I find myself in a strange place today. It is not the beginning of a major life transition. That started a long time back. But somehow it feels like the real beginning. Yesterday we stepped away from our business, shut down our sales spots, said goodbye to a lot more friends than we thought we had, and started our new adventure. We are closing our current pizza business to move to California where we’ll be leading a new community pastoring a church, and probably still making some pizzas. Thirteen years ago I left the pastoring world after 20 years and thought I would never be back. But I hunger for a different kind of community than this world can offer, and I think the Lord has planted some things in my life that he wants to be shared and used to offer an alternative to the broken ways of this world. 

Leaving this part of Washington doesn’t seem like that much of a surprise. We came here for a reason, but it has never felt like home, or even really like we were called here. But we did, I think, finally learn some really good and important things here. And now we are being asked to take them somewhere else and see what God can do with them. In California. I never would have seen that one coming. I have never actually had any desire to go to California. It’s one place that somewhere in my heart and mind I had said no way, ever. But God has a great sense of humor. So here we go, California or bust!

I asked God for this opportunity. I said I wanted another chance to lead a community. I said that I thought I was a different person, that I would lead differently, and that the community we dream of could be more than just imagination. So he landed the opportunity on my lap. But really, what have I learned? How have I changed? What will be different? And what do we have to offer to the world? Here are some brief vignettes of some things that will be guiding our journey.

Everything worth doing takes time. A long time back one of my favorite authors wrote, “We vastly overestimate what we can do in 6 months or a year, and underestimate what we can do in five or ten years.” (Neil Cole) In our instant society, we want instant results, whether it’s the instant “fast food”, the instant life change, the instant feel better. The church has grabbed the idea by creating instant salvation. Pray this magic prayer, and your life will all be different. The only problem is that everything worth doing takes time. Our journey to this next stop started in 2003. The last 8 years we’ve seen our understanding, faith, and skills change, evolve, grow, and some things needed to be gotten rid of. 22 years to get to this place. And what we heard God say is that it’s not done yet. Grass Valley is not the end of the journey. But really that is all of our stories. Everything we are and do is built on what came before. 

I can’t do it myself. I have an unhealthy tendency to try and do everything on my own. Part of it is I have something particular in my mind for how I want things to work, or be. And I’ve realized some of that is okay. For me the doing is a part of the creative process. Sometimes I have an idea but I’m not sure how I’m going to get there, but in the doing of it, putting my hand to it, the idea becomes a reality. Still, while there are places we each have something we are called to do, whatever we are called to do is a part of something bigger than us, and rather quickly others have to be brought into the dream. While it often seems easier to just do it yourself, insisting on only doing what you can do yourself will in the end kill every dream, and leave you empty, frustrated, and bitter. Along our journey the Lord brought us some really great people who became not just workers, but family, and their presence has shaped who we are and what we do. It hasn’t always been quite the way I pictured or even wanted it… but in the end I think it’s even better!

Modeling is not enough. You have to say it. As I grew into adulthood and started thinking about parenting, and consistently finding myself in various leadership roles, I latched onto the idea that leadership and parenting is first and foremost about modeling.  I remember reading somewhere that your children will become who you are, not what you say. So I have always focused on being what I wanted others around me to be, and doing what I wanted them to do. I always have said I will never ask you to do something I’m not willing to do as well. But here’s the thing, I’ve discovered that modeling is not enough. If you ask people to something you’re not willing to do, they will see you as a hypocrite. But if you model something, even something really good, beautiful, or amazing; but you can’t articulate it and invite people into it, they often won’t step into it, and it can be really frustrating. The assumption can be that they don’t care. But often it takes modeling to understand the words, and words to understand the modeling. If you don’t have both, the cycle breaks down, and the life you are trying to cultivate gets lost.

The power of what’s under the surface. When we started the pizza business we had a background of 20 years leading churches, where my job was literally to connect people with God and each other. But often much of what we did felt forced or artificial. There was the church life and then there was real life. A few people arranged their lives to revolve around the church stuff. But most bumped in and out as their “real” lives allowed. With the pizza truck we wanted to somehow jump, or maybe demolish that divide. We wanted a business that would connect us with people in natural healthy ways. We wanted to do something where we weren’t trying to get people to something else. We were just trying to connect with them where they were. The job and the people weren’t means to an end. We just wanted to make amazing food for amazing people, and in some small way become a part of their amazing lives. Hopefully a part that helped them to know and see the good Creator. After almost 2 years of it, we didn’t feel like we were doing it well. Yes we knew a lot of people. Yes some people joked that I was the pizza pastor. But we were also working so many hours and just didn’t have the space for people that we wanted. But in shutting down and saying goodbye, we discovered that we were actually doing what we had hoped for. So many people felt so connected with the life God had planted in that pizza truck. And we really didn’t see it. It was under the surface. As we take the truck down to California, we have a new excitement about the ways God will use it to connect with people, and are praying about ways to operate differently that will allow the opportunity to cultivate those relationships. (Probably related to the part about not doing it all ourselves.)

The power of the small. The longer I am alive in this world, the more I appreciate the small things, and the less enamored I am with the big. One small pizza truck can actually make a difference in people’s lives. And as I head south, I believe that one small, rather insignificant community in a rather small and insignificant town, can offer more hope and life and meaning, can create more beauty, practice more goodness, and experience more of the power of God than all the biggest and flashiest places on earth. Small doesn’t mean stagnant. And big doesn’t necessarily mean dormant or dead. But it is only the small that allows us to really know each other, to know ourselves, and to know and see the power of God. “When I am weak, then I am strong,” is not nonsense. It is the way of God’s Kingdom. And if we want to know the life of the Kingdom, we have to start choosing and structuring our lives and communities to reflect the small as our foundation and core. If what you have is small, you can still have it all. Small things force us to seek and trust God for the big issues in our lives. Big things end up trying to be god and fix our lives, but they simple don’t have the life and power to do it. Contrary to what we humans seem to gravitate towards, the small does not exist to serve the big. The big can exist to serve the small. But often seems to end up overshadowing and squashing it. You can have both big and small, but the small part is non-optional. If you have to choose, always choose the small.

What does God actually want? I grew up in a conservative evangelical church world where I was taught my value was based on getting people to come to church, being a part of big church activities and events, and “getting people saved.” But somehow we missed so much of what God actually tells us. He created us as part of this world, with a role to care for the world. We have a mission that does and will involve introducing people to Jesus, who does and will heal and save them. But what does God actually want for us? Is there a life calling we can all know for certainty? I think the answer is yes! It is to love, honor and serve the God who made and sustains us, to care for the world God put us in, to create and offer the world the gifts of goodness and beauty and compassion; and to be fearless in challenging and confronting the evil things that breakdown and destroy this world and it’s creatures. So making an amazing pizza and serving it to people with love and a listening ear can actually be the calling of God!

Anyhow, all of these little blurbs could be an article of their own. And maybe one day they will be. But for now, it is enough to say we are off, excited to live out these old principles God has been showing us in new ways.