Tony Wheeler dot Net

One of the comments on my previous post talked about tying your identity to what you do to earn a living. I think that comment is spot on. Think about the last time you met someone new. Probably the first question that either of you asked had something to do with what you do to earn money. For many people, this might be okay. I think that I struggle greatly with this because no matter how I earn money, I’m so much more than that. I’m a Jesus Follower, husband, father, craftsman of sorts, amatuer coffee roaster, motorcycle enthusiast….and the list could go on.

I’ve been thinking about how I will answer the next time someone asks me what I do. Not sure yet, but I’m sure that it will be something good!

Where did the idea of putting people in little boxes come from? I’m not sure, but I do know that the entire story of human history is woven with stories of people identified by what they did for money. This past week I have been reading Chronicles and was confronted by all the lists of people who were ientified by their role. Everyone had a job to do and had their name and role recorded in the annals of time. Were they something else outside of that role? Sure. But to some extent their “job” defined their place in history.

I think that is the part that I struggle with. I want my place in history to count. Not that I want to be recorded for generations to come to read about, I just want my life to matter.

Your thoughts?

Having just spent the better part of last week around 2800 people who aim to return to their home turf and plant churches, I have a lot of stuff swimming around in my head that I’m dealing with.  Prior to last week, I’ve kind of been quiet.  I’d not listened to too many podcasts, read too many Christian type books, surfed many blogs or really thought about what God sent us here to do.  I think that was good for my soul.

Having met and spent some time with some people who are really kicking some serious tail, I’ve got a fire in my belly.  I’m not ready to lay it all out here just yet, but hold on to your britches.  I’m really not a hyped up kind of guy.  There are really few things that make me get really excited — the kind of excited where you jump up and down and get all silly.  God’s been planting seeds in me for a couple of years…those seeds are about to sprout and that makes me excited.
So, all that said, I was doing a little blog reading today and my blogging friend, Ben Arment, had a great post about the difference between a church planter’s first and second church plant.  Now I know that I have never been a lead guy in a church plant, but I’ve done various things at various levels in several plants over the years, so I can feel where Ben is coming from.  The huge thing that Ben talked about was a shift in priorities.  I especially think that in the coming years, the shift from any one ‘church’ or denomination or network to the Church of Jesus Christ will be HUGE.  With declining numbers of people in pews, the economy tightening people’s budgets, and disinterest in organized religion, we are going to have to band together.  Things will have to change.  I’m not saying that God won’t still build his kingdom — that really is ultimately his job, he just invites us along for the ride– but we are commanded to go into all the earth and make disciples, so we should probably be doing that. You should head on over to Ben’s blog and check out what he has to say.  He is a great blogger, marketer and Starbucks fanatic.  I think he and Scott Hodge have kept Starbucks afloat while Howard was away.

(You know, it is funny, now that I have to drive at least 10 miles to get to a Starbucks, I want it daily.  I could drink an Venti-sugar-free-hazlenut-skinny-iced-latte pretty much any time of the day.  I’d much rather have something from a local joint, but alas House Blend is like 25 miles away.  Love you guys, but can’t make that trek for a latte! Wow, I’ll end the parenthetical sidebar now.)

Just was reading a blog by Pete Wilson, aka Without Wax. BTW, I love that name. Sine(without) cera(wax). Sincerely.

Pete blogged about a lecture given by N.T. Wright and during the Q and A one person asked N.T. what his view of the importance of the church was. His answer came straight out of Ephesians 2:10, which says, “For we are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus, to do good works, which God has prepared in advance for us to do.” I really like how N.T. put it, “we are God’s artwork created to dispense God’s grace and love to a watching world.”

Thanks, Pete and Bishop Wright. We all need those words daily.

edit: Link to Pete’s site was something else.  I should probably proofread.

Since we have moved to Florida, pretty much every evening we take a walk around the neighborhood.  One of the things that has become a tradition is stopping by the 7-11 that is just down the street.  I’m a fan of Slurpees…Coca-Cola Slurpees.  It is almost as good as an ice cold Mexican Coca-Cola from a bottle in Tijuana.  Well, the other night we embarked on our nightly walk and while I was waiting outside for my wife, I noticed that there was a plane doing skywriting.  The first few words were already blurred, but I could already tell where this was heading.  I pointed it out to my wife. Her immediate reaction was that someone was proposing to someone else.  Always the optimist, I tell you!  I knew that it was some sort of Jesus Loves You, turn to Him sort of message.  You see, these things happen all the time around beaches and in Florida in general.  Keep in mind that we live about 9 miles away from the Happiest Place on Earth, so the population density is quite large.  As far as reaching a large number of people with the message of the Gospel, I guess that this is a great place to spread the message.  I’m just not sure that sky writing is the way to do it.  I’m sure that somewhere in the masses of people who were strolling through the Magic Kingdom or EPCOT that the message reached someone.

So, I’m curious to poll the audience here.   Would you consider this to be an effective method of sharing the Gospel.  Here is my take:  The sky writing vanishes after about a minute.  After an admittedly quick search of Google, I found a site that gives some pricing.  10 characters costs 1995.00 USD to start.  For my money and the money of any organization that I am a part of, that is not an effective use of resources. I’m not trying to bash those that did this skywriting, I’m just wondering out loud.  I’m sure that when the Wright Brothers first started flying, some itinerant preacher thought it would be a good idea to announce the tent meeting in skywriting.  Back then, it probably was.

What are your thoughts??

I’ve been mulling over a lot of things lately.  I have a ton of stuff going on in my head and heart that really is hard to get  together into one cohesive thought.  I finally came to realize tonight that the thing that I am struggling with most isn’t what the future looks like in terms of ministry, work or even our life.  I’m struggling with my own humanity.  I’m struggling to identify who I am a person and what exactly I’m here for.  Here is what I mean….

You see, for a long time I struggled with my vocation.  For me, this was evidently how I measured my own contribution to humanity.  I’ve tried on numerous occasions to connect the thing that feeds my family with the thing that feeds my soul.  I’m not sure why I struggle mightily to make those two worlds collide.  I can name countless folks in my life who have made a tremendous impact on humanity apart from their vocation, so I’m not sure where I picked up this idea.  The good news is that I think  I’ve come to terms with the dicotomy that exists between vocation and contribution.  (That is not to say that I’ve put it fully into practice, but I’ve come to an ideological understanding of the concept.)

I’ve said on numerous occasions that I have had many ideas about what I would like to be when I grow up.  Those of you closest to me know this to be true.  I’ve wanted to be everything from a medical doctor to a police officer to a teaching pastor and pretty much everything in between.  This makes perfect sense in the context of the quest for vocation and life mission.  I’m at the point where none of that really matters.  I’ve come to the realization that difference makers are difference makers in spite of that which puts food on their table. 

The people that make a difference in this world are simply humans fighting to make the world a better place.  The people who make a difference don’t do it because they get paid to do it, they do it because the can’t not do it.  I’ve been on a futile quest for far too long.  I’m on a quest to become human, making this world a better place just by being me.  I’m no longer searching to put a label on my life by what I do for a living.  I’m okay with that, I hope that you are as well.

I hope that you’ll join with me in the journey to becoming human in order to save the world.  Part of that journey is becoming “even more undignified than this” and  “join the barbarian tribe and to embrace our call as mystical warriors” (Erwin McManus in The Barbarian Way).

The last week of my life has been pretty crazy.  I spent a lot of time hanging out with a great bunch of people, listened to a bunch of great music, looked a ton of places to live and ate a lot of stuff that was bad for me. I also got the pleasure of getting some sort of sinus problem.  That is a lot of fun on an airplane.

One of the things that I did was to take part in Humana 2.08. Humana is a leadership experience like no other.  It is basically an open source missional experience.   One of the discussions that I was able to take part in was actually a decompression from a talk earlier in the day.  Simply an open dialogue with people of opposing viewpoints converging into a practical conversation about how we “do” church.  I’ve just now (literally) ordered the DVD for the entire conference and cannot wait to get my grubby hands on it so I can partake in the entire experience.  I was challenged more by the few minutes I spent with these fine folks than I have been in awhile. I can also say that this day alone was worth the price of my entire trip. 

One of the ideas that  I came away with was the idea of structure (and have subsequently been wrestling with).  I think that  a large part of our western culture struggles with ideas and organizational models.  I think that it makes us uncomfortable when we aren’t exactly able to place a name on something and put it inside a nice little box.  Take a look at the churches that we form.  We have nice little names for everything, complete with descriptions of each little thing.  (On a side note, I think that with an formal organization of any substance or size, these are needed, so no flaming) Truthfully, one of the things that I have become uncomfortable with is the entire idea that everything has to have a certain order and structure.  When I started my church planting journey, my pastor showed me all of the stuff that he had compiled and categorized and honestly it made me sick.  It made me sick that I thought I had to do that same thing.  I’m not saying that it was bad that he did those things by any means, but the thought of me doing those things just didn’t sit well with me.  Another thing that never sat well with me was the idea of a church planter assessment.  I couldn’t really explain it at the time, but it really got under my skin.  I’m beginning to realize that it had a lot to do with the whole thought of being stuck inside a certain box, for better or for worse.  (Now, I’m not against assessments, I’m just against them for me…at least for now)

So what does this all mean?  It means that I honestly feel freedom.  Freedom from the structures that I have built up in my mind.  Freedom from the models and modes of ministry that have been ingrained into me for the past ten years.  Freedom to embrace who I actually am both as a Christ follower and as a person on mission.  I’m energized by hanging out with people who are looking to the future and engaging the culture in which they live in ways that are actually relevant.  (I’m not saying that everyone else is irrelevant, so please don’t take  it that way)  I’m excited about what the future holds for my family as we begin this crazy journey to the end of the world.  I’ve got more questions than answers, but what I’ve come to embrace that as a good thing.  The secret isn’t thinking outside the box, it is knowing that there isn’t a box.

 So, what are we going to do in Orlando?  We are going to live the lives that God has for us to live.  We are going to fight to make the world a better place to live.  We are going to connect as many people as possible to each other and to their Creator.  It won’t look like what you think it should look like.  It could be a music festival, it could be a gathering of people for a barbeque in the backyard.  It probably won’t look anything like a church and that is okay too.

I’m not anti-Church as the west knows it, I’m just convinced that there are ways of engaging people that aren’t inside of a building or around some structure.  I’m not throwing out the baby with the bathwater.  There is a harmonious balance that we must find.  We are on the same mission.

For those of you who have been supporting us with your words of encouragement, prayers and guidance…we are thankful for you.  Please continue to do so. 

“What God wills, He makes happen, in spite of us.”  Nathan Griffis as posted on Lew Graff’s site.