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Posted on Aug 17, 2012 in church stuff, incarnational | 10 comments

missing in missional: we need more stories like these…

blog we need more stories like these* a few months ago chris chappotin asked a question to a few of us on twitter–”what’s missing from the missional conversation?” i’m not the best twitter-er, but i responded with the first thing that came to my mind: more real stories.  he asked if i’d write a post about it for a missing in missional series and here it is.  it’s kind of funny that both of these re-posts today have the word “missional” in them.  i’ll still go with incarnational any day!  also, if you think of me this weekend, send a little computer love my way.  my mac hard drive crashed & i am hoping, praying, begging they’ll be able to recover it.  i had been working on a few really big projects–with no backups for a while–so i’m really bummed!   

* * * * *

There is much being written about why missional living is important, the theology behind it, the reasons why we are compelled to be Christ’s hands and feet. This is awesome work and not to be dismissed because it is motivating people to get out of the pews and actually live the Bible instead of talk about the Bible.

At the same time, as someone who’s been living in the trenches for a chunk of years now, sometimes I wish I heard more real stories about what it’s really like down here. More honest stories about the cost. More raw stories about what it feels like to live in messy, incarnational relationships that are tiring, hard, and make us want to run for the hills.

I’d love to hear more stories that addressed:

The pain of incarnational living. How confusing it is when people who are already down and out and struggling to make it through the day get dealt brutal blow after brutal blow related to their health, finances, and circumstances. What it’s like to sit on the edge of our friend’s bed after being hospitalized yet again as they cry out “Kathy, why does God hate me so much?” What it feels like when our friends die, taking their own life or dying suddenly, leaving behind orphan children and we’re their only family. What the ravages of mental illness can do to beautiful children of God and how little tangible relief they get this side of heaven.

The frustration of incarnational living. How hard it is when we know the resources exist in our local community, but they are being channeled to church building campaigns and pastors’ big salaries. How we don’t even need money, we just need other brothers and sisters in Christ willing to be advocates and friends and journey alongside hurting people but they’d rather not get their hands too dirty. How some days you wonder if it really matters, all the time and energy and love being invested in change.

The cost of incarnational living. How some friends wish we could be more normal and not care so passionately about the ways of love. How much money and security we lose when we choose this path. How our families and children are affected by all this pain so up close and personal. How much it hurts when we love deeply and freely and then people just walk away from us without so much as a thank you.

These stories need to be told more freely, more honestly. I don’t think we hear enough of them. They are not a sign of our lack of faith or calling or mission. They are not something to be ashamed of or hidden. They are about real life down here in the muck and mire and beauty and glory of incarnational living. These kinds of stories would help a lot of us feel less alone, less crazy, less doubting-it-is-all-worth-it. These kinds of stories would help sustain and encourage us because they are the kind we can relate to.

But alongside these hard stories, I’d also love to hear more stories that flesh out and honor the beauty and hope of incarnational living.

Stories about what it feels like when we see God’s image restored in our friends, when heads are held higher and shame loses its power.

How glorious it is when broken marriages are reconciled and families are strengthened.

The beauty of men and women finding their voices for the first time in their lives and advocating for themselves.

The hope that comes when faith is renewed or people begin to believe that maybe God really does love them.

What it feels like when a woman leaves an abusive relationship and chooses life and freedom for her family.

When hope begins to be more present than despair.

When needs get met in community without anyone having to ask.

How having a safe space to tell our real story can heal broken hearts right before our very eyes.

How it is all worth it when we see friends shift from selfishness to serving others, too.

There is so much freaking beauty down here. I have days where my breath is taken away, where I witness miracles right before my very eyes (I have developed completely a new definition of miracles in these past few years and now I see a lot more of them!)

Where there’s no place I’d rather be.

When I believe in Jesus like I’ve never believed before.

Where I am overwhelmed with gratitude and hope.

Stories remind us we’re not alone. Stories remind us God is working despite the costs. Stories remind us that this is what following Jesus really looks like, feels like, is.

Yeah, I think the Missional conversation needs more stories like these.

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Posted on Aug 17, 2012 in incarnational, leadership, the refuge | 0 comments

missional pastoring head rattles

blog missional head rattles* i love my friend phil shepherd, aka, the whiskey preacher.  he and his wife stephanie know the cost and beauty of nutty-in-the-trenches-with-people church planting.  whenever we are together it feels like a gift; i always leave feeling a little less crazy, a little less alone.   a few months ago he asked me to write a post about missional pastoring (my favorite word, ha ha) and some of the struggles of life at the refuge. i wanted to finally add it here for the archives.

* * * * *

I never set out to be a pastor. In all kinds of ways, this way of living came to me. 24 years ago, when I graduated from college, if someone would have told me I’d be a co-pastor of a small, poor missional community, I would have laughed in their face.. I was on the fast track to a successful business career, having finished my master’s degree and in a job that was centered on climbing the corporate ladder. I dreamed of a cushy life where I didn’t have to worry about money and had a lot of people who did my dirty work for me.

Yeah, God had another plan.

Through many twists and turns he got hold of my heart, first radically redeeming my own painful story and then giving me a passion to play a part in others’ healing, too.

About 8 years ago, I entered into full-time pastoral ministry. I had a position on a mega-church staff making good money with nice benefits. I had an administrative assistant and support people who helped make life run smoothly.

Then, 6 years ago we planted The Refuge, our wild and beautiful faith community that teaches me more than I ever bargained for. Yeah, I don’t have an administrative assistant, a good salary, or “all kinds of people to keep my life running smoothly.” In fact, it’s about as far from that as I can possibly imagine–terrible salary, no benefits, and far more needs than resources.

But it’s also more beautiful than I could have ever dreamed.

It’s also been one of the hardest things I have ever done.

Missional/incarnational pastoring has required me to give my heart in ways I wasn’t used to giving. It has required me to have trust that I wasn’t used to having. It has forced me to let go of things I used to tightly grip. It’s caused me to go a little crazy and become a little more sane.

These are some of the things that rattle around in my head a lot as a missional pastor: (I am guessing some of you can relate).

• “How in the $*#^!%@! did I end up here?” – Seriously, how did I somehow go from corporate business manager to stay-at-home mommy to poor missional pastor? Even when we started The Refuge, I pictured things so much easier, neater, tidier. I pictured more help, more stability, more all-kinds-of-things. I never imagined this much relationship or this much raw, real life. I never imagined I’d be 45 years old and make less money than I did when I was 21. I never imagined I’d care this much about people and change.

• “Please God, please God, please God.” – Every day I cry out to God on behalf of my friends. I beg. I plead. I question. I pray like a crazy woman. Often, it feels like everywhere I look I see loneliness, doubt, fear, shame, and practical struggles. I have friends who can’t get a break, no matter how hard they try, with systems of injustice bent against them. I often feel desperate for God to show up, to heal, to restore, to move, to do something–anything–that will bring a sliver of hope or peace.

• “God, grant me the serenity….” The Serenity Prayer saves me over and over again out here. Missional pastoring and unhealthy codependence can easily go hand and hand. Breaking free of controlling others, people pleasing, or having a savior complex is our only hope. Staying in recovery helps me live in that tension in a more healthy way, but it’s always a tricky dance. I continue to learn what it means to accept the things that I can’t change and ask God for courage to change the things I can.

• “How can we get more people to help us?” – Out of almost everything about the past 6 years, the hardest thing is not having more people to help do the tough, on-going work of extending Christ’s love, mercy & compassion in tangible ways. The people who are part of our community are awesome, so willing to love and help, but the reality is that there have never been enough of us to share the load properly. The needs far outweigh the haves. We long for people who would come stay and really play. And more people who may not be able to be part in-the-flesh but will at least help us fund the work we are doing.

But despite these things that rattle around in my head about how hard missional/incarnational pastoring really is, there’s one thought that outweighs them all:

“That was one of the prettiest things I’ve ever seen”

Yeah, I can’t tell you the number of nights I go to bed with a smile on my face, thinking of a holy moment that happened that day–where someone received God’s love through someone else, where hope pierced through the darkness, where dignity was restored, where shame’s power was broken, where love conquered hate, where community won out over isolation.

Without these moments, I would have walked away a long time ago.

They are sustaining.

They are reminders that Jesus heals in all kinds of wild and mysterious ways.

They keep me going for another day, another month, another year.

They make this so worth it.

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Posted on Aug 16, 2012 in ex good christian women, faith shifts, mommydom | 2 comments

anger is not a sin

blog anger is not a sin* remember this week i’m just archiving guest posts from other places over the past few months.  you might have read them before.  this one is from the amazing rachel held evans’ series on faith & parenting.  i just realized that i somehow never responded to any of the comments over there (in my mind i did, ha ha).  now it feels a little late to do that over there but if you want to add anything here, would love to hear your thoughts. 

* * * * *

“In your anger, do not sin” 
- Ephesians 4:26

When I was a kid, I was taught that anger was bad.  It had nothing to do with Christianity because I was not raised in a family of faith; rather, in a home with an alcoholic, there was an underground but extremely strong message that negative emotions should be avoided at all costs.

Happy, thankful, quiet, and easy-going were highly valued but mad, frustrated, hurt, or sad, not so much.  That was reserved for the grownups.

When I became a Christian and started learning more about Jesus in “church”, I discovered that some of the same rules applied.  Messy feelings were ones to avoid.  They were equated with a lack of faith or an inability to turn it over to God properly in the moment.  For me, honestly, it didn’t work half bad because I was already a master at stuffing negative feelings and pretending like nothing was wrong.

20 years ago, my husband Jose and I had our first son.  Two years after that, a daughter.  And two years after that, another son. In a wild twist of events known as “almost the immaculate conception” we had twin sons three and a half years later.  My claim to fame was having five children under the age of seven.

And yeah, there was a lot of emotion in the house.

During the early years, however, Jose and I practiced a parenting style consistent with what we were learning in church—negative emotions were “bad” and somehow needed to be avoided or at least taken care of quick.  For our kids, this looked like being mad at them for being mad (yes, I get the irony).  Things like “Go to your room if you are angry and come out when you’re happy again!” “Stop crying now!” and “You need to change your attitude right this minute!” flowed freely from our lips.

We had good intentions.  We weren’t abusive. We were just following the books that temper tantrums were a sign of faulty parenting and kids needed to learn emotion control.  

I know there are all kinds of ways children need their parents to guide, teach, and set limits on what is appropriate and what’s not.  But looking back, I have learned something very painful about our early parenting years—we sent our children a strong message that we didn’t tolerate negative emotions, only positive ones.

Oh how I regret this!

The church is really good at this, too.  As a body of believers, it does seem like anger, sadness, and hurt are not tolerated very well.  We want people to go to their room when they’re angry and come out when they’re happy again, to change their attitudes quick, to get on with the business of feeling good as quickly as possible.

Even though we say it’s not true, it sends a message to all of us that God loves us more when we’re happy and is disappointed with us when we’re sad. This message gets all tangled up with our faith.  

We forget that Jesus, God in the flesh, embodied a full range of emotions.  He cried.  He yelled.  He lamented.  His blood boiled.

He was human.

Part of my shift in faith and parenting has been about embracing the full range of my humanness. Much of how I was operating in our faith was about rejecting parts of me to somehow “please God more.”

The scripture reminds us that in our anger, we shouldn’t sin.  Not that anger is bad.

And what I have learned, and keep learning, is that God wants all of us, all of the time.  He doesn’t send us away when we are pissed off or turn away from us until we are happy again.  Even though I am human and not God, part of my responsibility as a parent is to reflect to my babies my full, deep, wide, and as-unconditional-as-possible love in the midst of their real lives, their real emotions, so that they can feel more secure and free.

But that shift had to happen in me first.

Part of my responsibility as a woman of faith was to begin to accept that God wants all of me—the angry, sad, hurt, frustrated parts of me along with the happy ones, too.

As Jose and I shifted, how we parented our children did, too. We have made many an amends to our older kids, who received the brunt of thinking that any negative emotion was a sin.  Thankfully, they have offered their grace (and told us that they had been pretty mad about it, ha!).

We keep learning.  We keep stumbling and bumbling and making all kinds of mistakes along the way.  But I’m more sure of this than ever for myself and my kids, too—anger’s not a sin.

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Posted on May 18, 2012 in identity, just because i thought it was fun, spiritual formation | 12 comments

be yourself, everyone else is taken.

blog be yourself everyone else is taken* some of you have already read this post; it was a guest post for lisa colon delay’s blog series on spiritual guidance for bloggers in april.  i wanted to post it here in its entirety for my archives. i know a lot of you might not blog, but i think we can easily replace “blogging” with “anything-we-are-trying-to-do-that-is-hard-for-us-to-feel-free-in”.   that could be our faith or a vocation or a new passion or a relationship or a whole host of other things.  the same principles apply.   i am more convinced than ever that learning to be comfortable in our own skin is the work of our lives.  have a great weekend! 

* * * * *

“Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken” – Oscar Wilde

I first discovered what a “blog” was in 2006, when we planted The Refuge, the wild little faith community I am part of.  Honestly, I had never heard the word before; I had been immersed in a hectic ministry role that was very insulated from the wider church conversation and I just wasn’t online.  This transition from mega-church to small-church-plant was a messy one for me.  I was in a lot of pain from my experience, so I reached out online after stumbling across some blogs while searching for church website ideas.  I felt an instant and immediate sense of relief when I discovered I wasn’t crazy, and I wasn’t alone in some of my feelings.  I found others with similar stories & similar church dreams.

The men and women I read were honest, bold, raw, and pure.

They weren’t selling anything, trying to push their agenda, or attempting to make-people-come-over-to-their-way-of-thinking.

Rather, they just told their stories.  Shared their experiences. Responded to other people’s comments with simple kindness and respect. And above all, they remained honest about what they were wrestling with and learning along the way.

Reading their blogs gave me hope.

They inspired me.

They pointed me toward God (even when they were wrestling with God).

They challenged me to think.

January 1, 2008, I started my own blog and dedicated myself to two simple commitments:

1. Write as honestly and purely as I could without editing or trying to worry about what other people might think.

2. Write once a week for one year.

It’s been a wild ride, and I have learned so much through the process over the past 4 years.

Out of everything, I think blogging has helped me learn to become more comfortable in my own skin, with my own voice, with who I am.

I think that is a very holy and sacred experience on our spiritual journey–learning to find safety and security in who we really are.  

Not who someone else is.

Not who we think we should be.

But in who we are.

I am someone who has always struggled with the message that I wasn’t enough somehow–not spiritual enough, not quiet enough, not domestic enough, not skinny enough, not organized enough, not-whatever-enough.

Blogging definitely intersected with this message, initially making it even worse.

In the first few years of my blog, I had so much internal anxiety about not being good enough, funny enough, theological enough, wise enough, or concise enough.   Whatever “enough” it was, I wasn’t.

But something began to shift in the past several years as I continued to find my voice and become more comfortable in my own skin out here.

I began to realize that the world doesn’t need another _________ or __________ or __________ (Insert name of any bloggers you are jealous of, and my guess is they are wrestling with similar feelings and go a little psycho about the same insecurities).

What’s missing is me.

Not because without me the world would stop spinning or the blogosphere would come to a screeching halt.

But because everyone else is taken.  

I think God wants us to learn how to become comfortable in our own skin, to be who-we-are, and not try to become someone else.

Blogging is a great place to practice this.

Making peace with who-we-are requires the ongoing-work-of-the-Holy-Spirit.  I doubt and question it all of the time.  I obsess before I hit “publish” and freak out about not being more like ______ or _______ (insert name of other blogger also obsessing about the same thing).

I need God’s help to remind me:  “Um, Kathy, just so you know, in the big scheme of things, it’s just a blog post.  And one other thing:  it’s a great place to practice just being you–with all your strengths & all your weaknesses.  Just you.”

And then I hit “publish” and take a deep breath and am reminded yet again, this is what transformation looks and feels like.

This is how we get more comfortable in our own skin.    This is how we learn to offer ourselves grace.  This is how we become “us” and not someone else.

Yikes, it’s hard to learn!   But blogging is a great spiritual practice that can help integrate this important truth into deep places in our hearts.

Yeah, my spiritual guidance for all us bloggers is this:  Be ourselves.  Everyone else is taken.

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Posted on May 10, 2012 in church stuff, dreams, equality, ex good christian women, leadership | 22 comments

well-behaved women won’t change the church

well behaved women wont change the church * most all of you have already read this post. it was part of ed cyzewski’s women in ministry series and got a lot of love.  there are some really great comments over there.  i had so much fun writing it and had no idea it would strike such a chord.  it’s so encouraging!  i am just posting it here now for my blog archives.  here’s to all kinds of mis-behaving…

* * * * *

Years ago, if you looked up the definition of “Christian Good Girl”, I swear my picture would be right next to it. I was so good at being good! I knew how to keep the peace. I knew how to give people what they want. I know how to put my needs last. I knew how to say all the right things at the right time to sound really spiritual. I knew how to be nice.

Although I was not raised in a Christian home, when I turned my life over to Christ and joined his team, I found that all of the people-pleasing, peace-making, good-girl skills I had learned as a child of an alcoholic raised in chaos worked perfectly in the spiritual realm as well.

I earned all kinds of praise in the churches I was in for my good-girl-ness. Kathy’s so nice. Kathy’s such a team player. Kathy’s so easy to get along with.

None of these things were hard for me to do. They were like reflexes, a natural and immediate instinct to assess the situation, and then adjust to keep the peace and maintain whatever status quo needed to be maintained.

Over the years, though, as I started to do some personal healing work and begin to look at the unhealthy patterns in my life, something profound began to shift. I started to tell the truth about my own story. I started to not worry so much about what people thought. I started to advocate for others who couldn’t use their voices yet. I started to disagree. I started to use my voice and stir the pot about change in the church.

I started to worry more about pleasing God than pleasing man.

And guess what happened? Leaders didn’t like it. They liked me a lot better when I was following the rules, playing the good-girl game. A weird and subversive shift occurred when I started showing up more honestly, more passionately as a leader. The best words I can use to describe it are: “painful silence.”

In my situation, the painful silence lead to me losing a pastoral ministry job that I loved. The reality was that I was just not “good” enough, submissive enough, to be part of that system anymore. Honestly, if I could have switched back to the Good-Girl fast enough, I might have been able to save my job. Temporarily.

But I was too far gone. My soul and passion had started to come alive and I couldn’t turn back.

As difficult as that season was for me personally, professionally, and spiritually, I am so grateful for it because I learned the most important lesson of my life as a leader:

Well-behaved women won’t change the church.

We just won’t.

Well-behaved women will keep the wheels spinning on systems that keep working, keep growing, keep moving. We will do good and honorable work that matters and helps people and makes a difference in their communities.

But we won’t change the church.

Some people think the church doesn’t need changing; they’re fine with the way things are because it works for them. But I think there a lot more of us out here than even we ourselves know–passionate women who believe the body of Christ needs much more than a face-lift to become all it’s meant to be.

Yeah, well-behaved women will not change the church.

Instead, change in the church will come from not-so-well-behaved women who are willing to risk their pride, reputations, and “being liked” to stand for what God is stirring up in their hearts.

Change in the church will come when women who are called to lead, lead, even when others don’t think they can or should.

Change in the church will come when women refuse to squelch their gifts and begin to unleash them without asking for permission first.

Change in the church will come when women passionately follow Jesus, not systems-made-in-his-name-that-do-not-reflect-his-image.

Change in the church will come when women bravely use their voices, power, and any influence they have to inspire others to be brave, too.

I admit, it’s still sometimes hard for me to not be the good-girl. I miss the safety. I miss the praise. I miss the security, even if it was false. Some days I wish I could make nice like I used to because it was so much easier then.

But the Kingdom of God was never about easy. It was never about comfort. It was never about maintaining the status-quo. It was never about playing nice.

The Kingdom of God Jesus called us to participate in creating–here, now–isn’t well-behaved.

That’s reason enough for us not to be, either.

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