A Man for My Season

Recently I was asked to beta test a web-based tool for students to study and interact in the area of theology. Since I oversee credentialing in the district I serve, I thought it would be interesting to participate so that I could a) learn and b) see if this tool would have applications for my role as director of credentialing.

So far what I have learned mostly is that despite my being technologically savvy, I prefer reading theology from a book, not a web page. Flipping from "page" to "page" on-line is not like flipping from page to page in book. The touch of pages on one's fingers is more satisfying than touching keys on a keyboard. And web pages do not have a distinctive smell. I have books published in the 18th century, but even those printed in the 20th century have an ink and paper smell that is, obviously, lacking in the virtual world. These two sensory experiences of touch and smell have been, for many generations, intimately associated with study.

I look forward to continuing the on-line course, but I have to admit the experience so far has been underwhelming. That says more about me than it does about the web or those who have created this tool. I am a definitely a child of my time.

I miss my family

It happened yesterday afternoon. I was sitting in the office of the church where I currently serve as interim. Without warning the tears began to form. No wracking sobs, just quiet, almost unnoticed sadness.

Frederick Buechner writes: "Tears. You never know what may cause them. The sight of the Atlantic Ocean can do it, or a piece of music, or a face you've never seen before. A pair of somebody's old shoes can do it. Almost any movie made before the great sadness that came over the world after the Second World War, a horse cantering across a meadow, the high school basketball team running out onto the gym floor at the start of a game. You can never be sure. But of this you can be sure. Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where you should go next."

Where I've come from is a congregation that knows me, loves me, and who put up with me for 16 years. Where I am going next is becoming a new member of another branch of God's family. It reminds me of those early years of marriage when I began to know the family I had married into. They did things different. They talked different. They ate different. They worked different. Not bad. Just different. The same is true in this season.

The new family will become dear to me over time, but in the meantime, I miss my family.

Keep your soul diligently

Working my way back through the early chapters of Deuteronomy, I am once again impressed with how often Moses emphasized the need to pay attention. Phrases like "take care" or "keep your soul diligently" or "watch yourselves very carefully" occur over and over again in the context of their relationship with YHWH. Moses understood what Eugene Peterson was referring to when he said, "Nothing is more common in the life of the Spirit than to begin right and to end wrong."

Missing my Margin

Life is a funny thing. For years I've prided myself on having margin in my life. I'm good at setting boundaries. (Saying "no" some things in order to say "yes" to others.) Then the current transition happened. (You will notice it has been almost two months since my last post.) All those principles of boundaries and margins work great if you have a holy rhythm to your life. But when everything is turned upside down and inside out, it is much tougher to live out those principles. To all those who to whom, over the years, I've made it sound easy to have boundaries and margins I apologize. It's not as easy as it looks when life throws a curve. It takes a lot of work. I will get back in rhythm. It'll just take some time. Life is messier than I remember.

Disturbing interruptions

Henri Nouwen writes, “[This] is the great conversion in our life: to recognize and believe that the many unexpected events are not just disturbing interruptions of our projects, but the way in which God molds our hearts and prepares us for his return.”

Honor your father and mother

After 16 years of pastoring a wonderful church on the Central Coast of California, we are leaving to move back to Orange County. You see, honoring one’s parents not only means “don’t sass back” when you are young, it also means seeking ways to enable them to live with as much independence and dignity as possible when they are older. To that end, we are moving closer to my wife’s mom so that we can be of service. For me the move also means changing roles from full-time pastor to part-time interim pastor and part-time ministry administrator. Juggling schedules is not new, but this combination will prove to have some extra challenges to it.

All this to say, knowing and doing the will of God is the best thing. It’s just not always the easiest.

Best bone of my body

I’m still working my way through “John Ploughman’s Talk” by Charles H. Spurgeon. In his chapter on “A Good Word for Wives” I found he had described my wife Sharon. Spurgeon writes, “A true wife is her husband’s better half…his flower of beauty…and his heart’s treasure. He says to her, ‘I shall in thee most happy be. In thee, my choice, I do rejoice. In thee I find contentment of mind. God’s appointment is my contentment.’ In her company he finds his earthly heaven; she is the light of his home; the comfort of his soul, and (for this world) the soul of his comfort. Whatever his fortune may send him, he is rich so long as she lives. His rib is the best bone of his body.”

Well It Ought to be a Right

I’m preaching on “The Providence of God” this weekend. As I spent time studying this doctrine within Scripture I found that my emotional reaction had very little to do with what is plainly taught in Scripture. It had everything to do with a feeling of loss of autonomy. I was reminded of a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon I saw recently. In the first frame, Calvin says, “I refuse to take out the garbage! I have the right to do whatever I want. All the time!” In the second frame his father replies, “No you don’t” To which Calvin responds, “I don’t?” In the last frame Calvin is seen dragging a large garbage bag across the floor while he grumbles, “Well it sure OUGHT to be a right.”

I think for most of us who follow Christ, this is the heart of our struggle with the sovereignty of God. We, like Calvin, want the right to do whatever we want. All the time.

Seriously

I read, on average, one book each week. I’m not bragging, it’s just part of who I am. I decided in January that I would read one book each month that was at least 50 years old. Currently I am reading a book by Charles H. Spurgeon entitled, "John Ploughman’s Talk." I have read Spurgeon quite a bit over the years, having been challenged by his sermons and encouraged and helped by his "Lectures to My Students." Until now I never knew he was funny.

(For example, in his chapter on “The Idle” he writes, “The ugliest sight in the world is one of those thorough-bred loafers, who would hardly hold up his basin if it were to rain porridge; and for certain would never hold up a bigger pot than he wanted to fill for himself. Perhaps, if the shower should turn to beer, he make wake himself up a bit; but he would make up for it afterwards” Later he writes, "Nobody is more like an honest man than a thorough rogue.")

In the preface to John Ploughman’s Talk he writes, “That I have written in a semi-humourous vein needs no apology… There is no particular virtue in being seriously unreadable.”

I’ve been thinking about that last statement in light of one of my personal rules to live by, “Take God more seriously and yourself less seriously.” It’s always good to find people who agree with you who have excellent reputations and whose writings have stood the test of time.

A Language More Adequate

As part of my summer series I will soon be preaching on three great New Testament words related to salvation: Justification, Redemption and Propitiation. Justification is what God does for us on the basis of placing our sins on Jesus and judging them there. Because the requirement of God’s righteous law is satisfied in Christ’s sacrifice, God is free to declare us justified, or “not guilty” under the Law. Redemption is what Christ does for us by dying our place. We are redeemed (bought back) from our slavery to sin and set free to be in relationship with God. Propitiation is what Christ does in relationship to God. Jesus satisfies God’s demand for restitution for the broken relationship. God is completely satisfied with Christ’s sacrifice as payment in full and having been satisfied, we can now be reconciled, that is, made friends.

As I have been preparing I must admit a tendency to focus on the technicalities of these three very crucial words. I have defined them, illustrated them and will be urging the congregation to participate in them. What I have failed to consider, until recently, is that they are not simply esoteric theological terms. They are not doctrines made up to try to create a system by which people can be reconciled to God. They are words used to describe something that took place in time and space. And all by God’s initiative. (God justifies the sinner. Christ redeems the sinner. Christ propitiates God. The sinner has no part in these actions. Read Romans 3:21-31.)

C.S. Lewis credits J.R.R. Tolkien and Hugo Dyson as being the human cause of his conversion to Christ by explaining to Lewis that these doctrines were not the heart of Christianity. They were, in fact, simply translations into words that which God had already expressed in “a language more adequate: namely the actual incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection” of Jesus. To put it another way, these words only have meaning because of what actually took place. They are not some philosopher or theologian’s attempt to describe a “legal fiction” that we can use to make ourselves right with God. These words only have meaning because of what Christ really did on a real cross to make it possible for people to be in relationship with God.

You Belong Here

Last evening at the Evangelical Free Church of America’s Leadership Conference in Denver, I was reminded again of God’s many-faceted, many-colored church. We were privileged to hear from the head of the Evangelical Free Church of Sudan. He brought us greetings from our brothers and sisters in Christ who know great pain, suffering and betrayal, but who continue to follow Christ and preach Christ. The war in Sudan has been devastating, but God is building His church in spite of the carnage.

My daily times in Paul’s letter to the Christians at Ephesus give the theological basis for our unity with Christians throughout the world. Regardless of race or color, God is calling all people into a new community in which there is no distinction before God or between each other. Yet we bring to God’s community our rich heritage of culture and language. In Ephesians 2, Paul writes:

But don't take any of this for granted. It was only yesterday that you outsiders to God's ways had no idea of any of this, didn't know the first thing about the way God works, hadn't the faintest idea of Christ. You knew nothing of that rich history of God's covenants and promises in Israel, hadn't a clue about what God was doing in the world at large. Now because of Christ—dying that death, shedding that blood—you who were once out of it altogether are in on everything. The Messiah has made things up between us so that we're now together on this, both non-Jewish outsiders and Jewish insiders. He tore down the wall we used to keep each other at a distance. He repealed the law code that had become so clogged with fine print and footnotes that it hindered more than it helped. Then he started over. Instead of continuing with two groups of people separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion, he created a new kind of human being, a fresh start for everybody. Christ brought us together through his death on the Cross. The Cross got us to embrace, and that was the end of the hostility. Christ came and preached peace to you outsiders and peace to us insiders. He treated us as equals, and so made us equals. Through him we both share the same Spirit and have equal access to the Father. That's plain enough, isn't it? You're no longer wandering exiles. This kingdom of faith is now your home country. You're no longer strangers or outsiders. You belong here, with as much right to the name Christian as anyone. God is building a home. He's using us all—irrespective of how we got here—in what he is building. He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation. Now he's using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together. We see it taking shape day after day—a holy temple built by God, all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home. Ephesians 2:11-22 The Message

So whether we’re Swedish, Sudanese or Salvadoran, in Christ we belong to God and to each other.

Celebrating God's Faithfulness

Over last weekend, my wife, two daughters and I were privileged to join in the celebration by Community Bible Church of Huntington Beach of the 100th anniversary of their building being used as a church. There have been several congregations in those 100 years (and even several using it now), but it has always been a church. Several things stood out to me as we ate and hugged and ate and worshipped and ate and reminisced and ate… you get the picture. Let me share one of those lessons: God is faithful to His purpose and plan over time.

We always assume that this means things will work out the way we planned. I would suspect that not one of the several congregations who have used the building on 6th and Orange (or any church for that matter) began to use it with the idea that they would someday cease to exist. We all start our projects with the unspoken expectation that they will continue pretty much as they are now. And they will continue in their current form forever.

Christ promised to build His church. He didn’t promise that every local congregation would survive the follies of Christ’s followers. He didn’t promise that every local congregation would survive the changing of a neighborhood or the condemning of a building. He didn’t promise that every local congregation would survive it’s own “successes.” What He did promise is that His church will survive. And that is worth celebrating.

There is therefore...

I’ll never understand those people who think they can earn a relationship with God by doing more good than bad. Do they not have the kind of thoughts I have on a fairly consistent basis? Thoughts of anger, lust, frustration, pride, et.al. Do they not do the things I do on a fairly consistent basis? Get even, put people down, talk behind their backs, consider myself more important than they, et.al. G.K. Chesterton wrote, “Sin is the only major Christian doctrine that can be verified empirically.”

As Paul wrote to the Christians at Rome, “It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. “ [Romans 7:21-25 The Message] The next sentence is the key: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” [Romans 8:1 ESV]

Who am I? Where am I?

A recent response to my blog and my current study in Paul's letter to the believers around Ephesus have reminded me of the importance of knowing who I am where I am. How easy it is to look around us and take our cues from what the culture thinks is important. But the opening of Paul's letter to the Ephesians reminds them that they are "in Christ" even while living in (and around) Ephesus.

Historically there have been two unbalanced responses to the truth that we are in Christ, yet we live in the world. John Stott writes, "We tend either to pursue Christ and withdraw from the world, or to become preoccupied with the world and forget that we are also in Christ."

The tension for me is to live in Christ in the world. It is a both/and, not an either/or. My identity (who I am) is in Christ. My location (where I am) is in the world. My challenge is to be who I am where I am.

Quotidian Mysteries

According to the Merriam-Webster Third New International Dictionary, quotidian means "occuring everyday; belonging to every day; commonplace, ordinary." In her address given as the 1998 Madeleva Lecture in Spirituality, Kathleen Norris writes of the importance of the ordinary. This lecture has been published as The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and "Women's Work". Here are a few quotes to stimulate your thinking.

"The often heard lament, 'I have so little time,' gives the lie to the delusion that the daily is of little significance."

"Life is what happens to you when you are busy doing something else."

"Both laundry and worship are repetitive activities with a potential for tedium, and I hate to admit it, but laundry often seems like the more useful of the tasks. But both are the work that God has given us to do."

"...the true mystics of the quotidian are not those who contemplate holiness in isolation, reaching godlike illumination in serene silence, but those who manage to find God in a life filled with noise, the demands of other people and relentless daily duties that can consume the self."

Homecoming

My daughter arrived back in the United States on Monday. She has been in Germany for the past 10 months working at a school for children of missionaries. One of the things she has learned while there is what it means to be a resident alien. She has put down roots and built relationships even though she knows that Germany will not be her permanent home. She is a citizen of the United States, and while she loves so many aspects of Germany, it is not home. She is learning the language and the culture so that she might fit in on many levels, but her heart is here where her family and friends are.

This is a picture of all of us who belong to God. Our home is elsewhere. We’ve learned the language of our adopted country, we know how to get around in the culture, but our home is in heaven. Randy Alcorn points out the irony that home for the Christian is a place we’ve never been but for which we were created.

This is why so many Christians refer to death as a home going. And why, in heaven, it is probably referred to as a homecoming. While we live in and love the place we are, there is someplace better suited to us. A place that will, forever, be home.

Let Me Count the Ways

As of today, we've been married 32 years. 28 of them happily. Fortunately the other 4 have been spread out over the 32 years. It hasn't always been easy.

In an article entitled, When Marriage is Dying, Peter Leithart of Touchstone magazine contends that marriage is dying. It has always been about dying. Dying to your family of origin. Dying to being single. Dying to old ways of doing things and old plans that included only ourselves. That is the challenge of marriage.

And that is where the 4 tough years come in. It was in those seasons that one or the other of us (or both) refused to die to ourselves. It wasn't pretty, but by God's grace we got through it to better seasons where we got our eyes off ourselves and onto Christ where they belong.

The Rest is up to you

Charles Spurgeon wrote: "Rest time is not waste. It is economy to gather fresh strength. Look at the mower in the summer’s day, with so much to cut down ere the sun sets. He pauses in his labor — is he a sluggard? He looks for his stone, and begins to draw it up and down his scythe, with a rink-a-tink, rink-a-tink. Is that idle music? Is he wasting precious moments? How much might he have mowed while he has been ringing out those notes on his scythe! But he is sharpening his tool, and he will do far more when once again he gives strength to those sweeps which lay the grass prostrate in rows before him. Nor can the fisherman always be fishing; he must mend his nets. So even our vacation can be one of the duties laid upon us by the kingdom of God."

One of the areas most of us struggle with in the 21st century is intentional rest. I'm not talking about "Amusing Ourselves to Death" as suggested by Neil Postman's excellent book. I'm talking about a Sabbath mindset (even if we don't actually take an entire day as a sabbath) wherein we remove ourselves from circulation in order to reconnect with God and reconnect with the significant people in our lives. What Eugene Peterson refers to as pray and play.

We must, as Spurgeon suggests, sharpen our tools and mend our nets in order to run the race set before us (talk about mixed metaphors). We are not wasting time when we take time to rest.

Intelligent Design

Some have suggested that Hurricane Katrina argues against Intelligent Design. Daniel Schorr of NPR went so far as to suggest that the Intelligent Designer "had a lot to answer for" in Katrina.

Donald T. Williams is correct when he writes in Touchstone magazine's latest issue:

"Surely the evidence points quite the other way? We inhabit a universe in which people who build coastal cities below sea level, between a lake and a river that are above sea level, are eventually going to pay for it. If this is evidence at all, it is evidence for Intelligent Design, not against it. It tells us that the design of the universe is working just fine, which is why the design of New Orleans produced exactly what should have been expected. If God exempted human beings from the laws of nature whenever we do something stupid, as the design critics apparently want, then we would indeed have reason to doubt the intelligence of his design."

I wanna be like Christ (or do I?)

My wife, Sharon, and I just finished reading John Piper's book, God is the Gospel. (I was glad that we read it together and aloud, it helped me better understand what he was saying.) Toward the end of the book, Piper suggests that when we say we want to be like Christ, we should check our motivation for this pursuit.

"Do I want to be strong like Christ, so I will be admired as strong, or so that I can defeat every adversary that would entice me to settle for any pleasure less than admiring the strongest person in the universe, Christ?

Do I want to be wise like Christ, so I will be admired as wise and intelligent, or so that I can discern and admire the One who is most truly wise?

Do I want to be holy like Christ, so that I can be admired as holy, or so that I can be free from all unholy inhibitions that keep me from seeing and savoring the holiness of Christ?

Do I want to be a loving like Christ, so that I will be admired as a loving person, or so that I will enjoy extending to others, even in suffering, the all-satisfying love of Christ?"

A few sentences later, Piper concludes, "All of God's work...is designed by God not ultimately to make much of us, but to free us and fit us to enjoy seeing and savoring much of Christ forever."

I'm having to chew on this concept. So ingrained in me as a 21st century, North American Christian is the concept that God's ultimate purpose is to make much of me. Subtly (and not so subtly) I believe that somehow, inherent in me, is a loveable character with whom God is lucky to be in relationship.

Which brings me back to Piper's questions. Even my desire to be like Christ is tainted by a self-promoting attitude that wants God and those around me to be impressed with how good I am rather than how good God is. May God continue to work in me so that my deepest longing and more frequent choices reflect a God-changed desire to see and savor God as only One who is entirely worthy of honor and obedience.

Judging Ourselves

Why is it that we seem so surprised when those who are not Christians act like people who are not Christians? Shouldn't we be more surprised when Christians act as if they were not? Why is it we have such a strong tendency to "judge the world and talk to ourselves" when we should "judge ourselves and talk to the world"?

Isn't this the kind of thing Paul was talking about in his first letter to the Christians at Corinth?

I wrote you in my earlier letter that you shouldn't make yourselves at home among the sexually promiscuous. I didn't mean that you should have nothing at all to do with outsiders of that sort. Or with crooks, whether blue- or white-collar. Or with spiritual phonies, for that matter. You'd have to leave the world entirely to do that! But I am saying that you shouldn't act as if everything is just fine when one of your Christian companions is promiscuous or crooked, is flip with God or rude to friends, gets drunk or becomes greedy and predatory. You can't just go along with this, treating it as acceptable behavior. I'm not responsible for what the outsiders do, but don't we have some responsibility for those within our community of believers? God decides on the outsiders, but we need to decide when our brothers and sisters are out of line and, if necessary, clean house. 1 Corinthians 5:9-13 The Message

Getting Started

Last evening in the Home Fellowship Group of which I am a part, we were listening to Hugh Hewitt. One of his challenges was for pastors to begin blogging. My friend Shaun Nolan, who pastors in PA, has been blogging for about a year now and I've always enjoyed his writing so today I'm taking the plunge and beginning the new world of blogging.

I hope this process will do two things. It will help me in processing my own relationship with God and it will stimulate others to consider God as He describes Himself in Scripture.