Posted tagged ‘rhythm’

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Dancing Grandkids

November 26, 2017

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                      November 26, 2017

                                        

When the music starts our three grandkids start gyrating! Uninhibited, and often bordering on spasmodic, they dust the wood floor in the living room with their socked feet.

On Thanksgiving Day, after feasting on casseroles, turkey, rolls, and pie they took to center stage and worked off dinner to the music of Imagine Dragons “Thunder.” The oldest, Jesse, throws himself around like a balloon that is losing air. He puts all of himself into it, sometimes on his feet and other times on his belly or back.

Reagan, the middle child, leans towards “princess ballerina” moves, graceful and calculated. She keeps her distance from her brother’s widespread routine and slows down the pace to savor each moment.

Corin, the two year old, moves her hips like a hula dancer. She goes from standing to falling to standing to falling. For someone her age she has potential…if she can stay clear of her brother’s spinning legs!

They twirl and spin, creating as they go. The audience of grandparents, parents, aunt and uncles watch from the safety of couches and chairs, applauding the effort and energy.

There’s something about kids and dancing that is renewing. It reminds the older audience of days long past when they also swayed and swung to music with no thought of throwing their backs out or breaking an ankle. And so we stand in awe punctuated with chuckles at some new twist in the midst of a series of twists and turns.

Dancing grandkids is a glimpse into the joy of heaven, unreserved delight and total commitment.

Jesus gave us a picture of the importance of being childlike in our living a life of faith when he said “Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” (Luke 18:17, NIV)

Think dancing kids caught up in the rhythm of life.

Jesus is telling us, “Look at your children! Watch them! Learn from them! Dance life with them!” Some of us reply with the excuse, “Lord, I don’t know how to dance!”

And Jesus says, “That’s your problem! You still think dancing is a series of steps and haven’t learned that dancing is an attitude and a release.”

Next time perhaps I’ll dance with the grandkids, but today I’ll simply dance through life.

Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grandchildren, Humor, Jesus, love, Parenting, Pastor, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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The Entitled Church

March 23, 2017

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                 March 23, 2017

                       

     A few days ago I wrote a piece on the entitled church attender. I presented the idea that there are a lot of church attenders who mirror one of our cultural themes as they relate to the church. That is, there is a heightened sense of entitlement, and focus on what the church can do for “me”, as opposed to how I can join a community of believers in service and ministry for Christ.

An old friend of mine responded to that writing with another view that got me thinking. Having lost her husband in the last year she experienced a church that seemed to place its needs above her grieving. She had held a couple of positions within the congregation, and it seemed as if the church was more concerned with her continuing on in the work of those positions than it was in her journey of grief.

She was right on! The shoe is on the other foot this time! There are a number of churches who treat their servants like the Borax Mule Team. The focus is on getting things done, as opposed to being a community of believers who lean on others and are available to be leaned on.

We talked about it quite often in my years of pastoring: burn-out! The exhaustion of the saints and the pastor. It seemed that there was seldom good balance; that it was either the pastor burning the candle at both ends, or the twenty percent of the saints who were doing too much. Sometimes it was the pastor who drove “the mules”, and sometimes it was the church leaders who barked behind the pastor like an army drill sergeant!

Rarely were there situations where the rhythm of the saints and the clergy found a healthy balance.

And so my friend finds herself, after years and years of serving, now wondering about the church. Did it consider her to be like middle-management in a corporation? Did it really care for her, or simply care when it was convenient?

Honestly, that scenario has been played out too many times. Sometimes the church even uses the excuse of the Great Commission to minimize the importance of its messengers! “We’re all about Jesus, so put your pity party on the back burner!”

Entitled churches are simply gatherings of entitled church attenders who have control of the reins!

“Hahh, hahh!” says the guy with the whip riding behind the mules.

Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
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The Chaos of Life’s Delays

November 17, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                       November 17, 2014

                                

     I love snow days…and I hate snow days!

I love the unexpected freedom, the sudden opening up of my day’s schedule, and the surprise of a snow day.

But I hate the loss of rhythm that a snow day brings.

I have discovered that I am a person of routines and consistent behavior. I’m at Starbucks right now as I write this. It’s Monday morning about 9:00 and my day off. If you were to come to Starbucks next Monday at 9:00 you’d stand a very good chance of finding me sitting on one of the stools facing the windows drinking coffee and pecking on my laptop. I feel comfortable integrating certain routines in my life.

If it’s 2:00 on a Sunday afternoon I’ll be napping.

If it’s Wednesday night I’m at church.

If it’s Friday morning at 8:00 there’s a fifty percent chance I’m at a different Starbucks having coffee with Roger and Steve. The chances are only half as good because we meet every other Friday morning.

If it’s 10 P.M. I’m thinking about bed if I’m not already in bed.

I think you get the picture. Life has its patterns and order…and then the thermometer plunges to 0 and chaos blows into the day. Events get canceled, meetings get postponed, there’s a breath of fresh air in the uncluttered day…and I feel lost!

I find myself trying to figure out what day it is, what’s on the schedule, and what I’m about. We are creatures of habit whether we want to admit it or not. If given a choice the Hebrew nation would have chosen to return to Egypt. Egypt offered steady work…yes, also enslaved work, but a person knew when he woke up in the morning what he was going to do that day!

It also makes me wonder about those who become followers of Christ during their adult years, and slip away within months of their conversion. Spiritual transformation for many people is a tremendous change, leaving the old and accepting the new. We use terms like lost and found, “the old has passed away and the new person has been born.”

And yet such terminology, freeing on one hand, is difficult on the other hand. It’s like the ratty blanket that I sleep with each night, and have slept with for about 35 years. It doesn’t really offer that much warmth, but it feels like home.

Conversion, though it offers freedom and forgiveness, a new start, a fresh beginning…is out of rhythm for us.

On the other side, I’ve been a Christ-follower since I was 12. I’ve always gone to church on Sunday. In fact, growing up I was in church Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday night. I thought Sunday night services were mandated by the Bible. I remember asking Dr. James Payson Martin, Senior Pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Arlington Heights, Illinois why the church didn’t have Sunday night services. I was serving there as a youth director while i was in seminary. I’ll always remember what he said to me. “Well Bill, what it takes you Baptists two services to do we can do in one service!” A few years later when I was pastoring at First Baptist Church of Mason, Michigan, I brought Sunday night services to a close.

I’ve always gone to church, been involved in ministries, participated in leadership as a member and pastor. My Sunday morning seems to have gone haywire if I’m not in worship. I don’t quite understand Saturday night services. If I went to one I’d be lost on Sunday morning!

The longer I pastor the more obvious it is that there aren’t many people left who see things like I do. The church is populated with an increasing number of people whose life rhythm is not centered on Sunday morning worship as a consistent part of their lives.

Understand that I’m not whining about that. I’m just coming to grips with what is the reality. My understanding of having a conversion experience is a different picture than most people now have. Being aware of that has given me more of an open mind and listening ear to those who are still trying to find that spiritually healthy rhythm of life.

 

Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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Springing Hope

September 4, 2012

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                              September 4, 2012

Carol and I went to see “Hope Springs” last night. I saw a couple of aunts and uncles from my past in it. It was amusing…and too close to home! It made me ask the uncomfortable question “Is that us?”

If you haven’t seen the movie it is about a couple who have been married for 31 years. They have become…predictable…and emotionally distant even though they live in the same house. It’s the residue of time and routine that have swallowed up their love. The love is there, but it takes an incredible amount of guided effort to rediscover it.

Enough of the plot. I chuckled a lot during the film because I saw people that have been a part of my journey and upraising, but also I saw myself.

There are weeks that come and go as unsurprising as a farm tractor cultivating a corn field row by row. A surprise might be brussel sprouts at dinner, or, this year, a cool day in the summer.

But…I have to say this…there is also some comfort in the predictability. It is comforting to know that some things don’t change. Carol tells me that my color selection in what I’m wearing is not good. She also knows that Saturday nights are usually restricted times as I struggle with finishing up the Sunday sermon. I know that she enjoys playing “Spades” on-line. A pause in a phone conversation with her is a hint that she is in the midst of a tight game. She knows that I snore and has the freedom to kick me in the middle of the night. Bruises on my body are not a sign of spousal abuse, but rather a night of deep sleep and kicks with more effort behind them. One of us often ends up in the middle bedroom because of restlessness, snoring, intestinal issues, back pain, or trying to finish a book before sleep enters the picture. I am moved by how she engages and cares for kids. She is thrilled by former players that I’ve coached who come up to me in a store, or on the street, and initiate a conversation.

There is a routine in our lives that is good, even as we search for new opportunities. This summer we took a two day vacation. I know…I know…two days…ooo, big spender! But it was a great two days. We went to Vail and just relaxed, walked, explored, rested, ate, slept. Two days was too short, but it was good!

And then it was back to our routine.

We have a good life, a blessed life! It is filled with random moments of the touch of God, the soothing of our souls.

It’s things like our grand-daughter, Reagan, chasing our frazzled cat, Princess Malibu, around the house like a greased watermelon that is never quiet in the grasp. It’s taking Carol with me whenever I have clothes to buy, or never questioning the hint of going with her because dress shirts are on sale at Dilliards’s. It’s being comfortable with the fact that “if it’s cooked on the grill” it’s my job, and if it’s cooked in the oven it’s her domain. It’s helping her step down from the terraced garden in our backyard. It’s telling her what is going on in a ball game because her eyesight is not good.

I suppose you could say that there is a rhythm in our routine, a sense of feeling so fortunate in the midst of all the ways we have been blessed.

I know that I am not James Bond, but I also want to be a little bit to the left of my dearly departed Uncle Milliard.

A little adventure while I stand watering the front yard.

Tonight I’m going to take my bride of thirty-three years for a walk.

Maybe we’ll even hold hands…as we’re in the crosswalk!

Categories: Christianity, Faith, Grace, Humor, love, marriage, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized
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