My Journey Part ONE

Since the agonizing death of *Axis, I've been on a slow journey to wrestle with and understand several things.

In order to speed up the process, I recently took a trip to Chico,CA for some concentrated "away-time" in order to pray alot and listen for God's voice with fewer distractions.

Welcome to Part One of my journey!

If you're still interested, I'd advise you to grab your favorite beverage and get comfortable, because I may ignore the unwritten "keep it brief" rule for blogging. This is my Web-Log of my recent physical and spiritual journey. I'm hopeful that this will be part therapy and partly helpful to those who may take the time to read beyond the words to discover something significant for themselves.

Prologue:
Once in Chico, I turned right on Richardson Springs Road and headed down the 4 mile, bumpy, winding road creatively dubbed, "The Springs Road". It felt like I was coming home.

At the end of the road stood "The Hotel"(built in the 1920's). On this property I spent 4 years of my life mainly organizing missions trips for teenagers around the world. I met my wife here. It felt like I was coming home.

I checked into a Letter Cabin, "K" and I was certain that God would meet me here... that He'd hear my prayers and I would have the luxury of listening without the normal distractions.

PART ONE:
WRESTLING WITH SIGNIFICANT RELATIONSHIPS:

Among the many subjects to discuss with God was the subject of certain close personal relationships.

The background: While building Axis, we were determined to live out the mantra, "Come As You Are". We all talked about it at length - especially at the beginning. We knew that each of us would be tested in this area sooner or later. Together, we talked about True and Real community. The kind of community that would become vulnerable and transparent with each other. We all wanted a place that we could "loose the need to pretend". We understood that this kind of community would inevitably become "messy" as people began to be free(er) to show their true colors, confess their sins, or their struggles or pain. We didn't have to be rocket scientists to know that people aren't perfect and that at some point one of us would do something that hurt someone else, yet we were determined to take our chances. We were determined to let grace be our response.

If we could respond with God's grace toward one another, then we figured people would be more likely to "Come As You Are". We joked about having a slogan or marketing campaign titled, "17% less judgmental".

Then, one day in January, 2008 I did something that inadvertently hurt some dear friends who were also 'movers and shakers' in Axis leadership. They didn't respond with grace. They were very angry, they felt "screwed", they lost respect for me and determined that I had no integrity. They immediately withdrew from all leadership and responsibilities. They never returned to Axis.

This isn't the place to discuss specifics, but I assure you that my actions were 1) unintentional 2) clearly hurtful to my friends and 3)not immoral or sinful in any way (no cheating, lying, stealing, immorality, fornication, etc)

(even if those people read this blog, I'm certain they would agree with what I've written)

I was caught off guard and felt like I had just been hit by a truck.

Here's what I wanted to talk to God about... here's where we catch up to me in the small cabin in Chico - trying to make sense of things.

Joe, to God: (with attitude) "What happened to "Come as you are"? What happened to Grace?"

God: Silence

Joe, to God: Is it possible to be part of a church community that really lets people come as they are without running away once they do? Is it possible to love each other even when we screw up?

God: Silence

Joe, to God: (using a whiny tone) I thought they were committed to YOU and what YOU were doing in Fresno. Why does it seem like they were committed to ME... until I proved that I'm not perfect? Sheesh - I'm SOOO FAR from perfection! I don't even think that I'm even good, let alone perfect.

I rambled about how hurt I feel personally. I ranted about the devastating effects their departure had on Axis (as a church and organizationally). After all we were so very small already!

God: Silence... and then He helps me be honest with myself.

With God's help, I am beginning to recognize something about myself that I don't like. I've noticed that I often lack the internal qualities needed while struggling with significant relationships.

Let me say that another way: I have a hard time functioning, producing, or moving forward with real-life while there are significant relational struggles.

Confession: During deep struggles with significant relationships, I tend to be emotionally unavailable to my kids. I don't call my friends. I work long hours, just because I can't focus enough to get things done in a normal amount of time. I do less helpful things around the house. I don't blog.

The Conclusion:
I can't control what happens to me. Even if I do A, B, C, correctly I'm not guaranteed that I will get perfect results.

I was reading about Moses (something I often find myself doing in times like these). One time, Aaron and Miriam "spoke against" him about his Cushite Wife (she was from Ethiopa - a black woman?). They were jealous. (Numbers 12)

Later, 250 well known community leaders began to give Moses grief. (Numbers 16)

I'm beginning to re-understand this: Even when we do it right, like Moses was doing, there's no guarantee that our significant relationships won't cause us great grief.

I cannot control the relationships around me, but I can control my response(s).

I sub-consciously thought that if we dreamt the right dream about true and real community, then we wouldn't have relationship problems. For some odd reason, I thought that if I/we taught about Grace and Forgiveness, then people would dispense both.

God, to Joe: Own your own stuff, Joe. You have alot of valid questions, but don't minimize your outward reactions and your inward responses. You are the only thing you can do something about. Your response(s) is the only thing worth working on. Lean into ME.

"The Springs Road"


The Hotel


My Letter Cabin, "K". Yes, that's how big it is.



*AXIS: Axis Community Church. We officially started meeting publicly in October of 2006. We closed the doors in the end of February of 2008.