Pondering about worship and Veteren's Day

[My guess is that will be the most controversial post I have written so far. I penned it after worship on Veteren's Day and have been tweaking it over the past week.]

I was inexplicably a bit uncomfortable in church this morning when a video began playing. It took me a minute or two to realize why. We had just been singing hymns and choruses in worship of God. I was filled with warmth and had begun focusing on the service ahead, anticipating both the adoration of God for an hour and what God might say to me this glorious day. I realized I was in deep need of worship and contemplation. as i watched the video with my heart focused towards worship of God, it slowly dawned on my that what i was watching had nothing to do with God or with worship, but was instead focused on honoring and thanking war veterans (complete with quotes from political leaders, authors, and others). I'm sure my brow began to furrow as the quotes and images scrolled across the screen. As the video wound down, a question popped into my consciousness: Is a worship service an appropriate time to honor war veterans, celebrate America, or offer thanks or praise to anyone other than God? My first thought is an adamant, "No!" But then, I moderate to, "We'll, perhaps, but...." 

In the spirit of full disclosure I must admit that I have never been a fan of overdone celebrations of America at church. I have found it terribly inappropriate when churches have posted advertisements in the newspapers and broadcast commercials on the radio promoting fourth of July worship extravaganzas complete with skydiving military professionals, Ferris wheels, pyrotechnics, church sized American flags, military celebrities, military vehicles, and many other overly dramatic appeals to attract non-church goers. My question has been, "and what does that have to do with God?" It seems at best a bait-and-switch ploy to get folks onto church property and at worst an inappropriate mixing of holy and secular, politics and religion, worship of God and worship of human-made idols by celebrating military might and exploits as if they all are blessed and endorsed by God.
 

Part of my job is planning services of worship for collegians. The team with which I work tries to be conscious of honoring God in all that we do during each service. As the minister who overseas the worship area, I try to be the one who asks the annoying questions by bringing up the appropriateness of elements we are planning. But sometimes the students are the ones who push back, telling me that the music I have suggested or the placement of announcements, videos, or even teaching time is possibly not the most conducive to a worshipful setting. I prefer to mix things up from week to week by altering the placement of the elements of each service. The students however, always want large segments of corporate singing (the part of the service they deem "worship") immediately preceded or followed by teaching. They never want announcements during the service, but at the very beginning or the very end. For them, focus on and worship of God should not been interrupted by more trivial, unrelated matters. Despite my love for textured worship services, I am coming to agree with them. In our crazy-busy, technologically driven, always connected world it is tough to find extended periods where we can direct our attention solely on God. Even the insertion of jokes into a message may serve as a distraction instead of an illumination of the teaching point. 

I have come to see that every element of worship should point those gathered towards God. Period. 

Please understand, I'm not a prude who has to have "my" worship tradition unchanged. As I mentioned above, I love change; In fact, I need creativity, change, spontaneity, and "new" to be happy and content. That sentiment extends into worship as well. The balance that I have found is to ensure that anything extraneous to actual worship - the honoring, adoration, praise, and thanksgiving to and of God - should be done before or after "worship." The difference should be obvious to all, explained with words or definite transitions. No one should confuse the mundane with the holy. No one should confuse honoring our peers with honoring God through worship. The worship hour should be holy. It is our responsibility to keep it that way. At our student's encouragement during our collegiate worship services we make announcements before worship begins or after it is over. We often honor graduating seniors and students who have made great achievements. But that is always done at the beginning or end of our time together. We try hard not to abuse the hour given to God in worship. It is often hard enough to keep our focus where it should be - on God - without adding built in distractions into the planned service.

Yes, I am proud to be an American. I am thankful for the sacrifices my grandparents, brothers-in-law, nephews, students, and many thousands more people I do not know, have given serving our country in military service. Their service has given us freedom and has helped to keep the freedoms we have. But my first priority, my highest allegiance, and especially times of formal worship, should be focused solely on God and on nothing else! It is appropriate to give thanks to God for our freedoms as well as for those who have served and those who continue to serve. It is appropriate to pray for those who are serving. But worship is not the time to thank them personally or corporately. Worship is about God and only about God. 

What should I do with my life?

In college I paid a visit to Dr. Rosalind Ragans, or Roz, as she was informally known - my art teacher and mentor I had throughout my elementary, middle and high-school years. I went rather out of guilt. You see I attended college in the town where I grew up and where Roz still lived. I got so busy with my own life that I didn't cross the street from campus to say hello - literally, her neighborhood was just less than a mile away from the campus. I was an art major in college. Roz kind of discovered me as an artist. She was the art teacher at Marvin Pittman Laboratory School, a school that was a part of Georgia Southern University. Georgia Southern began as Georgia's Teacher College. The school was built as a place for teaching would-be educators how to do their job. All of the classrooms were built with two way mirrors in the walls so that observations could be done without interrupting the classroom. It was kind of creepy to go into the little rooms next to the classes and look through at all of the activities going on. Roz was at the school when I went to 1/2 day preschool as a 5 year old. Even the preschoolers had art class! I attended Marvin Pittman from preschool all the way through 9th grade and Dr. Ragans was my art teacher all the way through. For some reason she had favored me from the first class I had with her. She later told my parents that I was one of her favorites.

When I moved to Statesboro High School for 10th grade I didn't get along very well with the art teacher there. In my High School Artist mind she was not very good. I continued to view Roz as my teacher. I went to her house several times a week for private lessons. One year when I was middle school age she bought an old homemade potter's wheel at an auction and brought it to Marvin Pittman. Roz had polio as a child and because of the weakness in her left arm and leg could not exert enough force on the clay to use the wheel. She wanted her student's exposed to lots of methods of making art. Because she could not use the wheel herself she told he the basic techniques and I struggled through learning how to use the potters wheel on my own. Each summer Roz was the teacher for High School Summer School art classes. She asked me to be her teaching assistant when I was just a middle schooler. For the help I gave I received High School elective credit! As a result I taught pottery to high school students each summer from 7th grade through 10th grade.

On the visit to her house in college she proudly showed me a copy of her soon to be published book, ArtTalk. Roz had developed an amazing technique for teaching art to elementary and middle school students. In fact, her book has been the authority on art education for many years. It has been translated in to many different languages and has gone through many different revisions. When she pulled out the new copy she told me to open it to a certain page. There, in full color, was one of the pictures I had drawn when I was in kindergarten. I don't remember if she then took me to the files where she had with lots of my work or if she told me to look up another page number, and another, and another. But I remember seeing lots of my early work. She had kept many of my pictures and had some published them in her book. The last one I looked at was a large pencil drawing that I had done while looking out of her front window. I called it, "View from a Southern Window." It featured her window and the huge Southern Pine trees just across the street from her house. As a high school junior it was one of the pictures in my portfolio when I applied and was accepted into The Governor's Honors Program. I also submitted the picture to the Georgia Art Symposium, a juried art show for High School students then held at the University of Georgia. I was selected from among a small group of students across the state to travel to UGA for the opening of the show and for a weekend of classes and seminars on art. After the show I gave the framed picture to Roz as a thank you for the many years of teaching me and mentoring me. From that exhibit a few pieces were selected to be displayed in the Georgia State Capital building in Atlanta. My drawing was selected, and I had to borrow it back from her so it could hang in the state capital the spring of my senior year. I received a call from someone who curated the capital's artwork telling me that two pieces from the show had been chosen to be in the permanent collection. He then asked if I would donate the piece to state of Georgia. I told him no. It was not mine to give because I had already given it to my teacher. He begged. I refused. Roz said I was crazy. But she still had the picture on her wall and, as I remember it, had published it in her book, showing the development of a young child into an artist.

I looked back and forth between the first picture of mine in the book and the last. There was no comparison between the two. The first looked like any old pre-school child's scribbles. There was no real form, no good use of color, no creative use of line - there was nothing remarkable about the picture. I paused on the picture, wondering why in the world this brilliant woman who had taught me so much, gave the child who drew this scribble-scrabble any second thought! So I asked her, "Roz, what in the world did you see in this picture that caused you to think I would ever develop into someone who could draw this?" as I flipped over to the last picture. She laughed and told me something I will never forget"

"Nathan, it was not the drawing that caught my attention, it was the look on your face while you drew and as you presented the finished product to me. You simply beamed with joy and pride." She continued, "And through the years I watched that grow and develop. Not only did you love producing artwork and trying new things, you loved to help others do the same thing! You took joy in helping others learn to draw, to paint, to make pottery. You loved watching others create art!" 

Some of you maybe wondering why I bring this story up. You know that my current job has nothing to do with art. Yes, I play around at home, drawing some, throwing a few pots here and there, playing around with woodworking and the like. I like being creative, but I'm not an artist. But what Roz saw grow in me way back then is still what drives me today - I love to help others grow and learn and develop. I love to watch others "get it." I love to teach, to draw out of people ideas, skills, and abilities that they did not realize they had. I love to help people make faith connections in the midst of the mundane. Basically, I thrive on helping others "become."

When I went back to see Roz again just before I graduated from college I feared she would be disappointed in me because I was leaving the expected career of art. But she wasn't - at least she didn't show it. Roz, a lapsed non-practicing Jew, gave me her blessing as I headed off to seminary.

As a collegiate minister my realm of teaching is different now, but I still get great satisfaction in watching others make connections and learn new things. I have students come to me quite often wanting advice as they wrestle with the practical question, "What does God want me to do with my life!?!" Sometimes I tell them my story. Sometimes I give them a quote from Frederick Beuchner about "calling" or, more specifically, "vocation." He wrote, "vocation is the place where our deep gladness meets the world's deep need." As we seek to discover what it is we were created for, the task is to discover the answer to two questions, "what gives me the greatest joy?" and "what do I see as the greatest need in the world?" Where those two answers intersect we can discover our vocation, calling, destiny, or whatever we would like to deem it. It is at that juncture that we find we can say, "I was made for this!" Some people even find a way to get paid to do the thing they know they were created to do! Sometimes, however, a calling is not the same as a career. Some people have to actually get jobs which then allow them to pay the bills so they can perform their vocation on the side. There are many "bi-vocational" ministers who work in a church or para-church ministry part-time or as volunteers on their time off from their "jobs," the work they do that pays the bills.

The key is getting to know yourself and being honest about what motivates you and drives you, then finding a way you can do that to meet the needs of the world. Pretty simple. Yet many people find discovering their calling or their vocation a difficult and long process. I think this is for lots of reasons.

Many people become so programmed over their lives that they really have no clue about what they really want to do. They have developed dreams around the expectation that they need a high paying job to make lots of money to be successful or happy. The first step to answering Beuchner's questions is getting back to zero by ridding yourself of the lies you have been told and have told yourself about success or dreams for the future. Sometimes getting back to zero is nearly impossible. Most of us have become so enmeshed with the subtle messages about success that we cannot see beyond a future paycheck. What we need is someone like Roz who will point out to us what they see in us. Before that conversation with Roz I was full steam ahead towards a career as an art teacher.

Midway through my college career I decided that I wanted to teach on the college level, not in elementary or high school. Through a confluence of events, over a four year period of time, I discovered that I was made for collegiate ministry, not art. My conversation with Roz was the beginning of that journey. I thought I knew who I was and where I needed to go with my life. Talking to her caused me to reflect on my art experiences, but also on other areas where I had found success. All of them revolved around a teacher who took special interest in me, nurtured me, challenged me, and pushed me to become more. A few years back I developed a purpose statement (it was all the rage in the early 90's): My purpose is to help collegians become all that they can be in Christ Jesus. Though that was composed many years ago, that sentiment still drives me to get out of bed each day and to get to work early.

I have discovered what I was created for...how about you?

*Update - Roz and I have just reconnected via LinkedIn and email. She lives only a few miles away in Lawrenceville. I'm headed over for a visit very soon!

Lessons from Band Camp

This week I got an education. I attended Band Camp for the first time even though I have been out of High School for over 30 years. Well, I attended three mornings of Band Camp - as a parent volunteer. Though I was not marching in the hot sun, but sitting under an awning distributing water and freeze pops to parched, tired, and sweaty students, I learned a ton. I was amazed at the progress the students made both musically and regimentally during this short week. While our daughter entered camp with a year of marching band under her boots, our son began as a bright-eyed rookie. I expected lots of yelling and berating of older students to younger. But I was pleasantly surprised to watch our daughter and the other veterans gently teach and encourage the perhaps too enthusiastic and confident newbies. By the end of the week most students were not only marching in proper formation, they were doing so while playing the newly learned music. Of course there were a few students who looked more like they we're "shopping at Kmart" instead of marching in step and time. But even the rhythmically challenged individuals eventually learned techniques to properly complete the complicated moves and formations and. It was a joy to watch the daily progress.

As I have been planning the new year at the college ministry where I work I could not help but make some connections between band and Christian discipleship.

My wife as drum major (right front) many years ago

• Learning occurs differently for each person. Some get it immediately, while for others the educational process is lengthy and complicated. Patience and creativity is required by the teachers and more experienced learners.
• Though there is a plan or formation for the "program" that the band performs, not everyone moves the same way. Some members take large steps, some small, and others walk in place only "keeping time." There are times that the drum corp stands in one spot maintaining the rhythm while the trumpet line moves one way, the tubas another, and the flag line transitions to the sideline to exchange flags. Sometimes one or two instrumentalists slide to the fore to play a featured solo or ensemble. This is never done to take away from the whole band, but is also a part of the carefully orchestrated program. 
• The entire time the band is visible in the stadium, every movement has been planned and rehearsed - even marching in to the stands or the points in the program where each member "moves casually" or "free dances." Each part has been written into the script and has been practiced. Yes, there are times when each person is able to do his or her own thing, but that does not take away from the plan, only compliments it and moves the program to the next formation on the field. 
• There is a director, who is not always visible, yet is always watching and influencing the teaching/learning. Sometimes he offers individual critique, but usually only provides overall instruction and direction. 
• There are assistant directors who oversee and provide instruction to "sections." These are former students who have graduated and who are now in college bands. They provide in-depth, personal guidance to groups and members as needed. Basically they are mentors. They are on the field with the band, walking through the regiment as they move through their routine. 
• Each section has a peer leader who provides guidance, encouragement, and instruction before, during and after practice. These leaders are responsible for cohesiveness and peer pressure that results in a sense of responsibility within the corps. 
• The hierarchy from director down to the rookies provides a sense of challenge as well as order for the whole.

On Saturday following the week of camp, our family accompanied the NOHS band director, Rob Akridge, and his family to DCI (Drum Corps International) Southeastern Championship. This is an all day marching band championship. Twenty-two corps were represented. Each is a privately funded, auditioned group of drummers, horns, and flag lines. The programs are over the top and the execution spectacular, if not flawless. When one particular band marched onto the football field our band director leaned to me, pointed to the drumline (from our seats in the upper deck), and said, "That snare player that just turned around is one of my alumni. He marched with NOHS last year." I was amazed. I asked him how in the world he identified him from this far away. To me they all looked the same in their uniforms, complete with gloves and helmets adorned with plumes. He said that after working with kids for a few years you learn the individual movements and marching style. To me they all looked identical. But Rob effortlessly noticed tiny nuances that I missed. While I could watch a band and miss the individual performers, he saw each individual and the whole. Amazing.

I'm confident Christendom could apply these same lessons to our discipleship practices! I will be thinking about this as school begins in a few weeks and our corp of students assemble at the Baptist Center for worship and learning!

Low country memories of my father

The ocean. The smell of the marsh and salty air. Charleston. Hilton Head. Family. 

Memories of my father warm me in the summer sun and haunt me in the ocean breeze as I sit reading and reflecting alone with my coffee on the balcony of our beach condo this first morning of our annual beach trip. 

The first midmorning morning beach jaunt is marked by children's giggles filling the air over the chorus of breaking waves with the smell of sunscreen wafting across the sand.

 The annual late morning trip to Hudson's Seafood Market with my brother to acquire provincial fruit del mar, which last night was swimming beneath the trolling shrimper's nets, and tonight will be hungrilly devoured by the Byrd Clan for the first of 5 6pm meals. 

 Early afternoon kitchen preparations and organizations while the children enjoy a respite from the sun then rain watching movies snuggling on the sofa or reading in their room.  Smells of deliciousness: butter, bacon, onions; culinary sounds: chopping, sizzling, dishes clanking, pots clanging, accompanied by laughter as the feast is prepared.

 Six o'clock. The counter is set. Small bits of caprise salad and buffalo dip are nibbled as the family assembles in anticipation of the first of five family dinners. Final preparations are made, shrimp are bathed in steaming pots of seasoned water, drinks are poured, the family gathers young and old, parents, teens, toddlers, all hand-in-hand, eyeing the food in anticipation, yet waiting. The pots are emptied, steaming shrimp heaped onto platters, bread sliced, the meal ready.  A prayer is offered, thanking God for the meal, for the family, for the one who began this legacy 16 years ago.

Throughout the condo and on the balcony the family settles in to dine. Cousins chatter together, brothers and sisters banter, childhood memories are shared, and mom beams with satisfaction and joy.

 Though he has been gone for six years, his legacy lives and thrives on this island, in this place - sacred ground for the family, his heartbeat sounding in the rhythm of the waves, his call in the cry of the seagulls, his laughter in the play of the children, his serenity beneath the live oaks, his smile in the warmth of the sun, his memory in our stories.

 Yes, he is here, in our annual low country gathering. And he is at peace.

The "Like" Generation

I work with the “Like” Generation.

This realization has been slowly coming into focus over the past year, finally solidifying from the haze and mist that has been haunting my mental vision on the university campus where I work. It should be no surprise that one mark of this generation (sometimes known as GenY) is a renewed sense of passion. Among the Christian students with whom I work, discovering the issues about which one is passionate appears to be a mark of collegiate experience as passing English 101 and proudly donning University apparel. Declaring personal passions does not just appear to be a “fad” of nomenclature, such as the use of “hip,” “rad,” “cool” or other such terms. Neither does it seem to be an over-exaggerated statement like the phrases, "I just love it!" or “that changed my life!” The collegians with whom I work seem to maintain their passions for years, most lasting long after graduation, even through marriage, kids and careers.

Perhaps the advent of the term has been driven by the vast popularity of The Purpose Driven Life or the Passion Conferences (and the 286 movement it spawned). In The Purpose Driven Life, Warren suggests that each person should discover their SHAPE (Spiritual Gifts, Heart, Abilities, Personality, and Experiences) for ministry. In his view everyone is uniquely gifted and created for a purpose. Discovering and following one’s purpose - or one’s passion, as it has been interpreted by emerging adults (ages 18-30) - is key to fulfilment in life. Several years ago Louie Giglio initiated an annual Christian conference for young adults titled “Passion.” Since it’s inception the worship and teaching oriented event has grown to more than 40,000 attendees for the annual four day event each January in Atlanta, Georgia. Each year the event planners choose one issue of social justice as a central focus. For the 2012 conference the issue was human trafficking. The young adults that attended the event managed to donate and raise over 1 million dollars to fight the human sex trade - not an insignificant amount of money! Since then there have been a growing number of collegians who suddenly have developed a passion for this cause. But as the students came back to school literally glowing about the event and the amount of money raised, my thought was "what now?"

For many one aspect of realizing or discovering a passion is to declare it to the world. Many young adults do so through the use of social networking - by clicking the “like” button on Facebook, selecting the “+1” button on Google+, by following and re-tweeting quotes from their heroes on Twitter, or by “checking-in” at conferences they attend. Afterward they boldly wear the t-shirts, shoes, bracelets, hoodies, hats, or even shoes they bring home. These items are not so much souvenirs but are artifacts to illustrate and proclaim their new-found or increased like-passion. They are willing to voice their message on Facebook, to forward emails or websites to friends and family members, to wear the clothing, to attend the conference or lecture, to wear the clothing....

But, I have also noticed, most often this is where the passion remains. It is a passion of “like.”

It is a passion of the mind and heart and Internet; It is not usually a passion that moves to compassion.

It does not usually move to action. It does not result in transformation. It is solely an impotent acknowledgement of a cause, a problem, a situation - it is a passion of “like.”

And such like-passion does not result in change for the one who is passionate or for the one who is suffering.

While knowledge can lead to action which can result in change, solely acknowledging or knowing about a cause does not create the needed change.

On our campus we have collegians who are passionate about international missions, who will spend thousands of dollars to travel to the other side of the world for a week or two during a summer break, yet who will not walk across the classroom at school to befriend an international student from that same country.

On our campus we have collegians who are passionate about evangelism, who read books and blogs, listen to sermons, and constantly talk about the need for Christians to witness about their faith, yet who will not share their faith with their peers, even in very comfortable settings, such as handing out free coffee on campus and offering to pray with passers by.

On our campus we have collegians who are passionate about Child Sex Trafficking that is often born of the poverty that plagues inner-cities, yet who will not work locally to learn about and to eliminate poverty in the community adjacent to their campus.

Instead of possessing a like-passion, as Christians we are called to com-passion - a passion that makes one willing to get messy, to get dirty, to endure pain and suffering on behalf of others, or as my late seminary professor John Johnson said, we need a compassion like that of the Samaritan in Jesus’ story who was willing to get down in the ditch to help the injured, beaten, and dying man get out.

Granted, many young adults get it. We have a student who picks up two teenage girls from the nearby community each week and brings them to our worship services. When one of them got pregnant this brave collegian went with the girl to the doctors visits and was in the delivery room to welcome the little boy into the world. She continues to offer her support, mentoring, and unconditional love as the girls grow into womanhood.

We have another student who spends much of his free time downtown, visiting his friends (who happen to be homeless), talking with them about life, and faith, and sharing his food with them. He also takes others to meet them, to hang out, to talk about life, and faith, and to share a meal with them.

We have students who volunteer as mentors in the community, working with their assigned mentees as tutors and life-coaches, demonstrating that education is important and that there is life outside of the limited dead end worldview offered by the generational poverty in which they live.

Passion is needed in Christianity. Passion can be a force to bring about needed change. However, we don’t need a generation of folks who possess a like-passion, we need a generation of folks who have ditch-diving compassion!

Let’s do something.

Let’s push back against the like-passion with encouragement to do something with all of that pent up energy.

Let’s begin to ask the necessary (sometimes annoying) questions when scanning social media “likes.”

Let’s offer options and ideas for action instead of just pressing “like”

or attending a conference

or forwarding a sermon link

or even dropping a check in the mail or into the offering plate.

Let’s raise of a generation of compassionate, ditch-diving Christians who have dirt on our hands and faces, but possess the satisfaction of personally making a difference in someone’s life.

Missions or Ministry?

At a meeting recently someone defined missions as "Taking the Good News where it is actually news." That struck me as rather profound. I then thought it would be helpful to have a similar definition for "ministry". So I quickly defined it as "Helping or serving others in tangible ways." As a result, I have spent a bit of time pondering the difference between the two.
Often we conduct missions trips at the BCM and encourage students to become involved in summer missions projects. We raise money for Send-Me-Now missions and challenge our members to live missional lifestyles. We also challenge students to be aware of others needs and to seek to meet those in tangible ways. We have graduates working in ministry jobs and many others who are missionaries. We have alumni who serve in the Peace Corps, seeking to minister to others and make a difference in this secular world. There are graduates from BCM who seek to share their faith verbally through intentional relationships. There are many others involved in ministries and churches who have servant's hearts and do ministry as a natural outflow of their lives.

But I think we often confuse the two terms - missions and ministry. I have dubbed ventures such as cleaning up after a natural disaster "a missions project" when all we did was work from morning until night clearing debris and never actually talking to anyone. There have been similar clean-up projects where I have spent much of the time building relationships with homeowners while a crew cleared away storm debris. However, such personal interaction is not always the case - the "Good News" is not always shared while being involved in vital "ministry" projects. Thinking over these matters has provided a good reminder that while "ministry" can occur on a "missions" venture, doing "ministry" does not necessarily bring about "missions". Much of it has to do with both the intent of the event as well as what actually occurs.

Thoughts?

Spring is Coming

"I don't think you are depressed, though you are expressing symptoms of depression," my friend and counselor explained after I described the deepening rut I felt I had been in for a while now. He continued, "I think you are moving to a new stage of faith."

It has taken me several months to realize he was absolutely correct. It took so long because faith development is an area of expertise for me. In fact, this time last year I was writing my dissertation on the contemporary processes of faith development for emerging adults, or twentysomethings. My focus was on the transitions that occur during the movement from one stage to another as collegians graduate and move into what they often call "the real world" or the "adult world." I completely missed what should have been very obvious to me: I was in the midst of a transitional period in my own faith journey.

Over the next several months the combination of meeting with my friend/counselor, spending and waiting on God, I realized that I am in the midst of a period of deep transition and change, sort of a winter of the soul. In college I was enamored with Charles Swindoll's book, Growing Strong in the Seasons of Life. That book helped me conceptualize the cyclical nature of spirituality, particularly navigating my calling as a young adult. Lately as a staff we have been reading Brian McLaren's Naked Spirituality and discussing it during our weekly meetings. It has been fascinating to note how different members of our staff have identified with the different "moments" of the faith journey McLaren discusses. In the latter chapters I have been the lone voice of experience among our staff speaking to wrestling with God in times of pain and crisis resulting in deep questioning, time attempting to be mindful & present in each moment, reading (lots of things familiar and new), sometimes doubt, and often spiritual confusion or apathy. That seemed odd to me. I realized that over the past few years I have been in the midst of a spiritual wintertime.

Over the past two weeks the chapters we read together have struck a deep cord within me - almost like McLaren had awakened something in the core of my being with a light strum across some hidden cords of my soul. At first there was an awareness of movement, then the realization of sound. As I have tuned my ears to the growing, yet unfamiliar tune, I am finding it oddly comforting, though I have not identified a song among the sounds. As I am learning to make sense out of the odd formation of notes I am realizing that my heart is trying to sing new arrangements to some very old hymns. What was old has become new again. McLaren would say I am beginning to experience a second naiveté. I am finding profound meaning in simple ideas and truths and don't have any need for complex arguments or discussions. Not only do I find such conversations & diatribes boring, I find they try my patience. What used to capture my imagination and fan my spiritual and emotional passion now seems superficial and silly. As I am talking about God with my six year old daughter, I am blown away by the simple truths that thought I matured beyond. With my first two children, now 14 & 15, when I told them the simplified stories of the bible I mentally worked out complex systematic theologies to explain the hidden meanings and truth beneath the truth. Now I find the simple messages to be all that really matters. I catch myself meditating on them, stunned by them, knowing that I will never really understand the depths contained in these simple, well worn phrases, and believing that I will never need to grow beyond them to be completely content.

"In the beginning God...."

"God created...."

"God is love."

"Jesus loves me, this I know."

God is everywhere.

"Love each other as I have loved you."

In response to these elemental ideas I am overwhelmed with awe. My only response has been stunned gratitude.

I'm not completely out of the blahs yet. The chill of winter still fills my evenings and mornings. But through the gray skies I have gotten a glimpse of sunshine and feel the warmth that will soon fill the coming springtime. I am getting a glimpse of new life as tiny leaves begin to break through the snow-hardened soil and buds appear on the barren branches. And I am filled with hopeful anticipation for the days ahead.

It's going to be a beautiful Spring!

Emmanuel in our pain: “Lord if you had been here...” (John 11: 1-57)

This is the text of a message from 1/17 at the UGA BCM:

Karen and I went on our internship in campus ministry after our second year of marriage and second year of seminary. We moved to Mobile, Alabama where I worked as the campus ministry intern at the University of South Alabama. Karen worked at a church daycare with various ages of children. Her favorite group was the babies - especially one little boy named Micheal. For some reason Micheal and Karen bonded. She would awaken at night imagining she was rocking him in her sleep. Yep, you guessed it, we decided that it was time for her to go off birth control pills and see what might happen. However, after three moves and two years nothing had happened. She had talked with her doctor about her concerns and she even went to a specialist and had surgery. Another move, more doctors, more surgery, and still no babies. After 8 years we began to grow desperate. We borrowed money and did a mini-in vitro procedure where they take the needed, um, materials from the man and woman, do some magic in a petri dish and come up with a embryo which is then placed in the woman's womb. A month later we received a call that she was not pregnant. Our world crashed. We had already had doubts and many tearful nights. For Karen her body gave her a month to month reminder that it was broken; that she could not get pregnant. She blamed herself. She blamed God. She blamed me. She blamed the houses we lived in. She blamed God. She blamed the water. She blamed her parents. She blamed God; it always came back to God. Imagine holding your wife, who is rocked with grief, knowing there is nothing you can do to ally her pain or her fears, there is no hope you can offer, no comfort you can give other than your love and your embrace. It is heart breaking.

Martha, Mary and Lazarus were perhaps Jesus closest friends. Throughout the Gospels Jesus retreated to their home just before or after key events in his ministry.

According to Herschel Hobbs, Martha's "response was the greatest confession of faith in Jesus as the Messiah which is recorded in the gospels...." because "she made hers from the pit of despair. She had sent for Jesus in her hour of great need. Insofar as she could tell, He had failed her. Yet she still believed in Him. Hear her confession. 'Yea, Lord: I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.' (v. 27)"

Like Mary and Martha, we should not avoid the pain that comes with grief and disappointment - even when that disappointment is with God! Read the Psalms. The writers are often not only disappointed with God, but are frustrated and often angry! We need to be honest with God and with each other when we are hurting!

Psalm 22

¹ My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? ² My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest.

Lamentations 3 the writer tells of his pain, feeling that God has abandoned him and his people:

¹ I am the man who has seen affliction
by the rod of the LORD’s wrath.
² He has driven me away and made me walk
in darkness rather than light;
³ indeed, he has turned his hand against me
again and again, all day long.

⁴ He has made my skin and my flesh grow old
and has broken my bones.
⁵ He has besieged me and surrounded me
with bitterness and hardship.
⁶ He has made me dwell in darkness
like those long dead.

⁷ He has walled me in so I cannot escape;
he has weighed me down with chains.
⁸ Even when I call out or cry for help,
he shuts out my prayer.
⁹ He has barred my way with blocks of stone;
he has made my paths crooked.

He ends in chapter 5:20 with a question that we all tend to ask in the midst of pain and suffering:

"Why have your forgotten us completely? Why have for forsaken us these many days?"

It is almost impossible to avoid asking the very real question, "Why?" However, there is no acceptable answer to that question! Just like a three year old asking his parents why, when we get an answer, we only ask again, "but why?" and it goes on and on and on and on.

Look at Jesus' response to the grief surrounding the death of his friend Lazarus in John, chapter 11. Jesus was not initially moved emotionally when talking with his disciples about Lazarus because he knew he would later raise him. He patiently told his disciples that Lazarus would not die, but was only sleeping. Of course they misunderstood him. Jesus explained that Lazarus was dead, but that they were going to Bethany so that Jesus could raise him. However, after encountering his close friends Martha and Mary and seeing their grief, Jesus too is deeply affected. Both Mary and Martha express their frustration and disappointment, each coming to Jesus saying, “Lord if you had been here...” If only....They were accusingly asking, "Jesus why weren't you here!?!"

Here we encounter the shortest verse in the bible, but perhaps one that contains the most comforting message in all of Christendom. "Jesus wept." Herschel Hobbs pointed out that this is too simplistic of a translation - this is one case where we have minimized the emotional side of Jesus. A better, more literal translation of Jesus crying here is, "Jesus sobbed."

Picture this if you will. Here, the God of the universe is so moved with compassion for his friends that he cries with them. Jesus cried with Mary and Martha because of THEIR pain. In seminary one of our required texts was a book called "The crucified God." In it the author delves deeply into the idea that God cries with us in our grief. Folks, this is a game changer. I don't know if you can truly catch the depth of this truth unless you have been racked with grief or torn in two with pain. Jesus wept because of their pain. God weeps with us because of our pain.

When Jesus was leaving his disciples he told them that he was sending along the Holy Spirit - the Greek word is Paraclete - the advocate or helper or comforter. I want to challenge you, the next time you are stricken with pain or grief, picture Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, crying with you. It is the role of the Holy Spirit to be advocate and comforter. God is on your side!

Intercession: A few years ago someone told me that when he prays for others often he does not know how he should pray. So, he began to visualize his prayers. This is what he did, he began to picture himself carrying the person who asked for prayer all the way to the throne of Jesus. Then he placed that person into God's lap and watched as God held and cried with the person. I began practicing that myself. It is incredibly comforting for me to see and know that I have placed those whom I love into the arms of God. Sometimes I listen in to the words the Jesus whispers to my friend as he cradles them in his arms, "I love you. I've got you. You are safe in my arms."

Helen Parks wrote of intercession as "holding the ropes". Her allusion was to those on the boat who throw out life-buoys to those in the rough seas. A beautiful opportunity and responsibility for those of us in the family of God is to hold the ropes for others whose faith has been shaken. Like a family, we are to be there in love and support for others while they are immobilized in their grief and pain. We need to be a safe place.

From Why to What now: As the shock of our grief subsides, we need move from asking "Why" to asking, "What now?" We need to develop an attitude of expectancy, like that of Martha - putting our faith not in the situation, but in God. "God is up to something!" Our hope needs to be in Jesus, not in a fantasy of what-could-have-been or what-could-be. We need to put our faith and hope in God and in the future that God holds. Very often that future is very different from what we could have ever asked or imagined, as Paul prays in Ephesians 3:20 & 21. St our wedding my bride surprised me with an inscription in my ring. She had Eph. 3:4-21inscribed inside the band she gave to me. Paul writes, "Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen."

Let's bring this home: There are lots of hurting people all around us. Most of them hide behind a facade of make-up and a wide grin. Many hide behind anger or drugs or working too much or.....you know the excesses meant to dull pain. Instead of ignoring the pain around us, or enjoying our ignorance about other's pain, we need to begin asking God to give us his eyes to see the hurts around us. This past weekend Chad Norris challenged us to be open and attentive to the voice of the Holy Spirit, to pray for God to be so close to you that God speaks to us of other's needs. Or, as i like to say, for God to give us his eyes so that we can begin to see what God sees. To see the hurts, to see the needs in others. We need to begin to pray for God's healing spirit to come into the lives of those around us. You never know what kind of instrument of life-change you can be by allowing God to use you as a comforter to your peers.

I'm under no illusion that everything is hunky dory in the lives of everyone in this room. Many of you are in pain too. Many of you are angry at God. Many of you feel like the writer of lamentations....that God is out to get you! I want to challenge you to be honest about your pain. Be honest with yourself. Be honest with God. Be honest with each other. Often healing cannot come until we are willing to admit we can't do it on our own.

After 10 years of struggling with infertility Karen and I hit bottom. One Wednesday evening the minister of music passed out a new piece of music for our choir to sing. It was an arrangement of Psalm 86. As we started this haunting melody began to fill the sanctuary. We began to sing, "Here my voice O Lord when I cry, Here my prayer when I cry to you from the holy place...." (Here is a choir singing the piece: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXY3v7GUC44) And my wife, seated a few rows below me, began to cry. This was not your polite, lady-like weeping, but loud, audible, body shaking sobs. It was rather disruptive to the moving strains of music. Somehow we finished that verse and put the piece away. The music minister was rather taken aback, he was new at the church and did not know our story. He didn't know my wife and probably thought this was going to be a common occurrence. My wife NEVER cries. For her there is no such thing as a "good cry". I don't think we sang that piece again for almost 6 months. That Psalm became one of Karen and my favorites. Especially the last verse:

Psalm 86

⁶ Hear my prayer, LORD; listen to my cry for mercy. ⁷ When I am in distress, I call to you,

because you answer me

¹¹ Teach me your way, LORD,
that I may rely on your faithfulness;
give me an undivided heart,
that I may fear your name.
¹² I will praise you, Lord my God, with all my heart;
I will glorify your name forever.
¹³ For great is your love toward me;
you have delivered me from the depths,
from the realm of the dead.

The next few chapters: A few months later we met a couple on a cruise we had taken to get our minds off of the stresses of life. We hung out with them the entire cruse - they were lots of fun. On the last night we were watching the sunset as we left Key West, they were talking about how excited they were to get back home to their 5 children. The mom asked Karen, "I've not heard you talk about children...." Karen admitted, "I don't think we will ever have any of our own." The girl asked her, "Have you thought about adoption?" To my surprise Karen said, "We'll yes, I think that's the only way we will ever have a family." She said, "Oh my gosh, I have a niece..."

A few months later, in June, we flew to Omaha, Nebraska to pick up our baby whom we had named Blake. The next morning when we called the birth-mom she told us she had changed her mind. We were back into the pit of despair, deeper than ever this time. The plane ride home was the longest in the history of the world. I will never forget the embrace shared by Karen and her father when we reached the airport in Atlanta. They held each other and sobbed for a full five minutes. Everyone who passed by in the concourse stopped to stare.

It took us two months to return to church when we got home we were so hurt and confused. And mad. In August we pulled ourselves together, believing that God had led us down the road towards adoption months before. We thought we might as well follow through with it. We wrote a letter introducing ourselves as potential adoptive parents. I sent that letter to 100 people all over the US. We contacted a national Adoption agency in Atlanta. The next spring break, exactly one year after the cruise, Karen and I had two meetings with women who wanted to place their to-be-born children for adoption. A month later we welcomed Natalie Joy into our family. Six months later we welcomed Nicholas Aaron. Two children. We were blessed beyond what we could ask or imagine.

And the final act of God's grace was the birth of Karlie Nicole, born to us in our 20th year of marriage! Now we are speechless and exhausted! God's grace and provision is profound. He has turn our mourning into dancing.

Since then we have had countless opportunities to minister to others who are going through similar experiences. Our pain has become Gods glory and our joy, a joy we could never had imagined while we were in the throws of despair.

In the story in Chapter 11 Jesus raises Lazarus. Like ours, this story has a happy ending. Mary and Martha got what they wanted - they got their brother back, their grief was cut short. But such happy endings don't always occur in our lives. Lazarus later died again. The grief was still raw the second time around. In our lives, sometimes the boyfriend comes back, but sometimes he marries your best friend. Sometimes we get another job quickly, but sometimes we stay unemployed for months or years. Sometimes our friend is healed, but sometimes she dies. Sometimes we ace the class, but sometimes we flunk and have to change our major, abandoning our childhood dreams of becoming a doctor.

But even in the midst of our pain, if we keep our eyes on God we will gain new intimacy with God, and new insights into ourselves and our faith. We will better understand Paul's crazy talk when he said that when "he was weak he was strong." As a result of the difficult days, the Dark Nights of the Soul, as early Christians called them, we will find deeper faith, deeper comfort, and deeper peace. When we begin to emerge on the other side of our pain and grief we will discover, upon looking back, that God had been with us the whole time. The same Emmanuel, God with us, whom we sang about a month ago, is still with us in our times of grief and pain, crying with us, mingling his tears with our own.