This Country Needs Neither the Right Nor the Left

I'm giving myself a selfish birthday present today - an independent voter's blog rant!  This morning I watched both CNN and Fox News while working out.  Amazingly they generally agreed that present American politics are in the tank, circling the drain.  President Obama's approval rating is at an all time low.   Democrats continue to offer nothing better than variations of tax-and-spend.  And the best they can put on the horizon for the next White House run is Hillary Clinton.  (Seriously?!?).   Things are no better in the Republican camp.  Overall public confidence in the GOP brand is crushingly weak.  When they should be developing a whole new comprehensive strategy to take advantage of Democrats on the ropes, Republicans seem utterly incapable of offering anything better than, "We don't like Obama, and the Affordable Healthcare Act will take us all to hell in a hand basket!"  The Tea Party views their most interesting and potentially promising next level leader, Chris Christie, as a renegade.

And if all this isn't bad enough, rarely has this nation had less confidence in our representatives in Congress.   The public approval rating of Congress is in the single digits - SINGLE DIGITS, PEOPLE!     Now, tell me again how we independent voters have it all wrong...  (The two-party system, at least in its present manifestation, is a joke at best and a catastrophe at worst.  But that's a subject for another blog post.)

This country's crisis is not about whether the right or the left prevail.  It's a deeper issue than that.  It's about LEADERSHIP.   It's about giving up this insane quest for leaders who look the best, produce the best sound bytes, have the best handlers, schmooze the best, gather the most campaign funds, leverage the strongest backers and influence, are the most media-friendly, and can spin any issue any way that keeps the populace placated.  It's time to find LEADERS!

I'm from Illinois, originally.  I grew up learning about Abraham Lincoln like it was second nature.  Granted, those of us from "The Land of Lincoln" may tend to deify old Abe.  Yet he was clearly a man who had the courage and determination to lead, in the midst of the worst crisis the nation had faced to that point.  He was not a handsome man by most standards.  Lincoln was introspective, introverted, and thought by many to be socially awkward.  He could be painfully slow to make decisions in the eyes of some, and dictatorial in the eyes of others.  At times his own Cabinet and generals were totally frustrated with him.  And Lincoln had his own personal pains and "demons" which he faced every day.  Yet this man found the courage and determination to lead,  boldly and without apology.  He found his mission, preserving this union, and he pursued it without wavering.  He accepted responsibility and took the heat.  He kept a vision before this country when bloodied American soil made vision impossible.  Right or wrong, regardless of politics, Abraham Lincoln was a leader!

Where are those leaders now?  All party politics aside, what this country needs is leadership.  Maybe those of us who are followers of Jesus humbly need to hit our knees through 2014, yielding to the heart of God and seeking the rise of genuine leaders.  

Here ends the rant.  I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

Did I Sign On to Follow Jesus Or Not?

We people of faith can spend endless energy stewing and worrying over the details of following Jesus.  We'll do sermon series about it, have small groups about it, market and consume scores of Christian how-to books about it, and chew up endless Sunday School hours having interesting discussions about it.  We'll talk about about what it "really means" to follow Jesus and how we fit that in with work, soccer practice, fantasy football, spin class, and all the rest of our impossibly overbooked lives.  Too many times we focus on talking and learning about following Jesus and never get around to actually following him!  I'm not judging anyone.  I am chief among sedentary Christian navel-gazers.

In his blistering and transformative book, COSTLY GRACE:  A CONTEMPORARY VIEW OF BONHOEFFER'S  THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP, Jon Walker points out that following Jesus is not just something to add to my resume.  Following Jesus is to BE my resume!  I no more ponder on how to fit it into my life than a paratrooper decides to jump out of a plane when it feels right or when it is convenient.  Using this analogy, Walker says this: "When paratroopers are trained to jump from a plane, they have to reach a point where they do not hesitate at the door...They cannot approach the threshold then decide whether or not to jump.  It's not the time to debate whether the plane is at the right altitude or going the right speed.  It's not the time to question if they are over the right target or if the pilot knows where he is going.  It's not the time to question if they were really ordered to jump or if they should wait to jump until they are absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt certain the jump will be safe.  The real question is: did you sign up to be a paratrooper or not?  (emphasis mine)  If the answer is yes, then they must learn to jump without reservation or hesistation.  They must trust that the plane is at the right altitude and going the right speed, that they are over the target, and that the pilot knows what he is doing."  (page 49.)

So the real question I have to answer is this:  did I sign on to be a follower of Jesus or not?  I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

Costly Grace

Frequently I read books devotionally.  (This may just be a "spiritual" way to say that I read books slowly.)    In the course of doing this for several years, I have encountered a number of authors and books who have rocked my world - Chan's The Forgotten God, Manning's The Furious Longing of God, Pratt's Radical, Claiborne's Jesus For President, and others.  I now working into another one - Jon Walker's Costly Grace: A Contemporary View of Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship.

With the Second World War and the Holocaust on the horizon,  German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer noted with pain that much of West Christianity had been reduced to an easy, peripheral, low-cost lifestyle support system.  Jesus had been reshaped as a cosmic security system/lifeguard/complaint department, to protect our circumstantial happiness, health, success, and comfort if a person enjoyed those blessings, or to secure them if a person did not.  Bonhoeffer bemoaned that Jesus was the equivalent of our present day 911; valued if needed, and ignored if not. Against this, Bonhoeffer argued for a faith that yielded completely to a Jesus who changed lives and upended the world's value systems.  He famously championed the truth that the grace of God in Jesus is free, but it is not cheap.  Jesus does not invite us to come and be pampered, Bonhoeffer insisted; Jesus invites us to come and die.  Pastor Bonhoeffer did not just preach this; he lived it.  (Google him.  It's worth it.)

In the spirit of Bonhoeffer, Walker writes this:  "Do we follow dogma instead of Jesus?  Do we create impersonal discipleship models that are hopelessly irrelevant to our personal lives?  Do we preach, teach, and discuss the same biblical concepts over and over again-our favorite ones-at the expense of others that are just as important?  Do we follow Jesus based more on our own opinions and convictions, and to little on the commands of Christ?...We must look to Jesus and no where else for our answers.  We must know a Christ who is real and solid, and this knowing doesn't come from conveniently memorizing Bible facts and comfortably studying theological systems.  It comes from the willingness  to pay the cost of knowing him and sacrificially living out of what we believe to be true of him." (Page 22.)

I'll see you around the next bend in the river.  I anticipate rough and exciting waters ahead.

Suicide Rates Climb; Pastors Among the Afflicted

Yesterday a friend and colleague in ministry shared the sad news about a pastor in Macon, Georgia.  He didn't show up for worship on Sunday.  When his family members went looking for him, the found him in the driveway of their home, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.  He was 42 years old, married, and the father of two.  His 800+ member congregation is fruitful and growing.  He was one of thousands who suffer from severe manic depression.  For most of his life and ministry he prevailed over it.  Something happened, though, or a complexity of circumstances came together, and he simply felt he couldn't go on any longer.  Needless to say, it has left his family and his church devastated.  No one will ever know the full circumstances of this tragic event.  Suicide rates continue to rise in America.  According to TIME Magazine, in the 50-54 year old age range of men the rate of suicides increased 49.4% in the last ten year U.S. Census period.  An alarming number of suicides include faith leaders and professionals.  Three things capture my attention since hearing of the Macon, Georgia pastor's death.

First, it's time to pull our heads out of the sand and to recognize that depression is epidemic.   Many of us know depression from the inside.  Yes, there are things we should and can do to help minimize the effect of depression on us and on those we love and serve.  Depression is curable, and we who are prone to suffer from it must take responsibility to seek health.  But depression is not a moral flaw, a character weakness, a lapse in faith, or an excuse.  It is an illness.  None of us who have ever dealt with it would chose it.  In the worst of it, it is a valley from which there seems no escape.  No one who has never dealt with it could understand this.  Unless you have been in this bleak hell hole, you cannot know how devastating depression is.   We have to start talking about it and deal with it,  long before the option to cease living is ever considered.

Second, I am so very grateful and humbled.   I have blessed as a pastor with amazingly caring congregations, including the awesome congregation I am a part of now, and with strong support from friends and colleagues in ministry.  I've been through tough stretches, and depression rears its ugly head from time to time.   But I've always had compassionate laypersons and assertive support from within and from outside the church who have been there to pray for and with me, to lift me up, to hold me accountable, and to let me know that I am not alone in the journey.   This is not something I have earned, nor is it a function of my ability or being favored in some way.  As is the case for many of us who are church pastors, as we look at the colleague in Georgia whom we have lost, it is literally a case of there, but for the grace of God, go I. 

Finally, even as I consider how graced I have been, I know of far too many pastors and church leaders who are not.   I will even go so far as to say that some pastors I know are in fact victims of abuse.  Some abuse is intentional.   I've heard of church people who go after their pastors with a vengeance, having convinced themselves that they're doing so for Godly reasons.  Some abuse happens by neglect.   Colleagues tell me of congregations who will throw something at their pastor during Pastor's Appreciation Month (October), then use that as an excuse to ignore their pastor and his/her needs for the rest of the year.   Abuse happens in guise of praise,  heaping superhuman expectations on those who lead.   Some churches treat their pastors almost as a third gender - beyond anything human.  Pastors are people, just like anyone else.  They face the same problems, the same needs, the same pressures, the same temptations, the same angers, the same pains as anyone else.  They are faulty, and they make mistakes.  As I have experienced, it is a wise congregation that expects excellence in leadership from their pastor(s) and holds them accountable to that, but which asks about a pastor's personal needs, cares about a pastors human side, and supports their pastor as they would any brother or sister in Christ.

Just feeling pain for a brother in The Lord who is no longer with us.  I'll see you around the next bend in the river.  Never paddle alone.

Jesus Did Not Die the Cross to Protect Your Lifestyle!

I think it's time to name an elephant in the evangelical Christian world.  And I do so recognizing that I am the first one guilty of what I am about to identify.  Many who would seek to be followers of Jesus want to do so without making a single dent in our lifestyle.  We want to enjoy the same pleasures, have access to the same amount of money, pursue the same recreation and leisure, stockpile the same amount of stuff, and have the same amount of control over what pleases us personally and what does not.  We want Jesus to put His stamp of approval on this so that we can see it all as the "blessings" he wants us to have.   It's like we believe that Jesus died on a cross to protect our lifestyles.

In contrast to this, I offer the words of the prophet Rick Warren.  Yes, I intentionally typed "prophet". A prophet is one who humbly speaks on behalf of God, whether it is popular or not.  And, yes, I know all the stuff flying around about the lead and founding pastor of Saddleback Church.  I know all the rumblings about Rick inviting BOTH presidential candidates to interviews at Saddleback.  I know the ugly innuendos and judgmental comments that floated around following the tragic, self-inflicted death of his son.  And I know the ridiculous urban cyber-myth about Rick promoting the Koran.
All of that aside, Rick is a man after God's own heart.  He is on fire about winning people to Jesus and building strong discipleship in a way about which most of us haven't thought.  Thousands walk with Christ because of his leadership and his writing.  Able to live like billionaire if he chose to, he instead chooses to leverage that considerable financial power for the Kingdom.  Rick Warren walks the walk, period.

Rick writes this in a foreword to Jon Walker's book, COSTLY GRACE: A Contemporary View of Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship.  "Sadly, millions of Christians are confused about what it means to surrender to Jesus and so they go on living their lives without ever changing the way they live.  The 'cheap grace' Bonhoeffer describes...has so deeply saturated our congregations that, despite our evangelical theology, the idea of surrender is as unpopular and misunderstood as the idea of submission.  Surrender implies losing, and no one wants to be a loser. Yet Jesus says we must be losers, losing our lives in order to find life in him.  (Matthew 16:25-28)"

Jesus did not die on the cross to preserve my standard of living.  He died to save me and to transform me, and that will mean living differently than I would otherwise.  I can serve Him or my lifestyle, not both.  That's it.  I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

God Loves Numbers

I watch numbers.  I believe numbers matter to God.

In 1979, seven years after becoming a follower of Jesus, I discovered something called evangelism.  Evangelism is the relational process of introducing another person to Jesus.  Still the best definition I've heard is this - evangelism is one beggar showing another beggar where he/she found bread.  Thirty-four years ago I realized that Matthew 28:19 is not a nice, sentimental suggestion.  It is a command.  For me, if I'm not contributing to fulfilling this mandate in some real way, then I really cannot claim the name of Jesus as my own.  I'm not always as effective as I'd like to be in doing my part, but I must continue to try - relentlessly.  Sharing Jesus is the very heart of God.

So I, and others of like mind and heart, pay attention to numbers.  I watch how many people are meeting Jesus, getting baptized, and publicly claiming Jesus as Savior and Lord.  I pay attention to the number of people drawn to expectant worship.  I count the number of people learning, experiencing, studying, and growing as followers of Jesus.  I want to know how many people are getting outside the walls of church buildings.  And I study how many people match their claim to be Christian with sacrificial giving of their resources.

Those of us who share this approach as leaders receive our share of criticism within church and denominational circles.  I've heard it all in over three decades.  "All you care about is numbers."  "There's more to being a church than numbers."  "God doesn't want us to be successful; God wants us to be faithful."  "You just want the church/yourself to look good compared to other churches."  Most of these statements have some level of validity.  Numbers can be an end in themselves.  Any leader can succumb to the danger of padding his/her own image or career portfolio with numbers.  An emphasis on numbers can become a weapon in Satan's hand just like anything else.

Still, I invite us to notice something about the first recorded public invitation to receive Jesus - Simon Peter's message as recorded in Acts 2.   When recounting the result of this, why didn't the physician Luke just say, "A lot of people were baptized and joined them that day."?   Why did Luke give specifically a metric, numerical account?  "Those who accepted his message were baptized, and ABOUT 3000 were ADDED to their NUMBER that day."   (Acts 2:41, New International Version of the Bible; emphasis mine.).   For whatever reason, the Holy Spirit wanted Luke to offer this as a numerical report.

This and other indicators tells me that numbers matter to God.  Every number is a person, with his or her own brokenness and his or her own story.  Every single number is a heart for which a living God will fight, die, and rise again.  Every single number is a life that matters to a passionate Jesus.  If it matters to Jesus, and if I claim Jesus, it had better matter to me.  Every "plus one" is one more person ushered into His arm, one more person growing in His love, one more person serving a broken world in His name.



So I watch numbers, without apology.   What do you think about numbers in the ministry of the Church of Jesus the Christ?  I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

This Is How It Works

As I work with churches I have served and churches I have consulted, I always hear the same question, in varying forms:  "What can we do to get new people?"  "How can our church grow?"  "How do we do evangelism?"

Here's how it works.  True story.

A business owner in our congregation recently had the opportunity to talk with one of his employees about faith matters.  I don't know the specific circumstances.  Maybe the employee was just curious about church.  Perhaps the owner saw an opening to talk about his own relationship with Jesus.  It could be she had some particular life issue with which she was dealing.  In any event, she accepted an invitation to try out our worship service.  The next Sunday the business owner stood outside the entryway to our facility watching for her, in order to join with our hospitality team in making her feel welcome, helping her to get acclimated, answering any questions, etc.   Within a couple of hours of her worship experience someone in addition to the business owner texted her to thank her for coming and to ask how the church could help her.  She returned to worship for a couple of Sundays after that.  Eventually she accepted an invitation to stay after worship for a free meal and a time to learn more about our mission, our story, our particular denomination, and what is expected of church members.  Long story short, last Sunday she joined with several others in baptism or remembering baptism, public profession of faith in Jesus.  She's now in a small group around Pastor Rick Warren's resource WHAT ON EARTH AM I HERE FOR?   So shes building relationships with more people, including folks who are new like her.  Early this week I had occasion to patronize their business.  The new disciple proudly told me that she had invited a friend of hers to come to worship to see her make her commitment.  Her friend plans to come back to worship with her and wants to know about baptism.

That's how it works.  It's not rocket science.  It doesn't take revivals, special speakers, and slick packaged program.  It doesn't require yet another committee.  You don't have to be a high-powered, high profile mega-church.  We're not that.  It doesn't take an over-the-top charismatic, media savvy techno-pastor who writes about three books a year.  I respect guys and gals like that and I learn a ton from them.  But I'm not one and never will be.  People don't respond to Jesus and to the Body of Christ because of programs, preachers, or profiles.  It happens through relationships; simple, genuine, one-to-one relationships.  Faith is more caught than taught.  It's one beggar sharing with another where bread is given.

Just so you know...  I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

Goodbye to the Great Canoeist

This blog began several years ago with a theme of Ozark streams, canoeing, and kayaking.  This Saturday we will bid a formal farewell to the man who introduced me to the world encompassed by these great themes.  My dad died last Thursday morning at the age of 84 years.  He passed away while on a "bucket list" trip to a place that he loved.  All of us in his immediate family were ill at ease about him undertaking this trip, as ill as he was.  However, he died doing exactly what he loved to do - tackling the next challenge.

When I was very young my father bought a 1947 seventeen-foot aluminum Grumman canoe.  (Grumman Aircraft was just transitioning to peacetime, recreational production.  This canoe was built to withstand the Apocalypse!).  I don't think my dad knew all that much about canoeing.  However, as was the case with everything he approached in life, he learned quickly and thoroughly.  That began my own passion for vessels designed for moving water and for the adventures on which they could take us.  Right up until the last half decade Dad and took a canoe float together about once a year.

I think my father loved river trips because they embodied his approach to life.  When floating a stream you can't focus on what's behind you.  Your attention has to be on what stretch of the river you're in right now, and on what's ahead of you.  Sometimes you won't know into what kind of water the flow is taking the boat.  But that's the adventure of it; there's always something new ahead.  That's how my dad viewed existence.  The future is filled with uncertainty, possibility, danger, and adventure.   Don't fear it.  Paddle hard into it with hope and courage.

I know people who spend a lot of time looking backward.  They long for a time that once was, which, in their minds or memory, was ideal.  They spend a lot of time in sadness, anger, or fear of "the way things are."  And the future causes them more fear and dread than excitement.  All this is understandable.  I lean that way sometimes myself.  My dad did not.  He believed that, whatever the future had in store, God was already there.  All else in life may change, but the One who came to us in Jesus does not.  So accept the next challenge, wade into it gusto, and paddle with joy.  That was my dad.

Paddle on, Bill Posegate.  The best is yet to come.  And I will see you around the next bend in the river...some day.

AC/DC's "Back in Black" To Start Worship?!?

Last Sunday I participated in a worship service t.hat ended up being quite an event.  The music mode at this particular service is driven by electric guitars, keyboard, percussion, and both male and female vocals.  We're in a message series on spiritual warfare, looking at the ways that theme surfaces in popular movies.  The focus movie for the day was the 2012 superhero film, "The Avengers."  Going out on a limb considerably, the musicians opened worship time with a hard driving instrumental version of AC/DC's "Back in Black."  (If you're not familiar with historic rock music, trust me - it isn't your daddy's worship prelude!). "Back in Black" is one of the music themes of "The Avengers."

The musician knew they could expect one of two reactions when they were done.  There would be the sound of crickets or the crowd would explode in cheers and applause.  They got the latter.  And from there on it was a service alive with spiritual power.  Many factors contributed to that, I'm sure.  Central among those factors is a Holy Spirit that moves with power.  The service was well planned with prayer and passion, as it always is.  The crowd as unusually large for a summer Sunday and I'm sure that contributed.   Many people were there for the first time.  The hospitality team went over and above to make the environment welcoming, as is their norm.  The musicians and vocalists brought their A-game, as they always do.  As the main speaker, I could have stood up and read names from the phone book and had very little effect on an event this spiritually powerful.

Yet I've been thinking all week about that first song.  What role did the hijacking of a secular rock number play in what happened on Sunday?   I wonder if it was just the right combination of disarming and different.  New people might have thought, "This isn't what I expected church would be like?"  Church veterans thought, "Wow, that's new!"  The playing field was kind of leveled where everyone felt the surprise and excitement together.   Unchurched people come from a world inundated by the same old same old, and a lot of it is negative.  Churched people get in ruts in worship, all styles of worship, and don't expect anything new or different.  Maybe the surprise of a hard-rockin' AC/DC tune sent just enough of a signal that maybe things could be new and different, maybe this is a God of surprises, and maybe there is hope out there.  I think the hunger for hope, real hope unites us all.  And I mean hope that goes way beyond the "American Dream," winning the lottery, getting to heaven and avoiding the other place, getting the next buzz, or whatever.  It's a hope that we really are loved by a real, life-changing God; that we have a place in something that matters eternally; that the worst life has to offer is not the final word.  Maybe that's what sparked in all of us when we were surprised by "Back in Black."

I think it's possible for worship services of all kinds to create expectancy; to cause people to ask each to ask each time, "What's God going to do this time?"  What do you think?  I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

Take America Back?!?

One of our leaders at our church recently heard a church leader from a different church give a message on "taking America back."  In the wake of celebrating the 237th birthday of the United States of America, this particular pastor was decrying the present state of affairs in our land, at least as he saw it.  He longed for a return to days gone by, when prayer was allowed in schools, when neighborhoods were safe, when people believed in America and God, and when everyone went to church.  Specifically he wanted us to go back to the days of my childhood, in the 1950's and 1960's.

So I thought about those days, to which many preachers, politicians, and media voices hearken back.  I did grow up believing in our land.  My little heart stirred at words like, "We hold these truths to be self-evident..." and "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."  Specifically I was taught the value of Emma Lazarus' 1883 poem at the base of the statue of liberty, which ends with, "Give me your tired, your poor; your huddled masses yearning to breathe free; the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.  Send these, the homeless tempest tossed to me.  I lift my lamp beside the golden shore."  That still squeezes my heart and causes me to tear up.  I believed that these words embodied our nation.  This made us different than any other country on the face of the planet.

And, yes, my childhood was a good one.  I lived in a safe neighborhood.  (I grew up middle-class suburban white.)  Most everyone I knew went to church.  We all believed in America and God.  (Usually in that order.)   My church was a place of peace and comfort.  (To the best of my knowledge Jesus was someone sent to make me behave better.)  And all was well, right up until the new boy showed up in the primary Sunday School department.  Week after week he sat alone; no one made a move to sit near him or talk to him.  One Sunday a group of boys decided to make the newcomer the subject of their taunts.  No one stopped them; not the other students, the Sunday School leaders, or me.  I was taught to never use the n-word, but here it was - right in the house of God.  He was the youngest member of the first African-American family to have the courage to be in our church building, without being on the custodial staff.

And that was my first awareness that something was wrong; terribly wrong.  Tough news at age eleven...And this became the first mile marker in a journey that for several years would lead me away from my church, away from God, and away from my unexamined good feelings about my country.  As our church leader observed after the recent message he heard from another church's leadership, the "good old days" were not good for everyone, and included much that honored neither American values nor God.

For all the ideals that form our nation's bedrock, and we have great ones, we haven't fully actualized them always, and we're not quite there yet.  Many of the original signers of the document containing the worlds, "all men are created equal," were slave owners, knowing no other reality in their world.  As a nation, believing in the "yearning to breathe free," we slowly and systematically denied that to the native Americans who pre-dated us on this continent.  And even the revered phrase, "all men are created equal" presumes that women are little more than livestock.  Now, against all these cultural struggles, our nation has made great, heroic, and sacrificial strides toward protecting liberty both here and outside our borders.  We should be proud of that.  In addition, though, for this nation to continue to be a beacon of freedom, we have to be grounded in something beyond us, more important than us, and more powerful than us.

Many centuries ago, halfway around the globe, a man journeyed back to his hometown.  He was middle-aged, but the standard of lifespans then.  He went to a gathering of learning and worship for the men of his faith - Judaism; a gathering known as a synagogue.  As was the right of any Jewish male in good standing, he got up to read from the scriptures, and was given a scroll of the prophet Isaiah.  He read these words:  "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind. to release the oppressed..."  (Luke 4:18, New International Version of the Bible.  Sounds a lot like the words at the base of the Statue of Liberty to me.)  When he was done and sat back down he said, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."  (Luke 4:20)  This is the truth with which this nation and any nation must wrestle:  Genuine freedom comes as a gift from God through the blood of the cross of Jesus, and by no other way.   Freedom is anchored in this - in that every human being who has ever/does/ever will draw breath is declared worthy of the life, death, and resurrection of God's own son.  This is a worthiness that is not earned or achieved, it is given by the unyielding nature of a God whose very identity is love purer than anything human know or create.  And any regarding or treatment of a person that veers from that anchoring is a denial of the freedom God demands for all.

I love this country.  I love that for which it has stood and for which it has bled.  It is because I love the USA that my allegiance to this God is higher than my allegiance to it.  When we say "one nation, under God," do we really mean it?  Do we realize the priority to which we have sworn?  In the area of the country in which I live, it is common to see church buildings with one flag pole outside them.  Virtually without exception, the flag of the land I love flies highest, with the Christian flag flying beneath it.  Most folks take this sight for granted.  It crawls all over me.  This nation's hope and opportunity to continue to be freedom's beacon on our golden shore is to reverse the positions of those flags and truly let Jesus come first.  He is the author of the only freedom that lasts.

I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

What Would Unbridled Love Look Like?

I have a passion for evangelism - making new disciples for Jesus the Christ.  For years I've pondered why the Jesus following movement flourishes and ignites in economically and politically marginal areas in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, while North America is the second lowest per capita active-Christian continent on the face of the globe.  (We're beaten only by Europe!). Also I've questioned why signs, wonders, and miracles are so much more evident elsewhere.  I used to think it was because our narrow Western rationalism worldview simply prevented us from seeing the miraculous.  Now I think there's more to it.

I'm captivated by the work of filmographer Darren Wilson.  In his films, "Furious Love,"  "Father of Lights" and "Finger of God" he simply travels the world with a film crew documenting where amazing life transformation is happening because of Jesus.  In some cases the impact happens in church buildings in North America.  Largely, though, Wilson follows the movement of the Holy Spirit outside the walls of churches, in so-called "third world" settings, with people on the margins.  He concludes that the common denominator in these conversions, healings, deliverances, and miracles is not certain practices, particular theologies, any denomination, or any formula.  The catalyst he sees (and the films prove) is love.  Just the pure unbridled, unhindered love of Jesus.  That's all.  Humble followers of Jesus just joyously wade into street people, hostile pagans, the homeless poor, cast-aside waste children, Islamic folks, Hindus, witches and warlocks, gang-bangers, hookers, pimps, witch doctors, warlords, gays, straights, and we're-not-sure-what-they-ares, and they just love them...they listen to them, learn them, pray with them, tell of God's love for them, invite them to Jesus and love them.  And signs and wonders happen, and the movement spreads like wildfire.  (One exuberant dread-locked Jesus follower in Jerusalem prayed for healing in a man's leg.  After doing so he asked the man, "Are you Muslim?"  "Yes," the man said.  "I'm Christian.  I love you!"  the follower replied.  How often does THAT happen in Islam-phobic western Christendom?)

Maybe in North American churches, even with our best efforts, we send signals that the Christ-love we offer is hindered and conditioned.  You get Jesus' love if you come to this building, if you join this church, if you dress up, if you dress down, if you sing from a hymnal, if you belt out words on a screen, if you are "reverent", if you put your hands in the air and shout, "praise The Lord!, if you act like this, if you talk like that, if you...whatever.  None of us intend this, but I wonder if we're hindering the unleashing of a real power among us and, more important, through us to the mission fields to which we are called.

What would the unbridled, unhindered love of Jesus look like here?   Our church has had a kind of slogan bubble up in our midst - "Grace comes first."   We're trying to (and the conservative evangelical in me just gags when I use this phrase) live into that.  I hope we have the faith, courage, and resolve to become it more and more.

What would that look like?  I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

What Is A "Worship Win"?

For followers of Jesus, what does a "win" in worship look like?   How do you know when a "win" has happened?   Depending on the individual involved, the definition of a worship win can vary.  For the person preaching or teaching, a win can be the one person who says, "I really got a lot out of that message!"  For the choir director a win can be all voices coming in on the anthem at the right time.  For the band leader a win might be getting the congregation to sing along.  For the child care attendant, a win could be the service ending on time so parents can pick up kids before the planned kid activity for the day runs out.  You get the idea.  The definitions of a worship win can be all over the map.

Lack of central clarity about what a worship win looks like can lead to confusion and tension.  For an evangelism team leader a place of worship nearly full of people might be a win.  For a person in the same church who has worshipped each week sitting in the same place this might not be a win, because some stranger is sitting in my place (!).

North Point Church based in Alpharetta, Georgia has a simple, clear definition of what a worship win looks like.  A win is, "...when a regular attendee brings an unchurched friend who enjoys the service so much that he or she returns the following week."  (From Deep and Wide: Creating Churches Unchurched People Love to Attend  by Andy Stanley.  Page 196.). That's simple, clear, and measurable.  It supercedes any and all individual definitions of a worship win.  And, evidently, it has contributed to Kingdom success in and through North Point.

So what's your church's definition of a worship win?   Fight the temptation to be vague and general:  "We win in worship if everyone has a good experience of God's love."  That's fine, but that's like the St. Louis Cardinals saying,  "We win if everyone has a good time at Busch Stadium."  The Cardinals win if, by count, they score more runs than the other team.  North Point Church and other mission-minded churches have said, "We win in worship if the worship experience draws unchurched people who come back and bring other unchurched people with them."  You can measure that.

Again, each of us need to ask, "What's my church's definition of a win in worship?  And, are we winning?"  I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

A Tandem Bike of Faith

Knowing Jesus or seeking Jesus does not make a person immune to the crippling circumstances that can slam into us.  I sought and received permission to share the following.  I offer it for every discouraged, frightened, defeated, angered, depleted, isolated or overwhelmed child of God.

I refuse to believe that the God I love and who loves me as his child would have set me on the path I have walked for the last year(s) without intentionally leading me (while fighting all the way) in a new, unexplored direction.

I keep trying to ride and repair the same bike along the same path, at the same speed, fighting and struggling the whole way.  I kind of see Jesus leaned back on a two-seater, pointing and making suggestions, while I fight a downhill path.  He points - "Try this way!"   My voice bumps as I pick up speed,  "But that way is scary!  I've always gone this way before...(pause)...Jesus..."

"How's that workin' out for ya?"...A smirk and a wink from the Word made flesh as I start to look around for a path I haven't seen or felt brave enough to venture down before.  I have bumped all the way downhill and the bottom just fell out of "the bottom."  There is no to go but up from here.

Thank you, Jesus, for guiding me through the last two days, two weeks.  I have tried this without you, without fully trusting; letting go and giving control to you.  Help me, please.  I am a bit of a control freak, but I am not the Great I Am!

(Ellen Moore - 05.03.13)

Love With No Obligations vs. Religion With An Agenda

I highly recommend the films of videographer Darren Wilson.  He simply takes a camera around the world to any place where God seems to be working in a powerful, miraculous way.  While so many Christian churches in North America struggle with direction, growth, and even survival, Darren finds faith in Christ alive in barrier-shattering ways.  And, more often than not, he films the impact of a living Jesus outside the walls of church buildings and in the most marginal, dangerous, and forgotten places on the face of the planet.  Hostile hearts turn God-ward, warlords and witch doctors cring before loving prayer, broken bodies are made whole, and centuries old barriers come crashing down...all because ordinary people wade into the streets and fields of a real world, armed only with prayers of faith, the touch of Christ-like care, and hearts flooded with the unbridled love of Jesus.

In his film THE FINGER OF GOD Darren chronicles the glowing love of Heidi Baker, who ministers among the poor and hopeless of Eastern Europe.  In explaining how God changes lives so dramatically through the ministry she shares with others, Heidi explained that it's the difference between "love with no obligations" and "religion with an agenda."  Miracles happen and lives change with the former; churches dry up and die with the latter.  In one instance Heidi used the translating services of a Turkish pastor to ask a poor Bulgarian woman if she (Heidi) could pray in Jesus' name for her healing.  The pastor told Heidi the woman was Muslim, so she would have to accept Jesus before someone could pray for her healing.  With joyous resolution Heidi lifted the woman before Jesus in prayer, insisting that love comes first.  Jesus didn't wait until we accepted him to die for us.  He died for us first; loved us first, before we loved him.

I believe signs and wonders, miracles, healings and deliverance can happen here.  Darren Wilson believes the doorway to all this is Heidi's kind of unfettered, forget the rules, just-love-'em-into-the-arms-of-Jesus love.  Heidi notes Roland Baker saying that miracles show God exists, but the greatest power is love.

This Saturday many people in our area will participate in an area wide mission blitz called Hope Epidemic.  For those doing so, this is more than cleaning yards, giving away groceries, paying for gas or laundry, or visiting the sick and home bound.  This is about BEING the love of Jesus in flesh and blood.  On Saturday morning look for the person who will not experience Jesus unless he/she experiences him in you.  Just love that person; don't make it complicated.  And be open to a miracle!

I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

Knowledge Alone is Worthless

I've been spending the last few weeks taking a slow, daily walk through I Corinthians from the Bible.  For those unfamiliar with the movement of following Jesus, this is actually a letter written by a first century leader called Paul to the Jesus-followers in a port city of the Roman Empire known as Corinth; located in the Greek Isles.  In what we know as chapter 8 of that letter Paul addresses a particular concern among followers of Jesus there.  Corinth had a multiplicity of religious practices in its population, and many faith systems followed ritual practices of sacrificing animals to their gods.  Partly as a means of providing an inexpensive food source for poor people, cast off meat from these sacrifices often went on the open market.  Eating meat sacrificed to false gods was abhorrent to people of the Hebrew faith, the parent faith group to the Jesus movement.  However, as the movement grew, many people came to it who were not from Hebrew roots, and knew nothing of these restrictions.  Both groups were represented in the Corinthian gathering of believers, and the issue of eating meat sacrificed to idols became one of many bones of contention among the followers there.

As I read this, it seems that both sides of this debate assumed that they had the right knowledge, and that the right knowledge was enough.  One might say, "I know that eating food sacrificed to idols is and always has been against the commandments of God, and everybody should know this."  Another could say, "I know that idols mean nothing, so the sacrifice to them means nothing.  Therefore it's fine to eat such meat; this should make sense to everyone."  So Paul starts right off saying, "...We know that all possess knowledge.  Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up..."  (I Corinthians 8:1 - New International Version of the Bible)   I like it even better the way the Contemporary English Bible translates it:  "Knowledge makes people arrogant, but love builds people up."  Paul goes on to express that the issue isn't knowing what's legal or what's permissible.  The issue is what most helps another people experience the sacrificing, life-changing love of Jesus the Christ.  Just knowing something, then cavalierly expecting others to know it as well isn't helpful; it's arrogance.  Not only does this fail to help a person meet Jesus; it actually works against this happening.

I'm afraid we who follow Jesus, starting with the person at this keyboard, are too often guilty of beating the drum of what we know to be true, and expecting everyone else to pony up to that truth automatically, without getting out amongst folks (as Jesus did, BTW) and helping them to understand why certain truths matter.  More importantly, we need to help them see how the truths reflect the living presence of One who is infinite, saving love for them.  As researcher David Kinnemon reminds us, the general North American populace know more about that which Christians are against that what we are for.  In addition, the unreached population feels the haughtiness of Christians who make great pronouncements of what they know, presuming that everyone outside the walls of churches should automatically know these things as well.  This applies to all points on the Christian theological spectrum, from demanding 10 Commandment postings on courthouse walls and prayer in public schools, to condemning people who buy clothing cheaply made in substandard environments in Bangladesh.  Arrogance knows no politics, according to Paul.   And, as he bluntly puts it, knowledge without the love of Jesus is arrogance.

For example, I believe the biblical witness is fairly clear about human sexuality: intimacy is a gift of God for the bonded covenant of a marriage.  By inference and by direct word, any other use of this gift damages something sacred.  However, I live in a world in which presumptions about sexuality are all over the map.  Just as the majority of people in North America are practicing followers of Jesus, so the vast majority have no working familiarity with human relationship standards borne out of a relationship with a covenant God.  If I simply go about barking out pronouncements in Jesus name about same-gender sexual relationships, sexual practices outside of marriage, sexuality before marriage, adulterous relationships, etc. etc., without first showing and speaking of the love of Jesus and how and why He changes everything about how we live and treat others, then I am a stumbling block.   (See Matthew 18:7 in the Bible for a stinging indictment on this.)   I have acted on knowledge alone, without love.

Just my thoughts on this Tuesday...I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

Initial Thoughts on the Boston Marathon Bombing

It's no longer a question of if we'll face the next act of senseless violence that will topple our illusion of security.  It's a question of when, where, and how bad will it be.  Now not even an event as politically benign and morally positive as the Boston Marathon is safe.  In horrid irony the bombings assaulted a sporting celebration dedicated to the victims of the recent Newtown Connecticut school shootings.

Much of the usual reactions will happen in the next few days.  Grief will be great for the dead and the maimed.  (As of this posting - 9:25 p.m. CST on 04.15 - three people are dead, including an eight year old child.  Up to a dozen are critically injured; more are hospitalized.)  We will be dazed and unsteady for a while.  The low, simmering unsafe feeling that's been a part of our lives since 09.11.01 will rise to a boil, at least for now.  Many will jump to blame.  Some will assume the action of international terrorists and may point the finger at Islamic extremists.  They may be proved right. Some will cry for stiffer penalties for the criminally ill, if that turns out to be the cause.  Others will blame violence in the media and in our culture in general.  Westboro Baptist Church will probably picket the funerals, celebrating "God's judgement."  Both people who claim faith and those who struggle with faith will quietly or openly ask why a good and loving God would allow something like this to happen.  Some will call for more accessibility to "conceal and carry" so citizens can protect themselves.  Others will demand tighter security for all public gatherings.  And we'll continue to wonder if it will ever be safe again to go to a ball game, a parade, a race, a concert, a worship service, a school, a movie, or wherever.  And, unfortunately, other parts of the world will look at this and say, "We're sorry for you, but we live with this kind of thing every day!"  That, of course, doesn't make it acceptable or tolerable in ANY place in the world.  It is beyond contemptible.

Fear and anger are normal.  To act on something other than fear or anger will take a decision - a decision against the flow; it will not come naturally.  It might be a good time to learn a lesson from history.  In Great Britain in 1939, the British Isles faced immanent violence and potential disaster.  Alone in Europe in defiance of the Third Reich, bombing assaults were certain and invasion was highly likely.  British leaders chose this slogan to really their people:  Keep Calm and Carry On.  Brits chose to fight back, win or lose, by refusing to give up on their values, their commitments, and their determination to live freely as they chose to live.  They took a serious beating, but Keep Calm and Carry On expressed their focused resolve.  Britain did not fall, and it became a staging area to turn back one of the greatest evils of human history.

For those who choose to follow the one known as Jesus of Nazareth, we are invited to chose something other than anger and fear in everything we face.  We're reminded that perfect love casts out fear.  Everywhere people default to hate and violence, we are to be the ones who keep calm (embrace the peace that passes all understanding, and give that peace) and carry on (continuing our commitment to change lives for Jesus and to transform a fallen and hurting world). 

One of my best friends in this world is a runner, who has done his share of marathons and half marathons.  Dan is also one of the most passionate followers of Jesus I know.  As a believer and as a runner, I know how he would address defeat, unfair injury, ghastly evil and injustice, and horrific loss.

He'd tie on the shoes and run again.  He'd keep calm and carry on.  That's how we heal; that's how we win.

I'll see you around the next bend in the river.  Pray for Boston.

Someone Needs Your Legacy

North American churches of all sizes, styles, and brand names find themselves in challenging times.  The world is changing at such break-neck speed that it's hard for congregations to keep up.  Many groups of the faithful struggle to determine what needs to stay the same in their ministries and what needs to adapt to a new landscape.  In many congregations this surfaces around worship style.  Some of God's servants will work hard to preserve a "traditional" means of worship (whatever "traditional" means in any given congregation) in order to protect the core of faith experience in the midst of change.  At the same time, other followers will create more "contemporary" methods of worship (whatever "contemporary" means for any congregation) in an effort to keep up with changes and to attract new generations of people unfamiliar with Jesus.  Needless to say, this creates tension.

In multiple congregations I've visited, consulted, or been a part of, a polarity exists that is sometimes painful.  "Traditional" worshippers express their love for their worship experience using important concepts like "reverence" and "solemnity."  They experience God in a very real kind of "Holy otherness" that the quiet but genuine piety many traditional worship services provide.  They look at more "contemporary" worship as showy or frivolous when compared to the solemnity they value.  On the other hand, "contemporary" worshippers express their love for their worship experience with words like "celebration" or "praise."  They tend to experience God in the intimacy and personal energy that many contemporary services offer.  As a result, they look at the "Holy otherness" of traditional worship and they see stuffiness, coldness, and lifelessness.  The dichotomy and resultant division within the Body of Christ is unfortunate.  Beyond that it is counter-productive, as it bleeds energy off any church's primary task of connecting with unreached people, meeting unmet human need, and leading people into the saving arms of Jesus.

Recently I spent a day in thought and prayer about this, thinking about how common this is in churches of all kinds in our land.  I asked, "Where do these two vectors have common ground?  Even in the midst of these differences and the stressful times in which we live that can fuel the division, what is a different language we could use instead of the divisive language that "traditional" and "contemporary" has become?"  I thought about how many sincere traditional worshippers genuinely feel they are in danger of losing something.  I thought about how many committed contemporary worshippers seem genuinely fearful of missing out on something if they don't stay on the cutting edge.  Somehow, beyond the stylistic differences, encompassing yet transcending both "reverence" and "celebration" there must be something both want to secure, to protect, and to pass on.

To me there is one thing that embraces both reverence and celebration.  It's awe or wonder.   It's the utter incomprehensible nature of a God who would sew himself up in human skin to find a way to love and rescue a mess like me.  That's what causes in me both silence, humbling reverence and explosive, bang-that-guitar celebration.  It's awe; which is undercut equally by traditional worship that has become an empty, self-serving ritual or contemporary worship that has been reduced to self-indulgent emotionalism.  It's meeting the God-of-awe in Jesus, being completely transformed by him, and wanting nothing more than to pass that same thing on.  If awe is the common ground, then past, present, and future come together here.  It's not about preserving a worship style or trashing that to create a new style.  Style is the "how."  The "what" is awe of God in Christ, regardless of style.  It's not pipe organs or electric guitars we want to pass on to the next generation - it's Jesus.  The legacy and the future is the awe of God in Jesus the Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.

And that's the word God gave me on that day of prayer.  Legacy; loud and crystal clear - legacy.  Regardless of worship style, church structure, denomination name, etc., we each will leave a legacy of something.  I'm told that, statistically, fifty years after I'm dead very few people if any will remember anything about me.  My time to make impact is now.  I can leave any kind of a legacy, good, bad or indifferent.  I can leave a legacy by accident or by design.  What I want to do, what I am called to do, is to leave a legacy of knowing and loving Jesus, having my life completely transformed by him, and doing everything I can to see that as many people as possible meet him.  I can leave a legacy of a life lived in awe of Jesus, whether I expressed that singing "A Mighty Fortress is Our God," or "Our God Is Mighty to Save."

Whatever you sing in worship next, however you worship, and wherever you worship, someone needs not the legacy of your particular way to worship, but your legacy of awe.  

I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

Tension is a Blessing

Recently I've read the book, The Life of Pi, and seen the film version of it.  It's the story of a boy who is shipwrecked in the Pacific ocean and who is forced to share a lifeboat with an adult Bengal tiger.  The do not form some kind of a Disney-esque bond; the tiger is a tiger, who sees Pi as a threat, a competitor for food and territory, and as potential prey if needed.  Pi has to find ways to mark and protect his own section of the boat, and he has to keep the tiger fed, so that he himself won't become the tiger's next meal.  They exist on the lifeboat in an odd tension of mutual support and wariness.  Pi realizes that it is the very tension between the tiger and him that keeps them both alive and that gives them a reason to press on.

We tend to assume that all tension is bad.  We work hard to reduce or eliminate tension.  To be sure, many tensions are outright destructive:  muscle tension that creates headaches, life tensions that create high blood pressure, political tensions that erupt into war, etc.  However, do we overlook ways in which tension can be a good thing, as it was for Pi and the tiger in the lifeboat?  Christian leader Andy Stanley says that some tensions should not be eliminated, but should be leveraged as a power source for the purpose of the overall mission.  In physics, tension can break things, but it is also an energy source, as in the tension of a bow that is leverage to release an arrow with power.  What if we saw the tensions in human existence the way Pi saw the tension between him and a predator in an environment they had to share?  In personal relationships, what if an introvert and an extrovert saw their personalities not as incompatible, but as something powerful and greater than each of them when combined?   In national politics, what if Democrats and Republican in Congress saw their different philosophies not as mutually exclusive where one of the other has to come out on top?  Instead, what if they saw their viewpoints as a healthy tension in which neither should sacrifice their convictions, but in which both could contribute to a good which is greater than either?   In Christian churches, what if differences in worship style were seen as a creative tension in which all could be fed and could learn in order to strengthen and deepen the overall capacity to changes lives and transform the world?

Tension is not always a bad thing.  It's in the tension between despair and hope that many people find faith.  For followers of Jesus, it's in the tension between our longing for God and giving up on God that we are surprised by the reality of the Resurrection.  I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

Sore Muscles and a Humbled Ego

So I thought I was doing pretty well staying physically fit at 60.  I've dropped a few pounds over the last year.  I swim for 50 minutes every other day, and on alternate days I do 45 hard minutes on an elliptical trainer.  My cholesterol is down, and my cardio strength is good.  I decided I had hit a good level and was pretty satisfied with the level I had achieved.  All was well, I thought.

Then some new friends at our church suggested I might want to look into core training and toning.  They suggested an iPhone app that would guide me through a series of exercises to this end.  So I downloaded the app and looked at the exercise set.  "This looks totally do-able," I thought, arrogantly.  "As good a shape as I'm in I'll barely break a sweat or increase my heartbeat.". And I did the exercise set.

Every muscle in my body hurt.  I could barely move the next day.  I was sore for week.  Imposing ashes on foreheads on what is known as Ash Wednesday, I could barely raise a shaky right arm!

Lesson learned:  If you think you've arrived, you haven't.  If you think there are no next levels to reach, you're not thinking.  While some muscles may be hitting on all cylinders, others are dormant.  If you believe all challenges have been mastered, you're dead in the water.  If you're not improving, you're stagnating.  This applies to individuals, groups, teams, businesses...and to the Church, the Body of Christ, the hope of the world.

Getting better requires humility, or getting humbled.  Sometimes unused, untoned muscles get sore.  I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

Don't Move Until God Says So!

What would it be like to start every day by waiting for God to tell you what to do?   How would it be to set your personal schedule and to-do list aside and to wait and pray for God to indicate where you needed to be, whom you needed to meet, and what you needed to do? 

I commend to you one of Darrin Wilson's impacting documentaries - "Father of Lights."  In it he will introduce you to a man in India named Ravi who starts every day just that way.  He prays to God whom he refers to as "Daddy."  He waits until "Daddy" speaks to him, then he does what God tells him to do.  It could be as simple as going to a particular village.  It could be as specific as finding a man with a white beard in an orange robe on a busy city street.  It could be as crucial and dangerous as confronting a local witch doctor responsible for the deaths of several Christian leaders.  And where Ravi goes, the love of God in Jesus Christ follows, and lives change.  What would that be like?  Is that just for specially chosen people, or is that an option or even a call for every Jesus-follower?

I have a friend who has taken a job in a new community and who goes to that community Monday through Thursday to be on the job, prior to the time when he and his wife will move there permanently.  Right now he's a stranger in a strange place.  One morning my friend awoke and felt led to pray specifically that God show him how he (my friend) could join God in what God is doing to reach people and change lives through the power of the risen Jesus.  Then my friend just approached his day waiting for God to speak.  While at work, he noticed a co-worker several desks over reading a Bible.  My friend is like I am, introverted and not prone to invade the space of other people.  He might have just passed off the sight of his co-worker as a comforting indicator that there are other Jesus-followers in his now community.  However, the Spirit of God clearly said to him, "Now!"  Against all normal instincts, he want to his co-worker's desk, introduced himself, and said he couldn't help but notice that she was reading a Bible.  She said that she was completely new to the Bible and to faith itself.  She was just at a point in her life where she was reaching for something.  My friend commended her on her step of faith, and they proceeded to talk.  The conversation gave my friend the opportunity to speak of God's grace, how that grace is fully known in Jesus, and how powerful the Word of God is in transforming lives and the world.  He got to participate in Jesus changing a person's life.

Would all this happened had my friend not started the day asking, "God, show me what you want me to do.  Show me how I can join you in what you are doing, and align my heart with yours."?  How often have I been guilty of making my to-do list for the day/week/month, and then asking God to bless it?  Is this kind of thing something God expects of all of us who claim Jesus?  What do you think?

I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

We Get to Carry the Freight!

A couple of weeks ago I helped lead a funeral service.  It was a tragic situation; a woman had died in a house fire.  I co-officiated at her service with a pastor of a new churh start in our area who is doing an awesome job bringing people into the arms of Jesus.  I did not known the woman who died.  I know her mother and my colleague in pastoral ministry knows her son.  A funeral is a unique situation in that a church pastor may or may not know anything about the family members and friends who attend, and he/she may have no awareness of the state of anyone's relationship with Jesus.  Somewhere, somehow, leaders in the Body of Christ have the opportunity and responsibility to offer a central word of concrete hope in and through the crucified and risen One, even in the midst of pain, loss, and tragedy.  It's not a time to opportunize a vulnerable human situation.  Still it's an exciting chance to point to Jesus before folks who might not hear about him or experience him in any other setting.

Coming to that point in my message that day, this thought surged to the front of my awareness and almost overwhelmed me as I spoke:  "You get to carry the freight!".  Here is a chance to open the door to the heart of God for people in need, and I get the opportunity to deliver the goods.  I mean I've known this all these years that I've been doing my particular ministry, but it was like I realized the amazing depth of it all for the first time.  I get to do it.  Me; the last person who should be doing it.  Painfully shy, perfectionistic, sometimes rigidly obsessive.  Someone who had once turned his back on God and the church and who least deserved to be even considered to be an ambassador for Jesus.  The myriad reasons I should not be doing what I'm doing literally drown out the few anemic reasons that I should.  But it's not about how unqualified and unworthy I am, though I am.  It's about how mighty and how deep in unbelievable grace my God is.  I get the carry the freight...ME, for heaven's sake!  If that's not a sign of the grace of God in Jesus the Christ, I don't know what is.

Followers of Jesus, WE get to carry the freight. WE do; messed up as we are.  And it's not just about speaking at a funeral or being a church leader.  Every day the opportunity is given to us.  As my friend Keith Colley always reminds me, God doesn't call the equipped (because none of us are); God equips the called.  I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

Focus on the Water and the Fish, Not on the Tackle

I am blessed with many good friends who are both wise in the wisdom which comes from God and passionate for the cause of leading people in new life with Jesus.  One of those is my friend Jim; a great outdoorsman, theologian, ambassador for Jesus, and humble servant of the crucified and risen one.  Jim has a remarkable way of making things crystal clear, while unapologeticly Jesus-centered.  Recently he shared with me this:  "You like to fish...We have never caught a fish by watching our rod, reel, lure or arm, have we?  It's only by watching our target that we can pitch a worm in the brush where a fish is at.  If our eye is off the target we get hung up, have backlashes, and don't catch that bass.  That's just like following Jesus.". Sometimes we confuse the tools we use with the purpose for which the tools exist.  In my line of work,  the aim is not just to build up and maintain a church.  The aim is to strengthen a church for the purpose of joining with Jesus in the cause of changing lives and transforming the world.  Focusing on ourselves is like watching the rod and reel, instead of watching the water to see where it is directing us to the likeliest habitat for the fish.

By the grace of God alone I am involved in a church full of people who get this, Jim being amongst those of great God-given vision.  We all pray we continue to grow and improve in our focus on the target and not our own power alone.

I'll see you around the next bend in the river.