For me, like so many others, Pastor Ted’s agonizingly public exposure and dismissal is one of those events which etch on one’s mind exactly where and how we heard the news. Right before lunch on Thursday, a close friend called me, a disillusioned believer who questions or rejects many of the beliefs we were both raised with. Someone who had once visited New Life Church with me, in 1992.
“Well, I guess you’re going to be getting a new pastor,” he told me, and briefly recounted what he’d heard on the radio. My stomach did flips and churned into knots, then I quickly pulled my thoughts back from the unthinkable. “I don’t believe it’s true,” I told him. “You don’t understand what a huge target this man is.” Most people who know Pastor Ted in person or by reputation immediately assumed the best, and jumped into the ring in his defense. I wrote a blog post titled, “We Believe You, Pastor Ted,” which I almost published, and then I saw the Ross Parsley quote, “Some of the allegations are true.”
Those who rushed to refute the accusations may now feel they’ve been made fools of. I hope not. Pure loyalty is never so truly foolish as sideline skepticism which risks nothing, believes nothing and gives its heart to nothing.
Although I’ve never been a member of New Life Church, for 15 years I’ve held Pastor Ted (and the church) in the highest regard, as one of my heroes and mentors-from-afar, via books like Primary Purpose and sermons like “Five Ways to Pray For the Lost.”
My first memory of Pastor Ted is from a packed-house Change the World School of Prayer, taught by
Dick Eastman at New Life in about 1991. To alleviate those inevitable long lines at the women’s restroom, the church posted signs on all the first floor men’s rooms, reserving them for the women. I remember Pastor Ted, standing in the crowded halls like a rock in the stream, directing traffic loudly and with enthusiasm. Always smiling, always a servant. I had never seen a senior pastor take on the task of crowd control, and it impressed me greatly.
“Jesus is better than cotton candy!” he would tell his Sunday night congregation. “I want to get a big cotton candy machine and sno-cone machine right here in the sanctuary so we can tell everyone that Jesus is better!” Coming from my rather staid religious background, outrageous, contagiously joyful statements like these, delivered with his million dollar smile, kept me coming back for more substantive teaching (of which there was plenty.) Praying through the 10/40 window with the flags hanging overhead, learning to live from the Tree of Life . . .
In fact, the only reason Mitch & I didn’t join New Life is that we felt called to be members of a tiny struggling church up the road. But we often went down for Sunday nights, or special events, like the Carman concert, or “Hell’s Flames, Heaven’s Gates.”
It’s not that I put him on a pedestal, not that I’m so naïve that I think any one person could never fall. But there are certain people who stand out like Pikes Peak in my spiritual landscape, landmarks we take for granted and expect to see standing come hell or high water. Well, hell came, and for me it feels like there’s a big hole in the Front Range this morning.
Oh, Pastor Ted, my heart is broken for you, for your family, your congregation, and for all of us in the Body of Christ. When one part hurts, we all hurt. Twenty-one years, ended, just like that, in four days. It is beyond comprehension.
Over the weekend, I sought comfort in reading David’s lament for Saul and Jonathan. Like them, Pastor Ted fell in battle. While the responsibility is entirely his own, as he stated, it is obvious to me that his position at the forefront put a bulls-eye on his chest.
Coming on the heels of Pastor Appreciation month in October, the clearest message I hear is the urgency to better protect and care for our pastors, all of whom face attack on many levels and in a variety of ways.
Sunday’s service at New Life (where, after all these years, ironically I just began attending regularly two months ago) is one I will never forget. Pastor Ted’s own wisdom helped put in place the system of outside overseers which dismissed him. This is only the second time in my life where I’ve observed public church discipline. In my opinion (speaking as someone who is more than a casual observer but far less than an insider), it was handled extremely well, with speed, grace, sensitivity, fairness and firmness, with dual goals of protecting the church and restoring Pastor Ted in the long run, albeit to some other ministry in the larger Body of Christ, never again New Life.
The news accounts I’ve read of the service are largely accurate and captured some of the many touching moments. When Pastor Ross opened by saying, “We are a family!” the congregation erupted into a long standing ovation – clearly an emotional release and the first opportunity to express visible unity as a body. In spite of everyone’s hurt, the overwhelming message I heard on Sunday is that God is worthy of our worship and Jesus is the solution to our sin problem. It was almost like the victorious triumphing over sorrow that you see at some Christian funerals – the grief very evident, but also the sense of rock solidity beneath. Even before the service, I had zero doubt that New Life Church will pull through. After the service, I think, even the media now knows this.
On the day the tower falls, God is there to catch us. We can always rely on His unlimited hope, grace and the power of redemption. Because in the end, He is the only strong tower.
Showing posts with label Ministry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ministry. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Friday, May 26, 2006
Passing the Towel Along
I keep a towel on my desk. Just an ordinary white hand towel, like you might find in a nice hotel. Its place of honor, draped across a picture frame on my desk, comes from the words, embroidered in black and red, along with the Alliance logo:
Living the Call Together
Matthew 28:18-20
. . . by serving one another.
Soon after Dr. Gary Benedict was elected as President, Gary held a special chapel where he inducted the staff into the Order of the Towel, reminder of the call to serve. Gary chose one employee, an IT help desk guy, and knelt down and washed his feet in front of us all. Not your typical executive moment.
My job is all about service, answering questions, solving problems, reassuring panic, sometimes causing panic by reluctantly giving the bad news that seems to come too often in this line of work: “No, I’m sorry but our plan does not cover that.” To the best of my ability, never once allowing the caller to feel that it could be anything but an unmitigated delight to help him or her. And it really is my privilege. I wouldn’t work here if I didn’t feel that way.
Since I have the sort of brain which compulsively sorts paper clips - (once, at another job, I won’t tell you how many minutes I spent sorting a co-worker’s paperclips into jumbo and regular-sized heaps, just as a little gesture of niceness, only to have her reappear and sweep them all into her desk together, oblivious to my small effort) - honestly, I really don’t mind answering the same questions over and over and over. However, since my job is communications coordinator, eventually it does dawn on me that repetitive questions may signal a lack in the way I have explained things. So I write, re-write, and re-write the benefits summaries once more, attempting to steadily reduce those ambiguities which make the benefits realm so very bewildering to my precious people who already have plenty of challenges on their plates.
Mine is a desk job, physically undemanding. Usually I arrive home ready to stand and wash dishes, or run up and down stairs doing laundry, fixing dinner, playing with kids. I don’t sit much at home, except while the family eats dinner, and then only until someone wants seconds.
But one day, not long ago, my service had been literal and manual, dragging chairs and tables into a pleasing arrangement, arranging linens and place settings, filling water pitchers, cutting flower stems, and ending the evening by washing endless china and attempting not to break any (I only broke one this time, and then only because I leaned down in the elevator to adjust the stack on the cart, attempting to make it safer, and inadvertently knocked the top one off the stack in the process). Early the next morning, back again to set up breakfast, brew fresh coffee, make sure the lunch arrives and get everyone who needs to out the door to the airport on time. This happens twice a year, an enjoyable break in my sedentary routine. I love mingling with the guests and thanking them for their service to our participants. Their gift of time is valuable, their gift of expertise invaluable. I want them to feel special while they serve with farsighted wisdom and intense discussion. Hence the china.
After the second day, I went home to my family, inexplicably far more exhausted than I should have been, more than I normally am at such times. Instead of jumping up and down refilling my families’ plates and cups, I stretched on the sofa, dozing, but unwilling to leave my children again to go to bed. They played around me.
My three-year-old solicitously took my hands in hers, standing so close I could feel her sweet warm breath on my face. “I will wash your hands, Mama,” she offered. Without water, she went through the motions of washing my hands, using a Tupperware container, and a dishtowel to “dry me off.” Then she started on my feet. Taking my socks off, she carefully and thoroughly ministered to every toe, tenderly caressing my whole foot with her hands, and again without water, drying off my feet.
She has never done this before, or since. I don’t recall telling her the story of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet. That one evening, nothing could have soothed my soul more thoroughly.
So now I have to ask: Gary, have you been sneaking into my house while I am at the office and teaching the lessons of the towel to my children?!
As Gary so visually emphasized that day in chapel, the ministry of the towel is an essential part of our call. For you to whom serving others is as natural as breathing, please remember that receiving the towel graciously and humbly is also an important discipline. If someone tries to wash your feet today, please let them!
Living the Call Together
Matthew 28:18-20
. . . by serving one another.
Soon after Dr. Gary Benedict was elected as President, Gary held a special chapel where he inducted the staff into the Order of the Towel, reminder of the call to serve. Gary chose one employee, an IT help desk guy, and knelt down and washed his feet in front of us all. Not your typical executive moment.
My job is all about service, answering questions, solving problems, reassuring panic, sometimes causing panic by reluctantly giving the bad news that seems to come too often in this line of work: “No, I’m sorry but our plan does not cover that.” To the best of my ability, never once allowing the caller to feel that it could be anything but an unmitigated delight to help him or her. And it really is my privilege. I wouldn’t work here if I didn’t feel that way.
Since I have the sort of brain which compulsively sorts paper clips - (once, at another job, I won’t tell you how many minutes I spent sorting a co-worker’s paperclips into jumbo and regular-sized heaps, just as a little gesture of niceness, only to have her reappear and sweep them all into her desk together, oblivious to my small effort) - honestly, I really don’t mind answering the same questions over and over and over. However, since my job is communications coordinator, eventually it does dawn on me that repetitive questions may signal a lack in the way I have explained things. So I write, re-write, and re-write the benefits summaries once more, attempting to steadily reduce those ambiguities which make the benefits realm so very bewildering to my precious people who already have plenty of challenges on their plates.
Mine is a desk job, physically undemanding. Usually I arrive home ready to stand and wash dishes, or run up and down stairs doing laundry, fixing dinner, playing with kids. I don’t sit much at home, except while the family eats dinner, and then only until someone wants seconds.
But one day, not long ago, my service had been literal and manual, dragging chairs and tables into a pleasing arrangement, arranging linens and place settings, filling water pitchers, cutting flower stems, and ending the evening by washing endless china and attempting not to break any (I only broke one this time, and then only because I leaned down in the elevator to adjust the stack on the cart, attempting to make it safer, and inadvertently knocked the top one off the stack in the process). Early the next morning, back again to set up breakfast, brew fresh coffee, make sure the lunch arrives and get everyone who needs to out the door to the airport on time. This happens twice a year, an enjoyable break in my sedentary routine. I love mingling with the guests and thanking them for their service to our participants. Their gift of time is valuable, their gift of expertise invaluable. I want them to feel special while they serve with farsighted wisdom and intense discussion. Hence the china.
After the second day, I went home to my family, inexplicably far more exhausted than I should have been, more than I normally am at such times. Instead of jumping up and down refilling my families’ plates and cups, I stretched on the sofa, dozing, but unwilling to leave my children again to go to bed. They played around me.
My three-year-old solicitously took my hands in hers, standing so close I could feel her sweet warm breath on my face. “I will wash your hands, Mama,” she offered. Without water, she went through the motions of washing my hands, using a Tupperware container, and a dishtowel to “dry me off.” Then she started on my feet. Taking my socks off, she carefully and thoroughly ministered to every toe, tenderly caressing my whole foot with her hands, and again without water, drying off my feet.
She has never done this before, or since. I don’t recall telling her the story of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet. That one evening, nothing could have soothed my soul more thoroughly.
So now I have to ask: Gary, have you been sneaking into my house while I am at the office and teaching the lessons of the towel to my children?!
As Gary so visually emphasized that day in chapel, the ministry of the towel is an essential part of our call. For you to whom serving others is as natural as breathing, please remember that receiving the towel graciously and humbly is also an important discipline. If someone tries to wash your feet today, please let them!
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
When Spiderman's Web Runs Dry
Peter Parker swings through the gleaming metropolis, arcing across steel canyons, rappelling off skyscrapers on jet trails of web.
Apparently without warning, he extends his wrist in the classic position – and no web shoots out. Long overdue for a soul overhaul, Spiderman falls.
Although Spiderman II came out in theaters over a year ago, I opted to stay home while my two Spidey fans viewed the Webbed Wonder. I just watched it for the first time, and it left me deep in bloggable thought.
As we got ready for bed, I told Mitch, “This reminds me of the Odyssey* episode where George Barclay considers quitting ministry.”
(George finds himself swamped in seminary studies and interim pastoring. Time is even tighter than money, and his family feels that Dad’s ministry call has them all in a pressure cooker.)
Mitch was also struck by the comparison, and together we talked about the gut-wrenching reality of people, called by God, whose web has run dry.
For months Peter Parker had been forcing the rhythms of his dual existence, driven by the necessity of anonymity to protect those he loved, yet unable to maintain normal commitments in the face of superhuman responsibilities. He couldn’t even deliver pizzas on time, with criminals to catch and children to rescue along the way.
So the superhero gets fired from his pizza delivery job. Peter Parker takes the fall for all the places he can’t be because Spidey had business elsewhere. And while Spiderman performs breath-taking aerials in glass and steel ravines, the chasm in Peter Parker’s heart is growing too wide for him to cross.
What do you do when the cost of your Call becomes too high and you’ve got no more change in your pocket?
I’ve walked by the dumpsters and so have you. We’ve seen the crumpled red-and-blue Spidey suits once worn by people of great spiritual passion, wadded up and reluctantly forsaken in last-ditch desperation, perhaps in an attempt to save a marriage, finances, or sanity stressed to the breaking point by ministry. Because we too have found ourselves in mid-air with no web left, we feel only love for these bruised servants, and pray they return one day to claim that suit again.
At the top of this blog, I said Peter Parker’s web ran out “apparently without warning.” But he had plenty of warning. When we listen to our hearts, the dashboard lights blink long before the engine falls apart. When we do not live from an integrated heart, we become wounded soldiers who cannot accomplish our Commander’s mission. We all have multiple roles pulling us in a hundred directions, but we cannot long survive a fractured and fragmented sense of who we are.
As Peter Parker and George Barclay could tell you, there is no Easy Button.
But there are answers. Sometimes you’re called on to stay steady and sacrifice the thing you want most. Sometimes you need to restore the balance, accepting the loving touch of those you rescue as in turn they rescue you. Whatever your answers, they lie hidden in the secret places where your heart communes with His. Listen now, “Walk with Me and work with Me--watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you.”
God hasn’t called you to be half alive or half yourself. Do what it takes to reconnect and live again. Let Him make you whole. Keep vigilant watch over your heart; that’s where life starts. And when you find you’re running low on web or wine or oil, He wants you back in the flow. Whatever He says to you, do it!
*Focus on the Family produces a first-rate children’s radio show called Adventures in Odyssey. It’s the kind you buy for the kids, then can’t turn off yourself. The episode referred to is “George Under Pressure” and can be purchased on the “More Than Sundays” album with 6 episodes especially for ministry families.
Apparently without warning, he extends his wrist in the classic position – and no web shoots out. Long overdue for a soul overhaul, Spiderman falls.
Although Spiderman II came out in theaters over a year ago, I opted to stay home while my two Spidey fans viewed the Webbed Wonder. I just watched it for the first time, and it left me deep in bloggable thought.
As we got ready for bed, I told Mitch, “This reminds me of the Odyssey* episode where George Barclay considers quitting ministry.”
(George finds himself swamped in seminary studies and interim pastoring. Time is even tighter than money, and his family feels that Dad’s ministry call has them all in a pressure cooker.)
Mitch was also struck by the comparison, and together we talked about the gut-wrenching reality of people, called by God, whose web has run dry.
For months Peter Parker had been forcing the rhythms of his dual existence, driven by the necessity of anonymity to protect those he loved, yet unable to maintain normal commitments in the face of superhuman responsibilities. He couldn’t even deliver pizzas on time, with criminals to catch and children to rescue along the way.
So the superhero gets fired from his pizza delivery job. Peter Parker takes the fall for all the places he can’t be because Spidey had business elsewhere. And while Spiderman performs breath-taking aerials in glass and steel ravines, the chasm in Peter Parker’s heart is growing too wide for him to cross.
What do you do when the cost of your Call becomes too high and you’ve got no more change in your pocket?
I’ve walked by the dumpsters and so have you. We’ve seen the crumpled red-and-blue Spidey suits once worn by people of great spiritual passion, wadded up and reluctantly forsaken in last-ditch desperation, perhaps in an attempt to save a marriage, finances, or sanity stressed to the breaking point by ministry. Because we too have found ourselves in mid-air with no web left, we feel only love for these bruised servants, and pray they return one day to claim that suit again.
At the top of this blog, I said Peter Parker’s web ran out “apparently without warning.” But he had plenty of warning. When we listen to our hearts, the dashboard lights blink long before the engine falls apart. When we do not live from an integrated heart, we become wounded soldiers who cannot accomplish our Commander’s mission. We all have multiple roles pulling us in a hundred directions, but we cannot long survive a fractured and fragmented sense of who we are.
As Peter Parker and George Barclay could tell you, there is no Easy Button.
But there are answers. Sometimes you’re called on to stay steady and sacrifice the thing you want most. Sometimes you need to restore the balance, accepting the loving touch of those you rescue as in turn they rescue you. Whatever your answers, they lie hidden in the secret places where your heart communes with His. Listen now, “Walk with Me and work with Me--watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you.”
God hasn’t called you to be half alive or half yourself. Do what it takes to reconnect and live again. Let Him make you whole. Keep vigilant watch over your heart; that’s where life starts. And when you find you’re running low on web or wine or oil, He wants you back in the flow. Whatever He says to you, do it!
*Focus on the Family produces a first-rate children’s radio show called Adventures in Odyssey. It’s the kind you buy for the kids, then can’t turn off yourself. The episode referred to is “George Under Pressure” and can be purchased on the “More Than Sundays” album with 6 episodes especially for ministry families.
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