2018 was probably the best year of my adult life. Seriously.
Even with the financial challenges at Intown and encountering personal job insecurity for the first time in over a decade, I felt like I was well enough - emotionally, spiritually, and physically - to not only face these challenges but to believe that God was with me in them and to see them as opportunities to open a new and exciting chapter in my life and in the life of Intown.
This personal wellness came as a result of some really hard work and, with the help of my wife Katie, some major decisions that I made over the last few years that I'd like to share with you tomorrow. I’ll hit on the major details tomorrow, but if you happen to be out of town don’t worry, more of it will be sprinkled into subsequent Sundays and blog posts.
It's easy for us humans to narrate our lives in such a way that we are the hero of our own stories, and this is not that. I do want to inspire and challenge you, but then get out of the way and allow God to take up residence in the places in your life where you desire change.
These personal decisions and changes that I'm speaking of were necessary because of a LACK of personal wholeness and due to me NOT making healthy choices. So, try as I might I can't really heroize this story, and we're not doing this "Being Well" series because that's what I happen to be "jazzed" about at the moment. Instead, we should have been talking about these things all along but for a long time I wasn't in a place where I believed that I had a credible voice and so I avoided talking about most of them with any real specificity.
So, we're going to talk about physical health, our bodies, emotional resilience, addiction and recovery, vanity, and who knows, maybe even sex!
Tomorrow's service will feel a bit different than normal because the sermon portion of the liturgy will be more of a story than a sustained reflection on a Bible passage. But, I think it will provide a necessary narrative background that will enable us to look closely at biblical texts on this subject matter on future dates.
I think it will be worth it and I hope you'll join us. If you want a further preview (of sorts), click here for a relevant blog post.