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For the past seven years of leading worship, I’ve also been on our church’s Ministry Team committee. Composed of all the leaders of each ministry at Westmark, we meet about every other month. Most meetings consisted of an assessment of where each ministry was headed, what events were going on and as a committee, we existed to schedule events together in order to avoid a significant amount of overlapping. Our new pastor is thankfully taking it to a new level, a little of which I posted about here.
So, our next assignment, received via a reminder email this morning:
I had asked you what made you who you are in the areas of your head, heart and hand. To be more specific –
· How/where did you learn what you know about God and Christianity (head)?
· What shaped how you think and feel about God and church and ministry (heart)?
· How did you learn to do what you do in serving others, particularly in your area of ministry? (hands)
· Discuss what is important for children, students, young adults, young parents and beyond to know, feel and do as followers of Jesus Christ and beginning to assess how to get them there. With that, to also assess if there are areas where ministries overlap and where there are gaps between our areas of importance and areas of practice.
So let’s explore the first, shall we?
How did I learn what I know about God and Christianity:
Mostly through study. Of the Bible, of books by respected and unrespected authors, by listening to sermons, by feeling music written by those who’d been where I was and was going to be, by sharing myself with others, by watching my fellow humans – their behavior, words, emotions. I study, study, study and with so much more left to learn it’s intimidating to know how many books on my bookshelves I have left to read (and that just of those I can afford to buy, not even counting those I can’t! But honestly, I only learned what I know because God allowed it. When my heart was finally open to hear and learn about who he is, he took me and ran.
Where did I learn what I know about God and Christianity?
In classes is where it began for me. That’s where I learned the facts, the basics, the theology, the history. But it was in the relationships with others I began to see God’s wonder. It was through art that his majesty was revealed to me, it was worship where I saw myself to be who I was created to be, it was through the words of friendship and family love I learned who God is. Why? Because each person is a reflection of God. He created them and every person I meet knows something I don’t know but need to know. It’s my job to learn from them.
“Where” is a word that has no limit because God has no limit. While I admit I didn’t learn much about him in church as a grade-schooler or teenager, he was still there. At that point in my life, I was simply struggling with the idea that God could even exist at all despite what all my Sunday School teachers told me. I had no rock-hard evidence, no solid proof offered to me. And when I asked God for it in those juvenile ways we all do: “God if you exist, will you move that piece of trash in the street?” and he didn’t come through I thankfully never wrote him off. What I learned years later was that God will prove his existence to my heart in order for me to “get it”. It may not be that way for everyone, but for me I only knew God existed when he changed my heart, not when he moved a piece of trash. The church did not teach me. Though I have fond memories of my Sunday School, Bible School and Youth Group days, and while I did have scarce encounters with God through these venues, I learned nothing profoundly deep at that time in those places. To be honest, I didn’t even know what the word “salvation” meant until a professor asked point blank in a class what the most famous verse of salvation was recorded in scripture. When I didn’t know the answer, that was when I knew the church failed me, or I had failed at that education. I attended Sunday School my whole life and never knew until I was 19 years old. There is something wrong with education in the church today.
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Huh. I didn’t expect that to come out of me, and I’m not even done. (And I thought I could get through one a night.) I can’t wait to wake up tomorrow and read what I just wrote. It always looks different in the daylight.
What I’m listening to: Ginny Owen’s Live from New Orleans
What I’m reading: The Leadership Baton by Rowland Forman,Jeff Jones, & Bruce Miller
Times of testing seem to come without warning, don’t they?
Not that knowing ahead of time would make it easier, but sometimes a little heads up would be nice. To steel myself against the dark valley of despair, the brace my soul for the jarring potholes ahead, the put my mind defenses up to keep the distractions of life far away.
It’s been two years since I was tested like this. Two years since the tears I expressed so wracked my body I could no longer sit upright. Two years since God had my full-blown attention so much so I don’t even remember what I did at work today. Two years since every sense was heightened, every word had meaning, every piece of art touched me deep, every song written was just for this moment.
The simple fact that God never changes but the rest of the world does at a lightning pace makes me long for a rebirth. Bathed in the tears of my own sin and sorrow, I promise to be nearer, closer to the one I am meant to be. May I also promise to accept my serious limitations and understand I can only do my best to overcome them. My rebirth, through the cleansing of my heart, is the only peace I can aspire to for now.
This storm is meant only for me. I know that now. At first I thought it would be for – well, I don’t want to get into that. But this storm, where the wind blows in the opposite direction of where I’ve already been, with my tears hitting my face just as the rain would, maybe, just maybe, this storm might let me walk on water.
I watched the proverbial sunrise coming up over the Pacific and
you might think I’m losing my mind, but I will shy away from the specifics…
’cause I don’t want you to know where I am
’cause then you’ll see my heart in the saddest state it’s ever been.
This is no place to try and live my life.
Stop right there. That’s exactly where I lost it. See that line.
Well I never should have crossed it. Stop right there.
Well I never should have said that.
It’s the very moment that I wish that I could take back.
I’m sorry for the person I became.
I’m sorry that it took so long for me to change.
I’m ready to be sure I never become that way again
’cause who I am hates who I’ve been.
Who I am hates who I’ve been.
I talk to absolutely no one. Couldn’t keep to myself enough.
And the things bottled inside have finally begun
To create so much pressure that I’ll soon blow up.
I heard the reverberating footsteps synching up to the beating of my heart,
And I was positive that unless I got myself together
I would watch me fall apart.
And I can’t let that happen again
’cause then you’ll see my heart in the saddest state it’s ever been.
This is no place to try and live my life.
Who I am hates who I’ve been.
And who I am will take the second chance you gave me.
Who I am hates who I’ve been ’cause who I’ve been only ever made me…
So sorry for the person I became.
So sorry that it took so long for me to change.
I’m ready to be sure I never become that way again
’cause who I am hates who I’ve been.
Who I am hates who I’ve been.
Thanks to Relient K for articulating my heart.
So I’ve spent the last two weeks thinking. A lot. And I’ve spent the last two weeks sheding many many tears.
I’ve never really thought of myself as a negative person. In fact, I’ve ended two significant friendships because their negativity having such an affect on me I knew I had to get away for fear of being sucked in. But when at rehearsal last week our keyboardist seemed unusually frsutrated with me, I asked a fellow team member when we had a moment alone if I was difficult to work with. I couldn’t figure out what I’d done wrong, and naturally I assumed it was me, and I wanted to know what I could do to prevent it in the future. What I didn’t expect was the answer I got.
I have to change who I am. ‘Cause what I am’s not good.
Sounds easy enough, doesn’t it? Just change who I am.
But it’s who I am. And whenever I think about that, the tears come.
That’s not okay with me. Who I am is who I am.
Can you just wake up one day and decide to be a different person? It’s one thing to change a habit – like vowing to drink only 2 cups of coffee before 8am, eating more vegetables, going to bed earlier, keeping the house cleaner… But how do you change how you feel? How do you change your mannerisms so other people don’t take you the wrong way? How do you change the everyday tone of your voice so it makes people happier? How do you change the frustration you have for no one understanding who God made you? How do you change who you are?
So steal my heart and take the pain,
And wash my feet and cleanse my pride
Take the selfish, take the weak,
And all the things I cannot hide
Take the beauty, take my tears
My sin-soaked heart – make it yours
Take my world all apart
It takes all I am to believe
in the mercy that covers me.
I discovered this article the other day and I felt like the author had a recording device in my mind.
Artists have great strengths—and extremely complicated weaknesses. It’s part of how God created them. They feel things deeply and therefore can craft moments that tap into what others feel but can’t seem to express. Yet this very strength—feeling things deeply—can drive artists to self-doubt, perfectionism, and fear of failure.
Single-mindedly devoted to their craft, artists can slip into self-absorption and lose sight of the big picture. It’s rare to have a simple conversation with artists or a simple decision about approach and ministry. Artists often see the world in shades of gray rather than black and white, and they resist quick or simplistic conclusions.
Why is this so hard for non-artists to understand? When did feeling things deeply and passionately become taboo in this bizarre little sub-culture the church has created for itself? Did we fall somewhere between the line of being a professional faker and a honest human? And why isn’t the latter appreciated more than it is?
Where do I find the balance between being the one who is “enough” because God made me who I am and being the person God created me to be?
My mind unprepared yet my heart prepared, I feel a crushing blow. I sit facing my friend – shocked but not shocked. Somehow I knew but didn’t know the unhappiness was so deep inside. I was reflecting into the people and places who didn’t deserve mistreatment. Sadness affects more than just me.
My stunned mind ran in circles wondering where it all went wrong. I closed my eyes hoping a picture would come to explain it all away, a way for the problem to be solved.
A year?
Could it be that bad?
“Yes” the Holy Spirit whispered to me. I was suddenly aware of all I’d done. Not in a way that made sense to me, for I still have no explanation. None of it was intended the way it was took. So in the midst of a life I’ve tried to create order and peace in, I must now make everyone else happy too? Does that seem fair? I asked myself.
As my friend continued to talk my disbelief grew, but my acquiescence did not go ignored. What she was saying was true, from their perspective (my brain slipped that in – how did that happen?) yet I couldn’t understand how it’s gone undetected by me all this time. Must I be everything to everyone?
The shock too fresh, the tears were unable to come. I knew they were inevitable. I did not expect them to come at 8:30pm tonight on I-80 while listening to David Crowder’s And He set me on fire, and I am burning alive. With His breath in my lungs I am coming undone. And I cannot hold it in and remain composed. Love’s taken over me and so I propose the letting myself go.
I am letting myself go.
You are my joy.
What is it about David’s music that gets to me?
As I learn to accept truth while sitting in a construction zone, I wonder how to change who I am. Of course a song comes…
So we had a talk last night
About the heavy blow that you dealt in fight
Your back against the wall
It was a puzzle peice
important to the whole that I may not find
You placed within the hole
I never seem to put them in the gaps I see
like a puzzle where the pieces lost you and me
So I’m changing who I am
’cause what I am’s not good
How do you change who you are?
Stephanie Nelson 