The Hard Work of Being Still

"Be still and know that I am God..." (Ps 46:10)

These beautiful words have become ubiquitous in our Christian circles, but in the words of Inigo Montoya, "I do not think it means what you think it means." (Hey, what kind of a blogger would I be if I didn't quote the most quotable movie of all time?). We use it to create a state of peacefulness. Who can help but take a refreshing breath while a lazy smile creeps onto his/her face after hearing these charming words? It's used as a stress reliever in our overly busy lives. How convenient for us. We even have a beautiful song using those words, the tune of which exudes peacefulness. What a joy-filled, peace-inducing phrase. Right? I don't think so.

Being still is the hardest work you will ever do. Not a physical stillness, but a stillness that demands the inactivity of pride, a stillness before God that truly gives Him all authority, exaltation, and permission to work mightily as only the God of the universe can and as He wills. Glory! It may be somewhat easy to say, and to even shout 'Hallelujah!' after, but it is agonizing to do.

This post is going to be personal and raw for us, because this has been our life, our work, and our ministry for the past six months. Stillness. Stillness before God. I'm letting out a sigh right now, not a sigh of pleasant peace, but a sigh over the (hopefully) nearly completed hard work done in us during this time of stillness before God. I apologize for the length of this post, but since I frequent the blog world only about once a month, you can split it up and read a few paragraphs a week. Then maybe by the time you finish this post I'll have another (shorter) post ready :) It's important for me to write this though 1) so you can know what's going on with us and 2) as a necessary component of this oh-so-wondrous season of being stilled and humbled.

As most of you know we have a strong call to serve God in ministry to this world. We spent our first semester while Jared was at Harding School of Theology in focused prayer for direction in our ministry. From that time on we have been pursuing church planting in London. Our time during grad school was the busiest of our lives. During this time of insanity we saw God walking powerfully before us into work in Europe, opening countless doors since we had no excess energy to spend to help get there ourselves. From an encouraging survey trip in 2011 with clear direction, to wonderful support from White Station CoC and Kairos Church Planting, to friends and connections in the UK, to my schooling through the Uof Leicester... The path was being laid before us. We made the decision to step out on faith and to move our family to Nashville last year in the hopes of getting our last leg of valuable training with Ethos, a 2,000 member, four-year-old church plant working mightily for God in Nashville. After 3 months of a "getting to know you" period, we took on an official role with Ethos and were so excited to be actively en route to London and our future ministry there.

At literally the exact time that we became official planter apprentices with Ethos, we went on our second survey trip to London, and the boom hit. This trip was the opposite of our first survey trip. We dealt with negative feelings, closed doors, the realities of how much we can accomplish as Americans, and much more reserve from the British ministers. This kicked off a time of continually closing doors, uncertainty, and spiritual warfare. Obviously we've been wrestling with so many questions about whether this is God helping us change directions for the future or Satan working to prevent that ministry. At the precise moment that we thought we were actively heading into our ministry, we were asked to be still before God...

I cannot express how difficult it is to have an exciting vision become unclear and powerless. It has put us in a difficult position with fundraising, which has meant we get the added stress of dealing with limited finances through this time (brilliant). It's made things harder for our work with Ethos since we are unclear now what we are working toward. That's definitely not to say we have not been working. We've been working hard through all of this, both actively and joyfully with Ethos (hopefully we've been sharing this well through our newsletters) and on our own in an active state of stillness before God. Not a day has gone by when we have not worked ourselves into a sweat whether physically, emotionally, or spiritually. It has been a long, hard road to work ourselves into this active state of stillness before God. And I think both Jared and I will agree it's probably been the hardest six months of our lives. But, though no decisions have been made yet, we think we are coming close to working our way through to a clear and mighty vision for God's kingdom and our future work.

Here's some things we've worked through and concluded so far:

1. God has been leading us and we've been obediently following his guidance to get us to where we are now. We absolutely trust in what he was doing during our time at HST which led us here. Whether he intends to use this path to renew our vision for the UK or alter it for another work, we're unsure. But whatever we decide we won't feel like we've made the wrong choice or been disobedient to His call either now or in the past few years.

2. We have a heart for lost people and will work in ministry to them. If we don't go to London we will most likely do church planting stateside, probably somewhere in the Northwest.

3. We are working on seeing either decision in a positive light (I can't say we are necessarily there yet). For months we felt stuck in a lose/lose situation. On the one hand we could go to London and have a strenuous work ahead of us, isolated from family, spending years breaking into a proud culture, possibly seeing few results...or on the other hand we could change direction which would seem like starting over, failure, etc. Those negative feelings are not from God, and we have been trying to see both paths as positives. Exciting works for God's kingdom. What wonderful opportunities we have before us.

4. We could not have been in a better position to develop this practice of being still before God. The relationships we have made during this year have been priceless. We are so in love with our friends here and will treasure them our entire lives. Doing kingdom work alongside Ethos has been awesome. We are learning so much and being spiritually fed while watching countless people develop faith. We have learned from past difficulties how to cling to each other in tough times, so our relationship is beautiful. We could not have asked for more precious girls, and we have the joy of a wonderful baby boy on the way. Only through the work of the Holy Spirit can I say through this "agonizing" time, life is good!

5. As hard as it was to try to express how agonizing it can be to be still before God, it is even more difficult to help you understand the amazing things that happen when you learn to stay in that position. I'm just not good enough with words to do it justice. I can stutter out some words that come to mind: power, growth, strength, glory, lessons, peace (aha! there is peace in that phrase!). Through all the little lessons in life, I can name a handful of overarching life lessons that I learned during a phase in my life. One in high school, one in college, etc. I can count 4 of those major lessons from within the last 6 months alone, lessons that would normally take years to learn and meld into my life. Seriously, I could write a book.

6. Not only do good things happen in you when you dwell in the stillness of knowing thathe is God, but you invite him to work. You want to know an even better verse about being still before God? Zechariah 2:13 - Be still before the Lord, all mankind, because he has roused himself from his holy dwelling. Bam! Please tell me you are jumping out of your seat and shouting Hallelujah! at that thought of God rousing himself from his dwelling to be active among us. It sounds absurd to think that we don't already invite God's action, but I can honestly say I didn't fully do that before this time, and I think it's the same for a lot of Christians. Even if it's hard to admit, we limit God and invite him to partial works that fit our ideas (though they can still be awesome and miraculous). It's only natural. People in the bible fell on their face before God's angel in terror. How much more terrifying is it to have God himself come down and work powerfully? Let me just say, whatever decision we make about the future, I cannot wait to share with you what is to come because of the might and majesty of God that will come out of this moment in our lives. Glory to God!

Ethos has blessed us with a weekend away for spiritual renewal and vision casting. Tomorrow we will drop off our kids with some friends and head out to a cabin for two nights. I want to beg some prayers from you over this time. I don't know if we'll come back with a decision about our future work or not, but I trust this is going to be a powerful time in our spiritual and ministerial formation. I'm so excited and can't wait to share more with you about God's work in our lives. I hope each of you will have the (excruciating) opportunity to truly be still before God.

What is Our Story?

Several years ago I was discussing faith sharing with a friend of mine. This friend grew up in the church and lived, as he would have called it, the typical Christian life. When I asked if he had ever shared his faith story he responded that he had no story to tell. No story to tell? How could anyone walking in faith with Jesus not have a story to tell? What my friend was conveying is a response that I believe a lot of Christians have given. I too used to believe I had no story to tell.

As we begin to uncover some practical tools to help us make discipleship and evangelism a core part of our DNA it is helpful to begin with recapturing the vision of our own story. Many of us who have been followers of Jesus for a long time have forgotten the power of our own narrative in Christ. And we sometimes convince ourselves that our stories have nothing special to tell. I remember listening to people tell their stories in youth group or in college and I would be overwhelmed with the power of God to overcome some of the darkest moments in a person's history. But I would also feel a little let down because my story was not filled with such dramatic life changing moments as the ones I had heard. Have you ever felt that way? Like everyone else has a better story to tell than you? Then perhaps it is time to recapture the vision of your story.

The truth is everyone has a beautiful story to tell. Jesus doesn't reserve his love for those whose stories will prove best in our culture. And when we begin to follow Jesus our stories are no longer about us. They become a reflection of Jesus' story. A story of resurrection and life.  And that is a story worth being told.

If we do not have a deep sense of our own story in Jesus then the previous posts make little difference. However, a clear vision of the power of Jesus' story working in us will drive us into God's mission for his world.

How then do we begin to engage our world, our cities, our communities, with the story of Jesus? It would be easy to just give a list of things to do or say to try and help you become better at sharing your faith story and discipling others. However, I do not know every person's natural rhythm and context and therefore a list would not be very helpful. Instead I want to give a few tools that will help you explore ways to engage the people you interact with in your natural rhythm.

1. Intentionality rules the day. In my previous post I discussed that many of us allow our rhythms to pass by without actively engaging them. We walk through our day, moving from one thing to the next, without intentionally looking at what doors God has placed in those rhythms. There are three ways we can become more intentional in our natural rhythm.
        1. Intentionally Create Relationships: Think about how many people you see on a regular basis that you have never talked to, asked their name, waved high to, etc. Let's commit to intentionally creating relationships with the people who are moving with us in our natural rhythms (the barista at your local starbucks, the cashier at your grocery store, your landlord, your neighbor...). Begin creating a habit of introducing yourself to the people you see in your natural rhythm. Commit to meeting 8 new people this week simply to learn their names.
        2. Have Intentional Conversations: How many relationships do you have where all you discuss is the weather? Do you have friends and know nothing about their story? It is important to listen to people's story. Everyone has a beautiful story they are dying to tell. Will we be the kind of people that go to them and listen? Hearing people's stories begins with creating Intentional Conversation. One way of creating intentional conversations is by asking three types of questions: Polite questions, Interest Questions and Caring Questions. Polite questions are simple introductory questions such as, "How are you?" They initiate discussion. Interest questions take conversations a step further. They are questions such as "do you shop here often." This will help lower people's defenses and allow for safety in the conversation. The Caring Question shows that you care and are interested in hearing their story. It could be something like, "What can I pray about for you?"  
       3. Intentionally Disciple Others: We sometimes believe that discipleship will happen if a relationship is deep enough. We are too often content with allowing discipleship to happen accidentally.  However, we should learn to intentionally take people deeper into the heart of God. Intentional discipleship is key to helping people truly transform into the image of Christ. It could be as simple as beginning a Bible Study with a person or as intimate as taking a person on a spiritual retreat or mission trip. However, the key is that it is planned, intentional and is leading somewhere specific.  
2. 10 Second Rule. The 10 Second Rule is a book by Clare De Graaf in which he describes how most Kingdom decisions are made in a 10 second window. We drive by someone broken down on the side of the road or contemplate whether or not to share our story with a co-worker. If we do not make a decision to engage our natural rhythms in 10 seconds then we will typically allow the moment to pass us by. God is an expert at opening doors to us. Sometimes those doors remain open for long periods of time. However, many times those doors are open only briefly and it is up to us to decide if we will engage them. The 10 Second rule is not hard and fast, however, it allows us to engage our natural rhythms in a more intentional way. The next time you see someone broken down on the side of the road or the next time you are out with a co-worker, will you choose to use those moments to impact the Kingdom of God?
3. What do we have, Who do we know, How can we Help. Dave Clayton gave this as a challenge in a sermon a few weeks back and it has stuck with me ever since. It is a simple way of viewing your natural rhythms. It asks the question, "Do we have something to offer the people around us?" This question is answered both spiritually and physically/emotionally. What about our story can we offer the people around us? Are the needs of our neighbors spiritual or physical? When we begin to actively engage the people in our natural rhythms we begin to unveil the needs that are present. We learn that our neighbor just lost their grandparent or that the lady at the grocery store has been burned by church in her past. As we learn about the needs of those around us we can begin to ask the important question, "what do I have to offer that person?" Do these people need a home cooked meal? Do they need encouragement? Do we have these things to offer people? Let's become intentional about learning about the needs of the people around us so we can make the decision to engage those needs in a way that will show the Love Jesus has for them.

What other ways can we begin to engage our natural rhythms? How else might we develop the disciplines of evangelism and discipleship so that they become a part of our DNA? The three tools mentioned above are not the only ones out there. They are not hard and fast, however, they are meant to help us creatively engage the world around us. But even these tools will be meaningless unless we recapture the vision of our own story. We all have a beautiful story to tell. Now is the time to tell it.