feelings of desolation

several weeks into my return to church culture and church work (as a pastor). i have feelings of desolation:

1. what am i doing back here?
2. the 'going to church' model seems tedious and involves so much unnecessary busyness that is not essential to faith
3. is it the church institution that changes lives or the church (believers) who care about people and are influential in culture and lives?
4. how much of my time can be consumed in maintaining and administration?
5. i want to go back to my old way of living.
6. won't i let people down in their desire for someone to do strong programming to build the church numbers up?
7. one person talking, singing songs that may or may not be meaningful to God or the people in the congregation
8. did we make a big mistake and jump to another community and rip our roots up again?
9. 12 to 16 million americans are now meeting in home churches - ouch, why did i leave that model?
10. we really loved our old house which had great views, lots of sunshine, beautiful nature all around, etc. we miss that house and are feeling nasty about the sale about to go through
    

on the other hand, i enjoy

1. being with people one on one
2. building teams
3. playing music and leading worship
4. brainstorming new ideas to help people connect in worship with God and each other
5. getting involved in the community
6. helping the 'church' get involved in the community
7. cleaning up messes in the building, improving the sound and video systems
8. being on a team and relating to the other pastor and his wife and the administrator

and

1. how did we come to the conclusion that this move was right when are philosophy is 'being the church' instead of 'going to church'? did God have something to do with convincing us to make such a drastic move?
2. who are we here to care for?
3. how will God use this move to do something good in and for us?
4. sometimes i get excited about what i could do here (short flashes of dreaming)
5. we were always pretty close to be able to pay our mortgage and bills and this is a new start to be more conservative in our finances and get ahead again...
   

the journey continues and it isn't boring...

questions about 'going to church' model

i have a lot of questions about the 'going to church' model

1. are we so busy that we sacrifice meaningful relationships?
2. do we make it too complicated? this program, that program, this model of doing church, etc. we have 'worship leader' magazine to help us discover and learn all the ins and outs of singing songs together. hmmmmm, really?
3. are we doing kids a favor my pulling them away from their parents and other mature adults?
4. do kids ever get included in the larger group of believers when we age-segregate them?
5. do we expect everyone to enjoy singing or use music as the only form of connecting with God? are there not many other ways to connect with God?
6. how much effort and money do we put into events that never result in people connecting in relationships? how many events do we put on that simply draw other church people?
7. do we intentionally help people connect relationally?
8. why do we focus on sunday morning so much?
9. how can a 'church' serve the community more?

the return

i grew up attending church
sunday morning, sunday evening, wednesday nights, and an occassional special service on another night
uffda (that is scandinavian for wow or whew)

then i became a pastor and practically lived inside a church building

when i went to bible college i had to leave my third year because i was overloaded with church culture. i guess the same thing happened after 15 years as a pastor. i had to get away from church culture and just be the church.

be the church. we don’t ‘go to church’ because church is an invisible distinction of people who believe in Jesus. so all the rest we attach to ‘church’ tends to be superfluous.

i haven’t been attending a religious institution on sundays for five years. upon returning i observed many things that are non-essential to my faith. i’ve always been a non-conformist and as a result i accumulate a lot of questions about why people do what they do (social psychology).

i have a lot of questions after my first sunday back, even if my reggae version of a worship song was well received.

one thing is certain though, the people are warm and kind; i can be friends with these people.
the local 4th of july parade was a really big deal. people were setting chairs out on the street at 7am for a 3pm parade.
the rodeo is a really big deal. all three nights sell out and people crowd in to see brave men and women grapple with large animals – it is a real hoot.