Monthly Archives: November 2008

24 And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, 25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.  Heb. 10:24-25

There is something so powerful about gathering together for church.  I tell you, it is truly remarkable.  Today was just one of those days. I have no excuse other than being preg…no, I have no excuse. I am just selfish beyond comprehension.  I woke up tired and grumpy. Everything rubbed me the wrong way.  And while I am ecstatic that my husband loves his new job, I found myself pouting like a toddler today thinking, “Jeff this, Jeff that, Jeff’s job, Jeff’s the best, every loves Jeff.  What happend to me?!” How’s that for selfish? Yeah. Jeff was a gem (of course) and listened to me articulate my selfishness, trying to sugar-coat it, but in the end it was spoken and sat out in the middle of the room like a hairy monster showing itself for what it was–really ugly yucky selfishness.  I hate that.

Anyway, we did our best, got to church, and it was seriously like something washed over me when I got in the door.  Of course being loved and welcomed and greeted helped, but as the music began and I started singing, not about myself, but about His name, His greatness, His majesty, in the congregation of my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, I was truly changed.  My eyes filled with tears as I sang, “So I let my words be few. Jesus I am so in love with you” and as we sang, “Your name is strong and mighty tower. Your name, is a shelter like no other. Your name, let the nations sing it louder.  Cause nothing has the power to save, but Your name” the glory of God changed my heart.  HE is so beautiful, so worthy, so gracious, so patient, so longsuffering, so awesome.  He didn’t put me in my place or give me a big spanking, He just brought me in the congregation and poured out His glorious presence…and changed my heart.  ANd then as His Word was taught, that light shining in the dark, nasty crevices of my heart.  The stirring, the repentence, the double-edged sword opening up the places that needed His cleansing. ANd then communion,sharing the Lord’s supper together with the family of Christ, remembering His work, His finished work. There aren’t words.

So tonight I’m just so thankful for the assembling together.  As Jeff pointed out on the way home, you could listen to that message on a CD, you could play those songs on a your stereo. You could eat a cracker and drink a sip of grape juice at home, but there is something so powerful about the gathering together of Christ’s body.  We belong to eachother and we’re blessed when we gather in His name.  So I go to bed changed, thankful, humbled, repentent. God showed me some pretty ugly things in my heart (more on that later), but in such a beautiful gracious way.  There is no rule that says we must go to church, and yes you can experience God having church in a coffee shop alone with your Bible.  But let’s not forsake the gathering together (Heb. 10:24-25).  I’m so thankful for my church, the chuch, our church.  Christ’s church. 

 Right now Pastor Joel is preaching through the book of Proverbs.  Sunday’s message was about friendship.  It’s easy, at a quick glance, to think that that’s a pretty light message, maybe one for the kids in sunday school.  But it’s really gotten me thinking about my life and about my own friends.  Now, by way of clarification I think it’s important to make the distinction between acquaintances, or those we are reaching out to by way of extending the love and grace of Jesus, and true intimate friends.  Jesus was “friends” with tax-collectors, sinners, prostitutes, etc.  But he let only a few into his inner circle of vulnerability–namely Peter, James and John.  While our lives will intesect with hundreds of people, we’re talking today about true friends, those few people who you let into the deep inner recesses of your heart, with whom you can be completely vulnerable and to whom you commit every ounce of yourself to. Those are what I mean by friends. 

A few things stood out to me.

First, our culture is starving for true friendship.  We are an independent, self-relient, and tragically lonely people.  We move often, seldom stay at the same church or job for very long, and our transient nature makes forming deep, life-long friendships extremely difficult.  Pastor Joel asked us to raise our hands if we had a true, deep friendship with someone for more than 20 years who we live near and actually see on a regular basis.  I was so blessed to raise my hand, thinking of my dear friend Janae who has been a friend for 28 years (since my birth!), and who I even now see weekly for playdates as our sons are the same age.  I was amazed to see only a small handful of hands raised in the huge congregation of people.  And I was certainly the youngest to have my hand raised!  Wow.  My parents are surrounded by people they’ve known for decades, as they’ve lived in the same town for 38 years.  There is something about the power of history, of just being somewhere for a long time.  It’s not the norm anymore, but I hope and pray that Jeff and I can stay in our new community for the rest of our days.  That’s our plan, Lord willing.   

Second, we’re fools if we think that our friends don’t heavily influence us (Proverbs 13:20, Proverbs, 12:26, 1 Corinthians 15:33).  We tend to think that we are the ones influencing, especially if we’re leaders. And we might be, but I for one am hugely influenced by my friends.  I remember growing up that I’d inevitably start talking like whoever I was hanging out with.  I think I have a little theatrical blood in my veins (ok, more than a little), and it was always easy for me to pick up on mannerisms and speech habits.  I’m not proud of that fact, but it’s the truth.  In fact, I sometimes wish I was a little less impacted by the people around me, but the reality is, we’re all influenced significantly by our closest friends.  Because of that, we’re wise to be careful about who we choose to let into the closest sphere of our life.  My dad always used to say, “You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friends’ nose.”  Yeah, I know.  That’s just the kind of guy my dad is.  The lesson (if there is one) I suppose is that you can pick who you want your life to be influenced by.  Some of my friends influence me to want to be cuter or have nicer clothes. Some make me want to be a better mommy. Some make me want to love Jesus more.  Some make me want to be more generous and giving.  It’s challenging to think through your list of friends and evaluate what impression they leave you with. It’s even more challenging to think through how you influence those same friends.

Further, as one of my good friends pointed out to me recently, some friends are draining and some are life-giving.  I really believe that a true friend is not a true friend unless they are life-giving to you.  Of course there will be times when they will need you to pour into them or vice versa, but in general a true friend is one who gives you life.  Do you have someone in your life who gives you life? It may be more challenging for us introverts, who tend to be more energized by our time alone. But I definitely have those friends who are life-giving to me. I’m blessed and thankful for them. 

Third, it can actually be the most challenging for people who know a lot of people to have true, close, intimate friends.  Those in ministry are a classic example. Everyone knows you….well, everyone thinks they know you. But it’s hard to carefully choose those very few people with whom you can bare your soul.  It’s too easy to just have dozens of casual friendships, but none that can call you on things, see through your facade, carry the load when you’re weary and heavy-laden. 

So the challenge this week is to consider your friends.  Do you have a true, intimate, close friend, besides your spouse?  If so, is that person challenging you to be more Christlike?  Do they steer you away from gossip or self-pity and toward thankfulness and holiness. Do they allow you to be real, blemishes and all? Do they stand with you when you fall?  Do they give you life or drain yours from you? 

But perhaps most importantly, what kind of a friend are you?  He who has friends must first himself be friendly.  The only way to have this sort of friendship is to be this sort of friend.  Do you hold grudges?  Judge people in your heart?  Are you quick to listen, slow to speak?  Do you encourage gossip or encourage prayer?  Do you truly rejoice when others are better than you, or when their victories exceed your own?  Do you lay aside your own wants and desires for the needs of your friend?  Do you get record of wrongs?  Joel said, “good friends are good forgetters.”  True friends learn how to quickly forget our past mistakes, “cover an offense” (Prov. 17:9), and love us with faith in the road ahead.  A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity (Prov. 17:17).

Let’s be these kind of friends.  And if you are blessed with a few close, intimate friends, tell them so.  Write them a note, call, email, do whatever you need to do to tell them  you’re thankful for their friendship.  Overlook the little offense, see past the weakness.  Jesus no longer calls us servants, but calls us friends.  What a privilege we have!  Let’s do the same for one another.

So I mentioned yesterday I’ve been reading the ESV Bible, and as I read 2 Corinthians 7, where Paul is sharing his love and joy with the church at Corinth, the way they translated verse four stood out to me:  “…I have great pride in you…I am overflowing with joy.”  Pride?  It actually says “I’m proud of you” in the Bible?  Why yes it does.  Perhaps it is has more of the connotation of being pleased, but I like that they use the word pride because it demonstrates that feeling we get when someone we love so deeply makes us proud because he or she is so spectacular.  Every single day I tell Dutch how proud I am of him.  And I am. The way he tries not to cry when he gets hurt, the way he says I’m sorry (after he’s naughty, yes!), the way he tries new things and experiments stacking Legos and eats with a spoon and dries his hands on the kitchen towel.   

But today I just want to say I’m so proud of my husband.  Even as I write the words my eyes are filling with tears.  I have watched him walk through trying times.  Though the past few years have been challenging for me, I know that I can’t even understand how hard it must have been for Jeff.  To be 30 and unemployed, working as an unpaid intern, living with his in-laws, feeling shelved by God.  I don’t want to go into all of it, but my heart wells up with pride when I think of how he never demanded status, position, esteem in the eyes of men.  He took the low seat, he served silently, he held his tongue often, and he faithfully chose to love me despite my complaining, doubting, and struggling.  He has been slow to speak, quick to listen, slow to wrath.  I recently did something really stupid (I’ll share the story later) that hurt no one but him.  He refused to get ticked off, refused to make it a big deal.  He laughed, shrugged his shoulders, and moved on when many a husband would have been furious. I am honored to be the wife of Jeff Patterson.

And now, now that he is in a position of authority and honor, he’s the same Jeff.  He laughs at himself, he still takes the low seat, he still refuses to take himself too seriously.   When I see the way that he’s presently being treated by his new church staff team, so honored and respected, it brings me to tears because I know no other man who deserves it more.  His only request now that we actually have a good income?  Socks without holes in them. 🙂 Yup.   That’s my Jeffrey.  I know there will be plenty more bumps and bruises ahead, but at this particular point in the game I’m just thankful.

Jeff always says he “married up.”  Let me say today that I am the one who married up.  Jeff, I love and respect you more than any man.  Thank you for your faithfulness to God, to me, and to Dutch.  I’m so proud of you. 

I’m thinking today about the glorious things that God has done through less than God-fearing men. 

1. Eli was a pretty miserable father but God used him to raise up Samuel the prophet.

2. Saul was a horribly ungodly man, but through his stupidity God made His man, David.  There was loss. Great loss. But God was victorious in fashioning David and using Him for His glory.

3. Nebuchadnezzar

I finally gave in and began reading a different Bible.  No, not the New World Translation, don’t worry :-).  My beloved NKJV study BIble literally fell apart at the seams.  Psalm 139 to Romans 8 completely fell out, (that’s a pretty important portion of scripture!) and bits of Ephesians had disintegrated.  Everytime I took it to church or school I had to hold it gingerly with both hands, afraid it would all fall apart into the heap on the floor.  But I didn’t want to let it go! It had been with me through When God Broke My Heart, it had traveled the Road to Santa Clara, it had perservered through the 4.5 years of feeling shelved by God.  This thing had notes and markers and tears on its pages.  Plus, I knew where everything was!

But it was time. The Bible was not only falling apart, but it was also huge, which made carrying it around impractical considering the wipes, diapers, snacks, and toys that are also stuffed into my oversized purse.  So I gave in.  Jeff gave me a slimline ESV (his favorite translation). 

I admit I’m still not sold.  I think I might still take my old Bible when I teach, for comfort’s sake, but I will admit that for my daily Bible reading, having a new Bible, and a new translation, helps me read with brand new eyes.  I was too familiar with the pages before, and now the words read differently, look different, sound different, strike me differently.  I’m finding that it’s helpful for seeing things again for the first time.

—-Anyway…now onto our topic.

In our internship class yesterday we were talking about stress in ministry.  The #1 hindrance to managing stress in our lives was the inability to say “no.”  Or at least, the inability to say no to the right things!  So I was reading Luke this morning and I read about Jesus’ packed schedule:

“And when it was day, he departed and went into a desolate place.  ANd the people sought him and came to him, and would have kept him from leaving them, but he said to them, ‘I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose.'” Luke 4:42-43

Jesus 1) knew when to get away and be alone, and 2) knew when to say no.  He was on a divine schedule, knew His divine purpose, and was never hurried, harried, or thwarted from his purpose.  He never ran, was never late, and never complained about not having enough time in the day.

So today I’m reminding myself that God has allotted exactly the right amount of time to accomplish those things which He has ordained for me to do.  No more, no less. 

As Jeff and I transition into an even fuller life, filled with school and ministry and holidays and then two kids (!), I’m praying for grace to walk in the way Jesus did.  Knowing when to get alone, knowing when to say no, walking according to the divine schedule and purpose of the Father.  No need to buy another book on managing stress.  Just ask Jesus.

So during this time of waiting, I felt two things. First, I just figured that whichever one came up first (obviously the church planting one), then that would be God’s answer, that way I wouldn’t have to make the decision. Secondly, if I HAD to choose, which I didn’t plan on doing, I thought the church plant was the more holy choice because it seemed much harder, scarier, and riskier.

But my aunt Linda, an amazing woman of God whom I adore, kept asking about every detail (we’d been with her at the beach when we received the email about the Executive Pastor position), and she kept saying over and over, “I think you’re going to have to choose.  I really believe God’s going to have you choose. And…furthermore, I believe that it’s going to be sooner than you think, I think they’re not going to do the nation-wide search, so I think you’re going to have to choose.”  Well that was nice and all, since she’s my aunty and she loves me, but I knew realistically that no, we weren’t going to have to choose because the Willamette thing was just too far away and our chances were too slim.  Just no way.  But she kept saying that.

Then, when I thought the church plant thing was a done deal, I had a meeting with my mentor professor. I told her about it and she smiled and said, “Great! Are you excited?!”  And it caught me so off guard I about fell out of my chair.  Excited? What did she mean excited? I mean, this was serving God stuff. It wasn’t about me.  It didn’t matter whether I got excited or not, it was just about me dutifully serving God, right?  So I stumbled about and said something like, “Of course I’m excited. I mean, this is ministry, it’s what we’re called to do.  Yeah…”  But the question haunted me.  I’d done plenty of things in life that didn’t make me excited, so why did it strike me this time?  Hm.

Then, the day before the elders of Willamette were supposed to meet, I had another meeting with my mentor professor (yes, God uses her!).  As I explained the two situations, she responded with saying, “I have this feeling that God wants you to choose.”  Hm…I’d heard this before.  She shared more, which I reflected on and wrote about HERE, in When God Let’s Us Choose. What I realized, through reflecting on this apparent “choice” (though at this point I didn’t think I really had a choice), was that deep deep down, if I was really honest with myself, I was really hoping that the church plant thing would fall through so that we could wait and hope for the Willamette job.  I felt like the church plant thing was the holier choice, the “take up your cross” sort of choice, whereas the Willamette church was what I really wanted so that couldn’t be the right one, right?  When I sat down and talked to JEff about it, I discovered he felt the same way.  We both really wanted the Willamette job, but it seemed too good (and distinctly not offered to us!).

So on Tuesday we attended our school’s Day of Prayer, and on the way home just prayed specifically that if these feelings and insights we were having were from God that He would make something happen with Willamette before the church plant people got back to us so at least we’d have something to go on.  That afternoon Willamette contacted Jeff and asked if he could come in the next day to discuss the next steps.  That sounded hopeful, so Jeff scheduled a meeting.

That day, I was out taking a friend to a doctor’s appointment, and Jeff worked, so we were busy going our separate ways.  My parents were watching Dutch, and as I drove home, about 2 hours after Jeff’s Willamette meeting was scheduled to begin, my cell phone rang. It was Jeff.

“Hey hon.”  (I’d learned enough lessons in disappointment to know not to get my expectations up.)

“Do you want to take your parents to dinner?…”  I waited, not wanting to jump to conclusions.  “They offered me the JOB!!!!!”  My jaw dropped. Seriously?!!!  Then I screamed.  Then I cried.  Yeah, pretty much amazed.

We had to wait a couple weeks, due to busy schedules and vacations, in order to sit down again and sign papers regarding our salary, etc.  (You can read about my doubts and fears here, in Great is our God) But when the time came, we were blessed beyond what we’d ever imagined.  In the past few weeks, they have showered us with love.  We even had the joy of going to a welcome luncheon with all the church staff this past week, where we felt embraced, welcomed, and instantly a part of a family.

So tomorrow Jeff starts his new job as Associate Pastor at Willamette Christian Church (he’s now the Associate Pastor developing into Executive Pastor…a brilliant plan for him to get trained, acclimated, and adjusted to everything there at WCC).  Our value, status, and worth has not changed once bit from when we were unemployed students living at my parents house.  As he wrote in his memoirs, Jeff’s worth does not come from a title, position, or salary.  Our value, worth, and identity comes from Christ Alone.  He is our Light, our Strength, our Song.  We are thankful for this new opportunity for increased influence, and we’re thankful for the very real blessing of a paycheck (and health insurance starting February 1st, just 2 weeks before Heidi is due! Talk about God’s amazing timing!!!).

So as turn this corner, we anticipate new challenges, joys, sorrows.  We’re praying daily for God to simply make us faithful, thankful, and humble.  We pray that He would keep us ever mindful of all He has done, of His greatness, His beauty, His glory.  We pray He would find us faithful, in whatever capacity He has us in.  We pray that we would be a blessing to the people of WCC and to the community there.

Thanks for reading. Thanks for praying. Thanks for joining us on the journey. It’s certainly not over! In fact, it’s only begun…

I figured now was the time to share the story.  Oh how creative and awesome is our God!

For those of you following our life, you know it’s been about 4.5 years of various disappointments, with regards to ministry.  Jeff shares his perspective of the past 50 months and the lessons learned, and if you want the long version of our San Jose story, you can click The Road to Santa Clara under Featured.  So in the past year it seemed like opportunity after opportunity would arise and fall through, arise and fall through. Through it, the lessons on Expectancy without Expectation came to the surface, as well as myriad other life lessons that God was gracious enough to work into our hearts, lessons that go beyond head knowledge. 

After the disappointment of finding out that we’d not be able to go on staff full-time with our church (as we’d expected), we applied for a youth pastor job in Lake Oswego.  But here’s the thing, I knew Jeff was not called to be a youth pastor.  He’s not above it, that’s not it, it’s just not what he’s wired for.  But we were desperate, and so even though I had that nagging feeling that this wasnot God’s best, I insisted that there was no being picky with regards to serving Jesus. And besides, we needed a paycheck!  During the interview process, we were taking a marriage counseling classs together at Mutnomah.  Our professor overheard that we were interviewing for a youth pastor job, and she said, “Oh you should meet my son-in-law! He’s a pastor in the area and their youth pastor just left so they might be interested.”  Well I thought nothing of it.  We went ahead and interviewed for the Lake Oswego job, and surprise surprise…didn’t get it.  They said, “It doesn’t seem like you’re wired to be a youth pastor.”  Surprise! 🙂 

So, we were back at square one. True to her word, our professor emailed her son-in-law and he contacted Jeff to see if we’d come in. They set up a day and time, and when it came, I said I didn’t even want to go.  “There’s no use,” I insisted.  “They’re looking for a youth pastor and you’re not meant to be a youth pastor.  I’ll not sit in a meeting and lie and say that that’s what we’re meant to do.”  Plus, I had morning sickness horribly, and just didn’t have the heart to sit through any more interviews.  But at the last minute, Jeff talked me into going.  “Let’s just go and be totally honest, just be ourselves, explain we’re not looking for a youth pastor job, and at least we’ve been faithful to do our part.”  Fine.  I went.

We fell in love with Pastor Joel, the son-in-law of our professor, and Chris, the operations director of Willamette Christian Church.  It was like we had an instant connection to them.  We were totally ourselves, at ease, honest, open about our disappointments and experiences.  We spent 2 1/2 hours just talking, sharing our hearts, hearing theirs.  ANd when we left we were greatly encouraged…even though they didn’t have a job available.  It seemed a little pointless to have the meeting when nothing would come of it, but I was still glad to have met them. 

Over the next couple months we visited that church a few times. And again, we fell in love.  The very first time we went I cried through the whole service, God was just ministering so deeply to my heart.  On the way home I cried so hard I would barely breathe. I wanted to be there so bad but knew there was no opportunity for us. The people were instantly kind and welcoming.  There seemed such an ease with the people, even on our first visit. Why, God?  Why show us a church we love but not let us be there? 

The weeks that followed Jeff had an interesting impression from the Lord.  He felt like he was supposed to take some time and sit down and write out his dream job, basically tailor make a job description that would fit perfectly with his spiritual gifts, abilities, temperament, experience, etc.  That seemed a little odd since we didn’t want a minstry to be about us, but Jeff felt strongly that God wanted him to see, on paper, exactly what He had made him for.  He spent quite a bit of time and came up with the job of an “Executive Pastor”,–I term I’d never heard before–basically the 2nd in command of a church who can do discipleship, leadership development, some administration and organization, and overseeing of staff, etc.  Jeff’s such a hybrid of relational and detail/engineering oriented, that this seemed perfect for him. Only one problem…I’d never seen a church hire one of these, at least not around here.  I joked, “Maybe you should email that to Willamette CC and see if they want one of those!” Of course we didn’t do that; we just waited and prayed.

Exactly one week later, Jeff got an email from Chris from Willamette, out of the blue, informing him that they were going to begin a nation-wide search for a person to fulfill the role of …yes… Executive Pastor.  She attached the job description and it was exactly the same as what Jeff had drafted up on his own. Are you kidding me?!  We were giddy with excitement.  Could this really be?

A few weeks later, after visiting a few more times and communicating a bit more, we got an email from Pastor Joel.  It was very kind, but we realized that we were kind of little fish in a big pond, and that the nation-wide search was likely to last months and months, and realistically, at least in our minds, there was no way we were really qualified.  Disappointment.  The same day we got another call from a denomination asking if Jeff would consider being the lead pastor of a small church plant here in our home town.  Sure! We were up for whatever.

So it sounded as if the church plant thing was a done deal and the Willamette thing was not.  Jeff interviewed for the church plant pastoral job and it went great.  They denomination leaders made it sound as if he’d hear back in a few days and probably begin the job in mid-October. Fast!  Then, to our surprise, Willamette called back and wanted an interview.  I didn’t even see any reason in Jeff going, since it seemed like the church plants thing was such a done deal, but Jeff insisted he didn’t want to burn any bridges or count the score before the game was over, so he went to the Willamette interview. Again, it went great. He loved it.  So now, we wait.

To our amazement, the church plant leaders, the ones who said it’d be just a few days, didn’t call back for three weeks.  During that time, Willamette communicated and explained that they’d get back to Jeff in a week…which they did.  They said they would meet as an elder board to determine the “next steps”.  That was on a Tuesday. I assumed by “next steps” they meant the next step in the huge nation-wide process which would take until after the first of the year. I still figured the church plant people would get back to us any second and we’d be moving forward with that.  There was no way we could wait around until then, not knowing if we even had a chance in the world of getting the job.  That’s when God started to speak to my heart … (continued tomorrow)