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!

Communicating the Good News

In Romans 10:14-15 we read…

[14] How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? [15] And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” (NIV)

Central to the way we have thought about communicating the good news of Jesus has been through us telling and people hearing. It is the way we think about sharing the message of the gospel, and it is central to the way we think and do discipleship.

I asked a pastor not long ago about how he and his congregation were consciously doing discipleship. He looked at me a long time and then said, as if this was the most stupid question he had ever been asked, “People come to church, get involved in worship and praise, then are fed through the sermon and challenged to grow in their spiritual walk.” He paused for a moment and then added, “What more do you need?”

Actually that is a good question. What more do you need? At the same time we ask that question in the context of the church, it might be interesting to ask a business leader or someone running for public office the same question. Would a business that wants to grow and impact people, or would a public figure that wanted people to know their ideas and agenda so that they could get elected, feel that calling a meeting, providing some good music to get people happy and then stating their position or their product, feel that they had done enough?

You don’t even have to think about the answer to that. We are bombarded by thousands of advertisements every day. We are told the value and benefit of every conceivable product over and over. And that is just the start of it.

I left the house last week and forgot my cell phone. Because I travel a lot, my cell phone is where I get e-mail, google maps to find out where I am going and where I am at, my web browser, how I keep track of my appointments, where I get text messages and tweets and – by the way – it is my phone for talking to people. I felt lost! My family were trying to get in touch with me and couldn’t. We were supposed to meet some people for supper and couldn’t make arrangements as to where to meet. Several people were trying to get in touch with me and left several messages which I never returned. It was a painful (if wonderfully quiet) day. But when I finally did get my phone I had to deal with a whole pile of communication that I had missed all day long.

E-mails, web pages, newspapers, yellow-pages, blogs, skype, facebook, ning, youtube, godtube, vimeo, twitter, texts, TV, videos, movies, electronic meetings, webinars, electronic newsletters and more. We live in a day and age where simply calling a meeting and telling people the truth is but one small, and at times seemingly inefficient, way that we can communicate.

So where does communication in the context of the church fit in? How are we to communicate the good news of Jesus Christ and fulfill the great commission to be about the task of making disciples?

In 1 Corintianse 9, Paul tells us…

[22]… I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. [23] I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.

If we are going to accept that Paul’s statement about himself is to be a model for us, we are probably going to have to realize that there is going to have to be more than one way to communicate the good news of Jesus Christ to our church people and to the world. Pastors often spend hours preparing a sermon and often a lot of good thoughts simply don’t fit into a sermon. A blog is a wonderful way to allow people to see beyond the sermon to a pastor’s heart and thoughts. Prayer requests may get read much more quickly as texts to people cell phones or as a post to a facebook page then by putting it in the Sunday bulletin. Connecting your people through a gotomeeting kind of meeting where they can connect together without having to make the 30 minute drive in heavy traffic might change how willing people are to participate in a board or committee. A video announcement on youtube might get lots of people and many outside your congregation to listen to it and remember it. (Not to mention that they can play it over and over to be sure to get the details right – “Was it 7 or 7:30 we were to meet?”) And the list goes on and on.

Can each church or every pastor do it all? No, of course not. But we can take small steps in the right direction. Feel free to get help. Ask a 14 year old for advice – they will know how to get you connected! Do one thing at a time and grow into what is comfortable for you.

Oh yes, there is one more thing. There is probably no better way to communicate the good news of Jesus Christ than sitting across from someone over a cup of coffee and just sharing your testimony with them. The new can be good, and we should find productive ways to us it, but it is not always better!

Ken

First Love

One of the wonderful privileges I have is to be a part of accreditation and ordination interviews. Now, I know that these are not wonderful events for the person being interviewed, but for us on the interviewing panel, it is a great experience. I come away from each interview with the feeling that the people God has called into leadership for the future hold a great deal of promise. I end every day of interviews feeling that if I get hit by an ice cream truck (or whatever) tomorrow, the future of the church is in good hands.

Not long ago, we interviewed a wonderful candidate, who as part of the interview talked about loosing a spouse. The question was asked by a member of the panel, "So how did you deal with the loss? Where was God in your prayers for healing not being answered?"

The answer rocked me! Their reply was: "I simply remembered that it was not my first love that was gone, but my second love. My first love, Jesus, was still here, still strong, still present and still loving me."

I found myself praying right then and there that I would ever remember the source of my own first love. It is amazing how I need to ever be learning!

Leading on Empty

Picked up a new book at the Rockpointe Church library on Sunday. It’s called “Leading on Empty – Refilling Your Tank and Refuelling Your Passion” by Wayne Cordeiro. He talks about being in the middle of a growing and thriving ministry and one day in the middle of an afternoon jog finds himself sitting on a curb weeping uncontrollably. It was the beginning of a three year journey of seeking to be healthy and being able once again to be an effective leader.

He talks about how he should have seen the signs, but choose to ignore them. He was easily irritated by people, avoided situations that might bring tension, didn’t return e-mails or phone calls, and didn’t seem to have any energy to dream big or to see a vision of the future. He had slipped into survival mode, except that he found he couldn’t survive long like that.

The result – depression. In addressing his depression and his need to get away from the rat-race he had allowed himself to fall into, he found that he suddenly craved isolation. “Solitude is a chosen separation for refining your soul. Isolation is what you crave when you neglect the first.” (page 71) He explains that depression changes the way we look at life – the perspective we bring to life’s situations. “Depression isn’t necessarily a sin,” Cordeiro explains, “but we can indeed fall into sin by an inaccurate or distorted perception of God, others, or our circumstances.” (Page 105) He then defines depression as “a perceived inability to reconstruct your future.” (Page 107)

I like the advice he gives for living the intentional life that doesn’t need to lead on empty. It starts with daily limiting the amount of ministry time that takes us away from family, reserving energy for family and self. And set time aside daily for prayer, exercise, planning, reading and devotions. Weekly be sure to take a Sabbath day, and plan it to be filled with activities that fill your tank. Seasonally, take personal retreat days and holidays. Find ways and times to celebrate. Finally, after seven or so years of consistent ministry, find a way to take a three month sabbatical to renew your hunger.

I love how Cordeiro explains the logic for a three month sabbatical every seven years. After explaining that most pastors only get one day a week off, he says, “Most pastors put in an eight – to ten – hour day on Sundays. In the marketplace, most employees in the secular world get about six long weekends a year due to national and state holidays. This means that they are off work from late Friday afternoon until Tuesday morning – six times a year. Now let’s apply some basic math. If you multiply these three days off times six weekends, then multiply that number by seven years; it equals 126 days or the equivalent of a three – to four – month sabbatical. In this sense, pastors don’t really get any more time off than the average person when they take a sabbatical every seven years.” (Page 190-191)

Where was this guy when I was in Pastoral ministry?!

This book is a good read for any of us in ministry. If we can be proactive in the care of our soul and our ministry, we can be so much better able to be effective leaders in the place that God has called and placed us.