Archive for the ‘Bible’ category

« Words from WW Blog home page
Newer Entries »

Camp Building

July 22, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                     July 21, 2013

 

 

     Yesterday about a dozen of our kids, young people, and three adults came back from a week at church camp. In worship today there were several testimonies from the campers about their experience. There was a heightened level of energy and excitement in worship. The energy may have been fueled by the sharing of how camp had impacted lives, or it was the result of lives that had been impacted…or perhaps it was because the Spirit seemed close and moving in our midst…or all three.

This was the first year in the last five that I didn’t go to be camp pastor at the middle school camp, but I have always felt that the church- not just mine- doesn’t do enough in building upon the spiritual excitement of camp in the weeks that kids come back home. Perhaps that’s because the campers are away…an hour away. Sometimes we miss the momentum because it didn’t occur in the church building or the community. On the other side, kids come back from camp on spiritual highs, emotionally charged and wondering what is the next thing to take place. They encounter parents who have gone to work each day during the past week as usual, people who have gone about their routines and responsibilities.

Sometimes the first few days after camp are disappointing for those returning home. That’s why camp is such a great experience! It’s twenty-four hours a day of relationship-building, making new friends, campfires, and getting messy with shaving cream and Cheetos. The campers have been taken out of their usual surroundings and, in essence, they start building a new home with a new family of their peers under the watchful eye of their counselor. My guess is that almost all of the students who were at the middle school and high school camps last week have already been on Facebook with most of their camp friends, sharing pictures, “I miss you” comments, and counting down the number of days until camp next summer.

The church would do well to build on what many of the campers now see as the greatest week of their lives. The church would do well to challenge them at this point in their faith and commitment. If that happens it will help young people looking for a purpose to find purpose. If it doesn’t…if that building on camp doesn’t happen…they will continue to count down the days until next summer, and about 360 days will be lost in their growing season.

Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

“From Bad To Worse To Incredible”

July 18, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.

     Have you ever had one of those weeks?

You know what I’m talking about! You’re fixing dinner and the oven goes berserk, smoking the baked chicken in the process! Or you’re cooking hamburgers on the gas grill outside and five minutes into the flipping the propane runs out…and you’ve got dinner guests coming!

Or, you forget something back at the house so you turn the car around and head back. But after getting what you forgot you return to the drive and discover that you locked it…with the keys still in the ignition…and the batteries on the garage door opener just died…so you can’t get back inside the house…or into the garage that has the hidden spare keys!

Ever had one of those days?

Or you cut yourself shaving and the blood is flowing out, so you hurriedly reach for the bandage, but in the process tip over your morning coffee cup that is sitting beside your cell phone…that has conveniently soaked up a good amount of the coffee! Do you stop the bleeding first, or clean up the coffee while grieving for the loss of your cell phone?

So…it’s been one of those weeks!

We’ve had the plumber here at church to fix a toilet…only to discover that we also needed a sewer and drainage company to come and “snake” the line. He had to go almost to Kansas before he got to the clog. It became like a cab fare. Every foot further the line went the fare rose higher.

Each one of us has those kind of days or even weeks. We raise our hands and exclaim “What’s next?”…and then the toilet overflows.

You could call them “Jonah weeks.” Just think of it! God calls Jonah to go to the one place he has no desire whatsoever to go to. Nineveh! It was like telling a Broncos fan to go and make peace with the Raiders…like Ronald McDonald having lunch at Burger King.

So Jonah does everything he can to avoid the call. He goes in the opposite direction…and things go from bad to worse. First there’s a massive storm to the point that the ship is about to break up.

Not a good scenario!

But Jonah obviously senses the storm has something to do with him. After a game of rock, paper, scissors, he is pronounced the loser and is then questioned about what is going on in his life.

Confession reveals the secret. Things are so bad that HE tells the ship’s crew to throw him overboard. What could be worse then that?

Getting “fished” is worse then that, and he spends three days squeezed into the belly of a fish. I hate close quarters, so I’m not sure if I could have kept my sanity for one hour, let along three days.

But then he gets spit up on a beach oddly enough a little ways from Nineveh. He ends up doing what God called him to do in the first place and the city of Nineveh is changed.

From bad to worse to incredible! It could be a movie, an inspirational story, a tale of transformation.

Unfortunately the book of Jonah doesn’t end there. Jonah has to write another chapter, and in the chapter that is written after the movie credits have rolled up the screen is of a man who gets angry at the compassion of God. His story was headed for Guideposts magazine, and then he had to go and do that!

What do you do with the bad to worse to incredible…to jealous?

Sometimes we seem to have a hard time living in the blessings of God, or the moving of the Spirit of God. We’ve seen the transformation, the deliverance, but we think we have to write another chapter that takes us back down the mountain.

If there was a Jonah sequel perhaps it ended better than the first one.

But that also tells me that we’re still writing our life script. We can choose to let God be God, or question his forgiveness and grace.

In thinking of this week and overflowing toilets I’m thinking “Ain’t no big thing!” Sadness is seeing a life that is getting flushed with the residue of bitterness, anger, and unforgiveness…a life that desires destruction instead of restoration.

Categories: Bible, Christianity, Faith, Freedom, Grace
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

Extended Grace

July 10, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                          July 10, 2013

 

                                           “Extended Grace”

 

I met yesterday with a group of pastors that I journey with half a day once a month. It’s a intimate group of five. We begin each session with a time of reflective reading of scripture, reading through it three times, and noticing something that speaks to us in the text each time it is read.

Yesterday the text came from James 4:1-10. The text could justifiably be summed up with the words “Get your act together!” It’s a little on the lecture side…lecture, as in standing in the midst of the principal’s office and being told the deeds just committed will not be tolerated.

Frequent words used in the scripture include “don’t”, “do not”,  and “can’t”. 

But in the midst of the reading of the holy riot act, these words appear: “But he gives us more grace. (James 4:6a, NIV)

Our group noted that our tendency, which the text hints at, is to be selfish and self-centered. The foot washing act of service by Jesus in the Upper Room is uncomfortable for most of us if it is not planned ahead of time. If we know it’s coming we’re able to rev up our piousness enough to lower ourselves to our knees. But when that opportunity for surrender and humbleness comes unannounced the reception is often cooler than Saskatchewan in early December.

It seems from the text that our God knows of our tendency to yield to no one. He knows that we can talk the walk. We can even walk the walk with others, but walking the walk at the pace of others is another thing. A couple of weeks ago I was walking in an airport terminal and I came upon an elderly woman being pushed in a wheelchair by an attendant. The terminal hallway had narrowed. My first thought was to speed by, but then I thought “I’ve got four hours until my flight leaves.” So I strolled slowly behind them…but I was taken back by how many people rushed to get by the lady who could no longer rush. Perhaps some people were rushing to get to connecting flights, but, honestly, I’m sure most were rushing because the wheeled occupant was slowing down their self-absorption.

And the amazing and even perplexing thing about God is that he knows our selfish ways…and he gives us more grace!

I would think he would set a grace limit. We would! We would be willing to ride grace for a while, but pretty soon we’d put that pony back in the barn. Like a pair of shoes that don’t fit snuggly, we’re only willing to wear grace for so long.

But grace is a garment that God never discards. It becomes a representative feature of who he is, like whenever I see or smell a pipe I think of my Uncle Bernie.

Could it be that when we think of grace we automatically think of God? Of course, whether we think of it or not, God will continue to extend it. He doesn’t need our approval. He just would like us to accept it!

Categories: Bible, Christianity, Faith, Freedom, Grace
Tags: , , , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

The Susan Boyle Effect

April 23, 2009

 

I admit. I can’t watch it enough!

I’ve viewed Susan Boyle’s performance on “Britain’s Got Talent” probably twenty times. The YouTube video has passed forty million hits.

If you’ve been out of the country—actually out of the world—Susan Boyle is a 47 year old, never-been-married, never-been-kissed, unemployed, church charity worker, who is, at first glance, strikingly unimpressive! Her common appearance is the first thing that hits you. At a school dance she would blend in with the wallflowers. Her companion is her cat Pebbles.

She is so “un-showbizzy” that the audience and three judges wrote her off before she even started singing. If tomatoes had been available the stage would have been slimed…and then the music began!

She sang a song from Les Miserables that her hero, Elaine Paige, had sung. Her performance was better than the one sung by her hero. I keep hit the play button on the YouTube video to that moment when the faces of the judges change from “Why Did I Take This Job” to “Oh! My Gosh!” Three seconds in the audience erupts in applause and astonishment.

It is a classic case of determining a book by its cover without bothering to even read the table of contents. It’s pre-judgment in its finest example. It’s the musical real-life version of the movie Hoosiers, which was based on a true story, but seasoned with a touch of Hollywood to make it that much more entertaining. Susan Boyle was entertaining, talented, but in real time! She’s Napoleon Dynamite with a personality and a smile; the average student who suddenly produces an authentic best-seller. She’s the clarinet player in a group that thinks percussion is where it’s at! She’s the little boy who gives Jesus his lunch in order to help out with the hunger pangs of the multitude. Who would have thought such a sacrifice would touch the whole crowd.

“Susan Boyle” is a story of the value that we so easily yank away from someone. It’s an example of the pecking order of life that people even exercise in front of a TV screen, or, in this case, an internet web site. How quickly we settle on first impressions! We tend to assign a value before opening the box.

The majestic moments in this situation are how quickly the audience and judges put the brakes on where they thought this was going, and turned the bus around.

It’s a heartwarming story that really does elicit tears. And yet in the midst of this incredible happening to an average middle-aged woman there have come doubters. Today I noticed that the skeptics surfaced, insinuating that it was all staged. It’s as though no one can so quickly change a hissing, ridiculing audience. Our world is more prone to think the worst of people than allow Cinderella stories to play out.

Susan Boyle, unintentionally mind you, has become a person of hope and realized dreams. In her a multitude of people see that perhaps their lives can find fulfilled purpose and realize what they only dreamed of. Our world infrequently allows average people to make vivid lasting impressions.

Susan Boyle has given us cause to celebrate and re-assess our value. Perhaps for a few moments it has caused us to slow our judgmental attitudes down long enough to hear the hidden sweet sounds of life that drift by us unnoticed.

 

Categories: Bible, Christianity, Jesus, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

Newer Entries »