My Resignation From Playing Church

I have been working in churches and ministry full time in an "official" capacity for the last 13 years.  I have seen a lot of things--both good and bad, silly and serious, stories I repeat over & over and some things that will only remain in the recesses of my memory.  There have been days when I want to quit and days where I feel like I don't want to sleep for fear of missing something amazing that God is up to.  There are moments when I fail miserably and moments where I can only claim "by the grace of God."  There are days when I want to shout from the roof tops & tell the beautiful kingdom stories and days that I am so horribly confused & struggle to see light in darkness.  Each and every day, I thank God for the people that He has put in my path and the amazing things they show me about His love, mercy, grace, and forgiveness.

Big churches.  Small churches.  Congregations filled with old people.  Some with only young people.  And everything in between.  Lives ruined by the cross & the empty tomb.  People about the work of the kingdom.  People trying to make it through the day.  Some who are passionate.  Some who are broken.  Some that can't connect what is happening in worship to lives outside the church building.

And yet how often, do we get caught up in the doing?  In the committees and teams, in the questions about money, making people happy, playing the game, about trying to be the next best thing, to be innovative, creative, and on the cutting edge?  To be about missional, intentional, and relational ministry.

How often are we are blinded by our own passion and short sightedness that we forget the call of the kingdom?  The real good news?  If the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost, then what are we doing?  Is there a chapter that goes by in the Gospels that does not break into our misguided thinking and show us anything other than Jesus stopping to care for those who screw up, the outsider, the lost, the sinner, those written off as  unimportant, the hurting, and those who have been broken by the yoke of oppression?

To you who are broken.  To you who are among the least.  To those who will never read my ramblings.  You are not forgotten.  My heart breaks because I will always mess this up, stumble and fall, more than I will get it right.  Forgive my sin.  But on the days when I get it wrong, please know that God has not forgotten you.  He has heard your cry.  And on the days when I get it right?  Please see me as nothing more than the faintest, poor image in a mirror of what real love is.  For God has literally shaken the heavens and moved the earth for you to know His love.  My earnest prayer is that I will never be dissuaded by those who seek their own gratification, piety, and self righteousness.  That instead, I would spend myself in behalf of the hungry.  That I might be counted worthy to follow in the long line of those who called themselves "Repairer of Broken Walls & Restorer of Streets with Dwellings."

Before anyone jumps to conclusions, wonders about rumors or tries to read between the lines..  This is my own confession, not an accusation against anyone specifically or particularly.  For the real good news is that God has chosen to call us His own.  That He has adopted us into his family.  Redeemed us by his own blood.  And calls us to take part in his story.  That we are saved by grace, through faith, not of ourselves, but rather the gift of God.  Not by works so that no one may boast.

This is my resignation from playing church.

May I truly live my life as a testimony to the empty tomb.