Archive for the ‘Christianity’ category
June 10, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. June 9, 2014
She greeted us with a smile. The smile arrived shortly after her walker did. Anne was her name, and she had realized quite a while ago that she couldn’t do the gardening, weeding, and outdoor grooming that she had done for decades. So she called us.
Three of our neighborhood churches join volunteer help together on a Saturday in the Fall and a Saturday in the Spring to help some of our neighborhoods out. Most of them are elderly or disabled in some way.
That’s how we met Anne. A door-to-door offer to help with simple tasks around the houses of the community had resulted in her call, so we went.
As our work team trimmed bushes and pulled weeds Anne engaged us in conversation. She leaned on her walker as she pointed out certain things to our crew members.
Sometimes we assume things about the people we meet. We see their inability to do certain things and we take a mental leap in thinking that they were never able to do much of anything.
We may have thought that about Anne, until she began sharing life experiences. She holds a doctorate in education. She is extremely well-read, and familiar enough with current events and politics to debate the person she is talking with.
Life has dealt her some hard blows, including multiple hip surgeries and the inability to stand but just for a few moments.
Perhaps that’s why she was so grateful for our help. Her backyard was filled with numerous kinds of plants, bushes, and flowers, but it was obvious that its glorious seasons had passed. Anne’s sadness about that was easily sensed, but there were new flowers roaming in her yard for a few hours. Some were Presbyterian, some Mennonite, and some American Baptist.
There are people who thank you because it’s the polite thing to do, and then there are people who thank you because they are filled with heart-felt gratitude.
Dr. Anne fell into the later category. We were blessed for having met her.
Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Grace, Jesus, love, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: Community service, helping, neighborhood, serving neighbors
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June 5, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. June 4, 2014
As a pastor I get tired of the “music wars”, the battles over how many hymns, praise songs, and contemporary music selections we sing in worship on Sunday morning. I doubt that David envisioned the polarizing that music would bring into a worshiping community when he sat with the sheep and composed Psalms as he strummed his harp.
The thing about music is that its eternal…if we allow it to be. How foolish it is to use music as a battlefield! We all have preferences. I’m not into rap, but I can still envision the Almighty tapping his toes to a song that has more rhythm than I could ever harness.
As I look back over my life I see songs popping up at different times that have stayed with me, and have melted into my spirit. Here’s three:
“Pass It On!” After my sophomore year of high school I spent a week of my summer vacation at church camp at Judson Hills Baptist Camp in northeastern Ohio. It was a great week that included living in a teepee, having a girlfriend, Clara, who lived across the street from me back in my hometown (A little awkward after we broke up a few days after returning to civilization!), and learning about God. At our evening campfire we would sing “Pass It On!” Forty-plus years later I can still hear the mix of the soprano voices of the young lady campers and the strange voices of the boys who weren’t sure if they were heading to the “bass section” but weren’t committed to being tenors either.
It was a defining summer that headed me towards considering the idea of one day being a pastor.
“Color My World!” My high school prom theme was also the Chicago hit. I can remember strolling through the gym with Mary Cronacher on my arm dancing to the soft music and realizing that young ladies smell good! Underarm deodorant became a friend of mine about that time. A guy couldn’t be a jock and be able to dance closely for very long with a young lady who had a scent of apple blossoms blessing my nostrils. I can still hear the brass of the band as they played that song.
“Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?” Larry Norman’s song that was rocking and rolling as I was graduating from high school. Nothing like that had ever come close to the ivory keys of the church’s piano, and Norman’s long flowing blonde hair made it even more radical for our Baptist young people’s group. That summer after high school I learned that it was okay to not look stoic as you sang in church. Some of the parents of our youth group members were not so sure, and I would lay money on it that our church’s deacons’ meetings included some serious discussion about the road paved to hell by rock and roll!
Three songs that still sing to me and remind me of where I’ve been, the boy I once was and the approaching of manhood that they hummed me towards.
Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Humor, Jesus, love, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Chicago, church camp, Color My World, Judson Hills Baptist Camp, Larry Norman, music, Pass It On, praise songs, prom, Psalms, Why Should The Devil have all the Good Music
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June 3, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. June 3, 2014
I sometimes enter it early in the morning to be saturated by its quiet. I take a seat in the third pew on the right and settle in. In my world of changing agendas the sanctuary offers me one constant agenda.
To be still.
It is a hard thing to learn, to incorporate. The rest of my day is not based on my stillness, but rather on my movement. I move from meeting preparation to hospital bedsides to answering emails. Movement can sometimes take over our lives and push the stillness out.
Towards the end of the forty-sixth Psalm God whispers his desire to David. “Be still, and know that I am God.” (Ps. 46:10a, NIV)
Perhaps people have a hard time finding God these days because we have “ants in the pants” of our lives. We have un-learned stillness.
I sit in my pew and take in the room. The cross hanging on the front wall…empty…steady…reminding me of the One who conquered death itself; the cross that blesses me with a hope deep within my soul of what my life is about.
The stained glass windows echo stories of people’s lives…the great cloud of witnesses that have gone before. As I take each one of them in I glimpse the glory of days gone by and lives that impacted future generations.
The pews are solid in their weighted wood. To move one is a recipe for back problems. Their weighted anchoring reminds me of a faith community that has a foundation that can not be shaken. Through tempests and turmoils our anchor has held.
And then my eyes settle on The Lord’s Table, the place where two days earlier each of the sinners had taken a piece of freshly-baked bread and a little cup of grape juice and been told that these two elements were to remind us of the price of our spiritual freedom. Some folks cried tears and others stared with stoic expressions on their faces, but each had been freed.
Sitting in my pew I recall the moments of blessing and forgiveness, repentance and testimony.
My room gives me a view for the rest of the day. It allows me to breathe in and breathe out…
…And be still!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Death, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: be still, communion, communion table, forgiveness, pews, Psalm 46, quiet, repentance, sanctuary, stained glass windows, stillness, the Cross, The Lord's Supper
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May 30, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. May 31, 2014
The media was all over the Donald Sterling story. I’m not saying that they shouldn’t have been, but Rome wasn’t built in a day…and an eighty year old man’s racism wasn’t created in a secretly recorded comment.
The whole situation is sad. Sterling’s interview with Anderson Cooper left me shaking my head. For once Sterling didn’t need to hire someone to dig a hole. He was doing it deeper all by himself.
What disturbed me was actually the criticism that was leveled towards Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, for comments he made that were honest and heart-felt. Cuban who gets as much camera time during games as Jerry Jones does for the Dallas Cowboys, shared how he felt. Unlike some people, I don’t think that Cuban “is all that”, as they say, but in this situation I appreciated his honest sharing. His choice of images might not have been the greatest, but he was admitting that he prejudges certain people by their appearance, or by their appearance in certain situations.
The media was all over his comments like sweat on foreheads of a July afternoon in Georgia. In blasting Cuban’s comments honesty dug a deep hole and disappeared for a while.
In essence, what the situation had taught us is that it is dangerous to be honest. It is easier to be shallow and unrevealing. If I keep my true feelings and thoughts hidden life will be easy, uncomplicated, and…meaningless!
I take this situation into the church, where it is easy…oh so easy…to not be honest! In a place where we talk about the priority of grace and forgiveness it seems that honesty is threatening.
Honesty reveals the deep darknesses of our heart, and we are incredibly uncomfortable with that.
And so we take communion with the saints while we harbor bitterness towards the one who is passing the tray; and we struggle with prejudices while we preach love and acceptance. We shy away from honesty about our struggles because we fear other people of the faith will hold our inner battles against us.
Sadly, it is more convenient for the fellowship of believers to hush the honesty and focus on the irrelevant, to ignore the elephant in the room because there’s a fly on the screen of the window.
Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Jesus, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: confessions, Dallas Mavericks, dishonest, Donal Sterling, honest, honesty, hush, Mark Cuban, prejudices, racism, secrets
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May 30, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. May 30, 2014
The trunk of my car is used for transporting various things. At the moment I have a dirty sweatshirt crammed to one side, a bag of weed and feed, and a dozen orange cones for use at basketball practice.
At other times it carries our suitcases on the way to the airport, or my golf clubs for any infrequent trips to the golf course. Once in a while when soda pop has been on sale I’ve even filled the trunk with cases of pop. (Since I haven’t had a can of pop for two weeks now that event may very well be a thing of the past!)
Trunks are useful, but they don’t control the car. They are in the back…except for some Volkswagens. They bring up the rear!
Once when I was growing up we had a group of young people go to the Drive-In Movie Theater. Since admission was paid on the basis of “visible” people in the car a couple of teens hid in the trunk until we got to our parking spot. It was dishonest, but we felt it was kind of a “grey dishonesty.” Wrong, but we justified it by how much the theater charged for popcorn.
Riding in the trunk got our friends in, but they also had no say in where we were going to park, and even when we were going to free them from the tomb they were trapped in. When we did let them out…they didn’t go back in!
I think I’m guilty…and possibly most of you who are reading this are guilty…of putting Jesus in the trunk. He’s back there with the car jack- only to be called on in an emergency.
BUT he’s in the car! He’s with us, just not in control of us.
In Luke 18 we read the story of Jesus being engaged in a conversation by a rich ruler. The dialogue focused on the requirements for inheriting eternal life, and after some back and forth discussion the man walked away, as it says in the scripture, “…sad, because he was a man of great wealth.” (Luke 18:23, NIV)
It’s right after that Jesus talked about the difficulty of a rich person entering the kingdom of God. The point, however, was not so much about rich people. The point was that it’s difficult to surrender our agendas, our control, and our lives to the Lord.
Putting Jesus in the trunk allows us to say that he is with us, that “I’m a Christian.” Unfortunately, that name has become so watered down that it doesn’t mean that much. It may not help that much, but I refer to myself as a follower of Jesus because it indicates that he is out in front, not tailing along behind with the suitcases.
Surrender is hard! Stubbornness is easy! Yielding makes us grind our teeth. Dictating keeps things uncomplicated.
Where is Jesus riding in your life? If he’s in the trunk, let him out from under the “weed and feed” and at least sit in the car!
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Faith, Freedom, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: car trunk, dishonesty, drive-in theater, Luke, Popcorn, rich young ruler, surrender, Trunk, wealth
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May 25, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. May 25, 2014
Today is Day 9 of my 7 Day Pop Fast!
Yes, my week without soda pop ended, but I’ve continued to fast from it. It’s more like a routine now. I’m sure I’ll have a can of pop sometime, but what has happened in the past “week plus” is that I’m feeling better. I don’t ache when I get up in the morning nearly as much as I used to. I played basketball yesterday and felt good! I’ve been drinking a lot more water. Perhaps I’ve even lost a couple of pounds…I don’t know…I don’t hover around the scale like its a lottery number that’s about to be revealed.
When I turned sixty on May 5 I felt sixty-five. I just didn’t feel good! I realized that i was whining a lot to myself, like that’s going to help.
I’m not saying that soda abstinence is the answer to all of life’s ills, but I have been thinking more about what I eat and drink. I even let my McDonald’s coupons expire without using them!
I friend of mine wrote me that he had given up soda for Lent this year. He said the first few days were the hardest, but then he didn’t feel the urge nearly as much after that. So…perhaps I’ll keep chugging the bottled water and got for a few more days without an Orange Crush in my hand.
Categories: children, Christianity, Freedom, Humor, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: cola, fast, fasting, feeling better, pop, soda, soda pop, soft drinks
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May 20, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. May 20, 2014
It’s the fourth day of my week-long fasting from drinking soda pop. I’m still alive! In fact, my body did not ache when I woke up this morning. I doubt that I can give credit to my unsoda-ed life for that. It may just be the one day this month when my knees and joints did’t feel like The Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz when I woke up. Whatever…I’ll take it!
The past three days I’ve also cut down on the amount of sugar I’ve put in my coffee. Since I drank it without doing Larry from the Three Stooges facial contortions I’m going to keep limiting the sugar packets.
Why am I doing this? I’ve asked myself that question several times during the past few days, especially as I’m passing a Pepsi vending machine. I’m trying to be strong! I did have a dream last night about a Coke being poured into an ice-filled glass, hearing the fizz, and seeing myself floating on one of the ice cubes with sunglasses on.
I thought if I blogged about it once more it would make things easier, but now I’m thinking about an A&W frosty mug in my hand.
Pray that the images of an orange being crushed won’t await me in my sleep tonight.
I need to go by and see my dentist soon to pay off our balance, but I’m afraid I’ll call her Dr. Pepper if I see her this week…so I think I’ll wait!
I’ve learned that eliminating elevated amounts of sugared beverages if a little tough, but today is “hump day.” I assume that I’ll be sliding towards the celebration of a fluid finish line.
But “hump day” could also mean that I’m about to plummet to a sugar-depleted depression!
Optimistically I’m choosing the first option!
Categories: Christianity, Faith, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: A&W, coffee, discipline, fizz, Hump Day, perseverance, soda, soda pop. Coke, sugar, sugar-free, Three Stooges, vending machine
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May 17, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. May 17, 2014
To be honest I’ve already cut back in recent weeks!
But I’m going cold turkey for a week. No soda pop, soda water, Coke, water with sugared fizz…whatever the term is that you use to describe that can in your hand that you just popped the top on.
A week doesn’t seem like much…when you are on Hour #1 of Day #1!
Day #4 in the evening when my wife has just popped some popcorn is a different matter. I was raised with the idea that popcorn could not be eaten without having a cold Pepsi at the same time. It’s the difference between eating a plain hot dog, or a dog with mustard, ketchup, and relish on it.
Hot dogs…there’s another item that I probably need to fast from!
In recent weeks I’ve been thinking more about what I eat and drink. I have a coupon for a free chicken salad at Chick-fil-A to be used this month. I think about that each day at lunch time. It would be a lot healthier for me to have for lunch than some other choices.
What did I proceed to do last week? Used a “buy a Whopper, get one free” coupon one day. Take a year off my lifespan right there! I did get the “Satisfries!” They are “less bad” for you! Notice the terminology we use to justify our bad choices.
The next day I did Panda Express. For some reason Panda seems healthier than Burger King. I’m not sure it is, but I rationalized, and I was hungry when I was rationalizing.
I did penance the next morning and had yogurt with a “cutie”…the orange kind, noy my wife!
Choices! I make them every day. Some days the choice that helps the health of my body is easy. Other days I’m humming the McDonald’s jingle more and more as lunch approaches.
Back to “the pop!” I’m laying off!
I know that it will be a item on sale this coming Memorial Day weekend at the supermarket. I’m even laying off filling my shopping cart with eight cartons each time I go. My daughters remember a Thanksgiving weekend when pop was on sale at K-Mart and I went about ten times during the weekend and got five cartons each time.
I’m going on a “pop-on-sale fast” as well!
I heard one of those statistics on how much sugar we put in our bodies, and the fact that in a few years one out of every three children will end up being diabetic. Perhaps I heard it wrong. It WAS in the midst of the promoting of a new “Wake Up” kind of documentary film. It did, however, catch my ear.
I’ll start with pop. The test for me is whether I can stop putting sugar in my coffee. When I started drinking coffee back in seminary during a semester I was taking Hebrew (An agonizing experience that resulted with my learning how to drink coffee much more than knowing the Hebrew alphabet) I retrieved from my memory bank how a person drinks coffee. My parents drank it each morning with cream and sugar. Thus, that’s how I began drinking it. Perhaps I should go back to drinking Folger’s black. It’s a fairly weak coffee experience anyway!
This week, however, I’m pushing the Sprite to the side. A benefit will be a reduction in the bill when Carol and I go out to eat. I’m so used to getting a Coke or a Sprite that I have barely noticed that most restaurants now secretly take you for two and a half to three dollars. Good Lord! Sheltered Bill still thinks that’s how much a beer is in a restaurant.
For those who are wondering, I dislike beer as much as I love soda pop! I’m not sure if it’s because I’m a Baptist, the son of Baptists, a Baptist minister, or because I simply abhor its taste.
If you see me in the next few days and I’m looking ragged you’ll know why. I’m coming off a “sugared lifestyle.”
But one question! If I’m fasting from soda pop is it okay to drink something different out of my Coca-Cola glasses, A&W mug, or Orange Crush tumbler?
Categories: children, Christianity, Freedom, Humor, Jesus, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Baptists, cartons, cartons of pop, coffee, Coke, diabetic, eating healthy, fast, fasting, Folgers, healthy diet, high sugar, Pepsi, pop, Popcorn, soda pop, soda water, Sprite, sugar, Sugar in the Raw, sugared
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May 8, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. May 8, 2014
I’m not paranoid…no matter what the voices behind me are saying!
Call me a “reflective observer!” Yes…I like that term. It sounds like a quiet parent at a child’s athletic contest…somewhat an anomaly, I know, but still possible.
My reflective observation, however, is in the bleachers watching our culture’s annihilation of pastors and clergy. Different arenas have different strategies for making this happen.
Last night I was watching one of my favorite shows on TV after I got home from a nice thirteen hour day of ministry. The day was a typical assortment of appointments, meetings, visits, planning, leading a study group, and getting details taken care of. As I watched the TV show (on DVR, mind you!) a “preacher” entered the picture of the episode. He was even referred to as “Preacher”, not pastor, but I don’t think our culture differentiates between those who names…and very rarely is preaching seen in a positive light any more.
The preacher in this episode put a bad taste in the midst of my popcorn-chewing mouth as soon as he entered the picture. He was loud, condescending, and superficially pious.
As the show went on the preacher’s ulterior motives came out. He was really a drug-pushing pimp using his church as a front to line his pockets with cash. It reinforced stereotypes. That is, pastors always have dark secrets in their past, or selfish motives for what they are doing in the present.
Rarely does TV convey pastors as either intelligent or faithful. Such ingredients don’t make for exciting TV. Who wants to watch someone who actually walks his talk?
Self-disclosure here: Some pastors DO annoy me and act like jerks, but those things don’t necessarily come with the territory.
But that’s not the only way clergy are getting pancaked!
In recent times a number of pastors of mega-churches are walking away from their flocks because the demands are killing them. A phrase that one pastor used was “mouse on a spinning wheel”. He was always moving ahead, but stuck in the same spot. His church was growing by leaps and bounds…as were the demands on his time. His success made him an in-demand speaker at conferences. He was being sought to write a book.
He gave it up! Spent! Used up! The red light was indicating “Empty”!
So just as the media casts a picture of the devious preacher fooling the flock, the church so often crushes pastors with their flood of issues and needs.
For many people that are involved in churches it isn’t intentional! Most people in congregations love their pastor to death. But every congregation has a section, small or large, that doesn’t care as long as they are cared for. The toll that clergy face for some church attenders is like filling the environment with styrofoam cups. Everyone knows it isn’t good ecology, but I need my coffee!
Clergy self-care is becoming a much bigger issue in pastor circles these days, mainly because a huge majority of pastors are self-less. Needs of their church attenders are held as a higher priority than the pastor’s own health…and pastors surrender. If a pastor was the only one in a lifeboat he might still jump out to safe…the boat!
Our culture, most of the time, doesn’t understand these things, and, sadly enough, very few of our congregations do either.
Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Jesus, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: clergy, clergy burn-out, clergy self-care, congregational needs, ministry, pastor, preacher, Preaching, self-care
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April 22, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. April 22, 2014
How appropriate for the Boston Marathon to be held the day after Resurrection Sunday! A year after the tragedy that impacted a city and rippled through the nation, the race breathed new life into the Boston Strong. Over thirty thousand runners jammed the streets to trudge through the triumph of 26.2 miles.
Calamity can create a lingering odor of defeat. It echoes with the senselessness of it, such as the loss of life and the vengeance of disturbed personalities.
A year ago we watched the reports on television of the chaos and shook our heads in disbelief. Our nephew worked about a mile from the blast site. I remember his mom calling his cell phone trying to find out if he was okay, but they weren’t able to make a connection. The heightened anxiety of those moments will stay with both of them for the rest of their lives.
So…it was appropriate this year, the day after we celebrate Christ rising from the dead… being the conqueror of death, not the conquered…that a nation would raise a race of endurance from the ashes.
It’s interesting that a marathon race is about perseverance and pushing through quitting points. A tragedy can derail the best of intentions, but not this time!
If there is enough resolve in a group of people to the mission unthinkable acts can be overcome.
The Apostle Paul uses the image of a runner in a long race to talk about following Jesus. In Philippians 3:13-14 he writes “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
Our walk with Christ has its smooth stretches, nicely-placed slopes, but also a Heartbreak Hill every once in a while. The hills test our commitment. There are a lot of smoothy-committed Christians. Who, however, will struggle alongside Jesus?
Back to Boston! Yesterday was a different kind of resurrection. We applaud the resolve…the perseverance…and the tears of triumph!
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Death, Faith, Freedom, Jesus, love, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: Boston Marathon, death, overcoming tragedy, perseverance, race, Triumph
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Words from WW Blog 