JourneyNote #3

December 13, 2009

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.

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

JourneyNote

November 7, 2009

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)

Women!

October 10, 2009

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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)

Marital Counsel

October 9, 2009

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)

Revival!

October 2, 2009
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)

Retail Reflections: StockBoy

October 1, 2009
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.

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Back in the Saddle Again

September 27, 2009

belts<image courtesy of Freerange Stock archives>

Trying to get in the swing of things with a new job, preparing to speak in some ‘special meetings’ this coming weekend, working through church plant stuff, and taking care of life at home has meant a whole new time-management paradigm than I’ve been used to.  One of the side effects of all of this has been that blogging has fallen by the wayside.  I apologize to both of my faithful readers :-) .

I think it will be a good practice in discipline to make sure that I take care of this online ‘presence’ regularly.  This week, I’m trying something I picked up from Michael Hyatt, the CEO of Thomas Nelson publishing: setting aside a few hours a week to get all of my writing done and schedule the posts to occur regularly.  I won’t have to let you know how that goes: it will be pretty evident within a week or so whether or not I’ve been successful.

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Retail Reflections: CartBoy

September 17, 2009

92853732_0e89e5cc83<image courtesy of iboy_daniel>

Since leaving a position as pastor of a local church this summer, I’ve been hunting for work wherever I thought it could be found.  Recently, I was provided with a job at  a retail store, but this wasn’t the first retail interview I had experienced as of late (a couple of interviews led to job offers which needed ‘very open availability’–read “Sunday-Saturday 8AM-10PM available”–with very low pay and no guarantee of more than five or eight hours a week).

But as I’ve gone through the process of interviewing for and engaging with a job much different than my last one, I’ve been struck by some of the lessons/practices which could be used by the Church in its pursuit of invading the world with Christ’s love & power.  I’ll share some of them here in between the next few Joshua posts.  Here’s the observation for today–simple and obvious, but worth mentioning:

Discern Stengths and Abilities
One of the jobs I interviewed for was CartBoy (not the industry term) for a popular big-box home improvement retailer.  You may recall earlier the mention of little pay and few hours and, as you can imagine, “CartBoy” is a position that mostly requires interacting with shopping carts.  Still, this particular retailer knew that even CartBoys and CartGirls can strengthen or undermine a positive customer experience.  So, before the interview for a low-paid, very part-time CartPerson position could be completed, I was assigned another employee who would observe my interactions with customers on the salesfloor.

Either I would be comfortable and able to engage customers or I wouldn’t function well within the structure and focus the organization had.  Rather than wait to find out if I had no personality, the store mananger didn’t want the interview to go forward without a sense of my strengths and abilities.

You know what they didn’t check?  My knowledge of pushing carts.  Cart-pushing technique–and, oh yes, there is a technique–can be taught.  Chemistry with the customer can’t.   The store could have just settled for a guy or girl who was willing to push a bunch of carts, but the skill was less important than preserving the purpose of the store: to serve the consumer.

The lesson here: just because someone has a skill doesn’t mean they are right for a given position or service opportunity.  We can teach whatever skill we need; but finding the right people and getting them in place is harder work.  If we ignore this lesson, though, we end up with burnt out, tired, frustrated people with hearts of gold… when all they needed was the opportunity to fulfil their purpose and that of the church in a way that can’t be taught but is incredibly valuable.

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

CPAC, Day One

August 18, 2009

36963900_4106e91ed1<Image courtesy of Clearly Ambiguous>

Today was a great ‘introduction’ day—the three couples here for Assessment got a chance to get to know each other, and we were given a glimpse of the process involved in CPAC before jumping in headlong.  Before we go any further, though, it’s worth noting that it was communicated time and time again that this process is much more about discovering who God has created us to be and to find the best ministry fit than it is about any kind of pass-or-fail scenario.  The advice given to us: have fun and enjoy the incredible gift of having three days full of people taking the time to help us understand who we are and how God may be leading us.  Sounds like very wise advice to me.

We began with each potential planter delivering two messages: five minutes to a ‘room of unchurched people’ on why they should consider Jesus, and five minutes attempting to convince someone to join you in a ministry endeavor.  Following their ‘talks,’ each couple had a few minutes answering questions in front of the group.

That led to our first interview time—each couple was assigned an assessor and was privately interviewed for about two and half hours (there will be more interviewing tomorrow).  The ‘interview’ was a lot like filling out a verbal questionnaire about past experiences.  What is likely to be is best found by what has already been; in other words, how someone will act/react/perform can be pretty well predicted by how they’ve acted/reacted/performed in the past; so the assessors use questions that help identify themes and constants throughout the life of the potential planter.  The times of interview, so far at least, haven’t been overly uncomfortable or super invasive, but very conversational in tone.

After our interview sessions, everybody regrouped for supper (us ‘assessees’ all sat together to enjoy some more get-to-know-you time and conversation—it’s amazing to spend time with people who are so passionate about what God not only can do but desires to do in our world.

But now it’s time to get some rest—tomorrow will be a long, full day.  All of us are excited to see how God uses this time to prepare our ‘next steps.’  But before I head to bed, I would like to make a request of those who may happen to be reading this—all of our talk today has been focused on being used by God to advance his Kingdom and the glory of his Great Name, and I’m reminded of one of Jesus’ commands in terms of what we should pray for.

Matthew 9:

35 Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.“

So, my request is that you would ask the Lord of harvest to send out workers into his field.  A bit of warning before you do that, though: you just might find yourself being sent into that very field… across the street or across the globe.  And maybe part of that journey for you is taking part in an assessment much like this one…

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This entry is also posted at theydidwewill.blogspot.com, the blog of the Church Multiplication Task Force of the WPA District of the Wesleyan Church.

By JeremiahGomez | Posted in Assessment Center | Tagged , , , | Comment (1)

My Prayer for Today…

August 18, 2009

Lately at the beginning of (and often throughout) each day, I’ve been praying something like this:

God, make me a fool so You can shame the wise.
Father, please make me weak, so as to shame the strong.
Make me lowly and despised, as we watch You shine above the created order.
Help me to boast only in You—because You and Your righteousness are the only good in me; may I be mindful of who I was when You called me: unwise, influencing nothing, and of humble birth.
All I have and all I am is in You.  Through me and my life, please proclaim the crucifixion and make known Your great love, power, and righteousness.

Thank You for making me Yours.

Now, I just hope I have courage and steadfastness as it is answered.

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