CCM Thursday- "God's Own Fool"

Welcome to another CCM Thursday!  Over the years I have often talked about the disciples and other first generation Christians and their inability to understand what Jesus was trying to teach them.  I usually end up saying something along the lines of, "Jesus walked with them on earth, and they STILL didn't get it!  It's no wonder we struggle."  But actually, I have had it all backwards.  We may not get to physically walk with the Christ, but we have 2000 years of church history, written documentation and the full canon of scripture to guide us- in addition to the Holy Spirit!  Those first followers had none of that.  They gave three years of their lives to following the son of a carpenter from Nazareth.  Nothing good ever comes from Nazareth!  They left their jobs and their families and put their lives on the line to follow a man who said somewhat ridiculous things to people He shouldn't have even been speaking to.  No wonder most of the world- and some of the disciples- found the whole adventure a bit foolish.

Michael Card, our featured artist today, is one of the great songwriters of our time.  In addition to writing El Shaddai and I Have Decided (both made famous by Amy Grant) he has recorded a number of albums, including 1985's Scandalon (which somehow is not included on my Top 50 Countdown.  This was a bad omission).  Scandalon featured the song God's Own Fool (a song which got him into quite a bit of trouble at the time he wrote it) in which he uses scripture to remind us that those who follow Jesus are not the only ones who look foolish- Jesus himself did as well.  Let these lyrics wash over you as you think about what it must have been like to be a fully devoted follower of Christ.  "So come lose your life for a carpenter's son; for a mad man who died for a dream. Then you'll know the faith His first followers had, and you'll feel the weight of the beam."  And then think about what it means to follow Jesus in our world today.  I don't now about you, but I am ready to be more foolish.  I am ready to follow God's own fool.  I hope that you will "believe the unbelievable, and come be a fool as well..."

Welcome to Tampa!

Marilyn and I flew in to Tampa from Chicago late one night in August of 2001 with very mixed feelings about the next day's interviews with Wesley Memorial UMC.  On one hand, we were excited about the possibilities of a new ministry, a new church home and being back in Florida.  On the other hand, we had very little idea what to expect from the church.  A phone interview had revealed some issues and some promise, but other than that we knew very little. The trip got off to a slow start when no one was at the airport to pick us up, but after a quick phone call that was taken care of.   Senior Pastor Jerry Sweat drove us to our hotel, a Doubletree overlooking beautiful Tampa Bay.  He would pick us up the next morning and take us to the church for a day of interviews and meeting people.  It was on.

Jerry was tied up the next morning, but he sent Robyn Smith to pick us up.  Robyn was a young woman who volunteered with the youth program (along with her husband Ed), and they would become very special to us over the coming years.  I didn't really know much about Tampa.  I knew it had a bay, had the Bucs and the Devil Rays, and was a fairly large city.  The area our hotel was in was beautiful and very modern- even a little touristy.  As we drove the very strange route to the church (Tampa roads, we would learn, were designed by a maze builder.  They did not want you to ever find your way!) we started down a road lined with run-down strip shopping centers, old buildings and apartment complexes.  Many of the names were Hispanic.  Robyn informed us we were arriving at the church, and as we pulled into the left turn lane my heart sank.  There sat WMUMC across a grass field- probably 100 yards from the road.  It was very unimpressive.  It looked old and a bit beat up.  It was much smaller than any church I had ever served.  I found myself looking at Marilyn and immediately judging this book by it's cover.  Expectations were quickly lowered.

We were warmly greeted as arrived inside the building.  While my initial judgement of the facility as a whole had been fair, the worship space was gorgeous.  And as we began the interview process and meeting people, I began to feel much more at ease.  Once the interview process began, I felt like they were testing my endurance as much as they were curious about my faith and my philosophies.  Group after group just kept arriving at the church to meet with me, in addition to the lunch "grilling" at Red Lobster.  I kept reminding myself how badly they had just been burned by a couple of past staff members and tried to cut them some slack.  But still- this was intense!

Right after school let out I met with a group of the students involved in the ministry.  They seemed hesitant to ask questions until one of the older youth, Kyle Bell, asked me a very unusual question: "How do you feel about dating?"  I was a bit confused, but managed a witty reply:  "I'm not sure.  After all, we just met!"  It turned out that the previous regime had spent a great deal of time discouraging the kids from hanging out with the opposite sex.  They even made them sit on opposite sides of the bus on trips.  I assured them that would not be my policy.  After that, the questions started flying.  I really liked the students I met and felt like we connected.

All in all I thought the day went well.  George Woods, the head of the personnel committee, was also the marketing director for the Bucs, and he gave us Bucs hats to wear home.  Marilyn and I had a lot to think and pray about.  There were issues, just as there are at every church.  Due to a snafu with keys, we had still not seen the inside of the house we would live in.  There were questions.  We returned to Chicago to see what God had to say to us, and discovered we that we felt called to Tampa.  We were moving back to Florida.  But not just yet...

Because of Jesus,

What's Your Sign?

I know that because of God's love my sins are forgiven, if I only ask and repent. I know through God's grace, as demonstrated in the gift of Jesus, that my sins are forgotten. Because I know that I know that I know these things are true, my place in the Kingdom is secure. But in the meantime, I have to live on planet Earth...

Human beings seem to be, by their very nature, judgmental. We are quick to point out the flaws in others. We often rejoice in the failures of those around us. We flock to our Facebook and Twitter accounts to report when those around us fall short of perfection. Jesus taught (Matthew 7:4) that we should get the plank out of our eye before we point out the speck in someone else's; we seem to prefer throwing the plank at our neighbor. In God's eyes, a sin is a sin is a sin. For humans, some sins seem to be much worse than others- usually the sins we don't commit. Philip Yancey once wrote that "Christians get very angry toward other Christians who sin differently than they do." And it's true. We see the sins of others as different and greater than our own. And when we do this, it becomes very hard to see people through the eyes of grace.

All of this started me wondering. What if the world operated in the following manner-  each of us had to wear a sign around our neck with our "plank" written on it before being allowed to pass judgement on anyone else? The worst part of us exposed to the world on a daily basis- forgiven by God but now out there to be judged by man. How would we see each other then? Would Adultery seem less significant than Grand Theft Auto? Would Shoplifter pale next to Drug Dealer? It's my guess that many of us would choose to give up the right to judge if we had to wear our own signs. The pain and embarrassment of the signs around our own necks would be more than we could bear. We would have neither the time nor the energy to worry about what others have done. Our focus would be on repentance, not judgement, and on the plank in our own eye- just as Jesus suggested. We could then pass grace instead of judgement.

I have to admit that my thoughts here are more than a little self-serving. You see, my sign is in many ways already out there for people to see. My sign, in the eyes of this world, would be judged a greater sin than yours. No matter what your sign says, mine sounds worse. But in truth, it wasn't until after I was labeled, after the sign was hung around my neck, that I began to fully appreciate that I, like many devoted Christians, did not have a full grasp of  grace. We talk about the Good News, but we don't really understand it. We know that Jesus forgave the woman at the well and the woman caught in adultery, but we're not sure we would have. We know that Jesus forgave Peter for denying Him, but we can't imagine why. Theologians and historians have spent 2000 years arguing over who really killed Jesus- the Romans or the Jews- when the question is moot. Whoever it was, Jesus forgave them on the cross. It was not about assigning guilt- it was about offering grace. The Good News is that all of the really reviled people of the time of Jesus- tax collectors, lepers, hookers and more- were exactly the kind of people Jesus hung out with. The Christ did not simply ignore their signs- he ripped them off, tore them up and stomped on them! Jesus told us that he didn't come for the healthy; He came to heal the sick. The hurt and the lost were His number one priority. I think many Christians today take the opposite approach. We wish there was a special "Sinner's Section" ( kind of like the smoker's section used to be in restaurants) in the sanctuary where we could quarantine "those people." I think our attitudes would be much better and our love for the hurting much deeper if every time we started focusing on the sins of others we had to put on our signs...

So that's the challenge for this week. Every time you find yourself being judgmental or condemning of others, imagine yourself putting on your sign. Stop and think about how you would feel if everyone knew the worst thing abut you. And then remember the most important part- because of the love of God and the grace found in Jesus, you are not receiving the eternal judgement you deserve. You are forgiven. When Jesus said, "It is finished" while hanging on the cross, the sins of the world died with Him. Grace has crushed your sin- and everyone else's- and you are forgiven. If you'll remember that, then I promise you will begin to live out the words to one of my favorite old camp songs: "That's how it is with God's love, once you experience it.  You'll spread His love to everyone, you'll want to pass it on.." Take another step on the road to the Jesus Revolution.

Because of Jesus,

They Need A Hero

The final stop on my 2001 job search turned out to be Wesley Memorial UMC in Tampa.  Before I begin to tell you the story of how I wound up at WMUMC, I need to backtrack a bit and tell you something I still needed to learn about myself.

 By 2001 I had developed a "Hero Complex"  (The Green Lantern is one of my favs- can't wait for the movie this summer!).  The ministries that I felt called to over the years had all been seriously flawed, and I had sensed that God wanted to use my gifts to repair them.  When I went to New England Yearly Meeting of Friends in 1985, part of the reason was because I felt like the youth of that region needed more Christ-centered leadership and more personality- and I was the one who could provide those things.  Part of the attraction of my move to Springfield Friends Meeting (aside from going back to NC and getting married!)in 1986 was that the church was falling apart.  A staff member (the one in charge of youth) had left over disagreements with the Senior Pastor and had taken a part of the congregation with him.  The student ministry would need to be totally rebuilt.  I relished the thought of that.  I left SFM in 1994 (even though I was still in love with the church and the people there) after I felt God calling me to the First United Methodist Church of Kissimmee, where a once thriving youth ministry was falling apart after having 3 different leaders in 2 years.  Again, I had great confidence that I was God's man for the job.  When I left there to escape The Pastor Who Shall Not Be Named in 2000, part of the reason the Union Church of Hinsdale was so appealing to me was that they needed my skills and experience so badly- no one had ever really done youth ministry there.  I loved swooping in and being the hero.  And to some extent, I had been successful at every stop.  I loved seeing tangible progress- watching a ministry rise from the ashes.  I know now that my heroism was not particularly healthy, for me or for them.  But by 2001, this had become a part of my job search DNA.

The initial information I received in my phone interview with WMUMC indicated that this was a church that was right in my wheelhouse.  The Senior Pastor, Jerry Sweat, was young and exciting, plus he had 2 kids of youth group age.  Tampa was a great fit for my family- close to my parents, close to Walt Disney World and near all of our dear friends in Kissimmee.  And the youth ministry was in complete chaos.  The previous Youth Pastor had been the wife of the Associate Pastor, and they had left WMUMC and taken a section of the church with them.  A number of key student leaders (including their daughters) were gone.  Another very active family had moved away.  The youth who remained had not been terribly excited about the direction of the ministry in the first place; now they were skeptical anything good could come from all of the turmoil. They had a great youth choir and some good volunteers in place, but overall things were a mess. It seemed like exactly the kind of situation I was seeking, and the kind of place God had often called me to.  Marilyn and I flew down for an whirlwind day of interviews in August of 2001.  Those stories- including how I got asked out on a date- are coming Wednesday.  Stay blessed!

Because of Jesus,

The Dance of the Prepositions

In John 17 Jesus explains to the disciples that while they are going to be left in this world after He is gone, they belong to Him.  This call to be "in the world, but not of it" is a challenge to us all.  As Caedmon's Call once sang, "This world has nothing for me and this world has everything.  All that I could want and nothing that I need."  Christians struggle with this at every turn.  Some of us seek to hide from the world.  Some of us want the church to be more like the world.  Some of us let the things of this world take the place of God.

Today's "words to soak in" come from John Fischer's 1988 book Real Christians Don't Dance (Bethany House Publishers).  John has written a number of great books and a number of great songs including The All Day Song, one of the all-time Quaker Lake Camp favorites!  I have shared this prose with many groups over the years and as part of my Lenten devotional series online last year.  Now I'll just shut up and let John talk.  Have a blessed Sabbath!

The Ins And Outs Of "It"
"In it, not of it," the statement was made
As Christian One faced the world, much afraid.
"In it, not of it," the call was made clear,
But Christian One got something stuck in his ear.
"Not in it, or of it" was the thing that he heard.
And knowing the world was painfully absurd,
He welcomed the safety of pious retreat,
And went to the potluck for something to eat.

Now Christian Two, he knew what to do,
He'd show those fundies a thing or two!
How will the world ever give Christ a try
If we don't get in there and identify?
So "In it, and of it," he said in his car,
As he pulled in and stopped at a popular bar.
"I'll tell them the truth as soon as I'm able
To get myself out from under this table."

Now along comes Christian Three jogging for Jesus,
In witnessing sweats made of four matching pieces.
His earphones are playing a hot Christian tune
About how the Lord is coming back soon.
"Not in it, but of it," he turns down the hill
And stops in for a bite at the Agape Grill.
Like the gold on the chain of his "God Loves You" bracelet,
He can have the world without having to face it.

While way up in heaven they lament these conditions
That come from changing a few prepositions.
"Not in it, or of it," Christian One thought.
But who is the world will know that he's not?
"In it, and of it," thought Christian Two.
But who in the world will know that he knew?
"Not in it, but of it," thought Christian Three.
But who in the world watches Christian TV?
And Jesus turns to Gabriel, shaking His head.
" 'In it, not of it...' wasn't that what I said?"

Because of Jesus,

Saturday Shout Outs!

I haven't done any shout outs in a few weeks and there has been a lot going on - so let's get to it!  Here we go:

• Meagan Hill Halquist (FUMC-K) and hubby Rich gave birth to an 8 lb. 6 oz. baby boy they have named Cooper!  Congrats to the parents and also to Godparents Kelly Jeck Trace (FUMC-K) and her hubby Keith.  I have a feeling this is going to seriously limit Meagan's blog reading time...  :)




Marie and Leslie Michalak back in the day...


• Marie Allen Pleasants (Springfield Friends Meeting) had a brief flashback on Facebook Thursday night, posting videos of One Tin Soldier and Lonely People and getting all nostalgic about the TNT (1987-94) days.  I had to break out the guitar and play those (along with numerous other) old songs yesterday.  Thanks for remembering, Marie!
• Continue to pray for Jennifer Minnigan Kuramochi (FUMC-K) and her pregnancy, as well as for 2 other former youth who may be pregnant but are not quite ready to make any announcements yet.  Somethings never change, ya'll- I still know all the good secrets!  :)
• Marilyn, Will and I will be headed to Winner's Grill here in Tampa this Sunday to watch the Super Bowl, since no one took me up on my invitation to come to town and eat Mexican Pile-Up.  Maybe next year!  This will be our third straight year at Winner's- good people and great food!

• I got a great e-mail from Jeremy Godwin (Springfield) this week about a trip he took to Chicago and a picture of some of his daughter's stuffed frogs and a Chicago Cubs stuffed ball that he bought her years ago.  He took Sammy (the ball) so he could visit the homeland!  The picture is at right; Stinky the Pootapotomous is noticeably absent.  Always great to keep up with all of my former youth and their kids!
• Steelers 24, Packers 21.  'Nuff said!
• I am so excited about the youth pastors I have been meeting on Twitter.  They are doing some amazing things, and I am honored to be offering a bit of advice and doing a lot of praying for them.  Join me!
• Patsy Hill (Springfield), mother of Hall of Famer Ken Hill, is one of mine and Marilyn's favorite people in the whole world, and she had a birthday this past week.  A funny story about Patsy- one time after one of the rare occasions when I filled the pulpit for our great pastor, Max Rees, Patsy told me she thought I did a good job.  She followed that by saying church didn't feel like church to her unless Max was preaching.  With anyone else she felt like she was "at a PTA meeting."  Every time I spoke after that I remembered those words and worked that much harder to inspire Patsy.  Happy late birthday, Patsy!  We love you!
• Sad news- the demolition of Disney's Pleasure Island is in full swing.  For survivors of our 1993 WDW trip from SFM, that means no more Comedy Warehouse.  The Fireworks Factory was already long-gone. 

• Dana Carvey is hosting SNL tonight.  As far as I am concerned, he is the GOAT (Greatest of All Time) when it comes to SNL cast members.  We had several of his character's posters on the youth room wall at Springfield.  I know he most likely will not perform his classic characters, but I would love to see Garth, Hanz, Grumpy Old Man, Derek Stevens ("Chopping broccoli"), Lyle the Effeminate Heterosexual, President Bush (41) or of course, the Church Lady.  I don't watch SNL much anymore, but I'll be watching tonight!
• Will Rees (Springfield) shared something on Facebook yesterday that his Grandmother Avis Rees used to say all the time during our years in High Point- "Everyone's crazy except for me and thee, and lately I'm starting to think thee are a little crazy too."  The truth hurts...

So there you go- another edition of Saturday Shout Outs is in the books!  Hope you all are well.  Have a blessed weekend, and let me hear from you!

Because of Jesus,

Embracing the Wilderness

1 Peter 4:12- Friends, when life gets really difficult, don't jump to the conclusion that God isn't on the job. Instead, be glad that you are in the very thick of what Christ experienced. This is a spiritual refining process, with glory just around the corner.

Bad theology is everywhere.  It can be found in books, speakers and songs.  It can be found each and every day in posts on Twitter and Facebook.  And it can be found most every Sunday morning in churches all across USAmerica.

One of the worst manifestations of bad theology (pardon my judgement) says that once you have accepted Jesus as your LORD and Savior, life will be a piece of cake.  Once God has control of your life every day will be a festival of fun.  Wealth, fame, power and glory will be yours. No more rain.  No more misery.  No more temptation.  With Jesus by our side we will experience heaven here on earth.  Now don't get me wrong, life with Jesus in it is far superior to facing life on our own.  But all of that stuff about life being easy?  That's a load of crap...

You see, the Garden of Eden was perfect, until Adam & Eve ate the apple.  When Jesus comes back to claim his throne, life will be perfect again.  We are in the in-between, and life is hard.  Jesus himself said, "In this world you will face many trials."  It is a scripture we can all understand.  We also learn from the life of Paul, who faced more than one or two of those trials, that they help build our faith and make us stronger.  In fact, if you look at most of the great men and women of scripture you will notice that many of them spent some time in the "wilderness"- AFTER God got a hold of their lives!

The great Dwight L. Moody was quoted as saying that Moses spent 40 years in Pharaoh's court thinking he was somebody, 40 years in the desert learning he was nobody and 40 years showing what God can do with a somebody who thought he was a nobody!  I can totally relate.  I spent 28 years in ministry thinking I was important.  I have spent the last few years in the wilderness, wondering if God was done with me.  Like Peter, I denied my Jesus.  Also like Peter, my sin did not mean I loved Him any less.  But it did leave me wandering in the wilderness.  I am only now beginning to understand just how wild the wilderness can be, as well as just how amazing grace is.  God is opening doors for me to do greater things than I had ever imagined.

Being in the wilderness is something we will all experience at some point on our spiritual journeys.  This doesn't mean we have done something terrible, that we are not "real Christians" (if I see that phrase one more time on Twitter I may ask God to send frogs again!) or that God is mad at us.  It mostly likely means for us, as it did for Moses, Peter, Paul and so many others, that God has something to teach us.  Life gets hard in the wilderness.  But don't be afraid of it- embrace it!  Remember Paul's instruction to "Count it all joy."  Know that while you are in the wilderness, God is getting ready to show you just what He can do with a somebody who thinks they are a nobody.  "Humble thyself in the sight of the LORD, and He will lift you up, higher and higher!" 

Because of Jesus,