Birkdale Baptist Church

Life, Heart and Hope in Jesus

When I was in college in Abilene, Texas, I would often study at a Denny’s on Interstate 20. It was open 24 hours a day and was cheap — all a college student needs! Every Friday morning there was a group of older men (they looked in their 70s) that came into the restaurant around 5 a.m. and drank coffee and told stories about their families and their youth. I loved watching those men. For whatever reason that image was seared into my mind, and I often think about sitting in a booth with the men God has privileged me to run with and talking about all God has done and all that He accomplished in us and through us these 40-50 years of ministry. Eugene Peterson called the Christian life “a long obedience in the same direction.” I love that picture, that idea of our faith, that day by day by day we keep walking in obedience in the same direction. There really is an accumulative effect to following Jesus. I think it’s easy to get overwhelmed wanting to know scripture more, or walk in victory over this or that. It’s much easier to decide that today, knowing that God has given me all the grace and mercy I need to be all that He has made me to be, I am going to follow Him. Today I’m going to read and meditate on His word. Today I’m not, by his grace, going to give into temptation. Today I will be obedient to His leadings. Day after day following the long path of obedience in the same direction until, and if, we get to 70, drinking coffee early in the morning with lifelong friends…until then, day by day…until we are sitting at an even better table.

Apparently one blog entry a month is inadequate so I’m going to try and repent this week.  I thought I could use the blog to answer some of the most common questions I get asked by everyone from pastors to other young leaders.  The question I’ll answer today comes in a variety of forms.  When do you study?  Do you do a Sabbath?  How do you balance family time with a growing church? When and how often do the elders of The Village meet?  These are more specific questions that come out of the broader question of what my week looks like.  Let me explain how I am wired before we get into my week.

I tend to be somewhat of a free spirit.  Because of that I need a pretty strict schedule and outline or I’ll get overwhelmed very quickly.  I do best when there is structure, due dates and high expectations.  If I can get by on natural ability I will (I continue to repent of this).  With all that said my week, unless I am traveling or there is a major crisis is built out to maximize my time and protect me from myself.

Monday

I spend Monday morning with my family.  Preaching four services takes a toll on me so time with my family and a quick trip to the gym to sweat a little go a long way toward recovering.  I am at home until around 11:30 a.m. From 11:30 to 5:30 p.m., I am meetings, answering e-mails and phone calls and walking through the office encouraging our staff and pastors.  There are no set meetings on Monday although I will meet with or talk with Josh Patterson, our Lead/Executive Pastor, quite a bit on ongoing projects.

Monday night we usually have a family over for dinner or go out with a family.  We usually have a family devotional that night as well.

Tuesday

Tuesday is simple.  I study.  No e-mails, no meetings…my Bible, laptop, journal and me.  All day except for a quick trip to the gym. I will have lunch with one of our pastors but no other meetings.  Tuesday I am studying the Gospel of Luke and building sermons.  I am usually two weeks out in my preparation.  I would love to go 3-4 weeks out but it’s very difficult for me to do that.  I also put together our small groups sermon notes guide and write a church wide e-mail.

Tuesday night is a family night and we usually have dinner with my parents or Lauren’s parents at our house or a restaurant in the area.

Wednesday

Wednesday is a long day for me.  I wake up go to the gym, come home and answer e-mails and phone calls until 11:30 a.m.  From 11:30 to 4:30 p.m., I have meeting with members of our church, pastors and project oriented meetings.  From 4:30 to 6 p.m., I am in an elder accountability meeting where we talk through where we are. 

From 6 to 10 p.m., I am in elders’ meeting.  We meet every week.  I usually get home around 11 p.m. Wednesday night.  Most nights Lauren is waiting up for me when I get there.

Thursday

Thursday is another Study day for me.  I finish up my sermon for the coming weekend and work on sermons for conferences or other studies other than sermon prep.  I also have been doing quite a bit of writing on Thursday afternoon.

Thursday night begins our Sabbath.  My phone gets turned off around 6 p.m., and we just enjoy each other, God’s grace and the goodness of God in food, fellowship and laughter.

Friday

Friday is Sabbath until Audrey and Reid go to bed around 8:30.  My mind will start fully shifting to preaching tomorrow.

Saturday

Saturday is all about getting alone and getting ready to preach that night.  I spend the morning in my study at home and head up to the church around 3.  Mic check at 4:30 p.m. and our services are at 5 & 7 p.m..

Sunday

Sunday morning we have services at 9 a.m. & 11 a.m. We eat lunch with my in-laws and then spend time with family.

Sunday night is a meeting that Lauren and I have after the kids go to sleep.  She opens her calendar and I open mine and we talk through the next week. 

This is what an average week looks like for me.  Keep in mind that The Village is close to 6,000 people with a staff of over 70 so that affords me some space and room that others might not get.  I have only been on this schedule and out of a ton of staff meetings for about a year.  If you want me to clarify anything, just ask. 

Philippians 1:6: “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”

Hebrews 10:23: “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.”

I could be wrong about what I’m about to post. I have given it some thought and decided I would write about it despite the fact that I usually do my wrestling internally and with good friends rather than post my young thoughts on the Web. So grace would be appreciated. Before I get started let me give you a little background:

It’s been 16 years since God, in His predestined, powerful plan, allowed my soul to experience “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”  He grabbed hold of every part of me and has absolutely ruined me for anything but Him.  The process of sanctification has been and still is quite often a very difficult one. No one told me (or maybe they did) that Jesus wanted my heart. I thought there was going to be some behavior modification and some new friends but I didn’t understand how aggressively, ruthlessly and passionately He was going to search and destroy in me anything that wasn’t of Him. Nor did I understand how dark my heart truly was and how out of fear, pride and arrogance I would argue, complain and resist almost every advance of the Holy Spirit to reconcile every part of my being into holiness. Let me give you some family background. Most of my dad’s life has been difficult. He was abused and neglected, abandoned and ignored by the people who should have loved and seen in him the beauty that’s so easy to see. He raised me the best he could for where he was. He loves me, and I love him. I know this deeply. But what his dad struggled with, he struggled with and although I feel like by God’s grace alone I walk in an unbelievable amount of victory over the things that have destroyed Chandler men for the last 100 years, I do at times feel those things warring in me which brings me to my thought.

Audrey and Reid, my two children, have been such gifts to Lauren and me. That little girl and little boy grabbed a hold of my heart the second they took in the gift of breath. I don’t know where you are in life or if you have children or not but I find the fact that my sin directly effects my children to be mortifying. I ask our great God and King almost nightly that He would protect my children from my sin, that they would never see in me hypocrisy or feel provoked to anger. I ask Him to help me with patience, gentleness and to hide from them my pride and idolatry while giving me the grace to acknowledge often that “God is still working on Daddy.”  I want the specific struggles that have haunted my bloodline to go into the ground with me. I want to fight, wail and pray.  I want to “hold fast the confession of my hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.” I know that Audrey, Reid and the child growing in Lauren’s womb will have their own fights. The world is fallen, depravity is real but these specific struggles…I want, I hope, I pray that I might, like Moses, die on the mountain as they walk into the promise land.  I hope this post makes sense.

I spend a good portion of my week in dialogue with pastors.  They are from different denominations and tend to be different ages (although most of them are young).  The conversations range from theology to philosophy, church growth to how to lead a staff.  I enjoy them.  I love robust discussion over things that matter.  I like it when the unanswerable questions are asked and wrestled over; it somehow feeds my soul. Lately though I have been somewhat disturbed by something I am hearing or maybe sensing in the questions and directions of the conversations in which I find myself.  When I exited itinerant ministry to become a pastor, I left crowds that were in the thousands and finances that more than provided for my family to go to a small (160 people) church that cut my annual salary in half.  There wasn’t one person who thought that taking the position at The Village was a “smart” move.  In fact, several actually sat me down and told me they thought I was being disobedient and a bad steward of the gifts that God had imparted to me.  The truth is I didn’t become the pastor of a church in the suburbs of Dallas because I had a grand vision for growing a dynamic, life-transforming, church-planting, Gospel-preaching, God-centered church. I took the position because after a great deal of conversations, prayers and fasting, my wife and I felt it was the direction God, through the Holy Spirit, was leading us.  I came to The Village because I thought that by doing so I would get to see more of Him, experience more of Him, sense more of Him, see more of me die, more of my flesh perish, the old man in me lose more power…He is the great end that I am after.  He is why.  In 1 Timothy 4:10 Paul writes “For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.“  I love that verse.  We toil, yes. We strive, yes, but where is our hope?  What, or rather, who is the goal?  I love preaching the Gospel and I love planting churches but I do those things because in them there is this unbearable weight of His presence.  This crushing majesty that makes me want to cry, sing and scream all at the same time.

The thing that disturbs me lately is that it seems that the goal is something else all together.  The goal is growing our churches to a certain size or our platforms (pulpits, blogs, books) to a certain fame.  How hollow is that? And, how dangerous?  Just because men love Jesus and follow Him doesn’t mean that they get to grow or reach a certain level of “success” (I use that word loosely).  Here are a few men who loved our great God and King and were obedient beyond the norm:

• Moses spends his whole life with grumbling, whiners and dies without getting to walk into the promise land.
• Samson suicide bombs the Philistines and when the dust settles he is dead and the Philistines still rule over Israel.
• David’s son rapes his sister and leads a rebellion against David, dethroning him for a season.
• Jeremiah ends up in exile with the rest of the country after repeatedly getting beaten for preaching what God commanded him to preach.
• John the Baptist is beheaded by a pervert who gives his head to a 15-year-old stripper.
• Peter is killed, reportedly crucified upside down.
• Paul is killed in Rome but only after he spends his life (with thorn intact) being beaten, rejected, lost at sea, and consistently dealing with people coming in behind him and destroying what he built.

If your hope is set on anything other than Him, how do you survive when it goes bad?  How do you remain passionate and vibrant when no one comes or the baptismal waters are still for long stretches?  How do you maintain doctrinal integrity or teach hard things if He isn’t the treasure?  How do you worship when your wife gets sick or your son goes for a ride in an ambulance?  If He is the goal, the treasure, the pursuit, then those things are fuel that presses you into His goodness and grace all that much more.  I am not saying they are pleasant or enjoyable but only that if He is your goal you will find your faith sustained.

May God bless you and keep you.  May you see that He is the treasure, He is the pursuit, He is the goal…and may you press on toward the goal for the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.