Why Joplin Matters

Tag Archive - ministry

Why Joplin Matters

May 25, 2011 in church, Community, My Story, Service with 9 Comments

I was born in Tyler, Texas, but we moved to Joplin, Missouri before I was turned 1 and spent the next 26 years there. Make no mistake about it, I am from Joplin, Missouri.

I grew up in Joplin. I learned lots of ropes in Joplin. I got my foundation in Joplin. I went to 3 area schools there. I have a mother, brother, grandfather, aunts, uncles and cousins that live there. Some of my best friends live there.

The first several chapters of my story were written in Joplin. I didn’t start in Nashville. Much of how my life has evolved and the person I have become have strong ties to the 26 years I was a part of the local community of Joplin, Missouri.

Pastor Barbie… One Year Later

April 13, 2011 in Community, Faith, Leadership, My Story with 0 Comments

One year ago today, I wrote a blog post called “Pastor Barbie & Pulpit Culture“. It was an analogy and observation of having grown up in church, where I was in my life and how thankful I was to have encountered Cross Point Church and the culture there. It ended up being the 3rd most popular post on my blog of 2010.

At that time, I had absolutely no idea that 5 months later I would actually be on staff at Cross Point and have the hands-on opportunity to help create and shape the very culture that impacted me so much when I first came to Cross Point in January of 2010.

I now get to talk to people every single week, sharing my story and about Cross Point’s very brave and courageous culture that has reshaped how I see the role of the church. More than that, I get to look in their eyes, see it connect and invest in and be a part of their story much in the same way others were for me a year ago. Looking back over the past year in that context is extremely humbling and I have nothing but gratitude for the journey.

That’s all I have to say today. I just wanted to share that and, if you haven’t read it before, give you a chance to read Pastor Barbie & Pulpit Culture.

I Refuse

October 18, 2010 in Faith, Service with 2 Comments

I read a Rick Warren quote a couple weeks ago that I haven’t been able to escape ever since.

The last thing many believers need to go to is another Bible study. They already know far more than they’re putting into practice.

Dang.

Reading that really challenged me. Its often easy for me to think that learning more about what Jesus said gets me off the hook for having to actually walk out and do what Jesus said do and be who Jesus said to be. Personally, I grew up in a church environment that knew all about “church” and all kinds of doctrine and could quote you half the Bible, but never really did anything with it but try hard to be “holy” and come back to church.

I’m currently reading John Ortberg‘s book The Me I Want To Be and he made a statement in it that really challenged me.

Often, people in the Gospels who got in the most trouble with Jesus were the ones thought they were working hardest on their spiritual life. They were trying so hard to be good that they could not stop thinking about how hard they were trying, and that got in the way of their loving other people.

That Jesus just spent time with the oppressed, dejected and broken isn’t what set Him apart. It was that He LOVED them. To be honest, anyone can serve a meal to a homeless person. You don’t have to believe in Jesus to serve the oppressed. But as followers of Christ, what should make us different than everyone else doing what we’re doing is who we are and how that filters how and why we do what we do.

Last night at Stretch, we talked about how as much as we love how the group has grown and we’ve been able to mobilize a lot of people to service and action, ultimately we’re doing a disservice if we only get people to serve a meal to a homeless person but don’t challenge them to LOVE that homeless person, look them in the eye, remember their name and dignify their humanity the way Jesus would have.

We’re about to dig into David Platt’s book “Radical” together and challenge each other to go deeper into community and service, and allow ourselves to be uncomfortable to a degree that we begin to understand what it means to live like Jesus tells us to.

Josh Wilson has a great new song called “I Refuse”. In this video, he talks about how he was praying for the people affected by the Nashville flood earlier this year, and praying for people to step up and come help. But then he wondered if it was possible for him to be hiding behind his prayer and using it as a defense and a cop-out to actually doing something himself. I was really moved by that and thought it was a perfect compliment to how all this fits together. We showed the video at Stretch last night and begin to challenge people with the awareness of the great needs that exist all around them and ask the hard question…

Will you refuse to do nothing?

Pastor Barbie & Pulpit Culture

April 13, 2010 in Faith, Leadership, My Story with 55 Comments

I was asked by Wes to share my story with our community group Sunday night. It’s been awhile since I’ve done any sort of public speaking and although I think I stumbled through it a little, I feel it went pretty well.

After leaving, I sent a tweet saying “Blogging about my story is one thing, sharing it in front of 40 people in my community group is another. Grateful for this journey”. I got a reply from Makeda saying “you sharing your story so courageously is giving others permission to be courageous too so keep telling it.”

Have you ever been around someone who is always full of fear, and before you knew it you find yourself just feeling fearful out of the blue? What about someone who is just bursting at the seams with faith? I don’t care how discouraged you may be, you can’t be around that kind of person long without your faith being built. And what about courage? If you spend much time in the company of a courageous person it makes you feel brave and courageous.

Fear begets fear.

Faith begets faith.

Courage begets courage.

I’d like to introduce you to Pastor Barbie, however I have a feeling she needs no introduction. In fact, if you’re like me you have been well acquainted with Pastor Barbie for a very, very long time. I’m really not interested in discussing the theology of the Biblical justification or legitimacy of Barbie’s pastorate or whether or not she should wear make-up, cover her head when she prays or speak in tongues when non-believers are present in the service. Just flow with the metaphor here…

Pastor Barbie doesn’t cuss, gossip and covets neither her neighbor’s livestock nor flat-screen HD television. Pastor Barbie doesn’t speed, listen to secular music and never leaves home without her Bible. Pastor Barbie doesn’t struggle with porn, has never had an abortion and her husband, Co-Pastor Ken, is the first and only man she kissed, but not until they said “I do,” of course. Pastor Barbie doesn’t drink, chew or run with those who do. Pastor Barbie has never doubted, always trusted and rarely wondered.

In fact, she’s kind of… perfect. You know Pastor Barbie.

Pastor Barbie has never done ANYTHING wrong, let alone thought about it. She walks right, spits white and is a pristine model of salvation and shining beacon of the light of Jesus to every one of the perfect plastic people in her church. Except… *GASP*… the perfect plastic people in her church aren’t really perfect or plastic. In fact, they are very real, have very real struggles, fight very real battles each and every day and have doubts and questions. And there, ladies and gentlemen, is where we have a conflict.

You see, when Pastor Barbie’s congregation looks at her, they believe they see what faith should look like. But they are conflicted, so they struggle, wrestle and feel defeated, confident that something must be wrong with them because, after all, “if Pastor Barbie isn’t struggling, why am I?” There is a disconnect between what they see and what they feel, so they ignore what they feel and the great masquerade deepens in their quest to one day be as “spiritual” as Pastor Barbie.

I grew up in a “Pastor Barbie” setting where no one ever confessed or admitted to struggling with ANYTHING, especially anyone in any kind of leadership role. Never. Ever. This created an environment where we would jump through all kinds of religious hoops and be really good at “church”, but really suck at life.

“Pastor Barbie” churches present a pretense-soaked, dysfunctional and unrealistic PULPIT CULTURE that, in turn, creates and nurtures an equally, if not more so, pretense-soaked, dysfunctional and unrealistic PEW CULTURE.

I’ve been thinking about the whole pulpit culture/pew culture concept lately, and observing the huge difference between what I have spent much of my life accustomed to compared with what I am experiencing at Cross Point Church, where I now attend.

Prior to coming to Cross Point, I had never been part of a church where such a radical and courageous transparency was the norm and so much a part of that church’s DNA. Earlier this year, when speaking about Freedom From Sexual Sin, Pete Wilson stood in the pulpit and said “there is no other sin in my life that has made me feel more more shameful, more beat up and more destroyed than sexual sin. Nothing.”… and I about fell out of my seat. Are you kidding me?!?! I can count on one finger the times when I have heard a pastor be so real and vulnerable, and this was it. It really struck me and I couldn’t help but wonder, “why is this the exception?!?!”

In dramatic contrast to “Pastor Barbie” churches, Cross Point has created an honest, real-life and transformational PULPIT CULTURE which, in turn, creates and nurtures an equally, if not more so, honest, real-life and transformational PEW CULTURE.

The people you lead are a mirror and the PEW CULTURE at your church or organization is quite often a direct reflection of the PULPIT CULTURE shaped by the leadership.

There is something wildly contagious about the humbly transparent yet courageous spirit of a Pete Wilson… or a Justin Davis to so openly share the testimony about his affair and God’s redemption and restoration of his family… or a Blake Bergstrom being so boldly, unpredictably, uniquely and unashamedly “Blake”… that empowers people to embrace that same courage, step forward and say “here’s my story.” I’m not sure that Sheila, the former crackhead prostitute, would feel welcome at Pastor Barbie’s church.

Whether intentionally or unintentionally, they have created a PULPIT CULTURE that does not claim to be perfect, but is as close a reflection of what I believe to be the heart of the Father than anything I’ve ever encountered.

There is something about giving people permission to be broken that brings healing.

That. Rocks. Me.

…and it scares the hell out of the enemy of our souls!

I am so grateful to God for leading me to Cross Point and for the genuine community I have discovered there. I am encouraged by each limp that I see and seeing the scars is showing me hope. It is the fellowship of the redeemed, restored and redefined… and it is healing my heart. Cross Point truly is a place where “everybody’s welcome, nobody’s perfect and anything is possible”… and for the first time in my life, I truly believe that.