Archive for the ‘Death’ category
March 26, 2016
WORDS FROM W.W. March 26, 2016
Today is Saturday, the day before Easter. It is a day of waiting for many of us. Being a Christ-follower, I know what tomorrow means. It’s a day where I’m between death and life…Jesus is laying dead in the tomb, not back alive…not risen…the rock hasn’t moved an inch.
Sunday is different. I’ll put my sweat pants and t-shirt to the side and put my suit on that will make me look fashionably alive. I’ll speak to a group of believers gathered at First Baptist Church in Simla about the hope that the day tells us about.
As a pastor I’m living in the Sunday event even today as I prepare tomorrow’s words. It’s a unique perspective. In essence, I’m speaking from inside the tomb, but also looking outward from it. What words might Jesus have to say to the mourners of his death? What are the words that the church needs to hear?
Looking outward changes your view. It’s impossible to forget the primary purpose of the place you are standing in, but it also intensifies the excitement of the outward opening. Like the welcoming of a new breath of air for someone emerging from a deep dive into a lake, an opening in the tomb signals a path from death back to life.
So often I live for Jesus inside the grave. I turn my back from the hope and become the walking dead in Christ. I go through times of doubt, just like his disciples, and wallow in the self-pity of the demands of my faith. There is a tendency to close the story on Saturday and communicate the faith of a cranky, embittered Christian.
On the other hand, I see Christ-followers who detour past the tomb and live out a faith that seems to jump from the sweet, cuddly baby Jesus to the glorious glowing resurrected Jesus. Pain and suffering don’t make the cut in the abridged story of the messiah.
I’m becoming more convinced as I grow older that Jesus desires that I view life as a tomb person looking outward. That death is not the conqueror…that hope emerges out of hopelessness…that life follows death…these are the words to remember and the message to proclaim.
From inside the tomb I can speak about what is no longer true. I am able to tell my own story, that once I was the walking dead, but now I am spiritually alive. I understand who I was and, by the grace of God, who I now am.
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Death, Faith, Grace, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: Easter Sunday, Holy Saturday, hope, hopeless, Jesus' tomb, looking outward, open tomb, pain and suffering, perspective, resurrected, Resurrection
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March 19, 2016
WORDS FROM W.W. March 19, 2016
Dear Sir,
Our family suffered a devastating loss yesterday that will require multiple grief counseling sessions. We have a lot of questions that don’t seem to have answers. Most of them begin with the word “Why?”
Depending on the family member our grief has emerged in various ways. Loss of appetite is a common element. Other signs of our suffering include hair-pulling, moments of walking around in a zombie-like state, spontaneous bursts of tears, and sleepless nights filled with that one word. That’s right, why?
I’m wondering if you can fit us into your counseling schedule immediately…like this afternoon. I know that is short notice, but so was the loss we incurred. You see, it wasn’t suppose to be this way. We’d planned ahead and prepared for what we thought was going to be a glorious ending. To have the rug pulled out from under us like this is a bitter pill to swallow. We know it has happened to others in the past, but we never expected that it would happen to us.
You see, our Michigan State Spartans were a two-seed. Two-seeds aren’t suppose to lose in the first round. In fact, we thought our glorious end was going to include cutting down the nets in Houston two weeks from now after being crowned national champions.
But a fifteen-seed beat us! Middle Tennessee State University. Their name even suggests mediocrity. Yesterday, however, they played top-level basketball and our Spartans were stunned as much as we were. Things like this, however, are suppose to happen to Georgetown and Syracuse because they deserve the grief, but not us!
So you see, our need for counseling is urgent. March Madness got blanketed with March Sadness. We cried in our soup and went through two boxes of tissues. I’m making a Sam’s Club run this morning to buy boxes of tissues in bulk because we’re going through them so fast.
As I’m writing this a propane gas tank delivery truck went by with the company name on the side: Blue Rhino! Middle Tennessee State’s mascot name is “Blue Raiders.” As the truck moved past I instantly saw “Blue Raiders” instead of Blue Rhino. I’m haunted and afflicted! I counted Blue Raider players shooting three’s in my sleep last night!
Please respond immediately…unless you’re a Michigan Wolverine! In that case, please disregard!
Categories: Christianity, Death, Faith, Humor, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Blue Raiders, counseling, fifteen seeds, grief, grief counseling, loss, March Madness, Michigan State Spartans, Middle Tennessee State University, NCAA basketball tournament, Spartans, Spartans basketball, Syracuse, upsets
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March 18, 2016
WORDS FROM W.W. March 18, 2016
The Passion Week of Jesus is about to begin. In many ways it’s an unsettling time. One day Jesus gets paraded through town with cheers and singing, and a few days later he gets paraded towards a hill of death with jeers and mocking. It is a lonely week, a week of being deserted, betrayed, and tortured.
Maundy Thursday and Good Friday experiences are solemn and reflective…and avoided! Many of us are ready to get to the celebration of Easter Sunday, the day when Jesus’ tomb was open and the body was no longer there, and by-pass the days of suffering and death.We often even see this in our funeral services. The tendency is to rush by the grieving and embrace the rejoicing. If the departed had a close walk with God people sometimes feel guilty about being sad, about mourning the loss of a loved one. “Well, he’s with the Lord now, so we shouldn’t be sad!”
Yes, he is with the Lord, but he is no longer with us in the same way he has always been with us, and for that I’m grieving. Ben Dickerson, a good friend and ministry colleague of mine, passed away suddenly a few years ago. Ben was man of prayer and depth, a mentor and confidant. His death set me back. I struggled with the nonsensical nature of it.
I could not get to the celebration! Hear me on that! I could not get to the celebration. I was still dealing with the Good Friday grief! Just as cancer patients deal with the loss of health, and anxiety about the future moves into the room that has been occupied by future hopes and aspirations, I must deal with the closeness of death in my life.
Perhaps it seems silly, but I’ve grieved the loss of every one of our five cats: Tickles, Prince Charming Kisses, Duke, Katie Katie CoCo Puffs, and Princess Mailbu. Don’t mock me! My daughters named them all. Even as I write this I’m getting a little teary-eyed thinking about them.
Death is hard, and important to draw close to. When Moses died Deuteronomy 34:8 says “The people of Israel wept for Moses in the Plains of Moab for thirty days. then the days of weeping and mourning for Moses came to an end.”
Thirty days! In our culture it is more likely that the memorial service can’t be scheduled for thirty days due to schedule complications.
There is a time for celebration, but there is also a time for grieving and remembrance. Death precedes eternal life…profoundly!
Good Friday needed to occur for a rolled away stone to signal that something significant had just happened.
Our culture has a hard time dealing with death. The pull is to just move past it and get on with life.
And so Good Friday services that bring us to scenes of Golgotha will be slightly attended, unless the pilgrim comes from a traditional that mandates attendance; and Resurrection Sunday will see pancake breakfasts, and balloons, and chocolate crosses…and crowded sanctuaries.
My belief…you don’t have to accept it if you don’t want to…my belief is that we can not fully appreciate and understand the incredible news of the resurrection unless we draw close to the death of Jesus’ crucifixion.
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Death, Faith, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: avoiding death, cross, crucified, crucifixion, death traditions, Deuteronomy 34:8, dying, Easter Sunday, Golgotha, Good Friday, grief, grieving, loss, Moses, mourn, mourning, open tomb, Passion Week, suffering, the ross of Christ
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March 17, 2016
WORDS FROM W.W. March 16, 2016
Andy Stanley made the news last week as a result of something he said in one of his weekend messages. Since then he has tried to do a rewind of what he really meant, but it is similar to trying to rewrap the toilet paper after it springs loose and rolls down three flights of stairs. You can’t quite get it back to where it was. (I don’t recommend you try it! It won’t turn out good and people will stare at you.)
Andy, who I’ve heard speak several times, and have a lot of admiration and respect for, made a reference to parents being selfish if they keep their teen children at a small church. This came right after a weekend youth conference that was attended by about 3,500 youth from Stanley’s church, and, I’m assuming, other churches.
He didn’t mean to make a dig at small churches, but that’s what was heard. Andy’s church runs around 20,000 each weekend…give or take a few thousand! Obviously, his church is doing a few things right.
His church is the spiritual Walmart that draws customers to the happy faces signs.
Last Sunday I spoke at a church in a small rural town to a gathering of twelve. There are less people in this town than will be seated in Andy Stanley’s overflow room at one weekend service. And yet “The Twelve” allowed me to experience community. After the service instead of a rush to the parking lot to be directed out into traffic by off-duty police officers, at this gathering of the saints we stood in the center aisle for twenty minutes talking and sharing. No one rushed out. They didn’t want to. This was a foundational part of their week.
I read Andy’s interview that was meant to be damage control. Believe me, he’s not totally wrong…and he’s not totally right. Sometimes small churches get set in their ways and become hospice centers for the dying, but other times small churches bring a depth of caring and fellowship that mega-churches should take notes on.
Our culture is drawn to “mass”, to quantity. We overindulge at Chinese buffets and super-size at McDonald’s. On Black Friday we get in line early at the “big box” stores, and we flock to ocean cruise line ships that are like floating cities.
Those things aren’t necessarily bad (except the Chinese buffet part), but they should not be seen as what will meet all of our needs either.
There are places at the Lord’s table for small churches and large churches, and every church in between. This doesn’t need to become a finger-pointing event between the student bodies of two arch rival high schools, shouting across the gym at one another.
On Easter Sunday I’ll be back at that small gathering of God’s people to preach about new life, new hope, and a new day. They will nod their heads in agreement, because they believe that their church is in the midst of the story. Then we will stand in the center aisle and talk about life as it is, and life will is coming.
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Death, Humor, Jesus, love, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Andy Stanley, congregational life, large, largeness, mega churches, ministry, small churches, the Body of Christ
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March 7, 2016
WORDS FROM W.W. March 7, 2016
Yesterday I was blessed to be a part of a congregation that was welcoming back one of its pastors from a three-month sabbatical. Since I retired two months ago I’ve been on a sabbatical…sort of! I recommend it…before retirement!
The pastor focused his message on “rest.” Scripture talks about “sabbath rest”, a concept that we read about with a suspicious eye. One of the points he made that I typed into my iPhone was the fact that after Adam and Eve were created they started their lives with a day of unearned rest.
His point hit me! we view rest as something that is earned after a hard day of work, or a day at the end of a long work week. Rest, however, is like a breath of the grace of God. It comes to us because he loves us, not because we’ve worked hard for it.
Of course, our culture doesn’t think along those lines. We’re not sure if Sunday is the first day of the week to begin a new journey with rest; or the seventh day of the week to rest up after six days of battles and struggles.Most of us talk about Monday as being the start of a new week; Sunday is the end of the weekend!
One of the factors in my deciding to retire was rest, or lack of! Monday, traditionally, was my day off…my day of rest, noticeably at the end of my “pastor week.” On Tuesday when a new week was staring me in the face I wasn’t ready to go at it again. If I was an iPhone being charged I was only back up to fifty percent battery life. I did not rest well, or enough.
That thinking is hard for blue-collar Americans who go at it each Monday morning hard and long for forty plus hours divided over five or six days. To rest is too often seen as a luxury, as opposed to a necessity…or even a gift from God.
I’m now in the midst of that weird period- that time when I’m not required to do anything, but feel guilty if I don’t do something. “Doing something” is an affliction of our culture’s mentality. We connect value and meaning to it. When we rest the question that gets asked often is “how long are you going to rest before you get on with things?” Rest is seen as something we’ll get to do a lot after we die…R-I-P!
Personally, I recognize that I’m in a time of being redefined. People view me differently. I’m no longer “Pastor Bill”, even though it is a huge part of who I am. I’m enjoying this new journey, and yet I’m still a little uncomfortable with it. The book I’m reading that is laying beside me on the coffee counter here at Starbucks is entitled The 12 Week Year: Get More Done In 12 Weeks than Others Do In 12 Months. The pastor’s group I belong to is reading it. It w3ill be interesting to see if it has the effect of pulling me in to the fray once again!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Death, Freedom, Grace, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: Adam and Eve, blue-collar workers, first day of the week, graceful rest, labor, recharging, rest, rest in peace, resting, Retirement, Sabbath rest, Sunday, the end of the week, the rest of God, Work
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January 28, 2016
WORDS FROM W.W. January 28, 2016
A parent of one of our basketball players paid our coaching staff a great compliment last night. He didn’t say it trying to get more game time minutes for his daughter, or because there was a lull in the conversation. He simply walked up to us as our practice was about to start and told us how much he appreciated the three of us as coaches.
Then he went on to say that his level of respect for us had risen even more as he has watched the actions and antics of some of the other coaches we’ve encountered this season. In other words, in his eyes we look even better as he has watched coaches of other teams relate to their players.
We thanked him for his words of encouragement. Although my Junior Varsity girls’ team has been successful in the final outcome of our games most of the time this season, it has been a challenging season in other ways. For example, having fifteen players on the team means the cutting up of the playing time in ways that communicate that each of them is valued. That’s a challenge because it breaks down to less than eleven minutes of playing time for each player, if they all play equally.
His words were timely and uplifting.
Each of us as coaches look forward to coming to practice each day, and spending time with our players. We seek to teach, explain, evaluate, analyze, improve player skills and game understanding…and encourage. This season our high school has been dealing with the death of a student known by everyone. In the midst of practice our varsity coach several times has gone to the side with a couple of girls who are struggling with the loss…dealing with the grief. It’s encouraging to have someone listen willingly to your sorrow.
This dad, whose daughter was impacted by the death, understood the extra role that we have coaches have taken on this season. Not counselors, but rather listeners of pain and confusion…and his words, once again encouraged us.
All of us desire encouragement, but encouraging encouragement is a concept that seldom occurs to us. It comes out in the New Testament. Paul wrote to the Christ-followers in Thessalonica and instructed them with the words “Therefore encourage each and build each other up…”, and then he finishes the sentence with the clarifier “…just as in fact you are doing.” (1 Thessalonians 5:11) Encouragement gets noticed and remembered.
I would like to have met a man named Barnabas, who appears in the Book of Acts. Acts 4:36 tells us that his real name was Joseph, and that he was a Levite from Cyprus, but the apostles referred to him as Barnabas. It was his nickname, kind of like Smiley or Buck. His nickname meant “son of encouragement.” When the apostles, and others, were with him they saw that being encouraging was what defined him. Add he traveled around with the Apostle Paul I’m sure his encouraging words were often the difference between Paul throwing in the towel or persevering.
Encouraging encouragement. The words of a parent made me ponder how I might build some young people up today with just a few brief conversations on what they are doing well.
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Death, Jesus, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: 1 Thessalonians 5:11, Barnabas, coaching, discouragement, encourage one another, Encouragement, encouraging, encouraging words, positive coaching, Son of Encouragement, the effect of words, uplifting words
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January 18, 2016
WORDS FROM W.W. January 18, 2016
In our kitchen there is a cupboard door that just won’t stay latched! I get out my screwdriver, loosen the two screws, reposition the latching mechanism, tighten the screws, and shut the door. I leave the room under the illusion that I have fixed it. Two hours later, as I pass through the kitchen again, I see that the door has come unlatched again. When…I don’t know! It just did… sometime after I was sure it was closed nice and tight!
That image also defines the closure of pastoring. I preached my last sermon yesterday, was hugged and embraced at an afternoon reception, and now the cupboard has been closed.
Or has it? Similar to coming back to the kitchen a little later, pastoring is a very, very difficult thing to come to closure. The life you’ve lived for the past three and a half decades is weaved into the fabric of other people’s journeys. Like ripping a patch off of a pair of jeans, there is a mark left…perhaps a hole or a gap. A pastor is tossed between the waves of letting go and still caring so! There is the recognition that there must be a moving on, and yet the congregation you are leaving has been a vital part of your journey for as long as you can remember. The walking together has been so profound that the pastor now has a hard time remembering when certain events happened, when someone passed away, when that mission trip took place, or when someone’s serious surgery happened. It’s all a part of the story, like old episodes of M.A.S.H., that have been watched so often that the dialogue has been memorized. The journey of a pastor is the collection of stories of lives changed, grace realized, and reconciliation experienced.
And the cupboard door suddenly creaks as it slightly inches open.
How do you have closure as a pastor? I’m not sure you can. Loving a church is not like a faucet that suddenly gets turned off, or turned back on. Like the door, the depth of the relationships the pastor has had spring the latch and your heart is flooded with concern.
And I think that’s okay! A couple of weeks ago I walked into the kitchen and the cupboard door was wide open. I wasn’t expecting that and I ran right into it! When we allow the door of our ministry to remain wide open, as it was before we stepped aside, the potential for collisions is greatly increased. A pastor who refuses closure simply gets in the way, becomes a nuisance, or, at worst, a brick barrier that blocks a group of Christ-followers from continuing the journey.
I’ve given up on fixing the cupboard latch. It is what it is! And perhaps I’ll let it be as a reminder of who I am, closed but not shut!
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Death, Faith, Grace, Jesus, love, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: Christian journey, Christian ministry, closure, cupboard door, MASH, the end
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January 16, 2016
WORDS FROM W.W. January 16, 2016
He reached down with the offering plate in one hand. I placed my tithe envelope with it, and he grasped one of my fingers with two of his own and gave me a squeeze.
I looked at his wrinkled smiling face, dotted with the blemishes and signs of aging, and smiled back. I stood up and we hugged, and he whispered in my ear, “Praying for you!”
“Thank you, Rex!”
The two of us had been through some journeys together. His only son had died in a motorcycle accident a few years go. The pain of losing a child had worn on him. Sometimes we have no compass to help us navigate the storms of life. Losing his son was a time of wandering for him as he wrestled with the question of “why?” A person of faith is not immune to periods of doubt and confusion. Each day was an unsteady step in an uncertain direction.
His questions about heaven began. What was it like? Does a person go directly to heaven after he dies? How can a person be assured that he will receive everlasting life? Will his son recognize him, and will he recognize his son?
He had known Jesus for a long, long time. The questions weren’t those of a new follower, or someone who was thinking of following Jesus. The questions were searchings to bring hope to the wounds of his soul.
He was more concerned about his children, grandchildren, and their spouses. Would he see them someday in glory?
And then the cancer surfaced!
When you’re ninety-five you expect to have ailments. They could with the addition of each decade. A splotch here on his forehead from a clumsy tumble; a darkened area on his arm resulting from multiple attempts to draw blood…old age reminders that youth has long since disappeared from view. The weight loss, however, had been the most concerning thing. The cancer treatments and drugs have taken so much of his energy, his will to live.
And so he grasps my finger to tell me of his support, of his love, and of his appreciation for our journey together.
I want to call time-out and tell him to sit for a while, but some of the congregants have meals cooking in crockpots at home, while others simply want to beat the Methodists to the restaurants.
He holds my finger for just a moment more before releasing and giving me a wink with his left eye, and then he strolls back down the cenetr aisle of the sanctuary.
I’m hoping that he is still awake when I recognize, and talk about him in the midst of my last Sunday sermon as his pastor. The weariness that he shows each day makes that unlikely…but I love him enough to awake him, walk back to where he is sitting, and give his finger a final grasp!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Death, Faith, Jesus, love, Parenting, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: age, cancer, crockpots, Doubt, heaven, life journeys, life struggles, questions about heaven, Sunday worship, the offering
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December 22, 2015
WORDS FROM W.W. December 21, 2015
This past week has been a time of death. That may sound morbid and dark, but it is the reality of the blessing of lives lived and dreams unfinished.
One death was of our church’s former pastor, a man who impacted many lives and dealt with a number of health difficulties, although the seeds for his death may have come as a result of an accident a few months ago. Regardless, death came… and took… and left confusion behind. Grandchildren were left wondering. Friends recalled shared events, conversations had, camping trips taken.
There was sadness, and yet understanding.
The second death was of a sixteen year old young man. It was most unexpected and hard to accept. Death does not discriminate between ages. Although it mostly accompanies the elderly to the next life, sometimes it chooses a different partner that takes the breath away from those left behind.
Death seems to be especially hard at Christmas time, and, unfortunately, more frequent. Our own family views Christmas a little differently now since my father-in-law passed away on Christmas Day nine years ago. In the midst of our kids and grandkids and son-in-laws there is still a whisper of loss as we remember Christmases past.
The family of the sixteen year old are being supported by numerous friends and family as they walk through this, but there are deep wounds inside them that will take lifetimes to heal. Death is like that. It comes and stays. Even when we try to shove it into the attics of our memories it knocks on the ceilings of our hearts to remind us that something…or someone is missing.
The walk through the valley that is overshadowed by death (Psalm 23:4) takes on new meaning as people struggle on.
Our hope is in the last part of Psalm 23:4. “I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and staff, they comfort me.”
Although very few of us are comfortable with death, we can take comfort in knowing who walks with us.
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Death, Jesus, love, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: confusion, dying, funeral, God is with me, grief, grieving, loss, mourning, passing away, passing of someone, Psalm 23, the valley, the valley of the shadow of death, tragedy
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December 16, 2015
WORDS FROM W.W. December 15, 2015
The group of senior folk sat around tables, enjoying the warmth of the room and fellowship. The study of the scripture passage had included a high amount of discussion and viewpoints. The cookies had long ago disappeared and coffee cups were empty. It was time to share prayer concerns…who was having a tough time, who was under the weather, who was on their way to full recovery.
A gentle ninety-something lady softly asked if she could take a minute to share a concern. Everyone knew that a heartache was about to be expressed. It was the day after fourteen people had been gunned down in San Bernardino, California…and less than a week since the shootings of three people in Colorado Springs.
There was a silence that fell upon the group. She began.
“I’m so upset by what is happening in our world. What is going on? It seems that there’s a mass shooting about every day…and I think we need to do something about it.”
“What are you thinking?” asked the group leader.
“I think we need to belly up to God! We need to get down on our knees and cry out to him.”
Twenty heads around the tables nodded. “Belly up to God”, the phrase seemed bold and urgent. Tragedy has a way of bringing courage bubbling to the surface. It resonated in the troubled wrinkled faces of each of the people.
There was a moment of pause and then the group went to prayer, praying with a sense of closeness to the throne of grace, praying with confused minds but trusting spirits. The confusion wasn’t with the One, but with the hostility that had seemed to come and take residence in the actions of people towards others that they didn’t even know.
The group bellied up to God in divine belief. The prayer time ended and they hugged and encouraged one another as they exited.
“Why” still echoed through them, but they believed that the answers could only be understood through the Almighty. Some questions would never be answered satisfactorily, but they knew He had heard their hearts.
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Death, Faith, Grace, Jesus, love, Nation, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: boldness in praying, Colorado Springs shootings, fellowship, heartaches, praying with urgency, senior citizens, shootings at San Bernardino, throne of grace, tragedy
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Words from WW Blog 