toFlourish

Immediately? Really?

2012-01-17T12:31:00.004-05:00

I've heard it many times before, but this morning when I read Mark 1:18 I wasn't any less bothered. (If the Bible doesn't bother you, you're not reading the Bible.) This is a verse that describes Jesus calling his first disciples and it's not the strategy that Jesus uses that seems most strange but it's in the response of the disciples that I start to disconnect.

The sequence of Mark 1 goes something like this:

1. Jesus decides to gather followers
2. He walks up to some guys cleaning out their boat
3. He gives them a cryptic and inspiring invite (E-Vite wasn't available)- "Follow me and I will make you fish for people."
4. The fishermen leave the tools of their trade on the ground and follow Jesus...wait for it...."Immediately."

I know a little bit about immediately. I can remember seeing my wife for the first time in September of 1992. I had an immediate reaction to seeing her. I made an immediate decision as it related to my intention to pursue her but there was a lot that came in between that initial decision and our culminating marriage one year later. So I can kind of identify with "immediately."

But these four guys shirking off everything pre-Jesus wasn't just reactions and decisions....this is immediate action.

I'm something of an impulsive, so there's a side of me that wants to say "yes, that's how life is to be lived!" when I read of the hastiness of these two sets of brothers. I've certainly had the desire to act this way before. To be perfectly honest I've even acted this impulsively before; but in review, never toward a worthy venture like joining God in restoring humanity back to himself. Most of my "immediatelys" are attached to wickedness of some kind.

When I act righteously, it's much more pre-mediated.

Peter, Andrew, James and John pursued righteousness dangerously, some might even say deviantly (they left their jobs and communities there on the ground with their nets.)

But why?

Was it the magic 10 word speech? Was it just the very Jesus-ness of him? Did they know something that the story doesn't clue us into?

I want to know all about immediately.

A Non-Noisy Soul

2012-01-13T07:29:00.006-05:00

Every morning about 5:48am or so my dog Holly Mullins (aka H-Bizzle) stands up on the end of the bed, gives herself a good collar-rattling shake and then she's ready to go. When she's ready to go, that means I must be ready as well and if I don't respond fairly quickly she communicates her displeasure with soft but piercing groans that make it impossible to sleep on.

Maybe the problem is that I don't I have my own dog-like shake process. Instead, getting up for me is always the same. I stumble around and sometimes end up headed in other directions than the door of the bedroom. I'm sure it would be hilarious to witness and you may be able to find at least one person who'd give you a hilarious description of what this looks like first-hand. I'm always just glad that The Truman Show was just a thought-experiment.

I see a similar "need to shake" in Psalm 57. I was prodded there today after reading a chapter from Eugene Peterson's book "The Pastor: A Memoir." Verse 8 has two self-directives (shakes) and a decision:

Awake my soul!
Awake, harp and lyre!
I will awaken the dawn.

David would have had in mind the same thing most of us would when he talks about his soul. It's that place we live from...that deepest, most integral part of who we are. His brain is already on (as evidenced by his ability to put words on paper) but he makes a shout-out to this essential piece of him that has fallen asleep.

In the first few seconds of getting out of bed, I often wonder if I'm really awake, but this morning i've been awake for several hours and I'm still wondering am I really awake.

Yes I'm doing my work...but is my soul awake?

And yes, I'm even doing good things....but am I God-awake? (to borrow once more from Peterson)

I often get down the stairs and let Holly out the back door without really knowing for sure if I've woken up yet. It's not until I have to yell at her to come back in, and then yell even louder and longer that I know I've woken up.

When we really wake up, we start to make noise.

I know you're getting your work done. I know you're doing good things.

But how much noise is your soul making?

Playing It Safe and Losing

2011-04-29T13:10:00.005-04:00

Two weeks ago I submitted myself to the torture that is the X-Factor audition process. In case you don't know, X-Factor is an American Idol-esque show coming to Fox in the fall...except BIGGER, BRIGHTER and SEXIER!!! When American Idol first started I was one year too old to tryout. I have always wanted to give something like that a try and thought I might be good in that format, so when a friend suggested it to me a couple of months back I decided to give the Kevin-show a go.

The short version of the story goes something like this...it's a really hard, long and strenuous process. Mostly it involved standing in absurdly long lines and sitting in hard stadium seats waiting on my chance to be one among 18,000 (in my case) to show that I had that extra edge, that something special, that X-Factor! Make no mistake though...I'm glad I did it and I most definitely didn't have what they were looking for...at least on that day.

Eighteen hours of waiting later and a ninety-second audition got me a big fat "thanks for coming in but it's gonna' be a no" followed by the walk of shame down the loser's hallway.

I'm not bitter though. I didn't deserve to go forward. I didn't sing that well. I wasn't compelling. I played it safe.

When I first started preparing I selected a few songs I thought I should do that had some real punch to them. They were a "little-on-the-edge" and would have been hard to pull off. They would have required real next-level preparation on my part. Also, as I started to ask friends for suggestions they recommended that I do songs they had heard me perform and enjoyed hearing. After a whole lot of considering, I ended up deciding to sing a real comfortable tune that I had sung about 321 times. And I whimpered like a wet-firecracker and limped out tired, forlorn and disappointed.

It isn't that I missed my big chance. I don't think it was and I'll probably have three more big chances next week. The point is that I knew I was taking the safe route but even though all of me said "go for it", a little part said "do what you know".

I can look back and see many times that faced with an important decision I decided to play the way I know how to play...that I chose to follow the well-worn ruts. Without exception it was never what my whole-heart wanted and never did playing that way enable me to realize the full potential of the opportunity.

I'm reminded of Paul encouraging the Colossian church this way: "Whatever you do, do it with your whole heart, just like you are working for the Lord."

Good Paul...very good.

"Lowering the Bar" As Life Philosophy

2011-04-06T09:30:00.008-04:00

This weekend was difficult for me. I've recently developed a love affair with a new baseball team and had high hopes for them winning three games against what I considered a sub-par team. This was not to be. They teased me, and in all three games it looked like they would win and that the new season would get started on the right foot. Now on Monday morning however, two out of three losses later, I look back on the stark reality that this is a team with a lot of flaws and it it just might be a long, agonizing season.

A few of my fellow-suffering fans have recently given me some advice. They've been fans of this particular underachieving teams for a long time and lived through a lot of baseball-related trauma. They're very familiar with having high hopes and having them dashed. More than a few of them have given me a bemused look, combined with the shaking of the head and said, "This team has always been this way and always will be. Your best bet is just not to expect anything, then you won't be disappointed."

I took in what they said, and certainly that seems the easiest path; but the more I've reflected the more bothered I've become.

There is something in us that needs to hope...needs to anticipate...needs to expect.

I've heard many pastors (and even some pop-psychology gurus in the Dr. Phil mode) adopt the philosophy of these despairing fans when speaking about how a wife can be happy in her marriage. (I suppose this would apply to males as well, but most often when I've heard this philosophy proposed it has usually been aimed at the female spouse). "The problem," (this line of thinking argues), "is that you have too high of expectations for your husband. If you'd just completely release him of all expectations then you won't be dependent on him for your happiness and in this way YOU can really find happiness."

In other words, you can't be disappointed if you don't expect anything.

It sounds like a cop-out to me...and not much like love.

Now to be clear I think it's very possible to have unrealistic expectations of our leaders, spouses, children and friends (and perhaps our ill-chosen sport teams), but it's also healthy to have some basic expectations of them, and even some elevated ones as well.

I can imagine a situation in which someone would have high expectations for their children.

And those expectations would not just be basic moral precepts like "don't cheat/don't steal/don't lie". No, I can imagine having expectations that they give their all to the opportunities they are presented; that they invest in the lives of others and are kind and that they pursue God with all their heart, soul and mind...just to name a few.

And if they don't then it seems like disappointment could follow in the parent.

But is disappointment something to be avoided?

What I can't imagine is a scenario where a parent would say "I don't want to be disappointed with my child anymore so I am going to make a choice to release my child from expectations." That doesn't sound like love to me...in fact what it sounds like is selfishness since the parent in that almost unimaginable scenario would ultimately be saying "I don't want to be unhappy and being disappointed with my child for not living up to my expectations makes me unhappy, so I won't do that anymore and in this way I can be happy again."

This is the opposite of love...what the Apostle Paul in his manifesto on love in I Corinthians 13 calls "seeking your own."

Yes we should be patient, kind, trusting and persevering with our leaders, spouses and children (and the occasional sports crush), but that doesn't mean we should stop expecting the very best of them.

Wives and husbands should revel in grace within their marriages and allow for and work through disappointments and failures, but the answer to marriage fulfillment can't be in lowering the bar.

Can it?

It is expectations that keep hope alive and it is hope that keeps us alive.

Most of the good things I have accomplished in my life...most of the battles I have overcome...most of the positive modifications of my character that make me what I am today are the result of someone's expectations; God's, my own and people who love me.

So...have high hopes. Expect the best. Raise the bar.

And pray for me that in the future I choose better teams to place my affection on.

Lent: Letting Yourself In

2011-03-31T10:20:00.002-04:00

Most of us, even those who weren't raised in churches who recognized the traditional church calendar and its seasons, have a basic idea of what Lent is. One of my friends on Twitter sent a picture of what they were giving up for Lent and it was the lint out of their dryer trap. That person's idea of Lent is fuzzy at best but at least they're making an effort.

Some approach Lent as a time of denial but almost all of us know that what is supposed to be happening for these roughly 40 days is self-reflection. It's a time for looking inward to see the state of our heart, mind and soul. Ultimately, as we look forward to raucously celebrating the defeat of death (and if you haven't planned a raucous celebration, please consider adjusting your plans so that it is so) first we do a check up regarding what Jesus indicated was of first and second importance.

So with one eye on the party that's soon to erupt we ask "How am I doing when it comes to loving God with everything I have, and what about how I love my neighbor?"

This year for Lent my guiding scripture has been Psalm 139. It's an absolute wonder of a song that concentrates first on the importance of how and by who we were created but then transitions to the sort of reflection that is a perfect navigator into the inside of who we are. It's such a personal an individual reflection that maybe I should say it's a great guide into who "I" am...who "you" are.

The first verse shows how specifically useful this passage can be for this journey inside. The song-writer writes "You have searched me, LORD, and you know me."(Psalm 139:1) To be clear then, regardless of what we give up, we're not giving it up first and foremost as some sort of sacrifice to appease God...we give things up for the benefit of ourselves. Since God is already completely aware of everything about us, this journey inside is about letting ourselves in and making ourselves aware of....well, ourselves.

The most helpful practice I've instituted in the past few Lenten seasons is asking the difficult questions. The difficult questions are the one's I try to avoid about myself...sometimes they're dark and always they're ones that I don't voice to anyone else...the one's that I push down and avoid.

Sometimes it's questions about God. Sometimes they're questions about my key relationships. Sometimes they are just questions about me. Here's what I've found; good relationships can weather difficult questions and great relationships necessitate them. Secondly if I want my relationships to mature, grow and be healthy (and in regard to questioning myself if I want to be a healthy, mature and growing person) asking these kinds of questions are amazingly helpful and indispensable.

So what's that one nagging question you need to address in yourself...that one thing about you (me) that just won't go away? I know what mine is, in fact I'm asking the same question that I asked last year. I won't share here since it's just for me.

What's that one thing that's standing in the way of relational maturation with your spouse, family member or friend? Sure there's probably more than one, but don't go crazy...start slowly.

What's that one thing about God that just bugs you? God isn't scared of your questions and you're not going to get zapped or anything for asking it. (See "Jesus is a Friend of Mine" video for more helpful information on getting zapped.) By the way, the reason it's about letting yourself in is because God already knows your question.

Love asks the difficult questions. So If I'm going to really love my neighbor, love requires a question.

The guiding passage I'm using ends with the songwriter asking one of these "going inside" questions:

David or his songwriter says:

Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23-24)

What questions do you need to ask?

Christians and the End of the World

2011-03-07T08:43:00.006-05:00

Some people go to book club and have a good time, go home and move on to the next book. I happened to be blessed (cursed?) with the kind of brain that just won't let me move on from big takeaways. This is my lot following movies, books and even many "normal" conversations.

The most recent edition of "Kevin's brain won't break for coffee" surfaced after last week's reading of "Blindness" by Josa Saramago and the subsequent book club my wife and I attended Friday night. It's a book that was a hot a while back and we just now got to it. But it wasn't really the book that's staying with me; instead it's a portion of our book-club discussion that reminded me of a question I've been struggling with for a while.

"Blindness" is a pseudo post-apocalyptic story of a region or country (Saramago is intentionally vague as to which) that is devastated by "the white blindness". At the beginning there's just one man that can't see but eventually the whole country is sightless and as a result incapacitated and devastated. Chaos ensues and as one might expect humans begin behaving more like animals in order to satisfy their basic needs for food, shelter, sex, etc. Our book club over the course of the two-hour discussion repeatedly circled back to the topic of the end of the world and how close our particular society could be to the kind of quick-forming, violently-chaotic society the book puts on display.

Now to what's troubling me:

It wasn't the fact that some of us were naturally optimistic and others less so in imagining how things would go for us. I think it's only natural that different personality types would respond to the question differently. And as I think of it now it's not even that different ones had different views on how things would ultimately turn out...how things might end.

Toward the middle of the discussion however our facilitator raised an excellent question. As we talked about our society and how we have responded to much smaller disasters and then as we moved on to talk about human progress she asked "do you think the world is better off now that it has been in the past?" And later on the question was rephrased as "do you think the state of the world is better now than it has been at any other point in history?"

I noticed that the Christians in the group (we had a diverse group of both Christians/non in the circle) seemed more inclined to answer "no." Again, I'm not passing judgement on their determinations necessarily (I believe you can find plenty of non-Christians who would say "things are going to end badly") but why are Christians by and large more committed to the demise of our planet and less optimistic about human progress than non-Christians?

Is it because we think that God is anti-human progress? Do we think that if humans are doing better that means the way of Christ is being diminished or marginalized?

Or is it a Book of Revelation thing? Is it that we believe the Bible's final book promises that things will end badly for our world and that we are simply agreeing with it?

Recently I was in conversation with a Christian leader who would end many dialogues about property, buildings and material things with the statement "well it doesn't really matter because it's all going to burn up anyway?" I believe most Christians, either consciously or sub-consciously hold a similar view.

If you are Christian, is this what you believe?

How about you non-Christian types...how do you see things progressing or ending?

Don't You Know Who You Are?

2011-02-15T13:29:00.004-05:00

I've spent some time today reviewing a text I'm supposed to wax eloquent on this coming Sunday. It just happens to be one of those places in Scripture that if you read below the text you'll see that Paul was getting a little teed off at the church he was writing to at the time. It's in the first letter that he wrote to the church at Corinth, chapter 3:10-11 and then 16-23.

As I read it again today I realized how parental Paul's language is. The theme that emerges is "I think I've told you this before and I'm getting a little bit blue in the face from saying it actually, but let me say it one more time."

You can read the whole text here, but these are the parental-type phrases that stand out: 1. "Don't be deceived..." (Verse 18) 2. "If you think you are wise.." (Verse 18) and "Don't you know that you are God's temple..." (Verse 16)

I say parental because Paul reminds me of me. I mean of course if Paul wore man-Uggs and a texturizing-clay hair product with medium-hold.

Recently I have slowly but surely been cutting back on my kids "entertainment time." What "entertainment time" means is that they sit stationary for really long periods of time either controlling figures on a screen or watching figures on a screen. They like to do those two things in particular a lot. Now I've never been the "when I was a kid we played outside" guy because if I had an XBox and 300 channels of cable when I was kid, I would've never left the house. Recently however I reached the tipping point and they got my "enough is enough" speech and some resulting restrictions.

I really like them to have a good time, so in a lot of ways if they're enjoying themselves, I'm happy that they're happy, but the argument I made was the following:

"Look guys, your brains are too sharp, your hands are too useful and your lives are too valuable to sit here and make an investment in nothing." I don't think they got it the first time and we're still working on this at the head and heart level but what I'm trying to communicate is that they're to good for this; they are too important and for their own good and the good of humanity (sometimes you gotta' go big when communicating to teenagers) I couldn't sit by and watch them fund a zero-return investment. And yes I'm good at dismissing the "but it's really good for eye-hand coordination" argument.

The context for the passage above is bickering and arguing and side-taking that was going on in the Corinthian church. There were all sorts of different people from different backgrounds and cultures that had been impacted by the message of the risen Christ and now this hodgepodge of people had come together in one place and one church and things had very quickly disintegrated into cliques and politics. One group was saying "we follow the teaching of Paul...he's got the right stuff" and another were team Peter and a final group were followers of Apollos (I would have probably been in this group since his name is by far the coolest) and the net result was chaos in the church.

So Paul gets them refocused on the important thing; the underlying point of the passage is that Christ is the core...anything else is a shaky proposition.

But in making his argument he says "Do you not know that you are God's temple?" (Verse 16) Now at first glance you might think that he saw my parental-tips video on YouTube because he's really making the same point I've been trying to make to my kids. "Don't you know who you are?" "Don't you know how valuable you are?" "Don't you know what it means that God lives inside of you?"

He wanted to make it really clear to those kids of his (and us) that they didn't have time to play ten more rounds of Black Ops Zombie edition, they didn't have time to watch this weeks episode of Glee for the forth time, they didn't have time to bicker and accuse, point fingers and take sides.

He finishes up by saying (in verse 23) that it's not Paul or Apollos or Peter than matter..."all those things (teaching, theology etc.) belongs to you and you belong to Christ."

His closing argument is stronger and more inspiring than mine was, so I'm working on a paraphrase for my next "lecture from Daddy" moment...watch out kids!!!

Advent Sermon from 12.19.10

2010-12-21T10:39:00.007-05:00

This last week I spoke from the book of Matthew chapter 1 verses 18-25. The message was delivered at Church of The Good Shepherd Lutheran in Norwalk, CT (where I was a guest.) The following is an approximate transcription:

This reading allows for a lot of discussion and proclamation but it’s distinguished from the other account of this same happening in the Gospel of Luke (2:1-21) in at least two ways: First the story in Luke is much prettier and a more enjoyable, dramatic read and secondly since it focuses on Joseph, the father who would adopt Jesus but before that must struggle with a surprising and no doubt overwhelming experience.

I’ve noticed over the years that we often read and hear the bible with what I like to call “extra-terrestrial ears." In other words if we’re not careful we can read stories like this one featuring Joseph and the angel that comes in his dream and forget that this story didn’t happen in a galaxy far far away. Jesus wasn't born on the fictional planet Zorg and Mr. Spock was in no way featured. Instead this was a real happening in a real place and most importantly for us today it’s a story that involves a real person…namely Joseph.

Now it’s obvious by the action he takes and obedience he shows that Joseph is a man of great character and faith in Yahweh God. But before the obedience, before he did the right thing, there was a struggle.

He struggled because in his culture, engagement was a contract, and now faced with the development of the pregnancy of his betrothed, he had determined to divorce her. It was most likely an arranged marriage and much differently from today’s world, engagement then was literally the first stage of the actual marriage…so the word “divorce” is used in the text or as another more kind translation reads, he planned to “dismiss her quietly”. For Joseph this was all a shocking, disappointing development.

So what does it look like to look fear in the face? I love the first words that come out of the angel’s mouth when he visits Joseph in his dreams. He says what all angels say first when they visit. You know it right? It's “do not be afraid!” This is the standard introductory line of an angel. ”Fear Not….don’t be dismayed…don’t be afraid.’ We see it all throughout the Scriptures and it’s the same thing the shepherds in the field are told…”fear not, I bring you good tidings of great joy.”

What we find out in this one line is that this decision to divorce Mary wasn’t all cut and dried and neatly tied up in Joseph’s mind after all. It was clear that what he should do is “dismiss Mary quietly”…because he was a righteous Jewish man, but what we find out with the visit from the angel is that Joseph is really struggling with this decision. “Don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife" the angel says.

Now I think it’s okay to find some humor in the scripture and as I was re-reading the text this week I had to stop and just laugh. The angel says “don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife” WHY? “Because the child she is carrying was conceived by the Holy Spirit.” In other words “Joseph don’t be afraid, your engaged wife is carrying a baby that’s not yours, but good news….the Holy Spirit is the responsible party.” If it’s me, I’m still just a little bit scared.

But here we find God’s peace entering a situation where there should really be no peace. Here we can find today that even though our hearts claim every reason to be troubled…we hear a strong, clear “fear not” Even though we have an economy that seems to be just teetering on the edge of collapse or maybe for some it's relationships that seem to be falling apart. We hear a strong , clear “don’t be afraid….fear not….let nothing you dismay.”

But what’s the reason for this peace…is it just founded on an amazing fairy tale? It should be encouraging to us to find that the reason for our peace is concrete…it’s a real reason. We find a real peace for a real situation. “Here’s the Good News Joseph. Mary will bear a son and call his name Jesus, he will save the people from their sins and this will fulfill what the prophet said. ” That's the one found it in the Prophet Isaiah (7:10-16) ”the virgin shall conceive a son and they shall name him Emmanuel which means “God With Us."

Now the name "Emmanuel" is more than a nice name for a sweet baby. You might say that it frames the whole Gospel of Matthew. It tells the story of what God is about, beginning with a baby who is "God with us" and ending with that same child grown, promising that he will always be with us.

And then Joseph realized why it was going to be okay…how he could look fear in the face. Because they would call his name Emmanuel. Joseph realized that there in his world, at his time, all the stories and prophecies, all the longing, waiting and hoping (for everyone) would be fulfilled in this child.

These "God With Us" words are surprising and unexpected events and they suggest a God of unexpected actions. But I identify here with what Leonard Sweet said last week on his Twitter feed. Sweet said "I revel in mystery and I love that God shows up in unexpected places and ways, but I rebel and I reject mystification and mumbo-jumbo." The reason for our hope then and the reason that we can face our fears is that in Jesus, God came in the flesh. So it's not just another helpful metaphor, and not just another meaningful story…but for real. A real god…a real time…a real place…a real birth…a real human life.

This then is not just a God that comes TO US….and it’s even more than a God that is FOR US---even though God is all of that…but this God is WITH US.

Our dismissal of fear lies in one who knows who we are and how we suffer. The Prophet Isaiah said this in his prophesy of the coming Christ. You can read it in Isaiah 53. "He was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief….he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows…he was wounded for our transgressions he was crushed for our iniquities….with his stripes we are healed because upon him was brought chastisement that brought to us…peace."

Peace because this God…this Christ…this Jesus came down to be in the thick of things “with” us. (My favorite professor from college always liked to say "Jesus came down in the shit with us."

So what difference does it make that God is with us? It means that everything changed. We can see right here in this chapter in Matthew several examples, but just one thing that happens when God breaks into our world is that there is a re-ordering of our human relationships. The entrance of this Emmanuel turns things on their head and says “the way things are, the way things have to be, is not the way things are and not the way things have to be”

The way things have to be is that God only uses people that have their act together to establish his Kingdom. People that are righteous and make the right choices and have good reputations. But when we glance at the first few verses of Matthew to read the genealogy of Jesus we see women’s names. You have to understand that this was remarkable in and of itself because women even until recent history were not recognized (and still are not in many cultures) in genealogies. But even more importantly when we read the name Rahab we read the name of a prostitute and when we read the name listed as the wife of Uriah (who we know as Bathsheba), we read the name of an adulterer. What does it mean when God comes to be with us? It means that everything has changes. God accepts, loves and partners with people that we don’t expect…there is a reordering of our human relationships

You see the way things “have to be” is that Joseph has to divorce Mary, because she violated the law...she broke the contract. The way that things “have to be” is that Mary and her family have to be disgraced. The way that things “have to be” is that by law Mary should be executed…stoned to death for her illegitimate pregnancy. But when Emmanuel comes he brings with him a reordering of our relationships and we find out that things don’t have to be the way they are anymore.

So Joseph woke up and walked in obedience. He married Mary, he adopted this new baby as his son and in doing so Jesus entered into the lineage of David as a fulfillment of prophecy. They named him Jesus. And Joseph’s obedience was inspired by a vision of what this child's birth would mean for he and Mary. A vision of a God that had come down to be with him and all of humanity. A vision that would ease his fears and give him a hope.

Why Is Everything Else More Intriguing Than Attending Sunday Morning Church Service?

2010-12-02T09:57:00.005-05:00

It always kind of bothered me. I noticed it most when I witnessed the joy in people's voices and faces when they found out that church was being canceled for whatever reason. Maybe it was a really bad snowstorm or the occasional secular holiday that fell on Sunday, but try as they might, they just couldn't contain their happiness. When I paid attention it was all the different reasons that people missed (baby showers, third trip to the beach in three weeks, cat had a tonsillectomy, etc.) that were strong clues. Finally, it was how passionate people got in describing other weekend activities they would be a part of that struck me the hardest. It became obvious to me that many people that attended churches was a part of would just about rather do anything than show up for an hour or so on Sunday morning.

I got to thinking about this last night on the train-ride home from NYC. We just happened to bump into a friend at Rockefeller Center and somehow this topic came up. As a non-pastor/non-churchstaffer his reaction was somewhat surprising to me. "What people need to do is just be committed" he said. "Sometimes things aren't the best and you just have to decide that you're gonna' stick it out no matter what...because it's the right thing to do." Since I've spent most of my pastoral life encouraging commitment I wasn't inclined to argue with him and I know there is a good amount of truth there, but..... It's this sentiment itself that is at the heart of what's nagging at me.

Now I know many of you attend "UberChurch of the MegaplexOpilis" (now with satellite locations in your bathroom) and every service is just the coolest thing ever...and I'm not talking to you. But for many other churches (heck let's just say most churches) this malaise of the holy that I'm describing might ring true (it most certainly would for those who pastor/lead if you get them in honest moments.)

I'm bothered because I know it doesn't have to be that way. I've been a part of churches where this was not the case, so I know that drudgery doesn't have to the norm and duty the primary motivator.

I'm bothered because of a parable that has been haunting me during my pastoral sabbatical of the last few months. Jesus is asked to describe what the Kingdom of God is like (for the non-religious that still might be reading this the Kingdom of God is just that place where what God says goes...where he's in charge) and he described it this way:

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field."- Matthew 13:44

I read that this way...nothing was more important, nothing was more valuable, nothing was more exciting.

Many of you will be quick to say "don't equate Sunday morning service with the Kingdom of God", and you'd be right. But in 2010, Sunday morning is still the dominant expression of how the people of God worship, congregate and celebrate. Wouldn't it stand to reason that this all-important gathering would generate just a bit more spark in the faithful?

Sure, I have thoughts on why, but what do you think?

This Song Moves Me (3)

2010-09-29T09:09:00.004-04:00

Occasionally I will post a song that pulls me, haunts me, changes me. I've been living with and been affected by the song below for almost a year now.

If you don't own everything by Gungor (they've also recorded under The Michael Gungor Band) go buy and consume their stuff for your spirit and soul's sake. Although he's known for some top 20 worship hits such as "Friend of God" and "Say So", Michael and his band are breaking the mold (at least among the CCM and "God-Pop" crowd) by creating thematically-congruent and wildly original releases that almost never mix stinker tracks in. Their latest release (it's almost a year old now) is Beautiful Things (buy it here), but Ancient Skies (buy it here) is brilliant as well (I might buy it first if you haven't been introduced properly) and filled with amazing music.

Here is an in-studio, acoustic version of the title track off the latest release. When you have time, do some You-Tubing on Gungor...they are a treasure and a light.

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I'm Holding My Breath

2010-09-27T10:58:00.002-04:00

One of the many delightful things that my daughter does is hold her breath anytime we go across a bridge. I'm not sure why it started or when but I have been told the reason. "This way if we ever fall off the bridge into the water I will already be holding my breath." Now her brothers have done their best to explain the fallacies in her thinking but for me it's an absolute joy to hear her sharp intake of breath when we are bridge bound.

And sometimes that's exactly what we are. Living just north of NYC as we do, we spend a lot of time on bridges. So far she's been fortunate to be asleep when crossing, for instance the Tapanzee Bridge. The "Tap" is a very long bridge connecting Rockland and Westchester counties and unless you drive it really really fast, I don't think you can hold your breath that long. She hasn't yet had to deal with that as I've safely navigated her across while she rested peacefully.

I was thinking about her and her breath-holding this morning when someone in my phone meeting told me "don't hold your breath." This is the phrase we grace people with when they are hoping for something good and we want to let them know that it's not gonna' happen. I think we might intend it in a loving way sometimes for those we care about...because we don't want them to have their high hopes dashed. And sometimes our motives aren't as pure and what we have in mind is something more like "there's not a chance sucker."

But when we're going from this place to that place, and that place is somewhere we really want to be, I think it's somewhat instinctive to draw our breath in. Think about the times this happens to you, and usually hope (and sometimes fear) is attached to it. It's the breath sharply coming in and "maybe, just maybe this time it's going to work out." It's not allowing the breath to escape and "maybe, after all this time he's finally going to be a man and do the right thing." It's your lungs almost bursting, (because the Tappanzee is such a long bridge) and "maybe this time she will listen to me...really hear me."

So I have to be in favor of breath-holding as long as I believe that there are things worth hoping for. I have to think it's a good, natural and even productive practice as long as I believe that people do change and that God can transform even the worst of who we are...as long as I believe that there is a place God has prepared for me, and that "that place over there" is a real destination with my name on it.

So, I'm holding my breath.

What about you? How often do you hold your breath? Do you find yourself doing it less these days?

Too Transparent?

2010-09-22T15:54:00.003-04:00

I was at a pastor's conference last week in Houston. It was mostly the "young and hip" pastoral crowd so there were lots of flamboyant shirts, leather boots and interesting bouffants. I went asking some questions and God used those gals and guys to really speak to me. I had an amazing time.

At these events the evening sermons are kind of the "big deal" events. Usually the biggest name preacher has the floor and everyone is excited about hearing that person speak. We weren't disappointed on my first night there as a very successful pastor from Birmingham spoke on removing obstacles to success from one's life and ministry. He outlined 5 obstacles (he called them "kings" and took his text from Joshua 12) and then listed 3 solutions. It was on solution number 2, as he talked about the importance of getting real (he called it "honesty") that his words captured my attention and my heart.

He spent a few minutes talking about a particular rough point in his ministry, where because of a sickness with his child, he was experiencing doubt and taking some real hits to his faith. He described driving to church one morning to lead a service, as being really weighed down with depression, not really knowing what to speak on and about some really serious questions he was asking of God. Although I was enjoying his talk up to that point, when he opened himself up and let us see inside was when I was most affected and inspired.

The next afternoon in the closing day session another pastor had the floor. He spoke on the importance of being a "man of God." There were a few good and important takeaways for me from his talk as well but a big contradiction emerged between his words and those that had been so impacting the night before. He said "the people you're preaching to don't want to hear you talk about how you struggle...they want to come hear someone who speaks on God's behalf and claims to be a man of God." He went on to express frustration with the move toward "transparency" in the pulpit and how it was making our churches spiritually weak.

I believe I've learned not to throw the baby out with the bath water...so I tried to take away what I thought God was saying and spit out the bone but my journey and experience as a minister (admittedly much less than the man giving the second sermon) has taught me exactly the opposite.

I've found that the parts of my sermons that people tend to remember the most are the parts where I talk directly from my heart about how I am personally interacting with whatever portion of God's word we are looking at that day. I remember giving a message on peace within the last 18 months and taking time to talk about the broken and incomplete places in my life. I also remember talking about my lack of faith and risk-taking on God's behalf in a sermon taken from the story of Ananias and Sapphira and how many calls and emails I got from people who were shaken by that personally-revealing portion of my message.

I do not believe God is calling pastors to more secrecy but to less. I don't believe he is asking us to be more separated from the people we lead but instead more connected in authentic and open relationships and dialogue. And I don't believe as this good man suggested that if we are honest with the people we lead that we will have less respect with them and thereby less ability to lead and pastor them.

I am finding the opposite to be true.

What about you? How are you affected by transparency from the pulpit?

My Epic (Part One)

2010-09-20T10:15:00.004-04:00

It was at a dinner party last night that I resurrected my two big entertainment ideas. One I'll have to tell you about later...it's the more controversial of the two and usually if I cast vision for that idea to a group of ten or so people, 8 of them will either be offended or say something like, "that's a really bad idea." Then I usually say something like, "you're all just a bunch of haters and I haven't heard any fresh ideas from you lately." And by then things are getting pretty ugly and to salvage the conversation I move on quickly to the safer of the two.

The movie is a story from the Bible. It's an epic. It's a 200 million-dollar-budget/Peter Jackson directed/Ben Hur-esque blockbuster. So far I haven't made it past the dinner table with the idea but it's one whose time has come.

So what does a big-budget summer blockbuster require?:

1. Epic Surroundings- Check! (It doesn't get any bigger than the Fertile Crescent people.) You can shoot it in Arizona or Morocco if it's cheaper, but the bottom line is that kind of deserty Old Israel look is just what the doctor ordered for the tapestry this story is told on.

2. Bigger-than-life character- Check! Now there are a plethora (when I say this word I like to make it rhyme with "oh the horra') of these kinds of guys and gals in the Bible but this man is tops for me. (Note: Jesus was not eligible to win in this category on account of being the son of God and having just starred in a recent blockbuster himself.)

3. Love interest- Check! (In spades) There's a beautiful woman and enough sexual intrigue to make the movie really work.

4. Great story- Check!!! It's a tale 0f redemption, and will visually chronicle the very best and worst of what it means to human and the best of what it means to be a human empowered by God.

5. Moral- (I was challenged by someone at dinner last night that it needs this.) Here's the spiritual takeaway from 2015's movie of the year: "The godly may fall down seven times, but they get up again and it only takes one disaster to overthrow the wicked." Proverbs 24:16

So do you have an epic? What is it?

Am I missing any classic elements of the epic?

Do you know or are you a screenwriter? Can you please give me a call?

Hillsong Live: A Beautiful Exchange

2010-06-29T08:51:00.002-04:00

I've been a progressively huge fan of Hillsong music for most of my adult years. While my appreciation for much of today's modern worship music is waning, my respect for the process and passion behind producing an album of the quality they do every year is immense. I highly recommend their music for listening around the house...it helps to transport me to a different place where I can meet with God.

Hillsong Live: A Beautiful Exchange (<-----get it here) drops today and I say go buy it!

I'll give it a good listen and maybe give it a review in a week or so.

Interrupted

2010-06-28T10:21:00.008-04:00

Last night I got home after being out all day, and in my typical way, I had worked out exactly what I was going to do when I arrived at the house. As I was meandering around the mall with the family (not one of my fave things to do anymore) I just happened to remember some emails I needed to send...no big deal you understand, but they needed to get sent. As we moved from store to store, slowly but surely I began checking out of the present and focusing on these future things.

So, driving home, I started handing out instructions to the family as we approached the house; who should take out the dog who had been locked up most of the day and needed a walk, so on and so forth. The reason I needed to work this stuff out early is because the items on my to-do list were becoming increasingly important in my head. The perfect scenario for me was all three kids taking the dog for a nice long walk...just long enough for me to send these three emails, which were probably some of the most important I would ever send. Maybe even better Jacinta would bring me a glass of tea in order to properly replenish my body for these three staggeringly important communications, on which I had begun to realize hung the weight of at least the Western Hemisphere.

But only my oldest son ended up going, and the walk was real short, and there were all sorts of random people/creatures (my wife and three children and beloved canine) roaming around while I was attempting to compose these electronic manifestos. I was only about three sentences in to the first one when my daughter starting saying "daddy"....."hey dad." Now when occupied with things as uber-important as what I was working on, I usually don't hear the first ten or eleven "hey dads." So it wasn't until she grabbed by arm and pleaded, "Daddy, I want to show you something" that I was halted in my rapid charge toward email glory.
Come to find out she now is capable of doing "full-splits" and needed me to video her so she could watch it back and confirm that her form was just right. Now it wasn't..and frankly it didn't look much like the splits but I now have further video evidence of her being the most amazingly beautiful little girl in creation.

I was thinking about being interrupted a little later when I read this week's Gospel reading from the common lectionary. It was from Luke 9:51-62 and is the account of how Jesus "turned toward Jerusalem." Many theologians consider this story to be the hinge point between Jesus in ministry to the people and His passion (death, burial and resurrection.) This is kind of the point not where he stopped caring for people (as we will see in a second) but where he turns his focus to the cross that would bring him and us the ultimate victory. You can kind of sense the drama in Luke's words as he writes "As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem." (Luke 9:51)-- cue the sad strings) But the story goes on to say that Jesus sent his disciples ahead to the next town (Samaria) to "get things ready for Him." (verse 52) But when the disciples got to Samaria the Samaritans were upset and made it clear that Jesus was not welcome there, because he was headed to Jerusalem and half-blooded Jewish Samaritans hated their full-blooded Jewish brothers and sisters.

Now they shown themselves to be bad sports before, but this time the disciples were super-peeved at the inhospitable Samaritans and pulled out an oldie-but-goody idea..."let's call fire down out of heaven and destroy them." (verse 54)

Then verse 55 shows two things happening:

1. "Jesus turned back"- Just three verses after reading that Jesus had made this pivotal move to go toward the turning point in human history, we find him turning back to something even more important. I saw and pointed to this same thing in my Palm Sunday message this year, which showed Jesus being interrupted by blind Bartimaeus on the road between Samaria and Jerusalem. This story though happens before and shows that Jesus is willing to be interrupted. This flies in the face of those who say "the reason I get done what I get done is because I don't let anything stand in my way" and "if God tells me to do something, then anything that stands in my way I'm gonna' roll over." What we find instead is that sometimes God tells you to do something and then tells you to do something else before you complete the first something he told you to do. The way of Christ is not always neatly tied off with a nice pretty bow. Sometimes God calls us to interruption.

This is hard for me because I feel compelled to move forward at all costs. It's difficult for me and most ministers because many of us are "Type-A" personalities who have been rewarded in our lives first and foremost for our tenacity and drive. but Jesus turned back...

2. Just to emphasize the importance of the interruption and to further illustrate a theme of the entire Scripture we read that after he turned back he "rebuked them." He gave 'em the business, a good stern scolding probably. It probably started something like this, "who do you think you are?" Or maybe even "don't you remember anything you've seen me do or say?" The point that Jesus continues to drive home to his disciples, a message that resonates throughout the whole Bible is that people are more important that stuff. God's holy ones, his most prized among creation are more important than any "things." So important that if it means that my march to final glory is halted for a few minutes, then fine. If it means I have to stop and heal yet another blind man or to deal with another pack of difficult people, so be it.

The interruptions don't always seem important, sometimes even when you reflect back...maybe we'll never know why a certain interruption even happened, but that doesn't get us off of God's "this-one-needs-some-interruption" list.

I have a feeling that I'm up at the top of that particular list.

My Reputation (How To Avoid Long-Term Jerkiness)

2010-06-22T09:13:00.005-04:00

When I was growing up there were a few phrases I remember my Dad emphatically sharing with me. They were all based in a scripture somewhere and were never used as tools to tear me down....so it's all good. One of them was the always scary "can a man take fire into his bosom and his soul not be burned" from Proverbs 6:27. I wasn't sure that I even had a bosom but I figured out it was a rhetorical question that should be answered no. So whether it was giving into buying those Michael Jackson parachute pants or listening to the new INXS album (if only they hadn't written "The Devil Inside" they might not have been church enemy number #1 in 1988.) I was always on guard to protect my bosom.

Another classic was usually rolled out before I was going off somewhere by myself...an overnight at Jeffrey Wrights house, or off to Amarillo Texas youth camp or even occasionally for a quick trip across the dirt fields to the 7-eleven. "Remember Kevin that a good name is rather to be chosen than great riches." Blessing your children in that particular way can be affirming or fear-inducing and I think my parents always had a mixture of the two in mind.

I've been thinking about my name...my reputation recently. Specifically, what do people think of when they hear my name? I just happened to catch a long-play radio show the other day that told the story of a guy that finds out that all of his friends think he's a jerk (actually that's not the word they use for him, but you can probably guess which word I'm avoiding here.) In this story, the guy only happens to find out what people really think of him because a friend lets the truth slip into an email to him, which sends him on an investigation into his reputation. At one point he mentions that he thinks he's one of the few people in history to stage an intervention on himself.

I've said several times in sermons "if 8 out of 10 people say you are a jerk (fill in the word that has the most impact for you) you probably are." But unfortunately, the jerk is often the last one to know. I've realized this recently, after having too much time to reflect on myself, my friends and others somehow attached to my life. Now I'm not talking about short-term unpopularity. I'm not talking about your family being ticked off at you because you had to cancel the summer vacation because of a household economic downturn, or the staff being upset because you asked them to work late for a week to finish up a project. I'm talking about being a long-term/it's your lifestyle/who you are/"that guy(or girl) is such a jerk"!

I've had the following epiphanies about how it happens and why we stay jerks for so long:

1. We might have a lot of friends...but not a lot of good friends - I say this because a good friend is gonna' let you know when you step over the line into butt-headia. This is a little bit of a self-perpetuating problem since being a jerk may limit your opportunities to have close friends in the first place.

2. You are most likely to find out you're a jerk...later- I mean very rarely is someone going to call you out on the spot and say "hey that thing you did, just then, was pretty crappy!" Now it would be nice if that were the case, because then you could just apologize on the spot, but most often you're going to find out...later. Which reminds me of another verse..."today is the day to stop being a jerk." (This a loose paraphrase of 2 Corinthians 6:2, and when I say loose, I mean really loose.)

3. You're most likely to find out you're a jerk in the worst way possible- I mentioned that in the radio story I heard, this guy finds out about his "jerk" status by email. But you might just as likely overhear someone talking about you, or accidentally get cc'd on an email, or hear it through a non-friend or acquaintance. Regardless, the way we often find out about these things is almost as hurtful as the content itself.

So, now...what to do when finding out that 8 out of 10 people (or maybe it's just one person whose opinion you value greatly) think you're a jerk:

1. Reflect first, defend second- A good question to ask, when you hear something negative about yourself is "is there truth to this?" Our natural response to any attack is to fend it off and not receive it, but growth often occurs when we receive what's right and shrug off the false.

2. Consider (gasp) changing your ways- I've seen people who apply number 1, but they do it in the following way. "Yeah, I am kind of a jerk....and that's just kinda' the way I am." The problem with that thinking is that none of the words that we use to support why we call someone a jerk (selfish, unkind, mean, arrogant) are words that we attach to the kind of people we want to be. So, why is this person saying this about me...is it true...and what should I do about it?

3. Cultivate relationships which allow for honesty- Try to surround yourself with people...or at the very least one or two people who will call you out on your stupidity. You need someone in your life (and I would argue that if you are married, you need someone in addition to your spouse) who will say it the way that they see it. "Hey Kevin, when you just ripped the poor little Burger King drive-through person up for no reason (is there ever a good reason to rip up the poor little Burger King drive-through person...really) that was pretty ridiculous." If 9 out of 10 people say you're wonderful all the time, you probably need to get some better friends.

4. Stop rewarding jerkiness when you see it- All I will say here is that jerkiness (remember I'm talking about the long-term syndrome, not short-term stupidity), arrogance, selfishness, egomania is never acceptable, for anyone in any position. So don't allow for it, don't let is slip by unattended to and don't reward it. Our culture has allowed for it too much, especially in certain positions.

In following the preceding advice you too can protect your name and your bosom!

When The Brook Dries Up (I Kings 17:1-7)

2010-06-14T11:01:00.004-04:00

This morning I was thinking about a sermon I gave about six years ago...it was relevant again for me today. Maybe someone else has been in a place of not being sure what God is doing...so this is for us. This is my first video post so forgive the quality...next time will be better. (I may even comb my hair.)

Blessed (NECC Resignation)

2010-05-25T10:52:00.004-04:00

This past Sunday, I announced my resignation from Northeast Community Church where I have had the honor of serving on the pastoral staff for just less than three years. Although the time leading up to this decision has been tremendously difficult for Jacinta and me, as I was standing in front of the people of NECC on Sunday, with no small amount of sadness, all I could think of was how much of a blessing this time has been.

On Sunday I expressed gratefulness first of all to Thomas Mahoney, NECC’s lead pastor who is an old friend of mine. I am so glad he thought of us in 2007 when he was putting together a re-launch team for the church in Norwalk. Thomas is a leader of great vision and ability and he sincerely believes that God has a purpose for he and his family and the church that he has been asked to lead. I am thankful to him for the opportunity to partner in building a foundation that we all pray will strongly support all the amazing things God wants to accomplish through NECC. In addition Roxanne Mahoney has been a faithful, willing and indispensable part of the worship team that I led. I am thankful for everything she did to help make worship at NECC the blessing it was to so many of us.

I went on to mention my thankfulness for the elders, who along with Thomas bring oversight and direction to NECC. I said on Sunday that we have never been treated with more care and respect as a family than how this Godly group of women and men have treated us here. They are all committed not just in word, but in deed, as they give sacrificially of their own resources, both financially and in time to make God’s dream for a life-giving church in Norwalk a reality. They are the real deal. NECC is blessed to have their sober and risk-taking hearts leading the way, and God has blessed our family through them throughout our time here.

I went on to give thanks for my small group, who I have met with on Wednesday nights for a couple of years now. I can’t even recall all of the times that I have been encouraged and lifted up by spending just a short hour and a half with them. They are a diverse, kooky and spirited bunch and their prayers for Jacinta and I and our family have been a great strength. I will miss being with them.

Finally, I said on Sunday, it’s the people, the “us”, the “we” that I will miss the most; our time worshipping and learning and building together. It has been such a humbling experience to be able to work side-by-side with people who believe in Jesus with their whole hearts and are willing to put their actions where their mouths are. Since we are a mobile church, just getting ready to have church every Sunday is a major undertaking and I have been blessed to see so many people serving faithfully for almost three years, with great attitudes and unflinching hearts. God’s future is bright through this church because of the people of NECC. They are warriors….they are “all in” for God’s work.

As we look back at the last three years, there is no question in my mind that God called us to Norwalk. As we look forward to the new chapter we feel him opening for us, there is no question that we will be better pastors, leaders and people because of these people God has blessed us to be in relationship with.

We have been blessed.

Don't Wait

2010-05-24T12:12:00.005-04:00

I went to the doctor this morning with my wife. I like going so I can play with the different instruments and other unique items in the exam room, while we are waiting for the doctor to show up. There's always the thrill of knowing that the doctor might just walk in, right when I'm peering in Jacinta's ear with the "peering-in-ear" device (as we fake doctors in the business like to call it.) One day I'm sure the doctor will catch me and when that happens I plan on looking at the doctor, nodding and saying, "Doctor" then sitting back down in his cheap plastic chair.

But I digress...

The doctor today finished by asking the question doctors always ask..."Do you have any questions?" And of course we said what everyone always says..."ummm, no I guess not." Even though, of course you have questions. If you can't think of anything else, you can always ask, "hey, why is it that my appointment was at 9 but you didn't come into the room until 9:35?" But we just said, "ummmm, no I guess not."

This made me think (maybe it will be clear why as I go) about a story I heard recently on This American Life. I've become a big sucker for this show (my wife substitutes "super-ultimate nerd-orama" when she talks about it.) I even bought the TAL iPhone app, and one particular show by Ira Glass and the team rocked me in my new Nike running shoes.

The story is called "Switched At Birth" and it was originally aired in 2008 ( you can listen to it here if you want to and believe me, you want to.) It's long-play radio so you have to have just a little patience but it tells so much about what it is to be human.

It's the story of the McDonald and Miller families who both had new babies born to them on the same day in the same hospital in Wisconsin in 1951. I won't go through the whole thing but the crux of the story is that somehow the babies got switched and the McDonald's went home with baby Miller and vice-versa. Now I'm sure this is not the first or last time this has happened but the part that connected with our don't ask/don't tell experience this morning at the doctor was this:

One of the mothers, Mary Miller to be exact, realized almost right away that the mistake had happened and decided to keep it quiet.....for 43 years. Meanwhile two girls grew up in households in which they never really felt like they belonged and the pain continues to linger today as Sue and Marti try to figure how to negotiate this extremely difficult situation. When interviewed and asked, "Mary why didn't you tell" Mary says that her husband and her didn't want to embarrass the doctor, "because he had been good to them."

It left me thinking about the things we don't question, and the things we don't say, and the things we don't do...because it might be tough to. Because it might hurt a little, or a lot....The confrontations we don't make and the hard conversations we don't have. The difficult relationships that remain unresolved and the forgiveness that we don't grant. I've been thinking about that a lot the last couple of weeks.

I'm gonna' make my list and check it twice.

Anything you've waited too long to ask or say?

Get it and Put it on Repeat!

2010-03-19T11:36:00.004-04:00

Today is a rare music recommendation. It's Mumford and Son's who are making what qualifies as great music based on the fact that they are making....great music. Interesting, provocative, reflective and spine-tingling. Also they are great music for Lent-listening and even better preparation for celebrating histories greatest event in sixteen days. (That's 4.4.10 in case anyone wants to look it up.)

The video might even make you think of that momentous day. You can buy there "Sigh No More" right here-->> http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/sigh-no-more/id355891434

Millennials Want More (and maybe I do too)

2010-03-10T07:28:00.004-05:00

I stumbled across a study released by the Pew Center last week, that really got me thinking. It's a very interesting read (interesting to me...take that with a grain of salt...I see foreign films) on the religious attitudes of Millennials (also called Gen Y'ers". In case you don't know the Millennials are that group of people that are in the general age range of 18 to 29. They are called Millennials because they are the group to "come of age" around the Millennium.

Among lots of not-so-surprising things, the one thing paragraph that stood out notes that "fewer young adults belong to any particular faith than older people do today" and that "1 out of 4 Millennials are unaffiliated with any particular faith." As a pastor I find this to be true in what I see daily. Although some churches buck this standard, it seems that most "young growth" in churches is among Gen-Xers and young Boomers and the disinterest among this generation is visible.

This study troubles me...since if it is a trend (which I believe that it is) then my children's (currently 13, 11 and 7) generation may be even less likely to "belong to a particular faith." And call me old-fashioned but I kind of want 'em to. I even have a particular faith tradition that I will recommend...I know, I'm shockingly narrow.

I don't think that this study in general is indicating a decrease in faith or spirituality among this group. Although we find in another study that those describing themselves as atheists (this report was nor relegated to Millennials alone) has grown, I think we are just seeing a shift based on disinterest and a desire for authenticity.

Leonard Sweet in his latest book "So Beautiful: Divine Design for Life and the Church" (special note...everyone should buy and read this book) lists the three strands that compose the desired or optimal DNA for a beautiful life and goes on to argue that it is in the church that that we find the greatest fulfillment of these three strands. I may post more on Sweets' brilliance soon but it's in his opposition argument, what I would describe as the "anti-DNA"...the three strands that lead to a lack of beauty in life and life in the church where I think we might make one crack at answering the question, "Why are Millennials disinterested?"

Here are his three "anti-beautiful-life-in-the-church" strands with my accompanying descriptions and definitions (other than the words, this is not his, so blame me if I miss not him).

Sweet argues that today's church is:

1. Attractional- Our goals are almost exclusively focused on bringing people into the church. How good can we make the music, kids programs, sermon, etc? How exciting/tightly honed can the presentation be? Where's the smoke machine ya'll? This worked for Boomer's (c'mon it doesn't take much to excite a Boomer) and it kind of worked/works on Gen-X'ers (we can still remember when church REALLY sucked) but listen...those days are OVER. I can tell you by the kinds of looks I see on my children's faces after I do something particularly "cool" at church, and by the kinds of questions they are asking about faith. They expect the music to be great and will expect a healthy place for their children to receive supplemental spiritual formation and expect the message to be life-giving, convicting and engaging. That's the norm now, but those things in themselves will not be key to convincing them to stay attached to a church or affiliate themselves with a particular faith tradition.

2. Propositional- Much of Christendom (I'm assuming other traditions as well but will only speak to what I know) has become about "learning the right answers to the questions." My largest frustration in college (other than my putrid math skills) was the realization that not a lot of real education was occurring, but instead a lot of "answer-learning" was going on. If you remember the best classes you have taken it won't generally be the ones where you learned the most answers but where you were actually altered in some way...the way that you thought, the way that you lived, etc. In general church, and picking the church that one goes to has been about going and "getting the right answers" or affiliating oneself to the church that teaches what most closely approximates your preferred answers to the "big" questions. I'm not arguing against the right answers but I would argue that they are not the goal. In his brilliance it's no mistake that before Jesus called himself "The Truth" he called himself "The Way." The heart of the Christian faith is not some "omni-comprehensive knowledge bank" or "Ultimate-Truthipedia". The heart of the Christian faith is a relational God.

3. Colonial- We have become about trying to reproduce exact replicas of whatever we are, everywhere we think a new church expression should be. This one is tougher to describe shortly but we should not be "outpost producers." We should not be in the business of church cloning and sanitizing people, people groups, cultures and sub-cultures into the image of ourselves. When we study colonization we find that everywhere colonization occurs there is a population/vibrancy decrease and usually a complete demise of the original/native/aboriginal people group. Think about Jesus' Kingdom building method...it was certainly not colonization, in fact it would be easy to ague that it was anti-colonial.

I developed these three strands briefly because I think Sweet has captured the core of what Millennials are rejecting and what future generations will increasingly reject. As I was reading through responses to the Pew Center report I came across the following blog comment. It's a little hostile and not carefully or charitably worded but I think very honest and helpful.

"Oliver's" comments, if you can read past the accusations and generational myopia, do a lot to close out my thoughts here.

Oliver on Tue, March 09, 2010

I am one of those between the gen xer’s and millennials, as a twenty something, I have tried to let people know exactly how I feel and many others of my age group. But I feel that older people don’t want to listen, I think that many older christians are really stuck on themselves. They do so much ministry out of their own insecurities, its unbelievable that they can’t see it themselves. I think we are the first generation to really call a spade a spade, and see things as they really are. For example, Church is nothing more than a spectator sport, most “leaders” have no idea what they are doing, they just go from one program to another, from one cool “topic of the day” to another, never growing any, and always confused as to the direction of the church or why young people are leaving the church. Everything is done for the institution, and most church follow personalities. “leaders” adopt business principles and apply them willy nilly to the church on sunday, I work at a stupid corporation mon-fri, why do I want to go to church and get more of the same?! Its insane! Our generation wants people that are authentic, not fake, that will stop trying to run from one program to the next and stop for one second to try to understand what the church is really about. Basically, if you need to ask why millennials are leaving, then you are probably part of the problem, and part of the reason they are leaving!

This Song Moves Me (Part Two)

2010-03-02T09:04:00.004-05:00

After spending time bashing Taylor Swift in my message this past Sunday (actually I was only bashing her current radio hit with Boys Like Girls "Two Is Better Than One") it feels good to relieve that guilt by recommending a song now. To me the relative "goodness" of a song is based in its ability to move me. If I feel like I am physiologically , emotionally, spiritually or mentally somewhere different than I was before listening to the song then it works. If I instead think that the artists may have been asleep when recording it (as is the case in the aformentioned tune) then it just didn't. Sometimes it doesn't have to be a "good" move. This is why many people listen to sad music when they are already melancholy..because it takes them even deeper into that place that at least for right then they need to be.

I've been listening to a song the last couple of weeks called "Eden" by Phil Wickham. If you haven't heard it, its worth a long listen. After listening to him for a couple of years, just recently I've begun craving his melodies. (Check out his latest "Heaven and Earth" here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/heaven-earth-bonus-track-version/id339111020 )

On the way to work this morning I held my iPhone to my ear to get as close to this song as I could. And when I got to the chorus for the second time, it literally moved me. My body lifted off my seat for just a millisecond (too much longer would have made it hard to drive) and my eyes were wet and have stayed that way, even until right now.

"Eden" speaks of two gardens...one where we started and where we are going...and our overwhelming desire to get there.

Desperate For A Good Word

2010-02-25T08:04:00.009-05:00

Last night at the small group I go to I got the chance to speak good words. We are doing a study in the book of Philippians, with a real focus on what unity looks like and what the joy that comes from unity feels like. There was some confusion on what the preparatory work was supposed to be, so being the meeting nerd that I am, I was more adequately prepared than most of the others. (There was one other nerd there and we gave each other a knowing nod.)

After a brief setup from the book of Acts on how the church at Philippi got started (you can read that in Acts 16:6-34) we dug into the first 11 verses of chapter 1. The focus of the study was on how encouraging Paul was. Even all these thousands of years later you can feel the intensity of emotion he has for these people. He talks about how thankful he is...how he "has them in his heart"...how he "longs for them"...and later (I read ahead being the nerd that I am) we found out that they just really make him happy. I realized again that the best relationships are passionate. They are always characterized by deep emotions but Paul does his best to show that those emotions are best expressed when they are...well...expressed.

So here was our prompt: "As a group take time to tell each person in the group what character qualities you have observed in them and what you appreciate about them. Continue until each member of the group has been affirmed in this way." Now I have to admit that two years ago, I would have cringed at this...being in a small room with the same people every week, and then being asked to tell them how I feel about them would not have been attractive at all. But I am learning the beauty of this endeavor...maybe more importantly at some very important times I have felt the literal benefit of the support of these 8 to 12 people. So I was ready for this exercise in touch-feelyness.

I took the time in my study prep to write down a few words about each of them. I went around the room and had the privilege of being able to say something encouraging (and sincere in every case) about each of them. This accomplished several things: 1. I realized what an amazing gift they are to me. 2. I realized that in a few cases I don't know them as well as I want to. 3. I realized that the benefit of speaking good words is not just to the hearer.

I hope that my words last night had the effect that Solomon said they do when he wrote "Anxiety weighs down the heart, but a kind word cheers it up." (Proverbs 12:25) I know for sure however what effect it had on me...it was immediate, like a shot of good blood to a weak system.

Question: Who in your life is desperate for a good word?
Answer: Everyone

Live Like You'll Live Forever

2010-01-07T10:40:00.005-05:00

I do some of my best thinking when I take long road trips. Probably because I do less talking and I'm in one place for so long, so I don't have time to needlessly occupy my brain. Just this past week I returned from an 1100 mile trip to Tennessee (that's 2200 in total) and gazing at the countryside(some of it lovelier than others) gave me some good time to reflect and listen.

The soundtrack for all of our trips is usually a combination of the regular radio, and satellite radio and now iPhone radio (wunderadio on iPhone is awesome you should try it...I usually listen to RTE Choice in Dublin).

When I listen on a trip, with the frequent rotation that most pop stations employ now, there is usually one song that I really really like and one that just grades on me. This trip the song that I was digging was Ke$ha's "Tik Tok". I know that's not the song a 36 year old male should be rocking out to, but I like it so... Then there's the song that drove me crazy and leads me to blog today. It's Nickleback's "If Today Was Your Last Day." Now almost everything by Nickleback drives me crazy since they have like one song, sped up and slowed down and it seems like the lead vocal line on every song is never altered at all. But it's more than trite and unimaginative song-writing and performance that bugs me about this particular song.

There's this trend in the church right now to piggyback on this idea that I will call "The Bucket List" phenomenon. You know the "Bucket List" idea right, based on the 2007 movie starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman (I haven't seen it.) Two guys find out they are terminally ill and that realization prompts them to make a list of all the things they want to do before they die. So there is an increased urgency to accomplish things based on their health situation and the reality of their impending death. They go skydiving, get tattoos, climb the pyramids, drive mustangs, ride motorcycles on the Great Wall of China and go on a lion safari in Africa.

Then there's the song by country singer Tim McGraw "Live Like You Were Dying." In that song a man sees the x-ray that tells him he is dying and in response lyricists Wiseman and McEwan write:

I went sky diving, I went rocky mountain climbing,
I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu.
And I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter
And I gave forgiveness I'd been denying.
An' he said: Some day, I hope you get the chance
To live like you were dyin'.

And in response, since churches follow pop-culture the way a water-skier follows a boat, I've stumbled across lots of churches offering message series like, "Live Like There's No Tomorrow" and now multitudes of churches are using the campaign "Live Like You Were Dying".

Here's why it bugs me. The longer I have been a pastor the more I have realized that more and more Christians are living like this place, this time is all there is. More and more of those among the faithful speak about what comes next and more importantly less of us are living like there is something that comes next. Now I think that we can have great discussions on what heaven looks like and even how this earth that we live on factors into what heaven will be in a very real way. Those discussions however should not detract in any way from the promise of resurrection that is core to what we believe as Christians.

Paul addresses this idea specifically when he writes in I Thessalonians 4:13 "And now, dear brothers and sisters, we want you to know what will happen to the believers who have died so you will not grieve like people who have no hope." He goes on in verses 14 to 18 to inform them on how things actually are. There will be a re-awakening, what he calls a "catching away up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord FOREVER." By the way it is clear as we read the rest of the scripture that this FOREVER is an alive and active FOREVER, not a passive and dead one.

Now there is something good about living passionately and not letting moments pass you by. I get that...But if you knew you were going to live forever; if you knew in the words of Dallas Willard that "you are right now becoming...being formed into the person you will be forever" wouldn't that be an even greater incentive to make sure that every moment counts now? Not because you are running out of moments but because you are going to be who you are becoming for every moment from now until eternity...FOREVER.

Instead of forgiving, and falling in love and mending broken hearts (these are some of the good things that Nickleback recommends) because you are dying soon, we should be becoming forgiving, loving, heart-mending people who will be those kinds of people forever.

This reflecting has also given me the spur to resume my blog series on "Why Then Matters." I better get started just in case I kick the bucket soon.

My Son and John Calvin's First Point

2009-12-16T07:36:00.003-05:00

I was prompted (and even compelled) to return to my greatly neglected blog by a piece of paper I found on the passengers-side seat on my way to the office this morning.

My middle son is a poet and continues to produce words with a depth that always surprises me...not because I don't anticipate great things from him, but because some of his words and ideas seem older than he is.

He had given Jacinta and me a group of poems about 9 months ago, just to look over. Among them is a poem that has evidently been floating around my car since then. His poem brought to mind a couple of things for me as I read it again today.

1. Psalm 51:5- "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me."

2. John Calvin's five point interpretation of the bible can be consolidated to a 5 letter acronym. (T.U.L.I.P.) If you've never done any studying of Calvin or Calvinism, and you're the type that's interested in these types of things (I mean theology and interpretation and the like), you might enjoy digging into the details of what the acronym stands for. But the T. in T.U.L.I.P. stands for Total Depravity, the first point in Calvinism, which is the idea of Original Sin and basically states that sin has affected all parts of man. We are completely sinful, our hearts are evil and sick and we are quite literally slaves to sin. I won't take the time to tell the rest of the story, which is a story of redemption and hope and promise (just read back through my blog and you'll see that I struggle with Calvin's view of humanity in its totality), but return instead to Reagan's poem which caused my reflection on this very unsettling topic..here it is:

We Aren't Good

We listen to our parent's sweet song.

Their song of how to be good and kind.

Of how to love and respect.

Or how to use manners.

We will always listen.

But it will never mean anything to us.

For we roll their words in mouths

Like a grape that won't squish.

No matter how hard we chew

-Reagan Mullins

Premature End to "The Prodigal Son"

2009-10-27T22:35:00.003-04:00

Because of a message series we are currently in at NECC, I am obsessed with all things related to that wayward boy who goes out and blows the family fortune on loose living and wild women. Jesus tells the story in Luke 15...he is talking here about lost things and how they are valued and about the celebration that ensues once those valuable lost things are found.

I am doing my best to let these stories capture me like they may have when I heard them first. I am also spending way too much time searching for this story as it is represented in higher literature and pop culture. This clip is an example of the latter from Mick and Keith. It's from four years before my birth so I wasn't able to make it to MSG to see it live but here we get to see how pervasive and important this story of love and redemption is to many people.

We also see why these guys are the superstars they are. As a live performer myself I love it when a plan goes screwy in front of the whole world...and if you watch close that's exactly what you'll see here.

To See, To Feel

2009-09-16T12:14:00.004-04:00

I've been thinking about last Sunday's message at NECC. We started a new series called "Get on Your Boots" where we are examining Gospel texts, specifically to see the passion and action of Jesus, especially toward the helpless and distressed. Our hope is that "The Gospel" will inspire us to become "good news" to the other in our lives.

This first week we talked about the importance of seeing the need. More specifically, what did it look like for Jesus to see the hurting around him. It seems like it's almost impossible to not see the need and many days it seems like I see so much need that I just turn it off and say "I can't do everything." For Christ however, we see that what he saw affected the way he felt, which in turn was the impetus for his actions.

Since he was all human what he felt was similar to what we can feel, but maybe not similar to what we do feel. This was a huge realization for me.

The text that caused all this thought and the resulting fall-out was Matthew 9 verses 35 and 36. Jesus has already been working; healing the sick and diseased and teaching the good news of the Kingdom but as he was traveling around we read that "when he saw the crowds he had compassion." This phrase "had compassion" describes the Greek work splanchna which carries with it the idea of inward affection, tender mercy or...wait for it...."bowels." That final word hit me hard because of the depth (literally and geographically in the body) that it describes. For Jesus then his visual awareness of the people's pain did not hit him lightly or just give him mental pause, but instead generated physical discomfort. He was hit in the solar plexus, his breath was taken away, he was bent over in discomfort. This is a depth of feeling that I can relate to as it regards my wife and children and painful situations I have experienced but to date I don't recall that kind of reaction to the guy on the corner with the sign.

And then there's the why? Why did he feel that kind of pain? Because we read "they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." Harassed here doesn't carry with it some sort of light thing like we might say about a friend, "oh I like to harass her and she loves it" but instead would mean something more like molested means for us today. And helpless shouldn't conjure up just the idea of a sweet and innocent child dependent on her parents for help but would better describe something almost like a wrestling term that could be translated "pinned down by force." There is real violence at the heart of this last phrase.

So what image can you bring to mind that describes the phrase "molested" or "violently pinned down by force" This is what Jesus was impacted with when he saw those in need. It's not the kind of feeling that allows a human to just walk by and ignore it.

My confession: I don't normally feel this way toward people in need. Compassion for me (most often) is a second thought or a second order response. So I see a need, and remind myself that Christians care for those in need and then maybe take appropriate action.

But the fully human Jesus reacted immediately, he reacted physiologically...and he reacted.

My prayer this week: Jesus make me fully human, unable to overlook the need in others.

Our Up Songs Differ Greatly

2009-09-08T09:31:00.005-04:00

This past Sunday I spoke on the topic of "An Up Song" at the church where I pastor. Actually the real title was "An ((Up Arrow)) Song" but I can't figure out how to do that here. I took Psalm 125 as the text and talked about what the header "A Song of Ascents" that Psalms 120 through 134 are labeled with means. The application was in the importance of having "an up song" that you sing, both when things are good and also when things aren't so good.

As a part of the setup, in order to demonstrate what I had in mind with "up song" I played 4 short clips of what I think of as "up songs". I played Wild Cherry's Play That Funky Music from the 70's, The BeeGee's Staying Alive from the 80's, Snap's The Power from the 90's and Enur's Calabria 2008 as a current example. It was amazing how immediate and positive the reaction to those songs were...especially the first three. People's "I'm getting settled in for a boring 25 minute speech" expressions changed quickly to "I'm ready to get my groov-sizzle on" ones. The second thing I noticed was how age-specific the reactions were. The older the crowd was the more immediately they responded to the 70's and 80's example while the younger portion didn't really start to move in their seats until the opening of the Enur tune.

After the examples, I asked for a few people from the crowd to shout out what their "up songs" were. The first brave ice-breaker yelled out "Dancing Queen" and I could tell immediately that many other people identified with that choice. Next someone said "Right Now from Van Halen" and although it is a song I would have never thought of (I would have thought of "Jump" first for sure), it is definitely a great example of "an up song." The third person to respond said "The Soundtrack from The Sound of Music." I don't think many people identified with that choice and I started to make fun of the person that suggested it until I realized that might not be so good for future crowd-participation exercises or their self-esteem.

I've had a few people respond on FaceBook since then with the following songs they count as
"up songs."

Wang Chung- Everybody Have Fun Tonight
The Cure- Just Like Heaven

Aerosmith- Amazing

So what about you? What's your up song? A song that you sing when you feel really good and want a song to match your mood or you're headed to celebrate and want a song to match the occasion. Or a song that you sing when things aren't good and you're looking to give yourself some encourgismo. Let me know.

Use Some Real Words!

2009-09-01T07:42:00.003-04:00

Recently my ears have become hyper-sensitive to a few words and phrases that we leaders like to use....a lot. I say "we" because I too have been guilty of tossing in a few of the words listed below. As we know though, the first step to recovery is to admit that I have a problem, and the next step is to blog and condemn everyone else for doing what I was doing up until yesterday. (This spiritual rule here for those of you who are so inclined is called "The Right of Ridicule based on Recently Retained Righteousness Principle." So my intention here is to at once cleanse these words from my vocab and do my best to purify those I have influence with as well.

I was tipped over the edge driving in this morning by a local "cash-for-gold" commercial which employed two or three of the words that I want to call "I'm using this word so I don't have to say what I really want to say" words.

So here they are. First the word, the word used in a sentence (just to be annoyingly clear) and then what the speaker/leader really has in mind when she uses them.

1. Next-Level - I'm listing this one first because quite simply it has to go. We leaders like to say things like, "Hey, it's time we take this thing to the next level" or "you really brung (yes I know) it out there, you took it to the next level." What we really are saying is "As a leader I would like us to grow/progress/advance but I really don't have a clear picture of what that looks like or even a specific end in mind, so I will choose to use this ethereal phrase instead." Or "you're doing a good job and I really like the presentation you just gave but I'm not gonna take the time to actually describe what I liked about it or give you actual praise for your performance, choosing instead to use this here lazy phrase."

2. Win-Win - OMG+FacePalm=Utter Disgust. If I hear this phrase spoken today I am likely to head-butt the unfortunate user repeatedly. We say, "if we do it this way it looks like it will be a win-win" and "I wasn't sure how this was going to turn out but it looks like it ended up being a win-win for everybody." What we are usually really saying is this "This is a really good deal for me and it doesn't like it's awful for you so that's not too bad is it?" or "Since I'm the boss/team leader I don't really have to make it good for you anyway but it looks like you're going to get some benefit out of the deal to so hey!"

3. Paradigm Shift- "Excuse me, could you be just a little bit more vague? Thanks." We say, "What I'm talking about is not just doing things a little bit differently. This is a complete paradigm shift" and "in order to see insert business/team/industry_here turn-around it will take a paradigm shift." What we really mean is "I like things done differently than you do them, and in all actuality it's not all that terribly different from the way you do things now, but it is going to be more inconvenient for you, so I'm going to use this word to give you a sense that at least all your upcoming sacrifice is to accomplish something great" or "I'm not really all that sure of the path we are going to take to turn this thing around (see paradigm shift's cousin "next-level thinking" above) so I'm going to invent a new paradigm because since no one knows anything about the new paradigm there can be no real tracking of my success as a leader."

4. Outside-The-Box - I'm sure that one or two times this phrase was used honestly but now it's the most throwaway phrase in existence...please join me in never using this phrase again...ever. We say "we are really going to have think outside the box here." What we really mean is "as a leader I am sitting up here in front of you completely stumped about what to say and how to lead this meeting/team/group so I'm going to throw in this phrase as a distractionary (see I'm not only deleting words from our vocab, I'm also inventing a few new ones for use) technique so that you can't see my ineptitude and so that we won't sit in the uncomfortable and awkward silence that might actually be helpful in producing the idea we were looking for in the first place."

Now there are many more. Maybe I'll touch base going forward and we'll push the envelope a little bit more. At the end of the day though, it is what it is. So let's hit the ground running, stop drinking the kool-aid and....ummmm....bring our A games?

Tortured by Unforgiveness

2009-08-14T10:38:00.003-04:00

Recently I've been reading through the gospels with an attempt to see past what I have "known" about the stories, so that I can know the good news the stories communicate. Anytime I do this it's really uncanny (let's just call it a coincidence) that the people I meet and pray with are really hurting on topic with I've been trying to digest. Most recently it's forgiveness, and the story that's bringing me new life is The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant in Matthew 18:21-35.

I had the privilege of beginning a journey toward forgiveness and full life with a fairly new Christian this week. They said at one point, "I don't think I can forgive...I've tried, it just hurts too much and I'm not a good enough person." That reminded me of the story I had read that morning. One that Jesus tells in response to Peter's question "Lord, how many times shall I forgive someone who sins against me?"

The story is probably familiar to you, so I won't recap, but what hits me the hardest is this. The servant forgiven of the unpayble debt (I think it works out to 60,000,000 days of work) is forgiven not because it makes good business sense or because the servant has done well (frankly how do you rack up that kind of debt unless you have done anything but well) but simply because the King responds to his cry for mercy. The story says that the debt is canceled because the King felt something deep down inside of himself, and the undeserving debtor is let go.

But the crux of the story for me, since i am one who has been forgiven much, comes in the next act. When presented with the opportunity to be merciful himself on a fellow servant who owed him a very repayable debt (probably about 3 or 4 months wages) he reacts in rage and with cruelty. The story ends with the King making the unmerciful servant re-accountable for his debt, thrown in prison and wait for it....tortured.

So why is it that we are prone not to show mercy when we have been shown mercy? Could it be that we haven't really accepted, realized and owned our forgiveness? Could it be that deep down inside we actually counted ourselves worthy of the forgiveness we were given? Or maybe we hate ourselves so much for getting ourselves into a situation that required forgiveness in the first place, that we let that venom spill out the next place it can.

My takeaways for this week.

1. Realizing that I have done nothing....nothing....nothing, to earn forgiveness, mercy and salvation. The reason the ledger has been thrown away is because the King felt something deep down on the inside for me specifically and decided to act in love.

2. Understanding the great chance I have to be that same person for someone else. I will have the opportunity to release a debt, maybe emotional, financial or some other way, for someone who "owes me something."

3. Realizing that when I don't take advantage of those grace moments, in some way I become re-eligible for the previously canceled debt. Because I make the choice and because I bring that on myself...in that way I torture myself.

Faith + Hope + Love (coming next week)

2009-07-28T12:14:00.002-04:00

I have been shaped as a worship leader by Hillsong Music. Although as a critic of songwriters I often make fun of the patented Hillsong form ( intro.v1.breakdown chorus.full on v2.double chorus.instrumental.breakdown chorus.full on double chorus.outro) the truth of the matter is that Hillsong has changed what worship in the church sounds like.

I'm okay with that, because I believe they have helped move us to a better, more authentic and increasingly energized place. And in the last 5 to 7 years the songwriting has become more and more ChristEvent-focused, which is what is needed to transform lives (starting with mine.)

So, I'm exceedingly excited about the new Hillsong release dropping 8.4.09...

titled Faith + Hope + Love

Here's a sample from the album, featuring Hillsong worship leader Brooke Fraser (one of my fav's.)

I Will Exalt You - Hillsong from Carlos Whittaker on Vimeo.

You can (and should) pre-order Faith + Hope + Love here...

Enjoy and be moved by it.

I Waited...

2009-07-01T10:59:00.004-04:00

On Sunday I preached a message from Psalm 130, as a part of NECC's "God At The Movies" series. I had been personally moved by the passage recently and really felt on mission for that message at that time and place for that people. I titled the message "The Call, The Wait, The Promise" and I would normally hyperlink to the message where it is posted but I was losing my voice Sunday AM. Since it was painful for me to listen to on Monday, I won't subject any of you to it.

My premise was this..."What does salvation look like?" Now I didn't have in mind, "getting saved" particularly or what we mean when we say "giving my heart" or "accepting Jesus." But more specifically what does it look like to be rescued, when we're in over our heads like the Psalmist in 130 seemed to be. So using the first four verses I talked first about the importance of "The Cry."

It seems as if salvation in scripture (and in my life come to think of it) always starts with the cry. More than that, on Sunday I said that "it is essential to what it means to be human that we cry out." I was reminded of this yesterday as I visited a brand new baby born to friends of ours, and as they were showing her off, she gave out a yell, to which her grandmother say proudly, "see there, she's doing well, listen to those lungs."

It also seemed important to me from the passage that our right to cry out is not based on how good we have been. In the passage right after the author cries out, there is this piece of confession coupled with confidence, "If you Lord, kept a record of sing, Lord who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, so that we can, with reverence, serve you." Psalm 130:4-5

So I was reminded that I don't have to lie in the messy bed that I made, and I don't have to reap everything I have sown, and that I can still cry out. More importantly, we see throughout the Scriptures that God hears the cry of the oppressed and brings salvation.

But it was in the second section...in "The Wait" that I hit a sore point. Most of us are pretty good about crying out, but in the wait...not so much. I say a sore point because afterward in the lobby and this week since, I have heard several times, "I don't like to wait" and "I'm tired of waiting." I can identify. Now it's easy to see why, especially right now, in our advanced age, we don't like to wait...because we don't ever have to. Recently I was at the beach and upset because I didn't have a fast enough internet connection. I was connected to the internet sitting on the beach but I didn't like having to wait an extra 11 seconds for the email I wanted to read to download.

But waiting hurts so much. Because of the not knowing and the not having. In verses 5 and 6 of this passage, we see that after the cry comes the wait, and in both the Old and New Testaments our existence in relation to God is often described as one of waiting. You can see a patient waiting in the Apostle Paul in Romans 8 but here in the Psalmist the wait is an anxious wait. The condition of our relationship to God is first of all one of not having, not seeing, not knowing and not grasping. I think we often forget that, and when we act as if that's not the case (as much of Christendom today does) we have then replaced God with our own creation of an image of God. A God that we don't have to wait on then is a God that we can possess. If we didn't have to wait for God, then God would not be free and by definition God is infinitely free.

But even though waiting is not having, not possessing it is also having. The fact that we are waiting for something in some way shows that we already have it. Waiting anticipates that which is not yet real, but will be real. This is the truth that Romans 8:25 makes clear when the apostle writes, "But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it." I was absolutely leveled by the repetitive simile (it's not a simile in the TNIV but I still prefer to think of that way) that the wait section of Psalm 130 concludes with. We wait, "More than watchmen wait for the morning...More than watchmen wait for the morning." Psalm 130:6.

So how do watchmen wait for the morning? They wait with eagerness, anticipation and joy. The morning is when the midnight shift has ended, when they get to rest, when the city has been delivered safe through one more evening. Secondly, they wait with confidence, because they know this one thing: Although the night might be dark, the morning is coming. The morning always comes. The sun is coming. The wait will be over soon.

The passage ends with "The Promise." I love that although there is anxiety, the Psalmist ends with these two key God-directed promises. "...with the Lord is unfailing love" and "with him is full redemption." Psalm 130:7

But that's another sermon. :)

When A Colleague Falls

2009-06-09T13:49:00.003-04:00

I started hearing the news via Twitter Sunday afternoon. A well-known pastor of a large church had resigned via letter to his church on Sunday morning. The reason he was stepping aside was because "... 6 weeks ago, I entered into an emotional and physical affair with my personal assistant..." As I always am when this happens (and it happens) I was overcome with emotion.

I wanted to call his wife and children and ask her how I could serve them. I did send an email and still may call, but I wanted her to know that she was not alone. Because believe me, she feels alone right now. I would try to find a way to protect her from all of the well-meant "counsel" she would receive...from those who would use this time to carry out various agendas and prove various points. I would tell her that the sacrifice she made in her life to live a life committed to the work of God is not in vain, and that God cares for HER and loves HER. I would let her cry on me as long as she needed to. I tried to live in her shoes for just a few minutes, and the pain was overwhelming.

I wanted to drive down and find this man and hug him. Sure he deserves a smack and I'm sure he even deserves the consequences that God has for him. But rest assured there will be plenty others to take care of the discipline. I would just want to be there for him...in his present disaster of a life and standing by him as he progresses into a difficult future. I would tell him that he doesn't need to make excuses to me, that all I want to do is love him like God loves him. I would try to find a way to spare him all the self-righteous babble he would be hearing from "well-meaning" people and encourage him to instead concentrate on himself, his family and his God. I would encourage him to not retreat completely as he mourns but instead continue to reach out to those he KNOWS are his friends.

I wanted to stand in front of the church he pastored and tell them to pray for this man and his family...to love them through this situation. I would let them know that according to scripture the church is built on a rock and is literally an unstoppable force, that even though this hurts, God would use even this to make that local congregation stronger.

I was reminded of myself and reminded that it could be me...not because I am involved in any illicit relationship, but because I could be. Not because I deceived my wife and church, but because I could do so. Not because I sinned before God, but because I could.

...and because I do.

I am praying for you pastor...and your family...and your church.

The Blog I've Been Waiting On...

2009-05-21T11:08:00.002-04:00

...all my life.

Some of you are much hipper than me I know...so you probably already knew about this.

But stufffchristianslike.blogspot.com is just about some of the funniest stuff I have ever read.

So

1. If you are or have been a Christian
2. If you think that sometimes Christians are some of the wackiest people on the planet
3. If you have a sense of humor

You must...MUST (run, don't walk) check this site out.

Some of my favorite posts:

# 543- Throwing out disclaimers before recommending something secular

#530- Buying a New Bible (The 9 Easy Questions You Need To Ask Yourself)

#69- Saving Seats At Church

#545- Pastors Tell You How Hott Their Wives Are

Check it out, prepare to laugh (if you meet the above three criteria) and let me know what you think.

Why Then Matters- Part Three

2009-05-20T07:11:00.003-04:00

I have been examining the following question and a residual question that are consuming much of my thought lately.

1. What comes next for humans? I mean once we die, what happens then.
2. What difference does the answer to that question make for now? What about this world?

Now that I've started reading and studying it seems like many of my everyday conversations illustrate the need for this discussion. Yesterday a friend was in the office and his particular question was in regard to hell. He was particularly bothered by the frightening thought (for him) that Gandhi might be in hell while George W. Bush might be in heaven. So next matters in many different ways.

If you haven't checked out the first post or second post in this series as introduction you might want to in order to have some context. I am using Bishop N.T. Wright's book Surprised By Hope as an introductory guide to my thinking on this topic and continue by looking at the remainder of chapter one. (I wrote about the first part of chapter one here.)

Bishop Wright continues to make the point that how we think about life after death (or "life after life after death" in his words), makes all the difference in how we live now. Although there is a lot of confusion inside the church as well (the topic of chapter two), in the wider world, outside the church there is the confused thought that has emerged that all religions are basically the same on the topic. Wright is quick to point out that this not the case as he writes, "there is a world of difference between the Muslim who believes that a Palestinian boy killed by Israeli soldiers goes straight to heaven and the Hindu for who the rigourous outworking of karma means that one must return in a different body to pursue the next stage of one's destiny." This seems to be right...Orthodox Jews believe that all the righteous will be raised to bodily life in "the resurrection" and Buddhists greatest hope is that they may lose their identity completely like a drop in the ocean in the great nameless and formless Beyond. So instead of us all basically feeling the same way about how things end up, really we have very divergent and non-compatible hopes for our afterlives.

Some of us like to avoid the topic as much as possible. Kind of more comfortable with pretending it will never happen to us, we try not to talk about death and the eternity that may or may not be attached to it, in hopes that it will just go away. Belief in hell came under attack in the 19th century by theologians who were very helpfully questioning everything and then it suffered its death as a result of the immense amount of death experienced as a result of the first World War. In Wright's words "there was so much hell on earth (as a result of WW1) that people couldn't believe that God would create such a place in the hereafter as well." As a result whole generations were raised with the modus operandi being "don't talk about it." Many parents didn't let their children attend funerals and there was a culture of silence about death and what comes next.

But there has been a shift...this silence has not been pervasive in my generation, instead there's lots of talk of it in today's films and death is once again in the air. We are talking about death again and Wright ends chapter one by listing the main beliefs that have emerged today...none of which "correspond to Christian orthodoxy" (which we may start to get to in one of the next few posts). These views are alternatives Wright adds, because the mood seems to be that more traditional views on judgement, hell, heaven and resurrection are "offensive to modern sensibilities."

1. Some believe in complete annihilation. This was the view of one of my formerly-Christian turned somewhat radically atheist professors at school. He took great comfort in knowing that after this...there is nothing. We die and cease to be. Wright points out that this is especially "clean and tidy" (I would add especially for some personality types) but an "...unsatisfying account of human destiny."

2. For those who can't deny any future life whatsoever, reincarnation becomes a nice option. I am always amazed at how completely saturated the religion sections of almost any bookstores are on this topic. This belief if not limited to practicing Hindus but all those who participate in it are practicing some kind of Hinduism. The ideal here is to learn (through the cycle of birth and death, followed by more birth and death) to achieve focused thought to replace the distracted mind or soul...that's how one escapes the wheel that never stops turning of birth followed by death. Wright points out that this continuing trend has become a growth industry for psychoanalysts who no longer have to confine their "what did your parents do to you" questions to this life alone.

3. Then there is the sort of nature/Buddhism view. At death one is absorbed into the wider-world, into the wind and trees. This person would instruct those standing at their graveside not to cry because all they have to do to see them again is to look to the trees and the wind and the snow and rain. I often hear Christians speaking in ways like this by the way, so it will be helpful fairly soon to get to the traditional Christian view.

So we are confused...we say things like "don't worry about your body...it's gonna' just burn up anyway" and we leave little items in our loved ones coffins so that they will have them "later" and as far as I can tell (which is why I began this journey) most people don't know what Orthodox Christian belief is. Most people recognize that Christian's at least don't believe in complete annihilation, instead preferring some sort of life after death, but what does that look like. So that's where I'm headed (guided by the good doctor), in particular (you'll remember from the first two posts) with an emphasis on resurrection and what that word actually means to and for us. Now that there has been a very basic examination of confusion outside of the church, part four will look at how we are many times equally puzzled inside the church.

Reflections on Judging from Good Mother jacintamullins.blogspot.com:

2009-05-07T13:56:00.004-04:00

Note from Kevin:

Today is "blog-swap" day for me and a lady I met a few years back (really she's my wife) who is the only person (other than like Pope Benedict) that I would consider swapping blogs with. I really enjoyed her reflections on judging...(a big topic for us the last week or so.) So check out her blog @ jacintamullins.blogspot.com, don't get used to this level of writing in this space and enjoy!

I like labels and organization. I make a label and it says “Credit Card Receipts” and then I know exactly where to find what I need. Bills go in the bills folder, medical records in the medical records folder…..you get the picture. Having things labeled and tagged makes me comfortable. I like order and making sense of the chaos gives me peace. I realize that I often do the same thing to people; labeling them and then putting them in the appropriate category. And let me tell you- once people get in my filing system they are very rarely removed. They are doomed to remain labeled forever. For me judging is comfortable- a place for everything and everything in its place. It is hard for me to realize that I am not the One who places people where they need to be………. and so often I am convinced that I am.

Here are some of my labels. There is the annoying lady, the liar, the lady who doesn’t flush (gross, I know and sadly true) the cell phone talking driver, Mr. Speedy Pants, and my list goes on and on. Some labels aren’t negative. You will be happy to know that I also put people into the dear friends and beloved family category so their labels are much more positive, but I won’t bore you with those. (FYI- Mr. Speedy Pants is in the positive and negative categories and he owns this blog)

I realize that I often judge people and make assumptions based on one small glimpse into their lives never taking the time to see who they really are. I find myself using language like “You never,” and You always do this or that,” even when never and always don’t apply. My hope is that as I progress in my walk with Christ that I would truly see people as He does and look for the value in the person not just the things that annoy me or how they do things differently than I do. So I am striving for patience and Christ love towards others. Laters.

Don't Be a Judga'

2009-05-06T11:28:00.004-04:00

Sunday morning I had a great time giving a message from Matthew 7:1-6 at NECC. This is the section from the Sermon on the Mount that Christ speaks this famous phrase "Do not judge, or you too will be judged." I won't recap the sermon (you can listen here if you'd like to hear it) but I did tell the group there that I would blog today on judging and its connection with anger, contempt and shame. All 12 of my readers are clamoring I'm sure so here's the fulfillment of my Sunday AM promise.

Some brief context for those that weren't there (and won't take the time to listen to the sermon...I know who you are):

1. I defined judgement (the way that Jesus is using the word here in Matthew 7) as "the deeply rooted human practice of condemning and blaming." On reflecting today I realized I should have given Dallas Willard almost complete credit for this definition. I have read and internalized him so much over the years that the phrase just flowed out of me like it was my own...it is not. Much of my theology here has been shaped over the years by his thoughts on the subject.

Judging is the practice of condemning and blaming.

2. It hurts so much because at it's core with judgement we are communicating to the person we are judging that they are in some deep and possibly irredeemable way "bad." Why does it hit us so deeply to be judged? Because at judgements center we are being told "You are not acceptable..You have not measured up...You are bad."

It doesn't take much reflection at all to realize how powerful these kinds of words are. They cut to the core of our being. So the decision to turn away from this kind of judgement, this kind of blaming is a major turning point in one's life. I mean the decision to both stop condemning and to stop "receiving" condemnation that's directed our way.

One major step in that direction is to give up anger and contempt. These two things (anger and contempt) is why I encouraged the listeners Sunday AM to read Matthew 5, 6 and 7 in their entirety, so they could get some context. Those that took me seriously would see that Jesus talks a lot about condemnation as it relates to self-righteousness and distancing ourselves from the ones we are condemning. Self-righteousness always involves some level of comparison.

In Luke 18:9 Jesus spoke of "some who relied on themselves for their right standing with God AND were despising others." He didn't choose that combination accidentally. When we hold people in contempt we are much more likely to condemn them More hopefully however for living the full life, when we STOP viewing someone with contempt we will very rarely condemn them.

This leads right to Anger...the relationship between anger and condemnation is a little more difficult...but this much is clear (think about your relationships as you read this), when we are angry with someone it almost always leads to condemnation. Mostly because blaming/judging is the easiest way to hurt the person we are angry with the most deeply. That's what anger always wants to do by the way....hurt. And then of course the one that receives the hurt responds with anger and they hurt in return...and the cycle of redemptive violence is prolonged.

And what about the connection to shame? It seems like judging/blaming/condemnation often grows into shame. I find that shame is most often seen in people who take righteousness and and "being good" seriously. This is the level where condemnation hits the deepest, because shame is self-condemnation..where we are condemned for being the person we are. We want to be someone else and since we can't, we are trapped and live hopeless lives.

Instead of this cycle of despair I suggested Sunday a Full Life Progression:

1. We become the kind of people who stop blaming and condemning
2. The Full Life becomes more freely available to us.
3. Then we are are able to bless and guide those around us into following the way of Jesus.

Growing, waving and torture

2009-05-01T15:18:00.004-04:00

There are three things on my mind today..they are completely unrelated, which is kind of how my mind words, thanks for your understanding:

1. I am beginning to think that being a pastor is actually going to be good for my relationship with Christ. The last couple of days as I have been studying about judgement or more accurately the Christ command not to judge (examining Matthew 7:1-6 this weekend) I realized that all of this reflection on God's Word is really sinking into me...deep. I've begun to think before I speak..."is this statement going to bring value and communicate the love of Christ to this person or is what I'm going to say designed more to make me look good or build me up at this person's expense."

So I thank God that I have the privilege to spend "work time" studying the Scriptures. I know it's something many others would benefit from and the only thing I can say is this...based on my experience right here, right now....time spent studying God's Word will bring benefit to you and show you the fullest life possible.

2. I hate it when people cut me off when driving and then wave like I let them in. It happened earlier today and what I most want to do is just give them a little bump and say "take back that wave because I don't want it." I'm sure that some people are just so clueless on the road that they actually think that 3.5 inches of space was the other person's attempt to let them in, but more often than not, "the wave" just seems like salt on the wound...them saying "not only am I going to almost make you wreck but I'm gonna' acknowledge what I did with this wave right here."

3. I can't think of any way to spin this headline that would result in making Christianity and the church look good. I read this headline earlier this week from a story that recounted the results of a survey on torture..."Christians more likely to support torture than non-Christians." Read the story and survey for yourself here. Now I know all the right answers, and all of the talking points but anyway you slice it these are the two major findings of the survey.

A. The more white and evangelical these respondants were, the more likely they were to say that torture is "sometimes" acceptable. (44% for white-evangelicals to 25% for those who are religiously unaffiliated.)

B. The more these survey respondants attended church, the more likely they were to say that torture is "sometimes" acceptable. (38% for those who attend at least weekly to 30% for those who attend seldom or never.)

My point here is not to debate whether or not torture is "sometimes" acceptable or to make any ethical or moral stance..it is merely to wonder at these results and to not be surprised that many non-Christians have a bad taste in their mouths when it comes to this faith that I hold so dear.

...And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt

2009-04-21T07:27:00.003-04:00

Particularly inspired by the events we celebrated on Easter Sunday, nine days ago my family had this great idea..."lets drive to Tennessee." So as soon as church was over and some clean up completed, we jumped in our friend's car (shout out to homeys who let you borrow their vehicles) and embarked on a 2500 mile (round trip) journey. I tend to be a adventure-first/reflection later kind of guy so it wasn't until about halfway through the trip that I realized that we would end up driving most of four days, all day, to enjoy three days. Rushing back for Sunday service is the story of my family's (I don't begrudge it, but I'm sure I'm the only one in my family that doesn't) life when it comes to vacations.

All in all it was a pretty smooth trip and I am left with the following questions for the sake of ponderification (please no one point out that this is not a word...I am a word creator and it is now):

1. Why do we ruin our American countryside with billboards? This isn't the first time I've wondered this but it's the first time that I felt like taking action...like pulling over and chainsawing the suckers down. I was of course minus a chainsaw and didn't want to present that sort of violent and spontaneous example (not wanting to shatter their otherwise peaceful and patterned view of their father) to my kids. I remember driving through the majestic hills of Germany, the Alps of Switzerland and the French countryside and I am sure I never saw one sign for Helga's Schnitzel Factory or Pierre's Crepe Cafe. (Please pardon the stereotypical names, but I'm sure at least three of my readers will enjoy it, so risk/reward.) West Virginia and Tennessee were fairly bad but it's Pennsylvania and Southern Virginia that took the cake. Entire meadows (otherwise beautiful) were littered with these ugly monstrosities, advertising everything from the approaching Waffle House to the 800 number for the local vasectomy reversal company. By the way, why is it that that particular industry chooses to capture the traveling crowd. Do people often finding themselves on road trips thinking to themselves..."you know what I need...a good vasectomy reversal." I understand why companies want to advertise and why farmers and landowners would rent their land out, but it's unfortunate because it ruins our purple mountains magesties and our fruited plains.

2. Do Tennessee state troopers have a tracking device in my wallet? Having lived in that fair state for almost six years, I personally propped up the struggling local economies of many of its little towns along the way. I did this by speeding (hard to call 33 mph in a 25 mph speeding but anyway) merrily through their little cities to the delight of Barney Fife, who couldn't wait to serve and protect on my butt. So once again upon returning I found myself east of Nashville on I40, pulled to the shoulder receiving yet another citation, this time to the tune of $184.50. I did appreciate the fact that the trooper didn't bother giving me any lecture about the importance of slowing down on the road, he just quickly took my info, gave me my latest dose of Southern justice and sent me on my way. This episode made my wife very happy with me, who was happy to forfeit money previously designated for shoes, in order to invest in the Tennessee governmental infrastructure. The lesson I learned here might be the subject of a future blog.

3. Why do some songs only sound good on the road? I would never, ever listen to Stevie Nicks any other time, but when you're buzzing through the West Virginia countryside, and the family is asleep and you have 400 miles to go, all of a sudden the lyrics from The Edge of Seventeen make a whole lot of sense. "Just like a white-winged dove sings a song, sounds likes she's singing, whoo...whoo...whoo." For that moment I was that dove and even though I wasn't quite sure why I was singing "whoo"...it felt right. On this trip, (courtesy of my my friends XM radio) I was ministered to by The Bangles Eternal Flame and of course Willie Nelson tunes ad nauseam...Willie is the King of the Road.

I really enjoy driving...

"Where My Peeps At" Easter Message Series

2009-04-03T12:49:00.003-04:00

On Easter Sunday April 12th Northeast Community Church in Norwalk (the church where I pastor) is starting a new message series called "Where my peeps at?" It's going to be a lot of fun digging into topics on love and relationships with a NECC twist.

Check out the "You've Been Peeped" Website

and check out the promo video:

Some Days Are Better Than Others

2009-03-30T10:02:00.003-04:00

Yesterday was a highlight of my life. The church where I pastor had our first ARISE: an arts experience where we invited people from the church community to contribute original works of art. We asked them to submit art that was inspired by our latest sermon series so that the art would literally be a direct outflow from their interaction with what we learned over the last twelve weeks. So I am calling it responsive, congregational and to some degree collobarative art.

As usual there were a few naysayers who thought A. No one would submit anything or B. Those who did submit would contribute things that would barely qualify as art or C. With so many practical problems to worry about, focus on art is silly, an extravagance we can't afford or D. Churches shouldn't get off task and need to keep "preaching the Bible man." Well...I won't go into detail (as is my tradition) but the naysayers were so wrong on every count. A. We had 21 original works of art, B. The art submitted was all worthy of display and some of it staggeringly good, C. Everyone (who participated) saw it as a very practical way of interacting with and engaging our very Personal Creator and D. The Good News of life in Christ was on full display, in an equally powerful way to any sermon Jonathan Edwards could have ever preached.

There was original poetry and film, pastels and watercolor, stencil and one original song. All of it was on display in our first ever Sunday gallery and some of it (we only had so much time) was highlighted in the service itself. On a fatherly note, two of my kids submitted, so I was busting off my buttons with pride for what Christ is making through them.

Today I find myself so thankful to be a part of community that is open to exploring new things, discovering new freedom within the confines of what it means to be a church. I find myself grateful to those who stepped outside their personal safe places to risk exposing their new art to the world. I find myself amazed at the talent lying almost untapped within our group. I find myself renewed with new energy for new creation myself...finding new ways to say something great about God and this world He's given us.

This Song Moves Us

2009-03-20T14:23:00.005-04:00

Occasionally as a worship leader/band director/pastor I see a song that really connects with our community. We try to only introduce songs that connect with people, and hopefully most of them do, but some songs (and I can never completely predict which ones) engage people at a very different level. Also instead of just making an impact on some of the community, some songs connect with the group at large and when you get a bunch of people singing together (which is why U2 concerts are so special) it's an amazing, unduplicatable (yes that's a word) feeling. "This Is Our God" by Hillsong Australia has been exactly that kind of song for the church where I pastor. It connects...it moves us...wanted to share it.

Why Then Matters- Part Two

2009-03-19T21:11:00.005-04:00

I started two posts ago, looking at a question I have been compelled to. The question for me is "what comes next?" If you haven't read that post, take a look here, without it some of this might not make sense. Really, the one question becomes two for me:

1. What comes next? I mean, once we die, what happens then?
2. What about now? What about this world?

I mentioned that I would be journeying toward these questions, to begin with the help of a book by Bishop N.T. Wright (The Bishop of Durham) titled Surprised By Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. And I promised that my next post would begin by analyzing and reflecting on chapter one "All Dressed up And No Place To Go?"

Bishop Wright begins the chapter by explaining the events that gave him impetus for the book. They are specific to him and many of us who are interested in this subject could make our own list. My list has some similarities to his A. September 11th caused me and many others to reflect on both of those questions...in fact for me most of my time responding to 911 was with regard to question number 2. B. Conversation with Christians has been the second reason I am interested, mostly because as I have mentioned before I think most of us just don't know what the "Christian" view of ressurection or the hope to come is. I mean I know there are many "Christian views" (something I know we will look at a few posts off) but most of them are probably wrong...I know most of the ones I hear (although I'm not always quite sure why, hence the need for a study) just don't seem quite right.

Recent Examples (direct from the mouths of non-new Christians :
1. "Well I'm not gonna worry to much about it, because it's all just gonna burn up anyway."
2. "I just can't wait until God takes us out of this place"
3. "I know he's ( a recently passed love one) watching down from Heaven and is happy."

Now don't force me to bring resolution to all of that now, but you know how sometimes you know somethings not right but you're not quite sure why? That's how I am on this subject right now. So Bishop Wright has his reasons for writing the book and I have my reasons for needing to read it. He gives a clue to why the book title is important that doubles as a preliminary look at how he will answer the question when he writes in chapter one, "What hope is there for communities that have lost their way, their way of life, their coherence, their hope?"

He restates the two questions he hopes the book will answer (this time restated a little more helpfully than before) as:
1. What is the ultimate Christian hope?
2. What hope is there for change, rescue, transformation, new possibilities within the world in the present.

And then a preliminary answer to those questions is given that serves as a backbone to other answers that he will spend the rest of the book explaining. His answer to the two questions and really how he would answer my two questions is this: "As long as we see Christian hope in terms of "going to heaven", as a salvation that is essentially away from this world, the two questions are bound to appear as unrelated."

This right away gets to one of my severe problems with the standard thinking that most 3rd millennium American Christians have arrived at. If all we are doing is waiting to get out of here, then why does what were doing right now matter? Stated differently, why would God make me steward over a creation, over a world that he intended to destroy? I don't often think of God as a tricky guy, or someone moving the cups around to try to hide the ball underneath from me, but if we are just waiting to get out of here, isn't that a little bit what he's up to?

Bishop Wright joins me (actually I guess more accurately I'm joining him) in my concern but then gives a second clue to the theology he will develop. "But if the Christian hope is for God's new creation, for "new heavens and new earth" and if hope has already come to life in Jesus of Nazareth, then there is every reason to join the two questions together."

He is going to look at confusion in chapter one and two. The chapter two focus is on confusion in the church, among Christians, and the rest of chapter one is looking at confusion in our world- the wider world beyond our churches. I'll have to save the rest of chapter one for the next post, but why is making it clear that we are confused important? His statement is similar to my quandaries above, stated much more concisely and eloquently: "...most people, including most practicing Christians, are muddled and misguided on this topic, and this muddle produces quite serious mistakes in our thinking, our praying, our liturgies, our practice (see above), and perhaps particularly our mission in the world." Just like I said right?

I know from my days studying philosophy that many of histories greatest philosophers (Plato, Hegel etc.) have put the greatest importance on thinking straight about death, and the life that is beyond death, because it's the key to thinking clearly about everything else. So don't jump off board this thread yet, because "It's a matter of thinking straight about God and his purposes for the cosmos and about what God is doing right now, already, as a part of those purposes."

I just realized that at this rate I won't be to chapter two until 2013...I'll try to move a little faster next time.

Finally...some failure!

2009-03-17T17:55:00.003-04:00

Today i stumbled across FailBlog.org, via Twitter via an article in Relevant Magazine. This was a hit for me today, either because I was happy to see people owning up to their crap for once, or because the abject failure of others makes me feel better about myself.

FailBlog is kind of the opposite of Successories...you know what that is right? Those are the supposed-to-be-inspiring pictures (usually of some guy hanging off a mountain or a sprinter breaking out of the blocks or when all else fails an eagle in flight) accompanied by a supposed-to-be-inspiring but usually aggravatingly insipid phrase of some sort. e.g. "Remember that it's the next pull that will bring you to the top" or "teamwork is the best kind of work because it's work done with a team" that sound like they are words flowing directly from Michael Scott's mouth. (I made both of those phrases up by the way in order to avoid a lawsuit from Successories Inc.)

A few of my favorites are a Ghanian marketing failure called Pee Cola. Or the "I Love London t-shirt screen-printed with an image of The Eiffel Tower. Or the tagger's spray-painted wall that reads "666: All Bow To Satin!"

It made me feel good to browse other people's failure because it's much easier for me to identify with these kind of things than it is stories of victory and conquer. I'm not saying I'm not inspired by those kinds of things..sometimes I need a little dose of Ziglar to kick my depressed butt back into gear (and sometimes I'm doing the kicking for some other loved one of mine.)

Today however it was nice to see a whole bunch of other humans falling down coming out of the blocks and making the most impossible but totally understandable blunders ever. Like this one...(here but for the grace of God go I)

Channel 9 news reports on housefire: Georgia man tries to clean cobwebs with blow torch.

Why Then Matters

2009-03-16T14:00:00.003-04:00

For most of my Christian life I haven't worried to much about what happens next. In fact growing up the only real reflection I had on the subject was getting scared into salvation (it was all for the good though) at the tender age of seven or so by a fire-breathing, beating-the-pulpit with-a-belt, "you've got three minutes to come to this altar" preacher and then of course all the streets of gold hymns we did on Sunday. So my early thoughts/training on hell were "heck no, I don't wanna go" and on heaven "I've a home prepared where the saints abide, just over in the glory land."

Now as a pastor, I've fallen into a mode of theology on the subject of eschatology and eternal life, that I will call the "I'll worry about that later" method. A phrase commonly passed among preachers (and Christians in general it seems) is "don't worry about Heaven because heaven will take care of itself." Let's face it, thats the easiest way to take care of that sticky and difficult issue, because a surface reading of the scripture can leave one confused and more than willing to be reliant on folk-stories and what Grandma had to say on the subject than reality.

Unfortunately, I am being constantly bombarded by the impetus to get my act together and actually explore, assimilate and attempt to understand something about a subject that compared to others we spend time debating ad-nauseaum (like the right way to apply water to people in baptism or the "proper" way to partake of the Lord's Supper) might actually matter a whole lot. Most of the impeti (thats the plural of impetus that I just made up) that spur me on, are on one hand an almost complete apathy to the subject among most of the people of faith I converse with and on the other hand what I perceive to be a lot of really bad theology from most of the rest of those who actually may care a little bit. Honestly though I only "think" or have the opinion that their theology is bad since I admittedly have not studied or invested too much brain into the matter.

So...there are two questions weighing with me that I hope to explore via this blog, over the next 34 years or so (thats called a series with some weight):

1. What comes next? I mean, once we die, what happens then?
2. What about now? What about this world?

Because I greatly admire his work, I am going to begin this journey by exploring a book by Bishop N.T. Wright (The Bishop of Durham) titled Suprised By Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Ressurection, and the Mission of the Church. Interestingly enough, its the perfect book to at least begin my journey (I'm sure this won't be the only one worth exploring) since the Bishop prefaces his book by stating the two questions that drove him to write on the topic.

1. What are we waiting for?
2. What are we going to do about it in the meantime?
(do those sound familiar?)

My belief going in (which I'm sure will be challenged along the way) is that this topic is of the upmost importance and relevance. Because among other things, what we believe about the future drastically effects the way we act, behave and live today.

I will attempt to post at least twice a week on the topic and will always lead with the same title amended with a part #. Hopefully it will be fun for at least three of you and that if interested you will invite others into the conversation to read, comment and journey along with us. I will look at chapter one of the aformentioned book titled "All dressed up and no place to go."

I Had No Idea!

2009-03-12T16:14:00.002-04:00

Last night I went to small group. It's a group of people I meet with once a week from church...good people who are becoming friends. The group's not really all that small which makes me wonder why we call it "small group."

I was a little bit out of sorts going in, tired and missing my wife who had to stay home with our sick daughter. And then to top it off, I find out that the world as we know it is ending on December 21, 2012. I'm glad someone thought to mention it last night in passing because this is the first I had heard of it.

Just now as I was finishing my work day up, I remembered the impending demise of the earth and the humanity that inhabits it, and decided to do a little research. You know you can't just take everything you hear as gospel. When one's life and everyone and everything that one loves is at stake, it pays for one to check out the facts for oneself. But come to find out, sure enough, after just a little digging and finding the official website of the end of the world, death and destruction is indeed just thirteen hundred seventy nine days, nineteen hours, forty minutes and forty seconds away.

(Short disclaimer here: No matter when you read this post, the countdown predictor listed here will not be accurate, so please check out this link here to get an up to date, personalized and time-relevant prediction. In fact if you are reading this anytime after December 21, 2012, you are probably one of a few wealthy and forward thinking humans who managed to escape to Mars, sometime before the end of the age.)

My research revealed that indeed all of the predictors that I normally rely on so heavily all point to this date as the final date for homo-sapheonic activity:

Ancient Mayan cyclical calendars- Check (Make sure you get the iPhone app Mayanical if you haven't already)
Ancient Egyptians- Check ("Me and Tutuncommon seen this coming a long way back")
NASA Prediction of increased sunspots and flares- Check

My only concern, cause for pause was there was no mention of the necessary "meteor the size of Texas." How does anyone (or anything) expect to pull off this kind of colossal disaster without that indispensable item? Well come to find out the world is not ending completely. Evidently...

"...a polar reversal will cause the north to become the south and the sun to rise in the west. Shattering earthquakes, massive tidal waves and simultaneous volcanic eruptions will follow. Nuclear reactors will melt, (YOU HAD TO SEE THAT ONE COMING) buildings will crumble, and a cloud of volcanic dust will block out the sun for 40 years. (40's a nice round biblical number) Only the prepared will survive, Geryl said, and not even all of them." Source ABC News: Christine Bower- July 3, 2008.

Now, I have a lot of preparing to do, so I'll sign off...I do have a few nagging thoughts as a father and pastor that I'll try to address in a post next week. But if you want to join me in getting started, let me give you a heads up...water purifiers, wheelbarrows, dust masks and vegetable seeds.

I'm That Kid

2009-03-11T08:36:00.002-04:00

Last year I was sitting on the couch and my oldest son walked in...he's twelve and he was steaming. Now, he was trying to hide it from me, but one look and I knew something was going on. Me, "What's up dude?" Him, "Nothing." So I had to pry a little bit, but his soft-heart was no match for my super-advanced daddy skills. He broke pretty easy. "When we were at the park, someone hurt Reagan and I didn't get there in time to help him." Reagan is his youngest brother, my middle son, the ten year old. So after a few minutes trying to calm him down, I went to check on Reagan.

Sure enough, he was hurt. Evidently in a game of football a couple of guys decided to gang up on him at the park. Two guys from his school, that's directly across the street from the park. One of them held him, while the other pounded on him a little bit. The real pain he said came from "being bent over backwards...it really hurt my shoulder." I asked him who did it, and he told me his name. We prayed and talked about it and decided that our best course of action was just not to play with him anymore when an adult wasn't around. What he didn't know was the rage that was flowing through my veins.

Now every time I dropped Reagan off at school, I saw the lead bully. I wanted to get out of the car and smack him. Or at the very least, pull him to the side and give him a "if you ever do anything like that again, you'll be sorry" talk. I decided however to stick with the original plan the victim and I had decided on after prayer.

About a month after the incident, I took the kids to the park, and there was a game of kickball going on. Both the guys that hurt my guy were there. Reagan really wanted to play, and since I was there I let him. I sat their fuming as I watched that kid...and everything he did in the game reinforced what a little punk he was. He cheated..he bullied...he cursed..he pushed...he taunted. Finally I couldn't take anymore, and while he was pushing another kid off the base so he could tag him out, I yelled out, "c'mon leave him alone and play fair!"

I've thought about him a lot and it's been almost a year now.

This morning I dropped Reagan and Sheridan off and this punk kid was being dropped off in front of me. Immediately I was overwhelmed with the same emotions and then just when everything was almost back at the surface..as he was walking off, he turned back and waved to his mom. He smiled and said "I love you."

A like a flood I realized...that's exactly the way Reagan waves to me and his mom when we drop him off. And like a flood I realized...that's exactly the way I waved to my mom when she dropped me off. And then I remembered that I bullied and I taunted and I cheated and I cursed and I pushed. And then I remembered...

What Are the Questions?

2009-03-10T10:57:00.005-04:00

Christians bug me sometimes. I love all of them (or I am trying to) of course but some of them just bug me. Mostly it's the ones that seem to have all the answers...to any question on God and God's world that one may have. I get the idea that they have got it all nailed down just so...and that's so different from my own experience that I just get...well, bugged.

My experience with God has not been one that has progressed toward confusion...that's not what I want to say, but I have found that God and the mystery of God is both something that doesn't necessarily clear up as my life with Him progresses and I don't want it too. God is not something to be "figured out" because we figure out things not people and God is a personal being. The beauty of God's mystery many times makes me long for more mystery rather than more clarity.

So I've been thinking a lot about objective truth (which I believe we can find) and mystery (which I believe we do not covet enough) and answers (which I believe we are too quick to give, to our detriment as Christians) and questions (which I believe many of us don't spend enough brain and spirit power ((for some of us read any)) reflecting upon.

So in the interest of encouraging an environment of healthy question-asking I'm thinking about some first-order questions (maybe later we can talk about the second and third order variety) that we should be asking:

I remember early on learning (in church I believe) about the basic questions that humans ask:

1. Who Am I
2. Why Am I Here

3. Where Am I going

Worthy questions for sure and a good place maybe to start...as I often say, "if you don't know where you are going, how will you know when you don't get there." Recently I stumbled across another set of questions, that are just a little better filled out, and for those inclined to reflect, might provide a better springboard. In their book Beyond Homelessness: Christian Faith In a Culture of Displacement Steven Bouma-Prediger and Brian J. Walsh, motivated by the topic of the importance of "home" list the following questions, and I have added some additional reflections to the questions. I love this set of questions because I believe it works both for followers of the Christian faith (like me) and equally well for those that are journeying without that faith as a base. I encourage all of us to practice the discipline of questioning.

1. Where are we? What is the nature of the world? Is this a safe or an insecure place? Is our life here a temporary way station in a larger cosmic process, or is this world and this life all we've got? Is this world experienced as home for human beings?

2. Who are we? What does it mean to be human? How do we relate to the "other." What makes for human flourishing and well-being? If humans are homemakers, what does fully human habitation look like?

3. What's wrong? How do we account for the brokenness of life, for evil, for anti-social behavior (as determined by one's worldview)? What is it that most profoundly renders us homeless?

4. What's the remedy? How do we find a path through brokenness, chaos, and insecurity so that life can be secure and whole again? Where and how might we find homecoming?

Ten years ago, I would have ripped off several confident paragraphs answering the above questions. Now I am reveling in the questions. Still confident that there are answers and that God is not trying to trick me but now also sure that I might not ever fully answer all of them.

God is good and "without controversy great is the mystery of Godliness."

Magnificent is Magnificent!

2009-03-06T15:53:00.003-05:00

Three days after its release, U2's latest album No Line On The Horizon (NLOTH) has offered at least one track that is really propelling me forward. As soon as I heard track 2, "Magnificent" I knew it was a hit for my soul..and it came at just the right time.

Since it's basically a a dance-rock song, you can really move to it and Edge makes juice out of it with a whole lot of that classic U2 delay that my ears crave. Lyrically it's just a straight up praise song about the "magnificence" of God in the tradition of Psalm 66:1, Psalm 81:1 and Psalm 100:1 just to name a few. It shares one phrase in particular from all of those passages as Bono sings:
"I was born to sing for you / I didn't have a choice but to lift you up / And sing whatever song you wanted me to / I give you back my voice / From the womb my first cry, it was a joyful noise."

Whats the point the Psalmist and Bono seem to be making? God is so magnificent that Bono, Kevin, all of us can't help but sing for joy. Its a modern day doxology...its a dance-rock miracle and its a must listen.

Arise: An Art Experience

2009-03-05T10:36:00.003-05:00

I am so flipping excited about the following:

On March 29th we are inviting the people of Northeast Community Church to submit original art of any kind to be displayed and integrated into our weekend worship experience that Sunday. ARISE: An Art Experience is at its core just a commission. It's us encouraging us to be what we are...creative beings.

As I watch my three kids regularly spout out and manufacture the most amazing ideas, I often wonder "why does that kind of genius dry up in most people as we age?" It seems like the only reason we get less creative as we grow older is that for many of us there is no stage or gallery for our art. I hope that ARISE will provide that place of display for the people of NECC.

Art and creativity should be a natural product of creative beings. If we believe (which I do the very tip of who I am) that we were created in the very image of God, and if I believe that God is the most creative person that has ever existed, then I must necessarily believe that I was born to create. So with ARISE we are really just encouraging people to "do what comes naturally to you." I firmly believe that some of our area's greatest artists are undiscovered and undercover. We don't know who they are, but we MUST find out. I hope that ARISE will be helpful in their discovery.

As a pastor I regularly hear things like, "I just can't stand my same-old-same-old life" or "it feels like my life has just become about merely putting one foot in front of the other." Yeah...I get that, but it's art and the beauty and energy that art produces in us that breaks us out of the routine into lives of exploration and REAL production. So if ARISE will enable at least a few people, who feel locked in the cycle of work and sleep followed by more work and sleep, to find the creative outlet they have been looking for, then it will have been wildly successful. Even more so if it becomes and inspiration for lifestyles for art and creativity.

I have always found that creativity gives birth to even more creativity, so my excitement is not just for the new art that will be on display on March 29th at West Rocks Middle School Auditorium in Norwalk, but even more for the beauty and art that will find its origin and inspiration in that day.

Well I Never!

2009-02-25T18:35:00.003-05:00

Today was a day of firsts. I have never participated (much less led) an Ash Wednesday service and never "given anything up for Lent" before. Both of those happened today and I feel, well, a little bit richer.

Being a non-Catholic raised in a fairly non-traditional Christian environment, I must admit always being a little bit jealous of the cool people with the dark marks on their foreheads who magically appeared to my envy 40 days before every Easter. Last year I came very close to participating myself while visiting an Ash Wednesday service at Yale Divinity School, but didn't want to incur the wrath of God (or any zealous seminarians) who might see through to my non-traditional core. This year however as a pastor leading a church toward Easter, I dug in a little bit and discovered that not only is this day (and its accompanying ceremonies) an important one for us as Christians but that even if only in a introductory way, I wanted to taste it for myself and invite our church community to sample as well.

The beauty of being a non/inter-denominational church is that we are not held hostage by any (well almost not any) ridiculous bondages and/or vestiges of the past, but at the same time we are constantly presented with the various religious traditions of those who have become a part of our community. Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent which is a season that allows Christians to identify with Christ in his suffering and to anticipate the greatest day and event in human history. In our small prayer service today, we didn't actually administer ashes, but faithful (I think) to the spirit of the day and the tradition, we did write down things that we wanted to lay down and give up (lust, fear, greed, worry, doubt, jealousy, hatred to name a few) on pieces of paper, set them on fire and let them burn in a canister. We didn't think through the type of paper carefully enough and had several near human flesh burnings, which would have added a very interesting slightly pagan-type human sacrifice feel to the service. As I watched my paper burn, I did feel free of that thing for that moment, a feeling made especially strong by the reality of Easter Day that this ceremony looked toward.

I am giving up Dr. Pepper and alcohol for Lent. Lent is 40 days, which is inspired by Jesus's 40 days of fasting in the desert. So by giving something up I am identifying with Christ, but maybe even more importantly for me, I am reminded that "Easter is coming"...every day for 40 days. Easter should never sneak up on us and too often in our lives it does...so perhaps this year that will be different for me. Since it's a new practice for me, i didn't encourage any of our congregation or even my own family to participate. It's a religious experiment...I will report back at the end.

Alcohol won't be hard...frankly I'm not that much of a drinker, but Dr.Pepper...the nectar of the gods....that's gonna bite a bit. Those of you that are the praying type...please do so on my behalf. I am reminded that Jesus said, when tempted by the devil, "man shall not live by Dr. Pepper alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" so I pray....speak God... speak.

Someone must love me

2009-02-20T09:13:00.002-05:00

Tuesday I took the day off and spent it traversing here and there all day with my family. It started nutritiously at the local McDonalds and after fulfilling my quota of cholesterol for the month, it was off to Cranbury Park for a little hike through the woods.

The kids took turns leading the hike and my two boys took turns torturing their little sister with statements like "it looks like someone might be buried here." (We are still working hard to instill Mullins family value #2, namely "Charity" into all of us ) Then off to Reagan's favorite Southeast-Asian establishment, which turned into a Tweet Up with @lianed and her son.

The rest of the day was libraries and movies (Coraline in 3D is pretty nice) and chocolate, but somewhere in the middle of the day was the moment you see in the picture above. My beautiful six year old came and read to me while we were at our favorite big box book store (Borders.) I guess it wasn't enough that she is so beautiful or that she is mine, because just to push the pleasure envelope as far as it could go...the book she picked? "I Love You, Daddy."

Harken O Ye Breaker of the Commandments!

2009-02-18T09:21:00.005-05:00

When it comes to comebacks (you know saying something mean and snappy in reply to someone who says something mean and snappy) there are really three ways to respond:

1. Do the right thing and be the bigger person realizing that getting caught in the snappy comeback cycle will not provide much redemption anyway. (As a pastor, in the interest of promoting the way of Jesus, I would recommend this method, but I know only approximately .002% of the population actually will.)

2. Think of something really cool we could have said sometime after the transaction is over.

3. Think of something while the transaction is taking place but later realize that we could have done much better than "well yeah..well...you...you suck."

For those that insist on responding with some variation of either methods 2 or 3 let me recommend the Biblical Curse Generator. (thanks to my friend Ben Witherington for the alert). Now not only can you reply with something immediately, but your snappy response will have some real sting and weight to it. Anytime one begins a snappy reply with either "take heed" or "harken", people are going to take notice of what's to come.

So an example conversation:

John: We'll I hope you have a nice day

Bill: We'll I hope YOU have a nice day

John: I'm not sure why you took offense at that but since you did I hope you fall off a curb and damage your ankles

Bill: (recalling earlier study of the Biblical Curse Generator) Well may you be captured by Midianite maniacs, thou relative of Herod.

You can see how decisive and quick the victory for Bill would have been in this example.

So I hope this helps.

My Life Story Appears On Woot

2009-02-13T10:28:00.003-05:00

It's rare that I would just paste in something that I didn't write...but when you just happen across your life story online, you really can't help but share.

My wife was visiting woot this morning. If you don't know www.woot.com is a cool place to go every day. They feature one product (a very diverse set of products) every day at a great price and its first come first served to get one. Anyway, she immediately emailed me when she saw my life story in print written by another. So as she gave to me, now I give to you. The story of Kevin Mullins life appropriately titled:

"Once upon a time, in a magical land known as Texas, there was a little armadillo named Kevin, who was kind and good and worked in an office."

Each afternoon, Kevin would walk out of his office and head to the cafeteria, whistling a happy song. “What’s the special today, Kevin?” asked the friendly badger who kept track of paper clips and pens. “I hear the mahi mahi’s really good!” said the cheerful dolphin that handled the accounting issues. “Make sure they save me some bamboo!” said the pleasant panda with the desk beside the bathrooms. Kevin was always happy when he walked to lunch because it reminded him that he had so many animal friends.

But there was one animal that never talked to Kevin. An animal that almost never talked to anybody. And that was the hamster who worked in the creative department. Each day, the hamster would arrive around noon, already drunk, and would walk to his office as quickly as possible. “Please don’t take the pens home even by accident!” called the friendly badger without looking up. “Try not to claim so many invalid expenses on your next business trip!” said the dolphin a little too loud. “Oh my GOD stop hitting on me you smell like cedar chips and eat your YOUNG!” said the pleasant panda. And every day, this would made Kevin feel sad, because he was a kind and good armadillo and he knew that the hamster had the potential to be an excellent employee if only properly trained.

One day, Kevin opened a box to find some Ed Hardy 1:12 Scale RC Cars. Kevin loved cars, especially cars with working headlights and functional brake lights, so he decided to take his lunch early. Kevin looked at the Mercedes SLR, the BMW M6, and the Lamborghini Murcielago each available in two different colors. It was so hard to choose his favorite! Finally he grabbed one at random and headed to the parking lot.

Once Kevin arrived in the parking lot, however, all thoughts of an afternoon spent enjoying the built in speaker that provided engine noises and a real working horn were instantly forgotten. Because there, on the curb, was the poor hamster, all alone, listening to Morrissey, and crying. Kevin walked over and sat down.

“What’s wrong?” Kevin asked the hamster. The hamster looked up with tears in his furry eyes. “No one here likes me, Kevin! No one at all!”
“That’s not true!” lied Kevin. “Everyone likes you!” And not knowing what else to do, Kevin handed the hamster the RC controller. “Would you like to drive my Ed Hardy 1:12 Scale RC Car?”

The hamster was shocked. “Really? You let me do that? You don’t even care that I eat my young?”
“Well, I have to admit that’s kind of creepy,” replied Kevin. “But friendship is about overcoming differences to find a common ground!” And as he said this, he handed the hamster the included Ed Hardy Decal Sheets. “So why don’t we sit out here and decorate the car together?” And that’s just what they did.

So from then on, every day around noon, Kevin would tell the friendly badger about the special, offer to taste the mahi mahi for the cheerful dolphin, and be sure to save some bamboo for the pleasant panda. But he would always spend the last fifteen minutes of his lunch break in the parking lot with his new friend the hamster, racing the well-decorated Ed Hardy 1:12 Scale RC Car, together. And never again did the hamster tell anyone what he had packed for lunch.

Bob Dylan and St. Valentine

2009-02-12T19:51:00.002-05:00

With Valentines day two days away, I was thinking of music that speaks to my heart in regard to my sweetheart. Although I can't speak to the video that goes on behind it, this song written by Bob Dylan "The Great", delivers much of my essence in regard to Jacinta Ann Glenn-Mullins...

In verse 3 Dylan writes:

"I'd go hungry I'd go black and blue
I'd go crawling down the avenue
No, there's nothing that I wouldn't do
To make you feel my love"

Well said Bob...enjoy.

I love you Jacinta

My First AA Meeting

2009-01-26T15:27:00.003-05:00

So I went to my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting last night. My friend invited me to be there to celebrate his two-year sobriety anniversary. There were about ten celebrants in all and it was an amazing experience. I was so positively impacted that I wondered "do I have to be an alcoholic to come back?" (I'm not making light here...just relaying an actual thought that went through my head.)

Some celebrants were celebrating 90 days, a few one year, a couple of two years (my friend among them) and a couple of five years. So that I don't keep saying how great it was without giving any reasoning...this is why I was so hard hit:

1. Stories- One of the traditions of these "anniversary celebrations" (not sure that's the right lingo) is for one or two of the celebrants to invite a speaker to speak on their behalf. Both speakers were good but one (actually the sister of my friend) told an extraordinary story of demise and recovery. Her story began "I am the daughter of two alcoholics" and went from there to tell of loss upon loss upon loss. The rock-bottoms for her were putting her kids and her in a position of having no electricity in their house and ultimately ending up in a shelter with her children. As she described her life...all I could do was cry..but the tears were not just sympathetic but also joyful, because her story also included the current place she finds herself on her journey...5 years sober...homeowner...engaged to marry a very good guy...hardworking/recognized employee. To see redemption in person is unforgettable.

2. Love- These people love each other. Not just because they know the dirt (although that might help) but more because they are committed to each others futures. Once you get ten years sober it would seem to me that one would be less likely to make meetings. The ten-year variety however (I was told last night) keep coming around for (among other things I'm sure) the benefit of the newbies and those that aren't so far along. Their love is demonstrated in tough words. They don't avoid saying the hard things and I noticed that in this group they were committed to what I have been calling lately the ten-percent conversations (Thank you Andy Stanley...I think.) Those are the ones where you say what you are actually thinking rather than the 90 percent/polite conversations the rest of us are used to having all the time. At first I thought to myself "this is what tough-love looks like" but by the time I left I was thinking "this is what love looks like. "

3. Energy- Redemption evidently is an energy-creator. The room was absolutely charged with this under-girding of energy. Part of it I'm sure was due to some of the crowd that some of us might think were a little rough (one guy dropped his coffee and got a little rowdy for a bit as a result) but more of it was due to (I think) the feeling that "something is happening here."

I like to try to remember remarkable things that I hear...here are a few from the night.

1. "It's a freakin' miracle" (shouted when one two year celebrant was introduced.)
2. "I finally reached my absolute bottom for the last time" (I don't know if this statement was intentionally ironic but it worked regardless.)
3. "He kept coming back"- (to describe a guy who started the program hundreds of times before it "stuck"
4. "I didn't want to say anything because I didn't think they would respect me"- (this was remarkable speaker describing her first AA meeting experience. This was a statement that stood out to me because she lived in a shelter at the time and had literally lost everything due to her drug and alcohol addiction.

More than anything I think i was moved because the night was bathed in God. All I could think of the whole night was "if anyone is in Christ, they are created anew...the old has passed away and the new has come." As we ended the night reciting The Lords Prayer together all I could say was ..."Amen."

My Favorite Bagpipe Moment

2008-12-04T13:54:00.002-05:00

It's the second week of Advent and for those that work for churches, it's an especially busy season. There was a time that I was so busy during the holiday season that when it was over, I just felt drained and empty...exactly the opposite of how one should feel after coming through this glorious season of expectation followed by glorious light.

So I made a change a few years back...I do the best job I can as a pastor during the season, while still paying very close attention to the wonderful things going on at home...with my kids and beauiful wife. I also have intentionalized letting the season wash over me, instead of letting it drive me. Seasons and celebrations were made for us not the other way around...they are for our benefit and for the glory of God, not so that we can be thrown in every direction and left with our tongues wagging and spirits sagging.

So I let it wash over me...it's kind of a reverse humbuggery. I watch carefully for signs of joy...my daughter seeing the Rockettes for the first time...a destitute family that gets a suprise gift of food for the month...the uplifted hands and faces in worship as we sing "light and life to all He brings, risen with healing in His wings." Then when I see the joy, I embrace it...I stare hard into it...I bask in it and let it wash over me.

I wanted to share the overflow of some of that joy that I got last night as I prepared for this weekend's worship service. The second Sunday in Advent. This week we will light the candle of faith and will feature "O Come All Ye Faithful" instrumentalized by my friend Matt Davis the bagpiper. It should be very, very cool.

As we practiced last night, I remembered two things:

1. Never practice with a bagpiper, while standing directly next to the bagpiper, without first investing in a first-rate set of ear plugs...very loud
2. My favorite bagpipe moment, which in the spirit of the season I now give to you.

Emulation 2 Innovation

2008-08-14T14:03:00.003-04:00

As a pastor, speaker and worship leader, I have been making the difficult journey from emulation to innovation. Early on as a singer I would pattern my voice after a small group of those I admired including the handsome lad pictured above. Anyone when they first start public speaking has an image in their head usually inspired by another speaker. I have had pastors that I have admired and wanted to pattern myself after. There comes a time at a certain age (I must be there) where one stops being as concerned with others and more focused on who they are called to be.

In that light, I recently stumbled across a nice paragraph by a pastor I admire by the name of Craig Groeschel. He writes:

Who I’ll Never Be

I’ll never be as a great a leader as Bill Hybels.
I’ll never be as deep as John Piper.
I’ll never be as smart as Mark Driscoll.
I’ll never be as creative as Ed Young.
I’ll never be as passionate as Steven Furtick.
I’ll never be as funny as Perry Noble.
I’ll never write like Erwin McManus.
I’ll never preach on one point as amazingly as Andy Stanley.
I’ll never have as big of arms as Bishop Eddie Long.
I’ll never be as Purpose Driven as Rick Warren.
I’ll never be as positive as Joel Osteen.

Thankfully, I’m not called by God to be any of those people!

And neither are you!

Although I can’t be them, God has created me with the ability to:

Cast a compelling vision and move people radically toward Christ.
Recognize talent and gifts in people most overlook.
Reach people for Christ who are far from God.

I won't put down right now what God has created me with the ability to do..some of that info is still being gathered...some is clearer than yesterday, but I do know that I am uniquely created to do somethings better than anyone else can...so are you. So here we go!

The Robbie Seay Band

2008-07-23T10:43:00.002-04:00

I want to highly recommend that everyone rush right out and buy everything from The Robbie Seay Band. Sell all your worldly possessions if necessary. It's rare that a band hits me as hard and moves me as much as their newest release "Give Yourself Away" has.

I saw The Robbie Seay Band (its pronounced "see) perform at a conference in Chicago a while back and have been giving more than half of my iPhone listening time to them since (the other half going to Viva La Vida.)

Fresh...they write songs designed for singing and for singing in groups...and since music was made for singing, I say "good work Seay band." In addition to "Song of Hope" which is the big radio hit, don't miss the tracks "Rise" and "New Day" off this release.

Jesus For President

2008-07-17T16:28:00.002-04:00

I am coming out of a long hiatus (I can't believe I didn't blog for a month) to talk politics. Yes I am going to tell you who to vote for so get ready! I am often influenced by one of the great (and oft criticized) Christian thinkers of our time, Brian McClaren. This morning, I stumbled across this wonderful article, that thinking Christians would do well to read as we Americans continue toward this soon-to-be-highly-charged November election.

Here is an excerpt from the article where Brian addresses his Christian friends who have decided not to vote, explaining why he chooses otherwise:

1. True, there are plenty of reasons to be disillusioned with U.S. politics (corptocracy and plutocracy being major ones). But in my travels in other countries it has become clear to me that even though our system has a lot of problems (and that was a gentle understatement), many other nations are far more corrupt, far less transparent, etc. If we in the U.S. don't try to make our system work, we're setting a pretty poor example. Besides, in every other area of my life -- church, family, business, etc. -- I don't let disappointment or disillusionment or setbacks make me withdraw into inaction. Rather, I become more committed to make things work.

2. I don't expect any candidate to be perfect. In fact, my theological beliefs tell me that I will always be choosing between the lesser of two evils -- or more positively put, the better of two less-than-perfects. The fact that candidates are willing to endure the hard work, the media scrutiny, the pressure, the responsibility -- of both the election and the office -- can be seen as a sign of something good. After all, if all a candidate cared about was personal peace, personal comfort, or personal wealth, there are a lot better ways to get ahead. So rather than say, "I don't think either candidate is good enough for my vote," I'm more prone to say, "Thank God people are willing to run at all, and thank God we have two candidates as good as the ones we have." We could be choosing between Mugabe and Mugabe.

3. I believe there is much to protest in our current system. But noninvolvement, it seems to me, generally empowers those who are in control. So non-voting becomes a kind of passive vote for the people in power.

4. I believe that a commitment to Christian discipleship should make me a better neighbor, employee, spouse, child, or parent, too. Similarly, I believe that "citizenship in God's kingdom" should make me the best kind of citizen possible, not the worst. Of course, because of my commitment to God's kingdom, I have a broader range of concerns than I would without that commitment. (More on this in the next post.) But I believe that those concerns would in the big scheme of things make me an even more valuable citizen. My civic responsibility would certainly not end with voting, but I can't see why it would stop short of voting either.

Read the whole article, but well said Brian!

Arise Arts Conference

2008-06-11T21:11:00.003-04:00

I am in South Barrington (let's just call it Chicago) Illinois this week for the Willow Creek Community Church arts conference...called Arise. Although I am not a big fan of mega-churches in general, Willow for me is definitely an example of a church that really "gets it." They do everything with excellence but more impressively for me, they have been one of a few leading the charge for 20 years or so in communicating the message of Christ in new yet faithful ways.

Today was amazing as we experienced an interactive walk through Psalm 40. In thirty minutes I was racked with every emotion a man is supposed to experience, and a few extras that I'm not sure we are. That roller coaster ended appropriately with U2's "40" and I was transported to 1986 for just a few minutes.

A little later Gilles St. Croix, one of the creative forces behind Cirque du Soleil talked for forty minutes about the creative process. Three great quotes from our time with him:

1. When talking about how hierarchy ceases within the effective creative process he said simply (and importantly for artists) "The best idea is the winner."

2. Second, when explaining how he and his team are regularly able to convince investors to invest unheard of amounts of money into producing new shows he said, "Unicity is the key."

3. When talking about the joy of teaching an under-resourced African child to juggle, he pointed out that everyone who has tried to juggle knows it is difficult and "Fighting gravity is a form of art."

The highlight of the day however for me by far was an hour long interview with Brian McClaren. Brian is a former pastor and a well-renowned author and speaker who I have much appreciation for. Although Christian blog world would like to label him heretic...I find him fresh yet faithful and I always leave a reading of his books inspired about Christ and his message.

Today, he did a summation of one of his newest books "Everything Must Change" which is controversial (among some Christians) where he lays out how he believes the church is only really the church when it is concerned with and in dialogue and action in the problems and opportunities our world is faced with. He spoke about three basic human desires (desire for Prosperity, Security and Equity) and three global crises that arise from those desires (The Crisis of the Planet, Peace and Poverty respectively.) It would be foolish to try to sum up the brilliance of this book, but thinking Christians need to buy and consume this book in order to reflect and respond.

What he is doing at its core is challenging status-quo Christianity. Today he spoke specifically to religious apathy that arises from faulty thinking like this; "God doesn't care if we care about our planet because he wants things to get worse so that it will all be over and we can go to Heaven and be done with it." (Paraphrase) He called out those who would trivialize the Gospel and say when faced with poverty that Jesus said "the poor you will have with you always." Again the problem is that this encourages apathy rather than action and has lead to Christians who would use that verse to excuse shrugging their shoulders and saying "what can one do?" As he pointed out this take on this saying of Jesus is really a distortion of what he is really saying and he pointed to the passage in Deuteronomy 15 that Jesus is quoting from...don't have time to do exposition on that passage but take a look...very interesting.

Finally, taking up theme I believe inspired primarily by the work of Bishop N. T. Wright he said that the Bible is not a book about salvation, but a book about the Kingdom of God...it is not a book about how we can escape this evil world to a far off and distant heaven but how we can instead pray and work towards God's will being done on earth as it is in heaven, how we can be a part of the "transformation of the planet." I couldn't agree more Brian.

Day one was for me both inspirational and confirmational...a day I needed.

Viva la Vida!

2008-05-08T13:05:00.002-04:00

I hate to buy into hype and recommend music that needs no help at the grassroots to sell ten millions of copies...but Coldplay's new cd will be worth purchasing. I have had a chance to review the first two ep's (the cd itself releases June 12th) Violet Hill and the title track Viva la Vida and they are what music has tended to cease to be of late for me....authentic, inspirational and spiritual. Coldplay as far as I know do not proceed from any specific faith base, in fact I think that Chris Martin (Mr Gwyneth Paltrow) has made some specifically agnostic comments, but he does wrestle with God and the things of God as reflected very heavily in the lyrics of both of the first two ep's.

Take for instance the following lyrics from Violet Hill:

Was a long and dark December

When the banks became cathedrals

And the fog

Became God

Priests clutched onto bibles

And went out to fit their rifles

And the cross was held aloft

In both this song and Viva la Vida Martin seems to be struggling with God and empire, which interestingly enough is a big part of my semi-regular musings...so good timing Chris!

Another similar line of thought emerges in Viva la Vida:

I hear Jerusalem's bells a ringing

Roman Cavalry choirs are singing

Be my Mirror, my Sword and Shield

My Missionaries in a foreign field

For some reason I can't explain

I know Saint Peter won't call my name

Never an honest word

but that was when I ruled the world

I highly rec commend this album..it may good for your brain and spirit, in a very non-religious way.

Earth Day Participation!

2008-04-30T10:33:00.006-04:00

A few people from our community got together and picked up diapers, wiffle bats and other odd and disgusting items from the Calf Pasture and Shady beaches in Norwalk. This was a spring initiative of the 1010Project, partnering with Save the Sound to care for God's green earth. It was a lot of fun. Check it out!

He Takes It Personal- Part Two

2008-04-16T12:14:00.003-04:00

(Read Part One if you haven't, or this won't make sense...might not make sense anyway but at least give yourself a fighting chance.)

So when thinking and talking about God, our culture seems to lapse into two alternative and I believe dangerous views of God.

1. Deism- The idea of a distant, detached and altogether uninterested divine being

2. Pantheism- The idea that God is in everything and everyone

I said last time that I hoped to argue against both of these views using Romans 5:6-8 as a springboard.

The passage says "6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. "

There are several phrases where I believe Paul is pointing out the very personal nature of God's love and interaction with us. First of all, the timing of his love was "at just the right time." This does not at all have the feeling of a one size fits all, detached divine act, and "I hope you get some of that" instead it as very specific, once and for all our relevant time frames act. When is just the right time? That seems to indicate A. Then, B. Now and C. When. So all the the things in our past...that's covered. All of our present situations and experiences...also taken care of. What about all those future happenings...covered as well.

After a short parenthetical statement where Paul fills out a little compare and contrast exercise, Paul deals just one of what I believe are hundreds of possible death blows to the God of Deism. He does it in describing the kind of Love that God has for us...he calls it "His Very Own Love."

So instead of the God of Deism that is unattached, uninterested, aloof---I see here an absolutely engaged and present God ….concerned with each of us, in our different stages of life and spiritual development….preparing a way to the fullest life possible…..

What about the Pantheist view that God is in everything and in everyone? My first philosophy class was a class in metaphysics were the professor began the class by holding up a piece of chalk and saying “who am I in relation to this piece of chalk”---“who am I in relation to this desk that my hand is resting on right now”----and I was thinking…"I don’t know…a moron?” He would go on to say that our deepest understanding would be one where we realized that God is in everyone and and in everything…the reason that we care for the trees and the grass and the fish and our fellow man is that god is in all of them and in all of us. Now I think that there are a lot of good reasons to care for Gods green earth….and I believe we better get serious about caring for this place God made us stewards of….but the reason for this is not because I believe that God is in everything and in everyone.

I met someone last week who explained to me that we are all angels and that he loved me like one angel loves another…I said…"You don’t know me very well do you?"

Instead of this dangerous alternative pantheistic view of God…in the Scriptures countless places we see a very singular focus. For sake of space I would point to this very succinct phrase from John 3:16. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes on Him should not perish but have everlasting life."

We see here a very singularly focused. Where is love...where is God...Right here focused in the person of Jesus Christ. Many other places in both testaments would make this same point. The Romans passage above makes it clear...God demonstrates His Love....Christ.

He Takes It Personal- Part One

2008-04-02T11:49:00.004-04:00

C. S. Lewis described thinking and talking about God being like "staring into the sun." You know, you have to squint, it's kind of hard to see and sometimes you don't really see that well at all for a little while, once you're done staring. I agree...

Many times we assume that we know what we mean we use the word God or talk about God, but if we think about what that word means, we don’t always see so clearly…."God is so bright, I’ve gotta' wear shades" And so it is…our culture is very confused about who God is and perhaps which space God belongs in. Where do we put God? There seem to be two options that people lapse into. Two alternative and dangerous views of God:

1. A Deist God- Deism- Although my philosophical side would like to spend a whole bunch of time writing about the Age of Enlightenment and Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson…I think most of you would rather have a root canal so…..lets say it this way….One very common view people have of God is a Deist God. A God that is a long way away from where we are, who may have made the world conceivably but is actually detached from the world and not particularly interested in it. If you go out on the street and ask people do you believe in God (I think like 85 percent of Americans answer yes to that question)….this is the sort of God most have in their mind and think that you are talking about.

Most of the people that say no when asked that same question , when asked the follow up question, "Tell me about this God that you don’t believe in” pretty accurately describe this same kind of God…the God of 18th century deism…far away, apathetic and grumpy God. This is a God who is pretty upset with us most of the time and who might have invented a way to stop being so upset with us all the time and that may have something to do with this person called Jesus, but the whole story is bizarre and violent and nasty and we don’t much like that…This is option one-- The Deist Option- This is certainly not the Biblical or Christian option.

Another very popular option in our culture is:

2. An Pantheist God- Pantheism- Pantheism is a very ancient view and goes something like this: "There is divinity all around us." "There is the divine in everything and in everyone." So the aim with this option is to get in touch with this interior divinity, this divine nature which is around us or within us or in the air or in the trees or in the river. This is a very old and serious philosophy..embraced by these ancient thinkers called the stoics and embraced by many people today. There are problems a plenty within pantheism, maybe we address that some other time, but you’ve heard this option right? "God is in everything and if I want to touch God I just need to get in touch with nature and with my inner self and with the inner selves of those around me."

In my next posting I will argue that God is neither distant and detached or in everything and everyone, using Romans 5:6-8 as a springboard.

Guilty By Association?

2008-03-28T00:21:00.003-04:00

It's been interesting to watch how much pressure has been put on Obama to radically separate himself from his former pastor Jeremiah Wright. (This is not a comment on whether or not Obama is the right person to be president or on the accuracy or offensiveness of Wright's comments.) What is interesting however is how important it is to humanity to make people choose sides.

"You gotta let me know right now where you stand...you're either in or you're out...you're with them or you're with me."

On a much humbler and not near as important a level I have found this to be the case in my own life. As I have journeyed in my personal spirituality and have found myself influenced by a wide variety of religious and secular thinkers, I am now very cautious on what names I drop in conversations. For instance if I say "I read something very interesting the other day by Rob Bell" 5 times out of 10 in my circle of pastoral friends and acquaintances the question is, "well did you know that he denies the virgin birth?" Now I usually don't even go through the motions of explaining or defending the person anymore (or explaining, to fill out this example that this charge is actually baseless) because that person believes what they believe and all that matters at that point is who side I am on.

There are numerous other examples. Brian McClaren is too pluralistic. Erwin McManus is too mystical. Pope Benedict is too Catholic. Ellen Degeneres is too gay.

So Obama can't just distance himself from the statements...he needs to sacrifice his friendship and love for this man on the altar of what....?...this is absurd, inhumane and not following God in the way of Jesus.

Jesus...remember he was the one that wasn't really into picking sides (naturally speaking that is) he was just as likely to be found with a group of people of ill-repute as he was those who had their doctrinal t's and i's taken care of.

So...Obama went further than I think he should have...but he stopped short of complete surrender on this count, so...?

I Meant To...

2008-03-26T11:42:00.004-04:00

Last Wednesday as a part of Holy Week I was honored to deliver a message on the fourth last word of Jesus from the Cross; namely "My God, My God Why Have You Forsaken Me." A new pastor friend from the French Speaking Baptist Church in South Norwalk, CT made the request and I was extremely humbled to speak.

It's an incident that happened earlier that day that I was thinking about again this morning. As I was telling everyone I knew about my mission that night a friend of mine said to me "I would really like to go down there tonight with you to support you, but I'm not inclined to go down there with you tonight to support you."

Now the point is definitely not that my friend should have gone, because she like everyone had plenty to do that night, and I had not given anyone ample notice to make plans like that.

My thoughts today are on the difference between wanting or wishing to do things and actually doing them. I think of Jesus saying to some of his followers, "Why do you call me Lord but never actually do what I ask you to do."

One of my favorite Christian philosophers/thinkers Dallas Willard speaks of this idea in regard to pursuing spiritual transformation. He wants to say that Christ was serious when he said that when placing our ultimate trust in Him and following Him, the result would be "a new creation...that the old self would be gone and everything would become new." Willard goes on to say that this does not just happen by osmosis or by approximating one's body to a church building once a week or so.

He proposes a method or curriculum for Christlikeness called the VIM Method (for those not religiously inclined I think this has relevance to anything you would want to achieve although maybe not a perfect parallel.)

Grossly oversimplified for bloggification purposes:

V- Vision- One must have a picture of where one wants to go

I- Intention- One must actually decide to pursue that vision; actually deciding to do it.

M- Means- One must fill out that intention with actual steps and tools

So the reason that for all her wishing my friend was not able to attend my message last Wednesday, was for all her wishing, and although she had a brief vision of what that night might look like, she had no intention of coming and therefore did not employ the means necessary to arrive.

Dying Man's Last Lecture

2008-03-12T10:43:00.001-04:00

Every time he could...(There Will Be Blood)

2008-03-05T20:28:00.003-05:00

Sunday afternoon I went to the Garden Cinema in Norwalk to see this years multi-Oscar nominee. I had been wanting to go for a while and a few friends went with....I wasn't disappointed. This movie was so well made, the cinematography was nothing short of captivating and Daniel Day Lewis proved again that he is the best actor of our generation. His performance and the supporting role of Paul Dano as Eli Sunday made this almost three hour film end all too soon.

Now that being said...don't go if you are hoping to feel good or take some sort of positive moral away from the movie...it's not that kind of deal. It is the kind of film that I like to call "take your redemption in reverse." It's the equivalent of the Greek Moral Play (think of Othello), the only thing you can take away is what we don't want to aspire to as humans. The movie starts hopefully and the longer it goes a hopelessness settles down on top of the movie, but doesn't evaporate entirely until the final amazing and dark scene. This is a dark movie but I by compare and contrast I took something home.

On Sunday morning at my church we have been looking at the story of Jonathan and Saul in a standoff with the Philistines in I Samuel 14. In this story, when presented with insurmountable odds in battle, the father and son here go two different ways. Saul goes to sleep under a tree, choosing to at least temporarily abdicate his leadership role. Jonathan his son does not sleep, but wakes up, gives an inspiring speech to his armor-bearer and then the two of the go to battle against the Philistines and win a mighty victory. Jonathan went presented with this defining moment chose to act unselfishly, even sacrificially on behalf of his people. He put his personal safety, security and future on the line, so that the Israelites could get the leadership they desperately needed and win this crucial battle in their history.

What does that have to do with Daniel Day Lewis...In this movie, over and over again Daniel Plainview is given the opportunity to set his greed and lust for power aside but every time he could, he chose himself. The viewer gets to see this struggle so clearly and it is totally worth the ten bucks to go and be reminded in such an artful and beautifully done way what is the end result of choosing one's own way repeatedly. If you are an adult...please go see this movie. A little language and a little violence but utterly redeeming (in reverse.)

My Kids Are The Change We've Been Looking For!

2008-02-29T09:40:00.002-05:00

While I was in the middle of rehearsal last night I got a very urgent call from my oldest son. It must have been urgent to interrupt band practice right? "Dad, listen...when you get home you need to be prepared...the three of us are running for president of the house, and you are going to have to vote."

I was a little surprised and concerned for him since everyone knows that my wife is the president of the house and that previous attempts to vote her out have resulted in mysterious disappearances for the potential usurpers, but I let him continue. "We are all right now preparing our banners that we are putting up all over the house, and tomorrow night over dinner, you need to be prepared with some questions for our first debate." As you may be able to tell, I am a little bit of a political junkie so they have evidently been overhearing some of my many conversations and watching with me some of the plethora of incredibly frustrating but extremely addicting political shows/debates/forums I have been giving my time to. (Frustrating but addicting sounds like a really good reality t.v. show right? Maybe this tells us something about the state of politics in our country.) "Dad, listen...when you're preparing the questions, make sure their good and hard, we don't want any squishy questions..o.k.?"

So I asked him what his campaign platform was going to be...."Later bed times and ice cream every night" he replied. Although I admire their ambition, I see some problems with this whole attempt in interabode government. First, there are only three potential voting members and all three of them are running for president. Second, none of the campaign promises being made as a part of any of their platforms have any chance of being delivered on, since things like later bed times are judicated upon and made law by the Supreme Court of the house (my wife) and her very loyal legal assistant. Third and finally, what they haven't figured out is that no matter what the results of the election are, their youngest sister was appointed to a lifetime term of president of the kids upon her birth so to many degrees this is all an exercise in futility.

As I end, let me share with you some of the posters I was hit with when I got home last night and the slogans from those posters currently plastered all over my house."

Do you want Awesomeness? Vote Ryley
Vote For the Coolpublican Party
To Make Things As Good As Possible...Vote Ryley
Ryley...Better Days Are Ahead (I didn't know things were that bad at the house...)

Funny, those platitudes aren't much worse than the ones I am seeing everyday in our current campaign.

Perhaps the Lord...

2008-02-05T10:14:00.001-05:00

This week my topic as a part of the YouAreHere series at our church was Uncertainty. As I was preparing I knew it was a tough one and as I got about halfway through the talk, I realized that it was even more difficult than I thought.

The story motivating the whole series is about a man named Jonathan and his father and how they individually dealt with a defining moment. The short version of the story is the Israelites were fighting with the Philistines (again) and were way outnumbered. Because of the stress of the situation, Saul (The King) curled up under a tree and went to sleep (a very common way of dealing with seemingly hopeless situations). Jonathan, his son, woke up in the middle of the night, grabbed his armor bearer and said, "let's go pick a fight!"

It is from this motivational speech that uncertainty comes into the picture. Jonathan says (paraphrased) "it doesn't matter how small or large our army is, God is able to save us." Pretty nice way to motivate a young guy to go with you to fight, right? But right before that he says, "Perhaps the Lord will help us." What? Perhaps???

Now I know sometimes the Hebrew to English translation leaves some stuff out, so I went digging. I got out my Strongs Concordance and my Hebrew to English interlinear device and my Matthew Henry Commentaries, and I did discover some deep insight. This word perhaps...(this is rich so get ready to copy and paste) this word means...maybe.

Maybe?

This is hard because some of have been taught that if we stay close to Jesus, nothing bad will ever happen. If we love God and stay in the will of God, everything will turn out just like we like, but we would have to live our lives with our eyes closed and brains off to believe that. What we find all throughout the pages of Scriptures are people who loved God who experienced great pain. The reality of the Christian life is that there are things that we don't know.

There are some things we can know by the way...we don't have to have any uncertainty about God's character or his capacity. We can always know for instance that God is good, and that God is love and can be trusted with our lives. We can know that God is absolutely able to do everything that God desires to do...there is no lack of ability. This is important for us because if God is pursuing a purpose...an action...a future, if we step into that..we can have confidence that it will be accomplished.

Also, it seems that uncertainty doesnt have to mean the world is out of control. For instance the only thing that "the world is just spinning to fast" should tell us is that it is good that we are not God.

So we live in the midst of uncertainty..we need to know that we don't know.

You Are Here: A Remedy, Cure and Answer

2008-01-22T10:24:00.000-05:00

A while back now a creative partner of ours (the church team I am a part of) approached us with a few ideas for getting the word out. Most of their ideas were great and a few were amazing. One of the truly amazing ones was the idea of "You Are Here." It resonated with us for many reasons but primarily because it speaks to something that is central to how we feel about the church and its place in society. We don't believe the church is an institution whose purpose is to meet once a week and salve people's conscience. Instead, for us, the church is a living organism with relevance for everyday life, essential to human-well being and with huge implications for the future of our world. (How's that for big ideas?)

I might post a few times on the topic, but Sunday I gave a talk in a series we are presenting right now on Sunday mornings. As I was attempting to motivate one of the three tenants of the You Are Here platform, (You Are Here: Living a full life. Being present and awake to experience the beauty, meaning and sense of connection that life has to offer.) I said that You Are Here (on the simple side of things) is at least three things for me:

1. A Cure for Destination Disease: This is that sickness peculiar it seems to human beings that can be described by statements such as these. "Everything will be fine when I can live there." "This city life is crazy, whenever I can move somewhere a little less hectic then things will be okay." "I'm just not cut out for life in the country, I need activity, whenever I can move to the city then things will be okay." "The real place to live around here is fill in the blank." This malady plagues almost all humans who seem to be obsessed with being somewhere else. The idea that furthers Destination Disease is that the good life can only be found by relocation. The problem of course is that once you get to that place, paradise has always just moved. You Are Here says that the grass is as green right where you are than it is on the other side. You can live a full life...here. You can make a difference with your family and community...here. This requires being present and awake...here.

2. A Remedy for the Temptation of Time Travel: This one is a lot like the first but the symptomatic statements are just a little more time-related than space-related. Here they are: "Someday I'll be happy." "Someday things will all work out...planets will align etc." "After I can get out of college and get a job, then...." "Once I can get married/get divorced, have kids/get the dang kids out of the house, then..." The idea here is that tomorrow is the holding place for happiness. You Are Here says that "today is the day of salvation" (to quote a much brighter Christian.) The problem with tomorrow is that tomorrow never seems to come. Those problems that we hope will magically disappear never do, so we have today and fortunately today is the day that Christ is available to us.

3. An Answer to Wizard of Oz Theology: This one is specific to religious people (the first two aren't I don't think.) Ask Christians (or many types of religious people) about their lives and many want to point right away to that better place. This seems right and even healthy, when it is in balance, but if we aren't careful, the future (heaven, paradise) is just a placeholder for our escapism. Here are some statements peculiar to W.O.Z. Theology. "Things aren't right now, but when I get to heaven it will all be okay." (This one, by the way almost works for me because we do look forward to the fullness of the Kingdom of God.) "I can't get my relationships right now but when I get to heaven..." "I can't find happiness now but some sweet day in the by and by..." If I only had a heart...If I only had some courage...If I only had a brain. The full life that Christ offers however is available now. That doesn't mean everything is perfect but many of the things that we feel will be available to us in that future place, Jesus makes accessible now. Dallas Willard states famously, "You are right now becoming who you will be forever." The idea is live now...love now...forgive now. God is not at the end of a yellow brick road, God is not a manipulative man behind smoke and a curtain talking into a voice modulator. God is real...God is really powerful...now!

So maybe more later. The whole talk is here in case you'd like to hear it.

Living in Shalom

2008-01-08T10:30:00.000-05:00

This past Sunday my friend Thomas mentioned the word Shalom in his sermon. A few weeks ago in a talk I gave I also reflected for a while on the word and more importantly what it means. I've been reflecting a lot this week as a part of a week of spiritual renewal my church (Northeast Community Church) is journeying through together, and for some reason the idea of Shalom is something I can't escape.

You might know that Shalom is a Hebrew word that means peace. Even today Jewish people will greet one another with the word. I pointed out in my talk (and Thomas re-emphasized on Sunday) that the "peace" in Shalom is more involved than mere absence of conflict. For most of us "peace" just means..."we are warring any more." Typical for Hebrew words however, Shalom is much more multi-faceted. The other textures to the word involve "completeness and wholeness." As I have prayed this week, it is this wholeness that has captured me.

Is it core to my belief now that God wants to redeem every part of me. This is the way that he makes me new as He promised he would do. I have come to embrace and rely on the fact that all my fears and failures, and brokenness can be made whole.

I have always kind of made fun of people who used the phrase "I need to find myself." What I am realizing recently however is that if I am to be a fully-integrated person- mind, body and soul; if I am to offer my experiences and emotions to God, it will require that I journey inward. I must go inward if I am to be whole.

So this year..I will go inward...as God helps me find my cracks..this places that just aren't quite right. Those places that I have kept sweeping back in the corner behind the china cabinet. Those places about which I have said, "It doesn't seem like that's quite right but I guess it's always going to be that way."

I thought my first blog in five weeks should be serious...so here you go...don't expect too much of this.

Which Song Would You Have Picked?

2007-11-27T22:01:00.000-05:00

I am preparing to speak next Sunday (12.9). It is the second Sunday of Advent and I will be speaking on the topic Connecting With Hope as a part of the church's Connect with Christmas teaching and worship series.

As I am digging in, I was reflecting on Luke 2:14, this is the very exciting time where the angels announce the birth of Jesus Christ by singing a song. I got to thinking about the right song at the right time. As a church music director for a bunch of years and having picked out song sets for too many gigs to number, I have often been responsible for picking out songs, knowing that the right song selection is more than half the battle in a successful gig. More than one horrible set has been saved by just the right song at just the right time and more than one gig has been ruined by the misplaced song at that exactly wrong moment.

My next thought was about other big songs (right songs) sung at the right time. Big moments that needed an equally big song. I thought of:

Elton John leading Great Britain and the rest of the world in mourning for Princess Diana by singing Goodbye English Rose at her funeral.

Alan Jackson comforting a stunned and devastated nation with his powerful Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning. (I still go back to that time and place immediately every time I hear it.

Whitney Houston inspiring fresh and powerful patriotism with her stirring and mind-blowing rendition of The Star Spangled Banner, sung at half-time of the Super Bowl during the first Gulf War.

First question. What other songs qualify for big songs at big moments in your mind?

Now back to where I started. A young Jewish girl gives birth to the son of God and at the most important moment in human history God gets to pick a song. What song does he direct the angels to sing? We know the lyrics but not the tune...the lyric says

Glory to God in the Highest
And on earth
Peace, goodwill to men

I am going to have a great time talking about those three lines next Sunday but in the meantime I was wondering...what song would I have picked.

A few came right to the top of my mind...If you are prone to getting offended about religious things...sign off here.

How about...

He will, He will, Rock You

or

It's the End of the World As You Know It (Sung optimistically of course).

These are the first two that came to mind.

Second Question. What Song Would You Have Picked?

YouTopia

2007-11-14T20:26:00.000-05:00

My two oldest sons invited me into their game last weekend. They put some undue pressure on me by making me choose between joining the Kingdom of Rylantis or Reagtopia. Although I was able to avoid becoming a citizen of either by working out something like a visa with each land, I was intrigued with the idea. I can remember playing some similar games when I was younger but thinking about the concept again was pretty exciting. There is something very appealing about imagining setting up your own kingdom, where you make the rules and what you say goes. That's what a kingdom is, what Dallas Willard calls the "realm of your effective rule" but said more simply, that place where what you say goes.

Many really smart people have participated in a similar exercise. The philosopher Thomas Hobbes proposed a place where everyone looks, dresses and acts the same and those that get out of line are punished severely. Augustine wrote about a "City of God" a place where God really reigns, a place that Augustine (as opposed to the satirical nature of Hobbes work) believed would be eventually realized.

But that's not what intrigued me. The first thought that came to me was, what would the world look like if I made the rules? What would life be like in Kevtopia? If I was in control of natural and supernatural reality how would life be in the land of Kevsavalnia (still looking for the right name.:

A few things jumped out right away as mandatory for my land:

Lots of cheesecake
Everyone would have one day off a week and it would be the same day off for everyone with no work allowed.
This whole carbohydrate thing would be reversed. Potatoes and cheesecake chimichangas would be necessary for sustaining life.
Spouses would be required at least once a day to say, "You know what, you're right, you must be one of the smartest people alive!"
Everyone would know how to read and love to do it.

So, what would your land look like?

Navigating the Chaos

2007-11-12T20:29:00.000-05:00

I spoke yesterday as a part of a series at the church where I am a pastor. The topic was chaos and more specifically how we can find a straight path through the craziness of our lives. Following up on my friend Thomas's message last week on the importance of prayer in this process, my talk was centered around the necessity of God's Word. The message will be posted online soon at http://www.northeastonline.org/media.html so I wont give you a blow by blow but after reflecting all day today I can't escape the following thought:

If the things we gain from interaction and integration of God's Word in our lives is so wonderful, why is like going to the endodontist to get us to read it, meditate on it and actualize it in our lives? The passage I used to motivate the talk was Psalm 199:18 where the author states, "Open my eyes that I may see Wonderful Things in your law." Law here refers to God's Word so I argued that as we pray and ask God to reveal things to us (which I believe that He does do..call me crazy) the kind of things we are likely to see are wonderful things, the kinds of things that cause us to stop and say, "That is so amazing that I can't even believe it." In general this has not been my personal experience many times and I find when I talk to other Christians this is not the kind of thing I hear said all that often.

Most of the time the talk centers around statements like this, "I really need to find time to study the Bible, I know that I need to" or "I have really been neglectful lately in reading the Bible." Why the heck do we neglect this wonderful thing? I am not just asking, although I hope someone will comment. I have some thoughts but I am going to explore it.

One of the stories that really motivate me about the Kingdom of God and the life that Christ brings to those who follow His way is the story of the man who stumbles across a treasure in a field (in another derivative a woman finds a Pearl of Great Price) and is so overjoyed by what He has found that "in great joy goes and sells everything that he had" in order to buy it. (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2013:44;&version=47;. This is the kind of offer that I believe Jesus has on the table for everybody, so I am incredibly focused on being able to begin to, and continue to experience it for myself and in my joy be able to communicate it to others.

Abbey Road

2007-10-13T22:46:00.000-04:00

My friend and associate in ministry Thomas and his wife Roxanne and my Jacinta set out to create a Abbeyesque photo to accompany a press release about the gas buydown our church did as a part of the 1010project and more specifically the activities of 1010day (Check out ttp://www.northeastonline.org/1010project.html and http://www.thehour.com/story/295198534891711.php and http://www.norwalkadvocate.com/news/local/scn-sa-nor.service1oct11,0,2498641.story

for more info on that)

Anyway...the idea was this: Since we were doing a winter coat drive and gas buydown we would wear winter coats and stand in front of the price marquee outside of the station that was hosting the event (the very generous Bobby Sherman and the Sunoco at 336 Main St. in Norwalk, CT.) In addition we were supposed to mimicking the very famous Abbey Road album cover from the Beatles...

Well....not so much....these photos (never seen before and more than likely never seen again) came with a few issues.

1. It was about 213 degree Fahrenheit outside...the winter coats were not working for us here

2. We were staring directly into the sun...hence the very intense and almost downright scary gazes from our lovely wives.

3. We were not able to channel the Beatles at all even after listening to "Hey Jude" all the way over.

4. Roxanne's daughter (who you can almost see in the lower left corner of the picture) was dangerously close to the street, so in order to keep her alive we only took three shots.

5. We got closer to an angry gap ad than we did anything remotely resembling the Beatles.

This is the result...so remember...

In the end, the love you get is equal to the love you give

On Coaching

2007-10-13T20:21:00.000-04:00

Recently I became a head soccer coach. I got the call up from previous assistant coach positions that I filled elsewhere and evidently my great success in filling that support role made me eligible for moving up to the big times.

Actually if I remember correctly it went something like this.

Ring...ring. Hello....Yes may I speak to Mr. Mullins...This is Kevin Mullins...Mr. Mullins this is John I. Iknowhowtopickabadone (name changed to protect the culpable) for the Norwalk Junior Soccer Association, your son has signed up for soccer this year right?...Yes, Reagan is very excited to get started....Great, listen Mr. Mullins would you be willing to help out with Reagan's team this year...Sure, I'd be happy to help...Great we needed a head coach so I'll let the other parents know that their off the hook....

Awesome.

Don't get me wrong..I'm at the games and practices anyway so its not a time thing...it's just a I-Dont-Know-Did'o'lee-About-Soccer-Thing and I wanted my son to learn how to play a little better this year...learn something about the game...maybe next year.

We have a young team. Some have played before, some have not. We seem smaller than the other teams we play and many of our players are still interested in looking at things crawling on the ground and having conversations with several other team members, while the game is going on. Also I noticed from the beginning that the boys seem to run very lightly and although they seem to be wanting to move fast....all of them seem to run in slow motion.

When I was kid...I ran fast....c'mon guys.

We lost our first five games...the last two games we did well in the first half and then got tired (It was really hot here for the last few weeks, but I helpfully reminded my guys that both teams were subject to the same conditions..something that did not seem to mean much to them at all "what are you saying old-guy-who-be-so-concerned-with winning.") we were beat badly in the second half of the games and were sitting at 0-5, halfway through a 10 game season.

Two comments from the lads that tell the story from the first half of the season.

One very earnest and diligent young man remarked after I had moved him all over the field to find the right place for him on the team, "Coach I really don't like to play any of the positions."

One very red-faced and exasperated young man after I finally subbed him out after he had been asking for a sub most of the first half, "I only like to run some of the time."

I solicited help from anyone who knew anything about soccer and started saying things like, "On defense you run to the ball and on offense you run away from the ball." This very soccer-like statement caused my 9 year old to tell me after practice, "Man Dad you are really getting good at coaching."

Today the stars aligned...We do have one superstar that I have failed to mention...he scored 2 goals for half to pull off what I am calling a super hat-trick. After being tied at the half I told the fellas, "Today we can win, you have to run not jog for the next thirty minutes and we will win." Our goalie made several outstanding saves in the second half, and everyone without exception made at least one big play.

When the whistle blew, the boys celebrated..the parents exploded with joy (significantly more than the boys by the way) and I called in to work for the next two weeks, so that I may properly enjoy the first victory of my coaching career.

Waiting for the perfect time...

2007-09-26T08:09:00.000-04:00

Seems like every time I go to the park with the kids, we see something crazy. A couple of times ago it was crazy-shrieking lady, who was overwhelmed with being a mother (or nanny, although if she's a nanny she is probably unemployed by now) and was trying to bring direction to her children, and simultaneously set a new record for consistent screaming without a breath. The kids seemed to be doing very normal things like sliding down slides and swinging on swings.

Another time recently, it was the five guys playing basketball who were trying to verbally prove to each other that they were more gangster than the other guy. It reminded me of that movie Malibu's Most Wanted, where the rich Senator's son has a dream to be a rapper and talks like he was raised in the hood. These guys all looked like they were raised in safe, non-shooting neighborhoods, but they talked like a gang war was about to erupt...which was disconcerting since I had my three kids there.

This last time, as the kids were running around chasing a remote control plane, that wouldn't fly (btw, if you are looking for a money-maker, that's the way to go. Just build something, put wings on it, provide a box that batteries go in, call it a remote control airplane and sell it for $59. They don't have to fly..in fact I don't think their actually supposed to. The kids still have a grand time, trying to supersede the laws of nature, and it's fun to watch) this guy standing over by a picnic table close to the bleachers where I sat, caught my eye. He was practicing, flipping his body in the air and landing on this feet. I don't know if he was practicing for the next Ang Lee movie, or the Blue Man Group or the circus or what...but it was fun to watch. He would stand for the longest time...almost motionless (except for a slight rocking motion) and then suddenly fling his body violently in the air (different shapes to the flight every time...sometimes straight flips and backflips and sometimes more complicated and visually interesting contortions) and then land on his feet...most of the time gracefully.

My point for relaying our latest trip to crazy-times park, is to relay the great care he took before each maneuver. Sometimes he would look like he was going to jump, and then he would stop. As I mentioned before, sometimes he would stand there, rocking back and forth for five minutes or more, before he took off. Evidently he waiting for the perfect time. Feeling the rhythm of the air, or the ground, or getting instructions or direction from elsewhere, but there was a perfect time to jump and he waited until he found it.

I feel like that sometimes...like I'm waiting for that perfect time. When all the stars align, and the grass feels just right and the breeze is receptive to my body, so that I can attempt something amazing. I don't want to jump to soon, because I don't want to land on my head, but I don't wait too long because eventually it gets too dark in the park to see anything. So I rock back and forth..back and forth, waiting for instructions from above...waiting for the perfect time.

I talked to my dad today...

2007-09-24T21:38:00.000-04:00

We live a long way away now...like 2200 miles. I miss him and I thought of the poem I wrote for him this last January when he turned sixty.

reflections on Your threescore

when I would be brave
You were that first
the first to walk to the edge
leading Me there
when I leap, You have made it so

when I would be strong
You did that first
You left friends and fame
the easy and the comfort
when I am free, your strength made me so

when I would fight
You showed that first
the first to draw the line
and stand toe to toe
when I defeat the Pharisees, You made it so

when I would sacrifice
I saw You first
more for me and mine
always meant less for You
when I would give away, Your way made it so

when I would see Christ
You saw Him first
pursued His heart
making His importance clear
when I would be devoted, Your vision made it so

kevin michael mullins
January 21, 2007
on the occasion of the sixtieth birthday of michael john mullins

I can't believe I said that!

2007-09-19T23:21:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I got some in-family accountability:

I have really enjoyed moving to the Northeast because everyone here drives like me. The more time I spend on the roads however I wish just a few of these people would emulate my driving style just a little less and be a bit more considerate.

Yesterday as I was heading to a very important appointment a particularly annoying gentleman in a white Chevy truck, kept putting his vehicle in all the places I was trying to be just milliseconds before I arrived there. We played this at the first somewhat enjoyable but very soon exceedingly frustrating road-version of musical chairs for three or four minutes until I saw my chance for victory and advancement.

Ahead there were two lanes turning left and my antagonist (apparently realizing that he had been bested) wisely pulled in the rightmost of these two lanes, leaving the inside and left lane (one that I am very familiar and comfortable with from my days in NASCAR country) available for me...or so I thought.

When the left-turn signal turned green I punched on the gas of my super-charged 95 Ford Explorer, which responded with its normal reaction (every morning that I fail to personally flush the fuel injection system that is)...almost nothing.

My car and I crept out of our stop headed for the left lane and all of sudden Mr. "I-Am-Determined-To-Make-You-Lose-Your-Salvation-Today" left his seemingly very wide but apparently so very confining right lane and came careening back in front of me to the place that had been prepared for me from before time began...he cut me off!

This is where it gets ugly...the following phrase (represented here by a string of letters and characters and properly edited for potentially young and impressionable readers) escaped my lips.

"There's two lanes here *^&$%#@"

This would all have been well and good (although those astute among you may rightly point out that the harm to myself would have been done regardless) except for the fact that occupying the back seat of the car I was piloting were two of my children...my nine year old son and four year old daughter.

Evidently neither of these two young people are suffering from any hearing loss or have any problem recognizing words and even by-words from the English language, since both of them immediately let out loud gasps of dismay, followed by..."Dad what did you say?"

I pause here to wonder how my four year old daughter even new that the word I had used was not one that I should have. Perhaps it was the attitude in which the word was spoken, maybe it was the tone of my voice..regardless she new...and saw her first official crack in her father's armor....ouch.

"Dad" she said,"you said a bad wuhhd" (This words rhymes with cud and its overall cuteness factor cannot be accurately described in print)

I tried to act as if they heard me wrong...desperately wracking my brain for words that rhymed or even remotely sounded like the word I had so fatefully used...but these two beauties were having none of that. My son especially was not to be dismissed.

Disappointingly, all of my children are geniuses and my nine year old is apparently headed toward a career in motivation speaking and life coaching. He offered the following words of condemnation.

"Dad, just because this is the first time I heard you say that word, doesn't mean its the first time you have said it." That's right son...just pile it on...I was not feeling bad enough before so please let the weight of my actions continue to rain down upon me until I am unable to stand.

Let me end by telling you where my children, my car and I were headed...to pick up their mother (also my wife) at her doctors appointment....does anyone see where this is headed?

Both of my judgmental but apparently not very compassionate offspring quickly informed me that would be alerting their mother of my dastardly deed as soon as she got in the car....the unmerciful duo did so...immediatedly...in a very painfully-descriptive and colorfully-accurate verbal re-enactment of what had occurred.

My wife's reaction, "Kevin, I can't believe that you said that in front of the kids."

My razor sharp 9 year old quickly remarked, "Oh....she said in front of the kids which must mean that you say it all the time when we are not around." Thats right son...pile it on...I was not feeling bad already so please continue to let the weight of my words revisit and rain down on me until I am unable to stand.

I have preached for a long time, that we need to pay attention to our hearts. This is what Jesus was so very concerned about. What's on the inside is always eventually displayed on the outside. We must pay attention to the inside of the cup...this point was reinforced to me yesterday by a well-placed clueless driver and two golden-hearted and no-slack-cutting children...I have some more work to do.

Swarm Intelligence?

2007-08-21T21:53:00.000-04:00

I have heard "there is strength in numbers" and one really wise man once said "one can put a thousand to flight and two can put two thousand." This month's National Geographic (June '07) http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0707/feature5/index.html article offers some insights into why attacking an obstacle or challenge in a unified group is always more effective than going it alone. Some of the insights intrigued me especially as it relates to the church.

1. There is an intelligence (swarm intelligence) that develops in these communities that is not available to an individual. No individual in any swarm type communities (ants and bees were the primary examples used) have any special ability alone...they aren't smart or or even very capable, but when they work together they accomplish amazing things.

This alone doesn't seem all that insightful but it did cause me to reflect back to a speech I heard at this years National Pastoral Leaders Conference at Yale Divinity School, delivered by Dr. Craig Dykstra. Dr. Dykstra centered his speech around the topic of Pastoral Imagination. Although I can't put my hands on my notes from that lecture right now (I am efforting finding them) what I remember off the top of my head is something like this:

The pastoral imagination is a way of seeing into the world with eyes of faith.

Imagination here is not just how we normally use it (to create something or to fantasize about something) but is about the ability to see the "more" that is right in front of us. This is distinguished from just seeing what is not and then bringing it about but is seeing beyond and beneath what is normally seen.

This type of imagination is shaped through time, is the result of hard work and trial and is the greatest gift a pastor can give his or her congregation.

Dykstra went on to say to the pastors gathered that there would be one of two responses to this description of the pastoral imagination. On the one hand a pastor may be validated that pastoral ministry is hard work and requires real strength on their part. It combats the idea that pastors don't really work all that hard. On the other hand, talk of this special "imagination" may be so overwhelming that someone young in ministry might say "I'm not up to the task." Dykstra in essence agreed that this special imagination, this gift to the congregation is not something one can achieve on their own but is itself a gift back to the pastor, as a result of the multiple capacities and giftings of the people of the congregation and the body of Christ in general.

Back to the swarm...

"If you watch an ant try to accomplish something, you'll be impressed by how inept it is," says Deborah M. Gordon, a biologist at Stanford University. "Ants aren't smart," Gordon says. "Ant colonies are." Ants, we find out are able to do all these amazing things like feeding the whole colony, defending the colony from invaders and perfectly allocating workers to tasks because they do these things as a colony.

So...first thought to ponder... does swarm intelligence equal pastoral imagination. Are Deborah Gordon and Craig Dykstra saying the same thing?

To get to that answer, it seems we need to burrow a little deeper.

Next...how does this intelligence/imagination come to be...tomorrow.