The Church and My Unbiblical View of Women Part Two

There’s a scene in the first Incredibles movie where the superhero Incredibles family is all together at their son Dash’s track meet. They finally let their son with the superhuman turbo speed try out for sports. And they comically cheer their son on in the race but then don’t want him to run too fast even though he is capable of blowing away the competition (and simultaneously blow their cover), but they also don’t want him to get beat by everyone when he is clearly talented. So they start cheering for him to shoot for second. And he gets second place and the rest of the crowd in the bleachers stares at the incognito superhero family completely bewildered by why they would root their son on the way they did. Why on earth would you want your kid with God-given talent to hold back and not be all they were meant to be?



This scene is at the forefront of my mind as I endeavor into part two of this shallow dive into the topic of women in leadership in the church. Important that you take the time to read part one before jumping into this section, but in part two, I want to get into a few of the “Yeah, buts” that I have had personally and that others who wrestle honestly or who have grown up surrounded by the Complementarian (men and women are equal but have different roles that complement each other based on their gender ) paradigms and structures of church have had.

It seems like the church has often played the role of the Incredibles family, cheering on the women of the church, but then asking them to restrain or scale back or make sure they don’t overstep or speak from the stage or lead too much or have too much influence. We are cheering for them to run the race well, but not too well. We say they are equal but the role they play is different. It just so happens that role is often voiceless, powerless and behind-the-scenes.

“Just shoot for second.”

So it would do us well to hang out here and consider how we got to this place that can be bewildering for people both inside and outside of the church.

Remember, I have strong conviction that we are living in more of a Post-Pentecost world than a Post-Fall world. So everything is about moving back to the MUTUALITY and ONENESS of Eden rather than the fractured world of HIERARCHY and OTHERNESS that the Fall is obsessed about. This is a question all Christians must answer and be accountable to in their theology. For far too many for far too long, we have let Fall and Sin be our primary paradigm rather than Redemption and Restoration.

So here’s a few of the “yeah buts”. It should be noted that I am not an expert or a biblical scholar. I am just a pastor trying to lead others to follow Jesus faithfully.

1. “Yeah, but Jesus chose 12 disciples. All males. They become the 12 apostles. Males are meant to lead. “

Sure, the work of Jesus calling 12 people to himself is a big deal. That they are all men is worth considering. But why do we stop there? We emphasize gender as if that is the primary thing in common for these 12. What about the fact that they are all Jewish? Or the fact that they are all uneducated men? (according to Acts) Apprentices in trades because they did not make the cut to be selected for rabbinical training? It is faulty logic to build a case for who to choose as leaders and pick gender but not ‘Jewishness’ or ‘uneducated’. Secondly, women are consistently mentioned as traveling with Jesus and the disciples. They are part of the entourage, present for teachings, miracles, and as previously mentioned they are funding the ministry of Jesus. You cannot say that women were not leading the way in the Jesus movement.

2. “Yeah, but look at church denominations. Most churches that are growing do so because of male leadership.”
Are we sure about this? A study done by Gordon Conwell found that of the largest denominations in the United States, 18 of those denominations were categorized as Complementarian (meaning there was a strong stance against women being ordained and holding leadership roles over men) and 27 Denominations who were Egalitarian (meaning that women are ordained and have leadership over men.) Yet even with the fact that more of the largest church groups in the country are “for” empowering women in all facets of leadership based upon their Spiritual gifting rather than their anatomy, it is a complicated world for women to pursue ordination right now. They are most often the minority in the classroom. They most often have male professors. They most often have textbooks written by men. And they frequently enter into denominations where men still hold positions of power and authority in the hierarchy of church structure.

3. “Yeah, but what about that Bible verse? If you let women preach or pastor or elder, aren’t you failing to take God’s Word seriously?”
This is the one argument that kept me in the complementarian camp the longest. A high view of Scripture is of central importance to me, my life and my ministry. To compromise that or to enter into the world of slippery slopes was something I did not want to do.

So let’s take a second to look at the passages in question sometimes known as “the silencing passages” because of their emphasis on the quiet submission of women in the public life of the church.

1 Corinthians 14:33-35
Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says.  If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.

The question we have to ask here is “Does Paul, the writer of this letter in the Scriptures mean that all women for all time in all churches should not be allowed to speak in church?” The answer is three chapters earlier in 1 Corinthians 11 where Paul gives specific instructions for how a woman should speak when they pray and prophesy in the church.

Pretty straightforward here. Either Paul is remarkably inconsistent with his gospel message from one chapter to the next or he is getting at something specific in this passage. Best guess at face value there are women in the Corinthian Church who are interrupting the service asking questions and inquiring about what was going on. Paul says, ask those questions on your own and don’t disrupt a worship gathering.

1 Timothy 2:8-15
Therefore I want the men everywhere to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or disputing. 9 I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, 10 but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.
11 A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. 15 But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.

Couple things going on with this passage. First, ‘woman’ and ‘wife’ as well as ‘man’ and ‘husband’ can be used interchangeably in the Greek language this passage was originally written in. So translation might be a factor here. Are we talking about women as a rule of thumb or a wife stepping on a husband’s toes? Hard to say for sure. Either way the instruction is for women to be quiet…and Paul seems to point to a creation hierarchy…Adam first and Eve second…and don’t forget…Eve screwed all this up for humanity! (no wonder some women are frustrated with Paul!)

Second, if we are going to be serious about verse 11 as a hard and fast rule for all time, then we had better be equally as serious about verses 8-10 being hard and fast rules for all time as well. Men lifting hands when they pray…absence of anger and argument…women plain clothed and hair cuts at Great Clips. These things are very frequently not true in the very churches that make such a fuss about women knowing their role and shutting their mouth.

Third, Paul is writing to Timothy. Timothy is in Ephesus. Ephesus is where the main temple for the goddess Artemis is located. (Check out Acts 19:23-41). Many who became Christians in Ephesus would have previously been involved in worship at this temple. Goddess worship was facilitated in part by women who were priestesses and cult prostitutes who performed sexual acts as part of temple worship.

We cannot say for certain, but this seems likely to be why instruction would be made in Ephesus for women to scale it back a notch. If they were formerly accustomed to leading the worship and engaging in things sexually that were not part of the Christian ethos, then it would make sense for Paul to instruct women to be submissive learners rather than outspoken leaders in that context. You don’t see this instruction in a letter, say for instance, to the church in Philippi (which was founded and likely pastored/led by Lydia, the first Christian conversion on the European continent, who housed the church in her home, and was a very successful businesswoman…its all in Acts 16…read your Bible!)

1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9
Here we have what many have deemed as evidence against female eldership. Overseer or elder depending on our English translation, is always in the male form. He must be the husband of one wife, hospitable, not a drunk, not quarrelsome, not consumed with money…must be a bunch of other things…and he must make sure his children obey him.

So again, we have made anatomy of primary importance over and against the list of virtues. So we take literally the presence of a male pronoun but then we are liberal with the rest. It says husband of one wife. So can a single man be an elder? What about a widow? What about someone who has been divorced and remarried? Based on a literal biblical approach, all of these men should be excluded from eldership. What about the guy whose kids have walked away from the faith or who haven’t obeyed his parenting? Excluded.

If you obsess about literal interpretation of the Scriptures, you may just end up creating a church structure where Jesus and Paul would not be qualified as elders in your church!

The indictment I have personally received from a number of folks on this topic is that I am not being biblical.

But that is the irony of this whole journey: that in fact it has been guided, informed and transformed BY THE BIBLE! It wasn’t politics or feminism. It wasn’t the #metoo movement. Though lets be honest, all these things are prevalent because of a world clinging to hierarchy and otherness. My view of Scripture has only elevated as I have studied it!
———
So there you have it. These are the primary biblical texts that have been used to enforce hierarchy and otherness between men and women in the church for centuries.

If only the Bible would have been a little more radical for its day and actually highlighted some women who were key influencers in the Way of Jesus. That would really have sealed the deal for why a Post-Pentecostal Lens is the appropriate lens for the Jesus people to see the world.

Oh wait! Elizabeth, Mary, Anna, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna, Mary, Martha, Junia, Phoebe, Lydia, Euodia, Syntyche, Philip’s daughters, Priscilla, Nympha, Apphia, just to name a few, many who are named by Paul himself. 12 out of 30 names in Romans 16…names Paul emphasizes as worth a specific mention because of their role and leadership in ministry are women!

There is no male or female. There is no Gentile or Jew. There is no slave or free. There is no young or old. This is the message of Paul.

There is good news, freedom, sight and favor...available for all. This is the message of Jesus.

And if we are indeed a royal priesthood, a priesthood of all believers, all capable and called, grown and gifted by the Spirit who has fallen on us…if it is true that women are daughters and sisters and coheirs with Christ in this new family God has created, then it is time to let the tiger out of her cage, let her preach and prophesy and sing and teach. Let her lead and love as the Spirit enables. And by God, let us not merely get out of her way but let us follow and learn, let us empower and invest, let us run along side rather than sit in the stands. Let the kingdom come. Let the kingdom come. Let the church not stifle but strengthen the role of her people.

And together, let us curiously and beautifully shoot for second, following Christ where ever he leads his church to go.

The Church and My Unbiblical View of Women

“So what is your stance on women in leadership in church?” she asked. “I am the CEO of an international company and I have a real problem with being able to lead people around the world and then being told in the church that my leadership is not welcome. And you’re planning to plant a church with a group who typically only lets men lead.”

“I don’t know. I just don’t think that is the hill I’m supposed to die on. I want to make it about Jesus. He’s the hill I want to die on.” That was my response 8 years ago when I was asking my friend to invest financially in this church we were dreaming of but had not even moved to Columbus to start yet.

Truth be told I had strong convictions on this topic. But, if I shared those, I knew they would have negative consequences to whether my friend would feel like City Campus Church was a place she could invest in. I did not want to leave hundreds or thousands of dollars on the table that could help us start this new work, so I categorized it as a secondary hill.

Those strong convictions are that the biblical ethos and instruction is that men and women were both loved by God, but that by God’s design men and women were wired to fulfill different roles in the church. A theological separate but equal, if you will. The fancy scrabble word for this is Complementarian. Men and women were largely the same in God’s eyes, but fulfilled different roles that complemented each other.

In my mind, you could not remain true to the word of God without upholding this view. Women shouldn’t lead the church, preach in the church, serve as elder over the church. And I had an arsenal of texts and thinking that supported my convictions. (1 Corinthians 14:33-35, 1 Timothy 2:12, 1 Timothy 3:1-7, Titus 1:5-9, Ephesians 5:21-33.)

And think about it. Jesus picked 12 disciples. Hand selected. All men. The Levitical priesthood from the older testament? All men.

Instructions for elders in the church were explicit in one place, the husband of one wife. So, pretty clear if we take the Bible seriously…Leadership is most often, most godly and most effectively male.

And experientially, the few women I’d experienced in leadership roles in the church spent most of their time defending why they should have a seat at the table rather than centering on why Jesus was such good news. They seemed to spend their time defending their calling rather than living in light of and with the authority of their calling.

It just confirmed in my mind that they were out of step with God’s design for leadership and church.

And don’t even get me started on the dangers and pitfalls of men and women leading together. That’s why Billy Graham famously would not even get on an elevator alone with a woman and infamously why Bill Hybels became a cautionary tale of the #churchtoo movement. He reportedly had inappropriate relationship with women who were on staff with him.

And so I linked arms with like minded pastor celebrities, guys who got paraded on stage in front of the masses at conferences and who held to this complementarian worldview that I held to.

And then something happened.

I kid you not it was a completely innocent thing. I was doing what I was supposed to do as a Christian. I was reading my Bible. Preaching through Luke and then through Acts. And the more I studied, the more disorienting everything became.

Luke began his origins story with a woman struggling with infertility named Elizabeth. Then jumped to a young woman named Mary and the ones who speak and act and pray and praise in the origin stories of Luke are these women and an angel. Interestingly the one guy who does speak does so without faith and the Almighty hits the mute button on him until everything God promised would happen happens. It was men who were to be silent as this new movement of God was birthed.

Then it jumped to poor and marginalized keepers of the sheep. Then the old, widowed and largely forgotten ones in Simeon and Anna. And it shocked my system a little bit. But I could certainly justify it and explain it. These were exceptions, not the rule. After all, these women did faithful things but they were not leading over men. So I continued to read Luke and then Acts with the lens I had always had. But it got increasingly complicated to read the Scriptures and preserve that lens. The first miracles in Luke are a leper, a paralytic and a sick mother-in-law. Not exactly a power play to garner a following and build a platform. Exactly what was Jesus’ good news?

Well he seemed to answer that question. Luke 4. He heads to synagogue, grabs the scroll of Isaiah and says “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Good news, freedom, sight, favor to the least the last the lambasted and the lost.

And the Scriptures started jumping off the page for me like I was reading it for the first time. The widow and the sinful woman in Luke 7, the dead girl and the sick woman in Luke 8, the women who funded Jesus’ ministry and followed him (mentioned by name-Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna and many others also in Luke 8), Mary and Martha in Luke 10, the crippled woman in Luke 12, persistent widows, generous widows, women as the last at the cross and the first at the tomb, the very first Easter message of Resurrection, given by a woman.

And it continued in Acts. And these corrective lenses I was seeing the Scriptures through came to a head with a revisit to Genesis of all places. In re-reading the origins story of Genesis 1-2, it was interesting to see that male and female, He created them in His own image and that this creation was very good. The picture in Eden is one of MUTUALITY and ONENESS, both with God and between man and woman. They occupied the same space, shared the same world and were deeply connected feeling seen, safe and satisfied in the garden.

Then Genesis 3. Rebellion. Sin. Fallenness. And the result of that is that the Mutuality and Oneness are replaced with HIERARCHY and OTHERNESS. Hierarchy, "the man shall rule over the woman" and banishment from the garden and from oneness with God. Otherness, distinct punishments for the man, the woman (and the serpent).

This is at the root of the fallen world ever since isn’t it? Hierarchy. Who has power? How does one obtain power? Sustain power? Utilize power? Increase in power? Otherness. Who is in? Who is out? What divides us, differentiates us, distinguishes us? Winners and losers. Chosen and not chosen.

And then Jesus stands up in a synagogue and unrolls that scroll and says Good News, freedom, sight and favor have arrived.

And he heals who he heals, hangs out with who he hangs out with and loves who he loves.

Jesus Christ is God’s action to begin the RETURN to MUTUALITY and ONENESS. He goes after hierarchy. He confronts otherness. He continually provokes people toward considering there is more room at the table than their lenses have permitted to this point. The leper can belong. The paralytic can belong. Yes even your mother-in-law can belong.

And then Acts 2. Jesus has gone away, ascended to be with the Father and tells the disciples to wait for the Helper that is coming. That Helper, the Holy Spirit arrives and some crazy and powerful stuff happens and all the on-lookers are trying to get a clear grasp and explanation of what the flip is going on and Peter stands up in front of all those assembled and gives the first sermon of the church (if you don’t count Mary’s announcement that Jesus was no longer in the tomb as a sermon).

And Peter, much like Jesus, quotes the Hebrew Bible. This time Joel. Don’t miss this! It’s Peter’s debut in leading this new thing called Church and he quotes Joel saying,

“In the last days, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, (God will use male and female to advance His kingdom), your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams (God will use young and old to advance his kingdom), even on my slaves, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit(God will use slave and free and again emphasizes both male and female to advance His kingdom)…And EVERYONE who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Parenthesis and All Caps are my commentary/emphasis.)

Peter is telling this newly formed church that the road back to MUTUALITY and ONENESS and back to Eden and Shalom was begun by Jesus and was to be fulfilled by His bride the Church.

And this fundamentally is what the Good News is all about. That we would all be restored mutually to the place where God’s image was equally on display on each of us and that there would be a level of connectedness with each other where we could be seen, safe and satisfied in relationship with each other as humans and with our creator, God.

And the crisis of belief for me was formulated around one central question: Are we in a post-fall world or a post-Pentecost world?

If it is the former, then hierarchy and otherness is the operating system we are designed for. We need the structure. We need the control. We need the order that is created when certain people have power and authority. There will inevitably be some otherness. Some us and them. But that’s just the nature of things in a fallen and broken place.

But if it is the latter, then, wow do I have to do some major re-alignment. Can I be a part of a church that says women are limited in what they can offer not because of skills and gifting but simply because of anatomy? Can I live in a community of privilege that mostly resembles me, behaves like me, has income like me and insulates from others who don’t look like me, are ‘sketchier’ than me, and don’t behave like me? If Jesus is my north star and mutuality and oneness are truly His guiding maxims for a return to Eden, then what does this mean for how I engage my city, the friends I have, the church I am part of?

This is the tension I am squarely in right now. I’ve realized that all my seminary books and pastors I’ve listened to and followed are white, educated men. It is seemingly one voice of power at the top of the hierarchy and I can no longer in good conscience or even in good faith believe that this is the good news Jesus announced in Luke 4, lived out and embodied, then ultimately gave his life for.

I’ve watched a number of people leave C3 as we have gone through this process of wrestling with the Scriptures and discerning what the wise counsel for the church is, as we have installed both male and female elders and unleashed women to lead Missional Communities and empowered women to preach.

They have strong convictions that the lens which they read and believe Scripture (the same lens I am deeply familiar with and deeply held as true) is the only way to really understand and align ourselves to the Bible. They have made strong, presumptuous and sometimes hurtful statements about how I no longer believe and live out the Scriptures or have strayed from orthodoxy.

I understand where they are coming from. But I have dipped my toes into the world that is post-Pentecost rather than post-Fall and it has felt immensely freeing and has led me to experience God and His Word in profoundly beautiful ways.

And I have begun to be formed deeply by the teaching and wisdom of women who are richly following Jesus and living out their calling as authors and preachers, pastors and prophets.

There is more to say. So a part two will come about what to do with “that passage” and with Paul and with church tradition and elders and pastors.

Suffice it to say for part one, this is no longer a hill I am avoiding in order to fix my eyes on Jesus. I believe now that this is precisely the hill of Calvary that Jesus gave his life on. To make us one.

As for that friend who I pitched on investing in C3? She took a higher road than me and invested in this church and kept us rolling despite our theological disagreement. She owned mutuality and oneness and chose Good News even when I would not. Might be time for me to drop her a note.

“May the church be unleashed from its traditions that have denied more than half its members the full use of the gifts God himself may have poured out by His spirit.”

5-4-3-2-1 This is Church

City Campus Church has some simple, yet unique DNA that we are consistently aligning ourselves to. It's our ethos for where we are going and how we are trying to get there. It's as simple at 5-4-3-2-1.




5 VALUES


We are a values driven church, which means that these values direct our thinking and actions on a micro (individually) and macro level (in community). Based off Acts 2:42-47, our five values as a church are

Celebration...a win for you is a win for me and it is right to give thanks.

Community...we are better together than we could ever be apart.

Change...God doing a transforming work in us and doing a transforming work through us.

Generosity...We give more than we take.

Replication...Multiplying at every level. Disciples making Disciples who make disciples. Communities making communities who make communities. and Churches making churches who make churches.

4 RHYTHMS

Each of our Missional Communities have 4 rhythms that help us to live out a Gospel centered life.

Substance. This is where we share God's Word together and apply it in meaningful ways.

Social. Jesus found himself sharing meals and enjoying people frequently. We want to do the same. Have fun and build relationships.

Serve. Each community partners with a specific cause in our city. One supports foster parents and their kids, one supports the under-resourced on the West side, one partners with chronically and terminally ill children and their families and one partners with single mothers on the East side. Our serves are about fostering relational capital (not just doing nice things but being connected with the people we serve) and kingdom impact. We want to do things that are close to the heart of God.

Sabbath. In a culture that goes with reckless pace, we choose to live an alternative story and catch our breath and slow down.

These rhythms are all to be done at least once each in a 6 week window. We are low control (each community determines where they are heading) but high accountability (they have to own our 4 rhythms and our 5 values).

3 VEHICLES

We think that discipleship happens in three vehicles and encourage our folks to hop in the right vehicles at the right time in their faith journey.

Celebration...It's our Sunday morning gathering. There you will experience music and teaching and communion and prayer and baptisms.

Missional Community...Groups of 15-40 people doing life together (family) and serving a specific context (mission). We are a family on mission.

Huddle...Groups of 3-8 folks who go through a very intentional process of learning how to consistently lean into the Most Important 2 Questions (see below)

2 QUESTIONS

We believe that every person who is following Jesus can answer the two most important questions:

What is Jesus Saying?

What am I Going to Do About It?

1 GOAL

People being change(d) in the city of Columbus. If we really matter and make a difference in this city then if we closed our doors or stopped our missional communities, who in the city would be upset or miss our presence? If the answer is no one, then this DNA isn't really taking root.

This way of church isn't for everyone. But we consciously and consistently seek to choose presence over polish, development over delivery and low control with high accountability as the way to live out this story. We have seen God do some pretty amazing things in these first 5 years as a church and now we are beginning to look toward the next five with hope and expectancy of how He will move! Hope you'll join us for the ride!

Right as Heaven Hard as Hell.

Hey there! It's me. 2018 is here and some of you are thinking now is the time.

Now is the time to respond to the opioid epidemic and the subsequent surge in foster care placements.

Now is the time to get your foster license and make family available either temporarily or more permanently to some kids who haven't had a very easy go of it.

I'm your biggest fan. If you go down this road, you can be a literal world changer for the kid or kids you welcome into your home. The numbers are staggering regarding how many kids in the system end up dropping out of high school, experiencing teenage pregnancy and ending up in prison. You can help rewrite stories, break toxic cycles, restore nuclear families, help a kid feel loved, safe and at home.

As someone who has gotten my feet wet in this crisis, I think I can offer a piece of advice as you head down this road:

Don't.

Don't do it.

It's hard as hell.

You're committing to open your home, your marriage, your kids up to total strangers. Strangers who have often been neglected. Often abused. Often undisciplined. Often underfed. Often overmedicated. Often terrified. Often pissed off that they got taken from their home. Often distrusting because the last placement gave up on them or hurt them or didn't want them.

They will disrupt your routine, your sleep, your systems.

They will rock the boat. They will sabotage the one thing you and they both know they need. They will sabotage the love you are trying to give them. They will self destruct.

So don't do it. Because if you have stars in your eyes that it will be a happy story or an instant connection and if you think they will be compliant and grateful, you will be crushed...devastated when reality sets in.

They've been ripped from their home and in many ways their hearts ripped from their chests. You will be near the top of their list of people to blame for this.

I know. I know. You had nothing to do with that. You're just opening your home out of the goodness of your heart. They don't see it that way.

So again...Don't do it.

There is a surprising number of foster homes who take one placement and then never do it again or after a very short time with a placement realize how disruptive the foster kids are and ask for removal. It's hard as hell.

Getting a stranger to let down their guard enough to even begin considering the prospects of family is brutal. Even if you are consistent and persistent, it may never take. Even if you have predictable patterns and clarified expectations, it may never translate to trust.

Don't do it.

That's the advice I'd give you. It's also probably the advice I'd have given God. Don't bother with these wicked, destructive, self-centered humans. They will seek to sabotage the very thing God wants to lavish on them. And yet God takes the road less traveled. Sent from Heaven to save from Hell. He looked at the mess of our rebellion and chose restoration and redemption at substantial cost. Where it seemed He had multiple choices, He saw only one. He couldn't not engage the people He loved. He chose it, knowing full well that the story, filled with betrayal and desertion and denial and rejection would be hard as hell. But He also knew this road was right as Heaven. He couldn't not engage.

So hear me, you would be heroes of foster kids, all I can tell you is don't do it. The risks you'd be taking on your marriage and your family and your routine and your mental health and your freedom and flexibility in your schedule...its costly. Don't do it.

Unless you absolutely can't not do it.

Then do it with everything you've got.

It will be hard as hell. But you know with every fiber of your being, its right as Heaven.

Do you value a Discipleship Culture

I recently asked my staff team and some of the key people at City Campus Church how often they thought I should preach in 2018. I'm the leader of this thing. I've logged the most hours and experience preaching and communicating. My family's story and C3's story are interwoven...made of the same fabric. I'm wired with vision and called in general to champion that vision and invite others to champion it with me.

In a typical church, the lead pastor is likely north (in many cases, FAR north) of 80% of the yearly preaching. This is almost a no-brainer in many settings. They are paid to lead the thing. They should be the voice of the thing.

Delivery matters. If you're a good, growing, gifted communicator, you should hone the gift.

Preach, evaluate, grow. Preach again.

Delivery matters.

But development matters more.

Replication is one of our five values as a church. We want to see it happen at every level. Disciples making disciples who make disciples. Leaders making leaders who make leaders. Missional Communities who make Missional Communities who make Missional Communities. And yes, churches launching churches who launch churches. If we really believe that the church is a body and that every cell will run its course and die, all the while new cells are being made, then the quicker we align ourselves to the desire to activate more cells to realize the fullness of their potential.

Jim Winkler did it for me. I was a young gun who thought I knew how to lead and preach and I was like third or fourth on the depth chart at the church. But he kept letting me give it a go there. And when I fumbled the ball, he didn't take me out of the game, he put me back out there and gave me another shot. The highest calling of a leader is to see what others can't or won't see in themselves and then do what is necessary to tease that potential into existence. This is discipleship in a nutshell. Choosing development over delivery.

If you feel pressure to do 90% of the preaching, all that is doing is guaranteeing that your church will likely die or largely turn over when you try to turn it over to the next person because they won't deliver the way you delivered.

Delivery is a good servant, but a horrible master. We should want to do our best and inspire and encourage hearts. But not at the expense of teaching and developing others around us to do the same thing.

So? Back to the question I posed. I was getting a sense that the answer I was to swing at this year was between 60 and 70 percent. The church still needs my leadership, but they need it up front and through the painstaking work of developing others.

The staff I asked all said the same thing.

And the key people of C3 I spoke to said the same thing too. And many of them said that it wasn't because they were tired of me (I think they would tell me if they were), and they admitted that if I wasn't preaching, their posture in hearing and engaging the message often times would diminish. But they all came back to this same idea that if we really are about replication, then, we need to represent that in our culture and let the fumbles happen. It was one of the coolest moments in leadership for me. I usually feel like I have to convince people if it isn't the normal way...But in this instance, they were already largely there. They believe in a culture of development.

And that is a thrilling place to be.

Believe it or not this principle applies 100% to the corporate world and even to family/parenting dynamics. You develop people to be able to deliver as well or better than you, then the potentiality of your company skyrockets compared to managing a team and making sure they deliver of the tasks set before them.

Don't get me wrong. We don't throw delivery out with the bathwater. Delivery matters. Development matters more.

Our Staff Team has some maxims that we try to filter our decisions, our attitudes and our leadership through. They are:
1. Where is God in this? (What's Jesus saying?)
2. Make it better. (What are we going to do about it?)
3. Same Team. (A win for you is a win for me.)
4. Who's Next? (Always look for who can replace you and invest there.)
5. Stay Curious. (Ask more questions than you give solutions.)

It feels like a posture as a team that allows us to feel the freedom of chasing development while still being attentive to delivery. Fumbles are likely the way our people learn to hold on to the ball the best. And once they have grown in competence and confidence in holding onto the ball, then they can start handing the ball off to others.

Each person who preaches at C3, myself included does a run through of their message on Sunday morning. They are all working off the same preaching grid, that I've tried to download to them so that we know what effective communication is and can hold people accountable to it. After the run through, everyone there gives feedback. Its a pretty vulnerable place because we've all fumbled a time or two, but knowing we are on the same team and seeking to make it better and support the next person up on the depth chart has been an absolute game changer in our culture.


After talking to all these guys, I felt pretty good about the 60-70% range for the sake of developing an arsenal of dynamic communicators. I talked to one of the more important leadership voices I know of in the Church, Mike Breen and asked him what his approach to preaching was. At one time he was leading one of the largest churches in England and his approach to discipleship has impacted literally tens of thousands of lives across the globe. He has lived as a movement leader. His answer? 50%!

Samantha...aka the day a what became a who

Sundays are nuts right now. Between normal church responsibilities, having a new baby added to the mix with our other two children and having our house listed for sale and having open houses the last few Sundays, it seems like a pretty hectic/insane day.

Today was no exception. Baby dedication Sunday. Many additional moving parts. Interviewing a couple courageous ladies who are making a difference in our city. Preaching on an important topic that is literally killing a generation. There isn't a shortage to do.

But as great and important as all those things seemed at the outset of the day, they don't matter much at all to me after what happened.

Typical Sunday morning. I go in to the middle school around 5:30 and get the air conditioners set up and spend time in prayer and preaching my sermon to an empty room to hear what it sounds like out loud. This is holy ground...sacred space for me. I'm typically alone until 8:30 when some of the C3 team comes and hears the sermon and we give constructive feedback to seek to make it better.

That went fine.

After that around 9:15 I go to get my older two kids and bring them back to C3 so that Shaina can have about an hour to go through the house and make sure it is ready to go for the open house.

I get the kids, all the stuff we needed for the day and I go out to take our other car, the one with car seats in it back to church to continue to get ready for the service. My hands are full and I walk the kids to the door and they open it and begin climbing in. As they are heading to their seats in the third row of the flex, I see her. Sitting in the drivers seat...hunched...pale. I can tell by the look on her face that this is more than a homeless person finding a warm spot for the night. She was an addict. And she was not in good shape. (Yes we leave our doors unlocked. We keep nothing of value in the car and would rather them take a few pennies than break out a window.)

I calmly told the kids to get out of the car and go back to the porch and let mommy know we weren't going to be leaving quite yet. Chaia, the oldest, ever the compliant one, listened. Marquis got out of the car, walked around to the other side and got back in the car and was horsing around in the back seat. I looked for needles and didn't see any. The girl started to stir a little.

Hi, I'm Ben. You're in my car. Have you been using heroin?

Yes.

Did you overdose?

Yes.

Do you need help?

Yes.

Ok I'm going to call for help.

She phased back out of it.

911 What's the location of your emergency. (I share my address.) What's the nature of the emergency?

I have a female potential heroin overdose. She is semi-responsive and admitted to using.

How old is she? (By now the girl is semi-coherent again. Moving around, appearing like everything she was doing was both painful and haphazard.) I ask her her age.

28.

I tell the dispatcher. They assure me help is on the way. Meanwhile, the girl tries to stand up. I've got Chaia now back with me and her and Marquis are both watching. I ask them to go to the porch. They aren't budging. The girl starts walking around. She has a pathetic, already been smoked cigarette butt that she is frantically trying to find a way to relight. She can't find her lighter. I tell her I can help her. I have no lighter, so I come out with one of those big torch things that you light candles with. I light it for her and ask her her name.

Samantha.

She is 80, maybe 90 pounds. She has layers of clothing on including full fledged winter gloves that she'd left in the car. That seemed an odd choice since its to be a high of 93 today. She is emaciated. Not well.

I tell her help is on the way and it is as if she suddenly is able to piece together all that this help meant. She panicked and started walking down the alley away from our house and away from our street.

I can hear the sirens in the near distance. So can she.

I have a warrant out on me right now. I can't go to jail for this.

She begins an awkward but urgent jog. She is still not in good shape. So I keep up with her. But I feel tension because I don't want her to end up in worse shape physically than she already was trying to run from me and I had no way of letting the police know where I'd gone. So I watched her go behind a house and then I ran back to my street as the first police cruisers arrived. I gave a quick description and gave the address two streets up of the house she had gone behind.

I have no idea how the story unfolds after that. I don't know if the police found her. I don't know if she will find the help she needs.

All I know is that an opioid crisis that I've seen on the news and even watched a documentary on this past weekend, and have even brought up in sermons as I share about the foster care crisis that is a direct result of the opioid crisis...all of that went from a thing I heard about to a person I knew.

Samantha.

Hanging out in a place between euphoric bliss and cardiac arrest in my Ford Flex when I'm supposed to be heading to church to preach about...get this...what it means to really be the church.

And my mind goes a mile a minute. I wonder if she has kids. If so, do they know where their mom is? Have they already been taken from her? Does she have a family? Does she remember what hope feels like? How do you get to a place where you end up alone and overdosed in a total stranger's car?

I'm not angry. I wasn't scared. I wasn't even bothered by my kids witnessing it. (Can you say "teachable moment"?) What I was is incredibly sad. I don't want her to die. I feel the tension of imprisonment being a deterrent for people seeking help and maybe the only way she might get clean.

But for the first time, I didn't have a line of statistics to highlight the crisis of the overdose culture. Instead I had a face and a name.

It makes me desperate for people to feel seen...to feel safe...and to feel satisfied. I think we as a church could do a much better job of doing those three things to a world who needs good news.

I don't know where to begin with solving this crisis or even helping it a little bit, but what I do know is that this matters more to me now than it did yesterday.

Over 4000 died of overdoses in Ohio in 2016 and signs point to outpacing that number in 2017. Something must change.

What can we do?

Where do we begin?

Wait

Tonight I laid on the couch and did nothing. Nearly 4 hours. Just laid there. No TV. I had the Indians radio broadcast on, but was barely hearing it. I just laid there.

This came on the heels of the Labor Day Monday from hell. I had just wrapped up the paternity leave time and I am chomping at the bit to dig back in with C3. And I have a freaking holiday. Don't get me wrong. Days off are nice. Days off with three kids, one of whom is in the completely dependent for everything phase, while also being in contract for a new place and trying to sell our current place? They are less nice.

I put the labor into Labor day. Packing boxes, sorting stuff, getting a yard sale ready for the weekend. Hustle and bustle. Meanwhile the kids were losing their ever-loving minds. Chaia is obsessed with screens. We have very limited TV and tablet times, but she thirsts for it like water. "Go play outside." "I don't want to. I want screens." She eventually gets some screen time and her go to right now? Pulling up youtube clips. Of what you might ask? Kids. Playing. Outside. Naturally. Why go enjoy a beautiful September Ohio day, when you can let someone else enjoy it for you?

Marquis is in the "I-understand-the-difference-between-right-and-wrong-and-know-the-expectations-of-me-to-do-right-but-still-choose-to-jack-the-whole-thing-up-and-purposefully-and-defiantly-choose-wrong" phase. It's one of my favorites. It is on full display with potty training. The dude is potty trained. He gets it. But he won't tell you if he has to go. "You need to go potty?" "No." "Why don't we try going potty?" "No." "Bud, there is urine coming out your eyes and ears, lets go potty." "No." Take him to the potty? Pees for days. He's still up there peeing from when I took him up there yesterday afternoon. Like a fountain.

Then there is Sloane. She's great. Two weeks old. Sleeps most of the day and and is awake most the night. That's fine if you don't have the aforementioned Watch Kids Play kid and Urine Fountain kid sleeping at night and up all day.

And then my wife. Seriously the best human in the world. Underslept. Over-depended on. Every couple of hours, basically putting a rabid dog to her boob to feast...consistently wondering if any part of her body is ever going to work again the way it did before the pregnancy.

And there I am...packing up a house...virtually by myself. I'm not pitying myself. I'm in uber-nesting-hero mode. There are tasks to be accomplished. I shall accomplish them. And after I walked past the couch where Shaina and the nocturnal spawn are sitting for about the 15th time, with boxes or tape or labels or whatever it was, my wife said the words that I needed to hear.

"Why don't you just hold your daughter?"

Damn.

Confession time. Productivity is like a drug to me. I operate off of a Get Stuff Done grid. And sitting with Sloane, taking in her little features, learning her cries and expressions and likes and dislikes? Especially during moving month? And back to work month? And big stretch for C3 month? That is the opposite of productivity. That is inactivity. It doesn't move the needle. It doesn't take the ball down the field. These are the 'virtues' I'm known for. These are the traits that people celebrate in my profession.

But the words Shaina said, the timing of which she said them, and the way she said them, not manipulatively but innocently, cut straight to the heart.

Activity is not synonymous with Productivity. In fact in the things that matter most, (Jesus said these things were "Loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and loving your neighbor as yourself.") activity is at times the antithesis and adversary of productivity.

We just finished a series at church called WAIT. It is one of the Bible's most important words and I was absolutely broadsided by it.

I can't love God and I can't love and be loved by others if my pace is frantic, helter skelter. I have to have margin to be. To spend time with God. To richly connect with others. Yesterday, I got the older two kids to go out and play basketball with me. We laughed and giggled and chased and tickled. There was no defiance or disobedience...just enjoyment and thrill. There was no youtube clips or video games. Nothing virtual...All reality.

And today I had my monthly haircut. I just recently made the move from the 7 minute slightly better than a bowl cut hair cut at a $10 haircut chain place to a traditional barber shop. For haircut, beard trim and neck shave (with a hot towel, please and thank you!) it is an hour experience. The dude Dave who was my barber today? As we talked and were just occupying the same space, he opened up about 3 miscarriages in the last year, about the last one nearly killing his wife, and how he is on the fence about the whole faith thing because it feels like God has abandoned him. I was able to share a bit about how I have experienced God's presence in the midst of intense suffering. It was a sweet time. I was his last cut of the day and he let it go for an hour and a half because it was good conversation.

My inactivity sometimes puts HIS productivity on full display.

He can do more in my waiting than in my doing I can do.

And the same is true for you. What would happen if one hour a day...one day a week, you replaced hustle and hurry with intentional delay and delight? What if you chose to linger in a conversation/relationship knowing full well you were sacrificing your to-do list? Don't hear what I'm not saying. I'm not saying neglect responsibility. I'm not saying be lazy and disengaged. I'm not saying netflix binge some waste of space series (you may as well watch kids playing on youtube). I'm saying rest. Rest in the liberating truth that apart from Him I can do nothing. Rest in the grace and productivity that inactivity affords us. It doesn't need done. It already has been. Pace. Space. Cadence. Rhythm.

I laid on the couch tonight with a little two week old snuggled securely into my chest. We listened to the Indians (14 in a row!) and gave mommy some space to rest and recover...one part body mind and soul...the other part food processing factory. Sloane's breathing was in sync with mine, we both phased in and out of snoozing. Nearly 4 hours.

It's the most productive thing I've done in weeks.

Where do you need to wait?

A Letter to My New Daughter

Little Lady,

I wanted you to know I am thrilled that you are here.

Your mom and I want you to know that names are really, really important to us. Just ask your sister, Chaia or your brother, Marquis.

So we named you Sloane Promise Thompson.

One of the first times your mama preached, she helped me to reclaim the Hebrew word Ezer that is often translated as helper or helpmate and is used to describe what Eve was for Adam. Your mama pointed out that most every other time that Ezer is used in the Old Testament, it is referring to God and it is in the context of battle. It doesn't refer to the one who ties up loose ends for the husband or exists solely to serve, support and sustain her husband. Eve was designed and crafted to be a warrior alongside Adam. To fight alongside and go after this life with purpose and focus and grit and fierceness.

That sermon changed my life in a really good way and it helped me see what your mama has always been with me. Not someone who is along for the ride, but is meant to go with me in tenacity and resolve, in good times and in bad. When I lost my mom and dad and really lost my drive and passion to live, your mama fought for me. When your sister was fighting for her life, your mama fought with me to see her become a life of joy.

Sloane, your name means warrior. We pray that you embody this name and that there is a relentlessness in you that is this great mixture of resilience, conviction and beauty.

But we do not want you to fight for just anything. Your middle name is Promise. There are so many promises that God has spoken to His people. He will not leave us or forsake us. He is making all things new. He has reconciled us to him and wants us to be reconciled one to each other. He wants to revive all things, redeem all things and restore all things. We want you to fight for that. We want you to fight for justice and peace and grace and hope. These are the promises that Jesus points us to.

Sloane you are a gift sweet girl. Our family is better with you in it. And when we look at you and recall your name, I pray that we recall our own invitation to fight for hope to join God in restoring this world and bringing love and joy back to the song we sing as a world.

That, my love, is worth fighting for.

Charlottesville Reflections

My social media feeds are filled with public outcry denouncing white supremacy and the haunting images of torch wielding marches in Virginia.



It should be.

But let's be honest, our social media solidarity does little to nothing. Me protesting the protesting of something like this doesn't end racism. It doesn't solve anything.

Now, changing the way we live? That changes the story. Protest with your life. The way you live.

The reality of this is its costly and most of us white folks are naive, oblivious, or worse, indifferent to what so many people in our country have endured and are currently enduring.

Here's 10 things we could do do if we want our life to reflect our posts and tweets (by no means exhaustive).

1. Have a coworker or neighbor or friend or classmate of color over to your house for dinner and ask them to tell you their story and how all that is happening in Virginia and with police shootings is impacting them. How do they feel? What are their fears?

2. Eat and shop at black owned locations. A friend of mine recently sent this list of 21 black owned restaurants in Columbus. Shaina and I have made it a bucket list item to visit all of them. Some are in parts of town we go to all the time. Others are in places we have made conscious or unconscious notes to not go to because they are in "the bad part of town". Regardless, we are going to each.

3. Be discipled by African-Americans. I read a lot but found that most of the authors I was reading were white men. I just recently felt the conviction that I am not being taught, empowered, educated or discipled by African-Americans or women. So I've changed that. Jo Saxton and John Perkins and Howard Thurman are three voices I've just begun to let influence me. There are many more places you could start. The important thing is that you start somewhere.

4. Engage the Foster Care System. African-Americans make up roughly 13 percent of the population and yet somehow make up 25% of the children in the foster care system. Disproportionality is a thing. And there are a ton of kids in need of safe and stable homes either for a brief time or for a long period of time. The county I live in has issued an announcement that they need 200 homes immediately for placements because of the influx in kids in the system. Kids who cycle through the foster system end up with increased likelihood of teen pregnancy, high school drop out and incarceration. The system is unstable because the people who have stability and safety in their homes are locking these kids out. It's one of the clearest things in scripture and simultaneously one of the largest areas of neglect in the church. A primary goal of providing stability and support to these foster kids is that hopefully, reunification can happen with increased stability and safety being provided by the parents. This doesn't happen all the time, but it doesn't mean it isn't worth fighting for. The main thing is show up. Show up in the lives of kids, regardless of race and say that regardless of baggage, regardless of race, regardless of everything, every kid deserves a shot at being loved and valued and finding safety and stability in their life.

5. Move. If you are like me and you have had any inkling of an awakening to the effect that economic segregation has on systemic racism, then you can't really use or leverage your voice until you relocate. Some friends of mine who are heroes in this went to a neighborhood where they were clearly the minority and went in dreaming of a 20 year plan of incarnating the good news and seek revitalization and the prosperity of that neighborhood alongside their neighbors. It's messy and you can't do it with stars in your eyes, but it feels right.

6. Repent. There is a Wendys about two miles away from our house and a Wendys about 1.5 miles away from our house. We go to the one that is further away because it is on the right side of the tracks. We do this without giving it a second thought. The church that Shaina and I started nearly 5 years go is largely homogenous. We are white. We don't represent the city we live in. We don't represent the school we gather in. My staff is white. The people who most often grace the stage of the church...the worship teams...the communicators...white. I have to at least consider that the decisions I make or don't make are not pure. One of the more powerful things I've experienced in recent months was when our church combined with 4 other churches in town for a Good Friday gathering. It was the most diverse expression of worship I have experienced and during that time a white pastor and an African-American pastor, both of whom I love and respect a ton took turns confessing their sins to each other with the church as a witness. It was holy ground and if I'm honest, I need the courage to own that racism and white privilege that fester in me both knowingly and unknowingly. We need to name the cyclical hell that we have put people of color through in this country. And we need to grieve it. I have no idea what it is like to have distrust in the police force because of things that have happened for centuries in regards to those who exist to protect. I don't know what its like to feel the need to be protected from the ones enlisted to protect. I don't know what its like to be deemed 3/5ths of a person. I can say I protest much of what has happened. But the only way this issue changes is if I protest with my life and my actions.

7. Hire the Unhirables. I love the spirit of Hot Chicken Takeover in my city. They make great chicken and hire people who are often deemed unhirable. Their website says: "It’s about our people. Beyond an amazing community of customers, HCT provides supportive jobs to men and women who need a fair chance at work. Be it homelessness, previous incarceration, or another barrier to employment, HCT employees are wildly ambitious and have set their sights on what’s next. Once hired, we support their financial stability, personal growth, and professional development with an array of benefits." Having this approach in our businesses can drastically interrupt or break the cycles of poverty, crime and incarceration. Give a man a fish and they eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and they fish for a lifetime. Fish alongside a man and you may just change the world. The latter is about relationship and partnership and mutual benefit. It tells a different narrative than the heroic haves reaching out to bestow their blessings on the have nots.

8. Acknowledge that abortion is part of the systemic racism and classism we need to address. Yes, we're stepping on all the toes today. African-American women make up about 6% of the US population and yet account for between 30 to 40% of the annual abortions. If we're going to say that Black Lives Matter, then we have to be willing to say that the disproportionality of abortion clinics in poor, often largely black communities is exploitative and unjust. I don't care where you land on the the abortion issue. You can't escape that there is something wrong with this picture.

9. Identify, support and vote capable, competent African-Americans into political offices. There have been 10 black senators out of nearly 2000 senators in our history as a country. Ten. And a few of those weren't even elected. They were appointed. It's hard to say that racism isn't a thing when the white people with all the money get elected to all the positions of power and influence and continue to make the rules that govern the land. Hard to hear the voice of a group of people if the elite white guy has control of the mic.

10. Laugh together. I know a lot of these are heavy, complicated, costly journeys to go down. Most things worth doing are costly. Most things that are right are costly. But if nothing else, find common ground where you can be silly together. It's really hard to carry a torch against someone you laugh with and genuinely enjoy.

Probably not realistic to do all of these, but what if we all picked one and let our life be a protest to the bigotry and intolerance that we've seen on shocking display?!

Live your life as a protest. If we can't lean into these things, then we'd probably be best served to shut up. The African-American community deserves better than lip service and us continuing to control the mic.

Hope this is a platform to jump off from. Which one are you feeling called to try this week?

Cost of Living

Pastoring a church that has connected with a majority population of 20s and 30s has me uniquely positioned to see people experience major transitions. I do way more weddings than funerals. We have baby dedications multiple times a year. Most of my hospital visits are beginning of life things not end of life things.

And there is another transition I see a lot.

It's people moving.

I don't just mean people who relocate to other areas of the state or country because of job or education, though there is certainly a transient nature involved in 20 and 30 somethings.

I also mean people who have gotten married and moved into an apartment...who then maybe move into a home, often in a hip part of the city...who then have a baby or two and then move out of the hip part of the city and into the secure part of the city...the good school district part of the city...the bigger house part of the city...often its the suburbs.

People are seemingly always on the move.

And it is always for seemingly wise motives.

But I don't often hear people saying, "we feel like God is calling us here...to this neighborhood...to this people...to embody Good News here."

Usually I hear wise explanations rather than the God explanations. God apparently rarely (if ever) calls people of means to parts of the city inhabited with people of none. God apparently doesn't like poor people.

I'm becoming convicted that God likely isn't calling all the more educated, more influential, more white, more wealthy people all to the same suburban oases of comfort.

I think while racism is certainly alive and well, it seems as if an equally (or even more?) poisonous thing in my city is economic segregation that exists because of classism.

I can tolerate a black man who is educated and holds a steady job in the same income bracket as me and can afford to live on the same street as me.

But the poor black man? Uneducated? That's a different story.

He should work harder. He should keep a job. He should have graduated high school. He should dress better.

I'm reminded a bit of what happened to the Southern Kingdom of Judah in the Hebrew Bible. The Babylonians invaded and their strategy of eliminating their enemies was very effective. Those they didn't kill, they sorted. They took the educated, wealthy and influential in the conquered place and relocated them to their capital city in Babylon to influence and build and develop and innovate. And they left the less educated, blue collar, "non-threats" in the conquered land. They knew that this recipe would prevent uprisings and revolts.

What if the suburbs are a type of Babylon? What if those embracing the comforts and frills of the empire are in reality living in exile away from the place that God ultimately wants to work and redeem and restore and reconcile?

Not only does this type of classism leave gaping holes and leave groups of people overlooked and undervalued but we perpetuate the cycle. By going to the best school districts (where the more expensive cost of living is often found), my kids get the leg up on education. Then they get the better opportunities. They get the better jobs. They get the better chance of not starting out with massive amounts of debt. Then they get married and live in the hip part of town until "God Almighty" calls them to join the rest of their privileged fellow class members in Babylon. City schools are often deemed second class, causing people with means to avoid sending their kids there and causing great teachers to look elsewhere for jobs.

We run to Babylon and then ask why Judah is having such a difficult time. We ask why Judah is falling in disrepair.

We contribute to Judah's demise and then get ticked when our government has to come in to try and subsidize our neglect.

Classism isn't a government issue. It's a church issue.

If redemption and reconciliation and restoration are really central biblical themes and if God actually cares about poor people, then the Church more than any other institution is culpable for the pain and poverty of Judah. We have not only NOT sought to bring healing but in many instances we have helped perpetuate the cycles and systems of pain.

Don't hear what I'm not saying. Not everyone is called to this. Some people are called to be good news in Babylon. And God certainly still worked in and through the people who were in exile.

But, can we be honest though and admit that God isn't calling all the wealthy and educated people to the wealthy and educated places of our city? And that sometimes...maybe lots of times...our rationalizations of why we want to live in a place are far more about our comfort and preferences than they are about God calling us there?

Columbus is the second most economically segregated city in the country. And I confess that I have been part of the problem. I live in a mostly white, mostly middle class spot. There are streets and neighborhoods I don't go to because of the stigma there. There are train tracks we don't cross much.

If you are moving and your reasoning is schools, financial investments, safety and comparable cost of living, it may just cost you your life, making your heart numb and your compassion calloused.

If you are moving because you have had revelation from God of who you are called to, you might just get your heart back. It's not easy. But nothing that is God sized ever is.

Nehemiah led a group out of Babylon and back to Judah to participate with God in restoring her and rebuilding her.

And God is calling His Church to do the same.

A History of Numbers

10 was the number of weeks she was old when she had a heart attack.

5 was the number of days she was given to live.

90 was the number of other kids they believed ever to be diagnosed with the rare genetic disease, Generalized Arterial Calcification in Infants.

100 was the number of days she spent in the Cleveland Clinic PICU fighting for her life.

Thousands were the number of people contacting us letting us know they were praying for her healing.

3 is the number of teeth she lost as a little one from not having the strength to hold herself up as she relearned how to crawl after all the fractures throughout her body. (She just lost number 4 this past week!)

5 is the number of boxes of boost she was drinking daily because she didn't want/know how to eat food.

14 is the number of meds she was on at one time, some of them 3 times a day.

1 is the number of spinal taps they attempted to alleviate the pressure of the pseudo tumor in her head.

13 is the number of the percent of her ejection fraction (how much blood her heart was pumping out per pump). 60-70% is the number of a normal person's ejection fraction.

20 is the number of the percent of her heart that was deemed irreparably damaged (dead). And eventually this number (they predicted) would begin swallowing up the healthier portions of the heart.

Hundreds is the number of times she threw up entire feeds. In her bed. In the living room. In church. Into bowls. On the ground. Once all over my head, during a meeting for church.

1.5 million is the number (approximate) of our total medical expenses from the 100 day stay at the hospital.

2 is the number of weeks we had to go without holding her as her life lay in the balance in a hospital bed.

36:26 is the number of the chapter and verse of the most important Bible verse of her life, from the book of Ezekiel: "I will put my Spirit within you and I will make your heart of stone into a heart of flesh."

2 is the number of meds she is on now. It's also the total number of milliliters she is taking of these meds (infant doses!). She's also taking them orally for the first time.

5 is the number of trips to the buffet she took at Shoneys two nights ago. Eggs. Mac and Cheese. Donuts. Peas. Cheese. Chicken. You name it.

30 is the number of minutes she had to endure of sodium thiosulfate every day. It was hell. Made her convulsively sick.

300 is the number of weeks (2105 days...50,529 hours...3,031,784 minutes) that Chaia has had some type of IV, NG tube, or G tube intruding in her body. She has had only 10 weeks of her life without the intrusiveness of some type of tube.

0 is the number of tubes she has attached to her as of today!

6 is the number of years this little lady has been alive as July 1 is her birthday!

The days of her story as well as each of ours are numbered. Trust the Better Author to tell the Better Story.

And make today count!

This.

We have had Marquis in our home for just over a year. We took an almost two year old from the foster home he'd known since he was a couple weeks old and invited him to become family with us.

Family is a fascinating thing. It's one thing when you simply understand it through the lens of blood relatives. There's something that links us together but often times something we take for granted.

But seeking family with a stranger? It's devastatingly hard work. I'm so thankful Shaina had laid out some clear boundaries and structures and values that made us distinctively "Thompson". By us having predictability and consistency in who we were as a family, it has given Marquis a clear framework of what family means and how to Thompson. We are not perfect by any means, but the guy was uprooted from everything he'd known and what he'd known hadn't been particularly stable or structured (biggest understatement ever on the Foster Care system!)

Being born into a family is pretty simple.

Being grafted into a family is far less so. It takes guts, grit and grace. Those first weeks, when Marquis had a strong aversion to Shaina and bonded overly strongly with me were challenging. He cried most of the time. He slept awful. And he had habits and routines that were "un-Thompson". Before he came to us, he was allowed to fall asleep watching tv and then someone would carry him to bed. If he woke up, he'd come back out and watch more tv until he fell back asleep and repeated the process. He had a scarcity mentality with food. So anytime it was in front of him he devoured it in fear it would be taken or run out. He was used to having a toy in one hand and some kind of unhealthy food in the other, while walking around and playing or watching tv. Thompsoning was a little different than that. We had a bed time routine with prayer and stories and snuggles and then rest. Thompsoning at mealtimes happened around the table with no screens.

And I will be honest, as we battled constant crying and zero sleep consistency, we contemplated whether family could really happen with a stranger. We wondered if maybe we were in over our heads and needed to evaluate if we should pursue adoption (he was placed in permanent custody of children services shortly after we took him in). And Marquis, as a scared almost 2 year old with all his relationships, boundaries and expectations being overhauled had to decide if he would enter into the process with us or sabotage the one thing we were seeking to provide for him and the one thing he desperately needed: Becoming Family took guts for Marquis and for us.

There is a plethora of opportunities to quit, bail, or compromise. I find myself repeatedly tempted to give in...to be inconsistent...to change the standards and values of our family to accommodate or excuse Marquis' behavior. What I mean by this is something more than just showing grace when Marquis doesn't Thompson well. That is necessary and appropriate (and gospel!). Instead what I mean is that once a bar had been established and Marquis repeatedly was choosing to not rise up to where the bar was set, we had the choice to either lower the bar of our family values or through consistent grace and truth remain steadfast on where the bar had been set. The former is easier. The latter is better. If what it means to be a Thompson is specific, attainable and good, then keeping the bar unwaveringly set there is important. If it is an unrealistic bar that perpetuates failure and fear and inadequacy, perhaps we should reevaluate. I have heard it said that we reap in years 5 through 12 what we have sown in years 1 through 4. I believe it. And we have watched both our kids rise to the bar. This commitment requires GRIT from both parents and kids. We have to be willing to have a degree of sticktuitiveness in order to see the outcomes we desire to see.

But don't miss the caveat. Marquis is two. He pushes limits, fails at self control, breaks rules, pinches, bites, doesn't share, talks back, doesn't listen, etc. etc. etc. Of course kids will fail to measure up. Of course they will have off days/weeks/months! How we handle this their failures is crucial. Will we do nothing and let the bar be compromised and confused? Will we respond with sternness, overreaction, or anger and cause the bar to be tied to fear and anxiety? Neither are great, but parenting day in and day out seems like this roller coaster of inconsistency. One day I'm tempted to laugh and enable. The next day I'm tempted to scream and line up every wooden spoon and remove every toy in the house to use consequence as the behavior modifier.

Neither are the better way. Guts and grit isn't enough to parent well, especially parenting kids from hard places like foster care and adoption. It's guts. It's grit. And it's grace. Set and maintain the bar. That's what parents MUST DO. But when they fall short, can we follow through with them in such a way that communicates, "You are loved and trust between us is going to be reinforced through this encounter" AND "The bar hasn't changed, isn't changed and mustn't change."

Invitation. I'm 100% for you. (Even when I tell you not to poop in your swimsuit, you do it anyway, then you lie about it, then I don't notice that said poop has fallen out of your swimsuit and after I get you all cleaned up and bathed and put to bed and then I come down to hang your swimsuit outside to dry and then step in the said poop that had fallen out and end up with it caked all over my foot...hypothetically.)

Challenge. I'm 100% for who you need to become. (A young man who walks with integrity and consistency and security in who he is and who God has made him to be...and who doesn't feel the need to poop in his swimsuit anymore.)

As much as this lesson can benefit us in our parenting...it is really a lesson I am learning about CHURCH.

Family takes guts, grit and grace. If you find yourself going from one place to another seeking where the grass is greener, maybe you should consider watering your lawn.

A number of people have quit churches I've been a part of (C3 included) because the family component didn't happen quickly or deeply for them.

What I'm learning with our son who was a stranger and with a church full of unchurched, dechurched and badly churched folks is that FAMILY never happens that way!

It happens through Guts (have the courage to know and be known!) Grit (have the sticktuitiveness to commit to a people for more than a few months!) and Grace (have the patience and love...even when they end up causing poop to be on your foot).

Because there is nothing better than when it clicks for someone that they are a part of a forever family.

&

The vision of City Campus Church is to see people being change(d) in Columbus. God changing us and changing the city through us. There are so many vignettes of how this has happened and is happening.

It's the school we meet at giving us an award for being the outstanding community partner for their family of schools and having deans of other schools in that tribe asking if we could get churches like ours to meet in their spaces as well because they have been so encouraged by the partnership.

It's that school partnering with us to provide 4 beds/bedding sets for a family whose kids were sleeping on the floor.

It's packing and sending tens of thousands of meals to those in need in Columbus, Central Ohio and the ends of the earth.

It's the 50 people who have been baptized. And the number of people who have been baptized at C3 then investing in others and baptizing them at C3.

It's the dozens of people who have been huddled and the number of huddles being started.

It's a group serving home cooked meals to women coming out of the sex industry and hearing one of the women exclaim that her view of men was changing because of the guys who were showing up to serve them food.

It's 5 families broadening their understanding of family to go after foster/adoption.

It's a missional community partnering with a foster/adoption agency to provide care and support for foster parents so that they stay in the fight.

It's a missional community building relational capital with an organization to the point that they are ready to trust that MC to pioneer a crucial missing component of the organization to care for and support families with terminal or chronically ill children.

It's a missional community forming a partnership to help single mothers go from surviving to thriving.

It's a missional community serving and praying with our city's poor and in need and being present to help a free store meet the needs of the most vulnerable in the city.

It's also the miracle of a little girl who is supposed to be dead but a heart of stone became a heart of flesh.

This is church. It is a grind. It is slow-going. It is helping the disenfranchised and jaded find a place in the story God is telling.

But it is only the first part of the vision.

The dream has always been Columbus AND the ten largest university contexts in the country. It has always been to get the DNA right in the 614 AND take it to other areas of the country to replicate it and reach a generation that is widely reported as leaving the church and the faith in droves.

Enter these guys.


In two weeks, we commission the two guys who have been shoulder to shoulder with me in helping build C3 to go with their families and team from Columbus to plant Ampersand Church, with a desire to Love God & Love their neighbors in Austin, Texas. Austin is the fasting growing metropolitan area in the country and the city can't plant churches fast enough to keep up with the considerable growth. It's a fascinating intersection of innovation, technology, art and music and is self-proclaimed as WEIRD.



And what has been started in Columbus, will continue in Austin.

The guts it takes to go across the country, away from family and support systems to chase after what God is calling them to do is awesome.

The miracles along the way have been tangible. The provision remarkable. The obstacles noticeable. The calling undeniable.

And on June 4, Dennis, Trish, Lianna, Braylen, Mia and Ian Burky will be sent out with Noel and Sophia Arroyo and be joined by key C3 people, Dillon Limbaugh and Christy Andrews to give it a go. We would love for you to join us in sending them off. We will have a commissioning service that day at 11 a.m. and then we will have a picnic celebration together, with a variety of smoked meats and non-meat options, a potluck of sides and desserts, inflatables and fun to send these guys off well.

God's grace has been all over the story of City Campus Church and I'm asking you to join me in praying for His continued grace to be poured out for this team of heroes.

The Burky Family is trying to raise funds to pay for the move. Apparently, moving a family of 6 across the country isn't free. They are selling miles to get from Columbus to Austin. So far they have made it past Little Rock, Arkansas, so they are on the home stretch. Would you help them get there?

Go here and buy a mile. They cost $5 each. Buy 20, or 50 or 100 miles and get them closer and closer to their new home.

The best part is that as God begins to grow the church from the ground up in Austin and while C3 begins the reload process in Columbus, we are already both looking toward the next steps in this story, as we will both begin investing financially and looking for the next church planting residents who will be raised up and sent out to plant the third and fourth churches in this story. Whether its at Arizona State or Michigan or in the Boston metro or somewhere else, the story will continue to unfold.

It will be Columbus & Austin & so much more!

All the Feels

It's been 5 years. 5 years since we moved to Columbus with a little girl who was very sick.

5 years since we survived the 100 day stay at the Cleveland Clinic.

That place. Awful.

We got there in the middle of the night. Chaia had been transported from Akron Children's Hospital to the Cleveland Clinic. Talk of drastic measures needing to be taken. It was raining.

And the sterile white walls and the melancholy music that played as we entered the place made it feel more like asylum than a place to help people.

And the news was awful.

No diagnosis. Us rehearsing the same terrible story over and over to every medical specialist imaginable and getting no clarity on why our little girl was dying.

5 days to live.

That place. Painful.

I watched my wife's joy wither in that place. She couldn't hold her daughter for days. Chaia was in bad shape. She was intubated, restrained, hooked up to more cords, IVs, and monitors than I could keep straight.

It went from bad to worse. Rare genetic disease. Calcified arteries. Survival rate between slim and none. I remember holding strong to hope the day they took her for a PET Scan to find out how much of the heart was dead vs. how much was dormant. The doctors came around that morning for their rounds and asked how we were doing. I said confidently and humorously, "Ready to crush a PET Scan today." A few hours later, they closed the curtain and gave us privacy as we wept over the news that her heart was the one that was crushed. We were the ones who were crushed.

She wasn't going to make it.

Some freakish disease, I was a carrier...Shaina was not. So a spontaneous deletion of that exact gene on her side of the genetic coding had to happen. The odds of it happening were about as good as the odds of Chaia getting out of the hospital.

We had a doctor come in and share that he was also a man of faith (he knew we were holding out for God to do something miraculous.) He was Hindu. He said we needed to understand that Chaia's heart was not good and it would not get better.

And the news was painful.

People rallied. We couldn't stand the white walls. So we asked for cards and prayers and anything with color. People came through with well over a thousand.

Our church showed us Christ. They visited, prayed, went through the social work channels to get us financial assistance, brought meals, gave us date nights, set up a fund to help with expenses, and so much more.



The lady who brought us the mail when it came it just laughed each day as she brought 50 or more cards and packages. She even made a sign for Chaia that said "Miss Diva". People prayed from all over the world.

Praying For Chaia from Mustard Revolution on Vimeo.

That place. Hope full.

And somehow, Chaia turned a corner. Still a bleak prognosis, but no longer talk about her life being confined to the hospital with quality and quantity of life in question. Now there were hopes of something more. They started weaning us off the stuff that would keep us in the hospital so that we could go home.

And the news was Hope full.

And we made it home. On 12 meds a day, 3 to 5 times a day. Tube in her nose. Continuous feeds that went through the night. We would have to get up twice a night to reset the feeds. She threw up entire feeds at least a couple times a day. We changed her bedding every night in the middle of the night when she vomited over everything. She developed a pseudo tumor in her brain. Her bones weakened from one of the experimental treatments and she ended up with fractures all over her body from her body being stripped of calcium. She had massive oral and texture aversions. Blood draws too often. She was on a med that made her devastatingly sick and we just had to sit there with her as she suffered. Wouldn't eat anything...Fell from lack of strength and lost multiple teeth. Virtually every system in her body in some way shape or form: dysfunctional. Shaina on the phone for hours a week trying to get meds ordered in timely fashion and seeing a flawed system's shortcomings in patient advocacy.

That place. Sorrowful.

The toll something like that takes on you and on your marriage for such an extended period of time cannot be overstated. We were weary. (Granted we were planting a church and having dozens of people in our home every week, but if anything it helped people see us bleed. There is something incredibly relatable when you allow others to see your suffering.) How do you find God in the middle of your child's immense pain and low quality of life?

To be honest it was much easier than you'd think. We experienced the tears of God. It still appeared as though at some point another pound gained or another inch grown would cause her distressed heart to go into worse heart failure and she would be done in.

And the news was sorrowful.

Slowly but surely, Chaia has experienced healing. I can say with confidence that God's deliberateness is bringing the healing has been with high intent. He could have reversed the disease instantly, but we never would have been drawn to trust God's goodness even in the midst of something that didn't resemble good. Chaia's bones became less brittle and she started crawling, pulling herself up, and eventually walking, running and everything else. The news has been consistently better news.

A couple weeks ago, Chaia had her eyes looked at. They suspected that by taking her off the med she had been on, it would lead to the pseudo tumor in her head increasing in pressure (which if left untreated will lead back to the puking and potential blindness. Instead, the pressure remained stable! The doctor was so surprised, he suggested we go buy a lottery ticket. (We didn't...Dave Ramsey would not approve.)

This past week, Shaina took Chaia to the Cleveland Clinic for her first check up in a half year.



They did an ultrasound of her head, an echo and an ekg of her heart.

The cardiovascular surgeon, who we haven't worked with, but has been around since Chaia was first admitted (and was the first to meet with us to explain a course of action), looked at her echo results and then peeked his head in to tell Shaina, "You have a medical miracle in the room with you." And just as quickly as he'd stepped in, he stepped back out.

The cardiovascular head of transplants, who has been over Chaia's case since the beginning came in, took her off two more meds and said that the remaining two meds are such minuscule amounts that she could probably stop those but for his own peace of mind he wanted her to keep taking them for a little bit. From 12 meds 3 to 5 times a day to now 2 meds, twice a day!

He also said that looking at her heart now, you could not even begin to tell that she had had a major infarction. There is still some dysfunction, but Ezekiel 36:26 continues to take root. A heart of stone becoming a heart of flesh!

That place. Beautiful! Joyful! Delightful!

5 years.

Some Heaven. Lots of Hell.

But you have to know: He makes beautiful things. He is good. And often his goodness is most tangibly experienced in the Awful, Painful and Sorrowful places of your life.

Healing is right here.

I'll be honest, I would prefer to short-circuit this process. I would rather fast forward to the beautiful, joyful, delightful and hopeful.

But we can't know Promised Land without Wilderness.

We can't know Resurrection without Cross.

We can't know Love without Cost.

To those whose story is awful, painful and sorrowful...keep going:

The next chapter could be the best chapter.

Not because of you, but because of One who holds the pen.

The Author is graceful, powerful and wonderful.

And He wants to give you your heart back too.