To All the Volunteers I've Loved Before...

To all the volunteers I've loved before
Who travelled in and out my church door
I'm glad they came along
I dedicate this song
To all the volunteers I've loved before

(On a slightly ironic note, the B side of the original Julio Iglesias/Willie Nelson record was ALSO written by Albert Hammond of "It Never Rains in Southern California" fame. But I digress.)

Like you, I attend a local church and, like you, I volunteer my time to help the ministries of the church function effectively and with impact. Unlike most of you, I'm not used to doing this as a volunteer. As I sat with my pastor this morning, talking over some ideas I have for adult Sunday School and Life Groups, I realized again how little time I can give to this ministry that is so important. My pastor is not pressuring me to do more, thank God, but my own internal wiring and awareness of the needs and some of what I could do to help meet those needs, makes we wish I had more time to give. It also makes me feel like I'm not doing enough. I found myself apologizing for not doing more. (Again, this was not coming from him, it was coming from me.)

As I walked back to my District Office to put on my other "hat" as a Director of Credentialing I thought about the literally hundreds of volunteers I've been privileged to work with over the past 35 years in local church ministries. I've heard them, too, wish aloud that they had more time and energy to give to the cause of Christ. I remember reacting, as my own pastor did, by reminding them that we were grateful for whatever time and energy they did have to give and that, because of having other obligations, it was always going to be this way. Wanting to do more, but not having the resources.

We all know objectively that every part of our life is ministry. (The key question for each of us is how well we are doing our ministry.) But we all also know that organized ministry in the local church has its own challenges and its own rewards. We are all called to be ministers in all that we do throughout the day, but we are also called to minister in the context of the Body of Christ. Both/and. Not either/or.

So on this Monday afternoon I want to publicly thank all those alongside whom I have been privileged to serve. I now know by experience that extra tug on time, energy and focus that the local church calls you to and I now know by experience what it's like to want to give more, but you can't. I also now know by experience how God takes the little things and uses them for His glory even when you don't get a paycheck for it. And that's a good thing.

Let Not Man Put Asunder

Some years ago, Christianity Today published the following poem by Eugene Peterson. Having just enjoyed the Valentine's Day reminder of my love for Sharon and the incredible journey we've been on for almost 35 years (31 of them happily), I pass this along. (And yes, I had to look up the definition of fissiparous, billet doux and pas de deux.)

Committed by command and habit to fidelity
I'm snug in the double bed and board of marriage:
spontaneity's built-in
to the covenantal dance,
everyday routines arranged
by the floor plan of the manse.

This unlikely fissiparous alliance
embraces and releases daily surprises.
The ego strength we'd carefully hoarded
in certain safe-deposit boxes
we've now dispersed, unlamented,
in dozens of delicate paradoxes.

A thousand domestic intimacies are straw
for making bricks resistant to erosion:
with such uncomely stuff we've built
our lives on ordinary sod
and grow, finally, old. My love is
not a goddess nor I a god.

"Asunder" is the one unpronounceable word in the world
of the wed, "one flesh" the mortal miracle.
What started out quite tentatively
with clumsy scrawls in a billet doux
has now become the intricacy
of bold marriage's pas de deux.

The Power of Grace

Friday, November 2, 2040

I had coffee this morning with a long-time friend who is only slightly older than I am. We swapped stories about ourselves, our wives and our children. We shared pearls of wisdom gathered from life and ministry over the more than 30 years we've known each other. We've exchanged Christmas letters over the years, but we haven't been in the same room with each other for probably 10 years. Yet the conversation flowed as if we'd just been together last week. I love those kind of friendships.

During the course of the conversation, my friend mentioned a man he knows who calculated the day of his death. (There are web sites that will do that for you based on BMI, age, general health, etc.) He then purchased a large jar and one marble for each week leading up to that date. Each Sunday he takes out one marble as a reminder of the passing of time. As the jar empties, he gets a visual reminder that every day matters. If, Lord willing, he should live to see the jar empty, his plan is to put a marble back in the jar each Sunday to remind him that each day is a gift from God.

I don't think I'll buy a jar and marbles, but just as the rain last week reminded me of the importance of leaving room for the rain, my friend's story has graphically illustrated three major truths about life:
1) Every day matters.
2) You only get one day at a time.
3) You never get them back.

Since there are no do-overs, I guess we need to count today and make today count.

Deo Volente

I had one of those "aha!" moments last Thursday evening when I realized that, unless I wanted to get soaking wet, I would not be able to walk to pick up my rental car on Friday morning. That doesn't sound like a paradigm shifting moment, but it came close. The "aha" was how much I assume that tomorrow will be pretty much like today. I rent a car once or twice a month since moving to So Cal because it is cheaper for the ministry I work with to rent a car and pay the gas than it is to reimburse me at the current rates. For almost two years I have walked about a mile to pick up my rental car. I am in a rhythm. I walk over to the rental car place, pick up my car, drive home. I drop the rental car off and walk home. The weather is always such that it is certainly no problem for me to walk.

Until last week. Contrary to Albert Hammond's chart-topping 1972 song, it really does rain in Southern California. I had walked the route so often in non-rainy weather that I assumed I would do so once more. Au contraire! And it got me thinking about how much I make the assumption that the plans I had for yesterday and today will, automatically, be good plans for tomorrow. But God calls us to live each day with "Lord willing" as the underpinning of our life and decision making. An acknowledgement of God's sovereign prerogative in our lives. That is, as God tells us in the letter of James and other portions of Scripture, we are to leave room for God, in His providence, to change the details of our life. We leave room for the Holy Spirit. We leave room for rain.

And I Would Walk 500 Miles...

Yesterday, Sunday, February 1, Sharon and I walked 13.1 miles in just under 4 hours, which was our goal. The actual time was 3:56:15. Sharon's sister, Anita, came in just behind us, also under 4 hours. It was Anita who first asked Sharon if she'd like to walk this half marathon. Sharon, in turn, asked if I would join them so we could do this together. Early in the process it was clear that my long legs would be a decided advantage. About the second week, Sharon sent me on ahead to join those who could walk at a quicker pace. Not wanting to have the discussion at that moment, I went on ahead. Later that day I reiterated my commitment. I had no real desire to get up early each Saturday morning to walk for several hours. What I did have a desire for was time with my wife where we could share an experience that benefits us physically but would also provide a venue for those leisurely conversations out of which we often discover things about ourselves and each other. The walk would not be leisurely, but the dialogue would be.

Late last week, Sharon and Anita asked if I wanted to walk at my own pace (about half a mile an hour faster than they walk) the day of the race. I once again emphasized that I didn't sign up to compete, I signed up to converse. As we neared the finish line, Sharon and I were about a half a block ahead of Anita several times and slowed down to allow her to catch up. Anita encouraged us to go ahead. Sharon turned and said, "We started this together. We'll finish it together." And we did.

Once again life meets truth. My life verse is found in the section in Ephesians 4 where Paul basically says, "If everyone ain't mature, ain't none of you mature." That goes so counter to our individualistic society, but it is at the core of the Kingdom society. It doesn't mean that some will not have advantages over others in certain areas. It means we are all in this together (go ahead, break into the chorus from High School Musical). That will mean that some may have to slow down while others may have to go faster than they otherwise would have. Anita is a great source of encouragement and training ideas. Sharon and I benefited greatly from having her on our team. And Anita benefited from our setting a faster pace. Together we trained and together we reached our goal of finishing under 4 hours. Could I have gone faster? Yep. But it wouldn't have been nearly as satisfying or fun.

Location, location, location

Once again Eugene Peterson puts his finger on a rich, wonderful, challenging aspect of being involved in ministry as a vocation.  His observation works in every context where people want to impact others for Christ.  In his book, "The Contemplative Pastor" he writes,

"...one of the genius aspects of pastoral work is locality. The pastor's question is, 'Who are these particular people, and how can I be with them in such a way that they can become what God is making them?'  My job is simply  to be there, teaching, preaching Scripture as well as I can, and being honest with them, not doing anything to interfere with what the Spirit is shaping in them.  Could God be doing something that I never even thought of?  Am I willing to be quiet for a day, a week, a year?  Like Wendell Berry, [farmer and poet] am I willing to spend fifty years reclaiming this land?  With these people?

"Christian spirituality means living in the mature wholeness of the gospel.  It means taking all the elements of your life--children, spouse, job, weather, possessions, relationships--and experiencing them as an act of faith.  God wants all the material of our lives."

Tired, but Deeply Satisfied

Well, last weekend my only son married the love of his life. It was a wonderful wedding with personal touches that made it special and God-honoring, not flippant. It was a joy to be part of the service and I only almost lost it when I looked at Jon look at Ellie when she entered the sanctuary. He is so smitten I'd have to say he's in deep smit.

Monday and Tuesday I took time off to recover physically and emotionally from this much-anticipated and deeply satisfying experience. Jon and Ellie are one of those couples where you know they chose carefully and are committed to making a marriage, not just having a wedding. May God bless them both.

When Marriage is Dying

Readers of this blog know how much I love and respect my adult children.  On Saturday my youngest will make the most profound promise he’ll ever make.  And he doesn’t take it lightly.  (And we think he’s chosen a gem.)  In light of the upcoming wedding, I am sharing,with permission, in its entirety, an article from the December 2001 edition of Touchstone Magazine.  The article is entitled, “When Marriage Is Dying.”  Sharon and I share this article with every couple we are privileged to work with in preparing them for marriage.

When Marriage is Dying
Peter J. Leithart on the Meaning of Christian Marriage

Marriage is dying. That has been a recurrent theme of cultural conservatives for several decades. Recent census figures indicate that the number of single-parent families increased by 25 percent in the past decade. The 1990 census found 3.1 million unmarried couples living together, and that number had risen to 5.4 million by 2000. Nearly a third of American children are being raised without two parents.

Surveying this and other data, some commentators go further, and pronounce what amounts to a postmortem. Several years ago, Maggie Gallagher published a book on The Abolition of Marriage, and the Weekly Standard announced the "end of marriage" after the Vermont Supreme Court decided to extend marital rights to homosexual couples.

A number of factors have conspired to produce this crisis. Relaxation of divorce laws has led, unsurprisingly, to an alarming rise in divorce. Gay rights groups are trying to expand the legal meaning of marriage to include "same-sex unions." More recently, detailed attention has been given to the effects of divorce on children, and the links between divorce, crime, educational decline, and other social pathologies have been documented.

Cultural shifts since the 1960s and 1970s have led to radical changes in the way many Americans view marriage and family. Instead of being viewed as a lifetime commitment, sealed with an oath before God, marriage has come to be viewed as a temporary alliance that either party can leave without fault. This instinctive view of marriage was upheld by American institutions; in 1885, the US Supreme Court decision in Murphy v. Ramsey stated that nothing was more important than that the law give support to "the idea of the family, as consisting in and springing from the union for life of one man and one woman in the holy estate of matrimony."

Something More Fundamental

All this is no doubt true, and legal efforts to fix the problem must be explored. But something more fundamental has happened: Marriage is dying because we have forgotten that marriage is always about dying. When a man and woman appear for the marriage ceremony, they have usually spent the better part of their lives under the oversight of their parents. Parents have provided them with physical necessities, loved and cared for them, instructed them, and set an example for them in ways that no one can fully understand. At the wedding, that world dies. And when that world dies, the couple dies too.

This wedding marks the end of the former man and woman. Before vows are exchanged and they are pronounced man and wife, they were a single man and a single woman. When the rites have occurred, they will no longer be single ever again. They came separately, but go out as a couple. Two become one flesh.

The wedding is only the beginning of death. A man and woman who go through the ceremony and then live as they have always lived have not really understood what their marriage requires. Death at the wedding is a call to continual dying. At their wedding, a man and woman die to singleness, to the old relation with parents, to old habits and plans, and that death has to be worked out throughout the course of the marriage. After being married only a short time, most married couples discover just how self-centered they are, and they are called to die to that self-centeredness.

Weddings are not only a call to death for the couple, but also to everyone involved, especially the parents. Attentive parents naturally get into the habit of telling their children what to do, and that is a good habit. As children mature, of course, that habit is modified and curtailed, but on the wedding day it has to die. It is no longer the parents’ place to tell their married children how to order their lives. If the children are wise, they will seek advice and counsel and honor their parents. But they will not seek advice or honor their parents as they did during their years in their parents’ home.

And that means that parents, too, must die—show restraint, hold their tongues, stand back, even if it means standing back to watch their children make foolish decisions. The wedding day is a day of death for parents, after which they will never again be parents in the same way.

Marriage is about dying because, as the Bible says, marriage is a covenant, and death is always a prominent feature of a covenant. Every time a covenant is made, an old arrangement comes to an end and a new arrangement of things comes into being. When Israel came to Sinai, they did not have the Torah, a tabernacle, a priesthood, or Yahweh dwelling in their midst. When they departed from Sinai, after entering into covenant, that old Israel was gone and a new Israel had come into being. For Christians, this is the significance of Jesus’ death, which brought an end to the order of the first covenant in order to bring a new order and a new creation. Covenant-making normally requires bloodshed because covenants always mean death.

An Oddity

Though marriage is (allegedly) dying, young people continue to get married willingly and joyfully. This oddity can be explained in various ways: Either they are simply ignorant of what is at stake, or they have some hope that the death involved in marriage does not have the final word. Getting married is either an act of supreme folly, or it is an act of faith (which may also be supreme folly).

More precisely, it is an act of faith in resurrection, in the possibility of new life, hope that a new and better life lies on the other side of this death. At this point, we see that secularism is profoundly ill-equipped to support marriage. Secularism promises that marriage will be a means of self-realization, and people are astonished to find that it demands continual self-denial. Secularism sends off the newlyweds in a shower of birdseed, without warning that together with the happiness of marriage they will face heartache and a thousand natural shocks. Secularism sends them unsuspectingly to death, and refuses to offer any hope of resurrection.

A Christian couple, by contrast, comes willingly to die at the wedding altar because they believe the gospel that says that Jesus is risen indeed. Because he is raised from the dead, Christians hope that we too will one day be raised, but we also hope that all the little dyings that we experience in life will lead to resurrections. An old world and an old self dies on the wedding day, but the gospel promises that a new self and a new world will be born. Christians can welcome the death that marriage brings, because they follow a master who said, "Whoever seeks to save his life shall lose it; but he who loses his life for my sake will find it" and "unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit."

Nearly four decades ago, Alexander Schmemann argued that the problem with modern marriage "is not adultery or lack of ‘adjustment’ or ‘mental cruelty.’" Instead, he wrote, the problem is the "idolization of the family" that identifies "marriage with happiness" and refuses "to accept the cross in it." God’s presence as a "third party" in the marriage spells "the death of the marriage as something only ‘natural,’ and directs it to its true end of the kingdom of God.

In short, Schmemann continued, with characteristic elegance, the glory of marriage is "that of the martyr’s crown. For the way to the Kingdom is the matyria: bearing witness to Christ. And this means crucifixion and suffering. A marriage that does not constantly crucify its own selfishness and self-sufficiency, which does not ‘die to itself’ that it may point beyond itself, is not a Christian marriage."

Today the choice is even starker than it was for Fr. Schmemann. It is still true that marriage without the cross is not a Christian marriage. It has become more obvious that marriage without the cross and the open tomb can hardly be called marriage at all. 

Peter J. Leithart is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church in America, and teaches theology and literature at New St. Andrews College, Moscow, Idaho. He is the author of several books, including Blessed Are the Hungry: Meditations on the Lord’s Supper (Canon, 2000) and Ascent to Love: An Introduction to Dante’s Divine Comedy (Canon, forthcoming).

Copyright © 2001 the Fellowship of St. James. All rights reserved.

Surreal Moments

There are times in our lives when we experience what has become known as surreal moments. The dictionary defines surreal as "fantastic, dream-like, unbelievable." I had a couple of those moments (minus the unbelievability) yesterday as I heard my son preach at the church where he is privileged to serve. He clearly taught the passage, convicted me of my own lack of kingdom-mindedness and gave me steps to take in moving that direction. The surreal feeling was anchored in the fact that this is MY son who is honoring God through the use of his gifts. It is NOT that I didn't think he could or would ever do such a thing. It is that, as with all of us, there was (and is) always the very real possibility of being sidetracked from doing what God has created us to do...glorify Him in all we do. It also isn't that preaching is more important than other things a person might do. It is that he is doing what God gifted him to do in a way that honors the Giver of the gift. By the way, I get the same feeling when I attend a musical directed by my middle daughter in which adults and children sing of God's grace in Jesus or hear the stories of lives changed by those recruited by my oldest daughter to further the Kingdom by serving the children of missionaries by providing quality education in the context of Christian community.

I hope, by God's grace, to have many such surreal moments as my children continue to live out a vital relationship with Jesus. By the way, my son's sermon should be available as a podcast shortly at the Bethany Church Podcast web page. If you listen, you'll discover that it is not simply a father's pride that speaks of his ability (although there is that). He does a fine job of communicating what Jesus said in the passage and what he meant by what he said and the difference that should make in our lives as followers of Christ.

Oregano and Crabgrass

In Eugene Peterson's book, Take and Read, he writes, "All of us have impulses from time to time to live a holy life--life lived as it should be, life true and good and beautiful, life lived for and in and by means of our Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. And then someone telephones with an invitation to the hockey game, or we notice that the salad needs oregano, or the crabgrass in the lawn suddenly becomes a pressing priority. We are distracted by the mundane and forfeit, for yet another time, the holy. Or so we assume.

"And then we find ourselves in the company of a writer or writers who penetrate the surface pieties and show us what the holy life is really like, that it is the hockey game and the oregano and the crabgrass that provide the raw material for holiness. Holiness is not being nice. A holy life isn't a matter of men and women being polite with God, but of humans who accept and enter into God's work of shaping salvation out of the unlikely materials of sin and ignorance, our ambition and waywardness--also our loves and aspirations and nobilities, but never by smoothing over the rough edges. Holiness is not polish."

As we read through the gospel accounts of the Christmas story this season, it is once again clear that God was willing to get his hands dirty in order for us to be clean. And then he works with us to make us more like Jesus, with our messy-ness and all. What amazing grace.

Looking to the New Year

It's the way I'm wired. I enjoy coming to the end of a year and "closing the books." As a self-employed minister of the gospel I discipline myself to keep track of my time as preventative against sloth and as a corrective against what Oswald Chambers warned, " The greatest competitor of devotion to Jesus is service for Him." I've seen pastors who seldom talk about Jesus, but talk a lot about their ministry. I've also seen too many pastors who allowed the church to become their mistress, cheating their wife and family out of a relationship with him as husband and father.

I also keep track of books I've read through the year. This helps keep me balanced by showing me the genres I'm gravitating to. If I've read several novels in a row, I choose a non-fiction book or a book of poetry. If I've read several minisry-related books, I choose a novel or biography. If I've read several contemporary novels, I choose a novel that is at least 50 years old. (Note to my Margarita friends: While I'm not back to a book a week, I am reading a book every two weeks rather than once a month, so I must be working through the transition to southern California.)

All this to say, I am coming down the home stretch and then on January 1 I have new pages to begin filling in with hours worked and books read. I'll let you amateur psychologists figure out what this all says about me.

I Wish I Had Thought of That

In his book, Take and Read, Eugene Peterson writes, "When my children were young, I was full of devout idealism regarding ways in which we as a family would replicate the church as we gathered around the dinner table. Especially on Sundays. When we returned home after a morning of worship and sat down to Sunday dinner, I would attempt to initiate and direct a discussion that would bring the prayer and praise from the sanctuary into the eating and drinking at our dining room table. I would ask what they thought of the second hymn, or how they liked the introduction to the sermon. Did they notice the novel twist the assisting elder had given to pronouncing Melchizedek in the Scripture reading? No real conversation ever developed. One Sunday, in a moment of inspired desperation, I took another tack. I said, 'After the pastoral prayer, Mr. Green, head bowed, never straightened up. Those around him thought he was still praying. After the benediction when he still hadn't moved, he was discovered dead. Murdered. How was it done, and what was the motive?' Conversation developed. Real conversation. What it lacked in devoutness it made up for in liveliness. We searched the Scripture readings for clues, sifted the hymns for evidence, examined the possibilities of sin behind the congregational facade of Presbyterian rectitude. Each week there would be another victim."

Now why didn't I think of that? "Family devotions" with a twist. Give it a try some Sunday soon and then let me know how it works out.

Gentlemen, Stay Out of the Doghouse

Occasionally I receive a forward worth watching and sharing with others. This is one. There's still time before Christmas. Let this be a warning from a friend.

Ripples

One of our favorite missionaries uses the imagery of ripples in a pond when she speaks of the part that we play in people's lives. We toss our stone into the pond. Sometimes the rock makes a big splash. Sometimes rather small. But either way there are ripples that continue to move out from the initial event.

I got misty-eyed Sunday night at a children's musical directed by my middle daughter. Not only because of the usual distracted child in the front row of the angel chorus or the almost-on-pitch soloist or the brief moment one of the dance numbers was reminiscent of "one Grecian urn", (Tip of the hat to The Music Man) but also because the entire production was a ripple of the years that other adults invested in my daughter's life, particularly in using her talent in the arts.

Seated two rows behind me were my son and his fiancé. In four weeks he will be preaching to his local church. A church much larger than most churches I've preached in. Ripples of those adults who saw his gifts, communication among them, and encouraged him.

Arriving next Tuesday, my oldest daughter will spend the holidays with us and with people who are part of the support team who make it possible for her to work with a school in western Europe, recruiting godly men and women who will help educate children of missionaries which, in turn, allows them to continue their ministry. Ripples of those adults who saw her creativity and administrative talents and encouraged her.

I thank God upon every remembrance of my children, but also the myriads of adults who took the time to affirm their gifts and point them to Jesus.

The Power of a Changed Life

Forwarded e-mails are usually met with much cynicism and a quick finger on the delete button when they arrive in my inbox. But today I received a forwarded e-mail from my friend and colleague, Dennis Baker (whom you all know because everyone knows Dennis Baker). It is a short video entitled "Cardboard Testimonies" from Richland Hills Church of Christ in a suburb of Fort Worth Texas. I wouldn't presume to forward it to all 14 of my readers, but if you are inclined to view it, first grab a box of kleenex, then click on this link Cardboard Testimonies.