In a new church (and established ones, too), there are moments when the organism of the local church or the individuals we’re given stewardship of need to be allowed to work some things out on their own–there are teachable moments and developmental opportunities that would be stifled by too swift a rescue or intervention.
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- One. Proud. Papa.
I can’t remember the last time I left my house without some spot of baby puke somewhere on my person. (That’s a lie. I actually can remember: it was the day I left the apartment to bring Jubilee home from the hospital.) Each morning I carefully examine my clothing, take the kid (who has been carefully secured into her car seat) to the car, drive to the sitter’s place, and arrive at our destination only to discover that somehow between the ‘close examination’ and ‘arrival at our destination’ stages of the day, new puke is contaminating some article of my clothing.
But I’ve also discovered how understanding people are: the consensus seems to be, “You’re the parent of an infant. Infants puke. Wear it as a badge of honor; they’re only this young once.” I’m more worried about the goo on my shirt than anybody else is, and they see it as happy evidence that I’m a new dad.
The same has been with church planting (and any Kingdom ministry, really)–we’re dealing with a lot of mess: the pukey mess of broken lives, hurting communities, addiction, and an enemy hell-bent on killing, stealing, destroying… Loving people is messy. And it’s okay to have some of the evidence of loving people on you.
I’m not saying we pursue contamination by the world; in fact, we’re reminded that though we are those set apart for a new Kingdom, we still journey here. As strangers and foreigners undefiled, we are to live out the hope we have (cf. James 1:27). So the question I’m asking myself is this: what happy evidence do I carry with me that I’m hanging out with people in the midst of their mess? Do I view each day as a new opportunity to take part in someone else’s life (as I do with my kid) and journey with them?
It is a high calling and real joy to do life together with others. It may be messy (and more than messy, it will be painful to ‘do life together’), but we see the mess as part of what we get to do.
courtesy of gracobaby/flickr
Did you know your kid can choke to death on its own spit-up?
We were informed of this as we were preparing to leave the hospital with Jubilee, “Keep an eye on her for any signs of distress,” the nurse reminded us as she ushered us out the door, “and don’t forget, she’ll spit-up more than you think she should.”
Words to live by.
For the first few weeks of Jubilee’s life, we were keenly aware of how fragile her existence was: the basics of supporting her head, feeding every half hour, watching for signs of infection, counting the ratio of wet to dirty diapers and their correlation to ounces of milk and formula ingested all kept the sensitivity of our little girl’s life in constant focus. In fact, on her first night home with the baby, Sarah was almost certain she had permanently ruined the kid (a story for another time) and woke me in a “Honey I Broke The Baby” panic.
This may be news to some (I was surprised by it, anyway), but newborns are totally dependent on their parents for everything.
EVERYTHING.
Including not choking on their own saliva at times.
In the same way, it also doesn’t take much to de-rail a new church. There’s a lot of work and attention required to make sure agenda harmony remains intact, financial mis-steps don’t keep things from getting off the ground, tired leadership doesn’t take their eyes of the prize, and that the schemes of the enemy are guarded against — that some seemingly inconsequential thing doesn’t scuttle the work.
Really, there are moments when you’re afraid to take your eye off the thing because you don’t know what small thing will make it choke.
It isn’t glamorous. It isn’t always exciting. But it’s important. And it reminds you that as much as you try to be careful, vigilant, and aware, you aren’t the Sustainer of life… just a steward of it… and relying on Christ’s ability to uphold all things “by the word and might of his power” is most important of all.
Helping a new kid or new local church navigate beyond this ‘could-crash-at-any-time’ stage does take active, loving vigilance, but the Creator’s care far exceeds your own, and you can choose to be overwhelmed by it all or rest in his faithfulness.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go use a snot sucker on Jubilee–at almost seven months, she still can’t even blow her own nose.
courtesy of Alain Limoges/Flickr
They warned us it would happen. It was almost guaranteed.
In our birthing classes, those of us who were active as ‘support people’ were given instruction on how to help an in-labor mom move beyond that point in the labor/delivery of a baby when she wants to quit. The gist was that it gets too hard, too exhausting, too much for mom to keep going and she will become convinced that the birth can progress no further.
I know my wife wanted to quit at points, but the funny thing about delivering a baby is it’s kind of hard to stop part way… I can’t blame her for wanting to stop; while I don’t have first-hand experience, giving birth sure looked like a lot of work (something about why it’s called ‘labor’). After about three and a half hours of pushing (and many more hours of hard labor) in the process with our daughter, my wife felt like she couldn’t do it any more. But she had to. At that time she needed someone, a ‘support person,’ to help assure her she could do it.
That was my whole job in the process of labor and delivery: being a ‘support’ person. I existed to support and encourage–fail in those things and I had no reason to be there. Sarah was doing the hard work of labor. The nurse was doing all the medical stuff. The doctor showed up every now and again to sound all doctor-y. And I supported.
There are times during the church planting process (and ministry and life in general) when you will want to quit…
when everything tells you it’s too hard, too exhausting, too much to keep going. In those moments you need someone in your corner with a different perspective; someone not overwhelmed with pain and exhaustion, someone who isn’t there in a technical capacity, someone who isn’t a pro, but someone who can remind you that you were made for this and that the place you’re in where you feel the need to quit is a natural place to be–they’ll tell you to keep pressing on and the One who called you to this has prepared you for this and will be faithful.
As a super-experienced (we’ve been doing this for a year and a half, after all) church planter now in the process of transition, and as an uber-successful parent (Jubilee has survived the past six and a half months with us) I felt it was high time we share some of the interesting lessons and correlations that church planting and parenting seem to have in common.
The posts that will follow in this “Parenting & Church Planting” series will capitalize on the wealth of successful experience we have gained and draw exciting conclusions based on the correlations between being stewards of new kid and stewards of a new church.
The series, beginning tomorrow, is a bit tongue-in-cheek… but you just might find the teensiest bit of usable insight, so stay tuned!
