Jon Huckins

I wasn’t really interested in taking a job at Mount Hermon. Jan and I had just stepped away from institutional Christianity after leaving our Youth Pastor post and were fully enjoying living out the church in the everyday. A freedom and connection we have never experienced as a couple or in our connection with God. We were very grateful for our past experiences/relationships that were formed from our past church contexts, but quite content with living out a new reality. After a couple emails from respected friends who thought the Staff Pastor position at Mount Hermon would be a good fit, I dragged myself (more or less to appease my friends and my curiosity) into an interview that changed everything.

It was MUCH more a conversation than an interview, between myself and would-be boss Danny Wallen. After a couple hours of mutual sharing, there was very little doubt that I would be spending my summer in this role. With the role revolving around teaching and shepherding of the summer staff, I couldn’t have imagined a better fit. Little did I know that the highlight would soon become the lifelong relationships that Janny and I have been able to establish.

We have been blown away by the transparency and shared stages of life that we have encountered. I can honestly say that it was one of the last places I would expect to come into connection with so many Jesus followers who were/are asking hard questions about what it looks like to live out the church. As is often the case, Janny and I feel as though the mutual sharing of our stories, between us as the rest of the staff, has done more “ministering” to us than we have “ministered” to them.

It is now coming to the end of summer and the farewells are bearing down on us, but it is with more anticipation at what God is doing than in reflection of what He has done. We are sad and excited to see one of our closest couple friends, Jesse and Katie Rice(check out his new book! http://www.amazon.com/Church-Facebook-Generation-Redefining-Community/dp/1434765342/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1249685122&sr=8-1) move up to Portland, but their VERY similar story to ours has been incredible to share in this summer.

I have alot more to write (mainly because I am so bad at updating this thing), but I will stop for now and put in some pics from the past few weeks of Huckins’ festivity!

Our Family in Capitola

My Good Buddy Allen and I Conquered the Mighty Wharf to Wharf

Some of the Mount Hermon Staff at our Dirty Convicts game on the Boardwalk

I’ve never loved the wedding idea. I mean, I wasn’t anti-wedding or anything, but never did I count down the days towards the next ceremony. As seems to be a common occurrence at this stage of our lives, Janny and I have been involved in a bunch of weddings this summer. In fact, I have even had the opportunity to officiate a friends’ wedding this summer and am in the same role in another one in a couple weeks. With nuptials surrounding me like like the Redwoods I was sitting under on Monday, I can’t help but feel a little love for the wedding.

Our wedding was sweet. Sweet like cool or killer or fun. Probably sweet like cotton candy too, but I don’t really like cotton candy. It was a big ol’ lunker of a party. Unfortunately there wasn’t any tasty brews on tap(other than punch), but it was a good time. I remember standing at the front of the aisle waiting for my bride to come towards me. I’m not much of a crier(I’m trying to get better at that!), but I was sobbing my eyes out. At first reflection, I think it was because I was so overwhelmed with love for Janny(or just ALOT of sexual tension). The more I think about it, I believe I WAS overwhelmed with love for Janny…as I still am today. But I was also overwhelmed by the love and support of all the people that were there. We are in our fifth year for marriage now and I realize more than ever that those folks weren’t just there to partner with us in our wedding ceremony. They were acknowledging their partnership with us in our marriage…in the everyday, for the rest of our days.

That’s what a wedding is right? It is a celebration not of one day, but of all the dynamic days ahead. It makes the wedding celebration alot more sweet when approached with this mentality. I love partnering with my friends in their marriage like I have had the opportunity to do lately. It is the celebration of selflessness, oneness, friendship, etc…So, instead of getting bummed out about how much money we spend on weddings and how much time/energy goes into them, I am loving just jumping in and celebrating all that is going on. There is something sacred and I would be missing out if I wasn’t aware of that.

Cheers!!

I have had a lot going on in the past month or so. Much of it has been really great stuff that has involved quality community, new experiences/locations and just a little bit of chaos. With that said, I haven’t had much motivation to write(blog) for some reason…Maybe so much to process I didn’t know where to start.

In the past month I was able to go to a family reunion in Kentucky, celebrate my birthday with the fam, go to Janny’s graduation in Connecticut, walk the streets of Boston, go down to the San Luis Obispo area to spend some time with my family and spend lots of time in contemplation under the cover of our Santa Cruz Redwoods. Here are a few pics:

In the midst of all the travel, I finished up my time teaching science at the local middle school and started in my Staff Pastor position at Mt. Hermon. The jobs overlapped for about a week, which was absolutely nutso, but both employers offered alot of grace. I am now about a month into my position at Mt. Hermon and both Janny and I are embracing/being embraced by some quality community. I will have some more coming on that soon.

For now, while this travel and different work contexts can be exhausting at times, I am finding that these dynamics/settings are some of the most real and rich for me to experience God. I am wired to see God most clearly when I am in the humble posture of a student, which is the posture that is required of me in travel and transition. I want to work through and live out that realization some more…hmmm.

More than any other time in my life, I get asked the question, “What are you doing these days.” I don’t blame anyone that asks that question, because in large part, I have intentionally fallen off the grid of most of my past involvements. I am no longer a youth pastor, Janny and I moved up to Santa Cruz, we don’t “attend” a church, etc…With that being said, I thought I would offer a bit of a personal update for anyone who may be interested.

As you may know based on previous posts and/or personal conversations, I have been trying to move forward in a posture of humility and awareness of my God designed soul more than ever before. Hard to quantify what that may look like and their isn’t much language to describe its details, but I think that’s what I’m finding makes it so divine. I am beginning to discover what contexts burn the heck out of me and lead towards oppression/depression and am being open to ones that seem more in line with how/what I was created be.

I committed this Spring semester to be a living experiment. I have left the “known” for the “unknown” to some degree. After resigning from Harbor Chapel in January, I had opportunity to jump into other Youth Pastor positions that probably would have afforded me more security in terms of finances and reputation, but I knew that it was not the spot for me at this stage of my life. Instead, I committed the semester to being a substitute teacher and high school golf coach, while at the same time applying for local non-profit jobs in Santa Cruz that might fit my interests. My good friend and LONG time sub, Steve Boutry, offered the profound insight that “substitute teaching is like earning a Master’s Degree in human nature.” Well put. It is NOT glamorous, often inconsistent and when people ask what I’m doing it isn’t rare to be looked at like I’ve gone off the deep end.

A couple months into teaching the different class everyday gig, I was offered a Long Term position teaching 7/8th grade science at a local Middle School until the end of the school year. Although science is by far my weakest subject, I figured for the sake of getting the most accurate data for my experiment, I had better take it(like my scientific language??). It has been terrible, awesome, overwhelming and incredibly insightful all at once. Not to my surprise, I enjoy the lunch break conversations with the kids that wander into my class WAY more than the discipline, grading and parent stuff that frequents most elements of the position. I also took on the Head Golf coach position at a local high school this spring. It was a great experience as a whole, other than the REALLY long days and endless driving. I built some solid relationships and we actually played much better than expected.

As this phase of the experiment comes to a close, I’m fairly certain it has served its purpose as giving me a realistic look at the life of a public school teacher. It is a great place to live out the church and invite others towards God’s story through my life, but I’m not sure whether it is the context I’m going to commit to 100% at this point.

While somewhat hesitant at first, I am now very excited about my next “experiment.” I was recently offered and have now accepted the position of Summer Staff Pastor at Mt. Hermon this summer. I had already committed to speak a couple weeks up there as I have done in recent years, but will now be on as a full time staff through the end of the summer months. I am a pastor to the staff and will be doing almost 100% the things I am most passionate about; teaching and shepherding/listening/counseling. While hesitant to get back into an “institutional” setting, I have found my responsibilities won’t involve what has disenchanted me so much in the past. Of course, it will be a challenge at times, but I am hopeful it will be healing and that I will be an active participant in living out and inviting others towards a life lived in the Kingdom. We will see!

I listen to alot of Giants games. That being said, I love this time of year when I can listen to a ballgame just about everyday if I am able. As I listen, I find myself often getting the catchy marketing slogans that are inserted between innings or a pitching change stuck in my head. Some are for Autozone, Speedy Oil Change and Tune-Up, Midas, etc…I was driving down Ocean St. here in Santa Cruz the other day and saw a sign in front of a Midas for an oil change for $19.95. Not a bad bargain and of course having heard the “Midas Touch” jingle a few times, I was inclined to check it out(don’t I sound like a pawn of corporate marketing!). I went in about 9am this morning assuming it would be a quick one. No no no no…hour and half later I finally got out of there.

I am always intrigued by the magazines/newspapers sitting in these type waiting rooms. I started with the newspaper. One article caught my eye. It was discussing some recent U.S. religious statistics. This was the main point of the article and the stats: over the course of the average “religious” person’s life in America, they change religions and/or denominations at an incredibly high rate. It specifically talked about the rate at which protestants “walked away” from their inherited religion. The main reason, their stats argued, was not due to science disproving the reality of God, but the judgmental/hypocritical examples they had seen and experienced within Christianity. And for a variety of other reasons, they had become disenchanted by this version of Christianity. Interesting article.

My oil change was over the 1 hour point by now and I continued to peruse the magazine options. Between a few on Brad and Jenn locking eye’s on some red carpet, I saw a magazine with the bold headline, “How Jesus Can Save Your Career.” I was hooked, so I picked it up and had a read. This article described a growing trend of church goers whose main goal in attending was learning how a faith in Jesus could bring about financial wealth and security in a time of economic downturn. I can understand these people’s fear and I can also understand the desire to cure the fear by putting my faith in something bigger than myself. Here is the kicker…the article continues by telling of this “wealthy, Prius driving” demographic going to a church where the “rock star” pastor takes the stage holding a staff with a money symbol adorning the top. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure the pastor said some great things and it sounds like he did reference some good resources, but to me the “money” conversation needs to be elevated to a higher level if we are to truly follow/model the teachings of our Savior, Jesus. Rather than preaching a model of strategic accumulation of money that leads to comfort and sustained excess in this time of economic downturn, shouldn’t we more closely be looking at/living out Jesus teachings of giving away our possessions and self sacrifice for the good of others?

Maybe this disconnect between Jesus teachings and our “church” teachings has something to do with this disenchantment from those that have at some point aligned themselves with Christianity. If for no one else, I know this realization proves to be a challenge for me. Does my life preach strategic financial accumulation or obedient giving and self sacrifice? I have along way to go…