regular guy thoughts

I will kind of interrupt thoughts of leading from my past to bring it forward a little bit.  I have changed the title of the blog to “Thoughts from a regular guy” and maybe this will help understand a little clearer where I am coming from.  As I said before, I spent most of my adult life working in a factory so I still am overwhelmed that God chose to pluck me from the factory floor (not as cool as the belly of a whale but it is what I have to work with) and send me out to plant a church.  And then as I read my Bible (I really do have to read it since I am the pastorJ I see God has always used different people to do His work.  Fishermen, tax collectors, shepherds, and Pharisees all called to work with Him. (I don’t really like to say work for Him since He really does all the hard work!) 

Now going back to the reluctant stage of this journey after a series of meetings a friend of ours held at our church, I was really confronted with my attitude towards leading.  I can try to put it off on being humble but lack of leadership creates a void and also makes things kind of foggy.  I began to have people that were really frustrated around me, some leaving the church and some saying they were going to….but they really did not know why, they were just frustrated and mostly with me.  I  read once about how if you had a slide show you were going to use to support a presentation and all the slides were fuzzy and out of focus, eventually the people watching the slide show get angry and frustrated.  The fuzziness of what they see aggravates and frustrates them.  I began to see that my lack of leading and casting vision was putting so many things in a fog that it was beginning to frustrate people.  Leaders did not know what to lead or where to lead.  Staff did not know their roles so lots of things just did not get done or get done well.  And it really did come from my lack of leadership or maybe even more my lack of respect for what God had called me to do. 

I have always avoided asking people to call me Pastor Bill or anything like that because I do not want to create a divide or class kind of system in the body like I had seen in the past.  And in doing that I think I pushed the pendulum way in the other direction, to the point of not respecting the role God had for me and if I did not respect two things would happen.  Others would not respect it either or those who did respect and honor God’s call would be frustrated.  Well, lucky me, both was happening.  I will say this for myself; I never do anything half wayJ  

Shortly after the meetings with our friend I began a 40 days fast.  I felt like I was fighting for my life, really, and it was one of those moments where I was facing a personal crisis and I needed to hear God.  On the second part of the fast, for 21 days the church joined and it was one of the most amazing experiences of my Christian walk.  The real story here, I guess, is that I lead the church into the fast….I began earlier so I could talk about it and then they followed into the fast.  It was something I had never done before, calling the church to something pretty big and sacrificial.  Barb and I and some friends had done them before and I would hint and suggest but never call people to something liken this. I did and they responded and did so with much excitement, which caught me a little by surprise, but the excitement was almost tangible and the stories were awesome. 

Now the moral of the story is I am no longer a reluctant leader but I am still a regular guy who is still learning on the job.  When youlead like I did you pay a price.  I am still working with staff issues, defining roles, and reminding some I am the pastor, maybe even with a capital P.  There is not the frustration we had and I believe the fog has blown out to sea…God has brought more brilliant people to walk alongside us as we do the stuff He has called us to do.  He has always been so faithful to us from the very beginning, to meet our needs and to bring gifted people to us to minister with us.  In my reluctance to lead I left myself open to be questioned over everything it seems like and that is still lingering around a bit… but getting better, slowly, VERY slowlyJ 

As I write this I had the thought, that even as a reluctant leader there were people following all that time.  I am so grateful to them as they stuck with me and helped me along even when I didn’t want to do it.  One friend that came along was a guy named Don, and he and his family joined us and supported us even as I failed so often.  One time I did make a decision that he supported but decided he really did not like.  He came back to me and said that the fact he loved me so much clouded his judgment and he regretted supporting it but he would still be in my corner.  Not sure, that other than my family I have ever had anyone love me like that.  Regular guy leaders really need that. Let me tell you!      

We had a church picnic today, indoors at the building and I walked back to the kitchen after almost everyone was gone and there was my friend Ann cleaning up in the back. I walked over and gave her a big hug and told her I really loved her…Ann has been around from almost the very beginning and is one of those special gifts God has placed in my life.  She said, “This is a good place.”  And I said, “Because it is filled with good people.”  Always has been…..

Bill