Intro to book Im working on

Hey guys, The following is a very rough first draft of the intro chapter to a book I am working on. It hasn't been edited yet, so I am not looking for grammatical feedback, but I would like to know what you think about the content. Should I redo it? should I scrap it and start over? Having never written a book before this whole thing is new to me so I figured I would invite others into the journey with me. The main question I have is, would you want to keep reading this book if you read the intro. So here goes nothing.

Stuff I’ve Learned In Church

Introduction

            When I was in the 8^th grade I made one of the biggest decisions of my then 13 year old life.  I decided that I was going to try out for the football team at Crane Middle School.  Now to you that may not seem like such a big deal, but let me give you a little bit of personal history.  Technically an honest person would not describe me as either tall (5’8” on a good day), nor slender for a male.  To put it in more tangible terminology, I’ve always been what one may consider, “husky”.  Add to this the reality that I was a very “late bloomer” and you could understand why choosing to play 8^th grade football in Texas, a state where this sport is only slightly less important than Jesus, was such a big choice.  Unknowingly I was stepping into my first exposure to the reality that in life there are unseen dividing lines between our experiences and opportunities.  In this case, that dividing line was called, “Puberty”.

            You see, at Crane Middle School, there were actually two 8^th grade football teams.  First there was the “A Team”, and just as one could easily surmise, this was the star studded team comprised of all the kids who already had deepening voices and used razors to avoid looking like grown men.  They were the Goliaths of our middle school.  They were the young men that strutted around the halls, lifted weights like Olympians, and were brave enough to shower in the open bathrooms in our locker room. 

            Then, there was the “B Team”.  This was the team for the rest of us.  Those of us who were still far from being counted among the young men, and who would avoid by every means necessary the public humiliation of an open shower room.  We walked home stinky, talking about video games, and daydreaming about the cheerleaders who never even noticed us.  We were smaller and weaker, but what we lacked in stature we made up for with good ole fashioned heart…at least that is what our coach told us.

Being that my body wasn’t exactly built for speed, I chose to play the position of offensive lineman.  Football seemed complicated to me at the time, but I knew I loved to hit people and that seemed easy to me.  As my coach explained it, “you will never get your name in the paper playing O-Line, but games are won or lost within three yards of the ball”.  At the time I had no clue what that meant but I just nodded my helmet and made a football grunting sound like everyone else.  But I quickly got assigned to being the “Starting Right Tackle” of the B team.

Regardless of our physical differences all of the football players shared practice time and we would often be thrown together for position drills.  Now the way these drills worked was quiet simple.  All players of the same position would get in a line.  The first two guys in line would run the drill against each other.  Then, the first person went to the back of the line and the second person would turn and run the drill again against the person in line behind him.  After that everyone would move up a spot and the process would continue. 

One of the drills our coaches used for us offensive linemen was called, “The Boards”.  It was a pretty simple concept.  Lying on the ground was a five foot long 1”x10” board (painted Crane Comet Green to match our jerseys of course).  Two guys would line up facing each other at either end of the board in their pre-snap stance.  To the loud cheers of the other linemen waiting in line, when the coach blew the whistle, both players would come firing out of their stances full speed at one another colliding like two rams during breeding season.  They would charge into each other until one gave way and was pushed backwards beyond the board.  The drill was then won by one and lost by the other.  The line would move up and the process would repeat.

Well, considering everything I said about the discrepancy between the A-teamers and the B-teamers, you could understand why a bit of strategizing took place when the coach called all the linemen over to the boards.  All the B-teamer would strategically try to line themselves between two other B-teamers.  Obviously, this doesn’t work for everyone, and inevitably there would be two “sacrificial lambs” that took it on the chin from the A-team on behalf of the rest of the B-team linemen.

One day, as we were lining up for the boards, I made the mistake of allowing a conversation to distract me while all the other B-teamers scurried and shuffled strategically in the line.  When I turned around I realize that not only was I facing an A-Teamer, I was facing none other than Timmy Gonzalez.  Now Timmy wasn’t just an A-Teamer…he was the embodiment of all things “A-Team”.  He was the largest offensive lineman on our team.  In fact, he was bigger than some of the teachers in our school.  Timmy was the kind of lineman that B-teamers wanted to be like when we grew up!  Timmy was so developed that he must have hit puberty in the womb! He was a football wrecking ball!  The only saving grace I had in this situation was that Timmy was both a very nice guy and a personal friend of mine.

Everything probably would have been fine, but then the coaches got involved.  I can remember like it was yesterday Coach Walker looking at me and saying, “Pinto”, (which was his nickname for me in reference to my stature and shape at the time), “you better give Timmy something to think about!  You gonna let him push you around and shove you right off this board, or are you going to show him how big your heart is?” 

About this time the entirety of the B-team offensive line started chanting for me and smacking my helmet, “You got this Freddy.  Show him what’s up”.  Timmy just stood there smiling gently towards me and waiting to line up.  When we got down into our positions Timmy looked over at me and whispered as kindly as he could, “Don’t worry man, I’m not going to hurt you.  Just be cool and go with it.”  But I had too much riding on the line to, “go with it”.  So instead of smiling back, I put my mouthpiece in and crouched down into my stance.  Gritting my teeth, I channeled all the inner beast I could and waited for what seemed like an eternity for the whistle to blow.  When it did, Timmy didn’t even move forward.  He stood straight up as I lunged at him with all my might.  He gently caught me, and then extended his arms tossing me backwards to the ground.

After disposing of me about as gently as he could have, Timmy turned and started to walk to the back of the line. But when I saw the complete disappointment in the eyes of my entire fellow B-teamers, I sprang to my feet and had a moment of complete insanity.  I felt pride opening my mouth, and then as if in an out of body experience I heard the following words being shouted from my mouth, even as I cringed inside, “Hey Timmy, where you going?  I want to see you try and do that to me again!  This time, I am gonna knock you on your butt!”

There was an immediate silence across the field, as if a gunshot had gone off.  It took a second for everyone to process what had just been said before reacting.  The gauntlet had been thrown, and Timmy, shocked as he was, simply tried to laugh it off and keep walking. But just like an Angel of Death or something, Coach Walker magically appeared right in the middle of the situation and he yelled to Timmy, “Did you hear that?  Are you gonna let little Pinto call you out like that?  Are you scared of him or something?”  And then something amazing happened.  Slowly, but with building excitement, the B-team started chanting my real name, “Freddy, Freddy, Freddy!”  In a moment I had gone from zero to hero.  I had redeemed myself and restored the defiant pride they had earlier placed in me. 

Once Timmy heard the cheering and was quickly surrounded by his fellow A-team linemen, he had no choice. He turned and walked back to his position opposite me on the board.  When he turned and faced me the team erupted into cheers and I was surprised to see that practice had ceased and the entire B-team had assembled behind me.  Likewise, the entire A-team was now behind Timmy yelling at him to put us B-teamers in our place. 

Just like that I found myself in the place of a modern-day David facing Goliath.  There I stood on one side of the battlefield; a boy standing before a man.  Boldly challenging the giant without a hint of hesitation or fear.  Inside my heart was pounding so loud that I was certain everyone else could hear it, but I refused to let my fear show. 

As we took our positions on the board, the sound of the cheers became deafening. My team had moved from chanting, “Freddy, Freddy, Freddy” to chanting, “B-Team, B-Team, B-Team”, and I knew immediately that this was about much more than Timmy and I.  I had become the representative of every B-team player on the squad.  I carried the weight of every kid who got made fun of for not showering in the locker room.  I bore the frustration of every B-teamer who had been locked in an equipment locker, thrown in a trashcan, or had there head flushed in the toilet by the A-team.  And across from me stood not Timmy my friend, but an A-teamer.  He was now simply an oversized, intimidating expression of dominance and oppression wearing an A-Team green jersey and white helmet. 

As I crouched down into my three point lineman stance I went through the instructions in my mind. Straighten your back.  Head up. Legs ready to explode.  Visualize yourself going through your opponent.  Engage and fire your hands into his shoulder pads.  Drive with your legs.  Drive with your legs. Drive with your legs. 

It seemed as if time slowed down and those few short seconds stretched into an endless moment.  While I waited for the whistle, I could feel the fear-induced adrenaline flooding my system.  As my heart raced I focused on visualizing Timmy crashing to the ground.  Searching inside myself, I harnessed all of the rage I could and I became convinced that when that whistle blew I would shock the world by exploding with such power that Timmy would be tossed onto his back.

Then, Coach Walker raised the whistle to his mouth.  It was time.  I locked eyes with Goliath, staring at him defiantly.  But the eyes I met were not angry.  In fact, they looked sad.  In that last moment, big Timmy looked at me and mouthed the words, “I’m sorry.”  And then, the whistle blew and we leapt forward to the deafening cheers of our teammates.

Now, let me pause for a second and explain something.  I have never been tazed by a police officer, but as some of my friends who are cops explain it, the feeling is like being struck with pain in every part of your body at the same time.  Every joint, every muscle, every bone is invaded with sharp and intense pain simultaneously.  The reason I describe that type of pain is because I don’t really remember the seconds after Coach Walker blew his whistle, I only remember looking up at the sky from my back, and feeling that kind of pain.  You see, when that whistle blew, Timmy decided that he would actually hit me this time for real, instead of taking it easy on me.

There was no celebration for the nation of Israel as I stood defiantly over Goliaths body.  There was only pain.  I’m not sure how long I laid there on the ground feeling like a truck had run me over, but I remember that when I finally attempted to move none of my teammates were there.  They had all moved on to the next drill…perhaps as a way to save me the embarrassment of having to face them.

For me, that is my football story.  But some of you are reading this and thinking, “That is my life’s story.”  Or maybe you are thinking, “That’s my church story.”  You see, I have been in ministry for about 15 years and I have had the chance to hear a lot of people’s stories.  Some of them have broken my heart.  One thing I have learned is that we are all on a journey together. Some of us are further along than others, but we are all still on a journey; a journey to be more like Jesus tomorrow than we were today.

Just like my football story, there are moments in our lives when we feel like we have been knocked to the ground.  But we pick ourselves up and try again, only to get knocked down even harder the next time.  This only becomes more painful when we feel we are fighting for the right thing.  Some of us have found ourselves trying to fight the good fight and simply not finding success. 

If you have been a part of a church, perhaps you have had the terrible experience of realizing that the same team that was cheering for you had walked off when you hit the ground the hardest.  At the moment in your life when you could have used a teammate the most, you found yourself scrambling around, feeling as if life had hit you like a truck. 

If you can relate to this, then I have good news for you; this book is for you!  I’m not sure what the Goliath has been in your life.  Maybe a failed marriage.  Perhaps a troubled child.  Maybe losing someone you loved dearly.  Or maybe it was a financial fallout during the recent economic collapse.  But I do know that during these times we often turn to God.  Many of us find ourselves heading to church for the first time in a while, or the first time ever, because of the train-wrecks of life.  Unfortunately, what we may have discovered is that churches are full of people who are broken just like us.  And sometimes in their brokenness, instead of helping us, they have only further hurt us.

The good news is that not all church experiences are like this.  I believe God loves the church and that he is actively at work within the local expressions of community all over this world.  So that’s what this book is about.  This year I celebrate the 20^th anniversary of beginning my relationship with Christ.  In those 20 years I have learned many things by being involved in local churches.  Some of the lessons I have learned have been painful and hurtful, but others have been wonderful and transforming to my life in a positive way. 

This book is about some of the things I have learned: the good, the bad, and the hilarious.  I’ll say now that if you have grown up in church and never had to stop to consider the perspective of an “outsider” to the faith, then this book may offend you.  I’m ok with that.  Your journey may look different than mine and that’s ok with me.  But I assure you that I write as a voice representing what has been the experience of many of my peers over the years.  All of us at different points in our life have to decide if we would rather be “right” or believe what is true.  Throughout my walk with God there have been many times where I have had to decide that what I believed or what I had been taught didn’t exactly seem to line up with scripture.  So I had to make a choice; do I believe what I am being taught, or do I believe what the Bible is saying.  You will have to make that choice as well, and you may have to make it as you read this book.  So I invite you to read this book with an open mind, an open heart, and an open Bible.  Hopefully there will be something from my journey with Christ that may help you on your journey with Him.  That is my hope and prayer in writing this.  Enjoy.

Thanksgiving thoughts

For Thanksgiving, Jen, the kids, and I have made the journey to her parents house in eastern Connecticut. This time of year in Connecticut, it is pretty cold! As I sit here in the warm living room of her parents comfy, wooden home, I smell the sweet aromas of all kinds of different foods that are being prepared in the kitchen. I watch kids play games and laugh at the other end of the room. Ty and Kaelin have just come in to warm their hands after taking a ride around the property on "Money" the old, gentle, white horse. Football starts in a few hours. Life is good! I am blessed with a great wife, great kids, and a wonderful life. My belly will be full all day and my biggest challenge will be fighting off sleep long enough to watch the game. So much to be thankful to God for.

As I started thinking about this, I started considering the origins of this holiday. Pilgrims gathered with native Americans to have a feast in which they would intentionally stop and give thanks to their Savior, Jesus Christ, for keeping them alive. A group of Christians stopped and demonstrated their thankfulness to Christ in the midst of their non-believing neighbors...and compared to us, they had so little. They faced perils of many kind including the weather, the terrain, sickness, starvation.

Today, as we have been blessed by the fruit of the pilgrims sacrifice and the Christian heritage that they instilled in founding this nation, I cannot help but notice how far from our humble beginnings we have drifted. Our affluence and comfort have greatly increased, but has our praise and thanksgiving also greatly increased? I know this is something that each of us will choose for ourselves this season, and I pray that I lead my family in choosing to really "Give Thanks" on this day for all that we have! We are a blessed people! Thank you Lord for all you have given to us!

"Blessed be Your Name, in the land that is plentiful
When the streams of abundance flow, blessed be Your Name!

And blessed be Your Name, on the road marked with suffering,
Though there's pain in the offering, blessed be Your Name!"

Wherever you find yourself today, take some time to stop and give thanks!

Paradox of our beliefs

So recently I have found myself at times wondering about the tension between balancing faith in God's word with our responsibility to make the right decisions. As one who believes that God has given us the ability to express free will in our actions, I believe that we as individuals are empowered to determine how we will respond to God's leading. Will we choose obedience or disobedience. Deuteronomy 30:19 comes to mind, " This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live."

When we choose to be obedient, our actions are lining up with our belief about what God has said, and we act in faith. When we choose selfishly or contrary to God's word, we express our will over His perfect will for us by sinning. Sin leads to destruction, death, calamity, and many things that God desires us to avoid.

Ok, so on that trail of thoughts, how do I balance walking in faith with being responsible in planning. Where does the line get drawn between me trusting in my ability instead of counting on God to come through. One of the places I find myself constantly being stretched as a pastor is in walking the line between leading in faith, regardless of the obstacles, and planning accordingly to ensure a smooth and successful endeavor.

From a personal perspective, I have some growing up to do in the area of being patient and waiting on the Lord to do what He said He would do. I find that I want to be the one to determine the "season" between sowing the seeds and reaping the harvest. Haha. When I read what I just wrote I think, "Wow, how arrogant of you Freddy!" Guess that is why I needed to write it. But have a pretty strong feeling I am not alone on this one.

Galatians 6:9 has become a very special verse to me over the years. It says, "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." Key words for me right now..."at the proper time". The reality is that God gets to pick when the proper time is, not us :) So I am responsible to express my faith in actions, plan to the best of my ability in accordance with what God has told me to do, and then trust Him to deliver the results when the time is right. Easier to write than to do...but if it were easy, I guess everyone would do it right. I seem to recall Jesus saying something about a wide road and a narrow road :)

Huh, something to think about.

Spinning Plates

Have you ever seen someone who spins plates at the circus or at a half-time show or something. The term is used a lot to describe people who have so much going on that they feel like they are "spinning plates" trying to keep everything from falling. But if you have ever seen someone do this in real life, maybe you have noticed that plate-spinners don't ever look or seem stressed, worried, or frantic.

Maybe it is because they have dropped plates often enough to know that there is always another one to replace it. Maybe they understand that even the best "plate-spinners" drop them occasionally while they are learning how to spin more and more plates.

That is a skill I need to learn. HAHA. Not the plate-spinning part, but the part about being ok if one falls. Relaxing in the reality that there is another opportunity and that it isn't the end of the world.


The funny thing about plate-spinning is that the person spinning them is the only one who determines how many plates they will spin at the same time. Recently I have been realizing that the biggest expectations placed on me are the ones I am placing on myself constantly. Not sure why I push myself so hard sometimes, but I am looking into that right now as a matter of a fact :) Gonna downsize some of my own plates (unnecessary expectations), and learn to relax a little better. Reading another one of those books that is jacking me up. It is called Overcoming the Dark Side of Leadership by McIntosh and Rima. Good stuff!

The Nature of Pastoral Training

So i just finished reading a couple of articles about the shift towards cloud computing and different organizational approaches towards app consolidation in a magazine called Information Week. Before that I read a chapter of Sun Stand Still by Steve Furtick, and now I am going to continue reading in Ecclesiastes where I left off yesterday. As I was staring at my desk and considering the sources of information it all hit me at the same time...the nature of pastoral training has to continue to shift as our culture continues to shift.

Since arriving at church this morning, I have already had a conversation with one staff person about where they moved our DVD/CD duplication tower, another about how to maximize the use of their SD Card in their smartphone, and a third staff member about the potential liabilities of partnering with a certain organization by allowing them to use our facility for a meeting. And just now I had to stop typing because someone came in my office to share with me that they just got off the phone with someone who called to get more information about our church because of the message that was scrolling on our electronic sign. PTL!

I say all this to say that when I was in training for ministry, many of these things weren't even on the churches radar yet. What will church look like in 10 years? 5 years? Perhaps the more important question is, "What will society look like in 10 years? 5 years?" Because my concern is that ten years from now, most churches in America will finally be excited to have a working website, and perhaps a server.

Having been through seminary, it was my experience that by the time formal education adapts to the cultural trends, the culture has already shifted again. In a world of stream lined information, instant communcation, and social networking, we must redefine our training to reflect the redefined culture.

The reality is that the gospel never changes. The content of the message must never be compromised, adapted, or forgotten...but the language in which it is communicated is ever changing...and so should the training in how we, as the Church, will mobilize to meet the people where they are!

I will leave you with this thought...the best book about church growth strategies that I have ever read was "Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell. It is not about church, and it is not about Christianity, and it isn't even sold in Christian bookstores. But it is about people in our culture and how movements gain traction. I have implimented some of his concepts in our approach towards church growth and have seen amazing things happen!

Something to think about.

Under Construction

It is funny how a few blocks of construction can turn a five minute trip into a fifteen minute trip. Or how the Christmas season turns a quick stop by the mall into a stress-enducing, blood-pressure raising, challenge in self-restraint and patience. Well, I was on my way to a local bookstore a few minutes ago and I started thinging about this in relation to our spiritual journey with God.

Specifically, why is it that sometimes I grasp a Biblical concept so easily and act on the things that God is showing me rapidly, implimenting the change and sacrifice necessary as soon as the Holy Spirit pricks my heart through the word (the spiritual five minute trip to the new location). But then other times, things that seem like they should be just as easy to respond to find me struggling in a difficult journey of deliberation, compromise, or half-hearted attempts at obedience (the spiritual construction zone).

I guess the reality is that sometimes God pricks my heart through a particular passage of scripture that calls me to action. But it is only when I am on my way already that I discover some deeper things need to be dealt with in order for this journey to continue. "Under construction", "detour ahead", "no parking spots available". The reality is that God has not called us to a trip full of paved roads with all green lights. The scripture that comes to my mind is Romans 8:17, which says, "Now if we are children, then we are heirs-heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory."

There is no short-cut to going from "glory to glory" in our journey with Christ. It is a trip into the construction zone that causes us to place the journey above our own convenience. Sometimes things go quick and smooth. Sometimes the struggle between conviction and obedience takes longer. But it is on this journey where the spiritual "rubber hits the road", that we discover growth, victory, and purpose in life. One day we look back and realize we have been so occupied navigating the construction zone that we didn't even realize how far we have truly come!

Family Matters

So the other day I took my youngest son Ty to see Marmaduke. Just me and him. Considering that my wife and I have five children in our home, a little one on one time often has to be planned and calculated like a NASA space shuttle launch, but man is it worth it. So each kid gets personal time whenever possible, but more importantly, me and my wife get a weekly date night every Monday night! Man does that go a long way.

Well anyway, where was I...so me and Ty are at the movies. He loves dogs so he actually made it through the whole 1hour and 22minutes. But one thing never fails. Just like clockwork at the most pivotal climax in the plot, during the most intense part of the movie, his little 4 year old bladder has reached its limit and he taps me and says, "Daddy, I have to go potty. RIGHT NOW!"

So we make our way to the bathroom in record time and he takes care of business. We go back to the theater, find our seats, reposition our little bags of popcorn, and find ourselves watching the calm aftermath of the culmination of the most dramatic part of the movie (that we missed).

Without a care in the world he looks up at me, smiles, and just starts watching what is in front of him as if we have missed nothing. And then I realize it. He has missed nothing. From my perspective, we missed the most important part of the movie, but my perspective is off. From his perspective the most important part of the movie was just being there. It doesn't really matter what "scene" we are on. It just matters that we are there together. Sitting side by side, eating popcorn.

Then I started thinking. You know, that is how it is with God. The scenes come and go. The things we see as so climactic and important are often not the most important thing. The most important thing is stopping to realize that there He is, sitting right by our side, through every scene. And because of that we are going to be OK, no matter what the screen of our life looks like at the moment.