I’m Back (Apparently That’s Still Allowed.)

 

It’s been… a while. Long enough that my last post now qualifies as an archaeological artifact. 🦴

But here we are, reunited, either because you stuck around, wandered back out of curiosity, or simply forgot to unsubscribe. Whatever the reason, I’m glad you’re here.

I spent an embarrassing amount of time debating how to return. Should I recap every month I missed? Should I craft a sweeping, cinematic update? Should I pretend I never left and hope no one notices the one‑year digital tumbleweed? 
After several rounds of this internal debate (and one staring contest with my blog, which I definitely won—blogs do not have eyelids 👀), I realized: I don’t actually need to catch up. I can just… start again.
That’s allowed. Really!

Trying to summarize the past year felt like trying to teach quantum physics to a cat, 🐱 technically possible, theoretically, but wildly impractical. So instead of a twelve‑part saga explaining where I’ve been, we’ll go with something simpler: I’m here now, ready to pick back up with the same mix of curiosity, humor, and human messiness as before.

Life doesn’t wait for us to catch up. It just keeps happening, emotionally, spiritually, and sometimes chaotically. So let’s skip the guilt, the pressure, and the imaginary audience that judges our posting frequency, and just dive back in.

Here’s to fresh starts, second chances, and not overthinking the gap.

It’s good to be back.

 

Flipping the Script.

Many people find themselves in a funk, living daily in the dumps. How do you get out of the dumps? The first step is to do challenging work to make the change. I always tell people, “I can give you the tools, instruct you on the process, and demonstrate the process, but until you are ready to apply what you learned, change will never happen.”

Yesterday, I presented a life motto:

“Turn the Negatives into Positive, and Accentuate the Positives.”

How does this concept apply to your life situation? Does it have the power to help me get out of the funk? Before we go much further, I would refer you to my previous blogs about the Iceberg and how your behavior is shaped by what is below the surface.

Here is a good illustration of how the principle will work in a person’s life. It is always helpful to have a team or support network for success. Isolation is the recipe for failure.

Consider a person who struggles with an addiction. Without making one type of addiction sound more difficult than another, let me say that overcoming an addiction is not the same for every person who is in the battle. The addiction could be drugs, caffeine, smoking, drinking, pornography, eating too much or stress eating, gambling, playing video games, you get the picture.

While the end goal is freedom from the addiction, the process might seem daunting or overwhelming. Remember the old saying, you eat an elephant one bite at a time? Well, that applies to more than elephants. The goal is to turn Negatives (plural) into Positives (also plural) one step at a time.

That has been the key for recovery programs for decades. People will say, “Today, I am ten days sober.” Each day is one step in the right direction, and each step or positive change is celebrated. Each step or day we have made a positive change in our behavior or habit is one fantastic day that deserves to be celebrated.

Sure, there are going to be setbacks and failures, but then you get up, and tomorrow becomes another positive step in the right direction, and we celebrate it all over again. Celebrations are sweetest when they are shared!

That is where the team or cheering section comes into the process. Your life change team is there for three important reasons. First, they are there to support your progress and hold you accountable. For example, if I have a weakness for donuts, they might remind me of my diet plan when I am tempted to eat a dozen glazed donuts.

Second, they are there to give you the support you need as you make your way. This might be someone you call when you are struggling or can help you make tough decisions. The third reason is they are your cheering section. They are there to celebrate the victories and encourage you when it has been a day of setbacks.

Anyone can apply this principle to their life challenges. It is not easy, but it is always worth the work. Let's make a plan to change your negatives into positives, and then we can celebrate you and your awesome progress.

Change is Difficult!

I recently read an article about “What kind of man does the world need,” and the author said something that really made me think, so I wanted to share it here. He said,

“Often, it’s easier to finish a negative statement, identifying something by what it is not. Why? Because it is easier to tear something down or identify what is wrong with something than to build something up and identify what is right. (This holds true for both some-things and some-ones.)”

When you think about it, he is correct. Yet, I would say that there are times when people point out what is wrong (negative) without a complete understanding of the situation or true insight. These armchair quarterbacks have all the answers… at least, they think they do. In this case, the solutions are superficial and poorly thought out for real change.

For example, we all think we can do better at coaching our favorite team, and if they would listen to our suggestions, they would win more. So and so needs to be benched, or this guy needs to play more. The answer is so simple that it is amazing how the coach cannot see the right solution. After all, all my friends and I cannot be wrong about this one!

I do not know the game's dynamics; I have never played professional sports. Likewise, I do not know the individual players' qualities or what the coaching team does daily to help them improve. I don’t know the players' health status or what is going on in their lives that might affect their performance.

What I am saying is that for us to be positive and seek real change, we must have insight, discernment, understanding, and patience. In order for constructive transformation to produce lasting change, we have to completely change our mindset from negative (against the Status Quo) to one that sees the positive side and potential.

For many years now, Tammy and I have had a working philosophy that goes like this:

“Turn the Negatives into Positive, and Accentuate the Positives.”

I honestly think we saw it somewhere and adopted it, but I cannot remember from where. But it is a powerful way of thinking. Instead of dwelling on what does not work, think about the good stuff and how that can be improved, then promote that part of the process (celebrate the success).

Let me give you a real-world example. When we had a food pantry program in Nevada, a man participated in receiving the donations. He would constantly complain about what we were giving out and gave his input about how to fix the issue. One day, we asked him to volunteer with us and help us sort the food and make up the bags to give out to people who came to the pantry. He agreed to help the next week.

It did not take long for him to see how much food came into our program, the number of people who needed our help each week, and how we needed to stretch the food out to help the greatest number of people. A few weeks later, we overheard him telling someone with the same complaint he once gave us, "This is all we have, and we have to make it work.” He turned from being a negative into a positive, and we celebrated him for his hard work in the ministry.

How can you be proactive in your life to take the negatives and turn them into positives, then celebrate the progress? The outcome does not have to be huge; we celebrate every step of the way because every step moves in the right direction.

Tomorrow, I will give you practical ways for this principle to come alive in your personal life.

The Branding of the Church

        I pray that the following makes sense and does not sound like a rant (even though it probably is one). I have long been struck by a statement I read a few years ago in an urban ministry book that most churches are worried about their brand over promoting Jesus in their community. To my astonishment, my professor at the time agreed that "if another church is not SBC or gives to the Cooperative Program, I would not work with them." We there you have it!

        For decades many in church revitalization have acknowledged that the church is more divided than we are untied, especially on doctrinal issues. This last summer, the SBC voted to remove Rick Warren's Saddleback Church (the SBC poster child for decades for church ministry) from "friendly cooperation with the SBC" over women as pastors. The issue is truly much deeper and more complex than most acknowledge, yet Rick had a valid point in his argument, "Taking the Gospel into the darkness should unite us." To that point I will say that is true, but it does not unity us, because legalism and the brand is more important than Jesus.

 

        On the local level, we see a mass of churches, many doing good work in their community, having to compete with larger churches who have a better brand and a cafeteria filled with options. When I was in Reno, our church would reach new families, and we would work hard on discipleship. However, about a year into our church, they would leave for the bigger church that had better youth programs, better music, AWANAs, etc. We were the feeder church for the larger churches.

 

        This is still true as I pastor in KC. People visit and then are gone, many times because they go to another church a few blocks away with better music, a bigger budget, a youth program, and a better brand. I am glad they have it so good, but it makes the small churches struggle to maintain their vital ministries. Sadly, they will say, "you are doing great work over there," but not invest in your work because that would take any from their brand.

 

        One pastor I know says often, “I love being a pastor!” I often wonder if that would still be true if he didn’t have a staff, large budget, big givers, denominational people attending, and the backing of another large church. If he was grinding it out like the rest of us, would he have as much conviction. Let me say, I do love being a pastor, but I never forget the demanding work it is every day. I do not have the luxury of relying on staff for doing what I have to do. My church secretary and I share the same body, and sometimes he does not get as much work done. How many pastors with staff are working 60+ hours a week, working an outside job to support their family, or are making $1 an hour? Would they be willing to share part of their salary with a small church pastor who is barely making minimum wage?

 

        In reality, every church is in competition with each other. The really large churches like Life.Church (Craig Groeschel) has multiple campuses across the country (4 in KC) with no regard for the local congregations that have been there for decades. Even the larger churches that are SBC will open another campus a few block away, perhaps as a legacy replant of a dying church, as if that is a benefit to the church community, but at what cost to other churches.

 

        It reminds me of when Walmart moved into a community. They will push out the mom-and-pop stores, and freeze out the smaller grocery stores and pharmacies; with the mindset, they are our competition and must make room for us because we do it right or better. Again, sadly, that is the same mentality of many larger churches!

 

        Before there were denominations and the current church landscape, the church was stronger because instead of fighting each other for people, they pooled their money, shared the load, and worked together for the mission of advancing the gospel. I pray, probably in vain, that the church could be more about unity, the gospel, and helping each other, than promoting their own brand....

 

I hope to see you tomorrow.

TTFN

Pastor Charles