daveingland.com

Less clutter. Less noise.

// February 3rd, 2009 // Dave (personal)

Sound familiar? Yeah, I jacked this from Kem Meyer, queen of social media. Hers is one of the first blogs I ever started following about 2 years ago. Kem is the communications director of Granger Community Church and her blog is actually titled “Less Clutter. Less Noise.”

Well, it took me two years, but I’m just finally now reflecting on those words and how they fit within my life. For me, it’s not about noise. I’m surrounded by noise constantly. Same with clutter. I have adapted to it as a part of life. To me, there is noise in the silence. It becomes deafening at times!

Put me in a fast-paced environment with an unreasonable deadline and watch me work. I thrive on it and feel so purposeful at those times. Chaos and deadlines cause me to respond intuitively & instinctively and lets me activate a part of my brain that sees through all the clutter and noise to find the efficiencies and the voice to get things accomplished. Put me in a quiet room and ask me to just create or work or occupy my time and my idle mind goes crazy. It is in the silence where the noise is the loudest.

I do have my moments when I need to retreat into the stillness and refresh myself through disengaging and shutting down to find some peace and solace, but they are rare times in my past. However, now in pastoral ministry I find the opposite to be true. I am not doing enough to get myself into chaotic environments and strive to get things done. This is part of my struggle with getting back into being more social. I don’t crave the social aspect of needing people in my space, but I crave what happens people come together on task to get something done and they need some direction and someone to rally them together to be purposeful.

This is the place I am striving to get to and once there, I know it’s non-stop & full steam ahead for doing the ministry of the Lord to those far away from him here in Sacramento. The vision God has given me has become bigger than my current environment will allow and it’s a clear sign that we must forge ahead and get on with the work of church planting.

I’m coming back into my element and getting ready for some big change. For me, to bring on the clutter & bring on the noise means seeing less clutter & less noise. I’m not sure another human being in this world can really relate to what I just wrote, but if you’re out there, I’d appreciate hearing from you :)