Albums That Influenced Me – Part III

First time experiences are always things to cherish and hold onto. First time driving a car. First time spending the night at a friend’s house. First time going on vacation without your parents. First kiss. And on and on and on.

Although I don’t remember exactly the first time that I heard Eric Clapton, the combination of hearing him with the stage of life that I was at and a good friend and mentor together all added up to a love of Mr. Slowhand and his music to this day. It was probably “Wonderful Tonight” that I heard all those years ago, which is funny considering how that song shows only one side of him.

When I was in middle school, a post-college young man came to my church. He was the brother of my youth pastor and was versed in secular music like no one else I had known in my short handful of years. Having been raised in the 60s and 70s, he was a fan of what I knew then as Classic Rock. The perfect combination came together as I looked up to this guy, he played guitar, and he didn’t ignore me like my older brother generally did.

As we spent time together, his love of guitar began to rub off on me. My birthday came around and I got my first guitar. Like Bryan Adams sang, “Got my first real six string….played it ‘til my fingers bled.” I looked to my friend to lead and guide me in all things guitar since I had no one around who could lead me that way. At least, no one who my parents actually trusted.

These were the days before CDs. Vinyl records were still big and it wasn’t uncommon for people to record their albums onto tapes so that they could bring them with and listen to them wherever they went. They were the days when albums meant something, when there was intentionality in how songs were put together. Listening to albums in their entirety was common, or at least one side of the albums.

At my request, my friend recorded all of his Clapton albums for me. As I talk to him today, we differ in our remembrance as he tells me that I guilted him into making those recordings for me. The irony of it all these years later is that I now have a lot of those albums on vinyl and he doesn’t.

I immersed myself in Clapton. It was like a whole new world for me. Just to be able to recognize music while I was out in public was a revelation for me. No longer was I simply resigned to recognizing the Carpenters, Simon and Garfunkel, and Andy Williams. My palette had expanded, and even if it was only slightly, it made a huge difference for my well-being.

I jumped in headfirst and wore out these tapes once my friend made them for me. As I learned guitar, I learned Clapton songs as well. Badge. Wonderful Tonight. Sunshine of Your Love. Everything that he released from that point on, I was watching and waiting for.

Whether it was the first album that my friend made a top of or not, Clapton’s album “Backless” just hit me. From the opening drum hits of “Walk Out in the Rain” to “Tell Me That You Love Me,” this was new ground to me and I drank it in like a thirsty hiker finally reaching his checkpoint.

In an effort to shield me from the worldliness of this “heathen” music, my friend refused to record some of the songs that were deemed inappropriate like “I’ll Make Love To You Anytime” and “Cocaine.” And prohibition just adds to the mystique, so you can be that the moment that I actually was allowed to get the albums on CD years later, I would wear those songs out. Guiding by prohibition is not always the most effective way to teach.

Nowadays, when I listen to “Backless,” I am so used to the song order that when one song ends, I wait in anticipation for the next one to start right behind it. It makes for a mildly entertaining scenario in my head whenever I’m listening to songs on shuffle.

My one regret when it comes to Clapton is that I was never able to see him in concert. The pinnacle of the concert experience would have been seeing him with his old friend Steve Winwood. Sadly, when the duo went through Madison Square Garden, I was long gone from New England and the ability to take the train to NYC at a moment’s notice.

After his “Unplugged” album, I tapered off a little from my listening as my musical tastes continued to broaden and take me to other places. A few years back, I read his autobiography which inspired me to once again delve back into the vast catalogue of EC. While there were a couple albums that fell flat, I think he finally reached that age where he realized he had such a resume behind him that he could just make the kind of music that HE wanted to make rather than worrying about what anyone else was thinking.

And of course, when I finally got my first electric guitar, the one that I had saved for years to buy, it was a Fender Stratocaster. I observed early on that if you were a Clapton fan, that was your axe of choice. If you were mostly a Jimmy Paige guy, you preferred Les Pauls.

Albums That Influenced Me – Part II

In the years after college, I was trying to find my place still. I had graduated with an engineering degree and was working in the field, but I probably had a major case of FOMO. I wanted to seize every possible opportunity that came across my path.

Having played guitar since I was about fourteen, I decided to try my hand at the coffeehouse scene. I could be brooding when I needed to be and when I began to focus on music, it seemed like the most melancholic part of my personality came out.

I had a key to my dad’s church and would go there late at night to play, practice, and write. It’s amazing how peaceful a church sanctuary is when no one else is around. That place literally became my sanctuary as I found myself coming of age in my 20s and dealing with all the bumps and turns of life. I guess, if I’m honest, the biggest bumps and turns were relational ones at the time, primarily with the opposite sex.

I had become close with a girl whose brother was a rising musician. He was just starting to get some exposure in the professional scene. During that time, he got connected with Vanessa Williams and he worked on her Christmas album. My friend and I even got to go to New York City for the taping of her Christmas show as my friend’s brother was the musical director for the show.

I grew to appreciate my friend’s brother and his music and it coincided with my efforts to write more music. One day, while talking with my friend, I asked her whether or not she could arrange a meeting with her brother. I wanted to learn from someone who had experience. So, he carved out time in his busy schedule and one weekend afternoon, I went over to his house. 

I had been playing around with open tuning on my guitar although everything I did was mostly by ear rather than because I actually knew what I was doing. While I knew my way around a piano keyboard, the guitar was still foreign to me (kind of still is to this day). My friend’s brother wanted to hear some of the songs that I had written.

I remember playing a Christmas song that I had written that was from the shepherd’s perspective of the birth of Jesus. At the time, my friend’s brother would do an annual Christmas concert as the two albums that he had done at the time were really focused on Christmas music. He would eventually garner the moniker “Mr. Christmas” as his annual concert and his fame grew.

It was a little nerve wracking playing my pedestrian songs for this guy. Pretty sure that he even used that word “pedestrian” when he described my songs. He saw my Christmas song as an homage to him, which was probably more true than I wanted to admit at the time. He also did his best to steer me in the right direction, throwing out a few musical suggestions to me.

Having heard his suggestions, I quickly immersed myself in them. One name was suggested for his lyrical abilities. The other two names were suggested for their chord stylings and alternate tunings. The last two were women: Joni Mitchell and Shawn Colvin. I hadn’t heart Colvin before but Mitchell was familiar only in name to me. The first name he gave me, the one known for his lyrical abilities, was Bob Dylan. The album he suggested was “Blood on the Tracks.”

These three names took me down various rabbit holes, but none as much as the rabbit hole of Bob Dylan. Up to that point, he had been a joke because of his less than stellar voice. I had never really listened to him, I mean really listened. I had heard only a gravelly and whiney voice without uncovering the magic behind it.

That would be the beginning of my love and appreciation for Bob Dylan. “Blood on the Tracks” remains one of my favorite albums of Dylan’s. The stories he would weave with simple melodies and chord structures seemed almost too easy. He seemed to do it effortlessly, playing, singing, blowing on the harmonica.

As the years went by, my collection of his music expanded. I had the chance to see him with Paul Simon in Connecticut. I named my son after him. I saw him the night before my father died (which is a whole other story that I may or may not have already written about somewhere). I even got to take that saw son to see him this year.

So I guess that Bob Dylan has become a part of me. My discovery of him was really after most of his major musical stages, but unearthing all of the gems along the way after the fact was just as rewarding and satisfying for me.

The Mind of God – A Book Review

How do Christ followers make an impact on the world? Do we isolate ourselves by creating a false sense of security in a sequestered bubble in hopes that our influence might be felt from far away through the various means that we have? How do we exercise the wisdom that God has given us to make a difference in the world and culture around us?

Bill Johnson, pastor of Bethel Church in Redding, California, looks at Solomon and his wisdom in his latest book, “The Mind of God.” Johnson introduces the reader to the seven mountains or spheres of influence: family, religion, economy, education, government, arts and media, and science and technology. He shares about how we can influence the world around us, our culture, by having an impact in these areas.

The church is not a building, we’ve probably heard it said at least once in our lifetime. Do those words resound in who we are and do they actually mean something when it comes to our actions as the church of Jesus Christ? Do we influence people so that they will come be part of our church or so that they can become part of the kingdom of God? Johnson shares his own church’s experience with meeting people where they are and influencing them for Jesus Christ. He writes, “Our job as believers is to excel as servants in realms of wisdom, that they world around us might benefit and see the kindness of the Lord drawing them to repentance and relationship with him.”

We are called to serve without agenda, as Johnson writes, the more we serve the city for the sake of the city, “the more the city opens up to the message we carry.” When we have ulterior motives or some hidden agenda, it won’t remain as hidden as we might like. Instead, we need to love people as Jesus loves them in order that our message might be compelling, not seen as a slogan or sale pitch, but rather as a true motivation that moves us and propels us with the love of Christ.

It is evident throughout this book that Johnson comes from a more Charismatic background. That’s not a pejorative statement, simply an observation. Anyone familiar with Bethel Church most likely knows the controversy swirling around it because of what some consider to be questionable theology. Reading this book, there was nothing that indicated to me that the divergence in theology was in any essential areas that would make me stand up and cry, “Heresy!” A few head scratching moments that made me wonder, but not enough for me to think that all of the criticism that has been heaped at Bethel is justified.

I read a lot of books and this book was tough to get through. I’m not quite sure why that is though. I don’t know whether it was the season in which I found myself when I read it. The subject matter was of interest to me, but Johnson struggled to hold my attention for long periods of time.

Johnson had some really good things to say about how the church can and should influence the culture in which it finds itself and the wisdom it takes to accomplish that. While there were great nuggets throughout the entire book, the overall book didn’t “Wow” me in such a way that I would highly recommend it to people. It’s a worthy read, but not an essential read. The nuggets that I did find and highlighted felt significant, just not as frequently found as I would have liked.

(This review is based upon a copy of this book which was provided free of charge by Baker Books. These opinions are my own; I was not required to write a positive review, nor was I compensated for this review.)

How Do You Smell?

Have you ever hugged someone or shaken hands with someone only to find that you’re carrying their scent with you throughout your day?

That might not be a bad thing, depending on what the scent is. I have a son who is on the brink of becoming a teenager. His hygiene hasn’t been made a priority as of yet, so his scent isn’t always one that I’d like to carry with me throughout my day. At the same time, I shook hands with someone the other day and hugged them. Later on, when I rubbed my nose to relieve the effects of the pollen heavy air, I could smell the cologne that the person had been wearing.

Scent and smell are funny things. When my wife was pregnant, her sense of smell heightened to the place of superhero status. She could smell anything sooner than me, which is a feat as I have a fairly keen sense of smell. Smells that would normally be appealing to her were repugnant during those months of pregnancy.

The Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 2:15, “For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.” As I thought about that lingering smell from my friend’s cologne, I couldn’t help but think of this verse and wonder what smell I’m leaving with everyone that I meet. When they are reminded hours or days later of our meeting, is the lingering aroma something that is pleasing to their olfactory receptors? Does the memory of that meeting cause some kind of visceral response in them, reminding them of the distastefulness of the encounter?

As I talked to a friend the other day about a recent dinner I attended where people had gathered from various faith and belief backgrounds, I told her that I was doing my best to be liberal in love.

Interestingly enough, there seems to be a mindset among many in the evangelical Christian world that liberality in love means you are somehow compromising your values and convictions. I have a hard time believing that this is the case though. That’s generally not the way that Jesus operated either. Somehow, he was able to hold to convictions and embrace holiness while at the same time being liberal in his giving of love.

As I go through my day today, I hope that the smell that emanates from me is pleasing to those around me. That doesn’t mean that I compromise my convictions, it just means that I seek to meet people where they are, love them, and point them to Jesus, because if I smell good, it’s because of him. If I smell bad, I don’t think that’s anyone’s fault but my own…..unless of course the aroma of Christ hits someone the wrong way, but that’s a topic for another post.

 

The Pastor’s Pastor

Ten years ago, Eugene Peterson was simply the man who wrote The Message paraphrase of the Bible. I had never read any other book by him, I had never known of his starting and pastoring a small church in Maryland, and I never would have imagined the impact that he eventually would have on me and my ministry.

My seminary experience was different from many of my friends and colleagues. I did not “do” seminary in the traditional residential way but instead completed my degree through a distance learning program which involved a few trips a year for intensive classes as well as my traveling up to south Maryland to take traditional classes. I petitioned to take classes outside of my program more than any other student I knew, and one of those classes was an independent study using some of the books of Eugene Peterson.

I honestly can’t remember when I learned of the expansive volume of books that Peterson had written. I imagine that it was when I went into the office of one of my fellow pastors. I’ve been known to simply stand before shelves of books in people’s offices, taking mental snapshots of what I see, comparing and contrasting what’s there, and slowly forming an idea in my head just how the person whose office I am standing in has had their theology and ministry formed by the writers represented on those shelves.

Regardless of how he got there, Peterson became a fixture on my radar. I started with one book, added another, then another, and another, and before I knew it, I had a healthy little portion of the catalogue of books he’s written. And by working the angles on my independent study during seminary, I was able to create a mechanism by which I was required to read some of those very same books.

“Learning from a pastor’s pastor,” that was what I called my independent study. The most significant book among the ones that I focused on was Peterson’s memoir, “The Pastor.” It was interesting to read through this memoir and hear the tales that described the formation of so many of the books that Peterson would write. It was even more fascinating to me since I hadn’t read most of them and it gave me a glimpse behind the curtain before I actually read them.

That book, “The Pastor,” has been the book that I have sent to friends upon their ordination to full-time vocational ministry. It impacted me enough, grounding me in my vocation rather than allowing me to be caught up in an occupation. Having grown up with a father who was a pastor, I was intrigued to read this memoir of a man who wasn’t too much older than my own father and to see just how he approached the vocation of pastor.

I remember when Peterson sat down with Bono, the lead singer of U2, to have a conversation about the Psalms. An unlikely pairing became a fascinating exercise in contemplative thought that was shared through every U2 fan who also happened to be a follower of Jesus. And it wasn’t showy or kitschy, in my opinion it was a little more than 20 minutes of nuggets shared by a pop icon and a spiritual mentor, an honest look at what has become one of my favorite books of the Bible. If you haven’t seen the video, I highly recommend that you click here and take the 22 minutes to watch it.

As I began to read more and more of Peterson, I adopted him as a spiritual mentor, just as I had with Henri Nouwen, Brennan Manning, and a few others whose transcendent writings have always reminded me that what I do as a pastor and who I am as a pastor is far less defined by culture and people’s opinions and much more defined by the people who I lead and just how God needs me to be used to help them in their own formation. Peterson reminded me of the richness of the Bible, especially some of the books that are often overlooked by some of the superstar megachurch pastors that try to put  the sexy back into the Bible while some of us are wondering how they even thought it was supposed to be sexy to begin with.

Eugene Peterson was a dying breed. In reading his books and watching videos of him, there is nothing glamorous or flashy about him. His humility and quiet spirit seemed evident not only as I listened to him speak but as I read the words he had written. With every book, I pictured myself sitting in a cozy cabin in comfortable chairs nestled in front of a fire, while man who had lived a significant amount of life imparted wisdom upon me in a gentle yet passionate way.

Eugene Peterson will be missed, but the legacy that he has left through his books will allow his voice to continue to mold and shape generations of pastors. I am grateful for that shaping that has occurred in my own life and which continues to occur. I will continue to gift his memoir to others as they step into vocational ministry and I will continue to allow his words to focus me back on the call of God on my life.

Social Media and the Church – Part III – The Ripple Effect

The final observation that I have seen as it relates to social media and the church has to do with what I call “The Ripple Effect.” It’s not a new concept at all, the idea of people being like stones thrown into a pond, making ripples, but it’s an important one when it comes time to consider the influences that your people have on spreading the word about your church and faith community to their broad base of connections within social media.

If your faith community is made up of 400 people of which 75% are connected to social media and each of them have 100 unique friends (in other words, there are no overlaps or mutual friends among them), and 50% of that friend base is local, you can reach 15,000 people. While those numbers are speculative, the power of the “ripple” is significant. I hear something from you, I share it with all of my friends who in turn share it with their friends who share it with their friends, and so on and so on. All of us a sudden, your sphere of influence has increased significantly.

You can never underestimate the power of “word of mouth” publicity. People are going to be much more trusting of people that they know, so if people are talking about your church, chances are good that the people who are connected to them will be listening. This publicity goes both ways too, so you need to be careful. As easily as good words about your church could travel throughout social media, bad words can travel equally as fast. It can’t be denied that the ripple effects can impact churches for the good or the bad.

The power of instant information in our technology rich society is significant. It has changed the way that companies do business and how they handle customer relations, wouldn’t you think that churches would also rethink the way that they do things as well? As I wrote a few days ago, to deny the power of social media and the power of its influence is to commit technological suicide. The ripples of social media are felt throughout churches as well, tapping into those ripples and letting them be used for their benefit would seem to be a smart move on the part of churches.

It’s a new day and technology can no longer be denied its influence. By tapping into it, churches can significantly increase the number of people whom they are reaching. It can save them money on mass mailers, advertising, and other mediocre means by which people can be reached. The best part of the power of it is that it’s mostly free too. Find a couple of bright youth who can figure their way around a computer and you’ve got yourself some pretty fascinating graphics and pages. Even if you have to pay for some digital design (which is probably a pretty good idea for the investment) it feels much more beneficial and worthwhile than spending some of the money that churches have generally spent in the past on advertising.

This whole world of social media is still new enough that the jury may still be out on it for many people. It’s something that I am watching carefully and regularly. I’m curious to watch the trends in the future and see how long its effectiveness sticks around. For now, I’m going to keep tapping into the ripples and see what they can do, keeping in mind that they can go for us or against us. I’m going to see how influential we can be without moving past the digital page. We’ll see how it goes!

The Power of Words

Having been one of those engineering types in college, I merely had to take 2 English courses before I got on with the rest of my engineering studies. When I look back on that, while I was glad, in some ways, to not have to be bogged down with literature courses or creative writing courses, I feel like there is an awful lot that I missed along the way.

English classes in high school feel far off to me now for more than the obvious reason that they were more than 20 years ago. For whatever reason, I don’t remember a whole lot of what we studied, although I do remember some of the books. While there were a number of classics that we read like The Great Gatsby, Catcher In the Rye, The Grapes of Wrath, and others, I feel like some other important works and authors of both American and English literature were passed over.

One of those important authors who I felt was passed over died yesterday. Maya Angelou, the African American poet and writer whose work spanned and influenced multiple generations, died in her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Although I knew of Angelou by name and even by the names of some of her works, I had never delved into any of those works. I was preoccupied with other things, although I wouldn’t necessarily say that those other things were more important. The beauty of the written word is that it can be enjoyed, cherished, and influential even posthumously. That’s what Angelou’s words will have to be for me.

What strikes me about Angelou is her commitment to words and her commitment to live them out. As unfamiliar as I am with her writing, it doesn’t take a scholar to understand that Angelou was not simply a poet and writer who wrote words to earn a living or to be an influence, she wrote words because it was who she was and how she expressed herself. She was able to capture in story the feelings that many others had experienced before and since her. That is the power of words, to articulate emotions in literary form that have seemed elusive to those who have experienced them.

“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” has risen to the top of my reading list. I expect that when I read it that I will not be disappointed. I expect that the power of her words will strike me in much the same way that those words have struck thousands before me. I expect that the hype of this author and poet will live up to the expectation that it created.

Thank you, Ms. Angelou, for your courageous words. I look forward to knowing you more through what you’ve written. I look forward to learning more about myself and the world because of what you have left behind.

The Influence of a Life

As I sit here and write this, the world around me is sleeping.  It’s been a week here where I live.  Kind of hard to believe how much can take place in one week.

It was just a week ago when a young mother from my community was out running with her husband and was hit by a drunk driver, forever changing the lives of two families.  I watched as two communities, my community and the running community, rallied together to show why there is still some hope left in humanity.

On Saturday, people around the world ran in honor of this woman and her family.  Facebook lit up with posts from as far away as Australia, people posting their distances run and giving tribute.  My family and I took part in a run/jog/walk in our community, seeing people all come around dressed in blue, the woman’s favorite color.  To see strangers come together to honor a stranger whom they never knew was powerful.  To be led in prayer at the beginning of the event was even more so.

After the walk with my family, we drove to join my brother and sister-in-law to take a final “deep clean” of my parents’ townhouse.  The rest of the day was spent journeying over the course of 70+ years of life, experiencing memories, seeing pictures, smelling smells, remembering holidays and special occasions of years gone by.

It’s hard to combine a lifetime in a few boxes.  It’s hard to figure out what it is that’s most important, what it is that you want to hang on to.  My parents were far more organized than I am, and maybe ever will be.  For instance, there are 6 boxes containing every sermon my father ever preached from 1968 until he retired as a pastor in 2010.  The majority of them were typed with some handwritten notes here and there.

You encounter memories and wonder what’s worth saving and what needs to be tossed and in the midst of it, you wonder whether you’re going to regret your decision in the future.  What if that thing that ends up in the trash or at Goodwill proved to be more valuable?  Am I going to be looking for something years from now only to discover that it was purged years prior?

Every time that I step foot into this place, time seems to be sucked up in some sort of vacuum.  It’s almost like a casino, but there you can’t see the light of day.  Hours pass and you wonder whether you’ve actually accomplished anything of importance.  You get lost in thoughts and memories, you get captivated by the sights and the smells.  You find yourself turning into that 3 year old or 5 year old or 10 year old child that you see in the pictures surrounding you.

Yet the innocence of youth has faded away.  It’s been replaced with a life that has experienced far more.  There is pain, there is hurt, there is loss.  In some ways, you long for those days so long ago when life was simpler, when it didn’t seem so complicated.  You long for those endless summer days that seemed as if they could go on forever, running, playing, soaking in life.

But life doesn’t stay as simple and innocent as it once was.  Cars crash.  Cancer strikes.  Bodies fail.  Hearts stop beating.  Life changes.

How do you measure a life?

1200 people gathered to celebrate the short life of a woman whose life was snuffed out much sooner than it should have been.  Tens of thousands of people ran to honor her.  Many of those people heard that this woman’s passion extended far beyond running, it extended to her husband, to her children, to her family, and most of all, to her God.  She was a woman who knew Jesus and celebrated life through him.

It’s hard to tell just how far the influence of a life extends.  We probably won’t ever fully know how far it extends, at least not in this life.  But what is it that makes one life stand out over another?  What makes one seem more influential than another?  It’s all a lot to think about, but it does seem that influence can have just as much to do with the person being influenced as it does with the one influencing.

In the end, a life makes a difference to the people that it touches.  What lives are you touching?  Who are you influencing?  If you were gone tomorrow, who would say that they were changed because of something that they had learned from you?

First Day of School

Over the past few weeks, I’ve watched emerge on social media the flood of pictures of the first day of school.  Today is my day.  In fact, I will experience two first days of school this year as my younger son is in junior kindergarten and won’t start until next week.

Last week, we got to meet my oldest son’s teacher.  We brought all of the supplies into the classroom and got a chance to see where he’ll spend the next year.  We found out who will be in his class and who won’t be in his class.  We reconnected with friends that we haven’t seen all summer, and so did my son.

I’m not sure if all parents are in “Observation Mode” the same way that I am on that first day of school, but I kind of think that they are.  I was watching and observing everything.  Who’s in my son’s class?  Who might be a distraction?  What’s the teacher like in the brief time that I meet her?  Is this a learning environment that he might thrive in?

One of the biggest observations that I made was about the teacher.  In the brief time that we were in the classroom, we saw at least half a dozen students from previous years come in and hug her, bring her gifts, or just say “hi” to her.  That was a very telling statement to me.

I thought back to the teachers that I couldn’t wait to see when I got back to school in the Fall.  They were the ones who had made a difference, who had impacted me for the better, who had left an indelible mark on my life.  They had invested in me and I was better for it.

You don’t see students coming back to see teachers who meant nothing to them.  I never did.  I might casually wave to them in the hallway, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to say hello to them.

Based on all that I saw, I’m gathering that my son’s teacher is one who has made a significant impact in the lives of her students.  Honestly, if you’re a teacher, I know that you’re not in it for the money.  There’s got to be something else that drives you.  Either that, or you’re just a glutton for punishment.  I have too many friends who are teachers and have heard too many of their stories to actually think that they’re there because they’re on their way to their first million.

As I reflect on this, another first day of school, I can’t help but be thankful for this teacher and so many of our teachers who make such a significant sacrifice in order to invest in the lives of our children.  As a pastor, so many people accuse me of only working one day a week, so I can commiserate with the teachers who are accused of having “cushy” jobs where they only work 6 hours or “have summers off.”

I am thankful for every teacher that took the time to invest in me, to encourage me, to push me further than I was willing to push myself, and saw potential in me when others might have given up or just turned away.  I am thankful for their selfless sacrifice and the way that they cared for the kids that they taught almost as much as if they had been their own.

So, next time that I think about coming down hard on a teacher for what is or is not happening in my child’s class, I need to think about all that they’ve given to be where they are, all of the hours that they’ve spent planning and thinking about my children.  Not to say that they’re not capable of mistakes, but I just get the feeling that as much as the first day of school means to us, it probably means just as much to them, and probably something very different.

A Milestone….of Sorts

This weekend marked the one month anniversary of my blog transition to wordpress.com.  In that brief time, I have gained nearly as many followers as I had gained in over four years at blogspot.com.  I have been much more consistent in my postings and I have been glad to have heard feedback from people about my ponderings.

I remember nearly 5 years ago when my wife encouraged me to start a blog.  I was vaguely familiar with the concept but unsure that anyone would be interested in what I would have to say.  Having played out as a folk musician with my own music many years ago, I knew the feeling of putting myself out there and the vulnerability that comes along with that, so it was not an entirely new experience for me.  But there was still some hesitation and trepidation.

In a conversation that I had this weekend, I was reminded of the need to take my own advice to heart.  In talking with my friend who was considering a blog post on adoption, he felt that he did not have much to offer in comparison to some of the other “heavy hitters” that are blogging today and who have written on adoption.  I reminded him that the people with whom he is in relationship do not have relationships with these “heavy hitters” while they do with him.  His influence can be greater among those with whom he is in community.

I need to remember that.  Sure, there are people who are smarter, funnier, and way more eloquent than me, but the people with whom I have relationships don’t necessarily know them.  But they do know me and respect me.  I have the opportunity and privilege to be able to share my thoughts with them and hopefully bring some encouragement and even challenge into their lives.

While many of us may never be famous or speak to hundreds of thousands of people, we all have a sphere of influence that is unique.  We all have relationships and communities with whom we can share, be ourselves, and offer our insights.  Those relationships and communities are invaluable to us, at least they are to me, they should never be taken for granted and certainly not underestimated.

Even if just one person reads my blog and is challenged, encouraged, enlightened, or whatever, I feel like it would be all worthwhile.  After all, it’s not always about numbers.  I can tout the greatest numbers in the world, but if there is no fruit from those numbers, does it really matter?  If I have thousands of followers on my blog and all it does is make people say, “That was nice” and then walk away and stay the same, I don’t really think it’s worth it.  I want to be an influencer and a world changer, even if it’s only for a small number of people.

Don’t underestimate the power of your influence.  If God’s calling you to something and you feel strongly about it, don’t shy away from it.  You might not sign a book deal or be on the speaking circuit, but what you have, your unique gifting, can be used by God for his kingdom’s work.