Finding Identity

Well, we're still waiting. I talked with Human Resources and they said that we should know something within a week. Please pray that they will make a decision soon. I really need to get started working, like yesterday. I had another great interview on Monday, but they had one more interview to give, so I had to wait. I am just praying for God's favor to cover me and go before me.

Struggling a bit with feelings today. Been thinking a lot about what some people have said and hope that I have responded right. I don't want to hurt anyone. Unfortunately there is nothing I can do about other people's responses or their feelings about our departure from the church. It was quick and I think that hurt some more than anything else. They feel as if I should have tried to work things out more. And maybe I should have, but I don't think it would have accomplished anything. Especially now watching other people dealing with the same issues now and seeing that it hasn't changed for them, even though they stuck it out.

I know that I sought God and that we moved as we felt God led us. I know that even in some of my plans, God changed them and made us go a different way than I wanted. So I have to trust that I did the best I could with what I knew and what I could do. I am praying that people can find it in their hearts to forgive me for the pain that came because of our departure. If there is anything in my life that I hate the most, it is that of losing friends. I value them too highly sometimes I think. For once in my life, we made a decision that strictly was based on what we had to do for ourselves spiritually and emotionally. Most of the time, I would cower to the needs of those around me and suffer the consequences so that their best would be done, in spite of what was done to us. This time was different. And some can't handle it, but I had to. I just know I had to.

Please pray that people would have eyes to see us for who we are and not what others have tried to portray us. Please pray that people can forgive and remain our friends in spite of the pain. Please pray that even if they can't or won't, that I will be able to let go and move on, still loving and praying and believing in them. Thanks.

Posted by PJ at 9:48 PM | Permalink | Comments

Hoping the job search may be over. I should find out more on Monday, but I have a second interview at the university hospital about 30 minutes from here. I would be working in the Department of Medical Staff Affairs doing credentialing work. As I was explained by my hopefully future supervisor, "the stories on 60 Minutes, where the Dr. in California is found out to have never having a license to practice medicine, this is the department that keeps that from happening here." Sounds like fun to me. Actually, any steady job with a good salary and benefits would sound like fun to me right now. (Joanne and I have never had benefits since we were married, 13 years ago.) So, please keep praying for me, I'll update you again on Monday night.

Posted by PJ at 10:38 PM | Permalink | Comments

Tonight, after we came home from dinner with Pastors Brad and Stephanie, which was a great time of hanging out and talking, not to mention good food, I sat down with my journal (Wild At Heart) and began to write. This evening's topic on the page was taken from the quote I put on the top of this blog:


The question posed to me tonight was "What makes you come alive? What stirs your heart?"

An honest answer to that question was hard tonight. Over the last 44 days of unemployment and loss of ministry, I've not been stirred, but yet, I have. I've not always felt alive, but definitely not dead either.

I did realize something though. I think this lack of "stirring" or "coming alive" is not because it's not there, or because I'm "dead." But I think it's because I've not given myself permission to be or do so.

It's almost as if I'm waiting for someone to give me permission to dream again. In some ways, friends and others have. Pastor Brad, in fact, basically pushed me to begin dreaming a couple weeks ago when we met for coffee and his first words were "so, tell me about your call." You know, it was strange to hear that question at that moment, because I have distanced myself, unknowingly and somewhat knowingly, from that call. Because of all the pain right now.

But also, it was strange because someone really cared to hear what it is that I feel called to do. I haven't had that in a very long time. Yes, I've been working and ministering beside people who knew and understood my call (until the very recent past), but not very often has anyone outside of that circle or influence, etc., asked me what my "call" was. It is almost scary.

Tonight, sitting and talking, I'm feeling as if that is one of the reasons why Brad and Stephanie are in our lives, to pull on that call, to give us permission to seek that call, to not hide from that call.

Not that I have to have anyone's permission per se to pursue the call of God in my life, but because of all the hell that we've just been through, I continue to put it on the back burner. I continually seem to want to set it aside for now, afraid to dream, afraid to be willing to turn that way again. There is a part of me that just wants to be "normal." (Whatever the hell that is!!??)

But I believe I have to come to the place where I can grant myself permission to dream...to pursue the call. I don't know if it has been God holding me back for these few weeks and now into months, or if it's just been me. I guess that's something for my prayer times, to confirm with Father God, but even if I still have to wait on some permission from Him, I definitely have to get past myself and learn to permit myself to dream and envision and believe again in the call.

I don't know if it's just a simple decision I have to make or if it will take time, but I think I'm on my way toward it.

Posted by PJ at 11:36 PM | Permalink | Comments

Saw this on Darryl's site. Thought it was great. Hope he doesn't mind my cut and paste!

From Leading with a Limp by Dan Allender:

Here is God's leadership model: he chooses fools to live foolishly in order to
reveal the economy of heaven, which reverses and inverts the wisdom of this
world. He calls us to brokenness, not performance; to relationships, not
commotion; to grace, not success. It is no wonder that this kind of leadership
is neither spoken of nor admired in our business schools or even our seminaries.

Posted by PJ at 8:22 PM | Permalink | Comments

Waiting drives me crazy. But not knowing what I'm waiting for drives me even more crazy!!

I am so looking forward to a normal schedule of work, family, church. Right now it's so in limbo. I'm out looking for work each day and have more interviews this week, but it just seems like more of the same if you know what I mean. I trust that the right job is going to come. I believe God is watching over us and providing in amazing ways. Just when I want to freak out and start worrying for real, He always seems to come through. Now I truly know that if Jesus was physically here with me, He'd tell me "oh, you of little faith!!"

I do have faith, but it's crazy sometimes how God seems to take you to the limit of that little faith, just to prove Himself all over to you again.

I want to begin to study again. I've not studied much lately, except that I have been reading a lot of Brian McLaren's books. Finished "The Secret Message of Jesus" and am in the middle of "A Generous Orthodoxy." He is an amazing thinker and writer. Just when I start thinking about writing again, he blows my mind and I think, what do I have to offer anyone??? But also he challenges me to study more and to question. Question why we believe what we've always believed.

I believe I'm embarking on another journey like I did when I turned 30, like I did when we started dreaming of Identity, like I did when Identity was birthed. I think when this one's "birthed" or brought to sight, it will be a new envisioning or "reimagining" as Doug Pagitt would say, of what church really is and what form it will take in our lives. I've already accepted and believe that it looks different in many different people's lives, but now I am even more convinced God has a new reimagining of it for our lives.

Jesus, take the wheel.

Posted by PJ at 8:22 PM | Permalink | Comments

I know I've posted this before, but just re-read it and wanted to see it on the blog to remind myself if not for someone else to read. It is from Blue Like Jazz, by Donald Miller. The italics are mine:

Posted by PJ at 12:19 AM | Permalink | Comments

There is so much during the day that I think about I could blog, but when the time comes to sit down and write, I can find the blank screen intimidating. I really do want to express all that is in my heart but don't really know how anymore.

Things have changed so very much this summer. I believe I am angry right now. Angry at situations. Angry at God sometimes. Angry even at others, who seem to have no clue who I am though I've been in their lives for 13 years! I feel like I'm walking through the stages of grief, as though I have watched a close friend, intimate partner, die. I was numb for so long, now I feel as though I am mad. I want to lash out. I hold unproductive conversations with imagined persons in my mind. Giving them a piece of my mind, which at this point doesn't feel like much!

Change creates conflict. I understand this. But strife does not produce the presence of God. Sheep do not drink at troubled waters, for they will get dizzy and fall in and be drowned. I feel as though I am watching many get dizzy. I am watching from a distance. On a plane of land above all the confusion, but I still hear their voices and see their faces. I am afraid to see some of them drowned, but I am out of reach, and it is not because of me they fall. But another troubles the water. Out of his own anger or his own pride, he continues to stir and fight and twist his own version of stories, spin, as some have called it. Yet all it produces is more turbulence. And lives get messed up, confused and afraid.

Still I only can watch and pray. I've been removed, though it hurts almost as much as if I was in their number.

God, be their Father, be their Great Shepherd. Protect Your flock, for it ultimately is Yours and Yours only. Lead me in Your way, and only allow me to hear Your voice. Please, give me Your voice. If only I can hear and follow You, I will be safe and I will see Your favor. Thank You for loving me.

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Evolution: A gradual process in which something changes into a different and usually more complex or better form.

That was the word that my pastor had for me and my wife on New Year's Eve at our annual New Year's prayer time. He saw this year as one of growth and change. And seven months later, that it truly has been.

In spite of all the good that God had been doing at Identity over the last 15 months, it now has come to an end, at least for now. As of the ninth of July, we left our church and the new ministry we had birthed. I don't want to go into all the details and choices that we had to make, I may allude to them in days and weeks to come, but suffice to say, we had to make the most difficult choice of our lives. We both worked there, so we're both unemployed at the moment, but God has been very gracious to us and provided through many means to take care of us. We don't know what the future holds, but as the whole hymn says, we know who holds our future and that is who our trust is in.

I have discovered many things on this journey over the last month of our lives, God is truly a trustworthy and loyal and reliable Father. Now I understand why Jesus said, "call no man father, for you have but one Father in heaven." He has truly been that father to us this month.

In the beginning days of this journey, I can tell you there was anger and fear, frustration even with God, because of all that I've seen and heard in the name of Christianity and in ministry. Watching my little 7 year old daughter sob at the news that we wouldn't be returning to the only church she has ever known, was by far the scariest thing I've done as a father. I was afraid of scarring her, but she has been wonderful. She has carried a grace for this transition, in many ways, better than her mother or me.

I am now in a place of trust with Father God like I've never been before. Never knew I had inside of me. Never knew I would reach. I can understand now why He says to not worry. He truly does know what we have need of before we ask of Him.

What of the future? Oh, I know I'm not done in ministry. I also know that Identity was a vision birthed by the heart of God and He is still jealous over the lambs that have been brought to Him through that ministry. I know that there will be something to come, some new dream soon. But now, it is a time to heal. A time to let things rest. But not forever.

If you read this, pray for us, that we would continue to stand in the cover and the glory of God's grace and peace and know His leading. His sheep know His voice and the voice of a stranger they will not follow. Thank you Father for letting me know and hear Your voice.

Posted by PJ at 10:26 PM | Permalink | Comments