On Our Way To Crazy

I’ve never been much for sacraments.

I didn’t grow up observing Advent or Ash Wednesday. My first experience with communion happened when I was sixteen, and before my friend would pass me the wafers she shout-whispered “WAIT. ARE YOU A CHRISTIAN?” Every so often I would give something up for Lent, not because I understood what that meant or what the purpose was, but because everyone else was doing it and I like a good competition. “You’re giving up soda? Please. I’m giving up chocolate, fast food, television, sleep and talking to people.”

(Do you think I could get away with giving up talking to people? Maybe next year.)

But as my faith has gradually shifted away from evangelicalism and towards… something, I’ve been very interested in the liturgy of the mainline and high churches and the practice of spiritual disciplines and the observation of the church calendar.

As an ordained pastor at GracePointe, every now and then I am called upon to participate in the sacraments. Serving first communion, anointing newborn babies, baptizing. Or, as was the case tonight, administering the ashes on Ash Wednesday.

I do not love doing these things. I love the idea of them, and I love that they are happening, and in theory I love that I can play a small part in these significant moments in people’s spiritual journeys. But I HATE getting up in front of everyone and actually doing them.

There are superficial reasons for this, for sure. I worry about what I should wear, if my hair looks okay, what to do with my face. Do I look scared? Am I doing this right? Is my robe too long? WHY DO I HAVE TO WEAR THE ROBE AND THE STOLE AHHHHHH.

But I think the real reason is much deeper. I don’t speak the language. I am totally comfortable speaking in front of a big crowd, but I still get nervous when I have to pray. My (very large) cynical side doesn’t trust the ritual or the lights or the music. I don’t feel good enough. Trained enough, spiritual enough, pastoral enough. I’m going to do or say something wrong and then everyone will know I’m a fraud.

This isn’t my pastoring. My pastoring doesn’t happen on a stage, in a robe, with adults. My pastoring happens in a circle of high school girls, discussing why, when they wanted to stone the woman caught in adultery, nobody was worried about punishing the guy. Why their parents won’t get off their back about their APUSH grade. What to wear to prom.

I always go into these big-church pastoral situations with a bit of dread in my heart and tonight was no exception.

So imagine my surprise when, as I stood there holding the grape juice and telling people, over and over again, “The blood of Christ, shed for you” as they dipped their bread, I got a little emotional. A lot emotional, actually. Voice-cracking eyes-watering get-it-together-for-the-love emotional.

I watched people approach the table cautiously, unsure of what to do. I watched them wait for me to give them a slight nod and raise the cup to show them it was okay. I watched them close their eyes, take the bread, whisper “amen”. One lady asked me if anyone had put their mouth on the cup before she would dip. A couple of my youth girls approached with nervous giggles. An older man whispered nervously before he dipped, “Is this wine or grape juice?” and sighed with relief when I assured him it was juice.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be comfortable in those moments. Maybe I’m not supposed to be. Maybe my nerves and insecurities and doubts are wholly appropriate for the holy moments that happen when we take communion and wear ashes and anoint babies and baptize students. When an alcoholic is afraid that holy wine will prohibit him from partaking in the body and the blood. When teenagers who have no idea what Ash Wednesday is all about show up anyway, waiting patiently in line for their ashes and reciting the liturgy.

When a cynical, accidental pastor can’t hold a cup and look people in the eye without tearing up.

I think about quitting. A lot.

I want to say I love my job. I have loved it. For the bulk of the last five years, I have loved and been grateful for the opportunity to be a youth pastor and build a program that fits the style of our church. We’ve had big wins, we have fantastic kids, and I love that I get to try and figure out how to help them have an honest spirituality.

But man, I have hated it some days, too. There have been some ugly stretches. I am not always on the same page as the leadership, kids and families slip through the cracks, something that seemed minor blows up into something major major and I feel like I’ll never be able to get out of bed again.

Some days I think I can’t do it. Some days I think they need someone smarter, someone tougher, someone flashier. Someone more proactive and motivated and energetic. Someone who isn’t wracked with doubt when they put the small group curriculum together, afraid they aren’t hitting the right points or the kids won’t respond and the whole thing will just be a waste of time. Weeks of good things are canceled out by one flippant tweet from a kid. A great event is tarnished by an unhappy parent. I am overwhelmed by politics and expectations and theological uncertainty.

Then Campbell came along, and brought with her a whole new world of guilt and emotion and drama. When I’m with her I’m worried about the work I’m not getting done. When I’m not with her I miss her. The lack of sleep is compounded by the fact that some days the only way I get any work done is to stay up after she and Aaron go to sleep so I can write lessons uninterrupted.

So I think about quitting. A lot. It sure would make my life easier.

But then I remember. I remember that when I was growing up, the best I could imagine was being a youth pastor’s wife. I remember the lack of female role models in the church. I remember how it felt to be told how I felt was wrong, that I was thinking incorrectly, that what I saw as injustices were just how God works and I needed to get on board. I remember believing that there was one way to be a Christian kid, and even though everyone else seemed to have it figured out, I didn’t fit the mold and was doing it wrong. And that God was mad at me for it.

I believe in what I’m doing. I believe in conversation, and small groups, and hard questions. I believe in “I don’t know”. I believe in erring on the side of not teaching them enough over the side of telling them exactly what to think. I believe in “I believe”, “I think” and “I hope” over “I know”.

And I believe that the work of creating that environment for these kids is valuable and worthy of my time. I believe it is good for Campbell to grow up in that world. I want her to know anything is possible, and I can’t teach her that if I’m in the business of running away when it gets too hard.

Even still. I think about quitting. A lot.

For a lot of teenagers, summer means a break from school, sleeping well in to the afternoon, and swimming as often as possible. But sometimes an opportunity arises to do something a little different. The youth group at GracePointe took advantage of one of those opportunities earlier this month and spent a week serving the community of Greenville, SC through a variety of service and missions projects.

Our middle school group spent the week working outside on painting and construction projects. They spent two days at Apalache Baptist Church, a church that uses all of its resources to take care of the surrounding area by providing food, home repair, clothing, and other needs to its low-income neighbors. The middle schoolers served them by helping take care of their property so they would be free to continue the work they do. They painted the church building and missionary housing and cleaned up the landscaping on the property. The other two days were spent building a community garden space in the neighborhood that will allow residents to grow and maintain their own vegetable gardens to feed both themselves and the community at large, and painting a local youth center (before taking on some of the local kids in dodgeball).

The high school group worked more directly with the people of the Greenville area through social ministry opportunities. They spent a day working in Miracle Hill Thrift Store, a ministry that operates solely on donations on volunteers, cleaning and organizing the store and helping customers. All the money made by the store goes to support a local shelter for battered women and children, and our group provided over 100 hours of volunteer support for them. Another day was spent providing a place of fun and rest for local families through face painting, balloon animals, sports and games. They used the last two days to visit low-income housing developments for senior citizens, spending time talking to them, playing cards, painting nails and sharing life with them.

We’ve worked hard in GPYG to create a culture of service, and the teenagers we work with give of their time and resources gladly. This week was no exception. It was moving and humbling to watch them work so hard in so many different ways to help take care of people they don’t even know. The middle schoolers spent all week outside in the heat, covered in paint and dirt and sweat, and left the area clean and ready to go for the fall season of ministry. The high schoolers put themselves out there in some awkward situations, talking to strangers who may or may not even be conscious of their presence, in order to make sure they know they matter and are cared about. They gave selflessly, even when they were exhausted and it was hard to tell if they were making a difference.

This is a really special group of teenagers, and I am proud and honored to get to work with them every day. They really believe that they are called to serve, that their role as believers is to help bring glimpses of the kingdom to the people around them. Sometimes that means traveling two states away, sometimes it’s spending a Saturday working at Edgehill or Hard Bargain. Often it looks less like a service project and more like a conversation, learning each other’s stories and helping to carry each other through hard times. This is a group of students who not only take care of the needs they see out in the community, but who take care of each other and the needs they see within their own community. It’s a rare thing for teenagers to have a place to be themselves, where they are free from judgment and can be honest about the issues they struggle with. These kids provide that for each other, and it’s a beautiful thing to witness.

I do the announcements in church every Sunday. Yesterday morning I was talking about a father-son campout that’s coming up. I gave all the relevant details and was saying something like “so bring your tents, sleeping bags, flashlights…” The plan was to make a joke about how I don’t know anything about camping or what the supplies are.

I was thinking about those hard hats with the lights on them, like miners wear, and I started to say the word ‘helmet’. (I realize at this point that you don’t need a miner’s hat OR a helmet to camp, but I wasn’t thinking clearly. As you will see.) But then my brain told me to stop saying that because it didn’t make sense, and then I just said “I don’t know”.

And that’s the story of how, in front of 500 people, the youth pastor of GracePointe Church said “so bring your tents, sleeping bags, flashlights… hell, I don’t know.”

Check out my guest post on the Men of the Cloth blog! They are doing a series called “My Story”, where youth pastors can write a little about where they come from, how they do ministry, trends they see, things like that. They let me write the very first one! Clearly they are trying to set the bar low. You should read it anyway.

Sweet tea. Gilmore Girls reruns. Sparkly pipe cleaners. Angry Birds on Aaron’s phone. Avett Brothers live albums. Boots. Our Nashville people. Messenger bags. Our newly rearranged bedroom. Sisters who mail you slippers. Our neighbor who grows crops in his front yard. The funniest youth group on the planet. Being 30.

Grey nail polish. Stacks of magazines. Mawmaw’s chocolate pie. TOMS. Elton John on vinyl. Playing Scabble online with my dad. Burt’s Bees lip gloss. Memories of Miles. Naps. Purple ink pens. Friday Night Lights. Friends across the street. Twitter. A church where you can ask questions and be unsure and fit in anyway. Rolos.

Harry Potter. Car dancing. Clementines. Adults who love teenagers. Hot pink watches. Gel eyeliner. Work friends. Mexican street tacos. Orange tank tops. Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared. Friends you’ve had for 25 years. Procrastination. Shopping on the phone with my mom.

Family in all its forms. Taking risks. Choosing to take care of yourself. The unknown. Safe places. The best husband I ever had.

I have had a really stressful few weeks. I put myself out there for something that I thought I could be great and was summarily shut down. We are facing a holiday season with no income to speak of. Several major personal and family issues have just been beating me down. It’s been harder and harder to remember how much I love what I do when it comes along with so much drama and insecurity and stress on the business side.

But there have been good things, too, especially on the side of my job that I do love so much. You know, the youth side. I work with truly amazing kids and parents and volunteers, and today I need to document that.

Like when a new family comes for the first time to a Monday night youth group because they saw us sitting together in service yesterday and liked how we looked like a big family.

Or when I get to sit with a group of awesome parents and discuss dating and sexuality and the emphasis is not on rules or limits or fear, but on how to keep communication open and how to raise kids who are sexually healthy and how to deal with the shame issue as much or not more than the sin issue.

Or when a kid who, when he first showed up two years ago, was so shy and closed off and uninterested that he literally would not speak, is now so invested that when he tells us in class that he’s moving away the kids start crying right there on the spot.

Or when my junior high girls see a new girl who is having a hard time breaking out of her shell and connecting and go out of their way to include her and make her feel welcome and basically force her to be a part of the group, and now she is calling around looking for rides to youth group to make sure she doesn’t miss it.

Or when a small group leader, who has been so frustrated this fall with the chaos and insanity in his group that he has seriously considered quitting, has one of those nights where the kids open up and cry and lean on each other and share their pain and their stories, and he finally understands how all that seemingly meaningless chaos and insanity was actually building trust and community and that he wouldn’t have had that night if the chaos hadn’t come before it.

These are the things that matter. That really, really matter. Not petty arguments and bruised egos and old grudges. Those things hurt, and they need to be dealt with, and while they may be small individually they weigh an awful lot when they’re all stacked up together. There are definitely days when they feel too heavy to keep holding up, even if it means you get to have the job you have. But then there are days like today. I am thankful for days like today.

I had a hard time when I first started going to church back in middle school. I blame my dad. If I learned anything from him, it was to think for myself. Don’t take anyone’s word for anything. If you believe something, BELIEVE it, because at the end of the day you have to answer to yourself, not anyone else.

As a 30-year-old person, that advice makes total sense. It is invaluable. It has helped make me who I am. But as a 14-year-old, those ideas made me crazy, especially when I found myself in Southern Baptist Youth Group Land. (I didn’t know that was A Place when I was there. But, oh, how I can see it now.) Everyone in SBYGL believed the same things and knew all the answers to all the questions. They had it down. I? Did not.

Youth group had a lot of things going for it: my friends were there, we did fun things, there were cute boys. But I zoned out when it got to the serious stuff. I think the biggest problem I had was how cut and dried everything was. The entire Bible was boiled down into a few bullet points that everyone understood and applied to their lives. There was a lot of talk about having a ‘relationship with God’, but I didn’t connect to that at all. I would get so frustrated because it seemed like the God everyone else was in relationship with was ignoring me. And there was a whole mess of stuff in the Bible that didn’t make sense or didn’t align with the bullet points, and I couldn’t figure out why no one was talking about that stuff.

I don’t say all of that to implicate my youth group. They very well could have been addressing all of those things when I wasn’t paying attention. (See above re: cute boys.) Being wrong and looking stupid are two things I am very self-conscious about, and it was even worse as a teenager. I certainly would have never spoken up or asked questions. I didn’t want to be the only one who didn’t get it, so I just rolled with it and played the part and wore the t-shirts. (I wish there hadn’t been t-shirts.)

That environment, coupled with my insecurity, led to a young adult faith that didn’t amount to much. God wasn’t personal to me. I didn’t feel connected to him. He felt like a guy in the sky who was really concerned with my behavior but not so much with who I was. I believed in God, for sure – I knew there was more to life than what I could see. But I didn’t appreciate the fact that he wasn’t all that interested in us knowing each other.

That’s why, when I read this passage in Susan Isaacs’ Angry Conversations With God: A Snarky But Authentic Spiritual Memoir (what a great title), I knew exactly how she felt.

When I think of the people whose character I admire, they’ve all walked through deserts or hells far worse than mine. And when they got to the other side–the ones who did get to the other side–they always said God got them through it. They have a peace and a friendship with God that I want. But the problem is, the man who’s stuck in the desert because God put him there looks exactly like the man who’s stuck in the desert because he’s lost. And I don’t know which one I am. I don’t know if I’m here to find friendship with God or if I’ve been left to die.

My ex used to get angry when I said that. He would say, “God isn’t personal. God isn’t good or bad. God is like science. God just is.” But even with science… Look at the stars. You see such beauty and order, and you sense the Thought that went into their making. But if that thoughtfulness is not extended to me, then all that order and beauty is merely cold and sterile space that mocks me because I’ve been excluded from it.

If God wants to burn up everything useless in my life, amen to that. But I want to know whether or not this sorrow has an end. Do these longings in my heart for love and purpose mean anything? I say yes. Is my need for God just misplaced longing that has no place to be satisfied? I say no. The body thirsts because it needs water and water exists. The soul longs for purpose because it needs it, and because it exists. And I wouldn’t long for God if he didn’t exist. I am taking this personally because I am personal. And I don’t think that an impersonal God could create humans to be personal. So I’m taking this personally from a personal God.

My life and my faith journey have brought me a long way from SBYGL. I do believe that God is a personal God. I don’t think I’ve been left in the desert to die, no matter how much it may seem like I have. I rarely feel it, but I’m learning that it’s not about feeling. I see God in my community, in the books I read, in conversations with junior high girls. The boundaries of my world are bigger, grayer, more forgiving. I believe that the thoughtfulness that brings beauty and order to the stars does the same for my life. And you can’t sum that up in bullet points.

Yesterday I had lunch with a freshman girl who was really upset about her faith. She’s been visiting another, more charismatic church with her family and is really concerned about how her response to the music is so much different from the people there. She’s worried that because she doesn’t jump around and wave her arms and fall out that she’s not as ‘close to God’ as they are.

We had a good talk about how people are wired differently and how your emotions aren’t as tied to the status of your faith as it seems like they are. How there is nothing wrong with her for not being a jumper/waver/faller any more than there is with them for being the opposite. How it’s a lot like any other relationship… sometimes you’re super emotionally high and everything is lovey-dovey wonderful, but most of the time it’s just normal life together. We spent a long time discussing what ‘normal life together’ with God looks like.

I’ve been going through a pretty major faith shakeup over the last couple of years, and the last several months in particular. It’s a tricky thing, trying to figure out what you believe while trying to teach kids how to figure out what they believe. I keep trying to write about it here, but the white box of death is too intimidating and I end up looking at pictures of barn weddings for my recently-engaged sister. It feels like I can’t write about where I am now because I haven’t been writing about where I was then, and I can’t write about any of it with authority because I don’t have any confidence in it. Ugh.

I have a lot of questions without a lot of answers. And I have a lot of kids with a lot of questions. And I am learning that the questions are the place where we can be together. I can’t say anything to them with any authority if I’m not being honest. So when they say they don’t understand why God doesn’t speak to them they way he seems to speak to other people, I don’t try to explain. I can’t. But I can say that I have felt the way they feel, have the same questions they have, get frustrated by the same uncertainties they do. I can talk about how I don’t have a lot of experience with those big spiritual moments, but I can look back at my life and see God moving in my life through community, through books, through them.

I don’t know where this path is taking me. But I believe that it is the right one for me. And I believe that it’s the right one for my students. I spent a lot of time in church as a high schooler feeling like something was wrong with me because it didn’t all sit as well with me as it seemed to with everyone else. In the midst of my own personal confusion and searching, what I know for sure is that kids need a place to be who they are. More than the specifics of their beliefs, more than knowing all the answers, more than staying out of trouble, it matters that they know they are loved. Church needs to teach them that, and that’s something I can do.

It’s still pretty sad around this place, y’all. We’ve gotten a little more used to the quiet, to the empty house, to the lack of dog hair on every available surface. But sometimes we are watching football and Aaron is getting all worked up and yelling at the TV and I say, “Miles, will you please tell him to keep it down?” without even thinking about it.

Here’s something else that sucks about a house with no Miles in it: we have to clean up after ourselves. I did not realize how much we counted on that dog to eat all the food we drop around here. It’s so annoying when you throw an almost empty bag of chips at the trash, miss, and then have to sweep it up.

I miss him. A lot.

I don’t think I’ve written about this yet, but it’s been a pretty big deal around here so I guess I should make mention. Aaron has been fairly jobless since mid-July. He ended his relationship with the band and has been working to piece together some new management and consulting clients. Things are coming along slowly, and it can get really frustrating and scary, but WOW are we in a good place. When push came to shove we chose sanity over safety. And I know that was the right decision. And when we have to sell our house and live in a box on the street I will still believe that.

Did you guys watch Freaks and Geeks when it was on? We’ve been watching the reruns on IFC and I’m pretty sure it’s one of my favoritest shows ever. I love Sam Weir so much. I think there are only a few episodes left and it makes me so sad.

I have a bit of a shoulder situation. We were at a friend’s house last week, eating and playing games and hanging out. It was midnight-ish when we decided to go jump on the trampoline. We jumped for a few minutes, then laid around and talked for a long time, then jumped again. I was standing in the middle of the trampoline when my friend decided to try to do a flip. Or so I thought when I took a big step backwards to get out of her way. Turns out I was on the edge and I took a big step backwards right over the springs and fell three feet onto the wet grass. Super graceful and not embarrassing at all, right? Right.

Now my right shoulder is sore and twingy and achy and I can’t really raise my arm up. I am awesome at life.

Yesterday afternoon at the bookstore I bought four gift bibles and a David Sedaris book. I got up to the checkout and the guy said he was pretty sure I was the first person to buy that particular combination of items.

I did my first Sunday morning big church baptisms this morning. OH MY GOSH it stresses me out so much. It is such a joy to be a part of those kids’ lives and get to participate in such a big day with them. It is. But I get super angsty and anxious about doing real serious church business on stage in front of everyone. I don’t feel like I’m good at it. I can do relationships and small groups and games and serious discussions. And I can get on stage and do announcements like nobody’s business. But when I have to do something with more depth to it I panic. I truly thought I was going to have some kind of breakdown this morning.

It went fine, of course. Not great. It helps that I deal with kids, so no one thinks twice when one of them forgets to take his shoes off until the last minute and then they sit on stage for the whole service. I just can’t do eloquent and meaningful and professional very well.

I made it though thirty years of life without knowing about the amazingness of Swedish Fish. How is that possible?