In Between

I do not like being between places but that is where I find myself, in the "in between".

Who will listen to me here when next week I will be somewhere else? While I am in the "in between" no one there will listen to me either even though they say they are glad I am coming.

Why do I even feel like I need to be heard? Because there are things that are happening in both places I care about. Since I am "in between" I should just be quiet. I’m sure if I made noise no one would listen.

Even though I like change (to the point where I have been called schizo) it is strange to be in between.

Belief

There are things that I believe that fuel much of what I do. There are things I say I believe that I must not believe so much or I would live a life where my actions showed those beliefs to be true.

The things I believe most deeply come out in the way I live. I can talk all I want but belief is seen in action.

I’ve heard well meaning people say “You’ve got to stand up for what you believe in” - which on the surface sounds like great advice. But what if your beliefs are really wack? Say you believe that if you fly an airplane into a tall building full of thousands of people in the name of your religion that you will be reward by god in eternity. Is that the kind of belief it is okay to stand up for?

I have no answers, only questions brought on by John Mayer’s new CD Continuum.

Everyone believes
In how they think it ought to be
Everyone believes
And they’re not going easily

Belief is a beautiful armor
But makes for the heaviest sword
Like punching in the water
You can never hit what you’re trying for

Belief - John Mayer

Change is good

My life is changing a bit. Here is what I wrote to Brazos Pointe Fellowship:

I love Brazos Pointe Fellowship. I remember the first Sunday the Stunz family attended. It was the second Sunday of Brazos Pointe Fellowship's official existence and everyone in our family loved it. We had just moved back to Brazosport from Spring, Texas and Andrea and I felt like we should visit other churches to make sure we knew where God wanted us. The kids wouldn't hear of it. They felt like they had already heard from God and he was saying we needed to be at Brazos Pointe Fellowship.

I never dreamed that God would take us from the point of being members and volunteers at Brazos Pointe Fellowship to being on staff and working here. But that is exactly what God chose to do.

I used to think that God was logical and rational but through the path of my life I've found that sometimes God can't completely be explained. God is at times mysterious and cannot be figured out. Just like God made a major turn in my life in the summer of 2003, Andrea and I feel he is making a change of direction in our life yet again.

The change I am talking about is not going to lead us away from Brazos Pointe Fellowship. This is our church and this is where we desire to be. At the beginning of October though, I am going back to work in a secular job similar to many of you. As I just said, God is mysterious and I do not completely understand why He is leading me in this direction but I am convinced that it is definitely His direction.

I will continue to share preaching responsibilities with Greg. I will teach Discovering Your Design with Mary Margaret. I will continue to lead a small group and I will still run sound (because I dig music). The only difference is that I will not be on Brazos Pointe Fellowship's Leadership Team and will no longer be paid by the church. I will be a passionate volunteer. I believe in what goes on here. I believe in the vision of Brazos Pointe Fellowship and will remain a part of it. For many of you things won't look that different.

Come this weekend and hear the rest of the story as Greg and I preach together “Under the Influence – Part 2”

- Tommy

In my blog resurrection post I said that I would not write as "Tommy, the guy who gets paid to work at church." Now that will be true because at the end of the month I will no longer get paid to work at the church.

I feel good about where I am headed.

I read therefore I post quotes - Part II

A friend sent me a link to this article saying: “It meant something to me and I thought you might like it.”

He was right. This hit me at the right time and in the right place. Here are some quotes:

I learned to embrace the spiritual significance of my positions; I learned that no matter where I was, how lonely or obsolete the job, God was present, and sometimes more tangible than being in a church service. … I discovered that no matter where I was placed, my identity and duty were in Christ alone—without credit, without title.

Read all of “Without Credit, Without Title" here … link

Someday soon I will post something that is original to me. It will not be near as good as the quotes I have posted lately, I'm sure, but it will be mine.

I read therefore I post quotes

Dallas Willard is one of my favorite authors. His book The Divine Conspiracy had a profound impact on me. Below are a couple of quotes from an article in Christianity Today:

"Willard says that when he left the ministry to study philosophy in the early 1960s, God told him, "If you stay in the churches, the university will be closed to you; but if you stay in the university, the churches will be open to you.""

"There is knowledge of God and the spiritual nature of man, as well as other types of reality (e.g. moral obligations) that are not reducible to the world dealt with by the so-called 'natural sciences.' The idea that knowledge—and, of course, reality—is limited to that world is the single most destructive idea on the stage of life today."

"Generally, what I find is that the ordinary people who come to church are basically running their lives on their own, utilizing 'the arm of the flesh'—their natural abilities—to negotiate their way," he says. "They believe there is a God and they need to check in with him. But they don't have any sense that he is an active agent in their lives. As a result, they don't become disciples of Jesus. They consume his merits and the services of the church. … Discipleship is no essential part of Christianity today."

"God has yet to bless anyone except where they actually are, and if we faithlessly discard situation after situation, moment after moment, as not being 'right,' we will simply have no place to receive his kingdom into our life. For those situations and moments are our life."

Good stuff I think. You can read the rest here ... link

Which step

“ … what we need to learn is always there before us, we just have to look around us with respect and attention in order to discover where God is leading us and which step we should take next. I also learned a respect for mystery. As Einstein said, God does not play dice with the universe; everything is interconnected and has meaning. That meaning may remain hidden nearly all of the time, but we always know we are close to our true mission on earth when what we are doing is touched with the energy of enthusiasm.
If it is, then all is well. If not, then we had better change direction.”

Paulo Coelho The Zahir

The Call

“William Tyndale wrote that, if our desire is to please God, pouring water, washing dishes, cobbling shoes, and preaching the Word “is all one”.”

“The action of a shepherd in keeping sheep, performed as I have said in this kind, is as good a work before God as is the action of a judge in giving a sentence, or of a magistrate in ruling, or a minister in preaching.” (A Treatise of the Vocations or Callings of Men)

“We must resolutely refuse to play the word games that pretend calling means anything without a Caller. … If there is no Caller there are no callings – only work.”

“Beware of anything that competes with loyalty to Jesus Christ,” Oswald Chambers wrote. “The greatest competitor of devotion to Jesus is service for Him … The one aim of the call of God is the satisfaction of God, not a call to do something for him.”

All of the above quotes come from The Call by Os Guinness

I bought this book on September 3, 2002; the day my oldest daughter Tori got her scoliosis brace. I remember it as a heavy day. The Call had a huge impact on me then and just glancing through it today reminded me of that impact.

Jury Duty

I was called for jury duty yesterday. In the court room I sat with 59 new friends as available jurors for a criminal case to be tried starting the same day. When the prosecuting attorney asked where I was a pastor, what denomination our church belonged, and if I was an associate or senior pastor, his assistant and the defense attorney both scribbled quickly on their yellow pads of paper (lawyers really do use “legal pads”). I assumed that my fate was set and I would be kicked out of the process due to my “pastor” status. Knowing some of the pastors I know I can’t say that blame them.

As the attorneys continued in the questioning of potential jurors I started to feel sorry for the poor guy who was charged with a crime. The people in the court room had some of the most asinine answers to the questions the lawyers were asking. Then after I felt sorry for the guy on trial I started to panic, thinking they would see a pastor as a good choice since none of the other perspective jurors seemed to have any common sense.

Finally 12 capable jurors were impaneled. I left the court room with 48 other relieved people. Hopefully they passed over me due to my occupation and the preconceived ideas they perceived I would or would not have rather than passing me over based on their judgment of my intelligence.

BTW – I know I restarted this blog saying I would not write from the perspective of the paid church worker person. Even in this post, I think I have been true to what I said. I am unwilling to argue that point though.

Blog Resurrection

It has been a year since I published anything here at Stunz Blog. I know that the last post I wrote said it was the end, but I am exercising my prerogative to change my mind. I have written some in the last year but nothing like what I wrote here. So I’m back.

What I write at Stunz Blog will be written as Tommy, the individual, the follower of Jesus, the husband and the dad; rather than Tommy the guy who gets paid to work at church. I may write about church and teaching but I won’t wear the label. The writing may still read the same to most but it will definitely come from a different place inside of me.

By the way, I have a running blog and if you are in to that kind of thing you can check it out here … link.

Come back occasionally and see if you like what you read.