Who am I...

So Wendesday, at 5:30 in the morning, my wife and I are going to the hospital for the “scheduled c-section”. Finally our baby will be here!

To appreciate the fullness of this miracle, you will have to read my other post titled “We’re having a baby, my wifes not pregnat!”
That is about our daughter Elli, who just turned 1 this past Wednesday.

Truly God had a plan from the begining.

I don’t even know where to file this in my catergories area.

I am an (unpaid) associate pastor of a church. Six months ago the Lead Pastor & Leadership Team asked me to launch a “different ” kind of service on Saturday nights. To do this, it took 20-25 hours a week on my part. The service grew and was just as well attended as the 2 services on Sunday, but with all new people, none of which had any connection to our church before Saturday nights.

I came to the Leadership Team and Pastor saying I can not contiune to put in 20-25 hours a week, and still work full time, 4 children, wife, full-time student…with out some type of financial compensation ($200 per week).

They decide they can’t afford it (they can…I know the budget), and to give the Saturday service to the Lead Pastor. Keep in mind, he attempted to launch this service before I did, and had only 15 people in attendence.

I’m beyond broken and angry about this. The team I pulled together, the sacrific my family made, the bigger vision of reaching the lost, doesn’t seem to matter to our church’s leadership. I guess asking for $8.00 per hour was just too much. What’s min. wage now?

I’m feeling extremely lost, and don’t know what to do next. I know all the “Promises”, but am struggling to cling to the in the gray area of life…

Thanks for listening.

What if the goal for our families is not happiness, but holiness?

Maybe it’s not having the perfect marriage, but Jesus perfecting you in your marriage.

Maybe it’s not being the infaluable parent, but being parented by Jesus through your children.

Maybe it’s not about providing a cushion for your family, but proving God’s faithfulness through your generosity.

~Thanks for your thoughts and input.

It has been a long time since I posted…almost a year. Much has changed, though no post should ever be that long.

So I will focus on two thoughts. First, I am an associate pastor at a church. Six months ago, (they) gave me the Saturday night service…to preach weekly, build volunteers, etc… This 3rd service started out as a “Beta Test” for six months, and now that the six months is almost over, it appears that it’s going to contiune beings it is as well attended as the two sevices on Sunday. The short of it…It’s been along six months!

Not only do I recieve no financial compensation, I am constantly being stifled by the Lead Pastor. It would appear that he is set on mediocrity and the church being mediocre. Perhaps that’s fine for some, but it’s killing me! Why can’t the church be more than mediocre? I know it would take work, but’s only work!

On top of that, also what is spiritually dehydrating me is deep relationships…or lack thereof. I go to bed at night, and wake up longing and seeking more than the day before. Where my wife and I are located, that seems to be asking for to much. O’ how wonderful it would be to have some deep relationships with people that you can do life together with, not just function in different cubicals alongside.

Not your most uplifting post I know. Thanks for your thoughts

Elliana Morgan - born 6/20/06, 4lbs, 11oz.  18inches

 

CRAZY! UNBELIVEABLE!! SO GOD LIKE!!!

It’s like this… my wife and I having been trying for our second child for over a year and a half. Nothing has happened (except for a miscarriage a year ago). In the beginning of May, Jess (my wife) had surgey to see what’s been going on. The Dr. said that it didn’t go as well as she had hoped, but there was still a chance that a pregnacy could take place…not the words we were hoping to hear.

This “infertility issue” has been a huge issue in our lives. The kind of issue that creates tears everyday…486 days worth of tears. So over the past two or three months, my wife’s prayer has switched from “God help us get pregnant” to “God fill this void however you can!”

End of May… my wife was asked to be the main speaker for three days at a women’s retreat. While she was the, she felt God leading her to share our “issue”, our very private issue! A few days later, we get a call from a lady in our church that was at that retreat saying she works with a lady that is pregnant, due June 22, and is giving the baby up for adoption, and would prefer to give the child to Christian parents rather than an agency…would you be intrested? So we prayed about it immediately, recieved and answer immediately, met with the attorney this morning, and here we are!Pray for us, there is so much work to be done, so many things to go wrong, and everything still seems surreal…crazy times!!! But good times!!!                                                 **UPDATE @ BOTTOM OF COMMENTS**       

 

Now long ago I attended a funeral of a three year old boy who was fighting cancer. His parents and grandparents had just recently started coming to our church after leaving a church that they were very involved in. Their previous church had some different beliefs than ours.

Their old pastor did the service, so we simply attended the funeral. It would of been a gut wrenching funeral anyhow, but what took place made it even worse. To cut to the chase, a line of red duct tape was put a few feet out from the casket, and it was said that by crossing this duct tape you can make the statement that you believe “God can do this”. The story of Lazarus was the primary and only text used. Before the service the grandfather came up to me and said that he had a vision the night before, and it was his grandson asking for juice. He then reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a juice box and said “I’m ready.”

Not all who attended had these beliefs. Not all the extended family had these beliefs. Those who did not, were robbed of their greving. And the family was being set up for a “crash”, that did not have to be.

I had a range of emotions. Anger at the pastor creating such a road. Brokeness for a family robbed of a child. And a longing for a God to set everything right.

After a long and drawn out service, the child did not rise, did not drink the juice. I have to wonder what God thought of the whole thing???

How many people know where they come from. I don’t mean what country did our ancestors come from, though that’s good to know to, but I mean who you came from. The stories that created the characters. The aunts, the uncles, grand and great grand parnets. The good and the bad. The deaths, the miscarriages, even the murders. The abusers, along with the saints of the family.

I have been working on my lineage, and to do so I have had to seek out the “elders” of my family. Surprisingly, when they saw I was coming with an open heart/mind, they found tremendous freedom in sharing the things they have been spending 50 yrs. trying to forget.

“When an Elder of the family dies, a library is burned” ~African Proverb.

I have found out that my family history comes from abuse, rape, & murder…that’s okay… because it also involves the blood of Christ… I encourage one and all, seek out the stories to enrich your own lives as well as provide freedom to those with not much time left ~Peace

One thing that is a contiunal struggle for me is the constant changine between Matrixies that my life requires. I know that I am by no means the only one who struggles with this, but just noting how draining it is. From being in the classroom, to talking with my wife on the cell phone, to planning communion while I’m on the way to an account to pick up some paper work. And it is only 12 noon.

My wife and I have had numorus conversations about all the different hats and the validity of them all. What is intresting is that I am only a couple of weeks back at it. I broke my ankle over the holidays snowboarding in Park City, Utah. At first this appeared to be catastrophic to our family and the matrixies that surround it. But it turned out to be an amazing time! Being forced to rearrange my schedules (plural), so that I could heal after the surgery that I had to have, God used as a time for rest, contemplation and relationships. Noah, our 3 year old son became my best friend due to all the extra daddy-time, I drove my wife crazy… but in a good way…I think. We to had additional time together. The church kept going, the business stayed afloat, and though I did have to drop one class, school went fine.

So Morgan what did you learn? What changed? How did nothing crash? What can you give others?….The Spirit. To rest, relax, observe, appreciate, contemplate, and embrace…MORE.

Right now I have 40 pages of papers due next week, business calls to make,… but what I am going to do is go get ready for a private little ash wednesday service that our family is going to have in our living room, just for us ;)

Until further peeling and self-discovery ~ Morgan

As I am new to this whole blog system, community, world…whatever you call it, I thought I would start out with an introduction of myself that I can contiunually build upon.

So, for the surface first…
I am an associate pastor (my true desire), a husband and a father (another true desire), a sociology major at Edinboro University in PA (this I love as well), and a business owner of a large janitoral commercial cleaning service (this I hate…).

That is the outer layer of a complex onion with many more layers to come.

~Morgan