Today is one of two days in the year that the company I work for shuts down and gives employees a holiday. For the most part I'm planning a lazy day.
Here are some thoughts floating around in my mind:
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I am thankful for my job. As I've said in the past, I consider the job place and the job itself a ministry and a mission. I'm blessed to work for a company owned by a family who are Jesus followers who know what the Sermon on the Mount says and work harder to obey it than to make a profit. I have had conversations with the CEO about our shared faith and the lifestyle it requires and I am blessed to know him and be known by him.
On the job, I share my life with many millennials. I have meaningful relationships with most of them. A few weeks ago, one of them texted me from the ER. He was there with his dad, who was having chest pains. We exchanged texts throughout the day. In the end, all was well with his dad and the next time he saw me, my young friend said, "Thanks for keeping me sane yesterday."
Even when I was a youth pastor, I didn't connect to people in that age range like I do now.
My immediate boss is a woman of about my age who is a widow with a beau and is hinting that she'd like me to perform the wedding. What a great way to live out missionality, to be externally focused, eh? I don't know what I'll do about that.
The job itself can be physically demanding. Yesterday I worked wearing a back brace and a wrist brace.
As I've said in the past, I do have opportunities to share what I believe and Who I believe in with coworkers and with customers. And, as I've said, I think that Kierkegaard got a lot of things right. Much of that is appropriate to witnessing in my work setting. So, I do that, and I occasionally use Kierkegaard's name when it fits. I would honestly say that I am making disciples.
I have been offered financial aid from friends from my pastor days and I am blessed by the love and concern. For those of you who wonder, we are making it, not as easily as we were when I was pulling in a fulltime pastor's salary but, we are paying our bills. Admittedly, this has been a year with few crises.
I'm blessed by our involvement in the small community of gatherings that has (d)evolved out of the organization formerly known as Faith Community Church of God. What we are is still unknown to me. Each of the gatherings has a distinct identity, even though we are core to each and have been from the beginning. The Wednesday thing is most curious to me. I have no idea where it is or where it's going. I groove on the Sunday and Thursday Fresh Expressions of church much more I ever was blessed by a Christendom thing.
My relationship with CGGC mountaintoppers is more curious than ever. Some CGGCers continue to be incensed by the process employed by ERC mountaintoppers to take my ordination. I have been offered assistance at ERC Conference next year in fighting my fight. Recently, the ERC Standing Committee has demonstrated resolve in standing by (no pun intended) it's decision to remove the ordination.
More than anything else, I am fascinated by how the CGGC body responds to my simple effort to live out, as faithfully as I am able, what I believe to be my APEST ministry.
At this point, I feel led to stay this course, if necessary, even to the point John the Baptist stayed his. In the end, John showed Herod to be who he truly was. At this point, I imagine that many connected to my story will show who/what they are.
I currently--I can't say communicate because communication implies input from more than one direction--um, speak into the lives of four CGGC mountaintoppers. Three of them do respond with varying degrees of openness. One of them and I are in the midst of a profound, vigorous and I believe, mutually beneficial dialog. Two others listen and don't treat me in way the Amish treat someone who is being shunned.
Interestingly to me, the one mountaintopper I thought who would engage me in conversation is Lance. Do you know if someone is blocking your emails? Or, he could have just designated my emails as spam. Either way, it is as if I don't exist as far as Lance is concerned. To use the John/Herod analogy, even Herod was fascinated by what John had to say. Very, very interesting to me.
Both Evie and I have received unsolicited job offers this year. Evie is about to begin a promotion with her employer of the past nine years. As a result of the offer I received, I was able to clarify my position with my current employer.
We just returned from T-day dinner with the family at the home with mom and dad. It was also dad's 90th birthday. Dad was good, though he really didn't appreciate the significance of the day. His meal was two lettuce leaves with a drop of blue cheese dressing, at least two pieces of cake and about a half gallon of coffee. No decaf. Hey! It was his day! It was a good day for the family.
One final CGGC comment. It's obvious to all that we are in decline and have been for decades. Leadership is not inept. In fact, it is extremely, well, ept. Its shortcoming is that it is misguided. Leaders of the CGGC do institution better than ever. The problem is that the day of the institutional church is gone for good in the Western world. For Winebrenner everything was about the conversion of the individual sinner. These days, more and more, leaders are all about the church. A shepherd dominated mess.
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