Its been a year of transition.

The kids went back to school at QBC, Danelle has picked up some work there and by virtue of having to fit into school schedules we have started to live a somewhat ‘normal’ life.

We now have children to get to school every morning, and home every afternoon… there is homework… and lots of it… Our lives have become governed by school hours and school terms.

I realise this is how most people live, but I’m not enjoying ‘the squeeze’. I’m not enjoying the sense of conforming to the rules of suburbia and there is a part of me that is wondering how long we can sustain this kind of life, or if we even want to.

‘Oh don’t be silly – of course you can sustain it – just look around you – everybody does it!’ I hear someone say.

And I’d say ‘so what?! Who said it has to be this way? And what impact does it have on those people?… Is it all good?’

Obviously we made these choices for a reason. One of my life’s mottos is that ‘life is a series of compromises’. You just can’t have everything you want all the time and sometimes you simply have to be willing to trade ‘x’ for ‘y’. We have made a choice to trade some of our freedom (and Danelle’s sanity) by outsourcing education to a third party.

But I didn’t actually realise how much of a family life change it was going to be having the kids back in the system. We originally made the decision because Danelle was struggling to cope with the demands of two kids in more advanced schooling and by sending them back it took that load off her plate. And it has done that… she has not struggled with anxiety anywhere near as much and the sheer weight of planning their education is no longer hers.

For the most part we are really happy with their school situation, but lately I’ve been noticing the squeeze – the forces being exerted on us that are shaping us into the predictable patterns of suburban life (and I get that they aren’t all bad – people need to know how to ‘fit in’ as well as how to think for themselves.)

That said, for the last 6 years I have always liked that at any time I could say ‘hey let’s down tools and take off for a few days down south!’ And we could… Or ‘Hey the surf looks good today Sam. Forget maths this morning and lets hit the beach’ And he could…

Earlier in the year I offered Sam a day off to come surfing with me and he told me wasn’t allowed. ‘What?!… I’m your dad boy! If I can’t give you permission then who can?!’

‘Yeah… we aren’t allowed to wag school dad,’ came the autobot reply. My butt cheeks clenched tight.

The squeeze… literally…

It started right back then. Sam is a natural law abider anyway, but what kid wouldn’t take their dad’s offer of a day off school?!

As part of our arrangement with the church we choose to take a lower salary in exchange for an extra two weeks holiday each year. It was partly to help the church with the $$, but it was always my intention to make sure we spent plenty of time on the road travelling.

That was great when we could shoot off up north for a month over July and then slot another couple of weeks in at other times, but now the mid year break is just two weeks. Exams come at the end of term and apparently it isn’t cool to skip them… And then it’d be tough on the kids for them to miss all the start up stuff in the first week of term.

So we fit in.

Part of the challenge is running a seasonal business, and yes – that’s my choice. So we can take 4 weeks over Christmas, but apart from the crowds and the premium prices its also the prime time to make some good $$.

Perhaps this is just how it is and we need to suck it up and slot in. For the next 4 years our life revolves around our kids’ education and their adolescent years. I do think there is an element of inevitability about that. But I also hope that when we (and they) come out the other end we haven’t become so entrenched that we have lost the ability to think for ourselves and choose our own path.

Or in the immortal words of the not so well known philosopher Forrest Griffin, I really hope the juice is worth the squeeze…

Its been said you don’t know what you’ve got till its gone.

This week one my jobs was installing some backyard retic and 70m of turf in a home in Alkimos, a job I’d usually knock off by lunchtime, but I was feeling a bit ginger and sore so it didn’t go as expected.

You see running hasn’t worked out. The very first run I did saw my knees hurting quite badly. I pressed on thinking it was just settling back into new routines and all would be well. The pain persisted so on return home I spoke to my physio who advised me to keep going. Probably not his finest moment… I kept going another two weeks dosing up on anti-inflammatories and hoping things would come good.

But they didn’t. I stopped the anti-inflams and went to see him, with a very sore left knee and clear swelling. My body was yelling ‘stop!’ but I was trying not to listen. This time he agreed I should stop running and I didn’t need much persuasion.

That was Tuesday morning as I was about to hit the job in Alkimos. I couldn’t bend down easily at all on the left so it was going to be a hard day either way. Then with the first dip of the shovel my back kinked on the right hand side. One of those random things that can happen when you’re tying your shoelaces or bending over to pick up the newspaper even. Suddenly I couldn’t bend at the knees or hips and both were shooting pain thru the body.

I pushed on and got the job done despite the pain – you do what you have to do – but midway thru as I was trying to kneel on the ground and join pipes I found myself thinking maybe my days of doing this are over… Maybe I need to give this body a break and go back to a more cruisy and sensible job.

The disappointment I felt was deep. And it made me realise I really enjoy what I do.

I still can’t really fathom that.

At face value its pretty basic manual labour, and many times over the last 10 years I have wanted to give it away. But in the last 12 months particularly I have found myself enjoying it – feeling alive in it – and that sense of disappointment wasn’t about losing an income, or the lifestyle that goes with it. I could employ someone to ‘be me’ – that would be easy – but it was about the possibility of losing the ability to do something I enjoy.

I’m sure I could pick up a full time ministry job somewhere, or even go back to teaching, but that’s not where my heart is these days. To roll into a local backyard on a sunny winter day and spend the morning doing some serious work that ends in an instant transformation is rewarding. The conversations I find myself having with clients often go to unexpected places and that is rewarding too. Knowing you are serving people and going to leave them with the best job they can get is also a good feeling.

I worked again on Thursday with the back pain easing slightly and the leg still dodgy and now I’ve got a week off when hopefully it will settle and get back to normal.

Some days you don’t like what you do. It annoys you and feels like an impediment to the life you wish you had. Perhaps it just needs to get taken away for you to realise its value.

That was my realisation this week – and I’m grateful.

Last weekend we had our QBC bloke’s retreat up in Lancelin and as part of that I led us in a meditative exercise using Matthew 14 and the story of Jesus walking out on the water to the disciples who are in the middle of a storm.

I always find it tricky ‘leading’ and participating fully, but I managed to enter into the ‘imaginative’ phase of this time, where we were picturing ourselves as one of the disciples and trying to see where we ‘found ourselves’ in the story.

I’ve preached on this passage a few times and its usually been one of those ‘get out of the boat’ messages. You know the one – the call to take a step of faith and keep our eyes on Jesus rather than the storm?… It suggests that we most commonly imagine ourselves as Peter in this story – or even that we should see ourselves as Peter…  but what if that isn’t the case?

As I entered into the story this time I imagined Jesus telling us all to go hop in the boat and take off while he hung around to send the crowd away and then get some alone time. In that moment I saw myself as just one of the crew, doing as I was told because he had said it. The horizon looked dark and it was probably going to be a tough journey, but oh well… He calls the shots and we just do what he says.

As we got in the boat I found myself third row back pulling an oar.  And in that space I was simply plugging away and doing what needed to be done to get the boat to its destination.  As the storm increased and it got ugly I just kept working. When Jesus appeared on the water I wasn’t at all interested in hopping out of the boat and going to see him. I was intent on staying focused – on keeping going – and not stopping.

It made me wonder why I wasn’t seeing myself as Peter, as adventurous, daring and courageous. He is the one who we hear about and who we seem to like to identify with. John Ortberg wrote that book ‘If You Want to Walk on Water You Have to Get Out of the Boat’, but no one has written ‘If You Want to Get the Other Side You Have to Keep Rowing’. It is distinctly less glamorous, but much of life is just that – keeping going and doing what is needed.

Maybe that’s a fair metaphor for my own life at the moment – leading a small church in an outer suburb, running a small business that has no dreams for world domination and being a dad and husband along the way. None of it is earth-shattering stuff, but its all good stuff. And it is the stuff I have been called to do and for now its just head down and keep rowing.

Maybe one day I get to be a ‘Peter’ again, but for now I am ‘Bartholomew’… and that’s just how it is.

And its good.

If I go back 10-15 years in life and think about how I approached Christian leadership it was with energy for the role, the tasks and motivated by the big picture of what we could achieve. The people were somewhat incidental and I found I often viewed them according to what they brought to the cause.

The people I connected best with were the ones like me who were head down, bum up going, going, going and who could help us get where we were headed. Those who detracted from the cause I had no time for and similarly those of ‘neutral’ value.

I was captivated by what I was doing (emphasis on ‘I’), loved the role,  the tasks and the challenges and people were a means to that end.

Danelle and I have been considering an extended break from leadership in the following year, partly because we are a bit weary of the roles and tasks we find ourselves a part of, but what is interesting is that we don’t like the thought of a significant period away from the people we have been leading and grown to love.

It’s an inversion of where we were previously and another one of those things that snuck up on us. Both of us feel somewhat tired of the regular responsibilities that form Christian leadership in a local church and would like some time to refresh and renew. But we will miss the people… would never have thought that would happen 15 years ago.

We’re not sure what form a ‘sabbatical’ type of year will take bit we are currently praying and thinking about it.

Part of the challenge is that it’s not a ‘me’ question but a ‘we’ question. It has to work for all of us if it’s going to be worthwhile. As we discussed this the other night as a family Ellie asked me what I’d really like to do. I found myself a little caught off guard as I hadn’t really considered that… I had been considering what is possible or what may satisfy all of us, but not what I really want because I didn’t see that as even a possibility.

We finished up in some tense conversation as Sam adamantly stated he ‘wasn’t going anywhere ‘. He wanted to spend the whole year in Yanchep, not taking any holidays and doing well at his school work. Might need a paternity test I am thinking…

While it was a difficult conversation it was also a good one because we worked hard at discussing and negotiating as a family.  We explained to Sam that ‘no – we wouldn’t cancel all plans if he wasn’t keen… ‘ but we also want to go ‘together’  and enjoy time together. Once Ellie starts year 11 and returns to regular schooling we will be restricted for the next 4 years until Sam finished year 12, so this is the window of opportunity to clear the heads,  recharge the hearts and come back ready for another 5-7 years.

I’m not sure what will happen to this point and it feels like there is a fair bit of ‘work’ to be done before we can agree together what will be valuable. But I also think it will be a good process and important in shaping our kids understanding of decision making and listening to god.

Its been almost 5 years since we started at QBC and we are now in the process of discerning whether God wants us to stay around for another period of time and continue to lead this community, or whether its time for change – for us and them. I think these reflection times are healthy as its easy for all of us to settle into a rut and get comfortable with each other. Sometimes its good to step back and ask honestly, ‘should we still be doing this together?’

But discerning God’s call is a curious process. It is not as simple as saying ‘God told me to stay/go so that’s that…’

I wish it was.

The previous times we have been thru a ‘re-call’ process it has been with a very different emphasis. In those times ‘pastoring’ was something of a career and my thought processes were shaped by that paradigm. There was also a sense of ourselves and our ministry being assessed and weighed up to see if we still cut the mustard. As it was my ‘career’ I was keen to keep it moving and the discernment process felt a bit like a one way street – we were evaluated – albeit kindly and positively. It didn’t dawn on me that we ought to review the church community as much as they ought to review us. We should have asked them about their intentions and the commitments they were making to us as we stayed. We should have given them feedback on some areas of growth if we were to stay.

These days I am not a ‘career pastor’ and I see the role very differently so I don’t feel like a ‘performance review’ is what we are doing. Rather as a community we are listening to God and asking the question ‘what now?’

As Danelle said recently, ‘If we weren’t doing the review then there wouldn’t be any question about what we are doing. We’d just roll on.’ Perhaps so. But I am in favour of times of reflection and review as they stop us getting too entrenched in our patterns of operation and challenge us to consider the future afresh.

One of the challenges I have faced personally in the last 10 years has been one of moving from a place of sharp vocational clarity to one that is more ambiguous and undefined. By that I mean that I no longer live with the laser sharp sense of purpose and personal vision i once did. Now I have a broad concept that shapes my identity, but the specifics of how it works out are much more fluid. I’m ok with that now, although it took some adjusting to.

Occasionally I wonder if my time as a ‘pastor’ is up. I am curious about what it would be like to not lead a church as we have done it in one shape or form for the last 23 years. I wonder what it would feel like to voluntarily return to the pews (like anyone has pews any more…) and be a member of a congregation. I wonder if I could do it even…

I’d go as far as to say that I’d like to experience it for a time. I’d like to see what its like to be out of the loop of leadership conversations and some of the bigger picture church discussions. I’d like to be a ‘fly on the wall’. But reality is that after 23 years of being a pastor you can’t just plonk back into a congregation somewhere and be anonymous. At least not in Perth. Its too small a city.

One of the complications of taking time out, or possibly a change of direction, is that we love the people we currently lead and they have become our family very tangibly. To stop leading would inevitably mean moving to a new church community to allow a new leader room to move. I don’t think its wise to hang around and believe my presence wouldn’t be a hindrance.

But we wouldn’t want to leave… We like these people, this church culture we have been part of creating and I really don’t like the thought of entering a new church culture which wouldn’t resonate with us and having to start all over again with relationships and fitting in. That wouldn’t be fun at all.

I sense the depth of connection and commitment to the community is a very strong and anchoring factor in discerning God’s call. The impact a move would have on our family is also now a significant guiding factor, one that wasn’t so strong during previous transitions or decisions. Now my kids have friends in the church and they would be upset if we moved, left or dislocated them. And fair enough. Its God calling ‘us’, not just ‘dad & mum’.

So – even if I feel like flitting off to some new project I have to consider that part of the call process is listening to what is happening in my family.

Then this morning I had a conversation with one of our church members about vision. The flow of conversation was urging me to fire up a new vision so that people would be inspired and the church would re-ignite and grow. it has definitely levelled out in terms of numbers and for this person that was a major concern.

I explained that we did have a vision. I explained that our vision has been to lead people to live more Christlike lives, to see their communities and workplaces as mission fields and to intentionally live counter cultural lives that challenge the dominant western values of affluence, busyness, superficiality and self centredness.

It isn’t sexy. It doesn’t put more bums on seats, and often it takes people away, but if you want to know what I am committed to there it is.

I knew this wasn’t going to be considered a ‘vision’, but for now that’s what I have… and I don’t see it changing. In fact I own that more deeply than any building project, attendance goal or new program idea.

In that conversation I knew that the hope was that I would have some more tangible ideas for people to rally around and see as a shared project – to galvanise the community into some corporate action. I am open to those ideas, but I don’t think they are our ‘vision’. They are just things we do to serve God and our community and they can sometimes contribute to our vision and sometimes detract.

Seeing people become like Jesus is slow work, three steps forward and two steps back often. It lacks the visible and tangible expression of a new drum kit. And I know that if we just ‘played the game’ a bit more then maybe more people would come thru our doors… More people would speak of QBC as a cool church and the numbers might jump again. But my heart isn’t in that. I don’t think it ever will be again.

The word selfishness is in the title of this post because some of my reflections on this subject are shaped by just that. Some times I want to slip out of Christian leadership because I am tired of it all. I could do it under the guise of God ‘leading us into a different season…’ (love Christianese…) but truth would be that we were just weary of carrying the responsibilities of leadership. To constantly be the voice that calls people to surrender, follow, give, serve, step up etc is tiring, particularly when it often feels like you are repeating yourself.

And then sometimes I would just like the option of staying in bed on a Sunday, or taking a few weekends away camping, or generally seeing the church as there for my convenience. Pure unadulterated consumeristic selfishness… Its in me as much as everyone else. I wonder if I would still be a committed part of the church if I wasn’t leading it. I’d like to think so… But we do fool ourselves so easily don’t we?…

So as a review approaches and we consider this question we do so without any blinding lights. Without any booming voices or even deep convictions that this is the only place we should be. I think that if its just down to us we will keep going at QBC for a number of reasons:

– we have done it for 5 years and now have relationships and credibility. It’d be a shame to start over when the foundations are there.

– we belong there as a family. It would be hard to see ourselves anywhere else. The culture of the church is as relaxed and easy going as I have found anywhere.

– we love the people there and we’d miss them. I wouldn’t like that at all.

– there are no other attractive options popping up.

– we don’t want to move from Yanchep.

And I think at core there is still a very strong sense that God has gifted Danelle and I to lead communities towards the vision I articulated earlier. We both believe deeply in the importance of forming people into Christ, of equipping people for mission in everyday life and of challenging people to lead a counter cultural life. If you want KPIs and strategic capacity development then maybe we won’t be your people. We’ve been there done that (today I opened a file from youth ministry days with 78 goals in it for 1999…) but if its the simple stuff of discipleship and mission then I think we’re up for it for another period of time.

My days are shaping up a little differently year and I’m considering some shifts in what I do with my time

I have taken a break from my part in our home-schooling. As much as I love my kids and as much they tell me they enjoy my teaching, (I think they mean it…) I have become stale with it. Towards the end of last year I hit a wall and began to lose interest. Its not a pretty place to be and knowing myself I knew I needed to jump ship quickly before it started to show and before I ended up fudging and doing a shoddy job.

I am also in a place now where I can more effectively regulate how much time I put into my business.  With my friend B starting up as ‘Mr Retic’ I have been sending him almost all of the work and quotes that come in south of Joondalup and as a result my travel time is down, my  costs are lower and I am enjoying life a lot more because of it. This may change come the winter months and its harder to find work, but then again I may just work less.

Church is continuing at the same pace and together Danelle and I share a 3 day/week leadership role. Its great because we get to do what we are good at and because there is only so much that can be achieved in that time some of the peripheral or non-essential aspects of a church leader’s workload is shed and the priorities are seen more clearly.

So I am feeling like I have some extra time and that’s a nice feeling…

Some of what has been bubbling around in my head as possibilities are:

Writing – I have loved writing and in a conversation with my mum the other day we discussed that ‘what would you do if money was no object?’ question. My answer – I’d write. I have a couple of books in my head, one fiction and one non-fiction.

If money were no object… yeah… I reckon I’d probably give it a really good shake. What holds me back is that I sense and I hear that writing is not easy and I am not sure if I have the discipline to finish what I start. I began writing a novel on our trip around Oz 4 years ago, but that was a bad idea. Who wants to knuckle down on a lap top when you’re on the trip of a lifetime?

So I may write… I am in the ‘counting the cost’ phase at the moment, but I am thinking I’ll take 5 or 6 Monday mornings when I would have been teaching to see if I can get some momentum up. Two houses up from us in our street lives a woman is a published fiction author so I may even wander up and have a chat.

Owner Building – We love where we live, but we could do with an extra living area that is good for bigger groups. Right now our lounge is small and two families is more than it can handle. We do tend to have people over fairly regularly so its been a real consideration.

Probably the smartest and most practical thing to do would be to go up one level and add space up there. I could pay a builder to do it, but I am guessing there wouldn’t be much change out of $150K when all was said and done, or I could DIY as an owner builder and probably save $50K or thereabouts.

That would take some time and energy and would be an invigorating, creative project, but my biggest obstacle is the level of debt we would incur. I realise more and more that the big financial loss we took several back now has left a mark on me and made me both risk averse and skittish at the thought of increasing the mortgage.

Its a really bizarre situation and I can reason in my head that it makes sense, will be a good investment etc, but there is a ‘block’ within that refuses to say ‘yes’ to a project like this. I’d love to do it – I think we could really use it – and then we could possibly rent out the lower section of the house if we did a little remodelling.

So if we land up with a lotto win for $40 or $50K then it might happen but given we don’t enter lotto its a long shot.

Yanchep Mission Project – I mull this one around often and its slowly gathering a bit of energy. We have lived here for 3 years in July and right now there is one church in the area. Just one church to reach out to the Yanchep / Two Rocks area and I know we could do something of value up here. The Anglicans move out shortly to relocate to Alkimos and leave one ‘Foursquare’ mob to hold the fort.

Up to now I haven’t sensed any desire to plant a new venture and I can’t say I have sensed God calling us in that direction, but I am wondering if that is shifting. Its more a ‘wondering’ than a burning desire. There is also a part of me that simply says ‘just do it‘, but I’m conscious that isn’t always the ‘god’ part of me.

This would be a project that would take some creative and physical energy because I don’t imagine it would be in place of leading QBC, but rather alongside. So we would need to work out the hows and whats of it all if it were going to happen. We’d also need to form a team of people committed to the local area and I am not sure if we have those people at the moment.

But I like the thought of it… Anyone want to move to Yanchep and form a team?!

So there’s 3 projects that each require some level of creative, physical and emotional energy. I’m not sure I want to tackle all three this year…  but then again maybe that’s the way to change gears. Hit them all at once and charge like a rhino?…