A Heck of a First Impression – Part Two
“So I think I’m going to First tonight, sweetheart, what about you,” I asked, absentmindedly puttering around on Facebook.
“I figured we’d all go. I wanna try it out!”
“Cool, well, lets get everyone fed and ready before we go.”
After a dinner of Spanish Rice (that one was free, Rice-A-Roni), we packed up in the car, dealt with a crisis of can’t-take-my-toys-to-church with Lily, and were on our way. I popped Casting Crowns into the CD player and we talked about our hopes for the church. Karri wasn’t feeling too good, and we live right around the corner from the church, off 40th Ave, so conversation was short and we spent a lot of it listening to Casting Crowns sing, “Lifesong.”
When we arrived, as we were getting the kids out of the car, across the lane in the parking lot a young mom was getting her little boy out of the car. As we walked towards the church, I mentioned that we didn’t know where to go.
“Oh! Well, you guys can just follow me! How old are they?” she asked, referring to Lily and Laurel. I heard Karri answer, but had already retreated inside myself and was rejoicing that Karri had already found a buddy. She needs friends our age or close to it, so badly.
We walked to the door, and found not one or two but an entire hallway full of young families, kids and their parents, who all wanted to know who we were and how they could help us find our places of worship and study.
I was floored. I think I was struck dumb for probably 5-10 minutes as I watched the overwhelming sense of Godly love impact Karri and watched her open up like a flower in its time. We signed the kids in and got them to their rooms with the help of a wonderful little elderly lady who took over even introducing the girls to their classes.
So, then it was time to find our classes, for which we were late at this point. Karri found her class without much problem since the lady that we’d met in the parking lot had given her fairly good directions. After some poking around, I found Pastor Jeff’s men’s class and crept in the back door. I pulled up a chair and as I did so, the men in the back of the room made a place for me.
Let me back up a little bit. I need to confess something. Having spoken to Pastor Jay earlier that day and talked about the church’s missional attitude and specific targetting of the lost (not just unchurched) in the community, I did not expect much depth from a bible study in the church, especially one called, “Men’s Fraternity.” Somehow that latter word calls up images of a pastor in a toga hoisting a beer, and while I didn’t exactly expect that when I walked in, I certainly didn’t expect any real depth in teaching.
So imagine my surprise as I walked in and sat down and heard Pastor Jeff say, “So why, then, does God let bad things happen?”
Whoa.
I imagine my head jerked up in surprise as I sat down and heard those words. Was he really going to go here? This is heavy stuff, these are the sorts of questions I used to ask when I wanted to frustrate the crap out of my church leadership as a rebellious kid. I’ve since learned a little bit, but that’s still one of those questions that can rock a young Christian’s world. So I listened.
Several points were made, that God sometimes places us in situations so that we can grow in our discipleship, that God permissively allows negative things to occur in His creation, and the guy next to me (I think his name was Scott or Spike or something else really freaking cool) spoke up and quoted C.S. Lewis.
(Keanau Reeves) Whoa.
I was so impressed that I spoke up immediately after and mentioned that the best example of God allowing evil for the greater good He can accomplish through it exists in Job. The pastor asked me, in what I took to be not a challenge but perhaps a sensor question to see what I knew, to summarize Job and what I meant by that statement.
So I did.
I’m not sure he was expecting the summary I was able to give. He did seem to do a bit of a double-take. He corrected the initial part of my summary, in that it was God who did the pointing out of His most beloved servant, not Satan.
Pastor Jeff went on to talk about the fact that a life of discipleship does not bring earthly pleasure nor is it easy. (Haven’t I made the same points here on this blog recently?) Again, I was so startled to see these points being made that I spoke up, my filter seems to be disabled by surprise, and asked him to make sure to separate the concepts of earthly pleasure and God-given joy. Joy is the result of sanctification, the constant cycle of unfortunate sin, repentance, confession, and the acceptance of forgiveness. Joy comes from Grace.
It was at this point that Pastor Jeff turned around (after noting these concepts on the board) and asked me, “are you a seminary student?” I laughed and said no, I’m not. I pointed at my hat and said I’m attending William Carey in preparation for Seminary. “Well you do seem to know all the terminology!” he exclaimed.
The other guys were looking at me a little funny at this point, so I took a moment to pray and ask God for forgiveness for the pride that was growing at the praise I was receiving for the gifts He gave me. I gave him the praise I’d received and then returned my attention to the lesson, just in time to hear Pastor Jeff say, “And so, God works in our lives for our pleasure.”
I couldn’t help it. My internal filter must have been broken that night. I blurted out, “don’t you mean HIS pleasure? Philippians 2:12, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that works in you to will and work for HIS good pleasure?”
By this time, the class was cracking up. I’m sure they were thinking, “who is this young nut, coming in here and correcting the pastor?” Pastor Jeff replied that he had studied that exact verse earlier this week and had come to a conclusion that it serves the end of our pleasure as well as God’s. I replied,
“Of course it does. If we will and work for God’s good pleasure, if we focus on earning His smile, His pleasure, all the works we do towards that end increase our own pleasure as well! It’s not that we can earn our way into His good graces, but that as believers we focus on those good works because we want to please our King.”
At this point I don’t know what the class was thinking. As I was talking, I noticed looks of both confusion and of comprehension and admiration from the other guys in the room, so I resolved to keep my mouth shut for the rest of the class. That turned out to be an impossibility moments later as we split up into small groups to go over the worksheet Pastor Jeff had handed out prior to my arrival. As we moved the chairs into small groups, Scott (or Spike, whichever), asked me if I’d lead the group.
The worksheet was on Matthew 6:25-34, where Jesus preaches in His sermon on the mount on worry. As we talked about the very personal questions in the worksheet, I learned that one of the guys is an invesment and finance counselor, that all of us have two kids, and that each of us had some worry that was distracting us from focusing our lives on God. I made some points about the fact that worry is an indicator that we are attempting to “steal” back ownership or control of the lives we’ve given to Christ; that we should of course plan, but to do as James 4:13-17 suggests and say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live, and do this or that.”
Afterwards, we made our to another room and watched a short Andy Stanley video on the sovereignty, sheer awesomeness and right of God to choose whomever He wants to be His. Andy Stanley’s best point, I thought, was made when he talked about God’s name, “I AM.” There are some very cool, very deep theological implications contained in that single statement.
All in all, we had a great time. Karri sat with women she could really connect with, who seemed to genuinely care about her, and cared about what she had to say. She is so excited she’s looking for weekday activities to participate in that will bring her and the kids into the church more often. For myself, I’m still reeling and rejoicing from what was an utterly unexpected and completely awesome discipleship session, and I’m looking forward to more.
So far, so good. The first impression at First Hattiesburg has been among the most positive experiences we’ve had since we moved here over a year and a half ago. We’re going to continue to attend and will very likely join the church publicly at some point in the near future as we get to know the people and the mission and vision of the church.
Did you guys go to Sunday service at First? Inquiring minds want to know!