Coming Alive

I love snow.  It’s been a good couple of weeks for me here recently.  The year that Kristan and I got married it snowed pretty good here in Greensboro, but sadly we didn’t live anywhere near big hills to use our brand new sleds.  Our friend Hal, however, had just bought an Xterra.

He and Cassi came over to our apartment to play games and hang out the night that it snowed the most.  Being from Houston I have only had a couple of opportunities to really enjoy snow so I was lamenting the waste of being closed inside. 

Then we had an idea. 

Hal and I tied our brand new sleds to the back of his Xterra and he dragged Cassi and I around the parking lot for a while.  I have no idea why this is such a memorable moment for me.  Possibly b/c of who it was shared with or maybe it’s b/c it was really funny watching Cassi go flying underneath a parked car. 

I have read somewhere that when we reminisce about our lives it’s surprising the moments that stick out in our memories.  Of course weddings, birth of children, etc are there but some of the most meaningful events are seemingly trivial at the time. 

This is one of those memories – seems so trivial, but years later I “feel” that there was something significant going on.

There really isn’t that much to this one…

A few years ago I started a church.  There was a little bit of early adversity (not near as much as many other church planter’s experience).  We worked and prepared for about a year & then “launched” on March 2nd a couple of years ago.

That first Sunday we had a lot of people there.  Jason Bunch was our worship pastor at the time and he knocked it out of the park.  My message was on one of my favorite passages in the NT – Matthew 8 – where Jesus heals the leper.

It could not have gone any better, and I remember realizing that fact about halfway through my message.

The #14 moment on my countdown was that launch Sunday – the feeling of accomplishment, the culmination of hard work, and the joy of pursuing ministry with some of the closest friends in my life.

Here are some links to related posts if you would like -

The first thing I heard when I announced plans to plant

The new thing

Thoughts from 6 months in

Take a gamble

I write about church planting a lot.

The question:  What three famous people would you like to meet?
The answer: Derek Webb, Donald Miller, & Rob Bell (in that order)

I met my #1 famous guy.  Derek Webb is…Awesome – Inspiring – Challenging – Short

Right before his concert in Charlotte a few years ago I went to the bathroom (as I do 5-7 times a day).  This particular trip to the restroom involved a bit of exploration since I was in unfamiliar territory (Warehouse 242 in Charlotte).  Eventually I turn a corner and standing next to a men’s room is this short, awesome bald guy with his back to me.  It’s kind of weird b/c he is facing the corner like he has been put in time out or something.  Clearly he was waiting for someone to come out, but didn’t want to talk with people – which was understandable since his set was starting in like 5 minutes.

Anyway, I stand there politely behind him for a minute.  Then a larger guy comes from the men’s room and DWebb enters, leaving me alone to think of what I should say, if anything, when he comes out.

I mean, yea its awkward to talk to someone right after they come out of the bathroom (do I shake his hand if he offers it?  What if he doesn’t wash – I would know).  He is, after all, the top guy on my list of people I want to meet.  What if this is my only chance?  How do you break the ice…what do you say?

So, after about a minute he comes out (obviously #1) with a slightly embarrassed look on his face and says -

“I didn’t do what you are about to smell”

Yep.  Derek Webb completely just threw one of his fans under the “who stunk up the men’s room bus”

The worst part was my reply…

“Me neither”

Wow.  “Me neither”?  Under what possible circumstances could he possibly have blamed ME for that?  Anyway, the best part was that he laughed it off like a joke…not awkward stupidity.

It turned out that after the concert I was able to meet him more formally.  He remembered me as the “not stinky” guy and I was able to tell him of my internal struggle of deciding whether or not it was appropriate to request him to play “The Truth” (my favorite DWebb song) when he came out.  He told me I should have and that next time I come see him to hunt him down beforehand and ask him to play it.  Very cool.

Josh and I asked him if he wanted to come grab coffee with us.  He said he had to get home to his wife (Sandra McCracken) who wasn’t able to make the trip, but he would take us up on it next time (probably not).

I’m sure people have much better famous person encounters than this one, but this story comes in at #15 on my countdown b/c of the mixture of spiritual significance, bathroom humor, and general niceness of Derek Webb.

If you would like to read about the time I met my #2 guy on the list click here.

This is a very good story.  I really hope it’s not a “you had to be there” kind of thing.  Since I am not sure that I have permission to share all the details of this story from the people involved I will use a fake name for the other individual…

See.  This is off to a really good start

I have a friend…let’s call him…Pal.

Pal and I have been really good friends for almost a decade now.  Although I don’t remember exactly how we became good friends I like to think this story is a cornerstone of our friendships foundation.

One day Pal and I went to Bear Rock in the Friendly Center.  As we were discussing our lack of plans for that evening Pal mentions to me that there were a couple of girls sitting behind me who kept glancing over.

As I pulled the ol’ “stretch and sneak a peek” I noticed that they happened to be pretty good looking too.  This fact wasn’t lost on Pal.

Now, at this time Pal and I didn’t really know each other too well.  One could easily get away with…pretending.  So, I pretended to be one of those guys who can/does just walk up to random girls and ask them if they want to hang out.  To this day I can’t believe my desire to impress a DUDE caused me to take a bigger gamble than I would make to impress a GIRL.

Anyway, I tell Pal to come on…and off we go – right up to the girls.  They look up at us and I say something (which I am sure was incredibly witty and charming).  I introduce Pal to them and ask their names.  Then we tell them that later we have plans (which we didn’t) to do something fun and they should give us a call if they want to hang out.

To my surprise they politely feigned interest.

This is where the story gets good…

We aren’t 5 feet away from the girls table when Pal starts walking with a skip in his step and talking a mile a minute (Pal generally keeps himself pretty under control).

“I can’t believe we just did that!” Pal said,  ”I have never done anything like that before!  That was so amazing…”

CRASH!

Outside of Bear Rock in the Friendly Center is a big, solid wood sign advertising the latest cup of soup.  The sign is about 5 feet tall and 60 lbs. at least.  Pal, as excited as he was, wasn’t watching where he was walking and plowed right into that sign.

I hear the noise and I turn around to have the perfect view of Pal trying to catch the sign as it is falling over.  It crashes to the ground and, in perfect storybook fashion, I see behind Pal the two girls inside Bear Rock turning around to see what the commotion was.

“Pal” I yell jokingly, “Run away!”

Pal takes off for about 5 feet.  Then, because Pal is a nice guy, he returns to the fallen sign and sets it upright…right in front of the girls.

This is the account of 1/2 of the event.  The rest of the story is full of hope, and of tragedy…and is property of Pal and Pal alone.  This part of the story, due to the significance it has as the beginning of a friendship, is the 16th best moment of my 20’s & possibly the funniest.

I’m a competitive guy.  Losing sucks.  5 years of losing really sucks.  5 years of almost winning, coming as close to winning as possible before ultimately losing, is the worst.

That’s why, coming in at #17 on my countdown of top 20 moments of my 20’s is the day I won my fantasy football keeper league.

Before this past FF championship I had:

Won 3 fantasy baseball championships in a row
Won 2 of 3 fantasy basketball championships
Won 20 more fantasy football regular season games than any other team in my league
Come in 2nd place in our fantasy football league 3 of the 4 previous years

The only thing I hadn’t been able to win in any fantasy league was the most significant game (apologies to baseball/basketball but football is the BIG one)

So, this past year with the lineup listed below I managed to defeat Mike Astuto (who made it to the championship game his rookie season in our league).  It came at a great price though – I traded away every draft pick I have for the first 6 rounds of next year.  The price of winning this year was at least 2 years of rebuilding.  Totally worth it!

My Lineup:

QB: Aaron Rodgers
WR: Marques Colston
WR: Michael Crabtree (I sat R. Wayne b/c he was playing Revis that week)
RB: Adrian Peterson
RB: Ray Rice
TE: Antonio Gates

Before realizing that my heart was in vocational ministry I entertained the notion of being a writer.  My major at UNCG was English, and I spent my free time reading Seamus Heaney, Donald Hall, and Walt Whitman.  From early on I stayed awake late at night in my dorm writing – usually not going to bed unless I wrote a first draft of at least 3 poems.  By the time I realized I wasn’t going to be a poet I amassed a collection of well over 1000 completed poems (unfortunately, most of them are terrible).

Throughout my sophomore year, however, I really focused my energy on trying to get something published.  This was before I knew how bad I was.

During that time I had a really good friend, Danielle, who really pushed me to keep with it even when I wouldn’t hear back from publications that I had submitted my stuff to.  Had she not been in my life at the time I probably wouldn’t have the #18 moment on my countdown.

#18 is the day I received the letter from a minor magazine publication in New England area saying they were going to use my poem.  It was such a small deal that they didn’t even send me a free copy.  However, just the knowledge that my words made it out there was enough to really wet my appetite for more – to this day I have a huge desire to write.

That feeling of accomplishment when someone says “Yes” is addicting.

In 2006 I was working as a college pastor at a church here in Greensboro.  For a couple of years we had been doing a mid-week service for students, but it was largely unremarkable.  It was just like every other campus ministry mid-week event.

Then, the summer before the 2006-2007 school year I had an idea.

I wanted to create an experiential worship gathering – something that went beyond a simple music set and message and engaged people in multiple, nontraditional ways.  The very first “Element” service was one of the most memorable moments of my life.

We gutted the sanctuary of chairs so we would have space to move.  In the middle of the floor we assembled a 12 foot cross out of those little circle candles (I think they are called tea lights).  At each point of the cross we had a station set up to guide people in prayer for some part of the world.

Throughout the room we had other stations set up – one for communion, another for journaling, yet another for reading well-known books like “The Imitation of Christ” or “Desiring God”.  People could walk in and roam around, connecting with God in multiple different ways. 

The night turned interesting about an hour before the service.  It was August & we arrived to find that the air conditioner had broken.  The room felt like 90-something degrees.  So, instead of apologizing, we incorporated it into the theme.  We had a bunch of water bottles so we scattered them throughout the room.  As people entered we instructed them to meditate on their “thirst” for God.  To think of their relationship with Him as like our longing for refreshment in the hot sun.  Totally off the cuff, but it ended up being really meaningful for a lot of people.

To this day I think the hardest part of the timing of our church plant was leaving the “Element” worship gathering.  We could have really done some special stuff.  I still have a notebook full of ideas that I wanted to try.  Oh well, the rarity of the experience serves to elevate it’s value to me.

As much as I hate to admit it I must say, I love New York City (especially in December).  A couple of years ago Kristan and I had the opportunity to visit our good friend Mary Helen who was working there as a traveling nurse.  It is possible that the best part of this trip was watching Kristan stare out the window of the airplane as we flew into the city.

She looked so excited.  So child-like.  Her expression captured everything we love about Christmas.

Mary Helen lived a couple of blocks from the northeast part of Central Park.  The first thing Kris and I did was walk through the park and into downtown.  Central Park is such a contradiction – peaceful, friendly, and relatively quiet – everything that NYC is not.  I very much wanted to go ice skating, but it was really expensive and I was having such a good time with my bride that I was perfectly satisfied just walking the streets.

And walk we did.

We hit trump tower, the Empire State Building (MH joined us for this), a hilarious show called Altar Boys, and Times Square.

The criticism of NYC often centers around how crowded/busy it is.  I think what made this trip so special for me is the whole thing felt like an extended date night with Kristan (with Mary Helen tagging along for a lot of it – of course, for a free place to stay in the city she earned it).  For us, it felt like the city was ours for 3 days.

Soundtrack to the moment: “Gamble Everything for Love” – Ben Lee