I'm in the process of reading and summarizing a report about what happened in Baltimore last April for the association and conference that our church happens to be a part of. I have watched and became frustrated with the way so many people who claim Christ desire to fist bump Donald Trump as the coming Messiah of the good old U.S. of A, especially with his obvious bigotry and prejudice on display on a regular basis and his ability to spot internet rumor and conspiracy as fact...because we all know what we see on TV and read on the internet is always true... right? I've taken whats her name that wouldn't just do her job and the christians who found it more conducive to wave crosses and play Eye of the TIger and call her a Modern Day martyr for the cause to task for being annoying and cannonizing her as a protestant saint. I realized the pure frustration that a family must have felt when their son was taken into custody for a "bomb" that was obviously not a bomb and that no one really thought was a bomb, given they way they kept everyone in the school etc.
As a pastor it's part of my vocation to speak out about things that the church is doing that hurts the cause of Christ...which in case we were all forgetting is pretty much summed up in our telling people with our words and our actions that God so loved them that he gave his one and only son that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. Love God, Love People that's what we need to be doing.
All of these things I have done. Interspersed throughout those posts and my work as a pastor in Baltimore I have shared some of the hard dark sad parts of what I do, as well as some funny moments that will inevitably happen being a father of three girls.
It's a safe bet that I sit at odds with a lot of people that I know and love in many respects and I'm okay with that.
I write about good things and crappy things, things that encourage me and things that bother me, and so today I'm going to write about something that really bothered me...
When I looked at my news feed I found that Ahmed Mohamed's parents are seeking 15 Million in damages in a law suite against the City and the School system, as well as a public apology.
Don't get me wrong, there should be consequences to the idiotic behavior that officials both in the City of Irving and on the School Board evidenced. There should be a public apology, as well as some form of punitive penalty to help all of them think before they act in such an obviously bigoted way...but...15 Million. Think for a moment about who that amount of money is going to directly effect. Students and families that rely on some of the programs that the city has to offer. It's not going to affect the people who perpetrated the bigotry and discrimination, it's going to be taken from people who had no say in what happened.
What happened to Ahmed was wrong... and now when the city and school system pays out this 15 million what will happen to other students just like Ahmed will be wrong.
Ahmed has had some awesome things happen in the wake of the obvious bigotry that he was subject to. He has met presidents, the CEO of Google and been named one of Times 2015 most influential teens. He has been given a full ride scholarship to one of the best schools of Qatar, and while I think it's deplorable that in order to get the education he deserves and to be treated with the respect and dignity he deserves he has gone there, I think it's awesome that those things have happened. The tragedy was turned to triumph in many ways because people were willing to step up and do the right thing, to not allow a few people to be the voice of the majority.
So why then are we punishing not the idiots that started the whole mess but the students and families that had nothing to do with it. I wish it were different but it looks suspiciously like an easy pay day to me and nothing more. There is it seems no impetus demanding change, or training to understand what was done wrong, there is no desire for disciplinary action evidenced in the demand for 15 million there is simply a desire for 15 million and oh yeah a public apology...
And this is my problem... the childish, greed and need to be right, that so many evidence. Be it the Gay couple that decided that they would stick it to Memories Pizza, Ahmed's parents who want their payday, or a group of Christians who claim an elected official can opt out of doing her job because she doesn't like it, they all seem to miss the point and in my estimation set back the causes for which they fight when they resort to behavior that I would attribute to a spoiled child and not a rational adult.
When we punish the masses for the sins of the few, we create something frightening, a culture that will be less likely to speak up, use their rights of free speech, or want to put themselves on the line for what is right and what should be. It's a different type of oppression, and places all the power not in the hands of the oppressed, not in the hands of the people, but in the hands of a select few who use money, and litigation to exploit rather than bring about constructive change.
Anyway I don't know. I just was sad to see someone cashing in at what will be the expense of people who had nothing to do with the problem in the first place...
Tuesday, November 24, 2015
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
What we won’t tell you…
There are things that pastors won’t tell you. Things that you don’t want to hear, things that make us more human than you want us to be. There are other blogs that have said things like this before, written by people far more important and far more famous in the churchesphere than I. The things they say are true, but many of them leave out some of the things that we won’t tell you because well yea they just do.
I also realize that I am now telling you dear reader, the things that pastors won’t tell you, meaning you now will know some of the things that we don’t tell you or are afraid to tell you.
I want to be clear about something when it comes to these things we won’t tell you, this is ammunition, plain and simple. This blog all about me getting out the things that are in my mind and heart, pretty much unfiltered, and whenever this happens, whenever someone goes unfiltered they open themselves up. It’s a safe bit that some of these things may be things your pastor won’t tell you. Again I get it ammunition, what you choose to do with what I write and what you read is on you.
Anyway. We won’t tell you…
1. Pastoring is not just a full time job, or vocation. We are constantly in pastor mode, even when we are supposed to not be in pastor mode we are. 40 hours is a joke when you’re a pastor. You are always on call, even when you’re not supposed to be. Sure we will block out time, we will attempt to disconnect for a while, we will even make lip service to taking a break and knowing we need to, but it’s just that, lip service. We are constantly thinking about praying for, and agonizing over the church we serve. Email, phone calls, texts, vision casting, service design, building issues, member growth both spiritually and physically, all of it is always there, it never goes away. You can’t leave it at the office, you can’t just unplug from it. You can set up some walls, and try and cut out space for a life beyond the church but it never really works. When we aren’t pastoring, we’re miserable, and when we are pastoring we are miserable for a whole different set of reasons.
2. Our family suffers. Every time you pick at someone in our family, hold them to a higher standard or say something about them or to them about how disappointed you are or about how the other pastors significant other or kids would never have done or said or been fill in the blank it hurts. Every time we have to say no to some family something because of a church something it builds walls between us and the people we are supposed to put first. What makes I t worse is the massive amount of guilt associated with the suffering our family endures. The worst part is we become accustomed to feelings of guilt, because when we do take time with or for our family, we feel guilty about not being there for the church we have been called by God to serve.
3. We want you to like us. Not our preaching, not the way we dress, not if we can sing or not, and not the things that we do for the church. We want you to like us, and we can tell when you don’t, and when we get that vibe one of two things will happen, we will try extra hard to get you to like us, or we will come up with ways to avoid one on one conversation with you.
4. We look at the service as art. Putting it together, making sure it flows, spending time praying over each element, trying to get the timing down, all of it is art, all of it takes time. Sometimes the work is fridge worthy, sometimes it’s gallery worthy, and sometimes it’s rubbish that needs to be scrapped. The problem is we don’t always know which it will be until we are in the middle of it, so not only do you get to see the gallery and fridge stuff, you also see the crappy pieces that we wish no one could see.
5. Sermons are not just a weekly speech. There is more to preparing a quality sermon than reading a few verses. We know when they tank, in fact we know that they are going to tank when we open our mouth at the beginning of the message, and we feel horrible about that.
6. Sometimes you bother us especially when you hurt the people we love. We won’t tell you this, in fact we will feel really bad for not liking you at any given point, we will agonize over it, pray about it, and figure there is something wrong with us.
7. We worry about your spiritual life, sometimes to the detriment of our own.
8. We want the church to grow more than you do. Every Sunday that attendance shrinks is another punch to the gut telling us that we aren’t good enough, that we aren’t really called, and that we should just get out of this whole pastor thing. The problem is it’s not so easy to just turn off the calling that God has on our life and so we keep working and working and working.
9. Every time you bring up what the other guy did as the way it should be you are telling us that we will never really be your pastor, and that hurts.
10. We are pretty broken people that aren’t allowed to appear broken. We feel like we have to always be on, and when we aren’t on to everyone’s expectations we feel it, know it, and try working harder and longer, all of which is a detriment to our family, but we don’t know how to or are unwilling to stop juggling all the balls that is the church we are called to serve.
11. Titles, committees, and fundraisers are not nearly as important as everyone thinks they are. We do know what we are saying, we want you to know Jesus, we want you to be a part of the church because you Love Jesus more than anything. When you are doing it for any other reason we know this and it hurts because we are obviously not communicating the importance of a personal relationship with God that informs the rest of your life, in a way that helps you see how important it is and makes you want it.
12. We are scared and scarred. Scared to say the things that will hurt your feelings but ultimately help you in your life, and scarred from the times we did so and found out that you could really care less and have decided that we have no real say in your life. Again letting us know we are not your pastor.
There you go 12 things that we won’t tell you.
Now for one thing that is true beyond a shadow of a doubt, at least for me it is. We LOVE you. We LOVE you so much because it’s part of who we are and what we are made to be and what we want to do.
I also realize that I am now telling you dear reader, the things that pastors won’t tell you, meaning you now will know some of the things that we don’t tell you or are afraid to tell you.
I want to be clear about something when it comes to these things we won’t tell you, this is ammunition, plain and simple. This blog all about me getting out the things that are in my mind and heart, pretty much unfiltered, and whenever this happens, whenever someone goes unfiltered they open themselves up. It’s a safe bit that some of these things may be things your pastor won’t tell you. Again I get it ammunition, what you choose to do with what I write and what you read is on you.
Anyway. We won’t tell you…
1. Pastoring is not just a full time job, or vocation. We are constantly in pastor mode, even when we are supposed to not be in pastor mode we are. 40 hours is a joke when you’re a pastor. You are always on call, even when you’re not supposed to be. Sure we will block out time, we will attempt to disconnect for a while, we will even make lip service to taking a break and knowing we need to, but it’s just that, lip service. We are constantly thinking about praying for, and agonizing over the church we serve. Email, phone calls, texts, vision casting, service design, building issues, member growth both spiritually and physically, all of it is always there, it never goes away. You can’t leave it at the office, you can’t just unplug from it. You can set up some walls, and try and cut out space for a life beyond the church but it never really works. When we aren’t pastoring, we’re miserable, and when we are pastoring we are miserable for a whole different set of reasons.
2. Our family suffers. Every time you pick at someone in our family, hold them to a higher standard or say something about them or to them about how disappointed you are or about how the other pastors significant other or kids would never have done or said or been fill in the blank it hurts. Every time we have to say no to some family something because of a church something it builds walls between us and the people we are supposed to put first. What makes I t worse is the massive amount of guilt associated with the suffering our family endures. The worst part is we become accustomed to feelings of guilt, because when we do take time with or for our family, we feel guilty about not being there for the church we have been called by God to serve.
3. We want you to like us. Not our preaching, not the way we dress, not if we can sing or not, and not the things that we do for the church. We want you to like us, and we can tell when you don’t, and when we get that vibe one of two things will happen, we will try extra hard to get you to like us, or we will come up with ways to avoid one on one conversation with you.
4. We look at the service as art. Putting it together, making sure it flows, spending time praying over each element, trying to get the timing down, all of it is art, all of it takes time. Sometimes the work is fridge worthy, sometimes it’s gallery worthy, and sometimes it’s rubbish that needs to be scrapped. The problem is we don’t always know which it will be until we are in the middle of it, so not only do you get to see the gallery and fridge stuff, you also see the crappy pieces that we wish no one could see.
5. Sermons are not just a weekly speech. There is more to preparing a quality sermon than reading a few verses. We know when they tank, in fact we know that they are going to tank when we open our mouth at the beginning of the message, and we feel horrible about that.
6. Sometimes you bother us especially when you hurt the people we love. We won’t tell you this, in fact we will feel really bad for not liking you at any given point, we will agonize over it, pray about it, and figure there is something wrong with us.
7. We worry about your spiritual life, sometimes to the detriment of our own.
8. We want the church to grow more than you do. Every Sunday that attendance shrinks is another punch to the gut telling us that we aren’t good enough, that we aren’t really called, and that we should just get out of this whole pastor thing. The problem is it’s not so easy to just turn off the calling that God has on our life and so we keep working and working and working.
9. Every time you bring up what the other guy did as the way it should be you are telling us that we will never really be your pastor, and that hurts.
10. We are pretty broken people that aren’t allowed to appear broken. We feel like we have to always be on, and when we aren’t on to everyone’s expectations we feel it, know it, and try working harder and longer, all of which is a detriment to our family, but we don’t know how to or are unwilling to stop juggling all the balls that is the church we are called to serve.
11. Titles, committees, and fundraisers are not nearly as important as everyone thinks they are. We do know what we are saying, we want you to know Jesus, we want you to be a part of the church because you Love Jesus more than anything. When you are doing it for any other reason we know this and it hurts because we are obviously not communicating the importance of a personal relationship with God that informs the rest of your life, in a way that helps you see how important it is and makes you want it.
12. We are scared and scarred. Scared to say the things that will hurt your feelings but ultimately help you in your life, and scarred from the times we did so and found out that you could really care less and have decided that we have no real say in your life. Again letting us know we are not your pastor.
There you go 12 things that we won’t tell you.
Now for one thing that is true beyond a shadow of a doubt, at least for me it is. We LOVE you. We LOVE you so much because it’s part of who we are and what we are made to be and what we want to do.
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Pay Attention
Have you ever read something that speaks directly to where you are at the moment and you want to ignore it because you actually enjoy how you are feeling, sometimes it's fun to nurse anger, or bitterness, or frustration or euphoria or well you get the idea. When we nurse those things along in our lives it's easy to slip into all sorts of behaviors that can be detrimental to our ability to function in our daily interactions with others, and to have a healthy faith life.
I can't stand platitudes, easy answers or refusal to look at more than one side of the issue. It's so easy to find the people who you are most comfortable with, that like you and affirm you and listen to you and so immerse yourself in the subculture of comfort that we build to help ourselves make it through life. What I'm finding is that in those moments where I am most conflicted, or that the things that I am thinking and praying about are not coming into focus the way they should, or the way I think they should it's usually because I am bringing my notions of what is important, or fair, or relevant into the mix in an unhealthy way. Which brings me to what I read today and in a larger part what I have been reading lately and how it always seems to speak to the areas where my self-righteousness, and self-justification, grow the largest.
Hebrews 2:1 is another in an increasingly long line of verses that have been hitting me pretty hard lately. Not in a bad way in a wow okay I need to step back for a moment.
When I think of all the things that I have heard, all the preaching, all the teaching, all the songs, all the conferences, all of it I realize that there has been a lot that has gone into what makes me into the Christ follower I am today but like everyone else I am subject to the winds of the world, like everyone I tend to gravitate toward people who will tell me what I like to hear, that will agree with me more than call me out on the possibility that I have it wrong, the my interpretation is off that I am missing some key parts of what God is saying through a particular passage, life experience or individual.
When Paul tells us to pay even more attention to what we have heard so we don't drift away, it's easy to look at what we were, at what we grew up learning or hearing and trying to get back to it. It's easy to look at things and think that everything we were taught, all the things we understood were right after all. That our earlier interpretation of scripture, or circumstance is actually the right way of reading things, that life and growth, and change in venue really are the enemies to a deeper more relevant, personal faith life. But what if it's more than that. What if when we look at what we heard, what we grew up believing was Gospel truth, was wrong? What if some of the things that I took for granted, really shouldn't be a part of the foundation of my life, and what if some of the new things that I have started to look at and wonder about are equally misguided. If anything Hebrews 2 tells me that it's easy to drift away when we decide that one camp is all right and one camp is all wrong. There is a place for commonality, but more importantly no matter where we stand on some issues and thoughts and fights. There is a real foundation to our faith that is embodied in the following...“
Reading the verses around that verse we find that our faith is supposed to be rooted in Jesus, sometimes I get so caught up in the things that come across my Facebook feed, or a tweet from someone who I agree with, or disagree with, I get dug so deep into Orange or Patheos, or Outlaw preachers that I lose sight of the real foundation for my faith, Jesus.
My frustration with what I used to hold dear, or with what I now hold as important many times manifests in sarcasm, frustration and a predisposition to become judgmental. What I have to remember is what I have heard so I don't drift away from what really matters, from the thing that should bind all people who profess to be Christ followers, the work of God evidenced in my life through the acceptance of Jesus death, resurrection and cross. That last part can be the tricky part because if I read it right when I take up the cross, I'm placing myself in the lowest possible position. The cross invites pain, ridicule, scorn and embarrassment. The cross exposes not just my soft bits but the bits that I thought were strong, that I thought were solid and well worked. The cross not only demands but compels me to death, not once but if the Gospel of Luke is to be believed on a daily basis.
That's the thing about remembering what we have heard. We are supposed to remember it all, and when we remember those kinds of verse, at least when I do, I want to move on to something more comfortable, self-serving and easy.
I keep wondering what would happen if every day I would look at all the people who I know and love and even the ones I know and don't love and realize that if they claim Christianity we have the same foundation, and if I really am going to be the Christ follower I claim to be or want to be, I need to wake up pick up the cross, climb the hill lay down and allow the nails to be driven in or the ropes to be tied, and death to come, over and over and over again. With the hope that each time I do there is more of Jesus and less of Aaron.
I can't stand platitudes, easy answers or refusal to look at more than one side of the issue. It's so easy to find the people who you are most comfortable with, that like you and affirm you and listen to you and so immerse yourself in the subculture of comfort that we build to help ourselves make it through life. What I'm finding is that in those moments where I am most conflicted, or that the things that I am thinking and praying about are not coming into focus the way they should, or the way I think they should it's usually because I am bringing my notions of what is important, or fair, or relevant into the mix in an unhealthy way. Which brings me to what I read today and in a larger part what I have been reading lately and how it always seems to speak to the areas where my self-righteousness, and self-justification, grow the largest.
Hebrews 2:1 is another in an increasingly long line of verses that have been hitting me pretty hard lately. Not in a bad way in a wow okay I need to step back for a moment.
When I think of all the things that I have heard, all the preaching, all the teaching, all the songs, all the conferences, all of it I realize that there has been a lot that has gone into what makes me into the Christ follower I am today but like everyone else I am subject to the winds of the world, like everyone I tend to gravitate toward people who will tell me what I like to hear, that will agree with me more than call me out on the possibility that I have it wrong, the my interpretation is off that I am missing some key parts of what God is saying through a particular passage, life experience or individual.
When Paul tells us to pay even more attention to what we have heard so we don't drift away, it's easy to look at what we were, at what we grew up learning or hearing and trying to get back to it. It's easy to look at things and think that everything we were taught, all the things we understood were right after all. That our earlier interpretation of scripture, or circumstance is actually the right way of reading things, that life and growth, and change in venue really are the enemies to a deeper more relevant, personal faith life. But what if it's more than that. What if when we look at what we heard, what we grew up believing was Gospel truth, was wrong? What if some of the things that I took for granted, really shouldn't be a part of the foundation of my life, and what if some of the new things that I have started to look at and wonder about are equally misguided. If anything Hebrews 2 tells me that it's easy to drift away when we decide that one camp is all right and one camp is all wrong. There is a place for commonality, but more importantly no matter where we stand on some issues and thoughts and fights. There is a real foundation to our faith that is embodied in the following...“
And since we have the same spirit of faith in keeping with what is written, I believed, therefore I spoke, we also believe, and therefore speak.”
(2 Corinthians 4:13 HCSB)
Reading the verses around that verse we find that our faith is supposed to be rooted in Jesus, sometimes I get so caught up in the things that come across my Facebook feed, or a tweet from someone who I agree with, or disagree with, I get dug so deep into Orange or Patheos, or Outlaw preachers that I lose sight of the real foundation for my faith, Jesus.
My frustration with what I used to hold dear, or with what I now hold as important many times manifests in sarcasm, frustration and a predisposition to become judgmental. What I have to remember is what I have heard so I don't drift away from what really matters, from the thing that should bind all people who profess to be Christ followers, the work of God evidenced in my life through the acceptance of Jesus death, resurrection and cross. That last part can be the tricky part because if I read it right when I take up the cross, I'm placing myself in the lowest possible position. The cross invites pain, ridicule, scorn and embarrassment. The cross exposes not just my soft bits but the bits that I thought were strong, that I thought were solid and well worked. The cross not only demands but compels me to death, not once but if the Gospel of Luke is to be believed on a daily basis.
“Then He said to them all, “If anyone wants to come with Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross DAILY, and follow Me.” (Luke 9:23 HCSB)
That's the thing about remembering what we have heard. We are supposed to remember it all, and when we remember those kinds of verse, at least when I do, I want to move on to something more comfortable, self-serving and easy.
I keep wondering what would happen if every day I would look at all the people who I know and love and even the ones I know and don't love and realize that if they claim Christianity we have the same foundation, and if I really am going to be the Christ follower I claim to be or want to be, I need to wake up pick up the cross, climb the hill lay down and allow the nails to be driven in or the ropes to be tied, and death to come, over and over and over again. With the hope that each time I do there is more of Jesus and less of Aaron.
Friday, October 30, 2015
Tripping Up...
Something has happened and I'm not sure when it actually happened I just know that it did. Suddenly I'm 20 years out of college. 20 years not out of high school but out of college. It's crazy because it doesn't feel like it should be that long. It puts me even further out of High School. It's just one of those things.
There are a few things that I remember though and one of them is one of those super embarrassing moments that happens in everyone's life, you know the ones I mean, where you look around and hope that no one sees you.
I was on the phone talking to who knows, I am pretty sure it wasn't my parents though, the conversation ended in a not parenty way if that makes sense, I jumped up turned and sprinted into the laundry room. See back in the day you had a pay phone and calling card, living on campus in a different set of dorms, you could have a phone in the room, or you could do the whole pay phone thing, anyway instead of landing in the laundry room, I slammed into the window next to the door. Pretty hard, don't get me wrong I recovered, but I also did that whole check to see if anyone had seen, I'm not sure how they couldn't have but it must have been okay because no one said anything, they were probably just being nice, who knows. That memory brings to mind something that we all do...
Have you ever been walking down the street, and for no visible reason you seem to just trip. Your foot catches some phantom root, or a crack in the sidewalk. Which brings me in an admittedly circuitous way to my thoughts for today...
Rules are better than faith because rules are easily measured. I make lists of what needs to be done, I set a calender and live by it, rules make sense, Follow the rules and happiness happens, ignore the rules and hard times ensue. Right? I mean that makes sense. The problem is people suck at following rules, most of the times humans try to find ways around the rules, they look for loopholes, they follow the letter of the law but ignore the spirit behind it. Why so many people want to go back to a rules based faith is beyond me but we can find that problem all over the place. Equally troubling is why modern Christians, think that post modern seekers, and Christ followers, willing to read a bit for themselves and live out their faith in tangible ways, are messed up and far from God because they just don't get the importance of Levitical Law and it's meaning to our faith. Which brings me to the whole reason for the post.
When I read the verses in Romans this morning something happened that seems to happen more and more often the further I get from my days as a know it all college kid studying to be "in the ministry." I made a connection between an every day occurence and a Biblical truth. We need to trip up, and many times our failure at the rules of faith enable our faith to grow more robust. Think about it, when you trip over that unseen crack in the sidewalk, what's the first thing you do. I know what I do, when I trip on that unseen thing, I stop for a moment, and sometimes, no that's not really accurate, 98 percent of the time, I go back and try to figure out why I tripped. I look at the spot that I lost my balance, I try to find the cause...Now apply that, to the verses in Romans. When we try to live and move and have our being in the rules of Christianity, as opposed to in the person of Christ we are going to trip and if we do it right, if we trip up, as opposed to just tripping. We will be brought back to that place where we see that no matter how hard we try, without a living breathing active faith, that has its foundation not in Leviticus but in Christ, we are lost, we do what so many of us do, what I did when I ran into that window outside the Laundry Room, we look around to make sure no one saw what just happened, and if they didn't we turn around and act like everything is fine, like we have control of things, like nothing happened. Meanwhile the person that we claim to follow weeps, not so much because of the misstep but because we are leaving out the one that wants more than anything to be more to our life than a label.
Imagine the difference in our world, not the world.. our world, the sphere of influence that we have, if we are willing to look at the places we fall instead of trying to act like they never happened, people would see us in a whole new, approachable, light, and isn't that what we're supposed to be?
There are a few things that I remember though and one of them is one of those super embarrassing moments that happens in everyone's life, you know the ones I mean, where you look around and hope that no one sees you.
I was on the phone talking to who knows, I am pretty sure it wasn't my parents though, the conversation ended in a not parenty way if that makes sense, I jumped up turned and sprinted into the laundry room. See back in the day you had a pay phone and calling card, living on campus in a different set of dorms, you could have a phone in the room, or you could do the whole pay phone thing, anyway instead of landing in the laundry room, I slammed into the window next to the door. Pretty hard, don't get me wrong I recovered, but I also did that whole check to see if anyone had seen, I'm not sure how they couldn't have but it must have been okay because no one said anything, they were probably just being nice, who knows. That memory brings to mind something that we all do...
Have you ever been walking down the street, and for no visible reason you seem to just trip. Your foot catches some phantom root, or a crack in the sidewalk. Which brings me in an admittedly circuitous way to my thoughts for today...
Rules are better than faith because rules are easily measured. I make lists of what needs to be done, I set a calender and live by it, rules make sense, Follow the rules and happiness happens, ignore the rules and hard times ensue. Right? I mean that makes sense. The problem is people suck at following rules, most of the times humans try to find ways around the rules, they look for loopholes, they follow the letter of the law but ignore the spirit behind it. Why so many people want to go back to a rules based faith is beyond me but we can find that problem all over the place. Equally troubling is why modern Christians, think that post modern seekers, and Christ followers, willing to read a bit for themselves and live out their faith in tangible ways, are messed up and far from God because they just don't get the importance of Levitical Law and it's meaning to our faith. Which brings me to the whole reason for the post.
When I read the verses in Romans this morning something happened that seems to happen more and more often the further I get from my days as a know it all college kid studying to be "in the ministry." I made a connection between an every day occurence and a Biblical truth. We need to trip up, and many times our failure at the rules of faith enable our faith to grow more robust. Think about it, when you trip over that unseen crack in the sidewalk, what's the first thing you do. I know what I do, when I trip on that unseen thing, I stop for a moment, and sometimes, no that's not really accurate, 98 percent of the time, I go back and try to figure out why I tripped. I look at the spot that I lost my balance, I try to find the cause...Now apply that, to the verses in Romans. When we try to live and move and have our being in the rules of Christianity, as opposed to in the person of Christ we are going to trip and if we do it right, if we trip up, as opposed to just tripping. We will be brought back to that place where we see that no matter how hard we try, without a living breathing active faith, that has its foundation not in Leviticus but in Christ, we are lost, we do what so many of us do, what I did when I ran into that window outside the Laundry Room, we look around to make sure no one saw what just happened, and if they didn't we turn around and act like everything is fine, like we have control of things, like nothing happened. Meanwhile the person that we claim to follow weeps, not so much because of the misstep but because we are leaving out the one that wants more than anything to be more to our life than a label.
Imagine the difference in our world, not the world.. our world, the sphere of influence that we have, if we are willing to look at the places we fall instead of trying to act like they never happened, people would see us in a whole new, approachable, light, and isn't that what we're supposed to be?
Thursday, October 15, 2015
Who talks like that?
“To the weak I became weak, in order to win the weak. I have become all things to all people, so that I may by every possible means save some.Now I do all this because of the gospel, so I may become a partner in its benefits.”
(1 Corinthians 9:22–23 HCSB)
This one's just a personal thing but it's attached to this verse in 1 Corinthians. Now don't get me wrong I get it. I know that I'm kinda pulling things out a bit on this one. I know that this particular scripture has been used for all sorts of reasons, usually the wrong ones. People use it as an excuse way to many times, when Paul talks about following the letter of the law, when he tries to reach one set of people, and not following it to reach another, people on both sides of whatever issue they have with law and grace have a field day. The concept though is solid, Paul realizes that the intended audience is important, and how we interact with that audience matters when we are presenting something as important as the Gospel of Christ.
The problem for most of us is we don't really know who our intended audience is. Which brings me to the title. Why do so many people who are supposed to tell others about Jesus do so in ways that either make Jesus and more importantly his words inaccessible, or completely alienate them from the one known for hanging out with people not in religious in crowd.
“The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.””
(Matthew 11:19 HCSB)
Pretty harsh words for many of us, mainly because for years the church has done it's best to not be a friend of sinners, to be more worried about not smoking, not chewing, not drinking, not, not, not, not, not. The church doesn't really like that Jesus. That Jesus makes the church uncomfortable, because that Jesus wouldn't really spend Sunday morning singing Heart of Worship, or Amazing Grace.
Phrases and words that bother me include but are not limited to "beloved," "Oh Church," "My People," "friends," "lets enter in," "close your eyes," "let's all join hands," the list goes on, I could sit here and come up with whole sentences that don't make sense but that's just a waste of time.
Perhaps the worst part of the title is that I have said those very same words at one time or another in my life as a Christ Follower and as a church leader. It's easy for us all to get to a place where the phrases and words we use become more important than the message we are to give. That playing to the base becomes easier than evaluating every part of what we do and finding the disconnect. Sometimes it's language, sometimes it's programming, it could be structure, or music, or decor. There are all sorts of ways that we talk to people, many times trying to make our language more important than theirs.
Coffee shops are cool right so lets serve coffee shop coffee and make a cool sitting area like they have at the new place down the street, then the people at the coffee shop will come here on Sunday, except that the people are already going to the coffee shop. Lights and sound and smoke are really cool, look at all the people who go to concerts, they like those things, let's incorporate them into Sunday Worship. Except that in many cases we can't do it as well as they can, can't afford what it takes to make it really great, and if we can, we run the risk of looking desperate. When we were growing up kids were seen and not heard, that's the way things were for us and what was good enough for us is good enough for them. Except that people with Kids now, especially Gen X'ers and Millenials don't want their kids to be treated the way they were treated when they went to church or any other function. Look around the church, see the lack of young people, the mass exodus as soon as 18 hits and think about how you treated them when they came to church, that one can be painful.
The real problem that I see is that we try so hard to wrap the message of Christ in a package that is relevant, and attractive, and easy to understand and embrace...except that there are whole aspects of that package that are not attractive, not relevant by what churches assume are relevant standards, and are down right confusing to the people who spend their lives studying them, even if they won't admit it. Sure the whole love thing is great. and it's true. If we would spend as much time loving people as we do telling them all the things we don't like about them, because face it when we point out a persons sin either to them individually or through a sermon series on Levitical laws and why they work for you, what we're really saying is "these are the things we don't like about you, if you want to belong, if you want to fit in, if you want to get to know the guy that we keep saying loves you unconditionally then you have to met OUR conditions. Really loving people and talking about the love aspect of our faith is true and great but then you come to the harder things. Love is easy to make relevant and attractive and easy to understand. Repentance, sacrifice, taking up the cross daily, turning the other cheek, going the extra mile with the person that hurts you and hates you, standing up for what's right and just even when I'm uncomfortable with it, even when it's not my interpretation of, even when I don't feel like it. Those things are harder to sell. Which is why it's not our job to do so. Look what Paul says...
“I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.” (1 Corinthians 3:6 HCSB)
We plant and water with love and grace and mercy, then God is the one that takes it from there, he's the one that brings about the realization that there are things in a person's life that need changed, he's the one that pushes a person to the point of picking up the cross. The problem is we don't always like waiting for God to do the work, and so we start saying things that build walls around the very one that can and will make a person into what they were designed to be. Romans 8 is one of those chapters that people use to prove their points about law, and faith, and love and freedom, but I am beginning to think it's more about what we say and what God wants us to say. Starting in vs 26 and going to the end of the chapter we find an idea that I think is lost to many Christians today.
“In the same way the Spirit also joins to help in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with unspoken groanings.”(Romans 8:26 HCSB)
If all the stuff we have decided is important to say is so important why bother with the God part of our faith. If we were really that articulate why does God have to intercede for us? Why bother with verse 27 or 28 or 29. Why say all things work together for good when so many things don't. I hate it when people say that to me when things are going bad, mainly because that statement holds truth in regards to my eternity with God, not in my finite journey on this earth. If I have a relationship with him, even when things go horribly wrong here I know that there will come a day when the there will be no more tears, no more sorrow, no more pain. but that's not necessarily today. I fail to see the good that comes from a child diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, fail to understand the blessing that comes from that same child wasting away to nothing and dying, and from what I read and what I see I'm not supposed to be okay with it, I shouldn't understand it and I definitely shouldn't use scripture to explain away a persons grief or anger or resentment toward God.
Admitting we don't know, or don't understand is seen as weakness in the church world, but it shouldn't be. We think that admitting a verse doesn't make sense to us, or that taken in today's context it may mean something different, must mean we don't believe it. We think that we have to have all the answers, that we have to say all the right words and if we do if we talk the way churches have talked for centuries people will flock to God, and by proxy to the church, except it isn't working, in fact the opposite seems to be happening in a vast majority of churches and it's happening because we have tried to take our language, spoken, visual, and unspoken, turn it into cannon, and tell the people that if they will just listen to us, adopt our language, and do it our way then we will accept them, they will be loved, and we can then introduce them to the God we serve, the only problem is, in most cases, if we were really honest with ourselves and them...the god we serve is the one that is shaking their hand...
(1 Corinthians 9:22–23 HCSB)
This one's just a personal thing but it's attached to this verse in 1 Corinthians. Now don't get me wrong I get it. I know that I'm kinda pulling things out a bit on this one. I know that this particular scripture has been used for all sorts of reasons, usually the wrong ones. People use it as an excuse way to many times, when Paul talks about following the letter of the law, when he tries to reach one set of people, and not following it to reach another, people on both sides of whatever issue they have with law and grace have a field day. The concept though is solid, Paul realizes that the intended audience is important, and how we interact with that audience matters when we are presenting something as important as the Gospel of Christ.
The problem for most of us is we don't really know who our intended audience is. Which brings me to the title. Why do so many people who are supposed to tell others about Jesus do so in ways that either make Jesus and more importantly his words inaccessible, or completely alienate them from the one known for hanging out with people not in religious in crowd.
“The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.””
(Matthew 11:19 HCSB)
Pretty harsh words for many of us, mainly because for years the church has done it's best to not be a friend of sinners, to be more worried about not smoking, not chewing, not drinking, not, not, not, not, not. The church doesn't really like that Jesus. That Jesus makes the church uncomfortable, because that Jesus wouldn't really spend Sunday morning singing Heart of Worship, or Amazing Grace.
Phrases and words that bother me include but are not limited to "beloved," "Oh Church," "My People," "friends," "lets enter in," "close your eyes," "let's all join hands," the list goes on, I could sit here and come up with whole sentences that don't make sense but that's just a waste of time.
Perhaps the worst part of the title is that I have said those very same words at one time or another in my life as a Christ Follower and as a church leader. It's easy for us all to get to a place where the phrases and words we use become more important than the message we are to give. That playing to the base becomes easier than evaluating every part of what we do and finding the disconnect. Sometimes it's language, sometimes it's programming, it could be structure, or music, or decor. There are all sorts of ways that we talk to people, many times trying to make our language more important than theirs.
Coffee shops are cool right so lets serve coffee shop coffee and make a cool sitting area like they have at the new place down the street, then the people at the coffee shop will come here on Sunday, except that the people are already going to the coffee shop. Lights and sound and smoke are really cool, look at all the people who go to concerts, they like those things, let's incorporate them into Sunday Worship. Except that in many cases we can't do it as well as they can, can't afford what it takes to make it really great, and if we can, we run the risk of looking desperate. When we were growing up kids were seen and not heard, that's the way things were for us and what was good enough for us is good enough for them. Except that people with Kids now, especially Gen X'ers and Millenials don't want their kids to be treated the way they were treated when they went to church or any other function. Look around the church, see the lack of young people, the mass exodus as soon as 18 hits and think about how you treated them when they came to church, that one can be painful.
The real problem that I see is that we try so hard to wrap the message of Christ in a package that is relevant, and attractive, and easy to understand and embrace...except that there are whole aspects of that package that are not attractive, not relevant by what churches assume are relevant standards, and are down right confusing to the people who spend their lives studying them, even if they won't admit it. Sure the whole love thing is great. and it's true. If we would spend as much time loving people as we do telling them all the things we don't like about them, because face it when we point out a persons sin either to them individually or through a sermon series on Levitical laws and why they work for you, what we're really saying is "these are the things we don't like about you, if you want to belong, if you want to fit in, if you want to get to know the guy that we keep saying loves you unconditionally then you have to met OUR conditions. Really loving people and talking about the love aspect of our faith is true and great but then you come to the harder things. Love is easy to make relevant and attractive and easy to understand. Repentance, sacrifice, taking up the cross daily, turning the other cheek, going the extra mile with the person that hurts you and hates you, standing up for what's right and just even when I'm uncomfortable with it, even when it's not my interpretation of, even when I don't feel like it. Those things are harder to sell. Which is why it's not our job to do so. Look what Paul says...
“I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.” (1 Corinthians 3:6 HCSB)
We plant and water with love and grace and mercy, then God is the one that takes it from there, he's the one that brings about the realization that there are things in a person's life that need changed, he's the one that pushes a person to the point of picking up the cross. The problem is we don't always like waiting for God to do the work, and so we start saying things that build walls around the very one that can and will make a person into what they were designed to be. Romans 8 is one of those chapters that people use to prove their points about law, and faith, and love and freedom, but I am beginning to think it's more about what we say and what God wants us to say. Starting in vs 26 and going to the end of the chapter we find an idea that I think is lost to many Christians today.
“In the same way the Spirit also joins to help in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with unspoken groanings.”(Romans 8:26 HCSB)
If all the stuff we have decided is important to say is so important why bother with the God part of our faith. If we were really that articulate why does God have to intercede for us? Why bother with verse 27 or 28 or 29. Why say all things work together for good when so many things don't. I hate it when people say that to me when things are going bad, mainly because that statement holds truth in regards to my eternity with God, not in my finite journey on this earth. If I have a relationship with him, even when things go horribly wrong here I know that there will come a day when the there will be no more tears, no more sorrow, no more pain. but that's not necessarily today. I fail to see the good that comes from a child diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, fail to understand the blessing that comes from that same child wasting away to nothing and dying, and from what I read and what I see I'm not supposed to be okay with it, I shouldn't understand it and I definitely shouldn't use scripture to explain away a persons grief or anger or resentment toward God.
Admitting we don't know, or don't understand is seen as weakness in the church world, but it shouldn't be. We think that admitting a verse doesn't make sense to us, or that taken in today's context it may mean something different, must mean we don't believe it. We think that we have to have all the answers, that we have to say all the right words and if we do if we talk the way churches have talked for centuries people will flock to God, and by proxy to the church, except it isn't working, in fact the opposite seems to be happening in a vast majority of churches and it's happening because we have tried to take our language, spoken, visual, and unspoken, turn it into cannon, and tell the people that if they will just listen to us, adopt our language, and do it our way then we will accept them, they will be loved, and we can then introduce them to the God we serve, the only problem is, in most cases, if we were really honest with ourselves and them...the god we serve is the one that is shaking their hand...
Saturday, October 3, 2015
Death in Many Forms
This has been a difficult week. I mean there really is no way for it to be anything but. Some may have read my post about Orange being an oasis, and it was. I enjoyed Orange Tour immensely, and it just solidified my excitement for Orange 2016. What amazes me is that this will be my fourth yes that's right my fourth Orange. Time just keeps going...
But I don't want to gush about Orange Tour or any of the people there. I want to look at a couple of things that happened this week, and the way not just faith but values evolve, and since this is my blog well, I'll be looking at the evolution of my faith and values.
Growing up in church does a lot of things to a person, I've talked about that in some of the pages that are on here, dig in if you want that information, exact titles escape me at the moment but they exist and well I could use the readers let's be honest...
The problem with growing up in the church is that there comes a point when you are faced with the prospect of continuing to grow in and with the church, or growing out of the church, I almost said outgrowing the church, but increasingly I believe if churches do it the right way and if Christ followers do it the right way there is no real way to outgrow the church, just ways to grow in faith, and community. A person grows out of the Church, and sadly grows out of their faith, when the dichotomy of humanity happens. Simply put when what is said by leaders, what is done in program, gets cross referenced with what the individual is reading in the Bible what they are seeing when they look at the life of Christ and how he interacted with people, and what they see being done in their daily life by the people around them, many of whom are supposed to be evil or lost doesn't add up. Lets be clear, I do believe people that don't have an active relationship with God are lost. I believe that active relationship begins with the realization that without Jesus, no GPS in the world will get you or I out of the mess of being a fallen human. There must be an acknowledgment of personal sin, and a recognition that forgiveness comes through Christ and that forgiveness is applied to my life on a regular basis.
BUT it's important to realize that the church and Christians in general are their own worst enemy when it comes to new adopters and retention. Mainly because they refuse to evaluate and evolve. When you classify many Christians they usually get tossed into a box of intolerance, ignorance, hypocritism, and refusal, and sometimes those labels are earned, in fact more often than not they are. What's hard is when you actively try and grow when you embrace the possibility that you're wrong, that you read it wrong, that you understand it wrong or that you just can't be the kind of Christian you were because that Christian was not really all that nice...
This week along with the personal tragedy of losing my aunt, there were two tragedy's in the country that prompted this post.
1. On Wednesday September 30 in the early morning hours Kelly Gissendaner was executed.
2. On Thursday October 1, 9 people were killed at a community college in Oregon.
The thing is my faith and values have been challenged for a long time and have really been evolving. Most evangelical Christians support the death penalty and are very much anti gun control. I don't have numbers or research to back this up more than some of the posts that make their way across my Facebook Feed, and observations of political candidates that claim Christianity and being conservative and their comments. I'll be honest I had been a supporter of the death penalty, at times using the Old Testament argument, for the death penalty, but if you actually went by Old Testament law reasons for the death penalty can be pretty amazing. From working on the Sabbath, to Cursing your parents, to Losing your virginity there are several reasons that people were supposed to be put to death. Many Christians use this verse “a fracture for a fracture, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Whatever anyone does to injure another person must be paid back in kind.” (Leviticus 24:20 NLT-SE) conveniently forgetting that Jesus specifically adresses this practice ““You have heard the law that says the punishment must match the injury: ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’But I say, do not resist an evil person! If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the other cheek also.”
(Matthew 5:38–39 NLT-SE) I guess what bothers me is the idea that anyone holds any life as less than, especially considering we are all crafted in the image of God. People will look at Kelly Gissendaner and say she got what she deserved. She did the crime she paid the penalty, it was justice. I'll also be the first to admit that I have not had anyone close to me murdered. I can't say that my opinion on this topic wouldn't be differen or switch back if someone killed someone I love, that's part of being human I guess, it's easy for me to look at the situation and say wow all lives matter and all life is precious because I've not experienced the death of a loved one by the hand of another human being. Still at this time I find myself landing on the side of those that are against the death penalty. Life is sacred, all life, how can we advocate for one set of lives and ignore or campaign against another? If I really believe that grace is for all, that forgiveness is available to all, how much am I standing in that space when I call for the death of another human being? This all started to bother me when a well known Christian leader made the following stupid comment regarding Hugo Chavez..."We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," Robertson said Monday on the Christian Broadcast Network's The 700 Club. I don't see much grace, mercy or hope for the salvation of a fellow human being in that statement. What's crazy is the same guy that was calling for the assassination of a human being, has called for a moratorium on the Death Penalty and sits at odds with other Conservative Christian leaders. Following the Gissendaner case just really solidified my opposition. So yes my faith and values have changed when it comes to this very divisive issue.
The Oregon Shooting is yet another reason that I am and have been for some time firmly in the gun control camp. When friends post comments that I find idiotic I struggle with allowing their posts on my news feed. The idea that more guns carried by more people will make us all safer boggles my mind, yet I regularly find these types of comments, and posts. In 2014 the NRA spent over $3,000,000.00 this year so far they have spent over $1,000,000.00 and the year isn't over yet. The desire to have zero regulation when it comes to owning fire arms. ZERO regulation is amazing to me. The NRA opposes background checks, thinks owning assault rifles is no real problem, don't want databases that show gun ownership to be kept, and don't like any changes to fire arm registration. They throw up the smoke screen of mental health issues, while keeping guns for any. My question has consistently been why? Why do you need that Glock 9, what's the point of owning an AR15, why do you need an extended magazine? I'm sorry but if you're such a bad shot that when trying to "defend" your home you need more than the average of 15 to 17 rounds I don't want you to have a gun, after all it's not a toy. Why we think the answer to gun violence is more gun ownership boggles the mind, but I can go to my news feed on Facebook and find loads of people posting reasons that it's a good thing for more people to be armed. I'm not advocating for banning all firearms, far from it, but some things just make sense as far as I'm concerned. The arguments that people make are getting old and wearing thin, "Criminals will still get guns if they want them." "If you think taking away guns will curb violence you're wrong." "The majority of gun owners and collectors are responsible and safe." Except when those things aren't true which seems to be more and more frequently. I'm all about gun control, have been for a while, will continue to be. I think part of purchasing a gun should be stating the purpose for said gun. If purchasing for "protection," state that in the application and along with the background check, that should be rather exhaustive, there should be a reference check. I think if it's for hunting that too should be stated, along with what you are planning to hunt, again with references as well as a comprehensive background check. It should be harder to purchase a gun than it is to purchase any other item. It should take time, it should be a rigorous process, that is evaluated every 3 to 5 years. Recently I had to renew my license to drive. There are two sets of renewals in MD. Once you hit 40 you can no longer renew at the kiosk, once you hit 40 you have to renew with a teller because they want to make sure you can see, they want to evaluate how safe you are to operate a car. Why should owning something that has just as much potential to end a human life as a vehicle not be subject to further evaluation on a regular basis?
Death comes in many forms. It can come at the hands of the state, it can come at the hands of a deranged individual, it can come softly in the night. The one constant is that it will come. It will bring with it sadness, and anger, and for some hope of eternity. What we do with death when it happens and we are left behind is what matters. If we look at the death of Kelly Gissendaner as what she deserved, and the shooting as "stuff happens" (Jeb Bush) we are missing out on an opportunity to be better, to change, to grow to evolve. As Christians we are missing an opportunity to be with the people effected to pray for those that are hurting and stand for those that have no voice.
But I don't want to gush about Orange Tour or any of the people there. I want to look at a couple of things that happened this week, and the way not just faith but values evolve, and since this is my blog well, I'll be looking at the evolution of my faith and values.
Growing up in church does a lot of things to a person, I've talked about that in some of the pages that are on here, dig in if you want that information, exact titles escape me at the moment but they exist and well I could use the readers let's be honest...
The problem with growing up in the church is that there comes a point when you are faced with the prospect of continuing to grow in and with the church, or growing out of the church, I almost said outgrowing the church, but increasingly I believe if churches do it the right way and if Christ followers do it the right way there is no real way to outgrow the church, just ways to grow in faith, and community. A person grows out of the Church, and sadly grows out of their faith, when the dichotomy of humanity happens. Simply put when what is said by leaders, what is done in program, gets cross referenced with what the individual is reading in the Bible what they are seeing when they look at the life of Christ and how he interacted with people, and what they see being done in their daily life by the people around them, many of whom are supposed to be evil or lost doesn't add up. Lets be clear, I do believe people that don't have an active relationship with God are lost. I believe that active relationship begins with the realization that without Jesus, no GPS in the world will get you or I out of the mess of being a fallen human. There must be an acknowledgment of personal sin, and a recognition that forgiveness comes through Christ and that forgiveness is applied to my life on a regular basis.
BUT it's important to realize that the church and Christians in general are their own worst enemy when it comes to new adopters and retention. Mainly because they refuse to evaluate and evolve. When you classify many Christians they usually get tossed into a box of intolerance, ignorance, hypocritism, and refusal, and sometimes those labels are earned, in fact more often than not they are. What's hard is when you actively try and grow when you embrace the possibility that you're wrong, that you read it wrong, that you understand it wrong or that you just can't be the kind of Christian you were because that Christian was not really all that nice...
This week along with the personal tragedy of losing my aunt, there were two tragedy's in the country that prompted this post.
1. On Wednesday September 30 in the early morning hours Kelly Gissendaner was executed.
2. On Thursday October 1, 9 people were killed at a community college in Oregon.
The thing is my faith and values have been challenged for a long time and have really been evolving. Most evangelical Christians support the death penalty and are very much anti gun control. I don't have numbers or research to back this up more than some of the posts that make their way across my Facebook Feed, and observations of political candidates that claim Christianity and being conservative and their comments. I'll be honest I had been a supporter of the death penalty, at times using the Old Testament argument, for the death penalty, but if you actually went by Old Testament law reasons for the death penalty can be pretty amazing. From working on the Sabbath, to Cursing your parents, to Losing your virginity there are several reasons that people were supposed to be put to death. Many Christians use this verse “a fracture for a fracture, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Whatever anyone does to injure another person must be paid back in kind.” (Leviticus 24:20 NLT-SE) conveniently forgetting that Jesus specifically adresses this practice ““You have heard the law that says the punishment must match the injury: ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’But I say, do not resist an evil person! If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the other cheek also.”
(Matthew 5:38–39 NLT-SE) I guess what bothers me is the idea that anyone holds any life as less than, especially considering we are all crafted in the image of God. People will look at Kelly Gissendaner and say she got what she deserved. She did the crime she paid the penalty, it was justice. I'll also be the first to admit that I have not had anyone close to me murdered. I can't say that my opinion on this topic wouldn't be differen or switch back if someone killed someone I love, that's part of being human I guess, it's easy for me to look at the situation and say wow all lives matter and all life is precious because I've not experienced the death of a loved one by the hand of another human being. Still at this time I find myself landing on the side of those that are against the death penalty. Life is sacred, all life, how can we advocate for one set of lives and ignore or campaign against another? If I really believe that grace is for all, that forgiveness is available to all, how much am I standing in that space when I call for the death of another human being? This all started to bother me when a well known Christian leader made the following stupid comment regarding Hugo Chavez..."We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," Robertson said Monday on the Christian Broadcast Network's The 700 Club. I don't see much grace, mercy or hope for the salvation of a fellow human being in that statement. What's crazy is the same guy that was calling for the assassination of a human being, has called for a moratorium on the Death Penalty and sits at odds with other Conservative Christian leaders. Following the Gissendaner case just really solidified my opposition. So yes my faith and values have changed when it comes to this very divisive issue.
The Oregon Shooting is yet another reason that I am and have been for some time firmly in the gun control camp. When friends post comments that I find idiotic I struggle with allowing their posts on my news feed. The idea that more guns carried by more people will make us all safer boggles my mind, yet I regularly find these types of comments, and posts. In 2014 the NRA spent over $3,000,000.00 this year so far they have spent over $1,000,000.00 and the year isn't over yet. The desire to have zero regulation when it comes to owning fire arms. ZERO regulation is amazing to me. The NRA opposes background checks, thinks owning assault rifles is no real problem, don't want databases that show gun ownership to be kept, and don't like any changes to fire arm registration. They throw up the smoke screen of mental health issues, while keeping guns for any. My question has consistently been why? Why do you need that Glock 9, what's the point of owning an AR15, why do you need an extended magazine? I'm sorry but if you're such a bad shot that when trying to "defend" your home you need more than the average of 15 to 17 rounds I don't want you to have a gun, after all it's not a toy. Why we think the answer to gun violence is more gun ownership boggles the mind, but I can go to my news feed on Facebook and find loads of people posting reasons that it's a good thing for more people to be armed. I'm not advocating for banning all firearms, far from it, but some things just make sense as far as I'm concerned. The arguments that people make are getting old and wearing thin, "Criminals will still get guns if they want them." "If you think taking away guns will curb violence you're wrong." "The majority of gun owners and collectors are responsible and safe." Except when those things aren't true which seems to be more and more frequently. I'm all about gun control, have been for a while, will continue to be. I think part of purchasing a gun should be stating the purpose for said gun. If purchasing for "protection," state that in the application and along with the background check, that should be rather exhaustive, there should be a reference check. I think if it's for hunting that too should be stated, along with what you are planning to hunt, again with references as well as a comprehensive background check. It should be harder to purchase a gun than it is to purchase any other item. It should take time, it should be a rigorous process, that is evaluated every 3 to 5 years. Recently I had to renew my license to drive. There are two sets of renewals in MD. Once you hit 40 you can no longer renew at the kiosk, once you hit 40 you have to renew with a teller because they want to make sure you can see, they want to evaluate how safe you are to operate a car. Why should owning something that has just as much potential to end a human life as a vehicle not be subject to further evaluation on a regular basis?
Death comes in many forms. It can come at the hands of the state, it can come at the hands of a deranged individual, it can come softly in the night. The one constant is that it will come. It will bring with it sadness, and anger, and for some hope of eternity. What we do with death when it happens and we are left behind is what matters. If we look at the death of Kelly Gissendaner as what she deserved, and the shooting as "stuff happens" (Jeb Bush) we are missing out on an opportunity to be better, to change, to grow to evolve. As Christians we are missing an opportunity to be with the people effected to pray for those that are hurting and stand for those that have no voice.
Monday, September 28, 2015
The Orange Oasis...
I'm tired. Physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. I reserve this blog space to write about what is going on in life, to be transparent, to share things that may help others if they may be going through the same things.
It's been a long year, a longer Summer, there have been good things and frustrating things, successes and failures, the normal ebb and flow of life that everyone deals with. I know this, I recognize it, I don't really embrace it but who wants to embrace fatigue?
Orange has been an oasis for me, a chance to be in the company of great leaders, to get ideas, to network with others. I was able to share it with J and will be sharing it with people from the church at Orange Tour DC. I'm happy about it, I can't wait to do it, I want them to catch the vision and feel the best way for this to happen is for them to experience it themselves. All of that is good, all of that is needed, all of that is daunting.
When you're leading a church, especially one that's been around over a hundred years, you have a different set of circumstances to deal with than when you are planting a church, or coming to a church that is less than 20 years old. There is a dynamic that has to be understood and the only way to understand it is to spend time living in the reality that the people are living in and have lived in. In the World of Orange there is so much support for moving forward, embracing social media, leading change without losing it, having hard conversations, understanding you don't have to be a jerk to lead. There is this support system for church plants, and strategic partners, for birthing family ministries, starting next gen conversations, and helping married people.
For the record I've drunk the Orange Kool-aid I love it, I tout it with every person I can, but there is room in the Orangiverse for growth, particularly in the area of the small church that is struggling to reinvent itself. How do you birth and Orange culture in an ultra traditional church that knows it needs to evolve but struggles with that evolution. How do you have the tough questions with leadership when you've spent a year and a half building relationships and still you know that some of the things that need to happen are a huge stretch for them. How do you afford to paint your church and community Orange when the 6 month's free runs out and you're just starting to scratch the surface, just starting to see positive things happen and you know that another 12 months could make the difference between success and adoption and skepticism and moving back to what was because it was comfortable? How do you get an awesome organization like the ReThink group to see Baltimore as it's own very special entity not related at all to DC?
These are just some of the questions that run through my head on a daily basis, along with the daily work of ministering to a community that may or may not even realize Locust Point Community Church is there for them, not because we haven't been intentionally pushing into the community but because as the only staff person it's just exhausting doing 90% of the work that many churches share among others even if it is a part time secretary and a volunteer or two.
How do you take a much needed vacation, one that you know you should take but that you are just not sure how to do it without setting things back, because you don't want to disappoint the leadership that hired you, and even while you type that statement you feel guilty because you know the answer is supposed to be more about being a disappointment to God and yet you realize that you're a disappointment to yourself, that you really thought no matter how many times you tell everyone else and yourself that it didn't take 6 months or even a year to get where we are, it's not going to take that long to come back stronger, it's going to take time, because you secretly thought that attendance would double or triple in the first year, and now you're moving toward two years and it didn't happen.
How do you deal with the guilt you feel because your kids are in a city that they would rather not be in, in a school that isn't as great as the one they were in in the other part of Maryland and your wife is working at a job that takes more of her time and energy than it was supposed to, and you feel selfish because you know that they are all doing this for you?
But most of all how do you not feel any of this? How do you live in the moment that God has brought you too?
I think what makes it hardest of all is I know it's all a choice, I know that in many cases and in many ways I choose how I feel but I'm tired, and more than anything I need the Oasis that is Orange to be exactly that. I need someone to tell me it's going to be okay, for one of the many great leaders and speakers to do what they do so well, to be accessible, help sharpen me again. I need to not be so tired, I need that fresh wind of the Spirit of God to blow out the hurt and sadness and frustration and anger and sorrow (different than sadness in this sentence) because I'm just so tired, and admitting it to everyone is the first step to being okay but how do you tell people who are just as tired or more so that you really don't know how it's going to work?
Orange is an Oasis for me, but it's more than that, it's a place that makes me feel like I belong to a greater story, that I can do it, that I can keep walking... So no pressure guys... Just know that I need you...
It's been a long year, a longer Summer, there have been good things and frustrating things, successes and failures, the normal ebb and flow of life that everyone deals with. I know this, I recognize it, I don't really embrace it but who wants to embrace fatigue?
Orange has been an oasis for me, a chance to be in the company of great leaders, to get ideas, to network with others. I was able to share it with J and will be sharing it with people from the church at Orange Tour DC. I'm happy about it, I can't wait to do it, I want them to catch the vision and feel the best way for this to happen is for them to experience it themselves. All of that is good, all of that is needed, all of that is daunting.
When you're leading a church, especially one that's been around over a hundred years, you have a different set of circumstances to deal with than when you are planting a church, or coming to a church that is less than 20 years old. There is a dynamic that has to be understood and the only way to understand it is to spend time living in the reality that the people are living in and have lived in. In the World of Orange there is so much support for moving forward, embracing social media, leading change without losing it, having hard conversations, understanding you don't have to be a jerk to lead. There is this support system for church plants, and strategic partners, for birthing family ministries, starting next gen conversations, and helping married people.
For the record I've drunk the Orange Kool-aid I love it, I tout it with every person I can, but there is room in the Orangiverse for growth, particularly in the area of the small church that is struggling to reinvent itself. How do you birth and Orange culture in an ultra traditional church that knows it needs to evolve but struggles with that evolution. How do you have the tough questions with leadership when you've spent a year and a half building relationships and still you know that some of the things that need to happen are a huge stretch for them. How do you afford to paint your church and community Orange when the 6 month's free runs out and you're just starting to scratch the surface, just starting to see positive things happen and you know that another 12 months could make the difference between success and adoption and skepticism and moving back to what was because it was comfortable? How do you get an awesome organization like the ReThink group to see Baltimore as it's own very special entity not related at all to DC?
These are just some of the questions that run through my head on a daily basis, along with the daily work of ministering to a community that may or may not even realize Locust Point Community Church is there for them, not because we haven't been intentionally pushing into the community but because as the only staff person it's just exhausting doing 90% of the work that many churches share among others even if it is a part time secretary and a volunteer or two.
How do you take a much needed vacation, one that you know you should take but that you are just not sure how to do it without setting things back, because you don't want to disappoint the leadership that hired you, and even while you type that statement you feel guilty because you know the answer is supposed to be more about being a disappointment to God and yet you realize that you're a disappointment to yourself, that you really thought no matter how many times you tell everyone else and yourself that it didn't take 6 months or even a year to get where we are, it's not going to take that long to come back stronger, it's going to take time, because you secretly thought that attendance would double or triple in the first year, and now you're moving toward two years and it didn't happen.
How do you deal with the guilt you feel because your kids are in a city that they would rather not be in, in a school that isn't as great as the one they were in in the other part of Maryland and your wife is working at a job that takes more of her time and energy than it was supposed to, and you feel selfish because you know that they are all doing this for you?
But most of all how do you not feel any of this? How do you live in the moment that God has brought you too?
I think what makes it hardest of all is I know it's all a choice, I know that in many cases and in many ways I choose how I feel but I'm tired, and more than anything I need the Oasis that is Orange to be exactly that. I need someone to tell me it's going to be okay, for one of the many great leaders and speakers to do what they do so well, to be accessible, help sharpen me again. I need to not be so tired, I need that fresh wind of the Spirit of God to blow out the hurt and sadness and frustration and anger and sorrow (different than sadness in this sentence) because I'm just so tired, and admitting it to everyone is the first step to being okay but how do you tell people who are just as tired or more so that you really don't know how it's going to work?
Orange is an Oasis for me, but it's more than that, it's a place that makes me feel like I belong to a greater story, that I can do it, that I can keep walking... So no pressure guys... Just know that I need you...
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Until I Wasn't
I've been writing some different things lately. This one has been kicking around in my head the last few days so I decided to go ahead ...
