The Years Have Seemed Like Days

I have been in full-time church based ministry for seven years now. I began working as one of two full-time pastors at a church in Stockton, California three months after my December graduation from North Park University.  This past weekend I took some time to think about the past seven years and there were two passages that kept resonating like songs in my soul. They are: 

2 Corinthians 3:18

And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.

 

Genesis 29:20

Jacob worked for Rachel for seven years, but it seemed like a few days because he loved her.

I’ve learned over the past seven years that God has never seen his task with me as fixing one problem after another but rather moving me from one degree of glory to another. Understanding how God sees you and what he says about you is pivotal in negotiating the tormenting waves of success and failure while you’re choosing to live out that which you feel you’re being called to.

I have also learned there is no substitute for genuine love. Too many times I’ve fooled myself by calling my cynical opinions and views “apostolic” or “prophetic” words for the bride of Christ. While these flowery and “authoritative” words seem to hold a lot of weight, they truly slowed my days, and ministry, to a crawl. The times when the days turn into weeks which quickly have turned into years is when my love for the calling God has laid upon me is consumed with a genuine love for the one who has called. 

As I reflect on the past seven years I can’t help but ask; is the Church in better shape since I started seven years ago? Are the communities I’ve been privileged to serve in stronger because of my time with them? Maybe. Maybe not. Will I still be working within the youth ministry world in another seven years? Will my calling to serve in full-time church based ministry continue over the next seven years? Maybe. Maybe not. Will God continue to transform me from one degree of glory to another through what he has planned? Will my love for him continue to make the next seven years seem like mere days? Absolutely. While Christina and I have no plans for any big moves or changes I will fervently grasp to the present while dreaming of the future with great excitement! 

Instant Gratification, Later.

Man – this was a great reminder as I am starting my new goals and crafting vision for a new year!

Uncomfortable Middle

Best. Invention. Ever. How do you make the happiest place on earth even happier? Give me a “Get-out-of-line-jail-free” pass also known as the Fast Pass! I haven’t been to Disneyland a whole lot but I’m still amazed that there’s a machine that punches you a ticket to come back and go straight to the front of the line! Seriously, where was this in 5th grade when they sold pepperoni sticks and popcorn during lunch recess? I can’t tell you how many kickball games I missed for that one lousy pepperoni stick.

As I’ve been thinking about Lent I continually run into the same questions. “Why do I have to go through 40 days of _________ before Easter? Can’t I just show up on Easter and celebrate like everyone else?” Great point – if life, faith, and transformation were created by Disney with Fast Pass machines at every fork in life’s…

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The Secret Behind Becoming a Radical Christian

Longevity.

There it is. I wish it was something that was deeper and more profound. I wish I had some witty antidote or could break new theological ground in it’s unveiling or even wish that I came to me in a vision that I can now share with the world. But truth be told – I’ve learned the secret behind becoming the Radical Christian that is so hotly talked about and debated these days simply by sticking around.

Why did we start listening to some southern white boy with dreads, dawned in clothes he made himself, living in the ghettos of Philadelphia? Because it was crazy. Why do we keep listening to Shane Claiborne? Because he’s still living there. He’s still making his own clothes. His still championing the poor, the Gospel, the messages he was espousing since day one. He’s still there.

Why did I read some book that challenged everyone’s understanding of God’s crazy love, written by another Southern California mega-church pastor? Because it was a New York Times Bestseller and I like edgy things. Why do I keep listening to Francis Chan for wisdom and council? Because he’s continued to press further and further into the vision that Christ has placed in his heart and the message on placed in his mouth.

Why do I heed every word about faith and church that comes from my 93 year old grandfather who does little by way of today’s “radical faith” definition? Because he’s shown a dedication to his community of faith that is unmatched and unseen any where else in my life. He’s been a bedrock voice, support, challenger, and encourager in his family of faith for more years than I can imagine.

What is it about my grandmother’s life that humbles my greatest theologies, paradigms, programs, and experiences in ministry? Her 50 years of teaching Sunday at the same church. If I’m conservative and say she had 6 kids every year she taught Sunday school, that’s 300 kids the spent an entire year with! Judging by the attendance at her funeral a few years back, she had well more than 6 kids each of those years.

We debate what makes radical faith. We die on hills we call social justice, faith alone, modernity, post-modernity, depth in tradition, life in relevancy, and a thousand more hills with a thousand more names. Here’s the deal: We worship a God who owns the cattle on a thousand hills. He’s sovereign over that which makes your soul burn deep and bright and hot for the Gospel of Christ and his Kingdom come. Yet, whatever it is that is burning deep in your soul leading you to make great sacrifices, go on great adventures, invest deeply, and submit continually here’s my plea: STAY WITH IT!

In four years, my parents will celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. In a country where approximately half of all marriages end in divorce, 40 years of faithful marriage is radical. In a country of church shopping, splitting, and reinventing 50 years of faithful attendance, service, and membership is radical. In a country where everyone wants to be the change in every #trending cause, 20 years of dedication to serving the homeless, advocating the end of human trafficking, or raising generations whose faith sticks past adolescence is radical. If we set out to be a radical Christian today. We can call myself radical today. If we set out to have longevity in our faith, mission, and call in Christ, we’ll be remembered as a Christians who undeniably lived radically.

My Life has plenty of regrets

A conversation I had with a high school senior last school year is sticking with me, rattling around in my heart. Really it isn’t even the whole conversation itself. What lingers was really just a passing footnote to her larger point, but after it was said, it was all I could think about. She said in the midst of her thought:

…I know you’re not suppose to have any regrets in life…

I think this is popular culture worldview that sounds like it should be Biblical but isn’t necessarily so. Often times our “life without regrets” is rooted in “Hall of Fame” verses such as Romans 8:28 which says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” We read this and say, “Well, if I could do it all over again…I wouldn’t change anything because I can see now how God used it to make me the person I am today.”

To that person I would say this: I am thankful for the ways that God has used the good and the bad in my life to shape me into the person I am today…but there is plenty that I wouldn’t do again if I had the chance. I have plenty of regrets.

The way I treated my brother in middle school, the way I treated my parents in high school and the ways I viewed girls, sex, and dating in college. The friends I gave up on. The faith I lost hope in. The ambition I failed to cultivate. The people, politics, and issues I never cared for. The time I allowed to pass by. There are so many things that I look back on and regret either doing or not doing. And guess what, I feel these regrets are worth remembering and talking about.

I don’t believe that Jesus takes away my regrets. I don’t think Jesus wants us to forget the things that we’ve done or didn’t do that caused us to miss the fullness of life He intended for us. Here’s what I do believe Jesus does with and to my regrets. He removes the chains and crippling effects of shame, embarrassment, and worthlessness that come hand-in-hand with the brokenness of our past.

To say I have no regrets is basically the same as me bringing my own Get Out Of Jail Free card to authentic Christian community. It gives me a pass from being honest, vulnerable, and broken before you. The truth is, in my marriage, I still have to work and make sacrifices because of poor choices I made before I vowed my heart, life, and eyes to Christina. I wish I had more freedom from the detrimental relational habits and tendencies that I established before I met my wife. But because of the death and resurrected life I share with Jesus’ I am free from the shame of these habits. Together with my wife we can talk about the realties of my past brokenness in a way that pushes us toward Jesus as opposed to avoiding the topics for fear of shackling me to my past.

I have plenty of regrets in my life. What makes my regrets different is that in Jesus, they’ve become pillars of wisdom and discernment for my future, not chains of shame that keep me bound or ignorant of my past.

“Will You Dance With Me?”

Over the last year and a half, give or take, our oldest daughter has LOVED playing with, reading, dressing up as, or reenacting anything that is remotely closely tied to princesses. This is a new thing for me. I grew up in a home with two boys, no sisters, and no real close girl cousins. The onslaught of pink was one thing, but princesses are an entirely different thing all together. No the princess obsession has provided for some heart melting moments in the reenacting (“Good night my prince!”) and for some Gospel/justice interpretations in the story times. (“Just like Cinderella, there are so many girls who are not allowed to leave homes because of mean people. Can we pray for those girls?”) Yet, a few days ago I realized a great draw back to this love of princesses.

Brylie was insisting that Christina dance with her, a normal thing, but there was something new twist in her logic for us to dance with her. She said,

 “Dance with me! Dance with me! I’m wearing a pretty dress! Come dance with me!”

This made me sad because I realized soon after that one of the songs in her newest princess book sings these exact words. I don’t want her believing that Christina or I, and particularly any boy, need any other reason to dance with her other than her simply being Brylie.

It’s fun seeing little girls get dressed up and pretend to be princesses and royalty. I think one of the reasons why it’s so intoxicating for us as adults to drink in the joy girls exude while they are lost in the “princess wonderland” is that for those moments they actually believe they are all the things princesses represent. Royalty, beauty, lovable, valued.

As adults we’ve long been callused to the belief that we are beautiful, worthy. Long ago we gave up on the idea that we could ever be considered royalty. So we live vicariously through these girls’ joy-filled props that set are often setting stage for much of the same disillusion we fell victim to when we realized the humanity behind the princess stories. Humanity that shows us that Cinderella found her beauty after a dramatic makeover, Ariel fought for plastic surgery reconstruction to save her from her perceived flaws, and Belle, the most educated of all princesses, traded her books for ball gowns.

Here’s the thing. Before my daughters were born, and ever since, they were and will be royalty. They are daughters of not just “a” king but THE KING. Their King and Father is the God has reigned for all generations has sealed the truth of their beauty, strength, worth, and value in them before they were born and reveals these realities in fuller ways with each passing day. For this reason, I will work hard to raise my daughters to confidently believe that when they say, “Will you dance with me?” there are no other qualifications needed with that request.

The act of reconciliation requires muscle memory

I love playing and watching both golf and baseball yet I’d be hard pressed to find any commonalities in how these two games are played. I played baseball from ages 5-13, until I realized that you really need to be able to hit the baseball to have any future success in the game. Then in my early 20’s I began picking up golf. Basically in both games you’re swinging a stick at a ball and trying to hit it as far as possible. Yet it didn’t take long to discover that the swinging motions that are skillfully, or in my case clumsily, exerted are fundamentally opposite. The difference between the two swinging motions are subtle but paramount. It’s the difference between keeping your weight forward on your front leg or keeping your weight back on your back leg. Take a look at two of the greatest hitters golf and baseball have ever seen. Tiger Woods on the left, Ken Griffey Jr. on the right. 

As I was learning how to hit a golf ball I kept using my “baseball swing” and was missing the golf ball. As I was approaching the tee box my mind knew I was going to be swinging a stick to hit a ball, so it defaulted to the only motion it knew. This is called muscle memory. By keeping my weight on my back leg, instead of moving it forward to my front leg I was essentially pulling myself away from ball I was swinging at. This wrecked havoc on my scorecard as well as the landscape!. For me – I had to stop playing baseball, stop swinging a bat, and teach myself a new swing and create a new muscle memory so I could (more) successfully hit a golf ball. It was amazing how these two sports that I thought had very little to do with each other greatly impacted my ability to play either one well.

In Matthew 5:21-26 Jesus offers one of the most inconvenient, and I’d say overlooked, elements of worship. The element of reconciliation.

“So if you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the Temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God.” (NLT)

It’s easy to give lip service to the idea that we give our whole selves to Jesus yet too often we live as though our spiritual lives and social lives have no connection. When we gather with the church for worship, we are proclaiming our gratitude or need for prior, present, and future reconciliation to God through Christ. All worship truly finds its roots here. Yet, when live our social lives without any efforts to pursue reconciliation (personally, communally, and globally) it is no different than using our best baseball swing to hit a golf ball. Right as we throw our self forward into worship we are simultaneously pulling ourselves away from Christ. Sounds like a pretty serious recipe for a stint on the disabled list…swinging forward while pulling yourself backwards.

We can’t fully move forward in our worship or relationship with Jesus if we aren’t willing to fully move forward in reconciling our relationships with the people we can see, touch, speak to, work with, and share our planet with. Why? Because the Jesus is at work and pursing reconciliation in a might way with the same person(s) I am withholding relational peace from. See, I can walk forward with Jesus as he’s reconciling all people when I’m walking away from people who I need to be reconciled with. They are two opposite motions.

Reconciliation must be at the heart of our worship. This way, the more we prioritize healing broken relationships the sooner reconciliation will become our new relational default during the other 6 1/2 days of our week. We’ll have created a new muscle memory through our relational conditioning, made possible by the Holy Spirit.

So, the time I approach the tee box (worship) and I know there’s something off on my swing (relational conflict), my best bet is to step off the tee box, take a few practice swings (go be reconciled), and step back up to the ball (come back to worship) ready keep my weight on my front leg (Christ as first in all things) all the way through my swing (my act of worship).

Perspective Matters

I’m remembering this morning how much there is to learn about the goodness of God, the worth of his Word, and my own identity in suffering. Also reminded how important perspective is in being thankful and joyful in suffering, frustration, and just plain ol’ bad days.

Prayer Matters

In my office I have significant pictures, notes, or cards hanging on my wall. This is a 3×5 card my wife wrote for me while we were dating. These prayers, images, and words have soaked, seeped, and washed me for the past 6 years. Prayer matters. Letting people know what you’re praying and hearing shapes lives.

I’m sorry, I forgot you love me

It’s not an uncommon scene. Tantrums, fits, yelling, crying, hiding under tables, running away when being called for, refusing to listen because emotions are running way too high. No, I’m not describing my almost-three-year-old, I’m realizing this is an embarrassing truth about my own walk of faith.

The other night, my oldest daughter, our almost three year old, was having a grade-A breakdown. It was a long day with no nap and I was coming off a day that left me equaling her levels of fatigue. At the climatic moment when her face was a mess of hair, tears, and snot and I was a steaming pile of frustration on the floor grabbing after her, I heard the wisdom of God coming through my own words. There are moments like these. When the Holy Spirit commandeers my words to bring truth, correction, grace, or wisdom to me. These are divine moments that catch me off guard 100% of the time.

In this moment, as my daughter and I wrapped up in a mess of frustration, anger, confusion, and desperation, I put my hands on Brylie’s shoulders and said, “Brylie, do you know that I love you?” to which she sniffled out a reply of, “phhh, phhh, yeea-yeaah…phhhphh….” then I asked this question which stopped me in my tracks. I asked,

“Brylie, did you forget that I love you?”

She looked at me with her beautifully tear soaked eyes and said, “”phhh, phhh, yeea-yeaah…phhhphh….”

Things calmed down after that and we got her to bed. I was now a whole new kind of mess. I realized that the interaction I was just apart of was God revealing a tangible manifestation of my relationships with him. Before we go any further, I’m not presuming that I am the God figure in my house who is all gracious, wise, loving, and powerful. What I am saying, is that in that moment – God showed me what I look and sound like when I refuse to obey, choose to complain, and steadfastly run from His word. I look childish. And the root cause for this “terrible-twos-faith-tantrum”? Forgetting that my Father loves me. Forgetting that behind all things that he’s asked me to do, all places he’s asked me to go, and all times he’s asked me to be present in, stands his unquestionable love for me.

That night  I took time to take a deep breath and say to my loving Father, “I’m sorry. I forgot you loved me.” That night, and my days since, have been full of more grace and trust and less fits and tantrums. I’m learning the need to continue to give up my childish ways of faith and remember my Dad loves me!

The Story of Nasia

(This is written by my amazing wife, Christina Kolding. I am humbled and inspired to be married to such a woman as this.)

In February of 2012 we learned our pregnancy was likely to end tragically in a way that we would never be able to see or share life with our expected girl. Shock and brokenness ambushed our hearts at this discovery. Before the end of our pregnancy I was searching through name websites and came across the name “Nasiah” which means “Miracle of God”. I broke at the sight of this name. Oh, how I desperately, desperately wanted my child to be a miracle story. I longed for her name to declare what it was that everyone would be able to witness. I pleaded and cried with the Lord to allow this girl’s circumstances to change, for a miracle of God to take place. In that sobering place of desperation, brokenness, and vulnerability I heard my God quietly and gently whisper, “Not this time, but Nasiah will be a child you see.”

Of course that wasn’t what I wanted to hear at that time but there was some piece of me, deep down, that was comforted as I was wrecked with dispair. The constant thoughts of this possibly being my last opportunity to have a child led me to struggle with a lot of “what if” scenarios.

“What if I wasn’t able to get pregnant again or my body couldn’t carry again?”
“What if this was my only other child and I wasn’t going to be able to meet her?!”

But the promise I had heard from God quieted my fears and slowly restored my hope!

“What if I really heard that right?”
“What if God would allow me to carry, deliver, and parent a girl named Nasiah!?

A few months later we discovered we were pregnant again. I was skeptical for sure.
I quickly checked what our due date would be if this was actually going to be a life I would see born. I was not ready for what I was about to see. I saw that our baby would be due: February 8th, 2013.

That is same day that we had discovered our girl wasn’t going to make it last year. The exact day our hearts entered into a situation we never imagined being in.

Right away I remembered my moment with God last February when I was praying over my lost pregnancy. Nasiah. This was my miracle.

Nasiah May was born this past Friday, on her due date. February 8th is now a day to forever anticipate because it is a day God was forever going to redeem! She will remind us and show others how miraculous God’s design is in bringing life to earth and breath to lungs!

It is no small thing.

I waited patiently for the Lord to help me,
and he turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the pit of despair,
out of the mud and the mire.
He set my feet on solid ground
and steadied me as I walked along.
He has given me a new song to sing,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see what he has done and be amazed.
They will put their trust in the Lord. Psalm 40:1-3