I turn 50 the day after Thanksgiving.  It’s not a good thing.

I passed 30—no problem.  Took 40 in stride.  It was fine.  But 50…dreading it, hating it, loathing it.  You with me?  Sense my feelings here?

Don’t get me wrong, it being Thanksgiving and all, I want to be thankful, but I ‘m just sort of not.  So, I began the task of unpacking my emotions, dug through the crud of my psychology and culled out some reasons. I wanted to find those bad seeds planted in the soil that gave rise to my persnickety attitude.

Bad Seed number one, on why turning 50 sucks:  I’m out of shape.   When I hit my thirties, I was a runner and lean.  You could have called me, “Fly like the wind guy,” though nobody really ever called me anything like that.  Point being—I was in shape.  I felt healthy and fit and well…immortal.

I hit my forties having run four marathons during that decade, I was lifting a few weights, I had a three-year stint of vegetarianism (that, by the way, gave way to a western BBQ, bacon cheeseburger one decadent night and the rest…as they say…is history).

I’m going into my fifties plump, winded by the steps up to my bedroom, I have an affinity for carbs (the potato chip kind) and feel magnetically pulled toward the sofa earlier and earlier each evening.  Not so good.

Bad Seed number two:   I don’t have peace in my family.  For my thirties and forties, I was married with children.  I was living the American dream.   As I face plant into the mid-century mark, I’m divorced. On my actual birthday, my ex is introducing my daughters to her new boyfriend.   It seems like I should get to be with my kids on my birthday.  But ah, that is not to be.   I’ll likely be in a dark theater alone, being pelted in the back of the head by a half-chewed gummy bear hurled by somebody else’s kids.   C’est la vie.

The last third of my 40’s found my family reeling from wounds I caused, broken from decisions I made, hurting from disappointment I inflicted.  Though we are coming out of that, forgiveness and healing are still more of a hope than a reality, thus far.

Bad seed number three:  My career is hanging by a thread on the bottom rung of the food chain.   For a 30-year career in ministry,  my responsibilities grew progressively as the churches I lead grew year after year after year.   More impact in the world, more lives changed, more good bestowed, more faith developed….it was one step after another up the rungs of influence.  And I felt good about my part in all that.

Corresponding to that, financial security built.  For 30 consecutive years, I earned more every single year.  I never had a year where either I earned the same or earned less than the previous year.  It was like a delirious, delicious dream.

Because of my moral free fall, I spent the last third of my forties watching financial security evaporate.  (Note to self:  It can disappear fast).  I went months unemployable.

And as I hit 50, I am poorer than I was as a kid, just starting out.

So, let’s review just for kicks:  At 50, I am an out of shape guy, with a fractured family unit, financially gasping and facing the prospect of only about 25 more years on this planet…If I am afforded an average lifespan.

What to do? Like Botox injected into a fallen face, like steroids injected into flabby muscles, it seems I need a major injection of my faith.  You see, my faith suggests that God can work in all the messes of my life and bring about good.  It’s one thing to give God good stuff and ask Him to make better stuff out of it.  It’s another to give Him everything—wreckage and all—and watch Him bring good from that!

It’s what He does.  It’s who God is.  My faith says He will take everything I give Him and bring beauty from it.

So, what would a perspective of faith look like when laid over the facts of my life?

First, my health can be salvaged, should I choose.  In fact, three weeks ago, I dusted off my 24-Hour gym membership and have begun a slow program of cardio and weights.  I’ve lost four of the fifteen pounds I want to lose and actually have begun to appreciate once more the chemical charge of post-exercise endorphins.  Makes the potato chip eating more pleasant.

With my family, I see God’s beautiful hand of healing taking place.  Just yesterday, the UPS guy delivered a box of Birthday gifts from my two adult daughters.   Included was a list of over 35 memories of their upbringing with me.  I cried and laughed and thanked my God for such a personal, thoughtful gift.  Other parts of the box included items of creativity and love.    As a guy who digs being a dad, such a touch from my family was a treasure that surpasses material things.

And on the career front, after two and half years of healing, lots of time with Christian leaders, my counselor and dear friends, it seems God has ‘fit’ me for ministry once more.  I’m beginning again.  I’m in that club that most of us are in:  People of the Second Chance.

So, I’m part of a small group of people starting a new church for people just like us—coming to God or coming back to God for the first, second, third….or um-teenth time.  You  can hear my story on video at www.lifechangecommunity.org

I know this about the new church:  No Perfect People Will Be Allowed!  We don’t have time on this planet to confront nor contend with self-righteous types, squeaky clean types.  They, apparently, already have their collective ‘stuff’ together.  This church is for those of us who don’t;  Beginning Again Types!

I’m profoundly thankful that I came from a place where a few years ago I didn’t even want to live, now to a place of a fresh start with God…a fresh start with family…a fresh start with me.

Yes, I’m turning 50, but that is not the biggest turn.  The biggest turn is from staring at all my loss to facing the bright sunshine of my future;  from failure to hope;  from sadness to gladness.

I am turning 50.

I am turning.

I am!

I recycle.  I feel a global responsibility.  My youngest daughter is studying environmental science at her university and she’s quite the queen of green.  So, it’s just what we do.

The process of recycling is both surprising and fascinating.  It’s surprising because of the sheer volume of trash that leaves my house.  It’s incredible.  You would think I’m pig-pen from Charlie Brown fame.   It seems I have just emptied my trash containers and they are over-flowing again.  It’s like my trash breeds.

I live alone (except when my kids visit).  I don’t eat a lot.  I don’t buy a lot.  How in the world do I keep piling up tiny mountains of plastic, paper, and cardboard?  Surprising!

The fascinating part of recycling is that my trash is being recycled.  Think about it.   Stuff I have used, crumpled, and discarded will be accepted, cleaned, and placed back into service. Pretty cool if you think about it.

So, almost daily, I take out a bucket of recyclable stuff.  I carry it to the blue dumpster at my housing complex.  A few days later, a huge green truck diesels up, lifts the bin, dumps it all in the back and carries it away.  Sometime soon, that which was trash is now clean and useful.

Dang.  I love this!

The parallel to the work of God is exactly like this.  Jesus is the blue dumpster.  I take all the accumulated stuff’ of my life (pride, anger, impatience, impurity, greed….shall I continue?) and I give it all to Christ.  I do this by praying:  “Lord Jesus, I have ( fill in your blank).  I confess it.  I know it’s not the life, attitude, behavior You created me to experience.  You made me for more than this, for a better life than this.  So please forgive me!”

BOOM, CLANG, CRUNCH.  My sin crashes and is deposited into the blue dumpster of Jesus’ hands.  He takes it.  He carries it away inside the green truck of forgiveness.  And then (this is the coolest part), God the Holy Spirit begins to recycle my soul.  He cleans me, reshapes me and places me back in service…back into life again—all clean, all new…ready to try again.

God has designed me (and you) for noble purposes.  He designed us to live a life of meaning and joy; real life!   Sin interrupts and corrupts that.  So, God recycles our pain, recycles our failures, recycles our attitudes and actions…and HE DELIGHTS in giving us a new chance at life!

Ya gotta love that.

Brad Johnson is the pastor of Life Change Community Church, beginning weekly services in Calabasas, CA, January 2010.

This morning I emptied the dishwasher, not because I wanted to, but I had no where to hide all my other dirty dishes piled in the sink.  Because the water is a bit ‘hard’ in my town, there was a water mark staining the rim of a wine glass.  I am fastidious when it comes to a clean glass.

So, I took my dish towel and started the process of polishing the glass.  How many of you know the notorious reputation of wine glasses?  Thin glass breaks as easily as a butterfly wing.  Not sure why I thought I had to ‘man up’ on that stain, but apparently I rubbed too hard and the glass broke in my hand.  And most of the glass fell to the floor, shattering into a gazillion shards.   I had no idea a glass could get this broken.

No kidding.  I was stunned by the enormity of shatter-pattern across my kitchen.  There were shards on the rug three feet away, splinters under the cupboards, glinty slivers reflecting light almost everywhere I looked.  It appeared there was more glass AFTER the breaking than before.  It looked like ten glasses had broken, not just one.   I was overwhelmed and didn’t even know how to begin cleaning up this mess.

Something else caught my eye.  A red spot was growing and pooling on the counter.  It took some staring before I tied the red spots to a throbbing that I suddenly felt in my little finger—yep, the pinkie.   A wicked slash right across the knuckle was opened giving blood uninhibited freedom to spill.

This broken glass thing was getting worse by the moment.  How could a slip or carelessness, cause so much mess and pain?  If I had been asked to calculate and estimate the volume of damage one broken glass could cause, I would have UNDER-estimated by a bunch.  I would have been no where near the guess-timation of how much time would be consumed cleaning the counter, picking up the big pieces, vacuuming the floor, washing, cleaning and bandaging the laceration.  I had no idea this could get that messy…that broken.

I have to tell you, this is an analogy for the shock and awe I experienced when I decided to ‘live for myself,’ and no longer for God.  Head strong and determined, I went my own way, did my own thing.  “It’s time I did something for ME, after all these years of serving everybody else!” I reasoned. ‘How bad can it get, really?’

ANNNND…I made this decision after guess-timating the cost.  Oh my, was I stupid.  I wasn’t even close to calculating how broken I would become and how much damage I would cause to myself and others…not even close.

Someone had told me years ago that sin is ‘fun on credit,’ and you will never know the price until the bill comes due.

What if you had to live like this in other areas of life?  Imagine this at the grocery. There are no prices on items, you load your cart and you are REQUIRED to pay whatever the cashier tells you.  You can’t take items back.  Once you get to the cashier, it’s too late.  And if you don’t pay, you go to prison and work off the debt with years of your life.

Fun times, huh?  No one would go to the grocery under those terms.  Yet, we go our own way, turn our back on God’s wisdom and love, give ourselves to the fun of sin…and we don’t even know the price.

When I sinned, I had no idea the years I would pay, the pain I would inflict, the shame I would feel, the physical toll on my body, the spiritual depletion in my soul, the nightmarish depression in my mind…no idea it could get this broken.

Fast forward to now.  This morning, I took all the shards and pieces and splinters from the broken wine glass and either sucked them into my vacuum or threw them away in the trash.  There is no putting the glass back together.  Humpty Dumpty had better odds and you know how that story ends.

But here’s the beautiful thing about God:  Once I cried to Him, from a shattered, scattered soul, He came to me…RAN to me.  And for the last two and half years, He has been putting me back together splinter at a time, sliver at a time, shard at a time.  Oh, the cracks still show, but I am more like a glass than I would have ever imagined possible.  Thanks be to God who doesn’t just throw us away!!

I’m dreaming of the way church can be (maybe is supposed to be).  Can you imagine a faith community that extends a welcome with these words:

Come as you are–you don’t have to dress up.  You don’t have to be any particular age.  We couldn’t care less who you voted for in the last election.  And please, don’t feel the need to pretend about anything. This is a place where God meets seeking people who are far from perfect.  That means anyone is welcome, no matter where you are on your spiritual journey.  So learn at your own pace.  Ask questions.  Seek.  We believe you will find what you are looking for.  You’ll learn how to relate to God.  You’ll experience Christian community.  And here’s the big thing—you will change.  Join us as we seek God together.  Just come as you are. No perfect people allowed.

Like people at an AA meeting, can’t we come to church, and by the very fact that we are in the room, acknowledge that we have ‘stuff’ that we are in the ‘process’ of dealing with?  Nobody is BS-ing anyone else.  No one is pretending.  No one is hiding.  How refreshing to walk into church and right from the ‘get-go’ say:  ‘Hi, I’m Brad.  I’m a mess.  I’m in process.  I want my momentum to be toward trusting God with all areas of my life.  I’m working on it. What’s your name?’

What if there was a church that offered:  Let’s make a deal.   Just assume that I am a heart in process, that some of my messes have been cleaned up, but others are still being addressed.  And I’ll assume the very same about you.  In that way, there is no moral or spiritual superiority, there is no room for judgment or condemnation.  There is, instead, an environment of ‘Come just as you are, with the hope of getting better.’

What is church was a place where you had the hope of being accepted and had the hope of becoming all you were intended by God to become?

I believe this kind of community is still possible today.

Messy? Very.

Difficult? Absolutely.

But what if we refuse to settle for anything less than a faith community where…

EVERYBODY’S WELCOME

Jesus modeled a community for us where everyone was welcomed. He would welcome, love, accept, embrace, and include anybody who came toward Him (and He pursued the others). It didn’t matter—religiously confused, morally ambiguous, politically unsure, culturally diverse, relationally challenged and others…people just like me….just like you.

I dream of a church where people, even if they don’t agree with everything we believe, and even if they don’t understand everything we teach, can discover a place where they are welcome to begin the journey “just as they are.”

NOBODY’S PERFECT

Jesus helped us understand we’re all equally in need of the forgiveness of Christ. Because of this, there is no place for any sense of spiritual superiority. I dream of creating a community where there is no need for hiding, no need for reputation building, no need to impress, because we are all sinners, saved and living by grace.

ANYTHING’S POSSIBLE

Jesus continually chose to believe the best in people. He looked at people like His friend Simon Peter– who was inconsistent, unpredictable, and shaky in his ability to trust Jesus fully– and believed that transformation could happen. Likewise, all who have begun a journey with Christ, are called to believe the best in all people. We’re called to look one another in the eyes and see the men and women that we CAN become through the power of His love and help.

This kind of faith community is on my heart.  And there is an inner yearning to help launch such a church in this region of Southern California.   No perfect people allowed.  Come just as you are.    What if……..

editorial note: Brad Johnson was in the ministry for nearly 30 years, most recently at the helm of a suburban megachurch. He now heads up lifechangecommunity.org and is a Starbucks barista. In early June, Ex/Urb ran afeature interview of Brad Johnson. Since then, Brad has been contributing to Fresh Faith, a Sunday blog about religion, renewal, faith and grace.

editorial note: Brad Johnson was in the ministry for nearly 30 years, most recently at the helm of a suburban megachurch. He now heads up lifechangecommunity.org and is a Starbucks barista. In early June, Ex/Urb ran a feature interview of Brad Johnson. Since then, Brad has been contributing to Fresh Faith, a Sunday blog about religion, renewal, faith and grace.

Where do you go when you’re down?  Where do you turn when life is turned upside down?

There is a word that gives expression to the direction and momentum Jesus Christ brings to life. A short word…a simple word: UP!

Listen to these words from Jesus—

To His followers He said, “Let’s ARISE and go to the city”

To a man crippled, He said, “Pick UP your cot and walk.”

To a little girl who had died, He said, “Rise!”

Ultimately, Jesus ROSE from the dead.

When your outlook is at the bottom, when your spirits are low, when you’ve been knocked down…

Look UP, God will come with help.

We all know that life isn’t just about being up, and we know the goal of life isn’t upward mobility.

But in the realm of our soul, our outlook, our attitude, Christ offers UP.  He lifts UP the fallen, lifts UP the broken hearted.  He picks UP the pieces of bad decisions.

“Down” is a temporary state of being. “Down” is not our destiny. “Down” may be where Jesus meets us, it is not where Jesus leaves us.

When you’re down, take heart… God is UP to something!