Holding Off The Wolf Within

Scripture warns us Beware of those who appear in sheep's clothing, but who inwardly are ravenous wolves.

"Hey sweetie, Father P has sent us a letter asking for our support."

My wife handed me a fancy and well-done appeal letter.

The heading said "Church of the Advent" in bold, red lettering.

Father P, Wheaton Graduate, Denver Seminary Graduate, and pastoral assistant to the priest-in-charge at our former AMIA parish church felt called to plant a new AMIA church in the downtown Denver Baker neighborhood.

Strike that. He felt called to plant a new church and 19 additional churches.

He called it 20 churches by 2020.

20 Anglican "Almost Orthodox" churches.

That last is an editorial comment.

Additionally, Fr. P. wrote that he felt called to mentor six additional people to do the same thing.

Since our time at the AMIA parish, he had become a full-fledged Anglican priest.

I wondered if one of these future churches would end up in my hometown of Parker.

My dream, of course, was planting a Western Rite Eastern Orthodox Church in Parker. Or to see it planted. It's harder to plant a church when you aren't a priest.

And the "my dream" part was an issue. Was this God's dream or just "my dream?"

This was the perennial question.

As an Orthodox Reader, I reasoned that perhaps as a lowest ranking member of the Priestly order, I might still take a shot at it.

I thought to myself "When it comes down to it, how different are these Anglicans from us Western Rite Orthodox besides our icons and incense?

I answered my own question: "They have a much bigger heart for evangelism and church planting."

"Oh, and they really don't have a sense of the wisdom of our monastics. But other than that . . ." I mused.

"Wheaton college. Now THAT'S where I should have gone to school. Attending a Christian college in the conservative midwest instead of in loopy Southern California."

I dove into the letter. If I had been a rainbow trout, the letter would have been a juicy fly in season and I would have swallowed the hook as well as the bait.

Fr. P started off with a popular Saint Irenaeus quote: The Glory of God is a human being fully alive.

Okay, of course he was using gender inclusive language here for the sake of marketing purposes.

Know your audience, I guess.

I knew the quote really said: The Glory of God is Man Fully Alive.

It was the John Eldredge / Saint Irenaus quote all over again.

And I knew the rest of the quote which most fail to add when they use it.

And the Glory of Man is the Vision of God.

The Vision of God. Something we Eastern Orthodox are supposed to excel at. Why do people always leave that harder part of the quote out?

Again perhaps for marketing purposes. Pehaps they figure they can deliver the harder news of the second half of the Saint Irenaus quote later down the line.

After the trout swallows the fly AND the hook.

Anyway I felt immediately wistful and envious.

I tried to calm myself down with a Fr. Stephen Freeman quote.

"The blessings that others experience are not at our expense."

Unlike me, Fr. P had remained in the AMIA, become a full-fledged priest (which had always been my own dream), and now he was going out to "captain his own."

I, in the meantime would remain an Orthodox Lay Reader, Acolyte and Adult Sunday School Teacher.

Fr. P was going to plant a church in a downtown neighborhood where one of our Western Rite Orthodox churches was already present.

It would probably grow to 300 people, too, like our former AMIA parish. And Saint Augustines would probably remain stuck around 100 people, just scraping by.

However, I comforted myself with the thought that Saint A's would continue to have their beautiful and historic Orthodox temple with beautiful Christian artwork, icons, stained glass, music and a pipe organ. Church of the Advent would probably start off in rented space, have a worship band, overhead projector and bare, white walls.

But my thoughts returned to my own situation.

Here I was, working in a corporate shipping department. Again.

Don't get me wrong. It's a blessing to have a job at all in this tough economy where the unemployment rate is hovering near 10%.

But still . . .

This wasn't the only example of someone else doing "full time ministry" that came my way in the Summer and early Fall of 2010.

Our neighboring family down the street was raising funds for a Youth for Christ Mission to Cyprus, which is a predominately Eastern Orthodox country.

This young couple were invited by my wife Dianna to come on over to dinner to give us their appeal for support.

Their children and our children attend the local chapter of AWANA at Fellowship Community Church.

I said to myself: "Okay God. Here are TWO people working in full-time Christian service while I continue to need to work full-time for the guaranteed money."

Fr. P said he felt prompted to plant a church by seeing a horse of all things. And by reading his appeal letter, I just knew he was being strongly influenced by one of my idols: John Eldredge.

John Eldredge. Another person working in full-time ministry. We were now up to three examples of men doing what I wish I could be doing.

While Fr. P said he was inspired by a horse, I felt like a donkey.

I understood completely where he and the Youth for Christ were coming from, however.

Our neighbor felt called to bring non-Christians and nominal Orthodox Christians to a deep commitment to and relationship with Jesus Christ. Fr. P felt called to plant a new church in a downtown neighborhood where in the words of his appeal letter "the existing churches are in decline both numerically and financially"

And here we continued to be, at Saint Mark's Antiochian Orthodox Church, drinking deeply at the deep and wonderful fountain of Western Rite Holy Orthodoxy, yet witnesses to our own backwardness in some areas where the evangelicals seemed to have us totally licked.

We pledged our financial support to both men and I taught an Adult Sunday School Class on the necessity of doing effective Eastern Orthodox evangelism.

My parish priest was a bit taken aback. "I hear you don't think we're doing a good enough job with evangelism." He said in response to the Sunday School class.

My answer? "I'm just afraid our competiton is going to snap up all the potential converts."

I could have answered more honestly:

"Hell yes we're doing a miserable job of evangelism!! We're getting our asses kicked by the AMIA and Youth for Christ for crying out loud!! And in TWO countries, for heaven's sake!!"

Lord have mercy.

At least there's the new Orthodox Evangelism tool called The Way, modeled after the highly successful Alpha program. I could have focused on this positive.

But there was a deeper issue in my life to look at.

I was seeking to fill the empty places in my heart with religious activities.

Was this a good thing to do or a bad thing to do? Even if I was, did this mean I should go "cold turkey" and cease and desist, or should I go ahead anyway and seek to do these good works?

I came to the conclusion that I should continue to do as many good works as I could. But I also concluded I needed to see my spiritual father / confessor as well.

It was time to go back to my Greek Orthodox Father Confessor, Fr. Lou for the sacrament of Holy Confession and Penance.

I came to the conclusion that I needed to combat the "ravenous wolf" of selfish needs that continued to dog my every step.

Didn't the Holy Scripture itself warn Christians to beware of those who come disguised in sheeps clothing, but who inside are ravenous wolves?

The solution seemed to be to find a balance between the impulse to be busy for God and doing so from inner emptiness.

How could I continue to be busy for God and at the same time try to consciously do it for unselfish reasons?

The answer came to me:

Try to intentionally put yourself and your thoughts entirely out of the picture and focus on others while in the midst of doing good works and constructive things.

Get your mind out of the gutter of selfishness.

Perhaps this way I would be putting aside the ravenous wolf inside and truly be on my way to being a lamb of God in imitation of The Lamb of God.

I thought back to my recent Facebook activities.

My mistakes with former classmates I had contacted.

Trying to do good with sin right there with me.

Where was this persistant sin coming from?

This was indeed my problem:

Doing anything good while still thinking and feeling about myself.

This was indeed an answer, and it was all about intentional focus.

Like the Orthodox discipline of Nepsis, you put yourself out of your mind when you seek to help others.

Focus exclusively on the other persons of God and your neighbor.

This may seem totally obvious, but it's harder to do than you might think.

Only with this proper focus is it possible to freely do good works from your deep heart.

Good works paired with self-centeredness are merely the sound of clanging cymbals.

There is a balance to be found:. Don't give up in despair and fail to do good works because you are naturally self-centered.

Instead do any good works, forgetting about yourself completely while in the process of carrying them out.

And be sure to run doubtful things past your spiritual father first.

Go away, wolf! Beat it!

Blessings in the Holy Trinity, One God