The book itself is a short book but it is packed with some amazing truths and life-changing questions.  The author, Parker Palmer, is a Quaker theologian who has wrestled most of his life with the question, “why did God put me on this earth?”  Palmer then seeks to answer this question throughout his book.  Below are some of the quotes that challenged me:

• Trying to live someone else’s life, or to live by an abstract norm, will invariably fail-and may even do great damage. (Kindle Locations 72-73).
• Vocation does not come from willfulness. It comes from listening. I must listen to my life and try to understand what it is truly about-quite apart from what I would like it to be about-or my life will never represent anything real in the world, no matter how earnest my intentions. (Kindle Locations 77-78).
• there is a great gulf between the way my ego wants to identify me, with its protective masks and self-serving fictions, and my true self. (Kindle Location 84).
• many young people today journey in the dark, as the young always have, and we elders do them a disservice when we withhold the shadowy parts of our lives. (Kindle Locations 201-202).
• If we are unfaithful to true self, we will extract a price from others. We will make promises we cannot keep, build houses from flimsy stuff, conjure dreams that devolve into nightmares, and other people will suffer-if we are unfaithful to true self. (Kindle Locations 313-314).
• When I give something I do not possess, I give a false and dangerous gift, a gift that looks like love but is, in reality, loveless-a gift given more from my need to prove myself than from the other’s need to be cared for. (Kindle Locations 471-472).
• The God I know does not ask us to conform to some abstract norm for the ideal self. God asks us only to honor our created nature, which means our limits as well as potentials. (Kindle Locations 483-484).
• A leader is someone with the power to project either shadow or light onto some part of the world and onto the lives of the people who dwell there.  A good leader is intensely aware of the interplay of inner shadow and light, lest the act of leadership do more harm than good. (Kindle Locations 723-724).
• if people skimp on their inner work, their outer work will suffer as well. (Kindle Locations 841-842).

If you haven’t already, please read this great book!  I would give this book a grade of “A”.

Upon returning back to Grace Point and EPIC Student Ministries, I had the opportunity to share with our EPIC students and parents just a small sampling of what God was/is teaching me.  Included below are my notes along with a link to where you can listen to a recording of my talk.

One last thing:  Thanks Grace Pointers for allowing me this sabbatical!!!!

Town Hall Meeting (05062012)

Big Idea:  God is looking for authentic people, not perfect people

Text:  Matthew 23.25-28

• Sabbatical Thank You
  • Went into the sabbatical with a heavy focus on what God wants to do in EPIC, but the word that was constantly being spoken to me was the word, AUTHENTIC.
  • Started off with a week-long youth ministry conference in Louisville, KY with 3,000 other youth pastors.
  • Attended a day-long seminar at the beginning of the conference called Pause:  An experience to gain clarity for your life and work which was taught by Dan Webster, CEO of Authentic Leadership, Inc. and former Pastor of Student Ministries at Willow Creek Community Church outside of Chicago.
  • Dan is now a Life Coach out of Holland, MI.
  • Through this Pause seminar, there were four things I realized I needed to do concerning myself as a person and as a leader:
    • Listen to God (authenticity happens when I pause long enough to see how I am interacting with God).
    • Listen to the last year (authenticity happens when I pause long enough to reflect on the journey I have taken).
    • Listen to my leadership development (authenticity happens when I line up my leadership with the gifts and talents God has given me).
    • Listen to the challenges I must face (authenticity happens when I am bold enough to deal with obstacles in my life, may it be, mental, spiritual, emotional, or physical).
• As a result of this Pause seminar I struck a relationship with Dan that led to him mentoring me through my sabbatical and helping me discover who I really am.

• What does it mean to be Authentic?
  • Get Whiteboard to list synonyms of the words Authentic and Inauthentic.
  • After discussing the lists READ Matthew 23.25-28
  • Read Matthew 5.20
  • Pharisees– the scribes and the Pharisees were in fact, the most obedient and committed religious folks in first-century Jewish culture. In addition, the Pharisees were theologically correct in almost everything they believed and taught.  The problem is they hid behind the Law.
  • They were more concerned about what others thought of them and how they portrayed themselves as spiritual giants that they didn’t see the flaws in their life and in essence lost their authenticity.
  • They were holy.  They devoutly followed God, prayed to Him regularly, often “heard from God” about how things should be, BUT they led by guilt.
  • But that isn’t the kind of disciples God is looking for.
  • Read Matthew 9.9-12:  As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Matthew got up and followed him.  Later, Matthew invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. ¹¹ But when the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with such scum?^[d]”  When Jesus heard this, he said, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do.”
  • The disciples God is looking for are the broken, authentic, and transparent, not the Pharisee.

• How does this apply to EPIC?
  • I am a Pharisee!
  • The problem:  Read Luke 6.40.
  • Counseling—Perceived Perfectionism—“You think you have to impress everyone with your talent or accomplishments to get them to like and accept you. You believe that your friends and colleagues won’t respect you if they discover that you’re flawed or vulnerable.” Burns, David D.
  • As a result EPIC has become more about spiritual appearance than raw, real authenticity.
  • As Erwin McManus puts it in his book, An Unstoppable Force, we are creating a museum of saints instead of a hospital for sinners.
  • A walk thru a Wax Museum.  Not the real person.
  • The church was not intended to be a place where we put on masks to hide our true identity but was designed to be a place where it is safe to remove the masks and be authentic self.

• How do we fix it?
  • Start with the leaders, both adult and student leaders.
  • This whole next year of leader training will focus on the theme of Authenticity.
  • Going through the workbook, The Real Deal, by Dan Webster.
  • We are going to start this summer with a Student Leader class that will meet on Saturday nights during the service and will be open to any student 6-12^th grades that are interested in plugging into an area of service in the church including EPIC.
  • Teaching series will focus on Authenticity:
    • Ethos—our identity, our culture, our character
    • Masks—A look at the different masks that we wear and how to remove them.
    • [You]nique—Discovering why you are here and what you have to offer the world.
    • I am EPIC—A look at EPIC characters in the Bible and how we can be EPIC as well.
    • Culture Shock—Being authentic in a non-authentic world.
    • iWorship—What does authentic worship look like.
    • AttiTUDE—Developing Godly attitudes instead of self-seeking attitudes.
    • Truth is—Five promises from God when life is difficult.
    • Discipline—Moving from desire to experience.
    • Doubt—What causes me to doubt and how can I overcome it.
• Catechism/Confirmation Class on Saturday Nights starting around the beginning of the school year.

Recording Link:  http://www.gracepoint.cc/index.cfm?i=8595&mid=18&g=41599

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 (NIV)
⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
¹⁰ That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

So there are three things I have learned so far through this fasting journey:

1. I am incredibly blessed!!  Seriously, I don’t even consider how readily food is available to me.  I CANNOT complain about God’s grace and mercy on my–EVER!!!
2. I get grumpy when I don’t eat.  Just saying!!
3. The farther down this journey I go the more sensitive I become to the groanings of this world.  I cannot even imagine what God must feel as He looks down on His creation and sees us in such turmoil, despair, and chaos and yet unwilling to to turn to Him.

I pray I will seek to see this world and my own life through God’s eyes.

My job for the evening was to guide us in a time of Lectio Divina.  Lectio Divina is a an ancient practice of Scripture reading which helps the reader pull the most out of God’s Word.  You can do this with any passage but we used Psalm 34.7-9:

⁷ The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him,
   and he delivers them.

⁸ Taste and see that the LORD is good;
   blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
⁹ Fear the LORD, you his holy people,
   for those who fear him lack nothing.

These are the three questions we had people reflect on and journal:

1.  Listen to the Holy Spirit minister God’s Word to you. What one word or phrase especially touches your heart?

2.  Enter the passage. What emotions do you have? What personal struggle or longing in your life today is God speaking into? (Be specific.)

3.  Reading: Receive what Christ has for you today. What is your personal invitation from the Lord? What do you sense God might be saying to you?

Once again, you can choose any passage.  I would highly recommend that you start with Psalm 34 and breakdown the passage in 3-4 verse segments and do this exercise everyday this week.  It will both eye-opening and rewarding.

On another note:  After the service we send home baggies with packets of salt, pepper, sugar, and mustard.  We encouraged the participants to find a quite place at home and to taste each of the spice packets and answer this question, “how is tasting God like salt?” etc.

Here are the details of my sabbatical:

When:  March & April 2012

Would like to focus on:

• Personal
  • Physically
    • Exercise Routine
    • Healthier Eating Habits
• Spiritually:
  • Spiritual Disciplines
  • Study on Contentment/Book of Job
• Artistically
  • Guitar Lessons
  • Drawing class

• EPIC
  • Professionally—what does God want EPIC to be known for and how do we develop that?
  • Relationally—what needs to happen to create a more unified environment among students at Grace Point?
  • Leadership—development of more adult leaders (especially college age students) and put together a plan for the development of student leaders.
  • Visit 5 student ministries

• College Ministry
  • What would a college ministry look like at GPCC?
  • Visit 2 college ministries

I will be starting my sabbatical with the Simply Youth Ministry Conference in Louisville, KY from March 1-5, 2012.

Please pray that God will give me clarity as to what He wants from me and the student ministry at Grace Point Community Church.

1.  Start small

Sometimes we fail because we plan too big.  Start with a small goal with the disciplines, understanding that the Christian life is a growing process that takes time.

2.  Put together a plan

Once you have set some goals concerning the practicing of the disciplines, put together a plan of how you are going to get there.  Take into consideration, when, where, what, and how the disciplines are going to look in your regular life.

3.  Find an accountability partner

Find someone who will hold you accountable to be faithful in practicing the disciplines.

4.  Pray

I know it may sound like a given but we often forget the reality of the spiritual world we live in.  More than anything, Satan does not want you to develop disciplines that will strengthen our relationship with God.  Make it a practice to wake up every morning and begin your day praying that God will help you be faithful in your relationship to Him.

5.  One last thought—ENDURANCE! 

Remember that the disciplines wouldn’t be considered disciplines if it didn’t take hard work, determination, and perseverance in putting them into practice.  It also wouldn’t be considered “practicing” them if it didn’t mean we weren’t going to fail every once in a while.  Don’t let failure throw you completely off course.  God so deeply wants a relationship with you that He desires that you move past the failures and keep going!

When challenging his leaders in relation to serving students he said there are three things he asks them to do:

1.  Pray

You can’t lead someone spiritually if you haven’t asked the Spirit to guide and help.  Prayer is one of those “must” that rarely ever happens.

2.  Prepare

Be ready to for what might come up with students.  Know what they are going through.  And if you are teaching a lesson, definitely take the necessary time to know and ingest the topic you are discussing.

3.  Pursue

Teens like to know they matter and one of the best ways to do that is to pursue them.  I’m not talking about during church or the EPIC teaching times, but outside of GPCC and EPIC.  Contact them through Facebook, text, or call them.  Meet with them for a shake or a burrito.  Show up at one of their sporting events.  Really, just love them throughout the week.

Thanks Adam, for this great reminder!

Question: How many of you would consider yourself a daredevil?

Question:  What is the most dangerous thing you have ever done?

Question:  What is the most dangerous thing God had ever done?

Illustration:

Chronicles of Narnia:  The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Mr. and Mrs Beaver are explaining to the kids about the world of Narnia, how Narnia got to the place where it is cold, frozen, etc., and goes into great detail about Aslan.

Lucy, the youngest of the three can’t grasped that a Lion would be something that people would be excited to see.  She asks the question, “Is he (Aslan) safe?”  Mr. Beaver quickly replies, “Safe? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he is not safe.  But he is good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

Of course if you are familiar with the Narnia story you know that Aslan represents Jesus.  So essentially, the message of that scene is that Jesus is not safe but he is good.

Application:

Jesus is not safe.  He didn’t call us to live a “safe” life.  He didn’t die so that we can live a mediocre, non-challenging life.  Jesus is very dangerous.  His teachings are dangerous and those that truly follow Him will find the path they walk to be dangerous.

So how do we follow Jesus?  We live has he lived!!

1 John 2:6 (NIV)
6 Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.

So then the question to be asked is, “How did Jesus live and how did he command us to live?”

Mark 12:28-31 (NIV)
28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
29 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’
31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

John 13:34-35 (NIV)
34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
35 By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

But loving people isn’t always safe.

Loving people means we invest in the life of others.

It means we have to get messy.

It also means we have to give our all!!

So how do we love?

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 (NIV)
1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
10 but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.
11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.
12 Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

One of the best examples is David.  Read Psalm 42.

Psalm 42:1-11 (NIV)
¹ As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.
² My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?
³ My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
⁴ These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng.
⁵ Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and
⁶ my God. My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon–from Mount Mizar.
⁷ Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.
⁸ By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me– a prayer to the God of my life.
⁹ I say to God my Rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?”
¹⁰ My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
¹¹ Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.

Though it is discouraging that David felt this way, I am thankful to know that he struggled like most of us.

This year, God has placed this passage on my heart,

Philippians 4:11-12 (NIV)
¹¹I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.
¹² I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.

In a world and culture that is so materialistic-driven, I would love to find my contentment in God and who I am in Him instead of stuff I have or don’t have.

God, my prayer to you is that I find myself being satisfied in you and only you!  Amen.