I didn’t realize it, but today was the grand re-opening of a newly remodeled supermarket near my home. So when I stopped in to pick up some things the place was more full than I’ve ever seen it and all the checkers were newly-hired. The floor plan was as new to them as it was to me, plus they were obviously learning all the codes for the grocery items. In other words, lines were long and moved sloooowly.
There was a mom and her two kids in front of me. The checker was having to look up a lot of the codes for stuff that doesn’t grow with bar codes on them, like bananas. She knew she was taking a long time and apologized to me when she finally started ringing up my items. She’d done several items when the mom apologized to the checker because her 3 year old hadn’t yet caught on to the notion of paying for stuff in a store and had helped himself to a box of candy and eaten half of it, unbeknownst to her. Now she needed to pay for it.
The checker told her to wait until after she’d finished ringing up my items. I put myself in that young mom’s place: waiting around for the checker to finish while trying to keep 2 kids from being run over by grocery carts AND dealing with the embarrassment of everyone knowing her 3 year old was becoming a kleptomaniac. So I told the checker, “Just ring up the candy with my groceries.”
It felt good to see the look of relief of on the mom’s face. I told her, “Merry Christmas” and off they went. It felt even better to hear the woman in line after me remark to someone next to her, “That just made my day.”
As I took my groceries to my car, I thought about God’s grace. Isaiah tells us, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray… and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:6) Jesus came from the Father expressly to take on himself the payment for our sin. That was the message that the early Church received with gratitude.
The church is here to continue Jesus’ work of offering grace to the world. The early church knew that, too, and it’s one of the reasons the church grew from an obscure Jewish sect of with 3,120 members after Peter’s sermon in Acts 2 to taking over the Roman Empire under Constantinople less than 300 years later (Rodney Stark estimates that in order to be a majority in the early 4th century there must have been at least 6 million Christians in the empire). When plagues threatened whole cities, early Christians cared for the sick while people of means fled to their country villas. Early Christians cared about the poor and those without status(like slaves and women). Outsiders looked on with admiration and appreciation. Some even decided to follow Christ, as did many of those that received God’s care through the Church.
So God used an everyday situation to remind me of why and how I’m to be a part of God’s purposes in the world. It was certainly worth the 89 cents the lesson cost me. I didn’t look to see whether the mom let the 3 year old finish the candy.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
exhaling
I met today with my prayer partner. I meet with him once a week. What do I get out of it? A weekly opportunity to pause and take stock, to confess and bare my soul, letting someone else know what’s troubling me. Why is all this important? A lot of us seem to get along just fine without doing any of these things. But I find that having this weekly rhythm is like breathing. In a sense it’s an opportunity to exhale, to let go of things that have been accumulating in my spirit. The word for spirit in Hebrew is “ruach” which is the same as the word for “breath”. So taking a pause for reflection and confession really is exhaling.
If I don’t take the time to exhale, stuff builds up inside. We exhale to get rid of carbon dioxide and other things our bodies don't need. If we don’t exhale, we’ll lose consciousness (try it some time). I suppose if I didn’t have a time for regular spiritual exhaling, I’d be physically OK. But spiritually, I’d be unconscious, unaware of the movement of God’s Spirit around me because I’d be stifling the flow of God’s Spirit within me.
If I don’t take the time to exhale, stuff builds up inside. We exhale to get rid of carbon dioxide and other things our bodies don't need. If we don’t exhale, we’ll lose consciousness (try it some time). I suppose if I didn’t have a time for regular spiritual exhaling, I’d be physically OK. But spiritually, I’d be unconscious, unaware of the movement of God’s Spirit around me because I’d be stifling the flow of God’s Spirit within me.
quality time
I heard a writer for a soap opera recently comment that he would get letters from viewers addressed to specific soap opera characters. The viewers would express some pretty deeply-felt emotion about the character, and they would do it by writing to the characters as if they were real people. The writer said something to the effect, “And why not? These viewers probably spend more quality time on a daily basis with the soap opera characters than with their own families.”
It made me wonder: what’s quality time? Maybe what the writer said is true. When we watch TV we pay attention carefully to everything that’s going on. We don’t want to miss any details or we might lose track of the story line. But when I’m interacting with my own family members I tend to be more concerned about what I need to tell them then in what they want to tell me. How often do I pay as much attention to what’s going on in their lives as I do to the details of what’s happening with a TV or movie character? Who’s really getting my quality time?
It made me wonder: what’s quality time? Maybe what the writer said is true. When we watch TV we pay attention carefully to everything that’s going on. We don’t want to miss any details or we might lose track of the story line. But when I’m interacting with my own family members I tend to be more concerned about what I need to tell them then in what they want to tell me. How often do I pay as much attention to what’s going on in their lives as I do to the details of what’s happening with a TV or movie character? Who’s really getting my quality time?
Friday, December 4, 2009
limits
Yesterday I had lunch with a group of pastors. All of us have been in the pastorate for at least 10 years, some (like me) for as many as 25. As I looked around the table, I remembered what we looked like 15, 20 years ago. One of the (younger) guys shared that he’d played football last weekend with some of the students at his church, guys 20 years younger. It was a bit of a reality check to realize that he was a lot sorer the next day than he thought he’d be.
As we get older, our limitations become more real. The big goals that we had when we were younger come into clearer focus and we realize that some of those goals are simply out of reach. Am I ok with accepting my limitations and changing my expectations?
My temptation is to think that I didn’t try hard enough, that I should set my sights higher and work harder, that I just didn’t have enough knowledge or skill or chutzpah. But that’s my ego talking, encouraged by the American ethos where “any little kid can grow up to be President” (and I’m still getting over the shock of being older than the current President).
God tells me that his purposes are accomplished “not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit” (Zechariah 4:6). He adds, “Who despises the day of small things?” (Zech 4:10). Whether God wants me to preach to 5,000 or watch 5 kids in the nursery is up to him.
When one of our leadership team members termed out of the team (after 6 years of service), it left him wondering what to do next. He’d hit the pinnacle of leadership at Grace, supposedly. But now God’s given him a ministry teaching first and second graders in Sunday School. And guess what? He loves it! He’s where God wants him, teaching “small things”. And God says that’s nothing to sneeze at (even when they’re sneezing back).
As we get older, our limitations become more real. The big goals that we had when we were younger come into clearer focus and we realize that some of those goals are simply out of reach. Am I ok with accepting my limitations and changing my expectations?
My temptation is to think that I didn’t try hard enough, that I should set my sights higher and work harder, that I just didn’t have enough knowledge or skill or chutzpah. But that’s my ego talking, encouraged by the American ethos where “any little kid can grow up to be President” (and I’m still getting over the shock of being older than the current President).
God tells me that his purposes are accomplished “not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit” (Zechariah 4:6). He adds, “Who despises the day of small things?” (Zech 4:10). Whether God wants me to preach to 5,000 or watch 5 kids in the nursery is up to him.
When one of our leadership team members termed out of the team (after 6 years of service), it left him wondering what to do next. He’d hit the pinnacle of leadership at Grace, supposedly. But now God’s given him a ministry teaching first and second graders in Sunday School. And guess what? He loves it! He’s where God wants him, teaching “small things”. And God says that’s nothing to sneeze at (even when they’re sneezing back).
Saturday, November 28, 2009
faith-speak
Believing isn’t fashionable. During the holiday season, belief is promoted as something that little kids do. Believing is OK for adults, in a Hallmark Special kind of way because it gives us warm fuzzies. But it’s not something to be taken seriously.
So why do we have “faith traditions” in which most of the world participates? The word “faith” itself assumes a reality larger than ourselves. Most of the world realizes that we are not the center of the universe and that we need to belong to a community of faith that helps us make sense of the small part of reality that we occupy, and that gives some reasonable context to that small part of reality.
All of us are on a faith journey. Not only do we occupy a small part of a larger reality, we are moving through that reality. And the metaphor of travel brings home the fact that our own path is a very small part of the much larger and richer landscape of the reality through which we travel. Will we move through that landscape by ourselves or in the company of friends and wiser people?
Lately I’ve been using the phrase “informed faith decision.” It sounds oxymoronic to put “informed” and “faith” in the same phrase, but that’s only if you deny that you are moving through a larger reality (if your own experience is the only reality then you can experience it however you want). If you are looking for a good group to travel with, then it makes sense to use some brain cells to make a wise decision about which sort of people you want to travel with and whether or not their understanding of the larger reality provides a sensible map.
So why do we have “faith traditions” in which most of the world participates? The word “faith” itself assumes a reality larger than ourselves. Most of the world realizes that we are not the center of the universe and that we need to belong to a community of faith that helps us make sense of the small part of reality that we occupy, and that gives some reasonable context to that small part of reality.
All of us are on a faith journey. Not only do we occupy a small part of a larger reality, we are moving through that reality. And the metaphor of travel brings home the fact that our own path is a very small part of the much larger and richer landscape of the reality through which we travel. Will we move through that landscape by ourselves or in the company of friends and wiser people?
Lately I’ve been using the phrase “informed faith decision.” It sounds oxymoronic to put “informed” and “faith” in the same phrase, but that’s only if you deny that you are moving through a larger reality (if your own experience is the only reality then you can experience it however you want). If you are looking for a good group to travel with, then it makes sense to use some brain cells to make a wise decision about which sort of people you want to travel with and whether or not their understanding of the larger reality provides a sensible map.
loving God
Sometimes it’s hard to figure out how to love God. I do things like read the Bible and pray and go to worship, but it doesn’t always seem real.
Loving God seems like a nebulous, vague thing. Is it a warm feeling inside or is it feeling guilty because God did so much for me? So then it occurs to me: what if I do something for someone? That’s concrete and it makes God happy. People know that we love God when we do things for each other and for people in our world. More importantly, it helps me know that I love God. Loving others is how I make real to myself that I love God.
I’m not good at those simple, loving things. A quick phone call or some other gesture of caring seems so insignificant compared to the grand stuff of “ministry”. I fall for the deceit of thinking that only the big things count. But the word translated “minister” in the Bible is really the word for servant or serving. When I serve someone, I am loving them and loving God.
Loving God seems like a nebulous, vague thing. Is it a warm feeling inside or is it feeling guilty because God did so much for me? So then it occurs to me: what if I do something for someone? That’s concrete and it makes God happy. People know that we love God when we do things for each other and for people in our world. More importantly, it helps me know that I love God. Loving others is how I make real to myself that I love God.
I’m not good at those simple, loving things. A quick phone call or some other gesture of caring seems so insignificant compared to the grand stuff of “ministry”. I fall for the deceit of thinking that only the big things count. But the word translated “minister” in the Bible is really the word for servant or serving. When I serve someone, I am loving them and loving God.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
back to basics
Ah, the good old days. In October 1997 when we started the core group of what would become Grace Community, no one thought of money as a limitation. We had a generous denomination to help us get started and no one doubted that we would be financially self-sufficient within three years (the standard for proving that we were a viable church plant). After all, economic times were good and people were starting to make money just by having a good idea that happened to mention the phrase “world wide web”. And the term “sub-prime” did not evoke fear and anger.
So it’s been a bit of a shock to realize that Grace Community hasn’t been immune to the recession, that we’re having to dip into savings to make our rent, and that to balance the budget we’ve had to do things like cut staff expense reimbursements. (I’m not complaining about it, since as everyone reminds me, it’s what most businesses are having to do.)
The leadership team has been forced to consider moving in order to save money. As we’ve reflected on this new reality, it’s led to a change in perspective. When you have enough money, there’s an illusion of control. Every week in worship we say that we’re giving back to God a portion of what he’s given to us. But inside I’ve been thinking, “Aren’t you lucky, God, to have people like us to help you spend your money.”
But now the illusion of control is gone. If we got the money by our own efforts, then our efforts are obviously not good enough to pay the rent. We need some help. And it seems that our own efforts are falling short in a lot of other areas, too.
In the last leadership team meeting, as we looked at the (only) two options we seemed to have, one of us said, “I don’t know what to do. Let’s pray.” So we did. And after that, we came to the realization that we were being driven mostly by cost considerations and had forgotten our core values, especially the value of being inviting. We’re a friendly group, but people aren’t staying with us simply because we’re not really inviting them to. We’d rather go to lunch after worship with nice people that we already know.
So for the next year or so we’re going to work on being inviting. That, and acknowledging that everything we have really does come from God and that we will always fall short if we're not trusting in God.
So it’s been a bit of a shock to realize that Grace Community hasn’t been immune to the recession, that we’re having to dip into savings to make our rent, and that to balance the budget we’ve had to do things like cut staff expense reimbursements. (I’m not complaining about it, since as everyone reminds me, it’s what most businesses are having to do.)
The leadership team has been forced to consider moving in order to save money. As we’ve reflected on this new reality, it’s led to a change in perspective. When you have enough money, there’s an illusion of control. Every week in worship we say that we’re giving back to God a portion of what he’s given to us. But inside I’ve been thinking, “Aren’t you lucky, God, to have people like us to help you spend your money.”
But now the illusion of control is gone. If we got the money by our own efforts, then our efforts are obviously not good enough to pay the rent. We need some help. And it seems that our own efforts are falling short in a lot of other areas, too.
In the last leadership team meeting, as we looked at the (only) two options we seemed to have, one of us said, “I don’t know what to do. Let’s pray.” So we did. And after that, we came to the realization that we were being driven mostly by cost considerations and had forgotten our core values, especially the value of being inviting. We’re a friendly group, but people aren’t staying with us simply because we’re not really inviting them to. We’d rather go to lunch after worship with nice people that we already know.
So for the next year or so we’re going to work on being inviting. That, and acknowledging that everything we have really does come from God and that we will always fall short if we're not trusting in God.
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