No Matter What You Believe

I want to talk to you, no matter what you believe.
I am a pastor, a Christian pastor, even a United Methodist pastor; mainline denomination, on the northern edge of the Bible belt, and I want to talk to you, no matter what you believe.

I won't condemn you, I can't possibly convert you, I probably haven't thought about some of the things that you've thought about in as much depth as you have. But I want to talk to you.

If you're like most, you'll be able to ask me something I can't answer. You'll compare me to others in the same category as me (whatever that might be) and find I'm different, or the same, but I still want to talk to you.

I want to hear about you, and what you think, and what you believe, and what pops you out of bed in the morning, and what keeps you up at night. I believe you've got a lot to offer the world. If you're anything like me, you're probably good at a couple of things, not good at a lot, and wish you were better at some. No matter what you believe.

I won't use your story as an illustration to make my point. I won't go looking to exploit the conversation. It might take me a few moments to fully tune in to what you're saying. You might catch me at just the right time and place, or we might need to set a time. But I want to talk to you.

No matter what you believe, I believe something too. My beliefs compel me to want to find out about you, to listen so carefully that something in you helps me understand the world, our place in it, and where we might be headed in this life or the next. I hope that what I believe is worth sharing, but that's not why I want to talk to you. If you want to know something about what I believe, you'll ask.

And that's good enough for me, no matter what you believe.

No Matter What It Takes . . . Part 2

To all of you who came out to Another Level Sunday night at Oliver Twist, I say thank you. To those of you who couldn't make it, I say we missed you! We did indeed talk about the mistakes we make in life, and how they drive us apart. The night's conversation ranged from the not-very-personal celebrity-caliber mistakes (like those by the golfer who shares his name with a feline), to the slightly more personal mistakes made by companies and service providers and churches that annoy the ((&&*(^ out of you, to the oft-painful 'deal-breaker' mistakes. We talked about how sometimes those mistakes really change your life, and how sometimes you carry around their long-lasting-legacies as baggage and haunting thoughts.

I've met a lot of people who share with me a propensity for learning about life the hard way, often one mistake at a time. I've also met a lot of people who have an ability to move on. As a friend of mine named Kurt once said, "it's not whether you fall that matters in life, it's how well you bounce." I agree; but bouncing ain't easy, and in a very real sense, it can't ultimately be done alone. Often times, the more we try to bounce, the less we succeed.

Take the case of most anyone struggling with addiction. The addict consumes their drug (or porn or whatever) of choice. It gives a high or some other form of positive feedback. The high leaves. The rational thought appears, condemning the behavior and illiciting shame. The shame leads to a resolution: Never again. The resolution leads to an obsession on avoiding the 'drug'. The obsession with avoidance quickly allows the obsession with the drug to return. The vow of abstinence is sabatoged by the power of the thoughts and the drug itself, especially if there is a physiological addiction/withdrawl. So the addict consumes again. And again, and again.

The power of the mistake over life that must be broken, through humility, accountability, repentance, honesty, vulnerability. Ultimately, a price must be paid. The good news is that God has made a way out. There is a higher power. For the Christian, there is the forgiveness and justification that comes with a commitment to Christ and connection to a Christian community. For the agnostic or otherwise religious, there's at least a 12 step program.

Ultimately, we are freed from our obsessions, freed from the destructive power of our mistakes, by a redeeming God who pursues us, no matter what it takes, and a community that embraces us in love. But it's not easy. Nobody said life would be easy, but it's worth it, no matter what it takes.

No Matter What It Takes

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Oops. Well, he's not the only one to ever make a mistake . . .


Mistake makers, you're in good company!

When I first moved to Atlanta, I moved in next to a girl that I heard was single. That raised my eyebrow. I remember the first time I actually saw her, she was taking some trash to the curb. I ran out the door and introduced myself as the new guy that was now on the other side of her duplex. "Great timing," she said, "I was just taking out the trash!" Oops.

The next night, my friends from work wanted me to go out with them; "Nope," I said, "I think I'm going to just happen to be playing my guitar on the front steps tonight when a certain someone gets home." Well, I was there when that certain someone got home, and that guitar playing turned into a long evening conversation. I'm happy to say that it's about 15 years later, and that first awkward and modest pursuit of the girl next door has resulted in some 12 years of wedded bliss.

Of course, anyone who's experienced the 'wedded' part knows that it's not all 'bliss.' There are plenty of screw-ups and stumbles along the way. And don't get me started on all of the mistakes that get made on the journey through single-hood. The faintest memory of them still makes me cringe! From moments of indiscretion, like talking it up a bit too much with a girl who's not your date,

to absent-minded ignorance, like buying candy for someone who's diabetic,

to failures to communicate, like not telling your loved one you'll be working late, there are plenty of opportunities for simple mistakes to boil over into major ordeals!

One day I was looking through the pages of the Bible, and I got to thinking about the great mistakes that it contained. Adam and Eve eating the apple, Moses killing an Egyptian in revenge, a king name David scandalizing his reign with an affair and a murder, Jesus rising to influence and then being killed for stirring up the religious authorities . . . who knew that a book so sacred would contain the record of so many mistakes?

I wonder what we can learn from that

Bending Over Backwards

This past week I sat in on a great discussion about a Max Lucado book. Courteousness was the central theme, and quickly the conversation turned to public displays of rudeness - in line at the bank, unreasonable customers, bad customer service, and the like. There were several small business owners in attendance, who were quick to share stories of customer service 'challenges' (i.e. horror stories!)that they'd encountered.

The fundamental problem was conflict between the Christian ethic of 'turning the other cheek' and the pragmatic responsibilities of running a viable business. Where is the line? When a customer expects a business to address a problem for which the business is not responsible, how is the Christian businessperson to respond? By extension, it's not just business owners who are caught up in this ethical dilemma. If I have a spare bedroom, or even space on my couch, and I encounter a homeless person, am I obligated by my Christian faith to open up my home to the person with no where else to sleep?

So that frames the question. I'll share some thoughts and perhaps resolutions in a couple of days. In the meantime, what do you think?

A Devotion on Another Level

One of the initiatives I'm involved in is Another Level - an upstart outreach to persons who for the most part have never been to church. This post is written as a meditation for the leaders, based on Jeremiah 1:4-10.



The word of the LORD came to me (Jeremiah), saying, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."
“Ah, Sovereign Lord," I (Jeremiah) said, "I do not know how to speak; I am only a child."
But the LORD said to me, "Do not say, 'I am only a child.' You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you," declares the Lord.
Then the LORD reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, "Now, I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant"
Jeremiah 1:4-9

This month, we’re going to be focusing as much effort as we can on getting the word out about Another Level. We’re going to be focusing on inviting others to come and see what God is doing, to come and consider what God might be doing in their lives, to come and share with us their wisdom and their struggles, to join with us in seeking out the life God has set before us. This sharing comes with some level of risk. We risk being rejected, we risk putting our proverbial foot in our proverbial mouths, we risk failing and we risk being criticized. We also risk that the people we invite will actually come; and when they come, who and what will they find? They will find ordinary people, whom God has known since before God formed us in the womb, who were set apart for this mission that we are a part of. It’s daunting, really.

Jeremiah was a prophet who God chose to speak to the nation of Israel. When God talked to Jeremiah about tearing down – he was talking about nations and kingdoms. I don’t know about you, but I am not feeling called to tear down or build up nations.
But there are walls that we ARE called to tear down: the walls that insulate the church – Christ’s body on earth – from the people she is called to serve; the walls that divide persons of different color skin or different levels of income; the walls that disconnect the wise from the disillusioned.

Maybe we can find great comfort and purpose in the words God spoke to Jeremiah and the words God speaks to us: “You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the Lord. Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is the decision to act in spite of the fear. Faith is putting our trust in the One God who calls us to courage, come what may.

Cold Winter's night

Most of our day was filled trying to occupy our little snow angels, who made countless trips in and out of the house to find things to do in the snow. I started to sense that even in the midst of the glorious family time, God was calling me to some time apart to listen. So much of our lives are spent tending to this, watching that, investigating this, trying to plan that, that even on 'family days' we can be out of balance. After a full day of sledding and drying jackets and gloves, after some time in front of the TV, after my wife turned in because she was wiped out herself, I did the dishes, and then took the trash can to the curb (actually in error - I was a day early). But as I stepped out onto the porch, i gazed up at a peaceful, crystal clear sky. It had been so long since I just stopped and sat and gazed at creation, I decided the time was right.
I got out my warmest sleeping bag and put a couple of camping sleeping pads down on my snow-covered deck, and climbed into my goose-down coccoon, pulling the draw cords on the bag to a small circle around my face. The moon was so bright that I almost needed to shield my eyes. The air in my lungs was cold, but the sleeping bag did the trick and kept me warm.

I tried to stop, to pause, to rest, to pray. To bask in God's beautiful creation. I thought about people who had no choice but to sleep outside, and how blessed we are to have a warm house. I thought about how big the universe is, and how small we are. What I was mostly aware of, however, was how little time I spend in quiet stillness. I don't think I made it all the way through a single hymn without having my thoughts drift off on some tangent.

In the end, I got cold. I was continually shifting in the sleeping bag, trying to find a warm position. I finally gave up, when my feet got cold and in the constraints of the sleeping bag I couldn't get my socks back on. I went inside at about 5am, not having slept a wink, and crawled into bed next to my wife. I suppose it was a vigil of sorts, a reminder that prayer is hard - even in utter silence and alone-ness. God used the day without church to call me back to relationship; he used a time without interruption to remind me of how many interruptions I put in our way; he used the middle of a cold night to remind me of how cold the heart can grow without his presence. I'm ready to be warm again.

Ed

That Guy

Well, the presents are under the tree. Evidently Santa has arrived. Many of our family members and church family members have helped to make this another wonderful christmas. There are, thankfully, presents under the tree. Can't wait to see the kids faces.

That said, there's a new sense of hope in the air. This was the first christmas in many many years where we didn't add to the red side of the balance sheet. More notably, I've been blessed to see several mini-miracles; like the one at church tonight.

During the Children and Family Christmas Eve service, a collection of coats was taken up to benefit the people served by the Salvation Army. Most of the children had been invited last week to bring a new or gently used coat to donate for a child in need. This little girl's family didn't know about the collection, though. Probably their first time attending anything at our church. The little girl had a coat, though: the one she wore to the service. She looked at her mom, and in a whisper asked if it was OK. Her mom nodded that it was. Indeed it was. She left her own coat for another child to benefit from.

It was a chilly night tonight. Not freezing, but not warm either. The little girl probably had goose bumps on her way to her car. But she warmed the hearts of a blessed few who had the eyes to watch a Christmas miracle unfold, and her gift will warm the body of a blessed girl somewhere. That little girl won't know the story, but it will warm her just the same.

Then there's the call from an old friend - haven't spoken with him in more than a year; there's the offer from someone at church to help us do some last minute preparing; there's the divinely-infused conversation earlier this evening; there's the gift card that I re-gifted that bought a badly needed pair of shoes; the 'here's a little something' presents from Benson memorial folks;

I know in the last post, I said I was 'that guy'. I think I still am. We are still that family. Nothing much has changed. Even when I was seeing the role with tears in my eyes, God invited our family to be faithful. All we decided to do, together, was to wait and see what happened. It was worth the wait.

Merry Christmas