GA 218

May 12, 2008

I’m really looking forward to General Assembly this year as I’m going to be a commissioner. I was a TSAD (theological student advisory delegate) in 2004, so I’ve sort of been there and done that. But one of the primary reasons I’m really looking forward to this experience will be for the chance to meet up with folks I’ve only come to “know” through the blogosphere: folks like Shawn, Bruce, and Mark.

Speaking of Shawn, if you’re going to GA and if you are a blogger, check out his post on GA Web 2.018.

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Photo Friday: New Life

May 9, 2008

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Wednesday Roundup

May 7, 2008

Just two items for today:

1.) One of the primary reasons I’m in the ministry today is because of my friend Bill Crawford, so I’m both saddened and pleased at the news announced on his website earlier this week about his church’s departure to the EPC. It’s been a hard long journey for Bill and his family, but I’m sure that they are in the place where God has called them and that they need to be. I wish God’s blessings and peace upon them in this new phase of their life and ministry.

2.) Here is a stunning photograph for your pleasure.

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Sermon - Humility

May 4, 2008

Today’s sermon, from the text of 1 Peter 5:5b-11

One person who has been in the news a lot over the last several years is Roger Clemens. This week he was in the news because of revelations of an inappropriate relationship with country singer Mindy McCready, which supposedly began when she was 15 years old.

Now, in my estimation Clemens is one of those people full of Hubris. For those of you who don’t know what Hurbris is, the wikipedia definition of its modern usage is this: Hubris describes someone who demonstrates exaggerated self pride, arrogance, or self-confidence.

Rogers Clemens was one of the most pre-eminent baseball players in Major League history. There isn’t another pitcher who has come even close to winning seven Cy Young Awards like he did.

Unless you’ve been living in some sort of hole for the last several years, you’re probably aware that the sport of baseball has been awash in a huge scandal related to the use of illegal performance enhancement drugs.

Subpeonas, congressional hearings, accusations, admissions and denials of guilt, and a pretty damaging 409 page report to the Commissioner of Baseball have kept the sports media very busy over the last several years.

On the one hand, some players caught in the midst of this scandal seem to have handled themselves fairly well given the pressure and the charges brought before them. On the other hand, Roger Clemens has not.

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Photo Friday: Pansy

May 2, 2008

Taken this morning on our back deck after the rain.

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Wednesday Roundup

April 30, 2008

I’ve not run across a whole lot of things to point to this week, but here are a few items:

1.) While I personally object to calling those who serve the church volunteers (Did Jesus call the 12 volunteers? I don’t think so…), I do think there are some helpful thoughts in this post “The Top 5 Volunteer No-No’s.”

2.) Christine Sine shares the source of those amazing icons she’s been using to illustrate her posts.

3.) One of my favorite biblical scholars, NT Wright, engages in a debate about God and our pain on beliefnet with Bart Ehrman.

4.) Here is this week’s photo of beauty.

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Meaty Monday: Pastors on Vacation

April 28, 2008

My wife and I are very much looking forward to a much needed week of vacation coming up in a few weeks. In some respects it’s hard to believe that this will be our first week of vacation since the last week of August. As we anticipate our time away, we are always somewhat conflicted about how to spend it.

One difficulty is that we have a number of fairly sizeable outdoor and indoor projects that are requiring our attention. It seems that it is hard for us to get those sorts of projects done during our normal routine because we just don’t get a significant enough chunk of time off together on our weekends.

Fridays are our usual day off, but those often turn out to be our cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping sort of days and aren’t really conducive to starting a big project were not sure how long it will take to finish. So when vacation time approaches we think here’s our list of projects, which ones should we try to do? But who really wants to spend their vacation working around the house??

Another difficulty also has to do with the fact that we don’t get weekends. Meaning we don’t get to travel to visit our families or friends when other folks might be able to do that sort of thing over the weekend (especially over an extended weekend like memorial day & labor day which are non-existent for a pastor…) So, we think about the last time we saw so and so and we wonder if its time to hop in the car or get on the plane to go see them. While these are good and important trips for us to take, spending ourselves with people as we do on our jobs can make these types of vacations seem like more work than relaxation.

As pastors we’re also church nerds. So, when we get a Sunday off, we often ask where would we like to go worship? We think about the various churches we know or have heard about or that one of our favorite colleagues serves and we ask should we plan a trip to worship there? (In fact we do have reason to be in the Minneapolis area on this particular vacation and while we are there we are thinking about another trip to Solomon’s Porch.)

There of course have been the occasional Sundays on our vacations where we are so tired of church we decide not to go at all (but please don’t tell that to any of the members of our congregations…if you’re one of them you didn’t just read that…)

I think all of this is to say that while we definitely look forward to our vacations, we just don’t look forward to making all the decisions we need to make in order to plan them. Am I alone in this sort of dilemma?

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Sermon - Fear Factor

April 27, 2008

The text for this sermon is 1 Peter 3: 13-18

I must admit I’m not much of a reality show watcher. I do know however that one of the more popular reality shows over the past decade was “Fear Factor.” It featured contestants, competing to finish a series of stunts better and faster than anyone else.

Now, some of the stunts were just plain gross, like the trashcan scavenger hunt…In this game competitors jumped into a garbage bin to find one of eight different objects. When they found an object they had to find the very same thing in one of eight barrels filled with disgusting things like sludge, oil, lard or rotten squid.

Other stunts did a better job of living up to the show’s name of “Fear Factor.” These stunts required contestants to conquer various fears, such as the fear of heights, or of spiders, or of being trapped in very small spaces.

One stunt from a later episode of the show featured two contestants locked up in a small isolation pod. The pod was no bigger than what could hold two people crunched up in it.

To make matters worse, once the couple got comfortable in the pod, they were jolted with a 2000 volt electrical shock. The couple who faced and overcame their fears by staying inside the pod the longest amount of time won the contest.

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Photo Friday: Trumpets

April 25, 2008

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Wednesday Roundup

April 23, 2008

1.) Do you want to simplify your life? Here is a ’simple’ list of 72 ideas. I’m pleased to note that I already do many of them, but I sure have a lot more I could implement.

2.) Bill Tammeus must be a voracious reader. Lately I’ve been looking to him for reading suggestions. He has recently put out another list of faith based books.

3.) The Internet Monk, as thoughtful as always, has thankfully and helpfully debunked the myth of the “Fixer God.”

4.) My friend Mark points to an interesting post on the reality of hell. It seems that the more I read of Orthodox thought, the more impressed I am.

5.) Here is my photo recommendation of the week.

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Meaty Monday: The ethics of preaching.

April 21, 2008

I had a really hard time with my sermon this last week. I preached on two 1 Peter passages 1 Peter 2:18-25; 3:8-12 and addressed the practices of non-violence and non-retaliation.

The essential core of my sermon came from these verses:

Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps…When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly.

In my sermon I pointed out that as I hear about events that are happening in the news I’m more and more concerned that we are spiraling into a society where violence and retaliation are becoming the norm. In contrast, Peter offers a different model for Christians, one in which these two things are not the norm. Peter clearly expects Christians to live by a different standard than the world around them.

Here’s the basic problem I’ve been dealing with: I offered no caveats in my sermon. Now, I did that for the very specific reason that I didn’t want to water down the message by saying it applies to this and this, but it doesn’t apply to that and that. I didn’t want people trying to figure out the various loopholes that might be available to get out of the difficulty of the message.

But that choice of mine may have come at an expense. It may very well have meant that someone who is suffering in an inappropriate and abusive relationship (though I’m not aware that anyone is in our congregation) or someone who has suffered some form of abuse (which is more likely in my congregation) may very well have heard the message, “Just endure it. It’s your calling as a Christian.”

This raises in my mind an ethical concern in preaching. I don’t remember this sort of issue or concern being raised or addressed in seminary, but I think it happens all the time. At the expense of making one important point, you may very well have to minimize contrasting viewpoints. So how do you go about weighing those things and determining the greater good?

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Sermon - “In His Steps”

April 21, 2008

This sermon is for the Fifth Sunday of Easter. The text was 1 Peter 2:18-25; 3:8-12. (I choose to do the lectionary texts from 1 Peter in their actual order in the book.)

Last weekend, there was an article in the Gazette about two teenage boys who are designing a video game. It’s a project for their Sunday school class over at the Unity Center, on Blairs Ferry Road.

For the boys, the challenge of creating a video game wasn’t that big of a deal. The real challenge was coming up with a game that didn’t have all the violence, gore, and other graphics that are in most of the games they play at home.

Noah said, “We weren’t really happy about the non-violent aspect, but we did it.” Once they got over that aspect of the project, they realized how much fun they could have making a game.

Noah and Tom along with two other kids have been brainstorming ideas and suggestions for the game. Right now it is sort of “Pac Man” meets “Donkey Kong,” with elements of “Frogger” planned for the next stage.

Tom said, “We just used the ideas from old arcade games. Once you realize you can use the really old arcade games you see it’s not really violent. It’s not violent to hit a ball against a brick wall.”

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Photo Friday: April Showers

April 18, 2008

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Movie Brief - Lars and the Real Girl

April 17, 2008

You might ask why on earth would someone want to watch a movie about a guy and his “girlfriend” who just so happens to be an anatomically correct mail order doll? That certainly can’t be anything but trouble.

Well, in this case it’s not. In fact, Lars and the Real Girl just happens to be one of the smartest, most moving, and spiritually significant films I’ve seen in a long time.

Lars is a good but painfully awkward and shy man. The limit of his social activity is his office job, attending church on Sunday morning, and being dragged off to dinner by his caring but overly pushy sister-in-law. Lars keeps to himself in a room off the side of the family garage while his brother and sister-in-law have moved into the home not long after the death of their father.

One day a large package arrives for Lars, and later that evening he shows up at the door of his brother’s home introducing his new girlfriend, Bianca, whom he says has arrived after serving as a missionary in Brazil.

But of course she is nothing more than a full sized life like doll. His brother and sister-in-law think he’s gone nuts but eventually decide to heed the advice of the family doctor and to play along with Lars’ delusion until he no longer needs it.

What unfolds is an incredibly moving modern parable of the power of love and community, as first the church and then the rest of the town make the choice to wrap their arms around Lars and to accept his new friend, Bianca, as one of them.

Their acceptance helps Lars push past the many barriers that have kept him trapped for years. It also helps him to take note of his office co-worker and fellow church member, Margo, the ‘real girl’ who really loves and cares for him.

There is much to recommend about this movie and I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

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Sermon - “Who are you?”

April 17, 2008

This sermon is for the fifth Sunday of Easter. The text was 1 Peter 2:1-10. The opening story came from a recent episode of Speaking of Faith. The 2nd story of the minister is from Sarah Dylan Breuer. And the Craddock story comes from my pastoral care professor’s book “The Spirit of Adoption.“

For five years, Ed Husain was an Islamic Fundamentalist. That was until he came close to a murder and he watched people he loved, one after another, become suicide bombers.

Husain was born and raised in Great Britain where his parents emigrated from their home land of India. In England, he grew up with all the advantages that life had to offer – good education, abundant healthcare, a comfortable living.

So, why did he turn to Islamic Fundamentalism?

Husain says it was mostly a quest for identity.

In the melting pot of the US, with its strong history of opening its doors and welcoming new immigrants, those who come here seem to quickly and easily identify with the values and cultures of their new home.

It is not the same in many European countries.

In Great Britain national identity is tied so tightly to being native borne English. This makes it difficult for new immigrants to identify with the values and culture of their adopted home country. It is not easy for them to fit in.

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