Here and Now

Michael wrote on his blog the other day that he was at college building nets. I guess he means safety nets. You know, get the training, the networking going so that you can have some kind of security in the future. Get the education so that you can make sure you get a good job and have security in your future. I talk to a lot of people - a lot of Christian people - who have more faith in their pensions and bank accounts than they have in God. They get the reports, the juggle "should I put in more, should I move this to a better fund..." whatever... They want to make sure that they can provide for themselves in the future... Now, I have nothing against pensions - I have one, thank you very much... But I don't know how much is in it - I don't know if it will "be enough" to provide for us when we are old(er...heh). But I know one thing - we're going to be in the hands of the One who has more than enough to provide our every need... If life is a highw...

I love Christmas – for, perhaps, all the wrong reasons... I love the joy, the love, the sounds, the smells (mmmm...except fruitcake...yuk), the whole package. But I was thinking this morning about how strange all of our traditions and celebrations really are when you think about it. Christmas is our celebration of the birth of Jesus – our Savior. So, I get the gift giving, and I understand the worship services and I guess the families-getting-together stuff all makes sense... But in Jesus’ birth, God was doing something absolutely revolutionary – something absolutely unique in the history of all time. God Himself coming to be a part of His creation, coming to reveal Himself to that creation in a completely new way, coming to die as an atoning sacrifice for that creation. This is something really powerful. It makes the bows and the gift certificates seem so...trivial, doesn’t it? Before you write me off as anti-Christmas, let me reiterate I love virtually everything about our mode...

I just helped repair Ladonna's bicycle. I love Ladonna - most people don't. But I do. Let me explain: Ladonna is a bit of misfit here at First - which is a rich, white, uppity, formal, self-conscious congregation (okay, that might be a little harsh - but only a little). Ladonna is...well, none of those things. I'm not sure what makes Ladonna different - but she is. She has some of the innocence of a 7 year old, she's almost certainly way smarter than I am, she reads voraciously (some really good stuff, too), but her thought processes are sometimes a mystery to me. She loves to give. She rides her bicycle all over town - with shopping bags on the handlbars and the seat (to keep them dry) and a big basket in the back to carry...well, I don't know what, but she's got a lot of stuff in there. Most people tolerate Ladonna - a few people hold her in open contempt - but I don't think she knows or cares. That's part of what I love about her. Sometimes I ...

I lost my glasses Sunday night. [I posted some UN-graceful things here that I need to retract anc repent...and I will...] Anyway, now that I got that off my chest. I can't find my glasses. I can still see pretty well without them - gives me a headache, but I can read, drive, whatever just fine without them. My eyes just have to work harder, that's all. Really, it's my right eye. I think my left eye is just about normal. With my right eye alone, things are kind of fuzzy - but not unreadable. Just a little out of focus. I think there's a lot of that in the church. I don't think that most people have a greatly distorted view of Jesus, I think that they just can't see Him all that clearly. It's just a little off. I know that's true for me. Sometimes I'm sooooo sure that I have a handle on this whole being a Christian thing - but then I realize that if I squint just a little more, though it might give me a headache, I can see that I was a little bit wron...

Failing. I just talked to a mom who's son is a senior in High School and he's failing some classes. He's capable - good grades in the past - but he has lost something - the drive? The will? Hope? Dunno. I don't really know the kid all that well - he doesn't go to this church's youth group - but this mom is really worried because he seems to be failing in his relationship with God, too. So, I'm in chapel at the Christian School again where I lead worship. Where I had failed. I couldn't remember how "In the Secret" started - messed up the melody (fortunately, enough people know that song that they picked it up) then right toward the end I broke a string - the A string - which means that fretting chords becomes weird - and the whole guitar goes out of tune slightly...argh. And the whole "mood" of worship was...discomfort. But I push on. And go to practice with the High School praise team before their chapel service and we can't reall...

I happened on this website - The Church You Know ( http://www.thechurchyouknow.com/index.html ) a take off on the NBC commercials The More You Know. I really agree with what these guys are saying (for the most part) and what they're doing. They claim to really love the church - but want to point out some of the stupid, unbelievable, or just plain hypocritical things we do in a somewhat clever way. I might use the worship one in church sometime (if I can get a good copy of it - dunno if they sell them). Reforming the church can only come from within. These guys are doing what Luther did at Wittenburg. It's a call to reform. I get so tired of people who bail on a church because it doesn't meet their expectations - but they're not willing to put the effort and energy into making transformation happen. I look at the task that Jesus (who, by the way is GOD) faced in transforming the Jewish religion. Acts 1:15 says that shortly after Jesus' ascension the number of b...

I wish I had done it...but I didn't. Michael made a comment on his blog about boring, bland Jesus - check out this video by RealLivePreacher - his "Communion Wafer Taste Test". http://www.reallivepreacher.com/node/819 Real Live Preacher “If this is a symbol for who we are, it’s really a tragic one because it sort of like looks fancy and nice but there’s no nourishment there at all. Pause. Empty and hollow. I pray that’s not what we’re about. Communion was supposed to have been something better than that.” Wish I had said that...

I have 169 U2 songs on my computer. I set the media player to randomly play the songs - I started with the live version of 40 from the "Under a Blood Red Sky" album - the very next song shuffled? 40 from the "War" album... What are the odds? Well, about 1 in 168, I guess. But it struck me as funny. Friday night Lori and I watched a show called Numbers - it was about randomness. The thing that makes "random" play not truly random in my media player is that it will never repeat the same song. While there might not be a discernable "pattern" (there shouldn't be, though our minds often - maybe even always - seek patterns in randomness) it isn't truly a random selector - the pool of possible songs goes down with each song played. I now have a 1 in 165 chance of pulling the third version of 40 I have as the next song... But I can be assured, that the first two versions played will never play again in this "randomized" shuffl...

No, really, is this what really happens? So it IS a series of tubes...

I love reading Brian McLaren. I don't think he's the greatest author that ever lived, or that his ideas are all that earth shattering. But he knows how to put words together. And I'll pay 21 bucks for 15 chapters of someone who knows how to turn a phrase (it's helpful if the phrase is somehow relevant, too, of course...). In The Secret Message of Jesus page 34 he writes: Is it possible that the message of Jesus was less like an advertising slogan -- obvious and loud -- and more like a poem whose meaning only comes subtly and quietly to those who read slowly, think long and deeply, and refuse to give up? McLaren's primary message in the book is that the Kingdom of God (or Kingdom of Heaven) isn't just someday, pie in the sky, when we get to heaven, but it's right here, right now. Not all that earth-shattering. I "discovered" that in seminary. But what a great image. Jesus' true message like a poem... We have way too much bumpersticker the...

At the risk of embarassing myself, here's Sunday morning's sermon: October 15, 2006 Hebrews 4:12-16 “Sin Boldly” – M. Luther Do you remember the news January 2nd? There was an explosion at the Sago mine in West Virginia. January , 1:29 AM CNN news online ran this headline: Family members say 12 miners found alive DO you remember that? And then just hours later the miscommunication was corrected: 12 dead and ONE still alive. Joy turned to sorrow, people were angry and hurting and feeling lost. The pastor at the Sago Baptist church tried to encourage people to turn to God in their sorrow. One man yelled, swearing, “What do you mean? What can God do for us now?” And a woman cried out in her grief, “Where is God when we need Him? Is He really there?” We may slip from our assurance that God is present with us – especially in our Job-like moments when we are hyper-aware of the struggle and the pain and the fallen world around us. But the Bible gives us a quiet assurance that God is h...

Did you know that Timothy means "Honor God"? Yeah, I thought you did. Did you know that Paul cites Timothy as a co-sender in six letters? Yep. Can you name them? Me either... (I looked it up, though - there they are, all six...) Yeah, yeah, okay. It's all good. Timothy is a good letter to wretsle with right now for me. I can't explain why exactly, though undoubtedly I'll delve into the maybes, but a lot of what I'm reading Biblically is about sin. Now, before you tell me that you can't swing a dead cat in the Bible without hitting a sin passage (wait, um...that metaphor really doesn't work, does it? Well, youknowhatimean....), let me say that while the Bible DOES talk a lot about sin, I'd suggest that it talks a lot more about redemption and restoration and discipline (in the learning sense, not in the woodshed sense). But I'd been reading an awful lot about how sin is bad. Okay, I know that. Even the most liberal of theologians is going to say...

Okay - this isn't even remotely theological...except... I have a new weekly addiction. I HAVE to check out www.postsecret.blogspot.com I can't help myself. And invariably, I'm depressed, bumfuzzeled and entertained all in the space of about 5 minutes. Don't go there. I'm not kidding. If you're anything like me you'll check it out every Monday or Tuesday... But if you do go there... See, here's the premise. People send in these anonymous "secrets." This is a blog of peoples' confessions - all anonymous. People write the most horrifying and most innane things. If even one in ten is true (and I bet it's higher than that) then there is some terrifying stuff going on in peoples' lives. So, why can we confess to the world anonymously, but not to the people we supposedly love personally? And how about to God? I yelled at Rachel the other day. She was whining, yes, but I was having a psychotic moment (well, not clinically, or a...

From my online class. I was responding to someone's comment about not having communion every week because it becomes rote and not meaningful...and a question about how to make communion "more rich" for the congregation... RE: More Richly vs. More Frequently I'm not sure I've ever understood the argument that more frequent equals rote/boring/etc. If that is the case, why even have worship every week? I mean, doesn't it just become rote? Why have music every week or a sermon? Ah, those elements vary week to week, so they're "new" every week... Yes, but... That may only be an argument against using the exact same liturgy every time you celebrate communion. What if we sang the same hymns every week, heard the same scripture every week, heard the same music, prayers, sermon, children's message, etc. week after week after week? Would we get bored? Probably. But let's not throw it all away (as "modern" "contemporary...

I have to write my thoughts on communion for my online class and I thought I'd run them up this flagpole and see if anybody has any opinions... (If it matters, I'm going to try to make a video using this as the "script" for a voiceover - but I might not have time so I might just have to submit this as a paper...) Holy Communion – a Benchmark William R. Beatty October 2, 2006 Sunday afternoon – World Communion Sunday, no less – my three-year-old daughter picked up a little board book about Easter. She flipped through the pages, came to a page with a cross on it and held it up for me to see. She said, with awe in her almost whispering voice, “Jesus died on the cross for us.” Elie doesn’t really know what that means, but she knows that it is important. She knows, too, that it is holy. When we talk about Jesus and the cross we speak with reverence – this is never the subject of a joke or spoken of casually. Jesus’ sacrifice, that which we remember in Holy...

Proverbs 10:2 Ill gotten treasures are of no value; but righteousness delivers from death. My first thought was...um...huh? What an odd pair to put together. Ill gotten treasures and righteousness? Heh - and, of course, as soon as I read "Ill gotten treasures" I remembered a quote from the TV show M*A*S*H (Michael, Google it...heh) where Hawkeye Pierce says something about "Ill Booten Gottey" (instead of "Ill Gotten Booty" which is a saying about...oh, nevermind). But then I started to think about our Bible study this morning. We're...how can I put this tactfully...um...PLODDING our way through Leviticus and we just read about the Year of Jubilee (chapter 25) and there's a couple of passages in that chapter that talk about not loaning money with intrest (and that's probably a whole 'nother topic). But we jumped to Jeremiah 7 & 9 because one of the guys this morning had some insight from God about this whole thing. And there (the v...

I had a woman in a church that I served who used to like to say, "Be careful what you pray for. I prayed for patience and God gave me Allen (her youngest son)." Now, I understand what she meant by that, but I think her perspective is way off. I don't think God was listening to her prayer and thinking to Himself, "Hmmmmm, she wants patience, does she? Well, I'll give her something to be patient about!!! Muhuhuhahahahahahaha ." Sigh, is God really like the Monkey's Paw? Or the evil Genie? Two and a half weeks ago, I woke up in the middle of the night. That's not all THAT unusual, but I woke up with a sudden and urgent need to pray - but with no direction to pray. That IS unusual. So, I started praying for the church and the people here - the youth and some of the events that were coming up. Then I started praying for my family. You know, those general, nice, inoffensive prayers that we too often pray. But then I started praying about being ...

"A wise son brings joy to his father, but a foolish son brings grief to his mother." My first thought on reading this is how I want to hear my Father say, "Well done good and faithful servant." But that's too simplistic. Here's a pop-psych reading of this: men draw their identity from what they do, women from who they know (heh, yeah, life is just that simple, of course). So, a wise son will bring joy to his father because the father will say "I have done well in raising this boy." The foolish son brings grief to his mother because she will say, "Our relationship failed, therefore I am a failure..." The truth? Well, as I see it (and that's where the potential heresy comes in, doesn't it?) is that a wise child will be a joy to both parents and both parents will grieve over the foolish choices of their children. It's poetry, people. I think about the foolish choices that I made as a kid - whipping apples at cars (an artform...

...put up a "clever" "pithy" or "neato" church sign again. Check out this website. I mean, I went there on a lark and then I read the critiques, and he's right about most of them... We put such STUPID things on church signs. Do we really think that our culture is that impressed by "CH_ _ CH What's Missing? U R "? Come on... I found this website today: http://www.crummychurchsigns.com/