I find that I often express myself best in writing.

There are numerous roadblocks to that of course. First of all, communication includes not only saying something, but someone hearing it.  And the reality of our culture is that that we are generally a video based culture.  Most of us tend to prefer the 3 minute video clip in our timelines to actually reading the rambling words of a someone on the internet.

Then of course I have to deal with my own inability to add proper grammar and punctuation in all the appropriate places.  For those of us willing to pause the streaming and read, bad grammar and inappropriate punctuation makes the back button all too easy to click.

I know, because I am one of you.  I sometimes read, but I far prefer the funny 3 minute videos that facebook serves up one after the other.  When I do read, I rarely read people who write the way I do, because.. well… frankly it’s just too tempting to head back to the 3 minute videos.

But I express myself better here.  So I intend to do better at expressing myself more consistently and if you want to read, well that’s just the happy completion of the communication circle.

I am struggling today.  I am struggling today for several reasons that I hope to adequately articulate here.

I am struggling mostly because my job is also my passion.  Sometimes I envy those people who can clock out and ignore the troubles of their 9-5 existence.  To be fair, I often don’t envy that.  I have always taught that it is important to love what you do.  And I believe that with all that I am.  However when your job is also your passion, heartbreak at work is much more common.

My passion and my job is to lead a community of people together on a mission.  The mission is, to be completely honest, an impossible mission.  Not like Tom Cruise in the mission impossible movies, but actually beyond the ability of any human to complete.  The community I lead recognizes this.  And of course this, as the bard has said, is the rub.  That is the challenging part of the whole thing.  The mission we have to glorify God and enjoy him forever.   This means that in every realm of our existence we are called to actually bring glory to God.

More simply put, the community I lead has articulated our mission in three parts, to understand the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to grow in authentic community and to influence our world according to the Kingdom of God.

How do we accomplish that?  When we are all so fragile.  We are scared, we are timid, we are frightened of our shadows and we are easily discouraged and beaten down.  I know this is true because I feel it so acutely in my bones today.  I want to have my way and get my way so that my job can get done well.  My job of leading a community on mission.

How do we understand the gospel?  No, I mean really understand the good news of Jesus?  This news that we are unlovable and yet we are loved.  The first part of that is painful.  The statement that I am unlovable, unworthy, that I am not enough.  That’s not good news that is a tragedy.  That is painful and heartbreaking.  That wrecks me every day.  When I want to defend myself.  When I want to make my case.  When I want people to understand my actual intentions and not assign unjust and incorrect motives to my actions.  Yet, didn’t the one I say I follow suffer the very same injustice?  Wasn’t Jesus the poster child of unjust accusations?  Wasn’t he the primary example of a person accused who went willingly to the punishment reserved for the worst of criminals?  If I am to understand the gospel correctly, it may actually be that I need to suffer the unfair accusations of others.

And to be completely fair, not all accusations are unjust.  I can be manipulative. I can certainly be arrogant.  I can be and often am wrong.  And yet, in spite of all of this.  I am loved.  Loved by this Jesus who I claim to follow.  The question arises, is that enough for me.  I would like to say yes, but I think that if I fully understood the gospel, I wouldn’t have to hesitate or say I would like to agree, I would simply know that it is enough.

Are you beginning to see why I say this mission is impossible?

Next, we say we want to grow into an authentic community.  HA!  That seems laughable to me when most of us, myself included, prefer to binge watch netflix, or watch 3 minute video clips on facebook.  When most of us struggle to believe this gospel that we are unlovable and yet completely loved.  Community, for each of us, looks like finding people like ourselves.  In order to form authentic community we default to finding friend groups who will never challenge us.  We want people exactly like ourselves.  And yet, the community that Christ is forming takes the form of very disparate and different types of people.  People born in other countries.  People from every imaginable place on the political spectrum.  People who never heard of North Dakota until recently, and people who would never in a million years purchase a passport.  This is the community that Jesus is building.  This is a beautiful thing.  But forging all those faces and perspectives into one is painful.  It requires letting go of things that have made us feel safe.  It requires change. it requires heartbreak and loss.  It requires admitting that I might not always be right.

This is painful and incredibly difficult for each and every person who has inherited the condition of Adam and Eve.

And finally we are called to influence our world according to the kingdom of God.  This kingdom is what Jesus most talked about.  More than any other thing, Jesus taught his disciples to live what he would call “Kingdom values.”  What are those?  He showed us.  They are serving before being served.  They are turning the other cheek.  They are giving away more than you can stand to give.  They are literally choosing to die for someone else.

Are you seeing why this whole mission thing is incredibly difficult and heartbreaking?  Human beings, and I don’t mind one bit putting myself in that historic pile of beautiful messiness, we tend toward self protection.  We tend toward wanting to make much of ourselves.  As the apostle said we might even give our lives for someone who seemed to be worth it.  But Jesus calls us to follow him in laying down his life for people … well .. people like me.  And believe me, I am certainly not worth it.

This is a hard call.  This is challenging and most of us rebel against it.  I know I do, every single day I rebel against this call of giving up my rights for the sake of the other.  This is the impossible mission of the people of God.  This is the impossible mission of the church I love.

But let me tell you something, it’s also worth all the gold on earth.  More even.  There is nothing that will be more life-giving, more fulfilling, and more meaningful than living a life on this mission.  I won’t lie, it will hurt sometimes.  I feel that today.  But it will be worth every second of sacrifice and submission to watch what Jesus will do in us as individuals, in a community that is shaped around these values, and in the world that is influenced by a group of people committed to following Jesus in the kingdom values he modeled and taught.

I am also struggling because I know deep down that a community of people gathered around that mission is the greatest need of the town where I live.  It is the greatest need of every town on this big blue marble that God made and called “very good.”  We need people gathered together loving each other in all of our frailties.  We need people pointing us to the glorious and rich grace of Jesus even when they have wounded us.  We need people committed to living out these sort of values in every corner of our city.

This is an impossible mission.  But that doesn’t mean it’s hopeless.  The one I follow said, “with God all things are possible.”  What can that mean if it doesn’t mean making us into this community.  So I will continue to find ways to lay down my life for the unlovable.  Not because it feels good, because it doesn’t.  But rather because I believe in my bones that it is worth it.  And more than that, I believe that the God I worship can actually make it happen.

I’ve got a long way to go.  My community has a long way to go.  Frankly, I am pretty sure if you are reading this, you have a long way to go.  But believe me – with God all things are possible!  That’s a dream I am going to hold onto and a hope I will continue to pursue.