Dec132009

JourneyNote #3

By JeremiahGomez | December 13, 2009 | Posted in JourneyNotes | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (0)

55.5 Square Miles

Within an area of 55.5 square miles, not very far from where I write these words, is a community which is home to fortune 500 companies, seats of commerce, houses of industry and institutions of innovation and education.  Within those 55.5 square miles, hundreds of thousands work, live, and build relationships.  Millions more live just outside the area.

The community found within that tract of land is known for an uncanny ability to reinvent itself; so resilient are these people that the recent G-20 Summit was hosted there to showcase one city’s ability to not only weather but grow stronger through economic crises and global storms.

Within those 55.5 square miles, you will find incredible fusions of old and new, stayed and untried.  You will also find 455 bridges, 712 public stairways, 8 tunnels, 90 distinctive neighborhoods, and 140 separately identifiable ethnic groups.

But you won’t find a single Wesleyan Church.

In fact, you won’t find a Wesleyan church within what is considered ‘reasonable driving distance’ of those 55.5 square miles.

I’m sharing about the city of Pittsburgh, where “95 percent of the local population has no recognizable, identifiable relationship with Jesus Christ.”

Sarah and I, partnering with the Cox family (Rick, Eunice, and Trevor), and, hopefully, partnering with you, are working to change at lease one of those statistics.  The Coxes and Gomezes have joyfully accepted the call to church planting in the Pittsburgh region and are growing in passion for what we sense as God’s desire in the area.

Our heart’s passion is to see a multiethnic, multicultural church right in the ‘Burgh.  We sense God’s leadership in developing a relevant, engaging hub of ministry to people from a variety of cultural, economic, and spiritual backgrounds–where once steel was forged, now lives are fused with the Spirit of God, strengthened and engaged as members of His Body.   What we can see is a multiplication center working within the heart of the city where countless individuals are sent out as missionaries to the communities of Pittsburgh, the surrounding areas, throughout the region and around the world.  In fact, God is already drawing people to be part of this great work and we believe His dreams are far bigger than ours.

Does any of this stir your heart with excitement and passion?  If so, remain on the lookout because in a few days, we’ll be sending you more information on how you can be involved in this Great Pittsburgh Adventure.

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Nov072009

JourneyNote

By JeremiahGomez | November 7, 2009 | Posted in JourneyNotes | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

bridgeA couple of months ago, my wife sent the following JourneyNote to many of our friends and family.  It’s a bit of a personal update I thought you might enjoy.  The second Note was sent out yesterday; but here’s the first one for your perusal:

To our family and friends:

Yes, you.  If you are receiving this note, than you can be sure that we consider you family or friend (or both!!).

As many of you already know and some may have heard through different grapevines, life has taken some twists and turns in the last six months or so for Jeremiah and me.  Our time of pastoring at Carlisle Wesleyan came to an end in mid-June, and since then we have been trying to decipher the ‘next steps’ that God has prepared for us to do.  God has been proving himself to be our provider as we began the difficult transformation into realizing that we couldn’t do it for ourselves!

Part of what God has begun to unveil to us is that deep in the DNA of who he created us to be, there is the unique make-up of “church planters”.  While the idea of taking part in a church plant (a new church) has shown itself a few times since our years at Bethany, it wasn’t until recently that God began showing this to us not only as a viable option of what he could do through us, but perhaps even the very thing he wanted to accomplish through us.

So our journey continues; as our family and friends, we cherish the idea of taking you along for the ride.  Every couple of weeks, we will be writing these “JourneyNotes” to hopefully accomplish two things: 1- to keep you up to date on what we are up to, and 2- to keep you aware of specific ways you can be praying for us.  If you’d rather not receive our JourneyNotes, all you need to do is reply to this email and let us know you’d like to be removed; if you do wish to receive these updates, please be sure to add these two email addresses to your ’safe email’ lists: jeremiah<at>jxgomez<dot>com and sarah<at>jxgomez<dot>com (also, if you have another e-mail address you’d prefer we send these Notes to, don’t hesitate to let us know!).

We know that we are not the only ones involved in this sojourn through life, and would love to hear from you and have you share specific ways we can be praying for you as well.

We thank God for the gift of each of you,
Sarah (and Jeremiah!)

PS–Another way you can keep up to date on what we are up to is to follow our blogs (these notes will be posted there as well). Jeremiah’s blog can be found at jxgomez.com/blog and Sarah’s blog is at sdgomez.blogspot.com

By JeremiahGomez | Posted in JourneyNotes | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)
Oct292009

Retail Reflections: Training

By JeremiahGomez | October 29, 2009 | Posted in church | Tagged , | Comments (0)
Barbed<Image courtesy of DawnAllyn>

One of the things I very much appreciate about my current place of employment is the value they place on training.  I’ve had jobs before where training consisted of being given a list of duties/responsibilities and being told to “go and do.”  Where I’m working now, however, places such an emphasis on properly training their management staff that I spent the entirety of my first two weeks learning hands-on how to function in my new role.  This season of  training culminated in a daylong ‘evaluation’ of sorts wherein a training manager made sure I knew what I was supposed to know; it was made clear even then there will be other focused learning opportunities along the way.

Granted, I was hired because there was a sense of chemistry and I have a certain skill-set which appealed to the person responsible for finding a good fit for the open position.  But certain skills and being something of a people-person only go so far… so before I was to be trusted with higher levels of responsibility, I had to be trained.  All of this quality (and costly) training did more than just prepare me for job responsibilities—it demonstrated that I had value and granted accountability.

I feel valuable—this company invested hours and hours and hours of payroll in me knowing they wouldn’t see immediate return on that investment.  People took the time from their other responsibilities to make sure I was equipped to succeed.   In doing this, the company began forging a relationship from day one with a new employee, making it less likely in the high-turnover world of retail that I would leave before bringing any value to the team.

I’m also accountable—all of that training and being evaluated means I should know how to operate according to the standards of the company.  The organization fulfilled its part by ensuring I was given the tools and understanding necessary to fulfill the functions of my job.  That means I now need to fulfill those same functions according the standards and practices outlined during the training process.  This way, I know when I’m doing well without anybody needing to tell me (although it’s still nice to hear)… and I know when I’m not doing so well.  There’s no question about whether enduring the consequences of personal error is fair or not because I cannot claim ignorance or faulty education.  This kind of training/accountability lays the framework for doing better and better work as well as bringing more and more value to the organization as our relationship continues.

Too often in organizations and ministry we are  so excited that someone wants to serve we train them with the ‘go and do’ mentality, heaping task upon task which must be done upon them… rather than cultivating them to take on real responsibility.

What if we took more time to invest in our workers and volunteers—showing them value, ensuring the organizational culture and standards were being modeled and providing boundaries of accountability while helping to define a ‘win’ both for them and us.   This type of approach is different depending on the organization and the person being trained but it means a greater likelihood of reproducing quality leadership and having confidence in those who serve.  This kind of training is certainly costly and it is a little risky (what if the person we invest so much in leaves? takes what we taught and uses it somewhere else? is a jerk?)… but the potential reward far outshines the risk.

By JeremiahGomez | Posted in church | Tagged , | Comments (0)
Oct272009

Doing the right thing…

By JeremiahGomez | October 27, 2009 | Posted in Joshua | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (0)

…isn’t always easy.  There are times and circumstances that we face which when right and wrong are more like shades of gray than they are black and white.  There are those moments when a choice presents itself when both (or all!) options seem more than ‘okay;’ times when we have to decide about jobs, health procedures, organizational strategy, whether to stay or go in any number of things, or the best course of action for a loved one and their future… and the details, options, and consequences are anything but simple.

In Joshua 9 & 10, there are principles demonstrated to the reader about how to handle those times when we don’t know what the ‘right thing to do’ is.  The people of Israel are in the midst of a progressive military campaign as they work to conquer & claim land promised in generations past.  They have faced and overcome many obstacles; individuals have risked their own lives and families for the sake of a greater cause; all the while God has shown he alone is the Leader, Provider, and Conqueror.

Word comes to these same people that an army unlike anything they had faced thus far had amassed… and is heading directly toward their position.  Israel’s battle tacticians and warrior-leader, Joshua, begin planning strategy, knowing there are many battles which still lie ahead… and that if they can’t deal with the obstacle heading their way, all will be lost.

In this midst of this, a band of tired, road-weary, seemingly desperate travelers comes their way seeking a treaty of peace.  And the Joshua, the Israelites, (and us, too!) learn some hard lessons in doing the right thing.  Over the next few Joshua posts, we’ll discover what some of those lessons are.

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Oct102009

Women!

By JeremiahGomez | October 10, 2009 | Posted in General | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Magnet_female_male_263191_l

As stated yesterday, now that I’ve been married for three years (and a few days), I can be seen as something of an expert when it comes to marriage… and, I believe, women in general.

Here’s everything I’ve learned about women:

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Love them.

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That is all.

By JeremiahGomez | Posted in General | Tagged , | Comments (0)
Oct092009

Marital Counsel

By JeremiahGomez | October 9, 2009 | Posted in General | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Now that I’ve had three ’successful’ years as a husband, I feel justified in sharing unsolicited advice with the world about marriage.

Ready?

Here it goes:

Every marriage is different.

While there are certain principles within Scripture and common sense ground rules that should inform our marriages, people are different and every individual marriage is unique.

That doesn’t mean we should never seek coaching and counsel, but I think it helps us understand the kind of coaching and counsel we should seek.  If our marriage mentors or counselors are sharing ‘what works’ only from personal experience it should cause us to pause—what ‘worked’ for them may not work for everybody… but someone who helps to see the joy of Christ as the foundation of marriage and who can help work through the tough stuff of life without saying, “This is exactly what you need to do.” is someone who understands the unique nature of individual relationships.

And that’s my unsolicited advice for the day.

Check back tomorrow when I share what three years of marriage has taught me about women.

By JeremiahGomez | Posted in General | Tagged , | Comments (0)
Oct082009

Fourth Year.

By JeremiahGomez | October 8, 2009 | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Picture1Yesterday, Sarah and I started into our fourth year of married life together.  In our first three years we lived in two states and three homes, have endured issues of health and future, changed career directions, known great abundance as well as financial hardship, dug deeper into understanding God’s leading in our lives, purchased our first house, adopted our first puppy, replaced various pieces of our first house because of damage caused by our first puppy … the list could go on and on and on.  But I would not change any of it.

I’m excited about what our fourth year will hold and am thankful for the incredible blessing of heaven in whom I have been given as a wife and co-journeyer.  I am a blessed man indeed.

By JeremiahGomez | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)
Oct062009

The Gimmies

By JeremiahGomez | October 6, 2009 | Posted in Joshua | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (0)
Greed<Image courtesy of bejealousofme>

Christmas is coming.

Now, we may not be very far into autumn, Halloween is still almost a month away, and Thanksgiving is a distant thought for those of us here in the US.  But reminders are everywhere that Christmas is coming and retailers are working hard to instill a bad case of the gimmies in every consumer.  It’s a disease that strikes young and old alike, when raw consumerism and selfishness reign, and though self-restraint may keep us from actually verbalizing, “Gimmie, gimmie, gimmie…” the sentiment can still be found in many.

But The Gimmies aren’t something unique to the Christmas spending season or retail marketing.  Somewhere deep within each of us is the desire to grab a hold of the stuff that isn’t ours but we think we deserve.

In Joshua 7, Achan did exactly this.  He grabbed a hold of some of the very things God said were only God’s, and, as shared in the last Joshua post, the result was disastrous for the people of Israel.  Achan held onto something that wasn’t his and the consequences were dire.  His actions should cause each of us to ask if we aren’t holding onto things not ours… things even greater than the shiny new _______ (you fill in the blank) we desire when flipping through the Sunday ads.

Are we attempting to possess something that isn’t really ours?  Do we recognize that even ‘our’ job is simply God’s chosen vehicle for his provision in our lives and that it isn’t really ours at all?  That our job isn’t ours to squander or take advantage of; it isn’t ours to do with as we please… because it simply isn’t ours?

What about ‘our’ church?  We often try to make church what WE want… either in the name of some sacrosanct tradition, because of ‘righteous indignation,’ or in the name of ‘reaching the lost at any cost’ when, at the core of it all we’re just fighting for personal preference and comfort… what we want when we want how we want.  And yet, Scripture is clear that the Chruch is Christ’s body over which he is the Head… and as the Sovereign King, His design and desire are all that matter.

Or how about family?  Parents (I’m treading lightly here because I recognize I’m not a parent) sometimes forget that ‘their’ children are really lives which belong to God and the parent is given brief stewardship over.  Spouses are called to love, respect, protect, and submit to one another not because they belong to each other but because God has, in a sovereign but loving manner, given husbands to their wives and vice-versa.

We all too often commit the sin of Achan, taking the things that are devoted to God and trying to claim them as our own.  To those of us in Christ, our call is one to a life of continued, consistent obedience, even in those areas of life which may seem too big/special/scary to trust to God.  But they (and we) are His, and so is the victory we seek.

By JeremiahGomez | Posted in Joshua | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (0)
Oct022009

Revival!

By JeremiahGomez | October 2, 2009 | Posted in church | Tagged , , , | Comment (1)
70258803_98cd109e6e<image courtesy of clearly ambiguous>

Beginning this evening, I’ll be preaching a series of messages for a ‘revival’ being held in Watts Towndship at the Wesleyan Church there.

I know it sounds old-timey, and the concept of ‘revival meetings’ has long ago lost its luster in many places… but I’m incredibly excited about this opportunity.  The desire of the church’s pastor is true ‘revival’–”to stir up or rekindle a fire which is slowly dying.”  The heart of the pastor and many of the people is that by dedicating a few pointed hours of their weekend to hear and heed the Spirit of God, a dying flame will be rekindled into a full-on blaze.

As excited as I am, I’m also a little scared: the people are praying for, hoping for, and expectant of a genuine revival in their hearts and church which will spill over into the lives of their community.

Why does this scare me?

I’m the preacher.

And I am very much aware of my own fallibility, shortcomings, and plain-old human-ness.  If ‘genuine revival’ comes, it won’t be because of me… it will be in spite of the preacher.  As much as I recognize work being done in the lives of others is only God’s to do, I feel a great weight of responsibility in preparing myself to be used… and a certain level of terror when I recognize the incredible honor I have and the truth that “every time you preach, you stand before a living God and dying Man.”

Hold on.  I think I need to throw up.

By JeremiahGomez | Posted in church | Tagged , , , | Comment (1)
Oct012009

Retail Reflections: StockBoy

By JeremiahGomez | October 1, 2009 | Posted in church | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)
487794_chemistry_4<image courtesy of vierdrie>

A little while ago, I shared my experience interviewing for a home improvement retailer.  You can read that post here.  During my recent journey of searching for and being given work, I experienced some interactions with the retail world that might be useful in informing different aspects of the Church world.

One of the other potential employers who needed ‘very open availability’ was only able to commit to five hours a week of work.  Again, the pay rate wasn’t anything spectacular.  But here’s how the interview process played out:

  • Brief, initial phone interview focused mostly on verifying information from the application and confirming ‘very open availability.
  • One-on-one interview with a potential supervisor.  Questions covered everything from experience to hypothetical ‘what-if’s.”
  • One-on-one interview with the potential supervisor’s supervisor.  More questions, but mostly casual interaction much more conversational in tone.
  • One-on-one conversation and clarification with the “HR Lady.”

Pretty involved for a part-time, low-paid position, wouldn’t you agree?  Much of the questioning and conversation centered around two things: availability and chemistry.

In a retail world, availability is king.  If you can’t actually be at work when people are going to be buying things, you’re not going to be much of an asset to the company.  The question was, “are you actually willing to commit to being here and making this a priority?”  Through experience as well as recognizing the ramping-up for the holiday shopping season, this potential employer knew they needed to clarify issues of availability.  Not being able to show up when they most needed to show up meant not getting the job.  Period.

Remember, we’re talking about a guaranteed *five hours* of work a week here… but needing wide-open availability all week long.

Chemistry was also important.  Everything related to serving in this environment was about ‘teamwork.’  Each shift contributes to the success of the store as part of a team; preparations for the next day’s selling activities are completed as a team; training is administered to staff as a team.  The concept of the ‘team’ is very, very important.  Someone coming on who is focused too much on themselves will have a negative impact on the team; likewise, someone who can’t take personal responsibility will also negatively impact those around them and the store’s bottom line.

It was clear this working together aspect was incredibly important… and why, I believe, I interacted with so many people in the course of pursuing a job offer.

When it comes to finding people for our ministry teams, we would be wise to consider these aspects of the process as incredibly important, too.  If a retailer spends so much time checking to see if commitment and chemistry are so important before investing a small hourly wage in their employee, maybe the Church should care for these things in pursuit of advancing the Kingdom of Christ.

What level of commitment are we expecting from our people?  Now, I’m not saying we push people too hard or too far; and I’m not advocating the idea that every member should sacrifice everything outside of church for church (that’s not really ministry… but I’ll save that for some other post some other time).  In my experience, people rise exactly to what we expect of them.  Expect half-hearted participation and that’s what you’ll get.  Expect deep commitment from those who serve out of love, and watch them rise to the occasion.

How much are we looking for chemistry and teamwork rather than ‘rising stars?’   I got the feeling this particular retailer had passed ‘qualified applicants’ by because they lacked the ability to work on a team.  Maybe we could take a page from that play book and again realize that a ‘qualified‘ ministry team member does not always the right ministry team member make.

By JeremiahGomez | Posted in church | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)