Author: Wick

I think five years of anything in particular can prompt a bit of a reflection. June 1st of 2006, I was officially hired by Moundford Free Methodist Church in Decatur, IL. Sarah and I had spent over a year in Decatur, waiting on God, believing He had called us here. Not only to be near family, but to be deeply involved in a ministry that held family in high regard.

Spending some time in prayer this morning, the picture above seemed to capture exactly what I wanted to convey. I feel as if the sun has only begun to rise on what God has for us here. It’s hard to express just how thankful I am for where we are, and the ministry we’re enabled to live out. The relationships we’ve built, and continue to build on.

Family has definitely been a focus of our life and ministry ever since coming to Moundford. After all, for most of our tenure so far, we’ve added a child every year or so to our own. We began here with no kids, and now our home contains so much cuteness that we should probably charge admission. It’s a tremendous blessing to have a church that acknowledges the sacrifices of having a youth pastor at my stage in life. They could have a younger, “pre-child”-stage youth pastor with unlimited time and resources to give. They could have an older, “grown-child” stage youth pastor, who can pack up the kids or leave them at home and knows how to navigate parenting with professional life. Instead they’ve been enduring a youth pastor who is still learning how to balance a hugely demanding family role with a job that he never clocks out of.

I like to believe my family is a HUGE part of my life as a minister. It seems my church family agrees. We continue to experience God’s “Yes!” to this path of raising a family and ministering among the people of the greater Decatur area.

There’s another side to this coin. I’m almost 30, and there’s that overly-quoted statistic about the short tenures of most youth pastors. Any youth pastor with a balding spot gets asked, “so when do you think you’ll become a senior pastor?” My response, this morning at least, would be something like:

I get to preach often. Sometimes to the whole congregation. I get to lead worship on occasion. I get to teach/discuss/study scripture. I get to visit people in the hospital, and pray with people in their homes. I carry a burden for our church’s needs in a way that drives me to prayer as one of their pastors. I also have a special love for the youth, and this stage of life that is so ridiculously fluid and foundational. I get to focus much of my energy/efforts towards calling these young adults and their families to the revelation/transformation of Jesus Christ and His Spirit. I get to help feed the hungry. I get to minister in a city that is marginalized, and actively working to reach out to the marginalized…in a congregation that is increasingly globally-burdened and active. I am in the midst of God freeing captives, bringing redemption, and giving New Life. And that’s an abbreviated list.

I think this is a pretty good place to be. And we have only begun…

I know “ascenscial” is probably not a word. But there is an assumption within the “ascension” that can lead to all sorts of other messes, if we don’t sort it out ahead of time.  Of course, it could also simply be interesting speculation…

In Luke 24:51, “While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven.”

and in Acts 1:9-10, “When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them.”

The word used in the Luke passage for “taken up” does not automatically mean “up” as a direction. Anymore than when my 2 year old “swallows up” her food, does it mean she took it in a direction opposite the floor.

In Acts, we find a similar situation, with Jesus being taken out of their sight as literally “a cloud received him”.

These are human attempts to describe something that doesn’t occur on a regular basis. Something “science fiction” authors hadn’t yet developed easily-grasped modes of describing yet  (if we can consider todays common sci-fi terminology “easily-grasped”).

To put it simply, if Jesus went “up” from one spot on the world into “heaven”, that means he went “down” from another spot on the world.  We have seen the galaxies and solar systems beyond our own a bit more than they had in the early Church, enough to understand “heaven” is probably not simply “up there somewhere”.

It seems more likely, especially with things like Christ entering the locked room after the resurrection, that “paradise” as Christ called it on the cross, is a realm that is not far from our own. The resurrected Christ seems to be physically going in between “paradise” and our world in a way no one else can. Recent science fiction might even refer to it as “another dimension” occupying a space very near to ours.

So what does all of this mean for us?  Why does it matter?

It may not be a big deal.  But it definitely offers to give us hope, as we look forward to a New Heaven and New Earth being married together.  Perhaps someday we will all share in the resurrected existence we see in Christ, crossing back and forth between the two dimensions.  We do not have to believe in a moment where Jesus, like Superman, looks up and thrusts his fist into the air – blasting off from the surface of the earth.

Is it any less fantastic to believe that Jesus is simply “taken into” another dimension?  I suppose not.  But at least I don’t feel as silly.  I guess it also makes me feel like God is a bit less removed than some would believe Him to be.

It was one of those experiences that seem to define you as a parent. One of those long, perspiration and prayer filled moments that other seasoned parents watch you go through and smile, saying something like “ahh, NOW you know what parenting involves.”. One that you would rather fast-forward through, but at the same time can’t help but realize God wants to use this to help you grow.

I was knee-deep in a youth group graduation party, when our Childrens’ Pastor came downstairs. “Your wife is taking your daughter to the ER, and you need to go. I don’t know what’s wrong.” It was a blur from there until arriving at the ER before they even got there. Waiting to see what could be wrong. Finally they pulled up, and Sarah handed me Ruby. A faint smile as she recognized me, and no blood. But it was around 7pm, and this one year old that usually bounced off the walls was laying heavily across my arms.

She continued to lay, on the edge of consciousness, as Doctors examined her. Poking and prodding, listening and asking questions, she disregarded them as if a gentle breeze. The list of tests was seemingly endless. Urine samples (who knew a little girl could pee on the nurse that far away?), cotton swabs, blood samples, CT Scan, Spinal Tap, and an EEG. The first tears rolled as they began the IV. Her bottom lip pouted out as if to catch every tear that traced her cheeks. In the midst of her cries, she looked up at me as if to ask “Why are you letting them do this?” As drops of blood stained the sheet beneath her, I asked myself the same thing. Her temperature had spiked to near 103 since arriving. I kissed her sweat-covered forehead with all the love I could convey, whispering it would be alright.

As every test came back healthy, we were glad she was fine in that regard, but confusion continued to mount. What was this?

Over the next couple days, she returned to us. Her temperature stayed down for longer periods. She grew restless, wanting to be held at first, and then wanting to walk a bit. We were stored neatly in a closet used as a room for infants in the pediatric hall. It was no small miracle that the tube emerging from her arm held to the tape that seemed just as painful as the needle itself. My wife volunteered (read “required”) herself to stay with Ruby each night, sacrificing comfort to provide loving presence. Time passed with prayers, walks down a short hallway, and visits with love. It’s hard to imagine someone enduring this in the midst of tornado damage, as some have done recently in other areas. We remain thankful for all we have.

About 3 days later, they’d tested everything possible. Still no idea. They determined it had been a virus of some sort, and that she had sufficiently fought it off. We could go home. A quick lunch, and then we laid all 3 girls down for the first “family nap time” in quite a while.

Waking slowly, we noticed our 2nd born had grown a fever during her nap. At least this time, we could skip the hospital involvement…