Pat and I have been doing a lot of reading lately...a way to escape reality I guess. We've read a lot of books by Jodi Picoult, Nicholas Sparks and one by Belva Plain. I would have to say that so far my favorite has been Nicholas Sparks. We both like the NC settings of his novels and he is a master story-teller.
I suppose these novels are to reflect the culture in some way. In all of these books it is common for the characters to have hormonal sex. By that I mean, they have an attraction, hop in bed and have passionate sex. The books don't describe this in detail but the theme is the same. Later the characters go about getting to know each other and see if they are compatible...after many times in bed.
This reminds me of another book I read several years ago--Bonding, by Dr Donald Joy. In his book he takes a theory of animal bonding for those species that bond with one mate for life and extrapolates it into a theory of bonding for human beings. I like the book. In fact, it's one of the ones I have kept on my shelf after discarding many others.
In our world today, the norm is to try on the relationship, meaning living together. I may be old-fashioned but there is still something that sticks in my heart about the need to decide that you are committed to someone before you leap into bed. Part of Joy's premise is that if you have the ultimate bonding experience, sex, without the rest of the issues being worked out...the rest of the issues never get worked out. You never bond. You never share values, dreams and other parts of your heart. The physical aspect of sex takes over. It is literally physically and chemically more exciting to have sex than to talk to each other about life.
Bonding takes time. It takes time to share activities together, decide what you like to do, talk about what is deepest in your heart and put together a relationship that won't end when the sex begins to wane. If you are sexually active and responding to the hormones every time you get around that attractive person, you have time for sex but not time to bond. And the bonding is what lasts 40 to 50 to 60 years into a relationship.
I'm not doing Joy's book justice. I'll have to write about it more in depth some other time.
Now that Pat and I are older (and I'll be frank) we aren't hopping into bed every night, every afternoon, every morning...you get the picture. We are bonded on many more things. One of the more unusual ones we are enjoying together now is reading books. I've always enjoyed that but Pat hasn't. Now it is more common for us to go to bed and read together. We're trading books, talking about what we read and enjoying a few passionate moments along the way.
If our relationship was just founded on physical sex we would be drifting apart like many couples do as women go through menopause and men look for their second childhood in cars, sports, etc. One of the things Pat and I still enjoy doing is traveling where we have hours to talk uninterrupted, sharing our thoughts and continuing to bond with each other into our twilight years.
Look for it soon. I'll write about what it really takes to bond with someone so that its not just about passionate, hormonal sex but about values and shared activities that will last for a life time.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
The Simple Way
I've been kinda lax in writing recently. I guess every writer goes through a stage like that every once in a while.
Some friends of ours recommended a book to me several months ago. It was The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne. I was taken by the book and the things Shane and his community of believers were doing in Philadelphia. I was afraid to write too much about what I was challenged by because I wasn't living it. I mean, Shane has taken the Gospel to one of the roughest neighborhoods of Philly.
Shane is a radical, raised in eastern TN (I already liked him because of that). He felt called to those without an advocate in the poor section of Philly. He had attended Eastern University and been impacted by other radicals like Tony Campollo. He's also gotten his fingers into the Mennonite community because of their theology (but not necessarily their practice) of a simple life.
At Thanksgiving I talked to Ben about Shane and his work and he encouraged me to look them up and go spend some time hanging out with them. I found the website and began a correspondence with Grace Young and her husband Michael. They hail from Lancaster County but if I blink my eyes they remind me a lot of the 70's hippies I saw in my youth.
I finally made my first trip down there a few weeks ago and again this week to help them out with some building projects. They own 9 properties in the Kensington neighborhood of north Philly. It's street after street of small 3 BR, 1 Bath row houses. Very tight streets and several burned out or boarded up houses on each street. I helped Michael with a few plumbing issues the first time but didn't get much time to chat.
This week when I went down to work I was joined by a father and his two college aged kids from Cincinnati. They came to check out the ministry and volunteer. The son had read Shane's book and passed it on to his Dad. They helped me remove some walls in the row house serving as the office of The Simple Way to open up the space and make it more useable for their meetings. There's a lot more I'd like to do there but I need to find the time.
What is The Simple Way doing? They are living right among those they are seeking to serve and love. They have bought up several properties to make available for rentals. They take in community service workers that have been referred by the courts. They clean up their street, hang out with the kids, provide food for families that need some help, give clothes to the poor, hand out school supplies at the beginning of the school year to the local kids.
Yesterday, there was also a group of Jewish kids who volunteered to help clean up the lot where a factory once stood that had burned out several years ago. In the fire event one of TSW houses was destroyed. That lot is now converted to green space for others to enjoy. The lot being cleaned up is owned by the city and TSW is hoping to plant some stuff there to add some greenery to the neighborhood.
Before the volunteers had arrived to the vacant lot I brought over a truck load of debris from the office to be dumped in the dumpster. As I started to throw stuff into the dumpster a fellow came running down the block yelling to me to get my attention. He thought maybe I was using TSW's dumpster for my personal trash. I later met the good neighbor, Manuel. He is a card and he takes pride in what they are doing in his neighborhood. He is a positive force in that neighborhood as well.
What do people really need? Friends. Ones who will love them, hang out with them and bless their lives. I blessed the community verbally as I worked there this week. I blessed the love of TSW group who is there putting a foot in the door of inner city Philly. They want to impact their world. They are living simply and loving much.
There's a part of me that could get caught up in what they are doing. I enjoyed so much the interaction I had with people there in the neighborhood. I got familiar with finding my way around. I am overwhelmed by how much needs to be done in the neighborhood. It takes way more people than I can represent by myself. But it has to start somewhere.
Pat is having an impact in her classes at Pequea Valley High School. I'm touching a few in Philly. Others are impacting children in NYC. Who are you loving today? Is there someone you have overlooked that needs some of your attention? Would you like to go with me to Philly some time?
Oh, by the way, I did get to meet Shane. He's cool...because he talks with the right accent from TN (not Philly).
Some friends of ours recommended a book to me several months ago. It was The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne. I was taken by the book and the things Shane and his community of believers were doing in Philadelphia. I was afraid to write too much about what I was challenged by because I wasn't living it. I mean, Shane has taken the Gospel to one of the roughest neighborhoods of Philly.
Shane is a radical, raised in eastern TN (I already liked him because of that). He felt called to those without an advocate in the poor section of Philly. He had attended Eastern University and been impacted by other radicals like Tony Campollo. He's also gotten his fingers into the Mennonite community because of their theology (but not necessarily their practice) of a simple life.
At Thanksgiving I talked to Ben about Shane and his work and he encouraged me to look them up and go spend some time hanging out with them. I found the website and began a correspondence with Grace Young and her husband Michael. They hail from Lancaster County but if I blink my eyes they remind me a lot of the 70's hippies I saw in my youth.
I finally made my first trip down there a few weeks ago and again this week to help them out with some building projects. They own 9 properties in the Kensington neighborhood of north Philly. It's street after street of small 3 BR, 1 Bath row houses. Very tight streets and several burned out or boarded up houses on each street. I helped Michael with a few plumbing issues the first time but didn't get much time to chat.
This week when I went down to work I was joined by a father and his two college aged kids from Cincinnati. They came to check out the ministry and volunteer. The son had read Shane's book and passed it on to his Dad. They helped me remove some walls in the row house serving as the office of The Simple Way to open up the space and make it more useable for their meetings. There's a lot more I'd like to do there but I need to find the time.
What is The Simple Way doing? They are living right among those they are seeking to serve and love. They have bought up several properties to make available for rentals. They take in community service workers that have been referred by the courts. They clean up their street, hang out with the kids, provide food for families that need some help, give clothes to the poor, hand out school supplies at the beginning of the school year to the local kids.
Yesterday, there was also a group of Jewish kids who volunteered to help clean up the lot where a factory once stood that had burned out several years ago. In the fire event one of TSW houses was destroyed. That lot is now converted to green space for others to enjoy. The lot being cleaned up is owned by the city and TSW is hoping to plant some stuff there to add some greenery to the neighborhood.
Before the volunteers had arrived to the vacant lot I brought over a truck load of debris from the office to be dumped in the dumpster. As I started to throw stuff into the dumpster a fellow came running down the block yelling to me to get my attention. He thought maybe I was using TSW's dumpster for my personal trash. I later met the good neighbor, Manuel. He is a card and he takes pride in what they are doing in his neighborhood. He is a positive force in that neighborhood as well.
What do people really need? Friends. Ones who will love them, hang out with them and bless their lives. I blessed the community verbally as I worked there this week. I blessed the love of TSW group who is there putting a foot in the door of inner city Philly. They want to impact their world. They are living simply and loving much.
There's a part of me that could get caught up in what they are doing. I enjoyed so much the interaction I had with people there in the neighborhood. I got familiar with finding my way around. I am overwhelmed by how much needs to be done in the neighborhood. It takes way more people than I can represent by myself. But it has to start somewhere.
Pat is having an impact in her classes at Pequea Valley High School. I'm touching a few in Philly. Others are impacting children in NYC. Who are you loving today? Is there someone you have overlooked that needs some of your attention? Would you like to go with me to Philly some time?
Oh, by the way, I did get to meet Shane. He's cool...because he talks with the right accent from TN (not Philly).
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Ben Carson
Saturday evening we watched a movie about Ben Carson, MD, the world's most renowned pediatric neurosurgeon.
I am always stirred somehow when I watch a movie. As John Eldredge likes to say, they often sink deep into our hearts because they are telling a story...our story. That's why they speak to us so deeply.
Ben Carson was raised in Detroit by a single mother who couldn't read. She worked hard to provide for he and his older brother. She challenged them to excell and not just go through life. Ben was in need of encouragement. He didn't feel like he was smart enough to do anything.
In a scene of what to some would look like child abuse, Ben's mom limited his and his brother's TV watching...severely. And she challenged them to read books and write reports to her about what they read. Ben became a walking encyclopedia. He tapped his mental resources and excelled. He discovered the joy of learning. He applied himself to his passion and found his way into neurosurgery. As a pioneer in neurosurgery he performed delicate brain operations to restore a somewhat normal life to children with seizures and other neuro-based issues. He pioneered procedures that were cutting-edge with confidence in his abilities and in the Father who had given the gifts to him.
I was sad when I finished watching the movie. I wasn't encouraged as I thought I would be but rather felt like I had failed to utilize my mental abilities to their fullest.
What does it take to motivate someone to their best? What is your best...or my best? How do we discover that? I don't have an answer and so I could end this blog right here.
However, as I look back on my life, how I was raised and how I raised my children I think of the passage in Proverbs. There it says to train up a child in the way he/she should go and they when they are old they will not depart from it. In the era of my childhood that was to discipline and control the behavior of the child and when they grew up they wouldn't be a irresponsible adult. They would behave. I believe that is based in fear...fear of reprisal, fear of discipline, fear of failure, just plain old binding up fear.
As I look at all that I have processed about my life over the years I am more aware of what the fear really did to me and does to many other children who are raised as I was. The fear is paralyzing. It makes a monster out of risk. It makes failure unacceptable.
I remember a picture when I was a child. We were having a violent storm. The wind was blowing strongly and the trees were waving in the wind. My family was down in the basement watching TV when I went upstairs in the dark to look out to see the storm. We had a beautiful silver maple tree in our front yard. Uniform bark, nice round ball towering high over the front yard, tight limbs for climbing in...and it was laying on the ground.
After the storm had subsided we went outside to survey the damage. It had popped off right at the ground. In the dark we couldn't see why. The next morning it became evident. Whoever had planted the tree, took care to get it in the ground. The burlap bag over the ball of the roots had been left intact. It had long ago deteriorated but not the copper wire that it was held on with. That copper wire was intact right around the trunk of the tree still at the size of the tree when it was planted. The tree had grown around it over the years adding many rings of growth but the tree was really no stronger than the size of the original tree when planted. And when the weight of the adult tree took the brunt of the storm, the size of the tree when planted wasn't strong enough to resist it. It fell in all its beautiful glory...choked off at its base from real growth.
I needed to be turned loose when I was a kid. Would I have gotten into more trouble? Possibly. Would I have gone down the "wrong" path? Possibly. Would I have turned out differently? Probably.
Kids need encouragement to excell. They need involvement from parents to develop their abilities. They need wise mentors to help them discover their strengths and weaknesses and to be coached how to manage both. I believe the passage in Proverbs was really talking about discovering how God has created a child with the gifts, strengths and abilities, and gently guiding them in that path in partnership with the Father. The end result is that the child finds their place in life and excells to achievements that God has placed in their hearts.
As I said earlier, I don't have the answers for a perfect outcome. I am still depending on my Father to lead me in the direction that I need to go so that the great accomplishments that he has for me to contribute to will still come to pass. I consider them to be unfinished and still available to be achieved until the day I die. I have to take it one day at a time, focusing on what can still be rather than looking back on what could have been.
One of my jokes is to say that I still have time. Colonel Sanders of KFC fame didn't begin his company of finger lickin' good chicken until he was 65. What does God still have for you to accomplish in the years, months, days or hours ahead?
I am always stirred somehow when I watch a movie. As John Eldredge likes to say, they often sink deep into our hearts because they are telling a story...our story. That's why they speak to us so deeply.
Ben Carson was raised in Detroit by a single mother who couldn't read. She worked hard to provide for he and his older brother. She challenged them to excell and not just go through life. Ben was in need of encouragement. He didn't feel like he was smart enough to do anything.
In a scene of what to some would look like child abuse, Ben's mom limited his and his brother's TV watching...severely. And she challenged them to read books and write reports to her about what they read. Ben became a walking encyclopedia. He tapped his mental resources and excelled. He discovered the joy of learning. He applied himself to his passion and found his way into neurosurgery. As a pioneer in neurosurgery he performed delicate brain operations to restore a somewhat normal life to children with seizures and other neuro-based issues. He pioneered procedures that were cutting-edge with confidence in his abilities and in the Father who had given the gifts to him.
I was sad when I finished watching the movie. I wasn't encouraged as I thought I would be but rather felt like I had failed to utilize my mental abilities to their fullest.
What does it take to motivate someone to their best? What is your best...or my best? How do we discover that? I don't have an answer and so I could end this blog right here.
However, as I look back on my life, how I was raised and how I raised my children I think of the passage in Proverbs. There it says to train up a child in the way he/she should go and they when they are old they will not depart from it. In the era of my childhood that was to discipline and control the behavior of the child and when they grew up they wouldn't be a irresponsible adult. They would behave. I believe that is based in fear...fear of reprisal, fear of discipline, fear of failure, just plain old binding up fear.
As I look at all that I have processed about my life over the years I am more aware of what the fear really did to me and does to many other children who are raised as I was. The fear is paralyzing. It makes a monster out of risk. It makes failure unacceptable.
I remember a picture when I was a child. We were having a violent storm. The wind was blowing strongly and the trees were waving in the wind. My family was down in the basement watching TV when I went upstairs in the dark to look out to see the storm. We had a beautiful silver maple tree in our front yard. Uniform bark, nice round ball towering high over the front yard, tight limbs for climbing in...and it was laying on the ground.
After the storm had subsided we went outside to survey the damage. It had popped off right at the ground. In the dark we couldn't see why. The next morning it became evident. Whoever had planted the tree, took care to get it in the ground. The burlap bag over the ball of the roots had been left intact. It had long ago deteriorated but not the copper wire that it was held on with. That copper wire was intact right around the trunk of the tree still at the size of the tree when it was planted. The tree had grown around it over the years adding many rings of growth but the tree was really no stronger than the size of the original tree when planted. And when the weight of the adult tree took the brunt of the storm, the size of the tree when planted wasn't strong enough to resist it. It fell in all its beautiful glory...choked off at its base from real growth.
I needed to be turned loose when I was a kid. Would I have gotten into more trouble? Possibly. Would I have gone down the "wrong" path? Possibly. Would I have turned out differently? Probably.
Kids need encouragement to excell. They need involvement from parents to develop their abilities. They need wise mentors to help them discover their strengths and weaknesses and to be coached how to manage both. I believe the passage in Proverbs was really talking about discovering how God has created a child with the gifts, strengths and abilities, and gently guiding them in that path in partnership with the Father. The end result is that the child finds their place in life and excells to achievements that God has placed in their hearts.
As I said earlier, I don't have the answers for a perfect outcome. I am still depending on my Father to lead me in the direction that I need to go so that the great accomplishments that he has for me to contribute to will still come to pass. I consider them to be unfinished and still available to be achieved until the day I die. I have to take it one day at a time, focusing on what can still be rather than looking back on what could have been.
One of my jokes is to say that I still have time. Colonel Sanders of KFC fame didn't begin his company of finger lickin' good chicken until he was 65. What does God still have for you to accomplish in the years, months, days or hours ahead?
Monday, February 21, 2011
Living Word
I know at some point I'm going to run out of easy titles for these blogs. But until then I'll keep making them simple. I may have to have sequels later on.
I made a decision when I started to learn to read in 1970 that I would not put a book down until I had read it all, in spite of how bad I thought it was as I read it. I didn't make it a vow and I haven't stuck to it religiously over the years.
The book I just finished reading was in danger of being one of those exceptions. It is Paul:The Mind of the Apostle by A N Wilson, published in 1997. I don't know how long it has been on my shelves. I got it from my former pastor who I knew during my teen years. He gave it to me before he died when we visited him in NC some years ago. I got desperate to have something to read and I pulled it off the shelf. I had tried to read it once before and even during the reading this time I toyed with the decision to throw it in the trash when I finished reading it. I wasn't even going to send it to Goodwill.
But I stuck with it and had some interesting insights. I was trained in seminary with the historical critical method of Scripture study. It has caused much gray hair in the fundamentalist camps and even some of the more conservative evangelical camps. There seemed too much in the Scriptures that was questioned by this method. I remember sitting in the library at school, pondering the research I had done on a passage and then having a spiritual insight to the meaning that was connecting with my heart. Those insights were "Aha" moments and were thrilling to me in the midst of all the reading of theological books.
This latest book on Paul had me judging the writer for his lack of furvency toward the Scriptures. He was questioning too much of the authenticity of what has been handed down to us over the years--the authorships, the authenticity of the books as we have them now. I had a similar insight recently when hearing a talk on the Apocrapha. How do we know what is inspired Scripture and what is not? How can we be sure that those who have gone before us have judged righteously in what we have as Holy Scripture today?
I certainly won't solve that theological dilemma in this short blog. But my conclusion after reading this book and hearing other things over the years remains the same. That is, that if we are going to understand what the Spirit of God is doing today in a world that is 2000 years removed from the time of Christ we have to rely on the Holy Spirit to give us guidance. We can't take the written word, seen through the eyes of a 2011 understanding and expect it to hold fast. We can not expect the documents that were inspired by the Holy Spirit then to have the same scientific validity as something that is written today. We can't use the same grid to understand them. We don't live in the Middle East, for one thing.
One of the things I learned is that language usage changes approximately every 30 years. If the Scriptures had been passed to us in English over 2000 years there would be problems understanding them. Multiple that by the fact that we have them in Greek...that was used over 2000 years ago. Not the same Greek you would hear spoken at your nearby gyro shop.
That sounds heritical, doesn't it? But how can we expect the writings that we have in our Holy Scriptures to be viewed with a microscope of scientific accuracy if we don't have the original documents that were written by the authors? How can we hold for absolute accuracy the messages that have been passed down to us if we can't verify the context of when they were written?
How will anyone for that matter be able to understand what God is doing in our day and time 50 or 100 years from now? Will any one author be able to capture all the variations of experiences we all are having in our relationship to Christ in our individual communities? Let alone in our state, in the United States or even anywhere else in the world?
Let me say it bluntly...we are not able to take the Bible and make it a book of facts like a Policies and Procedures Manual where everything is lined out in black and white. We must be people of a Living Word. We must be living in a vibrant relationship with Christ daily for us to be able to interpret what is the Godly thing for us to be doing. The Scriptures can be a guide but they don't speak of twittering, texting, IM, gigs or RAM and I don't believe we should expect them to.
So how do we live in that moment by moment relationship? The same way we live in relationship with anyone else. That's a problem because some of us don't know how to live in relationship with someone else. We don't understand intimacy. We don't know how to connect on the deepest levels of our heart.
But for sure in order to develop that type of relationship we need to spend time with someone. We need to listen carefully. We need to clarify what we think we are hearing. And we need to listen unconditionally so that the speaker can say what they need to say without getting a judgemental response from us...a shaming response.
If we are going to be people of the Word, we need to be people of the Living Word. What is Jesus saying to us today about how we are to live his life among those we find ourselves living? Can your local pastor or the radio preacher or the Pope be the only one interpretting what God is saying? Or where is our responsibility as followers of Christ to be in communion with him on a daily basis? Does it matter what God is saying to us and not just to others? Do we always take everything second hand from someone else?
I want to know Christ today as the Living Word and not sit back comfortably expecting others to have his word for me today. It would be a lot easier to sit back and let someone else do the work for me in my life following after Christ but I'm going to take the hard road. I hope you will join me, because I can't do it alone.
I made a decision when I started to learn to read in 1970 that I would not put a book down until I had read it all, in spite of how bad I thought it was as I read it. I didn't make it a vow and I haven't stuck to it religiously over the years.
The book I just finished reading was in danger of being one of those exceptions. It is Paul:The Mind of the Apostle by A N Wilson, published in 1997. I don't know how long it has been on my shelves. I got it from my former pastor who I knew during my teen years. He gave it to me before he died when we visited him in NC some years ago. I got desperate to have something to read and I pulled it off the shelf. I had tried to read it once before and even during the reading this time I toyed with the decision to throw it in the trash when I finished reading it. I wasn't even going to send it to Goodwill.
But I stuck with it and had some interesting insights. I was trained in seminary with the historical critical method of Scripture study. It has caused much gray hair in the fundamentalist camps and even some of the more conservative evangelical camps. There seemed too much in the Scriptures that was questioned by this method. I remember sitting in the library at school, pondering the research I had done on a passage and then having a spiritual insight to the meaning that was connecting with my heart. Those insights were "Aha" moments and were thrilling to me in the midst of all the reading of theological books.
This latest book on Paul had me judging the writer for his lack of furvency toward the Scriptures. He was questioning too much of the authenticity of what has been handed down to us over the years--the authorships, the authenticity of the books as we have them now. I had a similar insight recently when hearing a talk on the Apocrapha. How do we know what is inspired Scripture and what is not? How can we be sure that those who have gone before us have judged righteously in what we have as Holy Scripture today?
I certainly won't solve that theological dilemma in this short blog. But my conclusion after reading this book and hearing other things over the years remains the same. That is, that if we are going to understand what the Spirit of God is doing today in a world that is 2000 years removed from the time of Christ we have to rely on the Holy Spirit to give us guidance. We can't take the written word, seen through the eyes of a 2011 understanding and expect it to hold fast. We can not expect the documents that were inspired by the Holy Spirit then to have the same scientific validity as something that is written today. We can't use the same grid to understand them. We don't live in the Middle East, for one thing.
One of the things I learned is that language usage changes approximately every 30 years. If the Scriptures had been passed to us in English over 2000 years there would be problems understanding them. Multiple that by the fact that we have them in Greek...that was used over 2000 years ago. Not the same Greek you would hear spoken at your nearby gyro shop.
That sounds heritical, doesn't it? But how can we expect the writings that we have in our Holy Scriptures to be viewed with a microscope of scientific accuracy if we don't have the original documents that were written by the authors? How can we hold for absolute accuracy the messages that have been passed down to us if we can't verify the context of when they were written?
How will anyone for that matter be able to understand what God is doing in our day and time 50 or 100 years from now? Will any one author be able to capture all the variations of experiences we all are having in our relationship to Christ in our individual communities? Let alone in our state, in the United States or even anywhere else in the world?
Let me say it bluntly...we are not able to take the Bible and make it a book of facts like a Policies and Procedures Manual where everything is lined out in black and white. We must be people of a Living Word. We must be living in a vibrant relationship with Christ daily for us to be able to interpret what is the Godly thing for us to be doing. The Scriptures can be a guide but they don't speak of twittering, texting, IM, gigs or RAM and I don't believe we should expect them to.
So how do we live in that moment by moment relationship? The same way we live in relationship with anyone else. That's a problem because some of us don't know how to live in relationship with someone else. We don't understand intimacy. We don't know how to connect on the deepest levels of our heart.
But for sure in order to develop that type of relationship we need to spend time with someone. We need to listen carefully. We need to clarify what we think we are hearing. And we need to listen unconditionally so that the speaker can say what they need to say without getting a judgemental response from us...a shaming response.
If we are going to be people of the Word, we need to be people of the Living Word. What is Jesus saying to us today about how we are to live his life among those we find ourselves living? Can your local pastor or the radio preacher or the Pope be the only one interpretting what God is saying? Or where is our responsibility as followers of Christ to be in communion with him on a daily basis? Does it matter what God is saying to us and not just to others? Do we always take everything second hand from someone else?
I want to know Christ today as the Living Word and not sit back comfortably expecting others to have his word for me today. It would be a lot easier to sit back and let someone else do the work for me in my life following after Christ but I'm going to take the hard road. I hope you will join me, because I can't do it alone.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Fat
One thing I have told Pat over the years is that we can't spend money twice. Meaning that we can't buy two different things with the same money. We have to make a choice.
This week we're seeing the beginnings of the budget battle on Capital Hill. I've been getting emails from some of my fb friends about the rumored budget cuts for NPR and PBS. "Save public broadcasting". Today I saw Secretarys Clinton and Gates saying that if the military budget gets cut like they are proposing it will harm our nation's security. I can just hear my right wing friends crying over that one. "Save the military".
What is this world coming to? Reality. None of us can overspend our budgets for long. The housing crisis has made that clear. Too many people overcommitted for the house of their "dreams" and they became nightmares. Others lived high on the hog as we used to say in the south and the chicken has come home to roost. Even Pat and I are feeling the tightening income because we didn't save what we should have for a cushion.
Our government, on the other hand, has continued to overspend its budget for years...and that includes Democrat and Republican presidents, House and Senate. As a management gifted person I see lots of fat that could be trimmed out of the budget and lots of areas where we could be more conservative in our spending on all levels.
Let's take unemployment for an example. And I'm talking about me right now. I am being supported by the government because I don't have a job. I can take 5 minutes every two weeks, fill out the forms and get money deposited into my account to the tune of $996. We can live on that...without health care, that is. The government is not asking me to do anything for the next 26-99 weeks except fill out the online questionaire and collect my money. Our economy can't support that.
Again, on a personal level I don't want to be unemployed. I want to work so I am actively looking for employment so I can become a contributing citizen again.
We've got welfare programs that are feeding people, caring for them physically, supporting their life styles and encouraging them to continue to look to the government for what they are due. We've got government leaders who are slipping in programs to study why groundhogs eat grass (not really, but some just as crazy). Or to build bridges to nowhere. I just went under an overpass yesterday that was build over 20 years ago for a road that was never finished. Sheep graze where the lanes of traffic were supposed to be. And when or if that road ever gets built the bridge will have to be rebuilt because it is too low according to today's standards and it is deteriorating while being unused. That's not just fat; that's waste. Somewhere it has to stop.
What if the government didn't have welfare or medicaid or social security? Who would step in to take their place? If I read my Bible correctly, it is our responsibility to care for the poor, the orphans and the widows. We are to take care of each other...and the others around us. Is there fat in the budgets of most churches? I would guess there is.
For example, how about the many congregations who are holding on by a shoestring with fewer members than they need to support their physical plant (the church building). Should that building be turned over to others to use to minister to the poor? Should those members be merged into another body of Christ where their resources can be shared? What about all the church facilities that sit idle for most of the week? Could they be put to better use serving others?
Our son Ben recently helped a local soup kitchen in Chicago turn an unused side lot to their building into a garden plot. This spring they are going to plant vegetables to be used in the soup kitchen to feed others. That space was just growing weeds and some semblance of grass that needed to be mowed, etc.
We are the government...or more pointedly...we are the church and we have a responsibility as members of the Kingdom of God to do our share. We are not supposed to just leave it up to the government and let them take care of it. I was encouraged this week when I saw the Egyptian people out cleaning up Tahrir Square of all the debris from their protests. They didn't wait for the "government" to take care of it. They are the government in a democracy.
Will we have to see NPR and PBS disappear to balance the budget? Will we need to see welfare, social security, medicaid and medicare cut to balance the budget? Will we need to do without all the multitude of police and firemen that are being cut from city budgets to balance them? Can we all afford for the government to support us in our oversized homes? Something has to change. Will it be you and I as followers of Christ?
This week we're seeing the beginnings of the budget battle on Capital Hill. I've been getting emails from some of my fb friends about the rumored budget cuts for NPR and PBS. "Save public broadcasting". Today I saw Secretarys Clinton and Gates saying that if the military budget gets cut like they are proposing it will harm our nation's security. I can just hear my right wing friends crying over that one. "Save the military".
What is this world coming to? Reality. None of us can overspend our budgets for long. The housing crisis has made that clear. Too many people overcommitted for the house of their "dreams" and they became nightmares. Others lived high on the hog as we used to say in the south and the chicken has come home to roost. Even Pat and I are feeling the tightening income because we didn't save what we should have for a cushion.
Our government, on the other hand, has continued to overspend its budget for years...and that includes Democrat and Republican presidents, House and Senate. As a management gifted person I see lots of fat that could be trimmed out of the budget and lots of areas where we could be more conservative in our spending on all levels.
Let's take unemployment for an example. And I'm talking about me right now. I am being supported by the government because I don't have a job. I can take 5 minutes every two weeks, fill out the forms and get money deposited into my account to the tune of $996. We can live on that...without health care, that is. The government is not asking me to do anything for the next 26-99 weeks except fill out the online questionaire and collect my money. Our economy can't support that.
Again, on a personal level I don't want to be unemployed. I want to work so I am actively looking for employment so I can become a contributing citizen again.
We've got welfare programs that are feeding people, caring for them physically, supporting their life styles and encouraging them to continue to look to the government for what they are due. We've got government leaders who are slipping in programs to study why groundhogs eat grass (not really, but some just as crazy). Or to build bridges to nowhere. I just went under an overpass yesterday that was build over 20 years ago for a road that was never finished. Sheep graze where the lanes of traffic were supposed to be. And when or if that road ever gets built the bridge will have to be rebuilt because it is too low according to today's standards and it is deteriorating while being unused. That's not just fat; that's waste. Somewhere it has to stop.
What if the government didn't have welfare or medicaid or social security? Who would step in to take their place? If I read my Bible correctly, it is our responsibility to care for the poor, the orphans and the widows. We are to take care of each other...and the others around us. Is there fat in the budgets of most churches? I would guess there is.
For example, how about the many congregations who are holding on by a shoestring with fewer members than they need to support their physical plant (the church building). Should that building be turned over to others to use to minister to the poor? Should those members be merged into another body of Christ where their resources can be shared? What about all the church facilities that sit idle for most of the week? Could they be put to better use serving others?
Our son Ben recently helped a local soup kitchen in Chicago turn an unused side lot to their building into a garden plot. This spring they are going to plant vegetables to be used in the soup kitchen to feed others. That space was just growing weeds and some semblance of grass that needed to be mowed, etc.
We are the government...or more pointedly...we are the church and we have a responsibility as members of the Kingdom of God to do our share. We are not supposed to just leave it up to the government and let them take care of it. I was encouraged this week when I saw the Egyptian people out cleaning up Tahrir Square of all the debris from their protests. They didn't wait for the "government" to take care of it. They are the government in a democracy.
Will we have to see NPR and PBS disappear to balance the budget? Will we need to see welfare, social security, medicaid and medicare cut to balance the budget? Will we need to do without all the multitude of police and firemen that are being cut from city budgets to balance them? Can we all afford for the government to support us in our oversized homes? Something has to change. Will it be you and I as followers of Christ?
Monday, February 7, 2011
Pastoring
I'm in a writing mood today...or at least my thoughts have been active this weekend.
I've had two calls recently to consider pastoring churches. One was here in PA and one in OH. They weren't inquiries by a committee. They were phone calls from people who know me and know the hunger in their hearts for their churches to be on the cutting edge. They know I tend to be out there on the edge and that's where they want to be.
Years ago when I served the Board of Congregational Resources for Lancaster Conference I spent a lot of time in churches encouraging them to reach out to their neighbors and their communities. I don't think I ever spoke in a church where I didn't attract people who wanted more out of their church experience. They were hungry for a meaningful, personal relationship with Christ. They were frustrated by what they were experiencing and hungry for a deeper connection. They were tired of the conflict over "maintaining" the traditions. Many told me they would have left their churches if they had known where they could go.
So why don't I jump right into one of those situations? Because for one thing, my wife would leave me. Seriously, she bore the brunt of much of the conflict that was directed at me when I pastored before. I could come home and dump on her what I was experiencing and go away relieved. She, however, didn't have anyone that she could take the burden to. She and my kids bore the force of the battle I waged every week in trying to bring the church to growth and to impact our community. We stood alone even though we had friends in the church.
Secondly, when someone who knows me asks me to consider pastoring again they aren't usually in leadership. The leadership in most churches is entrenched. They are focused on making everyone happy and not stirring the pot. The only way that a pastor can survive if he is a change agent is to have the leadership of the church backing him. Now don't get scared. That doesn't mean the pastor has a free hand to do whatever he wants to do, but he needs a supportive group of elders who can back him when the dogs start nipping at your heels.
Thirdly, when people say they want to change they really don't know what they are saying. As much as they might want to believe they want change when faced with it, it becomes another matter. Why is that? Because change takes energy. Change is hard. Change upsets the apple cart. Change confronts you with brokenness in your life that you have kept buried and would like it to remain so. Change is gut wrenching. When your sin is exposed it can bring lots of shame from others who don't want theirs exposed.
After leaving my pastorate I went into depression. I had run out of tricks in my bag to survive. I was stripped naked of all my emotional supports. All my brokenness was exposed. I was on my face.
By God's grace I found people who were in the same shape as we were who walked with us through the changes I needed to make. I needed help and I knew it. I had been crying out for help but others didn't want to face their need along with me. When I found a group of people (and it wasn't restricted to my community or my state) I latched on to them. They were broken and knew it. They asked for help. The Father showed up.
It was messy, really messy. It didn't have anything to do with singing hymns or scripture choruses. It didn't have anything to do with the color of the nursery. It didn't matter whether we had chairs or benches to sit on because most of the time we were on the floor crying over the brokenness we knew we had. We were crying out for mercy from our loving heavenly Father. We knew there was no other answer to our plight.
We were among people who were violent...toward themselves and others. Anger was prevalent. There were ugly sexual issues from infidelity, pornography, pedophilia, masturbation addiction, sexual abuse, sexual addiction and more. It wasn't your typical Sunday School where we are talking about the baby Moses in the basket.
It's kinda tough to have a regular service that follows a routine each Sunday when you are dealing with the brokenness of people. It doesn't fit in neat categories and it doesn't understand time restraints. If I pastored a church again, all hell would break loose. You know why? Because the Kingdom of God would be coming and pushing out the darkness.
Do you think I would get past the pastoral search committee? Probably not.
Right now I am interested in being on the street with others who are looking for help. I'm still looking to my Father for healing and I will be for the rest of my life. I know I don't have it all together even though I might look like it sometimes. I'm tired of the facade--mine and others. I want real people who are serious about seeing change in our world...starting with me.
I've had two calls recently to consider pastoring churches. One was here in PA and one in OH. They weren't inquiries by a committee. They were phone calls from people who know me and know the hunger in their hearts for their churches to be on the cutting edge. They know I tend to be out there on the edge and that's where they want to be.
Years ago when I served the Board of Congregational Resources for Lancaster Conference I spent a lot of time in churches encouraging them to reach out to their neighbors and their communities. I don't think I ever spoke in a church where I didn't attract people who wanted more out of their church experience. They were hungry for a meaningful, personal relationship with Christ. They were frustrated by what they were experiencing and hungry for a deeper connection. They were tired of the conflict over "maintaining" the traditions. Many told me they would have left their churches if they had known where they could go.
So why don't I jump right into one of those situations? Because for one thing, my wife would leave me. Seriously, she bore the brunt of much of the conflict that was directed at me when I pastored before. I could come home and dump on her what I was experiencing and go away relieved. She, however, didn't have anyone that she could take the burden to. She and my kids bore the force of the battle I waged every week in trying to bring the church to growth and to impact our community. We stood alone even though we had friends in the church.
Secondly, when someone who knows me asks me to consider pastoring again they aren't usually in leadership. The leadership in most churches is entrenched. They are focused on making everyone happy and not stirring the pot. The only way that a pastor can survive if he is a change agent is to have the leadership of the church backing him. Now don't get scared. That doesn't mean the pastor has a free hand to do whatever he wants to do, but he needs a supportive group of elders who can back him when the dogs start nipping at your heels.
Thirdly, when people say they want to change they really don't know what they are saying. As much as they might want to believe they want change when faced with it, it becomes another matter. Why is that? Because change takes energy. Change is hard. Change upsets the apple cart. Change confronts you with brokenness in your life that you have kept buried and would like it to remain so. Change is gut wrenching. When your sin is exposed it can bring lots of shame from others who don't want theirs exposed.
After leaving my pastorate I went into depression. I had run out of tricks in my bag to survive. I was stripped naked of all my emotional supports. All my brokenness was exposed. I was on my face.
By God's grace I found people who were in the same shape as we were who walked with us through the changes I needed to make. I needed help and I knew it. I had been crying out for help but others didn't want to face their need along with me. When I found a group of people (and it wasn't restricted to my community or my state) I latched on to them. They were broken and knew it. They asked for help. The Father showed up.
It was messy, really messy. It didn't have anything to do with singing hymns or scripture choruses. It didn't have anything to do with the color of the nursery. It didn't matter whether we had chairs or benches to sit on because most of the time we were on the floor crying over the brokenness we knew we had. We were crying out for mercy from our loving heavenly Father. We knew there was no other answer to our plight.
We were among people who were violent...toward themselves and others. Anger was prevalent. There were ugly sexual issues from infidelity, pornography, pedophilia, masturbation addiction, sexual abuse, sexual addiction and more. It wasn't your typical Sunday School where we are talking about the baby Moses in the basket.
It's kinda tough to have a regular service that follows a routine each Sunday when you are dealing with the brokenness of people. It doesn't fit in neat categories and it doesn't understand time restraints. If I pastored a church again, all hell would break loose. You know why? Because the Kingdom of God would be coming and pushing out the darkness.
Do you think I would get past the pastoral search committee? Probably not.
Right now I am interested in being on the street with others who are looking for help. I'm still looking to my Father for healing and I will be for the rest of my life. I know I don't have it all together even though I might look like it sometimes. I'm tired of the facade--mine and others. I want real people who are serious about seeing change in our world...starting with me.
Model T
I finished reading a book about the life of Henry Ford this weekend. It was published in 2005.
My memory may be failing me but most of the biographies I have read usually leave the subject in pretty good light. Their accomplishments are highlighted and their foibles are minimized. This biography was a balance and I appreciated learning about Ford's weaknesses and failures as much as his successes.
Ford is probably best known for his contributions to mass production. He envisioned manufacturing a car for the common man by mass producing it on a assembly line where he could pass on the economies of scale. Over the roughly 15 year history of the Model T he produced millions of them, hitting a peak of over 2M one year. He also was able to cut the price on the car and double the wages of his workers. He became known as the $5 a day man. He wanted his workers to be able to afford his automobile as well as other consumer goods. His economies brought the price of the Model T down to under $300.
Part of what drove him was the desire to have his own company and to make all the decisions. He held an iron fist around all the choices that needed to be made including the smallest part on each of his cars. This continued long after he was employing over 10,000 workers. On the positive side it allowed him to control the outcome of his vision and not be deterred by others in his organization who had a different vision. On the negative side he held on too long to his vision without changing with the times.
Long before he stopped production of the Model T and moved to a more advanced Model A the sales of his cars had begun to drop significantly. Other manufacturers had begun to develop lines of cars that were more expensive but also offered more of the features the buying public wanted.
That seems to always be the case. Our greatest gift becomes our greatest failure. We hold on too long to something when we should be moving on with the times. Or as I like to say, moving on with the vibrant, ever in motion Holy Spirit.
What is our Model T in the church today? Hymns? Sunday School? Meeting on Sunday mornings? Wearing suits to church? What is the competition doing that we aren't doing? Are we still expecting the way we did things 150 years ago to suffice for today's seeker? What is today's seeker looking for? What are their needs, fears, desires? They are probably much like ours.
I heard somewhere recently that the Muslims have been working toward world domination for 60 years or more. With the unrest we are seeing in Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan and other mid east countries we are also seeing that the radical Muslim groups are standing by on the sidelines waiting to "assist" in bringing stability to their countries. What are we doing to bring the Kingdom to bear on these situations and bring freedom to the captives?
That's ultimately what God wants to bring to us all...freedom. He wants us to be able to enjoy his heart, to have intimacy with him and with others, to enjoy the desires of our heart. Is that what we are offering? Is that what you are receiving? He's calling out to us today.
My memory may be failing me but most of the biographies I have read usually leave the subject in pretty good light. Their accomplishments are highlighted and their foibles are minimized. This biography was a balance and I appreciated learning about Ford's weaknesses and failures as much as his successes.
Ford is probably best known for his contributions to mass production. He envisioned manufacturing a car for the common man by mass producing it on a assembly line where he could pass on the economies of scale. Over the roughly 15 year history of the Model T he produced millions of them, hitting a peak of over 2M one year. He also was able to cut the price on the car and double the wages of his workers. He became known as the $5 a day man. He wanted his workers to be able to afford his automobile as well as other consumer goods. His economies brought the price of the Model T down to under $300.
Part of what drove him was the desire to have his own company and to make all the decisions. He held an iron fist around all the choices that needed to be made including the smallest part on each of his cars. This continued long after he was employing over 10,000 workers. On the positive side it allowed him to control the outcome of his vision and not be deterred by others in his organization who had a different vision. On the negative side he held on too long to his vision without changing with the times.
Long before he stopped production of the Model T and moved to a more advanced Model A the sales of his cars had begun to drop significantly. Other manufacturers had begun to develop lines of cars that were more expensive but also offered more of the features the buying public wanted.
That seems to always be the case. Our greatest gift becomes our greatest failure. We hold on too long to something when we should be moving on with the times. Or as I like to say, moving on with the vibrant, ever in motion Holy Spirit.
What is our Model T in the church today? Hymns? Sunday School? Meeting on Sunday mornings? Wearing suits to church? What is the competition doing that we aren't doing? Are we still expecting the way we did things 150 years ago to suffice for today's seeker? What is today's seeker looking for? What are their needs, fears, desires? They are probably much like ours.
I heard somewhere recently that the Muslims have been working toward world domination for 60 years or more. With the unrest we are seeing in Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan and other mid east countries we are also seeing that the radical Muslim groups are standing by on the sidelines waiting to "assist" in bringing stability to their countries. What are we doing to bring the Kingdom to bear on these situations and bring freedom to the captives?
That's ultimately what God wants to bring to us all...freedom. He wants us to be able to enjoy his heart, to have intimacy with him and with others, to enjoy the desires of our heart. Is that what we are offering? Is that what you are receiving? He's calling out to us today.
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