Christianity

Are You Sure About That?

/ pastorlynnmalone / Leave a comment

Mark Twain said, “The only person who likes change is a wet baby.” There are a lot of reasons we resist change, but one of the primary reasons is the uncertainty that accompanies change. We like clarity. We like certainty. The familiar is comfortable, like an old pair of shoes broken in just right. It’s easier to stay put than to move. But, there’s a reason the windshield is bigger than the rearview mirror. Life is meant to be lived going forward not backing up. For the nation of Israel, there was more promise ahead than there was behind. So it is for us, too.

Crossing the Jordan River

In Joshua 3, the nation of Israel stood on the banks of the Jordan River ready to cross over and inhabit the Promised Land. God has raised up a new leader in Joshua, and with this new leader there is more than enough uncertainty to go around. Here is a little of the uncertainty I suspect the people were dealing with:

  • “Joshua is a great leader. He’s won some battles for us, but he’s no Moses!” How many of you remember the 1988 vice-presidential campaign? Sen. Lloyd Bentsen of Texas was pitted against Sen. Dan Quayle from Indiana. When asked about his experience, Quayle said he had as much experience as Jack Kennedy had when he ran for President, to which Bentsen quickly responded, “Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I was a friend of Jack Kennedy, and Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.” I wonder if Joshua didn’t get some of that same kind of feedback as he prepared to lead them across the Jordon River.
  • Perhaps there was this uncertainty: “Is there going to be manna in the Promised Land?” Don’t forget. Six days out of every week, every month, every year for forty years the Israelites pretty much had one job—go out and gather manna. They had to wonder if there was going to be manna across the Jordon. (This is a good place to be reminded, there’s often a lot of good about where we are. It’s good to have manna, and sometimes all we need in that moment is manna, but the problem is we don’t really know what we’re missing.)
  • Maybe there was this uncertainty, too: “We’ve been nomads for forty years. We know how to move around. We know how to live in tents. Now, you’re asking us to become settlers. We’re not sure if we know how to be settlers.” (Personally, I resonate with this uncertainty. For 28+ years, Vanessa and I were nomads, moving every 3.66 years. Now, we’re settlers in our new home. It’s challenging! There’s a little uncertainty.)

Wouldn’t it be great if we knew the outcome for every decision we faced in life? What a gift to have a crystal ball that helped us look into the future to see what lay ahead of us as we stand at defining moments. But, we don’t have a crystal ball. We can’t know whether change will be for the better or for the worse, but because we don’t know doesn’t mean we don’t have to deal with the change brought by defining moments. Every change creates its own uncertainty. As disciples of Jesus Christ, our task is to respond faithfully to changing circumstances and changing times in ways that give life and testify to the Lord’s goodness, not only to changing circumstances in our own lives, but to changing circumstances in our world.

Uncertainty can keep us frozen. It can keep us from making decisions we need to make to move forward in life, and it can keep us from living into the fullness of God’s call and claim upon our lives. For forty years the Israelites had been frozen. The “Back to Egypt” Committee had quickly become the “Let’s Stay Here” committee, and without Joshua to lead them, they would have missed the blessings of the Promised Land. Joshua gave three specific instruction, and in his instruction, I think we learn a few lessons for our own lives in dealing with the uncertainty of life.

Joshua’s Instructions

Focus on God

First, Joshua instructed the people to focus on God. In the face of radical change, he focused the people’s attention on the certainty of God’s presence. We get stuck when we focus all our energy on the uncertainty of circumstances rather than banking on the certainties we already know.      

The people were given these instructions:

“When you see the Levitical priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God, move out from your positions and follow them. 4 Since you have never traveled this way before, they will guide you. Stay about half a mile behind them, keeping a clear distance between you and the Ark. Make sure you don’t come any closer” (3:3b – 4).    

The Ark of the Covenant captured the imagination of my generation through Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Did you know there is a new Indiana Jones movie?

The ark represented the presence of God with the nation of Israel. Joshua’s instruction was a reminder that God was calling the nation forward. Stay connected to God. Keep your eyes on the ark. When it moves, you move. Go where God leads, for you want to be where God is. The Ark was a visible, tangible reminder of God’s presence. Joshua’s instruction was, “When you see the Ark move, you move.” That was his way of saying, “Stay connected to God. Go where God goes.”

The Lord Jesus Christ is the certainty we can bank on. He is faithful. Always has been, always will be. In changing times, in challenging times, in uncertain times we need to focus on Jesus. After all, life is God’s story. We need to be reminded that Jesus is the Changeless One amid all the changing circumstances. I love what the writer to the Hebrews says about Jesus Christ. He is, “the same yesterday, today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). 

 When we are anxious in coping with the change and uncertainty of life, there’s one reality we look for: Jesus. Where is Jesus in your story? Are you looking for that? Are you watching for Jesus? Do you ask how He might work in the midst of your life changes, especially when those changes are traumatic? Have you remembered the Lord at all? When we ask that question, we enlarge the frame of our life to include the only One who can help us.

In the midst of change, I think it’s key for us to “re-frame” the picture in order to include God in it. God doesn’t cause everything to happen, God doesn’t cause the tragedies that hit us, but God can redeem the worst circumstances if we have eyes and minds to see. None of our circumstances catch God by surprise. We wonder if God will be with us there. God is already in our future. God is already there. God goes before us making the way. We Wesleyans call that “prevenient grace.”

Prepare Ourselves

Secondly, Joshua instructs the people to prepare themselves—to get themselves ready. Verse 5 says: “Then Joshua told the people, ‘Purify yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do great wonders among you’.”

The Hebrew word translated “Purify” is “qadash” which means “to be set apart/ consecrated.” The command was the same Moses gave the people back on the other side of the desert some 40 years before as God prepared to give the 10 Commandments. It was a way of saying, “Get ready for what God’s about to do among you.”

It was also Joshua’s way of connecting the people to their heritage. Joshua was able to call upon the past to affirm the leadership that preceded him, and us it move the nation forward. But, it was also necessary for the people to be ready to experience God’s great miracle. To the Hebrews, purification meant washing their clothes and abstaining from sexual activity for a season. It was also a time of fasting. It was a time of waiting on God, of listening to His voice.

Like the Hebrew people, we have to prepare ourselves for what the Lord wants to do in our lives and among His creation. We have to be ready even to face some uncertainty.

No matter how we try to stop change, we can’t. We look at our children, and on certain days, we want to put the brakes on their growth, but we can’t. We look around at our culture and we think, “Whoa! This can’t be happening,” but, it is, and no matter what we do, we can’t put the brakes on.

It’s always been that way, though. When the railroads were first introduced to the U.S., some folks feared that they’d be the downfall of the nation! Here’s an excerpt from a letter to then President Andrew Jackson dated January 31, 1829:

“As you may know, Mr. President, ‘railroad’ carriages are pulled at the enormous speed of 15 miles per hour by ‘engines’ which, in addition to endangering life and limb of passengers, roar and snort their way through the countryside, setting fire to crops, scaring the livestock and frightening women and children. The Almighty certainly never intended that people should travel at such breakneck speed.” Martin Van Buren Governor of New York

Our preparation, our consecration requires confession and repentance, both for individual sins and corporate sins. We’ve not always trusted God. We’ve, too often, looked too much like the world instead of offering the world an alternative. Honestly, we’ve spent too much time trying to create a Christian nation, and not enough time creating a nation of Christians—people who are faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. We prepare ourselves for God to do great things among us when we live as faithful disciples of Jesus Christ by earnestly practicing the spiritual discipline: prayer, Bible study, fasting, worship, service, generosity, et. al. Every time of spiritual renewal has been preceded by a time of prayer and preparation.

Take a Step of Faith

Finally, Joshua tells the people to take a step of faith. Verse 8 says: “Give this command to the priests who carry the Ark of the Covenant: ‘When you reach the banks of the Jordan River, take a few steps into the river and stop there.’”

The remaining verses tell us the Jordan River was at flood stage. Generally, the Jordan is a small, meandering river that can easily be crossed, and in places can be waded across. This time, however, it was the harvest season, and the river was flooding.

Why would God call them to cross over at such an inopportune time? Perhaps He wanted the people to know this was a miracle, this crossing was His doing, not their own. I can only imagine what the priests bearing the Ark of the Covenant must have thought as they came to the water’s edge: “We’re supposed to step into that?”

Honestly, it doesn’t take much faith to stay put. If we want to see miracles, sometimes we have to take a risk, but that’s okay because faith is risky business. As I’ve said before, I’m not afraid to fail. I’m afraid not to try. Some things work, some things don’t. Celebrate the ones that do. Learn from the ones that don’t. Along the way, we might just see a few miracles.

How do we take those risks? Author and church consultant Gil Rendle shares the story of a little boy whose chore it was to go to the barn in the dark to secure the farm animals before the family bedtime. He dreaded what lurked in the shadows on the way to the distant barn. His father gave him unforgettable advice. The lantern from the farmhouse would cast its light to the yard gate and no further. When he came to the yard gate, the lantern cast its light to the corral fence and no further. When he came to the corral fence, the lantern cast its light to the windmill and no further. When he came to the windmill, the lantern cast its light to the barn door. The wise father reminded the little boy that he had only to go as far as the light took him, with the assurance that the light would take him further at the next point of need. In the life of faith, we never know the second step until after we’ve taken the first one. We have to take a step of faith and trust God.

My friends, the Holy Spirit blows like a wind upon us, glows like a fire within us, and flows like a river through us. Mighty acts for God take place because of the certainty of that unseen but nevertheless real leadership of the Holy Spirit.

We can’t know with certainty HOW God will fulfill his promises in our lives, but we can know with certainty he WILL fulfill them. Amid the changing nature of this world, Jesus Christ is the changeless One, and the One who kept us yesterday and keeps us today, will continue to keep us for all eternity. Of that we can be sure!

Change: The Only Constant…

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Greek philosopher Heraclitus receives credit for the statement, “The only thing that is constant is change.” His companion statement, “No one steps in the same river twice,” confirms his underlying philosophy of life that everything changes. It’s interesting that Heraclitus lived circa 500 BC, a time when change and innovation was measured in centuries. We, conversely, live in a time when change and innovation is measured in years, and sometimes even months.

I’m old enough to remember when the iPhone was introduced in 2007. In sixteen short years, the iPhone is on its 15th or 16th iteration (I loose count…or, just really don’t care). AI (artificial intelligence) is developing so rapidly that even some of its developers are encouraging a pause on further development in fear that AI will actually be the final ruin of humanity.

Not only are things changing digitally, but they’re changing culturally, too. There is a correlation between the changes in information technology and the cultural changes, but the cultural changes were happening even before the onset of the digital age. I won’t make a laundry list here of the cultural changes taking place (it would be too long, it would invite too much controversy, you already know them anyway), but I will point out one event that has been a defining moment in the cultural shift: the Obergfell v Hodges decision from the U. S. Supreme Court issued on June 26, 2015.

This is not a post about same-sex marriage, but rather about the rapidity with which the culture has moved in its acceptance of other non-traditional expressions of human sexuality and relationships. I mean, seriously, it has been less than ten years since the Obergfell decision and the cultural conversation has moved toward transgenderism and gender fluidity so quickly that we more traditional types (including the church) seem to have been left steamrolled by the conversation. So, just what are we to do about it?

To attempt to answer that question, I go back to the crossing of the Jordon River by the nation of Israel after their 40 years of wandering in the desert post-Egyptian slavery (find the story in Joshua 1). The children of Israel were a peculiar bunch. They stood at the banks of the Jordan, looking across to the promised land—that land promised to their father Abraham generations before. This particular generation only knew the promised land from stories they learned around the campfire from their fathers and grandfathers, or from bedtime stories during the years of wandering in the wilderness.

This was not the generation who left Egypt 40 years before. That generation would not possess the land because they were a bunch of grumblers and complainers. They comprised the “Back to Egypt” Committee. Only 38 years before, that generation stood on the banks of the Jordon ready to cross. Moses sent 12 spies across the Jordon. They returned with glowing reports of a land flowing with milk and honey. But, some of the spies also saw giants, and a land filled with enemies too big to overcome. Only Caleb and Joshua had the faith necessary to believe the people could overcome the obstacles that lay before them. Unfortunately, that generation believed the ten spies over Caleb and Joshua. Their lack of faith prevented them from inheriting the promise of God. It also makes me question Moses’ faith and leadership, but that’s for another day.

My point is that we more traditional folks, rather than becoming our own “Back to Egypt” committee, must continue to live faithfully because we believe God’s best days are ahead, God’s future for the Church is ahead, the Promised Land is across the Jordon not back in Egypt.

Yes, this is a new day for the Church of Jesus Christ. I believe we can learn a few lessons from the Lord’s instruction to Joshua and the people as they prepared to cross. What are those lessons?

First, as we move forward, we must stay rooted in the Word of God:

7 Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the instructions Moses gave you. Do not deviate from them, turning either to the right or to the left. Then you will be successful in everything you do. 8 Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do.

Joshua 1: 7-8 NLT

The key to living faithfully amidst the changes of life is staying grounded firmly in the Word of God. the Bible is our source of truth and understanding and we must keep our anchor in truth. Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life…” (John 14: 6). Yes, He is our Truth. He is THE Truth, but we will not know Him or the Truth He proclaimed apart from the Holy Spirit leading us to discover Him in the Bible. Yup! That makes me old fashioned, but Jesus revealed in Scripture through the power of the Holy Spirit is my anchor when all the world is changing around me.

Staying rooted in the Word guides me to humility as I seek to follow the example of Jesus. This was the power of Jesus’ leadership! After Jesus finished the Sermon on the Mount the people were astonished because he taught as one who had authority. Yet about himself Jesus said, “…the son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does” (John 5:19). Later in John’s Gospel, we find Jesus demonstrating His humility when He washes the disciple’s feet (read it here), and the Apostle Paul captures the essence of Jesus’s character in that great hymn of the early church:

5 You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.

6 Though he was God,
    he did not think of equality with God
    as something to cling to.
7 Instead, he gave up his divine privileges;
    he took the humble position of a slave
    and was born as a human being.
When he appeared in human form,
8     he humbled himself in obedience to God
    and died a criminal’s death on a cross.

Secondly, facing the challenge of change demands that we be both strong and courageous. It wasn’t enough that God instructed Joshua once, but He repeated it three times. Change demands strength and courage.

One great example of these characteristics is Mother Teresa. Ninety tiny pounds, quiet, and meek, yet when this powerless nun came to the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D. C., on February 3, 1994, in a room filled with senators, congressmen, and world leaders at all levels, she spoke with incredible strength on the subject of abortion. Her strength did not come from worldly power; it came from her submission to God, her holy life—a life spent sacrificially, serving the dying.  

Portrait of Mother Teresa, Dublin – Ireland (Photo by Mathieu Polak/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images)

Mother Teresa had the courage to speak to world leaders so authoritatively because of her inner strength rooted firmly in her humility. See, these characteristics are intertwined. One enhances the other. That’s why God would tell Joshua to be strong and courageous, and would remind him to stay connected to God’s word, to meditate on it day and night. They’re all related. We can’t find courage without strength, and we won’t know strength without humility. I remind us that we must never confuse arrogance with strength. Too often, arrogance is an attempt to cover up the inner weakness of a leader.

It takes courage to be obedient to God’s call in our lives. The nation of Israel was about to cross the Jordan River to inhabit a land full of foreign people and ideas. They would inherit a land that would challenge their belief system, and without the courage to be obedient to God, they would be swept away into idolatry and death. They would need a leader who had the courage to remain faithful to the word of God.

The church faces a similar situation today. We look across our culture, and we see something that’s strangely foreign to our values and belief system. It’s easy to want to turn inward, to stay where we are, where it’s comfortable and we know our stories. But, God is calling us to confront the culture, to share the Gospel, to live our faith in that strange foreign land. That takes courage!

Len Sweet reminds us that we live in a culture whose language is story, image and soundtrack. The problem is we’re still trying to communicate with 19th Century methods. Oh! We can’t forget the past. All who have gone before us were inheritors of the promises of God. It takes courage to study the past, hold onto the stories that are meaningful and true, and preserve the heritage those previous generations sacrificed to see come to fruition. The courage comes in preserving the past without living there, for God’s Kingdom is ahead of us, in a foreign culture and a strange land. We need leaders to move forward…leaders with humility, strength and courage who are rooted in God’s Word.

I pray I can be that type of leader as we live in the face of constant change. I pray that you can be, too!

Until next time, keep looking up…

Making a New Connection…

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It’s official now. 95 congregations disaffiliated from the Louisiana Annual Conference on May 27, 2023. That number is in addition to 67 congregations that disaffiliated at previous sessions of the Annual Conference. If my math is correct, that’s 162 congregations now separated from the UMC in Louisiana. According to the denominational website UMData.org, the Louisiana Annual Conference had 438 congregations is 2020. Again, if my math is correct, that means 36.98% of the congregations chose to disaffiliate. Honestly, that’s a whole lot more congregations than I ever anticipated would depart, but then again, what do I know? I left before the divorce, so…

Why am I writing about it if I left before it all started? I’m writing because there are now 162 congregations that have to chart a new future and I have something I want to say to them–JOIN ANOTHER DENOMINATION! That advice can’t be emphasized enough. I’ve already offered that advice in a previous blog, but I want to expand on the thought more broadly here.

Reasons for Joining a Denomination

It’s Biblical

I am thoroughly convinced the early leaders of the Christian Church foresaw the congregations connected to one another. Yes, the “house” churches and other groups that met were independent of one another with their own deacons and elders, but they were clearly overseen by bishops. Deacons, elders and bishops are the three offices mentioned in scripture as necessary for the functioning of the local church. The Apostle Paul, writing to his young protege Timothy, stipulates the requirements of two of the offices in 1 Timothy 3: 1 – 13, and the Apostle Peter writes concerning elders in the church in 1 Peter 5: 1 – 4. Overseers (or bishops) oversaw more than one local congregation as the church grew.

The Apostle Peter demonstrated this type of leadership very early in the church’s life. In Acts 15, we find the account of the Jerusalem Council where Peter addresses the church on the issue of Gentiles being allowed to join the church and what they must do before being allowed to join. The precedent is clear that the early church fathers and mothers demonstrated the connectional nature of the church. It is incumbent upon us, as we seek to be faithful, to join our local congregations to the larger body of Christ through a denomination.

It Promotes Accountability

Joining ourselves to a denomination promotes accountability in two primary ways. First, there is accountability to doctrine that is outside ourselves. Independent congregations are free to formulate their own doctrine and can sometimes go off the rail in its teachings unless there is considered doctrine developed over time and with the debate and input of centuries of theological reflection. Imagine for a moment, an independent local congregation whose theological foundations could change on the whims of a new pastor who was not sufficiently vetted (more on this later).

Secondly, joining a congregation lends accountability to clergy through credentialing, training, relationships and more. Almost all denomination have a vetting process for its ministerial candidates, and required continuing education for ordained and licensed clergy. Have those processes always worked out as desired? Of course not! People lie. People change. Systems break down. Loopholes develop. Leaders don’t do their work. There are many reasons bad clergy “slip through the crack,” but that doesn’t mean that a system in place is better than not having a means to hold clergy accountable and help them grow in the knowledge and wisdom of Jesus.

Sure, an independent congregation can hold their pastor accountable by firing them, but it can too easily happen a second time or a third time without the broader process of clergy training and credentialing that most denominations offer. That system is firmly rooted in the doctrines and beliefs expressed in the denomination’s published catechism. It is the most beneficial way to insure that a local congregation is led by competent, trained clergy.

It’s Wesleyan

Every one of the disaffiliating congregations has a rich history in the Wesleyan tradition. John Wesley could never have imagined a time when his churches were not connected in some way. Don’t think for one moment that the United Methodist Church has the market cornered on Wesleyan connectionalism, though. There are a large number of denominations that find their roots in the Wesleyan movement. The Wesleyan Church, The Free Methodist Church, The Church of the Nazarene, The Salvation Army, the newly formed Global Methodist Church and my chosen home, The Evangelical Methodist Church, are among them. Each of these denominations are firmly rooted in Wesleyan-Arminian theology and operate with a “connectional” polity, much as the United Methodist Church does.

Additionally, there is the Congregational Methodist Church and the Association of Independent Methodists, although I find it a bit of an oxymoron to say “independent” Methodist or “congregational” Methodist. That just seems to be outside the vision John Wesley had for the movement from its infancy. That fact notwithstanding, it is important for a congregation to consider its rich history as it charts its path forward. How will that history be preserved in the best possible manner? By joining itself to another Wesleyan denomination.

For broader research on denominations rooted in the Wesleyan tradition, please take the time to check out the Global Wesleyan Alliance and also the World Methodist Council. Their lists of member denominations and associations will give any congregation a starting point in choosing a new place to connect like a true Wesleyan.

Pastoral Succession

As I’ve previously written, it’s not a matter of if a congregation will need a new pastor, but when will a congregation need a new pastor. Every congregation will go through a pastoral transition (some former UM congregations will do so sooner rather than later). When that transition occurs, being part of a denomination will provide a process and a network for new pastoral selection. A process and a network are what is important. Having a formal process in place will not guarantee a congregation a new pastor, but it certainly gives a congregation a tremendous advantage in identifying and calling competent and trained clergy.

Don’t Be a Loner

So, there are my four reasons for former UM congregations to join themselves to another denomination. There are others, for sure, but these are sufficient for consideration as a congregation moves forward into its new reality, and here’s the reality: Who you are is not who you were. The question is: Who will you be?

As each of the 162 disaffiliated congregations from the Louisiana Annual Conference went through an established discernment process to reach that point, a subsequent discernment process is necessary to determine how they will live in the future. I know some have already chosen their new home. Wonderful! For others, they are choosing to remain independent for now. Let me encourage those congregations to only let it be so for a season. It is not unwise to do so, but to do so for more than a year is to run the risk of losing the rich Wesleyan heritage of the local congregation. That would be a tragic result, indeed!

Questions or concerns? Don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I’ll be happy to share about my experience with the Evangelical Methodist Church, and to help you discern if this might be where God is calling your congregation to connect. In a future post, I’ll be sharing the reasons I chose the Evangelical Methodist Church as my new home. Hope you’ll come back and read again.

Until next time, keep looking up…

Oh, I Want to Go to Church…

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Church. It is a changin’! So say the statistics published recently by the Gallup organization and reported on Churchtrac.com. According to Churchtrac, attendance at regular weekly religious services has fallen consistently in the 21st century, from 32% in 2000 to 20% in 2022 (view chart here). That’s a fairly precipitous decline in such a short period of time. Yes, I know, Covid-19 happened (and the pandemic may have accelerated the decline), but the decline started long before the pandemic, so let’s not blame it all on that.

And, we wonder why our culture is in decline! Yes, the culture is in decline. I invite you to change my mind. When I say the culture, I mean the American culture. Seriously, can any of us say we are better off than a generation ago? It has always been the desire of one generation to leave a better world for the next generation (you know, your children and grandchildren). I’m not so sure that we ( I mean my generation–I was born the last year of the “boomer” generation) will be leaving our progeny a better world. I think the decline in church attendance is one of the primary reasons why. What do I mean?

We haven’t passed on the faith to the next generation. We (I mean my generation) have lost our perspective when it comes to faith formation. According to Barna Research, Boomers had the highest drop off rate in returning to worship post-Covid at 22%. I don’t mean to bore you with numbers, but research shows our failure in passing on the faith. I can hear the words of Deuteronomy 6 in my ear:

4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heartand with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

The primary place of faith formation is in the home, but we need the church (and we need to go to church) to be reminded of who we are and Whose we are. We need to go to church to remind us that we are connected to something greater than ourselves, to remind us that we are not the center of the universe (and neither are our children or grandchildren). We need to go to church to experience the transcendent nature of the Almighty, to remind us that morality matters and why it matters. We need a church family (yes, I said need!) for connection and community.

I know the argument that community is found in so many other places nowadays, but too many of the places people are finding community are in places where connection and community can happen without any moral compass. Yes, people have ethics and each of those communities have boundaries that define them, but too often those boundaries are rooted in activities rather than in any type of moral foundation. The morals and ethics brought to those communities come from outside those communities (generally), and my point is that the more we move away from the place that we find a moral compass, the further we drift from a firm foundation. The church, with all its faults and failures, is STILL the place we will find a moral compass and a firm foundation.

But, the Church is a mess, right? Of course it is! Guess what? It always has been. There have been (and there will always be) times when Christians individually, and the Church corporately, have failed to live up the standards set by Jesus and the Apostles (man! Am I living proof of that fact!). The Church has sometimes failed to embody its own values. Here’s the thing, though: the values survive the failures! That’s why there’s hope, and that’s why I want to go to church.

I am reminded of the words of Jesus in Matthew:

Now I say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Matthew 16: 18

I take this as Jesus’ promise that the Church will not go so far astray that it becomes something it was never meant to be. Though the Church may not be perfect does not mean that Jesus is not perfectly faithful in keeping His promises. Otherwise, hell would win, and well, that’s just not going to happen!

The Church is rooted not in the failures of individuals or institutions, but in its creeds, doctrines and sacraments. These give the Church anchor, and they give we who attend regularly anchor in our lives. When we miss church (and the more we miss church) we lose a little bit of our anchor…our foundation. The more un-moored we become from the church the more the culture will drift from any firm foundation holding it together.

I believe there is still time, though, to recover our foundations. How will it happen? Not by waiting on bishops or clergy to change the world. It will happen when we look in the mirror. You and I are the Church. You and I must to be connected to one another with a common thread of faith because whatever the Church is going to be or whatever the Church is going to do, it will be or do because you and I step up and participate. You and I, as imperfect as we are, are perfectly suited to be vessels the Holy Spirit can use to change the world. It won’t happen if we’re not connected to each other.

Maybe I had to write this today because I’ve been singing this song all week:

Let’s all go to church!

Until next time, keep looking up…

Let the Contract Negotiations Begin…

/ pastorlynnmalone / 2 Comments

Judging by the volume of phone calls I’m receiving, I’d say more than a few former United Methodist churches are in for a rude awakening.

For readers who may not know (and if you’re reading this blog, you probably know), the United Methodist Church has been in a season of “disaffiliation.” What is disaffiliation, you ask? The special session of General Conference in 2019 created a path (para. 2553) for a congregation to exit the denomination if the congregation was not in agreement with the Church’s position on the issues of gay marriage and the ordination of homosexuals, and that path is called disaffiliation.

By the time the disaffiliation process is complete (December 31, 2023), as many as 15% of the congregations could be disaffiliated across the denomination. That’s a lot of congregations by any stretch. In 2020, there were over 30,000 congregations in the United States alone. You can do the math.

It is not for me to say much about the process of disaffiliation. After all, I left the United Methodist Church in 2019, so I don’t have a dog in the hunt. But, as a person who was a life-long United Methodist, I have followed the process with curiosity and interest. What I will say is that I’ve seen some questionable integrity (there–I said it!) along the way.

First, the process has not been evenly applied from Annual Conference to Annual Conference. Some bishops and Conference Boards of Trustees have been fair in applying the provisions of para. 2553, and other bishops and Conference Boards of Trustees have been punitive in its application, but this isn’t a post about that.

Second, an overwhelming majority of the congregations who have or will be disaffiliating, are actually in agreement with the Church’s official position on the issue para. 2553 addresses, which means they had to fib (wink, wink) in order to utilize para. 2553 to depart the denomination, but this is not a post about that, either.

Suffice it to say, the process (as much as I agree with congregations wanting out) is giving the United Methodist Church, and by extension, the larger Body of Christ a black eye. Church can just be messy, can’t it? And please, don’t take my forgoing reflections as if I’m a “holier-than-thou” commentator. Let me say again, there’s a reason that I’m not the perfect pastor.

What this is a post about is the number of former UM congregations that will soon discover there was a great advantage to being UM, namely pastoral leadership. As a UM congregation, there were few congregations that ever had to worry about pastoral leadership (other than if they were going to get a “good” one). One Sunday the congregation had this pastor and the next Sunday they had that pastor. The congregation may have loved this pastor and simply tolerated that pastor, but they didn’t have to worry about whether they would spend a season searching for a pastor. The appointive process of the UMC generally took care of that problem for them. It worked well for a long time. As a former District Superintendent in the UMC, I can honestly say in more recent years, maybe not quite so well. There are a number of reasons for that, but this isn’t a post about that.

So, for all you former United Methodists out there, get ready. You’re about to embark on your first pastoral search, especially if your current pastor is remaining UMC. Some of you have chosen to affiliate with another denomination in the Wesleyan tradition. Good for you! After all, we Wesleyans are a connectional lot. Not only that, but other denominations at least have a process in place to aid in the pastoral search process. It won’t guarantee that you find a pastor, but at least you’re ahead of the game with a defined process.

If you’ve chosen to remain independent, well now, that’s another issue all together. I hope you find someone on Monster.com or Indeed.com. Of course, you can check out ChurchJobs.com, or one of the other Christian job websites. Based on my experience as a Senior pastor whose primary responsibility was looking for the “next” staff person, you’ll post on one of the sites for a pastor, you’ll receive 80 resumes or applications, weed it down to two or three that are actually legitimate, and pray (really pray) that at least one of those applicants becomes your next pastor. Probably not, but hey, prayer works, so you never know.

The most likely scenario is that a congregation will go for a period with no pastoral leadership when it comes time for that pastor change. Some smaller congregations, even in the UMC, have experienced that before, so it won’t be new to them. The vast majority, however, have never been without pastoral leadership (okay…define “leadership”). One great concern I have is that too many former UM congregations will settle for the first warm body they find (even if that warm body is me!), or will go outside the Wesleyan tradition to find their next pastor. Do that and you will lose your history, tradition and (dare I say?) your identity. Okay, I confess that leaving the UMC changes your identity, but again, you know what I mean.

Let an old man offer a little advice to all these disaffiliating congregations. First, don’t settle because you’re anxious about finding a new pastor. Anxiety causes us to make bad decisions. It’s not fair to your congregation and it’s not fair to a pastor to invite him/her to come to the congregation only to ask her/him to depart a year later. Develop a process for advertising and interviewing potential candidates. Develop a network with other congregations and share information and applicants. One person might not be right for one congregation, but he/she might be perfect for yours. Use the “search season” to develop leaders within the congregation for preaching and teaching. Perhaps you’ll discover your next pastor sitting in one of your pews (or chairs, as the case may be).

And pastors, if you’re leaving the UMC with your congregation, part of your primary responsibility in the process should be to help your congregation put a plan in place for identifying your replacement. It’s not a matter of if you’ll leave, but a matter of when you’ll leave. The average pastoral tenure across denominations is less than four years. You will leave, and when you do, if you haven’t prepared the congregation for it, you have failed as a leader. Get to it! Today! Yes, there is much to tackle as a disaffiliating congregation, but you chose it, so do the work. You owe it to the congregation.

Oh, and pastors…I’d go for the three-year guaranteed contract. If a congregation is going to ask you to move potentially across the country, they should be financially committed to making the appointment work. You are, more or less (depending on the region of the country) in the driver’s seat. I know, it’s not about money, but you do have to eat and live indoors.

One last bit of advice for congregations: There may be some wisdom in remaining independent for a season, but use that season to identify where the Lord is leading you to connect. There are more advantages than disadvantages to being affiliated with a denomination. Use the season of independence to discover those advantages.

One of the places I would invite you to consider is the Evangelical Methodist Church. This is where I’ve found my new home as a disciple in the Wesleyan tradition. I would be honored to share with your congregation about the Evangelical Methodist Church. If you’re within driving distance, I’d be happy to come to you. If there is distance involved, then Zoom offers a great way to connect to share information. I’m at your disposal! Comment below for more information, or find me on Facebook and send me a message.

There are other places you can consider, as well. Here are a few: The Global Methodist Church, The Free Methodist Church, The Wesleyan Church, The Association of Independent Methodists, The Congregational Methodist Church and the Church of the Nazarene. There are others, too. Do your homework, but connect somewhere.

So, let the negotiations begin. I’ll be praying for all of you…both pastors and congregations. You’re in a new season of life.

Until next time, keep looking up…

Where Have You Been So Long?

/ pastorlynnmalone / 5 Comments

It’s been nearly two years since I’ve written a blog post. There are several excuses I can make for that being the case. First, Vanessa and I bought a business and, believe it or not, it is time consuming. Second, the title of my webpage is “Not the Perfect Pastor,” and I’m not a pastor anymore, so there’s that. Third, leaving the United Methodist Church was painful. It would have been too easy to process my pain and grief by expressing anger and bitterness about the state of the United Methodist Church. I didn’t want that to happen, so I refrained from posting anything here.

So, you might be wondering (you might not) why are you posting now? Honestly? Because I got an email last week from WordPress that included an invoice for the webpage. I figured if I was going to pay for a website I might as well use it. That, and I need to reestablish writing as a discipline. I’ve developed other disciplines over the past couple of years, but writing is one that I actually enjoy, so I need to do more of it. I’m also not preaching as much so even writing sermon manuscripts has been lacking as a discipline. So, I’m paying for it. Might as well use it. I enjoy writing. Why not write more? Maybe when I do preach again, my sermons will be better because I wrote as a discipline. Anyway…

A New Beginning

Today is a new beginning in writing for me. I don’t know what this post (or this page, for that matter) is likely to become. I mean, really, Not the Perfect Pastor doesn’t really fit anymore. Though I’m still FAR from perfect, wearing the pastor title is no longer appropriate, but this is the webpage I’ve paid for, so I’ll use it anyway. Even though I’m no longer a pastor, I believe I still have a pastor’s heart. I see it everyday in the work I do with the general public and with my staff. And, though I’m no longer a pastor, I’m still called to ministry. The ministry I’m called to now is not vocational in nature. Actually, it’s quite freeing to not be dependent on the church for a living. It frees a person (or at least it’s freed me) to be less subtle in speaking to the body of Christ. The love for the body of Christ still runs as deep, but with God’s provision coming from outside the Church allows one to speak more prophetically, perhaps.

Speaking prophetically. I’m certain that is one of the great needs of the body of Christ in this day and age. I don’t fancy myself a prophet, but if I sense a word from the Lord to the Church, I’m bound to speak it. It might be the only gift I have to offer the Church at this point in life. Perhaps that is how the Lord is still “calling” me to ministry. My prayer is that if the Lord is calling me to a prophetic ministry, that He will give me grace to speak in helpful ways that grow the Kingdom. I know how some (all) of the Old Testament prophets were received. If it still works the same way, I’m not relishing the call.

Oh, I’m open to being a pastor if that’s where the Lord is still calling. I’ve been in conversations with a number of churches that have disaffiliated from the United Methodist Church about serving as their pastor. Vanessa and I haven’t yet sensed the need in answering that call, but we’re open and those kinds of conversations will continue, so I’ve learned to never say never where God is concerned.

I’ve also been blessed to serve my new tribe (the Evangelical Methodist Church) by preparing informational literature for the denomination to share with UM churches that have reached out to the denomination asking questions about their future. It’s a small thing, no doubt, but it has helped to affirm the Lord’s continuing call in my life. I pray it has been helpful to others, as well. I also have the privilege of serving the EMC as a member of the Mission Status Board for a small church in West Virginia. What is that, you ask? It is a board established by the denominational leadership to give guidance to a local congregation in determining its future. Yes, those kinds of things can be done via Zoom. We do live in a changing world.

So, ministry opportunities abound, but writing needs to be part and parcel of all of them. So, I start writing again. Forgive me when I vent. Be patient when I share what I believe to be a prophetic word from the Lord. Be kind in your rebukes and rebuttals. More than anything, be strong in the Lord. He is our Rock and our Salvation. Join me in this new journey, won’t you?

Until next time, keep looking up…

Some Hero I Turned Out to Be…

/ pastorlynnmalone / Leave a comment

David and Goliath. We all know the story, right? By my account, I’ve preached it six times in my years of vocational ministry. That’s a lot, too, but, hey, it’s a great story. I really shouldn’t even call it a story. Calling it a story reduces it to the level of legend or myth. Perhaps I should use the word “encounter,” or “episode.” Gives more credence to the reality of the occurrence.

Either way, it certainly is more than a “story,” especially when one considers that this story has been retold times too numerous to count in books and movies and television shows. Yes, we’ve seen the story retold as football teams, big business vs. small business, bully vs. the new kid, etc. Everyone has a giant to face, and whenever, or wherever someone has faced overwhelming odds or obstacles, the metaphor of “David vs. Goliath” shows up. Even non-Christians are aware of the reference. Now, that makes it a powerful “story.”

And, let’s not even talk about how much we love an underdog story. There is something hopeful to be found for all of us when we see the underdog prevail. It’s makes us want to believe we can overcome, too. It gives us encouragement and determination. It gives us grit and perseverance. Yes, indeed, we love to hear this story retold, and we always like to believe we can identify as David, that whenever we face a giant in our life, that we’ll have the faith of David to fight through the circumstances and overcome. Hey? It happened once, it can happen again, right? You just gotta’ believe!

Looking for a Hero

I’ve preached the encounter that way, too! Yes, David is a hero. He becomes the hero for the nation of Israel after his defeat of Goliath. I’ll not recount the entire story for you here (to read it click here), but I will set the stage for you. A rather talented young shepherd boy by the name of David (the youngest son of a farmer named Jesse), has been clandestinely anointed king of Israel by a prophet named Samuel because God has rejected Israel’s first king (a man named Saul).

David soon finds his way into King Saul’s court because of David’s musical ability–David’s ability to play music soothes the mental instability of the King, so he splits time between the palace and the pasture of his father, Jesse. On one of his trips to his Father’s pastures, dad asks him to go check on his three older brothers who are serving in King Saul’s army, which has gone out to battle against the Philistines.

David’s journey to check on his brothers brings us to the Valley of Elah where for 40 days the giant Goliath has taunted Saul and his army, challenging them to send out a single man to do battle with him. No sense in an entire army perishing, right? Send out one man and we’ll settle this thing. Of course, not a single Israelite answers the challenge, lest of all the King himself.

David arrives to discover the cowardly nature of the nation’s army. He’ll rectify the situation. He’ll face the giant. He’ll defend God’s honor. He’ll become the hero. Oh, and he’ll win a bounty, and beauty (the King’s daughter for a wife) and an eternal tax exemption along the way.

We know how the story goes. David takes five smooth stones and heads to the battlefield. He encounters Goliath, employs his slingshot, lands a rock to Goliath’s forehead to disable him, advances and retrieves the giants own sword, kills him and cuts off his head. He slayed the giant! He overcame the great obstacle. He became the hero of a nation.

Now, all that remains is for me to learn the lessons of David and I can overcome the giants in my own life. I, too, can become a hero…a hero for God, even…if I can just develop the faith of David. I just want to be like David.

If I can be like David, I can face the giant of fear in my life. If I can be like David, I can overcome the worry in my life, or the doubt, or yes, even the sin in my life. I’ve heard this encounter preached this way. I’ve even preached it this way. It makes for great sermon material, too.

Lessons from David

We can learn some great lessons from David’s encounter with Goliath that make for great encouragement when we face those giants in our lives. One of those lessons comes very early on in the encounter. David arrives, and once he’s assessed the situation and determines that he can take on the Philistine, he’s immediately attacked by his own brother, Eliab. But, David doesn’t take the bait, he doesn’t let others distract him. He knows who the real enemy is. When others say he can’t, he knows he can. He knows where the real battle lies.

Yes, that’s right! I can’t be distracted by others who tell me I can never overcome the giants of fear, doubt, worry or division. I must know where the real battle lies. I must know who the real enemy is. No distractions, but sheer determination will help me to have the faith of David, and I too, can become the hero.

Another great lesson I learn is to recall God’s faithfulness. That’s what David does. When he is challenged by his brother and even King Saul concerning his capacity of overcome the giant, David recalls how God was with him when he kept his father’s sheep against lions and bears. He slew them all with a club. God was with him then, he’ll be with him as he defeats this Philistine.

Yes, that’s right! I just have to stop and recall all the times in my past when God was with me and brought me through overwhelming circumstances. I know. It’s hard to see them in the moment, but we all know how it is to look back and wonder how we ever came through a challenging time. It’s only when we look back that we see God’s faithfulness. Simply recall the positive, the victories and the challenges, and I’ll have the faith of David. I’ll face every giant with confidence, and I’ll become the hero!

Those are not the only lessons I learn, either. I can be encouraged in learning that I am called and gifted by God to do great things. All of us are, right? Certainly, David understood that he had to be himself, to use his gifts for God’s glory. King Saul tried to give David Saul’s own armor to go to the battle. David put it on, and it only took him a few steps to realize that he couldn’t wear another’s armor. He had to fight with the weapons he know. He knew rocks and slingshots. That’s what he would use.

It is such an encouragement to know that God has made each of us as unique individuals, and that He gives us permission to be ourselves. As a matter of fact, He takes all our gifts and past experiences to mold us for every battle that lies ahead of us. If I can simply master my gifts and employ them in God’s service, if I can find my “sweet spot,” then I can develop the faith of David and slay the giants in my path. I’ll be a hero on the battlefield!

Missing the Point

Those are all lies, though. At least they have been in my life. Yup! I still fight fear and worry and doubt, and every time I do, I seem to lose, no matter how much I remember these lessons from David. I can never seem to have his faith in the times I need it most. Some hero I turn out to be. Yet, I still believe the lies the preachers told me when they preached that I needed David’s faith. I believed it so much that I preached it myself…more than once!

Though I believed the lies of my own preaching, I have come to realize that David actually points me to the truth I need to discover–that the battle belongs to the Lord. That’s what David tells the Israelites, and thus he points to the real hero of the encounter. The only problem is that the Israelites miss the point. They still make David the hero. And, we still do, too.

We think if we can just be like David, if we can just have enough faith, we won’t be intimidated by the giants we face in life. Oh, yes we will! That’s because there will always be a bigger giant to face. If we were to read back further in 1 Samuel, we’d discover the nation wanted a king. Every other nation around had a king, why couldn’t Israel have a king, too? The nation rejected the Lord in favor of the tallest and best looking guy around (Saul). Saul, as their king, would fight their battles for them. He was great…until he wasn’t. He was the best of the best, until Goliath. There will always be a bigger something to face.

David pointed to that which was beyond himself–and, we know he was pointing us to Jesus Christ, who was the Lord’s anointed. David pointed out the fact that it would be God who was glorified in the victory. For the disciple of Jesus Christ, our lives are lived for His glory. Our lives are not about us overcoming our giants. That makes us the hero. It’s not about me overcoming my giants. If I overcome them, that makes me the hero, and I’m no hero. On my best day, I’m a cowering, sniveling sinner. I need Jesus!

Finding Our Hero

We are not David in the story, and our fear, worry, doubts, etc., are not our giants. They might be our idols, but not our giants. The giant in my life is SIN, and I simply cannot defeat it. Yes, David slew Goliath, but David was pointing Israel (and us) to Jesus. See, David couldn’t slay the giant of his own sin. Bathsheba lay in his future (no pun intended). David, giant slayer that he was, needed Jesus, too.

The whole episode was a foreshadowing of the greatest battle ever fought–the battle between Jesus and Satan on the cross of Calvary. It was the final battle between good and evil, between life and death, and Jesus defeated Satan once and for all. Jesus is the hero. He’s my hero. He’s our hero. What do you think he meant when he uttered the words, “It is finished” with his dying breath (John 19:30)?

Without Jesus, the battle we fight with our sin is a battle we will always lose. With Jesus, it is a battle we can never lose.

How do we win the battle? Surrender! Surrender to Jesus. That is the paradox of our faith–we win through surrender. Jesus won by the surrender of Himself to the Father’s will…to the cross. How do I slay my giants? Surrender them to Jesus. Surrender myself to Jesus.

My fear? Surrender it to Jesus. My worry? Surrender it to Jesus. My doubt? Surrender it to Jesus. My guilt? My shame? My sin? Myself? Surrender all to Jesus. He’s the hero! He’s my hero! Is He yours?

Until next time, keep looking up…

When the Honeymoon is Over…

/ pastorlynnmalone / Leave a comment

You know my friend, Boudreaux? I think I’ve told you about him before. Well, Boudreaux and his wife, Clotile, go down to St. Peter’s Catholic Church, and down there at St. Peter’s, they hold weekly husband’s marriage seminars.

At the session one week, the priest asked Boudreaux, who was approaching his 50th wedding anniversary to Clotile, to take a few minutes and share some insight into how he had managed to stay married to the same woman all these years.

Boudreaux replied to the assembled husbands: “Well, I’ve tried to treat her nice, spend the money on her, but best of all is, I took her to Italy for the 25th anniversary!”

The priest responded: “Boudreaux, you are an amazing inspiration to all the husbands here! Please tell us what you are planning for your wife for your 50th anniversary?”

Boudreaux proudly replied: “I’m gonna’ go pick her up.”

A METAPHOR FOR GRACE

Oh, that life were that easy, right? We all know it’s not. Those of us who have been married any length of time know that marriage is hard work. As we continue resetting our understanding of God’s grace and how we experience our relationship with God, I remind us that our relationship with God can somewhat be compared to a relationship of a husband and wife in marriage. There is the courtship stage of the relationship, where one partner “woos” the other, inviting them into a relationship. That courtship stage, when God is wooing us into a relationship with Himself, we experience God’s prevenient grace.

Then, there is the moment we say “I do” to God, when we are, by grace, able to acknowledge that God desires to have a relationship with us…we hear His voice…and we say “Yes” to Him. That moment, that part of the relationship, we experience the justifying grace of God. We experience the forgiveness of our sins, and we are given new life in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. As a husband and wife stand before the altar and publicly proclaim their love and say “I do” to each other, so we proclaim our love and commitment to Christ.

Something happens after the wedding ceremony, though. Yes, I know we like to think it’s called the honeymoon, and there is that honeymoon phase of marriage that everything seems to be wonderful. Of course, I can say I’ve been on an almost 40-year honeymoon, but that’s for another day. Seriously, though, we know what happens…and it’s called life. It is God’s sanctifying grace that sustains us over the long haul of life. It is His grace made real in the challenging times, in the everyday times…when life happens.

A CALL TO HOLINESS

Sanctifying grace is God at work in us through the Holy Spirit to transform us. Our journey, our spiritual journey, is a journey toward transformation. When we come to Jesus Christ and he forgives our sin and gives us a new start, that’s not the end of the journey. In that moment, Jesus does something for us. If justifying grace is God doing something for us, sanctifying grace is God doing something in us. The something He desires to do is make us holy. We hear that word “holy,” and we think, “Who me? Holy? No way.” Yet, that is the life Christ call us to.

Let me pause here and insert that living a holy life is not living a holier-than-thou life. None of us will likely ever live a sinless life, at least that’s been my experience—but that could just be me. Certainly, John Wesley taught that not only does Christ deliver us from the consequence and penalty of sin, but he also delivers us from the power of sin.

As we journey through this life, there will always be temptations to sin. There will be challenges to our faith. There will be crises that cause us to doubt. We will deal with death. We will deal with disease. We will deal with difficult people. We will be angry. We will be frustrated. That’s life! In those times, we need grace, and God gives us grace so that we need not surrender to the baser instincts of our fallen nature. Christ gives us new life. Christ gives us new hope. It is Christ who sustains us through the journey.

The holiness Christ call us to is different than sinlessness. As Wesley taught it, and we understand it, holiness is nothing more…but also nothing less…than love for God and love for neighbor. It is to love as God loves. Jesus gave us two great commandments. We find them in Mark 12: 29 – 31: “The most important one,’ answered Jesus, ‘is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

Holiness is about growing up in love. It is growth, and as I anticipate the coming of summer and that first ripe tomato of the season, I’m reminded that growth is a process. We don’t miraculously love as God loves. Oh, that it would be so simple. Growth is a process, and holiness is a process. Yes, there is, in one sense, where we are made holy by the work of Christ on the cross, but holiness that is lived out occurs over time. Don’t be surprised if you didn’t wake up the day after you accepted Christ living a holy life. But also, don’t be surprised if he begins a work in you, too.

C. S. Lewis

C. S. Lewis, perhaps the greatest theologian of the 20th century, explains it this way. When he was a child, he often had a toothache, and he knew that if he went to his mother, she would give him something which would deaden the pain for that night and let him get to sleep. But, Lewis said, he did not go to his mother–at least not till the pain became very bad. And the reason he did not go was this: He did not doubt she would give him the aspirin; but he knew she would also do something else. He knew she would take him to the dentist the next morning. He could not get what he wanted out of her without getting something more, which he didn’t want. He wanted relief from his pain; but he couldn’t get it without having his teeth set permanently right. And he knew those dentists; he knew they would start fiddling about with all sorts of other teeth which had not yet begun to ache. Our Lord, says Lewis, is like the dentists. Lots of people go to him to be cured of some particular sin. Well, he will cure it all right, but he will not stop there. That may be all you asked; but if you once call him in, he will give you the full treatment.

God’s sanctifying grace works on those problematic places…those sinful places in our lives. Conviction is part of His sanctifying work. Sure, most of us don’t wrestle with big sins…even the day after accepting Christ. You know, like murder and stealing and lying. No, what we deal with are much more subtle sins…like selfishness, jealousy, greed and envy. Those sins need transforming, too, and when we struggle with those along our journey, when they sap us of our energy and capacity to love, it’s then we need grace, and the promise of Scripture is that God gives us His grace—His sanctifying grace—to give us strength, to give us energy, to give us hope in the face of the struggle so that we move closer to the place…closer to the destination… closer to holiness

THE HARD WORK OF HOLINESS

Any relationship takes work. Whether it’s the relationship between a husband and wife, or between parents and children, friends or co-workers. If we don’t do the work to sustain relationships, they will break down and there will be distance between the persons in the relationship. In our relationship with God, it is God’s desire to make us holy. I think I’ve written before that God is not nearly as concerned about our happiness as he is about our holiness.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Romans 12: 1-2 (NIV)

The Apostle Paul, writing to the Roman Church, says “be transformed” (Romans 12: 2). That’s passive, my friends. Transformation is something that happens to us and in us. We can’t say, “I’m going to transform myself, I’m going to change.” We may give it the old college try, but we’ll most probably fail because it is God and His grace that does the work.

I hear you asking, “How?” What makes us holy? I remind us of the disciplines of the spiritual life—prayer, solitude, fasting, accountability.

Accountability? Let’s not blow by that one. Yes, accountability is a spiritual discipline. As followers of Jesus Christ, we must hold each other accountable to living the “holy” life-the Christian life. We are meant to do life together. We can’t simply watch a brother or sister in Christ who struggles with sin and not offer encouragement, correction and hope. Jesus didn’t mind challenging his disciples when their faith waned, and he certainly never backed down from challenging the Pharisees. That’s accountability at work, and it is a means of experiencing God’s sanctifying grace.

We know about bible study, too. There is another one without which no transformation will occur. It is the spiritual discipline of submission.

Submission is the spiritual discipline that frees us from the burden of always needing to get our own way. In submission we learn to hold things loosely. We also learn to diligently watch over the spirit in which we hold others— honoring them, preferring them, loving them.

Submission is not age or gender specific. We learn to follow the wise counsel of the apostle Paul to ​“be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Eph. 5:21). In Ephesians 5, Paul is introducing the “household code” for the Christian, and he uses the analogy of husband and wife in speaking of the idea of mutual submission, but this submission is not limited to that relationship alone. Each of us is to engage in mutual submission out of reverence for Christ. 

The touchstone for the Christian understanding of submission is Jesus’s statement, ​“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me (Mark 8:34).” This call of Jesus to ​“self-denial” is simply a way of coming to understand that we do not have to have our own way. It has nothing to do with self-contempt or self-hatred. It does not mean the loss of our identity or our individuality. It means quite simply the freedom to give way to others. It means to hold the interests of others above our own. It means freedom from self-pity and self-absorption. 

Indeed, to save our life is to lose it; to lose our life for Christ’s sake is to save it (see Mark 8:35). The cross is the ultimate symbol of submission. ​Again, the Apostle Paul writes, “And being found in human form, [Jesus] humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross” (Phil 2:7 – 8).

Jesus didn’t just die a “cross death.” He lived a “cross life” of daily submission to God the Father. We, too are called to this constant, everyday ​“cross life” of submission. It is as we submit to the Holy Spirit that He does His transforming work in us and we grow in holiness by His sanctifying grace. 

A man and woman had been married for more than 60 years. They had shared everything. They had talked about everything. They had kept no secrets from each other, except that the little old woman had a shoe box in the top of her closet that she had cautioned her husband never to open or ask her about.

For all of these years, he had never thought about the box, but one day, the little old woman got very sick, and the doctor said she would not recover.

In trying to sort out their affairs, the little old man took down the shoe box and took it to his wife’s bedside.

She agreed that it was time that he should know what was in the box. When he opened it, he found two crocheted dolls and a stack of money totaling $95,000.

He asked her about the contents. “When we were to be married,” she said, “my grandmother told me the secret of a happy marriage was to never argue. She told me that if I ever got angry with you, I should just keep quiet and crochet a doll.”

The little old man was so moved; he had to fight back tears. Only two precious dolls were in the box. She had only been angry with him two times in all those years of living and loving. He almost burst with happiness.

“Honey,” he said, “that explains the dolls, but what about all of this money? Where did it come from?”

“Oh,” she said. “That’s the money I made from selling the dolls.” 

Day after day, year after year, life happens and we make the daily choice to submit to the other, and we wake up forty, fifty years later and the love has grown deeper and more meaningful, and we discover our life in the other. Ultimately, the other for the disciple of Jesus, is Jesus Himself. We love Him and we love like Him. That is holiness. That is God’s sanctifying grace at work.

Until next time, keep looking up…

Click here for the video version of today’s blog…

Just Trying to Make a Point…

/ pastorlynnmalone / Leave a comment

Last Sunday was Easter Sunday. I thought I had a pretty good sermon. I had three points (which some folks argue is two too many!), and I thought I was well prepared to make all three points. I was wrong. I did a terrible job making my third point (judge for yourself by clicking here), so I figured I’d use this space to make the point I wanted to make Sunday.

I should have known it was not going to be a good day for preaching when I mysteriously turned a six foot white rabbit into a six foot white monkey in my opening illustration. It was pretty much down hill from there. Oh, the rabbit that mysteriously became a monkey was the pooka from the movie Harvey, starring Jimmy Stewart as Elwood P. Dowd. The premise of the sermon was a play off one line in the film–“the evening wore on” (See the clip here). Mark in his gospel uses a turn of phrase that is (to me) equally compelling–“just at sunrise” (Mark 16: 1-8).

The point? The sunrise (the resurrection) overcomes the darkness…of sin with the promise of forgiveness, of death with the promise of our resurrection, and of fear with the promise of eternal life. It was the last point where I failed to make my point (not counting the whole rabbit/monkey affair).

Here is what I said:

As the evening wore on, the darkness of death would also shadow the promise of eternal life, but just at sunrise the joy comes. The 24-hour news cycle is killing us. We hear the news, see the Facebook feeds and watch in amazement as the culture continues its steep decline. The evening appears to go on endlessly. We long for the sunrise. We wonder when will the night be over.

Are you looking for a sunrise? Turn off CNN and Fox News. Take a break from scrolling your Facebook feed, and pick up a bible. Open its pages and pray. There you’ll meet the risen Jesus, and you’ll experience the sunrise, and you’ll know a hope that never disappoints.

James Moore tells the story when The Saturday Evening Post ran a cartoon showing a man about to be rescued after he had spent a long time ship-wrecked on a tiny deserted island. The sailor in charge of the rescue team stepped onto the beach and handed the man a stack of newspapers.

“Compliments of the Captain,” the sailor said. “He would like you to glance at the headlines to see if you’d still like to be rescued!”     

Sometimes the headlines do scare us. There are times we feel evil is winning, but then along comes Easter, to remind us that there is no grave deep enough, no seal imposing enough, no stone heavy enough, no evil strong enough to keep Christ in the grave. God keeps his promises. We can’t always see it until the sunrise.

Maybe it wasn’t a bad point, but the point I really wanted to make is that the darkness of fear has overshadowed our deep theology surrounding death itself. If nothing else, the past year has shown that the church’s theology of death doesn’t extend much past the point of dying. I do have to be careful how I say this. It could too easily be politicized, and that is not my intention, at all.

It’s just that I’ve watched with some amazement over the past year as many “followers of Christ” acted as though death was absolutely the worst thing that could happen. Death, for a believer, is not the end. This life…this earthly life…isn’t all there is. The resurrection (Easter) is our reminder of the promise of eternal life.

We say in the Apostle’s Creed that we believe “…in the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.” The doctrine of eternal life is historic, orthodox Christian theology. Because of Easter we do not face death with fear, but with peace and with an assurance that Christ waits for us just beyond the veil that separates this life from the next one. Or, so the Apostle Paul taught the Corinthian church that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8).

It was also the Apostle Paul who shared his own inner conflict with the church at Philippi:

20 For I fully expect and hope that I will never be ashamed, but that I will continue to be bold for Christ, as I have been in the past. And I trust that my life will bring honor to Christ, whether I live or die. 21 For to me, living means living for Christ, and dying is even better. 22 But if I live, I can do more fruitful work for Christ. So I really don’t know which is better. 23 I’m torn between two desires: I long to go and be with Christ, which would be far better for me. 24 But for your sakes, it is better that I continue to live.

25 Knowing this, I am convinced that I will remain alive so I can continue to help all of you grow and experience the joy of your faith. 

Philippians 1: 20 – 25

Yes, I know that “eternal life” is more quality of life than quantity of life. I know eternal life is living a Christ-centered life now, but even acknowledging that fact should never diminish our understanding of the glory we shall one day share with Jesus Christ, Himself.

Embracing a broader theology of death doesn’t compel us to seek to become martyrs, nor does it cause us to take foolish chances with the gift that is this life, but it should free us from cowering in fear of death’s approach. The reality is that the death rate is 100%. If we live long enough everyone of us will die. And, we all know there are times when death does, in fact, come as a friend. The question becomes will we face death with confidence, hope and faith, or will we do so in the darkness of fear?

If we live long enough everyone of us will die.

Me? I’m going to chose to live in the confident expectation of eternal life because “just at sunrise,” hope dawned. Yes, I’m going to live today for Jesus. I’m going to love Him, and I’m going to love my neighbor, and by God’s grace, I’m going to love my enemy. I’m not going to hasten death (at least not intentionally), but I’m not going to live in fear of it, either.

It was April Fool’s Day 2007 and Vanessa and I had just dropped our daughters off for youth group at the church. We decided we needed our favorite indulgence, so we headed to the local Dairy Queen for a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Blizzard. We had made our turn onto the Main Street of our town and as we slowed to turn into the parking lot of the Dairy Queen, I looked in my rearview mirror and saw a car quickly approaching. I shouted to Vanessa, “Hold on, they’re going to hit us!”

Hit us, they did. I’m told by folks who witnessed the event that my truck flipped four times into the parking lot of the Dairy Queen. Thankfully, Vanessa and I escaped relatively unscathed with the exception of a few scrapes and bruises, but I told Vanessa later that as we were making those flips the only thought I had was, “Death ain’t no big deal.” I’ve since thought, “That’s the most expensive ice cream I never had!”

I share that story not arrogantly, but confidently…confident in the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ in whom I believe. That’s the point I was trying to make. I’ll not say it’s the whole point of Easter, but it is certainly one of the main points of it. And, it’s not to say that death is not a big deal. It is a big deal, but for the believer, it’s not the only deal, nor is it necessarily the worst deal.

I’m still not sure why I didn’t make the point better on Sunday. Maybe it was the rabbit that threw me off my game…or the monkey. Hopefully, I’ve made the point better here, but if not, there’s always next Easter.

Until next time, keep looking up…

Jesus Needs Your Ass…Again!

/ pastorlynnmalone / Leave a comment

So, this Sunday is Palm Sunday. Because I have several things going on this week, and in honor of Palm Sunday, I’m digging back into the archives of my previous blog, theunexpectedds.com for a replay of one of the most read blogs from that site. This post originally appeared March 21, 2013. Eight years seems like a generation ago. I’ve made a few edits, but enjoy the repeat! 😉

It really is dawning on me that I have to start preaching again every Sunday. I’m preaching this Sunday, and I’ve returned again to the lectionary to begin preparations. It should be easy, shouldn’t it? After all, it’s Palm Sunday. But, then again…it’s Palm Sunday. How does one remain fresh on a passage of Scripture that is preached every year at this same time. What is God saying to us this year that He hasn’t said for over two thousand years? Yes, I feel the pain of all my sisters and brothers who are busy preparing for their Palm Sunday sermon.

I have often sought to title my sermon and have the title serve as the “big idea” of the sermon. I try to let the Scripture guide me to the point of the message and then formulate a title around that point. That’s what I’ve been trying to do this week (while spending long hours in the Cabinet room dealing with appointments) and it’s a little more difficult because it’s Palm Sunday.

There is rich fodder in Luke 19:28-40. Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem for the final week of his earthly ministry is filled with imagery for good sermon titles, and points to make. Of course, there is the whole matter of expectations. The crowd had their expectations of Jesus. The disciples had their expectations of Jesus. The Pharisees had their expectations of Jesus. Jesus had his own expectations of what the week ahead was to be like, and he was the only one who knew what lay at the end of the week.

Imagine how our lives would be different if we expected that next week would be our last. I am reminded of what Steve Jobs said after he discovered he was dying with cancer: “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”

Yeah. I could do something with that. I might title it “Expecting the Unexpected” or “What Did You Expect?” That could work.

I might make something out of the whole idea of Jesus as Messiah. After all, that’s what this whole scene is about, isn’t it? I mean donkeys and palm branches take us back to prophetic readings in Zechariah and the Psalms that deal with the Messiah. Jesus was making a great proclamation by choosing to enter Jerusalem this way. We could talk about that, and I could have a title like “A New Kind of King.”

Let’s see…there’s the issue of Jesus crying. How about “From Cheers to Tears”?

Or, Jesus talking to the Pharisees about the rocks crying out in praise. Maybe “The First True Rock Star”?

I think what I really like is the part about Jesus, his disciples and the donkey. That’s an interesting account. Jesus simply sends his disciples to get the colt. “Go over there and get it. You’ll know it when you see it.” And, the disciples go, and sure enough they find the donkey, and sure enough, the owners asks the disciples, “What are you doing with my ass?” I can imagine the disciples’ response being, “The Lord needs your ass.”

Well, now, that’s a loaded question, and the response is equally as loaded. I can probably get a lot of mileage out of this point. Do we all have an ass Jesus can use? Not quite sure how the folks this Sunday would respond when they show up and the title of the sermon is printed across the bulletin “Jesus Needs Your Ass.” I suspect it would be somewhat akin to the reaction of the Pharisees when Jesus came riding into town that day. Hm? Maybe I’m on to something here.

This is a confusing scene for us who live in 21st century North America. Seriously, think of it this way. Two guys walk up to your garage, jump in your brand new Ford F-150, start it up and begin to drive away. You look at them and ask, “What are you doing with my truck?” One of the guys responds, “The Lord needs it,” and you just look dumbfounded as they drive away. If you’re like me, I’m calling the police to report a stolen vehicle. Not these owners on this day.

So why would they let the disciples take the donkey? Well, there might be this whole hospitality thing going on. Remember, it’s the beginning of the Passover week, and the city is teeming with activity. Travelers from all over the ancient world are making their way to Jerusalem. Hospitality was a big thing in 1st century eastern culture. To be known as inhospitable was one of the worst things you could be. To lend the donkey was seen simply as a way to help another.

Another reason may be pride on the part of the owners. Jesus was in town. I don’t think there would have been too many folks in Bethany or Bethphage that would not have known who Jesus was. Remember again, that it was only a couple days earlier that Jesus was in town doing a little thing like raising a guy named Lazarus from the dead. Recall the scene from John 11…there are a lot of people who witnessed that miracle, and word got around pretty fast. Jesus had made quite the name for himself in that little miracle. He was a famous rabbi now. There would have been honor in allowing a famous rabbi to ride my donkey.

Then again, some have suggested that Jesus had pre-arranged this scene. Perhaps the animal belonged to Mary, Martha and Lazarus, and Jesus had already made preparations with them for the disciples to come get the donkey. I don’t believe this to be the case, otherwise, Luke, the historian, one who is intentional in giving us details, would have given us a clue that this was what had happened. Surely this was not simply some pre-arranged business deal on Jesus’ part.

Perhaps there’s another reason. Perhaps the key is found in the use of the term “Lord.” Perhaps the owners knew who Jesus was, and when the disciples referred to “The Lord,” there was little doubt in the owners minds that Jesus was who he claimed to be. If Jesus needed something they had, to offer it to him would be an act of devotion and love. No, it became an act of worship.

Here’s why I believe this is the case. Two significant pieces of evidence: One, no questions on the part of the owners. What questions would you and I ask? 

  • What are you doing with my donkey?
  • Who is “the Lord?”
  • How far will you take him?
  • Will you bring him back when you’re done?

Again, these are not details Luke is likely to omit. But he does.

The second significant piece of evidence Luke gives us is the telling of the story of the king and the ten servants immediately preceding this scene. Jesus tells the story of the nobleman who went away to be crowned king, but before he leaves he entrusts his silver to ten of his servants. Upon his return he calls the servants to give account of his silver. The first two return the king’s silver with interest. The third, because he was afraid of the king, simply returned what had been given to him. The story is about stewardship. 

Then, Luke gives a living example of the parable…a man with a donkey, offering what he has to the Jesus. It was an investment, and no small one at that. This was a valuable asset for the owners. Think about wealth in the 1stcentury…often measured by the ownership of livestock. The ass was referred to as a “beast of burden,” meaning it was used to transport things…it was the 1st century equivalent of a moving van. But, the ass was used for various tasks around the family farm and so it was also the equivalent of the modern day tractor. And, then, like Jesus does in today’s passage, people would use the ass as a means of transportation…the equivalent of a car. A moving van, a tractor, a car…a very valuable animal indeed, and here, Jesus commands a brand new one, one that has never been ridden. This was no small request on Jesus’ part. This was a sacrificial gift.

The ass was a gift given to Jesus to help usher in the Kingdom. This was the dawning of the Kingdom. This unknown, unnamed person probably had little clue what he was involving himself in, but he knew Jesus, and he trusted Jesus, and he gave to Jesus…and literally, he helped usher in the Kingdom. His gift changed the world.

What is Jesus asking for from us? What do we have to offer that will usher in the Kingdom? What resource is available to be utilized to literally carry Jesus down the road?

“Sometimes I get the impression that God wants me to give him something and sometimes I don’t give it because I don’t know for sure, and then I feel bad because I’ve missed my chance. Other times I know he wants something but I don’t give it because I’m too selfish. And other times, too few times, I hear him and I obey him and feel honored that a gift of mine would be used to carry Jesus to another place. And still other times I wonder if my little deeds today will make a difference in the long haul.

Maybe you have those questions, too. All of us have a donkey. You and I each have something in our lives, which, if given back to God, could, like the donkey, move Jesus and his story further down the road. Maybe you can sing or hug or program a computer or speak Swahili or write a check.

Whichever, that’s your donkey.

Whichever, your donkey belongs to him.

It really does belong to him. Your gifts are his and the donkey was his. The original wording of the instructions Jesus gave to his disciples is proof: “If anyone asks you why you are taking the donkeys, you are to say, ’Its Lord is in need.’”

Max Lucado, And the Angels Were Silent, pg. 54

Our resources, our time, our money, our talents, our jobs, our families, our homes…our lives are gift from God for God. What has been entrusted to you for Jesus to use? What ass is Jesus asking for?

Nah! I probably won’t use that title. A bit too shocking. A bit too much to leave to the imagination. A bit too much to be misconstrued. It’s a novel thought, though. Maybe it’s time we were a bit more shocking in our preaching. After all, it will be a shocking end to the week when Jesus rises from the grave.

My! My! My! The task of preaching on Palm Sunday and Holy Week. What’s a preacher to do? I suppose it’s time to live into the reality that Jesus needs my ass.

Until next time, keep looking up…