A Blurred Life

What a week. Our truck full of stuff got here, the closing went fine. The house is wonderful. There are boxes everywhere, packing paper scattered throughout the house. I’m still trying to find my clothes, the cups, and a pair of scissors. Meals are being delivered and I’ve yet to put the headboard on the bed but the TV’s our up and the surround sound is working. (Gotta have priorities…)

But I’m blurry, conflicted right now. Easter was nice, lots of people walked through Western Hills door and the compliments were nice. But I have mixed feelings about the whole deal. I like our services. We don’t always pull off what we aim to do excellently, but it’s a good service. It’s an encounter with room for mystery, silence, and wonder. I wouldn’t change that part of it. This past week we took some chances in our service – some of them worked, some of them didn’t – but overall, it’s not the quality or what we’re trying to do on Sunday morning that I’m having a problem with.

The truth is it doesn’t matter what we do on Sunday morning, it’s never going to be enough. It’s not enough to change the culture at Western Hills. What we do on Sunday morning is not enough to effect life change in a person for the long term. It’s not enough to heal the pain of abuse, divorce, addictions, hurt, and betrayals. It’s not enough to develop leaders who pastor and give front row care to their small group. It’s not enough to equip a teen to witness to his friends. It’s not enough to move someone to start a Bible study at their work, or invest in Topeka Rescue Mission.

It’s good….but I know real life change and ministry happens outside the church walls, normally not during the morning hours of Sunday morning. I know that long term, life long impact normally happens as a result of doing life vulnerably with a small group of sojourners. Plus, I’ve been on teams where the focus has been pulling off an incredible worship experience (which we did) and we got limited returns in making disciples that changed the world. We got lots of accolades followed by lots of complaints when we started emphasizing serving others.

So I know that life groups/small groups are key in making disciples, impacting our community. I know having leaders that drive life change and service at that level will have the largest, long term effect in the Kingdom. And while I have a plan to do this starting over this summer, right now I find myself focusing on the Sunday morning experience more than I’m comfortable with.

The temptation in the stillness, in the waiting for right moment is to fill it with busyness. I’ve tried to feed the Holy Discontent with activity. Makes it worse. So I’ll wrestle with it for now, knowing that there is a time when we’ll start the journey of empowering, equipping, and releasing Kingdom minded leaders…pushing them to focus on outside the walls, taking as many people with them as they can.

In the meantime, my soul needs to get unblurred. Off to the cave.