I’ve written in the past about some of the interesting relational things about facebook. And now…another one.

I’m writing this on the day where I write about relationships with enemies, but that might or might not be extreme for the topic today.  You see, one thing that is fascinating about Facebook is the ability to be friends again with people you’ve been around in days gone by, in different eras of your life.  This is great in one sense, because I love seeing friends I haven’t seen in a while.  In another though, we must meet up with the realization that there is a reason we are no longer in that season of our life.

For instance, I grew up in the thriving metropolis of Fremont, Ohio.  A set of my friends live there or know me from there.  The theology was rigid and the music was bad.

At 17, I moved to Pensacola, Florida to attend college.  A big number of my friends attended there with me.  The theology was also rigid, but the music was good.  By good, I mean professional as opposed to a type that I liked.

When I moved to Florida, my parents moved to Arizona, so during the summers I lived there.  A small portion of my friends live or lived there.

After college, I moved to Atlanta, GA where I taught school and other odd jobs for the year of 1998.  It appears that I have a lot of facebook friends from this are of my life.

Then I moved to Massachusetts in the middle of 1998 and have been here ever since.  Meeting friends, seeing people move away.  Meeting new friends.

I bring all this up because I wonder whether it’s healthy to have an eye on all these people from all these various stages of life.  I’m really glad the technology exists, and I have become close again with friends from my past, and in some cases closer, but for the most part, it has been just a means of seeing that they ate chili this morning for breakfast or that their kid puked all over their back seat because of travel sickness.  But here’s the interesting predicament I’m processing.  I wonder if they (meaning my friends from a different era) like the ideal of the old Marty, who was sheltered and didn’t listen to rock music and didn’t say things like “crap” and “screwed”  and who towed the party lines when it came to eschatology and the church?

Then I wonder if I’m just creating a new crop of enemies for myself by having a facebook account?  I could just as easily write the names of the people who I’d really be in contact with, and get on with my life post facebook.  Wow!  That’s a lot to think about.

I’m just glad I didn’t grow up a Calvinist and jump out of those circles.  I would be so screwed.

I wrote this recently in a topic discussion of a facebook group I’m in for those who attended the church/school in which I grew up.  The topic is my dad, who was the pastor of the church, and who now pastors a church in Indiana.  So here goes:

“It’s taken me quite a bit of thought to write what I’m thinking about my dad.

One of the things I’ve learned in my 10 years of ministry here at Fellowship Church in Massachusetts is that “everything rises and falls on leadership.” (thank you John Maxwell)  We have all learned this through examples like the office of the presidency or through what happened at TCA when it closed down, not to mention how close the church was to closing.  And the reason this was, was because of poor leadership at the top.

As a pastor, one thing I know now is that at the end of the day, there is a monstrous difference between being a part of something and being the leader of something.  Someone who is a part can quickly choose not to be a part.  Or even to undermine that which leads.  The person who leads must take the ultimate blame for each failure and give praise to others for the good things that have happened.  This is what makes a leader a person of character.

So here is my dad, a 23 year old man, who walks into a situation where everyone’s older than him, yet he must lead them.  Then years down the road he has three kids (who were all selfish if you ask me), and whose wife ends up having, what we now call “Bipolar disorder.“  Of course people in the Independent Baptist movement didn’t really believe in mental disorders at that point, so it was much easier to think of her having some sort of sin on her life.  (which by the way, they were told, more than once)

So running this home, and the church, and spending time with the kids, and going to every funeral, wedding, and church event, coupled with the way he was trained as a fundamentalist (Have I mentioned that I can’t believe these people get to call themselves “fundamentalists”?) was all certainly more than I could have handled.

Then there’s the pain of friends who turn their backs on you, typically because of someone else’s wrong doing (though not always).  They get mad.  They walk away.  And years of investment in the life of friends is wiped out by someone getting pissed off.  This too is leadership, and something which every leader must deal with.  I don’t speak of these things by the way, because they are what my dad told me.  My dad never said an unkind word of anyone in Fremont.  In 18 years of being there, he still feels like this was one of the greatest times of his life.

Then the truth is that my dad was at home who he was at church.

We hear stories all the time of pastor’s kids living badly because their parents were hypocrites.  This is absolutely not true of our household.  I’m sure that Amie and Brooke and I made some poor decisions in our lives, but none of them had anything to do with the character of my dad.   In fact, when I went into college, I wanted nothing more than to stay away from the church.  Not because of my dad, but because I knew the sacrifices it would lead to.  Later on,  the example of my dad was one of the big reasons I chose to go into ministry.  We saw at the house who you saw at the church.

The smile.

The occasional drifting away look like some big decision had to be made.

The immediate desire to help someone who needed his help.

As a pastor I’ve seen a dozen men in ministry run from their families if things weren’t going well.  But not my dad.  He was called to a ministry-at home, at church, in life-and he was going to accomplish those tasks.

He still is accomplishing those tasks.  And I’m proud to say that although I have a lot of pastoral mentors in my life, there is none more important to me than him.

Thanks Martin F. Holman

Fred Savage or not?

Memories.

Currently I’m thinking about them as I started this new Facebook group that specifically focuses on the small Christian school I attended my entire school life (with the exception of college of course).

There’s this new topic in the group that is amazing.  Its simply a reminder of some of the things that happened at the school both to individuals and to the school as a whole.  It fills my mind with times, good and bad, of a day when life was simple, hair was big, and the internet did not exist.  And the interesting thing is that it is because I went through these times that I am who I am today.  The decisions I made then helped shape me to be who I’ve become.

Fortunately though, I do not have to live here any longer.  Here in the past.  I am now at a place where my decisions will still affect my future, but with a few more years of experience, I’m a bit more intentional.  I know where I want to go, and I know what it will take to get there.  So though I’m glad to be able to look back fondly at my growing up years…

I’m thrilled I am where I am.

This guy graduated from high school in Fremont, Ohio via Temple Christian Academy.
It’s been a long journey since then, travelling through Pensacola, Florida; Tucson, Arizona; Atlanta, Georgia; and ultimately Worcester, Massachusetts for the last 10 years, but not a day goes by when I don’t remember where I came from.

Where did you graduate from and how long ago?