God, “where are you?”

If you are like me, I will pray for you…in all seriousness, we have wondered where God is. I have lately been feeling rather glum about my walk with the Lord. I have been struggling with some things, and dealing with some other issues, and of course there is junk from my past that resurfaces from time to time. But, lately in addition to this stuff, I have been feeling distant from God. I know that the Scripture teaches that God is always present. I get that. I just don’t feel it. I know I am not saved by how I feel. But, I still feel distant from God. But, I am aware this morning that even though my self-absorption God has been showing me in small ways that He is near, or closer than I think according to John Ortberg.

I have been reading Ortberg’s book, God is closer than you think and have been hit hard by the reality of God’s presence. Also re-reading the Chronicles of Narnia, I was moved to tears this morning in the recount of Lucy meeting Aslan again! Also, my oldest and middle daughters continue to teach me about the love of God and his constant presence in our lives. They were singing just yesterday, “Jesus Loves Me,” when Rachel makes her own verse and it went something like this…”Yes, Jesus loves my daddy, yes Jesus loves my daddy, yes Jesus loves my daddy, the Bible tells him so!” Even as I retype what she sang, my eyes are filling with tears. I have more in common with Susan in Prince Caspian than Lucy, I have listened to the fears of the world more than I have listened to still small whisper of God. I was beginning to wonder if I was deaf. My hard-heartedness is crippling, and yet I realize now that I have never been alone. I almost feel like Shasta, walking at night unaware, if you will of what is keeping my upright on the path. Jacob says it best, “God is in this place and I was unaware.”

field trips to family issues

I got invited to go to an Oklahoma Redhawks baseball game today with one of the local elementary schools. Rain and more rain was in our state forecast. Needless to say, there was no baseball played today. I was drenched, away from the office, and got to spend some time with a couple of my 6th graders. It wasn’t a wasted day.

I was reading today in 2 Samuel 13 and 14. Isn’t it a shame that there was so much dysfunction in David’s family. I am encouraged too, for to read so openly of the failures of one who was called “one after God’s own heart,” leaves room at the table of the King for the rest of us. I think of myself, and if we were honest with ourselves would and could all say, that we are more like Mephibosheth (2 Sam 9), crippled in some aspect of our relationship with God. But, God call us anyway to sit with him at his table. When others would look over us, and despise us because of our short comings, God seeks us out to show us his favor. God is good.

But, back to family dysfunction for a moment. Families are to be places where God’s light shines to the whole world. But, look at our families in our culture, and we see that they are stressed out, over-stretched, and being pulled apart by a flurry of activity, we are fraying if you will. We need more than ever a solid foundation in God’s Word grounded in a relationship with God and with one another. God families, by the way, aren’t perfect families. There will be moments when we have to deal with the Absalom’s and Amnon’s in our family. We all have skeletons in our family’s closet. What we do with those secrets is important. The best antidote for family failure and dysfunction is forgiveness, and groundedness in the love of Christ.

my outline for senior reception sunday

This is a message from 1 Peter 2:11-12 I shared for our Graduation Day 2008·

Dear Friends

o Name calling 1:1,17; 2:11

§ Exiles, strangers, aliens

· X-files: marks of an alien

o

New birth (1:3,14,23; 3:21)

o New hope

§ Inheritance, imperishable, undefiled, unfading

§ A better tomorrow because of the resurrection 1:3

o New direction/journey (1:13)

§ New lifestyle 1:13-16

· Putting away the old habits 1:14; 2:11

· Embracing holiness 1:15

o Never-ending invitation (2:4)

§ Come to Jesus

o New life

§ Live such good lives 2:12

§ Infecting the world with God’s holiness

§ Be a “do-gooder”

o New Story

§ Share Jesus 2:9

· With words

· With your behavior 2:11-12

o Other people are watching

§ He’s coming Again 2:12

· The cross makes us all aliens and strangers

some goals for our youth and family ministry

tell me what you think:

• • Church’s mission statement:
    • Chisholm Trail Church of Christ is a New Testament church of Christ family committed to making fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ.
  • Youth Ministry purpose statement:
    • Our aim is to meet students where they are developmentally, and walk beside them through the fog adolescence, providing a Christ centered community where students can experience life, ministry, and worship together and with caring and nurturing adults; explore and own their faith, ask questions, discover and use their spiritual giftedness and lead them to a life-long pursuit of Christ with their journey-mates. A necessary component of our ministry to adolescents is their families, so in addition to meeting the students where they are, we will build relationships with the whole family, and providing training, resources, and offering encouragement.
  • Synergistic Goals: Catching the energy between two or more places
    • We love God
      • We want to know Christ and make Him known (Eph 4:14-19)
      • We will teach and model the priority of the kingdom of God (Mat. 6:33)
      • We want to be a place that encourages the worship of God freely
    • We are family (Eph 5:1)
      • We are a family of families and as such we have the health of the whole family in mind
        • We recognize that family can have a structural as well as functional definition
        • We desire to live as family, as fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, as children of God.
        • For some members, (adults and kids) we are the only family they will ever know
      • We want to equip parents to do their God given job as leaders and faith builders in the home, and provide resources and training to lead within the home
      • We recognize that families are over-busy, over-stressed and over-stretched we want to be a place of help and healing not a place that causes or creates guilt or extra stress on the family through a hyper-busy youth calendar
      • We want families to be lights within their neighborhoods for the Gospel, making Christ known through their lifestyle. As a church we want to encourage faith to be lived out 24/7 outside of the church building’s four walls
      • We want to encourage cross generational contact. Scripture tells us (Titus 2 that it is the job of the older to teach and mentor the younger).
    • Make fully devoted disciples
      • We will do this through effective teaching, offering relevant classes, preaching, encouraging the spiritual disciplines, encouraging attendance at worship and class times
      • We will offer service projects, mission trips, relationship building times
      • We encourage others to get into the game, we want you to play to your strengths, and serve where you are best suited. We want to help you discover and use your spiritual gifts for the benefit of the kingdom.
    • Love Others:
      • We want to train and equip others to see themselves as part of a greater story, the story of God’s work in the world and as such
      • We want to people who are known for their love for one another and love for the stranger. We are told in Hebrews to entertain strangers, for they may be angels (Heb. 13:2)

Rev. Wright, racism and the church

As someone in ministry I am alarmed at the remarks of Jermiah Wright. I have listened to the sound bites, and a fuller pieces of his lessons. I watched him yesterday and the day before, on C-Span…

. He seems angry, proud and flamboyant, almost defiant. He kept referencing the “black church,” and attacks on him were attacks on the “black church.” I am not black, so I don’t know what it’s like to be an African American in this country.  I have seen racism though, I have watched ignorant people make dumb remarks about people of color, and I have watched good people do nothing about these statements. I am ashamed for all us whether white or black or whatever race we are, for not seeing each other as children of God, as precious and made in God’s image. I don’t consider myself a racist, but here is the problem with referencing the black church and the white church….it continues to create racial division. I believe the Bible is clear that in Christ there are no racial divisions, this is the mystery Paul talks about in Ephesians, how the cross made two races into one new humanity. Period. No Gentile church and Jewish church, just Christ’s church full of people of all ethnic stripes and languages. I know we have had a horrible history of racism in our country, but when someone who has the publics attention keeps using sectarian language, it doesn’t help to ease or end racial barriers. I understand my Bible in 2008 to say that there is not a black church and a white church, but there is one church. So, Rev. Wright if you want to help black and white Christians quit using divisive language and let the light of Christ shine from within you.

“God help us!”

transparent leadership

5For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,”^[a]made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

7But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. 12So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

13It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.”^[b]With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, 14because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence. 15All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.

16Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

You recognize the passage, 2 Corinthians 4:5-18. I was hit hard today with what I redisovered in this passage, and through what I’ve been challenged to be thinking about lately as a church leader. Often times, church leaders feel obligated to hide their struggles, to put on their “minister” face and act like everything in their own life is hunkey dorey. Well, sometimes life is not okay. I am confessing that my own life is messy. I am God’s number one goober. I try hard, fail often, and wonder daily how God would love someone like me. I don’t know how or why, but only that he does.

A couple of things that I was reminded of this morning in my quiet time, and some things all church leaders would do well to remember.

1. Life and ministry go together. It’s not like when we leave the church office that ministry is somehow over. We have families and responsibilities and the phone rings around the clock.

2. Trails, struggles, temptation, worries are real. Church leaders aren’t immune from dealing with real life issues.

3. Leaders need to be transparent. I heard brother Buddy Bell, say that as  leaders we need to lead in this area. When do most lies get told during the week? I think if we were honest with ourselves, we could all answer, that church hallways, and church restrooms are full of liars. I know this is a little harsh, but here me out…how do typical conversations go…”brother, so and so, how are you?” The answer, “I’m fine.” Now, most of us aren’t fine. Some of us have argued with our children or spouses on the way to church, or had a terrible week at work or are struggling with sickness or financial woes, and put on a mask and pretend everything is just fine. Leaders, stop it. I don’t think we need to unload all of our spiritual baggage, but we can certainly be more open and honest about our own shortcomings.

4. This life is temporary. Praise God, that this isn’t all there is. Our troubles are temporary, and even though we may be beaten down, because of the difference that Jesus makes we are being inwardly renewed.

5. Our shortcomings reveal God’s grace.

Family, and a first birthday

My mom and dad flew in Tuesday to OKC. I took Miley and Kenzie to the airport with me to pick them up. Both girls did great on the way there and on the way home. What I have loved so far for my parents, is that Miley has really warmed up them. Back in December, and for ya’ll that know miss Miley she is clingy to her mommy or me. She spent most of the day yesterday with my folks, and she wanted to be with them. It was awesome.

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About a year ago exactly from somewhere in the early part of April 3, 2007 I stood in the operating room for the third time and got to hold a brand new baby. My world has been better since the arrival of my three little girls. I don’t deserve the blessing or the amazing responsibility that comes with having children, let alone daughters! I am blessed and honored. Happy Birthday Miley Elizabeth. You may never read these words, blogging maybe long gone by the time you really start to navigate around the world wide web, but if for some strange reason you come across your daddy’s blog, I want you to know that your mommy and I prayed for you long before you were born and it has been so fun and amazing sharing our life with you. You have completed our family, and we are blessed that you are our daughter and the cutest little sister for Rachel and Kenzie. I know Kenzie gives you a lot of grief, she just loves you so much. My prayer for you and your sisters is that you will grow up seeing Jesus in your mother and I everyday, and that you will want to have a deep abiding, life changing relationship with Jesus too. We want God to big things in and through you, and are open to his leading for the three of you for God to send you wherever to do whatever he wants. I know sometimes, I work long hours and get irritable from time to time, I am flawed, but forgiven. I haven’t got everything figured out, and I certainly need God’s grace just as much or if not more than I did than when I first began as a follower of Jesus.  Happy Birthday Miley, I hope you have a good day today! Oh, by the way, I am looking forward to watching you wear your birthday cake!!

He can and He cares!

As I was driving Rachel to school this morning in the fog, I couldn’t help but think about the wilderness generation making their way from Egypt to Canaan and how God moved with the people. If you remember, Scripture says that God would lead the people as a pillar of fire by night and a cloud by day. Whatever this looked like, God was present with his people. Also, I was thinking about Jesus calling James, John and Peter up the mountain with him, and they were enveloped in a cloud. I know that we live at different times in history, and that we have the Spirit of God dwelling inside of us, and that we are God’s sacred space on the planet. I get all of that, but I just think it’s neat when we see or experience fog that envelopes us, for it reminds me of the continuity of the story that we find ourselves in. The story that started in Garden, and meanders its way through a flood, through the wilderness, through a temple, to a cross, and empty tomb and to lost people coming to know Jesus, and putting him in baptism. Aren’t you glad that you a part of the story? I know I am. I also learn from this story that we share with those who have gone before us, that God can and He cares. Next time you are in a rut, remember those two truths. God can and God cares.

back from Tulsa

I am a bad blogger. I spent three awesome and encouraging days at the Tulsa International Soul Winning Workshop, and I didn’t blog at all. Anyway, I attended some inspiring classes by Rick Atchley, Wade Hodges, Buddy Bell, Rubel Shelly, and Wade Hodges. The evening key notes were great. I got to visit with John Dobbs, who took my family’s picture. Thanks John!

I think one of the frustrations though that I have from any conference I attend, is how you bring home what you’ve learned. Change happens so slowly. Sometimes I get frustrated at how slow things move. I have grown though, when I was younger, I would have forced change, now change is something I understand as a slow process, that good can still be done before during and after the “change” whatever it is.

I come back from Tulsa each year renewed, challenged and filled. I am looking forward to getting to be there next year

Critical Incident Training

I haven’t blogged in a couple of days. I haven’t wanted to. Life is busy. Being a dad is a demanding job, being a husband is a demanding role, and being a full time youth minister/part-time graduate student is rough on a guy, and trying to go to the gym five days a week takes its toll.

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I got to sit in on some Critical Incident Training for our area, and for our congregation.  I ask a question, does your congregation have an emergency plan for a crisis situation? I hate to even have to ask that question, but we live in a very different world after 9-11. I don’t just think it was 9-11 that has changed us, but with the church shootings in Colorado not long ago, I have been thinking…what would our congregation do, how would we respond, what plans do we have in place? We don’t have a plan, as many churches probably don’t. Well, the time to have a plan in case of trauma situation is now. I would encourage you to look into the Critical Incident Training offered by the Churches of Christ Critical Incident Network. This can be a great ministry and outreach for any congregation, and it’s one of those ministries, that I wish we didn’t need. But it is an extension of the Great Commission.

The following comes from the Critical Incident Network webpage:

I. Why should our congregation have a Critical Incident Response Team?

A Critical Incident Response Team is just a tool, but that tool thrusts our congregations headlong into our communities. It allows us to meet the needs of individuals that we might never otherwise have the opportunity to serve. As we look back on the ministry of Jesus, there are scores of examples of him meeting the needs of the masses as a way of building his credibility as the Son of God. Jesus realized the need to meet people where they are, in order to bring them to where they need to be. It has long been understood that there are certain times in a person’s life when they are more likely to make major changes than at any other time. One of those times is when they have just experienced a traumatic event.

The purpose of a Critical Incident Response Team is to put the Church of Christ in a “ready” position, so that when a need arises in the local communities in which each church resides, the community will look to us first for the answers. By providing those answers, we put ourselves in the position to answer the question that they have not yet asked. That question is:  What must I do to be saved?

 

II. What does a Critical Incident Response Team Do?

A Critical Incident Response Team is a team that has specialized training, which enables them to respond to incidents that have traumatized inviduals or groups, either directly or indirectly.

 

III. What is a traumatic event?

Any event that is outside the realm of usual human experience that is markedly distressing or causes disruption to the functioning of those involved. It usually involves perceived or actual threat to one’s physical integrity or the integrity of someone in close proximity. It could be anything from a fatal traffic accident, a suicide, a homicide, a tornado, or flood. It could even be a school shooting or a terrorist attack.

 

IV. What is Critical Incident Debriefing? 

A process whose only purpose is to systematically lessen the long-term impact of the trauma and to reduce the chances that those affected will develop Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. It is not therapy nor does it take the place of therapy. Critical Incident Debriefing is a system that was employed in the days following the Oklahoma City Bombing and 9-11 incidents.  Subsequent research proved that in both of these events, Critical Incident Debriefing successfully mitigated the long-term effects of trauma on those persons directly involved in the crises, as well as those who suffered from secondary traumatic effects. Unfortunately, most incidents that have occurred on our school campuses and our neighborhoods have somehow managed to fly under the radar of the Critical Incident Debriefing process, and this extremely important, proven method of lessening the long-term impact of the trauma has rarely been employed in school districts reeling from an incident of school violence. The fallout of failing to properly handle the debriefing process following these events has been devastating, and we will never know exactly how much damage may have been inflicted as a result of this neglect.