Mark Fenstermacher

Dragons at the Manger.

2011-12-29T22:05:00.002-05:00

The afternoon of Christmas Eve our family was getting ready to head downtown for the 5:30 Christmas Pageant at First United Methodist. While some of the children in the pageant work hard to memorize lines, and the adult leaders have the young people amazingly well prepared, the whole thing is a rather chaotic, wild, rich, swirling, beautiful mess. (Which happens to draw hundreds of people...so that the sanctuary is, year after year, nearly full.)

As we were getting ready we asked four year old Ella and two year old Olivia if they wanted to be angels in the pageant. Olivia, who is a cute little brown-eyed thing, said, "No, I want to be a dragon."

Many of us have been reading stories for years about children wanting to play their own roles in Christmas pageants. Someone told me that a girl in the last year or two here at First wanted to be a dog at the manger! They had advertised roles as sheep, donkeys, cattle, wisemen, etc. but this young woman wanted to be a dog.

Livy said, "I want to be a dragon." It is hard to see this little girl as a dragon. She sure looks more like an angel to Grandpa but there must be a dragon in there wanting to get out!

The cool thing is that when we got to the church, where adults were helping children into costumes, Nicole heard that Olivia wanted to be a dragon and she smiled. She said, "Sure, she can be a dragon. Let's see what we can find..."

I like the idea that God welcomes not only donkeys, cattle, and sheep at the manger...but also dragons. Luke would have understood, I think. Luke makes a point of telling us that the first visitors to the manger were shepherds. And shepherds were considered dirty, ritually unclean, impulsive, and untrustworthy. There were, I once said in a sermon, the first century's version of traveling carnival workers.

We have a God who is big enough to make a place at the manger for dragons. Wild things. Untamed creatures. Who set fields and trees on fire when they sneeze. Whose appearance is unsettling...and whose scales are rough. But who, in their eyes, have the light of God's kingdom.

Change Agent?

2011-12-29T19:54:00.002-05:00

One of my seminary professors (who happens to be a rather prolific author) is fond of saying that one of the most amazing things about Jesus is his expectation that people can change. It is really rather stunning to see him speaking with the Samaritan woman at the well, whose life is a series of failed relationships, speaking as if a new kind of life for her is within reach. Jesus goes to the home of a tax collector, breaks bread, and somehow the man whose life has been built on greed becomes a giver.

People had this way of changing when Jesus got involved in their lives. When people hung out with Jesus, when they had him over for a meal, when they asked questions of him and listened, and when they stood on a hill outside Jerusalem and watched him die, they changed. Not all of them. But many of them.

It's stunning to see this. Especially in a world where we are told, as children, that "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" or "a leopard can't change its spots."

So this evening, as we tip-toe up to the start of a new year, I am thinking of change. How exciting the prospect of change may be for those of us who are stuck in lifeless, frustrating, soul-numbing, broken places.

Perhaps it is possible not only for people to change but for nations. And for churches. Which is a good thing...because while there is beauty and grace in most churches the truth is that many congregations are turned inward. Not only are too many churches focused on being a provider of religious services that will please constituents but the church has too often fallen silent in the face of injustice and profound human need.

Change is never easy. Change rarely comes quickly. But with God there is the possibility of change...new life. Jesus says if we take his love and truth into our lives (he talks about himself as bread that brings life to those who receive it) then we can live in new, eternal, free, right ways.

Remember that tonight (or today...or whenever you read this), okay? The Carpenter shows up and leopards change their spots, old dogs learn new tricks, tax collectors start giving money away to make things right, and a Samaritan woman stops trying to fill the hole in her heart with one more boyfriend.

You Never Stop Missing.

2011-09-10T13:04:00.004-04:00

Just over a week ago I took a road trip north to the lake country of Indiana. Our extended family has a lake cottage at Webster in Kosciousko County and Sharon's folks live on Koontz Lake in Marshall County.

On a ferociously hot Thursday afternoon I climbed in the Miata, kept the top up and the AC, and headed north. Just north of Indianapolis I stopped for fast food and put the top down. Turned off the AC. And listened to songs like "In the Still of the Night" and Jerry Butler's "For Your Precious Love."

As the air began to cool and the sun disappeared, I found myself thinking of my brother Eric. We were about two years apart in age. Close as two peas in a pod. Thick as thieves. You get the picture. We'd begin most days by strapping on our pretend six-shooters. (These were the days when Roy Rogers and Gene Autry were cowboy heroes to most young boys across the United States.)

On his 5th birthday Eric was being taken to the Hershey chocolate factory on an outing. The road was wet. The car slid. In those days before seatbelts and airbags his head tapped the dashboard and he was killed.

I heard, as my Dad drove me home from school, that Eric had been killed.

I've never gotten over his loss. The hole in my heart has never entirely healed.

So as I was driving north through Grant County, where he is buried in the Jefferson Township Cemetery, I found myself crying. Not heavily. Not enough to make it difficult to drive. But my eyes were wet. My heart ached. My world, you know, has never felt the same since that accident...since I lost him.

There has been a lot of talk lately about Elizabeth Kubler-Ross' "stages of death" (shock, denial, anger, etc.). People are now saying the stages she identifies make it look like some process you go through and then you are finished. You get a little certificate and then go on.

The truth is the work is never done. You never stop missing.

The Bible says the Lord is near to the broken-hearted. I find that a promise that keeps me going down the road...headed north.

Some Things Were Better.

2011-09-10T12:46:00.002-04:00

Last week I headed north on Thursday afternoon. The family was gathering at Lake Webster in Kosciousko County, where our extended family has a cottage, and then at Koontz Lake in Marshall County (where Sharon's folks live).

It was a fiercely hot day. I drove with the top up on the Miata and the AC running into I got to Carmel/Fishers. Then, I stopped to pick up some fast food, put the top down, cranked up the stereo to play some favorite 1950's and 1960's "doo wop."

The fields were full of corn and soybeans. The sun dropped low. I drove through small towns whose names weren't all that familiar. You see I have never really done much driving up the east side of Indiana on highways like 13 and 37.

A couple of things happened to me as I drove north. The one thing I want to mention in this blog entry is the awareness that in some ways -some ways- life was better 25 and 50 years ago.

I thought of that as I drove through the small town of Point Isabel. Like many small towns I suspect it had more life before big box stores showed up in the county seat and pulled business out of those small, independent stores. Then, I noticed just north of town an abandoned, three story brick schoolhouse. There was fencing around it to keep troublemakers out. But the building was still standing...the closing evidence of the wave of school consolidations across the midwest back in the 1960's and 1970's. People said children would get a better education if they went to a school of 600 instead of a high school of 150 or 200. People said students would have better curriculum, advanced placement classes, and so on. In many ways that is true. No doubt about it.

But something has been lost. All across the midwest students were going to small schools where the teachers knew them and they knew the teachers. Out of those small schools came business leaders and astronauts and physicians and successful farmers and teachers. They may not have had the opportunity to take advanced placement calculus or beginning Chinese but those small schools, in those small communities, were often places where students were known, given a place to grow up, and allowed to be. You didn't need to be an athletic superstar to play varsity basketball or volleyball the way you need to be to play at a school of 1-2,000. You didn't need to have a extraordinary voice to sing a solo in the high school's annual musical or the Spring concert.

It is ironic, now, to hear people talking about the ideal size of schools. It is ironic to hear educators talking about reducing the size of schools so that students don't get lost and the staff know them well enough to coach them...in life.

So the music on stereo is up loud. Some group whose name I can't recall is singing "Since I Don't Have You." The sun is hiding behind the rows of corn to my left as I head north. The brick schoolhouse is left behind. And I realize that in some ways things were better in the past. Does that mean I have been overcome by nostalgia or am a dinosaur? Or is it possible we've left some good things behind as we keep trying to catch the next "new thing?"

Killing Applause.

2011-09-10T12:32:00.003-04:00

Whatever you may think of the opinions of the politicans who stood on the stage at the recent GOP presidential debate, it was stunning to hear the audience break into applause at the mention that more than 234 persons have been executed in the state of Texas during Governor Rick Perry's tenure. An audience of soccer moms and suburban middle class folks (a good many of who, I presume, attend church most weekends) cheered the killing of 234 persons? Really?

Study after study shows serious problems with the way that the death penalty is carried out. Cases of mistaken identity are not that unusual (which led the State of Illinois to halt executions), and there is evidence that some innocent persons have been put to death. Studies show the penalty is applied disproportionately so that minorities are more likely to receive this most extreme of all penalties. Some who should know also say that capital punishment does not serve as a significant deterent to violent crime. Finally, the cost of applying the death penalty -when you factor in legal appeals that often go on for years- can exceed the expense of putting an individual in prison for life with no possibility of parole.

Oh, there is one more thing: it seems impossible to me for a Christian to cheer the death penalty while claiming to follow Jesus Christ. Jesus said we are to turn the other cheek when struck. Jesus told his disciple to put down the sword. And Paul encourages us to overcome evil with good.

Truth is I believe Christians are called to be pro-life. For me that means opposing the death penalty and opposing abortion in most cases. It also means supporting government policies that will enrich the lives of children and encourage a republic where there is life, liberty and the opportunity to pursue happiness.

Long ago Baptist preacher Will Campbell, who has been friend of the Black Panthers and served as a chaplain to the KKK down south, was asked to go on public tv to debate the death penalty. Will listened to a proponent of capital punishment make a lengthy opening statement, and then Will simply said, "I think it's tacky."

I don't know what it says about us that a washed up, well dressed room full of middle class and upper income types cheer the death of 234 individuals. Maybe it says we are afraid. Maybe it says we have somehow lost the connection between our political views and our souls. The next time Christians are tempted to cheer the killing of men and women they might want to open the New Testament, hang out with Jesus, and listen for the voice of the Galilean.

Gifts We Give One Another in a College Town.

2011-08-27T21:14:00.004-04:00

Bloomington has been busy this week. Folks down here call it "Move In Day." It used to be the single day when IU students descended on the campus and town. Now their arrival is spread out over several days. You can feel the town -especially along Kirkwood- coming alive during the days of late August. Every day there are more students on the streets and in the stores. There is a kind of "buzz."

Even spread out the return of the students fills the streets and slows down traffic. Getting from east to west (or vice versa) in Bloomington is almost impossible. People from other towns of 80,000 would never believe this and residents of New York City will laugh but our world down here feels like a "mini New York."

I've seen a lot of parents looking weary. Getting your son or daughter's things up to a room on the fifth floor of a dorm, or squeezed into an apartment, and doing the hard work (I know...sometimes it is blessed relief for all concerned!) of saying goodbye to your college student, is hard work.

As I navigated my way through traffic around College Mall today, I realized there are two things these two population groups -students and townspeople- need from one another. First, college students need to be welcomed. I don't mean just because they and their families pump hundreds of millions of dollars into the local economy each school year. They need to know we are glad they are here. They need to know we are glad to share our streets and sidewalks and neighborhoods. They need to know we are praying for them.

College students need to give full time residents of Bloomington a different gift: respect. When I was here as a student I heard some of my classmates refer to townspeople in patronizing or negative ways. Students often, by the way they drove their cars or talked in restaurants or mistreated their apartments and dorm rooms, communicated a "we're better than you and we'll use all of this the way we want to use it." There are a few who act spoiled and have a demanding attitude. (Maybe it isn't an act!) People here are great people, many of them work hard at the university or local businesses, and they deserve the respect of the students. It would be super cool (a phrase a red-headed friend in Elkhart often uses) if students came to IU committed to leaving the place (the town...the campus...their apartments) better than they found it.

"Live responsibly," Paul says in Romans 13 (The Message). Live that way not just to avoid punishment but also because it's the right way to live.

Classes start on Monday. Bloomington is humming. Here we go. Let's take good care of one another, okay?

Love Means Showing Up.

2011-08-27T20:57:00.004-04:00

When you're young you don't fully understand the gift of showing up. (Or at least I didn't.) We're invited to a wedding, or a graduation party, or we know someone who has lost a person they love, and we don't think it is that big of a deal if we show up -or not. They'll barely notice you stuck there in the middle of the crowd, right?

As our boys graduated from high school I noticed what it meant to us when people showed up. People drove a couple of hours, people carved out a good part of a day, and they showed up when Bryan, Nathan and Michael graduated. We noticed. It meant something. Somewhere down deep inside we felt the reality of friendship's blessing. We also, on the other hand, noticed good friends who didn't show up. Most of them had good reasons but some just hadn't learned that love means showing up.

I thought of this today as I drove north to Lebanon, Indiana for the funeral service of a colleague. David Patrick was a 46 year old United Methodist pastor who did great work mentoring young pastors and served on the Board of Ordained Ministry with me. I didn't know him well. He had served most of his ministry in the "old" South Indiana Conference, and I have always hovered around the Michigan state line. Until we came to Bloomington I had never served a congregation south of #30! So we didn't know one another all that well but David was a brother.

When you are a United Methodist pastor you are a part of something we call "the connection." As I write that it almost sounds mysterious. Or threatening (like the word is a synonym for organized crime!). Whether you like it or not, whether your theology or ministry style or political ideas match those of the pastor serving down the road in a nearby United Methodist Church, you not only belong to Christ but you belong to one another.

So I drove north on this beautiful morning with the top on the Miata down, the music of the Rolling Stones and then Joshua Bell playing on the stereo, with a cup of coffee in my hand. I sat in the back of a packed sanctuary. The family will never know I was there. I believe David noticed. I believe that love means showing up if there is anyway to do that.

Paul, in Romans 12, says if we are in Christ we are a part of one body. The apostle says love is to be genuine (not faked...not a going-through-the-motions type of love). He summarizes the commandments and then finally says love does no wrong to a neighbor (13:10) and that, in fact, love is "fulfilling of the law." In verse 15 he encourages us to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.

Love means showing up (if there is anyway to do that).

Little Lights.

2011-06-28T23:19:00.003-04:00

I've traded a place on a beautiful river for a spot in a condo development. This is a good place. Surprisingly quiet...which is in sharp contrast to the student apartments four or five blocks up the hill and down. Things are a bit more lively there!

One of the unexpected treasures of this place -there are almost always unexpected treasures wherever we are- is the fact that Fenbrook has no street lights for about one quarter of a mile. Fenbrook is the east-west road that our street "t's" into forty yards from our house. Walk down the sloping street we live on and you hit Fenbrook. You turn right and follow the sidewalk and, at night, the world is surprisingly dark.

There is a large yard behind a house to the right, just past a small woods, and there are often three or four deer in there. When they see you they look up and stare at you as if to say, "Who do you think you are staring at us?" If you stop you can hear the frogs down in a nearby pond. They sound like basses with an attitude. If you lean back, on a night like tonight, the stars seem close enough to touch. The darkness of the street allows them to shine.

The really cool thing about late June is that the woods, along the creek that runs along the south side of the street, are full of lightning bugs. (Are they the same as fireflies?) So in the woods there are these flashes of light going off and on. The pattern seems random. I remember reading that the bugs light up as some kind of way of attracting a mate. So the words, you might say, are full of love. Wondering if lightning bugs have speed-dating opportunities?

The dark of the woods seems as solid as mahogany. Impenetrable. Then, the little lights flash on and off...here and there...high in the trees and then down low to the ground. It makes me smile. And, after I stand there for awhile, it causes me to say, "There is a God."

Only God would put together a universe where something so silly, so delightful, so absolutely unnecessary, as lightning bugs would -at 11:27 at night- light up the woods along the creek.

Psalm 8 says that the heavens declare the majesty of God. There is something to be said for little lights.

The Sad Heart Says the Journey is Worth It

2011-06-25T11:26:00.004-04:00

Every day I am in Bloomington I see evidence that God has me in the right place. Confirmation of the rightness of this setting for ministry is all around me.

And yet, at the same time, the advent of summer has meant the onset of a pretty deep level of grief. There are a variety of factors to that, I think. A bit further down the road from old friends is certainly a part of it. Another part of it has been discovery, the reality, that I can't throw my gear in the back of the Miata and be at either Koontz Lake or Lake Webster in an hour to water ski. We could bounce over and back during the week and on the weekends. Whether or not I was preaching. So the summer confirms the fact that something has changed.

A colleague and fellow pastor named Paulwatched me go through a pretty profound greiving process when I left New Haven, and he told me he didn't think -and I agreed with him- I could survive another "uprooting." I know that is pretty dramatic language. And I know we all go through levels of grief as we pick up and move to the land the Lord is giving us. I suppose in some ways I "attach" too strongly to people and a place. Maybe a product of being a wandering Aramean as a child. Only a few of us have picked up and moved after a pastoral tenure of 14+ years (actually close to 20) so maybe the length multiplies the level of dis-location.

There's not a thing anyone needs to do or say about all of this. And the quiet sadness of the grief doesn't mean for a minute that I am anything but delighted to be in this place and with the blessed people of The Open Door/First UMC.

I thought, though, I would share two things I read in Christian Century while at the Y today. Carol Zaleski talks about the impact Virgil's Aenid had on C.S. Lewis. The Roman epic shaped his understanding of vocation. Aeneas obeys his calling and in Lewis' translation he says he is being led far over "alien foam." He says, "The mind remains unshaken while the vain tears fall." He speaks of Trojan women caught "Twixt miserable longing for the present land/And the far realms that call them by the fates' command."

In a conversation with Tolkien Lewis talked about the adult work of vocation. It's helpful for me to look at the journey as an opportunity to grow up, to grow deeper into Christ, and to understand that sometimes we are "men with a vocation, men on whom a burden is laid."

Dorothy L. Sayers, after reading the Aenid, said, "The effect is one of immense costliness of a vocation combined with a complete conviction that it is worth it.." Zaleski observes that Lewis understood "the poetry of vocation."

Whatever I am feeling is nothing compared to the challenges and tests in the lives of others. It pales to nothing when compared to the challenges before our friend, Stan Buck, or the losses endured by those living in Alabama, the Sudan, or Syria. But I thought it might be something I could share with friends.

In her book The Long Goodbye: A Memoir, Meghan O'Rourke talks about going through her mother's losing battle with cancer. She writes this: "I kept thinking, 'I just want somewhere to put my grief.' I was imaging a vessel for it: a long, shallow, wooden bowl, irregularly shaped. I had the sense that if I could chant, or rend my clothes...I Could, in effect, create that vessle in the world." But there was no ritual and she says "without ritual, the only way to share a loss was to talk about it."

God is good. I am so blessed. The work Jesus has for me among these blessed people is joy. After worship or a conversation or a meeting I sometimes almost dance down the hall! And, yet, there is always the heart.

The sad heart says the journey is worth it! Maybe you understand.

A Wedding on the Beach.

2011-05-29T22:59:00.003-04:00

Yesterday afternoon we stood on Cinnamon Beach here on St John, US Virgin Islands, as our son Nathan married Westra Bea Miller. This really wasn't a "destination wedding" since Westra grew up here.

The weather was just perfect. Slightly overcast with a breeze...which is just what you want at this time of year down here.

Westra was stunning...she is an extraordinary young woman. Bright as a whip and beautiful with a good heart. She was walked down the beach by her brother. Nathan was waiting for her in a pair of khaki slacks and a white, open-necked, dress shirt.

I was asked to say a "few words." Although couples rarely ever remember a thing a preacher says at their wedding I gave it my best shot! I read from 1st Corinthians 13. The translation of the Bible in the hotel room was King James so the language was a bit foreign to the thirty or so folks gathered on the beach. People heard, though, what the apostle Paul had to say about love being patient and kind, not keeping a record of the wrong but rejoicing in the right.

Several days before the wedding I had sent Westra and Nathan an email asking them to tell me, in a few sentences, what it was about the other that they most treasured. Their responses were both beautiful and honest...celebrating a very special kind of love and grace they have found together. So I read their words...and we all got quiet. Leaned in. Listened in. And realized we were in the presence of a very special kind of love.

I had all sorts of thoughts and feelings as I stood there on the beach, for the ceremony, and as I joined the party at the Ocean Grill in Mongoose Junction.

First, there was this deep gladness at watching our three sons be together. Bryan took the pictures. Michael helped the party happen. It was good watching them "hang" together. It was a joy watching the delight in the eyes of Michael and Bryan as they watched their brother get married.

Second, it is amazing how love links families people. People who were strangers to me before this weekend have now become a part of our lives...our family. I stood on a beach at a barbecue for friends of Westra and Nathan this weekend and looked around me with amazement...my family has grown in unexpected and delightful ways. Love brings us together...we end up making the journey together and it is all rather amazing.

Third, I realize how precious and powerful the love between young lovers is. It really is an extraordinary, breathless, miracle. The journey we call marriage is about finding some way -prayer, conversations in the evening before turning out the light, taking time to play- to keep that passionate, yearning, aching, delighted kind of love alive. Love changes over time. That is just the way it is. But too often we allow the exuberant love of youth to get lost along the way. So the marriage miracle is about holding onto the delight he had when we first found one another.

Fourth, for marriage to flourish we also not only need to hold onto the joy of our first love but also be open to new lessons along the way. To be open to the possibility that love may become a bit more quiet along the way but it also may deepen and mature in extraordinary ways.

Genesis tells us God created the first person and that person had it all. They did not, however, have a partner. God saw that wasn't good. So God made the second person. We may not all be married but we all need someone in our life who can be a partner...a dear friend...a brother or sister in the journey.

I am blessed...my face has been made bright by the sun and my heart is full.

A Short Pilgrimmage on Mother's Day Weekend.

2011-05-07T17:37:00.003-04:00

Friday afternoon we headed north to Walkerton. Walkerton is located in the southwestern corner of St. Joseph County in northern Indiana. It's where Sharon and I both graduated from high school.

We went that way to join about 80 others in a surprise birthday party for Sharon's younger sister, Linda. The air got chilly as people partied out in a large garage on a farm between Plymouth and Walkerton. Kids played games. A fire was burning in a fire pit out near the fields. A slice of the moon appeared despite occasional clouds. It was good.

This morning I spent some time chatting with my in-laws, and then I made a solo trip to South Bend to visit my Mom's grave. Her body is buried across from the University Park Mall on the north side of South Bend. Knowing how much our Mom enjoyed "retail therapy" we all thought the setting was just right.

I stopped at a nearby store and bought one,red rose to place on her grave.

In the past I have had to search to find her grave but this time I walked right to it. I placed the red rose across the grave marker that lies flat against the grass. A marker that says "United Methodist Missionary" was half-covered so I spent some time cleaning it all off.

What do you do when you stand at the grave of someone you love? You try to pull up some memories, some mental pictures, but you discover that is too much. You can't do a life justice in a few minutes like that. I looked up at nearby trees full of spring life, and I realized how death cannot quiet the music released by a life well lived. My Mom had her share of the craziness that marks every human life, but when God gave her to the world it was a good day...a special gift. She brought joy and music and faith and passion to us. She could be distracted. Overly involved in the church. She drank diet pop and loved Twinkies. She was a gift. Death cannot silence the blessings she gave away.

I stood there looking up at the traffic passing by. I studied a nearby tree. Then, I turned away. With a heart more full of gratitude than loss.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom.

Healing Power of the Road.

2011-05-07T17:28:00.002-04:00

I've had friends going through deep water. Each of them seemed to be headed down the road to visit a family member who was ill or they were packing for a new chapter. I sent several notes and said "May the road give you healing mercy."

I know Jesus is the source of all healing. I know blacktop and gravel can't lay hands on us and put together the pieces that are broken. However, there is something about the road that can offer healing mercy. The road can be a place where we discover the reality of loneliness: that's true. It can also be a place of healing.

There have been frantic, exhausted times in my life and I have set off down the highway with a Diet Coke, a stack of CD's, and a gym bag packed with clothes for a day or two. Something has happened to my heart and soul as I've driven along. I've followed the road as it rhymes it's way up and down the gentle hills of southern Indiana, I've listened to the hum of the tires on the blacktop, and something about being on the road calms me...heals me.

Music is often a companion. I'll sample different channels on XM. Early rock and roll, anthems by Queen, jazz, Springsteen all work together to do something good about the broken, tired places in me. Then, though, I turn the CD player off. I unplug the iPod. I shut down the radio. And the only music I hear is the music of the wind rushing past the half-opened window or the hiss of the tires on wet pavement. There is, I have discovered, a special melody that only the sounds of the road can provide.

There is that Irish blessing that says "may the road rise up to meet you." I don't know how exactly a road can "rise up" to meet us but maybe it involves some kind of healing power.

Bin Laden: Sometimes Love is Tough.

2011-05-03T22:29:00.003-04:00

The news from Pakistan about the killing of Osama bin Laden has elicited cheers from around our country. That's understandable. Bin Laden and others like him have been driven by a blind conviction that the world would be better off with one particular kind of fundamentalist Islam in control of all things big and small. Their willingness to take the lives of innocent people in the pursuit of their political and religious goals was unrestrained.

A friend sent me the following quote from Mark Twain: "I've never wished a man dead but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure." - Mark Twain

As a follower of Jesus I have struggled for a long time with the question about the appropriateness of war/violence as a means of solving problems. Jesus, after all, says (Matthew 5), "Here's another old saying that deserves a second look: 'Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.' Is that going to get us anywhere? Here's what I propose: 'Don't hit back at all.' If someone strikes you, stand there and take it. If someone drags you into court and sues for the shirt off your back, giftwrap your best coat and make a present of it. And if someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously."

Early Christians caused a scandal when they refused to serve in the army of the Roman Empire. Many Jesus followers were, from the beginning, pacifists. A great many Christians -including the sizable Amish and Mennonite populations in northern Indiana- continue to renounce violence in all situations.

I am not a pacifist. I believe Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. Period. There is no "but" coming. I believe the world would be a much better place if we "bombed" nations like Iraq with things like food, blankets, and medical supplies. I believe living generously, practicing compassion with those who distrust us and wish us ill, will get us further down the road to a better world than resorting to violence. I am deeply concerned by our continuing high level of spending on weaponary. If we are not careful we are going to end up as a hollow empire with unlivable cities, failing schools, inadequate healthcare, and a state-of-the-art military machine. President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned America against the temptation to build our national agenda around the "military industrial complex."

And yet. And yet...we live in a world that is imperfect. We live in a world where there are very dangerous people who want to hurt the innocent. Every now and then there is a kind of evil loose in the world that must be confronted. Not to oppose this kind of implacable evil is to become a partner to the destruction caused by that evil.

I suppose the issue that "tipped" me in support of the "just war" side that of the Christian community (which claims there are times when military force may be our last, best option) was the Holocaust. As a teenager I came face to face with the reality of the deliberate efforts of National Socialism in the Germany of the 1930-40's to exterminate the Jews. Historians say that more than six million Jews, Gypsies, Communists, Jehovah's Witnesses and others were killed by the Nazis and their helpers in such nations as France, Russia and Poland. I did my best to imagine how a non-violent response, on the part of Christians in Europe and around the world, might have stopped Hitler and his plan. I finally came to the conclusion that this evil would have been prevented if France, Poland, Belgium, and other nations had militarily confronted Nazi Germany as it began its expansion.

Sometimes what you get when you seek to satisfy the demands of a little bully is a bigger bully. I learned that on the playground.

Reinhold Niebuhr, a pastor during the middle years of the last century, broke with other Christian leaders who were insisting that we stay out of the conflict against the Axis Powers. Niebuhr said that love sometimes means you do all you can to maximize justice in the world.

One Christian writer says there are two sides to love: one is soft (grace, acceptance) and the other is hard (accountability, discipline).

We live in a broken, imperfect world where there is too much injustice and where there are some very, very dangerous people who intend to harm the innocent. I am thankful that Osama bin Laden will not be able to create any more destruction in the world. His removal was, I believe, necessary. I do not feel joy at his death but a weary kind of relief.

Before I end these thoughts I need to say how deeply grateful I am for men and women who do heroic things to confront evil. The team that went deep into Pakistan and took a great risk and was extraordinarily brave, bright, and gifted. What they did was amazing.

I still yearn for the day when, as the song says, we aren't going to study war "no more." I yearn for the day when, as the prophet says, we will beat our swords into plowshares.

Where Did the Double Spaces Go?

2011-04-16T08:18:00.004-04:00

A month or so ago I sat down to blog and when I posted the article all the paragraph breaks, the double-spaces, had disappeared. Which made the whole thing tough to read.

I like some open space between thoughts. It helps you as a reader, I think. Sort of like a wide-open field where you can sit down, while on a long walk, and catch your breath. Look around. Appreciate where you are. Before you walk on. But the paragraph breaks aren't "holding." I put them in but when the blog is posted to the web site it all runs together. And nothing I seem to do changes that. Doesn't matter how I type the article the program jams it all together.

One of the lessons I learn when I deal with technology is how limited I am. I feel like a pawn in a world of processors and binary codes and glowing LEDs. I sometimes feel like a visitor from 1746 Georgia to 2011 Manhattan. Maybe I'll figure it out. Maybe I won't. But I'll keep writing.

Growing Up Can Be Hard To Do.

2011-04-16T08:01:00.004-04:00

There was a song by pop singer Neil Sadaka titled "Breaking Up is Hard to Do." It was doo-wop lament about the challenges of ending a relationship. I thought of that song this morning as I glanced at some national newspapers on-line, and read the articles about the debate in Washington D.C. regarding our economy, the need to reduce our national deficit, tax policies, and the staggering accumulation of wealth by the top 1-2% of our citizenery.

There are too few people acting like adults in this discussion. People who would be leaders keep playing to their "base" but for the challenge to be solved we are going to have to do some adult things.

Which means some programs will need to be cut. Costs will need to be contained. Tough choices will need to be made. (We were wrestling, in medical ethics classes at IU more than thirty years ago, with the need to make tough choices in medical care. Does an 85 diabetic male receive a heart transplant if those same funds could take care of the medical needs of one hundred children, for example.)

What is alarming to me is the way some of our leaders seem eager to cut programs that assist the very young, the very old, and the very vulnerable -while saying almost nothing about tax breaks for oil companies and the need to trim our massive military budget. I wonder if some of our leaders, who seem most eager to make the cuts in social programs, have read the prophets of the Old Testament or the words of Jesus in Matthew 25. God does not take kindly to empires that forget the people at the bottom of the economic hill.

It means that tax revenue will need to be increased. It is stunning to see what would happen to our deficit problem if the tax cuts from an earlier era were allowed to expire. In fact, some folks I read say -people on the left and right seem to agree to this- the entire tax code needs to be simplified and made more fair.

I saw a column by Walter Mondale this morning that said Americans will pay for their priorities. I think he is right. I agree with some Republican leaders who say our people will make sacrifices if we are all in this together. The people of America, I am convinced, have more courage than their leaders are giving them credit for. Americans sacrificed during the Depression. Americans sacrificed during World War II. Our people will do without if that is what it will take to move forward. To keep our grandchildren from living in a debtor nation.

I tell people that my decision to leave Elkhart was an adult moment for me. My heart wanted to stay but I was convinced Elkhart Trinity needed a new start, a new voice, and I believed God had good work for me to do among great people here at Bloomington First. But I had to set aside the easy thing to do the right thing, the adult thing. This is a growing up moment for our country. We need to begin acting like adults. And growing up can be hard to do.

Times When Beauty Is Enough.

2011-04-07T20:53:00.009-04:00

The world outside has turned dark. The street lamps up and down South Baldwin Drive are now on. They are lighting up the blossoms on the ornamental pear trees up and down the street. I began this day sitting at my desk working in my home office. The pink light of the morning sun was working its way through the trees that stand on the ridge above the creek just a hundred yards or so south of us. The blossoms on the trees surprised me. It was as if someone had, over night, painstakingly placed every blossom in the perfect spot.

This morning I wrote an email devotional that talked about the importance of bearing fruit. These ornamental pear trees, if they are anything like the tree that stood outside the office at Elkhart Trinity, won't produce any kind of usable fruit. They'll scatter blossoms in the Spring, drop small, cherry-like fruit in late Summer, and distribute tiny leaves in the Fall. But they won't produce any kind of usable fruit.

Maybe my article that focused on the importance of bearing fruit, making a difference for God with our lives, told only part of the story. Maybe it is enough, sometimes, to produce beauty. In a world where there is too much ugliness and too little beauty, perhaps creating beauty is enough. The musical group the Cowboy Junkies produced an amazing song in "Blue Moon." If they never accomplish another thing in their lives maybe producing something so beautiful is enough. I've walked through the Art Institute in Chicago and studied the work of Monet. He has a way of capturing the light in every moment. I don't know a thing about the artist's life but maybe with God it is enough that Monet created beauty.

The Bible teaches us that God is a God of justice. And a God of compassion. And a God of extravagance. And a God of second chances...grace. The Bible also tells us God is a God who delights in, creates, beauty. In Psalm 8 the psalmist writes: "When I look at the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast made..."

Maybe beauty is more important than we think in our society that is so focused on utility and production. The blossoms won't last long. But today they have captured me...stopped me in my tracks...and caused me to offer up a Doxology. That is, I suspect, no small miracle.

The Adjustment Bureau.

2011-03-06T23:20:00.003-05:00

The Christian world in North America is soaked through with Calvinism. That is the belief that God is sovereign, that God is all powerful, that God has a plan for every moment of every day of every person's life, and that God directly causes everything that happens.

We survive a car accident when two others are killed? God spared us for a reason, our Calvinist brothers and sisters would say. A couple gets pregnant, a politician loses an election, a baseball player swings the bat and makes good contact with the ball: it is all God's doing. God has a plan.

United Methodists look at God and life in a different way. We believe God is at work in history. We believe God is working to bend history in the direction of healing, justice, peace, and life. We believe God has made it very clear -the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount- what kind of life works best. But we also believe God trusts creation -and life- to us. God gives us something we call "freewill." Our choices count. We are not puppets on a string.

The Bible is full of moments when God places a choice before people. Adam and Eve are told not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But God gives them the freedom to obey...or disobey!

Abram and Sarai are asked by God to leave home and head hundreds of miles to the west.

Esau is asked to forgive the brother who stole his birthright.

Hagar, when a part of her wants to die because of the shameful way she has been treated by Sarah and Abraham, chooses to listen to an angel and live.

Joshua says to the people of Israel, "Choose this day whom you will serve."

Jesus says to would-be disciples, "Follow me and I will teach you how to catch people in God's net of amazing grace." Those men and women who hear his voice can either stay where they are, living their old lives, or they can follow Jesus into a new life. The choice is their's.

All through the Bible we see God respecting the freedom God has given God's people. God gives us options, God allows us to choose, God challenges us to use our best judgment and to pray, but God never forces us to be obedient or to trust or to give.

The reason this all comes to mind is because of Matt Damon's new film, "The Adjustment Bureau." It is Hollywood's attempt to frame the whole question about how free we really are. Handling freedom, working through the choices that define who we are and who we will be, is not an easy thing the film says.

Our choices count. The Bible makes that clear. Be careful...freedom is a powerful gift that can bring joy and healing or it can -if handled badly- bring misery and heartbreak.

God loves you. God chooses to restrain God's power so that your choices will matter. Don't live thoughtlessly, don't think you can do life on auto-pilot, and assume God's "plan" is to clean up every mess you or I make.

You are so loved that God not only gave you his only Son, but you are so loved that God gave you the gift of choice...of freewill.

God Is on the Other Side of the River.

2011-03-06T22:59:00.003-05:00

We read the Bible stories so many times, perhaps, that we lose our ability to see how very real they all are. We know how the story ends, we know God shows up, and so that makes it very tough for us to see how scary it was for Abram and Sarai to pick up and head west towards Canaan. We know God is out there in Sinai, among the rocks and the dry ground and the wild wilderness, so it almost impossible for us to understand the fear in the gut of the Hebrews when Moses and Aaron led them away from the security of Egyptian slavery towards the unknown.

Where was Moses leading them? How was this going to end? They didn't really know and yet they packed their things -quickly!- and headed off. In the direction of two barriers that seemed impassable: the sea and the desert.

We've slipped into March. I am in a new place. The last time I "blogged" we were living north of highway 30. In Elkhart. Now we are south of that by a fair distance. Instead of looking out my study windows to see the St. Joseph River in Elkhart, which had become home in all sorts of deep ways, I look out my study window in Bloomington. To see a small hill on the other side of a creek. I wonder what the trees will look like, on that hill, when the leaves come in this spring.

The Christian way is a life that moves through death and discovers -when we live with God and for Jesus- resurrection on the other side. I have told close friends that my decision to be obedient to the whispers of God in the call to Bloomington meant that I have carried "the cross" of saying goodbye to people I love very, very much. The pain of that leaving was almost more than I could bear. (It was also true when we left New Haven back in 1996 for Elkhart: I thougth I was going to die. A close friend, my associate pastor there, said he thought I would never survive another move.)

Here is the discovery I have made: God is on the other side of the river. When the Hebrews, in Joshua 3, go across the Jordan River they discover God is at work on the other side of the river. There is life on the other side of the wandering time, the leaving chapter, even if it is in a place that isn't familiar as the place you have left.

Whatever river you are facing I want to tell you something I know, something I have experienced: God is on the other side of the river. God is over there in that new chapter with all of its questions and uncertainty.

I find myself being thankful. I find myself lighting up when I see the faces and hear the voices of those in Bloomington who are already becoming living treasure to me.

God is on the other side of the river. I want you to know that.

Looking Back.

2010-11-29T22:08:00.004-05:00

Genesis 19:26 tells us Lot's wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. Many other places in the Bible, though, tell us we are to remember. To tell yesterday's stories to our children and grandchildren. Deuteronomy 4 is all about remembering who God is and how God has been with us, and telling those stories to the kids.

Tonight the rain is coming down outside and I am looking back. I didn't intend to look back. I came into the office tonight to sort through files. (One of the things I try to do is leave a sparkling clean set of files for whoever follows me.) So I have been sorting...tossing...keeping... writing notes on files that need to be re-labeled.

I keep finding things. A wonderful Advent hymn a friend found on the United Methodist web site years ago. I look at the hymn and the words are a gift.

There is a file on The Green Room. Some of you may remember that TUMC got creative as we tried to reach out to young adults, and Trinity opened up a coffee shop in downtown Elkhart. As a place where young adults -and people of all ages- could gather. The coffee was good, the food was just fine, and the music was cool...but we closed it after a few years.

Fifteen years ago Trinity had three Sunday morning worship services. All were wonderful and all were essentially the same. We weren't reaching a new generation. So one of the files I came across is all about the creation of a "Contemporary Worship Task Force." Our leaders were putting that together as early as January of 1997. There are song lists. Some of them would embarrass us now, I suppose. And I remember that week after week, long after the "Celebration!" service was begun (bet you had forgotten that name!), our staff got headaches as we worked through the "bugs" in our primitive sound/projection system. We wanted our worship to glorify God and we wanted it to be excellent in every way...and some weeks it was!

There are names, too. Names of people I married. Names of friends, of saints, like June and John and Helen, whose funeral services I was privileged to lead. People whose faith and love and sense of humor and generosity has marked me forever.

So tonight I am looking back. And I don't feel salty at all. I feel blessed...thankful...gifted.

The words to that Advent hymn by a Jesus follower named Kilgore? They are in part these: I am here in the stars, in the dark of the night. I am always within you, and I am the light. I am who I am, sings the God of my soul. In your waiting and home I am making you whole.

Sometimes stopping and looking back is a very, very good thing, you know?

2010-11-26T19:31:00.001-05:00

You Sure Have a Lot of Junk!

2010-11-26T19:20:00.002-05:00

One of the best parts of Thanksgiving is having Ella and Olivia here. (Of course, it is very cool having their mom and dad, Joleen and Bryan, and our youngest son, Michael, here!) Ella came into my office here at the house the other night. She looked at the stacks of books on the floor. She noticed a Billy Bass sitting on the floor by the books, the Matchbox cars, the life-size cardboard cutout of Mr. Spock from Star Trek, and laughed, "You sure have a lot of junk, Grandpa!"

We began pushing the red button on the plaque holding Billy Bass, listened to the music, and both girls smiled...danced.

In the middle of the hard work of sorting, packing, and moving there is the opportunity to sort through your junk. Because we all have stuff we pick up along the way, don't we? Some of it may be old cassette tapes or books or Christmas gifts we never used or needed. Or it may be attitudes we were taught...picked up along the way.

I read an article today about a pastor who wanted to plant a church. Through interviews, personality inventories, and checking the pastor's past it turned out that he had an anger problem. When people tried to talk with him about this the man became furious. Confirmed the hunch of the interview team. So with that man the junk he carried with him was a tendency to let anger control.

Another friend lives with the voice of someone who told her, a long time ago, "You'll never do things right...or enough good stuff." So she carries this voice around in her head that is constantly critical.

What is your junk?

Jesus was always offering people the opportunity to accept the forgiveness of God and leave their junk behind. God forgives the messes of our past, and through the power of the Holy Spirit we are given a chance to do life differently in the future.

Ella -as I am writing this- just walked in my office and said, again, "You sure have a lot of junk, Grandpa!" As she stood looking at all this stuff (old photos, books, toy cars, etc.) she said, "Why do you have so much junk?"

Not a bad question to leave you with...

Thanks for the Little Moments.

2010-11-26T19:04:00.003-05:00

Life has all sorts of surprises along the way, you know? God shows up and sends our lives off in unexpected directions.

So here we are. Two months ago I was heading back to Trinity for an expected new chapter of 2-4 (more?) years of ministry and life. A phone call came my way a month ago, and now I am sorting files in my office...doing ministry while getting ready to shift to a new place.

An old friend said when there is a pastoral change it is like a congregation is having a funeral while planning for a wedding. There are tears. There is grief. People say, "So soon?" (Of course there may be a few who shrug and say, "How did it take this long for this to happen?") Folks are talking about blessing us, saying goodbye, and at the same time leaders of the church are getting ready for a new chapter. Thinking about a new start with someone God will send our way.

My role is shifting. I can feel it happening as each day goes by. From teaching and guiding my role is shifting to preaching and blessing. Oh, the other day in staff I led our team in a conversation about coaching and leadership and teamwork. But those moments will now slow to trickle and I'll be doing two things: focusing on preaching and blessing people...and receiving blessings.

It's happening all the time. I am getting notes in my email each day. Sweet words. When I go to the Y or step into a coffee shop, people stop me...they talk...they bless me. So getting anywhere can be a slow process! I am intentionally lingering with people...soaking up every blessed moment. Looking people in the eyes.

Preaching, as it always have, will get the best investment of time and heart and soul I have to offer. I remember talking with a pastor, years ago, who in the month before retirement was preaching recycled sermons. That news broke my heart. I thought, "You have a chance to sum up what you believe...what this is all about...to bless your people as they step into a new future... and you are going through the motions." When time is short it isn't time to go on auto-pilot but to use each minute in the pulpit as faithfully and gracefully and honestly as you can.

Things seem lighter. My role is shifting. It's about those blessed little moments when God gives me chances to bless others and receive a blessing. To, as best we can, talk about what God has done in us and between us and through us. They are little moments...but they're not so little.

Ecclesiastes (4) says there is a time for everything. A time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to scatter and a time to gather, a time to embrace and a time to step back, a time to keep and a time to let go: these days are somehow a mixture of holding and letting go. I let go of the work, of the role I may have played, but I am holding onto people...savoring that...every word, every smile, every moment shared.

Turn Down the Volume.

2010-10-20T06:36:00.002-04:00

(The views I express on my blog are my own and they do not represent in any way the members of Trinity United Methodist Church or the United Methodist Church, okay?)

Our nation is in the middle of an "election cycle" (that is what the "talking heads" call it) and the volume just keeps getting louder and louder. Candidates from the fringe, or candidates who have grown desperate, are using their "outside voices" rather than their "inside voices" (these are phrases the mother of a 3-4 year old will understand). I think the rhetoric is dangerous.

During the last presidential election some people were questioning the patriotism of our current President. Which is a dangerous road to travel. Can't we disagree with someone on policy issues but respect the other person? Not take that next step and attempt to question their love for the republic or their character?

A local candidate for Congress has been accused, I saw in a banner ad on the internet last night, of promoting "anti-Christian causes." Billboards accuse him of promoting abortion. I know the man who is being attacked and he is a decent, hardworking man who is a Catholic Christian. And doesn't deserve to be "shamed" by billboards paid for by some Political Action Committee funded by folks we may never know. Down in Kentucky the Democratic candidate for Senator has brought up an incident that GOP-candidate Rand Paul was involved in as a college student more than 30 years ago, and the Democrat is suggesting Paul -a Presbyterian, I've been told- is somehow anti-Christian.

I worry for our country. Some politicans are deliberately playing to the fears and frustration of people. Much of that fear and frustration has been born of an economic recession that is severe. Policies at the national level, supported by both parties over multiple administrations, led up to the economic crash. As did personal decisions we all made to spend too much on the wrong things. But by pouring the gasoline of extreme rehetoric onto the fire of people's fears and anger and frustration politicans are damaging the country.

It is striking. In Exodus 16 the ex-slaves are marching across Sinai and they are scared. Don't see how they are going to be fed. So they turn on their leaders. They turn on Aaron and Moses. So it is. When people are scared they turn on their leaders. We want someone who can fix this -right now!

Here is what I long for: I long for thoughtful leaders of both political parties who will work together to solve the serious challenges facing our country. I long for political leaders who will work together for the common good and not be driven by a blind desire to make the other party look bad so they can "win" the next "election cycle." We're going to have get honest about crumbling infrastructure (including bridges, highways, neighborhoods and broken, dysfunctional families) and try new and creative solutions to things like the crisis in education. We're going to have to get honest about the price we are paying in Afghanistan and in not setting appropriate limits on well-meaning entitlement programs. We're all going to have to sacrifice so America can be strong, can be great, again. There will be no long-term gain without short-term pain.

My Grandpa Owen was a Republican politican who spent most of his working life as Chief Deputy Treasurer in the Indiana Statehouse. Bill Owen worked for -and was friends with- Democratic governors and state treasurers. He was also a fan of two strong political parties.
And I hear stories about how Democrat Representative Tip O'Neil would battle with President Reagan over policy questions and legislation, and then they would sit down together as friends for a drink.

America has been -and can be- a strong republic where courageous men and women work together for the good of the earth. I am praying we'll all turn down the volume. Disagree with one another on policies or philosophy but still respect one another as fellow citizens of a great nation. Let's turn down the volume. Let's respect one another. And let's view the more extreme claims of some candidates with a healthy dose of skepticism.

So How Did the Time Away Change You?

2010-10-18T20:08:00.004-04:00

Three months. Twelve weeks. Time in Elkhart and Michigan and Europe and on a ship and in Florida. Time alone. Time with Sharon. Time with the family and our granddaughters. What did it mean? What did I learn?

A friend who went on a sabbatical several years ago told that you really don't fully understand what God has done in you for several months or years after you have returned. I have this image of a sort of "time release" of truth and change that will keep going off for weeks and months.

Here are some things I noticed/learned:

Stopping is good. Many of us are on a treadmill that moves too fast and it is good to stop. My relationship with God grew and deepened when I stopped.
I felt "lighter." I am someone who has been pretty serious. A problem solver. Thinking about the big challenges facing us. And I discovered it felt good not to be constantly thinking through how every big problem could be solved. I discovered I felt "lighter" the more I trusted God to handle the world. I realized it is okay to stop...to smile...to laugh... to play...and not to carry the responsibility of the world around on my shoulders 24/7.
Joy is cool.
One of the best gifts God has ever given us is ourselves. Sometimes we let the person God made us to be get covered up...papered over...and we need to be good stewards of our own heart and mind and body and soul.

So I've come back and as I do I think I will:

Work hard to focus on a few essential tasks God needs for me to do here at Trinity.
Do my best to "fit" into the way God has been at work in my absence. The staff and our leaders have developed a new rhythm while I have been away and I don't want to get in the way of the good that is happening!
Do less and do it better.
Love God and continue to make an extended time with God the first thing I do every morning.
Don't even look at email until I am well into the day, and not do any work on-line in the evening unless it is absolutely necessary.
Head home earlier. Remembering the lesson of our neighbor in Mishawaka. Carlton was a farmer and when it was time for supper he turned off the tractor and went home. Even if he was close to having a field planted or harvested. There was a time to stop because the work was never done.
Listen to less news in the evening.
Watch less tv.
Spend time each week beginning the writing ministry our leaders have been nudging me to undertake.
Do my best to finish writing the sermon on Wednesday so that every Friday I get a full day off.

In Psalm 51 David says "teach me wisdom in my secret heart." Later, he goes on to say, "Fill me with joy and gladness." God is, I say with thanksgiving, doing both in my life right now.

Every morning I begin with this prayer: "Jesus, thank you for this morning and this breath. Give me a sweet and joyful spirit, a soft and compassionate heart, and the courage to say and be who you need me to be today."

"So Were There Any God Moments?"

2010-10-18T19:43:00.002-04:00

That's the question a friend asked me at breakfast this morning. I've been away on a three-month Lilly Endowment-sponsored sabbatical and my colleague asked me, "So were there any God moments? Did God speak to you?"

A group of us was sitting at a table at Perkins and I stammered...searched for words. "Yes," I finally said, "there were a lot of God moments." All sorts of memories and moments and places ran through my head.

There was time on the beach at South Haven, Michigan. Right at the beginning of the clergy leave. Walking. Reading. Swimming. Spending the day on the beach. Taking a break for lunch and then going back. Until it was time for supper. And then returning to see the sunset and walk along the sand under the stars. Psalm 8 tells us that the glory of God taps us on the shoulder as we look up at the stars.

Shortly after that Sharon and I were at the Art Institute in Chicago. The room that stopped me was full of paintings by Monet. The artist had a way of catching the light. Finding the light. Even in a stormy seascape...there is light breaking out in the waves and sky.

We took several trips over and back to Columbus. Visiting Ella and Olivia. Going to a nearby park. Playing in the pink "Princess Castle" tent set up in the dining room. We spent some time at local lakes -Koontz and Webster- where we swam and I water-skied. All good. Both those little girls have a way of releasing my heart from whatever prison has locked it away.

There were eight days on a ship crossing the Atlantic. I was on my own...Sharon gets seasick. So I read and walked the deck and swam in the pool and attended a few lectures. Mainly, though, I looked at the water and sky. Journaled.

Sharon and I then spent the better part of a week with good friends in a small town 50 km from Stuttgart. We took the train to Florence where all three adults sons, and their wives and children, met us for a week outside the Tuscan city of Lucca. The house we had looked down on a small town...a river valley. We swam. We sat and talked. We made pizza in a wood-fired oven. (My attempts were a spectacular failures!)

One evening we took Olivia and Ella down to the piazza of a small town in the evening for gelatto. People in Italy come out of their homes for the evening. Old men on benches. Young couples on dates. Children riding bicycles in the plaza. All under a full moon. Another evening we went back and I ended up dancing with Ella outdoors as people did karaoke (which sounds about as bad in Italian as it does in English!). We danced and she laid her head on my shoulder.

There were two days in Rome with Michael while some of the family flew home and others
-including Sharon- went to Paris. The girls and us played in the city parks. The Eiffel Tower was three blocks away and was the first thing we saw when we opened the windows. Sharon and I walked into Notre Dame just as evening vespers began. Light was pouring through the windows of the great church and a beautiful soprano voice was calling God's people to prayer.

The last chapter of the sabbatical included a Miata trip south. The Spirit of God surrounded me, filled me, as I spent three days with Trappist monks in an abbey in central Kentucky. We worshipped in the middle of the night, early in the morning, the middle of the day, and in the evening. I walked...I journaled...and prayed. And God wouldn't let me step away from his presence...it was an experience of such holiness that I sometimes felt like my soul needed to shout, "Glory and enough!"

Right after that I spent several days in Nashville. Going to the string of country and western clubs on Broadway. Listening late into the night to all sorts of music. Surrounded by people who aren't the sort of people I usually hang out with. It was great! I laughed. There was this lightness, this playfulness, this delight in trusting God to take care of the world while I just enjoyed the music and the place, and it was good.

I drove on south towards Florida. Through Alabama on a moon lit night with the top down on the Miata. At the end we spent a few days in Fort Myers. Reading. Walking the beach. Eating grouper. And then we headed towards home. Through the mountains of north Georgia where we left the interstate and found a beautiful, winding river we might have otherwise missed.

There have been so many moments when God has been so close... One of the most powerful experiences with God, though, took place this weekend at Trinity. Being home. Being with you. Looking out and seeing your faces. Singing great songs. Seeing what Jesus has to say to us in Luke 12 about how we can move beyond worry and anxiety over money. God is here...the floor and walls and air hum with the Presence of the God who is Creator, Redeemer and Spirit. Jesus is all over this place!

It was good. Oh, there was a bump here and there, now and then, but it was good. I am so grateful you let me go. And I am so very glad you have loved me back!

Lingering.

2010-07-22T16:18:00.002-04:00

This is an interesting little journey, this 12-week sabbatical experience. It is, like so many chapters in life, one of those experiences where God works around the edges. Comes at us from a direction we didn't expect.

Last week we spent three and a half days at one of our favorite spots on the southwest coast of Michigan. South Haven is a town with a lovely marina, two beaches, some nice shops and simple restaurants, a river that divides the town, a section called North Beach that has many B & B's, and it all "works" as a getaway place. We soaked up the sun, enjoyed the water, watched some stunning sunsets, and walked out to a rather pedestrian lighthouse that sits at the end of the jetty/breakwater.

These last couple of days, though, I have been hanging out at home. Taking care of lots of small things. Phone calls, doing a little writing, running errands, and stopping at the grocery store a couple of times. Just ordinary, little stuff. Tuesday I worked out at the Y, headed to Mishawaka and visited a book store, bought a pair of good walking sandals at the mall, and had a late lunch at a BBQ joint. I've been "burning" CD's to synch with the new iPod player I bought three weeks ago.

Now here is the thing: I have noticed that I am lighter. Somehow, even though I keep moving, I am lighter. And I have noticed that I am lingering with people. Slowing down. For instance, I stopped at the barber shop this morning. (I know...it doesn't take long!) Instead of paying the bill and moving out the door, I lingered. I don't know whether the guys in the shop appreciated my hanging out for a few extra minutes, just chatting, but I have noticed that I am lingering more with people. Whether at the barber shop or talking with the woman standing behind me at the post office yesterday.

Something inside me is slowing down.

As I sorted through some things today, cleaning up my part of the house, I came across a devotional reading for Christmas someone had given me months ago. It's the story of a woman in an office who gives a man a couple of small gifts for Christmas. One is a very inexpensive calculator. There is another little thing to take camping. Finally, though, she gives him a wrapped present which he opens -only to find nothing inside.

There was nothing inside! The man held the empty box up. There was a long silence. Quietly, the woman said, "It's a pause. Use it anywhere. Anytime you need it. It will always be there." The woman smiled. "I know you've been busy," she said, "and I thought you could use a pause."

I like that story in Luke 10. Where Jesus shows up at the home of his friends, Mary and Martha. He lingers. And Mary lingers with him.

Somehow I think lingering is an important part of the art of life.

Opening the Window.

2010-07-20T21:45:00.003-04:00

Opening the Window.

The flood kept coming, the words on the page tell us.

I have difficulty keeping track of the numbers.

Verse 12 says the water fell for forty days and forty nights.

Twelve verses later were told the water flooded the earth for a hundred

and fifty days.

The flood kept coming.

Which is what floods often do.

They keep coming until your ark is

Lifted high above the earth.

The rain stops falling and the water recedes.

Somehow a piece of rock, high up, catches the boat and holds it fast.

When the tops of the mountains can be seen

The old man opens a window and sends out a raven.

We open windows and send out birds,

don't we,

when we wonder what is ahead

and whether dry ground is to be found?

We open windows and send out words

like ravens and doves,

Whose wings beat against the air

Words looking down for an olive tree, green and growing.

The old man waits at his open window

For the birds to return with some evidence

That God has remembered

And the floodgates of heaven have been closed.

So we look out, looking for what we cannot see,

Wondering what is beyond the here and now,

The known flood,

Sending out words like doves to find a starting place.

As Sun Approaches Water.

2010-07-14T01:07:00.005-04:00

Some places we keep going back to. One of those places for me is Warren Dunes. It's not Hawaii. It's not the perfect beach you might find in Bora-Bora. But it is close by. I've been going up there since I was in high school. The sunsets can be spectacular, the beach is okay, and if you wait long enough into the summer the water is great for swimming.

What we like to do is go up late in the afternoon. When the heat of the day has crested and the air is beginning to cool. We throw a blanket down as everyone else is beginning to think of heading towards the exits. We swim...read...nap...eat a sandwich...maybe get a soft-serve ice cream cone...watch the sun disappear over the horizon. Then, we head for home...and watch the lightning bugs out in the fields as we make our way east and south.

We were there this afternoon. And that time produced the following few verses.

Grace,
Mark

As Sun Approaches Water.

The Sandbar.

There is a sandbar fifty yards or so offshore.

No doubt the sand has shifted, moved in or out, north or south,

But the sandbar has been there since

I can remember.

The lake bottom slopes down

Until I am barely able to touch,

But toes keep contact with sand and as water laps at my chin

I feel the sandbar beneath my feet and I am half out of water.

There are days when the bottom slopes down

Until we are barely able to touch,

But we keep moving through water that seems too deep

Until there is something sold beneath our feet and we are half out of water.

Slipping deeper into the water

I think of life,

Touching the sandbar that seems solid enough

I think of God and faith as the promise of things unseen.

_________________________________

______________________________

Visible Love.

It seems preposterous.

Beyond belief.

Too silly.

Embarassing to admit.

I stood at the Dunes.

And kissed a girl.

A kiss whose sweetness still lingers.

And I thought our kiss was a private thing.

I was eager.

Not believing my good fortune.

That a girl so lovely

Would allow me to be so close.

Somehow I thought

That the sand and wild grass

Would shelter us from other eyes

A sanctuary within a sanctuary, if you will.

Now I look around

And realize how open and public

Our moment of tenderness and timid passion

Actually was.

Modest piles of sand and wispy

Grass did not afford us the protection

We assumed God had provided

But our reaching out to one another was too visible.

Love is something we often think

Is easily hidden from the eyes of others,

But the truth is love is visible to all

Despite our belief in the sheltering power of sand and grass.

Reclaiming Holy Ground.

2010-07-06T17:43:00.002-04:00

Our extended family has had a cottage at Lake Webster for more than 70 years. I have memories of going to the beach there, on the grounds of the United Methodist camp site known as Epworth Forest, as a young boy. I learned how to row a boat at Lake Webster. I learned how to catch bluegill (and one spectacular bass) at Lake Webster. I remember spending evenings on the sternwheeler -the Dixie- that would circle the lake picking up passengers.

Since we were missionaries we moved all around the world, it seemed. We seemed to always be on the go. But we would always come back to the cottage at Lake Webster. Then, I grew up (okay...maybe I didn't grow up but I got to the point in life where people expect you to have a job!) and our family moved around. As the family of a United Methodist pastor does. But we always came back to the cottage at Lake Webster.

Ten years ago this past spring my Mom died of pancreatic cancer. Since then I haven't enjoyed going to Lake Webster because the cottage reminds me of her absence.

Now, though, our two granddaughters have decided they love going to Lake Webster. We've just spend three days with them. Ella walked with me on the pier, last night, after a sunset trip around the lake on the ski boat. Both Grandpa and her Mommy went skiing. Ella said to me, "I have had so much fun at the cottage!"

So now the cottage is a good place to go, for me. The girls and their presence have reclaimed this holy ground for me. Their love fills the place. My Mom's picture is still on the door of the fridge. I still sometimes stop, as I swing in the hammock in the front yard, and say, "Oh, Mom..." Bryan, our oldest son, reminded me today as we swam down at the beach how my Mom would wear a rubber swimming cap and swim laps back and forth across the swimming area.

I miss my Mom. But Ella and Olivia have reclaimed this holy ground for me. They have blessed it. They have sanctified it with their gracious -and sometimes very loud!- presence.

The Technological Treadmill.

2010-07-06T17:35:00.002-04:00

So the new iPhone is coming out. Articles on business pages talk about the number of people lining up to order/buy this latest version of the hot selling phone with the all amazing applications.

The cycle of innovation keeps speeding up, and what was cutting edge technology six months ago is now outdated. Left high and dry. Shiny new phones, computers, electronic reading devices, MP3 units, are taken home...we just figure them out...they just start to "work" for us. Then, something new is rolled out. The shiny new thing is now old. We turn them in. Spend more money. Lose more hours trying to figure out a new operating system. And so it goes.

An article in a Christian news magazine the other day (or was it the New York Times?) raised the whole question about the environmental impact of all these devices being built and then discarded. Are they being recycled? What about all the metal and plastic that is put into each unit?

At what point do we say, "Enough?" That may be an odd statement for me to make the week after I bought my first iPod. But at what point do we say this: "Enough. The phone I have makes phone calls, allows me to text and take pictures, and I think that is just fine. I don't want to spend more money for something that does more stuff I can't even figure out."

It is an environmental concern: the world does not have endless resources.

It is a stewardship concern: have you ever thought about all the stress in your life, and the time wasted, as you try to figure out that new computer, that new phone, that new MP3, that new GPS unit?

It is a spiritual concern: is it just possible that we think the next new shiny thing will make the deep ache inside go away...when only a relationship with the living God can do that?

Maybe the Hebrews weren't bowing and scraping to a golden calf out there in the wilderness of Sinai. Maybe they were actually standing in line waiting for the next cool phone.

Space and Water.

2010-07-01T23:46:00.002-04:00

A friend told me that going on a sabbatical was disorienting. The first week or so my friend said that he, after putting down his role as a pastor, had to work to discover again who he was -down deep. At a basic level. Apart from his role as pastor.

I'm not sure about that but it is going to take several days for my "motor" to slow down.

Honestly, I am curious about what God is going to do during the next three months. I already feel lighter. For the last three days I have been in a coastal town in southwest Michigan. It's one of our favorite places. A lovely beach, a simple bed & breakfast three blocks from North Beach, a picturesque marina with boats lined up along a river that divides the town, and water that has been stirred up by a steady west wind. I've been walking, reading, swimming, and stopping. I want to enjoy my new iPod but the music of the water keeps me from inserting those earbuds and shutting out the world with the music of Mariah Carey, Mark Knoffler, Vince Gill, Puccini, or Bering Strait. As good as the music may be I'd rather hear the waves meet the sand.

Tonight I twice walked out on the jetty that leads out to a navigation light. The waves were rolling along the steel plates along side the breakwater. I found myself thinking about all the times when, as a young boy in northwest Alaska, I would wander down to the shore of the Bering Sea. There was something about the water that drew me.

When I need to be renewed, when I need to step away, I often find myself either on or near water. Not sure why. So tonight I walked the beach -after taking the risk of swimming in water that was more than bracing. Here I am walking along, watching, and swimming in Lake Michigan. Later in this three month journey I'll be spending 8 days on the North Atlantic. And, near the end of the clergy leave, I'll be in Florida...walking those Gulf beaches. Swimming in those warmer waters. (Assuming swimming in the Gulf of Mexico is still something people are allowed to do!)

Maybe it has something to do with those words in Genesis when we are told that the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God brought light out of darkness, form out of chaos, dry ground out of water. It's interesting that when people in 1st century Palestine people wanted a new start with God they went out to the Jordan River to be immersed in those tea-colored waters. Baptism in the waters of the river were a place where people began a new chapter. I even find myself thinking of the time in the Old Testament when a great Syrian general, who was suffering from an incurable skin disease, showed up and a Jewish prophet told the man -Naaman- to go bath in the waters of the Jordan River. Plain old water didn't seem like something God could use to heal something so serious, the great general thought.

But water can heal. Water seems to provide me with a space...and in that space God works.

God is.

It has been a good day. A beautiful day. A peace-full day.

Turning Out (& Turning On) the Light Switches

2010-06-17T16:17:00.004-04:00

In a week and a half I head off on a 12-week Clergy Leave/Sabbatical. Which the Lilly Endowment Inc. is helping to pay for. So over the last few weeks I have been doing my ministry stuff at TUMC while at the same time taking care of planning details for sabbatical.

Part of what is going on, you know, is sorting out what I should be doing...and what my essential role is here at Trinity. Over the last week or so I have felt like a hiker who is unloading his pack. Sorting through it. Deciding what needs to be carried along in the trail and what needs to be left behind -or handed to others.

The sabbatical is nudging me to ask some tough questions about what it is I do at Trinity. Am I doing the right things? Am I doing too much? Am I getting in the way of others when they could do a much better job than me at some ministry task?

So I have been sorting through my pack. More and more I have been saying "No."

A friend in the community asked if I could help raise $50,000 between now and next Friday for something in the community. I said I couldn't do that.

Another person asked me to make contacts regarding a multi-million dollar campaign to rebuild our Christian camping facilities at Epworth Forest. Between today and next Friday. I said I couldn't do that.

A third person, a pastor in Southern Indiana, asked if I could pull together some ideas about recruiting young Christians into the ministry. I said, "No, I can't do that between now and next Friday."

So I am saying "No" a lot. Sorting things out. Putting things down. Handing things off. Or simply realizing that something isn't mine to deal with...worry about.

I told someone what I am doing is going around turning off switches. He responded, "When you get back think twice before you turn the switches back on. Ask yourself if you want to start doing what you were doing before you went away." It was good advice: I want to do ministry differently when I return in three months. Because sometimes I think I am working hard at good stuff while neglecting even more essential kingdom work.

Jesus talks about seeking first the kingdom. Which involves sorting. Making some decisions about life and priorities and time and energy.

I am turning out the light switches. And I will pray before starting to turn them on when I return.

Words and Wells.

2010-06-17T16:12:00.004-04:00

I've been quiet for a long while. Not in real life, so much. Although there have been some days this late Spring and early Summer when I have just been quiet. Which makes people nervous. They don't know what to do when words aren't falling out of my mouth.

"Are you okay?" they ask.

"Yes," I tell them. "I'm just thinking. I just feel like being quiet."

I've been quiet for a long while -at least in terms of the blog. Which is okay. Because words are, I think, like water. Whatever it is in the heart that leads to the putting of words together is sort of like a well Sometimes the well may run low or even go dry. That happened one hot, dry Summer in North Carolina. The well nearly went dry. And we needed to let it replenish itself. Stop pumping so much out. So sometimes being quiet is a good thing. Because when you keep talking and writing even though the interior well is dry, the words that come out are generally flat and uninspiring. Lifeless.

So I've been quiet. And it's okay.

Can You Get Thrown Out of a Place You've Already Left?

2010-03-30T21:25:00.002-04:00

A young adult surprised me in a local funeral home today. I was there for a funeral visitation. Somehow I had gotten confused and showed up an hour early so I was the only one in the room. Until the young woman caught me and asked if I was related to Trinity United Methodist Church.

When I said I was one of the pastors, she turned to me and said, "I need to ask you a question? Why did your church throw me out when I was off at school and still keep as members people who are in prison?"

I was surprised. I've been here for fourteen years, you see, and I had never seen the young woman in worship.

I commented that my own sons had their names removed from the membership list at the United Methodist Church they attended in high school. I explained that when we become members we promise to support the church by our prayers, presence, gifts and service. And that when we stop coming, when we disappear, when we walk away from our promises, then the church will remove our name because we've gone away.

That didn't soften her anger...still bubbling over after having been gone from Trinity for more than ten years.

"Have you been in worship at any point in the last fourteen years?" I asked.

"Why would I want to go there," she snapped, "since my family left. And how can you have terrible people who have done terrible things as members?"

"Do you know about our faith?" I asked. "Do you understand what Jesus does with those who sin, who fail, who make a mess of things? Our faith says God doesn't give up on us even when everyone else does."

She was still seething. "I don't get how you could throw me out of church!"

"We didn't throw you out," I said. "You walked out. You left us."

"Whatever!" she said with a toss of her head and she disappeared down the hall of the funeral home.

It was an interesting moment. Which raised all kinds of questions for me.

Did I take seriously her anger and sense of having been hurt? Did I go on the defensive too quickly?

And, Why does church membership matter to some people only when it is taken away? I sometimes hunch that for some people church membership is God's "seal of approval." It is evidence that they are okay with God. A sort of eternal insurance policy. They don't really seem to be pursuing a relationship with God but when their membership is removed it feels like even God has rejected them.

Or, Can you get thrown out of a place when you have already walked out the door?

Or, Did I miss an opportunity to say "Are you telling me you would like to be a part of a Jesus community? Are you missing something...and do you know the door is always open?"

We live in a culture where the promises we make to God seem easily ignored. And we're shocked when the Jesus community, in the most gracious way possible, holds us accountable. We're not used to having people say, "Do you remember the promises you made to God?"

It was an interesting...surprising...unsettling conversation. Walking away I thought again about the importance of telling young people the Jesus way isn't easy. The Jesus way is going to demand their best...everything they have. The Jesus way involves a cross. And if you aren't serious about this then don't sign up. Don't treat becoming a Jesus follower as some kind of rite of passage...like getting your driver's license or going on Spring Break with your friends for the first time at eighteen.

So this was one of the moments in my day.

And I find myself tonight thinking about the story of the lost sheep. It's in Luke 15. You can look it up.

Psalm 8 Moments.

2010-03-30T21:08:00.003-04:00

There are good philosophical arguments against the idea that there is a God. I bumped into those in my philosophy classes in college.

Bright people have worked hard to construct solid reasons why the very idea of God seems far fetched. And there are several rather articulate atheists whose books are on the best seller lists right now.

I know that.

And then there are moments like the last two mornings. If you've been up early enough, you have seen a full moon in the sky. It's been breath-taking.

When I went out to get the morning papers at 5:30 yesterday morning, I looked up and the beauty over my head stopped me in my tracks. I stood there flat-footed with amazement. A few minutes later I was in the car, heading west and south, and the moon continued to move towards the west. Glowing with the sun's light. Reflecting the light from the sun back down on these prairie fields of early Spring.

I am not good at memorizing scripture. Standing there with the newspapers in my hands, and then later driving down the road, the words of Psalm 8 did come to mind: When I look at the sky, which you have made, at the moon and the stars, which you set in their places- what are human beings, that you think of them; mere mortals, that you care for them?

Later that morning, in Franklin, Indiana, I sat with two good friends at the funeral service for the mother of another buddy. The woman had died after years of being a near invalid, but she had lived with joy. "Help people as you can," was her favorite phrase. From the stories I heard not only was Dave's Mom a woman of deep faith who loved her family but she loved strangers. She had a way of listening to people that they recognized as a great gift. And she had a wicked, delightful, Irish-tinted sense of humor.

Where does the beauty and the goodness in the world come from? The stars and the moon above our heads in the stillness of an early Spring morning. Or the life of a woman who had every reason to pull in, retreat into self-pity, but who continued to love, give and listen. Where does it all come from?

I know there are all sorts of reasons people give for doubting the existence of God. But I think the moon and stars above my head, and one woman's life well lived, say something else.

Hands on the Back of the Bike.

2010-03-26T09:20:00.001-04:00

Do you remember when you learned to ride a bicycle? Do you remember how your Dad or a big brother or your Mom or your Grandpa ran along behind you, with their hand on the back of the seat...steadying you...pushing you along...until you got the rhythm of the pedals and mastered the art of balancing a two-wheeler?

I was thinking of that as I watched Sharon holding Olivia, our 8-month old granddaughter. The two are pretty close. Olivia is a dark-eyed little girl with a sweet, almost shy smile. Who just loves to be held as she falls asleep and then enjoys falling asleep on Grandma. (And Grandma enjoys napping with Olivia on her chest!)

It all got me to thinking about how one of the gifts we give one another is to help the next generation along. We bless them. We put our hand on the back of the seat, or square in the middle of their backs, as they get started in life. Or head into a major, new stage. We encourage them. Help get them started.

Olivia will probably never remember those afternoons when she was held, rocked to sleep, and then cradled as she napped through the afternoon. She'll not remember those words of affection and love whispered in her ears. The games of "How big is Olivia?" (the answer is "SO BIG!") or "Where is Olivia?" (as she pulls a small blanket up over her face and then drops it with a delighted look so she can see you again). None of it may rise to the surface of her conscious mind but it will all be there...helping her move forward...step into the rest of her life.

We help the next generation along.

We dance at the weddings of young people and surround them with our prayers and funny stories as they begin the mysterious journey we call marriage.

Friends gather for a baby shower when someone they know is embarking on the challenging adventure we call parenthood.

And when someone we care about is dying, their bodies wasting away as their souls get ready for God's new thing (thank you, Jesus!), we stop by and visit...tell stories...tell the person how we love them...promise we'll look them up in heaven...and then we go to the funeral. Make small talk. Listen to the words of scripture. Sing a hymn of faith. Offer hugs. Go over to the house and have cold cut sandwiches and dip into the potato salad. We hold the members of the family up with our love. A widow, for example, is surrounded by women who have gone through this loss. They tell her there will be life on the other side of the grief. They tell her they play cards every other Thursday night, and are in a Christian small group on the first Monday of every month, and sometimes like to go to Branson, Missouri or to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival.

All along the way, we bless one another. Encourage one another. So a new generation can step courageously into the middle of whatever is next.

The New Testament says we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses. That is who we are to one another in this world. A cloud of witnesses, encouraging one another, blessing one another, so we can go on...live...step into the next big thing life has for us.

You Show Me Around, OK?

2010-03-23T22:31:00.006-04:00

I have a friend who is dying.

Ron wouldn't mind me saying that.

We sat together late this afternoon and talked about living and dying. He's weaker than he was last week when I stopped by. But still Ron. Full of courage. (Not surprising to find in an ex-Marine. Who was airlifted out of Vietnam several times after having been wounded.) Full of faith.

He told me he had called the funeral home to make sure things were in order. Checked with the cemetery to see that the plots were all paid for. Ron said he wanted to talk with me soon about the service. He wondered if it would be okay to have his combat boots on display at the church. I said, "Sure!"

And, of course, he asked about my day. How things were going. Told me he knew I was too busy.

Ron is quite a guy. Decent. Not perfect. But decent and strong and courageous and positive and full of faith.

We prayed. I got up to leave. As I approached their front door I turned and told he and his wife, "You're doing this just right. Crying and laughing and living every hour of the life God has given you here."

Ron, who was sitting in a recliner, nodded. "And when your life here is done," I said, "you'll have another life with God."

"I know it," Ron said.

"When you get up there look around," I said, "check things out. Because when I get there you can show me around, okay?"

"I'll do it," Ron said with a smile.

"I've got a feeling you and I could cause some trouble," I said grinning as I opened the door to head out into the late afternoon sunshine.

"I think we could, too," Ron said with a smile.

The door closed behind me.

Jesus says, in John 7:48-51: I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eaqt of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.

"When I get there you can show me around, okay?"

"I'll do it."

Scones and Love.

2010-03-20T10:32:00.003-04:00

If you are able to get on my Facebook page you'll see that a couple of guys have been giving me all kinds of grief about eating the occasional scone with my cup of coffee in the morning.

They're shocked that I would admit this kind of behavior to the world, I guess. Maybe they would prefer I live by the "don't ask - don't tell" principle.

And they insist that a scone is a sissy thing to eat in the morning. A real man will eat a breakfast that basically, if I understand this, is a plate piled high with eggs, hashbrowns, gravey, and some kind of creative melted cheese combination. The sort of meal that would immediately send a calorie counter or fat gram-o-meter into overload...blow the circuits.

A friend at work -a male friend- has been turning up his nose at my enjoyment of scones for weeks. Yesterday on Facebook the whole thing got way out of control. Lots and lots of trash talking directed my way.

Which brings us to Chris Ballard's article in the March 15th issue of Sports Illustrated. The article in SI is titled "The Metaphysical Significance, Staggering Ubiquity and Sheer Joy of High Fives." The sub-sub title (is there such a thing?) is "The low five, the high 10, the low 10, the forearm bash, the fist bump, the flying chest bump, the shug, the leaping shoulder carom, the ass slap, the pound, the man hug, the dap, the volleyballer's smack-'em high and smack-'em low, the gimme-skin slider, the helmet head butt, the soul shake, the body slam and the grip-and rip."

Whew. Oh, my...

Now here's the thing: Professor Mark T. Morman of Baylor University has "spent years analyzing male-to-male communication." He says all this high fiving and chest bumping is a sign of love in male friendships. "Punching somebody in the arm or punching somebody in the chest, that doesn't look very affectionate, mainly because we tend to frame affection in very feminine ways - hugging, kissing, soft touching. So when a guy punches another guy or pushes or shoves him or wrestles him to the ground, it's covert affection, but it's real."

I've been saying this for years. Visitors to Trinity will hear me and my friends verbally "high fiving" or "chest bumping" one another. We talk trash to one another. Give each other such a hard time. And it almost always a sign of affection. Hassling one another is how men show love.

Years ago a newcomer to Trinity observed an exchange between me and a man in the church. When I walked down the hall, the newcomer turned to the TUMC member and said, "What is going on with you and Fenstermacher? How come you and he are fighting?" The man looked surprised and laughed. "Oh, there's nothing wrong: we're just really good friends."

So if you log on to my Facebook page, you'll see a page full of crazy little barbs about "how can a real man eat scones?" I smiled when I read those comments. Because I know I have some great buddies.

Think I'll get a cup of hazelnut coffee and a wild blueberry scone. (Deal with it, boys.)

Things -and People- Change.

2010-03-15T21:01:00.004-04:00

When you're young (if you're like me) you assume you'll put the world together in a certain way, just the way you like it, and things will stay that way. The right network of friends. The right spouse. The right children. The right job. The right house. Put everything together and then it will stay, right?

The truth is life is always changing.

I've been thinking about that a lot as our church staff goes through some changes.

Chris Lantz, a great young guy who has been our Trinity Life Center Director (and helped out with our visitation ministry to older adults), has moved on to be a seminary student and the student pastor at Cedar Lake UMC. Those folks are going to love Chris!

A wonderful young woman named Lori Grasty is coming in to lead our Upward Ministries (basketball and cheerleading) next season.

A wonderful couple, Steve and Sue Price, are going to step in and help lead our visitation ministries with older adults. Steve is also going to help us with pastoral visits to older adults.

Another wonderful TUMC member, Deb Smith, is stepping in to take over the part-time position of Director of Adult Discipleship & Small Groups.

Our Staff Parish Relations Committee was getting ready to look for a new leader of our Praise Team since Jacob Kisor will be leaving the area after getting married this coming summer when we learned that our Director of Music & Worship Ministries, Kristen Senne, will be leaving at the end of May.

So things change.

People change.

People come and go.

I don't like change. I don't like the work that goes into finding the right person for a position on our church ministry staff.

Except...except...God has a way of being able to work for good through times of change. As much as I hate to see good people, faithful people, live our team I also know that God is giving us a new opportunity to grow. In some new ways. In some new directions.

You never replace a person: I know that. People aren't parts in a machine where you can pull one out and replace it with an identical part. You don't replace people with a perfect copy of the preceding leader, but you go out to find someone who will do the job...in a new way. Someone who is gifted in their way. One person will never be their predecessor.

When there is change on our staff, we are looking for someone who:

Loves Jesus.
Loves the imperfect community that is the Christian church (because Jesus died to give the church life), and loves the mission and ministry of Trinity United Methodist Church.
Has the heart of a servant.
Is coachable.
Has a commitment to ministry as a team.
Believes their role is equip the people of God to do the work of the church. Someone who builds teams.
Knows their stuff...whether that is music, youth ministry, etc.
Is gracious. Understands they are imperfect and the people they work with are imperfect.
Committed to excellence in everything they do.
Good work habits and the ability to follow through.

So we are in a season of change on our church staff. Not because there is some new, grand staffing plan. Not because of any crisis. It's just that things change. People come and go. You know?

So my heart aches for the friends who leave our place...step out of being a part of our everyday lives. And another part of my heart is eager to see the people God will bring to us...and how God's church will grow and bear new fruit.

Taking the Time.

2010-03-15T20:49:00.004-04:00

There is always a reason not to do what we know we ought to do.

Elva Balluff is a woman who was a dear friend of my Mom's. Our paths crossed in Nome, Alaska in the mid 60's. A tall Canadian who was married to an electronics expert for the FAA, Elva brought a measure of kindness, faith, and beauty to our small, tough town on the edge of the Bering Sea.

One of the enduring memories of my life is the Christmas Eve when Elva sang the carol "Lo, 'Er a Rose is Blooming" in our small church. It was so beautiful it caused me to sit perfectly still as I rested my chin on the edge of the church balcony.

Elva and her husband, Bunny, moved to the lower 48' shortly after we came to Indiana. Elva has lived in the Aurora, Illinois area for almost 40 years. A time or two over the last twenty-five years we've seen each other.

This past Christmas I received a card from Elva's daughter and her husband. Kim and Dan said Elva had fallen, broken her hip, and was in a rehab center in Aurora. I knew I needed to go.

Last week I got away to work on sermons, and I made my way down to Aurora. I took a wrong turn and made a slow, stop-and-go trip through Naperville. Finally, I got where I needed to be.

When I walked around the corner and entered her room, Elva looked up and gave me a big smile. "You have no idea what it means to me that you've come!" she said. Elva asked if we could go down to the lounge on the first floor to talk. So we went down there and spent about an hour. Talking about the families. Remembering old stories.

I pushed her wheelchair to the elevator and we went back to her room. We prayed together and she gave me a big hug.

I said, "I'll be back to visit."

She answered, "Don't say that unless you mean it. Because you shouldn't say something if you aren't going to do it."

We hugged again. I waved and disappeared around the corner. Before the Friday night rush hour traffic got to the truly serious stage, I was east of Chicago...Hammond.

There are people whose presence defines our lives. The time we have shared leaves a lasting impression on our heart...our soul.

I'm glad I went.

Finally.

Haiti - A Time for Doing.

2010-01-15T08:48:00.004-05:00

The news out of Haiti is shocking. There is part of us that stands in shocked fascination, in horror, and another part of us that wants to run and hide. Pull the covers up. Watch "American Idol" and eat a bag of popcorn or go shopping or read Sports Illustrated.

But there is a deeper part: a part of us that is eager to help. To do something. That is what the people of our church -and many churches- will be doing this weekend: receiving an offering.

I am confident that we, with others, will send a mission team. Right now, though, experts say the worst thing we can is rush down there. Experts are assessing what needs to happen first. Laying out a plan. Governments and non-governmental organizations (NGO's) like United Methodist Committee on Relief, Church World Service, the Red Cross, Lutheran Relief, Doctors without Borders, will play their part.

Two things trouble me. First, is the comment by another UM pastor dismissing the great work of United Methodist Committee on Relief...he and his church have another, better way of helping. He says. That kind of attitude is sad.

Second, are the comments by "Christian" tv personality Pat Robertson. Explaining the misery of Haiti is due to their being cursed. Because they made a pact with the devil in their desire to be free of the French. This is stomach-churning stuff. These are the kinds of comments that turn the world off to Christianity. The friends of Job, in the Old Testament, showed up with an explanation for his suffering and their comments caused more damage than helped.

Today, this week, is a time to use few words and to act. We will be doing more in the months and years to come because this nation to our south may need to be rebuilt from the ground up.

Pray.

Give.

Use few words.

The Sky is Falling Approach to Church.

2010-01-01T14:47:00.003-05:00

Money is always an interesting part of church life. People tell me they get tired of us, in the church, talking about money...faithfulness with that stuff in our wallets and 401.k accounts. Truth is I have never -that I know of- had a tither (someone who gives at least 10% of their income/monetary resources to God) ever make that complaint! Givers don't mind being encouraged to give because they find joy in giving.

I remind them Jesus talked about money a lot. Because you'll find our heart where our treasure is. I'm told Martin Luther said the last part of a Christian to get wet, when they are baptized, is their wallet. If Luther didn't say it, he should have!

The week before Christmas and the week after Christmas I came across two email messages from pastors of mega-churches to their congregations. Both messages were rather strident challenges for people to give generously at the end of the year. Rick Warren, a really extraordinary pastor of a great church, sent a note to their people at Saddleback saying the weekend after Christmas the offerings were down and the church was $900,000 in the red.

I don't know all the details (I know...then stop before you say another word!), but something feels very wrong when the church runs close enough to financial disaster that one bad weekend can shove the whole operation into the red.

Jesus talks about counting the cost before we begin a construction project. In the book of Genesis Joseph helps the leader of Egypt anticipate the seven years of famine that will follow seven years of above-average harvests.

Churches shouldn't be financial storehouses. Piling up every dollar they can get their hands on. i tell our people that God wants them to give, and the church should spend nearly every dollar it can on ministry and mission outreach. However, I think maybe church leaders should plan more carefully. Not be pushing the financial "red line" -even when God is doing great and creative stuff.

Things work best when church leaders are faithful and reasonable in their planning. And when the people of God are faithful in their giving.

Oh, by the way, the weather report for this weekend looks scary. Attendance could be down in our services. Which means giving drops. So I'm just saying...

You Came Back for Me!

2010-01-01T14:23:00.004-05:00

Christmas Eve is never a time when pastors can lounge with the family, take a deep breath, and just enjoy the season. We're working. We're like police officers at the Rose Bowl Parade. We can't spend much time looking at the floats because we have work to do.

Our three adult sons were here over Christmas. Which was just an amazing gift! There is something sweeter than words about having your children sleeping under the same roof, at home, you know? It's like things are back where they are supposed to be.

Our two young granddaughters arrived, with their parents, after I had left for church on Christmas Eve. Right before the 9 o'clock service Ella, the 27-month old, was walking through the lobby with her Grandma. Ella looked lovely and when she saw me she leaned her head over with quiet delight, and I nearly bounced off the carpet.

That night, after worship, the family headed home. I helped shut down the church and followed. When I came through the door, Ella came to me and said, "You came back for me! You came back for me!" I smiled. Said, "I will always come back for you."

Saturday morning, after Christmas, I led a funeral service. By the time that was over, and I had returned from Goshen where the burial service had been, most of the morning was gone. When I walked through the front door, Ella came running towards me with a smile. "You came back to me! You came back to me!"

Love means we come back.

The Christian faith talks about a God who comes back. Jesus appears in the garden outside the tomb where he has been buried. He slips into a room in Jerusalem, through locked doors, to visit with his friends and followers. The risen Christ is standing on the edge of the Sea of Galilee, in John 21, and has some fishing advice for his friends. The New Testament talks at length about the return of God to begin a new age on the earth. We call this "the second coming."

Ella says, "You came back to me." But we can't always come back. I think of that, on this first day of 2010, with the news of the deaths of service personnel and CIA officers in distant lands. There are men and women who won't come back to the ones they love, but that failure to return is not a sign that the love was imperfect or partial. Things happen to pull us away from the ones we love more than words can say.

There will be a day when I won't come back for Ella. I'll leave and not come back. Time and death will do that. They'll pull me away from her.

Paul, in 1st Corinthians 13, talks about love lasting forever. Faith, hope and love remain, he says. I take great comfort in that.

"You came back to me," she says. I'll keep doing that as long as I can. And when I can't come back to you, I hope you'll be on a first-name basis with the God whose love outlasts time.

What's New?

2010-01-01T14:11:00.003-05:00

The act of opening up a new calendar brings with it this hope...that things will be different.

Not everything.

We -most of us- don't want everything to be different. Because there are some pretty cool parts of life. Even when the stock market was tanking, even when people were being laid off, even when people were panicking over H1N1, there has been good in 2009. So we don't want everything to change...to be different.

But there is something about opening that new calendar, looking at that white space on each day of January 2010, and for just a few moments our hearts beat a little faster with the prospect that we can overcome some self-destructive fear or addiction. For just a moment we think about starting over in a friendship or bringing new energy and passion to our marriage. Or with God.

Here's the thing: opening a new calendar doesn't mean a thing if we don't do life differently. And that will involve risk. I think about the short tax collector named Zacchaeus. We meet him in the New Testament. He has a reputation as a tool of the hated Roman Empire. He does their dirty work for them -draining tax dollars out of his Jewish neighbors and friends. And, my hunch tells me, he -like most tax collectors- bent the truth to get a little extra. Because everything extra went straight into the tax collector's pocket! So Jesus shows up, hangs out with Zacchaeus, and the man changes. Becomes a giver.

I wonder what people in that town thought when they heard Zacchaeus talking about giving back way more than he ever took from people unfairly. I wonder if people laughed. If they smiled when Zacchaeus talked about changing and said, "Yeah. Right. I'll believe it when I see it."

Sometimes we don't make it easy for people to change. We keep rubbing their noses in their past. Who they have been.

"What will you say 'no' to so that you can devote your life to the things that really count most?" I asked a friend the other day. I know it is a tough thing to do - and I am fearful that I won't have the courage to make the changes I know God needs for me to make in 2010.

A new calendar won't mean a thing if we don't make some different decisions.

Suffering Well.

2009-12-20T18:18:00.005-05:00

The Village Church is a booming congregation in the Fort Worth area. Friends of ours moved to Texas about six years ago, and they have made The Village their church home.

Several years ago a youth pastor at the church was electrocuted at a baptismal service and died. A power cord was somehow in contact with the metal frame of the baptistry. It was an awful loss, but the church continued to grow...reach out.

Four weeks ago my friend emailed me a notice from the congregation. Their young Lead Pastor, Matt Chandler, had a siezure on Thanksgiving Day. Tests were run. A brain tumor was discovered. Surgery was scheduled. The entire congregation -which was just moving in to a new worship center- prayed and waited for the biopsy results to come back.

They did. The people at The Village Church know the results: the tumor was malignant. Surgery got most of it -but not all of it.

When I read the email to the congregation, I began to cry for this young family...this congregation. I called my buddy. He told me Matt, the Pastor at The Village, was in rehab. He was having a tough time with his language skills. My buddy said Matt got out of the hospital for the weekend so he and his wife, Lauren, could go out on a date.

The note to the congregation asked them to keep praying for their pastor, his wife, and their three children. The people were asked to respect the privacy of the Chandlers, and not to visit without first being invited to come by.

Then, the email made two important points.

First, "As you hurt and weep for the family, do not do it alone." Which is a good word for every single one of us. Often, when we are hurt or scared or we fail, we want to slip away. Become invisible. Hanging in there, staying connected with our friends, showing up at church, seems like such work...and we go it alone. Always...always...always...a big mistake! Paul, in the New Testament (Romans 12:15), talks about being connected...weeping with those who weep, and rejoicing with those who rejoice.

Second, the email asked that people pray "The Chandlers and The Village would suffer well and for the sake of Christ's name." That may be a shocking statement for those of us in North America who assume that hanging out with Jesus means we won't suffer.

We don't talk much, in the church, about suffering well. Which is a real disservice to the people of God. One of the lessons the Bible wants to teach us is how to suffer well.

What would it look like to suffer well? Paul, in 2nd Corinthians 4, talks about what it is like to "be hard pressed on every side." He talks about what it is like to be "crushed" and "perplexed" and "struck down."

Then, the first century missionary pastor talks about keeping our eyes on the glory of God in the face of Christ, letting his light shine out of us. Paul reminds the Corinthians that the resurrection of Christ is something to focus on...as we trust God will raise us up to new life even when we are going through tough junk. Don't lose heart, Paul says, but trust God to be at work in us renewing us...growing us...deepening us...even when stuff is overwhelming.

"We fix our eyes not on what is seen," Paul says, "but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

The writer of Corinthians makes a statement (4:17) worth remembering: "For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all."

I'm not sure I am smart enough to make a list of everything that constitutes suffering well.
I do think, however, it involves trusting God. Focusing on the power and love and faithfulness of God. Refusing to give in to the temptation to become bitter...or withdraw from God, our friends, and the church. Suffering well may mean looking for ways to give and serve and bless others, even as we hurt and ache and tire. Finally, suffering well may mean trusting that God is able to work for good in every situation (Romans 8:28).

I'm praying for Matt and Lauren Chandler. I'm praying for their three children. I'm praying for the people of The Village Church and everyone touched by the life of that congregation

And I am praying that you and I are learning the important art of suffering well.

The Fairy Engineer.

2009-12-20T18:08:00.002-05:00

The other night our son called and turned his i-Phone over to our 27-month old granddaughter, Ella. She got on the phone and we had the longest phone conversation we've ever had. She chatted about coming to Elkhart for Christmas: "I going to the house. I going to the house." We talked about a slide she had been playing on.

Then, all of a sudden, there was a burst of conversation. Which ended with her breathlessly saying, "Hold on a second. I be right back!" Then, I would hear her walking around the house with the i-Phone on speakerphone...talking with Mommy and Daddy.

If I was quiet, when she came back on, she would rather sharply say, "GRANDPA!" I would reassure her that I was there. We'd talk some more and then she'd say, again, "Hold on a second. I be right back!" My son said, "How does it feel being put on hold by your 2-year old granddaughter?"

Late in the conversation I heard her ask her Mommy to help her put on her Tinkerbell outfit. With wings. Then, a minute or so later, she was sitting on the living room floor running a very simple Lionel train. The phone had been put down near the train, and the phone picked up the sound of the locomotive and rolling stock rounding the curves. I could hear the train coming... and the train going. Then, she blew the whistle on the train.

Kind of crazy, you know? She was sitting there in a green Tinkerbell outfit, with wings on her back, running a train. I don't know what kind of a world it is where a little girl wears a fairy outfit and runs a train, but I think it is pretty amazing...and cool. I pray that when she grows up and becomes reasonable, mature, she never loses the part of her that delights in wearing fairy wings and dreaming magical dreams.

Air Brushed Christians: a Word for the Holidays.

2009-12-20T17:46:00.004-05:00

Our oldest son lives in Columbus, Ohio. A friend of his has a tough job: air brushing the pictures of the models whose pictures will be used in the catalogue at Victoria's Secret. Or whose pictures will be posted in the stores.

When I heard that, I wondered what constitutes a bad day for the company artist. I wonder if this young guy's wife understands when he complains about a long day...deadlines?

This may come as a shock to you, but these seemingly perfect women aren't perfect. The leaders of the company, though, want any imperfections covered over...removed.

Sometimes we are guilty, in the church, of airbrushing our lives. We want any sign of weakness or fear or failure removed. We do our best to hide all that. Not sure why we -why I- do that but I suspect it has to do with not trusting people to love us, or want to be with us, if they knew just how ragged around the edges we sometimes are. Truth is the temptation to airbrush the fears and sin and imperfection out of our lives is evidence of our lack of trust in God's grace. "How could a holy God want anything to do with a creature who has been known to yell at his kids, or who has trouble controlling his mouth, or can't get over the bitterness of a long ago divorce?" we think. So we airbrush. We hide the sad or scared or mean stuff.

I was thinking about that this afternoon. As we approach Christmas. A tv ad for Budweiser showed a team of horses pulling a perfect wagon through a gentle snowstorm. It showed a perfect white farm house with a perfect green wreath, with a perfect red bow, on the front of the house. We see these images of perfect holiday gatherings. Grandparents, aunts and uncles, parents and loving children, a well behaved dog wagging its tail to the beat of a Christmas carol. We see people in a warm home, gifts wrapped and piled beneath a tree, folks holding hands around the dinner table for prayer...and it all just seems so...perfect.

If you are thinking you are the only one in the world whose life is ragged, if you think you are the only one who gets overwhelmed or lonely during the holidays, I have news for you: few families, few relationships, and few holiday gatherings are as perfect as the idealized pictures show them to be. A lot of people get tired....during the holidays. A lot of people feel overwhelmed. A lot of people have moments of loneliness.

Two weeks ago I was coming back from a meeting in central Indiana. I called a person I love very much to tell them I was thinking about them. I called to check in on them. Our conversation went from bad to worse. At the end she was shouting at me and I was shouting back. "I called to tell you I love you!" I said into the phone. "Don't you get it?" She shouted back. I said, "This isn't good for either one of us" and I hung up on her. Twice...because she called back and started yelling again. I was driving through deep darkness, on a rainy night, in Whitley County. By the time I got home my body was humming...electric...with sadness. Disappointment. How can families and friendships get so sideways?

The dirty little secret is many of us, even in the Christian community, do our best to airbrush this stuff out. But it is still there...

Paul, in his letters, is so honest! He doesn't appear to be trying to airbrush the sin and struggle out of his life. In Romans 7 he talks about his struggle with sin. Paul looks at his heart, his soul, and describes what he finds as a war (:23) Then, Paul says God has the power -in Jesus Christ- to deliver him from that war. He begins the next chapter by saying "there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."

Maybe God loves us so much that we can stop airbrushing. Be honest. And let God's love do some deep healing.

When James Taylor Sings Back-Up.

2009-12-05T20:17:00.005-05:00

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, out of Cleveland, Ohio recently held two concerts in New York City. Each evening featured a series of greats from the present and the past. U2 sang, for example, with Bruce Springsteen. The line up included people like Stevie Wonder, Dion, Metallica, B.B King, Bonnie Raitt, Jeff Beck, Art Garfunkel & Paul Simon, Crosby, Stills and Nash...

Pretty stunning.

I heard about the concert...the line-up. Hadn't heard a note of it until this afternoon when our son began playing the concert broadcast he had recorded on his DVR from HBO. I hadn't intended on having my morning swallowed up by amazing music, but I kept listening...and, sometimes, dancing with my 27-month old granddaughter.

Great stuff! The clear voice of Bonnie Raitt singing about love...and then the horn section wailing away on Paul Simon's "You Can Call Me Al."

Do you know what really got me? It was watching people like Graham Nash and David Crosby singing "back up" to other artists. It was watching -and listening to- James Taylor, whose voice seems perfect to my ears, singing Stephen Stills' "Love the One You're With." (I've never been able to figure out those lyrics. Is this some call to relationships anytime and anywhere with anyone, or is he saying "there may be some perfect ideal out there but love the person God has put in your life?")

Taylor is such a star he might have said, "I'll sing only my own hits. Everyone else can join in on 'Sweet Baby James' or 'Up on the Roof" or 'Fire and Rain' but they'll be doing my songs...my music." No, there this extraordinary singer was gladly singing songs made popular by other artists. And he was singing back-up to people like Paul Simon!

Stars stepping to the back of the stage. Out of the lights. Singing backup so others could shine.

I shook my head. Listened to the music. And thought about how that is a pretty good model for relationships...for friendships...for citizenship...for marriage...for life as a Jesus follower.

Jesus gave us an example. He washed the feet of the disciples. He talked about how greatness is really all about becoming small...living as a servant...not fighting over a seat at the head table.

Paul, the first century Christian missionary pastor, talked about being a part of the Body. All of us connected. All of us having a role to play. Paul talked about giving the humblest part honor.

When life is all about me, when we insist on being in the spotlight and having everyone (and everything) else revolve around us, nothing else seems to work. Selfishness wrecks churches, friendships, marriages, and nations.

James Taylor...sweet baby James...singing back up! Wow...superstars doing their best in the shadows.

Come on, people of Jesus, let's rock! Outdo one another in showing respect...affection...honor.

Lights in the Night.

2009-12-05T11:38:00.004-05:00

Thursday evening we headed east on the toll road. One of the odd things about my life is that unless I spend time with our two granddaughters, I don't get a day off. So although we had seen the kids over Thanksgiving, we were headed towards Columbus, Ohio.

The sky was thick with dark clouds. The sunlight slipped sideways out of the world. I was sitting, doing some work, reading the paper, and thinking...as Sharon drove.

We took the toll road into Ohio, and then headed south on state highway #49. You miss Fort Wayne but the highway has twists and turns. Takes you through one small town after the other.

I was surprised to find myself delighted by the Christmas tree lights in the yards...and in the homes along the way. The night was very dark. The world was cold. And we would drive by these houses where the Christmas lights -especially the trees decorated with all white lights- seemed to be calling us all inside. Promising warmth. Home. Someplace where we could be ourselves.

A CD of Christmas music -by the Christian rock band 3rd Day- was playing. The lights... the homes...the music...all combined to produce all sorts of feelings and memories.

I found myself thinking of our church's work, right now, to become even more welcoming. To strangers and guests. So that people who are hungry for God, for truth, for grace, will feel like they are home when they walk through our doors. I thought about churches that are like those houses with no lights hung by the windows...churches that look cold and dark and lifeless. And I thought about how churches -and individuals- sends messages out to the world that their hearts are open.

And I thought about times when our family...is together. What it feels like to have everyone under the same roof. Sometimes there are tensions...challenges...but almost always it is so very good!

I thought about the Christmas in Belguim, when I was a boy, and my folks were thinking of adopting a young Belgian child. A boy. He came to the house for a visit. I can't remember his name or face. But for whatever reason my parents chose not to take that step.

I thought about my Mom. Sometimes, you know, there are moments when you miss someone so much you think your heart will burst. I was thinking about my Mom...who was wonderful and strange and passionate and distracted and always late and full of love for God. Then, as we stopped at a stoplight in a small Ohio town, I looked over at a store window. The owner had hung four old stockings in the window as a part of a Christmas decoration. One of the stockings
-a red one- happened to have the name Anita inscribed in large script. My Mom's name was Anita. I smiled. The light turned green and we began moving south, again.

The lights along the way make the darkness more than bearable, don't they?

Interesting how Jesus, John explains, was light coming into the darkness. And the darkness has not overcome it.

The Ding & the Bass Line.

2009-11-26T08:42:00.004-05:00

Giving your life to Jesus for full-time ministry is a journey full of blessings. However, there is a part to this -as there is to any line of work- that involves carrying a cross.

One of the toughest parts of this is the realization that you cannot -nor should you- please everyone. You do your best for God, and some people -and they are great, good people- head the other direction. I call those "dings." Sometimes I understand the reasons and sometimes I don't. Just two months ago a woman caught me after worship, thanked me for my ministry, told me Trinity's ministry needs to be on a national stage, and then just weeks ago I found out she was leaving the church. Hmmm....figure that out. I dare you.

The crazy thing is that 98% of everything can be going right in a great church like Trinity, and that 2% that criticize, pull back, withdraw...that really stings. Those are "dings" to the heart and soul. You tell yourself not to care so much. You tell yourself that no one church or pastor is for everyone. You tell yourself different people need different styles of ministry. You tell yourself that Jesus was always getting clobbered by those who didn't understand him or who thought he was getting it all wrong. And it still stings.

So the other day I had this "ding." It was a pretty good "ding." Great stuff...people growing their giving to God in a tough environment...notes from people about what Trinity means to them...a report about the $25,000+ our church will have given to a community food ministry this year...and the "ding" hurt.

Do you know what I did?

Well, first I prayed. That's always good. Because being strongly connected to God is the key to having the ability to endure...bounce back from...the "dings." God opens our eyes to a bigger picture and reminds us that our value is not based on pleasing people.

The second thing I did is I told a couple of very close friends I had been "dinged." They understood. The one, also a pastor, sent me a note saying leadership is tough and sometimes lonely. He told me "hang in there."

The third thing is I made a very careful, very strategic selection of music to listen to as I drove across town. I have a great collection of rock and roll, country, and classical (not so much jazz). Some of the rock is soft...introspective...quiet...deep. I didn't think that was going to help me. That kind of music might put me deeper into "ding-land." So it came down to a new CD, The Monsters of Folk, or two older CD's - "Help" by the Beatles or "The Ultimate Collection" by the Temptations.

I made a good choice: I chose the Temptations. (If you aren't familiar with Motown music it's never too late to get that kind of musical salvation! Listen in on Smoky Robinson and Martha Reeves and Stevie Wonder and The Four Tops and The Supremes and The Temptations.) What started me smiling were those amazing, opening notes by the bass on "My Girl." How can the "dings" have you permanently when you hear that bass line and the sweet voices of the Temptations sing: "I've got sunshine on a cloudy day. When it's cold outside I've got the month of May. I guess you say 'What can make me feel this way?' My girl! My girl! Talking 'bout my girl. I've got so much honey the bees envy me. I've got a sweeter song than the birds in the trees."

Jesus saves. I know that. And am so thankful!

But good music helps, you know? Especially with the "dings."

Young Blood.

2009-11-22T18:42:00.003-05:00

There is this thing that happens to young adults. Even if they have been raised in the church, or in a family of Jesus followers, they tend to drift disappear between the ages of 18 and their late 20's.

In the past many people had grown up with a spiritual foundation. They knew the story of Jesus. They had a basic knowledge of things like the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, etc. So even though they might slip away from the church after heading into the service, or going off to Purdue or Indiana State or Western Michigan, they would have a spiritual foundation to fall back on -when getting married or having children would bring them back to the church. Not anymore. More and more folks seem to be raising with little or no spiritual foundation.

So our church -and we're not alone in this- has set reaching 16-32 year olds as our #1 ministry priority for 2010. We're not sure quite how to do that but we know God is calling us to try. Just after our Administrative Board voted to do this, I read an article saying that the church needs to challenge young adults to grow up and participate in the full life of the fellowship
-instead of creating new worship services for a particular age group.

We'll start by asking questions of young adults inside and outside the church. We'll start by knowing we don't know what to do. (Admitting your ignorance, being humble enough to be open, is a good place to start in a lot of areas of life!)

We'll start by praying. Prayer is always the only way to get from here to there in a good way.

And we'll start by reading. Last night I began a book by Dan Kimball...a leading spokesperson for the "emergent" Christian movement.

Here is what I am learning so far:

Young adults want real -not glitz and entertainment.

Young adults want real community. They want a place where they can be honest. Where people love. Where people are gracious. Where people are courageous.

Young adults want to change the world. They want to live lives of impact. They aren't interested in just showing up...phoning in their life...going through the motions.

So here we go.

Wonder where this journey is going to end up?

Always a Little Messy.

2009-11-22T18:31:00.002-05:00

It is easy for the previous generation to look as if it were made up of giants...heroes who saw things clearly. They may have been more ordinary than we imagine.

Remember in high school when, as a freshman or sophomore, you regarded the seniors as if they were gods walking the earth? Then, you became a senior and you felt...so...ordinary.

It is also easy to think that the messy way we move through change, today, is very unlike the clear, thoughtful, courageous way our forefathers and foremothers worked through change. My hunch, though is change is almost always messy...and the people who lead through it are often making up things as they go along.

Right now the United Methodist Church in Indiana is going through lots of change. Two annual conferences becoming one. New structures being put in place. New leaders. New processes. On and on and on. This afternoon many of the pastors and laity of northcentral and northwestern Indiana met at LaPorte for the first meeting of the Northern District.

Our leader is the Reverend Cindy Reynolds. She is one cool person! And she will lead this new herd of cats with as much faith and love and courage as any human could muster, but the change will be messy. Progress will come with two steps forward and one step back.

Change is messy. We see that in Washington right now with the whole healthcare debate. We see that as our national leaders try to sort out options in Afghanistan. We see that in our own community as the leaders of Elkhart County scratch their heads, look at the challenges, and search for new ways forward.

Change is messy.

And it is often led by people who are doing their best to figure out the next step.

The early Christian church faced a huge decision: would Jewish Christians need to be circumcised before becoming Jesus followers and members of the Church. They held this big conference or council in Jerusalem. It looks pretty neat and simple and clean, if you look in the book of Acts, but the truth is I think it was a mess. Even with people praying and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

So if you are frustrated by the mess in your life, our country, or your church...maybe that's just the way we get from here to there. The way progress and change takes place.

The Downside of a Good Sermon.

2009-10-17T08:43:00.002-04:00

Preaching is such a strange thing...such an odd art.

Last weekend I felt nearly dead. Had been without a voice for most of the week.

When it's time for worship, though, it's time for worship. So I gathered up my notes (the manuscript is left in the office and I place a small card with some handwritten notes in my Bible), and headed across the street to preach. I wasn't sure I would get through all four weekend services.

But I did.

And, strangely enough, more than a few people told me it was the best sermon they have heard me preach in the last 12 1/2 years. One of the best parts of the message turned out to be a story I told about my youngest coming home from New York City on a Friday afternoon to ski with me. Being right outside the lake cottage when I was wondering where he was. It was a story I had not even thought of including in the sermon...didn't have it written down. A last- minute thing.

Just goes to show.

As I worked on the message for this weekend, I found myself feeling the pressure to match or top whatever God did in our worship last weekend. That kind of feeling is not a good feeling, let me tell you.

I think preaching is like prayer: it's the way a lifetime of it shapes you. Shapes others. Preaching is not a series of "talks" disconnected or isolated from one another.

That is what people miss when they are in worship only now and then. We have occasional attenders. They're sort of like someone who shows up at a restaurant every Thursday when the special is meatloaf and then they complain because of the lack of variety on the menu. They miss the All-U-Can-Eat Fish on Friday and the Pasta Night on Tuesday. They aren't there. And then they complain because the only special is meatloaf.

Sermons to a congregation are a conversation over the long haul. One message building on the other. Continuing a dialogue.

I don't know what this weekend is going to be like. Long ago I gave up predicting how a message would work...well or not. There is an unpredictable, Holy Spirit part of all this. Sometimes the preacher has worked hard, the pieces seem to be in place for a powerful moment, and things are flat. Other weekends you come exhausted, with a voice that has been reduced to a whisper, not sure if you'll make it...and God shows up in a convincing, powerful, soulful way. You never know.

Sermons are a dialogue...a continuing conversation as the congregation, the preacher and God travel together.

They are also a gift the preacher makes to Jesus. Like the rather crudely made clay bowls made by children in a kindergarten class, the sermon is my weekly gift to the Savior who loves me and died for me on the cross...who lives and reigns. "See what I have made for you this week, Lord" I say. Holding out what I have worked to make...

The Gap.

2009-10-17T08:27:00.002-04:00

Is the Great Recession over?

That's the question business writers have been asking this week as the Dow Jones has tip-toed up over the 10,000 mark. Experts say the indicators show the economy is moving into the plus side of the ledger. Officially out of recession territory.

The word is that folks in the financial industry, especially around Wall Street, are paying stunning bonuses -again.

Yesterday I opened my quarterly pension report, and because of the rise in the stock market I'm doing much, much better than I was a year ago. As I smiled at this good news, I realized that younger folks -who have not yet had a chance to contribute to a pension system over a working life of 20 or more years- aren't in such good shape.

There is a growing gap between those who have and those who do not. That's not just true in our country. The New York Times this morning carried a column about the growing gap in Russia between the affluent world of Moscow and the crumbling economies of old, Soviet-era company towns out in the far regions of the country. People in some places are eating grass to stay alive.

The growing gap between haves and have nots is seen in other areas. Bob Herbert's most recent column recalls the days when a family of four could reasonably afford to attend an NFL or Major League Baseball game. He remembers going to NY Jets games with his Dad and watching Joe Namath throw passes to Don Maynard and George Sauer. Now, we have athletic palaces like the new Dallas Cowboys' stadium where ordinary people have been priced out of the game.

I don't think the growing gap between rich and poor, the employed and unemployed, is a good thing. I wouldn't even pretend to have the answer since our nation appears -to a layman- to be near broke and heading towards really broke every day.

Can a country be strong and healthy and whole if a few prosper and many are left behind?

Paul talks, in the New Testament, about how we are all connected. Like a body. Hands and legs and arms and hands and eyes and ears - all a part of one body. So what one part of the body experiences has an impact on the rest of the body.

I don't know exactly what that says to a nation and world economy where the gap seems to be growing, but I believe it means we are all in this together. And that somehow even when my pension numbers are jumping up each month, shoving cash in my pocket, things aren't good if the families down the street are still distressed and hopeless. When I was in high school our civics teachers reminded us that the strength of America was a strong and broad middle class. Where ordinary people could afford to buy a home, a new car, and send their children to college.

What will we do to close the gap?

A Hand Worth More Than $750,000.

2009-10-07T15:08:00.003-04:00

A week ago Sharon and I did something very atypical: we took off and drove to Washington D.C. At the center of the trip was a Tuesday night concert by U-2 at FedEx Field just outside D.C. Along with that we got to hang out with Nathan and Westra, our kids in DC, and ride along with Bryan, Joleen, beautiful Ella, and lovely Olivia.

Bryan, our oldest, and his wife, Joleen, rented a van in their hometown of Columbus, Ohio. We drove over there, loaded everyone in the van, and headed for DC.

Mom and Dad rode in the front of the van. Grandpa rode in one of the middle seats with Ella in her carseat to his right, in the other seat. Grandma and Olivia were in the back.

Rolling Stone magazine says the U-2 concert is the biggest ever. The massive stage filled most of the football field at FedEx Field. RS says it takes $750,000 to keep the touring going each day!

As cool and as impressive as all that is, as spectacular as the light show and music was, the best parts of the journey were just hanging out. I won't tell you about all the cool little moments, but I will tell you one.

Ella and I were riding along. Chatting. Handing toys back and forth. She would sleep. Then, Grandpa would doze off. Late in the evening, someplace near Cumberland, Maryland, she reached out and -without a word- took the index finger of my right hand in her left hand. Slept on while holding my finger. I guess it felt reassuring to this 2-year old to hold onto the hand of someone she knew who loved her...especially since we were driving through the dark and around mountains.

I sat there and smiled.

It was worth the trip.

Half-Empty or Half-Full (It's a Sabbath Thing)?

2009-10-07T14:55:00.003-04:00

People, when they are sorting through life, looking over a situation, will sometimes use the phrase, "Do you see the cup as half-full or half-empty?" The point being, of course, that some of us see things in the worst possible light...and others see a situation from a more positive perspective.

I've been silent for awhile. No blogging. And that has been because the cup hasn't been half empty or half full but overflowing! Overflowing with lots of good stuff...great things going on in the church, trips back and forth to Columbus, Ohio to visit Olivia and Ella, quick trips to ski or to catch a film. And life has been overflowing with some things that are challenging. I won't go into detail about those but let's just say pastoring a large church, which is passionate about reaching and serving a region for Christ, that is in the middle of big changes...well, that can get kind of crazy!

So the cup has been overflowing.

Even a recent, super cool trip out to Washington D.C. was a part of this overflowing thing. Preached Saturday night, packed my stuff before heading to bed late, preached three more times on Sunday morning, jumped in the car for Columbus...hung out...re-packed a van and headed for D.C....a U-2 concert that was awesome but kept me out until 1:30 in the morning... granddaughters to play with first thing the next morning...all delightful....a drive home that ended at 3:30 in the morning.

Non-stop. Pretty much non-stop.

Not much time to write on the blog.

You understand, right?

I've been home about a week, since that DC trip, and have been very sick most of the week. I'm getting better but this is going to be slow.

Our bodies have a way of encouraging us to observe Sabbath, don't they? For five days I have been unable to speak...so I thought I would take this chance to write.

Too much can be too much -even if it is too much good.

Stopping is a good thing.

So here I am...stopping...forced to the side of the road...weak as a kitten...and discovering the world seems to do okay without me making sure everything is just fine.

God has this simple idea. He shares it with Moses and the Hebrew ex-slaves in Exodus 20:8-10: "Remember the Sabbath. Every seven days you need to stop. Every member of the family. Even your dogs and cats and cattle. Let everybody have time to breathe!" (Okay... well, I've taken a few liberties with the text but you get the point, right?)

Too much can still be too much.

The Work of the People.

2009-07-26T14:51:00.002-04:00

The word "liturgy", we were told in seminary, means "work of the people." (At least that's what I recall on this perfect, Summer, Sunday afternoon...)

This weekend our congregation welcomed Shea Reyenga to our pulpit. Shea grew up at Trinity. Even as an elementary school student, Shea would take his turn reading scripture in our main weekend services. People would -as people do in a church- take notice of his confidence, reading ability, and "presence."

He and his family moved to the Fort Worth, Texas about five years ago. We've stayed in touch.

So, about half way through his first year at Perkins School of Theology in Dallas, I sent him a note and asked if he would want to come back this Summer and preach at the church where he grew up. He was the preacher at all four weekend services.

Shea did great. Amazing delivery...obviously a scholar...with a passion to see the church fully alive with a radical degree of devotion to Jesus Christ.

As I watched and listened to Shea, as I heard the people buzzing in the hallways between services, I was struck again by the fact that preachers are grown up by the church. I'm not sure all lay people understand this, but their gracious, patient, encouragement when we are starting out...is crucial.

Lay people at Walkerton and Door Village and Wanatah Faith and Lebanon UMC all endured my best efforts, when I was starting out. They were gracious. Didn't point out that the big words sometimes got in the way of the message. Didn't note that Jesus preached simple messages using every day illustrations...from every day life...and I could have easily left the quotes from Barth and Tillich back in the study.

I remember one Summer Sunday morning at Door Village (just outside LaPorte, Indiana), when the small sanctuary was like an oven. Just out of IU, I was preaching in a suit and tie. Finally, beaten by the heat, I looked out and took off my jacket. Told the men, "Okay, guys it's so warm you don't have to sit there in a suit and tie!" I thought I was being brilliant... truth is I was the only man in the room silly enough to even try wearing a suit and tie on that Summer morning. They knew...they already knew... and they were waiting for me to learn the lesson.

Listen to pastors and they will tell you about a Sunday School teacher who stopped them and told them, "I see a preacher when I look at you." Listen to pastors and they will tell you how they watched a youth director or pastor and began to learn the rhythms of ministry...the necessity of both faith and courage if you are to lead people in the name of Jesus.

Lay people...congregations...grow up preachers just like a gardener plants and tends tomato plants. Raises sweet corn.

Shea will learn this...more and more. His ministry will be, in large part, a product of all the Sunday School teachers and laity and youth directors who have poured love and faith into his life.

It isn't just liturgy that is the work of the people: the making of preachers and pastors is also the work of the people!

I Can Do It Myself - but It's Nice Having You Close.

2009-07-25T23:29:00.004-04:00

Our soon-to-be-two-year-old granddaughter sat carefully on the edge of the swimming pool at a motel on the edge of Columbus. Wedged between her grandmother's legs. She wanted nothing to do with getting into the pool... despite the fact I was already in the 4' deep pool and encouraging her to join me.

Then, after about 20 minutes of swinging her legs around in the water, she was in the pool with me. I swung her around. I tossed her in the air. I encouraged her to put her face in the water and blow bubbles.

Ella watched some teenagers and was then determined to swim on her own. She would climb up out of the pool using the aluminum ladder, with the help of Grandpa, and then turn around to jump into the water like the teenagers.

"I can do it myself!" she insisted over and over again. I pointed out that she didn't know how to swim and that the water was 4' deep, but she was sure she didn't need me...she was ready to do exactly what she saw the teenagers doing.

Still, though, she let me hold her...swing her around...help her in and out of the pool.

As I held her I noticed something. She had her right arm around my neck, and she was gently patting my shoulder with her fingers. Four of them working in time. We were laughing and playing...but that hand was resting on my shoulder and she was patting me...almost as if the action was automatic. Without thought.

We spend a lot of time telling God we can do it on our own, don't we? Still, though, it is nice having God close...

I'm glad God refuses to let go of us...no matter how much we insist that we can do life on our own.

Who Do You Belong To?

2009-07-25T23:20:00.003-04:00

(I know. The title of this entry is grammatical incorrect. Still, it works, right?)

T-shirts have become a way of saying something about who we are...where we are from...the school we attended...our favorite teams. It's certainly not as high-tech as Facebook or Twitter but it is a way of communicating. Saying something to the world about who we are.

My t-shirt collection is heavy on Duke University and Indiana University. One of my favorites, though, is a very soft, 100% cotton shirt that has blue shoulders and an ivory front and back. The message on the shirt simply says PROPERTY of JP CHASE.

Two of our three sons, along with one of our two daughters in law, work for that particular bank. So I can't remember who gave the shirt to me.

I was wearing this shirt -which is really more than a t-shirt- when I walked into a Columbus, Ohio pizza place yesterday evening. It's a real simple little place. A woman behind the counter looked at me and said, "You must owe them so much money they own you!"

I smiled and said, "No, not really. Actually, I'm a Chrisitian so I belong to God." I paid for the pizza and left.

Funny, you know. I've thought about that before. I've wondered about the wisdom of any of us walking around with clothing that seems to indicate we belong to a company like Nike or JP Chase. Or that we are the property of some school's athletic department.

I like the shirt. I may wear it again...but I wonder if it is a good thing to walk around casually announcing that I belong to any one particular company.

Interesting. I wear a cross...around my neck and under my clothing. The bank thing...the name of IU or Duke or the Mucky Duck restaurant? Those are on the outside for the world to see!

Thriller.

2009-07-01T20:42:00.004-04:00

My first experience with the music of Michael Jackson was during college. When a lot of hard rock was screaming away, I would walk through the Student Union at IU and hear The Jackson Five singing "I'll Be There" or "ABC." The music certainly wasn't Cream or The Band or Chicago or Dylan, but it was good...made the world feel lighter. Brighter.

Now, as the stories of the pressure on young Michael to record one hit record after another come out, I realize the price he paid to be successful
- and please all those adults around him who kept pushing. And pushing. And pushing him.

His appearance began to change years ago. Later in life Michael did not resemble at all the handsome young black man who first came on the scene back in the late 60's and early 70's. I've heard speculation -there is plenty of that going around right now, isn't there?- that he had over fifty surgical procedures done to change his look

The more successful he became, the more bizarre his life choices seemed to get. Poor choices, bad investments, drug abuse...you name it. It was like watching a plane come apart, slowly, high in the air. We were left to wonder where the wreckage would land.

The more successful he became, the more unhappy he seemed to be.

The more people there were in his security detail, his retinue, the more lonely he appeared.

Everyone is saying he was the greatest. Certainly, the album "Thriller" is top selling LP/CD of all time. The greatest? I'm not so sure about that. It seems like we often use the word "greatest" to describe the latest celebrity or actor or musician to die.

I wonder what Michael wanted to look like -and why? I wonder why he seemed determined to erase every trace of the face he had as a young adult. Was it an attempt, as some say, to remove any connection -in terms of appearance- with the father who pushed him...and appears to have used him for his own financial gain? Was it an attempt to become "white?" Was it an attempt to copy someone he knew...admired...had seen in a crowd...or on the pages of some magazine? Who was he trying to be... what was he trying to hide?

Everyone talks about how many times Michael Jackson had doctors work on his face to change his look. The truth is we are all tempted to hide our faces, aren't we? More often than we want to admit we spend a good part of our lives trying to take on the face of the person we want to be. We do our very best to create a mask and live behind that mask.

Always in control.
Always okay.
Never a doubt in the world.
Strong always...never weak...never dependent on another human being.
Always happy.
Successful.

There are all these masks we slip on. The difference between us and Michael, though, is our desperate attempt to become someone else... hide the real us...isn't so obvious.

The sad thing about all of this is that when God made Michael Jackson, God made him beautiful. The psalmist in Psalm 139 remembers (:13) how God was doing something good when God made him: "You created every part of me; you put me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because you are to be feared; all you do is trange and wonderful. I know it with all my heart. When my bones were being formed, carefully put together in my mother's womb, when I was growing there in secret, you knew that I was there - you saw me before I was born."

Sometimes we try running from the man in the mirror.

Grace invites us to stop running. See us as God sees us. And be whole.

Interpreting the Silence..

2009-06-14T22:22:00.003-04:00

We United Methodists are a friendly, chatty family. Even in worship. When we pastors invite people to greet the people around them, the members of our congregation jump up and its like a family reunion (without the watermelon seed spitting contest). The room just roars with conversation and laughter!

Even during the sermon there is a low-level "buzz" or hum in the congregation. Not that people are jawing away at one another, outloud. (Well, okay, there are some people who turn to their neighbors and just talk and talk and talk while the preaching is going on. But those verbal non-conformists are few.) But there is a hum in the room.

Every now and then, though, the rooms gets absolutely still. It's like people have stopped breathing.

Now, as a preacher you know people can get quiet because they have fallen into a deep sleep. The way the young man, Eutychus, falls asleep when Paul is preaching in Acts 20:9.

There are other times, though, when the people are absolutely still because the preacher has stepped into a place...a subject...that is so real to them they almost can't bear it. Sometimes people stop whispering to their neighbor, they stop scribbling out their shopping list, and sit absolutely still because they didn't think anyone else in the whole world knew how they were hurting...and apparently the preacher knows. Because she is talking about it as if she is very familiar with the territory of the parishioner's silent, desperate pain. "I didn't think anyone else knew about that," people think to themselves. "In fact...I have been trying to pretend my life, in that particular area, isn't torn wide open."

So you have to interpret the silence.

It is almost always surprising to me, as a preacher. We are working along, the room is humming, and then I make a statement and suddenly everyone is still. When that happens I -deep inside- lean back, and tell myself, "Okay...we have arrived. We're someplace important for these people I love." It's must be the way a deer feels when he walks out of the dense, shaded, undercover and finds himself unexpectedly standing in a open space in the woods. The air is still...the sunlight is bright...and nothing seems to be moving.

"The Lord is in his holy temple," Habakkuk 2:20 says. "Let all the earth be silent before him."

The silent spaces in worship, during the sermon, when the hum stops and people almost stop breathing? They are usually a surprise...unexpected. And they are almost always holy ground.

Can You See the Stretch Marks?

2009-06-14T22:01:00.004-04:00

A web site on metal says this: "The term tensile strength refers to the amount of tensile (stretching) stress a material can withstand before breaking or failing."

This has been a beautiful day...great worship, an afternoon getting the house ready for the senior high youth group, a visit with a wonderful couple who are facing some challenges, and an evening on the patio watching the sun go down. Still, the last two weeks have been a pastoral whitewater trip: lots of rocks, churning water, and spray. You use your paddle, dig as hard as you can to get through one situation, and then the raft dips and you are into another rough stretch.

You get a call one night, and sit with a couple as they tell their children the marriage may be ending. That's how one week begins. It ends with an email from a friend whose marriage has just collapsed. In between is a friend's battle with cancer, a man in the community whose hidden addiction has suddenly come out in the open, a 80-year old whose 47-year old daughter is dying. This is "normal" stuff. People whose lives -their rafts- are hitting some large rocks. Everything normal is spun around. Maybe turned upside-down.

And there has been other stuff. Seems like every time I have turned around there has been someone who is upset with something we have done (or not done). These are people I love, and so their frustration...their sense that we should do ministry differently...hurts. I want everyone to be happy and yet sometimes they aren't. These hurting moments come at a time when the church is growing...when the vital signs are so strong in so many areas.

A friend told me, "Just keep praying. And leading. That's the only thing you can do."

So I have been thinking about tensil strength. It's the capacity of a material to bend...to handle stress...without breaking. Can the wings stretch enough to handle the added pressure when the jet runs into turbulence?

Tensil strength is an important quality in life. Some people have this way of "bouncing" back. Others hit turbulence and they come apart.

Women aren't -I know I'm going out on a limb here- very eager to show off their "stretch marks" to the world. I hear things advertised that are supposed to cover up those marks...make them disappear.

We tend to keep our psychological and emotional "stretch marks" hidden, don't we? Whether we are a teacher in a tough situation, or a social worker with an overwhelming caseload, or a doctor who spent half the night working to keep a patient alive and then was in the office for that first 8 o'clock appointment, or a business person trying to keep the doors open and the employees working for another month. We all have "whitewater" times. We all go through times when we are flying along and hit turbulence.

I don't know what keeps you going, but I would suggest prayer. And I would suggest remembering that you need to take good care of yourself... remember to walk away now and then. Take a breath. Focusing on today and letting tomorrow wait...can help.

Paul, in 2nd Corinthians 4:16, says he doesn't lose heart because he has confidence that the God who was able to raise Jesus Christ from the dead will also raise us up with Jesus.

You may be doing a good job of keeping your "stretch marks" hidden. Not letting people know about the rocks you have been hitting, the whitewater you have been paddling through, but God knows. You're not alone. Hang in there. Bend, flex, give, and keep coming back, okay?

Watching People Wave Goodbye.

2009-06-14T21:36:00.005-04:00

Saturday evening after our worship service I slipped over to the Roosevelt Community Center where the good people of Prairie Street Mennonite Church were celebrating the ministry of their soon-to-depart pastor, the Reverend Andrew Kreider.

The reason I went, sat in a corner of the room, and watched this church family say things like "We love you," "Thanks," and "Goodbye" is -first- that I was invited to the party.

I raced over late, and slipped in after missing the meal, for another reason: Prairie is a lively Christian community and they have been especially strong under Andrew's leadership. You can tell, you can sense, when a congregation has a strong heartbeat. When they are alive. Making a difference. And I have sensed that about Prairie Street. When I heard Andrew had resigned so that he could support his wife in a new chapter in her work, I was surprised and saddened. Because I love this community, I know how healthy, vital churches can make a difference in a neighborhood, and I don't take outstanding pastoral leaders for granted. The truth is people who can do ministry the way Andrew does ministry are few and far between.

So I sat there...and listened to the stories.

As people talked about Andrew's preaching and the movement of the Holy Spirit, I found myself wishing I had slipped over there to worship on a Sunday morning. And I could tell what preaching means to a community of Christians.

I also found myself thinking about the night (or day) when the people at Trinity will gather together to say goodbye to me. Bless me and release me to whatever is next. Who will be there? When will it be? What will people say?

And I sat near the back of the crowd and began praying for that congregation. Every church is much more than the pastor who happens to serve it at the time. I know that. I say that. I remind laity of that when pastors come and go. But I also know that some "matches" are really amazing. Particularly effective. So I was praying because you could hear, in the people's voices, their recognition that this change meant something profound to all of them. While they were saying they were confident the creative ministries and outreach efforts would continue in the future, if you listened closely enough you might have heard them wondering if it would be okay.

I remember when Lucchese's -one of Elkhart's fine local, Italian restaurants- changed bakers. You'd think finding someone to bake the bread your customers have come to know and love would be pretty easy to do. But it -the transition- proved to be tricky. The new baker did it differently...some people liked the change. Others didn't. So the new baker tried to learn the old recipes and also introduce something new.

Guess ministry and baking bread may have a few things in common, when it comes to change and transition.

In this letter to a young Christian leader, 2nd Timothy 4:2-8 (NIV) likens Christian ministry to running a race...being in a 15-round fight:

Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage--with great patience and careful instruction. {3} For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. {4} They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. {5} But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.

{6} For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. {7} I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. {8} Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day--and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

Maybe this sounds odd coming from a pastor, but I am so thankful to those men and women who love Jesus and serve creatively, faithfully...in local congregations. I'm grateful, Andrew. I've been watching from across, town and you have done good work, my friend. Good work!

Graced Filled Waffles.

2009-06-07T11:46:00.006-04:00

They've always been places I drove by, those ubiquitous Waffle House restaurants along main highways and interstates. The last time I remember being in one, before this Spring, was the Fall of 1975 in Durham, North Carolina.

They just never were a place I wanted to stop.

A few weeks ago, though, I found myself in Buckhead, Georgia. Attending a conference of preachers. It was late enough the cool coffee shop down the road had closed up. So two friends and I found the only place open that might offer an inexpensive cup of coffee: a Waffle House.

Other than ourselves, there was only one other paying customer. Three employees were working the place. All African-Americans. They seemed glad to see us. Seemed thankful for the company. Stood nearby while we had our coffee and our raisin toast...our slice of pie...and talked with us. About the weather and traffic in Atlanta and the way folks from South Carolina talk. About the weather up north. One woman told us about her son, who is graduating from Oberlin College, and her youngest who is doing well in school...she sees to that! There was such a gracious spirit in that place!

Last night, here in Columbus, we didn't leave the hospital -where our second granddaughter had just been born the day before- until after 11. None of us had supper. Not many options at 11:20 at night if you are looking for something other than a hamburger. So I pulled into another Waffle House located across from a truck stop...and adjacent to I-670 West.

Ella, our 21-month old granddaughter, was a bit worn around the edges. Sharon rocked her. We ordered something to eat and then Sharon walked Ella outside. They stood there in the night air, under a nearly full moon, and the little girl found her second wind.

Our waitress was young. Doing her best. Working behind the counter. Unaware that her co-workers had taped a ragged piece of white paper to her back that said, KICK ME. When she forgot my decafe coffee she came over and apologized. Then, tried to finish a cheeseburger she had ordered, and which was growing cold on the plate sitting on the counter.

Sharon, Ella and I sat in the booth. Ella refused any food...but she did dip her finger in the syrup on my waffle and lick the sweetness off her finger! An older woman was sitting in a booth, by herself, about twelve feet away from us. She watched us...watched Ella. Sharon told her about Ella...how old she is.

Before we left the older woman, Agnes, approached our table. She bent down to talk with Ella. Asked her if she had a piggy bank. Ella looked perplexed. The woman opened her hand to reveal two quarters. "Put one in your piggy bank," she said quietly, "and put one in the piggy bank of your new, little sister."

The woman didn't look like she had two nickles to rub together -let alone quarters to give away.

I found myself thinking about the widow in the Jerusalem temple. Putting her last copper coins in the temple's offering box as a way of saying "thank you" to God. No one else noticed what she did, but Jesus had his eyes on her the whole time. And he told us about her.

I also found myself thinking of the Sermon on the Mount. Where Jesus says the poor and the humble and the seekers after God will be blessed.

Looking around, as I paid my bill, I had a hunch Jesus would have hung out in places like that...with people like that. We sing and talk a lot about God's grace in churches. Theologians write about that in journals and books too heavy to lift. Then, you pull into the parking lot of a Waffle House. The sound of tractor-trailers a non-musical backdrop to the scene. A nearly full moon adding a touch of beauty to such an ordinary setting. And you come face-to-face with grace.

It's surprising...which is a kind of judgement, you know? We talk about God's grace being loose in the world, and then we are surprised when we run into it.

Somehow, as I drive north and west tonight, towards home...I hunch that these places...glowing with their yellow lights late into the night...will not look the same to me.

Sometimes You Just Have to Tip-Toe In.

2009-06-06T17:40:00.002-04:00

You rarely dive all the way under, in June, when you want to go swimming in Lake Michigan. You wade out a few feet. Let part of your body get used to the cold. And then you go all the way under.

There are all moments in life when that is true. I know people say it's better to pull a Band-Aid off all at once, but there are many moments when it takes us awhile to get our heads -and hearts- around some big change. Some big truth. There are times when gradual is better...easy does it.

That was never more apparent than during the last 24 hours. Our second granddaughter, Olivia Rose, was born yesterday around 2:50 p.m. It was late afternoon before Sharon and I brought Olivia's 21-month old big sister up to the hospital here in Columbus. Olivia was out of the room when we entered Joleen's room. Ella was unsettled by the sight of her Mommy in a hospital bed. She teared up when she say the IV's in her Mommy's arm. But she ended up sitting next to Mommy in the hospital bed. Watching a video on her Mommy's i-Phone.

When the nurse brought Olivia into the room, Ella looked up for a second, glanced at this little bundle that was placed in her Mommy's arms, and then went right back to her video. There was hardly a ripple of recognition that something was different....but you could tell she knew the universe was shifting.

Ella paid little attention to Olivia, and preferred to walk up and down the halls with Grandpa. Work the elevator. When I would say, "Do you want to go see Mommy?" Ella would respond with, "No...no way." Late in the evening, though, I held her as she looked through the glass into the Nursery. I pointed out Olivia to her, and a nurse brought Olivia to the windows. Ella studied her little sister and quietly said, "Baby sister."

Today when we went to the hospital, Daddy was holding Olivia. Ella sat down next to them. Reached out...carefully touched her little sister's feet. Bent over and kissed them...kissed Olivia's knees...and her lips. After about 20 minutes, though, she was ready to go...said, "Grandpa...elevator!"
So we left...headed to McDonald's and the Columbus Zoo.

It has been something watching the mixture of emotions in this 21-month old. It has been something to see her carefully taking in this big thing that has happened. Not trying to "get it" all at once. There is recognition... and then there is some time getting close...and then there will be more discoveries to come.

Life changes and we tip-toe up on the reality of what this means. I think that is just fine, you know? Sometimes, if you dive into the cold water all it once, it almost makes your heart stop. (And that's not a good thing!)

Jesus didn't, in the beginning, tell Simon Peter what he said three years later in John 21. "You're going to be taken where you don't want to go, and there going to put you away." No, Jesus said, "Come, follow me, and I'll show you how to catch people." The rest of it Peter -and the others- would learn along the way. Begin to understand along the way.

So one evening she glances over for a second, and then looks away. The next day she sits close, tenderly touches those small feet, and then is ready to run the halls. It will only be sometime later that she will fully understand what it means to share the world...the house...Mommy and Daddy...with someone who is your sister.

Love Multiplies.

2009-06-01T15:11:00.002-04:00

This is a big week. On Friday afternoon our second granddaughter, Olivia Rose, is to be born at 2:30 p.m. in Columbus, Ohio. (Being an IU grad and having your granddaughters born in the heart of Ohio State country is really tough...I feel like a rabbi whose kids have moved to Teheran!)

Those of you who know me, know how crazy I am about Beautiful Ella. Being a Grandpa has surprised me...this 21-month old has my heart. She tells me she misses me over the phone. She squeals and jumps into my arms when her Mom comes her way to change her diaper or give her a bath. When we watch basketball on tv she even imitates my muttered, "Oh, come on!" when the refs don't make the call.

So Olivia is on the way. I wonder how I can feel the same kind of delight...and yet I know I will.

Love has this way of multiplying...the heart has this way of expanding. When there are more people to love, God gives us the gift of more love. There is always enough.

I've been in a conversation with a friend who is thrilled with her small group at Trinity. She and her friends are so delighted that they hesitate to divide the group and help grow some new groups with that same kind of gracious, loving, Jesus-centered DNA. I tell her God will multiply the love.

Sometimes, when I talk with people in churches where there is a proposal to go from one weekly worship service to two, or two to three, I hear them say, "We won't know everyone." I tell them, "Yes, you're right. If we need to know everyone in the church then the church is going to have to stay really small. Which means we turn our backs on all sorts of folks who want to know Jesus...know God...experience grace-filled community." I tell people it is okay...God will multiply the love.

Paul, the tough, old rabbi turned Christian preacher, is writing to the early Christians in 1st Thessalonians 2:7b, uses the image of a nursing mother to describe his relationship as pastor. He talks about how much he loves them and has worked among them. Truth is, though, he says the same thing to Christians in other early churches. He loves them...all. God multiplies the love. There is always enough to go around when we hang out with Jesus.

Olivia Rose.

I think I'll call her, Lovely Olivia.

I'm ready to welcome you and love you, Olivia. And we'll make sure Ella doesn't get lost in the celebration...there will be enough love to go around.

Forgetting the Basics.

2009-06-01T15:05:00.003-04:00

One of my favorite parts of summer is water skiing. I learned how to do that late one summer afternoon about eight years ago, and I have a blast getting out on the water about an hour before sunset...when the lake is still and most sensible people have gone in for the day.

This past Sunday afternoon we zipped down to Koontz Lake (after a quick stop to pick up a plastic, push, toy lawnmower for Beautiful Ella). Nervous about the cold water, I set the skis in the boat, climbed into my suit and a wet suit, got in the boat...and we headed out into the middle of the lake.

When Sharon stopped the boat, I took a deep breath...grabbed a ski in one arm...and jumped in. As I struggled to put on the skis I realized I had forgotten to put on a ski/life jacket. So we had to go back to shore to pick up that particular little item.

Sometimes we get so focused on something that we forget the basics. We do that in life, don't we? Jesus said, "Seek first the kingdom of God." It's easy, as we are trying to balance our budgets or look for a job or muddle through a tough situation at work, to forget that basic kingdom stuff. I was so worried about the cold water that I forget the life jacket...had never done that before. What has you so worried that you are tempted to forget the basics of life with God?

Rain, Rain - Go Away (really?)

2009-05-28T20:04:00.002-04:00

It's been gray from start to finish today. We seem to have than our share of those in this corner of northern Indiana. Low clouds...a light mist...after some serious rainfall earlier in the week.

The grass is so green it looks electric. Homeowners are having a tough time keeping it cut down because it is growing so fast.

Seems like everyone I've talked to today says something like, "I'm so tired of this. I am ready for sunny...dry weather."

I understand that. I was hoping to go water skiing this evening, but the cool temps and the low clouds discouraged me from putting that particular plan into action.

As I was driving down the road, though, I realized there are parts of the world where people would be standing outside weeping with joy at the wet stuff falling out of the sky! Australia and parts of the US -as well as other corners of the globe- are in the grip of a terrible drought. Good topsoil is drying up and blowing away. Herds of livestock are being sold off.

When people have complained about the rain today, I have started responding, "There are parts of the world where people would be standing outside, faces upturned towards the sky, weeping with joy at the gift we are receiving."

Sometimes we complain even about the blessings God sends our way, don't we?

In Matthew 5 Jesus is talking about loving our enemies and praying for the people who make our lives miserable. He's trying to shake us loose from our human temptation to treat our friends well and our enemies like
-well- enemies. He points out, in verse 45, how God is different. He says God makes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and that God sends rain on the just and the unjust. Sun is blessing...rain is blessing.

We grumble about cancelled golf games, bicycling trips, and picnics. Truth is we might look up at the wet stuff falling from the sky and say, "Thank you, Father. Thank you, Lord!"

Mixed Signals.

2009-05-21T16:23:00.002-04:00

Mixed signals can mean whatever we have to say for Jesus will be lost.

I thought of that as I heard a sermon about how important it is that Christians be all about mission. Not about self or ego. Set on fire with a desire to serve the least and the lost.

The preacher was wearing a beauitful robe with doctoral bars down the sleeves (that tells you that folks like me have a doctoral degree and are really important), and the lobby of the mega-church would have shamed the furnishings in the fanciest hotel. In his introduction of himself the preacher pointed out the academic degrees, honors and prestigous work roles of his children.

It's not about us - it's all about Jesus. Really?!

A friend attended a Christian concert by a woman who plays guitar -and sings- like an angel. He went to the lobby where her CD's were being sold, and the man managing the table snapped at my friend. Not once. Not twice. But three times. Made him feel stupid for asking a question about the woman's music and her web site. The music she sings is being drowned out by the lack of grace by the people on her team.

It's always more easy to see the mixed signals in other Jesus followers than it is to see how we say one thing and do another. Jesus says, in the Sermon on the Mount, that we are always ready to point out the wood speck in the eye of another person while being oblivious to the 2 x 4 in our own eye!

Here is the deal: people don't just pay attention to our words but they are watching the rest of our lives. Does this match up? Are they congruent?

None of us are perfect. All of us make mistakes. Each one of us is a sinner. One person struggles with gossip. Another with sexual sin. Another with ego. Another with a low-grade fever of greed so they never have enough.

But this business of sending mixed signals is really important.

Does the setting of your life match the words you speak for Jesus?

When Whatever You Say is Wrong.

2009-05-21T16:08:00.006-04:00

Have you ever been in a relationship or meeting or class where whatever you said was wrong?

I'm in one of those places with someone I have known a long time...and loved for a long time.

The person is hurting. Feeling cut-off. And whatever I say turns out to be wrong.

Words I mean to be gracious are experienced as judgemental.

Words I mean to be empathetic are interpreted as critical.

It's a helpless feeling for me. There is the intent of the heart, but the words are proving inadequate. Like telephone lines that have been knocked to the ground by strong winds and falling limbs, my words are sent out but the message of the heart gets lost.

And I know it is a helpless feeling for her. She is feeling desperate, cut off, isolated, and in need of support - and whatever I offer feels like another weight. Another indication that she doesn't have anyone she can turn to.

So what do you do? Paul, in Romans 1st Corinthians 14:1, says "follow the way of love."

Here is what I have been reduced to doing:

1. Saying that I love her. That's it. Anything more somehow goes off in the wrong direction. Like a driver whose car is on ice, and no matter which direction he turns the steering wheel, the car ends up clipping the pole and ending up in the ditch. So I just keep saying, "I love you."

2. Praying for her. I am giving her to God. Maybe God can sort things out. Maybe God can help her hear the love behind my words. Maybe God can help me learn to use words that "get through." In the 1st chapter of 2nd Corinthians, Paul says (:9) he not relying on himself but on God "who raises the dead." Sometimes God gets through when we can't. Sometimes God sends someone else who can get over the defensive walls another person has constructed so carefully. I am giving this person to God. (I do that with people in the church who only seem to be irritated by my best efforts to lead and to love.)

3. Keeping the door open. I'm not a big believer in burning bridges. Writing other people off once and forever. Jesus, in Luke 18, has a conversation with a rich man who refuses to sell his possessions and give the money to the poor. The man fails the invitation to be free and healthy in God, but Jesus doesn't write him off forever. Doesn't tell him never to come back. So I do my best to keep the door open...allow for the possibility that the relationship may recover. Grow. Head off in a more healthy direction. Some people say "I'll never send any more cards" or "I won't call that person until they call me first." Not me. I'll keep calling (now and then). I'll keep sending cards. I'll keep letting her know I love her. But I'll not force her to deal with me. The door is open.

Sometimes whatever you say is wrong.

And all I am left with are the words, "I love you."

What Do You Do with the Gift?

2009-05-21T15:39:00.003-04:00

When we give time to something (or someone), we are announcing that it (or they) have value.

For the last three days I have been listening to preachers preach, and I have been leaning forward as theologians talk about faith and communication and what it means to follow Jesus in a world that isn't sure what to make of Jesus. I don't take three or four days away for something like this very often. But preaching is important.

Preaching is important. There was a time in the 60's and early 70's when Christian leaders and communication/worship experts thought preaching was an obsolete relic. Dramas, video clips, experiential worship...all of that was thought to be more "relevant" than preaching.

One of the ways I know preaching is important is that we see God using it to change people and change the world. The sermons of prophets like Elijah and Elisha put tyrants on notice that God is a God of justice. When God sent Jesus into the world, he spent his ministry doing a couple of essential tasks: preaching and healing. In Luke 4 he reads from the Isaiah and says, "The Lord has anointed me to preach..." The book of Acts records some of the sermons of people like Peter and Paul, and God used those sermons to turn the world upside-down.

Another way I know preaching is important is that as a lay person I have heard it done well - and badly. When it has been done well, my life has changed. My experience with God has deepened. I have come face to face with a kind of truth that challenged my ways of thinking and living. When sermons have been limp and lifeless, thrown together at the last minute, I have come away hungry...disappointed...frustrated.

As a preacher it is a powerful thing to be a part of a moment when the Word is declared with power and integrity. You can tell when the room changes and we all suddenly realize we are standing on holy ground. When I have preached and failed, you can tell. We can all tell.

I always do my best. You need to know that. One sermon is better than another. One message reaches inside your head and heart with the truth of Jesus. You can't avoid it or escape it. Another sermon doesn't get anywhere close to where you need for it to be. But I always do my best. I give everything I have to the task of preaching.

You may be curious to know what it takes to deliver one of those "talks," as some people outside the church refer to them. A couple of times each year I go away for two or three days to look ahead...open the Bible...pray...and plan preaching themes. I make notes. Identify possible points within the sermon.

The week before the sermon I spend part of Thursday outlining the sermon, and on Friday I begin writing around 9:30 in the morning. (Many people at TUMC think Friday is my day off, but it is usually the longest workday of my week!) The manuscript is finally finished around 6. I walk away. Let God have some time with the words put down on paper.

Saturday afternoon I read the sermon and re-read the manuscript. (It's usually about 10 or 12 pages long!) Before I enter the sanctuary, I jot down some key phrases on a piece of scrap paper, slip that in my Bible, and pray.

Somewhere between the writing of the sermon and the preaching of the message, I "cut out" about one-half of what I have written. Sometimes, from service to service, the message changes as I watch the clock and the eyes of the congregation. At one service a story is shared, and at the next service it isn't. The messages shifts through the weekend as the Holy Spirit works in my. heart and head..in you...between us.

My preaching has changed over the years. I once put a lot of time in making sure the "presentation" was polished. My preaching, like many other pastors, has become much more of a conversation with people. It is more of a dialogue than a religious lecture. So in some sense my preaching is more rough around the edges...and it is more real.

Another change is that the sermons have gotten longer. There was a time in the "Mainline Church" when sermons were 15-20 minutes. More and more, in healthy, vital, growing large churches the preaching time has become a serious teaching time that takes up 30-45 minutes. (Rob Bell up in Grand Rapids often preaches for 80 minutes! Heh...did some of you just break into a sweat?! Don't worry...we're not going to try and head in that direction!)

Preaching, I tell people, is like Jacob's wrestling match with the heavenly messenger. Some weeks I am drained. Some weeks the words come easily and quickly, and some weeks the process of sermon writing is exahusting. Frustrating beyond words. God refuses to let me get a hold of him.

If you find yourself vaguely dissatisfied with the preaching/'teaching ministry at TUMC, it may be your fault. (Didn't expect that, did you?) You play a key role in what happens in our teaching ministry! I challenge you to be praying for the service and preacher as you head to church. I invite you who attend the 8 o'clock service to join us in the Conference Room at 7:40 a.m. every Sunday as we pray for the sermon and the services. I encourage you to read the text of the day before the service begins. The sermon may seem lifeless and irrelevant if you wander in 10 minutes late to worship, work on a shopping list during the Bible reading, and only half-listen while you are trying to decide what you'll do for dinner. Your role in our church's preaching ministry is important!

The art of preaching is something I love to do. Some weeks I do better than others. But I always do my best...give my best...hold nothing back.

Jesus refers to himself, in John, as living bread. I love breaking that bread and sharing it with a hungry world.

Hanging in There.

2009-05-21T15:26:00.003-04:00

Dave and I got to know one another, just slightly, when we were both students in seminary back in the late 70's. We didn't have all that much in common...we just happened to cross paths at Duke.

Herb and I first really hung out together at a National UM Youth Workers' Conference in Estes Park, Colorado, back around 1980. We climbed over boulders, looked down at the valley and up at the mountains, and thought about what the future could be in ministry. In life.

This week the three of us have been in Atlanta for a national preaching festival. Not as preachers or presenters. Nope. We are journeymen preachers but not special enough to merit much attention. With about one thousand others we have been gathering in the new, massive, Gothic-like sanctuary at Peachtree Road United Methodist.

We've heard some great preaching...and lectures. We just finished having lunch with Bishop Woodie White who -retired- lives and teaches here.

In a few hours we head back north.

Here is what I want you to know: hanging in there has its rewards.

There have been times when each one of us was so busy with our own challenges and agendas that it was tough even seeing one another. Contacts were more sporadic. Plans to get away for sermon planning or a continuing education event fell apart and we each kept working in our churches...or dealing with our families.

We hung in there, though. We didn't give up. Friendship is many things, but one of the things it certainly is is hanging in there.

Paul, in Romans 15, prays that God will give the people of Jesus "endurance and encouragmement." He prays they will have unity. And then, in verse 7, he prays that they will accept one another.

The three of us -and our buddy, Steve- work on one another. Coach one another. Confront one another. Along with the days and moments when we just listen and affirm and accept one another.

Our friendship has shown endurance. And that is something good.

Love in the Ragged Places.

2009-05-02T21:57:00.003-04:00

I enjoy being very active...working out, waterskiing, etc. But I also love to read. Over the last two weeks I have spent a lot of time reading. Some history, a silly detective/mystery novel by a Floridian, a wonderful account of the Beatles and their music...the culture of the 60's and 70's.

One book I savored was Will Allison's "What You Have Left." Never heard of Will, before, but he has some ties to Indiana and Ohio. The book is about a young girl in South Carolina whose mother is killed in a water skiing accident. Her father feels overwhelmed, and so he drops his daughter off at her Grandfather's. Says he'll come back for her in a day or two...and then disappears.

Her Grandpa loves her and cares for her (the cover of the book has a child falling out of the sky into the arms of a surprised looking middle-aged man). He hangs in there when she runs away...keeps loving her.

The girl, Holly, does okay. She says she has no expectation -or need- for her father, but there is this persistent desire to find him... re-connect with him...punish him for his abandonment. There are times when Holly is a mess. She drinks too much. She is loved by a young man who wants to marry her, but she has this way of taking the engagement ring off and throwing it when she is frustrated. Holly gambles thousands of dollars of their savings away, years after they are married.

Finally, near the end of the book, she finds her father. He is a mechanic in another town. Struggling with some health issues. And racing stock cars at a local track.

I finished the book as Sharon drove us towards home from the Indianapolis airport. When I closed the book I just sat and looked at the fields... the trees with their bright, green, new leaves...the redbuds in blossom back in the Hoosier woods. And I thought about how love is rarely simple...or easy. Love doesn't move in a straight line, but it takes off in a zag here and a zig there.

One of the life patterns I've bumped into, time and time again, is the life story of women being abandoned by their dads or grandpas. It's more common than you might think, and -tragically- more and more frequent. For some reason men step out of the lives of their daughters early on, and there is -despite the best efforts of the young women to heal and even fill their broken hearts with the love of God- always this aching, sad place in the women's lives. I'm not sure why men leave...I don't understand it. I'd like to ask men who have jumped ship, but perhaps they would all have a different story...different reasons.

So I thought about that, and I also thought about the way my Mom died just over eight years ago this Spring. She was an incredible woman. Amazing faith in God despite fearsome losses...a husband early on, multiple miscarriages, the death of two sons (one by Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and the other in a car accident), losing her home in Africa, and spending 4 1/2 years blessing and giving and surviving in northwest Alaska. My mom, Anita, spoke all over America to church groups. She was an eloquent spokeswoman for the Christian faith, and led weekend retreats from her to both coasts.

When she was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer (I remember the night...Notre Dame had played a home game in the NIT basketball tournament the day she received the test results...my Dad called late at night...and I knew that wasn't good), she pulled back. She pulled in. She pulled away from me...my siblings...and into a private world that none of us were allowed to visit.

So we never had "closure," as some experts call it. We never had a chance to say what we wanted to say...needed to say...to one another. Her funeral was a gathering of lay people and church leaders from across the state of Indiana. It was a big deal...but for those of us closest to her it felt like she had slipped out the side door just ahead of us. Without saying "goodbye."

Why do I say all of this? Well, I figure when you love people you love them on their terms. Each and every one of us is a work in progress. Each and every one of us has flaws...fears...and there are some dents in our psychic "bumper" that no soul "body man" is going to knock out and smooth off.

Holly meets up with her absent father, who has failed in all sorts of ways, but there is grace in the reunion. My Mom left this world in a way that just puzzled the heck out of those of us most close to her, but she was an amazing woman. A real case. Could put words together that would fill your heart with faith, and she was always late...ate Hostess Cupcakes while drinking Diet Tab...and had a "thing" for jewelery.

When you love someone, you love them.

Even when there are ragged places. I think that may be what Paul was trying to help us see in 1st Corinthians 13: "love is patient and kind... love bears all things."

Quiet.

2009-05-02T21:49:00.002-04:00

The blog site says I last "posted" in early April. So it's been awhile. I meant to write something while we were in Florida the last eight days, but somehow I didn't get around to it.

I think it's okay that I have been quiet.

Sometimes -and I know this sounds funny coming from someone who works with words for a living, and who loves to read books- there are too many words. In this era of 24/7 news channels we say too much. We wear words out. We've lost the art of filtering our thoughts, and if it is "in there" we somehow think the world needs to know every last detail of what just popped into our heads.

There are times when I get quiet, and people around me get nervous. "What's wrong with you?" they ask with a puzzled smile. "Nothing," I say. "I'm just tired of talking." (As I write that I think of the character in "Forrest Gump" who talks and talks about shrimp...unless he just runs out of wind.)

Actually, I've been soaking up a lot of quiet in Florida. Stayed away -pretty much- from the tv and radio and CD player. Spent time stretched out beneath the sun reading...or on the beach...walking. Listening to the waves. Catching the sound the palm leaves make, at night, when the wind catches them and makes it sound like there is a light rain falling.

"Be still," Psalm 46:10 says, "and know that I am God."

Believe it or not, this particular verse is one of my favorites.

Sometimes being quiet is just the right thing, you know?

Wondering.

2009-04-12T18:22:00.002-04:00

It's Easter evening. Surveys of preachers talk about the "post preaching" emotional dip. It's sort of like a "post partum depression" (on a small scale). You work and pray over the message...if things go well there is this moment when God shows up and faith spreads to some hearts that haven't been sure. Then, the service ends. The preachers feels a bit lost... wondering what to do with himself or herself.

Some pastors, according to the survey, just want to go off...be left alone. They go home and curl up with a book...take a nap...go for a walk. Others throw themselves into a frenzy of activity...out to lunch with friends...phone calls to visitors...the evening youth group gathering... doing a load of laundry. (Never been tempted to do that last thing...on a Sunday evening.)

It's Easter evening and I am not suffering from a post-preaching "dip." The services have been amazing...not because of our skill or brilliance but because God has this way of showing. Because the story of the Empty Tomb is true...and Jesus is loose.

The worship gatherings have been stunning...moments with the children. Energy and praise from our Praise Team. Music from our Chancel Choir and Handbell Choir and Orchestra that just took our breath away...eliciting a very unprofessional "Oh, my!" from the Lead Pastor at Trinity in the middle of worship. There was the moment when I handed newly baptized Aubrey Ann to a tough guy...expert in security systems...who wasn't sure what to do with a baby! And there was the little girl who, during the children's moment, said, "There were so many people here today that I didn't know where you were... but I looked down from the balcony and saw your bald head and knew where to go!"

So it has been good. All good. My Dad came over...Ella and her folks were here. Before Ella and her parents headed back to Columbus, Ohio she grabbed the index finger of my left hand and took me for a walk...over to see some daffodils...and then we circled the car before Mommy put her in the car seat. I've been watching The Masters and reading the New York Times.

All good. No dip. Just thanksgiving...tonight.

Luke 24 tells us that Simon Peter leaves the empty tomb not sure about what God is up to...but he is "wondering" if the empty tomb story is true. If Jesus is, in fact, alive.

Here is what I am hoping for: I am hoping that the news that Christ is Risen will stick with people. That it doesn't get tossed, after a few days, like the flowers in the centerpiece on the dining room table. That it doesn't set aside. I am hoping that this faith, this hope, Jesus brings sticks... and just keeps showing up in the lives of people. In rough moments and sweet moments. Big times and little times.

It's Easter evening. Tomorrow is Monday. And Jesus is on the road ahead of us...out there. I'm so glad...so very glad...and hopeful.

The Silliness of the Greatest Ever.

2009-04-06T21:07:00.002-04:00

It's a letter in the current issue of Sports Illustrated. Written by a fellow named Joseph Evans of Roselle Park, New Jersey. Joseph is talking about an article that appeared in the March 16th issue of SI on New Jersey Devils' goalie, Martin Brodeur.

Now, I don't follow pro hockey all that closely...although I fell in love with minor league hockey when we lived in the Fort Wayne, Indiana area for eight years. And I have heard about Brodeur. He is supposed to be something else.

What Joseph said, though, caught my attention. At the end of his letter he says this about Brodeur, "He's unquestionably the greatest goaltender ever to play in the NHL."

What is the deal with our need to proclaim people the "best ever" or "greatest of all time?" I have a hunch there were some hockey goalies in the 50's, 60's, 70's, and 80's that were pretty amazing. I mean, to compete at the highest levels of sports -whether as an F1 driver, a golfer, a football player, a hockey goalie, a rider in the Tour de France- means you are an extraordinary athlete.

Maybe it is generational myopia. Every generation likes to stand on their little chronological hill, and announce that a pitcher or hitter or goalie or painter or actor or novelist is the greatest ever. Really?

This may come as a surprise to those who have announced that Tiger Woods is the best ever, but Jack Nicklaus was pretty amazing in his day. Lebron James is something else, but so was Oscar Robertson...and Gail Goodrich. There are some great big men in the NBA, but for my money Bill Russell was the best (or should I say one of the best?). U2 is stunning...but so were the Beatles...The Band...Booker T. & the MG's... The Four Tops. Tom Brady and Peyton Manning are great quarterbacks, but Joe Montana and Kenny Stabler and Johnny Unitas and Sid Luckman were breath-taking in their day.

I wish we could just appreciate the amazing work of great athletes, writers, actors, directors...without feeling the need to pronounce someone "the greatest ever." It is a silly statement. A statement that reveals our own generation's need to be the axis around which all other generations pivot.

Jesus said the greatest among you must be the least. Servant of all. It's upside-down definition of greatness, but it is true.

Great runners run, great goalies block impossible shots, great writers put words together in ways that change our hearts and the way we see...the way we live. They take our breath away.

How about we agree to stop declaring this person or that "the greatest ever," and just give thanks for what is?

Muscle Cars.

2009-04-03T16:34:00.003-04:00

Born in 1951, I have great memories of "muscle cars" of the 60's to the 70's. Detroit turned out these awesome machines. Simple vehicles, engines that moved that steel down the two-lane blacktop roads of the upper midwest in a hurry, and lines that made the hearts of most young menman beat a little faster.

There was that line of Pontiac models that were awesome. The GTO made us stop and look as it went rumbling by. Chrysler had the Roadrunner and the Charger and the Fury and the Barracuda...those and others were powered by Hemi engines. Chevy had the Chevelle Mailbu SS 396 and the earlier Chevy Nova and the Camaro. Ford had the Mustang. Pontiac made sure the basic lines, from model to model, were present. Designers at Chrysler talked about their "Pepsi bottle" styling. Narrow lines near the front of the car, and then things suddenly widening out over the rear wheels.

For some of us cars are a part of the storyline of our lives. I can tell you where I was when I saw my first Camaro. It was a Sunday morning, in Walkerton, and I had just walked out of church. Can't remember for the life of me what the preacher said that morning, but I remember walking around the Camaro. Comparing its lines to the look of already-released Ford Mustang.

Pretty girls made my heart beat a little faster, but my jaw dropped when I saw my first Ford Mustang 2+2 Fastback. It was a sort of pearl blue. With interior lighting, white bucket seats (or where they blue?), and a state-of-the-art 4 (or was it 8?) track tape player stereo system. The car was sitting in the gravel parking lot behind the old John Glenn High School. I stood there studying that car, which was owned by a kid from Argos, and I knew immediately what the Bible is talking about when it says "thou shalt not covet...your neighbor's Mustang."

My first kiss was in a car. I first heard Linda Ronstadt sing "Different Drum" over the car stereo.

Detroit has been in the news, lately, and it has been pretty painful to hear about...read about. Rolling Stone had a recent article that described Detroit as a city that needs rebirth...or it will continue to decline into an urban relic. GM and Chrysler have been in the news as the government tries to figure out what the next step should be...if either of these great companies is to survive. Ford seems to be doing okay...but they have come perilously close to financial ruin over the last several years.

I don't know what the answer is, but I believe our country needs a healthy auto industry. Where state of the art vehicles are built in our factories by our people. That doesn't mean there isn't a place for great companies like Nissan and Toyota and Honda and Mercedes and Hyndai. I know what some economists say about America moving beyond a manufacturing-based economy, but I still am convinced we need good people, working hard, making a good wage, building cars (and refrigerators and furnaces and air conditioners and orthopedic equipment and steel and aircraft) in America.

Detroit has made some terrible decisions over the years. As the ads from GM, Ford and Chrysler kept encouraging folks to buy trucks and SUV's these last few years, and as foreign manufacturers offered more and more in the way of well-designed, well-built sedans, I shook my head in dismay. Some executives have been overpaid for their ineffective leadership, and some folks on the line haven't been willing to adapt quickly enough.

And yet I some segments of our country sort of enjoy kicking Detroit. People sneer about people being paid $70,000 a year to tighten bolts, but I hear the truth is otherwise. For example, much of the cost of an American car goes to health care costs -while the health care costs for employees in Japan are covered by the government. The actual pay for a line worker at GM is, I read, just slightly below the compensation paid a similar worker at Toyota.

My paternal grandparents worked for GM in Anderson, Indiana. The UAW and GM helped that part of our family join the American middle class. Working people could own their own homes, take vacations, send their kids to college, and retire in dignity: not a bad goal for a nation that aspires to greatness and justice and opportunity, I'd say.

I don't understand all of this. I know I worry about a country without GM or without Chrysler. I worry about communities without those kinds of jobs. I worry about families dealing with the loss of jobs, and I worry about -pray for- cities like Flint, Detroit, Kokomo, Anderson, Toledo, and others. And I feel a twinge of guilt about the fact that my wife and I drive a Nissan product, a Mazda product, and use an old Dodge van as a "winter beater." Next time I buy a car I am going to look long and hard at some of those great new products beng turned out by Chrysler, GM and Ford.

I love cars. I've always loved cars. They still make my heart beat a little faster. There is a kind of magic that happens when you sit in the driver's seat, put the key in the ignition, turn the key to the right and feel the engine come alive. And, like favorite songs from long ago, the beauty of cars like the Chevelle SS-396 and the Mustang and the Pontiac GTO and the top-of-the-line Olds Cutlass haunt my dreams.

The Greatest Threat.

2009-04-03T16:19:00.003-04:00

A few weeks ago a reporter from MSNBC asked me, "What is the biggest threat ahead of your community...your people?"

"Despair," I said.

We'll get through the short-term crisis of this economic downturn, I said. In our city of 55,000 people the actual unemployment rate is probably above 20%. Our folks have been through economic recessions before, and they are pretty resilient. They are creative and they'll come back.

Human beings have a pretty amazing capacity to come through a short-term crisis. The soldiers under fire in a Baghdad neighborhood react with amazing resourcefulness. The family with a very sick young child pulls together and gets through the crisis.

When thngs can get really tough, though, is after the crisis passes or first hits. it's the long haul that can wear a military unit down...or a family...or a marriage...or a community.

"We'll get through the first stages of the crisis okay," I said, "but I worry about people surrendering to despair when the challenges linger for months. When that great job doesn't come back...or when some changes we thought were going to be temporary look like they might become temporary."

Yesterday I got a phone call from a buddy: after months of searching he had just received a job offer. The application process, the interviews and all, had gone on for weeks. The job was his! I could hear the relief in his voice. Today I found out another friend didn't get the job they had been hoping for, interviewing for, and I know this must feel like a very, very tough Friday. A member of the family told me, after hearing the news, that God is good...God is faithful...and there is another job out there.

We are focused on helping one another through the crisis. I find myself wondering about the long term.

I keep thinking about the empty tomb of Easter. I keep thinking about the two men traveling to the town of Emmaus, after they had heard Jesus had been nailed to a cross and buried in the ground. "But we had hoped..." they said to a stranger (who turned out to the risen Christ).

Despair is like a dog that prowls the neighborhood. Always ready to dig its teeth into us. But we are going through this together. And we have a God whose resurrection power shows up in all sorts of ways.

You Can Do Your Best and Still Get It Wrong.

2009-04-03T15:52:00.003-04:00

One of the first illusions to die, in middle age, is the youthful assumption that if you are bright enough, faithful enough, and wise enough - you'll avoid messing up.

We saw the previous generation doing their best, and we could see their blind spots. They made such foolish mistakes! They seemed so blind to injustice! We were going to do better. We would never send young men off to die in a military mistake. We would get this whole issue of racial injustice squared away in short order. Children in America -and the world- would never go to bed hungry at night when we got our chance to lead. The church, when we got the chance to lead, would be more creative...more faithful...and not so captive to traditional, middle class values. We would be more reckless, more radical for Jesus than those polite, white-glove-wearing, ushers decorated in suit-and-tie-and-white-shirt midwestern ushers of the 50's and early 60's.

There has been some progress made, but we still can get things so wrong.

Our church is in the middle of a major attempt to be radical for Jesus, and be more effective by doing fewer things better. People across the country talk about the church becoming "simple." This new emphasis is a good thing, I think. At Trinity we try so many things that sometimes we forget to focus on helping people grow in Christ.

A few months ago our staff talked about the request of an individual who wanted to lead an AA group in our church building. The man has no connection to the church, we didn't want to just provide a room to a disconnected group, and we wanted to do some sort of recovery ministry
- but we wanted to have that group connected to the church. So that people could, as they recovered, have the opportunity to follow Jesus. Not that they would be forced into being a United Methodists, or Christians, but that the group would be linked to the ministries of the larger church.

A friend heard about that decision and she -along with her husband- was furious. Puzzled. Hurt. Because they both have a heart of compassion, and understand that if the church isn't helping the least and the lost then it probably ought to take down the cross about the building.

We finally talked about all of this a week ago. She told me it was good we had waited to talk. "I would have been too angry if we had met earlier," she said, "and you would have been defensive. So this is good...I don't agree with the decision. But I feel heard."

I told her we may well have been wrong. I told her we tried to make the right decision for the right reasons -not to be high-handed or indifferent, but just wanted to make sure recovery ministries were connected to discipleship. We support hunger ministries, we have volunteers tutoring in the schools, we are working with folks out of work -we do a lot of good for God at Trinity but we may have blown this call. Missed this opportunity to do ministry.

We may have been wrong. I hate that. I hate that we make mistakes. As individuals and as a church and as followers of Jesus around the world. (And then, again, maybe it was the right call. If we said "yes" to every opportunity to do something good, in our large church, we would wreck ourselves.)

Wrong turns, missed opportunities, go with the territory, I fear. Make enough decisions, hang around and lead long enough, and you are going to make all kinds of mistakes. And I hate that. I would like to be able to bat 1,000 or hit every foul shot or sink every putt.

"Thanks for hanging with me...with us," I said. "Please keep praying with us...for us. That we'll do the right thing for God."

The whole conversation made me thing about an old Walter Wangerin story. Walter was a young pastor of an inner-city congregation down in Evansville more than 30 years ago. A prostitute was using the church's outside water source, after dark, to fill her own pails. Her water had been turned off so she used the church's water. Walter was outraged by this thievery and so he had the church turned off the outside water. A member of the church caught him. Shook her fingers at her pastor and told him he ought to be ashamed. Said that maybe the most important ministry the church had to that woman was letting her fill her buckets with the water the church had paid for. Jesus would have never turned that woman away, or turned that water off, the woman said.

Sometimes we get it wrong. And I am so thankful for all those lovers of Jesus who keep loving us, praying for us, and not giving up on us...or the church.

Losing a Sanctuary.

2009-03-28T11:55:00.005-04:00

I've never been a drinker (of alcohol...poured a lot of diet pop and sweet tea down my throat, but not liquor). And I used to smile when I would hear the theme song to the hit comedy Cheers come on the tv. Everyone wants to go where "someone knows your name."

I've found, as life has carried me along, that everyone needs a place to go. For the last couple of years my place to go has been The Heavenly Brew. It's a coffee shop on East Jackson here in Elkhart. Sharon and Bill Wargo took a little house, that had been a florist shop, and turned it into a warm place with soft lighting, tables and booths, a wood floor, some art work...and great stuff to eat and drink. (I have had a particular affinity for their baked blueberry oatmeal, blueberry muffins, and Better Morning Muffins.) It was a place to go with my books and Bible and magazines. It was a place where I could stop, after working out at the Y, take a deep breath...look ahead to the day...and get centered.

The sweet thing is that Sharon and her staff got to know me. They knew what I would want. They could tell when I needed a tall glass of ice water to cool down after my workouts. They knew me...they were glad to see me...and they did their best to make sure everything was okay.

It's been my sanctuary. My place to go.

The retail food business is always tough, but the last couple of months have been a very rough climate in which to make a dollar. So today is Sharon's last day at The Heavenly Brew. They're closing. Keeping the place going has sort of swallowed up every hour of most days, for Sharon, and it's time to give thanks for this chapter and walk away.

I told her, oneday, that God has something out there...ahead...for her. I told her this has been great...and that she has done something really good. Given us all a good place to stop...to meet friends.

But I've lost a sanctuary and I'm not sure where to go next. I'm looking around.

You might pray for the place I choose. I used to hang out at Java Jungle out on #17 and they closed. Then, I would go to Sips & Scones on #20 for coffee and a place to outline sermons. They closed. Great place but they couldn't make a go of it. Now, The Heavenly Brew is shutting its doors. I feel like the Angel of Death for anyone running an independent coffee shop.

We all need a place, you know?

Wondering what my experience at The Heavenly Brew has to say to those of us Jesus followers who gather in places we call sanctuaries each week?

Jesus, Luke 11 tells us, went off to a "certain place" (TNIV) to pray. A certain place. Everyone needs a certain place.

When Did OK Corral Come to Main Street?

2009-03-23T17:06:00.002-04:00

One of the best parts of my life is the tutoring I do with students in our city. The first question I ask as I escort my 5th graders from their homeroom is this: "Tell me what you did this past weekend?"

One of my students recently told me she attended the funeral of her 19-year old cousin. He had been shot during a drive-by attack. I tried to listen, catch the story, as the student and I walked down the hall.

When we found a place to study, I continued to listen. A girlfriend. Who hadn't been faithful. The cousin had shoved the girl around. Then, the girl's new boyfriend and his buddies drove by, shouted the young man's name, and when he turned they shot him.

So while we did division, we talked.

About how we have this generation of young men who are shooting one another. Destroying one another. I told her it had to stop...this was no way to live. I told her, "I'm so sorry."

We talked. I told her everything about the situation was wrong. A man never hits a woman...ever. A girl who is loving one man shouldn't be loving other men. Guns are not to be used arguments. "None of this is right," I said. "None of this is right."

She told me she thought some white people were racist. I said, "Yes, many of us are. And so are too many black people. We all have some of that junk in us. We need to start being more honest with one another...take care of one another...figure out how to take care of one another."

How do you do division when you are talking about the shooting of a 19-year old young man? How do you think about math when you see a generation destroying one another?

How do you continue getting the classwork done when you feel this fear rising up from your gut? You see this bright, sharp, young woman in front of you and you think about the rip tides of alcohol, drugs, and violence that will be surging around her as she heads off to middle school and senior high school.

Is there some safe place where we can put these children to keep them safe? All across our nation we have these bright-eyed, sharp, children...in elementary school. There are these dangerous tides ahead. How will we keep the children safe? I'd like to lift them all above this, the way I lift my granddaughter over obstacles at the playground, and set them down on the safe side of 18 or 19 or 20.

When did the OK Corral come to main street?

The More You're Loved, the Farther You Go.

2009-03-23T16:53:00.002-04:00

Slipped away to Columbus, Ohio this past weekend. Trinity was hopping with great worship, a big-time food drive, and a packed Upward Basketball/ Cheerleading celebration in the afternoon. But we needed to go. So we did.

There is a playground on the back yard of an elementary school in the Westgate area of Columbus. We headed down there several times, with our 18-month granddaughter, during the weekend. She is just learning her way to navigate around a playground...across the uneven surface of a grass yard.

Two things I noticed.

First, she has gotten pretty comfortable very quickly. What that means is instead of waiting for us to walk by her side, Ella goes on ahead of us. There have been times when she would walk 4-8 feet ahead of us, but that is lengthening out. Now, she will go off 20-30 yards. She looks independent. Like she could conquer the world. If you watch carefully, though, you'll notice she turns her head half-way to the side to catch the occasional glimpse of us. Just to make sure we are behind her. Just to make sure she isn't alone.

She looks back. She sees us. Then, she faces forward and goes!

She is a little girl who is so well loved by every adult in her life? Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, her babysitter, and adult friends at Columbus Vineyard...she is well loved.

Love gives us the confidence to go on...walk ahead...go further. Without love we are always afraid, always clinging, but when we are well loved we have the confidence to move ahead...go out...explore the world.

I John 4:18 says perfect love drives fear out of our lives. I see that in her.

There is a second thing I noticed: she doesn't need to hold onto my hand when we walk across the yard. The uneven grass is a challenge for a little girl, but when I offered her my hand Sunday morning she pulled her hand back and shook her head, "No."

I smiled. Watched her navigate her way across the grass of late winter. It's an interesting moment, isn't it? We love, hold onto the next generation, and then they need to let go...make their own way across the terrain of this world.

Loves gives itself away so that the other can be independent...so that the other person can walk their own path.

Love, as I commented to someone the other day, means holding on...and letting go.

And when you love well the other person experiences the freedom and confidence to let go.

2 Strikes and You're Out?

2009-03-17T13:56:00.004-04:00

After reading the story in today's local paper about Elkhart Memorial High School's basketball coach, Mark Barnhizer, I find myself wondering if we haven't changed the rules of the game. I'm wondering if, in this era when every failure and mistake is amplified, if we haven't gone to "2 strikes and you're out."

Here is what the paper said. The coach was driving home and changed lanes in an erratic manner. A police officer stopped him. Mark's blood alcohol was okay but a test revealed the presence of some kind of drug in his system. (He said it was a painkiller for his feet.) When the officer discovered the coach's driver's license was suspended, Barnhizer was put in jail. And not released until sometime in the afternoon on the following day.

He made it to the IHSAA regional game, where the Chargers were playing Valporaiso, late in the 4th quarter. He apologized to his players after the game. He told them, "I let you down." The team, with one voice, responded, "No you didn't, coach!" They told Mark they loved him.

Apparently, the coach has had his license suspended several times. So I don't know what that is all about, but I would "coach" him to get that part of his life straightened out.

People say he is a good coach. His players love and respect. The sportswriter in the article today cautions people not to lose perspective.

I'm not sure how this will end, but I see us tossing people overboard when they do something foolish or stupid. One strike or two and you're out! I know there are people like Madoff who keep doing the wrong thing over and over and over again. Who have no shame and participate in one criminal act after the other. But it seems to me that we haven't pretty quick to write people off.

As I finished the newspaper article, I remember a day when I was on a muscle relaxant for a herniated disk. I was very young. An associate pastor at Trinity. I decided to get out of bed and go visit the parishioners who were in the hospital. As I walked through the kitchen to get to the garage, Sharon said, "Where are you going?" I told her I was going to visit folks in the hospital, and I would be right back. I would be very careful. "You're not supposed to drive when you are taking that," she said. "It'll be okay."

I backed out of the garage and ran into my mother-in-law's car. Feeling like an idiot, I pulled back into the garage, turned off the car, walked back through the house, and got back into bed. It wasn't headline stuff because it happened in my driveway, and I was an associate pastor. Not the coach of a team in the regionals.

Just wondering if we have changed the rules.

New Chapters.

2009-03-14T10:35:00.003-04:00

I tend to see life, organizations, and relationships as books. With different chapters. The pages are always being turned. Things never stay the same.

As you might expect, I have a fair number of friends who are pastors. Being a pastor or priest or rabbi or imam is an interesting way to spend your life for God. You get a chance to shepherd souls, see God at work, and hang out with people who love you better than you deserve to be loved.

Then, of course, there are heartbreaking parts of it. When people get ugly in the church, it isn't a pretty picture. Bumping into meanness in a place where you expect to find grace is a shock.

Many pastors finally go on to do other things not because they have been exhausted by the big challenges of kingdom building (fighting for justice, making peace, teaching God's truth to a new generation, mission trips to tough places, watching people you love get knocked down by cancer, etc.), but because of the "paper cuts" we get along the way. The Easter Sunday someone growls at you because the altar flowers weren't properly centered. The Bible expert who keeps chipping at you because you don't preach in the style he enjoys best. The donor who demands her gift back because the leaders of the church didn't choose the carpet color she wanted. Little stuff. Worn down by little stuff, some pastors say, "That's it. I'm going to go sell insurance or teach or mow yards or drive a truck."

I've got some friends who have been run out of their churches by a small group of cranky Christians. My buddies were tempted to hang in there...try to work through things. But the cranky folks wouldn't let go of the fight. They didn't want things to get better...they wanted their preacher gone so they could get an improved model with higher horsepower and better mileage.

Jesus, in the 9th chapter of Luke, sends his disciples out to do God's work and he says, "When someone welcomes you, stay there. If someone shuts the door in your face, wants nothing to do with you or my Good News, then move on. Shake the dust from your feet."

It's a wonderful thing for Jesus to say. It gives us permission to move on when people insist on saying "no." I tell my friends, "Life is too short to stay where people don't want you. There is another place...go!" What a blessing to know that God loves us enough that the Lord doesn't want us to stay around and get beat up by cranky people! New chapters...

Recently a friend, who runs a small restaurant, told me she is giving up. The economic slowdown is taking her business down. It's not just that, though. She has found that the retail food business -like dairy farming or pastoring a small church- means you don't have much of a life away from your work. She's exhausted. My friend told me she is closing her business, and I told her what a great job she has done. How it has been a good place...a welcoming place. Folks in that neck of South Bend are going to miss it. "I hope you feel good about what you have done," I said. "You've blessed us all. Given us a place. And God has another chapter ahead for you..." She began to cry. I hugged her. New chapters...

My sisters and I have been talking in ways we haven't talked in years. Some of it is easy. Some of it is really hard. Between the words there is healing. Movement where some things have been frozen for a long time. There are moments when it is exhilirating. Fun. And there are moments in our changing relationships that are scary...exhausting. (Healing, by the way, isn't a painless phenomenon.) New chapters...

I know Ecclesiastes 1:09 tells us there is nothing new under the sun. Got it. Every generation likes to think they are breaking new ground, but the truth is the human condition is sort of what it has always been. Ecclesiastes says what it does, and yet Psalm 96:1 says to "sing to the Lord a new song" and Jeremiah 31:31 exclaims "I will make a new covenant with them." In Revelation 21:05, Christ declares, "Behold, I make all things new."

New chapters. Some chapters -that may feel like a curse, a blessing, or a mixture of the two- come to a close. There are tears. There is pain. There is healing. There is gladness. Then, God has something else for us...

We are always stepping into a new chapter with God. I like that.

Glimmers.

2009-03-14T10:05:00.003-04:00

When I've been on coasters at Cedar Point, there are times when you feel like the drop is never going to stop.

It's felt like that for the last few months in our community...and nation. Elkhart County has, as we long said, led the nation into financial recessions and we lead the way out to recovery. So things started to go bad in the middle of 2008, and now we are struggling with an actual unemployment rate of more than 20% in the city.

President Obama was sworn into the office, the government made some attempts to turn around the financial drop by solving the credit crisis, and the stock market kept heading south. In a series of spectacular dives.

All of this is going to take time.

Last week I told a friend that I thought it might be a good time to start buying stocks. This week the markets began heading in a positive direction. There have been a couple of articles in the paper about companies hiring...expanding. Retail numbers were up recently, and the supply of houses is down as existing units have been bought up.

Then, yesterday, I pulled into our front driveway, looked down, and saw crocuses beginning to poke through the soil.

Small things. Little slivers of light in a room that has been pretty dark. That is what I am seeing.

The Boy to My Left.

2009-03-02T21:10:00.003-05:00

One of the cool things about life -and ministry, for that matter- is that every once in awhile you get to walk through a good dream. You get to experience something amazing.

Back in 1958 the people of Trinity United Methodist Church moved from downtown out to our present location on East Jackson Boulevard. (Don't worry...this isn't going to turn into a long history lesson!) When they settled out here they dreamt of a worship space and a youth center/ community center. It took us until 1999 to get the sanctuary built, and then people started thinking about that community center...that youth center.

About 18 months ago we moved into a really cool facility. Designed by a firm working with a team of laity, the Trinity Life Center is really cool... hardwood floor, scoreboard, classrooms for little kids and adults, a large lobby or gathering area, a youth room that meets the needs of adolescents, and super acoustics. The really great thing is our church understands that this is a tool for God - to reach and serve the community. Our Upward Basketball and Cheerleading ministries bring about 2,000 to God's house every Saturday. One-third of those folks are not connected to a church.

People dreamed the dream. God worked in them to make the dream a reality.

So this weekend we were blessed to have Bishop Michael J. Coyner join us for services of consecration. He drove all the way from Indy to spend Saturday night and Sunday morning with us.

All four weekend services were in the TLC. Lighting and sound were nearly perfect...no real glitches. Our Chancel Choir was rocking, and our Praise Team was "on." Our food team had coffee and homemade cinammon rolls!

Do you know what the coolest part of the services were? As much as I loved the music, it wasn't the choirs or music teams. As much as I respect our Bishop, and was blessed by his preaching, it wasn't the Bishop sitting to my right. No, it was a 7th grade boy who was sitting to my left.

The boy to my left first showed up at Trinity about three years ago. He was a neighborhood kid who was often on the edge of trouble. A guy in our church named John invited the boy to our mid week meal and program. Then, John invited the boy to worship.

Now, the church has become the center of the boy's life. He spends Saturdays at the church helping with Upward Basketball. He helps sweep up bread crumbs after Communion on Sunday morning, and he works the sound/lighting board during our services when needed. Life is tough at home but Trinity has become another kind of family for the boy.

During that moment in worship, when we prayed the Lord's Prayer, I heard the boy to my left praying the prayer. He knew every word. After it was over the boy leaned over to me and whispered, "Do you know every word to that prayer?" I said, "Yes, I do." He beamed at me and quietly said, "So do I."

I don't know what kind of price you put on moments like that, but I think it was worth the $3.5 million it cost God's people to build this brick instrument of grace.

Lessons Learned in the Wild.

2009-02-23T07:03:00.003-05:00

I'm a subscriber to Netflix. It's an on-line service that delivers DVD's to your door.

For the last two weeks I've had Sean Penn's "Into the Wild" sitting beneath my tv, waiting to be seen. Sometimes I hesitate to watch "tough" movies, and this story about a troubled young college graduate who runs away from his difficult family, into the wilderness of Alaska, was supposed to be pretty "heavy."

Last night, though, I took a deep breath and put the DVD in and watched the film. It's a good film. Well-directed, well-written, and well-acted.

It's the story of a boy born into a family where the marriage of the parents is troubled. Christopher has everything, graduates from Emory, and then heads west. He gives what he has away, burns every piece of personal ID, and refuses to have any contact with his parents. The young man works with a harvesting crew in the midwest, goes down the Colorado River, ends up traveling up the West Coast with some middle-aged hippies, and ends up deep in the Alaskan wilderness. All by himself. Living in an abandoned bus.

All along the way, he runs away from people who offer him love. There is an older man, an Army veteran played by Hal Holbrooke, who offers to adopt Christopher. The young man keeps moving. Because his own family has had turmoil and conflict, the young man keeps moving.

Finally, as he dies alone in the wilderness, Christopher writes something like this on the page of a paperback: Happiness was meant to be shared with others.

Running is a pretty common way of responding to disappointment, sadness and heartache. I see that all the time in people's lives, as a pastor. We don't usually end up living in an abandoned bus outside Fairbanks, but we run away. It's like if we can get far enough away from other human beings, we'll be well...free of the sadness.

But running rarely works as we had hoped it would.

The apostle Paul, in the New Testament, spends a lot of energy telling early followers of Jesus that we were created to be a part of a body. We were meant to share life with others. We were not meant to do life on our own.

That is the lesson he learns in the splendid isolation of the wilderness: Happiness was meant to be shared with others.

If you're running, I think it would be a good idea to stop. I wouldn't pretend to know what your next step should be, if you stop running, but I think you should stop running.

What Happens in Las Vegas?

2009-02-16T00:53:00.002-05:00

I'm a new kid on the block. Never been to this city before. But here I am - babysitting for an 18-month old granddaughter while her parents attend a national convention of photographers.

Let me tell you what I've noticed. The hotels and casinos have the largest signs in the world, I suspect. The staff of the first-line resorts are extraordinarily hard working and gracious. The mountains in the distance are rugged and have snow on them. All sorts of people from all over the world find their way here. Last night, in an Italian restaurant in the MGM Grand, we met a couple from Denver who are aerial dancers - acrobats. He is a pastry chef for his day job. Like I said, interesting people.

Good moments? Watching the dancing fountains at the Bellagio thunder and turn while beautiful music played. Running into friends from New Haven United Methodist Church on the street. Getting out into Red Rocks State Park and seeing amazing sandstone that was once sand dunes.

Two last observations. I've wandered through one of the best casinos. I've studied people playing the machines and the "games." Passing row after row of people seated in front of slot machines, I turned to Sharon and said, "Show me one person whose eyes are alive...who looks like they are within shouting distance of joy...of fun." There wasn't one! Every single person looked half-alive...half-here...and sort of alone. Tonight I stood next to a man, wearing a worn looking sweatshirt, who bought $500 worth of chips, and then last them in the next seven or eight minutes. I watched the sweat beading up on his forehead as the chips disappeared. Most of the folks I see around here look half here. Half alive.

One last observation: on "The Strip" there are people wearing brightly colored sweatshirts that say "GUARANTEED GIRLS TO YOU IN 20 MINUTES." There are hundreds of these folks, standing up and down Las Vegas Boulevard, with these small cards -about the size of playing cards- with pictures of half-naked girls and a phone number. It is an awful thing. Every life reduced to a card...that lists what services can be purchased. The people on the sidewalk try to hand these cards to you while you walk by. By the end of the day the sidewalks of this city are littered with hundreds of thousands of these cards...and every one represents a broken life. A life used up by a desperate, seedy empire fueled by lust empty of love...sex with the soul removed.

I thought of those girls and what is happening to them, the other day, and began to cry. I remembered how Song of Songs (it's a book in the Bible) celebrates the gift of sexual love when our partner cherishes us...loves us. Each girl whose number is being handed out on the streets of this city deserves to be cherished...valued...loved well...as a child of God.

Okay...I'm looking forward to seeing Cirque's show, KA, before heading back to Indiana on Wednesday. And I'll remember the delight in Ella's eyes as we watched the fountains at the Bellagio. But I'll be unable to forget the lack of life I've seen in so many eyes...and the sidewalks littered with cards that each represent a life used up in cruel and desperate ways.

Viva Las Vegas?

2009-02-13T18:05:00.002-05:00

Today is going to be a first for me: I'm headed to Las Vegas.

It's not the usual haunt for a Christian pastor. Although I knew a wonderful United Methodist pastor who, once a year, came to Las Vegas and spent one whole week playing cards. And I don't mean euchre. It was one week when he did something crazy...and then he went back to coloring between the lines the other 51 weeks of the year.

What wild and crazy adventure calls me to this interesting city? Babysitting. Yep, babysitting. Our son and daughter-in-law are attending a national convention for photographers, and so they need someone to watch beautiful Ella. Those three -along with Grandma- are already out here.

I don't know what to expect. People who have been here tell me it is fun. And sad. Entertaining. And depressing. Others say to look beyond "the strip" to see the places where ordinary people live their lives.

One of the things I am puzzled by is the allure of gambling. I'm not sure what the draw is. What is it about this activity that makes people feel... what? More alive? What is there about the risk that is so attractive? Maybe -and I am just speculating, here- there is this sense that ordinary time will get turned upside-down by an extraordinary thing. Or maybe it is the chance that something unpredictable and unexpected and good might happen to us. Or is a part of it about people who don't have the resources they wish they had, and they imagine one moment that could give them
-once and forever- everything they could ever need. Instead of uncertainty, they would have more than enough.

I don't know what it is, but the people keep coming. Gambling has become a huge industry. And beneath the stories of the winners there are all those losers. I wonder how many fly home having been entertained, delighted, and refreshed in good ways. And how many go home deeper in debt... more desperate than ever.

But this trip isn't about gambling. It isn't about going to shows. It is about hanging with part of my family. And babysitting with beautiful Ella.

Sometimes You Don't Know You're There Until You Arrive.

2009-01-29T21:34:00.003-05:00

Over a year ago I was haunted by the sense that we were missing something at Trinity. Well, not missing something really. Not missing something because our life here is full of good stuff...great ministries...all sorts of activites... There is a "buzz" about this congregation and all the ways it reaches out and serves people in the name of Christ.

I was haunted, though, by this sense that we are too busy...doing too much... "shooting" at too many targets. We were doing good stuff for God, I could see. But were we doing the right things? Did we really understand the essential stuff God wants us to be doing?

So I started walking around muttering "I think we need to do less and do it better."

I started walking around saying, "We need to welcome people better, connect new people with serving teams and small groups, and figure out how we can help grow disciples."

I had this sense we were missing something.

Then, in the middle of the summer, our staff went up to Chicago for a two-day retreat. On the train I started reading Thom Rainer's book "Simple Church." I started nodding...I felt like he had been inside my head (now there is a scary thought!). Rainer and his co-author, Eric Geiger, talk about how churches can lose their focus -and power- as they try to do too much and move in too many directions at once. Wow!

This past Sunday afternoon our leaders gathered for our annual Leadership Retreat. We talked about how we do so much...but sometimes take our eyes off the primary tasks of welcoming people, connecting new people to the Christian community in a thoughtful and loving way, and making disciples.

In our conversation we stumbled around a bit. Got caught on a point or two here and there.

But those of us in the room realized where we were: God is calling us to be a congregation focused on the challenge of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

And we are going to do that in three basic ways:

Growing in God (worship, prayer, sacraments, Bible study).
Growing Together (small groups, Bible studies, serving teams).
Growing in Service (serving, giving, leading).

We'll figure out the details as we live into the future. We'll ask every planning group and ministry team to make sure what they are doing fuels those three, primary ministries...those goals. And if something doesn't "fit" then we won't do it.

It's exciting. And a little bit scary. And a relief...as we give one another permission not to keep trying to do everything for everyone.

We didn't know we were going to end up standing here. We've been plugging along for God, doing great things for God, but I think a whole bunch of us have had this feeling that we were missing something. Doing too much. Too busy. Not focused on the right things that can make big differences in the lives of people.

So here we are. Simple Church. Making disciples. Growing in God, Growing Together, and Growing in Service.

Sometimes you don't know you're there until you arrive. And here we are - at the start of a new adventure with God and one another!

Who's Got Nothing?

2009-01-29T21:19:00.003-05:00

Last week the girl's basketball team of a private high school in Dallas, Texas defeated another private academy by a score of 100-0. Officials of The Covenant School apologized after they defeated The Dallas Academy on January 13th.

The score was 59-0 at halftime.

Players from Covenant were still pressing on defense in the 4th quarter, and the team -despite its overwhelming lead- was still putting up 3-point shots. The players on the Covenant bench, and some of the parents, were cheering wildly as their team approached the 100-point mark.

The head of the winning school later apologized for the 100-0 score. He said what happened was shameful. The winning coach disagreed with the head of the school, though, and said he thought what happened was just fine. His girls played hard and clean basketball.

Dallas Academy, the losing school, only has eight girls on their varsity. There are only 20 girls in the school. The basketball team hasn't won a game in four seasons. The school specializes in working with students who have "learning differences" like dyslexia and short attention spans.

Those who know me understand what a sports' fan I am. When news of this game was reported in the press, though, I stopped. My stomach sank. I wondered what has happened to us. I wondered what has happened to sportsmanship. Too often the game isn't the thing, anymore. Too often the life lessons we learn as a part of a competitive team isn't the thing, anymore. Now it is all about winning...crushing the person on the other side...embarrassing the receiver who we beat on a pass play in football... getting in the face of the player from whom we steal the ball on the basketball court.

Where is this headed? Where will it end? And when will people like you and me finally say, "Enough?"

I have a hunch. I hunch that the winning coach is going to regret what happened during that game. I hunch that score is going to haunt him. I hunch he is going to wish he had that day in his life to do over. Because it is a shamefull and mean thing that happened on that day.

God is cool, though. I wouldn't be surprised if God was -even now- beginning to work in that coach's heart. Showing him what compassion looks like...laying out some lessons about the beauty of mercy. I suspect God could be teaching him how to handle moments like this, in the future, much differently. I hope.

Tears on the Mall.

2009-01-29T21:11:00.003-05:00

It's been over a week since I stood on the Mall in Washington D.C. and witnessed Barack Obama take the oath of office as President. The day was sunny and bitterly cold.

Those of us who had silver, blue or purple tickets found ourselves stopped by a security process that broke down. We stood in a crowd of tens of thousands, not moving, until the three of us moved sideways and found our way onto the Mall.

It was something. Whatever your political persuasion, it was something!

Let me tell you about two small moments. A young, African-American father stood behind me and his 9-10 year old son was with him. Periodically, during the ceremony, the father would whisper in son's ear...reminding him what this meant. Then, the father would hold his son up above the crowd so the young man could see the platform on the Capitol building.

A tall, elegantly-dressed African-American woman stood a few feet to the front and right of me. She looked like she might have been 45 years old. She never said a thing. Never clapped or stamped her feet. When Barack Obama took the oath of office, though, I looked over at her and her cheeks were wet with tears.

Our country has been wrestling the issue of race ever since Africans were chained in the holds of sailing vessels and shipped to North America. Those of us who have lived through the 50's and 60's and 70's can see how far we have come. Things are so much better than they were in the past. But there is still progress to be made. The journey isn't done.

But we're making progress. We aren't where we used to be, and we aren't where were going to be.

There were tears on the Mall.

They said something deep and true.

The Streets of Washington.

2009-01-18T21:07:00.004-05:00

This city is humming. You can't miss the energy and hope and goodwill in the streets of Washington.

Having decided several months ago to come out for the Inauguration, we arrived here yesterday evening. Travled here with our oldest son, his wife and their young daughter. We're "camping out" in another son's apartment. Just down a few blocks from the famous Ben's Chili Bowl and a famous section of the city that has been the center of the African-American community.

Today has been a quiet day. We watched the concert on the Mall from the safety of the apartment. Tonight, though, we walked about six blocks to a nearby Mexican restaurant.

After dinner I stopped and spent some time talking with the driver of pedi-cab. He is from Denver. Is here for the week. He said people are smiling...hopeful.

The new administration will make its share of mistakes. Barack Obama is human. But it certainly seems like the nation is looking to this new leadership for a new and better chapter. The challenges are great but God has given us the resources to overcome.

The way ahead is going to require time, patience and sacrifice. The only way to solve the challenges -education, global warming, the economic downturn, the collapse of the family- will be for all groups to work together. Recognizing that what unites us is far more important than the things that would divide us.

I'm praying tonight.

You need to know, though, that the streets of Washington are full of hope.

The Season.

2009-01-14T22:33:00.003-05:00

Years ago a friend handed me H.G. Bissinger's well-written book "Friday Night Lights." I read it over a decade ago, I think, and then tonight I watched -for the second time- Peter Berg's film of the same name.

It's a reminder of how we lose our perspective -too often- when it comes to sports. Adults behaving like brats if their team isn't winning.

It's a reminder about how we learn some important lessons while playing team sports. The coach's speech at half-time of the championship game is worth the price of admission. Coach Gary Gaines, played by Billy Bob Thornton, talks about perfection having nothing to do with winning and losing, but knowing yourself...loving the people around you...and living the moment. For good or bad those of us who have played sports continue to hear the voices of our coaches in our head long after we have moved into adulthood.

And the film is a reminder of how short the season is...adolescence... high school...football or basketball or cross country or wrestling. Just how brief and intense that whole chapter in life is.

The film ends with several of the players, dressed in street clothes with their gym bags over their shoulders, making their way to their cars. The parking lot is nearly empty. The coaches are already thinking about another season. The high school seniors look over at a group of ten or twelve year olds playing touch football.

I found myself remembering my two years playing high school football. Okay, I've got to be honest...one of my old teammates -now living in California- reads this blog. I practiced, I survived two-a-days, I played here and there, but usually I held down the bench. Leo would tell you that: I played left bench. My buddy says he remembers how much fun I was to have around. How I had something smart and funny to say. I remember being slow. I remember being small...I was a 165 pound guard going up against players over half again as heavy.

I've got to tell you, though, I have these memories. And they are precious to me.

I remember John Stasko, an upperclassman, who was made of steel.

I remember Craig Demeyer, our quarterback, who was bright and classy and rather reserved.

I remember Gary Trost, who was short and squat, and refused to give an inch.

I remember Mike, thin and small, who refused to give up and ended up being a good football player with a heart as big as an orange, fall sky.

I remember sweating through two-a-days in the August heat, running our laps on a cinder track laid down around a makeshift football field at John Glenn High School.

I remember our coach screaming at us...and pushing us too hard.

I remember the day in practice the second string quarterback was working our second offensive team. He wasn't paying attention and walked up to the take his place under center. Except he wasn't under the center...he had mistakenly walked up behind the right guard. Pressed his hands up against the butt of the lineman who was down in his stance. The player raised up slowly, looked back at Larry who had his hands on his butt, and said something like, "What are you doing back there?" We all came up out of our stance and screamed and hooted.

I remember Randy Williams rumbling down the sideline at New Carlisle to score a touchdown. (Randy was so slow that his Dad -with a cigar in his mouth- beat his own son to the end zone! The old man -must have been nearly 50- sprinted parallel to the field, behind the bench, all the way.)

I remember riding on the bus home after we had defeated our arch-rival, North Liberty, for the first time. The football is still in the trophy case. The final score was 14-7, I think. We nearly took the bus apart on the ride back to the school. North Liberty High School is no more...but it was a victory that marked some kind of turning point. Before that win we were hopeless...after the victory we believed there might be hope for us.

I remember late in one game, against South Central, getting into the game and driving my man back and into the ground. Again and again. He was perplexed. Wondering why I was pounding him with such intensity since the game was no longer a contest. But it felt good to hit my man and drive him back.

And then it was done. Over.

There is one picture of me in my uniform running onto the field with my teammates. I know where to find it in our yearbook.

The season ends and we walk away. And we don't even know, at 17 or 18, what we are leaving behind. We find our way to our cars, or we throw our gym bag over our shoulders, and we shout some last, friendly insults in the direction of our friends. We think tomorrow will be the same as yesterday. But it won't be. Tomorrow will never be exactly the way this season...has been.

We were so young...innocent...mean...stupid...cocky...eager...and beautiful.

Interesting, isn't it, how we take the seasons for granted? Push our way through them...endure them...complain about them. Then, when they are behind us, there is a yearning, now and again, to go back. To find yourself on that bus feeling alive and giddy...14-7...again.

Roster Changes.

2009-01-11T20:54:00.003-05:00

Today we blessed a pastor named Tom Thews who has been on our pastoral staff here at church for the last three and a half years. He is a tall man. With a kind and loving heart. Cares for people and loves Jesus. Tom loves food and photography and his Triumph sports car.

So we had people contribute to a love gift. We invited the congregation to come together today for a noon catered meal. Paula Dill had balloons and cool signs all over the Fellowship Hall where the meal was held. People went into the Sanctuary for a blessing time. We sang a couple of hymns, people said some things, we gave them a gift, and then people gathered around Tom and Linda to pray for them...bless them.

As the lead pastor here I do everything I can to help our congregation thank the pastors who have loved us and served Jesus with us.

I love Tom. He is going to be nearby in a South Bend parish. We'll stay in touch and I expect to see a lot of him.

Still, I felt some sadness. God is going to use Tom and Linda in the new place. Trinity has good things ahead. God is good...God is generous. But I still felt sadness watching people approach Tom and Linda...talk with him... hug them.

A friend tells me grief is cumulative. And I have said "goodbye" to a lot of good friends who have been in ministry with me. I left the staff at Trinity years ago, when I was an associate pastor, and said goodbye to my senior pastor, Mark Blaising. As a lead pastor I have said goodbye to people like Milly McCann, Ted Jansen, Kurt Nichols, Kerry O'Brien, Toni Carmer, and now Tom. I feel every departure. Most of the people I have served with have become dear friends.

I work hard to keep my game face in place. To keep leading. Do my best to see that our church is leaning forward. Moving on. But inside my heart sags a little.

It isn't just a roster change: a friend has stepped out and moved on. They're not walking these halls. They're not on the other side of the wall where I can talk to them, easily. Ask questions. Work together to solve a problem. Laugh at the nuttiness of life.

It isn't just a roster change. Something has changed. For me. For us as a church. A piece of us will be missing because God has tapped Tom on the shoulder and said, "I need you in a new place."

The cool thing, of course, is each one of these people has left something of themselves with us. There is more joy and kindness in our life at Trinity because of Tom. He leaves that with us as a gift.

Those People Love!

2009-01-09T11:55:00.004-05:00

I have a place.

It's a little coffee shop on East Jackson. Another coffee shop out on highway 120 used to be my place to sit, outline a sermon, have a cup of coffee and breathe. But the old place closed up. The new shop is called Heavenly Brew. It's in a little, old house that used to be a florist shop.

HB is just right. Safe. Cozy. They know my name...and they know I like warmed-up 2% milk with my baked oatmeal.

I have a place.

This morning I noticed a woman noticing me. She was sitting with her college-age daughter, having a conversation, and as they got up to go she approached me. Held out her hand. Said, "Don't I know you...you're the pastor at the church?" I nodded and introduced myself. Told her, yes, that I was down the street at Trinity United Methodist.

She told me she lives a few blocks from Trinity. The woman belongs to a small church in Goshen. But she has slipped into Trinity a couple of times for worship or a class or a women's ministry thing.

Her face lit up. "Oh, that church!" she said. "There is great stuff going on, and the people are so welcoming...so loving! As soon as I walked in I could tell they cared...loved one another. And I felt so welcome."

Before the woman left the shop we shook hands. She threw her arms open wide and said, "Those people know how to love!"

I'll tell our people that, this weekend. Remind them about what others see and we may take for granted.

I have a place.

I think everyone wants to have a place -and often they are looking to the church to be just that place.

Reading a Book Whose Ending You Dread.

2009-01-04T22:28:00.002-05:00

Those of us who lived through the 60's still have a place in our soul that was cracked wide open by the killings of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy.

In November our son, Nathan, gave me Thurston Clark's wonderful book about Bobby Kennedy's campaign for president in 1968. "The Last Campaign" is a great book. What Kennedy had to say about Vietnam sounds right on target with events in Iraq. His concern about crumbling cities, the devastation caused in the human spirit by poverty, failing education systems, and the divisions between us, ring so true today!

Kennedy visited the Mississippi Delta in April 1967 with a congressional sub committee looking into reports of starvation among black sharecroppers. Reporters were left outside when Kennedy entered a windowless shack "reeking of mildew and urine." A mother and six children were living there. A two-year old girl with a distended stomach lay on the floor, surrounded by cockroaches, playing with a single grain of rice.

Kennedy knelt down, stroked her hair, and whispered, "Hello...Hi, baby." Bobby realized the little girl was so weak from hunger she couldn't respond so he picked her up and began rocking her. He kissed her. A little boy came in and sat down on a grimy bed. Kennedy sat next to the boy. Tears streamed down his cheeks.

When Kennedy returned to his home in suburban Virginia, he told his children, "Do you know how lucky you are? Do something for your country?"

What's funny is I remember resenting Bobby Kennedy's entry into the presidential race. I thought he was late to the game. I thought he was an opportunist. I thought he was trading on his late brother's popularity.

When he was taken from us, though, I felt the hope draining out of me. I felt like our nation had suffered a great loss. One we continue to live with today.

The book is so well-written! Still, I find myself avoiding it. Because I know how the story ends. I know the story ends on a hotel kitchen floor in Los Angeles. So have to work to open the work...make my way towards the last chapter.

Maybe the story doesn't end on the floor of a kitchen hotel in Los Angeles in 1968. Maybe the story still goes on...as members of this generation see the challenges. Refuse to settle for injustice. Call our nation to greatness by proclaiming good news to the poor and release to the captives.

Suppose it is possible a new generation could hear the voices of the prophets, of people like Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy, and finish the story in a new way?

Sometimes Silence is Good.

2009-01-04T22:19:00.002-05:00

After 13 years serving a congregation you get to a point where you don't have the energy to play church. You get real. You get honest.

This weekend was one of those days when we talked, in worship, about some real stuff.

You can tell when the message is getting close to the hearts of people, you can tell when you are shaking some of the foundations and assumptions of peoples' lives, because they get very, very quiet.

This weekend it was like people had stopped breathing.

We were talking about how determined Joseph and Mary were to love their son, and introduce him to the God who loves him with everything he has. They had their son circumcised and named on the 8th day after his birth. They took him all the way to Jerusalem 40 days after his birth for the Jewish ritual of purification. They took their son to synagogue every week. They told him the stories of the faith.

A look at attendance patterns in our Sunday school shows the children from our most active families are present about once every three weeks. So we talked about this. We talked about how parents fool themselves into thinking their children are getting a spiritual foundation when we are only around enough to give our children spiritual quicksand.

I challenged parents to make God a commitment -not an afterthought. I reminded them that if they are here now and then, their child is always going to feel like an outsider...a stranger. I spoke to those who are sort of on the fence about being here because they have heard of a better nursery or children's ministry or youth center or teaching ministry in another church down the road. I said what most pastors would say: "If your heart is somewhere else, then go! Don't stay on the fence, sort of here and sort of not, because you're not helping your children...our church...or the other place. Go! Be all in or all out...but make a decision!"

It was quiet.

Sometimes silence is good, I think.

The people attending the synagogue in Nazareth, when Jesus preached from the prophet Isaiah, tried to kill him. They didn't like what he was saying.

No one threw a shoe today. No crowd tried to throw me off the sledding hill at Oxbow Park.

It was just quiet.

And I think that is okay.

Does It Work?

2009-01-04T22:10:00.002-05:00

It's pretty difficult to justify violence as a solution to the problems of humanity when you look at what Jesus said and did. Early followers of Jesus were pacifists. Early Christians refused to serve in the Roman military, I've read.

But I'm not a pacifist. During the days leading up to World War II the Protestant theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr, advocated a forceful response to Nazism. He talked about the fact that love sometimes is working for justice. Taking on the people bent on destroying others. So I'm not a pacifist.

And still.

Israeli ground troops have moved into the Gaza Strip. Periodic rocket attacks by Hamas have been going on for months. I understand the Israeli response. What is a nation to do when it is under attack?

Those Palestinians, those fundamentalist Muslims, who refuse the right of Israel to exist are passionate but short-sighted. Israel has a right to exist. And the Palestinians have a right to develop a state that is ready to be a partner with the other nations in the Middle East -including Israel.

Here is the question that troubles me: will this military action in Gaza work? The option of killing those who wish us harm must, it seems to me, be a last option. Military attack against fundamentalists, or those who are convinced they are the victims of injustice, tends to inflame the problem. Our force tends to create more enemies and more violence.

Instead of non-violent answers being the product of deluded idealists perhaps it should be considered because they can work. What would happen if Israel poured medical resources into Gaza? What would happen if Israel made sure every Palestinian child had a good education and proper nutrition?

So jets are flying and tanks are rolling. I am praying.

And I keep asking myself the question, "Will this work?"

Disconnected Prayers.

2008-12-28T23:02:00.004-05:00

People this time of year joke about Christmas letters and fruitcake. Folks roll their eyes and grumble about both. Okay - I'll grant you that there are some bad Christmas letters. Full of so much boasting and bragging that you can barely make your way to the end of the note. And there are some bad fruitcakes. Still, I like them both...Christmas letters and holiday fruitcakes.

So I've been reading notes from friends. It's been fun -mostly- hearing what they're up to. How life is going for them. There have been a few stories of pain and loss, too.

One note nearly dropped me on the floor, though. It's from a friend I have known for over twenty years. She is a pedal-to-the-floor Jesus follower. She talks a lot about the Holy Spirit. Some might say she's a Pentecostal Christian in Methodist clothing. My friend is more conservative, theologically, than me.

She has been a tremendous blessing to me. She has offered words of encouragement to me in my life and ministry. She has prayed for me and with me. She has loved me better than I deserve.

Last year, in her Christmas letter, she said she wasn't sure their church's new pastor was going to get the job done. Because he was so unlike his predecessor. I sent her back a note and reminded her that God wires us all differently, and that every pastor -no matter how much we may love and respect them- has weaknesses. One pastor goes and another pastor arrives - the strengths of one complementing the weaknesses of the other.

So this year I open up my friend's Christmas letter and she says something like this: "I meet with Pastor Devon and Pastor Sandy every Sunday between services and pray for them. Still haven't made up my mind but continue to support him."

Okay. Does this strike you as odd? Should I be thankful that my friend, despite her reservations about the lead pastor at their church, is still praying with him...and for him? Or should I be bothered by the disconnect of a person who prays with a pastor, week after week, but is still leaning back, withholding judgment, and not sure?

The New Testament -1st John- says people will know we belong to God by the way we love one another. Jesus says the same thing in John's gospel. Praying for one another, tossing around the Holy Spirit's name, and then waiting to say, "Naw, you don't meet the qualifications I have for a (fill-in-the-blank) just right friend...neighbor... teacher...counselor...youth director...choir director...pastor...Jesus-follower" strikes me as evidence of a critical spirit and love that is conditional to the extreme.

Love doesn't mean we don't hold one another accountable. Christian love doesn't mean we shut off that part of our mind that utilizes wisdom to evaluate people and situations.

But to show up, week after week, praying for someone while inside we are still gathering information, still weighing the evidence, still seeing whether they match up with the list of qualifications we have put together for a parent, friend, coach, teacher, or pastor -there is a disconnect here.

I'm going out on some thin ice, here, but I think my friend's prayers are shallow. Only half-real. It would be more loving, more courageous, more faithful, and more prayerful if my friend would ask to sit down with her pastor. Talk honestly with him about her struggles...her concerns...and risk some honest communication. Take a risk and get to know his heart...how the world looks from where he sits. Now that would be a prayer.

When you pray for people, when you tell them you're pulling for them, when you say they can count on you, are you telling the truth? Or are you just settling for the appearance of prayer...friendship...support?

To support someone is to risk honesty.

That's where it has to start.