July 13, 2007
The sunrise on this particular morning created such a visible dichotomy. Turning east, I had the rare joy of seeing a slowly blossoming sunrise with colors hard to match on any artist’s palette. With a slight turn to the west, I saw a barrel overflowing with unsightly trash. Each directional picture seemed to detract from the other. The electric color stemming from the dawn of a new day was being tainted by the garbage. The garbage sat stubbornly in full defiance of the ecstasy of God’s artwork. Sometimes I have these weird moments when nasty visuals get stuck in my mind, thereby ruining a really good mental image I’m trying to forever capture. This was one of those times. Internally I began complaining and begrudging those who trashed God’s creation and then slept like babies on whole milk. I’m no tree hugger, mind you, but this whole rubbish (the Greek here is skubulon) thing was ruining a potentially awesome beginning to the last day of my study break.
It was somewhere between my environmentally righteous diatribe and one of my sunrise-stirred ahhhs that I saw two prisoners picking up trash. They had on matching blue outfits with “HCDC” stamped in large white letters on their backs. These two jail birds we’re being followed closely by a sheriff in a county SUV. I’d bet my mother’s recliner that this sheriff had a gun by his side --- in case one of these hardened criminals made a run for either the sand dunes or the … uh, ocean.
I had this ridiculous thought: If I ever have to be a prisoner doing time, I’d want to do it in South Carolina because I could go to the beach every morning. Like Paris Hilton trying to study for a breathalizer test, I officially labeled myself as a nincompoop. A pastoral idiot. How could such a stupid thought occupy my limited brain space?
This whole mental and emotional exercise has been sticking in my study break crawl all day long. I think I know why…
There seems to be a revolution of God that is grabbing many people. It’s a movement within God’s Church (big “c”) to simplify. Because so many lives deal with distractions and blurred activities, Americans are feeling stressed, fatigued, and unable to find deep satisfaction within most, if not all, of their pursuits. With so much overload, a thirst for the eternal is elevating, and keen awareness is pushing people NOT to cram God into everything else. At the same time, God is being portrayed by most local churches as busy, works-centered, and not grace-focused. People are tired, and they just want to know Jesus and how to serve Him. Local churches, for the most part, are not helping people with their deeper spiritual pursuits, so people are going elsewhere. No longer are people wanting to be held captive by empire-building churches who promise the moon and promote unbiblical habits --- therefore negating any engagement with God.
Didn’t Jesus say something about if we stay focused on Him, we will be set free? Isn’t there a way to BE the church and be free? Seems like there is a wonderful God-painting of how His Church best functions, and we settle for frustrating trash details like prisoners. The faithful who remain in the pews can be heard to say, “Well, if I have to be a prisoner, the local church is a pretty good place to do my time.” What a ridiculous thought. We are supposed to be free INDEED.
It seems little “c” churches have made prisoners out of free people by guilt-strapping them to lifeless trash, programs, buildings, family-zapping activities, classes of all sorts, and theology that points to GOING to church. It’s the same spiritual dichotomy between a sunrise and trash. Isn’t it?
As a pastor and leader, I’m totally convicted of the need to simplify. Purpose needs to be our process. Love, Feed. Connect. Motivate. Do these four simple things take us back to Jesus and His mission? Can this intentional simplicity give us clarity, movement, alignment, and focus? What if all we did fell under these four, Biblical (Acts 2) headings of loving, feeding, connecting, and motivating … and if something didn’t fit into this purpose/process, we didn't do it?
What if we (little “c” church) could powerfully and intentionally supplement someone’s life to go BE the church… and begin to grow actual disciples that stop merely going?
Could we serve the family better by helping them love, feed, connect, and motivate?
In “Revolution,” Barna reported that the family, as a means for primary spiritual experience and expression, was used by only 5% in 2000 … and the same 5% will hold true in 2025.
Is there something we need to be doing that helps the family BE the church? How can we supplement and help the family? How can we connect families and marriages instead of adding to their hyperactivity? How can our ideas of family broaden to powerfully include, single-moms, singles, divorced, widowed, etc.? There’s something here God is wanting us to creatively and innovatively figure out.
As a result of this study break, I also am realizing I need to spend way more time working ON the church instead of IN it. I want to keep working on connecting the Bible with our culture. I’m not exactly sure what all of this will look like, but I sense the truth of Driscoll’s words.
I believe I need to continue leading the mission of the church through strong teaching, and not get caught in the ego-massaging trap of trying to be everyone’s pastor. Everyone needs to know someone (Community Groups, Joe!), but not everyone needs to or can know me.
God… like a late-night ocean sky filled with a zillion gripping stars … silent mysteries swirling in the blue like jazz … keep me real. Allow me to have the courage to be authentic. Help me to discard the invented me. Please keep my efforts at real-ness from being abrasive, and help my Christ-centered authenticity to be a breath of your sweet grace in a stagnant and often smelly culture.
God, my final study break prayer is this: Teach me to take advantage of the life I have. Show me how to number my days aright, that I may gain a heart of wisdom. Relent, O Lord! How long will it (my life) be? Have compassion on me. Satisfy me every morning with practical evidences of your unfailing love. I want to sing for joy and be glad all my days. Make me glad… for as many days as you have allowed me to suffer. Let it all even out, for I have seen my share of difficulties lately. May your visible deeds be seen by others. Let my kids see your splendor. May your favor rest on me… us… Your Church. God show me what to do. Establish the work of our hands for me. Yes, you can do that… establish the precise, exact work you want me to do.
(Psalm 90:12-17)
The sunrise on this particular morning created such a visible dichotomy. Turning east, I had the rare joy of seeing a slowly blossoming sunrise with colors hard to match on any artist’s palette. With a slight turn to the west, I saw a barrel overflowing with unsightly trash. Each directional picture seemed to detract from the other. The electric color stemming from the dawn of a new day was being tainted by the garbage. The garbage sat stubbornly in full defiance of the ecstasy of God’s artwork. Sometimes I have these weird moments when nasty visuals get stuck in my mind, thereby ruining a really good mental image I’m trying to forever capture. This was one of those times. Internally I began complaining and begrudging those who trashed God’s creation and then slept like babies on whole milk. I’m no tree hugger, mind you, but this whole rubbish (the Greek here is skubulon) thing was ruining a potentially awesome beginning to the last day of my study break.
It was somewhere between my environmentally righteous diatribe and one of my sunrise-stirred ahhhs that I saw two prisoners picking up trash. They had on matching blue outfits with “HCDC” stamped in large white letters on their backs. These two jail birds we’re being followed closely by a sheriff in a county SUV. I’d bet my mother’s recliner that this sheriff had a gun by his side --- in case one of these hardened criminals made a run for either the sand dunes or the … uh, ocean.
I had this ridiculous thought: If I ever have to be a prisoner doing time, I’d want to do it in South Carolina because I could go to the beach every morning. Like Paris Hilton trying to study for a breathalizer test, I officially labeled myself as a nincompoop. A pastoral idiot. How could such a stupid thought occupy my limited brain space?
This whole mental and emotional exercise has been sticking in my study break crawl all day long. I think I know why…
There seems to be a revolution of God that is grabbing many people. It’s a movement within God’s Church (big “c”) to simplify. Because so many lives deal with distractions and blurred activities, Americans are feeling stressed, fatigued, and unable to find deep satisfaction within most, if not all, of their pursuits. With so much overload, a thirst for the eternal is elevating, and keen awareness is pushing people NOT to cram God into everything else. At the same time, God is being portrayed by most local churches as busy, works-centered, and not grace-focused. People are tired, and they just want to know Jesus and how to serve Him. Local churches, for the most part, are not helping people with their deeper spiritual pursuits, so people are going elsewhere. No longer are people wanting to be held captive by empire-building churches who promise the moon and promote unbiblical habits --- therefore negating any engagement with God.
Didn’t Jesus say something about if we stay focused on Him, we will be set free? Isn’t there a way to BE the church and be free? Seems like there is a wonderful God-painting of how His Church best functions, and we settle for frustrating trash details like prisoners. The faithful who remain in the pews can be heard to say, “Well, if I have to be a prisoner, the local church is a pretty good place to do my time.” What a ridiculous thought. We are supposed to be free INDEED.
It seems little “c” churches have made prisoners out of free people by guilt-strapping them to lifeless trash, programs, buildings, family-zapping activities, classes of all sorts, and theology that points to GOING to church. It’s the same spiritual dichotomy between a sunrise and trash. Isn’t it?
As a pastor and leader, I’m totally convicted of the need to simplify. Purpose needs to be our process. Love, Feed. Connect. Motivate. Do these four simple things take us back to Jesus and His mission? Can this intentional simplicity give us clarity, movement, alignment, and focus? What if all we did fell under these four, Biblical (Acts 2) headings of loving, feeding, connecting, and motivating … and if something didn’t fit into this purpose/process, we didn't do it?
What if we (little “c” church) could powerfully and intentionally supplement someone’s life to go BE the church… and begin to grow actual disciples that stop merely going?
Could we serve the family better by helping them love, feed, connect, and motivate?
In “Revolution,” Barna reported that the family, as a means for primary spiritual experience and expression, was used by only 5% in 2000 … and the same 5% will hold true in 2025.
Is there something we need to be doing that helps the family BE the church? How can we supplement and help the family? How can we connect families and marriages instead of adding to their hyperactivity? How can our ideas of family broaden to powerfully include, single-moms, singles, divorced, widowed, etc.? There’s something here God is wanting us to creatively and innovatively figure out.
As a result of this study break, I also am realizing I need to spend way more time working ON the church instead of IN it. I want to keep working on connecting the Bible with our culture. I’m not exactly sure what all of this will look like, but I sense the truth of Driscoll’s words.
I believe I need to continue leading the mission of the church through strong teaching, and not get caught in the ego-massaging trap of trying to be everyone’s pastor. Everyone needs to know someone (Community Groups, Joe!), but not everyone needs to or can know me.
God… like a late-night ocean sky filled with a zillion gripping stars … silent mysteries swirling in the blue like jazz … keep me real. Allow me to have the courage to be authentic. Help me to discard the invented me. Please keep my efforts at real-ness from being abrasive, and help my Christ-centered authenticity to be a breath of your sweet grace in a stagnant and often smelly culture.
God, my final study break prayer is this: Teach me to take advantage of the life I have. Show me how to number my days aright, that I may gain a heart of wisdom. Relent, O Lord! How long will it (my life) be? Have compassion on me. Satisfy me every morning with practical evidences of your unfailing love. I want to sing for joy and be glad all my days. Make me glad… for as many days as you have allowed me to suffer. Let it all even out, for I have seen my share of difficulties lately. May your visible deeds be seen by others. Let my kids see your splendor. May your favor rest on me… us… Your Church. God show me what to do. Establish the work of our hands for me. Yes, you can do that… establish the precise, exact work you want me to do.
(Psalm 90:12-17)
BTW... I'm wondering if it would be good thing to pray through a Psalm or section of a Psalm every Sunday. This stuff is so real and relevant to where most are living.
There is much to talk about with the elders and staff. I wonder if everyone is ready to simplify? How will we shape or re-shape the upcoming fall? Has God has prepared us to practically BE the church? Will it be a battle to make Jesus essential and the church (little “c”) supplemental?
As I finish out this final blog for my ’07 study break, I’m ruminating on something Mark Driscoll wrote about within his final chapter of “Confessions of a Reformission Rev.” Ironically, this was the very last thing I read today as I was wrapping things up.
In his final chapter called “Jesus, We’re Loading Our Squirt Guns to Charge Hell Again,” Driscoll gives thoughts about focusing his church to reach the 10,000 mark in attendance. He interviewed several pastors to gain wisdom and insight for such a monumental task. One memorable mentor/pastor ignored all of Mark’s questions about structure, leadership, and attendance barriers, and asked Mark about his family. A most penetrating question was asked of Driscoll: “Is being a good husband and father more important than growing a large church?.” Driscoll answered a resounding yes, and so would I.
My wife and kids are what’s most important. I follow Jesus as a husband, dad, and then… pastor.
Although we’ve had a great study break, and everyone in my family would answer a “how are you” with a pretty strong “good,” I have this unmistakable inner burden.
The past two years have been rock hard for my family. I really can't stuff or deny this any longer. Moving from Indiana to Colorado was a clear mistake and sin of my pride. I will forever regret that decision. Colorado was a tough road, but God worked and caused great growth and connection for us in the spectacular Rocky Mountains. We loved living in Colorado and made some great friends there. Eventually though, even those friendships got ripped apart by a church infected with power, control and sin. We had turned our beautiful Colorado house into a home, but it was sitting way too empty way too soon as the moving truck was moving again.
Our move to Georgia and ministry has been good. There are great people at Cumberland. I love the staff. The elders are amazing. God has really turned things around in a hurry at CCC. (This positive build-up is obviously and pointedly coming to a “but.” Can you feel it?) BUT… my family is just not stable. We have not found a house to turn into a home. At certainly no fault of our real estate agent… we just can’t seem to get a grasp on the whole “settling” thing. After seven months, over 100 houses, and four offers gone south… we are really struggling. To say that we’re struggling is really one of those cheesy-but-true understatements that most pastors hate to admit. However, if I’m going to be real, then I’m going to share this struggle.
I’m asking God for some quick answers to prayer. It has been incredibly hard to work my way through this study break while having my family heartache constantly nagging me throughout these past couple weeks. It’s tough trying to lead and move a congregation ahead, when your own family feels stuck. Our relationships, love, and connectedness within the Scott household is very strong, but being unsettled for too long is overwhelmingly unsettling. None of this is written to freak anyone out, but it is my reality. I’m trusting God. I’m praising God. I’m waiting on God.
God, you know my heart. My family IS more important than growing a church. My role as husband and father takes absolute precedence over being a pastor. Show me what I need to do to live out this truth.
And so after two weeks, four books, 103 Psalms, and thirteen blogs later, it comes down to this... I choose Your sunrise over earthly trash. I choose NOT to be a prisoner… even if prison is deemed as “success” and a great place to be in many people’s eyes. God, through your Son Jesus, you offer us so much more. You offer us freedom. Set me free. Set me free, indeed.
There is much to talk about with the elders and staff. I wonder if everyone is ready to simplify? How will we shape or re-shape the upcoming fall? Has God has prepared us to practically BE the church? Will it be a battle to make Jesus essential and the church (little “c”) supplemental?
As I finish out this final blog for my ’07 study break, I’m ruminating on something Mark Driscoll wrote about within his final chapter of “Confessions of a Reformission Rev.” Ironically, this was the very last thing I read today as I was wrapping things up.
In his final chapter called “Jesus, We’re Loading Our Squirt Guns to Charge Hell Again,” Driscoll gives thoughts about focusing his church to reach the 10,000 mark in attendance. He interviewed several pastors to gain wisdom and insight for such a monumental task. One memorable mentor/pastor ignored all of Mark’s questions about structure, leadership, and attendance barriers, and asked Mark about his family. A most penetrating question was asked of Driscoll: “Is being a good husband and father more important than growing a large church?.” Driscoll answered a resounding yes, and so would I.
My wife and kids are what’s most important. I follow Jesus as a husband, dad, and then… pastor.
Although we’ve had a great study break, and everyone in my family would answer a “how are you” with a pretty strong “good,” I have this unmistakable inner burden.
The past two years have been rock hard for my family. I really can't stuff or deny this any longer. Moving from Indiana to Colorado was a clear mistake and sin of my pride. I will forever regret that decision. Colorado was a tough road, but God worked and caused great growth and connection for us in the spectacular Rocky Mountains. We loved living in Colorado and made some great friends there. Eventually though, even those friendships got ripped apart by a church infected with power, control and sin. We had turned our beautiful Colorado house into a home, but it was sitting way too empty way too soon as the moving truck was moving again.
Our move to Georgia and ministry has been good. There are great people at Cumberland. I love the staff. The elders are amazing. God has really turned things around in a hurry at CCC. (This positive build-up is obviously and pointedly coming to a “but.” Can you feel it?) BUT… my family is just not stable. We have not found a house to turn into a home. At certainly no fault of our real estate agent… we just can’t seem to get a grasp on the whole “settling” thing. After seven months, over 100 houses, and four offers gone south… we are really struggling. To say that we’re struggling is really one of those cheesy-but-true understatements that most pastors hate to admit. However, if I’m going to be real, then I’m going to share this struggle.
I’m asking God for some quick answers to prayer. It has been incredibly hard to work my way through this study break while having my family heartache constantly nagging me throughout these past couple weeks. It’s tough trying to lead and move a congregation ahead, when your own family feels stuck. Our relationships, love, and connectedness within the Scott household is very strong, but being unsettled for too long is overwhelmingly unsettling. None of this is written to freak anyone out, but it is my reality. I’m trusting God. I’m praising God. I’m waiting on God.
God, you know my heart. My family IS more important than growing a church. My role as husband and father takes absolute precedence over being a pastor. Show me what I need to do to live out this truth.
And so after two weeks, four books, 103 Psalms, and thirteen blogs later, it comes down to this... I choose Your sunrise over earthly trash. I choose NOT to be a prisoner… even if prison is deemed as “success” and a great place to be in many people’s eyes. God, through your Son Jesus, you offer us so much more. You offer us freedom. Set me free. Set me free, indeed.
posted by Alan's Blog @ 12:41 AM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
Thank you so much for sharing your heart and being honest and transparent. It is very refreshing. Now we can pray much more effectively for you and your family. fwiw, I know I haven't been at the church very long, however I am grateful that God has brought you and your family to Atlanta to lead this church.
you wrote, "Is there something we need to be doing that helps the family BE the church? How can we supplement and help the family? How can we connect families and marriages instead of adding to their hyperactivity? How can our ideas of family broaden to powerfully include, single-moms, singles, divorced, widowed, etc.?"
I think a good starting place is with the men - fathers and husbands. I'd be curious to know how many men in the church regularly pray with their families and teach their children the Bible. For me personally, pride is what keeps me from humbling myself and praying regularly with my wife and daughter. and at the end of the day, is there any more important thing for me to do in life than lead my family closer to the Lord? How is my church body equipping me and holding me accountable as a father and husband to do just that? Can I be an effective light in the darkness at my workplace and neighborhood if I'm not able to even lead my own family closer to the Lord?
Although you might have felt it was a mistake to come to Colorado, we here in Colorado know it wasn't. You helped open the eyes of hundreds of people here. People that will be forever touched by your honesty and love of our Lord. I hope you know that although things didn't go as you had hoped, there are so many people here that thank God you were a part of their family...even for a short time. God bless you and your family.
I've always loved going on "study break" with the Scott family and thank them for sharing their time with us. I'm very grateful for the internet and the ability to read the study break and listen to the sermons at CCC. I pray Alan that God is using you and your family to build His kingdom. Still working with you for HIM. Love to you and your family. Denise (your old ACC friend)
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