I had three dreams early Saturday morning before my last Sunday as the pastor of Covenant Baptist Church.

Salting the Edwards Aquifer

In the first of three dreams I had this night, there was a big controversy in San Antonio regarding the Edwards Aquifer, our city’s source of water. Some, mostly conservatives, wanted to add massive amounts of salt to the aquifer. They claimed the salt would create a “salt pan” and preserve the aquifer in some way, insuring us of a supply of water in the future.

I tried to make a guess at what this meant. I asked

I used to wonder how my time at Covenant would end. Back in the middle of it all, back when I couldn’t imagine any other life for myself, I would wonder what my last Sunday would be like. I knew my time at Covenant was not preparing me for ministry in another church. For better and for worse, Covenant Baptist Church is a unique kind of community that doesn’t follow the rules. I am not by nature good at organizational and managerial issues. I wonder, did my personality help create this strange little church that has always been somewhat unorganized and lightly managed? I don’t know, but I certainly didn’t pick up any of those skills on this wonderful journey with these quirky pilgrims.

On the other hand, you might say that Covenant is the perfect kind of church to turn a preacher into a writer. There was always plenty of time and space for wondering, daydreaming, wandering, and musing.

Of course, everything eventually ends. I knew that, but I could never imagine how it would happen.

Although I am leaving Covenant, I'm still the youth pastor for the Southwest Baptist Youth Camping Association, of which my church is a part. Our camp is in June. The ministers rotate through this, and this is my year.

It's a challenge, preaching to teenagers. One that I relish! I'm pumped about this. Our theme is "Heroes."

My goal: find the hardest, most heroic things about being a Christian and push the life instead of the dogma.

Today I disappear into my office at the church to get ready for our big planning meeting tomorrow in Fort Worth. I have 5 sermons planned. Going to work on them from now until the end of the day.

see ya,

g

On Thursday I said that I became a minister after feeling a “calling” when I was seventeen. It was a very natural thing for me, having grown up in the the culture of southern, evangelical Christianity. My father was a Baptist minister. Our lives revolved around the church. We were there whenever the doors were open, and if the doors were locked, my dad had the key. Virtually all of our family friends were Christian insiders, many of them ministers. My best friends were in the youth group at the church. I was aware that many people did not go to church as often as we did and were not Christians, but those people lived in another world. Our world was a safe one, nestled within the walls of the church.

It wasn’t until I started this blog back in 2002 that things began to change. Suddenly I found myself interacting with all sorts of people. Some were from faith traditions very different from my own. Some from no faith traditions at all. It was thrilling for me. I wrote this in an attempt to describe how it felt to me at the time.

Say there was this guy who was the pastor of a church. He was a nice enough guy. He tried to be a good Christian and tried to be a good pastor. Twelve years into it, he suddenly finds himself writing fictional stories about a pastor who walks away from the church. He also finds himself fantasizing about leaving the church himself. He doesn’t know why. He likes what he’s doing. He loves his church, which is the coolest kind of easy-going church you could imagine. The administrative and other burdens of this church are probably lighter than any church on the planet, so he can’t complain. He loves the people. In fact, they are his closest friends. But he has this recurring fantasy about leaving the ministry.

What’s up with that guy?

I’m trying to answer that question for myself over the next couple of weeks. Do not expect this to be a linear series of essays. I’m pretty damn far from linear right now. I’m taking one step at a time. I don’t know where I’m going and my memory of what I’ve just done is pretty iffy too.

I’ve always thought of you as roughly fifty people. Fifty is a good number. It’s manageable for me to think of you like that. You are the ones who read my stuff and see right into my heart. I know you do. I can’t hide very much from you when I write. And on the rare occasions when I’ve gotten to meet some of you, it was BOOM, instant friendship. Like when Rev. Sparks showed up for a retreat at our church, and I met him in the parking lot. There was no question that we were going to hug. And not some tentative, polite hug either. A huge, laughing, hold on for a long time, SERIOUS hug. Like when you run into a friend after many years.

So, you are the ones I’m writing to today. Your voice is the unspoken voice between the lines.

Hi.

It’s me.

Yeah. How you doin? You good?

Me? I’m good. Pretty good. I think I’m good.

So uh….you’re doin okay then?

Yeah, me too.

Well, there is some pretty big news on my end. I resigned as the pastor of Covenant Baptist Church on Sunday. I know that sounds kind of abrupt, but I don’t know any way to ease into it. So yeah, I resigned.

I know! Yeah. No, I’m still coming to grips with it myself.

Some of you will remember that in 2008 I went on a trip to the Dominican Republic with Edge Outreach to install water purification systems. The stories and pictures from that trip are here. I love the people at Edge. I know these people. They are pure in heart and have a simple mission. They get clean water to the people in the poorest parts of the world.

I knew Mark and Darrell and Curtis and all the gang would go into action after the earthquake in Haiti. Bottled water meets an immediate need, certainly. But the greater need is permanent water purification systems that can produce clean water for thousands of people on an ongoing basis.

The people in Haiti are going to need clean water systems that are easily sustainable and will provide for them while they rebuild their infrastructure.

Edge’s Water system is built with local materials purchased in country. It runs on salt and a car battery. It’s an amazing system.

From the Edge website:

In the face of this massive disaster in Haiti, EDGE is preparing three teams and supplies that will allow fresh water to be instantly available. This is immediate necessity in light of the devastation and the collapse of the Culligan water plant. The cost of these relief efforts is $79,000, and we need your prayers and financial support.

Read the recent article about Edge in Haiti in the Louisville Courier-Journal.

Perhaps you’re looking for a way to donate money to an organization that will not only be merciful and respond quickly, but will also be thinking about the long-term needs of the people in Haiti.

Help Edge reach $79,000 as quickly as possible.

Continuing News…

I’ll be writing some stories about the work that Edge is doing in Haiti and posting pictures here. If you want to keep informed on how your money is working to bring clean water to Haiti, you can check back here and at the Edge Outreach news page.

rlp

Some of you know that I’m one of the editors of the High Calling Network. It’s one of my gigs. The people I work with are just great. And I love the basic message of the High Calling, which is that Christianity is a way of life more than a series of doctrinal statements. Christianity is something that is lived, day-by-day. I thought I’d introduce three of the people I work with at HCB. We three comprise what you might call the managing editorial team. I think my title is “founding editor”, which sounds delightfully important, so I’m quite happy with it.

Marcus Goodyear. Marcus and I go back years. He works for the High Calling and is my editor there when I write. Marcus and I envisioned the High Calling Blog Network years ago sitting in Benigan’s and drawing on napkins and bits of paper. Marcus is the senior editor of High Calling Blogs. He’s the guy at the top.

Chris Cree is our technical Wordpress guru. Chris has many talents and is the brains behind our current, very complex, Wordpress theme. I happen to love a thing he did back in 2008 when he recorded 40 days of bed head.

L.L. Barkat is our managing editor. She is also a poet, a wonderful writer (That sort of goes without saying with poets), and a lovely person. I’ve interacted with her online in numerous meetings. She always has a smile on her face. That may seem like a simple thing, but I’ve come to appreciate that about her.

Currently I’m exploring something new at the High Calling…

I’ve done just about everything over the years at the High Calling. Currently my assignment is to explore something that seems, at least when you first think about it, impossible. An online retreat. How might something like that happen? I posted something there today. If you have any ideas, please stop by and leave a comment.

I’ve been hearing variations of the same conversation for years now. And It always starts the same way. Someone refers to facebook or a blog network or some other online social experience as a “community”. Immediately, someone from a church or a club or some other traditional social group becomes agitated and defensive for some reason. That person responds in a tone of righteous indignation.

“That’s not a community! You can’t have community unless you’re relating to people in person.”

If you’re lucky, that’s all you will hear. Occasionally though, this exchange will be followed by a lengthy diatribe on the nature of community, how essential it is to humanity, and how it definitely cannot happen online.

<Sigh>….  Read more at High Calling Blogs

My latest piece at the Christian Century. This is an advance view. The piece won't actually be published until the next print issue. This was written in honor of my Quaker friends from the Missouri Valley Friends Conference.

An 18th-century painting of a Quaker meeting hangs in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. In it a figure, perhaps George Fox himself, stands speaking with such passion that his hand is clutching his breast. Around him are gathered members of the Society of Friends. A woman sits with her chin in her hand. A man's finger is laid alongside his cheek. Another man's hands are atop his cane with his chin resting on them. These people are listening with all their hearts, souls and minds. Even their bodies are bent to the task of listening. The painting captures something wonderful that I have found at Quaker meetings.

These people know how to listen.

Last summer my wife and I attended our first Quaker meeting. The worship was 60 minutes of thoughtful silence. A young woman broke the silence and spoke briefly. There was a gentle shift of attention to her and away from individual thoughts and prayers. People shifted in their seats and assumed various listening postures. One man intertwined his hands, leaving his index fingers erect like a church steeple. He tapped them thoughtfully against his lips…

Read more at the Christian Century.

I’m sorry to have been so bad about getting word out about this. We had such a great response to our three open retreats last year that I wanted to do that again. We’ve organized an open retreat for February 26-28 of this year here at Covenant. All the details are HERE.

The idea behind the rlp retreats is simple. Whoever you are, whatever you believe, you are welcome in this place. If you can get here, we’ll give you a place to sleep, food to eat, and a time of relaxed conversation, interaction, music, and prayerful contemplation. If you have a little money to help pay for the food, great. If not, that’s okay. There is a brown box for donations at the end. No one knows who gives or if anyone gives.

I know I didn’t give you much notice. I’m sorry about that. I do hope to get this chance to hang out with some friends from online.

Gordon

Hi everyone,

I guess that last post was rather cryptic. Thanks for the kind comments. It’s been a good thing for me to step away from Real Live Preacher and do some evaluating of my life and how I spend my time. I’m gathering myself now, emotionally, and preparing myself for a renewed commitment to writing. I’ll be back and hopefully with the writing energy I had long ago when I first began this blog.

See ya soon,

rlp

Someday I might write again. After putting the book together and dealing with my own essays, I'm sick of my writing. I sit down to write, recognize my style, and say, "Ugh, I hate that guy."

Seriously, life has been rather hard. Things happening I can't talk about. Too busy. Too hard to do three things. Web designer to make money, Covenant as a calling, and Real Live Preacher as a love. The last of these is suffering lately.

gordon

I was just told that the webinar conversation with Donald Miller was cancelled. He has a family member in the hospital and has gone to be with family. I don't know if or when it will be rescheduled.

Through an interesting set of circumstances, I've been asked to moderate an online conversation with Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz. This will be in a live webinar setting. So if you tune in, you can hear Donald and I talking. AND you can pose questions via the webinar interface, which I will ask him. Details are below. You do need to rsvp and sign up ahead of time.

I hope some of you will stop by for the chat.

rlp

-------

DONALD MILLER LIVE ONLINE:  CONVERGENCE
Donald Miller (Blue Like Jazz, A Million Miles) speaks online, in real time, in his first webinar on Thursday, Dec. 17.  Gordon Atkinson (www.reallivepreacher.com) moderates. The subject is Miller's new Convergence DVDs for small groups (mostly)—sparking deeper conversations and strong community. Convergence is Miller at his best, giving honest talk about real faith. On the first DVD set he talks to Dan Allender, Phyllis Tickle, Lauren Winner. He just recorded the next set with Randy Alcorn, Henry Cloud, John Townsend.  Join us--and spread the word!

DATE: Thursday, Dec 17
TIME: 11:00 am PT (12 MT, 1 CT, 2 ET)
RSVP: www1.gotomeeting.com/register/543081489

For more information about Convergence visit allthingsconverge.com.

Turtles all the Way Down is here! Buy a copy now at Gracefull Things.

Okay, our house is pure shipping madness right now. I picked up about 500 of Turtles all the Way Down on Friday afternoon. We have 200 orders. We've mailed 100 of them so far. It's a little time consuming because I'm writing a short note in the books of everyone who was on the Consafo team. Their advance purchases funded the project. Still, I think we've done pretty well. Jeanene and Lillian and I make quite a little shipping team. Jeanene on the computer printing postage and updating the spreadsheet. Me signing and getting them to Lillian, who stuffs envelopes and is making 25 cents for each order. So she's happy!