Famous Last Words

This is what I have sent to my church as my sabbatical begin tomorrow:

Almost everything is done. I have finished the 99 birthday and anniversary cards for the summer so they can be sent out. I have the worship schedules for September finished so I am not totally out to lunch when I came back 90 days from now. The preaching set up for the summer is complete and they have all been reminded and they are ready and raring to go. I have to clean up my office a little bit, which is pretty much the norm. Everything on the check list has been completed. So tomorrow it begins. Which is good timing for me because Fridays are always my day off. I begin by doing nothing, which is a part of God’s design.

Sabbaths are part of God’s norms for creation. Sabbaths are to be weekly, even yearly. The very land was to have a Sabbath. "Speak to the Israelites and say to them: 'When you enter the land I am going to give you, the land itself must observe a sabbath to the LORD.” Leviticus 25:2 The only instruction we receive about the Sabbath was to do nothing. To not be productive. Yes they worshipped on the Sabbath but if you look at the laws in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 they were explicitly told don’t work, do nothing. We find that hard. At least I do. I am programmed to be doing something, to be accomplishing something, to be productive. How else I am going to demonstrate my worth and maintain my identity?

So this sabbatical is going to be a stretch for me. I have to practice doing nothing. Oh I have things I want to do, goals to accomplish, projects to finish. But I will not start out that way; I will begin by doing nothing. Sabbaths and sabbatical remind me that my value is not in power of production, not in the level of work accomplished. I have received a spirit of “child-ship”. My value and worth comes from being a child of God and there is no level of accomplish or volume of productivity that can duplicate this reality. I am who I am because of whose I am. And that is what matters.

So I will miss you. I am not dropping into black hole, we can have coffee and you can call. I will be back. But during this time, find your sabbatical, be it a day, week or month, and discover again that we are the children of God and that he is very fond of each of us.

You Want My What?

Suddenly in the last two days, just three days before I head off on my sabbatical, people want my opinion. Now I have been the parent of teen aged boys for over a decade, so no one has wanted my opinion for a while - I still give it unsolicited, but it is rarely sought after. So when people I do not know want my opinion I get a little suspicious. It has all be on the up and up, but it did get me thinking.

How often do we ask God for his opinion on what we are doing or on the choices we make? yeah, I know we ask about the huge issues like marriage or job choices. But what about vacation plans or fairly major purchases or how we are going to respond to our neighbor to co-workers or to our teen aged boys? Do we ask God if he has an opinion on how we spend the evening or or we really need another wedge? After all we are his servants, his disciples. We have said that our lives are his and we will follow him anywhere, or something to that affect. Actually I think God is interested. I also don't think he cares where I park my car at the store, although he might think the farther away the better. But he is interested in how live my life and how that reflects on the kingdom.

Seriously, we have been called to follow and serve. If we do not ask and seek how will we know where to go and what to do? And to say that we do not have the time to do that is ridiculous since we continually say he is Lord, ergo he rules our time. So check in with the Father and the Son and the Spirit and see what His opinion is one what you are about to do. Just a thought.

Am I Getting Old?

To begin with I don't rant, I crab. I think you have to be under 50 to rant. I also don't think this is going to be all that crabby, but I want to warn you early on just in case.

I was reading another blogger (http://www.ysmarko.com/), which is something I do daily, and his post this morning got my wheel spinning. It is about the creation of a house church community. I have no quarrel with house churches or any other kind of churches. You got a vision to plant something you go for it. But as I read this post there was a thread that came through that I have heard repeatedly during the past year. This thread is filled with words like "I long for" and "I want" and "I am looking for" and "I need". This thread is not unique to the house church movement or to the emergent congregations. I have heard the same language from people who have told me that there is nothing personal but they are going to leave our church for greener pastures and better nurseries.

People leave churches. Nothing new there. But this got to wondering how we learn to live and worship with people we don't like? How do we learn to seek God with people who we find to be difficult? Is that what the church is supposed to be about? I assume loving each other is hard work. I know loving me is. Don't think for a minute that the original disciples were all sweetness and light. If it is not the church, where do we learn to care for those who think and act differently than we do - and regularly drive us nuts?

I wonder about our level of maturity. I wonder about our ability to look to others and hang in there when it has ceased to be fun. I just wonder if I am getting old?

Graduation

My middle son graduated from high school Sunday. I would show you pictures but we have already been through all that. The graduation was at a "near by" college because of the size of the class. Close to 900 students, and they all got 5 tickets each.

The ceremony went well through the speakers, the songs and the presentations. Everything you would expect from such an event. And then they began to read the names of the students as they walked across the stage to receive their diploma. I do have commend the faculty who read the names, they read through about 900 names in less than 40 minutes, and these names represented the full global perspective - which is very cool. But then it happened. Pandemonium ensued. You have parents, family and friends blowing horns, screaming and shouting at their child. I think they were happy, it was hard to tell sometimes. The total effect was to drown out about 40% of the names. And then another phenomenon began to occur. people who had children at the front of the list of names being called began to leave. For them it was over. What started as a trickle became a stream of people getting up and heading out.

What makes this even more curious for me is that the school sent out a mailing asking people to be more respectful this year and to refrain from leaving early. They asked people at the event to hold their enthusiastic response until the very end. Nope, not happening. And those who left missed out on the highlight of the event, the last student called has been confined to a wheel chair for his entire high school career has been gaining use of his legs slowly and walked across to get his diploma. The place went justifiably wild.

It was a curious event. It is also for me a window to what kind society we are becoming. I am not sure we are going like it.

What are we doing?

I rarely get angry when I listen to the radio. But the other day WGN was on and they were talking about the law suits that Josh Hancock's father (Josh was a St. louis Cardinals pitcher) had filed following his death on April 29th. It drove me nuts. I was having a loud animated conversation with the radio in my car!

The gist of the story is this, after being in a restaurant for over 3 hours Josh Hancock leaves and while driving under the influence hit a car that has been disabled on the road and the tow truck that stopped to help. The dad is now suing the restaurant, the tow truck company, the driver and the driver of the car being helped. In essence it is their fault this 29 year of man is dead. And the two guys on the radio are siding with the father. Their reasoning is because the father is grieving, and he has legal right to do this.

ARGGGH. Why do we give a hall pass to people who are in pain to behave anyway they want to? Is this a tragic event, absolutely! Should restaurant have stopped serving? Possibly. BUT, why sue the guy whose car is stalled on the interstate. Now he has to hire an attorney and go to court. He has spend money he may not have. He was just trying to get home. The tow truck just came by to help him. How many other cars manage to miss them that night? 12? 50? 100? 200? And it is their fault this young man died? He was under the influence, exceeding the blood alcohol level by a factor of 2. Josh caused the accident.

So now because his family is suffering whatever actions they take are be excused. No! We all live in pain at some time or other. People with chronic pain often find themselves at the ends of their ropes. We get frustrated, we lose our cool, but that does not make it acceptable. If I have a horrific day at work that does not give me license to come home and take it out on my family. I do not have the right to jump down their throats and then say, hey - let it go, I was stressed.

If we are not accountable for what we do in any given circumstance how will we grow and mature. If we can pitch a fit when life is hard and get a pass for doing it, what is the next step. I have to live with my mistakes and often the mistakes of those around me. That is life. I have to take responsibility for my behavior. Blaming others will not take the pain away. It just spreads it around to those who may not deserve it.

I Would Show You a Picture, But...

Yesterday was Confirmation Sunday at our church. Six students with bright shining faces who learned and shared their faith. It was a fun service. It was a great service. They are great kids. I would show you their pictures, but I don't know how. I have a digital camera in my house, one of those point and shoot things, but it still manages to mystify me. I cannot get the pictures off the camera and on to my computer. I finally found the stupid cord for the thing. Why does that little card only go in one way? Everyone tells me it is easy. Liars.

My cell phone does not have a camera. I got it because it doesn't have a camera. My two younger sons have phones with cameras in them and they take all sorts of pictures that never should be taken. Technology is a wonderful thing. I am not a Ludite, I like my computer and the Internet and my remotes and pretty much anything else I can operate. It's just those things I cannot work, I leave alone. We are all better off that way. You included. I cannot even get pictures on this blog. I tried for longer than my patience could last, but to no avail.

Now I know people are going to try now to tell me how to do this stuff. They have good hearts and mean well, but really we will all be better off if I just leave that sutff alone. There are times when ignorance is bliss.

What Are 3 Minutes Worth?

I drive with 10 million other people. That is what they tell us in Chicagoland. It is also a well documented fact we only have two seasons - winter and construction. So what ought to be a fairly easy and straightforward task often becomes challenging. We have many peculiar and dangerous habits, passing of the right is only one of them.

But the one habit that totally confuses me is the way we do left turns. Oh we have lights for the turn signals. We have hundreds if not thousands of lights. It is how we behave at those lights which is amazing. Imagine you are in the left turn lane during rush hour. There are 15 cars in front of you, and the light turns green, you all go, and the light turn yellow and the cars keep going. The light urns red and the cars keep going. I am serious, at least three cars still go through after the light has turned red. And the cars in the other lanes have started to move and try to drive through, horns honking and hands waving. I have watched this for 7 years, shoot - I have been in the flow in the red light.

And it is not the people driving beaters doing this, it is petite women in huge SUV's, men in upper scale sedans, cars that cost well over $35,000.00. And they have kids in the back seats. I mean seriously how long can it be until the next green light? 3 minutes? Is three minutes worth you nice car? It is worth your kids? What are we in such a hurry for, where are we going, and what will 3 minutes make in your life? In day waiting for the next light will cost you no more than 15 minutes - tops!

Have we lost sight of what life is worth and that we are not center of everything? If we cannot be selfless and patient in driving, where else have we lost those capacities? You got to wonder.

My name is Dad

I will never win "Father of the year." That is not a confession, that is just fact. Of course I will not win pastor of the year, golfer of the year, or husband of the year, or anything else that "year" at the end of it. And I am okay with that. But at this moment I am focused on the issue of being a dad.

I am reading, almost by accident, Donald Miller's book "To Own a Dragon". It is a good read. He talks about the need for a father since he was deprived of one. He repeatedly points to the wisdom of one of his surrogate Fathers, John MacMurray, a truly exceptional man. At the same time I am dealing at a distance with health issues with my folks, and there are transitional events in my house with my sons. One is graduating from High School. He is not going "off" to college, he going "local", which is okay.

Mix all this together and I am thinking about my job as a father. Mistakes? Oh yeah, and some of them are doozies. Missed opportunities? More than I would like. But over all my sons know that I love them, that they are important, know what is right and wrong, care about people, work hard, and love Jesus. I call that a win. I wonder about our expectations for parents, children, spouses and friends. I wonder if we haven't shot too high. So I haven't taken kids skiing in Colorado. (Rhinos don't live on mountains) So we haven't done the Europe thing. (Iowa is... is... oh never mind) What I have done is answered their calls, take care of their needs, helped them with problems, laughed at their jokes and kept them safe.

So today my name is Dad. I have gotten them up, handed out cash, not as much as they would have liked, but hey whoever does? I am Dad, and that is good.

Memorial

This morning I am going to go to the annual Peace Officers Memorial service. I am a volunteer chaplain for the Naperville Police Department. I will stand with officers from numerous departments from our county as we remember those have given their last full measure of devotion. We stand in silence for one second for each officer in the United States who has died in the line of duty. This year we will stand for 146 seconds. 146 officers. When I think of these men and women I am reminded of Hebrews 11, these are those "of whom the world was not worthy." Peace be to their memory.

The Gospel According to Sports Illustrated

I received a complimentary subscription to Sports Illustrated a while back and decided to keep getting it. I like it. One of the reasons I like it is the column by Rick Reilly. Best of the best of these was in the April 30th edition.

Mark Lemke is truck driver out of Iowa. He wrote Reilly to nominated his 19 year old son for a “Faces in the Crowd” feature for his abilities in golf. He was doing this at that time because his son was killed in an accident. The profile was published shortly after - August 2006.

In October Mark Lemke gets a call, it is Tony Dungy, yeah, that Tony Dungy, the Indianapolis Colts Tony Dungy – in October 2006. Tony Dungy lost his 18 year son in late 2005. They connect on a level few people know. Coach Dungy gave Mark his cell phone number and e-mail address. He returns every call Mark makes and answers every e-mail. In the midst of the NFL playoffs Tony apologies for not getting back to him quickly, something about the defense not playing so well. Rick Reilly asks “Who is that nice?” Dungy then invited Mark to the Super Bowl. They meet in person finally, they hug and they pray. And what is so amazing is that this is not only person Tony Dungy has reached out to. There is one in Wisconsin, one in Indianapolis. Reilly summarizes Dungy this way “Heartbroken people all over are suddenly getting hand up from a man who himself should be a puddle but is instead a river of strength.”

You get the idea that Reilly is mystified at the behavior and strength of Tony Dungy. I’m not. I know what holds up this man and allows him to share his heart with others who have walked a similar path. It is his faith in Jesus. His strength is our strength. I like what Isaiah says in chapter 7 “If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.” We stand in Jesus Christ. In reality what Coach Dungy did is something we can do, something we ought to do. It is after all who we are. Who is this nice? We are. What is our river of strength? Jesus the Christ. May we mystify those around us with the strength and compassion of Jesus Christ. May we stand firm in our faith.

June 1st Cometh

There is this black hole staring at me just over the horizon. It begins on June 1st. "It" is my sabbatical. For 3 months, 13 weeks, 92 days, 2208 hours, 132,480 minutes I am going to do, well I am not exactly sure. Oh I have a plan, I have projects I want engage, but... I am not sure just how to go about this.

I haven't felt this was since my first church. Seminary was very helpful in preparing me for theology, homiletics and other academic pursuits, but it failed miserably in telling me what to do day to day. I had to sort that out for myself. I can vividly remember sitting in my make shift office wonder okay now what? I have sort this out one more time - new territory for me, never had one before. I have roughed out a schedule of my week. We will see how that works. I believe on the reasons I am on this sabbath is to rest, which is not my first inclination. So I am going to have to figure this out.

What I am not doing now is resting. Remember how much work it is to go on vacation, yup that is my world now. No complaints, but what I just do without thinking (no adding jokes here) suddenly has to be delegated to someone else or done ahead of time. I have to sign 3 months of birthday and anniversary cards, no one else wants that job. I think we are almost done with the details. The pulpit supply is almost completely covered.

I will probably write about what is going on during that time. I am sure I am going to learn, be stretched and hopefully mature. But it is coming. T minus 20 days and counting

As if there weren't already enough!

I like reading blogs. I find it more beneficial than going to the various news outlets. One of the constant themes in blogdom is women and ministry. Scot McKnight, who is always fun to read (http://www.jesuscreed.org/) has a couple of posts on the issue and one post has 224 responses to it, and the other one will likewise garner a large response.

So why here? Why add another one? Well there is one question in all of the conversation on this topic that I do not hear. Is this the issue that is holding the church back from doing its job? I wonder if all of the energy that is being expended, properly so, on the question is preventing us from being the kingdom of God in our communities? Is our inability to resolve this issue with grace and fidelity to the Bible handcuffing us in our ministry? You have to wonder.

Personally, I believe that if God has called you to the ministry - serve. If the tribe you are with won't let you do this, find some where that will. God has gifted you and called you, so serve. My tribe said women serve, so let them serve. Because it is time to get on with the work we called to do and stop trying to determine who is legible to participate. We have made the call, let's get to it. We are losing ground, serve.

If you disagree, fine. If I am wrong I am sure God will let me know that when I see him face to face. Which is fine with me. If you are wrong, well, God will let you know. But until then it is time to get to work. One of the things I like about my tribe is the founding and guiding verse is psalm 119:63, "I am a companion of all who fear You." If you have a heart for Jesus it is time and there is much to do.

manners matter

I am still getting used to this blog thing. I haven't written for a while because I haven't had any interesting thoughts that were suitable for public consumption. When I read some people's blogs it seems like they publish every thought that passes through the screen.

But I am wondering where in the world manners went? Beyond "please" and "thank you" when did we discover that the universe spins around us? I was driving this morning and two events happened, one right after the other, that made me think about this. The first was watching how people behave when one lane is closed because of construction. There were about 3 collisions that were narrowly avoided because no one was going to let the other person get the upper hand and go first. Honking, hand waving and fist shaking all were present and accounted for. Then not one minute later we all suddenly stop, both directions we stop for no visible reason, no accident no traffic sign, we are stopped. And then there they were. A goose and her 4 chicks are walking across the road and everyone stops. We cannot be bothered with another person, but for a family geese, well that is apparently different.

It is not just traffic, it is way we are spoken to on the phone by people we do not even know. It is how we feel free to speak those who serves us or wait on us or try to help us. As one who claims to follow Christ, at very least I ought to be able to be polite, courteous and kind. So I am delayed a moment or two longer, who cares? So my order is not always right, who cares? So I have to repeat myself more than once or open a door or help someone out. I just wonder where have all the manners gone?

My Friend Steve

I called Steve yesterday and talked for about 20 minutes. Our talks are rambling conversation that run back and forth over all the topics we want to cover. The bottom line of our time together was that Steve is not better. He may never get better. How do you get better when your only son dies by his own hands. Steve watched his family leave. Josh was his family. There is no wife. There are no parents or other children. Brothers and sisters are around but not close. Steve said the joke between he and Josh used to be to get him to 60. All the reasons for that have gone. Steve is not looking to end his life, it is just that his life has no end - no purpose, no reason.

Most of the people have stopped calling, they are back involved in their own lives. That is understandable. He's okay with that. It's just that Steve has no life to go back to, it is gone. He has to rebuild it once more. Now the question is why? I don't have "the answer" for him, but he knows I love him and will not let him go. I don't mind when he is angry or confused or silent. He didn't mind when I was angry and confused.

I pray for my friend Steve. He goes to a little church filled with people he really doesn't know. He likes their singing. He fills his day as best he can. He has no idea how long this journey is going take. Neither do I, but for as long it does I will pray. I will call.

He is my friend.

Praying for a secular state?

When is the last time you heard calls to pray for a secular state? For years I have heard calls to pray for Christian state here in our country, but now there are calls and prayers for a secular state in Turkey. The Army wants a secular state, there is a host of other nations calling for secular state in that land. All because if the state turns religious it is be an Islamic state. There is confusion over the results, and there are accusations on all sides.

This is one of the few times I have a cry for secularism to rule the day. I wonder if that cry will be be hard in our land some day?

Family to Family

Because of Seth Godin's site I have discovered a very cool organization called Family to Family.
"Family-to-Family empowers men, women and children by enabling them to help alleviate suffering -one American family at a time. F-to-F is a grass-roots organization that is driven purely by volunteer efforts.
F-to-F specifies a series of activities that draw people together from differing racial, social and economic worlds. The organization dedicates itself to increasing the range of possibilities for families living in mostly rural, often-forgotten communities.
F-to-F introduces families with more to families with less. The box packed by Mom, Dad and kids in Suburbia, U.S.A. is opened by a specific needy family living in America's poor underbelly. Families are matched whenever possible by the number and ages of children and other criteria. There are no middle men and minimal administrative costs. The expenditures made by sponsor families to pack their monthly shipment represent 100% flow-through between donor and recipient.
F-to-F augments Federal and local food aid. Often, families relying on food stamps and food banks encounter bare pantries by the end of the third week of each month. F-to-F packages cover the last week of each month, the time when children are most hungry.
They work with the 13 poorest communities in the United States. I encourage you to check out their site at www.family-to-family.org and see for yourself.