Wasting the gift: A meditation on the life and death of Samson

“...but the Angel said to her '...you will soon conceive and have a son!...for he shall be...a special servant of God from the time of his birth; and he will begin to rescue Israel...'” Judges 13:3-5, LB

30 “Don’t be frightened...” the angel told her, “for God has decided to wonderfully bless you! 31 Very soon now, you will become pregnant and have a baby boy...32 He shall be very great and...And he shall reign over Israel forever...'” Luke 2:30-32, LB

My devotions this year have come out of my meditative reading of the Book of Judges and recently I was struck by the fact that of all the leaders named and talked about in this volume, only Samson

has a story about his birth. In fact, the Samson cycle is four chapters long (Judges 13-16 - pretty long as stories go in that book) and one quarter of it alone (chapter 13) concerns how he came to be.

Samson as a baby boy?

His parents, Manoah and Mrs (only Delilah gets named in his story; all the other women – including his mother – are simply referred to impersonally as in “the woman”) live on the frontier of western Judah within shouting distance of the hated Philistine hostiles that live in the coastal region. Though they've been married for sometime they have no children and to be barren in those days was a curse. And then one day all that changes. Expectantly, while going about her housework, the woman is met by an angel who shares with her remarkable news: she was going to be a mother. In fact, she was already with child. Her only son was destined for greatness (so the angel said) and therefore his whole life he was to live the Nazirite way.

Did Samson have dreds?

In those days, if someone wanted to dedicate himself to God for a certain season of time, he would inform the priest and this would be the terms of his consecration: he was to drink nothing with alcohol in it, remain ritually pure by steering clear of anything dead and refrain from cutting his hair. It was the hair cut (or lack thereof) that would give you away to be a Nazirite, a separated one. This kind of vow could not be demanded. It was totally voluntary except in Samson's case: the angel told the woman he was to be a Nazirite his entire life, consecrated and set-apart for a special purpose. These were the terms of his extraordinary life. In fact, later when the angel returns and speaks to Manoah who wanted both confirmation as well as further instructions all the angel will offer is what he commanded the first time: he was to be a Nazirite for always. He would be God's chosen tool to begin to deliver his people from the domination by the Philistines.

The bad guys of Judges, Samuel and Kings

Hundreds of years before under Joshua's leadership, the Israelites had entered the land and had begun the process of evicting the Canaanites. God's instructions delivered by Moses had been very clear: everyone must go. No one who did not embrace the leadership of Yahweh as it was spelled out to Moses on Sinai was to remain in the land. If they did in time, they would “turn your sons away from me to serve other gods and the Lord's anger will burn against you and quickly destroy you” (Deut 7:4). Initially they had experienced impressive victories – Jericho, Ai, Gibeon – but at the time of Joshua's retirement there were still pockets of resistance of Canaanites who stubbornly remained in the land of Promise. What the Book of Judges records is what happens to God's people when they do not heed God's command: like a cancer the attraction to the world – at least, the world of their Canaanite neighbors – spreads insidiously among them and over a long period of time they eventually become indistinguishable from them. By the time Samson is born they've conformed so much to the worldly ways of the Canaanites that they've nearly forgotten their unique identity as a “people holy to the Lord your God” (Deut 7:6). This stokes God's ire and if they will not resist the Philistines and their growing cultural influence, he will.

Samson's life, so the angel said, was the first salvo of deliverance from Philistine domination. Later Saul would contend with them rigorously and David would do clean-up. After King David's rule, the Philistines pretty much vanish as a foil to God's people. But during Samson's lifetime they are a prevalent menace that no Israelite will do anything about.

Unselfconsciously, simply by being his impulsive, willful, selfish self, denying totally the consecrated life he was destined to live, he becomes a wrecking ball to Philistine hegemony. By the end of his short life, as the Philistine body count mounts he literally pulls the house down on top of their leaders, their priests and their god (see Judges 16). But even as the dust settles I can't get around the fact that his life was pretty much a train wreck that leaves me wondering what could have been had he tried to live the set-apart life he was called to live.

In my previous readings of Samson I've read the end of his story as almost like a “thief-on-the-cross” moment – a guy who realizes too late that he's squandered the gift God had given him but now requests one more opportunity to glorify God before his life is over. But that's not what the narrator tells us. Yes, his hair begins to grow again (16:22) (did none of the guys who captured him tell their boss what Delilah had learned about his hair?) Was nobody paying attention when following his “performance” (could it have been feats of strength?) he asked to be put between the pillars that “hold the temple up”? (v. 27) But the nature of his final prayer reveals the soul of the man. Here was no penitent thief on the cross- kind of prayer, i.e., “Lord, remember me when you enter your kingdom” but “Oh, please, give strength yet once more. God! With one avenging blow let me be avenged on the Philistines for my two eyes!” (v. 28). No contrition here. There is nothing but a desire for revenge and with one mighty shove he dies with those he had lived and contended with for much of his life.

Reading his story again during Advent I couldn't help but hear echos of the Nativity story that we read again at this time of year:

• Like Jesus, the angel announced to his mother who was barren that she would give birth to a son.

• Like Jesus, the angel shared with her knowledge that he was being consecrated for a special purpose.

• Like Jesus, Samson was born to two parents living on the outskirts of wherever the action was (e.g., he was not born in Shiloh where the Tabernacle resided).

• Like Jesus, he was rejected by his own people and turned over to Gentile overlords (Judges 15).

• And like Jesus, his delivering-work that he was born to do was consummated in his death.

But for all that Samson was nothing like Jesus. As one man puts it aptly:

He is one of the most narcissistic persons in all the Bible. Self-gratification is what drives this man. Never in the Samson narrative does he operate in anyone's interest but his own. He does not care about God's plan or any of the divine standards of either his place as an Israelite or his Nazirite status. He does not care about the will of his parents or the hearts of his “lovers” with whom he consorts. All are to be manipulated for his sake...Very simply, Samson is not a type of Christ...Instead, if anything, Samson is a foil to Christ. Yes, there are similarities, but the contrasts are much greater. The similarities only heighten the contrasts all the more.

(NIV Application Commentary on Judges by K. Lawson Younger, Jr pp. 327-28)

How vastly different is the Savior that we welcome at his birth every December 25.

"He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion." Philippians 2:5-8, Msg

“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:21, NIV

At the credits roll on Samson's story the narrator adds, “He had led

Israel twenty years.” I haven't really figured out yet what that means. I mean for the bulk of his story he's living in a cave by himself or going into some Philistine town for a night of fornicating with some of their women. What we're told of him is that he's ruled by his glands and his passions. If that's leadership it certainly it's lowest form of it and his style is not to be envied or copied. In movies, he's commonly portrayed like a version of The Rock, a he-man with abs of steel. But if that's so why are the Philistines willing to pay Delilah $15 million in today's dollars (16:5) to find out his secret? What if he was just a guy who looked like an otherwise normal Hebrew until his life was threatened and then the Spirit of God would rush upon him and he would be unstoppable? The incredible hulk but just not green or muscle-bound?

This is how I usually imagine Samson

But what if he looked more like Mark Ruffalo than Dwayne Johnson?

Regardless, his legacy is tragic. Sure, he killed a lot of Philistines before his death but he frittered away his life and the awesome God-given potential that he had been born with. It provokes me to not be like him. To not live only for myself and my own version of success as we define it around here. To live, rather, obediently and faithfully and aspire to follow the path that Christ himself took all the way to Golgotha, if that is what is required of me.

A little Shekinah here if you don't mind: An Advent Meditation

Fahoo forays, dahoo dorays
Welcome Christmas! Come this way
Fahoo forays, dahoo dorays
Welcome Christmas, Christmas Day

Welcome, welcome, fahoo ramus
Welcome, welcome, dahoo damus
Christmas Day is in our grasp
So long as we have hands to clasp

“Welcome Christmas” from the 1966 “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”

A week ago Saturday night I decorated the sanctuary and entryway of our church for Advent (yes, I'm well aware that we are already well into Advent; it's how we roll in this fellowship.) It's not usually my job (for good reason). In fact, in the twenty-seven Advents I have served here I don't recall ever having to do it. But this year my lone volunteer got called into work at the last minute and on the eve of the Second Sunday in Advent our sanctuary was still looking a lot like Thanksgiving (as had been pointed out to me by someone on the First Sunday in Advent). So circumstances press-ganged me, as it were, into decorating service along with my somewhat reluctant wife and son who were there only because of my plea for help.

The funny thing is the longer you leave it plugged in
the more the lights come on. Odd.

The congregation I serve is a small one. Most of them are in these parts and with few exceptions our odd assortment of wreathes and candles and Advent what-nots are cast-offs from various people's homes or thrift sales. Last year two of our ladies bought a brand new artificial tree for the entryway that came with the lights already attached. This seemed to be just the ticket for a fellowship like ours that is – er, light – on committees. All you need do was take it out of the box and plug it in. It worked great last year but this past Saturday night when I plugged the tree in only the bottom third lit up. Admittedly, tidings of great joy did not automatically roll off my tongue.

I'm not Lutheran anymore
but they sure know how
to get ready for the season

As I dug through the bins that hold our collection of Christmas decorations I found myself wishing we were more like the Lutherans. In my experience, Lutherans do the seasons right. The colors, the banners, the candles, the trees, the lights. Everything matches and nothing whatsoever appears secondhand at all. Rich is a word that comes to mind as in both the quality of the item and the fullness of the meaning. I can still recall when I was a boy the excitement that would bubble up within me like some latent artesian spring when the first candle would be lit on the Advent wreath that hung reverently above the sanctuary. Christmas was approaching. (In my early years of service here I introduced the folks to an Advent Wreath but it didn't have the same effect them as it did on me when I was a boy. Apparently I was being way too Lutheran for a pastor of a Pentecostal church.)

So there I was grumbling beneath my breath as I hung wreaths and swags and Linda set up the donated nativity set in the sanctuary. The YouTube channel I had chosen to stream Christmas music kept cutting out and buffering interminably. Linda had a set of her own complaints a few of which she shared with me. And Charlie just wondered when we could go home. Our little decorating conclave was anything but festive.

I've been reading Eugene H. Peterson's memoir – The Pastor – of late. In the middle of my foul reverie of how drab our decorations are and how spotted and faded the carpet in our sanctuary is, I thought of a story his friend, Paul, a Jewish rabbi, had once shared with him. In his early days of ministry, Peterson was planting a church in the basement of his home in suburban Baltimore. It was a church that “didn't look like a church” (one of his teens lovingly referred to it as 'Catacomb Presbyterian'). A few of his parishoners had left the fledgling congregation over what they thought a church should look like. As he reflected on their exit with his rabbi-friend, Paul told a story about the Shekinah glory of God:

At the end of the Babylonian captivity, as the exiles returned to Israel, they began to rebuild the Temple. To us, a church is a holy place but you can always go to another church if you move or you don't like the one you're at. For them, however, the Temple was the house where God resided and the centerpiece of their nation. There was no other place to worship God. But this Second Temple that they had built was but a shadow of the one Solomon had constructed centuries before. So when it was at last dedicated the response of the old ones in their company – the ones who had once worshiped at Solomon's Temple decades before - was revealing.

When the first people arrived they took one look at the restored temple and wept at what they saw. The Solomonic temple that for five hundred years had provided a glorious centering for their life as a people of God had been replaced by what looked to them like a tarpaper shack. The squalid replacement broke their hearts, and they wept. As they wept, a dazzling, light-resplendent presence descended, the Shekinah –God's personal presence – and filled that humble, modest, makeshift, sorry excuse for a temple with glory. They lifted their arms in praise. They were truly home. God was truly present. The Shekinah faded out. The glory stayed.

“People like you and me,” Paul continued, “need that Shekinah story. And our congregations need it. Most of what we do in getting our congregations going doesn't look anything like what people expect it to.” (Paul's congregation was a fledgling synagogue worshipping in a three-car garage that didn't look at all like a synagogue.)

It's not an excuse to not take pride in God's sanctuary. I mean if we go all out in lovingly decorating our own homes for the season we should want God's house to look festively arrayed as well. But even if our decorations fall short of inspiring what matters most, when all is said and done, is the presence of God felt and experienced as we weekly gather together like the robbed Whos of Whoville to worship and welcome “heart to heart and hand in hand.” That's the kind of glory that remains long after the Advent season is past and our partially lit Christmas tree is put away. I still hope for the day that we can replace the carpet in the sanctuary and upgrade our facility a notch or two. But in the meantime I'll settle for some of that Shekinah to continue to transform our fellowship into something that truly honors the God we love and worship and comes near to us at Christmas.

Temerario amor de Dios

The day I met my first Ticos

“‘When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.” Leviticus 19:33-34, NIV

Since April there have been 30-some Costa Ricans living in our small community primarily made up of folk of European descent. They are seasonal workers at ABC Truss who over the next few weeks will be returning to their families and their native country. This past Sunday we threw them a farewell party to thank them for living and working in our small town.

Barbecue & gathering with
our Belizean neighbors in 2017 

This is not the first time men from Central America have lived among us. In late 2015, ABC hired about ten men from Belize as part of a trial run. It worked out so well that by the following year and through 2017 approximately 30 Belizeans lived and worked among us. Our fellowship and Faith Baptist connected well with these guys and overall they endeared themselves to us and their coworkers at ABC. By and large they were bi-lingual speaking what they jokingly referred to as “Spanglish”, a sort of pigeon dialect of English and Spanish. Four or five of the guys were regulars at Refuge and in late December/early January of 2016-17, thirteen of us from here traveled to Belize to visit them and their families in their homeland.

We miss our Belizean friends

At the beginning of this year, our government canceled the labor agreement we had with the Belizean government over their record on human trafficking. So ABC contracted with another labor pool, this one out of Costa Rica. But unlike their Belizean forbears, these guys are mostly Spanish-speaking men who may understand some English but speak very little of it themselves. Admittedly, getting to know them has been more problematic as so many of us – like so many Americans in rural areas – are pretty much fluent in only one tongue. The adjustment at the plant I am told by both sides was even more challenging.

I met Elisardo in April when he and four of the other guys were biking down our street. I had just been informed that ABC's new guys were in town and with one look I knew these must be some of them. I had just pulled into my driveway so I hopped out of my van and walked into the street to introduce myself as they passed our home. We made acquaintances, I learned where they were staying, I oriented them how to get to the VFW tank (which they wanted to pose in front of) and before they took off I invited them to come to our worship gathering on Sunday (as well as directing them to where St. Boniface was as many of them are Catholic.) Elisardo and another one of the “Ticos” (as they prefer to refer to themselves) showed up and has been a part of us ever since. A former body guard and a lover of Jesus he very quickly fit in with us thanks to Mike.

Mike & Eli have made a good ministry duo

Mike, while one of us, was born in Peru but mostly grew up in Chicago. He is fairly fluent in Spanish (in fact, compared to the rest of us he is our resident expert.) He and Eli became fast friends and I think because he saw the need Mike offered to lead a bilingual worship set once a month if only for our favorite Tico's benefit if for nothing else. What's more he and Randy, one of our elders,

Barb at work with the ESL class

came up with the idea of beginning an ESL class to help Eli and his fellow Ticos get oriented to Chetek and the surrounding area. When they brought their idea to me I thought of Barb, a recently retired ESL teacher and former missionary to Chile who lived a few blocks down the street. As it happened, I ran into her and husband at the craft fair during Liberty Fest and pitched her the idea. On the spot she offered to help. For the rest of the summer and into the fall she led the class as well as oversaw the volunteers from Refuge and elsewhere who offered to assist her.

Interest in the class faded primarily because this past fall the guys were working long hours and with only one day off in seven it was challenging for them to commit to bettering themselves while also needing to get their laundry and shopping done. Beyond waving at them whenever they passed our home or church and calling out 'Buenos dias' or 'Buenos tardes', it was the extent of my connection with most of them for the last few months.

Mike & Ronda and their Tico friends at Thanksgiving

My idea of this farewell gathering was a simple one – it would involve a worship gathering with singing, preaching and prayer in Spanish and English followed by an authentic Costa Rican meal. We'd invite all the guys. Mike would lead worship and be my translator as well. We'd pray over them and then send them out with a blessing. End of story – or so I thought.

Kale opening up the gathering

And then Mike informed me that he would be out of town on the Sunday of our despedida ('farewell' in Spanish) and in one fell swoop our Costa Rican soiree was in a tailspin. I began sending out emails and making phone calls to various pastors in our area – in Rice Lake, in Chetek, in Cumberland, in Ridgeland – who had involvement in one way or another in connecting with the approximately 1,400 Spanish-speaking people in our county and struck out every time. I was in need of a translator and bi-lingual worship leader and none seemed to had. Even Barb the ESL teacher was unavailable to be with us on that Sunday. In desperation I reached out to a sister church in the Twin Cities whom I knew to be pastored by a bi-lingual man and, as it happened, caught him just as he was about to board a plane to Argentina. He quickly placed a call to his sister who agreed to come – if it didn't snow but the long-term forecast called for snow. Despite my best efforts to organize it, this gathering seemed to be awfully resistant to coalescing.

They made it look easy

While originally the plan had been for the meal to be pot-luck, the week before the farewell Monica, the woman I had asked to head up the meal called and informed me that she and fellow-chef, Joy, had conferred and thought it would be a whole lot simpler if they could cook the meal. All they needed was $300 for ingredients. Their logic was totally understandable (I mean, rice and beans is not a staple meal around here) but cash flow at our fellowship was definitely a challenge. All we could do is put it out there and trust that the money for the meal would come in.

Meanwhile, because of a post I had placed on Facebook, Colleen, a woman I've known since she was a teen and married to a Venezuelan living in neighboring Cameron up the road from us, offered to translate and if necessary help lead Spanish worship on that Sunday. At the same time, a guy named Zabdiel (or simply Z for short) from Red Cedar, while apologizing for not being able to come himself, said he would send his parents instead. Kale, one of our worship leaders, let me know that he could lead at least one song in Spanish. At the same time, the leaders of an intrachurch discipleship class (aka the Discipleship Training Class) held this year at Faith Baptist had the idea of sending their students and staff to mingle with the guys during the meal and a fellowship time to follow. I said 'yes' to everyone (beggars can't be choosers after all) yet lacked the clarity on what the morning and afternoon would exactly look like. The only thing I was certain of was that God loves the foreigner living among us and wants us to bless them and so one way or another, by hook or by crook, this gathering was going to happen. These men, with God's help, would be blessed.

Between the hat being passed at Refuge and at Faith Bapitst the Sunday before, the $300 needed was collected. I got a list of all names of the Ticos from the Operations Manager at ABC as well as where they all lived and on the Wednesday before hand delivered 33 invitations. But on the Saturday night before the gathering it snowed three inches and as promised my worship leader from the Cities called and cancelled. We'd have a service and a meal but at the moment my 'despidida'-idea seemed to be just a bunch of random pieces of fabric lying together in a heap on the floor.

But here's what happened and for any person accustomed to being a part of the Lord's work, none of what happened is probably a bit surprising. Because out of these assorted pieces of cloth – some selected songs in Spanish from a back-up worship leader, a Spanish couple whom I met fifteen minutes before the gathering began, and some remaining ambivalence on my part on just how the service should flow - the Lord wove together a beautiful quilt of blessing.

The despedida opened with a couple of songs in English led by Kale followed by your standard meet-and-greet time as well as offering and announcements. I then welcomed Colleen, our translator, to join Kale on the platform and together they led three songs bilingually with Kale leading in English and Colleen in Spanish. Though they had just met a few minutes before the gathering they made it look like they did this every week. I then introduced France (pronounced Francee), Z's mother, who proceeded to share a 10-minute exhortation from John 10 in Spanish about Christ coming to give us abundant life – now and eternally. She clearly had done this sort of thing before. I then shared some thoughts pertinent to all of us from Leviticus 19 as well as a brief exhortation from Luke 15. Just as they are anxious to get home to their families in Costa Rica and their loved ones there are eager for their return so Father God is longing to see any of us who may be away from His family. All of this I had to do in bite size sentences, of course, so Colleen could translate for me.

Barb shares some parting words

During my sharing who should enter the sanctuary but Barb, our ESL teacher, who had managed to get off early from her job to be with us. So even though she's Presbyterian on the spot Pentecostal-like I asked her to come and share a greeting with the guys. She did wishing them a safe journey home as well as a heart-felt relationship with Jesus Christ. I then asked Elisardo if he would care to share anything and he was only too happy to do so thanking all of us and Barb for making them feel so welcome. As we proceeded into communion after some instructions Kale surprised us all by singing Cory Asbury's Reckless Love in what seemed to all of us fluent Spanish (he told me afterwards he had practiced all week long). As we were about to close the gathering, Oscar, one of the Ticos, asked if he could share. In so many words, this is what he said: “You have a wonderful family here. To us, your community is a little bit of heaven and if any of you should find your way to Costa Rica we want you to know you have a welcome there.” I then prayed over the men for traveling mercies home and closed the service.

Instructing the guys that they were to lead the way, they proceeded downstairs to the fellowship hall where Monica and Joy had prepared a meal of arroz con pollo (chicken and rice), gallo pinto (beans and rice), ceviche(seafood dip), arroz con leche(rice pudding), and tres leches (three milk cake). We were packed to the gills and soon our stomachs would be the same in the Jesus-style of at the very least twelve baskets of left-overs. After dinner, the guys were invited back up into the sanctuary and at this point the DTC-ers took over. For the next hour or so they split the guys and their students up randomly and played a variety of “minute-to-win-it” games that everyone seemed to enjoy. Fortunately, there were two gringos in that group that were fluent in Spanish to translate.

The DTC folks had made up gift bags for each of the guys with their name on it. Inside there were home made cookies, bars and treats, a homemade bookmark with their name and Scripture on it and a tabbed Spanish Bible, marking important salvation verses. At the close, Brian, a high school teacher in Eau Claire, shared his faith story with the guys and explained, via the translators, how the tabbed Bible worked. When he was done and there seemed nothing more to say, Sarah, a twenty-something gal suggested they call the guys up and let all of them pray over them. They came forward and circled up and allowed the gringos to pray prayers of blessing upon them.

It was, all in all, a great day and the eighteen or so Ticos who had come to our despedida seemed sincerely touched by the generosity they had experienced. Many of them made a point of coming to me to thank me for inviting them to the gathering. I was simply grateful that by all of us pooling our efforts together the nation of Costa Rica on that Sunday had been blessed by the gringos of the little northern 'burb of Chetek, Wisconsin and surrounding area.

Oscar & me

Granted it was just a handful of us and a handful of them but it's through gatherings such as these that we are reminded that we have far more in common than our language differences would suggest. In a day where there's a lot of angry rhetoric and harangues in the air on building or not building a wall and stopping or not stopping waves of caravans, disciples of Jesus need to be about building bridges so that all may experience the Father's warm welcome to all of us whether we hail from north or south of the border.

Experiencing a snow storm and walking out on the water
was pretty cool for Elisardo and the guys

Pastor, Mayor, Coach and some thoughts on unanswered prayer

“Be cheerful no matter what; pray all the time; thank God no matter what happens. This is the way God wants you who belong to Christ Jesus to live.” 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, The Message

At this time of year it's appropriate to give thanks for God's goodness in our lives. I'll echo and 'amen' what the psalmist says repeatedly in Scripture:

“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;

his love endures forever” (Psalm 107:1)

Beyond the usual suspects of gratitude for my wife, my children, and the congregation I have served for over 27 years now, this year I'll add this one: gratitude for all my prayers that have not been answered over the decades of my service here.

We come from what would go as a “big” church around here – over a thousand people per Sunday. And while our pastor never taught this as a young man attending Bible college assumptions subtly grew within me; namely, that if you work hard and pray harder and remain faithful in time your church will be “big” too. When I landed here in 1991 fresh off the boat, as it were, assuming the leadership of a small congregation of approximately 60 people, I consciously set my sights on growing this church. I was eager to see my dreams realized. I prayed fervently that God would bless my every message and effort so that people would flock to this place and join what in time would certainly be a “great” church in the north woods of Wisconsin. I prayed that our worship would be “anointed” and the ministry “powerful and effective”. And of course, like every good evangelical pastor I prayed for people to be won for Christ and made disciples of Jesus.

This is what I thought I wanted

Twenty-seven years and a couple of months later, we're still about the same size as we have always been. In fact, because I have kept attendance since October 6, 1991 (my first official Sunday as pastor) I can say with great authority that over two and a half decades of ministry our average weekly attendance has ebbed and flowed between 40 and 60 with 75 folks on the rolls at any given time. Kids have grown up and left for school only to return for Christmas and Easter celebrations. Families have moved away or found another faith family to be a better fit for them. A few have graduated to the far better congregation of heaven. At the same time, babies have been born to those who were kids when we first arrived and others have been added to our ranks by transferring from another congregation or being born into the family of God. Over the years we have been fairly fortunate in the variety of worship leaders who have served here. And while they may not have what it takes to make the varsity squad of your run-of-the-mill mega church, they're pretty good for around here. But the truth is despite all our best efforts to grow the church, it has stubbornly remained the same numeric size through the past two and a half decades. In fact, whenever our average attendance begins to rise I emotionally prepare myself for an exit of a key individual or family because history has tended to repeat itself and they frequently do.

This is what it is

But here's the thing: where I may have once (okay, more than once) griped about God's seeming indifference to reward my best efforts and my most fervent prayers, at this time of year I find myself thankful. Why? Because one of the unforeseen benefits of serving a congregation the size it consistently remains is I've been able to outsource myself to a lot of other arenas and find great joy in doing so. Thirteen years ago, Chetek-Weyerhaeuser High School was in need of a Cross Country coach. Despite having no prior coaching experience, I applied. They passed on me but two years later when their new guy didn't pan out, they hired me. For the past 11 seasons I've been their Cross coach. Three of those seasons I had the blessing of coaching my son. Meanwhile, a lot of our athletes have become some of my kids whom I continue to connect with long after their high school running days have been in their rear view mirror.

I love these kids

MS-ers are a lot of fun

Two years later three of the four middle school track coaches decided to do something else with their spring. I ran into the head coach at a school assembly one day and she asked if I would like to become one of her assistants. I literally thought about it for about 30 seconds and then said, 'Sure' and just like that I have staffed the track program at the middle school for the past eight seasons (it also allows me to scout and recruit for our high school Cross program in the fall).

In 2013, a former YWAM-er who was a part of our fellowship encouraged me to get my sub license in order to substitute teach in our school system. To help grease the skids, as it were, he paid the $100 fee required for a three-year sub license. I never do it in the fall when Cross is going on but throughout the winter and spring I've been a regular sub at the elementary school ever since (I like working there because I can still do the math and I'm still taller than most of them). Of course since my kids were in kindergarten back in the '90s, I've done read-alouds at Roselawn Elementary, reading primarily to kindergarteners through second graders throughout the school year.

In 2016, though I had never held elective office before, I decided to run for mayor of our small town – and won. It's a part-time gig that doesn't require me to hold regular office hours. In fact, people can – and do – meet with the mayor at Refuge just as easily as they can at City Hall. I enjoyed my first two years so much I ran again and was re-elected in an uncontested election. I am fortunate to serve in such a way and connect with a whole different group of people than I normally would. And it's been fun, too.

The joke around here is “Just what do we call you? Pastor? Mayor? Coach?” To wit I simply reply, “Yes.” Perhaps if I served a larger congregation I would not be free to do this kind of stuff (as well as serve at our local county jail as a chaplain there) given the demands that a bigger fellowship would place on me. But in my case it feels that I'm right in my wheelhouse, as it were, wearing the multiple hats and filling the multiple roles that I am blessed to do.

Honestly, I don't remember what I thought ministry would look like back in 1991 other than I'm pretty sure it didn't look like how it's played out. No, a lot of things that I had hoped and prayed for have never come to pass yet and – who knows? - may never be answered. But as far as I can see it's worked out better.

Child dedication Sunday

My pastor once gave me some advice that he said his pastor shared with him on his ordination day: “Don't seek a big church. Seek a big ministry.” Of course, “big” is a relative term but I think its fair to say that over 25-plus years of ministry my footprint in this community, by God's grace, has been bigger than our facility. It reminds me of something Garrison Keillor once said, “Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known.” It reminds me – again – how lucky and blessed I really am.

Unscripted: A lesson in intercession

“Remember to pray for me in this jail.” Paul in Colossians 4:18

This past Sunday was the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church (IDOPPC), an annual observance to remember those suffering for Christ around the world. It is an event our fellowship has participated in every year going back perhaps to the mid-90s when it began. Some years we have followed the curriculum that is provided by one of the several advocacy groups out there like Open Doors or Voice of the Martyrs. The first few times we observed it I remember creating massive prayer guides for people to take home with them. Now and again I have tried an additional follow-up prayer gathering involving Christians from other fellowships in town. But whatever the format we employed we spent time – sometimes longer than others – praying for those we probably will never meet this side of heaven who are experiencing hardship and trouble on account of their devotion to Christ.

Pastor Andrew and Norine Brunson

This year frankly I did not know what to do. I only had an idea that began to germinate when I caught a snippet of an interview American pastor Andrew Brunson, recently released from two years of captivity in Turkey a few weeks ago, gave on CBN. I found him very candid about how broken the first year of his captivity had left him and what came of it. Based on stories he had read of others who had been imprisoned for Christ he had expected to be buoyed by a grace that made him joyful despite the bars that separated him from his family, his church and the rest of the world. Instead he was desolate and alone and felt absolutely nothing leaving him struggling with disappointment in the very One to whom he professed his faith in.

So my plan became this: after some introductory comments, we would listen to the audio version of Colossians 4 from The Message (I prefer its real-world sound) and then watch a series of videos I found on YouTube including:

• The FOX News interview that Pastor Andrew & Noreen Brunson gave after he was released from house arrest in Turkey ("I will preach Jesus until the day I die"). (I personally like the images and timeline that track his story from prison to kneeling before President Trump and praying for him 24 hours after his release).
• A much more subdued and poignant interview that the Brunsons gave to CBN during which they each were candid about their experiences being incarcerated ("I was really broken"). (Noreen herself shared a cell with her husband for the first 13 days of his imprisonment).

• 

  Asia Bibi

  A CBN update and interview on the case of Asia [pronounced AH-ZIA] Bibi, a Christian mother of five recently acquitted of blasphemy in a Pakistani court but currently still incarcerated (Asia Bibi).
• A call to prayer for Christians in Pakistan who suffer because of Christ created by another advocacy group for the IDOP observance (IDOP 2018).

All of them concluded in the same way: a request to pray for them and how the knowledge of people praying for them across the globe sustained them in their darkest time. So even though these people are a “zillion miles away” from here somehow, someway our prayers matter.

It was a small group Sunday at Refuge which simply means that corporate prayer is done by people taking their chairs and circling up to pray with one another (something that we practice at least twice a month). Just as people were about to break into small groups to pray for the persecuted, this happened: Duane – one of our elders and about as introverted as they come – popped to his feet and asked to share something. But he couldn't speak. All he could do is look at all of us and try and restrain himself from weeping and failing at it. While we waited for him to regain his composure, Larry popped up and stood with Duane in solidarity. Our congregation was temporarily at the mercy of the emotional display of two introverts, one weeping and one standing with his friend.

Eventually Duane was able to share briefly about some of the persecuted he knows personally. Having served with Youth With A Mission for over 27 years, he shared just how he was overcome with sadness for former students of his who are presently serving in Bangladesh and China and experiencing hardship because of their commitment to Christ. In our small groups then we went into a time of intercession. The only instructions I gave was that before they prayed for each other they were to pray the best way they knew how for the persecuted around the world. I can only speak for the small group that I was a part of but it seemed that our prayers were heart-felt and direct. As I looked around the room, everyone seemed to be on point praying the best way they knew how as well.

Following prayer we returned to the large group and I led the gathering in worship from songs I deliberately had chosen that would affirm that God is God, that He is Lord and that he sees and knows and is present with us in times of loss and hardship. When the service was over it just felt like we had experienced some kind of serendipitous moment of grace that had helped us pray that morning. It was a moment that carried on to our monthly prayer gathering for the handful of us who gathered to wait upon the Lord that evening.

That afternoon as I reflected upon what had happened and pondered Duane's unusual display of emotion (unusual, that is, for him) this is what I now believe had happened. Knowing Duane like I do I know his intent wasn't to manipulate us into some kind of contrived sadness so that we would be in the right mood to pray. No, what I believe we witnessed when two introverts stood before us in an unscripted moment was a prophetic picture of how God feels when his servants suffer – and sometimes die – on account of the Name. It was only a few moments but I believe that picture of God's broken heart for his people “in chains” helped us to intercede in English and (later for those so endowed) in a language we do not know nor fathom.

And then this: Asia Bibi, the Christian Pakistani mother of five we had prayed for on Sunday was released on Tuesday and she and her family have since been moved to a secure location within Pakistan or are currently in exile beyond it (reports are conflicting). I realize that the forty or so saints gathered at 724 Leonard Street in Chetek this past Sunday were but one of probably thousands across the globe who had prayed for her that day and for many months before. But the reminder to me is simple: our prayers matter. Not because on that day we prayed in such a way that he was certain to hear us. Certainly not because we had found (accidentally) “the secret” of effective prayer. But because the Spirit helped us and taught us how to pray for her and for countless others like her on that day.

“When he ripped off the fifth seal, I saw the souls of those killed because they had held firm in their witness to the Word of God. They were gathered under the Altar, and cried out in loud prayers, “How long, Strong God, Holy and True? How long before you step in and avenge our murders?” Then each martyr was given a white robe and told to sit back and wait until the full number of martyrs was filled from among their servant companions and friends in the faith.” Revelation 6:9-11, The Message

Until he comes to set things right, may we be found faithful and may he help us to pray for those who suffer in the here and now as he leads us to pray.