Posted tagged ‘Expectations’
January 4, 2019
WORDS FROM W.W. January 4, 2019
I’ve been blessed to have a number of mentors in my life that have allowed me to try and fail, hone certain skills, and pointed out my strengths and weaknesses.
Dr. James Payson Martin, senior pastor of Arlington Heights (IL) First Presbyterian Church was my first mentor when I joined a church staff. He was gentle but firm. Grace-filled, but demanding. I was between my second and third years of seminary, looking for a summer ministry experience that would stretch me…and it did. Loved it and learned from it! Grew as I groaned!
Jim Martin was the catalyst for my growth. His daughter, Cyndi, remains a long distance friend of mine (She still lives in the Chicago area). I get choked up thinking about her and her dad. Jim passed away suddenly the week of Easter about 30 years ago.
And then there is Chuck Landon, my first mentor in a church ministry after I was ordained and on a church staff full-time. I had been on the staff of another church for about 15 months after seminary graduation and it did not go well. I was defeated and discouraged, wondering if I was really called to ministry. The senior pastor was rarely around to guide me. The rumor was that he spent more time on the golf course, which had one of its fairways rolling right behind his backyard. This “Wolfe” often felt like he was being fed to the wolves!
Lansing First Baptist Church rescued me from leaving ministry, and Chuck Landon taught me more about being a pastor than anyone else I have known. His work ethic flowed out of his passion for Christ, pursuit for excellence, and love for the people he pastored and community he served in. When I was willing to settle for less he let me know it was unacceptable. When I did something well he affirmed the excellence and effectiveness of it. When I wore my softball cleats (They were rubber cleats, okay!) to a Diaconate meeting in the pristine church parlor, he read me the riot act the next day! He taught me responsibility, and he taught me that perception, no matter whether it is accurate or not, is the reality.
Those two men mentored me to become a good pastor. They prepared me to mentor others to be good pastors, and hopefully those people will mentor others.
I’ve had other mentors through the years also in other areas of life. Don Fackler mentored me to a good basketball coach. When I assisted him in coaching the Mason (Michigan) High School Girl’s JV team, he laid the foundations in my life on how to coach. Now, more than 20 years later, I still find myself using some of those same learnings, and speak some of the same terms that he spoke.
As I write more these days there have been a few mentors to bring my writing quality up. God has blessed me to have my life path converge with Ed and Diana Stucky. They’ve pressed me to not settle for less, to reach for quality and to be a wordsmith in conveying ideas.
Mentors are essential for our development and success. If we learn in isolation we will experience the storms of being isolated. If we realize that we are “not all that!” and allow others to speak truth into the rough edges of our lives we will be better, and we will be better prepared to be vessels that flow with purpose!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, coaching, Grace, Humor, love, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: church staff, coaches, developing, Don Fackler, editing, Encouragement, Excellence, Expectations, grace-filled, learning, learning something new, Mason High School, mentor, mentoring, mentors, seminary, strengths and weaknesses
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December 14, 2018
WORDS FROM W.W. December 14, 2018
“It’s spiritually dead here!” explains the middle-aged woman to me.
“How so?”
“Nothing ever happens here!” she says, using her hands to exaggerate the point.
“Nothing of God ever happens here. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes, Pastor! It’s dead!”
“I’d beg to differ with you.”
“You’re the pastor. I would expect you to disagree!”
“Like last Saturday morning when the men’s bible study group prayed for a problem that Bobby was dealing with, and then we gathered around him and hugged him, and gave him encouragement! Or last week when I was out changing the letters on the church sign, and I got into a conversation with an 84 year old lady who lives a block away from our church. A few of us are going to walk up to her house and trim her bushes and fix her screen door next Saturday! Or last Sunday when Patty brought out something from the scripture story we were studying that caused a light bulb to go on in the minds of a few of us. I’m not sure what criteria you’re using to determine whether God’s involved or not, but those were all signs to me.”
She looked at me and bit her lip.
“Say it!” I urged her.
“Those things just aren’t very exciting, pastor! I’m looking for miracles and people who love the Lord, and I’m just not seeing much of that here.”
“So…have you been to see Widow Samuels? Because, even though she is in a care center now, whenever I go to visit her I experience a spiritual blessing and marvel at her love for the Lord.”
“I don’t really like those kind of places.”
“And last week I was sitting beside Joe Skinner’s bed and talking about the end of his life, his looking forward to experiencing the glory of the Lord in heaven, and how God has walked with him through a multitude of life valleys.”
“Those aren’t the things I’m talking about, Pastor. I’m talking about spiritual highs!”
“So you’re an addict?”
“Excuse me!”
“You’re a spiritual addict, whose addiction can only be satisfied by an experience that is high energy and high emotion.”
“I knew you’d blame me!”
“I’m not blaming you for anything. I’m just stating what the situation is. You don’t seem to see God working in our midst unless something awesome happens. What is awesome, however, has to be defined by your standards. Am I right?”
“No, you aren’t right!”
“Then we will just agree to disagree. The spiritual life I’m seeing is different than what you’re looking for. I mean no disrespect in saying this but there are some people who go to an amusement park and define its impact by how many roller coasters it has and how thrilling they are. When I go to an amusement park I evaluate it on being able to ride the merry-go-round with my grandkids. Different perspectives, neither which is wrong.”
“I’m not addicted, though!”
“And I’m not spiritually bored! So, I guess we’re both where we need to be!”
She smirks, starts to say something, but then turns and walks away. She has moved on to the next church down the road.
Five years after the conversation she has moved on three other times. Sometimes, it seems, we minimize the power of God by not allowing him to be involved in our rhythms of life. There is a hunger- an addiction, if you will- to wanting to see smoke on the mountaintop while missing the nearness of His presence.
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Jesus, love, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: addiction, being led by the Spirit, Expectations, faith journey, led by the Spirit, life journey, life transitions, miracles, Spiritual, Spiritual Growth, spiritual hunger, spiritual journey, Spiritual renewal, spirituality, the presence of God, the pursuit of God
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September 19, 2018
WORDS FROM W.W. September 19, 2018
My friends, Ed and Diana Stucky, were telling me about a hike they made to an area in Colorado that has some magnificent red rock formations. They were surprised to find people dressed in attire that made them resemble biblical characters. They discovered that the group was there to film a video clip for their church’s Easter service in a few months. A film crew was getting set up.
And then there was Jesus! He was eating pizza! Ed thought it was pepperoni pizza!
There’s something strange, but also refreshing, about seeing Jesus sitting on a rock eating pizza. Kind of like seeing the middle school principal dressed up as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle at school on Halloween! It just seems out of character or, more accurately, outside of what we expect.
Jesus holding a slice of thin crust pepperoni pizza made my friends stop and stare…and smile!
My daughter, Kecia, who teaches third grade, is always amused by the disbelief she sees on her students’ faces when she encounters them in non-school settings like Target or at a park. She is associated with their understanding of school so much that they have a hard time believing she can be any other place.
Jesus and pizza would be like that…unexpected and kinda’ cool!
In Jesus’ time people had rabbi stereotypes and messiah expectations. If I read my Bible correctly, there were a number of times when he did and said the unexpected. Sometimes organized religion is more comfortable with a Jesus that is sanitized and spiritually sterile than the Christ who offers grace and forgiveness for the sinful and unclean. In a way, we expect to see Jesus with a loaf of bread and a glass of water, not pepperoni pizza with a splotch of sauce nestled in his beard.
The refreshing thing about Jesus is that he is not confined by our nearsightedness or restricted to our personal legalism. He operates on the basis of who he is, not on who we decide he is to be.
In our concern over keeping anything with a hint of possible sin to it away from Jesus we’ve created a messiah who is about as exciting or appealing as a drink can of Ensure! Thus a non-dancing Jesus, who rarely laughs, never wears clothing featuring vibrant colors, and consumes food that is void of spiciness and sweetness.
I’ll take a pizza-eating Jesus. Heck! I’m even okay with a Jesus who also has toppings of sausage and ham!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Humor, Jesus, love, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Easter, Expectations, forgiveness, grace, legalism, Messiah, pepperoni pizza, pizza, stereotypes, the unexpected, viewpoint
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March 19, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. March 19, 2017
There is a lot of talk and conversation these days about entitlement…from government programs to children of helicopter parents to job wages and benefits to kids sports. Entitlement could be a defining term for our culture. We hate it and yet we expect it!
Entitlement has entered through the front doors of the church as well! This past week I was listening to the morning host of a Christian music station as he launched into a discussion about finding a new church. One of his co-hosts had invited him to visit her church. The discussion flowed around what he might tell her afterwards if he didn’t enjoy the experience?
There was much laughter and humorous remarks related to the subject. How the host approached the subject left me a bit chilled. His opening was something like this: “Recently my family and I have been looking for a new church and been trying out some different places…”
His tone gave me the impression that changing churches was kind of like deciding on what restaurant we’re going to have lunch at today? How will the service be? Will we feel comfortable? Will we have our needs met? Does the time suit us? Will we like the music? How will we be made to feel special? Will it be easy to get into and out of?
He seemed to indicate that changing churches is no big deal, as difficult as deciding whether or not to get cheese on that burger I’m ordering!
But, of course, it goes with our culture. All those questions place “me” as the focus! After all these years we’re firmly traveling through a period of time where people don’t understand the purpose and mission of the church. The church simply reflects our culture, as opposed to being counter-cultural.
Perhaps the radio host had a good reason for leaving his old church. Maybe there was some doctrinal issue. Perhaps his church had lost its understanding of being the hands and feet of Jesus. Maybe the way it treated women and minorities was out of line with the gospel. Maybe the worship service had become an hour of entertainment.
The way he began the topic, however, made his previous place of fellowship sound like an old sock with a hole in the heel…tossed to the side!
Counter-cultural would have the host say something like this: “My family and I recently began a search for a new church to journey with. It wasn’t that the congregation we had been journeying with was bad or anything, but they didn’t expect anything of us. They didn’t expect us to be willing to sacrifice anything for the sake of the gospel, and didn’t expect us to understand and incorporate the idea of servanthood into our lives. So we’re in search of a fellowship that will challenge us to live out of faith in word and deed.”
Wouldn’t that be a twist in our thinking? It would go completely against our culture’s question of “what can I get out of it without putting anything into it?” Of course, we read that idea into some of our hymns and praise songs. “Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, he washed me white as snow.”
We sing the song, say “Thanks Jesus!”, and then stroll out to the church parking lot saying “Where shall we go for lunch?”
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: body of believers, changing churches, Christian music, churches, congregational life, counter-cultural, entitled, entitlement, Expectations, fellowship, fellowship of Christians, It's all about me!, sacrifice, the hands and feet of Jesus
Comments: 2 Comments
January 25, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. January 25, 2017
I recently wrote a post on the list of “class expectations” I presented to my 7th Grade Social Studies classes that I’ve been substitute teaching. Next Monday will be my last day, a journey of fifteen days with 120 emerging citizens. It’s a journey that has involved death- the electric pencil sharpener croaked with a pencil still jammed in its mouth! A journey that has reacquainted me with how short school lunch periods are. A journey that has included students who want to do their best and others, similar to how I was, who just want to slide by! A journey where, like a shepherd, I’ve had to make sure that some of “the lambs” don’t wander off…topic!
The new teacher has been hired and the students get the news about her today. A couple of them have told me that they hope I’m their teacher for the rest of the year, but, honestly, I’m ready to resume a regular writing schedule occupying the last stool on the end at the counter of my local Starbucks gazing out at Pike’s Peak.
So here’s my list with some elaboration:
- Be here.
- No whining!
- No gum.
- Respect me.
- Treat each other with respect.
- Don’t do stupid.
- Expect to learn.
- Expect to even enjoy what you’re learning.
- Expect to teach me as we go.
- Expect to laugh…but never in a way that mocks someone else.
- Try your best, and always seek to do better.
- Don’t be a distraction or a disturbance.
- Be honest and have integrity.
- Share your ideas!
- Have fun!
Number 6- “Don’t Do Stupid!” One student said, “Mr. Wolfe, that’s not proper English!” I said that I knew that, but wanted to make a point that no one IS stupid. Doing stupid is a decision that someone makes…like the former football player I coached a few years ago who was dared to walk into the girls’s locker room where the girl’s softball team happened to be! He made the decision to do stupid…and got a five day suspension!
Number 11- “Try your best, and always seek to do better!” One student asked me what she had to do to get an “A”, and then the very next day she whined (#2- No whining!) that the world government project I had assigned to them was too hard. I reminded her of the question of the previous day, and added “I don’t know if you are aware of this or not, but ‘A’ does not stand for ‘Average!’”
Number 14- “Share your ideas!” Many of the students have taken me up on this one. Usually the ideas begin with words like “We should…” or “Do you know what would be cool?” And that has been way cool!
Great kids! Great experience! I look forward, however, to being able to actually chew my lunch!
Categories: children, coaching, Humor, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: 7th Grade, classroom, classwork, educating students, education, Expectations, middle school, middle school students, Seventh Grade, social studies, substitute teaching, teacher, teaching
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January 21, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. January 21, 2017
Two weeks finished as a long-term substitute teacher for 7th Grade Social Studies! 120 students each school day filtering through one door into a roomful of desks that, unlike when I was in school, have no one’s initials carved into them.
Yesterday a young lady, whose family I’ve known for years, came up to me with “the long face” on. She looked at me and moaned, “Everyone loves your class!”
She’s not in it.
I don’t have a degree in teacher education, or been licensed/certfied by the state. I am not knowledgeable about educational philosophy, techniques, and curriculum. I’m simply an old fart who is enjoying the experience. It goes to what I told the class on my first day. I presented them with 15 Class Expectations, kind of like flags on a ski slalom course to show the downhill skier where he/she needs to go.
Number 8 on my list is “Expect to enjoy what you are learning!” There’s classrooms and times when straight lecture is the needed form, and there are other times when student input and discussion is the best road for discovery. I realize that I am not a grizzled veteran of the educational system, but I’ve listened to the stories of my sister, who taught university students who were looking towards careers as teachers, and my daughter who currently teaches 4th Grade. They found, and find, a balance between learning and enjoyment. My daughter greets her new class of students each year dressed up as a grandmother. Her students love her, and she loves her students!
I remember many of my teachers…the good, the bad, and the ugly. I remember the classes that I trudged to and from each day, wondering if there was an end in sight. My vision wasn’t on what I was learning, but rather on survival!
I replaced a teacher who the students loved. Several times in the past two weeks students, in referring back to him have begun sentences with the words, “Remember when we…”
I see it as an opportunity to guide students towards enjoying what they are learning, as opposed to turning them off to knowledge.
Number 10 on my list of expectations is “Expect to laugh…but never in a way that mocks someone else!”
Laughter is the saddle that keeps the student on the educational thoroughbred. We’ve laughed a lot these past two weeks as we’ve talked about “Supply and Demand”, “Taxes”, and other economic topics. They were tested on the material yesterday. I haven’t graded the papers yet, but I’m optimistic that almost all of them did well. If not…I may be blogging a retraction tomorrow!
As I would tell a story that made a point, and also cause laughter, students would raise their hands and share their own stories about similar experiences. Our laughter and chuckles bonded us on the road to understanding.
There is a definite connection between being in a new experience and the level of enjoyment of it. I understand that. After being a pastor for 36 years I recognize that my enjoyment level had taken a dip. Being a rookie often comes with optimism and enthusiasm, before the blood of too many parent-teacher conferences gets sucked out of you. I may have only one week left in this teaching position before a new teacher is brought on board. Maybe that’s a good thing, because I’ll leave still in a state of enjoyment and a volume of laughter.
And will have learned a lot! Oh, that’s number 9 on my list of expectations for the students: “Expect to teach me as we go!”
Categories: children, coaching, Humor, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: 7th Grade, classroom, economics, education, educational curriculum, enjoyment, expect to enjoy, Expectations, experience, laughter, learning, middle school, middle school students, rookie, social studies, students, teacher education, teacher substitute, teaching, teaching middle school
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December 20, 2013
Expectations.
When I’ve heard someone ask the question “What do you expect?” it has conveyed one of two opposite extremes.
I’ve heard it asked mockingly, referring to the lack of intelligence or ability in another person. A college student flunks a math class, and his father says to his mother, “What do you expect?” In other words, the parent had no expectations of his child for any kind of success. Sad as it is, the failure is almost hoped for by the cynical dad.
Expectations can be extinguished by past experience. It is easy to predestine personal failure because someone believes it would be out of character for him to rise above mediocrity.
But there’s another way to ask “What do you expect?”, and it is in a way that elevates, dreams, thinks of new possibilities.
Ask a class of first-graders what they want to be when they grow up and there will be lofty pictures and occupations. First-graders want to be President, or doctors, or olympic athletes, or zoologists (Okay! Maybe they just say “someone who takes care of the giraffes!”) , or Air Force pilots . Their expectations are still mountain-top like!
The story of the shepherds out in the fields taking care of their flocks as the Christ-child is being birthed is a picture of people who were raised out of their mediocrity. Shepherds usually resigned themselves to a life of mundane sheep-watching and protection. And now here is a group of sheep-herders who are pulled into the incarnation event.
No one had ever asked themselves about expectations. They hadn’t been included in such lofty conversations.
We serve a God who asks the question “What do you expect?”
He asks it, however, in ways that seek to have us look for the possibilities?
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Christmas, Community, Jesus, Parenting, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: aspirations, dreams, expectant, Expectations, first graders, growing up., past experiences, possibilities, shepherds
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August 27, 2012
WORDS FROM W.W. August 27, 2012
This is football season, and, believe it or not, I’m in my seventh year as a football coach with Timberview Middle School. Seven years ago I saw the Assistant Principal/Athletic Director at Pike’s Perk Coffee one July morning, said hi to him, and he responded with “Hey, Coach! Do you coach football?” I had been coaching boy’s basketball at the school for three years at that point, and suddenly I was a football coach. Quickly I made it known that I was a basketball coach who happened to be standing on a football field.
Seven years later I’m in my second season as head coach…and probably the most clueless head coach around, but I’m a great organizer and I’ve learned to delegate well.
As we headed into this season one of my goals for the team was to increase our number of players participating. Goal achieved. We’re over 90!
Next goal! Include everyone on the school teams. In the past we’ve had some players who were only intramural players, and others who were interscholastic. Intramural players left practice at 4:00, while the others stayed until 5:15. The interscholastic players were the ones who were either more talented, more experienced, or who had parents who had poured more money into their football careers up to that point. In essence, the way we had done things meant that the better players got twice as much coaching as the ones who needed to learn more.
So I asked the question: “Why?”
With that step we launched into some recently uncharted waters and new challenges. How do you keep 90-95 seventh and eighth graders involved? We’re learning the “do’s” and “don’ts” of that every day. I scratch certain things off the list with comments like “Never try this drill again” and “A Worthless Waste of time!”
But along with the higher participation level this year has come something else that I’ve instituted…okay dictated!
Higher expectations!
Each player has signed a “contract” saying that he agrees to living up to certain expectations: Academics, Character, Commitment, and Responsibility. If players don’t live up to the expectations they are held responsible. For example, an unexcused absence from practice disqualifies the player from participation in the next game. Three unexcused absences means they are done for the season. I have sign-in sheets that they put a check on beside their name indicating they are there for practice that day. We have ten designated 8th graders who lead in opening stretches and warm-up runs. The locker room is expected to be clean after practice. (8 additional sprints the day after a locker room that was not up to my expectations has resulted in a clean locker room for the past week.)
What has happened is that almost everyone is there for practice every day. It is only the sick who aren’t. Last week I had a mom come to practice because her son was sick, and he was worried that he would not be able to participate in the next scrimmage.
Higher expectations.
I can not say that we will win any more games, but we will teach more boys about what it means to not only be football players, but be responsible participants on a team.
I believe the church should be more similar to that, than dis-similar! How it loves with a good dosage of grace mixed in makes it unique, but, honestly, we expect too little from the people who are part of the Body of Christ.
We hope that people will show up on Sunday morning, and we hope that some will volunteer to help out in some way, and when they don’t we bemoan and grumble. It’s kind of the other side of the coin from the Israelites who were ready to stone Moses for suggesting that they enter into “The Promised Land.”
Being a football coach for twelve and thirteen year olds has taught me some things about being a pastor.
Perhaps I need to raise my expectations as well!
Categories: Christianity, Community, Grace, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: coaching, Expectations, Football, middle school
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Words from WW Blog 