A QUICK GOODBYE
Saturday, October 17, 2009 at 9:51AM 
As of late I've been splitting my time. Bangin' it out in a news room in San Diego and Jesusing with a delightful rag-tag group in LA.
I've spent my life communicating one story or another. Good, bad, indifferent; it's what I know. I used to think TV was my hiatus into ministry. Little did I know ministry would be a killing machine designed to bring me back to television.
Today I'm saying goodbye. Goodbye to all the bullshit of American fame-driven ministry. Goodbye to my over-adjusting caring to the cause. Goodbye to formality. Goodbye to ass kissing pastor bandits who prey on the emotional pain of those seeking Christ. Goodbye to the incestuous Christian circle jerk. Goodbye to the next great idea that gets people saved. Goodbye to T-shirts, bumper stickers and outreach driven egos bent on adding numbers to the "Kingdom." Goodbye to hiding Jesus in social causes. Goodbye to men thinking they have spiritual dominance over the world. Goodbye to butt licking spotlight chasers who hook arms with ministries to appease their lack of self confidence. Goodbye to filthy insincere hands that take cash as a part of "give and get theology" and goodbye to man-made disciplines of denomination and evangelical nuttiness.
For those who will call this an angry diatribe from a guy who should have never thought to be a pastor, disciple, TV dude trying to help the masses...bite me. This has less to do with anger as it does the reality of my faith in concert with the reality of those I serve. You would first have to understand serving people beyond your need to, to understand me saying goodbye in the manner I do.
My desire to have nothing to do with "ministry main-stream conciousness" comes from my ability to hear and listen to a God who insisted my serving be without cause or condition. I forgot that when I jumped into ministry. I forgot my voice, my strength, my imagination for new things ain't for me. It's always for another.
Goodbyes can be long and drawn out. Perhaps that's what my last two years have been. Yet it's also easy for goodbyes to be cold, callus, filled with self righteousness. The difference here? Understanding who I serve and then knowing I didn't decide to serve them at all. God did. I hear a lot of voices out there in the Christian circus saying, "I've been called to this or that." Or, "I was a CEO, so I'll go help CEO's." Listen! You are no more responsible for those types of decisions as you were responsible for the very air you breathed while sleeping last night. In other words, God makes all the calls and you were never called to anything but service to Him. This ain't about you and one particular subculture. This is about your willingness to just serve. That's why I'm saying goodbye and maybe you should too.
There are a lot of screwed up people in my life. No one more screwed up than myself. One, a gay ex pastor / chef. Another, a car wash owner / used to be porn star. Can't forget my agnostic Gaffer friend who, for the record, drives a great truck. These people don't need me, didn't need me. I need them, that's why I'm saying goodbye. I'm no closer to the prize than they are. They are a part of my faith, not why I have it. I say goodbye to keep good company, to drink a beer with them, to cry with them, let my kids crawl on them. I will serve them... and I hope they never know.
I'm leaving the centricity of men for the desire to fill hearts with Christ. If ya need me I'll be in San Diego or LA... I go both ways.
Reader Comments (13)
This is definitely a JR styled "goodbye". :) Coincidentally, your mom said goodbye to me too.
By the way, you, Mr. JR, were the one to get in my face at porn shows telling me I knew I wasn't doing the right thing. And some of that voodoo you do consisted of keeping me from ending my life. Don't make the mistake of thinking you've just been spinning your wheels.
And tell your mom goodbyes aren't forever.
Yo! I'm not going anywhere, just ignoring more people..... it's all good... new post this Friday...
j.r.
This is well said JR! I love it how you get in the face of these issues, and is making me think twice about the way I view my life. I might as well join the bandwagon.
Love you man!!
Farewell, it's always been all about you
Ya think?
Hey J.R.! The person who wrote "it's always been all about you" clearly does not know you. And also must be stupid since he/she didn't even understand what you you wrote right in your blog about it not being about you.....like when you said "You would first have to understand serving people beyond your need to understand me saying goodbye in the manner I do." Duhhhhhhhh. Let me just tell this person that those who know you at all know the heart you have for God and that you'd give your shirt off your back if it meant helping another person. I've seen it and I am proud to know you.
Thanks mom!
Miss you, my friend. Good words. I spent some time looking for the "calling." Then God told me very clearly.."Your call is to follow me, period." But, God!! "Nope. follow me, period." Thanks for being a mentor (even if you don't know) and friend. On a side note to the "you'd give the shirt off your back" comment above. As for me, please keep your shirt on. No one wants to see that.
~Justin
Thanks man!
I'll keep the shirt on unless of course your mom needs it.
Could it be? No no, it couldnt! It cant! I dont want it to be so! But sadly, I think it is. I think (and I cant beleive Im writing this) that I am following a path that has been scratched out by the bloodied fingertips of a man well, lets just say we havnt always seen eye to eye. I say this this knowing that I am still some months behind were you are now, maybe years. But some where in your above Dennis Millerian rant my own thoughts began to connect and I was taken back to a differant time. A time sitting in a van in a driveway having a red headed "prophet" tell me... I was goin to be just like him! And thats what I didnt like! ICK!!!!! But time has told the tale. And, alas, I am finding my self having to say some goodbuys as well. So good bye to the 5 year campus expansion plan. Good bye to the replacement of need with want and good bye to those who practice it. And good bye to those who are still looking to exact some wrath on past wrongs done unto them. With that last one I have to say good bye to me as well or at least that part of me that just cant seem to let it go. Im jaded man. Not in the way that makes a man walk around all pissed, but in the way that I just cant take anyone seriously anymore. Its as if I just now got the joke that I heard 5 years ago. Whats even funnier is that I just found a church I like afew weeks back. But now I get the joke... so now what?
Mark,
Read the next blog... it might help going forward.
j.r.