New Daily Habits

Yes, it can be done.  I can start new habits.  And, I can stick with them.  Hope I did not just jinx it.

Since last November our church has been praying for every person in our fellowship by name every day.  We have a team of about a dozen folks who pray daily.  I pray for about one-seventh of our congregation every day.  Have kept up with it fairly well.  I have only missed a few days, so this has now become a daily habit.

When I began my sabbatical on January 1, I committed to journal every day.  Even if I only write a line or two in my journal, I have written something every day.  When my sabbatical ended in March, I continued to write every day, and I have not missed a day all year.

So, it looks like I can actually start a new habit.  Now I need to tackle serious writing.  Maybe I can write something every day on one of my blogs.  I just don't want to publish junk.

The Time Between

Today is Easter Saturday.  It's the time between--between the end of Jesus' life (as it seemed) and the resurrection.  It had to be a time of confusion, frustration, disappointment.

Maybe your life is in the time between right now.  Your dreams seem dead.  That relationship is gone.  The job can't be found.  It looks like death abounds, and every hope has died.

But on Sunday, Jesus rose from the dead.  In order for him to defeat death, he had to die.  There could be no resurrection without a Good Friday.

Hang in there during the time between.  There is a resurrection.

"I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his suffering, becoming like him in his death and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead."  -- Paul (Philippians 3:10-11)

Pastor Suicide

Every time I hear about a pastor committing suicide, a chill goes down my spine.  I see the irony--that a spiritual leader under the authority and grace of Christ would choose to end his own life--but I know there is more to it.  Just last Friday a fellow pastor in Guilford County, Robert McKeehan of Community Bible Church in High Point, took his life. I never met him, but I grieve and pray for his family and his fellowship.  I know very little about his ministry or his personal life, but this occasion has caused me to reflect.

Of course people of all walks of life choose to end their own lives.  Yet pastors, we believe, should somehow be exceptions.  I have not looked up any statistics to see if the rate of suicide is any higher or lower among pastors than the general population.  That's almost beside the point.

What would contribute to suicide among the shepherds of the church?

There are some pastors who enter ministry as a self-help endeavor.  Because they are messed up socially, emotionally, spiritually, they enter a profession in which those difficulties are addressed.  Professional growth yields personal growth, and they triumph over the demons of their lives.  I'm certain that happens many times.  Sometimes it doesn't.  We--humans--all have our demons.

Some pastors expect too much of themselves.  We expect perfection in ourselves, while real perfection only comes in Christ.  We take personal failures personally.  We take professional failures personally.  We essentially fail to apply the gospel to our own lives.  We know that God takes the mistakes of others and turns them around for good.  But somehow we can't look in the mirror and say the same thing.

And then, today's church culture expects a lot from pastors.  With a few clicks, parishioners can hear the best sermons from the best pastors around the world.  Local pastors feel the pressure to be just as deep, relevant, personal, missional, humorous, insightful, applicable, delightful.  On some occasions we may actually have a real winner of a sermon.  Next week it will be better.  And even better the next week.  Then we serve the reputation of good preaching instead of serving Jesus.  And eventually it crashes somehow.  Rarely does a  prominent pastor make it through his career without some sort of notable sinful failure.  At least it seems that way.

Pride tells us that we can be just as good as the famous preachers, and so we strive for that.  Of course we want excellence.  We push ourselves.  And parishioners cheer us on.  Sometimes literally.  We harness social media, purely to get out our message--certainly not to fuel our own egos.

Much of this we can accomplish with our own strength and resources.  We know how to market.  We know what sells.  We know that we can explain Jesus.  We know that people need forgiveness.  And so we tell the truth and ask for commitment.  We encourage people to respond, in some cases to the point of manipulation.

What I find lacking here is the power of God.  So much of ministry is done in purely human strength with token prayer.  We pastors know we lack the power, so we use human means to accomplish spiritual ends. Sadly, sometimes it works.  It looks good.  And it feels good.

But God's power reigns supreme in the stories of the New Testament.  Preachers tell about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus in a few sentences, and the power of God comes upon the listeners.  People surrender to Christ.  There is no manipulation, no arm twisting, no guilt tripping.

Today when the simple presentation of the good news of Jesus fails to produce results, we pastors assume that we are not trying hard enough, that we are not clever enough, likable enough, relevant enough, techie enough.  We assume that it is all about us.  Wrong.  That perspective is wrong.  It short circuits the power of God.  It causes us to feel like failures and blame God.  Then we use more worldly means to do spiritual work.  We see how contradictory that is, and feel the incongruity in our souls.

Sometimes we quit ministry.  Sometimes we have affairs.  Sometimes we feed addictions.  Sometimes we stay in ministry and rot from within.  Sometimes we end it all.

And then sometimes we allow God to break through as we break down.  We see that it is not all about us.  We believe Jesus when he says that his yoke is easy and his burden is light.  We come apart under the gracious hand of our severe and tender God.  We let go.  We weep.
 We stop bearing the weight of our dozens or thousands of parishioners.  We let God be God.  We come to him for our self-understanding.  We believe him when he says that he loves us as we are.  We believe that the cross of Jesus is all we need.  We live the life of the resurrection.  We experience release, forgiveness and deep-down joy.  We stop preaching to prove ourselves.  We take time off.  We let chips fall.  We get to know Jesus.  He fills us with his power.  Life becomes good.  We live the gospel.  We don't have to be super-pastors.  We don't want to be super-pastors.

Then the power of God flows.  The kingdom of God grows.  We live what we preach, that it is all about Jesus.  We fall to our knees.

Connecting Questions

We are beginning an experiment at Crossroads.  We are going to make personal contact with everyone in the church, and see how they are doing.

Here's the purpose:

• Have a personal touch with every person in our fellowship
• Discover spiritual hunger and thirst in our fellowship
• Discover need in our fellowship
• Begin mentoring relationships
• Discover stories to celebrate

Here are the questions:

• How is God working in your life?
• What goals are you working toward?
• How can we help?

As we connect with each other, we see how God is working.  And he gets the glory!

Spirit Suppression

I just picked up Henri Nouwen's book, In the Name of Jesus.  I have never read anything by Nouwen, but his name is very familiar to me.  My friends who seem to have a daily, intimate experience with Jesus often mention his writings.  Having heard this book mentioned in a sermon podcast, I found a free .pdf of the book and began to read.

Only a few paragraphs into the introduction, Nouwen wonders if he is suppressing the Holy Spirit.  I had to click off my iPad.  I already had enough to chew on.

Of course I am suppressing the Holy Spirit.  That is the source of nearly all my problems.  I suppress him, ignore him, forget him.  How many days do I endure, never really thinking about his presence in my life?  I suppress the Holy Spirit, and my life is the worse because of that.

An old iron mine in SW Virginia

Tears rolled down my face this morning as I wondered how much my life would be different, if only I would repent of suppressing him.  My life would be more exciting, fulfilling, rewarding, effective, real, genuine, joyful, dangerous, and free.

Lord, please forgive me for stifling your presence in my soul.  Help me change my heart.  I want to be real.  I want to live.

Everything You've Worked For

I recently heard a commercial for a financial advisor firm, urging listeners to be careful with their retirement savings.  (Of course they are the ones who can really take care of your money.)  The announcer described the tragedy of being careless with "everything you've worked for."

Obviously he is talking about financial investments, but the real tragedy would be spending all of one's life working only for money.  If everything I have worked for has a price tag, I am the poorest of men.  I hope that my retirement savings ranks near the bottom of the things I have worked for.

All of the material things in life will disappear.  Only relationships will last forever.  That's what I want to be working for.

No Pain, No Problem

The Little Red Hen understood the real world.  She asked for help as she planted, nurtured, harvested, milled and baked.  No one cared about helping with the work.  Everyone wanted to enjoy the freshly baked bread.  She rightly allowed only those who worked for the bread to  Sadly, she ate alone.  She understood that pleasure and responsibility go hand in hand. 

enjoy it.

These connections are self-evident to those steeped in the Protestant work ethic.  The pleasure of sex brings the responsibility of commitment and potential parenthood.  The pleasure of leisure comes after the responsibility of work.  The pleasure of beachfront property brings the responsibility of preparing for storm damage.  The “pleasure” of poor health choices creates the responsibility of dealing with diabetes, heart disease, lung cancer, or cirrhosis of the liver. 

Unfortunately today’s culture works constantly to sever pleasure from responsibility.  Pregnant and don’t want to be?  There’s a pill for that.  Hung over?   There’s a pill for that.  Sleepy?  Have an energy drink.  Distracted?  Choose your ADHD med.  Negative consequences must be avoided at all costs, even at the cost of human life.  The consequences of recreational sex, laziness, poor judgment, poor health choices, and economic risk must not be felt.  (This is actually part of the contemporary doctrine that all suffering must be avoided.)  Some corporations are too big to fail, so the taxpayers bail them out.  When hurricanes destroy their homes, uninsured property owners receive interest free, government guaranteed loans.  Many able-bodied adults choose not to work but collect electronic benefits transfer (EBT) payments every month.  Millions of babies die each year when abortion is used as birth control.  Though intended to help people, these pills and policies harm the individual and society.  They interfere with natural cause and effect.

Yet well-parented children know that the pleasure of a snow day means school work must be done at another time.  They know that chores come before play.  They know that living in a family obligates children and adults to help run the household.  This connection of pleasure with responsibility reflects the “real world.”  However, through science, marketing, and government programs, our society works to create the life of pleasure with no responsibility.  The real world is too cruel, so we must save people from it.  This sounds as appealing as having ice cream for breakfast and a staff of servants to do all the chores.  It might seem good in the short run, but ultimately someone must pay for it.  The servants must be paid, and poor health comes from a sugar-rich diet.

Therapists deal with those deprived of the proper pleasure/responsibility balance in childhood.  Those with no pleasure have been overworked; they have been robbed of their childhoods.  Meanwhile, those with no responsibility have never had to work; they never mature beyond childhood.

Our society moves steadily toward the latter.  Fewer people take responsibility because fewer people have to.  Looking at today’s pro sports, government, and prime time television, one must ask the same question:  Where are all the grownups?  There must be a pill for that.