The Almost Perfect Church: Chapter 3- The Making of a Jesus Freak

(This is Chapter 3. Click Here to begin at Chapter 1)

I was God’s instrument to birth this church and there is nothing I want more than to see it prosper, “to see my children walking in the truth.”  I desperately desire to be able to know that I have left behind a living church and not a dying church.  I poured 20 years of energy, prayer and life into that goal and this is my last chance to influence TA’s legacy.  It is a legacy which I believe has been compromised and threatened by well-meaning leaders who have based their vision for TA more on a desire “to be like the nations (i.e. churches) around us” than to fulfill the vision laid out for the church in the New Testament.  This is not because they are bad people but because they simply had some serious blindspots in their own visions of what a church should be and do.

From the beginning, my oft stated goal was that TA would NOT simply be another church like all the other churches but would seek to be a radically Theo-centric church, breaking out of cultural straitjackets and constantly seeking to approach God’s ideal.  To explain what I mean by that, and to understand how it made TA what it was, and why a loss of that vision lead to the crisis that resulted in my departure, I need to go back to our roots, both the church’s roots and my own personal spiritual roots, for it was out of these that TA was born.

My Background

I was raised in a nominally Christian home. As families go ours was much better than some and not as good as others.  In high school in the late 60s I became aware of the “Jesus Movement” (aka “Jesus Freaks”) and thought, based on my minimal exposure to the Gospels, “If Jesus really is who He claimed to be, then these radical Jesus people are the true Christians and I should be like them.  But if it isn’t true, then I should just reject the whole church scene and live my life honestly as an atheist or agnostic.”

I went away to college and, true to my quest, sought out churches and Christian groups to try to discover what was or wasn’t true and real.  Many of these proved to be, by most measures, better churches and better religions than what I had grown up with, but I wasn’t looking for religion or church, I was looking for God.  I met a group of Christian students who gathered on campus once a week and who appeared to be the real deal: genuinely loving, committed to the truth, and radically committed to authentically following Jesus whatever the cost.  This is what I had sought and though it took awhile for the Lord to break down my resistance and come to a place of full surrender, eventually the "Hound of Heaven" proved to be more than up to the task!  When I finally yielded to the Lord the group leader’s first words to me were, “Great.  Meet me tomorrow afternoon and we’ll go witnessing on campus.”

That last sentence needs to be highlighted because it is a crucial part of my spiritual formation, an underlying assumption about following Jesus, that shaped and shapes all of my subsequent Christian walk and ministry.  In many ways it encapsulates what distinguished my new understanding of truly following Jesus from the tepid religiosity in which I was raised.  But it will also become crucial to this story because I did not realize that the lay elders I was working with at TA did not share this type of formative experience and thus it was not part of their spiritual DNA the way it was of mine.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

It is also important to our story to understand that my initial exposure to the Gospel included in-depth discipleship training in all aspects of the Christian life, hundreds of Bible memory verses, a conviction that following Jesus was an absolutely radical all-encompassing life (not just a compartment or something to be fitted into “real life”), and a fully-internalized understanding that sharing the Good News with others with a view to their salvation was a lifestyle commitment that lies at the very heart of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.  Much of this background was not part of the elders’ backgrounds either and because I assumed that these biographical components formed a bigger part of who they were than they actually did I failed to train and disciple them in a way that would have enabled them to make decisions about the church’s ministry on the same basis that I made them.

Those convictions have abided in me ever since and were absolutely instrumental in envisioning, launching and leading TA. Anyone who doesn’t passionately share a commitment to these core beliefs and practices (and sadly, many evangelical church-goers today do not) will not understand what makes me tick and will probably eventually become frustrated by my stubbornness in holding to these convictions without compromise.

Added to this personal history was a belief that grew out of my Bible reading and seminary training that the local church was central to God’s plan and purposes on earth and must be ordered and ruled by the Bible in order to prosper.

Once more for emphasis: I do not hold any of these specific convictions as opinions but as rock-solid core beliefs, values and practices, worth uncompromising defense even if it should cost me everything to do so.

When I was converted, the change in my life was so radical that soon many of my roommates and friends were turning to Jesus and a mini-revival broke out on campus as the group doubled in size each year that I was there.

Soon I felt called to prepare for full-time ministry.  After marrying Jeanie I went to Western Seminary for three years and earned a Master of Divinity.  Later I pursued post-graduate studies at Talbot and Gordon-Conwell Seminaries.  My original plan upon graduating from Western was to serve overseas because that was where the real “action” was in terms of Kingdom growth.  From Portland we moved to Long Beach to serve an apprenticeship as inner-city missionaries among various ethnic groups.

After a couple of years there I realized that I was not yet mature enough in the Lord to deal with the challenges with which I was being confronted daily (I was the second youngest graduate in my seminary class and still relatively young in the Lord).  One day, totally out of the blue, God tapped me on the shoulder and told me to get out of full-time ministry, find a job, grow up some more, and await further instructions.

I was absolutely devastated but the Voice was so clear and unmistakable that I had no choice but to obey. After another year in school I ended up in Redding working (of all things) as a tax auditor.  We had three pre-schoolers, one old car, and lived in a fire-trap of an ancient rickety 800 square foot mobile home out in the boonies.  We got involved at Neighborhood Church, our first exposure to the Christian and Missionary Alliance.

I had a wonderful wife and three fantastic daughters but other than that I kept wondering how my life had gone so wrong.  But just as Moses, Paul and others (even Jesus) had their years of “wilderness waiting” before being launched into the special calling God had for them, so we too waited and trusted.  And served.

We launched a “young marrieds” ministry at Neighborhood Church and, like the ministry in college, it too doubled in size each year.  I was working (now as a financial investigator for the California Department of Justice) 40+ hours a week and as an unpaid lay-pastor to 20… 40… 80… 160 young adults 20+ hours a week.  God blessed us and the people we ministered to and I began to sense that the time to re-enter full-time ministry was getting close.

But how?  We had a strong sense of calling to Redding and a belief that God wanted me to pastor a church. How could this be?

After a decade of (not-so-patient) waiting followed by a series of seemingly impossible-to-overcome challenges, it finally started to come together when Neighborhood Church decided to plant a new church in town and called me to be its pastor.

Click Here for Chapter 4: Vision and Mission

The Almost Perfect Church: Chapter 2- Why This? Why Now?

This will be a very long and not always pleasant story, and some will probably become angry at me for telling it.  But it needs telling, events that have been covered up need to be aired out honestly and openly so that we can all learn and grow and hopefully avoid repeating the same tragic outcomes.  The biblical directives concerning confession and repentance, followed by forgiveness and reconciliation, apply to human relationships as well as to our relationship with God.  The biblical model was not applied in this situation, but it isn’t too late to make that right.  And TA isn’t the only church which needs to go through this process.  People at TA frequently told me that they admired my passion and fearlessness to speak uncomfortable truths.  As you will see, I haven’t changed.

My goals are edification and healing but a few wounds will have to be painfully lanced before we get there. 

Specific Reasons for Writing:

1. After 20 years of serving TA, during which I repeatedly said publicly that I planned to stay “forever”, you all deserve an honest explanation.
2. 
   One of the reasons our personal pain has lasted as long as it has is because there has never been reconciliation between ourselves and those whose actions resulted in our leaving.  Many of them (and their spouses) were our closest friends and we often long to call them and laugh and share together but it is impossible to do so with so many unresolved (and up to now) unmentionable issues between us.       The biblical way is not to sweep these differences under the rug and put on smiles and pretend.  The biblical way is to speak the truth in love, to take full responsibility for the consequences of our personal failures and to do whatever authentic repentance requires us to do. And we must honestly tell others when they have offended, hurt or disappointed us and pursue mutual understanding and forgiveness.  We should not expect our interpretations of events to ever reach perfect 100% agreement but we should pursue a genuine reconciliation based on speaking the truth in love and not mimic the world’s strategies of avoidance and pretending that things are OK when they are not. Until we have made our best efforts to do so (we are not responsible if others refuse to cooperate) we are to abstain from the Lord’s Table, so important to Christ is reconciliation and peace-making in His Church.
3. 
   At this point I have already, repeatedly, both in writing and face-to-face expressed to the elders the wrongs I felt they committed against me.  I cannot say that I ever felt they heard me, nor did they respond (as will be seen) but there should be nothing in this document that they have not heard from me before.  I have repeatedly apologized for any specific offenses I have been made aware of.  No specific explanation or defense or apology has ever been offered to Jeanie or I. 
   When I was fired, the message was delivered to me by the District Superintendent, none of the elders were present (nor did any subsequently comment on it) and when I asked what the DS said I had done to deserve this, the only answer I got was- “Nothing specific, just a lot of little things.”
   
   For my part, though I did communicate with the lay elders, I did so in a time of unbearable stress, sleepness nights, unprecedented pain and, as a result, an emotional breakdown.  My letters to them cried out in pain, but were also accusatory.  Once I completely broke down, after the September 2009 attack by two board members in that meeting, I was not an easy person to deal with or reason with.
   
4. 
   Honest evaluation and discussion (and, hopefully, reconciliation) is, if anything, even more important for the future of Trinity Alliance than it is for Mark and Jeanie.  Unresolved conflicts and spiritual toxins do not cease to  be detrimental to the life of a church simply because they are swept out of sight and never mentioned.
   
   Some of you came from family systems that operated this way.  There were a lot of “no-talk” rules, a lot of dirty laundry that was never mentioned, never dealt with. If someone did try to talk about it, then that person was viewed as the problem.
   
   I was the founding pastor of TA and for 20 years poured my LIFE into it. At age 56 I was dumped – we were torn from our closest friends and family, left in a  virtually unemployable state (unless Jeanie quit her job and we moved) during the worst economy of our lifetimes.  Our friends, our family, our future, our financial well-being, our ministry and passions- all were ripped from us suddenly, without explanation or process.
   
   If the elders continue to feel that I deserved the treatment that I received, that I was the cause of TA’s problems and that removing me, whatever the cost, was the best solution, then they should explain their reasoning to us and to the church.  The way they treated the founding pastor becomes a permanent part of the ethos and culture of TA and will manifest itself in many ways including how the current and future pastors are treated.
   
5. TA has a new pastor now. While this letter will stir up some dirt that had been hidden under the rugs and furniture and thus make his ministry temporarily more challenging; it is best to deal with it now so that he and TA can move forward.  I’m still in Redding and even if I didn’t write this I can no longer, for personal or biblical reasons, engage in a cover-up of this incident.  It is better to get it all out at once than for it to trickle out over the months and years as people still at TA ask me questions about my leaving.  It’s time to do surgery, remove the cancer cells and then move on rather than to just ignore their presence as long as the symptoms appear minor.
   
6. 
   Finally, I do believe that God has many years of fruitful ministry and service ahead for me and I am very excited about the future but in order to move forward I need to get my reputation back.
   
   People in and out of TA know that I was the founding pastor. They saw me on TV or heard about my ministry from others or experienced it for themselves.  They knew of my commitment to stay “forever.”
   
   Then suddenly I was out.  No credible explanation was offered.  I didn’t want any more trouble and was emotionally wasted so I kept my mouth shut and was vague and elusive when asked.  The elders wanted as little to be revealed as possible.
   Everyone knew we were covering up the real reason, whatever it was.
   A. Either the board had treated me very badly and I had simply chosen to “fall on my sword” OR
   B. I had done something very bad and the board agreed to keep it hushed up if I would just agree to leave quietly.
   There really aren’t any other believable options why my time at TA came to an end as abruptly and mysteriously as it did.  Almost anyone would assume that some variation of one of these two options must be true.
   
   It’s usually been pretty easy for me to tell which option people believe just by the way they treat me.  Those who suspect I was treated badly seek me out and offer a listening ear and emotional support and encouragement.  They tell me stories of how they or pastors they know were treated similarly.  If you have been one of these people I cannot begin to tell you how much you have blessed me and kept me from despair.  Thank-you!
   
   Unfortunately a lot of other people, in and out of TA, have treated me the way you would treat someone you thought you knew but who had been accused of some awful or perverted deed.  They don’t think I’d do anything disqualifying but neither do the elders who fired me seem to be evil or mean people so they can’t seem to rule out that maybe I DID have some secret sin that was found out.  They don’t seek me out, don’t encourage me to share any details of what happened (they don’t want to put us both in an awkward spot) and often avert their eyes, break off conversation quickly and generally keep a distance. At times I feel like a leper.
   
   Did the elders catch me with a stash of porn, or in an inappropriate relationship, or stealing from the church coffers?  Many people treat me now the same way I would treat an old friend if I heard that they had been accused of some terrible sin and I really couldn’t believe it, but…
   As you can imagine, this has been a horrible burden to bear.  And the truth is this: There was NO scandalous or secret sin that lead to my sudden dismissal.  The elders will confirm this and they all have my permission to tell you everything about why they did what they did.   Elders: if for any reason any of you feel like you need to keep quiet about what happened “to protect Mark”, please don’t!  It isn’t helping.  I was there- there is nothing true you can say about me that is as bad as the rumors caused by your silence.
7. 
   Why was I fired?  No one ever told me. In the pages that follow I will offer my own best understanding of the situation as I have worked it out in my mind over the last couple of years.  But the elders have never stated their reasons, to me or to anyone else that I know of.  If you ask them, and they do give you a credible non-evasive answer, I would really appreciate it if you would let me know what they said to you.  No one has ever explained it to me.

Well, I’ve probably already exhausted your patience and all I’ve done is explain why I’m writing.  I haven’t even started my story yet!  If you are still with me, let’s summarize and move forward.  I have stated the reasons why I am writing and distributing this to you:

1. You deserve an explanation from me.
2. I hope this will be a catalyst for true reconciliation.
1. For my sake and Jeanie’s sake.
2. For Trinity Alliance’s sake.
3. The issues at the heart of the matter are the most important issues facing all churches and believers in these last days.

In the remaining chapters I will cover:

1. Background (a brief history of my ministry at TA prior to the crisis).
2. Unresolved tensions that lead to the crisis.
3. How everything (including me) unraveled (September 2009- January 2010).
4. Where I failed.
5. Where I believe others failed.
6. What I believe needs to be done now.
7. Where I believe God is leading me from here.

That’s a lot to cover but I want for this to be a comprehensive report of all that has happened and perhaps even something of a manifesto by TA’s founding pastor.  God chose to give the vision for this church to me and to use me as the leader through whom He brought that vision to reality and gave it flesh.  It exists today and grew for nearly  two decades as a great church because of that vision and I believe today as strongly as I believed 20 years ago that TA must hold to the core principles of its original vision and calling if it wishes to survive and thrive.  You may agree or disagree, but time will clearly tell if I am right or wrong.

Click Here for Chapter 3.

"The Almost Perfect Church: How It Happened and What Happened to It" chapter 1

“There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed”
“Speaking the truth in love we are to grow up in all ways unto Him”

Although my dismissal from Trinity Alliance was shrouded in silence, I am fully convinced that the time for secrecy is over. Not all agree. As I share my story in the days to come, I will also share my reasons for insisting on openness and transparency by all. As the full tale comes out, I believe it will prove to be very helpful for pastors, active church members and lay leaders in many churches today and tomorrow.

My tone may be contentious, but, contrary to some accusations, contentiousness does not have to be evidence of anger or bitterness. I was bitter for well over a year after leaving, God healed me of that during two weeks in Alaska in July 2011, thanks in large part to the prayers of our hosts Bill & Edie Riesinger. I will still express strong disagreements with the elders, both individually and corporately. I believe they were wrong both in their understanding of the church and of the role of the pastor. But I do not believe that they were insincere or mean-spirited. I believe they were misguided, that they had blindspots that lead them to a wrong course of action. And ultimately, I believe that this is my fault for not identifying these blindspots and doing a better job of mentoring and discipling these leaders over the years. I foolishly assumed way too much and as result failed to develop my leaders as I should have. They may have some guilt before God for not grasping certain key principles that are clearly and emphatically taught in the Bible (cf Luke 16:31) but I should have known better than to assume that they grasped the New Testament’s teaching and emphases to the same degree as someone like myself with 5 years of seminary training. I should have taught them better. More than anything else, the crisis that ensued was due to my own failures in leadership development. In the end, if they did not sufficiently grasp the biblical teachings about the church and what those imply about the role of the pastor, that is not only their fault but mine as well. 

Nevertheless this is not a story about good guy vs bad guys but a tale about a group of sincere Jesus-followers who, each and every one of us, in various ways bungled our stewardship of the charge God laid upon us as leaders of His church. I will omit names in case this circulates beyond TA. Many will still be able to identify who I am referring to, that is unavoidable. These are all good people, I admire each of them, have been blessed by their friendship in the past and wish that we were still friends. This just makes what happened all the more painful. I will be frank about my perceptions of where I believe they erred. I will judge their behavior where I think it was wrong. I do not judge any of their hearts as significantly worse (or better) than my own. As we will see, the mistakes that were made were primarily made because we all have blindspots and it was largely a failure to fully and humbly compensate for that fact that lead to the costly mistakes documented in this story. I hope that this will lead to true reconciliation. For that to happen both sides will have to acknowledge the mistakes that were made.

 “As far as is possible, be at peace with all men.” Reconciliation may not be possible. I have some core convictions which I can and will not compromise. Those who disagree or deny these convictions will find that a division remains between us. The division may run between many at TA, even between spouses. Jesus warned that His teachings, if genuinely lived out, would bring a measure of division that would cause problems even in families and churches. Martin Luther divided the Church, though he would have preferred a different outcome. AB Simpson found himself divided from his church’s leaders and forced into a position where he must either compromise his convictions about evangelism and the church’s mission or resign. The Christian and Missionary Alliance grew out of the aftermath of that division.

After leaving TA I wanted to write a letter to friends, family and congregation about why I am no longer the pastor of TA, the church that we, by the grace of God and with the help of many friends, planted in Redding in 1991 after a year of planning and preparation and many more years of praying and dreaming on my part. I always believed it to be the main work in life I was called to by God and expected to be there “forever”. For a long time I was simply too emotionally devastated to write that letter. Deep sorrow and pain, especially when inflicted by those we considered dear friends and colleagues, easily morphs into anger. But with sufficient time God can transform even this type of suffering into emotions other than anger. Jesus, after all, was a man of suffering and sorrows, acquainted with grief, betrayed and let down by his closest friends. It has taken almost this long for my emotions to heal to a point where I would dare to attempt to confront the issues head on. For a long time my main desire was to avoid any situation where I would feel like once again I was the guy "with a target on his back".

Today I feel a deep peace and confidence about facing everything and everyone involved. Yet even now we still experience sleepless nights and I sometimes find my wife weeping over what happened. She deeply misses her friends and feels like they have largely avoided her but she also knows that even when she is with them she has not been free to talk to them about what really happened and the emotional turmoil it caused her. In the midst of the crisis she went to the Board on her own initiative and with tears begged them to reconsider what they were doing.  They didn't respond to her then or ever. Even today she, the best Christian and happiest person I know, struggles to forgive them.  At least if she was offered some word of explanation, it would have been easier for her to deal with. Then, at her time of deepest need, she was effectively banned from talking about it lest she be seen as the person who created a firestorm by saying things that the leadership wanted unsaid. In the Bible, the harshest form of punishment given to the Church for dealing with unrepentant sinners is shunning- cutting them off from the fellowship of others in their congregation. This was imposed, in effect, on Jeanie, though all knew that she did no wrong. We now understand why shunning was such an effective punishment as we have fully experienced the pain of isolation.

But my goal here will not be to vent or justify, but to minister and bless. The lessons of this story can and should serve to teach and prepare church members, board members and pastors for the challenges they too will face. The people in this story were all good people who meant well. The church got off to a great start and had a great run. But that was not enough. Our blindspots brought us down. I pray that others may learn from our story and, by God’s grace, do better.

Click here for Chapter Two.

Facebook, si.

Sorry Faithful blog-readers but I just can't seem to do both Facebook and the blog. I may post stuff here occasionally, but mostly on FB. I like it because I get a lot more feedback, it's more of a conversation than I'd get from the blog. Hope you'll join me there!

Marin Headlands!

On top of Mt Tam, SF over my left ear.

Hiking above Sausalito.

Our accomodations.

I spent three days at the Marin Headlands Hostel (great place and cheap!) just north of the Golden Gate Bridge with Mrs Runalong. One day was really windy but we still had great hikes and drives around Muir Woods, Mt Tam, Muir Beach, Stinson Beach, Rodeo Beach, etc, etc.

We fixed breakfast and dinner at the Hostel and ate lunch in Sausalito. On Wednesday I ate a little kid for lunch.

Superhumanly fit and slightly deranged. Moi?

Seed Magazine:

Ann Trason, Scott Jurek, Matt Carpenter. These are the megastars of ultra-distance running... If their names are unfamiliar, it’s probably because this type of extreme running is almost universally seen as a fringe sport, the habit of the superhumanly fit, the masochistic, the slightly deranged.

Every Run is a New Adventure

Steve and I did a 3 hour run north of church that included a lot of off-trail running/hiking/probable trespassing. But we had some great views and didn't get shot! We heard shooting, and got chased off an isolated site with a shed and well by two guys in pick-up trucks full of high-quality planting soil. Ran through an abandoned vineyard/winery (Redding is probably not the best climate for that). The wildflowers were amazing, the grass was green, the snow-capped mountains glistened in the deep blue sky on a perfect - sunny but cool - spring day.

Help me identify this mysterious blonde!

I put out my camcorder and caught a little bit of her- some sort of ground squirrel? not native to Redding, CA! about 18" long, 600' elevation, diurnal, lives in a burrow. Note coloring, ears, tail. Thanks!

I'm a Runner and I Don't Get It!

My last couple runs I was surrounded by wildflowers and trees blossoming. I saw wild turkeys, two bald eagles, a great blue heron, a golden marten, deer... I enjoyed the greenery all around me and the snow-capped mountains on the horizon. I exulted in the changing seasons and in the feeling of being able to run up and down hills with pleasure.

Within a linear mile of me, thousands of people sat in front of their TV's or computers in their hermetically-sealed dwellings. They have to watch their diets (I eat as much as I want, which is a lot); and still gain weight (not me). They complain of being tired all the time and of the various aches and symptoms and conditions associated with growing older. I have lots of energy and am in the best shape of my life (going on 55). Running isn't work, it's a joy.

If I meet one of those people, and they learn that I like to run long distances almost daily, they will often look at me with something like pity and say something condescending like, "Good for you, I just don't get why anyone would choose to run like that." I think they actually feel sorry for me!

Yeah, well, I used to be a non-runner and I remember symptoms and chronic tiredness and staying cooped up because getting out was just too darned demanding and having to watch everything I ate and still adding inches to my waist and worrying about my heart and all that other stuff that was happening to my peers.

I can understand friends who say, "I wish I could run but I can't because (legit reason)" or "I prefer biking/swimming/pogo-sticking" or "I really should but it's hard to get started" (that was me for 20 years). But the ones who think that vigorous exercise would detract from their well-being and enjoyment of life?

Maybe I'm dense, but I just don't get it.

Run, Grandpa, Run!

So last Wed we got a call from our daughter in Sacramento- the baby they were seeking to adopt, which they were told would be hospitalized for three more weeks, was suddenly released to go home and surprise, I'm a grandpa. My wife headed down immediately, I planned to follow Friday. Naturally I was thinking about where and when to run while there and thought of AR50- not to enter (too late, too much time commitment), but to pace- but alas, none of my local friends were going down this year and I couldn't find an entrants' list.

Then Robert posted, at that very moment!, a request from a girl who had lost her pacer last minute and wanted a reasonable facsimile to get her through her first 50M, which she had been training very very hard for. I called her, did the interview, and got the job as the best qualified applicant out of a pool of one.

Lainie's parents, sons, husband and various others were crewing her and a friend wanted to pace her but wasn't very fast. Lainie is fast.

My sole pacing experience was for Klas Eklof at Hardrock in '06 and I didn't mess up his run but since I don't generally use pacers I wasn't totally clear on the concept. But I made some guesses and basically figured out what was expected of me- keep her on pace, eating, drinking, peeing, electrolyting, etc. Distract her if she was in pain, help her focus if she wasn't. Encourage, prod if necessary, shut up when uncertain.

She was aiming for a finish between 8 &9 hours, I did an 8:35 last time, so that seemed a good match. She told me she was really aiming for 8:20 (10mpm avg); and based on her prior results that looked like a good goal. I found her parents about 5 seconds before she reached Beal's point (I didn't know what she looked like except 32, 5'0" tall and 97#) and they pointed her out. It was about 9:50 AM, 3:50 into the race. Right smack dab on schedule.

She had been planning to run the first half at a 9:30 mpm pace (which would have got her to BP at about 10:10) and the second half at 10:30 pace but I told her that wasn't realistic at AR. (AR is 27 miles of flat pavement to BP, followed by 23M of rolling trails). With her speed she should be looking at about 3:55 to Beal's and 4:25 from Beal's to finish. So far so good.

We took off from BP and started to get acquainted. When I felt she was a little slow I told her we should stop talking and she should focus on her pace. She got back in the groove and eventually we were able to converse without her slowing down. Eventually she asked me what I do for a living and I told her and she didn't freak out.

I almost committed the unforgiveable sin when she stopped suddenly for a log across the trail- we were moving fast and I was close behind her while we chatted and when she stopped I crashed into her- she managed to get over the log OK, I smashed my shin and fell over the log and onto her foot. I feared I had twisted her ankle or caused some other dream-ending injury. It was a horrible moment. But she was OK. As soon as she got her shoe back on.

The trails were dry, the weather was perfect and it was so fun to run that section of trail faster than usual and feeling better than usual (I've run AR 4 or 5 times). Despite over 700 people in the race, it wasn't at all crowded up here with the speedy people.

Worried about her other pacer's abilities (she was going to take over at Rattlesnake- mile 42) I agreed to come down the big hill from the finish and meet her (the RD assured me it would be OK for her to have an extra pacer after Last Gasp). When I met her, about 2 miles from the finish, she was all alone, having left her pacer at the bottom of the hill.

It is amazing how easy that hill is when you haven't run 48 miles to get there. I spurred her on and she made good time to the top, passing several more runners on the way up. Lainie finished in 8:05, 10th woman overall, and she moved up from 6th to 3rd in her age group after Beal's Point and from 94th to 68th overall.

I'd like to think that this is due to the excellent pacer she had, but it probably has a lot more to do with her 100-mile training weeks. She was consistently strong and steady and really didn't need much from me. Maybe just a little on the hill. Maybe.

Still, I'm 2 for 2 as a pacer at not-screwing-things-up, and once again I had a blast. If there was a place that had ultras every week, and if I lived there, I'd be volunteering for pacing duty every time I wasn't racing. It's about as much fun as you can have for free!

I may be a grandpa, but I've still got my wheels!

Welcome Joshua!

My oldest daughter and her hub have been trying to adopt one or more special needs children. Last week they were told of a baby that would be available and Lori began visiting him in the hospital. He was born in December, three months premature. We have reason to believe his birth mother was a drug user.

He's had several operations, but appears to be doing very well. We were told he might be ready to go home in three weeks or so. Then yesterday when Lori went to visit she was told she could take him home that day! And it wasn't an April Fool's Day joke.

Surprise!

Mrs Runalong is already down there and I'm heading down to Sac tomorrow. Naturally, as long as I'm in town the day of the American River 50 I offered to pace someone during the second half of the race. And I'll be taking my sermon and taxes to work on. But that's all trivia. I can't wait to meet our boy!

Sonoma 50M report

I was treating this as a training run for my summer exploits (Three 100 milers in three months). I knew recovery time would be crucial so I've been trying to toughen myself up. Thus, two weeks after going all out at Cool, and after about 40 miles of running this week (no tapering), I wanted to go out, have a good time, finish in a reasonable time (not back of the pack) and yet hold back enough that I would be able to recover rapidly and get right back to running and training.

It appears my goals were met. I finished in the middle of the pack, took about 24 pictures, the race felt easy (most of the time, there are always some "bad" stretches), and I'm feeling pretty good Sunday evening (which is when I usually feel the worst).

I saw a bunch of friends at the start- besides race director John Medinger (publisher of UltraRunning magazine) and his assistant Stan Jensen (run100s.com) I saw Luanne Park, Suzanna Bon and Kelly Ridgway, who, among them, too, three of the top four places in the women's division. Also talked to David Wright, Chuck Wilson, Jim Winne and Tina Ure among others.

We were off at first light (before sunrise) and I hung out near the back of the pack, feeling stiff and tight as it took about four miles to warm up. Taking pics along the way, at one point I jumped up on an old log to take one from a higher angle, the log started rolling, and I rode it aways before falling off- safely and with camera intact. Lots of ooh's and ahh's from the peanut gallery (which included assistant-race-director Lisa Henson).

The course was mainly in the shade during this section with lots of rolls- up and down, up and down, never very far up or down though. The first big downhill came just before the mile 12.2 aid station. We finally got a brief flat stretch after the third aid station before our first big climb, fully exposed to the sun, a steep 600' ascent. At the top the nice views included a view of our next aid station, the turn around point, 4.8 miles away (but only about a mile as the crow flies).

To get there we had to drop about 700', then climb another steep exposed 750' hill (it was now approaching noon). In this section we saw the leaders heading back the other way. At the top of the hill we still had about a mile of steep rollers- up and down and up and down and...

I got to the turn-around at 5:23 (12:03pm) and headed back, not wanting to push too hard, but wanting to get even splits. I saw Mark Vegh midway back to the next aid station, unfortunately he just missed the cut-off at the turn-around and had to drop.

I felt really good on the return, except for the two too-steep descents. Otherwise the constant up and down felt good, run downhill a little ways, then walk up a little ways and repeat over and over and over. I thought I was making good time and I was passing lots of folks but at about 14 miles out I caught up to a woman in blue and I could not pass her. For the next three hours I followed her, chased her, always between 10 and 200 feet behind. Usually I pass people on the downhills and lose ground going up, but she pulled away from me on the downhills and I caught back up going up. Then we would crest and off she would go.

The running felt easy and the two of us passed a lot of folks and, when I saw that I wouldn't quite make even splits, helped each other make sure we at least broke 11 hours. (Her name was Monica Moore, age 35). With about 1.5M to go I started to get bonky, I hadn't been eating enough in the heat and I slowed down a little, finishing in 11:56 (5:33 return), about two minutes behind Monica. I'll blame the heat (80º in the afternoon and a lot less shade) for the slowdown. Granted, I wasn't really pushing too hard, but neither was I taking as many pictures as I had outbound. I know a lot of other runners were two or more hours slower on the return than they were going out.

I usually don't feel like eating for awhile, but I headed straight to the tamales (excellent!) and had a couple of those with rice and four seven-ups while visiting with Mark and Luanne and Monica and Suzanna (women's winner) and others as we watched some of the runners I had passed coming in. ;-)

I picked up my very cool finisher's jacket and we took off for home, stopping at Foster's Freeze for a SuperBigGulp size Caramel Malt (4 trillion calories). We got back to Redding by 11 and after preaching at two services this morning I was ready for a nap. I feel much better now though than I did after Way Too Cool. And I didn't fall!

Sonoma 50M pics

Mark Vegh is just a blur in the early morning light.


David Wright splashes along.


Ooh! Ooh! A flat section!


Run? In this heat? With these views?

I finished in 10:55, details shortly.

Sonoma 50M

I'm heading off to the Sonoma 50 miler. I'm taking it nice and easy and will be back with pics by Monday. I haven't been posting much on the blog as I've been spending more time on Facebook instead. But I'll still have race reports, etc. And totally superfluous pics of my cat.

Way Too Cool 50K

My goals were to get a 50K PR (previous PR - 5:11 at McKenzie River) or at least to get a WTC personal best (previous best at WTC- 5:18 in 2001- my first ever ultra; each of my subsequent three visits were significantly slower). My quest was made more challenging when the WTC powers decided that the course had been too short and added 1.2 or so miles to it this year to make it officially (?) 31.0.

I got my WTC record by four minutes and missed my 50K PR by four minutes. I'll be running the much easier Tehama Wildflowers 50K next month and so have a good chance of getting my PR there.

The trails were in perfect condition today, the weather was perfect and I ran a good race but the four or five big steep climbs were a little too much for me. Most of the rest of the course I was running between 9:00 and 9:30 per mile. I finished 7/36 in my age group. My friend Ron Adams from Vancouver also finished 7th in his age group.

24 year old Leor Pantilat won with a blistering 7:05 pace (3:40 total), which is absolutely astonishing to anyone who has been on this course.

As usual I struggled on the big climbs and flew down the descents. Many of them were technical, but I am pretty fearless and pass a lot of people on these downhills, folks who are much more timid (or intelligent) than I.

I remember the steep technical descent in a rutted, technical rocky section between miles 8 & 9. I was passing so many others, and going so fast that at one point I literally flew down the course.

Yes, I know what "literally" means.

I always wondered what would happen to my attitude about downhills if I ever took a big fall on a steep, rocky downhill section (my occasional falls have generally been gently with soft landings). I caught my toe on a rock while speeding down, and went airborne in full, arms-outstretched Superman mode. Unfortunately I was unable to fly all the way down past the rocks and came down in a bad place.

Fortunately, God sent an angel to protect my face, head and bony parts. My water bottle protected my left hand. My right hand doesn't look bad, but the bleeding didn't stop for about a half hour afterwards. (Unfortunately, I had just taken my gloves off). If there had been sharks, I would have been in trouble.

My lower left leg got pretty messed up. I couldn't see how much because (fortunately) I was wearing tights. I could tell that the tights were torn, the shin was scraped up and the leg was basically sound.

Fortunately no one saw me (the people I passed were still a ways behind). So I stood up, surveyed the damage, said "ouch" or something like that and did what our dads and coaches always told us (us boys, that is) to do in such a case: "shake it off". The whole thing took less than a minute and didn't bother me (though I could feel it, and the blood dripping off my hand in two places was a nuisance). I continued down the downhills fearlessly. Of course, one might argue, it really wasn't all THAT bad of a fall.

When I finished and took my tights off, it looked like you'd expect- road rash and some funny and impressive swelling.

Way Too Cool results are posted here.

Are you motivated by sex?

If so, get exercising!

I was tempted to link an article a couple days ago showing that overweight people found less pleasure in sex than folks with a more ideal Body Mass Index.

But I wasn't sure if it would come across as motivational or as, well, something else.

But today's surfing uncovered a new study showing that statins (the drugs nearly everyone over 50 seems to take to lower their cholesterol) also lead to a decrease in sexual pleasure.

Exercising helps control weight and improves your cholesterol.

Motivated yet?

Life! Affirmation! Diversity! ... oh, never mind.

I'll just copy and paste this one in full. Via James Taranto:

"Some students at Alveda King's speech Tuesday night did not expect a strictly literal interpretation of the advertised 'life affirming choices' speech," reports Central Michigan Life, student newspaper of Mount Pleasant's Central Michigan University:

The niece of Dr. Martin Luther King spoke out strongly against abortion at her "Can the Dream Survive?" presentation in Warriner Hall's Plachta Auditorium. Some students were surprised to learn that was the topic of her lecture. Several of the about 650-person audience walked out.

"I felt a little misled personally," said Flint senior Detrone Turner, who said he thought the speech was going to be about increasing diversity.

And of course the best way to increase "diversity" is by refusing to listen to anyone you disagree with.

Lassie the cat

A Bremerton Fire Department official says an elderly woman has her cat to thank for saving her life in a smoky house fire.

The woman's smoke alarm was going off as smoke billowed through the vents from her home heater but she slept through it. Her cat jumped up on the bed and pawed at her face until she woke up.

Says Fire Lt. Charlie Rinard, "If the cat hadn't woken her up, I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have made it."

We're Out of McNuggets! Call 911! (seriously)

Key Excerpts from Today's Police Log:

Told McDonald's was out of Chicken McNuggets after paying for a 10-piece, a local woman called 911.

Three times.

"I called 911 because I couldn't get a refund, and I wanted my McNuggets," Goodman told police.

"Goodman maintained the attitude 'this is an emergency, my McNuggets are an emergency,'" the report states.

Goodman's 10-piece selection has 460 calories and 29 grams of fat.

When I was a boy...

So you don't believe that when I was a boy I had to walk 5 miles through the snow and broken glass uphill both ways to a one-room unheated schoolhouse?

Here's proof:

Today kids want Wiis and Gameboys and stuff for their birthdays.

When I was a boy, this was cutting edge toy-dom:

Physical Fitness + Nature Time = Smart & Steady

I'll bet this also applies to middle-age adults and senior citizens:

Last month, Harvard researchers reported in The Journal of School Health that the more physical fitness tests children passed, the better they did on academic tests. The study, of 1,800 middle school students, suggests that children can benefit academically from physical activity during gym class and recess.

A small study of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder last year found that walks outdoors appeared to improve scores on tests of attention and concentration. Notably, children who took walks in natural settings did better than those who walked in urban areas, according to the report, published online in August in The Journal of Attention Disorders. The researchers found that a dose of nature worked as well as a dose of medication to improve concentration, or even better.

20,000 miles! Woo-hoo!

That's like running to the moon and back 0.04 times!

(see my running stats in the right hand column).

A Touchy-Feely Running Story

So, Saturday morning Ted, Steve, Mark and I took off for a little 23 mile run (that was my sales pitch anyway). Steve said he could only go part way, claiming that he had a life or something. We ran over the river (on an ancient dilapidated footbridge) and through the woods, down to the Sundial Bridge (where Steve turned back), up to the Fisherman's trail by Keswick Dam and headed back home by (mostly) another way.

On the return to Sundial we left Mark where Steve had left us as Ted and I planned to run up the Water Tower Hill and Mark was, after 20 miles, pretty much out of gas. Mark believes that running should be painful and involve lots of suffering and that therefore, training is cheating. He just takes off on long runs and races with minimum preparation and somehow remains cheerful as he slows down more and more with each passing mile. By the time we left him he was in the gear that Ted accurately named, "Glacial".

No one has seen Mark since.

Ted stuck with me up the hill and up a few more hills until, at mile 23 (about 2 miles short of the finish) he dug way down deep and found... nothing. Bonk! I left him behind as well, ignoring the little naggy internal voice of conscience humming "He ain't heavy, he's your brother...", and pressed on.

As I past Mark's house, with Ted's car out front, I thought of good buddy Ted, crawling back on all fours through the mud and broken glass and I reached into my pockets to see if I had some memento I could leave on his car as a token of affection and penance. But alas, I had no Hallmark card, no money, no trinkets or fancy gifts in my pockets for Ted. But I took everything I found there, EVERYTHING I had, and I left it all for him, on his windshield. I held nothing back.

Isn't that the truth, Ted?

For all you moms!

Trillions of dollars!

The federal government is spending money so fast, trillions and trillions of new spending and bailouts, that a billion dollars is beginning to sound like pocket change. Granted, a dollar isn't a lot of money, but then a minute isn't a lot of time either... yet the New Testament is barely a billion minutes old.

In Me I Trust

God is opposed to the proud and gives grace to the humble. So it isn't surprising that the world's top expert on Top Experts says that the most trustworthy experts are the most humble. Hubris and arrogance goeth before the fall. Sometimes it takes awhile, but an inability to be self-critical is always a ticking time bomb. This interview is about financial experts, but applies to all of us:

How can we nonexperts test our own hunches?

Listen to yourself talk to yourself. If you're being swept away with enthusiasm for some particular course of action, take a deep breath and ask: Can I see anything wrong with this? And if you can't, start worrying; you are about to go over a cliff.

David After the Dentist

"Is this real life?"

Busted!

Why do men run ultras?

Two words: Childbirth Envy

Here's proof!

A Most Wonderful Rant

National Pastors Convention- 1

So far, so good. The first worship band, Ashton Hill, was OK, but seemed pretty generic to me. The current band, Sons of Korah (pic), have set the psalms to music and are absolutely phenomenal.



Highlights: This morning's message by Rob Bell on the need for pastors to forgive. To really, really forgive. If we want to survive. It was good to know that the various criticisms and such I get are pretty much par for the course; yeah, I partly deserve them but at least I'm not getting it any worse than anyone else. The downside is, that means it will never go away! And that's why practicing real forgiveness is so important. I'm pretty good at that, but I can slip into feeling sorry for myself or getting too down on myself. Thanks, Rob!

Yesterday's seminar by Larry Osborne on "Sticky Church" was about retaining the people you already have. Well, that was the topic, and it was about that, but mostly it was about strategic ministry through small groups and I got lots and lots of good insights and ideas.

I stopped at the Apple Store next door and it was the slowest I've ever seen it there. The Apple guy, when he found out I was a pastor, hung around and talked with me about faith and church for about 15 minutes.

Apple might be feeling the recession but, to my surprise, the Conference attendance is quite a bit up from last year's.

Competition is better than Monopoly

I'm heading to the National Pastors Convention (I won a free registration). Meanwhile, here's wisdom from Thomas Sowell:

Human beings are going to make mistakes, whether in the market or in the government. The difference is that survival in the market requires recognizing mistakes and changing course before you go bankrupt. But survival in politics requires denying mistakes and sticking with the policies you advocated, while blaming others for the bad results.

Rainbow Run

Today in San Diego County. More pics on my facebook page.

Today's Amazing Athlete

This one's a little different, but just as awesome: