As I've said before, the scary thing about writing a blog and posting it for the world to see is that it is a mirror that my life is reflected in and judged by. I want to be a man of integrity so that what I say and what I do are one in the same. My son rightfully challenged me about the lack of integrity in my ministry when he said that who I was in the pulpit and who I was at home were two different people.
Teaching a child character is tough. Especially today when there are more examples of a lack of character in public figures than the opposite. The persons of character aren't always in the spotlight so that we can point to them and show others what character looks like.
My parents worked hard to teach me character. My Mom, especially, told me stories about her father and how the kids could go into any store where my grandfather had an account and charge to his name...because he paid his bills. He was a man of his word. His promises were not hollow. He was different than others in his community who failed to keep their word.
Character is based in the righteousness and holiness of God. There is no duplicity in him. As the saying goes, you see what you get or you get what you see. It's the same either way. God doesn't flip flop around. He doesn't change his rules to fit the situation.
As a child I was taught to be honest. I was taught to be trustworthy. I was probably taught a little too strongly about the watchful eye of the cops (and by inference, God). I had a lot of fear and my obedience was based on getting caught. I was never able to lie without a terribly guilty conscience. Those are good things but I was motivated by the big club in the sky that was going to pound me on the head if I stepped out of line. I have, thankfully, grown to know God as a kind, loving heavenly Father who wants to nurture me to righteousness.
Character motivates us when no one is looking. We aren't to be like the Pharisees and others who stand on the corner and do good things so everyone else can see us. I like to drive, so those examples come easily. It is an example of character when we use our turn signals even when no one is behind us. We stop at stop signs even when no one is there to see us. We return money we find when no one sees us pick it up. We behave in the way we behave not because someone is looking but because we want to please our heavenly Father.
Character in American culture has unfortunately been replaced by thousands of laws. And there will be thousands more created if we don't work on developing our character. We will never have enough laws to cover every situation we will face in our lives where we need to exercise character.
I knew a guy once who didn't receive a bill for many months for a service he enjoyed. He used the service almost daily. The provider was not a sound businessperson and the bills were overlooked. Finally, the time came that the business became aware of the failure to send out a bill. They waived the past fees and asked the recepient of the service to begin paying as agreed. The person instead sent in all the back fees. Why? Because he had benefited from the service and it wasn't right that he get them for free just because the company failed to bill.
My son and his wife rented their house out to someone while they were in Africa for a year. The renters agreed to pay the rent that was asked. They didn't. They eventually had to be moved out of the house. When they hired the movers (instead of paying the rent) they packed up everything...including things that weren't their's. They took Christmas decorations, garbage cans, stools for the bar, silverware dividers. You would think that at the new house they would have discovered these things and returned them. Probably what kept them from coming back was embarrassment. They were too embarrassed to do the right thing. Character does the right thing even when you are embarrassed by your behavior.
I could give some other examples but they might get too close to home.
I want what motivates me to be righteous to be the character of Christ being formed in me as I repent of my fleshly ways and ask God to purify me. I want my motivation for doing good to be not the rewards from others who might see me but the pleasure I bring my Father by living a life that brings glory to him. I'm counting on my good friends to help me see the things that are not in line with God's character in my life so that I can repent of them and allow God to form his character in me.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Parenting
Unfortunately, for those of us who have become parents, when children are born they don't come with a manual. Even if we got a manual in Spanish or French we could at least get it translated. But alas, they come to us as a one of a kind that no manual has been written for.
One of the books I read...long after becoming a parent...said that if you over-parent children you raise foolish adults. That seems contrary to the great wisdom so many of us have when we are in the midst of parenting. We believe the closer we watch over our kids and the tighter we hold on to them the better they will turn out. Quite the opposite.
What are the Godly goals for raising a child? The first one that pops into most heads of those familiar with the Bible is "Honor your father and mother." Somehow in our broken humanity we as parents interpret that to mean, "Do what I say--forever--and life will go well with you."
The verse that informs us the most is "Train up a child in the way they should go and when they are old they won't depart from it." Seems simple. We just raise them the way we think they should be raised and they'll stick with it for life. But here is where our own parenting we received sometimes gets in the way.
I believe that our goal as parents is to discover the child God created before the foundation of the world (see Eph 1), identify their gifts and nurture them toward fulfilling the calling God has on their life. That takes a little more effort than just using the same pattern we had used on us to get the kid through life. Unfortunately, we carry the wounds we received as children into our parenting and consciously or unconsciously seek to imprint them on our offspring.
I also believe that the most important goal of raising children is the one we often overlook--that is to raise them to become independent adults with hearts turned toward God. If we try to keep them dependent on us too long we raise foolish adults. They need to learn to think on their own and make mistakes as they learn what is God's will for their lives. I have to admit, the things I have learned that have stuck with me are the ones I learned by making mistakes. What changes our behavior is living with the consequences of our poor decisions.
Back to honoring our mother and father. What is more honoring than becoming an independent adult who is living life in obedience to God? It is not honoring to us as parents for our children to be dependent on us. It is not honoring to us to be inmeshed with our children. They need to be living lives accountable to God and not confused by our sick need to keep them accountable to us. We aren't their God. We are their parents to whom has been entrusted the job of raising healthy, independent adults. Those adults can then raise another generation of healthy, independent adults who can impact our world.
Gee, I wish I had known this when I was parenting!
Look around at the adults you know. How many of them are functioning as adults and not kids with wounds in adult bodies? In most cases those wounds came from the parents who were entrusted to model what our Father acts like toward us. Does he smother us? Does he abuse us? Does he have anything but our very best interests in mind? So many have turned away from the Father because of the model of parenting they have experienced. That doesn't leave much honor for us.
I'd love to be able to do my parenting over again. But unfortunately, we only get one ticket for that ride. But by God's grace my children have the opportunity to turn to their Father who loves them more than I did, receive what they need from him and in turn give it to their children. They have the opportunity to learn from my mistakes, go back to the pattern God gives us and raise healthy, independent adults who honor God and them.
It's never too late.
One of the books I read...long after becoming a parent...said that if you over-parent children you raise foolish adults. That seems contrary to the great wisdom so many of us have when we are in the midst of parenting. We believe the closer we watch over our kids and the tighter we hold on to them the better they will turn out. Quite the opposite.
What are the Godly goals for raising a child? The first one that pops into most heads of those familiar with the Bible is "Honor your father and mother." Somehow in our broken humanity we as parents interpret that to mean, "Do what I say--forever--and life will go well with you."
The verse that informs us the most is "Train up a child in the way they should go and when they are old they won't depart from it." Seems simple. We just raise them the way we think they should be raised and they'll stick with it for life. But here is where our own parenting we received sometimes gets in the way.
I believe that our goal as parents is to discover the child God created before the foundation of the world (see Eph 1), identify their gifts and nurture them toward fulfilling the calling God has on their life. That takes a little more effort than just using the same pattern we had used on us to get the kid through life. Unfortunately, we carry the wounds we received as children into our parenting and consciously or unconsciously seek to imprint them on our offspring.
I also believe that the most important goal of raising children is the one we often overlook--that is to raise them to become independent adults with hearts turned toward God. If we try to keep them dependent on us too long we raise foolish adults. They need to learn to think on their own and make mistakes as they learn what is God's will for their lives. I have to admit, the things I have learned that have stuck with me are the ones I learned by making mistakes. What changes our behavior is living with the consequences of our poor decisions.
Back to honoring our mother and father. What is more honoring than becoming an independent adult who is living life in obedience to God? It is not honoring to us as parents for our children to be dependent on us. It is not honoring to us to be inmeshed with our children. They need to be living lives accountable to God and not confused by our sick need to keep them accountable to us. We aren't their God. We are their parents to whom has been entrusted the job of raising healthy, independent adults. Those adults can then raise another generation of healthy, independent adults who can impact our world.
Gee, I wish I had known this when I was parenting!
Look around at the adults you know. How many of them are functioning as adults and not kids with wounds in adult bodies? In most cases those wounds came from the parents who were entrusted to model what our Father acts like toward us. Does he smother us? Does he abuse us? Does he have anything but our very best interests in mind? So many have turned away from the Father because of the model of parenting they have experienced. That doesn't leave much honor for us.
I'd love to be able to do my parenting over again. But unfortunately, we only get one ticket for that ride. But by God's grace my children have the opportunity to turn to their Father who loves them more than I did, receive what they need from him and in turn give it to their children. They have the opportunity to learn from my mistakes, go back to the pattern God gives us and raise healthy, independent adults who honor God and them.
It's never too late.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Order out of Chaos
Recently I have had occasion to tell people what my forte is. My usual response has been "to bring order out of chaos." I like to dive into a mess and fix it. I'll admit, I'm conflicted. Sometimes I see an old house and I am attracted to the rustic look it has...but then I think about trimming the bushes, fixing the roof and...doing a major remodel on the house!
Most chaos wasn't created in a day and it can't be fixed in a day. It takes perseverance. It takes a thick skin. And it takes a vision that you are working towards even when it isn't taking shape as quickly as you would like. It's like someone said, "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time."
I have been accused of being passionate. It's what drives my intensity. I see what something can be. I see the potential of a project, a company, a person and I go at the situation with an intense passion to see it become all that it can be.
It takes a lot of energy to see chaos become organization. It's a principle of physics. If something isn't moving it takes a lot of effort to get it moving. If it is moving but in the wrong direction it can't be turned around with just a flip of the steering wheel.
Usually, I am working alone at first. Others don't understand my goal or have tried something similar to what I am trying and been turned away. They've gotten discouraged. I have to plow through their discouragement and comments such as "I've been here 16 1/2 years and that hasn't changed yet." The positive side of that comment is that they need to be shown that it can be done and they will join you in partnership.
I get discouraged when I don't see things happening quite as fast as I would like. But as I grow older I have realized that if I keep my nose to the grindstone I can get things moving in the right direction.
Our house in OH is an example. When we bought it it was a wreck. It hadn't been painted in years. The yard was a mess. Things were dirty. But slowly over the 15 years we lived there we saw things transformed. It took a lot of sweat and some blood (every time I nicked myself while doing a project). One project became two and two became four and it was amazing how slowly but surely the things we envisioned came to pass. I still had a few things I would have done to the property if I still owned it.
Sometimes you have to start small to get things in order. If you try to tackle too much you'll get discouraged. It's like an artist. They usually do some studies of what they are going to eventually create. They do a rough sketch...or several. The idea is to continually refine things until you achieve what you are looking for.
I also have a thing about doing things right when I do them. I'd rather finish an aspect of a project completely and be done with it than to do a temporary fix that may come back to haunt me. Unfortunately, that has cost me a lot of bigger projects than I started out with as anyone who has done remodeling can attest.
In order to get others on board with what you are doing you have to show them some small victories. The small victories eventually add up to a major battle won. The excitement of seeing something get done that has been longed for for so long gets others on board.
One of the things I've had to learn to live with is how quickly the chaos can return. We've remodeled several houses over the years. They haven't always been bought by someone who maintained what we had developed. The same in true in businesses where I have worked. Sometimes it falls back into the same rut it was in before unless there is someone there to carry the vision forward. My yard attests to that this year. I didn't fertilize it this year because I couldn't afford it. Now I have to get rid of a lot of crab grass (hard work) and replant, then fertilize and maintain or I'll have to redo the whole yard some day.
My encouragement to you is that if you stick with a project (even with varying degrees of intensity), show others the results and gain their support you'll eventually see the chaos replaced with order. I hope this helps you get your New Year started with hope.
Most chaos wasn't created in a day and it can't be fixed in a day. It takes perseverance. It takes a thick skin. And it takes a vision that you are working towards even when it isn't taking shape as quickly as you would like. It's like someone said, "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time."
I have been accused of being passionate. It's what drives my intensity. I see what something can be. I see the potential of a project, a company, a person and I go at the situation with an intense passion to see it become all that it can be.
It takes a lot of energy to see chaos become organization. It's a principle of physics. If something isn't moving it takes a lot of effort to get it moving. If it is moving but in the wrong direction it can't be turned around with just a flip of the steering wheel.
Usually, I am working alone at first. Others don't understand my goal or have tried something similar to what I am trying and been turned away. They've gotten discouraged. I have to plow through their discouragement and comments such as "I've been here 16 1/2 years and that hasn't changed yet." The positive side of that comment is that they need to be shown that it can be done and they will join you in partnership.
I get discouraged when I don't see things happening quite as fast as I would like. But as I grow older I have realized that if I keep my nose to the grindstone I can get things moving in the right direction.
Our house in OH is an example. When we bought it it was a wreck. It hadn't been painted in years. The yard was a mess. Things were dirty. But slowly over the 15 years we lived there we saw things transformed. It took a lot of sweat and some blood (every time I nicked myself while doing a project). One project became two and two became four and it was amazing how slowly but surely the things we envisioned came to pass. I still had a few things I would have done to the property if I still owned it.
Sometimes you have to start small to get things in order. If you try to tackle too much you'll get discouraged. It's like an artist. They usually do some studies of what they are going to eventually create. They do a rough sketch...or several. The idea is to continually refine things until you achieve what you are looking for.
I also have a thing about doing things right when I do them. I'd rather finish an aspect of a project completely and be done with it than to do a temporary fix that may come back to haunt me. Unfortunately, that has cost me a lot of bigger projects than I started out with as anyone who has done remodeling can attest.
In order to get others on board with what you are doing you have to show them some small victories. The small victories eventually add up to a major battle won. The excitement of seeing something get done that has been longed for for so long gets others on board.
One of the things I've had to learn to live with is how quickly the chaos can return. We've remodeled several houses over the years. They haven't always been bought by someone who maintained what we had developed. The same in true in businesses where I have worked. Sometimes it falls back into the same rut it was in before unless there is someone there to carry the vision forward. My yard attests to that this year. I didn't fertilize it this year because I couldn't afford it. Now I have to get rid of a lot of crab grass (hard work) and replant, then fertilize and maintain or I'll have to redo the whole yard some day.
My encouragement to you is that if you stick with a project (even with varying degrees of intensity), show others the results and gain their support you'll eventually see the chaos replaced with order. I hope this helps you get your New Year started with hope.
Front Porch
When I got to my first pastorate the tone of the congregation was already there to reach out to the community. In fact, everyone knew that the future of the church depended on bringing in others to join us. The problem was that previously, evangelism had been forced on people in a way that made their teeth grind whenever it was mentioned. It was laced with guilt and people were driven to share their faith.
Having come from Baptist background where "getting saved" was the goal of life, learning how to share the gospel was expected. But I've found something in my life. It doesn't matter if it is the 4 spiritual laws or 6 ways to convince a heathen they need Christ or playing Bible trivia to get the best of someone who doesn't know their Bible the Holy Spirit doesn't need all that stuff to bring someone into the Kingdom of God. In fact, those tactics and others like them detract from the atmosphere of allowing someone to hear the sweet wooing of the Father as they hear of his love in someone else's life.
I have always contended that if Jesus isn't real in your life no program of evangelism is going to work. People want authenticity. If Christ doesn't make a difference in your life how can you expect to convince someone else to open their heart? It has to be real to you on a daily basis before someone else will want what you have. They don't need a ticket to sit in a church. They need a life giving message of hope.
I think this could get longer than normal. Let me get to what I was thinking when I came up with the title of this blog.
While pastoring in Mountville, PA I found that I was better off if people didn't know I was a pastor when they talked to me. It somehow moved the conversation into an artificial dialogue which was devoid of offensive words and the real life pains of that person. I even had a guy ask me one time if I liked talking about anything other than God since I was a pastor.
I met more of my neighbors just being a regular guy and was invited into their life once they knew I walked on clay feet as well.
One day I was working out back of my house and one of my neighbors came out of her door and looked at me with surprise. "I didn't know you were a pastor!" she exclaimed. I wondered if that was okay. She had read an article in a local newspaper about Pat and I and just discovered that we pastored a local church. I was dressed in a sweat shirt and she didn't think that made me look like a pastor. I told her I liked to travel incognito. We loved them the whole time we lived there and it didn't have anything to do with my job description.
Another night I was sitting on my front porch around 10 pm. One of my other neighbors came over and sat down to talk. I asked him questions about his life and listened to him tell me of the good and bad things that had happened to him. After about an hour and a half he finally got around to asking me what I did. He was embarrassed when I told him I was a pastor...because he had used his regular lauguage to describe his life to me. I had to insure him I wasn't offended and that God wasn't either.
I met other neighbors by helping them with jumper cables, loaning a garden hose and being available when one of them had frequent epileptic seizures on the streets of my town.
Every one of these encounters didn't lead to the sinners prayer but I'm sure that God was loving the people I talked to as he delights in doing.
One evening we were sitting at supper and saw one of our neighbors approaching the back door. We invited him in. He soon asked if I did counseling and I affirmed that I did. He expressed an interest in sitting down with me and his wife. She had filed for divorce and by PA law he could request 3 sessions of counseling before agreeing to the divorce. I reached for my DayTimer to set up a schedule when he told me he was thinking of right now!
This open door came because we had accepted an invitation to his party with some friends one Sat evening. It wasn't our comfort zone. There was loud music because people weren't used to talking to each other and really listening. There was alcohol because it dulls the pain. But we connected with some people and had the opportunity to come back later and talk about deeper issues like marriage, divorce and conflict.
I've got some other stories that I'll share at another time. Sharing your relationship with Christ and talking about the gift of life isn't supposed to be artificially induced. People can see that coming a mile away. We need to love as Christ has called us to, showing genuine interest in someone else's life...not to land one for the Kingdom but to cooperate with the wooing of the Holy Spirit to bring others into the family of God.
If you haven't already, I'd give up evangelism and just share what Christ has done for you lately. That's witnessing and people are dying to hear of hope for their situations. If you haven't experienced the presence of God lately, ask him to show you today in your every day life that he is right beside you. Expect him to answer, because he delights to do that.
Having come from Baptist background where "getting saved" was the goal of life, learning how to share the gospel was expected. But I've found something in my life. It doesn't matter if it is the 4 spiritual laws or 6 ways to convince a heathen they need Christ or playing Bible trivia to get the best of someone who doesn't know their Bible the Holy Spirit doesn't need all that stuff to bring someone into the Kingdom of God. In fact, those tactics and others like them detract from the atmosphere of allowing someone to hear the sweet wooing of the Father as they hear of his love in someone else's life.
I have always contended that if Jesus isn't real in your life no program of evangelism is going to work. People want authenticity. If Christ doesn't make a difference in your life how can you expect to convince someone else to open their heart? It has to be real to you on a daily basis before someone else will want what you have. They don't need a ticket to sit in a church. They need a life giving message of hope.
I think this could get longer than normal. Let me get to what I was thinking when I came up with the title of this blog.
While pastoring in Mountville, PA I found that I was better off if people didn't know I was a pastor when they talked to me. It somehow moved the conversation into an artificial dialogue which was devoid of offensive words and the real life pains of that person. I even had a guy ask me one time if I liked talking about anything other than God since I was a pastor.
I met more of my neighbors just being a regular guy and was invited into their life once they knew I walked on clay feet as well.
One day I was working out back of my house and one of my neighbors came out of her door and looked at me with surprise. "I didn't know you were a pastor!" she exclaimed. I wondered if that was okay. She had read an article in a local newspaper about Pat and I and just discovered that we pastored a local church. I was dressed in a sweat shirt and she didn't think that made me look like a pastor. I told her I liked to travel incognito. We loved them the whole time we lived there and it didn't have anything to do with my job description.
Another night I was sitting on my front porch around 10 pm. One of my other neighbors came over and sat down to talk. I asked him questions about his life and listened to him tell me of the good and bad things that had happened to him. After about an hour and a half he finally got around to asking me what I did. He was embarrassed when I told him I was a pastor...because he had used his regular lauguage to describe his life to me. I had to insure him I wasn't offended and that God wasn't either.
I met other neighbors by helping them with jumper cables, loaning a garden hose and being available when one of them had frequent epileptic seizures on the streets of my town.
Every one of these encounters didn't lead to the sinners prayer but I'm sure that God was loving the people I talked to as he delights in doing.
One evening we were sitting at supper and saw one of our neighbors approaching the back door. We invited him in. He soon asked if I did counseling and I affirmed that I did. He expressed an interest in sitting down with me and his wife. She had filed for divorce and by PA law he could request 3 sessions of counseling before agreeing to the divorce. I reached for my DayTimer to set up a schedule when he told me he was thinking of right now!
This open door came because we had accepted an invitation to his party with some friends one Sat evening. It wasn't our comfort zone. There was loud music because people weren't used to talking to each other and really listening. There was alcohol because it dulls the pain. But we connected with some people and had the opportunity to come back later and talk about deeper issues like marriage, divorce and conflict.
I've got some other stories that I'll share at another time. Sharing your relationship with Christ and talking about the gift of life isn't supposed to be artificially induced. People can see that coming a mile away. We need to love as Christ has called us to, showing genuine interest in someone else's life...not to land one for the Kingdom but to cooperate with the wooing of the Holy Spirit to bring others into the family of God.
If you haven't already, I'd give up evangelism and just share what Christ has done for you lately. That's witnessing and people are dying to hear of hope for their situations. If you haven't experienced the presence of God lately, ask him to show you today in your every day life that he is right beside you. Expect him to answer, because he delights to do that.
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