Expression

I went to a wedding the other day. It was a friend's daughter and he officiated. I learned something.

It was a great wedding. The musicians were great. There were no glitches that I was aware of. And my friend did a great job. One thing I liked about the wedding was the simplicity. No tulle hanging everywhere. No mounds of gaudy flowers. Nothing outlandish. The sun shining through the stained glass windows bathed the whole place with a nice warm golden light that fit perfectly.

My friend did a great job of expressing himself both at the wedding and at the reception. But in spite of that I got the feeling that he wasn't satisfied with what he said. You could tell he was absolutely bursting with emotion. It was like he wanted everyone to know what he was feeling but didn't feel like he was doing those feelings justice. The words just weren't there. I think he might have been happier if he had the roar of a cheering crowd at a packed football stadium blasting through the sound system for a half hour. I tried to think of what I would say if I were in his shoes and drew a complete blank. I would have looked like a bumbling idiot and it is a credit to him that he did such a great job.

So this is what I learned. Those times when there are no words to express ourselves happen more often than we know. That's a good thing. That's what pushes human creativity. That's where beautiful art comes from. Beautiful music. Beautiful poetry. Beauty.

So I get it. I know that my friend was feeling a lot more than he could ever express with words. And while I get that I also get that I will never truly understand all that he was feeling. And that's a good thing too.

Economy

I recently read a report on financial giving in churches during the economic crisis. I won't post a link because those have a way of going bad after a few months but it was presented by the Alban Institute. I was a little surprised that only around 30% of the churches in the survey reported a decrease in giving in the first half of 2009. 37% percent reported an increase while the rest reported their giving stayed the same.

There are lots of explanations for the numbers and some of them are good. Church growth during the time period is a good example. Overall, I'm not sure there was enough information available to draw many useful conclusions.

But it did get me thinking about what should be the case. If you base the numbers on per capita giving to take out the affect of a gain or decline in numbers, shouldn't our churches mirror what is going on in our communities at large?

My first thought when I saw this survey was that an awful lot of church people must be lucky enough not to lose their jobs. But then I got to wondering if in some way the church tends to not welcome people with easily expendable, and therefore usually the first to go, jobs. Are we prejudiced in some way against people who are more economically vulnerable.

I wonder what would happen in Jesus' church. Actually, I think I know because, though I can't say for certain what is in the heart of people, I do think I have met people that belong to his church who are amazingly rich and desperately poor. I also know that he tended to attract the desperately poor while he warned the rich during his time on earth. That leads me to think that while there certainly are rich people who belong to his church they must be greatly outnumbered by the desperately poor. My conclusion is that watching the giving in Jesus' church would reflect what is going on in the larger economic picture.

I also think that Jesus' church would make a great leading economic indicator, if you could somehow get a hold of that number, because members of Jesus' church, especially the poor ones, are incredible givers. (Remember the story of the widow's mite.) If you saw the giving at Jesus' church going down you could be pretty sure that the economy was going to tank because the desperately poor, who give like no one else, would have stopped giving, not because they got disillusioned with it, but because they really had nothing to give. Likewise, if the giving in Jesus' church went up you could bet that economic recovery was on the way.

So what does it mean if our church finances go up, down, or stay the same? Maybe it means that God is blessing us. Maybe it means our guilty consciences are kicking in and we are actually giving a greater percentage of our income. Or maybe it means we aren't including a lot of people who we should include.

Gifts

I heard that some retailers are going to be dropping prices early this year. Have you got your Christmas list all ready? The discussion about whether giving Christmas gifts is good for our economy is an interesting one.

I just read an article by Tyler Cowen debating the issue against Joel Waldfogel's book "Scroogenomics." In the book Waldfogel apparently suggests (I haven't read it) that we shouldn't give gifts because people value the gifts they receive at only about 85 cents on the dollar. Since we spend approximately $60-$90 billion on gifts that 15% drop is a considerable loss. That 85 cent figure is probably high too. That puke colored sweater you got from your in-laws you probably value a lot less.

So there we have it. Clear cut case against buying presents. The Christian thing to do is to be a good steward and not by gifts. It will cut billions of dollars in waste.

But then Cowen muddies the issue all up again by pointing out all the intangibles that are associated with gift giving, or "indirect costs" as he puts it. One could add the stress involved in deciding what to get to the cost of the gifts along with many other factors to really drive up the cost of giving gifts. But then you also have to count the value of joy, celebration, love, not feeling forgotten or alienated, relational growth, etc. on the plus side. And what about all the valuable information you learn about yourself and your friends from the gifts you receive or don't receive. "How come Jim got such a nifty gift from Julie while all Julie gave me was a new pair of socks?"

The articles goes on to mention a lot more but the result is that it just isn't cut and dried. It is just another thing with which you have to live with the tension. So I hope everyone enjoys their holiday season while you roll that one around in your head.

Roles

I have been turning over a saying in my mind for several months now. Earlier this year Dr. Ralph Winter passed away and I was reading about his life and reflections from his family, friends, and co-workers. Something that came up repeatedly was his love for a Dawson Trotman saying that goes something like this. "Don't spend your time doing what others can do, spend your time doing what others can't do." That is probably not exactly right, as far as a quote goes, but you get the idea.

Dr. Winter seemed to apply that thought to his life and ended up with a role that he was uniquely qualified to fill. So I look around at our church and I ask myself that question. Am I spending my time doing what others should be doing or am I doing what others can't do? It seem that if I am going to use the unique talents and abilities God has given me I need to be working on this.

Somewhere along the way I came across an addition to this that goes something like this. "Spend your time doing what others can't do, or you can't motivate them to do." (Not exactly sure where this came from.) That is a little more awkward but something that I think a lot of pastors relate to. We see the potential but can't motivate people to act for one reason or another.

Turning it yet again I began to think about what it would be like to inject more of a servants heart into it. "Do what anyone can do to free others up to do what only they can do." The idea here is that if I take the mundane tasks it will free people to do the really important stuff that no one else can do. The added benefit is that while I do the mundane tasks I can feel like a martyr, and therefore more spiritual. :) Or at least I can feel like I've done penance. (The scene where John Newton is mopping the floor in the movie Amazing Grace comes to mind.) Okay, so maybe it isn't so servant oriented after all, but at least it sounds good.

I guess this quote needs to spin around in my mind some more.

Connecting

As a pastor I regularly agonize over the sermon I'll be giving on the next Sunday. But it doesn't stop there. I agonize after I've given the sermon too. At least for a little while.

There is an interesting phenomenon that many pastors experience that goes something like this. The worse you feel about your sermon the more likely people will tell you how good it was and how it was the right message at the right time. Likewise, the better you feel about your sermon the more likely it was a flop.

One way to explain this is to bring the Holy Spirit into it. The logic would be that the Holy Spirit can take any sermon, no matter how bad it may be, and move people's hearts with it. But the pastor who feels really good about his sermon needs to be humbled so the Holy Spirit is not as active following such a sermon.

I suppose it could also be that it is revealing a disconnect between the pastor and the congregation. He is touching chords that he is not seeing on the one hand and playing chords in the other instance that are relevant only to him.

Of course, it could also be that the entire phenomenon is a figment of the imaginations of a collective of pastors who are paranoid and uptight. Why does this option seem so much more likely?

Wind

Continuing education is a wonderful thing and well named. Or maybe "ongoing" would be better. Unfortunately we lose the sense of the ever onward and upward idea these words convey and replace it with the idea that our very next seminar, conference, class, workshop, etc. will find us at the ultimate answer. Here it is! This is it! Proven! At least until it is time for our next ultimate answer.

I wish we had more of a sense of "adding to the knowledge base" or "expanding our horizons" when it comes to our quest to be updated, freshened, inspired, grown, and personally and professionally developed. That would help us maintain a healthy posture toward these learning experiences. We wouldn't be overly enthusiastic or harshly dismissive of what we were learning. We would allow it to filter through who we are and the context we find ourselves in and truly help us grow.

No doubt we partakers share a lot of the blame for this problem. We want the final answer. It would make life so much easier. The magic pill or the super shot sound wonderful. We need to temper our enthusiasm a bit.

But some of the blame lies with the sponsors and presenters. They are selling, after all. It is their livelihood, their passion, and their life's work. I just think they would help their own cause if they were more realistic about their product.

There are a few who seem to get it right (Reggie McNeal comes to mind.) but most leave me with the feeling of "chasing after the wind." I think the cure from my side of things is to maintain a focus on Jesus. Anything else is just more wind.

Discipline

Someone once said that educators, politicians, and pastors are the three groups of people who have the hardest time with accountability. A lot of truth in that. But I also think that this abhorrence of accountability is the result of having some other character traits that make them good educators, politicians, and pastors. In spite of this, I think we pastors should be accountable to others but also focus on personal discipline.

I was in Africa for my 7th-11th grades of high school. The boarding school I went to only went through the 9th grade. For my 10th grade the school agreed to allow about 4 of us students to attend even though we were using home school curriculum. I guess the thought was the structure and resources would help us. By 11th grade we apparently caused too much trouble because they decided to stop the program so I was a true home-schooler for 11th grade.

For some reason my parents allowed me a lot freedom with regards to my schedule as long as I got the work done. A teenage boy in Africa is a wonderful experience and I spent most of my day hunting, fishing and playing soccer. After supper I would work on my school work before hitting the sack and repeating the routine.

Funny how teenagers prioritize. It wasn't long before I started falling behind in my school work. When my dad found out I was over a month behind he put his foot down. No more fun until I caught up. I worked hard until I got my "toys" back but then I had to be disciplined to keep them. That was a tough year and the first time I had to really force myself to be disciplined for a long period of time.

I think pastors need to think about self-discipline every day. There are a lot of good things I could be doing but I need to consider what is the best thing I could be doing. There is a lot of tension between passion and your work. Even though something is your passion doesn't mean there aren't times when you have to do things you really don't want to do. I'm quite sure Jesus was passionate about his redemptive work but I know there were parts of it he didn't want to go through.

So my daily prayer of discipline???? Lord, let this cup pass if possible, but if not, give me the discipline to do your will. Amen

Worship

Saw a beautiful sunset the other day. Absolutely stunning. I was reminded of how incredible God is. It was a very worshipful experience as I humbly felt overcome by his magnificent presence.

I know that there is a scientific explanation for sunsets like this. I suppose it has something to do with light, water droplets, and fine grains of dust, and maybe a few other things thrown in. I don’t believe that those players in the masterpiece have any feelings at all towards God. They are simply objects of his creation. But that doesn’t matter. To me it is all God. They play a part in his revelation whether they like it or not.

Sometimes I hear people say that they are worried about how we approach music in churches today. “It’s not worship, it’s a performance. We shouldn’t draw attention to ourselves, we should focus our attention on Jesus. It’s not about us, it’s about him.”

Well, yes and no. If you have the right attitude, isn’t playing or singing with all the ability God gave you an act of worship of the highest order? Isn’t watching someone perform like that very similar to watching that amazing sunset?

And what if the performer isn’t a follower of Jesus and couldn’t care less about God. When that performer performs at a very high level aren’t they still revealing the magnificence of God anyway, just like the water molecules and light?

Sure, there will be times when inappropriate use of talent occurs. But that works both ways. Failing to use the talent God gives us is just as bad. When people fail to play or sing to their highest ability what is that saying about God? Yeah, it might be excellent technically speaking, but unless it is inspired playing it really is tepid. Does that really reveal God’s magnificence? Or is it just a false humility that really says that the really good stuff we can do is all ours and God has nothing to do with it.

So I don’t care how people participate in worship as long as they participate. If that means they sing along, fine. If it means they sit and enjoy the show, just as good. In either case I’ll be praying they have the focus on God.

As for me, I just want to be mindful of his great creation whether it is a beautiful sunset, awe inspiring mountain ranges, or someone’s virtuoso performance. And the next time I see someone pick up a Stratocaster I’ll be rooting for them to play the hell out of it. Pun intended.