The most difficult part of that process was finding a place to store 500 books. Fortunately, a good friend had a vacant room in their home and let me stack boxes of obscure monographs there. I learned a tremendous amount at First Methodist – much about leadership, people and their spiritual desires, and (above all) about myself. I was afforded opportunities there that I otherwise would never have been given. I had moments of success, failure, and everything in between…all in three and a half years.

Over the last two years, I encountered some specific struggles in ministry I had not experienced up until that point. Some I handled well. Others not so much. I learned a lot about myself in that process. I also learned a very important lesson: some situations have nothing to do with me whether I’m personally affected by them or not. I found my ability to correct those situations is limited. I’m sure I’ll reflect on my time there over the next several years. I am extremely thankful for that time. I’ll take the lessons I learned there into future ministry. I imagine some day I’ll be having coffee with a church staff member or another pastor and I’ll hear myself say the words, “When I was at First Methodist…”

Over the last three years, I began to collect sayings and tape them to my computer monitor…tacky, but necessary. Some days I followed them to the letter. Other days I failed to follow them at all. I thought I’d share them with you. You might find it interesting that there is not a single Bible verse listed. Nor is there a well-known theologian quoted. Maybe they will mean something to you, too. If so, why not tape them to your computer monitor?

Hereafter, if you should observe on occasion to give your officers and friends a little more praise than is their Due, and confess more fault than you can justly be charged with, you will only become the better for it. Criticising and censuring almost every one you have to do with, will diminish friends, encrease Enemies, and thereby hurt your affairs.                                                                                                 -  Benjamin Franklin to John Paul Jones, July 5, 1780

The greatest need of my congregation is my own personal holiness.                                                                                                             –  Robert Murray M’Cheyne

Most unsolicited feedback is for the sender.                                                                                                                                                 – Harvard Business Review Article

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.                                                                                                                                 – Plato of Athens (apocryphal)

In the end, everything will be okay. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.                                                                                                               – Playwright Carolyn Myers

]]> http://samnunnally.wordpress.com/2012/01/03/goodbye-first-methodist/feed/ 3 Sam Helpers http://samnunnally.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/refusing-to-grow-up/ http://samnunnally.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/refusing-to-grow-up/#comments Fri, 30 Dec 2011 14:53:40 +0000 Sam http://samnunnally.wordpress.com/?p=2141 Continue reading →]]> Childhood is fun. Of course, when we are children, we think that there is some greater significance in being an adult. Then we become adults…and we become nostalgic for our childhood days, friends, and activities. The truth is that growing up sucks big time. No one tells you why being an adult is so difficult. But at the risk of sounding simplistic I see one big difference between adulthood and childhood: a well-honed ability to conceal our deeper emotions and hide our true selves. Getting to this state is a grueling process. We slam our fingers in the emotional “doors” of life at home, school, work and church until we figure out that it’s not safe to be emotionally available to others…or at least not on a deep level. Girls become superficial and guys become “commitmentphobic.” And then we make a big life decision. Not the big ones you are thinking of though this one impacts all the others. We decide to share only 10% of who we are with others. Why only 10%? Because those are the only parts of us we can control in public. And the other 90% turns into anxiety, concealed rage, depression, and addiction.

Depressing, huh? Yep.

God never designed us to live this way. He thinks you’re okay. But part of adulthood is conceding to the fact that others don’t think you are. They criticize, judge, and manipulate to prove this to you. Sadly, Jesus bled out on a cross to show you the exact opposite. Could that be true? It’s a risk to believe something so radical. I came across this quote in Dallas Willard’s book, The Divine Conspiracy. He describes mature spirituality in a way that seems foreign to what we encounter daily:

Interestingly, ‘growing up’ is largely a matter of learning to hide our spirit behind our face, eyes, and language so that we can evade and manage to achieve what we want and avoid what we fear.  By contrast, the child’s face is a constant epiphany because it doesn’t yet know how to do this.  It cannot manage its face.  This is also true of adults in moments of great feeling–which is one reason why feeling is both greatly treasured and greatly feared.  Those who have attained considerable spiritual stature are frequently noted for their ‘childlikeness.’  What this really means is that they do not use their face and body to hide their spiritual reality.  In their body they are genuinely present to those around them.  That is a great spiritual attainment or gift.”

There’s no need to be afraid of who we truly are. If you haven’t made a New Year’s Resolution yet, here’s one to consider. Refuse to grow up. Refuse to hide the best of who you are from others. Be childlike…so much so that your emotional and spiritual states shine through your body and facial expressions. Say “no thanks” to intimidation, social pressure, and shame…and just be you.

When Beth and I decided to take the risk of planting a church from the ground up, I did some serious research. Besides investigating church planting associations, I plowed through 12 books and manuals on the “methods” of church planting that exist today. I have been a part of two other start-ups (one independent and one SBC), but I still felt I needed some more background info on the whole process.

In one of these books, the author wrote a chapter on why someone shouldn’t start a church. He spent the entire chapter talking about the dangers of starting a church when you have deep wounds from churches – whether it be betrayal or conflict or misunderstanding. Then the author said that the church planter must have a sense of “invincibility” in order to succeed. People find hope in a leader that shows no signs of weakness or past failure. This upset me. In order to appear invincible, I’d have to pretend. I have been a failure. I have been misunderstood. I am awkward. I am full of weaknesses. If anything, much of what I know about the church I hope to build is what I don’t want it to be like. I began to doubt my ability to start something new.

After those books, I started a round of books that deal with grace in some fashion. I picked up Henri Nouwen’s Wounded Healer. I thought Nouwen would be talking about God as the wounded healer. But by page two, I had figured out he wasn’t. He was talking about the pastor as a “wounded healer.” Nouwen says that ministers are only effective when they have been significantly wounded. Otherwise, their words of sympathy and prayers for wisdom sound like trite TV ads rather than deep, meaningful connection. He says the best ministers are those who minister out of their past and present wounds.

Jesus did that. John 16:32-33 says that he was abandoned by those who would follow people who seemed more “promising.”

But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when you will be scattered, each one going his own way, leaving me alone. Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me. I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”

I suppose I could project an image that I have things together. And that would attract some people to a new church. I’m planting in a city that certainly values appearances. That’s what the church planting manuals have told me. But after thinking about it for that past six months, I’m gonna go a different route. I’m gonna take Nouwen’s advice. I believe people are looking for something real. “Real” is not clothes or hairstyles or profanity or Wilco. It’s being comfortable enough with who you are so that it puts those around you at ease.

I’m gonna try that first.

Though our world seeks certainty in news reports, market trends, and sports statistics, the Bible says there’s little value in our ability to judge the certainty of anything in this life. Success or failure. Winners or losers. Everybody already knows this…but it doesn’t stop us from acting as if there’s a “connect-the-dots” lifestyle that promotes success and happiness. In fact, much of our pomp, hand-waving, and posturing is simply to give credibility to something everyone already knows we don’t possess: certainty. This is the point of James 4:12-14:

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

Now, confidence is something totally different. While certainty has to do with circumstances, confidence has to do with identity.  I love Paul’s approach to ministry and relationships in 2 Corinthians 1:12-14:

We can say with confidence and a clear conscience that we have lived with a God-given holiness and sincerity in all our dealings. We have depended on God’s grace, not on our own human wisdom. That is how we have conducted ourselves before the world, and especially toward you. Our letters have been straightforward, and there is nothing written between the lines and nothing you can’t understand. I hope someday you will fully understand us, even if you don’t understand us now.

Those Christians who are confident in who Christ has made them to be are comfortable in their own skin. Notice some of the emphasized words in that passage. Paul is confident that he is living sincerely before God. He allows God to lead his decision-making processes. He has conducted himself with honor to the best of his ability and has been straightforward with no double-speak. And here’s the best part: though circumstances may not make sense and people may not understand him, he trusts in his relationship with God more than the “questions” that may hang over his head. He’s not certain…but he’s confident.

Sometimes confidence comes across as naiveté or hubris…simply because there’s no reason to be quite so optimistic about life. But confident Christians have figured out something that eludes most people trapped inside the quest for certainty: God thinks we’re okay. They are just simple enough to believe such a preposterous assertion. Any of us can discard the fake notion that we are certain of anything. We can rest in the truth that we are accepted by God and that this truth (and this truth alone) determines our focus in life.

Shame is a sense of worthlessness or inferiority that plagues all of us at some level. Those who live with chronic shame feel inadequate, unwanted, rejected and often engage in self-contempt through negative talk. They never feel “good enough” for anyone. It’s also our own sense of shame that causes us to turn on others or engage in addictive behavior. It’s a horrible cycle – one that I have struggled with at times in my own life. Maybe you have as well.

The Bible has some really important things to say about shame and our relationship to it. It starts in the book of Genesis (2:25, 3:7). In chapter 2, we find humans comfortable with who they are. They are open, vulnerable, and sincere in their relationship with each other and with God. But by chapter 3, we find them hiding from God. Now, at that point, they we guilty of sin…but God did not shame them for their decision. They internalized their guilt as worthlessness and hid from God. Kinda like we still do today.

Guilty? Sure. But worthless? Hardly. Most people still can’t tell the difference.

Sadly, for many, their experience with religion has heightened their sense of shame. Their worthlessness is bantered around in sermons and liturgy every week that invite them to grovel before God’s feet. What’s worse, the church often “talks dirty” to get the attention of the shamed, rejected, and unwanted. But the church never addresses the deep inferiority people feel by giving them the acceptance they truly need. People need more than pardon. They need healing.

It’s important for people to know they are forgiven. Hebrews 10:22 says we are not only forgiven but cleaned from a “guilty conscience.” But something even deeper happened on the cross – God healed our shame. Luke 18:32 says that Jesus was specifically treated “shamefully” when he was crucified. In that moment of abandonment, Jesus carried the deepest and most pervasive emotional scar that any human can carry: shame.

At the cross, God said to every person that would listen, “I want you. I’ve always wanted you. You are unconditionally loved and accepted by me.” God’s heart breaks for his abused and shamed children. They are made in the image of God but they refuse to believe it. Shamed people don’t need a more acute sense of their own sin. Instead, they need a sense of just how loved and accepted they are by their Creator.

Though God gives us final value and esteem, each of us can choose to be agents of grace to those around us. We can give others small amounts of value in each conversation and act of kindness we display. You have the chance to help heal another person’s inadequacy, inferiority, and rejection. To help heal their shame. Or, better yet, we can embrace what God really thinks about us and allow him to heal our shame, worthlessness and rejection. After all, those are our feelings, not God’s.

Beth and I have had a love/hate relationship with adoption. We began to feel like adopting a child was the right thing for our family about three years ago. At that time we began to pursue international adoption from the nation of Rwanda (in Africa). That long and tedious process came to screeching halt in August of 2011. We were within weeks of having our documents on Rwandan soil when the Rwandan government closed the country to adoptive parents. We were devastated and struggled through two months of personal heartache. Determined to continue, we applied with the minority program at Open Door Adoption Agency in our home town. And we waited.

Due to a comedy of errors at the church I serve this past year, Beth and I found ourselves in a place once again where our chance to  adopt was essentially over. It seemed like the circumstance would never line up for us to bring another child into our family. And we quickly lost hope.  So much so that we packed up our adoption files and put them in a box in the attic and gave away our baby stuff. We made the announcement that we were leaving TFUMC a month ago to plant a church. Something had to give…and adoption was getting the pink slip. We informed Open Door of our changing life status and told them we would contact them soon to officially pull our names from the list of potential families. Then we forgot about it. For good. We concentrated on making contacts in our future community, finishing up at TFUMC, and transitioning the three children we already had. We began to adjust to our new reality.

Last Saturday, we received a call in the middle of dinner from the adoption agency that a birth mother has chosen our family to place her newborn son with. That wasn’t supposed to happen, you know. After all we had it on our “to do” list to swing by the agency and pull our application permanently. We just didn’t make it to the agency that week. We made arrangements for our children, dropped everything and drove several hours to the hospital. After two days of tense conversations and waiting, we brought a four day old baby boy home.

For those who know us, we talk a lot about God’s love. But rarely have I seen the power of God’s love demonstrated to me on such a personal level. I’ve been confident to pray for God’s miraculous intervention in the lives of others. But never have I seen God display that same love for us in our deepest moment of helplessness. He did. And that gives me the strength and hope to move forward into all the other areas he’s leading me towards.Honestly, we’re still a little in shock about all of this. After all, we had completely given up on the idea of having another child through adoption. And then, with days to spare, it feels like God wrestled the entire world into submission to give us our hearts’ desire. The funny thing is, we have seen God do some really important things for us. But they were wrapped in the fact that they would benefit others also. We’ve prayed for people and watched God do some neat stuff. We’ve seen God change circumstances for us because it ultimately benefitted other people. But this one was different – it was for no one but us. And it’s become a healing agent for us in a time of struggle. I have been more at peace in the last few days than I have been in the last year.

 

When we heard the news about First Methodist, we had to quickly focus on what we felt like God was leading us to do. We’ve interviewed with some churches far away from South Georgia. But nothing we encountered really “fit” with the vision God was giving us as a couple. So we began to investigate “planting” a new church…and that’s what we are doing. It’s called GraceWorks and it’s a really simple model. The tag line is kinda fun: “No Agendas. No Judgment. No Politics. Just Grace.” As we began to pray about where to go, we felt like God wanted us to start GraceWorks in Tallahassee, Florida – about an hour down the road. While finishing up at First Methodist we have also been making overtures to Tallahassee with bible studies and “meet-and-greet” events. We’ve met in homes and even in an Irish pub. There’s still much ground to plow and we are slowing transitioning our family down that way.

So, will this whole church plant thing work? I have no idea. But we feel like that is what we are supposed to do…so we are gonna give it a shot. Feel free to look at the website to get a better idea of what GraceWorks will be about. I’d write more…but I’m off to a GraceWorks gathering right now…

How about Carrie? She gossips about others and manipulates circumstances to gain power. She exploits the information others trust her with.  Carrie has the same problem as Bob and Jane – she doesn’t understand love. 1 Peter 4:8 says “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” Just as Christ covered our sins by dying for us, so we must cover the sins of others by choosing to believe the best about others, refraining from gossip and being authentic in every relationship. In other words, we must stop playing the game.

John, our perfectionist, doesn’t understand love either. He believes acceptance is based on your performance and that friends are only as good as their ability to meet his needs of importance. But true love is unconditional – no reservations. No strings attached. By not understanding unconditional love, John has never accepted himself as he is, faults and all. So much of his energy is spent projecting a façade of perfection. But it just makes him angry and moody. So, John simply treats others the way he sees himself: riddled with mistakes and as poor performers. John needs to understand Ephesians 1:6: through the work of Christ, we are all accepted as God’s beloved. When John understands that God gives him a break, he’ll be willing to give others a break, too.

And what about our worrier, Joan? She is consumed with negative thoughts and controls everyone’s lives. Joan has never grasped the safety of living loved in Jesus. 1 John 4:18 says, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” You see, we only trust God to the degree that we are certain of his love for us. The more we are aware of God’s love for us, the less we worry about things beyond our control.

Thomas Merton has a great quote that sums up what I’m trying to say to you today: “A saint is not someone who is good but who experiences the goodness of God.” And that’s the real question – can we allow ourselves to truly experience the love of God even though we may feel that we are not worthy of it? I have a hunch: if we spent less time trying to love God through the things we do and more time resting in the fact that he already loves us, we will accomplish much more for the Kingdom of God than we presently are.

I want to encourage you this morning to stop trying to please God. He’s already pleased with you. The closer we align ourselves with the reality of God’s unconditional love for us, the more we will be willing to trust him. And when we trust God, we can partner with him on the earth together – not out of compulsion or guilt or obligation – but simply because God’s unconditional love invites us to change the world around us. God loves you so much. I pray that this truth fills every part of you: spirit, soul, and body.

Let’s put it this way, if God could rearrange the cosmos to spend one extra hour listening to you talk about your day, he’d do it. If God had to jump through a thousand hoops to spend a few more moments with you, he would. Oh!  I’ve got it! Okay. How about this one? If God had to die for you to help you understand how much he loves you, he’d do it. And he did. Back to 1 John: “God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.” God wants to be with you forever…and the sacrifice of Jesus eclipsed sin and made eternal life for us a reality. God dealt with sin so that you and I could be with him forever.

Let’s try something – close your eyes for a moment. Listen to these verses and let them fill your heart with the truth of what God thinks about you. 1 John 3:1 “See what great love the Father has lavished on you, that you should be called a child of God!” Romans 5 “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for you in this: while you were still a sinner, Christ died for you.”  Jesus in John 15: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain (abide, dwell, never leave) in my love.”   The mystic Julian of Norwich said, “The greatest gift we can give God is to live gladly because of the knowledge of his love.” Now, look up here and listen to me: the key to living a productive Christian life is not waking up every day trying to be loved by God but walking in the reality that right now, where you are, you are already his beloved and the center of his affection. Our life goal is not to love God. It’s to let God love us. If this can be grasped, everything else falls into place.

John is a perfectionist. Climbing the corporate ladder, he sees people as competition. So rather than build relationships with them, he uses them. John treats them as company widgets – like a commodity, a product he can exploit for his own gain. He treats his family the same way. The funny thing is none of the acclaim, respect, or position he has gained through this behavior makes John feel happy. In fact, he’s miserable. He notices mistakes and inconsistencies in everything. But here’s the bigger issue: not only can John not look past the faults of others – he is consumed by his own imperfections. He gives off a sense of confidence…but he is one of the most insecure people you will ever meet. John is hounded by the belief that he is not good enough and he never will be.

Story #4:

Joan worries about everything. When she was younger, everyone thought that it was cute…maybe even a little bit endearing. But now, Joan’s worrying consumes her. More importantly, Joan’s worrying affects her husband and her children. Trying to protect them, she stifles their creativity because she controls everything they do. Her insecurities affect her so deeply that she honestly has trouble trusting anyone at all. So, she controls everything she can, often reaching into the lives of her friends and family. Most people just laugh it off and say, “Of that’s just how Joan is.” But honestly her hyper-controlling behavior has alienated her for everyone in her life. Joan is never surprised by anything – nothing ever sneaks up on her…but she is inward-focused and consumed with fear.

There’s a famous theologian named Karl Barth. You may not know him but he was considered a “rock star” in academic circles during the 20^th century. He was extremely influential and wrote a multi-volume work called Church Dogmatics. After its completion, a reporter was interviewing him about his life’s work and asked him to summarize the essence of what he had written. Barth pauses for a moment, looked straight into the camera and said, “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

Before we revisit those four stories again, I want to talk to you for a few moments about the single most important thing I have ever learned about the Christian faith. And that is: God is love. That’s exactly what 1 John 4:7-10 says – here, let me read it to you. “Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God.  But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.”

Before I explain what love is, let me explain what I am not talking about today. First off, love is not merely an attribute of God. Like sovereignty or holiness or wrath or mercy. I brought a bunch of apples with me this morning. This bowl actually sits on our breakfast room table and has apples in it. We eat lots of apples at the Nunnally home. Now, most people treat the love of God as simply one apple in a bunch of apples (pick up one apple). So, if I’m trying to understanding who God is I pick up one attribute at a time, for example the idea that God is sovereign. And then I pick up another one like omnipotence…then I pick up one like omniscience.  But eventually I have to start putting “apples” down because my arms won’t hold them all. So, when I decide to pick up an attribute like judgment I feel like I need to put down the love “apple.” And that’s the mistake. Love is not one of the attributes of God…it’s his very nature. Love is not an apple…it’s the bowl that holds all the apples!

Here’s the other mistake we make when we talk about love. As good Methodists, we automatically skip past God’s love for us to the part about loving others by meeting their needs. We get a steady diet of this in sermons, Sunday school lessons, and devotionals. I’m going to tell you something that may upset you but it needs to be said. Every religion in the world promotes loving your neighbor. Every holy book encourages its followers to do good works. Even unbelievers know it’s important to help those in need. That’s why social justice and non-profit organizations exist.

But here is the stark contrast of Christianity: no other religion tells you that God loves you with an undying passion that never fades. Every other religion tells you to love God (or else). But only Christianity tells you that God loves you whether you choose to love him or not. What’s more, God loves you whether you do anything for him – whether those things be in secret or to impress your fellow church-goers and community friends. Regrettably people have performed thousands even millions of hours of Christian service and have missed the single most important part of the Christian message. Look back at verse 10 of 1 John 4: real love is not that we love God but that he loved us first. God started the romance with us not because we are worthy of his affection but simply because God’s very nature is love.