Tyler is 29 years old. He works at Willow Creek Community Church, where he oversees 28 section leaders for the Saturday evening service. A section leader’s role is to pastor the people within their seating section. Tyler’s job is to invest in and support these section leaders, so they may invest in others. The average attendance of the service is 3,500 people. So indirectly, this young man’s role impacts 3,500 people on a weekly basis. As a part of his job, Tyler also mentors some interns and is leading the mentoring ministry for 20-somethings at the church. As a volunteer, he leads a support group, through XXX Church, for men struggling with porn addictions.
Tyler’s Story:
“In 2014, my wife and I left our family and friends in Las Vegas and moved to Chicago. Among those left behind were multiple mentors that spoke into different areas of my life. Derek helped guide me through the start of my ministry career. Scott helped prepare me for my wedding day and marriage. Kurt spoke into my relationship with God and leadership. Now, transplanted into a new city with no job, few connections, and wrestling with the adjustment of living away from family for the first time, I needed a mentor more than ever.
“Finding a solid mentor you connect with is easier said than done. It would take over a year and a half before my friend Scotty told me about the guy who mentors him and the impact it’s had on his life. As I prepared to meet with this same person, I had ready a handful of areas in my life that I knew I wanted guidance and training in: confidence, anxiety, boundaries, various family of origin issues, and engaging crucial conversations. The more we met, the more I could see that mentoring wasn’t just giving me a greater skill set, it was healing something that was core and central to my being.
“I received Jesus as Lord and Savior when I was a child, but I would say I was first truly impacted and transformed by his grace at the age of 21. Facing the realities of a porn addiction, I hit the lowest point of my life. I felt ugly, distraught, and most of all, broken. Regardless of this, Jesus sought after me, met me where I was, and assured me of his forgiveness for all that I had done. That encounter with him changed me forever.
“I rode the Christian high for quite a while, becoming ultra-disciplined in spiritual practices. Eventually though, the high faded and the spiritual practices became harder to maintain.
“A condemning voice began to grow louder and more frequent within me as I struggled for weeks, then months, then years to consistently maintain the zeal I once had. By the time we moved to Chicago, this voice had shamed me so much over my Christian performance level that I could only pray a sentence or two before I felt it was too inadequate and would quit. I still had my faith but I was losing my joy. As I continued to spiral downward, I began to grow angrier and angrier towards Jesus.
“It was less than a year ago in a group exercise that I got a clear picture of how far away this spiraling had taken me from the intimacy I’m meant to have with Jesus. The exercise described God’s mighty purpose and redemption for the world as a grand river flowing throughout all of history. With pen and paper in hand, the leader asked us to draw where we see ourselves in relation to this river. Are you swimming with the current? Against it? Neither of those fit for me. I drew a grand river across the page but I couldn’t in good conscience put myself in the water. I really didn’t want any part of that. Instead, I drew a small shore and positioned myself a safe distance back from the river’s edge, sitting on the side, catching my breath, and debating whether I wanted to get back into a river that felt so life draining. At that moment, I couldn’t tell the difference between swimming with or against the current – both felt like hard and un-enjoyable work. I was burnt out on religion, so I sat off to the side and just watched it go by.
“A realization such as this can be frowned upon in some Christian settings. Nevertheless, I had to get honest about it with someone, so I took it to my mentor. It was in the meetings with him that we began to peel back the reasons behind all the exhaustion, shame, numbness, and anger towards Jesus. At the core of me, I had a broken (or at least fractured) identity. I wanted to know I was loved, valued, noticed, worthwhile, and much more. What I had been feeling though was a love based off of performance, one that the condemning voice would chime in on whenever I was not living up to par.
“In unpacking this, you might think my mentor must have poured out years of wisdom to me as he pointed out critical mistakes I was making. Instead, he listened – without condemnation. He reassured me I’m loved by God and him – no shaming. He guided me to find my own resolution – no fixing. In this space I was able to eventually see that the condemning voice was not coming from Jesus, but rather, this condemning voice came from sources I had been unaware of: Perfectionism, Moralism, Self-Righteousness, People-Pleasing, Fear-of-Failure, Fear-of-Success, Unrealistic-Expectations, Bearing-the-Responsibilities-of-Others, Bearing-the-Responsibilities-for-What-Only-God-Can-Do, and Boundarylessness.
“As more and more of this came into focus I realized that the animosity I was projecting onto Jesus was really my own pain. He wasn’t inflicting it upon me. Rather, I came in touch again with a Jesus who was still going to the cross for me even while he bore the burden of my misplaced anger. That’s the Jesus I had met 7 years earlier. That’s the Jesus I love. When I could see that, it freed me to focus on the right steps to take going forward. As I’ve continued to work through the issues, the condemning voice in me has gotten quieter and quieter while the presence of Jesus has gotten clearer and clearer.
“I’ve met with Randy for about a year now. It’s not been since I was in an addiction recovery program that I have experienced this amount of personal growth. For a long time I lost the confidence to let my voice be heard; now I’m speaking up and even being asked to speak up more often and to more people. I’d seen difficult conversations with others mostly as relationship breakers; now they have become the bridge by which I create stronger relationships. I saw my Christian life as being mostly about what I did for God; now I experience the richness of being with God that fuels and informs my doing for Him. Lastly, I loved far too often out of obligation. Now, I notice that my love is more authentic. It comes from a deeper place. That has been my greatest joy. The only explanation I have for it is that it must not be me, but rather Jesus loving through me.” – Tyler Norman
This Isn’t Possible Without You:
Tyler has a growing passion for mentoring and multiplication – investing in people who will invest in others, who will then invest in others, and so on. With an emphasis on multiplication, this ministry has a huge (or Yuge, per our future President) and on-going bang for your buck.
This year, we invested one-on-one in 34 individuals. Because of the multiplication effect, we also indirectly invested in all the people each of these 34 individuals will invest in, both now and in the future, and the people those people will invest in, and so on. This model of ministry is far-reaching and effective.
Please parter with me so together we may invest in even more young difference makers like Tyler, who are impacting many lives and who are doing vital kingdom work, like helping people overcome addictions in their lives and developing leaders who allow Jesus to love through them to bring even more redemption to our wounded world. This fruitful and loving ministry isn’t possible without you.
Contributions are tax-deductible.
In His Love,
Randy
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