Grace

Thanks, Bob…

/ pastorlynnmalone / 1 Comment

As a child I basically had three heroes. First was my Papaw (Willie Roberts). He was my mother’s dad. As long as I can remember he struggled with rheumatoid arthritis and was bed-ridden at the end of his life. He had an indomitable spirit, though. He never gave up. He persevered. He never complained about the pain. He just kept going, no matter what. 

My Papaw also showed me what grace is like. I think that’s because he had such a deep and abiding faith in Jesus Christ. It was his faith in Jesus Christ that made his a generous soul. He didn’t have much when he died. That’s because he had pretty much given it all away–either to his children, to the church or to Jimmy Swaggart! I like to believe I inherited any generosity I may have from my Papaw. He was one of my heroes growing up.

The second of my heroes as a child was my Paw (Bill Malone). He was my father’s dad. He was a merchant all his life. He first owned a general store back in the days when a general store was a thing. His was a Walmart long before there was a Walmart, and when he died he still owned a hardware store in my hometown. 

Many of my days not spent in school were spent at either Malone’s Grocery and later Malone’s Hardware. He gave me my first “paying” job sweeping floors, stocking shelves and toting feed bags for customers. 

Any business sense I have (ain’t saying I have a lot) I learned from him. Working for him I learned about inventory and inventory control. I learned about accounts receivable and accounts payable. I learned how to negotiate with vendors.

Customer service? He had it down to an art form. He bent over backwards to take care of his customers. You better believe there wasn’t a customer who asked for an item he didn’t have more than once. If he didn’t have it when they asked for it, he made sure it was ordered and he would have it on their next visit. It was easy to walk around Malone’s Hardware and see unique items on the shelves and you’d think “Why would he ever have that in here?” Well, it was because some customer sometime had inquired about the item. He’d never be out of it again! He might not ever sell it, but by God, it was now in stock!

I like to think I inherited my work ethic from him, too. He was operating that old hardware store the very day he had the heart attack that would eventually take his life. He worked hard…every day…seven days a week. Yes, even Sunday found him at the grocery store (gotta’ check the coolers) or the hardware store (getting the order ready for Monday morning) working. Retirement wasn’t in his vocabulary. I’m not sure it is in mine either, but after all, retirement isn’t a biblical concept, so…

My third childhood hero? Bob Barker! Saturday, which was an otherwise good day I spent working turned bittersweet when I arrived home, sat down (to cool off!), checked Facebook and discovered that Bob Barker died. I’m not gonna’ lie. My childhood mornings, if not spent in school or at the store, would be spent watching The Price is Right.

I wanted to be Bob Barker when I grew up. Bob just seemed so friendly. He acted like he loved everybody. He was happy to celebrate when a contestant won a prize. And, the contestants absolutely loved him. Oh, and he was a snappy dresser, too. I was mesmerized by Bob Barker. I wanted to be the host giving away all those prizes. I wanted to be that snappy dresser. I wanted the adoration of those contestants. I wanted to be on that stage, under those lights, telling contestants to spin that wheel. Weird, I know, but it’s true, so…

It was so bad that I even asked for The Price is Right board game for a birthday present. I got it, too! I would get my cousins (Kevin and Angie) and I would force them to play so I could pretend I was Bob Barker, and I usually put on my “radio” voice when we would play the game. I’m sure they thought I was crazy, but I didn’t care. I wanted to be like my hero.

Bob (I call him Bob because I felt as though I knew him) started his career in radio, so I thought that’s what I should do, too. At age 15, as soon as I could drive, I boldly drove to Jonesboro, LA, went into the local radio station (KTOC-AM & FM) and asked Ted Colvin for a job. He gave it to me! I started working nights and weekends as a DJ spinning country vinyl on the AM side, and at sundown (when the AM “went dark”), I would spin Southern Gospel vinyl on the FM until 10:00 p.m., when the station signed off. Spinning all those Southern Gospel records is probably where I got my love for quartet music.

I eventually graduated to the “big city” station in Ruston, LA (KXKZ-FM), where I worked weekends on-air. The pay sucked, but I loved every minute of it. In those days, we teenagers worked 8-hour shifts on both Saturday and Sunday. Surely, if I stuck it out, I’d be on my way to filling Bob’s shoes.

As a companion part of the plan, I convinced my high school principal (Mr. Black) to allow me to enroll in vo-tech in Ouachita Parish because they had a curriculum entitled Television Studio Technology. My junior and senior years of high school, I’d leave Chatham High School at 11:30 a.m., make the half-hour drive to West Monroe so I could be in class by 12:30 p.m., when the afternoon session of TV Studio Technology commenced. Surely, I was on my way to becoming the next Bob Barker.

Did you ever hear this old saying? “Want to make God laugh? Tell Him your plans!” The Lord must have been laughing at me all the time because He sure had other plans. I met a girl! A girl I really liked, I liked her so much that I quit my job at the radio station because I didn’t have time to date her. I decided I would much rather be with her than spinning all those records on Saturday and Sunday. Oh, yes! She was worth it…and she still is! Yes, the girl I met was Vanessa. She’s the girl I married and am still married to, and I wouldn’t trade the life we’ve made together for any other plan I ever made.

God’s plan was for me to spend my life in ministry. I’ll have to tell you the story I’ve come to call “The Case of Divine Evaporation” sometime, but as I look back upon my life during this morning of reflection, I see God’s hand guiding all the way, and I know the Lord used those childhood heroes to grow me into the pastor and person I am.

Without my Papaw, I wouldn’t know grace, faith and perseverance. Without my Paw, I wouldn’t have known budgets, entrepreneurism and customer service (which all served me well as a pastor and now as a business owner). And, I have no doubt that my desire to emulate Bob Barker made me a better preacher, not in terms of theology or preparation, but in terms of presentation.

So, there! God gave me three great childhood heroes. He used them all to put me into His plan. I’m grateful for and love all of them. Now, I have to get ready for church. Bill Malone taught me to work seven days a week.

Until next time, keep looking up…

The Pastor’s Heart or Prophet’s Voice…

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I’m approaching a milestone birthday, and no, I’m not going to say which one, but as it approaches I must confess that I’ve struggled greatly over the past few years with finding a balance between a pastor’s heart and the prophetic voice that is part of a preacher’s calling. The older I’ve gotten, the more I hear the prophetic voice dominating my reactions to things I see and hear around me. I find myself often wanting to stand up and shout, “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand!”

I often justify my reactions by the fact that one of my seminary professors many years ago said to me, “Lynn, you have the gift of prophetic utterance.” Then, he added, “That won’t often sit well with congregations you will serve. Find balance.” In recent years, I think I’ve lost that balance (if I ever had it).

I’ve actually probably never had balance. I’m going to admit that I’ve always tried to err on the side of the pastor’s heart. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, until I acknowledge the reason I did: approval addiction. I wanted to be liked more than I wanted to be obedient. I wanted to be a “successful” pastor more than I wanted to be an obedient disciple. The older I get, the more I realize that I need to call my own self to repentance. The older I get, the more I realize how much grace I need…and how much grace I’ve been shown. Helps to strengthen the pastor’s heart, but if I’m not careful it can quench the prophet’s voice. Lord, I need balance.

I think the prophetic voice is more predominate these days because I’ve been separated from the body of Christ. No, I haven’t left the church. I’ve preached plenty of times in plenty of places, but Vanessa and I haven’t called a single congregation home for a long time. I don’t count the two and a half years we served a small congregation (wonderful congregation, wonderful folks, good friends). It was where we attended worship, but time and distance prevented us (me) from investing ourselves in the life of the congregation in ways that form deep connections that nurture the pastor’s heart. That’s totally on me, not the congregation.

I admit. I was running a new business and I was investing way more time and effort in that enterprise than I was in nurturing the congregation. For that, I owe them a sincere apology. They deserved better. It was during that time that I sensed my preaching moving toward the prophetic voice, and I lost a sense of the pastor’s heart. See, if you try real hard, you can justify anything, but just because something is justifiable doesn’t mean it is justified. Then again, maybe I’m just getting older. Maybe it’s just that I’m suffering from GOMS (grumpy old man syndrome), and I don’t feel the need to be liked as much.

Of course, it could be that I look around me and see our culture and the church coming off the rails. I mean really, who would have thought…even 10 minutes ago…that we’d be having a cultural conversation concerning sex change operations for children? FOR CHILDREN! (<<<<<that’s me shouting in my most prophetic sounding voice). Or, that Congress would be holding hearings on the matter and having trouble deciding if it is “gender-affirming care,” or “genital mutilation.”

The prophetic voice in me wants desperately to shout that the practice of sex change operations for CHILDREN is getting awfully close to the Old Testament practice of child sacrifice. The prophetic voice in me wants to shout Genesis–

So God created mankind in his own image,
    in the image of God he created them;
    male and female he created them.

Genesis 1: 27 (NIV)

Let’s start the debate there and see where it leads us. There are just some things in this world that are immutable. Maybe we need the prophet’s voice to remind us.

Then, I remember when the pastor’s heart was more real to me, and I consider the circumstances and issues that bring a child and his or her parents to such a decision and I want desperately to show compassion and empathy and grace. I want desperately to understand what brought them to this place so that I might in some way be in ministry to them, to lead them to the Truth in Jesus Christ. And, I realize that can never happen until there is a deep relationship that is formed between us. That relationship can only be formed in the context of community…the community that is found in the church.

I need a church home. We all do, really. Without a church home, I know the prophetic voice will increasingly dominate my calling and I’ll continue to see the pastor’s heart diminished…for the worse, I think. For those who aren’t pastors/preachers, without a church home you’ll likely grow more cynical and self-centered (but maybe not) as you get older. Just another sign that we all need grace…and balance.

So, Lord, I’m looking for balance…balance between the prophet’s voice and the pastor’s heart. If it’s true that I have both, I don’t want to lose either. May the Holy Spirit guide us all to the place of full obedience so that we might be perfectly balanced in the center of His will.

Until next time, keep looking up…

Confirmation of My Imperfection…

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Yup! It’s been that kind of week. The kind of week you’d rather get a do-over. I won’t bore you with all the details (your week may have been worse than mine), but suffice it to say this week confirmed for my that the name of my personal website (nottheperfectpastor.com) is the correct one.

Here’s the first evidence that my imperfections reared their ugly head. People! The world would be a great place if it weren’t for the people. That’s a terrible thing for a pastor (well, soon to be pastor) to say. Not only for a pastor, but for a business owner, too. Without people there are no customers. No customers mean no money. No money means no business. Yup! We NEED people, but sometimes…

I try desperately to show respect to others. I also try to exercise common courtesy when engaging with others. I must be terribly old school, though, because I’m seeing very little in the way of respect for or courtesy toward others. Or, perhaps I’m just not looking for it (could be another of my imperfections).

Three separate events keep playing over and over in my mind, and every time I re-live one of them, my blood pressure goes up and I get a little red in the face. Every time, I have to say a little prayer of repentance and patience, and also remind myself that my consternation with the situations (and persistently reliving them) are both signs that I need as much grace as the people who have raised my ire. So, there’s that…

Uh, huh! I know I’ve got you wondering what happened. I said I wouldn’t bore you with details, so I won’t go into too deeply (sorry! I’m trying to think of something to write since it is Sunday and I want to keep the discipline of writing on Sunday lest not doing so becomes another sign of my imperfection) on the details, and doing so might compromise other people and I really don’t want to do that (oh! the imperfections). So, here goes nothing…

This literally happened! We replaced a couple of parts on a customer’s vehicle this week. Got the job done. Took care of the problem. Two days later the customer calls and asks to speak to me. “Sir, those parts you put on my car, one of them is chrome and the other is black. Why is that?” My answer is, “Because those were the only two parts the parts house had to fit your vehicle” (the parts are not visible unless you get under the vehicle). Long story short, the customer wanted us to replace one of the parts so they would match. Really!

I can’t tell you what I really thought, or what I really wanted to say (and might have under my breath). Just know that the end of that conversation prompted a moment of repentance, a prayer for patience and deep gratitude for grace.

So, let me ask you? If you were to quit a job, would you have the courtesy and consideration to say to your boss, “This isn’t working out for me. I’m leaving”? Or, “Hey, you’re a terrible boss. I’m outta’ here!”? Perhaps even, “I have a better opportunity, so I’m done”? Wouldn’t you at least say something on your way out the door?

No! Just don’t show up. Don’t call. No, “Kiss my foot” (yeah, I thought of the other word) or anything. No respect. No consideration. No courtesy. That happened not once this week, but twice. It is the nature of the quick lube industry (or so I’ve been told), but seriously, I’m beginning to develop a complex. I’m beginning to think not only am I not the perfect pastor, I’m not the perfect boss either, but still, how hard is it to show a little respect to others.

The Holy Spirit (as the Holy Spirit so often does) used those encounters to put me in my place. He heard my prayer for patience and soon turned my thoughts toward those who departed. What events in their lives might be happening to prompt such actions? Perhaps I had not earned their trust as a boss? Maybe I need to hone my hiring practices and skills? Maybe, just maybe, Lynn Malone, YOU are the problem. At the end of the day, there was a moment of repentance, a prayer for more patience and deep gratitude for grace.

And yesterday, let me tell you! It’s bad enough when you have a flat tire, but having a flat tire on your wife’s birthday when you’re taking her to dinner and movie, well I hope you can imagine. So, we’re stuck in a hot parking garage. I intentionally parked in a far away parking spot knowing that when we came out of the movie that I was going to be changing a flat tire.

This event really caused what one old preacher friend labeled “the unregenerate portion” of me to show itself. First, roadside assistance with State Farm is well, let’s just say that Jake is not my friend. Seriously! You mean to tell me in all of Shreveport/Bossier City on a Saturday afternoon at 4:00 p.m., you can’t find anyone to offer roadside assistance? I can’t believe you tried very hard. I should move on from this one since I have a daughter who works for a State Farm agent.

Now, get this when you think about being considerate of others. Here we are, really off to ourselves near the entrance of the parking garage and there a literally 600 other parking spaces nearby…and I mean literally 600 spaces. I’m in my spot with the tailgate raised and tires and spare tires lying around and my wife’s van on a jack. A car pulls into the garage and which spot does the driver choose? You guessed it! The one right next to mine…on the same side as the flat tire…that I’m attempting to change! 600 (literally 600) other spots and you pick this one? Can you see the redness of my face as my blood pressure rises?

Honestly, I thought some things a disciple of Jesus should never think. At least I didn’t say them, though when I’m reminded of the Apostle Paul’s words to the Philippian Church, “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Phil. 4:8) I realize how woefully short I’ve fallen, whether I actually said anything or not. Let’s just say that there was another moment of repentance, a prayer for patience and deep gratitude for grace.

The before…

It really was all my fault anyway. Had I put the portable air pump back in my wife’s van the last time I used it, the flat tire would have been about a ten minute fix. But, I didn’t put the air pump back in her van. Imagine the irony of a guy who sells tires for a living not having the equipment to fix his own flat tire. Yeah! I was a bit mad at myself, too! Grace was found however in having a daughter who lives in Bossier City dutifully jump to the rescue by going to Auto Zone, buying a new portable air pump and delivering it to her stranded mom and dad (she even brought Nothing Bundt Cakes, too!).

The after…

The entire week has been an experiment in patience and a lesson on grace. I’m even going to confess that I considered not attending worship this morning, too, but I need another lesson in grace. I am grateful to have the opportunity to worship this morning with the body of Christ to be reminded that we have a Lord who loves us, gave Himself for us and pours Himself out continually for sinners like me (sinning is the only thing I seem to do rather perfectly). I need to be reminded that we are all in need of grace and that grace is exactly what He extends to every one of us. And, I will go to a Methodist church where hopefully I’ll be reminded that it is His grace that will draw us closer to Him and deeper into discipleship as He grows us toward holiness. Want you join me?

Until next time, keep looking up…

Staying Grounded…

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Some of you may be wondering about the title of today’s blog—Staying Grounded. I’ve written about change the three previous blogs (click here, here and here to read those), and now I’m telling you to stay grounded? It’s hard to stay and change at the same time.

We’d prefer things “stay” the same but we know they don’t stay the same. Change is inevitable, and it’s imperative that we negotiate change in the most life-giving, constructive way possible. One of the ways we do that is by staying grounded. I did not say by staying still. I’m talking about staying grounded in those unchanging truths in which we find our being.

Joshua had one final task as the leader of the nation of Israel: to prepare them for the change from nomads and warriors to settlers and inheritors.

24 Then Joshua summoned all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, including their elders, leaders, judges, and officers. So they came and presented themselves to God.

2 Joshua said to the people, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Long ago your ancestors, including Terah, the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River,[a]and they worshiped other gods. 3 But I took your ancestor Abraham from the land beyond the Euphrates and led him into the land of Canaan. I gave him many descendants through his son Isaac.

Joshua 24: 1 – 3 (NLT)

14 “So fear the Lord and serve him wholeheartedly. Put away forever the idols your ancestors worshiped when they lived beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord alone. 15 But if you refuse to serve the Lord, then choose today whom you will serve. Would you prefer the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates? Or will it be the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now live? But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.”

16 The people replied, “We would never abandon the Lord and serve other gods. 17 For the Lordour God is the one who rescued us and our ancestors from slavery in the land of Egypt. He performed mighty miracles before our very eyes. As we traveled through the wilderness among our enemies, he preserved us. 18 It was the Lord who drove out the Amorites and the other nations living here in the land. So we, too, will serve the Lord, for he alone is our God.”

19 Then Joshua warned the people, “You are not able to serve the Lord, for he is a holy and jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins. 20 If you abandon the Lord and serve other gods, he will turn against you and destroy you, even though he has been so good to you.”

21 But the people answered Joshua, “No, we will serve the Lord!”

22 “You are a witness to your own decision,” Joshua said. “You have chosen to serve the Lord.”

“Yes,” they replied, “we are witnesses to what we have said.”

23 “All right then,” Joshua said, “destroy the idols among you, and turn your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.”

24 The people said to Joshua, “We will serve the Lord our God. We will obey him alone.”

25 So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day at Shechem, committing them to follow the decrees and regulations of the Lord.

Joshua 24: 14 – 25 (NLT)

It’s been seven years since the walls of Jericho came tumbling down after the people of Israel marched around it blowing trumpets and shouting. The rest of the book of Joshua tells us the nation of Israel spent those next seven years overcoming no less than 31 kings as they took possession of the land promised to Abraham all the way back in Genesis 12.

Joshua, who has been the spiritual and political leader of the nation, calls the nation together one last time to worship and express gratitude to God before dismissing them to settle into their inheritance. Joshua is old now and he sees the need to call them to a special place for a special reason to give them a special message.

Grounded in a Special Place

Joshua calls the people together at Shechem. Shechem was a holy place in Israel’s history. Shechem was the first place given a name in the Promised Land. Shechem was also the place where Abram (before he was Abraham) built an altar to God who called him out of Ur, and it was also at Shechem that Jacob built an altar and buried idols under the oaks of Moreh. Calling the nation together at Shechem was sort of like a homecoming.

You remember homecomings, right? I remember growing up that both sets of grandparents anticipated their annual homecomings. Packing up the care with chicken pie and chocolate cake, fried chicken and banana pudding we traveled to New Prospect Church in north Jackson Parish, or to Zoar Methodist Church in the far reaches of south Jackson Parish. We arrived to greet old friends and family we likely hadn’t seen since last year’s homecoming, and those old folks would share stories and remember. 

Homecomings are places to remember our foundations and our beginnings. Through the sharing of our stories, we recall where we’ve come from, and we are put in touch with those people and places that have made us who we are. Homecomings are also a time to share plans and dreams for the future. Homecomings are a way for us to stay grounded as we face changing times.

The homecoming at New Prospect Church has long since ceased, but every year, I receive a reminder from the organizers of the Zoar homecoming announcing a clean-up day for the old church. Every May, we gather there to worship, and eat, and catch up, and eat, and remember, and eat. There are no regular worship services there. Those have gone the way of so many little country churches. I used to make excuses for not going to that homecoming. It used to be on Sunday, so I had a ready-made excuse. They moved it to Saturday but still few people come. It seems we younger generations don’t see the need to be part of those homecomings anymore. Perhaps that’s one reason we’re losing our foundations. We’re not staying grounded. If we are to know where we’re going, we must have a clear understanding of where we’ve been. Joshua called the nation to Shechem to help them stay grounded, to remind them of their past.

Grounded in a Special Reason

Joshua had a special reason for calling them back to this special place. It was in this special place that Joshua reminded them of the covenant God made with the people of Israel. Joshua took this opportunity to renew the covenant for the fourth time in the nation’s history. God made the covenant with Abraham back in Genesis. God renewed the covenant with Moses after the exodus from Egypt while there were at Mt. Sinai. God renewed the covenant a second time at Moab after the nation ended its wilderness wanderings. God renewed it a third time here in the book of Joshua after the nation won battles at Jericho and Ai.

Verses 4-13 of Joshua 24 recounts the history of God’s deliverance of Israel. From Abram’s call, through the lineage of Isaac, Jacob and Esau to the deliverance from Egypt, Joshua tells the story of the nation. From the wilderness wanderings to Balaam’s blessing, to the most recent victories over these 31 kings, over six hundred years of the nation’s history is shared in a few short sentences. 

The story is Israel’s story. Even though it’s Israel’s story, Joshua reminds the people that God alone is the actor. Over twenty times in these few short verses, God is the subject in the sentences. God is quoted as saying, “I took, I gave, I sent, I brought, I struck, I delivered, I made.” Three other times the word “he” refers to God. Six times God “gave,” five times God “brought out of,” or “into.” “You” is used only five times, and each time, it’s the direct object. Here’s your English grammar lesson for the day—the direct object is the receiver of the action of the subject. The point is clear: Israel’s story finds its significance only because of the gracious acts of God, not by means of her own strength. Israel’s story is significant because it is connected to God’s story.

Each of us has a story. Each of our stories are marked, each in their own way, by dramatic, though sometimes tragic events fixed in time. Our stories are important aspects of our spiritual lives, and they are important to God because He is the author and the director of our stories. But our stories never have full meaning and significance until we realize and remember that it is not what we have done, but what God has done for us. Our story becomes powerful only when we connect it to the larger story of God’s redemption, when we build bridges from our story to the Christ story, and the subject of our story becomes God instead of ourselves. 

The Apostle Paul reminds us of the crux of our story. Here’s where we find our grounding:

Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins. 2 You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil—the commander of the powers in the unseen world. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God. 3 All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone else.

4 But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, 5 that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!) 6 For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 2: 1 – 6 (NLT)

If we are to negotiate the tumultuous winds of change, it will be as we stay grounded in God’s story. Joshua called the nation of Israel to this special place to remind them of the necessity of staying grounded in God, who is the center of every story.

How do we do that? Let me offer one suggestion—the old hymns. They have much to teach us. We love the new songs. Many of them are great, but if we only listen to new songs it becomes too easy to divorce our present and future from our past. We lose our grounding. Singing in the early church was a method of learning…the story…and the theology.

Grounded in a Special Message

While they were gathered at this special place for this special reason, Joshua seized the opportunity to give them a very special message. “Choose today whom you will serve…” is the message Joshua delivered that day. There had been a problem with idolatry in the nation, and Joshua needed to remind them that to claim the promise of God meant they needed to remove the idols from their lives. Joshua asks plainly, “Will you serve the gods of your ancestors, will you serve the gods of the Amorites whom you are among now, or will you serve the Lord?” Then, he goes on to say, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

The key word in the text is “serve.” To serve means to work, worship, or perform. Work and worship are closely connected. Whatever we give ourselves to most diligently is the thing we generally worship. We are by nature spiritual creatures, and we will worship something because we were created by God to worship. If we don’t worship God, we’ll end up worshipping something of our own creation.

If we spend our lives worshipping money, or fame, or position, or celebrity, or work, or sports, or even family we will come to the end of our journey with nothing left to do but bow before those gods and worship, for we have spent all our time, and all our lives pursuing them. Those are not the places to stay grounded. Stay grounded in God through our work and our worship to God.

Serving God doesn’t mean we become involved in every Christian activity the church or the world offers. Serving God is something much more basic than that. First, our service is to be exclusive. We cannot honor God and serve other gods at the same time. Jesus made that abundantly clear in Matthew 6:24. 

Serving God means we remove everything that competes for our loyalty to God—money, success, perfection, education, family, and even Christian activities. All these are means to an end; they are not the end. Staying grounded means removing the idols from our lives because God requires our exclusive service.

How do we keep these things from becoming idols? Money? By tithing. Success? By focusing on the Kingdom of God first (Matt. 6: 33) and then the success of others. Family? Go to church together!

Secondly, serving God must occupy our every attitude. We must die daily to self, and that is sometimes a long, slow, painful death. We realize everything we say or do becomes an expression of our allegiance to Him. The way we say hello, the ways we acknowledge other persons, the way we respond to the least, the last and the lost reflect our relationship to Him. We serve God by caring, by praying, and by practicing hospitality. God, in Jesus Christ, died to redeem us. Let us live to serve Him. That is how we stay grounded in changing times.

We’re not always so good at living to serve God, though. Think back with me to the Garden of Eden. God gave Adam and Eve the command to guard and serve the Garden. It was the same verb Joshua used on this day. Adam and Eve found no idol in the Garden to serve, they bought the lie of the Serpent, and ended up worshipping themselves. What a failure!

Unfortunately, we know Israel’s failure through the years because we have the record of the Bible. More unfortunate still, we know our own failure. We get selfish, proud and competitive. We have our own goals and agendas and we don’t quite make ourselves available to serve God. We try to serve Him while holding on to the things we want. We live constantly between the tensions of two worlds, and the between the gods of those two worlds.

As it was for the nation of Israel, it is for us today—the choice is before us. Which will we choose? Thank God, we have grace and the Holy Spirit to guide influence our decision.     

Let’s return to the old saying, “The times, they are a changin’!” Our lives are constantly changing. Our culture is constantly changing. This church, too, is changing. Successfully negotiating these changing times means we must stay grounded by remembering our history, by remembering our place in God’s story, and by serving God with all our hearts!

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…

When the Honeymoon is Over…

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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…

Spiritual Seeking…

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There is a phenomenon happening in the West that has been given the name “spiritual seeking.” The focus of spiritual seeking is on personal experience, the sacred and the soul. There is little doubt in my mind as I reflect on the religious landscape of our nation that spiritual seeking, with its emphasis on individualism, choice, and quest for meaning is exerting profound changes on traditional religion. The Gallup Organization says that 80% of all Americans believe that an individual should arrive at his or her own beliefs independent of any church. That’s spiritual seeking with an emphasis on individualism. 

I mention spiritual seeking because we think it’s something we came up with. Long before we were spiritually seeking, God was seeking us. We who follow the tradition of John Wesley know that (or, at least we should). When we, as Wesleyans, talk about God’s grace, we see His grace made real in our lives in different ways at different stages. But, all grace is rooted in a relationship–the relationship that God desires to have with us through Jesus Christ. As Methodists in the Wesleyan tradition, we believe that God in His grace came seeking for us, and we know it as God’s prevenient grace.

Just as a reminder, grace is God’s saving acts toward us–His precious, unmerited favor. We don’t deserve it and we can’t earn it, yet God, in love, extends His mercy toward us to reconcile us to Himself–to have a relationship with Him.

That’s as it should be, right? Right! Because relationships are important to us. Vanessa and I are coming up on 40 years of marriage this year (it seems like only yesterday!). You may find this hard to believe, but Vanessa and I didn’t hit it off when we first met. We met in high school. I was the home-grown boy, and she was the new girl. Came from somewhere up north is all we knew, and she talked funny, too. She thought I was a jerk, and I probably was. After all, I was fifteen years old, and most—no, all—fifteen-year-old boys are prone to being jerks. It’s called testosterone, and it’s part of the male condition.

Ours was a relationship that started off from a distance, hard to understand with little effort put into it. But it was a relationship, nonetheless. Everyone from Oprah to Dr. Phil spend time dishing out advice on how to handle our relationships because we spend so much time trying to figure out relationships. First with our parents, then with that special someone we grow to love, then our children (especially if they are teen-agers!). Then there are neighbors, co-workers, friends and extended family.

We have so many relationships to keep straight that we almost overlook one relationship that is the most important one of all, our relationship with God. Our relationship with God often goes unnoticed until the day we come to faith in Jesus Christ, and then we go to work reading our Bible, attending church, praying and serving God. We think our relationship with God began the day we came to faith. And you might be right. Our relationship with God did begin the day we came to faith, but God’s relationship with us, now that is another matter altogether. Listen to what the prophet Isaiah said long ago as he communicates his understanding of the depth of God’s knowledge of who Isaiah was:


“Listen to me, all of you in far-off lands! The Lord called me before my birth; from within the womb he called me by name.” (Isaiah 49:1)

And the prophet Jeremiah, announcing his ministry to the nation of Israel could proclaim:


“The Lord gave me a message. He said, [5] "I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my spokesman to the world.” (Jeremiah 1:4-5)

Both of these Old Testament prophets understood that God had a relationship with them long before they were aware of it, and that fact, in its bare essence, communicates the idea of prevenient grace. Let me illustrate.

The Bible is God’s story. The earliest chapters of the Bible reveal a God who is seeking a relationship with humanity. In chapter three of Genesis, after Adam and Eve had sinned by eating of the forbidden fruit, God appeared toward evening and called out to Adam and Eve, “Where are you?” Yes, the story begins with a seeking God. God seeking humanity to reconcile us to Himself.

God’s story finds Him offering this relationship with Noah (Gen. 9: 8-13), with a nomadic livestock trader named Abram (Gen. 12: 1-3). God renewed his covenant search for the redemption of humanity with Moses after God delivered the Israelites from their Egyptian slavery (Exodus 19:3-6). God sought a man after His own heart in King David, and it was David who said, “It is my family God has chosen! Yes He has made an everlasting covenant with me. His agreement is eternal, final, sealed” (2 Sam. 23:5).

Humanity broke God’s covenant, but He continued to search. The prophet Jeremiah prophesied:


“The day will come,” says the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. This covenant will not be like the old one I made with their ancestors...They broke that covenant, though I loved them as a husband loves his wife,” says the Lord. “But this is the covenant I will make with them...I will put my laws in their minds, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people...And I will forgive their wickedness and will never again remember their sins.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34)

God’s new covenant was made real for us in Jesus Christ. On the night Jesus was arrested he was gathered with his disciples. There he took the bread, blessed it, and told his disciples to eat it for it was his body. Then he took the cup of wine, and blessed it, and with the cup said to his disciples, “Drink this cup, for this is my blood, which seals the covenant between God and His people. It is poured out to forgive the sins of many” (Matt. 26:28).

That’s right, God took the initiative in the relationship with His creation, and He, through His Son, Jesus Christ, takes the initiative in His relationship with us. When we were powerless, God moved in His Son Jesus Christ so we could experience what the Apostle Paul calls “friendship with God.” It is through a wonderful thing called grace that we experience God’s friendship. And we thought it all started when we “got saved.”

The idea of prevenient grace can be summed up by saying, “God has been busy searching for us in order to have a relationship with us.” One of my seminary professors defined “prevenient grace” as “grace that goes before.” In other words, prevenient grace is God reaching out to us even before we know it. It is a grace that prevents us from moving so far from God that we cannot respond to God’s offer of love.

Prevenient grace is seen in the most quoted verse of the Bible–John 3:16—“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosever would believe in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” Jesus himself said, “I come to seek and save that which is lost” (Luke 19:10). Our response to God’s seeking is our response of faith. Prevenient grace is God working in our lives from the moment we are conceived until that special moment when we, by faith, receive God’s free gift of salvation.

The experience of God’s prevenient grace may be different for all of us. The experience of prevenient grace can come through friends, family members, parents or grandparents, even events may serve as vessels of God’s grace. Prevenient grace is also made real through the church as the church faithfully administers the Word and the Sacraments. Every sermon preached, every song sung, every time the elements of communion are received, every time a person is baptized, it is a testimony to the fact that God is seeking a relationship with us. The Holy Spirit is active in and through all these elements to make God real in our lives. 

There is a profound reason we Methodists baptize infants. The sacrament of baptism is our acknowledgement, our assent of faith that we believe in prevenient grace. We proclaim that God is at work in this child’s life even before he/she is aware. It is not an acknowledgement of salvation. No, we must respond in faith to God’s call, but we affirm the presence of God’s grace.

The Holy Spirit also speaks directly to our own hearts and minds as we face life every day. Even our conscience becomes a tool of the Holy Spirit in making us aware of God’s presence and calling. The Holy Spirit courts us, woos us, encourages us, calls us, but never forces us, to repent, turn to God and receive eternal life.

Max Lucado, in No Wonder They Call Him the Savior, tells the story of Maria and her daughter Christina. Longing to leave her poor Brazilian neighborhood, Christina wanted to see the world. Discontent living at home having only a pallet on the floor, a washbasin, and a wood-burning stove, she dreamed of a better life in the city. 

One morning she ran away, breaking her mother’s heart. Her mother knew what life on the streets would be like for her young, attractive daughter, so Maria quickly packed to go find her daughter. On her way to the bus stop, she went to a drugstore to get one last thing—pictures. She sat in the photograph booth, closed the curtain, and spent all the money she could on pictures of herself. With her purse full of small black-and-white photos, she got on the next bus to Rio de Janeiro. 

Maria knew Christina had no way of earning money. She also knew that her daughter was too stubborn to give up. Maria began her search. Bars, hotels, nightclubs, any place with the reputation for street walkers or prostitutes. At each place she left her picture–taped on a bathroom mirror, tacked to a hotel bulletin board, or fastened to a corner phone booth. On the back of each photo she wrote a note. It wasn’t too long before Maria’s money and pictures ran out, and Maria had to go home. The tired mother cried as the bus began its long journey back to her small village. 

A few weeks later, Christina was coming down the stairs in a seedy hotel. Her young face was tired. Her brown eyes no longer danced with youth but spoke of pain and fear. Her laughter was broken. Her dream had become a nightmare. A thousand times she had longed to trade all those countless beds for her secure pallet. And yet the little village seemed too far away. As she reached the bottom of the stairs, her eyes noticed a familiar face. She looked again, and there on the lobby mirror was a small picture of her mother. Christina’s eyes burned and her throat tightened as she walked across the room and removed the small photo. Written on the back Maria had written this: “Whatever you have done, whatever you have become, it doesn’t matter. Please come home.” 

And Christina went home.

God is the same way. He wants us to come home. It doesn’t matter what we’ve done. It doesn’t matter what we’ve become. We can always come home to Him. It is like Maria, reaching out for her daughter even when her daughter didn’t realize it. 

It is like God reaching out to us while we are living a life of sin and we are lost and yet, Christ is there, reaching, longing, desiring to bring us home.

It is prevenient grace. Like Vanessa and I began a courtship over 40 years ago, so God began a courtship with us long before we were aware. Like Isaiah and Jeremiah, even from our mother’s womb, He called us. Are you “spiritually seeking”? Good, there is a God who loves you who is spiritually seeking you, too!

Until next time, keep looking up…

My Word for the Day…

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It’s Tuesday! That means I have to write something. No, there’s no law that says I do, and it’s only been a few weeks since I didn’t write on a Tuesday (I wrote on Wednesday that week), but writing has become a discipline for me, so it is a way for me to hold myself accountable. Of course, if you’re going to write, it helps to have something to write about. Paraphrasing an old preacher: “It’s better to have something to write than to have to write something.” Yet, I write for the sake of writing. I suppose this is your invitation to join me in my scattered thoughts.

TRUST?

There is one word on my mind today that I really should write about. That word? Trust. Actually, what’s on my mind in the trust that is lacking in our world today. It bothers me. Hardly anyone trusts anyone else these days. Democrats don’t trust Republicans. That’s fine. Republicans return the favor. Average everyday citizens don’t trust the government. That’s fine, too. The government pretty much returns the favor.

I could expand the thought to include the lack of trust that exists in the religious world, too. Let’s face it, the Roman Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal, the split in the Anglican communion and the soon-coming split in the United Methodist Church has created an environment where trust has been greatly diminished in the venerable institution that is called “The Church.” I could write more on the lack of trust in the church, but it wouldn’t be helpful in restoring trust (it might actually hurt), and as disciples of Jesus Christ, we’ve been committed the ministry of reconciliation, so I’ll just move on from the topic.

Of course, there is a growing distrust of our educational institutions, as well. Let’s see? What are people distrustful of? “Progressive” curriculum. Parents who chose to home-school. Teacher’s unions. The student loan debacle. School closings during the pandemic. I don’t know, these seem to only be scratching the surface of where people are displaying their mistrust of the educational institution.

I could probably go on, but I hope you get my point. Trust, or the lack thereof, is on my mind this morning, but I refuse to let distrust dominate my thoughts today. Rather, I’m going to chose another word–grace. Why? Because as I ponder the trust deficit among us, I am concerned about the part I’ve played in increasing that deficit, and I am reminded of how much I need grace.

GRACE

I am going to chose this morning to allow my mind to be drawn to what has been called the Magna Carta of grace:

     8 God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 9 Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. 10 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

Ephesians 2: 8 – 10 (New Living Translation

Grace, God’s grace is the only thing that will save us, and I need it in abundance, not only today, but everyday, so I’ll focus on His grace today, rather than my distrust. God’s grace can take a heinous murderer and turn him into the world’s greatest evangelist. That’s powerful stuff right there!

Need I remind you of the Apostle Paul? When the church was in its infancy, Paul was a Pharisee threatened by the insurgency being created by these rabble rousers who followed an itinerant rabbi put to death by the Roman authorities. Paul was so zealous to squash this “movement” that he went and offered himself as a bounty hunter to the religious authorities so he could hunt down these people who followed “The Way.”

He was successful, too. The Book of Acts tells us a young man named Saul was consenting at the death of Stephen. But, we also know Paul as the person who would pen 13 of the 27 books of the New Testament. We also know Paul as the person most responsible for modern Christian theology, and we know Paul as the person most responsible for the spread of Christianity into Europe. This Paul, would place God’s grace at the center of his theology, and thus it became the center of ours, too.

It would be really easy to define grace again, but rather than do that, I invite you to click here. Suffice it to say that for reasons I don’t fully understand, yet rooted in the nature of God, God gives Himself to us, attaches Himself to us, and acts to rescue us. Because of His mercy and love, God saves us, and that saving is a result of God’s grace. If we were to read Ephesians 2: 1 – 7, we would see that Paul is clear—wrath should have come, but grace comes instead. The gospel of grace says God gives Himself to us without any preconditions or complaints, and if so, then we are given significance, and we find our value in God’s relationship to us. The attention is not on us, though, but upon the One who loves us so deeply. 

THE CHALLENGE OF GRACE

The gospel of grace challenges us. It challenges us by the very fact that a murderer’s life can be changed. We applaud the Apostle Paul for the transformation that God did in his life. Our trust in the gospel of grace wanes though when we think about Jeffery Dahmer (caution–graphic material). Dahmer was a child molesting, cannibalistic, serial killer responsible for raping, murdering, dismembering and consuming 17 men and boys. After his arrest and conviction Dahmer had, by all accounts, an authentic conversion to Christianity. He experienced the gospel of grace, and that makes us incredibly uncomfortable.

Why are we surprised that God could do that for Jeffery Dahmer? He does it for us, doesn’t he? J. D. Walt, who was Dean of the Chapel at Asbury Seminary for a while, expresses this sentiment in a recent devotional:

“Grace is incomprehensibly comforting yet incomparably devastating. Grace kills the human made economy of performance and merit. Grace breaks down every good thought (and every bad thought) I have about myself and replaces them with God’s good thought about me alone. He does the same for Jeffrey Dahmer and Saul of Tarsus. In and of myself, I bring before Almighty God the same merit that they do– which is none. If I can enter on these terms, I will receive the very same gift they do– which is everything. If I can’t exchange my nothing for God’s everything, just like everybody else, Jesus may as well be speaking to me when he says, ‘Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you’.”

J. D. Walt, The Seedbed Daily Text

There is so much more I want to write about grace, but my time is short this morning. I’m simply going to put distrust out of my mind and focus on the wonderful gift God has given me (and you, too!)–the gift of grace. I need to catch a glimpse of the Kingdom of God this morning. By grace, I’ll see it. I have to trust Him. I have no other choice. May I invite you to do the same?

Until next time, keep looking up…

Sometimes, I Just Need Reminding…

/ pastorlynnmalone / Leave a comment

The holidays are upon us yet again, and for that I am grateful. Not only is it the best time of the year, but this year, it indicates that 2020 is almost over! If there’s ever been a time when I couldn’t wait for a year to be over it’s this year. Of course, there is no way I’m going to say 2021 has to be a better year. That will jinx it for sure, so I’ll just stick with “I can’t wait for 2020 to be over!”

The holidays usually have their own unique stressors, but 2020 (as with everything else) will be unique in that the usual stress will be compounded by the added stress of Covid-19. Rather than the stress of parties and plans, it will be the stress (depression?) of canceled plans. If we follow the “guidelines,” we’ll all have a Zoom Christmas this year. I must confess that I’m grateful to not have the stress of making decisions about Christmas Eve services. I pray for my colleagues who are!

Photo by Oleg Zaicev on Pexels.com

So, I’m taking a little time this morning to remind myself of advice I’ve offered believers almost every year for the past twenty years. I find the advice in Paul’s love letter to the Church at Philippi. The encouragement he offers the Church there is encouragement to me as we head into the holiday season, and it actually works pretty well the rest of the year, too.

THINK TO THANK

Paul begins his letter to Philippi with gratitude: “Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God” (Phil. 1:3). Gratitude seems like an appropriate place to begin the holiday season. If you’ve been in the local stores, you would think that Thanksgiving has been skipped this year. Hey? We’re doing it at home, too. People put up their Christmas trees and lights in October in an effort to hasten the year’s end. Trust me! It didn’t get here any quicker.

Let’s not forget to be thankful…even for the year 2020. Gratitude can set the tone (change the tone?) for all that is happening in our lives. Even in the midst of a pandemic there is much for which to be grateful. What can we be grateful fo? I’m glad you asked. We can look to Paul for an answer.

First, we can be grateful that we are not alone (even though “officials” are encouraging limited gatherings). Paul called the Philippians “partners in spreading the Good News” (v. 5). We need to acknowledge and express our gratitude for those who share the life of Christian faith with us. We, indeed, are not alone.

One of the buzz phrases of the pandemic (although we don’t hear it as much lately) has been “We’re all in this together” (though an argument could be made that we’re not “together” [see here]). We all do share the same stress of the pandemic, that much is true, so in that regard we are not alone. But, as believers in Jesus Christ, our faith journey is shared with other believers, and there is hope in that for us, and we should be grateful.

Ironically, the holidays are the loneliest time of the year for many people. Whether the death of a loved one, a divorce or the empty nest syndrome, a first holiday season with changed circumstances can create its own type of loneliness (and it will be made worse by the pandemic). We are the body of Christ, and we have the body of Christ (even in a pandemic) to share life with. We are not alone!

Of course, that means we shouldn’t let others be alone either. We should look for ways to reach out to those who may be experiencing loneliness this holiday season. Perhaps it’s the neighbor who lost a spouse this year. Perhaps it’s a friend who has gone through a divorce, or a parent who lost a child. Whoever it may be, discover ways (yes, even in a pandemic) to reach out to share hope and the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Another thing for which I can be grateful is that God is still working on me. Paul writes to the Philippians, “And I am sure that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on that day when Christ Jesus comes back again” (v. 6). That’s Good News! I can’t read this verse and not consider a Wesleyan understanding of “sanctifying” grace. It simply means “God is still working on me!” (Some would say He’s got a lot of work to do, but that’s another blog!)

Here’s something I consider, too. If God is not done with me yet, then there’s a better than even chance that He’s not done with whomever I encounter this holiday season. When I’m impatient with a cashier, I need remember that they are in need of grace, too. Why shouldn’t it be me who will extend them that grace, and in the process the Lord may teach us both something?

Yes, I need to think to thank…

LIVE TO LOVE

Paul’s love for the Philippian Church was evident in his letter. He writes:  God knows how much I love you and long for you with the tender compassion of Christ Jesus. I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding (v. 8-9).

I am reminded of the Christmas hymn Love Came Down at Christmas. It was love that came down so that Jesus could give his disciples a new commandment–love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12). The point is made vividly in a prayer I came across some time ago:

Heavenly  Father, Help us remember that the jerk who cut  us off in traffic last night is a single mother who worked nine hours that day and is rushing home to cook dinner, help with homework, do the  laundry and spend a few precious moments with  her children.

Help  us to remember that the pierced, tattooed, disinterested young man who can’t make change  correctly is a worried 19-year-old college student, balancing his apprehension over final exams with his fear of not getting his student loans for next semester.

Remind us, Lord, that the scary looking bum, begging  for money in the same spot every day (who really ought to get a job!) is a slave to addiction that we can only imagine in our worst  nightmares.

Help  us to remember that the old couple walking  annoyingly slow through the store aisles and  blocking our shopping progress are savoring this moment, knowing that, based on the biopsy report she got back last week, this will be the last  year that they go shopping together.

Heavenly  Father, remind us each day that, of all the  gifts you give us, the greatest gift is love. It is not enough to share that love with those we hold dear. Open our hearts not to just those who are close to us, but to all humanity. Let us be slow to judge and quick to forgive, show patience, empathy and love.

May I live to love this holiday season.

COMMIT TO CHRIST-LIKENESS

For the believer in Jesus Christ, character matters. Paul reminds the Philippians (and us) “what really matters, so that we may live pure and blameless lives” (v. 10). Lord knows, we are not perfect, but that should not preclude our continuing pursuit of perfection as we grow in Christ-likeness. I remind us that Paul was writing to a young church that had few examples. We have over 2,000 years of church history and faithful saints. We are without excuse in pursuing holiness–not always attaining, yet always pursuing.

Paul says we should “filled with the fruit” (v. 10) of our salvation. We know that fruit, right? Love, joy, peach, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22). We should bear the characteristics of a Christ-like life. Otherwise, the world will never know the grace of salvation that comes in Jesus Christ.

Our commitment to live the Christ-like life comes before we enter the fray. Commitment comes before engagement. We begin every day with the end of the day in sight. Jesus came, wrapped in swaddling clothes. Long before that first Christmas, the commitment to the cross had been made. Long before the cross, God the Father made the commitment to forgive the sins of the world through His Son, Jesus Christ.

If we are not committed to Christ-likeness before the holidays begin, it is not likely we will live in Christ-likeness through the holidays. If we were not committed to the Christ-like life before the pandemic, it is not likely that we’ve exhibited much Christ-like behavior during the pandemic. I must commit to live like Christ this morning if I expect to model Christ this afternoon.

One way I can do that is to focus on the person who is behind any behavior I encounter throughout each and every day. Focus on people over behavior–not that behavior doesn’t matter, but it is the person Christ died to save, and by grace behaviors can change. I must know what’s important and I must value love, mercy and grace over impatience and inconvenience.

We are called to gratitude, love and grace. I need that reminder heading into the holiday season. Perhaps you do, too.

Until next time, keep looking up…

Lessons in the Walmart…

/ pastorlynnmalone / 2 Comments

Y’all! I’ve got to tell you a story. Prayer works. It really does!

Anyone who knows me knows how little I care for going to the Walmart and it’s only gotten worse since Covid (actually, I’ve not cared for going into any retail establishment since Covid, but that’s another blog). But, I had to go to the Walmart the other day, so…

Hurricanes have a way of changing a person’s plans. Mind you, I’m not comparing the damage done by Hurricane Delta to our home to the destruction she caused many in southwest Louisiana, but they can sure be challenging to all of us.

In the days following the storm, my honey decides that she wants to change up the room we recently renovated (let’s call it a re-renovation–forced, but still…). She decides to take out a wall and make a large den in that part of the house, which basically means we no longer need the new television, so having never even opened the box, we decide to return it.

So, I take off a couple of days last week just to catch my breath after a big project at work. It seems to be an opportune time to return the television that, yes, we should have returned much sooner, but you know how those things go, right? I load the television (in its original, unopened box), get the receipt from my honey and head to Walmart.

I pull into the parking lot and my anxiety level increases just from that simple exercise. I utter this prayer: “Lord, by Your Spirit, give me peace and patience so that I don’t say or do something that both you and I will regret.” Now, I’ve discovered that when I pray for patience, He never grants me patience, but gives me opportunity to practice patience. Well, the Lord answers prayer!

I walk into Walmart holding this bulky 52″ television and the lady at the door looks at my receipt and directs me toward the customer service counter. “No problem,” I say to myself, “that’s what I expected.” Of course, making my way to the customer service counter I discover six people in line ahead of me and one customer service rep (ever try social distancing with a 52″ TV in your arms across the front aisle in Walmart?). So, here comes the frustration.

One by one, the customers make their way up to the counter. Every time one completes a transaction, I pick up the TV and move six feet forward. Twenty minutes later and a change in customer service reps (must have been break time) I make it to the counter. I tell the lady that I’d like to return the TV, to which she looks at me and says, “You’ll have to return this in electronics. We can’t take it here.”

What? Before I know it, these words slip out of my mouth–“Why couldn’t someone have told me that twenty minutes ago? And, why didn’t the lady a the front door tell me to head to electronics?” And, no, the expression on my face was not my usual angelic self.

The patient lady simply said, “I’m sorry, you’ll have to go to electronics.” Not her fault, I know, but now I’m frustrated. All the way back to the electronics counter I feel the frustration rising and my mind is constructing ten different scenarios that have me waiting another twenty minutes to return the TV. Finally, I stop and remember the prayer I prayed before I walked into the store. My heart is at peace once again.

I make my way to the electronics counter and I see two customers. “Not too bad,” I think. One customer finishes her transaction as I arrive, and the other customer (with a basketful of groceries) pulls up to the counter, and I think, “Oh, no! Here’s the twenty minutes I was afraid of.” But, the lady only wanted to ask a question, so she was soon on her way.

I approach the counter, tell the cashier I’d like to return the TV, and she asks for the receipt. I give her the receipt. She looks at it and says, “We can’t take this back. We have a 30 day return policy on electronics.” (I suppose I should check the fine print on those long receipts, but really…I missed it by 10 days!)

Yes, my jaw dropped and the redness in my face grew. I remembered the prayer I just prayed a few minutes ago, and with all the sincerity I could muster, said, “But, ma’am, I haven’t even opened the box!”

“Why do you need to return it?” she asked.

“Because the wall we were going to hang it on was crushed by a tree, and we don’t need it anymore,” came my response.

She inspected the box all over to confirm that we hadn’t opened it. She looks at me and says, “A manager will have to make this decision.” Ah! So, here’s the twenty minutes I was afraid of. She calls the manager. A mere five minutes later a manager shows up, looks at the TV and says, “Take it back.”

Whew! I breath a sigh of relief. During those five minutes I envisioned having to sell a brand new, still-in-the-box 52″ TV on Facebook Marketplace for half-price just to get rid of it. And, I’m thinking of all the snide comments I’m going to make when the manager says he/she can’t take it back. As usual, I was worried for nothing.

The lady begins the transaction and asks if I have the debit card that was used to purchase the TV (otherwise, you get store credit). I did. I handed her my card, she looked at my name and said, “You’re Lynn Malone?”

“Uh, yes,” I replied.

“Are you from Chatham?” she asked?

“Uh, yes,” I replied.

“You know my mother and grandmother,” she said.

She proceeded to tell me their names, and yes, I had known her grandmother all my life, and I attended school with her mother. It’s a small world, really, and for five minutes we had old home week. I left the electronics department at Walmart feeling much less frustration, but more than that, I was grateful the Lord had answered my prayer that I would not say or do anything that would both he and I would regret. Trust me! Had I let frustration get the best of me, that story would have made it back to Chatham quicker than I could, and it would have diminished my witness, but more importantly, it would have stained the name of Jesus Christ.

Like most preachers, I have a knack for making short stories long, but that notwithstanding, I’ve pondered a few lessons since that trip to the Walmart.

One lesson is not to play “What if…” in my mind. What if there are ten customers in line and I have to wait thirty minutes? What if they don’t take the TV back? We created scenarios in our mind to cause worry over things that may never happen. Certainly, the scenarios that could have played out at Walmart are nothing compared to what many people face every day, but the human proclivity is to “What if” in the most dire circumstances. We cannot “What if” our way through life and expect to find the peace of God that passes all understanding in Jesus Christ.

Another lesson I learned in the Walmart is that this really is a small world, and that anywhere we go, there is someone who is likely to know us, or know someone who knows us. It’s that whole “six degrees of separation” thing, I suppose, but it is a reason to be kind and gentle in every situation. Of course, those are both fruit of the spirit, too, so there’s that…

A lesson I had confirmed is that the Lord does answer our prayers, and I’m grateful He answered mine that day. The problem is that we don’t often take the time to offer prayers. We get too busy to pray. One thing is for certain: the Lord can’t answer the prayer that isn’t prayed.

I also reminded myself of a lesson I’ve tried to teach the congregations I’ve pastored through the years: Pray before we enter the fray. Someone once said that the problem with life is that it happens so daily. We prepare ourselves for the challenges of life through prayer as we begin the day, or as we head into stressful situations. Yup! We pray in the middle of challenging times, but if we haven’t prepared for the challenging times through prayer, it may often feel like our prayers are bouncing off the ceiling. Pray…at all times…pray, but let each morning begin with that heavenly conversation. It will set the tone for the rest of the day.

Sorry I took such a long time to make a few weak points, but I never expected a trip to the Walmart to yield positive fruit in my life. Perhaps the catharsis of my sharing will help make us all more attentive to the grace all around us. We can experience God’s grace in every place…if we’ll just pay attention…even, in the Walmart.

Until next time, keep looking up…