A-"Muse"-ing Thoughts

Doug Fields Leaving Saddleback Church Staff

Just announced... doesn't appear like there's any 'back-story' here.  Doug is leaving the staff, but will remain an attender, supporter, and speaker at Saddleback.  Sounds like a healthy transition.  Doug is leaving to 'speak and write'.

Here's more from Rick's Saddleback Family Newsletter...

Dear Saddleback Family,                       

As you know from watching our years of kidding and teasing each other from the pulpit, Doug Fields is one of my best friends and I love him like a brother. We have so much fun together! He really is as funny and sharp and brilliant as he is when he's on stage preaching a sermon that I've written for him. (Just kidding about that last part!)  

For several months now, Pastor Doug has been feeling the tug of the Holy Spirit in his heart to do something new in the next season of his ministry. I want you to know what's happening with him. In today's media culture, we sometimes feel the suspicion that we may not be getting the whole story" behind the news. Because of that, I asked Doug to write this week's News & Views to hear directly from him and I'll add my comments at the end his letter!    

Love Letter To Our Church Family- Pastor Doug Fields  

For the last several months I have sensed God leading me to something new and different. After a lot of prayer with Cathy, my family, Pastor Rick, and others, I have decided to resign from my role as a Saddleback pastor in order to follow God's lead. This step of faith has been difficult and I'm already feeling the painful loss. But, as difficult as it is, both Cathy and I are confident and=2 0excited in God's leading.  

As you might expect, Pastor Rick has been wonderful to me during the decision making process. He has been a pastor to me and I'm grateful for him. He gave me two months to continue to pray and be certain of this decision and even told me I could write my own job description to keep me on staff-that was so gracious. And once I was confident of God's will, Rick gave me his unconditional support. Neither Rick nor any of the other pastors wanted me to leave staff, but they obviously understand how God can prompt us toward something new.  

What am I going to do? Well, there's not another specific job" that I'm departing to, but I am leaving staff to pursue some incredible opportunities to express my writing and teaching gifts. What I'm really doing is what I've taught you to do-listen for God's whisper and obey it! Several people have said, You're crazy to leave a secure Saddleback Church job during this unstable market." Humanly speaking, they're right... following God doesn't always make sense, but I know I need to do the right thing: listen and obey.  

I can't even begin to put into words how=2 0grateful I am for my 18 years serving at our church. I came here as a 28 year old youth pastor with a desire to love God, love others and help build Saddleback Church. I have so many great memories and friendships and wonderful feelings confirming God used me here. These have been incredible years for me! From working with teenagers to teaching adults to building the Refinery to starting Fuel to becoming closer to Jesus to hiding all of Rick's disgusting Hawaiian shirts. It has been quite a ride! I am a better person and deeper thinker and a more committed follower of Jesus because of my job and my interactions with the wonderful people at Saddleback Church. When I think of our church I know I am richly blessed indeed.  If you didn't get to read my dedication to you in my book Refuel, here's what I said".  

DEDICATION: I would like to dedicate this book to the people who call Saddleback Church their home. I love being one of your pastors! I love teaching you the Bible. I love your passion for learning. I love your concern for your neighbors. I love your commitment to pursuing God in all areas of your lives. I love your dedication to giving-and giving generously. I love talking to you and hearing about what God is doing in your lives. I love you!  

As a family, Saddleback Church will continue to be our church home. Our best friends are here... our small group... and our ministry is here. I'm not resigning from church, just my staff position. My kids will be involved in the high school ministry, Cathy is leading a small group of teenage girls, and I will occasionally fill-in and preach for Pastor Rick and teach in the high school ministry.              

Well, there it is--that's the whole story in a nutshell. Rick and I and the other church Elders wanted you to hear this news directly from me. Unfortunately, many times when a pastor leaves a staff position there are crazy rumors that start flying around. That shouldn't happen here, because there's nothing wrong and I'm not upset about anything...actually, I'm thrilled to be able to leave with integrity and strong leadership support. So, now you can say you heard it straight from the horse's mouth (or the donkey's...whichever you prefer).              

This weekend, I'll have the privilege of teaching part 3 in our Life's Healing Choices series. Then, after our current series, Rick has asked me to preach a 3 week series in November. So we'll still be seeing one another... the biggest difference is that I won't have to attend meetings anymore...yeah!   I can't wait to see your smiling face this weekend as we open up God's Word and celebrate together!   So blessed!   

Pastor Doug  

My words of praise - from Pastor Rick          

I love Doug Fields with all my heart! In my opinion he has been the greatest Student Pastor in history. He and Cathy are dear friends and we've been through so much together while building Saddleback Church.              

Let's review: (1) Doug & family are NOT moving away. They'll continue serving in ministry here. (2) Doug is resigning his staff role as one of our pastors and will no longer have to carry the responsibilities and meetings of being a pastor. He's going to write and speak and serve the Lord. (3) Doug will continue to help me with preaching. He's actuall y speaking 4 of the next 9 weeks. Beyond that, there's no other back story!"              

When the beautiful Refinery was finished, I knew that Doug felt this was the capstone of the most successful youth ministry in America. Doug has raised up and mentored a generation of Student Pastors who are now taking leadership of our next generation of student ministry to the next level, and God is leading Doug to another challenge.              

Over the past 30 years, I've had literally hundreds of people join our church staff, become dear friends while serving with us, and then, after a while, leave our staff for a variety of reasons. As a young pastor in the 80s, I felt only grief when staff left. But now my understanding of how God works in peoples' lives is bigger. I've learned this important truth: God calls people through Saddleback, not to Saddleback. What that means is that God calls just the right person, at just the right time, to both serve our church and to learn from our church. Then he sends them out to other places as missionaries. We now have former Saddleback staff serving as missionaries in other churches and ministr ies all around the world. I call them our purpose driven agents!"              

This weekend, as Doug preaches, I am proclaiming it Doug & Cathy Fields' Day! To honor him for 18 years of ministry with us, I want us to pack out every service in his honor, and give him a sustained standing ovation before he preaches! Will you help me do this? It will be an historic week to thank Doug for his dedication to our church.

via mondaymorninginsight.com

Wow! At first when I heard this news, I thought it was a joke. What a huge transition for Doug and Family. I can't wait to see what God has in store for him next. God Bless you Doug!!!

Made My Heart Smile

So yesterday I was in charge of doing the Pastoral Prayer in the church service.  My family was there with me - my wife, my 4-year old daughter, and my 2-year old daughter... all sitting in the 3rd row.

I got up and said the prayer, and right after I said, "Amen" my 2-year old daughter said loud and clear, "Thank you Daddy!"

It was a very precious moment that made my heart melt.  And then after service 4 different people came up to me at separate moments and repeated, "Thank you daddy" with huge smiles on their faces and told me how endearing that was.  

These are the moments that are treasured and kept in that soft spot in my heart where I can reflect back on them during times that are more challenging.  Thanks MuMu for making my day and melting my heart!

I feel like a college student again

Well, I guess in a sense I still AM a college student... but I feel like I am back to those 19-year old freshman days.

Last night I got into a groove of research and writing.  Stayed up until 3:30 am working on my paper, and got up again at 8:00 am sharp this morning to get back started.

However, my body is not as young as that 19-year old freshman, so I can already feel that I will need a nap this afternoon.  LOL

But, I am very excited to say that I've been making great progress on my dissertation so far.  

A GREAT Gift from my wife

I have received an amazing gift from my wife.  One that is invaluable.  As I have updated, I am working very hard on my doctoral dissertation right now.  In fact, I am in my final year allowed to complete my doctorate degree.  If I don't finish it this year, I will be dropped from the program and if I want my doctorate degree I would have to start the entire program all over from the beginning.  That will NOT happen.  Christi has been so incredibly supportive of me in this venture - in fact more than supportive.  She has been the kick in the butt that I've needed to get this dissertation done.

Well, trying to study, research, read, write, revise, edit, re-write, etc. can be very challenging at my home right now.  Having 4 year old and 2 year old daughters is absolutely wonderful and amazing, but it is not the most conducive condition for getting the writing, research, and revisions done.  And, with my Nov. 1, 2009 deadline quickly approaching the stress level had continued to increase.  

Christi came to me with the plan for me to take some study leave, to go away to an isolated location where NO ONE knows where I am (but her, of course) and spend 4 days in isolation working on my dissertation.  What a HUGE gift this is.  I've just begun, but I am so blessed by this gift she has given me.  She is taking care of everything at home, ALONE, for the next 4 days.  On Friday, my family will come and join me and we will spend one more night away as an entire family - just enjoying being together as a family.  Then, to make this gift even more amazing, Christi put together an entire cooler of goodies for me - sodas, chips, candy, salad, cheese, and other snack items so I would have "fuel" to keep on going.  How is that for an amazing gift?  I owe her BIG TIME!!!!

Thanks Christi - you are my wonderful FLCE!

The Role of Parents in Kids’ Faith

As I’m reading Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults, the new book by Dr. Christian Smith and his National Study of Youth and Religion team, I am once again struck by how important parents are in teenagers’ faith.  Here’s a quote from Christian on page 284 that is so powerful I’ll just let it stand on its own for my blog post today:

Most adolescents in fact still very badly want the loving input and engagement of their parents — more, in fact, than most parents ever realize.  They simply want that input and engagement on renegotiated grounds that take seriously their growing maturity and desired independence.  All too often, however, parents misinterpret their teenager’s signals about renegotiated relationships as simple demands to be left alone and, for whatever reasons, they readily comply.  So just at a time when teenagers most need engaged parents to help them work out a whole series of big questions about what they believe, think, value, feel, are committed to, and want to be and become, in many cases, their parents are withdrawing from them.

via fulleryouthinstitute.org

Even in all of my doctoral research, I have found that the research shows time and time again that parents the most influential people in a teenager's life. This paragraph above is SO powerful and I wish that I could engrain that into the brains of many of the parents of the teens in my youth ministries over the years.

Parents - your teens need you and want to be engaged by you. Don't just dismiss them or give up. Treat them how you wanted to be treated when you were that age. It is easy? - NO. Is it worth it? - DEFINITELY!!!

The 85% Statistic is Back — and Pretty Strong Actually

You’ve perhaps heard the infamous statistic that 80-85% of people who become Christians do so before age 14.  We youth workers especially love quoting that data when we’re asking for a larger ministry budget.

There hasn’t appeared to be lots of hard data to back up that stat.  But maybe that’s changed.

Sociologist Dr. Christian Smith and his team at the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) have studied teenagers of all religious persuasions (Protestant, Roman Catholic, Jewish, Mormon, Religiously Indifferent, etc.).  He reports in his new book, Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults, that 85% of those 18-23 who have ever made a commitment to God did so before age 14.

Remember, the study includes teenagers and young adults of all religious persuasions, and it’s not entirely clear from the book what students mean what they say they have “made a commitment to God”.

But nonetheless, this is the best data I’ve seen in a while that supports that 85% statistic.

via fulleryouthinstitute.org

I've heard this statistic since I was in Jr. High. Nice to finally see some actual evidence for it. As always it remains a powerful statistic to me!

Dissertation Update

Well, it has been a long time since I have posted an update on the progress on my doctoral dissertation.  And since this week is a pretty important week for me, I thought I would share.  Also, I have had a few people asking me about it lately... so figured I would get it out there for everyone.

So here is where I am at:

* Required to be 8 chapters long.

* I've finished writing chapters 1 - 7 and am started on writing chapter 8.

* I've sent the first 7 chapters to the professional editor and received them back.

* I have the final chapter to write, and a conclusion.

* I have to edit all of my chapters, send back to the editor for final approval, then put it all together and send it to the doctoral committee for review.

Deadline:  Nov. 1, 2009

So what am I doing about it?  Well, this week I will be going away for 4 days on Study Leave.  The only person who will know where I am will be Christi.  I will not take cell phone calls, text messages, or emails from anyone other than Christi during this time.  I will spend the days writing, revising, editing, and doing whatever else I need to do in order to try and get this project to the state of "completion."  

However, once I send it in, then the doctoral committee will read it and send it back to me with any additional required edits, changes, etc.  Then I have about 1 month to complete the final edition, have it printed and bound, and sent back to them.  

Lord willing, I will be graduating in June 2010 with my Doctor of Ministry degree in Youth and Family Ministry.

Out of Site, Out of Mind

(And yes, the Pun was intentional for the title of this post)

Ugh!  What can I say.  I feel like a broken record sometimes on this blog about "I can't believe it's been so long..."  and "ok, I'm gonna get back to blogging."  

You know what they say about good intentions... well, I have good intentions.  But life seems to always get in the way.

In addition, you know the phrase, "out of sight, out of mind" Well, that has been my blog.  I have not been on my blog in a while, and therefore it seems like it has become a victim to that adage - out of sight out of mind.  I have SO much that I want to share.  So much that I feel would be good to journal about.  So much that has happened in the last 7 months.  So much I want to share with everyone.  But I've also been more busy than ever before in my life.  I've had more changes than ever before in my life.  I've had more challenges than ever before in my life.... and this blog seems to be the easiest thing to just ignore.  (and there is a lot of truth to that).  But, I also know that writing can be very therapeutic as well - and I LOVE to write.

So, what do I do with all of this?  Well, here is what I've come up with.

1) Don't feel so stinking guilty about not blogging as much as wanted.  Life is busy and guilt doesn't help get anything done.
2) Take some time out regularly to blog.  Writing is therapeutic and with all that is going on, it certainly couldn't hurt to take a few minutes every couple days or so to write what is happening.
3) Don't feel like very blog needs to be a novella - in fact, if they are, chances are no one will read them.  In addition, if they are, then I am more likely to put it off until I can "find time" - and that will never happen.  So, as Nike would say, "Just Do It!"
4) Relax, Enjoy, Write, and move forward.

To quote a phrase from a sermon I recently preached:  "You can't live in the past with all of it's mistakes, and you can't live in the future because we never know if we will even be there.  But, we must live for today - because it is a GIFT that God has given to us, which is why it is called the PRESENT!"

So here is to TODAY!!!