The following is not really a quote from Congressman Kennedy, but a satirical  interpretation of recent events.

“Hi, I’m Patrick Kennedy, and I’d like to be even better than my late father, Edward – I’d like to be Henry VIII.

“So what I’ll do is reveal to news outlets a confidential letter from my priest, asking me not to take communion because of my stance on the topic of abortion.  And because I don’t agree with their request, and because I typically get whatever I want (what’s my last name?), I’m going to do what’s best for everyone and reveal something personal between the church and I in an effort to make them look bad and to make me look like a victim.

“If I was a real man, I would take a step for what I really believe in, which seems to be very little based on my abuse of confidential information, and leave the church I disagree with, allowing them to have their rules and authority that they have as leaders.  But that would look bad for the voters, which is why I practice faith in the first place.  In fact, it’s why I do everything I do – the voters.  A backbone?  Why that’s for lesser men and women who have character and make decisions out of the values they hold.  Me?  I kind of just go with the flow, as long as the flow agrees with me, and of course votes for me.

“In the end, this will be just another black eye on the church.  Which is no big deal because no one votes for the church leaders, and they have thick skin.  They can suck it up.  But the good news is…

“I’m in the news again!”

I’m freeing myself slowly from it.  The need to be everyone’s friend.  Sure I’m friendly with everyone, after all, it is my personality. But friends – I’m getting away from the addiction.

I used to believe that as a pastor of a church, I had to be friends with everyone in the church.  Consequently I would bend over backwards trying to please everyone, pour into everyone’s life individually, and in the end have a heaping full of watered down relationships.

Recently I’ve realized a better way.  Friendly towards all, but friends toward a few.  Real friends are hard to come by and they are not going to be made once a week in an hour.  Real friends develop connections through long conversations, time spent in mutual activity, and being real with one another.

I still believe the church is an amazing place to find real friends of character, integrity, and sacrifice, I just don’t believe that that friend has to be be me anymore.  It could be a life group leader or a band member, a nursery volunteer, or just a wise individual who happens to be in a seat each Sunday.  Just because someone has a title doesn’t mean they are your friend.  A title doesn’t make a friend…

a sacrifice does.

Picture this:

This might be a bit controversial, but I can’t get it out of my mind.  Wouldn’t it be amazing if every church (that is under its own authority as opposed to denominational control) organization where 90% of its members have attended the church for 20 years or longer were to give all of their assets to a church planter or thriving local church in its area?  Wouldn’t it be great if they realized that the Kingdom of God could still use them in this way to make a difference, and unselfishly handed over their properties, savings, and organizational control to this “recommended” church planter or healthy church organization?
Then they could have the liberty to meet together in their homes on a regular basis without power struggle or politics getting in the way of their desire to know God more, and a new generation would be enabled to focus more on reaching their generation for Christ and less on fund raising.

Realistic?

Recently I’ve been remembering this one boy who attended my junior high (middle school).  Let’s call him John  (of course, we’d be calling him John because that was not his name).  John was a nice enough kid, but he was a real manipulator.  Everyone seemed to like him, but there was always something about John that I shyed away from.  At times I thought it was because I was jealous of his popularity with the junior high girls, but there was something deeper going on that I never really realized until now.

When John didn’t get his way, he wouldn’t cry and scream, he would only pout.  Cryin’ and screamin’, after all, were looked at in a junior high environment as  things that babies do.  Pouting, for whatever reason, drew girls to John like a paper clip to a magnet.  Over time though, pouting became a less desirable draw for the girls and the friends that he hadn’t pushed away while feeding on the attention of the girls.  So John used more intense methods of manipulation.  I’ll let you use your imagination on what those “more intense methods” were, but let’s just say that as a sheltered junior higher from the corn fields of Ohio, his behavior shocked me, and made me feel bad for him at the same time.  Not “bad” in the way that he probably wanted me to feel, but a pity that caused me to define him as weak and manipulative as opposed to the strong and “cool” place I placed him in my mind before – to watch out for his tactics rather than to try and help him.

I’ve never been very good at manipulation.  Sure I’ve tried it in the past, but each time I do, I pity myself just as I pitied John those many years ago.  It is not my job to make people do what I want them to do.

Relationally, this gets real “iffy” in light of being a Christ follower.  Being a part of a pastors family growing up, and now being a pastor, and being in church all of my life, I cannot begin to tell you how much manipulation takes place in the name of God, relationally.  It comes in all shapes and sizes, and filled with stories of hurt feelings, strained relationships, and ludicrous methods of manipulation that usually starts with something like:  “God wants you to…” or “God wants me to…”.   And manipulation is not about just one particular position in the body of Christ.  It could be the pastor or a deacon or church attender or someone who hardly comes at all.   So personally we must be aware of when it is happening.

The beautiful thing about this post, is that there are ways to find out whether or not you have a manipulation problem.  If you read this, and scanned your own life, questioning any ways in which you might be manipulative, you might have a problem, but you’ll be okay.  There’s a tendency in all of us to lean this way through our own insecurities.  If you read this and thought about all the people in your life who have wronged you…

Get help now!

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?

What’s the balance here?

So I’ve been convicted.  Not in the “judicial, prison bars” type way, but in the “deep down inside my heart” type way.

Reading through 1 John 3:11-24, a thought came to my mind:  Love spreads.  I couldn’t get this thought out of my mind.  Then it unfolded:  Love spreads.  Bitterness contracts.  Love spreads.  Maliciousness decays.

Just look at Jesus, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King Jr. and the kid on “Pay it forward.”

Love spreads.

So in honor of that fact, I challenged my staff today to try cutting all negative communication out of their vocabulary (including innuendo).
Here are a few things I mean by negative communication

Sarcasm
Negativity (that is not needed to express a valid point)
Bitterness about another person or a negative circumstance (like someone who does something “stupid” or an electronic device that wont do what you want it to)
Joking around and busting
Talking to someone with malicious intent about someone else
rolling of the eyes when someone’s name is mentioned

I know that’s a pretty big list and a wide variety of things, but I believe that if we can change our culture, we can change our future.  We’ll call it the “Shut your mouth” challenge.  Of course, you don’t have to shut your mouth permanently, but it may be easier if you’ve developed a habit of negativity in your communication.

My prayer is that this would impact our community with love and  that love would spread beyond the walls of our church, and make an impact that reaches into our community for Jesus Christ!

Would you consider taking up this challenge for the next month with us?

I spent some time chatting last night with a relative of mine who makes a part of his living in the world of finance.  She’s also a mobster.  I was informed of all the mess taking place right now with the banks and the economy and reminded of my own selfishness.  It’s possible that our country will be going through some real hardship for the next 10-15 years if the bailout bill doesn’t take place, and if it does take place, it’s simply a band-aid on a really scarred situation.  A cover-up in the name of keeping our way of life as-is.  Though financially Carie and I certainly have our stuff in order, I’m convicted by the unwise spending I have done at times, in the name of financial certainty.  And so my hope is two-fold:

1.  That during these times the church will step up and become “the church” we’re called to be.
2.  That I would make wiser decisions with my finances, in good times and bad.

People are always more important than money.