Duluth was "just fine". YAY!!!!

Ahh... April in Minnesota...

I’m sitting before a toasty fire in the home I grew up in. Duluth, MN sits under gray skies and a heavy blanket of snow here at the end of April. True story. I’m here for a missionary conference at the church I grew up in. In the past, it was tough returning to the religious institution I grew up in. So many familiar smells, memories of sleeping in the pews, and a lot of familiar faces. So many things look the same. Just as I remember them. But I’ve changed.

I’ve come full circle. Now instead of doodling in the pews, feeling mildly bored, listening to preachers and music leaders… I WAS the preacher (twice!)…. AND the music leader.

Music is comfortable. Preaching is not. See, I have a specific image of what a preacher says and looks like and does; how he grins and tells fishing jokes and then quickly becomes really serious and theological… how he can drive home his message in three easy points with clever mnemonics. I’m not that person. Never will be. Uninterested or incapable? I’m really not sure.

On the LAST flight, Levi slept
sitting up with his seatbelt on.
So awesome!

So I thought I might share my own story and be real about my own growing edge and why I believe the stuff I do about God. So looking out at a couple hundred wrinkled faces etched so well into my memory, I talked about love… Love as the only valid reason and motivation for any kind of Christian missionary effort. Love that is first of all received on an ongoing basis from the wildly loving God that Christians are crazy enough to call “Father”. And then, love that is contagiously hospitable to those outside our little groups and religious enclaves. Love that doesn’t care about talking anyone into anything. Love whose own agenda is agenda enough. Just love.

I think it went well. At that’s what my mom says. (Thanks mom.) To be honest, I think the response from the adults was a touch on the tepid side. Plenty of “nice job’s” but not a ton of specific feedback. The response from the high school kids however was bubbly and energetic. “We loved what you said! You were so real and we totally understood everything. It was so refreshing.” Well, I think that’s a good sign. When the kids are excited and the adults just kinda shrug… I’ll take that any day.

Some time ago a person whose instinct I trust implicitly suggested I could be a pastor. The thought was laughable at the time as I envisioned myself stuttering my way through a sermon full of flopping jokes and over-serious idealism. But as I drove away from Duluth yesterday thinking about the sermon, I was surprised by an internal change. I wasn’t deeply enamored of myself. And I didn’t despair that I was a failure either. I genuinely think I did… just fine. The familiar pride/loathing pendulum did not swing so wide this time.

And that for me is a HUGE sign of growth.

I realized that, sure, I could be a pastor, a preacher, whatever. I could passably lead 10 or 10,000 people if God led me there. I would just be a really different kind of pastor. I would be a pastor who cared about authenticity over polish, who led by sharing my journey, who didn’t care much about exegetical preaching, or running tight ships, or big giving campaigns for the next big thing. I would just have to be myself. And if I could do that, I think I’d do a fine job. Not spectacular, but fine.

One of the kindest things anyone ever said to me was “you did fine.”

The same guy who told me I could be a pastor took me to Houston a few years ago, stood me in front of a room full of high-powered spiritual leaders, authors, and theologians and told me to do something that, well, pushed me a tad outside my comfort zone: listen to God on their behalf and tell them what I heard.

When I wasn’t gagging on my own esophagus I choked out a few words I thought God was saying for certain strangers. Some of it was probably legit. Some of it probably wasn’t. And when we piled into the van, my pastor/torturer turned to me, gave me a tepid look, and said, “you did fine.” Deep sigh of relief. I had done “fine.”

Maybe we do each other a disservice when we give shotgun compliments. “You were amazing! You have nothing to worry about. You’re so special, talented, attractive, good…” I love to give and receive encouragement but only when it’s thoughtful and not pandering. Because at the end of the day, I don’t need to be special, uniquely talented, wonderful, the cream of the crop. I just need to be acceptable; to God and to myself. I need to be loved not because I’m amazing but because I’m human and God chose me “just because.” I don’t need to be great. I just need to be “fine.”

Slowly but surely, I see myself progressing from stupendous/horrendous toward just fine and that encourages me a lot.