This Grand Experiment

These past four months have definitely been some of the most interesting of my life. Over the course of one summer, I find myself in a vastly different place than I was just a season ago. Most everything that I knew and that was true about my life for the first 27 years is now different.

And so with such change there is to be expected a certain amount of adjusting that's in order. Change management involves missing where you've been and getting excited about where you are. Sometimes its beautiful and sometimes its messy. Change is hard and I can confidently attest to that now first-hand. But recently I've become suspicious. I've started to wonder if all of the difficultly I've had with my attitude and false thinking about my situation is simply me adjusting to change.

I'm starting to thing there's more going on...

I've made big goals for myself here in Richmond. Upon graduating and getting married, most people would be satisfied with getting along with their spouse and being able to pay their bills. Katie and I have ventured beyond, truly believing there is more to life and more to our purpose in Richmond than simply that. What we left in Blacksburg was more than school and a church we loved. We left comfort, we left purpose, we left belonging and satisfaction. What most people will spend their entire lives looking for, we found. And now God has asked us to leave it and refind it in this new place. Why would he do that? Because, in my experience, I don't know a single person that believes that it can be found in the life I'm now living.

I've worked and labored with many people in college that, whether they conciously admit it or not, believe that graduation is retirement from ministry. With a forty hour (or fifty or sixty, depending on who you ask) a week job, many people say I should be satisfied just giving to the church and letting the "professionals" do all the grunt work now. But the lie goes even deeper than that. What I see are people that really believe that true community and deep connection with other people simply impractical for the working person. They get up early for work and get home in time for dinner then bed. The weekends are reserved for errands and then I do it all over again. That may seem like a charactature of what people actually believe but I assure you its not that far from the truth. Somehow "growing up" has become a spiritual and social death sentence for many people.

And so Katie and I have begun a grand experiment to see if spiritual growth and ministry and deep intimate community are still possible in the work world. Have we really just plugged into the Matrix or is more really possible? We're not alone in this endeavor by any means (so as not to sound too overly heroic in this endeavor) but it can sure feel like it sometimes.

But it is in the midst of this that I have had the hardest time keeping my attitude positive and my thoughts truthful about the situations I find myself in. Its as if my mind is being sabatoged in an effort to short circuit our efforts to unplug from the Matrix. I feel attacked and I feel opposed. Many will cynically reject the idea of spiritual warfare as superstituion but, to be sure, we do have an enemy that's come to kill and destroy any effort we make toware "life to the fullest".

My final conclusion on the matter (at least for now) is that Katie and I must be on to something. Because I see now other reason for such a viscous attack on my mind and my heart. Whatever we're on the presipous of discovering must be a dangerous truth - the fact that life is possible, here and anywhere Jesus is. This, in my estimation, may be the most dangerous truth in the world because of how radically it would change our lives if we believed it.

What I believe in theory, I'm starting to believe in practice. Lies are being undermined by experiences to the contrary. And I feel a momentum about the whole thing (kind of like at the top of a roller coaster, just before you tip over the peak) that excites me even in the midst of trial. Pray for us during this time, us and everyone else that's taken part in this grand experiment.

Stay tuned....