A little magic

I was reading a book today called “Learn Magic” by Henry Hay. I’ve always had an interest in the art of the magician and sleight of hand. When I was in Middle School my interest peaked and I became pretty good at a few tricks. My teachers actually allowed me to go around to the various classes, toting my magic apparatus along with me. I did shows for the classes and gained a bit of a reputation. Later my interest waned, but it has never completely gone away.

A quote from “Learn Magic” on page 25 struck me; Mr. Hay stated, “…by moving the left hand away while the right stays still. Anything that moves catches the eye; anything that stands still becomes part of the background.”

Now, intuitively I have know this for a long time. When deer hunting the emphasis when moving is to move slowly and quietly, and to remain as still as possible when not moving. A deer will catch movement in the woods as quickly as it will catch scent. If you don't move, as far as the deer is concerned you are just another part of the background. But when I read this quote my mind went to the church. We have had discussions of late with the Board and a few key leaders about growth in the church. As good as it has been, we know it can be much better. We’ve talked about why the growth is slower than we’d like, and this quote puts it into perspective.

Simply put, we need to be moving in the eye of the community. If we stand still, so to speak, we will just fade into the background. We need to get ourselves noticed in the public eye. How to do that? That is the question. It occurs to me that it almost doesn’t matter what we do. What matters is the movement.

"Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity."

Colossians 4:5 (NIV)

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Spots on the road

I was on the highway this morning, very early. It was about 6am when I started out, heading to a meeting with my prayer partner at the Friendly's Restaurant in Williston. We meet at 6:30am so that I can get to work on time, and actually it allows him to stay in bed late. Most mornings he is up at 3:15am! Suffice it to say, I am not up that early.

In any case, as I passed Exit 14 heading south I was struggling to stay focused on my driving and wondering why I was on the road at such an hour. Suddenly, as I passed a grease spot on the highway, my eyes snapped open and I frantically reached for the heater controls to shut it off. The stench was nearly causing my eyes to water; I realized the grease spot in the road I had just passed over was in reality the hapless remains of a skunk. The effect on my focus was amazing. Everything in my path was now crystal clear.

As I finished my trip I was thinking about this incident and how it might relate to some things that we have been dealing with recently (preachers always think this way). It occured to me that in normal circumstances we just kind of cruise along the highway of our life. It's quiet, kind of boring and we are half asleep. Then something in life comes along that really just stinks, but the effect it has is that suddenly we are brought up short and the events are brought into a sharp focus. Sometimes it is an illness, sometimes a job loss, sometimes the loss of a loved one. Other times it is conflict with another person or group, perhaps not even our issue but a problem with someone close to us such as a child. But the rest of life is now in sharp relief.

The issue with this is eventually the stink wears away, we forget it and go back to what passes for normalcy, our placid, bored drive, until the next skunk shows up and wakes us from our stupor. The good news is that God knows where all those stinky points in our lives are and He is still in control. So trust in Him, and watch out for the skunks!

"The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song." Psalm 28:7


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Vacating

The air is starting to grow crisp and the leaves are beginning to turn into the red and gold’s of autumn. The Champlain Valley Exposition has come and gone. Whether we like it or not, fall is coming. The last two weeks were the only really decent weather we had this summer, with temperatures in the upper seventies, clear skies and a light breeze. If I closed my eyes I could smell the surf on Waikiki, but when I opened my eyes I saw maple trees instead of palm trees.

It occurred to me that this summer has been very busy and that we really didn’t get much time off. We either had church business to attend to, children to get back to school (regardless of the time off, four straight days driving is NOT vacation!) or other busy work. We took one weekend off in July to go to my in-laws in Maine, during which time it rained. This last weekend was the New England District Men’s Retreat, which I could not afford either in terms of time or money, so I was not able to attend. Consequently I feel somewhat starved for a true time of rest and relaxation.

What is a ‘vacation’ anyway? It is a time to ‘vacate’, in other words to ‘empty oneself’. You’ve gotten full and feel like drowning, and need to empty some of the cares and worries from your heart and mind. ‘Recreation’ is another word we use for this, meaning it is a time to ‘re-create’ oneself.

Sensing the lack, one of my prayer partners and I will be spending a couple days in October at an undisclosed rustic location in southern Vermont. We have no agenda; we will walk, talk, read the Bible, pray together and eat stuff we shouldn’t eat. We’ll catch up on family and mutual acquaintances. We’ll enjoy God’s creation out under the stars (weather permitting). We’ll take pictures and empty ourselves of our cares, so that when we return home we can perform our tasks with renewed passion and vigor.

Have you vacated and re-created lately?

"Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."
Psalm 46:10 (NIV)

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Taking his ball home

There are times when you have a discussion with someone of an opposing viewpoint and you wonder if it did any good whatsoever. I had one of those discussions yesterday. I was reading a post where the author, an avowed conservative, was saying that Wisconsin had a small victory for gay marriage advocates. I disagreed with an assertion it was not possible to oppose gay marriage without resorting to the Bible, and therefore any opposition is invalid.

To refute this argument I simply stated one of his premises and then broke it down logically, showing what the basis for current law is, and then what would happen if that basis was removed to allow gay marriage. He responded and we were off and running. However, despite the logic of the position, he refused to acknowledge the weak points in his arguments and even at one point 'put words in my mouth'. He never did address the primary issue. Final conclusion? He stated that I was wrong and said he was going to stop responding to me. In other words, he couldn't argue with my statements, so he took his ball and went home.

We in the church need to be aware of one of the points I was trying to drive home with him. Many issues we deal with, both individually and publicly are not driven by logic, but by emotion. "I'm right because I say so!". When faced with logical or even physical proof that they are wrong or mistaken, the evidence is ignored because emotion trumps everything else. I am a big believer in the usefulness of the 'apologetic' method. However, many people will not be swayed by logic. Even those who might be swayed will take a long time to come to their own conclusions.Bottom line, they must OWN the decision they make, not go on someone else's arguments. "The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God." 2 Cor 4:4 It is the work of the Holy Spirit to change people's hearts and minds, not ours. We can present the truth, but only God can change a heart.

The eye of the beholder

I had a discussion a few days ago with someone about one of our local parks on the shore of Lake Champlain. It was stated that the beach was filthy, dirty and unhealthy, and the park itself was not suitable for families, especially with children. Having just talked with the park supervisor who stated that the beach is cleaned daily, the water quality is tested daily and was rated good at this time, and that there were two park employees on duty when we were going to be there I felt pretty comfortable with going there.

When we reached the park we found the picnic tables were clean, a fresh bag in the garbage can and no trash strewn around. There was some lakeweed along the shore, but it was an overcast day and we were concentrating on the barbecue, the volleyball game and bocci ball. Everyone seemed to be having a good time.

Looking around, my daughter made a comment to me about how clean everything was. She has just spent the last four years in the Chicago area at school, and she helped out with a children's ministry. Going to the cleanest of parks in the Kankakee, IL area, she said they always had to check the ground for smashed glass, the bathrooms for used syringes and were cautious around the water where literally anything might have been tossed in. She said that maybe the beach wasn't as clean as it could be by Vermont standards, but by Illinois standards it was a paradise!

It made me think about the fact that sometimes we are so conditioned by what we are used to that we have trouble seeing conditions for what they are. Like an artist who has to unlearn 'seeing' in order to draw....to learn to draw what IS rather than what the eye fills in. Or the person who is abused, but since that is all they know they think it is normal. God wants so much more for us than just what we are immersed in. His future for us is bright, shiny, clean and new every day. I thank God for the clean beaches of Vermont, and for the vision God has for us that lifts us beyond what we know.


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What happened to John Wesley?

I recently had my eyes opened to a phenomena that took me by surprise. I was listening to a favorite radio station, KLOVE, which plays Christian Soft Rock. The lyrics of a song struck me and I realized that I really liked them, except for one particular line. The song is “I believe”, by Wes King from the album “The Robe”. It is a very good confessional song, laying out the beliefs of a man in the basics of Christian faith, much as the traditional creeds do. However, the chorus states, “I believe, I believe, I believe in the Word of God, I believe, I believe, 'Cause He made me believe”. The concept of free will is completely ruled out by the last line. Where is personal responsibility? Where is our place in the plan of God?

According to all orthodox systems of doctrine the plan of salvation was conceived and carried out by no one but God. It is administered by the Holy Spirit and is only valid by the Blood of Jesus. We cannot save ourselves by any stretch of the imagination. Our only part is in accepting the free gift of God given by His grace. But it is in accepting that gift or rejecting it that we find our part in the plan; we are not robots controlled by God's unseen hand.

The theology of John Wesley is a hybrid between John Calvin’s doctrine of election and predestination and that of the theology of Jacobus Arminius. The Holy Spirit was emphasized and the doctrine of free will was acknowledged. (Caveat: Yes, yes, I know it is more complicated than that!) It is the basis for the great Wesleyan and Holiness movements of the 1700’s and late 1800’s. All branches of Methodism, Pentecostalism and several other lines owe their existence to these movements.

Despite this, what I see being represented in the marketplace is dominated by a more deterministic theology, not even a true Calvinism, but with a severe lack of free will and personal responsibility. There is a lack of knowledge of the true power of God to not simply whitewash over the sins of a fallen mankind, but to truly cleanse the sinner through the Holy Spirit. We are told that man must sin in thought, word and deed every day. This is reflected in books, music, movies, articles and interviews. It results in either a very fatalistic faith, or a very fuzzy faith.

Where has John Wesley’s insight into this power of the Spirit gone? Where is the knowledge of a God who can change the heart of a person so they no longer desire to do wrong, to act contrary to the will of the Father? Where is repentance?

We see in the so-called civilized areas of the world that there is a debate among Christians over this doctrine. We see widespread losses in American churches because we preach a Gospel without power, leaving people in their sins and feeling that this is the normal course of Christian life. But in other areas of the world there is no such watered-down Gospel no matter the official doctrine, and the church is indeed in revival. Look at Asia, Africa and South and Central America and the churches are booming. Here, there is no question of the power of God to transform lives.

We need a revival of the Holy Spirit to sweep over us once again. To do so, we need to return to preaching and teaching the power of God over sin, and the need for personal responsibility and repentance among the people of the church. Sin, not simply doing wrong, but living willfully in sin cannot be the norm in the church. We cannot teach that it is the normal course of a Christian’s life to accept salvation and then see no change in their life. The Gospel is nothing if not tranformative.

Until we preach and teach this, and our people believe it and desire it with all their hearts, I fear that John Wesley will remain hidden, and revival will not come.

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The Beginning from the End

I was reading a book on chess and came across a very interesting statement. The discussion was about ‘forking’, that is, attacking two pieces with a single piece. Such an attack means that one or the other of the attacked pieces can be saved and the other is captured. He stated, “In cases like this one you might compare a chess player to the author of a whodunit who starts his work by figuring out the solution which will come at the end of his book…the Knight’s forking check is the ‘solution’. Black’s task, once he sees this check is to search for the moves that make the check meaningful.” 1

It occurred to me that this same process is applicable to us in the church. First, it is a clear way to structure our spiritual life. What is our goal in our spiritual life? Every Christian should strive to become more Christlike disciples, to be closer to God. You know where you want to go, and where you are now, so how is that reasonably accomplished? Daily Bible reading and prayer, finding an accountability partner, finding and using your spiritual gifts are all excellent paths to this goal.

Secondly, we can apply this to other areas of our lives. If you want to achieve certain things in your life, then what do you need to do to get there? For instance, if you want to write a fiction novel, you need to sit down and start writing. If you want to get a Doctorate, then you need to work on your Master's degree. If you want to be a motorcycle mechanic, then you need to buy a 'beater' and enroll in a course or buy some books.

Finally, in the collective church we have goals as well. The high-falutin’ church language calls this “casting a vision” and there are entire seminars and college classes about it, but it’s really simple. The first question should be, “What is our vision for this church?” Where do we want to end up? What do we see this church being or doing in five years, or ten years? So many times we go along with no goal, and then wonder why we don’t seem to get anywhere. There’s an old story about a flight of military planes flying through overcast skies just after World War 2. Their navigational instruments were out when the controller radioed them and asked where they were. The pilot in the lead plane answered, “Well, I really don’t know, but we’re making good time!”.

If we want to be known as a “Praying Church”, do we have prayer meetings and activities? If we want to be known as “Friendly”, how do we support that goal? If we want to be known as the church that has its hands in the local community, how are we striving to get there?

Don't just dream about it and think God is going to drop things in your lap. Make a conscious choice to pray about where God wants you to go and what He wants you to do, then follow Him!




1 “How to be a winner at chess” by Fred Reinfeld: Fawcett, c1954, p65

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The Tower of Babel

In the book of Genesis 1 there is a story about how the people’s of the earth decided to get together and build a large tower to reach to the heavens. God knew their pride and folly and decided to confound them. Now He could have simply reached down and swatted them like flies, but He chose a more subtle approach…He made them unable to communicate with each other by giving them multiple languages to speak. As they grew frustrated they eventually wandered off in language groups to found their own nations and the Tower of Babel was forgotten.

In a Sunday sermon a few weeks ago I told the church that ‘we have lost it’. What is ‘it’ and who are ‘we’? ‘We’ are the church and “it’ is the ability to speak to the outside world. We have become so insulated in our own little cocoon that we have forgotten how to speak to the people around us. When we get together we have a special ‘church language’ we speak and everyone knows what we mean. Even more, when we present our (very valid) concerns to the people outside the walls of the church, we present them in the same way we might discuss things with someone inside the church, and the person doesn’t understand. A month or so ago in Vermont we urged our people to contact their representatives concerning the issue of same-sex or genderless marriage. When I called my representatives one of them asked me why I felt the way I did. I gave her three relevant and valid concerns she could evaluate and weigh, and in language she could understand. What I did NOT do was quote scripture to her and tell her I did not believe in genderless marriage because the Bible says it is wrong. That would have been correct, but she would not have cared for nor understood the arguments. She would simply have put me down as a religious crackpot.

I have related on this blog discussions with my doctor concerning my diet in relation to my colitis. I understand where he is coming from, what arguments he can accept and those he cannot accept. If I speak outside of those terms he will dismiss me out-of-hand. When I present an argument to him in favor of the SCD diet in terms he can relate to, citing formal studies supporting it, he is more understanding and receptive.

The whole point is this…no matter what the issue, we need to understand that speaking to an unbeliever as though they were a believer is pointless. Like Paul before the Areopagus in Acts 2, we present the argument in terms that our listener can understand. That means we must not only know the Scripture, but we must know the meaning behind it and be able to relate it to everyday life in the 21st Century in our cultural setting.

Yes, we’ve lost it. But we CAN find it again…indeed we MUST find our collective voices again, or face being marginalized.

1 Genesis 11:1-9
2 Acts 17:16-34

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Treading the Academic Maze

I have recently been treading the academic maze in a new and different way, and have found myself turned around and upside down by the complexities. What started me on this journey? The Church of the Nazarene has a denominational requirement for all ordained ministers to take two CEU’s (Continuing Education Units) each year. Since this was relatively recently introduced even District leadership doesn’t fully understand the process. The idea is good, of course; we as professionals need to keep our minds sharp and abreast of the latest developments in our field. So far, so good.

First, knowing the burden this places on the minister in terms of time and money, Nazarene Bible College offers courses through their Institute for Ministry Enrichment at $35 a course, plus the cost of any texts. These are totally online and are only four weeks long. They count as one CEU, so taking two courses a year is a realistic goal. They do not count as college credit, however.

Next, the Districts themselves can ask for specific events to count for CEU credit. So, for instance, a Saturday seminar on prayer or evangelism can count. Depending on the ‘seat time’, or amount of time actually spent in instruction, the seminar may only accrue a fraction of a CEU. As a result, you may have to attend many seminars to get your two CEU’s. The lowest I have personally seen is a seminar that had ‘.1’ CEU…that’s right, one-tenth of a credit! The catch to this is that the District must have the event approved before it runs in order for it to garner any credit.

Finally, an individual can request credit for either an event they are attending (say, a seminar on puppet ministry put on by a third party) or a book they are reading. The proper forms must be submitted to the District CEU coordinator, who then may request a written report on the event or training. As long as the book or training has application to the ministry the credit should be granted, with consideration given to time and effort spent on the training. In other words, the coordinator determines how much CEU credit the training is worth. Recently our church staff and lay leaders were required by our insurance company to go through training for “Sexual Abuse Prevention”, which encompassed a set of DVD’s, a textbook and workbooks. We requested credit for that training, as it was long enough to be valuable in CEU terms, and directly applicable to our ministry.

Now is when it gets interesting. See, I have an aversion to taking random courses, no matter how good they may be, earning no college credit and having no possibility of a degree/diploma/certificate being awarded. So since I already have a bachelor’s degree, my thoughts turned to graduate school and earning a Master’s degree. I also reasoned that this will allow me to contribute to my District because I will be able to teach our next generation of ministers. I love teaching, so that would come easily.

I looked first at Nazarene Theological Seminary, our flagship school. They have an ‘in-service’ program for ministers who don’t want to move to Kansas City. I found that the degree is costly, but not only that, it has a residency requirement. You spend 2 weeks twice a year at the least (4 weeks total) in on-campus intensive courses to fulfill this requirement. Why is this so? Because they are accredited through the Association of Theological Schools (ATS). ATS accreditation states that you MUST earn a significant percentage of your credits in a classroom…even if the rest of the credits are online. What this means in a practical sense is that the NTS ‘in-service’ program is only available to pastors who are in fully-funded pastorates. Any bivocational pastor is going to have a tough sell to their secular employer as to why they should have four weeks off a year! NTS told me that they have a large grant to try and rectify this situation, but the reality is that as long as ATS accreditation is part and parcel of the equation, there will be no help forthcoming from NTS.

So, what about other schools? It turns out that most major seminaries are accredited by ATS. If they have an online program it likely has on-campus requirements of some kind. There are Nazarene institutions which do have fully online programs; Northwest Nazarene University is a case in point. They have a fully-online program with several Master’s degrees, including an MDiv.. They are, of course, not ATS accredited, but are regionally accredited through the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. Taking this program means among other things that an ATS accredited school may or may not take that coursework in transfer or when working for another higher degree. The only schools pretty much guaranteed to take them are other Nazarene institutions. The cost at NNU is still high, but at least it seemed a possibility.

So, what about non-ATS accredited schools? I found several likely looking schools who were affordable, but did not have a residency requirement. Many of them are affiliates of ABHE (Association of Biblical Higher Education). Several of them use the same curriculum as some of the larger seminaries such as Nyack College in New Jersey. They are definitely not fly-by-night degree mills. Inquiry at our local training facility (Reynolds Institute) indicated that all of our instructors are certified through Nazarene Bible College. A quick call there discovered that in order to be an instructor you must have a degree from an ABHE full member school. Affiliation with ABHE was not enough, despite the solid curriculum.

So I started leaning toward the program at NNU for an MA in Missional Leadership. In talking with people on our District, the consensus was this degree was useless. "No one would be allowed to teach a Bible course based on this degree". "Only an MDiv was worth getting", so the argument went! Who in their right mind would get an MDiv at the cost of $30-40,000 in a position that is essentially unpaid, or even at the typically low salary of a pastor?

This begs the question, why do it (take a degree from an ATS accredited school or an ABHE member school)? Will it further your ministry ‘career’? Will it result in higher pay or more opportunities? Is the goal more knowledge and experience so you can minister to your congregation better, taking them to new heights? Is it for peer recognition? You can take courses and get a degree from one of the ABHE-affiliated-but-not-member schools and fulfill your denominational requirement. It’s cheaper and available in a delivery format that is more amenable to bivocational ministry. You just won’t be able to teach in the local training center. And when was the last time someone asked you about the accreditation of the school you attended outside of an academic setting?

The sad thing about this is that I really do want to help our District train new people; otherwise I have no aspirations to anything other than ministry in the local church here in Vermont. But the means to help the District (especially in our somewhat isolated corner) has been placed out of my reach. So I will have to settle for second-best until our denominational schools get their act together in a fashion that reflects the real-world circumstances of the bivocational minister.

Probably not anytime soon.

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Lessons over the board

Recently during one of our potluck lunches I had the chance to play chess with one of our church members. I’ve played chess since I was about 12 years old, usually playing best two of three games with my father almost every night for most of my teen years. I’ve played off and on since then, and although I’ve never played in a tournament I considered myself a decent player. During the four games that I played with Tayo I learned differently; he beat me three times in ten minutes, although it took him ten minutes to beat me the fourth time. It turns out Tayo has been playing since he was 9, and growing up in New York he played chess in the parks with some of the best.

There are several things I have gotten from this experience that I would like to pass along, as much for my benefit as for anyone who might read this, lessons that Tayo and chess have recently taught me.

The first lesson is to have a right opinion of yourself. The Bible says in Romans 12:3, “For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.” Now, it is important that you don’t have an exalted opinion of yourself, but it is also important that your opinion should not be lower than it ought to, either. Sober judgment is called for, to assess yourself correctly.

The second lesson is like the first. Have a right opinion of others. As the saying goes, don’t judge a book by its cover. You would probably not take Tayo for being the “chess shark” that he can be. He looks much too genial. It’s like assuming that the soft-spoken gentleman you are talking to is a push-over only to find out he has a black belt in karate. Tayo also happens to be a very good teacher; as he is making his moves and watching yours, he is asking 'leading' questions and showing you ways to improve your game.

Another very valuable lesson that this has taught me is that I need to have persistence of action. It would have been very easy for me to simply shrug it all off and say, “Tayo is the better player” and never play him again. I could have said, “Chess at this level is beyond me”. What I did was load up a chess program on my PC, start playing and got some books from the town library on chess. I played Tayo two weeks after that first round of games. And the result? I lost again! My goal is to improve my game, not to beat Tayo. And my game is improving, so I’ve been successful.

I’ve learned some very valuable lessons along the way here from the game itself, which I will write about in another blog. In the meantime I’m having fun, and there is ministry going on, so what more could I ask for? So here’s to Tayo (Thanks!) and to chess, and to a great God who made it possible by putting it all together exactly when I needed it.

The Sound of Snow

It sounds a bit strange to hear, especially if you are a southerner reading this (anyone south of Concord, NH!). But snow can have not only different looks and feels, but distinct sounds associated with it. As the snow falls when there is little or no wind there is a silence that falls over the world. It seems as if everything has gone still and into hiding. Even a passing car makes little noise. Talk between people is hushed. A scientist would say that this is because the falling snow absorbs sounds…as if you were trying to speak in a room surrounded by curtains and hung with laundry. Whether it has a simple explanation or not, I love the peaceful feeling the silence of the snow brings.

There is another sound the snow brings. As you walk across snow you can literally tell how cold it is by the sound. A soft, slurpy sound tells you that the temperature is near the freezing point of water, maybe even a little above. The snow has been partially melted and is that most terrible of mixtures known as slush. The danger with slush is manifold. It is the kind of snow most likely to cause heart attacks in the elderly when they try to shovel, since it is very heavy. It can quickly saturate your clothing, and cool your body, sending chills up and down your spine. If not dealt with quickly it can lead to hypothermia.

Another sound is when the snow falls and the temperature is a bit lower, often referred to as ‘crisp’. The whoosh of your boots through the snow tells you that it has just enough moisture in it to make a good snowman or a snowball, but not enough to instantly soak you. This is the snow kids love to play in.

And there is yet a third sound you may hear. When you walk across the snow you hear a distinct crunch and there is an edge to the air that takes your breath away. The temperature is low enough that there is no moisture left. Snowballs crumble, snowmen are an exercise in futility. Breathing is difficult and every exposed area turns red and numb in short order. When you hear the snow make this sound, there is danger afoot. Frostbite can strike the careless in minutes or even seconds.

In our Christian life there are instances where a single action in and of itself may lead to different results and consequences. The act of watching television, for instance, can be very uplifting and educational, or it can lead to potentially harmful actions, incline the mind to temptation or be sinful in and of itself. To tell someone watching television is always sinful is taking the easy way out. But to go the other way and discount its potential danger is foolhardy, like hiking up Mount Washington in September in a t-shirt and shorts. The same can be said for many things we encounter daily. Paul says, “…if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall! No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” (1 Cor 10:12-13 NIV)

Keep your eyes open, your mind sharp and your eyes fixed on Him and He will provide for you. And listen to the snow.

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New Frontiers in Communication

Imagine a church where the pastor can keep up with the daily lives of his or her people without ever leaving their desk or talking on the phone. Where a sick church member can hear the sermon from the last service without the time and expense of cutting and delivering a tape or CD for them. Where the pastor can send a birthday greeting or note of encouragement to someone without using a postage stamp or having a three day lag in delivery. Where a person searching for a church can find information on service times and ministries before ever walking through your door, and you can make an announcement to the entire church or to the prayer chain by sending out a single message! Sound like science fiction? It was until a few years ago.

Talk to any preacher and they will tell you that their primary job is communication. Our job is simply to communicate the Gospel of Jesus Christ in such a manner that the hearer can understand and assimilate the message, which will then be used by the Holy Spirit to change that person’s life through repentance and acceptance of Jesus as their personal Savior. Other jobs within the church also involve communication. Teaching a Sunday School class, one-on-one discipleship, running a board meeting, facilitating communication in counseling, writing copy for ads or newsletters. The pastor is a communicator.

Seeing all the emphasis on communication within the church and specifically within the job description of the pastor, we have to ask ourselves “how can we best communicate to our audience”? The first thing we need to recognize is that our audience is changing. Along with that change comes a shift in the methods of communication our audience prefers. We are accustomed to communicating with our people through the sermon, through the printed word and face-to-face or by phone. But now we can add to the mix several other methods. Television and radio are two familiar technological tools. But how about a church web site, texting, IM services, eGreeting cards, Facebook and other social networking sites, streaming audio and video, church ‘listserv’, YouTube and the classic podcast? It is the rare church that makes full use of even a few of these methods. The irony is that our people, and the people we so desperately want to reach, use these communications media daily.

The church has an unfortunately well-deserved reputation for being ten years behind everyone else on technology issues. We may not be able to affect the whole church, but we can affect the place we serve. We can use the gifts God has given us to reach people through these means.

Here are a few tips:

1. If you don’t know what one of those terms used above means, do a search on the web and find out!
2. You don’t have to use all of these communication techniques, but picking and using two or three should be enough to get you started.
3. It is not necessary to be fancy, spend lots of money or be flashy, just informative and professional. Many of these are actually free or included with other services you already use. A big bang for your budget buck!
4. If you want to get started but don’t know how…find a responsible teenager and ask them to help. They'll be thrilled!
5. Involve various people in your church in administering these ministries…it helps to assimilate people and relieves pressure on you. Do NOT relinquish final authority on any of these media, however.
6. Realize that there is likely to be inertia in your church and on your board.

You can take one of several approaches. The first is to wait on initiating anything until you get approval. The best way is to talk it up until they think it was their idea in the first place. The second way is to simply go ahead and get something simple started and wait until people notice. Or third, you can do nothing and find yourself increasingly handicapped.

When I started the Facebook account for my own church I wasn’t sure of the reaction I was going to get. Within a week I had 8 people listed as members of the group. Not bad, considering we are a small church running in the 20’s. I also noticed another interesting thing…fully 75% of those people were under 30 and most were under 25. This is the demographic our church needs to reach, and I bet your church does too. Now, realize that each of those individuals have literally scores of Facebook ‘Friends’ who therefore can access your group and find out about your church.

There are many new means of communication out there, and one author has suggested that this is just the beginning. So, if you want to be a pastor and lead a church, then please do lead the way and take the good news of the Gospel to new frontiers!

Happy Podcasting!

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Bivo-traps

This posting may come as a surprise to many who have known me over the years, in my career as a minister and as a churchplanter, but it concerns a topic that is at the forefront of ministry today.

In the last thirty years or so there has been an increase in the number of bivocational ministers in many, if not all, faith traditions and the Church of the Nazarene is no different. “Bivocational” is defined as follows: An assigned minister holding one or more secular, non-church-related jobs. I have been a champion of the bivocational minister for many years…at one time I was “quad-vocational”, holding down three secular positions totaling about 70 hours a week in addition to my ministry position.

Many times, but not always, a minister is bivocational because the church is too small to fully fund the minister’s salary and benefits. In other cases a church may have gotten into this mode of dealing with their pastors because they see it as being good stewardship, or simply started out this way and now have grown, but don’t want to devote additional funds to a pastor’s salary and benefits. At the time of this writing a family health insurance policy will be about $1,200 a month in Vermont. The number of pastors in this situation does not take into account the number of pastors who are not fully-funded, but who have a working spouse who provides additional salary and benefits. Many newer churches do not provide a parsonage, either, which increases the burden on the pastor.

Granted, there are many pastors who see this as a preferred mode of ministry, giving the pastor unprecedented independence and access to the world of secular work. You can't intimidate a bivo pastor with threats on his paycheck by withdrawing your tithes!

Data quoted by Richard Houseal from the 1993 Annual Reports indicates that at that time there 39% of Nazarene churches reporting 50 or less in average worship attendance and paying salaries below the poverty level. (source: http://www.nazarene.org/files/docs/Picture%20of%20Bivocational%20Pastors%20in%20the%20Church%20of%20the%20Nazarene.pdf) In another report by Ken Crow a survey of the churches in the US revealed that 29% of pastors are either part-time or have other employment outside the church. (source: http://www.nazarene.org/files/docs/factnazarenereport_2005.pdf)

The numbers speak for themselves. What doesn’t appear in the statistics though are the difficulties that being a bivocational pastor present. Our own District is struggling with a number of these issues. For instance, consider the following.

• Denominational or District events and programs scheduled during the work week will not be well attended by bivos.
• Secular work time is prime ministry time (for instance, afterschool programs, Mom’s Bible Studies, etc..)
• Secular work allows limited time off; required ministry events during the year may leave no vacation time for the pastor’s family.
• Secular work and ministry may take up so much time in combination that family life could suffer.
• Secular work schedules may interfere with essential ministry time…for instance, retail work may insist on occasional holiday or weekend work.
• Denominational and District board seats are often not offered to bivocationals because of their real or perceived schedules and many meetings are scheduled during weekday working hours.
• Breaking away from bivocational ministry and into fully-funded ministry can be an economic leap for a church.
• And the final straw for many is that even though the church as a whole has bought into the bivocational model, there are still residual feelings that bivocational ministers are not ‘real’ clergy (by both laity and fully-funded clergy).

To quote Dennis Bickers, "Along with our family and church responsibilities, we have a second job that requires a certain amount of our time. The churches we lead are often smaller churches with few resources. Bivocational ministry is looked at by some as 'second-class' ministry performed by people who don't have the gifts to serve a larger church." (source: http://www.nph.com/nphweb/html/h2ol/articleDisplay.jsp?mediaId=2365220)

Whether or not the church manages to deal effectively with these issues in relation to bivocationals will largely determine the shape of the church in the future. I am now firmly of the opinion that a local church should have at least one fully-funded pastoral position and the bivocational mode should be employed only out of necessity and transitioned into fully-funded as quickly as possible.

Solutions are available, we just need to be creative. In the past, and in some congregations even now (especially ethnic congregations), pastoral sharing is done with a fully-funded pastor handling two or more small congregations. This is only one solution, but at the very least we need to be aware of the special needs, limitations and schedules of our bivocational ministers.

A Life of Significance

There are times in life when you look back and wonder what the significance of it all was, or what you are doing now that will be significant in the future. Then the thought comes, what is ‘significance’? After all, what is ‘significant’ to one person may not be to another person. I have faced this crisis in my own life and have recognized the paradox in it.

We all face choices in our lives. Some of those choices lead to actions that affect a large group of people, while others lead to actions that affect only a small group. Some lead to accolades and others to no public recognition at all. The name of Mordecai Ham probably doesn’t mean much to you, but you have likely been affected in some measure by the work he did. Mordecai Ham was an evangelist and speaker who led a series of meetings in Charlotte, NC in 1934 at the invitation of the Charlotte Businessman’s Club. At one of those meetings a young man was touched by God and was saved. His name was Billy Graham. (source: http://www.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/faq/13.htm) You may never hear the name of Mordecai Ham mentioned in any other context. Was he significant? To Billy Graham he was. And through Billy Graham his significance was multiplied many times over. God uses even those who are small in the eyes of the world to bring glory to Himself.

If God is calling you to a position with significance in the eyes of many such as a pastor, a denominational office, a political career, or some other such role, then do not shrink from it. Accept His calling and do it as to the Lord, not to men. Be accountable to Him. If He is calling you to a less visible role, then also do it as to the Lord, not to men. If He is calling you to be a good parent, then take joy in your children. If a teacher, then find your joy in the young lives you mold. If He is calling you to be a loving spouse, then take joy in your mate.

Most importantly, be the hands, feet, face and voice of Christ to others and your significance will be complete.

Reality Intrudes

I was on the way to work this morning and listening to the radio. I generally like to listen to a syndicated station playing soft Christian rock named KLOVE (http://www.klove.com). I was listening to a song that said how much God cares about us and a thought occurred to me. This is a head-turner, so beware. God cares about us, but He doesn’t care what we think about Him. Now for the caveat; it matters a great deal to our eternal future what we believe, but the reality is, except for this little consequence of belief, it doesn’t matter what we believe. Now for the explanation.

We have a tendency in this world to act as though our belief somehow influences reality. You’ve seen the books and tapes, “Think and grow rich” and such. The belief behind it is that attitude can change the real world. Thought influences reality. Envisioning something or imagining something makes it real. Folks, God just don’t work that way! We can think anything we want about the nature of God. "God is female”, “God doesn’t exist”, “God is an impersonal force”, “We are all gods”; there are hundreds, if not thousands of views of God. Reality, though, says that no matter how much we may believe what we imagine, it is all still in our heads. Saying that God is dead doesn’t mean He is. Saying God is female won’t make Him so (for the record, He is neither male nor female, He is spirit). God is what He is. And frankly He is unknowable except for what He reveals to us.

The point here is that you are betting everything you are, and everything you ever will be on what you perceive God to be. No matter what you envision Him to be, the reality of who and what He is will not change. Now, this is not what we want to hear. Modern society says you can have your cake and eat it too. No one is wrong, it is all relative. But even classical philosophy has a rule of logic that says that something cannot both be and not be true at the same point in time and space. This is a rule of exclusivity. We want to seem tolerant, being exclusive is not chic. I may disagree with their theology, but the Muslims have one thing right. Their concept of God as Allah cannot co-exist with the Christian God of the Bible, or the Jewish conception of Yahweh. Likewise, the Christian God cannot be the God of the Book of Mormon. The God of the Mormons cannot be Buddha. Buddha is not compatible with neo-paganism.

So, how sure are you that your concept of God is correct? You cannot have your cake and eat it too. Reality will intrude on your dreamscape. For in the end we will know for a certainty. The Bible says that when we die, “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Phil 2:10 NIV) Not just Christians, but everyone will know the truth. It is obvious to anyone reading this where I stand on this issue…but if I were wrong, then I would still have to stand before whoever God is and confess that I lived my life in vain. There will be a lot of people in that position, and I don’t want to be there, especially just by being sloppy in my thinking.

So, God doesn’t care what you think about Him. He is not going to change just to suit you. Who do you say He is?

Ride-Along

My son is a Criminal Justice major and when he returned home from college this last summer he had a chance to do a ‘ride-along’ in our local police department. He chose to ride on the late shift since that is where most of the action takes place. As he was heading down Rt 7 with the officer in a patrol car, the officer kept an eye on the radar display to see how fast the surrounding traffic was moving. As he approached one vehicle in the opposite lane, the display indicated that the driver was slowing down. As he passed the vehicle, the officer said, “Watch this”, and flipped a switch on the display. The display changed and went from indicating that there was no vehicle ahead in the opposite lane to displaying the now increasing speed of the car they had just passed. “He thinks since we passed him that I can’t see him, but there is a radar cone mounted in the rear of this patrol car, too!”

How often do we think that we need to behave ourselves when we think God is watching, but once we get out of His sight that we can go back to our old ways? Our actions day that as long as we don’t drink alcohol, smoke, swear, gamble, fornicate or do something else sinful while we are in church, we can go back to doing those things on Monday morning. We think God can’t see us because we are not in church. The fact is that this is hypocrisy. “Hypocrite” is a word finding its root in the Greek language and basically means “an actor”, someone who puts on a face for a time and pretends to be something he or she is not.

The real joke behind all of this is that the only person we are fooling is ourselves. Our families know what we are doing, our friends know, probably the people at church know, and God most certainly is not fooled. His sight does not end at the church door. Portraying God as a cosmic policeman just waiting for us to mess up so He can catch us is not a good image really. He loves us, and has paid the ultimate price to rescue us from that very sin that we keep committing when we think he is not watching. So, if He already knows what you are doing and has paid the price so we don’t have to, why not give it all back to Him and accept what He is offering? That is true honesty, and what He has been looking for all along.

Through A Glass Darkly

Things are never as simple as they seem. Murphy was truly an optimist. The world around us seems bright and clear, but that is a deception. And it is a deception because we live in a world that is dominated by a spiritual dimension that we cannot see. Our emotions, our minds, our actions are all influenced to one degree or another by this spiritual dimension. There are forces at work that seek to trip us up and keep us from connecting with God, and there are forces that are just as determined to make sure we have the chance to talk with Him.

At this time of year, approaching Halloween, I find it funny (in the sense of ‘strange’) that people love to watch horror movies that routinely deal with evil, demons, monsters and the like. A high level of credence is given to them. People at their basest level seem to believe in the existence of palpable evil. Yet they seem to have trouble believing that there is a God, that He is good and that He is powerful. Why is that?

Paul said, “For now we see through a glass, darkly” (1 Cor 13:12). The realities of this dual world are largely hidden from us, but we are told enough about it to know that it is fraught with danger. We are under constant spiritual attack. If you don’t feel the heat of battle, that is the time to be worried, because the evil forces (yes, Satan is real!) have you exactly where they want you and feel no need to disturb you. You are no threat. The good news is that the war has already been won by Christ on the cross, and that we have been given the resources to win the battle we are engaged in.

Maybe this is a good time of year for us to proclaim our message of the Gospel. Rather than retreat into our cocoon, we need to let people know that yes, there is true evil, but there is also a God in heaven who fights for us.

Like Lemmings Off A Cliff

There are many things about being a minister that are not apparent at first blush. The amount of work that is required is one thing. Another is the amount of emotional energy (and sometimes physical energy) that it takes. Hazards include the likelihood of embarrassment while speaking in front of crowds. And caution is needed in dealing with people because of the possibility of lawsuits for giving bad advice or simply being in the in ’wrong place at the right time’ and having people jump to conclusions. Another hazard is saying the wrong thing during an election season and potentially losing the church’s tax-exempt status. Well, it is election season, and I will refrain from making any rash statements either from the pulpit or from this forum that would be construed as supporting a particular candidate or party.

However, one of my previous posts dealt with the subject of the right and duty of a citizen to vote. Maybe it is just me as I get older but I am noticing more things this election season that have managed to make e upset than in any previous election. For instance, does anyone know the name of the Libertarian Party candidate? Green Party? Constitution Party? Have you seen an ad for them or has one of the third party candidates been included in any of the debates with the Republicans or Democrats? The last time I looked the United States was a multi-party republic, not a two-party system. Yet the third party candidates are ignored.

The mainstream media has long been demonized in this regard. They do not seek out such third party candidates since they are not as popular and won’t generate as good ratings as the major party candidates. To be fair, people don’t seem to realize that media, although it carries a burden for public service, is a business and as such it seeks out customers who will generate the greatest revenue. The major parties have money to spend and people want to hear them, so they get the lion’s share of attention.

One subtle influence that the media does carry though is the capability to sway an election. It is subtle because even the observing and reporting of public opinion can change the atmosphere. The way it works is this…a media outlet conducts a poll, which shows that politician “A” has a 5-point lead over politician “B”. People listen to the results of this poll and some give in to the natural reaction to want to be ‘on the winning side’. So when the poll is repeated the following week politician “A” has a 10-percent lead. People begin to doubt the ability of “B” to win, so some more decide to vote for “A”. This is a natural thing for people to do who want to be on ‘the winning side’, yet if the media had not performed and publicized those polls, maybe the election would have been closer or the results different.

What happens to an election when the media begin reporting those same poll results and predicting which states will go with which candidate and allocate electoral college votes weeks, perhaps month in advance of the election? Such and such state is solidly Party A and so all those electoral college votes go to them, while this state and that one are solidly behind Party B. The feeling people have is that they should vote in a certain way, or that their vote doesn’t matter anyway since their state is expected to go in a particular direction. Essentially the media is determining through use of polls the results of an election that hasn’t even been held yet!

What else am I doing here besides complaining? There is only one thing which can stem the tide of these influences, and that is for an educated voter base to resist going with the crowd simply for the sake of going with the crowd. I am encouraging you to look beyond the polls, look beyond reporting by the mainstream media, get educated in the platforms of not just the two major parties, but the minor parties as well. And above all, vote for who you really want in office despite potentially being on the ‘losing side’.

Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual--or at least that he ought not so to do; but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country.
Samuel Adams

The fact is that if we all follow each other like lemmings off a cliff, ultimately we are all losers in this contest.

Putting in our “two (per)cent’s worth”

It is September 11, 2008, now seven years since that fateful day in 2001. I can still remember exactly what I as doing as I watched the reports on television of the plane hitting the first tower and watching in disbelief as the second one hit. It seems that so many things happened and we said that the United States would never be the same. One thing that happened was that people suddenly became interested in world events and politics. People began to pay attention.

This last Tuesday was Primary Day in Vermont. There were four ballots this time….Republican, Democrat, Liberty Union and Green parties. I left work, went to the grocery store and headed home. My wife and I headed to the polls at 6pm; they were due to close at 7pm and we hoped we wouldn’t have to wait too long in line to vote. After all, a lot of people wait until after work to vote. We needn’t have worried.

When we walked in, we were greeted cheerily by the three poll workers. No one else was voting. As we turned in our three unused ballots and submitted our used one, the man at the ballot box told us that we were numbers sixty and sixty-one for the day. “Sixty and sixty-one? You’ve got to be kidding”, I said. “No”, he replied, “ you and your wife represent about two percent of the total vote for your precinct”. Doing the math, it actually comes out to slightly over three percent. Our precincts cover quite a bit of territory and there are only TWO polling places for our town and neighboring town precincts.

What happened to “we’ll never be the same again” after 9-11? I think people went back to the thought that their individual lives matter more than the impact that they might have voting. The life of the community is secondary. Maybe they feel that their vote doesn’t make a difference. It was disturbing too that the ballot we took had numerous spots where no one was running for office, and not a single office on the ballot was contested!

As a minister I cannot use my position to endorse a candidate or a party. But my faith and beliefs also tell me that voting is not simply a citizen’s right, but it their duty to vote. Our freedoms depend on people getting involved, perhaps especially as people of faith! I don’t care how you vote or who you vote for, but get out and get involved! You may not feel you have the time or knowledge to run for an office but your vote is needed. My wife and I represented over three percent of the vote from that precinct. Elections have been won or lost on less than that.

Don't just vote for who you think will win, simply to be on "the winning side", vote for who you believe is right. If appropriate, vote for a third party!

Another thing, when someone is elected, don’t simply criticize them. Pray for them and remember what we are told in Titus 1:1-2, “Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and to show true humility toward all men.”

We had a wakeup call in 2001. Let’s not waste it.

Letting it all hang out

I try to approach life with a little logic, a modicum of humor and a lot of faith, and try to keep the whining down to a dull roar. Sometimes, though, it gets to be a bit much. Vermont is a unique state in some ways, very conservative in some respects and very liberal in others which creates a bit of tension for all sides.


Coming in to work this morning I was behind a car which displayed a small decal in the window, advertising for all to see that the person driving (or perhaps the person owning) the vehicle is homosexual. Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t particularly care what this person’s sexual orientation is. He, and it was a male driver, could prefer sleeping with an anatomically correct stuffed animal for all I care. I really don’t want to know those details and I’m not sure why it needs to be displayed and broadcast to everyone on the road. I am not homosexual, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, metrosexual or any of the other variations people are constantly inventing and I do not advertise it one way or the other. Yet we hear from the spokespersons of these lifestyles who say they just want to be treated like everyone else. So then, why the need to advertise your sexual preference with window stickers, decals, bumper stickers and such? Wasn’t the point supposed to be that our sexuality is something private and nobody else’s business?


Maybe the heterosexual, married and faithful majority should come up with its own symbol and make its preferences known. Now, don’t treat me any different from anyone else. Hey, I’ve got the right to hang my preferences out for everyone to see, too…right? After all, it’s private.