Life Change Happens Best…

Doing life together is the mantra. It’s one that you hear in most churches like the ones that we’ve attended over the past decade. I know what it means. I know that it works. But it’s incredibly tough to get everyone to buy into it.

When Jo and I moved to Wilmington in 2005 we knew that we wanted to get into a small group as soon as possible. It had been vital to both of our walks in college and we knew that it was quickest and most effective way to plug in and make friends. Most of our friends from college were gone by this point, so it was effectually as if we’d never lived there and were starting over.

We had both been in groups through Intervarsity and had both been leaders. The groups then were usually really social with some decent bible study, but generally never too intense. We didn’t really dig too deep with what was going on in the lives of everyone. Besides, we were all going through essentially the same things; studying a lot, going home on the weekends, and trying to stay out of trouble on the weekends when we didn’t go home.

Those were the single days.

We had gone to a Life Group through The Cove our first year of marriage and it was somewhat like what we’d experienced before, but it seemed more sectioned off, mainly by marriages, or by people who’d known one another previously. People had their own lives. They had things they were hiding and trying to get through without sharing. The conversations were surface and ran off on tangents about things that had nothing to with the study, but never really about life and marriage. It was fluffy.

Our first meeting in Wilmington was at a small house down 23^rd Street. We knew no one. The first meeting was, and still is, nerve-wracking. When we first walked in a loud guy came up to me and said, “WHOA!! Goldberg!!” And since I never really get to know anyone on a first meeting because I’m too busy analyzing everything and everyone, I steered clear of this one. People were really friendly. The leader automatically wanted to know if I could get him onto the golf course where I was working. His wife was warm and inviting. They were in their forties and had four kids, 3 of which were in high school. He was a Christian counselor and it was obvious from the outset that this wasn’t their first go at leading a group. Some of the couples, on the other hand, were obviously new Christians and this was definitely their first group. There was no precedent for them on how this whole thing went.

I’ll skip some of the details, but Jo and I were slightly in shock after only a couple of meetings. This was different. It was raw. People shared freely. Of course, the more we knew one another and built trust, the more open it got. People were blunt. There were arguments, occasional tears and couples on the verge of splitting, all within the first year.

Some random topics that came up over two years: an admission of pretty fierce racism, fights over bathroom space, pornography addictions, financial problems galore, not feeling in love anymore, a pawned wedding ring to pay the bills, faltering business plans and Jesus. Almost every week brought some level of intensity. If there were no marriage issues, someone would bring up politics. People just weren’t afraid to lay it out.

Don’t think that it was all drama. There were couples that seemed like they really had their stuff together and seemed to never fight. Two of those couples were newly married, so we were dismissive and waiting on them to blow up, but from what I know of them now they still seem the same, even keel. In the midst of it all were Kim and Troy, our leaders, who constantly prayed for all of us and gave each of us more godly advice than we could have ever asked for. Troy gave me more than I asked for, but all of what I needed.

Looking back I feel like I was the most stubborn of everyone.

In the midst of the intensity were times that we hung out outside of bible study time, either for lunch after church, for paintball, dinner on Friday nights, coffee with a couple of guys on Wednesday mornings, and steaming oysters and beef once it got cold. Those times were good, and were the times when Jo was able to connect best with the girls.

I connected with the guys in varying degrees. I worked for a while with one of the guys, so my relationship with him was a little different. Per the usual with me, the more I know someone the more off color I am, which allowed us to connect more.

As an aside, I’ve gotten myself into trouble with that with some guys. It’s taken a little age and experience to understand that for some guys that’s off-putting. Not every man is quite as rough around the edges as the dudes I’m really tight with.

But that’s for another day…

We knew tons about one another, even if there were things I personally was holding back. We shared life with one another. I struggled in front of some guys. Some of the guys shared their struggles with me. Some of the women helped carry the burden with Jo as our marriage began to crumble.

Fast forward to right now. We struggle to find something that’s relatively comparable. We had a group kind of like that for a year or so. Jo and I were the catalysts for opening up, and eventually some of them started to make themselves vulnerable as well. But it dissolved after several sets of unfortunate circumstances.

So the search goes on.

We still love those people in Wilmington, even after the group slowly pulled apart and ended 5 years ago. I know there’s another group somewhere that’s capable of making itself available to the great things God can do. I know there are people needing community as badly as us.

Paranoia

Fear of Vikings builds castles – Charles Manson

Charles Manson was maniacal and destined for a hole in the federal penitentiary. Instilling fear was his specialty. So, on this one occasion, his opinion was expert.

The threat of danger is extremely powerful, and often more powerful than the danger itself. Fear stifles. It can bring us to a grinding halt.

One of its more frequent manifestations in my life comes in the way of paranoia. I’ve always been prone to it. I project myself as a tough, burly guy, and yet I’m often peering around corners in life to make sure no one is out to get me. Checking up on people’s motives. What are their intentions in wanting me to do that? Why did they say that? Was that status update directed towards me? Was that tweet because of something I said or did a few weeks ago?

And I grind to a standstill. I stop trusting people. I recoil. I draw back. I need to understand what just happened before I can start moving forward again.

It’s a terrible thing to feel like you’ve been talked about, to be with two people and realize there may have been a previous conversation that you were not present for, but definitely a part of.

When those guys were making fun of people not playing guitar well, were they referring to me? When it was alluded to that people need to go back and listen to themselves online to check for vocal mistakes, was that aimed at me even though they were acting like they were talking about someone else? If so-and-so will talk to me about someone else when they’re not around, will they do the same to me when I’m not around?

And my thoughts begin to scramble like rats in a maze, looking for a way out, and often never finding it.

It’s a constant tension that we run into. We push through it silently. It’s weakness.

People talk about being real all of the time. They constantly talked about it at our old church. The reality is that people want to hear about your weakness after the fact, and how you came through it. Most don’t know what to do when you open up with them in the midst of your struggle.

Do people think we aren’t good parents cause our kid screams? What do people say about where we live? What do people think about what I do for a living? How many people think I need to lose more weight? When I say that I lost 40 lbs. do they pat me on the back like a 4 year-old that just learned to tie his shoes? You know that’s what you should’ve been doing all along, right?!

Some may ask themselves: Am I cool enough? If I don’t dress a certain way will I be excluded from a certain circle? If I don’t know much about a certain subject will I seem like someone who goes through life with their head in the sand? Am I technologically savvy enough? Do I have good taste? Do people look down on where I vacation? Do people resent me for driving a nice car, for having a nice house? Do my co-workers think I’m incompetent? Does my spouse think I’m selfish? Do my friends think I’m not spontaneous because I like structure?

It’s easy to see how this quickly bleeds into insecurity, on multiple levels. It begins to make us ask questions about every tiny thing we do. We start to use the opinions of our peers, and sometimes people that don’t matter at all, as the filter by which we make our decisions. It begins to rule the way we live our lives. It can strangle us. It can cause us to nothing. It can cause us to attempt to do everything. It can cause us to push away the people that we love. It can cause us to seek the approval of people who hold no weight in our lives.

It can cause us to build castles.

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. – 2 Corinthians 10:3-5

Anyone who’s ever been to our old church, Port City Community, knows these verses, especially the phrase on taking every thought captive. We have to begin to grab hold of these thoughts that run amuck like rats in an abandoned house. They pollute. They make our mind an unliveable place. They take over. Christ calls us to make many things obedient; our tongues, attitudes, bodies and on this occasion, our thought-life. We can’t be ruled by things that may, or may not, be real. We can’t allow ourselves to limp through life because we’re carrying around our conjured perceptions of what people think.

We are a free people. We are to live in unity, which begins with freeing myself to trust that people are honest with in what they say, and let it go.

Let it go.

Cliques, Community and Confusion

I’ve been involved in small groups for a little over 16 years. When I first started attending my first guys group, in The Glen across from campus, it didn’t take me long to recognize that there was a group of guys that all knew one another and then there were the rest of us. They knew each other well! I really knew no one so I knew I’d have to find someone soon to even attempt to stick it out. I gravitated towards a couple of guys at first. But the longer I attended I felt like there were a couple of guys in the group with which I might have some things in common. It was all but impossible!

These guys already had their circle that had been formed over a couple of years. They had all been in Intervarsity since freshman year, had attended multiple small groups, been on various retreats and had grown to understand each other at a deeper level. I knew that these types of relationships had to form over time and never happened automatically, but it seemed that I wasn’t even getting a shot. I could tell when they talked to me it was totally surface and like they were doing ministry by us having any conversation.

I eventually broke through with those guys mainly by one of them graduating, moving back home and the rest of them asking me to move in to the house they were going to rent out. I learned much about them and they learned much about me. But I never really figured out why it had to take me moving in for us to become friends.

Jump forward a little over a decade and I found myself running into something very similar. There was a crew of people that Jo and I went to church in Wilmington with that I could definitely see us hanging out with. And try as we might, it just never happened. As I’ve intimated before, I was in a spiritual desert at this point in my life, so no one was ever going to really want to be around that. I completely understand. There are few who are going to man up to me and let me know that it’s time to have some integrity. So, why would you want to subject yourself to something you’re never going to have the strength to help change? I get it.

But I wanted it. I wanted to be a part. I saw so many things we all had in common. I knew if they could only hang out with us a handful of times they’d see how sweet and fun Jo was and how dry and witty I could be, if not extremely observant.

It was not to be. So per my normal reaction, I detested them. I lashed out whenever an opportunity presented itself. I was even friends with one of the girls in college, but found myself completely pushing her away and making myself socially distant and unavailable when we were around one another. I really was the worst! A complete tool.

I hated that they were all in community with one another. It was a clique and I hate cliques.

But do I? Do I really hate groups of people that have much in common and are extremely tight with one another? Groups that do life with one another and know one another’s struggles? Groups that share in one another’s joys and triumphs?

No. I only hate when it excludes me. And that’s the crux of it. I hate to be left out. I hate feeling like I didn’t do enough, wasn’t cool enough, witty enough, talented enough or whatever it is I try to do or be. It’s completely narcissistic. It’s totally self-serving.

Since then I’ve really struggled with the line between being in community, a real authentic community, and offering yourself in a group of people you don’t know at all, where all of your relationships involve surface level conversations and feel like ministry. I think both are good and possibly necessary. But we only have so much time in a week! What do we do then? I’m not sure.

Community is good though. Even if it doesn’t involve me.

To be stewed over a little longer…

Recall

I’m in Wilmington today and, per the usual, I drove around to see different little places that were rather important or only vaguely important in the history of me. I’m sure it seems like I’m overly nostalgic for this place. That’s because I am. Many of my best memories in life thus far were created here.

Obviously I’ve created many since then, most of them involving my wife, but the majority of the great memories created in Wilmington were during my single days.

Now before you start a long tirade of how my best days should have been after my wedding, I have to say that we had a couple of years in there that were some of my worst ever. To be fair, they were some of Jo’s worst as well. We were only here for three and half years as a married couple. Two were ball-busters and the other year and half was foreboding.

What can I tell you?! Marriage is tough sometimes. If your heart and mind aren’t straight, most of the time.

But this is all a tangent. The real point of this began with me driving past the Port City Java on Independence Drive today. I saw a guy standing outside, we nodded at one another. I don’t know that he recognized me since I’m overweight and had on glasses, but I knew him all too well.

I spent tons of time at this joint after Jo and I moved back, but I had first started frequenting this particular location while I lived with Adam & Travis in ’02. It was the “other office” for tons of staff and attenders at PC3.

I had been attending PC3 for about two and a half years when I started meeting with one of the Executive Pastors at the church, Mark Tippett. Mark was one of the most godly guys I’ve ever come across. Unlike many, he was also a regular guy. He didn’t always fit into the regular pastor type of mold. He was a good dude. He took non-believers fishing on his boat for the day…..just to hang out. I was in a small group of guys that he lead. He started discipling me soon after I joined.

I had been in a discipleship relationship once before. The previous time with was with a guy named Reid Satterfield. It was good during round 1, but round 2 was extremely short-lived. I made the excuse that I couldn’t deal with him being so depressed. I mean, sure he’d been shot in the leg by Kenyan rebel thugs or something. But you’re back in the U.S.! Cheer up, dude!!

Admittedly, not my finest hour.

So, Mark was my second shot at discipleship. It was really good. He helped me with some pretty big dealings in my life. He walked with me through my decisions on what to do about school. What to do about JoAnn. But I never let him in on my true desire to be in ministry. I never let him in on my ongoing struggle with pornography. Not once.

I was finding life difficult by autumn of ’02. JoAnn had moved back to Creedmoor, living with her parents and working at a Credit Union branch in North Raleigh. Matt Vana was still in Wilmington, but he was married by then, and for one of the first times ever I felt dreadfullly alone. I was failing nearly every class I was enrolled in at UNCW. I was no longer in Intervarsity. My hopes of going on staff with Intervarsity were now a fleeting memory as I saw my time at UNCW coming to a grinding halt. I had pissed away tons of money that my parents had poured into my education. Continuing to try to bring up my GPA, with the massive amount of pointless hours I’d accumulated, was no longer feasible. I had no clue what to do. I just knew that I didn’t want to go home, tail tucked between my legs.

It was around this time that Mark started talking to me about becoming one of PC3′s small group coaches. I would be one of a handful. I said I thought I could possibly do that.

But the pressures of life that I had swirling around me were overwhelming to say the least. It was the end of the semester. I had stopped going to my classes. I had stopped sleeping for that matter. I drove to Raleigh on the weekends, I worked 3rd shift at the Fairfield Inn on the other weekends. I had seen countless friends leave town. They had plans. Jobs. They had places to be. This was just part of it all. Finish school and head in a particular direction.

There was nothing else to be done. It was my turn.

I went to see my sister in California, returned to Wilmington and packed my stuff. I told Mark that I was sorry I wouldn’t be able to help with the small group coaching thing, but I essentially had no job and no real reason for being in Wilmington anymore. He asked me to try to find some means of work and reconsider. I told him I didn’t see how that was possible.

It wasn’t long after I moved back to Davidson my last roommate Evan was brought on staff, and shortly after that a guy named Richie started coaching small group leaders and was in short order put on staff as well.

My heart thudded to the ground when I heard. My only thought was, “that was supposed to be me.” Of course, that’s not totally true. The Lord obviously brought Richie into where he needed him. If he had wanted me there, he would have put me there regardless of my tweaked state of mind and whacked circumstances.

But that’s me talking now. If you think for one second that wasn’t a major player in why I went through about 6 years of rebellion, you are gravely mistaken. Between that seeming missed opportunity, the idea that I was back doing what I’d done before I went to school, that I had accomplished nothing, that I had lost 50% of my friends in my break-up with Carmen, that all of my good times in Intervarsity were like a mist, and that I had left behind my favorite church ever, I was destroyed. And it wasn’t my fault. No no!! It was God’s fault. A loving God wouldn’t have allowed me to lose so much in such a relatively short amount of time.

My left arm just twitched in 3 places typing that. I know what’s true. I know the sin in my life was a massive barrier between me and the Lord. I was fooling everyone but Him.

Things are different now. But seeing Mark Tippett today made me wonder all over again…….’Lord, what is it that you want from me? Is this all that you had planned?’

….Never Crossed My Mind

An old warrior from my childhood passed away on Tuesday morning. A tough old bird that was always smiling and joking, but could break another man with little effort. One of those guys.

I didn’t want to go to the viewing last night, but knew I needed to go to the graveside to pay my respects. So, I pulled one of my two suits out of the plastic cover from the cleaners and donned my best to pay reverence to an old guy that was more man than I’ll ever dream of being.

I pulled around back at my old church to see if they were out of the service yet. They weren’t. So, I walked in to check and see how far in they were. The funerals at my old church drag out longer than the weddings. I saw that the old pastor was speaking and knew the new pastor would speak last. A while to go. So I slipped in and stood in the back though there was plenty of seating. I don’t like getting comfortable at these things. I looked around the sanctuary at the people in attendance. There were fewer than I had expected. It made wonder how a guy that cool and personable wouldn’t fill a church of that size. There were a hundred or so, still yet. These were all the people I had gone to church with up until I was 20. They were older. They were fewer.

I looked through the crowd and saw people there that I would have expected to have done this long before this guy. It just never crossed my mind. Not that you think that people will be around forever. More that you only allow your mind to grasp the idea of a few dying at a time. You subconsciously categorize the few that will be next. When one jumps in too soon it knocks you back a little.

At the graveside I tried to take it all in. I hadn’t been down there in nearly two years. Since my Grandma passed. Guys my age starting to gray in their beards. Gray in my own. The solemn and almost spooky sound of a single voice singing a hymn. Surrounding us were the graves of people I had known from my youth. It seemed like there were more headstones than people in the service. If not, they were gaining ground quickly.

Stones with one in the ground and the name of the other already ominously carved in. The guy standing beside me now. A reminder.

That’ll be my old man one day. That’ll be my mom. That’ll be me.

Maybe I have a ton left to write in my story. Maybe not. Either way, I want it to be good.

24 + 10

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my age and where I am mentally, spiritually and also how my personality changed. So I decided to compare myself to a younger brand of me. Of course, 18-year old Keith came to mind first, but everyone’s an idiot at 18.

So, I thought about me a decade ago. I was already on my own and exposed to the world, or at least moreso than Davidson had previously offered. I had been in school for 2 & 1/2 years and was living beside of campus in the Quad. I had just as little figured out then as I do now about a career, so I won’t delve into that. I’ll just stick to the basics here for time’s sake.

Mentally, I challenge myself far more than I did then. And yet, I know for a fact that my mind is not as sharp! Not in a major way though, like I can’t remember anything or I’m slow-cousin Jimmy with my humor. But things are slightly foggier at times. Things I wasn’t good at when I was a kid are ever so slightly worse now. I can’t find things. Jo says I don’t look hard enough, but it’s been a chink my armor since I was 5.

Segway from mental to spiritual, I don’t talk theology like I once did. I used to love talking about spiritual and theological issues for hours on end. I’ve sat up all night a few times talking to friends about things like the sovereignty of God and free-will versus election. I loved it! It made me feel more spiritual when I made points that others said were really good.

I let all that go during what I’ll call “the struggles”. I saw how I was so good at talking, yet not doing. I saw it for a long time and, ironically, did nothing about it. When I finally did, it was because I was forced to own up.

In many ways I’m finally back to where I was back then. Playing worship, finding joy in serving and walking that fine line between modesty, humility & knowing I’m finally doing what God wanted me to the whole time.

The main progression for me spiritually over the past ten years can be summarized by a phrase that Mike Ashcraft often uses. “Lord, humble me by your presence, so you don’t have to by my circumstances”. I was a fool when I was younger. Always thinking I could get away with everything. I was in no way humbled then and my circumstances were continually bringing me back to earth with a loud thump! A few good, hard thumps and you become much more aware of where your focus really is.

This is where my biggest struggle comes: my personality. When I was younger I was much more social. I made friends right and left. I never wanted to miss anything. I kept up with all of my friends. I cared about where they were and what they were doing. I was not reflective of my actions and words. I left a wake of hurt and didn’t care what people’s perception of me was, although I truly did. I wanted to be known as a tough dude! Came from years of being compared to all of my roughneck cousins. I womanized. Came from my need to feel more like a man. I didn’t want people to know what I was doing, but I quietly did. I wanted them to know what was up! I wanted to prove to them and myself that I was worthwhile. I was a real man.

Nowadays, I like socializing, but I can be completely alone just as easily. I find myself not caring quite as much about how much of a man I am. I just want to leave this world not being pigeon-holed. I want to be seen as a whole picture, not a single color. Not a one-trick pony. Not just “he drove a truck” or “he played guitar”. That I’m compassionate. I love art. I can be serious. I can be appropriate when it’s time. I can be discerning. I can make you laugh. I can laugh at or with you. I rarely laugh at the easy joke. Even though I put far too much attention on women until I found Jo, my passion was and is in the hearts of men. I can be comfortable in almost any situation, except maybe around lesbians. Sorry, if any lesbians are reading this I’m ok if I know you. Few things can be talked about that I can’t keep up with. I love my friends fiercely! I love music only second to Jesus and Jo. Jo may argue that when we get in the car to go somewhere. I love sports almost as much. I can talk about the Cowboys and Steelers in the 70s or the demise of Leeds and Newcastle United.

My personality then was driven by contempt and complacency. It’s driven now by a thirst for knowledge and the desire to be more complex and diverse than I once was.

If you’re still reading, sorry this got really long-winded!

Character 333

I became “Character 333″ today. We didn’t have a load today so I ended up at Starbucks in Birkdale. I sat and finished up my study for small group, screwed around on Facebook, cut the people I follow on Twitter by half and listened to my iPod.

Boring, but relaxing.

I eventually turned off the iPod and listened to conversations around me while I read backlogged articles on my Instapaper. There’s a group of guys that hang out here a lot and do schoolwork and graphic design. One of the guys I hadn’t seen before. I could tell the guy was a little older and was one of those guys that is a natural salesman. He started asking me about phones and if I knew anything about Blackberrys. I told him I knew very little. It was dropped there. A few minutes later though the guy introduced himself. He told me that he had started something nearly a year ago where he was going to meet one new person every day for 365 consecutive days. I was “Character 333″. He had a 3-question interview where he asked where you were from, why you moved to NC and, lastly, what you loved most about Birkdale.

Now, the guy is obviously a marketing genius! He found a meeting he had to get to before he could finish and got my email to send me the “questionnaire”. Smooth.

Either way I found it intriguing. Meeting someone new every day. Could I do that?? At one point in college I felt like I was almost doing that in IV. It was tough to do, yet I look back on those times with fondness. Of course that time in life had much more to with other things than just meeting people. Having a massive amount of acquaintances really helped.

We get into our mode though. We do the things we do every day. Over and over and over. We decide who will be our people and who will not. We don’t invite people in. If people get in it’s because they almost have to force their way in.

Obviously, for this guy connections equals money. And though I’m not deluded enough to think that connections equals fulfillment for us, I do think that it could be an integral part of the equation. A part of the equation that we often replace with Facebook, Twitter and web articles.