never been here before

There is something powerfully heart-crushing about realizing you don’t mean as much to someone as they mean to you. If you’ve been reading around here for a while, I’m a pretty intense feeler, particularly since the beginning of this year, when I finished writing the talk I gave for the Women2Women conference, and made a significant breakthrough: that we are completely known and loved by the God of the universe (anyway), and to feel and understand that kind of love on earth we have to let yourself be known by others. This caused me to be very intentional with my communications with others, my best friends and co-workers, the friends with which I feel a kinship and the family members whom I love. It’s had varying results, to be sure. It’s been painful, without question… which is where I come to the “heart-crushing” part. You know that awkward moment when you’ve carefully and thoughtfully picked out a Christmas gift for someone and you didn’t get anything from them? That’s what t...

My sweet friend over at Kansas Bob suggested I write about this topic, and I hardy feel like an expert, since I am not a pastor. But I have seen the inner workings of a few churches and have seen the struggle pastors go through in leading a church. And the biggest of those struggles, most certainly, involves expectations. I believe the most damaging expectation I’ve seen people have of their pastors, interestingly, also seems to be an umbrella for all other expectations and it’s this: that pastors are to be all things to all people. [But that’s in the Bible, Stephanie! How can it be a damaging expectation?] Simple: context. Paul wrote that in 1 Corinthians regarding his missionary work: to convert Jews. He was a Jew, raised in a Gentile culture. His purpose in life was to evangelize. Not pastor. He related to others so that some might be saved. Is this all that different from what it means to actually pastor a church, though? A good and fair question, and certainly as...

Have you ever been at a crossroads with a friend? Where you are sensing that the friendship just isn’t good for you and that it’s time to set it down and leave it behind? I’ve been in that place a few times. I think I may be approaching it right now. And as I sat down to write my next post on expectations, I saw that the next topic on my list was about shame. And because I’m me, I found a connection between the two. The famous “vulnerability TED” Brené Brown did a second TED talk called “ Listening to Shame ” and when I first made the list of topics to write about on living life without expectations, I wrote, from her talk, “Vulnerability is not weakness. It’s courage.” I’m not entirely sure I know what I was thinking when I connected it to the idea of living life without expectations, but I do know that right now, in my own life, there is significant shame connected to the expectations I have with the aforementioned friend. This shame looks embarrassing. I picture...

Does God really need someone to defend his honor? That is the question I’ve been asking myself since I watched God’s Not Dead . I’m still not sure I have the answer yet, because I know in my heart it is not a “yes or no” simple kind of answer. But that is the question the movie left me with, and partially because of the arrogance and presumption that God does need someone to defend him is stated in the film. Are we called to defend our faith? (Of course. The Bible tells me so.) But the thought that God needs anything from us causes a holy and righteous anger in me, because I believe in an omnipotent God. He doesn’t need a thing from me. But he does want something from me. It may be all semantics… but important ones, because wrong semantics can shift our view of God. And there are just so many dangers in this. Which is just one of the many issues I have with God’s Not Dead . Bad theology will always be something I desire to fight against, and mainstream Evangelical Christi...

When it comes to art in the Christian sub-culture, one of the greatest challenges is not being able to being willing to  take off your critical thinking hat. When I teach The Gospel in the Movies  classes, the most important “rule” I have is that film is art. It is not a moral guide for our lives or a truth to patterns our life after. This is true of art that has the label “Christian” too. Before I delve into this topic, I think it’s important to point out that there should not be the labels of “sacred” and “secular.” I will use those terms for ease of communication to you in this post, but know that I believe all things are sacred, because all people were created in the image of God. That makes them sacred. When we put the label of “secular” on something, it automatically devalues it in the mind of a Christian. This is elitist and arrogant, but also disregarding God as the creator of the universe. All art is viewed through a person’s own worldview grid, whether...

I went to visit a friend a back in March and told him about how I was writing on expectations, inspired by two friends of mine – two friends who live their lives without expectations, so they are never disappointed. He was all for it. Not the writing. The living life without expectations. So when I was working on my post from last week I texted him, asking him for a fuller explanation as to why he believes in living life this way. His response was that it was about caring for others… that not expecting anything from anyone was equivalent to unconditional love. I would be curious to know if people who live their life without expectations would agree with him, but regardless, I am concerned at what he meant by love. Because I was pretty sure that what my friend meant wasn’t really love, but acceptance. And our culture is moving towards this meaning, too. If we saw someone in our life taking a wrong path, it would be unconditional acceptance to let them go down that pa...

As I practice my words here, and work out what I am feeling and experiencing in my life through these words, I'm recognizing the courage of emotionally connecting with myself is different from emotionally connecting with other people.   For those to whom I feel the most emotionally connected, it’s because I've sat next to them on a couch and listened to them bear their soul. It’s because  I've  laughed with them, done more than one face palm with them and I've gently shoved them in the arm when they say something bratty. It’s because I've sat across the table from them over coffee or a meal and looked them in the eye as I've shared my own struggles and pains.  These moments, small and sure, fill in the cracks missing from those who do not enter in to my  space. It was already easy to become emotionally withdrawn from the world in order to protect myself. And technology has not only made ...