I discovered you randomly because of a couple advertisements for your book in the magazine Christianity Today. My boyfriend and i laughed pretty heartily at the "leave room for the Holy Spirit" dance advertisement as well as the metrosexual worship leader. I went ahead and found the website…
and promptly made the possibly unwise decision to read through all of your posts. I started at post #1 and have made it this far in a couple weeks. Keep up the good work.
Maybe someday i'll actually catch up!

BTW, I’ve been wandering through your blog, and am enjoying it enormously. You make some very perceptive points and amusing recommendations. Love the cotton candy church greeting.

…which really doesn’t matter because your point is that time with your family is more valuable than money.

My point is that basing it at $3 leaves open the question, “Well, how much per hour would you want to work more?” It reminds me of that joke with the punch line “Well, Madam, we already know what you are. Now we’re just trying to establish the price.”

Thank you.

A) Amuses the snot out me (on occasion literally).

B) Clarifies much of my own discontent with the church and my own faith (the stuff you know isn’t quite right but you can’t pinpoint the source). Or something like that. I can only imagine how many folks out there read these posts and have the “OMG, That’s SO my church!” reaction. I know I do. Regularly.

C) Rocks.

I know that’s off topic of the post, but it wouldn’t really fit well anywhere else unless you wrote a post about Stuff People Glean From SCL. Back to why I’m commenting:

My situation has to do with church rather than my job, though. I made the decision about a month ago to step off the praise team band at my church which I helped create four years ago. I’ve been a Christian for only five. I first offered my wicked mad skillz (the z makes it tougher) to the group of guys singing to CD tracks every Sunday morning to at least get a “live” sound for the services. We found a sweet former death-metal drummer amongst us. He was on board too, thus a team was born. Musicians aren’t exactly bursting the seams of my smallish community church, so I’ve pretty much been playing lead guitar every Sunday save a few vacations for the last four years. Like many gullible eager-beaver new Christians, I got sucked into the volunteer trap and got myself over-involved in ministry and teams and committees, etc. My wife, who prayed every day for the first three years of our marriage for me to come to Christ, got what she wanted and now gets to sit in the pew by herself every Sunday, stay at home three nights a week with the kids because I have church meetings after our full time jobs. I let my “Christianity” drive a wedge into my marriage. I got saved and hit the ground running, leaving my wife and kids in the dust.

I say that that to say this: Next week is the last week of praise team for me. I’m feeling a little (read: LOT) guilty, scared, like I’m letting down the team, but at the same time convicted. My loss isn’t a $2000 bonus (I don’t get paid!) but I won’t be leading worship anymore, playing guitar every week, feeling like I’m deserting my team, feeling weird the first time in four years to sit in awkwardness as the team carries on without me, leaving me to see if I can still worship without a guitar in my hands. Music is my passion and my gift, and I’m honored to have had such a long run of it. I believe my calling is music ministry, but God is telling me, “Not now.” That’s a tough cookie to swallow. What I gain, though, is time with my wife and family. A chance to have a faith-life TOGETHER with my wife instead of me over here and her over there. Time to grow in OUR faith as a couple, not me taking off guns-blazing for the LORD and my wife un-praying my salvation. That alone is all the reason I need. I realized the decision had to be made a long time ago, but for some reason it was easier to let down my wife than a band, so I was a wuss and just kept putting the church before my wife. Don’t do that.

Sorry for the long-winded comment, but this really resonated with me. I have one more week of practice and service and I was starting to make excuses (maybe I’ll just take a month off and then go back…) This post came at the perfect time. God’s a great engineer (toot toot!).

Keep up the great posts, but not at the expense of your relationships!

Just thought I’d share. Holla!

I guess I believe that God engineers every situation (even the awful ones). And, it’s our job to glorify him in everything we do. The old saying that “one who loves Christ is either a missionary or works in a mission field” can be taken very seriously when you view your life as Christ centered.

Long hours are terrible, being away from your children is awful too; but, what is Christ asking you to do when you are away from the ones you love? What is Christ expecting you to do while in your “God engineered” mission field?

Thanks again for the thoughtful response. I’ve enjoyed praying about your post.