Pride and Criticism = Oil and Water

2011-03-17T07:42:00.003-04:00

Ever been told you're doing a bad job at things you spend a lot of time doing? Recently it happened to me. And that is OK.

You really learn how much pride you have when you are told that you are doing a bad job at something close to your heart. I was convinced I was doing a good job. And maybe in some ways I was. But the overall picture? No good.

I currently lead worship at our little church. I do it because, well, if I didn't do it, there would be no one else to do it. I like music that pretty much no one else in our church ever heard before. I am a poor shepherd in creating a time where people can actually connect with God during the service because I insist on playing obscure and cool worship songs. People have told me I need to stop. And this is where my pride is.

So I took the hit and had to deal with my pride. Its not easy to deal with criticism from one or two people, but when it comes from many people - it tests you, especially when deep down you know the criticism is right.

This is what I learned: my pride is high. Pride always gets in the way of being a good leader. I also know the power of charisma - if I really wanted to I could convince everyone I'm right and they are wrong in almost a deceptive way if I wanted to keep things my way. I say deceptive simply because I know they are right, and I am wrong. This is a deep abuse of charisma.

Jesus never had to deal with this issue because he was never wrong. But he was a humble guy, and that I can learn from. Regardless of how many hours you pour into something - if you learn that you're not doing a good job, don't react or defend. Listen, learn, and just shut up and do. That will save much wasted energy that could be spent on other things, keep lies from coming out of your mouth, and you may gain vital life experience as you do.

To Begin? My Story

2011-03-17T07:35:00.002-04:00

Hello. I am a young amateur reformed pastor-to-be. And this is my unspectacular story.

I am the luckiest man alive. Any minor reflections of my life reveal to me the grace of God in ways that are incomprehensible. I grew up in the church deep within central Georgia and spent all my childhood within its walls. The truths of redemption and salvation came alive to me at a young age. I still remember sitting with my parents as they wept with joy over my confession of my faith.
I was dunked at 6 years old in front of a few hundred people. The baptismal was one of those old fashioned ones - it was high and behind the stage peering through a big arched hole in the wall. I remember being confused if the preacher was going to grab my nose or if I should – and I came out of the water retaining a nosefull of it. Everyone clapped and yelled and I walked down the stairs, six years of age, happy and excited. And that was all.

Over the years I grew to love Jesus, yet only within the confines of the Church. I did church thing after another, week after week, month after month, and year after year. From youth group to summer camp to lock-ins to Vacation Bible School to worship ministry to discipleship/accountability groups and everything in between – I was that guy who was involved in it all. I was a generally happy boy who had a great family and good friends. Nothing dramatically bad ever happened to me. I never slept around or went off the “deep end” during middle and high school. In terms of Church-ianity, I was doing all of the right things as often as I should with a smile on my face.

High school ended, and I began trying to grow up. As any other good Christian would do in the south, I got a job working full time at Chick Fila. After a few months, I was offered an internship with the student ministry at my church I was attending, and I joined with a very hopeful heart. This would have been my first paid leadership position in a church, and it seemed to be in the direction that I wanted my life to go.

Around this time in my life something inside of me began to ask questions, questions that I never asked before. “Is Christianity really only about doing the right moral things?” “Is going to church and doing church things really enough?” These questions arose as I saw fellow friends, friends who spent as much time in the church as I did, run away from it all at the very first opportunity they had. Apparently college had more to “offer” than the church did. None of these things seemed to resonate with peace in me. Something seemed wrong, and I wasn’t sure what it was.

So I left the Willow-Creekish megachurch scene and began wandering around, trying to find answers. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but I knew there was something to be found. Eventually I landed at a church in midtown Atlanta, the indie-artsy side of the city. It was a church filled with people my age who dressed like me and listened to my kind of music. The Sunday services weren’t loud and explosive like the megachurches. Rather they were quiet, meditative, and somewhat somber. Candles were always lit and the lights were always down. I liked this.

Then I heard the preacher do something I’ve never heard any preacher do before – he began preaching verse-by-verse through portions of the Gospels. I began hearing things about Jesus I never heard before, and truths from the Scriptures that truly astonished me. I always grew up hearing about “5 ways to love your friends” or “4 ways to be like Jesus.” Those were topical messages, strung together systematically. But this preacher would preach word for word, verse by verse. I fell in love with this, and I felt my eyes opening simply because I was learning more and more about Jesus, and it felt like it was happening for the first time in my life.

During this time I moved out of my parents house and moved into a house with some good friends. We never did anything really “bad” per-se as we lived there. But nothing really good happened either, if you know what I mean. Some of us began to turn 21, and at times the drinking got a little heavy, but not too heavy. Girls began floating in and out of my life, and they were the kind of girls that a young guy should not be spending time with. All in all, opportunities arose to make really bad decisions. And by the grace of God I didn’t.

As I learned more about Jesus, and continued down a dead path of waiting tables till 3AM and sleeping in till noon, doing nothing really good or bad with my life, I became truly miserable. If this was all that this kind of life was about, than I was done with it. There was a deeper calling in my heart that began to resonate with me, and I knew that I needed to make an immediate decision.
I picked up everything and moved to New York City to help out with a church for the summer. I had a second floor apartment in a somewhat rough area of town, and I lived there with no furniture, A/C or anything. Just me, a blow-up mattress, my Macbook and a George Foreman grill. Somehow I made it that summer – I don’t remember how.

After the summer was over, I applied to a bible college close to Philadelphia. I knew that this was something I had to do, and I just did it not knowing how I would pay for it or anything. I was alone in a new place with no friends. I had no self-esteem, and I balanced this out with huge pride. I was bitter against the church, bitter against life, and probably the most pessimistic and sarcastic person you would have ever met. I was a jerk in reality.

Nevertheless, somehow, (yes, this is the laughable part of the story) I feel in love with a beautiful girl who was everything I knew I needed to be. She was lovely, sweet, caring, and well, really hot. She loved Jesus more than any one I ever met before, and this astounded me. But what was even more unbelievable – she fell for me too. Yes, it doesn’t make any sense. But it actually happened. Our first conversation lasted for an hour or so. I went back to my dorm and told all my roommates that I met the girl I was going to marry. I got on Skype and told my friends in Georgia and told them the same thing. What was the overwhelming response? “Dude, it’s been two weeks. How about you focus on school? You are an idiot.” They laughed at me, and I shrugged them off, because I knew she was God-sent.

We met in August of 2007, we got engaged in October, and married in May of 2008. I got a job two weeks more we got married, and we had a beach house to live in for about a month, free of rent. That’s all we knew, and we were crazy. But it all worked out.

There is more to the story, but I will begin summing things up – after we got married, I learned the treasures of reformed theology. After I was introduced to it, everything began to make sense. This new neo-Calvinism movement began flowing through my veins – it’s all about Jesus and his sovereignty and having authentic compassion for those who need Jesus. I began listening night and day to Mark Driscoll’s Christocentric preaching. I began plowing through Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology, along with old puritan literature. Then all the answers I was searching for during those years were given to me. This is what I learned:

1.It’s all about Jesus. Everything is about Jesus. Everything.
2.I am a sinner who has no hope in this life apart from Jesus, who saved me because of grace.
3.I never graduate from the Gospel, but rather the Gospel is only thing I have to cling to.
4.The Bible is all about Jesus.
5.Jesus was friends with the people nobody else wanted to be around, and I should be too.

After about a year or so of marriage, we were attending a re-plant of a church close to my school in Pennsylvania. One day our pastor took me out for coffee and asked me, “have you ever considered church planting?” Then another light bulb went off, and before I knew it I was living in Georgia again helping a friend with a new church plant. I began to live and breathe church planting, and began to dream about it all of the time. Within that year I learned more about Christianity than I ever learned in my entire life. I am so indebted to that year in Georgia, and will forever be grateful for it.

We then got pregnant and had a baby. It was a hot summer in Georgia during 2010. His name is Abel, and he has turned out to be a rather large kid with no end to his energy (he’s currently eight months old, weighing 24ish lbs., and wears 18 month old clothes). I love him so much, and I think he loves me too.

After his birth we moved back to New Jersey to plant a church from scratch with my friend Eric. He’s the preaching/teaching/vision casting guy, and I’m one of the other guys. Our church is almost six months old, and we are steadily growing.
So this is who I am. I am twenty three years old. I love Jesus, and without him I am nothing. I am married to the loveliest woman on planet earth, and I am a dad to a really cool eight month old boy. I am an amateur pastor-to-be, learning to do this as I go. This blog is intended to maybe share things I am learning with people who are doing what I am doing in this stage of life. I don’t know if I can teach anyone anything, but I can share what I am learning, and maybe that will resonate with others.

I am a very unspectacular average person, but I love Jesus.

Church Planting From My Early Twenties

Pride and Criticism = Oil and Water

To Begin? My Story