Grace

Every breath you take helps keep you alive. By breathing in oxygen and breathing out carbon dioxide you are able to keep your body functioning. When you stop breathing, you die. Now, imagine that for 5 minutes you don’t breathe. After the five minutes is up you want to make up for the 5 minutes you didn’t breathe. Can you? You can breathe harder and faster, but is that really making up for the missing time of breathing? Are you really replacing the five minutes of no breath? I don’t think so. The way our body works we can’t breathe harder and faster to make up for missed time. We can breathe harder and faster to help through extra challenging times, like when we exercise. But there is no way to take breath now that fills in and makes up for the 5 minutes earlier where we didn’t breathe.

 

Now think about breathing in relation to faith. When I sin, it’s like I stop breathing. I can do all the good things, all the right things I want, but I cannot make up for the sin. We should be breathing all the time.  We should be obeying God’s law all the time. When we stop breathing we stop being able to stay alive. When we sin we stop following the law of God. There is a break from the very thing that keeps us alive.

 

Sometimes a person stops breathing for so long that without someone else stepping in they would die. They remain alive when someone comes and does CPR, or if they are hooked up to a machine that breathes oxygen into them. The only way for us to remain alive after we sin is for someone to step in and “breathe” for us. We must have someone who has followed the law without ever breaking it come to our rescue. We need to have someone else do what we should be doing because for whatever the reason we have stopped doing it.

 

If I were to stop breathing right now for 10 minutes and no one stepped in to breathe for me. I would die. If no one steps in to take my sin upon himself I will die. This is the reality. There is absolutely nothing I can do once I stop doing what I should to save myself. It is only when someone else steps in to save me that I can resume living. It is only by the grace of God that I can find life after death- life in this world, today, after my spiritual death. The only thing I can do is accept the breath given me. The only thing I can do is say yes to the gift offered me.

Basketball Church

On Tuesday my grandpa had a several bypass surgery (I’m not sure why there isn’t a specific number, but that’s what I keep being told…). Typically with this kind of surgery there is a 1-2% risk involved, but in my grandpa’s case the risk was much higher- 30%. This is because of several other health factors including fluid in the lungs and a varying blood pressure. He is doing very well, but still isn’t totally out of the woods. The doctors say he is doing better than expected, but it will probably be another 24 hours before they say he is in the clear from the surgery. So, today is in honor of my grandfather…

In case you don’t know, basketball has five main positions. Each of these positions is unique, and yet each position has some overlap with at least one of the other positions. The team can only be as good as the weakest position. For example- if the point guard doesn’t pass the ball well, the power forward’s job is pretty much useless. If the center can’t get to the basket, there is little the power forward can do to make up for it.

In ministry there are many different players/positions. There are people with administrative skills, people with socail skills, good planners, technologically knowledgeable people, and music people. (I know this is a way oversimplification…) You would expect to find some overlap in these different fields- a person with good planning skills probably also is pretty administratively adept. Frequently worship leaders are good at both music and technology. But can you imagine a church without even one of these players? The church would fall apart with good administration- much like a basketball team would be all over the place without a good PG. If no one was socially proficient, the work of all the other players would be useless because there would be no one coming to benefit from it, much like without a center making lay-ups the other positions wouldn’t be doing much of importance.

On a basketball team if one player starts to think too highly of himself the entire team will suffer. No matter how good that one player is, on his own he doesn’t stand a chance. In the church no matter how talented one person is, without a team supporting them they don’t stand a chance. Sure, for a little bit you might be albe to hang in there, but in the end you wind up with a devastating loss. The biggest difference between churches and basketball teams? The basketball team knows they are a team, and when one player decides to go off on his own, the team lets him know that isn’t okay. When a church person goes off on his own the church rarely steps in until the damage is already done.

You may wonder where the pastor is in all this. A few years ago, and perhaps still to a degree today, it was popular, at least in Reformed circles, to view the pastor as the coach. I have a lot of issues with this, but in this comparison that fits. The coaches job is to prepare the players for the game. To stand by them as they carry out their responisbilities. The team is only as good as the coach, but the coach is only as good as the team. In an effective ministry, the pastor trains and equips the congregation to carry out their responsibilities. But when they actually are out there, the coach is on the sidelines unable to do more than encourage.

Basketball church- a team that is completely interdependent where individuals success is team success and where individual failure is team failure. Perhaps our churches would be more the place they are supposed to be if we stopped being so individualistic and started to be more of a team.

A Letter From 2012

After recently claiming to not be particularly political, I stumbled across a couple of fake letters. The first one is from Focus on the Family and can be found here. The second was posted on The Search blog and can be found here. I found the second very funny, as it was intended to be, but some people would probably be offended by it. Apparently I’m not the only one who read the “Left Behind” books ages ago. That said, I am troubled by the first one a great deal. While some of their points are valid, I am once again feeling like there is something wrong with the Evangelical community’s view on politics. My most recent post on political issues was on the role “moral issues” should play in a Christian’s decision. This issue has come up once more because Focus on the Family’s letter clearly places highest significance on these issues- in fact with many other things they refer back to the biggest issue being that homosexuality is not only embraced, it is also forced upon everyone to agree and teach agreement of homosexuality being good. All this to say, just go read the letters, and if you have something to share, please come back and do so.

Ministry Time Out

Jesus’ ministry lasted only 3 years- that is the actual time he spent preaching, teaching, healing, etc. But from his ministry we can learn a lot about what we should be doing. First, Jesus spent 40 days in the desert before his ministry began. 40 days of testing and preparing. Today most ministry leaders have extensive education before beginning ministry, but I wonder how many of us have gone through a “testing” period- a time of trial before entering ministry? The other thing we need to follow Jesus’ example in is frequent breaks. In the middle of his ministry Jesus would take a break- he would go off by himself to regroup. Most of the time it says he went off to pray, so I take it to mean these breaks were times when Jesus went off to reconnect with his Father in ways he wasn’t able to when caught up in his ministry. Frequently there are big things that happen shortly after these breaks.

I know I tend to get caught up in the ministry part and put off the time away reconnecting with the Father part. I tend to think that it wouldn’t end up being restful because I would end up having to play catch up when I got back. Or there is so much going on I don’t want to miss any of it, so I’ll just have to wait until later when things slow down. But what I see from Jesus is that when things are getting the most crazy, the busiest is when he seems most deliberate about taking a break. Perhaps I, we, need to take more time away to reconnect with our Father, it seems that is when he is able to use us best. How do you take a break in the midst of the craziness? What seems to work for you?

Prayer Woes

I suck at praying. I’m excellent at talking to God throughout the day- but when it comes to actually praying for people, I suck. It’s one of my biggest struggles. I’m not good at lists because I don’t feel it’s genuine. I’m not good at remembering, because I just forget. And, I’m honestly not sure how to pray for people. Whenever I hear someone pray saying, “Lord, please be with so and so” I find that odd, I mean, God is already with us, that’s not the issue. But, should I pray for God to heal the person? If a marriage is breaking apart, do I pray for reconciliation? I rarely feel that I am in a position to know what to pray for. If it’s a young child sick with one thing but otherwise healthy, it makes sense to pray for healing. But what about for the man lying in bed needing an operation to survive but even after the operation he will not have a high quality of life. Or if the wife had an affair and that is leading to the dissolution of the marriage- is it really the best thing for them to stay together?

I can talk pretty openly to God about things I am dealing with personally. I can talk pretty openly with God about things I read. But how do I talk openly with God about someone else’s struggle, someone else’s need?

I feel like a hypocrite. I ask for prayer requests during youth group/small group. I genuinely care, and I want to know what the needs are in the group so I can pray for them. But, I feel like a robot when I actually go before God with these requests, like all I can do is read off a sheet of paper, or recite the basics of what I know and ask God to intercede. But this feels false and phony to me.

How do you pray for others? What am I not grasping ahold of?

Keeping Faith

I just finished “Keeping Faith”, a Jodi Picoult book. I commented on another book by her a while back, and typically I like what I read. Before you read further, I will be giving away some parts of this book- so if you haven’t read it and don’t want the end ruined don’t read on.

I have been waiting to be able to read this book for a while now. I first discovered it about 6 months ago- it’s an older one of hers, but the topic- faith/religion/belief fascinated me. From the beginning I was torn about my feelings. The book is about a girl who is apparently having visions of God and who has stigmata. The girl has had no religious training- there isn’t a Bible in the house anywhere, but she randomly starts quoting scripture passages that she shouldn’t have any idea about. Perhaps I am more of a skeptic than I would like to admit, but if a person were to actually show these things I would definitely question/doubt them. In the book we see a struggle with whether this is real and various people dealing w/ the reality of the situation in various ways- from blind belief in her daughter despite her doubts, to a man who decides to show the mother is causing this behavior in the child. Throughout the entire book I felt challenged to think outside of predefined box of religious thought.

That said, the book ends with the little girl talking to nothing- fully aware that she is faking talking to God. Picoult says at the end of the book that she wanted to right about belief- that belief in something is more important than religion. I don’t agree- but I would love to be able to sit and discuss this book that is fairly well researched religion-wise with a group of people who have various beliefs. Because to me it’s a lot to process, even if it is theologically weak.

The Ruler’s Responsibility

God created the world- he created light and dark, earth and sky, water and land, plants and animals, and he finished with humankind. In the poetic account we read after each creation “and God saw that it was good”. Then, God entrusted all this good to the care of humankind. He placed Human over it all, to rule over the entire rest of creation. When sin entered the picture it affected the entire world- we see this because the privlege and pleasure of caring for the earth becomes toil for Adam.

This is pretty elementary stuff. But for some reason we seem to think that ruling over something is all about using it for our benefit. But that’s not what ruling is at all. A ruler is responsible for everything under her. If she doesn’t take care of that which she rules, she fails. This isn’t just about her being able to continue ruling or being able to continue having the benefits and luxuries those she rules over provide. She has a responsibility to those under her command, under her care, to ensure their safety and health and protection. In medieval times, despite the numerous problems encountered by serfs from their lords the reality was the lord protected the serfs- he was the one who provided them a home inside walls and soldiers to protect them.

Our job as God’s caretakers is to care for the earth, to ensure as much as we can that the earth is protected and cared for. Not because it benefits us, but because it is the responsibilty of the ruler to care for that which is under her. What does this mean for how we should live in relation to the earth around us?

Against or For?

Culture seems to be a hot topic these days in youth ministry. Depending on who it is talking we either need to be more intentional about fighting culture or more intentional about adapting ministry to fit the culture. I hesitate to get on board with either of these because I don’t think it is our job to fight culture, in fact, I’m not sure we are supposed to fight anything. We are called to follow Christ. At times he became angry about things he saw, but I don’t find him really fighting against anything except by living/teaching an alternate way to live. Teaching that mainstream culture (or at least parts of it) are bad isn’t really what Christianity is about. We need to find a way to live differently, and by our lives we can transform the world. This is not a fight- the fighting part is for God. Our job is to follow him. We (Christians) are called sheep who follow a shepherd, not warriors going into battle (those areas that do talk about this are talking about a spiritual fight usually within ourselves).

I think the reason so many people are turned off by Christians but not by the idea of Christianity is because we are seen as people AGAINST something rather than people FOR something. We need to start living FOR GOD instead of living AGAINST the world. We can be passionately against the world but not be passionately for God. In fact, I think if we are passionately against the world we lessen our passion for God because so much of our energy is funneled into this negative we don’t have the time/energy for the passion God deserves. When we live passionately for God the rest will follow- we won’t be worrying about what we need to fight against because by living for God’s ways we are automatically living against those things that are not of God.

Perhaps if we all started to live for God instead of against whatever we are focused on fighting we would be better Christ-followers.

Doctor frustrations

I never realized how difficult it is to decide what doctor to go to. Perhaps I am over analyzing, but I still haven’t called to make an appointment to get my ear taken care of because I am overwhelmed by the choices. I narrowed down my search to female Internists within two miles of church and I still had over 100 results! How do I know who is good? I spent a good chunk of time last night trying to find out more information about the doctors but that is time consuming. All of these 104 doctors take my insurance because I found them using my company and id. How do you choose? I am concerned about making the wrong choice. About 5 years ago my doctor really messed up. I went to him about a severe back pain and he just gave me a prescription. I actually needed surgery. I spent nearly 6 months in pain that could have been dealt with earlier and more conveniently but he was sure it was just inflamed and never bothered to do an x-ray or MRI. I think this has tainted my view of doctors and makes me more concerned about what doctor I go to. We need a FREE database with all the doctors and their specialties by city with a rating. Until then I think I am going to call the office that has over a dozen doctors, because they will probably be able to squeeze me in…

An Epic Fairytale?

1 Samuel 14 is a wonderful story. There is so much tension and victory/defeat in this single story and coming from a youth director’s perspective, it seems to show a pretty typical teenager as well. But apparently several people has taken to talking about only a PART of the story and ignoring what I think is the best (and perhaps most important) part of the story. I’m not going to write the entire story here, it’s too long. But if you aren’t familiar with it, you may want to read it before going on because my theology may be very bad and it won’t make much sense if you don’t know the story…

Sunday I heard a sermon on about 5 verses of this story (I believe vs. 8-13). During the sermon the pastor referenced at least two other people who had talked similarly about this story and the “moral” of it. All three said the same thing- we need to be like Jonathan, unafraid to take the step out and trust that God will show up. A good lesson, something I believe we need to do. But not something I think this story is really about. Before I continue, I realize all three of these people should be more theologically educated than me and that our Bible’s that have section headings split this chapter into three separate stories, so I could be totally wrong on my interpretation…but in my reading of this story I in no way felt that it was saying we should follow the example of Jonathan.

My first issue with Jonathan as the unrquited hero- no where does it say Jonathan went following God’s lead. We read that Jonathan trusts that God can and will deliver the Philistines into their hands, but no where does it say that he was following God’s lead. Also, he doesn’t try to get anyone to go with him- this is HIS moment and only he and his armor bearer (probably a slave) go and they don’t tell anyone where they are going. I may be colored by my youth-centric focus but this looks like a teenage son trying to show his dad he’s a man by bringing victory on his own.  God delivers the Philistine’s into the hands of Israel by causing a panic in their camp.

Saul goes to fight the Philistines upon seeing the chaos. Again, this is without the Lord’s guidance. Saul consults the priests but when he sees the chaos increasing he stops. 

Saul is definitely shown to be in the wrong as well- he doesn’t truly seek God’s will before attacking and he commands the army not to eat until they gain victory which is shown to lead to sin on the part of Israel and to Jonathan disobeying by eating the honey. BUT when the lots are cast Jonathan is found to be in the wrong, not Israel and not Saul.

Like I said before, many scholars just say that Jonathan’s sin is eating the honey despite his not knowing that his father made this oath. Even if this is true, the reason for his ignorance goes back to his leaving the army behind to go do his own thing. But I don’t see why Jonathan would be more guilty than the Israelites who ate that which was forbidden by God.

At the route of this entire story about Jonathan is this underlying tone of disrespect- Jonathan doesn’t tell his father what he is planning when he leaves the camp, after eating the honey he comments that his father is not smart because if they were well nourished they would have had an even greater victory that day, and he seemingly tries to convince those with him that the honey was good and that they should be eating it as well. You may at this point be thinking that this is basically coming back to what all the other scholars and theologians are saying, but my point is that I think it’s all connected- from the moment Jonathan walked into that pass he was thinking about his victory and himself and not about what the LORD was leading them to do. If it was as simple as eating when he wasn’t supposed to out of ignorance then it would seem that everyone except Saul was in the wrong. But only Jonathan was found guilty.

The end of the story says that when Jonathan is found guilty and ransomed Saul stops pursuing the Philistines- this strikes me as being something he would do because he sees that the entire path was not sanctioned by God and he fears that were he to continue it would end in defeat- we do not see any specific message from God other than that Jonathan was guilty. I realize the lack of pursuit could also be said to stem from Jonathan eating the honey and Saul seeing this as a breach that would cause defeat. But again, I feel that ignores a lot of the story.

The last part of the chapter, the last mention about the fighting before moving on to another topic says that Saul fought enemies on every side and defeated some people groups. But that there was bitter war with the Phillistines as long as Saul was alive. This again suggests that the entire attack on the Philistines was not following God’s lead because typically when we see Israel attack an enemy following God’s lead they win and peace between the two groups follows.

Am I adding too much in to this story? Is it really three separate happenings? What is the true sin? Is this an epic fairytale or a tragedy? Have you heard other interpretations of this story? Where is the balance between taking too little and trying to make too much fit together?