When Heroes Fall

 The past few weeks have certainly seen many of the mighty fall.  Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Steve McNair, oh yeah…Michael Jackson (could you have missed that one on the news?).  While many conversations have taken place around the water coolers and social media sites, most of them I have noticed have not been very redemptive.  At times when our heroes fall, there are so many mixed emotions.  We think back to a show, a poster, a game, a song, and it brings back so many memories.  It also evokes emotions, and emotions can be powerful forces indeed.  When emotions are heightened, people are listening.  People are more open.  And at such times, it would be great if someone could step into the conversation and be redemptive.  Bring the Larger Story to bear. Express struggles, confusion, doubts, and listen to others do the same.  And NOT have all the answers…especially the nicely packaged religious answers.  Usually the right questions will lead people who are not Christ-followers on a journey to answers for themselves.  What do you think this guy valued in life?  Who do you think was important to him or her?  What are you learning from those who are now coping with the loss of this person?  What does the loss of this great person show us about our own hopes and desires?  Without a lot of work, you’ve even got a great small group meeting in the making. Hey, people are listening already and ready to talk.  I can’t think if a better way to honor the memory of our heroes than to allow their lives to be a bridge to redemption for someone who’s still in the battle.

 

Pride Cometh Before the Mental Breakdown

I reached a point this last weekend where I wanted to run away from home.

A long weekend. Bliss, right? For the working mother, three days with child and husband should be perfect. I could play catch-up, endless hours of patty-cake and cuddles.

Libbie, decked out in Braves attire for Daddy

Well, endless–that’s one way to put it.

My darling daughter, eight-month-old Libbie, whined relentlessly and refused to nap for THREE. LONG. DAYS.

What was I doing wrong? She had a clean diaper, was well-fed, and has three million toys at her disposal. We tried bouncing, snuggling, walking, ignoring, and even Baby Einstein. Nothing helped.

By Saturday afternoon I was questioning whether I should have waited longer to become a mom. Maybe I wasn’t cut out for it. Maybe I expected too much of this little child. Maybe I could run away and start over, fulfilling my lifelong dream of becoming a Broadway star.

And then the guilt starts. Why don’t I have more patience? Why can’t I make her happy? What is wrong with me? How could I even think such awful thoughts about my sweet baby? Obviously, I am the worst person in the entire world and should simply be put in a mental institution. Toting Libbie around the grocery store Saturday afternoon in her sling, I kissed the top of her head and told her I was sorry she had such a crazy mother. I piled ice cream and baby food into my basket, silent tears dripping in her fine baby hair.

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free,” right? So why the guilt? Why the panic?

The preschool minister at our church advised me that times like this are normal. That we feel so inadequate as parents so we will stay continually on our knees, praying for survival for the next 18 years and then some.

For me, times like this come when a) I haven’t been in the Word and in prayer like I need to be; and b) I haven’t been talking about my struggles with anyone. I begin to feel like I am the only person EVER to be this awful of a mother. Having community, friends who are willing to be authentic, is crucial to not letting the panic of motherhood escalate. So much of the time, I feel like everyone else must have it all together, because I don’t see otherwise. We need to be real, people. Be willing to admit that we struggle in parenthood, struggle in our faith, sometimes want to run away to New York City.

I find so much as Americans we aren’t willing to be vulnerable. Pride makes us believe we can’t let on that we’re hurting or need help.

Practice vulnerability this week. Open up to a friend. They might be battling something big and just need an opening. Call someone when their name comes to your mind. It can make a world of difference.

 

80% of the Fastest Growing Churches in 2008 were Small Group Churches

One of the thrilling things about being a small group consultant is the opportunity to be involved in conversations with open-minded leaders and consultants whose passion is an evangelism and/or discipleship group model other than small groups.  In many of these conversations a courageous and curious friend asks the question, “Are small groups really effective or is the press I’m hearing just hype?” The answer is a resounding, YES!!!

 Each year Outreach Magazine does a study and announces the 100 Fastest Growing Churches in the U.S. In 2008, 80% of the fastest growing churches in the country were doing small groups (a few do Sunday School as well as small groups). You got it. 80 of 100 churches on the top 100 list are small group churches. And just in case you’re thinking “it’s a southern thing,” the location of these thriving churches range from  California to Arkansas to Hawaii to Virginia to Colorado to Illinois to Texas… and of this short list, all of these churches can be found at the top of the list, one of the top fifteen fastest growing churches in the U.S.

 Sounds to me like small groups are as effective as any model out there.

 

The God of All Comfort

One of my favorite verses of Scripture comes from Paul’s opening comments in 2 Corinthians:

[Christ] comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God. —2 Corinthians 1:4, HCSB

I’ve watched this very thing happen recently as several of our close coworkers have been stricken by the beast of new cancer diagnoses. A friend who works on another floor was given the overwhelming diagnosis of breast cancer a few weeks ago. Though I rarely see her up here, she’s been in the office of a coworker often these last weeks. A coworker who herself went through radiation and chemotherapy last summer. When we are in a hurtful situation, we seek others who have come through that hurt, who have struggled and survived. Who can pass on that comfort Christ gives us.

It’s something I see every day in the blogging world. Some of the most popular blogs out there are from women who have lost a child or struggled with infertility. I read blogs from other working moms, wanting to know that I’m not the only person dealing with squeezing 12 hours of quality time in the two-hour block before my daughter hits the sheets for the night.

It’s that same essence of needing comfort in grief, isn’t it? It’s why we need redemptive community to love us whole again, to remind us that God is the God of all comfort, the Healer, the Redeemer, the Forgiver. Someone else has experienced a certain aspect of Him, and they can remind us that He is all we need.

Reflect on whether there is something specific to your story that might help comfort others, and make yourself available to share. You never know who might need to hear your story right then as some encouragement. As Americans we sometimes resist being vulnerable, but it is a key aspect in developing real, healing community with other Christians.

Opinions? Experiences?

 

Ice-Breakers… Attitudes, Responses, Realizations, Outcomes

“Ice-breakers… I hate these things!” If you’ve been a small group leader longer than let’s say… three weeks… you’ve probably heard a proclamation like this one. These seemingly unnecessary conversation pieces are vital to a healthy group meeting as they offer an easy to answer question that anyone can respond to and, if the question is chosen well, without much cringe factor. Since everyone hears his/her own voice early in the meeting, if the small group leader uses the moment well and affirms each group member for responding, every group member will most likely verbalize thoughts and ideas later in the conversation.

 

Thought you might like to see a list telling you what the attitudes, responses, realizations, and outcomes you can expect.

 Attitudes Toward:

• Anticipation
• Apathy
• Hesitation
• Disgust

 Common Responses:

• Laughter
• Oh, wow! “I didn’t know that about you.”
• Follow-up questions (Beware of the follow-up questions as they can get out of hand and take up a lot of time.)

 Realizations (thoughts that often go unstated):

• “We have something in common.”
• “You had a different life before I met you.”
• “We have journied down the same paths.”
• “I would like to know more about your story.”

 Outcomes:

• Levels the playing field
• Connects group members via common past experiences
• Creates a conversational environment

 

Free to Be Me

As I was coming home from the gym last night (and yes, it’s the first time in months I’ve been able to say that. I swam some during my pregnancy, but that was it. It’s one of my bigger regrets and next pregnancy I will try to stay more in shape. Not that I was in shape in the first place.)

Um, where was I?

Oh, yes. I was driving home last night, feeling a throbbing pain on the back of my left heel. I’d worn my ankle brace because I have this tendency to hurt myself, particularly at the Y. My ankle is still healing up from its last sprain and I really did not care to wipe out on the treadmill in front of those bodybuilding guys who I am SURE are always laughing at how fat and out-of-shape I am.

I am an Observer by nature, and although I spent my time on the treadmill watching Good Eats (really, WHO watches Food Network while working out? I’m an idiot), I was also watching those around me. The guy beside me holding onto the side rails of his treadmill and doing a funny walk. The skinny elliptical girls. In my plain sight were two girls doing stretches and ab exercises on floor mats–and taking breaks to text on their phones. (Texting kinda baffles me. I don’t feel the need to be that connected to people, I guess.)

Anyway, the drive home. Right. I was annoyed at myself for wearing a blister into my heel. Earlier last night, I looked down at my foot and said, “I’m bleeding.” I didn’t know how it happened. I’m constantly noticing bruises on my legs from unknown sources. I fall down. I guess I’m just a klutz.

I wondered, driving, what it would be like to be somebody who did not do these things. Someone “cool.” Maybe an elliptical girl, skinny–which I have never been–and someone who doesn’t go to bed at 9 p.m., doesn’t feel like she always wears the wrong thing to work, and doesn’t randomly hurt herself on a consistent basis.

Really, most of the time, I’m OK with being plain old awkward me. I just wonder what’s it like to be on the other side. Do you know? Maybe nobody thinks they’re cool. Maybe everyone deals with the same sense of insecurity.

I’m learning. Learning to be me. Learning that it’s not so bad after all. My husband loves me the way I am, all kinds of crazy and everything. Libbie seems to like me (or at least my, ahem, chest). I have great friends, wonderful family, all who don’t seem to run away when I come near them. And most of all, I have a Father who seems to adore me no matter how much I screw up. In fact, He promises it.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39

Photo courtesy of Garrison Photo via Stock Exchange

This post was originally published at Vanderbilt Wife, May 2009.

 

House Church Groups in Iran… Revolution I

There seems to be a revolution taking place in Iran. Seeing news-casts, reading on-line articles and blogs, and catching glimpses of film smuggled into our world through the internet makes this revolution obvious. But long before this revolt began there was a silent mutiny taking place, an insurrection that really does offer the people of Iran freedom… inner freedom, eternal freedom. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may have political power but he cannot overcome the power of the Holy Spirit when believers gather together in the name of Jesus. Watch the video to get a glimpse of Jesus at work as believers gather in this troubled Islamic society.

 

Being Strange

While visiting a friend’s blog recently, I was reminded of a verse from Scripture that really impacted me soon after conversion:

 “For what you say sounds strange to us, and we want to know what these ideas mean.” Acts 17:20

Since I did not grow up in an evangelical Christian home, there were a lot of things in those early years as a Christian that really sounded strange to me.  Because I was attending college at a “party school” I had plenty of opportunities to see just how strange I had become as I lived them out.  It didn’t take long before I was labeled a “Jesus freak” and other less attractive terms, but nothing about those labels seemed strange any more.  They seemed right.  It was always so cool when someone would be intrigued by the things I had to say and wanted to know more.  Those who were sensitive to spiritual truth were attracted by my weirdness rather than my sameness.

As we discuss relevance more and more frequently and as we strive to be relevant in this quickly changing culture, I pray we won’t become too much the same, too familiar, too normal.  There’s a fine line between contextualizing and compromising and in our search for relevance, we may find that we become irrelevant due to our “sameness” if we’re not careful.

I’d be curious to hear from some of you guys: How do you walk the line between being strange yet relevant?

 

Need a Vacation?

You know those couple days before vacation, when your brain can only think about how good it is going to be to sit in a Jacuzzi half the day and read a stack of novels?

I’m totally there.

So, enjoy this nonsense.

 

Room to Grow

Read this interesting bit in Andy Crouch’s Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling. In the paragraph below, Andy surmises that God gives us room—freedom— so that we may be able to fulfill the roles we have been created to fill:

[God] makes space for the man to name the animals; he makes room for the man and the woman to know one another and explore the garden. He even gives them the freedom, tragically but necessarily, to misuse their creative and cultivating capacities. God is always willing to be present, walking in the garden in the cool of the day, but he is also willing to grant humankind their own cultural presence. Without this gracious carving out of space, they would never be able to fulfill their destiny as divine image-bearers.

God certainly gives us room. Room to fail and room to grow.  Is the “carving out of space” that Andy describes perhaps most available to us through small groups as we “carve” mission, purpose, and spiritual growth out of our days and our lives?  A redemptive community of believers would seem to embody all the requisites for taking the greatest advantage of the room God has given us for exploration along these lines. The small-group environment you foster and facilitate is the perfect culture for the sort of freedom described here.