Bread from Stones

The lord of the dance

2010-03-27T06:54:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since I last posted and I can only say that I have been going through a bit of a dry spell in regard to writing but something today caught my attention.

Have you ever considered how subtly our values come under attack?

This morning as I read in the book of Judges, a verse, 2:10, jumped off the page for me, and I paraphrase, “After the generation to whom God had given the Promised Land died, the next generation took over but they weren’t fully educated in the ways of God and they didn’t even know the history of all the wonderful things that God had done for his people, so they succumbed to the values of those who lived far from God.”

For those who know the book of Judges, it is an ongoing story of how one generation after another fails to adequately teach and train the next generation how to live by God’s values. As a result the People of God repeatedly succumbed to apostasy and lived by the values of the pagan culture instead of God’s values. Only when they cried out to God amid their oppression and suffering and turned to God, were they rescued from their distress.

Amid some ambient conversation I overheard some people talking about an evening school dance for elementary school children. The conversation was innocent enough but this morning the thought struck me after reading in Judges, “What are we teaching our children when we as adults encourage them to hook up with members of the opposite sex, even before they reach the age of puberty? Are we in fact setting them up for personal, moral and spiritual failure?”

I admit that the thought of a dance and the picture of the initial shy and awkward advances of the children seem cute, and at that age may seem innocent enough. However with the plethora of sexual pressure our children are under these days through various media forms, including some newly proposed school curricula, and given that they are perhaps at their most impressionable age, how soon before their cute social shyness, in the safety of a school gym, becomes off-site sexual curiosity? Have we, as the teachers and trainers of the next generation, lost our ability to play this picture forward and see the subtle and potentially disastrous conclusion to this real-life movie? Do we think that our prepubescent children have the innate ability to differentiate between what is appropriate and inappropriate in regard to socio-sexual behaviour?

It seems to me that we have let our guard down when it comes to training the next generation. My caution in writing this, is not designed to slam anyone, because all of us have been caught unaware and are subject to the subtle and gradual assault on our values, but to hopefully roust us out of the assumption that all the people, who influence the lives of our children, are doing so from the same value perspective that we have.

It seems to me if we want the next generation to prosper and prevail as happy, healthy and holy people, then we have to ask ourselves who in fact is the lord of the dance?

How do I Love Thee

2010-02-13T06:05:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is Valentines Day, a day to celebrate the love we have for those nearest and dearest to us. Flower shops are enjoying their busiest season of the year and chocolate makers have stocked the shelves of stores with heart shaped treats. Card makers have printed millions of sentimental salutations of undying love. It’s a time of year that brings out the romantic in most of us. But how much of it is authentic?

I once heard a story of a man and a woman who were having a conversation about their love for one another and the woman asked her sweetheart if he loved her enough to die for her. The guy thought for a few moments and then looked deep into her eyes and said, “Darling, I think of my love for you as more of an undying love.”

How many of us have that kind of love?

How many men, if they were suddenly struck with a truth virus, would take their spouses into their arms tomorrow and say, “Honey, I truly love you…some of the time but there are some times when I really have a problem with you.”

That kind of authentic admission would really ignite the fire of romance don’t you think?

Maybe not so much!

So if that wouldn’t go over so well with a spouse, why do most people think it will go over any better with God?

Millions of professing Christians say they love God but it isn’t always that evident. Jesus told His disciples that if they loved Him, then they would obey His commandments. Their obedience would be a genuine indication of their love and devotion. I wonder how many professing followers of Jesus, who are quick to profess their love for God, would be as quick in admitting their passionate obedience?

Just one of many indications of love for God, or lack of it, is being handed out in churches this month. A charitable giving receipt is just one small indication of the authenticity of a person’s love for God. It seems pretty clear throughout scripture that a tithe, or 10% of one’s income, is the gift God expects His followers to contribute to their local churches. However statistics tell us that the average “tithe” of the professing Christian is between 2-4% depending on the area in Canada. That figure is only as high as it is because many people give over and above. Obviously we have a lot of churched people who are either bad at math or bad at love.

How much do the majority of professing Christians really love God. How many, if suddenly struck with the truth virus, would have to say, “God I love you…some of the time but when it comes to actually doing what you ask me to do, I have a lot of problems but since we are talking anyway and I know you love me, I have a few things I would like you to do for me.”

Train ‘em Up or Down

2010-02-05T11:40:00.000-08:00

It never ceases to amaze me how some parents just don’t get it. Now “it” could refer to any number of things but in this case “it” is the importance of providing a positive role model for our children.

My father didn’t have the benefit of higher education and he would have admitted that he was far from a perfect teacher but he taught me many things by example that have served me well. One such lesson was to never expect someone to do something you aren’t prepared to do yourself. To me that translated into never doing anything or going anywhere that I wouldn’t want my children to be part of. Somehow I think a lot of parents must have missed that lesson from their parents because they certainly aren’t passing it on to their kids. I see parents engaged in behaviours that they don’t want their kids to do but they don’t seem to understand the power of their example.

I can remember my father telling me that if I got into trouble at school I would be in trouble when I got home. That wasn’t good for me because trouble just seemed to sneak up and find me. No matter how hard I tried to protest my innocence, my parents always backed the teacher and there was never a time when either of my them ever questioned the disciplinary actions that left me thinking they had somehow secretly conspired to gang up on innocent little me.

In today’s society the story is all but reversed. It almost seems as if the little Johnnies and Janies of today have been immaculately conceived, spawned from perfect parents and entirely above reproach. Any evidence of rebuke, chastisement or withdrawal of privileges at school results in sympathy at home and a parental expedition to the school to plead the case of the poor innocent babes, who are after all, are only repeating what they have seen at home.

The same thing happens in church. There are parents, who demonstrate little if any spiritual maturity or desire to grow, and then expect volunteer church workers to create little saints and undo in one hour, what they have been modelling all week.

The Bible is pretty clear in Proverbs 22:6 that if we “train a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not turn from it.” However I am not so sure that people understand that the Proverb works both ways, positively and negatively. As such we as parents need to make the choice of whether or not to take our roles seriously and train ‘em up or down. The biggest determining factor in that will be what we do and not what we say.

Off the Road Religion

2010-01-29T07:12:00.000-08:00

Joe Stowell in his book, Following Christ, says, “Starting out as a follower with a commitment to come after Him as the all-compelling centre of life is the easy step. Staying on the road with Him is the challenge.”

After many years of church work, both as a layman and an occupational worker, I would say that most people, who set out to follow Christ, find staying on the road with Him a challenge beyond what they are willing to bear. Instead most professing followers develop a personalized hand-selected theology that in the whole bears little resemblance to the full devotion God expects. As a result, to quote Stowell again, “We have masqueraded Christ in our own ways, so that when non-Christians see us, they see more of our distorted portrayal of Christianity than they do a clear reflection of the character and quality of Christ.”

It seems to me that we, the church, are guilty of the gravest form of idolatry; rather than live as those created in God’s image, we have reduced Him to a god formed in our own image; we have presumed upon His goodness, mercy and grace while abandoning any attempt to emulate His holiness. As a result the church of Christ has lessened effectiveness in realizing our mandate of global life transformation through the preaching and living of God’s good news. While we lay claim to believing what God’s word says, in truth we are not following on the road with Christ and there is little that distinguishes most professing followers of Jesus from people who remain eternally lost and distanced from God. The proof of that can be discovered in the mountain of statistics related to marital discord, family unrest and white-collar crime to name a few, but perhaps the gravest of all tragedies is the overt disobedience, deception, dissention and complacency within the community of Christ itself. We have built our church on misguided comfortable consumer doctrines while refusing to let Jesus build His church on the unchanging tenets of Biblical truth.

Even a casual reading of John 6 will help us refocus on what it means to be a Christian and follow Jesus, “Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.” (John 6:57) To feed on Jesus is to fully identify with every element of His life and teaching. At this point many who started the easy step of following Jesus, turned away because they realized that being a Christian was not a casual religious cakewalk but a life committed to full devotion to God, His will and His ways. As such when people see us there ought to be more than just a distorted image that is little more than reflection of themselves, there must be a clear image of Christ, the one who promises life in its fullness. We must be able to say as Paul said, “Follow me as I follow Christ.” (1 Corinthians 11:1)

I feel it is time for us in the church to do as Jesus did and make clear the image we are to reflect and make a clear distinction between a faith that is on the road with Him and a consumer religion that is clearly off the road.

A Test?

2010-01-22T09:21:00.000-08:00

Have you ever wondered how many times in our efforts to ease the pain in people’s lives, we have inadvertently extended their suffering?

Have you ever found yourself interfering in an important life-learning experience and in doing so been guilty of encouraging ignorance?

We do it all the time don’t we? Has someone ever confided a personal sin or shared the consequence of a bad decision with you and instead of taking their revelation seriously and empathizing with their pain, you patronized them, perhaps even patted them on the knee and said, “that’s OK, you shouldn’t feel bad”?

How helpful do we think that is? Does it really aid the person in learning from their mistakes? Is it ever “OK” to downplay the consequence of a bad decision or ignore and even affirm a sin that keeps someone from being the person they are created and called to be?

In my quiet time I pondered the story of the Hebrew people huddled in fear at the foot of My Sinai as Moses was being given the Ten Commandments. There was thunder and lightning, smoke, angry clouds and a spectacular display of God’s power in nature during the ceremony. As the people cowered in fear “Moses said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will keep you from sinning.’” Exodus 20:20

Don’t be afraid but fear God because it will keep you from sinning!

Given the seeming rampant onslaught of sin in our world, doesn’t it appear as if we have lost our fear of God?

Do you ever wonder if many of the natural “disasters” and spectacular demonstrations in the power of nature are just signs that we are not in control and reminders that our fear of God is far more serious than our fear of nature? Are the natural phenomena simply announcements to capture our attention, so we will return our affection toward God as the one who is ultimately in control and the one to whom we will ultimately give account for our lives? Are these spectacular and sometimes devastating displays really tests designed to help us learn lessons that will cause us to fear God and keep us from sinning?

I wonder if sometimes we charge in too quickly, and even trip over ourselves in the name of humanitarian aid, to ease the pain and suffering of people, whose real need is to be refocused on God and not the world. I concede that God does expect us to supply the needs of those in distress but do the people see God as supplying their need or the world as supplying the need. I wonder if in our well-meaning efforts, we inadvertently extend their pain by interfering with God's design and while comforting the temporal body, which we must do, we ignore the eternal soul, which is of greater concern. How often do we commit unconditional care, which in some sense we must do, but then leave the recipients in the same sinful state they were in before?

Is it perhaps just a test? And if so have we passed or failed?

Mysteries

2010-01-15T06:15:00.000-08:00

There are many things that I don’t understand, some mysteries that puzzle me. Such a phenomenon is nothing new and I am certain everyone is confronted by elements of the unexplained.

Even some of the wisest men who ever lived have been baffled by some things. The oracle Agur is quoted in Proverbs 30 saying:

18 "There are three things that are too amazing for me, four that I do not understand: 19 the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a snake on a rock, the way of a ship on the high seas, and the way of a man with a maiden.

There are some things one can only look at and scratch your head and question.

One of the main mysteries of life for me is the way in which many people propose to determine God’s will.

In everyday living, God’s prescriptive will is fairly clearly laid out for us. Didactic passages, such as the Ten Commandments, make it pretty clear how we are to function in life in relation to God and one another. Other texts, such as the Great Commission passage in Matthew 28:18-20 and the Great Commandment of Mark 12:29-31, are reasonably clear as to the mandate of people who call themselves Christians or followers of Christ. So why is it that that which appears to be so blatantly clear is so often ignored by people who claim to be committed to serving God’s will?

But that isn’t the real mystery for me. The real mystery for me is how people who ignore God’s blatant and declared will, somehow feel they need and will receive some special revelation from God when making other less significant decisions. It seems that most of us want a Moses-like burning bush moment before pulling the trigger on a decision that God has in all likelihood empowered us to make in light of the knowledge He has already entrusted to us.

Maybe it’s just me but when I think about that, I can’t help but reason why anyone would believe that he or she would even be able to feel, recognize and discern some mysterious and special revelation from God about relatively insignificant things, when he or she can’t seem to get their heads around and their lives in line with the already clear and eternally important instructions He has given to us?

Overwhelmed

2010-01-09T08:58:00.000-08:00

In my Bible reading today I was impacted by Mark 14. As I reflected and meditated on that text, four things overwhelmed me.

At the Last Supper Jesus announces that one of the twelve will betray him. It was an opportunity for Judas to repent but he didn’t. I don’t understand that. He was caught. Jesus was looking right at him and yet he wouldn’t admit it, he wouldn’t take responsibility for his sin. However I do understand, at least to a certain extent, how Jesus must have felt.

I have been betrayed by men who have sat at the table with me, shared in ministry with me, broke bread with me, pledged faithfulness to the same cause and called themselves colleagues and friends. I too have looked them in the eye, given them time to take responsibility, only to see them try to hide in plain sight. I know the pain of betrayed trust.

Jesus’ anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane hit me harder today than at other times and I identified with his pain. He felt the pain of betrayal and then felt the pain of seeing complacency and apathy in his closest followers. He felt the longing to be removed from a terrible and unjust situation. He felt the desire to be freed from a literal dead end ministry. He felt the pain of seeing people choose sin over salvation.

When he was arrested, tried, illegally and unjustly convicted, Jesus felt the unwarranted blows of angry men. He felt their spit run down his face. He suffered their vicious verbal tirades, all with no justifiable reason.

Why was there so much anger against someone who posed no threat to anything but the corrupt characters of the religious leaders? Why was there a sinful plot and contrived conviction for someone whose only interest was to do good and make people better? What is it within man that breaks out so violently when sin is exposed?

Peter’s thrice repeated denial while watching Jesus from a distance is a pathetic sight. But how much am I like Peter? How many times have I wilfully chosen to deny Jesus in favour of serving and gratifying myself?

I feel the pain of both Jesus and Peter, a bizarre mix of righteousness and rebellion. It causes me to question, who I am that God would even care to rescue me. But he does.

Shut up and live

2010-01-08T05:10:00.000-08:00

This Morning’s Toronto Star carried an article by Travel editor Jim Byers called, “Shut up and get scanned, already.” Jim writes in response to the indignation some people are expressing over the new body scanners to be employed by airports. The rationale of some of the protesters is that it won’t work anyway and so the government should be spending the money on catching terrorists and not scanning innocent people, as if they, the terrorists, could be easily identified and as if they, the general populace, know more than the experts hired to protect them. I guess they haven’t really considered that if terrorists could be identified there would be no need for scanners…Dah!

The indignation demonstrates an inherent human flaw, arrogance, the desire to be boss and the unwillingness to be subservient. The same arrogance accounts for the attitude of people who are angry with God, and who think that somehow they should be excluded from the normal rigour of life. A person angry with God typically feels that in some way God owes them something, that He should, from among the billions of people, spare them the hardships of life. When God doesn’t answer prayer the way they think He should answer it, then they petulantly threaten to withdraw their faith in God, as if that will manipulate God into being subservient to them. Or someone dies and people, who have often invested little in serving God, blame God for not dropping everything and miraculously sparing them the grief. Life is all about them.

That arrogant attitude has been around since the beginning of recorded history. Our fall from God’s grace is the direct result of trying to be God instead of simply living and appreciating the life God has created for us to enjoy.

In the book of Matthew chapter 11, Jesus encountered the same attitude and described the indignant protesters this way:

16"To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others: 17" 'We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge and you did not mourn.' 18For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon.' 19The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and "sinners." ' But wisdom is proved right by her actions."

For thousands of years God has been attempting to get the attention of people and convince them that His ways are the best ways, that He, the creator, is the expert and not we the created. The things that happen in life happen because that’s the way life is and what may not make sense to us immediately will be proven wise ultimately. God doesn’t make mistakes, so bury the indignation and the arrogant attitude, submit to God and just shut up and live.

Measuring Malfunction

2009-12-29T08:42:00.000-08:00

As I was awaiting the arrival of some men for our weekly breakfast, the radio station announced with great pride that Food Share had surpassed its projected goal this season and was able to more than fulfil its target of 12,000 food hampers. As I thought about that, I wondered why it would be something of which to be proud. In my mind it was a statement of the tragic failure of our society and government to insure the well being of the people, which is its job.

Lest we think that the failure can be blamed on someone else, some unnamed perverse entity, we should consider the fact that our government and our society is we, the people. We have either by commission or complacency allowed our society to degenerate to the point that we have an increasing segment of the populace who either cannot or will not take care of themselves.

One would think that the goal of a modern healthy society would be to decrease the need for social assistance and not increase it. One would think that in our technologically advanced culture, new and greater heights of equanimity would be scaled every year. One would think that the ever-increasing tax burden and national debt would begin to show some positive return on our investment. However I suppose in order to realize all those things someone at some point would actually need to …think.

It seems to me that we are measuring the wrong matrices in order to determine success. I would think that a city could take true pride and celebrate an announcement of fewer people in need of social assistance not more, fewer children left hungry by neglectful parents not more, fewer single mothers, the victims of deadbeat husbands not more, fewer incidents of vagrancy and homelessness not more. What pride can we take in announcing that our social system is failing and needs to be propped up by non-profit organizations?

I appreciate the work of Food Share and other non-profits for their valiant efforts. Their willingness to fill what should be a non-existent gap in our social system needs to be applauded and celebrated. However I see in their success a cultural failure in upholding the values that have allowed us to by and large enjoy a standard of living among the best in the world.

It seems to me that we need to not only change our method of measurement but we need to re visit our biblical roots and begin to reintroduce our eroding historic values into our social psyche.

An Avoidable Pandemic

2009-12-21T09:17:00.000-08:00

There is a pandemic in our culture that has nothing to do with bugs that come from poultry or pigs or any other animal. In fact the offending germ originates in the brain. Millions of people are infected with the “Stupid Virus”, SV for short.

I can already hear the cries of the “Politically Correct”, “PC” for short, chanting in unison, condemning me for the use of the dreaded “S” word, but that wouldn’t be unusual since most people infected with the virus are inclined to deny and decry any mention of it.

Apart from that telling sign, the effects of this debilitating disease are easy to spot. When someone causes something tragic and immediately says, “But I didn’t think that…” it is usually a sure sign of infection. The unfortunate consequence of that person’s decision demonstrates that they likely didn’t think, a sure sign of SV.

Thinking is a rare discipline in our day and has been replaced with assumption. We all know what happens when we assume, it makes and “ass” out of “u” and “me”. As such there is no end with which to think and nobody wins when nobody thinks.

Another sure sign of SV is when people make accusations and suggest solutions to issues with which they have no personal involvement and have not verified facts in order to determine if indeed anything was broken in the first place. This presumption is the contagious agent of assumption and if caught in time can be contained to avoid a mass outbreak of SV, the symptoms of which are chills of gossip and a high fever of innuendo.

There are many more telling signs of SV but Christmas seems to be a time of year during which people are particularly susceptible to infection. I have pondered this phenomenon and have considered that it could be due to a sinister force, an agent of discord, whose sole aim is to desecrate this holy time of year. If ever we should engage our minds and think, it is now, the anniversary of Emmanuel, God among us. He is the Prince of Peace.

So in order to avoid SV let me suggest an ancient remedy that will immunize our minds:

8Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. (Philippians 4:8-9)

I suggest that one or more doses of this per day will keep the agent of discord away.

Everyone but Jesus

2009-12-18T10:48:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday I took my eight-year old grandson to hockey. On our way home we talked about Christmas. He was telling me that he expected to get some more “Tech Decks,” miniature skateboards, which are the latest craze. After he talked about that and other stuff for a while, I asked him what he was going to get Jesus for his birthday. He looked at me kind of funny and so I explained that since Christmas was Jesus’ birthday and since people usually buy gifts for the birthday boy and not themselves, it only made sense that on Jesus’ birthday we would give him gifts.

Jack scrunched up his face in a puzzled kind of way and said he hadn’t really thought about that. In midst of another season of Christmas preparations I wonder how many people actually do?

Just imagine inviting people to your birthday party and everybody showed up with presents for themselves but nothing for you?

Or imagine people taking time off for your birthday but instead of attending your party they had parties celebrating something else?

Or just imagine that you invited your friends to a special celebration and instead of attending your party, a number of them skipped out and went to the mall to buy gifts for themselves or just stayed home or decided to attend some other seemingly more important function?

That is hard to imagine isn’t it?

Maybe not! Because it happens all the time doesn’t it?

Do you find it ironic that followers of Jesus skip church services at this special time of year to go shopping or to do baking or to arrange parties on the pretense of celebrating Jesus’ birth, Christ’s celebration?

How many “Jesus” people are somewhere other than at the party?

How many people are taking Jesus’ birthday off from work so they can have seasonal celebrations or Santa parties?

How many are out buying presents for everyone but the birthday boy, Jesus?

The Present

2009-12-09T05:47:00.001-08:00

As a kid I remember being part of clubs and activities, including school, when the roll was called and we were to respond, “Present!”

Present! It means being physically in the place where the roll is being called. It means you are in that one place and as such cannot be anywhere else. However there are times when we may be there in body but emotionally and mentally somewhere else aren’t there?

Yesterday I had an unusually high volume of people traffic in my life through email, phone and face-to-face encounters. As I reflected on that this morning in my journal, I realized that in some of those conversations I was multitasking. In other words I was present in some sense but not fully present in another; I did not give the other person the benefit of my full attention and as such missed an opportunity to fulfil my personal mission.

My mission is to lead by example, education and encouragement in being a person of absolute integrity. Absolute integrity is what I believe Jesus demonstrated in His life and I want my life, as imperfect as it is, to increasingly reflect His character.

So how did I miss my mission yesterday?

Henry Cloud in his book “Integrity” defines it as “meeting the demands of reality.” In other words, integrity is being all present and attentive to what is happening in the moment. Yesterday I missed some moments and while physically present in some conversations, I was mentally and sometimes emotionally somewhere else. As such I missed the full impact of the moment, the only time I had control over and the only real opportunity I had available to me. I did not demonstrate integrity, or wholeness as Jesus did.

Jesus gave His full and undivided attention to the situations immediately at hand; He didn’t put people off or treat them as unimportant but He focused on them and they had His full attention. He was present and He was demonstrating integrity; being in the moment with His mind body and soul.

I have often taught that the only time we have is now, yesterday is past, the future is a mystery and today is a gift, that’s why they call it “the present.” However I find myself sometimes devaluing my gift by not seeing it as a present and the only opportunity I have to actually fully reflect Jesus’ character and focus on that which is at hand without thinking or wishing I was somewhere else, doing something different or seemingly more important. Jesus never did that and neither should I.

The reality is that I can never actually guarantee that I will fully accomplish the other things that my mind thinks about when I am doing something else and as such I have missed the gift God has given me in the present. Each day I pray that God would use me to reflect His character and be Jesus to someone. As such I must assume that whoever I am engaged with at the time is an appointment arranged by God in response to my request. As such I need to be fully present in order to be Jesus to that person.

As I think about that at this time of year, it seems to me that the greatest gift we can give to people at Christmas can’t be bought. The greatest gift we can give a person is to be fully present when we are with that person.

I Think???? Not!

2009-11-28T07:26:00.000-08:00

How many times have you heard someone say, “I think this” or “I think that” only to come out with something that is inane at best and devoid of any semblance of thought? The fact is that most people in our society have lost the ability to think and critically face the future consequences of their decisions and as a society we often enable them to do so.

For example we hear people say how they think God understands when someone chooses to do something that is clearly against what God has deemed appropriate. This is especially prominent with parents of teens whose hormones are in full flight. Perhaps to cover their embarrassment and appease their shame, parents errantly refer to God’s understanding and loving nature. After all God is a father too isn’t he? Sadly, their unthinking friends often empathize and agree without engaging a single brain cell or bit of theological reasoning.

The fact is that some critical thinking and even a modicum of biblical research will reveal that what God understands is that the teen has sinned and his parents have also sinned in abetting his or her self-destructive behaviour by encouraging it instead of correcting it. God doesn’t understand sin in any way that condones it because that sin cost the life of his Son. Sadly we often confuse love as an emotion with love as a decision, like we often confuse feeling with thinking.

To feel something is not the same as thinking something and in fact feeling may exclude thinking much of the time. As a result many people today seem to be driven by emotion and not intellect.

Take for instance the young father of three who came to me asking for money to help feed his hungry children. He claimed to deeply love his children but couldn’t afford to feed them. During the course of our brief introduction I discovered that he had a reasonably good job and among other things a pack-a-day smoking habit. I also discovered that his wife, though employable and able to work, had chosen not to even look for a part time job. This young man’s request from me was for money to buy milk for his children, one of whom he had brought along for emotional support. I asked him to think his request through with me.

I asked how much his cigarette habit cost him? He said about $5 a day. I asked how much a bag of milk costs? He wasn’t sure so I informed him it was about $4. When I asked if he loved his children, he was very convincing, until I asked him if he loved them enough to give up his selfish smoking habit so they could drink milk. I even informed him that he would actually have $1 left over. To say he was unimpressed by my deduction is an understatement. Never the less I agreed to go to the store with him and buy a bag of milk, which he declined and then walked away blaming me for not enabling him.

As I try to deal with this seemingly brainless unthinking societal tsunami I wonder if I am the one who is off the mark but the more I think about it I think not.

Selective Hearing

2009-11-26T12:49:00.000-08:00

Who is responsible for understanding a message when it is being delivered, the communicator or the listener?

Obviously there is an onus on the communicator to be as clear as possible when delivering a message regardless of the medium. However when someone complains that there is a lack of communication does that necessarily mean that the one communicating has missed the mark, as is so often the accusation? I would suggest that in many if not most cases, where there is a proposed communication problem, the fault might be more with the hearer than the communicator.

People tend to hear what they are predetermined to hear, read into what they are predisposed to understand and see that which they have pre-programmed themselves to believe. In fact I would suggest that in many cases the communication problem exists because people don’t even listen to or look for messages being delivered and instead focus on what isn’t being said or read between the lines when they should be paying attention to the actual message.

Perhaps you have played the game telephone or rumour with a large group of people. The game begins with a simple message communicated from one person to another on down the line through many people until the last person tells the group the message that he or she has heard, which is often a distorted version of the original message. That is all in fun but what happens in real life is typically not.

On a number of occasions, usually long after the fact, I have discovered that something I said was reformulated in the mind of the hearer or hearers to mean something that was never in fact said or meant. Without any attempt at clarification, the reformulated message was then passed on to other people disconnected from the situation, who in turn reinterpreted and passed it on to others. In the end the actual message meaning and intent was long lost in the transmission and bore little if any resemblance to truth and yet was attributed to me, the communicator of the original message.

Some people and much of the media in our day would call that journalistic liberty but the Bible has a different name for it that is far less flattering and may be a good subject for another blog, but the point of this thought has to do with selective hearing. I believe that one of the primary problems of effective communication in our day isn’t the fault of the communicator but the listener. What is being said isn’t being heard because many people have already predetermined what they will and will not receive and believe. The mantra seems to be, “I know what I believe, don’t confuse me with the truth.”

I would suggest that for good measure, if you hear read or see something that doesn’t sit right with you that you put in the extra effort to further clarify what has in fact been communicated.

No Land for God

2009-11-19T17:58:00.000-08:00

What do you call a leadership group with no intellectual, educational or expertise requisites that hire highly educated people schooled in specialized disciplines and then tell them what to do and how to do it?

You may be able to think of a few names but one of them you would not likely consider is government.

I have often heard it said that two conversational taboos are politics and religion and if you do discuss one it is not to be combined with the other. From what little I know the separation of church and state that is supposedly in the American Constitution has in fact been misunderstood and misquoted, and the mutation has even leaked into Canadian ideology. My intention isn’t to argue whether or not the constitution has been misrepresented but to say that if government, which is supposed to be representative of the people, thinks there is supposed to be a separation, then why is it that churches are warned against being political but politicians think nothing of passing legislation that encroaches upon religion? A December 2008 Gallup poll discovered that 80% of people in 84 different countries, including Canada and the USA, thinks their lives have meaning and purpose and religion is important and makes a difference. Why would elected representatives of a clearly religious people pass laws restricting religious institutions and seem to be removing God from our culture?

Yesterday I attended a civic open house designed to explain new pending Ontario government legislation that will essentially force municipalities to exclude places of worship from designated industrial lands. From what I was told, the legislation has been downloaded to the municipalities and hired municipal experts are essentially forced to say “NO” to any religious group and other social group proposing to purchase and move into an industrial area regardless of whether or not the planning experts believe the institution would have a positive community effect. Is there something that our Ontario government has against community-oriented groups including churches that wish to occupy space that may in fact otherwise sit vacant for years?

We could debate whether this decision is based on archaic industrial age thinking or contemporary knowledge-based thinking but I will leave that to the experts who are already scratching their heads about that. What interested me was that during the question period following the presentation of the new legislation, it became clear that a move was afoot to keep places of worship out of areas that are available at prices they can afford. Since municipalities no longer set aside designated areas for places of worship, as they once did, that means missional churches would have to pay premium prices for residential and commercial property and be limited in their ability to build facilities suitable for the community work they do. When asked if it was the intention of the government to exclude places of worship from our communities, our hosts assured us that theoretically that was not the case, but after considering the obvious implications of the legislation, they had to admit that it appeared the legislation would likely functionally do exactly that.

I have respect for the men and women who hold public office and I pray for them on a regular basis. However it seems to me that according to research we are still a people who consider faith and religion important and as such it seems to me that our elected representatives would do well to uphold the values we espouse when proposing legislation that will undoubtedly undermine that upon which our country was founded and remains dear to the hearts of its citizens. When we sing “O Canada” our plea is for God to keep our land but I am wondering if we are heading for a time when there may be no more land for God.

Roots 3

2009-11-08T16:46:00.000-08:00

When is something really dead and when is it, like Wesley in The Princess Bride, only mostly dead?

This wasn’t a good year for observing the effects of drought in South-western Ontario, but there have been years when everything looked dead and dried up. However when is something really dead and when does it just appear to be dead but is just adapting to the climate for survival?

And on a side note, why is it that weeds never seem to die and just the plants I want to keep? While I am on side notes why is it that grass grows great in the cracks of my patio where there is no soil and not in the empty patches in my front yard?

Sorry, I got carried away.

Just think about a time when your front lawn turned from green to brown after suffering through an extended dry spell. Was the grass really dead, as we often say, or only mostly dead? In fact the grass wasn’t actually dead but adapting itself to the drought in order to survive. If we dig down and look at the roots we see that the plants themselves are very much alive and even burrowing deeper into the soil looking for life-giving moisture. It is not only grass that does that but also most botanical organisms. They dig deeper and grow stronger when faced with challenging environmental conditions. Plants want to survive and thrive. By nature plants are geared to grow. Is it the same with all people?

Over the years I have watched people struggle and often submit to challenging situations. For all intents and purposes they die, or at least something dies within them and they give up living. Some of the most frequent victims of this unnatural phenomenon are people who have grown up dependent on other people and in some sense have existed in vicarious, almost parasitic relationships. When called upon to survive on their own, after the host has moved on, these people have no roots to speak of and, rather than learn and develop the resources necessary to survive and thrive, they give up and expect others to live for them, or they just live dying.

I have watched the same thing happen in the church. I have seen people go through life relatively unscathed and everything seems great until some sort of tragedy or setback hits. Most of the time I just expect that they, like grass, will rely upon their spiritual roots and dig deeper and find nourishment in their faith. I just expect that the faith they have professed for years will automatically kick in and carry them through the drought. However that isn’t always the case and some people instead of digging down actually pull up their spiritual roots and blame God and the church for not taking better care of them. The tragedy is that if they can actually pull up their spiritual roots, they probably didn’t have any to speak of in the first place and they were just living vicariously through others.

So when is someone spiritually dead and when is someone only partially dead? I would suggest that when challenges drive people away from God and His guidelines for holy living that a person could be considered dead, at least to Christ, and in need of repentance. However when circumstances challenge a person to call on God, even question God and wrestle with God, then that person is really still alive and just digging deeper to find the life-giving nourishment that only God can provide for those who earnestly seek after Him.

The lesson in this is that problems and challenges actually have a purpose and that is to drive our roots deeper into the ground of our faith. Jesus was very clear that he would never leave us nor forsake us and he would never give us more than we could bear but would always give us what we need to stand up under the challenge. The qualifier is that in order to stand after you have been knocked down is that you actually have to pick yourself up. If you just lay there you may never know if what Jesus said is true or not.

Roots 2

2009-11-04T06:52:00.000-08:00

Roots can tell us a lot about plants; they are living legends of some of the history of the plants they support. Just this past week I reluctantly cut down a tall cedar that was part of a line of cedars in our backyard. I don’t know the full story of that tree but looking at the way it was tilted and digging a little bit around the roots gave me some idea of what happened.

My guess is that the previous owners of our house were doing some excavation work in the back and in the process cut the roots off half of the tree and then either the tree leaned to one side or they pushed it on a slant. What the previous owners intended to do with the damaged tree I don’t know but what I do know is that the 20-foot tree was leaning at a 60-degree angle when we bought the property, still alive but out of line with the rest of the barrier of trees. I left it that way for the first two years and decided last week that the only way to fix the problem was to cut it down, dig it out and fill the gap with two new young upright cedars.

As I thought about that tree I realized that many people are like that tree. Their roots have been damaged at some point in the past and the result was that the trajectory of their futures changed; instead of growing strait they leaned to one side or the other and in some way their lives are out of line with what is the intended purpose. They are still living but wounded and scarred by the callous actions of others.

I guess the truth is that all of us lean at least a little bit because of damaged roots. Family of origin issues or incidents from our past damage us and cause all of us to lean to the side at least to some degree. Thankfully none of us leans so badly as to require being cut down and completely uprooted. There is always a remedy for our wounds and though we may walk with limps we can fully recover to fulfil our intended purpose.

God’s grace is amazing in that it supplies what we need but do not have within ourselves; it fills the gaps in our lives so we can ultimately fulfil God’s intended purpose of our lives. The genealogy of Jesus includes the names of four women, each in some way scarred by her past and yet each redeemed by God’s grace to fulfil her purpose.

Tamar the widow of Judah’s son lived in shame until she devised a plot to deceive her father-in-law and become pregnant by him. She bore a son from whose line came the Messiah.

Rahab, a prostitute, was used by God in the conquest of Jericho and became mother to another in the line of Christ.

Ruth, a gentile and a widow, married Boaz and was the great-great grandmother of David.

Mary a teenaged virgin became pregnant before marriage and bore the public shame to become the mother of Jesus.

The roots of our lives tell a lot about what we have experienced but the fruit and the productivity of our lives do not have to be spoiled by the damage to our roots. God’s grace allows us to be rooted in Christ, and as the apostle Paul said, when that happens it is no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us, and in Christ we will do much more than we could ever hope or imagine.

Roots

2009-11-01T10:37:00.000-08:00

In March of 1993 our family was making its way down to a much anticipated holiday in Florida only to be ambushed by what was called “The Storm of the Century”, a blizzard that smothered the entire Eastern part of the USA. We actually made it through the worst of the storm in the Northern leg only to end up stranded on I-75 in Cleveland, Tennessee. The only moving traffic was Bubba and the boys packed into rustic 4X4s with gun racks in the back windows, yahooing around and through hundreds of vehicles stranded in the seldom-seen snowfall. Not to downgrade the effect of the storm or demean the efforts of those charged with clearing the roadways, the truth is that if it wasn’t for the seeming lack of preparedness and inexperience of our southern hosts we would have made it through the 6-8 inches of snow, which for many of us was a somewhat normal occurrence growing up. However the people weren’t only the ones unprepared.

As we inched our way south we began to see evidence of biological trauma. Hundreds of coniferous trees that once proudly lined the roadside were now laying prone on the ground literally uprooted. The weight of the wet snow was too much for the unprepared plants to take and their shallow bases gave way to the pressure. As I recall that image I wonder how many people are like those trees?

In good times many people fall prey to the temptation to live like there is no tomorrow, and if even there is a tomorrow they seem to think that it will be just as good if not better than today. However this latest recession has proven the foolishness of that shallow way of thinking and living.

I also notice that in good times the spiritual sensitivity and activity of people becomes shallow and God becomes an afterthought if a thought at all. The majority of people just seem to take the good life and God for granted as if we deserve it. Even many churched people, who lay claim to some modicum of spirituality, take extended summer breaks from regular worship as if it was their inalienable God-given right to do so. Somehow I don’t think that when God said to keep the Sabbath holy He meant four months away from church in the summer and whenever the mood hit the rest of the year.

There are any number of consequences that flow out of shallow spirituality but one that inevitably and subtly catches people is that the more they distance themselves from spiritual responsibility and fellowship, the shallower their biblical roots and the less resilient they are to life’s challenges. As such when tough times come, many people are overwhelmed to the point that they become uprooted casualties of casual comfortable Christianity, not unlike the snow-covered pines trees we saw lining I-75. There they lay often-questioning God’s faithfulness when in reality he wasn’t the one who was unfaithful or unprepared.

But the even sadder consequence is that the children of comfortable and casual Christians often do not develop biblical roots of their own and often wander aimlessly through life unprepared for hardship and unprepared to meet God when life comes to an end.

I have some others thoughts on roots that I will share in my next instalment.

Worth

2009-10-24T06:49:00.000-07:00

If you look up “worth” in a dictionary you will find descriptive alternatives such as, value, significance, importance and meaning, all of which make sense to me. However I found one definition a little puzzling, “appeal”. On the surface “appeal” as worth seems somewhat incongruous unless you consider the monetary drawing power of some people and things. Some people and things generate worth because of appeal or popularity and not necessarily because they have inherent value based on functionality.

For example wedding rings have value or worth because they are designed as a personal and public symbol of the priceless commitment of marriage and fidelity. As such the materials that make up the ring have little utilitarian significance apart from the symbolic worth of the ring. So why is it that in our culture it seems as if people place more significance or worth on the appeal or the cost and appearance of the ring than on the inherent symbolic value that it represents? Why do so many people go into marriage willing to mortgage their financial futures and get carried away with the size and cost of rings only to casually discard their marriages shortly thereafter? One would think the greater investment would be made in and attention paid to that which is truly important rather than in that which can be cast off or lost so easily. So what is the actual worth of a wedding ring and do carets and cash determine it?

Another thing I was musing about was the functional or industrial worth of a person in society. How much is a person worth? I am not talking about the priceless value of a human life, a person created in the image of God; I am referring to how the image bears that image and lives out the gifts and abilities within the opportunities that God has given to us. What are we worth in terms of our equitable contribution great or small?

Bear in mind that some people because of severe disabilities are precluded from substantial or any seeming contribution, but that in no way limits their inherent human value, only their industrial contribution, which for many is a weighty cross to bear and not an enviable position to be in. However the majority of people can do something and many can do many things but I sometimes wonder if we exercise our opportunities to the best of our abilities? If people were paid what they were worth relative to what they are capable of contributing how many would take a pay cut?

I was reading in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 where Paul talks about going into strict training, exercising self discipline so as to win the prize of life, which we infer is to realize our full potential as image bearers of God. How many of us actually do that? How many of us are worth in action what God deems we are in potential? How many of us want and expect full credit but only give half effort or less?

As an example, when questioned, Jesus said that the greatest commandment was to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength and to love one another as ourselves. In fact he said if we do that, then we will end up fulfilling all the law and the prophets. Pretty simple and pretty plain and pretty straightforward, right? We are to be people of integrity and serve Him and worship Him with all that we are and all that we have. The Bible also challenges us to do everything to the best of our ability as if we were living and working for God. But what does it mean to Christians today as we observe most of them in action?

Amazingly, and this is hard to believe, 75% of Canadians say they believe in God, who is the master and creator of the universe. One would think that with that percentage our churches would be bursting at the seams, poverty would be unheard of, civic leaders would be men and women of utmost integrity, crime would be negligible and overall industrial productivity would be the best in the world. After all doesn’t someone who loves God and loves people with all that they are and all that they have always live and give their best? Looking at our country how would we estimate the worth of our professed faith in terms of life application?

Let’s look at a smaller sample of people and put the spotlight on only the 20% of Canadians who say they are “members” of churches and attend church services regularly. Someone was skeptical of that claim and did some personal research only to discover that only 10% actually attend regularly and not all are officially members. To be fair maybe some people have an odd understanding of membership and regularity and think that Christmas and Easter, weddings and funerals qualify. In that case I wonder what they would consider regular in terms of eating? Never the less I find it hard to believe that nearly 50% of professing church people, who claim to believe in and love God would actually lie. The statistics for serving and giving relative to biblical prescription is even more alarming. What is their profession of faith actually worth in terms of how they are living out what they say they believe? Are we really living and giving our best?

Do we love God to the same degree that He loves us? Is my return of love to God relative to His investment of love in me worthy to be called worship or “worth-ship”? Am I and are we, in Paul’s terms, training ourselves to win the prize to which God has called us?

Are we who call ourselves Christians or followers of Christ worth in action what God has created us to be in potential in both the marketplace and the meeting place?

Just Wondering

2009-10-22T11:50:00.000-07:00

Have you ever just wanted to ask some questions the answers about which you were uncertain? Have you ever just wished you could get some clarity without being made to feel like a pariah, or maybe even like a Piranha? I have and I think it is fair to say that all of us who live and work in Canada have some serious skin in the game and believe that in a country like ours we ought to be able to check up on our investments without being condemned, even if our observations may sometimes sound uninformed and even a bit critical. Is that unreasonable in light of the fact that we have trusted in professing experts only to discover that they have landed us in a recession?

So knowing that some of what I am about to write will possibly upset some people and may be in part the product of lack of information or misinformation let me wonder about a few things.

Have you ever stopped to wonder why the governing public sector of our economy has experienced consistent growth (4% during a recession) while many private, charity and not-for-profit sectors have taken a hit?

How is it that the people who are paying into the public purse are getting by on less while the people living on the public purse are preparing to ask for more?

Have you ever wondered why we are investing more and more in health and education and seem to be getting less and less?

Why does it seem like investment is going up but return on investment is going down?

How is it that the people we elect to govern and insure our rights and freedoms have become mangers of our assets instead of protectors of our best interests and guardians of responsible stewardship?

Are many of the varied elements of our public sector being run as efficiently now as they were when they were founded and managed by charities and non-profits?

Are public sector organizations with highly paid staff and seemingly bottomless budgets being run as efficiently and effectively today as non-profit organizations who do so on limited budgets and volunteer support?

And not to let the charity sector off the hook, why is it that the fastest growing segment of the church is a group called “adherent” or “unaffiliated”?

Isn’t church supposed to be a community of people who are “members” of a body and who have skin in the game because Jesus put his life on the line for them?

Why is it that typically 20% of the people carry 80% of the load?

Do those statistics also reflect the level of love that professing Christians have for God and one another?

Why is it that most people want change until it means that they have to be part of it?

I wonder what Jesus would say about how we live our lives and rule over His creation?

I have some ideas but can’t lay claim to many decisive answers. Sometimes I just wonder.

Polishing a Turd

2009-10-05T06:52:00.000-07:00

Our home resort is undergoing a major renovation in order to keep up with the industry standards. Over the past few years our resort, once considered one of the best in North America, has slipped drastically in the ratings. It is interesting that over the years we could see the slide but it was incremental and never really affected our holidays much because over all the experience was always good with just a few minor irritations. Every year we paid our maintenance fees and watched as new coats of bight paint covered tired looking walls, new bedding refreshed the sleeping areas and a few new bushes decked out the tropical landscaping. Never the less the ratings dropped as newer resorts vied for prominence by offering more extravagant amenities. At some point in the past few years our owner’s associations decided that we could no longer afford to just touch up and redecorate but we needed to do a major and costly overhaul lest we slip ever more precariously into irreversible obsolescence. So as we walk through our resort, which is undergoing the overhaul we can see huge dumpsters filled with relatively good stuff that is being ripped out and hauled off to the landfill or headed for a reclamation depot somewhere.

As I have been watching this over the past few days I have been wondering if our church, and I am including most churches in my musing, hasn’t been experiencing what our resort has been plagued with over the years, relative obsolescence, or in more graphic terms, polishing a turd. One can polish a turd and make it shine but in the end you still have a turd. I am not suggesting that our resort was of no value because we still enjoyed our experience but when compared with the competition we weren’t attracting new people and it was essentially enjoyable only to those who had been around a long time. Isn’t that the way it is with many churches? We paint them up and make a few changes in programming but they are essentially the same; they just look a little better to some of the old owners but don’t attract new ones.

Ellen and I watch a few home renovation shows on TV and I am always shocked to see the extreme to which many renovators go in removing just about everything before starting to rebuild. It doesn’t seem to matter whether there is any life left in the items; they just don’t fit the new design and so rather than try to build around them they remove them and start from scratch. It is always easier to start fresh than try to retrofit and work with old stuff that doesn’t quite fit and forces us to make do. That isn’t to say that some of the stuff is unusable because it is. However the builders don’t try to make stuff fit; they only use it if it fits the new design.

I have been wondering if we don’t need to do the same and totally renovate and rebuild the church, which is sliding into relative obsolescence in our culture? Do we need to completely clear everything out and start from scratch? We meet in buildings designed for something that no longer attracts new owners, we work hard on programs that don’t seem to be building community and in the end, although we may have a very good looking “ministry” in the eyes of the old owners, if we aren’t attracting new owners and I am wondering if are we just polishing a turd.

Rather than leave it there and have anyone think that I am referring to the biblical church in a derogatory way, I am not. I am not referring to the church community as defined in the scriptures but I am referring to the church institution, buildings and programs that we have built to replace the living breathing body of Christ.

Defeating the Enemy Within

2009-10-02T06:35:00.000-07:00

Pogo author, Walt Kelly’s, famous quote, “We have met the enemy and he is us” is a kernel of truth worth considering and correcting. At times and perhaps most times we are our own worst enemies. The question is how do we change that and become our own best friends?

Being on holidays is a great time to reflect and evaluate as well as rest and be recreated. It is also a time when without any set agenda God can determine not only the course of the day but also the focus of my thoughts. In this past week he has done that through his word, interaction with people, books and the gentle nudging of his Spirit. I have been reflecting on the reasons why my effectiveness over the years has been less than it might have been. Why are there times when I descend into the dark nights of the soul; why are there times when the things that I know I should be doing I do not do and the ways I should be thinking I do not think? The answer is surprisingly simple and has been and is within me; I have not only met the enemy, I am the enemy.

There is within me a lingering insecurity from my past around which I have built a wall of defensiveness over time. From what I can determine I never experienced any monumental life-altering crisis of any sort but there were multiple occasions when my weaknesses were exposed and as such became the focus of attention often overshadowing and hiding my strengths.

Psychologists say that fear typically produces one of two reactions in people, fight or flight. In my case when my vulnerability was threatened I wanted to run but the shame in doing so would have killed my pride so in most cases I fought and mostly with my mouth but if necessary with my fists. The best defence in my case was a strong appearance of offence. However the truth is I never really wanted to hurt anyone and I certainly didn’t want anyone to hurt me.

Over the past week God has been working in me to purge that offensiveness, which I believe has reduced my effectiveness and only serves to hide my latent insecurity. In some sense God has been trying to convince me to pay attention to what the apostle Paul learned and revealed when he said, “When I am weak then I am strong.” In some sense God has been challenging me to surrender my weakness to him so he can work through my strength. The truth is that by defending myself against any presumed attack on my vulnerability I have been focusing on my weakness and in doing so have been abandoning my strength.

That little bit of insight has given me a fresh perspective on the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25. I have typically read the parable as one of industry and stewardship, a challenge to do well with what you have or else. However I think there is an even deeper and greater lesson in the story that will serve me well as I strive to overcome my insecurity and be the man God desires me to be. It seems to me that the two faithful servants in the parable focused on what they could do and did that, while the third unfaithful servant focused on what he couldn’t do and as a result didn’t do anything. The first two took the talents and focused on their strengths while the third took the money and hid it as he focused on his weakness. For me the lesson in this is that my greater effectiveness will be gained by focusing on my strengths and letting God take care of the weaknesses. That doesn’t mean that I don’t need to redevelop some learned defensive or offensive behaviours but it does mean that I no longer have to be offensive and expend my energy covering my vulnerability. It is time for me to focus more on my strengths and let the enemy within out so that I can truly love and serve God with all of my heart soul mind and strength.

Unexpected Opportunities

2009-09-27T05:50:00.000-07:00

It is remarkable how God knows what you need when you need it if you are open to the opportunities he provides. At the time of writing this we have been on holidays two days and already I can feel a sense of refreshment but not from relaxation.

The normal routine when checking in to our resort is for them to sign you up for the traditional owner’s update, which is offered as a no pressure information session but in real terms, is an up-sell. The incentive is usually reasonable enough for it to be alluring but we had already made the decision not to attend after a couple of bad experiences in the past few years. However our resort consultant sold us on the “new “ system and sweetened the deal enough to get us to say yes; in retrospect we are glad that she did but for rewards greater than what she could offer.

Right from the beginning of our early morning “90-minute” ☺ presentation I had decided to have an open attitude and to be completely relaxed and in some sense be who Jesus would be if he were me. The fact that we don’t have any extra money to spend makes saying "no" to a sales person easy as well. Little did I know what God had in store.

To make a long story very short our sales presentation was a divine appointment and “4 hours” later we left feeling as if God had used us to touch two of his chosen ones. Not only that but we received two dinner invitations and our presenter asked Ellen to coach her by email.

Later in the day we attended the Saturday service of a church in Clermont on the recommendation of a young sales manager who had just recently given his life to Christ and it was by far the most refreshing of any that we have experienced in Florida. We returned to our resort feeling as if God had given us a special dose of grace just for being open to him and ready to serve when the opportunity presented itself.

The take away for us was very clear; when we are open to the opportunities God provides, he gives us exactly what we need for the time we need it. We needed to feel his presence and sense his work in us to make a difference in our world. When we decided just to have an open attitude and enjoy whatever he had for us, he used us and he breathed new life into our tired bodies and spirits.

Intelligence or Idiocy

2009-09-23T06:22:00.000-07:00

I remember the saying “Too soon old and too late smart,” from when I was a kid. I always thought it was a somewhat humorous adage defining one of the inevitable flaws of human nature. Always worth a good chuckle I would often trot out the idiom whenever I was caught in some sort of unforced error. However more recently I am wondering if it is actually all that humorous when applied to something whose harmful effect is known in advance.

I can certainly see the truth of the saying in a learning environment where the consequence of an action is unknown but what about when the negative consequence of behaviour is known beforehand? Is the axiom applicable in that case? I would suggest that after personal consideration and years of experience that it is not. It seems to me a more apt axiom would be, “Stupid is as stupid does,” to quote Forrest Gump’s Mama.

As I write this I am preparing to get away for a much-anticipated quiet holiday alone with my wife Ellen. It will be the first real time away by ourselves that we have had in approximately three years and we are counting the sleeps. However our anticipation is fuelled more by a sense of exhaustion than excitement. Over the past few months our energy and creativity have been waning under the compounding subtle and all-but undetectable stress that has been slowly seeping into our lives. In the past couple of months I have also been noticing some of the telltale physical effects of stress in my life that are the alarm bells triggering an axiomatic event. Am I “too soon old and too late smart” or am I “stupid is as stupid does”?

There is a fine line sometimes between intelligence and idiocy and although I hate to admit it, I think in this case, I lean toward the latter.

I know the negative and subtle effects of stress and I also know the proactive ways to avoid much of the discomfort of stress related activity. The problem I have is to actually overcome the guilt of saying no to some issues that seem urgent and invest more into other more relaxed and enjoyable and ultimately more rewarding things, not the least of which is seemingly mundane but recreational activity.

I confess I have been in this place before but hopefully with some outside help I will avoid walking into this situation again by doing a few things that I know serve me well and keep me at the top of my game. Some of them I do consistently but I think the key is to do them all consistently. The following list are some things to do apart from the obvious ones of eating right, getting some good physical exercise, getting proper rest, and investing in self-improvement.

Take time every morning to connect with God.

Take time every day to unwind and do something that requires little thought but produces real refreshment. A long walk with my wife can do that after we play our mandatory three games of Cribbage with each other.

Take time every week to have a day of worship devoted thanksgiving, praise and prayer. I can do this regardless of where I am or what I am doing as it is more an attitude than an activity.

Take time every week to have a day with some favourite recreational activity. In the spring, summer and fall that would be a day of golf once a week.

Take time every week to do at least a half-day of personal reflection and planning.

Take time every month to do a personal retreat away from the normal demands of my work life.

Take time every year to have an extended holiday free from every normal contact so that, except in the case of a life and death emergency, we can be built into instead of being drawn out of.

As I said, sometimes we are too soon old and too late smart but as a step toward becoming more intelligent I have decided that for this trip, I will leave my Blackberry at home and do something important so that when I return I will have the energy to actually handle the urgent.

Holy Healthy and Happy

2009-09-03T12:23:00.000-07:00

I have wrestled with the seeming disparate nature of the “church” for some time now and I wonder if the church in North America is guilty of biblical and religious apartheid. Are we fragmented and far from being the people and community God designed us to be?

Just for clarification:

Apartheid was a political system in South Africa from 1948 to the early 1990s that separated the different peoples living there and gave particular privileges to those of European origin.

Is the North American church in general guilty of a similar sin on a biblical and spiritual level? Have we mistakenly segregated and separated elements of life as God intended it to be giving special attention to one over the other? For example:

Some people and churches have given greater importance to the supposedly mystical and spiritual component while ignoring the practical physical and social elements.
Some people and churches have given greater importance to the practical and physical component while ignoring the spiritual and the social.
And some people and churches have focused on the social component while minimizing the spiritual and the practical or physical.

There may be other categories and discrepancies but the result would be the same and the point would be made regardless of how many categories we include. By observation the nature of the church and subsequently of life as a whole has in many respects been atomized or compartmentalized and diluted.

Have we segregated and broken down and weakened life as God planned it and desecrated the image of true biblical community as it is described in the bible?

When I use the term atomized or compartmentalized in regard to life and to church what I am trying to communicate is the opposite of holistic. When we take the whole and separate it into parts, the whole loses its true identity. Even though the whole is made up of parts, it is not complete unless all the parts are connected as one. I believe that the Bible clearly teaches that the church, as it was designed by God, is to be holistic and not atomistic, and similarly I believe that according to the Bible, the life of a follower of Christ is designed to be holistic and not compartmentalized.

1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12 describe the body of the church working together and are excellent references to God’s holistic vision for the church. However there is also a powerful reference of holistic living in 1 John 2:5-6 that relates to the individual and says: “This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.”

Who would question that Jesus lived the perfect holistic life? Certainly not anyone who claims to be a follower of his? To deny his perfection would be to deny that he was the perfect sacrifice through which God redeems fallen mankind. As such we who are Christians and are called to be like Christ, are thus called to live holistic lives.

In reality our churches are just a larger reflection of our lives as individuals. Holistic living is a rarity in our day and compartmentalization is the norm for most people and as such integrity is the victim. We like to think of ourselves as men and women of integrity but integrity by definition is wholeness or completeness, not just in one or more areas of our lives but in every part of our lives. Integrity by definition incorporates all of who we are mind, body and soul. Integrity means walking as Jesus walked, living as Jesus would live if He were you.

What that means is that every facet of our lives is designed as a holistic unit under the authority of God; we cannot effectively separate the mental, emotional, relational, physical and spiritual components of our lives. Furthermore according to our divine make-up all the components are directed by the spiritual component. Disciples of Christ do what Jesus would do and Jesus did what His Father in heaven guided him to do.

As such we cannot say we love God and that we follow Christ wholeheartedly without letting it affect every aspect of our lives. The bible doesn’t talk about spiritual things separate from the rest of life, it talks about what is physically appropriate, it talks about what is mentally appropriate, and it talks about what is socially and relationally appropriate. We cannot live spiritually and holistically without everything being connected together and allow what we believe to influence every part of our lives.

Therefore it seems to me that people who claim to be Christians should strive be the best at whatever they do and be the best holistic examples of health happiness and holiness in every way.

Church today is no Yoke

2009-08-28T05:16:00.000-07:00

The ministry of Jesus wasn’t a lot different from church ministry in North America today; he had a lot of followers but few disciples. It has taken me a long time to see that as clearly as I do but from what I see in the scriptures compared with what I see in society today, the similarities are unmistakable.

One of the plagues of contemporary church work is the never-ending shortage of workers who actually do the work of ministry. This isn’t an exact translation but a paraphrase of Pareto’s principle which says 20% of what is done typically accomplishes 80% of a task. In most churches typically 20% of the people do 80% of the work and give 80% of the money.

Statistics related to relational breakdown, divorce and family problems are essentially the same for church people as they are for the general public.

There are generally twice as many or more adherents in churches than there are members.

There is a seemingly never-ending parade of spiritual consumers, church hoppers and shoppers looking for a flavour of the month church experience that will suit their personal taste without significantly challenging their lifestyles.

I often agonize over these things and beat myself up when I experience the constant ebb and flow of professing followers of Christ in the church. I am quite certain that there is much that I have yet to learn about how to lead more effectively but then I wonder if it will ever be much different and has anything really changed from Jesus’ day?

When Jesus came on the scene he performed miracles, healed hundreds and fed thousands. His popularity was such that wherever he went people flocked to him and followed him for what he could do for them. He had thousands of followers but his goal was to make disciples. His call was for people to come to him and take on his yoke.

In our culture we think of a yoke as a wooden harness that binds cattle together but the yoke that Jesus was talking about was a term that Rabbis used to describe their teaching and their life choices. To take the yoke of the Rabbi was to emulate the life of a Rabbi. The call to take the yoke of Jesus was and is a call to discipleship and a call to be like Jesus in every way.

Based on our observation of churches today how many fully yoked followers are there?

Thousands followed Jesus to have him heal them and feed them but how many stayed around when he challenged them in John 6 to eat his flesh and drink his blood or in other words to go from religious consumers to righteous contributors? Most of them walked away because the price was more than they were willing to pay.

What happened to the rich young man who pledged to follow Jesus and asked what he could do to be righteous? Jesus told him to sell all he had and follow him but what did he do? He went away sad and we can assume that he made the choice to be neither a disciple nor a follower from that point on.

Or we could read the parable of the wedding feast where Jesus says many are called but few are chosen. We may think it is somewhat harsh that a poor person who wasn’t dressed in proper clothes would be thrown out of a feast to which he was invited but what we don’t seem to understand was that the person had access to the proper clothes but for whatever reason chose not to wear them.

But I think the most profound example of the distinction between followers and disciples is in Acts 1. Jesus, the Son of God, the creator of the universe, the Messiah, the one who served and gave to thousands of people had only 120 disciples left together after his death and resurrection. At the end of his life Jesus who had ministered to thousands of followers left a group of disciples about the same size as the average church in Canada today.

When we compare ministry in Jesus’ day and the church today there doesn’t seem to be a lot of difference; there are many followers but few disciples because for many people “Christianity” and church is no yoke.

The Unmasked Community

2009-08-25T14:11:00.000-07:00

A couple years ago parts of the movie Incredible Hulk was filmed in downtown Hamilton. Although I haven’t seen the movie I did see the set being built and then saw it in use from the windows of the courthouse right across the street. It was an amazingly realistic depiction of another city. The buildings on that one street looked like the real thing but looking at it from a higher vantage point I could see that they were facades. The buildings looked real from the street but they were false fronts made to look like something they were not.

Probably you have noticed that there are some people like that. If you have seen Phantom of the Opera you will remember the masquerade ball scene. The chorus of the song says:

Masquerade!

Paper faces on parade . . .

Masquerade!

Hide your face, so the world will never find you!

The truth is that all of us play masquerade. At some point in their lives everyone wants people to think they are something that we are not. We all want people to have a much better opinion of us than we have of ourselves.

I once asked a group of high school students who were the people that they most respected and trusted and wanted as friends. Almost of them said they preferred to be friends with people who were just themselves. I then asked how many of them felt comfortable just being themselves with other people. Interestingly but not surprisingly not one hand went up.

I followed up with a third question and asked why they didn’t feel comfortable being the kind of people that they wanted as friends. The consensus was that if they actually let other people see them as they were then they were afraid of being criticized and shunned.

Tragically they could see the faulty logic in their thinking but most of them didn’t feel courageous enough to actually be authentic.

What a sad commentary in light of the fact that most of us can spot a person who hides the truth but not having the courage to confront them we often go along with the pretentious game of mutual masquerade.

I am absolutely certain that is not what God has in mind for the community of faith. I believe God wants us to be an unmasked community free from the threat of judgment, personal condemnation and damaging criticism. However before we get too excited about that we should remember that within such a community the liberty to be ones self is not a license to do whatever one would choose to do.

God’s grace is a wonderful gift in that we know God loves us as we are but we also know that because of the cost of that grace He loves us too much to leave us that way.

Ultimately there comes a day when the mask is taken away and we need to deal with the reality of who we are. The best place to do that is obviously in an environment of mercy and grace but grace must never be mistaken for tolerance and license to live as one chooses without any form of accountability.

There is a great passage in the Message that illustrates that point:

“Looking at it one way, you could say, "Anything goes. Because of God's immense generosity and grace, we don't have to dissect and scrutinize every action to see if it will pass muster." But the point is not to just get by. We want to live well, but our foremost efforts should be to help others live well.” 1 Corinthians 10:23-24

Essentially Paul is saying that the desire of every devoted follower of Christ is to ultimately become like Christ and the only way we can do that is to get rid of the masks and let God’s word and His community form us into that image.

Don't Miss the LARGE Print

2009-08-21T03:33:00.000-07:00

I don’t know how many millions of people have read Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life but I wonder how many of those millions skipped or ignored the first line that says, “It’s not about you.”

I have had the distinct privilege of officiating at the marriages of all of my children. There was one moment during the ceremony of my eldest daughter that brought the house down. I was in the middle of talking to them about ways in which to cultivate a lasting relationship and one of the points I made was that when there is a disagreement in a mutually interdependent relationship it doesn’t matter who wins. Without missing a beat my daughter said, “Yes it does, I want to win.” Thankfully she said it in jest and those who know Jennifer took it that way, even though they know that a competitive seed is planted deep in her make up; I admit she got it from me. The truth is there are shades of selfishness in all of us and some shades are darker than others.

When I compare the life and ministry of Jesus with what passes for church today it is difficult to reconcile the two. Jesus called people to drop their nets, their very livelihood, and follow, he challenged people to take up their crosses, suffer and die to self, and he said that people who are constantly looking back and longing for the things of the past and of the world are not worthy of his kingdom. It isn’t difficult to see why at the end of his ministry despite influencing a nation and personally blessing thousands that there were only 120 fully devoted followers who remained faithful to Jesus’ commission to win the world for God. I would have to say that comparatively, at least in North America, the numbers and ratios of fully devoted followers in churches doesn’t appear to be much different today.

When many churched people are reminded that it isn’t about them they may not say it audibly but in almost every other way their lives shout back, “Yes it is.”

We live in a spiritual hop and shop world were many professing Christians do a circuit of churches looking for programs and services that will suit and serve them. Obviously they missed the part of Jesus’ teaching were He called his disciples together and said:

Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. Matthew 20:26-28

Even Paul warned Timothy saying, “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.” (2 Timothy 4:3)

Many people will not only look for self-serving programs and services they will look for churches that leave out the hard words of Jesus and talk only about the good stuff they want to hear so they can feel good and develop a false sense of security for a lifestyle that may eventually lead them in the opposite direction of what they expect.

I am uncertain how “churched” people, who consider themselves followers of Jesus, could miss the message. It isn’t hidden in some obscure corner of the Bible and it isn’t at the bottom of the page in the all but unreadable fine print of the footnotes. It is right there in the central theme of Jesus’ teaching and in large print for everyone to read – It’s not about you. Don’t miss the LARGE print.

Holiday or Vacation?

2009-08-12T07:26:00.000-07:00

Have you ever noticed how the meanings of terms have become blurred over time? Take for example the word “holiday,” which has over time become synonymous with “vacation”.

"Holiday" is a word composed of two words, “Holy” and “Day” and was originally used as a designation for days of religious significance. People out of respect for God and their religious convictions would set the day apart from work in order to focus on spiritual and religious practices.

"Vacation" was a term used to define a period of time, typically during summer, when people would "vacate" their normal routines of work and residences and go away with their families to enjoy a time of rest and relaxation.

It seems to me that the vast majority of North Americans no longer have holidays and instead take vacations.

As an example Christmas, a holiday celebrating the birth of Christ, is now for the most part an orgy of commercial gluttony with little or no reflection on the reason for the season. Most people, even non Christians, take the days off and along with many so-called Christians have a paid vacation rather than observe the holiday.

Or we could use Sunday, or Saturday for some, as an example of how the lines of distinction have been blurred and all but eliminated. Sunday was once designated a “holiday,” a weekly Sabbath observation; a day of rest, religious celebration and reflection set aside in keeping with a commandment handed down from God to Moses and reaffirmed in other parts of the scriptures. Today Sabbath and Holy Day observation has pretty much been abandoned in favour of vacation despite the fact that according to Statistics Canada more than 70% of Canadians call themselves “Christians”; yet only an average of approximately 10% of Canadians participate in weekly religious services; churches are vacated when one would think they would be filled.

In church life summer time is certainly when the distinction between holidays and vacation is pretty much eliminated and holidays are rolled over into vacation. I believe every person should take vacation time every year but for some reason it seems that many professing Christians not only take their vacation but they also feel free to vacate on Holy Days as well, especially through June, July and August when church attendance dips to yearly lows, finances hit crisis levels and ministries are forced to shut down because volunteers are in short supply and often undependable.

I have heard people say that they take weekends off but they worship God in nature or wherever they happen to be other than with other believers celebrating the holiday. That reasoning seldom holds water because typically when people return to church life after a three or even four-month hiatus they are all but strangers in their home churches and out of the loop if not totally displaced. Not only that but the truth is that most people put God on the back burner during vacation and they lose sight of the real purpose of life and the disciplines necessary to grow in spiritual maturity. Church life and spiritual community is like a river that keeps moving and like God doesn’t stop for vacation; people who step out of the river can never step back into the river at the same spot they left.

It seems to me based on my observation that if we are to survive and thrive as God designed us to do, then in our increasingly humanist society we need to reclaim more holidays from our vacations.

Purity Matters: God and Gideon had it Right

2009-07-25T06:33:00.000-07:00

Can something be identified as something exclusive solely by the elements it contains?

For example can piles of dirt called ore be called gold just because it contains particles of the precious metal? Or can stagnant pond water be called a refreshing life giving beverage just because is contains H2O? Can a group of people gathered for religious ceremonies be called a “church” just because it contains some fully devoted disciples?

For a long time now I have been struggling to clarify a principle that has been troubling me. I have served in church ministry for 38 years and been a vocational worker for nearly 19 of those years. I must admit that I was always troubled by the seeming ineffectiveness of the “church” to accomplish it’s mission of making disciples; all of the statistics indicate that “the church” is losing effectiveness as time passes. However in the past few years I have identified something in the “church” that I believe is the reason and is hidden in plain sight – religious impurity.

In almost every “church” I know of there is at least a modicum of misery that is the result of too few people carrying too much of the responsibility. An Italian scientist named Paretto identified it as an organizational phenomenon whereby 20% of what is done results in 80% of the productivity, as such it has become known as “Paretto’s Principle”. When applied to the church the statistics are borne out in that typically 20% of the people do 80% of the serving and give 80% of the money to support the ministry. The question that I have wrestled with is, “can a group of people made up in a ratio of 1 to 4 sold out believers to casual attendees actually be called a ‘church’?”

The other interesting aspect of “church” life is that adherents typically outnumber members in most “churches” and yet demand, and are usually given, the same attention and rights and privileges as people who have gone through the process of thoughtfully committing themselves to the vision and mission of the “church” and signed a membership agreement to that effect. I can’t imagine any other organization that has a membership allowing full privileges without full commitment. Does the Lions Club, the Rotary, the Kinsmen, an organized sports team or any other organization allow that and are we to assume that the standards of the church are less than those of secular organizations?

You may or may not have noticed that in writing this I have purposely put the word “church” in quotations except for in the last line of the preceding paragraph. The reason for that is because I do not believe the “church” as we know it in practice today is the church that Jesus or the bible describes. I believe our “churches” contain elements of the church but are not the pure church as the scriptures define it. I believe our “churches” are more like the mounds of metal ore or the stagnant pond water that needs to be purified so it can be identified as a useable church that God desires us to be. Two particular texts of scripture have made that clear to me, Proverbs 25:4-5 and 2 Thessalonians 3:14-15.

4 Remove the dross from the silver, and out comes material for the silversmith;

5 remove the wicked from the king's presence, and his throne will be established through righteousness. (Proverbs 25:4-5)

14If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of him. Do not associate with him, in order that he may feel ashamed. 15Yet do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother. (2 Thessalonians 3:14-15)

Something cannot be identified as what it is until everything that is not that element is removed. An army cannot be effective until everything that is not effective is taken away; God and Gideon had it right.

In the historical story it wasn’t until the army of Israel had been reduced to only those few who were 100% sold out to the cause and prepared to do battle that they could move ahead and defeat the enemy that outnumbered them. In the same way I would suggest that the church will not be able to effectively accomplish its mission to make disciples in all the world until that which is truly the purified church is identified apart from that which has come to be known as the “church” today. However as 2 Thessalonians counsels us we are not to consider the disobedient among us as enemies but as brothers that we need to confront and warn but until the warning is heeded we are counseled to stand apart from them and not to be in close association with them lest what they are is what the church becomes. It seems to me that what Solomon so wisely said about silver also applies to the church; the church cannot be the church that is used by God until all that is not the church has been removed.

Can holidays be hazardous to your health?

2009-07-13T12:27:00.001-07:00

It appears under certain conditions holidays can be hazardous to one’s health.

I don’t know what set it off but once it got hold of me there was nothing I could do to shake it; one day I was seemingly fine and the next I felt like I was walking through knee-high water with a clothespin on my nose and a fist in my chest.

A few days before I left for holidays I wrote in my journal and shared with Ellen that I felt I was experiencing some symptoms of stress. It wasn’t that things were going badly and I needed to get away from it all and it wasn’t that anything onerous was looming on the horizon but it was just a sense that I needed some recreation. Yes recreation, a sense of being created again, refreshed and reenergized. It seems in retrospect I had been neglecting a vital component of my life that I am often counseling others to remember but apparently forgetful of in my own life – fun, amusement, play. It seems the old adage, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” has at least some measure of truth to it, only in my case all work and no play made me a sick boy. I guess it just proves another idiom that some of us are “too soon old and too late smart.”

The sudden release from a schedule and being weaned off of adrenalin left me vulnerable to an old nemesis; bronchitis combined with a dose of allergic reaction to pollen of some sort laid me low. The discomfort was compounded by the fact that I dislike taking medication of any kind and even when I relented and did there was minimal relief and so it has been for ten days, until today, back at work, I feel somewhat normal sensing the need of a holiday from my holiday.

There is a lesson in this that I will hopefully remember, and one that Jesus himself was very good at observing. There is a need for us to take regular time to stop the rush of life and enjoy regular times of rest and recreation including play and fun. I knew that but I didn’t do that.

Last night I re read an extensive personality profile that was done on me a few years ago and right there in the summary in both graphic and printed form was the warning or recommendation, “In order to maintain peak performance you (referring to me) will need to make recreation a scheduled priority.”

So was it the holiday that was hazardous or my lack of personal care leading up to the holiday? The question is rhetorical for me at least. The holiday only served to open a door of opportunity for a virus and some antigens to disable me in a time of weakness. Had I been more careful to live what I know to be true and take more time to play without feeling guilty about it, the holiday, which despite my condition was enjoyable, would have been a much more pleasurable and refreshing experience.

Contentment

2009-06-25T05:43:00.000-07:00

Each day I read the newspaper and become somewhat agitated by the dichotomous situations recorded. On the one hand there are reports of increases in the use of foodbanks by people caught in the throes of recession and on the other hand there are stories of people lobbying for an overpriced NHL team to come to the city so people can pay big money to watch big boys play a game and pay as much for a hot dog as would feed dinner to a family of four. On the one hand there are stories of workers in private industries being laid off after years of service and on the other there are stories of job-secured government workers with secured pensions going on strike for more money. Maybe it’s just me but I don’t get it, can we even distinguish between our needs and our wants anymore? And why is it that with all that we have so few people are happy and content.

Over the past few years Ellen and I have been working at simplifying our lives by divesting ourselves of things that we don’t need. It is a much more difficult process for me because I am somewhat of a pack rat and tend to keep useless stuff that I might “need” one day. The day of need seldom comes and at times when it has come I have forgotten where I filed the hoarded treasure. However most often we just leave the stuff stored away until we move and then lug it over to the new residence where it sits idle for another decade. So as I reflect on the dichotomies in society I am also forced to evaluate my own life and ask myself if I am content or have I too lost the ability to distinguish between my needs and my wants.

When push comes to shove what do I really need in order to live, love and leave a legacy? My guess is that it is much less than what I think it is and certainly less than what I actually have.

I am certain that this latest recession is the product of greed, the insatiable demand for more. I also believe that it could be a wonderful opportunity for us to take stock of our lives and determine what is important and decide on what we really need and with what could we be content.

The apostle Paul, who was once a wealthy Pharisee, gave up his life of conflicted luxury and took on a life of contented service. He said: “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” (Philippians 4:12) In another letter he said: “But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.” (1 Timothy 6:8)

I would contend that what we in our affluent culture have been misled and have confused our wants with our needs and in reality could live well and be happier with much less than we have. So with what could we really be content?

There is a bit of advice in the book of Hebrews chapter 13 verse 5: “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’” As I read that I wonder if contentment is really a struggle for balance between our needs and wants or is true contentment less about what we have and more about who has us?

Not much fun

2009-06-16T05:47:00.000-07:00

This morning as I pulled into work I stopped at the paper recycle bin in our side parking lot. I opened the lid to discover that some lazy inconsiderate person had discarded their old swimming pool solar blanket in the bin. As I mumbled my disgust and got back into my truck I looked at the weekly saying on our sign out front, “Integrity is who you are when no one is looking.” Driving away from the bin I shook my head as I pondered what people do when they think no one is watching. Very few people have the kind of character to consistently do the good in secret that they do under supervision.

I suppose that revelation should come as no surprise since we are all products of our fallible ancestry. From the beginning of time mankind in Adam has had a bent toward misdirection, or as it may be better understood, doing what suits me regardless of what God or anyone else says and regardless of how it affects other people. The effect of Adam’s sin has ultimately touched all of us and subsequently as Paul says in Romans 3:23 “…all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory.”

How do we sin? Some people under the cover of night dump things in containers clearly marked for other things. Husbands in the privacy of their homes mistreat and disrespect their wives but in public pretend that everything is fine. Workers take longer breaks than allowed and never make up the work. Kids vow it wasn’t them when it was. People call in sick when they aren’t; they say the check is in the mail when it isn’t; they say they’ll be there tomorrow when they won’t; they say, “I do,” and then don’t. The list could go on and on but the bottom line is that none of us escapes with integrity intact; we all sin and fall short even if we think no one else is watching.

The reality is that God is always watching, and contrary to what I believed as a child, He isn’t keeping track of my misdeeds, He is waiting for me, even pleading for me, to turn away from them and turn to Him. He is waiting for me to come out from the darkness of my own foolish selfishness into the light of His mercy and grace. God isn’t keeping track of our sins but we do. David says in Psalm 51:3, “I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.” The avid sinner is like an avid golfer and remembers every shot.

Thankfully by God’s grace I was able to get out from under that weight of guilt many years ago but there is still that battle raging within me; still the temptation to do my own thing; and still the question of whether what I do when no one else is watching makes a difference. I plead with God daily and pray for His grace and for the strength to do in secret what I would do in the open.

I know others wage the same battle as I do and judging by the state of our society it is obvious that more people lose the battle for integrity than win. I can’t imagine what life for the losers of that battle must be like with the weight of their sin mounting daily but I do know that for the rest of us who have to clean up after them, it isn’t that much fun.

The untruths we tell ourselves

2009-06-09T08:54:00.000-07:00

There are many elements of misleading theology that people cling to in North America not the least of which is the unbiblical theory of “Eternal Security”. This is not to be confused with the idiom, “once saved always saved,” because I believe that once a person is truly saved by God’s grace through faith it is forever. However I am talking about the mistaken belief that someone can repeat a pattern prayer, known in evangelical circles as the “sinners prayer,” and then be granted eternal fire insurance and be secure from damnation regardless of whether or not the person lives a life devoted to God and his commands. Having studied the Bible for many years I have yet to find substantiation for that theory. Never the less many people adhere to it.

For example there are many parents who hold faithfully to the belief that their wayward and worldly adult children, who have no time for God or His church, are somehow spiritually okay because at some point in their prepubescent lives they prayed a prayer to accept Jesus, or because as a baby they were sprinkled with “holy water” and baptized into the church thus making them children of God and supposedly safe from the fires of hell.

I would contend that such people not only have a warped view of theology but they have a warped view of God. It’s interesting that in Canada although the overwhelming majority of people believe in God few read their bibles and fewer than 20% are actively involved in the weekly ministry of the church and are living by biblical standards making disciples as Jesus commissioned us to do. I would suggest that for the most part as a consumer society we have bought into the lie that God is here for us instead of the other way around.

What I read in the Bible leads me to believe that those who are truly saved now and will be forever are those who abide by what Jesus said, “…those who stand firm to the end will be saved,” (Matthew 10:22) which is the doctrine of “Final Perseverance”. Unlike the misguided and unsubstantiated doctrine of eternal security, "Final Perseverance" declares that those who are truly followers of God will in fact follow Him and live lives in keeping with His will and His ways throughout their lives.

Let’s face it, apart from the rare deathbed confessions of penitent believers, there isn’t any biblical proof or a lot of logic in believing that a personal can live like hell and expect to go to heaven. Furthermore if people don’t like God’s order on earth they probably will like it even less in paradise where it is perfected.

So the next time friends try to convince you that someone, who is living an ungodly life is really okay spiritually because they either believe in Jesus or accepted Jesus as a child, it may be a good time to bring the truth of what God’s word has to say into the conversation because either they are uninformed or beneath that wishful exterior they are crushed and can’t bring themselves to bear the truth they know.

Have You Heard

2009-05-27T07:53:00.000-07:00

It never ceases to amaze me how much more people, who are not part of the church, profess to know about the church than those who are actually part of the church. On an almost daily basis I hear some story about the church that is news to me or I hear from someone, who has no personal connection to the church, alluding to an apparent apocalyptic tragedy that has befallen the church. I wonder sometimes if like Rip Van Winkle I have slept through and missed all that has transpired.

Just today we received what appeared to be an brief angry email from someone I have never heard of suggesting, in her opinion and despite the fact that she hasn’t been in the church in many years and has never attempted to verify first hand anything she has heard, that the church has somehow lost its way, missed God’s blessing and is heading for destruction. I could only scratch my head and wonder, who is this person and from where in the world she is getting her information and how does she think she can spit venom on the church and somehow miss the body of Christ?

There is no better-greased communication vehicle than the pseudo-church-I-have-nothing-better-to-do grapevine or as it is better called the not-so-good-news gossip hotline. In this case as with many other rampant but unfounded stories the slander and gossip seems to have its origin in the same habitual network of people and tragically none of the purportedly pious perpetrators have any first hand information and not one of them has ever taken the time to investigate whether or not what little they have heard through the network is actually true.

The Bible has a name for that sort of thing; in general terms it is called sin and more specifically gossip and slander. The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines (slander) as: “the utterance of false charges or misrepresentations which defame and damage another's reputation;” and a (gossip) as: “a person who habitually reveals personal or sensational facts about others.” James, the brother of Jesus asks rhetorically, “Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring?” (James 3:11) Can good news and gossip and slander come out of the mouth of a disciple of Christ?

God takes very seriously the words and conduct of his people and the next time someone says to you, “have you heard?” I would suggest that the best course of action is to pray and check it out first before passing it on.

Who's Your Daddy?

2009-05-19T07:09:00.000-07:00

As I understand it the slang expression, “Who’s your daddy,” is a prideful male boast designed in some way to communicate superiority in any number of meaningless activities. A tall rangy recreational basketball player makes a long fade-away jumper and yells, “Who’s your daddy,” or a weekend golfer sinks a 30-foot putt for par and with a Tiger-like fist pump exclaims, “Who’s your daddy.” Obviously given the situations that expression is as ridiculous as the inane spectator expression, “In the hole,” when a golfer tees off on a 550-yard par 5. However I wonder if despite the questionable usage the expression itself may actually contain some Freudian relevance. It seems to me that effective fatherhood is something all children crave.

Father’s day is fast approaching and in a very real sense children will be contemplating the question, “Who’s my daddy?” It will be an emotion-filled day for children and parents. For some it will be a joy-filled celebration and for many it will be a dreaded and even heart-rending experience. Fathers, whether they want to admit it or not, are role models for their children and every child wants a hero for a father. The problem is that although every child has a male parent many do not have father heroes.

Fatherhood isn’t about expressing superiority but about leaving a legacy of character and integrity in our children. How many fathers are actually doing that today?

In almost every meeting I have with people who are experiencing significant personal and relational problems it becomes apparent that one of the underlying issues is family of origin and most often the father. The problems in the persons’ lives are their reaction to or a repeat of what they experienced in their home as a child. Without an effective role model and a viable legacy of integrity, the children are left directionless in a world of misplaced values. I often walk away asking the question, “Who’s your daddy?” However this challenge does have a solution.

The bible is filled with fallen heroes, fathers who failed to leave legacies of integrity in their children, but is also filled with hope because, knowing the sinful nature of mankind, God provided a safety net and a way of breaking the cycle of faulty fatherhood. In Psalm 68:5 God is described this way: “A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.” When our human fathers fail we have God as a father and a hero. He doesn’t take the place of a human hero-dad but he does mend the hurt, compensate for he lack and break the cycle of parental misdirection.

Many people may never have the human daddy they desire by birth but by faith they can have the father they need.

"Un" Common Sense

2009-05-04T04:39:00.000-07:00

After someone sees or hears of a person doing something foolish I often hear the observer say, “Don’t they have any common sense?”

My typical response is, “common sense isn’t all that common.”

I think when people bemoan perceived or obvious lack of “common sense” they are referring to a lapse of simple logic. However I am not convinced that logic or lack of it has much to do with common sense. In fact I think that some of the seemingly dumb things that people do are actually intentional and in their minds contain shreds of perverted logic that in some way makes sense to them. I would say that most of the things people do have little if any consideration for what is common and good for all people.

As far as I can determine common sense was a term coined to reflect a mindset that was in the best interest of the community. It was a we-first not a me-first way of doing life. When we review history it is easy to see how such an attitude was necessary for people working together for survival against the sometimes-challenging elements. People who thought only of themselves were unwelcome pariahs and blemishes on community. Community by definition is that which is in the best interest of all people even though it may not satisfy the petulant wants of a few. As I see it common sense means to do that which is ultimately good for all persons. In our greed-infested, materialistic and hedonistic society that kind of sense isn’t very common. By observation we are undone by me-first instead of we-first thinking.

For example consider the amount of litter people casually drop by the wayside with no consideration of the offense it is to the landscape, the ecology, people who appreciate nature’s beauty and those who will eventually have to clean up the mess. People who litter are social parasites; self-absorbed narcissists that are unconcerned about others and as such have no common sense. What does that say then about the sense of those who pollute our environment and damage community in many other ways?

Let’s face it most if not all of our social, relational, economic, physical, ecological and spiritual challenges are the result of personal gratification at the expense of community or common sense. I can say unequivocally that all divorces and acrimonious relational disputes are the result of selfishness on someone’s part and as such devoid of common sense.

Un common sense is an age-old problem. Jesus talked about it when he commended a life of sacrifice saying, “the last will be first and the first will be last.” When you think about it putting others first is both the logical and common sense thing to do. If we live and only think of ourselves we are on your own in a dog-eat-dog survival of the fittest world. However if we have common sense and live for the common good we protect one another thus dividing our pain while doubling our joy.

Wants or Needs?

2009-04-30T05:49:00.000-07:00

Our current recession has forced us to evaluate how and where we invest our resources. I guess there is nothing like a crisis to make people take notice of the weak spots and trim the fat in their lives. When as kids we would ask for something my mother used to say, “Do you think money grows on trees?” Well sadly I think we as a society are at the point where our combined affluence and social welfare philosophy has actually convinced us that it does grow on trees, or falls from heaven like manna. We have become a society that has fallen in love with our wants and in doing so neglected our needs. We have become a society that spends instead of invests.

The paper this morning carried the headline “Recession puts pressure on non-profits.” That headline was directly across the page from another that promoted a walkathon for some particular non-profit whose benefit to the community at large is questionable. Maybe I don’t get it but I scratch my head and wonder what on earth a bunch of people walking will do to aid any cause let alone one that doesn’t appear to be willing to evaluate its own community effectiveness. What’s more my experience tells me that many of the walkers, those who are supposedly committed to the cause, often don’t even sponsor themselves. I guess they figure their sacrificial stroll is worth more than the hard earned dollars of those they solicit. They want their cake but want someone else to pay for it.

For my money why should I pay someone to do something they should be doing anyway, whether it be a walkathon, readalthon or any other kind of thon. Why not instead forget about soliciting donors and walk for your health, read to improve your mind and then organize a free work or clean up day for people who can’t afford to or are physically unable to take care of themselves in these tough economic times.

I have a plethora of peeves in regard to the overabundance of seemingly parasitical organizations that are fighting for the few dollars that we have and in so doing are unwilling to concede those dollars to organizations that are actually contributing to the community at large and meeting personal needs in this time of crisis. We are in a recession and maybe it is time to evaluate, trim the fat and purge our wants so we can tend to our needs.

An "Aha" Moment

2009-04-21T07:36:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had an “aha” moment when after being involved in a number of different and seemingly unrelated activities you take time to breathe and see some unexpected connections in the seemingly chaotic web that is your life? I had one of those moments today. Actually to be honest the seed of the moment began yesterday. I have been using Mondays as a sort of clean up and reading day to clear my head of some of last week’s things and prepare myself for the week ahead.

My latest extended series in the Book of Revelation has stretched me and forced me to deal with and understand a plethora of mysterious but timeless messages communicated through symbols and images that link the past with the present and the future. On top of doing my research and study I have read an historical tome on the state of Israel, a book on missional leadership, a book on developing community through service, a couple other books and a number of other insightful and inspirational works, plus I have invested daily time in the Bible apart from my study. If that wasn’t enough I try to keep up with what is happening in the world and have been looking at ways the church can be more actively involved in the life of our community, while trying to fit time in to attend to a developing sexual orientation curriculum crisis in our educational system. Amid that cacophony of activity the awakening moment for me came after my devotional quiet time during which I underlined some key passages that spoke to me.

After getting up from my chair I laid eyes on one of the next books I will be reading, Pat Buchanan’s, State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America. Admittedly I don’t as yet know what is in the book except that Buchanan talks about the unwillingness of political leaders to uphold the nations rule of law especially when it comes to immigration. You might wonder how that would trigger a moment of revelation drawing together strands from such an eclectic jumble of seemingly unrelated sources.

Believe it or not most if not all of what I have been reading and doing deals in some way with cleaning up messes that ineffective leaders have created and are continuing to create by not upholding the rule of law. Reading Peter Drucker’s comments on J.P. Sloan hit the nail on the head. Sloan said that four hours spent choosing the right leader can help avoid 1400 hours of work cleaning up the mistakes the wrong leader will make. In order to understand the mess we are in during this recession we need to look to the high-priced but ineffective commercial and political leaders we have appointed to uphold the rule of law. The real culprits are not just the leaders who have failed to uphold the standards but also the people who chose them and failed to hold them accountable.

John Maxwell has often said, “Everything rises and falls on leadership.” Peter Drucker said, “The highest level we can expect from appeasement is mediocrity.” My study in Revelation has convinced me that we will be and are being undone by complacency, greed and appeasement. In our attempt to appease our selfish and misguided carnal natures we fail to do that for which we were created, to uphold the ultimate rule of law; to love God and serve Him with all that we are and have.

Accounta...what?

2009-04-08T12:39:00.000-07:00

Accountability is a buzzword that has been making the rounds for a number of years but in my experience although many people talk about it, very few people are actually willing to do anything about it. Accountability is the UFO of personal discipline, often sited but seldom substantiated.

Accountability is a great principle and is inherently biblical. The reality is all of us will be called to account by God for our lives and some of us will be ready but many will be surprised. So in order to soften the surprise we are invited and encouraged to hold one another to account, we are our brother’s keepers. The problem is that most people are neither good at holding people to account nor being held to account. As such the principle remains essentially theoretical and functionally useless. I wonder sometimes if people think that in the end God is just going to look at them and say, “I was just kidding!”

I have had many men ask me be their mentor or coach and hold them to account. Typically in a spate of conscience or conviction they have come to me and in all their momentary sincerity pledged to be better followers of Jesus, better husbands or better fathers. To their credit many of them actually maintained the thread of accountability for a period of time but sooner or later the majority, when there was something to be accountable for, got stranded in blizzards of emergency bowling banquets, or they retreated into cones of silence or vanished altogether. The end of the deal usually came when the initially enthusiastic person realized that accountability takes work and they actually had to be open to evaluation and change.

In the past year I have witnessed once again with sadness the waning disciplines of some men who wanted the benefits of accountability without the effort or courage to actually be accountable. It seems they failed to realize that accountability is actually two words in one – “account” – “ability”. The account was there but often not the ability.

No Pain No Gain

2009-04-02T08:02:00.000-07:00

I just returned from a week visiting our children out west and in particular our newest arrival, John Peter our eleventh grandchild. Experiencing the miracle of new birth is always totally awesome.

While I was there my son-in-law arranged to have me go through an advanced type of therapy for my ailing shoulder that I can only describe as a licensed form of sadistic torture. I was told that in some clinics that use ARP therapy they have signs that say something like, “You can yell, you can swear or you can groan but you cannot whine.” All I can say is that in order to preserve my spiritual integrity I did a lot of moaning and groaning. It was a truly painful experience that I hope results in at least a measure of healing for my painful shoulder, which as it turns out is the result of damaged bicep tendons. I was warned that the pain could linger for a number of days as I begin a regimen of exercises and stretches designed to rehab my aching limb.

After returning home and going through the first round of rehab exercise my shoulder seemed to hurt just as much as it did before the therapy and I wondered if in fact this was going to work and if not then what value was there in enduring the pain that I did.

As I pondered that question I realized that there are many problems in life that require us to go through painful experiences in order to achieve positive results. The reality is that sometimes we see the results and sometimes we don’t. However without at least making an attempt at resolving the problem, painful or otherwise, there is little if any hope of a positive solution. So is it worth it to go through the pain even if there may be no gain?

I would have to say that there is always value in striving to resolve an issue even when it is painful. If there is hope for a solution or hope for some gain it is always worth the pain. The choice seems to be simple in theory but seldom is in practice. Many people it seems want to be made well but often fearfully forego the short-term intense pain of possible healing therapy and decide to live with the pain that has become familiar to them; they whine rather than groan; they stay as they are rather than change and grow.

As I thought about the pain in my shoulder I realized that even if it isn’t improved from the painful therapy I am no worse off than I was before. The pain of the therapy is only a memory now but if I had not made the attempt and gone through the pain then I would have closed the door on an opportunity for gain. I am hopeful that by persevering through the temporary pain there will be a positive result.

A lesson learned again

2009-03-21T07:52:00.000-07:00

I learned a lesson many years ago that has proven valuable to me a number of times over the years and has done so again.

More than thirty years ago I experienced what is commonly called “burn out,” a generic catch-all that in some sense means my mental, emotional, physical and spiritual tanks were dry. Call it a dry time, a dark time or whatever you wish but it wasn’t a great experience but it was a learning experience.

Despite the deadness in my soul and the lack of ambition of any sort I was able to persevere and do what needed to be done in order to make a living and feed my growing family. Very few people, and perhaps only my wife, actually knew that I was I the depths of some deep despair. I guess I was a good enough actor that I could cover up what was brooding deep within me. I had given up doing many of the things I typically enjoyed and for the most part just worked, ate, performed my commitments in the church and slept. However there was one thing that I refused to give up.

For some reason I retained a sense of veiled hope that God would somehow get me out of my dungeon of depression but I knew that I needed to be part of that solution. So every day I invested time reading the bible desperately searching for some shred of light that would break through into my darkness. Day after day after day I persevered in my daily discipline of reading, trying to pray and journaling. I wish I could say that God miraculously parted the seas of my sadness but He didn’t and weeks turned into months and the months became a year until the eighteen-month anniversary of my ponderous pilgrimage. I remember sitting with Bible in hand reading an excerpt that spoke directly to me and I looked up and said to myself, “I think I am over this;” then with complete assurance I said, “No! I am over this.” I remember preparing to get up from my chair and in a symbolic gesture I prayed, “Lord thank you for the work you have done in my life. When I get up from this chair the old me will remain and the new me will move on from this point.”

The lesson I carried with me from that experience was that no matter how bad things may seem the one discipline I can never afford to give up is my time with God every day. The Bible says that God’s word will never leave me empty and will always prove fruitful. That promise has always proved true in my life. However it doesn’t happen unless I actually invest the time to read it and heed it.

So how has it proven true again after thirty plus years?

Lately I have felt as though I have been in a dry period or a dark place and somehow the passion I crave and my desire to thrive had been sucked out of me. However I knew that somehow God would prove faithful through His word and He has.

Oddly enough the light peaked through as I read chapters 4 and 5 of Revelation. The awe-inspiring spectacle of God on His throne commanding the worship of all living beings overwhelmed me. I was compelled to surrender myself anew to the one who is the author and finisher of faith and life, but that is only part of the work God did. I read another part of scripture that finished off the revival God began as I was reading Revelation. I read in Galations 2:20 the words of the apostle Paul: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Those words drove away the clouds that had enveloped me and I realized that I had been once again relying on my own strength and my own faith instead of the faith and strength afforded to me through my relationship with Jesus. I do not depend on my weak and shallow faith but I live in the overcoming faith of Christ who is in me.

I am eternally grateful to God who doesn’t give up on me and grateful that His word remains true and applicable. No matter how many times I falter He is there to pick me up. My only commitment is to be part of the process and remain connected to Him on a daily basis so He can speak into my life.

What's the Plan?

2009-03-09T07:54:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been distressed by a troubling problem only to finally discover the answer and say, “How could I have missed that?”

Lately I have been struggling with how to effectively lead in a situation that at one time looked promising but through a series of, what I can only call unholy and ungodly happenings, we are in a seemingly more difficult position than we were before I began. However I have been recently confronted with something that has made me rethink the situation.

The work that I do, although deemed a leadership role, is in biblical altruistic terms an associate position. The apostle Paul summed it up when in his letter to the Corinthian church (11:1) he wrote, “Follow me as I follow Christ.” In a very real sense I am an associate of Jesus who is the head of the church. However I am sad to say, that consideration often escapes me and I often feel as if I needed to make most of the difficult decisions and be personally responsible for building something that in reality isn’t mine to build. Jesus clearly said to His disciples that He would build His church (Matthew 16:18). As such my responsibility is to devote my life to following Him in that endeavour.

But that seemingly simple truth has not always served to keep me from feeling the need to take personal responsibility for building the church and for being discouraged when difficult challenges make the task seem impossible.

I was once again reminded of my role a few days ago. While contemplating the future of the local church and searching for ideas of how to overcome the seeming impossibility of the task at hand, I read a familiar passage that I had read many times and had even preached in the church. The miracle of the loaves and the fish or the feeding of the 5000 is a story familiar to most people as one of the astounding miracles of Jesus’ ministry. However it was Jesus’ question to Philip leading up to the miracle, or rather the accompanying editorial comment that gave me my “Aha” moment.

Jesus looked up and saw the huge and hungry crowd that had been following Him and asked Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” It seems Philip assumed Jesus was recruiting his mathematical and leadership expertise and immediately surveyed the situation and deemed the idea financially impossible. Andrew chimed in with his own slightly more hopeful but obviously helpless response that all they had was five buns and two small fish. The idea of feeding the people was out of the question; the task was entirely impossible. I could easily identify with either one of the two disciples.

But in retrospect we know the miracle actually happened and the impossible was made possible. If the impossible could happen then could it also happen now?

My “Aha” moment came when I read John’s editorial comment (John 6:6) “He (Jesus) only asked to test him (Philip), for He already had in mind what he was going to do.” Jesus already had the plan to overcome the impossible and it seems He was just testing Philip and the others to see if they had learned perhaps the most critical lesson of church leadership, discovering the divine plan. The job of church leadership is not so much to determine and develop a plan to build God’s church but to discover God’s plan and follow it.

As I sat and pondered the implications of that revelation I realized that many times I have failed the test and in the face of seemingly impossible situations, instead of asking Jesus for His plan I have, like Philip, assumed He needed my expertise and have attempted to develop plans that I could present to Him as possible solutions. All the while He had the plans and was waiting for me to ask and then obey.

How could I have missed that...again?

Does it matter who wins

2009-03-01T04:46:00.000-08:00

Up until 14 years ago, before we moved out west, I played competitive fastball in a regional men's league. However the move west precluded playing a game I loved because the only fastball league, and there was only one, was made up of a smattering of teams spread over a large area and they played weekend tournament ball. It would have been difficult convincing the board to give me Sunday's off to play ball so my "career" as a player was shelved.

It wasn't that there were no other ball leagues in the city, in fact there were many recreational leagues comprised of a mixture of men, some of whom actually used to play baseball. However I had never been tempted to play in these adult leagues that reminded me of house league junior T-Ball.

After resigning myself to the fact that my baseball days were over I filled the time with some other athletic pursuits but the love of baseball was always in the back of my mind. Then one day I was asked if I would consider playing on a team.

One of the men in our church heard that I used to play and was a pitcher and they desperately needed another player especially a pitcher. Now to call someone who stands 45 feet from the plate and lobs kiddie balls to a grown man isn't my idea of a pitcher but I decided to at least give it a try. I had stayed in pretty good shape and worked out most weekdays at the Y, so I figured I still had enough athletic prowess not to embarrass myself. That was an understatement.

When I arrived for the game I was introduced to a crew of uniformed men with an assortment of shapes and sizes most of which didn't appear to be suited to any form of athletic activity. We took the field and I stood in the centre of the diamond about to take part in a game I had vowed not to play and had, along with a number of my other former team mates, dubbed "skirt ball". To say the least I have to apologize for that bit of political incorrectness because after three innings of agonizing ineptness on both sides of the field I was convinced this group of grown men would have been clobbered by an elementary school's girls team. By that time I had already made up my mind to hang up my skirt.

In the second inning the opposing team complained that I wasn't lobbing the ball slow enough and I was warned by the umpire that the object wasn't to strike people out or to make it difficult for them but to let them hit. The problem was that when I did that the hitters scorched the ball and our infielders would cover up vulnerable body parts and let the ball sail through to the outfield where our guys would casually canter to the ball without actually making much of an attempt to catch it. By the time the ball was relayed to the infield the runner was usually on second or third or making his way home.

I realized this team didn't really need a pitcher just someone who would be willing to be target practice for batters. I pulled myself from the mound and went to third base hoping to plug a gap in the infield. The very next hitter made a mighty swing and almost missed the ball but ended up hitting a squibbler between home and third. Without hesitation I rushed the ball and scooped and threw toward first in one motion only to see the ball sail right at the head of the first baseman who wasn't watching or even standing on the bag. I yelled in time for him to put his glove up and duck away before incurring serious damage to his face. He was upset because I played the ball which on normal occasions they would just concede as a hit. After all, I was informed, this was just a fun game. I finished the game and informed the coach that I wouldn't be able to make any more games.

As I reflect on that painful experience I am in many ways reminded of how I see most so-called followers of Christ live their lives and play on the team called the church. The problem is that the devil is playing fastball in a competitive world while we for the most part act like we are in a recreational lob pitch league.

Somehow I don't think that is what Paul had in mind when he wrote the following words to the Philippian church,

¹²Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. ¹³Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, ¹⁴I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

¹⁵All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. ¹⁶Only let us live up to what we have already attained. (Phil 3:12-16)

Called Out

2009-02-26T04:17:00.000-08:00

G.K. Chesterton said "It is not that the Christian life has been tried and found wanting but it has been found difficult and left untried."

As I have pondered my Christian experience as both a layman and a vocational church worker the tragic reality of that insightful quote becomes ever more evident. This morning I reflected on the meaning of "church" as those who are "called out". I questioned whether or not the majority of church people actually view themselves as having been called out. If they do then I am left wondering what it is that they perceive they have been called out from and to, and question how many have actually responded to the call.

Jesus recounts a parable of two sons in Matthew 21 who were "called out" by their father and asked to work in the fields. One said he wouldn't go but did and the other said he would go but he didn't. The question Jesus asked was which one actually obeyed the will of the father. The question appears rhetorical and the answer immediately obvious, but I often wonder if it is in light of what passes for church today? Was it even that obvious in Jesus day if He had to tell the parable?

Pareto's principle has been cited by many as essentially accurate in the life of the church, 20% of the people do 80% of the work and give 80% of the money. However in my experience, as I am sure it is with most, 100% still wish to be called "the church". Are they?

One would think that people who have been called out and have responded to the call would be eager to learn and grow and live in such a way as to obey the one who has called them and to reflect His nature. But do most do that in reality? In the parable the father only called once and left it up to the sons as to how they would respond. Apparently he just expected that a truly obedient son only needed to be called once. Is that true in today's church?

It often seems that most of life in church leadership is spent trying to convince and call the supposedly already convinced and called.

In the book Friedman's Fables, the late Edwin Friedman pens a tale of a man crossing a bridge carrying a rope. The man ties one end of the rope around his waist and when he encounters another man walking on the bridge asks him to hold the other end. Caught somewhat unaware the other man takes the loose end and then the man with the rope around his waist jumps over the edge. The dangling man pleads with the shocked and unsuspecting Samaritan not to let go of the rope lest he fall and die in the swirling river. The Samaritan tells the man to climb up the rope if he doesn't want to die, but the dangler refuses insisting that it is the Samaritan's responsibility to keep him from falling. The question is, who is responsible for the life of dangling man?

I suppose a similar question could be asked in the church when it comes to working with the 80% who claim to be called out but never actually seem to go? Whose responsibility is it to actually motivate them to learn and grow and live as a reflection of the one who called them out and asked them to follow Him? Whose responsibility is it to hold on to their rope as they voluntarily dangle over the edge laying guilt trips on their fellow travelers for their perilous predicament? If they show no interest in living their calling, then is it the mission and duty of the other 20% to spend all of their time trying to convince them that they should?

I would tend to agree with Chesterton but with one slight modification, that the Christian life for many has not so much been tried and found wanting but that it has been perceived as difficult and left untried. To actually find something difficult assumes a person has actually made an attempt.

Better than Worse

2009-02-23T14:24:00.000-08:00

In the past two weeks my wife and I have watched two recent movie releases both of which made statements on marriage.

Fireproof, a movie made by a ministry of Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany Georgia, is the story of a young couple who have given up on their marriage. Neither one is looking to be reconciled and all that remains is for the papers to be signed and both partners are heading out the door.

Nights in Rodanthe, a screen adaptation of a novel by Nicholas Sparks, is the story of a marriage rocked by betrayal but after seven months of separation the husband wants a do over. His wife is uncertain and uses a week away caring for a friend's bed and breakfast to think it over and in the process gets caught up in her own infidelity.

I am quiet certain that Fireproof, the low budget film with only one somewhat recognized professional actor, will do well and be an inspiration and a hope-filled challenge to those who watch it. However I am equally certain it won't match the box office and video receipts of Nights in Rodanthe, which despite it's Hollywood billing and well known stars, is a tragic tale of misplaced values and self indulgence.

In my opinion there is no comparison between the two and Fireproof is the far better film. In fact I would suggest people save the money they would have spent renting Nights in Rodanthe and purchase Fireproof. You will want to watch it more than once.

Both movies make it plainly obvious what happens to relationships when people are selfish and think that life is all about them. However the characters in Fireproof are challenged to recognize and remedy their self-centered desires and view their love as a choice backed up by affirmative action. The characters in Rodanthe never really get beyond themselves and the movie ends up glorifying adultery and trivializing love as an insipid combination of emotion and sexual attraction. Sadly it is this movie and not the former one that reflects the sad character of our society.

In our disposable society we have bought into the lie that relational discord means the love has gone and that apparently makes marital dissolution the preferable and least damaging alternative for all concerned. The argument is that no one wants to live in a loveless war zone. If that is the case then the solution is simple, stop fighting and start thinking more about your partner than about yourself. The reality is that selfishness is the cause of all relational discord.

True love isn't an emotion it is a choice of mutual submission and marriage is a life-long commitment to stick with the choice to love for better or worse. Admittedly there may be situations when one partner refuses to grow up and insists on remaining egocentric but my guess is that if more of us gave mutual submission and life-long dedication a try then things would be a lot better than worse.

Church-E-Cheese

2009-02-16T07:44:00.000-08:00

An interesting and troubling mindset of modern age parents is the assumption that somehow the church in 80 minutes a week is supposed to build spiritual substance into children who are immersed in humanistic philosophy the other 10,000 minutes of the week. The sad reality is that many of those parents don't even attend church every week making the ratio even more ridiculous.

The Bible says that parents are to train their children in the way that they should go (Proverbs 22:6) and teach them the ways of God (Deuteronomy 6:4-9). The church or faith community is actually only intended to be a guide, supplement and help to the parents. However the reality is that in most Canadian homes, including those who consider themselves churched, there is little if any evidence of parental biblical instruction. In fact one of the greatest spiritual tragedies of our day and age is biblical ignorance and spiritual indifference.

Many parents are raising their children on the mistaken belief that church is just another form of optional entertainment, a kind of Church-E-Cheese filled with more of the same mindless games and activities they experience the rest of the week. If for whatever reason the Sunday morning religious instruction isn't as much fun as they think it should be, then some children, and even adults addicted to frivolity, complain.

That in itself shouldn't be surprising because whining and complaining is just part of a child's development. Complaining and testing the limits is just a child's way of finding out where the boundaries are and what is safe. So when children, who are exposed to a Sunday school teacher once a week for an hour, complain to their parents, they are often just looking for affirmation from a more trusted source. Sadly many parents do not recognize the teachable moment and rather than agree with and affirm the teachers they often criticize and undermine the only dedicated and consistent biblical influence the child has.

So what is the church to do?

The mandate of the church is to raise fully devoted followers of Jesus. We are not in the business of entertaining goats but feeding and leading the sheep. Parents are going to have to decide which of the two they want their children to be.

What were you thinking?

2009-02-11T05:41:00.000-08:00

Have you ever scratched your head after someone did something apparently stupid and said, "What were you thinking?" The truth of the matter is he or she probably wasn't thinking and that led to the unfortunate decision. Thoughtless behaviour plagues all of us at some point doesn't it?

I don't read too many books twice except for the Bible but one that did draw me back for a second look is called, The Logic of Failure" by Dietrich Dorner. I first read it as part of my post graduate studies at Royal Roads University. It is essentially systems book, the basic theme of which highlights the tragic results of quick decisions made without thinking about the long term consequences. In other words it highlights the chain reaction or domino effect of choices. Every action produces a reaction and so on, so the point is to think about our decisions and actions and make wise choices.

In the past couple of weeks I have observed examples of life changing decisions some good and some tragic. In one case a dying person challenged and even defied God and eternity somehow expecting to escape destiny. At the funeral the one question I would like to have asked was, "What were you thinking?" God is God and we are not and we are either for Him or against Him. It was a decision the person will spend an eternity pondering but will never be able to change.

I meet with many people plagued by family of origin issues, the result of quick selfish and often thoughtless behaviours of parents during the most formative years of their children's lives. Matrimonial acrimony is the most common. This reactive behaviour produces long term damage often buried beneath layers of learning how to cope and feign normalcy. As parents what are we thinking when we do such things? Or do we even think that far in advance?

James Allen wrote a small but powerful booklet many years ago called "As a Man Thinketh", unlike the modern new age you-can-be-god drivel, this essay is written from a Biblical perspective and describes how powerful and important our thinking is in determining the direction and destination of our lives, and by association the lives of those we influence.

The apostle Paul in Romans 12:2 tells us that personal transformation begins with renewing our minds. Stephen R. Covey encourages us to take time to think and respond not react. And an employee of mine used to slow me down saying, "First a little bit thinking."

My guess is if more of us took the time to think of the consequences of our choices we would be better off, have fewer things to regret, enjoy life a lot more and leave a greater legacy for our children.

What's in a word

2009-02-07T04:16:00.000-08:00

I have been doing church work as a profession for over 18 years and am continually amazed that the learning never ceases. In fact the older I get the dumber I realize I was. That is surprising given I went into this calling subconsciously thinking I had a lot to offer God and we were pretty lucky to be working together. I have heard the phrase "vision leaks" and wonder if intelligence does as well or if it was just my youthful illusion.

I just finished reading a book called Shopping for God, written by a man who dubs himself and "apatheist", a term he coined for his indifference to God. What I discovered by reading the book is that he wasn't so much indifferent to God but to the way God is presented by churches.

So how do those two seemingly separate thoughts connect?

This morning as I reflected on my week I considered how much more I enjoy teaching through the bible than preaching from it. You might be scratching your head wondering what the difference is. Well I remember beginning my sojourn as a church worker teaching and complementing biblical truth with illustrations from real life. I remember being excited about the experience; then a subtle shift occurred.

I don't know exactly what to call it but I found myself being drawn into a habit of topical, need-based preaching that subtly and gradually took over. I always considered my style topically expositional but on reflection believe that I was really trying to speak for God instead of letting Him speak through me. I have been told that the sermons were impacting and insightful and true to the bible, and I believe they were, but it was often difficult for me to crank out messages week after week and constantly think up need-based topics that would stimulate people.

Lately I have been teaching through Revelation, a book many people find mystical and cryptic, but one that has always fascinated me. I figure if people 1900 years ago could understand it why can't we. So I have just been taking the message and teaching it using information from history matched with contemporary examples. I haven't had to give a lot of thought to topics that would stimulate people and just take what is there and lay it out using practical illustrations to complement what the Bible says. The experience is surprisingly refreshing, I don't choose the topics God does it for me and from the recent feedback it seems to be impacting people.

So what does this have to do with intelligence leaking and shopping for God?

In the book the author compares churches and only mentions the message of the churches in passing. It is the show, or as he calls it, the marketing of the churches that is centre stage, or as I saw it, the attempt by the churches to impact and stimulate by choosing the right need-based formula. However as I am rediscovering, the formula has already been provided. The tragedy seems to be that while he was shopping for God the churches were selling themselves and their version of who God is. But we don't need versions of God, there is only one.

God says his word will not return empty or void. In other words communicate the Bible with clarity and relevance and people will be impacted but let God's message be the focus and not the need. This is a lesson of which I needed to be reminded.

I believe we need to present God in an exceptional way with excellence in worship, music, creativity, architecture, hospitality and teaching, but with due respect to Marshall McLuhan, when it comes to the Bible, the medium is not the message. The message is what needs to remain focal and although it needs to be relevant, God's word is the focus of attention and not the need nor the experience. I hope my learning and re learning never stops and that God will simply use me to effectively communicate His message.

The way we are

2009-01-28T04:09:00.000-08:00

As I sit here and ponder some of the experiences of my work in the church I notice a disturbing trend, one that has existed for ages and is alive and thriving today in homes throughout North America. On a much larger scale it is happening all over the world, the most notable examples are in the middle east.

As Ellen and I were talking yesterday concerned about how some people, in particular some married couples who seem incapable of getting along with each other, the question was raised, "When does God make a difference in the lives of people?" It wasn't a question of God's inability to make a difference but of some peoples unwillingness to let him make a difference. When does God really become the first love of people and when do they actually begin to live as he desires them to live in submission to him and in mutual submission to one another, as we are challenged to do in Ephesians 5:21?

As I pondered that troubling conundrum I realized there is an answer; it's as old as time itself. I went back to the beginning, which is often a good place to go, and saw that even the first married couple suffered from this malady. Even though it didn't result in divorce from one another it did result in a divorce from God. Adam and Eve developed an attitude that many people today seem to embrace as a life philosophy: not thy will O Lord but my will be done. Selfishness and complete disregard for and unwillingness to submit to God and one another is behind every tempestuous spat, quarrel, tantrum and war in our world today; every embattled marriage is first and foremost a battle with God for supremacy of one's life.

After my quiet time with God this morning I read the first few verses of James 4. James the brother of Jesus asked a similar question that Ellen and I asked one another, "why can't people get along?" The answer is right there in the bible for all to see and one that most seem to ignore.

What causes fights and quarrels among you?Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask you do not receive because you ask with the wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on yourselves. (James 4:1-3)

Selfishness and an unwillingness to submit to God's will is behind every relational breakdown in the world, in our cities, in our churches and tragically in our homes.

When will God begin to make a difference? The simple answer seems to be obvious; he will make a difference when we take the time to find out what he desires of us and then we say to him as Jesus did before he went to the cross, "Not my will O Lord but thy will be done."

Does God weep over spilled Milk

2009-01-16T16:57:00.000-08:00

This past week Ellen and I attended the annual workers retreat in Niagara Falls. We had been asked to take care of transportation for the keynote speaker, which involved going a day early and meeting him at the Buffalo airport. Because of weather conditions in the mid west his flight was delayed and he missed a connecting flight in Detroit. Finally another flight was arranged but we had four and a half hours to wait before it came in later that night. What does one do in Buffalo for four hours?

Well we decided to go to a mall and cruise the stores killing time. About forty minutes into that the novelty wore off so I thought we might be able to take in a movie. We checked the three-screen theatre in the mostly empty mall and managed to make it in to the early screening of “Milk.” I had heard a little about the movie and was told the acting was very good. Admittedly the acting was very good but the movie itself was very disturbing.

“Milk” is about the last 8 years of the life of Harvey Milk, the first openly homosexual person to be elected supervisor of a district in San Francisco. His rise to that position after multiple failed attempts was clearly portrayed as an attempt at validating the homosexual agenda and bring it out of the closet and into mainstream community life. Tragically in his first term Harvey Milk and the mayor of San Francisco were stalked and killed by an embittered former supervisor, portrayed as a supposedly God-fearing family man with Christian values. However lest you get the wrong idea the movie it was anything but a portrait in heroism for Harvey Milk the gay activist.

From what I could detect in the film and through some research I did the next day, there were no heroes in that battle for “gay” rights in 1978; there was nothing gay or happy about it, no matter what side a person was on. All I could think of was how God must have wept and must still weep for his precious creatures, his image-bearers who forsake their spirituality for sexuality, their longing for heaven for their lust of the flesh.

The movie included real film footage from the 70’s that did not in any way shed favourable light on either the “Gay Movement” for flaunting their self-admitted perversion or the many “Church” leaders who in God’s name self-righteously condemned them. I felt grieved for both and left the theatre emotionally distraught feeling that mercy and grace, the primary elements of Jesus’ ministry had been ignored by both sides. The movie may have been planned as a portrayal of the battle for personal and human rights related to sexual preference but it came across as a spiritual battle between opposing religions, one that shunned divine authority and one that misrepresented it.

Dividing the Indivisible

2009-01-12T05:22:00.000-08:00

The past week has been filled with an unusual amount of interpersonal activity some of it very intense. By Sunday morning I knew that a recovery period was necessary but I still had to teach what I had prepared for the church service and felt I could engage in one more encounter over lunch and enjoy the fellowship of some friends. However shortly following that I was exhausted.

As I reflect on my experience, and dissect particular elements of it, those involving more than casual conversation, I am struck by the fact that in many ways we often tend to separate something that is essentially indivisible. Some of my interpersonal encounters required me to use my psychological training and experience but in order to bring satisfactory resolution to the situations I also needed to employ my theological training and expertise as well. Psychology by definition is the study of the soul and in essence cannot be effectively distinguished from theology and spirituality, which leaves me with some questions?

Can there be such a thing as an effective secular psychological therapist?

Can a therapist with no theological training or personal spiritual experience ever facilitate true healing in a person?

As I reflect on my own life I know that as I have wrestled through challenging personal issues it has been the unchangeable truth of the scriptures that has given me the solid foundation I need to be effective; unless I am drawn back to God's word I am only putting a temporary intellectual and social band aid on a deep spiritual wound.

It seems to me that secular therapists can treat the symptoms of personal trauma but without theological understanding they cannot treat the source. Strategies for behaviour modification and coping are great but only a healing of the soul can bring true relief and wholeness. Why should I be surprised?

Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, " All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." To live right we need God's word; it must be the foundation of a life of worth and integrity; it is the only source of inner healing and eternal lasting hope. Yes we do need the benefit of trained therapists able to plumb the depths of the soul but we also need those therapists to be soul specialists who can facilitate healing from the inside out. Psychology (the study of the soul) cannot be effectively divided into secular and sacred; by definition it is indivisible.

The Count Down

2009-01-02T04:40:00.000-08:00

New Year's day was quieter than usual this year and surprisingly productive for a holiday. I reflected on the day this morning in my journal. Was it a holiday? In the true sense of the word it was and in my case because of what I do it was a work day. I got the privilege of spending hours of uninterrupted time reading, talking to God and preparing for some upcoming teaching, and working on ways of self improvement. Some people might not consider this a holiday but that is because I think we confuse holiday with vacation.

A holiday is a holy day a sabbath of sorts, while a vacation is a time to vacate whatever it is that one does for a living. However for me there are no opportunities for me to vacate what I do because my life is my work and vice versa, or at least that is how I see it. Is it possible to be a vocational worker in a faith community and not do what you have committed to do?

I would reprimand people in secular work for such a view of life that would supplant God's rightful place as leader of one's life and devote it to things that will ultimately wear out rust out or rot but in my case there is no distinction between secular and sacred, and from a biblical perspective I am not certain there is for a true follower of Christ ether even though most people seem to make that distinction. For me the faith community is my work and as such there is no clock to punch.

I have tried in vain to count the hours I work but that is impossible because there is no clock even on holidays; it is just time spent working on something different. The only clock that matters is the one counting down to the return of Christ, which will be the beginning of the real holiday for those who are in Christ and a tragic and painful vacation for those who are not.

New Year – Same Old?

2008-12-31T08:40:00.000-08:00

Today marks the end of another calendar year when many people typically make resolutions to do the things in the New Year that they know they should have been doing all of the previous year. The problem is that most of the people making resolutions never actually do anything about them. However the practice is so popular I can only assume it must be somewhat therapeutic to think one gets points for good intentions. I think there is an old adage that says good intentions are the paving stones to a place no one expects or hopes to end up in. I think there will be a lot of surprised and disappointed people.

In some way I suppose I am no exception. For the past few years I have been convinced that doing church the way we have been doing it just doesn’t work the way God intended. In some sense I feel we have been placating people by letting them believe they can get by with good intentions. In some sense we have let people live like hell while mistakenly leading them to believe they can do that and still go to heaven.

I have wrestled with a growing sense of discomfort over the insanity of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. The sad reality is that, although I can’t speak for the rest of the world, this certainly seems to be a North American epidemic. Sheep and goats migrate from one flock to another looking for one that scratches their itch, fits their personal predisposition in life or allows them to escape any form of spiritual accountability. It seems to me that is actually the reverse of what church is supposed to be.

It occurs to me that I am a child of the industrial revolution. I was raised and educated in a culture that fell in love with mass production and thoughtless impersonal routine. I appreciate the wonderful creativity of automation when it comes to producing things, however I feel that we have often been guilty of sacrificing quality for quantity. Sadly the church has bought into this apparent deception.

The industrial revolution brought many good things to us but it also has its weaknesses. In education we gather people, line them up in rows and throw information at them mistakenly calling it teaching. It is the equivalent of putting people in a room, asking them to open their mouths and then feeding them by throwing food into a fan placed at the front of the room. We then graduate them and release them into the world expecting them to have learned the principles and without practical experience apply them in their varied contexts. To their credit at least schools have a testing system and graduation criteria, established attendance standards and an enrolment list indicating the members of a class.

It occurs to me that we do much the same thing in our churches, except there are no apparent established graduation criteria, two-thirds of those who count themselves participants aren’t on membership rolls, and only between 10-15% attend any given week. Every seven days we line up those who do show up in rows and turn on the fan, which in this case is me, and blow life-giving spiritual food at them hoping some will catch it, chew it, digest it and grow up. Sadly most of the intended recipients are already too full of valueless worldly junk food and their their appetites are spoiled for what is good for them. Tragically the result is that we have churches made up of unfit followers that have little to distinguish them from any other well-intention group of social secularists. Somehow the method and the frequency of spiritual communication and education must change as must the standards for what constitutes a follower of Christ.

So where am I going with this? This may be more of an excuse than a reason for not changing sooner, but I believe that either out of fear of radical change or simple insanity, I have been so busy doing the same things expecting different results that I have sacrificed quality on the altar of quantity. Jesus said to make disciples not converts. Disciples follow Jesus, converts just believe in Him and so does the devil. It seems to me that somehow in the church we have mistakenly focused on nickels and noses instead of investing in souls and servants.

The numbers just don’t add up. I spend at least half of my week preparing the food that goes into the fan. Statistically only about 10% of what I end up "teaching" is actually caught, ingested and provides nourishment, usually for the same small percentage of hungry people who are committed to being disciples. The “converts” usually find something they don’t like and go back to eating junk food the rest of the week, always with good intentions that just pave the way further away from their hoped for end and closer to their fearful fate.

So what is the solution?

I have some ideas but I think I will leave that for another edition.

What makes simple things difficult?

2008-12-18T06:11:00.000-08:00

This is my inaugural blog. A few people have suggested over the past couple years that I create a blog and post it. The idea appealed to me in some respects but I wondered what in the world I would write that anyone would even want to read. I mean the name itself, "blog", hardly inspires images of anything remotely appealing. Perhaps that is one good reason to give it a go; after all it is only a "blog" and with a name like that expectations can't be too high. At any rate here we go.

I have always contended that the bible is a simple book written by simple people for simple people. So why is it that what I believe was designed by God to be simple has been made to appear so complicated when lived out in real life?

Twenty years ago I left the world of independent business to become a vocational church worker/pastor-leader. The truth is during the last few years of our marketplace experience the business just paid the bills for what we truly enjoyed - seeing God work in people and transform their lives. I expected that what I had learned in business would serve me well in vocational church work. I had served in a volunteer church and para-church leadership capacity for many years and was convinced very few pastors have any idea how the real world runs; so with the combined experience I thought I could move right in and hit the ground running. After nearly twenty years I am still searching for that illusive "Easy Button."

So to repeat what I said earlier, why does God's simple plan seem so hard? I think in some respect there is a clue in the "sheep" metaphor the bible uses to describe church people. I think most people think of sheep as the docile Mary-had-a-little-lamb variety but after a few years of leading sheep I did some research into animal husbandry and discovered that sheep actually have very hard heads and small brains. Hmmmm I thought to myself, is there a connection? Then thinking better of it I realized that although the anatomical description did apply to a few, perhaps the black sheep, the majority were a pleasure to lead. However there is a lesson I have learned about why the job is sometime difficult.

I believe that the job is sometimes difficult in part because of my own hard-headed tendencies and elevated expectations, but I believe it is mostly difficult because in many cases people, black sheep, who would be considered lesser-links in the marketplace chain, aspire to and are given leadership positions in the church. I am not speaking simply about competence but also character and a proven track record of integrity and commitment. There is a reason the biblical qualifications for church leaders is so high - as the leaders go so goes the team. I have learned that once the biblical qualifications are compromised it can take years to recover and sadly some never do.