The Tree

I'm not given to frequent visions and I don't know if what I saw even qualifies as a vision...it was more like a very short mental video clip. While I was praying I got a random image in my mind; random in that it had nothing to do with what I was praying about or thinking about.  I've learned over the years that when I see something so random that I would do well to pay attention to it.  This was one of those times.

What I saw was a large tree partially suspended above the earth but still partially attached at the root system on its right side.  The tree was large with a large spread of boughs.  The root system that was exposed showed that the roots were just as big as the system of branches.  Dirt was crumbling away from the exposed roots.

I shared this with the men that I was with at the time and admitted that I had no idea what it meant and any assumptions that I had weren't all that substantive.  I pondered what I saw for a couple of days when I sensed the Lord bring a revelation of what I was seeing.

The tree represents the church that I lead.  It was a well established tree with an extensive root system.  The exposed roots were not indicative of the health of the church but was instead an image of the present tense of what God was doing.  The dirt that was falling away showed that what was happening was currently in process.  The words "root bound" and "transplantation" came to mind and I realized that what I saw was God uprooting my church from the soil it was currently planted in and placing her in new soil.  God was doing a root pruning so that the church could thrive where at one time she had been unable to flourish.

This process would be a shock to the system.  As with any transplantation, the plant or tree goes through an adjustment as it tries to respond to the new environment.  What is perhaps most difficult for the plant/tree is that its roots have been tampered with and has experienced needed pruning.  Even though it was in a state of unhealthiness, the roots had grown accustomed to the state of its health.  The shock is sometimes too much for the plant/tree to endure.

While that might sound like a scary description of what the church is enduring, I get no sense of dread from the images I saw.  I felt great assurance in that the gardener doing the transplanting was no slouch.  He has a new environment for us to thrive in.  Not an environment that is inward focused but an environment that allows our roots to spread out and be established beyond any previous parameters.  What I saw held a lot of implications for us both practically and spiritually.  The foremost implication was that a great shift was taking place in our thinking.  We are approaching and pursuing our community in arenas that have yet to be tapped.  A great work is ahead of us and everything we are and have gone through is leading up to this season!

Isaiah 43:19--

"For I am about to do something new.
    See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?
I will make a pathway through the wilderness.
    I will create rivers in the dry wasteland."

Radical Grace

My friends over at POTSC (People of the Second Chance) created an artistic time-lapse video called "Deep Black Darkness" that I wanted you to see...what button does this push inside of you? What does it cause you to think?

Lord, Save Me From Myself

I finally got around to seeing a documentary that I've been meaning to see since it came out (Lord, Save Us From Your Followers. Dir. Dan Merchant. Perf. Dan Merchant, George Bush, Al Franken, Bono, Tony Campollo. Big Finish Media. 1998. Streaming.) Gotta love Netflix. TBN aired the movie in July of 2010.

I had originally watched a small part of the movie because there were some friends and ministries featured in it that I wanted to see. At the behest of my wife I watched it in its entirety. When it was over I immediately posted on Facebook that those associated with our ministry and that had access to the movie should consider it a mandate from their pastor to watch it as part of their spiritual formation.

Whether I was out of touch or was oblivious to some of the messages of the movie (or both) I was not prepared for or even anticipated the very diverse reactions that my posting received by those that had already seen the movie. So what did I do then? I took the time to watch it again the very next day because my opinions from the first viewing didn't line up with some of the negative feedback that my brief post was receiving.

The overarching theme of the movie was how people outside of conservative evangelical faith circles don't receive Christ's message of love because of how that message is typically presented by those inside the faith circle i.e. the church. The church is viewed as judgmental, unloving, angry and despite the label of Christian...not very Christlike. Those interviewed shared how in their experience the message of the church is not a message of love but it is a message of being right. In other words, the church doesn't care what others think and will only engage in a conversation if they are agreed with.

The primary reason for the negative reaction to the movie seemed to be that it felt like an indictment against church leaders like Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson and that it also dismissed the hard work of those those that are considered to be the elders of the church who have spent their lives fighting the good fight.

I went into my second viewing looking for these things and came away with the conclusion that there must be a certain level of defensiveness against the movie by the church because the title implies that the movie is anti-church. I found no personal attack against any church leaders or specific groups in this movie. The only personal attack that I spotted was by the narrator toward liberal pundit Bill Maher as “a loud mouthed, pot smoking, know-it-all” though in the same sentence he recanted his statement about the pot smoking as a jest. I couldn't find a statement that made any church leader look foolish or put into a bad light.

My intention is not to review the movie here though. My intention is for us to look at why something like this movie bothers us so much. Why does a movie like this bring such intense emotion to the surface? Understand that I'll speak mostly in generalities when I talk about the church or liberals or Christians. There are always exceptions but don't miss the points that I'm trying to make because you figure that you are one of the exceptions.

The first reason why we get so agitated by something like Lord, Save Us From Your Followers is that it may feel like or truly does embody what we consider to be evil. Anything that attacks our character, our faith, our agenda, our way of thinking and way of life is something not easily dismissed and something we convulse against. But because it confronts us, does that make it evil? Because it makes us ask questions or even causes us to go so far as to doubt the way we’ve done things is that the standard by which we toss something out? I hope not because if we aren’t constantly confronted by opposing viewpoints then how to we shape our own views?

It is true that confrontation produces feelings of anxiety, angst and a general feeling of uncertainty. It affects the peace that we feel. Those feelings are not a good indicator of whether or not God is in it somewhere. How do we get sharpened without adversity? Can we be comfortable with our belief of anything before it has stood the test of an opposing view? This isn’t true just for matters of faith but for any kind of belief. Theology is easy. The practical application of that theology is another matter all together. It is that wrestling match that sometimes produces the greatest advancements in our faith and worldview.

I am not interested in arguing with anybody about theology or politics and I bet that some of you aren't interested either. This might sound noble but it isn't for my part. I'm just not a very good debater. I do think we automatically raise our shields and hunker down when we think our views are being called into question and when our heads are down under cover then we fail to see the bigger picture or at the very least the opinions and views of others. I saw a bumper sticker today that summed up our defensiveness. It said “I respect your opinion...I just don't want to hear it.”

Another reason a movie like this might bother us is that we view the comments and statements as inflammatory. Let's pretend for a moment that they are. Is this always bad? The late Jerry Falwell had said a lot of inflammatory things over the course of his life. I think some were spirit-led and I think some were straight from his flesh. Pat Robertson, founder of CBN and host of their flagship program 700 Club continues to say things that are inflammatory and even absurd (Google “Pat Robertson Alzheimer's” for the firestorm he created by his bad theology last week). Both are/were considered great leaders but that doesn't mean we just take everything they say as truth and on the flip side just because they say something that seriously smacks of senility, it doesn't mean you throw the baby out with the bath water. Either approach is just lazy.

Interestingly though, I observe that we generally can be very forgiving toward some of these well-known Evangelicals who have made some outrageous statements. A liberal on the other hand, we will automatically disregard any and all statements NOT based on their merit or lack of it but based upon whether or not we have already categorized them as a liberal (a synonym for ungodly in our Christian thesaurus). One thing is certain though-we don't get as riled up about a ridiculous Pat Robertson statement as we do about a less ridiculous statement or honest critique made by a liberal.

As a pastor I try to be inflammatory on a regular basis. I don't say inflammatory things (like “you must watch this movie”) for the sake of being inflammatory. I say inflammatory things in order to get the listener's attention and force them to constantly re-examine if they are part of a fat and lazy American church. Jesus was the epitome of inflammatory but carried with him the purpose of shaking up the spiritual climate in his day. This is how he rolled.

A third rationale for our inclination to resist this conversation is because the inherent feeling that by engaging in an examination of how we've done things is tantamount to a dismissal and invalidation of the work of our evangelical forefathers.

I honor the work of my forefathers. I honor the lives spent and poured out in the efforts to see Christ’s Kingdom expand. I hope that my life’s work will be looked at and appreciated someday and I can only dream of having a fraction of the impact and influence that those mentioned here have had. I can tell you right now though that the church would be destined to fail in its role if it doesn't change after I am gone.

Reform and change will always happen and it happens through Spirit-led confrontation. Is it our pride and fear that keeps us from looking at our need to change? Does simply having the conversation automatically come at the expense of those that have walked before us? What would have happened if the conversation was resisted from when Luther nailed his confrontation to the door of the Wittenberg Church? Certainly the reforms of Zwingli, Calvin and Knox were an indictment against the then current church culture but the church has proven to be resilient enough to survive a few stepped on toes. It goes with the territory of leadership.

One of the last reasons that I can think of for the anxiety that such confrontations produce is because it demands the hard work of reflection and introspection. It is ironic to me that I had more cause to be offended by the reasons for not liking the movie than those giving the reasons. I am a product of the church, given my life to the church and as a pastor have been responsible for the very things that have come out of it.

I am over qualified to be vexed by statements that call my work, philosophy and calling into question. But I'm not. I'm not put off because I want to be better than I am. Having my methods, actions and words examined makes me sharper, it keeps me honest. It forces me to constantly look inward.

I think what concerns me the most about our difficulty in having the conversations that we need to have is that the technology of our lives often derails the conversation. The ability to send a mass message has made it too easy to avoid the face to face conversations that we need to have. It is too easy to rant without having to see the damage of our words. I am disturbed that we flock to and follow so many voices of authority who are not under any authority themselves.

What if we stopped and took a breath the next time we have an opportunity to engage the views of somebody we don't agree with? Could it be that the very act of listening might create a bridge that didn't exist previously? Could we consider it an act of service to God to do what doesn't come easy. To not allow our pride or fear to circumvent the opportunity that God has so graciously given to us. An opportunity that is about cross-pollinating the church that he loves with the world that he loves.


How about you?  Do you have any thoughts on why you might not be receptive to a conversation with someone who doesn't see things like you do?  Tell me about it.

The Sign of Things to Come

Do you ever feel like you are spiritually wallowing in a place that you would love to escape yet feel like you are there by your own doing? Whether by your own action or inaction you find yourself stuck, broke and wondering if it will always be this way. Does it feels like you have wandered into some kind of exile from God, not really knowing how or why but suspecting that you probably deserve to be in this unhappy place?

That description doesn't adequately describe how I have felt often times this last past year but it will suffice for now. I haven't been enjoying the hope and optimism that usually marks my life. I have lacked the compunction that normally exists to serve as a great motivator toward discipline and righteousness. On the outside these traits may still seem evident but I know that inwardly there has been a great departure.

I felt like God grabbed my attention when he said in Jeremiah 31:4, “I will build you up again, and you, Virgin Israel, will be rebuilt.” Specifically, I was struck by how God referred to Israel. If you are familiar with any of the prophetic books then you quickly recognize that this isn't how God generally refers to the nation. Words like wicked, adulterous, unrighteous and unfaithful are commonplace in his dealings with these people. Theologians place this passage in the “yet to happen” column but the promise of restoration is crystal clear.

Only God can take a people, who by their action and inaction, have exiled themselves from him and ultimately bring them back to a place where all of their filth is treated as if it never appeared. We see the picture from God's perspective which is a big picture indeed. The big picture includes how God oversaw the destruction and exile of His people with the singular purpose of seeing them fully restored beyond any hope or imagination they had.

And that is the essence of the hope that God has placed within me. I know that He is bringing you and me to a place of restoration and fruitfulness that we neither hoped for nor imagined. Bring your restoration Lord!

What's the Big Deal About Mondays?

I know that a lot of people don’t care for Mondays. Returning to the grind of work after a full weekend of excitement, entertainment and/or relaxation can seem pretty discouraging and certainly anticlimactic. As a pastor, I keep a different schedule than most people. I even keep a different schedule than most pastors. Originally I took Mondays off but I found that my emotional exhaustion from Sunday wrecked me and I would only feel like lying around the house all day…not a very productive day off. So now I go into the office on Mondays and I use that day to take care of a lot of my paperwork, administrative and other non-intellectual tasks that need attention. I also use that day to work on church projects…namely yard and facility work.

My wife and others have told me repeatedly that I shouldn’t be spending my time on yard and facility work. Not because those things are below me but because there are so many other things that I should be focusing on. The argument could probably be made that I should be delegating some of these tasks. There is some wisdom in that but what I have working against me is that there is something in my wiring that compels me to focus energy on these areas. The reason is simple enough--seeing things broken, unkempt, or in a general state of disrepair drives me crazy.

Once something starts bothering me or has distracted me…it will continue to bother and distract me until it is addressed. I don’t think that is an entirely bad thing in that eventually those things will finally get done even if it did take away attention from something else that I should be doing. I like the sense of accomplishment and being able to check something off of my mental list.

I was raised with the notion of treating the church building with holy reverence. This would include not running in the building, keeping your feet off the pew in front of you, speaking in hushed voices, and you would NEVER get up to go to the bathroom while the pastor was speaking…as well as contributing to the upkeep and cleanliness of the building itself. The wrath of mom and dad were never far off and I learned the ropes early on. Those things have kind of stayed with me through the years and are probably the last and most difficult to drop vestiges of church protocol that I learned.

If only I had the same anal retentive personality when it came to Christ’s temple—me. The passage in 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 says that each of us is God’s temple: body, mind, and spirit. I recognize that I don’t seem to be nearly as meticulous and uptight about the upkeep and maintenance of this temple. How am I treating my body? Ouch. What am I feeding my mind? Hmmm. What am I allowing my spirit to be influenced by? God forgive me. Today I purpose to view this temple as sacred because what is sacred to God had better be sacred to me.

ARRRG...My Eyes!!

I am NOT a morning person, yet here it is barely 5 am and I am awake. I am awake because it is finally summer and where it would typically be as dark as the rest of the night at this time of day, not so this time of year. My wife and I keep our room very dark and cool so that we can sleep; however, this morning a faulty shade inexplicably opened itself, exposing this tired, under dressed, unshaven, bed-headed, morning-breathed sluggard to the sun. In other words, what was best left in the dark was exposed to the light of day. When I say that I am not a morning person, I really mean that I am not a morning person. If there is one thing that I don’t handle well, it is someone with too much energy and too much talk first thing in the morning. Just leave me alone and let me adjust please…let’s talk after I shower.  Fortunately, my wife is not a morning person either.

Everybody knows what it is to feel the call of nature in the middle of the night and to blindly stumble into a darkened bathroom and thoughtlessly flip on the light switch.  The eyes reflexively squeeze shut as you curse to yourself while trying to find the light switch again before you are blinded permanently.  If you manage to see yourself in the mirror when this happens, you are reminded once again that some things are better left in the dark, because what you see is surely the stuff that horror movies are made of.

I read in 1 Corinthians 3:12-15 that a light is coming. That light is coming in the form of fire. It tells us that all of our work, deeds, thoughts, motives…any action that man is capable of taking…will be tested by fire.  What does that really mean though?  Throughout Scripture, fire is equated with the manifest presence of God. I don’t view this passage as referring to a judgment happening someday in the future at the end of all things. On the contrary, this is much more imminent and certain. Just as certain as the sun will rise again tomorrow, when (not if) the presence of God suddenly shows up in your circumstances then you’ll be known for who and what you are.

It is in that moment where you will have one of two possible reactions.  You can embrace the light of His presence as one who has been hungry for sunshine after a long, long winter, or wish you could reach for a light switch so that you could leave in the dark those things that would have been better left in the dark. One can’t avoid God’s presence any more than one can avoid the light of day.  One can’t prevent the sun from rising any more than one can prevent God from being active within the lives of those He loves.

Taking One For the Team...

We are in the waning days of Little League Baseball for 2010 and my son and I are very excited to be part of this year’s post-season Honors team. Realizing that we are at the end of a six-year stretch with Gresham Little League has generated a strange feeling of melancholy. We can and will likely continue coaching/playing but it just isn’t the same in the upper leagues. The innocence and joy of the game can diminish because of the mounting competition and pressure to excel.

We had a pretty decent season this year and have high hopes for the post-season. I have a great group of dads helping out and each of them has strengths that really complement one another and the team as a whole. One is really good with teaching pitching technique; one is really good with teaching fielding technique, etc. Each of them is genuine in their passion and commitment to the team. They all contribute to the overall health and success of the team.

In baseball, the players that seem to get the most attention from the spectators are those who pitch and those who can make big hits. There are eight other players, though. Even though they might not stand out like the pitcher or the hitter, every baseball fan knows that if you were to remove them from the field you could never succeed at the game. Everybody contributes too much to ignore the team as a whole. The team functions as a unit. Yes, there are moments of individual success, but give me a team player over someone who is just interested in making themselves look good (what professional sport doesn’t have that going on?).

The passage in 1 Corinthians 3:8-11 reminds us of our one purpose in the Kingdom of God—to fit into the team God has assembled so that His ultimate goals may be accomplished. Each of us has a work and it isn’t the one who gets the most attention who gets the reward. The purpose of the Kingdom of God is a team purpose but the reward of the Kingdom of God is an individual reward…based upon our labors with the team in mind.

My Dead Yard...

Today’s passage in 1 Corinthians 3:5-7 pains me.  All of the talk about planting and watering is just a reminder that I have a dead front yard waiting for me…well, this passage and the fact that my wife just asked if I was ever going to finish the project I started 8 months ago.  Ouch.  It is currently a large patch of dirt with a lot of wild grass and weeds.  I have a vision of a lush, green and weed-free yard but have had to content myself with the vision at this point because reality is very brown out there.

The current state of my yard started in the fall of last year.  I unexpectedly came into some money and decided to use those funds for a project that I’ve always wanted to do…install an in ground sprinkler system.  I had no idea of the amount of work I was signing up for when I first started tearing up my yard to do this.  The long and short of it: the sprinkler system is in, the area is prepped and now waits for me to plant…and it’s been waiting a long time.  All of that work and I have yet to throw some seed down and see any results.

It is very easy to get discouraged in our faith and/or ministry, isn’t it?  There are times when it feels like we work our tails off for the Kingdom of God and that it seems to have very little impact.  We begin asking questions like, “is it worth it?” and “is there something else I should be doing with my time?”  We might respond a different way that is marked with jealousy and frustration over things that are out of our control.  We find ourselves thinking destructive thoughts.  “If I had all of the resources they have, I could have success too.”  “If the people I lead would just work harder, get a vision, and pray more then God’s favor would show up.”  “Why does that person always get everything handed to him for nothing?”

It begs for a reminder of what Solomon wrote when he said “unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain.”  We place a lot of emphasis and weight on the work of man.  All we can do is set the stage.  All we can do is plow the soil, plant some seed and create a space where things can grow.  All we can do is work hard.  That work means nothing without God causing it to grow.  We mustn’t dismiss the importance of doing the work though.  We must continue to create an atmosphere where God can work.  As we continue to plant with our words and water with our actions and pull weeds through discipline and correction, we can count on the success that only God can bring.  It doesn’t happen quickly but it does happen.  I plan on lounging around my front yard this summer in a bed of green lush grass.  I also plan on enjoying what God accomplishes when I work and let Him do what only He can do.

A Game of Tag Gone Bad...

When I was in the fourth grade I had three teeth broken in a fight.  Calling it a fight is like saying that the Battle of Little Big Horn was good odds for the U.S. Cavalry.  Saying that I was in a fight would imply that violence went both ways...it was more like a massacre. The evening started off innocently enough playing basketball in the church gym.  I don’t know when things went south, but I recall making a teasing remark toward one of my friends about him liking a certain girl (which he did) and this led to a grand chase around the gym.  I was wily and untouchable up until the point where his ninth grade sister grabbed hold of me as I was running by.  No longer able to defend myself by running in circles, I received several tooth-breaking hits to the face which led to my discovering that he was genuinely out to hurt me…and I just thought it was a game of angry tag.

It is a story full of irony…getting beat up at church over a girl who was the pastor’s daughter.  The greatest irony was that earlier that same day, I had willfully disobeyed my mom and she had given me a choice: get a whipping for my disobedience or not be allowed to go the gym and spend the night with a friend.  I opted for the whipping since mom didn’t spank that hard.  By going to the gym I got broken teeth, made a late night trip to the dentist, and didn’t get to spend the night with my friend anyway.  I chose poorly.

I tell this story with much chagrin.  I can somewhat laugh about it now but it was one of those moments in life where I recognized how a poor choice can have significant, life-altering ramifications.  It is an example of a time where acting like a kid without restraint can have some grown-up consequences.

1 Corinthians 3:1-4 talks about how “mature” adults are suddenly transported back to the fourth grade again.  Paul tells us here that the difference between the spiritual man and the worldly man can be determined by heart attitudes that make their way to the surface.

When was the last time you acted below your spiritual age?  When was the last time you embarrassed yourself by your lack of self-control?  I think we fancy ourselves to be beyond those kinds of conflicts only to have a reaction that reveals the state of our hearts.  We will always have the potential to show off that latent infancy that tries to come to the surface when opportunity rises.  When it does…will broken teeth result?

If I Only had a Brain...

Scarecrow: I haven't got a brain... only straw.

Dorothy: How can you talk if you haven't got a brain?

Scarecrow: I don't know... But some people without brains do an awful lot of talking... don't they?

Dorothy: Yes, I guess you're right.

Wizard of Oz: Why, anybody can have a brain. That's a very mediocre commodity. Every pusillanimous creature that crawls on the Earth or slinks through slimy seas has a brain. Back where I come from, we have universities, seats of great learning, where men go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have. But they have one thing you haven't got: a diploma.

Yesterday we celebrated the resurrection of our Savior.  What a marvelous day it was.  Having been raised in church, I have heard the account of the resurrection many, many times.  The story doesn’t offend my intellect because I believe it.  I believed it blindly at first, as any child would.  I believe it now because of physical and spiritual evidence.  I often forget that the very idea of the resurrection goes completely against the grain of rationality and intelligence…i.e., the brain.

I regularly wonder if a message that I deliver about resurrection theology has made a lasting impact on the heart of a yet unbeliever/non-follower of Jesus.  I’m so glad it isn’t my responsibility to keep that score because it would probably drive me mad.  All I know is that without the Spirit of God revealing the truth of these “crazy” things to our hearts, those things will remain as foolishness.

1 Corinthians 2:14-16 tells us that without the Spirit within us, we can’t accept those kinds of things.  I find that exciting, because the natural conclusion is that a good way to know whether God’s spirit is in me is if I discern those foolish things of God to be true.

I’m all for intellect and logic…but not at the expense of truth.  I’m not going to argue and I’m not a debater.  I’ll leave that up to the Josh McDowells and the C.S. Lewises of our age.  My great proof of the resurrection and other equally foolish things is that God’s Spirit lives within me and reveals those things to me.  I’m the only one who needs to be convinced of this.  More importantly though, I have a transformed heart and it has changed me into something other than what I was.

Sometimes You Just Know...

My wife and I played dominoes with our friends Arnott & Jennifer last night.  That fact alone has nothing to do with this writing; however, while we were playing it came to a point in the game where we had to keep drawing a domino until we got the right one.  There was a lone domino off by itself and I made the comment…”this is the one right here”.  I turned it over and the revelation that I was correct made me feel like I was clairvoyant or something.  You know how it is sometimes when you feel like you just “know”?  Now the truth is that I had probably guessed before and got it wrong…but the last time was definitely my most certain claim.

Sometimes we just know.  We know that someone isn’t telling us the truth.  We know what the outcome of a situation will be.  We know what someone will say before they say it.  We know the next song before it starts playing on the radio.  The person we are thinking about happens to call at that precise moment.  I can’t explain it but I am certain that these phenomena have happened on more than one occasion to every child and adult.  I don’t think it all that strange or spooky when you think about it though.  With the thousands and millions of thoughts occurring within our mind everyday….how could we not have this happen occasionally?

Today’s passage in 1 Corinthians 2:9-13 is about discovering God’s plan and action within our individual lives as well as what He is doing in the world around us.  Our physical senses can’t pick up on such things and teaching can’t convey it to our hearts and minds.  All we can do is stand on the Scriptures as God has been pleased to reveal them to us. My friend Rick is always quick to point out the necessity for being in the Word of God for this very reason. 

As Christ-followers, we are not guided by worldly principals.  We aren’t solely directed by what our five senses can perceive and by what our minds can understand.  We are guided by the Spirit living within us who knows the mind of God.  Are we in tune with the distinct person of the Holy Spirit?  Do we give heed to what He impresses upon us even when it doesn’t make sense to us?  Most importantly…do we know Him as is only possible by what He has revealed to our own hearts?

To Kill a Swallow...

When I was about 12 years old, I went and spent the day with my friend, Jeff.  Jeff lived out in the country and his dad had an old dusty barn that probably more closely resembled a shop with old equipment in it.  What would a barn be without swallows?  They hated these small birds because of the mess they would leave over everything.

I don’t recall if my friend and I actually had his parents’ blessing to go out and try to shoot the birds or not.  My guess is that where there are 12 year old boys, pesky birds and a BB gun…well, you should have no problems drawing a proper conclusion.

Jeff and I alternately took turns drawing a bead on one of these tiny birds up in the rafters.  Not an easy shot at such a small target over your head and 20+ feet away.  We tried and tried and eventually the inevitable happened, one came fluttering down in a heap.  The bird was not dead, just wounded and scared.

It was amazing how quickly my aggression turned to remorse.  Everybody knows what it is like to suddenly wish that they could turn the clock back a few seconds and take back the action or words that have escaped from their person.  The reality of what I’d done made me kind of sick in my heart and I felt dirty and ashamed.  I had been caught up in the excitement of the moment but in my heart I knew better.  The hardest part of the experience was that we had to complete the job.  We couldn’t leave the bird like that and the right thing to do now was to put the delicate creature out of its misery.  I’ll spare you the details.

1 Corinthians 2:6-8 reminded me of that day in the barn where I realized that I hadn’t thought through the consequences of my actions.  So it was with the rulers that crucified Jesus.  I wonder when it hit them that they had made the gravest mistake of not only their lives but of human history?

Is the gravity of their actions really so unlike our own?  We may not have literally been the ones to crucify Christ, but how often do we wound Him and cause Him pain and sadness by our sin?  Stranger yet is that we know better.  It’s pretty hard to get self-righteous when we prove time and again that our understanding is no better than theirs.

Like a Gerbil...

I decided pretty early on that I would never want to write for a newspaper or periodical.  I figured that always living under a deadline would give me an ulcer.  So what do I do?  I go into an occupation that requires multiple deadlines every week.  I didn’t get an ulcer in my stomach but I sometimes think I would rather have the physical pain of a stomach ulcer than the pain of a mental ulcer.  For a guy who appears to others as never having a shortage of words…I have to confess that I feel like I’m exhausted.  Not physically—that would require labor, which my hands can attest to the lack of since they don’t have many calluses right now.  What I don’t do in physical exercise, I think I more than make up for in my time on the mental gerbil wheel…always running but never arriving.

 
When I first started teaching on a weekly basis some 23 years ago, the most overwhelming and difficult thing for me to deal with was that constant deadline week after week.  As soon as I would finish teaching a Sunday school class, I would have about 30 seconds of relief before I began stressing over the “what am I going to do next” question that grips every new teacher.  Yeah right…new teacher…I’ve been doing this for almost a quarter of a century and I’m still prone to that weekly panic attack.  This is especially true when I happen to hit a “home run” message because I always ask the very same day, “How am I going to top that?”

You’ve just received an insight into what I believe to be part of most every speaker’s, teacher’s or writer’s psyche.  1 Corinthians 2:1-5 speaks directly to this but I’m honestly frustrated by its simplicity.  Simplicity implies ease yet I’ve never experienced anything easy about this weekly rollercoaster of thrill and terror.

It isn’t easy to do what Paul said of himself.  He says that when he came to the church in Corinth, he had one message…Jesus and the cross.  It is interesting to note that this one message caused God to show up in power to the hearers.  It wasn’t good illustrations, clever analogies, well-delivered points of doctrine or even a hip and happening worship band.  It was a very simple message about something we’ve grown mostly tired of hearing.  As someone who has tried really hard to get better at speaking over the years, it is hard to admit that all of that hard work really doesn’t matter in the bigger picture.  The truth is this…if God doesn’t show up when I open my mouth, it is better that I just keep it shut.  Simple?  Yes.  Easy?  No.  If we want to avoid running on the wheel to nowhere, our only course of action is to rely on a demonstration of God’s power and not our own.

Pick me! Pick me!

Last night we had a church board meeting.  These aren’t typically an example of what one thinks of when one thinks of intense, high action, adrenaline rush experiences…and that’s okay.  I’ve been in board meetings that had all of that and though they might be memorable, they weren’t at all fun.

At this particular board meeting, we were required to undertake the annual responsibility of voting the officers and the portfolio’s upon the different board members.  It is a very routine process and there are generally not many surprises in the way it turns out.  I’ve been involved in this process for several years now and the roles seem to turn out the way I figured they would even without exercising any influence.  We all seem to have a general sense of the best fits.

Something about the process amused me last night though.  I wasn’t surprised by anything except once.  I was surprised by the sense of child-like gratification that I felt when I was chosen to be the Vice-Chairman again.  I figured that was probably the best fit and I would have been surprised had I not been nominated for that.  The amusement was that I felt like I was on the playground again.  We’ve all been there right?  Growing up, I don’t recall being the first one picked very often…unless I was in 6^th grade and we were choosing teams against a bunch of 2^nd graders (what one will do for an ego boost!).  Everyone knows what that inner turmoil is like when you are left wondering if you’ll be the last man standing in the lineup.

I was actually caught off guard by how liberating and uplifting it is to be chosen.  That is why today’s passage in 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 really stood out to me.  In these few verses, we are told no less than three times that God chose us.  Sure, you’ve heard that God chose you…pat yourself on the back.  Let’s look again though…did you ever catch what He chose?  It says that He chose the foolish, weak, lowly, and despised.

You know where we get tripped up?  We try to think in the past tense about these verses.  We think something like, “God called me when I was foolish and weak…but look at what He has made  me into now!”  BZZZZT--Wrong answer.  My Bible doesn’t tell me that I’ve stopped being foolish, weak, lowly, and despised.  Yes, I am certainly a different person now than when God first called me…because I wasn’t even a person when that happened.  It tells us here in no uncertain terms that the only reason I know Christ is because of God.  I did NOTHING.  I wasn’t in some celestial line-up raising my hand like Arnold Horshack saying “Ooo…Ooo…Pick me! Pick me!”  God chose me before I even knew about a choice.  I did nothing to merit His favor.  I wasn’t skilled.  I wasn’t beautiful.  I had no redeeming qualities.

“Well Donnie, that isn’t very uplifting.”  Oh yes it is!  In comparison to Christ, regardless of our great faith or non-existent faith…we are all foolish, weak and lowly.  Think about it…if we think we aren’t foolish, weak and lowly then we are full of pride…proving that we are indeed foolish.  The difference between our lowly humility and foolish pride is perspective.  Who do we think we are?  We can either boast in ourselves or we can have the correct perspective and boast in the Lord for His gracious choice of us...and live accordingly.

King of Fools...

As I look back on the last 15 years that I’ve been pastoring…I quickly recognize the seasons and shiftings of my approach to faith and ministry.  I started out with the destination of holiness…and a “don’t spare the horses” mentality.  I had a single track mind that was convinced that there was only one way to engage the culture and that was head-on.  Gee…that worked well.  It didn't work because holiness is wrong, but because I wasn’t holy.  I was judgmental, prideful, ignorant and an island unto myself…even if my intentions were good.

Ten years ago, I entered into my first recognizable shift when I came to Gresham.  I began to soften and see the bride of Christ for what she is…lost, confused and without clear direction as to what would restore her.  I was still judgmental and prideful but I wasn’t as ignorant to the plight of the church any longer.  I saw the need but didn’t know who I was or how to engage a generation of young people.

Five years ago, I found myself shifting again.  I felt like a fish out of water because I found myself embracing a postmodern mind set that I couldn’t really explain if I had to.  I just knew that everything that I had been trying, who I thought I was…wasn’t engaging the world of church ministry that I was immersed in.  Amazing, relational things were happening all around me in my regular life, but church ministry felt dead.  I was ready to throw in the towel and follow Jesus back into Frito-Lay and my community...except that wasn't where God would have me just yet.

Today’s passage in 1 Corinthians 1:I8-25 really resonates with the journey I’ve been on.  I spent about 10 years of ministry trying to convince the world that I wasn’t a nerdy Christian.  A lot of what I was about was trying to convince myself and the world around me that I could be a cool Christian.  Now my shift seems to have come full circle…the only difference is me.  I’m still trying to work out my holiness but the last 15 years have emblazoned one thing upon my heart and spirit and I embrace it completely…and it will really bother some in the church.  The greatest thing I can strive for is to be the King of Fools.

There, I said it…and it was very freeing.  God uses foolishness to confound the wise.  God uses weakness to supplant the strong.  I will happily be considered a weak fool in God’s eyes if that is where He can best use me.

Some drive me crazy...

Perhaps one should get out more if they have yet to hear the simile cliché of “Opinions are like armpits (butts, feet, garlic breath)…everybody has them and they all stink.”  This is only true if the opinion happens to differ from your own opinion.  Woe to the one who shares a different opinion and is vocal about it.

Today’s passage of 1 Corinthians 1:10-17 reveals that hard and fast opinion has gotten in the way of the harmony that God intended for His church.  Things appeared to have escalated from simple preference to abrasive and personal offense between factions.  That would sound absurd if it wasn’t so evident in the church of the 21^st Century…of which we are all a part.

Case in point, if you were to search the internet for a very brief time, you could discover quickly that there are a lot of websites dedicated to diatribes about spiritual leaders.  These writings and videos range from everyday contrariness to outright venom…and it seems that the majority would fall closer to the latter category.  I find it strange that some would dedicate such an inordinate amount of time loudly trying to prove the heresy of a fellow Christian teacher (who coincidentally always seems to be more “successful”).  If only they would use their influence to preach the message of the cross so boldly.  Yes, I believe that false teaching should be called false teaching.  Let’s leave it at that though.

There are some teachers, preachers, pastors, evangelists that drive me crazy.  I can’t listen to them for more than a minute or two before I really want to move on to something else.  I’m sure they are wonderful men (or women) who love the Lord with all of their heart…but their style is outside of my ability to engage and receive.  Their style doesn’t line up with my personal preference.  Case in point, I recently went to a conference that all of the speakers were really good but the one that most resonated with me wasn’t the one that resonated with the others.  The one that I like was extremely conversational in style…most like me…go figure that he was the one I liked the best.

Some really like the extremely passionate, shouting, old-school, fire and brimstone, slow sing-songing while enunciating that last consonant before adding “uh”…i.e. “Go-duh see-suh wha-tuh is i-nuh your hear-tuh!” (Most readers spent the time to work that last sentence out in their heads but now know what I’m talking about.)  That is categorically NOT my preference, my opinion of good preaching.  On the other hand, there are many in our church (if they stuck around) that would give their left arm for me to have that style.

God made us so different and I think we often get caught up in our differentness to the point that we think the way that we are as individuals must be the right way.  No…just different.  Have we become like those believers in the Corinthian church who began to identify with different camps to the point of not being able to receive God’s truth because of the medium through which He is speaking?  Ouch, I just nailed myself.

You gotta love em!

Some of my favorite people in the world are new Christians.  They remind me of all the years I spent working in Junior High ministry.  You tell a Junior Higher to run through a wall and they'll try it.  You tell a Junior Higher that they just need to run at it harder...and they'll try that too.

I love the passion and excitement that I find in new Christians.  It is so refreshing because it seems that the longer I am in church, the more dour the overall atmosphere tends to be.  New believers are the life blood of the church. Show me a church that lacks focus for new believers and I'll show you a church that is dying a slow, painful death.

In today’s passage (I Corinthians 1:4-9) Paul talks about how thankful he is for what he sees in these believers that he was responsible for.  Despite their problems and their immaturity, they have everything they need to grow to maturity.  God had already implanted every spiritual gift in order to catapult them to growth and successful maturity.

I think we tend to undervalue the new believer.  We tend to disregard their zealousness and fervor because they don't have a lot of head knowledge yet.  Because they can't recite the spiritual laws or know the "Roman's Road" by heart we discount their ability to be used.  Obviously Scriptural knowledge must happen, but it isn't to be placed on a higher pedestal than the Holy Spirit living within each believer.

I have a friend at church that has been saved maybe six or eight months.  Yet she has jumped into serving and mentoring and being used in the gifts that God has given her.  She is tearing it up in the spiritual realm.  Most significant to me personally is that she is one of our greatest encouragers, shaming this Christian of almost 40 years!

Wouldn't it be interesting if we did church differently?  Instead of making people prove their "faithfulness" by sitting in the pew for several years, we immediately release them in partnership with other Christians to begin serving.  Instead of making new believers run through this man-made obstacle course to ministry...we show them the goal line and let them start running?

I got a call...

I don't care much for talking on the phone.  I don't mind quick informational calls similar to a text or an email but I don't like to be on the phone for long periods of time.  Yesterday I was on the phone with tech support because my cell phone was once again not working.

I had been on the phone for forty minutes with 'Luis' while he tried to determine if my phone really didn't work.  I was asked to be put me on hold for a moment to talk to another technician and I made the mistake of saying okay.  I then heard a click followed the klaxon that sounds like the submarine is diving.  Forty minutes of frustration only to have them push a wrong button causing me to go back to the beginning.  The eventual answer was that my phone is broken and it can't be fixed.  Was it really necessary to go through all that just to be told "sorry, we can't help you?" ArrrrrRRRG...what a waste of time!

Caller ID is a mixed blessing.  There are times when I know who is calling (like a sales call or someone who just wants my money) and I can avoid the call.  Of course, people know when I'm calling too.  I  have to leave more messages than pre-ID....go figure.

This morning I read in 1 Corinthians 1:1-3 that you and I received a pretty important call ourselves.  We received a call to be holy.  That call isn't your everyday, run-of-the-mill call.  It's a call from God.  God Himself requested that we be set apart to live a life of His choosing and He gives us that wake-up call each morning.  I know when He's calling but how often do I  just let the voicemail pick up?

40 Days of Fasting & Prayer--Day 40

That God’s presence would INVADE my plans

(Proverbs 16)

Coming into this time of focused spiritual discipline I had a plan.  I had a plan.  My plan was to be perceived as some kind of spiritual giant (that’s too funny), butter God up and get Him to do something really cool for me and the church, and to hear the audible voice of God pointing me in the right direction for success and gain.

I’m not a total fool.  I would never have articulated my plan in those words going into this time.  In truth, the past 40 days has been a pretty humbling experiencing in many different ways.  My motivation wasn’t completely screwed up but I can admit that my plan, though not knowingly conceived in such selfish terms as described above, had ulterior motives of a nature that didn’t match what I convinced myself of.  What I said with my mouth and what I wanted in my heart were two different plans.  In short, my plan was not my plan.

Does that sound pretty awful?  It does to me and it causes me nausea whenever I see my plan for what it is.  Is this really any different than most of the grand plans that we make for God’s kingdom?  We come up with great ideas and great pursuits.  We even go a step further and develop those ideas laced with some spiritual language.  We then take a big imaginary stamp to it and call it God’s plan.

I have certainty that God’s plan was for us to fast and pray.  I have less certainty about the purposes of it.  This fast has been a journey of having my blinders removed in a lot of different areas of my life.  This is a journey that hasn’t been entirely pleasant but has had great rewards.  The greatest reward is perhaps having clearer perspective.  I have a better discernment about the chasm between my plan and God’s plan.

Today marks the end of an experience that has produced something that wasn’t originally in my plan…repentance.  I wonder—had I known this going in, would I have developed a different plan?  Here it is, day 40 and I’m talking about repentance?  Shouldn’t that have happened on day one maybe? 

We must walk in repentance as we embrace His direction for us on a daily basis.  We don’t like to come back and talk about repentance very often because it seems so ground level as it relates to the magnitude of God’s plan.  It isn’t ground-level foundational though.  It is the plumbing and wiring (that’ll preach!) throughout the entire blueprint of God’s huge skyscraper plan for us.  Fortunately, God’s ways are not my ways.  God’s plans are not my plans...but they can be!

“As I finish this fast today, I pray protection over the plans that You have for me from this point forward.  I believe that You have spoken to me, invaded my prayer life and set my feet upon a new path.  May my mind continue to be upon You as I plan out my heart response to these 40 days.”

40 Days of Fasting & Prayer--Day 39

That God’s presence would INVADE my expectations

(1 Corinthians 9:1-11)

I have written recently about my parents divorcing when I was too young to remember.  My biological father at first maintained some semblance of a relationship with my brother and me, his only sons.  I don’t know the details of the visitation arrangement but I seem to remember that it was magical when we got to see him.  I suspect that he spoiled us out of guilt on those occasions that we saw him.  Based on this history, my brother and I came to have great expectations of a Disneyland-like atmosphere whenever he would come to pick us up.

It was an early Saturday morning and I was dressed and ready to go.  Mom had told my brother and me previously that daddy was coming to pick us up that morning to spend the day and night with him.  I spent several hours on the couch looking out of the living room window down the street.  I was waiting for the familiar car to drive down the street.  I didn’t have the capacity to understand.  If he said he was coming then why wasn’t he?  This would prove to be the first of several identical mornings.  I was four when I experienced the first image-shattering event by the man I was named after.

At the time, I didn’t feel that I had unreasonable expectations.  When someone gave their word, I believed it.  If I was told something, I was too innocent to think otherwise.  It didn’t take very many of these let-downs to cause me to become jaded.  I would soon discard any of my reasonable expectations for an “I’ll believe it when I see it” mentality.  This isn’t a positive early-development trait to acquire. 

Looking back, I recognize that my expectations were reasonable but they were based upon one who was unreasonable and undependable.  I don’t share this for the sake of sympathy or just to tug at a heart string.  I share it to illustrate misplaced and unreasonable expectations.  When it comes to what God will do, our expectations are unreasonable.  They are unreasonably low.

This time of fasting has birthed an expectation of far greater things than I have allowed myself before.  This new expectation is NOT based upon the fact that I fasted.  On the contrary, this fast has only given me an awareness of the faithfulness and dependability of God that already existed.  He has made statements that I can take to be true.  I have great expectations through the knowledge that He is willing and able to do immeasurably more than I ask or imagine and He has never gone against His word yet.

 

“Lord, I pray today that You would invade my pitiful level of low expectations.  You are the Creator of the cosmos and yet I hardly ever expect You to create in my life!  Position me at the front window of my life like a child waiting for their Father to come home.”