Welcome to my halftime

In the past few weeks I have personally past two more milemarkers in the road. I had my 46th birthday. I can still remember when my grandmother turned 50 and I thought she must be getting close to dying since she was so old. This past Sunday marked 1 year as Pastor of ClearView. That's hard to believe.

Does time really pass faster as you get older? It's cliche, but it sure seems like it. It seems like just yesterday I was pastor of a church where I was the youngest person on staff. That won't ever happen again!

But as time passes I do find myself thinking about the focus of the years I have left. I guess some would say I am at the halftime of my adult years. Maybe so. I played basketball through high school. Most people think halftime is for resting. They have obviously never played sports.

As I recall halftime usually went something like this: 1) Brief reflections on the first half, but only for the purpose of learning. No time for crying or whining because we have a second half to play. 2) The bulk of halftime was used to make adjustments needed and make any new assignments the coach felt we needed to make. We could change plays that weren't working. Add new ones we hoped would work better.

Well, if I am at halftime, here are some plays and some adjustments I'm taking in to the game in the second half.

1. Play with more urgency. The halftime score is irrelevant. The only score that matters is the one on the scoreboard when the game is over. I long to hear, "Well done good and faithful servant."

2. No whining. There is no time for self-pity. The mission I (we) have been given is not mine (ours) and it is not about me (us). That means I can't live just for MY preferences and MY desires. I personally think all desert should include chocolate and NO nuts, but I don't get it my way every time, so I compromise.

3. Don't leave anything on the floor. For those of you that may not have heard many locker room talks this means you give everything you think you have to give then give more. At the end of the game you want to be completely spent. Christ said I am to take up my cross daily. My plan is to sprint to the end, then fall over the finish line having spent all the energy and resources I have to live out that calling.

4. Pettiness is out. I honestly don't have time for it. My pettiness or anyone else's. I don't have enough emotional energy to spend any of it thinking about things that have no eternal value.
2 Timothy 2:3-4 Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. To please the recruiter, no one serving as a soldier gets entangled in the concerns of everyday life.

5. Get as many as possible focused on The Mission. I am privileged to have a role that I get to spend the bulk of my time (assuming I can live out numbers 2 and 4 above) thinking and praying about how to get as many people as possible on The Mission, living The Mission, and being obsessesed with The Mission.

Will you join me on The Mission?
Matthew 28:19 - 20 Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you.