A Surprising Way to Start a Fire
The Unexpected Origins of Abiding Practice
Play with Fire and You’re Gonna Get Burned
It was 2 in the morning, I was folding sweat towels that I had just washed during my graveyard shift at a big-box gym; I was happier than I had been in years. A few months ago in early 2013, I was the youth pastor at a thriving church-plant. Even though I was the youngest member on the leadership team, I was told by the senior pastor that his kingdom could be mine if I played my cards right. I just had to keep my head down, stay in my lane, and keep drinking the Welches grape juice (we weren’t allowed to drink real wine for communion). The only problem was that my faith-based job was killing my faith.
The joy of ministry had been drained out of my spiritual veins. I felt like a hypocrite, telling people that Jesus offered life, when inside I wanted to end mine. I thought about suicide daily, imaging the ways that I could exit my life with the least damage done to the people who cared about me. I would get home after work somedays and stare at the carpet for actual hours. Being sucked into a vortex of depression and spiritual warfare this intense seemed impossible for someone like me, someone who was always following the rules and doing the right thing. Yet here I was. I hit a breaking point in early 2013 and decided that I would rather end my career as the “up and coming pastor” instead of ending it all.
I remember the first time I went to a doctor’s visit after quitting and was filling out the patient intake form. Under the section “occupation” I went to write the word “pastor” down as my current employment status, but realized that was no longer true. Something in my identity structure cracked. Who was I without that title? Just a depressed 23 year old working the overnight shift at a gym to hide the shame of quitting the only thing he ever felt good at and was praised for? Yes, this was my new identity, but I soon learned that this was the place where my True identity would emerge.
Seeds of Deconstruction
As I settled into my new rhythm as a nocturnal creature, clocking into work at 10pm and clocking out at 6:30am the next morning, I found that my soul finally had the space it needed to wrestle with the spiritual midnight I had been in for years. Getting into ministry in 2008, my earliest dreams were filled with images of living like St. Francis of Assisi, my highest ambition was to live out of my Toyota mini-van and tell people about Jesus. I would read stories of monks like Brother Lawrence who dedicated their life to the practice of abiding in God’s Presence and I was sold. Sometimes our early passions needs to go through the fires of monotony before they can be returned to us though.
After this “honeymoon” season of walking with God, I was approached by a family friend who had also been influenced by St. Francis and spent the last 25 years in French missionary work as a result. When he told me that the best next step to continue following Christ meant going to Bible College, I couldn’t think of a reason not to go. Well, Bible College led to my wife and I getting married (a true Grace) which also meant that the full-fledged monk life wasn’t in the cards for me. Bible College then quickly led to being hired as a youth pastor, which quickly led to the erosion of my faith.
It was not the job itself that hollowed out my joy in Jesus, although the fact that the church was run more like a business and less like the family of God didn’t help. The real issue was: I was good at being a professional Christian. I was affirmed for my skills as a teacher, my nice guy attitude, and the fact that I walked a straight moral line. I agreed to the no drinking, no smoking, and no sexing outside of marriage codes and created a thriving youth ministry, but I was gaming the system. I realized that I was able to get chairs filled and volunteers encouraged whether or not I was abiding with God. The church of God’s Spirit seemed to be growing outwardly, but I felt the Presence of God’s Spirit slipping out from the inside.
The Dissonance Grew too Wide
Where did that pure faith go? Where was the guy who fell in love with Jesus and wanted to sell everything to follow Him? I had allowed my service of God to eviscerate my seeking of God. I was climbing the religious ladder, grabbing the rungs of strategy and performance, but where was this ladder leading? I stopped trying to emulate leaders like St. Francis and started to emulate leaders like Steve Jobs. I wanted to do the best job I could for God, but that ironically meant that I was making no time for God. I was all show and no substance.
Telling my boss that I had to step down without a clear reason added salt to the wounds. I didn’t have the language at the time to describe depression, spiritual desolation, or the dark knight of the soul, so I just said I had to stop. I said I was burnt out and tired and that I needed to make more money to support my wife and I. He said that they could pay me more, but I said that it was too late for me. I needed deep spiritual healing and I didn’t know where to get it. So I quit.
Strength Training for the Soul
I took the fastest and closest job I could find at a 24-hour gym, manning the front desk through the witching hours of the night. I think something inside me knew that working an overnight shift would allow me to check-out from my life for a while. It also meant that I was able to study for uninterrupted hours each night as I prepared to get a few personal training certifications. The spiritual fires hadn’t gone away, but they at least seemed to be under a controlled burn.
I started seeing a therapist, picked up my exercise habits, read for pleasure instead of necessity, journaled thoughtfully, and walked slower. Dusting off my old copy of Brother Lawrence’s, The Practice of the Presence of God, I became reacquainted with a walk with Jesus that could be simple, immediate, and intimate. I started meditating for a few minutes at a time on a rug I dedicated to prayer. Those few minutes ballooned into a few hours and what started out as an attempt to calm my mind, soon became a contemplative experience that I craved daily. I attended Bible studies, prayer groups, and worship gatherings out of love, not duty. I learned the joy of the hidden life and sought to support others in their journey more than I sought the spotlight of Christian celebrity. In all of these things, God showed me that my truest identity was found as His beloved son, not as a business/ministry servant, and I started to practice abiding.
A Decade or So
The next 10 years of life came with sorrow and joy. Theological education, job promotions, job changes, ecstasies in marriage and stressors that pushed our union to the brink. I got to apprentice under several of my heroes and sadly watched a few of them go through tragic falls. When 2023 rolled around, it found me as a mix of spiritual maturity and spiritual discontent. This time was different though. I loved the church I was working at, had finished a master’s degree, and was beginning a doctorate in Spiritual Formation. The ministry I was serving in was growing healthily, but there was an itch. My identity as God’s beloved felt stable, but I sensed another lack of faith growing. Things had become too stable. Where was the risk of following Jesus in my life? I was losing my edge.
Out of curiosity one night, I decided to search Youtube for ways to connect with Jesus. I wanted to see what the wisdom of the world had put before the eyes of the masses. There were great sermons and apologetic lectures that were world class, but there was a significant gap. The vast majority of the videos I found fit into one of two formats:
A recording of a church sermon
A “powerpoint type” presentation
There was nothing wrong with the messages, but there was something missing in the messaging. Where was the beauty? Where was the demonstration? I wanted to see how people connected with God, not learn about connecting with God. I wanted to see devotion, not learn more about what devotion is. I got a video camera and tried to make the thing I was hoping to see. It was rough, unprofessional, and unpolished, but it was honest. A spark was lit and I sensed Saint Francis, Brother Lawrence, and Jesus Christ inviting me on a new journey.
Showing the first draft to a couple friends, the spark grew and a team was slowly formed. We are a rag tag group of Jesus followers who long to abide in God together. We want to show people what walking with Jesus could look like and how the mystical and the mundane are travel companions on that walk. We want to let The Beauty of God speak for Itself. And we know we’re not the only ones. So, we started a fire.
Here’s the spark: