Freedom to fail

I recently began a project that only a few people know about.  I decided to participate in "NaNoWriMo".  What, you ask, is NaNoWriMo?  It is 'National Novel Writing Month', and it is a challenge to write 50,000 words of fiction in 30 days.  And it takes place in November.  Along with 300,000 other people across the country, I am taking the challenge.

That is crazy, you might say.  And I would pretty much agree with you.  It works out to about 1,670 words per day.  The problem is that you have to do it every day for 30 days straight or face some days with a significantly higher number of words in an effort to make up for lost time.  Crazy, insane, out of my mind....  I have a full-time job, I am a pastor, Thanskgiving is this month, Christmas is coming up.  Crazy.

So, maybe I will fail.  Chances are pretty good, in fact, that I will not succeed.  And the consequences?  Ummmm...try again next year?  No one is going to fire me.  No one is going to put my name in the police column in the newspaper.  No fines, no community service. Nothing dire will happen.  I can say that I tried, which is a lot more than most people have done.

We can extend this to the church, y'know.  (Oh, come on, you knew I was going to get around to this, didn't you?)  So often the church needs innovation, for people to step out and do something they have not done before.  Maybe we need s Sunday School teacher or someone to do children's church.  Maybe we need to start a new ministry.  Maybe something as simple as reading a poem on Sunday morning.  So, give it a try!  What is going to happen if you 'fail'?  Nothing much, really.  We are a family in the church.  We support each other.  There will be no snickering, nothing bad will happen.  If you try and sing a solo and you forget the words, no one is going to fault you for looking at the words on a piece of paper.  At least you tried!

A new ministry?  I know that most ministries will have a learning curve.  And many will fail.   But if we try ten things and nine fail, we will still have tried and we will still have that one success which we wouldn't have otherwise.

And if we do succeed?  It is all to the Glory of God.

So come on and give it a try. 


"Not to us, LORD, not to us but to your name be the glory..."  Psalm 115:1 (NIV)

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A Sabbath Rest

This is a busy time of year and there are plenty of things to keep me occupied.  It is supposed to be a time of reflection, with the holidays of Thanksgiving and Veterans Day both falling in November.  It is easy to get sidetracked from the 'reflection', though when there is some much to do.  Last Saturday my wife was working and I went to five stores looking for tableclothes for our church Thanksgiving Dinner, to be held on Sunday.  In the afternoon I went down to the hospital to visit one of our people who has been sick for over a week, now.  I was also in the process of finalizing preparations for the service on Sunday.  Where does the 'reflection' go?  This is just a snapshot of MY life, but I would be willing to bet there are many people out there going through the same thing.

God puts some reflection time into our schedule.  It is called 'Sabbath'.  His command is to "remember the Sabbath Day and keep it Holy".  How many people regard that as just a suggestion, and more so, a suggestion that is impractical in todays world?  In our Western society we put our kids sports games on Sunday, we put family get-togethers on Sunday, yard work on Sunday and so many other activities that we lose count.  No wonder we come to Monday morning asking "...where is my coffee?". 

The Father has given us a Sabbath Day, not for His sake, but for ours.  God does not get tired!  God does not need a Sunday afternoon nap!  He does not need spiritual refreshing.  We do. 


"There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God"
Hebrews 4:9 (NIV)

The Myth of Security

I have been quiet for some time now, but it is time to start commenting again.  As I write this particular entry we are in the height of leaf season in Northern Vermont. The temperature is starting to fall and we turned on the heat in my house last night.  The season is undeniably beginning to change.

The seasons are changing in other ways, too. Last Spring my secular workplace informed our entire office that we would be closing down and all operations would be moving to New Hampshire.  When the dust settled we found that half the staff was to be laid off, including myself.  For the third time in twelve years I was to be looking for a new job because of a layoff. 

When I began my adult working life I considered the possibility of being laid off to be remote.  Layoffs were something that happened in mismanaged large companies and I had no intention of going there. Then reality hit.  The first time I was laid off was when I was in college and working for the City of Lowell (Massachusetts) in the Library, due to Proposition 2½.  I was laid off one day, and picked up the next day on another budget line item.

So, what have I learned?  First, there is no such thing as ‘security’ in this world.  Everything is temporary, especially jobs, and especially when you are working for someone else.  You can mitigate the risk, but it never goes completely away.  Sooner or later you will likely face a job loss.  Second, God will take care of you.  Always. 

When I was laid off this last time I went back to my office and prayed.  I thought about where I was in life, what God had done in the past, and asked myself one crucial question, “Did God still want me to stay in Vermont?”  Strangely enough, the answer I received came out of silence.  God had previously called me to Vermont.  He had NOT told me that He was done with me here.  Therefore, I knew that God would provide me with work to enable me to stay here.  He did.  Within two months of my layoff date I had a job offer.  The work environment is ideal, the job is flexible, I ended up working for a Christian supervisor, my job has a certain prestige to it and I work in a fertile field. 

When you go through hard times, ask God what He wants you to do.  Ask first, not last, and listen to Him.  Sometimes the answer will come even through His silence!  And know that He will take care of you no matter the answer.

 

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God."  Phil 4:6 (NIV)

Brats

Lately I have been a bit nostalgic, thinking about some of the places I have lived, people I have known and things that I have done. This especially seems to be focused around the military life that I was raised in. You see, I was born on an Air Force base in Maine and lived on several over the next decade and more. During my teen years all I wanted to do was join the Air Force and be like my Dad, but it seems that God had other plans. I had three candidacies to the Air Force Academy, ended up joining air Force ROTC in college, was part of the Air Force Association and the Arnold Air Society.

When I was finally told that, because of an asthma attack when I was thirteen, I was not going to be allowed to finish my course of study and be commissioned I was devastated. The Marines told me that they would take me, but I was not interested. Nothing against the Marine Corps, but I wanted Air Force. Over the next 15 years I spent much of my time as a civilian contractor for the Air Force, and so was able to work on the F16, F15 and F117 weapon systems.

A little while ago I began looking at those places I used to live. What I found was disheartening. It turns out that of all the places we were assigned, only one is still an active Base. It got worse; some of the places I lived no longer even existed. Loring AFB in Limestone, Maine has been turned over to civilian use and the base housing has been razed. I found a picture online that shows where I lived and the only things left are the street and the sidewalks.

It has been said that you 'can never go back'. This is so true. Perhaps civilians don't truly realize how true. Most can go back and see their old neighborhoods, changed perhaps, but still there. Imagine going back to a place you lived and it literally doesn't exist anymore. The good thing is that God still walks with us through those places. Our past is wiped away, but we still have the present and the future. We don't know how much time we might have, but God is there with us no matter how long it is. He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. As I look back and mourn over the past, I can look forward and know that at least one piece of the past still exists...my relationship with Him.

Praise the Lord.

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Times and Seasons

I wrote the following article as a devotional for a Mission Area meeting and thought I would post it as an entry in this blog. To be clear, I am removing some names from the post, and the reader should understand that every person sitting in this meeting is a Senior Pastor of a church in Northern Vermont, so the audience is a little 'different'. With that said, on with the show...

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Times and Seasons

There is a well-known song from about 1965, written by Pete Seeger and made a hit by “The Byrds”. The title is “Turn! Turn! Turn” It was adapted almost verbatim from the book of Ecclesiastes using the KJV. There was a little moving around of the text, but it is close to the original.

The text in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 from the NIV says…

1 There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:
2 a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
6 a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.

It seems that we go through seasons in life. There are cycles and there are cycles within cycles.

In our own lives we go through seasons where everything seems to be going well, and then there are times when life just caves in around us. I don’t know about you but for my family we have had seasons when it seemed like everyone was walking up the aisle. There are other times when people are having babies. Then comes the times when we seem to be attending one graduation party after another. Those are happy times. We rejoice with our friends and relatives and life just seems good. The sky is blue and the weather is warm, the birds are singing and laughter is in the air.

Then we have those other times when we feel like we are walking down a dark hallway with no light at the end. People are sick and in the hospital. Every time the phone rings it is another person telling us about a doctor visit that ended with bad news. Someone has cancer; someone else has illness and tests but no definitive diagnosis. Someone has been the victim of a crime. Another has just filed for divorce. The unemployment is running out. A child is addicted to drugs or alcohol. Our prayers go up, but there seems to be no answer, and we don’t know what to tell people anymore. The old saying is that ‘the skies have turned to brass’.

There is a line from Mr. Tumnus in “The Chronicles of Narnia” which always resonated with me. “Always winter, but never Christmas”. That catches the mood of the season very well.

I know that we have probably all applied these thoughts to ourselves and to those around us. Maybe we have even preached using this text at a funeral or maybe on a happier note during a baby dedication. But have you ever thought of this text in connection with your church? Churches go through ‘seasons’, too. We learn in Bible school and seminary that churches have a ‘life cycle’. But like a wheel within a wheel, they also have seasons.

Maybe your church is going through a time of decline right now and you are wondering why. You do everything you can to improve morale and reach out to people and it seems like nothing is working. You take people out for coffee, you pray with your church board, you hold revivals with special guest speakers. And yet, the darkness and gloom cannot seem to lift.

Maybe it seems as if the church is growing…you feel inept and yet the church is growing by leaps and bounds even when it seems like you couldn’t boil water without burning it. You make every mistake in the book and still the good things just keep on happening.

I think maybe we need to think about what season the church might be in. What has been happening to her recently? Has the church been through a trauma and needs a season of healing? Has the church been in an autumn, where they have been surrounded by the golden leaves of the past and gotten used to looking back at the ‘good old days’? Or is the ice starting to melt, and you see green under the snow?

Just recently I saw a note from Pastor G that his church is starting to broadcast their worship services on local TV. The funny thing is we in St. Albans have been doing that same thing for several years now, but a few months ago decided we would stop. In thinking about it we realized that the season for doing that ministry had passed. For East Charleston it may be right and in season; for us the season has passed.

In his book “The Purpose Driven Church”, Rick Warren says something very significant. He says that as pastors we are like surfers, surfing the wave of the Holy Spirit. We can do great things on that wave. But we CANNOT MAKE THE WAVE. We have to find out where the Holy Spirit is, and then we need to cooperate with Him. Otherwise we are just paddling aimlessly and ineffectively. Last year my wife and I went to Hawaii for our 25th anniversary. I took a surfing lesson at our hotel. During that lesson I learned some good things. One of them is that it is exhausting paddling a surfboard. Trying to do things without the power of the wave behind you will wear you out quickly.

Another thing I learned is that waves rarely come to shore in a straight line, they come in at an angle. The wave doesn’t hit along the shore at each point at the same time. That means that someone close to me in the water might catch a particular wave a few seconds ahead of me, or a few seconds after me. The same wave, but different timing.

The lesson for me is that while the Holy Spirit is doing one thing in St. Albans, He might be doing something different in Williston and another thing in Leicester and yet another in Johnson or East Charleston.

The key thing here, the main lesson, is to recognize the working of the Holy Spirit as He is working in your place, recognize what might be the ‘season’ for your church, and to place yourself in position so that He can use you. We do that through prayer. We do that through spiritual discernment. We do that through a spirit willing to submit to His will. Are you ready for that challenge?

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven”

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Too many things

It has been roughly six months since I have posted anything. Nothing to say? Not really...actually, too many things to say. It seemed that every time I thought to write a post there were several issues on my mind. Strangely enough, this did not result in multiple posts in the blog about each of the items, it resulted in my being paralyzed with a lack of decision. How did that happen???

I think that often we encounter this issue in our own lives. We get discouraged because we don't see anything happening, or sometimes because we know there is too much to do (any husbands out there with loooonnnggg to-do lists?). So, instead of digging in and tackling the job we just sit on the couch and watch a football game. The dishes pile up, the laundry overflows, the Christmas tree is still up in March and the car needs an oil change...but I think I'll take a nap. I made a resolution to read the Bible this year, but I slacked off and now it is too late. I failed.

It is time to get up. I have not posted in six months, so I simply restart now. I cannot recover that lost time, but I can start anew and make the future better. Whatever it is you have to get done, start now, even if it is a small step. Don't wait.

Now, if only I could remember what those things were I wanted to write about...

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