Archive for December, 2008

Ike……

{ December 15, 2008 @ 4:13 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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From that moment in August, I didn’t seem to have a moments’ peace.  I couldn’t sleep well, even with the help of prescribed medication.  All my quiet times seemed to point to Southway.  Other books I was reading seemed to point to Southway.  I couldn’t shake Southway!! 
In Late August, I took some students to a local waterpark.  As I was driving out of our church parking lot, I noticed some other church members pulling weeds.  I thought to myself, “Wow…I’d rather be pulling weeds than taking a van-load of students to a waterpark.”  It was then that I knew that my time in student ministry was coming to an end.  Don’t get me wrong.  I love students!!  Their passion, their desire…..I wish we all had their intensity!!  And they still believe that they can change the world! 
While I love students, I have lost a love for student ministry from the standpoint of leading one.  I support student ministry and youth pastors….but I sensed then and sense now that my time in student ministry was coming to an end. 
 
Furthermore, it didn’t help that one of my friends over there, Lee the film critic and elder, would call periodically to check in on me.  He would nearly always bring up the points that he was A. thinking that this whole process wasn’t over yet.  B.  praying that God would not give me a moments’ peace if He wanted me to be at Southway.  I told Lee that with friends like him, who needs financial bail-outs? 
 
Then, Hurricane Ike hit Houston and surrounding areas.  During the storm, Mandy and I were in Jasper, Texas with Hartley and Cindy Downs.  Both of them are family as well.  (we have a large extended family)  They graciously let us stay in their lakehouse for a few days past when the storm had left the area.  I had a lot of time to think.  I thought long and hard about Southway.  Why was this church still on my mind, I wondered?  We went home on the Tuesday following Ike, and we were without power at FBC for a week and a half, ….so I had even more time to think………….
….and think……
 
….and think some more….. 
More to come,
Jason
NEXT:  A surprise at the surprise birthday party, a stunning realization, and getting back together.

Summer 2008

{ December 14, 2008 @ 6:31 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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  In June, just about a week after I returned from Croatia, I went to lunch with my friend Larry Burleson, the worship pastor at Southway Community Church.  Southway is a smaller church on the other side of Pearland that’s kind of like a cousin-church to Fellowship.   I have had the privilege of filling the pulpit for them a few times a year since January 2006.  Their long-time pastor, Kevin Paszalek left the church after a 23 year tenure due to being called to a ministry in Africa, specifically Moffat Bible College in Kenya.  Kevin left with the full blessing of his congregation, and enjoys a great relationship with Southway to this dayTheir interim pastor for the previous year had been Dr. Harlan Betz, a man I have known for 11 years.  Harlan was the pastor in Kingwood for about two weeks before we went to Virgnia 10 years ago.  Harlan was just about to go to Colorado to assume his new pastoral role at a church there. 
So Larry, Harlan, and Linda (church secretary) are there looking at pictures of the Croatia garage sale for the second trip, when I walked in.  We exchanged small talk, and Linda asked me if I could get on the pulpit schedule for once a month.  With Bill going to Vietnam, and Mike on sabbatical, I was solo-pastor for a while.  I said no, but before I could do it, Larry asked for twice a month and Harlan said “What about four times a month?”  I was stunned.  I had been asked previously to consider the senior pastor position by various folk there, including Harlan, but mostly blew it off and thought it was just a good encouragement rather than a serious inquiry. 
“Have you prayed about it?”  Not fair.  Penalty for roughing the pastor.  I was shocked that they would ask.  I was more shocked to realize I hadn’t prayed about it.  I said I would.
 
The June 08 inquiry was not to be blown off.  I sent a resume.  Surely after seeing I had no seminary and a pacemaker, they would call the thing off.

They didn’t.  They sent me a questionairre.  After talking with a few trusted friends both in and outside of Fellowship, (David Attebury, Hollie Knowles, Tim and Taylor Johnson, and others) I filled out the questionairre.
I let it rip.  I wasn’t looking for a job, so I wasn’t “nice” in filling it out.  For sure I thought, this was it.  The time was over.
“Hey Jason, we got your questionairre.”  Great.  “it’s the most thorough one we’ve had.”  Crap.  How many have you received?  “sixty.”  How many had seminary?  “59.”  uh oh.

 I met with the search committee for nearly 3 hours in late July.  After a period of two weeks following the meeting with the search committee, I was burdened that leaving my present church at this  time would be unwise.  So, in early August, I met with three good friends and ministry leaders at Southway:  Larry, Richard Nelson, Chairman of the Elder Board, and Lee McGhee, Elder and Film Critic-at-large.  Over dinner, I told my friends that I thought God was leading me to NOT go any further in the process.  As I drove away, I lamented that I had to tell them that.  It was as if I deep down really didn’t want to say it. 

More to come,
Jason
Next:  Flower beds, no sleep, and hurricane Ike.
 

Croatia 2008

{ December 13, 2008 @ 1:41 am } · { Uncategorized }
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 Many of you knew about (and graciously supported) my trip to Croatia in June.  Barely a month past the pacemaker incident, I was privileged to go overseas and help train and teach youth leaders.  I’ve written a lot about the trip in this blog (see related posts back in June-July), and a lot about the trip was  at first not to my liking, largely due to massive changes in plans.  Part of those changes included me preaching on a mid-week service, and on a Sunday service, two times of speaking I had not previously prepared for.  During the trip, I was wondering why God would allow me to preach, as opposed to other folks on the trip who were perfectly capable of such things (Tim Johnson, Taylor Johnson, and David Attebury for starters.)  I even blogged later about wondering why and what God was doing.  I sensed that winds of change were very much beginning to blow.

More to come,

Jason

April 2008

{ December 11, 2008 @ 10:18 am } · { Uncategorized }
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I’ve blogged extensively, perhaps too extensively about the pacemaker (see summer posts).  I’ll spare you from that here.  However, the week of April 17-22 will never be forgotten.

Quite bluntly, the pacemaker ruined my life.  I was ruined for ordinary living. 

There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t check my pulse. 

There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t see the scar that represents someone cutting my chest and inserting a foreign piece of machinery that regulates my heart beat.

My heart now beats on the strength of another.  I’m powerless.

That’s the gospel.  My heart is a failure.  It’s not working right on its own.  I need the pace of another to make it beat right.  God does that through Christ. 

How neat of God to give me a walking-talking example of grace?

I’m ruined for anything other than that.  If I could just realize that every day.

More to come,

Jason

NEXT:  An overzealous security guard in Norfolk, Va.  An interesting conference that changed my perspective.  Croatia.  And an ordinary, regular lunch at Panera Bread that changed my life.

March 2008

{ December 10, 2008 @ 9:38 am } · { Uncategorized }
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What a whirlwind beginning to March.  Within the span of a few days, I was in Texas, Florida, back to Texas, and more.  My stepmom Nelly called me with the news that her dad had passed away.  Oscar Vega or “Papi” was in his 80’s and had a long illness that he dealt with for the last year or so of his life. 
I made plans to go down for the funeral in Florida.  As I was on the plane, AFTER the stewardess asked me if I was on college Spring Break,  I prayed that God would give me a servant’s heart, that He would give me not just a lack of annoyance, but a desire to do whatever I was asked to do.  Mind you, I was anticipating sweeping floors, doing laundry, going to the post office/grocery store; basically whatever. 
The plane touched down, my dad picked me up, and we were off to the hour’s drive or so to my grandmother’s home.  I had visions of brooms and grocery store runs brimming in my head. 
I wasn’t prepared for Nelly to ask me to speak at the funeral.  I know that eulogies aren’t full-fledged “sermons” but still….I was not prepared to hear that!!  I said I would, but felt very unqualified and overwhelmed for this task.  Graciously, God was with me, and directed me to a passage where I thought we should “camp out” in for the message.  I tag-teamed with a family member for an English-Spanish 1-2 punch. 
As I walked around pacing before the service, I was struck to see two aunts, an uncle, my grandmother, my younger sister, (I had advance warning about her coming) and two cousins in the crowd.  I have never preached in front of them before.  I have had the privilege of putting my mom, stepdad, older sister, niece, nephew, and aunt and uncle asleep once or twice:)!! 
Between the two of us, the message got across.  As I was preaching, I looked at my dad, and he winked at me.  No one else saw it but just me and him.  What’s the significance of the wink?  Allow me to explain…..
 
As I was preparing for the funeral message, the thought crept into my head “Hey, your family will be there…(although I didn’t know how many family would be there).  Your dad’s watching.  Impress him.”  That was a huge temptation.  See, I want my dad to be proud of me.  But I would have to answer to God for my words.  Although I would love to impress Dad, my responsibility was to deliver a God-honoring message.  So I prayed and hoped that God would use the message, whether or not anyone was “impressed.” 
Dad’s wink was a great affirmation of that very thing.  As I sat down, I scribbled a note to Dad that said “Did that work?”
 
He replied with just two words:  “The best.” 
I still have that note and will never throw it away.  During the post-funeral time, my family came to me and affirmed the message.  Both my aunts were asking me if I had ever thought about being a senior pastor………………….
I flew back on a Friday morning, in time to grab another bag and go on our first ever Spring Retreat.  One of my mentors, Mike Cahill was our speaker, and some friends from Houston Chinese Church were our worship leaders.  STill, the whole weekend was a bittersweet experience for me.  One of my interns, Josh was going to resign from his internship although stay at the church and help out.  It would be my (so I thought) last ride with him.  The whole weekend I was filled with memories of him and was struck anew at how much he meant/means to me.  We had a great time that weekend, although I was spent by the end of it.
As we walked back onto the parking lot, I had to get my mind around a congregational meeting that was taking place that evening.  We were talking about vision for the church, and I was the last guy to speak before we closed the meeting down.  Afterwards, Katie Johnson (formerly Katie Popham who is now married to Tim Johnson) told me that I was a shepherd to her.  I was grateful for her words, but kept thinking, “what is going on here?  I’m shepherding adults?  That’s out of my league, and comfort zone.”

Little did I know that my comfort zone would go down faster than the stock market within six weeks of that meeting.

More to come,
Jason

back to recapping.

{ December 9, 2008 @ 10:48 am } · { Uncategorized }
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As I began earlier: 

Some friends of mine and I attended “Passion ‘08″ a Christian conference in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area.  I have previously blogged on the speakers, bands, etc. 

I was so blessed to be able to introduce some of my dearest friends to my mom and step-dad.  While the group staying with my mom and stepdad knew her name was Karen, they called her “Betty Sue,” for some reason.  My stepdad Gary?  They called him………Gary. 

We entered the Nokia Theater with some expectation.  See, we were now Passion veterans, having been to the national conference in Atlanta in January ‘07.  6,000 people jammed the place, and the opening song from Chris Tomlin began after a video/music intro. 

And from that moment on, I was completely ruined.  Every word of every song seemed to just nail me in a way that I hadn’t conceived of.  See, all of the songs chosen for corporate worship were songs I’d heard before and sang before.  They weren’t “new.”  Yet their effect on me was very new.  Only once before had I been that overwhelmed, and that was at a summer camp…..where Tomlin had been leading worship. 

I’m asking God what He wants.  I was checking myself for any “big” sins.  I wasn’t sure what God was wanting to talk to me about but I began to actually get a tad upset at God (BIG MISTAKE).  “God, okay, I got it.  there’s 6,000 others who need to hear from you.  let’s move on.”  How stupid of me…forgetting that God has the ability to speak to billions at once without even blinking an eye!!!  What was He trying to say?

Then, Louie began his first talk of the weekend.  He talked about Isaiah 26:8, which begins with the phrase “Yes, Lord.”  Louie remarked that Yes is a great response to anything God would ask of us.  I was wrecked.  It seemed to me as if God were telling me to simply surrender.  All.  Everything.  No matter what.  So I wrote in my notebook the words “I Surrender.” 

Saturday morning saw me continue to be absolutely floored.  I wept openly during the morning session, so much so that i was somewhat embarrassed around my friends.  I hadn’t wept like that since……….that same summer camp in 2004.

Here’s what I walked away taking from the weekend.  I told God I would surrender to whatever He wanted.  Even if it meant being a senior pastor!!  Besides, there’s no way in a million years I would ever be a senior pastor!!!

More to come,

Jason

Next post:  A great retreat, a heart moment, and a weird time in another country.