It’s been crazy around here lately. Let me share a few things that have been going on recently. No this isn’t a complaining post… just read to the end (I’m sorry, I know it’s long). ;) My wife has been sick as of late. It started Saturday with a mild cough. Then it became body aches too.
Let me back up a bit though.
Saturday night, my parents had called to say that their car had broken down. They needed someone to come and get them and take them home. Now if you know my family, you also know that my dad has AIDS and with that a weakened immune system. So staying out of cold nasty weather in the middle of flu season is a good idea. Becca was working on Saturday so she wasn’t with me when I picked them up and took them home. I drove back and picked Becca up when she got off and scheduled to meet my parents Sunday afternoon to drive my dad around to fix their car so my mom could get to work on Monday. It was an easy fix and would only take about an hour or two, half of which was going to be going to get parts. That night Becca started feeling terrible just before bed.
She felt better Sunday morning so we thought we’d head to church.
Little side note here is that this is when I am informed that all my sites are down and I have to call my webhost and get them all back up. Stupid little database issue. It gets fixed and we think we are going to be late to church.
There’s a new church that I went to last week and really liked. I wanted her to come yesterday. Since she was feeling better with some rest, she went. Of course, we completely forgot about the time change. We showed up, asked where the children’s workers are and was told that we forgot about the time change. So, we went and got the breakfast that we had skipped because we thought we were going to be late.
The service was good. A passage from the beatitudes about the righteous inheriting the earth. We then drove with Aidan out to my parent’s house. Of course with my dad’s weakened immune system him and my mom decided that it would be best if Becca did not ride in the same car with him and her staying at their place probably wouldn’t be a good option. It was decided that Becca should be taken home with Aidan and they could both take a nap. Becca was starting to feel worse at this point. Not too terrible. Just sick like any other cold.
It gets worse from here.
I drive back to my parents house, pick up my dad and go find his tools at their house here in town. (yeah, they have two places, one they live at and the other they use for storage at the moment) We go back take the part of the car and head to the parts store. At this point Becca calls me.
“My temperature is 103, I called R&T (some friends of ours) they are coming over to get me and take me to the hospital.”
I love my wife. Sometimes, though she does things without a whole lot of warning though. My first thought was “why didn’t she call me? I’m close. I can take her.” Then I realize she thought the whole thing through already. If I take her, what do I do with my dad who is stranded? I could take him with me while I take Becca to the hospital, but it could kill him. I could take him back out to his place and tell him to wait another day on the car, but I would be another hour doing all that running around since my parents live a bit further away. See, I love her partly for this reason. She thinks things through then comes to a conclusion and lets me know the end result of her whole process. Many times I am tempted to get upset because I wasn’t a part of the whole process but when I think about it I usually come to the same conclusion she did, just after the fact.
So, in short without consulting me, she came to the best conclusion. Call friends, finish up with your dad, meet me later.
T takes Becca to the hospital. R comes over and watches their three kids and Aidan in our home. I meet Becca at the hospital to check in on her while she sits in the waiting room, then I drive my dad back to the car where he finishes up there. An hour has gone by. Becca calls me.
“The lady who came in after me who has the same symptoms… they told her it would be four hours. They also told her that they have an urgent care facility about twenty-three miles away that has no wait and are equipped to treat flu-like symptoms. They close at six. It’s five-fifteen now. R&T have offered to drive me up there.”
“My dad and I are finishing up here. I am on my way.”
“I don’t think we have time if we are going to make it before six. R&T said we have to go now.”
“I am on my way. I’ll be there in five minutes or less”
“I don’t think we have time. Meet us at the hospital.”
“I’ll take you. I’ll be there…. or just go, I’ll catch up.”
Racing a Train.
I turn to my dad, ask him if he is good. He is. I jump in the truck and head home. Albeit a little quicker (except for those stupid speed camera traps). Halfway home I have to cross railroad tracks. A train is coming. Oh great! Just what I need. To sit at a signal and wait. I see the train. I see the lights. I also had friends when I was in youth group who died of a car-train collision. The train is far enough away by the time I get to the tracks. Of course I sped up upon seeing the train. (what would you do?)
You know trains look further away when you are both heading for the same intersection. It was a slow train, I will say that. When I got to the tracks it was about 1/10 of a mile away. There were no crossing bars across the road, just lights. Still scared me though as I crossed the tracks a little faster than normal. I think I scared the train driver more cause he laid into the whistle like a banshee. Under normal circumstances I would not have crossed the tracks. The mere prospect scares me. I stop if I see lights a mile away usually. In short, don’t do it even though I did.
That was the fastest I’ve driven in awhile when I pulled into our parking lot at five-twenty-five.
Everyone was piling into R&T’s van when I pulled up. Four kids, two of which were under 10 months old. I get quick directions. Becca jumps in. They tell us that they will take Aidan home with them, while I take Becca to Urgent Care. I try to keep my speed at only a-little faster-than-normal speeds up to the urgent care facility.
We make it at five-forty-five or so. They were still open. No wait, just as promised. Becca feels horrible. (But to me she looks as beautiful as ever.. ‘cept paler)
Influenza A.
Okay, so that little section heading says it. Regular seasonal flu. Still nasty. Still contagious. Still could be really bad for someone with a really weak immune system. Treatable. Prescription prescribed. We leave. I take Becca home. I drop of the prescription. I go get Aidan from R&T’s house. He is sleepy. I stop and get pizza as both Becca and I are hungry. I pick up the prescription. I make it home. Becca is in bed. I put Aidan to bed. I am exhausted. I call my friend in Arizona, M who I don’t really tell the whole story to because I don’t want to unload on him randomly (even though he is more than okay with it and I know it). He proceeds to tell me how something I said the other day really helped him. Of all the times I needed to hear that, it was then.
Other Contagions
I am truly blessed with friends. I may not have a whole bunch of really close friends in life, but I have a select few and they are good ones. R&T who come over take my wife to the hospital, watch Aidan on a whim and we can trust them with him are amazing people. I don’t usually say too much about how good a friend someone is because it sounds hollow just saying it. People always feel like they have to respond with “oh’ it’s no big deal” or “that’s what friends do”. Maybe a card is a better way to go for me or maybe it’s one of the many reasons I am writing this post. This is one of the few places where I feel I can be myself and think through what I have to say before saying it because the rest of the time even though I speak from the heart. But when I do, the words feel rushed and inadequate to what I really want to express. M in Arizona, I’ve never met in person. We actually met on Halo 3 a few months ago. Somehow over the distance and through some silly online game that we both play we have become good friends. Our wives get on and play with us sometimes as well as M’s kids. He’s been a great encouragement to me, sent me jobs he’s found that could fit what I am looking for. R,T & M. Thank you for your help, your encouragement and just being there somehow for us yesterday. It may not have seemed like much, but it helped me get though the day. It is friends like these that make me want to be a better friend myself. This is one contagion I want to spread.
I am truly blessed with my family. I love my wife. I love my son. I love my dogs. Becca does her best to provide for our family while I’ve been hunting for a position, working from home on websites, and being a daddy to Aidan. With a wonderful family like this, one can’t help but feel that there is something more they can do. Right now, I’ve been hunting all over the country for ministry jobs and nothing has opened up. Becca has a really decent paying job and she is good at it and it’s close to home. We don’t want to relinquish this time with Aidan to a daycare, so I stay home. Sometimes I feel guilty about it, more often than not, because I want Becca to be able to stay at home with Aidan and come home to her. I know that is something she wants as well. I think that makes it hard. If there is one thing I would wish on anyone, if I could do one thing for someone it is this, to give them a family that loves them. This is another contagion that I would infect people with.
I am truly blessed with my faith. I think it sounds haughty if I say it that way, but there are days I couldn’t get though without God. After all, he’s the one who gave me this beautiful family and these good friends. I struggle a lot with my faith though. Not in the sense that I wonder if I have faith, but in the sense of learning to trust God. I think it became more real yesterday than it has in awhile. I don’t think I would have raced that train if I really had a perfect trust in God. I would have just said “thy will be done” to God and waited for the train to pass…. maybe. See there’s an issue with that scenario too. We have an extraordinary God who sometimes calls us to extraordinary measures. No, maybe I didn’t feel like God told me to come within a tenth of a mile of being hit by a train. Then again, maybe he wanted me to see something about myself.
If I would jump in front of a moving train to merely get my wife to a doctor sooner with a sickness that isn’t too terribly life-threatening, go out of my way to help my dad and out of my way to prevent him from getting sick from the same sickness, then there are a lot of people out there who still need to have someone love them enough to simply tell them the good news that Jesus Christ died on a Roman cross 2000 years ago as a sacrifice for our sins so that we could have life that no one could take away. Without, the wages of sin is death. As followers of Christ, this is our calling. Save those who would die from death, and present them with not only life, but introduce them to the author of life. What is a person worth? Maybe this contagion is love. I hope you catch it.
I heard an interesting quote today from my dad. He said “Christians need community. You put them all in a community together and they rub the hard edges off each other. It’s a refining process.” I took a few moments to digest that statement and realized how true it is. If we are honest with ourselves we are pretty screwed up. All of us without exception need work and need a little refining if not a complete heart rebuild. If you look at the disciples, they were a rough bunch of characters. It took Jesus Christ three years of ministry with them and they still needed refinement and community to make them the men of God who were all eventually martyred for their faith in Christ (even John, though he survived it and died of old age eventually).
So is the church a huge rock tumbler for Christians? We polish off the hard edges and reveal the gems underneath.
Oh how we resist that rubbing against each other though. Learning to live with each other is hard work. I can understand why many churches resist any kind of outreach. They have approached that perfect synergy of not enough people to make it crowded enough that they have to touch anyone else. They sit scattered throughout the sanctuary on a Sunday morning. Reserved seats to avoid any kind of traffic jam upon leaving and far enough back that they don’t feel like the pastor is speaking to them too personally.
Then there is the other side. The perfect oiled machine with jewel movements to prevent any undue friction. It will be a politically correct sermon without really any kind of reference to sin but will focus on how God loves us just as we are. We can scale this they say. We can grow, make satellite churches, and take the message global. Make easily digested meals and serve it up to the masses. We will have our five year goals (regardless of the verse that says tomorrow has enough worries of it’s own), a perfect game plan for ministry that is a clean room dissection of the messy coagulation we find ourselves in every week when we meet together and real flesh and blood people have to touch other flesh and blood people.
I think I have figured out that this church thing isn’t about being nice. It’s not about getting in and out unscathed. We are humans after all. We hurt. We cry. We ooze emotion and puss and blood when things don’t go right. We get diseases of mind, spirit and body. It’s about being close enough to feed the hungry. It’s about being near enough to dry a tear and be a shoulder to cry on. A community that comes into the sanctuary and huddles together to keep each other warm and safe while they devise a plan to bring in more hungry, naked and diseased children out of the wind, rain and dangers that circle to devour the unsuspecting. A city of refuge. A training center for those who would risk everything for those who without knowing that there is a hope for life would choose death.
When you get close to people and you learn to love them, you hold them accountable for their actions. Not because it’s right, but because you do love them. This accountability is hard sometimes. Hard edges don’t get rubbed off overnight. It’s a process of being together and going through the pain of having those edges rubbed off gradually. Every jagged edged rock in this tumbler is valuable though. You are valuable. The marks we make on each other in love are a part of the process. Who have you made a mark on this week? Who have you held accountable? Who have you allowed in your life to hold you accountable?
Hello, my name is William Lehman. I don’t know where God is taking me. I do know that it’s a wild ride and that He’s given me many gifts to do a lot of things. I graduated in 2003 from Circleville Bible College with a degree in Biblical Theology/Youth Ministry Emphasis. I’ve worked as a Youth Minister, a full-time associate pastor, a Studio photographer, a professional blogger and channel editor, a web designer, a freelance artist and a coffee server since. In the last five months, I’ve also become full-time daddy to our little son.
When it comes to the average church, I often see it as a bureaucratic facade of “fiscal maneuvering” designed to look like ministry. Meetings designed to put together action plans for increasing attendance, thereby increasing monetary means to increase attendance to again increase net wealth of “God’s kingdom” on earth. This from the role of someone who has been in those shoes, lived those meetings. Here are some questions I’d pose for that average church that feels they might be going through the same charade:
- If you really loved God and loved people as much as you say you do, would you still spend 12 hours a week going over action plans for five year goals or would you spend those 12+ hours each week actually listening to the hurting or caring for the broken?
- Aren’t you tired of trying to make it work, to make the numbers add up, or preaching to deaf ears on a Sunday morning?
- Does it really matter if everything goes smoothly on a Sunday morning or is it some kind of illusion of control that you want?
I for one am tired of feeling that I have to be so shallow as to be reduced to “getting it right” on a Sunday morning to have a relationship with a God who has forgiven my sins and genuinely loves me enough to die on a cross and make me a co-heir with Him.
I’d rather listen to the broken-hearted than to go to a meeting and try to figure out what is five years down the road. Because frankly, we don’t have tomorrow, next week, the year after, or five years from now. We have today. If we are called to live as bridegrooms ready for the return of Christ, then we’d best start understanding that our real treasure, our only treasure is the same thing that our God came and died on a cross for, that He may come back between now and our next goal realization meeting, and that no amount of goal setting will be excuse enough for the ones we were called to reach and did not.
I have the gifts to do a lot of things. To build websites, to serve coffee, to play drums, to lead small groups, to preach, to do design work and many more besides. If I had these and so many other gifts, I could do so much but it would be in vain unless I failed to do that thing that is called of me, of all of us to do, to love.
This is my personal mission statement, a sound out from the depths of my heart resounding with every stroke of a key.
Love God. Love Man.
I will fail at times to do this but I am confident that God’s grace is sufficient for even me.
So, we’ve been without internet this last week. It seems fitting since this was my first week at home by myself with Aidan. It was really nice not being distracted with all the feeds I feel I have to read, no phone (we get our phone through skype). Maybe it was something God planned so that I could take a week and really bond with Aidan and get back in the routine of doing my daily devotionals and prayer.
But I didn’t choose this.
It seems to be a perfect financial storm. Last month at Olan Mills, they cut me down to around 20 hours per week, well actually they cut my hours just after Christmas. Also, this was an hour drive into work each day (and an hour home too). So for the last two months we’ve been living on around $600 a month (excluding taxes because I never see those anyway). Rent is $525 by itself, leaving around $75 for electric, car insurance, internet, gas, and etc. Oh, and don’t forget the birth of Aidan in there. Our first child. The brakes went out on one car too.
This was the last three months.
Well, we are two months behind on most of our bills. Internet has been cut off. Electric is pending disconnection. I am writing from the coffee shop because they have wifi though I won’t be buying anything today. 
These have been three months of intense prayer and change in our lives.
Let me start by thanking a few people:
- Our Families. Becca’s grandpa sent us a $500 gift card as a late Christmas gift in January. Becca’s parents gave us numerous things for the little one as well as a little financial help. My parents also helped us out in various ways including letting me borrow the truck over the last months. My mom also held a baby shower for us among family.
- Discovery Church. The people there held a baby shower in December for us. I think we’ve finally gotten the stamps to send out the thank you cards. For the nice people who lent us a bassinet for that first month (who just sent me a message on facebook asking about Aidan).
- Community Wesleyan Church. Both for financial help and support and prayer. (The small group has been a great blessing to all of us on Sunday nights). It’s nice to be back.
- Baptist Towers. For the baby shower. I don’t even personally know these people, but it’s where Becca worked before she married me. Becca’s mom also works there.
- West Covington Baptist Church. For a baby shower too. You people are great. We’ll try to visit more often in the future, but it has been hard as of late as this post details.
- David Hayward of Naked Pastor. I’ve been hosting his sites for free over the last few months. I didn’t ask for any kind of payment. He’s been going through some financial difficulties too. But, recently he told Becca and I to go out to dinner on a little money he sent via paypal. We needed it desperately. We got a chance to go out to eat and talk and debrief over the last few months and talk about some decisions we hadn’t had the opportunity to talk over yet. I ate a breadstick at Olive Garden for you David.
Internet isn’t back on yet, but Becca got a better paying job at hhgregg that is full-time. I left Olan Mills to be a stay-at-home dad as soon as we knew Becca got the new job. I am expecting a check from hostmonster for affiliate payout. I will probably put it down on Electric or Internet if it comes today. I get my last check from Olan Mills on Thursday night. Becca will get paid on April 2nd for her first two weeks at hhgregg so I think rent will be taken care of then. I have a guy I do web design for that will pay me the rest of the year if I ask (I am trying not to ask and be that pesky web guy who keeps asking for a month’s advance even though he doesn’t see it that way).
We are not out of the hot water yet, but there is more hope than we’ve felt over the last few months. Thank you for your prayers. for the readers who keep coming back expecting updates and haven’t seen any. (I am sorry by the way… soon I hope I can resume normal posting.)
In Christ,
~William Lehman
This sign just seems to fit rather well with most churches.
Unfortunately, we need probably a few things thrown at us to wake us up and do what we don’t usually do. What we usually do isn’t what God has called us to do.
Throw something into the cage.
We look dead.
We look like we are asleep.
We are not doing what we should be doing.
I design the powerpoint presentation for our church every week. It’s a pretty time consuming process, but when it’s done right can be very effective.
So what makes a powerpoint that both is effective and not overpowering?
Contrast, Color Sequencing, Appropriate Graphics that communicate rather than are just eye candy.
I decided this week on a warm color scheme and it seems to be coming together pretty well so far.
I recently created my first google ad using flash and adwords to market our church. I am curious as to how it will do. I am listing it within 20 miles of 43055 for starters with the keywords listed below.
So in a concentrated effort to actually see it display on my own site as an ad, I am going to list the keywords and see if it shows up over here ————–>
But for the design junkies who are curious about the ad,
and the keywords for this campaign.
baptist church
bible church
calvary church
catholic church
children’s church
christ church
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church planting
church service
church services
church songs
church times
church website
churchs
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congregational church
contemporary church
emergent church
emerging church
faith baptist church
family church
fellowship church
find a church
first baptist church
first christian church
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life church
local church
metal church
new life church
non denominational church
rock church
roman catholic church
saddleback church
the church
vineyard church
wesleyan church
willow creek church
youth church
