Words from WW Blog

I admit I can sometimes be cynical when talking about churches. It comes from 69 years of experiencing them in different sizes, shapes, and flavors. I remember going to seminars back in the 80’s and 90’s on church marketing. We were educated on the nature of savvy consumers, what appealed and what didn’t get noticed. There were other seminars on how churches attracted visitors, what kept them coming back and what will cause them to NEVER come back.

We were “Firsts” back in those days. First Baptist, First Presbyterian, First United Methodist, First Lutheran, First Assembly. There were even a few Seconds and Thirds sprinkled into the mix. They indicated, by their history, that they were the first church of that denomination in town, or maybe the second, or the third.

New residents in town could look for their kind of “first”, and simply show up on Sunday morning at 11:00.

But things had gradually been changing while we were sleeping at our workshops and singing two hymns and a praise song on Sundays. New residents didn’t automatically look for their type of “First”. There weren’t any churches in their town that could reproduce the glitz and glitter of that religious program that was on TV. Besides that, Sunday mornings had become just as much about rest and recovery for folk to get ready for their Monday work grind.

So the “name change” cure for our spiritual apathetic culture began. First Baptist Church had been an indication of its denominational connection and people had become more and more suspicious of denominations.

Out with the “Firsts” and in with the spiritual calling card. Whereas, most of the downtown churches kept “First” in their name because of history, location, and tradition, others took up names that included a holy-sounding term, such as “Trinity”, “Holy Apostles”, “Grace”, “Sanctuary of Life”, “Peace”, “Hope”, “Fellowship”, and “Faith.” A church’s denominational affiliation couldn’t be discovered by looking at the name. A worshipper would have to look deeper. It seems that in many cases there were also subtle ideas being conveyed that said “We’re more concerned about you and our fellowship than we are of our denominational connection.”

And then another idea was introduced as new churches were being started and planted in new locations. It might be in a storefront or meeting at a school, or even the local YMCA. Someone, some genius, figured out that in growing metropolitan areas where suburbs kept being built further and further from the center of the city, that putting some kind of noun in the new church’s name would help people figure out where it was. Or, just put a name into the title that sounded like a location. Call it “Willow Creek”, “North Point”, “North Shore”, “Saddleback”, or “Gate City”, and make it innovative, upbeat, and have the pastor wear skinny jeans (Okay! That skinny jeans was sarcasm! I never understood cramming myself into a pair, but I’ve never understood ripped jeans either!) Many of the current mega-churches fall into this category. Some of them hit on something. However, most hit on nothing and disappeared as if they were K-Marts.

Finally, I’ve noticed there has been another trend that has emerged. It’s called “The Verb Church.” It seems that more congregations of the faithful are looking for that action verb that indicates movement and progress. Not that an action verb in the name of a church is bad or sacrilegious, it just seems to be the new thing. In our city recent times have brought the verbs “Empower”, “Proclaim”, “Magnify”, and “Restore” as examples of verb churches, most of which simply rebranded themselves and changed their name to incorporate the verb. Other verb churches around the country include “elevate”, overcome”, “triumph, and “relentless” (I guess relentless is an adjective, but still…).

Perhaps the verb church is a good thing. Maybe it conveys the idea that the church, in general, is not dead, but alive and active. Maybe it’s another phase that indicates churches, like emerging adolescents, are still trying to find their identity. Identity seems to be a thing that perplexes us. There, that’s another verb that may be appropriate for many communities of faith…perplexed, or confused, maybe even complicated.

All that to say, where God is met, experienced, and reflected is not dependent on a name, a building, or even skinny jeans. After all, He is the “I Am” no matter the title of who we are.

My life is filled with dreams, wishes, and possibilities. Some of the dreams are out of my control, such as being a 6’6″ shooting guard for the Boston Celtics. Instead, I’m a 69-year-old 5’7″ slow guy playing 6 A.M. hoops at the local YMCA.

But I have other possibilities that are…well, possibilities. Such as losing ten pounds before my physician tells me I need to lose ten pounds. Of course, my love for fried foods “weighs” against that goal. After all, I was born in Kentucky where the motto is “If you can eat it, we can fry it!”

The “I-would-like-tos” of life always have an opposing force pulling on the other end of the tug-of-war rope. I find this to be especially true when it comes to my desire to walk closely with God. Like New Year’s Resolutions, I have an unspoken list of spiritual desires. The phrase “I would like to…” is completed with a wide range of disciplines and practices. It isn’t the Lord who is holding me back from meeting the need. It’s that personal struggle, dare I say, that all of us deal with. It’s the resistance to the intimacy of God, and yet, at the same time, we long for the closeness of God.

Scripture is filled with active verbs that direct us in the ways of God. For example, 1 Thessalonians 5:7, without any confusing language, tells us to “Pray continually.” In another situation, Paul and Silas tell the Philippian jailer, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved…” (Acts 16:31). Still in another story, Jesus tells His disciples, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.” (Mark 16:15)

It hits me that rarely does scripture put the words “Would you like to…” in front of a command or directive. Jesus says, “Follow me”. He tells the waves of the sea, “Quiet! Be still!” He tells Zacchaeus to “Come down!”

Sometimes our spirituality resembles our ordering from a restaurant menu: “I would like to have the fried chicken…dark meat only…mashed potatoes…gravy on the side…a side salad with ranch dressing…and sweet tea to drink, no ice.”

If the server responded by telling us what we are GOING to have, not what we would like, most of us would balk, back up, and find a more hospitable dining establishment to help us fulfill our wishes.

“God, I would like to spend more time in prayer.”

It would knock our socks off to hear a voice from “yonder” reply, “Then pray! Pray continually, pray without reservation, pray with compassion, pray boldly.”

The simplicity of the directives of God are frequently seen through the complications of our own hesitancy. Sad to say, but it often is only when the urgency of our predicament limits the options of how we respond that we fall at the feet of Jesus.

I have a knockoff Apple Watch, a $35 version of the self-absorbed iWatch. It does everything that needs to be done, like tell me the time!!! It also does other things like tell me whether I slept okay, informs me of my stress level, somehow tells me that I’m playing basketball, measures my heart rate, can be a stop watch, acts as a compass, makes me coffee, toasts my bagel, and other tasks that I didn’t realize were so important. (Just kidding on the coffee and bagel. I think I need to upgrade to get those features.)

One of my cheap watch’s features that is disturbingly interesting happens after I’ve been sitting for a while. It suddenly vibrates and displays the words “Let’s Move!” on the face of the watch. If I’m driving, the slight buzz in the vibration can be felt by my wife in the front passenger seat. It’s a reminder for me to not stay stationary and to get the blood flowing. Three vibrations in a row and then silence. Brief, gentle, and instructive.

Andy Hostetler, the pastor of Discovery Church in Cibolo, Texas, said these words that caught my attention. “Sometimes God whispers. A whisper is different than hearing someone’s voice.” I wrote those words down, and then 30 minutes later, toward the end of Andy’s Sunday morning message, my watch vibrated on my wrist.

Sometimes God thunders with a shout and sometimes He nudges us with a two-word momentary vibration. Whispers require a discerning spirit, clued in to the slight indications of the closeness of God. In a culture that is becoming more and more conditioned to yelling, whispers are seldom noticed.

A few decades ago Becky Pippert, author of the book, Out of the Saltshaker, was speaking at an American Baptist youth convention in Michigan. How do you keep several hundred high school students engaged with what God wants you to say? You show up and get laryngitis. Pippert could only whisper, and the power in her words was amplified by the whispering of her story.

One of my favorite stories in the Bible involves the Old Testament prophet Elijah hiding in a cave. Several powerful forces pass by: a wind that tears the mountain apart, an earthquake, and then a fire. After each of these noticeable events the scripture makes the point that “…God was not in them…”, but then we come to these words:

And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.” (1 Kings 19:12-13)

God was in the whisper. It was His whisper that he wanted Elijah to take notice of.

I’m glad I have vibrations, on my wrist not my hips. As I grow older and my hearing dulls, I need God to nudge me and speak to me with two words, “Let’s move!”

It was one of those occasions rumored to have magical qualities to it, a night when 14-year-olds are transformed into resembling handsome and beautiful adults. The eighth grade end-of-the-year dance is a cheap imitation of the high school prom. “Cheap” is not to give the impression that it’s like a Gucci knock-off bought from a street vendor, but rather it’s got a cheap price tag attached to it compared to what these young teens will one day dish out for their proms. There were no limos or tuxedos. In fact, two boys arrived wearing matching Hawaiian shirts and shorts to compliment their sunglasses, which would come in handy in the midst of a darkened dance surface.

Many of the masses of adolescence weren’t used to wearing shirts-and-ties or nice-looking dress shoes or heels. Towards the end of the evening, shoes were being rested like thoroughbreds needing water. I heard the moans: “My feet hurt so much!” “I hate the straps on these heels!” “Why did I wear these?”

Boys displayed shirts saturated in the armpit areas with gigantic sweat stains, a sign of their emerging masculinity. One boy from my class wore a toboggan hat to accessorize his suit. Young girls with heavy make-up still possessed with the same giggles roamed back-and-forth in packs. Others nervously stood around, hoping someone wearing a tie would ask them to dance, but also fearing the same question. After all, what if Johnny, who gets on their nerves and has breath that could kill a cow, asks for the next song and it ends up being one of those numbers that requires close bodily-proximity?

And then there were those who frequented the concession stand that I was working. Five-dollar-bills were burning holes in the pockets of their trousers. “Lincolns” would be handed over in exchange for a Coke, Sour Skittles, Starburst, a Kit-Kat, and a bag of Takis. We kept everything a dollar to simplify the math. No one was taken in by my “Yes, a Coke is a buck, or two for three!” One health-conscious young lady checked the number of grams of sugar in a bottle of Strawberry Lemonade, compared a bottle of Gatorade with it, and then went with the one that was only slightly more than the recommended daily limit of sugar grams.

There were disappointed romantics, surprised-accepted invitations, and future hope. By the end of the night there was a sense of sadness. As school staff ushered the students toward the exit doors, they didn’t want to leave. It was the end of an event, a new memory, that they didn’t want to end. For some, it was the realization that middle school, a place that they whined about and moaned their way through many a day, was also a good place, a place of refuge that they were about to graduate from.

They had longed for this time, but now a strange kind of grief was being felt. They might not remember the major battles of the Civil War, but they would remember the moments that punctuated the past year, the rights and wrongs, friends and foes, blunders and blessings.

And now they would be the new rookies roaming the hallways of new schools where no one knew of their past accomplishments…or, in a good way, their mistakes.

I am not a spiritual giant. I’m not even sure how a person qualifies what that title means. Sometimes people see that I have “Rev” in front of my name and they assume certain things that are real reaches grasping to be true. 

However, the One Who knows all things, and is able to do all things, has taught me in the moments and pauses of life about limitations and possibilities. The latest revelation came in the midst of a Facebook post of a high school friend of mine, who has faced several serious medical situations. We haven’t seen each other in 40 years, but she reads my “Words From WW”, and, over the years, has commented a few times . In one of her recent posts, she referenced the medical difficulties she has been facing, and then put my name right in the middle of the post paragraph. She expresses her confidence in my commitment to be praying for her. 

Proverbs 3:5 tells us to”Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” I’ve been doing a lot of leaning since reading her petition for prayer. I can’t get it out of my mind. 

The problem is one of energy, or lack of. It’s the last two weeks of the unplanned for school year. I’ve been teaching eight-graders almost the entire year. Just as I did at the end of a two-mile race in my high school track days, I’m seeing the finish line of the school year. In track I would find the energy to break into a sprint…and then collapse immediately after crossing. Of course, I was 17 or 18 at the time. Sprinting was still a possibility. Now I’m 69 and the closest I’m coming to a sprint is my run to the restroom in the four minutes between classes. 

The tank is on empty and there isn’t a reserve tank. And now my friend is asking for prayer support, which brings to mind another friend of mine who is also having some serious health problems, and another whose hope is firmly in the Lord in the midst of heart problems. And that brings to mind someone else…and someone else. You get the picture! It’s as if the Lord is putting people in front of me in the midst of my exhaustion. What’s up with that?

When much is expected of you but you have nothing to give, there is an urgency to lean upon the One who has the answer and who is the Answer. He is sufficient in the dryness of my inadequacies. He is able to do what I could never do. Praying for someone is more than just pleading. It’s surrendering. I’m depleted, but He is the Plenty. In a culture that believes a person makes his own way and makes things happen, that is a foreign concept, a thought from some alien civilization, but it is also the reality. I have no answers, just leaning on Him.

It’s like that final stretch of my high school two-mile race, except this time I’m finding that it is the One who has the power Who is carrying me in that final sprint.

It is crawling towards the end of the school year and students have the ability to nod off at a moment’s notice. After all, they’ve stayed up late into the night, burning the oil in the kerosene lamps perched on their desks, fighting off sleep as they battle through the linear algebra problems.

What am I talking about??? They’ve stayed up late, munching on Flaming Hot Cheetos and drinking Mountain Dew while texting “OMG” and “LOL” to the universe. They see the end of the school year as a separation line where they will be able to sleep in until 1 PM after playing meaningless games on their video game systems until 3 AM.

So I brought Creepy Doll to school!

Creepy Doll would cause Chucky to run away! Her left eye drifts off to the side and her right eye has that zombie-look to it. She’s been through a few battles, is about 50 years old…and looks like a character from a Stephen King novel. So I brought her to school and sat her at one of the desks with her hands propped on the desktop.

Sleepy-eyed students, arriving for their first core class, were suddenly wide-awake as Creepy Doll stared at them with one eye. When I placed Creepy Doll in my lap, just like I do with my year-and-a-half old grandson, a few of them reacted as if they were watching Friday the 13th. Actually, it was only Friday the 5th.

When I suddenly became a bad ventriloquist and started having a two-way conversation with Creepy Doll, one girl’s mouth dropped open, while another covered her eyes in the horror of the situation.

But no one slept, out of fear that Creepy Doll would dance her way over to their desk and bring them into a new episode of The Twilight Zone.

This is not the first time Creepy Doll has shown up in one of my classrooms. She was a frequent in-class fixture two years ago when the students were in school remotely. I made her one of my in-class “replacement students”. As students logged in from their home situations, I’d have conversations with her and turn my laptop so that she could be seen by the horrified 13-year-olds at home.

Most of the time, I place a blonde mullet wig on her head, but I couldn’t find that part of her character in our basement, so she showed up bald, spooky, and looking for a victim.

Next week, I’ll bring my Furby. Actually, my kids’ Furby from three decades ago. In the midst of class he/she/it will suddenly utter weird words and stare with those big eyes.

Creepy Doll will retreat back down to our basement, hidden underneath some of our accumulated “stuff”. But, a certain person at school, who has some history with Creepy Doll, put the finishing touches on the day’s guest appearance. I came back into my classroom to see that my friend had made a sign and posted it beside Creepy Doll in the chair by her desk. The sign said: “I’m a Psycho!”

I always wanted a fish. In my growing up years, my family had one short-lived canine named Butch, a moody Siamese cat named Caesar, and a schizophrenic parakeet named Pete, but never a fish.

About two weeks ago I got one…for my school classroom. I had challenged my students to write a persuasive argument that sought to convince me on a situation they wanted to see happen. I gave them 8 or 9 options on such things as additional time outside, since we assumed warmer weather would come sometime, no assignments for the last week for those with A’s and B’s, being able to choose their own seat, candy treats at the end of class each day, and…getting a class pet!

One boy suggested a class llama.

Other suggestions included getting a class snake (Uck!), a lizard, a frog, an alligator, and a shark. A class pet fish seemed to be a manageable compromise. Snakes creep me out and I’m not sure which restroom the llama would be using (Probably whichever one he wanted to or wherever he wanted to!).

Welcome Billy Bob Betta, a betta fish with personality, and easily managed. He even has a taco in his tank. You could call that a “fish taco.” A sign in his tank beside the taco says “No fishing!”

Billy Bob has brought delight and smiles to the faces of the eighth-graders who occupy my classroom. BBB swims over to the front of the tank to greet them, gives them his full weird-looking eyes’ attention, and waves his smaller fins as if he is saying hello.

One of my students, confusion laced into the comment, asked, “Mr. Wolfe, why did you get a fish with 6 weeks left in the school year?”

“Good question! I guess I didn’t really think about that.”

“So if Billy Bob is still alive at the end of the school year, can I have him?”

“If your parents say it’s okay. In fact, if he’s not still alive, you can still have him.”

With a teacher-sounding correcting tone: “Mr. Wolfe!”

At the beginning of each class period, various 13 and 14-year-olds, who are mostly trying to impress their classmates or bring enougb attitude to make a casserole, lose their put-on exterior and rediscover the glee of childhood. Billy Bob Betta staring right back at them.

The complexity and complications of middle school are swept to the side for a moment with a simple encounter with a small fish. I’ve received more advice from my students on how I should care for BBB, more concern for his well-being, more attention to the details of aquarium decor than I have about anything else this school year.

I should have them write a five-paragraph essay about it. I would instruct them with a pun: “Make sure you “fin”-ish it by the end of class. You “betta” stay focused.”

From the bottom of his aquarium, even Billy Bob Betta groans about my attempt at humor.

Part of spending time with middle schoolers is always being on the alert for the unusual and unexpected. Bottom line: Sometimes middle school students do things that are either ill-conceived ventures into the land of stupidity, or they mastermind schemes to create unpleasantness for others in the immediate and themselves in the aftermath of the investigation.

It’s no different for a lot of adults. Recently, a Michigan friend of ours had his mobile pizza oven trailer stolen. The thief then tried to sell it on Facebook Marketplace, providing his contact info along with the picture of the stolen property. In case you didn’t add two and two together with that info, let me just tell you: He was caught! He must have missed taking that course in his growing up years called Common Sense.

Back to just-arriving teens! There have been situations this year in which one or more students have committed acts of mischief. I won’t go into specifics, but a number of the head-shaking acts have occurred in the school restrooms. After all, it is one of the only areas in the school building that does not have security cameras. However, it doesn’t take a Columbo to narrow down the suspects after an episode of toilet paper destruction, because there are security cameras in the hallways that display who goes in and out of the facilities. Narrowing down the time of the infractions slims down the list of possible offenders.

So as a teacher in this interesting incubator of growing-up pains and possibilities, I’ve developed eyes for seeing the unusual and an intuition for anticipating the unexpected.

However, sometimes my senses and eyes deceive me and my hope in the younger generation gets raised from six-feet-under to several hundred feet in the sky.

It happened last week. In the time following a state assessment testing day, the whole eighth-grade class was rewarded with being able to spend the last hour of the school day, complete with fantastic weather, outside. The herd headed to the westside pasture of the school grounds to release their pent up energy from the restricted movements of the testing day. My senses were raised to red alert status, watching for the drastic transitions that could take place between a testing day of showing their intelligence to an open air display of ignorance.

A number of students were playing a game of football, another group were bumping a volleyball around their circle, and others were involved in a game of Wall Ball. But then there was a group of 12-15 students who were sitting by the fence on the far side of the field, huddled together. It looked suspicious with several red flags raised in my mind: keeping their distance from everyone else, huddled closely together, and not making any noise.

Hmmm.

I walked toward them, quietly approaching, like I see the actors on Chicago PD do. No one noticed me as the group’s attention remained fixed on whatever illegal activity they were in the midst of. I crept all the way up and peered over the enclosed students to see how much trouble they were going to be in. Just as I got to the viewpoint where I could see the innermost part of the circle and who the ringleaders were, I heard the words.

“Checkmate!”

And then I saw it: a chessboard sitting in the midst of the group, like a miniature battlefield of competition featuring knights, bishops, and royalty.

“Mr. Wolfe,” yelled the game winner and one of my students, “you ready to play me?”

I smiled. “Not yet, but soon!” and I walked away from the group, my pessimism pounced on and my optimism taken to new heights.

In a world and time when we hear an an abundance of the negative, there is another side. It may be all the way to the other side of the field or in the last minute of the nightly newscast, but there is another thing happening. And that “thing” is the hopeful message of the youthful generation to the cynicism of our times.

The number ‘110’ now has new meaning for me. Never again will I be able to say to one of my athletes, “I want you to give me 110%!” Road mileage signs indicating the destination is 110 miles, or even 110 meters, ahead will cause me to detour.

110 now means the number of minutes allocated for the morning testing period in language arts of the state assessment test…three days in a row! It’s like going in for a root canal and being told you’ll need to come back the next day…and then the next day to endure two more!

Someone in some testing universe far, far away from reality came up with 110 minutes as the prime number, the optimum torturing duration.

On Day 2, one of my students suddenly rushed out of the room as he groaned, “I’m going to throw up!”

Me too! But I needed to proctor the test setting and the other students.

What do students who finish a test with a 110 minute time limit, and are told they can’t do anything except read a book and sit quietly, do when they close their laptop 20 minutes into the time period?

They get creative. One student made it his mission to discover how any part of his chair or desk squeaked.And not only that, he also sought to figure out the tone of each squeak, as if he was creating a new musical instrument for an appearance on America’s Got Talent. I’m familiar with jaw harps and washboards. Now I can add a three-legged desk and chair to the list.

Two boys on opposite sides of the classroom played about a hundred-and-ten silent matches of “Rock-Paper-Scissors.”

Four students entered Zombie-land and stared, with blank expressions at…nothing.

Four students adhered to my pleas given each day during the test instructions to read a book. One read a book turned upside down.

One boy picked his nose.

On Day 2, four students had taken my idea of bringing a pillow and lugged them to school. Before the test began, they compared their fluffy head rests, as if it was the Westminster Dog Show…best of class…most puffy…most unique…most likely to produce long periods of comfortable desktop slumber.

On Day 3, the last 30 minutes began to resemble an airport terminal in the midst of flight delays and cancellations, students slumbering in uncomfortable looking positions as they waited for me to say, “The testing session has now ended.”

Each day the words were met with glee and movement that resembled butterflies coming out of their cocoons. I brought out a bag filled with snacks that had been hidden from them until they had crossed the 110 minute finish line. The room was transformed into a party atmosphere. I dropped my stern-looking proctor look and mingled with the masses.

For 13 and 14-year-olds, they did surprisingly well. Other than the desk musician, I didn’t have to give stern looks to anyone.

And at the end of the day, after speaking with my friend, I was thankful I wasn’t proctoring a class of sixth-graders. ‘110 minutes’ with them would seem like an eternity, and they would probably discover a whole new species of squeaks.

We talk a lot these days about change, changing of the guard, changing sides, changing styles, changing someone’s mind. Change is a constant element of our lives. Working with middle schoolers, I see some students change friends more often than the outfits they wear.

There’s change that is essential and change that is personal preference. Some people change simply for the sake of change. However, there are very few events that we encounter in our lives that lead us to make life-altering changes. That is, a decision that redefines who I am and what’s the basis of my life, my purpose for living.

That’s what resonates with me about the resurrection event of Jesus. The people who experienced the empty tomb that had once held the dead body of Jesus were changed, transformed, by the risen Christ. They went from grieving the execution of their leader to rejoicing in His presence. It redefined the direction of their lives.

There are a lot of life-changing events today that are more numbing and negative: school shootings, a doctor telling someone he has an advanced stage of cancer, an accident that results in the death of a loved one, a hurricane or tornado wiping out a community. Those are all life episodes that lead us into the understanding that nothing will be the same as it was.

The resurrection, on the other hand, changed the lives of those who experienced it in such profound ways that they could not see life through the same lens as they had before. In the darkness of our days, the cynicism of our culture has blanketed the hope of life being different, being joyful, being peace-filled, and being eternal. Doubt and disbelief has become dominant, squeezing optimism into a tiny corner, like the outcast kid at school.

The things that were happening in Jesus’s times were like that as well. There was darkness, oppression, hopelessness…and then a dead man conquered death. It was the change that changed everything.

In these days where change happens so quickly that people become passive about its significance, I keep thinking about what side of the tomb I’m now on. Jesus changed my view from dead to being alive, from a cold existence to the loving warmth of a forgiving God.