Clinging to the Right Things

an old picture of Zoe clinging to what
actually matters, our friends' dog, Daisy

A few weeks ago I had a really interesting experience with Zoe. It was bedtime and she was obviously quite tired, so I decided to carry her to her bed (which I don't do as often now that she's not a baby anymore). As I was carrying her downstairs, she wrapped her arms tightly around my neck, nestled her head onto my shoulder, and I held her tightly in a warm embrace. It was a precious, special moment.

But then suddenly she realized that she had not grabbed the stuffed animals she was planning to sleep with that night, so we turned around to go find where she had last put them. The tragedy of the story is that as Zoe continued to fill her arms with an immeasurable number of animals, she was suddenly unable to cling tightly to me in a sweet father-daughter embrace. We had lost the cuddly connection we had once shared, and I had now become no more than her preferred mode of transportation from one place to the next.

Hoarding our possessions (our money, things, clothes, time, energy, and skillsets), can often force us to sacrifice more important things. We cannot serve two masters. We can't serve God and money. Like Zoe in the story, clinging so tightly to the things we own can distract us from more significant things or people that are right under our noses and can rob of us of the life God intends for us.

During this season of thanksgiving and gratitude, may we learn to loosen our grip on the things we own and the endless desire for more. May we be more aware of the things in life that really matter. May we recognize that the God of the universe is desperate to hold us close, shower us with blessing, and remind us of our God-given value. And during this frantic season of American consumerism, where a meal of the thanksgiving quickly gives way to Black Friday shopping, may we not let anything distract us from our first love...the God who loves us dear and holds us near.

A No-Gimmick Church

On the whole, I consider myself a pretty loving, hospitable, and gracious person. I don’t get worked up over too much, I’m a pretty good listener, and I have a fairly high pain-tolerance for difficult people. But there is one thing that drives me crazy: a gimmick.

I can’t stand gimmicks. I despise the bait and switch mentality, where I feel like I am being sold a bill of goods. I get so annoyed when I am l led to believe one thing is true and then come to find out it was all a farce. I can’t stand being fed a line. And I’m guessing I’m not the only person in our church that has a pretty low level of patience for gimmicky conversations and marketing.

Unfortunately, this model of branding and marketing has become increasingly prevalent in our society. A new pyramid scheme crops up every day and my phone is constantly ringing with automated scam phone calls. And I’ve found myself having almost zero tolerance for the gimmicks of our society. While I’m certainly not rude to the telemarketers who call daily, they don’t often get to see my kind, pastoral side. I can’t stand gimmicks.

And yet Christians, churches, and ministries succumb to this type of conversation, branding, and marketing as well…and it’s a terrible shame. We advertise our churches as something we aren’t. We try to get people in the door through bait-and-switch tactics. We too often aren’t open and honest about who we are, what we are passionate about, and what it will mean for people to be a part of our church. Instead, we put on a show, trying to make ourselves cooler than we actually are, and people can smell our hypocrisy and insincerity from miles away.

Now, I’m using the royal ‘we’ here to remind us all that it is really easy to slip into this gimmick mentality. But in all sincerity, I am SO proud of our church for generally being an anti-gimmick kind of church – open, honest, and real; doing ministry out of our true identity, rather than always wishing we were some other church; and certainly not trying to puff out our chests and pretend we are better or cooler than we are in an effort to get people through the door.

So, I'm thankful my church isn't like this. I'm thankful they are a church that is passionate about Jesus, comfortable in its own skin, and never interested in being something other than their true identity. And I'm thankful that they resist the pressure of a bait-and-switch way of engaging with the community. I hope we can commit to always being a no-gimmick church.

Our Weekend with the Scandrettes

The following is an article I wrote to my church members following our weekend with Mark and Lisa Scandrette a last week.

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What an incredible weekend of activities and events 

with Mark and Lisa Scandrette!!

I hope you all were encouraged as much as I was, but wow, that was an amazing time of community, learning, and challenge. First, it was great to simply be together as a church so often this weekend. There is something mysteriously spiritual about eating together...and I'm quite certain none of us went hungry over the previous three days! To watch you all gather around a meal, sit with one another, and connect with each other in deep, profound ways is one of the greatest aspects of my job. I absolutely LOVE creating and curating spaces for us all to simply be together.

Second, the weekend was filled with incredibly profound and insightful ideas and information. Mark and Lisa are brilliant thinkers and I constantly found myself jotting down new and exciting concepts. As Christians, we are called to love God with our whole selves -- including our minds -- so it was fantastic to have the opportunity to learn and think and grow.

And thirdly, this was a weekend of being challenged. The nature of Mark Scandrette's ministry is one that refuses to allow people to just attend an event, absorb some content, and walk away unscathed. He forces you to wrestle and reflect...to process the ways in which we are invited and compelled into a new way of living and being. At the heart of Mark's message and ministry is that the way of Jesus is good and practical and actually leads into better ways of existing. 

So, I'm hopeful that this incredible weekend of being together, learning, and being challenged in our faith will send us out from here passionate about practically living out the way of Jesus in our world. May we truly believe that the path of Jesus is the best possible way of living and be committed to enacting this way in all that we do and say.

Do Something in Me

You ever have those moments where you feel like saying, "okay God, I get your point...loud and clear"? I've felt like that a little bit lately.

A theme that keeps arising for me lately is the idea that I, as the pastor of our church, need to be constantly working on being spiritually health if I am going to expect any of you to be spiritually healthy. While this message is certainly not new in my life -- I remember a seminary professor, Dan Allender, once saying "we can only take people as far as we have gone ourselves" -- but this theme keeps popping up everywhere, recently, and I'm trying my best to pay attention. 

Our Sunday night small group is currently studying Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book 'Life Together,' and in our reading for this week, with regard to scripture meditation, Bonhoeffer said this: "We do not ask what this text has to say to other people. For the preacher this means that he will not ask how he is going to preach or teach on this text, but what it is saying quite directly to him." Yikes. That cuts right to the heart of this issue. 

As a pastor, I need to make sure that I am actively listening to, and engaging with, what God is saying to me and how God is challenging and teaching me...long before I ever try to preach that message to all of you. One of the speakers at the Leadership Tune-Up conference I went to recently, Mark Wilkes, reminded us that essentially God is saying to us, "I'm going to have to do something IN you before I can do something THROUGH you."

So, I'm committing to the process of allowing God to FILL me, SPEAK TO me, and CHANGE me so that God can actually USE me. And, since we are all pastors -- a kingdom of priests -- I'm inviting you into this same process. May we always be seeking for God to stretch us, grow us, fill us, move us, and transform us...so that God can finally use us to further God's Kingdom. May our simple, collective prayer as a church start to be: 

"God, will you do something in me."

A Few Thoughts on a Perplexing Morning

One of the tasks of ‘pastor’ is to help shepherd the flock through times of confusion and transition. It is not necessary to be the only mouthpiece for the congregation or to quickly heal all wounds, but I think it IS important for the pastor to offer some words of encouragement, hope, and direction moving forward after events of huge magnitude. So here’s my best attempt at faithfully responding to what happened last night…

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This is a strange morning. Perplexing. Confusing. Disorienting. President Trump wasn’t my first choice…and yet he’s the choice. And I honor the democratic process that has gotten us to this point this morning. I don’t love the outcome, but I respect it. President Trump will have my support – as a person. I will pray for him. I will try my best to keep my words about him from ever being dishonoring. And yet, I find myself torn this morning as I wonder about the future of our country…and most importantly, it’s people.

This morning I find myself thinking about the Beatitudes – the beautifully challenging opening words of Jesus’ infamous Sermon on the Mount. I find myself thinking about the poor, the mourning, the meek, and the hungry; the merciful, the pure, the peacemakers, and the persecuted.

What does this morning feel like for those on the underside of our nation?

See, I’m going to be just fine. I’m a straight, white male who has a good job and is doing just fine financially…and we just elected a straight, white male who has a good job and is doing just fine financially. But what does it feel like for those who aren’t in my demographic? What does it feel like to wake up this morning as a Muslim man or a gay woman or an undocumented Mexican whose kids are American? What does it feel like to wake up this morning as someone passionate about the Black Lives Matter movement or the Dakota Access Pipeline or the ongoing destruction of God’s creation? Because up until this point, our President-elect has not proven to care too much about these folks and these issues.

And I pray that he actually does…truly I do and I will. I pray that President Trump will be a unifying force for a nation divided. I pray that President Trump will faithfully lead us into a new future as a nation – a united nation; a peaceful nation; a nation that loves and cares for all of its people.

But more than anything, on this strange and disorienting morning, I woke up committed to being the sort of pastor who leads the sort of church into loving the sort of people that Jesus loved. I woke up committed to helping my church actually be the church. I woke up committed to actually knowing and loving our neighbors. I woke up committed to actually being a supportive presence for all those who so often feel neglected.

I woke up convinced that, perhaps more than any time in my life, God could really use the church to be a leading and guiding force for peace, justice, hospitality, reconciliation, and goodness in our society. I woke up convinced that the church has a unique opportunity, at this moment in American history, to reclaim its original, grassroots mission of being ordinary radicals – a rag-tag group of normal people who have had their lives upended by the abnormal love and grace of Jesus and are committed to being the incarnation of this love and grace in a world that could desperately use a little love and grace.

So now is our time to rise up – not in fear and opposition; not in mindless allegiance to the status quo – but in subversive love that breaks down barriers, crosses bridges, and unites the country under the platform of Jesus – the poor, humble, Middle-Eastern vagrant who changed the whole world through a death-defeating, salvation-bringing, enemy-loving, peaceful means of self-sacrifice.

America’s been great for a long time and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. But it’s time to make America love again…and it can start with us.

The Power of Hope

There's a famous passage of scripture that ends with the line, "And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love." And that's totally true -- that love is the greatest of all characteristics and actions. No question about it. But I wonder if, for some people, the other two characteristics or concepts might not be more significant and vital at certain times in people's lives. I wonder if, for some, faith or hope might be the sort of idea they need to cling to as a sustaining force in certain periods of life...even more than love.

For me, hope carries a terribly potent energy. I can so easily fall into the trap of pessimism and cynicism and begin to wallow in my own despair. Even if love is present, without a glimmer of hope from time to time, depression nips at my heels. But hope rejuvenates. Hope fills me up when I am empty. Hope has an electric dynamism that allows me to push on despite all obstacles.

Hope is a powerful drug.

Hope has a way of reminding us, in the midst of all the challenges and uncertainties life brings, that it might. just. be. okay. That there is an end in sight. That there is light at the end of this tunnel. That this will all work out in time. And for people of faith, like myself, hope is a reminder that God will be a comforting presence through all of these trials and doubts and fears.

For me personally, I have a job that can sway my emotions by the minute. I can be riding high after a wonderful church service and be brought to rock-bottom by one fleeting, critical comment. I can be on cloud nine after a great week of ministry, only to be wondering when the pink slip will arrive in my office after an average sermon and a Sunday of low attendance. It's a sick cycle -- and probably reveals something of my insecurities and flaws -- but it's real and it's ugly...and the only antidote to this poisonous pathology has been hope. A small victory. A great conversation. A beautiful and meaningful Sunday morning. A word of encouragement.

Hope is a sustaining force. 

Hope has a way of subtly grabbing us by the shirt collar and reminding us of our worth and our true identity in God. Hope, for me, comes and goes with random unpredictability. But when it shows up at my doorstep, I welcome it in with open arms. Because we all need a little hope from time to time. To buoy us in our moments of drowning. To comfort us in our moments of despair. To remind us that it's all going to be okay. Keep hanging on. Keep trusting God. Keep hoping.