stupid smile on my face

Go ahead ask me why I have a stupid grin on my face!

Caring too much

What is the job of a pastor? Is it to be a moral voice in a world of sin? Are they to manage a church so that people have something to come to on Sundays? Are they to placate the masses so government has a reliable source of stability? Are they supposed to listen to people in their dark times?

I have been thinking a lot about what my job means. I know I am not really evangelist. Meaning my major goal in life is not to make new converts. My desire is to help Christians be better Christians. I want people to grow closer to God, not just acknowledge God exists. But I wonder what metrics I am judged by. I wonder what metrics I use on myself. I find I have placed myself in an impossible situation. I am supposed to be efficient, produce something. The youth in the church should be baptized. They should come more often maybe. But what does that matter? I want the youth to know when they face something hard God is there for them. if they need to talk to someone, I am there for them. That is not something I can measure.

My time ends up in a weird balance. I work at making lessons and sermons. I outline, exegesis, and research for lessons. I give them a clear order then apply illustrations that support the main idea. I produce a lesson that can be measured as good or bad.

I try to be open to the lives of the youth I work with. I have a side that cannot be measured. I want to be like coach or fan and cheer the people of my church on. I want to encourage the youth. I suppose I could sum it up and say I care. How can I measure caring? Do I use the amount of time I care? Can I even measure that?

I feel stretched, I want to have good marks on the metrics, and I want to be open. So I am trying to live into standards I cannot measure or really understand. I don’t know for sure how much or little an impact I am having. And that is the problem I just do not know how ‘efficient’ I am in any of the worlds I work in. I could be on a crash course of burnout but I have no clue what else I can do.

Why is it so hard to keep Sabbath?

I try to force myself to take one day where I do not work. It makes sense if there should be a day for God. Sunday cannot be a Sabbath for me because that is my big day. The day that stresses me out the most and I cannot relax. Saturday will not work because I am putting the finishing touches on what happens for Sunday. So my work week is from Saturday-Thursday. The hard part is that I could work on Friday. I enjoy my work. Yesterday I spent hours just reading the bible, reading commentaries, and preparing for family camp. And it was totally fun and interesting to me. I love IMing youth, planning ahead, and doing my work.

So I have to spend my Sabbath not thinking about this week’s lesson. I need to ignore the desire to take care of errands. If my life is so busy with work I may start to ignore the reason for my work. Forgetting God would not be cool, but I know it is a possibility.

So today I am trying to not work. That means I have surfed the internet, listened to music, and read some fiction. Now I am writing a blog entry. I could play some video games but I am not really feeling it right now. I don’t just want to sit and watch tv. It is interesting how to prevent burnout, God wants us to not do work. I probably am better for taking a Sabbath but sometimes it is hard.

so everything got fixed

turns out my job is safe for a year and all the other stuff will be taken care of by other people. when i heard that i go so much relief. i had to call the many people who were worried about me and let them know the good news.

Ennui is not just for French people

I gots the ennui (pronounced “on-weee”). I have it because I have reached all of my goals and I am not sure what I want to do with my life. The only thing I have really known is school. And I just completed that. So I suppose I get a job. But I was already a Youth Pastor, and now I am an English Pastor. So it is not like I have a goal to be a pastor. I really do not have a clear focused goal like getting my M. Div. So I am getting into my denominations pool of people looking for jobs. I think I want to be a pastor of spiritual formation, but really I just want to work in a church I love. This summer I am working at my church, and I am waiting for God to show me what He has I store for me later.

What my Church has Taught Me.

Life happens and there is no need to try and control every aspect about it. the first Church I worked in taught my how to plan like no ones business. We would plan out the whole summer in an afternoon. I worked out a system for planning a day camp. I could plan like everything was under my control.

The church I am working at now has taught me that life happens. There are times when unexpected things happen. Instead of freaking out that the plan has not worked, just make it up as it goes. There have been numerous Sundays I showed up and had no clue what would happen.

It has been helpful for me right now. I do not to plan out my future. I have two paths before me right now. Either my church finds me a place to live and I stay through the summer at the very least, or I go back to Illinois in june and start looking for a church to hire me. Either way it could be very fun. I like not having to stress about my plan.

I am starting to see how I will not be leaving in a world of plans. I will be living in a world of God. Sometimes that will mean planning and organizing, but other times that means I will be letting things happen. I do not want an efficient ministry. I do not want a ministry measured by metrics of the world. I instead just want to lift my life up to God so that He may give me to others. Now that would be cool.

I got Unplugged

This last Thursday I got to go up to Lake Arrowhead in the mountains. It was great because I was not going to take my laptop, nor was I going to watch TV. I even left my IPod back home. It is rare for me to be so disconnected from technology. Right now I am typing on my desktop while Jac Pepin is cooking on the TV. While I love the great things technology has to offer I know I need time to just read and think.

So while I was reading I realized how far my education has gone. I was reading a book about early Christian texts and I could place them and understand their context. I could see how much I have changed since coming to seminary. I do not think education replaces a passion for God, but my education has lead me to have a deeper faith in God. I know that God most have been involved in the Bible otherwise we would have ended up with some terrible stuff. I think education allows people to connect on a deeper level with God. They can see the obvious beauty of God, but also the beauty that is found in the intricacies of life.

I also read a book on hate. I realized there are people I should hate. I should wish them the worst possible things. But I do not hate them. Some of them have really messed me up, but I still think they are children of God and carrying God’s image. That makes them special. Hate is easy, but I cannot hate that well. So now I have to get on to the much harder working towards reconciliation. It would be nice to write people off but I do not have the luxury. God creates more work for me, but in the end I like it.

I start my last quarter of school. I am scared and thrilled with the prospect of the future.

The End of Ecclesiastes

I finished reading Ecclesiastes today. I like where the book comes from. It does not try to paint a world that is prefect and nice. Instead it seems to be for a world that is broken and messed up. There are good things in life and there are bad things.

Most recently I have had to come to turns with some of the bad things in life. I found out last week my first youth pastor did something terrible. I could believe want I and it has been bothering me for a while. I see how fragile it is to be in a place of trust for youth and have the trust violated. I stand firm in my belief that youth need to be protected. But really sometimes working with youth seems so very dangerous. There seems to always be a hint of suspicion.

When I think about my own situation I wonder what I should do. There seems to be this underlying assumption I should get married, or that I am weird for not being married. But with marriage pretty much being a fifty-fifty shot in the dark marriage does not seem to be something I want or need. I admit if I find a woman who has that right combination of being gorgeous and being someone I want to talk to all night then sure I would get married. But I have not met that person and I doubt she exists.

So back to Ecclesiastes, it has the wonder message that no matter how much skill I have at something it will not necessarily save me from bad things. Instead I should focus on life being something to enjoy. I cannot make it perfect but I can enjoy the small gifts God gives me. I hang out with some friends last night and it was wonder. It was a great reminder God has placed some amazing people in my life and I cannot get hung up on the bad things that happen. I am on spring break this week and my goal is to read a Dallas Willard book and putter around.

End Communication.

A live dog is better than a dead lion.

That sounds a lot more negative than I mean it at the moment, but this has been a stressful week for me. I participated in my first memorial service which left me shell shocked for a few days. I am not used to death and I do not like the idea of being ok with it. I had to give my final speech/group presentation on Tuesday and today I learned we did poorly. My internship is winding down and I found that the next interview for my interview was never scheduled, and I am scrambling to get the rest of my paper work in on time. I had the most uncomfortable conversation with the person who has hurt me the most in seminary. Trying to do what Jesus would want me to do with her is hard. I started to write my final for Theology and Culture. I have seen God really working in my life, showing me how loved I am by some close friends. It has been a week that has been harder than normal but I think I am handling it best as I can. I have not done anything I am ashamed of.

So I turned to Ecclesiastes 9, it has the wonderful subtitle “Take life as it comes.” I can honestly say it is a great chapter. Good things and bad things are going to happen to me. That is not an excuse to do things I will regret later no matter how satisfying they may be at the moment. Also I know I need to take the good and just live in it. I have no clue what I am going to do with my life. I have no ambition. I just know this; I am going to love God with everything I am, I am going to minister to other people no matter what I do, I am going to do my best to never treat people the way I have been treated.

I have no clue what shape that will mean for the future but I am diving in with no abandon. It is better to be alive with low status than to be a great figure without life. I know that as long as I do nothing to tarnish my honor and my name I can be doing something for God. I hope things get better in the next couple of weeks but right now I have a lot of stress

PEACE

So I have been thinking about love.

So I have been thinking about love. And no I am not thinking about romantic love; anyone who knows me knows what a dead-end for me that is.

But love seems to be one of those words that is supposed to have meaning and be important, yet really we do not seem to know how to live it out. I say that because people (including me) seem to be terribly rude to each other, ready to ignore the needs other people, and generally do not want to look to the welfare of other people.

So what is love? Because of theology and who I am I point to 1 Corinthians 13 as one of the best definitions of love. So Paul states love is: patient, kind, happy when truth wins out, always hopes, endures through all circumstances. Love is not: jealous, boastful, proud, rude, demand its own way, irritable, does not remember wrongs, not happy about injustice, a quitter, faithless. That second list is longer than the first. It is easier to mess up then to do something right I figure.

What gets me is that I do not think see people living out this love with other people, especially in the church. Now I am not holding up the angry, polemical Christians, but I think the regular Christians could live with more love in their lives. Because what would happen if a Christian lived chapter 13?

For me I think it would change my ministry. My ministry would have to be colored by those attributes. I think I would have to learn how every interaction I have should be rooted in love. It would be my moral and theological duty to compliment people. What better way to sure love then recognize the good in people and let them know others see it.

Every interaction I have with a person becomes the chance and opportunity to love someone. It seems like something I am going to have to think about for a while. Right now I am thinking that Christ is the only source for this love. That the more Christ is in my life, the more he is the center, the more ability I have to live out this love.

ddss

This has been a really weird month for me. I guess God has exposed a huge blind spot to me. I have always had a strong internal locus of control. I have always thought that I could control what happens around me. Generally it was not an overt sense of control but when bad things happened to me I always found a way to blame myself. This experience is no different.

The weird thing is that with my family there is no way I can do what I normally do. I find it somewhat disturbing there is nothing I can do or even really blame. God has made it quite clear that he is in charge and I am just along for the ride. If God is not something to be trusted then this is a problem. But I am reminded that God can be trusted and everything good comes from Him.

I know this is affecting work. I am seeing how what I am going through spiritual is what I am talking about. I hope this is not a bad thing. Which may be another attempt to control what is happening around me. This is hard sorting everything out. I feel like everything around me is crumbling, and the simplest explanation is to question myself and my worth. I do not think there is any simple answer to what is going on.

The greatest comfort I have is that I know God will get me through this. I do not doubt that God will get me through life. I guess I am wrestling with my emotions and it may take a while.

nothing is better, but everything has changed

November always seems to be a terrible month for me. This year it is no different. For the past week I have felt that bad things keep happening to my family. Part of it is that I am learning about issues in my family now even though they have been happening for a while. Half of my extended family is sick and that is crazy to me. I have a small family so it is not like there are a lot of people to begin with. So now that half of them are ill I am not very happy. But what is hitting me is my powerlessness to do anything and I felt that God had failed me. God never promised me safety but I assumed God would take care of my family. I don’t really care what happens to me but I felt that God would at least keep them safe.
Maybe that is the next lesson I need to learn. That God is in control and we have no ‘deals.’ God does not barter or make deals with what people will or will not do. If I had a deal with God that would mean I really did not trust God. It would mean I would have some sort of legal recourse. Instead I have been forced to see that nothing is certain, but God is in control. There is nothing wrong with that. It has reminded me that I need to die to myself and live in Christ. I cannot stand apart from God and tell him how to take care of my family; I can just trust that everything I believe about God is true. And what I struggle with I hope I can say “Lord I believe, help me in my unbelief.”
I also saw that the God I had over my family was not the God I love. For a long time I was frightened to approach God. That If went to God I would only find silence or impotence. I had a god that was more in my image then God. God was patient with me. He even chased after me in this hard time. I have never had a problem with realistically identifying my problem but it is moving on when I know what the problem is that trips me up. I hit my turning point this Monday. Things are still terrible and overwhelming. But I am finding comfort in God. God is not powerless in the face of this problem.
I am not better, I am not happy, and I am not ok with anything. But I am turning to God. I finally used prayer to turn this entire situation over to God. I am finally at a point where I can approach God’s presence and let Him talk to me, not tell Him what to do.
Honestly I think a big part of that are my friends here. In college I learned that if you told anyone about your problems people freaked out. But here friends have gathered around me and let me know that I am cared for. One friend has repeatedly asked if there is anything they can do and my problem was I had no idea what to ask for. Knowing that people care has been great and helpful. I am thankful for people surrounding me and loving me.
As this week progresses I am going to try to get into God’s presence. I am going to seek Him and listen to what he has for me. I am going to open my heart to God because I do not feel I need to hide it anymore. It is wonderful to know when I am being silly God is still there, that I love a God that is ready when I am and does not abandon me because I am in pain. I do not think I have been making great choices lately, but I know that I am not abandoned. God is neato.

A New Thought on the Focus of God.

This last quarter I took early church history. One of the topics covered by this course is the monastic movement. I saw in the hermits and monks people that were afraid of their own humanity. They were afraid that if they saw a woman she would be a distraction. I see in my own fears of sin in their reactions. They became human and I can understand them. As I have noted many times before relationships have been hard for me. Both friendships and romantic relationships. A sharp thorn has been romantic relationships. In the hermits I see that same issue but their response was to run from it. To hide. And maybe that is the best way to deal with it. To get away completely and not worry about it. Because then a person is focused on God and not on the sin that gets them.

I read an article recently that said that the monks were removing themselves to focus on God. That is was not just their sin but it was the things that tempted them. The focus was about getting rid of ALL distractions. If a person got married then they would try to raise a family. In raising a family they would be focused on something other then God. This is another important issue. The monks were not hiding from sin. They were challenging the very things of this world that took them away from God.

I wondering if that is the mindset I should have for God. Those things that distract me from God should be ignored and instead I should focus on God. I was talking a friend recently and I pointed out I have unlimited possibilities. That I can do anything I want with my life. I can move any where and take any job. As long as I pay off my debts my life is open. And maybe instead of thinking about the possibilities I have I should instead think about the opportunities I have. I may never get married, and being concerned with dating may be a distraction for me. Instead I think I am going to focus on taking advantage of the freedom I have, and pursue with more vigor. Heck more vigor and vim.

I had a mystical experience. Ironically enough it was while reading about mysticism. After a couple of weeks of feeling stretched and wondering what is happening something I decided to read during some down time. While reading I started to feel an overwhelming allegiance to God. my beloved lord is the best way to describe it. I was caught up in the moment. I started to crave the nearness to God. I was not watching TV, playing video games, or reading to distract myself. I was in a quiet place that allowed for my love of God to flourish. I was not crushed by my thoughts and stress but I was freed of my responsibilities in that moment. I was connecting to God and to others I have never met in a meaningful way. I learned it is ok to have the temporary experience with God. That I do not have to force it to last but I have to freedom to let it go. Inside of trying to smother it to my bosom I was able to have it and even to look forward to its passing. Because I knew it would pass and I did not have to maintain it I was allowed to have it and then let it go. I did not have to fight with myself to maintain it. And I see now that my faith is not a concrete solid thing that must be built but it is something that I interact with. That I will not be able to adequately use words to describe it but I am able to experience it. I was able to enjoy an experience without guilt or regret in losing it. I was able to speak my love and heart and know it was true. The freedom to have that experience is sometimes missing. Worship at church can seem like just a function, reading the Bible can be just another check mark for the day. But as I, and I hope others, am allowed to have an ebb and flow with God I was able to have that special moment with God. God is good but I may not recognize that all the time I know that I am allowed to have those moments with God.

good times

Life is really good right now. I have lost weight, I getting into better shape, I do not have not have to worry about money to finishing school, I have wonderful friends, God has been doing some great stuff.

healing relationships

Well in the past I have generally written about the nasty things that happen in the past. But now I get to share some good things about relationships. If you have talked to me about my personal view of dating then you know that I am against the idea. I do not think I should date and I doubt God’s plan for my life involves marriage.

Also it is pretty obvious I got hurt real bad a while ago. But last Thursday there was something that happened. I friend asked me to show a friend of his fiancée around Pasadena. It turned out to be a great time. I am used to women being nervous or scared of me because they think I want to get with them. Which is not really true. Or a woman wants to take it in a direction I do not want it to go. While that is rare it happened. I was not nervous or weirded out by showing her around. We made delightful chitchat. Looked at some interesting stuff. I realized it was a good time. I was really happy that I could spend time with someone and not have any problems it is something I have been needing.

Later I show someone that I had a lot of friction with and I realized I was over them. I no longer viewed them with rose color glasses. I no longer was afraid of them and what they thought of me. I realized that God used that short time to heal me of a gaping wound. I could move on happily with joy. So that is the story of healing relationships. That we meet people and they can affect us for the better. No one is a rock all along. No one is by themselves. Others will impact us hopefully God will guide them in healing our brokenness.

So I am giddy and happy. I will probably never see the fiancée’s friend ever again but the impact in my life with last. God is good and knows what He is doing.

Holy Spirit

So I realized that my blog is kinda the supplemental log to my preaching. So that means this one is about the Holy Spirit. Emil Brunner said something interesting about the Holy Spirit. That there can be no one doctrine or definition of the Holy Spirit because the role of the Holy Spirit is so verified. I was thinking about this and over then saying the Holy Spirit is connected to humans I would agree.

But then I have to think about myself and what role the Holy Spirit plays with me. I figure that I need to study like crazy for a sermon. Not because it will inherently make my sermons better but I want to give as many tools to the Holy Spirit as possible. I know that if someone is ever impacted in my ministry then it is because the Holy Spirit moved in them. I believe the Holy Spirit and human intellect are essential for spiritual formation. So it is not about me delivering a good sermon but delivering the best sermon I can so that the Holy Spirit can then use my sermon to change lives.

Earlier today I realized I was a little impatient with a colleague. I am thinking that I need to spend a little more time reflecting with the Holy Spirit. Not that I acted out in any way but just that I was surprised I had to struggle with my attitude so much. So now I am seeing where I need to turn and it will be fun trying to get there.

A new thought on love

It is a funny thing how I will listen to a catholic or Anglican and my life will be changed by that experience. Maybe not an enormous change, but one that challenges my beliefs about people, and how God wants me to live.

I was listening to the BBC version of All Things Considered and they were talking to a monk. What the monk said about love was incredible. He said that the priest or monk has the ability to love more people because they are not married. And that resonated with me. this is not my usual diatribe about marriage but instead an understanding of how people love. In a marriage the couple feels an intense love for the other person. And they should not feel that type of love for anyone else. That love reaches a passion other people will not be able to see. I will never claim to know the kind of love that can exist in a marriage because I am not married and I doubt I ever want to be married. So in marriage there is the love that is deep but for only one person. But a single person can love many people at the same level. There is no intimate connection binding them to one person. The love they express for others can go as deep as possibility with infringing on a relationship ordained by God. So the single person may never know the intensity of love in a marriage they can share their love with many people unfettered.

Both obviously have good points and bad points to them. for a long time I wondered what is the real role of a single person in the church. Everyone expects me to get married and I get the question of if there is someone special in my life or not. The reason I do not think I am going to get married is that every time I get involved with someone it ends up wrecking me. I get used emotional or something else. Since it really does not seem to by God’s plan for my life I have the freedom to start exploring loving others in great depth. Those who know me well see how funny this statement is. It is something I am looking forward to exploring. Maybe I will finally get my theology of singleness sorted out.

Love of the Bible

Falling in Love with the Bible
I have been writing a sermon on the Bible this week. Which has made me think about what I like about that Bible and what I think about the Bible. In high school I loved the Bible. I carried it everywhere I went. All my pants and shorts have cargo pockets to fit my Bible. In College my faith took a hit. Everyone was Christian and we never talked about Christianity. It was like the faith was handed to us and it was never something we had to wrestle with. We were all Christian so it did not matter. I still viewed the Bible as authoritative but I did not have the same passion I had in high school. I knew I was called into ministry so I went to seminary. While in Seminary I had a course over the first summer about the Bible in pastoral care. I was worried it would be about how the Bible will explain all psychological problems as sin issues and the Bible will fix those problems. Well the course was taught by an Anglican priest and it changed my life.

The professor brought up Psalm 119 and held it up for the class to look at. And he said something that was stunning ‘the psalm was an erotic love for the Bible.’ That the author loved the Bible like he loved a woman. It was amazing. I guess I had not seen someone in love with the Bible for a long time. That started a little kernel of passion for the Bible in me. I started to look at the Bible like I did in high school. I started to turn my emotions to the Bible not just my intellect. I think all Christians should turn their emotions to God as well as their minds. So when my emotions started to get into the Bible I started to see my relationship with God was getting deeper. I was able to turn all of me to God and God started to get more of what He deserved, not just some aspect of me.

So in working for this sermon I am trying to explain how to talk about love of the Bible without being moralistic or judgmental. It seems to be a fine line and I don’t want to say “read the Bible or else” and I don’t want to say “the Bible is nice and you should sometime look at it.” I am still shaping the direction this is going but the highlight for me is going to try to be communicating my love for the Bible.

One a side note I started to use a daily lectionary for my Bible reading but if you ask me I will deny it and tell you how lectionaries are evil.

me super busy.

What the heck just happened? So earlier this week I was cruising along feelin’ fine and a whole lot of work hit me. I had a paper due Friday that I did not start until Wednesday. It was a fun paper and it was good. So I was working hard at that. Then Wednesday night I got an e-mail telling me I was preaching that Sunday. Now I had started to think about what to do but this meant it was kicked into high gear. So yesterday was research and writing the first draft of the manuscript. Tonight will be practicing it like crazy. The other issue is that I am pretty nervous about this. I really do not want to do a crappy job. I want to do a good job at this church. Well here goes nothing.