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Stewardship and My Sabbatical
By Mark D. Roberts | Friday, October 12, 2007
Part 5 of series: Why Move? Stewardship, Wineskins, and the Enigmatic Will of God
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As I explained in my last post, in the early part of 2006 I looked forward to my pending sabbatical as a time for seeking God’s direction for how best to use my gifts for His purposes. My three month sabbatical would provide an occasion to wrestle with the question of stewardship in an intentional and relaxed way.
My time away began on April 17, 2006. Shortly thereafter I began seeing a spiritual director named Doug. He was a wise, mature Christian who had received training in helping people pay attention to God’s activity and direction in their lives. Spiritual directors do not actually direct those who meet with them, contrary to what the name might suggest. Rather, they help people discover and discern God’s direction for their lives. With Doug’s assistance, I sought to work on my stewardship question. I hoped he might help me identify God’s leading from among my own confused inklings. Was my desire to focus more on writing and leadership a reflection of God’s direction? Was it a matter of faithful stewardship? Or was it simply an implication of my laziness, or my unwillingness to do tasks that I didn’t relish? Questions like these were the focus of my regular meetings with Doug.
Early in my sabbatical a publisher sent me a book that was soon to be released. It was written by the best-selling author Max Lucado, and was called, Cure for the Common Life: Living in Your Sweet Spot. The timing of the arrival of this book was truly providential because it spoke directly to the very things I was trying to sort out. Lucado explained that God has created each of us as unique beings, and our uniqueness fits us perfectly with a certain kind of ministry in the world. Finding and doing this ministry is “living in your sweet spot.” That was exactly what I was looking for in my own life. What was the “sweet spot” God had intended for me?
During my sabbatical in 2006 I didn’t have any flashes of insight about my future. No “road to Damascus” events for me. I did have experiences that helped me to know that, though I wanted to do more writing in my life, I didn’t want to be only a writer. Ditto with itinerant speaking. I came to see clearly that being part of a ministry team helped me use my gifts well. So, at the end of my sabbatical, I returned to Irvine Pres refreshed and ready to see how my job at church might be reconfigured to align with my unfolding sense of calling. Curiously and sagely, my spiritual director wondered if God might have something new for me to do, but he didn’t denigrate my new-found enthusiasm for church. He simply urged me to remain open to God with “patient eagerness.”
When I got back to church, I was pleased to discover that the Session and staff had worked hard to begin to reconfigure my job and our staff alignment. Now I would supervise only four people directly, who would in turn supervise the rest of the program staff. This allowed me to focus my efforts for greater effectiveness. I felt grateful for how seriously my fellow leaders had taken what I had said to them a few months earlier. I still had plenty to do, but as I told my Session, “Before I went on sabbatical I felt as if I was drowning. Now I’m able to tread water. I’d still like to be able to swim forward, but treading water is a whole lot better than drowning!”
During the fall of 2006, I met individually with my elders, talking in detail about my hopes for a refocused job that would allow me to be a better steward of my gifts. The elders were supportive, and were willing to engage in a process of discernment in the months ahead. They were rightly concerned about what would be best for the church, and I encouraged them in this concern. But we sensed together that there could be a coming together of vision, need, and giftedness. Good stewardship of my gifts could very well be good stewardship of Irvine Presbyterian Church’s resources and mission. This seemed to bode well for my future at the church. Moreover, I appreciated the sense of partnership and support I felt as I talked with my elders.
As I think back on the events of 2006, I continue to be grateful for my sabbatical. Even though I ended up leaving Irvine Pres just a year after I finished my sabbatical, I think the church got a reasonable return on its investment in me. My preaching was never stronger than in my last year. And, though my conversations with the Session about the future turned out not to impact my role at the church, those discussions helped the elders prepare for the crucial process of clarifying the church’s mission, so that they can call the right person as the next pastor. Of course they also helped me come to understand what God was saying to me.
I realize that most folks aren’t given the gift of a sabbatical. But all of us can, if we make appropriate choices, build into our lives the kind of rest that refreshes us and helps us discern God’s will with greater clarity. When I’m caught up in a flurry of activity, I’m not especially attentive to God. Hearing God’s voice requires an extended time of quiet and solitude. At least that’s true for me. I think I’m not alone in this need, however, because Jesus Himself often took times away for quite and prayer. If He needed it, so do we all!
I didn’t receive any heavenly visions during my sabbatical. In fact, I came back to Irvine Pres with new energy and hope for my role there. During my sabbatical I didn’t have even one conversation with any potential new employer, and had no intention of pursuing such a conversation when I climbed back into the pastoral saddle. But my time of rest, including wise input from folks like my spiritual director, Doug, my wife, other trusted counselors, and a book by Max Lucado, helped me to be in a new place of attentiveness to God, even though I never dreamed where this would lead to in my life. In the fall of 2006, Texas was nowhere near the horizon of my future as I envisioned it.
But, of course, God had other plans. I’ll begin to discuss these in my next post.
Topics: Why Move? | 2 Comments »
Stewardship and My Session
By Mark D. Roberts | Thursday, October 11, 2007
Part 4 of series: Why Move? Stewardship, Wineskins, and the Enigmatic Will of God
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In my last two posts I explained how, in 2005, the combination of completed tasks at Irvine Presbyterian Church and opportunities afforded through writing got me thinking about how I could best use what God had given me for His purposes. I started to wonder what it meant for me to be a responsible steward of my gifts and opportunities in the years ahead.
As I was puzzling over this stewardship question, my life as pastor of Irvine Presbyterian Church was getting busier and busier. During my tenure we had almost doubled the size of the congregation and the staff, and had tripled the number of our ministry programs. Whereas in 1991 I preached twice each weekend, by 2005 I was preaching four times, twice using digital projection that I prepared. And, as people in the congregation came to trust me as their pastor, they were more eager to meet with me or e-mail me to discuss their personal concerns and struggles. I was doing good things as pastor of Irvine Pres, to be sure, but too many of them. Meanwhile, I continued to do my writing, mostly on “my own time” in the evenings and on weekends. But I was feeling increasingly overwhelmed by my workload at church. Furthermore, I was concerned that I was spending too much time in tasks that were not the best use of my gifts and opportunities. In a nutshell, I feared I wasn’t being a good steward.
I was slated to begin a three-month sabbatical from my pastoral ministry in April of 2006. One of the great things about Irvine Pres is its sabbatical policy for pastors. In the first months of 2006, I was looking forward to my sabbatical like a thirsty traveler hiking through a parched desert on the way to a well-watered oasis. Finally I would have an extended time to be refreshed physically, emotionally, and spiritually, and also to devote considerable time to my stewardship concerns. I would have three restful months to ask the Lord what He wanted to do with my life.
Before I left on sabbatical, I decided to share my thoughts and feelings with my Session (the board of elders and pastors at Irvine Pres; photo to the right: some members of my Session in a skit for my farewell party). In a Presbyterian church, the Session has almost complete authority over the life and ministry of the church, including much of what appears in a pastor’s job description. I wrote a long letter to my Session, reading it out loud at a meeting in March 2006. In this letter I told the story of my ministry at the church, explaining how I had completed many of the goals that had been set for me when I began in 1991. I also shared my frustration with the unmanageability of my administrative and pastoral responsibilities. Finally, I talked about my sense that God was opening up new doors for me through writing, and I wondered how this might fit within my calling as the pastor of Irvine Pres. Summing up my current state of mind, I wrote this paragraph, the only italicized paragraph in the long letter:
I want to use the distinctive gifts and talents God has given me for maximum benefit for His kingdom. I want to be the person God has created and saved me to be. I want to do the work for which He has uniquely fashioned and gifted me. To use theological language, my passion is to be a good steward of the gifts God has given me, for His glory.
My Session received my letter graciously, aware that it was unusual for a pastor to share such things so openly. Usually, in the Presbyterian church, pastors process their calling privately, and then announce their findings to their Session’s once when they have figured things out. There is some wisdom in this practice, by the way, because it can be unnerving for church leaders to hear of a pastor’s unsettledness. By sharing as I did I risked becoming a lame duck pastor, at least in the minds of some of my elders. Nevertheless, it seemed right to me to share honestly with my Session what I was thinking and feeling so that they might be partners in my stewardship search. My hope was, furthermore, that they might work with me on retooling my position at Irvine Pres so that I might stay on as pastor and, at the same time, be a better steward of my odd combination of gifts and opportunities. That retooling process began in March 2006, and continued through until summer of 2007, when I shared with them my new call to Laity Lodge.
I’ll continue this story in my next post.
Topics: Why Move? | 3 Comments »
Stewardship
By Mark D. Roberts | Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Part 3 of series: Why Move? Stewardship, Wineskins, and the Enigmatic Will of God
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It might seem strange that I’m talking about stewardship in the context of explaining why I have recently left Irvine Presbyterian Church in California to begin a new ministry at Laity Lodge in Texas. The word “stewardship” is not commonly used these days, and when it is, it is usually associated with environmentalism and church fundraising. When pastors need to raise money for churches, we preach about stewardship (rightly so, I might add). So when churchgoers here the word “stewardship,” they’re inclined to run away. But please don’t do that! I’m not going to hit you up for money in this blog post.
Stewardship is, in fact, a much broader and, if you’ll pardon the pun, richer topic than we sometimes assume. It has to do with using well what God has given us. That’s why some contemporary communicators prefer the word “management” to “stewardship.” As Christians, we are to manage God’s gifts well, recognizing that God is the true owner of all things, including ourselves, that we are accountable to Him for what we do, and that we are to use His gifts for His purposes. (Photo: the sanctuary of Irvine Presbyterian Church)
In my last post, I explained that in 2005 I had an unusual sense of completion in my ministry at Irvine Presbyterian Church. Of course the core of my pastoral work continued much as it always had, as I preached, taught, prayed, led, supervised, counseled, and encouraged. But the larger, specific goals that I had taken on in 1991 when I came to the church, such as building a new sanctuary and refurbishing our youth ministry, had been fulfilled by 2005. Even as I felt grateful for all that God had done through my pastoral work at Irvine Pres, I also felt unexpectedly restless. What were major initiatives would come next? What was I supposed to do with the next fifteen years of my life?
At the time, I considered the last question almost entirely with the assumption that I would remain as pastor of Irvine Presbyterian Church. I felt no desire to leave the church, and had never considered any other offer that came my way. In fact, I thought I would complete my professional ministry at Irvine Pres, and this thought was a very pleasant one for me most of the time. I loved the people of the church, and my family was very well settled in the church and the community. Moreover, we had wonderful friends and extended family in Southern California. Who in his right mind would move away from this?
Yet the question of stewardship kept nipping at my heels. As much as I felt I had used my gifts well at Irvine Pres, I wasn’t convinced that I should continue in the next fifteen years in the same way I had in the last fifteen years. Why? Because in the time since 2000 or so, new ministry opportunities had opened up for me, largely through my writing. And God had been clearly blessing these new efforts, suggesting, perhaps, that He wanted me to do more of the same.
That is not to say my books were selling like hotcakes. More like lukewarm cakes. But I did hear from many people, especially from pastors and other Christian leaders, that my books had meant a lot to them. Several preachers told me they had based sermon series on Jesus Revealed or Dare to Be True. Many others had written to share how much No Holds Barred helped them to have a more intimate relationship with God. My books, which were loosely based on my sermons, extended my pastoral ministry in new ways. The same could be said for the writing I did for several magazines, notably, Worship Leader.
Though I had a modest impact through traditional written media, the new media opened up stunning new opportunities for me. I began my blog, markdroberts.com, on December 22, 2003. I started blogging, not because of any convictions about opportunities in the blogosphere, but because my friend Hugh Hewitt had pestered me into it. Moreover, I figured my blog would be helpful to members of Irvine Pres. I was right about this, in fact. But what I didn’t anticipate was the extent to which my blog would attract millions of readers from throughout the world, and give me the chance to make a major difference in the church and in the world. I was blown away, for example, when a Justice of a state Supreme Court wrote to thank me for my blog, noting that he was a regular reader. I had similar notes from well-known journalists, entertainment industry leaders, and politicians. Some of the most moving e-mails I received came from soldiers serving in Iraq who wrote to thank me for my blog. Last year I received a request to use some of my blog materials from a chaplain serving with an Army battalion on the front lines in Afghanistan.
Furthermore, my blog opened up opportunities for me to exercise leadership in other contexts, in public lectures, or radio interviews, or in consultation with religious and secular leaders. The kind of thinking I offered through my blog seemed to be helpful to people in other settings as well, and they began to seek me out.
No doubt, at first all of this spun my head, or, if you prefer, gave me a bit of a big head. It was exciting to get thousands of visitors to my blog in a single day. But before too long I stopped checking my blog hits (which I almost never do) or being impressed with my being an “influencer.” Blogging and the doors it opened became simply ways to use the gifts God had given me for His sake, as I tried to offer a calm, respectful, thoughtful, and faithful voice in a world that has way too little calm, respect, thought, and faith.
In 2005 I began to wonder if God wanted me to use my gifts and opportunities in new ways. I began musing about whether my pastoral role at Irvine Pres could be redefined so as to free me up to do more writing and leading. It wasn’t that I didn’t value or even like some of the managerial tasks I hoped to delegate to someone else. These were necessary for the health of the church, to be sure. But I just wasn’t sure that it was the best use of me to sit for hours refining a job description, even though I knew that such a process needed to be done, and done well. How, I wondered, was I to be a faithful steward of the unique mix of gifts and opportunities God had given me?
For the most part, I kept my stewardship musings to myself. I shared them with my wife and a few close friends and counselors, but that was all. I wasn’t ready to share them with my board of elders at church, partly because my ideas were ill-formed. And I had absolutely no interest in looking for another position where I might use my gifts better. This was true even when, in 2005, I received an attractive information packet from Laity Lodge, announcing their search for a new Director and Executive Director. And it was still true when one of my best friends, one who knows me well and wants the best for me, told me that the Laity Lodge opportunity was perfect for me. “There’s no way I’m moving to Texas,” I told him, “so forget about it.” When the person leading the Laity Lodge search left a voice mail message for me, asking me to call back, I did the mature, polite thing, and never called her back.
As I reflect upon this season of my life, I’m impressed with how, at the same time, I was both open to and closed to God’s will for me. I was truly seeking God’s will for how I might best use my gifts for His purposes. I spent hours upon hours in prayer and meditation on this question of stewardship. It felt as if my heart was truly open. Yet I had clearly limited God’s options. I wasn’t asking, “How can I best use my gifts for You?” but rather “How can I best use my gifts for You as pastor of Irvine Presbyterian Church?” This wasn’t a bad question. In fact, it was a great question, the kind of question every pastor should ask, and that every person should ask with respect to their work. The problem was that I wasn’t open to the possibility that God had other plans for my life.
Yet God, in His grace, didn’t give up on me. Nor did He make things easy for me, by the way, sending an angel from heaven to announce that He was calling me to Laity Lodge. No, God’s work in my life was slower. There was much more I needed to learn and to experience before I would be ready to ask the stewardship question without restricting God’s answer. And much more needed to happen before I, along with my wife, would be willing to seriously entertain the wild notion that God might want us in Texas.
I’ll have more to say about this next time.
Topics: Why Move? | 3 Comments »
The Beginning
By Mark D. Roberts | Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Part 2 of series: Why Move? Stewardship, Wineskins, and the Enigmatic Will of God
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I could begin telling the story behind our move to Texas at several different places. I could recount conversations in my grandparents’ breakfast room when I was a boy. Or I could relate things I learned from my pastor when I was a teenager. Or I could describe the first time my wife and I experienced Laity Lodge. I expect that, in time, I’ll touch upon all of these. But for the sake of brevity, I’ll begin with something that happened at Irvine Presbyterian Church in 2005. (Photo: Veritas in worship)
In January of 2005, we began our Veritas worship service. Veritas, which means “truth” in Latin, was our “post-contemporary” service, intended primarily for folks under 30. The musical portions of the service were led by an outstanding rock band. I was the primary preacher. We incorporated a variety of elements, including live painting, stirring visuals, and classic items of Christian worship, like the Lord’s Prayer.
I loved Veritas (and still do, for that matter). What I most loved about that service was the eager participation of people who had, for the most part, never before connected with our church’s more traditional forms of worship. My heart rejoiced to see in Veritas the kind of people we had been missing for so long: teenagers, young singles, newlyweds, visitors with piercings and tattoos, and even a few of us older folk who connected with God through the musical genre of this service. For fourteen and a half years I had worked and prayed to see Irvine Presbyterian Church include in worship those we had for so long ignored. In January 2005, it finally happened. I was thrilled.
Along with that thrill came a sense of completion, combined with an unexpected feeling of unsettledness. So much of what I had labored for as pastor, so much of what I had been called to the church specifically to do, had finally been accomplished. When I came to Irvine Pres in 1991, I faced several daunting challenges, including:
• Bring health to the ailing youth ministry.
• Help the church embrace its local evangelistic responsibility.
• Rebuild and expand the staff to support a growing ministry.
• Help the members of the church see themselves as ministers and live out their identity in both the church and the world.
• Get the stalled building program back on track; lead the church to build a new sanctuary and an administration building.
• Develop new ministries for fellowship and Bible study, so that people might grow as disciples.
• Expand the church’s missions program, with more hands-on involvement by members.
• Broaden the appeal of our worship so as to draw in new people, but without losing the core of the church who preferred a more traditional genre.
By God’s grace, we were able to meet several of these challenges during my first few years as pastor. In 1996, for example, our youth ministry was healthy, and we completed construction of a new sanctuary and youth center. But other goals on my list took more time. It wasn’t until 2005 that we finished building the administration building. And, as I noted above, in the same year we began our Veritas worship service. For the first time in my tenure as pastor of Irvine Pres, I felt as if I had completed much of what I was called there to do. This was a wonderful feeling, but, as I mentioned above, the finishing of my obvious to-do list also left me wondering what was next. Perhaps it was time to generate a new list for the next fifteen years of my ministry at the Irvine church.
In one sense, a pastor’s work is never done. There are always more sermons to be preached, more lessons to be taught, more people to be discipled, more needs to be offered to the Lord in prayer, more lost sheep to be carried home. As I began to wonder what I was supposed to do next in service to the Lord, it wasn’t as if I had nothing more to do as pastor of Irvine Presbyterian Church. In fact, I was working hard, often feeling overwhelmed by the volume of work required in a growing church. For example, Veritas added about a half-day of work to my week, given extra meetings and preparation, but I had not delegated any of my other responsibilities to someone else.
Yet, even as I had more than enough to do as pastor, I began to wonder where I should be focusing my energies in the future. Assuming, as I did, that I’d be the pastor of Irvine Pres for many more years, I began ruminating about how I could best use the gifts and opportunities God had given me. In theological language, I started to wrestle with the issue of stewardship. No, not fund raising for the church, but stewardship or wise management of the gifts God had given me for ministry.
Next time I’ll say more about the issue of stewardship and how it played out in my life.
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Why Move? An Introduction
By Mark D. Roberts | Monday, October 8, 2007
Part 1 of series: Why Move? Stewardship, Wineskins, and the Enigmatic Will of God Permalink for this post / Permalink for this series
If you’ve been reading my blog recently, you know that I’ve just left my position as Pastor of Irvine Presbyterian Church and have begun my new role as Senior Director and Scholar-in-Residence for Laity Lodge. This change has, of course, necessitated a major move for my family and me, from Orange County, California, to the Hill Country of Texas, just outside of San Antonio.
I expect many of you have wondered why I have made this move? Several of you have asked me about this. Why leave a wonderful church where I was pastor for sixteen fruitful years? Why move my family from their home to a place that won’t feel like home for a long time? Why put so much space between us and our beloved friends and family in California? Why endure the physical and especially the emotional dislocation of moving? In a nutshell, why move? Why now? And why to Texas? (Thanks to Van Partible for the cartoon of my face.)
These are important questions, questions I have been wrestling with for many, many months. Though I now have answers to these questions, those answers didn’t come quickly or easily. In fact, the decision to move to Texas was, by far, the hardest decision of my life. Not that it was mine alone, mind you. It would be more correct to say that this has been the hardest decision that my wife and I, with input from our children, have ever made.
Now that I’m on this side of the divide (literally, the Continental one), having left California and moved to Texas, and having finished my work at Irvine Pres and begun at Laity Lodge, I have not second-guessed our decision. I still believe strongly that we have done the right thing. But I am impressed with how hard it is to move, especially at this stage of life. When I went away to college, I had one trunk, two suitcases, and a typewriter. Now my family and I filled a large moving van, not to mention two cars and a trailer. The physical challenges of moving are indeed many. In fact, I’ve been unpacking for weeks, and I still can’t find much of my stuff because it’s hidden somewhere in boxes stacked in the garage of our rental house or in a storage unit a few miles away.
Yet the physical challenges of moving pale in comparison to the psychical challenges. Moving messes with one’s psyche. It plays tricks on the mind. It involves changing virtually everything that is familiar, comfortable, and assumed. For example, I am now in the process of learning two new addresses, three new phone numbers, a brand new layout of streets, a new configuration of the local market, a new computer system and phone system at work, a new set of weight machines at a new gym, forty new names of my new colleagues at work, etc. etc. This past weekend, for the first time in over two decades, my family and I had to decide where to go to church. Soon we faced a new parking lot, a new campus, a new order of worship, several new songs, a new preacher, and lots of new people in the theatre seats next to us. All of this newness, which can be exciting at times, takes a huge amount of psychical energy. And that’s just for me. If you add into the equation the physical and psychical changes for my wife and two children, you’ve got a lot of change happening all at once.
In this blog series I’m going to explain why I, along with my family, have moved. At least I’ll give you my perspective. You’d hear different things from my family members. And, in the end, who can say exactly what God has in mind here? My approach is to begin by telling the story of the last couple of years of my life. It’s a story about stewardship, wineskins, and the enigmatic will of God. If this sounds strange, I hope it won’t after a few days of blogging. I’m telling this story not only to explain why I’ve moved, however. I’m hoping that my example might offer a bit of encouragement to others.
This series will eventually get around to explaining why I find Laity Lodge so compelling that I’ve moved my family to Texas so I, along with my wife, can join the Laity Lodge team. Since most of my readers are not familiar with Laity Lodge, this will also give me a chance to introduce its diverse, exciting ministries. In the meanwhile, I’ll start telling my story tomorrow.
Topics: Why Move? | 3 Comments »
Sunday Inspiration from Pray the Psalms
By Mark D. Roberts | Sunday, October 7, 2007
Excerpt
For you, O LORD, are most high over all the earth;
you are exalted far above all gods.
Psalm 97:9
Click here to read all of Psalm 97
Prayer
You are more worthy, more glorious, more beautiful, more valuable, more wonderful than all the other “gods” of my life, Lord.
You are more exalted than
security . . .
safety . . .
theological correctness . . .
good intentions . . .
being liked . . .
being right . . .
trying hard . . .
human comforts . . .
intellectual integrity . . .
cleverness . . .
family . . .
friends . . .
church . . .
country.
May You be truly lifted up in my life . . . in my words and deeds, in my thoughts and dreams, in all I am today and all I will be tomorrow.
Amen!
Postscript
One of the most beloved praise songs comes straight out of this psalm:
“I Exalt Thee”
by Pete Sanchez, Jr.
For Thou O Lord art high above all the earth
Thou art exalted far above all gods
For Thou O Lord art high above all the earth
Thou art exalted far above all gods
Chorus
I exalt Thee
I exalt Thee
I exalt Thee O Lord
I exalt Thee
I exalt Thee
I exalt Thee O Lord
© 1977 Pete Sanchez, Jr. (Admin. by Gabriel Music, Inc. PO Box 840999, Houston, TX. 77284-0999
Evening sky in Bishop, California
Pray the Psalms is one of my two devotional websites. The other is Pray the Gospels. Both sites include a daily Bible reading from either the Psalms or the Gospels, along with a prayer and some additional thoughts or questions for reflection.
For a similar devotional approach based on the Scriptures, check out Emails to God: Daily Devotions by a Lay Christian.
Topics: Sunday Inspiration | No Comments »
Some Things I’ll Miss About California, Part 4
By Mark D. Roberts | Saturday, October 6, 2007
Yes, I’ll miss California’s ocean, and the High Sierra, and preaching to my congregation at Irvine Presbyterian Church. I’ll miss the Regatta Café, my favorite restaurant, not to mention In-N-Out Burger. (My taste in food runs the gamut.) I expect that there will be dozens of other things I’ll miss about the state in which I lived for 86% of my life (the other 14% in Massachusetts).
But the “things” I’ll miss most of all aren’t things, but people. I’ll miss the people I have been privileged to spend so much of my life with. First and foremost, I’ll miss my extended family. Oh, to be sure, I’ll get to see them at Christmas and during summer vacations. And I hope they’ll be courageous enough to visit us in Texas. But I won’t get to see my family, including my wife’s family, as often as I have in the last two decades. (Photo below: My family on Thanksgiving Day in 2006)
In addition to my family, the people I’ll miss the most include some long time friends from my days at the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood. We have remained close over the years, even vacationing together in Grand Tetons National Park in 2004 (see photo to the right). When our friendships began, most of us were unmarried, and none had children. Now we all have spouses and kids, along with plenty of pets.
Besides family and friends, I’ll miss my staff at Irvine Presbyterian Church, many of whom became friends as we worked together and shared life together. I was blessed with some fanastic colleagues, people of strong faith, deep integrity, extraordinary talent, and a passion for Christ and His church. Much of what God was able to do through me at Irvine Presbyterian Church reflects the support and partnership with my staff. (Photo to the right: Some members of the pastoral and program staff.)
Finally, I’ll miss the people of Irvine Pres. As I mentioned in my last post, I’ll miss the chance to preach to them. But, more basically, I will simply miss them. You can’t share the deepest things in life with people for sixteen years and not miss them when you’re separated. My life has been inestimably changed for the better because of their partnership, friendship, support, and love. (The picture to the right is from the farewell party that the church threw for me and my family. It was one of the highlights of my life. You can view some of the videos made for that event on YouTube: 1) Pictures of people from the church; 2) Tributes to my family; 3) A video history of my ministry, including scandalous shots of me in Vacation Bible School attire. Yikes! Many thanks to Troy Witt of Take One Productions and Jennie Korneychuk for producing these sweet videos.)
Topics: California | 1 Comment »
Some Things I’ll Miss About California, Part 3
By Mark D. Roberts | Friday, October 5, 2007
Preaching at Irvine Presbyterian Church. I’ll miss preaching to what was for sixteen years my congregation. (Photo below: a pan of the congregation on my last Sunday at Irvine Pres.)
Preaching is a huge privilege. The chance to study God’s Word, to meditate upon it, to live it, to pray over it, and then to share what I’ve found with my sisters and brothers in Christ is truly a gift to the preacher (and, I hope, to the preachees). (Photo to the right: preaching in our two more traditional services)
When I first came to Irvine Pres, there were two services on Sunday morning. A couple of years later we added a Saturday evening service. Then, in 2005, we began our Veritas service, a “post-contemporary” service primarily but not exclusively for young adults. This meant that I preached four times each weekend, twice with digital projection (on Sat PM and Veritas) and twice in the good ol’ fashioned way.
During my sixteen years and three months as pastor of Irvine Pres, I preached well over 600 different sermons. With repetition on a weekend, I preached about 2,000 times. I don’t think I ever took for granted the significance of my calling as a preacher. Yes, there were some weeks when I wasn’t able to put in as many hours of preparation as I would have preferred. But I can honestly say that I never “winged it,” preaching an impromptu sermon.
Well, perhaps with one exception: my Christmas Eve sermon in 1992. I had fine plans for that sermon, but they were dashed on the rocks of joyful reality when my son, Nathan, was born on December 21, 1992, a week before he was due. Three days later, on Christmas Eve, we brought Nathan home from the hospital. As you might well imagine, I hadn’t had much time to prepare my sermon. So on the way to church that evening, I thought about what I would share, more of a testimony than a full-on sermon. I remember that one of my main points was the utter vulnerability of a baby, reflecting on the risk God took in becoming human. (Photo to the right: Preaching at our Veritas service)
Frankly, I can’t remember too much more of that sermon. And I don’t even have notes. Mostly I remember feeling like I was in a fog that night. A couple of friends told me it was one of the best Christmas Eve sermons they’d ever heard. But they might have just been being kind.
In case you’re wondering, in my new position at Laity Lodge I will have opportunities to preach, mostly as a guest preacher. The speaking I’ll do at Laity Lodge involves teaching the Scripture with lots of personal illustration and application, but it’s rather more informal than preaching. I will be able to keep on studying and sharing what I’ve found from God’s Word, both in speaking and through my writing. But I will miss the unique communication challenges and opportunities of preaching.
What are these? you might wonder. As I understand it, preaching involves teaching, but “goes for the jugular” spiritually. Though my sermons did not regularly feature an altar call at the conclusion, I was seeking to lead my congregation, not only to assent to new ideas, but also to receive God’s grace in a new and transforming way. I would regularly articulate the gospel, the good news of God’s salvation through Christ, and call for a response of faith. One of my greatest joys as a preacher was hearing how God touched people’s hearts and changed their lives. Some made first-time commitments to Christ. Others found deeper forgiveness and healing. Others gave more of themselves to the Lord.
So I will miss preaching, especially preaching to my beloved congregation in Irvine. But I trust that God will use me in new ways as I step out in obedience to Him.
Topics: California | 4 Comments »
Texas Scenes
By Mark D. Roberts | Thursday, October 4, 2007
I grew up thinking that all of Texas was flat, hot, and dusty. Oh, and I suppose you could add, humid. To be sure, there are parts of Texas that are all of the above. But I’ve been amazed by the beauty of West Texas, through which I’ve had the opportunity to drive twice in the last two months. The photo below was taken in the early evening.
The next picture was taken at the same time, but looking in the opposite direction. My truck and trailer served me well during the long drive from Orange County to Boerne, Texas.
The cloud formations are truly inspiring.
Topics: Texas | 2 Comments »
Driving . . .
By Mark D. Roberts | Wednesday, October 3, 2007
I haven’t had opportunity to blog today. Had too much fun driving from California to Texas. Just over 1300 miles. Can’t even write a complete sentence today. Here are a couple of photos.
Saw lots of this.
And this.
Yes, I did take these while driving. Not to worry. You can see there isn’t much traffic on the 10 in the open spaces of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. Peace.
Topics: California | 5 Comments »
Some Things I’ll Miss About California, Part 2
By Mark D. Roberts | Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Yesterday I wrote that I will miss the Pacific Ocean. That’s surely true. But my favorite part of California isn’t the coastline, but rather the High Sierra. I have loved hiking in these magnificent mountains, either by myself, or with my family. The photo below shows my daughter and me in front of Blue Lake near Bishop, California.
I took the following picture at sunrise, just outside of Bishop. The tallest peak is Mount Humphreys, which is 13,986 feet high.
One of the most well-known and beloved parts of the Sierra is Yosemite Valley. The photo below is of Half Dome, the glacier-carved granite dome at the eastern end of the valley.
Like I said, there are some things I’ll miss about California.
Topics: California | 4 Comments »
Some Things I’ll Miss About California
By Mark D. Roberts | Monday, October 1, 2007
If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you know that, after sixteen years, I have just finished up as pastor of Irvine Presbyterian Church in California. As of today, I am officially the Senior Director and Scholar-in-Residence for Laity Lodge, a ministry in the Hill Country of Texas, outside of San Antonio. I’m spending my first day in my new position driving through Arizona and New Mexico on my way to Texas.
I will miss many things about California. I thought I’d share a few of these with you. For one thing, I’ll miss the Pacific Ocean. Yes, I know Texas has the Gulf of Mexico, but I won’t get ocean sunsets anymore. The picture below is an undoctored view from Doheny Beach in Orange County.
During our last days in California, our house was empty. So some friends offered to put us up. Now the fact that they live only fifty yards from the ocean was an incentive. The photo below shows my study space yesterday morning. Not bad!
Yes, I will miss some things about California!
Topics: California | 4 Comments »
Sunday Inspiration from Pray the Psalms
By Mark D. Roberts | Sunday, September 30, 2007
Excerpt
Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Psalm 90:14
Click here to read all of Psalm 90
Prayer
What better way to begin a new day, dear Lord, than by remembering Your steadfast love! What a sure foundation for the challenges and opportunities of the day! Nothing could satisfy my heart’s deepest longing more than the knowledge that You love me, and that nothing in all creation can separate me from Your love.
So as I begin this day, Lord, may your steadfast love be my first thought. And may it be the thought that sustains me throughout the day. May my soul be settled and truly sated in the assurance of Your love for me.
Postscript
Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all day long;
we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8: 35-39
Evening sun over the Sierra near Bishop, California
For your steadfast love is as high as the heavens;
your faithfulness extends to the clouds.
Psalm 57:10
Topics: Sunday Inspiration | No Comments »
If I Had It To Do Over Again . . .
By Mark D. Roberts | Saturday, September 29, 2007
Part 11 of series: Grace in the Rearview Mirror: A Pastoral Retrospective
Permalink for this post / Permalink for this series
I will be the pastor of Irvine Presbyterian Church for two more days. At the stroke of midnight on Sunday, September 30th, my term of 5,936 days comes to an end, and I become the Senior Director and Scholar-in-Residence for Laity Lodge. (In point of fact, at midnight on Sunday I should be sleeping in a Motel 6 in Arizona, on my way to Texas. I hope I don’t turn into a pumpkin.)
As I look back upon my ministry, I do not have many regrets, and the ones I have aren’t major. I do wish, for example, that I’d found a way to spend more time with people and less time in administrative minutiae. And I wish that I’d been able to be more discerning about when key employees just weren’t working out. And I wish that I’d been able to spend more time with my elders, working more closely with them on God’s vision for the church.
But if I had it to do over again, there are two major things I would do differently. First, I would be more grateful. Now I spent hours upon hours in prayers of thanksgiving over the years, so gratitude wasn’t absent from my life and ministry. But, as I’m leaving, I realize how much I took for granted. Irvine Presbyterian Church is filled with wonderful people, many of whom I took for granted. As I look out into the faces of the congregation these days, I’m deeply moved by how much so many have meant to me. (I wonder if all pastors should make a quarterly discipline of taking their church rosters and offering detailed thanks for their people.) (Photo to right: the beach of Crystal Cove State Park. I can’t take this to Texas, unfortunately.)
Since I can’t go back and be more grateful, I can take time now to offer specific and extensive thanks to God. In fact, as soon as I finish this blog post, I’m going to do just that. I’m going on a long walk on my favorite beach so I can offer lengthy and detailed thanks to God. Plus, I can make a new commitment to being more grateful in the future. Recently I’ve been using some classic spiritual exercises (Ignatian) to remind me of God’s gifts during the day. I need to do this more often, even on a daily basis.
Second, if I had it all to do over again, “I would believe God more.” You’ll notice that I put that last phrase in quotation marks. That’s because it’s not my line. It comes from Henrietta C. Mears, who was one of the most amazing Christians in the last century.
I knew much about Miss Mears because she had been the leader of the education department and college department at the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, where I as Pastor of Education and College Director. I heard much about Miss Mears, who had pretty much become a Protestant Saint among those who knew her. In fact, I made a point of studying Miss Mears’ life, listening to her teachings on tape, and trying to imbibe her visionary faith.
Few people accomplished more for the kingdom of God in the 20th century than Henrietta C. Mears. Of course you might quickly think, “But what about Billy Graham? Or what about Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ?” Indeed, God used these men in amazing ways. But did you know that Henrietta Mears was crucial in their development as Christian leaders? God transformed Billy Graham’s ministry while he was at a conference center founded by Miss Mears. And she led Bill Bright to Christ, discipling him into the kind of faith that led to Campus Crusade.
Among Henrietta Mears’ accomplishments are:
• Building what was at that time the largest Sunday School in the country at the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood.
• Inventing graded curriculum for Sunday School.
• Founding Gospel Light Ministries (now also Regal Books) to distribute her curriculum
• Founding Forest Home Christian Conference center.
• Being instrumental in the calling of hundreds of young people into full-time Christian service.
• Personally discipling and inspiring such leaders as Bill Bright, Billy Graham, and Richard Halverson (former Senate chaplain).
For health reasons, Miss Mears retired from her position at Hollywood Pres in the late 1950s. As she neared the end of her life, somebody asked her: “What would you do differently if you had it to do over again?” Her response: “I would believe God more.”
What an amazing response from somebody who trusted God more than just about anybody in history! Yet Miss Mears knew that, no matter how much she had believed God, and how much He had been able to accomplish through her, she could still have trusted God more.
As I think back on my time at Irvine Presbyterian Church, I wish I had believed God more. I think of how many sleepless nights I spent worrying about church problems that God resolved in amazing ways. I remember how many Decembers I worried about whether the church would close the year in the black, something that happened sixteen out of my sixteen years. I wonder how much more God would have been able to do through me, and through the church, if I had had more faith in Him.
Like I said, I’m not groveling in self-criticism here. And there’s no point bemoaning my former lack of faith. As in the case of gratitude, I can use these reflections to make a difference now and in the future. Even as I want to develop habits that will help me to be more grateful, I want to do the same with faith. Ironically, the kind of reflection that leads to growth in gratitude is the same kind of reflection that produces greater faith. It’s all about attending more carefully to God’s presence and activity each day.
Topics: Pastors and Churches | 3 Comments »
A Philippian Attitude Adjustment
By Mark D. Roberts | Friday, September 28, 2007
Note: I’m not quite done with my series on Grace in the Rearview Mirror. There will be more tomorrow.
It’s easy to feel upbeat about life when things are going your way. Opportunities at work + social standing + love at home = a positive attitude. Then you get extra credit because an optimistic outlook breeds further success: professionally, socially, and personally.
But what about when life gets hard? When work is stifling? When your popularity drops? When home means tension or loneliness? Just about the last thing in the world you want to hear is: “You need an attitude adjustment.” Yet, in truth, you probably do. But how? How can you change the way you perceive your life, or even the way you feel about it? For answers to these questions and the rest of this piece, please click here.
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If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you may be wondering why I sent you to another page to finish up my piece on attitude. My point was to draw your attention to a fantastic website that is closely connected to my new job as Senior Director and Scholar-in-Residence of Laity Lodge. The High Calling of Our Daily Work (www.thehighcalling.org) is an online resource intended to help Christians live out their faith in their daily lives, especially at work. This website is part of the collection of ministries associated with Laity Lodge. I’ll be a regular writer for The High Calling and a part of its leadership team. My hope is, that by sending you periodically from my site to The High Calling, I’ll whet your appetite for more of what you can find there.
Topics: The High Calling | No Comments »