Category: Christian Living

  • Helping our kids love church, again

    “The reason I hate church is that you pay attention to everyone else there but us.” ~ Megan, age 7

    Those words rattled my soul. I’d rather have gotten cold-cocked by Mike Tyson in a bar fight than heard those words. That’s when I knew that things had to drastically change in how both how I related to my family and serving the church.

    Every time I volunteered somewhere or went to a meeting it lead to fights with the kids. “You don’t love us you only love stuff at church!”

    Their anger lead to my tears.

    Here’s what I wrote last October in a post, “When your kids hate church“:

    Yesterday, I sat in the car with a child who refused to participate. Not all Sunday’s are like that. But sometimes the feet literally stop moving and the tears start flowing. It’s hard to look in your child’s eyes and see them tearfully say “please don’t make me go,” and then force them to go.

    I can’t stomach it. That is, clearly, not the type of relational connection I want my children to have with Jesus.

    Read the rest

    That post lead to an impossible number of conversations with friends in ministry. By sharing my pain and acknowledging that one of my darkest fears had become my reality I connected with others who serve in full-time ministry and find themselves in similar situations.

    Of all of those conversations I had a single phrase spoken stuck out to me. Paraphrasing what she said, I’ve probably added to it: (not accusing just thinking out loud)

    “I wonder if you’ve laid your children on the alter of your own ideals and put them into impossible situations? They go to a school you have chosen for them which meets all of your ideals for living in the city, they go to a church you have chosen for them meeting the ideals for you living in the city. They walk a mile in your shoes every day and never get a break.”

    Dear Jesus, this was true. It cut past the niceties right to the bone.

    So we made some changes. Kristen and I have worked on it. And, on our road to recovery, we have seen some moments when our kids love Jesus and His church. Last night was one of those moments as Paul brought his Bible and a little devotional thing from church to do as a bedtime activity with mom. That totally made me cry!

    Some other waypoints on this path have included…

    • Praying with and for our kids.
    • Inviting them in to freely sit in on stuff we are doing and to ask questions. Usually, this has been Megan.
    • Putting our family as the priority over our beloved community group when Jackson was born. (We’ll rejoin them this Fall)
    • Being joyful as we made a transition from one congregation to another, in part, based on their feedback.
    • Experiencing Lent together seemed like a turning point. (Kinesthetic learning is perfect for them)
    • Awana, as much as I’ve lamented about it for years as a leader, has been a gift to them as they’ve gotten more familiar with the Bible and how to use it. (A free date night each week for mom/dad has been good for our marriage as a bi-product!)
    • Moments with each kid when they said, “Daddy, remember when you were in charge of that stuff at church? I liked it when you did that. It would be fun for you to do that again. You were good at it. I miss that.“
    • Eagerly signing up and bugging us about details of summer fun camp.

    Like any hurt or injury it’s a long process. The quote above is from 2008– we’ve been at this for 1/3 of her life. We haven’t arrived and we still have some very difficult things to work through. And I don’t know if they will ever love the Bride of Christ like I do. But I’m happy to see progress.

    It brings me deep joy to begin to see how Jesus is bridging the gap and building a relationship with my children in a way that isn’t forced, coerced, or built on expectations from mom or dad.

    O, what a day that will be!

  • The woman at the well and me

    Headphones in, volume up, helmet strapped on, I mounted my bike with a lot on my mind. Already running late and frustrated that my air compressor was not working, I peddled down my block.

    With my rear tire nearly flat I knew I’d have to stop at the nearby gas station and fill it up.

    As the first segment of 60 Minutes played into my ears I pulled up to the air compressor at the corner station, quickly jumped off my bike, propping it up against the machine, took off my backpack, and started fishing around for three quarters.

    My hands were shaking. A quick glance at the time on my phone revealed I only had 6 minutes until the next train and I was at least five minutes away. But I couldn’t go another day riding around with this tire so low.

    I put the coins in the machine and it roared to life. My fingers fumbled to get the rubber cap off and the tire in the right position. All the while listening to the story of Julian Assange cooly tell his side of the story about Wikileaks on 60 Minutes. He’s a character from Superman. But is he Superman or Lex Luther? Seconds go by until I finally got the nozzle attached and squeezed the handle to start pumping air.

    I exhaled a sigh of relief.

    Just then a hand brushed across my neck and shoulder. I instantly cringed and almost fell over into my bike. The hair on my neck stood on end. Who just touched me?!? The fight or flight instinct stood me straight up, unsure which option to take.

    Startled, I looked to my right. Instantly I was put back at ease. A woman, homeless, bent over to grab the spicket to the water nozzle on the air compressor. As her friend looked on with other bottles in hand she began to fill up her water bottle.

    She and her partner live in the bushes behind the gas station and saw me pull in. They know that the water only flows from the spicket when the air compressor has money in it and were simply taking advantage of the opportunity.

    My heart sank back to its normal position. And I tried to act as cool as Assange answering those questions on 60 Minutes. We were both kidding ourselves.

    I kneeled back down to finish filling my tire. As I put the rubber cap back on my now-full tire I looked to my right one more time. Yes, I’d just been startled by a frail, strung out, and harmless woman doing what women for centuries have been doing… fetching water.

    Ashamed, I put my backpack on, mounted my bike, and peddled off.

    Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” John 4:13-15

    Just another day, reminded early in the morning, that Jesus is King and I’m just a jester.

  • Billboards & False Prophets

    Photo by Geoff Sloan via Flickr (Creative Commons)

    You’ve likely seen this billboard. People nationwide are talking about it– especially as the supposed day is quickly approaching. I had largely ignored the signs until this variation appeared… “The Bible Guarantees It.”

    What does the Bible guarantee about impending judgment?

    “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.” — Matthew 24:36

    I’m going to take the words of Jesus over the words of an AM radio prophet any day.

    What does the Bible guarantee for false prophets?

    “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” — Matthew 7:15

    “I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive.” Romans 16:17-18

    The Law of Moses in Deuteronomy 13 commands that false prophets be “purged” from the community. (v. 5) Moses goes on to say that false prophets who lead people astray are to be stoned. (v. 10) Lastly, Moses explains that if a city has been deceived by a false prophet, it is the responsibility of the greater community to put the residents of the city to the sword and burn it. (v. 14-16) In other words– God takes false prophesy seriously.

    Further down the timeline documents times when God’s people dealt with false prophets…

    Micah 3 is one of those times. Here are some descriptions:

    v. 4 – “Then they will cry to the LORD, but he will not answer them; he will hide his face from them at that time, because they have made their deeds evil.”

    v. 6b-7 – “The sun shall go down on the prophets, and the day shall be black over them; the seers shall be disgraced, and the diviners put to shame; they shall all cover their lips, for there is no answer from God.”

    Jeremiah 23: 15 explains what God thought of false prophets who lead people astray: “Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts concerning the prophets: “Behold, I will feed them with bitter food and give them poisoned water to drink, for from the prophets of Jerusalem ungodliness has gone out into all the land.”

    Both the Old and New Testament are not amused by false prophets. And so when we see the billboards, we may laugh it off, and we may be embarrassed for the people behind the charade. (Truthfully, because a lot of us are a little bit embarrassed to admit that we believe in a pre-Tribulational rapture. Or we are shy to admit that we believe that we are pre-millennialists.)

    But we have a greater responsibility than that, don’t we?

    Harold Camping has done this before. He last predicted judgment day for September 6th, 1994. Obviously it didn’t happen. Chances are really good that we’re going to wake up next Sunday morning and Jesus will have not returned.

    How do we know that? Jesus said that NO ONE knows the day, not even the Son. Only the Father.

    The question the Christian community should be asking is, “Are there still ramifications about being an overtly false prophet for your own gain?“

  • Sober Judgment

    Photo by Cayusa via Flickr (Creative Commons)

    For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. Romans 12:3

    I struggle with this verse. Paul makes it sound so easy and appealing. Because it ultimately is. However, culture– even Christian culture– tells you to rewrite Paul’s words like this:

    “For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, gloss over the bad stuff and judge your life with beer goggles, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.” Romans 12:3, the way I want it to read.

    A fail is funny and losing is winning

    Paul’s phrase, sober judgment, is difficult. It involves looking at the hard realities of the goals we have for ourselves and measuring that against the results our life has produced. Sober judgment is deeply honest. A win is a win and a loss is a loss.

    Judging yourself with beer goggles is so much easier. It involves laughing everything off and believing the lie that failure is funny and winning is somehow losing. The crowd tells you, “That’s OK, everyone fails” to make you feel better. But before long their empathetic response becomes your justification.

    Applying Sober Judgment

    Sober judgment involves staring into the mirror at reality. It means is that somewhere in your life you measuring with real math, setting actual goals, and being corrected along the way.

    Are you measuring up against your goals? Are you honest with yourself on what needs to change? And are you willing to take corrective action so that you can celebrate real success instead of the success of merely incremental failure?

  • Who feeds you?

    On a Sabbath, while he was going through the grain fields, his disciples plucked and ate some heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands. But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?” And Jesus answered them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those with him?” And he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.” Luke 6:1-5

    Mishnah

    Photo by Martin LaBar via Flickr (Creative Commons)

    This is one of those passages that I’ve glossed over for years. But recently, I’ve been drawn to its intricacies which unlocked the bigger picture.

    First and foremost, the complaint never made sense to me until I started reading Mishnah. Various rabbis passed down various interpretations and instructions on Sabbath regulations. While the written Old Testament gave general directions for obeying the Law, mishnah was the oral tradition that defined the boundaries. And depending on your rabbi and who trained them, the oral tradition told you how many steps you could take on the Sabbath and not be “work.” Or how to cook in a way that wasn’t work for the cook or work for the animals who provided sustenance. As referred to in the passage, there were disagreements about  pulling an Ox out of a hole to save its life. Was it OK to do that on the Sabbath or should we wait? Was it OK to save a life on the Sabbath? Or was it OK to just save its life but not try to help it once you’ve gotten it out of the hole? Various rabbis had various opinions that were passed down through the mishnah.

    While all agreed that the Law required that farmers left a few rows of grain unharvested along the road for the poor/traveling to glean, there was disagreement as to whether it was lawful for the poor/travelers to glean on the Sabbath. So when Jesus replies back to the Pharisee referring to Old Testament passages, the Pharisees are really trying to figure out which oral tradition gave him permission to glean on the Sabbath.

    He frustrates them by offering a remixed version. He didn’t respond from the perspective of a certain rabbi. Nor did he respond by quoting the Law of Moses. Instead, he asked a question that reframed the inquiry altogether.

    Even if you obey the Sabbath— who is the Lord of the Sabbath? And ultimately– who feeds you from his gleanings, the farmer or the Father?

    Physical food

    Who feeds me physically? Our food chain is so messed up that I don’t think we can even comprehend this question. In my fridge right now are fruits/veggies grown on a farm about 30 miles from me. But there is also milk which came from another farm in California. And that cheese? It came from yet another farm in California. Juice? Well, some of the fruit came from Australia (I think) and the rest came from a chemical plant in Ohio.

    The sad reality is that we are so far removed from our sources of food that this passage is completely foreign to us. We don’t have a clue where our food comes from! Our best guess is that we kind of know the grocery companies that we purchased food from. And we certainly don’t go and glean from farmers fields when we are out of cash or on the road. They’d shoot us!

    Ultimately, God provides the food. As messed up and distorted as our food chain is, God is the ultimate source of food. While I don’t think He is the author of high-fructose-corn-syrup, grain filler, and the other GMO crap most of our food is laced with, He is the ultimate provider of both the food that we eat and the money we use to buy it. It all comes from Him.

    Emotional food

    If we zoom out the lens just a little bit we can ask a deeper question. Are you free to eat emotionally on the Sabbath? Are you slowing down enough to listen? Not just to the preacher or the Sunday school teacher or to other people in your small group. But are you slowing down enough on the Sabbath to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit in your life? Is He feeding you words of instruction, comfort, and rebuke? Or are you drowning the Spirit out by turning the volume up too loud with the human voices in your life?

    Are you slowing down enough on the Sabbath to listen to your own voice? Are you taking time to process the stuff that is happening? Are you taking time to rest your body? Are you taking time to rest your mind by doing recreational stuff?

    That’s emotional food. The passage evokes a visual of Jesus and his disciples walking along the road, probably quietly as they observe the Sabbath, and the group of them spreading out and gleaning the grain. Each of them plucking heads of grain and grinding away the chaff between their fingers or with their palm before popping the uncooked grain into their mouth. This isn’t tossing a bag of popcorn in the microwave! This took time. And it was likely full of introspection and listening.

    Who feeds you during quiet times of self-reflection? Who speaks to you and gives you emotional food to prepare for the week ahead?

    Spiritual food

    Finally, we zoom the lens on this passage out as far as it goes. With our wide angle lens Jesus asks the question, “Ultimately, who is the Lord of the Sabbath? Who is in charge of the Harvest?”

    Jesus is our ultimate source of nutrition. He is the Provider. He gives us life. He made the sun which warms the soil and provides the energy for photosynthesis.

    Spiritually, Jesus is the source of life on the Sabbath. Rather than leaning on the interpretations of man alone… modern day mishnah… Jesus is eternal, alive today, and active among His people bringing nutrition to the poor and sojourners among us willing to glean along the roadside.

    Clearly and obviously, Jesus wants us to gather with fellow believers to corporately worship Him on the Sabbath. But he doesn’t want us to get lost in the granular act of going to church for spiritual food. That’s a supermarket approach when Jesus gave us the example of finding food where we are on the Sabbath. He reminds us again and again, “I am the Lord of the Sabbath. It belongs to me. It’s ultimately about me. You want to rest, it’s found in me. You want to eat, I am the bread of life.”

    Who are the farmers in your life? Are they leaving a little on the side for you to feed from?

  • Minister by doing

    Religious leaders get hung up in theological ideological debates, Jesus did not.

    One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and his disciples began to pick some heads of grain, rub them in their hands and eat the kernels. Some of the Pharisees asked, “Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”Jesus answered them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and taking the consecrated bread, he ate what is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.” Then Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” Luke 6:1-5

    Or…

    Another time Jesus went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Stand up in front of everyone.”Then Jesus asked them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?”But they remained silent.

    He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man,“Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.Mark 3:1-6

    Or…

    At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”

    “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” John 6:35-51

    The list of examples goes on and on in the Gospels accounts. Once you start to look for it you see it in nearly every story about Jesus. Religious leaders of Jesus’ day approached everything with a lens of theology and ideology. Meanwhile, Jesus went about His Father’s business.

    The same is true today. Religious people tend to care far more about “who, what, how, when, and why” than they do about living out their Father’s business. O, that we would be different. That today’s leaders would reject the meaninglessness of theological debate for the sake of theological debate and wrecklessly serve the needs of the people.

    Morning prayer

    Lord Jesus, allow me to be a man who lives like you. Let me see my ministry through your eyes and not the eyes of a religious person. Keep me from stupid debates about who, what, how, when, and why. Instead, help me to define this day around my Father’s business. Amen.

  • Redemption Song

    Good Friday reminds me of this song and this moment for two reasons.

    1. May we sing songs of freedom this weekend. Jesus came to set captives free. May we celebrate and remember as ones freed from bondage.
    2. As we celebrate Easter this weekend, let’s remember that Jesus didn’t die just to redeem you. He died that His people might live as children of the light. (Ephesians 5:8) May we continue to have compassion on the Rudy’s of the world in the name of the one who had great compassion on us.

  • The Chronology of Holy Week

    Photo by KOREphotos via Flickr (Creative Commons)

    Have you ever tried to teach Holy week? It can be confusing to nail down the chronology. Looking at the narrative and laying it out against what we celebrate reveals that we might not be counting the days exactly the way the four Gospel writers counted days.

    • Palm Sunday – Jesus enters Jerusalem (Luke 19 – check)
    • Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday – Jesus teaches at the Temple. (Luke 19:45-Luke 22:6 – check)
    • Maunday Thursday – Last Supper, praying in the garden, arrested, late night trials. (Luke 22:7-65 – check)
    • Friday – Further trials and Crucifixion (Luke 22:66-Luke 23)
    • Friday sundown – Saturday sundown – Nothing happened because it was Sabbath (check)
    • Sunday morning – Resurrection (Luke 24 – check)

    So what’s the problem? That all makes sense in the narrative once you work it out.

    The problem is that our written and oral tradition says that Jesus rose on the “third day.”

    The way we say (sing, read, write songs, print Easter cards) “three days later” would be Saturday, Sunday… Monday. That would imply that three days after Jesus died would be Monday, not Sunday morning.

    It’s confusing. So confusing that you find this story in today’s USA Today.

    As Christians worldwide prepare to celebrate Easter, they will follow a familiar chronology: Jesus was crucified on Good Friday and rose from the dead on “the third day,” in the words of the ancient Nicene Creed.

    But if Jesus died at 3 p.m. Friday and vacated his tomb by dawn Sunday morning — about 40 hours later — how does that make three days? And do Hebrew Scriptures prophesy that timetable?

    Even Pope Benedict XVI wrestles with the latter question in his new book, Jesus: Holy Week, about Christ’s last days. “There is no direct scriptural testimony pointing to the ‘third day,’” the pope concludes. read the rest

    The article goes on to propose how 40 hours can be called three days.

    Literalist – It’s 3 days because they counted Friday as Jesus died before sunset.

    Figurative – In those days “three days later” was a phrase of inexact length. Kind of like “See you in a few days.“

    Either one of those are fine with me. They both make sense.

    But here’s my last difficulty with calling it Holy Week. If Holy Week starts on Palm Sunday and ends on Easter Sunday… it’s really eight days so it should be called “Holy Weeks.”

    No matter how you look at it, if Palm Sunday is included that’s two weeks!

    Bonus

    If you want to blow your mind today– check out the Wikipedia page on weeks. 5 day weeks, 10 day weeks… 3 day weeks! There’s a lot of ways to divide 365 days.

  • 5 Simple Ways to be Good News This Week

     

     

     

    Photo by Steve Snodgrass via Flickr (Creative Commons) 

    Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Practically speaking, that means that going to church on Sunday and rocking a Christian bumper sticker isn’t enough.

    Here are 5 simple ways that your actions can be Good News this week:

    1. Personalize your convenience. Ask the store clerk where you go regularly for their name, begin to see them as a person with a story and not an object who collects your money or makes your double shot skim vanilla latte.
    2. Tip well and say thank you. No strings attached, just be a good tipper and look your server in the eye to express gratitude. (Learn more, Christians are Bad Tippers) [Conversely, if you see a Christian leave a tract as a tip, be Good News to servers worldwide and punch them in the face.]
    3. Sweat the small stuff. Did a coworker get a haircut or just come back from vacation? Make a few minutes to compliment them or look at their pictures. Or did your kids school get recognized for an achievement? Send the school’s principal a note expressing your appreciation. Noticing something small is huge.
    4. Mow a solid. Next time you mow your front lawn, go ahead and mow the front lawn you turn your nose up at. You know, the person who hasn’t figured out that Spring has sprung. Maybe, just maybe, that person has a really good reason they haven’t mowed their grass yet. Doing them a solid might open the door to hearing their story.
    5. Bless from excess. Next time you are out to eat and have leftovers, don’t just throw it away. Instead package it up as a meal for a homeless person. Add napkins, a fork, and a bottled water. Not all homeless people are hungry. But some definitely are. You don’t even have to wait until you eat out. Why not make an extra lunch and take it with you… just in case? (Read Under the Overpass for more on this.)

    Being God’s handiwork made new in Christ to do good works doesn’t mean you have to save the world. You don’t have to build a house to do good works. You don’t have to go on a mission trip or teach Sunday school to children.

    Small, simple things do make a big impact.

    Be Good News this week.

  • Reward yourself

    The reality is that no one is going to give you the rewards you deserve. You do so much for others that goes unnoticed. You sacrifice so many things that only Jesus knows about. And in doing so you grow weary. And if you don’t take care of yourself there is a 100% chance you’ll give up, morally fail, or just plain quit.

    So sometimes you need to reward yourself.

    Celebrate your own victories.

    Give yourself a day off.

    Buy yourself the book you are wanting to read.

    Take a class to learn something new.

    Give yourself a month from paying down your debt to go on vacation.

    And leave the guilt at home.

    You aren’t being selfish by rewarding yourself. In a way, it’s selfish to not reward yourself.

    Jesus was the suffering servant. (Isaiah 53) You aren’t. If your life’s pace has you constantly feeling like you give, give, give and you never take some time to take care of yourself… you might just be addicted to serving.

    Even Jesus took time to rest, reflect, and relax along the way.

    Your work is important. It’s so important that you need to pace yourself for life’s marathon.

    So, if it’s been a long time and you haven’t been rewarded for your faithful service. Take 5 minutes and think about a way to reward yourself.

    “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’ Matthew 25:23