Pastor Scott's Thoughts

Why the Last Week of December is Destroying the Church

As a pastor, I hate the pressure associated with year-end giving.

These last few Sundays of the calendar year are like the climactic ending of a mystery novel for pastors. No one knows what’s going to happen next. Every pastor (including me) will know at the end of the next three days whether or not the ministries of their church can continue as normal (or expand) as they had hoped and prayed; or if they are going to have a very challenging board meeting in January and have to start cutting personnel and programming.

I am pastoring a church that is in the midst of sweeping generational and cultural changes. The changes are exciting and nearly killing me at the same time. At PazNaz we are constantly talking about being intergenerational and multi-cultural. For decades First Church has worked hard at being a place where people of different economic standing discover that they are brother and sister. And I think this flagship Nazarene church is learning to love its denominational connection and heritage without making that identity an impediment to people seeking first the kingdom of God.

I also think the church is in the midst of sweeping theological change. In particular, I hope our ecclesiology is changing. I hope that people at PazNaz are beginning to not think of the church as some place that they go but as something that they are.

But this is why year-end giving is killing the church. Let me try to explain…

There are lots of books that have come out over the last few years trying to help pastors and churches deal with the “new normal” of giving. One of the most popular and helpful is Not Your Parents’ Offering Plate: A New Vision for Financial Stewardship by J. Clif Christopher.

Christopher is a former pastor who has now set up a ministry to help churches with fund raising and stewardship. His book is very helpful and I have been given copies of it at several pastor’s meetings.

Like every book of this nature I have read, Christopher quickly addresses the challenge and change that every pastor is experiencing:

In 2006, for the first time in recorded history, gifts to religion fell below 33 percent of charitable giving. Just twenty years ago, gifts to religion amounted to nearly 60 percent of all charitable giving. Not so any longer. Every year, religion continues to get a smaller piece of the charitable pie because church leaders simply do not know how to compete for the charitable dollar.

Christopher is absolutely right. More and more great and worthy organizations are competing for the charitable giving of parishioners and while those agencies and organizations have “stepped up their game” in getting those dollars, the church has lagged behind. He rightly and helpfully suggests that pastors and churches begin to operate differently. Here are some of his suggestions:

• Invite the executive director of one of your community’s first-rate nonprofits to come by and talk about your stewardship committee about how they do fund-raising and how they relate to donors.
• Recognize that donors are different and give and different levels… So send different messages to different levels of givers.
• Spend more time with major donors.
• Think like a college president or the director of advancement for a Christian university: promote the mission, plan for estate giving, and craft compelling capital campaigns.
• Preach directly on money at least four times a year.
• Pay close attention to the giving records and write personal notes of gratitude to faithful givers.

At the bottom-line, his argument can be summed up this way:

• Giving patterns have (and are continuing) to change radically for people in the church.
• People are giving to organizations that match their own missional and transformational concerns and interests.
• The church had better learn quickly from those organizations and copy their practices (and hopefully do them even better) or they will find themselves without any financial support.

Again, I think Christopher on so many levels is really correct and resisting his advice may be like howling at the moon. There are many things that churches need to learn from these kinds of books – especially about expressing gratitude to faithful supporters. I am sure he so absolutely right that if the church doesn’t figure out how to compete for the finances of the faithful that ministry will continue to suffer.

But I am also convinced that putting in the practices (even the “best practices”) of the most Christian, missional, and transformational non-profit organizations may destroy the church.

Here’s the problem: You are what you practice to be. If you spend the day dribbling and shooting a ball you will be a basketball player. If you run around kicking a ball into a goal you will become a soccer player. If you chase a little white ball around, hitting it with funny shaped sticks and trying to get it into a small round hole, you will be a golfer. And If the church starts practicing like it is another in a long list of non-profit organizations, it will become another in a long list of non-profit organizations.

The church is not another charitable organization; it is the Body of Christ.

The church is not just a 501(c)(3) devoted to a common social cause; it is a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation witnessing in its life together to God’s new creation.

The church is not some place we go; it is something that we are. 

Here is what I am convinced is true theologically:

• The church is not one more charitable organization but a distinct new creation people in the world.
• Giving for the Christian is a spiritual practice (a spiritual discipline) that is simply one expression (of many) of being part of that new creation people.
• Practicing giving as a discipline within the church helps to form the identity that we are the church. We give to the church as part of the church not because we have been persuaded that it is a good mission investment but because it expresses who we are and reflects that where our treasure is our heart is also.

I know that is idealistic. And I know fewer and fewer people think that way. But maybe they don’t think that way, in part, because the church stopped practicing that way. Perhaps we have become what we have practiced to become. 

So this is why I think the last week of December is destroying the church. It’s not that some people give much of their tithe at the end of the year. I know that the complexity of the economic life of some in the congregation makes year-end giving a necessary habit.

But our practices reflect what we believe. And our current practices - that include having to compete with all of the other great and worthy non-profit organizations for year-end dollars - make the church just one more non-profit organization. I know that as a pastor I will have to heed much of the advice of experts like Christopher (primarily because I feel the tremendous weight of keeping the pastoral staff employed). But I fear it could be part of the church’s undoing.

The Church, Pentecost, and Ferguson, Missouri

I have been watching the news and paying close attention to news reports and social media chatter since the announcement of the decision not to prosecute the officer involved in the shooting of Michael Brown sparked violent protests in Ferguson, Missouri and elsewhere.

Although there is much that is cloudy and chaotic in trying to interpret these kinds of violent tragedies, one thing seems fairly clear. As Robert Jones points out in an article in The Atlantic, the responses to the events in Ferguson fall across lines of race http://m.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/08/self-segregation-why-its-hard-for-whites-to-understand-ferguson/378928/

I was praying early this morning about what my response, as a white evangelical Christian leader should be. My sense from the Spirit was that what is needed most - at least in the immediate - from most white Christians is not so much our mouth as our ears.

The segregation of the church in America has always been a source of sadness for me - and I am sure even more so for Jesus. I understand the history and the reasons why we are divided, but I am still a prisoner of hope that even this side of the eternal kingdom the Body of Christ can find ways of reflecting the unity in diversity that ought to be a primary mark of the Church and a witness to the new creation.

What I love about the Pentecost narrative in Acts 2 is that the multiple languages present in Jerusalem on that day were not eradicated but, by the power of the Spirit, the diverse people present that day understood each other and were baptized into one new and holy nation.

As I often like to point out to people, the real miracle of Pentecost is not that people spoke differently but that people heard differently. Peter preached a sermon and each heard it in their own language. The hope of Pentecost is that God's new creation people would hear and understand one another.

And so my encouragement to the Church this morning is that, especially where the racial issues surrounding Ferguson are involved, believers should be "quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger" (James 1:9).

This is not a call for Anglo church leadership to stay silent or fail to stand with our brothers and sisters of color in the Body of Christ. But my own sense today is that before I start talking I need to try and listen well to the sufferings, the fears, and the experiences of those in the Body whose experiences are so different than my own.

Mutated Forms of the 23rd Psalm

Yesterday morning - August 10 - I preached on the Good Shepherd text from John 10:11-21. The point of the message was to connect the "I Am" statements from John's Gospel to the Great I AM text of Exodus 3. In other words when Jesus said, "I Am the Good Shepherd" he was also saying something very important about the nature of the Father as well.

Clark Pinnock would often say that our view of God the Father is critical because we inevitably come to look like the God we believe in.

That got me to thinking about the way Psalm 23 would really sound if we were honest about the kind of God we believe in. So I wrote a few mutated versions of this beloved shepherd psalm. Several people asked for copies - so here they are...

Here is Psalm 23 for those of us convinced that God is the angry judge:

The Lord is my judge and taskmaster. He watches everything I do.

He keeps list after list of all my sin; he keeps track of my stray thoughts; he can’t wait to pour out his wrath on me.


He puts obstacles in my path just to see if I’ll be good or not.

Sometimes when things are going too good, he will place me in the darkest valley, it terrifies me to think of what he might do to me.
His wrath and his fury are my likely destiny.

If you think he’s angry with me, you should see the way he’s going to treat my enemies. He will reign fire on their heads. I get giddy just thinking about it.

Yes, legalism, fear, and doing the right thing purely out of obligation
will pursue me all the days of my life, and if I’m just good enough I will barely make it into the Lord’s house... maybe… I hope.

Here is Psalm 23 for those who see God as the great clock-maker who set everything up but has largely left us to our own devices:

The Lord is the great clock-maker and absentee landlord. For the rest, I’m pretty much on my own.

He gave me a good head on my shoulders; he handed me a book of rules; he expects me to make something decent out of my life.

He has hidden some tips and rules in the Bible that make my life seem to work better.

My goal is to avoid as much as possible dark valleys, but I fear no danger because I can probably handle it. My wits, my talent, and my clear understanding of God’s principles —
they will protect me.

It is my purpose to live in complete safety and avoid my enemies.
You wound up your clock, God;
I’m still making it day-by-day.

Yes, I will grab all the gusto I can without risking too much all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the rules of the Lord as long as I live.

Here is the 23rd Psalm for a generation of "Moralistic Therapeutic Deists":

The Lord is my grand parent in the sky. He shows up when I need him.

He lets me pursue my dreams; he is a great addition to my life; wants me to be happy.

I pretty much do what I want, and try my best to be a good person. I don’t really need to throw his name around.

I’m trying life on my own. Now, if for some reason I walk through the darkest valley, I will show up to church and beg him to show up.
His last minute help – it bails me out.

I live indistinctively enough to not have many enemies.
You are a great addition to my life;
my life works so well with you added in!

Yes, lukewarmness and spiritual apathy
will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will show up in the Lord’s house whenever I need him.

May our prayer always be instead:

The Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing.

He lets me rest in grassy meadows; he leads me to restful waters; he keeps me alive.
He guides me in proper paths for the sake of his good name.

Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no danger because you are with me.
Your rod and your staff—
they protect me.

You set a table for me
right in front of my enemies.
You bathe my head in oil;
my cup is so full it spills over!

Yes, goodness and faithful love
will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the Lord’s house as long as I live.

Life Together - Confessing Our Idealism

I am having one of my classes read Bonhoeffer's Life Together. It has been a few years since I read through it and so it is wonderful to get to read through it again. The first chapter on Community especially spoke to me this morning.

For Bonhoeffer, the Body of Christ is a reality that we receive by faith and like the Eucharist around which it is centered, we partake of it as a gift. Because it is the work of God and because it is gift we have to confess our tendency to try to build it in our own strength and we have to give up our idealizations we carry with us into the community of faith. Here is what Bonhoeffer writes about our idealism:

"Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God's sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it... Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial... The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God HImself accordingly. He stands adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of brethren. He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dream binds men together. When things do not go his way, he calls the effort a failure. When his ideal picture is destroyed, he sees the community going to smash. So he becomes, first an accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself... We enter into that common life not as demanders but as thankful recipients." (p. 27-28)

This helped me greatly today. I have recently found myself increasingly frustrated with myself as pastor. Part of my inner tension is due to trying to do too many things. Part of it is coming up on the end of a seventh year with a church that knows my flaws and shortcomings very well (and I know theirs). Part of it is feeling like the same problems, the same issues, and the same dysfunctions just keep appearing and reappearing.

But this morning Bonhoeffer reminded me that the greatest source of my frustrations has to do with my own idealism and my own expectations of what the Body of Christ should be - for me. Therefore rather than thankfully receiving life in the community as gift - including its challenges that are making me a better person - I tend to focus on what it is not and what I am not as a member and leader within it.

I needed to be reminded today that the Church is not something we are building for Christ, it is his Eucharistic gift that we are partaking of from him. In Bonhoeffer's words, "Christian brotherhood is not an ideal which we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate. The more clearly we learn to recognize that the ground and strength and promise of all our fellowship is in Jesus Christ alone, the more serenely shall we think of our fellowship and pray and hope for it." (p. 30)

So I am laying down my angst today about all the church is not, and receiving with gratitude all that the Body of Christ is as gift from God. Thanks be to God.

"Not the Way It's Supposed to Be" - Our Faith, Sermon 2

Link to the sermon audio: http://paznaz.org/media.php?pageID=28

1 John 1:5-2:2

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate iwth the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world. 

There is movie that came out in 1991 – the same year that Debbie and I moved to LA/Pasadena the first time – called Grand Canyon. It is a very interesting, sort of complicated movie, about a whole group of strangers that, unbeknownst to them, live very different lives that are actually profoundly connected. The message of the film was that whether we recognized it or not, like the Grand Canyon itself, we are all part of something (really a story) that is much bigger than ourselves.

But what I remember most about the film was the opening scene, when an attorney, played by Kevin Kline, leaves the Forum after a Laker game and decides to get out of traffic and take the back streets (in his very expensive car) to get home. This turns out to be a terrible mistake when his car breaks down in the wrong neighborhood. Using his car phone (remember it was 1991), he calls for a tow truck. But while he is waiting he is discovered by a group of roaming gang members. The threat is averted when the tow-truck driver named Mac, played by Danny Glover, arrives just in time. Here is how the conversation ensues:  

“The toughs protest: the truck driver is interrupting their meal. So the driver takes the leader of the group aside and attempts a five-sentence introduction to metaphysics: ‘Man,’ he says, ‘the world ain’t supposed to work like this. Maybe you don’t know that, but this ain’t the way it’s supposed to be. I’m supposed to be able to do my job without askin’ you if I can. And that dude is supposed to be able to wait with his car without you rippin’ him off. Everything’s supposed to be different than what it is.’” (Cornelius Plantiga, Jr., Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be).

I like that line – a line used by Neil Plantiga as the title of his book on sin – this is “not the way it’s supposed to be.” One of the primary tenets of faith for the Christian church across the centuries is the conviction that human sin means that things are not the way they are supposed to be. Both the Apostle’s and Nicene Creeds mention sin:

We believe… in the forgiveness of sins.

(The Apostles Creed)

 …We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins…

(The Nicene Creed)

The fifth Article of Faith for the Church of the Nazarene also addresses sin:

We believe that sin came into the world through the disobedience of our first parents, and death by sin. We believe that sin is of two kinds: original sin or depravity, and actual or personal sin…

(Fifth Article of Faith: The Manual of the Church of the Nazarene)

Hamartiology

The study of sin is called harmartiology. This word is derived from the Greek word for sin – hamartia – which means “to miss the mark.” Sin is a multi-layered word that names all of the personal and corporate ways that humankind misses the mark of God’s intentions for the creation.

I like the way Plantinga defines sin. He writes, “The Bible presents sin by way of major concepts, principally lawlessness and faithlessness, expressed in an array of images: sin is the missing of a target, a wandering from the path, a straying from the fold. Sin is a hard heart and a stiff neck. Sin is blindness and deafness. It is both the overstepping of a line and a failure to reach it – both transgression and shortcoming. Sin is a beast crouching at the door. In sin, people attack or evade or neglect their divine calling… Sin is disruption of created harmony and then resistance to divine restoration of that harmony…God hates sin not just because it violates his law but, more substantively, because it violates shalom (his peace), because it breaks that peace, because it interferes with the way things are supposed to be. (Indeed, that is why God has laws against a good deal of sin.) God is for shalom and therefore against sin. In fact, we may safely describe evil as any spoiling of shalom, whether physically, morally, spiritually, or otherwise… Sin, then is any agential evil for which some person (or group of persons) is to blame. In short, sin is culpable shalom-breaking.”

Sin is not an easy concept to describe. It is transgressing boundaries but also falling short of intentions. It is individual and corporate. It is structural and personal. We are shaped by its existence, and yet we contribute to its life.

The text we read in 1 John describes sin as part of the darkness that falls outside of the pathway of light that we walk with God. Like Paul in Romans 3:23, for John it is important for all people to recognize that they are sinful. “If someone claims to not have sin, they lie.” But the sin that God both acknowledges and deals with is not just our sin as individuals, but the sin of the whole world.

Rather than giving us clean definitions of sin, the Scripture gives us stories about sin and its many effects upon humankind and creation. So let’s turn to the creation story to see the way the people of God thought about sins breaking into the world.

Just as an aside, let me say that the Christian church for much of its history has debated about the nature of the creation narratives – and the Garden of Eden narrative in particular. I can point to literature dating back to the early 200s where some early church theologians seem to take for granted that the garden narratives are historical, while others seem to take for granted that they are theological and symbolic in nature.

I was at a meeting of Christian colleges recently where the issue of creation and science was discussed. Three schools were asked to give presentations. The first school is openly committed to a historical reading of Genesis and is therefore also committed to young earth creationism. Their scientists admitted that they could not currently prove scientifically that the earth is young. But they argued that they would trust the Bible and keep working believing fully that as science develops it will eventually prove the young earth view to be true.

A second Christian school gave a presentation arguing their position that the dates of the Old Testament are largely symbolic and that the authors were not concerned in giving all of the generations included in genealogies, so they are okay arguing for an old earth and are even open to limited forms of evolution. But they do hold to the existence of an historical Adam and Eve and to the historicity of the garden narratives.

A third Christian school presented a more thoroughly theistic evolutionist view that not only held that the earth is very old, but also that the garden narratives were divinely inspired narrative theology and not inspired history.

It was a very interesting discussion. But it was also typical of discussions that have been going on in Christianity for hundreds of years. One of my friends who was also at the conference asked me which of the three points of view the Church of the Nazarene holds. And I jokingly answered, “Yes.”

This is one of those areas where the Church of the Nazarene attempts to avoid division. The denomination has a very basic statement on creation:

The Church of the Nazarene believes in the biblical account of creation (“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…” – Genesis 1:1). We oppose any godless interpretation of the origin of the universe and of humankind. However, the church accepts as valid all scientifically verifiable discoveries in geology and other natural phenomena, for we firmly believe that God is the Creator.

The point of that statement is basically that the church affirms the “who” and the “why” of creation while leaving the “when” and the “how” up for debate among deeply committed Christian scientists and scholars.

That being the case, let’s look at what the garden narratives reveal to us about the nature of sin in the world.

Genesis 3 - The Human Story

The garden narratives of Genesis two and three begin with a picture of shalom or peace. Adam and Eve exist in an unbroken relationship with God. This is symbolized in the way that they walk each day in the cool of the garden with him in openness, transparency, and vulnerability. As they walk rightly (in righteousness) with God, all of the other relationships exist as unbroken. They live in a relationship of shalom with one another. Adam and Eve treat one another with mutuality and trust. They live as people exercising proper dominion over the creation. They care for the creation and the creation responds back to them in abundance. And they even live in proper relationship to the self. They are naked and unashamed. As they live in right relationship to God they live with a proper sense of self-love; avoiding both narcissism and insecurity.

The serpent tricks Eve into believing that the limitations God has put upon the garden somehow hinder her freedom. We all live with limitations. The good things that God has given us can easily transcend the appropriate boundaries and become harmful and damaging. For example, the gift of strength that God has given us in our bodies is wonderful. With that gift there are all kinds of good things we can do: work, sports, or helping people in need. But we can also exceed the boundaries of that gift and use our strength to hurt or abuse others who are weaker. The gift that makes work possible also makes bullying a possibility. The garden is good, but there are some boundaries to what Adam and Eve can do and maintain shalom in the garden.

Unfortunately, Eve and Adam fall for the serpentine lie of self-sovereignty and eat the fruit that is forbidden and yet so beautiful to the eyes and delightful to taste. Transcending the boundaries everything falls apart. God now comes to walk with Adam and Eve in the garden and rather than responding in openness and vulnerability, they hide from him. When God finds Adam he blames Eve. Eve blames the serpent. No one takes responsibility. Everyone has to cover their nakedness and hide in fear from the other.

The picture is one in which the relationship with God is broken and therefore all of the other relationships – with others, the creation, and even the self – are broken. The name Adam means "humankind" and the name Eve means "life-giver." It is important for us to realize that this story is not just their story, it is the story of all of humankind. It is our story. In all of our lives things are not the way they are supposed to be.

The Growth of Sin and Original Sin

As the narrative of the Scripture leaves the garden sin only seems to grow. Within one generation the blame and shame of Adam and Eve has turned into the violence of Cain’s jealous murder of his brother Abel (Gen. 4).

At the end of the fourth chapter of Genesis is a little genealogy where Lamech – the seventh generation after Adam – sings a song to his wives about his desire for retribution. If Cain is avenged sevenfold, Lamech sings, then he will be avenged seventy-seven fold. Lamech is the reason “eye for an eye” laws were developed. If you poke out Lamech’s eye he burns down your village! But this is a great picture of sin moving from the garden, through Cain, to the overblown violence of Lamech.

At the beginning of the Noah story - in Genesis 6:11 - we are told that the “earth was corrupt and filled with violence.” Again the picture is one of complete sinful corruption of all the good things God had formed in the creation. And in Genesis 11 we get the story of Babel and how nation divides against nation. In eleven chapters sin has moved from brokenness with God, one another, the creation, and the self, to full-blown violence of brother against brother, neighbor against neighbor, and nation against nation.

When the book of Exodus opens up sin is not just found in individuals but it is now a nation – Egypt – that embodies not only personal sin and evil but now structural sin and evil. Egypt itself embodies the nature of sin that breaks and oppresses others.

By the time the New Testament opens the people of God not only see sin as personal and structural, but they now see it personified in the principalities and powers. Sin seems to have taken on a life of its own in Satan and the demonic.

Simply put sin is a complicated category, but as Christians we believe that on every level, things are not the way they are supposed to be. They are not the way they are supposed to be outside of me but also inside of me. This is at least part of what Christians are trying to describe when they talk about “original sin.”

There is a comedian who talks about his struggle as a Catholic growing up with the idea of original sin. He said he used to go to confession and when the priest asked him how he had sinned he would say, “I lied to my mother.” And the priest would say, “I’ve heard that one.” And so the comedian would say, “I also cheated on a test.” To which the priest would respond again, “I’ve heard that one a hundred times also.” Then the comedian said, “I had such a hard time coming up with an original sin…”

That is not exactly what we mean by “original sin” but it does in some ways point to the problem. Christians are convinced that sin is simply a part of who we are both inwardly and outwardly. As the Apostle Paul writes, “…it clings so close.” Sometimes psychologists and other scholars wrestle with the question, are we the way we are by nature or by nurture? Were we born this way or were we formed to be this way by the environment and cultural shaping around us? Again, when it comes to sin, our answer is, “Yes.”

Original sin means that we are more tied together to one another than we want to admit. Sin and brokenness fills our relationships with one another. We are good at teaching one another to sinful. But we also believe that there resides within in us what John Wesley would describe as “a bent toward sinning.” We have been shaped by the fallen world, but we have also added to its fallenness.

And so as we wrestle with our faith, one of the places we have to start is with the affirmation of our sinfulness. The call to faith more often than not begins with one of two words: either “repent!” or “confess!” In a world that, like Adam, usually wants to blame its sin and its failings on others, the people of God gather week after week to ask the Father to “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”

We are a people who believe that we have to learn to pray with the Psalmist,

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, and you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment. Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me. You desire truth in the inward being… Create in me a clean heart, O God and put a new and right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and od not take your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit (Psalm 51).

 

Questions for Family and Small Group Reflection:

• When you think about the Genesis story of Adam and Eve sinning, what are some of the aspects of sin that you think of?
• If someone, who is not a follower of Christ, asked you what “sin” means, how would you describe it to that person?
• The Scripture says that, “the wages of sin are death” (Romans 6:23). Besides our human mortality, what are some ways that you think sin brings death?
• If “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), why do you think it so hard for us to be honest about our sinfulness to one another?
• Suggested Activity: find a person or group of people that you can be honest with about the things you struggle with in your life. Invite them to pray for you but to also hold you accountable to grow in your relationship with Christ.

"God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity" - Our Faith, Sermon 1

Link to the sermon audio: http://www.paznaz.org/media.php?pageID=28

Colossians 1:15-20; 2:6-7

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross…

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. 

Those of you who know me well know that I use the phrase, “God told me…” very infrequently. I rarely make that statement, not because I don’t think God is constantly speaking (or at least trying to speak) to me, but because I am so suspicious of how easy it is for any of us to try to add validity or gravitas to our own desires by adding God’s name to them.

For that reason, I am apprehensive to say, as we enter into what I have been calling a “Year of Vision” together, that God told me to have us do this. There is big a part of me that thinks and feels like, as a community, we need to spend some time reflecting both on who we are and who we want to be. Over the last six-plus years PazNaz has experienced a fair amount of transition. It is my sense that a lot of you who now call this church home feel like you jumped on a bus while it was moving and you would kind of like to know exactly where this thing is going. And even those of us who jumped on this bus while it was still a horse-drawn wagon need to be reminded from time to time what makes this particular vehicle unique and exactly what our destination looks like.

But I am increasingly convinced that this year of vision is coming out of more than just my personal sense that we need to be reminded who we are as a church. I have truly been unable to escape the deep sense – which I believe is coming from God – that we are on the precipice of God doing “incredibly more than all we could ever ask or imagine” in and through this church. However, it is my sense that part of what is holding us back is the lack of clarity about who we are, what we believe, and what our key mission ought to be. Without sounding overly dramatic, I feel so burdened about this year together that I truly believe I would be unfaithful to what God has called me to be if I did not lead us through these next few months of vision.

A few years ago the Church of the Nazarene articulated the three core values that, as a global denomination, hold us together. They are these three statements: We are Christian; We are Holiness; and We are Missional. As we begin this year of vision, I have taken those three core values and changed the language just a bit, but the ideas are essentially the same. In these next few months leading up to Advent we will be thinking about Our Faith, or what it means for us to say that we are Christian. Right after the New Year begins we will spend time thinking about Our Life, or what it means for us to live lives of holiness. And finally, in the spring, we will think about Our Mission, or the purposes to which God has called us as people participating in his redemption of the world.

Some Commitments

As we begin, I want to make some commitments to you as a congregation and I want to invite you to make some commitments in return. I hope you already sense that I am out of the pulpit very rarely, and that when I am here that I work extremely hard to be as prepared as I possibly can be. But I want you to know that because of the strong burden that I feel about this year together, I will be working – and working with Pastor Joe and those who help us on Saturday nights and at Valley Center - very hard to make each week’s message as significant as it can be. And because I do not want you to miss out on any aspect of this year, I will be posting a full manuscript and a link to the audio cast of the message on my blog each week. (You can access my blog through the church’s website - www.paznaz.org - and/or each week I will put in the sermon notes the link to the previous week’s sermon).

And because I believe that this year will not ultimately matter if we don’t take time outside of worship to talk about these things as families and as a community, you will notice at the end of each week’s notes a section of questions for reflection and likely a recommendation for an activity or action for you to take in the days ahead. As a staff team, we are committed to making this year as effective as we know how to make it. We are also working on video introductions and lessons for those of you who have small groups, want to form a small group, or want to sign up and have us help you find a small group.

The commitment I would invite, in return, from you is that you would lean into this year. Don’t just let these resources sit there. Commit to use them. It is my hope that you will make every effort to worship with us as frequently as you can. But that when you have to be away, you will read or listen to the sermon. Also, that whether you are here or have to listen on-line, that you will take time to reflect on the questions with your family or in a small group that you are a part of. Of course, if you are not in a small group – or place of connection – build one (you don’t need to wait for us to give you permission), or let us help you find a place to get connected.

I am convinced that, if this year is not significant, it will not be because God didn’t do his part, it will be because we failed to lean into it in faith.

Our Faith

I want to say just a couple of words about this first section – Our Faith – as we reflect on what we believe. It is always a risky thing to talk about what we believe. It’s risky, first of all, because there is no way to cover, even in ten or eleven weeks, the entirety of Christian faith. This first series is forcing me to make some decisions about what are the most vital aspects of our shared faith to cover. John Wesley – in many ways the theological father of this tradition – did not like to use the word “fundamentals” because the idea that there are certain “fundamentals of the faith” always seemed to him to create unnecessary disputes about how many “fundamentals” there are, and which tenets of faith are essential and which are non-essential.

However, even though Wesley shied away from the word “fundamental,” he did hold that there were some truths “which it nearly concerns us to know, as having a close connection with vital religion.” Which leads me to my second thought about Our Faith. The key beliefs we will talk about over the next few weeks and months are not for our heads (or minds) alone. As good Wesleyans, the only beliefs that really matter are those that shape our heart and our head together. There are lots of disputes these days about orthodoxy. But we should always remember what James wrote, “even the demons believe and shudder” (James 2:19). What matters in Our Faith is not just orthodoxy (right beliefs), but what we might call orthopraxy (right practice) and orthopathy (the right heart). In other words, I want to try and focus on the beliefs that matter most to the living out of the Christian faith.

Finally, before we move into the sermon itself, let me just say a quick word about the word “our” in the phrase, Our Faith. As we walk through various tenets of faith, I am keenly aware that Christians don’t agree on everything. There will likely be things in the next few weeks that I will say that you will not agree with, or at the very least, that you would like to nuance. I am going to do my best to focus primarily on those tenets that all Christians hold together. And at times I am going to try, as best I can, to reflect what the Church of the Nazarene in particular believes.

It is okay for us to dialogue about matters of faith. In fact, it is more than okay. It is essential for every generation, in every cultural context, to have robust conversations about what it is that the church believes. Faith is not a dead set of rules or tenets we cognitively assent to. Christian faith at its best is a living out of the Way of that constantly has to be alive in our hearts and it has to confront new challenges, and move into new contexts. The Church of the Nazarene, on many issues tries to maintain what might be referred to as a “broad tent.” And so it is going to be okay for us in some of the elements of faith that we will discuss in the next weeks to agree in principle and disagree in detail. We cannot forget that we “see through a glass darkly” (1 Cor. 13:12). Therefore we keep striving to have in essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; but in all things charity.

So let’s begin in a critical but challenging area: the nature of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

At the beginning of the sermon notes, I have included brief sections from the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Articles of Faith from the Manual of the Church of the Nazarene. Let’s take a look at them:

We believe in God the Father Almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth,

 And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord… We believe in the Holy Spirit…

(The Apostles Creed)

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty

Maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God,

Eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light,

True God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father…

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of Life,

Who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified…

(The Nicene Creed)

We believe in one eternally existent, infinite God, Sovereign of the universe;

That He only is God, creative and administrative, holy in nature,

attributes and purpose;

That He, as God, is Triune in essential being, revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

(First Article of Faith: The Manual of the Church of the Nazarene)

 

The Essential Doctrine of the Trinity

Without question, in just about any statement of Christian faith you want to look at, the Trinitarian nature of God is considered essential. However, for many in Christian history the doctrine of the Trinity has been confusing at best and unhelpful at worst. As Dorothy Sayers remarked, “For the average lay-person, the mystery of the trinity means... The Father is incomprehensible, the Son is incomprehensible, and the whole thing is incomprehensible.” But over the last several decades there has been a resurgence in emphasis on the doctrine of the Trinity as critical for Christian theology not just because of what it affirms about Jesus and the Holy Spirit, but because of what it says about the essential nature of God. What I want you to realize today is that the doctrine of the Trinity is not just essential for what we believe, but I am also convinced that understanding the nature of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is essential for Christian living.

From Many to One

As one reads the Old Testament, one can see the progression in Israel’s understanding of the divine from polytheism, to henotheism, to monotheism. Polytheism is the idea that there are many, many gods. This is where the people of God started in their thinking: Yahweh, Israel’s God, is one among the many gods in the universe. In the story of the Exodus, for example, it is clear that there were many gods at work in the world. (So many in fact, that Moses needed to ask God to tell him what name to use when he went to deliver the people from Pharaoh and all of his gods). So initially, for Israel, Yahweh is their national god among the gods of all the other nations.

The more Israel experienced God, the more they moved toward henotheism, the idea that there are many gods, but Yahweh is ruler over all of the gods. So the people of God might say, “Who among all the mighty-ones is like Yahweh? There is no one like Yahweh!”

Finally, the people moved to monotheism. They came to recognize that all of the other gods are false (they are made by human hands and imaginations) and that Yahweh alone is God. “Hear, O Israel. Yahweh is God, Yahweh alone” (Deut. 6:4).

This has important ethical implications. For example, a few years ago I heard a wonderful academic paper presented on how the shift for the people of Israel from polygamy to monogamy roughly reflected their move from polytheism to monotheism. When they were polytheists they also lived out their covenantal love in polygamous ways. We might say they even reflected henotheism. For example, for Jacob, Rachel is the wife above all the other wives. However, as the more the people move toward monotheism, the more they saw love in patterns of covenantal monogamy. This is not just a belief of the head, but it had important moral implications.

From One to Three

So the people moved from many gods to one God. But then they moved from the one to three. Christians began to talk about God in three persons, not because there is something inherently mysterious about the number three, but because this is how God’s people experienced God’s self-revelation: as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

God revealed himself to the people as Father. “We believe in God, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.” There is something deep and profound about being able to call God – Abba – Father.

But He has also revealed himself as the Son. The reason I had us begin with the text from Colossians this morning is because of the way we see Paul write about the nature of Jesus. For Paul, and typically for the early church, Jesus was not just some kind of super-messenger who knew and understood more about God than anyone else in history. He is not just a prophet from God, “he is before all things… In him all things hold together… He is the image of the invisible God… In him all of the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” The church considered Jesus worthy of worship because he did not just teach about God, but he WAS God among us. As John writes, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

I don’t want to downplay what an important faith claim this is. I met with a young woman recently who is struggling deeply with faith. She asked me directly why I believed in Christian faith. I told her that I didn’t consider a belief in God to be a huge leap of faith. When I consider the complexities of the universe, personally, I find it takes less faith to believe in an intelligent Creator than to believe that the complexity came about through a random cosmic accident. We should never forget that the atheist is making a leap of faith. The purposelessness of the universe cannot be proven. So it is not necessarily an act of intellectual honesty or superiority to be an atheist. It is in many ways a faith position as well.

But I did tell her that I agreed that there was no way to get past the faith claims that this intelligent Creator uniquely revealed himself in the history of Israel, and most particularly that this God most uniquely revealed himself in the incarnate form of a first-century carpenter from Nazareth. I shared with her some of the reasons I consider those faith claims to not be unreasonable. But there is no way to get beyond faith. We are Christians (Christ – ians) primarily because we do believe that “in Jesus God was reconciling the world to himself.”

As we will see in a few weeks, this also means that we have to be careful what we say about God. Whatever we say about God has to be consistent with what is revealed in Jesus. Sometimes in Christian history it is easy to end up with two gods. For example, God the Father is the angry judge and God the Son is the gracious and loving redeemer. I think that is problematic. The Father and the Son are different “persons” within the Trinity, but they share the same essential nature.

Likewise, the Spirit is not just sent from God, but it is the very being of God at work in history, in Jesus, and in his redemptive work in creation. The work of God did not end with the revelation in Christ Jesus. The Spirit of God, the same Spirit at work in Christ, continues to work redeeming, transforming, and sanctifying creation.

Perichoresis – the God Who Makes Space

So we get from many to one, and from one to three… I love to read and teach the theology of the early church – what is call patristic theology. For the first three or four hundred years of church history an tremendous amount of energy was put into trying to describe the mystery of the God who is three and one. It is my sense that the church has always been better at recognizing what we shouldn’t say then it has been at finding the exact language to express what we want to say. The mystery of God has always seemed to go beyond our limited language. And the many metaphors that have been used are always helpful to a point, but they too always seem to end up being inadequate.

There is a theological term that finds its origins in one of the early church Fathers that in the last few decades has become extremely important to the conversation about the mystery of the Trinity. The term is the Greek word perichoresis (meaning: passing into one another). The idea is that God by very nature both indwells and makes space for the other persons in the Trinity. Here is the mystery: eternally the Father has been making space for the Son, and the Son for the Spirit, and the Spirit for the Father… etc., etc., etc.,… God is eternally the one who makes space for the other. (Some theologians refer to this as the “perichoritic dance” of the Trinity).

It is interesting how making space for another changes us. Almost 23 years ago Debbie and I made space for one another. In Christian marriage two people who are whole in relationship to God “become one” by making space for the other: for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health. Even one partner loses the other or even walks away from the other, in some sense we are never the same because space has forever been made for the other.

I remember well when we found out that we were having a baby. We were living in a little back house up on Sierra Bonita Avenue. It was so tiny that all we had was a large closet that we could turn into a nursery for Caleb. But it was important to us to wallpaper the closet and turn it into a kind of nursery because we knew that we had to make space for this new life in our family. Our union of two was becoming a union of three.

With the additions of Noah, Jonah, and Sophie new space has been added in our family. Part of what has been so painful about Caleb going off to college last week is that there is an empty chair around our table. We are a family of six and it feels wrong not to have all six seats filled. I have thought a lot this week about some of my friends who have tragically lost a spouse or child. Even when they are no longer there, the space that we made for them still exists. It is why I believe those of you who make space for foster children are so Christlike in that calling. You are making space within your life for someone who may or may not get to stay in that space.

But the point is this: space-making is an act of love, and it is an act of love that constantly redefines who we are. This is the perichoritic idea of the Trinity. God, in his very nature, has eternally been making space within himself for the three persons of the Trinity. God is the space-maker. God is love.

Theologian William Placher expresses it this way, “If we Christians understand the doctrine of the Trinity aright, we will realize that it implies that God is not about power and self-sufficiency and the assertion of authority but about mutuality and equality and love… Love is the most authentic mark of the Christian life, and love among humans, or within God, requires community with others and a sharing of the deepest kind. The doctrine of the Trinity is the account of that community and sharing in the life of God.”

Again, God is, in his very nature, the one who makes space. Love is not something he does. God is love. As we learn to love the space making God, we in turn must learn to make space for one another. This is why it is impossible to love God and hate your neighbor. The more we become like the God who made space for each of us, the more we become people who make space for one another.

It is why we are continually drawn back to the table of our Lord. It should not surprise us that the Father, who makes space for the other, created a universe and creatures, in his image, who can live in relationship to him. It does not surprise us that the Son, who makes space for the other, laid down his life and made space for each of us around his table. And it does not surprise us that the Spirit, who makes space for the other, is at work in us extending his table to one another.

 

Questions for Family and Small Group Reflection:

• When we as believers call God “Father”, what are some of the best things we are saying about him?
• What are some of your favorite things you learn about God through his revelation in Jesus Christ? (Likewise, are there some things we can’t say, or should be careful about saying, about God because the Father and the Son are one?)
• What do you think is the most important work the Spirit of God does in our lives?
• If God as the Trinity is eternally making space for the other, and we reflect his nature of love when we make space for others, share important ways that you think we can make space for “our neighbor” in love.
• Suggested Activity: find a conscious way to make space for someone in your life this week. At the end of the week share that experience with the group or family and share if you learned anything about yourself or about God in this experience.

Follow Up on Marathons and Anonymous Letters

Thought I'd give you a run down (pun intended) on the Marathon. I did finish the 26.2 miles. It took me just over six hours to finish. One of my highly supportive colleagues at APU heard my time and declared, "That's slow!"

It was kind of slow. I ran the first hour and half without much problem. That got me about eight miles in. Then I started walking for two minutes and running for eight minutes. That worked great for an hour and got me over half way home. Then I went to walking three and jogging seven. That didn't work quite as well. My legs got so tight and cramped that I had to walk the last seven miles.

The great news was that despite the predictions, it did not rain. The forecast was for showers all day. At the start I think 23,000 of the 24,000 runners were wearing ponchos. It became apparent quickly that it was going to be cold and windy but it wasn't going to rain. So much of the day was spent dodging 23,000 discarded ponchos.

I couldn't walk on Monday (or Tuesday) after the race. But I'm thankful to have finished and to have raised over $2,800 for Child SHARE.

A great deal of attention was paid to my blog about the anonymous letter I received a few days before the race. I had written and saved a draft of the blog a couple of days before I posted it so that I could sleep on it a couple of nights and make sure I wanted to post it. I had no idea that it would receive the response that it did. Within 24 hours after posting it Saturday morning it had received well over 1,000 hits.

I have received emails and comments from friends and pastors from quite literally all over the nation - most of them thanking me for being willing to be vulnerable and address the issues in the letter. The encouragement from people at PazNaz has been both humbling and overwhelming. The outpouring of support has been an amazing gift.

The most surprising gift was an unexpected one. In the unique providence of God through circumstances I can't reveal or explain, the person who wrote the letter and I connected. The opportunity to sit down and talk face to face was redemptive for both of us. This season reminds us that God's grace is always greater than our brokenness. And the meeting was a reminder that we really can be a community of reconciliation. I hope the situation has made us both better people.

Anyways, I'm walking much better this week. I'm looking forward to Holy Week and I am thankful for the grace of Christ and the community his grace is forming. 

An Anonymous Letter About My Marathon Run

I am getting ready to run in the LA Marathon this weekend to support Child SHARE. The weather report is not great, but I'm going to try and get through it anyway.

I try to keep the myth of the negative emails and letters alive. I really don't get very many of them. The vast majority of messages I receive are very positive reflections on what God is doing in and through the church. But Thursday I received the following anonymous letter sitting on my desk at the church. Every pastor in the universe gets these kinds of letters and then has to decide what to do with them, because they truly are cowardly in nature. These kinds of letters give people the chance to unload on you without giving you a chance to respond. As I sat down to blog this morning I thought, "Hey, I can respond here." Chances are good that the person who wrote the letter will not read this, but it does give me an opportunity to reflect on my own priorities in ministry. It also gives me a chance to address similar questions other people might have even though they would never dream of writing this kind of letter. (And it's a lot cheaper than therapy).

So I thought I would try and respond here. The letter in its entirety is posted below in italics. (Sorry for its length). My response and reflections come after the letter.

March 14, 2012

Dear Dr. Scott Daniels,

May I voice my opinion at the disappointment I feel in some of our pastoral staff, especially pertaining to this coming weekend?

I am very disappointed to learn that:

1. You will be absent from the pulpit this Sunday due to your involvement in the fundraiser marathon for Child Share. Even though it is a great ministry and one of which we support as a church, you, of all the staff, need to be doing the job you are being paid for, being in the pulpit, instead of running in a marathon on a Sunday morning. What does this say to our people? Supporting an "outside" ministry is more important than supporting our own ministry - on a Sunday morning, the main time in the week when we all come together for teaching and fellowship? If Child Share is a Christian organization, I'm suprised that they would set an event that would take people away from going to and serving their church on a Sunday morning. I'd think they'd plan it for a "non-church" day. If others want to participate in the acutal running, that is their choice. But for you, you are now not even a true full-time pastor anymore since you give much of your time to your other position at APU now and are not even in the office and/or on campus much of the week. And then it seems like you're gone a lot on trips attending conferences or serving on various boards that take you away as well. I really don't even consider you my "senior" pastor anymore, but our "preaching" pastor only. Your salary I'm sure reflects a senior's pastor salary, but I'm not sure I believe that's fair now either. And now with your participation this Sunday in the marathon, you're even giving up your preaching responsibility. You suggested to us last Sunday that if you don't or can't run in the Child Share marathon, that you can still support it monetarily. Well, you should be doing it that way instead of being absent from your job. If you absolutely want to run to raise money, then still get the sponsors but run it by yourself or with a few others on Saturday! What little time you give PazNaz anymore, you should keep your few commitments.

2. I've heard that Pastor Joe Halbert is also shirking his responsibilities at the Valley Center church to run the marathon. Isn't he considered the preaching pastor over there? Wow. Now we have two pastors that are not setting a very good example to our congregants, that taking part in something other than their primary job is an okay thing to do on a Sunday morning. And then you talk from time to time about our numbers and maybe our lack of participation, faithfulness and commitment to our own church and its ministries? Can you blame our people for choosing other things to do on a Sunday morning when some of our own leadership does, too? Isn't there a spaghetti luncheon fundraiser this Sunday after church to help support one of our ministries? Everyone will no doubt be eating lunch somewhere after church. That's a simple ministry fundraiser to participate in... instead of spending money at Isalnds, give it to one of our ministries! So I guess neither you or Joe will be a part of supporting that ministry, huh? I hope you don't expect other staff members to support one of yours (or his) ministry opportunities if you don't support theirs. I've even heard that there may be a small contingency from the Valley Center church that wants to come over to PazNaz from Covina in order to support the spaghetti luncheon fundraiser! Wow. They've got better commitment than some of our pastoral staff! They're attending their own church and then coming over to PazNaz just to eat lunch so that they can support their larger church family! Will either your family and/or Joe's family also be absent so that they can support their husband and father?

3. Then I've also heard that our youth pastor, Keegan Lenker, is going to be out of town over the weekend to attend some of the March Madness NCAA Basketball games up north. Here we see another example of giving more commitment to a sport over being in God's house and in Chrisitan fellowship that the Bible tells us we should make a priority. Okay, so I know he could be taking some of his vacation time, and he is allowed to do whatever he wants with it, and if that's the case, okay. But if it's just for the weekend and he'll be back next week to do his job, what does that say to be allowed to be gone on a Sunday just to attend a sporting event over ministering to the youth of our church? Go on a Friday or Saturday, but be back for his Sunday morning responsibilities with his youth group. What if all of his volunteer staff decided to do the same? Who would be left to minister to our youth? Let him not complain if his ministry's attendance begins to fade because they're following their pastor's example to put a sport (or any other event) over being in God's house for teaching and fellowship!

How strongly does this speak to our congregation when three of our pastors this Sunday (and that's all that I've heard of) will find other opportunities and set them as their priorities to participate in rather than be in church, doing their jobs that we are paying them to do? The next time I hear you or them talk about the lack of commitment of our people for events or ministry offerings within our own church, my thoughts will be saying "hypocrisy"! If you want to set an example for First Church, set a good one. I can't blame friends who, though making me very disappointed, choose to attend their child's sports events on Sunday mornings rather than be in church. Some of them are just following the examples set before them in their growing up years, albeit not a good example. If their parents didn't give church a priority for them then, why should they think it should be a priority now? And when their children grow up and decide that church is just another option, and maybe not the most fun one over the others available, why should they be disappointed when they fall away from the church eventually because they didn't give God priority? If there is another activity taking place on a Sunday morning that would mean not being able to attend, worship, and/or serve in my regular capacity, that invite or event will be graciously turned down, or if necessary, we would still attend but arrive after we have attended church.

Just think about his as you are away from your congregation this Sunday and not standing in the pulpit preaching, not doing what you are paid to be doing, not being seen around campus, now even less than usual.

I guess I shouldn't be suprised if any of the other pastoral staff don't support some of the other ministry opportunities made available if the "senior" pastor doesn't support some of them either. Sometimes I've noticed that it is other pastoral staff that I see supporting a ministry event, possibly in your absence or just because they feel it's a priority, than I see you there supporting it because your other non-PazNaz commitments have taken priority. Do you let your staff pick and choose what they wish to support outside of their specific ministry? I hope you don't put a guilt trip on them if they don't support specific opportunities when you don't always give the best example in what to support and what not to support. I know you or them can't support, and shouldn't be expected to support, every ministry's offerings, programs, or events. But I do think you should give better consideration to what you make your priority, and that of your staff as well since they are in the position of setting an example for our congregants. Don't demand on your staff or their families, as well as your congregants, what you can't set an example for yourself. Remember what we are paying you for and at least give those responsibilities priority!

-- A disappointed long-time faithful church member

I want to start by saying that I agree with some of the concerns expressed. I believe regular participation is not only helpful but necessary in the life of beleivers. (And not just because I'm a pastor). I too am very concerned about making worship a priority for my family. As our kids have come through youth athletics we have said "no" to their participation in various sports or other activities that would require that they miss church on Sunday for any extended period of time. As churches we've created Saturday night or early morning services to try and help families work around occassional conflicts. But in a world where the culture no longer holds Sunday mornings sacred, it is a challenge for people to make regular worship attendance a priority in ways that my parents and grandparents did not face.

Just as a point of defense, the church does give me six Sundays a year that I can be gone (four for vacation and two to speak in other places). In six full years at PazNaz I have yet to use all six. I looked back through my calendar and in six years (309 Sundays) I have taken 9 vacation Sundays and 8 non-PazNaz travel, conference, or outside speaking Sundays (and one other marathon Sunday).

Nevertheless, I will admit having an inner twinge of a question about whether or not to run in the marathon or not. (This will be my second time in three years running for Child SHARE). In the end, I agreed to participate for two reasons. (Other than wanting to stay in shape).

The first is my taking quite literally James 1:27, "Religion that is pure and undeflied before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans, and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained from the world." The fact that five households this year from PazNaz are going through the process of becoming foster parents in order to literally care of the orphans in our area is one of the things I am most proud of today. Our family cannot currently open our home in this way, so the least I can do is sweat and raise resources for those who can. I believe I am being as honest as I know how to be when I say that I see what I am trying to accomplish and embody this weekend as (from James' point of view) a purer form of religion than preaching. (At least for one week). If I thought having every member at PazNaz run the marathon would get every orphan in LA a Christian home,(and it were physcially possible, and I wouldn't get 50 letters like this one), I would move that the entire church body take this coming Sunday off and run rather than have another weekend of worship and Sunday school. Not because worship, praise, and preaching isn't critical. It is. But if James is right, taking a week off so that every orphan in Los Angeles would find a home might be the purest form of worship we could do to glorify God's name.

Second, in some ways the decision to run this weekend reflects my changing view of ministry. I am increasingly convinced that Paul is correct when he writes that, "Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up..." (Eph. 4:11-12). The primary call for those of us who are pastors is therefore to equip the saints for service as the Body of Christ. Another way I might say it is that my role is not to help PazNaz "do" church as much as it is to help us "be" the church.

For me, apart from the personal attacks, the most troubling part of the letter is the internal focus. I hope what I'm doing as a pastor is teaching people to be the church and not just do church week after week. The goal of the church and the staff is not to create programs to see how many people we can get on campus. Whatever we do as the church is to help us figure out how to be the church in the world. So again, if I thought being the church this Sunday meant that every member ought to take a week off from doing church, I'd be the first one to say "go for it." Hopefully the two aren't mutually exclusive. Hopefully when we gather to do church, we are also being the church.

I was told this week about a lay person at PazNaz who attends activities, bible studies, and services when they can, but has made a commitment to go each Sunday morning and "bring the church" to a person who cannot, for a number of reasons, attend a worship service. I don't know how you feel about that, but I find that more Christian than having perfect worship attendance.

Over the last couple of months the church board has spent time reflecting with me and evaluating the last six years at the church. I am so thankful for their leadership. To a person, their concern in our discussions has been about how my family and I have been able to handle the double-duty that I have been doing these last two years between the church and the university.

Nearly every one of them remarked how thankful they are that God has made it possible that through the multiple venues of writing, speaking, teaching, radio, and internet, and through my continued leadership at the church, APU, in the denomination, and in the community, that the ministry of PazNaz is being expanded far beyond the walls of the church. It certainly does mean that I have been stretched in many different directions. But I am really thankful that unanimously the vision of the church's leadership thus far has not been just focused what is going on within the boundaries of the church campus but how far the reach of the church is extending. They recognize that in being a blessing, the church itself is also being blessed.

Most particularly, the letter reminds me of how truly thankful I am for the gift from God's people to be supported in fulltime ministry. The generosity of God's people has made the entire history and welfare of my family system possible. Nevertheless, like Paul in 1 Corinthians 9, it is my hope that someday I can refuse pay from the people of God. Having been raised in a family of ministers, litte about our lives has been kept secret. Especially in the area of finances, I work at being as transparent as possible. 

My positions at the church and at APU have truly been a gift to me and to our family. Even though I didn't accept a full dean's salary, my role at the school has allowed me to take a 30% reduction in salary at the church and then give 20% back. God has certainly adding blessing by opening the door for our four kids to get tuition remission to college. The reciprocal privileges through the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities is making it possible for Caleb to go to Point Loma next year.

I got a chance last year to spend some time with Rick Warren. One of the ways I would like to be like Rick is to be free to pastor without being paid by the church. I don't know if it will ever happen, but with God and Dave Ramsey's help, it is my long term goal to continue reducing my salary at the church - or at least match what I get with what I give back - so that we can keep putting more resources into extending ministry and so that, along with Paul I can say, "I belong to no one but choose to be a slave to everyone."

Anyways... To the one who wrote the letter. I apologize that my running this weekend caused you offense. I really am just hoping to help some foster kids and be a healthier pastor. I promise - if I can still walk - to be back in the pulpit next week.

Reflections on a Year in Mark

It was a transformational experience for me to have to wrestle my way through the Gospel of Mark this last year. It is fun for me to look through my bible now and see all the marked up places in the second book of the New Testament. I hope your bible got a little “marked up” also (pun intended).

I have been spending some time these last few days reflecting on what parts of Mark have stuck deep inside me.

Without question the first thing I think about is the kingdom of God. There are many stories and sermons in the Gospel, but there is one primary message: “…the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news” (1:15). Whatever else the early church thought about Jesus, they knew this one truth; Christ had come to announce the reign of God in creation. That reign establishes a new reality, a new people, and a new way of living in the world. The call of the Gospel, first and foremost is to repent of all of the former ways of life and to enter into God’s new kingdom through Jesus. 

The second thing I think about, however, is how hard it is for us to imagine that a new kingdom is present. I am convinced that this is a major part of the reason Mark gives the reader the parables of Jesus. The parables help disciples discover the unusual reality of God’s kingdom. Parables help to subvert our imaginations. The parable that resonates with me most from Mark is the Parable of the Sower (4:1-9). When we hear the word “kingdom” we usually think about power, might, wealth, pomp, and circumstance. But the kingdom of God is not like a warrior who went out to conquer. It is not like an emperor who goes out to expand his empire. The kingdom of God is like a sower who went out to sow seed. What a contrast! Every kingdom that has come in human history has come through conquest and revolution. God’s kingdom will come like a farmer faithfully distributing seed and waiting for the good soil to respond. Amazing! I have a hard time even imagining that. (Which is exactly the point).

The importance of the signs of the kingdom breaking into the world is the third thing that sticks with me from Mark. The miracles of Jesus are clearly not just present in the Gospel to let the reader know the power present in the life of Jesus. Rather, the signs reveal something about the nature of the kingdom as it breaks in. Those paralyzed by sin are able to walk. Those who cannot hear or speak about the kingdom are healed. Lepers who are considered unclean and thus excluded from community are not only restored to health but to relationship with others. People oppressed and possessed by the principalities and powers that bring destruction are set free to be what God created them to be. But most importantly for Mark, those who are blind – those who simply cannot see what the kingdom of God is about – are touched so that they can clearly see the truth of the kingdom clearly.

The most marked up places in my bible are chapters 8 through 11 where three times Jesus talks about how the Messiah must suffer, but the disciples simply cannot see what he means. He keeps talking about the self-giving love that is the essence of the kingdom, while they keep fighting over who is the greatest and arguing about who will get to sit at the right and the left in the kingdom. They, like us, need a complete do-over. Unless we become like little children, we will never see, let alone enter, the kingdom of God.

The fourth and perhaps most important idea that sticks with me from Mark is the call to take up the cross (8:34-35). When the good news about Jesus is proclaimed today it is often preached as something Jesus did for us so that we now don’t have to do anything except cognitively ascent to a few propositions. Certainly Jesus did something for us that we could not do for ourselves. He alone brought the kingdom and he invites us by grace alone to share in it. But the call is for disciples not just to cognitively ascent (to “believe”) in what he has done, but we are called to share in the kingdom. The invitation to discipleship in Mark is for the disciple to take up their cross also and follow Jesus.

Discipleship is a call to kingdom work, but it is not a call to “works righteousness.” This is the fifth thing that I take away from Mark. The call of Jesus is to kingdom faithfulness but it is not a call to religiosity. I have been deeply shaken by Mark chapters 11-13 that deal primarily with the fall of Jerusalem and the religious establishment that gave structure to the life of Jesus and the disciples. Readers of Mark should always be keenly aware that the Pharisees, scribes, and other Jerusalem leaders, who so badly missed seeing the kingdom, were not secular people but very religious. I do not believe that the religious leaders were evil people. In fact, I think they probably look a lot like me. I believe their intentions were to protect the faith that they loved and the temple establishment that gave meaning to their existence. Before we get too critical of the pagans in our world today we should never forget that well-intentioned religious leaders crucified Jesus. Lord, have mercy.

Finally, I take away the young naked man who fled from the Gethsemane (14:51). I don’t know if the scholars who see this young man as a literary devise used by Mark to symbolize the church are right. But that interpretation does make a lot of sense to me. I love that like the rest of the disciples who run away when persecution comes, this young man’s flaws, fears, and sin are exposed. Before the cost of discipleship we are all exposed as naked and broken. But I am convinced that it is this same young man who reappears in chapter 16 at the empty tomb as the witness to the resurrected Lord. He is no longer naked but wrapped in the white robe of the saints. He is the Church. He is every one of us. He is the sinful person redeemed by God’s grace to be a witness to the most important truth in the world: the kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. And he shall reign forever and forever.

I love that Mark begins his account of the life of Jesus this way, “The beginning of the good news (the Gospel) of Jesus, the Son of God” (1:1). What Mark has given us is the beginning of the coming of the kingdom. The continuation of the Gospel takes place in and through you and me. May it be so.

Reflections on Remembering as a Christian Practice on the 10th Anniversary of 9/11

I am posting some reflections on the practice of remembering that I used as part of my message today on the tenth anniversary of 9/11. I hope they are helpful.

I have been praying and thinking a lot this week about the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon – especially given the fact that the anniversary falls on a Sunday. The challenge for us as disciples of Jesus Christ is to figure out how we approach a day like today not just as citizens of a particular nation, but as members of Christ’s body. And so we come together as the Church on September 11^th asking God to help us reflect on all that has happened over the last ten years in ways that bring him glory and reflect his love.

I have been drawn again and again this week to many of the words found in the Torah. In particular the book of Deuteronomy, perhaps more than any other biblical book, is filled with divine commands to remember and not to forget. If most Old Testament scholars are correct, then Deuteronomy and the other books of the Pentateuch came together in their final form after the Babylonian exile as the people of Israel pondered what had gone right and wrong in their historical journey with God. For those who put together the ancient pieces that formed what we now know as the book of Deuteronomy, the basic sin of Israel that had caused them to go from exile in Egypt to the power of Solomon, back exile again was this: they failed to remember.

Today, on this tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon the word that will resonate through the media and through every community gathering is the word remember. And rightly so: because if Deuteronomy is correct, one important way a nation declines is when they fail to remember.

Although there are many aspects to remembering, there are four from Deuteronomy that I would like to highlight. 

Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Deut. 9:27).

We are called to remember those who came before us who carried the promise faithfully. In other words, we are to remember our heroes. Deuteronomy 9 is actually part of a prayer urging God to remember the heroes of our faith so that he might bless us with favor due to their noble lives. And so on this tenth anniversary it is critical and right for us to remember the 2,977 people who were unnecessarily and tragically killed on an otherwise normal, beautiful, September morning.

Ten years later we are still haunted by the images of destruction from that morning.

It still causes us pain to imagine the terror that must have gripped those passengers who died onboard those high-jacked planes.

We are still deeply unsettled by the images and stories of victims working in the twin towers who lived just long enough to experience the fear of certain demise.

We will forever be in awe of those whose sense of duty to others runs so deep within their spirit that they sprinted headlong into the devastation and gave up their lives trying to save neighbors and strangers alike.

And we are still proud of those who immediately headed to Ground Zero to endure the unimaginable in the hopes of rescuing some and giving dignity to the dead.

And we are still proud of those who without knowing the full extent of the violence that had been unleashed on the world that Tuesday morning, signed up and placed themselves on the front lines of terror for the sake of their nation and their neighbor.

And so as we pray as to the Lord today, we will ask him to remember those lost through victimization and through valor, and we ask him to remember the families who loved them and lost them. And we will ask him to help us as a nation to not forget them today.

But remembering heroes is only part of the act of remembering. Deuteronomy also calls us to remember God’s work of redemption.

Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm (Deut. 5:15).

I remember in the days immediately following 9/11, no one was sure if life would ever be normal again. For several days it felt like time was frozen and we weren’t sure how and if we could move forward.

Ten years later, life has returned, for the most part, to normal. We have many reasons to give God thanks. We are thankful that over the last ten years, there has not been another significant act of destruction within our nation’s borders. And we are thankful for those who vigilantly keep watch in order to – as best they can – keep another singular act of massive violence from happening again.

A people who remember are a people who give thanks. But when God’s people remember, they also remember to confess. 

Remember this and never forget how you aroused the anger of the LORD your God in the wilderness (Deut 9:7).

One of the ways God worked in us after the attacks of 9/11 was the way he helped us to bond together as a people. There was a unity of purpose and vision that was significant and powerful. Ten years later we confess that we have returned to being deeply divided.

In the days after 9/11 there was an incredible spirit of help and service. We confess that ten years later in a time of economic fear our spirit of help and assistance has largely waned.

In particular today we confess ten years later our inability to find creative ways to make peace with our enemies in the ways that Jesus and the Apostle Paul instructed us. We remember today not just those that died in the attacks ten years ago. We also remember that in the wars started since 9/11 just over 6,000 US soldiers and approximately 137,000 civilians in Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan have also died. Most sources conservatively estimate the number of war dead, in uniform and out, to be 225,000. The number of displaced war refugees today stands at 7.8 million. We try and remember all of them today as well.

Ten years later we remember that $3.2 trillion dollars has been spent as part of the efforts of war with no real hope of long-lasting peace at the end. One wonders what potential long-terms possibilities for peace could have been accomplished if half of that amount had been spent in projects of construction rather than destruction.

In Genesis chapter 4 Lamech (the seventh generation after Adam) sings a song of retribution to his wives. He proclaims that if Cain is avenged seven-fold, then Lamech will be avenged seventy-seven-fold. Ten years after 9/11 we have enacted just over a seventy-five-fold vengeance. We haven’t quite met Lamech’s standards. But as Christ’s disciples we certainly have not met his requirements of a seventy-seven-fold forgiveness.

There have been moments over these last ten years when images and stories of our own cruelty to our enemies has been revealed. These are moments we would just as soon forget, but God’s confessing people have to remember these moments of our own ugliness as well.

I will admit how fearful I am to even speak these things today, because confession is hard. But as God’s people, we must confess our sins today because confession is a critical part of remembering. A people who cannot confess their sins cannot receive God’s grace. And a people who cannot confess are doomed to ultimate destruction because their inability to be honest about their inability to be what God has called us to be dooms us to the exile and destruction that comes at the end of our sin. 

Finally, in Deuteronomy we are called to remember for the sake of our children.

Remember today that your children were not the ones who saw and experienced the discipline of the LORD your God… It was not your children who saw what he did for you in the wilderness (Deut. 11:2, 5).

Ten years ago on September 12^th I attended a prayer service at the church we were serving in Oklahoma. The pastor invited people to come to the altar to pray. First he invited people to come and represent the families of those who had lost loved ones in the attacks. Many people came forward. He invited people to come and pray for our national and civic leaders who were in the midst of making critical decisions. Again many people came forward. He invited people to come and pray for God’s protection on the nation and for his help in keeping people safe. Again many people came forward. But then he asked if there might be a few who we be bold enough to come and pray for our enemies and to pray for their redemption and for reconciliation to take place. At that point the largest number of people (including my wife and two oldest sons) got up and came forward to pray.

I remember thinking at that moment how thankful I was to be part of the Body of Christ and how grateful I was that my children were being shaped by such a profoundly grace-filled body of believers.

 Jonah was too young to remember and Sophie was not yet alive. But my hope is today that as we remember. We will remember in ways that will shape them to be the body of Christ. We urge God to help us remember those who have fallen. We remember that God has been at work and stop to give him thanks today. But we also ask him to help us remember our sins so that we can remember today in ways that give him glory.

 And so I’m going to ask us to pray today…