Tag Archives: Church

Pastoral thoughts

When You’re Hungry for More

Barb and I were visiting our son and his family down in Texas. We decided to search for a church we could attend Sunday morning. We were hoping for something somewhat familiar and with their help we found the address of a church very near their home and checked it out on the internet. We decided to give it a try. One of our granddaughters wanted to go with us, so we agreed to pick her up Sunday morning.

Our first surprise came when we found the church building – much smaller than the website made it appear. But not to judge a book by its cover, we parked across the street in the dirt parking lot and bravely ventured forth into the church. We were quickly greeted by a couple of older women who were truly glad to see us. We soon moved into a pew row and sat down – only to look around and discover that among the maybe 30-40 in attendance our granddaughter appeared to be the only child there. The truth is, we were among the youngest there – we now knew why they were so glad to see us!  That was surprise number two.

Surprise number three – the organist began her prelude and as we sat listening the lady in front of us turned to us and whispered with pride, “Our organist is 102 years old.”  In all fairness, for 102 she did a good job. I would hope I could do that well at 102 – especially since I can’t play the organ at all now! But I digress.

Surprise number four occurred at about the same moment – our granddaughter began shivering because the church was cold (it was an unusually cold Texas day) – and the overhead fans seemed to make it worse. Since Barb’s jacket was heavier than mine she wrapped it around her – now Barb, too, was cold! After that the service moved along slowly but fairly well. Then the minister began to ‘preach.’ Surprise number four! As a preacher I tend to be fairly lenient when it comes to judging sermons – but I must say I’m still looking for his point and wondering what I was supposed to bring home. He rambled to first base then to left field then to third base then to center field then back to the dugout then to second base…well you get the point; he never made it home. By this time I was pretty empty – and hungering for some sense of the divine. Oh, Jesus was mentioned but mostly matter-of-factly.

Then surprise number five. When he finally concluded his message He went to the Table and began to serve communion. There was very little introduction or explanation, but the elements were distributed – and I was hungry no more. The bread and the cup placed Jesus before me. Then it hit me: “When you’re hungry for more, give thanks for the bread and cup.” I had fallen into the trap of wanting worship to feed me – I was accustomed to what I’m used to. I had stopped focusing on Jesus. Rather than be thankful for a place to worship and a small family of people who loved their Lord and were sincerely giving their all to Him in worship, rather than be thankful for the opportunity to sit in worship with my granddaughter, I hungered for something more. And to think I shake my head in wonder at the Israelites for clamoring for more than daily manna! I wonder how they could miss the miracle of the bread. But here I was – missing the miracle of the bread, the miracle of Jesus in our midst. “When you’re hungry for more, give thanks for the bread and cup.”

There’s a reason God fed His people manna (bread) and water in the wilderness – that’s enough to sustain life. There’s a reason Jesus said He was the bread of life and the living water – He is enough to sustain life. “But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.” (John 4:14) “I am the bread that gives life! No one who comes to me will ever be hungry. No one who has faith in me will ever be thirsty.”

As I thought about it, the lesson was not just for worship – it’s for daily life. “When you’re hungry for more, give thanks for the bread and cup.” What have you been hungering for? What are you forgetting to be thankful for? Have you looked to the bread and cup? When it comes down to it, what more do you need? “When you’re hungry for more, give thanks for the bread and cup.”

Pastoral thoughts

Running Loose in Church

It was a long time ago. But it seems like only yesterday as the memory makes it fresh. It could only happen in the life of a preacher. It was Sunday evening and I was, as usual, leading worship from the pulpit. Sitting near the back of the sanctuary were my wife and our 3 darling young boys. All was going well. Until…

The congregation had just finished singing the hymn before the sermon. I said my typical, “You may be seated” and everyone sat down. Well almost everyone…

As everyone else sat down the youngest of those 3 darling young boys dashed away from his horrified mother and darted up the center aisle straight up the platform steps to his thoroughly surprised father. As my wife wanted to crawl under the pew and hide I had a quick decision to make: what to do? All eyes were on me, and all those eyes were from faces with huge smiles. Some were even chuckling. So I picked our son up, said “Hi” to him, told him to say “Hi” to the congregation, and then told him – politely of course – to go back to his seat in the pew. (Thank heavens we had a wonderful congregation who thought it was all so cute and wonderful!)

Following the service the obvious question for us was “Why?” What possessed our son to do that? While he denied it at the time, our other, older son – years later – admitted he had sent his little brother scampering up the aisle. So, in reality, it was really an act of obedience.

The whole experience, therefore, now points me to ponder my obedience level. How quickly do I obey God? How often do I jump at His commands and directions? Do I dash away from what I’m doing and dart down the road in obedience? Or do I delay, pausing to ponder the pros and cons, or perhaps to bargain with God? I shudder to think how often I’ve hit the pause button and delayed my obedience. True – delayed obedience is better than no obedience, but instant obedience is the best and most blessed. As Jesus said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the Word of God and obey it…If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” (Luke 11:28 & John 14:25)

How about you? Where has it been hard to obey? For what obedience are you currently hitting pause?  Realize I’m not thinking so much about God’s grand calls to serve as I am about simply obeying His lifestyle commands. For example:

  • Honor your father and your mother
  • Love your neighbor as yourself
  • Forgive as Christ has forgiven you
  • Get rid of selfishness, jealousy, anger
  • Show the fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control
  • Get rid of anger
  • Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up
  • Be kind and compassionate
  • Look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others
  • Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything … present your requests to God

Certainly there’s much more, but these should be enough to assist in answering the questions: Where has it been hard to obey? For what obedience are you currently hitting pause?  Are you ready to dash away from your pause and dart down the road to obedience? Dashing and darting truly is the way to live. It is, after all, an act of love which reaps great reward.

Do you want Jesus to be at home in and with you? Dash to obedience, even if it means running loose in church.

 

 

 

News Commentary, Pastoral thoughts

Sunday Segregation

 

It’s often been said that the most segregated time in America is Sunday morning. There is some truth to that, in that many congregations are not multi-racial or cross cultural. While I’m not trying to downplay the situation, I do believe that part of the reason has more to do with preferred worship and preferred cultural styles than with intentionally blocking out persons of other cultures and races. That’s why, in addition to worship segregation between cultures there is segregation within cultures as well.

In fact, I’d like to add another twist. I believe the current trend of churches ‘marketing’ to certain age or cultural segments does hold a danger. While it may help bring people into or back to the church the jury is still out on its long-term effectiveness. My concern is that it tends to segregate the Body of Christ. Rather than everyone worshiping together and learning how to appreciate and be patient with our differences, how to be tolerant of differences, and how to be open to change, we promote fracturing the body. Any time someone, or some group, doesn’t ‘like’ or ‘prefer’ what we like or isn’t ‘like’ us we tend to avoid the hard spiritual work of tolerance and instead opt for our more comfortable personal preferences.

For me, two important issues for Christians to contemplate flow from this Sunday Segregation. One is “If we cannot tolerate each other in our worship, how dare we criticize the intolerance so prevalent in our current societal and political realms?” “How can we ever hope to influence and promote tolerance in those realms when we do not practice it in our worship and church life?” Until we are truly one in the Spirit we can never have a positive impact on the broader issues of tolerance and intolerance in our culture.

The second issue is this: “Are we raising and fostering a generation of worshipers and Christians who  may never experience the fullness of the Body – from cradle to the grave, from East to West and North to South?” How many churches lack the wisdom, experience, and faith-stories of our senior generation? They are the poorer for it. How many lack the vitality and necessary challenges of our searching but vibrant youth? They are the poorer for it. How many congregations lack the richness of different cultures and styles? The are the poorer for it.

Let’s never stop working towards racial and cultural diversity within the Body – and within our culture – but let’s also be very careful not to fall victim to segregation by our preferences either. Let’s strive, as difficult as it may be, for congregations that are free of age and preference segregation as well.

The Apostle Paul put it well. “All of you are God’s children because of your faith in Christ Jesus. And when you were baptized, it was as though you had put on Christ in the same way you put on new clothes. Faith in Christ Jesus is what makes each of you equal with each other, whether you are a Jew or a Greek, a slave or a free person, a man or a woman. So if you belong to Christ, you are now part of Abraham’s family, and you will be given what God has promised.” (Galatians 3:26-29 CEV)
“But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!” (Galatians 5:22-23 NLT)