Lent Day 22: A Prayer for the End

When all is said,

And all is done

And our souls rise up to meet you

May our lives have been not in vain;

May our days have shown your love,

Our voices spoken it,

Our eyes looked on in it,

Our ears listened to it,

Our touches filled with it,

And our hearts abounded in it.

And may our names be found in your grace,

When all is said,

And all is done.

Amen and amen.

Peace and Love,
Pastor K

Lent Day 21: The Meaning of a Name

I belong to a Facebook group called 'Christians Tired of Being Misrepresented.' It is a group of just under 75,000 people who love Jesus. Many of us joined the group because we were tired of being lumped in with the 'popular' Christian voices in our time, by this I mean the talking heads that are usually found near a microphone on a television screen. You see, we tend to see the world through Jesus' lens of love, as opposed to the too often used lens of judgement and hatred. At base we joined the group in order to share the love and acceptance that we have been shown with others.

Recently though the creator of the group has been having a bit of an identity issue. No, she still feels that she is being misrepresented, and she is still tired of it and she still loves Jesus. The problem comes from having to let people know, that 'no, I am not that type of Christian.' Because of this she posted about a possible name change, specifically a new name that would not include the term Christian.

It's a sad day when the voices are so loud that the term that refers to so many has been tarnished so badly.

To some degree I completely understand how she feels, you see I once tried to call myself something else as well. I looked around the classroom, around the sanctuary, around the country, around the world and thought that maybe it was time to let loose of Christianity and just become a Jesus Follower or a Follower of the Way. In the end I just started speaking about myself as a pilgrim, not one associated with a turkey dinner in November, but rather as a man on a journey.

The problem was that whoever I talked to continually came back to the concept that I was a Christian. Which was true, but I wasn't, but I was. You see the problem? The world has this concept of what a person who believes in Jesus is, namely a Christian. You can change what you call yourself, but the world at large is still going to understand you in the conventional way. So, I came back to where I began.

Actually, I want to make a caveat to that last sentence. I came back to where I began with a mission to begin to show what people what I believe Jesus was actually like, what he actually said, and most importantly that there was more to Jesus than a birth and a death/resurrection.

My biggest problem with a lot of Christians is that they only focus on the miraculous birth and the miraculous death/resurrection. To be honest I don't even care if Mary was a virgin, it makes no difference to me. What does matter to me is Jesus' teachings. That when Jesus spoke about how we treat our fellow human being, it matters. That when he said that people would know that we are his followers by our love, that we have done a ^&$* poor job of living up to it.

The voices care little for their fellow human beings and they show love very sparingly. The voices speak about hell with a smile. The voices pull out three sentences and condemn millions.

And so, I joined a Facebook group called 'Christians Tired of Being Misrepresented.'

I hope that, like I and a multitude said, that the group keeps its name and works to reclaim the term Christian and to reclaim the Christ whose words and life it is built upon. But, if, in a matter of time, the name changes I will still belong, because a name isn't everything, but it is, even if it isn't.

Peace and Love,
Pastor K

Lent Day 20 [the half way point]: What we won't believe tomorrow

Remember the time when we all believed that we shouldn't plant more than one crop in the same field? Or when we were against shirts of two different fabrics?

How about when we believed that adultery was a crime punishable by death?

What about those times when football was illegal?

What? You don't remember when those were true? Check your Bible. Specifically Leviticus 19:19 about the whole crops and shirts thing, Leviticus 20:10 about killing adulterers, and Leviticus 11:7-8 for why football is wrong.

Maybe those in my particular faith tradition may remember these: when we couldn't dance, or where neckties. How about when we believed that we [Church of God, Anderson, IN] were God's chosen people, destined to bring the 'evening light' to the world, righting the wrongs of Catholicism and Protestantism?

[If you are particularly interested in this last tidbit be sure to check back for my upcoming blog: CHOG's Napoleon Complex, coming sometime next week]

All this leads to the question the title is built on: What won't we believe tomorrow?

Way too often we hold up a certain set of beliefs/rules/criteria that is TRUE!!!!!! Until it isn't.

I know that is is especially true for myself. When I was growing up I had a certain belief system that strongly delineated between right and wrong, black and white, sinner and saint. As I grew in maturity, in wisdom, in humility I was able to see that many of the ideals I held to for so long were actually so right and wrong, black and white, sinner and saint. This happened in small steps and in leaps, sometimes it was something as simple as a throw away line in a movie [The Patriot] that caused a shift in my beliefs [from pro-war to pacifism]; other times it was like a light had been switched on [reading Velvet Elvis] and I was finally able to believe all those things I wanted to believe, but was too afraid to.

The person I used to be would label the person I am today, and it wouldn't be very nice labels. The old me would have quite a lot to say to the current me and where I could go, or was already heading. The old me wouldn't have cared about why I thought what I thought, just that I thought it. The old me wouldn't have cared about my feelings or my beliefs, in his eyes I would have just been another enemy to obliterate. There are times that I wish I could go back and try to talk some sense into that me, but I fully realize that the old me would only have listened well enough to formulate his plan of attack.

The very same thing that is true of me is also true of the church. We used to destroy so many people that we now count as members. And just as I am sure that my metamorphosis hasn't finished, I believe that the church is still in flux as well. A wise friend of mine once said that the church is about a generation behind the rest of the world when it comes to progress, so don't you give up hope for Jesus' whore of a bride just yet.

Peace and Love,
Pastor K

Lent Day 19: Which Jesus is Which?

Which Jesus do you worship? This might not be a question that you have ever concerned yourself with before, but believe me it is high time that we begin to think about the answer. I guess a little bit of a rundown of the possible Jesus' may be helpful.

Sacrifice Jesus - This is the Jesus that concerns himself with your eternal soul. People who worship Sacrifice Jesus are very prepared to go to heaven, the sooner the better.

Prosperity Jesus - This Jesus is very concerned with the amount of money in your bank account as well as how big your house/car/boat is. People who worship Prosperity Jesus will usually drive fancy cars, or talk about the day that they will, they also go to church in opulent buildings.

Judge Jesus - Here we have a Jesus that is mainly concerned with a list of rights and wrongs, especially in connection with other people. People who worship Judge Jesus like picket signs and boycotts and are extremely quick to point out your sins, even if they fail to mention their own.

Social-Justice Jesus -  This Jesus is a man for the downtrodden, he is concerned about the 'least of these' and wants you to be as well. People who worship Social-Justice Jesus make their own clothes and usually have dreadlocks, very often they will live in intentional communities.

Grace Jesus - Here we find a Jesus that is only concerned that you feel good about yourself, you may have made mistakes, but he has wiped them clean so that you can live a full life. People who worship Grace Jesus want everyone to know that Jesus loves them, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.

Historical Jesus - This guy really lived, but not quite the way the Bible says. People who worship Historical Jesus claim that they do not worship Historical Jesus, because Historical Jesus did not come so that we might worship him.

There are an untold amount of other Jesus' that I could add to this list, but I believe that this is enough for our purposes.

So, which Jesus do you worship?

Well, some of you might be tracking with where I am going, the truth of the matter is that Jesus is a little more complicated than most of us have made him. You see Jesus is all of these things to some degree, while at the same time being none of these things. Make sense? Probably not, and that's all right.

You see Jesus is concerned about your eternal soul, but he also wants you to live life here and now. Jesus does want you to prosper, he just might want you to sell that nice fancy car and give it to the poor. Jesus is concerned about a list of rights and wrongs, they just happen to be radically different rights and wrongs than we have been led to believe. Jesus is very concerned about the welfare of the downtrodden  and the oppressed, but he is equally concerned about the welfare of the wealthy and the oppressors. Jesus is most definitely about grace and love, but lets not forget that he called the religious people a den of vipers and flipped over some tables this one time. Lastly, Jesus was a real person, but he wasn't quite as normal as you and I.

I have worshiped different Jesus' at different times in my life. Sometimes one aspect of Jesus simply meant more to me in certain seasons, other times one aspect of Jesus was drilled into me by pastors and Sunday School teachers or by book I read. There was a season when I hoped people would burn in hell, that season is, thankfully, in my rear view. As is the season where I discounted every bit of the supernatural found in scripture. And the season where all I wanted was for God to be a vending machine.

I pray that each one of us will ask our selves which Jesus we worship, and perhaps more importantly why that Jesus? If we begin to ask ourselves, maybe we can also begin to find the Jesus that is all and so much more.

Peace and Love,

Pastor K

p.s. I realize that I have caricatured various Christians/groups of Christians by my descriptions of the people who worship the various Jesus'. If you are in one of those groups and you were offended, I apologize. At the same time though, if you were offended, it might be time to start praying for a sense of humor ;)

Lent Day 18: What's with all the knocking? : the Letter to the Church at Laodicea

I used to be involved with a ministry at Park Place Church of God while in college. It was a ministry for college students run by mainly college students. A friend of mine started it, so I had a good in. I mainly helped out with drama but also sang worship a couple of times. The ministry was called 'The Open Door' and it took it scriptural reference from Revelation 3:20.

Here I am! I stand at the door and knock.

If anyone hears my voice and opens the door,

I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.

If you are a visual person you may have seen the following painting by Warner Sallman, that is also based on this scripture.

Whenever I have been reminded of this scripture I always think of it in terms that I have a door and Jesus is knocking and I need to let him in.

But...

If you have been following this blog for the last 6 days you know that I preached on the seven letters to the churches in Asia found in chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation. If you read my previous blog on the letter to the Church at Philadelphia you may remember that I touched on the fact that Jesus said that he had opened a door that could not be closed for the people of that church.

Which leads us to the letter to the Church at Laodicea (3:14-22). You may remember this church because it is the church that is called lukewarm, and is about to be spit out. In case you did not know [I didn't until I researched it] Laodicea did not have its own water supply, so it was borrowed from another town and by the time it got to Laodicea it was....wait for it...lukewarm. So Jesus first gives them a mental picture that they would know intimately well. They dealt with their water day in and day out, and they themselves probably considered spitting it out from time to time.

Jesus goes on to complain about the church a little more, talking about their wealth and pride. And then telling them that in reality they are, "wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked." (3:17). Then Jesus goes on to say that he is standing at a door and knocking. 

Do you see it yet? 

Philadelphia has a door that is open and will never close, whereas Laodicea has a door that is closed, and who knows if it will ever open. Jesus statement about the knocking is not a gentle invitation, it is a last ditch effort to wake up a slumbering church. Philadelphia was poor yet rich, and Laodicea is rich yet poor. And Jesus is attempting with all he has to let them know that the only thing standing in the way of repentance is Laodicea's need to act. AND IT IS A SIMPLE ACT.

Isn't that the way it is for most of us? We wander from Jesus in a multitude of ways, some large some small, and no matter how we have we think that there is no way back. We convince ourselves that the distance is too great, that the sin is too large, that the pain is too overwhelming. 

Jesus may have started out whispering our name, hoping that we would hear and turn. But that didn't work. 

Next he might have spoken our name out loud, in normal tones and volume. Again it didn't work, maybe we heard it, but we didn't think Jesus could be speaking to us, no, that wouldn't happen. 

Jesus may have shouted at us next, did something drastic to get our attention, something to wake us from our slumber. Again it didn't work, the calamity just made us bitter, the left turn just frustrated us, the hand out just pissed us off.

And now, now Jesus is knocking, and knocking, and knocking, holding on to any glimmer of hope that we might but pay attention to the noise and go see who it is.

We didn't hear the whisper of love, nor the sound of our name from the saviors mouth. We didn't bow to the drastic, and so Jesus moves to the mundane. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock.

We have a door and Jesus is knocking, but only because we have kept it closed for so long. Do yourself a favor, open the dang door.

Peace and Love,

Pastor K

Lent Day 17: Not as the World Sees, the Letter to the Church at Philadelphia

Do you consider yourself strong?

If you do, what makes you strong?

Is it your muscles, are you physically strong?

Is it your brain, are you intellectually strong?

Is it your bank account, are you economically strong?

Is it your job description, are you positionally [not a word but it does convey my point] strong?

If you are any of these, I am sorry to say but your strength is fleeting. You will be fired, or quit or retire and the job you worked so hard for or worked so long for will be gone. Your money will one day run out, either because you give it away or you spend it or it is stolen from you. Your brain will one day not be as strong as it is today, you may forget things, or you may get a neurological disease, and even if nothing negative happens sooner or later the only thing it will be good for will be beating other old people as chess. Your muscles will one day atrophy, if not in your bed than in your coffin.

Sorry to be a downer, but I am just stating facts. Facts that Jesus has been attempting to get through to us since the Sermon on the Mount, where are we storing our treasures. And it is a point that he attempts to underline in Revelation.

In the letter to the Church at Philadelphia (3:7-13) Jesus speaks words of life to a small weak church. Well, weak in the world's eyes at least. They are small and weak [in the world's eyes] yet they hold true while those that are bigger and stronger fall by the wayside. Because of this, those who are bigger and stronger will one day fall down at the church's feet.

Jesus opened a door that cannot be closed so that the weak may enter.

We talked several blogs ago about Jesus and the upside-down kingdom. Then we talked about it in terms of wealth and poverty, what looked like riches was impoverished and what looked like poverty was in reality wealth. Here we see that what looks like strength is fleeting and what looks like weakness ultimately overcomes.

The Church in Philadelphia was not the biggest or strongest or wealthiest. They didn't have the best worship or the coolest building. There pastor wasn't well known and there worship leader sang off-key. If you walked past the church you may have wondered why they were still there, why they even bothered to keep the doors open. The mega-church down the street had the cool speaker and newest technology. The church across town had a better youth ministry, and children's ministry, and nursery. The church in the next town over had the imposing building and imposing budget.

Yet Jesus saw the strength in the small, saw the perseverance in the weak. Why?

Because the church at Philadelphia didn't lose faith, they didn't give up, and hence Jesus wouldn't give up on them. The door was open and it would not close. I pray that we would find the strength of faith, the strength of belief so that in the moments when the pressure mounts, the dark clouds roll in, the winds howl and the storms come we stand firm in the knowledge that we are never alone.

Peace and Love,
Pastor K

Lent Day 16: Living for Just One, the Letter to the Church at Sardis

What kind of reputation do you have? Does it have to deal with current reality? Past reality? Current fiction? Or past fiction? That is the first question [or series of questions] that we need to ask ourselves when we read the letter to the Church at Sardis (3:1-6), because that is where Jesus starts.  Sardis had a name and a reputation and it was a good one, but it was a false one. Jesus knew better. Jesus knows better.

And that is what we all need to realize, Jesus knows not just our external deeds, but our inner most thoughts and feelings. I cannot speak for you, but for me, that is a scary proposition. You see, I'm pretty good at keeping my external deeds in a good light. I keep to the rules, some because I want to, some because I have to, some by habit, and some just because I do not like breaking the rule.

Unlike all of you out there in reader land, I know exactly what the thoughts and feelings and desires and missteps that I have inside my mind. It's not a very nice place sometimes. I speak pacifism yet my thoughts are sometimes violent. I preach love, yet my feelings dwell in rage. Externally I show compassion and compromise, internally I am selfish. To you share wisdom, when in truth I often just feel foolish. I am a mixture of good and bad, and which side is currently winning is depending on the day, the hour, the minute.

There are plenty of people in my life that would say that I am a good husband, father, pastor, friend, son, brother, uncle. There are many times when I am fooling them all. But Jesus knows, knows the real me, no not real, Jesus knows the whole me. And while the Jesus of Revelation is often harsh, the Jesus of the gospels is kind. The Jesus of the gospels convinces me that I am loved in the midst of my hypocrisy, and so are you.

The Jesus of Revelation reminds me, though, that there is coming a day when I will not be able to change anymore. Maybe the world will end in a couple months, like a study soon to be published suggests, or maybe it will keep spinning for millennia. Either way, it doesn't matter, my days are dwindling, just like everyone else. And one day, soon, I will no longer be able to change my ways, I will no longer be able to live wholly or holy.

In the end it doesn't matter what you think of me, or even what I think of me. What will matter is what Jesus thinks of me, I hope it will be a good reputation that I present him with.

Peace and Love,
Pastor K

Lent Day 15: I must be ONE, You must be ONE, the Letter to the Church at Thyatira

“Let’s talk about sex baby, let’s talk about you and me, let’s talk about all the good things and 

all the bad things that may be, let’s talk about sex.” Salt ‘N Pepa

Well, not completely, but there may be a bit.

The church in Thyatira (2:18-29) is a church that has deeds, they have love and faith, they have service and perseverance, and they have grown to be doing more than they did at first, unlike the church at Ephesus. All of this is right and good, but unfortunately it is not the last word.

The church in Thyatira loves a whore. She is a woman who claims to be a prophetess, but instead leads people into sexual immorality and eating food sacrificed to idols*. This fake prophet has been given a chance to turn away from her current life choices, i.e. repent, as we all have, but has decided to keep walking the path she is already on. Because of that a lot of bad things will happen to her and her children and the people who follow her.

So what?

Well, I think that much like the previous letter to Pergamum was about unity in the church; the letter to Thyatira is about unity of the person. You see our faith must affect our souls and our bodies, or at least it must begin to. I say begin to, because following Jesus is a journey I am further along the path then when I started but I am nowhere near the end of the journey, life wise nor sin wise.

I say that the letter is about unity of the person because it is the same church that does the positive stuff as it is that does the negative ones.  And the same is true of me and you. We follow the path and do our best but we still have the stinking thorns in our sides that Paul did (2 Corinthians 12).

Or if you prefer, our spirits are willing but our flesh is weak. (Matthew 26:41, Mark 14:38)

You see it’s not really about sex at all; it is about trying to be one. Admitting that we’re not, but continuing to work on it.

Peace and Love,
Pastor K

*I have to admit that I don’t understand the whole dust up about eating food sacrificed to idols, I thought that had been taken care of back in 1 Corinthians 8, where Paul seems to say that the only reason to not eat such meat is if it causes a weaker Christian to stumble. Perhaps even the 1st Century church had a lot of voices that said a lot of different things, much like the current one.

Lent Day 14: The Dissonant Chorus, the Letter to the Church at Pergamum

OK, so this is probably going to end up being uploaded on Friday, thanks to an internet issue [thanks a bunch Comcast]. It would have originally been uploaded Thursday shortly after midnight, but Mary is in Florida and it is harder to write blogs when it’s just me and Henry. In the end it all works out because this blog is going to be enhanced by a Facebook conversation I had a little while ago.

You see, today we find ourselves in the third letter to the churches found in Revelation, this time the letter to the Church at Pergamum (2:12-17). Now the problem with this church is that there is disunity within. Some people are still following close to Jesus and his teachings. Others follow the teaching of Balaam who convinced Balak to eat food sacrificed to idols. In addition there are some who follow the ways of the Nicolatians. So we have a church divided against itself.

You don’t have to go very far into our collective societal history to remember what Abraham Lincoln said about a house divided [though that was a quote from Jesus (Matthew 12:25, Mark 3:25), but we should also remember that Jesus spoke about internal division in other places as well (Matthew 6:23-25). Jesus was talking about our internal lives, but it can easily transfer to any organism or organization. The fact of the matter is that you can not serve two masters.

What does this have to do with a conversation I had a little while ago? Well nothing, and yet… I've already touched on Fred Phelps in a previous blog, but I feel the need to bring him up again. This time I do not wish to focus on him as an individual [may God in death show him the love that he denied others in life, and more than likely didn't have in his own life either] but rather as a symptom, to a larger issue.

The issue being, what is a Christian?

The fact of the matter is that it is very hard to find more than a few people who will agree on any particular definition. I kind of hate that I have to keep bringing it up, but there are more than 30,000 different denominations that claim Jesus. And each of those 30,000 are made up of an unknown amount of actual believers. With this diverse body is a ridiculously diverse amount of opinions. And what do those differing opinions amount to?

Not a lot, because to a large majority of the outside world when one Christian talks every Christian talks. Which means when one Christian (Fred Phelps) talks about God hates fags, we all speak in unison to a lot of people. When one person (Ken Ham) talks about the dinosaurs living with humanity, we all speak in unison. When one Southern Baptist talks about women being unfit to be pastors, we all speak in unison. When one author (or two) talk about a rapture and a tribulation, we all speak in unison.

Which couldn't be further from the truth, but as I, and many others, have stated, it is about perception.
I chose those four examples because I am against EVERY SINGLE ONE. I do not believe that God hates gay people. I do not believe that dinosaurs roamed the earth anywhere in the vicinity of human beings. I do believe that there is neither male nor female but that we are all equal in the eyes of God, therefore a woman is at least as equally prepared to be a pastor as a man, some even more so.  And I do not believe in a rapture or a tribulation or any of a multitude of, in my opinion, malarkey that people pull out of the last book of the Bible.

We do not all have the same opinion nor the same voice. There are days I would like to scream that from the mountains, instead I type it hear and hope it reverberates.

A person cannot serve two masters.

A house divided cannot stand.

And a church with a billion different voices has a hard time being heard over the roar of its own voice.

Peace and Love,
Pastor K

Lent Day 13: The Rich Poor and the Letter to the Church at Smyrna

We now find ourselves entering day 2 of my 7 day series on Revelation's seven letters to the churches in Asia.

As we come to the second letter, to the angel of the church at Smyrna, found in Revelation 2:8-11, we find a letter unlike the previous one addressed to Ephesus in that there is nothing negative mentioned about this church. Jesus says that the church at Smyrna is afflicted and poor, yet they are rich. Jesus says they will suffer, like all churches and all people do, but if they can remain faithful they will be rewarded. What will they be rewarded with? Life.

So, what does the spirit say to the church? I think that the main thrust of the spirit is found at the beginning of the letter where the church is described as poor yet rich. In our Western/American/Capitalist society we tend to think of those who are rich as being rich, yet we often see wealthy people falling apart at the seems. Jesus asks to think differently, to question what real wealth is and in turn what real poverty is. To answer that we go backwards to the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew verses 3-12.

Here at the beginning of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount we encounter what is commonly referred to as the Beatitudes.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

In these few verses Jesus institutes what many have called the upside down kingdom. Here we find that the weak gain kingdoms. Those in pain find comfort. Those who are mild inherit. Those who are in need are filled. Those who give receive. Those who are pure see God. Those who lay down their arms are called children. When you are laughed at and attacked, when you are bullied and bruised you are great. It makes no sense in Jesus world, and it makes less sense in ours, and we are a Christian Nation [don't make me laugh].

The church in Smyrna strives for greatness and finds it in its weakness. And because of that they are given life as a victor's crown. Scholars today tend to think that this is an allusion to a series of games that was located in Smyrna. In other words Jesus is emphatically saying, you can compete as the world competes and you may win temporary praise, but if you follow me you will win eternal life. Which would you choose? Smyrna chose life.

Peace and Love,

Pastor K

Lent Day 12: Fred Phelps and the Letter to the Church at Ephesus

Today we are going to start with a little Switchfoot lyrics.

Love Alone is Worth the Fight

I'm trying to find where my place is 

I'm looking for my own oasis 

So close I can taste this 

The fear that love alone erases 

So I'm back to the basics 

I figure it's time I face this 

Time to take my own advice 

Love alone is worth the fight 

Love alone is worth the fight 

And I never thought it'd come to this 

But it seems like I'm finally feeling numb to this 

The funny thing about a name is 

You forget what the reason you were playing the game is 

And it's all an illusion 

A 21st century institution 

So I'm headed down the open road unknown 

And we find what we're made of 

Through the open door 

Is it fear you're afraid of? 

What are you waiting for? 

Love alone is worth the fight 

Love alone is worth the fight

We're only here for a season 

I'm looking for the rhyme and reason 

Why you're born, why you're leaving 

What you fear and what you believe in 

Why you're living and breathing 

Why you're fighting it and getting it even 

Let's go headed down the open road unknown 

And we find what we're made of 

Through the open door 

Is it fear you're afraid of? 

What are you waiting for? 

Love alone is worth the fight 

Love alone is worth the fight 

Here we are, here we go 

Where the road is our own 

Hear it calling you home 

Here we are, here we go! 

Love alone is worth the fight 

We start with these lyrics for a couple reasons. The first being that they work alongside the letter to the angel of the church of Ephesus found in Revelation, which we are going to spend some time in today. It also goes along with the secondary topic of this blog, Mr. Fred Phelps. But, let us backtrack a bit first.

As I wrote yesterday, I began a sermon series on the Book of Revelation last Sunday. This Sunday I truncated the letters to the seven churches in Asia found in chapter 2 and 3. I aim for a sermon somewhere between 20 and 40 minutes depending on the content. I am not very concerned where the sermon actually falls in that range, as long as I feel that the topic is adequately covered. Because of that I took a bite-sized truth from each of the letters and crafted one sermon.

Over the next seven days, or eight if I once again do not write on Sunday, I will be taking each letter and expounding more than I did in sermon. I do this because a) it gives me a schedule of what is coming next for this blog, b) it allows me to speak a little more about each topic, and c) it will allow me to bring in some bonus material that might speak to this audience that would not necessarily speak to my sermons original audience [for instance, I doubt that there are more than 3 people in my church who know who Switchfoot is, if that].

The letter to the angel of Ephesus is found in Revelation 2:1-7, and in the passage Jesus speaks about the good and bad of the church. He talks about how they despise wickedness, how they are hard workers, and how they have persevered through hardships, even those that have been because of Jesus. Then he goes on to say that they have lost the love that they once had. This love that they have lost could be simply a love of Jesus, but it could just as easily be a love of each other or even a love they once had for humanity at large. Whatever the case they do not love like they used to.

Which brings us to Fred Phelps. For those of you who may not know the name [few and lucky you are] Mr. Phelps has been the leader of Westboro Baptist Church, whose main claim to fame has been the picketing of the funerals of homosexuals, the military, and others. If you have been following the news or social media the last few days you will have heard that he is supposedly near death. 

There has been a lot of rage directed at Mr. Phelps [one could argue rightly so] over the past few days. When a friend of mine posted a status on Facebook about Phelps I was at first tempted to right something cruel. Instead, after about an hour of thought, I wrote the following, "I have thought about this for a little bit and I believe that the harshest judgement for Mr Phelps would be arriving in heaven to a long line of people hugging him and welcoming him one after another. At the end of the line would be Jesus, who says 'Fred how do you feel about all these people whose funerals you picketed now?'"

Now, what does Ephesus and Fred have to do with each other? Well, in a way it all goes back to Switchfoot. Sunday morning I focused on the phrase, "He who has ears to hear let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches." For each letter I pulled out the one thing, above all others, I believed that the Spirit was attempting to get through. For Ephesus I said that A CHURCH WITHOUT LOVE IS NOT A CHURCH. 

You see, what Jon Foreman and the rest of Switchfoot understand is that the only thing that is worth the blood, sweat and tears is love. Fred Phelps forgot that somewhere along the road, or he never learned it in the first place. The church at Ephesus clearly forgot it. A pure love of Jesus takes away our need to hurt, hinder, and hate the world around us. A pure love of the people within the pews that surround us takes away our need to be better than them or to be fake around them. A pure love of the world around us allows us to love them as they are, not as we might like them to be, and certainly not to treat them as if they are less than.

Perhaps another song lyric, Andrew Peterson, begins his song Come, Lord Jesus this way.

Tonight in the line of the merchandise store 

While they were packing up my bags 

I saw the pictures of the prophets of the picket signs 

Screaming, "God hates fags" 

And it feels like the church isn't anything more 

Then the second coming of the Pharisees 

Scrubbing each other 'til their tombs are white 

They chisel epitaphs of piety 

Oh, there's a burning down inside of me 

'Cause the battle seems so lost 

And it's raging on so silently 

We forget it's being fought 

I pray that we will learn the lesson that Jesus is attempting to teach us. The lesson that Ephesus and Fred forgot. If we want to be the church, if we want to be the bride, if we want to be the body, we need to be about love. We need to speak love loudly. We need to love in our actions. We need to love, love, love and let God sort everything else out.

Peace and Love,

Pastor K

Lent Day 11: I Lied, I'm Sorry, Let us move on to Revelation

Let's get this out of the way real quick. I have to apologize to you, my constant readers. Last week I wrote a, in my opinion, very funny blog about parental abuse by toddlers. At the end of the blog, in a postscript, I said that it was my intention to start the week off with a funny blog each week. I did set out to do such a thing, but it turns out that I am no where near as funny on command as I would like. I even had a concept in mind for today's blog that would in fact be funny, but alas I sat down and what nothing of note came out. So, I apologize for raising your hopes that today you would once again come to my blog and find the funny.

IN OTHER NEWS

Last week I started a sermon series on the Book of Revelation. I did so at the urging of one of the members of my church board and after not a small amount of time thinking about whether or not I should. As you may know there has been a lot spoken about Revelation, and the question I had to answer for myself was, "If I preach on it is there anything I can add to the discussion?" I'm still not sure if I am adding anything to the discussion, but I did come to the conclusion that if I could at the very least wipe away some of the clutter about the book it might be worth it in the end.

My first sermon was broken into two parts. The first part was a few notes of housekeeping in regards to Revelation and the second part was the meat of my sermon.

The first note of housekeeping was courtesy of my New Testament and Revelation teacher Dr. Timothy Dwyer. There is no 'S.' So often people say the Book of Revelations, and that is wrong. There is only one revelation of John and it is found in the Book of Revelation.

The second note of housekeeping is that Revelation is not a road-map to the end of the world. There has, unfortunately, been a multitude of voices that have been broadcast over the radio, TV, and the internet as well as a plethora of books that have suggested/implied/outright stated that Revelation is in fact a road-map. To name just a few of those people: Pat Robertson, Jack Van Impe, Tim Lahaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. While the author of Revelation, John [but probably not the same John who wrote the gospel], uses imagery that is often foreign to us, but that does not mean it was foreign to his original readers. 

The third, and final, not of housekeeping had to do with Revelation's audience. Revelation, like the whole of the scripture, is written to the audience that originally read it. But throughout every book of the Bible there are truths that resonate through the ages. Each individual book speaks to us today and will speak to people thousands of years from now, as long as our blue orb continues to turn that long. And, while Revelation was written to a 1st Century church that was in the midst of persecution and general turmoil there is much that can speak to us today.

And thus I moved into the second part of my sermon.

Read chapter 1 of Revelation and see if you can get the sense that John may be trying to tell us something. I'll give you a bit of space if you actually want to.

What did you come up with? Well here is what I did.

In verse 4 we find, "who was and who is and who is to come". In verse 8, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, who is and was and is to come." And in verse 17, "I am the first and the last...I am alive for ever and ever."

John desperately wants us to understand that our God is eternal.

Who was: John wants us to understand that this is the Jesus who walked the Earth, the Jesus who saved souls, and hearts, and minds, and lives. This is the Jesus who raised the dead. The Jesus who hung out with the unworthy. The Jesus who questioned the religious elite. The Jesus who attempted to make us look at life with different eyes.

Who is: John also wants us to understand the resurrection. He wants us to understand that the Jesus who lived is the Jesus who is living right now. Jesus is still moving in our midst, doing the same work in the world today that he was doing 2000 years ago.

Who is to come: Finally John wants us to understand that the Jesus who lived and who is living is coming back. What does this mean? As we'll see throughout Revelation, it means that no matter what we are going through Jesus never leaves, never forsakes, never forgets us. As one of my favorite author/pastor Rob Bell states, LOVE WINS. There is coming a day when all of our pain will be wiped away. A day when all our tears will be wiped away. A day when all of our struggles will disappear. A day when death will be no more. And in that we can rejoice.

Peace and Love,

Pastor K

Lent Day 10: Lies Christians Tell Part 1

I have decided that among these 40 blogs there will be several that will follow the theme, lies Christians tell. I have at least one more planned, but I am sure I will think of more before too long, but if any of you out there in blog land would like to make a suggestion feel free to comment on here or on the Facebook link and I will attempt to write a blog on your chosen lie as well.

So, let's get into it.

Lie #1: God never gives you more than you can handle.

There are several things wrong with this statement. The first in my view is the whole 'God gives' aspect. Why? Because I don't believe that everything that we go through in this life is a direct gift from God. You may disagree, and that is your right as a human being, but I do not believe that God gives people diseases, or miscarriages, or car accidents, or broken hearts, or fill in the blank. The author of James wrote that every good and perfect gift comes from God, not every painful and crappy one (James 1:17).

But even if you fall into the God as chess player camp, the Bible never says anything about only being given things you can handle. The closest the Bible does get is to say that we will never be tempted past what we can overcome (1 Corinthians 10:13). This, of course, only covers temptations, not tribulations.

Now, while I do not believe that God brings us pain, I do believe that a) God never leaves us when we are in pain and b) that God often uses our pain for good. What I mean by that second item is that crap happens to us and God sees the crap that has happened to us and works with us so that the crap can be useful to us and to others. An illustration may be helpful.

There is a best selling novel titled Joshua that was turned into a movie. Minor spoiler alert: Joshua is Jesus. Anyway, in the course of the story Joshua encounters a woman who has lost her husband and is in a lot of emotional/spiritual pain. At one point Joshua is telling her that her life is beautiful and she picks up a small glass sculpture and throws it on the ground, shattering it into a thousand pieces and says, "That's my life." A short time passes and Joshua leaves town, but he leaves behind a new glass sculpture that was made from the broken shards.

That is what God does with the pain in our lives, God takes what is broken and makes it new and beautiful again. That is the buisness that our God is in, not the  breaking of things but rather the restoring of things.

The thing of it is that in this life a million things, some small and some gigantic will come and knock us for a loop. We won't be able to handle half of them, and what God does, is come alongside and help us to carry the burden. What God does, is to give us hope in the darkness, strength in the times we are weak, and love in the times when we feel lost and alone. 

God says, 'My child, you cannot handle it, but together maybe we can.' That's the God I know, the God I follow, the God I love. And more importantly it's the God that loves me and the God that loves you. Period.

Peace and Love,

Pastor K

Lent Day 9: to Talk or not to Talk

Well, here I lay on a couch in Ohio attempting to come up with some concept for today's blog. I spent a portion of today, much like yesterday, dealing with a bit of back pain. I think that I pulled something in the vicinity of my let shoulder blade, because that's where it hurts. I also participated in a survey about the state of theological education at my Alma mater. And then after working we all left for a few days in Ohio with the in-laws. It will be my mother in laws birthday next week and mine the week after so we are getting together to celebrate them.

Speaking of my Birthday it once again falls during Lent, like every other year, which means I am going to be writing a blog on my birthday. Last year I wrote a humorous one about the fact that I could now run for President since it was my 35th birthday. To my knowledge 36 is not much of a milestone, so I'm not quite sure yet what I am going to be writing about then.

Now, going back to the survey I participated in. I was asked several questions and was given the opportunity to give my feedback. After I was done I marveled a little bit at how quickly I came up with the answers and how I also quickly then spoke my answers. This might not be a big thing to many of you, but ask my wife if it's ever difficult to get me to respond in a timely manner. 

When I was growing up I was a very talkative kid, this was especially true in settings where it might not have been best to talk. I cannot tell you how often I got my name written on the board for talking in class. This continued to a degree in college, but it more often manifested itself in me being eager to join in to a discussion or to answer a question or to argue for or against something, many times giving the caveat, "I'm going to play devil's advocate for a second..." there were times when I was only speaking my actually thoughts or beliefs where I would still say the aforementioned phrase.

Things started to change my sophomore year when I found myself in a Intro to Philosophy class taught by Dr. Willard Reed.

[And then I went to sleep and much later woke up.]

Dr. Reed stressed thinking before talking and for some reason that stuck so deeply inside of me that that my personality began to change. Need empirical proof? When I came to college I took the Myers-Briggs for the first time in a Christian Ministries class my freshman year, at that point I was an Extrovert by one point. The next time I took the test I was an introvert by 5 points. The next time I was an introvert by 10 points. The last time I took it I was an overwhelming Introvert.

If nothing else, this should be inspiration for the teachers of the world that they can make a difference in the lives of their students.

I started taking pride in being an introvert, often thinking of extroverts as loud mouths who couldn't stop talking, who always had to have their opinions known, who always had to be the center of attention, even when no one else wanted them to be. Whereas, I became the guy that hardly ever talked, but when I did people took notice. During my first ordination meeting my friend Dan said something very similar to the committee, that I am not always the person who jumps into every conversation but that when I do, people listen.

I took that as a point of pride at the time, but I am in ministry so at times it was great to be an introvert and at others it was a burden. For instance, throughout the ordination process I have been bombarded by the concept that people with High D's [another personality profile from a another test] are more suited to lead. Interestingly enough it is always High D personalities that are expounding the view. In addition I have attended a couple church planting seminars and consistently have been told that those same High D's are the ones that should plant churches.

[Among other thoughts in my head is this, maybe all of our church plants are such a cookie-cutter version of each other because the people we choose to lead them are also a cookie-cutter version of each other. But, maybe, that's a whole other blog entry.]

 So, back to the survey and my answers. Knowing all of this about myself I started to wonder why I seem to be getting faster at responding. I think it may just have to do with my sermons. As many of you know I stopped working from a manuscript almost 2 years ago, when I moved to an outline form. At the beginning my outlines were fairly detailed, being full pages, sometimes going onto a second page. But as time has moved on my outlines are often very small, sometimes they are three points with no explanation of what the point is.

I say this because I have to think on my feet a lot during my sermons nowadays, because if I don't there is no longer a safety net. And while every so often I go to church thinking that this will be the week where I crash and burn and nothing comes out of my mouth, each week, so far, I have given a fairly intelligent and coherent sermon. And I think that my weekly sermons have been translating into my daily conversations.

I like being an introvert, I like feeling that when I talk people listen. But I also like being able to say what I want when I want how I want. I want to continue to find the middle ground so that I always no when to talk and when not to talk.

Peace and Love,
Pastor K

Lent Day 8: On School Prayer

The other day I was listening to the radio, or perhaps I read it online, but however it came about I learned that there is currently a bill working its way through the Texas state legislature that would legalize school prayer. Now I have visited San Antonio twice, once in high school for a church youth convention and once 7 and a half years ago on my honeymoon, so its not like I have a deep connection to the state of Texas. In addition, I am fairly certain that even if the bill got passed it would soon be challenged in court and eventually overturned as unconstitutional. So, it probably makes little sense for this one guy in Indiana to write a blog about the bill.

But, let's be honest, when has my lack of a deep connection to something happening in the world ever stopped me from writing a blog about it?

A little background before we begin. I grew up in the church. From the age at least 5 I was in church on a weekly basis. From 5 to 10 it was St. Mark's Lutheran in Stubenville, Ohio, just down the street from the mall.  There was Sunday School and church and while I was a little rambunctious as times (or maybe always) you could find me in the pew with my mom and sister.

At 10 we moved to West Virginia and from then until I moved away to college my Sundays and most Wednesdays were spent at Ash Ave Church of God. At Ash Ave you could find me at Sunday School and Church on Sundays and the Wednesday kids ministry for the first few years until I graduated to Sunday Night youth group. At first we lived up on the hill and then we moved into town, after the move to town you would find me in church on Sunday even if my family wasn't there.

When the time came for me to go of to college I made a rather late decision to go to Anderson University the main (of three) universities/colleges that were attached to the Church of God. While I did not set out to follow the path to ministry that is where my steps eventually took me. First to a minor in Christian Ministries and then back to Anderson for seminary. Part way through seminary I began helping out at South Meridian Church of God with their youth ministry. And when seminary ended I took up an associate pastor position at Maple Grove Church of God. After a few years there I felt the tug to senior pastor ministry and left my your pastor position. And about 2 and a quarter years ago I became the senior (and only) pastor at First Church of God in Linton.

Keep this all in mind as I type the next sentence.

I AM AGAINST SCHOOL PRAYER.

Or, more importantly I am against teacher led prayer in school.

"Why?" might seem an obvious question that is playing through the recesses of your mind right about now. It is a fair question, and it is one which I will now attempt to answer. But, before I get to the answer let me ask you a question, "Do you think that only Christians pray?" or how about another one, "Do you agree with the beliefs of every other Christian on the planet?"

It is how I answer those two questions that we will find my reasons against school prayer.

Do you think only Christians pray?

I do not. In fact I know that every faith that I know of has some form of prayer. Why does that matter? Well, I think that it first matters because not every teacher in America is a Christian. What this means is that if we institute prayer in school what is to stop Henry's English teacher, who happens to be a practicing Hindu from leading his class in a daily meditation to Vishnu? Or what stops Henry's Science teacher, who happens to be a Muslim from bringing out prayer rugs so that the class can face east and pray to Allah? Now, this is in no way a knock on people of other faiths, but I do not want Henry to be forced to pray to a religion he neither practices nor understands. In the same way I do not believe that the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, or any other religious kid in the world should be forced to pray to Jesus.

So, on the one hand I am against school prayer because I believe that each person should be able to practice, or not practice their religion however they choose or not choose to.

Now onto that second question...

Do you agree with the beliefs of every other Christian on the planet?

Once again, I do not. I have mentioned this before, but just in case you are a newcomer to this blog, or just happened to miss the blogs where I said it before, there are more than 30,000 Christian denominations. We disagree about almost any possible aspect of our religion/belief system. We have disagreements on important things and ridiculously insignificant things. We argue about worship styles and the number of sacraments. We argue about whether or not there are a literal seven days of creation. We argue about the importance of the Old Testament/Hebrew Scriptures, and about the importance of the Pauline letters, or even which ones were written by Paul. We argue about the meaning of Revelation. We argue about when Jesus was born or when he died or whether or not he was God or God's son or the most important Prophet.

Again, why does this matter? Well it matters because I do not want Henry to have to be led in prayer by someone who believes that women should keep their mouths shut in the church. I also don't want Henry to be forced to pray to someone who prays about predestination (the people who get saved are predestined to be saved and vice versa) or transubstantiation (the elements of communion mystically become the actual blood and flesh of Jesus). I do not want Henry to be led in prayer by someone who loves Jesus and hates his fellow man. I do not want Henry to be led in prayer by someone who believes that the only true Bible is the King James Version.

On another hand I am against school prayer because I do not know the theological views of Henry's future teachers, nor do I know the views of the people who are going to be policing the prayers of these teachers.

[Incidentally this is the same reason why Henry will probably never go to a private Christian school unless he chooses to go to one for college]

One final reason

And, like the bold heading states, I have one more reason. I believe that it is the duty of Mary and I to have the responsibility of helping Henry along in his faith. And if I am completely honest there is going to be enough theological corrections down the road without having to add school prayer.

I will encourage Henry to pray in school. I will tell him that whenever he needs to he can close his eyes for a second and say a short prayer to God. Or I will tell him that he can keep his eyes open and still say a prayer. He doesn't have to announce it or lead a class prayer, because the God who sees in secret will see his secret prayer.

I believe in prayer, just not in teacher led school prayer.

Peace and Love,
Pastor K

Lent Day 7: The Meaning of 20 People Kissing

I was sitting around and knew exactly what today's blog was going to be about. And then I heard about a viral video that had 10 couples of random strangers sharing a 'first kiss.' I thought it might be a funny thing to watch so I clicked on the link. It started out with the awkward beginnings of each kiss and evolved into 10 moments of connection in our often disconnected world.

I must admit I sat there mesmerized watching these strangers share a moment. Each couple got over the awkwardness of their kiss and jumped into the kisses with their minds and bodies. Each time they viscerally morphed into couples. It was amazing.

And it was staged. While the people were supposedly strangers to each other they were not just random people plucked from the street. They were actors and models and singers and screenwriters and who knows what else. The question I am left with, is this, 'does it change anything?'

I don't think so.

The moment I watched the video I was transported to a moment, the moment. And in that moment I thought about these people finding someone in a moment that could last for forever. You see we are never guaranteed the rest of the day, let alone a long life. And while I can't get behind the YOLO movement I do think that we should be attempting to live our lives for all we're worth, to live them to the full.

So often, for me, it comes back to Jesus, which I suppose makes sense since I'm a pastor. And Jesus said that he came so that we might have life and have it to the full [John 10:10]. That our life would be better, more well rounded, more full if we followed him. I believe this means, at base, that if we live a life of love, which is what Jesus ultimately asks us to do, our lives will be infinitely better. How could it not?

Imagine a life lived without hate? Without envy? Without mistrust? Without regret? Wouldn't that life be better than the life you currently lead? I know mine would be better if I could land in the target that I aim for. I don't have it all together, far from it, but I believe if I can ever get there my life will be better.

20 strangers kissing may not be a world changer, it might not even be true, but that doesn't mean that it lacks meaning, it doesn't mean it doesn't contain truth. I sat there engulfed in their moments because I long for those moments in my life, not the kiss, but the connection.

May we all find the connections that we are missing in our lives, and may we live lives of love so that our lives will be as full as they possibly can be.

Peace and Love,
Pastor K

Lent Day 6: It's all about Perspective

Have you ever noticed that it is easier to type when it is easier to think? I sit here a few minutes before 1 in the morning attempting to write a blog on perspective and it strikes me that it would be easier if I had a different perspective. Why perspective as a subject? Well it all comes down to an episode of the cartoon Arthur that Henry and I were watching this morning. I really like Arthur, it is a fun show with a great theme song and very practical stories. 

Speaking of the great theme song, here are the lyrics.

Everyday when you're walking down the street

And everybody that you meet

Has an original point of view

And I say HEY! (HEY!)

What a wonderful kind of day.

If you can learn to work and play

And get along with each other

You got to listen to your heart

Listen to the beat

Listen to the rhythm

The rhythm of the street

Open up your eyes

Open up your ears

Get together and make things better

By working together!

It's a simple message and it comes from the heart

Believe in yourself (in yourself)

cause that's the place to start (to start)

And I say HEY! (HEY!)

What a wonderful kind of day

If we can learn to work and play

And get along with each other.

Hey what a wonderful kind of day hey!

Anyway, one of the episodes that we were watching today was about perspective. It was Arthur's parents anniversary and everything went wrong, but even though the family's original plans fell to ruin they still found the silver lining of their day. His parents had a meaningful dinner, even though it wasn't duck. Arthur and D.W. found themselves enthralled with a radio drama rather than an episode of Bionic Bunny. In the end Arthur comes to the conclusion that spending time with his family is better than watching TV. Kind of ironic, but it dawns on me that a lot of us need to look for more silver linings in our life, I now I sure as heck do.

I think Jesus attempts to teach us a little perspective when he says, "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of it's own." [Matt. 5:34]

Lucy says it like this, "Never worry about tomorrow, Charlie Brown. Tomorrow will soon be today, and before you know it today will be yesterday."

The point, I think is that we need to attempt to look at our lives through the correct lens. If we constantly walk through life with our perceived notions of how the day should go we may miss the great things that just come up. 

John Lennon said it like this, "Life is what happens to you  while you're busy making other plans."

It has only been about 10 minutes but my head keeps getting a little foggier by the millisecond, which might be why I am quoting other people so much. On the other hand a guy could do worse than quoting John Lennon, Charles Schulz and Jesus.

Peace and Love,

Pastor K

Lent Day 5: The Unspoken Truth About 1 Year Olds

I think it is high time that we discuss a most difficult topic. While I am hesitant to discuss the topic at all, I believe that there are a lot of people in the same place that Mary and I are. To that end today we are going to discuss parental abuse by toddlers.

The thing that no one ever tells you when you become pregnant with your first child is that in a matter of months that child will turn against you physically. Within less than a year not only will your personal space greatly diminish but the amount of bruises, internal bleeding, and exclamations of pain will drastically increase. Prior to Henry's arrival I wouldn't have been able to pinpoint the last time I had gotten a headbutt to the nose, as of now I could tell you it was yesterday. And tomorrow I will be able to tell you it was yesterday. And last week I would have been able to tell you it was yesterday. And next week I will be able to tell you it was yesterday. Do you see a pattern?

Not only are there numerous headbutts to the nose but there are also bites to the fingers, kicks to the stomach and back, and the occasional punch to various body parts. In addition there are scratches to nearly every part of your body as well as tugs on all kinds of unmentionable parts. The long and the short of it is, if you have a child sooner or later you will be their personal punching bag/kick-boxing dummy/scratching post.

There are three reasons that I have come to about why children become just short of demons.

The first two reasons stem from their naivety.

The first being that they don't know the movements they make. Very young children are rather spastic, their arms and legs and heads just fly around like one of those whirly helicopters or that helicoptery seed. One second there head is calmly sitting on the top of their neck and the next it has been flung to the side or straight back, and if you have unfortunately chosen to place your body parts in the random airspace of said flying head you will get hit, sometimes extremely hard, and nearly always causing extreme pain.

The second reason that toddlers are so dangerous is because they don't know that these movements cause pain. You see when a child flings their head or shoots out their legs when they are laying in bed next too you it doesn't dawn on them that their movements may be causing other people an undue amount of hardship. Nor do they understand the amount of pain that a hand full of daggers, I mean long fingernails, can cause to the person that they decide to playfully [or not] rake their cute little hands on.

Now these two reasons are logical and if you realize that they are true it makes it very difficult to hold the ridiculous amount of daily pain against your toddler. But then sooner or later you come to the possibility that there is indeed a third reason that toddlers cause you physical pain.

They are just plain SADISTIC.

You may not want to hear it, to some degree it pains me to say it, mainly because my forehead is still aching from the last time Henry raked it with his fingernails/daggers. You might be shaking your head right now, saying internally, or perhaps out loud, "Henry wouldn't do that, he is so cute and innocent." Or perhaps you don't know my son, so instead you are inserting your own child's name, or perhaps a niece or nephew, or a neighbor kid, whatever the case you thought/said it.

Not to long ago I would have been in complete agreement, but then I started to notice something. Many times when Henry causes pain he seems to be somewhat sympathetic, but there are other times when Henry will kick or punch or bite and he will break out a wicked grin or a maniacal laugh. And it is in those moments when I see sadism behind his beautiful brown eyes.

A couple months ago I was sitting in a worship service during the National Association of the Church of God Convention, and the man who was preaching was talking about our sin. He came toward the end of his sermon and brought up children, and he said that while we don't like to admit it little babies are just really cute sinners. I laughed a lot at the comment, but there is a great amount of truth in it.

May this be a warning to those of you who have not had children yet and to those of you with newborns. Enjoy the time you have, but be warned there is coming a day when your cute little baby will become an abusive monster.

Peace and Love,
Pastor K

p.s. It is my current plan that each Monday during Lent I will share something a little more lighthearted. I may completely forget this plan by next Monday, but we'll see.

p.s.s. You might have realized that today (Monday) would actually be the 6th day of Lent, but since there are actually 46 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday I will occasionally be taking days off. Partly this is due to the fact that I was busy working on my Sermon on Saturday and didn't get a chance to write a blog for Sunday. In addition I didn't get a chance to sit at my computer on Sunday until later than I had hoped, so I only got one blog written as opposed to two.

Lent Day 4: The Problem with Christians

A couple weeks ago I went into my church office in between setting up for offering and communion and placing my Bible and sermon inside the pulpit; sitting on my desk I found a very large manila file folder with 'Take to Pastor Kenny and Mary' written with permanent black marker on it. As I said, I had things to do so I left the folder where it lay and went about my business. At the close of the service one of my parishioners shook my hand and told me that they had given me a folder full of various items so that I could use them for bulletins or in sermons. I politely thanked the lady and took the folder home with me when I left.

Until about ten minutes ago it has laid on a filing cabinet in my home office. You see, for a little while I had been staring at a mostly blank screen attempting to find some inspiration for today's blog entry. I looked all around my office and my eyes finally landed on the thick folder. I decided to pick it up and look through it to see if anything struck me. There is a whole cornucopia of items in that folder. Some of them are meaningful quotes, others are meditation thoughts, and then there are the comedic items as well.

I didn't get that deep into the stack when I came across a few items that I had remembered seeing cross my Facebook feed or that had shown up as email forwards. If you are a frequent reader of this blog, you may just remember a blog I did about some of these exact forwards. If not you can find it here http://pastorkslifelook.blogspot.com/2012/06/re-post-if-youre-christian-or-love.html. As I continued to peruse the folder I came across an email forward that made me cringe. I do not know its original author, but I will share it here, so I can then tear it apart.

Florida Court Sets Atheist Holy Day

In Florida, an atheist created a case against the Easter and Passover holy days. He hired an 

attorney to bring a discrimination case against Christian, Jews & observances of holy days.

The argument was: it was unfair that atheists had no such recognized day.

The case was brought before a judge. After listening to the passionate presentation by the lawyer,

the judge banged his gavel declaring, "Case Dismissed." The lawyer immediately stood objecting

  to the ruling saying, "Your honor, how can you possibly dismiss the case? The Christians have

Christmas, Easter & others. The Jews have Passover, Yom Kippur & Hanukkah. Yet my client

& all other atheists have no such holidays."

The judge leaned forward in his chair saying, "But you do. Counsel, your client is woefully 

ignorant."The lawyer said, "Your honor, we are unaware of any special observance or holiday for atheists."

The judge said, "The calendar says April 1st is 'April Fools' Day' Psalm 14:1 states 'The fool says in his heart, there is no God.' Thus it is the opinion of this court, that if your client says there is 

no God, then he is a fool. Therefore, April 1st is his day. Court is adjourned."

Haha, right?

I don't think so. You see, if those of us who profess Jesus as savior are to have any kind of impact on the people who do not, the answer is not to belittle them. As I have stated before I have friends who do not believe in God, and I do not consider them fools, in fact most of them are smarter than I am, we just happen to have different views. This is not something to be belittled, but rather it is something to be discussed.

Once upon a time, [November of '95] dcTalk put out the album Jesus Freak. On that album was a song, What If I stumble. At the beginning of that song was a voice over by Brennan Manning declaring, "The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians: who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable." When we confess love with our mouths and then in the next breath call someone who disagrees with us a fool we do not help others, but rather we hinder them.

I believe it was Jesus [Matthew 5:22] who said "Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, 'Raca' is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, 'You Fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell." Because of that, I do not care what David had to say in the Psalms, in fact I do not think that we should be taking most of what David and the other Psalm writers had to say as universal truths, simply as one person's intimate letters to God. 

To that end, my Christian friends, think before you forward something along, because Jesus also said something about the way that we judge others will be how we are judged [Matthew 7:2]. I think we need to be showing the world around us grace, partly so that grace will be shown to us.

Thus endeth the sermon.

Peace and Love,

Pastor K

Lent Day 3: Family Video

Today we went grocery shopping and I ran into my favorite customer from my time at Family Video. I enjoyed running into Dave and catching up, but it inevitably made me think about my time there. It has been two months since I left my position there, after almost 6 years. [I don't know why but almost 6 years sounds better than 5 years and 9 months] I am very glad I left, especially after the last 9 months or so, I got my 8th manager and lets just say that while I didn't mind him as a person we failed to click occupationally.

The problem is that those last months tend to color my entire time with the company. While my work relationship with management wasn't that great my ability to deal with the many customers that were *&*^&)%& also suffered. Many days I didn't want to go to work, and when I did I was not happy to be there. My job time suffered, my home life suffered, my spiritual life suffered, all because the multitude of people who don't want to pay a 3 dollar late fee, because after all they have spent gobs of money there, so shouldn't they just get their way? Now that I have left I am free to say that I spent more money there than most of the customers and I didn't get my way.

OK, that might have been a little bit of a tangent, but it proves the point I was trying to make at the beginning of that last paragraph, those last months began to color how I reflected on my entire time. And I am only two years removed for a time I said to my ordination committee, "While I have a Masters degree in theology I feel that I got a Doctorate in human behavior at Family Video." Now that I am a few months removed from the place I am beginning to get to a place where I can look at the entire time in a better light. [Not that I want to go back...EVER]

While there were a lot of customers that I am more than happy to see the back of [not to mention any names, BUT YOU ARE NOT AS FUNNY AS YOU THINK YOU ARE] there are others that I miss [like Dave, my friend, and Julia, my adopted grandmother] and there are a lot of my coworkers that I consider friends to this day, even if most of our interaction is limited to liking posts on Facebook.

There were days when only the conversations with my coworkers kept me sane. Times when I got lost talking about movies that touched our hearts/minds/souls. Moments when I could be my real self, not the self I so often pretend to be, because in that place there was no judgment, just friendship. And realness seemed to matter, after all 3 of the 4 weddings that I have had the honor of officiating were for coworkers.

There were customers who always asked my opinion on movies because they valued that opinion. There were others who would talk to me for a loooong time who I just wanted to leave me alone, or at the very least people I wish I could have told my real views too. But there were also conversations I had with some about their lives, their real lives, and I was honored to be apart of that.

While music is said to be universal, movies must not be much less so, because my customers ran the gamut from the wealthy to the destitute, from the put together to those barely hanging on, from the powerful to those who couldn't take care of themselves and each person was looking for the same thing. A few hours where the world could stop and they could be lost/found/entertained. And for a few years I was a part of that, and while I didn't cure cancer, I am glad I could have been a part of it.

Well that's as good a place to end it as any I suppose, catch ya tomorrow.

Peace and Love,
Pastor K

Lent Day 2: We Need More Bars

OK, OK, before you all get the wrong idea, I don't go to bars, mainly because I don't drink. No this blog will not be about the need to drink alcohol, although I do have views on it I do not find them important enough to talk about today, or any day really. What I do want to talk about is communication.

I sat down to have some tasty Mexican food with a friend a short while ago and we were having a good conversation. After awhile we started talking about my feeling that in my position as a pastor there are certain things that I believe that I do not feel I can talk about. My friend essentially responded that while I may not be able to talk about it I can talk about it.

To be honest for a second I was fairly dense and didn't really get what he was talking about. Luckily though my brain caught up to the conversation and I was able to understand what he meant. You see, while I may not feel that I am able to say 'x' if you follow my comments to their full extent you should be able to arrive at how I feel on certain subjects. The words I choose and the scriptures I focus on have the ability to say a lot more than what the sentences and paragraphs I use say on first listen.

It got me thinking that a lot of our communication is kind of like that old game/exercise telephone. Do you know/remember telephone? If not the long and the short of it is that people would get in a line or a circle or a square, which is a rectangle, even though not every rectangle is a square, and then the teacher/first person would say something to the next. The next person was to relay exactly what they had been told to the next person, and it would continue all the way down the line. Inexplicably by the time the group was done the statement/story was completely different than when it started.

Very often our communication looks like that, especially the really long speeches that we call sermons. I can't tell you how often I have felt like I have given the worst sermon of my life and someone will always come up an say how that sermon really spoke to them. The same is also true sometimes I have felt that I have given the worlds greatest sermon and walked away and no one says word one, or worse there has been a time when I have preached the greatest sermon ever and someone told me, 'don't worry you do a lot better usually.' Ugh.

I'm not sure why we continue to think that the lecture is the best way to communicate God's message to the masses, but we do. Though, as I said earlier most of our communication resembles that old game. Just ask yourself how many times you have read something on Facebook and got so angry only to realize that you read it wrong to begin with.

I think that part of our problem is that we go into communication with so many preconceived notions. We talk to person 'a' with the understanding that they are our friends and so we expect our conversations to go one way, and sooner or later they go another way. Or we talk to person 'b', who we think is stupid and at some point they say something so profound it knocks us on our rear. We go in with ideas of what will happen and we are thrown when thing go sideways, even if it is a good sideways.

Then there are other times in our communication when the thoughts in our heads combat the words that are coming from the other persons mouth. We are stuck in our own worlds when we should be interacting with the world around us. You know exactly what I mean, you've had a bad day and can't get your own problems off your mind and someone comes up to you to talk. Or perhaps you've been hard at work all day on this project that you just can't seem to grasp and you come home and your spouse expects you to be present, yet you're still sitting at your desk in your head.

In other words, so often we go through life with too few bars to have a proper conversation. Instead of 4G, we end up showing up in our extended network with our roaming data turned off. We want to download what the other person has to say but we've reached our monthly data download limit. Do you get my drift yet? We are cellphones with busy signals. Sorry I couldn't stop without just one more.

We need more bars, we need to stop the internal conversation so that we can focus on the external ones. We need to stop coming to the party assuming how it will play out. We need to open ourselves up to those around us so that out lives will be fuller and more meaningful.

And maybe, just maybe we need to rethink the whole concept of a sermon, but that is a blog for another day/month/year.

Peace and Love,
Pastor K

Lent Day 1: Ash Wednesday: A Beginning

To all things a beginning, here it is the first day of Lent, and we stand/sit/jazzercise here at the start of my second 40 day blog journey. Once again these 40 days will be full of random blogs. I have already planned a few blogs and have even started several already, but by and large we will just see where the days and thoughts take us.

Some of these blogs will be serious, some hilarious, some ridiculous, and some perhaps even scandalous. Thanks for joining me on the ride, hope we both enjoy it.

Peace and love
Pastor K

Well, maybe not Peace and love quite yet, or at least not as a goodbye. I sit here and I think that maybe I want to say just a little bit more before I leave you. Today is Ash Wednesday, a day when we set aside ourselves for the 40 odd days of Lent. Most people who participate in Lent do so in part by giving something up. I have decided that this year I will not give anything up. 

I do this in part because most years I end up not making it the entire time, I cave to the desire for pop or chocolate or video games before too long. I also have come to this conclusion for another reason, on the years that I have made it the entire way to Easter it has usually been about me focusing on the one thing that I gave up and Lent was about withholding whatever minimal pleasure I was keeping myself from. 

This year I would like to pay attention to the actuality of Lent, not some minor desire I am trying to keep myself from. This is not to downgrade Lenten fasting specifically, nor is it a knock on fasting in general, it is simply me acknowledging a part of myself that sometimes hinders my spiritual growth. If you have decided to give something up for Lent, to you I say 'Kudos.' If you have not I would say 'Well, don't let that stop you from growing closer to Jesus in this time anyway.'

OK, I think that is enough this time, so let's try this again.

Peace and Love,

Pastor K