father's sway...

we headed up to holt for church on father's day.  westwinds was collecting an offering to help offset the part of the budget they've dedicated to help our family over the next couple of years.  so... even though it is an awesome thing they are doing... it felt a bit awkward for us to be there.  so we thought we'd visit riverview.

noel, one of the lead pastors there, is a good friend.  "good" meaning, we rarely spend time together, but when we do... we have unusual chemistry.  jenn attends riverview when she's at msu... and misses it.  anyway... it just happened that we showed up on their first sunday in their new auditorium.

my kids asked if i have trouble leaving my "analysis hat" in the car when we visit other churches.  yeah... it's hard.  but i try to appreciate and watch the movement of G*D even when it's pressed out of the playdough fun factory into a different shape than i'm used to enjoying.  their new digs (do people still use that word?) are purposely stripped down to allow for greater versatility.  but i especially loved the floor to ceiling projection wall... and the grassy knoll risers in the back...  and the lobby space made me drool.  lot's of potential everywhere.

of course, everyone knows aesthetics will only hold people for so long.  but at riverview... noel & dan did a great job.  and all i can say is that if it were closer... my kids would be there every sunday.  it's kind of like willow creek with bare feet.  the feel was some place between the mega-church maxwellosphere of northwoods and the boutique of intellectually stimulating & trendeliciously metaphoric randomness of westwinds... which put me in a weird place, to be honest.  nothing bad... just weird.  the issues are complex... but the experience egged on an internal debate i've recently resumed regarding the needed shifts in the american church.

one of my desires as a pastor has been to help the church break it's addiction to simplistic thinking / the-next-cool-thing / commercialism / & one-size-fits-all kick butt programming... in hopes of freeing us to embrace the raw joy & responsibility of following Jesus in the grubbiness of redemption.  don't misunderstand me.  i'm not saying those things are inherently wrong.  but several times i've thought about writing a book on weaning the church off of itself.  anyway... a ton of things bounced madly inside my head during the service... which, by the way, i still thoroughly appreciated and was sincerely influenced by.  my guess is that i would have wrestled with these other things wherever we had gone to worship that day.

and now... a few days out, i'm still wrestling...  ...not only with the reality that my kids would rather be at riverview, but with the cold truth that somehow i may have missed my chance at cracking the nut.

at the same time... i'm struck with a looming sense that the gun barrel has one more shot left in it somehow (for good or for bad)... and that rather than being side-lined... it's more like i'm being rescued.

i guess time will tell.

Comments

[Noel]

And then you randomly run into me in Starbucks today. Coincidence or Godincidence (as my friend Jer would say)?

We should coffee sometime...email me.

[randy]

let's do it!

[Judy Martin]

Not quite sure what "nut" you think you may have missed "cracking", but let me encourage you that you may be, in fact, squeezing the shell and you don't know it yet.

[Terry]

Randy,
I don't know if this means anything, but most of the regrets I deal with even now is not taking advantage of opportunities that were presented to me. I was either double minded or too tired. Some things don't present themselves twice. Use your bullet wisely, but use it. Terry

[randy]

been there too. good words. thanks!

[nathan]

I want to read that book as soon as you get around to writing it. :-)

And I, too, want to catch you for coffee sometime, even though you don't imbibe.