SECOND CHANCE FOR SIGNIFICANCE

For more than twenty-years, Lisa’s primary focus was working her way up the corporate ladder in the Human Resources (HR) department of a large publicly traded company. Day after day she worked hard to meet the demands of her superiors and colleagues, until one morning she woke up with a sickened, sinking feeling in her stomach.

It was her career, she realized. Having spent nearly half of her life working in an unsatisfying job, with few genuine accomplishments and the goals of her youth long forgotten, Lisa had hit midlife and she didn’t like it. She came to the realization that God was calling her to do something different.

To alleviate the feeling in her stomach, Lisa began making a conscious effort to pay more attention to the gap between the reality of her life and the dreams and passions she once had. She had always enjoyed serving others, especially the elderly. Through a series of events and conversations with a Christian leadership coach, Lisa came to believe that God was calling her to serve the elderly as a ministry career. She was determined to jump on this and make the rest of her life more meaningful and fulfilling.

Today, Lisa, is the owner and operator of a Christian adult day care facility in Houston, Texas. She is now planning her next venture—an assisted living program for low-income elderly residents. God is using Lisa in wonderful ways to add hope and purpose to the growing elderly population around her. Her own life is blessed beyond her own hopes and dreams. God is using her previous experience in HR in addition to her love for Christ and his people to create enriching, faith-filled environments for those reaching the end of their lives here on this earth.

Craving a more fulfilling and meaningful career is just one area of focus as adults near these mid-life adjustments. As they get older, they experience parents and older relatives begin to die. There is the realization that their lives, too, will come to an end. They start moving from chasing “success” to instead, seeking after “significance”. Success and significance don’t need to be mutually exclusive. The priority of making a lasting impact and doing what makes us fulfilled becomes more important. This is the time closet authors, dreaming entrepreneurs, hopeful worship leaders, delayed missionaries, potential church planters, and budding artists will begin thinking about careers to match their energy, vitality, values, faith, talent, skills, and passion for life.

The life cycle is, for most of us, fairly predictable. From adolescence to age 30 plus, most of us are consumed with learning how to become who we think we want to be. We go from our 30s to our 40s working and living that role. But in the later 40s and 50s, after having reached this goal, many discover it wasn’t what we wanted to do after all. At this midlife point, after having worked so hard only to find ourselves wanting, many are willing to take on the challenge of more risk and freeing ourselves from the burden of others’ expectations.

Longer life expectancy plays a part too. At midlife and later, people realize they still have decades yet to live and wonder how they will spend those years. They know they’re going to have lots of healthy years, so I think it’s a period of making choices to live out a new assignment that is the calling of God on their life.

Like Lisa, more women than ever are using their midlife and later years as a springboard to experience career and ministry makeovers. They want a vocation that matches their energy and makes them feel useful, significant, and fulfilled. After all, God made us with these desires.

The lesson we can take from Lisa’s story is that midlife should not be feared, and that the sinking feeling in your stomach should not be ignored. Both are an accepted call to action. God may be calling you to take what you have learned and who you have become into a new and exciting chapter of your life.

Are you ready to make a change? Is God calling you to something different? Here are seven tips for getting started.

1. Make a list of the things missing from your life

Do you long to revive a passion from your youth that you never found time to pursue? Is it music, a sport, writing, cooking, entrepreneurship? It doesn’t matter what, as long as it’s something you truly have a desire to do. Could it have been a call from God to a ministry? If you've already got a clear picture of things you'd like to pursue, then identify small, achievable ways you can start incorporating them into your life.

2. Imagine that you already have over a million dollars in the bank

I’m suggesting this in order to free you up, at least for a little while, from the cares of daily life. If money were not a consideration, how would you spend your time each day? Think of the environment you'd like to be in, the people you'd want to know, and how you would relate to them. What activities would you engage in? Chances are your passions come to the surface when being concerned about paying the bills is taken off the table. Although we’re not all destined to be millionaires, that shouldn’t hold you back from following your desires and placing more value in yourself, regardless of your bank account balance.

3. Tap into your wisdom and experience to re-evaluate your current career

Ask yourself what’s not working and what you want to change. Use this time to reflect on your life. Are there any passions or dreams that over time you abandoned? If you don’t know what you want to do, try volunteering as a way to develop new interests. Find a way to live your passion everyday. I once heard someone say, "You don’t get what you want out of life, but what you believe."

4. Tap into the wisdom and experience of another person

Lisa shared her thoughts and desires with other people she trusted. It’s good to have close friends in your corner, but sometimes they will not share with you some of the hard realities they see in the choices you are considering. If you are serious about exploring a change, then you should consider talking to someone experienced in life-changing transitions. There are Christian leadership coaches who specialize in helping others find God’s calling and vocation. If you know what new vocation you are wanting to explore, then find someone successful in that career and get their advice. Most people want to help and will jump at a time to give their wisdom over a cup of coffee. Sometimes doors are opened as a result.

5. Understand your passion, but also where your strengths lie

It’s critical to take an inventory of your life and to determine what is really important. Make a list of the things you are passionate about, and then narrow the list to items that present an opportunity to generate income. If you’re not pursuing these desires, what’s in the way?

You should also know your talents, gifts, temperament, and personality traits. Self-knowledge and self-awareness are the place to begin. The great reformed theologian John Calvin even wrote about this in the beginning of his Institutes of the Christian Religion:

“Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other.”

Wisdom in life is tied to knowing God and knowing self. We should be students of both. One of the best ways to know more of self and to develop an understanding of emotional intelligence. This will apply to all areas of life, not just what you have chosen to work on. One of the best tools I know of for self-discovery is the Enneagram. I have been so impressed with its potential for personal discovery and growth that I became a certified practitioner, working with individuals, church staff, and non-profit boards of directors.

6. Keep your day job

You don’t have to quit your day job to focus on your new calling. It’s not an all or nothing proposition. I meet people all the time who say they’re working full-time and pursuing their dreams on the side, in their free-er time. You may still need to earn a living while you transition onto your new path. This is true whether you’re planning to start a business or preparing to establish a new career.

7. Start right now

Over the next 30 days; make a commitment to yourself to identify one thing you can do to begin pursuing your passion—and start doing it! Research ways to integrate your passion with your current obligations and take those first steps into your second career with achievable goals. You’ll soon discover that living and working your passion is being in control of your own life.

An Inappropriate Measure of Fear

“Worry is like a rocking chair. It will give you something to do; but it won’t take you anywhere.” – Unknown.

“Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6–7, CSB)

We are called to be responsible. That’s what adults do. We do responsibility. However, we move into anxiety when we are worried and fearful about things we have no control, such as: A meteor hitting the earth, or if someone is to die, or if we get sick, have a car accident, whether someone likes us or not.

There are some things we should be concerned about but have no reason to worry. Being concerned can be a positive thing when it moves us to action, such as going to a medical doctor when you find something physically wrong with you or to a mechanic when your car is acting up.

Worry happens when I’m on the throne of my life, when I’m in the kingdom of me. It’s the belief that I have to run my life and if I don’t make it happen, it won’t.

We may believe God loves us, but we also may believe He’s not concerned with the everyday details of our lives. The false belief says that we must meet all our needs, or they won’t get met. Faith says, “My God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory” (Phil. 4:19).

You ask, “Jimmy, how can I break this grip worry has on me?” I’m glad you asked. Typical to my usual style, I’m giving you five things you can do now in order to deal with worry.

Five Things You Can Do Now in Order to Deal with Worry.

These are things that you shouldn’t put off, not for one day or one hour. These will not solve every person’s issue of worry, for there could also be medical issues going on in some people, but even with this, it will help everyone some and most a lot.

1. Admit to yourself that you really do have control over whether you worry or not.

Okay, let’s make this personal shall we? “I really do have control over whether I worry or not.” Say that with me. You have someone to give that worry to, so you don’t have to. Here’s how.

2. Begin each day with God.

Read the Scriptures, discover who God is and what He says about you. It is food for the weak and worrisome soul. If your worry is out of control, look up the Scriptures that speak on worry, such as Phil. 4:6-7 and Matt. 6:25-34.

3. Write your worry down and pray it up to God.

I keep a prayer journal. I write most of my prayers to God in my journal. Some of the items are things, I’ll admit, things that I worry about. I need to seek God’s direction for them and in many cases, just give them over to God because there is very little or nothing, I can do about them myself. I feel better after I do this. There is something that is very therapeutic in getting the worry out of you, writing it down, and recognizing you are not the only one in this equation. Then you pray it up to God and leave it with Him.

4. Create boundaries and respect them.

Set a time and place for when you will pray out your worries. I mean this to include a plan of action if there is something you will need to do as well. Are you worried about a History test or a job competency test? Well certainly pray, but if you develop a play of study that will help your worries as well. Limit your worry list and how much time you can worry. When a worrisome thought hit you, say to yourself, “I will take care of that with God in my prayer time.” Jot it down in your journal if you need to but leave it for the next day. Jesus even commanded us not to worry about tomorrow, for today has enough already. There are boundaries to worry, and you need to respect them. Last.

5. Change your thinking by memorizing and meditating on the Scriptures.

Most of our problems have to do with our thinking. Our emotions are first based on thought patterns. Even at the basic level, our thinking and our perception of the world affects our emotions first. Now emotions will also affect thoughts, but only after a certain way of thinking is in place and an event of some kind then triggers the emotion.

The key to solving worry is to change the way you perceive the world and God. Change your worldview. You can do that. Fight for it to become a Christian Worldview and to do that you must saturate your mind with scripture. The best scripture to use are the ones that demonstrate the opposite of your problem. With worry, Philippians 4:6-8 or Philippians 4:19 are great to use. Write them on cards and carry them with you. Looking at them and going over it phrase by phrase.

Memorizing is one thing, the next is to meditate on it. Think about each word. Study the individual words in the verse using Bible word study books. Study the verse by using a good commentary or two or three or four. Study the passage and then overview the chapter and even the book.

Apply it to life situations. You are about to make a presentation at work. You are going to seek a new job. Make a part of you. It is you. When it is you, you will find your mind going back to it over and over again. That is when you are gaining the victory over worry.

If God is for us, who is against us? …We are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:31b,37b-39, CSB

A Crisis of Relevance: The Experience of God Outside the Church

“For my people have committed a double evil: They have abandoned me, the fountain of living water, and dug cisterns for themselves— cracked cisterns that cannot hold water.” (Jeremiah 2:13, CSB)

Many people are longing to experience God in their lives as active, relevant, and transformative. However, what they often experience in church and the activities offered isn’t translating into the fulfillment of this desire.

I have this intrusive and reoccurring thought, creeping into my consciousness: "You have a rich religion but a poor spirituality." The two don't have to be at odds; often, they are. I'd like to believe I could have a rich religion and spirituality.

Time for definitions: religion and spirituality. It’s good to define our terms. It helps us to not misunderstand each other and keeps the conversation under the same assumptions. For me, my definition of “religion” is a system of stated beliefs and organizational practices that define a faith community. The term “Christianity” is also used as a form of religion. I do this later. Next, I define “spirituality” as the seeking of a personal engagement with God which brings about a transformative experience in a person’s life that progressively conforms them to the will and ways of God.

With the above definitions in mind, here is what I’m headed toward: There are people, and I may add, I believe a growing number of people, longing to experience God but they don’t or can’t see any value in attending church meetings where a non-experience of God is presented.

“Wait a minute!” You may say, “Our church doesn’t present non-experiential meetings.” Maybe so, but in most of the churches I attend, and I attend a lot, the approach is more religion that spirituality. The message we send to our members and attenders is: Decide for Christ, join the church, be baptized, attend small group, attend worship, give tithes and offerings, be a moral person, have the right set of beliefs, support the Cooperative Program. Friends, this is religion, and it is not enough anymore. It never was. But in our troubled, digital, connected and disconnected modern world it is really standing out.

Please don’t hear what I am not saying. I’m not saying that we don’t need religion nor all of the things I listed that go with it. In fact, we do. We need them desperately, but we don’t need them for religion; we need them for spirituality. We need them for the transcendent reality that they should be pointing to. Religion that ends in itself will end itself. It should point to something more. It should point to Someone more. If we forget that, we as well as our churches, will end up empty of meaning and irrelevant. Friends, we may have entered into a crisis of relevance.

Perhaps what I have written doesn’t resonate. But please keep on reading to humor me if you would. I believe we are in or at the very least, moving into a spirituality crisis in Christianity which precipitates a relevance crisis. People increasingly do not see church as a place to grow spiritually. How could they with some of the behaviors of our top church and denominational leaders.

What I want to do in the remainder of this blog is to list five factors that have contributed to the relevance crisis of Christianity. I didn’t come up with these. They are the work of Christian A. Schwarz and come from his book God is Indestructible: NCD Media, 2020. Christian has had his hand on the pulse of the worldwide evangelical church for decades through his Natural Church Development (NCD) ministry. To date, more that 90,000 churches worldwide have participated in his church health surveys. More than 47,000 of these are in the United States. This is the largest database on the church in the history of the church. Over the decades this information has become invaluable for recognizing trends.

From this rich resource of data, interactions with church, business, and community leaders we can with confidence list at least the five most significant factors that have brought us to this relevance challenge. Here they are:

1. New communication technologies based on digitalization and globalization have resulted in new decision-making patterns.

2. The advance in education and social security in vast parts of the world has resulted in a diminishing need to cry out to for God’s intervention.

3. Increased individualism, particularly in Western societies has resulted in seeking spirituality without involvement in an institutional church, or even entirely without religion.

4. The shift from heteronomy (a dependence on something else, i.e. authority, tradition) to human autonomy has resulted in skepticism toward everything that is perceived as authoritarian or paternalistic.

5. The failure of Western Christianity to understand and communicate the full biblical image of God as being both personal and transpersonal, both immanent and transcendent, both divine will and divine energy, has contributed to an increased dissatisfaction with one’s own spirituality on the part of Christians, and to the feeling that Christianity is irrelevant from the perspective of non-Christians. (pp. 12-13)

A basic question is posed by Schwarz: “Is Christianity bound to the forms of church life practiced in the past or can we undertake the challenge of relating the unchanging essence of the gospel to ever-changing situations, even if that may result in painful reform?”

If we cannot do that, then the experience of God will be outside the church, at least outside the churches that will not use their religion enhance their relationship with God, besides those outside the church who are seeking a life-changing experience of God. We will become like the religious Jews who confused the Temple made of stone, nationalism, and their interpretations of Scripture to be as important as God himself. God had to get rid of all that in order for people to find him. Not only once but twice. He will do the same to us. He must unless we also repent. Jesus said so.

We have the same gospel of Christ that the early church had, but we do not have the same Christianity they had. We have the same gospel that the church of the reformation had, but we do not have the same Christianity they had. In my lifetime we have had unprecedented shifts away from institutionalism and segmentation to individualism and globalism. It is time for us to understand the times and to take the insights of church history into our present challenges. We cannot go back to a form of Christianity of the past. We must go with the new thing God is doing. He is always doing a new thing: A new birth, new wine, new wineskins, a new hope, new name, New Testament, new song, new heavens, and a new earth. He’s making all things new.

Personally, I plead with God almighty to help us to be free from our blindness to our pride, ideologies, and perspectives. May we see ourselves as he sees us, and may we experience him in a way that changes us to be more like Jesus every day. Don’t let your church (religion) be a hindrance but help to that end.