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The Worship of Excellence

May 18, 2015

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                              May 18, 2015

                                  

Our church strives to do things the best we can in worship of our Lord, but I could write a book on the number of times when we have fallen short of excellence. Here’s a few examples:

-We are a Baptist church that has had a baptistry that kept leaking…bad! One baptism Sunday there was hardly enough water in it to qualify the person to be a Methodist, let alone a Baptist. One memorable Christmas Eve we baptized people in the inflatable pool of my grandkids that was shaped to look like a whale…including the tail! Joe, one of the people being baptized, and I still joke about him getting baptized in the belly of a whale.

-One Easter Sunday we had the wrong video shown. Instead of a nice beautiful melody that made the resurrection sound celebrate (which it is!) we had a video of heavy metal music that I’m pretty sure mentioned Satan and demon worship a few times. Awkward!

-A couple of people have done special music who missed more notes than hit them.

-People still remember my “oops” slip in a sermon when I referenced giving out “Lady Godiva” chocolates. Red face!

-I’ve led the reciting of The Lord’s Prayer a couple of times and I gone blank on the words. When the pastor stops midway through the prayer the silence becomes like a wave moving though the congregation.

In many ways we are a Lake Wobegon congregation!

We strive for our best, but often miss excellence.

And yet, I’m okay with that. People put their hearts and souls into using the gifts God has given them, and if that falls short of a concert hall experience…that’s okay.

Our culture…and especially church culture…worships excellence. It worships the seamless flow of worship where “dead time” is almost non-existent, and people can marvel at the precision, the timing, the carefully manuscripted event.

There is a difference between a worship experience and the worship of excellence. The first is about an encounter with God that stirs the soul. The second is a production that is a delight to the senses. One is spirit-moving and the other is foot-stomping. One gives us the feeling that God is seeing the condition of our heart and the other is a taste treat for our eyes.

The worship of excellence is like a glass of evening wine that is satisfying for a few moments with our feet propped up as we sit in the recliner. A worship experience is “new wine” that quenches the thirst of my soul.

We worship excellence. The difficulty is that the worship of excellence is prone to have grace evicted. Sometimes church culture is a mirror image of a professional football stadium crowd who break out into the booing of their team that is falling short of excellence in a contest. Very rarely is anyone on the field giving less than their best effort, but pro football fans have a tendency to check their forgiveness at the door…or after the third beer!

Worshiping excellence leads us to critical spirits where less than perfection is not tolerated. The worship of excellence does not allow students and interns who are still trying to figure out and be perfect. Worshipping excellence is about keeping score like Olympic gymnastics judges.

Worshipping excellence becomes deaf to prophetic voices. The words of Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel would not gain a hearing in a gathering of excellence worshippers.

There are those who have been gifted by God in the leading of people into a worship experience that will be remembered as being excellent…and we thank God for those he has so incredibly gifted. A gifted worship leader will always lead people to God, not to an experience.

In my office are several “drawings” from my grandkids. They will never be in an art studio, pinned to a wall with quality lighting on them to bring out the vibrancy of the colors, but they are works of art that bring delight to a grandfather’s heart…more meaning to me than a Rembrandt, and even more understandable than a Picasso.

Sometimes we encounter a display of love, such as that, and we respond “Excellent!”

Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
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Extended Grace

July 10, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                          July 10, 2013

 

                                           “Extended Grace”

 

I met yesterday with a group of pastors that I journey with half a day once a month. It’s a intimate group of five. We begin each session with a time of reflective reading of scripture, reading through it three times, and noticing something that speaks to us in the text each time it is read.

Yesterday the text came from James 4:1-10. The text could justifiably be summed up with the words “Get your act together!” It’s a little on the lecture side…lecture, as in standing in the midst of the principal’s office and being told the deeds just committed will not be tolerated.

Frequent words used in the scripture include “don’t”, “do not”,  and “can’t”. 

But in the midst of the reading of the holy riot act, these words appear: “But he gives us more grace. (James 4:6a, NIV)

Our group noted that our tendency, which the text hints at, is to be selfish and self-centered. The foot washing act of service by Jesus in the Upper Room is uncomfortable for most of us if it is not planned ahead of time. If we know it’s coming we’re able to rev up our piousness enough to lower ourselves to our knees. But when that opportunity for surrender and humbleness comes unannounced the reception is often cooler than Saskatchewan in early December.

It seems from the text that our God knows of our tendency to yield to no one. He knows that we can talk the walk. We can even walk the walk with others, but walking the walk at the pace of others is another thing. A couple of weeks ago I was walking in an airport terminal and I came upon an elderly woman being pushed in a wheelchair by an attendant. The terminal hallway had narrowed. My first thought was to speed by, but then I thought “I’ve got four hours until my flight leaves.” So I strolled slowly behind them…but I was taken back by how many people rushed to get by the lady who could no longer rush. Perhaps some people were rushing to get to connecting flights, but, honestly, I’m sure most were rushing because the wheeled occupant was slowing down their self-absorption.

And the amazing and even perplexing thing about God is that he knows our selfish ways…and he gives us more grace!

I would think he would set a grace limit. We would! We would be willing to ride grace for a while, but pretty soon we’d put that pony back in the barn. Like a pair of shoes that don’t fit snuggly, we’re only willing to wear grace for so long.

But grace is a garment that God never discards. It becomes a representative feature of who he is, like whenever I see or smell a pipe I think of my Uncle Bernie.

Could it be that when we think of grace we automatically think of God? Of course, whether we think of it or not, God will continue to extend it. He doesn’t need our approval. He just would like us to accept it!

Categories: Bible, Christianity, Faith, Freedom, Grace
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Basketball Is Basketball

June 26, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                           June 25, 2013

 

On our second full day in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic one of the things that has become evident is that “basketball” is a universal language. As we teach it and play it with the people of Herrera, and we struggle to know the Spanish language, basketball is understood by all. When I played a game of three-on-three and got teamed up with two Dominicans we all understood “pick and roll” without saying a thing. We understood “give and go” without opening our mouths.

Basketball has therefore become a way of connecting when words fail us. It’s the bridge over the confusion.

The first two days of camp I have used fundamental skills and teachings of the game of basketball to proclaim the truth about God. Yesterday I used the perfect positioning of our hands on the basketball when we shoot it to talk about the perfect positioning that God’s hands have on our lives. Today I used an illustration about an impossible shot made possible to talk about how God can take something that in impossible for us to do and make it possible.

Basketball has become the filter to talk about the relational gospel. Tomorrow I will use another situation from the game of basketball to help me convey the truths of grace and forgiveness.

Herrera can be a depressing place to live in. We’ve seen some things here this week that none of us have ever seen before. The school we’re at, Grace School, is a beacon of hope in an area that many several years ago was rendered hopeless. Now the school is held in high regard by the community because the community has seen so many lives redirected and transformed.

One of the young guys who has been at basketball camp this week is named Christopher. His father is imprisoned right now, charged with a very serious crime. Christopher has been devastated by the loss of his dad in his daily life. His attendance at camp has been a time of happiness for him. Sydney Cunfer, a 15 year old exceptional young lady on our team, said to me last night, “We should pray with Christopher before we leave here.” I told her that we would look for that opportunity to happen.

Basketball has provided that opportunity to care, to connect, and be used by God to come alongside.

I’m learning so many lessons this week about my “middle-classism”, about how privileged, probably over-privileged, I am. That things I have come to expect are not necessities. That what I think is a need is really just a want.

I’m learning how to say certain Spanish words…and struggle in saying other words, but more about that tomorrow.

Praise the Lord for basketball, and the chance to talk in a same language with kids who we have come to love.

Categories: children, Christianity, Faith, Grace, Jesus, love, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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Taking A Page From Abercrombie and Fitch

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
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Grace and Mayberry

February 5, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                      February 5, 2013

 

My barber’s name is Phil Hanson. I began going to him a few years ago because a distinguished elderly man in our church, Charles Slusser, always had such a nicely-groomed head of white hair. One day I finally asked Charles where he got his hair cut and he pointed me in Phil’s direction. Phil is now 78 years old, but so far he hasn’t cut anything on my head but hair. The reason I have continued to go back to him again and again is because he reminds me of “Floyd” of Mayberry, hometown setting for “The Andy Griffith Show”.  I want my barber to be more like Floyd and less about style.

Phil has a loyal customer base of mostly older gentlemen who come more for the conversation and less about a cut. Floyd was like that, too. He may have been the only barber in Mayberry, but his shop was a place of conversation.

But, like most of the characters on Andy Griffith, Floyd required some grace. He, Goober, Gomer, Howard, Otis, and especially Barney Fife, all had their stumbles and bumbles. Their talent for doing boneheaded things was the basis for most of the 249 episodes of the series. Otis tried and failed to get sober numerous times. Barney carelessly first his pistol more than once. Even Aunt Bee needed grace in a few episodes.

For some reason Mayberry didn’t hold grudges. Forgiveness found a home there. (My favorite is the episode entitled “Citizen’s Arrest! Citizen’s Arrest!”) In a majority of the episodes Andy at some time would shake his head in disbelief and say, “Bar…ney!” By the time the thirty minute show was over, however, all had been forgiven.

Perhaps our world needs a little more Mayberry, and less of “The Real World.” Grace seems to be harder to come by these days as people seek their corner in the ring before they come out swinging.

Jesus was very gracious when it came to his disciples. Kind of like Andy Griffith dealing with his cast of Mayberry characters, Jesus dealt with men who wanted to know who would be greatest in the kingdom of heaven, wondered why they couldn’t cast out demons, doubted the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, and weren’t sure what was going on a lot of the time.

I sometimes have to step back and realize that the picture I have of Jesus is one where he is battling with the Pharisees, or getting perturbed with the teachers of the Law. My picture needs to be updated with the Jesus of grace. He had the first group of trail-and-error followers. There was not a manual for them to follow, so they needed to follow Jesus closely…and sometimes they messed it up.

I think the church needs to be more like Mayberry, a place of grace. There’s a little bit of Floyd, Otis, Barney, and Aunt Bee in each one of us. A bit of waywardness, cluelessness, and falling short in various ways. The church is a cast of characters trying to get it together, but knowing there may be an episode next week that will cause some head-shaking.

Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Grace, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
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Grace at Walmart

April 23, 2012

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                 April 23, 2012

 

Bobby pulled into a crowded Walmart parking lot. Walmart was not one of his favorite places to visit. He wasn’t a crowd kind of guy. As he navigated his way down one of the lanes he spied a wide space that he’d be able to turn his Chevy pick-up truck into. As he approached, however, a Honda Civic coming from the other direction sped up and then turned right in front of Bobby to take the space. Bobby had slowed to a stop to let the Civic go by before making the wide turn to get into the spot.

A thirty-something woman jumped out of the car, and walked right by Bobby, who was still sitting in the same spot he was before she turned in front of him. She didn’t even look in his direction, but just kept walking to the store entrance. The started guy in the truck shook in head in disbelief, and then proceeded to an open spot about thirty yards further down the parking lot.

He walked into the store still muttering to himself, grabbed a basket to put the four things he was buying into, and proceeded to the aisle that sold mustard and mayonnaise. It took him a while to find the baby wipes. His wife usually did the shopping, and having to pass the aisle that had fishing rods and reels took an extra unplanned five minutes, but finally after close to fifteen minutes he had the four items he came for, plus a bag of chips that somehow got into his basket. He headed to the speedy check-out lane. As he was approaching, the Civic lady was coming from the other direction, and she seemed to be on a mission. She got to the lane right about the same time Bobby did, and once again turned in front of him- except this time she was driving a shopping cart.

Bobby knew that he could react in several ways. One would be to confront her. The other extreme to that would be to yield to her. He chose to yield.

The red-haired woman started tossing items from her basket onto the counter, but after putting several items there the check-out cashier said to her, “Ma’am, this lane is for orders of twelve items or less.”

If she would have had thirteen or fourteen, that would be one thing, but she clearly had close to twenty. The woman’s mouth dropped open. She looked troubled and perplexed.

Bobby had an opportunity to see justice rendered. The next few moments could cause him to break into applause, or react differently.

He thought of a recent experience where he was the beneficiary of a random act of kindness. There was no reason for him to even be involved in a solution to the situation, but…

“Excuse me, ma’am! Would you like to put six or seven of your items with mine? We can figure out afterwards how much you owe me.”

The woman who had caused him to mutter to himself, and question his salvation, looked at him, and her troubled facial expression suddenly changed.

“You would do that for me?”

“No problem!”

“Thank you! You don’t know what this means to me!”       They divided up her items, and ended up with each one of them checking out twelve. In the parking lot they took a moment to calculate what she owed him.

“I appreciate what you just did for me. I’m having kind of a bad day, and it seems like everything is a fog for me. My sister was just diagnosed this morning with breast cancer and I guess I’m a little shook. I didn’t know how to react to the news so I got in my car and came to Walmart. I don’t even remember where I parked.”

“Over here,” said Bobby, pointing her towards her Civic.

“How did you know?” the lady asked with a confused look on her face.

“Well…this is kind of embarrassing…but you cut me off when you pulled into the parking space.”

“Oh…I’m sorry! Why did you help me in the check-out lane? You could have gotten some revenge watching me with my excess baggage standing there with my mouth open.

“Each of us needs a touch of grace in our lives.”

Bobby detected tears running down the lady’s cheeks. She looked away, got her composure back, and then looked back at him and said, “Thank you!”

“Have a great day,” Bobby said to her as he started walking away.

The woman- Penny was her name- got into her Civic, sat there shedding tears that were a mixture of sadness and blessing. It wasn’t until she put the key into the ignition that it occurred to her she hadn’t paid the gracious stranger. She jumped out of the car and ran up and down the parking aisles, but the man was gone.

“Perhaps,” she thought to herself, “there are angels!”

Categories: Christianity, Faith, Parenting, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
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Messy Conversations

August 31, 2011

WORDS FROM W.W. August 30, 2011

I’m speaking this coming Sundays on “Messy Conversations”, and I have to tell you…I’m a little anxious! I’m praying that God will work through me to not create a mess, but to proclaim the possibilities “in our messes.”
There’s a a growing chasm in our culture between “opposites.” They say that opposites attract. Maybe with magnets that’s true, but in regards to our belief systems, values, and opinions, recent history has shown the…”opposite!”
The ongoing political campaigns are an example. What we see on TV, and the internet, is usually people on opposite sides of the canyon throwing rocks at one another. Everyone seems to think they are right and the opposite side is wrong that very seldom do you hear of the possibility that each side has some of the right.
Messy conversations are those situations where my need to make you see the error of your ways is not as important as hearing what you are basing your belief on. Our conversation is somewhere in the middle of the mess.
Jesus didn’t feel a need to be right. Well, okay…he was always right, but it’s not what drove him. He showed a consistent habit of giving value to those who had lost their voice- a woman dragged to him under a charge of adultery, a tax collector of minimal stature, a woman who had a feminine condition that caused her humiliation.
There aren’t too many families that have not been touched by either an unwanted pregnancy, a drug-dependent relative, an alcoholic uncle, a “prodigal son” child, a job-terminated kin, or a marriage gone south. All of us have messy conversations that we are connected to.
It would be nice to think that walking closely with Jesus keeps our lives feel of such pain, but each of us knows that’s not true. The messy conversations of life often cause us to rush to the feet of Jesus in our grief and pain, and seek his leading when we have no words to say.
If our walk with Jesus created a force field around us protecting us from the chaos of this world, perhaps our congregations would all require parking lot attendants to help with the overflow.
One of the telling points of a church is whether or not it can be a community of grace in the midst of the messy conversations. Rigidity tilts the slide towards legalistic righteousness, which is okay until you’re the one needing grace.
Some might be concerned that I’m hinting that there are no absolutes. There are absolutes. There are absolute truths that I am firmly committed to, but I am also firmly committed to the uncomfortable conversations with my opposites.

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Speed Traps and Grace

June 30, 2011

WORDS FROM W.W. June 30, 2011
A few blocks from our church building an unmanned police speed van has been parked one or two days each week. It’s driven to the spot around 7:00 in the morning and left there for the rest of the morning and afternoon. This nifty vehicle, that was created in the back of someone’s dark mind, takes a picture of any speeding vehicle that happens to unsuspectingly go zooming by.
If I can use the word “unfair” in this situation it’s in regards to the fact that the van is parked at the bottom of a hill. There is a slight curb as people come down to the hill. After the curb there’s another two hundred yards or so before reaching the bottom of the hill.
According to the law the expensive photo gifts that the drivers receive is legal. The speed limit is 35, and if you’re going 42…downwards!…that’s your problem. Unmanned police speed vans don’t understand grace. It eats into the city revenue.
It should be at about this time that many of you are expressing your sympathies for the speeding ticket I received. Except…I didn’t get one! I did, however, notice a number of other people having flashes go off as they were braking. Pausing at a red light just a block away from the speed trap I saw eight flashes in the span of one red light.
Let’s see….eight times $125 (estimate)…that’s $1,000 in about thirty seconds. Why doesn’t the police department order more of these revenue makers?
As I said, unmanned police speed vans don’t understand grace.
I’ve noticed a lot of people don’t understand it as well.
Some expect it, but don’t offer it.
Others stretch it like a size 44 trying to squeeze into a 34 waist. How far can it be taken without splitting at the seams?
A forty-four never looks good in a thirty-four, but someone will try to make it happen. (Stay at a distance from anyone who is trying to do that!)
A Christian who believes in grace as it pertains to him, but becomes judicial in its application to others is a contradiction in terms, but, unfortunately, also too common.
We have a habit of reading grace into Scripture as it pertains to us, but seeing it as a possibility in others requires a reach that is hard to extend. Grace is for my speeding vehicle, but at other times I’m the police speed van rigid in my situation assessment.
Absolute law!
When will we live in absolute grace?
“Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors!”

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