Thoughts From Chris

I have spent the last several weeks writing reflections regarding things God revealed to me during my sabbatical in May and June.  Let me continue doing that.  I have been in full-time ministry now for nearly 15 years.  One thing I have always tried to pursue is involvement outside of the church (with various levels of success).  While I want to serve and be a blessing to those inside the body of Christ, I also want to do the same for those in our world.  There are times in ministry when I feel very isolated and insulated from the rest of the world.  In recent years, I have felt the compulsion to seek greater levels of intentionality to get out in the world. 

When your full-time career is ministry, over time it can begin to feel like an artificial setting.  When people go into full-time ministry later in life (after they have had secular careers), or when they have another job on the side, it keeps them fresh and they can better relate to the common person working in the world.   I have talked to many pastors about this, and most of them share these same thoughts.

Last year I subbed for Fort Wayne Community Schools a few days every month.  I really enjoyed it, and I think it was healthy for me, for the church, and for those I interacted with in the schools.  I think it was a win/win on many fronts. 

During my sabbatical, I had time to think and pray about this area of my life (confirming that doing something smaller on the side in the community is wise and healthy).  I also pursued another area similar to subbing but a little different – teaching in the college arena.  I pursued a specific opportunity at IPFW, and to my surprise, it fell into place.  Instead of subbing this year in FWCS, I will be teaching a freshman class at IPFW called, “Foundations for Success.” It is a class intended to teach life-skills to freshman and help them learn about what it means to be successful in college and what it means to be successful in their life long-term (similar to concepts found in “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”).

While I am very excited about this opportunity, the thing God showed me during my sabbatical is that one of the reasons I long for different experiences, outside my full-time ministry job, is because he has given me a passion to be involved in our community and has wired me to live outside of the box.  For some people, they love pursuing one thing in life and feel overwhelmed when they have too many irons in the fire.  For me, if I don’t have several irons in the fire, I feel claustrophobic and boxed-in (simply the way God wired me).  This does mean I need to be careful about pace of life and not getting spread-out too thin, but I am cognizant of this as well and will regularly re-evaluate my priorities.

As you pause and think about your life, the ways God has wired you and the passion he has given you to be a blessing to people in different contexts, what is God revealing to you?

Well, it started out as a dare at a Christmas party last year.  I was giving Craig Eakright a hard time about his latest pursuits of competitive running.  I said something like, “When you can do a triathlon, then you will be a real man.  When you are ready to step up, I’ll do it with you (never dreaming of course that it would ever happen).”  To make a long story short, he eventually agreed, I was hooked in, and then I started recruiting others to go on this suicide mission with us.

Last Saturday was the culmination of that dare.  I trained for four months, loved it, got in shape for the first time in my life since high school, and had a blast on Saturday morning competing.  For me, I think this is the beginning of many more.

A few noteables, however:

• it was a 400 meter swim, 9.5 mile bike, and 3.1 mile run (great for beginners)
• there were 332 participants
• 25 of us were from Grace Gathering (most of whom were rookies)
• the average time for all 332 was one hour, 12 minutes, and 37 seconds
• my time was one hour, 12 minutes, and 31 seconds (my six seconds to fame)
• Mike Trumbower from Grace finished in the top 100 at 1:05 (and he was a last minute sign-up)
• Jen Dyben did awesome on the swim (third best among women – thirteenth overall)

Congrats to all of you who took the plunge. I am already looking forward to next year.  I cannot tell you how much better I feel and how much my eating habits changed during the training as well.  I actually loved the training as much as the event. 

Now, if I could just get people to become Michigan Wolverine fans and Detroit Lions fans ….  I think then we would have something truly special!