From the Foundation: Following The Blueprint

Without a blueprint, you might as well be building in the dark.

A blueprint is essential to any building project; blueprints lay out the plans, the measurements, the structure, and give you the big picture, as well as the tiny details, of what the final project will look like.

Have you ever tried to build a bookcase without reading the instructions? Halfway through, you may realize that you’ve made a mistake and now you have to start all over again. Or worst, realize that you didn’t have everything you thought you needed and now you have to abandon the project.

Well, what was my blueprint? What else, but the Word of God?

Now, please, understand that I am not saying that I was not reading my Bible, but there were times when I was disobedient, simply out of fear. Especially as OWOC moved into a discipleship mindset.

For me, discipleship was a foreign word. Leading people to Christ was above my “Christian pay grade.” My role as a Christian was to simply bring people to church and let the pastor lead them to Christ. I wasn’t in any position to tell others about their dire need to know Jesus for themselves. After all, it’s Jesus who saves people anyway, right?

But, Jesus isn’t here anymore…so who was going to tell people about Him?

Wait, that’s my job isn’t it?

Earlier this year, I made a goal to read 12 new books by the end of 2017. At the same time I set this goal for myself, to help prepare the church to move into a discipleship mindset, the areas of ministry were strongly encouraged to read a book called WikiChurch. So, I ordered the book, but another book caught my attention as well called The Lego Principle. It looked interesting, so I decided to purchase that book as well.

I read The Lego Principle first and that book really hit me between the eyes. It broke down the idea that discipleship was something out of my reach, but that I could make disciples as well, simply by building relationships with people around me.

As I was reading The Lego Principle, I was also reading through the book of Acts in the Bible, reading the stories of the first church and how it expanded. It was amazing to see how the early disciples were preaching and teaching and talking and sharing and the lives being touched.

But, something in my brain clicked the wrong way – this couldn’t be me, could it? Could I actually go out and share the Gospel, share my faith like the early disciples? Could I touch a life through my own faith?

The simple answer is yes, but I was allowing my fear to hold me back. I was more concerned with being labeled as “that weird Christian.” You know; the person that comes off so saved and holy that everything out their mouth is about Jesus. They tell anyone and everyone about their church and about Jesus, even when the other person really doesn’t care to know.

In other words, my image, my reputation, meant more to me that spreading the Gospel.

But inside of me, there was a twinge of jealousy, as I watched people around me fearlessly share the Gospel, while I sat by, trying to blend into the world around me. That jealousy and envy eventually blossomed into full-blown insecurity; I was afraid of what it would cost me to spread the Gospel, to simply open my mouth and talk to others.

Yet, I had to blueprint to show me that I could do this. In fact, I had multiple blueprints, now that I was reading The Lego Principle and WikiChurch. To add to that, the discipleship group I am now a part of was reading WikiChurch together, so I had no way of avoid reading the book.

The more I read, the more I realized that Jesus really made it simple and easy for others to make disciples, and that all I had to do was follow; go and teach, go and teach, go and teach. That’s all. All I had to do was go out and talk to others, sharing what I know and understand, grow together. And as a part of this discipleship group, I would see what it was like firsthand, so I could have another blueprint to follow.

 

All Jesus asks is that I go and talk to others about Him. He laid out the steps in His word and provided plenty of examples. All I need to do now is start. Where, though? I’ll explain in the next post NAILING THE HAMMER.

From The Foundation: Building Alone

Have you ever seen a construction worker trying to complete a project alone?

Neither have I. That has got to be nearly impossible to do.

Imagine one single construction worker, trying to build something as big as a skyscraper, or something as simple as a family home, with no help.

He could probably get it done, but it would take so much longer than necessary. And would be hard work. And I’m willing to bet it won’t be his best work.

And with no one to check him, make sure he’s doing it right, help him along the way, make sure he had the right tools and was using them the right way, he may reach a point where he thinks he can do it alone, possibly speaking from a place of fear. If he fails, then everyone will talk about him, how he couldn’t do it, how he wasn’t ready.

Building anything massive is exhausting when you do it alone; no wonder I grew so weary and tired.

I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up in the church. Sure, I knew a lot of people and my church had a fairly large youth department for its size, but I was always different. I wasn’t like most of the other kids; I was fairly quiet, shy, more into books and arts than sports and games, simply obedient to the adults and rarely causing any trouble. So I got teased a lot in the church (mostly by the other boys in my age group), which made me shut down in my heart as I grew older. I would not sit with the other kids, I always ran out right after the benediction to avoid talking to anyone and even reached a point where I was convinced that I was better off marrying a woman who was not involved in the church than date a “Christian woman.”

That mindset, that church hurt, followed me even as I joined Orlando World Outreach Center. But I became a master at burying that hurt deep inside. The first year that I visited the church, I stayed near the back of the sanctuary and ran out as soon as service was over. My least favorite part (and I still feel awkward during those rare moments that I’m not serving) was the two-minute missionary moment, when you had to shake hands and say hello to someone else. That’s not my style, so I would always leave for the bathroom at that moment.

Over time, thought, it became harder to avoid people at the church. I filled out a communication card (a way of connecting with the church) with my phone number and the pastor himself called me a few days later. My sophomore year of college, I started hanging around the campus ministry kids more and found myself sitting with them in church (and we always sat in the same area). One of the leaders of the worship team at the time, a man named Van, suddenly always wanted to talk to me, but I didn’t know why (he later explained that he always admired the fact that I didn’t care how I looked, worshipping God from the audience, and it always caught his eye from the stage).

By junior year, I was being plugged in deeper. Some of the male leaders were watching me more closely. I was encouraged to join the choir for Easter, where Van discovered that I could sing. Suddenly, Van was pushing me to join the worship team. Meanwhile, one of the associate pastors wanted me to serve as an usher, which I ended up doing for a season.

When I graduated college, most everyone in the church knew me. But I disappeared for several months to focus on my new job, until I joined the worship team (finally) and began serving every Sunday. Suddenly, everyone knew me as the one strong tenor on the team, and people actually got nervous if I did not appear on stage every Sunday to sing. I was attending events, I was always around serving and helping.

Now, pause. At this point, it sounds like I was plugged in and connected to the church. Everything sounds like it was going the right way, doesn’t it. But I want you to go back and reread that story and notice something; I was talked to, but I wasn’t talking back. I wasn’t connected to a single person, but more so moving in a herd like sheep.

One of the most dangerous assumptions to make is that because a person is hanging around, they are strong, connected and plugged in. I knew how to play church; I had been doing it all my life. I wasn’t really connected to one person; I kept most people at arms length away.

Actually, let me correct myself; I was connected…to a lot of women. It was easier for me to talk to women and let them know some (not all – I did have boundaries) of my struggles. But another guy? Nope, that was simply out of the question. Guys could say hi, they could chat with me, but rarely I would open up to them. I was cool with a lot of guys, but very few knew me beyond just another man at the church (in my mind at least).

Why, you may ask? Maybe because I held them in such high regard. I mean, the men at OWOC are strong, mighty and faithful. They were what I aspired to be in the church. But I couldn’t tell them that I was weak, not when they saw me as strong, like them. Yet being around them made me feel like a 7-year-old in the barbershop; you see all these guys, but you can’t connect because you feel like you are in a different world. Plus, I was carrying that church hurt in my heart from being teased by guys my age in the church and looked at like a project by older guys in the church, so I just felt awkward.

That’s not to say that I didn’t have moments when I was open; there were maybe one or two guys that I would let know something was bothering me (one guy, almost every month, heard something from me at least). But I couldn’t be myself around them. I felt like I had to hide myself for some reason.

For years, some of the women who were close to me were telling me I needed to find a guy that I could trust, that I could walk with, that I could do life with. But it was tough for me; I would shy away. I would go to events with the men’s ministry, but I would show up late (intentionally) and hide away in the corner, on my phone, pretending to be answering emails from work to avoid the truth that I didn’t know how to connect with what I considered “manly men.” But, deep inside me, especially over the last two years, I knew I needed it and I wanted that opportunity.

Well, this year, I ran out of excuses. If you read my previous blog, you remember I left my story off at sitting down with one of the male leaders of the worship team to go through the One-to-One book. I had seen the book before and read it on my own, but never had anyone sat down with me to go through the book with me. I half-hoped that it would be just simple and easy, but I was wrong.

This leader did not let me off too easy. He asked questions to really engage me, then he actually listened and asked follow-up questions to make me think about what I was actually saying. He was showing me that some of my foundation was cracked, and he was helping me to break through them.

As we got near to completed the book, we started talking about discipleship and about me now leading him through the book to make sure that I was comfortable doing it. That was nerve-wrecking; I had heard about discipleship so many times, but at that point in my life, I had never been a disciple. Not in the case of actually walking with someone consistently, long-term. Most people, knowing I have a church background, sort of walked halfway through something, then I dropped off because I seemed “strong enough.”

I really tried to avoid it more than ever, but I knew that, with me being a leader, I couldn’t avoid it any longer. Not that I didn’t try, but the word was like a mosquito, always buzzing around me, even in my times alone. And I tried to justify why I wasn’t being discipled: I grew up in the church, so I’m good; I can figure this out; it’s me and God; I live so far away from people; I’m so busy.

I’ll admit; I sound like a child, don’t I? I heard someone say one time ‘Isolation Breed Immaturity.‘ The longer someone is alone, especially in their faith, the harder it is for them to grow because no one is checking them along the way. That was me; living over an hour away from the church, the only time people saw me was during church events, and my career as a news reporter was so unpredictable that it was tough to know when I was going to be around again. And remember, I was a master at hiding my pain and emotions, hiding the fact that I felt like I was drowning…

But God was breaking this foundation of isolation – hard. My worship team leader sent me a text one day asking “Who is walking with you and doing life and discipling you?” I paused for a moment an fought temptation to ignore the text, but eventually, I responded with “I talk to ______, but that’s about it.” I knew then that something was coming my way.

Not even a week later, I had a dream: I was sitting alone in my apartment one night, just relaxing, when one of the band leaders from the church band sent me a message through the Music Department GroupMe (an app for messaging a large group of people at once) saying “YO, DREX, WHAT YOU DOING!?!? YOU NEED TO GET DISCIPLED SOON!” Shocked and upset at being called out like that, I turned off my phone so I couldn’t be bothered by anyone. But then, I got a text message from my worship leader saying, “Drexler, you really do need to be disciple.” Then everything went black and I kept seeing a single name flashing in red (I’m not going to reveal the name).

That dream shook me, because I knew that it was coming from God. And it was the final straw for me; I knew that I had reached that point in my walk that I needed to be connected, specifically with men. So, I finally swallowed my pride and reached out.

Can I tell you that when I did reach out, I was actually shocked how quickly someone was willing to reach back out! When I told two leaders that I felt that I could trust, one of the leaders said right away, “Well then brother, let’s get to walking this thing out!” The other leader told me that he was actually starting a discipleship group and that he wanted me to be a part of it, but wasn’t sure if I could because I lived so far away.

Now, they say God works in mysterious ways, and I believe He does. You see, for the past year, my prayer was for me to move closer to Orlando. And in March of this year, God answered that prayer: He blessed me with  job working as the coordinator of communications for the College of Health and Public Affairs at the University of Central Florida. Which meant I was moving back to Orlando. But, because I worked in Orlando now, I was actually able to be a part of the discipleship group. Not only that, but because the leaders at church knew I was moving back, a couple of them have now taken a more invested interest in my growth and are working to connect with me on deeper levels, even if right now, it’s on a social level.

I knew this wasn’t going to be an easy journey. And I won’t lie; I was partially scared and almost backed out (but thankfully, these guys don’t give up on me as easily as I do). So I’m pushing forward.

Teamwork makes the dream work, right? Well, I was connected to a team, but I still had to do some work. And to know what work I had to do, I needed a plan, a blueprint. Check out my next blog FOLLOWING THE BLUEPRINT.

 

 

 

From The Foundation: Breaking Ground

Every strong house has a strong foundation. A solid foundation, dug deep into the earth, to keep it standing sturdy against anything that may come against the house.

Life should be the same; we need to build our lives upon a solid foundation. And if we haven’t, then it needs to be broken.

Broken – one of the most dangerous words that a Christian can ever utter, especially in prayer.

You may argue with me and say we NEED more prayers that ask for brokenness; broken chains of sins and strongholds over people’s lives, broken patterns of destruction and danger.

But what about people who are living in freedom, who have been in the church, faithful, serving, doing all they believe God is calling them to do? Do they need to prayer to be broken too? You would probably say “No, they have their lives together.”

What would you say if I told you that you were wrong? And that I know this, because I am the person who has prayed this prayer, very recently.

I grew up in the church since I was little, maybe about five years old (I can’t remember beyond then). And I was involved very heavily in the church too. But there was a certain mindset that I grew up under; whether it was taught to me, or developed based on what I saw and heard, I don’t know. But I grew up with the notion that it’s not my job to save people or lead them to Christ; my job was to live life as the best little Christian I could, maybe tell people occasionally and bring them to church, where the pastors would lead them to Christ.

Moving to Orlando as a freshman in college and getting involved with the campus ministry, I was surprised to see so many people live out their faith boldly, telling people about Jesus, even at, what I considered, “a young ago” (I thought you lived your life first, then become a serious about the church when you were like 35 with a wife and kids…that was going to be my plan at least).

Being around these young adults living for God fueled my faith like never before and I got overly active in my faith on the college campus; telling friends, family members, and co-workers at my part-time jobs about Jesus.

Then, graduation came and the real world hit me. I kept up the best that I could, but after moving away from my church family and only having a commuters’ relationship with them, plus the stress of my job as a news reporter, I found myself slowing down and losing steam. And 2016 didn’t help; both my professional and personal life were so impacted by the world around me that, at some point, I lost faith and hope.

With the dawn of a new year came a serious question for me: what was I trying to do and where was I trying to go? I had ideas, desires, interests, dreams, but I didn’t know what to do with them. The constant travel between The Villages and Orlando was wearing me down, and I found that my heart truly was in Orlando. I loved my job, but I wanted to be back in Orlando, where my life was planted.

So I began to pray, “God, break me of whatever might be holding me back.”

Now, in my limited human mind, what I meant was ‘God, break me free from either this job (which I doubt You will do) or break my love for my church and Orlando and let me live fully on my own in The Villages community, focused on my career and restructuring life here (because I need a good job to make money).’

I won’t lie; I was more inclined to leave the church than leave my job. Is that sad, that someone so dedicated to the church would leave like that? But at moment in life, my foundation was shaky; I was struggling to trust and believe that God could actually do anything with me and through me, in a number of areas of my life.

Around the same time that I was praying this prayer of brokenness, there was a big push at Orlando World Outreach Center to become more focused on what God’s Word said in Matthew 28:18-20; to go into the city, tell people about Jesus and make disciples. And it seemed that everyone was answering the call; every day, every week, every month, it seemed that people were sharing the Gospel, leading people to Christ…everyone except me. Part of this big push involved making sure that everyone involved in the various areas of ministry in the church had been through a tool called the One-to-One book, which simply broke down the key principles of the Christian walk. The book was, essentially, the foundation of our faith that we were to stand on as we encouraged and reached out to others; it was the tool we were told to use to help us build others’ foundations.

But I was skeptical. Who was I going to reach, living in a community of retirees, about 90 percent of whom were in various churches anyway? Who was I going to reach, when some people at my job that I DID share my faith with ended up losing their jobs, living this notion that I served a God who took away jobs, while I got advanced, simply because they heard His name? Who was I going to reach, talking about God, whom sometimes, I struggled to trust myself. Was I being realistic? No, but you’d be surprised how the enemy could sneak in.

Plus, growing up in the church, I thought I knew it all anyway. Not in a prideful sense (well, is there any other way?), but more in a ‘I don’t want to go through this, because it won’t do me any good, cuz I live in a mostly religious community anyway.’ But it was required. I’ll admit, I tried to duck and dodge for awhile, but it came down to a point where I couldn’t anymore; all the men on the worship team were required to go through it by June with an appointed leader on the team.

As I sat down to go through this foundational book, I realized that I had come a long way, but I still had a way to go with my faith…

 

So I had some work to do…but I was going to need some help. Check out my next blog post BUILDING ALONE to see how the team I connected with.