Why Summer Rocks

I wait all year long for summer. I need it. What's not to love? Golf, garden patios, an array of colors, longer days, tanned skin, and time away. It's as if the human need for rest and being connected to earth and its elements crescendos during the months of June - September. Perhaps this is just the way it's supposed to be. Is that why it feels so right? Is that why 90% of us take the bulk of our vacation time in the summer?

When it comes to the seven-day week, God built humanity for a 6:1 rhythm. Six days of work, one day for rest. It's the ideal mix ratio we were meant to run on, similar to a car designed to perform on 10W-30 engine oil. Mess with it, you got trouble. Too lean? Lazy, sluggish, uproductive? Too strong? Burn-out, fatigue, crabbiness. You gotta get it right. Too often I've learned that lesson the hard way.

My asumption is that one of the reasons for 4 seasons of the year is the same. I don't think God just thought it would be humorous to tilt the earth on its axis just enough so that leaves would change colour, die, and return annually. There's more to it. There's got to be. We're connected to this place. It isn't just leaves, birds, and bees that need seasons; or ocean currents and the mating patterns on grey whales. It's all of us.

We're so connected to this place that we need seasons too. Seasons of rest and seasons of new life. Seasons of death and seasons of renewal. (Didn't the Byrds sing about this?) Actually, it's a Biblical concept (see Ecclesiastes 3). Yet too often these days we disrupt the rhythm. We abuse natural gifts like adrenaline and we don't know what it means anymore to live lives of healthy, patterned living. Rhythms. Life rhythms. We meant for them and we were meant to run better when we heed them.

This summer I intend to follow the rhythm: a few more rounds of golf, an extra book read in the sun, a heckofa lot less TV, and a little time just to catch my breath, to stop abusing my natural wiring, and stop long enough to enjoy the gift of another summer.

See you on the patio!

A Better Offer . . .

This morning I sat in on a chapel at Dordt College where Dr. Tom Wolthuis shared a message on the theme of Immanuel--God with us. The issues he brought up and the way in which he addressed the subject has been replaying itself over and over in my mind ever since I left the auditorium this morning. In particular, Dr. Wolthuis addressed the issue of fear that is so prevalent in our American culture today. Fear dominates the news headlines, the political campaigns, and the underlying voices of culture that bombard us day in and day out. He pointed out that the typical responses we are offered as choices in the wake of fear is either to fight or to flee. Then he proceeded to point out that a Biblical picture of God and his presence among us offers a third alternative: God in the midst of everything, even war, terror, and a culture of fear. An alternative that eliminates the fearful knee-jerk reactions of either/or mentality (in this case, fight or flee).

In this suggestion I am beautifully reminded once again that the gospel of Jesus Christ presents us with so many possbilities in life that extend far beyond conventional human wisdom. When everything went wrong in Creation and when makind turned his face against God in a brutal act of defiance, God's reaction involved neither fighting, nor fleeing. God's reaction, his infinite wisdom included a third alternative, the Incarnation. From the dawn of time, God's response to the perils of evil include neither running in fear nor angry vengeance. Our God entered into our pain, made our struggle his own, cast his lot deep within us, and began a program of healing and reconciliation.

Perhaps, with all the talk today of fear, of uncertainty for a safe future, and even with nuclear proliferation under the authority of rogue nations, once again it is not the conventional wisdom of man that is to be sought. It's limited solutions offer far too little: only fighting or fleeing (neither of which has the ability to actually stave off fear). Perhaps Jesus' ministry of peace and God's desire for complete restoration once again serves as our guidepost. Just as Dr. Wolthuis suggested, there is a third alternative. Our message, our God, our story was and still is, completely countercultural. May we model the ministry of the God we calim to serve. May we be akin to his presence. May we too offer more than just the short-sighted wisdom of man. May we be the presence of God amidst fear, a presence rooted deeply in love . . .

"There is no fear in love.

But perfect love drives out fear,

because fear has to do with punishment.

The one who fears is not made perfect in love."

- John 4:18 -

Patience, Patience

Someone once said that coincidence is God's way of working anonymously. Perhaps it could be added that irony is his preferred sense of humor. I'm not sure which one applies to me more this week but either way, God certainly has my attention once again. Let me explain . . .

The next sermon I am now studying for in our series of messages on the fruit of the Spirit is "patience." Normally this would not be out of sorts, if follows in proper Pauline order:love, joy, peace, patience, etc. (Galatians 5:22-23). However, not only am I perhaps one of the least qualified people on the planet (in my mind anyway) to preach a sermon on this subject, but its timing in my life could not have been more coincidental? Ironic? Well, you pick . . . Either way, I see God lovingly chuckling at me once again.

You see, next week I have to be examined by our denomination's regional governing body (our classis) in the final stage of my ordination process, a process that at times has more than tested my patience. I'll admit it. It's even broken me occasionally. Anger, threats to throw in the towel, even questioning God's sense of timing. After all, my path to ordination as a minister in the church has now taken a meer ten years of my life. And I'll admit this too: there have been moments when the waiting and the requirements far exceeded what I believed to be necessary in shaping an individual for church leadership. Ten years? Are you sure it has to take that long?

As I took some time this week to reflect on my journey something dawned on me for the first time: what if it should take that long? What if refining character, testing endurance, digesting piles of information, and just plain discipleship really does take a long time to instill in someone? Perhaps.

What am I saying? Do I believe that somehow I've now reached some point of Christian arrival? That all that waiting refined in me a flawless, goldy model of discipleship? Nah (just ask my wife). In fact, sometimes I wonder if my journey is just beginning. But I will say that I have learned something about patience . . .

And here's my new working definition of the word: "when we trade in our timing for God's." After all, if I can just accept the reality that he has granted me enough time on this planet to accomplish what he wants me to do, then I obviously have exactly enough time left to do it. No ten years gone. No limited time left. No clock ticking on my existence. Just trade in my timing for God's. Take for example the notion that God just took ten years to start teaching me about patience.

My timing would have looked a little different than that. Isn't that ironic?

Getting Fruitful

Several deep-seated convictions have been resurfacing in me while studying for this recent message series on the fruit of the Spirit. The first and foremost is the sheer power of grace. It's so beautiful to be reminded again and again that the power of the resurrection is lived out in all of us who would take on the name of Christ in our lives. That the strength needed for the walk of discipleship doesn't need to be conjured up within us but is already waiting to be unleashed when the Holy Spirit is operational in our lives. That God truly is writing the stories of our lives and that submission to his will is the strongest move we can ever make (Yes, I'm aware that equating surrender to strength is inherently paradoxical). I keep hearing so many stories of surrender, death and re-birth, and just simply God at work.

The second thought is closely related to the first. I'm having a really fun time imagining a community of faith where all its members continue to make a collective and conscious decision to move in the direction of grace. It feels like we're continuing in that direction. I sense more and more lately as though we stand on the precipice of an exciting chapter in our history of existence as a church. Accepting a call to be the pastor here was, for me, a lot about simply being eager to see where all this is going. It's been a wild ride already and to be honest, I feel like it's about to get even crazier. As one parishoner has said to me several different times, "Fasten your seatbelt!" Well, when God is given his rightful position in the driver's seat of the church and when all the members of a body are working together toward common goals, the possibilities become virtually limitless. I'm having fun imagining just how far that might be carried.

Finally, I keep seeing and hearing so many stories of individual, fruit-filled victories in all our lives and it's keeping me absolutely juiced for ministry. Keep it going, Bridge! Keep your eyes open, along with your hearts and minds. God is moving powerfully and through his grace we continue to take ground. In the end, it will be our fruit that will offer the final witness of our faith in this community. And as far as I can tell, it's getting sweeter by the day right now . . .

This Little Project We Call Bridge

It's not easy being a church. Studying the seven churches at the start of the Revelation over the last two months has reinforced this idea for me yet again. The world pulls so hard. Our loyalty is often so weak. We crumble. The funny thing is though, that it isn't the obvious threats to our Christian walk that plague us the worst. It's the subtle tugs that pull at our time, our hearts, and our minds. Remaining faithful to Jesus in the midst of a busy world takes a lot of intentionality, accountability through community, and fresh reminders that each one of us (continually) need a Savior. It's not as if we set out to be bad disciples. Our faults just seem to happen.

Christ's warnings against complacency at times seems almost beaten to death in Revelation chapters 2 and 3. Yet in all honesty, apathy and complacency seem to not only be the biggest threat facing the Church during the first century, but also the greatest threat facing the Church today (ours included). It's as if we each go through periods of ups and downs, commitments, backsliding, and re-commitments. We need the reminder. We need our Lord (and our community) to lovingly kick us in the shorts and keep us on track, reminding us of grace and the unrelenting love of Christ.

However, sadly when we do go through those struggles, it so often appears as though the very community intended to hold us up is the first to tear us down. Why is this? Why are we so bad at being that beautiful bride of Christ talked about in Scripture? It never fails to astound me, every time I reread those passages that this is the imagery Jesus chose to describe his relationship to the church. Have you seen our church, Jesus? Have you seen the one down the street? Honestly. Beautiful?

And yet for all our faults, blemishes, and downright ugly spots, we are still (and always) his beautiful bride. (Apparently real love is blind). Even the churches and individuals that fall so far are never beyond his adoration and continued pursuit. Maybe this is what is supposed to keep us a place of grace. The perpetual knowledge that it really isn't about us.

Lord, thanks for your unyielding love and for allowing us this little project we call, Bridge. Thanks for never failing even when we do.

There's a model of love we can learn from.

Christians: Giving Christ a Bad Name

This morning I received an e-mail from a friend complaining about the unauthentic lives she was frustrated seeing in so many Christians--how they could act one way on Sunday and yet so differently the other six days. Her frustration was so overwhelming that not even wanting to be associated with the name Christian was becoming a very real desire. Sadly however, her complaint is not a new one and it is certainly not without warrant. All of us, too often, give Christ a really bad name.

What is it that causes this to happen? Is it just that truly following Jesus is so hard that once we leave the safe confines of Christian community we revert to our old default mode within minutes of driving off the church parking lot (if we make it that far)?

It makes us sincerely want to ask, would the real person you are please stand up?! I mean, who are you? The jerk I see on Monday or the pasionate one looking so holy, lost in worship on Sunday . . . And yet, perhaps the dichotomy between the two is not as pronounced as it first seems. Perhaps being a phony Christian actually would mean only playing one side of this Jeckel-and-Hyde game. Perhaps the fact that we still exhibit both the sinful manifestations of the old self and flashes of the new is truer to Scripture (and reality) than we would like to admit.

Yesterday we celebrated communion together as a church. In the morning, I re-read the part of Paul's letter to the Romans where he talks about this internal battle of inconsistency that rages within us: "For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing. Now if I do not do what I want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:19-25 TNIV) Yeah, that about sums it up.

Perhaps authentic Christianity isn't so much the complete arrival of our new self in this lifetime (by the way, this belief was deemed heresy in the first century already) but admittance that we are being torn in two. That we are inconsistent when it comes to who we want to be and who we really are. Besides, whoever told the world that Christians are good people told a horrible lie. We are no better than anyone else. In fact, our track record proves we are often worse!

My dream for our little church is that we would be the place that never attempts to perpetuate this false sense of pride: that in any way we are better than anyone else. I hope our message is just simply this: "Hey, I'm stinking it up over here and need Jesus something fierce. If you've ever felt the same, hop on board. Let's be idiots together . . . idiots who recognize we need Jesus." Maybe then, we could stop giving Christ such a bad name.

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