The real me makes me happy!
Last weekend I was at a wedding in Atlanta. I had a fabulous time enjoying the company of friends and new friends, with activities galore and conversation most of which started out light hearted and eventually evolved into the point where we could be real with one another. This happens when you spend a significant amount of time with someone with whom you enjoy spending a significant amount of time.
At the end of my time away I talked to Carie on the phone and we talked for a while I was waiting for some transportation to move me toward Worcester. Carie, always being sensitive to the way I feel and act, mentioned that I sounded really happy. I told her that I was, and for two reasons. First of all I couldn’t wait to return to my amazing wife. She completes me in every way, and I am always able to be the real me when I’m with her. Second, during the weekend I was able to completely be the real me, in community with a group of guys who accepted the person I am.
Something I’m pondering this week is how to create this type of community outside of a special weekend, retreat, or organized activity. At our suburban churches in America we get all excited about that weekend away from everything. That Promise Keepers or Women of Faith event that will definitely take us to the next level, and for what? So that we can go back to our caged in lives of plastic smiley faces and non authentic words, pretending that we don’t have problems, opinions, or a desire to figure out what it’s all about? Our world won’t be changed until we take the transforming power of God away from the occasional weekend away and move it into the “normal every day life”.
So at Fellowship that’s what we’re trying to find out – how to have authentic community in a world and a culture where we’re trained to be – I’m sorry – to look perfect. So that at the end of every week I can come home from work or basketball or whatever it is I might be doing with my time and my wife can say, “Wow, you’re happy”. And I can respond,
10 years and counting
On Sunday Fellowship Church in Holden celebrated my 10 years of being a pastor in their organization. It was such a blast, and I felt so humbled to be able to work on a regular basis with people as wonderful as the people here in this church. It’s been a crazy ten years, I have a lot more gray hair, but I love it today just as much and more as I loved it my first week here on May 30, 1999.
I began preaching on Sunday morning when Steve, our executive pastor interrupted me, and said that the team was hijacking the service and we had a new guest speaker, and as he said this, an SUV pulled up from the parking lot (it was an outdoor service) and in it was my dad, my sister, and her fiance rolling in.
For the next hour, people read letters and my dad preached and it was just an amazing service! So I wanted to say thank you to the people of Fellowship Church over the last 10 years for being so incredible, for loving Carie and I, and for making it so wonderful and easy for me to love what I do.
Old people in Church
I love the elderly. I’ll leave what age group specifically I’m referring to your imagination, but everyone has a concept of the elderly, so just know that I love them. Because I pastor a young congregation in Massachusetts, where we play rock music and dress how we want, it might be easy to assume I’m pretty one generational. But I think we, the body of Christ, need the experience and life wisdom of an older generation to guide us through the decisions and life strategies that we may or may not be ready for.
The month I moved into the lead pastor position @ Fellowship, I overheard an older lady who had left our church the year before for a more “conservative, older congregation” tell someone, “I think Fellowship Church is a great church for young people.” There are two issues here:
1. It’s incredibly hard to know when to step out of certain roles in a church to give younger people opportunities to serve and lead.
2. Churches need to find ways to utilize an older generation in a mentoring capacity, to make benefit the glorious Kingdom of God.
Whether you’re young or old, God has a place for you in His kingdom and has given you gifts to use for His glory. Those gifts may evolve over time, but they will never run dry. So how do we maintain success for a long time and utilize everyone’s gifts?
Servolution, Easter, and a crazy week
I haven’t posted in a while. Last week was crazy busy, and I wanted to share some of that busyness with you!
A Long Trip through Fellowship
Pam and her sons Brandon and Jimmy (not shown here) have been a vital part of Fellowship for 10years now
Pam Watson has been around Fellowship Church longer than almost everyone here except for one other member. She has a heart for God that has stretched back some 25 years ago when she became a follower of Christ in Eastern Pennsylvania. Besides a brief stint living back in PA in 2002, Pam has been proud to call Massachusetts her home forover 10 years now, and Fellowship Church her home church
Pam says, “The one thing that keeps me coming back to FC are the people. When one member hurts, the rest of us hurt too. When a need is presented, those that can lend a hand, money, or their heart do so without any questions being asked. The only motive is to show people that we at FC are real and practice what is preached. People that reach out to others at FC are never in competition with each other….they serve because HE served and they team together to make what needs to happen, happen.”
Pam is no stranger to serving either. She has almost done every ministry possible during her time at the FC, including cleaning, children’s ministry, administrative duties, and Sunday guest services. Currently she leads a small group every other Tuesday for older members of Fellowship and is a part of a Thursday small each week.
One of the funniest things Pam has seen at Fellowship Church was the video on the topic of love produced by the FC production team. Here it is:
As far as the person who has influenced her the most: (This was not coerced, I swear!) “Ok now for the person that I have watched grow since I have been a member at FC. That person would be our Sr Pastor, Marty Holman. Ten years ago he came to this church as a young man who simply had a desire to serve the Lord. He was our worship leader and was the person in charge of doing all that was needed to be done in the church building. Ten years later he has become our Sr. Pastor, a husband and a man that still has a desire to serve the Lord but does so now seeking God’s face continually and wanting nothing more than to please his God by encouraging his sheep to grow in their relationship with each other and their Savior. He has always loved people….but has had to balance his desire to fellowship with preparing messages and searching the scripture to teach all of us what is TRUE in God’s word versus what tradition teaches.”
Actually, Pam has been a huge influence in my life, and people like Pam, are the reason why Fellowship Church continues to follow God’s vision even years later!
A Shared Purpose
As a church, we are constantly striving to come together to accomplish our mission of leading people in Central Massachusetts into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. Every year, month, week,and day we work towards this goal as a collection of broken people who have been forgiven by the sacrifice of Jesus.
You wouldn’t believe (or maybe you would) how difficult it is to keep this mission THE focus for our church.
There are numerous roads we could follow as a group of people. We could focus on obedience or social justice, the color of the carpet or the volume of the band, but we choose not to, because we have our mission, our shared purpose, and we choose instead to share this purpose.
There’s nothing wrong with these things. Obedience and social justice are surely fruits of our surrender to this God-man I’ve just mentioned, and sometimes we have to pick the color of the carpet or change the volume of the band in a room, but they are not the focus.
No, if you attend Fellowship Church, I want you to know that we have a shared purpose, and it always points to connecting people and leading them into a growing relationship with Jesus.
Everything we do. Everything we accomplish as a church should focus on this mission. Sometimes the road seems long and tough, but together, we can become the church God wants us to be. So internally, please answer this question with me:
Who am I connecting? Who am I leading?
Thanks for reading my blog.
