perhaps

It's about 4:30 on Friday afternoon and I'm sitting in Sweetwater's Cafe in downtown Royal Oak. Eva is in town this weekend, and currently sitting across the table from me.

We've been here all afternoon. We came here to work, but have mostly talked - about God, the Church, and Amsterdam of course, accomplishing just enough work to assuage any guilt. :)

Yesterday a good friend of mine challenged my stubborness about working on-staff at a church. She had a lot of good things to say, though they were hard to hear. Scary, mostly. I was on-staff at my first church and it was rough. What started out as a good thing became drenched in politics and selfish ambitions. After I left, I vowed I'd never been part of the "inner circle" of church leadership again.

My friend pointed out that, even though I'm not currently working at a church, I'm still part of the inner circle. Most of my close friends are staff people. And not just at my church. The friend I was talking to is on-staff at a church in Cali. She pointed out that, though I say I want to stay away from leadership and keep my nose out of church business, most of my closest friends work at churches. And they don't just work there, they have significant leadership roles.

She's right. I find myself drawn to people in leadership. I like the way they think. I like the tendancy to look for solutions rather than dwell on problems. I like talking about the Church, strategizing and making decisions about vision and direction. I love seeing leaders developed, seeing followers of Christ properly discipled. I love spending time with people who's conversations naturally turn to things of God. And they seem to like being around me, too.

So, do I belong in that world? Do I need to let go of my stubborn determination to 'never do that again'? Eva just shared with me a passage from 1 Samuel, when Jonathan went to fight the Philistines. "Perhaps the Lord will work on our behalf", he said.
"So often", she said, "the Lord asks us to move based on a 'perhaps'."

Do I belong in a world to which I vowed I'd never return?
Perhaps.