I understand Mike Shanahan a little bit better...

Today, I have better understanding of Mike Shanahan, the long-time head coach of the Denver Broncos, who got fired after Denver lost their final three games this season.

I just got fired, too.

It is all framed nicely and professionally. But after 20 1/2 years with what is now the Pacific Southwest Mennonite Conference -- 2 years as Southwest Mennonite Conference youth minister, 6 1/2 years as a Conference executive secretary and staff secretary for the West Coast integration process, 11 years as the regional conference minister for Southern California, and what will end up being one final year serving the entire conference as conference minister, it comes down to this: the PSMC Board of Directors has decided to make a change.

They want a conference minister who is more relational, and less edgy.

Let me say right now, here and now, for the record: I have served the PSMC at the pleasure of the Board, and until June 30, 2009, I will continue to serve. I completely agree that it is the Board's prerogative to fire and hire at will. I accept, without question, their right to fire me.

That doesn't mean I have to like it.

I was stunned when I heard of Coach Shanahan's firing. He and Broncos owner Pat Bowlen were close personal friends, and while I've never been a big Broncos fan (Shanahan looks too much like our outgoing President...and Denver is in the same AFC division as my beloved San Diego Chargers), I always thought there was a tacit agreement at Denver -- Shanahan and Bowlen were supposed to be joined at the hip.

Nope. They weren't.

A good friend once told me that he observed that I had four children: Beth, Jordan, the Center for Anabaptist Leadership, and the Pacific Southwest Mennonite Conference. The problem was that only Beth and Jordan were the only children capable of loving me back. That truth came ramming home on Saturday, January 10, 2009. Institutions and organizations are not communities and they are not your children and they are completely incapable of love.

Nevertheless, I do wish the PSMC well. Over my 23 years of ministry based in Southern California, my mentor and friend Allan Yoder (who also got handed his hat a couple of times) and his team of leaders (of which I was privledged to be one), and the various leadership teams with whom I have had the joy of working have done something wonderful -- we developed an analysis of our environment, built leadership teams, artculated identity, equipped for vital missional congregations, and developed grassroots institutions to support congregations in their role as God's missionary agency. The harvest of such activity is a growing, multiethnic church within Mennonite Church USA. The fact that the Conference Board was asleep at the switch for three years of internal crisis, and no meaningful governance whatsoever, meant that eventually all of us on the ministry staff were going to be in someway scapegoated and replaced. And so we all were.

So, Mike Shanahan, I understand your tears a bit better. I know you will land on your feet (and I trust in God to believe Debbie and I will as well). But it doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. Or that you agree with the decision. Or that you aren't going to feel just a bit vindicated when (not if) the stuff begins to hit the fan in the future.

I'm quite sure others have a different take on my legacy. Fine. People are entitled to their perspectives.

So, the future unfolds. As a disciple of Jesus Christ, all I can do is seek to follow Him daily in life. The path to tranquility and meaningfulness lies in the direction of discipleship, community, and peacemaking. May God find me faithful in quest...