Autumn

Seven years into the life of this blog, patterns stay mostly the same. I don't blog a whole lot during the summer months. This is probably indicative of me spending most of my time in Edmonton and doing things with friends and family. Having been gone for five years, I kind of got used to the leave-for-the-school-year-and-return-in-the-summer routine. Though, it's probably fair to say with having begun my career in work, I will eventually be moving away from this pattern.

Autumn is usually refered to as the season between summer and winter, but the term itself has the meaning of maturation or a beginning in decline. Since I'm such a nerd (or as I'd like to call it: artsy), my last few months have had a real autumn vibe to them. I think I'm slowly accepting that there are a bunch of things, as well as people, that I have to let go of. Letting go doesn't mean I will never see or talk to them again, but that I shouldn't attach myself so closely to associating with them. Everyone's got their own lives to live, and the more I try to cling onto these things of old, the more I'm restricting myself from moving forward with my own life.

In preparation for the September kick off, I look back at my first year of ministry, and more specifically the last three months. After a good start, it comes to my attention that with where I am now, I'm a bit lost. With a lot of the things I'm doing now, in every aspect, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do.

I think the first real thing is that I still don't feel completely settled into Vancouver. I do, however, think that I just need a bit more time. A year in such a big city can only do so much - this isn't a small town in the middle of nowhere Saskatchewan anymore (not making fun of Assiniboia, just contrasting). Being a prairie boy, Vancouver is a whole different culture, and I haven't been able to blend with the people as well as I've wanted to. This isn't really to say that I don't like the people here, it's just that I haven't found a group or community that I feel completely at home in. Probably not too surprising, as it took me almost three years in Calgary to do that.

Another thing, that I've only shared with a few people, is that I started to get excited for where my ministry was headed. For the first bit of 2015, I really sensed that our church was going somewhere. I didn't know where exactly, but I was stoked to be along for the ride. So based on past experiences, I knew very well that the second we start getting excited about church life, the enemy is going to come attacking. Basically, since the start of June-ish, I've been under constant distress about many things in my life, an attempt to more or less slow me down or stop me completely. I'll admit: I've felt the effects, and I don't like it.

You do what you can to take what you get and move on, which is what I'm trying to do; but I find that in times of decline, it isn't so much knowing what to do, it's the will to do it. Some days, it's much more appealing to stay in bed under covers than to get up and clean the house - same thing with what I'm seeing now.

This is how I've been over the last little while. There is still joy within me, and I think that's really the defining factor of why I still get up and work every morning. As much as it doesn't feel like it, I know there's still a reason for me to live my life and do what I'm told to do.

I will be extremely busy, probably, for the rest of the year and onwards. We've had an unfortunate outcome that has brought about inconvenience, so people will need to step up to fill the gap, starting with me.

Although it looks nice and is worth admiration, we all know that when the leaves have turned, they are bound to fall. The key is always to make it through the winter, no matter how cold, and look forward to the spring when new flowers blossom and bring new life.

Calibrate

It's been a good summer. All things considered, I don't think I can really complain a whole lot about how the last couple months have gone.

My mind has been set ablaze with so many things to think about, so I won't be short of things to do in the next several weeks. I just got back into the office today after spending my last two weeks in Edmonton. Overall, it was a good time away from work and life down here in such a busy city. I wish I was able to stay a bit longer to get to hang out and catch up with a few more people, but that's alright. It was nice that people took time out for me to begin with as I was the one invading their lives!

Edmonton is always fun. I will always have a reason to go back as long as my friends and family are there. Every time I go back, I see people grow and, especially, NEAC change. I don't think I've been this excited for where my home church is going in a very long time. I'd love to be a part of the journey, but that's just not where I'm supposed to be at this time. I still constantly think about if I could ever go back to be a pastor at some point in time. Even though there are more and more new faces, and people that don't recognize me, it'd be a major challenge if I ever did go back. I don't really have an answer, but I know what I want.

Moving on, I've set big sites on September, as I've wanted to have a bit of a kickoff for our church as we're set to rebrand a few of our ministry programs. I'll admit that I've been a bit over eager in implementing the things I wanted to do, but I think it's good that it presents me with an "ideal". Do I think we'll be able to have everything going the way I envision right off the bat? No. Do I think we can get there? Not sure, but that's why we're doing it. So this puts a lot on my plate with things to do and preparations to be made. In some ways, taking my time off when I did was a bit inconvenient for the planning, but I needed the break.

Looking back at my first year, I'm so humbled by the fact of who I am, with my experience in life, to have the kind of impact I do on a church. I've expressed to many people my thoughts about "running" my own congregation, and some of the core things I want to see changed about how we do church in general. And with who I am as a person, the only real way I can bring that full impact is by living it myself. I'm told to read and study 1 and 2 Timothy by pretty much everyone I talk to, and believe me, I relate very well to him. I will keep to myself some of my own views and struggles of seeing myself in the ministry capacity that I'm in, as I believe in the integrity that I should keep a level of professionalism while I'm here. But I do feel an increase in the level of frequency where I'm asking how long I have at this church before I need to go. The thing that breaks my heart is that this is happening after my first year. Longevity is so hard to come by in church now, and I also understand that the success and growth of a minister isn't purely determined by the length of time.

Looking ahead, I'm asking God every day what my purpose is to be here. At its simplest state, I know why I'm here. But if life were that simple, we'd have solved a lot of problems by now. The honeymoon is over, the excitement has died down; what happens next will be where the real work begins. Being young and inexperienced does eventually factor into how effective I am, so it's a matter of how I can handle it and how I can grow from it. I just don't want my mistakes to wear on me like I know they have in the past.

Before I babble any further, you can probably get a good sense of where I am as I enter my second year here at Newbern and Vancouver. My last two or three years have been so good, so if I end up having a crummy year, I don't think I'll be too surprised - just because I half expect it doesn't mean I'll like it. Like I've mentioned, year 2's have historically been the biggest challenge for me, so let's see where this goes.

"Innermission"

I stole that term - that's why it's in quotations.

What a crazy last 4 weeks it has been. I don't really have a whole lot to say about the events, probably because I can't really sum up the experience into a blog post. All the weddings and family gatherings made life two times as busy as it already had been, but I'm so glad that they happened. When you really think about it, it's about time that our family begins to move into the next stage of life. For so many years, we were the crew that was large in numbers and large in personalities. I'd probably say that we're not your ordinary family, and I don't think I'd be that far off. We were goofs, but awesome goofs. So seeing three of my cousins get married in the last 4 weeks has been a special privilege and the mark of the next stage in life for our family as we grow older.

I'd imagine that's what heaven looks like: all of our gatherings and celebrations. Pretty much everyone took time off and out of their lives for the plain reason that we can actually live. All the grinding, the hard work, and the hours that we put into our jobs and such were put on hold just so we could do what we were created to do: have fellowship. It was surreal.

With our family and our networks being so big, there was a ton of people that I met and got to converse with. I think a lot of us, when meeting and talking to people, there are always some that you pay special attention to when they speak to you. There are the select few that you key in on when they tell you something. Maybe it's their status, or maybe it's their gifting.

I never intentionally told myself, "oh, I have to listen to what this person says" or anything like that. But of the hundreds of conversations I had in the last 4 weeks, one thing stood out to me and has stuck with me.

"You'll find out in a few years."

Yep. I have no idea what that even implies or that the original context of the conversation even had anything to do with... anything. But that comment has stuck with me since I heard it. Part of it might be because of who it came from. Another part might be because it gave off a similar vibe that I'd felt before when something else had been said to me, to which now has all the meaning in the world because it lead me to my career. Prophetic? Maybe. Maybe I'm just crazy.

Either way, strange how one single comment like that stands out above all else given what had gone down in the last 4 weeks. I'm really happy for my cousins, I really am. However, I don't really know why I was so struck by something like that.

Anyways, I have to head out to our church summer camp. I was able to have a nice and brief "innermission," to reflect a little bit, over the last 24 hours. I'm back to living by myself for now. It's kind of nice, but I also have to cook. Rats!

I'll let you know when I find out in a few years.

Challenge Accepted

Confession: there's been one task I've been intentionally avoiding in my first year of ministry, and it's a task that is very important to the nature of life in a church. Let me explain.

Growing up, I had the privilege of being surrounded by insanely talented musicians. From the early years of playing piano, I played with some really gifted kids. My cousin, being an example of one, is now in the music production field - he also has perfect pitch, something I've always wanted. When I took up guitar, I was in a stage with my piano where I was more or less playing in an academy of music; so my teacher alone, and the students under her, are some of the very best - they would've pushed me to be even better. I was at a point where my recitals were recorded and produced to be put on a CD. I also had the fortune of playing on some of the more expensive pianos in the world. For the sake of the point, these things have to mean something in terms of the environment I was lucky enough to be in. With regards to my guitar in that aspect, I was able to boost my learning curve really fast just by ways of the trickle down effect in how rapid my musical growth was with piano.

When I was introduced to the worship ministry in church, I was blessed with a team of people that had very good ears for music, so they picked things up at an incredible pace. My job, then, was made really easy - I was spoiled with talent. I played with music majors, people who could pick up an instrument in 15 minutes, etc. To be quite honest, I just had to stand there and look as good as I could.

The downside to being in such a musically rich environment was that I never had to direct much. I'm not kidding when I say that during practices, I would just start playing and the rest of the team was able to play most of everything to my liking without me saying a word.

So when I left for Ambrose, I left the pool of talented musicians I grew up with behind. In my time at Ambrose, I also watched a lot of gifted people play and lead. However, I never really integrated myself with them because everything was so structured that I felt like I was in a foreign land whenever I joined a practice or tried to play with them. This kind of repelled me away from being involved with worship leading, and more or less marked the end of my worship leader days.

Bring Newbern into the picture. I've seen the need to train some of our members to become worship leaders in my first year, but I've never really wanted to do it. The task of training people musically at a worship level is so hard that I just kind of shutter at the thought of it. Not only do you have to be cohesive musically, you have to do it at a spiritually engaging level. I had a hard enough time teaching kids how to play guitar, so my mind doesn't like it when there's another dimension to it. In some ways, my arrogance and pride puts the thought into my mind, saying "why can't they just teach themselves? It's not that hard."

But, what's changed my outlook has, again, been that lingering thought of what will happen when I leave. I think if pastors want to be effective, they have to give those thoughts some consideration. Churches change pastors all the time, it's scary how often it occurs. There are good changes, and there are bad changes,which is beside the point, but it does happen. Bottom line is, I don't want to leave here without even having tried. I'm not saying I'm going to leave, but it's fair to say that I won't be here forever.

So my challenge, which I'm very eager to accept, is to do everything in my power to help open up the concept of worship ministry to these people. With the nature and history of this church, a lot of us probably don't really understand that a worship team means the entire congregation. Musically, I know I'm going to get fed up when someone can't play a chord or keep a rhythm, but I think I'm willing to push past the pain and do what I can to revolutionize our worship here. With how I was brought up, I think that of all people, I would be one of the few to have the ability to do it. Most of my experience in worship has been on that edge of advancement or change, so it's not really strange to me with the reaction and responses we might get.

One thing I'm thankful that we have, as a church, is the willingness to try things. So I know that if I get enough people behind me, there will always be places to go.