Here and Now

I was listening to NPR yesterday and they had a feature on the SBA (that's Small Business Administration, duh). It seems that the SBA guaranteed a ton of loans in the wake of the 9/11 attacks intended to be for businesses that were adversely affected by the attack. Thing is, an audit was done of the loans. They pulled 59 random applications and they found that NINE (9) and ONLY 9 had any verifiable link to the 9/11 attacks. In other words, they could only verify that 9 of the 59 were adversely affected by the attacks. The other 50 had absolutely no evidence whatsoever in the applications. Okay, well, maybe they didn't write it all down... No, they interviews 42 of those who recieved loans guaranteed by the SBA intended for those affected by the attacks. Only 2 of interviewed even had any idea that their loans were in any way tied to the attacks... So, the statement from the SBA is that it's not their fault. They are understaffed to evaluate the merits of the applica...

I just got a letter from a friend. No, not an email. No, not a card. An actual letter. Came in the mail and everything. Who knew such things were still possible? The letter came at just the right time. You see, my friend is a retired pastor and part of his ministry in retirement has been to pray for me. I know to most people that doesn't sound like much, but to me, that means the world. The book of James says, "The prayers of the righteous are powerfully effective..." So, my friend sends me this letter and - I have to be honest here, I haven't really thought much about him in a while (we live an hour or so apart - might as well be a million miles most days) and then, bam, this letter comes to me. I'd been in a bit of a funk lately (man, I'm not ready for Advent to start yet and Christmas is already over...) and just reading the letter helped me out a lot. There's something to be said for the ministry of encouragement, too... AND, here's where...

Getting ready for our Christmas Eve services. I get to plan the early, family-friendly service (7:00 PM). I really want to use some video this year - more than we have in the past - as well as engage people's senses in other ways... Of course, it's the Monday before and I don't have anything "set in stone" - lots of ideas, one of which already fell by the wayside because I didn't get on it early enough (no, no, I'm just early for next year...heh). Got some neat reasources - Cloth for the Cradle from the Iona Community has some interesting ideas in it as well as Alternative Worship by Jonny Baker and Doug Gay. I have Fresh Out of the Box Volume 3 from Lumicon which is pretty good and the Mirrors DVD from Sacramentis... Whew, looks like I have the resources (those are just the things in front of me - I have a bunch of other worship planning stuff and video stuff...but those are just tools - I need inspiration...) I was reading Isaiah this morning (I...

Recently I received (via email) one of those really hard questions, and since I put a good bit of effort and prayer into the answer, I thought it would be appropriate to share it here... Some one close to me, who is not saved, has been affected by a suicide. Over the weekend the discussion came around to faith and I was totally unprepared for a couple questions I was asked. Would...you please share your thoughts and any scripture I might read to both console & guide my friend. I have searched through the small amount of reference material I have and find nothing that really speaks to suicide. Let me start with another difficult question: what about those who never profess Jesus as Lord and Savior? My father died never having recited the sinner's prayer or, as far as I know, never having made a public confession of faith (except when my sister and I were baptized...). Where do I find comfort in his death? Revelation 3:14-22 is an open letter to the c...

I THINK I've recovered from Friday night. A bunch of churches got together and put together an all nighter based around the Narnia movie with a midnight showing of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. My head is JUST beginning to clear... Oh, here's the website of the youth ministry that promoted the event. http://www.time4revolution.com (okay, there's virtually NO content there - because this event was the kickoff for the ministry). Anyway, one of they guys sent me this, it made me smile, thought I'd post it... TOP TEN SURPRISES IN THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA MOVIE By Dave Tippett 10. Narnia City Council votes to remove all images of Aslan, replace them with generic alley cat that represents all felines of world 9. Mega Aslan den draws animal followers from smaller dens with better praise and worship band 8. Metaphors go crazy as Aslan assigns kingdom duties to second in command, a talking rock 7. Sequel set up when, after the victory, Charismatic Aslans clash wit...

One of my kids (I'm a youth leader at church) was talking on Wednesday about what a horrible week this was in history. These were her reasons: An attempted assassination of Bob Marley The guy who was killed at the Rolling Stones concert in California Pearl Harbor day (64th anniversary) John Lennon was assassinated (25 years ago) Of course being the sensitive and understanding youth leader I am, I asked if she got her history lesson from Rolling Stone Magazine... Three of the four of these evens aren't even historically significant. (Lennon fans are going to hate me for that, I know, but really, in 100 or 200 years will he be remembered? I bet Pearl Harbor will be - like Fort Sumter or Fort McHenry or the Boston Tea Party are remembered - I bet MLK's assassination will be remembered because he was, historically speaking, a much more significant figure). The point is not to alienate Lennon fans (or Marley fans or Stones fans) - but to simply comment on how culture oversh...

In an effort to blog with more consistency... I just discovered that my spray deodorant has as ingredients both butane and propane. Talk about explosive. I'm walking around like a body builder now because I'm afraid that I might create friction in my armpits and they might explode... Nah - but what it did make me think about for a minute was how many things we buy/use that we don't know either what they're made of or where they come from. Just what are the ingredients of a Twinkie or that Lean Cuisine meal that you bought? What kind of impurities are found in that cracked coffee mug you keep using? Who the heck puts butane in thier deodorant? Okay, probably everybody...but, do I really want to be spraying that kind of stuff on my body? It' s just so wierd... Speaking of not knowing stuff... We recently did a radon test in our basement - and it was high (4 is considered tolerable - ours was 5.3) so we're running another test - if it's high too, we ha...

Another day, another funk... Not sure why I never seen to update the blog - nobody's reading it, so I can be free to write whatever I want to write, right? We had our annual all church meeting two nights ago (in the UMC we call it Church Conference or Charge Conference - in contrast to Annual Conference, which involves all of the churches in Western PA - every June - or District Conference which occurs every spring and involves the 50 or so churches in our district - Church Conference is in the fall and, well, we talk about our church). At the meeting, the District Superintendent talked at length about not looking back but looking forward. He, of course, made reference to Isaiah 42:9  See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them. God is doing new things. SEE...THE NEW THINGS I NOW DECLARE. Even before they happen, God is telling us about the new things. What is done, is done. The past is, well, past... T...

"Right now my life feels like an unmade bed." I just read that quote in somebody else's blog and it really hit me. That's me. This guy's complaint was that he had quite a few unfinished projects on the back burner. That's part of why I feel that way, but part of it is also probably that I'm hitting middle age and there's so much that I thought I'd do, thought I COULD do, whatever, that I haven't accomplished. Well, I don't really know why I feel like that, I just know I do. I have so much - I love my wife (and she loves me), I have two of the greatest girls who were ever born. I like my job, my coworkers. God is good -- all the time. So why do I feel...unmade? No answers today. Just the question. I said Sunday night that I'm Eeyore (from Winnie the Pooh - I gotta start reading some grown-up books soon...) and maybe that's part of it. Always seeing the negative, always ready with the down-side... Dunno...

I’m not sure what to make of all of this. I was looking at Elie (our 2-year-old daughter) the other day. I smiled. She smiled back. I got to thinking about smiling. What a strange way to contort the face, and yet there’s something so inviting and attractive about a smile. It’s the shape our mouths make when we laugh – when we really, naturally, spontaneously laugh. I have in my wallet our family photo from our pictorial directory and the photographer told Lori and I to just smile and wait for the moment that he would snap the picture – HIS concern was to get the girls to smile. So, Lori and I sat with these smiles pasted on our faces, he would act goofy, the girls would laugh and, voila, they’re SMILING. It’s a beautiful picture. I love it. But smiling. What a weird thing to do. You’ve heard the “it takes more muscles to frown than to smile” or some such nonsense (here’s one take on the whole debate that might be worth a quick peek – http://www.snopes.com/science/smile.asp ). Smiling j...

Hannah Whitehall Smith wrote in her journal in March of 1878: Faith is the stairway that leads to the manifestation, but it is not the manifestation itself, and to settle down to a pure life of faith alone without the Divine response is to sit down on the stairway, and never reach the place to which the stairway was meant to lead. This I have done in common with hundreds of others, and as a consequence our souls have not experienced that conscious indwelling of the abiding Comforter which is plainly promised in the Bible, and which some Christians have most blessedly realized. I had however got contented with this way of living, and had settled it in my own mind, that this conscious experience was not for me, that it was a matter of temperament, or of health, and that I was called to a walk of faith alone. But the deep down inward sense of lack always remained after all, but I would not notice it, thinking it must be temptation. Last spring however the Lord by a series of most remark...

So, I'm doing it again... Oh, wait, I've been gone for almost two weeks now - our denomination's Annual Conference and a work trip in Pittsburgh (which was great, by the way)... Anyway, so, I'm doing it again, it would seem. Every once in a while I think about doing something really big for God. Something earth-shaking, faith-building, hope-spreading, light...um...beaming? Anyway, I think about doing some big things for God. And every once in a while I act on that impulse. Seems like a good idea, God will be honored by it, it might even sound like the right thing to do at the time. Thing is, and this is where the "I'm doing it again" thing comes in, sometimes when I decide to do these big deals, I don't really ask God what HE wants, you know? I mean, what if these big plans aren't really God plans? What if I set out to do the greatest thing ever witnessed by human eyes so that God will be glorified, but God really just wants something smal...

Earlier today I was trying to do a lead sheet of a song I had written several years ago. I have this cool program (Finale NotePad 2005a) that is really easy to use (though it crashes a lot for me on playback...) Anyway, I realized a couple of things as I was working the song out (bear in mind, that I can't read music - not with any proficiency - and I taught myself to play guitar). First of all, I really like syncopation. Took me forever to figure out all those dotted this and tied that... Second, there can be a huge difference between a melody written and a melody performed...even when the notes are the same. There's inflection, scoops and whatever... So, turns out that it's all about the details. When I was a kid I took some kind of standardized test. One of the parts of the test was to make as many pictures as I could out of series of circles in an allotted time. As I recall, there were maybe 30 circles. I probably used 5 or 6 of the circles. I was told that I spent too ...

Bet not too many people remember the band Undercover. Was looking over my CD collection the other day and I pulled out the Broken Records '88 compilation Undercover Vol. 1. Just about the only thing I every remember from the band is the song "God Rules." Bet not too many people remember it, either... (well, the other thing I remember is the GREAT Boys and Girls Renounce the World album cover and song...) God Rules Last time water, this time fire The day is getting down to the wire I've heard Jesus mocked and now I'm tired God is true and men are liars God Rules Jesus helps me day and night Took my sins and flushed them right outa here The devil lost the fight Jesus won with power and might God Rules There's more to life than getting stoned And sitting in the twilight zone He is coming to take us home Don't be left here all alone God Rules By Ojo Taylor Okay, it ain't Shakespeare - but two things strike me about it, even today. First is it...

I was reading Colossians the other day and one of the last verses says, "And when this letter has been read among you, have it read also in the church of the Laodiceans; and see that you read also the letter from Laodicea." (Colossians 3:16, NRSV) There IS no letter to the Laodiceans in the New Testament. That got me thinking, of course... What is Paul talking about? Where is the letter? Why is this here? Now, I remember Church history classes and the fights over the canon - what books would be included, were the letters authentic, the compromises (like Revelation being included only if Hebrews was included - an East/West battle), and so on. I mean, there's a very human aspect to the whole collection of the canon and the determination of what was included and what wasn't included. So I did a search (Google, my new best friend...heh) and I came across several sites that purport to have copies of this "Lost Epistle." One site alleges that in 1844 a man ...

Yesterday I got to lead chapel at one of our local Christian schools. I was freaking out because I didn't know if I could relate to the little kids (even though half the time I act like one) and I heard the Jr/Sr High kids could be pretty brutal (bored, non-responsive -- not really HOSTILE, mind you...). Anyway, I wasn't sure what to do, so I prayed. Well, duh. Of course I prayed. Yeah, but I mean I BATHED this puppy in prayer. I was on my knees (figuratively) more over the past week or so over this service than I have been over anything in a long time (though, check out my last post...). I really felt like I should speak on the Holy Spirit (I mean, this is Pentecost, right?). So I did. And I used an old standby for when I do a children's sermon at another church (they've seen it here) -- balloon animals. Okay, I'm not very good at balloon animals, but I can be kind of goofy in my inability (you know, "let me show you the first animal I learned to make.....

I spent a lot of hours on the road over the last four days. That always gives me time to think - to pray - to whine and not worry about offending anybody - to dream out loud and not be embarassed... I realized (at 70 mph, thank you very much) that I've pretty much put God on the back burner, so to speak. Don't get me wrong. I'm a pastor, God is my job. So I still read the Bible. I still pray. I'm still present with God. But you know how people can be in the same room (present with each other) but be miles away? That's been me and God - off and on - for the past several months. And, of course, it's been me. But I never really thought it bothered God all that much. I mean, God created patience, right? Okay, I'm rambling... I ran across this passage from the Psalms (44:20-21): If we had forgotten the name of our God, or spread out our hands to a strange god would not God discover this? For he k...

Wow -- I was just rocking Elie before her nap and she kept grabbing my thumb. She's almost two... What struck me was how tiny her hands are. And how HUGE mine seem to be. When did I get grown-up hands? They're a little wrinkled and a little scarred and the veins pop up on the back (which Lori thinks is gross) -- they're not kid hands any more... Then I started thinking about God's hands. How big they must be... I mean, if God HAS hands... But, well, I hope you know what I mean. Elie depends on my hands to hold her, to pick her up, to guide her across the street. My hands offer her things she knows she needs (like food and her "blankie") and things I know she needs (like her vitamins). My hands throw her in the air and catch her, my hands tickle her while she squirms, they stroke her hair while she sleeps, they wipe her nose, put on her shoes... My grown up hands...nothing like her tiny, innocent hands... One day she'll have grown up hands too.....

I just opened up my Bible and read the first thing that I saw. It happened to be Micah chapter 7. You should read it. I'll bet if you read The Message translation you'd think Micah was talking to us today. My Bible gives the chapter the heading, "The Total Corruption of the People." That's pretty appropriate. Micah is complaining about how depraved people have become -- hunting one another, officials taking bribes, friends and loved ones betraying one another, children hating their parents... Yep, sounds like the world I see around me today. But what caught my attention in this (after all, there are dozens of passages like this scattered throughout the prophets, Micah isn't unique in his assessment of the wickedness of the people) -- what caught my attention was how he begins this section: Woe is me! For I have become like one who, after the summer fruit has been gathered, after the vintage has been gleaned, finds no cluster to eat; there is no first-...

We're in the middle of our annual rummage sale here at the church. Mountains of stuff came in over the past couple of weeks -- and mounds of stuff are leaving in the arms of people who have dropped a few dollars for the items. It's a pretty good deal, of course, and our Allen Class and the kids going to the Pittsburgh Project really benefit from the sale. It's just amazing to me how much stuff people accumulate -- and how much stuff I accumulate, for that matter. I saw some really neat stuff, some junk, some collectables and some -- well, some stuff I'm really not sure what it is... It would be really neat if I could see who brought what stuff into the sale. What does the fact that they owned it say about them? What does the fact that they are giving it away say about them? Nah -- that wouldn't be any good, because I know the kind of stuff that I brought in. What it says about me is that I've received some pretty off the wall gifts... Of course, if I br...

8:00 on a Saturday night. What would you normally be doing? Where would you be? Maybe a movie, or in front of the TV? Visiting friends or family, a late dinner, on the road somewhere? 8:00 on Saturday night isn’t prime time at my house, it’s unwinding time. The girls are in bed (probably) and the house has been tidied up (probably) and I’m ready to just relax and be quiet (probably…not). But this Saturday night was different. First of all, I wasn’t at home. Lori and I took four girls from church to a weekend youth event called Acquire the Fire. It’s a youth rally. It’s a call to youth to make a deeper commitment to Christ. It’s a day and a half of teaching and drama and music and worship. And, of course, it’s fun. By 8:00 on Saturday night I was ready to go home. The teaching had been great, the worship was incredible, the bands…well, the kids liked the bands (hardcore I don’t mind so much but I just don’t get hip-hop). We were maybe thirty hours into this weekend and I was just plain ...