All Things Made Right and New Again

A few musing from a deconstructed charismatic.

“O Lord, you’ve made yourself a home Heaven and earth forever one.

All things once sown in weakness You raise in promise.

Your beauty arches above it all.

Let all things rise and bless Your name

All things made right and new again

O Lord our God, Your goodness Is free and boundless

Is reaching endless through it all”

I am returning from the Vineyard National Conference in Denver, CO. I wasn’t going to go. I didn’t budget for it and honestly, I didn’t have the money. Summer’s are tough for church finances, y’all. Does anybody know what I’m talking about?

I am sitting at the airport drinking margaritas and getting some work done.

Yup. That’s right. It’s been 75 days sober. Or, at least somewhere around there. This is me. You need to know.

These are some tired weepy eyes. And my flight is delayed. Big eye roll. So here I sit, reflecting on the goodness of God.

I came to the Vineyard in 2019 after I left the patriarchy. Here is a blast from the past, in case you missed it. On Leaving My Church

And here I tell some of my story in a sermon. My Story

I came to the Vineyard because of Dr. Kris Miller. My friend Paige said he was a former CofCer (IFKYK) and he preached the best sermon on suffering I had ever heard. I listened to it on a podcast and so I told my man, ‘babe, we are going to the Vineyard on Sunday.” It was the Sunday after I left my church. I knew of the Vineyard. I actually studied the Vineyard in a Sociology of Religion course at Pepperdine. I visited Vineyard Churches in SoCal. I got involved in a “Jesus Movement Adjacent” ministry in Hollywood where all these fools prayed in tongues (I did too, I just hid it at the time ;) I was involved in a charismatic renewal movement in Abilene, Texas in the 90s and early 2000s where all sorts of conservatives were getting Spirit filled. All that to say, I knew the Vineyard. But I had no idea nor would I have had any framework for the ways that God met my husband and I in the midst of our darkest spiritual wandering and deconstruction on that Sunday morning in 2019.

What could a charismatic church offer to a former female pastor in TOTAL deconstruction? On that first Sunday in 2019, I did not sing the words of the songs, I did not lift my hands, and I did not go forward for prayer. Absolutely not. Nope.

I sat down and wept through the entire service as we were led in worship songs TO Jesus by a Barbie-looking blonde in mom jeans with a tiny bit of tummy showing as she lifted her hands in worship from the stage. She looked like me. This was strange indeed. And she wasn’t coercing or manipulating anything. She was just brining her full, un-edited messy self to the leadership task. Did she even brush her hair before the service? ;)

And as I listened to the white dude in his 50s, wearing jeans and flip flops preach about She Who Is and the “wild child of the Trinity” in the most humble and un-assuming way, I was un-done. How strange. How humble. How effortless. I had never seen a white dude lead like that. As we sat and received this ministry, my husband and I both knew that we were home. The VUSA peeps say that you don’t join the Vineyard. You discover that you ARE Vineyard. This is our story. This no hype, deeply intimate, expressional and contemplative, new and ancient, Spirit and tradition vibe was ours to discover. We were home. We never went to another church. We knew that this was the place our kids would grow up.

Fast forward to a meeting at Fadi’s with the one and only Pastor Rachel Conner, who was asking me to work for her as their Youth Minister (pastors find a way of sniffing out former pastors). In my mind I thought, I don’t care what I am doing as long as I get to learn and work with this Queen. I can’t believe she and Pastor Reagan Waggoner hired this church of christ closeted charismatic super wounded, too old to be a youth pastor girl. But they did. And I found my home, a renewed sense of calling, and a FREEDOM and a fruitfulness in ministry I had not known before.

Then the pandemic hit. Rachel and Reagan led us through it and we are still here. The SL Vineyard. The Vineyard Church in Sugar Land Stafford. The historically significant church planted by our former National Director Pastor Bert Waggoner. We are here because of them. 100%. Then they were all leaving and retiring and then I applied for the Lead Pastor and the rest is history.

A week ago, a board member came to me and said, I want you to go to the VUSA National Conference. You need to hear from the Lord on some things. I said, “I don’t have the money.” He said, “I’ll pay for it. Just tell me what you need.” And I said, “OK.”

It is the sum of these moments, and many more, that led me to be here, drinking margaritas and crying in the airport waiting for a delayed flight to Houston from Denver reflecting on the Lord’s Goodness. We could call it confessions of a deconstructed charismatic.

I know this.

As I walked into worship, day 1, at the strum of the guitar, on the first song, I was weeping. And I did not stop weeping. If you know me, you know I am not a cryer. I am emotionally repressed. And damn proud of it. Enneagram 3 here. And yet, the Lord gave me such a gentle and sweet invitation to grieve. I am grieving the loss of what I thought was, what I “signed up for.” I am grieving what was. I am grieving my team, my friends, the transition, the loss of my pastors, etc, etc, etc. This season has been so difficult. And God said, it’s good to feel this. Let it all come up. Cry it out with me. Feel it all with me. Let me be with you in this pain. My spiritual director says that repressed sadness, pain, and anger lead us to F— up our lives and I get that. Yes, he says cuss words. #sorrynotsorry

So, I let it all come up. There was grief I thought I had processed that I hadn’t. There was grief that had not been safe to feel yet. It All. Came. Up. And I got to sit with wise trusted people in this. I was able to confess, to repent, to forgive, and to heal.

So as I sit and process here, this chorus rings in my body, in my very soul:

“Let all things rise and bless Your name

All things made right and new again

O Lord our God, Your goodness Is free and boundless

Is reaching endless through it all..”

I have listened to this 100 times at this point and I still can’t get through it without coming undone. I think it’s because I absolutely banking on the promise that All things are being made right and new again. In you and in me. In us and in our brokenness. In our churches and in our communities. IN all the pain, the suffering, the abuse, the un-reasonable-ness of life, in all of it. That somehow, God is still making all things new.

Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.

This is our Hope.