Drew Boswell

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Transitions

Today is the kid’s last day of school, at least for this grade. As they were getting out of the car I joked with them, “I remember my last day of school. . . when I graduated from the fourth grade,” but then went on to say, “ohh except for fifth grade, I remember the last day of fifth grade, ohh except for sixth grade, etc. . . all the way through 2009“ They said, we were alive in 2009!” “Yeah, I was still in school when you were in second grade (the grade H-G is in now).” “But summer vacation is almost here – so enjoy it, because you will be in school until your children are in second grade!”

It’s funny how when we end a season of our lives that we somehow think we are finished moving from one thing to another. But days of swimming, sleeping late, camps, and playing Legos all day are just around the corner. For my children, they are beginning a transition from one grade to another.  They have made it through a new school year, a new school, new friends, a new home, and a new life.

I am reminded that FBCV’s new youth pastor has completed his first week.  It was a week of cleaning out his office, figuring out which keys go to what, meeting the staff, and trying to remember where his office is in a maze of church buildings filled with crevices and surprises.  I am convinced that I will discover the Lost Ark somewhere on FBCV campus.

“I remember my first week at FBCV . . .” so many months ago (like ten). The end of the summer will mark my first year as serving as the Pastor of Children and Families. In many ways I still feel like I am transitioning from one life to another.

Life is constantly moving from one thing to another – we are in constant transition. When you are born your body radically changes daily. From there it’s walking, potty training, eating by yourself, then eventually reading, writing, driving, Calculus, girlfriends, college, marriage, kids, mini-vans, and thinning hair. At every stage, just when you have it figured out, guess what? It’s time to change to something else. If the transitions ever slow down, we get bored, and get way too contemplative. It’s the constant and sudden changes that keeps us from too deep of thought, too much time to get in trouble.

The following are a few mistakes that we can make if don’t deal with transitions very well.

Mistakes of dealing with transitions of life:

1. Looking toward the next transition too soon. When I was in seminary there were those that would max out the amount of classes they could take. They rarely (if ever) left their rooms except to go to class. If you did happen to see these recluses, and were able to squeeze in a conversation, they constantly talked about how they wanted to finish school as soon as possible (yeah, no kidding).

They were missing “the seminary experience” in order to get to the “real world” of ministry. The whole purpose of seminary was to equip them for the ministry they desired to do, but in their rushing through the experience they were short circuiting the process of being equipped in order to move to the next stage.

At every stage of life and in every time of transition there are things we are to learn, life lessons to experience, and people that we are to meet and engage in life with. If you move from stage to stage, and transition to transition, with never stopping to engage in the moment, then you are going to miss something very important in your life. When have you finally arrived? At what point of “success” will you slow down and concentrate on the moment?

2. Not Developing Relationships As You Go. Life (and ministry) is all about relationships, people, and how we are all connected together. It took me until my adult life to realize the people who have been in my life weren’t just there (as trees in a landscape)– they were there for me to develop meaningful relationships with.

In our self-centered lives we tend to view people as ways to get us to where we want to go; they become tools we use to help us advance in our goals, “visions”, or careers. If they can’t be of help to us, we tend to marginalize them out of our lives.  This is a huge mistake.  Even if you perceive that a person will be in your life for a short period of time, you still should make an effort to get to know them, love them, befriend them, and invest your life in theirs. Who knows where it might lead and what the future holds.

3.  Not Enjoying the Moment. There are moments in my kid’s lives that I will always treasure.  I have loved leading Joshua and Caleb in Cub Scouts, having lunch with Isaac when I pick him up after Pre-School, or doing Hannah-Grace’s hair for a dance recital when her mother had to go out of town.

It sounds cliché, but “stop to smell the roses.” Our kids are only in their “transition” for a moment and then they move on to something else. Each day is a gift, and each new change is an opportunity to keep a great relationship, start over, or make things right.

Transitions cause stress in our lives. We feel the need to make decisions, and our focus can become completely consumed by this need to take some action, make a final decision, or the feeling to just do something. Often times we are not sure of what we need to do, and we know this requires us to wait. In that time of stress, life still moves on, it doesn’t stop because you are feeling introspective.

Ministry involves “emotional work.” Like nurses or police officers, pastors regularly engage in activities as a part of their day-to-day responsibilities where they must deal with other people’s problems, emotions, and behavior.  They are expected to express love, compassion, emotion, or they are expected to reserve that emotion, to be professionally distant and to control it all like a switch.

So as the years go by, if we are not careful, our emotion switch gets stuck or even broken. Numbness and callousness sets in like a whiteout in the winter. We stop feeling, caring, and everything goes on autopilot. We are so “professional” that we can fool everyone, even ourselves.

But we are numb on the inside, and we miss those moments of transitions that our kid’s need for us to “be there.” If you are at this point, and you are not able to enjoy “the moment” then stop what you are doing, take a break, pray, and focus on doing whatever it takes to regain your sense of feeling. One of the ways that I have found to manage that “professional numbness” is to focus on today. I don’t know what God has in store for me in the future, but today I have responsibilities, children who need a dad, a wife that needs a husband, a church that is looking to me to lead in the area of “children and family.” If I can focus on that, and only that, then I can fend off the feeling of paralysis by analysis.

 

Elements of a World Changing Life (Part One)

When I was a kid, one of the best Christmas presents I ever received was a chemistry set. It had glass test tubes, beakers, a burner, various other scientific equipment and racks of chemicals. I would sit for hours and hours mixing, heating, boiling, and crystallizing. As a kid, I kept hoping that I would find the right series of chemicals and steps to make something explode.

I wanted to see some kind of a big flash, foam, a puff of smoke, or some kind of “cool” reaction.[1]  But no matter how many sequences, or combinations I assembled in my test tubes I was never able to get the cool reaction I wanted to see. After a few weeks the chemistry set went back into the box, and it stayed there for years. Why play with the set, if nothing really cool never happened? I was not content to see salt form, or water changing colors.

You may not have a childlike fascination with chemistry but I would be willing to bet that at some point you have wanted to see your life have a “cool” reaction for the Lord. You have desired to see people’s lives changed because of how you have ministered to them, or to see people receive Christ for the first time, or even see families reconciled, the hungry fed, the blind to see, or the dead to be raised. You are not a Christian, if these desires have not expressed themselves in some way in your life.

When I was in advanced high school chemistry I discovered that there were some key elements that had been removed from my kid’s chemistry set. I still had the kit tucked away in a closet, so I went and examined it. It was these key ingredients that would specifically keep those “explosions” from happening.

If Satan knew what these key elements were, and could remove them from your life’s chemistry set, do you think he would do it? My parent’s wanted a kit that was safe, and so that I would not blow up the house. Satan desires for you to be a safe Christian, and to not “turn the world upside down.” Is there anything sadder than a safe Christian? She has the potential to change the world, but settles for changing nothing.

The Elements that we are about to discuss have the potential to be explosive. When combined together, they will literally change the world. These are what Christ has commanded that we do, and it is what Satan fears you will discover.

The Elements

John 17:18, 20
Matthew 28
Acts 1:8

Christ has called all Christians to make disciples. His last command as He ascended into heaven was “go and make disciples. . .”

I. Element #1; Invest
If we begin with the premise that Christ has commanded all of His followers to make disciples, then how do we do this? We make disciples the same way Jesus did, when he said, “Come and follow me.” For three and a half years Jesus invested himself in twelve men intensively and in thousands with less intensity. Jesus’ disciple making was done with an end-goal of sending them out to make even more disciples.

The focus is not the program, and the management of those programs. Instead, it is and has always been about people investing themselves in the lives of other people – for the express purpose of “making disciples” – and the end goal of sending them out to invest themselves in the lives of other people.

The people Jesus invested in varied from three to thousands.  It varied from intense discipleship to “simply” a healing touch or conversation.  But He invested himself none-the-less.

So the first element of a world changing life is investment. You can invest your life in others in varying degrees. For the girl at the grocery store, you may only have a minute. But for the little boy in your Sunday school class you may have a year. However much time you have, make wise use of it – never waste it.

David and the exploding film container.

While I was in high school my friend David and I experimented with chemicals that we would “borrow” from the advanced chemistry lab. David and I began a series of experiments that included various combinations of chemicals placed in a small black 35mm film container. Our goal was to have a delayed reaction from chemicals mixed together. We had little success until . . .

One evening after school we had planned to hang out and talk about our teenage diabolical plans, so we arranged to meet at my house. As David was driving into my backyard the canister that he had placed in his front shirt pocket suddenly and without warning exploded, sending hot sparks, and extremely stinky grey smoke all over him, his clothes, and the interior of his car. He had the presence of mind to stop the car, and put it in park and then jumped out. As he ran around yelling, slapping his face and shirt to put out the flames, I yelled with glee that we had finally succeeded! His eyebrows and hair were singed, and man did he stink. His clothes were ruined, and he was going to have a hard time explaining the interior burns of the upholstery to his parents. We had succeeded, but it was not exactly what or when we had expected.

When you invest yourself in the lives of others for the sake of Christ, you may find yourself suddenly very messy (even in pain), eyebrows singed, and stinky. But don’t forget that this is a success; you are a part of radical change in this person’s life. Just don’t expect it to be clean, neat, or quiet.

II. Element #2; Go and Multiply.
Where? So if we are to invest ourselves in the lives of others, where will these “disciples” come from? So, where are we to look for these people that we are to invest in? Do I just keep talking to people until I get goose bumps or a spiritual “funny feeling?” Should I wait on top of a mountain for them to find me? Christ tells us that we are not to wait for them to come to us, instead we are to go to them. Acts 1:8, helps us to answer this question.

Acts 1:8 “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. (ESV)”

When Jesus gave this teaching to the disciples he was in Jerusalem. So, he says that we are to begin at home, and then work outward. We are to focus the investment of ourselves in four areas of outward progression.

  • Jerusalem (our home)
  • (and) Judea (larger context of home – like your state)
  • (and) Samaria (those who are culturally different than you, see Luke 10:25 ff.)
  • (and) The end of the earth (other nations)

Notice that this verse says, “and” in Acts 1:8 but not “or/either.” We do not get to choose if we focus all our efforts into one of these areas, instead we are to balance our investment in all four. In financial terms this would be diversification.

[1] NOTE: I am not a terrorist, and my desire to see things explode has been surpassed by what I desire to see God do on other people’s lives. I would also like to avoid any entanglement with the Homeland Security Agency.  I do not have any explosives, not even the chemistry set when I was a kid.  But I do have a book that has drastically changed people’s lives all around the world.  If there are any Homeland Security Agents, who happen to be reading this, who would like a copy of this book, just let me know.

"Your greatest life messages and your most effective ministry will come out of your deepest hurts." Rick Warren

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