Our dogs, Bodhi and Violet coexist pretty well, but they aren't really best friends... until there is a new bed in the house and they both want to lie on it. Picture one is Violet making her move. It only took her a little while to advance to picture two.
It is not that I am afraid of lizards or reptiles of any sort, it is just still sort of freaky for me to find them in the bathtub. (These things don't live where I come from.)I have never been one for New Year’s Resolutions. I have never been very good at choosing things to resolve and I have never been very good at sticking with them. I am much better at New Year’s Rededication. I like to take time at the beginning of the year to think about what is important in my life and rededicate myself to that.
I believe what needs to be most important in my life is God. If God is at the center, all those resolutions that I don’t make have a way of taking care of themselves. Through the year, it is pretty easy for God to slip from that top spot, so I think it is important, at the threshold of a new year, to rededicate myself to God.
John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement shared this belief and developed a service for this purpose called The Covenant Renewal Service. It has been traditionally held on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day.
I hope you will join me at any of our three services this Sunday,
peace,
will
Scripture: Jeremiah 33:14-16
Even for someone like me from
The four Sundays of Advent are the church's way of preparing for the arrival of GodÂ’s most precious gift, Jesus Christ. This week, the choir is going to help us prepare by offering us the gift of music as they present, Night of Wonder, A Cantata for Advent or Christmas. At all three services, they will present this offering of choruses and readings that will trace the journey from the Advent prophecy to the annunciation of Mary and from the birth of Jesus to the heavenly host proclaiming, "“Glory to God in the highest!"” I hope you will consider inviting your friends and family to experience the wonder of Christmas celebrated in music!
The little cold snap has left Bodhi a little lazy and a little stubborn. In case you can't tell from this picture, Bodhi is not allowed on the furniture. Although, we just got that chair a few weeks ago when one of our neighbors moved, so no one has told him specifically to stay off that chair.
Notice the bottom two numbers on this picture of the clock in my office. On the left, just above the date is the inside temperature, a cool 69 degrees. On the right, just above the day is the outside temperature, a cooler 45 degrees. It is pretty rare here in lovely, tropical Corpus Christi that the number on the right falls lower than the climate controlled number on the left.Take a Sabbath, every week. Be lazy, take a nap or go fishing and forget to take bait.
And get a dog, not a little dog, but a real dog, like a lab or a pit bull or something.
And watch House, Tuesday nights at 8 on Fox and GreyÂ’s Anatomy, Thursdays at 8 on ABC.
And when you hear a cool song on one of the above shows, download it from iTunes and put it
on your iPod.
And call someone younger than you and ask them what iTunes and iPod mean.
And read books, fiction and non-fiction. Read a lot of them. There are a lot of books out there.
They print new ones faster than I can read the old ones.
And do something that scares the ______ out of you. Mountain climbing, sky diving, or foster-
parenting all count.
And convince at least one person that they are worth being loved by the creator of the universe
And experience something every year that makes your jaw drop and tears come to your eyes. It can be good or bad. Many of the things above will facilitate this.
I just finished George Barna's Revolution (Carol Stream Illinois: Tyndale House Publishing, 2005). It didn't take long at 144 pages. It really wasn't what I was expecting. George Barna and the Barna Group he created are renowned for their research within and outside the realm of religion. In this book, the author makes the point that his research is showing a radical shift in Christianity to something that is happening more and more outside the walls (physical and otherwise) of the institutional church. I believe that his theory may be correct, however, what Barna does not share is the research that backs it up. He also does quite a bit of theologizing of his own. Perhaps some of it based on research, but there is no way of knowing.
Alisha, my sister, my brother law, my niece, Joshua and I went to the aquarium on the day after Thanksgiving. The Aquarium is truly one of Corpus Christi's treasures. They also have one of the best playgrounds on the planet, complete with that cool rubbery surface covering the ground which provides for very little crying even when little boys fall down.
Phillips book is critical of the Republican Party and the conservative Christian coalition which will displease some who follow that party or group. However, he is deeply historical, tracing patterns that have led to the downfall of other superpowers, and very insightful toward economic data as it paints of picture of the state our nation.
If the book does nothing else, it does an amazing job of showing the complexities and interrelations of economics, politics and religion. What we believe, what we empower our leaders to do and what we participate in simply by our unknowing has serious consequences on every single citizen of our country and every person attached to our world economy.
If you are into this sort of stuff, it is actually a fun read.
peace,
will
I haven’t had a chance yet to formally thank everyone for the abundant outpouring of love and support upon the arrival of our foster son Joshua. Alisha and I have truly been moved by the love shown through diapers, toys, gift cards, and offers for babysitting.
I cannot begin to tell you what a joy it has been to open our home and share our love with one of God’s beloved children. It is my prayer that the love we share will give him a chance at a truly full and abundant life.
It is also my prayer that Joshua’s presence among us may inspire someone else to hear God’s call to foster parenting. I realize that such a ministry is a big step and one not to be entered into lightly. I also realize that there are some people who are truly equipped and called to such a ministry and that there are many children who need them.
On Thursday, December 7th, at
I guess it needs to be put in context. I was at our annual Blessing of the Animals.Sunday Preview
Scripture: Mark
Sermon Title: “What do you want?”
What would you do if God stood right before you and asked, “What do you want me to do for you?” Could you answer that question? Or would you stammer about waiting for God to pass by?
This Sunday we will be reading the story of blind Bartimaeus. I hope that in it, we can hear God reaching out to us, and we can begin to allow God to truly be at work in our lives.
Don’t forget, text and audio versions of my sermons are available at gracesermons.blogspot.com. Printed copies of sermons can be found in the glass way at the church.
peace,will
I just finished reading Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis, Repainting the Christian Faith. My friend Bryan recommended this book a while back and it took me a while to get to it. I wish I had read it sooner. Bryan did not steer me wrong.
Half-Price Books is a dangerous place for me. While I am there, I find lots of books that I didn't even know I needed. This was one of them.
I keep finding new unexpected perks to being a parent. My latest discovery is that on the rare days I get to stay home with the boy, I get to watch Sesame street! Thanks to technology I can TiVo it everyday and the we can watch it whenever he is in the mood.
So I am posting in the middle of the night because I decided to finish the last few chapters of John Grogan's Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog.
I am off to Port Aransas tomorrow to speak to the the Corpus Christi District Professional meeting about creating discipleship systems.
Since he was riding on my back, I don't know what was going on with Joshua at this moment, but the picture is just too funny.
Alisha is sorting through the vacations photos. This is sunset from the deck of the place we stayed.
My good friend Jen Austin has her first book out and vacation finally gave me the time to give it the attention it deserved. I read it before it came out, but read it in bits and chunks and missed the flow. Jen has asked me to write some things for the promo material for the book. I thought I would use the blog as a place to try out some of my thoughts.As a pastor, I spend a lot of time trying to help people to read the Bible. I try to get them to understand that the Bible is a story of the history of God'’s people and their struggle to be God'’s people. If we read it that way instead of as a list of legalistic and contradictory codes of conduct we start to truly see who God is and who we are.
I believe that the Bible is perfect the way it is, but I don'’t think that we are done telling stories. In order to continue to grow we must continue our struggle to be God'’s people. In order to do that, we need to share our stories, our stories of our own struggle to be faithful to God and to each other.
I try to be patient with the intolerance of others, but I try to help people understand our need to hear each other's stories. Before one can even begin to understand how someone else lives in relationship to God, one must hear their story. One can not proclaim someone as sinful or Godless or anything else unless they truly know them.
JenÂ’s story of her struggle to understand herself and her creator shows us what can happen when we truly put our faith and trust in God and the struggles that can occur when anyone, gay or straight turns their back and fails to accept the unconditional love that God offers us all.
Jen truly helps us to see the broader understanding of sin as she leads us through her struggle from seeing her homosexuality as a sin to seeing her failure to accept God'’s unconditional love as the sin. In not accepting God'’s acceptance, Jen had separated herself from God much more than any violation of some misconstrued law from Leviticus could. It was only by starting to realize that God had made her and loves her as she is that she was able to fully embrace God'’s love.
When you read this book, sexuality gains such a deeper definition. It is far more than our impulses toward the opposite or same sex, it is something that exists at the depth of our soul, something given to us as a gift from God. Jen seems to understand this and treats her sexuality accordingly with a much better sense of the presence of God than most heterosexuals Christians I know.
We should consider it a great gift the Jen has felt obliged to share her story with us. In it, we can find ourselves, God, and love that surpasses the rules and boundaries that humanity has placed on it.
Alisha, Joshua, Bodhi, Violet and I send our greetings from South Padre Island. In this pictures Alisha is behind me taking the picture and Bodhi is in the surf somewhere. See y'all soon.
Like most kids, Joshua's first baseball game was in the luxury box about 15 feet from Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan. Thanks to some wonderful hospitality, (Thanks Tom and Nora!) Joshua got to spend the evening in comfort and style. And thanks to lots of loving arms who wanted to hold him, Alisha I got to watch a lot of the game. (Thanks Lisa and Nora and Jim and Kathy and Mike and everybody else who took a turn.)
I thought it sort of poetic that on the day after Pastor John had returned to
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
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
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.
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?
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.
Something to think about.
