She is obsessed with Dachshunds and wants to name her the future dog she is never going to get Jezebel (after the female dog in the Marmaduke movie).  Of course her favorite line from that movie is, “Wait for it, wait for it ….”  She has the ability to make you laugh and cry in the same moment. 

She is the one who loves Sunday school and gets into the car reciting the bible story she just learned.  She is the one who is off looking at flowers during a soccer game.  She is playing soccer because she wants to name her team with the words bedazzled, pink, and in glitter. When asked what kind of bug she would be, she is the one that screams, “A puppy!”  I have tried to explain that a puppy is not a bug but she insists that she wants to be a puppy.

I love her dearly and would do anything for her.  She spends half of her time her at our home and the other half with her mother.  As a father, protecting those we love is a major way that God has designed us.  I remember a few years ago when I wrestled with the idea of not being able to protect her 50% of time.  God reminded me:  “They are my kids before they were your kids… I will protect, provide and prepare her.”

Lord, thank you for giving me such an amazing blessing in my daughter.  Thank you for protecting her, thank you for making her who she is.  Lord, I ask that you make all of her dreams come true.  That you provide the perfect husband for her when the time is right.  A husband who fears you and serves you with all their heart.  Lord, I pray that you continue to reveal yourself to Ryen.  Connect her heart to your heart.  I pray that she makes you her Lord and Savior.  Thank you.  Protect her when I am not able.

In your son’s name… Amen.

Psalm 37:4 “Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

That gets to looking at 2011.  We all make these resolutions about how our life will be different.  But in reality how many do we really keep?  And more importantly, do we really care if we keep them?  And do we really understand what it would take to implement these dreams, goals and resolutions?  Are we even willing to make the radical changes needed to sustain the dream? 

As we sat at Starbucks mapping out our dreams for 2011, my wife stated that here goal was, “to connect with God in a more intimate way.”  This is beautiful and many of us would love to see that happen in our lives.  In true bubble popping fashion, as I so often do, I asked her what that looked like.  I didn’t stop with that question, I added when you look back at 2011 how are you going to know if that goal was accomplished.  I know, I pop bubbles and I am all about efficiency and practicality.  It is the German in me.

I am not into resolutions.  I want to understand what God wants me to do and be.  When I have a sense of what that is, everything I do and how I choose to live life in the coming month’s filters through that.  It is the one thing that I must do or be in 2011.  My question for you is what is the one thing you feel God telling you that you must do or be in 2011?  Whatever that is… hold on to, come back to it, filter life and decisions through this one thing.

It has been amazing.  There is something about being able to see your thoughts, dreams, goals and ideas of what you thought God might do during that year and looking back to see that God had actually been a part of making those things happen.  Of course, it is often not in the way in which we had thought.  It is because of this practice that I love the start of a new year! It is a time to see all that God has done in your life and dream about what he might have in store for you in the future.

I thought I would share the three parts of this practice with you.  (If you are still reading. J) I know it has been awhile since I have updated the blog and it is on my list of goals for 2011, so you have my permission to hold me accountable for weekly posts!

Step one.  Look back at all that God has done in 2010.  Here are a few questions that will get you thinking about how God impacted your life in the last year:

Where did you surrender?

Where did God surprise you?

How where you refined and tested?

Where were you stubborn and prideful?

How did God bless you?

How did God renew you?

How did God use you/your gifts?

What did he call you to do/be?

What verse, story or character summarizes your journey in 2010?

For me, 2010 was a year of denouement.  What is that you may ask?  Here is a clip from Dan Allendar’s book, To Be Told:

 A denouement is not a complete or fully resolved ending but a satisfying closure to a story.  It means in French “an untying, a relaxing of a knot of complexity.”  Denouement is the rest that comes when all the disparate plot lines of a story, gnarled and taut, have been untied and an order had come about that brings a new moment of shalom.

 Tragedy mars shalom, but denouement invites us to remember our innocence and dream of a day of even greater redemption.  Denouement is an ending that serves as the prelude for a new beginning; there is always the next turn in the road.  One of our greatest failures in our busy, driven culture is that we don’t celebrate the temporary untying of a complex narrative.  We don’t allow endings to be noted, let alone celebrated.  Therefore we never allow denouement to invigorate the upward movement of a new story.  And we will only love our story to the degree that we see the glory that seeps through our most significant shattering.  To see that glory, we must enter into and read our tragedies with confidence that they will end better than we could ever imagine.

In the beginning of 2010, I was still facing many challenges with being divorced and custody battles.  My life was in the final chapters of chaos.  As that story seemly passed I had the opportunity to begin a life with one of the most amazing people I know, my wife.  It was a year of redemption… I’m realizing God is who he says he is.  In his timing, 2010 was a year of denouement.

Take time to walk through the remembering of all that God did in 2010 and who he is creating you to be.  Tomorrow I will share step two:  Looking forward to 2011.

I have two kids; I have been divorced and remarried; I have held four different positions within Mariners and I have travelled to more places than I ever dreamed of! Kenya, China, India, Viet Nam, Thailand, Egypt, Uganda, South Africa, Peru, Mexico, Haiti, Sri Lanka, Costa Rica and New Orleans immediately following the aftermath of hurricane Katrina.  It has truly been an adventure! 

In reflecting on those years in ministry I thought I would share 5 things I have learned:

• Cultural context.  We all see life through what I would refer to as our lens.  Our lens is made up of experiences, where we grew up, how we were raised, our education, and values that we live by placed on us by our society.  There are similarities but all of us see the world around us through our lens.  We are all unique.  There are massive learnings in understanding people’s lens in which they see life, especially as we live in a multicultural reality, including how we experience the Gospel. 

• Grace and restoration.  The reality is we are all broken.  We all wrestle with issues that have affected us in childhood, experiences that have labeled and scarred us, betrayal and pain.  None of us have escaped this throughout life.  The Church is meant to be a place of grace, truth and restoration.  A place where our brokenness is shared and healed.

• Relationship is more important than task.  We are often defined but what we accomplish in life.  Getting things done and performance was how I derived my self-worth.  I was, in essence, what I could accomplish.  In the midst of this I lost sight of the value of community.  I lost sight of our individual stories of redemption and restoration… this is our identity.

• Life change.  Most of us our not self-aware.  We don’t stop to trace God’s hand upon our lives and how he has provided, prepared, protected and guided us into a more intimate relationship with him.  This is life change.  We are designed for something more.  As a result of who God is and what he has done for us, how will our lives be different?  How will we choose to live differently?  This is life change and God is creating defining moments all around us for us to embrace the journey to be more and more like him.  We often just miss it or avoid it.

• We are in a spiritual battle.  Ministry is a spiritual battle with causalities, wounds, strategies and victories.  We often move forward beaten, tired, discouraged… we burn out.  It is only when you recognized the weight of what is at stake that you realize the battle that is taking place.  If you know you are going to war, you think and live in a certain way.  This is how we need to live and think in the midst of ministry.  Let’s call it what it is… war.

The sub-title of the book is: What is God designed marriage to make us Holy more than to make us happy? In a sarcastic way, most of the guys were giving high fives that we no longer had to worry about making our wives happy! How wrong we are… but how funny it was!

Now I am not going to share deep, dark secrets of the group, which would betray the very nature of the community of the group. What I do want to share is some observations about marriage and couples:

• Four out of the five couples had one of the spouses experiencing divorce. It is an increasing reality for those of you dating and trying to do marriage.
• Marriage is bittersweet. It is one of the most enjoyable things you can enter into and yet at the same time can be one of the most painful.
• When problems develop, most of us choose to isolate versus find community. We think or are embarrassed that we are the only ones having problems.
• All of us were longing for community in which we could be loved for who we are with are mistake filled pasts.
• We are all broken. We all have issues and we all have made mistakes. We come into relationships with wounds (some healed with scars and others that have never healed). This is the lens in which we see life and do marriage.

It is this last observation that takes the most unpacking for us all. We come into relationships with wounds, unspoken expectations, and imagery of all our needs being met by our spouse. When this doesn’t happen there is hurt, disappointment, tension and conflict.

Recently, a friend of mine left his wife and two kids for another woman. His wife is devastated and most of the people in his life, including his wife were completely blindsided. Bianca and I spent some time talking about why this happens… and how it could to happen to us.

The reality is no one gets married thinking that they are going to leave their spouse for another woman or have an affair. It is unchecked brokenness and unspoken expectations that cause us to long for something that is not being met by our spouse. Only God, our heavenly father, can completely fulfill our desires and needs.

I am not sure where you are at but I want to challenge you to think about your brokenness. We are all broken in our own way. If you are in a relationship, how does your brokenness affect your relationship with your spouse? If you are not, ask God to search your heart for the places that are wounded and scared by the past.

Marriage is designed to be lived out in community not in isolation; it’s an act to make us holy above being happy.

What God did in those six months was strip away the clutter and the business of life to allow him to hear his voice. When he heard God’s voice, God revealed to him the condition of his heart, things that he had not see before.

In short, if there was a spectrum on your heart, one side being humble, compassionate, loving and filled with mercy, on the other end of the spectrum being hard, anger, bitterness, selfishness and pride, the pastor was surprised at how close his heart had gotten to the wrong side of the spectrum!

This pastor is known for his devotional life. He spends time in God’s word daily, he is on staff at the church, and he is a man of integrity. So how did he get there? He was so busy doing God’s work that he put aside being in an intimate relationship with the Father. It is never intentional. It is never planned. It happens subtlety and over time. It often sneaks up on us.

So how do you know if your heart is drifting to the ugly side of the spectrum? Look at your daily interactions with people, with your spouse, with your kids and with your co-workers. Our actions are ultimately a manifestation of the condition of our hearts.

I realized I’m in need of a heart recalibration. I need to find time and space that changes my daily surroundings to hear from God the things that are in my heart and identify the things that draw me closer to the ugly side of the spectrum. It might be painful, it might hurt and I don’t have to like the process but the end is living in the freedom and joy of being connected in an intimate way to the Father’s heart.

Where is your heart?

In order to understand the new chapters that are being written, we need to understand the whole story.  The first video is a documentary that was developed by the crew in Kenya about the lives of these sixteen students that came together and saw their lives changed. 

The second video is a music video that was produced on the trip in partnership with Kangii Mbugua, Kijiji Records and Mariners Church.  This video debuted at #1 on the East Africa version of MTV.  (Yes, I am the white guy at the end of the video with some great dance moves!)

Mavuno Church & Mariners Church from mariners church on Vimeo.

Thank you to all of you who supported this journey.

I would tell them story after story about being on safari in Kenya and being surrounded by lions.  To my surprise, even though weeks, months, and now years have passed, they can recite every word and love to sit and listen to the same story they have heard over and over again.  I would try to change it, to make it more interesting but they would correct me and say, “Papa, that’s not how the story goes.”

“Stories have power.  They delight, enchant, touch, teach, recall, inspire, motivate, and challenge.  They help us understand.  They imprint a picture in our minds.  Consequently, stories often pack more punch than sermons.  Jesus knew it.  He called his stories parables.”  —Janet Lithereland

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to be a part of someone’s story.  Elysium Productions, who did the cinematography for our wedding, was working on a wedding at Mariners Church.  One problem: the requested pastor had a scheduling conflict and they were a month away from their wedding.  To make a long story short, the people at Elysium Productions knew I was a pastor and connected me to the bride.  As I read the email, I could feel the anxiety come over me.  So I responded with an email trying to let the bride that I don’t do a lot of weddings and I am more of a behind the scenes kind of pastor. 

Her response:  “That’s perfect!  You will fit right in with who we are.”  So I was their pastor, just like that.  Soon after I got married, I met with the couple several times and walked them through their relationship testing. 

What surprised me was their story.  I knew that everyone has a story, but I somehow forgot that in my anxiety and fear filled state of having to perform a wedding.  Over the next few weeks, I got to hear their story, their journey, about their vacation in Italy, how they met, how he proposed as an attempted reenactment of Grease and how God has brought them together.  Their story was filled with interesting characters, the overcoming of tragedy, moments of comedy and two people falling in love.  God was truly at work in their lives.  It was in this moment that most of my anxiety and fear disappeared.  I loved being a part of their story because it is a reflection of who God is and how he is always at work crafting the next chapter in our story.

Dan Allender is one of my favorite authors and he has written a book on understanding your story called To Be Told.  I’ll end with a quote from his book:  “Each of us is called, redeemed and exiled – again and again.  Our story is always evolving based on the decisions we make.  We desperately want our situation to be resolved.  We want resolution.  But God unfolds the plot in his own time.”

If you’re looking for a pastor to do your wedding, let me know… I would love to be a part of the story. 

What is the next chapter in your story?  Check out the bride and grooms story below:

Nicole & Steven concept video from Elysium Productions on Vimeo.

It’s ironic that I, the direct, to the point, I-don’t-have-time-for-this, person that am talking about customer service.  I realized it is a big value to me and to most people, we just don’t always know it.  So I came to the conclusion that there are three experiences we can have when it comes to customer service.

First experience: bad customer service (EG: my dentist).  Not returning phone calls or emails, misplacing your file and chart, charging you more, taking longer than they told you is the kind of poor business model I’m referring to. In some cases we would be willing to overlook these things if we got treated exceptionally well. But when the company or representative is rude, short, and disorganized, defines bad customer service.

Second experience: the average non-eventful experience.  It is neither good nor bad.  It just happens.  The only problem with this is not being positive about the experience is almost a negative experience; we may not tell as many people.  “It was ok,” doesn’t sell me on a business or inspire me to check it out. This could maybe have been turned into a positive experience with great customer service.  How you are treated makes a huge difference, sometimes even enough to overcome lack of organization

Third experience: positive experience.  Nordstrom is infamous for this!  We can name all the places and people that have given us great customer service.  We ask for servers by name because of how great their service was.  (Fortunately, I will not be sending my dentists information to any of you!)

Again, I am not the one who should be talking about customer service. I can sometimes be moody and very often fall into the Efficient German task mode (as my wife currently is trying to cuddle and give hugs and I am trying to write this blog!). 

Here is my question:  What kind of customer service do you provide to those you encounter in life? 

P.S. I would love to hear all the stories of good and bad customer service… do share!

Details featured on Style Me Pretty

I’ve been talking to Bianca about “oneness” and doing things together. Since it’s Friday and oneness is the word I’m thinking about, I decide to do a post with B. Here’s a final wedding recap. Here’s what she said:

Ok, ok, so this vlog really isn’t a standard Friday vlog about theology, doxology, or eschatology. But it’s video and it’s on my blog and so I’ll call it a vlog [video + blog = vlog]. Besides, wedding stuff is waaaaaay cooler than I ever could ever be.

Thanks to Julie Hill and Jasmine The-Best-Sister-Evah, our wedding is featured on Style Me Pretty, thee premier wedding blog [as stated by Jasmine]!!! There are details of the ceremony and reception posted on their site we couldn’t post earlier and this schnazzy little diddy done by Elysium Productions. Check out the video below!

Check out the link to Style Me Pretty for the full video, detail photos, and writeup!

Bianca & Matt Highlights from Elysium Productions on Vimeo.