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What Happened to the Church Gathering?

/ pastorlynnmalone / Leave a comment

Questions About Participation, Preaching, Communion, and the One-Hour Worship Service

Fair warning: This post is longer than most. I’m supposed to be writing a blog, not a book. Even so, these four questions belong together, so I hope you will persevere to the end.

In my last post, I considered three questions about church leadership: the role of the senior pastor, denominational hierarchy, and professionalized ministry.

Today, I want to turn from who leads the church to what happens when the church gathers.

Four of my original eleven questions belong together:

  1. Is the church supposed to be a gathering of non-participants?
  2. When did church gatherings become sermon-centered?
  3. When did the church lose its weekly commitment to the Lord’s Supper?
  4. Were early church gatherings limited to one hour?

Once again, I am not standing outside the church criticizing what everyone else is doing. I have planned and led more worship services than I could possibly count. I have selected songs, prepared sermons, written liturgies, scheduled volunteers, administered Communion, and watched the clock—yes, that clock that hangs above the back door.

I have worried about whether the service flowed smoothly. I have shortened parts of the service when I knew my sermon would be long. I have felt the pressure to finish on time. I have also stood at the door after worship hoping people were pleased with what they experienced.

I am not questioning practices in which I have merely participated. I am questioning practices I have helped create and continue to perpetuate. That doesn’t necessarily make those practices wrong. It does mean I should be willing to examine them.

Is the Church Supposed to Be a Gathering of Non-Participants?

Most churches say they want people to participate. We invite people to sing, pray, give, serve, and respond to the sermon. Even so, most of what happens during a typical worship service is performed by a relatively small group of people.

The pastor preaches. The worship team sings. The musicians play. Designated people pray, read Scripture, make announcements, receive the offering, and serve Communion. Everyone else watches, listens, and participates when instructed.

There are practical reasons for that arrangement. A worship gathering needs order. Not everyone is gifted to preach, sing, teach, or lead publicly. Giving everyone an opportunity to say whatever is on their mind could produce something closer to chaos than worship.

Paul certainly valued order. When addressing the church in Corinth, he instructed them that everything should be done properly and in order. But the same passage also presents a picture of participation that feels unfamiliar to many of us:

“When you meet together, one will sing, another will teach, another will tell some special revelation God has given, one will speak in tongues, and another will interpret what is said. But everything that is done must strengthen all of you.” (1 Corinthians 14:26 NLT)

Whatever else we make of that passage, Paul seems to assume that different members of the congregation will contribute something when the church gathers.

That reflects his larger understanding of the church as a body. Every member has a function. Every member has received gifts from the Spirit. Every member has something to contribute to the health and mission of the whole. How, then, did the gathering of the church become an event in which most people are spectators?

Perhaps part of the answer is that our gatherings became larger. Participation that might occur naturally in a home becomes more difficult in a room filled with hundreds or thousands of people.

Perhaps another part of the answer is our desire for excellence and predictability. We want the music rehearsed, the transitions smooth, the message prepared, and the service completed on time. Spontaneous participation is difficult to plan, control, and fit into the order of worship.

Again, none of those concerns is necessarily wrong. Preparation can honor God and serve the congregation. Disorder does not automatically indicate the presence of the Holy Spirit. But has our desire for order gradually eliminated meaningful participation? Have we unintentionally taught people that their role in worship is to arrive, sit down, sing when invited, listen to the sermon, and go home?

Attending a worship service is not the same as participating in the body of Christ.

When Did Church Gatherings Become Sermon-Centered?

I need to tread carefully here. I am a preacher. Preaching has been central to my calling and ministry for more than thirty-five years. I believe in proclaiming the gospel. I believe Scripture should be read, taught, explained, and applied to our lives. This is not an argument against preaching. It is a question about the place preaching has come to occupy in our gatherings.

In many Protestant churches, the sermon is the defining feature of worship. Even the architecture of our sanctuaries communicates the significance of the sermon—we have “pulpit-centered” sanctuaries. Everything before the sermon prepares for it. Everything after the sermon responds to it. The length of the service is often determined by it. I have heard church members call everything leading up to the sermon “the preliminaries.” Worse, I’ve heard pastors call it that!

If the music is exceptional but the sermon is poor, people may say the service was disappointing. If the pastor is absent, attendance sometimes declines because people prefer to wait until “the preacher” returns.

I know because I have helped create that expectation. I have promoted worship by telling people what I would be preaching. I have encouraged church members to invite their friends to hear a particular sermon. I have sometimes acted as though the congregation gathered primarily to hear what I had to say. Preaching matters, but was the sermon intended to carry so much of the weight of the church’s life?

The earliest Christians devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching. Teaching clearly mattered. But they also devoted themselves to fellowship, sharing meals—including the Lord’s Supper—and prayer. The church gathered to hear the Word, but it also gathered to pray, eat, share, encourage, discern, testify, give, and care for one another. Somewhere along the way, many of those elements moved toward the margins while the sermon moved to the center.

Prayer was shortened. Testimony became unpredictable and occasionally uncomfortable. Conversation was moved to a Sunday school class or small group. Shared discernment was assigned to a committee or leadership board. The Lord’s Supper became an occasional addition to the regular service. The sermon remained.

Perhaps that happened because a sermon is efficient. One person can prepare during the week and speak to the whole congregation at once. It is easier to control than open participation. It fits neatly within the allotted time.

It also reinforces the centrality of the pastor. The pastor studies. The pastor hears from God. The pastor explains what the Bible means. The congregation receives what the pastor has prepared. That arrangement may produce informed listeners. But does it necessarily form mature disciples?

People can listen to thousands of sermons without learning to read Scripture for themselves, pray with one another, discern the Spirit’s direction, articulate their faith, or participate in Christ’s mission. The question is not whether we should preach. The question is whether we have asked preaching to do what the entire body of Christ was intended to do.

When Did the Church Lose Its Weekly Commitment to the Lord’s Supper?

This question may expose the imbalance more clearly than any of the others. The earliest Christians gathered regularly around the Table. Acts tells us that they devoted themselves to the breaking of bread. Acts 20 describes believers gathering on the first day of the week to break bread. Paul’s instructions to the Corinthians suggest that the Lord’s Supper was a normal part of their life together—even if they were observing it badly enough to require correction.

The evidence may not allow us to establish that every congregation celebrated Communion every week in precisely the same way. Still, the Table appears to have occupied a far more central place in the early church than it does in many churches today.

How did we arrive at a pattern in which the sermon is offered every week while the Lord’s Supper is offered once a month, once a quarter, or even (heaven help us!) once a year?

I grew up in a tradition that celebrated Communion quarterly. Later, monthly Communion became more common. In some churches, even monthly Communion can feel like an interruption to the regular order of worship—something that makes the service run long.

Think about what that communicates. We make room every week for the preacher’s words but only occasionally for the bread and the cup. At the Table, the focus shifts away from the preacher. We remember Christ’s death. We receive the signs of His grace. We confess our need. We gather not as customers evaluating a religious presentation but as sinners who come with empty hands.

Communion also reminds us that Christianity is not merely a private relationship between Jesus and me. We do not receive the bread and cup alone. We come to a shared Table as the body of Christ. Rich and poor come to the same Table. Young and old come to the same Table. Republicans and Democrats come to the same Table. Those who agree and those who struggle to understand one another come to the same Table. We receive the same grace because we share the same need.

Perhaps that is part of what we lost when the sermon became weekly and the Meal became occasional. The sermon can be evaluated individually: What did I learn? Did I enjoy it? Did it speak to me? The Table confronts us with a different reality. Christ gave Himself for us, and in Christ we belong to one another.

I am not suggesting that weekly Communion would automatically renew the church. We can participate in the Lord’s Supper thoughtlessly just as easily as we can listen to a sermon thoughtlessly. But perhaps the frequency of our practices reveals something about our priorities. What does it say when we consider thirty minutes of preaching essential but ten minutes at the Lord’s Table optional?

Were Early Church Gatherings Limited to One Hour?

Let me say immediately that longer services are not necessarily more spiritual. I have attended long worship services that were deeply meaningful. I have also attended long worship services that only felt long. A three-hour service can be every bit as lifeless as a one-hour service.

The issue is not simply how long we gather. The issue is why one hour has become the expected limit in so many churches.

We print the times on signs, websites, and social media. Worship begins at 10:30 and should end around 11:30. If the service goes fifteen minutes long, people begin looking at their watches. Parents become concerned about children. Restaurant plans are affected. Volunteers in the nursery wonder if they have been forgotten. I even had an uncle who was a member of one of my churches whose watch alarm went off promptly at noon every Sunday. Such a nice reminder for the preacher. And, from a family member, too…

Some of those concerns are legitimate. Time matters. People have responsibilities. Children have limits. Respecting people’s time can be an expression of hospitality. But our anxiety about time may reveal something deeper.

We routinely spend several hours at ball games, concerts, movies, festivals, and other activities we value. We arrive early. We stay late. We do not resent overtime when the experience matters to us. Yet an additional fifteen minutes in worship can feel like an unreasonable demand. Why?

Perhaps it is because we approach worship as one appointment among many. We have given God His hour, and we expect the church to honor the arrangement. The one-hour expectation also shapes what can happen when we gather. There is time for a few songs, announcements, an offering, a prayer, and a sermon. There may not be time for people to share what God is doing in their lives. There may not be time for extended prayer, silence, conversation, testimony, or discernment. There may not even be time for Communion unless something else is shortened. The schedule favors the predictable. It rewards efficiency. It makes participation difficult.

Again, the answer is not necessarily to make every service longer. Perhaps the answer is to ask whether everything the church needs to do when it gathers can—or should—be compressed into a single hour.

Maybe some of what we expect from Sunday morning needs to happen in smaller gatherings where people can know one another, pray for one another, confess to one another, bear one another’s burdens, and contribute their gifts.

The deeper concern is not the length of the service. It is whether our gatherings are structured primarily around convenience or around the formation of a people. Perhaps the deeper problem is that we have made the Sunday worship service virtually synonymous with the gathering of the church—and then tried to compress everything the church is called to be into that single hour.

The Church Is Not an Audience

I am not calling for the elimination of sermons, worship teams, planned services, or established times. I am asking whether our gatherings are accomplishing what they were intended to accomplish. Are people merely attending, or are they participating? Are sermons equipping people to engage Scripture and follow Jesus, or are they creating a congregation dependent upon the preacher?

Does the Lord’s Table occupy a central place in our life together, or has it become an occasional addition to a sermon-centered service? Does our use of time reflect thoughtful stewardship, or does the sixty-minute limit reveal how little room we have made for worship in our lives?

Perhaps we need to recover gatherings in which more members of the body have something meaningful to contribute. Perhaps we need more room for prayer, testimony, conversation, silence, discernment, and response. Perhaps we need to come to the Lord’s Table more frequently and remember that Christ—not the preacher—is the center of our gathering.

Not every congregation will answer these questions in the same way. A church of thirty people will gather differently from a church of three thousand. A congregation meeting in a home will have possibilities that a congregation meeting in a large sanctuary may not have.

The New Testament gives us principles without handing us a complete order of worship. That gives us freedom, but it also gives us responsibility. We are free to develop forms appropriate to our time, place, and circumstances. But we are responsible for asking what those forms are producing.

Perhaps the problem is not that we have sermons, planned worship, or an established order of service. Perhaps the problem is that the order has become so fixed, the sermon so dominant, and participation so limited that most people can attend church for years without ever believing they have anything meaningful to contribute to the gathered body. The church is not an audience. It is a body.

When the body gathers, every member may not speak, sing, preach, or lead. But every member should understand that they have been given grace, gifts, and responsibility for the good of the whole.

Once again, I have generated more questions than answers. Then again, I’m not the perfect pastor.

That doesn’t keep me from trying—or from asking more questions.

Until next time, keep looking up…

If any of my reflections encouraged or challenged you, follow Not the Perfect Pastor on Facebook for more conversations about faith, ministry, and becoming faithful disciples of Jesus.

11 Questions I’m Asking Myself About the Contemporary Church

/ pastorlynnmalone / 1 Comment

Examining the Church We Have and the Church Jesus Intended

I have spent most of my adult life serving the institutional church and I’ve spent much of the past week sitting in institutional meetings. The week was encouraging and uplifting, but it also prompted me to reflect on the “institutional” church as it exists today.

Here is what I’ve been thinking about all week…

For more than thirty-five years, I have preached sermons, led worship services, administered programs, attended meetings, developed budgets, supervised staff, and participated in denominational structures. I have served as a senior pastor. I have served as a district superintendent. I have not only participated in the denominational system; for a season, I worked for the denomination. Even now, I remain an ordained elder serving as the pastor of a local church.

I say all that because I don’t want anyone to misunderstand what follows. I am not standing outside the institutional church throwing rocks at it. I am standing firmly inside it. I have given most of my life to it. I love the church, and I continue to believe the local church can be one of the most beautiful expressions of the body of Christ in the world. But I also know that I have been complicit in fostering some of the very issues I am beginning to question.

I have helped create worship services in which most people watched while a few people participated. I have stood behind the pulpit as the central personality in the room. I have encouraged people to invite their friends to “come hear the preacher.” I have supported budgets that devoted significant resources to staff, buildings, programs, and institutional maintenance. I have participated in denominational systems that sometimes appeared more concerned with preserving the institution than advancing the mission.

I have measured attendance, counted giving, promoted programs, celebrated growth, and worried when the numbers went in the wrong direction. I have sometimes treated a full room as evidence of spiritual success without asking whether the people in that room were actually being formed into the image of Christ.

I am not confessing that everything I have done was wrong. Much of it was done prayerfully, faithfully, and with good intentions. Some of those practices have borne genuine fruit. But good intentions do not place our practices beyond examination.

Neither does the fact that a particular practice is not found explicitly in the Bible make it inherently wrong. The New Testament does not give us a complete operations manual for the twenty-first-century church. It does not tell us what time to gather, how many songs to sing, whether to use a pulpit, how to organize the church office, or what kind of building to occupy. We have freedom to develop structures and practices suited to our time and place.

The question is whether those structures still serve the purposes of the church—or whether the church has gradually begun serving the structures.

A practice does not become biblical simply because churches have done it for a long time. Neither is it necessarily faithful because it attracts a crowd, produces measurable results, or appears successful. Every practice must be examined in light of the character of Jesus Christ, the teaching of Scripture, and the mission Jesus entrusted to His church. That examination has led me to begin asking some uncomfortable questions.

1. Is the senior pastor a truly biblical role?

The New Testament speaks of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, elders, overseers, and deacons. It certainly recognizes spiritual leadership and entrusts some people with particular responsibilities. But do we find anything resembling the modern senior pastor—the primary preacher, chief executive, public face, institutional leader, and often central personality of the congregation?

The role may not be inherently wrong, but what happens when so much authority, visibility, and responsibility become concentrated in one person?

2. Is the church supposed to be a gathering of non-participants?

Paul describes the church as a body in which every member has a function. He also pictures gatherings in which different members contribute to the life of the community.

How, then, did church become a gathering in which a relatively small number of people perform while everyone else watches? Have we unintentionally taught people that attending church is the same as participating in the body of Christ?

3. Are multisite campuses about growing God’s Kingdom—or the senior pastor’s kingdom?

I know this question sounds pointed, and I do not presume to judge the motives of every pastor or congregation using a multisite model. Heck, I even tried it myself once (to no avail). Multisite churches may reach people who would otherwise remain disconnected from Christian community.

Still, we should be willing to ask why one pastor’s preaching must be broadcast into multiple locations. Are we multiplying churches and leaders, or extending the reach of a particular personality and brand?

4. How biblical is it for more than half of a church’s giving to support buildings, maintenance, upkeep, and staff?

Buildings and staff can serve the mission of the church. Pastors who devote themselves to ministry may rightly receive financial support, and congregations need places in which to gather.

But when much of the church’s financial life is devoted to sustaining its own operations, we should at least ask what remains for mission, mercy, generosity, and ministry beyond ourselves. At what point does maintaining the institution become the institution’s primary mission?

5. When did church gatherings become sermon-centered?

I am a preacher, and I believe preaching matters. The proclamation and teaching of God’s Word have always been central to the church’s life. I’ve often told my congregations that they pay me to be their pastor. I preach for free!

But is a thirty-minute sermon delivered by one person supposed to become the defining feature of Christian worship? How did the sermon come to dominate the gathering while prayer, testimony, conversation, shared discernment, and the Lord’s Supper moved toward the margins?

6. When did the church lose its weekly commitment to the Lord’s Supper?

The earliest Christians appear to have gathered regularly around the table. The breaking of bread was not an occasional addition to worship. It was central to their life together.

How did many Protestant churches move from the Table every week to once a month, once a quarter, or even less frequently? What did we lose when the sermon became weekly but the Meal became optional?

7. Is denominational hierarchy a biblical concept?

Denominations can provide accountability, connection, shared resources, theological identity, and a means of accomplishing ministry that no single congregation could undertake alone. I have benefited from those structures and have worked within them.

But how closely do our layers of boards, agencies, executives, superintendents, bishops, conferences, and administrative offices resemble the leadership structures of the New Testament? When does connection become control? When does accountability become bureaucracy? When does the institution begin protecting itself?

8. Is professionalized ministry the biblical model?

Scripture recognizes that those who preach the gospel may receive their living from the gospel. There is nothing inherently unbiblical about paying pastors or other ministry leaders.

But have we created a system in which the work of ministry is largely outsourced to professionals? Have pastors become religious service providers while church members become their clients? Has professional ministry equipped the saints for ministry—or relieved the saints of ministry?

9. How did we develop such a consumer mentality concerning church?

People shop for churches based on music, preaching, children’s ministries, facilities, style, convenience, and personal preference. Churches respond by marketing programs and attempting to provide increasingly attractive religious experiences.

How did following Jesus become another consumer choice? And how much has the church itself contributed to that mentality by treating people as customers whose preferences must be satisfied?

10. Were early church gatherings limited to one hour?

There is nothing inherently spiritual about a longer gathering. A three-hour service can be every bit as lifeless as a one-hour service.

Still, why has an hour become the accepted limit for worship in so many churches? Why do we become anxious when the service runs long? What does that reveal about the place worship occupies in our lives—and about the kind of experience our gatherings have become?

11. Why is the modern church so afraid of church discipline?

Jesus and the New Testament writers took sin, accountability, restoration, and the holiness of the Christian community seriously. Church discipline was not intended to be cruel, controlling, or punitive. Its goal was truth, repentance, reconciliation, and restoration.

Yet many churches avoid it almost entirely. Are we afraid people will leave? Are we afraid of conflict? Have abuses of authority made us unwilling to exercise any authority? Or have we become so consumer-oriented that we no longer believe the church has the right—or responsibility—to call its members to a life of holiness?

I’m Asking, Not Accusing

I do not have settled answers to all these questions. If I had the answers, I probably would not be writing this series. Or, more likely, I would have already written a book and gone on the speaking circuit.

I am also aware that it is much easier to identify problems than to propose faithful alternatives. Institutional structures developed for reasons. Many of them solved real problems, supported valuable ministries, and helped the church carry the gospel across generations and cultures. Tearing down structures without understanding what they hold together is neither wise nor faithful.

Nor do I believe the solution is simply to reproduce the first-century church. The early church existed in a particular historical and cultural setting. It had problems of its own—many of which are preserved for us in the New Testament. My goal is not to romanticize the past. My goal is to examine the present.

I want to consider what Scripture establishes, what freedom Scripture allows, what benefits our contemporary practices provide, and what unintended distortions they may have produced. I want to distinguish between what is biblically commanded, what is biblically permissible, and what we have simply come to assume.

Most of all, I want to ask whether the church we have built is forming people into the image of Jesus for the sake of others.

I love the church too much not to ask. And because I am part of the church I am questioning, these are not questions I am asking about “them.”

They are questions I am asking about us.

They are questions I am asking about me.

So, I invite you, over the next two weeks, to reflect on these eleven questions with me. In addition to my regular Tuesday posts, I will add two Friday posts to unpack these questions a little more deeply.

I would love your feedback, too. Comment below with any questions these questions raise for you, or feel free to dispute my assumptions. I certainly could be wrong and I invite your correction. Let me hear from you.

Please join me on the journey.

Until next time, keep looking up…

If any of my reflections encouraged or challenged you, follow Not the Perfect Pastor on Facebook for more conversations about faith, ministry, and becoming faithful disciples of Jesus.

Living the Lord’s Prayer

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I’ve prayed the Lord’s Prayer for most of my life.

Like many Christians, I learned it as a child. Over the years I’ve prayed it in worship services, hospital rooms, funeral homes, around dinner tables, and in quiet moments when I didn’t quite know what else to say.

I’ve also preached it more than once. Whenever I preached it, I usually approached it the way many pastors do—taking each petition and showing how it can guide our own prayers. That’s a good approach. In fact, I still believe it’s a biblical one.

But this past week, while preparing to preach from Matthew 6, I noticed something I had never fully appreciated before. Matthew doesn’t place the Lord’s Prayer in a book about prayer. He places it in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount. That matters.

The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus’ description of life in the Kingdom of God. It’s where He teaches what His disciples look like, how they treat others, what they value, where they place their treasure, and how they trust the Father. Right in the middle of that teaching, Jesus says, “This, then, is how you should pray…”

It made me wonder: What if Jesus wasn’t only teaching His disciples what to say when they prayed? What if He was also showing them the kind of life they were to live?

Read through the Lord’s Prayer again with that thought in mind.

It begins in the Father’s presence: “Our Father in heaven…”

Before there are requests, there is relationship.

Then it turns to the Father’s priorities: “Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done.” Before Jesus teaches us to pray about our needs, He teaches us to care about what matters to the Father.

Only then do our needs enter the conversation: “Give us this day our daily bread… Forgive us… Lead us not into temptation… Deliver us from evil.”

The entire prayer moves from the Father’s presence to the Father’s priorities, then to the Father’s provision and protection. That’s more than a model for prayer. It’s also a pattern for life.

The more I reflected on it, another realization dawned on me. Jesus didn’t simply teach the Lord’s Prayer. He lived it.

He lived continually in His Father’s presence. He sought His Father’s glory above His own. He proclaimed the Father’s Kingdom. He surrendered to the Father’s will—even in Gethsemane. He trusted the Father for daily provision. He resisted every temptation. And through His death and resurrection, He became the forgiveness and deliverance we could never achieve for ourselves.

Suddenly, the Lord’s Prayer looked less like a script to memorize and more like a portrait of Jesus Himself. And that’s good news.

The goal of the Christian life isn’t merely to pray better prayers. It’s to become more like Christ. By His Spirit, Jesus is forming His own life in us. As He does, the Lord’s Prayer becomes more than words we recite. It becomes a life we live.

The next time you pray the Lord’s Prayer, don’t rush through familiar words. Pause. Listen. Receive it as an invitation—not only to speak with your Father, but to live as His child.

Don’t just pray the Lord’s Prayer.

Live it.

Until next time, keep looking up…

The Danger Behind a Long Prayer

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I grew up believing that long prayers were better prayers.

The person who could pray the longest usually sounded the most spiritual. Sometimes those prayers were sincere. Sometimes they were beautiful. And sometimes, if I’m honest, they became performances. I’ve prayed some of those prayers myself.

As a pastor, I know how easy it is to slip into that trap. Standing in front of a congregation with every eye closed and every ear listening, it’s tempting to begin talking more to the people than to God. Before long, a prayer can become another sermon. Or worse, an opportunity to sound spiritual.

Jesus never condemned long prayers. In fact, He prayed through the night on more than one occasion. The problem isn’t the length of the prayer. The problem is the motive behind it.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warned His disciples:

“When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites. They love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by people…” (Matthew 6:5)

Notice what Jesus doesn’t say. He doesn’t say public prayer is wrong. Jesus prayed publicly. The early church prayed publicly. Christians have gathered for prayer together for two thousand years. Neither does He say long prayers are wrong. Instead, He exposes something much deeper.

The problem wasn’t where they prayed. The problem was why they prayed.

The word “hypocrite” originally described an actor wearing a mask on a stage. These weren’t people who didn’t pray. They prayed. The problem was that they had confused their audience.

I’ve often said it this way:

The audience determines the prayer.

If my audience is the congregation, I’ll be concerned with how my words sound. If my audience is God, I’ll be concerned with speaking honestly.

That raises an uncomfortable question. Who am I trying to impress? That question doesn’t just apply to public prayer. It reaches into every part of our spiritual lives. Why do I serve? Why do I give? Why do I post Bible verses online? Why do I volunteer? Why do I pray?

Jesus isn’t trying to make us suspicious of public expressions of faith. He’s inviting us into something better. Prayer was never meant to be a performance. It was always meant to be a conversation with our Father. That’s why, just a few verses later, Jesus reminds His disciples:

“Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” (Matthew 6:8)

Think about that for a moment. You don’t have to impress a Father who already knows you. You don’t have to convince a Father who already loves you. You don’t have to perform for a Father who already knows your heart.

The most beautiful prayers are rarely the most polished. They’re simply honest. And that’s the kind of prayer your Father has wanted all along.

Until next time, keep looking up…

Stop Trying to be a Better Evangelist…

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Acts 2:42-47

A Problem

A few weeks ago, a Facebook post caught my eye. A church was offering a one-day discipleship class — 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. A full day dedicated to making disciples.

Before I say another word, let me be clear: I’m grateful for any church trying to make disciples. I’m not throwing stones at that particular congregation. If I’m honest, this word is for all of us. That post simply exposed something we’ve quietly come to accept.

We’ve begun to believe discipleship can be primarily taught in a classroom. That with enough curriculum, enough seminars, enough programs, and enough information, we’ll produce mature followers of Jesus.

But following Jesus has never been mastered in a classroom. It’s learned in kitchens and living rooms, hospital rooms and workplaces, neighborhoods and ordinary daily rhythms. It is learned over a lifetime through daily surrender, daily obedience, and the transforming work of the Holy Spirit.

Pentecost happened in a day. Spiritual formation happens over a lifetime.

Somewhere along the way, we’ve made the same mistake with evangelism. We’ve turned it into another skill to master, another class to attend, another program to organize, another technique to learn. We’ve made evangelism a “task” to be performed.

But when I read Acts 2, I don’t find an evangelism committee. I don’t find a strategic planning session or a “Director of Outreach.” I don’t find the apostles creating a twelve-week curriculum called “How to Win Your Neighbor in Five Easy Steps.”

What do I find? People worshiping. People praying. People eating together. People devoted to the apostles’ teaching. People giving generously. People living life together. And somehow — while doing all those ordinary things — “the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”Evangelism is not primarily a task to be performed. Evangelism is a life to be lived.

A Pattern

We’ve made evangelism the destination. But what if Acts 2 reveals that evangelism is actually the byproduct? The fruit, not the root?

Luke doesn’t say the early church devoted themselves to evangelism, outreach, church growth, or making converts. Instead, he writes:

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” (Acts 2:42)

The very things we often treat as secondary, Luke places first. Why? Because he understands a simple but profound truth: What fills us eventually flows from us.

The overflow of Acts 2 began on the streets of Jerusalem on Pentecost with 3,000 people believing and being baptized. If Luke were writing a modern church growth manual, he might have ended the chapter there. But he doesn’t. Pentecost wasn’t the finish line — it was the starting line.

The same Spirit who brought them to Christ now began the lifelong work of forming them into the likeness of Christ. Verses 42-47 describe what that looked like in practice: worship, prayer, generous sharing, and devotion to apostolic teaching. Nothing flashy. No celebrity speakers, no marketing campaigns, no social media strategy. Just ordinary people faithfully walking with Jesus in the ordinary rhythms of life.

Whatever is forming you is also filling you. And whatever is filling you will eventually flow from you.

A Promise

Luke gives us a quiet but powerful promise in the final sentence of the passage: “…And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

Notice who the subject is: The Lord. Not the disciples. Not the apostles. Not the church’s clever strategies. The Lord added.

As I’ve been preaching through the Spirit-Formed Life series with my congregation, I’ve stumbled onto a beautiful surprise: The Spirit never asked the first disciples to carry the weight of building His Church. He asked them to devote themselves to Him — worship, prayer, fellowship, generosity, apostolic teaching. Faithfulness was their assignment. Fruitfulness was God’s responsibility.

The Spirit-formed life is one in which Jesus increasingly becomes the subject of every sentence in our story. Jesus is the subject of our worship, our fellowship, our generosity, our witness, our salvation. 

As Jesus becomes the main character, we become perfectly content to be supporting characters in His story. 

That is discipleship. That is maturity. That is holiness.

A Personal Confession

Before I close, I need to confess something. That one-day discipleship class in the Facebook post? Twenty years…no, really more like ten…okay, so seven years ago, that could easily have been me. I would have been the one developing the curriculum, standing in the front of the room, convinced that if I could just teach enough, organize enough, and equip enough, people would become disciples.

Those were the things that formed me as a pastor for a long time. But the Holy Spirit has been teaching me something I wish I had learned much earlier: Jesus doesn’t primarily form disciples in classrooms. He forms them in daily surrender, in worship, in prayer, around tables, in ordinary acts of obedience, and in the daily rhythms of a life yielded to the Holy Spirit.

And when Jesus forms a life, that life begins to overflow.

That’s why I’ve been asking my congregation a Question of the Month that I believe matters so much: What is forming me more than Jesus right now?

Overflow isn’t the goal.

Overflow is the result.

Christlikeness is the goal.

Overflow is the consequence.

So, I’ve decided that I’m not going to spend the rest of my life trying to become a better evangelist. I’m going to spend my life becoming more like Jesus. I’m going to trust Him with the results. Because what fills us eventually flows from us.

Friends, what is forming you more than Jesus right now?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments. And if this resonates, would you share it with someone who needs encouragement to return to the simple, ordinary, Spirit-formed rhythms of the early church?

Until next time, keep looking up…

The Lifelong Fire…

/ pastorlynnmalone / Leave a comment

Fire fell.

Wind blew.

Tongues of fire appeared over the disciples’ heads.

If you’ve spent much time around the church, you’ve probably heard the story of Pentecost in Acts 2. It’s one of the most dramatic moments in the entire Bible.

But here’s something I’ve been thinking about lately:

Eventually the fire disappeared.

The wind stopped blowing.

The extraordinary manifestations faded.

Yet the power remained.

Why?

Because the Holy Spirit remained.

When most people think about Pentecost, they focus on the moment. The signs. The wonders. The supernatural experience. But the real miracle wasn’t what happened for a few moments that day.

The real miracle was what happened afterward.

Acts 2 tells us that the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, prayer, worship, generosity, and shared life together. They became a community unlike anything the world had ever seen.

The visible evidence of the Holy Spirit’s work wasn’t ultimately the wind or the fire.

It was transformed people.

And that raises an important question for all of us.

What is forming us?

Because the truth is, every one of us is being formed by something.

Have you ever noticed how quickly your mood can change after spending a few minutes scrolling social media?

You can begin the day grateful and at peace, then suddenly find yourself irritated, fearful, cynical, or angry.

Nobody announces, “Today we’re going to shape your heart.”

Yet little by little, post by post, headline by headline, our hearts are being shaped.

I’ve noticed it in my own life.

Most mornings I leave home feeling pretty good. Grateful, even. But I’ve developed a habit of listening to political podcasts during my forty-minute drive to work. By the time I pull into the parking lot, I’m often frustrated with the world.

Angry.

Cynical.

Ready to argue with people I haven’t even met yet.

That realization forced me to confront something uncomfortable:

What we repeatedly consume eventually shapes who we become.

Something is always discipling us.

The question isn’t whether we’re being formed.

The question is who—or what—is forming us.

The Apostle Paul describes this struggle in Galatians 5. He speaks of a conflict between the flesh and the Spirit. The flesh isn’t simply sinful behavior. At its core, the flesh is our tendency toward self-rule. It is the instinct to remain in control of our own lives.

The flesh says, “I will decide what’s best for me.”

The Spirit says, “Trust God enough to surrender.”

That tension exists within every one of us.

Paul says the result of living according to the flesh is division, jealousy, selfish ambition, anger, and a host of other destructive attitudes and behaviors.

But when the Holy Spirit is shaping our lives, a different kind of fruit begins to emerge:

Love.

Joy.

Peace.

Patience.

Kindness.

Goodness.

Faithfulness.

Gentleness.

Self-control.

Notice something important.

Fruit doesn’t appear overnight.

Fruit grows.

That’s why spiritual formation is rarely instantaneous.

We often wish God would simply “zap” us into maturity. We want one prayer, one sermon, one worship experience, or one spiritual breakthrough to fix everything.

But God usually works differently.

There are moments of awakening.

Moments of conviction.

Moments of surrender.

Moments that change our direction.

Yet transformation itself is usually a journey.

The Holy Spirit may ignite the fire in a moment, but He forms the character of Christ in us over a lifetime.

That’s exactly what happened after Pentecost.

The same Spirit who fell in power stayed with those believers long after the excitement faded. Through worship, prayer, community, obedience, hardship, failure, and restoration, He continued shaping them into the likeness of Jesus.

Pentecost was the ignition.

Spiritual formation was the lifelong fire.

One of the things that stands out to me in Acts 2 is how deeply communal that transformation was.

Did you notice that almost every verb in Acts 2:42-47 is plural?

They devoted themselves.

They prayed.

They shared.

They worshiped.

They ate together.

They served together.

The Spirit who fell at Pentecost didn’t merely create individual Christians.

The Spirit created a community of disciples.

That’s a challenge for many of us because we live in a culture that prizes independence and self-sufficiency. We often think of faith as something private and personal.

The New Testament paints a different picture.

The Holy Spirit forms people together.

We need encouragement.

We need accountability.

We need people who know us well enough to celebrate our victories, challenge our blind spots, and walk with us through difficult seasons.

We need more than rows.

We need circles.

The Christian life was never intended to be lived alone.

As I reflected on all of this, I found myself asking a question that has become our congregation’s Question of the Month:

What is forming me more than Jesus right now?

That’s not a question designed to produce guilt.

It’s a question designed to produce awareness.

Because once we become aware of what’s shaping us, we can begin making intentional choices about what we allow to influence our hearts.

The good news is that God has not stopped forming people.

The same Holy Spirit who moved at Pentecost is still at work today.

Still transforming hearts.

Still calling people out of fear.

Still teaching us surrender.

Still shaping ordinary people into the likeness of Jesus Christ.

The question is not whether God desires to form you.

The question is whether you’re willing to surrender to the process.

So let me leave you with the same question I’ve been wrestling with myself:

What is forming you?

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave a comment below, or send me a message. I’d especially love to know your answer to this question:

What is forming you more than Jesus right now?

Until next time, keep looking up…

God Outside the Box

/ pastorlynnmalone / Leave a comment

We live in a world where almost everything feels explainable.

Need directions? Pull out your phone.
Need medical advice? Pull out your phone.
Need to fix a washing machine or learn how to smoke a brisket? Pull out your phone.

We have more information available to us than any generation in history. And because so much of life now feels manageable, we’ve slowly begun assuming God should be manageable too.

We want answers. Certainty. Explanations. Systems we can organize and control.

Then we come to Trinity Sunday.

And Trinity Sunday reminds us that God is bigger than our understanding.

The doctrine of the Trinity has always stretched the human mind. One God. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Distinct, yet One. Christians have tried for centuries to explain it through illustrations and analogies, but eventually every illustration breaks down.

Why?

Because God is bigger than every comparison we create.

And maybe that’s the point.

Maybe the Trinity is not given so we can fully explain God. Maybe it’s given to remind us that God exists outside the boxes we keep trying to build for Him.

Jesus hinted at this in John 16 when He told His disciples:

“There is so much more I want to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.”

Think about that statement for a moment.

Jesus essentially says, “You’re not ready for the full picture yet.”

Honestly, neither are we.

One of humanity’s oldest temptations is the desire to control what we cannot fully understand. That struggle goes all the way back to Genesis. The serpent tempted Adam and Eve with the desire to “be like God.” Ever since then, humanity has been trying to reduce God into something manageable.

We want a God we can explain.
A God we can predict.
A God we can fit neatly into our political tribe, our preferences, and our comfort zones.

But God refuses to stay inside the boxes we create.

We’ve become incredibly tribal in our culture. It becomes easy to claim God for our side while assuming He fully opposes the other side. But anytime God fully agrees with everything my tribe already believes, I may not be worshipping God anymore.

I may be worshipping a mirror.

The Trinity reminds us that God is always bigger:

  • Bigger than our politics.
  • Bigger than our ideologies.
  • Bigger than our theological pride.
  • Bigger than our understanding.

Now don’t misunderstand me. The pursuit of knowledge is not bad. God gave us minds to think, learn, discover, and explore. Science itself grows out of humanity studying the order of God’s creation.

The mistake comes when we assume that because we can study creation, we can fully comprehend the Creator.

God is not a math equation to solve.

God is mystery.

And mystery makes us uncomfortable because mystery requires trust. We would often rather have explanations than dependence.

That’s why Christianity has never primarily been about mastering information. It has always been about learning trust.

Jesus said the Spirit would guide us into truth. Notice He didn’t say the Spirit would instantly explain everything. The Spirit guides. Slowly. Patiently. Over time.

That process is called sanctification.

Discipleship is formation, not just information.

That may be one of the greatest struggles facing the modern church today. We’ve convinced ourselves that if people know more, they will automatically become more spiritually mature. But information alone does not transform people.

You can know Bible verses and still not trust God.
You can understand doctrine and still live in fear.
You can win theological arguments and still refuse to surrender your heart.

The Spirit forms us gradually:

  • One act of obedience at a time.
  • One surrender at a time.
  • One step of trust at a time.

That’s why the question we’ve been asking at our church matters so much:

“What is one thing Jesus is asking you to obey right now that you’ve been avoiding?”

Because spiritual maturity is not about having God fully figured out.

It’s about trusting Him enough to obey what He has already revealed.

There are some things we may never fully understand this side of heaven:

  • Why suffering comes.
  • Why some prayers seem unanswered.
  • Why some doors close.
  • Why healing sometimes comes and sometimes doesn’t.

The apostle Paul once wrote:

“Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.” (1 Corinthians 13:12)

Right now, we only see partially.

And honestly, that frustrates us. We want certainty. We want clarity. We want all the answers.

But perhaps part of God’s mercy is that He has not revealed everything yet.

Corrie Ten Boom once shared that as a little girl she feared she would not have enough faith to endure future suffering. Her father asked her, “When I buy your train ticket, when do I give it to you?”

She answered, “Right before we board the train.”

“That’s right,” he said. “And so it is with God. He gives you what you need when you need it.”

That’s how grace works.

Not usually early.
Not usually all at once.
But enough for the moment you’re standing in.

The good news of Christianity is not that we have God all figured out.

The good news is that God has us figured out — and loves us anyway.

He knows every contradiction in us. Every fear. Every failure. Every hidden struggle. Every doubt.

And still:

  • The Father creates us.
  • The Son redeems us.
  • The Spirit pursues and transforms us.

The Trinity reminds us that God is beyond us, but never absent from us.

Maybe faith is not about solving every mystery.

Maybe faith is learning to trust the One who already holds every mystery in His hands.

Because honestly, a god small enough to be fully explained would never be big enough to save us.

So perhaps the real question is not whether we fully understand God.

Perhaps the real question is this:

What area of your life are you still trying to control instead of surrendering to Him?

I’d love it if you’d share your answer to that question with me. Leave a comment below, or message me privately.

Until next time, keep looking up…

Trying Harder Never Works

/ pastorlynnmalone / Leave a comment

Acts 1:1–11

Most of us Christians already know what we’re supposed to do.

Forgive people.
Pray more consistently.
Trust God more deeply.
Stop returning to the same sin.
Let go of bitterness.
Obey what Jesus is asking of us.

The problem usually isn’t information.

It’s power.

That’s why Ascension Sunday matters far more than most people realize.

Most people think the Ascension is about Jesus leaving. It’s actually about Jesus reigning.

In Acts 1, the disciples stood watching as Jesus ascended into heaven. If we had been there, we probably would have thought the same thing they were thinking:

“He’s gone.”

But that’s not what the Ascension means at all.

Right before Jesus ascended, He told His disciples:

“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you…” (Acts 1:8)

Then He went up.

He went up…so the Spirit could come down.

The Ascension is not Jesus stepping away from His people. It is Jesus taking His throne.

The New Testament repeatedly tells us that Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. That’s not a place of inactivity. It’s a place of authority.

The cross is finished.
The resurrection is accomplished.
And now Jesus reigns as King.

And Kings don’t make suggestions.

That changes how we understand the Christian life.

Because Christianity was never meant to be lived through sheer willpower.

Most of us have tried that already.

We make promises.
We recommit ourselves.
We vow to do better.
Then somewhere down the road we find ourselves struggling with the same attitudes, the same habits, the same failures, and the same exhaustion.

The problem is not that we lack effort.

The problem is that we are trying to live a spiritual life without spiritual power.

That’s why Jesus sent the Holy Spirit.

And let’s be clear about something: The Holy Spirit is not a force. He is not an energy. He is not a religious feeling.

He is a Person.

He speaks.
He convicts.
He guides.
He comforts.
He corrects.
He can even be grieved.

You can’t grieve a force.
You can only grieve a person.

The Holy Spirit is God within us.

We often say:
The Father is God over us.
The Son is God beside us.
The Spirit is God within us.

And that changes everything.

The Holy Spirit is not simply here to make us more religious. He is here to make us more alive.

Paul says in Romans 15 that the Spirit fills us with joy and peace and causes us to overflow with hope.

That’s not the absence of struggle.
That’s victory in the middle of struggle.

And that kind of life cannot be manufactured through discipline alone.

It comes through surrender.

Years ago, a missionary named Herbert Jackson was assigned a car that would not start without a push. Every day he found people to help push the car off. He parked on hills whenever possible. He kept the engine running whenever he could.

He lived that way for two years.

Finally, another missionary looked under the hood and discovered a loose battery cable. He tightened the connection, turned the key, and the engine roared to life.

For two years, the power had been there.

The problem was connection.

That may describe some of us spiritually.

We love Jesus.
We mean well.
We want to change.

But we keep finding ourselves exhausted because we’re trying to produce spiritual transformation through human effort alone.

And eventually we begin to wonder:
“Why do I keep struggling with the same things?”
“Why do I keep falling into the same patterns?”
“Why does the Christian life feel so heavy sometimes?”

Because the Christian life was never meant to be powered by human strength.

Jesus never said:
“Try harder.”

He said:
“Remain in Me.”

That’s a very different thing.

The problem is not that Jesus is absent.
The problem is not that the Spirit is unwilling.
The problem may simply be surrender.

Because the Holy Spirit does not force Himself upon us.

He waits.

For surrender.
For obedience.
For yieldedness.

And maybe that brings us back to the question we’ve been wrestling with together these past few weeks:

What is one thing Jesus is asking you to obey right now that you’ve been avoiding?

That may be your loose cable.

That may be the place where pride is keeping you disconnected.
Or fear.
Or bitterness.
Or addiction.
Or control.
Or simply delayed obedience.

And here’s the good news:
The power is not missing.

The Spirit of God is still present.
Jesus is still reigning.
Grace is still available.
Transformation is still possible.

You do not have to stay trapped in the same cycle forever.

Jesus went up…
so He could come down.

Not just to forgive you.
But to fill you.
To strengthen you.
To guide you.
To transform you.

Trying harder never works.

But surrender does.

And when the Spirit of God begins to take control of a surrendered life—
everything changes.

Until next time, keep looking up…

My Graduation Speech: The Real Path to the American Dream

/ pastorlynnmalone / Leave a comment

It’s graduation season. I’ve received the invitations in the mail and seen the posts on social media.

I’ve been invited in the past to give commencement and baccalaureate addresses. I always tried to encourage graduates with three simple pieces of advice:

  1. Adversity is a fact of life—prepare to deal with it.
  2. Look for purpose in the adversity.
  3. Attitude determines altitude.

I thought that was solid advice for young people stepping into the world. But as I watch the world they’re entering today, I’d offer something different.

There’s a growing conversation in America about the death of the American Dream. People are frustrated—and honestly, some of that frustration is understandable. Housing is expensive. Groceries cost more. Young adults feel overwhelmed. Many are working harder yet falling farther behind.

But somewhere in the middle of all the arguments about economics, politics, and systems, I wonder if we’ve overlooked something simpler.

What if the American Dream isn’t dead? What if we’ve simply drifted away from the ordinary habits that once helped build it?

For years, researchers have pointed to what they call the “Success Sequence.” It’s not complicated:

  1. Finish high school.
  2. Get a job and keep it.
  3. Get married before having children.

That’s not a sermon—though it could be. That’s research. Study after study shows that people who follow these basic steps dramatically increase their chances of avoiding poverty and reaching the middle class.

Before anyone gets angry, let me say the obvious: Life is not a formula. Some people do everything “right” and still struggle. Some make terrible decisions and still prosper. Real injustices and disadvantages exist. But acknowledging exceptions doesn’t erase patterns. And the patterns are hard to ignore.

Education matters. Work matters. Stable families matter.

And I believe there’s a fourth piece we don’t talk about nearly enough: Church.

Not because going to church magically makes you wealthy. But because healthy churches help form healthy people. They teach the very things our culture increasingly struggles to instill: faithfulness, self-control, commitment, forgiveness, responsibility, delayed gratification, service, and community.

Church puts you around older couples who stayed married, men who show up for work, women of integrity, grandparents who sacrificed, and people who know how to suffer without quitting. It creates relationships, mentorship, accountability, and hope. In many ways, it reinforces the values the research already says matter most.

We’ve spent years telling people to “follow your heart,” “live your truth,” and “do what makes you happy.” But real flourishing has always required something deeper than self-expression. It requires discipline. Sacrifice. Commitment.

The truth is, most meaningful things in life are built slowly—a marriage, a career, character, faith, and yes, the American Dream. One ordinary decision at a time.

Graduate. Work hard. Commit. Show up. Worship. Serve. Stay faithful.

None of those things are flashy. None go viral. But they still work more often than not.

Maybe the American Dream feels out of reach not because opportunity has disappeared, but because we’ve stopped valuing the habits that once sustained it. The Church has a vital role to play in rebuilding not just successful people, but stable, formed, and faithful people.

So, graduates… build your life slowly. Do ordinary things faithfully. Show up. Keep your word. Work hard. Love people well. Stay connected to a healthy church. And don’t underestimate the power of a steady life built over time.

You’ll be better for it—and so will the world around you.

Until next time, keep looking up…

A Faith Worth Passing On…

/ pastorlynnmalone / 2 Comments

This past week, I had the privilege of preaching my mother’s funeral.

There are some moments in life that are too important to keep to yourself.

For those who couldn’t be there… and for those who simply want to remember… I wanted to share what was said.

This isn’t just a message about my mom. It’s a message about the kind of faith that lasts.

Mom’s Funeral Message

I’ve told my congregations before that I was raised at the foot of a Methodist piano. When I said that, the story was usually about me… or my brothers. But today I realize—it was never about us. It was always about Mom. And more than that… it was really about Jesus. In a world that chases platforms and spotlights, Mom chose a piano bench.

Mom’s faith sat on that piano bench—Sunday after Sunday—for over 73 years. She once told me how it all started. Papaw had her taking piano lessons when she was nine years old. Then, one Sunday at Zoar Methodist Church—she had just turned ten—Papaw, who was leading the singing, looked at her and said, “Play.” She’s been playing ever since.

I started trying to name all the churches she played for. In those early days—Zoar and Mt. Pleasant. Later—Frantom Chapel, Concord… and of course, Chatham. And those were just the regular ones. There’s no telling how many times she filled in at other churches along the way.

Seventy-three years… Sunday after Sunday. That’s a lot of showing up.

Now here’s something you may not know. Mom was never very confident in her piano playing. I suppose that’s part of her humility. But she never let a lack of confidence keep her from obedience.

Because she didn’t see it as just playing for a church. She saw it as answering a call.

To my knowledge, she never received a salary from any church. She would occasionally accept a love offering, but she turned most of that back around to the church. For her, that piano bench became an altar. And every note she played was an act of worship.

If you want to understand what that looked like, let me show you.

There was a man in the community—I’ll leave his name out—who had pretty much become a hermit as he got older. For health reasons, he wouldn’t—or maybe couldn’t—leave the house for groceries or medicine. His home had become a mess—cluttered with trash, old rotting food, dogs. It had gotten so bad that eventually, even EMS stopped responding to his calls. Most people had pulled back.

You know who didn’t? Mom didn’t. She kept showing up. She would go to his house. She would take him food. She would help however she could.

And if we’re being honest… some of us didn’t understand it. Some of us probably wondered if he was taking advantage of her. But that didn’t seem to matter to her. She didn’t see him the way others saw him. She saw someone who needed help. And she showed up.

That’s the kind of faith she had. It didn’t wait until it was convenient. It didn’t wait until it was appreciated. It just showed up. The truth is… that kind of life doesn’t come from nowhere. It comes from walking with Jesus. Because if you’ve read the Gospels… you’ve seen that kind of life before.

Jesus said in Matthew 25, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these… you did for me.” I don’t know that Mom ever stood up and quoted that verse. Truth is, I don’t remember her quoting much Scripture at all. She didn’t have to. She lived it. When she showed up at that house… she wasn’t just helping a man in need. She was serving her Savior. That’s how she served.

Her faith also showed up for her family. After Tommy died, Mom started a Saturday morning breakfast tradition. I’m a little jealous that Ben and Shawn got the early years, but I was thrilled when we moved closer and I could join in. I’d rise early and head to Chatham—not for toast and jelly, but for homemade buttermilk biscuits, pancakes, stove-cooked grits with a stick of butter melting on top, scrambled eggs, sausage, and bacon. Real, stick-to-your-ribs food.

We’d gather around the table. Sometimes one of us alone. Sometimes two of us. Sometimes all three. Sometimes with our spouses. Other times with our children. But every time with Mom. Many times Uncle Benny would come down for coffee and a visit. Other times friends and extended family were offered the invitation. Rarely was it ever declined.

Over the years, Mom’s Saturday morning breakfast became legendary. It was the envy of all who knew about it. We’d gather around the table… and there was a sacredness to it. It was rhythm. It was formation. Biscuits and sausage and grits wasn’t just food to Mom. It was glue. Glue that held us together.

Yes, it was glue, but more than that, it was the way she loved us.

She was not an extrovert—and that is an understatement. You would think someone who spent over 25 years serving the public every day as Postmaster would be a strong personality. No. Not Mom. She was perhaps one of the most unassuming people I’ve ever known. But what she did was love deeply and serve greatly, quietly, faithfully.

I’ve known that love my whole life. Vanessa was going through Mom’s things the other day when she came across the bottom third of a loose-leaf sheet of paper folded neatly in a small wooden box. When she unfolded it she saw the words “From Bubba to Mother.” On the right-hand side were these words:

The sea lies peaceful and calm; Your fortune lies upon your palm. There are doctors with all kinds of cures, But no love sweeter than yours.

A simple little poem written by her son. Honestly, I have no memory of ever writing it. But it meant something to her, and now it means something to me. It means the love I knew all my life was real, deep, and abiding. Who keeps a child’s poem on loose-leaf paper for fifty years or more? Mom, that’s who.

Here’s what I’ve come to understand. That kind of love—the kind that makes an altar out of a piano bench, the kind that serves the least of these, the kind that makes glue with biscuits and sausage—that doesn’t just happen. That kind of life is formed over time. It’s formed in quiet moments… in unseen choices… in a steady walk. Because the truth is—Mom didn’t just believe in Jesus. She walked with Him.

That’s the Jesus who shaped her life. And that’s the Jesus who has now received her. Mom’s life wasn’t built on being a good person trying hard. It was built on a Savior who loved her first. A Savior who gave His life for her. A Savior who rose again—so that death would not have the last word. Because of Jesus… this is not goodbye. It’s goodbye for now.

The question that sits quietly in front of all of us today is this: What are we going to do with the life we’ve been given? Because the same Jesus Mom walked with is still calling people to follow Him—to live that same kind of life: A life that shows up… A life that serves… A life that loves.That was her life. Not loud. Not flashy. Simply faithful. In the end, that’s a life that matters.

I’m grateful for the faith she lived…and the Savior who made it possible.

Until next time, keep looking up…