Jim Burns on Hope

Probably the most stunning thing to me all weekend was the openness and candor of the speakers. They freely, boldly and naturally stood up on stage in front of a hundred or several thousand people and talked about the challenges of their life as easily (seemingly) as they talked about what they had for breakfast. It wasn't the sensational, glorified stuff we are all tired of. It was this:

Jim stood up to talk about hope. He said it reminded him of three words: alcoholism, abuse, and infidelty. It was the first session of the morning and I am sure everybody, as I did, came fully awake at that point and said to themselves WHOA...

He said he came from a family history that was affected by all three. But, by God's grace, his family was a transitional family. His kids were the first generation who did not directly know any of these three things. But it did not mean he was immune from challenges. He knew in his head that he was supposed to put God first, then his marriage, then his kids and then his job. Since he was a successful youth pastor early in his life, he was unable to separate his job from his relationship from God. It came close to destroying his marriage. Fortunately, he realized it and changed. I think this detail came from his seminar, but they started a mandatory spouse-only date night and he gave his wife ultimate veto power over his schedule. He said that he constantly talked to youth pastors who struggled with the same thing.

I don't think I have ever heard a more profound discussion of hope. It did leave me with a thought that I discussed with Jim later: I have the impression in the "adult church" that we are afraid to publicly talk about our challenges and our weakness. We want to look good and smell good and spin doctor and make it seem like everything is fine when it's not. Now, we do it all the time at Cursillo, and the youth are not afraid to do it, but we are afraid to do it at church. Why don't we? I think we try to show a veneer of strength. So what we do is lead people to believe that brokennes is something be to covered up and hidden. You don't think so? How many people come to the CCPC service of healing and wholeness? 10? 20? I will believe we have changed when it's "standing room only" in our sanctuary in the service of healing and wholeness.

That last paragraph was editorial, in case you did not guess....