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Portage the Falls

August 10, 2020 /

It was June 1805, and the members of the Lewis and Clark expedition reached the base of the Great Falls of the Missouri. “Lewis was thrilled to see the enormous waterfall, the Great Falls of the Missouri. It was 900 feet wide and 80 feet high with a ‘beautiful rainbow’ just above the spray. Lewis called it ‘the grandest sight’ he ‘ever beheld.'” The grandest sight was also a grand obstacle. The Corps of Discovery had spoken with Native Americans familiar with territory to learn of what lay ahead. Their expectation was a difficult one-mile portage of their equipment around the falls. What they found was a much more significant challenge:

The Corps would have to hike 18 miles to get around the five waterfalls. They left their heaviest boat and equipment hidden near the base of the falls. The other canoes and supplies were carried, dragged, and pushed. The Corps created makeshift wagons. When the wind was strong, they attached the boat sails to help move the equipment. The ground was rocky, uneven, and hard. Prickly pear cactuses were everywhere. The Corps wore through their moccasins every two days. The intense heat of the summer sun was interrupted by violent storms, with thunder, rain, and hailstones the size of eggs. Swarms of gnats and mosquitoes pestered them. Rattlesnakes and grizzly bears were a constant threat. (Library of Congress)

The eighteen-mile portage around the Great Falls of the Missouri would take thirty-one days. Before they could continue their journey up the Missouri River, the Corps would have to build new boats to replace the ones left behind.

There are many stories in the journals of Lewis and Clark that describe perseverance through unexpected adversity. Five months ago, we began a journey together as a church and community. We thought we would make a simple portage around a small snag. What we have experienced is the grandest sight and grandest obstacle of many of our lifetimes.

What has made it the grandest sight? Every preacher, it seems, has said, “The church is not the building. It is the people.” The last five months have challenged us whether we really believed it. What I have seen is a beautiful sight. Like a rainbow in the mist over raging falls, its beauty holds me, and I do not wish to walk away from it, even if I must. The vision I have seen is a church come alive. I have witnessed people carrying for each other and watching out for their neighbors. People smile behind masks. They wave as we pass, even if we have never met. Groups have gathered together to pray and study the scriptures in their homes. We have become less dependent on the programs and structure of the church to prop-up our faith and much more dependent on the work of the Holy Spirit. It’s awe-inspiringly beautiful, and I fear its loss.

I am also aware these five months have been unmercifully brutal on some. People are unemployed and facing eviction. Families are starving. Friends have died. Many feel left behind and left out. Loneliness, darkness, depression have been consuming. I do not wish for these days to continue and long for the morning to come that will bring joy.

What we are experiencing is an arduous trek whose end is not yet in sight. The end will come, and when it does, we will once again put ourselves back in the waters of a much smoother journey. To continue the journey, though, new tools, equipment, and methods will have to be fashioned. 

For many of our churches, we have rolled most of our ministry online, and in doing so, we have taken our in-person programming and put it online with few changes made for the medium. It has been like putting sails meant for a boat on a wagon. At some point, we will have to find a better way. Before the pandemic, online worship was never an effective replacement for in-person. Primarily online worship served two purposes. First, it allowed those who were not able to attend in-person, because of work, vacation, or sickness, to continue to stay connected to their familiar community. Second, online worship served as a way for persons to visit a church without having to visit the church physically. It was a very low commitment way to try out a community.

I firmly believe that online can be an effective medium for a church community. I also believe it will require changing our methods and expectations. Like John Wesley preaching on a coal pile or George Whitefield preaching in the fields, it will be uncomfortable, awkward, and not without its critics. I believe this is a time that calls for us to try anyway. Already there are many critics who say it can’t be done. Already there are many questioning the theological soundness of those who are trying. It’s time we turn off those voices and just try. We may fail, but at least we tried. To do nothing is to guarantee our failure.

What will we have to change and do differently? I do not know. Right now, we are still struggling to get around the falls. Even as Lewis and Clark put their newly fashioned boats in the waters of the Missouri above the falls, an even more significant challenge lay before them: The Rocky Mountains. To cross this obstacle would require leaving their boats behind entirely as they depended on Sacajawea, a female Shoshone, to lead them through uncharted territory. Perhaps, we will have to leave our canoes behind too and submit to be led by those whose voices we refused to listen to or value before.

Our journey is not at an end, so it is difficult to say what it will be like on the other side. But we do have glimpses, and I would love to hear your thoughts.

Blessings,
Stephen

 

Quote and Picture Source:
http://www.americaslibrary.gov/aa/lewisandclark/aa_lewisandclark_portage_1.html

Standing on the Continental Divide

June 11, 2020 /

In March, our church Hope Wesleyan made the decision to suspend its in-person worship services. The primary foundation for this decision was a commitment as a church to love and serve our neighbors. In Ephesians 5, Paul’s charge is to “Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us . . . .” Jesus loved us by laying down his life for us while we were still his enemy. When we were asked not to meet in-person but to find other creative ways to meet, we gladly accepted this inconvenience as an expression of our love for our neighbors. This commitment forms the foundation of our organizing for the return to in-person worship. Our first priority is the safety and well-being of our church family and the wider community. Our second priority is the public reputation of Hope in our community and the wider Christian church. In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul is addressing problems within the church at Corinth. He says this to them, “In the following directives I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more harm than good” (vs. 17). He then describes destructive divisions and favoritism within the community. For the sake of the church community and its witness in the city, it would have been better if they had not met. It is possible for our meeting together, even if we have the right to, to be more destructive than not meeting at all. We can unnecessarily put at risk the physical health of our church family and community as well as cause irreparable harm to our church’s reputation in our city. Therefore, these two priorities form the basis of our decision making.

Our commitment as leaders is to seek to provide for the spiritual growth and needs of all of our church family.

In the book, Canoeing the Mountains¸ Bolsinger describes the moment when the Lewis and Clark expedition reaches the peak of the Continental Divide as a “deep disorientation.” Their expectation was to see an open prairie leading to the Columbia River Basin and out to the Pacific Ocean. What they instead saw was mountain range after mountain range of the rugged snow-capped mountains like they had never seen before. It is hard to picture how disheartening and discouraging that moment must have been. Their expectations and plans were confronted by the reality of the Rocky Mountains. They were profoundly disorientated. Bolsinger warns that:

when we get to moments of deep disorientation, we often try to reorient around old ways of doing things. We go back to what we know how to do. We keep canoeing even though there is no river. At least part of the reason we do this is because we resolutely hope that the future will be like the past and that we already have the expertise needed for what is in front of us. (92, emphasis original).

In this moment, what was necessary for the Corps of Discovery was an adaptive shift. “This is the moment when they had to leave their boats, find horses and make the giant adaptive shift that comes from realizing their mental models for the terrain in front of them were wrong” (93).

As a church community, we have been confronted by an adaptive shift. We have climbed to the top of our Continental Divide. We expected to look onto the other side and see a return to worship and community as we were used to doing things. We planned for a celebration. Instead, we are faced with are the Rocky Mountains of uncertainty, snow-capped by state and federal regulations.

In the face of an adaptive challenge, Bolsinger says the first thing we do is recommit to our core ideology. We start with why we exist. He gives the following questions for organizations to answer when “facing-the-unknown moment:”

  • Why do we exist as a congregation, institution or organization?
  • What would be lost in our community, in our field or in our world if we ceased to be?
  • What purposes and principles must we protect as central to our identity?
  • What are we willing to let go of so the mission will continue? (94-95)

After recommitting to our core ideology, the next step is to reframe our strategy in light of our core ideology. “In adaptive leadership, reframing is another way of talking about the shift in values, expectations, attitudes or habits of behavior necessary to face our most difficult challenges” (95).

Third, in the face of an adaptive shift, we rely on learning. We always default to the level of our learning. Unless we commit to learning to do things differently, we will revert to what we have done before. We will canoe the mountains.

These moments of deep disorientation requiring adaptive shifts. Standing at the peak, we can choose to turn around and go back, or we can recommit to our core ideology, the mission of God. We can reframe our strategy and dedicate ourselves to learning how to navigate in this unknown world.

Blessings,
Stephen

 

Source Book:
Bolsinger, Tod. Canoeing the Mountains: Christian leadership in uncharted territory, IVP Books, 2018.

I like to keep the peace

June 2, 2020 /

I like to keep the peace. Really I do. Conflict is painful and hard for me. I try to see the other side of things. I do not like to disturb the status quo. I do not merely dislike conflict; I feel conflict. It weighs like a million pounds upon my body. The single act of speaking up may last only a moment, but I will mull it over for days, months, even years. I have always been this way (and some of you already know my Enneagram number). What I am writing is not easy.

As a pastor, I have prided myself on having relationships and friendships with people across a diversity of spectrum from the very liberal to the very conservative. I firmly commit that all are welcome in the doors of the church. As we worship together, every one of us lays our experiences, ideologies, and commitments at the feet of Jesus to be examined and confronted by the Holy Spirit. Every one of us has sin within our hearts. Everyone one of us is in need of confession. Every one of us needs transformation of our whole being. Transformation by the Spirit of God happens within the practices and community of the church. If we cannot welcome all, then we cannot all be changed. Those of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus love our neighbor because God first loved us. We forgive because we were forgiven. We show grace because we were first shown grace. My commitment and welcome to all remains unchanged.

But because of my commitments, I also resist speaking up. Particularly in the forums of social media and blog posts when understanding is so hard to be had. I also resist speaking because I know I can never fully get away from my role as a pastor. I tell myself that I do not want to engage my church in complicated, painful discussions. I do not want to alienate. I do not like people angry with me or our church. I do not like it when people leave the church because we do not agree and feel like we cannot speak to one another.

A few years ago I had the opportunity to be in Berlin, Germany. In front of some of the homes are small square brass markers. They mark the home of a Jew who as taken away by the Nazis.

Many of us want to say, that if we had lived in those times, in Germany, Poland, and the Netherlands, we would have spoken up to stop the rise of the Nazis. We want to believe we would have hidden Jews within the walls of our homes. I want to say I would have been that person, I think I would have been the one who kept silent. Fear would have ruled the day.

All around us our black and brown brothers and sisters are crying out for us to speak up. To no longer be silent. To no longer dismiss their pain. They are dying around us. Recently, I participated in a conversation hosted by the leadership of my denomination. I offer here some of the bullet points from this conversation to help us begin to think more deeply and have the courage to speak up:

  • We cannot change our history but we can change our future. 

For over four hundred years the evil virus of racism has permeated our American culture. We can learn about our history and lament and grieve. We show the pictures of King marching arm and arm with white people in peaceful protest. We do not show the next picture of police dogs, beatings with batons, and water cannons turned on them. This is part of the story too.

  • Stop taking it personal.

As a white person, I swim the sea of my privilege. Like a fish may be unaware of the water around them I often do not feel or think of its existence. To be told that I am in the water is not a personal attack on me. It is just a statement of reality.

  • Stop minimizing another’s pain.

I do not have to understand another’s pain to be able to sit with them and mourn and grieve. Just because I don’t see it or feel it does not make it unreal.

  • Sin is the problem.
  • Favoritism is the problem.

You are not the problem, you are part of the solution. The Bible has a lot to say about sin and favoritism. Staying silent. Failing to learn. Failing to listen. Failing to seek to understand. These are not options. We can be part of the solution.

Let me say that again: You are part of the solution.

As I said in my note yesterday, each day I will offer you resources. Below are two videos (they may not be visible in the e-mail, just click the link to go to the message online and you will see them).

The first is an interview with Carl Lentz and Biship T.D. Jakes, the second is one with Charlie Dates and Beth Moore. 

Blessings,
Stephen

 

 

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Time to Get A New Phone

May 18, 2020 /
 
Recently, I listened to a sermon given by Steve DeNeff, Pastor at College Wesleyan. In his message, he told the story of his family’s plight to move his father from his beloved flip phone to a new iPhone. As I listened to the saga of the phones I began to think about the situation we are in right now. My application of the story is different than his, and I am sure I am taking some creative license with how things actually were described, but here goes.
 
The father had an old flip phone. You remember those things, don’t you? They were amazing when they came out. You could fold your phone in half. They were compact and convenient. Texting on them was a near impossibility for anyone over the age of fifteen. But they did well what they were made to do: make and receive calls. Over time, though, the father’s old flip phone didn’t quite work like it used to. It had become broken, been dropped one too many times, and it was difficult for him to hear people talking to him. So the family got together and made a decision. It was time for dad to get an upgrade. Like a parent offering candy to convince a child to change its diaper, they offered to him a new iPhone with all the features to be had with this new glorious technology. But dad, was not having any of it. His old flip phone was familiar and did, at least as far as he was concerned, what he needed to do. It made and received calls, even if he couldn’t hear everyone correctly. Of course, the iPhone could do all that and more. Still it was a hard sell to convince him to make the change. It seemed the only hope for the conversion would come if the flip phone finally quit working entirely.
 
What does this have to do with our current situation in the church? What if this time out of our buildings, unable to “do church” like we are used to, has actually given to us a new phone? What if, rather than looking to go back to our old flip phone, we have instead been given the chance to (even forced to), step into a new reality, a reality that is better than what we had before? As we dream of going back to the way things were, have we not forgotten the old phone was not particularly working that well? Engagement was down. Attendance was down. Connection was down.
 
Around the world, new models of church ministry and life have been exploding. Some call them fresh expressions. But really they have a million different names and formats. For many of us, we have seen these new expressions of church and saw them as a fringe. Much like how we looked sideways at those original iPhone users while we happily put our flip phones in our pocket. Almost overnight, however, we have woken up to a world where, out of our concern and love for our neighbor, we no longer can use our facilities. We cannot do what we used to do in the ways that were familiar to us. Out of seemingly nowhere new ways of being in community have suddenly become the mainstream. The possibilities that are before us are great. We have the possibility to engage more. To live in community more. To worship in different times and places. This time of social distancing has given to us a great gift.
 
I know it may not feel like a gift, but bear with me while I tell one more cell phone story. I remember when I got my first cell phone. I was working in a job doing technical and computer training at the time. I was excited to have make use of my first phone. My excitement quickly went away. I found it frustrating, maddening, confusing, and nearly impossible to make work. I came extremely close to giving up on ever having a cellphone. Besides, I still was not sure these things were ever going to go mainstream. They were not just not as reliable as our landlines. What I wanted to do was throw it out the window to be smashed in the street by the first passing car. What I did was persist through the frustration and learned to make and receive calls. Now, I even have an iPhone and love the many things it can do.
 
Right now, the new reality doesn’t feel like anything better than what we had before. It is frustrating. It seems broken and nearly unusable. I get it. We had to cancel our service at 10:00 am yesterday because the technology was down. And many of us are still not sure if these new expressions are ever going to become mainstream anyway.
 
As we struggle together in this new reality, with new tools and methods that seem so confusing and unfamiliar, remember we can look at what has been taken from us or we can look to what has been given to us and the possibilities. Where are we looking?
 
Blessings,
Stephen

Running a Marathon Would be Fun

May 17, 2019 /
wolves

I think it could be fun to run a marathon. Thousands of people do it every year. How hard could it really be? I have a few hours of free time to spare this evening. Why not? With such words, I charge out the door of my house. By the time I reach the end of my driveway, I begin to wonder if I shouldn’t have had a drink of water before I left. By the time I pass my neighbor’s driveway my lungs are making unnatural sounds. When I come to the next driveway there are shots of pain raging through my body, like trolls chasing me with little knives, gleefully plunging them into my muscles. A few more feet and it all goes black, I am sure I have come to death’s doorway, I collapse in a heap as a distant pack of wolves howls with delight. The weak one has been chosen from the heard. They will eat well tonight.

Few of us would actually attempt to run a marathon on just a whim, yet it is with just such enthusiasm we live our lives. Running a marathon takes months and even years of training and preparation. It takes changes in lifestyle and priorities. No one tries to run a marathon and succeeds. One has to train for a marathon. Daily though, many of us try to run the marathon of life without training and the results are good for the wolves and bad for us.

Last week we introduced the first three reasons why we need to take a Sabbath break. We need rest from being hurt, from heavy labors, and the pace of the world. These come from Matthew Sleeth’s book 24/6. If you missed the post you may read it here. This week is the second installment in our series.

We Need Rest from the Speed of Change
One of the greatest challenges colleges face today is they are training students for jobs that don’t yet exist requiring skills that are not yet known. The regular practice of Sabbath reminds us that there are some things that never change.

Jesus gives us a powerful example of the stabilizing force of routine and ritual in our lives. On the night when Jesus knows he is about to be betrayed and arrested Jesus knows that the disciples’ whole world is about to be turned on its head. What they thought they knew and understood about him, their lives and the future will be shattered. Change is coming. So, Jesus brings his disciples to the Passover meal. The central festival and meal for every Jewish person practiced faithfully from their days as young children to this day. Luke records in his Gospel “When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. And he said to them, ‘I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer'” (22:14-15, NIV).

The regular ritual of Sabbath (and other spiritual practices as well) are acts of training for when the marathon of life changes the rules and calls us to run.

We Need Rest from the Job
Changing jobs has become the rule rather than the exception in life. In our ever increasing gig economy, some find they are changing jobs every few months. As Matthew Sleeth says, “Resting is even more necessary in uncertain times. It helps us to remember that God is in control and that our identity is not dependent on the work that we do” (81). Stopping from the struggle and striving of work is an act of faith. It is trusting that God will provide. Jesus says:

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life” (Matthew 6:25-27, NIV)

When we stop our work to rest in God it is an intentional act of choosing not to worry.

We Need Rest from Information
It has been said that the typical U.S. high school graduate knows more about science, mathematics, sociology, and politics than Thomas Jefferson. Our phones feed us continuous streams of information. We go to the gym to get away and twelve screens blast the day’s news and gossip while headphones in our ears feed even more data. We need to rest from the flood. We need time to process, to ponder and organize what it coming in. “Uninterrupted time allows us to separate what’s important from what’s merely urgent” (Sleeth 82).

Ponder for yourself. What do you need rest from? Did one of these six stands out to you? Or maybe there is another area you need rest in, if you comfortable please share in the comments.

Blessings,
Stephen

What do you want to be when you grow up?

February 22, 2018 /

man and child on railroad tracks

What do you want to be when you grow up? It’s a fun question when you are four but by the time you reach my age the question gets a little annoying. I recently asked a group of kids how old they thought I was. Most put me in my sixties. Aren’t kids great? I am NOT that old! While I may not like being asked what I want to be any more the truth is I still have the same heart of four-year-old that dreams of what could be. We all do. It’s just as we get older we push it down deep out of sight. Wherever, you have stuffed them it is time to drag out those dreams and dust them off.

If you want to achieve your dreams or become someone or something there is a basic principle of life you need to follow: act like those who have it. It is really that easy.

Do you want to be wealthy? Then find out what wealthy people do and do it. I.e. don’t have a car payment. Pay cash for everything. Don’t buy what you can’t afford. Never use a credit card.

Do you want to be an Olympic snowboarder? Then find some snow and start practicing. You won’t get there surfing the cushions of your couch. Potato chip grease makes a terrible board wax.

Do you want to run a marathon? Then train like a marathon runner.

Do you want a college degree? Then go to class. Complete the assignments. Do the work.

Do you want to run your own business? Then find a successful business owner and learn how they did it and what they do.

Do you want to lose weight? Skip the midnight infomercial products and find someone who lost weight and do what they did. Hint: It probably involved eating less and exercising more.

Do you want a marriage that lasts a lifetime? Don’t ask your single friends what to do. Don’t get advice from your neighbor who has been divorced eight times. Go find that couple that’s been married fifty, sixty years and find out how they did it and then do what they do.

Do you want to have a vibrant spiritual life? Find a saint. Someone who has lived through life’s best and worst and do what they do.

What do you want to be when you grow up? Whatever it is there is someone who is already there.

Blessings,
Stephen

 

Where are the coal piles?

September 1, 2015 /

Coal Minors

The industrial revolution was billowing out changes to all of society at a never before seen rate. Changes which cast people into a darkness of soul greater than the soot billowing from the industrial machine. As the world was driven into this new era the structures of society, founded on an agrarian community, were unable to accommodate the changes. The home, the church, labor, government, education, all buckled on the verge of collapse under the weight of change.

In the age of the industrial revolution, John Wesley saw the church’s patterns of the past no longer worked, but a solution for the future alluded him. Then a friend, George Whitefield, would call Wesley to leave the security of his pulpit to go into the fields to preach the good news of Jesus. The challenge to Wesley from Whitefield was for Wesley to go to where the people were at rather than waiting for to come. The truth is they were never going to come. In no time Wesley would find himself standing on a coal pile in the faint light of dawn preaching the good news of Jesus to minors as they entered the murderous bowels of the earth.

Once again the pulses of change are colliding against the structures of our life. The great empires built on industry are no more and we are in a world struggling to find a new normal without a pattern or guide to follow. The home, the church, labor, government and education are all buckling under the unrelenting weight of change.

Wesley would leave the comfort of his pulpit to go where the people were at because they were never going to come to him. What about us today? Where are the coal piles today?

Please share your thoughts in the comments below or on Facebook.

Blessings,
Pastor Stephen

Cower or Fight: Building Trust

July 11, 2015 /

Man and Dog

I have been driving the same truck for nineteen years. I can’t change it. It has a little button. A wonderful, great and glorious marvel of modern engineering. The likes of which I have not found in vehicles before or since. The “scan” button. With the press of the button, my radio will automatically advance to the next station it finds with adequate signal strength. You may be saying to yourself, “my car has such a button.” But here is where you are mistaken. Many vehicles have a “seek” button, even my relic has such. This button advances you to the next station found and stops. Many vehicles also have “scan” buttons, but these advanced forward to the next programmed station. My button is unlike these. Mine is a triumph of automotive auditory engineering. With the press of this little beauty, my radio will advance to the next signal it finds but only pause there for a few seconds before automatically advancing again to the next signal of strength, repeating this process perpetually until commanded to stop. For those who have made TV channel surfing an Olympic sport, this wonder brings your years of training into the automobile. Many times I can be found driving and listening to forty-seven radio stations, all at the same time. It is a thing of beauty. Almost brings a tear to the eye just to think about it.

It was on one of these radio binges that I was caught by the words of a preacher. I do not know his name. I do not know the church he was preaching in. I do not even know what radio station he was on. But the words I heard were like a flash of light to my understanding.

We have all seen the pictures of dogs beaten and abused. From a distance, they look like normal friendly animals. But when you step up close and stick out your hand to scratch him on the head a switch in the dog’s psyche goes off and memories of past abuse flood the mind of the dog. Instinctively the dog will cower in terror or run. Other dogs will have the opposite reaction. Fear will overwhelm them and they will lash out in anger striking at the hand extended in love and friendship. This preacher made the connection that African Americans are like the beaten dog. For centuries, they have been abused and excluded in our society. Abuse that all too often continues today.

I remember recently seeing a friends post to Facebook in response to the swimming party debacle in Texas: “If you are not guilty don’t run.” Great advice, unless your life experience has been one of injustice and abuse. Then the prudent thing to do is to run . . . or fight. The history of beatings and abuses of power by those in authority against African American people in our country is long and well documented. The passing of the 13th Amendment in 1865 may have abolished slavery, but it did not change human hearts or behavior. The abolition of segregated schools in 1954 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not change human hearts or behavior. We still have a very long way to go.

One final observation. If I wish to regain the trust of the beaten dog. The one whose natural reaction is to cower or bite. On whom does the greater burden of trust building rest, on me or the dog? The answer is obvious: On me. This is the great challenge we all face and the even greater challenge faced by our law enforcement. Centuries of abuse cannot be erased from the human psyche in a day or with the passage of law. Many well-meaning officers have reached their hand out to members of their community in love and friendship only to be bitten. But we must not give up the hard work of gaining trust.

In my next post, the last of this series, I will offer some insights on a way forward for each of us. In the meantime, I welcome your comments and thoughts. Please visit our website and post them below this post or make them on Facebook.

Blessings,
Pastor Stephen

Forced on a Journey

June 24, 2015 /

empty roadway

Dear Friends,

Over the last few months, I have been on a spiritual journey producing a struggle in my own faith.

I, like you, watched the media reports of rioting in Ferguson, Missouri following the shooting of Michael Brown by a police officer.

I listened to the reports of Eric Garner being choked to death while being arrested by officers of the NYPD.

I attempted to comprehend what could have happened for Freddie Gray to suffer injuries leading to his death in the back of a Baltimore police van.

Over and over again I watched the video of Walter Scott being shot in the back as he ran away from a North Charleston, SC police officer

I was stunned by the images from a Texas pool party of an out of control police officer rapidly escalating an already tense situation.

I wanted to see each incident as unique. I wanted to say that this is not what law enforcement is like. And I don’t think it is, but I cannot deny that these events have happened and our nation reels because of them.

I wanted to process and look at each of these events in isolation from the other. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it because I saw and read the responses to the events from colleagues and church leaders. Men and women who have much more experience than I. Individuals far smarter than me. I saw these people standing in solidarity with the African American community as they demanded justice. The presence of these men and women, whom I greatly respected, standing on a different side of the debate gave me great pause. I began to question if I was not in fact wrong.

So I started to listen to myself. What I heard myself saying sounded an awful lot like the words of my white predecessors who spoke against the civil rights movement of the past and any efforts to change the status quo.

I knew then that I was wrong. But I did not know how or understand why. This realization was when my journey began.

Many of us are quick to quote Martin Luther King Jr. but would we have been so quick to quote him and stand beside him if we had lived through our nation seemingly being torn apart by the civil rights movement? What about today, as we watch our nation appears to be taking a journey down this path again?

I have been on a spiritual journey these past few months and in the next several posts I want to take you on that journey with me. I have many questions and very few answers.

Let’s walk together,
Pastor Stephen

Under the Dentist’s Light

March 24, 2015 /

Dentist Light

I find no pleasure in going to the dentist. I know that probably does not come as much of a surprise to you. In fact, if I said I liked going to the dentist you would probably think there was something terribly wrong with me.

Many of my deep-seated emotional issues with the dentist’s office comes from regular moments of agony I had as a teen and into my college years with one particular dentist’s office. Each time I would go I would be sentenced to do my time under the critical care of the same hygienist and she was, to put it mildly, a nag. As she carved and hacked away she would go on and on belittling me about all of the problems I had with my teeth and telling me everything she thought I needed to be doing. More than once I wanted to scream at her, “Would you just shut up and do your job!” (I know, not the most sanctified response) but I never did. Why? Well, first of all it is really hard to talk when someone has a pitchfork, chisel, fire hose and Shop-Vac stuck in your mouth all at the same time. Additionally, I knew I was in a rather compromised position and I thought it might not be the best time to start an argument.

Fast forward, would you, with me to another time I was in a different dentist’s chair. As they hygienist was completing her work she commented that she noticed I seemed to be having some difficulties with my gums and teeth. I braced myself for the onslaught I was sure was about to start. It never came. Instead, she told me that she struggled with the same problem and it wasn’t until she had found a particular toothbrush was she able to get things under control. Then she stepped out of the room and came back with the regular bag of dental parting gifts, but she also had a coupon she had found for the particular brush and offered that to me as well, if I was interested.

Do you know what I did that day? I immediately left the dentist’s office, drove across the street to Target, and bought the toothbrush that was suggested, even though I already had a nice shiny new one I had just gotten for free from the dentist.

Why did I behave this way? It was the difference between hearing good news and good advice. The first office gave me a lot of good advice. Everything thing that I was told were things that I should have been doing. But I  didn’t really care to hear it.

The second office told me good news. I was told of a past decision made in her life that had resulted in a positive changed future. Good news is something I wanted to hear. Good news was something I wanted to emulate in hopes of having the same experience.

As Christ-followers, one single act may terrify us more than any other. That is the act of sharing our faith with another, or as we call it “personal evangelism.” I believe what makes it difficult is that too often we are tempted to tell people good advice rather than good news. Good advice says to a person, “You should live a different life.” Good news says, let me tell you about something that changed in my past that has brought a new future for me.

Good advice would say to a blind person “See!” Good news says, “I once was blind but then a man named Jesus rubbed mud in my eyes and told me to wash in the pool of Siloam and now I see” (John 9). Good advice says, “Stop cheating your own people out of their money and pay back what you have stolen.” Good news says, “I  once was sitting high in a tree, just because I wanted to see this man Jesus I had heard about. As he came closer he stopped at the base of my sycamore tree and said he wanted to come over to my house. Did you hear that? Me, a tax collector, a traitor to my own people, was going to have Jesus in my home. That day as I shared a meal with Jesus I felt love and acceptance like I have never felt before. I found hope for a new future. I also knew then that I could not continue to live the way I had been living,  so I immediately gave half of my possessions to the poor and to those people I had cheated I paid them back four times. My weren’t they surprised” (Luke 19). No one wants to hear good advice. Good news can change a person’s whole life trajectory.

What about you? Have you been tempted to share good advice rather than good news? There is no greater news in all of the world than the news of what Jesus did and does in human hearts? What’s your story of good news?

Blessings,
Pastor Stephen

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