garycombs.org

Driving GMAC

"You experienced it all firsthand. With each of you we were like a father with his child" (1 Thessalonians 2:11 Msg). 

No, I didn't get a GMC truck. I spent the day driving GMAC (Gordon MacDonald) from the Raleigh airport to a pastor's conference in Winston Salem and then back to his hotel in Raleigh.

Gordon is a much sought after speaker and author. But more importantly he is a father. When we first planted WCC God gave us a young couple named Tom and Kristy McLaughlin to encourage and help us. They are the ones who introduced me to GMAC. Gordon is Kristy's dad.

I was in my 30s back then. I suppose I was full of vim and vigor. I really felt too busy as a church planter to even go to conferences, much less to discover or listen to a mentor. I don't recall feeling like an expert. It was more like I felt a crazy desperation to just hang on and not be a failure. I was so full of my own inner voice of critique that I was sure I didn't need another set of eyes looking at the life I was living. I wasn't living up to my own expectations. I certainly didn't want to know another's expectations of me. I guess that's what I thought a mentor, a father-figure would offer... more and higher expectations.

Can you imagine my surprise that in my late 40s I would start wanting a father's voice speaking into my life, a father's eyes looking at my stuff? Go figure.

Gordon, in his late 60s, seems to qualify. More than age though, he is open to sharing his life with younger men (with him I get to be the younger man). His voice and his eyes don't judge and crush like I feared. Instead, he offers an authentic and revealing look at his own life story and then asks penetrating questions about mine.

Gordon says, "A father no longer feels the urge to compete with those younger. He offers grace and encouragement. He gently urges them to grow in self discipline and commitment. He offers a larger perspective and challenges them to remember what is most important."

Spending the day with Gordon caused me to write the following questions down for my serious consideration:

·       Who are my really good friends?

·       What does my devotional life look like now?

·       Will the second half of my life be the “best” half or the “bad half?”

·       Have I lost my enthusiasm?

·       What is my sense of call today?

·       What’s in my past that remains unsettled? How does my past drive or limit my future?

·       Where in my life am I making room for laughing and playing?

·       Am I praying with my wife as I should?

·       Am I seeing my children's spouses as my own children? How can I be a father to them too?

·       Am I keeping a Sabbath day of rest?  (What refreshes me? Don’t use this day for draining tasks.)

Some would say that I spent the whole day as a chaffeur. However, I see my day as one spent with a father. Those who see the value in this will do anything just to be in the car with one who is willing to invest in them.

Who is your mentor? Are you willing to take a day just driving someone in the hopes that they will help "drive" something in you? Are you willing to serve an older man (or woman) just to be near them in the desire that they would share their wisdom with you?

Towards the end of the day, Gordon turns to me while pointing out the window and says, "Look, there's a pickup truck like mine!"

"I never figured you for a pickup man." I say.

"Well, I am," he says. What did you figure me for?"

"I don't know, but spending the day with you has been quite a pleasant surprise." I answered.

To kill a Mockingbird

"A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up" (Luke 8:5 NIV).

Some Sundays are more challenging than others. This past Sunday was like that. I should have been prepared for it, but I wasn't. Anytime I speak on something like suffering, it seems that we experience a little more difficulty that day.

I think perhaps it makes the evil one nervous when we get really honest about life and how we're facing it. He seems to work extra hard to distract and divert our attention when we come together to be sharpened in our faith, especially when some are on the fence of decision.

So, I shouldn't have been surprised that when I first arrived on campus Sunday morning, one of the tech guys meets me at the door with, "Hey pastor, we're having trouble with the powerpoint this morning, we might be going really low tech today."

I wonder if Jesus ever had trouble with his visual aids? Can you see the disciple named Thaddaeus (unlike Peter, James, and John, he worked more behind the scenes, probably a tech guy) pulling Jesus off to the side and urgently whispering in his ear?

"Lord, I wouldn't go for the multiplying the loaves and fishes thing today. We're having trouble finding a boy with a sack lunch."

I just don't find that story anywhere in the gospels. Yet, Jesus does warn that when the "farmer" sows the seed of God's Word that the "birds of the air" try to snatch it away before it can settle into the soil of the human heart. Jesus makes us aware that sowing the Word has its challenges.

At the first service on Sunday I'm standing there singing along with the praise songs (internally praying "God, please make the lyrics start appearing on the screen"), when I see something fluttering against the window. A mockingbird is fluttering and pecking against the window right beside the projection screen. And man, is he ever persistent!

I start praying, "Lord, make that bird go away!" (I know I look like I'm spiritually communing in the holy of holies during worship, but I may just be begging God to make the amp stop buzzing.) That mockingbird fluttered against the window through three worship songs. What a distraction!

When it was time for me to go up to preach, I wait for the video testimony about suffering to play, but the audio never comes on.  I walk up on the platform and try to shake it off. I start preaching what the Lord has placed upon my heart. At first all of the distractions seem to have knocked us all off course. The human heart is so easily distracted.

Finally, I sense the power of God's Word prevail. There is so much beyond our control. But we can control whether we will sow the Word. And then, trust that His Word will not return void.

It turned out to be a great Sunday. Dozens lined up after both services to express how God's Word had spoken to their specific situation.

God's Word did its work. It always does.

But I must admit, I still have thoughts of going back over to CCS sometime during the night...

... to kill a mockingbird.

Choosing to be uncomfortable

"I have told you this, so that you might have peace in your hearts because of me. While you are in the world, you will have to suffer. But cheer up! I have defeated the world" (John 16:33 CEV).

"Americans don't have a good theology of suffering" (Rick McKinley, Pastor at Imago Dei Church, Portland, Oregon).

I recently heard a story about an African pastor who had many of his family members and church members murdered by an angry, Islamic mob. Although he fled the country and spent a season in the States, he later returned to his native land. He went around forgiving everyone and has become a reconciling force in his nation.

While he was in the States he told an American pastor, "I feel sorry for American Christians. They are so rich in things, yet so poor in the things of God."

I think he is right in his appraisal. We are so concerned about our comfort and convenience. We spend enough on bottled water to give clean water to the nations of the world who have none. We spend enough on dandruff shampoo to give needed medicines to children dying from dysentery in third world countries. While Christians gather under trees in Africa and meet secretly in Chinese homes, we complain about the air conditioning in our million dollar sanctuaries.

But the truth is that God cares more for our character than our comfort. May we be challenged by our international brothers and sisters in Christ who are enduring persecution. May we be challenged by the suffering saints of old. May we be challenged by the Christ who left the riches of heaven and became our sin offering.

May we choose to be uncomfortable so that others may be comforted.

Ever lose that lovin feeling?

Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. (Revelation 2:4) 

"Woa...woa...woe." (The Righteous Brothers)

Sometimes we forget what it was like when we first fell in love. The object of our affection consumes our every thought. Some describe it as being "love sick."

But Jesus told the church in the city of Ephesus that their sickness was that they had stopped loving as they had at first. He told them that they were doing good work and hanging tough, but there was no love in it. He told them that he was going to remove their lamp of influence as a church if they didn't return to their first love.

I must admit as a pastor that I sometimes do ministry out of a sense of duty or just being tough and keeping my word. During seasons like that I start feeling a sense of spiritual dryness. Outwardly, I'm doing the good work of pastoring and sharing the gospel. But on the inside a kind of bitterness can sometimes set in. I begin to forget why I'm serving in the Kingdom. I start feeling self righteous on one hand and self pity on the other.

Jesus calls us to love him with priority. He says return to your first love (Greek: protos agape)!

Kingdom work without loving the King is empty.

Long love the King!

I don't want to see Jesus spit out any WCC disciples

"I know all the things you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish you were one or the other! But since you are like lukewarm water, I will spit you out of my mouth!" Revelation 3:15-16.

Stephen (that's the back of his head on the bottom right) and I just got back from attending the Catalyst Conference in Atlanta. There were over 11,000 ministry leaders in attendance this year. We heard from Andy Stanley, Rick Warren, Erwin McManus, Francis Chan, John Maxwell, and others. It was a little like drinking from a fire hydrant!

We learned a lot, but I'm pretty much "conferenced" out. I'm ready to be in Wilson and put into practice the stuff I've been learning lately. The cool thing is that God has already been telling us what we need to concentrate on. The conferences have merely underscored and sharpened what we already felt.

Francis Chan really sealed it for me when he said, "I don't want to stand before Jesus some day with a megachurch of thousands of disciples and have him spit them out for being lukewarm. I'd rather have a smaller number of mature disciples that are hot for Jesus!"

I know that God has called me to pastor WCC. He has called me to love the sheep he has entrusted to me, to lead and feed them, and to present them to him mature. I don't want to get sidetracked on lesser things. I want to lead WCCers to get white hot for Jesus!

My ambition is to stand shoulder to shoulder someday with the WCCers who have run the race with me and to hear Jesus say to us, "Well done."

This past Sunday is still shining!

I'm still stoked about our last Sunday service! We talked about how we want to be a people that uses our light of influence to shine on Jesus. So many churches and Christians waste their influence by declaring what they're against. Or they misuse their influence by discussing peripheral or temporal things. But in the book of Revelation Jesus told the churches that they were like lampstands. And if they didn't let their light shine where he intended that he would remove their lampstand.

A lot of us complain that the church has lost influence in the culture and we often place the blame on the media or on this generation. But Jesus says that he will remove our influence if we don't use it the way he planned.

This past Sunday I saw our church family united in worship and in purpose. I heard you say that you want our light to shine on Jesus. And Jesus said that when he is lifted up he will draw all men to himself.

I think something new and wonderful is happening at WCC!  I think Jesus is being lifted up. He's drawing people to himself.

Can you see the light?