From High Brow Pirate to Hometown Pastor

Between June and now I needed to be exposed to some ministry done right.  For about 3 years, Dana was trying to get me to help out at the Open Door Teen Coffeehouse.  I am not sure how to describe it.  It is a place kids get to go to on Friday’s. It is run by the youth and it is for the youth.  From week to week they have different events.  One week there are concerts from local bands, then karaoke night, then open mic night, then dance night, and so forth.  Concessions, cover charges, and the rare donation fund the project. 

 Sharon founded it.  The daughter of a man who dedicated his life to youth through the YMCA, she took his example and has dedicated countless hours over the last seven years giving kids with less than ideal circumstances a place to be on Friday nights.  I value Sharon’s presence in my life more than words could ever express.  But this is about the lessons I learned from her example and not about our friendship. 

Week after week the kids come.  Some are engaged with the adults and others are barely engaged with each other.  There is a light prayer ahead of time and a "pre show" worship service and sermon once a month.  You do not see the conventions you see at other youth groups.  You so not see the trappings one is used to in a ministry.  What do you see?  Relationships being forged organically and trust being built as the kids engage and seek validation from an adult that they are special and loved.  

Resisting my urge to solve all problems and save the day with all my wisdom I have stepped back as a servant and not challenged her methods and conventions and I have learned.  Ministry is about meeting people where they live and loving them as they are without putting a time table on change.  This is loving them because you care about them and not because your trying to fulfill a duty or quota.

She loves them, she has thier trust, their respect, and when the chips are down…they know they can turn to her.  She has shown me how I am pretty sure Christ would run a youth outreach.  CT Studd, a missionary to China, once said he would rather run a mission a yard from the gates of hell than in the comfort of a church bell.  I have always admired it and wanted to live by it, she has shown me how it is done in practical application and what it looks like.  

The lessons I have learned at the Open Door will be exercised in the church I am starting.  Furthermore, no matter how busy I get in this new endeavor, there will always be time to get to the Open Door on Friday nights.  I may even bring some kids from Bolingbrook.  Why start a new youth group when something amazing is in my back yard? 

Summer of 2007 would become Fall of 2007.  In Fall of 2007 my Monday’s would become dedicated to teaching an Intro to Computers course at Christian Life College and being a student in a Spiritual Leadership course.

Over the course of the semester I would learn things as a student and a teacher.

First is the teaching dynamic.  Most of the students are there to become ministers or missionaries of one form or another.  I could not help but be impressed with the caliber of their character, the optimism of youth, and the wisdom of the older adult learners.  Some of this has come from them and other aspects are reflections of the quality of the education they are receiving.  I would feel called to be a part of their lives beyond the classroom.  As I learned a bit of each individual I would see them as part of my life and their hopes and dreams and fears and failings would be a part of my life.

Now, as to the student.  I had President Harry Schmidt as my instructor.  I had him as my teacher for two or three classes when I was a younger man and I had not realized what an amazing orator he was.  Every word was like a feast of concepts and wisdom.  I learned so much more than I could have ever thought possible.  

We had a final presentation we had to do as opposed to a final exam.  The presentation had to be a leadership model for a Christian Ministry either real or imagined.  Where I saw some students taking on grandiose projects, I wanted to do a simple church in my hometown.  Over the course of the semester I would work on this project.  First it was casual dabbling…then, something started to grow inside me.  I found myself praying over this project and taking to heart.  I began to realize I was drawing the first draft to a church that was not an assignment, but a reality.  I found my heart changing and softening to the ministry once again.  I began to realize that in my life, nothing I have done vocationally has satisfied the way touching people’s lives did.  This was no longer how to lead, this was how to serve.  How to serve God, my community, and the lives of people who are hurting.

When I gave my presentation, it was emotional.  The man who has spoken in front of thousands and at national conventions trembled with humility in a room full of 12. I laid it all out there for them.  The heart for the single mom, the hurt, the wounded, the lonely, the restoration plan, the bridge building.  In later entries we will go into more detail of the bricks and mortar of the church, but this is where it begins.  

Students were awestruck with the heart.  One has even said she wants to take part in it as an intern..and possibly more.  Pastor Harry would be very complimentary and genuine to it.  

The students and the teacher were the very first step of confirming that this is real and this is where God wanted me to be.  More steps would follow and with each step there is further confirmation.  

Let me make one thing clear about this calling.  It is not a cloud parting burning bush sort of thing.  This is a quiet whisper through confirming desires with validations and opening doors.

My path to CLC was unique and not something I could have scripted.  It was 16 years in the making.  The timing of my humbling and stripping down through the heart attack shortly before returning could not have been scripted.  The road to Lockport leading me to a teen outreach called open door coffeehouse and Sharon and so many others there would put me back into ministry as a servant and not a leader (to be discussed more later) was amazing.  The rebuilding of my friendship with a Pastor named Fran and the door that opened there to make this idea a reality is one I could not have planned.  As we swiftly catch up on the history, each chapter will be another door, this was merely one of the first.

As of June 2007, life was pretty stressful.  I was the special effects coordinator for a musical, my daughter was in the final weeks towards her dance recital, business was not going well, my love life was not all it could have been, and so forth.  I had met with Wayne at Christian Life College.  Wayne is the administrative Dean.  He was the registrar when I was a student there in 1990.  He is a good man.  Deep voice, large vocabulary, deep thinker. He had offered me the position to teach computers there and I would have the opportunity to take courses for free to complete my pastoral studies.  I saw this as a an opportunity to build more computer street cred and an opportunity for a degree, nothing more. 

 The month of June was progressing stressfully.  I am sure there were good things in my life, but I was not able to see them.  Now we come to the night of June 28 and the morning of June 29.  I was impossibly behind schedule on a writing project that needed to be turned in by noon of the 29th and my daughter had to be ready for her recital in which I was dancing in two numbers and had to play the part of the proud parent.

I worked through the night and into the wee hours of the morning.  I had made little progress.  I was 15% where I needed to be.  I was in an impossible situation that I had put myself into by overcommitment.  It was sometime between 3 or 4 am that I decided to take a nap with this failure heavy on my mind.  

I woke up at 7am feeling like a midget was on my chest.  I took a shower.  The midget now felt like a Sumo wrestler.  I went downstairs.  Had coffee and a cigarette in a final irony to relax.  Finally, I went to go outside and as I reached for the front door, my right arm went numb and my jaw clenched.  I knew I was having a heart attack and really did not want to accept it.  Well, fast forward through ambulance, paramedics, nitroglycerin, hospital, stabilization, angio-gram, and old men playing shuffleboard outside my room.  The thing that amazed me was all the people who did NOT visit me in the hospital.  Jen brought my daughter, Kate brought her daughter, Pastor Rob brought his wife.  A few people called.

 The throngs of people that I was busting my ass to help were not there for me while I was in the hospital and they were not there for me the horrific 30 days I was home from the hospital.   The 30 days home from the hospital.  I was depressed, questioning myself, doubling myself, Jen was more mad at me than relieved I was alive, I was on medication that gave me the most exquisite 30 day headache.  Todd, an old friend and business associate at the time showed friendship through a wonderful gesture.  The theater group. "Glad to see you back, now get back to work".  I saw a woman in the show sprained her ankle and people wept for her and when she returned the next day, the director had the entire crew give her a standing O.  I was in the ICU tasting mortality and still in the danger zone. I began to feel really insignificant, ignored, and an overall useless piece of goo.

My world had been turned upside down.  The people who I assumed would be there for me were nowhere to be seen.  One of them even told me the reason she could not be there for me was because I was friends with someone she did not like. In this time, I almost missed something that would slowly affect my life and perspective for the better. While lamenting what I did not have, I almost did not notice two people standing on the sidelines trying to breach through the despair.

 I sent an email out to 30 friends towards the end of July.  I laid it all on the line.  I was lonely, scared, felt worthless, and did not know what to do with the rest of my life.  Two people responded.  Out of the 30, two pierced the darkness and said they would be there for me.  Dana and Dennis.  I almost ignored them because they were not the ones I wanted to be there.  After another night of waiting, I would contact them both.  My relationship with both these people would change dramatically. 

 This entry is already becoming more personal than I intended and I have tried to cut a new draft a few times, but I cannot get away from this one as is.  So I will continue.

Dana and Dennis.  I am beholden to both of these people for what they have done in my life.  To be frank, much of the content of our conversations are too personal for me to share.  Allow me to encapsulate what their presence had done.

Dennis was a priest on sabbatical.  He was working in HR for a company.  After more than 20 years as a priest he was burned out on Parish life and questioning his role in all of it.  He and I would learn how similar our paths are and be able to honestly delve into what the calling is, what it means, and what about it frightens us and angers us. We both embrace and fear it at the same time.

Dana would expose me to new worlds in Lockport and help me find a belief in myself and a worth.  

I know this is very vague, but again, I have shared with these two things I would not share with anyone else.  As unconventional as both friendships are and as different as the roles are in the dynamics of each relationship, they would serve as catalysts for me to recover a piece of me that I thought had died.   

Some people go through life knowing what they have to do and others have to go through a refining fire where all impurities are burned away.  I fell into the latter.  To begin to rely on God I had to have everything stripped away that I thought was important.  When the entire construct was destroyed, I was able to look at the foundation and see what it was made of. 

Welcome.  Let’s get to the point.  This is blog is going to be my personal journey of leaving my career as a computer consultant/freelance writer and entering the ministry. Not only am I becoming a minister, but I am in the process of starting a new church. 

So who is this blog for? I have some friends and relatives that like to keep tabs on me and tend to ask me the same questions regarding this new adventure.  This saves me a lot of time.  People who are contemplating a life of ministry may benefit from this as well.  I have found people who are young and old that think about this road and calling.  It is romanticized and vilified.  I am not trying to impress anyone, I will give this journey a raw and vulnerable perspective and allow the reader to discern.  Another category are those who are either contemplating a church plant or merely curious about how one goes about planting a church.  This could be a resource that they can add.  

The conventions are more of an explanation of the categories.  History will be a backstory.  Sometimes the backstory may seem unrelated, but I am sure the 40 years Moses spent in Midian had relevance to who he was during the Exodus. Lessons will cover the path to ministry and the lessons I learn..or need to learn to become an effective minister.  Planting Process will be related to things needed to plant a church.  Bumps and Potholes.  Along the way there will be setbacks, frustrations, mistakes, and days I may want to give all this up and be a waiter at a diner.  Those will need their own category.

 I chose the categories to allow people the freedom to focus their readings on what is important to them.  I hope everyone would take the time to read the whole.  I firmly believe that it would be beneficial. 

 A more exhaustive backstory will be written in later entries.  For now, this is the brief version. In 1990, I attended Bible College with the intent to be a minister.  I quit 2 years later.  Despite ending my studies I would go on to work in the ministry.  I would get married and in 1996, leave the ministry.  During that time I became a father, stopped going to church, resumed church attendance, struggled with my faith, started my own company, survived a heart attack, have recently returned to the Bible college I left, closed my computer consulting operation, and have come full circle to begin a new journey.  This summer I will don the cap and gown, get ordained, and get ready to have a new church in town by Fall.  Care to know how this will happen?  So do I.