BECAUSE I LOVE HER...

I love you Donald Miller.

I love your Blue Jazzy writing and have incorporated your books into many a small group community and watched people's hearts and imaginations set ablaze by your story and your insight.

But man, THIS stings.

It's chock full with your awesomeness but do people really need more ammo on why not to be part of church? Sunday morning is already just so beautifully sleep-in-able.

I remember the first time I ever heard you speak…you and your pastor from Imago Dei, who had been instrumental in your spiritual journey, sat (both of you with similar figures at the time) on stools laughing and sharing your shared stories. It inspired me, as a fresh new church leader, to be in the lives of people in my city who  might one day, who knows, write their own Million Miles. Local church and your pastor were so entwined in your authorship and journey that when you were you invited to speak in front of thousands, you had him take the stage with you. Beautiful. Inspiring.

I believe in the Church. The Church being people.

Super flawed, but coming together to not only know God via community and learn from each other, but to beautifully combine our generations, experiences and lives to make something LOCAL and representative of who Jesus called us to be in the very towns/cities/villages and places in which we dwell. Compassion incarnate. In numbers. In diversity.

If I read one more christian leader post a blog or statement about the top 10 reasons they left the church or why they don't "attend it" when they know FULL WELL how freaking tough it is to lead a community of faith, i'm going to stinking cry. or something. have we not better things to do with our energies? that goes for all the former church staff/pastor authors who write books to sell to the church on how to be a better church or church leader yet continue to bash it's value. or not actually be a living breathing part of a church. they just go from gig to gig hired to lead worship or speak at it but don't have one to call home.

church isn't about sunday morning. it's about serving each other and knowing God better and being more than we can be in our own living room or mountain top hike.  there are moments for that. but there are moments for caring for the single mom, celebrating the birth and life of those in our community and sharing with each other. i will take bullets for it. If I can find the time I'll try write blog posts and a book on all the reasons you SHOULD give The Church a chance. Whether it's out of style or antiquated, and although super-screwed up at times, it is one of the things for which I'm most grateful and am giving my life to further. Why? I have watched my friends be transformed by the love and power and beauty in it.

yes, i've also, like you, watched people be destroyed by it…

but do we stop falling in love because divorce exists? hell no.

And I know that I can do more to further a Kingdom of love by being part of a Church community than by not. Being a part, not attending. Don't throw stones at educating children and not expect teachers to be infuriated. Same with continually trashing being part of THE CHURCH with those who are leading it. And planting it. And hoping to help it thrive. not cool. If you are a person of faith with influence, do something awesome with it instead of discouraging people from being part of something in their community that could do good, bring and help restore hope and deliver God to them in the form of song, in encouragement, in flesh and blood face to face conversation and presence.

Although I am not denominational, I believe in The Church. I believe in People. I believe in local. I believe that when we gather and serve and sing and pray and give and learn TOGETHER we are stronger and more meaningful. And deeper. And a million great things I could bullet point in a blog or book. So if you spend all day writing or blogging, how about you bullet point those precious amazing things rather than discouraging people from it? and continually criticizing it? authors/speakers/bloggers/WL's: if you are willing to make your living off the church's $, bookings & readership, be sensitive to the people giving their lives to help make it possible for them to have a Church community to call home. I'd love to be passive and thumbs-up these blogs/statements/books people keep sending me, but i can't help but feel completely frustrated by them. Let's be known by what we're for not what we're against. Shall we? Much of this thought process began when some of my very favorite Pastors and teachers left the local church for consulting, conference circuits, blogging and authoring. Although all beautiful things, they were such amazing local church examples in my life that I felt saddened that they’d give it up for giving their two cents on church leadership while no longer leading it. What a loss to their cities. To their communities. I fear many an opportunity has been squandered for the lure of The National Stage.

A friend of mine who was formerly a church pastor and church planter asked me, "how long does someone need to stay in local church as a pastor or leader before moving on to other things"? I don't know. That's not the point. But if by other things you mean moving on completely from being a part of The Church then I hope that day never comes for you. Because if you have or have had  influence, people will follow your lead.

I love that Dr. Oz still does heart surgeries even though he's moved on to be a TV show host.

He's still in it. Neck deep in it. I want to ask him heart surgery questions because he still has a scalpel in his hand. I bet his fellow surgeons of NYC are thrilled that a surgeon of Oz's caliber hasn't left "the game" and that more people are still alive because TV wasn't more important. I speculate.

I choose to embrace her (The Church) in all she lacks because it’s not Sunday morning and steeples that are holy but rather the collection of people together in community doing something greater that is very very holy. And amazing. And messy. If you've led it or experienced good in it (The Church), don't kick it while it's down. Help it up, brother and sister.

Sarah Bessey (who might be my new favorite blogger) wrote THIS on not giving up on The Church. and it's amazing. and you should read it right now.

Cadence

Even-keeled: something I've never been. Laser beam focus: something I've never had.

Taking things in stride: not my forte.

I freak out about stuff. Stuff that isn't even freak-out worthy.

Worrying is my spiritual gift.

I come from a long line of fiery Irishmen. And women.  Freckles and feistiness. Sleeve wearing hearts. More reactionary than reserved. More joshing than gentleness. I didn't grow up drinking sweet tea and it shows.

Sarcasm is my native tongue. Loyalty is my lens for everything- to a fault. To a big stinky fault.

One might think that at my ripe old age of almost 39 I'd have finally embraced my own lack of continuity. That smooth sailing's not in my DNA. That I'd stop trying to find regularity and embrace the free form, meter-less thing that is my life and my handling of it.

I know we go through seasons. Richard Rohr, via my husband, has opened my eyes to a second half of life perspective I find amazing and terribly daunting.

When I think about my own personal story and as I reflect on all the moves (many) we have made over the course of the past few decades...maybe my obsession with "home" and making it "home" and always re-inventing or re-imagining home is that

I want brick and mortar when I've been invited to pitch a tent.

And re-pitch it…with frequency.

Since moving to Charlotte in 2004, we exchanged solid, insurance-having jobs with offices of our own for inconsistency, newness, and unexpectedness. Which is one part ridiculously breathtaking and another part bittersweetly unsettling. Not Settled. Never Settled. Never ever ever.

And, for better or worse, due to the nature of the "line of work I'm in", I've been given a front row seat to the lives of many. For the celebration and the heartbreak. For the addition and subtraction. And although somewhere, somehow on some evaluation or inventory I scored high in mercy, this communal roller coaster is one for which I'm ill-equipped.

Last month while running my weekly route, I had my first ever panic attack. I've heard about such things, and definitely have had my rashy, blotchy, light-headed moments of anxiety in my life, but never a full-on, I can't catch my breath panic attack.

I stopped behind a big parked truck on the side of the road and did some kind of hyper-ventilating meets crying meets looking around to see if anyone could see me kind of thing like loon. If you saw me on Colville Road that day, I'm really sorry for the public display of crazy.

So I walked home from my run. I turned off my iGadget and pulled out my earbuds and listened to my pounding heart and squeaky wheezing while the unseasonably warm December wind blew on my frizzy, sweaty head. And by the time I got home, it was ok. I was ok.

I won't bore you with the details that led to my aforementioned hyperventilation, and although I'd never physically experienced the manifestation of my worry in this unsightly form, I've been here before. Big change. Feeling overwhelmed. Feeling defeated. Rug pulled out from under and even though it's happened before, the fall is just as hard and maybe even a bit more painful due to old bruising. Like my current favorite songwriter wrote Ryan O'Neal wrote

...All the bruises seem to surface like mud beneath the snow.

The Bible is said to be God-breathed. Inspired by God. By people who were able to witness God in the flesh, God in action firsthand or His handiwork.

In these past few weeks, when my lungs seemed tight, when my breath seems shortened, when my longing for a cadence, any cadence of constancy no matter the speed of the tempo surfaces…it's here in the stopping and regrouping and headphone removing and publicly disheveled moments that my mind drifts from my own sputtering heartbeat to a sparkling puddle on the sidewalk and the sound of my shoe hitting the cold pavement. The unexpected beauty in pulling up the stakes on this tent and finding a new place to nestle in with hopes that the destination isn't desert but something lush and life-giving. But either way, I'll call it home there because who I am never trumps who's with me.

And here, a month later, when the test results from the doctor were good, when the disaster that wasn't averted might not have been such a disaster, when friends new and old share my unsettledness in stride, when my husband reaches across the lego-covered table to hold my hand, when I run that same route down Colville...I feel the exhalation of my crippling fear and I drink in the first-hand handiwork of an ever-patient, magnificent and creative Creator and the sense of my own form being God-breathed. Even someone uneven-keeled like me.

The very breath of God can fill this square peggedness. And this sweaty, frizzy downcast head gets lifted.

And for that, God, I am so very grateful.