Being Change

Daniel 2

On October 31, 2019, I completed 20 years of service as Pastor of CrossWalk Community Church.  I celebrate that as a pretty big deal for anyone in any organization.  I am very grateful that CrossWalk has taken time to celebrate this with me and for me and for each other.  I know that this is, in itself, a gift, as there are many who pass major milestones with no recognition whatsoever.  Thank you, CrossWalk!  The median tenure for pastors at one church has risen some over the last 20 years.  It used to be around 4 years, but now it’s 6years.  The increase likely stems from a range of factors that make a lot sense: younger pastors are not driven by the “climbing the corporate ladder” temptation; Boomer pastors are staying longer for multiple reasons; pastors are sensing a call to a community (not just the church); and pastors stay if they are being cared for.  As I reflect a bit today, I want to say first that I am so grateful for my wife who has supported me in my role from day one, even if she didn’t want to move across the country.  She has been a great asset in each of my 20 years here, usually serving behind the scenes in our Children’s Ministry, but also with bringing her touch to beautify our facility.  Being a pastor’s wife is a very complex role that most people really don’t fully understand.  Being an introvert who doesn’t like to be in the spotlight makes her role all the more challenging.  Yet, in spite of all of that, she has been faithful to me, she has served the church consistently, and she has represented CrossWalk with dignity, grace, and class.  I am so grateful for her, and for my kids who she has loved with great passion and presence.

Secondly, I am so thankful that CrossWalk has supported me in so many ways over so many years.  Many of the perils that pastor families face did not happen as much for us, in part because of the love of this congregation toward my family. We have been through more change in 20 years together than any of us could have possibly imagined on every front.  Some changes have been more welcome than others.  I am at times amazed that we are not just still alive but are really healthy and poised to handle the future as best as we can imagine.

The folklore-laden story found in the Book of Daniel (Chapter 2)  actually provides an interesting metaphor for me to reflect on and teach at the same time. King Nebuchadnezzar was haunted by a dream he couldn’t shake.  In that time and place, some cultures believed that evil forces used dreams to taunt and torture people.  He sought the help of his international team of advisors to make sense of it, but with a twist: to test their capacity as seers, he refused to tell them the details of his dream – they had to both recount the dream and interpret it.  If they failed, they would be put to death.  This speaks to the humanity of the king, which I relate to a lot.  The dream ended up being a warning about potential things to come beyond his reign.  The image of the statue communicated that things were going to get worse and worse, and finally be completely destroyed by a wrecking-ball stone from God – going against the flow of the Spirit catches up with us.

Nebuchadnezzar, Megalomaniac.  Neb was reacting out of fear at the outset of this story.  Fear of the unknown, fear of whatever his imagination was running away with, fear of destruction, failure, and lots of other stuff every human being faces.  In his fear, he didn’t operate optimally.  He wasn’t thinking straight, he didn’t treat people as good as he should, and he added to the chaos he was trying to quell.  This has certainly been true of me over my career.  Most of the time I’ve hidden it pretty well (I am an Enneagram Three after all!), but there have been moments when my fears have bested me.  Like Nebuchadnezzar, I was not as graceful, loving, present, open, appreciative, receptive, and professional as I would have liked.  The downside of being a “3” is that I ruminate on such things – I see them as failures instead of simply part of being human.  So, if you’ll allow me, I want to apologize for missing the mark here and there in ways that certainly impacted our organization, and perhaps you personally.  If we need to talk about specifics so that I can more fully understand how I may have hurt you, let’s make it happen.  I know that Neb wasn’t much for admitting he may have made mistakes – megalomaniacs don’t admit wrongdoing and don’t apologize for anything as it takes away from their sense of having absolute power and control.  So, the good news is I guess I’m not a megalomaniac!  And to insure that none of us are, it’s good to ask questions about our attitude and behaviors, to examine ourselves regularly to wonder about what may be motivating us.  How and when do you do this?  How do you stay in touch with yourself?  How do you course-correct when needed?  How do you own your junk and clean up the relational damage caused?

The Statue: Fixed or Flexible? I can also relate to the dream Neb had of that statue representing a potential future.  The writer of Daniel was doing so with the advantage of being well beyond the actual date of this exchange – perhaps well after it had all come to pass.  I was invited to be pastor of this church because I had experience and passion to help churches that were struggling come alive again.  Churches that are barely making it don’t get to that place overnight.  There are systems that develop over time that move organizations toward failure and death.  The good news is that systems can be changed which will also potentially change the future.  I was invited to come lead this church out of a death dive that was looming and was given authority to do whatever was needed.  I really had no idea how hard it was going to be on the church and on myself.  Back then, the church was comprised primarily of the older faithful members who had weathered incredible storms faced by this church,  good people who were willing to entrust a guy young enough to be their grandson with the keys to their Cadillac.  I always believed in our potential.  I believed in the decisions we made along the way, and for the most part, they paid off.  I am grateful for those saints who are no longer with us who were so supportive during their last season.  I think about how incredible it is and was that they chose to welcome change when so many others at that stage in life much prefer what is known and comfortable.  I think the challenge of leadership is to look forward and make decisions that are going to keep things on the “golden” side rather than the untenable mix of “clay and iron” that leads to destruction. 

This is no small challenge in an age when the Church is seeing unprecedented decline in our country, largely, in my opinion, because of poor modeling of Jesus by the Church!  Statistically, the job of pastor commands just a little more respect than being a used car salesman.  Times are a changing…  I celebrate what we have before us now.  A church that is deeply valued and recognized in Napa for all she does to serve Napa.  I believe CrossWalk is incredibly well positioned to both continue to serve Napa well and continue to be on the leading edge of working out what it means to be a faith community in ways that resonate with those who gave up on the Church.  While we must constantly stay awake to where we are and where we are going, we have pulled out of the death spiral and are in a great space to keep moving forward.  God is moving in powerful ways here, ways that are largely not understood by Church culture.  We’re doing our part to do incredible good empowered by the Spirit of God.  On a personal level, I think it is a good thing to be aware of where we are in our personal lives, taking stock of the trajectory we fin ourselves in.  Are we doing things that ensure that our relationships are healthy?  Are we doing things personally to make sure we’re a healthy part of any relationship? Are we aware of systems we are part of – and helped create – that need changing lest we find ourselves in holistic decline?

Daniel, MDR. Another facet of the story I relate to is Daniel’s extremely daring and courageous move to demand audience with the king who had recently order his death, to ask for the very same thing that had already been refused for the other seers.  Daniel recognized a terrible injustice was about to go down, and he couldn’t stand for it.  Using my voice for those who aren’t heard has been a part of me as long as I can remember.  Most of the vocalizing has been in my context of church – encouraging new thinking related to those who have been marginalized and quieted – women, divorcees, the abused, the LGBTQ community, the extremely poor, the hungry, the refugee.  Standing up for people is daring because it is catalytic: we often don’t see things that are right in front of us unless we are caused to.  When the thing to see is unflattering to ourselves, we generally dismiss it, deny it, and defend ourselves against association with it.  Throw in some “God is against it” horsepower to fuel prejudice and it becomes a mountain to overcome.  This is the work of Jesus, you know, and therefore, as Jesus followers, it becomes our work, too.  It got Jesus in a lot of trouble throughout his ministry.  He had a megachurch until he told the large crowd what it actually meant to follow him – they walked away at that point.  Eventually, Jesus’ “being change” led to his demise.  When we stand with and for those among us who need justice, equality, equity, and dignity, we are poking bears.  If we dare calls ourselves Jesus followers, however, the choice is made.  Courage required.  We will keep poking…  To take this home a bit, perhaps it is a good idea to ask ourselves how we are being part of the solution to the problems in our world rather than a part of the problem.  We may not feel like we are part of the problem, but I would suggest that if we are not doing something to understand and in some small way engage the issues of our day in a Jesus kind of way (for Christians), we are essentially silently complicit with the troubles that ail us.  Might I suggest that you identify a few issues that perhaps bother you in our culture and choose to learn more about the issue in its complexity?  Perhaps simply gaining greater understanding might in itself be the beginning of seeing a new future for your role as a change agent?

Daniel, PsyD. The final aspect of the story with which I resonate has to do with managing dreams.  Knowing what the dreams are and being able to interpret them is a part of our grand calling as people of faith.  While no large formal studies have been done comparing the dream themes of people of different socio-economic positions, there have been some observations.  The extreme poor in our world dream of winning the lottery, feasting at a grand banquet, and living in a magnificent home.  Surely this is in part related to the fact that money, food, and safe shelter are in short supply for the extremely poor.  Those who are doing better financially yet recognize that those in power are controlling the system to keep themselves on top dream of varying degrees of revolution where those in power are removed.  Perhaps this dream theme is born out of the injustice they know they are experiencing?  The Great Recession we recently experienced was caused by the wealthiest 1% in our country who were doing illegal things to increase their wealth at the expense of the other 99%.  Effectively, none of them went to jail for the immeasurable harm their greed caused.  That’s injustice.  Those in power have nightmares about losing what they have, no doubt because they are aware that they “have”, especially in light of the “have nots.” Daniel’s ability to articulate specifics about Neb’s dream and interpret it correctly stood in contrast to other seers from other traditions who failed, and thus made Jews feel affirmed in their faith even when oppressed. 

The Spirit of God is with and for the deepest dreams shared by all human beings – that we would experience an abundance of life, that we would all be able to flourish.  The specifics may change with context, of course, but this core theme is a golden thread that unites us all.  As agents of God, we are given the wonderful opportunity to speak these dreams into the lives of people who perhaps gave up on dreaming. We get to speak greater dreams into people’s lives than they may have previously imagined.  More than that, we are also given responsibility and authority to help people move forward in realizing those dreams.  Jesus is one who experienced a life of abundance, a flourishing existence even though he lived under the oppression of the Roman Empire and a power-hungry religious elite.  In following in his footsteps, we discover how to live into the dreams that reside deep within us.  Dreams come true – bigger dreams than we imagined – of hope, joy, and love despite the harshest of circumstances.

I had a dream of what this church could become when I started 20 years ago.  I am so happy to tell you that it did not come true!  If it had come true, we would have simply been a big church with lots of people coming on Sundays.  That’s a typical dream held by pastors.  It’s wonderful for egos.  But it is and was a very small dream.  We made a range of decisions that pretty much guaranteed that that would never happen.  I am so glad a much bigger dream began to emerge – we tripped into it, really.  Or were wooed into it by the love of God.  The dream was one that would create a CrossWalk where all are welcome – “Everybody. Always.”  The dream was that we would be known for our genuine love of the community expressed through radical hospitality – sharing our “home” with as many as we are able to sustain.  The dream required a shift in theology toward an open, relational approach that provided space to think differently about God and the Bible.  The dream would lead us to champion the cause of those who needed our presence and our purse alike: voiceless poor and abused, and people who have been on the receiving end of prejudice right here in Napa and across the world.  What dreams have you had that are probably better left unfulfilled?  What are the deepest dreams in your being?  I bet they have a lot more to do with experiencing deeper meaning, love, and joy than simply bigger barns to put more stuff.  How are you managing your own dreams? How are you speaking hope into the lives of others who may have given up on dreaming, even though our deepest dreams can be realized to some degree despite our past – because love is free and always in abundance if we’ll tap into it.

Who knew Daniel’s second chapter would have so much to offer for our processing where we are and where we’re going?  May it stick with us.  May we remember our potential to give into egocentric Nebuchadnezzar tendencies.  May we be cognizant of the way we are living and leading now with an eye on the future so that we keep things golden (or at least silver).  May we stand for justice when we see it threatened even if it requires great risk and therefore great courage.  May we be dream proclaimers in a world that longs for bigger dreams, and may we be dream realizers as we model and announce the Good News that God is with us, in us, and guiding us toward abundant, flourishing life for all.