Much to Do about Nothing

The Details:
When: Saturday past
Where: My home office
What: A media frenzy

The Scene:
I, seated in my home office chair, angled toward the computer monitor on which is displayed Major League Baseball’s Website, through which I am tuned to the New York Yankee’s home radio broadcast of their big game with the arch rival Red Sox. In addition, on the PC I have opened a couple of news- and politics-related Website as well as my e-mail application.

At my right foot, below the computer desk, sit speakers attached to the PC, on the face of which is a power/volume knob by which I can control how much, if any, of the speaker’s output reaches my ears.

To my left, atop the PC tower, is an AM/FM radio tuned to the local affiliate of the Hawkeye Sports Network, this day broadcasting coverage of the intra-state football rivalry between Iowa and Iowa State.

Slightly behind me and to my right is a television connected to a satellite’s worth of channels, currently employing a list of favorites I’ve labeled simply “Sports,” allowing me to rotate quickly and efficiently through available games.

The Operation:
Amidst that phalanx of gadgetry, for a couple of hours on Saturday I danced a ballet – call it “The Multitasker.” Fluidly switching from output to output, from pause command to mute button, I conquered as best I could the devilish detail that neither the Hawks’ nor Yanks’ television product was in sync with its radio com padre. My objective was to watch plays before hearing them, then flip and turn and click as necessary to listen to the homie announcers’ spin, a result whose pursuit kept me in perpetual motion since the TV Yanks were forty-five seconds ahead of the Internet radio variety, while the Hawks on TV lagged five seconds behind the radio network. It was quite the show, quite the dexterous display from a fan eager to have to it all ways.

The Lesson:
When the circus ended and I didn’t have to think about the direction from which I would receive the next bit of information overload, I connected my brief laptop dance to experiences common in today’s culture. In this frenetic, technocentric age, it’s almost required that we adeptly handle the random but persistent information storms that seek our attention from all angles.

Newspapers, radio, and television are the grizzled veterans, but today they are joined by an online universe far greater in size, scope, and potential immersion. From online bill paying to news and entertainment delivered to cell phones and computer screens, today’s information consumers are bombarded with options. The more experienced and proficient the consumer, the more likely he or she will choose many rather than only a few of those options, the result being a divided, distracted attention span. Add to these new media such things as family life (can you say “soccer practice”?), work, and friends, and the result is life pulled in more directions than there are points on a compass.

What happens to our spiritual health in such a cacophony of options? When the next appointment, obligation, text message, or other information over/download is just minutes away, what happens to our spiritual focus? When there is no such thing as time away, how do we manage time away with God?

Given the attractive choices modern times provide – choices that are frequently not mutually exclusive – it’s easy to rationalize reductions in our time spent in prayer, Scripture reading, or worship. “I just don’t have time!” is an excuse likely to generate considerable empathy... except from God.

It’s not often noted, but the Israelites Moses led out of bondage in Egypt lived in a spiritually pluralistic piece of the world. Witness the first commandment, which demands only that people have no other gods before God – an obvious, if also tacit acceptance of the existence of other gods, other diversions of attention. Later in Israel’s history, the rise of monotheism (one God; only one God; no others; get it?) demanded that people make an irrevocable choice. In our current age’s technological pluralism, I think we need to revisit Scripture’s demands. (How about Jesus’ rejection of would-be followers who wanted to bid farewell to family members before turning their attention to him?)

Because God is not satisfied to be among the inputs we consider, it was challenging fun to manage multiple Websites and various media outlets from my home office chair last Saturday, but it was not a template for healthy spirituality. It’s not enough to speak a “Thank God” every now and then, if that’s our sole or even just primary voice of praise. It does not suffice to gather with Christians on Sundays, if those meetings are our week’s only worship.

I know you’re busy. I know the modern world gives you all kinds of options. But I also know God doesn’t accept second place. Leave a comment to tell us about how you make sense of all this.


Pray with me:
Help me acknowledge then filter out the things that distract me from you, God. I am a busy person, but not too busy to stay busy with and for you. I accept your command for first place in my life. Direct me to choices that reflect that acceptance. In the name of Jesus, Amen.

That Thing God Does

Laurie, my office partner at the church, tells of the lost tooth that her daughter Gracie the other night expectantly placed beneath her pillow before falling asleep.

Morning – and its well planned payout – came, but not without a twist. Laurie says she went to Gracie’s room, her daughter still sleeping. There on the floor – on the hardwood floor that not long ago was covered with carpet – lay the enamel moneymaker, the lost incisor upon which Gracie had placed her faith. Mom and dad had forgotten that the tooth fairy does not take walk-in appointments. They had placed no money under the pillow.

Until, of course, Laurie found the stray tooth lying in full view, on a floor until recently covered with carpet, carpet that would easily have hidden the tooth from the most determined parent’s searching eyes.

More, the tooth – the missing marker of monetary momentum – had escaped its usually well-secured cocoon under Gracie’s pillow. Typically, she places lost teeth in a trench directly below her head, no doubt in an effort to prevent the precious object’s loss in advance of the forthcoming financial transaction. This time – maybe for the first and only time – Gracie must have lodged the tooth uncharacteristically close to the edge of the bed, which allowed it to fall to the floor in plain view of a grateful mom, who just happened to have a dollar bill close at hand. Grace awoke, searched for and celebrated her new wealth, not at all aware of the back story, which her mom believes was a God thing.


Then there’s my wife Shari’s grandfather’s current hospitalization for pancreatitis, a potentially life threatening inflammation of the pancreas. The other night Walter suffered seizure-like symptoms – dizziness and shaking limbs, to name two. Upon transport to a hospital, ER personnel and the usual buffet of tests tracked down the pancreatitis, whose symptoms do not include seizure-like events of the kind Walter suffered at home. To this moment, doctors know his disease, but can’t explain his symptoms or connect them to his condition.

Shari can. She believes it was a God thing, to get her grandpa the care he actually needed.


God things come in packages little and large, in moments serious and sublime. God things come at the crack of dawn and in the middle of the night. God things save us and the people we love from everything from embarrassment to ... you name it.

I mean it. You have to name your God things, because they can’t penetrate determined ego, and are easily cloaked by false bravado or personal desperation. God things are obvious, to the willing and faithful; but they dress in camouflage before the eyes of people too busy, too hopeless to care.

Do you need a God thing in your life today? Do you need a miracle, small or significant? How about a sign, a little teaser from heaven to certify God’s involvement in your life? You shall have one if you’re a willing labeler, if you’re willing to experience life today as a pressure-sensitive board, every impact upon which potentially leaves a divine signature, every incident of which is an occasion of God’s personal encounter with you.

Not every God thing is dramatic or profound. To be honest – and probably a bit heretical – most are too small or too personal to merit the attention of this kind of essay. But exist they do, in your life, at your point of need.

But not if you want the credit for your life’s good turns. Or you honor coincidence or serendipity. Or you think God has abandoned your cause and left you to fend for yourself. In all of those cases, you will claim your God things as either “you things,” or no-things.

As a result of God things, a child has renewed faith in a predictable, if unseen, friend; a parent has been saved from explaining that friend’s unforgivable absence; and a grandfather is able to receive and appreciate visits from adoring family. Our God is an awesome God (thing), indeed.


Pray with me:
I want to see you, feel you, hear you, touch you, be convinced of you today, God. Chances are I will get in the way of that outcome, so make your self and your things clear. But don’t be surprised if I misunderstand (or just miss) your entrance in my life; I can get pretty self-consumed. You’re not done with me, yet – thank you – even though I sometimes act as if you are (or that I am done with you). Hang in, then so will I. In the name of Jesus I pray, Amen.



p.s. Any God things to tell us about? Use the "Comments" link below this post to share your witness.

A Day Late; a Quarter-Century Later

September 5 was the 25th anniversary of the first Sunday I ever preached and got paid for it. Or, in slightly more theological terms, the anniversary of my first day as a pastor of a congregation.

It was the first Sunday of September 1982. Classes at Lexington Theological Seminary were underway. My living arrangements, text books, and orientation to the city were in process, but I had yet to cement my “field work” position – the required, minimum one year ministry “lab” setting whose purpose was to provide the practical experience for which no professorial lectures could substitute.

Over the span of an hour and twenty minutes I drove from Lexington to Henry County in Kentucky, using the twisty back roads designated by the seminary’s field work supervisor. Having left earlier than I needed to, the wrong turns I made along the route produced anxiety and frustration, but no lasting consequences.

As I pulled onto the small gravel parking lot of the small country chapel called “Drennon Christian Church,” what first struck me was the gathering of people loosely assembled outside the building; I thought them to be the congregation’s welcoming crew...or jury pool. They were the people who would decide my fate, who would cast votes on whether to retain my one-of-these-days professional services as their pastor.

Greetings and salutations typical of people new to each other preceded what proved to be a relaxed and, I believed, successful worship experience. For the only time in my entire ministry, that day I reused a sermon, a reflection piece first preached for the congregation of my college days in Iowa City. After worship we had a bit of discussion time, then I went outside while the Drennon Congregation voted.... I won.

Did I ever win. Out of those nondescript beginnings arose a spiritual, pastoral, educational, affirmational relationship the likes of which I know I will never see again. Though small in number, the Drennon folk proved enormous in impact. Though without the alleged perks and prestige of larger congregations, the Drennon church demonstrated better than any collection of textbooks or classroom conversations what the church is, or at least is supposed to be: loving, tolerant, receptive people united in the cause of Christ.

That first Sunday provided an ample preview of coming attractions. Following worship, as was and would continue to be the practice throughout the three years of my ministry, a family in the congregation invited me for dinner. The drive up the hill from the church to their lane was quite the challenge for my Chevy Vega, but I forgot the mile-long climb when I took the first bite of what I thought was roast beef from the cornucopia set out on my host’s table. It was salty; that’s all I remember today. I thought Kentucky residents had found a new way to package salt, to make it more palatable to the salt-resistant by giving it the shape and color of roast beef. Turned out that the saline solid was country ham, which, as you may know (but I didn’t!), is salt cured.

In the instant of my first bite of country ham I knew I had been transplanted into a new and very different culture, I had become the biblical stranger in a strange land. My new church family lived different, talked different, were very different from me.

I, midwest. They, south.
I, city. They, country.
I, fast paced. They, relaxed.
I, one way. They, the other.

And yet it didn’t matter. Somehow we forged a strong partnership, an effective ministry. They and I, people who grew up on very different sides of the country, became great and trusting friends. My loyalty and appreciation for the Drennon Church so moved me as to produce annual return visits during the first decade-plus of my ministry with the church I now serve, a series that was sadly interrupted for several years in the late 90's into this century before resuming last September, a series whose latest member is my visit to the Bluegrass this weekend in observance of our 25th anniversary.

Perhaps most amazing about my relationship with the Drennon congregation was that I learned about and resisted the potential of my serving there a month or so before I decided finally to attend Lexington Seminary. I reacted coolly to the offered position; in fact, I was disappointed. I thought the church too small for my needs, too limited for my skill set (yes, I was pretty freaking stupid back then). In polite rebellion, I sought out another seminary – in Indianapolis; my second choice among Disciples schools – and even interviewed with a Presbyterian congregation an hour or so from Indianapolis. But God had other plans for me, a reality pounded into my spirit when I learned that the Presbyterian church could not call a non-Presbyterian pastor. Still, by grace and grace alone, the Drennon door was still open. Against my not-better judgment, God led me back to the open door, a door I reluctantly entered, a door because of which my life is forever and indescribably blessed.

I write this piece to let you know how much I love the people in that little Kentucky church, to praise God for gifting my life and pastoral journeys with what was, not surprisingly, supremely and exclusively the right soil in which my ministry to take root, and to encourage you to be on the lookout for your version of this kind of grace. I don’t know your needs, but I know the one who does. I don’t know your desires, your preferences, the road map you have laid out for your life, but I know the one who knows where you need to go and whom you need to welcome you there.

My Drennon experience, now a quarter-century old, tells me we can’t predict, or many times, even identify God’s directing hand. Often, the only view we have of divine guidance comes in life’s rear view mirror. But I know there is a hand, there is a map, there is an open door...somewhere. Just be prepared to change course when the map takes you where you didn’t plan – or thought you wanted – to go.

No single essay, no single book can say what I need to say about the church I met 25 years ago this week. So, two words will have to suffice: Praise God.


Pray with me:
You changed my life in a single relationship 25 years ago, God. Thank you. May at least one reader of these words have his or her own encounter with this kind of grace, God. May he or she not try to predict or even identify your move, but rather just be moved by it. In the name of Jesus, Amen.

Frankly, I Don't Cotton to the Idea

We took one of our nieces to the circus over the weekend. Good time, especially for her – which, of course, was the point.

One of the must-have additions to our niece’s Barnum & Bailey experience was the admittedly odd pairing of a large colorful hat and a bag of tri-colored cotton candy, packaged together, I assume, to sucker people like Shari and me into finding value in the combination’s $10 price tag. The hat was a souvenir; the candy was a both a treat and hark back to one of my past loves.

I remember being such a cotton candy fan in my youth, especially the conquest of stuffing large handfuls of the airy concoction into my mouth. My latest encounter with the stuff, however, has me wondering what I ever liked about it.

I pulled a large piece from the bag as a taste test, expecting it to prompt a nostalgic trip down my culinary memory lane. Instead, what I experienced was the sudden – make that instant – deflation of the alleged candy once it hit my tongue, disappearing to a sugary pinhead within seconds. A large web of spun satisfaction within a breath or two reduced to nothing, prompting a similarly empty look on my face. Subsequent tests produced the same result, leaving me to conclude that either candy contained better cotton forty years ago, or I didn’t have much of a discerning palate in those days.

Now much older and a bit wiser than I was in my youth, I can explain the candy’s disappearing act. I know how it’s made, that its “cotton” is an intentional illusion, an attempt to convince purchasers that there is more there than meets the eye. As I took my first bite from the bag, I knew what I was getting into, I knew that it was “eye candy” in the sense of candy to the eye much more than to the mouth.... I had just forgotten.


When people come to our churches looking for spiritual food, what do we offer? What does your church offer to its hungry patrons?

To people looking for a taste of the nourishment they once knew, to people valuing spiritual nostalgia who seek to reconnect with their sacred side, what do we offer?

How do we feed those new to the table, people who know little more than that there is something missing in their lives, something they can’t provide themselves?

A criticism made of some of today's largest, most popular churches and preachers focuses on a question of substance. “It’s all entertainment!” critics protest, fluffy theology gift wrapped in high energy, low necessity worship whose nutritional value diminishes rapidly...like circus cotton candy.

Some so accused are no doubt guilty, but the fact that their churches thrive in this spiritually contentious and skeptical era tells me somebody’s being fed. Said preachers and churches may be preparing and serving the ingredients (God, Jesus, the Bible, etc.) differently than we do, but somebody’s obviously liking their cooking. We don’t have to eat what’s on their plate, but we had better pay attention to it.

And what about us who live in older, established churches? What do we offer? How do we prepare and serve the Word? “Friendly” servers and “helpful” hosts are a start, but today’s spiritual restaurateurs demand more. They know meat from gristle, and natural flavors from artificial. They won’t tolerate the disappointment of spiritual cotton candy, however it is packaged or presented.

Think about Jesus feeding the 5,000. The first need of the crowd was physical, not spiritual hunger. Caring little for his or his disciples’ convenience, refusing to understate the power of faith, Jesus responded with bread and fish aplenty. Need identified. Need met.

Consider the wealthy man who sought from Jesus the spiritual satisfaction of eternal life. Jesus commanded him to expand his vision of faithfulness beyond following commandments, to include sacrificial giving and devoted following. The wealthy man refused the food, but once again Jesus identified and met the need.

What are the needs of the people in your community? What are you doing to meet those needs?

When the circus sells that hat/candy combo, its principal aim is instant cash, not lasting enjoyment; with help from my family, the Ringling boys may consider that a mission accomplished. When we in the Body of Christ “sell” Jesus to others, what’s our main objective? The moment’s experience, or a life’s transformation?


Pray with me:
God, give us modern Christians the passion and vision we need to feed the modern multitudes. Help us tailor our message to feed hungers, to quench thirsts, to direct people to the bread of life and living water. We are much too polished at fancy place settings and elaborate presentations. Show us the way to the cupboards that are forever well stocked in the name of Jesus, Amen.