Matthew’s question to Madison: What excites you about being on a team?

Growing up, I never played on sports teams. I much preferred the individual sports – there was way less pressure.

Let’s be real, I didn’t play any sports.

BUT if I did, I’d be the gymnast, or the swimmer, or playing any racket sports. I remember almost joining the badminton team at the end of high school, but since I had never been on a sports team before, I was way too scared – and unfortunately I regret it. I played squash in university for a bit, and though I was terrible at it, I enjoyed being on the court with one other player smashing the ball against the wall.

There’s something about competing on my own that I see as a challenge, and there’s no other personality to have to work with. It’s just me. I work within my own skills and abilities, I know all of my thoughts, and I can predict every step I take.

Yep, I like control.

And yes, I see the flaws in my own thinking.

I’m an independent to a fault.

I’ve been part of many teams, and some were amazing – others were awful. I had a group project in second year which was supposed to have five people in it, but it ended up being just my friend and I doing the entire project. It was a brutal experience.

Last summer, there were three interns that worked for us, and I was able to work closely with them. The four of us made a great team! Our personalities meshed well, and we all worked hard and trusted each other to get the job done. And while we worked, we had fun. It was an amazing team.

In my new role at North Park, I have a new team I get to work with. There are three of us on the lead team for the new church plant starting in September of this year. In the two months of being this team, we’ve worked through a lot, and I already know we’re going to make a great team. We’re figuring out how each of us functions, what our roles are, and our communication styles. There are some pretty significant differences between us, yet it works.

And I have complete confidence and trust in both of them.

That’s probably the main reason why I’m excited to work with them. As seen in my earlier experiences, I struggle being on teams that I can’t trust; I don’t like being on sports teams because I can’t predict the relationships or the outcomes of others actions. And I know I’m not the only one in this boat.

But I’m continually learning the beauty in the mess of working together.

Working on the new churches’ lead team isn’t the only team I’ll be working with. There are people who are stepping into leadership roles already as we prepare to roll out the red carpet for opening day, and I get to work closely with them as well.

Let me be the first to say – we have an AWESOME team so far.

I love the conversations around new ideas, inspiring one other with conversations we’ve had with neighbours in the area, and reminding each other of how God is working.

The excitement and dedication is real!

Here are a few things I’m specifically excited about being on this team:

1) It’s missionally focused

I love being on a team that strives to live beyond themselves. And though we’re all still selfish and want to have our own way of doing things, the main focus of our conversations is around what God is calling us to do specifically in the neighbourhood we’re in – and I LOVE that.

2) People’s passion pushes them to go above and beyond

There are people on our team who have done way more than we’ve asked of them already. That shows that they’re dedicated to the work, they’re faithfully pursuing what God has called them into, and they aren’t waiting for the lead team to tell them what to do – they see a need, and they fill it; they want to learn more, so they’ll go find the answer.

3) We speak truth, and aren’t afraid to challenge

With a diverse set of personalities, we see things differently; with our vast set of experiences, we bring a variety of perspectives. We need it all. So far the team has been amazing at voicing those thoughts in a respectful way, and because of it, we’re able to work through things even before the church opens. These conversations have built strong bonds of trust.

Yes, there’s mess when it comes to working with people – and I make my fair share of them. Oh do I ever. But this team is built of a shared faith, and that makes the world of a difference.

And that’s why I couldn’t be more excited to work on this team.

Madison’s Question to Matthew: How have you experienced God?

I love this question, it has so many angles to approach it from. It can be interpreted in different ways, on different tangents.

I grew up in a context where this type of conversation would not take place. Experience means emotions, emotions mean things that can’t be trusted. Experiencing God was what the charismatic Christians did and they really didn’t know God the way that we did. We knew God practically, from studying the bible, academically – the facts, just the facts.

As such, we may have talked about God being personal, but in reality, he wasn’t, he was understood as you would understand a character in any book.

I appreciate how the Catholic church seeks to understand God – a combination of the Bible, the Holy Spirit, and community dialogue. My experience in the Protestant church is that different denominations lean to one of the three – all bible, or all Spirit, or all conversation as to what everyone is feeling about a certain topic. Yet there is something beautiful about the tension of all three aspects to gain clarity.

All that being said, how have I experienced God?

First, I experience God through Scripture. The best way that I can describe this is that there are times when a phrase of the Bible seems to rise off the page and change my thinking in an instant. Yes, I often engage scripture through classic study methods and academically I gain insight, and I appreciate this. But consistently I can say that it connects with me like a living organism, an “experience” that I can only explain as God showing up. It could be a verse that I have read many times, perhaps even memorized, and while I have appreciated it over the years, at this particular moment it’s impact shifts to a relational conversation and God speaks. Can’t be explained, only experienced.

I have experienced God through conversations. I can recall moments with friends, perhaps sitting at a restaurant having a beverage, and the conversation seems to take off in a God-focused direction with amazing insight being expressed from everyone at the table. Time seems to stand still, napkin drawings are made as we delve into some amazing insight about God and perhaps what he is calling us to. I have left those times and can only explain them as God showing up. In fact, we’ll reference those conversations for years after. Something beautiful happened, we experienced God.

And yet, when the question about experiencing God comes up, what we are typically looking for are those large experiential moments, almost too exciting and too scary all at the same time. You want them and yet you would almost like to avoid them. So often in Scripture, when someone encounters God, or an angel of God shows up, their immediate response is to fall physically to the ground in fear and confusion. To experience the presence of God is not something to be taken lightly.

Allow me to share a few stories in my life where God showed up in an experiential way.

Years ago, money was tight. I was commuting in our car for 1.5 hours each way to work. It was winter and on my way home the night before I discovered that our windshield wiper fluid was at the end, only dribbling out. I didn’t even want to spend the $3 for a bottle. As I went to work the next day and was almost at the highway I had one final gas station to stop at to get fluid. I heard God say to me, “Don’t worry, I’ve got this. You’ll have enough for today. Trust me.” I drove by the station, onto the highway for my drive to work, and then back again at the end of the day. It was a day that required window cleaning all the way there and back home again. I never ran out. And as I exited the highway on the way home, I immediately ran out, the tank was dry. God reminded me right there – I can take care of you, keep moving forward, do not fear.

I was at a camp with one of our children for a weekend. There were a lot of activities for the kids so I had chunks of free time. One evening I was praying for my family, and my children in particular. All of a sudden I started crying uncontrollably. I am not one who cries often. Yet here, in the presence of God, praying to him on behalf of my children, he entered that moment in a unique way, took control of my emotional state. He encouraged me in my parenting, to stay connected and engaged, he would walk with Jan and me on this journey.

I had left my job in banking and was wondering what to do next. I was working part-time for a friend but knew that this wasn’t the long-term step for me. 6 months into this new season I experienced a week of deep inner stress and couldn’t explain it. I called 4 friends who I had been connecting with and asked them to pray for me. Within one hour of speaking with them, the stress was gone, I had a deep sense of peace. And then, in a voice that was almost too loud to be audible, God said, “Go to seminary.” I can’t explain it, but it was clear. I had experienced God. And as they say, “the rest is history.”

How can I explain these moments? I can’t. They occur when I am least expecting them. I haven’t tried to coerce God to speak to me, he just did. To encourage me, to coach me, to direct me.

Honestly, I don’t seek to experience God. Perhaps it is because of my training growing up. Perhaps it is because I have seen to many people force God experiences that appear so fake to me. Perhaps it is because I feel too inadequate to ask the God of the universe to show up when I want him to show up and in ways that I want him to.

I am grateful for the times when he chooses to engage me in such supernatural ways. And I pray that I will be ready to experience him in the future in any way that he chooses.

For the kingdom.