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

Hand-Made

Sometimes seemingly-small ideas make a big impact.  One of the deacons on our outreach team is a seamstress/quilter and had a brainstorm about a year ago to create a ministry called Creative Hands.  The purpose of the group she formed is to create quilts, shawls, caps, and other hand-made items and make sure they are given to people who need them.  There’s a lot of quilters and fabric-minded people here at FPC, so the group got off to a running start.

Then something remarkable happened a few weeks ago.  The group brought shawls, baby blankets, caps, and other hand-made items to the Pregnancy Center and to Latimer House, the latter of which is a shelter for abused women and children.  Both ministries play a huge role in caring for the needs of a vulnerable group of people in our community, and both were thrilled to receive lovingly-crafted gifts from Creative Hands.  The thing that became remarkable was a simple sentence on a thank-you note from the groups who received these gifts.  It reads, “Most of the women we serve have never owned anything hand-made.”

Take that line in for a moment.  I simply can’t imagine my two children’s lives without hand-made gifts of love.  My sister-in-law made my son a quilt with a huge Texas flag on it.  One of FPC’s elders made a rug for our nursery based on the color pallet Jill picked out for the room.  Another friend threw us a baby shower after Hadley was born, and the on-site craft at the party was making headbands for our daughter with special notes of love and blessings attached to each one.  It’s hard for me to get my head around any kid in our community who is missing loving, hand-made gifts.  Creative Hands is demonstrating the love of Christ to people outside the walls of our church.

Thanks be to God!

Travis

ROI of Soul Keeping

It’s been a great joy and privilege to watch FPC grow in our understanding of our souls.  During the Christmas season, our church was exposed to John Ortberg’s Soul Keeping, which I found to be one of the most important and helpful books of 2014.  As a result of reading and studying what the Bible has to say about our souls, many of us felt more in-tune with God, more in-touch with others, and more aware of Jesus’ unique ability to care for people at the deepest level.  I’d like to share one particular story of a person experiencing deeper levels of soul-care as a result of our study of Soul Keeping.

Moms make incredible scarifies for their children.  One mom at FPC - who had been working full-time for many years while raising her kids – took on an evening part-time job to help offset the cost of college tuition for her children.  As you can imagine, the stress of being pulled between the two jobs, as well as her family life, was tremendous.  During the study of Soul Keeping, this mom decided to quit her part-time job, saying “no” to financial benefits so that she can focus more time on caring for her soul.  What a courageous and soul-fulfilling decision!

In my own life, Soul Keeping helped me better prioritize activities which I know are essential for caring for my soul: prayer and Scripture reading each morning, exercise, and unstructured time with my family.  By “better prioritize,” I don’t mean making a rigid schedule to fence-in those activities.  Instead (and this is especially true in the up-and-down reality of life with young kids), I mean making those activities happen whenever they can, and for whatever duration I can, while keeping Christ as the focus.

One more personal result: because of reading Soul Keeping, I’ve rediscovered a practice familiar to many people for many years.  This practice was applied heavily on Christmas Eve, when I was able to share God’s Word with a lot of people at each of our wonderful services.  All throughout that amazing evening – and as often as I can each day – I made a decision to stop the motion of my body, pause, and kneel. I knelt all throughout Christmas Eve, whenever the thought struck me to do so.  I kneel when I come into my office in the morning.  And what does the kneeling “do” for me?  Well, it gives me the opportunity to remember that I’m not in charge – King Jesus is.  I’m not alone – King Jesus is with me.  And the King is always worthy of His people kneeling before Him.

May 2015 be a year marked by continual kneeling in your life and mine.

Shalom,

Travis