I really am planning to finish my purpose/mission statement thoughts in the upcoming posts, but tonight there was something that came up naturally that I felt was worth relating to you.

Will has just started playing little league baseball, and it is fairly involved. When we first registered we were told that there would be two Saturdays of "try-outs" which would be attended by the coaches of the leagues (think 4 divisions -- A ball, AA, AAA, and majors). When I played as a 9 year old I just got stuck on the Blue Blazers team with a bunch of guys from my neighborhood. Knowing this arrangement about Will's league, however, we prayed that the Lord would place Will on the team that He wanted him on to further the mission of the Kingdom. When we found out his team, we thanked God for moving us to that spot.

Tonight, as we were saying goodnight, I asked Will to pray for the guys on his team and he prayed (earnestly as much as I could tell) that they would KNOW God and not just know about church or things like that. Needless to say I was very heartened.

After the prayer he excitedly shared that another boy on his team told the coach that he'd have to leave early from practice for a church event. And then he asked a huge question that thrilled me, "Dad, do you have to go to church to be a Christian?" I told him that I thought a mark of a Christ-follower was wanting to be with other Christ-followers, but that going to a place on Sunday morning was not the pinnacle of Jesus' plan when He talked about entering His Kingdom. This started a good discussion and Will shared his thoughts on what church could be like (very interesting).

As he shared his comments, I had a flood of my own thoughts and feelings centered around the idea that too often we want to know if we're making an impact immediately. We create measurements and evaluations designed to tell us quickly if things are going as they "should." Under these expectations, one could easily look at my life and qualify it as a failure at this stage since I am not leading/shepherding as many people as I used to, bearing as much emotional/spiritual weight as I have in the past, or even exercising as much responsibility as I've had up to this point in my life. Of course, I've heard it said that Jesus' life was an unqualified failure by many of the metrics that we use today to measure the health and success of our spiritual endeavors.

And with that in mind, what if one of God's biggest purposes for my life is not to have me accomplish anything of measurable significance, but rather to launch my son(s) well to be leaders in the Church of future that will likely be a pretty dark spot. Can I be content with that road, or do I have to be recognized and admired for my personal achievements and accomplishments in the present? This is a great question for me, and one that I am sure I will continue to wrestle with in the days ahead.