Saturday, October 31, 2009

A Fearless Life

I wonder how often we are motivated by fear of one kind or another and don’t even realize it.  We don’t speak up because we fear rejection of our idea.  Last week on the Amazing Race, one team got knocked out because of a member’s fear of heights. 

We have no trouble believing in God’s power and faithfulness for someone else, but we fear going out on the limb ourselves because what if it breaks.  Of course, proven over and over again, it’s out on the limb that we find out just how powerful and faithful God is.  If Peter had never said “get up and walk” out loud, they never would have seen that miracle.

So why aren’t we more faithfully fearless?

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A Fearless Life

I wonder how often we are motivated by fear of one kind or another and don’t even realize it.  We don’t speak up because we fear rejection of our idea.  Last week on the Amazing Race, one team got knocked out because of a member’s fear of heights. 

We have no trouble believing in God’s power and faithfulness for someone else, but we fear going out on the limb ourselves because what if it breaks.  Of course, proven over and over again, it’s out on the limb that we find out just how powerful and faithful God is.  If Peter had never said “get up and walk” out loud, they never would have seen that miracle.

So why aren’t we more faithfully fearless?

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Monday, October 26, 2009

Powerful Remembrance

Many of my NH church family gathered together with one of my dearest friends to memorialize his dad today.  I have seldom been to such a powerful and moving funeral.

Don Boardman, who I called “Dad Boardman,” was one of the finest Christian people I’ve ever met.  Now, I didn’t know him as well as others, but I knew he was kind, loving, compassionate, and the kind of guy who’d give you the shirt off his back.

I know this partially because I have had many occasions to see and talk with him.  But I also know it because I have gotten to know his son, Glen, over the last 20 years.  Anyone as gracious and compassionate as Glen, who has such obvious love for his own family, had to have been raised in a place where that was modeled consistently.

I think the coolest part today was when the attendees of the service created the “Don Boardman Memorial Choir” to help Glen perform the song he had written in honor of his dad.  Awesome moments, and a testimony to the character of the man we were there to remember and honor.

May God continue to bless the Boardman family in their grieving.

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Friday, October 23, 2009

Reading culture into things

I met a dear friend for a bite to eat and some good conversation yesterday.  She had told me previously about her dad being laid off, and that she and her husband were considering moving in with her parents in order to help get them through until her dad could find another job.  She had spoken to a few friends about this, including me, to seek out counsel on whether they should go through with it.  At the time, I told her that it would be great for them to honor her parents in this way, and besides, our parents take care of us our whole lives, so it made sense to turn it around and help them out for a change.  I figured this is how families live all over the world, and have for centuries.

Yesterday she mentioned to me that I was the only one who said that.  She said that most people were telling her it was not “natural,” that it wasn’t what we did in our culture.  Some even used scripture to say that parents are supposed to “store up an inheritance” for their children, not the other way around.

Of course, that does not take into consideration what the culture was like when that scripture was written.  Families generally lived together – or at least very close to one another - at that time, and so everyone sort of contributed to the household in general.  People weren’t out pursuing the American dream, and planning to spend their inheritance, because that culture was not our current culture.  Not to mention the much more communal nature of the economy of that time.

Which is why we must use caution when we read the Bible and try to determine answers to questions and what advice to give people.  Because we read our culture into it so naturally and so automatically that we don’t even realize we are doing it.

At any rate, the rest of the story is that my friend and her husband decided to go through with moving in with her parents, and put their home on the market.  And then, as they were taking steps of faithfulness to honor their parents, circumstances miraculously worked together for her dad, and the need for the whole thing was removed.

Very cool.

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Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Wondering

I sat in two meetings today with my fellow education professionals.  These are some really great people, who care about seeing to the success of every single student they teach.  They never want anyone to fall through the cracks, and have great ideas about making sure nobody does. 

Here we are, barely a month into the school year, and we are in a budget freeze.  And people are walking on eggshells because they don’t know what’s coming from the state regarding how much they will renege on what they promised the towns in aid. 

And I find myself wondering.  What if we really had enough resources to carry out our ideas to fruition?  People always assume schools are wasting money, or that the people who work in them don’t really care.  It just isn’t true.  Give these people the resources they need – in supplies, in texts, in technology, in personnel – and you would see wondrous things happen.

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Monday, October 19, 2009

The Be-attitudes

I listened to a sermon by Rob Bell today on my commute about one of the Beatitudes – “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.”

Now, all my Christian life, every time I ever heard anyone preach on this, it was about making sure our lives were all about going after Jesus, becoming more Christ-like, etc – all about working toward being more holy or sinless or whatever. 

Rob’s contention, and I agree, was that this was not a prescription for your life’s work, but an announcement about something that already IS.  And, we have to watch how we define righteousness.

This is about righteousness in the sense of putting the world back to rights, seeing justice done, seeing mercy win, and seeing everything in its right place again.  And the ones who are disturbed by the fact that it isn’t, who are hungering and thirsting to see God’s shalom brought about on the earth, are the ones with whom God hangs out - right there in the middle of the longing.

In other words, the blessing isn’t for the ones who have it all together – it’s for those of us who haven’t worked it all out, who are looking toward the day when everything is once again made whole – including us.

Good news, huh?

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Sunday, October 11, 2009

In which God blessed the work...

So we opened our church's new campus today. And people actually showed up, and the service and all the setting up and stuff went really well.

It is so great to join in what God is doing, and just go with His flow.

And wow that all sounded more "jargony" than I meant it to. Suffice it to say, we of Grace Community Church - One Church, Two Locations - are pretty pumped.