So Oral Roberts died this week.

Was he a charlatan or a prophet? An agent of healing or a master scam artist?

Or somewhere in between?

It seems so many high profile Christian leaders have, at best, mixed legacies.

I'm currently reading Kevin Roose's memoir, The Unlikely Disciple, an irreverent yet insightful account of what happens when an English major from Brown University (the most liberal of the Ivies) spends a semster incognito at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University in Virginia.

Most interesting? Despite his best efforts, Roose finds himself liking parts of Jerry Falwell the man and Falwell the pastor.

So what is Falwell's legacy? Blowhard or braveheart? Manipulator of the masses or pastor to his flock?

Or somewhere in between?

Back in the fall of 1986, I read a breezy biography of Robert Schuller and was moved to consider seminary as a result. Robert Schuller? Really? His theology has always been somewhat thin, and over the last few years he's done some nutty things like getting in a fistfight on an airplane and firing his own son.

What is his legacy? Innovative pastor or pseudo-Christian talk show host? Positive thinker or positively looney?

Or somewhere in between?

Mixed legacies are all around us. The boldest leaders seem to have the deepest flaws.

Perhaps in considering the imprint of the high profile, we do well to think about our own mixed legacies.

Pastors who don't appear on TV still leave legacies that are a mixture of courage and selfishness, of faith and fear.

Because it's not just the famous and infamous whose flaws lie just below the surface.

It's the never famous as well. Like you and me.

On the edges of every document you produce in Microsoft Word, you select the margins. Both on the sides of the page and on the top & bottom.

The wider the margins, obviously, the more space you have on the page. The smaller the margins, the more the page is crammed with words.

Most of us live lives of small margins and lots of "words." That translates into schedules that are overly full and budgets that are overly stretched.

It's the same with churches.

Over the last few years, I've been learning to have a life and lead a church with larger margins and more space.

It means we don't schedule heavily during summer months -- building margin into the life of the church.

It means we budget in such a way that we minimize debt and maximize saving -- building margin into the life of the church. We are so blessed in that we could borrow a lot more than we do.

It means we only undertake only those ministries we know we can do consistently and well -- building margin into the lives of the staff.

It means I now know that I don't have to work three nights a week or more -- building margin into my own life.

It means paying ahead on our mortgage every month as we are able -- building margin into the life of our family.

So what is the "page" of your life like? Crammed to the edges? Or taking that occasional rest from having wide open spaces?

Build some margin into life and ministry.