Yesterday's ride

Prep for the Gut Check can begin to take on new form now that we've had a taste of warmer weather. We'll still be yo-yoing a bit between spring and winter for a few weeks, but I've had two road rides now and I am pleased with where my condition is. I'm down about 13 pounds from where I started around Christmas (and from where I was most of last season) and have spent much more time on the trainer than I have in off-seasons past.

Yesterday's ride was one that I knew had the potential to be fairly long and might hurt a bit. I had blocked out three hours to ride with Bryan Brinkman and when I met up with him I discovered that Mike Dunlap would be going with us as well. That's when I knew that it was not going to be an easy, early season, rolling kind of ride. At least not for me.

Mike and Bryan both are very fit and Mike is in full preparations for this summers Race Across America (RAAM) which he qualified for last year. For those unfamiliar, RAAM is a full race across the country where riders all start at the same time and ride their own pace, on their own schedule until they reach the other coast. They often sleep in 3-4 hour blocks and some of the stories to come out of the race are absolutely epic. You can follow Mike on his blog and see what he's up to.

I didn't make any excuses and just sat third wheel the entire ride. Both guys are significantly stronger riders than I am, but if I want to become stronger, these are the kind of guys I need to be riding with. My only goal was to hang on and not get dropped. It was tough, but I hung in for 48 miles, only bobbing off the back for the last three, before they needed to turn west and I needed to turn east for home. Our average at that point was probably around 19 mph and Mike never looked the least bit uncomfortable while Bryan looked strong as well for an early season ride.

After I turned, I just concentrated on keeping moving. My legs screamed, my back and neck were a bit sore and I hurt so bad that it almost hurt to blink. I limped home muttering under my breath and then dragged my carcass into the house. All told, I had finished with 58 miles, averaging 17.8 mph (I'd obviously dropped off the pace after leaving Mike and Bryan), burning 3232 calories with an average heart rate of 162. I was pleased with all of this except the heart rate. I need to get some more base miles at a lower average heart rate to really prepare for a race like the Gut Check, but I will need rides like this to push me to improve my overall quality as a ride. And to teach me how to suffer.

Up and down day

I knew this morning would be hard since it was my first time at Mercy since stepping down as the worship leader. As with most hard changes, I'm in a period of mourning right now and felt like I was wearing my emotions on my sleeve as I walked in. Thankfully, the only people that were in the lobby at the time all know me pretty well and were very gracious to let me work through my emotions.

Thankfully, Ryan from work decided to check the church out this morning which meant that I almost immediately got to turn my focus from myself to making sure that he felt welcome. That was just what I needed. By the time the service started, I was dealing pretty well with things and was able to simply engage in worship. I have a feeling the next month or so may be a little awkward as I adjust to not being in leadership, but I love the people of Mercy and still believe strongly in the vision of the church. It's a place that I'm proud to invite friends like Ryan to visit believing that it's a place where people can find belonging regardless of background and regardless of where they are at on their spiritual journey.

After lunch I was able to get out for my first road ride of the season. Temps were in the mid 30's, but the forecast for sunny skies from a few days ago gave way to a cloudy forecast which eventually gave way to a light drizzle which I got to ride in for my last 15 miles or so. I had decided to head out southeast of town on some roads that I ride pretty regularly and gauge my long term route plans on how I was feeling.

Turns out, all of the off season snore fests on the trainer and snowy commutes have accomplished something. I felt pretty decent and decided to press on toward Larchwood and then south to West Lyon School before looping back. My first ride of the year is usually in that 20-25 mile range, but this one stretched to 47.75 miles over 2 hours and 48 minutes. I felt good for most of the ride and only felt the effort for a few miles coming back into town. By the time I dragged myself home, I had burned over 2700 calories and had only eaten one bag of Sport Beans (worth about 100 cal).

With the Gut Check a little over 5 months away, I am really pleased with where I am at with training right now. I'm starting this season carrying less weight than at any point last season and definitely have better form than at this point in any season I can remember. Not sure when the road rides will become a regular part of the week for me, but I'll take what I can get, when I can get it right now.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

I probably need to check in more often, but I've been keeping things pretty close over the last month and change so as to allow for proper channels of communication to occur. Change has been in the air and it started with me stepping down as the worship leader for Mercy. It was a difficult decision to come to, but my hope is that by stepping out of the way, Mercy will have a better chance of growing into her vision for cautiously charismatic worship.

I really did think I could grow into the role and that only makes it more frustrating to give it up. But after three years of trying to grow into it and constantly hitting a wall it was time. My confidence as a leader continued to erode to the point where I was second guessing myself almost every Sunday and was leading with no authority. I'm chalking it up to not having the right gift mix for this particular ministry in this particular season. I believe I can still be an effective worship leader, but it may be awhile before I tread into those waters again.

In the meantime, I'm hoping to devote more time and energy to songwriting and may push farther into the realm of artist ministry. I started a songwriters' group last summer and am wondering if there might be opportunities to network in other artistic circles as well. More on that to come.

Change number two is that I will be changing roles at work next month. Lee, a good friend and my former shop manager, is stepping down as the manager of the bike shop. After a bit of thought and prayer, I made the decision to pursue the position and will be heading back to manage the bike shop after three years of managing bikes, a few cold weather clothing shops and making my living as a sales person.

The down side is that I no longer will qualify for sales trips (like the Jamaica trip we took last year and the Disney trip we took last month). The up side is that I will be setting the schedule for the shop and the expectation is that I will not be there much on the weekend and will only do one or two nights a week. This means a lot more time at home which we have all been craving. It also means that I should see more of our parents. It's been a bit frustrating to only live 70-80 miles away from all of them and only occasionally see them.

It also means a lot of new challenges as I try to get a handle on the parts of the job that I wasn't engaged in when I was in the shop previously and having to reacquire some skills that I haven't had to use in about three years. We've got a pretty good crew and there's not a lot of drama or difficult personalities to deal with, so I'm hoping for a smooth transition as I make the change April 1.

Snow riding

My only goal for this weekend was to spend two hours on the bike. I initially had intended to suffer through another long session in front of the TV as I burned calories but went absolutely nowhere, but when I woke up yesterday, the temps were around 30, snow was lightly falling and I decided it was a perfect day to get out the Rig and tool around the bike path for a roughly 21 mile snow excursion. My Gary Fisher Rig is a single speed mountain bike that I outfit with studded tires for winter riding (primarily commuting).

Almost immediately I realized it was going to take me the better part of two hours to do what I would normally do in just about half the time. The bike path in Sioux Falls had been plowed at one time in the last month, but several inches of snow were still on the path covering a lot of ice and even more footprints from runners that have been on the path over the last few weeks. It was slow going and it was quickly evident that legs and calories were going to burn as I diligently looked for the smartest path and exercised great patience at every corner for fear of having to pick myself up out of the snow.

It was very slow going with a lot of sections where I could barely muster eight miles per hour as I worked my way through the crusted footprints of other path users. There were a few sections where I could manage 13-14 mph over sections that had been wind blown, but they were very few. By the time I dragged myself home, I was absolutely exhausted, but knew that it was just the ride I needed.

I'm quickly approaching the six month to go point in my preparations for the Gutcheck 212 race this summer. I will suffer much more on that ride than I did yesterday, but it was a good ride for me to do at this point in the year. Road miles (of any sort) equal about twice the value of any trainer session or spin class (in my opinion) when it comes to practical application on the road. Not only that, but it's a heck of a lot more fun.

Discouraged but not hopeless

How do I find myself at this place again? After what had seemed a better season of ministry I find myself faced again with the realization that I may not be the best fit for Mercy in my current role. Things have been building slowly this time, but I feel like we're close to having to make a decision on whether to stay and try to allow God to grow me into this role or step away for the sake of the growth of the church.

I do not feel unloved. Far from. Shel and leadership have gone to great lengths to express their love for me on a personal level and have given me a lot of time to grow. Unfortunately, it seems more likely that the more charismatic worship theology that Mercy strives for simply isn't something that God is anointing in me right now, no matter how much I may want Him to. I've been challenged in ways I did not expect and may simply have to accept that this was for a season and try to grow through the experience. Shel hinted at the concept of "where God leads, He provides" in conversation this week. If so, did God lead us to this point or did we simply seize an opportunity without a call?

I am in no hurry to make a decision, but am praying for wisdom as we look at what's ahead.

In the meantime, we have decided (Shel and I) to have other leaders rotate in giving me an extra Sunday a month off. The hope is that this will expose the church (and myself) to different leadership styles while also giving me some opportunity to rest as well. Bi-vocational ministry is challenging enough and hasn't gotten any easier three years into it, so I am hoping to take advantage of my off weeks to devote more time to prayer, personal worship renewal and writing.

I was challenged by a friend today to not fake it in terms of charismatic worship expressions if I'm not really there and to allow God to take me there. That was a word I needed to hear and I continue to pray that God would take me there for the good of the Body.

The Offseason has Finally Arrived

I put in my first session on the bike trainer today. This to me is the real start of winter. It's the point where I have to quit living in denial and set about the hard work of convincing myself that this will all be worth it in the spring when the snow melts, the roads become rideable and all is right with the world again.

This year discipline will be the name of the game. I've always had the luxury of riding indoors just to scratch the itch to ride and keep from completely losing my fitness. I recently agreed to do my first race ever which will be an ultra marathon bike race from the Wyoming border to the Minnesota border on Highway 212 in northern South Dakota. I'll be part of a two man team with Bryan Brinkman, my supervising manager at Scheels, Bryan riding the 230 mile leg of the race while I will be responsible for 190 miles. It is a continuous race, so we're looking at a lot of saddle time and a lot of suffering.

The race is slated for August 13 which means that I have eight months and one day to get myself whipped into shape. It's going to require a lot of time on the trainer which should set me up for a lot of time in the saddle in the spring. I decided to start the work in earnest today with a two hour session.

Two hours is a long time on the trainer for me. I would rather hit it hard for 45 minutes and get off the thing, but 45 minute sessions aren't going to help me build up for the challenge ahead. The trainer requires so much more discipline than going out for a ride. Because you don't have the natural motion that you would riding on the road, your body hurts more, sooner and it's harder to find relief. My butt hurts more after an hour on the trainer than it does after riding 100 miles.

I knew that I was going to hate doing today's session before it even started, but was determined to go two hours. I was really ready to call it quits after 90 minutes, but I figured that if I'm really going to be ready for the Gut Check then I'm going to have to get used to suffering and starting my training by shortening a session because I was uncomfortable probably wouldn't help build the discipline that I'll need to finish a 190 mile ride.

I managed to finish, but was looking at my watch about every 30-40 seconds hoping that the time was passing more quickly than it really was. I was definitely ready to be done. The only problem is, I should probably do it again tomorrow.

What do we call ourselves?

I love the church that I'm serving. I will admit that Mercy Church has been a hard place to describe to people though as I've had conversations with friends (both from within and outside of the church). We, as people, tend to like to use labels to help us better identify and categorize the world around us, but we, as a church, don't tend to fit neatly into the boxes provided by current church labels.

Mercy is the combination of a church plant from the Christian and Missionary Alliance and a traditional Mennonite congregation with 50 years of history in Sioux Falls, SD. We merged the two congregations nearly two years ago and are actually fully affiliated with two different denominations. Our hope is that this shows a desire to break down walls between churches, denominations and generations in order to better represent the unity of believers in the Kingdom of God.

The diversity of where we come from is pretty broad. Not only Alliance and Mennonite, but we have leadership with background ranging from Assemblies of God to United Methodist and members with background in Lutheran, Reformed, Catholic and Faith Church traditions (among others) all gathering together to worship and fellowship together. We also strive to be a place where people that are simply exploring Christ would be able to belong even before they believe. Because of this diversity, it's difficult to know what labels to attach and if they will be helpful or harmful.

I think this page does a good job of summing up where we're coming from in terms of doctrine and we're very much about connecting in meaningful relationship with one another through service and fellowship. I think it's a little harder for us to define ourselves stylistically.

The first service is definitely traditional and, therefore, a bit easier to identify. Believe it or not, this service is growing in both numbers and generational diversity. The second service has tried on a few labels, but still hasn't found anything that fits comfortably. Contemporary works for some people, but conjures up images of poorly done, 1980's choruses for others (myself included). Emerging works for some, but has taken a beating in some Christian circles because of a few leaders within the emerging movement whose teaching skews toward a more liberal theology. Fortunately, those few teachers do not represent the whole of the emerging movement. Unfortunately, so much emphasis has been placed on them that the term "emerging" has become synonymous with heresy in some circles.

Amy had a conversation with a student this week and let the term "emerging church" slip and his reaction was immediately one of distrust. We had the conversation a year ago at Mercy Church about the use of the term as well and several of our own members had a strong reaction against it.

There's a tendency with any kind of movement for a strong initial push followed by a period of course correction and mini-reform that help keep it from running too far out of bounds. I think the emerging church is in that correction period, but I fear that it may not be given much of a chance by some people (who would resonate with a lot of its core values) because of the way that it has been negatively portrayed in some circles.

So if we're not "contemporary" and we're not "emerging", what are we? We're using the term "renewal service" for the time being. We are contemporary in the fact that we use a band of instruments and musical styles that are more contemporary to our culture. We are emerging in the fact that we use ancient/future approaches to worship that encourage the use of historic creeds and lectionary materials and are moving toward the use of multiple response mechanisms in our worship (song, prayer, stations, communion) in order to help people connect to God in a way that is most natural to their personality and wiring.

Whatever we are, I'm loving the way that God is shaping and challenging us to live authentic faith in a diverse community. I'm also loving watching real people undergo real life change as we encounter Jesus together.