Semper Reforma

Louisville approaches. FBC Dallas makes a mockery of Christianity and a joke out of the gospel by building a 130 million dollar BUILDING. The prosperity gospel is spreading like a plague in Africa. Wolves gather at the gates...

I would truly wonder how many men are going to join me in Louisville at great difficulty to themselves and their ministries. I know some are and the more I realize it, the more it means to me in this. We aren't going to some conference to learn about making bigger churches. We aren't going to learn how to make the world a better place. We aren't going to try and invent a new way to look at the gospel so that everybody can just 'accept' it.

I think of the words of David... "Let no man’s heart fail because of him.^[Goliath] Your servant will go and fight with this Philistine." He knew that it ultimately wasn't the size of the dog in the fight or the fight in the dog, but it was because of the God who'd ordained the fight to begin with.

God has ordained this fight, this battle, and He's got the men coming, readying themselves for it. This morning I feel that burden on my heart. I feel the cause of these men within me. I feel the burden of the battle and I can only cry out to Jesus for the strength to carry it. I am beginning to see a strange coalescence of patterns and changes within my heart that gives me both dread and hope.

Can you hate the plague and stench of a city enough to cry out to God for its change? Can you despise a culture so totally that you want more than anything to destroy it and to replace it with the gospel? I am feeling called to my Nineveh. I pray that Jesus will soften my heart without having to murder me like Jonah.

Can the gospel come to Nineveh?

Since my last post, I have begun taking inventory of myself. I have begun to try and be more critical of myself, really comparing myself against the scripture and really trying to see what I know and what I just suspect of my call.

I wrote a while back that I could be looking at planting here, in the Montgomery area. I have no idea, still, but after my setback I wonder if I'm supposed to be a planter at all. I really am questioning everything. The desire to plant is burning within me, but is that desire prompted by my own pride, rather than by the hand of God? Is Jesus really calling me to plant?

I deeply desire it. I want to teach and preach the word of God. I want to lead and disciple men. I want to reach the people who haven't been reached yet, either in or out of church. I want to proclaim God's word to the world.

Could I do that as a Number 2? Could I be an executive pastor somewhere? Could I be a discipleship pastor somewhere? Certainly. I could. And if the Lord has that for me, I ask that He would change my heart to seek after it. To desire it. Because right now I know that if I was a Number 2, I would likely end up falling into pride and relying on my own strength, my own intelligence and it would quickly become a 'job' for me. I am not certain that any of those things wouldn't happen if I was a planter.

I feel very unsure of myself this evening. I am clinging to Jesus right now because to be honest, I feel very shaken and very vulnerable right now. I don't believe that feeling weak and unsure of yourself is a sin. In fact, I think that we are closest to God in our weakness. I also firmly believe that low esteem of oneself is, in a way, pride defeated. I keep thinking of the scene in Fight Club where the new recruits show up to join Project Mayhem and Tyler does his best to degrade, discourage and cause them all to leave, to give up, to quit.

Should I get off the porch? Should I believe Tyler or the Narrator?  

I'm writing this post to clarify something I wrote on Twitter this morning.

I woke up this morning and was greeted by an email that told me, in essence, that I would not be considered for assessment with Acts 29. The primary reason given was my recent conversion. There were other details about things that occurred before I was saved that I needed to address in greater detail, but the big one was that I have, in essence, been a Christian for 8 months.

So yeah, it took some of the wind from my sails. I've talked extensively with my wife this morning and though we are both disappointed and a little frustrated, we are not angry or hurt. I feel a little foolish for having pursued assessment, but I am not upset by the decision. If the roles were reversed, if I was on the assessing end and looking at someone with my exact same resume, I might be so inclined to make the same decision.

It's ok. I am still going to the boot camp in Louisville, but just won't be assessed. And that's okay too. I will still get to receive training, help and connection from a number of truly awesome people. I am still so very blessed to go, regardless of my desire to plant a church. I don't deserve to be where I am, currently, let alone given such a responsibility as that.

So for now I am going to continue to seek out the next step and the next stage. It might be in another city or it might just be where I am right now. I don't know for sure. Please pray for me that I would draw on Jesus' grace and strength in this and that I would continue to receive this humility and be grateful for it.

I've decided to post my teaching sample since it really doesn't matter one way or another right now.

Hope you enjoy: Mephibosheth.

So I had decided, on Monday, that I was not going to get assessed at the upcoming Acts 29 conference in Louisville. I had decided that the money just wasn't there, the time just wasn't right and that everything was too down to the wire.

And then Tuesday God lit the fuse. Lit it and suddenly I watched it burn towards the proverbial pile of gunpowder. I get an email that a pastor I have never met at a church I have never been to is sponsoring me to go, with my wife, and be assessed.

WHAT?!

This was not the plan. This was not how it was supposed to go down. This was crazy talk. And then, suddenly, I had to get all the paperwork - seven pretty intensive docs that are theologically and personally just staggering - done. I had some already done, but suddenly I am pushing so hard through them that I really wonder if I didn't just end up shotgunning scripture at it.

It was a total shock to my original plans. And I kept expecting one thing to fall through that would suddenly destroy the whole plan. Like suddenly everything would come to a screeching halt. That I wouldn't have grace. That I had cut it too close. That everything was not kosher.

And yet, in so many situations it's all fallen into place not just perfectly, but miraculously. Things have happened that should not have happened. And so now I believe God is moving up the dates, times and vision He has given me. I am also concerned that He's keeping me here for a reason, and that that reason might be for a more obvious reason than I would care for.

I've said in the past that I felt God did not want me to plant around here. This was based on a number of things. That said, those things quite literally could have been me misunderstanding what it really meant or that I simply tried to 'triangulate' God's will in the matter. The circumstances point to me planting here. So I am going forward with the pursuit of humility and a desire to see God's will done.

Pray with me, if you will, that I would know God's voice and that I would seek Him above my own selfish, foolish desires.

It is not hip to be square.

And now you have it in your head too, you're welcome.

I am realizing something very interesting in this journey towards church planting. Something, in particular, that kind of disappoints me. That thing, that I am forestalling writing out so I can't take it back, is that I won't be planting a 'cool' church.

I originally wanted to plant in Seattle, if you will recall, the coolest city I have ever been to. And then, when I think about the cities I could have planted in and the ones I really thought were just wicked awesome, I realize why. I wanted to plant in an urban center, maybe in some dive bar downtown that smelled of spilled Coors and would require a team of dozens just to make it presentable every Sunday morning. I pictured myself wearing oversized sunglasses, ironic t-shirts and pre-distressed jeans. I would have my moleskine and my ESV and my copy of the Avett Brothers blaring on my custom skinned iPod touch. And of course, all of this would be little more than dressing, building and feeding my pride and ego.

Yeah, it wouldn't be for Jesus, it would be for me. And that, friends and neighbors, sucks big time. I am not going to plant for me. And I am not going to build some image to prop up my lack of cool. I would love to have a church of six hundred college hipsters who think it's just ironic to go to a church stoned and who then really find Jesus and suddenly the meaning of their Johnny Cash album is revealed.

No, I would love to say I am pursuing the Prodigal Sons, but I know better. God is sending me for Prodigal Brothers. He is sending me into the heart of suburbia where soccer moms drive Hummers to the grocery store with their only child secured in a Gucci carseat in back. I am going after the people who have gone to church their whole lives thinking that attendance equals righteousness.

God help me. I have this weird feeling I will end up being hated for what God has sent me to do. But I have to be okay with that. I also have to remember that few of us are called after them, after the Brothers, and that I should feel so blessed to have the opportunity to be a part of Jesus invading the Pharisees.

Let us pray...

So I have been continuing my trek through the book of Genesis, thanks to Pastor Mark.

Of late, I am realizing something about myself that stings and hurts like hell. Particularly, that I have struggled, in the last few years of my life, to really become a man. And no, this is not some gender reassignment allusion or some idiotic 'gender queer' thing. I have realized that growing up, I was never, never shown how to be a masculine, Christian man, much like the patriarch, Jacob.

Jacob grew up and was primarily raised by and tended to by his mother. I had a father who was evil, somewhat masculine, but so evil that I wanted to be nothing like him, ever. I had a stepfather who was staunchly effeminate. And I had a mother who just did her best. So growing up, I tended to lean away from the masculine and towards the feminine because it felt safer, more secure.

I did this and no one came alongside me and said, "Ya know, you are one day going to be a man and you ought to be what God called you to be." And over the last few years, I can see the Lord toughening me, much like He toughened Jacob. He's put me in situations where I have to learn how to be angry and holy, masculine but not chauvinistic; like Jesus in other words. Have I succeeded at every turn? Hardly.

But I am so thankful, now for the men God has put in my life who model this masculinity in a genuine way. They don't overcompensate by setting their dirt bike on fire while they ride it and put it out with chewing tobacco spit, just to show how awesome they are. They also don't mock the arts, music or culture just because it's not all about inflamed dirt bikes boiling tobacco spit. There is a balance within them that I seek to find in myself. And it's a hard go, sometimes.

As I was growing up, I tended to befriend women far easier and faster than men. Given my own depravity, this always served a dual purpose of both serving my flesh and giving me a friend, somehow. I didn't seek out friendships with other men because they often intimidated me and caused me to retreat into insecurity. Over the last five years, though, God has changed all of who I am, most recently with my actual salvation. To quote the eminent theologian, 50 Cent, "...been hit with a few shells and now I walk with a limp."

Like Jacob, Jesus has had to wrestle me down and wound me enough to cause change in me. He's had to give me a new name. He's changed everything. And now, I believe, I will be able to raise men, real men, from my own family. Not just boys who one day will be made into men by Jesus and hardship. I only pray His work will continue in me and through me.

Today I feel like I am caught in a snowball, of sorts.

I last wrote on Thursday that I was blessed to have an 'out of the blue' meeting with men I didn't deserve to fetch soup for. It seems God is answering prayers about direction. But right now, there is enough movement that I am actually kind of concerned that I won't make the right decision.

I know, God is sovereign. And that is ultimately what matters. But at the same time, I want to pursue Him, not things of my own devising. So I have submitted myself to be assessed by Acts 29 for a future church plant. This is a scary thing, but everybody says I should do it. I suppose, at worst, they will tell me to pray, seek God and reapply later.

And that would, in some way, devastate me. But in another, it would relieve me. I continually pound the heavens with, "I'm ready God!" and I then quietly realize that I am only as ready as He will make me. I cannot go into this place, this next season, thinking that my ambition, drive and super cool resume are going to get me through. Jesus is my only source of solace.

I believe, at this point, that I could plant, that I know the basics of it enough to begin. I've been there, before, in a different way. I wasn't point man for the last one, but I got to see all of the good and all of the bad. I have been trying to figure out where to plant, for so long, and now I feel like the possible places are narrowing down. We are close to the mark, just not all the way there.

My 'vision' right now is to strike hard, fast and deep into the heart of established Pharisee country. To become a missionary to them, my former people, and to introduce a Jesus they have never known. To preach the gospel to the people who think they can quote it. To break apart the altars of religion and lay a new foundation for these prodigal brothers to come to know the Jesus who saves, not the system that condemns. To let the Holy Spirit use me, the chief of hypocrites, to destroy the stranglehold of religion wherever I am sent.

This likely means I will be planting in the bible belt. Mark Driscoll is in the heart of the unchurched. I planted in Vegas which is much the same. I don't feel that mission field calling out to me. It will likely be in the traditional 'southeast', too. Tennessee, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama or Georgia. Florida doesn't count in the traditional southeast. It will likely be in a suburban area. My cool points drop immediately for not doing an urban plant, but I know better than to think the Pharisees dirty their hands in a downtown area anymore. At the same time, I know it likely won't be rural either. If I believe I am being called to make the impact I hope I will, it won't be from a town like the one I live in. It will be a place where the Pharisee commutes fifteen minutes into the culture center they shape and mold each and every day.

So pray with me, please, that the Lord would open my eyes and, more specifically, the door for me to move wherever it is. I could be wrong, but I believe my next job change will move me to the city I am supposed to plant in. Why? Because I have been applying to jobs across the southeast for three months and have been coming up with absolutely nothing. I have never cast a net this wide without some response. Quite literally, I had several responses before I ever moved to Vegas even though not one of them panned out. Right now, I have no responses at all. So I am applying in Nashville, Huntsville, Birmingham, Atlanta, DFW, etc...

May the Lord be glorified and ever may I decrease.

Today was a special treat for me. Through a rather bizarre set of circumstances, I found myself at a meeting today with some truly amazing men of God.

I call them amazing but not because of amazing super powers or intensely awesome wardrobe - Johnny Grimes notwithstanding. I call them amazing because I have never been in a room with men so humble, so real and so totally and completely bought by Jesus.

Let me give you a cast and then maybe a play by play...

Ray Ortlund Jr. - The dude wrote the study notes for the book of Isaiah in the ESV study bible. Yes, that ESV study bible. Perhaps one of the humblest men I have ever had the pleasure of eating lunch with. His insight, leadership and profound humility made me feel, in a way, spiritually lazy. But he treated me like a brother without even the vaguest hint of condescension or judgment.

David Thew - I've met David before, once, but he didn't act that way. In fact, he greeted me warmly and appreciated my input.

Jeremy Rose - Up and coming pastor of Axis Church in Nashville. Really solid guy and a phenomenal planner. He kept us on track and laughing.

Jamie George - Pastor of The Journey, in Franklin. Really genuine and unique guy. Had a hipster feel to his wardrobe, but none of the pretension. He gave me bits and pieces of something I probably could have listened to for hours.

Johnny Grimes - My new favorite pipe smoking, punk rock loving pastor. I didn't really have an old favorite, but the point is the same.

Leonard Smith - My good buddy from Calera. A man, like me, who was saved out of his religion.

I met these men, I ate with them and I did my best just to keep up. They were/are an inspiration to me. I would gladly move to and serve under any one of them if the Lord opened the door for me to go. And in that I realized that Jesus has shown me who my ministry home is, even if He hasn't chosen to show me where. Being connected with this group of men I feel a sense of belonging I have never felt before in my life. I was raised in church, remember? I have never known a group of men that conveyed such simple grace to me in such an effective way.

These are men I trust, though I really only know one of them well. They're the real deal and I am honored to be connected with them in any way. We sat and prayed, read, listened to powerful teaching and planned an event that, quite honestly, I didn't really know about until today.

I absorbed so much, just sitting near and listening. I felt like I could have just learned from all of these men, continually. And it made me feel small, in a way. They were like giants to me and me like a grasshopper. In spirit, I stand in the shadow of these men. And yet they all, wholeheartedly, point to Jesus. And for that, I am grateful as I too, seek to give Him glory and live and serve Him.

I said it today and I am realizing how true it is:

I can't not give everything.

I have been listening to Mark Driscoll's teaching on Genesis of late. If you haven't, do so. I highly recommend it.

Something that occurs quite often is the inference of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I realized something, when thinking about my life, and the lives of my generations.

I think I am the first Christian in at least three generations.

My father, Stewart, was a practitioner of every kind of magic. And I mean, every kind. Norse, shamanistic, voodoo, Native American, Wiccan, Chinese, etc. And I recall him asking me, once, if I thought he was a Christian. And his 'evidence' was that he, at twelve, had accepted Jesus and been marched down to the front of the church to be confirmed.

My grandfather, whom I love dearly, was one of the most bigoted and corrupt people I can remember. And that won't win me any friends for saying so, but I know much of what happened with him and the things a lot of people don't know. I also know that his relationship with the Lord was more one of status than of practicing faith.

My great-grandfather was a member of the KKK. Yeah, that KKK. I remember once someone making an excuse for him, saying, "Well, it was just what you did in that time when you were in politics." I guess putting a stamp of approval on murder and violence is okay as long as everybody is doing it.

So it is my belief that I am the first man in my line, in over a century, to be saved. That is a stunning and humbling thing for me to consider. I have no reason I can even imagine why Jesus would choose me, to break the line, so to speak. That He would do so and unhinge this curse is almost too much for me to bear.

I will hopefully post more on my family as time allows.

The need for men in the church, real men, is bigger than ever. It's a stronger need than I ever realized.

I grew up in the First Pharisee Church of South Alabama. No, that wasn't the name, but it works for most of the churches I ever attended. But let me give you a glimpse inside.

We had a predominance of women. Women were everywhere. Married, single, divorced, widowed, you name it. All of the women were nice, easy-going and generally 'church folks'. It was the environment and I never questioned it. I remember, even at four, wondering why there were so few men and the men that were there were very uncomfortable or very strange in and of themselves.

It seemed like the church wasn't for them, really. It tolerated them, but it wasn't really accepting of their masculinity. All the men in their nice suits looked bored, uninterested and completely disconnected from what was going on. They had the 'faith' they needed to have: their attendance. My mother raised me, by herself, and the men in my life were almost always from these churches. This could be - I won't sugar coat this - that is why my perception of a Christian man was so screwed up for so many years.

They were either effeminate, limp-wristed men who had no way to ever say no to their wives or they were gruff blocks of stone hauled in like Sysiphus' rock by their wives. Either way, I never saw a normal man who passionately loved Jesus and was selflessly devoted to Him. I remember the pastors of these churches clearly as well. These idealized men who stood on pedestals and whose power or charisma seemed deified. And yet, these pastors all failed to connect to the men they claimed to because the lives they led didn't give weight to the power of the gospel in their lives.

Today, sitting in a small church in a small town, I heard a pastor stand up, in the midst of the congregation and repent for not leaning and depending on God as he should. It was a humbling thing to know that this man struggled publicly and that his life is so truly devoted to Jesus in such a profound way. It made me aware that until today, in person, and only a few times on podcasts, have I ever heard a pastor repent.. for anything.

I recall listening to John Piper, speaking from the Advance the Church conference, repenting much more publicly in a way that broke my heart. And I realized that it is possible to be a masculine, real man, and have a real faith. A faith that does more than nod at God and wear a suit. 

I pray that I can carry the burden of being a leader of men to the people I am called to lead. I feel the Lord might be revealing that, soon. Pray for me, that I might continue to decrease as Jesus increases within me.