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Author: Joe

Fan of Bruce Springsteen, the New York Mets, and The Simpsons... not necessarily in that order.

No excuses. I’m sorry.

Published April 23, 2012

I'm sorryI didn’t blog last week. A new post did not appear last Monday. I could choose to keep it quiet and hope you didn’t notice, but I want you to know I am sorry. I have this covenanted with you to post every Monday, and I let you down. I cannot promise this will not happen again, but I can assure you it will not happen often.

Mistakes are part of ministry as an associate pastor, lead pastor, or any staff position. We’re human, and as the saying goes, “to err is human.” We cannot expect perfection, so the next best thing is learning how to handle our mistakes.

Maybe you spaced a meeting and someone waited half-an-hour at Starbucks for you, or you promised to write a letter of recommendation but needed a reminder. Maybe you missed a hospital visit, said something stupid during a counseling session, broke a confidence you didn’t know was a confidence, or something else. Has a memory of one of your mistakes created a pit in your stomach yet?

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Discomfort = growth

Published April 9, 2012
Preparing for Good Friday.
Not me!

I am afraid of heights. To anyone who knows me, this is no revelation. As a child I got “stuck” on the top of my neighbor’s jungle gym, paralyzed with fear. As an adult I had a moment where I thought I might be stuck on my own roof. The roof-to-ladder transition, and ladder-to-roof, is terrifying. The scariest rides in an amusement park for me are the ferris wheel and the sky ride. Sometimes I get a tingling sensation looking over the balcony on the second level of the mall. Yes, I have accepted my wimpy-ness.

Normally, this doesn’t come into play in ministry. Most of my work is done on solid ground. Around holidays though, my fear becomes evident. I hand the Christmas decorations up to the people on the ladders. On Friday, as we prepared the sanctuary for Easter, I helped set up chairs while the lead pastor draped the cross (see picture). And on Saturday I helped move the lift from place to place while others went up in it to maintain projectors and change light bulbs. Twenty foot extension ladders and mechanical lifts are not things I can handle without a great deal of fear. There are others to do those things, so I don’t. Well, most of the time I don’t.

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It’s all about people

Published April 2, 2012
Not Lillian, Tristan, or me

On Friday night I was reminded of what ministry is all about.

This weekend I had the privilege of officiating the wedding of a young woman I met when she was in eighth grade, and the young man she loves (congrats Lillian and Tristan). Not long ago while cleaning up my contacts I found “Lillian’s the Best” – the contact she entered as a high school student. Lillian and I went through a lot of fun stuff and some difficult times. This weekend I was privileged to participate in the happiest day of her life.

At the wedding I chatted with two other couples whose weddings I had officiated in the past seven years or so. One couple shared about their young child and another on the way. All of this served as a reminder that ministry offers us the privilege to be invited into people’s lives in profound ways.

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Spring break!

Published March 26, 2012

Office hours cartoon

Spring is here! Those in our area who missed its official arrival in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, know it has sprung now. Today is the first day of our school district’s spring break. Families are traveling. Kids are celebrating. It is time to take a break.

My family – my wife the teacher, my high school son, and middle school daughter – are all off this week. I’m not. Bad planning, I know. For some of you, a spring break vacation isn’t an option because the lead pastor has taken the week off and you have more to do! This still doesn’t mean you cannot take time to be refreshed.

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