Words from WW Blog

WORDS FROM W.W. February 8, 2011

Super Bowl commercials went for $3 million for thirty seconds.
It didn’t quite fit in our church budget this year. Maybe next year!
I assumed that since most of the commercials were pretty forgettable it was due to the fact that the $3 million price tag didn’t leave much left over for creativity and production. In the past there have been a few companies that have staked their whole existence to a commercial during the Super Bowl. I’m not sure I’m comfortable with tying my future to whether a lot of people watch thirty seconds or exit for more nachos, but it’s happened.
We’re a culture that seems to always be looking for the next big thing, or even “the next bigger thing.” Just stop at a Best Buy and go to the 3-D TV display. What is better than an LED TV mounted to my wall? TV in 3-D! (Meanwhile we still have our TV that sticks about four feet out from the wall. We thought we were cool when we bought it about four years ago. Now we kind of feel like we did when we still had a turntable for our records, but everyone else had moved on.)
The next bigger thing! It happens in “church world” just as much. Very few of us are content for the peace of God, because the peace of God sometimes means residing in the same place for a while. It we’re constantly looking for the next bigger thing we’re very willing to leave the closeness of God in the present.
In Luke 9 we read the story of “the Transfiguration” where Jesus has a meeting on top of a mountain with Moses and Elijah. Three of his disciples witness this, and it must have been an amazing sight. Peter, however, wanted to move on to the next bigger thing and he suggested to Jesus that they put up three shelters- three new church additions, if you will- to mark the moment and take it to the next level. At the end of verse 33 in the NIV there is a sentence that appears in parentheses. In talking about Peter’s suggestion it reads “He did not know what he was saying.” In looking at my life, it frequently can be said, “He did not know what he was doing.”
How often do we not engage in the moment of what we’re doing now because we’re looking to make it larger than large? We’re prone to move on instead of being moved. Sometimes the next bigger thing is to be still where we are.
And besides, what would I do with an extra four feet in the room where our TV is?

WORDS FROM W.W. January 25, 2011

This winter I’ve purchased more lip balm than I have in the first 55 years of my life combined. I lather it on like a spring break college co-ed and Coppertone. Dry lips are irritating! So I give them a lot more attention than I ever did before. I guess you could call it “lip service.”
Interestingly enough, lip service is big business these days. Perhaps some of you can remember the days when you went to the store to buy “Chapstick”…not lip balm. No one said “I need to pick up some lip balm next time I’m at the store.” No, it was Chapstick. Yes, Chapstick was lip balm, but it more like lip balm was Chapstick.
Go to the store now and look for Chapstick and you’ll find it sharing space with umpteen other lip service products. We’ve become culturally-obsessed about our lips. We want them to look good, or at least feel good.
Scripture has multiple stories of people, who identified themselves as being believers in God, giving Him lip service, but having their actions tell a different story. If you read 2 Kings you’ll encounter it over and over again. A king would say something, but their actions would go against it.
I recently read a quote that Yoko Ono had put on a full-page ad in The New York Times on the anniversary of John Lennon’s death. She wrote “One day we will be able to say that we healed ourselves, and by healing ourselves, we healed the world.”
In a fallen world we will never have the ability to heal ourselves. There will be discoveries of how to prevent diseases or heal people of their physical sicknesses. There will be incredible solutions that will appear, but we will never be able to heal ourselves. The mark of our fallen nature will always have us coming up short of our destination. Jesus is the healer of nations. He’s the ointment for our dryness and heart aches.
Just as numerous Biblical characters gave him lip service, however, there is the subtle hints in the lives of many believers today that the Lamb of God is often given lip service while our lives communication faith in being self-healed. “A walk with God” becomes just one way of navigating ourselves through the journey of life. “Talking with God” becomes just one way of finding wisdom, or perhaps even just one way to vent.
A heart for God is at a different place than lip service for Jesus. Philippians 2:11 tells about lip service, but it also puts in another key element of commitment and recognition.
“…at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord…” (Philippians 2:10-11)
Calloused knees are the compliment to chapped lips. They signal surrender when our rhetoric has been exhausted.

WORDS FROM W.W. January 11, 2011

Today has a lot of ones in it! It’s similar to January 1, except it has expanded to another one spot: 1-11-11. Days like this are perplexing. Some people put special emphasis on them. Others don’t, but at the same time are wondering if something strange is going to happen.
On October 10, 2010 (10-10) there were several special events and initiatives that took place. One organization (350.org) asked the questions “Where will you be on the tenth minute of the tenth hour of the tenth day of the tenth month of the tenth year?” The group then took those questions to point people to an emphasis on global climate issues and energy saving initiatives. Another group used 10-10-10 as a launch day to emphasis a cross-denominational initiative about starting healthy new churches.
I remember seeing a news story about thousands of couples getting married by Sun Yung Moon on 10-10-10.
So what might January 11 of 2011 at 11:11 hold?
The Bible does emphasize certain numbers. “7” is the number of completeness. If you read the book of Revelation you’ll see it mentioned a “number” of times. “12” indicated the number of tribes of Israel, plus the number of Jesus’ disciples. “40” has significance, “40 years in the desert”, 40 days in the wilderness”, etc.
But sometimes we like to make a certain date and time seem extra-significant because of it’s number scheme on the calendar. Using it as a launching for an environmental initiative is one thing, but using it to chart my future is another.
It reminds me of William Miller, who in 1833, first shared publicly his belief in the second coming of Christ. From his study of the scriptures, especially the book of Daniel, Miller became convinced that Jesus would return in 1843. From 1840 onward, “Millerism” ** was transformed from an obscure, regional scripture return to their towns and cities and promote the ideas of Millerism in their locales.
Based on his interpretation of Daniel 8:14 (“He said to me, ‘It will take 2,300 evenings and mornings then the sanctuary will be reconsecrated.’”), Miller determined that Jesus would return sometime between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844. When the time frame has passed the majority of the followers maintained their faith because of “the softness” of the time frame. Another man, Samuel Snow brought another interpretation to the setting and a new date of October 22, 1844 was established. Families sold their possessions and expected to be raptured into heaven.
But it didn’t happen!
Sometimes we, without malice, try to make something into something it isn’t. There is an increasing danger in an increasingly Biblical-illiterate world to believe that scripture says something that it doesn’t; or says something to support a position that has already been determined.
Signs are often seen where there are no signs. And, on the other hand, signs are missed when they are so evident. We look for some supernatural event at 11:11 on 1-11-11, but what God desires us to be about is helping the elderly woman who is struggling to carry her sacks of groceries out of the store.
We might be looking for a glow on the mountaintop, where as God might want us to lower our vision to a friend who is walking through a valley.
So, my friend, don’t squint too hard looking today. And if you don’t agree with that never fear. The ones will be expanded by one in exactly ten months: 11-11-11-11:11.

**- For a more extensive article on “Millerism”, use Wikipedia.org.

WORDS FROM W.W. December 29, 2010

Which is it that we focus on…the end of a year, or the beginning of a new year? Are we more prone to concentrate on what was or what could be?
I’ve noticed something the last few days. The past too often anchors us from sailing into new uncharted waters. Many would say that the past helps us learn what mistakes we can never make again, or, said another way, the errors of our ways help guide us in a smarter direction.
There is truth in that, but there is also regrettable truth that prevents us…hold us back…from a true walk of faith in the future.
For instance, I believe there are more people who are haunted and weighed down by their past than there are people who just blow off their past with an absence of repentance. Even though we talk about the grace of God and receiving forgiveness for our sins through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus, I encounter so many Christians who can’t shake the chains of their pasts off.
We “sloganize” it in our theology with some trite sayings like “Let go and let God” and “Know God, know peace; no God, no peace.” If the darkness of my past continues to shadow my present it will also gray my future. Slogans don’t clear the slate.
Freedom to go forward only comes from trusting, truly trusting, that Jesus was not blowing smoke at us. He meant what he said. As you read the gospels there are a number of encounters that Jesus has with people who can’t experience freedom in their lives because of their pasts. Most of these conversations are witnessed by some of the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, who, ironic as it sounds, won’t let the people forget their pasts.
There’s an interesting encounter that Jesus has with a blind man in John 9. The disciples of Jesus ask their leader a question: “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
The question seems insensitive and head-shaking, but the question is there because the disciples had been indoctrinated with that kind of thinking. It’s what they had been taught as truth by the religious leaders before Jesus. It echoes the belief of the day that a person can’t be freed from what has been. If you read the rest of the encounter that follows the healing of this blind man (John 9:1-41) that deeply-ingrained shackled belief becomes powerfully evident.
How might the Body of Christ help cut the chains from the anchor to the past to help people look towards the future without rear view mirrors attached? I believe Jesus desires for us to be continually renewed with no regrets.
And the thing is that we will fail again, as sure as peanut butter is peanut, but he is faithful to forgive us and point us once again to a future that is full of purpose and potential.

WORDS FROM W.W. December 7, 2010

The Christmas Season is the time of the year that many people classify as the favorite. There is so much in it! Just take a moment to ponder.
Christmas cards….Christmas carols…manger scenes…Salvation Army bellringers…Toys for Tots…Santa Claus…Black Friday 4am specials…egg nog…candy canes…fruitcake…Christmas Eve candelight service…Christmas trees…lights…fudge…wrapping paper…silence…FedEx deliveries…children’s programs…company Christmas parties…Christmas ties…advent devotional booklets…cookies…family gatherings…decorations…bows…a “Christmas Story” movie, and THE Christmas Story.
I could go on, but you get the idea. It’s massive. It’s a seasonal event that requires the whole season.
This is not a new thought I’m about to put before you. Think of it more like being one of those sticky note reminders on your kitchen counter about something you know, but might forget.
There is an even greater danger of displacing Jesus during Christmas than any other time of the year. It’s all about him to the point that it can become nothing about him!
I remember being at a hospital one time to visit someone from the church I was pastoring. The patient had another visitor there at the same time, who was there…supposedly to encourage the patient, but the visitor monopolized all of the conversation and made it all about herself, even though she was in the room of the patient who needed attention.
Interesting, and disturbing.
Christmas is so much about Jesus, that it can become nothing about Jesus.
Last week our senior adults’ bible study was sharing what makes Christmas special to each one of them. One couple said that a tradition that they have that remains in a sacred time space is the reading of the Christmas story from scripture on Christmas Eve. Everything else is put on pause, all activity ceases, in order for the story of God Incarnate to be heard once again.
Perhaps that’s where we might start this year. In the midst of the fruitcake and wrapped presents, set aside some space…some time…for the scripture story to be heard once again.
I am such a radical optimist that I think the massiveness of the Christmas season won’t deluge upon us in some ways. I mean I almost have to use a forklift just to carry the Sunday paper in a couple of those weeks. I know it’s not that there has been a great increase in the news. The Gazette is on a sliding scale- as the rpice goes up the amount of news goes down. No…I know that the bulk is because a multitude of stores want to entice me to think that my life will not be complete without a visit to their crammed aisles in the coming days. The massiveness of Christmas surrounds me.
But maybe I can create some space for Jesus.

It that crazy!

WORDS FROM W.W. November 29, 2010

This is my tenth year of officiating high school basketball. Some might say that I’m a glutton for punishment.
Probably!
From November until March I attend Monday night meetings with other basketball officials. The meetings always include tips and instruction on certain aspects of officiating. We look at film clips, talk about basketball plays that could go either way. In officiating there are moments of uncertainty. There are moments where, simply put, we aren’t sure. “Was the defender there in time or was it a blocking foul on him?” “Was the ball released before the buzzer, or after?”
It occurs to me that the lives of most followers of Jesus are interjected with those moments of uncertainty as well. The uncertainty originates in our own minds and hearts that experience the void of wonder. It begins in the midst of a gray day. It commences in an unsettling conversation. It whispers in an illness that rocks us.
Sometimes the uncertainty is ever so slight. I’ve found myself thinking despicable thoughts about someone, and then the guilt and shame of what only I know is harvested in doubts that God could love someone so wicked.
Ministry is infected with uncertainty. People leave the church we pastor and we become uncertain about our calling to pastor. A Sunday sermon comes out passionless and we wonder if God is calling us to apply at Walmart. Each week carries with it a multitude of work details and we become uncertain as to which is more important, or more urgent.
In other words, the calling carries with it the ball and chain of uncertainty.
Let it be said, however, that God is never uncertain. Even when I’m doubting his interest in my life it never affects the heightened interest that he already has in it. Even when I’m skeptical that grace could be given so freely, he never changes the consistency of his intense compassion.
There will continue to be those moments of uncertainty in our walk with the Lord. It’s not a ripple effect of a diminishing commitment to our Lord, but rather a stain from our fallen creation.

WORDS FROM W.W. November 16, 2010

In my lifetime I’ve had a few of the pocket New Testaments that the Gideon’s distribute. They were convenient. You could slide one of them into one of your Wrangler Jean’s back pockets and run lickety split out the front door. My brother-in-law is a Gideon, and I’m sure he could probably tell me how many of those pocket Bibles have been given out over the years.
Convenient. There are some pretty smart people in the Gideon’s organization that figured out a long time ago that handing out Bibles the size of your living room coffee table probably wouldn’t be very effective.
With the Gideons it makes sense. After all, the goal is to put scripture into people’s hands.
There’s a trend in the church, however, to “pocket” everything. That is, making everything convenient to the point that God is about serving our every whim and whine.
If we were in the Upper Room it means that we’d stick our feet out so Jesus could not only wash them, but also give our toes a pedicure.
The culture of Christianity has taken on a strong element of putting Jesus in our pocket. Pocket Jesus! Sounds like a new Ronco product that you can pick up at Walgreen’s, located in the same aisle as the Chia Pet and Snuggies.
In his book Transforming Church, Kevin Ford writes of the danger of creating a culture of consumerism in the church instead of an emphasis on “community.” He writes: “Consumerism is individualism on steroids. It is the logical end product of living for self. Consumerism paves the way for the worship of self, and self-worship leaves us alone with the object of our devotion.” (Transforming Church, page 59)
Consumerism whispers that Jesus is at my disposal. He’s right there in my pocket to pull out when I need a little assistance. He’s that cross that I pull out if I run into any vampires. He’s the ointment for inconvenience. If I’ve made a mess of a situation he’s the “spot remover” to make it all go away. He’s duct tape for a tear. He’s prayer tonic for a bad hair day.
All of those things take their origin from a mindset that says Jesus is under my control, Jesus is there when it suits me personally. But you see, the Lordship of Christ can’t fit into a “Pocket Jesus”. Our Savior took our sins upon him, but recognizing Jesus as Lord is an entirely different understanding of his purpose, his relationship with each one of us, and who answers to who.
“Pocket Jesus” indicates a temporary interest, a fad, a craze.
Our storage closets are filled with some of our past “crazes.” They were useful and interesting for a time, but they gradually worked themselves into “has-beens”.
“Lord Jesus” is what that pocket New Testament proclaims. “Pocket Jesus” is what we often relegate him to.

WORDS FROM W.W. November 1, 2010

This week begins a new experience for me. I’ve traditionally taken Monday as my day off, and gone back to the hyperness of another week Tuesday morning. In recent months I’ve found that Monday is not a slowing down day, but rather a day of hyperness that just happens to be around the house instead of at the church or hospital or wherever ministry is taking place. In other words, I’ve had difficulty slowing the engines. Finding quiet moments is more of a personal choice issue than a ministry or vocation issue. I too often choose to race by the slow zones of my day and come to the point of depletion by my own doing.
“Slowing down” is hard.
Last week I was in one of the big warehouse stores buying a 50 pound bag of popcorn seed (In case you’re wondering, it was for the church!). In front of me at a register was an elderly couple. After a few moments I knew this was going to be a time of “waiting”, but I stayed in the line. The elderly gentleman got his credit card out, but then realized it was his insurance card instead. He was confused, and I could tell he was a little embarrassed by his slowness in the transaction. He turned to me and said, “I’m sorry that I’m taking so long.” It was one of those God-moments that was pressing in on my spiritual oblivion. I had just been in a conversation the day before about slowing down with someone I mentor. I looked at the elderly gentleman and said, “No problem! Too many people in this world are in too much of a hurry.” (Myself included!) When he finished his transaction he turned to apologize to me again. I told him it was all right, and then said “I hope you have a great day.” He smiled at me in a way that said he needed to hear that.
Our weeks are often categorized as “A quiet moment before a frantic pace.” Soon the pace swallows the quiet moment and simply leaves us either restless or un-rested. My pace has invaded my writing time this past month. The repercussion of that is that my writing time is also a period of reflection for me. It gives me the opportunity to sit, ponder, meditate, write-delete-rewrite, think again, and come to that point where I sense a point of release and peace as I hit the “Send” button.
So tomorrow, as will be my Tuesdays for the coming weeks, the people that I serve as pastor are graciously allowing me to devote to writing, praying, and reflecting. It’s not that publishing companies will come clamoring to my door to discover the next Hemingway. I have no fantasies about ever publishing anything else. I simply am looking forward to pronounced quiet reflection with no deadlines. There are times that I sense there is something inside my being that needs to be verbalized on paper. It’s as if it is in me, but needs to be discovered. As a pastor, I look for the message that is within me each week. The Creator keeps creating in my spirit. I trust that he will now help me create some sense of some of the other life-stuff that roams around in my thoughts.

I’m amazed at obedient dogs!

I’m talking about the Golden Retriever who sits and waits until his master tells him to come. This morning as I was driving out of our subdivision there was a man with his beagle “having a moment” on the street corner. The beagle sat with his eyes on the master in front of him. I don’t know how long they stayed there. I didn’t want to sit and stare and their “moment together.”
Of course, there’s other canines that flunk the test. I don’t know if ADHD is a condition that some dogs have, but…man! They need to watch a few Rin Tin Tin episodes.
I haven’t written anything for a couple of weeks now. I’ve had other things to take care of, but it’s also been a “waiting time.”
I good friend of ours, who we dearly miss, used to balance a cookie on his dog’s nose, and tell “Chaps” to “Wait…wait…wait…okay!” I’ve been waiting and waiting, but there hasn’t been a cookie on my nose.
I’m not very talented in the “waiting department”, but waiting is part of the intimacy with our Lord. In our church right now there are a few ladies (My oldest daughter being one of them!) who are in a waiting period. It’s better known as pregnancy. The waiting allows the expectancy level to continue to rise. It includes uncomfortableness, anxiety, morning sickness, or “all-day sickness”, joy, preparation. Growth happens each day. From one ultra-sound to the next the expectant parents see the development of the child within.
It’s all waiting…until the birth experience to a new time.
There are many times in during that pregnancy that the mother wishes the tape could be fast-forwarded to the end; and yet, something would be lost in the richness of that “moment” is that took place.
Waiting…
Not many of us are good at it. Just wait for a moment behind someone who is sitting at a green light, but not moving. When that happens to me I start quivering, unless it’s someone on a cell phone oblivious to the world. Then, I get angry!
If I could interview anyone I might choose the 33 Chilean milers. I’d like to ask them if they experienced different stages of waiting, different thoughts and emotions as one day spread to a week, and a week spread to a month. Did “waiting” become like a companion with them? Did any of them come to a different place in their faith, even as they sat in the same place? What kind of faith-questioning moments did they deal with?
Some may say that God draws close to us in our waiting. I believe God is close to us whether we’re in the midst of a frenzied pace, or waiting in an underground tunnel. I’m coming to the point where I believe the waiting moments of life will either cause our heart to cry out to God more, or we’ll scream in protest as we turn away from Him.
Waiting will not leave us in the same place.

P.S. I’m going to go get my cookie now, God!

WORDS FROM W.W. September 20, 2010

I was reading an article recently that consisted of an interview with Alan Hirsch, regarded as being at the forefront of a movement in the thousands of congregations today called “missional churches” or “missional ministry.”
Hirsch makes the point that the church is declining in attendance and needs to find different ways to speak and new innovative forms of “church.” He writes that almost all churches in our country are “attractional” in their nature. In that form they are attracting 40% of the population. It doesn’t mean that 40% of the population is attending church; it just means that 40% will entertain the possibility of attending. That means that 60% of the population aren’t interested in the attractional form.
That’s hard for us who were raised in the church, and have been attending church our whole lives, to hear. Hirsch’s point is that it doesn’t matter whether a church is contemporary in it’s worship, offers a Saturday night service, serves gourmet coffee, and has a paid professionally staffed praise band. We’re drawing from the same percentage of the pie…the 40% piece. In essence, the church’s addiction for being attractive to our culture has made it, ironic as it sounds, more unattractive to many of the people who need to be introduced to Jesus the most.
In going back to Acts 2 in recent weeks, and looking at the beginnings of the first church, I’m struck by the fact that they were Christ-centered. That might sound like a simplistic statement, but it might also be what churches today are missing. We’ve focused so much on what the wrapping paper looks like that we’ve smothered the Christ-child on the inside. The early church was willing to risk being unattractive to the culture if that’s where God was leading them to go.
I agree with this statement that Hirsch makes:
“ I was trained in a formal liturgical tradition, where I got the impression that we were meant to be helping people make life decisions and telling them how to live their lives. It’s exhausting if you make decisions for everyone. I really sense God is saying, “You’re not meant to tell people how to live. That’s my job. Your job is to introduce people to Jesus and a true understanding of who Jesus is. You don’t have to control their lives.” And I find that incredibly liberating. When I play Holy Spirit, I usually do a very, very bad job.”
The Cross will never be known for its attractiveness, but it will always be a sign that points to a true understanding of Jesus. If we don’t wrap it up in that thin department store tissue-like paper that results in both hiding it and protecting it, but rather let it speak the truth it holds…our purpose, individually and collectively, will be fulfilled.