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one.life


highly recommend scot mcknight's book One.Life for anyone working with students or needing a resource for a basic discipleship conversation. i feel like a lot of these types of books are pretty boring, corny, or out of date (at best). so i appreciate Scot's work in presenting a "classic" conversation in a fresh way with language that is helpful for emerging generations. plus scot is a wicked smart dude and you can tell he has thought deeply about each of the topics he hits. good stuff!

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the_hiddenness_of_ministry (friday_reflections)

we recently walked through an exercise called the 360 review with the sojourn and reunion staffs. the process was fun, interesting, challenging, and affirming as we got feedback on our strengths and weaknesses from those we lead, work alongside of, and who lead us.

a couple of things struck me, not the least is that even among those we work with the closest, ministry (what we actually do on a day to day basis) can be hard to define and even harder to see. i grew up in the church, and as a pastors kid, i've heard all the jokes about how great it must be to be a pastor (because you only have to work on sundays!).

that of course is not true (or at least it better not be), but it can be really easy to mistake our public work for our only work. even for the teachingest of teaching pastors, the majority of the work we do is listening, learning from from people, serving alongside others, and being attentive to the needs of our community. it is not glamorous and the majority never get to see it. and it can be hard to talk about if we are honest. 

we share "wins" at the beginning of each staff meeting and this is really great as it helps us "see" what is happening all across the ministry, but there is so much that gets left out too. not every interaction, every cup of coffee, every challenging conversation, every "get it" moment gets to be shared. not even our co-workers get to see all that we do. and sometimes that can be frustrating.

the reality is a good portion of what pastors do never gets noticed. we can begrudgingly acknowledge it and probably feel a little cynical about this reality, or we can joyfully accept the mystery of the hidden work we do and see it as an opportunity for growth in humility that is built in to our vocation. 

the other side of this is that "hiddenness" protects our vocation and leaves us with something authentic to offer others. no one has said this better than henri nouwen, so i'll end this post with his thoughts from reaching out:

"there is a false form of honesty that suggests that nothing should remain hidden and that everything should be said, expressed and communicated. this honesty can be very harmful, and if it does not harm, it at least makes the relationship flat, superficial, empty, and often very boring. when we try to shake off our loneliness by creating a milieu without limiting boundaries, we may become entangled in a stagnating closeness.

"it is our vocation to prevent the harmful exposure of our inner sanctuary, not only for our own protection but also as a service to our fellow human beings with whom we want to enter in a creative communion. just as words lose their power when they are not born out of silence, so openness loses its meaning when there is no ability to be closed."

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new_england_and_the_church


here's a link to an interesting article on church planting in new england. it asks some good questions and highlights the continual need for a missional presence in our area of the country. good to be reminded why we are here!

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summer


on friday the umb leadership crew went on a boston adventure that ended with brazilian barbecue being consumed. a bittersweet moment as it means the semester is finally over and we are now in "summer mode." there is still plenty of work to do for us during the summer, but the rhythms and schedule change and take on a different feel. i can't stop marveling about what a great semester it has been and i really can't wait for september to come around so we can get back in to it! 

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5K


this pic is from the start of the first annual marathon physical therapy 5K. if you look closely you can find me, and if you look really closely you can see the swagger and sneer of a man who has run a 10 miler and thinks 5Ks are for weenies. that swagger was long gone after the large hill during the first half of mile three. anyway, fun race, good times, great to support amy's company and a good cause, and inspiration for more races to come! 

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big vs. small (friday_reflections)

i am, by nature, suspicious of big things. big corporations, big cars, big houses, even big churches. 

i love the "small" moments of life and ministry. one on one's with people at pavement, taking the time to listen to stories. sitting around a table at umass with some of our students, eating lunch and having conversations about everything under the sun. wednesday nights with our community group, reading the stories of scripture together and sharing life.

i also love (and am appreciating more and more) big moments too, getting caught up in a crowd. you haven't lived until you've sung "take me out to the ball game" and "sweet caroline" with 37,000 people at Fenway. i get emotional every time we sing "how he loves" at Reunion (with 200 others), but i wept when we sang it with David Crowder and 2000 others. Jesus attracted crowds. there's energy and momentum and life in large crowds of people.*

in the last two weeks amy and i have been to two concerts: tyrone wells at cafe 939 and bruno mars at agganis arena. two extremely different experiences. and yet both were amazing. i love tyrone and admire what he does. it takes guts to sing your heart out for 100 people, and it's fantastic to watch and even better to be able to talk to him about it afterwards. i'm never going to be able to grab a beer with bruno mars after a show, but there is also something fantastically compelling about watching such a talented dude enthrall 5000 people for an hour and a half. 

i am probably always going to error on the side of small. but, if i am being honest, i am growing in appreciation for the big, and maybe, more pertinently, i am interested by what makes big things compelling. why does a shaking stadium after a home run feel so good? why does the sound of 5000 people singing the lyrics to "just the way you are" at the top of their lungs give us goose-bumps?    

fascinating.


*the critic will point out that the crowd also killed Jesus, and that is true. but not every crowd killed Jesus. also, there seem to be a lot of people involved in what happens in heaven.

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endings...


we are coming in a for a landing on the semester and school year. enjoy some pics from our umass leadership celebration...

our NEU leadership celebration:

and our incredible staff:

what an amazing year it's been. i'll be blogging a bit more over the next couple of weeks with reflections on the year, but for now its enough to say that it has truly been awesome!