Perspective

My first child was born 2 weeks ago. This will not be a long blog because the sleep deprivation keeps my brain from focusing for more than13 minutes on anything but, well, sleep. People always told me having a kid changes you forever. I assumed they were referring to that “lack of sleep” as the change, but there is something much more profound that is taking place. This change started 4 years ago when I got married and is now being amplified by the arrival of my son. That change I am speaking of is the shifting of focus in every area of my life off of myself and onto other people, specifically my wife and my son. I’m not just talking about the big things like their health and general well-being. I’m also talking about little things like surprising my wife with ice-cream or making sure my son doesn’t sit in his own poop for too long. And its not like I think about them first and then me second. Contrarily, I find the most joy in my life in their joy. When they are happy, im not relieved, I am joyful. Just this morning my son smiled at me (im sure it was just gas but still) and I was absolutely elated. His happiness made me happy and it was awesome. If I saw his happiness as a task I had to achieve and once I achieve it I could exhale and start worrying about myself, I would be miserable.

This has really helped me consider how I approach God. See, often I will look at God like a kid or spouse that I need to make happy. So I will do whatever it is He wants (read my bible, pray, go to church) so he will be happy and leave me alone so I can go do what makes me happy. So my interaction with God becomes a to do list of sorts. When I don’t do those things, I feel guilty because God probably isn’t happy and im gonna hear about it. But that isn’t the kind of relationship God designed me to have with him. God created me in a way so that the most joy I can find in life is living as he designed me to live. And guess what, when I live this way it is pleasing to Him, which pleases me all the more! As I find joy worshipping God, he finds joy in my worship of Him. Just like I find joy in serving my spouse because of the joy she finds in how I serve her. So I don’t serve God out of obligation but out of a love for His love.

Here comes the best part: Spouses and children may not reciprocate love and joy. Ultimately they will never reciprocate at all times. That’s because they weren’t created to be the SOURCE of my joy, God was. And God will never fail to love me back. In fact, the gospel message reminds me that God loves me infinitely more than I could love him and NOT BECAUSE I love him. He loves me, and you, regardless of our efforts to love him. There is nothing I can do to make God love me more or less. (ok follow this…) So I have confidence in his faithfulness to love me and that confidence in his love brings me JOY, which is expressed as TRUST, which is lived out as OBEDIENCE to his design for me, which subsequently brings me JOY. Follow that? With joy comes trust with trust comes obedience & with obedience comes joy.

Bottom line, Im being reminded to love God like I love my wife and son: I find my joy in their joy .

Would love your thoughts and feedback on this idea. post them in the comment section below.

live from Glenn Alpine

Im spending the first half of the week in an awesome little town in the foothills of NC called Glenn Alpine. Its like Mayberry. Courtney and I are on our “babymoon.” If you dont know what that is, im not sure either. I think its any vacation you go on when you are expecting a baby. Well, Im sitting on the porch of our 1918 colonial style B&B called the Inn at Glenn Alpine. Cool breeze, hardwood porch, rocking chairs, magnolia trees, and the foothills of NC. Lets just say Im pretty comfortable today. Ive spent most of the day reading or just staring blankly at trees while listening to the soothing sounds of One Republic (new favorite album).

Ive been reading Paul’s letter to the Philippians today and have really been shaken by something in his letter. He is writing from prison, yet the theme that spills out everywhere in the letter is JOY. He keeps on and keeps on urging the community (very important) of christians at Phillipi to rejoice together in the Lord. I have always read 4:4-7 as something I should be doing individually. You know, in good times or bad, rejoice in the Lord. Be thankful, yada yada. While this is true, Paul isn’t telling this to one person. he is talking about COMMUNAL REJOICING. In other words, an element of rejoicing in the Lord is sharing joy with other christians..Pause as my newest favorite song “Say (all I need)” just came on…admire clouds…im back. So when you and I rejoice in the lord, we gotta be thinking about who we are sharing our joy with. And we are always to be rejoicing according to Paul, so we must be constantly involved in the lives of other christians enough where we can rejoice together. So that brings me to what that rejoicing looks like:

• First it requires you knowing and being known by a community of Christians. The anthem of my life these days is this: You are designed to live in relationships with other people. For Summit Church, that means small groups.
• One we all seem to do well in churches is rejoicing through singing corporately together about how much joy we have in our standing before God through the blood of Christ. Great start.
• This means communicating regularly to others what God is doing in your life. And to do that it means getting before God regularly to listen and hear from him through reading his word and praying. I think this one is easier than the next because when we catch just a glance of God at work, we get pumped and want to tell others.
• This means sharing the joy of others when you dont feel like you have any reason to rejoice in your life. Yeah this one is hard. What about when a close friend shares how God has started to heal his marriage when you are in an extended period of frustration in your own? Are you genuinely able to rejoice with him or are you only able to extend a christianese “that’s great man.” ironically, their big hit “apologize” just came on. maybe you need to go suck up your stupid sinful pride and apologize to your own spouse since it’s not too late. When you cant rejoice in that situation because you cant stop thinking about why God wont do that in your life, ultimately you are considering yourself to be smarter than God. (caveat: I dont think God ever wants you to have a frustrated marriage. I think he will take you through difficulties to teach you though. because you are stubborn)

Conclusion: Repent of your pride, get into a small group, find a quiet place and some life reflection music, and start discovering how to Rejoice…In the Lord…always.

PS – if this post made no sense, its ok, im on vacation.

Learning how to be a pastor (that could be my life subtitle)

Some of you know I still have a couple of classes to go to complete my time at seminary. Since Courtney and I are planning on being here in Durham for a long time, I am creeping to the finish line. Id rather be with you guys in our church than over in seminaria land. I have come to love seminaria, but its time to move on. This week I am over at seminary in a one week intensive course on church planting and pastoral ministry. More than a class though it has really been a retreat for me personally. Ive loved my first 6 months pastoring at the Summit but listen, it has been a hard 6 months. The following is personal to me and I questioned sharing it but the people of God need to encourage one another through sharing how God is dealing with them. Here is my “sharing.”: Personally my wife Courtney and I have struggled in our marriage in ’08. Our first pregnancy has not been easy. Bitterness, anger, frustration, apathy, have all at some point entered our home this year. I have faltered in being the spiritual leader Courtney needs me to be. Not like I denounced Jesus or anything, I just became the passive man that Adam was right when Satan attacked Eve. The TV has been more important in the evenings than the spiritual growth of my marriage. (This actually harkens back to a post from a couple of weeks ago on spiritual disciplines.) I say this because I spent some time confessing this to Courtney Sunday afternoon. That was hard, very hard, because my pride is big, very big. The sermon on Sin Sunday morning was the tipping point where God himself, through the scriptures as taught by our pastor, spoke directly into this area of my life. My passivity was short-circuiting what God clearly desires for our marriage. This week the course I am in has encouraged me over and over to get alone with God on a regular basis. It has encouraged me that my wife and my son are my first priority. That is a big deal and is hard for me because I just assume they are doing ok while I go pour myself into the life of our church. no mas. Im starting at home and working my out from there.

Question: where is sin keeping God from working in your life? In the life of those you influence? Serious question people. And are you close enough with another guy or girl that you could open up and confess this stuff to? My short answer: get in a SummitLIFE group. And SummitLIFE groups, its time to put the superficial on the shelf and start getting real with one another.

Go Walk Your Dog

I’m almost 26 now. I’ve officially been out of college longer than I was in it (yes I made it all 4 years). I find myself occasionally longing for the schedule and routine I had at 21 where I could go work out for a couple of hours, play basketball with the guys for two more, and then eat anything I wanted because my metabolism was at its peak. Recently however I am in a stage in life where words like “portion,” “bottled water,” and “diet Dr. Pepper” are regulars in my vocabulary. Probably the biggest change from then to now, is that life is simply busier. In college my Wednesday consisted of class, call my girlfriend, and hangout with friends. Maybe study depending on the month. It was easy! There were no real time demands most of the time. So as a believer, I could pretty much pick whenever to sit down and study my bible and pray. But, those days are over. Today I have a wife I love spending time with, a job as a pastor that I love pouring into, an emotionally needy and mentally lacking chocolate lab, a washing machine that needs repairing, and a 2 month deadline to get my first son’s bedroom ready before his arrival in august. I get up at 6 am, go to bed at 11pm and could rattle you off another 20 things each night that I wanted to get done that day but just didn’t have the time.

The point is, I have to be disciplined now to carve out time in my life to meet with God. I cant just wait until that moment in my day when I have nothing to do. That moment is called college and it is only a memory to me. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 tells me that all of the scriptures are the very words of God and are useful in all aspects of my life. They are like food to my soul that I should hunger for. And the truth is that I do hunger for them. But If im not careful to make time to feed myself, the barking of the dog and the clanging of the washing machine will suffocate that hunger. And remember, my child isn’t even here yet!

So, after recognizing the pattern of immediate needs killing my spiritual growth, I decided to go on the offensive and re-schedule a daily time to meet with God. I looked for a time in my day that was calmest, and started there. For me, that was the morning. I wake up at 6am everyday. (If you don’t like keeping a schedule this part will frustrate you. But you need to grow up and realize somebody else will decide your schedule for you if you don’t.) By 6:20 I am out the door with my dog for a walk around the neighborhood. Its only about a 20 minute walk, but has turned from an obligatory part of my schedule into a 20 minute daily prayer walk. That is, as I walk by the homes of the neighbors I see regularly, I pray for them, for their marriages and ultimately for their salvation. I pray for opportunities to share the gospel with them. Its awesome! That is also my time to just praise God for his creation or pray for things really weighing on my mind. Warning: Im not saying this is the only time I pray. I find the most growth in my prayer life when I am in solitude, speaking to and listening to God with the scriptures sitting open in front of me. What I AM saying is that I reclaimed a time in my day as an opportunity to meet with God instead of letting it be another task on my honey-do list.

At 6:40 I start reading my bible and usually eat a pop-tart (with Cold Skim Milk. Mmmm). Sometimes that bible reading lasts 40 or 50 minutes, sometimes it lasts 15. Sometimes I read 3 verses, sometimes I read 3 chapters. Today I read chapter 2 of Galatians. I read it over about 4 times and just meditated on what the author was saying. I think I sat there at the island in my kitchen for about 30 minutes or so really trying to think on v.20 that says “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now life in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” This is the gospel message. So I tried honestly evaluating where I want to see Christ’s love lived out in my life more than it is right now. Nothing earth shattering hit me at that moment, but things I’ve been praying for like my marriage and my relationship with my co-pastors came to mind. That is how God often speaks to us though. He gives us (via the holy spirit) recall of his word (meaning we’ve been reading it) into our life situations that we are coming before him in prayer about. Its pretty awesome. Sometimes he will use the recall of his word in a fellow believer to speak into our life situation / prayer request. That is even awesomer and it’s why we always have to be in relationships (re: small groups) where that can happen.

So my question to you is really twofold:
1. Are the immediate needs of your life killing your walk with Christ?
2. What is the calmest part of your day & how could you start there in reclaiming a regular time to meet with God? Commute in your car? Your workout hour? Grey’s Anatomy hour?

I would love to hear suggestions that have worked for you to this end. Also, if you are struggling through this battle as I did recently and want a hand in figuring it out, feel free to contact me: sshelton@summitchurch.cc .

Truth is absolute & Small Groups Conference

Recently I read a couple of books that have been quite challenging to me. One is Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey. In this book she unpacks how deep darwinian thought (evolutionary theory) has permeated the church. She traces back the current “truth is relative” mindset back to this along with so many other systems of thought currently popular in our society. Most importantly the book gave a fairly good ground for what it looks like to be able to defend the claims of christianity with one’s brain. It made me think in a major way about how we spend our time in our small group gatherings. Do we encourage one another to adapt the gospel to EVERY area of our lives? Do we dig for the truths of scripture and then are we bold enough to actually apply those truths in our context or do we leave them as a nice idea? Ive been kinda shaken out of my complacency a little I think and it feels good. I want to, and I want you to, be able to accurately explain the Christian message at any time in any context (1 Peter 3:15).

The second book is called Truth in Love by Brian Follis. It is an overview of the work of a guy named Francis Schaeffer. If you are over say..35… you probably know the name. Schaeffer was one of the most brilliant christian minds in the 20th century. Here was his whole philosophy on life: love people as Christ would love them. Christ never loved people apart from truth. Always speak truth in love. It was Schaeffer who coined the phrase “love is the final apologetic.” Either of these reads would be well worth your time.

So small group leader, are you convinced of the Truth of Christianity? Are you fighting to know and apply that truth in your life? In the lives of your group members? When you speak about Christ, are your words laden with sincere love, or are you trying to win a debate, or are you trying not to say anything that may be offensive?

Also, I am headed to my first ever Small Groups Conference this week. Hope to bring you some good insights from it while I am there, and tons of ideas for you when I get back.

Measuring Growth

As a small group leader, and now a leader of small group leaders, I am often asking and being asked this question “How is your group doing?” I often ask myself that question of the group I lead. The question is vague and can come off as nothing more than a conversational pleasantry. It assumes your reply will be “great, and yours?” That exchange of words is completely useless to a small group leader and to a leader of small group leaders. BUT, evaluating the spiritual maturity of your small group remains an absolutely essential task. The first step in effectively evaluating your group is realizing it is made up of individuals. And unless you know where your individual group members are spiritually, you will make vague & usually incorrect generalizations about where your group “is.” And by the way, the “where” is not as much gauged on a numerical scale (eg. 1-10) as much as it is observing what areas of their lives they are following Christ in. So let me give you some hopefully helpful identifiers for measuring spiritual growth in the lives of your group members (and also your own life). These are neither exhaustive nor foolproof. By the way, I am not where I want to be on any of these so if you go on a judgmental tirade in your group with these, im gonna find you and pound you. But, hopefully these will help you begin to see where you can encourage and challenge your group as they follow Jesus. The way I use these is this: look first for ways to encourage your group members in these. Usually that works best.

 ·        Their prayer lives – First, do they pray? Is prayer a 15 second dinner ritual or an intrinsic part of their daily lives? Do they pray in your small group gatherings? Do they ask you to pray for them or if they can pray for you? Basically, do they actually believe prayer to be the powerful, necessary means of communing with God or is it a unfamiliar religious practice? If they do pray, do they pray only in the form of requests for the needs of the immediate (ie, family illness or final exam) or do you hear them seeking the glory of God in their prayers? Do they praise God in their prayers? Use scripture in their prayers? For a great message from our pastor on this topic, click here.

·        Their Bible lives – The scriptures are the inspired word of God. Not you, a pastor, or anyone else can claim that. Do they love the bible? Are they regularly contributing to your group’s bible study? Do they see reading the bible as a checklist task or a life necessity equal to breathing (recognize that people go through times where it may feel like a task, but do they know and believe it to be more than that)? Are they familiar with their bibles (ex: what is in the OT & NT)? Is the bible a well-worn in tool on their belt or decorative bookshelf art? *Helping people grow to love their bibles will be the single greatest thing you do for anyone in your small group.*

·        Their ministry lives – Are they involved in service in the local church? Do they believe that to be a necessary part of their Christian life or a guilt-motivated job assignment? Do they like people? Seriously. I’m not asking if they are extroverted, but if they have a general care for the welfare of fellow Christians as well as non Christians. Do others around them in their lives know they are Christians? Not “do they wave big red Jesus signs in their office” but does the gospel influence their work ethic and the way they interact with those around them?

·        Their financial lives – UH OH! The big scary one right? Listen, this one is easy, but must be approached with grace and humility (and don’t single out an individual on this during group time). Jesus very shrewdly pointed out (Matt 6 & Luke 12) that what you do with your money is an indicator of what you value. Do the people in your group value Jesus and therefore give of their money to the local church as an expression of that? Do they enjoy it if they do? For a great recent message on this here at the Summit, click here.

Again, these are not exhaustive and can be used wrongly if not done with humility and grace. For a full treatise on these and other spiritual disciplines, check out Donald Whitney’s Spiritual Disciplines. It’s a great book for small groups to work through.