Archive - March, 2007

What Message Are We Sending?

March 30, 2007 in Encouragement, Ministry, Relationships, Spiritual Life with 16 Comments

southern_ocean_storm_000.jpgThis life is often difficult.

 
Maybe that is why I have always identified with the people in the church and community who at times just find life to be tough.  I get a little suspicious of people who seem to have everything all figured out.  You know these people.  Their marriages are just right.  Their kids are just right.  Their work?  Why it is the perfect job!  School?  They are loving all of their classes. 

Meanwhile, I think life is often difficult.  Marriage is sometimes very difficult.  My wife and I have a good marriage.  But — at times our marriage has been difficult.  Rearing children is sometimes very challenging.  I love my children, but at times it has been extraordinarily difficult to be a parent.  I am a minister.  I love being a minister and the work I have been called to do.  Yet, it can be very difficult.

 
What makes it difficult to live in reality?  Here are a few obstacles:

 
1.  Being with people who pretend that it is very spiritual to talk as if everything, all of the time, is just absolutely wonderful.  These people can create environments where those who struggle begin to think they must not be very spiritual because their lives are not like that.  There are people who suffer and live with excruciating pain.  I think of the woman in our church whose pain was so intense during our worship service recently that she went to her car and laid down in the back seat.

 
2.  Being with people who see themselves as some of the very, very few who "get it."  They have a way of being very condescending to those who they perceive as not really getting it.  These people can spend much time and energy evaluating and critiquing others in the body of Christ.  What happens as a result?  People in the churches learn not to say anything about their real thoughts, their real feelings, and their real doubts.  After all, who wants to be critiqued, evaluated, and talked to with that condescending tone?

 
3.  Being with people who are so busy with their own lives, their meetings, their schedules, and their concerns that they aren’t fully present with other people.  (Been there.  Been guilty of this one!)

 
I don’t want to be any of these people.  I want to be a person who can be a friend to someone who finds life difficult.  However, such a friendship and presence needs to come out of my own life with God.

 
I like what Randy Harris says in a chapter entitled "Spirituality for the Busy, Frantic, and Overwhelmed."

Glenn Hinson argues that what the church needs most are saints — people who have truly placed their lives under God’s will and control.  We don’t just need leaders with greater skill, we need leaders who are deep people.  Do you hear the call to lead out of your own deep spiritual life?

 
If we learn to pray the way Jesus prayed, read the Bible in a transforming way, practice God’s presence in the everyday routine of life, and catch the vision of the God who works in all things, we can be the deep leaders the church needs.  And in the process we will discover that true spirituality is not one more activity to add to overburdened lives but a way of living that drives our drivenness away.  Then we discover the blessedness to lead without guilt and that the promise of Jesus rings true — the yoke is easy and the burden is light.

 
(Harris in Like a Shepherd Lead Us, p. 31)

Why is it that some of us go to great lengths to convince one another that our lives are almost perfect, without struggle?  What is our fear?  What impact do we have on those who are really struggling with life when we communicate that our lives are very near perfect and without struggle?

What Do We Really Crave?

March 29, 2007 in Church, Ministry, Spiritual Disciplines, Spiritual Life with 8 Comments

coffee5_1.jpgMy friend drove to Waco the other day from a city located several hours from here.  He has been living and working in this city for a number of years.  Now he is about to move.  He will be living in a new city, a new state, and will be working in a new role in ministry.  For several hours, we discussed some of the practical aspects of that role.

 
He asked me some wonderful questions.  I tried to be very honest.  At one point, he asked me a question to which I gave this answer:  "I haven’t done that very well.  I wish I had done better."  

 
There was a time when I probably would not have been that candid.  I probably would have minimized any weakness.  Yet, the other day, I didn’t feel threatened by my answer.  Maybe it is because I am at a point in life where I am less concerned with how I might appear or be perceived than whether or not I am being an authentic person in Christ.

 
I am also learning to embrace my humanness.  Staring face to face at my weakness, incompleteness, inadequacy, and mistakes is a reminder that only in Christ am I complete.  Hopefully, that signals a shift toward wrestling with internal issues instead of being focused on external appearances.

 
Jim Herrington, R. Robert Creech, and Trish Taylor write in their excellent book, The Leader’s Journey, the following:

None of us took on the sacrificial demands of leadership expecting to be buried in endless meetings and administrative details.  We wanted meaningful ministry, supported by a rich and purposeful life, full of significance.  Instead, we sometimes find ourselves busier than ever but going through the motions, with an emptiness clinging to our best efforts….  We may not be aware that what we crave is a supernatural transformation.

 
In his book Soulshaping, Douglas Rumford captures the essence of our dilemma: "Our search for something more out of life usually begins with externals….  We’ve confused activity with effectiveness, holding certain positions or titles with personal prestige, accumulating money with security, and sexual encounter with genuine intimacy.  We’ve been so caught up in these pursuits that we haven’t really considered what goals we were chasing — and what will happen when we actually catch them!"

 
(Jim Herrington, R. Robert Creech, and Trisha Taylor, The Leader’s Journey, p. 130)

Busy, Frantic, and Overwhelmed?

March 28, 2007 in Family/Marriage, Leadership, Ministry, Spiritual Life, Stress with 20 Comments

busy.jpgI learned something early on in my ministry.  Unfortunately, it was not good.  I learned that many people primarily see ministry as doing things for God.  Now of course that is overly simplified.  Yet, that was my perception at the time.  It seemed like we especially admired people who looked exhausted. Of course, ministry can be very difficult and exhausting at times.  Paul even spoke once of warning a group of people "…night and day with tears."  Yet ministry and life in Christ are really to be much more than a life of exhaustion.

 
A few years ago, I was in conversation with a minister who traveled with his wife throughout the country speaking in many churches.  I asked him what he was seeing in these churches.  "How are you reading these churches?"  His reply was interesting.  "What I am seeing are churches full of very tired people.  In fact, many of them just look exhausted."  Many of us understand what he was saying.  Don’t we?  Maybe you are a young mother with several children.  You may be a father who is just trying to deal with all the demands of your job and stay connected to your children as well.  You may be a university student with papers to write, books to read, and another test at the end of this week.

 
Yet, being a spiritual person is not about being "spiritual" on top of everything else I must do this week.  "Let me see, I have to go to Target, do the laundry, clean out the flower bed, and call my mother so that she knows we are coming this weekend.  Oh yea, I need to also be spiritual sometime today."  Rather than one more item on the ever-growing list, maybe my relationship with God is something more than this.

 
I appreciate Randy Harris’ words in a fine little book, Like a Shepherd Lead Us:

This is the place to begin any discussion of spirituality for church leaders — a group of people who surely fit the description of being busy, frantic and overwhelmed.  Let me say it as clearly as I can: Spirituality cannot be one more task piled on top of people already overburdened with the care of God’s flock.  Enough is enough!  We are not the Messiah.  That job, thankfully, has been taken and done extraordinarily well!  You and I must quit acting as if the whole of eternity depends on us doing one more job.

 
The call of the spiritual life is not to more frantic activity.  The spiritual life is rather the call to peace.  So, as we come to walk more closely with God, the chaos should recede from our lives.  We cease to be under the tyranny of frantic business.

 
When I visited the Church of the Savior in Washington, D.C., the leaders repeated a phrase that has haunted me ever since.  "If you are overextended, you are under-committed."  They take commitment so seriously that they believe one can’t be committed to thirty different things.  So if you are overextended, it’s virtually guaranteed that you’re under-committed.  I think that is the description of most Christian leaders I know, and it is certainly a description of me.  Deeper spirituality is not a matter of doing more stuff.

 
(Randy Harris, "Spirituality for the Busy, Frantic, and Overwhelmed" in Like a Shepherd Lead Us, edited by David Fleer and Charles Siburt)

Have You Ever Been Stuck?

March 27, 2007 in God, Spiritual Life with 10 Comments

Cup_of_Coffee.GIFI’ve been thinking lately about being "stuck."  Being stuck is to feel trapped or unable to move.  Doesn’t sound fun does it?  Yet, I think many of us know what it means to be stuck. 
 

  • We can become stuck in the way we relate to one another in marriage.  We continue to behave in the same manner toward one another and get the same results.
  • We can become stuck in the way we relate to our children or parents.  What we are doing seems to create such a negative atmosphere in our home.
  • We can become stuck in the way we handle ourselves at work.  We continue to approach our work in the same old tired way.  Our jobs may feel boring and without purpose.

 
One of the greatest obstacles that many of us face is to become stuck in our thinking.  In our minds, we have very few options.  It is either black/white.  It is either/or.  Maybe that is true at times, but some people seem to reduce all of life to this.  As a result, they continually lean toward whatever is low risk and fairly predictable.

 
Being stuck feels hopeless and lifeless.  Feeling stuck has a way of sucking the energy out of you.  "Oh well," you sigh in resignation.

 
This is familiar territory for me.  On more than one occasion, I have experienced defeat — not on the battlefield but in my mind.  I felt as if I had few, if any, options and was basically trapped in my circumstances as they existed.  This kind of thinking made me feel tired and unmotivated.  "What’s the use?"  I was bogged down and stuck.  However, it was not the impossible circumstances of my life that created those feelings.  Rather, it was my failure to trust in the God who redefines the meaning of "possible." 
There is another way to live.  I love the words Jesus uttered in Mark 10 after challenging a "stuck" person to sell all he had and give to the poor.  This person was stuck or attached to his possessions.  The disciples were amazed at Jesus’ words, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!" (10:23).  The more he talked, the more amazed they were.  Finally, they began to say to one another, "Who then can be saved?"  Then, Jesus said these amazing words:

 
…With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.  (Mark 10:27)

God can even deliver a person who is stuck in the bondage of his possessions!  God can change the most impossible person.  God can set free a person who has been in bondage to a destructive habit, addiction, or lifestyle.  God can set free our thinking.  Instead of focusing on what is possible for a human being to do, I can begin to focus on God.  Jesus reminds us that our God is not limited by what is possible for a human being to accomplish.

 
Perhaps my focus needs to be not on myself, my limitations, and my inadequacies.  Perhaps my focus needs to be on God and his unlimited power and his adequacy.

 
This is something I’ve been thinking about recently.  Can you recall a time when your thinking became stuck?  What in particular was or has been helpful to you in getting unstuck?

Tip of the Week

March 26, 2007 in Spiritual Life with 22 Comments

Maintenance.jpgChoose to Be a Low-Maintenance Person

 
Some people are high-maintenance.  They demand much.  They have a way of demanding and requiring much of other people.  High-maintenance people may demand much attention, much emotional energy, and a high level of financial resources.  They can be particular, insisting that things go a certain way or they just aren’t pleased.  Very often, in a family of five, much energy can be spent toward trying to satisfy the particular wants of one individual.  (Note: I do realize that for reasons beyond one’s control, a person can be high-maintenance.  One can be physically impaired and may need much attention and energy from other people. In this post, however, I am speaking of an attitude.)

 
I want to be a low-maintenance person.  Low-maintenance people are not demanding or insistent.  They choose to be happy and content in the situation even though it may not be ideal.  For instance, suppose you go to lunch with a friend and she suggests meeting at a certain restaurant.  You sense she really wants to go to that particular restaurant.  It is not exactly your favorite place or the place you would have chosen.  But that is okay.  You don’t make a big deal out of it.  You make the most of it because you realize that there is a larger purpose for getting together than just eating lunch.

 
As a low-maintenance person, you don’t have to always turn the attention in a conversation toward yourself.  Perhaps you’ve known people who have a way of shifting most any conversation toward themselves.  "That’s nothing!  You should have seen what happened to me."  They seem to be comfortable only when others are focused on them.

 
As a low-maintenance person, you can be someone who is easy to get along with.  Perhaps you know people who very regularly seem to be upset with their friends.   Yes, there are sometimes conflicts in friendships.  I’m not talking about typical conflicts and disagreements that are just a part of human relationships.  Instead, I am referring to people who demand tremendous emotional energy from anyone who is in relationship with them.

 
As a low-maintenance person, I can take the pressure off the relationship.  I’ve known marriages in which one person was so demanding that the other felt under constant pressure to somehow please him/her.  So, this person purchases items that they can not afford because the other person just couldn’t be "happy" with anything less.   

 
Finally, as a low-maintenance person, you have the opportunity to live with gratitude.  You can be thankful for anyone’s expression of kindness, love, or good will.
 

  • Your dad bought tickets to the ball game.  No, you will not be in the best seats.  However, at least you get to go to the game.
  • Your children bought you a gift at the store.  Yes, it is "different."  However, isn’t it wonderful that they would buy you a gift?
  • You and your family sit down at the table to eat dinner.  No, your favorite rolls are not on the table.  But think — someone has spent a great deal of time preparing this food.
  • Your friend just got a promotion at work.  Yes, he talked non-stop about the situation.  However, this is a big deal for him.  Couldn’t you just let this be his moment?

 
Now this might be worth thinking about this week. 

Why I Blog

March 22, 2007 in Spiritual Life with 43 Comments

keyboard.jpegSeveral years ago, I began this blog.  Why?  I’m not sure.  I had just discovered the blog world and decided to join.  I soon realized that there are blogs with every imaginable purpose and focus.  There are Christian oriented blogs with every imaginable purpose and focus.   As I began to post, I realized that I was basically doing this for me.   Whether anyone read these posts or not, writing these posts and articulating these thoughts/feelings was helpful to me.

 
In time I realized that my posts generally fell into one of several broad categories.  First, most of these posts deal with living every day in the presence of God and all that such a life entails.  Most Christ-followers I know are just trying to deal with life.  Being a mom, dad, son or daughter can be such a challenge.  That is not to mention our work, jobs, and/or vocation.  I believe that life is generally a challenge and often very difficult.  Daily, we need to be pointed toward God.

 
Second, some posts deal with ministry.  Sometimes these posts deal with ministry or servant-hood in a very broad sense.  I believe that all Christians are called to some form of ministry as we follow Christ who came "… not to be served but to serve and to lay down his life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:44-45).  Yet, sometimes I talk about ministry in a more specific sense.  After all, like me there are many who are in some form of "full time ministry," living out specific roles with congregations of people.

 
Finally, some of these posts are probably an attempt to grapple with my own thinking/feelings given where I am in life at the moment.  I find this very helpful.  Hopefully, being able to look over someone else’s shoulder and hear this kind of exploration is helpful to you as well.  For too long I went through life totally unaware of what was going on within me.  While I don’t want to be completely focused on my feelings/thoughts, little or no self-awareness can be dangerous.  How many times have you been in a conversation with someone when suddenly they exploded in anger or bitterness.  Later on you wondered, "Where did that come from?"  It is important to me to be aware of the state of my mind/heart/emotions.

 
I continue to be grateful to each one of you who read this blog.  Many of you regularly leave comments.  (If you are new to the blog world, note the word "comments" at the end of this post.  Put your cursor on that word and click.  You can then read the comments that other people have left.  Feel free to leave one of your own at any time.)  More than once I have thought (regarding some of you who have left comments) "I would enjoy having a conversation with this person."  I have learned, grown, and been inspired by many, many comments left on this blog.

 
I plan to continue posting on this blog about four times a week.   In the meantime, I wanted to let you know that I appreciate you coming to this place.

Places I’ve Been

March 21, 2007 in Places I've Been..., Spiritual Life with 2 Comments


Admissions counselors for pre-schoolers?  Hmmm.

 
From Stanford University’s magazine (April/May 2007) an interesting article by a Stanford psychologist, Carol Dweck, on her thirty year study on why some children succeed and others don’t.  Interesting. 

 
Check out Skye Jethani’s post entitled "Where Have All the Prophets Gone?"

 
Now this is weird!!

 
Check out this interview in Leadership Journal’s "Out of Ur" with author Phyllis Tickle. 

 
Remember Jim Jones leader of "Jones-town"?  Read this interesting interview with his son who is now 47 years old. 

When Self-Protection Gets In The Way

March 20, 2007 in Books, Ministry with 11 Comments

coffee3.jpgI first came in contact with David Hansen several years ago when I was at a ministry seminar at Regent College in Vancouver, B. C.  Hansen was a guest lecturer along with two others, Gordon Fee and N. T. Wright.  I had read a book or two by him, so I was delighted to get to hear him speak.  

 
One morning he spoke and afterward the three hundred participants had lunch.  Wright and Fee were scheduled to speak that afternoon.  So after lunch, Hansen made his way into the large meeting room to sit with the seminar attendees.  He happened to sit down next to me.  I enjoyed a pleasant but brief conversation with him before the others began speaking.  I found him to be warm and gracious just as he seemed to be when he was speaking to three hundred people that morning.  

 
I am going to quote from his book The Power of Loving Your Church.  Yes, some of this is directed toward ministers in particular.  But let me encourage you to read this as a normal everyday believer who has been called to love the church.  The following are a few lines from a chapter in which he discusses the importance of loving people in the body of Christ:

Ambivalence masks itself as wisdom, whispering, "Don’t get involved, it only hurts to care.  Don’t make a decision, someone will be disappointed and you’ll have to backtrack…."  (p. 40)

 
…In ambivalence, I cannot decide to leave the church and cannot decide to love the church.  (p. 41)

 
…We can resign ourselves to the fact that our parishioners struggle with ambivalences too, and therefore we should simply accept it.  But this doesn’t work for us.  Everyone else we know can conceivably pursue a vocation without love. 

 
Sure, it’s better if teachers, doctors, and artists love the people they work with.  But they can perform their work without love and they can even do it well.  The bind we face is that we can’t do pastoral ministry without love.  It isn’t a series of tasks we do with love — rather, pastoral ministry is love, which we apply with a series of tasks.  Preaching, teaching, calling, praying, even church administration are nothing but the consistent application of God’s love to the church.  God’s love is the oil that the lampstand burns to produce the light of the world, and we are the bearers of that love. (p. 43) 

 
…When Christ wants us to love a congregation, he establishes his beachhead in the heart of the pastor.  However, the heart of the ambivalent pastor is guarded, militarized territory.  Land mines everywhere.  Barbed, electrified wire abounds.  Searchlights blast the beach.  Jesus of Nazareth, our crucified and risen Lord, walks into the danger and absorbs the angry, brutal defense of our ambivalent heart.  He uses no weapons of warfare, but he has ways of breaking our hearts wide open.  (p. 49)  

I understand the temptation to be ambivalent.  After all, loving people is to set yourself up to be hurt.  Yes, loving people can be joyful, satisfying, rewarding, etc.  Yes, there are people who will love you in return and whose love will bring great encouragement to your life.  There are also people who can and will hurt you.  To love is to put yourself "out there" where your heart will be trampled on by some.

 
I think Hansen is right.  The answer to this is not to put the protective fence of ambivalence around our hearts to guard against hurt.  The answer is going to be found in learning to abide in Christ.  We abide in him by learning to love the believers (John 15:9-14).  We first abide in him and out of that abiding we have a new capacity to love.  I do not have the capacity within me to do this kind of loving.  However, Christ in me gives me a new capacity to love and a new source for loving.  That love coming through me to another will often come out of brokenness because I have dared to stop the subtle practices of self-protection.

 
Is this familiar territory for you?  Do you ever find yourself putting more energy into self-protection than loving people?  In what ways do we practice self-protection?  Why is it that we sometimes seem surprised that love is often painful?

Tip of the Week

March 19, 2007 in Spiritual Life with 4 Comments

coffee4.jpgPay Attention to The Little Things

 
A number of years ago, I was listening to the head of an organization speak to a gathering of people.  At one point he began to talk about his work as the key leader in that organization.  He singled out the work of the custodians and spoke about the importance of their work.   He spoke about the importance of having clean restrooms and a building that is free from litter.  He became very emotional at one point as he said, "When I see the cleanliness of our building, it reminds me that that these people really care.  They care about their work and what we are doing as an organization."  Most organizations like this have someone doing custodial work.  The difference here was their attentiveness to "little things."

 
Sometime later, I saw this same gentleman enter that building early one morning.  As he walked from his car to the building, he noticed some empty coke cans on the grass in front of the main doors (probably thrown from a passerby the night before).  Without a word, he picked up this litter and then entered the building.  As I saw this and then recalled his earlier speech, I thought about his own powerful example.  He too was paying attention to the little things.

 
Yesterday, our family left church and began traveling toward DFW airport (about a two hour trip) where Phillip and Christine (our older daughter) would catch a flight back to their home in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.  As we were leaving Waco, we stopped at a fast food place to pick up something to eat on the way.  We waited in the drive-through line.  Finally, it was our time to order.  After giving the order to the person through the speaker, I immediately said, "Will you change that last sandwich to a medium instead of a small?"  The person responded with, "Well, now I have to re-figure your price.  I will give you your total when you get to the window."  After that transaction, we moved ahead in line and I asked Phillip, "Did she just say what I think she said?"  We left the drive-through amazed at her response.

 
Contrast that experience with what happened two days before as we entered the new Starbucks on Hewitt Drive.  As we approached the store, a smiling woman opened the door and said, "Welcome to Starbucks!  All beverages are free this afternoon."  (The store would actually open the next day.  This was the "pre-opening.")  The other employees in the store, as busy as they were, had the same cheerful attitude.

 
The difference?  Paying attention to the little things.

 
Today, I will probably have conversations with a variety of people.  No doubt, I will do a few things that I think are "important."  Yet, I don’t want to overlook the little things that can mean so much to others.  Maybe a good start might be to remember some of these words as I deal with people today:

 
"Thank you."

"Please."

"I appreciate this."

"I’m sorry."

"It’s my fault."

"It’s my mistake." 

The Friendship of the Lord

March 16, 2007 in God, Spiritual Life with 4 Comments

Yesterday, I had a good conversation on the telephone with a longtime friend.  He called me from an airport where he was waiting on a flight.  I don’t talk with him often.  However, he is a friend who I’ve known for years and so we are able to talk very honestly and candidly about life even though our conversations are not frequent.  

 
On Thursday, another friend called me in the middle of his day just to "check in" and see how things were going.  My friend (who is a very busy person) called me from his office.  He said a few affirming words over the telephone and then read to me a brief but wonderful story.  The conversation probably lasted six or seven minutes but was very encouraging.  He does this kind of thing quite regularly. 

 
Then I think of two other friends.  One lives in Dallas and the other in Alabama.  I call them regularly to check in, and they do the same.  Both are great guys and longtime friends.

 
I’ve been thinking about these friends and this morning came across a wonderful line in Psalm 25:14.  "The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant." (English Standard Version)

 
Now imagine that!  "The friendship of the Lord."  What a wonderful line!  It is even more wonderful to realize that he has an interest in being a friend to me.  Yes, he is sovereign, majestic, holy, and one who cannot be contained.  Yet, he is also near, loving, and knows the number of hairs on my head and yours.  Now he refers to the possibility of a real friendship with himself.  Incredible!

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You might notice on the sidebar to the right "What  I am Reading" and "Books You Might Enjoy."  Both have been updated.

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