It’s 4:22am.
I’m an early riser, but this is getting ridiculous. I wake up at 3, then convince myself I must get at least one more hour of sleep.
Lately I’ve been playing a game with myself like I’m a kid - ‘you can’t get out of bed till the big hand hits 5’.
So I lay here and worry.
Maybe it’s not worry - it’s more like simply being overwhelmed. I have too much to do and not enough time to do it in.
I’ve always been a big picture person, and things come into my head fully formed. Then I feel like I have to produce every last detail of this vision today.
I’m always kind of amazed at myself that I think I can do this. I’ve grown to appreciate my own heedless optimism - my sense that of course I have endless time and energy.
But of course I don’t. And I have even less when my body is revved up before I even open my eyes.
Hearts up!
During Lent, I’m inviting paid subscribers into my process (or in this case, into my creation of a process…) while I sort out how to:
Develop Christian Practices to share with individuals and communities
Build a network of innovative ministers
Walk with the small congregation I serve as they face the challenges of today’s church landscape and get ‘unstuck’
Create a series of ‘mini consultations’ I’m calling ‘re-imagination packages’
It’s sort of like inviting you to watch while I rehab a house - there’s things that are messy and hard, but underneath, there’s good bones.
I’ll also keep you updated on the training and the fasting, in case you’re interested.
I’m building all this into what I’m calling the Stained Glass Project - all four of my separate ministries (the Four ‘Panes’) and how they work together…
My work is about turning my own spiritual life inside-out.
That’s what I’ve finally come to realize. Or at least, today I have that insight…
I love the church. I see how it is struggling. I also see how it can transform. I want to share that - in a way that is transformative for others.
But just like I’ve learned over 30 years as a preacher that every sermon I give is really for me, I’m starting to get it that the only thing I can do as a church reformer is understand and share how following Jesus and practicing the Christian faith is reforming me.
My own struggles in traditional ministry can be traced back to not just institutional collapse, but my own sense that it was my job to keep it going - by sheer force of will. By thinking I was in charge. By thinking I needed to do God’s job for God.
Now, at 4:22am, I realize I’m still doing the same thing.
So I go for a run.
I’m training for a half marathon in April. I’m turning 60 in the fall, and by then I want to be back in really good shape. My fabulous husband is coaching me, and I’ve got 10 hill repeats (plus 1 mile warm up, 1 mile cool down) on the schedule.
Running is a magic elixer. I often tell myself I don’t have time to run, I have too much work to do, I’m tired, etc., etc. But once I’m out there, my body calms down and my soul fills with joy.
The air is cold. The sun is rising. I feel alive, and I feel God being in charge. I let go of myself.
Hearts up!
I’m fasting, too, for Lent. Following the spiritual exercises I’m developing from the ancient church at the ‘gym for your soul’.
I’m eating, for sure. But a little bit less at every meal, and the simplest foods. I quit eating at 5pm, and break my fast at 6am. It’s amazing how clarifying this is - how it gives me focus.
I realize, although it’s not my nature, that I have to do one thing at a time. I have to discern the next most important thing, and get it done. I ask God to show me what it is.
This week it’s finishing what I call the Golden Document. I’m using AI to build it, and it’s also meant to be for AI to help me run the ecosystem of my ministry.
I can’t do everything myself - but I do have immense technological resources at my fingertips to assist.
The Golden Document is where I’m feeding in every last thought I’m having about how to build the architecture of what I’m envisioning:
a freestanding ministry of Christian Practice - Trexo.
a community for innovative ministers building their own ‘faith practices’ - Substack Seminary.
guidance and direction for a small congregation re-imagining its own ministry - St. Paul’s.
the theory and principles that undergird it all - Free Range Priest.
The institutional church system is definitely collapsing, and in so many ways I see this as something necessary. It’s time for new systems to be born and thrive.
But it also means a lot of chaos in the meantime. How’s all this supposed to work?
And is it my job to create a whole new system by myself?
Is it? I don’t know. Sometimes it feels like it is. Sometimes I realize how grandiose that sounds - and is. I just have to keep walking the path that God has given me, and trust that it is a small piece of what is necessary.
I think this is what’s keeping me up at night. The feeling of overwhelm.
How to balance how clearly I see things and how strongly I feel called to create with the truth:
I can’t do it all myself.
I need God’s guidance and protection.
I need other people.
I know I’m not alone. I feel God with me. I also have my wonderful partners at Substack Seminary - Loren Richmond Jr. and Pastor Sierra Ward, and the amazing people of St. Paul’s.
This week, though, it’s the Golden Document. I just feel like if I can get everything out, and use AI’s help to organize everything I’m envisioning it, then I can share it more clearly with others.
And then maybe I’ll get the courage to let others help me modify the vision, to help me shape it by sharing theirs with me.
Maybe I’ll learn to trust that whatever work is put before me, it is helping me grow closer to God.
And whatever work I don’t get done is doing the same.
Each ministry in the Stained Glass Project has its own Substack site:
Free Range Priest
Substack Seminary
Trexo: a gym for your soul
St. Paul’s, Salisbury, NC
You can subscribe - Free, Paid, or Founding - to each of these to be part of each community.
If you want to be part of everything - and get the discount, and support the Future of Church - you’re invited to become a Founding member of Free Range Priest.
This will give you access as a monthly paid member to all four communities (Subscriptions to St. Paul’s go directly to them. The others support Free Range Priest).
Hearts up!
Hang in there! I love your thought: "everything can bring us closer to God."