charlieDEAN’S Blog

Sorry for the lack of posts…big stuff has been going on in my life that I haven’t had a lot of freedom to talk about. However, as of tonight, one of the biggest pieces was announced publicly, so I’m going to touch on it briefly.

In February (I think) Northwoods launched a multicultural church plant in Peoria called LifeBridge Community Church. I got a call on Thanksgiving morning from our senior pastor that the pastor leading the church plant had had a moral failure and he was calling to see if I could just fill the pulpit on Sunday morning. Things changed by Saturday however so I didn’t.

Anyway, it was announced to the church tonight that I will be leading the church in an interim capacity for the next six months. My primary responsibilities are twofold: 1. to teach, or to arrange for other speakers to come in and teach and 2. to develop, empower and lead a team of people that will begin to take ownership of LifeBridge and lead their church.

Of course, there are a lot of questions in my head, and I’m sure for some of you, there are questions that you have. I’ll talk a little about this Saturday night at Nexus. I still work at Northwoods. I still have responsibilities here. I’m not leaving. I’m not leaving my WINDOW OFFICE!!

Anyway…all this to say, that I covet your prayers. Seriously. It’s a critical situation that I don’t necessarily feel equipped to lead except to do the very best that I can. Keep LifeBridge in your prayers, keep that pastor in your prayers (if you know him), and keep everyone involved in your prayers.

Okay…it’s after ten and I’m still in my office, I got here at 7am…it’s time to go home.

Recently, I’ve had this feeling of satisfaction derived from the relationships in my life. There’s just a deep feeling of gratitude that I have meeting with different people.

This morning we had David & Megan over. I’ve known them since they were in my youth ministry, and now they’re both working at a church. It’s so satisfying to think that maybe in some small way I had something to do with them becoming the remarkable people that they are today.

Sorry I’ve been a bit dilinquent with posts.

Here’s 5 excuses for not blogging

1. lazy — not physically lazy (it’s not that hard to type), but mentally lazy — I haven’t wanted to think about it.
2. other stuff — at home I’ve been reading a good book, and being addicted to a computer game after the boys are in bed, and at work I’ve just been busy
3. stymied — by the whole “blogging thing.” So much of the communication that I do is persuasion-based, trying to convince/motivate/challenge people to change. Blogging isn’t really that…it’s just throwing another opinion into the mix…I’m a little tired of opinions…including my own. (I want to write a whole lot more about this, which leads to excuse number 4
4. length — the stuff that I’ve wanted to post about would lead to long posts, which I don’t read, unless the 1st paragraph is extremely compelling, so I hesitate to write them
5. ennui — look it up

bonus reason — it’s easy to substitute “blog relationships” with real relationships…I’d much rather chat over a cup of coffee (hint, hint!)

This weekend I did a wedding and met a ton of new people.

Later in the day, I was pointing out who the various people were (mother of the groom, grandparents, maternal aunt, etc.) and Jennifer remarked that the mother of the bride seemed like she was a nice lady. I asked her why she thought that and she said, “because she has a nice face.”

It got me to wondering — what do people think when the judge my face for the first time? Maybe it doesn’t matter…OR…maybe our face reflects what’s on the inside. Maybe our faces betray what’s really going on?

not great quality — I used Windows Movie Maker, which is no iTunes…but it’s okay — this was my first time to use it, so I was just playing around

Yesterday, I got word that a friend from seminary was arrested for having sex with a 16-year old student in his minsitry. There were two guys, that upon graduation I thought, “someday, I’ll be able to say that I know X.” He was one of the them.

Today, my heart aches.

It aches for the girl — whose faith in her pastor, her faith in her church, her faith in God, her faith in herself have been undoubtedly rocked.
It aches for my friend — who loves God so much, and never in a 1,000 years, set out to do harm
It aches for my friend’s wife…and his kids — who will suffer because of his choices
It aches for the kids in the ministry and the people in the church
It aches for the kingdom of God — where, again, we’ve given people another reason to not trust the clergy.

My prayers are conflicted — I’m praying for justice, I’m praying for healing, and I’m praying that my friend will receive grace in the hour of his deepest need.

I’ll be the number 2 guy here in Scranton in 6 weeks.

How?

Name repetition, personality mirroring,and never breaking off a handshake.

I’m always thinking one step ahead…like a carpenter who makes stairs.

– Andy, from the Stamford branch

Monday is my day off. So occasionally, no matter how embarrassed I am to admit it, I watch Dr. Phil. And even more difficult to admit, I sometimes watch Oprah. But recently, I’ve been more and more attracted to a different kind of show. So here’s the question…please answer and tell us why…

ELLEN or OPRAH?

I love wasting time.

Now, I’ve sat through sermons before, where preachers chastise us for wasting time, but let me explain.

My favorite thing to do with my boys: wasting time…wrestling…hiding under the covers…playing games…nothing planned. I think that this is what relationships are made of — wasting time with each other (nobody wants to be friends with the “let’s structure our hang out time” guy!)

As I was reading Yancey’s book on prayer the other day, I was challenged that I rarely waste time with God. I always have an agenda…a structure…a plan for how I will spend my 15 minutes, 43 seconds with God today.

Maybe God doesn’t want my stupid structure all the time, my endless lists of “I wants,” my “ACTS” prayer plan, my “Jabez” formulaic prayers…maybe, sometimes, God wants me to just waste some time with him — to let my mind wander and take him wherever it goes, to not hurry, to not beat myself up if I don’t get through the list…

Just maybe God wants me to waste some time with him today.

Ricky Gervais & Stephen Merchant have just finished the script for the Nov. 30 episode of the office called “Convict.”

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