Thoughts

Church hopping

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Ok…I’m not really hopping. Hopping would assume I’m actually looking for a church home. I’m not. But a friend is speaking so I came to hear him. 

The room is half full. No one has spoken to me as I passed through the larger than usual facility. Invisible. That’s how I feel here.

The worship is ‘contemporary’. That word is increasingly nebulous. Maybe unsingable, unintelligible…maybe those are better words.

The worst part is that the band seemed to notice that few were singing…so they just sang harder. So…a band up ‘there’ singing harder and harder…as the rest of us watched. Is this worship? 

My friend nailed the message, as always. Passionate, articulate. 

So this is church today. Hmmm. 

Why I don’t blog more often…

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I’ve discovered something about my writing style: I only write when things are going well.

Example: My last post was from Malawi…when I was wrapping up a fantastic trip to serve the poor and encourage the church.

Then I got home.

Without going into detail…for me, life has been bizarre and personally challenging lately. And when that’s going on, I find I go inward. I start filtering. And I stop writing.

For every writer there is always the ongoing question: how much of what I’m thinking is helpful for whoever chooses to read this?

What it becomes it this: I’m the only one who’s struggling…

On the surface…I know better than that. I know that life is filled with challenges, struggles, even things that are frustrating, embarrassing.

The interesting thing is, the more I have shared with those close to me about life at the moment, the more I am reminded that life is universally challenging. My closest friends ALL have significant challenges, not so much MY challenges, but significant nonetheless.  One friend put it this way…”I’m such a cripple…but I’ll gladly give you one of my crutches!”

I think that sums it up…in one way or another we all walk with a limp. All of us have challenges…even ones that drive us to our knees.

So..maybe my writing will be more the result of being on my knees…and less about only my happy times.

Time will tell.

 

 

 

8000 miles

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13 hours seems forever. I was so far back in the 777 I think I was in a different time zone when we finally touched down in Addis Ababa.

My seat mate was a young Ethiopian woman named Seba. She lives in Atlanta and was coming home to visit for a month. She taught me to say thank you in Ethiopian: Amasicanala!

Interestingly she figured out I was a pastor immediately. I hope it was Jesus in me, not just some pastoral persona. She is a Jesus follower too. The Jesus in her sensing the Jesus in me?

I hope so!

P.S. Add 1500 miles…almost to Blantyre. Africa is such a large continent!

What We Need for the Malawi Trip!

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Funding is beginning to come together for my return trip to Malawi and Mozambique through contributions directly to GCC and through Crowdtilt ( https://www.tilt.com/campaigns/return-to-malawi ). A quick stop at the International Health Clinic provided the scripts for anti-malarial meds and other preventative drugs. I also had the ebola conversation and have a better idea of what to watch for. The good news is that the villages I’ll be visiting are so terribly remote, I’m the only outsider to visit. In many cases they’ve never SEEN a white man and certainly no one with white hair.

What we still need (along with continuing financial support to reach the goal of $3500) are things like clothing(men’s, women’s, children’s), cells phones, and at least one working PC laptop. I plan to pay for extra bags to transport all this to Blantyre.

There’s also a children’s center that is run on a shoestring. I’d love to take pencils, sharpeners, notebooks, etc for them.

Here’s the thing: we’re not all going. But you CAN go with me. You can help provide these things that will be a huge blessing.

I’m constantly reminded that our throwaways here are treasures there. Please…consider being a part. Donating money, things, and praying.

I’ll be blogging while I’m there…it’ll be like you’re there…minus the mosquitoes!

Noah?

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images Ok…so…I saw the film Noah last night.

First…let’s list the things it had in common with the account found in the Bible. There was a Noah character. There was his wife and kids. There was an ark. There was a flood. That about covers it.

Let me be clear…I don’t get my Biblical truth from Hollywood. And I don’t look to the Bible for entertainment. But wow…you’d think they’d have gotten it close! After all, its not THAT hard.

Russell Crowe was at the top of his game. Jennifer Oneal was also quite good. As for art, it was artful. The cinematography was excellent.

Now for the fun parts…fallen angels called the Watchers help Noah build the ark. A magic seed from Methuselah grew the forest where the wood came from for the ark. The sin of man was environmental (the fallen angels had helped man to build industrial cities that destroyed the earth). Noah went through most of the movie convinced that God had him build the ark to save the ‘innocent ones’…the animals. After all, ‘they are the only ones who still live as they did in the garden’. He was seemingly convinced that mankind had to die…that we weren’t as important to God as the animals.  And for good measure…Tubal Cain hitched a ride on the ark.

After a while I felt a bit sorry for Russell Crowe. I thought about leaving once or twice, but you know…it’s kinda the accident scenario…you just can’t help watching. It was two hours and nineteen minutes of ‘you’re kidding…right?’

The good news about the movie is that there is a lot about unstoppable faith in the movie. They refer to God as the Creator. And the whole idea of receiving direction from God gets plenty of attention.

I THINK I appreciate Hollywood giving it a shot. After all, it brings a story from scripture into public conversation. And as long as we understand that the director is simply creating a story not unlike The Lord of the Rings, then a good time can be had by all…well most people anyway.

 

No More Hamburgers!

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indexImagine you are Ray Kroc. And you have this awesome idea for a new restaurant…a place where you will make hamburgers and fries and milk shakes and little chunks of chicken. And you will market it all to kids all over the world. And you’ll call it McDonalds.

Now…imagine…after selling literally billions of hamburgers to millions of people you decide to change your business model and begin to teach the children to whom you are marketing that hamburgers aren’t quite right for you. Hamburgers don’t quite meet their needs. Hamburgers are boring. They’re irrelevant. They should eat something else….like chicken sandwiches.

Predictably, you’d see those kids begin to go to your competitors who serve better chicken. And eventually, because you can’t stay open only selling coffee…you’d close.

I wonder…and I know this will come off as uncool and antiquated, but I wonder if we’re not doing that same thing with the way we provide children’s and youth programming in church.

Here’s what I mean: parents arrive at church, head to the children’s department, check their kids in at the kiosk, and then cruise to the coffee bar. The kids have a great time and certainly learn about Jesus. But there’s no exposure to the worship service.

Then the day comes when they move from the children’s department to the youth department. There they are taught and perhaps entertained. They get to talk about all the pressing issues of the day…about being a teenager in the modern world. Let me be clear…I haven’t been a teenager in decades and I truly wouldn’t want to be a teen today navigating the craziness we call our world. But once again, the teens hang in the youth department until they are old enough to get a job. And in the process they pretty much avoid ‘big church’ altogether.

What’s the outcome? Young adults are leaving the church in droves. It’s boring. It’s irrelevant. No wonder…they were never exposed to it as they grew.

As a church…we are teaching our kids the spiritual equivalent of Ray Kroc’s decision to stop selling hamburgers. By creating programs that segregate our kids we are teaching them NOT to attend church. Am I wrong?

I’m all for programs that help our kids go deeper in Christ. But keeping them insulated, isolated from the core of church content isn’t serving us well. And in time it will kill the church.

At GCC we’re beginning to have serious conversations about how to build services that will invite the children to worship and the youth to engage.

Let me be clear…its not about church survival. It;s totally about the spiritual future of our kids. It’s time for a change.

Plans

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I’m your average planner. I’m not obsessed with the future. I just like to see things work out as I hope. Unfortunately…moving isn’t one of those things.

We listed our house and in due time, we had a ratified contract. Next step…find a place to live. In short order, I found the perfect house. In the country, considerably smaller than the present house. It’s a rental because things are a bit up in the air. Buy or build…or just go ahead and buy the retirement boat now and buy a condo.

So today was moving day. Imagine my disappointment when the forecasters begin talking about snow. 2-4 inches. How often do they get it right? I studied the charts and decided we were on the edge of the event and would likely be the 2 inch group. Wrong.

4:30 this morning I hear the snowplow in my culdesac. Ok…so…they really don’t plow for 2 inches. After tossing and turning for a bit, I got up and measured the snow on my deck…8 inches.

(Do you ever have those moments when you wish God would look out for you and cause the whole region to miss a snow or rain event just so YOU can do what YOU want? That was me).

I waited until an appropriate time to call the movers… ‘hey..uh..maybe we should postpone this thing until Friday?

No one in the office…I left the message and waited. Soon the phone range…the movers were on their way.

Action went into high gear…tear down the beds, and blow snow out of my driveway so the multiple trucks could get in.

THEN I had to go to the new house and blow snow out of the long driveway.

It was beautiful there as the snow continued to fall. I got the driveway open and tried to move the trailer around to store in the garage. Ooops…I drove off the driveway and got the truck and trailer stuck in the snow. It wasn’t budging.

And then the phone rang…turns out…it’s way to slick to load the trucks..so the move is put off til Friday. Yay!

Unhooking the trailer I kept working and finally got the truck unstuck. Welcome to country living.

Last Friday I worked the phone to get all the necessary services moved to the new house. What do I do now? I spend more time on the phone.

In all of this…I kept thinking of Proverb 19:21 “Many  are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails”.

The truth is…most of my life is pretty uneventful. And when I have to make a move like this…I just want MY plans to succeed. Not so fast my friend…it is the Lord’s purpose that matters.

So…The rest of my week will hold some of the normalcy I need…and we get to do it all again Friday.

Plans…..

 

 

Do Y’all Help People?

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WillWorkForFoodIt’s winter. We’d just gotten another dose of Siberia outside. One associate is in Florida playing golf (he timed that well). Another is in New York on his honeymoon. Another is working out of his home. The rest of the staff has wisely stayed off the highways as the snow keeps falling. I figured SOMEBODY needed to come check on the building…so here I am in my office…in the building alone.

I don’t typically answer the phone. There are other people better suited for that role. But today, if the phone rings…they get me.

Sure enough the phone rings. I manage to figure out how to answer it (yeah…technically challenged).

The person on the line asks a simple question: ‘Do y’all help people?’

This is what we call a benevolence question…do we help people with their financial needs?

My answer isn’t one I like to give: yes we do, but given the level of the need in our community we are forced to restrict our help to those in our congregation. She says she understands and hangs up.

Whenever I’m on the receiving end of a call like that I always pause for a moment, stare at the ceiling and ask myself the question again…do we HELP people?

A part of me wishes that we could write a check for every need. That’s neither possible or helpful. Without knowing the complete situation of each person, helping can actually hurt. As I’ve said before, ‘For some people, if money could fix it, it’d be fixed by now’. In other words, in many cases, money is not the problem. I heard something at a meeting the other day that says it well: “Homeless people aren’t homeless because they ran out of money. They’re homeless because they ran out of relationships”.

Still the bigger question remains…’do y’all help people?’ Well…DO we?

I doubt there’s a church in existence that doesn’t think this is true…otherwise…why are we HERE?

But…do y’all help PEOPLE?

I happen to believe we help people on a number of levels.

First of all…what other voice tells the story of God to the world? What other voice exists to call people to attend to their souls? What other voice speaks ageless truths into tragically human life situations?

Yeah…we help people.

Secondly, who else truly offers the chance to build life altering relationships with other spiritual seekers? The kinds of relationships that walks us through our personal dark night of the soul.

Yeah we help people.

Thirdly, who else rolls up it’s sleeves and gives sacrificially of it’s time and money to the poor, to the down and out, and the up and out. From 17,000 shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child to over $8 million raised for local and international ministry to thousands of bras donated to fight sex-trafficking to housing the homeless in our community, Grace Community Church helps people.

When the phone rings and I have to answer that question…it’s good to stop and acknowledge what God is doing through us here now.

Yeah…we help people.

Moving

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imagesAfter almost 16 years in one location its time to relocate. Not that far really…from one side of town to the other. From the culdesac to the countryside. From high speed internet to who knows what?!

Yesterday I began packing my home study. Its crazy how much personal history is there. Twenty years of journals. Maps from various trips around the country and around the world. Books, books, and more books. Too many baseball caps.

I remember years ago giving my boss a hard time about a yard sale she was doing. I told her I could come to her house, analyze what she was selling and by reverse reasoning, discover what she valued.

Yesterday I took close notice of the things I kept and began to see a pattern of what I value.

The maps tell me that I actually thought I might get back to some of those places. I wonder…if I’d known how many of them were one-time gifts, would I have been more present? Would I have paid closer attenti0n to the sights, sounds, smells, sensations?

The journals tell me that reflection has been and continues to be a large part of my day to day learning. They tell me that I believe that daily reading, reflection, and prayer are how we become better people, deeper, substantial.

The pictures, so many pictures, show me the things that I wanted to hang on to as memories. The people I have come to love from all over the world.

The books all feel like old friends as I’ve done my best to be a life long learner. That’s perhaps the easiest parts…life continues to teach us if we are open to the lessons.

The boxes are stacking up. this whole process reminds me of a song…

This Old House

There are fifty liquor boxes in my hall
And a hundred empty nails on my wall
There’s a sign out in my yard that reads “For Sale”
And if this old house could cry the tears would fall
There are bargain hungry vultures everywhere
Buying broken toys, old clothes, and Tupperware
The phone’s been taken out, they’ve stopped the mail
And if this old house could talk I’d say a prayer

I’ve been strong and I’ve been sturdy
And I’ve weathered every storm
I’ve always kept your family safe and warm
Now you’re packing up the laughter
And you’re sweeping out the tears
If this old house were built on memories
I would stand a thousand years
This old house, this old house
If this old house were built on memories
I would stand a thousand years

Take another look before you lock my door
Where your shoes have worn the finish from my floor
Listen to my banging pipes and my creaking stair
Let your boy slide down my banister once more
I’ll remember where you hid the extra key
Where the hammer and the band aids used to be
I will smell your morning coffee in the air
And I’ll see you hanging tinsel on the tree

I’ve been strong and I’ve been sturdy
And I’ve weathered every storm
I’ve always kept your family safe and warm
Now you’re packing up the laughter
And you’re sweeping out the tears
If this old house were built on memories
I would stand a thousand years
This old house, this old house
If this old house were built on memories
I would stand a thousand years
Written by Craig Bickhardt and Thom Schuyler

Soon it will be time to take that last look and drive out of the neighborhood for good. And for a new beginning. What will the future hold? I guess we’ll know soon enough. In the mean time…could you hand me the tape gun?

Blow-Up God

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kitsch_vintage_retro_blow_up_doll_face_postcard-ree77918e26124a1bb65abc232fb4e4a4_vgbaq_8byvr_512So…a friend suggested I watch a Ryan Gosling movie called Lars and the Real Girl. The premise is simple: a guy who has problems relating romantically to women buys a life-sized, anatomically correct doll to be his girlfriend. I’m not sure which is harder to watch…him as he relates so tenderly to this ‘thing’ or the way his friends adapt to his ‘girlfriend’ and incorporate her into their lives too.

For a while now (long before Lars) I’ve been thinking about how we treat God a lot like Bianca (Lars’ bogus babe).

Think about it: like a blow-up doll we carry both sides of the conversation. If there’s affection, it’s our responsibility. It’s often a tragically one-sided relationship.

I wonder why we relate to God this way. Could it be we’re really uncomfortable with silence? The people of Israel waited 400 years during the intertestimental period (between Malachi and Jesus). Or perhaps we struggle to distinguish the difference between His voice and our own. The truth: it mostly takes a quiet heart to hear His voice. Not that He can’t get our attention anytime He chooses. Annie Dillard said if we really knew who God was, we’d all wear crash helmets to church each weekend. And He certainly shouted at times in history. But mostly…it’s a still small voice.

So…how do we go from God the blow-up doll to God the one we sense, feel, and hear?

Allow Him to be Him. Allow for mystery. Don’t think for a moment that you can order Him around or use promises in the Bible to bribe or coerce. And like any other relationship…it has a certain rhythm. It also has highs and lows. Times of elation and times of quiet reflection.

One more thing…don’t treat Him as if you have Him entirely figured out. Trust me…you will NEVER get THERE.