a coherent collection of random statements regarding God, words and tunes

I Shall Be Released…. I Think….

Not quite ready for the next music column (and one of the albums isn’t cooperating very well anyway…), so an update on the ongoing church stuff.

After sucking it up and waiting patiently for a change, I think we’ve finally got the green light to move on. Without dwelling more on specifics than I really need to, a few basics:

1) The few things others in my family were involved in have been, for reasons out of (at least) our control, eliminated.

2) Perhaps the most revealing moment was when we, as a family, field-tested a Bible study I’d helped create at work (stay tuned for the next shameless plug in July ). Aside from the fact it elicited some good conversations about stuff we’d all been wrestling with, it particularly dawned on Marion & I that this was the most we’d gotten out of a study arguably since arriving in Colorado (and it’s worth noting we blew off our regular study to do this). I mean, it was no secret we’d been starving but this really brought it home and made us say “What the @#&$ are we doing???”

3) On a related note, it's a bit tricky being in a small group where more than half the members are ex-employees of yr current employer. And, truth be told, the week prior to #2 got a bit uncomfortable. I understand it's not directed at me personally, but I LIKE it here. I know expectations have a tendency to go up exponentially here, and that often things are so idea-driven here that we tend to forget their effects on the people downstream of those ideas. On the other hand, I'm from Jersey. I've worked worse. Repeatedly. Even more frenetically. And for an entirely different endgame (read: profits for investors vs. helping people to "get" the gospel in an entirely new way). Anyway, it was a bad taste I wasn't expecting, and at a time where it factored into the decision-making elsewhere.

4) It’s also kind of dawned on me that in its own way –- and despite all the hip trappings -- this church has really been about doing (despite the fact that anything I and others tried to get involved with was quickly micromanaged out of existence –- yeah, I see the paradox too, but trust me on this) rather than seeking the One who gives us the life we’re supposed to be living out. And in a rare turn for me, I would dare say some of that is theologically based -- at least in actual practice. If you shut the Spirit out, don’t expect to have the power needed to do spiritual works. That’s all I’m really going to say about that.

5) Oh yes, and while we're on the hip thing: I've never been at the receiving end of ageism before. Maybe because 45 isn't really all that old (for that matter, most people are surprised when I tell them my age), and anything before that certainly is even less so. But I can say pretty confidently that I've experienced it now (and not just me). And that it's played a factor in the shutting of some of those doors I've whined about in the past.

6) Bottom line: A year and a half is a long time to feel like a visitor. Even if things do turn around (and the next six months really are make-or-break for them), it's not our place and never will be, as far as I can tell.

We’re not looking forward to being “on the road again,” but I think this search will be healthier than the one in the fall –- because we waited it out and gave a fair effort -- and ultimately more fruitful. As much as we’ve been a church-planting family for the last 15 years, right now we just want to get healthy and fed. What happens from there, as always, is God’s call.

And boy, I hope I’m not taking anything back in a few more months.  But I don’t think so this time. Onward…. And maybe we get to that tuneage next week….

Posted by: burninglight at 20:12 | link | comments (2)

#1  15 May 2007 - 06:19

 

Thanks for the update Carl. I wish you could at least give our church a try!

Anonymous

#2  16 May 2007 - 01:03

 

Yo Montell: Check yr e-mail. :)

burninglight