Outliers

I just finished Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers.  The main idea behind this book is that
stories of breakthrough and success fall into two categories: People who had opportunities presented to them because they were in the right place at the right time, and those whose current choices and behaviors are affected by their cultural identity.

For a long time, I tried to keep up with a status quo that I imagined went a little something like this: 'the more you fall in love with Jesus, the more you become a youthleaderworshipbandmemberministryleadernurseryvolunteerinternsmallgroupleaderwholivesatchurch.' I am certain that this status quo doesn't actually exist, it just became, in my mind, a heavy and elusive standard that I kept trying to reach.  Over the past few years, I've tried and tried to figure out where I fit, what I'm supposed to be doing, and who I'm supposed to be doing it with.  My strategy was to do a bunch of different things and invest my a little bit of myself in all of them so that I could 'keep up' with everyone else around me.  At one time, I actually was a Student Ministry intern who played in the worship band, led high school outreach ministry, led a high school life group, organized social justice events, helped in the nursery on Sunday mornings, hung out with a bunch of people from Young Life and Pure Heart, and had a key role in the Urban Plunge, in addition to going to school and working.  Sound like a lot?  It was!

Even though I was involved in so many great things, I never really felt satisfied - My heart still ached for my generation, I wanted deep friendships, I longed to see the kind of revival that starts in the kitchen (more on that, later), and I wanted to connect my church with the college campus across the street from it.  I kept trying and doing, and showing up.  I actually found that the more I tried and did and showed up, the less I felt like I was a part of something that answered my heart cry, and the less I felt like my life had meaning and purpose.  From there, I entered into a season of searching my heart for clues as to what was next.

One of the first things that came up when examining my heart was my own attitude and tendency to compare myself with others.  God helped me see that this was holding me back from what He had called me to.  I started to realize that comparing myself to others made me more bitter and more jealous, and, I believe, held me back from seeing how God has uniquely wired me to reach my generation.  Finding freedom from this also taught me that I didn't need to sign up for every single thing in order to keep up with every single person.  Learning how to say 'no' and not feel like I'm missing out or unworthy is probably one of the most valuable life lessons I've ever learned.

What I soon realized is that I am an apostle/ evangelist (Ephesians 4 - 5 fold ministry) and that this makes me, well, different from a lot of people.  I began to pray to see breakthrough.  I wanted God to use me to my fullest potential.  I desperately wanted to serve others with everything I was, not just bits and pieces that fit a particular ministry.

Around May last year, I had an incredible opportunity presented to me: Work for Young Life College. I accepted.  Since then, I have sacrificed and stretched to make this happen.  My life involves dinner in the dorms, deep coffee times, crazy clubs where college students hear the Gospel, and divine appointments with students at ASU West.

Recognition of how I am uniquely wired and the opportunities presented to me have started my journey to become an outlier, a story of success.  I am uniquely wired for kingdom purposes and I am serving in my sweet spot with Young Life.  I wouldn't say my life reeks of success or breakthrough right now, but I am definitely getting closer.

One Year Down

It's hard to believe that I've been dating Taylor for a year.  I recently read through a journal from this time last year and found myself connecting with statements like 'This is so crazy weird' and 'I can't believe this happened' and 'Wow, he's even better than I thought.'  Pretty sure nothing's changed.  Since we've decided that we're in this for the long haul, one year is worth celebrating but, ultimately, not a very big deal.

I'd rather not bore you with every sappy detail of our dating life and the events that brought us together.  If you really want to know, take me out for coffee and I'll tell you.  If you don't, just thank me later.  All you really need to know is that we are living a love story, and it's a really, really good one.

What I would like to do in this post is reflect on the things that have worked for us, challenged us, and taught us a lot during this past year of dating:

1. Have a Love Story Apart From Each Other - Even before we started dating, or even knew each other, we each learned to fiercely pursue God.  God's love to both of us on a personal level provides a deep sense of identity and confidence.  We've also found that growing separately in our own private quiet times with God, and continued work on our own issues, makes everything we do share a whole lot more enjoyable.  We are committed to each growing deeper in relationship with Jesus and pointing the other person back to Him at every point.  Taylor's relationship with Jesus is more important to me than my relationship with Taylor, and vice versa.

It is also our love for God and desire to please Him above all else that translates into purity and honoring Him with our relationship.  We feel that it is a gift that He has given us, and we want to be completely faithful with it.  If we both didn't already have a strong love story with Jesus, the following list of things would be impossible.

2. Boundaries = Freedom - When we first got together, we set some intentional boundaries, using the intimacy triangle as a guide. We know that, to pursue God's best for us, we need to guard our hearts by remaining physically pure and honoring emotional boundaries.  Maybe you heard through the grape vine, but we're so crazy about each other, we don't kiss.  We don't think that there is really anything wrong with kissing (I hear it's pretty awesome) but we also know that it could be the gateway to a lot of things that God doesn't have for us right now.  With how we feel about each other, it could be dangerous... If you know what I mean.  As far as emotional boundaries go, we try not to 'emotionally make out,' which means that there are deep parts of our hearts and things in our individual journeys with God that we choose to share with friends and mentors first before processing and sharing with the other person.  One day (Lord willing), when we fully commit our lives to each other, the depths of our hearts will be something that we share.  Until then, Taylor and I only share those things after they become a testimony of where we have seen Kingdom come.  It's one of my favorite parts of our relationship!

The reason for keeping strong boundaries isn't so that we can get a special award, or because it's the 'right thing' to do, it's really about keeping the stakes low so that we can enjoy our relationship for what it is right now.  Because we have boundaries, we get to be free of worry about going too far or doing something we will regret.  For us, boundaries provide the framework that we get to work within as we date and fall more deeply in love.  We keep them up for discussion by talking monthly and as necessary about what's working and what's not.  This gives us a chance to evaluate the health of our relationship emotionally and physically, and to approach issues before they become full blown problems.  It has helped a lot!  I may be biased, but our relationship (hardcore boundaries and all) is my favorite - it's fun, amazing, exciting, and totally so freaking wonderful.

3. Discipleship - This works in a couple of ways: Jesus calls us to be disciples in that we are lifelong learners and to live lives worth imitating as we disciple others.  Our friends, the Ozorios, are an incredible resource and example of love and marriage.  We give them permission to probe and ask awkward questions.  We also have a policy of transparency with them - We don't keep any secrets about the ways that we are tempted or mistakes we make.  It's all fair game.  The O's also are great at helping us process through decisions we have to make together, bumps we hit, and other things that come up.  Along with time spent couple to couple, Taylor and I answer to Kelsi and Chris on an individual basis, whether it's in the context of a huddle or just a conversation over the phone or cup of coffee.

In addition, we recognize that there are people looking up to us.  If we wouldn't want someone to imitate our behavior, we don't want to do it.  In a way, we are challenged by the generation beneath us to honor God and remain pure.  We don't necessarily have all the answers and our relationship isn't always perfect, but we are doing our best to live out Paul's words to Timothy: " Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity."

4. When the Date's Over, Go Home - I would be lying to you if I said that we were always great at keeping boundaries.  The truth is: we're human and we sometimes tiptoe right up to the line (Ha good thing the stakes are low, right?).  It's dangerous when we have a great date and then end up in a parking lot or outside one of our houses for an hour afterwards.  Talk about temptation!  We've been learning not to put ourselves in situations where our actions are not worth imitating.  This is also where it's great to have accountability and people who will not only ask us about this, but also give us a metaphorical slap on the hand if it continues to be an issue.

5. Be in Community Together - Pretty self-explanatory.  This is one of the things we are growing in the most.  Around February, we really felt the lack.  Since then, we've disciplined ourselves to spend time together, with friends.  We got intentional with our calendar and began to plan so that we either joined in on events already happening with people in our community or brought people together to hang out on certain nights of the week.  I feel like this has enriched our relationship a lot, even just to have some added accountability.  Learning how to be a couple and honor all the people in the room has been really good for us.

6. Resolve Conflict Well - We're not really the yell and scream types, but there have been times in the past year that we have annoyed each other, been frustrated, or one of us has offended the other.  It's been really important for us to learn how to handle conflict in a healthy way.  We've been learning to figure out the root of problems, talk things through before they become a big deal, and hear the other person out.  Something that's also been really key for us is making practical action plans, based on what we've learned through a particular conflict or difficult conversation.  You might know this as going around the leaning circle (kairos).  This helps us learn and then move on, should we find ourselves in conflict again over the same issue.

7. Stay Friends - At this point, we've been friends longer than we've been dating.  One of the reasons our dating life got off to such a slow start was that we didn't want to ruin a perfectly good friendship.  Call it soul mates, kindred spirits, BFFL, or whatever you want, but it ultimately comes down to healthy friendship.  In many ways, the foundation of the relationship we have today was intact even before we started dating.  Through deepening friendship, I got to learn about everything Taylor was passionate about, his goals in life, see him in stressful situations, etc.  To be honest, the 'romantic' part of our relationship isn't completely satisfying all the time... That's where our friendship comes in.  We understand each other, are comfortable, and trust deeply.  So, so thankful for friendship!

Didn't realize this post would turn into such a long one!  Congratulations if you made it all the way through!    Long story short, Taylor and my first year together has been dynamic and amazing.  We've learned a lot, wrestled with some things, and fallen way deeply in love.  Taylor is an amazing friend, lover of life, and pursuer of Jesus, and I am honored to get to be his girl!

Let's Get Messy

Oikos is a fancy greek word for extended family and, as I've come to see it, Church as it was made to be.  It's one of those things that I never really realized I needed until I started experiencing it.  The only way I can really describe it is organic and messy and wonderful. This idea of building the Body out of extended families resonates incredibly deeply with me.

I really like my church, but probably would have left it awhile ago if it hadn't been for my friends Kelsi and Chris Ozorio.  In the world's eyes, they are probably nothing spectacular, but in my eyes, they are like family to me.  Over the past few years, we have celebrated birthdays together, they have mentored me, and encouraged and challenged Taylor and me in our relationship.  We laugh, we cry, I babysit their kid.  You know, family stuff.  My relationship with them makes me feel connected and cared for, like I truly am a part of something much bigger than myself.  I know that they care about me and would (and actually have) come to my aid at the drop of a hat!

I would bet my measly bank account that this kind of connection to people and God couldn't happen in a book study or even a well executed program targeted at people ages 18-29.

I feel like a lot of churches aspire to Acts 2 life - everyone sharing what they have, needs being met, God showing up, people being added daily, devotion to teaching and learning how to be like Jesus...

Since being ruined for the church last year, I've heard so many interpretations of Acts 2 that it is almost dizzying.  To me, it's pretty simple.  Acts 2 Church is about family.  It is messy. It is small enough to care, but large enough to dare.  It is effective because families take care of each other.  Families hang out at home, not in classrooms, around a table.  Families share their stuff because they are close enough to know the depth of each other's need.  Families who care, dare, and everything in between, are attractive - picture the friend's house you always wanted to play at when you were a kid.  They were the people who invited you to stay for dinner and let you ride with them to soccer practice; they included you in their regular rhythm of life.

If the church wants to stay alive, thrive even, we've got to get messy and organic about things.  We've got to be family, to move our focus beyond Sunday services and weekly programs that hopefully draw people in and help them feel cared for to equipping and encouraging people to be good news everywhere they go.  If we can do this well and become a network of extended families on mission together, we really can reach everyone we intend to.   If we can get a handle on this, lack of facilities becomes a nonissue, visitors who feel welcomed, but not included become a virtually extinct problem of the past.  The idea of the Church functioning like Oikos just seems much more natural, like we're coming back to who we were made to be, you know?

So let's just go ahead and be what we were made to be.

I've only barely covered some principles of the Church as extended family.  For more reading on Oikos, click HERE.  For some practicals and testimony about putting Oikos into action, click HERE.

Please know that this post is not a complete thought!  Right now, I'm in the middle of a conversation (by email at the moment) with the lead pastor at my church about the purpose of the organized church vs. where the more organic expression Acts 2 comes in and how we need both.  I'm learning a lot!  I'll be publishing a followup post soon with some of the things that I am learning and how these two expressions of church can work together.  Stay tuned!

On Purpose

I'd like to be able to say that everything is ideal right now.  In November, I was dreaming about my first semester out of college being full of extra time to sit in coffee shops, date Taylor, and live out some dreams of mine.  I thought I would finally be able to have it all at once.

Wrong.  So wrong.  Really, really wrong.  

If anything, the past three months have taught me that patience is a virtue, schedules exist for a reason, and, regrettably enough, I can't have it all.  

A few weeks ago, I told Kelsi, my housemate, how bummed I was with life - not single but not married, doing 'free labor' for several ministries I care about, missing my girlfriends, strung out beyond all reason...  I wanted to quit.  Enter challenge: Be intentional with your time, plan ahead, and surrender to Jesus.

Simple.  So simple.  Really, really simple... Right?

In the days that have followed, I have started to contemplate what this looked like for Jesus.  Being fully God AND fully human, Jesus didn't necessarily have all the time He wanted either.  He only had 33 years, to be exact.  So how did He do it?  He lived every moment intentionally, whether this meant that He got up early to pray and be with His father or hung out with His disciples or healed the multitudes.  Jesus lived every moment with the purpose of entering into deeper intimacy with God or bringing Heaven to earth.  

As I've been looking at my time and schedule, I've begun to ask myself those questions: How does this help me grow closer to Jesus?  How does this reveal Jesus to the world around me?  A huge perspective changer.  What I'm discovering is that I need to pursue intimacy with Jesus on purpose.  I need to enter every situation with the intention of bringing Jesus into it.  

This is what gives life meaning.  This is what makes any season worth living, no matter how far it is from my ideal.  Jesus is up to a ton of incredible things right now.  I've decided that I'm in.  Over the next few months, I'm going to be praying through each thing in my schedule so that I can grow deeper with God and reveal more of Him to the world around me.  It probably won't be ideal, it likely won't be pretty, and I plan to learn a lot about myself in the process.  

Ree-vy-vahl

Revival is one of those words that gets thrown around a lot.  We sing it during worship, beg God for it when we pray, and try to label the past with it.  Until lately, my definition of revival was this: occurrences where tons of people feel really good about God, some get saved, and then they get recorded in the history books. I feel like we sometimes put this kind of focus on Sunday morning church - I've heard pastors preach that, unless we fill every seat in our sanctuaries, people will never hear the Gospel and we will never experience revival in our generation.  It seems that this rationale has been used to build bigger buildings, hire more pastoral staff, and send more postcards.

I don't have a problem with church on Sunday mornings or building our campuses to better serve our neighborhoods.  I actually really enjoy Sunday morning church and think providing for people's needs to be a very noble cause.  What I'm saying is that we are missing out if we limit our definition and experience of revival to church or big events or even make them the center of what we understand revival, or even ministry, to be.  Revival is not church or concerts or speakers or unity of His people.  

At its core, revival means to come back to life after lacking it; to bring life back.  Revival involves Heaven coming to earth as we experience the depths of God's heart, fall in love, live differently because of it, and are compelled to breathe life to areas of decay around us. 

What I see in the Bible is this: we were given an atmosphere of life and an intimate closeness with God in Eden, sin entered the world, and with it death, humanity struggled and responded to God by offering Him dead animals.  The Word became flesh as Jesus entered the world, He raised the dead, healed the sick, brought peace and justice, laid Himself down for a bunch of people who didn't deserve it, told His closest friends to do what He did, and gave us His Spirit for intimate companionship.  Then those guys, empowered by Spirit, raised the dead, healed the sick, brought peace and justice, and invested in  genuine community that became the body of Christ.  Essentially, we lost our access to Life and the Father, Jesus gave Himself up to get it back for us, and then the people who loved Him the most and spent the most time around Him, proceeded to do the same thing for the rest of the world.

It didn't end there, though.  This is the hour for revival.  It is happening now.  Here.  How do I know?  Because I've experienced it.

I am a revivalist.

What I know from my own life is that Jesus has brought a number of areas back to life - He has healed me, He has taken care of me, revealed His heart to me, unlocked my true identity and potential.  I was dead, now He is bringing me to life.  He didn't stop reviving me when I came to church or when I asked Him into my heart or when it first felt 'real.'  He is constantly bringing me into Life, drawing me closer to Him, and giving me new dreams.  

From here, I can't help but press my ear to His chest to hear the rhythm of His heartbeat.  I am a conduit of Life to the world.  The more I encounter His love, the more I want to live differently.  The more I hear His voice, the more I want to say the things He says.  The more I discover in His heart, the more I want to respond with love towards Him and others.  My life just isn't the same.  

And so I have come to the conclusion that revival is something to be experienced in intimate depth with the Father and something to be given out of our overflow of His love.  It is fruit of fighting for intimacy with Jesus all day every day.  It is born out of worship, nurtured in our spirits, influencing of the desires of our souls and the actions of our bodies. Its mark on the world is never ending.

Life Outside the Box

I wrote this 2 & 1/2 years ago, thinking I would be graduating in May 2012 instead of December 2011. Nonetheless, here is the progress I have made:

I grew my hair really long, donated it to Locks of Love, and cut it really short.

I travelled to Ecuador this past summer, stayed in an orphanage for a week, and got genuinely rocked by my Daddy.

I learned to play guitar, wrote lots of parts of songs, but never really finished one.

I painted pictures of things Jesus was doing in my heart.

I took a road trip to Colorado and learned to live like Liz on top of the World.

I never ran a 10k.

I never threw a mystery party.

I never went to New York City.

Part of me wants to say that I wish I had accomplished every goal on this list, but most of me is content to have lived life outside of the lines I once drew for myself.

Like anyone in my current position, I have to say that I have learned countless lessons about life that I never expected. Some of them are chronicled here, but most of them lie in the depths of my journals from the past few years.

What I think happened is that, at 19, I put life in a box constructed by accomplishments and college degrees. What I didn't understand was that Jesus wanted me to have life to the full simply because I belonged to Him, that the richness of life had nothing to do with anything I did, but everything to do with who I was in Him. It is in this rich place of identity and intimacy that I find my very reality influenced by His peace, abundant in provision, and entrenched in solid community.

In the past 3 & 1/2 years, events and concepts once thought incomprehensible have come to make up the very fabric of my story. In this period of my life:

I started the journey of falling head over heels for Jesus, choosing to face life with Him as my husband, making key decisions together, and constantly living into new adventures.

I learned a lot from my friends Kelsi and Chris O. and constantly experience the blessing it is to live as a part of their household.

I learned to balance this with this.

I learned to take big risks and trust that God would catch me.

I got stretched beyond belief.

I fell in love with Taylor Marin.

I began to live in circles toward the Kingdom of Heavem.

My heart got healed of a number of past wounds.

I learned to pursue honor even when I didn't want to.

I got ruined by the Gospel.

I think that a number of these things are going to be reoccurring themes for the rest of my life. What I love is that God didn't just take my meager expectations of my life and give them to me. Instead, He invited me into new adventures and challenged me to become like Him in the process.

I can't help but think that this next stage of life will also consist of not doing things I once thought important and being pleasantly surprised by Jesus' creative shaping of my life.

Can't wait.

Bird Life

"When you find yourself united with the One who has overcome all that you my ever fear, risk is the freedom of a bird in flight."

The most inviting and challenging thing about Jesus right now is learning to live with the freedom and trust that the birds have. There is so much in my life that is still coming to fruition, so I constantly feel like I'm toddling back and forth between discovering the truth of His promises and understanding that I need to trust Him so much more to see the desires of my heart unfold. I am completely convinced that Jesus' plan for my life is to move me to greater and greater dependence as He takes me to horizons I have yet to even know exist.

As of recently, destinations that once seemed so far away are suddenly within my grasp. As much as these are dreams come true for me, I am realizing that surrender and saying 'yes' to Jesus are more important than ever.

First of all, I burn for a lot of things - my generation, revival in the church, discipleship, mission, and loving people holistically (bio-psycho-social-spiritual dimensions), to name a few. While working on the Urban Plunge last year, I got to work closely with Tracey Beal and realized that she and I have an almost identical set of passions. The beautiful part of all of this is that Tracey is about 27 steps ahead of me in life. Throughout the past year, I have been immensely blessed by her and inspired by the soul-deep and generation-wide impact that she has. In the past few months, it has really become clear that I have a lot to learn from Tracey, in terms of how to push the boundaries of the church, balance passion with love for people, be a graceful apostle, and connect people with the true heart of God. Recently, I have also felt stirred to combine my social work education with my passion for ministry by wanting to teach pastors and churches to care for their people and communities multidimensionally. You might think me strange, but I dream about things like the syllabi I would write for Bible college classes I someday want to teach and how the Church could function if we truly grasped ahold of collaborating with one another to bring the Kingdom to earth.

This has been such a season of pressing hard in surrender and learning to be free of my worries for my ever nearing future, mainly in regard to what kind of job I will get after I graduate. Because my dreams are so huge, my realistic side, though usually quieter then the dreamer inside of me, has been thinking that it could take years before I actually see them through. That all changed during a meeting with Tracey about a week ago...

We were sitting in her office dreaming when she reintroduced an idea of mentoring me to orchestrate the Urban Plunge as a vehicle for teaching churches to find assets in their communities and bring heaven to earth in their neighborhoods. This would be my job - We are only beginning to explore ways to fund this position. A risk. Yes, I wonder about how I will pay my bills. Yes, I know that this will stretch me beyond measure. Yes, I understand that the unknowns outnumber the knowns.

My answer is yes.

I cannot tell you how very strange it is that dreams that once seemed so distant are now becoming close realities. Like every little girl, I have dreamed about being pursued and falling in love. As you know, Jesus has proven Himself faithful in pursuing my heart into deeper relationship with Him, and I have spent the past few years becoming absolutely smitten with my Savior.

About a year and a half ago, another man entered my life through friendship. A little less than a year ago, I began to think that maybe I liked him, based on the Fruit that was coming from his life. Taylor, my acquaintance became Taylor my friend, who then became Taylor, my close friend. For about six months, we talked almost daily about our values, the way we saw life, and what we saw God doing all around us. During this time, I started to think that I liked him and that it was highly probable that this was mutual. I can't tell you how many times Jesus and I talked about him and how often I had to completely surrender my feelings for him. Around May, I decided that Taylor and I were probably just going to stay friends. I liked him, but decided that his feelings for me were phileo in nature.

... And then a week later, he called me. Lunch followed the next day. I'm pretty sure you can guess what happened. On May 21st, Taylor, my close friend became Taylor, the guy I was dating - Low commitment, little affection, increasing friendship. In July, Taylor, the guy I was dating, became Taylor, my boyfriend.

Since then, I have had to surrender more than ever. Checking my feelings at the door when Jesus and I talk about life and the future has become the norm. All the while, Taylor and I have found that our feelings for each other are accelerating in intensity and volume. We have sought hard to maintain balance, pay attention to Spirit, and receive input and encouragement from some key people who know what they are doing when it comes to being in love.

We recognize that life is a story well-written by our generous creator, and everyday, it is becoming increasingly apparent that we have an important role to play in each other's stories. To be honest, I am ecstatic about Taylor. He has become an even better friend to me than I ever could have imagined, and I am honored to be pursued by him. This is a story still being written, but I have to say that we are enjoying every word.

There is something incredibly sweet and powerful about trusting Jesus with my love life and knowing that He will continue to care for my heart. Romance with Jesus continues to be a source of deep excitement for me, and learning to be His little bird is a beautiful and increasingly satisfying process that I will probably be discovering for the rest of my life.