UnEdited

Conflict

2009-05-08T07:47:00.005-04:00

I recently attended a men's retreat. It was good to get away from the everyday stresses that pull at us and place value in the simple things of life. A very well known speaker was enlisted to come and speak at the general sessions. His name is Sy Rogers. You can go and check him out at www.syrogers.com if your curiosity will simply not let you embrace his name and you must know more about him. Sy made a statement that I deemed to be true, "Jesus came to remove our guilt, but He doesn't remove our humanity". He also said that while God wipes away our guilt in Jesus, He doesn't give us a spiritual lobotomy and erase our memories. He said our life experiences create "residue". Residue (or scars) are those things that linger on and sometimes show up unexpectedly or are simply ingrained deeply into the life of a person.

For several reasons, I find myself in moments of conflict quite often. Sometimes they are outwardly expressed, but more often than not, I just wrestle with them inside my own being. Sometimes that is a good thing...for the benefit of others (smile). As I try to explain to my friends that understand me the most, I don't plan to create tense moments, they just happen, especially when I write or teach. If you are one of those closest to me...you have experienced that. Moving on to my most challenging conflicts at the moment...

1. Relating to church culture.

I was /am an ordained pastor and served in several churches in various capacities for about 12 years until I made some very stupid choices. It was in the context of these very stupid choices that God graciously not only embraced me, but He allowed me to experience how church culture responds to failure, short comings, and not "meeting the standard". My experience has led me to believe church culture in general struggles to relate to failure in healthy and helpful ways. The biggest struggle being in getting close enough to the failure to have relational credibility. The focus seems to be trying to get people to perform well, behave well, stop doing stuff, instead of loving well. More on church culture in a later post.

2. Personal value

I mentally understand that my value as a person isn't determined by what I do. That takes us to baaaaadddddddddd places as people. At the same time, I have a desire to be a person of impact. I struggle with trivial matters and look for things that make an impact, a difference. I have been trying to find the "do" thing for the past 4 years with not a lot of success. That saga will continue.

3. Relational priority

I love people and my "spiritual gift" is hanging out. It may not be a spiritual gift but I love to do it. When in a large room of people, I want to spend quality time with everybody. I can't and that frustrates the heck out of me.

4. Receiving and giving

Receiving is hard in our culture and it is hard for me even though I am much further down that maturity road than before. When something is given to you that required no effort on your part, it is hard to receive. I think it is because we feel we owe something if someone gives us a gift or does something for us. Giving is the easy part...it makes us feel good. Receiving makes me feel needy and I don't like it. That being said, one can not be a great giver until they first learn to be a gracious receiver. That one bit me. Yow!

If you have conflicts you feel comfortable sharing, I would certainly like to hear them. We don't have to always have answer, but the be able to say "this is me" is a huge release for me.

Compliments

2009-05-06T13:12:00.003-04:00

Today I was given a huge compliment. It made my day really because it was so personal and uniquely powerful. I know, some of you are wondering if it was my hair, my new tattoo, or some infinite peace of divine wisdom they gathered from a lesson I taught (for those of you who don't know me, you may take those statements as extreme hyperbolic exaggerations...for those of you who do know me...you take it that way already). Contrary to what you might be thinking, it wasn't any of those.

I was having a conversation with this dear friend of mine, and this person said these words to me, "Gant, when I blew it a few months ago, out of all those near me and around me, you were the only one to treat me the same". I was speechless. All I could manage to say was simply, "Thank you".

Why was this complement impact me in such a deep and powerful way? Let me unpack what my friend was saying to me in an amplified version...

"Gant, I blew it, and even though it was hurtful to you, disappointed you, betrayed your trust, lied to you, hid things from you, and wore a mask of "all togetherness" in front of you, you still valued me and related to me in the same way despite all my failures". It made my day and is still making my day! I don't know that I have ever been given a greater complement. To say that I embraced my friend and didn't abandon them or relate to them differently as others had, and that my simple embracement impacted them so greatly blows me away. I felt like Jesus for a moment.

I can relate to failure, both big and small. I know what it feels like to fail and be abandoned, handed off, or devalued because of choices or mistakes. I also know how easy it is for our view of God to get skewed when these things happen. Because people that identify themselves as Christians have a hard time relating to us in the midst of failure doesn't mean that God does. He doesn't. God isn't in the business of holding things back or isolating us. Those are the things that people do, but they can choose not to.

How we relate to failure, specifically failure that hurts us, displays more about our faith than any other aspect we hold on to. It says more about our relationship with God than a quiet time, church attendance, evangelistic outreaches, programs, music, or service. Why is that true? Because failure is the very reason Jesus came. Jesus was God's response to our failure, and somehow, in much of church culture, we struggle in responding the same way...embracing and not abandoning.

I could go on for days on this one, but let me just say this....

Grace is the great ground leveler. Despite our successes, our failures, our fears, our deficits, our celebrations, and our hurts, Grace can bring everyone to an equal place. Grace is a gift from God given to us, not for our own satisfaction, contentment, and well-being, but a gift that is to be used in healing and restoration. Grace is a jar that never runs empty. No matter how big the mess, Grace ALWAYS can cover it.

Conform

2009-05-04T17:47:00.003-04:00

I met a new guy in my community group Sunday. I say that as if it is a unique event, but actually it happens about every week. I found myself intrigued by him and his story. He is a middle aged man, in good shape it seems, and covered in tatts from neck to...well...I am not sure because he had pants on. He is a new Jesus follower. His story was fascinating really. He came out and said that he once hated Jesus Christ and was annoyed by people who would stand outside of Kroger and ask him point blank, "Do you know Jesus?". I wasn't shocked that he said it offended him. I often feel offended and bothered when people invade my stroll from the grocery to my car with a cart load of goods.

As he sat next to me in the "worship service" I began to have some crazy thoughts. "Do you think they will ever ask him to teach a class"? How about a preschool or children's class? Does he look to scary for them? Does he not conform to this "image" of Christianity we try to portray? The beautiful thing was those thoughts weren't on his mind. The sad thing is they were on mine. The spiritual "residue" of my past church life wanted to call out to him and say "RUN!!!! RUN Before they get you! I'll stay behind and buy you some time"!

Before you sign me up for the Church Haters platinum membership, I don't hate the church. Actually, my love for the church has grown to great depths. I don't want to be separated from them in heaven or need a special gold star for not giving in to cultural conformity. I am frustrated with how she corporately and organizationally behaves at times. That brings lumps of coal on my head when I share in moments, but as Sy Rogers says, "It doesn't help to not talk about it."

I think conforming is one area where church culture misses it at times. I know I am speaking in general terms when I say "church culture" because that statement is completely inclusive and exclusive at the same time. As a friend of mine said recently, "We stand on one side of the bridge, which is always the right side since that is the side we are on, and we yell across the bridge, "come on over here and be like us". Conforming is a comforting thing, it is safe, it makes us feel protected. The only problem is that when the Bible happens to talk about conforming, it usually isn't a good thing. The one time it talks about conforming in a positive sense (Romans 8), God is the one who does the conforming or molding.

Demanding religious or church culture conformity isn't limited to older, traditional, established churches. The newest church starts and plants can demand the same cultural conformity. It isn't about new or old, drums or organs, suits or jeans, big hair or faux hawks, it is about the expectations placed on people (spoken or relationally unspoken) that classifies your level of acceptance. Presumptions on image take the stage. We are all guilty of it at times. Church culture has a knack of reminding us that we don't measure up and tries it's best to get us to. More about that in another post.

Practically speaking, it might be fair to say we think we know what this mold is God wants to fit people in to. We would never literally rewrite the Bible to say "do not be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be conformed to us and the way we look and do things", but the way we relate to people communicates that very thing.

I am moving away from conformity...from world and church culture, and moving into being transformed.