Tuesday, July 27, 2010

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...

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