Full circle

Today was my birthday and Gunner's birthday. It has been always a great day of bonding for the two of us. I still am psyched that I got a son (first child) on my birthday 7 years ago, which will forever be the best gift ever. He now can understand fully that we share a day together and the high fives are great. A moment you are stoked on because its cool to have something special between you and your son, whether a handshake, a nickname, a favorite place to ear. Gunner had a big day yesterday cruising the National History Museum with all of his closest buddies for his birthday party. This place is his default answer for "What do you want to do today?" So if I dont want to go downtown I have to phrase the question on those days "What do you want to do, around the house today?" So they watched the 3D movie Dinosaurs alive and took over the museum. Suprisingly the gemstones exhibit was a huge hit with the 7 yo male demographic.
Today was Sunday, so we did a typical Sunday routine. with 5 kids nothing planned was planned for my birthday as its easier to parallel park in NYC than to plan around two napping kids and a tired wife. But this was not a typical Sunday, it was an painful Sunday. Today was the announcement that our good friend, my mentor, and pastor, Clay Stokes was getting let go from Gracepoint. His daughter is a great friend and has babysat our kids for over a year. I would meet with Clay in the morning with other men to mature in our faith. He had shown me more about being a Christ follower than any other person. He opened his home up to our family and our friends. He shared his life with us and there was no doubt he followed the will of God and loved the people in his life. He was let go for the reason of church growth and the lead pastor deciding that more growth was needed and Clay would not be part of the equation, "that his strengths were not a good fit for the church" Whatever that means. It was evidently clear, as our lead pastor was speaking, that the decision to dump Clay was not founded in love or Christ but in numbers and in programs. IT is crazy that the man who helped decide that Clay was deficient in some skill set to lead more programs preached on how Gods power is made more amazing in weakness. Should Clay have had some weakness unfit for their vision, wouldnt praying about Gods ability to help Clay out be reasonable to tryout first. Given this is a Christian church. Nope, he was blindsided by this news and was shuffled out of the church by a few people on the board and who lead the church. So we cried with Clay and prayed with Clay today. The church poured out their hearts to him as they placed their hands on him at the front of the church. The lead pastor could only stand on stage and watch the pain that was caused by this decision. As a close friend of Clays, I wept, feeling like I was at the funeral of living person. Knowing he would be seperated from this church because of this and that the possibilities of being lead by him were, hopefully for the short time, extinguished. I felt for him, to have to go through the feeling of rejection, the feeling of "what to do next?", and sadness over leaving things he created. I do love the Stokes and pray for strength through this. They have supported us through helping with our children, giving guidance, and being great friends. They do not deserve this. I find comfort only in the concept that God has a plan and even this bad situation will bear some fruit in the Stokes' lives. This day will change our Sundays from now on as we will leave this church and head out to find a place run out of love and not administrative decisions.

After a this unreal event, we headed to Gunners choice of lunch, the elegant, worldly IHOP. The result of this was a great meal and Donica coming to the realization that IHOP, aint that bad.

Finally, we cruised over to Sage park where the Bergstroms arranged a get together with all the people from the church we are friends with and the Stokes.

We had pizza at home and all the kids went to bed easily.

Ahhh.

For all who called and sent cards, thank you. Im sorry I didnt talk to everyone today but its friggin hard with 5 kids to get a second to be on the phone.

Much love to all.