creating enviroments

Ever since I was little I valued my environment.  I remember wanting my own room so bad that I moved into the bathroom, I wanted to create a space that was mine and I could make it how I wanted it. It was kinda weird that I did that and valued that so much.

When I got a little older (like 11) we moved and I got my own room. I spent so much time and effort decorating it and setting the atmosphere. I remember getting the lighting with my lava lamp, halogen lamp and candles just right.  Then I would play music by Mariah Carey and just bask in this comfortable, relaxing environment I created. Again kinda quirky.

When I got older (like 20) I was in college and I remember beginning to create environments to connect people. I started a Bible study for some girls at my house and I threw parties all the time. I spent my senior year connecting some freshman girls to the greater Christian community at my college.  I especially remember spending like 8 hours some days at the coffee shop on campus where every hour different friends and groups of people would come and hang out with me.  They would stop by cause they knew I was there, just ready to talk and hang out. I used that place to introduce people and create this environment for connection.  People thought I was crazy for spending that much time hanging out in one place.

The reason I reflect on it is because I can see how God used something that has always been true of me and kinda weird about me since I was little for something with purpose and for his kingdom now.

What I do for my job with the Young Adult Community is I create and provide environments, atmospheres, for young people to connect and grow in their faith together.

I was organizing my file drawer at work the other day and I found some old excel sheets and just lists and lists of names.  About 500 young adults have been through this ministry.  I was blown away by looking at all these names. People who have found community even if it was only for a short period of time through this ministry. Everyone cycles in and out.  But while they have been around, they have connected with others in a Christ-centered community through an environment.

Though some don't stay long, many others have found life long friends or the people they will marry and spend the rest of their life with all from a strange little quirk about me that God has attached purpose to:  my love for creating environments for connection and relationship in Christ.

new-ness

I went on a walk in my neighborhood last week and noticing how beautiful all the yards were it inspired me to work on my yard and plant some flowers and make it look better.

So yesterday I went out and bought a bunch of yard tools and soil and flowers.  And I really just intended to plant the flowers.  Not until I started working on my yard did I realize how much work needed to be done.  I had piles and piles of old leaves, tons of over grown bushes and branches and weeds. The thing is I didn't even realize it cause from just looking at it, you couldn't tell cause it was just in certain places, not the main part of the yard. But as I started raking and cutting I realized how bad it was and how much there was. I ended up spending 5 hours just preparing to plant.

It felt so good to work hard on something and see a difference at the end of the day. But before I can plant the flowers, I had to get rid of a lot of old dead leaves and overgrown branches that caused clutter. (the picture is of everything I got rid of)

And it just made me realize how God works on us and on anything he wants to grow and make more beautiful.  He has to cut away and remove dead things in our lives, maybe things that once thrived but have lost life. He has to cut away at branches that no longer bear fruit.  Sometimes it's painful and like, ahhh what is God doing? Especially when we want to hold onto the past.  But as I raked the dead leaves, underneath them we're more leaves, wet, rotting leaves with slugs and spiders. It was gross. And it's like why would you want to hold onto that and keep that?

But what he is doing by removing dead things from our lives and cutting away at us is he is getting us ready for something better, something more beautiful and more fruitful.  He is preparing to plant new-ness. New beauty. New life.

"He has made everything beautiful in it's time." Ecc. 3:11

creative best

When I like something, I love it! I've always been that way, whatever I'm into, I'm so fully into it and passionate about it. Right now there are a few prominent spiritual leaders that I look up to and admire so much. I listen to their sermons and messages and study how they lead... all the time. They help my faith grow, they inspire me, and keep me motivated.

I watch them making such a large impact on the world, they communicate the Gospel so effectively, they lead in great, bold ways, they lead people to Christ and they challenge people who are walking with God. 

And I am in awe of that. So much so that I have found myself comparing myself to them. I want to lead like them! I want to do greater things for God like them! I want to speak like them! I want to be a part of a great movement of God like them!  

The funny thing is I am so different than these people I admire so much. I feel myself being like God, if you made me more like this or I had a story like them, then I could be so much more effective like them. My tendency is to want to just copy their style and ideas and I have done this in ministry just because it impacted me so much.

But I feel recently like God is showing me that he doesn't want me to be them, he wants me to be me. He doesn't want me to be another Christine Caine, he wants me to be Molly Ruff. 

"That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse.  We have far more interesting things to do with our lives.  Each of us is an original." ~ Gal. 5:26

When you watch "The Voice" or any show like that, the thing that makes the difference between a good artist and a great artist is when they "know themselves." You hear a judge say something like, "You know who you are, you have a unique style that makes to stand out, I haven't heard anyone like you." And they are criticized if they sound exactly like another famous artist because they are similar but not as good as the original.

So I am asking God to help me lead like I would lead. To help me speak and lead out of my personality and who he has made me rather than who I want to be like. Here are some verses that are helping me in this:

"But if you are content to be yourself, you will become more than yourself." ~ Luke 14:11

"Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don't be impressed with yourself. Don't compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life." ~ Gal. 6:4-5

When I try to imitate an original, it never comes out as good.  It also takes way less work and creative energy to copy. But if I spend less time looking around at others and more time listening to God and what he wants me to do, it's more work, it's more challenging, it's more creative energy, it's more focus and it gives him way more room to work out something new and original through me. 

This challenges me to do the creative best I can with who I am and the ministry he has chosen me, not a cheap imitation of someone else, but me to lead. I will sink my self into that.

unstuck

I love routine. I love getting in a pattern of what is easy and predictable, but that makes it easy to get stuck.

In ministry I have gotten stuck in my ways of doing things. I have found certain things that have worked really well in the past and so I keep doing them, trying to get the same results. But I find that it is dangerous when I begin to trust a method or a model, because that means I trust that more than I trust God.

Some of the things I have developed in the past that worked so well came out of the willingness to change things, be creative and take risks.

I remember a dying church my parents once worked at. At one point like 20 years ago they were a thriving church, the most popular church, drawing tons of people. They found a pattern that worked. But over the 20 years they we're unwilling to change anything because at one point what they we're doing worked so well. They were stuck, trying to get the same results by doing what they've always done.

But times change fast, people change, things evolve and because they didn't evolve with the culture and they didn't change methods to stay relevant they began to die.

Some people just don't like change though.  But we get over it, just look at how many times Facebook has changed things, at first some people hate it, but then we love it, then they change again.  They are always improving and staying relevant and ahead.

It's true what Marc Driscol says, we struggle with "Methodology vs. Methodolatry" The methods should change, the principles stay the same. But when we get stuck in our believing our method is the best and only way to do it, we begin to idolize our methods.

God is freeing me from being stuck in methodolatry. I have made decisions to take steps of faith again, to be creative and take risks. These risks may fail. That is okay, I will learn something and move on, try something else.  I'd rather be following God's movement and leading, even when I'm unsure where we are going, than staying stuck in the monotonous method because it worked at one point.

A new willingness to get unstuck in routine makes me depend on him in whole new ways. It's more work, it's uncomfortable, and it requires more faith... and that is how I know he is leading.