Tommy Mitchell / The Rurban Church Blog

It is a "HEART" kind of Day!

Really and truly I was hoping today would come and go and I would not even think about it!  That was unrealistic!  It has not been any kind of traumatic thing at all! But it has weighed on my mind a time or two!  I've been doing the "well, two years ago at this time I was heading to the OR!" "Well, at this time they were finishing up!"  And just for the record, at the current time of 1:23 pm, I had not regained consciousness in the ICU. I believe that happened a little after 3:00 pm! 

Yep, two years ago today I had open heart surgery to fix 7 blockages with 5 bypasses!   For the most part, everything has gone as expected. It took me a full year to really feel better and get past the surgery!  This past year has been relatively uneventful until August when I started having some occassional rhythm problems.  Those problems seem to be related to the weak dose of medication I was taking for that - so now I have increased the dosage and I don't seem to be having any more problems.  

I still hurt a little bit in my chest when the weather is like it is today - that is just "bone" stuff! 

Without question, the largest change in my life since Dec. 22, 2009 has been spiritual and emotional.  My priorities have changed.  Some things that used to bother me a lot do not bother me anymore.  I don't sweat what people think as much as I used to. I think that is because the pain of heart surgery is far greater than the pain of someone who doesn't like what you preached last Sunday!!!   

On the other hand, I do think more of my own mortality! I don't know that I worry about it - but I am much more mindful of the brevity of life!  I have truly become much more appreciative and thankful to the Lord for each and every day!  I realize it is ok to let things go unfinished from one day to the next!  I do what I can and leave the rest for the next day! 

My love for the Word has increased - and my desire to be more studious has increased.  Relationships mean so much to me - more now than ever! 

If it were just up to me, I would have been happy enough to never have blockages or surgery! But, I did! And the lessons learned and the lifestyle changes have been good! I am healthier than ever - and my prognosis is good for a long future, Lord willing!  

I praise God that we caught all this two years ago! According to my Docs, had they not caught it, I would probably be a former, dead pastor by now!!!!!!  So, though painful, the heart surgery was a great Christmas present two years ago! God saved my life with it! And I am thankful.

Finally, I have to say that one other thing that happened as a result of this surgery was that the love that Andrea and I share was greatly deepened!  I could not have recovered as well without her - and today I do not like to be away from her for very long!  She is my beloved!

God on a Leash!

Isn't it amazing what all we believe God SHOULD do versus what we believe we should do under His leadership?  We believe God should provide us with PLENTY of money to spend on ourselves - with wonderful houses in which to live - with closets packed full of clothes and sheds filled with our age appropriate toys! We believe God SHOULD never allow us to have a headache, a cold, a sniffile - and certainly we should never experience cancer or heart trouble!  We believe God SHOULD make us VERY happy and allow us unlimited freedom to be happy doing whatever we want!   Yeah! We pretty much believe this based on our prayers and our actions and our expressions of BITTER disappointment when God doesn't PERFORM according to our desires!

But what if?  I am re-reading a book, "Miracle in the Mountains: Experiencing the Transforming Power of Faith in the Heart of Appalachia!"  It is a book about Lonnie Riley and his wife Belinda! Really, it is a book about the what life is like when we surrender our agenda and begin to live out the Lord's agenda!  Here is a quote from the early part of the book by Lonnie!

    "What I could visualize was what I attained! God was in it as far as I knew to let Him be!
     What would God have done if I had let Him be God and had not limited Him to what
     I could do?"

Good question for us all!  We all tend to look at the Lord this way. We can do what we can see - which is not faith at work!  God is working - and often we are working - but more often than not - we are working good things for God instead of letting God utilize us in His work - His plan - His purposes!  Faith is more than a feeling and more than just a statement of belief! Faith is digging down in the Word, hearing from God through the scripture and prayer and ACTING on what HE is doing! 

Let us all give ourselves a wonderful gift this Christmas and let God off our leashes!  Let His will be carried out in our hearts and bodies! 

Non-negotiables!

Non-negotiable! When a lawyer looks at that term, he/she probably says, "yeah, right!"  And the litigation begins.  Non-negotiable! When a child hears that term from a parent, they may smile, laugh, cry, or throw a temper-tantrum and begin the process of reducing the term to ashes!

Non-negotiable! When people hear this term in the context of "there are some non-negotiables in Christianity," they do something utterly maddening! They agree - and then violate the non-negotiable! Even if it is God's Word!

Non-negotiables!  In the church - in your life as Christ following child of God - can you identify any REAL non-negotiables? These would be matters in which you would never back up - to the point of dying if necessary!

Perhaps I could put it another way for clarification!  For what beliefs would you die rather than recant? or negotiate?  My grave concern is that in the modern church, very few people have genuine non-negotiables! Why would I believe this? Well, a people who can be stopped from worshipping by rain are probably not going to give a second thought to denying Christ at the point of a gun!  People who will not share the Good News of the Gospel, though commanded to by the Lord Himself, because they are "uncomfortable" doing so will not have much moral courage when the faith is under REAL attack!

I guess I am not interested in whether or not you can identify non-negotiables in your life of faith - but whether or not we really believe in any! 

For me a non-negotiable that I cannot refuse is that Christ is the only means and pathway for salvation! Salvation is found in none other!  Yet, nearly every funeral I do for people who have lived nothing of a Christian life finds their family emphasizing how they were good - loving - caring - or eccentric and people just didn't understand them!  They "prayed the prayer" so they must be saved!  So much for non-negotiable understandings of real salvation, sanctification and glorification.  

Another non-negotiable is that there is a heaven and a hell and real people go to both of them!

Another non-negotiable is that my personal behavior must be impacted by faith in God! A claim of faith absent faith generated works is DEAD! So how is my behavior - and yours?

I should probably reflect a bit more and post again on this with a brief list of absolutely non-negotiables in my life that exist because of a relationship with Jesus Christ!  Are there any Non-negotiables in your life?

My fear is that too many people have this non-negotiable - that everything can be negotiated!

Are You Either of These?

Recently in a Sunday morning message, I pointed out a challenge that we have in the thinking of the modern Christian!  Over the years I have observed that many, many people who claim to follow Christ come at it from one of two faulty perspectives.

Faulty Perspective #1 - What is the least I can do and still be a Christian (and probably that means still get in heaven!)?   What is the least I can attend worship? What is the least I can love? What is the least I can give? What is the least amount of pain I have to bear?  What is the least amount of participation I have to serve up? What is the least amount of engagement with the unreached people I can do? What is the least amount of Bible I can read and know what I need to know?  What is the least amount of praying I can do and still get through when I need God?

Again - what is the least I can do?

The next one stems from the same problem - and is most often present in the same people - it is just that most people seem to have one of these a bit more predominantly.

Faulty Perspective # 2 - What is the most I can get by with and still be a Christian?  What is the line on ugly words? What cussing is passable and what will get me in trouble?  What is the limit on partying? How many bases can I hit on a date before I am in real trouble?  How far can I go looking at women? How far can I go looking at men? How mad can I get before I am in trouble?  How far can I go to make someone miserable and give them what they deserve?  

These two perspectives are far more present in the church than the church wants to admit.  I would submit that in the average church, you will find more people sporting one or both of these perspectives than you will find people who will see themselves as dead to self and alive in Christ!  

Are you living in one of these perspectives? Are you constantly asking yourself - do I really need to do this? Do you find yourself wondering what its really going to hurt if you "live" a little?  

We need to give ourselves fully to Christ - who gave Himself fully to us!  Love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength!   We really need to be "all in" with our Lord!  

The Kingdom is not built on the least we can do or the most we can get by with. It is built by the Lord Himself as He includes the faithful and obedient in His work!  Make sure you have the right perspective.

It's What We've Got!

Without a doubt, the world is far from a perfect place!  Without a doubt, evil exists in the world! And without a doubt, if you a doing your best, living for the Lord, and trying to be a blessing - you are going to encounter some "blessing busters" out there!

It is what we do in the face of the "blessing busters" that pretty much determines what kind of life we will have! Living for Jesus means that we have His blessing! It does not always follow that living for Him means we escape the trials of life.  I do think that when we live for our Lord, we avoid most of the "self-inflicted" wounds.  But we certainly don't escape the rough and tumble of a fallen world.

What kind of life we have is largely a matter of our choices.  When things don't go our way, and I would guess that for the average person that amounts to about 15 - 20% of the time, we can either make that our WHOLE world, or we can go on living for Jesus!  About 85% of the time, my life is pretty good! More than 90% of the people in our church love me, help me, pray for me, forgive me, and have compassion on me.  Less than 10% do the opposite.  I have to choose to be encouraged by the 90+% instead of being blown apart by the less than 10%!    Mine is not some special case - we all face this wherever we live and work.

Focus on the good! I'm not saying just ignore the bad, but we do need to be discerning as to what we can realistically do about the negative people in our lives.  We can either spend all our time responding in kind, trying to "one-up" the opposition, and basically losing all the joy in our lives - OR - we can just love the Lord, speak well of all people, and place the burden for bad talk on those who are given to that sort of thing. The Bible tells us to pray for our enemies - and I believe it tells us that so that if we pray properly, we will no longer see them as enemies.  

Most people in our lives who are "thorns in the flesh" are actually "wounded" people!  They need love, possibly correction, and the Lord!  They will not receive correction and the Lord until we treat them with love - in spite of what may be going on! 

As I reflect back over my life to this point and consider the people who have been more difficult and some who were downright ugly, I realize that most of them never accomplished much towards diminishing my life and my life opportunities.  Where they did, it was because I allowed those things to become my focus. 

FOCUS ON THE 85% - 90% that is good with life - and really live out LOVE with the Lord!  God is good! All the time!  And our lives here are too short to spend in constant battle with other folks!

The Anniversary I Thought I Would Not Mention!

Well, I really thought I would pass on this post! But, I find myself sharing one trait that I had on this night one year ago - I can't sleep! It is on my mind - so I might as well post about it - then hopefully sleep will come! One year ago tonight I was trying just as hard to sleep at the Hampton Inn located right next to Providence Hospital in Mobile. Sleep only visited about three hours that night. A dreaded anticipation was on my mind as I waited for early morning to come.   I think knowing what I had to do - knowing I had no control over it- and knowing there was really nothing reasonable I could do to stop it was the worst part!

We drove over to the hospital around 5:00 am - and everything got underway!  It got real busy - real quickly! Most of what I dreaded - like the wonderful body shaving - was not as bad I had figured it would be. There were a couple of mildly painful "sticks."  But after the worst one - it was not long until I was given something that totally knocked me out.  I remember them starting me to the operating room - but my conscious mind never arrived! I was out - and would remain so until 3:30 pm that day when I awoke in ICU. 

I am doing great now - most of my pain and discomfort have really all but disappeared this month. For the most part - December has been a great month.  I have actually "forgotten" about the surgery at times this month. I have no physical limitations on activity.  Working the chain-saw doesn't make the muscles in my chest sore like it did for a while. Walking fast feels great! I have plenty of wind - a definite improvement over the pre-surgery condition I was getting in.  My meds are all regulated pretty well! And this Christmas is shaping up to be MUCH better than the last - when Christmas was the first day out of ICU!

But it has been a year today, Dec. 22, since I had five bypasses to fix 7 blockages.  I still, on occassion, look at my chest and leg in the mirror and can't believe I have had this done!  I am quite certain someone will be having their chest cracked open around 7:00 am today at Providence!  I feel for them - and their family.

God has been so good to me! Truly, he spared my life.  I have enjoyed top notch medical care - and I have come back better than ever - and healthier than ever.   I really don't think I will dwell on this event in my mind as much in the upcoming year. Already, the doctor's visits seem more of a nuisance to me than a necessity.  My diet is much healthier - and I have never gained more than 4 lbs. back from all the weight I have lost in the course of one year! (I gained all that around Thanksgiving!) But, I have looked forward to this anniversary! It feels good to have made it a year - and gotten it behind me. 

Spiritually, I have already made many changes and I have been making several decisions that impact my future. I have given myself a year to work through the matters that matter - and I am now looking forward to going full steam ahead with the next several years of my life - Lord willing!

If God permits, I hope to teach the book of Acts in China this year. If God permits, I hope to help start a movement of churches this year! If God permits, I hope to see a "breakout" of souls and saints at ABC - walking in the glory of God and transforming the community! I have today - Lord willing! And if He is willing - perhaps enough days to amount to many more years of active and productive ministry. 

I can only thank God - and all who prayed for me a year ago - and who have continued to pray throughout the year!  Praise the Lord!

Bits and Pieces!

November! Beautiful weather - crisp temperatures - a time for giving thanks!

As December grows nearer, I find myself doing odd things! I keep going back and looking at my journals for November and December of last year to see what I was doing leading up to the day of my BIG adventure - heart by-pass surgery.  I find references to "feeling tired" and "worn out!"  Hmmm!  It's all kind of creepy!  After months of not having a whole lot of emotion about it - I find that I get kind of "teary eyed" over the whole deal! Don't know if that is normal, but then again, who ever accused me of being normal?

In the meantime, I am thankful for gas logs burning at my feet! My feet stay perpetually cold, so the fire feels good! Looks good too! Why can't someone make an A/C unit that looks like fire logs? Then I could enjoy a fire all year!

I am thankful for 3 really great kids! Drew is traveling the country teaching medical staff how to use their computer software - and sometimes their computer.  He is being exposed to a lot of different culture within the states. His wife, Tabitha, is teaching school in Long Beach and grandbaby Riley is blessing all our socks off!

Lesley is studying hard at Ole Miss! Law School!  She will be Dr. Lesley E. Mitchell in a little over two years. She is talking about studying in England this summer! Who ever thought the Mitchell kids would travel so much?! She will be a great attorney. I wish she would be a prosecuting attorney for a while - for the experience!

Kelsey is .....Kelsey! You have to know her to appreciate that! A sophomore at USM, she is BUSY! She works school into her schedule somehow!  If everything holds together, by the end of this next summer she will have been to China three times for a total of 5 months!  She is my world traveler!  If us Southern Baptists wouldn't freak out - she would make a great preacher!!!! Of course, Lottie Moon was!

I can't help it - but I've got to add a child - she is not officially ours and she has great parents! But Kristen, Kelsey's dorm mate, is our "adopted" daughter! I am so proud of Kristen.  She is funny and delightful. We love her greatly. Proudest moment for me was when I had the privilege to baptize her!  Love you Kristen.

Well - I could not possibly end without expressing thanks for my soul-mate! My doctor! My help-mate! My love! Yep - my sweet wonderful thoughtful and compassionate wife - Andrea!  What would I do without her? I would be utterly lost!  We have had a wonderful life together for almost 32 years. (December 16)  The depth of her love was demonstrated to me during December - March of last year and this year as she nursed me back to health!  Wow! She is so wonderful to me - and really to everyone who knows her!  I love you sweet girl!

Hope every one who reads this is thankful also!

The Contrasts are Unreal!

The contrasts in ministry sometimes border on the bizarre side!  Those total contrasts are the ones that also cause a great deal of turmoil in my heart!

This week, I have had the not so uncommon experience of dealing with a person who absolutely wanted to die! He simply did not want to live and literally would have welcomed death in whatever manner it could happen.  On the other side, I visited Monday and this afternoon with a brother in Christ who has fought a valiant fight to live! His desire is not to live just to be alive - but to bring more people to Christ before he enters heaven.  He has endured much medically.  Even now, in what may very well turn out to be his death bed, he still desires to be healed and to live.

How do you reconcile all that?  Both men are filled with emotion - one bitter and angry - one loving and passionate. Both men are filled with thoughts of the future - one that wants nothing to do with the future - the other who wants to have a bit more future here.  Both are filled with inner pain - one completely emotional - the other with the pain of his disease.  Both men draw out the best you have to offer them - Jesus - hope - love - concern! One cannot see any possibilities of encountering those things - the other is sustained only by those things!

The one who no longer wants to live would gladly change place with the one who is dying.  And, I say this with all sincerity, I believe the one who wants to live so badly would give his life to save the troubled one.

Who will deliver us from this body of death - both mental death - and physical infirmity? Who will deliver us from these bizarre contrasts?  Jesus Christ our Lord! He is our only answer and our only hope!  In His time, He will deliver my brother to a full healing in heaven.  And, if my distressed and hopeless one will turn to Christ, He will deliver Him from the culture of death that exists in his heart.

In the meantime - my heart is heavy for both - and those conflicts reside in my heart for them!

Copy and Paste or Write and Create!

Yesterday I was reading a great book on my Kindle at lunch! Wolfgang Simson, the author, posed this modern day observation about the church and it's leadership.  Too often, much of what we do is just "copy and paste" leadership.  That observation is not hard to prove.  And it is not entirely bad!

For example:  A genuinely praying church is not such a bad thing to copy.  A church genuinely into the Word of God might have some good things to implement.  A genuinely soul-winning church might be worth emulating.

On the other hand, the methods, motives, passions of other churches to carry out those functions is not so easily copied.  Have you ever copied an original - then recopied it- then recopied it - then recopied it? After several runs, you can tell a huge difference in quality. 

So "Church A" is reaching many people for Christ  through evangelistic efforts. A leader from "Church B" happens to visit "Church A."  He sees the results and the joy and is highly impressed. He begins to inquire about "how" they do it?  Well, "Church A" has not really thought much about "how" they do it - but it has taken on some structural aspects.  So, being a good investigator who is always on the "hunt" for better methods to "copy," the leader from "Church B" gets it all down on paper and takes it back to his church.

The result - the much vaunted, new evangelism program that is going to change "Church B" for the better is a dismal failure - leading to more frustration and burnout!  What happened?  "Church B" and her leader copied structures - but not the heart of what was happening at "Church A."    "Church B" did not have the experience of deep conviction, of relationships being healed through extending and receiving forgiveness, of lives being changed through a series of prayer meetings that were held to get the congregation before God for repentance and cleansing.  They never knew about the man in "Church A" who lost an adult child with whom he had failed to ever share the gospel. They never knew about his impassioned testimony - the 8 people saved on that day in the church after his testimony 3 years prior. 

So, "Church B" copied some structure and a little excitement from "Church A," but spiritual energy and Holy Spirit energy does not  copy well in the copy machine!  So, the ministry failed.

What is the solution?   Create!  Simson says that only 5% of church leaders actually get before God and then come before their people with God's unique plan for their church! Only 5% create rather than copy!  It is not that "Church B" is wrong for wanting an effective evangelistic ministry.  They just need to hunker down with the promptings of the Holy Spirit until they discover (1) why they don't already have an evangelistic church, and (2) what the Lord wants to do in them to create that spirit!!

Create! Better than Copy and Paste!!!!

Returning to a NEW Normal!

The past 9 weeks have been amazing! From total YUCK to surprising RELIEF!  I think yesterday, overall, was the first day that I thought I could tell that my situation is better than before I had surgery on my heart! It was not the total day - but there were times that I felt like more energy was present - and definitely more air! Mostly I found that to be the case in Cardiac Rehab! As soon as the rest of this soreness is gone - I will be able to judge it better.

Anyway - life is progressively returning to a NEW normal! Here are a few thoughts:

1. A New Normal Diet! We have made a major adjustment to a new way of eating - but it is becoming tastier as we get accustomed to it- we have much more variety in our diet - and it is becoming NORMAL for us to eat this way. It is at that point where we just don't think as much about it. It is just what we do!

2. A New Normal Sleep Pattern! Everyone knows I have been a chronic night owl forever.  Now, I am ready for bed just after 10:00 pm.  Sleep is still one of my challenges - but when I have "good sleep" the pattern is still earlier to bed - and earlier to rise. I find that I love early mornings.  The house is quiet - God and I talk a lot - and I get more done.  It is now NORMAL to me on this schedule - but it is new!

3. A New Normal Work Process! Since having this rather life-changing event - I have found a new NORMAL work ethic has emerged.  I am finally getting back to a pretty full swing at work - still lacking just a bit in endurance - but that is fast returning.  But, my new normal is hard to describe. Before, some of my work was more "frenzied" and I worried all the time! After having this surgery, NOTHING at work is worth worrying about! I just give "things" and occasionally "people" to the Lord for Him to handle!  I am spending more time with the staff and relationship building. Our staff is capable of doing more and I have probably held them back. While I was out, they did a magnificent job without me and I have not sought to reclaim some of what they are doing now.  I am enjoying "loosing" them from me and letting them go! They teach me something every day!

4. A New Normal Urgency! Since returning to work I have returned with a new sense of urgency. This is not "the frenzied" thing I mentioned in number 3. It is just the realization that my time is potentially limited (a little more than others) and that every minute and every day needs to count.  That gives you an incredible freedom to ignore distractions and seek to do only that which pleases God. No, I am a long way from mastering those priorities, but I am on that path.  Let me put it this way - if everything is going to be the same spiritually, organizationally, and ministerially in 12 months as it is now - I will need to quit and do something else. Life is too short and too precious to not live for maximum impact.  Oh, and I don't think that will be the case, but just saying!

5. A New Normal on Church Reproduction! This one is huge! I am really "eating the elephant" on this one. God has really rekindled the fire in me to see meaningful church reproduction happen in a much more organic way - locally, nationally, and globally! Don't know where that one is going - but ABC needs to birth many unique and incredible children around the world.

6. A New Normal Marriage! Andrea and I already enjoyed a strong marriage! The bypass surgery tested our marriage - and we passed the test with flying colors! We never doubted for a moment that our vows were just being completed - "for better - for worse ---- for richer - for poorer ---- in SICKNESS and in HEALTH!  Since the surgery, our marriage has only gotten stronger and is now in a new normal.  We seldom argue about anything - life is too precious to spend much time doing that.  We say "I love you" and hug a whole lot more. Today could be our last day! (no new health issues - just more aware of our mortality!)  We (especially me) had no choice for several weeks but to surrender all my "man jobs" to Andrea - and she did them. Now we do much more together.  We have been out at night together (with others) 3 times in nine weeks - most of them in the last three weeks! It was thrilling to me! We are closer than ever - and a new NORMAL has followed!

7. A New Normal Appreciation! I just love how my senses and sensitivity have been heightened. The smell of wood smoke - (weird but I love it).  The crispness in the air! The sound of rain on the window! Watching Nick's kids play at their "Playground Home!"  Listening to hammers building a glorious building for children, students and adults. Listening to beautiful music! Participating in wonderful worship! Getting up in the morning! The discovery of God's constant blessings! 

For however long my life lasts - I pray that it will involve the unfolding each day of this NEW NORMAL!