Diaz Year in Review

This year has been an epic year of adventure. I don't think we'll fully appreciate and understand for many years the tectonic plate shifts that took place in our lives this year. In 1 Samuel 7:12, a priest and judge named Samuel, raised an Ebenezer. It says,

"Samuel took a large stone and placed it between the towns of Mizpah and Jeshanah. He named it Ebenezer—”the stone of help”—for he said, “Up to this point the Lord has helped us!” —1 Samuel 7:12, NLT

That stone wasn't magical but it served as a symbol, a reminder for the people. That Ebenezer represented a fresh beginning for God’s people. It also said something important about God: his mercies are everlasting; his covenant is forever.

We've had that kind of year where fresh beginnings were prominent and God's mercies were needed new every morning. Therefore, in a valiant effort to raise an Ebenezer for 2014, here is our year in review.

A YEAR OF TRAVEL.

Our family literally began 2014 on the sugar-sandy beaches of the Dominican Republic with 30+ of the Getz family. Once again, my uber generous Granny and Gramps swept us all away to spend 7-days in Paradise. Paradise was only slightly twarted by the virus of the century when all but 3 of us got massively sick...on the way home. To this day, Addise lovingly refers to that trip and airplanes as "when we all puked so many times". Yes, baby girl. That's what happened.

Three weeks after we got home from Paradise/Puke-fest, Brian and I headed to Hawaii for a week-long work/birthday celebration trip. Rough start to 2014, right?!? After a few days in Kona learning from YWAM global leaders, we took a quick jaunt over to Maui to celebrate Brian's 35th birthday. We stayed in the lap of luxury and enjoyed our first extended time away together since becoming parents. Thanks, Mom, for making it possible!

In April my man and I got to take another trip to New Orleans where I officiated a most spectacular wedding of a southern belle and a South African at a plantation. It was a most beautiful picture of love and reconciliation.

In May we took a quick trip to San Diego to spend a couple days with Brian's sister's family. We finally got to meet her hubby and 2.5 year old kiddo. Super great.

Of course Brian took his annual trip to mecca - aka Comicon - with a 150,000 of his closest friends. How my introverted husband loves this is so beyond me, but I love that he gets his nerd tank filled every July.

In August the Diaz Cinco took a 2-week, 3,000 mile road trip up Pacific Coast Highway (breathtaking views!) to San Francisco, up to Albany, OR, to Seattle, WA, to Vancouver, Canada, back to Albany, back to Monterey, CA. All along the way we spent time with dear friends and a mentor. It was an epic way to decompress from our recent ministry transition and get uninterrupted time with one another. Our kids LOVED the road trip and we soaked in the sights and ate spectacularly at the best spots along the way.

In Brian's words, "all the vacations were pretty great, the rest was pretty much hard." Truth.

A YEAR OF TRANSFORMATION.

This year our one and only girl, Addise, turned 4, then our "baby", Asher turned 2, and our first born, Judah, turned 6. That's just impossible. They are growing in every way beyond our ability to catch it all. Nearly 4 years into being a family, we felt like this year we moved past survival mode and realized "we're gonna make it" ... and enjoy it a bit along the way. Judah and Addise LOVE preschool and we are crazy grateful for their school, teachers, and classmates. We've found quite the little community there as they partner with us in raising our kiddos to become all God created them to be and do in this world.

In March Judah asked Jesus in his heart on Good Friday while driving in our minivan to the park to play with friends. What a reminder that total transformation is still possible in the most ordinary of places. This little boy has simple childlike faith and exudes Jesus' love.

Perhaps one of my most significant transformations this year was completing my first half marathonin L.A. with Team World Vision.What it did for me physically was powerful, but what it taught me about my mental, emotional and spiritual capacities still astounds me. And running with Team World Vision expanded my great love for our brothers and sisters in Malawi. I literally sobbed in the last 250 yards as I ran into the finish line with Brian pushing our three kiddos. (Hey! I'm running again this year and would love your support. $50 provides 1 person clean water for life!)

June 30th marked the end of a decade long journey for us at Newsong. The transition was a painful and intense because of the depth of love we have for the people we've walked through life with. That community became our family and walked with us through the lowest and highest moments of our life. We are forever grateful even in the midst of loss.

The Summer was dubbed the "summer to remember"! And it was all about reconnection, healing, recovery, and recalibration for what's next for our family. I read books and listened to endless talks on transition, leadership, and spiritual formation in mass proportion. It went entirely too fast and was exactly what our family needed.

Asher potty trained himself on a Tuesday afternoon in September. (He's a total third child.) I'm not kidding. Bless him! We are diaper free and pretty much loving it.

Brian got Lasik. Addise and I got glasses. Whatever.

I traveled 17 times in the Fall while Brian valiantly held down the fort keeping 3 kids alive and working his part-time job whenever he could get a spare minute. My greatest joy was the ability to work with remarkable churches and youth workers from all over the country. Brian's greatest joy was me coming home after every trip ... and knowing that one of us is almost always caring for our little ones. I'm also pretty excited that I earned a new airline status to make travel a little easier in 2015.

Seriously, though, it's not the easiest of things to move from a 17-year local church / pastoral vocation into the world of independent contracting. I'm really grateful for the work I've done this year with Slingshot Group, The Youth Cartel, and Fuller Youth Institute - and the myriad of other churches and leaders I was able to serve and (hopefully) strengthen for their mission. It's been really transformative to see great people doing great work in a variety of great ways.

A YEAR OF CHALLENGES.

Change always means loss, but it can also meet a longing. Most definitely leaving a 10-year job that I loved was filled with loss for us but it also opened us to a myriad of opportunities we never would've dreamed of a year ago. The challenge of letting go allowed us to cling more to our God and each other, while opening ourselves to new, undiscovered dreams and longings. We are challenging ourselves daily with living those dreams and taking risks to become all we are meant to be. 2015 will present a new set of challenges, but we are stronger now than we were a year ago and we are ready!

While on vacation in August, Addise and I were in a car accident with our dearest friends, Emily and Erin. Getting rear-ended lead us to massive pain, 30+ chiropractor visits over 3.5 months. It wasn't until mid-December that we really recovered. Chronic pain is no joke. We're grateful for great treatment (yay Dr. Dave!) and healing (yay God!).

Raising three little people challenges us daily. Brian and my conversations are often lamenting, confessing, processing, and questioning how we can raise them better. Going from zero to three kids in 15-months has pushed us heart and soul. We finish our days exhausted and grateful for the grace to be their mom and dad. We desperately depend on new mercies every morning.

In whatever state this Ebenezer-of-a-letter finds you in, we wish you a Merry Christmas and the Happiest of 2015. And when you find yourself in unhappy moments, may the JOY Jesus came to bring meet you there, too.

Here's to all kinds of adventures in 2015!

Much Love...

photo by emily bell

Thoughts on Being a Woman in Leadership

Not long ago, I was asked by friends, Steven Johnson and Mark Jackson, to do a podcast with them on being a woman in ministry. I jumped at the opportunity :)

You can listen to past episodes or subscribe to The Youth, Family, and Church podcast HERE.

A Lament - What's Happened Since

It's been a month since I posted "A Lament for Women in Leadership". I don't think I was prepared for the rush of response from readers around the world. And I wasn't prepared for the deluge of emotions I've experienced these past 30-plus days. Anger. Sadness. Grief. Frustration. Brokenness. Fierceness. Humility. Love. Tender-heartedness. Bewilderment. Tenacity. I've experienced it all for myself and half the body of Christ. I've wanted to write an "update" on this lament for a couple of weeks but due process was required to do it well. In the past month, I've had multiple conversations with LifeWay's Director of Communications (Marty King), the publisher, Tyndale House, and the author, Mark Oestreicher.  I've literally spent several hours on the phone between them all and engaged in a couple dozen emails. With every point of contact it's required me to step back, process, and pray through the "news" each conversation brought.

So - what happened?

FACT 1. LifeWay Christian Bookstores did not reject the lament. In fact, LifeWay never saw the lament. They hardly even carried or promoted the product (which, in fact, is The Way - a great Bible for 16-30 year olds). Therefore, LifeWay was never “adamant” that it be “removed” (my words).

Therefore, I would like to publicly ask forgiveness from LifeWay for blaming them for this decision to remove the lament from The Way. I privately asked for (and received) forgiveness from LifeWay's Marty King. But it was important to me given the nature of the response to do so publicly. Of course, I did not know of this inaccuracy before I wrote my post. In fact, I was told on two different occasions by Tyndale that it was LifeWay who made this decision. However, the damage was done publicly and I want to do my part to repair that with LifeWay.

LifeWay was also clear they did not wish to harm Tyndale's reputation and didn't want to throw them under the bus in the process.

I invited LifeWay to share a statement here, but their decision was that it wouldn't "be productive" to add anything to this post. I will honor their decision. I did share with them that I thought it would be helpful for people to know what LifeWay stood for regarding the roles of women. They follow the theological guidelines of the Southern Baptist Convention. The end of those guidelines includes a statement about "The Family":

The husband and wife are of equal worth before God, since both are created in God's image. The marriage relationship models the way God relates to His people. A husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. He has the God-given responsibility to provide for, to protect, and to lead his family. A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. She, being in the image of God as is her husband and thus equal to him, has the God-given responsibility to respect her husband and to serve as his helper in managing the household and nurturing the next generation.

Clearly, I strongly disagree with their understanding of Scripture and practical interpretation. I find it so interesting, maybe even hopeful (?!?), that LifeWay's book publisher, B&H Publishing has a woman as their President, Selma Wilson. Recently, Christianity Today shared an interview by Ed Stetzer, one of LifeWay’s vice president, about her role and leadership in the company. How I wish there could be a reconciling of leadership in a major organization and spiritual leadership within the church!

FACT 2. Tyndale independently decided to remove the lament from The Way Bible. In two phone conversations with Tyndale's Senior VP, Doug Knox, he said "Tyndale decided not to publish this piece for their own reasons...because it didn’t fit in the product, not because they don’t believe in women in leadership." He also said that decision was made in part because of their longstanding, working relationship with LifeWay. They know what buyers will purchase and not purchase based on their theological positions and historical buying power, which was one of the factor's for the lament being pulled. Still, Doug told me this week that "It's a mystery to me as to why that occurred” and there are "no records of communications or memory as to what happened with that piece." In fairness, this decision happened nearly 18 months ago and they made loads of publishing decisions every week. In frustration, this doesn't satisfy me and speaks precisely to the lament I wrote.

I believe that while what Tyndale did was terribly disappointing and hurtful, it was also a result of a pattern that LifeWay has shown to publishers in terms of what they'll carry and not carry. In this case, about women in leadership. I asked LifeWay's Marty King about their guidelines for carrying product, and told me "one of the primary factors, not surprisingly, is what our buyers believe our customers want, need and would be well-served by.  I'm sure a large part of that determination is what has sold well in the past and what customers are requesting."

I also shared this post with Tyndale's Doug Knox and provided him an opportunity to comment. He responded,

"Tyndale should have accurately and clearly communicated the reason for not including April’s article in The Way Bible in communication to our outside General Editor. The inaccurate Tyndale communication was passed along to April and lead to her original post which is now being corrected.  I am grateful for the dialog that has taken place and for the opportunity to make this statement."

What have I learned?

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. (Matthew 5:9) There were many moments and days where I wanted to recklessly post, tweet, comment, and stoke this burning fire. Not wise. And yet, the gentleness of the Holy Spirit reminded me that LifeWay and Marty King and Tyndale and Doug Knox and everyone who was a part of this fiasco are children of God. And they are my brothers in Christ. In fact, before a nerve-wracking conversation with Marty King, I googled his name so I could see his picture. I wanted him to become human. Not corporate. I wanted to have an honest, challenging, lively conversation with my brother in Christ, not my "nemesis". Looking at his picture as we talked for 40+ minutes, allowed the conversation to be human, respectful, fair, and loving. Though Marty and I carry radically different beliefs about gender roles and spiritual leadership, he's still my brother.

The Truth will set you free. I was committed to the truth from the very first post. I wanted the truth more than an inflammatory blog post and new twitter followers. I wanted to get to the bottom of this injustice to see what really happened. That's why a follow-up took me 4+ weeks. The freedom I have today is a result of that commitment. Does it still hurt me? Yes. Do I believe what happened was wrong? Yes. But there's freedom in my spirit because I've honored my brothers and discovered the truth.

Reconciliation and redemption are at the heart of the Gospel. From my first conversation to my last with Tyndale and LifeWay, I told them I desired to move the conversation forward. I stated and re-stated my desire for us to be reconciled and clean with one another. It's been messy. It's resulted in miscommunication and really difficult conversations, but I believe the Kingdom is a little more on earth now by how we related to each other and where we are today. The Kingdom is "not yet" fully here but it's a little more here today. I pray for more!

One redemptive aspect of this difficult experience was sharing with my friend, Jeff Caliguire, about my vision and hope for my kids' future. Here's a brief video conversation we had a few weeks ago. I hope you can hear my heart as I talk about my legacy.

Love covers a multitude of sins. I do believe there was sin smattered throughout this process, including my own. But was I kept beckoned back to "the greatest of all is love" (1 Corinthians 13). Whenever humility and love was active in these conversations, Jesus was pleased and we gained a little of our humanity and God-like image back. Love will never fail us.

The internet is a terrible place to have these conversations, yet it's a start. The world-wide web is a crazy place. When relationship and humanity are replaced with pithy 140 character tweets or uncensored blog comments, the Kingdom doesn't advance. Though, this conversation and some of the publishing and book sale shortfalls would not have been addressed. There is great power in what's shared over our social media spaces. I hope as followers of Jesus Christ that we'll do so responsibly, ethically, with integrity, care, and love.

We will have a battle of equality to fight. And it's worth it. Period. We're talking about half of the body of Christ! Let's bring about some change in our commitments, our purchasing power, our words ... and our prayers.

As I close my eyes tonight...

May the conversation about equality move forward. May we remember that although we may staunchly disagree, we are brothers and sisters. May we be peacemakers so we can inherit something greater than a won argument. May we be willing to say "I'm sorry. I was wrong. Will you forgive me? How can I make it right?" when we've wronged someone. May we be emphatically committed to unity and reconciliation, even if it produces more conflict and heartache. May we be people of love who call out the best in each other, regardless of our gender. Amen.