In life we try to have empathy for people when they go through hard times. In my life, if I heard about someone loosing a loved one to cancer, I felt bad for them. I hated it for them, but ultimately I feel like I cannot begin to even get close to understanding what they were going through.

In the last year, two men in new media announced their marriages were ending. I’ve admired the work of both men and the marriages of both men. When they each announced their divorces, I was deeply saddened for days. I didn’t understand the sadness. I know them both a little bit on a professional level, but not very well on a personal level so the depth of my sadness was unusual. Looking back, I think I probably had a sense that my marriage wasn’t making it either.

There is no way I could have ever guessed how painful the divorce process is. Friends help in amazing ways, but unless they’ve experienced the emotional trauma of divorce they can only help so much. They try their hardest and you’ll appreciate the effort, but I’ve found it really helpful to find people going through the same thing.

At first, I attended something called RE|ENGAGE at Watermark Church in Dallas. It’s a dynamic, ongoing Wednesday night ministry designed to strengthen and heal marriages. One of the most unique things about RE|ENGAGE is its group sessions. There are couples groups, like you’d expect, but there are also groups for spouses who are there to work on their marriage without their partner. There are men’s groups and women’s groups. There is something powerful about hearing a person you don’t know, express in words the exact feelings you’re experiencing. The realization that you’re not alone in feeling the way you do is the beginning of healing. At least it has been for me.

I still believe God wants to heal marriages, but I’ve lost faith that He’ll heal mine before divorce is final. I’m switching from RE|ENGAGE to another support system called DivorceCare. DivorceCare is something that takes place in churches all over America. It’s a support group kind of thing where you walk through the pain with other people who are experiencing it too.

I’m not really in a position to hand out advice to anyone, so this is really just about what’s working for me. Friends have been amazing. Friends have also been frustrating when they haven’t understood, but mostly they’ve been amazing. Ultimately though, it’s been very important to talk to people who personally know from experience what this is like. That’s what I encourage anyone going through this to do.

It turns out we’re never quite as unique as we think we are and that’s a very beautiful thing.

via @jpratchett

Brian McLaren is a liberal pastor who writes books that upset conservative Christians. My Christian friends who prefer democrats tend to like Brian, and my Christian friends who prefer republicans tend to think he is a heretic.

I don’t really have an opinion about him. I’m probably more inclined to disagree with him politically, but the one thing I know is that my friends who read his books love God and do more to help the poor than the friends who call him a heretic.

Last night, I watched a video of a group of conservative theologians sitting on a stage tearing Brian’s latest book apart. They seemed to really enjoy themselves as the repeatedly called Brian out on hermeneutical errors. The smugness on that stage looked and sounded much more like the religious leaders who wanted Jesus killed and out of the way than the ones who wanted to do what He said to do.

I’m not good at the thing I think we’re called to do as Christians yet, but I’m working on it. We’re called to love and take care of hurting people. Jesus didn’t say the world would know us by our spot on theology. He said they’d know us by our love. Disagree or agree with Brian all you want, but don’t get dressed up and turn on cameras to spend an evening on a stage talking about him. I guarantee that there are people those guys on that stage could have been loving one-on-one like Jesus did, but instead they turned the gospel into sideline commentary to make themselves feel superior.

I’ve been more guilty of emphatically believing what I believe than anyone. Being right isn’t all that important. Sharing the transformative love of God matters more than politics and it matters more than hermeneutics so let’s just get over ourselves.

We were doing some cleaning today and I came across something beautiful I wanted to share.

Three years ago, my sister-in-law asked me to perform her wedding ceremony. Not only did I get to officiate, I got to write the wedding “sermon.” I read it this morning and thought I’d share it (with some personal bits removed)…

We’re gathered here this afternoon, in this beautiful place, to celebrate one of life’s greatest moments, to give recognition to the value and beauty of love, and to add our best wishes to the words that will unite Fielding and Michael in marriage.

Fielding and Michael, we start life out as individuals, but you know what?  God says it’s not good for us to be alone, so He created within each of us a driving desire to find someone…to find THAT SPECIAL someone…and you guys did it!  You found each other.
It wasn’t easy.  It might have even taken longer than you would have wanted, but it happened and when it happened, you knew.
And now today, you guys begin a life-long adventure of love.  Your life together is blessed by God and it’s blessed by us, your friends and family.

When Fielding and Michael asked me to perform this ceremony, I was excited because I LOVE love!  And, I love weddings because a wedding is a formal celebration of love…a time when friends and family join together to acknowledge love is more than just a chemical reaction or an emotion that comes and goes. It’s a decision that changes your lives as solitary individuals into a team ready to take on the world, with all it’s ups and downs.

The Bible says, Love never gives up.  Love cares more for other than for self.  Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.  Love isn’t proud.  It isn’t me first.  It doesn’t take pleasure in the sins of others.  It puts up with anything, trusts God always, always looks for the best, never looks back and keeps going to the end.  Love never dies.

A movie called love “a many splendored thing.”

John Lennon says, “All you need is love.”

Shakespeare says, “Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom.”

I say, nothing is more awesome than love, so my question for you guys, is this…are you ready to get married?

Then let’s do it.

Michael, do you take Fielding to be your Wife? (“I do”) Do you promise to love, honor, cherish and protect her, forsaking all others, holding only unto her? (“I do”)

Fielding, do you take Michael to be your Husband? (“I do”) Do you promise to love, honor , cherish and protect him, forsaking all others, holding only unto him? (“I do”)

Wearing wedding rings is an outward symbol of your inner commitment to each other and a symbol of the unbroken circle of love. You give love and receive love and the circle goes on and on without end. Each time you glance down and see the rings on your fingers, you’re sure to remember the vows you’re taking today.

Michael, as you place the ring on Fielding’s finger, repeat after me:

I, Michael, take thee, Fielding to be my Wife.  To have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, and I promise my love to you forevermore. With this ring, I thee wed. all my love, I thee give to thee.”

Fielding, as you place the ring on Michael’s finger, repeat after me:

I , Fielding, take thee , Michael, to be my Husband. To have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, and I promise My love to you forevermore. With this ring, I thee wed. all my love, I give to thee.”

Fielding and Michael as the two of you come into this marriage united as husband and wife, you are affirming your faith and love for each another.  I ask you to always remember to cherish each other as special and unique.  I ask you to respect each other’s thoughts, ideas and suggestions. Be able to forgive without holding grudges.  Be best friends and enjoy your life together.  From now on, you’re each other’s home, comfort and refuge.  Your marriage is strengthened by your love and respect for each other.

Let’s pray.  God, just as you made the ocean a delightful, beautiful place to be, you made love and marriage.  You didn’t have to, but I’m so glad You did.  I ask you to bless Michael and Fielding throughout their lives together.  Join them together so nothing on earth or beyond will shake their love for each other.  Amen

Today, Fielding and Michael honored us all with an invitation to witness their wedding, and also today, they declare before all of us that they will live together as a team in marriage.  According to tradition, they entered into their marriage by joining hands, taking vows, and by exchanging rings.  Therefore, it is my pleasure, to pronounce them husband and wife.  Congratulations, Michael, you may kiss your bride!

Break the glass and Mozel Tov!

I’m so grateful to Fielding and Michael for giving me the honor of performing the ceremony to bring them together in marriage. It was one of the greatest joys of my life. They had a baby girl in January and named her, Campbell, but it’s only a coincidence that it is also my last name. Fielding wanted to name a daughter that long, long ago. Still, it’s pretty cool!

The people who know me best know I’m going through one of the most difficult times in my life. People who believed in me hoped and prayed I would get to this point as soon as I could … the point where I stopped trying to conquer life the way that makes sense to me. My take on taking on the world made lots of sense to me and led to some degree of professional and financial success, but it left me ultimately hopeless and empty.

In just a little bit more than a week, I’ve turned my eyes back upon Jesus and recaptured that joy unspeakable and full of glory that I’ve been missing for the last several years.

Tonight I was watching the Olympic opening on NBC and I read a tweet from someone I was following that said, “Praying for the Cfni recording tonite! It’s gonna rock!”

Somehow, some way I was following someone who tweeted about CFNI. I went to CFNI and not many people know what it is. Don’t get me started about how going to CFNI was not the greatest of experiences for me, but I loved it for the music. Each year they record a new praise and worship album and it’s always very influential in terms of the music you start to hear in churches around the world.

So I clicked on the person who tweeted that. It’s a woman named Kari Jobe and she just happens to be a worship pastor at a church five minutes from my house. That isn’t enough to move me because I’ve been sick of worship music for the last eight years. I clicked through to her Web site and then through to her YouTube page and OMG!!! She writes songs about God and our love relationship with Him that are not cliché and redundant.

The first thing I watched was this video …

Then I watched this one …

And then this one …

Do I need to tell you? I’m going to Gateway Church on Sunday. He who the Son has set free is free … indeed! I also bought her album.

I feel like I have to weigh in on this. The church Sarah Palin once attended appears to believe people can be “healed” of homosexuality.

Background: I’m a born-again Christian who loves … is that the word? I value gay people. I believe God blessed the planet with gay people and I don’t care if anyone agrees with me. Gay people make the world a better place in many, many ways. As a Christian, I cannot deny that the Bible calls homosexuality a sin, but I don’t care. My position is that, if God thinks it’s a sin, He has the power to change it and if He wants too … I’m okay with that, but I haven’t seen evidence of it, and I hope He doesn’t.

In my life, I’ve seen gay Christians who love God and their committed relationships are blessed by God.

Let’s just call it a sin since the Bible does. So is gluttony and we share God’s grace for that. Divorce is a sin that Jesus talked about (He didn’t talk about homosexuality), and the church has largely extended God’s grace to divorced people.

Sarah Palin may or may not be where I am in my belief that we should love gay men and women whether they stop being gay or not. I hope that isn’t what God wants. Lots of Christians hope God wants them to change. Either way … it isn’t up to us. It’s up to Him.

What is up to us is that we love each other the same as we love ourselves. I extend a bunch of grace to myself and therefore I extend almost an unlimited amount of grace to anyone who doesn’t hurt me personally.

I believe the church will move toward extended unconditional love to every person who walks the planet. Sarah will too. Is she there yet? I don’t know, but if she loves Jesus, I know she’ll get there because He loves and died for me … just as I am.

I grew up in church and loved it, but I haven’t been back in about 4 years. I’ve never stopped believing what I grew up believing though.

On random nights, it seems like maybe once a month, I put on some gospel DVDs and try to tap into the joy unspeakable and full of glory that I remember from church. I’m angry at church, though, and so sometimes I have a bad gospel night where it pulls up all the reasons I don’t go any more.

The biggest reason I stopped going is that churches were becoming more and more focused on gaining political power and less focused on loving people. The specific reason I stopped going is that I’m angry with my last pastor and until I can let that go, it’s going to be an ongoing issue in my life.

When I have this dark nights of the soul, I often cry out to the twitter community. I’m not expecting a solution, it’s more about yelling out a window, and I guess hoping someone will hear.

I have a great life with a great wife. We were talking about my inner struggle this morning and the metaphore I used was that I feel like my life is a helium balloon that represents all the good things. Inside the balloon is a rock and that represents my resentment against the church and my last pastor. It seems like a mission impossible task to get rid of the rock without poping the balloon, so I just live with the rock and deal with it emotionally from time to time.

I don’t have an answer, but it seems like anyone who happens to read my late night tweets and wonders, “what’s up with that guy?” should have some kind of explaination and context.

Collide Magazine is a relatively new magazine. They interviewed Cali and me last year and the interview was published in the January edition. The tag line is, “Where Media and the Church Converge.” I’m not sure the tag line is entirely descriptive, but I can’t offer a better alternative.

Rob Thomas, the publisher, gave us a complementary subscription. I’ve read every issue from cover to cover.

Here’s the deal: I have a Christian past that is very church-centric. Growing up, I was so heavenly minded that I was of no earthly good. I carried my Bible to high school and never really talked to any of my fellow students. I spent all my free time hanging out in the sanctuary at church singing and playing the piano. 

I also have a Christian present that is very different from my Christian past. As the church in America became more and more politically focused, I backed away. The Focus on the Family/American Family Association kind of Christianity, with it’s focus on sanitizing society from any kind of exposure to sin, just doesn’t look anything like the Jesus approach. He hung with prostitutes, drunkards, and worst of all, tax collectors. If the American Family Association existed in the Garden of Eden, they would have had the Tree of Knowledge chopped down and feed through a chipper.

The Christians who publish and write for Collide don’t seem to be scared of pop culture at all. They don’t print movie guides with warnings about every potential exposure to something impure. They write about movies just like regular, normal people who just also happen to be Christians. It’s such a novel approach that I can hardly adjust to it, but it is overwhelmingly refreshing.

On the Internet, we tend to gravitate toward people with similar ideas and sensibilities…even sometimes without even trying. I’ve gravitated toward a whole bunch of people who grew up loving Jesus, but feel like outsiders from mainstream, American Christianity. For those of you who are like me. Collide is worth a look. It’s caused me to do some deep thinking and it’s inspired some radical ideas that I’ll work on down the road.

I’m not church connected anymore but I LOVE gospel music and I love spending time in worship. I watch Bill Gaither videos and I long to have the experience of standing around a piano and singing gospel music. I’d like it even more if it happens in a bar with a bunch of wounded, hurting christians who haven’t lost their love for Jesus but have lost their connection to the church.