The End of an Era

Running always involves a route.  It doesn’t always involve a plan, but it does – eventually – involve a route.  I have several routes I take from our house downtown through the neighborhoods, down to the riverfront trails, or up to various obstacles like the staircase at the hospital parking garage.  Usually, I don’t pick the route I’ll be running until I put my shoes on before the run.  This past week, I had a route in my mind when I woke up, and even though the opportunity presented itself to take a different route at various times, I kept to this simple path.

I wasn’t sure why the route I was taking was materializing in my mind.  It was just a simple run through downtown, across the 5^th St. bridge to the trails, a short jaunt back to the Botanical Gardens, then up 7^th back into downtown.  It was only when I got to the corner of 6^th and White that I realized why I was supposed to run that route, and it literally took my breath away.

The church I serve is 130 years old.  For most of our history, we were located at the corner of 6^th and White in downtown Grand Junction.  During the late 1980’s, it became increasingly apparent to a group of FPC’s leaders that our historic home – beautiful and unique as it was – would no longer serve the needs of our congregation for the future.  For one thing, there were 13 steps from the front door of the church down to the street, and those steps were increasingly difficult for our elderly and disabled members to navigate.  The building itself was starting to come apart at the seams, and the investment needed to make the structure sound again was more costly than moving to a new facility.

In 1991, First Presbyterian Church of Grand Junction made a very bold and risky move.  We sold our home at 6^th and White and built a new home in the far north side of town, between the end of most neighborhoods and the property line of the airport.  The building at 6^th and White became known as White Hall and served as a wedding and event venue for several years until it changed ownership again.  And again.  Twenty years after we sold the building, it was badly damaged by a significant fire.  Most of the sanctuary was destroyed, and since my family and I have lived in Grand Junction, that’s what we’ve seen when we’ve walked or driven or biked by 6^th and White – a sad reminder of what once was a great place of worship.

I stopped at 6^th and White this week on my run because the entire structure was finally coming down.  Because of issues with finances and ownership, the demolition took a long time to come together, but this week, it did.  White Hall is no more.  I put on my brakes and stood beside the lot, watching a single Bobcat bulldozer and one lonely digger pull down the last parts of the building.  Metal clanged, dust rose in the air, and white bricks and mortar rolled down into various pits and crevases in the earth.  I stopped and thanked God for the people who called 6th and White home.  I thanked God that gospel was proclaimed there, that people worshipped the Lord, taught kids about Jesus, and made the risky move to our current home many years ago.  It was a powerful moment for me, not just because of our history at that location, but because it was a good reminder me that the Lord is in control.  Our future belongs to Christ.  He knew how to lead His people from 6th and White to our location on 27 1/2 Road, and He will be faithful as we move forward together.

Solo Dei gloria,

Travis

Sabbatical...So Far

"We're having a lot of fun."  That's how I've usually responded when people have asked me, "How's the summer going so far?"  My answer is true, and I use the pronoun "we" intentionally.  I certainly haven't felt like the world is on my shoulders this summer, which is made possible by the amazing people whom I serve beside on our staff, session, and in other leadership roles throughout the church. I'm certainly enjoying this journey because I'm surrounded by such great, capable, Christ-honoring people - and because we're having a lot of fun together.

My answer also lets people "under the hood" just a bit to see something deeper than simply getting stuff done.  The role I'm inhabiting this summer gives me great joy.  Looking back on the last four weeks, there's a few things that have given me a lot of joy as a leader.  Most of the time, the things that produce this sensation in my life are small, but I love to look back and take stock of all God is doing and continues to do in our midst.

Just yesterday, one of our key youth ministry leaders hosted a group of about a dozen students and leaders through a time of prayer and preparation for this summer's mission trip to South Dakota.  This leader had everything lined up for this training session, and it felt wonderful to see her bring everyone together and lead well.  I also got the chance to play a small role in their meeting: technology assistant.  I tracked down a couple of cables and components so that this leader could show a few training videos on her laptop, using the big-screen in one of our classrooms, along with a speaker to help people hear just a bit better.  It really was a small thing I could bring to the table, but in a lot of ways, leadership - at least where I sit - involves brining small things which Jesus turns into things that benefit others in important ways.  He did this long ago with a lunch of bread and fish from a young boy, and he continues to do so today.

Thanks for continuing to pray for me, for the leaders at FPC, and for our ongoing mission in our community and around the world.

Solo Dei gloria,

Travis

Are You "Called?"

“Today, more than ever, leadership isn’t first and foremost a formal role.  It’s rather a personal capacity to exert vision and passion that enables others to join in a common effort.  Such leaders are needed in every domain of life.  They don’t hold the resolution; they hold the capacity to draw others into seeking and working toward one.  They may have a title and job description, or they may simply be influencers”

 – Mark Labberton, Called, p. 91.

The very first time I attended the Willow Creek Leadership Summit was in 2006.  I’ll never forget the moment when Bill Hybels addressed the crowd and called us by a simple but profound title: “leaders.”  I was interning in youth ministry at a great church, and I often joked that I was the lowest man on the totem pole and therefore was the most expendable person on-staff.  But when Hybels said that word in that setting, I heard it in a different way.  I started to sense that God had something much bigger for me to do and be, and even though it took many more years for me to line that up with the call to pastoral ministry, the seed was planted.

I’m almost done with Mark Labberton’s brief but challenging book, Called.  In a stroke of marketing genius, Fuller Seminary sent out copies of Labberton’s book to all students and alumni this past year, and it’s been a joy to read.  I thought the above quote was especially appropriate for FPC as we lean into this unheralded season in the 130-history of our church.  FPC has never given a pastoral sabbatical before this year, and we’ve also never had a senior pastor stay at our church longer than 12 years.  Yes, I do think the two are related.

But back to Labberton’s quote.  One of the things many people least associate with church is leadership.  For many people, the plan is to come to church on Sunday, sing, hear the Word, and go home.  Under that framework, the idea of leadership feels foreign in the spiritual life, with the exception possibly of how you view your pastor as a leader or mentor in your faith.  The church of the 21^st century is slowly turning to page to enabling and equipping the people of God to do the mission of Christ in the world which has been infused with the Holy Spirit.  I’m not saying that the modern-day church is getting this right, but I am saying that it is a paradigm shift for a lot of people to think about their church as a place to express leadership gifting.  Or, for others, the idea that they may in fact be a leader is a stretch.  Even scarier: the idea that they may not be a leader is a stretch.

My hope is that many of us who might not self-identify as leaders will take another look at that role this summer.  I hope we’ll see more people who have been on the sidelines jump in the game.  Conversely, I hope that our study of biblical leadership will help give more people permission to focus on training up new leaders, rather than continuing to try to lead like they always have – and mostly on their own.  I hope that our church will shift into a completely different gear as we seek to flourish in Christ this summer.

Solo Dei gloria,

Travis

My Illustrious Soccer Career

It’s safe to say that I was not the most gifted high school athlete.  In my adulthood, I’ve discovered that I’m diligent about exercise and taking care of my body, but I will never be an elite-level athlete.  I’m ok with this, by the way. 

I graduated from Memorial High School in Houston, Texas, which, at the time, was known far more for its academics than athletics.  We had good basketball teams, a decent football program (despite being a wealthy school in a football-worshipping state like Texas), and a really good track and cross country teams.  I ran cross country and played soccer during my four years at Memorial, and the photo above is – I think – from my freshman or sophomore year on the junior varsity soccer team.

We were a pretty awful team.  I’m not saying that the guys on the team were bad human beings, but let’s call a dog a dog.  Our efforts produced a handful of wins during my two seasons on JV, and when my coach mercifully granted me a spot on the bench on varsity as a junior, our results weren’t much better.  We got a new coach my senior year, and his leadership apparently turned the program around a couple of years after I graduated.

One of my treasured memories of soccer involves a torrential storm and a nearly-empty stadium.  First, the storm: growing up near the Gulf Coast meant living with the reality of hurricane season and the non-hurricane (but still epic) storms which came with it.  My JV soccer team just happened to be scheduled to play a game on an evening when the local newscasters told people to stay inside because of gale-force winds, heavy rain, lightning, and thunder.  

Now, the stadium: we occasionally played games at Tully Stadium, which was owned by the school district and had not been refurbished since the Eisenhower administration.  The grandeur of Tully Stadium was the feeling of playing under the bright lights on a brutally-unforgiving Astro-turf surface.  The field was also slightly convex in its shape, so the middle stripe across the center of the field was higher than the sidelines – to help drain away the amazing amount of rain that would fall periodically.

Junior varsity soccer game.  Torrential rain.  Huge, empty stadium.  Actually, there were three fans in the stands when our game started, and by the time the referees called us into the locker rooms to wait out the lightning, only one fan remained.  It was my grandfather, James Ferrero, and to this day, I have no idea why he stuck around for that entire miserable game, especially considering the fact that his grandson – me – probably didn’t play more than five minutes all soggy evening.  I remember my grandfather – Papa, as we called him – wearing a dark blue rain coat, sitting as close to the field as he could, sheets of rain coming down through the bright lights of Tully Stadium, dousing the field and the two hapless teams fighting the weather and our own ineptitude as athletes.  Papa stayed for the whole game.

When the refs finally called us out of the storm and into the locker room, much to my surprise, Papa came with us.  I remember watching  him chat with the refs – both of whom were soaked and I’m sure longing to get the game over with – in the doorway of the locker room, laughing and kidding around about the weather and who knows what else.  What I remember most about that game was the fact that Papa stuck around till the end.  That’s actually a good way to describe my soccer career as a whole – I stuck around till the end.

Off-The-Rails: Jesus' Bride and the 21st Century

An old friend of mine emailed me recently for some help with a seminary assignment.  The text of his email, and my response back to him, is below.

Hey Travis, 

I need to conduct an "interview" of a pastor from a different denomination regarding what you think the church looks like in the 21st century. I greatly respect your views and I am wondering if you would be willing to answer a few questions for me. This is an assignment for seminary so if you could be timely in your response that would be great. Below I have outlined a few questions to get us started.

1. What do you see the role (Purpose, necessity, and place) of the church in the 21st century? (You can answer this questions with Global generalizations and specifically to your location.)

One of my main frameworks for thinking about the church in the 21st century comes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “The church can only be the church when it exists for the sake of others.”  The church of the 21st century is at a critical moment: will we continue to pursue self-perpetuation or will we turn our attention to the people who drive or walk by our churches everyday and seek to show them Christ in surprising ways?  Today’s church, more than ever, is called to adhere to the authority of the Word, in part because the challenges to any form of authority are broader and more commonplace than at any other time in American history.  The church is also called to be connected to the global movement of Jesus, not simply turning inward to our insular concerns but connecting with others across the globe who bless and remind each other of the massiveness of Jesus’ mission to rescue the world.  One of the things my church is called to do is to steward well our historic connections to the Reformed tradition while also being nimble enough to respond to the needs of our community, especially as a “hub” for effective and creative ministry partnerships across our Valley.   Churches must be aware of their context, the scale of their ministry, and their unique mission, all of which help to define the identity Jesus has given to that particular church, which will be different than the identity of any other church.

2. What do you think it means to be a church?

The church, again, can only be the church when the mission of God is first and foremost in our hearts: to reach and bless those who do not know Jesus and to deepen and enrich the faith of those who do.  To be a church is inextricable from having a mission; churches with no sense of mission are more distressing to me than any pressing theological debate.  The church is called into the surrounding community for the sake of Christ, and also to the mission of God throughout the world.  To be a church means to be a family, connected to people who may or may not be very much like me, and willing (through obedience to Christ) to go out of my way to love and serve others in Jesus’ name.  I also think being a church means doing mission and ministry with other churches who may come from different “tribes” but who put Jesus first and foremost, proclaiming the gospel together so that the larger community sees how beautiful it is when brothers and sisters in Christ dwell together in unity.

3. How would you respond to this quote from Herman Bavinck?  He writes, "many modern theologians view the church as an institution that Christ neither wanted nor intended and is in fact the reasons for Christianity's corruption"

I would reject the aforementioned claim of modern theologians on the basis of what Jesus said to Peter: "You are the rock, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it” (Matthew 16:18).  Christianity has gone through many periods of corruption, and so I wonder what these theologians are referring to, specifically.  Sin is the reason for any corrupt expression of the church, not the church itself.  To be clear: there are expressions of the church in our time (prosperity gospel, for example) which I think are appalling to Jesus and have nothing to do with the church’s true mission.  But I also believe that God is bigger than any church’s theological fallacy, and that the gospel can go forth even from the most inhospitable environments.  Jesus Christ’s bride is the church, and although this bride can be messy, complicated, and sometimes off-the-rails, it is still the bride of Christ and is worthy of our service and devotion through Jesus.  

Office Space

I’m running out of flat space on the walls of my office.  Don’t get me wrong – I love my office and consider it a great privilege to have abundant space to work.  But I’m running out of flat space as I begin to think and pray about some big projects on my horizon this summer.

The photo shows what the windows in my office look like right now.  The cards are all related to the biggest project on my plate right now: the summer sermon series on biblical leadership.  Each card has the name of a leader from the Bible, and I’ve sub-divided this too-long list into three categories: Old Testament, New Testament, and Leadership Principles from Jesus.  Over the next few weeks, I’ll pick five leaders from each Testament, plus five principles from the life of Jesus, for a grand total of fifteen focus-points for our Sunday worship.

I’m really enjoying this project.  I like to think visually and have space and time to arrange my thoughts in real-life, not just in my head.  I also find a lot of encouragement and good feedback from inviting other staff members to take a look at these ideas and help me think through each week’s sermon.  Stop by my office and take a look at the ideas, and if you’re up for it, adding a note or an idea yourself.

We’re going to have an amazing summer here at FPC.  Our seminary intern is excited about learning and growing in our midst, and I’m excited for all of you to meet her.  Because of the generosity of many people, we’ll likely have at least three college interns – one each for worship, children, and youth.  We may even have our new contemporary worship director in-place, and possibly our new director of student ministries.  I’m looking forward to this season in our journey together, and I hope you are, too.

Solo Dei gloria,

Travis