Promises

Ruth Grant, 30 September 1929 - 6 October 2007

I wrote this in the fall 2015, soon after All Saints Day. Recently it returned to my mind. Some will wince at what they feel is dirty laundry. My response is that I think that Mum is smiling, that for one of the first times in history, she can be loved, not for what she presented to the world, but because as a God's creation, she is an object of love.

I haven’t written or honored my mother like I have my Father. If you keep reading, you’ll understand why, and today it is time to change that fact.

As the Church remembered All Saints Day, my mind went to her. It is time to tell her story from my perspective. My remembrance is only one such story. It is mine, and mine alone. Thousands tell stories of her faithfulness and devotion. They have a different story to tell. This one is mine, and yet it is also a story of loyalty and devotion, and it is no longer a white-washed story. It is real; at least in my psyche

To hear her tell the story, her father was a school teacher in the Deep South that was forced to leave his profession so that the family could eat when the Great Depression hit. He became a dam builder - moving the family first to Hoover Dam in AZ and then north to Grand Coulee Dam in WA before moving to Vancouver Washington to work in the shipyards during WW2.

She was the youngest of four and felt unwanted. Her life reflected that truth. Having said that, she worshiped her mother, who by all accounts was an incredibly gracious and Godly woman.

Mom confessed that she always lived in the shadow of her drop-dead gorgeous sister who had the world by the tail. She never thought she measured up to a standard even she couldn't identify. As far as she was concerned, she was the unwanted, ugly one. To counter that belief she overachieved. She graduated a year early from high school and then went “back home” to the deep south to study Speech at Bob Jones University, where she excelled.

While at Bob Jones, she realized she was supposed to be a missionary and she got engaged to Stuart Bundy, a man that was also called to the mission field. The trouble was, Stuart was called to South America while Mom knew she was supposed to go to Europe. She remembered steaming out to Great Britain on the Queen Mary. Passing the Statue of Liberty with tears streaming down her face because God’s call was away from all that she knew and loved. Her God never had her best interest at heart. He seemed heartless and demanding.

Once in London, Mom became the first human to produce a weekly Christian radio program broadcast across Europe. Because of a dockworkers strike, the tapes of the American preacher she was supposed to use couldn't get through. The strike afforded her the opportunity to put Englishmen such as Alan Redpath and Martin Lloyd-Jones on the radio for the first time.

At the same time, she met a handsome English gospel singer who was taking the English church scene by storm. She would put him on the radio along with the English preaching sensations. Though they had a hit show, the American’s who were financing the program were not so thrilled. The show was intended to showcase the head of her mission to Europeans, not English interlopers. The mission decided to pull the plug on the show and end all she had created.

About that same time the handsome English singing sensation asked her to be his wife. She initially put him on hold, saying that she was in England for the purpose of producing radio, and she was not sure how her English suitor fit into God’s plan for her. Though completely smitten with him, she didn't think God would give her such a gift.

She could not find any other missions or radio ministries that wanted to do what she felt called to do, so she married the Englishman in the fall of 1952. They soon joined the Eric Hutching’s Hour of Revival Evangelistic Team where Mom took control of the sound and the radio broadcasts while her husband played emcee, led the choir and soloed for the team. They traveled the world, preaching, teaching and loving one another. It was a fairy tale romance, and though they were poor, this was the happiest period of Mom’s life.

In 1963, my brother, Timothy was born. While his birth slowed Mom down, she was still able to run the sound board and produce the radio with an infant in tow, by her side. There are some fantastic photos of her in the sound booth far above the mission's venue. When I was born, that all changed. Two children were too much. Mom went from queen of the studio (where her words were law, and she reigned over the sound teams), sought after as a teacher (indeed she preached better than my Dad), and traveling Europe and Southern Africa, to a stay-at-home mom of a toddler and an infant. She told God and whoever else would listen that she was no good as a mother. She was good at the other things, but not mothering. It seems now like those early days of my brother's, and my lives were the darkest days of her life.

After being a virtual single mother proved to be too much, the family moved to the States so that Mom could be nearer her family and not have to feel so alone. She hoped her depression would lift. The move proved not to be such an easy transition, however. All of a sudden, the family that everyone knew was known by no one. The celebrity was gone. And though Mom had family to help she was still alone with two small boys, feeling all alone, like a failure, unloved, and back in her sister's shadow.

As we grew older Mom found a few ministry opportunities for herself and was the administrative force behind what would become Grant Gospel Communications — my parents non-profit.

Somewhere during this time, she also began to groom me to be a surrogate and started sexually abusing me. It would be wrong to say more than that here, for she was broken and doing the best that she could, and she didn’t mean harm, and she needed to kill her pain — and I paid the price. I do not know what price my brother paid. I know it was steep, though.

As my brother and I got older and left home for college, Mom and Dad began to travel together again. Mom’s second golden age began. She would practice piano for hours so that she could accompany Dad during his concerts. She also began to write and perform again. And when I say, "act," I mean, "act."

She memorized Romans 8, and large chunks of Revelation, along with other sections of Scripture. She presented them as dramatic performances for hundreds, probably thousands of admirers and fans. She brought the Word of God alive for her audiences. She was good. People loved her, and she blessed them.

She also wrote Christmas fiction, designed to help listeners enter into the Christmas and Jesus stories in ways they hadn’t been able to before. She would memorize her narratives and present them as a one-woman show. I can even remember her challenging me to learn Psalm 119 faster than her. She was serious and I knew I couldn’t compete, so I turned her down. I don't know if she did it out not. It wouldn't surprise me, though.

Twice she battled cancer. The last time she was miraculously healed. That is its own story, and is so incredible; it is almost unbelievable. I know that I wouldn’t believe it had I not lived it. I was with Dad in New England when we made the call to Mom to find out what the doctors had said and hearing her, overjoyed report, “The doctor states, ‘There is a slight swelling of the lymph nodes, we cannot rule out the possibility of cancer.'” The tumour, about the size of my fist the doctor discovered only two weeks earlier during exploratory surgery was gone.

For the next 12 years, Mom and Dad rediscovered their love story, They made over 20 trips to India and Europe for ministry and mission. Side by side they labored. Then in 1999 the diagnosis that my Mom feared more than any other was given, “Ruth, you have Alzheimers disease. We can slow it, but that is all."

In 2002 on the heels of my divorce, my Dad asked me to move in with him again to help care for my Mum. He couldn’t do it alone.

Already she had proven that she was not afraid to interrupt my sermons with some embarrassing story from my childhood. Now her story grew darker. She knew that her deepest fear was becoming reality. As her mind left her, she began longing for home and wandering off unsafely, sometimes barely dressed. In 2006, Dad and I realized it wasn’t safe to keep her at home anymore. Of course, she didn’t understand a locked down memory unit. And yet, she would still say, no matter how bad it got, “I know one thing, I am a child of the King.”

Those last years, those last months, everything that gave her self-worth were stripped away from her. She was left with that simple statement, “I don’t know, but I know I am a child of the King.”

Mother’s Day of 2006 was the first day she no longer recognized me. I merely became a sweet man that visited her. Some days I was her brother, sometimes I was simply there. Never again was I her son.

Finally in October 2006 with family around her bed, Mom passed into glory. Finally getting to go home and see her Dad, the king.

I am so grateful for those last years. All her life, Mom worked her butt off to gain acceptance, to get out of the shadows of her sister, to be worthy, to be loved by her Dad. Then, in the end, she discovered that she was.

That is a story that needs to be told. I don’t tell it to besmirch my Mother’s memory but to relate her story in a way that I think she now wants to be told. She was deeply wounded, and she deeply hurt my brother and me, not from spite, but because she didn’t know how not to.

People on four continents know Jesus because of her faithfulness, I know Jesus, in part because of her brokenness. That story has shaped me, for good and for ill. It deserves to be told. My Mom was an imperfect saint, like every saint who lived before her. In the wake of All Saints Day 2015, for the first time, I remember her among the great saints of the church — perfectly imperfect; full of crap and glory; shit and magnificence.

Confessions of an Unapologetic Rebel, standing fast

I am learning to embrace my role in life: To be a rebel for the Kingdom of God; leaving a drop of grace in every step I take...

As Paula and I were driving through wine country today Switchfoot came on the iPod. In particular, this song 

As I turned it up, I realized how my family's war cry, "Stand Fast!" fit with this wondrous song. Just needed to share that

Another Letter to My Children: On Advent, Joseph and Holding Love More Tightly than Truth

I failed to teach you about Advent. That is on me, and I cannot make up for it in a letter or a series of letters. However, as Paula and I  were talking and praying together today some things came up for me that are important for me to share with you as your Dad, so you can understand a little of what I hold to be dear; and see the world through the lens I see the world.

Advent is the period of days that lead up to Christmas itself. The days mark the beginning of the Church calendar. This is actually our New Year. This year the celebration lasts 32 days. Other years it may be slightly more or slightly less. This month long period is a period the Church sets aside to remember the events that led up to Jesus’ arrival on the planet as a Baby. And while we look back, we also look forward to a time when He will come again and bring World Peace, set right the wrongs and injustices in the world, destroy hate and shame, bring laughter, joy, and true connection with one another and with Him. It is a time where all we desire in relationship is fulfilled and all the sucky parts are taken away. This is my hope. It is how I get up in the morning and is a primary lens through which I view life.

This morning as we were considering the days we are in, I said to Paula, “Everyone talks about the shame that Mary carried while she was pregnant with Jesus; but can you imagine the shame that Joseph must have carried with him?”

She responded, “Yes, that is right, Joseph had to completely change his theology, and his morality to stay with pregnant Mary.” She caught me off guard with her wisdom.

Imagine yourself in Joseph’s shoes. You are a good are reverent Jew, with Jewish morality, and your fiancé comes to tell you that she is pregnant, and you know you had nothing to do with it. How do you feel? I’d be angry. I’d want revenge. There would be moments where I’d want to have her stoned as an adulteress. I’d feel betrayed and broken hearted.

But then God came to Joseph and let him know that Mary had not cheated on him after all. Now Joseph probably has issues with God. I know I would have. God robbed him of something that he thought was his and his alone. Mary would have a child without his seed impregnating her. His first child would not be his! On top of that, the entire town would know that her first born wasn’t his! And they’d never believe the story.

Joseph had to hold one truth  that he learned from childhood to be true while trusting God’s word that the immorality he was now seeing was somehow beautiful and even blessed. And Joseph did exactly that. He protected his fiancé. He lived with the shame, and the questions that must have come at him from family and friends. His theology was turned on its head, and he was OK with that.

In a similar way, we’ve been focusing this year on making space for whatever Christ brings to us in the coming year. Our life feels pregnant and incredibly full. We are becoming aware that we need to prepare ourselves for what God has for us, and that means we must be expectant and yet not demanding. We will continue to hold onto the emptiness in order that it may be filled. I don’t like emptiness very much. I don’t think you do either. And Advent asks us to live in it for a period of time waiting for Christ to come and fill the emptiness with his fullness.

A funny thing happened as we were talking. I flashed to my Sexual Disorders class. Dan (who joyfully proclaims it is his job to offend everyone – just like your old man) brought in an Episcopalian Priest named Eric who identifies as gay in order to have a conversation with him, so that the class could hear both sides of the debate that is currently raging in society and the church. Then he let Eric have the pulpit for a good chunk of two classes.

I heard things from Eric I needed to hear. I heard Scripture taught in ways I needed to hear them taught. Eric approached Scripture reverently, coming under his authority. Though I disagreed with his conclusions, he opened my eyes to much. Though the church tradition that gave me birth and raised me in faith, would deny him a place at the table of our Lord, I’d take communion with him should I be given the chance; and I’d happily and joyfully work with him, side by side for the sake of the Kingdom. I will defend him should I need to, for he is my brother.

You must be wondering what this has to do with Advent. Because of Advent, like Joseph, I need to hold two things: Love and my understanding of Truth. I choose to hold love tightly and my sense of truth (in this case, moral truth) loosely. How can I – a moral screw up – point at anyone else’s morality and say that they can’t welcome Jesus as I do? I can’t. So, I hold to morality for me, letting go of my need to hold morality for others. For me, homosexuality is wrong. And I choose to love those who come to different conclusions about sexuality own lives. My gay friends didn’t choose homosexuality any more than I chose heterosexuality. How they live with their sexuality is between them and their Creator, just as the way I choose to live out my sexuality is between me and my Creator.

And because of Jesus I stand with my gay friends who love Jesus, hand in hand echoing the call of John on the final page of the Holy Scriptures, “Come quickly Lord Jesus, for we need you.” That, I think, is one way to understand advent through Joseph’s eyes in the 21^st century America. It is my way. I hope someday, if not already it will be yours too. That hope is not a demand. You will learn to see the world through your own eyes. I simply pray that they will be the eyes of love.

Celebrating Faithfulness

I first met Carson in the fall of 1993. He was in the second Arrow Leadership Program cohort, a year behind me, and yet, at the same time, so far ahead of me. In those days he ministered alongside a spiritual hero of mine, Bruce Milne who had come to the Lord through my Dad’s ministry back in the UK, and who wrote the wonderful book, Know the Truth. Back then, all of us in Arrow were a lot younger and I, for one, was a lot cockier. Springsteen might as well of been referring to those heady times as the Glory Days. And indeed, from a corporate perspective, those were my glory days.

Our cohort’s president described our class’ first meeting in1992 as a time where we measured one another up, wondering what the others had that we didn’t; and wondering what we had that they didn’t. After all, each of us had been hand-picked, recognized as being leaders of the next generation of Christian leaders; and indeed, many of us would prove to be just that, while others of us fell by the wayside, caught up in narcissistic sin and idolatry that destroyed us as humans, as pastors, and as leaders. Leighton’s vision to bring to bear the resources of the Kingdom to personally raise up a new generation of leaders who would “lead more like Jesus and more to Jesus,” was up and running. Those wonderful days were life-changing for all of us in one way or another. Much of what I learned over those eighteen months twenty years ago is still a part of my practice and my faith.

Back then I didn’t know Carson well. He was one of many, and yet he was different too. He was completely unassuming, quiet, ponderous, peaceful, and yet possessed a unique inner structural integrity I wished I knew in my own life. Even then this unassuming and, in many ways, unremarkable strength invited those who knew him into the presence of Jesus in ways that are rare and beautiful.

As time went by and our lives changed, I watched him transition to lead Arrow Leadership Ministries; and then transition again to pastor in the local church again. When I sinned and ended up in rehab, many of those I loved were nowhere to be found. One of my staff wrote to me while I lay broken in rehab, informing me that he wouldn’t come down to eat with me in the pig’s trough. Yet Carson always took my calls. Occasionally he even called me. He was always kind, gracious, encouraging and inviting. Fairly soon after my fall into grace, he invited me to an Arrow Leadership family camp held at Barnabas Family Ministries. While we were there he sat with me and listened, probably to a lot of garbage, as well as much holy desire. He never gave up on me when others did. He never looked down on me even though it meant he had to get pretty low to look me in the eye. He was willing to come meet me at the pig trough, if that was what he needed to do. He embodied Leighton’s call to, “Lead more like Jesus and more to Jesus.” I was... no... I am grateful to call him friend.

This past winter, like many of their friends, I received an email letting me know that Brenda, his dear wife who is a extaordinarily remarkable lady in her own right, had been diagnosed with advanced stage lung cancer that had already spread to her brain and other parts of her body. I wept. Some things simply aren’t fair.

Many months have gone by and many of us who don’t live close enough get to walk with them via their Caring Bridge blog posts. Last month via a Facebook post and the First Baptist Church Vancouver’s website the news was published that Carson had stepped back from pastoring to care for Brenda. I wept again as I read, not because the church was losing a champion (It isn’t); but rather, because one of its champions was living faithfully in spite of an unfair world that is breaking his heart.

Carson is living out what Leighton called us to. Carson is being faithful. My faithlessness is not made up for in his faithfulness, and yet, his faithfulness calls and beckons me to redemption’s story.

Colin Gunton, the remarkable English theologian, reflected on the story of Abraham praying for Sodom. If you remember the story, Abraham gets God to promise that if there are ten good men in Sodom, He will hold back his wrath. Gunton goes onto suggest that perhaps our job as Christ followers is to stand for those who would encounter the wrath of God without their faithfulness.

I think, in many ways, Carson has done this for me. For while I will never be able to be faithful like Carson; I threw that opportunity away many years ago. I can live faithfully today because one of God’s champions is showing me how. Without knowing it, he is standing for me, so now I am able stand for others, who like me, need someone to stand for them.

Thanks for standing fast, Carson. Thanks for your faithfulness to Brenda – to you Lord, and to His Church. Brenda, thanks for standing with and for Carson over all these years I continue to pray for both of you. I love you both, and give thanks for you so very often.

“Covenant,” in the words of Indigo Montoya, “I do not think that word means what you think that word means.”

 

It is such a badly misused and misunderstood word. I’ve watched it be used to ostracize and abuse people. This is not what God intended

Dan Allender threw out an idea in his Marriage and Family Class offered at the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. He talked about covenantal marriage, and headship hitting upon something most people miss. He challenged us to take fifteen minutes to look up Sumerian covenants. So I did.

Covenants were created by conquering kings as tools to help them rule. The conquering kings would severe animals in half and make the conquered king walk between them. Then the conquering king would say to the conquered king something along the lines of, “If your people cause me trouble you will be the first to be severed as these animals have been severed.” It was a sign of the conquered kings allegiance, and of his promise to the conquering king to be loyal.

God turned that idea on its head for he says to his creation, if you mess up, I will be the first to die. And then he followed through on his promise. He died for us. The old covenant is completely rebuilt around a new idea of the powerful (filled with the Spirit of the Living God, and given previously unknown freedom) giving up their freedom and, indeed, their lives for the powerless and the oppressed, even as Jesus did.

What it means for us as the church is that we too are called to be the first to die for the one that violates the covenant and sins. Doesn’t the apostle say, “Love covers a multitude of sins?” And aren’t we commanded by Paul to “carry one another’s burdens” without respect for whether they have let us down or not? We’ve missed it. We live under the old Sumerian system. If the parishioner (or member) screws up, we say, “They violated the covenant. Kick them out.” And when we do, we break the heart of the one who died for us, because we missed the point of his being the first to die.

According to Allender, and I think I agree, "headship means being willing to be the first to die." So,what would it look like for the church to walk as Jesus did, being willing to be the first to die? To come down to eat at the pig trough, to live with people and meet people in the place of brokenness and despair? What would it look like for us, the Church to carry the cost of the broken covenant for the covenant breaker, so they don’t have to? I’d like to find out.

A secret ingredient of love

I watched as first, David Larsen of Royal Concept and then Jon Foreman of Switchfoot gave themselves away for the audience last night. It was a great show. At the break, while they reset the stage for Switchfoot to play I turned to Thomas and said, " I just made a theological observation." Of course he asked what it was. With a smile he said, "Only you have theological insights in the middle of a rock concert."

Before last night, I'd never heard of Royal Concept. After last night I'd be willing to see them again. They were a lot of fun; offering all they had for us; leaving it all in the room. PErfomrances like that take courage and confidence. They didn't really give a damn what we thought of them. Well, that is not true, of course they did. And yet, they were confident enough in who they were and what they had to offer that they really didn't. They could give us what they had sweated and labored over with love, because they believed that it was beautiful enough to be received.

The question that formed in my mind as I made this observation is: in a similar fashion, can we believe that we are enough so that we can love? Because love is like what I experienced last night. It could be rightly said that both Royal Concept and Switchfoot loved us last night. We felt like we were the most important people in their lives. They wanted our applause. They wanted us to like them, and yet, they brought who they were to us, and in doing so, they loved us. And we, in turn, loved them back.

Of course I want you to like me. Of course I want to be loved, and I still need to know that I am enough even if you don't. If so, I am willing to risk being the fool in order to give myself to you. There is no demand in this love, though there is an inherent request that it be accepted. This is a secret to being someone that is admired and appreciated. It requires letting go of demands that we place upon ourselves and it requires that we trust that we are enough even if the ones we love let us down.

If you want to save your life you've got to lose it -- Jesus

I am certain this is at least some of what he had in mind.

When Switchfoot performed, they confirmed my observations. Drew on lead guitar, exudes cool. Jerome played an accordian for us! Tim just seems to be having fun. Chad was hardly seen at all as he pounded away on his drums. And every time I see them, Jon gives it all away. There is something beautiful in the performance of those who know who they are and why they are here, compared to those who need approval in order to have a reason to be here at all. As an audience, we know the difference. Which will I be?

I'm grateful for life lessons from my son.

Remember the day between

There is a day in between, between Good Friday and Easter I mean. We often forget it and yet it is the day that most closely resembles the age in which we live. It is the day of death; and none of us want to spend much time there. We'd much rather race from the cross to the empty grave. And yet Jesus, went to Sheol when he died, like every man who died before him. He carried our sins there and waited in the dark, separated from his Dad by the wall of sin that he took with him, not knowing what would become of him. Death embraced him. He felt the loneliness and the isolation that those who don't choose God choose for themselves, and he had no way of knowing how long the torment of complete abandonment would last.

It sounds familiar, doesn't it? When we are honest, we admit that our stories are couched in the fear of abandonment and being cut off from any real connection with others. We cry out to be truly known and yet we are not. We live in a broken world, feeling like no one really knows us and we don't really know them either; and still we trust that God will redeem us and put it right. And he does. However, many don't know the freedom and hope the Spirit gives, still others choose to ignore Him and His gifts; choosing to stay in the dark -- alone -- where they feel safe.

And me? I'm called to hang with them the way Jesus hung with me. And really, it is not hyperbole -- my darkness was black. I don't want to revisit it, and yet revisiting the blackness; hanging out in the dark is what my Lord has asked me, and those of you that call him Lord, to do. We don't like His command, "As Dad sent me, I am sending you..." and so we spiritualize it, taking its sting away. The reality is, that Jesus wants us to live in the reality of death with all those who don't know life; the same way he came to live with us.

He wants us to embrace the coldness and the darkness that is Holy Saturday* and trust him to bring resurrection to the world that is still dead. We, like Jesus undoubtedly felt before us, want to escape the grave and skip ahead to Easter. We can't rush. The world needs us, and is counting on us to hang out and love, even as he loved us. He doesn't want us to condemn wrong choices. He doesn't want us to share four laws or the bridge diagram, or even the Romans Road. He wants to incarnationally come alongside and carry our friends' and neighbours' burdens. He wants us to walk with them and cry with them and help them up when they fall down. He wants us to love like he did. That means we live in the death, bringing life and light to the darkness.

This takes boldness that is beyond us. That is OK. Jesus' ministry was beyond him too. The Spirit empowered him to love the way he loved and do some of the wild and wonderful things he did. We have that Spirit too. It is only by His power that we can endure death while remaining alive. And this is the wonder of the gospel. We are to live in the midst of death. We are to embrace Holy Saturday.

*I owe a debt to Dr. Chelle Stearns who asked me to read Shelly Rambo's book, The Spirit & Trauma. Rambo opens doors for her readers in her wonderfully accessible book. It is not, nor does it intend to be, the final word on Holy Saturday,(For more on Holy Saturday investigate Balthasar) and yet it opens up new possibilities for readers who are thinking about what to do with God and the trauma this world offers its inhabitants.

Changing my image of a chair to a hand

The image I used to describe my approach to life began with a stool that I sat on: If I am disturbed, the problem is in me; if I spot it I got it; and what other people think of me is none of my business...

It became a chair when I added: I have one employer, his name is God. I have one job description and it is to love.

Now it must be a hand because I know of no five legged chairs. This is an outworking of my work in hermeneutics with Dwight Friesen and my practicum with Tim Reber. It is still being formed in my mind but now I am adding: I must actively and quietly listen to the Spirit's voice in every circumstance. She is always speaking. I want to hear her voice.

"We will not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it" -- Big Book of AA, p 83,

Thirteen years ago I left full-time ministry. I did my darndest to make Jimmy Swaggart look good and did a pretty good job of it. In the process I discovered how the church often treats those who are paid not to sin and do so anyway. It wasn’t a pretty picture. It left me stunned, alone, broken, bereft and afraid.  Though God was never in question, his church certainly was. The gospel was not meant for me. I was a sinner. I had no place among the people of God.I was thrown out. ONe of my staff even wrote me, "I will not go and eat from the pig trough with you."

My story is too familiar to too many pastors and Christian leaders. We often feel like we are in a “no win” situation. The system more often than not works against real authenticity in our lives. We are almost required to keep large portions of our lives hidden. If those hidden things are discovered, in all likelihood we will lose the mechanism that enables us to use our gifts to expand the Kingdom of God. Because of these threats to calling in the Kingdom, we find ourselves lonely and isolated, caught and trapped by a job that we love, to which we are called, and which is slowly costing us our very life.

I betrayed my children's mother. And I was betrayed by a woman I loved and married. I hurt, and was hurt. When I think of God's positioning of me to help others who are hurting, I don't think He could position me any more strategically. One day, sitting on my motorcycle in my driveway, feeling sorry for myself, I realized just how carefully God laid out my story to walk with the betrayer and the betrayed. That is a gift not many know. Walking through the pain of betrayal either as the betrayer or the betrayed hurts. Most of us want a companion on the journey. I can be and want to be that companion now. It is the resurretion life God has given me the opportunity to live.

The Clergy Recovery Network exists to support, encourage and provide resources to Christian Leaders in crisis.  We are a non profit, non-denominational ministry working outside normal institutional structures to provide safety, healing and growth for Christian leaders and their ministries. We do this because current systems are not providing the resources clergy and their congregations need and we long to see the Church a more graceful and honest community.

What Does the Clergy Recovery Network (CRN) Do?

• We mentor ministry professionals and their boards all over the world by “meeting” face to face, on-line via Skype, and on the phone to guide them toward biblical hope, help and healing out of the maze of their secret lives, sin, and deep pain into vibrant connection with their Creator. (Rural and international ministers and ministries use us constantly).
• We offer counseling referral for ministry professionals who need it. Clergy referral is a difficult and challenging endeavor.
• We consult with Christian ministries finding themselves in crisis with one of their leaders.
• We speak at church staff and denomination retreats to prevent the common clergy crises, and help them to create ways to help rather than hurt their hurting clergy.

I am grateful that I get to work with CRN; to share my experience, strength and hope with men and women who are afraid that their faith is dead, and to whom hope is an illusion. I am even more grateful for my story -- a story of the redemptive / resurrection power of God. I am eager to see where this journey takes me and those I will get to walk with.

Living Like Jesus because of the testimony of Bill Wilson

This week, while in school I am staying with some friends I made when I sold them a car over a year ago now. We are all friends of Bill Wilson.

It is wonderful to be so well taken care of. When I arrived at nearly 10pm last night: tired, hungry, and feeling a bit alone, I discovered they had waited dinner on me! They went to the grocery store because I was coming so they would have food and drink that I could share with them. They welcomed me, they fed me, they fellowshipped with me. They treated me the way Jesus wants us to be treated -- the way the church is called to treat one another and the world she inhabits.

There are few in the church that live so faithfully. My friends here in Tacoma follow Christ without the trappings of a "Church". Like my little congregation in Forest Grove follows Christ, they follow Jesus. I am truly blessed to know people that know Bill Wilson and so are trying their damndest to follow Jesus.