10 years ago...
10 years ago tomorrow was the launch Sunday of a new church that some amazing friends and I (along with so much help from my wife) started. It was called Branches. We would always have quite the anniversary parties (especially the milestones) and if I was still there, I imagine our 10 year anniversary would have been a real banger.
But, I left Branches over 2 years ago.
Since it has been 10 years I figured I had to acknowledge it somehow - so here are 10 thoughts around who I was then, the experience, and who I am now. For those of you who don't give a damn about church or religion, I think these learning points are bigger than either. So don’t worry.
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10. I loved every minute of being the pastor of Branches (okay most minutes.) I always stood behind what I said and what we were trying to do. I loved how the church pushed boundaries, how people reacted, and what we were able to do.
Importantly, that’s why I quit, when I did. So that I could type what I just typed two and a half years after quitting. (My pet peeve is people saying that I was burned out. If burned out means quitting before you can say you loved every minute, fine. But to me, burned out implies you’re already not loving every minute and that’s why it bugs me.)
9. People have a very hard time understanding how you can love something so much and then leave it and be so happy without it. (This is many break-ups.) I think it’s especially hard with “church”. Does it mean everything you said was a lie? Does it mean you were faking? Does it mean none of it was real? (Again many break-ups.)
No it doesn’t mean any of that. It just means people change, and some people have the guts to change their life when they change. (Sadly many don’t.) I think the people that can’t understand how you could mean something a few years ago and not mean it now, have never experienced a radical change themselves. So if you can't understand such change, you might interpret it as a red flashing warning sign that you should change more. (The first break-up is always the hardest because we can’t understand how someone could change. And then we change and understand how. :)
8. I wish our society valued leaving things we weren’t passionate as much as it values finding a new passion. I wish it valued people quitting a job more than accepting a job. Let’s be real. It takes far more courage to quit a job that no longer does it for you than to start one that might. We should reflect that in our society. (In case it’s not obvious, religious society should really really really really really really really reflect it.)
7. I’ve always said it’s easier to start fresh than to try and change something. I still hold to it. Part of what made Branches so cool was that it was brand new. I would argue that “brand new” smell kept it going for about 5 years. It was then people started to get bored, you could see it. They started to go to the next shiny thing. It was way more work to keep people. This is way bigger than “churches”. We spend a lot of time trying to change stuff only because we’re afraid of killing stuff and then starting over. Which I understand, but I wonder if it’s better to kill things and let something new grow - which is ironically much of the Jesus story, in my opinion.
6. This is a very “Christian” one so I apologize for those of you who don’t care. But there’s this verse in the Bible that might be the most confusing and controversial verse there is: it basically says that whomever blasphemies the Holy Spirt commits the unforgivable sin - which is no small thing. I mean, that’a a giant verse and concept and it’s one that most people say - well if you’re worried about doing it, you haven’t done it. (Just to let kids sleep at night.) But I have a new take on it. Jesus said the Holy Spirit would come and teach after he left. (Again, if you’re not a Christian that sounds weird but if you think of a guru saying “hey don’t worry about learning new stuff after I’m dead, there is mystery of the Universe - the spirit of humanity and creation and learning - she’ll come and tell you more than you can imagine. Just pay attention to her.) Anyway, my take is this; if you want to start getting close to unforgivable sins, start thinking you have nothing left to learn. That’s dangerous fucking territory.
5. Speaking of Christian… Am I a Christian? It’s funny how often I hear some form of “people are wondering.. is Ryan even a Christian anymore…” from someone. Let’s put this in language we understand these days: If Christianity were a brand I’d be boycotting it. I wouldn’t support it. I wouldn’t buy from it. I wouldn’t endorse it. I think it’s a garbage brand, honestly, that stands for more atrocious things than good things and I think more people should boycott it so that it goes out of business (literally).
4. They say food takes a few weeks to leave your system. I think jobs might take a couple of years. I left that job 2 1/2 years ago and feel like it took a long time for the habits, the chemical releases, the ego, the attachments, and just the whole phase of life to leave. That stuff gets imbedded in us and it takes a lot of work to break off those crusty chunks of metal that form around our core identities so that we can find who we are, again, without that job.
3. People generally first believe what they want to believe and they make the evidence fit what they want to believe. People are incredibly susceptible to good con-men (and woman) - by the way the word con came from confidence - especially con men who are selling them something they really want to believe. In other words people are kind of stupid unless they work really hard to not be. A lot of people in a lot of churches don't work very hard to not be stupid - they just make all the evidence fit with what the con man is telling them - and that scares me more than anything. Was I ever that con-man? Probably.
2. Along those lines… there is a very fine line between you aren’t right and you aren’t right…yet… and only time will tell the difference between those two. I do know that if no one ever risks not being “right” than there is no chance of ever being right eventually. In other words, I said things that people didn’t respond too well to until years later and they’ve said to me “I guess you were right back then.” Some things they still haven't responded well to. Maybe I was wrong. Or maybe it wasn’t or still isn’t the right time, but, again, it will only be the right time if someone is wrong at some point. Every eventual right starts with a wrong. (I have no more ways to say the same thing.) Except, this isn’t about being right and wrong either - it’s about evolving the world.
1. My dad has said a few times that a “church” should just close its doors after 10 years. I couldn’t agree more. But I think it speaks to something bigger. A decade is no joke. It’s probably smart to take a good look at whatever we’ve been doing for a decade and really see if we should still be doing it. It’s probably good to give humans more options to leave things they’ve been doing for a decade than pressure to keep them in it (i.e. politicians, pastors, C.E.O.’s, etc…)
I feel like my life has kind of rolled along in 10 year chunks. Game Design. Pastor. Now. I don’t really know what now is… yet. Maybe that’s because it feels like the 10 year pastor chunk has just really ended (although it was about 12) or maybe because the next chunk is more of a not knowing chunk. Either way I’m excited about it. I hope you are excited about whatever chunk you’re in or about to be in or wrapping up.