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The “Meh” Birthday

May 4, 2025

“The sun comes up, and the sun goes down,
    then does it again, and again—the same old round.” (Ecclesiastes 1:5, The Message)

Tomorrow, I hit 71! My brother tells me it’s one of those “Meh” birthdays. It’s hard to get excited about it. It’s like ordering vanilla at Baskin-Robbins. Who does that??? Probably 71-year-olds.

I tried to find a scripture that would help me understand “meh-ism”, but all I found were numerous references in Proverbs about being a sluggard, getting spit out of Jesus’ mouth for being lukewarm (Revelation), and making the best use of my time because we live in evil times (Ephesians).

“Meh moments” hit all of us. Next year’s 72 will have a bit of entertainment to me, since I graduated from Ironton High School in ’72.’ On the other hand, each birthday reminds me of the fact that more of my Fighting Tigers classmates are no longer fighting. Their fight has ended.

Kind of a dreary thought.

I find it harder these days to battle through the “meh-ism” than the more intense difficulties of lower back pain, athletes I’m coaching who need their attitude adjusted, driving in the midst of psycho drivers, and managing my hunger for fried foods as my cholesterol level is screaming at me.

Some days, I’m like Simon Peter after Jesus has been crucified. He’s at a loss as to what to do, so he goes back to fishing because…”What else is a guy to do?”

My roots watered with Baptist guilt, shower upon me disbelief in how I have just wasted a whole day without getting anything constructive done. On “Meh Days”, a person tends to keep asking, “Why? What’s the point?”

I know, I know, I’m sounding like a paraphrase of Ecclesiastes. Hitting 71, however, gives me a new perspective on the subject of meaninglessness. Tomorrow is my birthday…and it just is.

I think hitting 71 will tell me that it’s okay to sigh, to not be as excited as a Colorado Rockies every time they unexpectedly win a game, or also as depressed as the same fans on the regularity of their defeats. It’s okay to trust that the Master will guide me through the day, to nor have to always be behind the steering wheel. dictating to Him like an Uber driver on the clock.

As it also says in Ecclesiastes 1, “There is a time for everything…a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away…a time to love and a time to hate.”

Tomorrow is just…a time. Another day, I will lean on Jesus to pull me through.

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Avoiding Saturday

April 27, 2025

 “The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. “Sir,” they said, “we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.” (Matthew 27:62-64)

Recently, I was joking with a friend who attends a mega-church. They were having two Saturday evening services and three services on Easter Sunday. I asked him if they changed the words to the Resurrection Sunday songs they sing for the Saturday services, like “He’s Almost Risen” and “He Lives…in a While.”

Actually, he and his wife are a part of a very good congregation that does a ton of service in the community. I’m just a stickler for tradition, like celebrating Jesus’ resurrection on the day of the week that the stone was rolled away and the tomb was empty.

Sorry to be such a “Debbie-downer”, but going deeper (or perhaps backing up), it seems that part of the death and resurrection of Jesus’ story, the part we tend to skate over, is the silence of Saturday after the agony of Friday. Holy Saturday was a day of waiting.

We don’t wait well. We don’t like silence. We don’t like uncertainty. Holy Saturday was a day of all three. It’s easy to skip ahead to the flowery, Easter-lily-ied, dress-up-in-our-Easter-suits-and-dresses day when the tomb was empty. Empty of the grief and full of expectation.

Saturday would make us think and consider the quiet of our room or, for the disciples, the quiet of the room they were locked inside of. Saturday is more about the misery and confusion of Job. It’s the day when we wrestle with the questions “Why?” and “What now?”

Holy Saturday, however, does not draw a crowd. Unlike the funeral of Pope Francis, people don’t flock to gatherings for contemplation and remembrance.

Pointing the finger back at myself, there have been a number of “Saturdays” in my life that I have tried to avoid. When a friend, ministry colleague, and mentor, Ben Dickerson, had a sudden heart attack and was on life support for several days, it was a “Saturday” journey. We prayed for his restoration. We wanted the tubes attached to his body to be gone and Ben to be back with us. We wanted to have a conversation with him and to have him share what God had been saying to him. The Saturday, however, stretched out into day after day of unfulfilled hope. When I spoke at his funeral, I had a difficult time keeping it together.

That loss is twenty years in the rearview mirror and I still remember it like it was yesterday. Yesterday, like a Saturday.

And yet, the Saturdays of our lives shape us and condition us for our Sundays. Loss is sometimes the prerequisite for gain. Holy silence precedes exultation and transformed lives.

oly SaturdayI’ll continue to razz my friend about the not-quite Easter Sunday services, but not too much. He knows I’m a Baptist. We have a history of making Mother’s Day the third holy holiday and singing eighty-nine verses of “Just As I Am,” after which we leave just as we have been.

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Loser-Friendly Christianity

April 17, 2025

“Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life[a] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?” (Matthew 16:24-26)

Following Jesus is for losers. Seriously, if you are afraid of losing you will end up being a square peg trying to fit on a wooden cross.

Once in a while, when I encounter one of my students who seems to be the center of the universe, I make a point with my finger and draw an imaginary circle around it. Then I say, “Is this you, and is this the world that revolves around…you?” Following Jesus means having Him at the center and my actions, decisions, words, attitudes, schedule, finances, and life revolves around Him. When a person follows Jesus, he loses something.

Jesus accepts losers. The world has a hard time being that merciful.

If there is a downside to that, it’s that the faith community of Jesus accepts people that no one else would…and some of those people use that to their advantage. Advantage means that they are still the center of their universes, and they know that followers of Jesus are suckers for hard-luck stories. Like scam emails about owing money to the state’s toll road system, they sound authentic. Most followers of Jesus have had their heartstrings pulled by a few of the folk who bring tears to our eyes.

Yet, Jesus doesn’t shake His head at us and seem bewildered by the mercy of those who follow Him. His kingdom is populated with those who have lost themselves in finding Him. There is community in this mass of losers.

That doesn’t compute with those whose lives are centered on achievement. In the parable of the prodigal son, the father is trying to get his elder son to understand the reason for celebrating the younger son’s return from waywardness. He says to the older son, who is noticeably peeved at his brother’s return,  “‘My son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’” (Luke 15:31-32)
The church is loser-friendly. When we LOSE sight of that, we lose the connection with our roots and God’s grace.

One more thing! Followers of Jesus need to be sensitive to “evangelistic arrogance.” That is, seeing those who have not experienced the love and grace of God as “second-class losers,” as if they are less of a person and spiritually stupid. That might sound weird, but followers of Jesus can take on the elder son’s perspective and sum up the picture as an “Us and Them” situation.

All of us are lost. It’s just that some of us have been found. We’re called to be friendly to those who are late arriving at the loser-friendly party.



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Traditional Kinda’ Worship

April 13, 2025

Since last August I’ve been serving as interim youth minister at First Baptist Church of Colorado Springs. Each Sunday I teach the youth Sunday school class and then attend the morning worship service.

I like it!

The worship service is a blend of traditional and other “stuff.” The “stuff” includes some creative worship elements that support the theme of the day. For example, today (Palm Sunday), everyone will receive a small palm cross (that was handmade two Sundays ago by the congregation after the post-worship luncheon) and come froward to lay it at the foot of the cross.

I like the involvement of the congregation in various parts of worship. The front of the Sunday bulletin is often a picture that was taken of a previous church event or part of a worship service…a baptism, the sharing of communion, a blessing, two people hugging one another, children laughing…it is very personal and displaying of “congregational life and love.”

There are traditional elements, including the Lighting of the Christ Candle by a congregational member, the singing of one or two hymns (also one or two praise songs), an invocation, and a Call to Worship. Pastor Dan has a great message that speaks to where we are but also brings in the setting of the scripture and how it has been lived out in the history of the church and/or the saints.

Different servers of different generations are the servers of communion each month, from 10-years-old to 90. I’ve noticed that a parent and their teen serve side-by-side. It’s a congregation that honors those who have passed on, as well as those who have moved on. Someone who is moving from Colorado Springs to somewhere else is given “bread for the journey” at the end of a worship service. Someone who has been baptized is given a framed ceritificate with the autographed names of everyone who was in attendance at that Sunday’s worship service.

In other words, there are extra doses of congregational care and connectedness that happen. It’s a needed ingredient for a long-standing (152 years) center city church that has seen a city grow around it.

Every church has its purpose and mission. It has become more challenging for this 70-year-old youth minister to find a place that feeds my inner hunger without feeling stuffy or superficial. There are other places of worship that could double as a concert venue. That’s not my thing, although it fits the needs of many others. On the other hand, there are places where eighty-six verses of “Just I Am” are sung at the close of a worship service with mounting pressure for someone to come to the altar. Not my thing either.

The thing that is often forgotten about worship is that it’s worship OF God, not worship ABOUT ourselves. Worship that is OF God will often have the interesting effect of touching the depths of our soul, while at other times ushering us into His holy presence that leaves us a bit shaken up. Just read the expereinces of the Israelites and the early churches, as well as the not-yet words of Revelation. Worship isn’t traditional, blended, contemporary, or preachy. Worship is just that…worship of the Holy Almighty One who graces and loves us.

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Footwashing

April 5, 2025

“After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.” (John 13:5)

Perhaps the most counter-cultural story in the gospels is when Jesus washes His disciples’ feet. Not that someone washing another person’s feet was uncommon. That’s what servants did for their masters. With the dusty roads of Israel, washing feet was for cleanliness and protection against disease.

But servants did it, not rabbis, or teachers, or…messiahs.

And then Jesus got down on his hands and knees and scrubbed feet. Peter protested, although he never offered to return the favor or take Jesus’s place. In my Kentucky roots, I can hear one of my aunts telling me as I’m getting up from the table to get something from the kitchen, “You sit down there and let somebody else get that for you.”

Jesus didn’t let someone else do it for Him. This was Him. This was a visual lesson on how the gospel is countercultural. In my middle and high school teaching and coaching experiences, having someone take the role of the servant or sacrifice for the team is not a common occurrence. Even Jesus’s disciples had a heated argument about which one of them was the greatest.

At my middle school, one of the ways a student’s bad behavior is dealt with is that he/she spends an hour after school helping one of the custodians clean up. One day, a sixth-grade girl who I had coached in cross-country was helping. I was surprised because she had been excellent this past fall. When I inquired about her, the custodian spoke up and said that she was volunteering to help them two days a week after school. That’s counter-cultural.

Most of us strive for prominence and prestige…top dog…but Jesus flipped the script. Even His entry into Jerusalem prior before the foot-washing episode had people thinking He was coming to be crowned the new king, when He was coming to begin His passion walk.

He flipped the script. Now we might say that “We GET saved by the GIVING of His sacrifice so that we might GIVE as a result of what we have GOTTEN.”

Amen!

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Yes and No, No, No!

March 28, 2025

“All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.” (Matthew 5:37)

My wife and I are used to kids asking for something, like a giant Nerf Dart Gun or a 2-pound bag of M&M’s, and saying no. We’re used to the grandkids doing that now…and we say yes more often than we uttered that word to our kids. We’re even used to the grandkids asking the same question three times and saying, “No, no, yes!”

This week, we listened to a timeshare presentation. For some background, we joined the timeshare “adventure” twelve years ago. We aren’t rookies to the presentation game. Carol and I have sat through so many we’ve got to use our toes in the count now since all our fingers have all been counted. Why? Usually, it’s because we’re receiving two or three additional nights at the resort for a heavily-discounted price. Going to a “60 MINUTE” presentation is part of the agreement.

We listen, learn, make note of the beautiful pictures from places we haven’t visited yet, look at the offer from the time share company that seeks to have us part with more of our money, and then, very nicely say, “We aren’t interested.”

Simple enough. The lady, who is trying to convince us that we’re turning down the best deal in the entire universe, takes the hint and excuses herself to go get the paperwork she needs. We never see her again. A few minutes later, Salesman #2 shows up with an additional sweetening of the deal offer. He tells us that he didn’t like the deal that the first salesperson was offering and shows us a “much better deal!”

We don’t cave. We’ve said no once and now we say no again. The third person shows up a few minutes after that and puts the pressure on. In the process, he’s a bit insulting, as if he was going to make this whole episode as painful as possible.

Third no, and let’s go! The hour presentation tuned into two-and-a-half. It was more painful than the Department of Motor Vehicles, where you take a number and come back sometime in the far distant future.

Jesus said to let your no be no and your yes be yes. In other words, be a person of integrity. Let your word be your word. Stand on it. Honor it. Guarantee the solidness of it. Perhaps that’s become so rare that a timeshare salesperson looking for a commission doesn’t believe it’s possible. Maybe he thought people like my grandfather and father didn’t exist anymore.

Actually, they have passed on, but my wife is still here. When she says no, it means no…unless we’re in Target and the person asking is one of our grandkids. Then she caves in like a Florida sinkhole.

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Volun-told

March 22, 2025


“He directed two of his disciples, “Go into the city. A man carrying a water jug will meet you. Follow him. Ask the owner of whichever house he enters, ‘The Teacher wants to know, Where is my guest room where I can eat the Passover meal with my disciples?’ He will show you a spacious second-story room, swept and ready. Prepare for us there.” (Mark 14:13-15)

There’s a new term that I guess I missed. “Volun-told.”

It’s when no hands go up in the air, and something needs to be done. It’s Jesus saying to a couple of his disciples, “Go…” There’s a task at hand even when there isn’t a raised hand.

At school, whenever I need someone to take the class attendance slip to the office, there are so many students willing to volunteer, it’s like a rush for Taylor Swift concert tickets. Getting out of class for three minutes and strolling down the school corridor is savored by every student halfway interested in the body paragraphs of an essay construction. Heck! I’m interested, but I remind myself that I’m the teacher.

Jesus often “voluntold” his disciples to be about a task. Perhaps it’s because the gospels were written in a different language, but Jesus never said please when telling one of his disciples to do something. The only time he said please was in reference to “pleasing His Father.”

A disciple follows the one who is the teacher and, in doing that, follows the commands of the One directing. There is a trust factor involved in it. The disciple trusts in the guidance of the Leader.

Just my opinion, but I believe churches are populated with people who are waiting to be voluntold what to do. New people in the community of faith are especially in need of being voluntold. They are like the disciples of Jesus, unfamiliar with systems and procedures, needs and wants. Like a sports fan at a new arena searching for the section that his seat is in, they’re willing but uncertain.

On the other hand, there are a few manipulative people in faith communities who are prone to lay guilt trips on those who are a bit uncertain and vulnerable. If a request includes words like, “Jesus would want you to do this…” or “Anyone who calls themselves a Christian wouldn’t hesitate to say yes,” it’s manipulation in full throttle.

Jesus never commanded the disciples to do something that He thought was beyond them, even casting out demons. He raised the bar regarding their capabilities. He maximized their potential. So many followers of Jesus are uncertain of their potential. To be voluntold needs that element of the leader’s faith. In her charge there is the tone that says, “I believe in you!”

To be voluntold is to insinuate that people are on the same team and have the same goals and objectives. Sometimes, the church doesn’t need a committee to decide on how the squeak in the entry door is to be cured. Just tell Jim to do it, and it will get done yesterday!

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The Outward Appearance

February 21, 2025

“You don’t make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true. Just say ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ When you manipulate words to get your own way, you go wrong.” (Matthew 5:36-37)

Coaching basketball at the high school level this year has been challenging at times. I enjoy the time spent improving the skills and game understanding of the freshman and sophomore girls. They’ve made significant strides during the course of the last three and a half months.

One observation that has caused me to shake my head is the team tee shirts that different teams wear that say things like “Never Quit,” “No One Works Harder,” and “Hustle Defines Us.” When the game begins or the practice proceeds, it has often been my experience that the words on the shirt are in contradiction to the play or effort on the court. When little Johnny doesn’t get his shots or the amount of playing time he wants, a more accurate shirt would say, “Selfishness Defines Me” or “It’s Have Attitude Problems.”

Sometimes, the outward appearance is in sharp contrast to the reality of the situation.

Sadly, I find this is also true for a large number of churches. Sometimes, the church marquee that says “All Are Welcome” could be an antonym for what the truth is inside the doors. Grace and peace are two hopes that are often shoved to the side. Social media is the new connection piece for congregations to get their name and look out there. It’s one of the two main ways that people find a church home, the other being as a result of someone who is a part of the church and invites them to join them on a Sunday morning or Saturday night.

The outward appearance is always shiny, populated by smiling faces young and old, and committed to quality products to promote that “All are welcome here” mindset. Once in a while a church lays the truth out there right from the beginning. Like a church I know of back in Ohio that has a long list on their marquee of what defines them: King James Bible, Gospel Preaching, Soul-winning, Fundamentalist, Independent. They tell the truth right up front, more like a barbed wire fence to keep out the riff-raff.

Biblically-speaking, that’s the refreshing point of 1 Corinthians. The Apostle Paul draws a picture for us of the church at Corinth. It would make for a good reality TV series. They’re not very welcoming and considerate. They’re taking each other to court, and their sexual conduct could be defined as “steamy” at best. They’ve been prone to following personalities and displaying a kind of spiritual superiority. It’s a great depiction of what the reality of church life is sometimes.

Not that churches today should put it right out there on their sign: “We sin a lot here and do things that make Jesus cry.” Maybe a nicer way of putting the truth out there is to say something like, “Under Construction and Completely Forgiven.”

Meanwhile, I leave the gym after a game thinking the team shirts are about as accurate as the players’ three-point shooting. I think the shirt should say, “Can’t Throw It in the Ocean!” or “My parents say that defense is optional, but the offense is necessary.” Maybe one boy will have a unique, personalized shirt that says, “The Coach Doesn’t Like Me! That’s why I’m at the end of this bench!”

Those things probably won’t happen because, as we know, “The truth hurts!”

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Bad Wisdom

February 2, 2025

 “After the Lord had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.” (Job 42:7)

In my seven decades I’ve run into a few people who have no common sense, and yet they seem to have this idea that wisdom is their strong suit. It’s their reason for being on earth, their calling. Following their advice would be comparable to a train being redirected onto another track that leads to disaster. A trainwreck, as we call it.

In the Old Testament the majority of the book of Job consists of Job’s “friends” giving their advice and wisdom. Think Lucy Van Pelt of the Peanuts comic strip sitting at a booth with the marquee “Psychiatric Help- 5 Cents.” Job gets peppered by Bildad, Eliphaz, and Elihu. Each takes their swings at him, trying to make him see that everything is his fault…the loss of his kids, his livestock, his servants, even the sores on his body. Job 2:11 says that they “…heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him.“

It’s not that they were trying to be mean and accusatory like the senators at a Senate Hearing. His friends had already made up their minds that bad things happen to bad people or people who have done something bad. Pain and suffering were because the person had stepped out of the boundaries that God had set. Their wisdom was tainted, to begin with. They had bad theology, which always leads to wisdom that is suspect.

At the end of Job’s story, God says to Eliphaz, “I am angry with you and your two friends because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.” (Job 42:7)

The harsh truth is that we live in a culture that is pimpled with bad theology and dumbed-down wisdom. We give an ear to crackpots who can be wordsmiths of ludicrousness. Since our foundational beliefs are wind-driven by the latest cultural myths, we waver and stagger aimlessly.

Job’s friends felt like he had to have an intervention to get him straightened out again. The good news is that Job was solid enough in his relationship with God that he deflected and refuted their dubious directives.

Oh, that our foundation would be solid enough to figure out what is horse manure in a culture that has lost its sense of smell.

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Limiting Faithfulness

January 23, 2025

I well remember them,
    and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind
    and therefore I have hope:

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
    for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.  I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
    therefore I will wait for him.” (Lamentations 3:20-24)

A long-time famous hymn, “Great Is They Faithfulness,” was sung as part of the presidential inauguration festivities. For many years, I have found myself humming the tune of that hymn. It echoes in my mind. Thomas Chisholm wrote the words to it back in 1923, sent them to William Runyan, who was a musician at Moody Bible Institute and editor of the Hope Publishing Company, who put the words to music. The hymn quickly became a favorite of MBI.

The irony, and the history we seek to ignore, is that Thomas Chisholm’s life was filled with crises and valleys. He had health issues that forced him to resign his pastor position. He had financial difficulties as a result of that. Life situations that would have made most people bitter towards God made him more dependent on God. The scripture basis for the hymn was Lamentations 3:23, a pool of hope in the midst of a lake of despair.

As the great hymn was sung this past week, it made me ponder the disturbing and annoying question that pricks me like an itchy pair of winter long johns: Are we willing to sing the hymn when things go our way, or do we have an intimacy with God that believes He is closely with us no matter what the news headlines read? Is His faithfulness evident only when we declare a victory or is it ongoing in the times of plenty and the seasons of drought?

It took the possibilities and the problems of life for Thomas Chisholm to write the hymn, not just the exaltation of a triumph.

I found it interesting that on the day of the inauguration, the College Football Championship Bowl game was played in Atlanta. When Notre Dame marched down the field on their opening drive of the game, a dominant eighteen-play series that had their quarterback, Riley Leonard, diving into the endzone for the score, the camera focused on him. Instead of a touchdown dance routine, he handed the ball to the official and gave a triumphant gesture. However, what I noticed was a scripture reference written on the white athletic tape around his right wrist. The verse was Matthew 23:12.
“For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

It was a message of humility. I’m sure Riley Leonard was disappointed in Notre Dame’s loss that night. Still, I’m sure that he understood the bigger picture: God is faithful in the difficulty of the valleys as well as the exhilaration of the mountaintops.

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