Introverts In the Church 4.2

Recently, I was involved in a pastor’s meeting and I was asked the question: How do you know when God is talking to you? How do you know when He is asking you to do something or when He is calling you to move forward in ministry in a particular way? It’s always been a difficult question for me to answer… and that meeting was no different. I have never heard the Lord audibly speak to me… even when I was called into ministry back in Jr. High. He didn’t audibly tell me to resign from my first two churches. He didn’t audibly tell me that I was supposed to marry Melissa Jane Wright. I don’t remember how I answered that day at the pastor’s meeting… but I’ll attempt to answer now as I continue reading McHugh’s fourth chapter.

Of course, I hear from the Lord while reading the scriptures. That’s an easy answer. But what about those moments when I’m up against a decision that the scriptures do not directly address? Or what if it’s a decision between a good thing and a better thing? How do I make my decisions? I think the Lord grants me brief moments of clarity at various junctures… moments when ideas flood over me. It doesn’t happen every day or even every week… but it does happen… and usually at just the right time. It’s a weird process that is difficult to explain or pin down. I can be sitting on a decision for several weeks and have no leaning or inkling of how to move forward or what to decide to do… and then, all of a sudden, I have clarity and a path forward opens up.

I don’t know if that’s an introvert thing… or just how God chooses to work through me. But McHugh says something in this chapter that catches my attention: “It may be that introverts are more equipped to hear and see what God is doing inside of them, while extroverts are more sensitive to his revelation in the outer world. God’s speech to introverts may come in the form of inward thoughts or impulses, ideas that spring out at us, or words, images or feeling that surprise us or cut against the grain of our natural tendencies. As introverts, we need to take the activities of our inner worlds seriously in order to hear the overtures of God sounding in our lives.”

This sounds strangely familiar… I’ve often noticed that God speaks to me through ideas. Sometimes it’s just a random thought that develops into something more. Sometimes the idea comes… but remains incomplete until I hear another puzzle piece of an idea from someone else that fits directly in with what I’ve been thinking about. Like I said, it’s extremely difficult to pin down… but McHugh’s definition really helps explain the process.

So while I can’t always pin down how God communicates to me… or how to explain those moments when He communicates with me… I do know, without a doubt, that he does communicate with me. He has always been a faithful guide. And even though He doesn’t speak the same to me that he has to others… that’s ok. Because He is choosing to speak to me in ways that He knows will capture my attention. He knows that a powerful and organized idea will capture my attention way more than most other methods. At the end of the day… He knows me better than I know myself… and chooses to communicate with me based on that knowledge. And for that, I am so grateful…

Next time around, I’ll try tackling McHugh’s section dealing with life’s rhythms and how that can be important for an Introvert.

Introverts in the Church 4, Part 1

McHugh describes what an introverted spirituality looks like in chapter four. After beginning the chapter by describing how scattered our society has become… he issues the following observation: ‘In an increasingly fragmented, fast-paced, chatter-filled world, I consider the greatest gift introverts bring to the world and the church to be a longing for depth.’

McHugh then starts to describe a ‘Contemplative Spirituality.’ Which was a section in which I found myself nodding my head a lot because it resonated with me and tended to describe some of my own leanings in devotional material recently. “Sometimes referred to as mysticism, this spiritual mindset seeks to discover the presence of God in every aspect of human life.” He goes on to describe the multitude of ways that God tries to communicate to us… from the scriptures, to beauty, to modern stories, to experiences… and the goal of contemplative spirituality is to be an active and open listener. This resonates with me… because some of my most profound thoughts about God tend to happen outside of church… sometimes in the midst of a moving story… or enjoying the beauty of nature.

One description that has been helpful to me in locating my spirituality on a map of sorts is by looking at three statements found in church history. Augustine would say ‘I believe in order to understand.’ Aquinas would say ‘I understand in order to believe.’ Mystics say ‘I believe in the absurd.’ In other words, there is such a mystery, such an unknowable-ness to the truths of Christianity… that a mystic begins to embrace that mystery… instead of being overwhelmed or frustrated by it… they allow it to expand their wonder and awe. The older I get, the more I find myself in the third category. That’s not to say that I’m not trying to learn and think and grow in knowledge… but there are certain things I don’t think I’ll ever completely understand… and I’m growing more and more comfortable with that.

McHugh goes on to describe a contemplative spirituality. One aspect is what he called integration. Here’s his depiction of this: “Introverts in particular can feel that the world divides us from ourselves, that it takes from us. In contemplation we seek to draw together the divided fragments of our existence and present them to God who, in turn, finds us, restores us and draws the pieces together.” I am learning more and more about my need for this to happen in my life. Particularly in those seasons of life when a lot of different things are coming at me all at once. It’s easy to feel scattered. But I find that when I can quiet myself before the Lord on a regular basis… he binds me back together. He quiets and even focuses my mind. It’s something, I’ve noticed recently, that I have to have in order to be effective in my various tasks.

Another thing McHugh mentions and it’s the last thing I’ll write about in this post is the role of solitude in contemplative spirituality. He makes immediate reference to the fact that we find Jesus as an example of carving out times of solitude in our lives. McHugh makes reference to solitude in much the same way that Bobby Gross (Living the Story of God) makes reference to fasting… it is the art of creating space for God. We remove ourselves from distractions and noise and human relationships… FOR A TIME… in order that we might experience more of God’s presence… or that we might hear Him in a clearer way. It’s a moving AWAY from something… but at the same time, it’s a moving TOWARDS something.

I’ll stop there for now… he finishes off chapter four with more on how to create and use times of solitude… and then gets into a discussion about how to take advantage of the rhythms of our lives. I’ll get into those topics next time around.

On Chicken Feed and Dancing

About a week ago, I had the opportunity to gather with a few other pastors in the district. The leader of the meeting (Steve Wright, Oak Lawn) pitched a few questions our way and I found the questions to be both challenging and powerful. I’d like to deal with one of them on here today.

He shared about how when he grew up in Georgia, there used to be machines where you could put a nickel into the machine which did something to notify a real, live chicken to start dancing. The chickens would dance and then chicken feed when come out as a reward. You could just put nickels in over and over and watch this poor thing dance the day away.

I got a chuckle from this as I had never seen or heard of anything like this. But then Steve countered this story with a question for the group: What’s your chicken feed? What makes you dance? My gut reaction was to think about all the things that I SHOULD be dancing for. People coming to Jesus; seeing people grow in their walk with Jesus; seeing the Church become all it was meant to be…

But as we got deeper into the discussion, I realized that Steve was not really all that concerned with what I SHOULD be dancing for, as we all could pretty much agree on those sorts of things. What he was concerned about was to get us thinking about all the things that we were CURRENTLY dancing for… good or bad.

So my mind wandered to a whole different set of scenarios and I settled my mind on the fact that I tend to dance for the few out-spoken negative influences inside the church I serve at. And truthfully, I don’t dance for them personally… I dance for some semblance of peace. I have an aversion towards conflict, mostly because I find most of it unnecessary… but at the same time… I’m not sure anything I say or do would every really calm the spirit of someone who is overly critical.

But I just keep dancing anyway. I keep making certain decisions with the negatives in mind… even though most strategies and leadership principles I’ve heard or read make it clear that I need to ‘corral’ those sorts of influences in my mind and not let them shape who I am or the decisions I make. I’m still learning about conflict and compromise and confronting… I’m not very good at two of those three. But… much like any problem… it’s good to acknowledge the weakness first… to admit that I’m currently dancing for something unhealthy… both for me personally and the future of the church.

John 11.1-16

I recently made a commitment to read through the second half of the book of John with a friend. We are using N.T. Wright’s ‘For Everyone’ series as a guide. The idea is to deal with a chapter or so each time we meet together. I’ve been excited about it. This week has been my first week to engage with this portion of the scriptures and the material. It has been a blessing. I thought I’d put a few of my cursory thoughts up on here.

John 11.1-16

We are starting with John 11. It’s the story of the death and raising of Lazarus. This story has always been intriguing to me from the standpoint that Lazarus was one of the few people to have to die twice. Poor guy. But aside from that, it’s a marvelous foreshadowing of Jesus’ own resurrection. It really fits perfectly within the book of John.

One of the more dramatic elements of the first 16 verses of this chapter is Jesus’ IN-action. He learns about Lazarus’ plight, but doesn’t leave right away to ‘save the day.’ As N.T. Wright puts it… it’s a reminder that ‘his timing is not our timing.’ It’s actually something I’ve been working through in my own life recently.

I started working at my current church in 2007. It was my first ever Lead pastor position… so there was (and continues to be) a lot of on the fly, on the job learning. It seems that there was the expectation that this church would just start to take off because of my arrival. Truth be told, I was hoping this church would take off as well.

Four years later, and we are just now starting to get some traction. We are just now starting to see some things pay off. And it’s not huge gains yet, we are up about 5% from where we were last year. Last year was the worst, though. We ended up taking the first attendance loss since I’ve been here. It was really discouraging and led me to ask some unhealthy questions. Maybe I’m not the right one for this position. Maybe this church needs a different type of leader. Maybe I can’t grow a church.

I heard a sermon recently where the preacher made the comment: ‘Everything in the middle can seem like failure.’ It was a moving reminder to me that it’s easy to get discouraged in the middle of the story. I’ve found that it’s easy for people in churches to get discouraged in the middle of the story. That sometimes we need to wait for God’s perfect timing. Sometimes it seems like he arrived too late. But that would be because our vision is blurred or insufficient.

This passage urged me to trust in God’s timing. Not my own. Not in someone else’s timing. God’s timing. This passage also served as a reminder to continue to trust in Him with the ‘middle of my story.’ In those times when everything looks like failure… to continue to obey and trust that God will work and move in His own time and in His own way…

Introverts in the Church - 3

“Living as an introvert in a society and a church that exalts extroversion takes its toll, and shame cuts deep into introverted psyches that are bent toward self-examination.”

This chapter is all about healing. And there can’t be healing without inflicted wounds. McHugh spends the first portion of the chapter dealing with the reality that many who are naturally introverted have felt put off or belittled by others in one form or another. In fact, he states that 49 out of the 50 introverts he interviewed for the book had felt ‘maligned’ for their introversion in one form or another.

One particularly striking statement McHugh says that ‘While extroverts commonly feel loneliness when others are absent, introverts can feel most lonely when others are present, because ours is the aching loneliness of not being known or understood.’ McHugh gives example after example of introverts being wounded by those who misunderstand them: An introverted daughter being pushed by an extroverted mother to become more normal; An extroverted school teacher absolutely destroying an introverted student because he couldn’t answer questions quickly enough for her...

I’ve been wounded in the past as well. I remember my second grade teacher was not very understanding of this. I remember being a little slower to learn/process things in those grades… and I remember that I worked slower than other kids… and I don’t remember it to be because of laziness. Maybe it was because I was trying to be careful to be right… but I worked slower. I remember this teacher forcing me to stay in and finish work during recess. I also remember one day walking into class to see my desk overturned in the middle of the room with all of my stuff in one big pile and she insisted that I needed to find a worksheet that I had not turned in. It was humiliating and frustrating.

McHugh says something important in response to these examples: ‘Finding healing as an introvert will not entail freedom from these characteristics. Healing for us will involve a new way of interpreting our natural personality traits.’ In other words… find out and embrace who you are… and don’t let other’s define who you should or should not be. However, he cautions that we are careful to diagnose introverted patterns wisely. There are some things we do that go too far… there are times when we retreat too much from others… and it actually develops into more unhealthy patterns.

McHugh suggests that while introverts may find some healing by a ‘journey inward’ toward accepting who we are and how we tick… he believes (and I agree) that we won’t find total healing until “we respond to and welcome the indwelling presence of the Creator God who ‘formed my inward parts.’” The great irony for Christian introverts is that ‘our ultimate identity is never found in aloneness, but it is found in relationship to another.’ So in the midst of our introversion… we belong to, should be shaped by, and hopefully can find healing in the midst of a greater community.

While this is not my favorite chapter in the book, I suspect that it can be very powerful to those who approach the book with deep wounds in their past from people who were ignorant to the particular nuances, needs and gifts of a introverted person.

In my next post, I’ll try to summarize and respond to chapter four of McHugh’s book which is entitled: ‘Introverted Spirituality.’

2009 Reading List

I was able to finish a few more books this year than last year. It helped that Star Wars was better this year. As always, here's my disclaimer: This list only represents the books that I actually finished. This would be a far greater list if I retold all the books that I started, parts of commentaries that looked through, or early church reading that I accomplished. Okay, here it goes:

Professional Reading

1. The Secret Blend (Stan Toler) 180 Pages
2. The Making of a Leader (Robert Clinton) 272 Pages
3. Passion, Power and Purpose (Various) 207 Pages
4. Life Together (Dietrich Bonhoeffer) 122 Pages
5. The Spirit of Early Christian Thought (Robert Louis Wilken) 368 Pages
6. Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? (Philip Yancey) 351 Pages
7. Practical Guide to Solo Ministry (Stan Toler) 192 Pages
8. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (Len Lencioni) 229 Pages
9. Serve God, Save the Planet (J. Matthew Sleeth) 225 Pages
10. Common Ground (Keith Drury) 187 Pages
11. Treasure the Word (Joseph Coleson) 201 Pages
12. The Orthodox Way (Kallistos Ware) 164 Pages
13. The Last Word (N.T. Wright) 146 Pages
14. Simply Christian (N.T. Wright) 240 Pages
15. The History of Christian Thought (Jonathan Hill) 352 Pages
16. Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger (Ron Sider) 335 Pages
17. Leading on Empty (Wayne Cordeiro) 215 Pages
18. 3 Colors of Your Spirituality (Christian Schwarz) 192 Pages

Personal Reading

1. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Sean Williams) 319 Pages
2. The Copper Scroll (Joel Rosenberg) 368 Pages
3. Star Wars: Revelation (Karen Traviss) 410 Pages
4. Extreme Measures (Vince Flynn) 430 Pages
5. Star Wars: Invincible (Troy Denning) 299 Pages
6. The Associate (John Grisham) 373 Pages
7. Star Wars: Millennium Falcon (James Luceno) 317 Pages
8. Black Order (James Rollins) 426 Pages
9. Star Wars: Outcast (Aaron Allston) 302 Pages
10. Playing For Pizza (John Grisham) 262 Pages
11. Star Wars: Omen (Christie Golden) 236 Pages
12. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) 281 Pages
13. Star Wars: Abyss (Troy Denning) 332 Pages
14. Open (Andre Agassi) 388 Pages
15. Star Wars: Precipice (Ebook – John Jackson Miller) 35 Pages
16. The Romanov Prophecy (Steve Berry) 387 Pages


34 Books 9343 Total Pages


Top Three Professional
1. A History of Christian Thought - I received this book many years ago and have slowly plugged my way through it... not because it was uninteresting... but because I was enjoying it so much. This single book gave me a passion to know and understand how the theology of Christianity has been developed through the years.
2. The Spirit of Early Christian Thought - My one/two punch should tell you where my interest has been recently... the exploration of Church history through the time of Augustine has been fascinating to me. This is a great book exploring the worship patterns, poetry and theology of the very early church. Well written.
3. Three Colors of Your Spirituality - This was a very interesting book that I just finished under the 2009 buzzer. The premise is that there are many different antennas that God 'broadcasts' on and each of us have a primary way of connecting with God. (The author gives nine options.) I found out that I connect with God best through the 'Sacramental' style... and might be more at home within an Eastern Orthodox worship service than even my own Wesleyan denomination. (No, I'm not switching...) I think this would be a book that could benefit many congregations.

Top Three Personal
1. Open - This autobiography by Andre Agassi was the best book I read all year. Agassi's various inner battles are disclosed. There were moments when I laughed out loud and there were moments when I was deeply moved. It's just a great story about a guy who was forced to play a sport and had to overcome himself in order to succeed in that sport.
2. Pride and Prejudice - Very good book. Grew to care about the characters and loved the witty dialogue. Never, in a million years, did I think this book would make my top two last January 1.
3. Star Wars: Millennium Falcon - Great 'mystery' story that explores the beginnings of this iconic ship from the classic Star Wars films.