You've Got Mail... But No Job

As a pastor at a large church, I think a lot about communications. I am often considering which communication is best done face to face, and what can be done on the phone, through a printed letter, through a hand-written card, through a mass e-mail, through a personal e-mail, etc. Doing what is best is a complicated matter that is sometimes influenced by time constraints and the person I am communicating with. Sometimes it is hard to catch up with people face to face. For me, the phone sometimes feels more impersonal than a letter. Some people think e-mail is terribly impersonal but others think it is the next best thing to talking in person.

However, sometimes the boundaries seem more clear. Check out this article:

You've got mail, about your layoff - Houston Chronicle

At least it is not as bad as breaking up with someone via text message.

peace,

will

Take a Deep Breath... Fall is Here

I have often claimed that fall is the busiest time of year at the church. However, I have made a similar claim about just about every other time of the year. Life in a large, active congregation is always busy. Different times of year just bring different kinds of busy.

Fall means new beginnings for classes and programs including confirmation and Disciple. It also means our annual Charge Conference. It also seems to be the time when people become most interested in creating new ministries or reviving existing programs. I am always excited by that and looking for ways to help people achieve their dreams. (With God's help)

For me my attention is divided between the church and my family. I know it gets even more complicated for folks with demanding jobs and kids who have school and football and band and livestock show, etc. Add to that, church events, PTA, and perhaps just a little time for recreation. When we get too busy, the first thing that gets pushed out is the thing we need most. No matter how busy we are, we need to find some amount of time to be in God's presence. Otherwise we will get busier and busier and busier until we can't sense God's presence in our lives at all. That doesn't mean God isn't there, it just means we have piled up so much "stuff" around us that we can't tell.

It only takes a few minutes to clear away the clutter and invite God to order the chaos of our lives.

I hope you can find some time!

peace,

will

This Week's Sermon - Text and Audio

This Sunday's sermon has been posted in both text and audio form and can be found here.

Sermon #28 - "Fever Pitch"
Sermon #28 - "Fever Pitch" - Audio

Thoughts and comments are always welcome.

peace,

will

Now I need to repeat elementary school science

If I forgot to list Pluto as a planet on my test in fifth grade, can I go back and challenge my grade?

BREAKING NEWS: Pluto Demoted, No Longer a Planet

They have been talking about this for some time, but now it is official. If you have a Pluto mailing address, please make the appropriate changes immediately.

peace,

will

Val has been posting

In case you are following the adventures of Val, a member of our church who has gone to California as a US-2 Missionary, she has posted a few new entries on her weblog. Check it out:

Val's Weblog

peace,

will

Taking Things a Bit Literally

When we read the Bible too literally, making the entire thing one long directive from God, this sort of thing happens:

CNN.COM - Sunday School Teacher Dumped for Being Female

peace,

will

Life with Joshua Part I

I have written very little on the weblog about life with a baby in the house. I will start by sharing the column that will appear in this week's church newsletter:

I thought it sort of poetic that on the day after Pastor John had returned to Austin to finalize plans for his first daughter’s wedding that some people from Methodist Children’s Home arrived at our home to deliver to Alisha and me an 11 month old baby boy. Joshua arrived Friday, August 11^th, entering our lives at a whopping 25 pounds.

Joshua is a foster child placed through Methodist Children’s Home’s new outreach office here in Corpus Christi. MCH normally takes foster children voluntarily from parents who can’t currently cope with the demands of parenting or whose circumstances make being a good parent impossible. The goal of MCH is to return children to a loving and secure environment with their birth parents whenever possible. This may not be possible with Joshua and he may remain with us.

I am sure you will hear me reflect on how life has changed for Alisha and I since Joshua joined us. However, I want to take this opportunity to talk about how important foster parenting is. Jesus says in Mark’s Gospel:

“Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”

I hear a lot of talk lately about the value of a life. Many of my Christian brothers and sisters are quite passionate about abortion and stem-cell research, and those are important topics to discuss, but very little attention is paid to the children among us who have very little hope of having a full and abundant life. There are more children than you can imagine who live in situations of abuse or neglect and children who have no one at all to love them. There are children who begin their fragile lives addicted to drugs and alcohol. Some can recover with a lot of love and attention and some spend their entire lives suffering from something that happened to them before they were even born.

I have mentioned in a sermon that often with problems this large we are overwhelmed and do nothing. The words of Jesus I mentioned before are just a little different in Matthew’s Gospel where he says:

Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.

Not all the children, just one. When and where just one child is safe and warm, when and where just one child is told, “I love you and I am going to take care of you,” then and there we are welcoming God.

Alisha and I are responding to God by opening our hearts and home to share God’s unconditional love with Joshua. We thank you for all the love and support you have already poured out upon us that we may feel loved as we are loving him.

peace,

will

This Week's Sermon - Text and Audio

Sunday's sermon has been posted in both audio and text forms:

Sermon #27 - Obey Your Thirst
Sermon #27 - Obey Your Thirst (Audio)

peace,

will

Some thoughts on welcoming

Luke 9:46-48

46 An argument arose among them as to which one of them was the greatest. ⁴⁷But Jesus, aware of their inner thoughts, took a little child and put it by his side, ⁴⁸and said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes this child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me; for the least among all of you is the greatest.’

You may think that since I have little baby at my house that in reflecting on this scripture, I would be writing about babies, but I am not. This is a scripture that is very relevant to our task as Christians and I shared it as such the other night at our Welcoming Team meeting.

I think that we are limiting this scripture a bit when we take “child” too literally. Replace the word children with “someone new to the faith” Let read that again.

46 An argument arose among them as to which one of them was the greatest. ⁴⁷But Jesus, aware of their inner thoughts, took “someone new to the faith” and put them by his side, ⁴⁸and said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes this person new to the faith in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me; for the least among all of you is the greatest.’

I don’t think a church has to work all that hard to be welcoming to other church people. I mean church people kind of know what is going on. They know we worship in the sanctuary, they know what a fellowship hall is; they know that the bulletin is the thing we use to guide us through the service; they know what a narthex is. If they are really spiritual grown ups they should be excited if they have trouble finding a place to park, if the church is crowded or they stumble over all the little kids running around. If there are mature spiritually, they shouldn’t care one tiny bit if the parking lot is cracked or the ceiling leaks or the bathroom smells funny.

Honestly, I don’t have a lot of patience for lifelong Christians who visit and have complaints about practical things. If they are lifelong Christians, they should, by now get that it isn’t about their comfort. If a lifelong Christian comes to worship here, and I call them later in the day to see how it went and they say, “I didn’t feel very welcome; the person next to me didn’t even speak to me.” I want to say, didn’t occur to you that perhaps that was there first time in any church, why didn’t you welcome them?

But what about someone new to the faith, someone who is truly seeking to fill that God shaped hole in their hearts, what if they come here? They may not know words like narthex and fellowship hall, they may not understand all those “churchy” words we use. What’s more, they may have spent their whole life living solely by the standards of the world. Think about this for a moment, do you judge your church differently than you would a nice restaurant? Say someone took you out for a nice dinner and while you were there, you were checking the place out to see if it would be a good place to invite your spouse for an anniversary or a new acquaintance you really wanted to impress.

What would you look at?

You would look at the appearance, the service, every little detail. Before you even got inside you would take note of the building and the parking lot. If you were ignored when you walked in, you would notice, if you had to wait an hour for your table, you would take note. If there was a stain on a table cloth, spots on the silverware you would see that. If the waiter seemed confused or dropped your plate, points would be deducted.

But we wouldn’t judge our church that way, because as Christians, we know that this stuff is not important. Right?

‘Whoever welcomes this person new to the faith in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me; for the least among all of you is the greatest.’

Think about it, those new to the faith have no other way to judge our church except by the standards of the world. Remember the effort we would put in checking out a restaurant? They are thinking about trusting their life in our hands. They are thinking in one way or another about surrendering their life to God, they don’t know what that looks like yet and they are using whatever criteria they can think of to see if we are a safe place to do that.

In the church we do a lot that it “good enough for church.” We do that because we are trying to be good stewards of the church’s money and we do it because we realize that the gospel calls us to something more than appearances. But, I think that there is a theological problem with that in that we should really give our best to God. More importantly though, there is an evangelistic problem with that.

‘Whoever welcomes this person new to the faith in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me; for the least among all of you is the greatest.’

We need to look critically at every single thing we do. Are we doing "good enough for church" work? Or, are we doing good enough that someone may trust us with being part of the most important decision of their life?

Something to think about.

This Week's Sermon

This week's sermon is posted and ready to be read:

Sermon #26 - Read the Instructions

The audio version is not up yet. I will try to post it tomorrow. The studio I use to record the sermons is at the house and there is now a little extra activity at the house!

peace,

will

New Addition, This One is Not a Pet

I have been a bit off my blogging game, but for good reason. After fostering and adopting dogs, turtles and even a one-eyed cat, we stepped up this week and began caring for our first foster child. I have been busy with the transition and thinking about how I would handle all this on the weblog. Sometimes technology is pretty far ahead of our ability to best use it. I like the use the weblog as a way for people to get a little inside glimpse at the life of a pastor (be it their own pastor or not.) I also use it to talk about God and theology in ways I don't have time for on Sunday morning. More often than not, that includes personal stuff.

My wife Alisha ends up living a little bit in a fishbowl too, but I try to give her some privacy. So, I was thinking about how to deal with this new little person living in my house. I am going to play it by ear. For now, the weblog won't have pictures or even his name. If you are a member of the church or know me in other ways, you will get plenty of that. Otherwise, you get to learn about this new addition to our household the way scientists study things they can't see, by observing their effect on things around them. It would be hard to not notice that my life is being radically altered by the little boy living in my home. It is quite difficult to operate the same as usual in the midst of poopie diapers, endless snuggles and paddycake.


peace,

will

Sunday Preview - You Get it First Because You Read the Weblog!

It feels like a while since I have preached. I am back up this weekend and here is what is going on:

Sunday Preview
Sunday, August 13^th (10^th Sunday after Pentecost)
Scripture: Matthew 7:24-28
Sermon Title: “Read the Instructions”

Have you read the Bible much lately? Most of us answer that with something like, “Not as much as I would like.” We are going to talk about that in worship and think about how we can see scripture as the foundation of our faith.

This Sunday is Rally Sunday, the day our children and youth move to their new classes for the new Sunday school year. It is a great day for us, as adults, to think about how we are growing in our faith.

I hope to see you in worship!

peace,

will

They seem to be getting along

It has been a few months since we got Violet (the one on the right) and she seems to have settled right in. Bodhi, who spent nearly 10 years as an only dog has settled into resigned annoyance, but he is willing to share the bathroom rug.

peace,

will

More Light Reading

I am always trying to balance out my reading by reading one fiction and one non-fiction book most of the time. Last time I was in Austin, I picked up a few books at the really great Goodwill store Alisha and I used to live near. You can usually find recent titles for $2.50 and our latest visit was no exception. (I also found a popcorn popper that I have transformed into a new coffee roaster, but that is for another entry).

I picked up Ken Follet's latest, Whiteout. If you read the blog much, you know that I am somewhat finicky about what I read, even fiction. (See my entry on Michael Crichton's Prey.) Follet's latest was pretty good though. It was a quick, fun, adventure thriller, more like watching a movie than reading a book. It had a bit too much romance for my tastes, but that might just be me.

The weblog is always a great place for you to post what you are reading. I like to know what people are into. Plus, my stack of books to read is getting a little low and I need to know what to get next.

peace,

will

Making Safe Sanctuaries

Thank you to everyone who came out last night for our first session of training and reflection on Safe Sanctuaries. Safe Sanctuaries is a program developed by Joy Thornburg Melton in her books Safe Sanctuaries, Reducing the Risk of Child Abuse in the Church and Safe Sanctuaries for Youth, Reducing the Risk of Abuse in Youth Ministries.

I cannot stress enough the importance of this program. This isn't just another state of church mandated program to cover ourselves from lawsuits. This is a comprehensive undertaking, an effort to do everything we can to protect the children and youth of our church for abuse and neglect.

As the body of Christ, we are called to be responsible for the most vulnerable members of the body. That means not just having good intentions, but being intentional about doing every thing we can to ensure the safety and wellbeing of the children who seek and expect sanctuary in our presence.

The training last night and this Sunday is only mandatory for people involved with children and/or youth at the church. However, everyone is welcome. Whether you attend the training or not, I hope everyone will embrace these programs and policies and see them as part of the ministry of the church.

peace,

will

Such a nice name for a tropical storm

It is that time of year. Time to keep an eye out over the water. Tropical Storm Chris is churning around in the Atlantic. We don't think much about the technology that allows us to track these storms. I realize that it is not always accurate, but think about the days before hurricane hunter aircraft, radar and computer modeling. Your only real warning of a killer storm was when the surf started really kicking up. If you knew it was coming, the barometer might give you a clue as to whether it might head right for you or veer off. The only way to know how big the storm was was to look at the damage after it was over.

There is always a point, however, when technology goes from lifesaving to just plain silly. It won't be long now before we get to watch cable news anchor people trying to keep their hair looking good while standing in 60 mile an hour winds letting us know exactly how bad the storm is.

peace,

will