This Week's Recap

What a week. Somehow, June morphed into July and here we are, in the seventh month of 2009. Michael Jackson, Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and Steve McNair are dead (along with quite a few non-celebrities, but as I keep telling Shannon, people die every day...)

Here's a quick look back:

• I had a great meeting after church with a crowd of our PCC production team and musicians. We formally announced a new ministry plan that we hope to launch in a month that involves some major restructuring, auditions (gasp!), and the next step in this ministry adventure. Great meeting, although the implementation is slowed by the lack of progress in our building...
• ...but we did see incremental progress this week, as the plans were finally released to us late on Thursday. We should have a building permit in place this week and hopefully the way will be cleared for work to resume soon!
• Sydni decided - spur of the moment - to join Mom and Dad on a quick run to Emerald Isle. She took a friend. I'm envious. They'll be back Tuesday.
• I worked out twice, which is better than not at all. Both were good, hard, sweaty work-outs.
• I had a little bit of personal time and a good staff meeting experience with this guy. Doug Murren is a consultant/pastor/Very Wise Man who never ceases to impact me with his ability to read a situation and offer pertinent ideas and suggestions.
• Shannon got her hard copy driver's license on Wednesday. The judge gave a 25-minute sermon before he handed each student their license. It was actually very powerful.
• Had a planning meeting about this event. We're partnering with Saint Paul's Baptist Church to help host the Willow Creek Leadership Summit. It's going to be AWESOME. If you're in the Richmond area, you really should consider attending.
• Offered an invitation to an incredibly bright and talented college student to spend the remainder of his summer break interning for us in Worship Arts and Communication. I'm thrilled about the mutual benefits of this partnership.
• Feeling like I'm in a new season of adjustment; eldest daughter gone for the summer (and doing great!), kids keeping busy...I'm craving domesticity and settling. Thinking a lot about the future.
• Read this book and cried my eyes out. I had no idea it would affect me so greatly. I sobbed.
• Enjoyed the fourth of July quietly. Not feeling up to a party or a crowd; staying home, alone, and that's absolutely fine.

It was a good week. I am grateful.

Looking Back: June 06

I blogged my way to health through another medium for a few years. My current blog - this one - is reflective of my current state (of mind and being). The first blog was full of a lot of painful processing. I "met" some amazing people through that work, and many have remained friends - some I have even met personally.

Recently, I thought it would be helpful and informative to remind myself of where I've been.

And I thought maybe, occasionally, I'd offer a look back via this blog.

So here's a clip from June, 2006; I was alone at the Willow Creek Arts Conference in Chicago. It was a powerful but challenging experience. I wrote, a lot.

In re-posting here, I've highlighted a few things that occur to me to be pertinent, in retrospect.

June 2006: To Bring Your Best, You Must Bring Your Worst

...Two very interesting speakers took the stage today: Dan Allender, who started his time with a bang when he declared a lack of confidence by our culture in today's "truth spinners" (pastors). He stated that, for the 21st century, the core isse will be BEAUTY, and that artists are now the evangelists of the next century. "The sermon is now an adjunct." I found that a rather bold statement, one that was no doubt disturbing to several of the pastors in attendance - especially those not from Seattle or San Francisco or Chicago...life in the heartland and the south doesn't necessarily reflect those same cultural shifts, I think.

Allender stated, "To bring your best, you must bring your worst." He encouraged us all to be willing to be honest about your mental and spiritual state, your exhaustion and your brokenness. "God intends - through the creation of art - to expose. When artists create, we are stripping before God. He will wrestle with us (as He did Jacob) and expose us. God will always take you to a draw - no winning, no losing, just brokenness and then a touch to the hip."

It was a fascinating perspective, peppered with much encouragement to accept - even trumpet - inadequacies and shy away from striving for perfection.

This is all so drastically different from the culture even 10 years ago that I'm not too sure the pendulum hasn't swung to the extreme. I appreciated and agreed with much of what Allender said on a personal basis; but it does seem a bit touchy-feely.

It's amazing to me - in hindsight - how this set the tone for the environment in which I am presently working. The level of authenticity that was impressed upon me has carried through into the culture of PCC.

Making Things Matter

Love this woman.

She blogs here, about life and loss and faith and kids and anything else that crosses her mind.

She's one of the most honest people I know.

She hearts music.

I love the words that she writes, because she writes with the power of conviction that makes things matter.

You can get to know her by clicking here, or by checking out The Green Room, or just asking around at PCC. She's worth getting to know.

Common Sense Leadership

This is what I'm reading at the moment. I love leadership books that resonate with common sense.

After the introduction, I'm convinced that this sucker is FULL of that very thing.

If you've read it, what do you think?

Check back for a full report. Our entire staff is reading it, and we'll be discussing in a few weeks...

This Moment

I saw this film today while checking up on Sarah in Germany (via Facebook ). She posted it on her page.

I will go through the rest of this day with these images - this unbelievable contrast - in my head and heart.

"When we forsake the lives of others, we actually forsake our own."

I am so messed up. There is so much to do. There is so much beyond doing.

Love Like That

I woke up this morning after the best night's sleep I've had in weeks.

All three of my girls have been gone all week long. Sarah is still making her way around her new (albeit temporary) life in Germany, with new friends and strong new bonds with family. Shannon and Sydni have been in Knoxville all week with the World Changers group.

David was with a friend Thursday night and Daniel went up to see his dad in Mechanicsville. Last night, both boys stayed with their dad.

So I had the house to myself.

It is striking to note the difference in my life, my mind, my way of thinking - pretty much EVERYTHING - when there are no children in the house. I miss them - sort of - but I also have this sense of reclaiming my self. Longer, coherent thought processes. A complete night's sleep. No energy extended towards managing their lives, spurring them on to good deeds, referreeing disputes. A little less clutter, only my own trail of life left in the various rooms of the house.

Oh, and the laundry's done!

I love them deeply, profoundly. And when I get a moment to breathe, it seems that I can love them from afar in a way that allows me to find myself outside of that love, rather than immersed and overwhelmed by the actions it requires. That's a fresh perspective for me. It's easier, sometimes.

Peterson's take on a bit from Ephesians in the Bible is interesting:

"Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that." Ephesians 5.1-2 The Message

"Mostly what God does is love you."

Love can be exhausting, in the 'giving everything' and the extravagance. It can be costly. If I'm to take this seriously, it seems that framing the intensity and distraction of my day-to-day life as a parent within the context of extravagant love alters the context somewhat. Rather than claim the current quiet of my house and my mind as 'normal'and the object of aspiration, perhaps I should consider it nothing more than refueling, refreshing and rest for the next round of love.

Like that.

Worship Music - What Works For You?

So I'm wondering, as I contemplate music for the rest of this series:

What THREE songs would YOU choose as those which best allow you to connect with God in an awesome worship experience at your church?