Move it move it

Goodbye cake from the neighborhood

Saying goodbye is just so hard to do

Goodbyes are hard. There is just no other way to put it.

I have one more week serving on staff at Monte Vista Chapel, and the realization hit me this afternoon that sooner or later I am going to have to pack up my office. I resist it. In packing it, a part of me, and my time here disappears. I can already hear the “vultures” (and I mean that in the kindest way possible :)) circling outside my door. “Who gets his desk?” “Do you think I could have your computer?” All of these are good and appropriate questions, but with them I feel the sand in the hourglass trickle out its last grains.

I have been thinking about packing up the office, but when it is a packed up, there is nothing physical left that says, “I was here”. I suppose this is a good and even kingdom oriented process.

Jesus said that our works would one day go through a fire. When they do we will find out what was straw, hay, and stubble. We will also find out what was gold and only needed purifying.

I’m sifting through the straw, hay and stubble. I’m taking the gold with me (with all due respect to the vultures in the hall). The gold I will always carry as a result of my time here is a sense of emotional maturing, an unflinchingly honest and curious faith, and a deeper and brighter commitment to bringing the kingdom light more brightly into my own heart and the world around me. I’m sure these things still need purifying in me, but I am taking them with me. They are a gift given by my Abba through the hands, hearts, listening ears and spoken words of my friends at Monte Vista Chapel.

Preaching Surprises

Today marked my last time preaching as a staff member at Monte Vista Chapel.  I wasn’t sure how I would feel when this day arrived.  I decided to walk into the day without expectations.  It held a few surprises.

1. After the service Lorna and I stationed ourselves in the courtyard to speak with people on their way out of church.  People stopped by and said the kindest things to us.  It made us feel well loved cared for and appreciated.  One person who stopped by commented that while I was speaking about the apostle Peter this morning, the story was really my own.  And that leads to the next surprise.

2. Pride and shame can hold us prisoner, but hope can set us free.  This was the central teaching this morning taken from John 21:1-19.  Here the apostle Peter is restored to ministry.  What was true for Peter was true for me.  When I invited Jesus into my deepest wounds, it was a painful process.  However, Jesus met me there without any sense of judgment or condemnation, instead he offered love, forgiveness and a new commission.  For Peter this meant no more lone ranger antics (like cutting off the ear of the priest’s assistant).  For me, it meant diving headlong into God’s movement of justice and mercy around the world.  In the end, Peter was a changed man.  He no longer retorted to “redemptive violence” but admonished his flock to honor everyone (1 Peter 2:17).  Side note:  I sure wish there was a lot more honoring of everyone going on by Christians today instead of thinly veiled political rhetoric.  I too have been changed by receiving a new commission.  For me it is going to mean leaving the “safe” and comfortable confines of a life I built in Turlock (and a church that I love fiercely and dearly…  shout out to Monte Vista Chapel) for a new chapter of urban and global ministry alongside North Avenue Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, Georgia.

3. We have good friends here in Turlock.  I am realizing as our days end just how much I am going to miss them.  There is an unforced rhythm of life that I feel walking alongside them.  That is (and has been) a tremendous gift.  We are praying that God will provide friendships in Atlanta that are as rich, robust and real as those we have experienced here.

4. My final surprise is this.  I would not change a thing.  I would not change one moment of how things happened here in Turlock.  Sure there are some boneheaded mistakes I made in ministry I would like to call a mulligan on, but if I did that, in some way I wouldn’t be who I am today, walking the road I’m walking.  So, I have learned from the mistakes, and promise to not make another community of the confessing live through the same ones (I’ll make completely fresh and new mistakes in my ministry in Atlanta :).

Tonight, some friends are gathering to tell us goodbye and to thank us for our ministry at MVC.  But as I see it, tonight our friends are gathering so Lorna and I can tell them thank you for being the hands and feet of Jesus to us.

The queen of bubble wrap

Jaida the moving gypsy

Tucker House

As of August 15th this is the house we will be calling home. We are grateful for God’s provision.

Central Valley to the ATL

May 8. It all started about 2.5 months ago.  I had put a resume in for a job that combined two of my growing passions, urban and global missions.  One day, I got an email saying we would like to talk with you.  So, we talked.  The first conversation happened by phone and then by Skype.  Finally, the church, (North Avenue Presbyterian Church) and Lorna and I felt like a face-to-face visit would be in order.

May 30.  This was the date we flew to Atlanta to meet the team at NAPC and see what God may have in store.  Four packed days of meeting great people, being exposed to missional ministries, and talking about ministry philosophy flew by.  We left feeling excited, scared and prayerful.

June 15.  We had many conversations with God, mentors, close friends and the leadership at our home church Monte Vista Chapel.  All of these conversations confirmed what we were feeling in our hearts, a change was coming.

June 17.  On Fathers Day, I had the opportunity to share with my home church the journey that God had been orchestrating.  This was a tough day.  I love Monte Vista Chapel.  I started working here at the age of 26.  I was still wet behind the ears and the people and leadership here gave me the space and grace necessary to grow into the person I am today.  This church has been here for me in the middle of a dark night as I struggled through healing from childhood wounds.  It was hard to know that goodbyes would be coming.

June 18.  I signed a contract to become the director of mission and community outreach at NAPC.

July 13.  We made another trip to Atlanta.  This time we were on a mission to find a house.  God provided in a huge way.  We spent four hours house hunting and found the house.  It had not even been listed until that morning.  What a blessing.

July 16.  We fly back to Turlock, and while we are switching planes in Las Vegas, we find out that our application for the house in Atlanta (more specifically a suburb named Tucker) was accepted.  Not one minute later, I got a text from potential renters for our house in Turlock saying they felt ready to commit to a lease on our home.

July 23.  The packing begins.  We are busily sorting, packing, giving things away and deciding what really needs to be moved across the country.  We hope that you will join us as we continue to chronicle the adventures (and misadventures) of our cross-country move.

Matt/Lorna/Jaida & Brooklin

Life without wallet and keys

I returned to the good ole USA on Monday afternoon.  Besides trying to readjust my body clock and sleeping patterns, I have been reflecting on the time I spent in Kenya.  I woke up Tuesday morning and put my keys in my right front pocket and my wallet in my back pocket.  It hit me as I headed out the door that I had just lived for two weeks without a need for wallet or keys.  Sure, I did have need of cash in Kenya, but it all sat nicely with my passport in a money belt.  That passport felt like a ticket to freedom from control.  The keys and wallet feel like the resumption of daily responsibilities, bills, commutes, meetings, car payments, and spending money on excess things.

Funny thing that I left behind my safety, security and control to go to Kenya but being there I felt anything but out of control.  I felt a sense of the calmness that can only come from the surrender of the mundane everyday things that I so often cling to in order to maintain my illusion of control.  Things like my wallet and keys.  So here is to the choices in life that serve as passports to free our souls from the smallness of money and things, and here is to the Spirit of God who longs to give us freedom from the small things so we can grasp the things that make us truly alive.

Finished playground