Month: October 2017

RestoreDC, Take 7

/ John / Leave a comment

RestoreDC

Tomorrow we kick off our 7th RestoreDC weekend as a church.  As of this morning, 93 people from Restoration City have signed up for 150 different shifts with our 9 partner organizations.  The work we will do over the next three days is a really big deal for our partners who are counting on us.  I also want to make sure they’re a big deal for us as a church.

They say familiarity breeds contempt.  I don’t think there’s much chance of that with RestoreDC but I am concerned that regularity might breed indifference.  Not even a lack of participation, just a lack of excitement for what God is doing.  Kind of a been there, done that, got the t-shirt (literally!) attitude.

That’s why I’m praying God will give us all fresh excitement for RestoreDC.  I’m praying we will serve with joy and a desire to bless our community.  This is one of the most tangible ways we live out our plumbline to be an undeniable positive as a church.  We want to live in such a way that our community is grateful for our presence even if they don’t embrace our theology.  We want DC to be better because Restoration City exists.

So, as we head into this weekend, I want to anchor all of us in some texts that fuel my passion for RestoreDC:

  • “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” – Jeremiah 29:7
  • “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” – Matthew 5:16
  • “And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in.” – Isaiah 58:12
  • “They shall build up the ancient ruins; they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.” – Isaiah 61:4
  • “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” – Galatians 6:9

I honestly can’t wait for this weekend. Let’s pray today that God will exceed all of our expectations over the next three days!

Subway Inspiration

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Brooklyn.jpg

Last weekend, a hero of mine announced he would be retiring in a year.  I can still remember the first time I heard Bill Hybels speak at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit.  He stood before a room of leaders and in a voice trembling with emotion, said very simply, “The local church is the hope of the world.”  His words pierced my heart, I knew he was right and I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.  From the beginning, my love for the local church has been paired with a desire to bring hope to our world.

Today I’m more convinced than ever that Bill Hybels was right.  Of course, a lot of my confidence comes from the realization that he was paraphrasing Jesus who was the first to tell an ordinary group of people that they were “the light of the world” in His Sermon on the Mount. (Matthew 5:14)  And the rest comes from fifteen years of pastoral ministry and an increasing awareness of how desperate our world is for hope.

This past weekend, I had the privilege of preaching for my friend Will McGee at Crossroads Christian Church in Brooklyn.  On Saturday evening, I took the subway from Bay Ridge to Midtown Manhattan to grab dinner with Will.  And the whole way there, I kept hearing Hybels’ voice in my head, “the local church is the hope of the world.”  I kept thinking about the incredible opportunity for the gospel that exists in the great global cities of our world.  I was thanking God that I get to pastor a church in one of those cities.  I was reminded that all the challenges of urban life are worth it.  And I was reminded of why I do all of this.  The local church really is the hope of the world.

I hope that’s how you see yourself today.  Not because you’re awesome or better than anyone but because God’s Spirit lives in you.  You carry the hope the world is looking for inside of you.  God makes His appeal through you.  He shines His light through you.  You are an ambassador of the King of all kings and the Lord of all lords.  He sits on the throne of glory and His Kingdom will have no end.  Great global cities may come and go but Jesus will never change, never leave you, never fail you, never forsake you.

You’re the hope of the world.  Of your office.  Of your neighborhood.  Of your family.  Be the church.  Show grace.  Embrace mercy.  Be quick to forgive.  Be generous with your time, your wisdom and your resources.  Sacrifice for the good of others.

You’re the hope of the world.  In Brooklyn.  In DC.  In your city.

Shine.

3 Leadership Lessons From Our 1st 3 Years As A Church

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3_Year_Leadership

This past Sunday, we celebrated our three year anniversary as a church.  In honor of that milestone, I want to share my top three leadership lessons from our first three years:

#1 Focus On Your People

I wish I could get back every minute I spent on something other than building up the people of Restoration City Church.  I don’t regret a single relationship I intentionally pursued with someone from Restoration City over the last three years but I do regret the relationships I didn’t pursue because I was busy with other things.

Other things like: the latest Christian twitter controversy, denominational angst, comparison with the celebrity pastor I’ve never met, comparison with my friends, gossip about the church down the road, frustration with people who have left the church, Presidential tweets, meandering coffees with other church planters that seem to be more about filling an afternoon than advancing the Kingdom, and a host of other distractions.

If you write a blog (ahem), write it for the good of your people, not some fictitious national audience.  When you prepare a sermon, speak to build up the people in your church, not to impress your pastor buddies who almost certainly won’t listen to your podcast.  Don’t envy another shepherd’s flock, staff, budget or success.  Don’t try to build a platform or make a name for yourself.

Love, lead and disciple the people God has called you to serve.  Pastoral ministry isn’t something done in the abstract; it involves a lot of intersection with real lives.  Get to know names, stories and struggles.  Build leaders.  Make disciples.  You’ll never regret doing the one thing Jesus told us to do.

#2 Have The Courage To Be Clear

The only thing more deadly than trying to please everyone is trying to make everyone think you’re pleasing them.  Trust me, I’ve tried.

Right around the time I moved back to DC to plant Restoration City, Eric Geiger, a pastor, author, and leadership thinker, tweeted this, “If you want to make everyone happy, don’t be a leader.  Go sell ice cream.”  I’d been in the leadership game long enough to know his tweet was not only witty but also right on.  So, I knew I would have to make decisions that people didn’t agree with.  What I hadn’t yet confronted was the people pleaser in me that would try to spin things so that everyone thought they were getting their way.  I’m not talking about looking for common ground and being willing to come to a consensus.  Those are good things.  I’m talking about trying to make everyone believe they’re getting their way even when they’re not.  That’s a bad thing.  And a dishonest one.

If people are going to be disappointed with your decision, you make everything a thousand times worse by being so vague that it takes them three weeks and a lot of frustration to even figure out what your decision is.  All that does is make people twice as mad; at your decision and your lack of courage in owning it.

Three years in, my goal is to only make people mad once!

#3 Your Church Will Never Be Healthier Than Your Family

I used to think of my family’s health as the floor that undergirded the rest of the church.  You can’t build a healthy church on a bad floor so I had to make sure things at home weren’t falling into disrepair so that the church could continue to grow.  But now I see the health of my family as the ceiling the church will never grow beyond.  In other words, the church will never be healthier than my family.  So, the healthier my family is, the healthier the church can become.

Just to be clear, I don’t mean that our family is the best family in the church, the perfect family, or anything like that.  Trust me, I use my kids in enough sermon illustrations about depravity that no one would buy that even if that’s what I was trying to sell.

Healthy isn’t about being perfect.  It’s about being rooted in Jesus.  It’s about loving Him.  It’s about seeing the world through the lens of the gospel.  It’s about showing each other grace.  My first ministry is to Laura and our kids, who I love more than any other people on the planet.  If I can’t show them the love of Christ, resolve conflict biblically with them, carry their burdens and fight for their flourishing, I’m kidding myself to think I can do it better for the church.  Maybe I can fake it but nothing healthy ever grows in fake soil.

My focus has shifted from making sure our family is “doing ok” to praying my family is “flourishing.”  And the more God answers that prayer, the more I see the same happening in our church.

At the end of the day, I know that leading Restoration City will forever be one of the great joys of my life.  I’m so grateful for the people of this church, who tolerate an imperfect pastor who is still trying to figure things out, occasionally says awkward things in sermons, struggles with being a people pleaser, and isn’t always the best leader.  My prayer is that God will allows us to continue to grow together for years to come.

The Path Of Grace

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Path Of Grace

Earlier this month, I was headed out to run some errands on a Saturday morning when I realized things were getting a little chaotic at home and the best thing I could do for Laura was to bring the boys with me.  As soon as I suggested that, the look on her face confirmed that I had read the situation correctly!  So, the boys and I headed to the underground parking garage in our building to jump in the minivan and knock out a few errands.

Unfortunately, in my zeal to move quickly, I managed to sideswipe a very inflexible concrete pillar as I was backing out of our space.  Just like that, I had a caved in door, a dangling side view mirror and two freaked out little boys who kept asking, “Daddy, why did you do that?!?”  As soon as I was able to convince them that it was an accident and not a sign that Daddy was having a break down, they calmed down.  And, by calmed down I mean they spent the rest of the day telling everyone they could that Daddy had broken the car.  To this day, I still can’t back in or out of a space without one of them condescendingly (yes, toddlers can do condescending…I promise!) reminding me to be really careful not to hit anything.  And every time they do, I’m reminded of the beauty and power of grace.

As soon as I hit the pillar, I knew it wasn’t going to be good.  But, for a fleeting second, I held onto the hope that somehow that loud noise hadn’t resulted in any damage to the van.  As soon as I got out to check, I realized that wasn’t going to be the case.  There was damage.  And it was my fault.  There was no excuse to make, no one else to blame, no way out of it.  I messed up.

In that moment, I really didn’t need someone to berate me.  I didn’t need someone to point out that we had better things to spend our money on than the insurance deductible.  I didn’t need someone to spell out how this was going to disrupt our plans for the day and our schedules for the week.  I didn’t need a lecture on safe driving, not rushing and paying attention.  All of that would have only made me angry.

What I needed was grace.  Someone to say they were sorry that had happened.  Someone to reassure me that it wasn’t going to bankrupt our family.  Someone to point out this is why we have insurance.  Someone to treat me in a way that showed they weren’t mad and that I wasn’t going to be punished.

Praise God, that’s the kind of woman I married.  The grace Laura showed me in that moment was exactly what I needed.  No condemnation, no guilt, no exasperation, no lecture.  Just a willingness to jump in, coordinate a rental car and get the van to the body shop.  It was exactly what I needed!

I think her grace to me was so compelling because I so often struggle to show that same grace to her and others.  I can be so quick to judge, condemn, point out faults and failures.  It can be so important to me to make sure people understand just how bad their mistake really was.  I often want people to feel enough pain as a result of their sin that they won’t do it again.  I buy the lie that if I can make someone feel bad enough, they’ll change.

But it never works.  I’ve yet to guilt or condemn someone into genuine repentance and I’ve yet to see long term improvement in someone because of how strongly I denounced their inadequacy.  It just doesn’t work.  You can spend your life hammering away on people but don’t kid yourself, you aren’t helping them.  You’re only making them more angry.

This all should be ingrained in our hearts as Jesus followers because of how God treats us.  He answers the horror of our sin with the grace of the cross.  He answers our rebellion with His peace.  He covers our sin and shame and cancels our debt of sin.  He shows kindness and mercy.  And we change as a result.  We grow to be more like the One who loves us when we are least lovable.

Imagine how much better our families, friendships and workplaces would be if we were so captured by the grace God has shown us that we show that same grace to others.  What if we walked the path of grace?

It’s what I’m praying for me, for you and for all of us this week.

Overcoming Trauma Fatigue

/ John / 1 Comment

Trauma Fatigue.jpg

I went to bed feeling pretty good about life on Sunday evening.  It had been a good morning at church, a productive afternoon at the office and a relaxing evening at home with Laura and the kids.  Mondays are my day off and I was looking forward to taking the kids to the zoo the next day.  Little did I know that we were about to set yet another record for the worst mass shooting in US history.  But on Monday, I turned my phone on only to learn that 59 people had been killed and more than 527 had been injured at a Las Vegas music festival.

And I felt numb.  Maybe even indifferent.

Sad, appalled, and horrified, yes.  But also somehow unable to summon those emotions with the intensity this kind of carnage deserves.  It felt like I was suffering from some kind of trauma fatigue.  There’s just been too many bad things happening too quickly to keep up with it at all.  Charlottesville, Houston, The Florida Keys, Puerto Rico, Las Vegas.  North Korean nukes, fake Russian Facebook ads and ongoing debate over kneeling during the national anthem.    It’s just too much to process.

And then Romans 12 helped me understand exactly was was happening in my soul – I was being overcome by evil.  The full verse reads, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Rm. 12:2)  I was allowing my spirit to succumb to wave after wave of evil.  I was allowing those waves to lap away at my joy, my hope, my compassion and even my calling as a Christian.  Yes, Jesus is “our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.” (Ps. 46:1)  But He is also the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the One who fights for His people and the One who calls us to overcome evil with good.  He calls us to push back against the tide of hate, division, and fear that is ravaging our country.  He calls us to fight with the weapons of truth, of love, and of grace.

I don’t want to be overcome.  I want to be an overcomer.  Specifically, I’m praying my life and our church would be characterized by the following:

Resist The Temptation Of Self-Righteousness

It’s so easy to fall into the trap of telling the story of the world in terms of good people and bad people, the right and the wrong.  It’s how the world operates; we just can’t agree on who belongs in which category most of the time.  It’s also part of why we rally together during times of national crisis – at least we can all agree that mass murderers are bad.  And they are.  Unthinkably so.  But so are you.  And so am I.

The thing that makes you want to fight back against that conclusion is called self-righteousness.  It’s why we all define good people and bad people in terms that put us squarely in the middle of good.  Bad is always someone else.

But all of us are deeply broken, tragically flawed  and capable of more evil than we are comfortable admitting.  A century ago, a British newspaper asked the question, “What is wrong with the world?”  The writer G.K. Chesterson wrote a famous reply to the editors:

Dear Sirs:

I am.

Sincerely Yours,

G.K. Chesterson

If only we could learn to replace our finger pointing with humble self-awareness.  If such spiritual poverty seems off putting to you, remember Jesus’ teaching, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3)  Those words were spoken by the One who would go to a cross so that we would inherit a Kingdom.  It’s His love poured out for us that makes it safe to admit that we don’t have it all together.  It’s His goodness that enables us to confront our brokenness.

There are no good people.  And there are no bad people.  Only people simultaneously made in the image of God and in need of the grace of God.

Cling To The Hope Of Eternity

There is a day coming when God Himself will make all things new.  He will dwell among us and “will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:4)  In that day, all the promises of the Kingdom of God will be fulfilled and, as Tim Keller says, every sad thing will become untrue.

That doesn’t mean the pain of this world doesn’t matter.  But it does mean we don’t lose hope in the midst of our pain.  The Apostle Paul explained it this way:

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.  For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

The brokenness of this world only intensifies our hunger and thirst for the one to come.

Talk About Jesus

Romans 1:16 says, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”  I’m 39 years old and I can’t remember a time when the world needed the church more than it does right now.  But not a cowering, fearful, disengaged church.  Not a church that runs from the world.  Not a church that’s afraid people will laugh at us because of our faith.  Not a church afraid of upsetting people with the truth of the gospel.  Not a church marked by indifference.  And, most of all, not a church that perpetuates the self-righteous lie of good people versus bad people.

No, our world needs a church that is confident, hopeful and willing to engage the deep questions of our time with the eternal hope of Jesus.  The world is dying for the hope we’re afraid to share.  It’s time to get the lamp out from under the basket. (Matthew 5:15)   Time for the people of God to rise.  Time for the people of God to love, to serve and to believe that He who is in us really is greater than he who is in the world. (1 John 4:4)

The more I ponder the gospel, the more I find my trauma fatigue morphing into determination.  Determination to mourn with those who mourn.  Determination not to turn a blind eye.  Determination to fight back.  Determination to overcome evil.  Determination that only be sustained by the grace and power of God.