Matthew’s question to Madison: How is your current structured journey of doing a MTS degree enhancing your faith?

I wrote a blog a while ago on starting my Masters of Theology at Tyndale Seminary. Currently, I’m in the thick of only my second course for a Master’s of Theology. This course is on the book of Psalms, and workload has definitely been upped from doing an undergrad. Over the 12-weeks of the course, we have to write a reflection on all 150 psalms – that’s about 2-3 reflections a day. So there’s really no mental or time break from the course since you can’t afford to miss a day of reading and writing. Between the structure of my first course and this one, how have I noticed it enhancing my faith? The answer is two-fold – it has and it hasn’t. Let me start with how I’m noticing gaps, and then end off with how I have found it encouraging and enlightening.

With my current course, to write a reflection on each psalm, there’s a guiding question to answer after reading the commentary. When I first began, this whole process took an hour per psalm, but thankfully, that process has become more efficient. Since there are so many psalms to reflect on each day, this process has temporarily replaced opening my Bible and actively journaling throughout the week. Sure, when reading the commentary, I also read the psalm, but my focus is more on the words of the commentator than the psalm itself because I know that I have to write something for the assignment. Knowing this is just a season, and that it’s coming to an end soon, allows me to be okay with that since I’m still learning about who God is. But I have noticed a theme where the time I don’t open my Bible for a period of time my craving for it has increased.

Beyond that, this process has been incredibly beneficial to my spiritual life. I work really well within a structure, and the courses guide the direction I learn. Am I the only one who gets confused when choosing a book of the Bible to dive into for personal devotions? In the school setting, I find that I go deeper into that the topics or books we go through than I would ever go on my own. For example, the first course I took was Worship and Liturgy – I have learned so much about the Church, how the service can be structured to bring the congregation through a story, and how it is all an invitation from God. I now enter into church each weekend with a transformed perspective, especially taking note that I’m simply accepting God’s initiative, as well as noticing that I am not worshiping God alone, but with a whole group of people.

Through both of the courses so far, the main question that I’m finding being asked is, “What does this say about God’s character?” What an important question. We are nothing without Him, and I want to know more of who He is. And the more I go deeper into who He is, the more I fall in love with Him, and the more times I simply say “thank you” since there really are no other words to adequately express my gratitude.

I understand the academic world is not for everyone, and that is completely okay – we’re all wired differently, and we can all learn so much from one another. A mentor of mine showed me the 9 spiritual pathways, and ‘intellectual’ would be number 3 or 4 for me. That self-awareness, of how I connect best with God, encourages and challenges me to find the spaces that fit my top 3 so that I am continually and consistently in a setting where I feel connected with God – none of us want God to feel distant. That’s not to say we shouldn’t push ourselves to engage in the spaces that are less comfortable for us, but when we are actively in the spaces we feel closest to God, we have more energy to lean into the other practices.

Since ‘intellectual’ is high on my list, it makes sense for me to be in the academic world, and it also makes sense as to why the structure of the courses are drawing me closer to Him – it’s enhancing my faith.

To finish off, here are two questions to consider:

What are you learning about God’s character?

In what spaces do you feel most connected to God? And how can you actively move and live in those spaces?

Madison’s Question to Matthew: Walk us through how your vision for NP came to be. What kinds of things solidified your convictions? How do you push through barriers, or people who doubt you/the vision?

As someone who loves to engage in strategic conversations, this is an intriguing question for me to write about. In fact, the two words that draw me in all the time are “strategy” and “leadership”. I am a student of both of these.

First, let me start by declaring that no vision for a local church, North Park included, could and should be the vision of one person. As a community of believers in Jesus, there needs to be a collective agreement as to the vision, the big picture of what God is calling the church to engage with.

Second, a vision can’t be developed by a large group. This may sound counter to the previous statement, but in reality, a vision that is in essence created by or voted on by an entire local church will always be a watered down, non-descript vision with little overall focus.

I love talking big picture, 4-kilometre-high visions. I was trained in this way of thinking in my banking career. My personality (ENTJ) naturally gravitates to this type of conversation as well. I read vision and leadership books as a hobby – it is part of my makeup, my DNA. Now this doesn’t mean that I can come up with the best vision, there are many things that need to feed into the discussion to come up with a solid vision that is executable. But I definitely enjoy engaging in this aspect of life and work.

For a local church, some would declare that the work of the church is obvious, so why should any church spend anytime developing a vision. “Go and make disciples” Jesus declared. “Love God and love others”. Isn’t it obvious? Yes and no. If you spend any amount of time in any local church context, you will quickly learn what is important to them, what they focus on, where they choose to spend their limited resources, what they choose to avoid. This is their vision, either by intention or by default.

So, how has North Park chosen to move forward? What was our vision process and what is my role as Executive Lead Pastor in all of this?

The initial journey was actually quite simple – two full days with 12 people in a room led by an outside consultant. He guided us on a journey reflecting on our past, reviewing our current state (strengths and weaknesses) and moving through a process of what area of ministry we believed we were called to and best capable to moving to reality. During the process I often wondered if this was too simple, if we should be going wider, having more conversations, engaging a broader spectrum. And yet, two years later, I believe that this journey was exactly what was necessary – no more, no less. We had prayed and discerned prior to gathering, and as such truly believed that the Holy Spirit was guiding those days. And that is also a key difference in developing vision for a church versus a business or any organization that is not Jesus focussed. We have the Holy Spirit available and active in the process, if we choose to allow this.

The journey after these two days has been a fascinating progression of 6-month decisions. I don’t believe that I have engaged in this type of roll out previously, but I know that I have used it in other organizations I am involved with since learning about it.

With our vision in front of us, every 6 months we determine what we believe are the 3 things we need to deliver on in the next 6 months in order to keep moving toward this vision. The 5-year picture is before us, yet who knows what is going to happen in 1 year let alone 5 years. As such, we simply look 6 months into the future. It is such a beautiful process. I can see clearly enough 6 months into the future, it just seems so doable that it gives strength to the process. It is not some nebulous thing, it is very tangible, something you can hold onto.

And the journey has continued for the past two years, and we are progressing toward our vision.

The second part of the questions, pushing through barriers and dealing with people who doubt the vision, is also good to explore. When we began this journey, I was anticipating some push back and was wondering how I would be able to engage in the conversations, particularly since I am the Lead Pastor and it falls on me to communicate this vision publicly. Looking back, there are two things that stand out to me that have helped me on this journey.

First, it was a group decision. This wasn’t me bringing a vision to our elders and key leadership and trying to “sell” it. We came up with this together and as such we were now in this together. This was such a reassuring aspect, and one that I continue to lean on. And, the leadership has continued to believe in it and live with it.

Second, the key leaders around me who are involved in rolling this out are also fully on board. In retrospect, I believe that I was expecting that they would go back to their jobs and expect me to keep bringing this vision forward, that I would have to continually cajole us all to talk about and own it. It is almost shameful to realize that I was thinking this way, even if it was a subconscious thought. And yet, just the opposite occurred. They have fully embraced it. And at times they are coaxing me to stay on course. When I realized that we were truly doing this together I can’t tell you how energizing that was. We became a team in an entirely new way which was so encouraging.

This visioning journey has been fun. It has stretched us all and forced us to make key decisions to enable us to take on what we believe God has for us as a local church. It is my prayer that we continue on this path as we refine the details.

For the kingdom.