Archive for the ‘Community’ category
May 10, 2013
WORDS FROM W.W. May 10, 2013
The CEO of the clothing chain, Abercrombie and Fitch, recently reiterated his business plan focus that A&F is for the hot and attractive young people. They don’t want larger sized people to wear their clothes, or be customers in their stores.
Cool, obviously, is everything!
CEO Mike Jeffries made this statement: “In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids. Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong in our clothes, and they can’t belong.”
This is not a new position for A&F. Those words were said by Jeffries in a 2006 interview. The troubling thing is that even though we are irked by the arrogance, we go along with the philosophy. How can I say that? A&F is a 5 billion dollar company. The younger crowd drops money there like crazy! Teens and twentysomethings and “wanna-be twentysomethings” have bought into the idea that wearing A&F is an element of creating an image.
The arrogance of A&F is that they define what the image is, and expect the customer base to, pardon the pun, “fit into it.” Some of that arrogance has come out in several discrimination court cases involving minorities, the dismissal of an employee who wore a prosthetic forearm because she was told that her appearance breached the store’s “Look policy”, and the dismissal of a Muslim woman who refused to remove her head scarf.
And yet people… the right people…continue to shop at the store like it is selling Beatle’s memorabilia…oops, wrong generation!
The concern I have is that I see some of that filtering into the church. I really do! Not that we should be surprised. The Corinthian church could have put an A&F logo out front, except using Greek letters. There was that little problem that had with consuming all the food and wine before everyone had arrived for the Agape Feast, the love meal. Knowing the culture, those who arrived early for the agape meal was mostly those who were more financially stable. The people who arrived later were mostly the ones who had to work long hours just to survive.
Can you say cool and not-cool?
Paul’s stress to the church at Corinth about being “the body of Christ” had immense relevance to what was going on there.
I know…I know, we usually talk about the church being twenty years behind the times. The point, however, is not whether we are behind the times or ahead of the masses. It is that the church is the one institution, the one organization, that it not to be exclusionary. It is the group that discards the labels that the rest of our culture slaps on us. The book of James cautions about discriminating between rich and poor in the seating arrangements. Jesus used sharp words towards his disciples who were trying to keep children from bothering him. The first century church reorganized in order to take care of the widows.
And yet there still seems to be a part of us that wants our church to be populated with the cool people. It’s the dirty little secret that testifies to our fallen nature.
The church should have a sign that says “A&O”, the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, because the arms of Jesus are intended to cover everyone in between.
Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Grace, Jesus, love, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: A&F, Abercromvie and Fitch, attractive, clothing, cool, exclusive, grace, jeans, large people, Mike Jeffries, popular, young people
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May 8, 2013
WORDS FROM W.W. May 8, 2013
I was playing my first softball game in a decade. It had been so long since I’d played that I had to dig to the bottom of the “odds and ends” barrel in our garage to find my mitt. Unfortunately, I could not find my old pair of rubber cleats that I used to wear. They probably made their way to Goodwill a few years ago, and have since gone on to “Glove Glory.” So I fished out an old pair of tennis shoes that were missing a few years of thread and headed for the ball park.
I had told our manager, Kimberly, that I was content to “ride the pine” (except it was aluminum), but she said “No, everybody is playing.”
I didn’t even have to share my career stats with her. This might be a similar story to the movie “The Natural”, starring Robert Redford, about a former player, Roy Hobbs, coming back to play after disappearing for a few years.
It might be…but it isn’t! If there was a sequel entitled “The Elderly” I could have played the lead.
After a less than memorable first two times at bat, but a nice backhand glove pick-up at third of a screaming grounder, I came to bat for the third time in the fourth inning ready to hit opposite field. The pitch was begging me to hit it, so I pounced on it and hit an almost-line drive that actually landed just inside the first-base line just out of the infield.
“Run, Forest, run!”
I made the turn at first base to head for second as the ball continued to bounce away from the first baseman and right fielder.
The capacity crowd of four woke up and cheered (I think).
Then it happened. I had a tennis shoe blow-out fifteen feet past first base. I hit black ice disguised as dirt…and I fell hard…I mean the ground shook…almost!
My left knee hit the ground first and then my right leg took an unnatural twist…better known as “An AARP side effect”…and I felt the muscle pop. It’s quite a mental shift to hit safely and then fall hard. Come to think of it, first base has been my injury nemesis in the past as well. About 20 years ago I hit a ground ball to the short-stop whose throw to first base was a little up-line. It connected with my jaw and broke it in two places. I was safe at first that time, also, and then slumped to the ground.
Some have reminded me that I hit 59 last Sunday, so there must be some correlation between 59 and falling hard. Perhaps my old cleats being at Goodwill had something to do with it just as much! I’m going with the cleats story.
It reminds me of the story of Elijah in 1 Kings 18 where he defeats the 450 prophets of Baal. He is in the groove, on a tear! But then Jezebel makes death threats, and Elijah falls hard. He goes down. His stumble takes the form of a flee for his life and then a hiding in a cave.
Sometimes our stumbles happen as quickly as trying to turn a single into a double. Sometimes our stumbles happen gradually as we allow pride, power, and position to blind us to the cliff we are hovering on.
Following my stumble something else happened that is significant. After I hobbled back to first base and got a sub to take my place, my teammates came to my rescue with concern (and maybe a little chuckling) and encouragement. Thelma, a lady I deeply admire and respect, asked me about a dozen times during the rest of the game if I was okay. Others gave me pats on the back. No one said “That should be a lesson to you about whether you should be playing this game or not.”
When someone in the faith community stumbles there needs to be someone to pick him back up again. Being the church is not a spectator sport.
After my Roy Hobbs hit and titanic crash…we all went out for ice cream! There’s just something extremely right about that!
Categories: Christianity, Community, Grace, Humor, Jesus, love, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: 59, AARP, base hit, batting, church softball, crippled, elderly, Encouragement, glove, helping each other, mitt, Robert Redford, softball, The Natural
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April 26, 2013
WORDS FROM W.W. April 26, 2013
Once in a great while I get out my high school yearbook from the early seventies. It is a mixture of comical relief and embarrassment…even more embarrassing if there is someone looking at it with me! Comments get made such as “You looked like…THAT?” and “You wore THOSE kind of glasses?” the comments are never made in flattering ways that result in me pumping up my chest, but rather they are asked with a chuckling undertone.
It is easy to see how I have changed from a distance of forty years. Different glass frames (Thank God!), puffier cheeks, thinner hair. Distance sometimes makes things frightfully clear.
The reverse of that is trying to discern changes on a day-to-day basis. Unless a person goes through a “make-over”, how different someone is on Monday compared to Sunday, or even the previous Monday, is hard to know.
There are similar criteria involved in discerning a person’s spiritual transformation. I have a hard time knowing how I have grown in my walk with the Lord from my perspective. It may not even be as clear as a slowly receding hairline or expanding waist.
What I need are others who are in the midst of faith journeys to tell me what they are sensing. Sometimes those external views involve hard things to hear, such as sensing I’m in the midst of a spiritual dryness, or the identifying of an evident fear to go to a deeper level of trust. And sometimes those observations are encouraging and energizing comments that leave me asking “Really? You see how I’ve grown?”
The past few years I’ve attended a basketball official’s camp at some time during the summer. We don’t stand around a campfire singing “Kum-Ba-Yah” at this camp, or dance around the dining hall chanting “We are the Order of the Forks!”. At this camp we officiate basketball games while being watched by clinicians. As we go about managing the game on the court the clinicians take note and then share their observations with us during time-outs, half-time, and at the end of the game. They note good things we did- good calls, good communication- and bad things we do- lame calls, slow rotations in covering the court. Often during the three days together the clinicians will keep telling someone about a tendency that is being observed that needs to be corrected, and the official is able to correct that flaw by the end of the camp.
One of the instructions at the beginning of camp is to not use two words.
“Yes, but!”
“Yes, but” is resistance to the truth. It’s a bolted door closed to reality.
Likewise, spiritual transformation needs those external eyes, trusted others to guide us and instruct us.
When I want a humorous moment I open my yearbook. When I want the close truth of the present reality I go to those I know love me, want the best for me, and want me to be all that God intended for me to be.
Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Grace, Jesus, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: Change, Encouragement, growth, seeing, Transformation, yearbook
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April 25, 2013
WORDS FROM W.W. April 26, 2013
I was at Starbucks yesterday!
Not a surprise, for those who know me. But what happened while I was there was…interesting!
Starbucks lost power! Not one of those little momentary hiccups that we have all experienced. No, this was the loss of power that kept staying lost!
Of course, it happened while I was in the men’s restroom. And, of course, this restroom had no windows…just a while lot of darkness! It allowed me to find out one more reason to have a cell phone. Not to call from the restroom, but rather to shed a little light on the situation.
I emerged from the restroom to a coffee shop that was quiet. If you have been in a Starbucks you know how unusual that is. There is usually the sound of blenders, expresso machines, oven doors opening and closing, music being played from the ceiling speakers, orders being taken. But this time it was quiet and still.
Power that is lost stills the presence. Customers who were about to order waited for a few moments, before giving up and exiting. No frappuccinos…no cappuccinos…no lattes. Donuts were visible, but since there was no power to operate the register they couldn’t be sold. Things came to a halt. Employees stood around not knowing what to do. Losing power was not a chapter in their employee training manuals.
I stay for another twenty minutes or so, long enough to finish my tall coffee, and then made my exit. Several other people had already gathered their belongings, laptops, and workbooks, and preceded my departure. Several stayed.
Losing power leaves people in a quandary. Will it come back? How long before it returns?
It was an object lesson for me about the church. What happens to a church that loses power? Who notices? Who quickly exits, and who waits in hopeful anticipation of its return? What do we do when the power of God is absent? Do we stand around trying to find something to busy ourselves? Do we walk around in confusion?
Hard questions for the church. Harder questions because there are times when we are much more comfortable operating under our own power than we are operating under the power of the Spirit. When the Spirit is suddenly absent how aware are we that the lights have gone off?
Perhaps another relevant question is how urgently do we pray for the moving and empowering of the Holy Spirit in our churches? Every church has its times of delight and periods of desperation, green pastures and dry deserts. Consistent praying gets us through the desert journeys. It gets us through those times when the darkness is evident and we’re not sure when the light will return.
I was back at Starbucks this afternoon…go figure! One of the employees who was here yesterday told me that the power came back on after about forty-five minutes. I told him that I had been in the restroom when it happened. We were able to laugh about it, but if it happens again I’m heading to McDonald’s. Their coffee is just a buck anyway…although their restrooms are more suspect!
Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Holy Spirit, Humor, Jesus, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: coffee, light, McDonald's, power, Starbucks, waiting
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April 19, 2013
WORDS FROM W.W. April 19, 2013
This past week I had the door closed on me twice in regards to opportunities related to one of my passions, one of the things that I’ve been involved in that energize me. Suddenly what looked like a new venture, a new chapter, became a brick wall. A few days the brick wall re-emerged in regards to another possibility.
What does a person do when the wind is taken out of the sail? I admit that my initial reaction was one of self-pity and confusion. My ego jumped into the ring and became the center of attention. When the situation revolves around something that we are passionate about it is easy to go that way. Most of us believe that our giftedness is always affirmed with a “yes”, as it relates to the area we are gifted in. Our value gets tied up with the opportunity.
When our passions, experience, and skill get presented with a new opportunity that is seemingly in perfect harmony with them we assume this is the way of God. This is the door that is being opened for us. We even spiritualize it by saying that all we need to do is have faith to walk through it.
But there are times when perfect alignment is not the tell-tale sign that this is what God was preparing for us all along.
Sometimes God is in the closed doors! That’s hard for most of us to hear because we believe more in open doors than closed doors. Closed doors require us to look further. Closed doors make us wait. Closed doors can sometimes even be an indication that a chapter has ended. We’d prefer a “Let’s Make A Deal” scenario where we get to choose between three doors instead of two closed doors and one open.
I remember a number of years ago being contacted by a pastoral search committee. One Sunday they inconspicuously visited the worship service at the church I pastored. Carol and I met with them about a month later “on their turf” and, from all indications, we felt God was calling us to move there. Then, in the midst of that, they went in another direction. We were disappointed, but ultimately the church I was pastor of went through a new period of fruitfulness.
It is hard to see the possibilities in rejection. It requires a willingness to trust that God knows what he is doing, and that he desires the best for each one of us… that hard news can lead us to good news.
It encourages me to know that God even gave stop signs to Paul and Silas. In Acts 16:6-7 we read of how the Holy Spirit kept them from preaching in certain areas, while not letting them even enter into other areas. It doesn’t take a seminary professor to be able to determine that Paul was being very effective in his ministry. You would think that all doors would be opened to him! But God had specific plans for him. A closed door one moment could be connected to a fulfilled purpose a few years down the road.
So my discouragement is tinted by eyes looking for new directions. The glare of being turned down will gradually dim and suddenly there in front of me will be the defined way.
Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Jesus, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: closed doors, Disappointment, discouragement, giftedness, new venture, open doors, passions, possibilities, struggles
Comments: 1 Comment
April 11, 2013
WORDS FROM W.W. April 11, 2013
I’ve just returned from the NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four in Atlanta. What an experience! My son and I thoroughly enjoyed everything but the MARTA train ride after the Saturday night games were over. We now know how it feels to be a cow being herded!
In Atlanta I experienced four types of basketball people: fanatics, fans, followers, and faithful. Each type gives the church some clues about momentum, fickleness, and congregational life.
“Fanatics” were evident for each of the teams. They were people who took on a different appearance for a few hours. A Michigan fanatic dressed up to look like a big banana…or at least that’s what it looked like to me. Another one painted his face maize and blue. A Wichita State fanatic wore a full body gold suit. Fanatics are people who are different for a few hours, before going back to who they really are.
Church fanatics get worked up for a cause or an event, but it is only a surface appearance for a moment or a time, and then they take on their usual nature again. Fanatics get attention, but the energy that they expend usually can only endure for a season. To use a basketball analogy, they are like the slam dunk that gets highlighted, but in the scheme of things is still worth just two points.
“Fans” wear the team colors and show up in the good times. We use the term “fair weather fans.” Fans are loyal as long as they are benefiting from it. If they don’t perceive there being a benefit they get testy, and look for the best possible scapegoat. Fans are willing to invest as long as it’s the popular thing to do. If the team’s success starts sliding fans often head for the exits.
Church fans are committed until there is a conflict. If they don’t care for the pastor, and can’t create enough discord in the congregation to get him ousted, they will head for the exits. Fans are not early adopters of change. They are late adopters, joining in when the buy in from enough people reaches a tipping point. Fans were amazed at the teachings of Jesus, but joined the crowd that shouted for Pilate to put him on a cross.
“Followers” wear the team colors, and check the Sports section the next morning after an away game to see how the team did. They are usually a member of the team’s Facebook page like “the Big Blue” from Kentucky or “Duck Nation” from Oregon. They are more invested than fans. Their car probably even has a bumper sticker proclaiming a team name like “Duke Blue Devils” or “Marshall Thundering Herd.”
“Church followers” are not necessarily Jesus followers. They are loyal, but maybe not for the right reasons. There is attraction to the music, or the location. The pastor could be the focus of their following. A new pastor comes in and it could be a different story. Church followers may follow the trimmings, but not the Core. Fellowship time conversation may revolve around the professional basketball team or the new store that just opened in the mall, instead of it being conversation that flows out of spiritual journeys.
To use another story from the sport’s world, it’s like a professional baseball player who couldn’t figure out how to get off of the I-285 that went around Atlanta. He kept driving around and around, missing the game he was to play in, and could never get to the core…the center…the destination.
Finally, there are the “faithful.” The faithful know that it is not all about them. That the point they are presently at has been paved by many years of tradition, principles, and wise people. The faithful know that valleys happen and mountains don’t go on forever.
The “Church Faithful” know where they have come from, but also know that there needs to be movement from where they are at. They understand the source of their energy and filter the good times and the bad times through Christ. Perhaps, most of all, the faithful are not fickle. They can applaud a good high tide without getting swept away by a tidal wave.
Final Four madness! Memorable even beyond the guy dressed up like a cardinal!
Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Jesus, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: center, conflict, core, faithful, fanatics, fans, Final Four, followers, tipping point, Tradition
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April 6, 2013
WORDS FROM W.W. April 6, 2013
My son and I are in Atlanta this weekend for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four. The Final Four weekend is “an event”, complete with a convention center filled with exhibits, people wearing orange (Syracuse), blue (Michigan), red (Louisville) and gold (Wichita State). There is intense team loyalty. David and I don’t care. We’re just enjoying the event.
Another thing about the Final Four weekend is that there are a lot of tall people walking around. Very tall! For some of them age has not been kind! For others the resemblance of who they are now compared to twenty years ago is striking. Danny Ferry doesn’t look much different now than he did when he played at Duke in the late 80’s. Of course, he looked like he was about 40 when he was in college. Now he looks like he’s about 40 with minimal hair.
I found myself walking around “Bracket Town”, the name of the place where the exhibits are at, looking at tall people and wondering “Did he used to be someone?”No one asks that about 58 year old 5’6” white guys. (Okay! I’m really fix foot six and a half inches!) When you see someone six foot eight you wonder, especially when it is at a place where basketball people congregate.
I saw Rolando Blackman, who has been retired from the NBA for twenty years and yet I recognized him right away. Christian Laettner looks a little more domesticated than when he was going through his “bad boy non-conformist” days. Of course, my opinion is still filtered by my pain over seeing his buzzer beater shot against Kentucky. I was a Big Blue fan back in those days. Laettner was the enemy. Twenty years later it was hard to look at him and still not regard him as the enemy.
But then there were the hundreds of 6’6”, 6’7”, and 6’8” guys who were walking around the Georgia Dome who looked like they might used to have been someone.
Fame is fleeting in this world. People follow you for what you are doing for them currently, not for what you used to do. Our culture is very much a “in the moment” kind of people. History is not valued by many folk. One day in basketball practice I mentioned Larry Bird to my 14 girls who were crowded around me, and I was met with 14 blank looks. I then asked “Doesn’t anyone know who Larry Bird is?”
Fourteen pauses.
And then one brave young lady responded in question form, “Birdman?”
My mouth dropped open. It may have been the first time that someone had confused Chris Anderson with being Larry Bird. History is not valued.
It also tells me that my purpose is not necessarily to be remembered, recognized, or even memorialized, but rather to live my life with purpose, passion, and responsibility. I may not even be recognized as a “used to be”, but God has gifted me, graced me, and called me to make an impact in the lives of others. The impact may happen in small ways, or in one lasting conversation at just the right moment in one person’s life. It may be an impact that happens after a multitude of “reflecting Jesus” moments. The difference between wondering whether that 6’9” balding giant who just passed me use to be somebody and who I am is that I’m called to lead people to knowing and remembering Jesus for now and ever. It’s the best philosophy for a former point guard: Give it to the Big Guy!
Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Humor, Jesus, Prayer, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Basketball, Bracket Town, Christian Laettner, Danny Ferry, Duke, Georgia Dome, Impact, NCAA Final Four, Orange, Rolando Blackman, short, tall people
Comments: 1 Comment
April 2, 2013
WORDS FROM W.W. April 2, 2013
In basketball there is a negative comment that is sometimes made about a tall player who can’t catch, rebound, play defense, or shoot. Someone will see a player like that and say, “There’s a waste of height!”
It is meant to characterize the player as, pretty much, being useless. The same statement, with some revisions, has been made about musicians, football players, artists, and others. Let’s face it! We are often more prone to be critical than affirming.
But there is an interesting story that occurs in Luke 13 with Jesus that is a variation on the theme of wasted space. It revolves around a parable he tells about using up good soil. Here’s the scripture:
“A man had a fig tree, planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard. ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’
‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’” (Luke 13:6-9, NIV)
Bottom line! The fig tree was using up good soil! Undoubtedly it was sucking up nutrients and water that could help the other parts of the vineyard to grow healthier. It was a pothole that had become a sinkhole! It was like the “one low price” that had taken on so many additional fees that you no longer could even see the original one low price.
Just as many of the parables of Jesus prompted a number of thoughts and reactions, this parable follows suit. There is an obvious correlation between the fruitless fig tree and the nation of Israel at that time. Micah 7:1 comes to mind: “What misery is mine! I am like one who gathers summer fruit at the gleaning of the vineyard; there is no cluster of grapes to eat, none of the early figs that I crave!”
As I have re-read the parable many times I’m also struck by how it speaks to me, to my purpose, my life direction. Is there sometimes a restlessness in my life that could be summarized as a waste of good soil? Am I sometimes a user of good soil with no fruit to show for it?
Yesterday, here in Colorado Springs, watering restrictions went into effect. Since our residence is an even numbered address we are allowed to water our lawn and bushes on Sundays and Wednesdays. One of the results of the watering restrictions in the coming months will be that people will be a little bit more aware of what needs water, and what is a waste of water.
Is my life a waste of the grace of God? It’s a question I wrestle with. Without sounding arrogant, I believe that God has graced me with some incredible gifts. Like the tall basketball player ( I sometimes dream of being tall!), I realize being gifted, or blessed, and using your gifts are two different things.
Because of the weirdness of my mind I also think of the parable in relation to the Church. If a church is using up good soil, the Vineyard Owner is taking a dim view of things. Existing is not the purpose. It is not the end all! Passing a budget for the next year is not an indication of fruitfulness and fulfilling purpose. Having a full calendar of weekly events is not even an indication of fruitfulness.
Could it be that the vineyard worker is going to try to re-fertilize one more time and wait to see if the figs start appearing?
Tough questions that lead me in my journey this week. In the meantime there are a couple of pot holes in the parking lot that aren’t getting smaller, and a tall basketball player I know who has a hard time walking and chewing gum at the same time. Throwing a basketball in right now is not a pretty sight!
Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Jesus, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: critical, fertilize, fig tree, focus, fruitfulness, good soil, Israel, Micah, Parables, Purpose, vineyard, waste of talent, watering restirctions
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March 29, 2013
WORDS FROM W.W. March 29, 2013
As I write this blog post I have earbuds in and I’m listening to Darlene Zschech sing beautiful praise songs on Spotify. If you arent familiar with Spotify that means you are probably still paying for the music you listen to. Spotify is free…unless you go premium…which they hope you will! Premium is $9.99 a month and it means you can listen to music without any commercial interruptions. It’s like a music DVR. You can fast forward through the ads.
But, in terms of music, I’m cheap! So I go free and basic. What that means is that every four songs or so you get “commercialed up.” It makes for an interesting combination. Since Spotify is a music supplier that has Christian music as just one of it’s listening possibilities the advertisers to the business are all over the map.
For instance, I’m listening to Darlene sing the great song “I Will Wait.” The song ends and a commercial comes on advertising Trojan condoms. Awkward!
One moment I’m listening to Barbi Franklin play “Breathe on Me, Breath of God!” on her violin, and the next I’m being invited to a party where the beer is flowing.
Such pendulum swings are hard for me to make. I could pay the ten bucks a month and stay secluded in my own little between-the-ears world, but I won’t!
It seems, however, that our culture is more and more comfortable with the pendulum swings. Listen! I am not such a prude that I’m going to cast Trojans and tequila into the lake of fire. It seems that is also a polarizing element in our world; too often giving verdicts that something or someone is totally demonic or something or someone is the next thing to being in heaven. We have a hard time saying that something can fluctuate from good to bad depending on the situation.
It also seems that more and more people are comfortable with a Spotify kind of theology. A belief system that operates without concern for conflicting practices. For instance, I can pray for the leading of the Holy Spirit in my life this afternoon, and gather with a few friends to use a Ouiji board tonight.
Whereas my generation is uncomfortable with such diverse practices, other generations are not as uneasy with them. However, that isn’t meant to be a slam, because I think other generations, especially the current young adults, are more willing to dialogue with people they may disagree with. There seems to be more of a willingness to converse and learn from one another.
The red flag for any generation is being so immersed in the culture that our theology starts resembling basic Spotify. Praising Jesus one moment, and deciding on what type of condom I”ll buy your tonight the next.
Do I have solutions or answers? No, we seem to be too quick to give solutions and slow to listen. We live in a world of intertwining connections. So I want the free music, but without the commercials…and yet a big reason the music is free is because of the commercials. One can not operate without the other.
So I’ll continue to listen to Darlene Zschech sing the song “Under Grace”, and then try to live by grace
Categories: Christianity, Community, Freedom, Grace, Jesus, love, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: commercials, Darlene Zschech, music, Spotify, theology
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March 28, 2013
WORDS FROM W.W. March 28, 2013
We often approach the same event with differing agendas. It’s like going to Lowe’s with Carol. I may be thinking that we’re going there to buy a bag of weed-n-feed, but her agenda is deciding on what new kitchen appliances we’re going to purchase. We enter the front doors and I start heading left…but she’s not following! That’s when she breaks the news to me!
Life often displays our conflicting agendas.
As a pastor I’m often bombarded with them. For instance, I’m thankful that I’m color blind so that I don’t have to be involved in what the color of the new sanctuary carpet is going to be. I have a hard time looking like mis-matched puzzle pieces in what I wear on Sunday morning, let alone knowing whether the carpet looks good or not!
Thursday of Holy Week in an upper room in Jerusalem a group of men with different agendas gathered to partake of the Passover meal. Some of them saw the gathering as a way of impressing the leader. Some of them saw it as a customary meal, like any other passover meal. Some of them saw it as a time to put their feet up. They had been walking a lot lately. An upper room away from the increasing crowds sounded good. One of them knew it was a time of preparation for a difficult time ahead.
Each approached the gathering differently. Only one of them was willing to take the very nature of a servant and wash the feet of the others.
What an awkward moment that must have been, to suddenly realize that one is on a different page than the one who leading! I wonder if there was a few moments of excuses thrown around.
“I was just about to do that, Jesus!”
“What I meant to say was…”
“Next time give me some forewarning. I didn’t know that was what you wanted to see happen.”
“My knees are really bothering me today.”
Thursday was like a traffic intersection where six different streets are converging. So of the mass one agenda, one mission, rose to the surface.
How did the others’ wants and preferences disappear?
Easily! Sometimes comparing wants and needs has a way of sorting out what is really important and what I wish would be important.
Of course, how often do I elevate my desires to the throne, and dismiss the Hope of nations?
I have to remind myself of that when I talk about what I “get out of a worship gathering.” What I tend to trash, someone has seen as being life-changing.
Today I will keep surrendering over and over.
Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Grace, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Teamwork
Tags: agendas, desires, Jerusalem, Maundy Thursday, Passover, servant, Thursday, upper room
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Words from WW Blog 