Wanting More

Well, I just finished my last day as a member of a ministry staff team. It’s been a long path since my wife and I decided it was time to step aside back in July.  I am very thankful that God provided the path that He did and that He was faithful during this long time of transition.  I’m trusting that He will continue to show us the next steps as we seek Him more and more. 

I had no idea how I was going to feel today in the office or what it was going to be like to leave. 

Today was not really different than any other day around the office. I had already emptied out my office so I wasn’t carrying boxes out with me today. I was just trying to make sure that everything that needed done got taken care of.  The only thing that made it different was knowing that it all had to be done today. I couldn’t leave anything till tomorrow.  

While I did have a few sad moments I was also reminded of a lot of the reasons this is the right decision. I was there and happy but I definitely did not feel alive doing what I was doing.  I was also reminded of a number of the reasons I wasn’t the best fit for this particular church. 

When I got home my wife and kids had hung a few balloons, banners and streamers and prepared a great celebration dinner.  I can say quite confidently that I have a very incredible wife.  

The best way to describe how I’m feeling now is tired. You know that tired after you’ve been going on adrenaline for a while and then you get a chance to stop.  I still haven’t decided what the next few days will look like. I want to get a big jump on a lot of work that needs done but I also realize I could use a little break.  I have no scheduled plans until Monday and it would be great to just hang with the kids a lot. 

Thanks for reading along with me on my journey over the last while.  Hope you’ll stick around the blog as I develop it beyond a bunch of ramblings of my transition.

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I love the way God works sometimes. (I say sometimes because if we’re honest a He doesn’t always work the way we as humans  think He should, even if His way is best)  I love that no matter where we are at or how much we think we know about Him, He can make Himself new again.  I love the way the most simple passage of scripture, even if we’ve read it numerous times before can be just want we need to hear or read at the right moment. 

On my break earlier this evening I was reading Matthew 13.  It’s the parable of the farmer who planted seeds in various places. (You can read it here) In my current time of change and transition I want to be truly open to God’s leading in every aspect of my life.  I have been praying that He would lead and I’d have the courage and endurance to follow. 

Thankfully I have felt His leading. 

For the last while though I haven’t always been the best at following through to the end with everything.  It’s partly the reality of life and that I feel pulled in every direction.  It’s also partly some destructive behaviours I have  particularly the use of my time and money.  I’ve been praying for a while that God would lead me to a place where my life could be dedicated to a fewer number of things.  A wife and two kids, half time ministry position and then needing to make a living following some very ambitious artistic goals is too many irons in the fire. 

This passage in Matthew is talking about bigger things (specifically the kingdom of heaven) than my struggles but it was also a good kick in the butt. I believe my current transition is an answer to prayer. I believe that God has shown me what He wants my life to look like for the next while (He’s planted a new seed) specifically in the areas of family, career and future areas of service for the kingdom.  I feel like this passage in Matthew is God challenging me to be fertile ground. He has prepared me for these things and is leading me in this direction and I (and I believe God as well) want it to be fruitful, particularly in the area of ministry and building into the lives of others. I may be leaving  ”ministry” (paid anyway) but I feel like I am going to be able to build into the lives of many more non-believers where I’m heading professionally than I ever did working in a church.  That excites me and I pray that I would be fertile ground for the seed God has planted so that I can help produce a crop many times larger than was planted in me.

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Just thought I’d share this with you. One of my favorite blogs is the Naked Pastor.

It’s just great honest stuff that I resonate with. I love today’s post  (specifically his explanation at the bottom).  Me sharing this is not a reflection of what I think about my church but part of my larger struggle with wanting to be fully alive spiritually and how the Christian world and Christian culture cause me difficulties at times. I made a reference a few weeks ago to my Christian Identity Crisis  here   and  here.

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So the big final Sunday is finished. 

As weird as the day was for the family and I it was also a great day. I mentioned in a previous post the peace we had been feeling about the decision and Sunday morning was no different.  While there was some emotion about leaving we were granted a great calm, certainty and excitement. My wife and I have felt that this hasn’t felt like a loss for us but a launching into something more. 

We felt blessed and loved by the congregation. You would be hard pressed to find a more generous group of people. 

Now we are moving onto our next adventure. A time of rest and transition spiritually for us as we try to determine what congregation God is leading us to worship with. We also look forward to new ministry opportunities (I’ll be sharing more about this soon).

Professionally I look forward to being devoted full time to music again. The desire to write and create is burning inside me. The desire to get back to serious practice and improvement of my playing excites me.  The only problem is with everything going on in my transition I’ve dropped the ball in a number of business areas. Don’t even ask how the new website for the studio is coming. (I imagine my designer is getting quite annoyed with my lack of help right now). I’m just hoping that after this week and the transition are totally finished I can get all the boxes checked off that I need to. I’m also hoping there is a reason (that I don’t know about) why it will be better that I waited to get all my promo stuff together. We’ll see. 

I’m also looking forward to developing this blog further. Taking it from a place that I just ramble a little about my current situation to a place where I can share bigger thoughts about life, ministry and wanting more (hey that’s the name of this blog!) of God.

Charlie

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So 2 more days till my final Sunday. I’m not feeling at all like I thought I would. I know this is the right decision and was preparing to feel a big relief when everything was finally done but also expected to feel some stress and sadness.

At the beginning of the week I was feeling a little sadness but for the last few days I have been feeling great and feeling  a tonne of peace. This is a total God thing as I usually stress and fret about things and allow things to stew inside me. There have been more and more affirmations as the week has passed and some great conversations with people about life and ministry have only helped to improve my attitude and mindset. 

My only source of stress right now as I head into the homestretch is the pressure we are feeling to come back to the church as members. We’re not leaving for another ministry position and we’re planning on staying in town so the plan all along was to take sometime away once I was finished and see how we’re feeling. However over the last two weeks we’ve begun to feel pressured to return. There have been a lot of comments (well intentioned) about how people hope we’re staying at the church after our time away.  As well intentioned as these comments may be  we really need the time away and honestly have  no idea what we’re going to do afterward. We don’t want people to get their hopes really high that we’re returning and then be disappointed and if we do come back we don’t want a big deal made of it or to feel pressured into that decision.  

In the meantime though I’m doing much better than I thought I would be. I’m sure my last day in the office (which isn’t until next Thursday) will be very weird at the least.  Fortunately my office is already cleaned out so it won’t be like I’m carrying my last box out with me.  I’d appreciate any prayers we can get at this time so we can continue doing well and that life after our transition will be everything we’re hoping it will become.

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Hi all

I just wanted to share with everyone how amazed I’ve been by God the last while. I know from my other posts I just sound bitter and grumpy but that is not the case at all. God has been blowing me away the last few weeks. 

You know when things are just clicking between you and God every little details seems to be taken care of and you always seem to have just what you need. That’s totally been happening during my time in scripture. It’s been fantastic as God has been revealing things to me just as I need them in quite a remarkable way. 

I’m in the final stretch of my job and I had no idea what this time was going to be like or how I was going to handle it. While I am kind of sad about the big change I have been enjoying a wonderful peace the last while. I’m the kind of person who can stew about things and let them build up inside of me and I was worried about becoming bitter at this time in my journey. To my amazement I’m feeling light and free right now.  Feeling like I have specific purposes each day (despite the current busyness) and that something exciting is just around the corner. This is exactly what I was hoping would happen as the weight of ministry was lifting. 

Even on a financial level. Daily my wife and I are being shown we will more than taken care of. Financial worry can often be found in our house but again the peace we are all feeling right now is incredible. 

How do I know all this peace I’m feeling right now is of God? Because I’m also feeling challenged. Each day God is showing me things in my life that need fixing or changed. I’m feeling very convicted about things as a husband, father and man in the community that I need to be doing. 

While this is a big time of change I am thankful that God is leading me through it. While there is sadness each day it is becoming clearer this is the right decision. While there are challenges I am excited about the blessings and the future to come.

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So I’m preparing for my final Sunday coming up this week. 

This past Sunday we did a big youth band. One member of the team described the size of the team as “epic”.  In my three or so years in my ministry position I think the greatest thing we’ve accomplished is the engaging of many youths in what we are trying to do in worship ministries. There is still a long way to go but some really great seeds have been planted.  Four years ago there was only a handful of youths involved and for the most part that was limited to teenage boys being stuck behind the sound board. That was the only thing the were being equipped to do and they were the only ones convinced to serve in that area. 

This past Sunday we had the youth leading the musical worship, playing all the instruments and leading all the prayers.  It was great. I had a blast being a part of it with them.

It also excited and depressed me.  It excited me because it affirmed many of the things I see that are possible for the ministry that I have been leading. It depressed me a little because I have not been able to lead it to where I think it should and could go.  

I have been very blessed in my job. As worship leading jobs go I have had it very easy. There have been a lot of changes in the last three years and there has been very little “blow up” that you hear about in other churches. Where I have struggled is that we just stopped when we got comfy. There is still so much potential and things that could be done (specifically to engage a younger generation) but not enough of a desire to push through to accomplish them.  That has added to my struggles and my decision to move on.  I want more.  I want to reach for every sky I can. Both personally and as a part of a community of faith.

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What a day so far. It is currently 2:30 in the afternoon and this is the first chance I’ve had to sit. It’s been busy. I helped some friends finish moving the last things out of their house today but other than that I have accomplished nothing important.  You know how all organizational and scheduling books tell you to prioritize things that are important not things that are urgent. That hasn’t worked today. It seems like the last few days has been about getting done a whole lot of little unimportant things. Not that little things aren’t important, just the things that I’ve had to work on have been unimportant. 

I spent a lot of time working this weekend and I spent most of that time on very little of the important things I needed to. I spent very little time with my kids (other than a really awesome sled ride on Sunday).  This is has left me wanting more (hey wait….. that’s the name of this blog) and reaffirmed my need for some big life changes. 

For those of you who are new to reading blogs and the like you might not be aware of RSS feeds. Basically the idea is you have a service or piece of software (called a feed readeer) that will automatically check this (and other RSS syndicated sites) automatically for you. Then you don’t need to try and remember everyday to look at the site for the latest updates. It will tell you when there is one.  You can either use the subsciption button on this website or enter the site name in your feed reader. 

I personally use Google Reader. I’ve been super happy with it. But then again I’m also a Google addict. I use Gmail, Google Reader, Google Notebook, Google Chrome, Google Bookmarks. I use Google Apps for my business email, calendar and docs. Google keeps my whole world in one place.  I really should be paid royalties for all the people I tell about Google stuff. Sadly…I don’t.

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In previous posts I’ve mentioned that I am in the process of leaving my ministry position but haven’t really talked about why. Well that is what I’m going to do here. I apologize for the length. 

The best way to describe it is that I want to feel alive. I want to live a passionate life and my current ministry position was hindering that rather than enhancing it.

I have worked in a halftime Director of Worship position for about three and a half years.   Before I was called to this position I worked full-time in music. I played piano for everything from a large variety of bands, opera and musical theatre. I’ve been teaching private lessons for about 10 years. I’ve done instrument sales (if you can sell pianos in Costco, you can sell anything). When I was young I even did a two year apprenticeship for piano tuning and repair work. But the thing that always made me feel most alive was working doing recording and audio work.  

Somewhere in the middle of all of this I had dedicated my life to Jesus.  

Shortly after I married my wonderful wife I felt a stirring in me.  I struggled badly with what I saw taking place during worship services. I am big on doing something all or nothing, doing it the best that I can and doing it for the absolute most right reasons.   It is not my desire to judge how or why anyone else does something. If I’m being honest back then it probably was said with a bit of a judgemental attitude.  

I was looking around and wondering how and where I could help.  That lead to the stirring I had. I wanted to get involved and help in anyway that I could.  That lead me to eventually apply and work in my current position.  It meant us moving from our hometown but when you feel God calling you go. 

It was a halftime position I applied for which at the time I thought was fantastic. It let me get involved and help but would allow me to continue on with the other things I was interested in. Especially the studio.  Boy was I wrong. My all or nothing attitude started to kick in. I totally worked on pouring myself into what I was doing. But the problem was which thing do I pour myself into? I tried pouring myself into everything. Well that is just a recipe for exhaustion and frustration. Which I started to suffer from.  It was not helping me feel alive. 

Then we had a baby. Then we had another baby.

Needless to say the balance in my life was way out of whack.  So we began examining our lives to see what God was calling us to do. I really love leading worship in the local church. However, the reality of serving in that type of ministry began to take it’s toll. Always trying to make as many people as happy as possible and trying to meet all expectations (both real and perceived) makes it difficult to connect with God on a Sunday morning and it also begins to work it’s way into other areas in life as well. To be totally honest, I also put too much pressure on myself and there were larger goals I thought could be accomplished in my ministry but were probably not going to become a reality in the near future.  I think handling these struggles would be more manageable (not solved) in a full-time work situation. The reality of having these stresses and then needing to go and make a living became too much.

During this time more and more work was and is being provided for us in the studio.  Working in the studio excites me to no end. Even needing to deal with clients, business and tax details, technical problems and some crazy working hours doesn’t stress me out because I can see the bigger picture with what I’m doing. This past summer we were seriously wrestling with this possible decision and feeling led to leaving my ministry position but really struggled if we could make this move work financially.  Then I had a meeting with a photographer friend. Photography has been my creative outlet for a few years and I had helped this friend out with a few shoots and stuff for fun and to make a couple of extra bucks.  Well he offered me a job doing post production work for him.  This is what made us believe we could afford to make the change we are currently making and felt like God was providing these opportunities.

So basically I want to focus on the things in life that make me feel most alive. That is closeness with God, and time with family and pursuing my creative goals musically and photographically. I want to live.

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