When Bad Things Happen...

We live in a world where we only seem to hear the bad news.  And here in Alberta over the last while the flooding has seemed to generate a whole lot of that kind of news.

But in the middle of the struggles and heartbreak that so many are experiencing, there is also much good news.

Here is a note I recieved the other day that shows that in the middle of a whole lot of bad, good still shines.

"It’s 8:16 on Tuesday night and I just have to write to you to tell you what an amazing day we have had.  I volunteered at the church offices today until about 2:30.  Then called a friend to see if she needed any help – she lives in Bowness and was evacuated – her basement was filled with sludge up to about my chest level.  She sounded pretty frantic – so I called another friend to see if he wanted to help and off we raced to rescue my friend.  We bought a ton of mops and some bleach and some water.  What we were to see was most amazing.  Each yard is absolutely filled with debris from its house – to drive down the street is amazing – I don’t even think that I’ve ever seen this kind of wreckage in a movie!!!!!  Police everywhere; firetrucks everywhere; cops directing traffic; no places to park.  So we went down the back alley and it was even worse there – three or four beds just thrown in the garbage – I don’t know how the land fill sites will deal with this all.  Drywall, furniture – piles of it.  Wow!!!!!

When we got into my friend’s – absolutely incredible.  Strangers just walking down the street looking for who they can help – everywhere!!!!  So heartwarming.  Two guys came in and spent a good part of the afternoon sucking all the sludge out of the basement – you can only imagine how much there was – and these were complete strangers.  My friend and another young couple (again strangers who just had knocked on the door to see if they could help) spent the rest of the afternoon mopping and bleaching that basement.  They found more boxes which had not been brought up yet – just soaking of course.  They worked so hard. 

There were 4 other ladies there and we spent the afternoon wrapping and packing and sorting – my friend is a bit of a collector!!!!!!  No hot water – had to wash everything in cold water and soap.  No power.  As the afternoon wore on two more whole families came looking for work – the kids were outside washing big things down with a hose; people putting up a tent to see if it was worth salvaging.  Boxes and boxes of stuff all had to be washed down with the hose before the kitchen staff could take over.  The kids had a blast.  The community centre had sent buckets of cleaning supplies and boxes of sandwiches, fruit, loaves, etc.  These two new families who joined us – two of the ladies took off to get fresh coffee for everyone – on their own dime.  No one knew each other’s names – but we all laughed and sweated and just couldn’t believe all that was going on.  One of these families took on the photo albums – going through each page to see what pics could be saved if any – they ended up taking a tons of pictures home to dry out – because my friend has no room for them or even a place to spread them out to dry – they are going to lay them out, let them dry and put them back into new books!!!!!!!  Can you believe that!!!!  Then a truck came by – just two young women – with homemade spaghetti and meatballs, sushi, oranges, homemade bread and some stew.  All free.  By this time we were so hungry – I don’t know when I’ve ever tasted a better meal. 

Neighbours were popping by to share what was going on in their homes.  Electrical guys (volunteers) came by to check the breaker boxes.  During this afternoon, 5 of the people who showed up at one time or another were friends but there were 16 people who came by who were strangers – just wanting to help.  What an absolutely mind-blowing afternoon. 

We often hear about the bad guys – we probably won’t hear much about what happened today but it was extraordinary.

When we left, the basement was totally cleaned out and the fans were going – one of our pastors ran around to various homes to gather up fans.  There were actually a few chairs that had been cleaned off for people in the living room and kitchen.  We could see the kitchen counters.  She won’t be able to move back in yet for several days and of course the house still looked like a disaster but so much better than it had earlier – gave her some hope.

It’s an incredible story.  I wish that I had better words to describe it.  Most people are absolutely so kind."

Incredably, this is a story that can be told over and over these days.  I am so glad Sue shared it wiht me, and allowed me to share it with you. 

Be Blessed!

Reflections on Ends

Reflections on Ends

Growing up in a Pastor’s home, then being in Pastoral Ministry for some 30 years, I have seen and been a part of many funerals.  Many of them were acquaintances, some were close friends, some were strangers, some long time coworkers and teammates.

Some of those funerals were for people who I had no idea if their future held a hope for heaven.  Some were for people who had great hope for a life beyond life due to their faith and personal relationship to God through Jesus Christ.

I have been at funerals for my grandparents, but this December was a first for a close family member.  Dad was ready to go.  He had asked that we pray that he go ‘home’ for the last couple of years.  Yet his death on December second had a profound impact on me in two very different ways. 

The first impact was the calmness by which Dad faced his own death.  He was not afraid, he was not stressed out, even in his moment of death, there was a kind of relaxed peace about him.  I have talked many times in sermons and in funeral devotions about the peace we can have as we face the reality of death when we know what lies beyond death.  It was an amazing display of this reality to watch as he faced this last step of life with the same kind of calm assurance he might have facing any of life’s steps. (Actually he was WAY more uptight doing my wedding ceremony then he was facing his own death!)

The second impact was my own calmness about this whole process of death, and funerals and the like that came out of my own hope.  It was just so clear to me that our shared hope in God was such a comfort, such a deep kind of peace, that even the tragedy of death could not shake that.  For that hope made the tragedy mine, or more precisely ours who were left behind rather than my fathers.  He was beyond suffering, beyond pain, beyond the heartbreak and sorrows of life.  Our grief then, needed to be recognized as being for us and us alone.  It was not necessary or even logical to grieve for him, for he has moved on to something better.  We only needed to deal with how we were going to now face the reality of a new chapter in our own lives as a result of his being gone.

The key was that shared hope we had life here is but a stepping stone to life in the presence of God.

A few days after the memorial service was the widely purported ‘end of the world’ on December 22^nd.   I found myself thinking, “Bring it On!”  What have we to fear?  How might not the hope we have be as real in that situation as in the facing of a death a few days before?

Now we face the passing of a year and the beginning of a new year.  For me, it is a new year filled with hope, for as the song says, “For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able, to keep that which I’ve committed unto Him against that day.”

With that thought, I can respond with enthusiasm to the often repeated request “Have a great New year!”  And I will wish that on each of you as well.

Where Do Leaders Come From?

Where Do Leaders Come From?

Last week I had the privilege of sitting in on a “Leadership Think Tank” where a group of our district’s leaders were gathering to talk about and think about developing quality leaders for the future of the church.

As I sat in on the discussions, I found myself thinking about how we in the church recruit leaders.

When I was growing up, we had yearly revival meetings in our church.  For at least two weeks, everyone would gather each evening to hear a guest speaker.  (This was obviously before we had 68 TV channels and our kids were signed up for 8 different teams and life was so crazy that no one had time to attend an evening meeting!  But I digress…)  One of the key things that happened in those meetings each year, or so it seemed to me, was that at some point the speaker would ask a question to the effect of “Is God calling you to be a leader in His Kingdom?”

Why I remember that is that it was in one of those meetings that I said “Yes” to that question and that response has been a deciding factor in my life ever since.

Another thing I remember was Sunday School. (I know, I am REALLY dating myself here!!)   

Regularly, or maybe it would be more accurate to say yearly, the question of God’s call on the life of the student for leadership would come up as part of the lesson.

Thirdly, I remember youth rallies and youth retreats where it seemed that on a fairly regular basis the call of God and the challenge of being open to God’s call to be a leader in the church came up – often with a specific altar call to dedicate oneself to being open to God’s call to be a leader in His work.

These events shaped my life.

Today we don’t have revival meetings, Sunday School is old school and has all but disappeared from the life of the church, and I admit to not having been at a youth rally for a while to know if the call to be open to hearing God’s call to His service is even mentioned.

So, where do we expect leaders to come from? 

I sometimes hear people decry the religious educational institutions of our time for producing less Church Leaders.  But that is a false charge, because they only can graduate the people we send to them.  And if we don’t send young people who are to identified by local churches and pastors as called to ministry, who can they graduate and how can they graduate church leaders?  It is a very hypocritical charge on our part I believe.

I challenge Youth Pastors often to look for the kids in their youth groups that they feel God’s hand might be on for leadership.  But I am often amazed at many times how few they can name that they feel God might be calling.  I have not in many years heard a Pastor on a Sunday make the call for people who might be hearing God’s voice calling them to leadership to take that step of faith.  And as we met in the Leadership Think Tank, it became clear that while there is a place for us at a district level to have a strategy for walking with and developing our future leaders, the real leadership recruitment issues must be owned by the leaders of spiritual communities, pastors, youth leaders and teachers.  Ultimately they are the front line recruiters that will have he most impact of the development of future leaders.

What would change about the way we as today’s Church leaders talk to and deal with people day by day if a part of our prayers included the ask that God would open our eyes to future leaders that He already has His hand on?  And what if our prayers included a commitment to be open to helping give that needed nudge, an encouraging word, or even our commitment to mentor and help them grow in the faith?

I believe with all my heart that God desperately wants to answer that prayer in and through each of us.

That’s where our very best future leaders would come from, is my guess.

I Am – or am I?

Part of my Bible reading commitment for 2012 is reading through the bible at least twice.  I decided to do that by following two different daily reading-through-the-bible plans.  One is an Old Testament, New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs daily reading plan and the other is a Chronological daily plan that will go through the bible in a year.

Within a few days of each other both plans came to the Exodus passage where God confronts Moses and tells him that when people ask who sent him, he is to tell them “I am who I am” (or I am that I am in another translation).

That made me do some thinking about the idea that it is God who is “I am.”

So, what exactly am I saying when I claim something like “I am not going to do that!” or “I am not going to go there!”?  I heard a friend not long ago state, “I am a lifetime youth pastor, and will never be anything but that.”  Now, that may be true, but it got me to wondering if I have the right to say that kind of thing.  If I am a servant of God, am I not putting myself in the place of God making a statement like that?  Could it be that the “I am” is my saying that I want to be the Lord of my life, that I might not be open to what God has in store for me?  Might that in fact be a kind of idolatry on my part?

It is one thing to say “I am a child of God” and quite another thing to say “I am never going to accept a call to pastor a church in Hawaii!” (Not that I would ever say that exactly – but substitute “downtown Toronto” or “Fort McMurray” or “out in the middle of nowhere Saskatchewan” or some not-so-friendly foreign nation, and you might be closer to the truth.)  When I make that kind of statement, then I am saying in effect that I am choosing to be the God over my life and my life’s direction.  And that would be plain and clear idolatry – putting anyone or anything in God rightful place.

My task, I realize, is to let the real “I AM” be my “I am.”

Finding the Meaning of the Manger

A friend of mine, Sam Collins, writes a little column once in a while in a publication called "Communion Together" that he calls “Afterthoughts.”  I love the way Sam thinks – in large part because he is a bit off the wall most of the time!
He wrote this the other day…
“God could have come to earth with the aura of a superhero.  The powers of the baby in swaddling clothes could have surpassed those of the guy in the cape from Krypton.  At the age of three, Jesus could have amazed his parents by using one hand to lift a donkey and cart into midair.  During his ministry, he could have utilized X-ray vision to grill loaves and fishes for the five thousand.  The impenetrable palms of his hands could have bent the cross spikes as though they were made of warm Twizzlers.
But God refused to shield his body or his heart.  He chose to incarnate himself in fragile human flesh.  He opted to open himself to the full experience of the searing heat of hostility, the ache of rejection, and the sting of death.  He dared to show us what it really costs to be made in his image.  It requires a vulnerability we spend most of our lives trying to run away from; it required a vulnerability that God beckons us to the manger to behold and embrace.”
As I read Sam’s words, I was caught up in the thought of the impact of Jesus being born in a Manger.  I have heard and even preached that the manger is a symbol of God’s willingness to reach out to all people of all stations of life – that even the first people to hear the good news, the shepherds and the wise men – show us that Jesus came to reach out to all people.
But this issue of Jesus modeling for us, for me, this idea of the power of vulnerability kind of rocks my world.  I do seem to spend a lot of effort and time trying not to be left vulnerable.  Trying to appear strong and able and self-assured.  The problem is that for most of Christ’s ministry on earth, he chose to allow those who came close to him to see his vulnerability – be it weeping over the tomb of a friend or a lost city, or being scourged and hung on a cross, or coming to earth as a helpless and vulnerable baby.
That really is the real meaning of Christmas I suspect.  Thanks Sam for messing up my thinking!

Vacations

I admit it, I am not very good at Vacations.  Neither is Anna-Dawn. So much of our lives are governed by the urgent, the list of things that have to, and need to, be done.  We both make lists (mine tend to be more mental, hers are always written down neatly and in order of highest importance).  So now we are on vacation.  This is a two week vacation, and when you suddenly have two weeks of no particular thing to do, it gets a bit daunting. 

Ok, I brought some (well, actually lots) of books to read – truthfully, enough for almost one book a day!  But having a to do list of “read next book” isn’t exactly the outline of a memorable vacation.

Ahhhh, there is the rub.  What exactly is a memorable vacation?  Is it being able to check off the list of the 37 things that we need to do in the 14 days we visit Maui and, if we don’t, are we losers?  Is it being able to say to the people at home, “Oh yes, I did that!”?

Part of the problem for me is that so much of what I credit as life’s value is derived from what I do.  When someone asks me to describe myself, I seldom get far away from describing what I do.  (I am, of course absolutely unique in this area and no one who might happen to read this would have any clue what I am talking about, I am sure!)

The point of Sabbath, and the point of a vacation, I suspect, is that this is a time to recognize that who I am is not really a product of what I do as much as who I am in relationship to others.  This vacation in particular, as it is only Anna-Dawn and me on it, and as we are on it because we are celebrating our 35^th wedding anniversary, the relationship that I am valuing is the relationship with my wife and my God.

I am learning – not very quickly and not without some bumps – that who I am is best described by who I am in relationship to and who I mean something to.  First to God and then, for these two weeks, my wonderful wife.

Who knows, I might even get used to this ‘no to-do list’ kind of life. 

Then again, maybe not. 

(Written looking out over the waves breaking on the beach in Maui)

Dare to be...

Growing up I used to sing a Sunday School chorus that went something like "Dare to be a Daniel, dare to stand alone..."  To me the story of Daniel was about his willingness to take a stand even if that stand meant a trip to the lion's den.

But I have been reading Daniel again as of late.  And I am seeing a bit different side of this young man. 

I am seeing a man who had all his dreams and hopes dashed by a conquering army.  He had all the plans for his life, all the dreams for his future, the normal kinds of hopes and expectations that we all have, shattered, taken out of his control, crushed.  He would never see his home again.  He would never speak his own language in public again.  He would never worship in a familiar language or style.  He would spend his life in the service of a foreign king.

As I read Chapter one of Daniel, I was impressed by the reality that those verses contain a world of hurt and disappointment for Daniel and his friends.  Yet, in the middle of all that hurt, they decide to take a stand and decide to be faithful to a God who, by all rights, seems to have let them down, abandoned them, and deserted them in a faraway place.

The interesting reality of Daniel is that as much as he must have felt all of that, he made a very tough decision to believe in God in spite of how it looked and felt for him personally.  At some point it seems, God sends us all to Babylon.  We will all end up as some point wondering if God is still in control, if God is still listening, if God even cares.

I must commit in my heart to be a Daniel - to believe and act with the faith that God is still in control, still alive and well, and He really does care about me and my life.

That, I am coming to believe, is what it means to “Dare to be a Daniel!”

I am at the leadership Summit this week in Grande Prairie.  How is it that every year I find myself saying "Wow!" over and over at the Summit.  The decidedly Canadian content is an excellent addition to the overall impact of the summit for us Canadans.

Wise, foolish and evil people...  That was a powerful talk.  One every pastor ought to both hear and put into practice.

The District office usually purchases the summit sessions on DVD.  I can only hope and pray that leadership teams would take advantage of this and impact their leadership teams!

The world as we know it - 9/11

I was together with a group of fellow pastors, discussing how we might find ways to impact our world, when my office manager ran into the room and said something like, "You really need to turn on the TV!"  I took the group into the sanctuary and switched on the large screen and tuned the projector to the cable TV.  Every channel was broadcasting the picture of a tower in New York city that an airplane had crashed into.  A few moments later a second plane hit the second tower.

That day in September shook the nation, and it shook the church.  Our sense of being far away from the terror in the world was suddenly shattered.  Every airplane was suddenly a potential terrorist tool.

The next few days were spent in trying to comfort people, trying to find out of friends and loved ones on New Your and the Pentigon were OK, and for me, struggling to decide how I would address my congregation on Sunday.

That event has, in many ways changes how we look at our world.

As we come to the 10th anniversary of that day, it is important that we ask ourselves the tough questions.  Where was God on thta day?  Did what happened in any conflict with out worldview?  Did we take advantage of the opportunity that this event brought to show the communities we lived in and the world we claimed to love what it means to "pray for those who hurt you" or to "love our enemies"?

Hopefully, yes.  In many ways, probably the answer must be "no."

However it is not too late.  It is never too late to show God's love, to offer forgiveness, to understand that God is great and loving and kind and present, even when life is terrible and unfair and outright bad.

We have had 10 years to practice this, now is probably a good time to put that practice into reality.

What would Jesus do?

One of the realities of a job such as mine--working with dozens of churches that are spread over a wide area--is that I get a lot of “windshield time.” Hours and lots of kilometres between meetings and connections are a usual part of my life.

For quite a while, I tended to see those travel times as wasted hours. They were simply wasted time between important connections. The problem with that perspective is that if this is wasted time, then it is a time to be minimized. And time to be minimized can only be so minimized by seeking to make it shorter. Making it shorter can really only be accomplished through an increase in the average speed one drives.

There is, as one can imagine, a steep cost to that effort, and it became quite clear after a couple of expensive tickets that I needed to rethink this process. So I began thinking about what I could do to change my circumstances. I could, I suppose, not travel as much. But that would seem counter to my ability to do the job I have been hired to do.

What it came down to was that I needed to redeem the travel time. To do so, I made a couple of changes.

First, I decided that travel time was a great opportunity to talk to the people I serve. So a good blue-tooth headset became a permanent part of my travel kit. And as I get ready to drive, I find a piece of paper and prayerfully ask God who it is that I might need to talk to on that section of the trip. Sometimes the list is very short, and sometimes it is amazingly long. But in almost every case there is a spiritual quality to those conversations.

Of course you can’t always talk to people, and there are times that calls are not effective or needed. So I took a second step. I found a web site called Christian Audio. Here one can purchase audio editions of almost all of the spiritual books for sale. Additionally, every month there is a free classic audio book offered. With the addition of an audio version of the Bible, and periodic trips to the local library to pick up an audio book, I now find the trips interesting and informative. With the addition of some favourite worship music, travel has become a time of worship, growth and inspiration.

A couple of months ago I downloaded the classic book, “In His Steps” by Charles M. Sheldon. I have the book in my library and had read it some twenty plus years ago, but decided that it might be worth listening to again.

It has been a great experience. It has challenged me to think again about how my life and every part of it should be focused on being Christ and His hands and feet to the work we live in and connect to. Asking the question “What do I think that Jesus would do if he were in my situation?” with the commitment to do just that, is really how we all define holiness. As I listened to the book (it is more than eight and a half hours long) I found myself looking at my life, my actions, my priorities, and my values and asking myself “Do these things … my actions, priorities, and values … reflect the heart and mind of Jesus?”

Sadly, it shouldn’t have to be a book that calls those questions to mind. It should be our deep-seated, life-enveloping commitment to and love for God that calls us to think those kinds of thoughts and commit ourselves to a lifestyle living in the reflection, power, and presence of Christ through His Holy Spirit. That is, after all, what Jesus would do!