In our church office we’re sorting, reorganizing, and occasionally discarding the contents of various file cabinets, dusty, seldom-accessed storehouses of documents, most of which haven’t seen the light of review in years.
For me, what stole the show from our archaeological excavation was the modern relevance of many of the ancient papers:
* Letters to the congregation in several years back in the 1970's and 80's sounded alarms about current and expected financial troubles.
* A 1960's letter from their chairperson chided deacons for their lack of regular worship participation, which made frustratingly challenging the task of scheduling people to distribute Sunday morning communion elements.
* And minutes of a 1970's “worship commission” meeting reported that group’s lengthy and productive discussion about the minutia of said communion service, right down to when deacons were to come forward, stop, move, and reposition as the bread and cup made their way through the pews.
As I read these and other uncovered testaments to the church’s unflagging pursuit of repetition, I smiled, appreciated the company, but then realized how far we haven’t come. We’re still struggling with finances, with irregular church leader worship participation and a demon called micro-management. Jesus called us to go out and change the world; seems like we need to change ourselves first.
The writer of that majestic Old Testament treatise on pessimism called “Ecclesiastes” predicted our discoveries:
“History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new. What can you point to that is new? How do you know it didn’t already exist long ago? We don’t remember what happened in those former times. And in future generations, no one will remember what we are doing now.”
Well, they will if you keep records in church office filing cabinets.
The truth is I provide my own variations on this cycle of dysfunction. My history-not-learned-from-and-hence-repeated is more personal than institutional, but it is no less indefensible. I still fret and worry over the kinds of things that disrupted my younger years. I question and doubt with the same kind of fury that frequented my past. My capacity to misjudge, mistake, miscalculate, and misunderstand rivals any on file in the Coley archives. On occasion I think I have come along way; other days remind me how limited is my immunity from allegations of recidivist behavior.
A group called Caedmon’s Call sings a song called “Thankful,” whose lyrics I thought of as we peered through the past revealed in our church office files:
You know I ran across an old box of letters
When I was bagging up some clothes for goodwill
But you know I had to laugh at the same old struggles
That plagued me then are plaguing me still
'Cause I know the road is long from the ground to glory
But a boy can hope he's getting some place
But you see I'm running from the very clothes I'm wearing
And dressed like this I'm fit for the chase
Is that ever your song?
This has become an early-morning ramble. Perhaps “Thankful”s chorus will take me home:
So I am thankful that I'm incapable of doing any good on my own, yeah
Said I'm so thankful that I'm incapable of doing any good on my own, yeah
Yeah, indeed.
Pray with me:
Thanks for grace, God. Without it, there would be no need for this prayer, and you would have no need for me. The cross closes in. Lead me, drag me there, if you have to. Show me, compel me to look as grace hangs there, grace every bit as fresh, as real, as needed today as it was then. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
This Does Not Compute
The other day we received a computer catalog in the mail. Not a surprising event around our house, what with my appetite for tech reflected in several magazine subscriptions.
But this catalog was sent by a manufacturer from which we purchased a laptop for Shari just four months ago. Come to think of it, this catalog was the second catalog we have received from that manufacturer since our laptop purchase. Prior to that, we had never heard from them. We knew about them. We saw their ads on television and in magazines. But no contact...until after we bought.
I guess this is how they do things in the computer business. It was my purchase of a desktop PC from a different online retailer back in 1997 that put me on its mailing list for the first time. I loved browsing through the catalogs, but they never prompted a purchase.
I have little business sense, no doubt, but isn’t this odd timing? Wouldn’t it have made more sense for the first computer company to send us catalogs before we purchased? Couldn’t their in-house marketing whizzes figure out that households known to have purchased a computer within the last few months – from them, no less – are probably less likely to purchase a machine than say, households not known to have made such a buy? Why wouldn’t they direct their resources to potential rather than current customers? Or, at least delay delivery of such promotional material for a few months, to allow their new customers to settle in?
That’s a question I could pose to a lot of Christian congregations, the one I serve, included. Our practice is to wait for customers – whom we call worship guests or visitors – to come to our stores, which we call churches. Once a customer comes through our doors, we’re on him or her like a Best Buy blue shirt on Ma and Pa Kettle.
We sell congregational friendliness. We sell youth ministries. We offer sample catalogs called newsletters or bulletins/programs. We put that customer on mailing lists, if we can ferret out his or her contact information. During the week that follows the initial visit we send follow-up notes of appreciation or make brief home visits bearing gifts of appreciation.
After customers hit our stores, after we see them spend hands-on time with our products, we direct our resources to achieving their return business. And if they choose more formally to do business with us – what we call joining the church – why, after that blessed event we bombard them with information and invitations.
After....... Like the computer company. After........
The problem with the church importing the computer company’s marketing strategy is that Jesus didn’t say, “Go ye back to your homes and wait for the world to come to you. Then once it does, make disciples of it for me.”
And he didn’t send his disciples home in pairs to await the arrival of possessed and dispossessed people, potential targets of their newfound authority to do ministry.
Jesus sent them out into the world and into the countryside. He sent them to meet people at their points of need. He sent living catalogs into people homes before those people even went shopping.
Yet the church so often simply waits for people “out there” to come in, passing the time by waiting on its own people, its most loyal and long-standing customers.
Why do we spend so large a proportion of our resources on people who have already bought into Jesus? Why aren’t we directing our catalogs to new customers in untapped markets, to people who may not even know about the product we offer, its amazing price, and (eternal) lifetime warranty? Might our flawed business model in part explain the growing irrelevance of so many denominations and congregations? Might you and I need to adopt a new vision for how and with whom we share our personal experience with Jesus?
Catalogs to people who just bought your product. Evangelistic zeal toward people already in the pews. Somehow, this does not compute.
Pray with Me:
God, Jesus told us to take the news to the world. Help us see the world beyond our doorsteps and outside our comfort zones. He went to astonishing lengths to make sure we got the news. The least we could do is try to return the favor. In his name we pray, Amen.
But this catalog was sent by a manufacturer from which we purchased a laptop for Shari just four months ago. Come to think of it, this catalog was the second catalog we have received from that manufacturer since our laptop purchase. Prior to that, we had never heard from them. We knew about them. We saw their ads on television and in magazines. But no contact...until after we bought.
I guess this is how they do things in the computer business. It was my purchase of a desktop PC from a different online retailer back in 1997 that put me on its mailing list for the first time. I loved browsing through the catalogs, but they never prompted a purchase.
I have little business sense, no doubt, but isn’t this odd timing? Wouldn’t it have made more sense for the first computer company to send us catalogs before we purchased? Couldn’t their in-house marketing whizzes figure out that households known to have purchased a computer within the last few months – from them, no less – are probably less likely to purchase a machine than say, households not known to have made such a buy? Why wouldn’t they direct their resources to potential rather than current customers? Or, at least delay delivery of such promotional material for a few months, to allow their new customers to settle in?
That’s a question I could pose to a lot of Christian congregations, the one I serve, included. Our practice is to wait for customers – whom we call worship guests or visitors – to come to our stores, which we call churches. Once a customer comes through our doors, we’re on him or her like a Best Buy blue shirt on Ma and Pa Kettle.
We sell congregational friendliness. We sell youth ministries. We offer sample catalogs called newsletters or bulletins/programs. We put that customer on mailing lists, if we can ferret out his or her contact information. During the week that follows the initial visit we send follow-up notes of appreciation or make brief home visits bearing gifts of appreciation.
After customers hit our stores, after we see them spend hands-on time with our products, we direct our resources to achieving their return business. And if they choose more formally to do business with us – what we call joining the church – why, after that blessed event we bombard them with information and invitations.
After....... Like the computer company. After........
The problem with the church importing the computer company’s marketing strategy is that Jesus didn’t say, “Go ye back to your homes and wait for the world to come to you. Then once it does, make disciples of it for me.”
And he didn’t send his disciples home in pairs to await the arrival of possessed and dispossessed people, potential targets of their newfound authority to do ministry.
Jesus sent them out into the world and into the countryside. He sent them to meet people at their points of need. He sent living catalogs into people homes before those people even went shopping.
Yet the church so often simply waits for people “out there” to come in, passing the time by waiting on its own people, its most loyal and long-standing customers.
Why do we spend so large a proportion of our resources on people who have already bought into Jesus? Why aren’t we directing our catalogs to new customers in untapped markets, to people who may not even know about the product we offer, its amazing price, and (eternal) lifetime warranty? Might our flawed business model in part explain the growing irrelevance of so many denominations and congregations? Might you and I need to adopt a new vision for how and with whom we share our personal experience with Jesus?
Catalogs to people who just bought your product. Evangelistic zeal toward people already in the pews. Somehow, this does not compute.
Pray with Me:
God, Jesus told us to take the news to the world. Help us see the world beyond our doorsteps and outside our comfort zones. He went to astonishing lengths to make sure we got the news. The least we could do is try to return the favor. In his name we pray, Amen.
Friday, March 16, 2007
There's a Reason They Call It Amazing
This is a small story about a couple of small mistakes that, in the end, caused no lasting damage. I offer it as witness to a grace beyond my comprehension, yet always within my reach.
- - - - - - - - - -
All I wanted to do was to create a file I could use to outline a special worship experience we’re hosting at our church Sunday night. All I had to do was enter identifying information about the worship’s elements and sequence.
It wasn’t that hard. In my many years of word processor use I had created thousands of such files. How hard could it have been?
First, we’ll sing THIS.....
Then we’ll sing THAT....
After which, we will pray.....
You don’t have to be a pastor to know how to type those lines. Even if arranging worship elements is not your thing, anyone who spent much time over a keyboard knows enough to get things like that right.
But I had a better idea.
Were this a word processing blog, I’d incite boredom with all the details, but this isn’t and I’m not wanting to wallow, so instead, allow me this brief re-creation of the scene of the crime: Instead of creating a document that was nothing more than a list of the things that would happen during the forthcoming worship, I decided to create a special kind of document, one that could be used to layout future services. This special form would have the basic order of things already in place – saving me some typing and leaving me only to fill in the blanks of the songs to be sung for that particular worship.
It was a great idea.
Except that we host this particular kind of worship only once a year, meaning my fill-in-the-blank thing will not get much use. And the next time we host I may want to do something totally different from what we do this time, resulting in the scrapping of the pre-arranged order’s of events replacement.
I should have just typed a list of the things we’re going to do Sunday....Especially if I was going to screw things up.
Before driving to the church this morning, I checked the contents of the flash drive on which I had saved my revolutionary new worship planning tool. It was there. I was pleased. Following my spiritual focus time at the office, it was time to use my new creation, to fill in the blanks.
But I couldn’t remember what went in the blanks. I had chosen songs to sing a few days ago, had even told our choir of the songs they’ll help lead, but that was two days earlier – a span of time sufficient for me to forget all kinds of things.
Of course, there was a written record of my choices; I knew I had handwritten my choices early in the week for eventual conversion to more readable printed text. But I couldn’t remember what I had done with that version. I feared – really, believed – I had mistakenly pitched it once I had created the fill in the blank thing the night before.
So the scene was a computer file asking me to fill in its blanks, and I with no response to the file’s request.
Then I realized our choir director had made note of the song selections as I shared them Wednesday night. Perhaps her notes were still in the choir loft.... I looked. They were! I was saved.
I returned to my desk, prepared to fill in blanks, when I caught glimpse of a padded portfolio that I had carried home the previous night. On a whim, I opened it to find....my handwritten version of the worship order.
Doubly equipped, I filled in blanks and moved into the rest of my day.
- - - - - - - - - -
This is so not an atypical story in my life. I lose things easily. I forget things quickly. I dis-organize best laid plans without a second thought, or even notice of what I’m doing. And those are just the most benign of my symptoms. Several times a week I remind myself of my utter, almost pitiable helplessness.
Yet every time I show my failing, every time I demonstrate my fallibility, and miraculously before I inflict irreparable harm on myself or others, God sends me a reminder or directs my attention to a saving path. For reasons I can’t explain and will never deserve, I incur only a fraction’s fraction of the consequences my helplessness deserves.
Today it was choir director’s notes and a padded portfolio. The weekend’s offered life preserver will no doubt take a different form. I just know there will be a next time...countless next times when I screw things up. Some little. Some large. All grace.
Pray with me:
I don’t know how you do it, God. And I can’t imagine why you do it. But you never stop pulling me out of fires of my own setting, holes of my own digging, messes of my own creation. You need to know, I’ll never get used to your love. May you never grow weary of giving it. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
- - - - - - - - - -
All I wanted to do was to create a file I could use to outline a special worship experience we’re hosting at our church Sunday night. All I had to do was enter identifying information about the worship’s elements and sequence.
It wasn’t that hard. In my many years of word processor use I had created thousands of such files. How hard could it have been?
First, we’ll sing THIS.....
Then we’ll sing THAT....
After which, we will pray.....
You don’t have to be a pastor to know how to type those lines. Even if arranging worship elements is not your thing, anyone who spent much time over a keyboard knows enough to get things like that right.
But I had a better idea.
Were this a word processing blog, I’d incite boredom with all the details, but this isn’t and I’m not wanting to wallow, so instead, allow me this brief re-creation of the scene of the crime: Instead of creating a document that was nothing more than a list of the things that would happen during the forthcoming worship, I decided to create a special kind of document, one that could be used to layout future services. This special form would have the basic order of things already in place – saving me some typing and leaving me only to fill in the blanks of the songs to be sung for that particular worship.
It was a great idea.
Except that we host this particular kind of worship only once a year, meaning my fill-in-the-blank thing will not get much use. And the next time we host I may want to do something totally different from what we do this time, resulting in the scrapping of the pre-arranged order’s of events replacement.
I should have just typed a list of the things we’re going to do Sunday....Especially if I was going to screw things up.
Before driving to the church this morning, I checked the contents of the flash drive on which I had saved my revolutionary new worship planning tool. It was there. I was pleased. Following my spiritual focus time at the office, it was time to use my new creation, to fill in the blanks.
But I couldn’t remember what went in the blanks. I had chosen songs to sing a few days ago, had even told our choir of the songs they’ll help lead, but that was two days earlier – a span of time sufficient for me to forget all kinds of things.
Of course, there was a written record of my choices; I knew I had handwritten my choices early in the week for eventual conversion to more readable printed text. But I couldn’t remember what I had done with that version. I feared – really, believed – I had mistakenly pitched it once I had created the fill in the blank thing the night before.
So the scene was a computer file asking me to fill in its blanks, and I with no response to the file’s request.
Then I realized our choir director had made note of the song selections as I shared them Wednesday night. Perhaps her notes were still in the choir loft.... I looked. They were! I was saved.
I returned to my desk, prepared to fill in blanks, when I caught glimpse of a padded portfolio that I had carried home the previous night. On a whim, I opened it to find....my handwritten version of the worship order.
Doubly equipped, I filled in blanks and moved into the rest of my day.
- - - - - - - - - -
This is so not an atypical story in my life. I lose things easily. I forget things quickly. I dis-organize best laid plans without a second thought, or even notice of what I’m doing. And those are just the most benign of my symptoms. Several times a week I remind myself of my utter, almost pitiable helplessness.
Yet every time I show my failing, every time I demonstrate my fallibility, and miraculously before I inflict irreparable harm on myself or others, God sends me a reminder or directs my attention to a saving path. For reasons I can’t explain and will never deserve, I incur only a fraction’s fraction of the consequences my helplessness deserves.
Today it was choir director’s notes and a padded portfolio. The weekend’s offered life preserver will no doubt take a different form. I just know there will be a next time...countless next times when I screw things up. Some little. Some large. All grace.
Pray with me:
I don’t know how you do it, God. And I can’t imagine why you do it. But you never stop pulling me out of fires of my own setting, holes of my own digging, messes of my own creation. You need to know, I’ll never get used to your love. May you never grow weary of giving it. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Having a Cow, Dude!
My ears ring and a smile crawls a slow retreat as I begin this piece. The causes of those conditions have a produced a God thing.
The ears ring because of a Christian concert we took in Sunday night at the local civic center headlined by a group called “The Newsboys.” The event was not for the faint of heart, the tender of foot, or the sensitive of hearing. Aided by two lesser known but, in their way, even rowdier bands, the concert was a rock ‘em sock’em blast of high energy spiritual party music. With loudspeakers set at “sonic boom,” an array of dazzling, at times hypnotic lighting effects, and a youth-oriented crowd ready to dance at the slightest invitation, the night was a festival for the senses....
Except if you wanted to understand the singers. I think it’s generous to estimate that I made out twenty percent of the lyrics delivered amidst screaming guitar riffs and thundering drum lines. Even in songs I knew and loved, I missed most of the words.
And it wasn’t such a festival if you prefer to watch musical performers from the comfort of an assigned seat. Aside from intermissions, we stood for the concert’s entire two and a half hours. Every act. Every song. But we didn’t just stand. We clapped. We jumped up and down, thousands of us, almost in unison. We raised and waved our arms in rhythmic response to songs’ beats. The night was, at least for many in the arena, a body, as well as spiritual and sensory workout.
Due to exposure to all that sound, at the moment my ears still hum at fever pitch, as if to offer a belated ovation for the audio avalanche which so delightfully damaged them.
This piece is not a concert review, but a description of the scene is needed in advance of a portrait of the night’s most moving experience. During The Newsboys performance occasionally I scanned the hall to look at faces and check for body language, evidence, I expected, of how people were reacting to the sensory onslaught. What I discovered was that the crowd – probably 5,000 strong – was like a collection of unique fibers all interwoven into the same pliable supporting fabric.
As mentioned earlier, nearly everyone in the house stood, waved, and clapped as occasions invited. There were moments when a third to a half of us jumped in unison, our feet pounding rhythmically and simultaneously in lockstep expression of the Spirit’s mighty wind.
Among the young and coordinated, as well as the...not, I saw countless closed eyes, broad smiles, and raised arms operating at the joyful behest of their owners. I saw people offer hit songs as personal prayers. I heard crowd members encourage the lead act’s lead singer in the same way you’d expect an interactive congregation during a sermon to shout “Preach it!” or “That’s right!” I felt the pulse of sound waves beat against my chest and flail at loose fabric on my pant legs. But more, I felt the power of God pulsating in 5,000 people. You couldn’t hear yourself think in that room, but you didn’t need to think in order to be convinced God was everywhere in that house.
After the drive home it was time for my nightly back rub — the one I give and Shari, graciously, receives. During those rubs I watch an episode of “The Simpsons” from my DVD collection. From season eight, the episode on tap for Sunday night just happened to be about church (you gotta know the God thing’s getting close!). It begins with the Reverend Timothy Lovejoy preaching on “constancy, sweet constancy.” Homer’s “Ow!” in response to his sleepy and nodding head’s sudden impact on the back of the pew in front of him causes the preacher to lose his place and start the sermon over. By the end of the sermon’s second go-round, everyone in the room is asleep — mouths open and drooling, bodies angled and disheveled, attentions long since spanned.
Later in the episode, Marge is in Lovejoy’s office when distressed parishioner Ned Flanders calls, deep in personal crisis. The pastor’s remedy is that Flanders read the Bible. When asked for a particular verse, Lovejoy tells him, “It’s all good.”
One night. Two visions of the church. Both very real. Which do you relate to?
I didn’t ask which you prefer. I know which you prefer. I asked which you relate to. Or, which more accurately reflects the congregation you currently call church?
In the privacy of this inconspicuous blog, honesty’s a virtue, but I’d grant you accountability immunity if you could deliver honesty from mainline America. I’d do that because mainline America — the older, established denominations — is dying, and the pace of its/our decline is increasing.
Our worship is boring. Our preaching is irrelevant. Our congregations serve personal needs before personal mission. Our counsel to people in search of truth or hope or purpose is no more inspired and instructive than the Springfield pastor’s “It’s all good” (to which Flanders replies, “Well, thanks anyway.” Hint. Hint.).
Don’t take my word for it. Extract any five people from Sunday night’s concert hall, drop them faith first into a typical mainline congregation, let them steep for a month, then ask for a report. If you can wake them from their ecclesiastical slumber, if you can pull their faces off the back of the pew in front of them, what you will hear may be more diplomatic, but its core message will be the same as mine.
What’s got, and won’t release, my craw here is not an institutional church issue; it’s faith issue. There’s a scene at the end of John’s Gospel in which Peter and company have fished through the night without catching a thing. The resurrected Jesus instructs them to cast their nets on the right-hand side of the boat.
TIME OUT FOR TRANSLATION: Cast your nets where the fish are.
They do so, and the result is a catch so large they can’t retrieve it.
If you can predict the result had Peter & Co. decided to continue to cast on the other side of the boat, you have a grasp on the issue mainline America faces. Jesus commands us to go where the fish are. The fish we are called to catch are not swimming in our lifeless waters. If we’re to be faithful (I told you this wasn’t an institutional church issue), we have to move our boats, or, at minimum, shift the location of our nets. If we don’t, we will die, but more important, we will have earned a name badge whose heading is “Hello, my name is... (unfaithful).”
How do we have to move? What do we have to change? Worship styles. Organizational structures. Resource distribution. Loyalty to denominational hierarchy............. But that’s all fine print. The first move we have to make is one of attitude. We have to decide Jesus intended the church to be a living, pulsating, magnetic fishery, not a stilted, self-consumed bunch of fishers more loyal to a side of the boat than to the targets of our fishing trip.
We have to decide that our calling as followers of Jesus compels us to endure, even encourage, unclear lyrics, sonic sounds, and noisy jumps to and from the creaky floors of our creaky churches, if that’s what it takes to bring in the catch.
We have to decide that the fish we seek are more important than the boats from which we seek them.
We have to decide we’d rather worship with The Newsboys than with The Simpsons.
Pray with me:
Help me figure out what kind of church you want, Lord. I already know what kind of church I want, so I’m only asking you to help me understand your desires. Once you accomplish that feat — and I apologize in advance for how long and arduous a task awaits you — help me replace my vision with yours. One thing I have figured out is life looks better through your eyes than mine. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
The ears ring because of a Christian concert we took in Sunday night at the local civic center headlined by a group called “The Newsboys.” The event was not for the faint of heart, the tender of foot, or the sensitive of hearing. Aided by two lesser known but, in their way, even rowdier bands, the concert was a rock ‘em sock’em blast of high energy spiritual party music. With loudspeakers set at “sonic boom,” an array of dazzling, at times hypnotic lighting effects, and a youth-oriented crowd ready to dance at the slightest invitation, the night was a festival for the senses....
Except if you wanted to understand the singers. I think it’s generous to estimate that I made out twenty percent of the lyrics delivered amidst screaming guitar riffs and thundering drum lines. Even in songs I knew and loved, I missed most of the words.
And it wasn’t such a festival if you prefer to watch musical performers from the comfort of an assigned seat. Aside from intermissions, we stood for the concert’s entire two and a half hours. Every act. Every song. But we didn’t just stand. We clapped. We jumped up and down, thousands of us, almost in unison. We raised and waved our arms in rhythmic response to songs’ beats. The night was, at least for many in the arena, a body, as well as spiritual and sensory workout.
Due to exposure to all that sound, at the moment my ears still hum at fever pitch, as if to offer a belated ovation for the audio avalanche which so delightfully damaged them.
This piece is not a concert review, but a description of the scene is needed in advance of a portrait of the night’s most moving experience. During The Newsboys performance occasionally I scanned the hall to look at faces and check for body language, evidence, I expected, of how people were reacting to the sensory onslaught. What I discovered was that the crowd – probably 5,000 strong – was like a collection of unique fibers all interwoven into the same pliable supporting fabric.
As mentioned earlier, nearly everyone in the house stood, waved, and clapped as occasions invited. There were moments when a third to a half of us jumped in unison, our feet pounding rhythmically and simultaneously in lockstep expression of the Spirit’s mighty wind.
Among the young and coordinated, as well as the...not, I saw countless closed eyes, broad smiles, and raised arms operating at the joyful behest of their owners. I saw people offer hit songs as personal prayers. I heard crowd members encourage the lead act’s lead singer in the same way you’d expect an interactive congregation during a sermon to shout “Preach it!” or “That’s right!” I felt the pulse of sound waves beat against my chest and flail at loose fabric on my pant legs. But more, I felt the power of God pulsating in 5,000 people. You couldn’t hear yourself think in that room, but you didn’t need to think in order to be convinced God was everywhere in that house.
After the drive home it was time for my nightly back rub — the one I give and Shari, graciously, receives. During those rubs I watch an episode of “The Simpsons” from my DVD collection. From season eight, the episode on tap for Sunday night just happened to be about church (you gotta know the God thing’s getting close!). It begins with the Reverend Timothy Lovejoy preaching on “constancy, sweet constancy.” Homer’s “Ow!” in response to his sleepy and nodding head’s sudden impact on the back of the pew in front of him causes the preacher to lose his place and start the sermon over. By the end of the sermon’s second go-round, everyone in the room is asleep — mouths open and drooling, bodies angled and disheveled, attentions long since spanned.
Later in the episode, Marge is in Lovejoy’s office when distressed parishioner Ned Flanders calls, deep in personal crisis. The pastor’s remedy is that Flanders read the Bible. When asked for a particular verse, Lovejoy tells him, “It’s all good.”
One night. Two visions of the church. Both very real. Which do you relate to?
I didn’t ask which you prefer. I know which you prefer. I asked which you relate to. Or, which more accurately reflects the congregation you currently call church?
In the privacy of this inconspicuous blog, honesty’s a virtue, but I’d grant you accountability immunity if you could deliver honesty from mainline America. I’d do that because mainline America — the older, established denominations — is dying, and the pace of its/our decline is increasing.
Our worship is boring. Our preaching is irrelevant. Our congregations serve personal needs before personal mission. Our counsel to people in search of truth or hope or purpose is no more inspired and instructive than the Springfield pastor’s “It’s all good” (to which Flanders replies, “Well, thanks anyway.” Hint. Hint.).
Don’t take my word for it. Extract any five people from Sunday night’s concert hall, drop them faith first into a typical mainline congregation, let them steep for a month, then ask for a report. If you can wake them from their ecclesiastical slumber, if you can pull their faces off the back of the pew in front of them, what you will hear may be more diplomatic, but its core message will be the same as mine.
What’s got, and won’t release, my craw here is not an institutional church issue; it’s faith issue. There’s a scene at the end of John’s Gospel in which Peter and company have fished through the night without catching a thing. The resurrected Jesus instructs them to cast their nets on the right-hand side of the boat.
TIME OUT FOR TRANSLATION: Cast your nets where the fish are.
They do so, and the result is a catch so large they can’t retrieve it.
If you can predict the result had Peter & Co. decided to continue to cast on the other side of the boat, you have a grasp on the issue mainline America faces. Jesus commands us to go where the fish are. The fish we are called to catch are not swimming in our lifeless waters. If we’re to be faithful (I told you this wasn’t an institutional church issue), we have to move our boats, or, at minimum, shift the location of our nets. If we don’t, we will die, but more important, we will have earned a name badge whose heading is “Hello, my name is... (unfaithful).”
How do we have to move? What do we have to change? Worship styles. Organizational structures. Resource distribution. Loyalty to denominational hierarchy............. But that’s all fine print. The first move we have to make is one of attitude. We have to decide Jesus intended the church to be a living, pulsating, magnetic fishery, not a stilted, self-consumed bunch of fishers more loyal to a side of the boat than to the targets of our fishing trip.
We have to decide that our calling as followers of Jesus compels us to endure, even encourage, unclear lyrics, sonic sounds, and noisy jumps to and from the creaky floors of our creaky churches, if that’s what it takes to bring in the catch.
We have to decide that the fish we seek are more important than the boats from which we seek them.
We have to decide we’d rather worship with The Newsboys than with The Simpsons.
Pray with me:
Help me figure out what kind of church you want, Lord. I already know what kind of church I want, so I’m only asking you to help me understand your desires. Once you accomplish that feat — and I apologize in advance for how long and arduous a task awaits you — help me replace my vision with yours. One thing I have figured out is life looks better through your eyes than mine. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Thursday, March 8, 2007
The Wait Is Over
NOTE: What follows is the longest Express posting to date; it is also the most personal. If you can’t, or choose not to make your way to its end, I won't be offended.
This one likely isn't about your spiritual journey; it’s about mine. I wrote this one for me, to have it out there, to put this stuff on the record. If you benefit from it, praise God. If not, praise God that I wrote it.
And if you want to comment, great; I will welcome the feedback (point of fact, I’m rather eager for feedback on this one). But if you don’t say a thing, that’s okay, too. Again, this one’s for me.
Thanks,
Bill
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
In November 1999 began the most disgusting, despicable experience of my life.
Someone submitted an ethics complaint against me to our regional church body. The complaint was groundless. I knew it. The people of our congregation knew it. I suspect that in his heart, the person who made the complaint also knew it was groundless.
But that didn’t really matter. Shortly after his filing, the complainant became irrelevant when the regional church body discarded his charges in order to pursue allegations of its own creation.
It took nearly nine months to process those recast charges, the result being what in reality was an ecclesiastical slap on my pastoral wrist that was deposited in my denominational personnel file. But I did not accept the outcome. I filed an extensive, well documented appeal, which in my opinion proved official misconduct and abuse of power among regional church officials involved in the process.
The result of the first appeal was effectively a press of the charges’ “moot” button; it declared them without effect, but still on my record. I did not accept that outcome, either – principally because phony charges were still on my record and because in its decision the appellate body had failed even to acknowledge my claims of official misconduct. So, following more rigamarole at the regional level, I wrote a second appeal, equally well documented, which I presented to our general church. By now, the case was nearly two years old.
The general church not only dismissed my appeal claims (though, I must grant, they offered two or three paragraphs that actually referenced their existence), it also returned the original, heretofore-mooted punishment to active status.... Yeah, that appeal turned out well.
After the general church decision, I made a few attempts to be heard and consulted more than one attorney about potential legal action against the denomination, but there was simply no room in those inns. However unfair and unethical their actions, I was told, there was nothing I could do.
Since August 2001 I have profoundly resented my denomination, especially its leaders who participated in my case. In my head and heart I have replayed hearings, reread appeals, and revisited my own actions again and again, always coming to the same conclusions: What happened to me was wrong. Justice demanded that I pursue accountability.
Then today happened.
This afternoon I worked on the second sermon in a series on spiritual surrender I’m preaching during these weeks before Easter. The sermon references my favorite biblical character, Job, with whose story of personal disaster I identified intensely during the active years of my ethics case. As those long months rolled on, I developed the aphorism “The Wait for 38” as a nod to the chapter in the Bible book wherein God at last responds to Job’s many angry protests.
See, Job, too, believed he had been unjustly persecuted, though he considered God to be his accuser, whereas mine had a distinctly human face. Our essential grievance was the same, however: Injustice – indefensible, but correctable injustice – had been done. God, get in here.
“The Wait for 38" was my rhetorical anticipation of success. I believed there would come a day when my record would be cleared and the officials responsible for my hell would face appropriate consequences. Years passed without so much as a whisper of such an outcome, but I held on to the expectation of eventual vindication...like Job.
During today’s sermon prep, I reaffirmed the relevance of Job’s story to mine, but also identified my misapplication of its teaching. While I still believe – and will always believe – the ethics case cast me as a Job-like figure, unjustly abused and mistreated, I now believe I have been wrong to claim him as evidence of my approaching exoneration.
What begins in chapter 38 of Job is the end of an appeal, not a resolution to the central conflict. God’s forceful intrusion into Job’s pursuit of justice has the effect of a judicial gag order on compliant attorneys, or a camp counselor’s raised hand to a room of noisy kids: instant silence. God doesn’t explain injustice, doesn’t defend divine (in)action in the matter, doesn’t do anything that, for the previous 37 chapters, Job had sought.
Instead, God’s two lengthy litanies of questions to Job – most of the form, “Can you do this: ________ ? I can.” – compel Job to repentant spiritual knees. In total surrender to divine designs, he gives up his protest and says to God,
“And I was talking about things I did not understand, things far too wonderful for me....I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance.”
Why does he repent? Because he had wrongly believed he understood the ways of the world; he thought he knew how the system operated.... He didn’t.
Contrary to his way of thinking, injustice isn’t always corrected, disaster often strikes the undeserving, offenders don’t always get what’s coming to them, and people of privilege haven’t always earned what has come to them. Justice, at least the stuff of Job’s derivation, is of sorely limited value when trying to explain the way things really are.
So, now what, Job?
Enter today’s epiphany.
In the story, Job gives up his quest for justice the instant he realizes its core irrelevance. It’s not the justice is bad objective (read the rest of the Bible, for God’s sake!); it’s that justice isn’t what Job thinks it is – it’s what God thinks it is. And Job doesn’t have standing to argue the point. He may continue the fight – result: unending frustration – or move on, accepting the world as it is, not as he wants it to be. Job moves on, which is what I have decided to do.
For all the years of my ethics case I kept intimate company with Job. I read the story several times, just to buddy up to my partner in pain. But today I realized that if my ambition is to follow Job’s lead, I, too, have to give up. I have to give up my grudges, give up my anger, give up resentment, give up my belief that justice requires a cleared record and an apologetic church leadership. However much merited, those results are simply never going to happen; they’re not the way this world operates. Justice in my case will come – perhaps already has – but not on my terms.
So within the next week I expect to write letters of conclusion to the regional church officials whose actions so repulsed me all those years ago. I will apologize for my mistakes and for my role in the case's constant caustic character. I will tell them that for me, the case is now over. I will tell them that I no longer hold their actions against them, that I will no longer avoid events simply to prevent a chance encounter with them, that I will speak to them when feasible, and even address them without the harsh formality of “Pastor ____” or “Doctor _____” (trust me, that’s a big step). I will tell them that I am moving on, and am now open to interaction/conversation that is not tainted by previous issues.
I won’t issue forgiveness – that requires their confession and repentance, which is another result that will never happen – but I will offer to start a new kind of relationship.
Of course, those leaders may not accept my offer – after all, in my case writings and hearings I was quite the ferocious adversary, one whom many would find it difficult to trust on the basis of a single letter – plus, I am not about to confess to their original charges. I am repenting of attitudes and angers, not of my insistence of innocence and injustice. But I will make an offer.
It’s time to move on, FINALLY time to move on. I have at last reached, read, and resolved chapter 38. Thank you, Job.
Pray with me:
God...Thank you. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
This one likely isn't about your spiritual journey; it’s about mine. I wrote this one for me, to have it out there, to put this stuff on the record. If you benefit from it, praise God. If not, praise God that I wrote it.
And if you want to comment, great; I will welcome the feedback (point of fact, I’m rather eager for feedback on this one). But if you don’t say a thing, that’s okay, too. Again, this one’s for me.
Thanks,
Bill
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
In November 1999 began the most disgusting, despicable experience of my life.
Someone submitted an ethics complaint against me to our regional church body. The complaint was groundless. I knew it. The people of our congregation knew it. I suspect that in his heart, the person who made the complaint also knew it was groundless.
But that didn’t really matter. Shortly after his filing, the complainant became irrelevant when the regional church body discarded his charges in order to pursue allegations of its own creation.
It took nearly nine months to process those recast charges, the result being what in reality was an ecclesiastical slap on my pastoral wrist that was deposited in my denominational personnel file. But I did not accept the outcome. I filed an extensive, well documented appeal, which in my opinion proved official misconduct and abuse of power among regional church officials involved in the process.
The result of the first appeal was effectively a press of the charges’ “moot” button; it declared them without effect, but still on my record. I did not accept that outcome, either – principally because phony charges were still on my record and because in its decision the appellate body had failed even to acknowledge my claims of official misconduct. So, following more rigamarole at the regional level, I wrote a second appeal, equally well documented, which I presented to our general church. By now, the case was nearly two years old.
The general church not only dismissed my appeal claims (though, I must grant, they offered two or three paragraphs that actually referenced their existence), it also returned the original, heretofore-mooted punishment to active status.... Yeah, that appeal turned out well.
After the general church decision, I made a few attempts to be heard and consulted more than one attorney about potential legal action against the denomination, but there was simply no room in those inns. However unfair and unethical their actions, I was told, there was nothing I could do.
Since August 2001 I have profoundly resented my denomination, especially its leaders who participated in my case. In my head and heart I have replayed hearings, reread appeals, and revisited my own actions again and again, always coming to the same conclusions: What happened to me was wrong. Justice demanded that I pursue accountability.
Then today happened.
This afternoon I worked on the second sermon in a series on spiritual surrender I’m preaching during these weeks before Easter. The sermon references my favorite biblical character, Job, with whose story of personal disaster I identified intensely during the active years of my ethics case. As those long months rolled on, I developed the aphorism “The Wait for 38” as a nod to the chapter in the Bible book wherein God at last responds to Job’s many angry protests.
See, Job, too, believed he had been unjustly persecuted, though he considered God to be his accuser, whereas mine had a distinctly human face. Our essential grievance was the same, however: Injustice – indefensible, but correctable injustice – had been done. God, get in here.
“The Wait for 38" was my rhetorical anticipation of success. I believed there would come a day when my record would be cleared and the officials responsible for my hell would face appropriate consequences. Years passed without so much as a whisper of such an outcome, but I held on to the expectation of eventual vindication...like Job.
During today’s sermon prep, I reaffirmed the relevance of Job’s story to mine, but also identified my misapplication of its teaching. While I still believe – and will always believe – the ethics case cast me as a Job-like figure, unjustly abused and mistreated, I now believe I have been wrong to claim him as evidence of my approaching exoneration.
What begins in chapter 38 of Job is the end of an appeal, not a resolution to the central conflict. God’s forceful intrusion into Job’s pursuit of justice has the effect of a judicial gag order on compliant attorneys, or a camp counselor’s raised hand to a room of noisy kids: instant silence. God doesn’t explain injustice, doesn’t defend divine (in)action in the matter, doesn’t do anything that, for the previous 37 chapters, Job had sought.
Instead, God’s two lengthy litanies of questions to Job – most of the form, “Can you do this: ________ ? I can.” – compel Job to repentant spiritual knees. In total surrender to divine designs, he gives up his protest and says to God,
“And I was talking about things I did not understand, things far too wonderful for me....I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance.”
Why does he repent? Because he had wrongly believed he understood the ways of the world; he thought he knew how the system operated.... He didn’t.
Contrary to his way of thinking, injustice isn’t always corrected, disaster often strikes the undeserving, offenders don’t always get what’s coming to them, and people of privilege haven’t always earned what has come to them. Justice, at least the stuff of Job’s derivation, is of sorely limited value when trying to explain the way things really are.
So, now what, Job?
Enter today’s epiphany.
In the story, Job gives up his quest for justice the instant he realizes its core irrelevance. It’s not the justice is bad objective (read the rest of the Bible, for God’s sake!); it’s that justice isn’t what Job thinks it is – it’s what God thinks it is. And Job doesn’t have standing to argue the point. He may continue the fight – result: unending frustration – or move on, accepting the world as it is, not as he wants it to be. Job moves on, which is what I have decided to do.
For all the years of my ethics case I kept intimate company with Job. I read the story several times, just to buddy up to my partner in pain. But today I realized that if my ambition is to follow Job’s lead, I, too, have to give up. I have to give up my grudges, give up my anger, give up resentment, give up my belief that justice requires a cleared record and an apologetic church leadership. However much merited, those results are simply never going to happen; they’re not the way this world operates. Justice in my case will come – perhaps already has – but not on my terms.
So within the next week I expect to write letters of conclusion to the regional church officials whose actions so repulsed me all those years ago. I will apologize for my mistakes and for my role in the case's constant caustic character. I will tell them that for me, the case is now over. I will tell them that I no longer hold their actions against them, that I will no longer avoid events simply to prevent a chance encounter with them, that I will speak to them when feasible, and even address them without the harsh formality of “Pastor ____” or “Doctor _____” (trust me, that’s a big step). I will tell them that I am moving on, and am now open to interaction/conversation that is not tainted by previous issues.
I won’t issue forgiveness – that requires their confession and repentance, which is another result that will never happen – but I will offer to start a new kind of relationship.
Of course, those leaders may not accept my offer – after all, in my case writings and hearings I was quite the ferocious adversary, one whom many would find it difficult to trust on the basis of a single letter – plus, I am not about to confess to their original charges. I am repenting of attitudes and angers, not of my insistence of innocence and injustice. But I will make an offer.
It’s time to move on, FINALLY time to move on. I have at last reached, read, and resolved chapter 38. Thank you, Job.
Pray with me:
God...Thank you. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Monday, March 5, 2007
Who Unlocked the Confessional?
In completion of a self-reflection instrument I requested of our church board members last month, today in two ways I had to identify significant changes I could fully support and work for. The first assignment was to flag changes to our congregation’s administration, organization, or ministry. I filled out that section quickly, or at least with lots of passion. I know lots of things we need to change.
The second assignment was not so simple. It asked me to flag changes in my personal attitude toward and involvement in our congregation’s administration, organization, or ministry. This one I didn’t so promptly conquer. More than once I had to sit back in my chair, stroke my few and dwindling hairs, and ask whether whatever was under consideration at the time was, a) among the most pressing changes I need to make; and, b) a change to which I am authentically willing to commit my life. I didn’t have the same passion for this second assignment.
It’s much easier – not to mention, more fun – to tell others how they need to change. Whether it’s a need for better nutrition or a different political persuasion, lifestyle changes or improvements to financial management, telling others what they need to do is much more the pleasing experience than personal scrutiny.
Maybe it’s that I don’t want others to know my weaknesses.
Maybe it’s that I don’t want the obligation of following through on commitments of transformation.
Maybe it’s that I can’t handle the prospect of chinks in my personal armor.
Maybe it’s just that I like doing things the easy way, and it’s easier to pick others apart.
Or maybe I’m the real audience for Jack Nicholson’s Colonel Jessep in “A Few Good Men,” who angrily denounced people who could not handle the truth.
It doesn’t matter. Jesus is not going to change his teaching just because I struggle when looking in the mirror. That thing he said about extracting the log from your own eye before bitching about the splinter in another’s eye still stands, my sorry tale notwithstanding.
It’s not that I was wrong to ask us to name changes “we” need to make; I just should have asked for the personal changes first. Like now....
Do you need to change? No. That’s the wrong question; you know it as well as I.
How do you need to change?
Don’t tell me how I need to change, or how I could have addressed this subject with greater insight, sensitivity, or understanding. Tell me how you need to change. Better yet, convince yourself that you need to change. Convince yourself – if you convince me, you’ll be a good salesperson; big deal – that there are ways you can live more like Jesus, in closer company with him, in more productive liaison with him. Convince yourself that if you change in areas X, Y, and Z the world will be a better place, you will live in healthier relationships, and that elusive utopia Jesus promised called “the Kingdom” will edge a wee bit closer.
Of course, such ambitious consequences are not possible without the first step, confession. So, take on our board’s assignment: In writing, identify up to three changes in your personal life that you commit to make in order to follow Jesus more faithfully, more completely. When done, if you’re really serious, ask a confidant to hold a copy of your commitments, and to hold you accountable by asking you for a progress update every couple of months....But that’s only if you’re really serious.
It’s kind of funny that I struggled so with that board reflection exercise given that I’m the one who drew it up. I guess I would have seen its challenge more clearly had it not been for that damned log in my eye.
Pray with Me:
I think everyone I know needs to change, God. Unfortunately, that doesn’t matter much until I decide the fate of my own failings. As I continue a journey to the cross, help me label, separate, and act upon the results of intentional self examination. I don’t expect the process to be easy or enjoyable – that is never your promise. I do expect to grow closer to Jesus – and that’s always enough. In his name I pray, Amen.
The second assignment was not so simple. It asked me to flag changes in my personal attitude toward and involvement in our congregation’s administration, organization, or ministry. This one I didn’t so promptly conquer. More than once I had to sit back in my chair, stroke my few and dwindling hairs, and ask whether whatever was under consideration at the time was, a) among the most pressing changes I need to make; and, b) a change to which I am authentically willing to commit my life. I didn’t have the same passion for this second assignment.
It’s much easier – not to mention, more fun – to tell others how they need to change. Whether it’s a need for better nutrition or a different political persuasion, lifestyle changes or improvements to financial management, telling others what they need to do is much more the pleasing experience than personal scrutiny.
Maybe it’s that I don’t want others to know my weaknesses.
Maybe it’s that I don’t want the obligation of following through on commitments of transformation.
Maybe it’s that I can’t handle the prospect of chinks in my personal armor.
Maybe it’s just that I like doing things the easy way, and it’s easier to pick others apart.
Or maybe I’m the real audience for Jack Nicholson’s Colonel Jessep in “A Few Good Men,” who angrily denounced people who could not handle the truth.
It doesn’t matter. Jesus is not going to change his teaching just because I struggle when looking in the mirror. That thing he said about extracting the log from your own eye before bitching about the splinter in another’s eye still stands, my sorry tale notwithstanding.
It’s not that I was wrong to ask us to name changes “we” need to make; I just should have asked for the personal changes first. Like now....
Do you need to change? No. That’s the wrong question; you know it as well as I.
How do you need to change?
Don’t tell me how I need to change, or how I could have addressed this subject with greater insight, sensitivity, or understanding. Tell me how you need to change. Better yet, convince yourself that you need to change. Convince yourself – if you convince me, you’ll be a good salesperson; big deal – that there are ways you can live more like Jesus, in closer company with him, in more productive liaison with him. Convince yourself that if you change in areas X, Y, and Z the world will be a better place, you will live in healthier relationships, and that elusive utopia Jesus promised called “the Kingdom” will edge a wee bit closer.
Of course, such ambitious consequences are not possible without the first step, confession. So, take on our board’s assignment: In writing, identify up to three changes in your personal life that you commit to make in order to follow Jesus more faithfully, more completely. When done, if you’re really serious, ask a confidant to hold a copy of your commitments, and to hold you accountable by asking you for a progress update every couple of months....But that’s only if you’re really serious.
It’s kind of funny that I struggled so with that board reflection exercise given that I’m the one who drew it up. I guess I would have seen its challenge more clearly had it not been for that damned log in my eye.
Pray with Me:
I think everyone I know needs to change, God. Unfortunately, that doesn’t matter much until I decide the fate of my own failings. As I continue a journey to the cross, help me label, separate, and act upon the results of intentional self examination. I don’t expect the process to be easy or enjoyable – that is never your promise. I do expect to grow closer to Jesus – and that’s always enough. In his name I pray, Amen.
Friday, March 2, 2007
Shouldn't the Workouts Work Out?
We’ve had our new treadmill – the replacement unit my weight and fitness health demanded for months after I burned out the motor on our previous one – in the living room for 40 days. I’ve been on the machine 37 of those 40 days, producing nearly 28 hours of increasingly vigorous treading, and just more than 100 miles of in-place distance.
Sound impressive? You’d think it would be impressive, but get this: Total calories burned during those 37 workouts? Enough to lose five pounds. Five freaking pounds! More than a day of hard walking to nowhere and I get credit for five pounds – about a pound every five and a-half hours, I figure.
Let’s do the math: Twenty eight hours at the current minimum wage ($5.15) would be $144.20. Given a choice, which would you choose as the payout for 28 hours of labor – five pounds of calories burned or $144?... I thought so.
Full disclosure requires I acknowledge that as a result of those 28 hours I feel stronger, I bound up stairs faster, my resting heart rate has dropped by 15 beats per minute, I can hold notes longer in choir practice, I have more energy during the day, and I feel better about my health.
Fuller disclosure requires I acknowledge that the small, incremental rewards of my exercise routine bear great similarity to the results of the spiritual walk: slow, often imperceptible progress made only after months, many times years of a journey that at times can seem like it’s going nowhere. But after some time on the road, self-examination reveals a stronger will, a more resilient spirit, a more loving heart, and a more settled hope about your well being. It’s just that there’s a price to pay for such spiritual fitness; it comes neither easy nor on its own.
If you’re not sure your efforts to get spiritually fit have paid off, if you wonder whether there aren’t more profitable uses for your time than the hard work of pursuing an unseen Savior and an incomprehensible God, I understand – these days, both spiritually and physically I understand. But hold on. Keep working. Don’t stop. Results are guaranteed; it’s just that terms of the warranty are not negotiable.
There’s a New Testament writer who says he’s “finished the race” and remained faithful, so now awaits a “prize.” However long, tiring, or unproductive your road today, may you keep your eyes on that prize.
Pray with me:
It’s really hard to run hard, yet feel like I'm not getting anywhere, especially when I’m chasing after you, God. Post some kind of road sign to keep me on track. And help me notice and celebrate the strength this chase is growing in me. I confess I am sometimes blind, really blind when I seem to be treading life. Open my eyes, then show me the prize that will fuel my walk, at least for the rest of this day. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Sound impressive? You’d think it would be impressive, but get this: Total calories burned during those 37 workouts? Enough to lose five pounds. Five freaking pounds! More than a day of hard walking to nowhere and I get credit for five pounds – about a pound every five and a-half hours, I figure.
Let’s do the math: Twenty eight hours at the current minimum wage ($5.15) would be $144.20. Given a choice, which would you choose as the payout for 28 hours of labor – five pounds of calories burned or $144?... I thought so.
Full disclosure requires I acknowledge that as a result of those 28 hours I feel stronger, I bound up stairs faster, my resting heart rate has dropped by 15 beats per minute, I can hold notes longer in choir practice, I have more energy during the day, and I feel better about my health.
Fuller disclosure requires I acknowledge that the small, incremental rewards of my exercise routine bear great similarity to the results of the spiritual walk: slow, often imperceptible progress made only after months, many times years of a journey that at times can seem like it’s going nowhere. But after some time on the road, self-examination reveals a stronger will, a more resilient spirit, a more loving heart, and a more settled hope about your well being. It’s just that there’s a price to pay for such spiritual fitness; it comes neither easy nor on its own.
If you’re not sure your efforts to get spiritually fit have paid off, if you wonder whether there aren’t more profitable uses for your time than the hard work of pursuing an unseen Savior and an incomprehensible God, I understand – these days, both spiritually and physically I understand. But hold on. Keep working. Don’t stop. Results are guaranteed; it’s just that terms of the warranty are not negotiable.
There’s a New Testament writer who says he’s “finished the race” and remained faithful, so now awaits a “prize.” However long, tiring, or unproductive your road today, may you keep your eyes on that prize.
Pray with me:
It’s really hard to run hard, yet feel like I'm not getting anywhere, especially when I’m chasing after you, God. Post some kind of road sign to keep me on track. And help me notice and celebrate the strength this chase is growing in me. I confess I am sometimes blind, really blind when I seem to be treading life. Open my eyes, then show me the prize that will fuel my walk, at least for the rest of this day. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
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