Tag Archives: Church

Before the next Las Vegas

03 Tuesday Oct 2017

Posted by in Church, Society

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Before the next Las Vegas happens, and it will, can we be honest with each other for just a moment or possibly longer?

I’m going to take that as a yes.

I’m sickened by these shootings.  I’m also sickened by all the distractions that we pay attention to and claim are important, but really aren’t.  Are you?

I’m tired of responding.  If all we ever do is respond, we’ll never lead and offer an alternative.  We’ll be too busy responding to each violent action that happens.  And it will never change.

I refuse to be afraid.  Afraid of death, afraid of ridicule, afraid of having someone being upset with me over something I say or write.

This is the time for the church to be church.  To stop being a social club and to start living out the mission that Jesus sent us out on.

The culture has stopped giving preference to the church.  And that’s a good thing as far as I’m concerned.  We don’t end up with cheap membership that way – a whole bunch of people who come to church, but refuse to be church.

What does it mean to be church, especially in the age of mass shootings and terror?  It means that we tell the truth – that many humans are violent and destructive when left to their own device.  It means we offer confession and forgiveness.  We can’t shy away from sin.  It is real, just like evil.  Sin is a broken relationship, or rather many broken relationships.  And these breaks aren’t just metaphorical – they are real.  They rear their ugly head in yelling and screaming, in abuse, in violence, in manipulation, in addiction, and in death.  These are very real in our society and in the world.

To be church doesn’t mean we go around pointing the finger of blame.  It means that we offer the gift of forgiveness and a changing life and world.

Being church doesn’t mean we focus our effort on making the bad good, but rather on showing how Jesus brings the dead to life.  If Jesus is just a nice guy who had nice things to say, then he’s no different from any other guru who walked the face of the earth and hawks a book on self-help.  But that’s not who Jesus is and it’s not who the church worships.

The church is a beacon of light in the midst of darkness.  The church offers a message of hope in a hopeless world that would rather point the finger of blame, throw money or legislation at the problem as the sole solution, and then distract people from the pain they are experiencing.  There’s another Tweet or celebrity break up or sporting event to talk about don’t you know.

Here’s something else – the church exists to point out the reality of pain and suffering, not change the subject.  Forcing us to deal with the pain and suffering and death is a gift that this society doesn’t appreciate, but people desperately need.

We see this in every funeral.  As a pastor, part of what I am called to do is point out the reality of death in our midst.  The body is right there in front of us – either in a coffin or in an urn.  The person hasn’t been whisked away to a magical place.  No, they are right there in front of us.  Death is real.  It’s painful for those who are looking at it in the face.  It sucks.  And we shouldn’t distract ourselves from that either.  We should look at death in the face and be uncomfortable by it.

Because it is in being really uncomfortable that we finally let the walls that protect us from reality down – the walls we build around our hearts and ears.  We are finally ready to hear that death is there and that at some point death is coming for us and will get us.  It’s at this point that we can admit that death scares many of us.  It feels so final.

It’s when we are most uncomfortable, most hurting, most suffering in life that we know the reality of death.  And that’s not the end of the story.  God is the end of the story.  God’s promise of resurrection is the rest of the story.  The amazing power of God isn’t the miracles we experience throughout our lives – although they are amazing.  No, rather, I argue that the most amazing thing is resurrection – bringing the dead back to life.  Not just picking up where we left off, but rather in a renewed life where death will be no more because death does not have the final say.

The church has a message that is truly transformative – that an encounter with Jesus changes lives.  That an encounter with Jesus means the dead will be brought to life.  That an encounter with Jesus means that the status quo isn’t satisfactory any more – Jesus presents an alternative.

Church, now is the time, if ever there was a time, for us to be church.  To claim the mantle of sinner and saint.  To live lives of confession and forgiveness.  To proclaim the reality around us and the alternative that God is unfolding before us.  To do all this in the midst of the chaos of sin and death.

God is changing our lives as we speak.  Are we going to respond in doubt because we can’t see it and so we don’t live out this faith that is given to us because we just aren’t sure?  Are we going to respond in doubt because God isn’t doing it the way we would prefer and because God is messing up our comfortable lives?  Or are we going to respond in trust, not knowing what the path forward will look like, but knowing full well that God’s unfolding reality is far better than the alternative that this world offers?

Are we going to respond by trying to be safe?  Or are we going to risk it all?  The safe choice leads to more of the same.  It leads to certain death.  The risky response means we recognize we aren’t in control.  That God has a mission for us.  And that it is costly.  We’ll experience death – death of control, death of certainty, death of egotism, death of safety, death of more.  But in those deaths, Jesus will bring new life – life so much better than anything we try to hold onto.  Life in the Spirit, life in love, life in community, life in forgiveness, life in mercy, life in grace, life in care, life in peace.  Life.

God promised life.  God invites us to participate in that life.  How will you respond?

The church is like…

27 Wednesday Sep 2017

Posted by in Church, Theology

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How would you answer the question – The church is like…?  I’ve heard a variety of answers for this question.  I think the answers reveal a great deal about the person and the church they are a part of.

There’s two answers that I want to highlight though today.

The church is like a family.  The church is like a community.

These sound the same, but I argue that they are two different answers that convey two different sets of ideas.  Neither one is better than the other.  But the answer to the question has consequences.

If the answer is that the church is like a family, then here are some things to consider – how big is a family?  Usually smaller than other groups of people.  Is it easy to become part of a family?  Not really – you usually have to either be born into a family or marry into one.  A family also has some very positive things – strong relationships, sticking together through thick and thin, coming through for one another in a time of crisis.

If the answer is that the church is like a community, then consider some things.  How big is a community? If depends.  It could be small or large.  In a community, it is relatively easier to join in, but also to leave.  Some strengths of community is that a community is typically made up of many different families – but it is where people come together for a common purpose.  And the amazing thing is that they come together willingly.

There are positives and negatives to both of these answers.  Which is why the right answer is probably that the church is both a family and community.  Sometimes a church leans in on its family nature more than its community nature. And other times it sways the other way.  The challenge is for the church to take the positives from both and weave them together to carry out the mission of the church.

How lives get changed

12 Tuesday Sep 2017

Posted by in Church, Health, Humanity, Politics, Society, Theology

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Yesterday I watched this video and you should too!

It’s a TED talk from the Mayor of Albuquerque on how the city is successfully dealing with homelessness and panhandling.

Mayor Richard J. Berry is doing the right things – empowering people, tapping into people’s value, treating people like human beings, and the results are impressive – huge reductions in homelessness, and getting people the help they need for drug and alcohol problems.  Go figure that when you actually treat people like people, then lives improve.

Even though this is a government initiative, it sounds like the Gospel message in which people’s lives are changed.  Yes, the Mayor doesn’t actually say anything Christian, but if he isn’t living out the Gospel with his “Better Way” program, then I’m not sure how you could.

Imagine if we took this same attitude to other cities.  Imagine if churches took this same attitude with their own ministries.  Imagine how lives could change if we actually took people at face value, we tapped into their value, we connected them with services that can work with them on challenges, we built relationships with people, and treated people as people who have potential for so much more.  Add in a Gospel message in which grace, mercy, love, peace, and forgiveness abound, and you’ve got yourself the makings of something incredible that people would want to be a part of.  Not because it would be really cool and cutting edge, but because it would be a message and activity that people desperately needed to hear and experience.  And once you have that – look out.  Lives would be changing.

Battle of the sexes – church edition

24 Thursday Aug 2017

Posted by in Church, Theology

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Every so often I come across articles like this that argue that the church is becoming feminized!   Oh the horror!  We need to make it more masculine is the refrain.

Here’s the problem with this – it becomes a battle of the sexes.  It becomes focused on the differences between the sexes and ends up being a no-win argument in which people get ticked off and start pointing fingers at one another for why the church is in decline.

I just don’t see how this helps.

Is Christianity, at it core, masculine or feminine?  My radical answer is both and neither.

Where do I draw this from?  There are lots of places I could point to in the bible.  There’s Jesus describing God like a mothering hen.  There’s Paul talking about putting on the armor of God.  The list goes on and on.

But here’s the verse that matters for this discussion as far as I’m concerned.  It’s Paul’s letter to the Galatians (3:28) in which he writes: “In Christ there is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female.  For you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Christianity is radical in the sense that it isn’t about moving a religion towards one sex or the other.  Rather, it’s about a radical inclusiveness that has no problems with both sexes as they are.  Christianity sees the sexes as a part of our deeper identity – God’s children.  That’s our primary identity.  That’s who we are.

Pretend to be a pastor…

24 Thursday Aug 2017

Posted by in Church, Travel

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…at the LWF Assembly.  One of the booths in the Assembly village gave visitors the opportunity to put a tab in their shirt and pose for a picture.

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I did just that with my friend David who I met during my time in Finland.  Considering that at the time of the picture I was just weeks away from being ordained, it was very timely – and as you can tell, we had fun too.

Spam

18 Friday Aug 2017

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When I look at my e-mails I am sure to have some spam.  Every time.  I didn’t ask for any of it.  I don’t care which shampoos can supposedly cause cancer.  If these people actually knew me, they’d know I shave my head and that shampoo is just not that important to me.

I didn’t ask to receive spam e-mail for dating Russian women and other things unsuitable for this blog.  How in the world did they even get my e-mail.  If they knew me, they’d know I was happily married.

I didn’t ask to receive spam e-mails that is going to show me shocking footage of Hillary Clinton screaming at someone.  Seriously?  Isn’t she old news by now?  Who needs that when you can easily be distracted by the President’s tweets or speeches.  If they knew me, they’d know that I’m registered non-partisan and find both parties to be seriously lacking, stale, and flawed – and certainly not placing any hope of salvation in either party or any politician.  Certainly not the current crop of politicians that claim to be leaders.

I don’t ask for any of these e-mails, yet they show up.  And every day when I get them, I unsubscribe from every single one of them.  But they keep coming.  It never ends.

Often times, life is like spam e-mails.  Things just show up that we never asked for.  Often these are annoyances, sometimes they are worse.  And sometimes they are down right offensive (like the second set of spam I receive – Seriously, how did they get my e-mail and don’t they get the message that I don’t want anything they have to offer?).

Often we are bombarded with what I call spam messages – you could call them spam gospel messages.  These are message that tell you that if only believe this, you’ll be great.  If you buy our product, then you’ll be in much better shape.  If you do this, you’ll make a fortune.  Then then there are literal spam gospel messages – messages that are theological based, but are just as baseless as any ad that tries to separate you from your money.  These are the Rapture theologies, the Prosperity gospel, and the televangelist “send in your money to receive a reward or healing” – often they call it seed money.  Who’s seeds are you planting though?

We get inundated with lots of spam.  We don’t ask for it.  We don’t even want to hear it or see it.  Yet it shows up – in our e-mails, on our TV’s, in the ads we see, on social media, in conversations we overhear in the grocery store, in political campaigns, and in sporting events.

But then we also receive some actual good news too.  Sometimes the message of good news gets lost because we are so upset or distracted by the spam.  But the good news will never go away.  It’s there, just waiting to be celebrated.  That’s the role of the church – to share Good News with people.  Church, I’m speaking directly to you – people want to hear good news.  They welcome it.  Let’s stop apologizing for talking about the Good News.  The rest of the news is spam frankly.  There really is no comparison here.  We have the best news in the history of creation.  It’s time to proclaim Good News to people.

Purpose and Meaning

15 Tuesday Aug 2017

Posted by in Church, Humanity, Theology

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Have you ever driven through sections of town that raise questions?  When you look around, you can’t help but wonder what happened?  Have you driven through a city to a section where you can literally see a lack of hope and future in the faces of the people and the properties and the landscaping?  The entire area just looks and feels empty of life.  There is survival, but that’s about it.  And often it gets summed up as this – Why am I still here?

So often we look to government to provide for people who are poor – and government does to some degree.  But government is limited – it can only touch on people’s material needs.  It can’t touch the intangibles.

These are intangibles like community, spiritual needs, existential needs.  I don’t care who you are, we all have these needs and often these needs are going unmet.

This is an opportunity for the church.  This is one area that the church has a unique opportunity and role in the lives of people – to do something that no one else can do.  To help people answer the question of why they are still here.

There are many people who seek purpose and meaning.  It’s as if they are waiting for an answer to just show up.  They don’t know where to search for the answer to the age-old question – and so they just exist.  And after you have done that for a long time, you forget that you were searching.  And instead, you bide your time, you distract yourself, and you find ways to fill the void in life.  Too many turn to unhealthy distractions of drugs, alcohol, sex, and entertainment.  Others turn to work and materialism.

But none of these can offer the answer to these deep questions about life.  And this is where the church can step in and help people with these questions.  It’s what makes the church unique.  But it requires a long-term commitment.  It requires an outward focus.  It requires trust and a willingness to ask difficult questions and sit with uncomfortable questions.  It takes time.

Purpose and meaning – even people who we think don’t care about these things really do.  Purpose and meaning are the difference between existing today and having direction.

Community defined

10 Thursday Aug 2017

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How do you define community?

I guess part of the way you answer the question has to do with the context.  How we define community in relation to a community park should be different to how we define community in relation to a church.

in relation to a church, how would you define community?

Here’s some things that I thing relate to what a community is in relation to church – trust, people, commonality, values, direction, respect, value, humanity.

Each of these, of course, has a definition too, but for the sake of not boring you all to death, I’ll stop with the downward spiral into definitions that only a true work nerd would care about.

Instead, here’s my stab at defining community.   A community is build on a foundation of trust.  Sitting on top of that foundation is a group of people who hold values, respect, and a vision in common.  Theses building blocks set guidelines for how the people in a community interact and recognize one another’s humanity.

A bit wordy, I know.

Maybe a simpler version would be – a community is a group of people who recognize others as having value because they care about similar things and also recognize that together, each person gains far more than going it alone.

So what is a church community?  A group of people who have a similar belief system, to band together to support one another in order to carry out the mission of the church – to make more disciples.

How would you define community in relation to church?

 

Headlines…or click bait?

02 Wednesday Aug 2017

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Don’t read this post if you like click bait headlines.  This isn’t one of those articles.

I read an article that talked about ways to catch people’s attention with a headline.  I hated the article.  You can read it yourself here:  https://medium.com/the-mission/this-new-data-will-make-you-rethink-how-you-write-headlines-751358f6639a.

I hated it because I can’t believe people click on headlines like this.  The “10 things that…”  Really?  That draws people’s attention.  I usually skip articles like that.  I have found that the 10 things are usually not that helpful.

“You’ll never guess what happened next…”  That’s a headline that screams click bait.  It usually causes me to scream also.  Sure I can guess what – not much, but you still got people to click on your article.

I guess that’s the whole point.  But what if there is more.  What if just getting people to pay attention is really just shallow?

Are people just looking for the shortest way to a specific answer without having to think about it?  Have we become lazy?  Why don’t we want to think?  Are we too busy?

Considering I am a pastor, I think about these things in relation to church.  Sure, I could use all sorts of click bait-like headlines and phrases to catch people’s attention.  But then what?  If there is no substance, people leave.  Easy come, easy go.  Easy in, easy out.

Church isn’t a business.  It’s more like a relationship.  Relationships aren’t built on quick catch phrases – one night stands are.

It’s my hope that churches don’t follow this trend of quick and easy solutions for life’s problems.  Mostly because most problems aren’t quick and easy – but long and difficult.  Most problems involve people and things that are intangible.  I have found that there aren’t 10 easy steps to salvation.  There aren’t 10 things that you need to do to get the most out of church.  There aren’t 10 things that churches can do to stop hunger in their community.  That’s because there are not simple steps when it comes to faith.

I’m not in a denomination that has the nice and neat sinners prayer that is supposed to change your life in a moment.  I’m not part of a denomination that believes that all the answers to life’s problems and questions are in the bible.  (Try asking the bible who won the 1942 World Series and see what you come up with.)

I am part of denomination that believes that life is messy, that mystery is normal, that we don’t have all the answers, and that questions are welcome.  I’m part of a denomination that doesn’t take the bible literally, but certainly tries to take it seriously.

We don’t have 10 easy things that you should do.  But we do have grace and forgiveness.  We don’t have all the answers, but we will listen to your story.  You don’t have to guess what will happen next, I can tell you – we’ll have a conversation, listen to each other, pray with each other, and then start to walk together on life’s journey.  It’s a long walk (I hope), but well worth it.

Leave the click bait behind – there’s just too many important things in life for that.

The mission of the church

25 Tuesday Jul 2017

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I’ve read many thoughts and ideas about what the mission of the church is.  I’ve heard lots of debates about it to.  And for all the debates, there still seems to be a whole lot of uncertainty.

I saw this quote from Gary Vaynerchuk the other day talking about Apple and why Apple is so unique as a company –

“Apple focuses on building a relationship that will last by deploying all of their energy into branding and showcasing how your life will change once you switch to iphone.”

Read it again.  Let it sink in.

Now, substitute a few words.  Instead of Apple, insert your church’s name.  Instead of iPhone, insert Jesus.  Take out the word branding and slightly alter the ending.

Now read it.

Here’s a sample – I’ll throw in the name of the church I serve – St. Stephen Lutheran Church

St. Stephen Lutheran Church focuses on building a relationship that will last by deploying all of their energy in showcasing how your life is and will be changing once you have an encounter with Jesus.

This quote is about as good of a mission statement for a church as I have ever read.

And it is exactly what we as a church are called to be and do.

Are we showcasing how our lives are changed because of an encounter with Jesus?

If not, why not?  If not, what has to change?  Does Jesus change our life when Jesus encounters us, becomes incarnate and dwells among us?  If not, then are we really encountering Jesus?  And what’s the point of church anyway then?

If Jesus is changing our lives when we encounter him, yet we are afraid to share these stories, then I have to ask – why?  Why is it ok to talk openly about how the iPhone changed our life, but we become shy when it is Jesus?

What makes the church unique – different from any other social service, community group, club, or anything else is Jesus and how Jesus changes our lives when Jesus encounters us.

Tell that story – it’s our mission.