Mentoring

It is an interesting season in life having just turned sixty-six.  My father died at this age and so i have always wondered whether I would make it. Thankfully, both my twin brother and I celebrated our 66th birthday together last weekend.

What makes the season challenging are the winds of change.  They are ever-present as I move from twelve hour work days to two day work weeks with the luxury of discretionary time.  Additionally, I no longer punch a clock nor do I scramble to make time for administrative meetings and late night counseling sessions.  I am, to a "frightening" degree, in control of my own time schedule.

It's "frightening" because I have an accelerated sense of upward accountability for the usage of my time.  There was always that in pastoral ministry but there was also horizontal accountability as I thought about the expectations of my board and of a growing congregation.

Now there is for me a handful of counseling clients, eight grandchildren nearby, a local church and an adult class weekly teaching assignment, and my ongoing ministry "overseeing" a pastoral training institute  in Haiti.  It's enough.

But I have extra time.  And I have an opportunity in these later years, given   the presumption that age and experience produce some wisdom worth sharing, an opportunity to mentor.  It was brought home to me today at a Bible Study led by my stepson who is a pastor.  He was leading a discussion on REAL LIFE DISCIPLESHIP, written by Jim Putman, and discussing people "upstream" and downstream" in his sphere of influence.  As a class participant I had completed the assignment asking us to do the same.  As he shared his "upstream"--those to whom he looks for wisdom and counsel--my name was there.

I was startled.  I had listed his name, given our weekly family and church interaction, as in my "upstream".  We laughed about it later.

I love mentoring.  It isn't that I have it all figured out.  But I have learned some things--many of them through the rigors of personal experience--that are worth sharing with others, if for no other reason than to help theme escape some of the painful learning process to which most of us fall prey.

In the last few weeks I've mentored someone who is recovering from painful experiences in church leadership; another has been talking to me about a ministry idea and we have rehearsed some of the "pro's" and con's".  Ina ll of these situations, and more, I am smiling at the memory of lessons learned and the opportunity to share them with others who come to me...probably because I am old.  Probably because I am available.

No doubt because God has a purpose for us even in our later seasons of life. Don't miss a chance to be a mentor.

UPDATE ON SEMINAR--COMMITMENT: THE VOW FACTOR IN MARRIAGE

The first week of the marriage seminar on Commitment took place on Sunday, January 12th at Grace Church in San Luis Obispo.  The teaching sessions as well as the accompanying work sheets will be available on my website int he next several weeks.  See www.Full-LifeCoaching.org.

Some of you have requested the seminar material and if you want to receive it by mail, please contact me at 636 Clarion Court, Suite 101, San Luis Obispo, CA 93401.

A helpful assignment for couples looking to strengthen their commitment to one another is to study Ephesians 4:25-32 and to do the following.

1.  Individually identify the principles of communication that appear in this passage.

2.  Underscore those that are difficult for you.

3.  Share your results with one another and covenant together to pray for these specific areas of need.

This is a good place to start.  Next week I will identify those principles that I seeand you can compare notes with what you found.

New Year's "Drears"

Is "drears" a word?  I'm uncertain but I'm confident the word communicates with some of you.

It is not about failed resolutions from last year or the futility of anticipated resolutions for the new year.  It sometimes is about a gnawing feeling in the gut of our stomach that reverberates painfully with the frightening "here we go again".

But I am another year older now.  And I will be sixty-six later this month (no card or gifts, please).  And I should be wiser.  

The good news is, I think I am.  I recognize this reoccurring January visitor and the cold water it would throw on every determined effort I make to set meaningful goals for the new year.

Nonetheless, I am determined.

I've been journaling--no one gets to read my journals--and I am hopeful--again--that in spite of missing the mark in some critical areas last year, by God's grace I did learn some lessons that are an increasingly significant part of my life resources in coping with the challenges that are sure to come in 2014.

Left to my own resources, that gives me the "drears".

Looking to Him, it diminishes my fears.

Welcome, new year.

Making marriage work

My recent counseling has involved young couples committed to building and preserving their marriages.  It has prompted a class I will be teaching ten installments beginning Sunday, January 12th entitled, "COMMITMENT: The VOW Factor in Marriage".  The focus of the source will be to understand potential sources of disruptive havoc to the maintenance of our marriage vows.  I will post the topics on my website, www.full-lifecoaching.org, and make our materials available upon request.

Making marriage work is hard work.  The vows we take with the "for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death parts us..." have been unwittingly replaces with "as long as we still love each other", or, "until it gets too hard".

A commitment for the new year in any marriage--healthy or not--to enrich the relationship we have by invoking the principles of God's Word--will be the theme of my study.  I hope you'll join me.

A new grandbaby

Beverly and I leave this afternoon for a trip to Dallas and Nashville.  Awaiting us in Dallas are JJ, Milla and Owen and in Nashville, the latest addition to our even dozen grandchildren--Vivienne Simone, born November 4th to Andrea and Stan.

We are living and loving the role of grandparenting--one defined differently, I am sure, by every grandparent.  For us it includes on site opportunities in San Luis Obispo--ball games, dinners, babysitting, ball games, over-nighters, sitting in church together, ball games--you get the idea.  Since we have eight of our twelve here it is a challenging but rewarding task to figure out how to maximize our involvement with each.

As we head east to spend time with our other four, we are excited about time to be with them.  A ball game, church and a concert are already on the agenda, not to mention meals and football games, two Barrett specialties.  Mostly, it is just the idea of being together, even though the time will pass quickly. With Andrea's recent "contribution" to the family it will be a special delight to see one month old Vivienne for the very first time!  We are already thinking about how we can maximize our time in the new year with the Barrett families, several thousand miles away.  It's a welcome challenge!

Grandchildren are a significant part of what motivated my retirement form full-time ministry.  But I see them as a part of my new ministry--not that they are in any way affected by parental default ( all are great parents!)--but we can affirm what is already being intentionally put in place as we live and share life together.

If you're older like I am becoming, here's an area of life to embrace with excitement and enthusiasm.  Love your grandchildren--they will thrive in that environment--and live, as you are able, your life with them as opportunities come--ball game, dinners, babysitting, church, over-nighters...you get the picture.

Jet Lag

I have been back in the United States from Haiti for almost 72 hours now...and I am still out of sync. Although it is only about nine hours of flight time from there to here...plus about five hours layover time, the fourteen hours of re-entry are always challenging for me.

I always wonder what it is about our physical time clock and/or personal chemistry that makes such transitions difficult.  My stepson, Tim, just returned from India with a time warp twice mine, and he's still feeling the effects of his travel over a week later, and he is twenty years younger than me.  So the immediate suspicion it may be my age may be discounted, even though the affects may be more intense for someone as old as me...

I am persuaded we are creatures of habit.  We sleep better in our own beds, "thrive" on our regular diets, and are acclimated to our culture and pace of life.  Transplanted into a different time frame and plunged into a different culture--with unfamiliar food and someone else's mattress, things are different. Not bad.  Not necessarily painful.  Just different.

Haiti is a vastly different culture with its tasty diet of rice and goat or chicken. and its hot and humid days and nights.  The backdrop of its poverty-laden villages and open street markets hugging the main roads as well as its colorful tap taps in bumper-to-bumper traffic creates a vivid contrast to the life familiar to me.  As I left the Port au Prince airport after eight days to head for home, I could feel myself
already lagging behind as I prepared myself for re-entry several hours later in the Fort Lauderdale airport before connecting stops in Dallas and Sacramento.

And I am still lagging.  There are faded but inescapable images of what I felt and saw in Haiti.  The "jet lag" is the tiredness, I suspect, of a very hectic schedule and a lack of normal sleep.  But I am lagging behind for other reasons--I am not yet willing to jump back into the common and comfort of home; at some levels my emotions are still in Carrefourpoy, Cayes and Port au Prince where we taught and, at least for a few days, shared in a  world vastly different than ours.

I always learn something there--this was my ninth trip. I learn to embrace what I have and to remember what is really important.  And, as a result, I almost intentionally lag behind--not willing to rush back into my life of "more than enough", if not, "too much".

Jet lag.  It is a real phenomenon.

But it's not all bad on re-entry to take advantage of it to reaffirm lessons learned while away from the normal habits and pace of life.

A heart for Haiti

I leave tomorrow for Haiti, my ninth trip in the last three years since God called me to go.  I am excited about sharing the Word with pastors and especially seeking to encourage them.

God has given me a heart for Haiti.  I would not have chosen Haiti as a place to go--but God impressed me in such a way that I can say with Paul, "Woe is me if I don't preach the gospel (in Haiti)..."  On the eve of my departure I have been reviewing my teaching notes, checking my suitcase, visiting with my wife...and imagining the faces I will see for the next seven days.  It is a privilege I cannot describe, a joy I can't deny.

What grabs your heart?  What compels you to give your best, to exhaust your resources, to be willing to be uncomfortable, to empty yourself without consideration of cost or pain?

Find that thing and give yourself unstintingly to it.  Discover a fulness in life that cannot be reproduced on any other level.

Have a heart...for something God births within you.