Risky Venture
I hope that you have all been enjoying the "In a Moment" series. I've certainly enjoyed reading everyone's stories. There should be a couple more additions next week, but we're taking a break for a couple of days.
Which gives me time to announce a new experiment: Tilling the Book
I've long wanted to be part of a book club and I've even tried it a couple of times. Lots of things have changed, though, so I'm going to try it again.
The basic idea is to take this 12 chapter book and dig through it a chapter a week with each person sharing their thoughts in a very open forum and then being able to respond to one another, on their own time table.
So, the book that I've chosen is Ruthless Trust by Brennan Manning (author of The Ragamuffin Gospel). This is a great book that contains one of my favorite chapters out of any book I've ever read.
The plan is to start on Sept 10 which should give everyone plenty of time to buy the book. The first chapter wouldn't be due until the following week.
So, go visit Tilling the Book. Register, set up your profile, and I'll be in touch soon, to update you on the process.
In a Moment – Guest Blogger: Jeanna Wright
Jeanna is a long-time friend. We met at the BSM at Texas Tech and have traveled through much of life together ever since. She is on an official blogging hiatus, so her submission here is much appreciated.
When Ryan asked me to write this, my first reaction was, "There is no way I can narrow down one single moment that has changed my entire life!" I rarely see changes in myself overnight, but I can read journal entries and see the little moments that go into the big picture of being different now than I was a year or five or ten years ago. But upon further reflection, I found I could remember a few singular moments that have changed my life: one when I was nine, one when I was 17, and one when I was 20. I decided to go with the most recent, simply because it led to maybe the hardest, yet refining, year of my life (so far).
I am struggling with how much background information to give you simply because I think seeing the bigger picture brings more glory to God. But then I realized if I give you all the background for this story, I would go back to the moment I was 17 previously mentioned. Alas. So instead, I will try to stick to a few key moments from the year leading up to THE conversation. But it will probably still be longer than you want to read so I apologize in advance.
I was in my junior year at Texas Tech (Wreck ‘em Tech!). One clear morning that fall, I woke up to a news report on my radio saying, “…a second plane has just crashed into the other tower of the World Trade Center.” Needless to say, I flew out of bed and ran into the living room where my older brother and roommate were already staring at the TV with looks of shock on their faces. The tragedy of 9/11 set off a random set of events in itself that I won’t go into details about, but I will say that it renewed a passion in me to see the people of New York City fall in love with Christ.
God, as always, had a perfect plan. About a month later, I was flipping through a packet of information at the Baptist Student Ministry (BSM) about summer mission trips through Go Now Missions. And then, there it was: a trip to New York. I just knew God was sending me to New York the next summer.
Fast forward to February: I went to the Go Now interview weekend in Arlington with my eyes set on New York. During the process of the weekend, my group leaders kept asking me if I would consider going anywhere other than New York. I kept telling them that I would consider it, but that I felt like God brought me there for New York. I was convinced that He was finally making my dream to do ministry in New York come true.
The next Friday, I was at my home church gearing up for a Disciple Now when I got the email saying I was going to…Alabama. The position was to do inner-city ministry in Montgomery. Now, I have nothing against Alabama, but it wasn’t New York City. And the timing of receiving it put me around a group of people that wanted me to stay and be a youth intern for the third summer in a row. So I had them telling me it was a sign that I was supposed to not go. And I had my own mind telling me the same thing. And I had my parents telling me they would support either decision because they knew I would go where Christ led. And when I got back to Lubbock after the weekend, I had a hundred different people offering me their advice. It was a week full of opinions and prayer.
I only had a week to send in my response, and on Thursday night I was still torn. I knew I had a job I loved waiting for me as a youth intern if I said no to Alabama, but some part of me didn’t want to take the easy way out. So I went to my normal Thursday night college worship/bible study time with the decision hanging over my head. I walked in and said hi to all the normal people. One of those people was Jana, the interim BSM director at Tech. Jana knew me pretty well and knew I had to make a decision. She had walked with me through the entire year, and had once served as a summer missionary. That night she said to me, “Jeanna, this is your last summer in college. You will graduate in December and move onto the next thing. You will never again be as free to do this as you are now. You have already done the youth intern thing and learned what you can from that. What do you have to lose by saying yes?”
And that was THE moment. It was if the Holy Spirit was speaking through her to me. I wish I could begin to explain to you the depth of change brought on by that conversation. I went home that night and my roommate played “Sweet Home Alabama” for me as I emailed in my response of yes.
As I said earlier, the year that followed was a time of God refining me. God revealed to me on a deeper level (because it wasn’t something new) that my life was made to bring Him glory. It is not about me missing the people I love, it is about me going where He is working. It is not about my dream of ministering in New York, it is about His glory being shown to every nation, tribe, language, and people. He took me somewhere I never pictured myself to show me that I can’t, but He can.
That one eye-opening conversation continues to provide opportunities to serve. It led to a job working in the office of the organization I went through. The position allowed me to build relationships with people all over the state, country, and world. It is even how I found out about 121CC (my church now). My eyes are open to places and ministries that were never even on my radar before. And in case you were wondering, I finally got to go to New York. And I would still like to live life there someday. But only if that is where God says to go, because it really isn’t about what I want.
In a Moment – Guest Blogger: Courtney Hill
Courtney Hill was my youth minister my last year of high school. He has since ventured off to Illinois where he has been a youth minister, pretty much, ever since. You can read his great thoughts on theology and youth ministry at Against the Grain. Thanks for writing, Courtney!
When I think back over my life to those moments where decisions were made and courses were taken that would change the rest of my life, I think about my parents that brought me up in faith, how the Lord saved me at age 12, and how that I sensed an undeniable call into Christian service at the age of 17. I think about my marriage, my children, and even college and seminary choices. But there is one that is more recent that really sticks out in my mind that has changed the way I view pretty much everything in my life.
I’m 36 now, but when I was 33 I was feeling pretty good about myself. God was at work in my ministry and He had blessed me with a wonderful family and a nice, comfy position at a First Baptist Church. I started working in youth ministry when I was 19 years old, so I had this thing pretty well figured out. I was very comfortable in my theology and usually found confirmation for what I believed in Scripture. But along came a little snot-nosed, 18-year-old kid (in my estimation), who was a former student of mine, to ruffle my feathers.
The moment things changed goes like this... It all started when I posted a comment to his blog. Though I didn’t necessarily agree with all he had written, I thought that the overall message was solid. So, I pretty much wrote those exact words to him in a comment. His reply was to ask what things I disagreed with. When I replied again, we were off to the races. A debate was now started between us on his web-site and other believers (especially students) were checking in nightly to see how the debate was going. The debate was centered around sovereign grace- especially God’s grace in salvation and how this whole thing works.
I thought I would win this debate handily because, after all, I had been to college and seminary already and this was just a kid. I even told him so a few times and let him know that I was his superior and that his attitude was not very Christian toward me. (and at times he was a bit overzealous) However, this kid knew his stuff very well and had studied his history and Scripture. This forced me deeper into the Scriptures and also forced me to do something I had never done before, which is to study Church history and the teachings of theologians gone by. I thought surely I would discover that this kid was mistaken and had just misunderstood what guys like Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Johnathan Edwards, Matthew Henry, and Charles Spurgeon were saying.
However, the more I studied the Scripture and the more I studied these theologians, the more I became convinced that my thinking was flawed. I realized that my theology had been strongly influenced by humanism on these points and that I had been seeing what I wanted to see in many verses of Scripture. It was a tough pill to swallow and I didn’t handle it well at first. The debate centered around God’s sovereignty in salvation. I had always believed that it was man’s choice that was the final decider in salvation and that God had basically created this whole mechanism for saving people and put it in the hands of men asking them to simply flip the switch and give Him permission to save them. Yet, the more I seriously studied Scripture, the more undeniable it became that God was in charge of salvation and that He was the One who had orchestrated the events of my life so that I would come to faith. I discovered that prior to God’s intervention in my life, I was neither willing nor able to trust Him for salvation, and Scripture confirmed this again and again.
This was truly an epiphany for me, though I didn’t accept it well at first. As a matter of fact, I fought hard against it for another 2 years, going back and forth. Some days I would defend this new understanding and other days I would be angry even at the thought of it. It took 2 full years before I fully accepted these things and God convinced me these things were true. Actually, I don’t believe I would have ever embraced this fully if He had not made it clear to me. So, that’s my singular moment. I thank God for it too, because my walk with the Lord, though still frail and weak so often, is better than it has ever been before as I have learned to trust my sovereign Lord.
In a Moment – Guest Blogger: Chris Smith
Today, my friend Chris Smith is offering his thoughts on a moment that changed his life - and continues to do so.
I've been glad to get to know Chris by play in a band with him every week at church. Chris owns his own business where he designs websites. Check them out at Wham Productions.
Lord, Please Change Me
I started off to write about my last job and about how I learned to defuse conflict in what was a difficult situation, but then I started thinking over my entire employment history, and I realized that I have run into a particular character deficiency of mine many times. The problem is that it wasn’t until I became a grateful follower of Jesus Christ that I learned that this character trait of mine was a deficiency, and not a strong point as I had previously thought.
My particular issues are control, and anger management. I like to be in control. I am able to suborn that need if the person who is in control is aware of what they are doing, and aware of the consequences of what they do. But when I see what I perceive to be incompetence on the part of the person who is in control, then I begin to resent their leadership because it usually makes my life more difficult than it needs to be. That resentment in turn leads to anger directed against not just the object of my resentment, but also against the entire system of which I am a part. And when I get angry, I forget my place. I am blinded to things, and I misinterpret the intentions of others.
Lo and behold, it turns out that this tendency of mine actually can affect other areas of my life besides work. It has at various times affected my marriage. It has affected my relationship with my son. And, it has certainly poisoned my relationship with my parents. I have much to repent, and it is partly a testimony to how well I married, the quality of my son’s character, and to my mother’s willingness to forgive me that these relationships are healthy today.
What I have learned is that there is no amount of praying to God, asking Him to change the other person so that they will listen to what I have to say, that has ever worked for me. When it comes to my resentments and anger, there is only one prayer of mine that God has ever answered, and that one he has answered abundantly, fully, graciously, and with rich reward.
That prayer is: “Lord Jesus, please change me so that I can better be what you would have me to be in this situation, and act as you would have me act. Please change my heart so that I may be more closely aligned with your will for me.” [The moment that this reality struck me is one that has vastly changed my life.] That prayer has never gone unanswered, and it has never failed to result in a vastly improved life experience.
Here is the primary result of that prayer: that I am able to release the other person and not hold onto the resentment and anger. I believe that this puts me in God’s will for me. Curiously, when I pray that, I don’t even ask to be released and forgiven by the person whom I have offended. I just want to no longer be offending my God.
It has been my blessing so far that whenever I have resorted to letting go and letting God, it has always resulted in the other person forgiving me. But even if they don’t, or cannot find it in themselves to do so, I can live with that because my God is in control of it, and I no longer need to carry it. It is liberating, because God is victorious.
Too often, we Christians will say things like, “I’ve read the Book, and God wins in the end.” At least, I have been guilty of the same. But “God wins in the end” only has relevance to us because we are constrained by time, and we have not yet actually seen the victory prophesied in Revelation. But for God, who exists outside of time, He is already victorious. He is the Alpha and the Omega. He was already victorious before He created time by which to constrain us. The outcome was never in question, because God is by nature victorious.
If we can humble ourselves enough to give control over our lives over to Him, then we can share in that victory.
In a Moment – Guest Blogger: Andy Coticchio
Continuing the discussion of singular moments that have been life chaning, my friend Andy Coticchio shares his experience.
I've enjoyed getting to know Andy over the past few months. We attend church together at 121 Community Church. Andy blogs regularly on his own site, The Narrow Road. Thanks Andy!
Forks in the Road
As I look at singular events that impacted my life, I probably have a few to choose from. But, I have been gently encouraged to stay away from my Christian coming to faith (sorry, Jesus) and when I met my wife (sorry, Lucille) as the more expected happenstances.
So, I go back to early February 2003 BC (as it was before Christ in my chronology). I was President and CEO of Verizon Capital Group in NY. I answered the phone and then answered a question: would I be willing to interview for a CFO position at a Verizon business unit in the DFW area. A bigger more important business unit; I would be a smaller fish in a much bigger pond. I said yes, got the job, and by the beginning of March, was working in Texas, planning for the household move that took place in May.
That single phone call would turn out to become a huge fork in the road of our lives. Both my wife and I were lifetime New Yorkers, born and bred there. This was the first time either of us found ourselves living outside the NY metropolitan area. We do love living in Texas, but the real impact was to open our eyes to the possibility, the very real possibility of there being other great places to live in this huge country of ours. We are now open to possibilities that seemed closed to us just a few short years ago.
So much has taken place since then that can be traced back to that single phone call. We have become Christians, I have retired, and I am now attending seminary. All of this would have worked out somewhat differently had I said no to that call. The end result could have pretty much been the same I am convinced of that regarding our calls to Christ), but who knows the journey in between those two points.
While I believe my life is directed from above, there is accountability I face each and every day in the decisions I choose to make or choose to avoid. Although it was a momentous decision, and I knew it at the time, it was a simple yes or no answer nonetheless. Letting your yes be yes, and your no to be no is sound advice to follow and can have incredible results. A whisper tickling your ear, a slight nudge that pushes your center over to the right or left a bit, and you now move in a new direction that was undreamed of 24 hours earlier. I have learned to weigh my answers more carefully, more prayerfully, for the impact can be long lasting and far reaching.
In a Moment
This week I've invited some friends to sit in and share their thoughts on the following prompt:
What is a singular moment that has completely changed your life and what have you learned from it?
To show that I'm not asking others to do something I am unwilling to do, I'm going first.
Back in January of 2004 I became associated with a group of individuals that I never should have. For about a month I found myself ending up in the most bizarre and surreal situations. Situations that I had never seen before I hopefully never will again. I'll spare you the details because, honestly, they aren't pertinent to the situation.
I could say that it all stems from the moment that I met a friend of a friend and we hit it off, but things are connected and that really wasn't where it all started. See I was out playing pool with my friend Matt, when we ran into one of his classmates, who I then started hanging out with, but we would have never even dreamed of being there if it wasn't for what had happened two hours before. That was the moment that impacted my life.
I had been working at Starbucks, talking to one of my co-workers. He mentioned that he had been hanging out the night before with some people that I had introduced him to - MY friends. And I was a bit put-off by the fact that I wasn't invited. Later, after getting off from work, I ran into some other friends who were all meeting up where I just happened to be. The conversation went something like this
- Friend: Hey are you coming with us?
- Me: With who, where?
- Friend: Oh, we're all going out?
- Me: That's cool, I've got stuff to do. Maybe next time.
But inside I was really ticked off because apparently my friends had made plans and not invited me and this was just a pity invitation. So, I called up Matt and said, "hey, be at my apt in 20 minutes, we're going out to crash their little outing." And that was the moment. I was jealous, and my feelings were hurt, so I put myself into a situation where I never should have been and it all went downhill from there.
When you get hurt, you don't always make the best decisions and it's easy to act emotionally. Since I've gained some perspective on the situation and how it all went down, I've really accepted the fact that it was my fault and not the fault of my friends. Now I try a little harder to think through the consequences of my actions (good or bad) before setting off on a course.
Resource Provider
I was reading this book yesterday that talked about being a "Resource Provider" for people that you know. The over-arching jist of the section was that if you have a friend who is going through hard times, you can't point them in the right direction with a well chosen book or something of the like.
I like the idea of being a Resource Provider, but I would stretch it a little bit further. When people have a need, I would love for them to come to me. I attempt to be quite eclectic in my tastes and knowledge and, while I would probably never be able to solve the problem, I would love to be able to point people towards something/someone who can.
It would be nice if people came to me as an "expert" on certain matters that I care about. As it stands, probably the only time this happens is when my friends ask me, "Hey, who sing that song...?"
What I realized last night, while talking through this concept with some friends, is this: in order to be a Resource Provider in areas that matter to you, first you must be a Resource Provider in things that matter to them. And oftentimes, you have to do this without their prompting.
For instance, a couple of weeks ago I found out that a guy at the Starbucks I frequent is in a band that is probably on the cusp of widespread popularity. I had never said a word to him, other than ordering my drink, but this information intrigued me. So, the next day I came in and gave him the contact info for my old boss who is now managing bands out in L.A. [Resource Provider]
Of course, that opened the door for me to tell bits and pieces of the story that I told yesterday about my past life in the music business.
In the end, it's all a matter of influence. You can't hope to be Superman and rush in to save the day when you have the resources to help one specific problem. (This goes for everyone from the IT professional to the pastor.) You have to build your influence day by day into the life of a person. Then, when they find theirself in need, you will be a trusted provider of resources and wisdom that they come looking for.
Past Life
Last week I did a survey to see what you the reader want to see more of here on the site. Feel free to submit further suggestions as I'm certainly open to hearing them.
So, based on the request for more insight into who I am, I thought that I would tell a story...
You may or may not know that I used to be in the music business. From November of 2001 through March of 2003 I worked for a company called Tentmaker Music located in Lubbock, TX.
It all started out with someone asking me to help out at a Bebo Norman concert with some set-up stuff. Soon thereafter I saw a flyer that two of my favorite artists at the time were going to be in town during the coming months so I got in touch with the promoter and offered to help out again. We put on a coffee house show with Andrew Peterson and then were part of the much debated "Club Tour" that Derek Webb did shortly before leaving Caedmon's Call. Somewhere in the midst of all this, I became an unpaid, ad hoc employee.
The next spring I actually took on a formal role, pretty much for the sole reason of getting school credit as an internship. That spring we met and ran shows for two great artists who are still on the brink of stardom, Dave Barnes and Matt Wertz. We also promoted two shows, back to back (one in Lubbock and one in Abilene), during finals week for Caedmon's Call. (That ordeal is a story in and of itself, complete with hail, tornados, and a night in the basement of a theater.)
In the fall of 2002, I was in my last semester of college taking some of my most difficult classes so far. We had been asked by Bebo's management to take 3 shows on the fall tour throughout Texas because they liked working with us so much. It was something of an honor to not have to bid for the job, but it was also a beating (if you don't know this, Lubbock is basically in a black holeout in west Texas with nothing in any direction for about 85 miles). Because they had been through Lubbock the previous year, they wanted to go somewhere else, so we did one show in Amarillo (about 1.5 hours away), one in Waco (6.5 hours), and one in College Station (8 hours). The Waco and College Station shows were on Thursday nights and I could not miss my Friday 10am class (if I missed twice I would fail and not graduate). So we would pack up as soon as I got out of class on Wednesday, drive 'til 10-12 at night, do a show all day on Thursday, pack up and hit the road around 12-1am and get back in time for me to stumble into class on an hour of sleep.
Half the time it was a blast, half the time it was a beating.
We also did another Matt/Dave show that fall as well as a Shane and Shane show back in Waco.
During that time we also began managing an independent artist out of Amarillo named Trent Monk and I began courting a band out of Waco called Jenny Chisolm.
Trent began recording his album Stars Would Fall in November of 2002. I graduated from Texas Tech on December 14, 2002 (5 days before my 21st birthday). In January '03 my boss, Trent, and I loaded up in Trent's SUV and drove out to Nashville to put some more work in on the album. Donnie Boutwell, who we had met as an engineer on the Caedmon's shows and as a drummer on the Bebo tour, produced the album and allowed us all to sleep on random couches and parts of the floor throughout his studio for a week.
We also signed Jenny Chisolm while we were in Nashville (they happened to be there at the same time as us).
While we were there, though, I realized something about the music business and something about myself. We went to a friend/musician's house one night and there were about 10 of us. There was a label A&R person, a VP of a distribution company, a bunch of musicians, and my boss and I. And I realized something as I looked around the room: everyone here has something to sell. And, although, it appeared that we were just a bunch of friends hanging out, everyone wanted something from someone else. And I just can't do that. We can be friends and do business, but the two are completely separate.
Several things occured that caused me to leave the business in March 2003. Before I left, Jenny Chisolm changed their name to Addison Road. [Note: They are some of the most upstanding individuals that I had the pleasure of meeting during my time in the business. I've had the pleasure of working with them a couple of times since then and just love what they're about.]
Trent released his album, teamed up with a longtime friend, Michael Neagle, and became known as Monk & Neagle. They had a hit song Dancing with the Angels. Trent is solo once again as Michael has decided to return home to his family rather than being on the road.
I made ammends with my former boss for the less than clean break that I made when I left. He is now working for a management agency out in L.A.
Sometimes I think about doing it all again, but it's just not possible for me to live that life anymore. I love music and I love the business of it, but it takes a unique person who can live in that world.
So, there's something you may not have known about me.
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