Why do I not regret the change?

I get this question quite frequently. The answer is “No.” I don’t have a single regret leaving full-time preaching ministry. In fact, it may be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

I say this for those reading who are contemplating stepping away from preaching ministry because I know you are out there. You are torn. You are scared. You worry about what others might think.

I’m here to tell you that there is life on the other side.

That many have been duped into thinking that the only effective ministry is preaching ministry is unfortunate. I know people indeed work under this misconception because it was a burden once placed on me.

But I took the plunge, and may have salvaged many other aspects of my life because of it.

Here’s why I don’t regret my decision…

I made some people happy!

To be sure, your critics will be glad you are no longer preaching. For a while, I got emails from my critics stating that I wasn’t fit for the pulpit any longer. My decision to minister elsewhere was a blessing to them.

I also made my wife happy. The fishbowl our families get thrust into when we are involved in full-time preaching work is never mentioned as a part of the package but it’s always in the fine print. My wife and kids didn’t deserve some of the treatment they received. To have been moved from a fishbowl to open waters has been a blessing to us all!

I’m engaged in work people appreciate.

Don’t misunderstand me here. Preachers are appreciated. What I mean though is that when people ask me what I do now, they become intrigued. When I would tell people I was a preacher, they would generally become guarded. I think we all know why. In fact, many would become people they really weren’t. In my opinion, that is unfortunate. Now when I tell people what I do, I get amazement.

A few months ago I went back to my hometown for my 20th class reunion. I was amazed at how genuinely interested and intrigued my friends from “back in the day” were with the work I do. I wouldn’t exchange that for the world.

Kids matter! They are the future. Our world in 30 years will be shaped by the preteens Tisha and I work with now. What could be nobler work than affecting the world now for the sake of the future? I can tell by our donors this is a work they appreciate!

You don’t have to preach for a church to minister!

I alluded to this earlier, but I’ll reiterate it once more… You don’t have to preach for a church to minister!!!!!!! Was that stated clearly

Serving gravy at the NMCCH Pork Chop Breakfast

enough?

I work in an incredible environment with incredible people! This is a unique environment. I am somewhat insulated from a lot of things, but regardless of where we work we can minister to others.

I have a friend who left the pulpit and now works as a prison counselor. He’s doing what he could have never done while in preaching ministry. I would venture to say he feels like he’ s making a huge impact! I think he is. He is in the trenches, and is in a position to make an enduring impact.

One Last Thought…

The business model is working against the church. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:

Jesus didn’t die for a 501 C3 Non-Profit Organization!

It’s true! The first century church wasn’t dictated by a budget. It didn’t hire and fire ministers. I don’t think it voted to see who would become elders and deacons. From everything I can read, it didn’t operate like a business. But that is the norm today.

This became a major source of frustration for me. Criteria were crafted for helping people. It wasn’t “opportunity” based assistance (Galatians 6:10). There was too much worry about getting scammed. Who can feel good about telling someone, “Sorry… Can you come back another time and we might help you then?”

I’m not suggesting the business model is necessarily wrong. It’s a way for the church to function. But I’d contend the business model has hindered the church more than it has helped it, and I’m glad I’m no longer beholden to it.

Last Wednesday evening, NMCCH had its annual end of the school year awards ceremony. I was proud of all the home kids, but I was especially proud of my children. In fine fashion, Haylee performed her rendition of Francesca Battistelli’s, This is the Stuff. Aby put on her best smile for all to see. Reese won a Cloverbud 4-H award of $25. It was a wonderful evening made even more special by something else.

An accidental oversight caused a 14-year-old girl sitting at our table to miss being called up for promotion and a reading of her Victory List. Initially, Tisha and I both missed it as well, but eventually she asked, “What about me?” Tisha quickly apprised the MC of the evening of the oversight, and she soon got her own special moment. But there’s more…

Reese, my rough and tough yet immensely compassionate 7-year-old son, was in compassion mode. Feeling bad for the young lady, he decided to give her $5 of the $25 he received as a 4-H award. His words were, “I wanted her to have something.” The young lady was obviously touched. Later she would give the money back to him, but the impression was indelibly etched in our minds. He gets it.

$5 can’t buy much, but its value can’t be confined merely to what it can or can’t buy. To restrict the worth of $5 to a monetary value is to limit the psychological and emotional impact that a gift of any size can affect. On Wednesday evening, $5 was worth infinitely more than the price of a Happy Meal.

The gospels according to both Mark (Mark 12:41-44) and Luke (Luke 21:1-4) tell a story about Jesus seeing people offering rich gifts to the temple treasury while a widow donated all she had, the smallest of Roman coins. In Jesus’ mind, the widow “put in more than all the others” (v. 3, NIV). In the mind of Christ, worth isn’t attached to monetary value. Worth is attached to the heart. Others had given of their abundance, but the woman had given of her poverty.

In the last couple of years, I’ve witnessed people do this kind of thing. People of faith are making a difference with $5, $10, or $20. The poorest of peoples in Honduras are being fed. Kids in Mexico are being helped with school supplies. The homeless in Lubbock are being cared for in numerous ways. Young ladies are being assured that people care. How? $5 at time.

Care to share with me your thoughts?

I’ve read about and experienced all sorts of evangelism “techniques.” I’ve tried a lot of them. Many of them weren’t worth the effort. They were rife with gimmickry, marketing tools, and lines only a salesman could appreciate. Ever seen the salesperson at the mall kiosk who interrupts your brisk walk to Foot Locker because he/she notices your hands are dry and cracked? Yeah, youknow the person. “Uh…I’m in a hurry. Thanks, though.” On the way back, you purposefully walk as far away from that kiosk as entirely possible, using your peripheral vision to gather whether or not she is going to notice you as you now speedily walk past her. Why? I know why I do it. I know that she’s been trained. I know that she is skilled in techniques that are so convincing that if I stop, there’s a good chance she’s going to convince me that I need that stuff for my hands. And you know what? I just might. But it is the approach that she’s going to use that is going to use that rubs me the wrong way. It’s her techniques that bother me.

Yet, this is the kind of thing that can happen in churches. Churches offer evangelism classes that emphasize techniques that I believe place more emphasis on the approach than on God. Everyone seems to be looking for magic in a bottle when it comes to evangelism. Irrespective of the method, the method isn’t what is most important. The “how” of evangelism is important. Don’t get me wrong. You can say all the right things, in all the wrong ways, and never get anywhere. But… God, not the method or strategy, is the one who “gives the increase” (1 Corinthians 3:6).

I feel like I’ve believed this principle, but the increase of God is only by attribution. It’s as if we simply give God the glory for everything, something I wholeheartedly believe we should do, but the response was due to human ingenuity, technique, method, and etc.

I remember teaching a bible class on one occasion when studying the book of Acts. I asked the class, “How did God open Lydia’s heart so that she would receive the message of Paul?” The response was dead silence. The text doesn’t reveal “how” the Lord opened her heart, so it couldn’t be answered with 100% certainty. But I don’t believe that was what was bothering the class. I think what produced silence was the recognition that God did something to help Lydia listen. It took God’s active intervention to make it happen, and I think that makes some uncomfortable. I know it did me, but it was a question I had to consider. In the end, I came to believe that it was going to take immense faith to believe that God is actually the one who gives the increase.

Spiritual growth is dependent upon God, too. We are “being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18). For years, I believed spiritual growth was a glorified “self-help” project by which God receives glory. Certainly, we play a significant role in our own spiritual development. But so does God. In fact, Paul suggests that when I don’t have it in me, God can work in us “to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). Wow.

This was one of the most significant lessons that God taught me in 2010. I could read book after book, try approach after approach, tweak this that or the other, all I wanted, but if I put so much stress on those things, to the neglect of God himself, it would all be in vain. I’d have a misplaced emphasis and miss the point altogether.

The sooner ministers realize this, and the sooner that elders and church leaders understand this, the better off the church will be.  The sooner we quit abusing Jesus’ parables about kingdom growth for the purpose of giving us incentives to “grow” the church, maybe we’ll quit acting like salesmen  on late night infomercials. Those guys drive a lot of us nuts, and if we’ll listen to those outside the church, we might find that our gospel sales pitches aren’t doing much for them, either.

Ministers who believe that it is incumbent upon themselves to grow a church may not realize they are putting themselves in God’s place. After all, God is the one who gives the increase (1 Cor. 3:6). Sure, we plant and water, but God gives the growth.

I am terrible with plants. Last Summer, I built planter boxes for our front porch, bought a few plants, planted them and watered them. Guess what happened to them? They died. I planted and watered them, but I could not give them life or sustain their lives.

Here’s the perfect segue into our concern for saving churches. It is not our job to save churches, either. Last year, Dan Bouchelle, a talented pulpit minister for a healthy, growing church in Amarillo, stepped away from the pulpit to run an organization involved in church planting. On his blog, Confessions of a Former Preacher, he began to share with his readers why. On May 15, he offered this post. It apparently stirred up a lot of controversy, but I’m inclined to believe much of it was because what he stated was true, and it was something that some of us don’t want to believe. Read it, though. I think it’s worth the time. He lays out a real framework for thinking about churches that makes sense.

Shortly thereafter I, too, stepped away from the pulpit. It was not for all the same reasons, but I stepped away nonetheless. It was somewhat symbolic for me. In stepping away from the pulpit, I saw myself as actually surrendering to God, giving him the reins that he deserves.  He could now use me as he saw fit. He didn’t need me to micromanage his church, grow it, or save it.

I believe the misconceptions about growing and salvaging churches revolve around the business model we’ve incorporated in America for churches. They operate as 501C3 non-profit organizations with operating budgets and all the politics that goes with them. Programs are often slashed, not because the don’t work, but rather because churches don’t possess the operating expenses to sustain them. Something is wrong.

Still, God used experiences, blogs, and truth to show me how off-base I was. Thankfully, I got the picture. I learned the lesson.

Saying we don’t know how good we have it here in the US is a gross understatement. Yet, I need only to look in my own back yard to witness things that I would never imagine. So you can imagine what one would see in a third world country like Honduras.

I am hardly ever without words, but there were things I discovered over the course of four days in Honduras that leave me speechless. Here are a few significant ones.

• I am speechless at the kind of skills it takes to land a 737 on the Toncontin Intercontinental runway in a high wind situation. That lady had serious skills.

• I am speechless by how good the average 8 year-old Honduran boy is at soccer.

• I am speechless at witnessing an armed guard carrying a sawed-off shotgun in a Burger King or a Frito-Lay truck guard with a sawed-off shotgun.

• I am speechless at how people drive in Honduras. I’ve never seen anything like it, anywhere.

• I am speechless at the thought of saturating a ski mask with paint or glue and wearing it constantly to temper hunger pains.

• I am speechless by the smiles of resilient children who live in a dump, have little to nothing to eat on days other than Wednesdays, and yet find it within themselves to smile a lot.

• I am speechless at the power of touch, despite dirt and stench. And I’m talking about the power of touch that I felt from them, not the other way around.

• I am speechless by selfless agape that makes people vulnerable. AGAPE brings things out in people that they themselves might not have even realized was in them. I saw people surrender to others and that was Jesus shining through.

Thank you, Honduras, for opening my eyes and leaving me speechless. I needed it.

Please remember this group in your prayers. Also, please remember the families they leave behind.

Can’t wait to write about the experience in the weeks to come.

I’m sure, for some of us, his job description might not help. After all, he cleaned carpets for a living. He might have been the owner for all I know. That’s inconsequential. What matters is that he got it.

He was cleaning my carpets in conjunction with my residential lease agreement. There were several companies to choose from; I made the call; he came.

He, though, asked the question: “Why are you moving?” Here’s how the conversation went.

“New job,” I responded.

“Military?”, he inquired.

“Nope… I’m in ministry.”

“What kind of ministry?” he probed.

“Well I was a pulpit minister, but now my wife and I are going to work with a children’s home in Portales.”

He developed a look on his face that said it all. He smiled with a particular look on his face, shook his head, and we continued to converse about which home we were working with. But as we parted company, I couldn’t help but think to myself…that guy got it. He really got it.

My decision to give up pulpit work for something else hasn’t been well received by all. There are not few who believe that pulpit work is about the only to do ministry. I use to think that myself.

I knew there were a variety of spiritual gifts one might use, and they weren’t necessarily connected to a preaching ministry (Romans 12: 6-8), but I still thought pulpit work was the only legitimate way to serve. Youth Ministers were a waste of money. Family Life Ministers were silliness. Both might be “unauthorized.” Looking back, I wound up being the one with the silly thinking.

Real ministry happens when service takes place in the name of God. It might be at a church building, a homeless shelter, and/or a children’s home. Scratch that…I’m now 100% certain that it happens at a children’s home. It is odd, though, to see who really gets it.

When I apprised the group of what I was doing, they were somewhat shocked. I understand why. After all, we are ministers and we feel like it is our duty to save marriages, not facilitate them coming to an end.

Before the class started, I had serious reservations about it. The class title told me one thing, but the reading titles (Divorce and Family Mediation & Mediating Divorce: A Step-By-Step Manual) suggested something else. I’ve known from the beginning that divorce mediation was a significant part of the curriculum and that I was going to have jump in with both feet, but my feelings from ministry led me to be resistant to it. I want to preserve marriages, if at all possible, not help them amicably come to an end. On the surface, is anything more illogical than a minister trying to mediate a divorce?

But here I am, five weeks into it, and I’m pleasantly surprised. Most, if not all, of my fears are gone and another point is proven: perspective is everything. This class, especially the role-playing, has been as beneficial to me as 10 years worth of hands on ministry experiences. No joke. The mediation process is as valuable as gold because the process, worked in the right way, lends itself to reconciliation. And that is what God cares about most (2 Corinthians 5:18-19). It creates opportunities that, more than likely, would not be had any other way. This may not mean that two people don’t divorce, but it does mean that a process is experienced that can be capitalized in so many ways to revolutionize one’s life. This isn’t hyperbole, either. I’m serious!

The mediation process affords us techniques that can be used just about anywhere, at any time, and at any place. Best of all, when used proactively, it can really change the course of things if people are really pursuing peace. Of course, I learned this week one in Negotiation and Mediation: you have to have two parties who are willing to sit down and discuss things if reconciliation is ever to be possible. It would be nice, across the board, if we had more people who were willing to calmly sit down and be peacemakers. After all, that is what we are called to be (Matthew 5:9; Hebrews 12:14).

The longing for something new isn’t abnormal. It’s actually natural, and at times needed. The covenant offered at Sinai was in need of being replaced by something “new” (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Hebrews 8:7-13). But something new is generally risky. The “old wine” might be what we are used to, and often, we will only take on something new if we can put it in old wineskins (Luke 5:36-39). After all, we are entrenched in the belief that “the old is better” (v. 39). But the inborn sense of desire for something new must be dealt with. You can only avoid it for so long before it becomes deconstructive.

For a while now, I’ve considered breaking free from local church pulpit work to do something new. I don’t want to quit ministering, but I do want to minister in a way that I sense betters serves people. Yes, that’s exactly what I meant!  “What can better serve people than to preach ‘the good news’ to them?” you might be thinking.  Look,  preaching and teaching doesn’t just take place in church auditoriums. It happens in a number of different environments, in numeous venues. But before one thinks that a Sunday morning assembly is “the” best place to minister, I would suggest such one takes a Sunday, stands behind a pulpit for 30 minutes, and speaks . What you might see might change your mind! Sleeping. Doodling. Texting. Reading the Bible but not following along with the minister. People looking around and watching what others are doing. All of this happens every Sunday all over the country.

So, for the time being, I am transitioning into something new. I will no longer be involved in full-time preaching work. Instead, my wife  and I have chosen to minister together in the lives of children at a nearby children’s home in Portales, NM.

I want something new. I need something new. The New Mexico Christian Children’s Home has stepped in to offer Tisha and I an opportunity to do something new.

It will be tough. We both know that. That is, in part, why we want to do it. We are concerned for the future of the church, and we long for Jesus and his church to be integral to the lives of today’s youth.

I ask that you will pray for us as we begin to transition, as well as keep us in your prayers as jump into this work with both feet!

Today, a post is up on Trey’s blog that includes a documentary video about this great Christian humanitarian effort. See it for yourself. Also, there are a number of those close to Trey who are going to fast for 30 hours beginning tonight and use the money that they would have spent on food to contribute to the Dump Day effort. Your participation would be greatly appreciated.