Archive for the ‘Community’ category

“Two Year Old Praying”

June 10, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                          June 10, 2013

 

Two Year Old Praying”

 

My two year old granddaughter, Reagan, decided she would pray for our shared meal the other day. She started: “T’ank you, God, fo’ this food! And make Granddad stop eating food. Amen!”

My wife started laughing, and I immediately got a perplexed, shocked look on my face.

Why did you pray that Granddad would stop eating food, Reagan?”

Cause he was eating and we hadn’t prayed yet!”

Saying grace before dinner tends to be a bit legalistic for a two year old. Reagan would do well with the Old Testament sacrificial system of procedures and instructions.

You can’t eat food if you haven’t prayed!”

I was sufficiently reprimanded.

A a few minutes later her brother, Jesse, bonked his head on the back of his chair and started whimpering. His sister reached over and laid her hand on his head like she was praying for healing.

Were you praying for your brother?”

Yes! I was praying fo’ him!”

We have a praying granddaughter! She prays for judgment on her grandfather and healing on her brother. I think when I was a kid I reversed those.

And where does her tendency to pray come from? It comes from being a part of a family that prays- prays at mealtime, prays at bedtime, prays in church, prays whenever the situation warrants it, prays just because.

Prayer gets rooted into a kid’s life early on. Yes, prayer for a child becomes an action that reflects what is being practiced in the faith walks of the parents…and even grandparents and teachers…and aunts and uncles.

Just as Reagan caught me sneaking a bite of pizza she already catches on to what is being practiced in the lives of those around her.

Now…I have to be sure she doesn’t catch me sneaking ice cream before dinner! Surely it would bring down the wrath of God!

Lord, Give Me Rest!

June 10, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                   June 9, 2013

 

Resting is something that not many of us do well. We live at such a hyper-pace that resting seems weird. It seems…useless!

For example, I hear so many commercials for a drink called “Five Hour Energy”. The essence of the commercials seem to be about a man who has trouble waking up in the morning, or runs low on energy in the afternoon, and he drinks a 1.93 ounce bottle of Five Hour Energy. Rest is chased away.

It could be just if you are tired…you just might need to rest!

Starbucks has made a mint off of people who can’t rest.

God knew what he was doing when he called for a Sabbath rest. He knew what he was doing when he commanded his people to observe a “Sabbath Year” (Leviticus 25:1-7) to give the fields and vineyards a year of rest.

When we don’t rest we’re prone to error- error in judgment, error in actions, error in the things we say and the temptations we’re vulnerable to fall to. And our lives are so hectic that even when we do slow down we have a hard time resting. Three or four years ago I took a one month study leave. I found that it took me the first two weeks to get out of work mode in order to slow down to meditate, pray, and study. As I sat on a couch reading my mind kept thinking of things that suddenly seemed urgent…like checking to make sure all the windows were closed and whether the oven got turned off. I had a very difficult time just slowing down.

Oddly enough, one of the reasons I’m trying to write a blog post each day for thirty days is because it makes me sit down and focus.

This week take a walk that has no purpose to it except walking and praying.

Sit down in your living room and leave the remote control where it is. Don’t touch it. Just sit for a few minutes.

Sit on your front porch, or back deck, or even in the front yard and just watch and listen.

Take the Bible and read one of the psalms…and then read it again…and then read it again. Slowly, meditatively, allowing God to make certain words stand out.

Go to bed early and read a book. Not a murder mystery, but a biography or something like Lake Wobegon Days.

Eat dinner at a snail’s pace. Make sure there is a couple of nights this week where the calendar is free in the evening, and eat a slow dinner together with your family.

It’s Sunday evening and I’m ready for bed at 7:11. It’s been a work-filled day. My Sabbath usually comes on Monday.

Lord, give me some rest…and let my weary body be renewed.

The Far Side of Church

June 8, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                     June 8, 2013

 

The Far Side of Church”

 

I love laughter, and I love “The Far Side” comic strip. It was a sad day when Gary Larson stopped doing “The Far Side.” Thankfully, my brother had given me “The Far Side Calendar” every year for Christmas for five or six years. When I get depressed or frustrated I take a look at a few of the calendar pages.

I wish I could blame my warped sense of humor on “The Far Side”, but that would be a lie. It was in my genes long before I started looking at funny-faced kids and adults wearing spectacles. And, as a result of that, I think of situations that might occur in church that I think would be funny. Others might not think they are even worth a giggle, but I’m ready to explode.

Like the Sunday several years ago when I asked a dear elderly lady named Pauline Jones to light the advent candle and I gave her a book of matches that had no matches in it. To further the humor I then gave her a second book of matches…that was also matchless!

I think of church pranks, like when I spoke at Ascension Lutheran Church down the street from us on pulpit exchange Sunday and they gave me a bulletin that had the pages mixed up. Page three ended with us singing “Crown Him With Many Crowns”, and then page four…in my bulletin had the second verse of “Spirit of the Living God.”

I can imagine a Far Side entitled “Deacon Pranks” with a picture of a deacon putting Super Glue on the bottom lip of a communion plate, or substituting prune juice for grape juice.

I can picture a wolf dressed up in a suit, wearing a wig and glasses, sitting in church,with the caption underneath “Being a life-long independent Baptist wolf, Peter felt justified in stealing sheep from other flocks.”

I can imagine a baptistry with sharks swimming around a circle within it, and the pastor saying to the fearful-looking teenager “As Paul tells us in Romans …all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death.”

In other words, church needs to encourage finding the lighter side of things.

Ricky, the sound booth humorist, was known to turn off the pastor’s mic in the middle of the sermon and start playing a Richard Pryor tape.”

There’s a time to be serious. There’s a time to share hope and peace. And there’s a time to laugh.

Ted didn’t see the humor in it. The one Sunday he fell alseep in church, the congregation had exited quietly and placed empty clothing on the pews with a sign, ‘Raptured! Sorry you couldn’t come.’”

Solomon wrote that there was “…a time to weep and a time to laugh” (Ecclesiastes 3:4a).

Look for the humor in church. I believe that it is one step along the journey to experiencing joy.

It’s Friday, And Sunday Is Coming…Again Already!

June 7, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                          June 7, 2013

 

It’s Friday, And Sunday Is Coming…Again Already!”

 

Some people think I’m suspect because I don’t cuss…but I do say “Crap!”

Some people think I’m half a bubble off center because I have a personal “blankie” that I sleep with, and its name is not Carol. Its name is…Blankie! Carol has her personal electric blanket. Its name is not Bill!

And some people think my salvation is suspect because, for one, I preach from a manuscript, and, two, there are some Sundays that are a real struggle to give a word from the Lord. Ask any pastor who is trustworthy and they will tell you that. There are times where the message is about as easy as a root canal. The preparing of it is like being in rush hour traffic where there is no rhythm…stop and go…accelerate and brake.

Years ago Tony Campolo gave a message that he borrowed from an African-American Baptist pastor, entitled “It’s Friday, But Sunday’s Coming!”

Classic! Awesome!

For most pastors there are times, however, when the scream is “It’s Friday, and Sunday is coming again already!”

So soon? Last Sunday might have lifted the roof, but then it’s on to the next Sunday. Pastors are like catchers in baseball. The starting pitchers only appear every fifth game. The third baseman fields four or five grounders or line drives the whole game. But the catcher is in every play. He makes a great stop on a wild pitch, but then it’s on to the next pitch. Catchers don’t take pitches off.

Pastors don’t take Sundays off!

Yes, I know we really do. It’s called vacation, and yet how many times have I heard the joke, “Vacation? You only work one hour one day a week.”

Although said in a teasing way, a lot of people wonder what pastors do between Sunday noon and the next Sunday at 10 A.M. That sense of Baptist guilt stays with me, and so I find myself preaching eight to twelve straight Sundays before I take a Sunday off.

In the Book of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 23) there is a condemning statement made by the Lord towards the false prophets of Jeremiah’s time. A number of them were making claims, or speaking oracles and claiming that they were from God…and God said “No way! That’s not of me!” In Jeremiah 23:34 the Lord says, “I will punish that man and his household!”

Can you envision my Adam’s apple (“laryngeal prominence” for the smarter folk) rising and falling

six inches as I gulp deeply?

So, it’s Friday and Sunday is coming again and the folk who show up at 10:00 for worship are expecting a word from the Lord…and I’m saying to the Lord “Can I get a word? It can be short. It can even be Greek! It can even be in the old King James! Lord, just give me something!”

A fresh word, a new word.

Perhaps you think that this is just some affliction that pastors deal with.

No, it is something any follower of Jesus deals with. Some people want a word, but they’re too busy to hear it. A cell phone in one ear and Coldplay rocking it through the ear bud in their other ear. Or some people want a word in a take-out container, quick and easy. Those are two extreme situations connected to our hyper lifestyles.

But many of us who seek to touch the fringe of Jesus’ robe find ourselves from time to time grasping and missing. We deal with moments of indecision as to what direction God went in.

We want a fresh word, but we’re having a hard time forgiving the jerk who cut us off driving to church. We want a word from the Lord, and yet we’re not ready for the next step that word will take us to.

It’s Friday, and for many of us we long for Sunday, a new beginning…a fresh start. And for others, “Sunday” is an approaching time of uncertainty that we hope…we hope…is fresh wind and new wine!

Mixed Nuts and Other God Events

June 5, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                  June 5, 2013

 

I used to be a separatist. The peas never touched the carrots on my dinner plate. Although the salad was tossed in to a heap of disarray it was kept in a separate bowl barely in the same zip code as the baked chicken. Gravy was allowed on the potatoes, but only if they were mashed!

And then I discovered mixed nuts- cashews in the same can with filberts, walnuts chumming up with almonds, Brazils cross-culturing with Macadamians. I found out that nuts of different shapes and sizes could be tasty together. This only came after a childhood of salted peanuts. Pecans were something that Georgians had. Our family kept to the basics. If I would have seen a Barzil nut back in those days I would have kept my distance.

Now, decades later, one of the simple pleasures of life is to throw a handful of mixed nuts into my mouth and chew. I feel a little cheated that I didn’t get to indulge earlier in my years.

At a recent meeting of our neighborhood pastors (Lutheran, Presbyterian, Mennonite, United Methodist, Evangelical Covenant, and American Baptist), the idea was thrown around about folks from our different congregations gathering together for conversations on faith questions.

Radical!

The peas were touching the carrots!

Call us radical, but the idea excited us. For most of our weeks we’re in separate “cans”, protected by the “wanna-bes”, and now the possibility of talking with people of other congregations about things of faith was rising to the surface. In the past most of the time that has happened has been because a para-church organization has been having a fund-raising dinner and we rub elbows with the Nazarenes, Episcopalians, and Catholics because we were assigned to the same table.

What might an American Baptist learn from a Mennonite about living out faith? Is the gospel the same for a Presbyterian as it is for a Lutheran? How does the proclamation of Christ happen in different denominations?

So often we have been content to stay in the same can with all the other “nuts” that look like us. Our understanding of scripture is challenged infrequently because we’ve been conditioned to be like one another. “Body life” is important for a congregation, but sometimes we become “body dead” as a result of stagnation. Evangelicals become suspicion of liberals. Pentecostals are leery of liturgists. Caucasian Protestants are nervous about Hispanic Charismatics.

It seems safer to stay in our own comfort zone, where we have a better handle on what is going to happen…so we do!

Over the past seven or eight years our neighborhood churches have gotten to know each other in  several ways. The pastors exchange pulpits one Sunday each January. The congregations have loved it, and then we get back to our own “can” again. We’ve teamed together in serving the neighbors in our community two Saturdays each year. This fall we are going to have a recreational volleyball league in our gym, where a devout Mennonite can give a Baptist “a peace of this” in a holy-moly spike.

As pastors, however, we want to take our congregations to the next level of discovering that we’re not that much different from one another, and that we do not serve multiple Jesus’s.

When we can talk about out faith it may bring each one of us to a new understanding as to how to live out our faith.

Pass the pistachios, Merv!

When a Follower of Jesus Doesn’t Seem To Be Following

June 3, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                          June 3, 2013

One of the toughest things for a Christ-follower to struggle with is when someone he knows well…someone who has been a follower of Christ, comes to a time when he doesn’t seem to be following anymore.

It is quite convenient at that point for the committed follower to hold to the belief that someone can lose their salvation. It’s the easy way out. He’s in, now he’s out. He’s saved, now he’s not saved. There’s a bad odor present in that. It smells of judging someone’s spiritual condition on the basis of their actions and attitude.

Granted that the Bible talks about faith and actions, but I’ve witnessed a number of followers who can speak the Godly language, quote scripture like an attorney quotes the legal code, testify to God’s provision…and then hold to racist beliefs or a coldheartedness towards the poor.

I believe it is much more difficult, but scriptural, to hold to a faith that is immersed in grace. Grace doesn’t race to condemnation, but rather stays the course with the follower who has seemed to adopt an attitude of apathy.

So what does a Christ-follower do?

It begins with prayer. Cry out to God! Prayer is the seeking of divine intervention and interaction. Sometimes we fall victim to the idea that we have to fix someone. We strategize and come up with a three step plan. Prayer becomes an addendum to the plan.

Prayer is surrendering the person and our thoughts to the Lord. Perhaps God has someone else who will step into the gap…and it isn’t you.

A second step is having dialogue with the person to discover what it is that he believes. What does he believe about faith, how God interacts with us, and his purpose for this life? There’s a lot of weird stuff out there. Most of us have “customized faiths” that we’ve formed around us that best suit our lives. I may have strong beliefs about being stewards of the environment because I do a lot of hiking and backpacking, but doubt that God desires intimacy with me because I’m not comfortable with a faith that involves my emotions. Each one of us, whether we know it or not, has shaped our faith to embrace what we don’t struggle with.

To dialogue with someone who seems to be more interested in NASCAR than he is in having a God thing happen may reveal things that can be slowly pursued. (I want you to notice that I used NASCAR as the example because I have no interest in it. I can not say the same at certain times about Michigan State basketball, fried scallops, and Sunday afternoon naps.)

A third step is guiding conversations with the person about the faith journey. Instead of asking a lot of questions that begin with the words “Why don’t you…” start conversations, or at least the thinking about, with words like “Did you ever think about…” or “Has God seemed to be quiet lately?” or “Do you ever wonder if God is really interested in us?”

Our well-founded concern for the person sometimes causes us to chase him towards the throne of grace, or “guilt him” towards God. Guilt works well in getting out kids to eat their cooked spinach, but does very little good in having someone rediscover the intimacy of God.

Finally, we must stay the course. We see the immediate, but God sees over the next hill. Perseverance is as much a part of running our own race as it is a part of walking alongside someone who is on a different pace. Remember, there are plenty of people who abandon, but few who are willing to stay the course with the person.

Pray long. Be grace. Stay the course.

 

Spiritually Suspicious

June 3, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                    June 2, 2013

 

There is something about our mindset that is strange. We often long for, and pray for, the touch of God upon our lives in such powerful ways, and yet when someone proclaims that he has experienced a powerful encounter with the Lord we are, more often than not, suspicious.

Perhaps it is because we aren’t quite sure God would present himself in such a way.

Or it could be that we are a bit jealous that someone else gets to experience the hand of God instead of us. Kind of like getting new underwear for Christmas while our sibling gets new Legos. Who would be happy about that?

Or perhaps it is because we’ve gotten burned for believing that such things happen too many times. Someone tells us how God has appeared to him, and then we find out a while later that it was all a hoax. We wanted to believe. Believing is risking, but like the boy who cried “Wolf!”, too many false alarms has left us leery of trusting in the real holy moment.

Let’s be honest! Sometimes people use our tendency to be gullible towards spiritual matters to pull the wool over our eyes.

The tragedy is that God still is working, and moving, and healing. He is still the God of the burning bush and closed lions’ mouths.

Facebook and Youtube have made us instant celebrities, but also immediately doubtful. As our culture becomes less familiar with the Bible it becomes prone more to being swayed by the spectacular. What if God, however chooses to be in the calm, the gentle whisper? At that point do we become visually-impaired to his hand?

I’ve witnessed a person be overwhelmed by the singing of a praise song. God was doing something in her life. I’ve also experienced the moving of God in the midst of a conversation with one other person. But I’ve also felt the uneasiness over the sharing of what was perceived as being a great moving of the Spirit.

It is confusing.

When talking to the Corinthian church about their worship issues, Paul said something that applies to this spiritual suspicion we feel. He writes, “When we worship the right way, God doesn’t stir us up into confusion; he brings us into harmony. This goes for all the churches- no exceptions.” (1 Corinthians 14:35, The Message)

If it is confusing, perhaps it needs further inspection, further contemplation and prayer. God is not a God of confusion, but he is the God of people who are quite often confused.

Thirty Days of Writing

June 2, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                         June 1, 2013

 

People have often told me that I write good…I mean, well!

Although I have a hard time remembering when to use “it’s” and when to use “its”, I seem to be able to peck on my laptop…well.

Thus I’m beginning a challenge that may cure me from ever wanting to write again, or give me the urge, like I have for a cup of dark roast coffee in the morning that now seems strangely natural.

The challenge is to write a post for my blog each and every day for a month. Thirty days…from the first to the last, or thirtieth.

To do that will require creativity on days when creation seems to have disappeared; and discipline on days when I hate the thought of the word.

It will require that someone cares.

That would be you.

To help me out a little bit I encourage you…I beg you…to send me some ideas as to what you would want me to write about. I don’t care whether it’s (there’s that word again) about peanut butter, or dental floss, or the New Orleans Zephyrs. (Google it!)

Whatever you ask me to write about I will try my utmost for his highest to bring in a spiritual principle.

I will, however, not surrender editorial powers of veto, knowing that some people are already thinking of something that would make me cringe just sitting in front of the computer and writing about.

Perhaps you have a spiritual question…or concern…or confusion…or even a confusing question that is a concern.

Let the challenge begin! I need coffee!

Would Jesus Defriend me?

May 27, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                   May 27, 2013

 

Would Jesus Defriend Me?”

 

I was doing some cleaning house today. Facebook friend cleaning, that is!

Something had to give. I was starting to feel like an extreme Facebook friend hoarder. And it isn’t that I’m that popular. I don’t want you to think that “I’m all that.” I can’t even remember what LOL stands for! I don’t even play Farmville, or whatever the new games are that some of my Facebook friends keep requesting me to try.

It’s just that I’ve continued to accumulate friends like books. My personal library includes more books that I’ve never read than books that I have read…and I keep buying more. Amazon makes it too easy!

So today I started making the “friend cuts”, like it was an NFL free agents camp.

Too weird? Cut!

Can’t remember who she is? Cut!

Too many requests to play Bingo Blitz? Cut!

Bad memories of? Sliced!

Tendency to say stupid things? Gone!

Michigan State hater? Cut, cut, cut!

Facebook gangsta’ picture poses! Tossed!

Infatuated with “Bridezillas”? Hurled!

Snooki followers! Fried!

In a matter of a few minutes I was able to shave away some excess friend-age. I almost felt like I was in Washington, deciding on what stays in the budget and what gets the ax.

It wasn’t that I was ruthless. I still have two Ruth’s in my friend list,and, coincidentally, I was reading the Book of Ruth this morning.

Go figure!

I discovered that defriending with Facebook is almost as easy as friending. It didn’t involve heated conversations, or physical violence. All I had to do was make my way to the appropriate list, point the finger (the one next to the thumb, mind you!) at “defriend” and click.

See ya!

And then I got to thinking, like a good guilt-ridden Baptist would, whether Jesus would ever defriend me? Would me cut me from his list if I hadn’t IM’ed him for a while? Would he scrutinize my posts and block me like a Halloween movie? Would he become disinterested in what is going on in my life? Would I not make his “A” list and get tossed in a holy cut-back?

Would Jesus be my friend until someone better came along?

And, of course, the answers to all these questions would be that Jesus would never defriend me…regardless! No matter how much time I gave to Farmville instead of him…no matter how many instant messages I didn’t reply too.

Even…no matter how many rumors I circulated about him!

Jesus would never defriend me…no matter what!

Freckles, Zits, Warts, and Age Spots

May 22, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                               May 22, 2013

Hitting 59 has made me more conscious of my slowness, morning aches, evening exhaustion, and the multiplying of pill bottles. When I look in the mirror I notice a couple of warts that weren’t always there, but have grown in prominence as I’ve clicked off the years.

The last year of your fifties makes you think of what has been and where you have been. When I was growing up in Winchester, Kentucky I was graced with some freckles on my face. I was actually cute, especially when I was missing a few teeth in the midst of freckled cheeks. Freckles were signs an imaginative childhood. I played with imaginary friends, or even played football against an invisible defense, scoring touchdowns on two yard dives in my backyard. Freckles were child-like, not childish.

A few years later, about the time when it was no longer cool to be cute, pimples started sprouting up on my face like mysterious dandelions in spring lawns. I discovered Clearasil and other products that were suppose to ease the uncomfortableness of adolescence.

Zits were a sign of not knowing whether I was still a child or had emerged into the beginnings of adulthood. It was that time when I wasn’t sure what was going on in my life. I wanted parental closeness, while at the same time keeping some distance. My dad lost some of his intelligence. I insulted my mom’s fried chicken. I wanted to be somebody, and yet I often felt like a nobody. I had a humorous streak about me, but I also was painfully short. Dreams of who I might grow up to be were being shattered. I missed the days of being a child, but knew that I was speeding towards a time of more responsibility.

And now, years later, I look in the mirror and only see trace of the freckles and a couple of little scars from the effects of teenage zits. The warts now stand out. I’m suppose to now have it all together. Experience echoes through my facial imperfections. Although people tell me that I don’t look my age, no one is approaching me to go to a rock concert at Red Rocks, or inviting me to watch Monday Night Football at Buffalo Wild Wings.

I am now a picture of maturity, and I’m about as comfortable with it as I was with youthful blemishes. Oh, it isn’t that I don’t want to be responsible. It is more that I often feel burdened…weighed down by the expectations of others. I want to be able to make mistakes, but I’m often viewed as someone who isn’t allowed to make mistakes.

And yet my warts also tell me that I’m in that phase of life when people want to know what I think, where they will often take their lead from me. There is some sense of gratification that goes with that sprinkled over the mass of responsibility.

I’m just around the corner from the next phase called “age spots.” Sometimes they appear like someone took a red marker to the face. Other times they emerge as little pre-cancerous spots. In fact, I’ve already had a few frozen off by my physician. My dad has undergone two sets of radiation treatments for cancerous spots on his ear and nose.

Age spots are a sign that I’ve gone from being a learner to a leader to a mentor. More of my time will be spent in coffee conversations and quiet reflection. I’ll start collecting letters, photos, and other indications of a lived life. I feel valued as a result of people asking me what I think, as opposed to pressing my opinions. There is soundness in “elders” being respected in the church.

Freckles, zits, warts, and age spots. It seems that there are many parallels between those facial stages and a person’s spiritual development. Dare I also say there are many parallels also with a church’s life stage.

We go from childlike energy and optimism to youthful uncertainty; living out our faith responsibly to passing on the soundness of our beliefs to the next generation.

Chaos appears when we confuse life phases; when a pimpled church tries to pretend it is certain and unyielding in it’s statement of belief, or a warted congregation is childish in it’s actions and attitudes.

A church that is healthy is one that is allowing each of it’s participants to live in the period of faith that they are in.