some other beginning's end

So...this year has brought a lot of change to the Stephens' household.

The first thing is that I now consider it a household and a family, as opposed to an apartment and a couple.  Henry Robert Stephens entered our life on November 14th and nothing has been the same since, which is occasionally stressful, but mainly just very cool.

This was also the year that our car died halfway through a 2 hour Sunday drive home from church, which means that it was the year that we had to get a new car and a new car payment, something we haven't had for a couple years now.

It was the year that my car got hit while parked at Ponderosa.

It was the year that I stopped writing out sermons and moved to an outline based system, and did just fine thank you very much.

It was the year where things that previously didn't work started working.

It was the year I did my first marriage, first baby dedication, first counseling session.

It was the year that Mary's closet became a nursery, that a superman toy box became brown and covered with wooden animals, that our trunk got filled with a stroller, and our backseats became less roomie.

It was the year that I started writing a blog, thanks for coming along for the ride.

It was the year that the Hulk became fun again, Batman died and lived again, Spiderman became new again, and superheroes ruled the box office in general, and truth be told I love me some superheroes, especially the Batman.

It was the year that I not only had to begin planning worship services, but also lead them.

It was the year that I was proven wrong, just like every other year I suppose.

It was the year that my life seemed a little less important that someone else's.

It was a year of vast change and vast stagnation.

It was a year that the world misunderstood the Mayans, so once again the world did not end when someone said it would. [my suggestion lets stop worrying about the end and start paying attention to today]

It was a year where too many people decided to take their pain out on strangers.

It was a year of joy and pain, sorrow and shame, and greatness.

It was 2012 and it's almost over.

This next year my son will crawl, and perhaps walk.

This next year my car will probably die, which is fine by me, I want a new car too, at least new to me.

This next year I have a secret hope, known to those closest to me.

This next year I hope to be a good father, a good husband, a good friend, a good pastor.  I don't need to be the best at any of them, but I do strive to be better than most.

This next year I pray that I am a better man in general, and a better Christian in particular, because if I am then everything else will fall into place.

This past year I spent too much money on things that don't mean so much, so this next year I hope to do less of that, so that the money I spend will mean more.

This past year I hurt people, and didn't help people, so this next year I hope to hurt people less and help people more.

This past year I let myself down from time to time, so this next year I plan on doing that less.

It has been seven months since I started this blog and I have found it very fulfilling, but there have been weeks and months that have passed without an entry, my plan is to make sure that doesn't happen this year.

All in all 2012 was a great year with a few down moments, I hope that a year from now I can say the same about 2013.

Happy New Year.

Peace and Love,
Pastor K

What My Christmas Gifts Say About Me

So...here I sit on this Boxing day full of snow, a two hour drive from home, sitting at my Father-in-law's computer in borrowed lounge pants.  I thought it might be fun to write an entry about what I got for Christmas, to show how much I am loved, but also to show what my various gifts tell you about me.  I will do this chronologically so as not to put any one person's gift above anyone else's. [ain't I pragmatic]

I recieved my first Christmas present from two members of my congregation, my wife and son on Thursday the 20th.

I got a figurine of Linus Van Pelt holding his blanket, it stands on a base and is flat and metallic.  On the base it reads 'fearless' and if you put a candle in front of it you can see Linus on the wall, which is kinda cool. What it says about me is that I love Peanuts [but more on that later] and that Linus is my favorite character, because like me he is a philosopher and a theologian, yet still needs that blanket to feel safe [and while I don't have a literal security blanket you can bet your bottom dollar that I have several figurative ones].

I recieved my first group of Christmas presents on the 21st from my Mom, stepdad Len, sister, brother-in-law Jonathan, and neices Lucy and Nora and nephews Landon and Noah.

I got...

a target giftcard -- the first thing this says about me is that I really like Target, it is by far a better store than Wal-mart because of the clientel in Anderson, IN.  I can't remember the last time I saw someone shopping at Target in their pajamas, whereas I think I see at least a person or two in their pajamas at Wal-Mart year round.  Secondly it is a better store because their 'first week' movie, cd, video game prices are usually much better than Wal-mart.  As you should already know, as a regular reader of this blog, I am a big fan of movies, music, and video games so this is a really big plus for me.  My current plan is to use my giftcard to buy Season 6 of Psych [one of, if not, my favorite TV shows].

a coldstone creamery giftcard -- I also like icecream quite a bit, especially places that mix in various items into said icecream.  At Coldstone I usually get strawberry icecream with strawberries, gummie bears, whipped cream, and graham cracker crust mixed in, I think that if you want to get technical about it it is a strawberry blonde with gummie bears.

I also got [along with Mary] some money which we used to eat out the other day, and [along with Henry] a dancing Charlie Brown [can you see a bit of a pattern forming].

My next set of gifts came on Sunday the 23rd. First from my congregation.

From both my congregation as a whole as well as from one of my members I got money.  What this says about me is that I am lucky to pastor a small yet very caring congregation.  I won't say that a life in ministry is without stress nor will I say that I am in love with the four hour round trip every Sunday, but I am extremely blessed to pastor the people that I do.  It is the best place to be a first-time senior pastor.  They are an understanding and forgiving bunch and I am very apprecitive of them.

Then from my wife and son.  We did Christmas on Sunday because I had to work on Monday and then following work we drove to my in-laws.

I got...

Skylanders Giants and three extra characters (Swarm, a giant, and Pop-Fizz and Chill) -- Henry got me swarm, because I wanted him ever so much and Henry is a thoughtfull gift giver that way.  What this mainly says about me is that a) we (Mary and I) decided to spend less on eachother since we had a third person in our home; b) I am a big child at heart, after all most of the people who love this game are under the age of ten, which I'm fine with.  I tend to like action/adventure games, but I am less inclined to play the ones where you kill people, I would much prefer to kill aliens, robots, monsters, and other inter-dimensional beings.  To that end I tend to lean more toward Mario, Sonic, Spyro, Jak and Daxter and the like. [I have in the past made an exception for the Uncharted series, but I no longer have a PS3]

I also got a stocking full of candy and other items, like a new lego batman keychain -- it says that I like candy, especially Dove chocolate with Peanut Butter, it also says that when we got our new car the keychain on the new keys was fairly ghetto so I needed a new one.  Mary picked Batman because, well I love Batman.

Which brings us to Christmas day and my in-laws.  From my sister-in-law Jennifer, my brother-in-law Mike and my nephew Owen I got...

an Amazon giftcard -- while Target is probably my favorite place to shop that has four walls, Amazon is my favorite place to shop period.  for those who haven't tried Amazon.com out yet my suggestion would be to go do that right this minute, I'll wait.  Amazon is a brilliant place that carries almost everything that has ever been made at prices that 9 times out of 10 compare favorably with any brick and mortar store.  I would probably do all of my shopping there if I wasn't an impatient person [I like my movie and music the day it comes out].

an itunes giftcard -- I love itunes.  I own an ipod classic with 140 gb of storage and I still have about 40 unused so this has already helped fix that [I downloaded a Duncan Sheik album that I didn't already have as well as the Toy Story short Partysaurus Rex, which is HI-larious].  As I said I like getting my music right away and since I usually work late shifts on Monday nights I tend to come home and download the new music I want right at Midnight, to this end itunes giftcards are helpful, especially in Mary's eyes.

a box of Strawberry fruit roll-ups -- Yes, I like fruit roll-ups.  But what this really says is that a couple weeks ago Jennifer and Owen came and visited us.  We went to the Indianapolis Children's Museum, the biggest and best in the world [not sure about the later, but the former is verifiable].  We had a great time, although I do fell that Henry could have had a better attitude about it, he seemed restless most of the time he wasn't asleep.  BUT, Jennifer and Owen found my fruit roll-ups and decided to help themselves to them, so I got a box as a make-up gift.

and finally [at least so far, and I am open to more gifts] from my mother-in-law Janice and father-in-law Bob I got...

Catch Me if You Can on blu-ray -- I would think that this first points to the fact that I love movies.  Second it points to the fact that I am a blu-ray believer.  Third it points to the fact that this movie contains [in my opinion] the best two actors alive today Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio.  If either of these men are in a movie I will watch it, no matter what it is [even the Ladykillers remake that Tom did, which wasn't as funny as the prviews led me to believe] [or the Beach movie that Leonardo did, which was three-quarters of a good movie, but what in the name of all thats holy was that portion that resembled a video game about]

Hercules -- This is the Disney version.  It says two things about me, first I do love me some cartoon movies, but more importanly than that since I learned that I was going to have a son I have been on a mission to acquire the kids movies that I feel Henry should watch as a youngster.  To this end I started buying them this summer, some I got new (like Brave and Finding Nemo), some used (like Chicken Run, Spirit, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Tarzan), some as they released on blu-ray (like Aristocrats, Pocohantas, the Rescuers, and the Tigger Movie), and I still have a list of ones to buy in the coming months when they are re-released (like Peter-Pan, Who Framed Rogger Rabbit, and Mulan)

a 2013 New England Patriots calander -- I am a Patriot fan, living in Indiana.  Before you accuse me of untrue things I have been a fan since Tom Brady was in high school and the only Super Bowl the team had been to was a 53 to 0 blowout by the Bears.  I myself was in junior high and for whatever reason there were an unusually high number of Washington State games on TV in West Virginia and so I decided that wherever Drew Bledsoe got drafted that would be my favorite team.  Hence when he got drafted by the Patriots I became a Patriot fan.  There have been good years and bad years, a lot more good than most teams, and I love Brady and Belichick, but I was a fan before them and I will be a fan after them.

the Complete Peanuts 1983-1986 -- Starting in 2004 Fantagraphics began publishing the complete 50 year run of the comic strip Peanuts by Charles M Schulz in 2 year incriments twice a year. Each fall, following the publication of the 2nd volume, they put both of them out in a boxed set.  So each year since I have received or bought the box set version.  This means that I now own 36 years worth of Peanuts.  I adore everything about this comic strip.  I liked reading them as a boy, I was disapponted when I heard Charles was retiring and I cried when Sparky died the day before his final strip came out.  I have a multitude of Peanuts related merchandise from clothes to statues to toys and stuffed animals to christmas tree ornaments.

New Interpreters Bible Commentary - Daniel and the 12 Prophets -- When I became a senior pastor I decided that it was high time to get a commentary set of my own.  I choose the New Interpreters set because not only does it look at the scripure scholarly but it also has a set of pastoral reflections after each section, which I sometimes find helpful to jumpstart my brain.  The problem is that as a whole it is so gosh darn expensive.  To that end starting last Christmas I have been receiving and buying them individually, about one a month.  This was the tenth one I needed, I have since ordered the 11th with the aforementioned Amazon giftcard which leaves only Numbers-Samuel left.

and a stocking with more candy, a McDonald's giftcard, and money -- this says that I have very generous in-laws

To end I would like to thank everyone for giving me things this year.  I hope that you enjoy what we got you as much as I will enjoy what you got me.  Merry Christmas, lets do this again next year.

Peace and Love,
Pastor K

Daddy and other words I never worried about

So, five weeks ago my son Henry took his first breaths of air and my whole world kinda changed.  Sure, it had changed from the moment that we found out Mary was pregnant, but when his head started to enter the world it made a new cosmic shift.  At that moment I was no longer just responsible for my life, but also his.

[yes you could say that I bore a bit of responsibility for Mary and my congregation, but it sounds better this way]

A New Life = Change in the old one

Like I said, its been five weeks and life has been different than it used to be, the food I eat is many times colder than I prefer, and the times it is not only I am eating, and then Mary's food is cooler than she would like.  Prior to Henry's arrival I had never changed a diaper, currently I have no clue how many I have changed, but I know it is a lot, several at a time when he decides to continue doing his business while I am in the process of changing him.  I do a lot more laundry and dishes now, because the kid seems to go through a billion bottles a day, and even though his clothes are quite a bit smaller than mine and Mary's he seems to go through them quite a bit faster than we do, I mean I get a few uses out of my jeans before I wash them, Henry, not so much.

In addition, while I have never been the best sleeper, since Henry decided to come out for a lifetime I now think fondly of those days when I would get 6 straight hours, of course this is a bit of an exaggeration since Mary and I take turns dealing with Henry in the night.  Usually we do every other night, unless one of us isn't feeling well, and she does take every Saturday so I can be well rested for the drive to church.  I would also be remiss if I didn't mention the fact that it takes much longer to get ready to go anywhere, sometimes this gets to the point that Mary and I take a lot more solo trips out then we used to, it is just a lot simpler for one of us to go shopping and the other to stay and watch Henry.

Even with all of these changes I have to remind myself that it will get a little harder for me before it gets easier.  This is because Mary goes back to work in two weeks [those six plus vacation are zooming by] and at that point I will become Henry's primary daytime care giver.  What this means mainly is that the current state of being able to take a nap the next morning after a rough night, thanks to Mary, will be a thing of the past.

I realize that I have been talking about changes and by and large it seems to be on a negative slant.  That is not my intention at all.  I love my son immensely, sometimes it seems more and more each day.  And while there were times before his impending arrival where I was unsure of my desire for children, since I learned of his coming some 10 months ago I have been looking forward to his arrival, and since that day I have been basking in the glow of 'daddyhood.'  To that end I want to end this post with my...

'Top Five Things I Currently Love About Being A Dad' - in no particular order

1) It might seem strange but, the way Henry sucks on my finger when I attempt to check to see if he is hungry: I assume that I sucked on my finger quite a bit as a child, they almost all seem to, and I have sucked on my finger from time to time through the ages, usually when I have hit it with a hammer, and gotten a paper cut, but having this new little person suck on my finger is just a bit more AMAZING.

2) Henry has started to follow my finger when I place it on one side of his head and move it to the other: Again this might seem like a really simple thing, but just a short period of time ago I was a blurry thing to this little guy and now he can follow my finger with his eyes.  He is already gaining weight and getting longer/taller, and I am just so happy to be along for the ride as he continues to grow and develop.

3) There is absolutely nothing in this world that quite feels like a baby sleeping on your chest: Now this doesn't happen all the time, because sometimes I will pick Henry up and he will be a wiggle-worm, but the times when he gets in the right spot and cranks his neck at an angle that would put mine in pain for the next week and falls soundly asleep on me is, again, AMAZING.  In those moments I truly realize the unique gift that God granted when he created a species that could reproduce.  To think it all starts with some sperm and an egg is astonishing sometimes.

4) Henry, unbeknownst to him, occasionally smiles: Yes, I realize that he is not consciously smiling, but in the times when he curls up his mouth my heart melts.  My Henry is a really cute kid and his smile is going to get him out of a lot of trouble at home, I just know it.

5) There are times when he just wants to be held: Now, I'll admit that sometimes this can be a minor pain, like when I am hungry or need to use the restroom or just want to change the channel and the remote is on the couch which is where I left it before I got up to change his dirty little diaper.  But there is this whole other time frame when it is adorable that the kid just wants to be with his mom or me.  Just holding him in our arms makes him feel safe and secure and to some baby extent loved.  I also am well aware that there comes a point when your child will not want to be held and loved as much as he currently does, so I am trying to soak it up now so I can think fondly of it later when he wants to borrow the car but won't give me a hug.

To sum up, Henry has brought a lot of changes to my life, some good and some bad, but for what little bad he has brought is more than made up for by the pure joy that he has brought into our lives.  I love my son.

Peace and Love,
Pastor K

Tragedy and Hope

I am sitting at my computer trying to figure out what tomorrows sermon should look like.  This advent season I have used the Christ Birthday Offering sermon thought starters provided by Christian Women Connection as a jumping off point.  And the first two weeks were fine.  

On the 2nd I preached about who God invited to the birth of Jesus, Mary [a 13 year old girl] and Joseph [a carpenter who disappears from scripture soon after], shepherds [who were on the outskirts of society], and the three 'wise men' [a group from a different culture, a different religion, a different skin-tone].  

On the 9th I preached about the gifts that were given by the Angels [a gift of praise], the shepherds [a gift of presence], and the 'wise men' [a gift of provision].

But this Sunday the thought starters didn’t really speak to me, so I decided to go off on my own way.  My original plan was to speak about Mary and her journey, but then Newtown, Connecticut happened, and I feel that part of a Pastor’s job is to give hope in times of trouble.  So, here I sit trying to see if there is a way to marry the birth of a child and the death of 20 children.

The simple answer is that of course there is, life and death are intrinsically connected whether we like to admit it or not.  You cannot live and not die. [as Braveheart would remind us, though, every man dies, not every man truly lives]  Sooner or later death comes to us all.  An by and large this is not shocking, until death comes at a time and place where we don’t expect it, like in a harbor in Hawaii, or a pair of tall buildings, or a school.  When the cruel hand reaches into the places we feel safe we are rocked to our very core.

It has happened to all of us, multiple times over I would imagine.  I first felt death’s cruel hand when I was 5 and my father died.  I remember death walking into my own school years, first in high school taking the life of a friend by their own hand [or maybe he was just cleaning his gun], and then shortly after college graduation when a friend died in a house fire.  During seminary my employers son took lives because of drugs and sex.  Whether we want to admit it or not, death comes in a multitude of surprising ways.

Perhaps the worst place it visits is a school, and it happens far too often.  In the inner-city we in suburbia kind of just shake our heads and talk about a culture of violence, but when it hits home we don’t talk about a culture of violence, we talk about God not being allowed in schools.  God does not allow hate and death into our schools because we don’t have teacher led prayer.  Hate and death enter into our schools because hate and death exist outside of them and occasionally find their way inside them also.

There are people who are currently calling for God to be let back in, as if to say that the God that they insist is everywhere could be kept out by lack of prayer or FCA.  God never left our schools, God still sits beside and watches our children, sometimes God watches them succeed, sometimes fail, sometimes be overjoyed, and others be hateful.

There are other people who are calling for better gun control, a cause I wholeheartedly support, but no matter how many guns we outlaw death and hate will still exist, perhaps even more so.  In truth guns are not the cause of this crime, pain and sorrow are.  The same can be said for every crime everywhere.  Whole people do not take the lives of others, only those who have been mistreated, misused, unloved, or simply not helped do.  It is possible that this 20 year old young man have mental issues, I do not know, and in truth it doesn’t matter, whether or not he did he was missing something in his life, something that those around him failed to give him, hope.

In this moment, in this tragedy, we need to understand that if we really want to see a world where moments like this are fewer and farther between we do not need to get rid of guns, we need to work to get rid of hate, get rid of bullying, get rid of mistreatment, get rid of the idea that some people are better and some are worse, get rid of the idea that human life isn’t precious.  We need to love better, educate better, nourish better, help better, and give hope better.

I am woefully inadequate to be dispensing advice in times like these, I simply write the words that are on my heart, if they are helpful take hold of them, if not let them fade away.  There is a hymn that resounds in my head from time to time, and I am going to leave you with a variation on its words, my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ love and righteousness.

Peace and Love,

Pastor K

the central message

About 11 years ago I wrote the following essay at the end of a year of seminary classes on the New Testament, just thought I would share.

The question
Is there a central message to the New Testament, what is it, what has God done, what do believers do, how is there diversity and unity in the New Testament?

Central Message: Central Man
I would like to say that the central message of the New Testament would be something like love, I like love, I am big on love, and many times I see a church that does not love.  But that is not the central message, in fact most of the New Testament isn't about love at all, at least not directly.

My next thought would be to say something like, the central message is the Kingdom of God, after all Jesus’ ministry was about the Kingdom, Paul’s letters were about unity in the Kingdom, and if Revelation isn't about the Kingdom I don’t know what is.  But even that is too narrow.  The Kingdom of God is deeply rooted in the New Testament mainly because the New Testament is about one man who sacrificed all to give all to all. (My, that’s a lot of alls.)

The central message is Jesus as Christ.  If Christ is not the message, then what is the point?  Why did the disciples die martyrs deaths?  Why did Paul radically shift from Christian killer, to Christian creator?  Why did John have visions of horsemen and beasts?  There is no New Testament without Jesus, merely OT2.
From John telling us that Jesus was ‘in the beginning’ to Revelation’s proclamation that ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last’ the New Testament in a Jesus story.  It is about love and the Kingdom, it is about grace, and faith, it is about God and us, it is a Jesus story.

God movement: moving God
Depending on who you were to ask, God’s actions may be very different.  If you speak to someone who believes that Jesus is God, then God did everything that Jesus did, and does everything that the Holy Spirit does, to them God is everywhere and in everything.  If you were to ask someone who thinks that Jesus is the Son of God, emphasis on the son, then they might say that God sent His son to win back His people and save His creation.

What he didn't do, was come to start a new religion, nor did he come to cause division.  There are others who would say that Jesus was just a man, and the God didn't do anything, if he even exists.  There are others, probably the majority, which would say that they just don’t know.  They are not sure if the Bible is all that inspired, that Jesus seems like a pie in the sky idea, and that the Trinity is just some mumbo jumbo.  These people, while well-meaning, are merely confused about the irrationality of the New Testament.  After all they are good people and they don’t understand what God is, let alone why he would have to come down here to die for them.  In the end God does, or does not do, exactly what we let him do, some of us he saves, some of us he doesn’t, at the very least he sent Jesus to show us that there is a choice.

Believer movement: snail Christians
What do believers do?  I don’t know.  Believe and you will be saved.  Saved by grace.  By faith, and not by works, so that no one can boast.  Maybe we do nothing, it depends, again, on who you ask.   There is so much diversity in understanding of these 27 books that you can’t really answer that too succinctly.  Many people would say that as long as you don’t commit the sins that Paul lists in Romans 1:18-32.  Others say that you have to live your life according to  Romans 12-15.  Or maybe believers should live their lives by Jesus’ sermon on the Mount, by loving thy enemy, being salt and light, doing good to please God, not judging, and walking the narrow path.  Then again, maybe all we do is live by ‘Jesus’ faith.’

Unity? Diversity?: amazingly so
One may wonder why there can be the diversity that is found in the New Testament, some may think that if Jesus is the central message, then how can diversity exist, but that is the wrong question.  Diversity is a natural occurrence when the story is about a man, we ask many questions of people, especially extraordinary people.

The amazing thing about the New Testament is not that it has diversity, but rather that is has unity.  Take the gospels for instance, the stories diverge on occasion, depending on the book certain things are left out, and certain things are different.  But does it matter whether Jesus healed one or two men whose demons are hurled into a group of pigs?  No, it doesn't  what matters is that all four gospels show Jesus healing and raising people from the dead, and feeding thousands with just a little fish and bread.  That unity is amazing.  The fact that common subject matter (606 verses of a possible 661 of Mark used by Matthew, 350 used by Luke); wording (51% of time when Matthew uses Mark it is exact, Luke 53%); prime order (follow sequence; when one departs the other stays); agreement within the synoptics occur at such a high rate it is amazing.

We need only look to our own short American history to find occurrences where people writing about the same person vastly differ on the aspects of their lives, just ask a group of average people whether or not George Washington ever chopped down a cherry tree.  The places where diversity do exist within the New Testament, in particular the letters of Paul, many times we forget that there is an evolution of thought and that some letters were not meant to be seen by all Christians.

An ending, a new beginning
That is the same title I used for the conclusion of my Jesus Paper last semester, I would still agree to the fact that every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end (thanks Tonic).  That is what today is, a new beginning’s end and a new beginning.  While the New Testament classes may be over the learning never stops, the understanding never ceases, and lives continue moving.  Jesus is the central message of the New Testament, but is he the central message of the church, of this school, of these students?  Let us hope so, and continue to try to make it so.

The New Testament is a Jesus story, and we are the next chapter.

Peace and Love,
Pastor K

Finding God on Pop Radio

It's been awhile, I've been a little busy with the end of Mary's pregnancy and then the beginning of Henry's life in the 'real' world, so I have neglected this particular outlet.  Fact is, other than sermons, I haven't really written much of anything lately, so hopefully this will be the start of a resurgence for my life in words.

I was thinking this morning about doing a sermon series on Finding God in the Top 40, but I soon came to the realization that it might not really resonate with my current congregation [they are a decidedly older group], but I still like the idea, so I think that I am going to be doing several blogs in the coming weeks/months that focus on popular music or movies and where I see God speaking through them.  Now, at the start for a small part of my reading public [and you know who you are if you're reading this] I would like to lay aside any fears that I am on my way to becoming the third prophet of the apocalypse, I feel the second one does just fine in his insanity, plus you can add in the fact that I don't believe in the apocalypse, at least not in popular definitions of such a thing.

Now, onto what I do want to say...

The Unknown God

There's a place in Acts [chapter 17] where Paul encounters a group of people in Athens and talks to them about an altar they have that is to an 'unknown god,' and Paul proceeds to tell them about this unknown god, you see, Paul believed that God was everywhere, sometimes revealing himself in surprising ways, just waiting for someone to come along and make sense of it all.  While I don't think that I am that person to make sense of it all, I do agree with the base belief that God is all around.  It's kinda like the beginning monologue in the movie Love Actually

'Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaking suspicion... love actually is all around.'

I am a firm believer that God is love, so that if love actually is all around, which I feel it is, than in the same way God is all around as well.  If that is true than the question is, 'where do I see God today?'

Where I see (hear) God today

As I said I first started this line of thinking when thinking about the topic 'Finding God in the Top 40,' so for me, it most recently all started with a song on the radio.  The song was by a dance music group Swedish House Mafia.  The first thing I should probably say is that I am usually not a 'dance' type of guy, I don't have much rhythm, in fact Mary usually laughs at me when I "dance," to be completely honest is usually only involves some arm shakes and a slight sway from side to side. [go ahead and laugh, get it out of your system, so we can move on] N-E-Way, so Swedish House Mafia, seems to mainly be a remix and random singer over dance beat group, but the song on the radio caught my ear.  The song is titled 'Don't You Worry Child,' and the chorus goes a little something like

Up on the hill across the blue lake, 

that's where I had my first heart break 

I still remember how it all changed 

my father said 

Don't you worry, don't you worry child 

See heaven's got a plan for you 

Don't you worry, don't you worry now 

Yeah! 

Right away, I am sure you can tell where I am going with this song, I am not the guy that looks for hidden meaning in things, I am the guy who watches the t.v. show or movie and rides along while the characters find the answers, only when it is painfully obvious do I allow myself to figure out the answer before Castle and Beckett or Shawn and Gus or Sherlock and Watson do for themselves.  So, where do I find God in this song, 'don't you worry child, see heaven's got a plan for you.'  My feeling is that the Swedish House Mafia does not plan on making grand theological statements in their songs, but they did none-the-less.

As a pastor I find one the most difficult things to convince people of [and to live myself if I'm honest] is that we do not need to worry so much about life.  The truth of the matter is that we allow ourselves to become cuffed by our worry, to be imprisoned in our doubts, to be beaten down by our fears.  Jesus tells us that we do not need to be people of worry, because God clothes the flowers and feeds the birds of the air, and God loves us so much more, but we still find it so hard to actually follow through on that suggestion/command.

I think that part of the issue is that we don't trust God as much as we think we do, in part because I think we often doubt that in fact heaven does have a plan for us.  Now, when I speak of a plan, I am not talking about a step by step laid out road map for our lives.  What I am talking about is a general plan that leads to a fuller life of gratefulness, confession, honesty, and love.  God is not looking to put us in the corner, nor make us jump through the right amount of hoops in order to have peace and joy.  God is looking for a people who will put their trust in God and who will look around and see other people who God also longs to personally love.

As I said, I am as much in need of releasing my worry as the next person, more on some days.  I worry about paying bills, about making sure we do right by Henry, about next weeks sermon, about having enough gas, and food, and clothes, and music, and movies, I worry about important things and to a larger extent occasionally to unimportant things.  I need to let go of the worry, to let go of the doubts to let go of the fears, and I am pretty sure that you do as well.  For us all I [the Swedish House Mafia] say, 'don't you worry, don't you worry child, see heaven's got a plan for you.'

Peace and Love,

Pastor K

An Open Book?

I'm sitting in a lecture that is supposed to be about Melchizedek and is instead about the archaeological and social aspects of the 2nd temple period in Jerusalem during Greco-Roman times.  To say I am disappointed would be an understatement.  I don't care about the subject of this lecture in the least, but here I am, sitting here attempting to comprehend the words the lecturer is speaking.

[his accent is very difficult for me to get around, I am pretty good when in personal conversation but in this environment it is proving difficult]

I sit here because someone wants to talk to me afterward, to ask me a question to be precise, I don't know what the question is but my interest is piqued so here I sit.

The previous lecture went over time so I caught the Q & A time that followed it, one of the final things that the lecturer said was that in ancient time Jewish people believed that texts could be both sacred and yet still open, so that the interpretation of a text could be considered as sacred as the actual text itself.  I find that amazing and quite beautiful, I often think that we as Christians [and other religions as well for that matter] do ourselves a disservice by having a sacred book.  I say this because it seems to me that we are so quick to dismiss new thoughts and papers as insignificant to what is written in the Bible, we have this belief, or at least unspoken understanding, that God stopped speaking 2000 years ago, which couldn't be further from the truth.  God still speaks and has been speaking all along, but we just shut if off.  But what if God wanted us to go beyond what Paul wrote?  What if God wanted us to go beyond what James or John or Peter or the other authors said?  After all didn't Jesus say that the things that we would do would be greater than what he did? [John 14:11-13]

We have so much more information about ourselves and our world then they did way back when [yet there are those who believe that the science of the Bible should be believed over our current understandings of the way the world works] Why shouldn't we leave room for both our knowledge and what God still has for us today?  Imagine if we considered our entire knowledge base as sacred, imagine is we considered our experiences sacred, how much better would we be?

What I am suggesting is nothing new of course, their have been those who have come before me who have said this and there are people who live beside me today who have said them as well.  Maybe what we need is more people to say the same things as opposed to people saying their own things.  In the words of Rob Bell, everything is sacred, I just think it is time we start living that way.

Because I believe that if we started believing, really believing, that all people are sacred we would start treating each other much better.  If we started believing that it is possible that God is still speaking, perhaps even speaking through people who are not Christians, we would begin to listen harder and better to what people of all creeds and religions have to say.  Paul many times claims truth from other avenues as if it came from God, maybe we should be doing the same 2000 years later.  If we did that, how close to God could we get?  How much better would we follow?  How much better might we love?

I don't know about you, but the idea that God still speaks excites me, it says to me that God is not static, and that God can't be held down, not in a box, not in a mind, certainly not in a book.  God is still speaking, still moving, still expanding, and we are called to help that expansion.

Peace and Love,
Pastor K

The Yellow Folder: on Legacy and Mortality

In case you're not in the know we are having a baby boy pretty gosh darn soon, give or take 7 and a half weeks.  To that end we had our first baby shower this past Saturday, and this blog has its origin in that moment as much as any other.  I was frankly surprised when I found out that my mom and sister would be attending the shower, I figured they would buy us stuff, but didn't expect them to actually attend the shower.  My sister now has 4 kids, one just a few months old and figured that they would keep them from coming.

[my mom and step-father live near my sister to help out, hence why I figured neither would show]

But, they decided that they would be able to come, and we were both glad that they did.  Among other things, my mom got us a glider rocker, which I had been wanting, but I was not hopeful that anyone would buy it.  Mom also brought me a yellow folder with some various papers in it.  Obviously, this is the yellow folder of the title, so what was in this folder you may be wondering?  Well, first a step sideways.

Side Step

As I said, a baby boy will soon be gracing our door with his noises and smells and needs and gifts.  I am extremely excited to meet my son, I am extremely anxious about wanting to be a great dad, but most of all in recent weeks I have been extremely concerned with what kind of legacy I am handing down to my son.  I look back at my life and wonder exactly what I am going to hand down.  I have had high points and successes along the way, I can't nor won't deny that, but I also know the mistakes that I have made, the health issues I have had, the dark places I sometimes have ventured into, spiritually, emotionally, physically, and I begin to worry about Henry, begin hoping that he follows only in the good steps and keeps away from the bad ones.

It's funny in a way because growing up my mom would always tell me and my sister about her mistakes in order for us to choose a different path.  It's sad in a way because combined me and my sister made almost all of them.  Which makes me wonder, how much of life really is nature and nurture?  Which leads me to wrestle with the dilemma of 'how do I lead/keep Henry on the good path?'  I look at people in my own, small church and see many families who are continually in prayer over their children and the paths that they have chosen, praying that they will come back to the faith they once seemed to know.  How do I, as a man and a pastor, adequately help Henry to grow in stature among people and God?

If I am honest I am not the best pray-er, I talk to God but I don't have a set time or place, I don't have space carved out for prayer, but I have found myself pleading to God recently that I will know which path to walk, which words to say, which stories to tell, so that Henry a) doesn't make my mistakes and b) is allowed to make his own.  I want to teach obedience and grace, to teach faith and questioning, so that he understands what God's love and ultimately my love mean.

Step Back

So, the yellow folder.  Inside the yellow folder was a plethora of things.  Some unneeded tax forms from way back in college.  Some random recipes, some of which I have already, some of which I hate.  An attachment guide for a Kitchen Aid Mixer that my mom gave us last year.  My immunization records.  A few pictures.  2 news-clippings from high school when I was selected to see the city government in action, I went to the sewage treatment plant. I remember two things distinctly, a) inside it didn't smell at all and b) there was an issue of playboy in the bathroom.

Also, a certificate of baptism from when I was 8 months old.  My six year old fingerprints.  My high school commencement bulletin.  A Presidential Academic Fitness Award.  A letter saying that I was eligible for Indian Creek Schools Gifted program A piece of paper that mentions how I was eligible to participate in the Johns Hopkins Mathematics and Verbal Talent Search, and one piece that says that I did participate.  I read 'To qualify for the Talent Search, a student must have scored in the 97th, 98th, or 99th percentile of national norms in a single area (mathematics, verbal, or composite score) of a standard aptitude or achievement test.' I scored in the 99th in math.

So on the one side I had a bunch of papers that talked about my life, about a few things I did, about what I was immune from, about how smart I used to be, about how much potential I once had.  I wish I had realized what it meant then that I was so good at math, maybe I would have worked on that a little more, instead of allowing one jerk teacher to kind of take my joy of math away.  I barely remember the words sign cosign and tangent, let alone am I currently able to tell you what they actually mean.  If I had known, maybe I'b be an engineer or a banker, making lots of money, maybe I would be a different person in a different place.  I am perfectly fine with my place in the world right now though.  My young self may have loved a life in numbers but my current self likes a life in the midst of people.  I would rather be giving hope to people than giving them a bill or a foreclosure or a new car.

So, that was the right side of the folder, now the left.

In the left pocket there was...a declaration of my parents marriage.  A ceremonial program for their wedding.  My dad's registration card for selective service, which oddly enough looks in better condition than mine.  A card that certifies my dad's honorable discharge from the Air Force following a four year service as a 'basic airman' where he received a National Defense Service Medal.  According to Wikipedia it is a medal commissioned by President Eisenhower as a 'blanket campaign medal' for those who served honorably during a time of 'national emergency.' My father would have been in the first group to receive this medal for duty during the Korean War.  It has also been awarded during the Vietnam War, the Gulf War and the War on Terrorism.  I have no clue where that medal may be today, perhaps my grandma has it or maybe my half bro Billy.

There were three more papers in the folder.  First my dad's birth certificate, certifying that my dad was born in Steubenville Ohio June 16,1934.  Also included in the folder was a obituary of my grandfather, a man who died 25 years before I was born at the age of 49.  The last piece was my dad's death certificate, certifying that my dad died on January 14, 1984, a little over two months before my 6th birthday, when he was 49.  Did you notice that?  Cause I did, I have always known how old my dad was when he died, but I never knew that my grandfather died at the same age.  That freaks me out a little.  I know its ridiculous.  My grandfather had a heart attack, my dad cancer.  But both at 49.  That's just 14 and a half years from now.  Henry would be in junior high, which I suppose would be 9 more years than I had with my dad, so that would be something at least.

I don't think that I am destined to die at 49, but I would be lying if I said I wouldn't be a bit relieved on my 50th birthday.  I would also be lying if I said that it doesn't make me want to appreciate the next 14 and a half, or how many years I have left.  I hope to live to a ripe old age, to be able to live to complain about all the aliments that my parishioners complain about.  I hope to see Mary's hair covered in gray or white, to see Henry graduate from high school and college and medical school so he can take care of his poor parents.  I hope to see his wedding day and be there for the birth of my grandchildren.  I hope all the things that a new parent hopes, because sooner or later death will come for me, just like it did for my grandfather and father before me, just like it does for everyone sooner or later, but that's tomorrow and right now its still just today.

Peace and Love,
Pastor K

My Confession

Don't think of me as an example, the only one is Jesus.
Don't think of me as a leader, the only one is God.
Don't think of me as something special, I'm only a failed stupid man
Don't think of me as a savior, I'm barely alive myself

I can't tell you the times that I have been pulled back from the brink of destruction.  I can't tell you how many times I've failed.  The number is so high I decided to stop counting.  I often pray that the Bible tells the truth when it speaks of God forgetting our sin, cause man, if God remembers, I'm not sure I want to go to heaven. I preach a gospel that I so often don't believe.  One of hope and strength and love and forgiveness.  One of acceptance and power and tears being wiped away, while I am often in the midst of crying.

I don't know how to be a pastor, I pretty much just make it up as I go, hoping to fool all those around me, and hopefully fool myself as well.  I've only been a husband for six years but already I've stopped keeping count of the times I've let Mary down, with words that I've spoken, or those I've kept to myself.  I promised words of honor and fidelity yet I get angry over stupid &#*% and choose my own good over hers so often.

I've been to college and I've been to seminary yet I have no discipline of learning, heck I pretty much BS'ed my way through both degrees.  I was a history and philosophy major in undergrad and hardly recollect what Plato or Aristotle or Abraham Lincoln ever said.  I took enough classes to get an M.Div. but instead have an M.T.S. because I didn't want to spend 400 hours in a hospital, because I can't stand being in them.  I've made promise after promise, to friends and family, spouse and unborn child and I am not very good at keeping them.

I've failed myself even more than I've failed anyone else.  I always believe I'll do better, and for awhile maybe I do, but sooner or later [usually sooner] I fall back to my old ways, oftentimes falling deeper into them then I was when I promised to stop.  I lack enthusiasm in almost every area of my life.  I worry that all I am doing is holding the hand of death as opposed to walking something back to life.  I worry that I'll never be the man that I not only want to be, but the one that the people around me need to be.

I don't have many friends, at least not the deep kind.  I have people I'm friendly to, and I am a good listener, but my own life is a blank slate to those around me.  They know what I do, who I'm married to, and that I am about to have a son, but that's about it.  I used to be better about opening myself up to others, but I think I got to a point where I didn't like who I was so I didn't want anyone to know who I was either.  It's simpler that way.  You don't have anyone knowing the depth of your depravity nor do you have to deal with people who say you're not that bad.

I've gained the view that we are all salvageable because I desperately hope that I am.  I've gained the view that God loves everyone, the sinner and the saint, because I hope it's true for me.  But I have an untold amount of views that would get me into trouble with my own religious establishment.  I am afraid to be honest.  I am afraid to share.  I am afraid to be courageous, because it just got Jesus killed.  I am afraid of the future and the present.  I am afraid that one day I'll walk too far away and not know how to reach the shore.  That I'll just keep drifting into nothingness.

I know that we all have bad days and weeks and months and years.  I know that we all get down sometimes, which is why I don't give up, why I keep hoping even when hope is difficult to find.  It's why I keep trying to love even in the times I don't love myself very well.  It's why I keep preaching every Sunday, in hopes that I could touch one life, mine.

If you're reading this I want you to know that I'm all right, I'm not morose or depressed.  I'm not suicidal or even thinking that way.  I am just confessing because I've been thinking a lot about the power of confession and how maybe the Catholics have it right, that sometimes we just need to get things off of our chest.  Already I feel a little lighter then I did when I started this post.  Already the day seems brighter, the darkness a little less tight, hope and love seem right around the corner, that's where I'm headed, hope to see you there.

Peace and Love,
Pastor K

the EVOLUTION of a preacher

BLOG PART 1
9 and a half months ago I became the senior (and only) pastor of Linton First Church of God in Linton, IN.  When I first started I was a rather wet behind the ears preacher, I had preached before [twice in seminary, several times at South Meridian in Anderson, twice at Auglaize Chapel in Ohio, and a fair few at Maple Grove in Anderson] but it was my first time having to preach week after week month after month.  I had never been the only person responsible for deciding what would be preached, before I always worked under someone else's plan, or at best worked in conjunction with others to decide what we should be preaching.

So, there I was with this thing looming over me, how was I going to be able to preach every Sunday [which come around with surprising regularity] and what was I going to preach on?  I started in Genesis with Abraham, a good place to start, I thought, after all Abraham was the world's first monotheist, as long as we don't count Adam, Eve, Noah, or anyone else in the first 11 chapters of Genesis [which I don't].  So, we had someone starting this new thing, so why not talk about it in the context of this church starting a new thing.  It worked good enough and that led us into Advent.  At first I thought I had advent covered through the Christ Birthday Offering Sermon Thought Starters [Each year the Christian Women Connection (formerly Women of the Church of God) take a church wide offering in order to help various ministries of the church, they have devotional booklets, posters, bookmarks, and sermon thought starters to help Pastors plan for this important time] until I read them, and to be brutally honest, this past year they kinda sucked...sorry.  So I decided to preach a series on the various characters of the Christmas story and their various journeys to Bethlehem.

Then I moved into a series on my/our new purpose slogan Real Love, Real Faith, Real People.  Then some random sermons and then Lent, which I once again decided to look at the various characters of the Easter story and their various encounters with Jesus,  Following that we spent a little over a month on the Sermon on the Mount.  Then a few random sermons, followed by a two week study of Titus. Next week I will finish my series on the Psalms, after that I am either going to preach out of one of Paul's letters, or do a series called Where You're Living At, which will look at the various rooms in a house and talk about what we need to be doing in them.

To be honest I hadn't planned on giving you a blow by blow of my sermon series, I had a completely different plan for this blog, which I will now get to.

BLOG PART 2
Sitting here today I am not the same preacher I was 9 months ago.  Back then I worried a lot about my sermons, now I tend to let go a little more.

Back then I wrote out my entire sermon, now I work off of an outline, it saves me a lot of time, plus it gives me the freedom to go where I feel I need to in the moment as opposed to feeling tied down to the words on the page.

Back then I was very concerned with how long a sermon should be, or more to the point I was very concerned that the sermons would be long enough, I didn't want people to think that I gave short sermons because I didn't research enough or know enough.  Now I don't really care how long they are, as long as I say what I feel I need to say that is fine, oddly enough according to my wife I actually preach longer now then I used to, go figure.

Then I spent a lot more time writing than actually thinking about what the text had to say and what I had to say about it, now I spend the majority of the week thinking about my sermon, letting my week interact with it, letting life around me interact with it, for this reason I feel that my sermons are more in the moment than in some illustration that I can recall from ten years ago.

9 months ago I compared myself to other preachers, both ones I knew personally as well as what we consider 'superstar' preachers, now I say the heck with it, I am who God helped make me to be, and I am where I am when I am for a reason, if its good enough for God it should be good enough for me.

Then I worried about everything, but now I am closer to my old easy going self, I still have times of concern and worry, still occasionally border on being depressed, but once I realized that it was all right to be me, I let go of some of the stuff I was holding onto and concerning myself with.  The point of fact is that I will never be Rob Bell or Mark Krenz or Dan Kihm, or my wife [who is a much better speaker than me] people I admire, sure, but what I am learning is that they will never be me either, and maybe, just maybe God has us all doing his work because God needs us all to do his work.  And if God needs us then God may just also need you...just a thought.

Peace and Love,
Pastor K

No Sleep, No Sleep, LALALALALALA

Well, folks, here I go again.  I should be working on my sermon for tomorrow, a sermon about Psalm 39 and what kind of legacy you want to leave behind.  But to be honest I have so many thoughts floating around the ether of my mind that I am finding it hard to focus.  I think this is partly due to lack of sleep this past week.  I keep getting to sleep really late and waking up fairly early in comparison.  I won't lie, this is mostly due to my own fault, instead of trying to sleep I keep doing things [watching movies and TV (Olympic coverage) or just catching up with stuff online, or playing too much Zuma and listening to music].  I need to stop this activity but for some reason I would rather watch or play instead of sleep, at least until the next day when I fight grogginess for hours on end, but then the cycle repeats.

More importantly if I am going to stay up there are things that I could be accomplishing, like working on sermons or my ordination papers [one year down and no work so far, though it has been a far busier year then I was originally anticipating] or writing more blog posts [which might not seem important, but is a creative outlet for me, which I desperately need, I used to write songs, a lot of songs, and now I don't, so I do enjoy blogging].  But I don't, instead I waste my time, and the hours pass by ever so quickly.  Oh, well, at least I'll be prepared for the lack of sleep that's coming in 3 months, give or take.

Peace and Love,
Pastor K

Another Chance

So I've been doing my sermon series on the Psalms and today [well actually now it's yesterday] I preached on Psalm 51.  I have a little history with the Psalm so I thought it would be a good one to tackle.  About 8 years or so ago I was a youth counselor at South Meridian Church of God in Anderson, Indiana under Mark Krenz.  And for our ski trip/winter retreat Mark preached out of Psalm 51.  In addition, me and Chris Gwaltney, another youth counselor and our worship band leader, ended up writing a song based on the Psalm while we were maxing and relaxing at the ski lodge while other people were skiing, snow boarding, and generally falling down.

For my other sermons I have basically focused on the Psalm itself and what it had to say, but this time I decided to take a look at the story behind the Psalm.  For the uninitiated Psalm 51 is supposedly written by King David following his being confronted by Nathan the Prophet about his adultery of Bathsheba and his murder of Uriah.  If you don't know the story you can read about it in 2 Samuel, one of the books of the Hebrew Bible [Old Testament], or you can just keep reading at get the overview.

I started talking about David being at home when he should have been out with his men at war.  About how he took a moonlit stroll and saw a beautiful naked woman taking a bath.  He asked who she was and one of his servants informed him, and then he sent for her and bed her and sent her away in the morning.  A while later he found out she was pregnant and then set about trying to 'fix it.' David sent for her husband Uriah and tried to get him to bed his wife, or at the very least lay with her so that he could be convinced he had bedded her and impregnated her.  But Uriah was a man loyal to his men and so he refused, even after been made drunk with wine.

After this failed David sent a note with Uriah to the captain of the army.  The gist of this letter was to put Uriah in the front of the deadliest fighting and then to step back.  The captain followed the orders of his king and Uriah died, but so did a lot of other men in the fighting.  The captain sent a page to tell King David the news of the great loss, but told him to tell David that Uriah died also if he got angry.  David having been told of Uriah's death decided that it was all good, not caring how many other men had to die to cover David's sin.

Following [in chapter 12 of 2 Samuel] God send the prophet Nathan to tell David a story of a rich man and a poor man.  The rich man was, well, rich and the poor man had but one ewe lamb that he treated like a daughter.  A guest came to visit the rich man and instead of using one of his many cattle decided to use the poor man's one lamb.  David was enraged about the injustice and called for the rich man's head, which caused Nathan to say that David 'was that man.'  In the end David convicts himself because he sees what he has done.  Out of his contrite heart he wrote the 51st Psalm.

This morning's sermon was a sermon about grace, about the ability for another chance [not a second, we all had that a long time ago, but another].  I talked about how if God is not willing for David's sins to be the end of the story, with how great they were, how much more is God not willing to let our sin be the end of our story.  I spoke about how no matter what we have done, no matter where we have gone, no matter who we sometimes are, no matter what we may one day do that there is still a God who yearns for a relationship with us, who yearns for us to recognize our misstep and turn again toward his love.  In the Psalm David speaks about God's generous love and great compassion, but I wonder how often we fail to understand those aspects of God.

I would imagine that it is not through God's fault, or even the Bible's, truth be told you don't have to read much of the New Testament to understand how much God has done for us and how much he loves us.  Heck, even if you begin in the first half there are a multitude of stories of grace, the fact that God clothed Adam and Eve after there fall [be it a true story or not it still speaks to the character of God in the face of our sins].Which makes me think that the fault is probably the church's or more importantly the human beings who make up that church.  I would imagine that t is people in the public eye like Fred Phelps or Pat Robinson or the late Jerry Falwell who convinced so many people that God is the great judge in the sky just waiting to condemn us sinners to hell.  I don't know what Jesus they read about but that is not the gist I get at all.

Even in the times when Jesus confronted people who were living incorrectly I feel that he did it with a broken heart not a smile on his face.  I know that Jesus would never have blamed Katrina on the sin of America.  I know that Jesus wouldn't be picketing a funeral of a soldier or a homosexual.  I know that Jesus would be standing beside the grieving, helping them to stand upright in their time of overwhelming pain.  And I have to say that if that is what Jesus would be doing its probably what we should be doing also.  And if in our actions and our in-actions we his "followers" have convinced even one lonely hurting child to stay away from a scary God I worry about our eternities, not theirs.

I don't know about you but even I, a pastor of a church, is in desperate need to be reminded that God accepts me the way I am, even in my screw-ups.  I am desperate to be loved, not tolerated.  I am desperate for a sense of hope, for a sense that tomorrow may not always be better, but it will at least be a start of being better.  I am glad that David made his mistakes, because they remind me that mine aren't really that bad, at least not bad enough to keep me from God.  It's strange that we think that it is possible to do too much wrong for God, to think that our deeds could be bigger than his love, to think that our mistakes could trump his power to forgive, to think that we could be beyond his reach.

I pray that both you and I would recognize that God's love is bigger than anything that we can do, that God is never further away then just around the corner, and that forgiveness is never more than a simple u-turn away.

Peace and Love,
Pastor K

[Sidenote: I have stated before that I do not think that God neither stands up nor sits down to pee, but unfortunately their is not a non-gendered pronoun to use when talking about God, so I hope that those who are against using male language for God will be forgiving in the times when I do, I appreciate that the concept of a Heavenly Father may not be meaningful to all people]

the Dung Month

Okay, so admittedly the last two blog posts have been, just okay.  Neither time was I really interested in saying something, or maybe more importantly I had nothing to really say, but I felt I had been offline for too long and I needed to remind you all that I was still here.  But that's over now, the real Pastor K has returned and today we are going deep...maybe.

With only a bit of sugarcoating it has been a pretty crappy couple of weeks.  As I have previously shared in detail about a month ago now my car got hit while Mary and I were eating lunch at Ponderosa.  Then, again as previously stated, although in shorter limits, about a week later my bank card was compromised, because of that we had a few bills that ended up being late, hence late fees were attached to some bills.  Then another week or so later Mary's plane back from Denver got delayed 5 hours, so we were too tired to make the 2 hour drive to church.  I didn't know if I would get paid for that week since there was no one besides myself that decided I wouldn't be there that morning.  So, when I got to church the next week and there was only one check there I didn't really question it [on one of the few bright sides of the past month today I received two checks, for this week and for the missing week, turns out they had just forgotten to give it to me, and since I wasn't sure if I was getting it I didn't ask] but because I only got one again things that should have been paid got left behind and yet again late fees.

Mary and I had come to a plan on how to attack the bills and get back ahead, but then a few short days later (or yesterday depending on how you want to think about it) we were heading home from church and we stopped at a light, when the light turned green the car wouldn't move, instead it started making a loud noise, and unfortunately the same noise happened in drive, first and second, and reverse.  I got out and pushed the car to the side of the road about an hour away from home.  We turned on the blinkers and called Mary's family, Janice (my wonderful mother-in-law) got in her car and started driving to us, a three hour drive from their home.  As we sat there not knowing what to do, and around  mile and a half away from any place to eat or waste three hours, we began to dwell on how the last month has been a big pile of dung.

Fortunately a car pulled up and two strangers/angels gave us a ride to a restaurant so that we could eat something, then after we finished a rather stressful lunch we walked to a Meijer and wasted another hour and a half until Janice showed up.  We called someone to tow our car back to Anderson and so it waits until tomorrow.  We are hoping/praying that the car will not be as messed up as we fear, Mary's dad thinks it may be the transmission, which if you know anything about cars is most often not a cheap fix at all.  Which begs the question will we be able to get it fixed, or will we need to get a new car [did I mention that this was our 'good' car, the one without a hit n run dent in it, the one with air conditioning, the one that we have hardly ever had any problems with...unlike mine which is just the opposite], which while it would be great to have a new car comes with a sizable monthly payment which is unneeded in the wake of having a new life form in our house in about 4 months.

I wrote a blog awhile back about how I don't believe that God is in the punishment business, but I can't say that it hasn't crossed my mind that maybe there is something that I am doing [or not doing] that is causing this stuff to happen to us.  But I also realize that bad stuff happens to everyone from time to time, and in addition I am fully aware that this is not the first time that bad stuff has happened to us in our about to be six years together.  To that end I realize that much like we have made it through other tough times that we will make it through this one as well.  But there is still the small voice that worries and frets and tells me that maybe this time will be the one that breaks us...to that small voice I say buzz off.

I preached this morning over the 23rd Psalm and about how we are constantly in the valley of the shadow of death, its just that we too often don't realize it.  Today I am all too aware that we are in the valley, but I also know who walks with us, and while the path may not always be easy we are never alone in it.  That truth gives me hope, that truth helps me stand, that truth knocks away the worries, that truth banishes the small voice, that truth gets me through.

Today my prayer is that you would also take in that truth.  That today we can all start walking with our heads up instead of down.  Today we can hold each other up when the other is falling.  Today we can know that our great, caring, loving God walks beside us and within us, helping us to carry on through the sunshine and the rain alike.

Peace and Love,
Pastor K

Psalms and Songs

As  stated in my last blog I am currently doing a series on the Psalms for my sermons, and tomorrow's is on Psalm 23.  As I have been working on this series it keeps reminding me of a project that I did about 7 years ago.  At the time I was a youth counselor at South Meridian Church of God here in Anderson, the youth pastor at the time was Mark Krenz, who is now the lead pastor of One Community Church outside of Phoenix.

It was right before Lent and Mark suggested that instead of giving something up for Lent maybe we should try to do something new instead.  During my college years I wrote a lot of song lyrics, so I decided that during Lent I would read all 150 Psalms and write a song based on each one.  I thought if I wrote three to four a day I would get all 150 in the 40 days.  Sadly, I am not the most disciplined person so while I started out writing 3 to 4 a day I quickly went away from that and sometimes did only 1 and a fair amount of the time I did none, so toward the end of the 40 days there were a few days where I was writing 8-10 a day to finish on time.  So as a blast from the past, here is what I thought David was saying to me on February 15, 2005.

A Shepherd's Psalm

Intro:
I need a green pasture
I need a still water
I need a path of righteousness
because I'm stuck in the valley of death

You promised you'd be here
and that's a promise kept
but I wish you hadn't promised
that I'd be here at all

And though you're with me
I still have a dreadful fear
and mine enemies look like
they're about to eat me

Chorus:
Lord, can you get me out of here
I'd do just about anything, I fear
so Lord, just get me out of here
and I'll do anything, go anywhere

you promised me a cup
overflowing
but you didn't say anything about
me drowning in it

and you said you'd
anoint my head
but you failed to mention that
I needed healing

Chorus:

Intro:

Chorus:

anywhere but here

As you might have realized it was a time when I really wanted out of where I was.  This is a recurring feeling that I have, wanting to go somewhere new.  This might be why I like going places on vacation so much, or it could be that I just have a wandering spirit from when I was a kid and we moved every few years.  I may post a few more of my Psalm songs as we go along...to that end here is my one based on Psalm 1 which I did for last weeks sermon.

Prayers and Cries

Dear Lord, I pray
hold me to your side
Dear Lord, I pray
never let me wander from you
Dear Lord, I cry
always hold me to your chest
Dear Lord, I cry
keep me from the wicked path

Chorus:
make me a tree Lord
planted by the sweet water
let me bring fresh fruit
and set my leaves not to wither
and I will walk in your ways
until, until, the end of my days

Dear Lord, I cry
cry myself to sleep sometimes
Dear Lord, I cry
over all the times I promised and lied
Dear Lord, I pray
that you might hold me so tight
Dear Lord, I pray
help me Lord, you not to fight

Chorus:

Bridge:
you know the paths of righteousness
it's where I always want to be
and you know the hearts of the follower
it's who I always want to be
and I pray, and I cry
Dear Lord

Chorus:

Well, that's just a taste of my awesome song writing abilities.  At the time I had dreams of one day being a songwriter or singer in band [was in one the year before but we went our separate ways, I still sing in church though, so if anyone needs a lead singer for their band let me know ;-)]

Peace and Love,
Pastor K

Rearranging and a little housekeeping

As you have probably figured out by this point we are expecting a baby in November and to that end we have been rearranging some stuff to make our extra room ready to be a nursery.  We did most of the work about two weeks ago but in order to finish the room we needed to move Mary's filing drawer out and into my office.  To accomplish that task I needed to clean and rearrange the office so there would be room for this new item.  As I type this I am sitting in said office, and right now it is about 80% finished and I am wore out.  The filing drawer is now in here so I feel that this was a good time to stop and rest, frankly I am beginning to find that I am not quite as young as I used to be, strange.

Truth be told I made this change a little more difficult than it needed to be, I could have simply moved a couple items to the side and would have had plenty of room for the drawer.  Instead I decided that as long as I was needing to change things around I would do it a little more drastically and, in addition, I decided to get rid of some things and to simplify in other areas.  It is a little sad how much stuff I have and I don't even need half of it.

I realize that it has been a little bit since I last wrote a blog so I did want to do a little housekeeping and bring you up to speed with what has happened since my last blog [which by the way is now my most read blog, which I am quite happy about, it was a topic that I really wanted to address and one which the church really needs to wake up about].

The day after I wrote that blog I had really good news and really bad news.  On the bad side of things I got a call from my bank about some charges that occurred in Southfield, MI which we did not make.  If you happen to run into someone in Southfield [which I have never been to] who is bragging about getting one over on some guy in Anderson do me a favor and kick them for me, then tell them the are forgiven. On the good side of things we found out that we are having a boy [I wouldn't have cared if it had been a girl, but still good news none-the-less].  And to boot he has ten fingers and ten toes so everything looks good.

Then the next week Mary went to Denver for the Church of God International Youth Convention for work, on the way back her flight got delayed by five hours because of some storms in Texas, this meant that we didn't get home til 3:30am and were too tired for church the next day, so I called and told them we couldn't make it, which meant we lost a paycheck, adding to those charges in Southfield things have been a lot tighter than they needed to be, oh well, at least I have bills to complain about, it means we have a home and cars and clothes and food and a lot of other things we don't really need.  So, really I have no right to complain about it, but it still stings.

As far as church goes I started a new sermon series on the Psalms called 'The Heart's Cry" each week I am looking at a different Psalm and seeing what they says into our lives today.  David and the other psalmists may have lived thousands of years ago but the desires of their hearts are still the same as our hearts desires, stability, love, strength, hope, etc.

In other 'church' related things I performed my first wedding this past Friday for a former co-worker.  I was told by multiple people that I did well, so I assume that I did, or they were all lying to me, which isn't out of the question, but I'm still going to assume I did a good job.  It was an extreme honor to be allowed to play a role in such a life-changing moment.

I suppose that brings us up to date, I have to get ready for work soon so I suppose that I'll end here.

Peace and Love,
Pastor K

Isn't it time?

I realize that while I am a pastor and my blog often revolves around 'spiritual' matters, not everyone who reads this is necessarily a Christian.  You don't all necessarily attend church, and more than likely most of you are not a part of my particular faith tradition, which is Church of God (Anderson, IN).

But today I want to speak specifically to my faith tradition.  It is a tradition that is steeped in a story of women in ministry.  At one time their number was around a third of all vocational ministers.  That number has drastically dropped in recent years.  And our leaders have too often fallen into using male language when speaking of pastors.  In addition, as my wife recently wrote about on her blog (http://unconventionalpastorswife.blogspot.com/2012/06/finding-conference-for-clergy-spouses.html ), too often we have spoken of pastor's wives and not only assumed that the spouse of a pastor must necessarily be a woman, but a girly woman at that.

I am going to take a few steps today and the first is with the concept of pastor's wives.  If you were to read my wife's blog you would know that not all pastor's wives are cut from the same mold.  To this end the first step I suggest is to stop treating pastor's wives as if they are all middle-aged and above, as more young pastors come onto the scene more young pastor's wives come along with them.  Most of these young women are more professionally minded that my mother's or grandmother's generations were.  Most of them are as post-modern as our culture, which means that we need to stop treating them as if they were our mom or grandma.

[we also need to mention that pastor's spouses, if they can even be considered as a whole, need to allow the possibility for the inclusion of pastor's husbands, or at the very least for the state and national assemblies to include pastor's husband retreats]

The second step is that we must refocus our language, our attitudes, and our actions in regards to women in ministry.  Like it or not it falls on male leadership [along with organizations like Christian Women Connection and Qara] to lift up female leadership.  It is my belief that this means we need to change our language.  We need to stop using 'he' and start peppering in a few 'she', we need to say that young women can have the call of God on their lives to vocational ministry as much as our young men can.  To this end we need to change our attitudes.  We need to stop holding up two or three paragraphs that Paul wrote to particular settings at particular times not to everyone for all time.  In addition we have tended to compartmentalize people into where they can and cannot serve.  To all of our disadvantage and to some of us our dismay we have continued to allow women in ministry but too often only in the roles of children's pastor or worship pastor, and on a very rare occasion youth pastor [but they better be married].  To this end we need to change our actions.  We need to throw out the rules and throe open the doors and begin to look at the resumes of women as well as men when searching for a lead pastor.

My next step comes out of a biases, I recognize this so you might as well also.  Within our 'movement' exists a ministry called Christian Women Connection, it used to be called Women of the Church of God.  It has been around, doing good work, for a long time.  It is filled with our mothers and grandmothers, our sisters and wives, and for some of us our daughters.  Whether the wider church likes it or not CWC is the engine that drives our church.  Our strength lies in our women, the ones who force their sons and daughters to go to church until they feel they belong.  The women who occasionally have to drag their stupid husbands to church, while the guy would rather sleep or play golf.  The women who teach our Sunday Schools, who lead our VBS, who grow our future leaders for us.  Isn't it time that we adequately recognize the work that these women already do, and the greater work they are capable of.  They say that 'the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world' but what we need to realize is that the women who attends our church, raises our kids, and leads their families are the foundation of our churches and without them we would all flounder.

I married a beautiful, intelligent, creative, and strong woman because I didn't want a sheep to follow wherever I go, but rather a partner who would have at least as much insight into what our path should be as I do.  We, as a church, already have women like my wife among us, isn't it time that we recognize them, their actions, and their potential.  They do not need our permission to be who they are, they are simply in need of us to get out of their way.

Peace and Love,
Pastor K

Gotta, Gotta, Who Cares

"This is going to sound a little obsessive, this is going to sound a little bit strange."

With those words one of my favorite Everclear songs, 'Unemployed Boyfriend,' begins.  It is a song about a guy coming up to a girl at the welfare office and telling her that she'll be 'the mother of my children someday.' The song is bracketed by a voicemail that the girl is leaving for her sister, about how this crazy thing happened, but that she is really excited about it.  It is a fun song, but it is a little obsessive, it is a little bit strange.  Because that's the way obsession is.

The other day I was having a conversation about the movie Brave and about animation in general.  The girl I was talking to was telling me how her cousin or nephew or friend's kid [honestly I don't remember the relationship connection] kept having a new thing that they really liked to watch.  For the little boy it was Handy Manny or Wow Wow Wubbzy or Spiderman or Diego or...  And it got me thinking about how quickly we can become obsessive about something.  You see most children have short attention spans for their obsessions, it is rare that a toddler will latch on to one thing and only love that one thing forever, and I am not talking about a blanket which some of us do latch onto for a long time, just like Linus.  No, we go from one thing to the next thing loving dinosaurs today and firemen tomorrow and next week it is going to be superheroes [of which I believe firemen are real world ones].  This is not a problem for little kids, the problem is that obsession does not end once we start to go to school or college or get married or have children of our own.

In addition being obsessive is not necessarily a bad thing.  I am obsessed with certain movies and certain bands and as long as I don't become a stalker or set aside my whole life in order to devote it to one of those things it is all well and good.  The issue becomes when we do step over the boundaries that we should have in our lives and entertain thoughts and live out actions that we have no right to have in the first place.  How many lives have been destroyed because we allowed ourselves to become obsessive about a relationship?

Just yesterday morning I was up in my home office when a car alarm started to go off.  I looked out my window and saw someone standing next to a car outside.  At first I wondered why they didn't shut it off, but then the guy pulled on and broke one of the back windows, strange, I thought, but maybe his keys were locked inside and he couldn't wait for someone to come and unlock the car.  But then the guy went to the other side of the car and pulled the other back window until it broke as well, then he just started walking away.  An hour or so later when I left, there were two cops outside, one talking to a lady and the other looking at the car, the cop by the car [which was parked next to mine] said that it was a domestic disturbance.  What causes that kind of response to a problem, what causes that kind of obsession?

When our obsessions start to damage the things and people around us we have crossed that boundary that I was writing about a little bit ago.  Some obsessions are all right, some can turn downright deadly, other can be positive.  I wrote about the movie The Way in a blog a bit ago.  That is one of the movies that I am currently obsessed with.  It is a great story, about a guy walking a pilgrimage in order to atone for his actions with his son.  Up until I watched the movie I had never heard of the Camino de Santiago, the pilgrimage that the man takes, but now that I have I am obsessed with it.  I hope to one day be able to take that same pilgrimage, to walk where both believers and seekers have walked, in order to find something that maybe I miss in my day to day life.  It won't be soon and it won't be cheap, it will take me years to save up the money and years to be able to find the time, but one day I hope to walk those steps, see those people, and find what is out there.  [Come to think about it, maybe I should start a kickstarter campaign]

It's possible that I may never actually take that walk though.  It's possible that much like other obsessions of mine, like climbing Everest or becoming Batman, it may just fade away given time. Because some obsessions do, usually to be  taken over by the next one.  The task then is not to try and forgo obsessions, but rather to find the ones that make you a better person instead of a worse one.  May we all be able to tell the difference so we can make a difference.

Peace and Love,
Pastor K

mistakes and punishment

Today I’d like to talk a little bit about anger.  This comes after my hit and run post, but really has nothing to do with it, it has been percolating in my head for days now, and I hope that it is formed enough to flow well.

It all started last Saturday, I was at work [Family Video] when a lady came in with a copy of Sherlock Holmes that froze on her.  I cleaned the disc and then put it into our DVD player to see if it fixed the issue, it did not, in fact it seemed to make it a little worse that it was.  Unfortunately that was the only copy that we had, so I couldn’t give her another one, the store across town also only had one and it was rented.   She had rented both the first and second Sherlock Holmes and so I asked me what she should do, I told her that if she wanted to she could bring the second one back and I would credit it to her account also, but I also said, ‘Just so you know, you don’t have to watch the first to enjoy the second.’  I thought I was being helpful, I have told many people the same thing about both Holmes as well as many other movies that are sequels to the Character but not the story.  I found out on Monday that this was not only not helpful to her, but it made her angry.  To this end on her new customer survey she wrote ‘Retrain Kenny, he has a bad attitude.’

Also on Monday another customer yelled at me because I was [get this] being intimidating to her, a woman, because I said that the guy who checked her out last time was me.  We were having a conversation about late fees, I told her I said one thing, she told me I said something else, so I was being intimidating.  I was going to take the late fees off and even give her the current items for free but because I was intimidating she said to just close her account and she would never come back to a place that was intimidating to women.

I assume that most of you who are reading this know me and know that I am not in the least bit intimidating, I am in fact the guy that walks away when things don’t go my way, hardly ever complaining to the people who do wrong to me [just ask Mary it infuriates her sometimes].  To this end I am pretty sure that this was the first time that anyone has ever accused me of being intimidating.  The fact of the matter is that I may have actually been rude to her a little bit, I was angry that she was calling me a liar, maybe she was angry that I was calling her one, which I suppose I inadvertently was, only one of us could be telling the truth after all.

Then Monday night I was working with a coworker who came in and said that I need to pick your brain as a pastor.  This coworker proceeded to tell me that something was about to happen that their family did not approve of, and one family member told this coworker that if it happened God would punish them, and told a story of God’s punishment.  The family member said that when he was younger he had moved in with his girlfriend and that God gave this girlfriend cancer in order to punish him.  My coworker asked me if God did punish people like that.

I don’t understand the belief that God is some kind of kid with a magnifying glass and we are the ants that occasionally piss him off.  I mean do you really think that God works that way?  And even if he did why wouldn’t he give the guy the cancer, I mean it’s pretty twisted to cause the girlfriend to have cancer just so the guy could hurt.  In addition, don’t you think that if that was the way that God was we would almost all be in punishment constanly?  Wouldn’t Earth be Hell then?  Wouldn’t he just start zapping people left and right every time they said ‘Jesus Christ’ in the not nice way?  If it really worked that way we wouldn’t need  police or jails or even a justice system because God would just single handedly take care of it all. 

After all if living together is worth cancer what is thievery or murder worth?  Should they just be cast with boils or leprosy or ebola or something pretty bad?  Or maybe God does work that way but instead of the guilty being hurt he just goes for their loved ones, I mean why else would kids get cancer?  It must be the case of their parents sin, or their siblings, or maybe just a close family friend who would be sad that they are hurting.  I mean get real, where does it end?  Wouldn’t God be punishing us every second of every day for every time we sin against him?  I’m a pastor and I’m not perfect, I still screw up, why isn’t God punishing me more severely? Or is it coming?

I gotta tell you that I do not live in fear of my God, because my God sent Jesus who by his journey, his life, his words, his actions, his death, and his resurrection have convinced me that God is in the love and forgiveness business, not the fear and punishment one.

Peace and Love,

Pastor K