work.  You see “the harvest is plenty…”

The Story Behind the Name Part 3

ICYMI Check out Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

The Catalyst Conference has been around for about 20 years now. It’s a leadership conference primarily targeted at church leaders. I had never been (or heard of it for that matter) when I was invited by my church’s Senior Pastor Jim Matthews. All expenses paid. Which was nice, because at the time I had gone back to school and was a work study and my wife was also going to school full time and working in Americorps. Money was not something we had a lot of. I told Melissa at lunch that I was asked to go and she didn’t say much then besides that I should. That night, however, after I had been my typical depressed jerk all afternoon, (that I had been for too long) she did everything but give me an ultimatum to go and demanded I start to pull it together. I did not want to go. I figured it would be a bunch of old white dudes preaching and quartet singing, which in my defense was pretty much the only kind of church I ever knew. It was the exact opposite of that.

That Wednesday night we departed for Atlanta in the church van. Me and 7 other guys. I instantly regretted going when the discussion turned to politics, and I realized I was very much in the minority in the van on my views. I just remember sitting there fairly quietly on the way there. Thursday morning the conference started with a band doing worship I had never heard, but it was phenomenal. The group was the Steve Fee Band, from North Point Church, which of course I know now but I didn’t then. The first speaker that morning was some guy I had never heard of named Andy Stanley. I’ve been doing the church thing since that day, so I have listened to a lot of communicators and sermons and talks, etc. over the last 15 years but for me, there is no one better than Andy Stanley. His God-given ability to tell a bible story you’ve heard 100 times seem like the first time is just unsurpassed. He talked about integrity, and I had literally never heard anyone like him in “church” before.

Catalyst managed to do something for me that church had not the first 27 years of my life; make me lean in. And my guard went down. And then right after lunch, a guy named Donald Miller spoke, and my life hasn’t been the same since.

The one and only Donald Miller

Donald Miller is the author of multiple books, his best known and perhaps most controversial is “Blue Like Jazz” which came out back in 2003. That day I had no idea who the guy was. I looked all over the internet for a video of this talk since now it had been almost 15 years ago, but alas I found none. His argument was essentially that part of the problem with Western Christianity was that we have spent the last 100 years building a culture around people that just validate our opinions. And then he talked about an illustration his Pastor did at his church one day. Miller said his Pastor wrote “City Bus” on a marker board and asked the people in his church to say what adjectives they thought of when they thought of the city bus. The responses were predictable; smelly, dirty, loud, a hassle, etc. When they were done with all these adjectives that were almost entirely negative the Pastor erased the words “City Bus,” and its place wrote the words “Other People.” That morning I leaned it, that moment I took the punch God had set me up for square on the chin.

Miller went on to warn the 10,000 Christian leaders attendance that we were shutting off other people and if we didn’t reach out and listen instead of being obsessed with “telling” we were heading for…well EXACTLY where we are now as a culture. And he talked at length about how we’ve made the world all about us. We love me some me. One of my favorite lines I’ll always remember from his talk is that he said, “If we don’t get cheap crap quick, we are frustrated.” He talked about learning to see the world from other’s point of views, and he closed with this thought, “Life is not about me. It’s not about us. It’s about God.” As he prayed to close, his session tears welled up in me because I remembered the first line of a book my Dad loved, The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. The first line is “It’s not about you.” My Dad loved that line, he quoted it. And he lived it out.

I went into the bathroom stall at the Gwinnett Area, and I sobbed, and I repented. Because I had made it ALL about me. I had not dealt with my anger and pain and resentment and grief, and I had projected that all over the people who didn’t deserve it.

Not the actual stall

And in that stall, I directed it all at God, and he took it, and there was nothing but an enormous weight lifted and this feeling of love. In that bathroom stall, for the first time really, I really gave my life to God. And as I pulled myself together and went back to my seat trying to act like nothing happened, that’s when I heard it.

“The harvest is plenty, but the workers are few. Will you be my worker?”

Crap. Not this again.

TO BE CONTINUED

The Story Behind the Name Part 2

If you missed it last week, I started the 4 part series on “How the Blog Got Its Name.” Go read part one here. So we pick up right where I left off.

Having dropped out of college might seem like a waste, but it wasn’t a total wash. I was still there for a reason, turns out it was 3 reasons. If the broken attract the broken, then I attracted the broken. I made three of the best friends I’ve ever had in my short time at CBC; Travis Mowell, Adam Irwin (whom we called Beef), and Ryan Shoaff. At the time we were all too young and stupid to disciple each other, but I would not be where I am today without their influence in one way or another. All three of those guys were not your typical CCU student and had ended up at CCU somewhat the same as I did. So that fact we all 3 a bit non-traditional we ended up finding each other, as tends to happen when you are forced into a sea of people who all were kind of cookie cutter Christians. Over many hours of PlayStation and pounds of chicken wings, we became great friends.

NBA In the Zone was our drug of choice

Although they were not significant spiritual influences in my life during college, later in life all three of them were significant influences in my walk. I would not be who I am and where I am without those three. So while Bible College didn’t end the way one might think it should have, I’m firmly convinced I went there to meet those guys and things turned out just the way God intended. Of course, my parents sure didn’t see it that way at the time. Lol!

By the end of 1998, I had made a lot of changes though. I had moved back home and started dating the girl who would become Mrs. Ratliff. Despite being somewhat traumatized by my experience in Bible College, I had enough a faith rooted now it didn’t pull me away from God. I also was able to start the process of casting aside some of my manipulation behavior, and I began to become more honest. By the time I started working for Amazon.com in late ‘99/early 2000 I was a vastly different person that I had been just a couple of years earlier. I was actually beginning to grow-up, to be honest. I got married in June of 2000, and I had my first son 17 years ago on March 12, 2002.

February 1 is a date that will forever be etched in my mind for two reasons; the first is that it’s my sister’s birthday and the second is that on February 1, 2003, my Dad collapsed and never regained consciousness. He passed away on February 6th, 2003. And that began over two years of a deep dark depression that started creeping in and took me over little by little. What faith I had built up eroded over time. I’ll write another post another time about my Dad, but he was my hero (I’ve written about him a little before here). Still is. He was a strong believer, he was an excellent leader in our community, and he was a leader in our church. I could not understand for the life of me why this loving God would steal my Dad from me and especially his only Grandson, just a month shy of his 1st birthday. For about a year afterward I held it together for my Mom, but I didn’t deal with the grief and resentment, and that just builds up over time. And it ended up nearly consuming me.

Career wise? I was still a bit of a train wreck. I spent three years at Amazon.com and left there and went to work for the US Postal Service for a time as a contractor hoping to get on full time. That didn’t work out. I ended up going into I.T. and working on the Help Desk for Marathon Petroleum for a couple of years before we were all outsourced. That’s where I was working when my Dad passed away. They were so incredibly generous with letting me off work to deal with that situation. I was convinced I had finally found my career. And then? Well, Marathon had other plans and got rid of all of us. Some of those folks had put decades in. I felt terrible for them. I ended up missing my last day there because my second son was born on that day, September 30, 2004. Nothing like sitting in the unemployment office the next day with a hospital bracelet on. You are so simultaneously overjoyed you have this kid, but at the same time, you now have no job. I made the decision to go back to school. I had no idea what I was going to do with my life, but we had the opportunity to go back to school and have part of it paid for since we were outsourced, so I took advantage of that.  Back to school I went having no idea what I wanted to do, but I knew I needed to do something.

In September of 2005, I was sitting at home. I hadn’t been to church in a couple of months. The phone rang, and it was Greg Denton. Greg had been a Deacon on the church board when my Dad was an Elder. Greg was an Elder now, and he was calling to check on me since I hadn’t been to church for a while. And he probably doesn’t even remember the conversation, but I do. He told me he was just checking on me and as I was about to blow him off and get off the phone, he said, “Jeff I just want you to know I really miss your Dad.” And I said that I missed him too. And Greg said he hoped I would come back. But there was a twinge of sadness in his voice and authenticity when he said he missed my Dad that caught me off guard. These were inauthentic people after all right?

After I got off the phone with him, I cried. Conor, my oldest who was 3 at the time, waddled over and just crawled in my lap and asked me not to be sad. I just replied, “I’m trying.”

That Sunday morning, I got up and went to church. And I haven’t missed again, unless I was sick or traveling, since September 25th, 2005. Hasn’t mattered how late a night Saturday was, if I haven’t simply been gone or sick as a dog I go because I get it now.  They all are inauthentic people.  And so I am.  And for hour or so once a week we try to shut out the noise, come together, and find grace and mercy with God and each other.

I don’t know why Greg Denton picked up the phone and called me the Friday before to check on me, but I’m glad he did. Because after the service that Sunday Jim Matthews, the Pastor at the time, pulled me to the side after church and invited me to a conference the next week, all expenses paid.

And that’s when everything really changed. In a bathroom stall in Duluth, Georgia.

TO BE CONTINUED

The Story Behind the Name Part 1

I feel like I should address the name of the blog since I’ve now had a few people say I should change it because “I’m not defined by failures.” In that thinking, they are correct. But the name of the blog to me does not signal a failure, quite the opposite. Let me tell you a story. In 4 parts! Over the next couple of weeks, I’m going to post the cliff note version of my story. And why the name of this blog is something I wear as a badge of honor, not of shame.

I became a Christian at the age of 19 in a little church in Raceland, Kentucky. I was baptized by a summer interim youth pastor named David DeBorde who was the first “Christian” I was ever around who was honest about his flaws. In my mind the biggest obstacle to Christianity at the time was not that I didn’t believe in God, it was the hypocritical way I felt church people acted. I was in a small town, I knew everyone that went to that church. What they sang about on Sunday, often did match what they lived out on Monday. And I was mortified of becoming “like them.”

Now I have no idea what happened to David, but he was the first person to come along in my world and admit that he wasn’t perfect. To be frank, he was kind of a mess. Lol! But he was genuine. He was real, he was wrestling with the things people grapple with when they are 20-21 years old and was open about it. Those things weren’t hushed. It was a bit refreshing to me because what I saw was that you could be authentic and genuine and still follow Jesus. What I had seemingly learned and absorbed being in and out of church growing up was there was this level of cleaning up one had to do before one could be a Christian. And what little I did read the bible back then seemed to contradict that notion. I can’t tell you how many times I heard the hymn “Just As I Am” sung as an invitation, only to hear the opposite message from the same people after church. And keep in mind, I grew up in Eastern Kentucky. So a lot of the emphasis back then was on the way someone dressed, or the length of a guy’s hair, tattoos were terrible, etc. The message I saw in scripture was “Just As I Am”as the words of the song, but the message I heard in churches “Just As We Want.” As a result, I dismissed Christianity as something I wanted no part of, despite the fact I was growing more convinced there was a God.

When I did decide, based on Dave’s genuineness, to give the Jesus thing a go in the summer of 1997 I honestly ended up more lost for a long time. To say I gave my life to Christ and everything changed would be a blatant lie, because while I started to believe Jesus was real and God was God, I didn’t honestly give all of my life over to him. And to make matters worse, no one really came along and led me. But God indeed began his work that day.

Back then I was a liar, I was a manipulator, I was co-dependent, and a myriad of other things. I can totally relate to what Paul says in 1 Timothy 1:15b when he says, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners–of whom I am the worst.” I was the worst. I hurt a lot of people, including my family and the girl I was with at the time. None of those people deserved to be treated the way I treated them. For that, I will always be sorry.

But God.

I was in a band back then, and a couple of us were Christians, so we became a “Christian” band. I use that term loosely because none of us truly wanted to be in a Christian band, but there seemed to be more gigs to be had and a market for it, so we went for it. One particular Sunday we were asked to sing a couple of songs at church and our lead singer sang a song his Uncle wrote. The chorus goes “How sweet it is, to say you’re one of his. Entering his Kingdom is just like coming home. And as you walk through the door, that robe of sin you wore is changed from scarlet red to white as snow, and you’re one of his.” Now, this guy could really sing, so imagine that chorus with just an acoustic guitar picking in the background. And for, what I believe is the only time I’ve heard the utter clear voice of God as if he was sitting right next to me, I heard Him say “The harvest is plenty, but the workers are few. Will you be my worker?”

That’s it. I did not know what that meant, I was so young in my faith I didn’t realize it was a bible verse (it’s Matthew 9:37 and Luke 2:10). So when I talked to the previously mentioned Dave about it there was the only solution, I was to become a Youth Minister and go to Bible College. For the first time.

I started at what was then called Cincinnati Bible College and Seminary shortly after that. I got a ticket the first night for smoking. I was not pleased. I was told the next day smoking was banned from campus and was met with absolute befuddled looks from my Advisor that I did not understand why I couldn’t smoke. I mean I just came from this little church where some people barely were out of the lobby before they lit up. At least I had the decency to go to the parking lot. In January. In Ohio.

I did everything “wrong” there. I came “Just As I Am” eating at Hooters whenever possible, occasionally drinking Red Dog beer (yay the 90’s!) in the dorm room, I got in trouble for wearing a South Park t-shirt to class, I played an inordinate amount of PlayStation, I ate an unhealthy amount of Skyline cheese coneys, and a skipped a lot of classes. And I was essentially Satan to the vast majority of the folks there. The more I felt judged and was treated like an outsider the more I wanted to run up phone card bills talking to my girlfriend back home and sneaking alcohol and going to Hooters. Not once did anyone ever try to reach out and disciple me. Not once. It was just write-ups and eye rolls and judgment. It was everything I experienced in church growing up, but instead of it just being an hour on Sunday I was immersed in it every day of the week. I was miserable. I rebelled. And, not shockingly, I ended up dropping out. By the end of 1998, I was the 1x Seminary Drop-out.

Alas, my time in Bible college was not all for naught.

To be continued…

I Saw My Belt Buckle This Week

Back in January, just a week shy of my 41st birthday, I thought I was having a heart attack.  I called my wife, who told me to call my Doctor, who told me to go the E.R.  I didn’t think it was a good idea to drive, but I also didn’t believe that I needed an ambulance, so my friend Doug Dolder came and took me to the hospital.  Long story short I didn’t have a heart attack, but I had some other problems.

I’ve never been skinny by any stretch.  I’ve always been broad-shouldered and “fluffy” as Comedian Gabriel Iglesias would say.  But not long after I got married, I really put on weight.  At one point I weighed close to 340 pounds.  In 2012 I ended up hospitalized and found out I had Type 2 Diabetes.  In the year or so afterward I dropped down to 280, mostly by walking regularly and I stopped drinking soda.  Since then I fluctuated between 280-300 lbs depending on the season.  As for diabetes?  Well, I realize now I let my medication handle it for me, rather than myself taking control of it.  And?  Well, I ended up in the hospital again.

If you’ve read my old posts, you know I touched on this last year when I talked about my battle with cynicism.  I’ve neglected my physical health for a long time.  I make no attempts to hide that I’m a Christ follower.  So I believe there is an afterlife, but I’m not remotely afraid of death.  As a matter of fact, in a lot of ways I look forward to being reunited with family and above all be with God.  That attitude is not wrong, but I used it as an excuse to do whatever I wanted, quite frankly.  I was much like the apostle Paul in Romans 7 when he says, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”

The truth is I wanted to die.  Not get into everything here, but between raising two teenagers, the stress of ministry, and my growing cynicism I was just done.  But laying in the hospital this time around I finally was sick of living like this.  So I walked out of the hospital and walked into a gym.

I don’t know how much weight I’ve lost, it’s not about that.  I do know that just working out with a trainer 3 times a week and drastically altering my diet has exponentially improved my mental state.  I don’t think I realized how unhealthy I was until a few weeks ago.  I do know that it hasn’t made the stressors any better, but it has improved the way I handle it.

Walking through the doors of the gym is the toughest part.  I tried a couple of years ago to do the Planet Fitness thing, but there was no accountability or community there.  I did not want to go to Anytime Fitness, I thought it had to be full of lunkheads and people who would outwork me, out-sweat me, and basically make me feel inferior.  I could NOT have been more wrong. The place is like Cheers, everybody knows your name, everyone is encouraging, and my trainers; Justice, Adam, and Danielle and their dietician Kaitlyn have made going to the gym something I actually kind of forward to.  I feel supported like I have a team behind me.

And I don’t write this blog post as an advertisement for Anytime Fitness, my guess is that there are thousands of supportive gyms like this all across the country.  It takes a lot of guts to walk through the door the first time.  It took a lot of guts, for me, to me in a “class” workout environment because I was self-conscious about people looking at me or messing up.  But, I knew I had to do it, and everyone is so busy doing their thing they aren’t paying any attention to you.  And the more you work out with the same people, the easier it gets.

The “a-ha” moment for me was just a week in.  After trying to do this for years for my wife, or my kids, or whoever, I wanted to do it for myself and because I was sick of not being who God fully called me to be.  That made all the difference.  At least for me.

I’m just going into my sixth week, but I feel like a different person.  I’m sure I’ll lose weight and inches, but ultimately that’s just an outward sign of an inner change.  In Matthew 22 Jesus is quizzed by a lawyer about what is the “Greatest Commandment.”  Jesus responds, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

The trick to “loving your neighbor as you love yourself” is that you have to yourself.  And I didn’t love myself.  As much as I teach and lead and preach that we need to find our value in God, I must admit I did not do the best job of living that out across the board.  Because as much as I do find that in some areas, in others I relied on food to provide that comfort.  That was incredibly hard to admit to myself and out loud, but I am addicted to food.  On January 31 on took a blue chip at Celebrate Recovery.  Tonight I get my 30 day chip.

I hope and pray that I’m done bowing to the donut Gods, but I also know that I have a long road ahead of me, but I’m not walking this road alone.  I’ve got a team of people who care, a family who loves me, and a God who shows me every day that I’ve got a life worth living, and He is not through with me yet.

I got surprise one of my friends this week and got to say a few words to his students and teachers at the school where he is the principal.  Someone snapped this picture of me talking and I noticed something I’ve not seen in a very long time.  My belt buckle.  My gut has covered my belt buckle for a long time.  Just seeing that?  I was ready to get back at it this week.  Progress, one squat at a time.  We shall see where this journey will lead, the first few steps have been hard, but totally worth it.

On Dr. King, Listening, and the Disease of Self

In life, it’s so easy to dismiss the story of others. We tend to continually view people through our own lenses. To judge them on our own experiences, without affording them the right of having their own experiences. Not everyone was born the same color as you, with the same parents as you, with the same freedom as you.

In 2019 it is easy to forget that Martin Luther King was one of the most hated men in America. Time and dwindling ignorance have helped everyone understand more and more the importance of King’s life. The enormous impact he made is undeniable, but let us not forget the same words we champion today are the same ones who earned him a bullet.

Sadly today I can’t help but feel we’ve regressed. We gleefully elect leaders who have little or no time to respect the experience of others. And as such we perpetuate a culture that is wholly intolerant, because, we tend to view others through our own experiences. May God forgive us for becoming so self-obsessed that we get the leaders we deserve who cast off decency and decorum and treat a person’s character as something either to be discarded entirely or, and perhaps even worse, as a political selling point.

I hope I am teaching my kids that just because they don’t know what it’s like to be pulled over for driving in the “wrong” neighborhood, doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen to somebody else. I hope I am teaching my kids that because somebody loves people of the same sex, or has fallen into addiction, or has less money, or has more money, or has no power, or has all the power that that person’s story and experience is so different and unique from their own and their purpose is not to judge them for it just because they didn’t experience the same things, but to shut up and listen. Find common ground. Have compassion. Forsake yourself.

The thing that most resonates me about the Gospel, and the reason I am a Pastor and ultimately chose to give my life to God, is not to get into Heaven. It’s because there is freedom in the radical selflessness Jesus demonstrates. Part of what has gone horribly wrong in Western Christianity is that we tend to ignore the whole “Deny yourself” and instead we cling to ourselves and twist the message of the Gospel so we can be more comfortable. Then we don’t have to validate African Americans, or women, or the poor, or the addicts, or even the rich. We can judge from our comfortable roost.

In one of my favorite books “The Upside Down Kingdom” author Donald Kraybill puts it this way:

“A false split between spiritual and social leads to a warped reading of the Scripture. It tempts us to turn Jesus’ message into sweet, spiritualized syrup. Such a twist can dilute the truth, making it harmless. We marvel at the atoning death of Jesus but forget that it came about because he demonstrated a new way of living.”

That new way of living was giving a voice to the voiceless. Jesus was giving power and a voice to prostitutes, tax collectors, fishermen, and the disabled. The radicalness of Jesus is that those most marginalized become those most empowered. That is NOT comfortable. And I have little doubt today when Jesus sat down to eat with the people who most disgust you, you would become just like the very Jews who sent him to a cross. Because admitting that perhaps African Americans have a right to feel like they matter means you were wrong. And makes you uncomfortable. Rest assured, however, that in the end? That won’t work out well for you. God’s Kingdom is the opposite. And there is total freedom in the selflessness that Christ embodied, and Dr. King so bravely lived out. I believe that for anyone that starts with the ability to shut up and listen. And for once in your life set your opinions aside, close your eyes, and see the world through the eyes of someone else.

In his infamous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Dr. King is writing to a group of Pastor’s who have written him complaining he is rocking the boat. In response, Dr. King takes a paragraph to explain what it is like to have lived and walked in his shoes, and the people like him.  For a few moments, close your eyes, and imagine what life is like when this is your experience:

“We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are), and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”–then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.”

-Letter from a Birmingham Jail April 1963

There only two responses to this; it’s either empathy and indignation at their treatment with a resolve to do better, or a hateful unwilling chosen ignorance. The kind that says “Get over it.” The kind that says “Pull up your own bootstraps.” Easy for you to say. You were born with boots. Many people were not. I am a Christian, not because of other Christians. No, to be honest often it’s in spite of them. We are not perfect, but we serve a God who when you cut through all the legalism and religion and strip away the noise you find a simple message. Love. Love that only comes when we deny ourselves. And make ourselves the least. And we just listen to the cries of his people in a broken world. And then go do something about it.

Dr. King, I pray we would listen. And understand. And when we are done wiping away the tears? Act.

On Parenting, Stories, and My Dad

Occasionally I get to have an actual good conversation with my oldest teenager. Most of the time he just wants to talk about video games and Marvel movies, but every once and a while he opens up, and we actually have a good talk. Last night we had a good discussion.

My Dad would have turned 72 today. He is, and will forever be, my hero. Two dates from his life will be imprinted on me forever, December 10th (today) his birthday, and February 6th, 2003 when he passed away 5 days after he collapsed at home and just a week and a half removed from heart surgery.

I mention that because Conor and I’s conversation came out of his frustration about putting pressure on himself to have a story. Context doesn’t matter so much here, but he was telling me how feels like he just doesn’t have a story yet and feels terrible about it. And he’s right, not about feeling bad, but about not having a story yet. His story is just beginning. He’s not lost very many loved ones, he’s not had to face a lot of adversity, and from a faith perspective, he’s not really made his faith his own yet. He’s just now starting to even think about wrestling with things like that, but most days, like most almost 17-year-old boys, he’s thinking about his girlfriend and video games. And while one might say that’s bad, as someone with a story, I don’t see it that way at all.

Life is coming for him. It’s creeping over the hill. What’s the rush? I would not trade my story and mistakes anything in the world because they make me who I am, but I also would not run a full sprint back into them either. Or desire to experience the pain of it over and over. So, in that conversation I could have helped him figure out his story, but for what? The pain is coming. The fact he doesn’t know he has one yet reflects the fact Melissa, and I have worked hard to give our kids the best lives possible. He should get to be a kid. So, I’m in no hurry to push him into it. He doesn’t need a story yet. One day he will, and he will have one, and it will include things from this part of his life that he doesn’t realize is a story yet. But until then? I’m ok with him figuring out who he is in the first place. Life is coming for him. And my job is not to stop it, but to prepare him for it and be there for him when it does.

The hardest part of raising kids is letting them fail but letting them fail in a way that prepares them for what is heading their way. I think the tendency of parents nowadays is they try so hard to keep their kids from feeling any sort of pain or discomfort that when they do get older, and life does what life does, they can’t cope. My Dad let me fail. He didn’t keep me free from consequences mind you, but he allowed me to fail. I didn’t have the best grades, I didn’t make the best decisions, I wasn’t always truthful, and yet he (along with my Mom who begrudgingly went along with him) let me do those things, get those grades, tell that tale, and when it fell apart, there were consequences. He didn’t spare me from the consequences, some of which came from them and some of which came from school or work or the loss of friendships. And you know what? It hurt. And I learned from it. Sometimes I had to make the same mistake several times to get it, but I eventually got it. Too many parents don’t let their kids fail, and that does them a great disservice because life is coming and some seasons are great and some seasons are terrible.

Life is coming for my sons. Life came for me. I had lost relatives growing up, but you never expect to lose a parent when you’re in your 20’s and their first Grandson is not even a year old. I never expected to have what I thought was the last job I would ever have outsourced in 2004. I never expected to be back in school in my late 20’s and then to  leave another job I thought was the last job I would ever have in my early 30’s to go into ministry full time. I never thought I would see not one, but two delivery rooms as quiet as a tomb when my wife, who is the very picture of strength and resiliency, would deliver seemingly healthy boys that never had a chance. I never thought a few years ago I would be the only Pastor in a church and forced to push down all my feelings about that and just trudge forward for the good of the family that makes up our church. All the while, my family was still reeling from losing two babies. Nobody knew really, but I was battling depression and anger and grief. Those were some dark, difficult times. Because life came for me like it does everyone.  I was as ready as someone could be, because my parents let me fail.  And those times, while at times were awful, helped make me who I am.

Life is coming for my two teenagers of whom I am profoundly proud. One day they will realize it, and I’m not going to try and stop it, but you better believe I’ll be there to put my arm around them for as long as God allows me to be here. And I’ll do my best to prepare them for it. But for now, I’m following the example my Dad and Mom set for me. One day my boys will have a story filled with joy and pain and mistakes and triumphs. But for now? I’m just going to let them talk about the new Smash Brothers game, and girls, and the new Avengers trailer. And I’m perfectly fine with that.

Oh, and Happy Birthday Dad. Thanks for everything.

People Will Figure Out What We Actually Believe By What We Actually Do

You ever get a quote or something just stuck in your heart? Back in the summ

er, I read a pretty remarkable book called “Everybody Always” by Bob Goff. Bob Goff is a really fascinating guy. He kind of came to the forefront a few years ago with a book called “Love Does.” He just tries to radically love people where they are at. In so doing too many of us he seems “out there.” We are doing this book in all of our Family Groups here at church, and everyone has a reaction to Bob that ranges from joy to sheer terror! LOL! He is definitely different, but it made me think of this quote I came across one time and saved, apparently just for this moment:

Disconcertingly weird! That’s Bob Goff! LOL! I think the last line is a kicker for me. “They expose us with their honesty.” That’s so true, and that’s the reaction I think I see in the people who struggle with understanding not just Bob, but the Jesus He knows and writes about in the book. And that is simply about having our comfort shaken-up. We will dive deeper into that soon enough.

So before picking up “Everybody Always” I knew who Bob Goff was, but I didn’t know what the book would be about. I originally picked it up because I thought it might help me with some issues I was having with my oldest son, and it did, but I wasn’t expecting it to impact the way I see everybody. Always. I’m going to be blogging about my takeaways from “Everybody Always” over the next several weeks. I can’t recommend it highly enough! Go buy it. Seriously click here and get a copy!

There are several quotes in the book that just really have jumped out to me, but a couple has really bored their way into my heart. The first one is:

“People will figure out what we actually believe by what we actually do.”

In this digital world we live in now this has never been truer. How many people on your Facebook feed share some picture of Jesus, or identify themselves as a Christian, but then spend an awful lot of time posting hateful political rhetoric or arguing with other people? Too many. And it’s just become a digital version of what many Christians were already doing by surrounding themselves with like-minded people and creating a comfortable version of faith in God for themselves. They don’t what to wrestle with their faith, or who God is, or especially what exactly God wants them to do considering the grace He offers them. Often folks will claim to believe every word of the bible is true, but apparently not applicable to their own lives. No one in the Bible, in the New OR Old Testament had a comfortable faith. God never invites into a faith that is still or stagnate, or that settles.

You ever come across a stagnate pool of water? It’s gross! It’s got mosquitoes and moss and all kinds of yucky stuff. I’ve been to the Honey Island Swamp in Louisiana several times, and you expect it to be full of mosquitoes, and be dark, and smell because it’s a swamp. But it doesn’t! You know why? The swamp is actually part of the Pearl River system and the water flows, there is a current, it’s in motion. Mosquitoes and algae and the things that are associated with stagnate water don’t exist in water that flows. Where there is a current, there is abundant life.

Stagnate swamp ecosystems can only support so much growth. Eventually mosquito eggs hatch. Or finally, the sun dries up stagnate water because there is no consistent water source. But the Honey Island Swamp, fed by a river flowing into the Gulf of Mexico teems with life, it’s lush, and just keeps moving. It’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to!

The faith that God demands of us is one that is a flowing river, there is a current in a vibrant and active faith. When our faith gets stagnate we let our guard down and become complacent, and when we get complacent, we don’t produce good fruit. We can become cynical, jaded, or worse apathetic. Instead, we produce stinky, smelly, mosquito-infested water. And that’s precisely what happens when we get comfortable in our faith and don’t push ourselves to grow, not in knowledge, put just in going out and being unconditional love in a world becoming increasingly devoid of it. We get comfortable, and over time we grow hardened and self-sufficient, and we lose our current.

In Revelation 3 John mentions the church at Laodicea. Laodicea was a flourishing city in what is now modern-day Turkey. During the Roman Empire Laodicea became a major hub for multiple trade routes and became an extremely wealthy city. So wealthy, that when an Earthquake destroyed much of the city in 60 AD, the citizens declined funds from the Roman Emperor Nero and rebuilt it themselves. Wealth breeds comfort. In modern day America even our poorest are among the richest in the rest of the world. I can’t help but think of our country and our Christian culture when I read about the church in Laodicea in Revelation 3 beginning in verse 14:

“To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. I know your deeds that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.”

People were figuring out what the Laodiceans truly believed because they relied on their own power and wealth. As a result, Jesus here says he would rather they be openly hostile than be “lukewarm.” It’s easy to argue with someone on the internet. It’s a lot harder to go have coffee with them and learn about their lives and understand them. It’s easy to tell someone to “pull themselves up by the bootstraps.” It’s much harder to buy them some boots and teach how to put them on.

My wife and I have lost two sons who were stillborn early in the same calendar year. As you would expect it was much harder on her than it was on me. Some 5 years later now it’s better, but there are still things that can bring all the sadness and sense of emptiness back to her. It’s easy to talk about her for “not getting over it” or rolling your eyes when she shares about it. And when people do that, heck when I do that, it shows what I actually believe. I, and the folks that react that way, either don’t know or have forgotten, all the work she has done just get back to zero. But an uncomfortable faith is one that seeks to understand the journey of others. True faith seeks understanding and not condemnation. When people do that she feels heard, her spirit is lifted, and she doesn’t feel crazy for being human. It’s the same for anyone else. Far too often Cultural Christians see seeking understanding as some sort of validation of that person’s behavior, it’s not. And if we are honest, that’s all about appearances. That’s about the fear of guilt by association. And that’s not the heart of God, that’s the heart of a Pharisee. Jesus readily accepts guilt by association all over the Gospels. We’ve got to get over that nonsense, and if truly believe in Him and are to represent Him then we must accept “guilt by association” comes with the territory. Seeking to know someone who is different, or with whom you disagree is not validating their behavior, it’s validating them as a person. It’s showing them that they are a unique and beautiful son or daughter of God no matter where the journey has taken them.

So my first God Thump from “Everybody Always” was the reminder that I don’t have to agree with someone to just seek to understand them. I may never understand them, but I should love them anyway. And in that act, we show what we really believe. Bob Goff is exactly right when he says:

“People will figure out what we believe by what we actually do.”

What does what you do say about you?