Making the Most of It

When we decided to make the move to Texas to plant Solomon's Porch, we did some significant downsizing.  The most dramatic part of the downsizing process was moving from a three bedroom house, with a great backyard, into a two bedroom apartment.  We have two children, which means now our kids share a room.  Needless to say, this is not an ideal situation, especially when you have a boy and a girl, and they are four years apart.  My son is headed into 6th grade and he's sharing a room with a 2nd grader.  It's not even close when it comes to the issues they're dealing with and being in the same room just complicates matters.

So how do you give your kids a little privacy when they share a room?  How do you give them a space to call their own, to put their own personal touches on?  Well, thanks to my wonderful wife and her ability to make the most out of a less than ideal situation...you give them tents!  She even let them write and draw on the tents to make them their own.  So far the kids are loving it, and although we hope to give them their own rooms again one day, we're all learning to make the most out of where we are.

The hardest thing about planting Solomon's Porch, at least so far, has been the affect that it has had on our kids.  In many ways, our kids have sacrificed a great deal more than us.  As a father, that's a hard pill to swallow and one I wrestle with daily.  Although we can't change our living situation right now, we can make the most of it.  I thank God for a wife that's doing just that for our kids.

Maybe your current situation is less than ideal.  Make the most of it.  When you do, five or ten years from now, you'll look back on this time with fond memories instead of regrets.

Here are a few pictures of their new "rooms."

Jordan's Tent

Sydney's Tent

    

Successful Failure

I hate to lose!  From the time I was a kid, until this very day, nothing bothers me more than losing.  One time when I was just a kid, I was playing catch out in the front yard with some friends, when my mom heard me say a cuss word.  She came running out the door and asked me why I said that particular word.  My response was very simple, “I missed the ball.”  Although I’ve cleaned up my language from my days as a filthy mouthed 6 year old, I still hate losing.  In my head, losing has always equaled failure.

As a church planter, I operate in a world in which failure happens at a pretty high clip.  While I’m never going to be ok with the idea of failing, I’ve come to grips with what I think is a very important truth, one that is currently helping me maintain my sanity.  That truth is this…God’s idea of success is different from mine.  And at the end of the day, I’d rather be successful in His eyes more than anyone else’s, including my own. 

Most of us operate from a worldly perspective of success.  It doesn’t matter if you’re in the marketplace or the church, we are all guilty of using what I believe are incomplete metrics for measuring success, these metrics are not all together wrong, they’re just incomplete.  I’d like to see more of us, including myself, add an additional and I believe more important metric to the equation…obedience. 

Solomon’s Porch may never become the church I dreamed it could be, but if this adventure comes to an untimely end, this one thing I will always know…I was obedient to the call.  While I spend many nights praying/stressing over numbers, finances, and the success of our outreaches, God asks one thing of me…be obedient.  You’ve got to admit, using the world’s standards, the cross looked like a huge failure.  The Son of God was dead.  But little did they know, Jesus’ act of obedience was about to change the world. 

As I’ve chewed on these thoughts the last few days, I’ve come to this conclusion.  It is impossible to fail, if we’re obedient to the Lord.  This doesn’t guarantee Solomon’s Porch will flourish.  It doesn’t mean you’ll get every promotion.  It simply means, when you walk in obedience, in God’s eyes, you’re already successful.  Our obedience to God means that no matter what, we always win!