Just FYI, I have recently caved in to the pressure of telling everyone what I’m having for lunch and how weird the guy at Walmart looks and how late I slept and how tired I am and my car needs gas and my dog jumped the fence and I’m going to workout and I’m watching Sportscenter and I’m taking one of my daughters to gymnastics and I’m listening to jazz right now and I’m drinking SmartWater and I got a new iPhone and pretty much every other little detail of my life all day every day.

In other words, I’m on Twitter now.

Follow me if you like: @johnalanturner

Also, I did get an iPhone. But I’m not drinking SmartWater — even though I should.

From what I understand this happens to people from time to time. My facebook account has been disabled for no reason whatsoever. None. No warning. No reason. Nothing. I was on there. I changed my status. I refreshed the page, and I was locked out.

I’ve emailed them three times since it happened last night, but I haven’t heard anything from them. It’s very unsettling — perhaps more than it should be.

So, if you really are dying to know my status, you’ll just have to wait until this whole mess gets sorted out.

I could simply start over and create a new account, but I really don’t want to do that. It took me quite a while to amass 800 “friends”, and nearly 400 people read this blog via the networked blog feed on facebook. Not quite Scot McKnight numbers, but this is one of the more popular Christian blogs on facebook.

Or it was.

Anyway, I’m headed out of town for the weekend — taking the family and visiting some good folks in Sulphur Springs, TX. Let’s hope this is all worked out by the time I return on Monday. Until then, my status will have to remain unknown.

Last night, George Sodini walked into a Latin Dance class at an LA Fitness outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, turned off the lights and started shooting. Police say they found 52 shell casings at the scene of the crime. Three women are dead. So is Sodini, who turned the gun on himself. At least 10 others were injured in a tragedy that defies description.

I spent some time this morning reading Sodini’s online journal. It appears to have been taken down now. Frankly, I was surprised that it was still up long enough for me to read it in its entirety.

There’s no doubt he was mentally disturbed. “Angry” doesn’t begin to characterize what he wrote; “hostile” is more like it.

But the one word that kept coming to me as I read his words is “helpless”. George Sodini felt utterly helpless to change his circumstances. He knew something was wrong with him. He was terribly lonely and couldn’t seem to make life work very well. Even when he got a promotion and a raise at work, he focused on the downside rather than the positive. He kept a list with him which reminded him of all the negative factors at work in his life, negative factors he felt helpless to avoid or overcome.

Eventually, his sense of helplessness hardened into a desperate sense of hopelessness.

Sadly, he had been part of a church for quite a while. He left several years ago, and had nothing positive to say about them at all. I don’t know what kind of teaching he was exposed to at this church. I have some theories, but I don’t want to speak too disparagingly where I have no firsthand knowledge.

I do know this: Christianity begins with a presupposition that chafes against modern culture, a presupposition that Mr. Sodini seems to have understood quite well. There is something wrong with all of us, and we are helpless to fix ourselves. We cannot solve our own problems, not the deepest and most profound ones. Certain things are beyond our ability to rectify. We are helpless.

But we are not hopeless. This is the part Mr. Sodini failed to grasp.

God is bigger than our problems, bigger than our flaws, bigger than our loneliness, bigger than our helplessness.

God promises that one day everything that is wrong will be made right, everything that is upside down will be turned rightside up again. Everything that is broken will be mended. Every hurt is healed. Every question is answered.

Odds are I don’t know that much about you. I don’t know all your fears and worries. I don’t know much about your history. But I do know that it is our destiny, more than our history, which defines our truest identity. And I know that God promises a destiny that defies description.

Because of this, we may feel helpless, but we never have to feel hopeless.

If you’ve been keeping score at home, you know that I’m in the midst of a job search. And it’s not been very fun so far. Churches, by and large, do not handle this whole process well at all. In fact, here’s a recent scenario that I wish could be classified as fiction.

I found a church’s want ad, but it was dated a couple of months ago. I sent them an email asking if they’d filled the position yet and for more information if not. They wrote back that they had not filled the position and asked for my resume. Before I could reply with my resume, I received a standard rejection email from their committee saying, “After much prayerful consideration, I did not seem to be a good fit.” They assured me, however, that someone with my skills and experience would certainly be able to find a place to serve in God’s kingdom.

How they know anything about my skills and experience are a mystery to me, since they never got my resume.

Two weeks later, I received an almost exact email as the first one they’d sent — the one telling me that the position hadn’t been filled and asking for my resume (again).

I found another church’s ad and sent my resume to the proper people but never heard back. Three weeks after my initial email, I wrote again asking for confirmation of receipt. Two weeks later, I wrote again and received this reply, “We’re sorry to inform you that the cutoff date for receiving resumes was last week.”

There has to be a better way, and I think I may have found it.

A friend of mine sent me a note today, suggesting that the next time I get a rejection letter, I should send this in return:

Dear Committee Chairperson:

Thank you for your letter of July 17. After careful consideration I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your refusal to offer me employment with your congregation. This year I have been particularly fortunate in receiving an unusually large number of rejection letters. With such a varied and promising field of ministry opportunities it is impossible for me to accept all refusals for employment.

Despite your congregation’s outstanding qualifications and previous experience in rejecting applicants, I find that your rejection does not meet with my needs at this time. Therefore, I will initiate employment with your congregation the first of next month. I look forward to seeing you then.

Best of luck in rejecting future candidates.

Sincerely,
John Alan Turner

Yesterday, as I was driving down to Macon, GA, I listened to some Garrison Keillor podcasts I’d been saving up on my iPod. In one of his “News From Lake Wobegon” monologues, he stopped and led the entire audience in the first and last stanzas of “It Is Well With My Soul”. And I nearly drove off the road.

It was so beautiful, so earth-shatteringly beautiful, so hauntingly beautiful. I could hardly stand it.

It awakened within me a memory so old It’s just flashes and highlights. I remembered the neighborhood where I spent the first decade of my life. My father taught in a seminary, and most of the people who lived around us were colleagues of his. These were men who taught things called “homiletics” and “hermeneutics”, men who made their living explaining God and the things of God, the Word of God and how to properly outline it for the people of God.

But one night, for some reason I cannot recall, someone started a big bonfire. It wasn’t long before we were all out there, roasting hot dogs, making s’mores and drinking hot chocolate. A blanket of stars spread like a canopy overhead, and someone began to sing.

It seems like we started with camp songs. “Seek Ye First” was still new, but we knew our way around it like an old familiar road. Someone had been somewhere and just learned “A Common Love”. Someone else taught us “Jesus Is Lord, My Redeemer”.

New songs. Simple songs. Sung simply, without accompaniment, by neighbors and co-workers gathered impromptu around a fire.

Someone said, “It’s too early to sing sleepy music” and they broke into some Stamps-Baxter tunes — “Just A Little Talk With Jesus” and “Victory in Jesus” and “When All of God’s Singers Get Home”.

But then, something changed. The group collectively took a deep breath and submerged itself, sinking into the depths of worship. We sang “How Great Thou Art” and “Rock of Ages” and “We Praise Thee, O God”. And when we were all nearly sung out, someone sang the words, “When peace like a river attendeth my way.” A few more joined in, “When sorrows like sea billows roll.” Everyone now was nearly shouting to the sky, “Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, ‘It is well. It is well with my soul.’”

We sang the final verse with gusto: “And, Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight, the clouds be rolled back as a scroll. The trump shall resound and the Lord shall descend. Even so, it is well with my soul.”

We would not have been surprised if the skies parted and Jesus came back right then and there.

When we were done with the song, we knew we were done. The music rang in our ears for several moments after, and we knew we had been part of something special, something unusual, a time of unrehearsed emotion, a spontaneous outpouring of praise.

To this day, I remain haunted by those melodies. I miss them, and I wonder what it would take for me to do something like that again.

Once, in a prior life, I worked as a professional actor, writer and director for theatre companies all across the country. And, this may come as a shock but, I was a bit of a snob. I know that’s hard for some of you to imagine, but it’s true.

I did not like most modern theatre, preferring the classics. Shakespeare. Miller. Williams. Shaw. Ibsen. Chekhov. These were the plays I cared about.

The problem was…no one wanted to come and see the shows I wanted to do. They wanted to see Neil Simon comedies and the great American musicals like “Oklahoma” or “Camelot” or “Annie”. Spectacle and dancing and a rousing happy ending! That’s what people like to see!

I was moody and temperamental. If I was going to sing, I wanted to do “Threepenny Opera” or at least “Sweeney Todd” or something dark and brooding like that. Musical comedies seemed contrived and manipulative to me.

But, being the practical-minded working professional I was at the time, I gave in to the fact that musicals are simply a way of life for a working actor/director, so I better learn something about how to do them with integrity. I found a workshop and took copious notes which are somewhere in the boxes that never get opened but get carted from one garage to the next as I’ve moved over the last couple of decades.

The one thing I remember learning (and this is where the post gets relevant to what I’ve been blathering on about lately) is that, in musicals, people break out in song whenever they experience and want to express an emotion that simply cannot be expressed through dialogue alone. The music adds a necessary element to convey what they’re really feeling.

I experienced something like that at the birth of my first child. Having been adopted in the days of closed adoptions meant that Anabel would be the first blood relative I’d ever laid eyes on. And then there were some serious problems that arose during labor and delivery which put the whole pregnancy in jeopardy. We thought for a while that we might lose her.

So, when she came out and the nurse handed her to me, I was overwhelmed with emotion. And for some mysterious reason, I started singing “Jesus Loves Me”. It was totally spontaneous, but it was also the only thing that seemed remotely appropriate for the moment. Nothing contrived or manipulative about it. It was the only way I could express what was going on inside of me. I was completely unaware of anyone else’s presence. It wasn’t about them or for them. It was just me and my baby girl and this overwhelming sense that Jesus must love us both an awful lot.

Now, I’m wondering if maybe the reason people don’t like to sing in public these days is because they either don’t feel their feelings very deeply or they’re embarrassed by their feelings and don’t want to express them in front of other people.

What do you think?

Update: At about 2:45 this afternoon, my fantastic web guy Jeremy fixed the problem and turned my blog back into the cool looking site it was before the tragedy that took place this morning. “What tragedy?” you ask. Read on, my friend.

So, this morning, WordPress informed me that the new version (2.8) is available and that I could automatically upgrade by clicking a single button.

Such a deal!

Of course, I didn’t think about the implications of this upgrade — the most obvious, of course, being the fact that all my groovy formatting might be wiped out, and my blog may reset itself to the default theme and end up looking like a generic brand blog.

So, yes, I am blue. Hopefully, my ace web guy Jeremy will fix it quickly. That is, of course, if he can overlook that hundred bucks I owe him….

Now, this does bring up an interesting subject. Sometimes we do things, little things, seemingly insignificant things, and those tiny, seemingly insignificant things done without a second thought wreak all kinds of havoc in our lives.

Turning my blog blue is one thing. Turning my life upside-down…that’s a ballgame of a whole different color.

I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit lately, because there have been some pretty high profile ministry guys who have taken a header on the rocks of their own immorality. God knows I’ve done plenty of things that qualify as immoral, and it is only by God’s grace that so few of you know about my junk.

But, as I thought about these people and the public humiliation they’ve experienced, I wonder if it might have started as innocently as my morning did today. An opportunity shows up. You mindlessly press the “Yes” button, and then, realizing that this might not have been the best choice, you try to find the “stop” button. But, by then, it’s too late. It’s gone too far. Your whole format has been erased in a matter of seconds. Before you’ve even realized what’s happened, someone from the other side of the country sends you an email saying, “Have you seen your blog today? It’s blue!”

And you’re left sitting there feeling like a fool, knowing everyone can see the consequences of your thoughtless blunder.

If you’ve never been in that position, thank God. All too many of us, though, know all too well what it is to feel the weight of our shame and embarrassment as the stares start and the fingers point and the whispers begin. You start to wish the earth would open up and swallow you. It would be better than having to endure the ramifications of your own thoughtlessness.

I’ve never met anyone who simply woke up one morning and said, “Today is the day I’m going to embezzle money from the church.” It just sort of happens.

I’ve never met anyone in ministry who wrote in their DayTimer, “Thursday: Budget meeting, follow up with first-time visitors, have affair with secretary, mow lawn.” It just happens.

I turned my blog blue. A pastor here in north Georgia recently turned his family and friends blue. The difference may simply be of degree rather than kind.

Our thoughtless, private actions have startlingly loud and public implications. The real questions are: What would you like from others when you’re in a situation like this? How do you want them to interact with you? What’s the most helpful thing that can be said or done?

So, while we were traveling across the nation, I managed to get invited to speak in three different churches. In one of those churches I foolishly told a story about patience — casting myself in a positive light. I told the folks gathered there how I’d been working so hard, clinging to God with all my might, and patience had begun mysteriously appearing in my life.

It was a good illustration, and I had my wife’s permission to tell it.

Having landed back here in Atlanta, I think I may have left all my patience at the Forsythe Avenue Church of Christ in Monroe, Louisiana.

We have no cable and no internet. The dryer wouldn’t work. Both garage doors are broken. I left the power cord to my laptop at my parents’ house. I can’t find my phone charger. I have made absolutely no progress towards finding a job. Did I mention that we have no cable and no internet?

It’s been a long week, and it’s only Wednesday.

Q: What do you do when it’s been one of those weeks? Or months? Or years?

Yesterday’s I wrote about how churches often worry too much about picking “the right guy” — as if there is one and only one guy for them to choose. I also talked about how individuals seem to worry an awful lot about picking the right option for fear of missing out on the will of God for their life.

But there’s another side to all of this. Sometimes I’ll hear people and churches say, “I just don’t think God will let me make the wrong decision.” They figure that if they pray this kind of blanket prayer (“God, just close the door if it isn’t your will”), then God is obligated to ensure that their choice is the “right” one.

We ask God to remove options that aren’t his will and keep options alive that are his will. Then we act as if the decision that was made must be God’s will de facto.

What do you think about this? And what would you say to a church that says things like: “We just don’t believe the Lord will let us pick ‘the wrong guy’”?

Frequently, people ask me for suggestions on how to discern God’s will for their lives. I wrote a little about this recently, but today I feel like writing with a little more clarity about this topic.

I used to think God had one specific will for me. There was one woman he wanted me to marry. There was one place he wanted me to live. There was one job he wanted me to take. Sometimes I’d have options, but I thought only one of those options was God’s will. It was my job to pray hard enough to know which one to pick. If I picked the wrong one, terrible things might happen.

Ugh! What a load to carry!

I often hear churches use this kind of reasoning, too, especially when they’re looking for a new preacher. They receive a mountain of resumes and assume that God has one specific guy in mind for them. If they choose the wrong person, they’re in for trouble.

I simply don’t buy it. In fact, I sometimes wonder if they might have better success if they just put all the candidates’ names in a hat, pray over the hat and offer the job to the first name they pull. The over-analysis that accompanies the search process makes the entire thing a nearly unendurable ordeal for nearly everyone involved.

For what it’s worth, here are my thoughts on discerning God’s will for your life. Underneath it all, God’s will is for us to be his children and, as his children, to become more and more like Jesus. Whatever happens beyond that is never the primary issue. Have a personal, intimate relationship with God the Father through Jesus the Son, and, through the power of the Holy Spirit, grow in holiness. There’s God’s primary concern.

Sometimes — but not always — he calls some people to specific things in specific places. Usually, he calls us to tasks, and these tasks usually have an expiration date. Sometimes these tasks take a very long time. Usually, it’s for a season (perhaps a few years) and then we move on.

Personally, I believe I have been called to the task of teaching and preaching the timeless truths of the Bible in timely and relevant ways. I believe God has given me the ability to communicate with people through speaking and writing, and I believe God would have me use these gifts to build up the Body of Christ and support my family in the process.

I fear that we have a shortage of really good teachers in the Body of Christ, and I am convinced that the world needs more people who understand the primary purpose of the Bible — which is to reveal the character and nature of God and call us to godly living.

This brings up an interesting point that I should mention: I believe God calls us into areas where our gifts and desires intersect with the world’s needs. We naturally gravitate towards things we’re good at and find enjoyable. The reason we’re good at these things is because God made us good at them; the Holy Spirit has given us certain gifts and activates them as we participate with him. Perhaps one of the reasons we enjoy doing certain things is because we sense God working with and through us.

And when we sense God working through us to meet a need in the world…that leads to tremendous satisfaction.

Most people I know are far too worried about “getting it right”. The sad result is, we worry instead of preparing. As I move through this season of uncertainty, knowing what my task is but not knowing where or when it will happen, I’m going to try as much as possible to focus on getting ready rather than worrying about finding the precise place where God would have me.

He’s been faithful thus far — albeit in a roundabout and unpredictable fashion. I’m not going to start second-guessing him now. I trust that when the time is right, he’ll show me where to go and what to do.

What about you? Do you think there is just one “will” of God for a person’s life? Or is there some freedom?

Why do you think so many churches go about the process of finding a new staff member the way they do? And how might they improve the process?