Pastor Martin's Myopia

Of Saints and Swallows

2012-02-02T12:55:00.000-08:00

“…The miracle of the “swallows” of Capistrano takes place each year at the Mission San Juan Capistrano, on March 19th, St. Joseph’s Day.”

“As the little birds wing their way back to the most famous Mission in California, the village of San Juan Capistrano takes on a fiesta air and the visitors from all parts of the world, and all walks of life, gather in great numbers to witness the “miracle” of the return of the swallows.”
from http://www.sanjuancapistrano.net/

Yesterday, at the conclusion of our monthly local ministerial, Deacon Michael, lay minister at the St. Boniface-St. Joseph-St. Peter’s Catholic cluster and native born son of Ireland, proudly announced in his wondeful Irish lilt that it was the Feast Day of St. Brigid, and therefore the first day of Spring. Unlike the far more famous St. Patrick who was born elsewhere, she is the only native born patron saint of Ireland and her feast is celebrated on the anniversary of her death, February 1. On the Emerald Isle the day is also known as Imbolc, the ceremonial first day of spring, which celebrates the renewal of the earth, the hope of new growth and all that pagan-stuff.

We're gonna make it...

In Chetek, however, saints and swallows aside, we are very much still in the dead of winter. Spring won’t arrive until sometime in mid-April regardless of what the calendar says. So we who live in these northern climes have to hang on to other hopeful moments during the six months of winter we generally experience. Take our local Dairy Queen for instance which closes right before Thanksgiving. Every year it reopens on February 1. Though I’ve never been to the mission in San Juan Capistrano, for me the day the DQ reopens is like the swallows returning, a harbinger of spring, a sign that we are going to make it through the long, dark winter of our souls. So last night, as it has become our tradition, after dinner our family drove down to Dallas Street to enjoy our first DQ treats of the season. Ah…the sweet taste of my small Midnight Truffle delighted my tastebuds. Perhaps St. Brigid would have approved.

The Chetek Bakery reopens next week, another sign that winter’s grasp on us will not endure. Hope springs eternal. And so, though my line of Irish descent is not as pure as Deacon Cullen’s in his honor and in the Saint's life and legacy that he celebrated yesterday, here’s the hymn that was dedicated to her sometime after her death:

Christus in nostra insula
Que vocatur Hivernia
Ostensus est hominibus
Maximis mirabilibus
Que perfecit per felicem
Celestis vite virginem
Precellentem pro merito
Magno in numdi circulo.
(from www.newadvent.com)

Don’t know much Latin (except perhaps, “etc.”) but I do plan on having another Blizzard soon (probably a Chocolate Extreme) and raise a medium "glass" to Ireland’s other patron saint.

(Mostly) Happily Ever After

2012-02-01T21:06:00.000-08:00

The Princess kissed the frog.

He turned into a prince.

And they lived happily ever after...

Well, let's just say they lived sort of happily for a long time.

Okay, so they weren't so happy.

In fact, they were miserable.

From The Frog Prince CONTINUED by Jon Scieszka

Several years ago I discovered for myself the wonderful talent of Jon Scieszka (rhymes with Fresca), the former middle school science teacher-turned author of such wonderful books as Squids will be Squids, The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, and The Time Warp Trio Series among many others. In his short story entitled The Frog Prince CONTINUED, Jon gives us the sequel of the classic Grimm's fairy tale The Frog Prince. You know the old yarn: bratty prince gets turned into a frog by an ugly witch and in order to get “princi-fied” again must convince a beautiful princess to kiss him. It's a love story that has been spun and re-spun in many variations through the years be it Beauty and the Beast, The Music Man, The King and I and (my youngest daughter's current personal favorite) Tangled. Who among us doesn't love a good love story? But Scieszka's version tells the tale of life after the hero and the heroine fall in love, marry and settle down and the way he describes it...well...it's not very fairy-tale-ish. “...let's just say they lived sort of happily for a long time. Okay, so they weren't so happy. In fact, they were miserable.” Yeah, any of us who have been married for any length of time can relate. Sometimes in your married life you find yourself looking for that “happily ever after” component that you just assumed would be a normal part of your life after you said “I do.”

I have been known to drive my wife crazy

In twenty years of ministry, I've had the honor of presiding at a lot of weddings. Some have been big productions. Some have been more intimate gatherings in someone's backyard. I've seen brides come down the aisle splendidly adorned in regal gowns and one in a white pair of jeans. I had a best man pass out once (but fortunately after he had handed the rings to the groom) and a couple of years ago on a day where I presided at two weddings in different locations in our city I witnessed not one but both brides leap for joy like bass jumping out of the water after pronouncing she and her groom husband and wife. But regardless of the weather or the location or the circumstances, I think I can with some authority say that we in America love a good wedding – the pageantry, the ceremony, the food and wine that flows freely at an evening of celebration. The groom hasn't looked so good for as long as anyone can remember. The bride looks simply amazing and radiant. In the audience many of her friends and relatives have seized the opportunity to upgrade their wardrobe with a dress that's just killer. In this digital age, the photo sessions that precede and follow the ceremony have transformed your run-of-the-mill wedding into an event. A few months ago, in the wake of the Kim Cardashian 72-day marriage debacle, TIME magazine columnist Joel Stein put it aptly when he said, “We have created a wedding culture where marriage is less important than the wedding, which is less important than the Vegas bachelorette party, which is less important than the Facebook photos of the bachelorette party.” (“The End of Kardaschadenfreude” in TIME November 14, 2011.) I don't know if the man is a Christian but if I had been present when he spoke those words I would have called out, “Amen, brother. Preach it.” I suspect a lot of us would do the same.

Yeah, we love a good wedding. It's just marriage that people aren't as excited about – regular, daily, and – yes - sometimes boring, monogamy. Maybe we've seen way too many chick flicks or sitcoms where every imaginable marital conflict is ultimately neatly cleaned up in a reasonable amount of time. But “neat” and “tidy” is not real life. Most of us, even on our best days, don't look anywhere close to the trim and fit and put together stars and starlets who attempt to portray us on the big and small screen. Sometimes we're crabby and our hair is a mess and we're overweight and our breath is bad. As the Princess tells the Prince in Scieszka's story: “First you keep me awake all night with your horrible, croaking snore. Now I find a lily pad in your pocket. I can't believe I actually kissed your slimy frog lips. Sometimes I think we would both be better off if you were still a frog.” Happily ever after? Not.

I don't take a lot of stock in the ability of the bride or groom to hear or remember anything I say to them on their wedding day. (After all, were it not for the fact we had our wedding video-taped I don't think I could tell you what our pastor told us at our wedding over twenty-five years ago.) I'm just so much background noise and simply there to say “the magic words.” But I am certain there is NOTHING I can say, no razzle-dazzle I can perform, no profound prayer I can offer that will “divorce -proof” a couple's marriage. Because contrary to what the fairy tales tell us every marriage is not made in heaven – it's made on earth between two, basically self-centered people who are embarking on an experiment of whether or not they can live together (mostly) happily ever after. Invoking solemn words they commit themselves to this endeavor for life (Have you ever been to a wedding where the vows were essentially, “Let's just try this out for awhile”? Of course not. No, that's the rationale that a lot of couples have for living together these days but I digress):

...to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part...

Do these young people realize the implications of the vows they so blithely utter? Not in the least. At that point in their relationship – even if they have been co-habitating together for awhile as many do without any sense of shame these days - they are still looking at their partner through a rosy pair of glasses. Sure they see a few faults but they pale in the sight of their strengths and darn good looks. But ten years from now I guarantee they will look at their spouse differently provided they get that far.

If there is any “magic” in those vows its to the degree I still pay attention to them as I live out my life with my wife. Before God and a whole bunch of witnesses once upon a summer day in 1986 I vowed to love and hold fast to Linda throughout the seasons of our life together. We've had some great seasons together and we've had other seasons. Even pastors and ministers are subject to the same kinds of stress-ors that everyone else deals with. And grass always looks greener “over there.” But a promise is a promise after all and so as I seek with God's grace and help to love my wife in the way I vowed I would I have found that our mutual love and respect for each other deepens, widens, lengthens, heightens. Not overnight – we have become way too accustomed these days to get what we want fast and on the cheap – for healthy, loving relationships can never be microwaved. They can only be lovingly and carefully nurtured so that over time they develop into something that not only is a blessing to each other but to all in their circle.

"Some luck comes in getting what we have, not what we want..." (Garrison Keillor)

In the premarital counseling that my wife and I take all couples through, we address communication issues, practicing forgiveness, understanding personality types and the like. It's all well and good and probably helpful (I've never yet had someone come back and tell me that the things I shared with them during premarital counseling was, in their opinion, a bunch of baloney.) But more and more I've come to the understanding that since marriage was first, and foremost, God's idea (it's the first ceremony mentioned in the Bible after all) that the goal of marriage is not personal fulfillment or, even, happiness (although I've personally found a lot of happiness in 25+ years of marriage). Rather, it is that our marriage ultimately reflect the kind of relationship between Christ and his church which can be best described in what the Bible refers to as “loving-faithfulness.” The vows I made to Linda back in 1986, that I'm still seeking to fulfill, train me in that kind of love and as I get better at practicing that I find, lo and behold, that always I am loved more than I love, and held more than I hold. It is the way that sort of love works.

In Scieszka's version of the story, the Prince, deciding that the only way to be happy again is to run away from the castle (and the Princess) and find a witch somewhere who would turn him back into a frog, runs into one misfit sorceress after another. Eventually, a fairy godmother on her way to help a village girl get to a ball, tries her hand at re-frogging him only to turn him into a wagon. Yeah, bad luck. Fortunately, the spell only lasts until midnight at which time he is returned to his Prince-self a much wiser guy and makes a b-line for the castle. For her part, she's been worried sick about him so that when he comes to the door she fusses over him. And then...?

The Prince looked at the Princess who had believed him when no one else in the world had, the Princess who had actually kissed his slimy frog lips. The Princess who loved him. The Prince kissed the Princess. They both turned into frogs. And they hopped off happily ever after. The End.

Now that's the kind of fairy tale I can relate to.

"GO TO AFRICA!"

2012-02-01T08:58:00.000-08:00

My freshman year of Bible college, fiveof us shared a house about a mile or so from the campus of ChristianLife College in Mount Prospect, Illinois. Four of us lived upstairs and another lived in thebasement in a make-shift room. Underneath the steps leading down to the basement, we constructed something of a prayer-closet that had alight, a chair, and a piece of carpet to kneel on. I may have used itonce or twice but Bob used it on a regular basis. Up near the ceilingdirectly above where Bob would pray was an air vent that came fromone of the upstairs bedrooms. The temptation was just too much toresist and so frequently, when I could hear Bob praying in the prayercloset, I would cup my hands, and in the most God-like sounding voiceI could muster I would speak into the upstairs register, “Bob,...goto Africa...” Itwas good for a laugh or two at Bob's expense but all these yearslater my sins have found me out for a little over a month from nowI'll be getting on an airplane and going there myself. Yes, I'm goingto Africa and staying in the Republic of Uganda for 10 days.

Lillie (with a couple of her former "boys" in 1999) filled me with many tales from her life in Africa

Howdid this come about? Well, this is a story about a year or more in the making. For the last two years our fellowship has hosteda spring missions event that we call For the Glory of the Name.The first year we held it we focused on strengthening and encouragingthe individuals we presently support monthly in mission. But lastyear about this time when the steering group began to pray and planthe event they felt led to focus on Africa. When I first arrived inChetek back in 1991, we had two senior citizens in our congregationthen who in their youth had served in Liberia, West Africa. One wasliving in a nursing home and due to complications from a stroke couldno longer speak and another was a wonderfully eccentric, old womanwho regaled me with story after story of her life in Africa. Butsince her passing, the only contact we have had with that continenthas been primarily through The Well International, the local ministrywe helped establish in neighboring Barron that reaches out to Somalirefugees. We presently support no one serving in Africa but the groupfelt led to direct their efforts there.

The menu from our ethnic dinner

Oneof the logical ideas that arose out of brainstorming for this eventwas the hope that we could find someone from Africa to share abouthis work and, ultimately, invite us to go there. We ran toground every contact we had and save for our mutual friend, Akram,who hails from Egypt and at the time was serving at the local YWAMcampus outside of Chetek, we came up empty. Two weeks before theevent was set to begin in mid-April, we had our Friday night ethnicdinner planned, our Saturday evening worship and intercession set ready to go andAkram willing to share on Friday night and Sunday morning (ifneeded). But then on the Monday before For the Glory of the Name wasset to begin on that Friday I got a phone call. “Hello, PastorJeff. This is Pastor John Lutayaa from Uganda. Do you remember me?”In 2008, following our National Convention that had been held inMinneapolis that year, John had stayed at our home for a long weekendand had shared at Refuge. At that time he was involved, among other things, with aiding orphans and a couple families from our fellowship began to support his work there. Last year Chicago was the host sight for theconvention and John had flown in about a month ahead of time in hopesof connecting with several people he knows here. “I am looking foraccommodations and I'm wondering if you know anyone in Chicago whereI might find lodging?” While I know a few guys there I simply askedhim what he had planned for the coming weekend. When he mentioned hehad nothing set yet I suggested I put him on a Greyhound Bus so that he could share at our missions event. Thissounded like a plan to him and this is how a man from Africa ended upat our missions event a few days later just as we had hoped all along. OnSunday morning he shared the message and said to us in his wonderfulLugandan accent, “I want to invite all of you to come to Africa andwork for the Lord!”I wanted an Acts 16 “Come over and help us”-kinda moment and inmy estimation this came pretty close.

Pastor John from Uganda inviting us to GO to Africa

Bishop Success ministering at Focus

Afew weeks later, Warren Heckman, my former pastor who at that timewas residing in the Twin Cities, called me checking to see if I hadan opening on a Wednesday night in early May for a bishop fromNigeria to share at our fellowship. I didn't even pray about it butimmediately extended the invitation. And that's how Bishop Success,another man from Africa, ended up sharing at Focus as well asinviting us to cometo Africa.He was adamant, in fact, that I come and see him (but I think he isthat way with all American pastors he meets.)

Pastor Josiah of Liberia

Afew weeks later I received a phone call from Pastor Josiah who servesin Liberia, West Africa. Like John, he, too, has ministered at Refugebefore and on account of the national convention was in the Stateslooking for preaching opportunities. We scheduled him for mid-Juneand so for the third month in a row we had yet another man fromAfrica stand before us and extend to us an invitation to goto Africaand serve the Lord there. Perhaps God was saying something to us?

Last summer and into fall those from our fellowship who were feelingthe tug or the interest in such a journey met regularly to pray andtalk about going. At one gathering we heard from Stephanie, a girlfrom our fellowship who in early 2011, as part of her DTS outreachhad made ministry stops in South Africa, Uganda and Kenya. At anotherI read some things a friend of mine who serves in Kenya at a graduateschool of theology had sent me about coming and ministering inAfrica. Randy, one of the key planners of the missions event, hadsent an email to a Ugandan pastor that someone we knew hadrecommended we contact and had received a positive reply welcoming usto come and see them. But as fall crept on we met less consistentlyand the original group of about a dozen individuals who had expressedsome kind of interest in going following the missions event had beenpaired down to just a handful. By late December, it looked like ourinvitation had grown cold and our African missions journey had beendelivered still-born.

But right before our friends the Pedersons, who serve in thePhilippines (see The essence of discipleship), returned to their work in Baguio, they haddinner with Randy and Renee that rekindled their fire and set thingsin motion again. Heeding Duane's counsel, Randy contacted a YWAMcampus outside of Kampala and inquired about the possibilities of asmall team from the U.S. staying at their facility and serving as ourhosts. They readily agreed. Renee was approached by one of herco-workers who expressed interest in going and Randy once againgently button-holed me. And then just this past Sunday morning Sheryl, afellow-member of Refuge, approached Renee and wondered if she mightcome along, too. Two nights ago it became official: a ticket with myname on it awaits me at O'Hare International when we leave in earlyMarch.

So, now I'm going to Africa. Just what are we going to do there? Thatremains to be seen. Obviously, we hope to connect with some of theministries we have already had some contact with. We are alreadyawaiting replies from several emails we have sent out notifying themof our soon coming. Clearly, this trip is a work in progress. But itdoesn't feel forced or driven by a sense of obligation to anypronouncement we made at the missions event last year. Rather itfeels like its the natural development of a sense of leading thatcaused our planning group to focus its efforts on what was oncecalled “the Dark Continent.” And if he is leading us there thenin time it will be clear just what it is he has in mind for us to do.

We will be staying in the general vicinity of the headwaters of the Nile

Burn

2012-01-26T17:43:00.000-08:00

“But you, dear friends, carefully build yourselves up in this most holy faith by praying in the Holy Spirit…” Jude 1:20 (Msg)

I speak in tongues. Mostly English, mind you, but also the glossolalia-kind as well. As I related in an earlier post back in October of last year (Turning Points: Third Installment - Manifestations Happen), I was filled with the Holy Spirit shortly after my conversion my senior year of high school. As those experiences go, it didn't feel like much of an Acts 2-event – no rushing wind or shaking house, tongues but no ecstasy – just a few garbled syllables repeated a few times over which after uttering them didn't propel me outside my home to preach the gospel on lonely Turner Avenue; rather, it left me feeling a little bemused and wondering, “Is that it?”

My experience was not like this...

Of course, it wasn't the last time I was filled with the Holy Spirit. On subsequent occasions I have been filled again and over time my “prayer language”, as it is frequently referred to in Pentecostal/Charismatic circles, has grown and developed. But in the 30-some years since that one little drop fell upon me in my living room in May 1980, for the most part I have used that gift by and large infrequently – in worship and in prayer as the occasion was appropriate and in heated moments of intercession. In my early years of my ministry in Chetek, once or twice a year we would hold an event I called “Spiritual Emphasis Week” wherein I would bring someone in to speak on the work and ministry of the Holy Spirit in the believer’s life. Invariably we would receive some good Bible teaching and a person or two would be filled afresh. I can recall two different guys giving teachings on the importance of praying in your prayer language daily based on Jude 20 but admittedly I never put any feet on that and continued my practice of speaking in tongues only when I was feeling a shiver of spiritual ecstasy in times of worship. Until last fall.

This is good soul-food

Last fall as a family we read Jackie Pullinger's book, Chasing the Dragon. As a young woman of the 1960s and feeling the call to missionary service yet finding no support from any missionary organization someone gave Jackie the advice that she should buy a ticket on a boat going as far away from her native Great Britain as she could get and simply pray when to get off. She did and got off at Hong Kong and has been there ever since. Much of her ministry has focused on ministering to druggies, dealers and prostitutes in what was once referred to as “the Walled City”, at that time one of the largest opium producing centers in the world. Ministry there was, as we might say around here, tough-sledding and while she did see results in that some addicts were converted, breakthroughs came sparingly. A few years into her work there she met Rick and Jean Willan, a couple from America who were also ministering in Hong Kong and led a small Charismatic house church there. In one of her many discussions with the Willans, Jackie shares a conversation that ultimately had a profound influence on her life and ministry:

“Do you pray in tongues, Jackie?”

I was shocked by the Jean's American forthrightness. No English person would be that direct. “Well, no actually. I haven't found it that useful. I don't get anything out of it so I've stopped.” It was a relief to discuss it with someone.

But Jean would not be sympathetic. “That's very rude of you,” she said. “It's not a gift of emotion – it's a gift of the Spirit. You shouldn't despise the gifts God has given you. The Bible says he who prays in tongues will be built up spiritually, so never mind what you feel – do it.” Then she and Rick made me promise to pray daily in my heavenly language. They insisted that the Holy Spirit was given in power to the Early Church to make them effective witnesses to the risen Christ.

Then to my horror they suggested we pray together in tongues. I was not sure if this was all right since the Bible said that people should not all speak aloud in tongues at the same time. They explained that St. Paul was referring to a public meeting where an outsider coming in would think everyone was crazy; we three would not be offending anyone, and would be praying to God in the languages He gave us.

I could not get out of it. We prayed and I felt silly saying words I did not understand. I felt hot. And then to my consternation they stopped praying while I felt impelled to continue. I knew already that this gift, although holy, is under our control; I could stop or start at will. I would have done anything not to be praying out loud in a strange language in front of strange Americans, but just as I thought I would die of self-consciousness God said to me, “Are you willing to be a fool for My sake?”

I gave in. “All right, Lord – this doesn't make sense to me, but since You invented it, it must be a good gift, so I'll go ahead in obedience and You teach me how to pray.”

After we finished praying Jean said she understood what I had said. God had given her the interpretation. She translated. But it was beautiful; my heart was yearning for the Lord and calling as from the depths of a valley stream to the mountain tops for Him. I loved Him and worshiped Him and longed for Him to use me.

It was in language so much more explicit and glorious than any I could have formulated. I decided that if God helped me to pray like that when I was praying in tongues, then I would never despise this gift again. I accepted that he was helping me to pray perfectly.

Every day – as I had promised the Willans – I prayed in the language of the Spirit. Fifteen minutes by the clock. I still felt it to be an exercise. Before praying in the Spirit I said, “Lord, I don't know how to pray, or whom to pray for. Will You pray through me – and will You lead me to the people who want You.” And I would begin my fifteen-minute stint.

After about six weeks I noticed something remarkable. Those I talked to about Christ believed. I could not understand it at first and wondered how my Chinese had so suddenly improved, or if I had stumbled on a splendid new evangelistic technique. But I was saying the same things as before. It was some time before I realized what had changed. This time I was talking about Jesus to people who wanted to hear. I had let God have a hand in my prayers and it produced a direct result. Instead of my deciding what I wanted to do for God and asking His blessing I was asking Him to do His will through me as I prayed in the language He gave me.

I find her story amazing

Now I found that person after person wanted to receive Jesus. I could not be proud – I could only wonder that God let me be a small part of His work. And so the emotion came. It never came while I prayed, but when I saw the results of these prayers I was literally delighted. The Bishop should have told me what to expect at my confirmation when this could have started. (pp. 61-63)
As I read these words in our family reading time this past fall, I felt the nudge of the Holy Spirit to commit to the same exercise, to pray in my prayer language 15 minutes a day. Reading this story from her life and the plethora of others that fill her book, stirred afresh the yearning in me for the signs of the presence of the Kingdom in my place of ministry. To the best of my knowledge, we have no opium users or dealers in our little ‘burb but we have lots of lost people, lots of people whose lives appear bereft of God’s love and presence. While it’s true that in over twenty years of ministry in Chetek I have seen people come to the saving knowledge of Jesus, to be filled with the Holy Spirit and, in a few cases, be sent out to serve in other places, it’s not been a lot only a handful. How many people with cancer during that time have I prayed with and witnessed a complete healing? I cannot think of one. How many people in need of deliverance have been completely exorcised because I laid hands on them and prayed the prayer of command? Perhaps one or two. It occurred to me while reading Jackie’s story that twenty years into my career in this locale it’s fairly easy to coast – after all the paths I trod in a given week are fairly worn and fixed. I felt her words a challenge to question how much I was depending on my ability to construct a message, say, or pray a prayer and do the work that the Bible clearly states is mine to do but can only be done in his ability?

So, I committed myself to the same exercise: praying 15 minutes a day in my prayer language. Results were not the goal for me, however but a humbling, a recognition that I can only do God’s work with God’s resources. And while I had “stuff to do” and more English-oriented prayers to pray, I began to "waste" 15 minutes of my workday praying in tongues. With the exception of a day here or there, I’ve been at it ever since. In fact, often on my way to the Justice Center or even while involved in my devotions I slip into my prayer language and quietly pray. Unlike Jackie, during these past months I haven’t seen any more individuals come to Christ or played a significant role in a healing in our midst but I have felt more anointed in the pulpit or in one-on-one spiritual conversations. Admittedly, it’s a pretty subjective gauge determining if the “wasted” time has been well-wasted. However, a week ago Sunday morning, due to the fullness of the weekend’s work, I woke up not eager to get over to Refuge but slow to make my way there. My engine was cold. I put the coffee on, journaled a bit and then forced myself to maintain my near-daily exercise of tongue-speaking. Those of us who live in these northern parts know how reluctant our car engines are to turn over on bitterly cold mornings. They whine with mechanical reluctance. So it felt as I began to speak in my prayer language but I persisted and by the time I had finished my 15-minute stint not only was the caffeine beginning to have its effect but my spirit was revived. Coffee and cream can jump-start a body but not our spirit-man. The long and short of it was that by the end of this exercise I was ready to go to work.

This past Monday I came in not only tired but discouraged (despite a wonderful Sunday morning gathering the day before) but after praying in tongues for 15 minutes that heaviness of spirit was already beginning to lift. It’s these two recent experiences that remind me of the truth of Jude’s counsel, “But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost…” (1:20, KJV) I realize brothers from another part of the Body of Christ would disagree with my interpretation in just what Jude was referring to but…they don’t worship with our fellowship and I’m not out to disrupt theirs. I found that the practice does me good and so I will continue to do it. My son, Ed, just returned from the International House of Prayer in Kansas City and there on a regular basis he and his fellow interns would meet with one of the instructors at IHOPU who would lead them in what they refer to as a “burn” session – a time of prayer where for one entire hour they pray in tongues without ceasing. If fifteen minutes is enough to burn off a cloud of spiritual smog imagine what forty-five minutes longer of glossalalia would do for me? I can think of other far less spiritual ways to waste an hour of my day.

May He burn in me in greater measure

My just so normal life

2012-01-24T10:49:00.000-08:00

"You cannot withdraw..."

Vincent said, “You are the extreme left of the Union line. Do you understand that?”

“Yes,” Chamberlain said.

“The line runs from here all the way back to Gettysburg. But it stops here. You know what that means.”

“Of course.”

“You cannot withdraw. Under any conditions. If you go, the line is flanked. If you go, they’ll go right up the hilltop and take us in the rear. You must defend this place to the last.”

From The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara

Most little boys dream of being a hero – to nab the game-winning TD, to hit the long ball over the big wall, to rescue a princess or defeat the black robed villain in a fantastic display of swordsmanship. But then we grow up to lead what often feels such pedestrian, ordinary lives. Instead of carrying a light saber on our utility belt we probably carry a tape measure. Instead of pow-wowing together with fellow warriors to plan our next daring raid into enemy territory, we’re more than likely gathered at a board meeting discussing next quarter’s marketing strategy. Once high school is over, the likelihood that we play ball – any kind of ball – at the next level is slim or none unless it’s a pick-up game out on the quad. And eventually we find our seats at some stadium to see some larger-than-life guy throw a football like we always dreamed of throwing and we add our loud adulation to the thousands of others doing the same. It seems it is the way of things.

Alas, I was not schooled by him

Pastors are no different. We got into this not because the money was good and we aspired – as our constituents good-naturely like to tease us – to work one day a week (and a half day at that) but because we wanted to do great things for God. Our hearts and our imaginations were fired by stories like Gideon and his 300 or David and Goliath, Peter and John before the Sanhedrin not to mention the plethora of accounts of faithfulness under pressure recorded in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. I remember the excitement I felt as a young man going off to Bible college to be trained in the ways of ministry and service by what I hoped were the Christian equivalent of Jedi Masters that I might take my part in the Great Crusade to liberate men and women from their enslavement to the Lord of Darkness. Laugh if you want to but those sentiments get pretty close to the mark of the way I felt that fall of 1982.

His story is amazing

I graduated in 1986, got married, went back to school to get my B.A. completing those requirements in 1988. After college I attempted to plant a church in southern Wisconsin from 1988-1990 while at the same time helping a friend plant his in another community. And then in 1991 I accepted the call to pastor what was then Chetek Full Gospel Tabernacle (now Refuge) and have been here ever since. In 20 years, I have preached over 700 sermons to the Sunday morning crew that gathers here, given at least that many Wednesday night teachings, spoke at the nursing home, the county jail, and community gatherings many times over and led many Bible studies with individuals or small groups. We’ve made some significant improvements to our facility during that time – gone are the pews and tiled floor sanctuary and in their stead are comfortable chairs and wall-to-wall carpet (for example). I chaired the committee that helped bring $10 million worth of improvements to our schools. I helped raise lots of money for playground equipment at our elementary school or helping young people go on mission endeavors and done the kinds of things required of pastors – praying for the sick, making hospital calls, dedicating new babies, baptizing believers, leading prayer gatherings, facilitating board meetings, officiating at weddings and funerals and all the other functions that go on at local churches. It all feels so very…normal. These are good things to do and to be done and I am honored to be able to do them but I would not call them noteworthy or heroic.

What Col. Chamberlain and his 300 Maine boys did at Little Round Top on that hot, humid day of July 2, 1863 – now that was heroic. Out of bullets and retreat not being an option he ordered a bayonet charge. The 15^th Alabama Division that they had been fighting all afternoon never saw it coming and, as their commander later reported, “we ran like a herd of cattle.” The 20^th Maine saved the day – and some historians contend, the war. But running down hill with nothing but a saber against a weary but determined foe – now that’s heroic. It’s a far cry from me attempting to rope down a message early Sunday morning in my office or sitting in one of the visitation rooms at the Justice Center waiting to see an inmate.

Now here is a run to remember

I will turn 50 in a few months and admittedly in the last year I’ve had moments of reflecting on the nature of what I’ve been doing the last 20 years and feeling like the sum of it doesn’t amount to much. I love what I do and by God’s grace I feel like I have done some good work during the past two decades. I have a wife who loves me and four great kids who serve in the fellowship I pastor. We have a beautiful home, vehicles that run (and that are paid for) and I lead a life that I had hoped to lead when I was a student in Bible college. But still for all that I’ve done it doesn’t seem to add up to much in the scheme of things.

As a family, we have been reading Dancer Off Her Feet by Julie Sheldon of late. It’s the testimony of a once professional ballet dancer in the UK who developed a muscular dystrophy called Dystonia and later was healed of her affliction. This is what she says about her struggle:

If illness is a battle, then each division of the army is vital to the success of the whole operation, and indeed, every single soldier has his unique role to play. Individual recognition or importance doesn’t come into it; the purpose of all the effort is simply to win the war. Sometimes certain people seem to play a more spectacular role, but in fact, their contribution is only possible because of the steady, unselfish preparation or back-up of others.

Somehow her words speak to my discouragement. After all, Chamberlain wasn't the only Union soldier running and screaming like a banshee down that hill – there were at least 120 last men standing (plus the Company B boys who suddenly emerged out of the fog to add trouble to the skedaddling Confederates). At nearly 50 years of age, I’m not likely to be running down any hill with sword in hand probably ever. I’m not going to be awarded the Medal of Honor – certainly not for the simple acts of service that I do. I pastor a small church in a small town in one of the poorest counties of our state. Apart from the folks around here, I’m not likely to be known outside of this small corner of the world. Twenty-five years out of Bible college I find that I am not a Jedi master or Jedi-anything. I’m just a guy – a foot soldier in the Great Campaign to extend God’s Kingdom doing what seems to be my part to play in this truly epic struggle.

I still dream – I still pray to see more lost people in Chetek and Barron County come to the saving knowledge of Jesus, I still hope for the day when more of our local fellowships are willing to do more together, I still aspire to see more young kids grow up to be kingdom players no matter their vocation or calling, I still think of the day when a local Somali fellowship made of Somali disciples exists in Barron, I still look to a day when “barren”-county is overwhelmingly fruitful. I still dream. It’s just that sometimes my life looks fairly…unimpressive. Not a failure but not stellar, either. Just normal. There are those in the history of the Church on whom great deeds have been thrust upon them to do – Peter, Paul, Athanatius of Alexandria, Martin Luther, Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley and so forth. Hall of Famers everyone. I am reminded that Jesus exhorted his first core of leaders that true greatness in the kingdom is found in those who serve and do not seek the spotlight. Musing on that I think of the words attributed to Mother Teresa – We can do no great things; only small things with great love. May God find me faithful to be doing that: minding my post, reading and teaching the Scriptures, praying for the welfare of His Church in our community and the countless other normal things that pastors do in the course of a given week. It won't get me mentioned in Sports Illustrated or even Leadership but it is work that has to be done and it is mine to do.

In search of the perfect Annual Meeting

2012-01-19T19:44:00.000-08:00

There were a lot of things they tried to teach me in Bible college – how to construct a sermon and how to preach one, how to study the Bible and how not to take verses out of context, a little counseling, a little philosophy, and a lot of other Bible-related topics. But for an aspiring pastor who hoped one day to serve a local congregation one thing they glossed right over is how to conduct an Annual Meeting, that once-a-year coming together of a local fellowship to discuss “business” – especially money business. In the course of a given year, a lot of money flows into the coffers of even a small fellowship and that means that there needs to be an accounting of where the moolah goes. And given the nature of people and how we think money should be spent and on what, these gatherings have been known to be anything but harmonious.

I was grounded in the faith by what I would call a “big” church - a (at the time) 1,000+ member congregation. In the six years I attended there I recall going to an Annual Meeting only once and that was because as an intern that year it was part of my job. As I remember, it was a simple, straightforward, up-and-down event. Our executive pastor, who oversaw the money end of things, handed out copies of the financial statement and answered any pertinent questions. I don’t recall if there were any elections but it was over and done fairly quickly. Following Bible college, while helping a friend of mine establish a new fellowship in another community, I remember being a part of one or two Annual Meetings there but again they were fairly innocuous gatherings – a financial statement was handed out, questions – if any – were taken, and the meeting summarily motioned to be closed. All this to say that nothing that I had experienced up until that time prepared me for my first Annual Meeting at Chetek Full Gospel Tabernacle in January 1992.

Okay, it wasn't that bad...

I have a faint memory of being reminded by my secretary sometime in early January that year that we needed to get things together for the Annual Meeting (by constitutional rule, our Annual Business Meeting is held on the last Friday night in January) and being puzzled by that. “The Annual what?” I asked. So she prepared the financial statement and I put together some kind of agenda (collector that I am sadly I do not have a copy of it) and appropriately informed the congregation two weeks ahead of time. The members of the board of trustees assured me that since I was new here they would run the meeting so I showed up thinking that this would be a fairly run-of-the-mill congregational gathering. How wrong I was. People didn’t show up as they did on Sunday morning, smiling and shaking hands and with an air of being happy to see everyone. As I recall they came with their game faces on, as if an ugly scrum was ahead. The board of trustees sat at a head table and it looked like they were bracing for a storm. The meeting was called to order, quorum (I’m pretty sure until that moment in time I had never heard the word before) was established by taking the role (if there were only 20 or so of us here why did we need to be so official? Couldn’t the person taking the minutes take a quick head count and note, “Yeah, we got quorum?”) and the gathering began.

Things were moving along mostly according to plan until we got to the reviewing of the 1991 Financial Statement and then all heck broke out. $10,000 was “missing” from our savings account and there was a great hue and outcry from the members gathered. (“SHOW ME THE MONEY!” is probably the way someone might have said it had that movie been made yet.) As it turned out, the money wasn’t missing, it had been spent - primarily in the replacement of the roof in the month or so prior to our arrival. “How do you think we paid for that roof?” I recall one of the board members yelling which didn’t defuse the emotional tension one iota. The money that had been given in trust was supposed to have been used for something other than capital improvements apparently (for what the offended could not say) and the board had done wrong by spending that much money without congregational knowledge. But as far as the board was concerned, nobody had ever told them that this gift had been especially earmarked and figured why hold a meeting to discuss replacing the roof when we have the money to do it?

In the end, the money was still spent, a much needed repair had been done and a new rule was put in play: from herein out unless it was already in the operating budget there could be henceforth no expenditure exceeding $1,000 without duly informing the congregation. Twenty years later, that rule still stands to this day. But there was one other lasting change that came out of that gathering that night as well.

People who were there (and there are not many of them left in our present congregation) tell me that whenever they hear me recount this story they think I exaggerate, that it wasn’t that bad, that while things got a little heated it was, after all, just a simple misunderstanding. Okay, but there was a whole lot of yelling, too, as I remember it and I made a vow that night that we would never have a meeting like that again. We’re a family and while families have their moments you do not build a loving community in an atmosphere of accusation and mistrust. Besides, an Annual Meeting of a local Christian fellowship is supposed to be different than your Annual Town Board meeting and so I began to re-craft the way we did our gathering.

The business meeting of ’93 ran a whole lot different than the one of ’92. For starters, we had the report out 2-3 weeks ahead of time (following the principle that “forewarned is forearmed”) and even had it impressively bound in a cloth folder. I asked for the gathering to be held in the sanctuary as opposed to the fellowship hall (the fear of God, I figured, would help everybody be on good behavior) and I ran the meeting. I also began the gathering politely putting people on notice how they should conduct themselves. In retrospect, it was overkill. We had a very quiet and subdued meeting that went on without incident. As one of the folks told me later, “Of couse it did. You had us all walking on egg shells.” She was right. I had yelled at them to behave and they had (they would of anyway) but this atmosphere was not representative of a loving, Christian fellowship either.

For several years I ran the annual gatherings but somewhere along the way I relinquished my hold on them and began to allow one of the trustees to conduct it. The meeting place has bounced between upstairs and downstairs during that time depending on the year until the hybrid version we now use was decided upon (which is both). We’ve had a few threshold gatherings – the year we embraced our Vision and Mission Statement (’05) and the year we became Refuge (’07) – but for the most part up until a few years ago they have been fairly standard Annual Meetings as those things go, cordial and generally respectful. A couple of years ago when we were reviewing the Financial Statement of the previous year we got derailed a bit as a few well-meaning people took up a lot of time to mention where they could get a deal on paper products given the amount of money we were budgeting for this item but never have we returned to that screamfest in the basement of Chetek Full Gospel Tabernacle in January 1992.

But I was still not satisfied with the way we conducted this gathering. People shouldn’t show up to the annual meeting of the official membership looking like they’ve come for their yearly proctology exam. This should be a celebratory-thing, a high-fiving, “look-at-what-the-Lord-has-done” kinda thing. So a few years ago we began including dinner and “a movie” – a slide show that one of our guys has put together featuring the highlights of the previous year – and worship and sharing. Last year, I think we got the closest to what I think it’s supposed to be like: we sat down to dinner together in the fellowship hall, convened our meeting after dinner that lasted all of 15 minutes (admittedly there wasn’t a lot of official business to conduct) and then moved upstairs for the movie, worship, prayer and sharing. It was, in my mind, fun.

We now call it The Annual Gathering – dinner and a movie along with fellowship, prayer and worship. Yes, we do our business and elect our Deacons and approve our budget but the mood is different. We come together to recognize God’s work in and through us during the previous year and anticipate what he may do in us in the year ahead. Admittedly, there’s a few who don’t like the changes – “If you’re gonna have a meeting, let’s have a meeting and go home” – but my argument is we’re a family and a family should at least enjoy getting together once a year.

Okay, this has NEVER happened at our Annual Meeting...yet

The third week of January has, for me, been “Annual Report” week for many years now. With the help of my secretary, we put together the, on average, 20-page Annual Report that will include the previous year’s Financial Statement, the current year’s Proposed Budget, minutes from the previous gathering, and several other documents. They’ll go out this Sunday with the hopes that some of the folks will read through it before our official gathering next Friday night. We don’t do the cloth folders anymore (paper will do fine) and admittedly it’s not what you call great literature. It’s just a record of what we did, what we spent and what we plan to spend this coming year but it’s just the sort of thing that helps keep everyone in the know of what’s what and it’s my experience that this sort of thing only reassures us that at Refuge the more you know the better you feel about the fellowship you are a part of.

The Road Goes Ever On and On and On

2012-01-12T21:18:00.000-08:00

Roads go ever ever on,
over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
by streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
and through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
and under mountains in the moon.

Those who know me know I'm very much a hobbit - I'm short, stocky and have hair on my toes. Since 2006, I have made it my intent to hike the entire length of the Ice Age Trail, a 1,000 mile trail that meanders east and west, north and south throughout Wisconsin. I have since logged 52 hikes, most of them 8 miles or less, and have traversed six counties (and am halfway through a seventh). Truthfully, I've got a long way to go. At the rate I'm going, I literally may be an old man by the time I get to the journey's end.

Rather than post entries at this blog, I've begun a new one dedicated entirely to this goal entitled "Ice Age Trail Sojourner" that you can find by following this link Ice Age Sojourner: Tookish Me. At this site I plan to post lots of pictures and entries from the journal I've kept of all my hikes since the first one in January of 2006. If you are a traveler or like to read of those who do perhaps you'll enjoy reading the record of my journey.

Roads go ever on and on
under cloud and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone
turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
and horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
and trees and hills they long have known.
from "Roads Go Ever On" from "The Last Stage" in The Hobbit

Same time next year

2012-01-12T12:59:00.000-08:00

Look who's moved into the neighborhood?

I live in a predominantly white county. That’s not a matter of pride so much as a statement of fact: there are mostly white people who live around here. There are some Hispanic but most of them live in the western part of the county working for agribusiness giant Seneca Foods. But around the year 2000, a new demographical wrinkle began to develop in Barron, the county seat. Jennie-O’s Turkey Store, known to slaughter 27,000 birds a day, began to hire Somali refugees hailing from the Twin Cities. Barron, like many small towns around here, has a Catholic church and a smattering of other Protestant congregations spread around the city. But now it has a mosque as well because while in the early days the Somali commuted here to work at the plant only to return to their families in Minneapolis or St. Paul on the weekend now nearly 700 of them live here – 20% of the entire population of Barron! What would the town fathers in 1869 think today if they knew that among the descendants of the German and Norwegian immigrants who now reside here also lives a small slice of Africa? A mosque in Barron County? Who would have thunk it?

A few years ago our fellowship partnered with a few others to help create The Well International, a ministry’s whose sole purpose is to serve our Somali neighbors in the name of Jesus. We do this primarily through tutoring, English training and relationship building. It’s a slow process given that the Somali are among the most resistant to the Gospel worldwide. But we feel we must do what we can to love our new neighbors even though we are separated by culture, language, outlook, history and religion.

One of the first things we tried was cold-call on Somali apartments and residences at Christmastime delivering gift bags full of small household products, fruit, dates (they love dates) and candy. We didn’t really see it as a “witnessing” opportunity (although a few years we included Bible verses in Somali in the bags and one year we actually distributed the Jesus movie in Somali on DVD). It was more like taking a batch of cookies to your next door neighbors in order to make them feel welcome in the neighborhood. We would split up into teams of 2 or 3 and take 7 or so bags between us and then randomly knock on Somali doors and give a spiel that went something like this:

Salaam Aleikum [A traditional Muslim greeting that means “Peace be onto you”]. In our country it is traditional to bring a gift to our friends or neighbors at this time of the year and we were wondering if you would receive our gift as a gesture of welcome to our community?

Just like any kind of soliciting adventure, sometimes there was no one home, sometimes the answer was no in no uncertain terms and sometimes they would simply take our gift, say “thank you” and close the door. I learned early on that some Somali were touched by my offering of “Salaam” while others were offended that a man who was not a Muslim would say such a thing. But without fail each of us would have a story or two to share at the night’s end. As much as the thought of going out into my own neighborhood to randomly drop in on some of my white neighbors makes me squeamish, this venture I always found good fun. We couldn’t nor wouldn’t dare go to Somalia but God in his providence has moved a small tribe into our own backyard.

This is how I came to meet Hassan and his wife, Abdah, and their large brood of children. (Note: While I have no illusions that many people read my blog, I want to safeguard the identity of this family. So while they are real people who live in Barron and have heard the gospel on different occasions from various Christians, these are not their names). The first time I knocked on their door was 2008 accompanied by Akram (an Egyptian staffer from the local YWAM campus) and my daughter, Emma. We were greeted by a kindly woman with a beautiful smile. I went through my brief presentation and she enthusiastically said, “Yes and thank you!” A gaggle of children were peering around the corner at us, giggling in expectation as to what we had brought. She even went so far to invite us in for tea but we graciously declined knowing we had other doors to knock on (besides Akram told me it would not be good form for two men to be having tea in a Somali woman’s apartment even if one of the men had his daughter in tow). When she shut the door we could hear the screams of delight coming from her children as they tore open the bag.

The following year I and two young girls from Refuge stood outside their door but this time we had been assigned to them and in addition to our Christmas bag for their family we were bringing additional gifts for their children. After repeating a variation of my pitch I use every year since we started this little good will campaign, we were warmly welcomed into their apartment and the kids like horses chomping on their bits waiting for the starting bell to ring tore into the goods just as soon as we bid them good night.

In 2010, our fellowship “adopted” their family for this campaign and a week before Christmas, my family and I with the monies we had received went shopping for their children. We picked up school supplies, candy, nuts, dates and other items as well as lots of socks (most American kids would frown at this sort of thing but we were encouraged to put this on the top of our shopping list). We then drove over to Barron and just like I had the two years before stood outside their door and knocked. Shortly, all of us were sitting on one side of their small living room while on the other side sat all of them, smiling awkwardly at one another. Abdah quickly offered and served us tea as I tried to make small talk with Hassan and his children. The obligatory seasonal comments about being excited for Christmas were out as well as anything related to that day. So, we focused on our kids, their names, their year in school and what each was involved in. It didn’t help that I had a low-grade fever so I really wasn’t in a chatty mood but after our tea we left our gifts, bid them “Salaam!” (apparently they are Muslims who appreciate the gesture) and departed into the cold December night. As I left, I slipped an envelope containing $300 into Hassan’s hand with the hopes that it would help toward their rent that I knew they were behind on.

This past Christmas Wade and Jessica (the Directors of The Well) decided that after a five or six year run they wouldn’t do the Christmas bag campaign. After all, the Somali are no longer “new” neighbors in town. But a week before Christmas, Hassan called me. For several years I volunteered for the Barron County chapter of the Salvation Army and had occasion to speak with him by phone whenever they were behind in their rent so I assumed that this was what this conversation was going to be about. But no, he was calling to ask when I planned to stop over that week. “Jeef, no, no need rent,” he said in his thick Somali accent. “For the kids! For the kids!” This was a curious development – a Muslim man who has a picture of the great black stone in the Kaaba on his living room wall – inviting this follower of Christ to bring Christmas gifts for his children. Some Somali imans have stated on the internet that for a Somali to receive a Christmas gift is an offense punishable by death. So, how could I say no? “Thursday,” I said and informed everyone at dinner that night that tomorrow we were going shopping. This is how I found myself for the fourth year in a row standing outside their door surrounded by my family laden with bags of the usual stuff for Hassan and Abdah’s children. We had other folks in Barron to visit that night so we didn’t arrive until nearly 9 o’clock. Their youngest had already gone to bed and Abdah, who now works at the Turkey Store, was clearly up past her bedtime but they were gracious as ever. We hadn’t picked Ed up from Kansas City yet so we just told them that he was off at college there. But out of respect for Abdah we cut our visit short and left soon after but not before hearing the squeals of their older children as they opened up the bags.

Admittedly, our once-a-year visit to their apartment is not the basis for a long and lasting friendship. Perhaps if we lived in Barron we’d have opportunity to see each other more regularly at school functions or at the Kwik Trip in town. Of course, we could invite them over for dinner at some time in the future and maybe the fact that he called me this past Christmas is an indicator that were we to do so they would accept our invitation. I’m sure it’s hard for them, too. After all, we may be some of the only Christian people they know by first name. Still, a bridge, flimsy though it may be, has been built by minute gestures like ours (several other individuals and families in the Christian community also have contact with them) and who knows what may come of such small acts of kindness and neighborliness. Perhaps more than we know. But for now, it’s “same time next year” to Hassan and his family. I think it more than coincidental that for four years running I’ve stood outside their door the week before Christmas bearing gifts. It is a prophetic picture of what God in Isa (that is, Jesus) is doing - knocking on their front door that he might come in and “[then] we will share a meal together as friends” (Revelation 3:20, NLT.)

"This book will change your life"

2012-01-06T15:18:00.000-08:00

Since I have investigated all the reports in close detail, starting from the story's beginning, I decided to write it all out for you...so you can know beyond the shadow of a doubt the reliability of what you were taught. Luke 1:3, 4 The Message

I've begun the new year with the intent to spend all of my personal Bible reflection in the Gospel of Luke. Having spent all of last year in the Story of the Patriarchs (see Parked in the Story of the Patriarchs), I have been longing to return to the Jesus Story, the best story of all stories. So, this past Monday I opened to the third gospel and read the lines I quoted above. In the times before when I've read Luke's account, I've glossed right over these verses, a sort of “blah, blah, blah, yes, yes, I see” kinda gloss. But right away I was struck by something he wrote: it's the claim he's making to those who read his book seriously. He tells me (and any one who else who may be listening) that if I read this treatise carefully it will change me.

As I reflected upon that, I immediately imagined myself at some future book-signing event at long last a published author. People are standing courteously in line in hopes to have my signature inside the cover of their copy. They gush, “I really loved your book” and I somewhat embarrassingly respond, “Gee, thanks. I'm glad you did” or as they walk away with my latest edition in hand I wish them well and say, “Hope you like it.” But if that day ever comes I can't imagine ever writing something so good that I would have the audacity to say, “Hey, read this book, man. It'll change your life.” But that's just exactly what Luke has told me – that if I read his words carefully I will be strengthened in the things I already know about Jesus. That's quite a claim for any man to make, let alone someone who's imploring you to read his book. Read this so you can know beyond the shadow of a doubt the reliability of what you were taught (Msg).

Not being the scholarly type but having read a few things by those who are, it is not just happenstance that the word “certainty” is at the end of the long sentence that makes up verses 3-4. It's Luke's way of underlining the point he is so emphatic about:

“I have written all this, Theophilus, so that you may be sure”...my Gospel, says Luke, will offer you certainty. And in saying this he grasps...another twentieth-century nettle. For the word is asphaleia, which might be translated “infallibility” - a concept around which long warfare has been waged. Without apology Luke claims it for his Gospel, and its real meaning becomes plain. Read what I have written, he says, and you will see the facts on which Christianity is based; and you will find there something firm and solid and absolutely trustworthy, a sure foundation for faith.

The Message of Luke by Michael Wilcock, pp. 30-31

Who makes such a claim like that? Someone who is either a selfishly motivated promoter or a true believer who after “carefully investigating everything from the beginning” (v. 3) is fully persuaded that if I do the same as he I, too, will be persuaded about what I already believe about Jesus. It's a reminder to me long catechized in the faith that I cannot read this account at arm's length. I like what Michael Card has to say about the identity of Theophilus:

[while] we can never be sure of the identity of the mysterious Theophilus [his name means

“lover of God”]...that is not, strictly speaking, true either. He is you. He is me. For we have received some initial instruction on Jesus' life and ministry. We need to know with more certainty the truth of what we have heard. And you would not be holding Luke's book in your hands if you weren't in some sense a “lover of God,” or at least someone who longed to become one.

Luke: The Gospel of Amazement by Michael Card, p. 34

So I plan to read Luke's account with that intent – as a lover of God who aspires to love him more and know him better. May the Teacher of hearts instruct mine as I hear the Story all over again.

Reader beware

Miracle

2011-12-30T14:27:00.000-08:00

In over thirty years of being in Pentecost, the majority of it spent in either training for ministry or serving in it, I have never witnessed a miracle. I’ve never seen a withered hand be immediately restored ala Matthew 12. I’ve never seen a man in a wheelchair rise up and leave it for good. Like many others in our tradition, I’ve asked for one many a time. I’ve asked God to eradicate cancer from a human body or heal a mind afflicted by mental illness but those prayers, for whatever reason, have gone unanswered. But this past Christmas Eve I and the forty or so others who were gathered in our sanctuary for our annual candlelight service had front row seats to one for Troy was among the worshipers.

I’ve written about Troy before (see Being Born Again on Sunday) – he’s the guy who asked to be born again one Sunday morning at Refuge this past summer. A life-long alcoholic, Troy has since shared with us that since he’s been 18 he’s been in and out of 20 correctional facilities of all different levels of security. He’s 40 now. During the Alpha course that he and his wife, Marie, participated in this past fall he answered the icebreaker question – “What’s the best Christmas gift you’ve ever received?” – in this way: “My best Christmas gift will be to be sober and surrounded by my family.” He can’t recall a Christmas when he’s not been drunk.

This was a different Christmas for Troy and his family

This past Christmas Eve into the sanctuary he walked with his two step-daughters, Angel and Nicole, and his son, Alex, as well as a couple of his grandkids in tow (Marie was at home getting their dinner ready). And he was sober. Each one of his kids was proudly wearing a cross, a gift from their parents to announce that this Christmas was different than all the ones before. While I strummed away on my guitar and sang, it was difficult, at times, to concentrate as right before my eyes I was witnessing a miracle – a life-long drunk sober and in his right mind holding his candle, surrounded by his family and worshiping the One who has saved him. This was the not the product of a man’s will and faithful participation in A.A. (while early on I encouraged him to check out the Tuesday group that meets at Refuge, at this point he’d rather not). No, this is what comes from a man surrendering his life to the Lord Jesus and then diving head-first into a loving, local fellowship who has embraced him as he is not as he hopes he one day will be. Unconditional love by God and men is a powerful elixir that can cure the human heart of so many of the ills that plague it.

Two weeks ago, the food packaging plant that he’s been working at since he was released from jail back in May closed due to company reorganization. He’s without work but he’s also sober. That too is a miracle. A couple of times during that Service of Lights I was tempted to stop and shout: Alleluia! People – look and see the power of God! Him [pointing toward Troy] – he was drunk last Christmas, just like he’s been drunk every Christmas before – but now, look and see! See what God can do! I didn’t. While it wouldn’t have bothered him, I’m sure it would have mortally embarrassed his kids. So I just reveled in the moment allowing this picture of a father surrounded by his kids to remind me that Jesus still saves, still heals, is still able to set captives free. That it didn’t happen overnight doesn’t make it any less miraculous. His life bears testimony of the power of God to change a life. I will continue to pray for the sick and believe for the signs and wonders of the Kingdom be displayed in our midst but I also hope to witness the miracle of new birth again and again in our fellowship in the days and years to come. Either one is evidence that the Word has become flesh and has made his dwelling among us (John 1).

Lighting Christmas

2011-12-23T04:57:00.000-08:00

Every family I suppose has a collection of holiday rituals that are reenacted every turn of the year in either the preparation for Christmas or in celebration of it. Our family was no different. Like everyone else in our neighborhood (other than the Shultzs and the Shulmans, who were Jewish), we put up a tree and decorated it and hung up our stockings with care (but on a cardboard fireplace as our home was heated by an oil burner). We hung lights up on the evergreens in our front yard and as I recall it we had a wooden Rudolf-head that we lit by spotlight that hung on the side of the house. But as far as I knew, we were the only family on our block that had an Advent candle. An Advent candle is a candle with numbers on the side of it running from number 1 at the top to number 24 at the bottom. Every night during the month of December the candle is lit to mark the passing of days leading up to Christmas. I believe it is a custom unique to those of German descent (and that we were on my mother’s side).

First story of December

In our home the candle, which usually stood at the center of our kitchen table, was lit every night of December and then usually my mother (as my dad was usually working) would gather my brother and I - and later, my sister – together either at the table or –sometimes – in our bedroom before we went to bed and read to us a Christmas story. Every December 1st, we were read C. Clement Moore’s ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. Sometimes Dad was home and then he would read it and usually with a lot of panache and silliness. As the weeks passed leading up to December 25th we would hear stories of Christmas mice and other small critters, Frosty, Rudolf and the like. I remember one year my mom attempted to read all of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol but both my brother and I were too young to appreciate this wonderful Christmas classic. But on December 24th, when the once beautiful candle was reduced to nothing but a stub, it would be lit one final time. Before we trundled out the door heading down to Racine to spend the late afternoon and evening there with my mom’s side of the family, Dad would read the account of Jesus’ birth found in the second chapter of Luke. Only then could our Christmas celebration commence.

The last (and best) story of Christmas

As far as my family is concerned, must see TV
on Christmas Eve

When my own children were very young, my mom would ship us an advent candle to set on our table and light every night of December. We did not usually read by it (our family reading still is done in the morning before Emma heads off to school) but when it was lit it would immediately bring me back to the days of my boyhood when my mom would read to me. You don’t get many years to establish a tradition when you have small children in the house: just like our family did when I was a boy, we still celebrate St. Nick’s Day on Dec 6 (See So this is Christmas); I still hide Father Christmas (even though I often have to prod my children these days to look for him now); and following the Service of Lights on Christmas Eve we will drive the neighborhoods of Chetek viewing the lights and then return home and watch the Hanna-Barbera’s version of The Nativity (Trivia: Helen Hunt is the voice of the Virgin Mary; here’s hoping the video tape lasts one more Christmas!) But sometime in the last six or seven years the Advent candle stopped being a part of the annual Christmas care package that Grandma Martin is still faithful to send to our kids (the company she always bought them from went out of business). Now I wouldn’t be surprised if I mentioned it missing they would look at me quizzically and say, “Advent what?”

I read to other small children these days – the kids of Roselawn Elementary here in Chetek – and when I read this morning to Mrs. Bowers’ kindergarten class from Greg Hildebrandt’s A Christmas Treasury (which contains wonderfully illustrated copies of both ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas and The Nativity of Jesus) it will be my way of relighting that Advent candle that once burned every night in my boyhood home on Meadow Place. And by doing so I breathe in the aroma of Christmases past and all those yet to come.

Coming home again

2011-12-21T15:13:00.000-08:00

SoonBilbo’s stomach was feeling full and comfortable again, and he felthe could sleep contentedly, though really he would have liked a loafand butter better than bits of meat toasted on sticks. He sleptcurled up on the hard rock more soundly than ever he had done on hisfeather-bed in his own little hole at home. But all night he dreamedof his own house and wandered in his sleep into all his differentrooms looking for something that he could not find nor remember whatit looked like. –from “Outof the Frying-Pan Into the Fire”chapter 6 of TheHobbit

Well,we’re back and so is Ed. We returned a little after midnight fromour journey south to retrieve our son. We had a wonderful time inKansas City – we enjoyed long visits with Justin and Tara (and gotbetter acquainted with their three month old daughter, Lyla Jane,too) and Janessa, one of the small company of young people fromFocus/Refuge that have been drawn to IHOP over the past few years. Weattended our first regular season Packer game and even though it wasa clinker for the Pack, we enjoyed a beautiful Sunday afternoon inthe company of our son whom we had not seen since early October. Linda cannot visit Kansas City without venturing out on briefshopping sprees with Tara or dining out at Jack’s – as planned,she accomplished both. On the way south, we had a spur-of-the-momentextended lunch with good friends James and Jennifer Petersen inAlbert Lea (Minn) and the monotony of the ride home was broken upwith fun stops at Liberty (MO) and at the Trails Travel Center inAlbert Lea once more with traveling companions and friends theLamberts (who were also in Kansas City retrieving their daughter,Sarah, from the same internship) and Josh and Alex, too (young menfrom Refuge attending school at IHOPU). And, of course, there was themain event: being present for Ed’s graduation from the OnethingInternship (OTI).


James and Jennifer Petersen (and some of their brood)

Looking for anybody to be open

Ithink of the Christmas of 1982, my first extended stay home sinceleaving for Bible college the August before. I had been home for aweekend here and there during that time but after being on my own, asit were, for several months, forming new friendships and beginningto be spiritually reoriented, to be home again over break felt sogood and yet so...unsettling. It was good because I could enjoy theplenty of my parents' kitchen and mom's cooking. It was unsettlingbecause even though I'd only been gone four and a half months I hadbeen in a community that was intentionally be equipped for ministry.No doubt there was sin in our midst but my classmates and housemateswere also my comrades in spiritual formation. And now that I washome, I was more sensitive to the fact that many of the same people Iworshiped with were, for whatever reason, not able to sustain thedevotion they expressed so exuberantly on Sunday morning. This soundsharsh but I do not mean it that way. What I mean is that come Monday,they would be back at their job or back in high school while I wouldbe either in chapel or in a class learning how to study the Bible.So, I don't recall any kind of judgment towards them; I just felt outof place. But that “out of place”-ness was not all about them,either. Many of my new friendships were forming in that communitycalled Christian Life College and not within the circle of MadisonGospel Tabernacle.

Janessa with Lyla Jane

Fatherhood suits him

KC and Jack Stack go together like peas and carrots

A greenhouse something like this...

Thecommunity that Ed has been a part of these past six monthsspiritually speaking was far more intense and energized than I recallthe one I had been a part of back in Bible school days. I meanspending thirty-six (36) hours in the Global Prayer Room on a weeklybasis, participating in regular fasting days and all that goes withbeing a member of the IHOP community as well as being essentiallyunplugged from TV, movies and the like for half a year has left itsmark on him. He's still Ed – as far as I can perceive – stilljovial, still quick to smile and laugh but at the same time hishunger for God and his passion for Jesus has multiplied. I don'tdiscern any kind of spiritual snobbyness about him but how can youlive in that environment for this extended season and not be affectedby it? I think these next few weeks are going to be hard as he comesup from the deep as it were. Some of the disciplines he practicedwhile in Kansas City may fall away simply because there is no realcommunity to enforce them (we still watch some TV at our house) butthat is, to some degree, to be expected. He's been in a spiritualgreen house for a season – a temperature controlled environmentdesigned to maximize growth – and now, now he's been placed back inthe garden out back with all the other plants. Culture shock is to beexpected.

Lyla is pretty like her momma

Our friends the Lamberts and their amazing daughter, Sarah

Coming up from the deep...

Sohe's home...and yet, understandably, he misses his friends, fellowinterns, teachers and core group leaders. Praying for an hour in aprayer room anywhere for most of us we would deem that heroic. Butsix hours a day every day...? We who go to work or run a householdwould call that something for the professionals. And we'd be right,of course. A man who has a family to support and nurture needsgainful employment unless his gainful employment is doing labor likeprayer and worship. Yeah...now he's back in the “real world.” Buthaving said that I trust that what has been imparted to him will ruboff some on me and the rest of us who live at 825 Fifth Street andthe greater Refuge/Focus community.

Graduation day

It's official

Ed with is Core Group

Thisafternoon at lunch I showed him a video at YouTube I had been wantingto share with him since September when I first came across it. It'sjust something weird and random by the maker of “Charlie theUnicorn” called “Marshmallow People.” I was laughinghysterically through it. He laughed, too but I wonder if it was morelike a courtesy-laugh for my benefit as opposed to something he foundin any guise entertaining for himself. Later I felt bad. I mean, thetwo and a half minute video had nothing inappropriate in it (unlessyou call stabbing and eating a triangle man inappropriate) but Ithink in my hurry to get things “back to normal” I have toremember that maybe some things are not supposed to get “back”and a new normal is being established in our household. His “sight”that has been sensitized by six months of spiritual intensity may, infact, be keener than mine right now worldling that I feel I am attimes. Being around him these last few days spurs me on to knowbetter the One who has instilled that passion in him. And for thatI'm extremely grateful.

He's back

"You're Cured"

2011-12-16T15:51:00.000-08:00

He carved her sorta like this...

At the end of October, my wife Linda had a hysterectomy. It was October 31 and before they wheeled her into surgery in her attempt at gallows humor she asked Dr. Bernard, “Well, Doc, are you gonna carve me like a pumpkin?” Everything went according to plan. For several years now she has been plagued by an irregular menstrual cycle accompanied by an unusual heavy flow. About a week later when we met with the surgeon for the post-operation appointment he informed us that the average uterus weighs 200 grams. According to the pathology report, her's had weighed 400. What's more, they had quit counting at 20 the fibrous tumors that they found within it. There was no poutyness on her part of saying good-bye to her child-bearing equipment (she did that shortly after Emma was born back in 1995). She was glad to be rid of it.

Since her three-year bout with depression back in the mid-90s, she has infrequently experienced what are usually referred to as “panic attacks” - these brief periods of time wherein your heart races, your head swims and leave you – depending upon the length of it – in need of a nap. For dealing with these odd occurrences her doctor prescribed Xanax to use as needed. On the morning she was to be discharged from the hospital following surgery, however, she had one of these. For an hour and a half her heart raced at 200 beats a minute all the while she was laying in bed. Essentially, she was running a race lying perfectly still. The good news is that they hooked her up to monitors and immediately informed us that whatever else was going on with her what she had just experienced was not a panic attack. So, an appointment was made to see a heart specialist at Luther Hospital in Eau Claire.

Do you follow?

Dr. Valverde is Peruvian (we asked) and is a prim, proper and soft-spoken man. He entered the examination room, shook our hands and asked Linda to describe what these “attacks” are like. He then got out his obligatory stethoscope, listened to her heart a few times and then said, “You have a condition called atrioventricular nodal reentry tachycardia (or AVNRT – Vanna, can I buy a vowel?)” As I understand the literature they put in our hands, the heart is an electrical machine and her's at the moment had a short in it. They would send a catheter into her heart and essentially “zap” that circuit so electricity could no longer run down that corridor and send her heart into arrhythmia. I courteously cleared my throat and asked “Um, no offense...I know you are an expert but can you really tell she has that condition just by listening to her heart for a few moments?” (I'm thinking he needs to hook her up to some machine at least). “Yes” was his curt answer. So an ablation was scheduled for early December.

This, too, went according to plan (apparently on the day Linda had her procedure, 4 other individuals had the same procedure done to them). Just the other day we sat in an examination room for her post-operative consultation with Dr. Valverde. Once again he came in and shook her hand and then mine and sat down and asked her how she felt. She informed him she was feeling good and that despite feeling her heart wanting to go into that irregular heart-beat on a few occasions since the ablation it was prevented. He thoughtfully nodded his head and said, “Well, you're cured.”

"Well, you're cured."

We both are firm believers in healing prayer. We have never advocated anyone not going to a doctor for healing but we have come to encourage people to be prayed over as they begin something other than run-of-the-mill medical treatment. Linda herself had been prayed over on numerous occasions to be healed of both these conditions but in the absence of any improvement, medical intervention was sought. A month and a half later she is feeling wondrously better not just physically but spiritually and emotionally, too. It's just another reminder that each of us is an amazingly complex creation of not just matter and liquid but of spirit and soul, too. To treat one and ignore the other is to act like a materialist (i.e., “matter is everything”). To seek healing in the Name of Jesus Christ, however, is to trust that either via the prayer of faith or the tools that man has devised for the treatment of the ails of the human body – or both – is to show we have confidence in God's love and abiding presence with us.

She feels sorta like this these days

So, she's better. Lots better. She's lighter (well, physically maybe only 400 grams lighter) but the weight of the yoke of sickness has been lifted from her. Dr. Valverde and Dr. Bernard have done their wonders but the healing virtue of Jesus has lifted her spirits and continues to make her whole.

Right after Dr. Valverde announced quietly, “You're cured” he then said, “Let's see the groin” (it is where he had inserted the catheter after all). Linda looked at me and I smiled. Only in a hospital would a man say to another man's wife “Let's see the groin” in front of her husband as if he was asking for the time of day. If I had been faster on my feet, I would have said: “It's okay, Doc. I got this. I'm an expert at conducting that kind of exam on her.” Maybe next time...well, let's trust there is no next time.

Eager to see Ed

2011-12-15T18:18:00.000-08:00

Before...

Six months ago in mid-July we drove Ed down to Kansas City to begin his six-month internship at the International House of Prayer. Since that time he has spent most of his days in class, serving at the ministry center or praying in what they refer to as the Global Prayer Room, where for the last 12 years there has been day and night prayer and worship. He’s made a lot of new friends, introduced the Muffin Joke to the IHOP-KC community and has pretty much loved every minute of his time there. He graduates on Tuesday and this Saturday Linda and I will be heading south to retrieve our son. As far as we are concerned, we can’t wait.

The cleanest version of the Muffin Joke I could find on-line

I think of all that has happened since he’s been gone that he’s missed out on – “the 40” camp-out, Grandpa Darrell’s 75th soiree, Emma’s 16th Blessing Celebration, our annual visit to the Orchards, the 20 Year Celebration at Refuge, Thanks-bringing, the Indoor Marching Concert, and the Annual Candlelight Worship Service at the Wiesner Chapel. He missed all but one meet of the C-W Cross Country season, deer hunting and Thanksgiving. At each gathering, at every meet, at Refuge and at Focus, his presence has been (by me) keenly felt.

Notably absent...

The closest he got to our Thanksgiving celebration

At first I shared his excitement of being on a new adventure and missed him in a cursory manner. But as the weeks and months have passed, my longing for his company has grown keener. I have missed the joy of bantering movie, Seinfeld, and Chad Vader quotes with him at dinnertime, his laughter after sharing the quintessential Edwardian quote “You can lead a horse to water but a pencil must be lead” for the ten thousandth time and the simple joy of watching him go out on yet another run. The long and short of it is I miss my son.

When our friends Rick & Sandy blessed us by flying him home for his mid-term break back in October, those four days were very special – he came to practice and ran with the team, he was there for Sam’s baptism, he was at Focus, he connected with former classmates and teachers. He was home. It was a sheer gift which Linda and I reveled in. Throughout this six-month season of his life fairly regularly he has either borrowed someone’s cell and phoned home (thanks, Sarah, Josh, et. Al.) or skyped us on Thursdays from Higher Grounds, the coffee shop next door to the House (of Prayer). But as neat as these mediums are there is nothing quite like being there. And soon…soon we’ll be there.

With his teammates again in early October...

...and with his fellow members of Focus

That first night he’s home-home I hope I can beat off the temptation to be like the mother in Robert Munsch’s wonderful book, Love You Forever. But in my mind’s eye I see myself doing just this very thing. I’ll try and be discreet.

I realize it is the way of things – little kids grow up to leave home and ultimately make one for themselves somewhere else. My father did it and I did, too. And I’m fully aware that this first leaving will not be his last – that he will go off to some state school or return to IHOPU and, eventually, call another place home. It is yet another reminder to me that these years that we have our children all under one roof, stressful as it can be at times, is also a gift over before we fully appreciate it.

We have tickets for the Packer-Chief game at Arrowhead Stadium this Sunday and according to the most recent weather report it’s supposed to be sunny with a high of 52. It will be my first regular season professional football game. And unless the Pack travels all that way to lay an egg, it should be an exciting atmosphere for those of us who wear the green and gold. To be there will be awesome but to be there with Linda and Ed will be, yes, priceless.

"Maybe we're not Christians"

2011-12-14T16:26:00.000-08:00

The following quote is from anarticle I read a few years ago by an author whose name I'll share atthe end of this post. When I read it, I copied it immediately for alot of reasons. Namely because I agree with the sentiments the authorexpresses but also because of the irony of who it is who penned them.I re-post this segment here because I am troubled by something: Ihave been an evangelical Christian for 31 years now, 24 of which Ihave spent either training for ministry or working in it. During thattime the songs we worship to have changed both in content and instyle, the meeting places where we gather to sing those songs havebeen radically modernized, and the delivery systems by which wedisseminate the message have exponentially increased. We arerelevant, contemporary, casual, accessible, non-judgmental and wehave Wi-Fi. If you worship at a newer evangelical fellowship there'sa good chance that the theater seat you sit in will have a place toput your coffee mocha that you picked up in the foyer. But are weliving any better?

If the experts are right, though wehave bigger über-churcheswhere the saints can gather to share a worship experience in apristine thoroughly modern facility, Christianity in Americacontinues to decline despite all our best efforts to “grow” theChurch. Our marriages fail as frequently as our pagan neighbors' do,we have many of the same financial problems they do and live, in somecases, as poorly as they do. In fact, often we look just likethem. For someone who makes his living by serving as the pastorof a local fellowship, I can't help but wonder why as an aggregate weseem to have so little influence on the American landscape. Well,here's how one guy answers that question (you should know that hisaudience is primarily pastors and other ministry-types):

When Martin Luther lamented at the endof his life that he might not be justified, he must have seensomething dark in himself in relation to the Scriptures, somethingthat we in the modern church might be overlooking. The Scriptures saythat we are to be known as followers of Christ by the evidence of ourlove for one another, but we’re not (see John 13:35). TheScriptures say that we are not to boast about what we have or what wehave done, but we do (see Jer. 9:23-24). The Scriptures say that inthe last days people will be lovers of themselves and lovers ofmoney, and we are (see 2 Tim. 3:5, NKJV). Very often we charismaticsrejoice in the power of God, and rightly so. But we subject ourselvesto ridicule when we boast that we are not among those “having aform of godliness but denying its power” (2 Timothy 3:5). We claimthat we have spiritual power and others don’t because of ouropenness to accept and operate in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Butour words fall short when our marriages don’t work, our childrenare wild and disobedient, and we refine the art of giving andreceiving money to the point that we could qualify as the experts ingreed that Peter warns about in his second letter (see 2 Pet. 2:14).We have a credibility problem. We have some wonderful churches, butincreasingly, people do not seek to be connected. We have someoutstanding para-church leaders, but others are seen asself-satisfied right-wing crusaders who wouldn’t hesitate to banishthe Supreme Court, establish a Christian theocracy, and use the powerof the state to force the non-compliant into godly living. We havesome wonderful givers, but many of them have become seduced by themajor donor departments of ministries who have convinced them that ifthey will fund one more Christian project, then the world will becomea better place. Thus, churches are discouraged, para-churchministries preach to their own choirs rather than finding theirintended audiences, and God’s money is squandered on projects thatdon’t work. It is no wonder that the secular world is hesitant tolook to Christian leaders for realistic answers to today’sproblems. They think that we are just another special interest group,and I doubt that they see us as bastions of wisdom and insight. Saltand light we are not.

Maybe we’re not Christians. Maybewe’re just the most popular religion of the day, using the power ofpersuasion, the force of our numbers, and the strength of our moneyto advance our ideology. Maybe we just believe whatever makes senseto us by default, and we don’t truly—as individuals and ascommunities of Christians—seek to be genuine disciples and to doGod’s work of caring for the fatherless and the widow of our day.Could we be Pharisees? Our own books, television programs andprophecies should make us wonder. I believe that we all know and lovethe Word, but we live in earthly vessels with a fallen nature. Wefeel and see the hopes of the Spirit within, but we also end up doingthe very things we do not want to do. When we preach, write, lobby,raise money, build, broadcast, threaten, sue and spin, we presentconflicting images that don’t stand up very well against the testsof time and scrutiny. We are confusing the world, other Christians,and our families. This isn’t something that can be changed with alist of practical exercises. This is something that has to be dealtwith deep within us by exposing ourselves to the wisdom of theScriptures, to one another, and to God.

- from November 2003 issue of Ministries Today, a leading magazine for Charismatic ministry leaders.

There's more to that article butthese two paragraphs touch on the matter at hand – if we are asChristian as much as we say that we are, then why does it seem somany of us live so badly? Could it be, as this individual suggests,that for all our noise to the contrary we really have yet to believe?In thirty years those first disciples went from Jerusalem to Romewith missionary zeal. Even after the martyrdom of Stephen when manyof them fled the city in fear of their lives “wherever they werescattered, they preached the Message about Jesus” ( Acts8:4, Msg). If I really believe that time is short, the Lord's returnis near and with him comes blessing and reward for those who who haveremained faithful and “...anger and fury on those who, in selfishpride, refuse to believe the truth and who follow what is wrong”(Rom 2:8, GWT), why do I choose to live not as a citizen of theKingdom to come but as a worldling very much at home here?

Oh, yeah. I didn't mention theauthor yet. These words were written by Ted Haggard before thescandal of 2006 when he admitted to being unfaithful to his wife byhaving sex with a male prostitute as well as using recreationaldrugs. When the news broke after initial denial of the same, headmitted as much and resigned as pastor of New Life Church inColorado Springs. According to his website, he submitted to theleadership of NLC and followed their counsel for restoring hismarriage. After being out of the pulpit for several years he returnedto Colorado Springs to begin St. James Church where he pastors today.Honestly, if I lived in that city and was looking for a fellowship toworship with I don't think it would be my first stop. But having saidthat if he were speaking from the pulpit of Refuge this Sunday andreiterated these very words, I would offer up an “Amen.” Becausehe may just be right: maybe we don't live well or Biblically becausewe may have “gone down the altar, knelt [Tebow-style is how we doit now] and prayed the prayer” but it's just so much talk. That westill seem committed to the same agenda we have professed to renouncedemonstrates that in reality we have not really repented of ourunbelief and are therefore not saved.

Mary, Do You Know?

2011-12-12T18:55:00.000-08:00

This past Saturday, members from Refuge and Chetek Alliance fellowships in our community pooled our talents and for 4 ½ hours on a beautiful moonlit night read Scripture, worshiped and interceded for our community. The site of this unique prayer gathering was the newly opened House of Prayer in Chetek located in the Courtyard right next door to the Hope and Anchor Coffeehouse. In 2009, our two congregations, with some help from two other fellowships in town, had put on a Live Nativity at Main Street Park a block away. The concept was simple: read the story from Scripture, involve some worship and add some sheep, a calf and an uncooperative mule, and from 6-11 p.m. with live actors reenact the story of the First Christmas. While few people came out to witness the event that had not really been the point: the purpose had been to simply read the Story over and over again our city one night in December. Last year the plan had been to reprise this but the historic December 11 blizzard changed all that. This year, the brain trust of Kari & Nicole felt led to take a different tack. Instead of just reading the appropriate passages from Isaiah, Matthew and Luke, why not read portions of the Jesus Story from all the Gospels and Revelation? So they put together 35 pages worth of Scripture readings interspersed with songs by the worship team made up of kids from Refuge and Alliance led by Kayla and on Saturday night gathered downtown at the House of Prayer.

The House of Prayer is not really a house – it's more like two rooms that are still being painted and decorated. So at the onset of the evening there may have been 50 people squeezed into that small space giving it the ambiance of a Christmas party more than a prayer meeting. Lots of cookies, bars and hot chocolate were on hand so that only added to the party-feel. Meanwhile out in the courtyard, a single speaker was broadcasting both whoever read Scripture on the outside and the worship team who played on the inside (cold air and playing musical instruments for an extended time do not make for a good combination.) After about an hour, both Kari and Nicole felt like a stop had to be made to the “party” and encourage people to start praying so they spoke with Rick who graciously reminded everyone what it was we were doing here. Eventually as some of the kids left and the readers kept reading and the worshipers kept worshiping, a distinct change occurred in the atmosphere inside the House of Prayer. It became more worshipful, more contemplative. Out in the courtyard, unexpectedly a couple of guys from Stringers, one of the drinking establishments in town, walked across the street and wanted to know what was going on. Troy, one of the guys from the local YWAM-Campus, had fun with that. But for the most part it was just Christians engaging in prophetic acts that not surprisingly went unheralded by those frequenting B&B next door or the aforementioned Stringers and Indianhead Bar across the street or Mary's Pub around the corner. I'm sure if we did anything it was raise eyebrows than raise awareness. But I'm okay with that – that first Christmas Luke when the shepherds ran in from the fields in their haste to find this One the angels had sung of they must have raised some eyebrows, too.

Maybe the weirdest moment of the night for me, however, was around 10 p.m. when Mary came in. Mary used to be one of our volunteers at The Garage, our local youth center and she and I, as members of the governing board, had occasion to work and interact together. She is a pleasant person who works in corrections (actually I know quite a few nice jailers) and has a heart for kids. And is a lesbian. For as long as I have known her (maybe 9 years or so) she and her partner have lived outside of Chetek. And Saturday night, exactly as Nicole was reading from the closing chapters of Revelation, she and her partner and her partner's mother walked into the House of Prayer. By that time, all of the little kids were gone and a very worshipful attitude had come upon the 20 or so people who were left. The atmosphere was anything but jolly. Most were praying silently with their eyes closed but in came this crew and headed right to the hot chocolate and began mixing some up. Mary saw where I was sitting and came over and after a quick embrace sat next to me. After the exchange of a few whispered pleasantries and bringing me up to speed on her life, I asked her: “So, Mary...what brings you here?” “We saw it in the paper and came to listen to the singing,” was her reply. There was not supposed to be any advertisement but someone at The Chetek Alert had taken it upon themselves to post a news release figuring we had forgotten to do so. So, right at the moment that people were quietly praying and Nicole was reading this -

"Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood...”

- here I sat with Mary, while trying to listen to her but also wondering to myself if she was actually hearing what was being read. My guess is she did not. When I indicated to her that most of the singing was done (it really was), she figured she would join the rest of her party who, according to Kari, had left abruptly after grabbing their hot chocolate. We'd like to think it was the convicting power of the Holy Spirit at work that produced their rapid departure but it could have very well been that what they saw perplexed them – a woman reading from something outside while everyone sitting in Quaker-like silence on the inside. It probably was weird for them, too.

Since Saturday night I've wondered to myself, “What was that all about?” Was it just an odd coincidence? A freak occurrence that out of the thousands of locals who saw that news release only two people committed to what the Bible calls an immoral lifestyle actually stopped by to see the “show”? I didn't try and engage Mary in a conversation about eternal things. I just made small talk. Anyway, she caught me in the middle of my own prayer reverie when she came in and I'm usually not that quick on my feet. Maybe I was supposed to say something after all. Or maybe the Lord was putting a face on this passage of Scripture so that I would be provoked to care more and thus pray more for God's kingdom to come to our city for Mary's sake and her partner's sake and for all who live here who are in danger of being found on the outside when His kingdom ultimately comes in its fullness.

Waiting for Jesus...again

2011-12-08T19:43:00.001-08:00

Most years, The Chetek Alert asks local pastors to submit messages to include in their annual 'Tis the Season Holiday insert. Here is my contribution for this year.

As a rule, we don’t like waiting. Whether it’s waiting in line or waiting to speak with a real person in customer service on the phone or a child waiting for Christmas to come, we don’t do waiting well. But waiting is one of the great themes of the Bible – Abraham and Sarah had to wait for the promised Isaac. Joseph – their great-grandson – had to wait for the strange dreams he had dreamt as a boy to come to their fulfillment in middle age. The people of Israel toiled insufferably in Egypt waiting for their deliverance for hundreds of years. Many of the notables in Scripture were schooled in waiting – the aforementioned Abraham, Moses, David, Jeremiah, Daniel. All of them found themselves between promise and fulfillment and the long wait between. As the pages of the Older Testament come to a close, the people of God now bereft of king and kingdom are waiting for the One to come who would at last Set Things Right.

Who knew?

I think of that night some 400 years later that Joseph and Mary show up in crowded Bethlehem looking for any place to lay their heads. As far as they are aware, they are the only ones that know that, to quote Paul, “the fullness of the time” (Gal 4:4, KJV) had come. Tonight He would be born of whom the prophets had spoken. At long last the Promise was on the brink of fulfillment. As far as all those people in David’s city were concerned, however, it was just another night in a little town already at capacity due to yet another government initiative to increase revenues for the Powers that Be. That was the Main Event as far as all those people were concerned - not what was going on in the cave behind the inn. The Census was as newsworthy as frac mining in Barron County but a baby born in Bethlehem? That happens all the time. Of course, now we know differently. We know that, to borrow a phrase from American scholar Thomas Cahill, a hinge of history was turning in that manger out back. God was making good on His promise to heal the woe of mankind and doing so in His way and in His sweet time.

We suck at this

That we moderns suck at waiting is a well-attested truth. Our conveniences attest of this: Microwave ovens, instant messaging, high speed internet – after all, who among us want to return to the good old days of dial-up (except maybe my parents who still live there)? But now we the people of God of the 21st Century find ourselves waiting, too. We join the Long Wait of the Faithful since the days that Jesus the Christ ascended to heaven outside of Jerusalem: we are waiting for His Return. In fact, many of the carols we sing at this time of year give voice not just to remembering His first advent but also longing for His second. I think of the final verse of “It Came Upon A Midnight Clear” that says:

For lo! The days are hastening on,
By prophets seen of old,
When with the ever-circling years
Shall come the time foretold,
When the new heavens and the new earth shall own
The Prince of Peace, their King,
And the whole world send back the song
Which now the angels sing.

Just like it was in Bethlehem “back in the day”, the Return of the King will be preceded with little fanfare. No crescendo in the musical soundtrack to announce that He is at hand. No tweet to declare His revival. It will be, in the words of the carol “Angels From the Realms of Glory”, “suddenly”:

Saints before the altar bending
Watching long in hope and fear
Suddenly the Lord descending
In His temple shall appear

In the meantime, while we wait, we worship and do what we must to remind each other that though that Day is long in coming, it will at long last come and He who was born in the stable will finally rule the nations.

One day...

A 21st Century American Wedding

2011-12-05T12:09:00.001-08:00

This past weekend I presided at a wedding that has become the usual for me – a bride, a groom and a baby between them surrounded by kids from his first marriage and from her previous two. A blended family they are and while the groom lived with his parents before they were officially wed, obviously that they have a beautiful four-month-old son together reminds everyone that consummation has already occurred. They are not kids themselves – both are in their 40s – and while she was raised Methodist and he Baptist, life has dealt them challenges which have resulted in them each tasting the bitterness of divorce and in her case, twice. It has an incredible aftertaste. For her part, the bride is not as naïve as she was at 17 when she first wed. In fact, she was fairly gun-shy of going down this road a third time. And for his, well...he wants to be a stand-up guy and take an active role in the raising of his son.

It was a small wedding with perhaps only twenty people in attendance. The bride's father never showed and so she walked up to the altar by herself. On the groom's side, one of his daughters recently graduated from high school is very clearly in the family way. And as for the bride's kids, despite having gone through a break-up in their family structure twice before it's clear that they care about one another and are willing to give this third restructuring a chance.

But just who goes with who?

While the couple do not worship with us at Refuge, they are representative of the “traditional” weddings that I preside at these days. In 2007-08 I had the honor of presiding at four weddings – three of which were on three successive weekends in a row – at which both bride and groom were both young and child-less (three of the four couples now bounce a baby on their knees), a rare thing in my ministry. Which is not to say that I look askance at those who are entering into a marital covenant a second or third time. Life happens. Marriages dissolve for all kinds of reasons. And while some pastors and fellowships are persuaded that “one and done” is the standard that we must hold to (apart from the death of one of the spouses), I am not one of those. I believe in second chances – and third ones, too. The make-up of our fellowship reveals that: about half are what used to be referred to as “nuclear” families and half are blended ones. And each is not exempt from the challenges that life presents all married people. It’s just that those who have suffered an amputation like a divorce often have additional stressors to contend with as they seek to deal with those challenges.

Though I have not come to take a lot of stock in what a couple “hears” me say at their wedding, I am more and more aware that the message I share is more for the benefit of those who are their guests to remind and exhort them to holy living with regards to “this holy estate of marriage” that their loved ones are entering into.

Here’s what I shared on Saturday:

Pastors like me who spend a lot of time among regular church-going Christians lament a lot about the changing look of the American family. Statistically speaking the experts tell us that today there is no difference between people of faith and people without any professed faith with regards to divorce – 1 out of 2 marriages end this way. In other words, if you decide to marry in America you have a 50/50 chance of making it. In most churches that I have contact with – this one included – that 50/50 ratio plays out: about half of the people who attend Refuge are married to their first spouse and about half are on their second – or in a few cases – third one. Divorce and remarriage leads to blended families – his, hers, and ours. Certainly at Roselawn Elementary right across the street that represents the majority of the student body today – step-brothers, step-sisters, half-brothers, half-sisters. The nuclear family – 1 man, 1 woman and their children – is now the minority in Chetek schools. So, a lot of pastors – myself included – are tempted to go into lament-mode decrying the breakdown of the American family and the corresponding increase of dysfunction in people's homes. And yeah, there is a lot of dysfunction out there. A lot of pain. A lot of anger. But really, I don't have to tell you this stuff...

Defiinitely not the Brady Bunch

But I just want to remind you both that the standard family you're likely to meet in the Bible is dysfunctional with a capital D. Cain murdered his brother Abel because he was jealous of him. Jacob tricked his brother Esau out of his birthright and then in cahoots with his mother, pulled the literal wool down over the eyes of his father and stole Esau's birthright, too. Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers and that was Plan B! Plan A had been to do away with him outright. David kept marrying different women and as his brood grew, so did their troubles – Amnon rapes his half-sister, Tamar; when Absalom – her full brother – hears this he plans his revenge and sometime later, murders Amnon; when he is banished from the kingdom for this deed, Absalom goes off and plans his ultimate revenge against his father and later incites a civil war in the kingdom whose root cause is his unresolved differences between father and son. So, I think you get it – most of the families you run into the Bible have more than their fair share of dysfunction. In fact, a lot of these families have more in common with reality TV than most people who attend local churches.

So, here's my point: marriage is originally God's idea; that so many people do so bad at it doesn't change the fact that it's still his idea. Dysfunction happens – show me a family without dysfunction and more than likely we're talking about a family we don't know too well. Every family has some degree of dysfunction within it because every family is made up of imperfect, and, frankly, sinful free agents. All this to say that dysfunction is not an excuse for a failed marriage; immaturity – yes; unfaithfulness – certainly; selfishness – absolutely; but dysfunction – no. Have you've seen the T-shirt? – We put the FUN in dysFUNction? It's funny – and really, I don't have a problem with it so long as it's not reveling in bad family behavior. Families like yours can make their own kind of fun.

There's nothing I can say that will ultimately “divorce-proof” your marriage; I'm assuming that “you're in it, to win it” so fear God, love each other and make it work – for your sake and for all these kids. Here's just my personal observation: people love weddings, they love – or most of them do – getting all dolled up in a dress that's killer and then heading off to a reception where they can dance the night away. The groom hasn't looked so good for as long as anyone can remember and the bride looks dazzling. In this digital age, the photo sessions that precede and follow the ceremony transform an average couple’s wedding into an event. Yeah, we love a good wedding. It's marriage that people aren't as excited about - regular, daily, sometimes boring monogamy but for those who commit and trust to God's grace to love their spouse and make good on the vows you're about to make over time love grows, widens, deepens, lengthens.

Paul, a close associate of Jesus put it this way:

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. (1 Corin 13:4-7, NLT)

That kind of love doesn't come out of a cereal box and you don't find it on Facebook nor can you buy an app for that. It comes as two people ask God for his grace to love their spouse through thick and thin, good times and bad. So - go the distance. Make the statisticians wrong in your case and not only will you be blessed but all these kids here will be blessed as well.

I’m composing this while my wife is sleeping off the anesthetic the hospital gave her this morning for an oblation that was done in order to correct a certain form of arrhythmia. While sitting in the family lounge while the procedure was being performed, I was thumbing through a TIME magazine when I came across Joel Stein’s tongue-in-cheek column following the termination of Kim Cardashian’s 72-day marriage (to even write that it is farcical to me):

We have created a wedding culture where marriage is less important than the wedding, which is less important than the Vegas bachelorette party, which is less important than the Facebook photos of the bachelorette party.
(“The End of Kardaschadenfreude” by Joel Stein in TIME November 14, 2011)

What good Bible preacher couldn’t say AMEN to that?

This would be hilarious if it wasn't so true

I wish this couple well. I would feel better if they were committed to attending a Christian fellowship -ours or another - where they could be strengthened and encouraged in making good on their vows. And while I have told them as much at the present time they appear to be at that "we'll-have-to-wait-and-see"-mode which experience tells me is just a nice way of saying no to a pastor's counsel. Frankly, I'm nervous for them because it appears to me that they are walking blind into a field laden with landmines. One false step and its game over. May God give them the smarts enough to do better than "hope to good luck." Because they're gonna need more than just luck to get them through.

So this is Christmas

2011-12-02T19:01:00.001-08:00

I'm gonna guess that most households in America when it comes to how they celebrate holidays are governed by a certain set of traditions that are held sacrosanct for no other reason than they are. In my house growing up, for example, Santa came twice in December: the first on December 6 (St. Nick's Day) when my siblings and I would awaken to find our stockings stuffed with candy, fruit, nuts and small gifts and the second time on Christmas morning like everybody else. I didn't realize until much later that St. Nick's Day wasn't celebrated in every household in the neighborhood – ours, in fact, may have been the only one and that was credit to my mother's Eastern European ancestry more than anything else. Santa has continued to visit our house all these years later both on the 6th and the 25th and we have established certain holiday traditions with our children that unless they secretly despise them or their future spouse objects may very likely be carried on in the next generation.

One factor that helps us stay on task in observing these traditions is our son, Charlie. He has autism and one of the things peculiar to those with that condition is the need for same-ness. As in, every Thanksgiving morning for as long as he can remember, he has sat down to watch Macy's parade with his mother and sisters. Never mind if the football game comes on at 11:30 or that dinner may be ready before then, we watch it until Santa shows up and then we can eat. And every Black Friday evening the tree comes out and goes up. In his own gentle way he reminds me, “Well, Dad...should we put the tree up...?” His world will not be right until I start making my way to the tubs in the basement where the tree and the ornaments are kept the rest of the year.

Not PC for Charlie before Dec 1

So, this year was no different than any other. At the end of our Black Friday shopping day we got the tree up and decorated it. It's a couple of hours job what with stringing the lights (and making a couple of trips to the Dollar Store for more lights) and hanging the ornaments. When it was all done and the tree was lit and our house now suddenly had that “Christmassy look”, Emma suggested we watch a Christmas movie. Immediately Charlie balked: “But it's not Christmas yet.” I acknowledged as much but suggested that as long as the tree was up and some of our decorations out, why shouldn't we watch a Christmas movie as well. Charlie's response was pure Charlie: “But it's not Christmas yet.” As far as he's concerned, the Christmas season doesn't begin on Black Friday or even the First Sunday of Advent. It starts on December 1 and not a day before. I finally got him to pause when I suggested we watch Miracle on 34th Street (1947 version) because, after all, it started on Thanksgiving Day. That was really disconcerting to him as if I was luring him off the beaten path and so he agreed to watch up until the parade part was over and then he decided that it was not appropriate to watch a movie about Santa in November after all and quietly left the room.

But Thursday, December 1, Christmas officially began for us and after Linda and I had returned home after a day of shopping in the Twin Ports with a smile on his face Charlie asked if I wanted to watch a Christmas movie with him. “Sure,” I said and what did he want to watch? A Christmas Carol (1938)?, It's a Wonderful Life!?, The Grinch? No, Barney Night Before Christmas is what he was eager to show his mother and I and so via Netflix he took us there and for the next hour we watched the iconic purple dinosaur and his friends sing, decorate, visit Santa and Mrs. Claus and get back in time for Christmas Eve. It was standard Barney fare – er, not that I know – but I was impressed that they used three traditional Christmas carols in their show - “O Christmas Tree”, “Joy to the World” and “Silent Night”- and with the bell choir that came on at the tail end of the program. The fact that Charlie knew everybody's lines so well made me suspicious. “Charlie, did you watch this in November...?” I asked him to wit he immediately replied, “No...I didn't watch it in November.” He was fairly vehement in his denials and then he added cautiously, “I watched it....last...year.” Something tells me there is more to that story. After all just the other day I happened to come into his room and caught him watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas on his bedroom TV. He switched the channel so fast as if I had caught him watching an R-rated movie. Well, you're only human right?

So...he likes Barney...

Emma had refused to come down and watch the show with us. “Don't you think you should tell him he's too old to watch Barney?” she queried. Yeah...well, our son may be 21 years old but emotionally he's still very much a little boy and I don't know if watching Barney is going to hurt him all that much. After he went to bed she came down and put on The Nutcracker (1993) starring Macaulay Culkin at the height of his child stardom (I didn't know until today when I imbd-ed it that he studied at the School of American Ballet, the official training academy of the New York City Ballet.) The juxtaposition of the “I love you, you love me” jingle from Barney with Tchaikovsky's majestic "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" is about as stark as it comes. But the dancing was truly fabulous (how do those women do point so flawlessly?)

So Christmas is officially “on” at the Martin home. The tree is up, the village is up, the candles are positioned in every downstair window, and the wreaths are up, too. Father Christmas was hid for the first time last night and St. Nick is scheduled to visit sometime late Monday. And we now have the all clear to watch all things Christmas. Thank God (tonight's offering, Charlie gleefully informed me at dinner is How the Grinch Stole Christmas.) Just this afternoon at lunch time I put on Pulitzer-prize winning historian David McCullough's In the Dark Streets Shineth: A 1941 Christmas Eve Story, a 15-minute excerpt from a guest appearance he made at the 2009 Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert. I listened to an arrangement that included both “O Little Town of Bethlehem” and “I'll Be Home For Christmas” with his back-story for both of them. My only criticism is I wish it had been longer. Good thing Charlie wasn't home. Even at a quarter of an hour (and though it was a Christmas story), it's way too much history for him.

Meeting Famous People

2011-11-29T16:33:00.001-08:00

Never got to meet the Duke

One of the many dreams of my boyhood was to meet John Wayne. How a kid from Milwaukee would ever run into this Hollywood uber-star was beyond me but I recall wishing on a star once about that and probably praying a few times about it, too. It never happened. He died in 1979 and though I was living in Madison by then I was no closer to meeting the Duke than ever. I also dreamed of meeting Jimmy Stewart and while I know someone who actually did meet him – in Chicago, no less – that never happened either. I hear both professed Christian faith and if that's the case, I'm looking forward to meeting them someday. But in 49 years of living none of my childhood friends have grown up to be famous and neither have I had the occasion of meeting someone of fame as well. Except twice.

His friends call him "Wally"

In 2000, Pastor Sam of Chetek Lutheran (since retired) informed the ministerial that best-selling author and radio personality Walter Wangerin, Jr. was coming to Chetek promoting his radio program Lutheran Vespers. For the uninformed, Walter Wangerin, Jr. is a former Lutheran pastor who has authored multiple books including The Book of the Dun Cow (which won both the National Book Award and the New York Times Best Children's Book of the Year in 1980), The Book of Sorrows (which was Dun Cow's sequel) the wonderful series of novelizations of the Bible (The Book of God), the Gospels (Jesus: A Novel) and the New Testament letters (Paul: A Novel) and the collections of his short stories (Ragman and Other Cries of Faith, The Manger is Empty) and children's books (Thistle, Potter). While I don't own all of his works, I have read nearly all of them so to learn that he was coming to our little burb I was understandably elated.

Mr. Wangerin wouldn't be driving to Chetek, however; he would be cycling to our area – as in bicycling. His radio program issued from Indiana and an avid cyclist of the pedal variety he thought he would cycle through the Midwest that summer to raise support for his show and for some reason Chetek was on his itinerary. He would actually be arriving in Cameron where any who wanted to bike with him to Chetek could join him for that 10 mile leisurely ride. Once in Chetek he would give a reading from one of his books (as I recall it was from Paul) and then that night there would be a service at Chetek Lutheran at which he would preach. This was big news to his fans in this community and so I had Linda drop me off at Faith Lutheran on that Saturday as scheduled and waited with about 15 others for Wally (as he likes to be called) to arrive. He showed up in pony tail and biker's physique (i.e., lean and muscular) and after a few words we began our ride south using side roads that mostly ran along Prairie Lake. He was about ten bikers ahead of me and not wanting to be overly star-struck I just enjoyed the thrill of being in this small company.

Later on in the ride, however, he drifted back toward my part of the pack and suddenly I was riding side-by-side with one of my favorite authors. For the half hour before this moment I had been trying to come up with something pithy to say for just this moment but nothing I thought of seemed appropriate. Simply saying, “I really love your books,” sounded too teenage-ish and I had no questions about any of his works (though in retrospect now I might have said something like, “I loved Dun Cow but Sorrows was so...I dunno..sad and depressing.” He might have enjoyed that comment. Or he might have said the obvious: "Well, I did entitle it The Book of Sorrows." I'll never know now.) But I came up empty so swallowing hard I looked at him and said, “How's it going?” That's it. That's all I could think of and the moment I said it I thought, “Stupid! How dumb can you be?”He looked at me and said, “Good.” To wit I said, “Well,...good.” And that was that. After a while he moved on to ride with someone else and my one opportunity to chat amiably with such an accomplished author was blown.

He has a way with people

Upon arriving at Chetek Lutheran, I partook in the reading on the lawn behind Burnham-Ours Funeral Home across the street from the church. It was a small group and he ran it more like a Bible study. It was both enjoyable as well as whetted your spiritual appetite for the Word of God. That night, we took the family, including my mom and dad who were fortunate to be in town that weekend, over to Chetek Lutheran and were agog at his story-telling ability. As much as I love Garrison Keillor, Wangerin is better at delivery in that he is a pastor who shares the gospel skillfully as story making it all the more believable as opposed to a theologian proof-texting a passage of Scripture and reporting on it. At the gathering following the service we approached him in the fellowship hall with our copy of Thistle in our hands asking him to sign it. He did but when I looked at his scribble I turned to him and said, “Gee, I could have had my doctor do that.” He was really taken by Ed because when he asked our seven year old at the time what was his favorite book of his, Ed looked him, raised his right hand with his pointer finger extended and said, Potter (It's a great children's book but it concerns death and dying as well as resurrection however the tone is poignant and sober.) “Really?” he asked and then proceeded to tell our seven year old how he was turning this book into a play and sharing with him different plot devices he was planning to use. No matter that he had already lost Ed who at that moment seemed to be more interested in the brownie he was eating.

My one brush with fame and it's my little boy who with one word manages to get this well-known author to gush unashamedly about his work.

As seen on TV

This past Black Friday while shopping at Oakwood Mall I met my second famous person. Well, let me clarify. If you don't live in the Eau Claire area, her name will mean nothing to you and if you don't watch TV-13 Sunrise, you probably won't know to whom I refer to either. But she is – or was – a local TV personality and to meet her was serendipitous. Salina Heller used to be the anchor of the two-hour early morning news show that daily preceded the Today Show on NBC. She was funny, perky, relaxed, didn't appear to be too scripted, pretty and was very involved in community theater. Compared to the woman who now hosts the show she was a natural. And then one morning when I turned on TV-13, she and her co-host, Andrew, were off the air. Just like that. No celebratory send-off. No “We wish Salina well as she moves on in her career”-speak. No, the producers just made a change and soon we had the anchorwoman who now hosts the show (too much teeth, too scripted to be natural). In any case, I went to TV-13's website to see if they had announced the change but found nothing. I went to her Facebook page (I am not one of her friends...okay, I did send a friend request once that was, apparently, “quietly ignored”) and that had no information as well. So after a week or so, I decided to message her on Facebook and send her my good wishes for her future career and telling her that I missed seeing her in the early hours of my day. About a month later she wrote me back thanking me for my kind words and that was the end of that.

Until Black Friday. As in last Friday. I was with my daughter, Christine, and my mom standing in Aeropostale at Oakwood and Christine had just gone back to the dressing room to try some things on. I was just standing there, minding my own business, when I looked to my right and who should be standing next to me glancing over a bin of clothes was...she. “Well, Salina Heller. How are you?” It came out of my mouth as if I was greeting an old friend. She looked at me, smiled and said, “Fine.” I then told her, “You don't know me. I'm Jeff and I just want to tell you I miss seeing you on TV.” She seemed sincerely touched by that remark and fearing I had touched a sore spot I quickly added, “Sorry to interrupt your shopping but I just wanted to tell you that.” She thanked me again and asked me where I was from and how my shopping was going to wit I replied, “Oh, I'm not shopping. I'm here for moral support and to drive people around.” She laughed at that and not wanting to take any more of her time I said, “Well, I hope things are going well for you after TV-13 but I sure miss seeing you there” (yeah, I said it three times). At which point she touched me on the arm and said, “Thank you for saying that” and then I wished her well and she continued on with her shopping. I did have my camera with me and for a second I was tempted to take her pic...or even ask if my mom could take a picture of she and I together but thought better of it. I didn't want to creep her out after all. (I did back out of Aeropostale and quickly cross the mall to the store where Linda and Charlie were at and said, “Guess who I just met?” That's about as Bieber as I get.)

Liberal but master storyteller

Translated the Bible all by himself

"We'll never forget you, Brent..."

Warren has done Big Top and Refuge

I'm only 49 so there's still time for me to meet some other famous people. I mean Mike Perry comes through the area from time to time and now that I think of it, I did meet Warren Nelson of Big Top Chautauqua fame last Christmas who did a live concert right in our sanctuary. Then again, maybe one of the kids from our fellowship will garner the kind of fame that causes me to say, “I knew them when...” When I think of my bucket-list of people I'd like to meet someday, it isn't that long: Garrison Keillor perhaps (although I'm afraid I'd be just as dumbstruck around him as I was with Wangerin), Eugene H. Peterson of The Message-fame (got a personal post card from him once when he responded to a letter I sent him), and maybe Brett Favre (but what are we going to talk about? John Deere tractors perhaps?) I still regret that I never got to meet The Duke or Jimmy Stewart but maybe if I had I would have been disappointed. I dunno but for the time being I'm just reveling in the fact that I met Salina Heller in Aeropostale and didn't clam up and get that deer-in-the-headlight look. If I had, she definitely would have been creeped out by that.

Parked in the Story of the Patriarchs

2011-11-28T15:20:00.001-08:00

“Jacob woke up from his sleep.He said, "God is in this place—truly. And I didn't even knowit!" He was terrified. He whispered in awe, 'Incredible.Wonderful. Holy. This is God's House. This is the Gate of Heaven.'”Genesis 28:16-17, Msg

Eversince I was a young disciple, I have sought to read through the Bibleonce a year and for perhaps 25 years I did just this. But in thatlast year or so of that quarter century, I found myself skimming moreoften than not than actually paying attention to the content itself.So, in 2010 I resolved to break with tradition and begin a new one.Instead of reading all 66 books of the Bible I would park myself injust one and meander through it at a leisurely pace. With my Bibleopen and my Zondervan's NIV Complete Study Bible file on my officecomputer open as well, I would tap out my thoughts and reflectionsout into a...yes...a Word file. That year I compiled 165 pages ofthoughts, reflections, and quotes from various commentators all frommy perusal in the Gospel of Matthew. It wasn't preaching fodder –although I got a message or two out of it I'm sure and a few blogpostings as well – it was just for personal devotional purposes.

Thisyear, my intent had been to spend the beginning of the year in theAbraham story (Genesis 11:10-25:11) and then return to the Gospels,say Mark. But the more I read of Abraham and his journey physicallyand spiritually from Ur the more I found myself wrapped up in theStory of the Patriarchs and just kept reading. As of today, I'mnearly through Chapter 42 which contains the dramatic moment in theJoseph story when suddenly he finds his brothers bowing before himnow regent of Egypt in hopes of his good will so desperate they arefor food. Joseph had named his oldest son Manasseh as a tribute tohow he had forgotten all the trouble he had experienced back inCanaan. But now with his brothers prostrate before him (not knowingto whom they bow) suddenly it all comes back to him - the dream thathad incited his brothers to even greater hatred of him when he hadbeen a boy parading about in that ornamental robe of his (Gen37:5-7). At the present time, I have collected 316 pages of thoughts,reflections, and commentary collected from three major sources. WhileI wasn't planning on going there, I have spent the better part of thesummer and fall preaching the Abraham Story (After 14 installments,I'm not sure I'm going to finish it by Christmas!) and 5 posts to myblog to date have arisen from my stay in Genesis (Before the Wastes of Sodom, The Sins of Sodom, Lot Looked, Leaving Ur and The Company We Keep). In 2012 my plan is to return to the Gospels – Luke, as amatter of fact – and personally, I'm looking forward to returningto a regular focus on Jesus. In saying that, however, that is notimplying that I have not benefited from my stay in the unfoldingstory of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

I'm sure this is how it happened

Inthe Story of the Patriarchs, I walk away marveling at God – hischoosing, his calling, his mysterious working out of his purposes inand through sinful individuals, his providence, his, if you will,big-ness.And while every one of the major players has his day in the sun, thenarrator – or narrators as some commentators theorize – won'tallow us for a moment to exalt these men or their wives. Frankly,we're given too much dirt to lionize them. Abraham has a penchant forlying and unbelief, Isaac likes venison way too much causing him toprefer Esau over his twin brother, Jacob is a cheat and a schemer ofincredible talent and Joseph is the favorite son who is dumb enoughto think that his family will applaud the strange dreams that heshares with them in which he is preeminent. These are not onedimensional flannelboard characters that fit neatly onto a feltboard. Whatever else may be said of them these are real, flawedpeople but called of God nonetheless to be conduits of blessing notonly for their own household but ultimately for humankind everywhere.At times in the Isaac story, I found that I liked none of them –not Isaac drooling in anticipation of his venison stew, not Esau whodemonstrates no sense of responsibility, not Rebekah setting up herson to pull the literal wool over her husband's eyes and not Jacobwho isthe sharpest knife in the drawer in this bunch but is soself-absorbed that he has no concern of cheating both his brother andhis father to get not what's coming to him but simply what he wants.The First Family of Genesis seems to have more in common with realityTV than a lot of the families that attend our fellowship or I wouldguess, most fellowships.

Still,they are remarkable people: Abraham turns his back on the only lifehe's ever known for the “frontier” because the Voice calls him toand many years later he surrenders his only son in love for the sameVoice. Isaac persists in his father's calling. Jacob wrestles withGod and begins his transformation into Israel. And Joseph seesthrough the trouble he's been put through as the strange workings ofGod all along (okay, I peeked ahead to chapter 50). But for all thisit's their God who appears eminently remarkable. As I near the end ofthe Patriarch Story my reaction is awe and gratitude and hope andcomfort that though I am at times sinful and faithless, God isgreater than my sins and the consequences they may produce. As Ithink on it, my reading of this section of Genesis awakens in mehunger to read in Luke how this descendant of Abraham, Isaac andJacob fulfills the great promise made to them that through them (andhim) one day all the peoples of the earth will be blessed.

Turning Points: Fourth Installment - When Messes Happen

2011-11-12T21:08:00.001-08:00

Bible scholarship has suggested thatMary of Nazareth may have been as young as 14 when she became themother of Jesus based on the fact that it was common custom for girlsin that day and age to marry around this time. What I remember mostof the Christmas of 1994 was that in our small fellowship we hadanother “Mary” in our midst, a teen who was found to be “withchild” but not of the Holy Ghost. No, it was in the usual way andthe fact that she was became another turning point in myphilosophical development as a pastor. I have permission to tell thisstory. Those close to me or who were part of our fellowship at thattime will know who I speak of. But since this column is about how herpregnancy affected me and my understanding of what it means to be apastor, I choose to reference her simply as Liz toprotect her and her daughter who is sixteen now (and one of myfriends on Facebook, too) from any unneeded attention. In this case,this isn't their story but mine.

Turning Point: Fall1994-Winter 1995 – Pastors walk with people through their messes.

We had moved next door to Liz and hermother, Jill, in the fall of 1993 and within one weekof our arrival in their neighborhood, Jill, without any invitation onour part, began regularly worshiping with us. She was a Christian buthad not been a practicing one for many years. She was a single momwho happened to be friends with another single mom in our fellowshipand apparently the fact that a pastor was now her neighbor was God’sway of awakening her out of her spiritual slumber. Jill was nottentative in waking from deep REM sleep. She practically leapt out ofbed. She not only became regular in attendance, but within shortorder she became known as the “sucker lady” for her penchant ofgifting young kids who memorized Bible verses with a lollipop. Shejoined our early Tuesday morning prayer group and became one of ourmost fervent members.

Liz, however, was of a differentstripe. She came with her mother to the weekly worship gathering onlysparingly and usually it was clear that she was present only at hermother’s behest. She was fourteen and fearing that coercion mightonly stiffen her resolve against God and anything to do with Him,Jill had left it up to her to decide when and if she would come toSunday worship. But with a little parental encouragement, Liz didcheck out our Wednesday night youth ministry and shortly after becamea regular participant in it. Ultrahigh Frequency (Uhf) was anentry-level youth group whose focus was evangelism. We did a lot ofcrazy stunts and games and at the end of the night shared Jesus andhis love for them. In the early years, we really were made up of twogroups – some Middle School-aged “church” kids and a whole slewof teens outside the walls of our fellowship (or any fellowshipwhatsoever). In fact, at times they – that is, the kids who didn’treally know what they believed – outnumbered those who consideredthemselves “in the door.” It created some interesting dynamicsand when we had, for a short season, two pregnant teenage girlsparticipating in our Wednesday night programming we encounteredessentially Pharisaical attitudes among a few of the parents of the“church” kids who attended. “Why do they have to come?”But we carried on persuaded of Jesus’ wisdom, “It is not thehealthy who need a doctor, but the sick” (Matt 9).

Liz, Jill and I traveled to Mexico to serve

Liz, while raised sporadically inchurch, really didn’t run with that crowd but as time passed wewitnessed this young woman’s hard heart soften in incremental ways.After several months, in fact, she came with her mom on her ownaccord to the Sunday morning worship gathering and was one of theleveling factors in our discussions on Wednesday nights that helpedkeep us more or less on track. In the wake of these pregnant girlsjoining our weekly gathering one of my co-workers decided to hold aday-long retreat at her fellowship focused on abstinence. I don'trecall the particulars but at some time during the day Liz shared herstory with the others about how she had lost her virginity two yearsbefore but was now committing herself to chastity until her weddingday. In the winter of 1994, Liz, Jill and about ten others from ourfellowship traveled to northeastern Mexico where we spent a week inthe mountains helping lay the foundation of a new church buildingthere. It was yet another milestone in the spiritual development ofthis young woman and something that kept our team “in the game”when it was easy to despair over the lack of progress many of herpeers at Uhf were experiencing. Maybe...just maybe...we were going to“win” this one.

It was a Friday night football gamethat fall, however, that alerted me something ill was afoot. It was ahome game but I don't remember who we were playing. I do, however,vividly recall seeing Liz there in tow with a guy I'll call Bubba.Everything about him spelled trouble and my heart sank when I sawthem together. After she missed a few Wednesday nights as well Iasked her if we could get together to talk. She agreed and a few dayslater after school we met at Norm's for pop and fries and I asked herwhat was going on. She had been busy (she said) and even though thenew school year was just a few weeks old, already she was behind inseveral of her classes which is why she had not been at group. Andwhat of Bubba? I'll never forget what she told me, “Don't worry,Pastor Jeff. We're just friends.” I didn't believe her when shetold me but with nothing profound to say, we ended our little chatwith prayer and a gentle admonishment to be careful. She assured meshe would be.

A month later I was at Troy's (one ofmy co-workers on Wednesday nights) helping him winterize his house byhelping him tack plastic on his windows. It was mid-morning and whoshould pull into Troy's driveway but Liz and Bubba. I waved and saidhello as they went into the house to speak to Troy's wife, Kim. All Iremember thinking is, It's the middle of the morning on a schoolday. What possibly could they be doing here? At lunch, I foundout. Liz was pregnant and too ashamed to face me she had asked Kim tobreak the news to me.

It was like a roundhouse punch to thegut that just took all the wind out of me. I was sick to my stomach.And angry. How could she? Why didn't she listen to me? After allthe crap we often had to put up with because we let “those kids”come to group, here was yet more grist for the complaint mill. Ofyour own volition you went public with your story vowing to remainchaste until marriage. What about all those young girls who respectedyou for your candor and your resolve to stay pure? This isvaguely what I remember about my state of mind at the time of herdisclosure. I didn't name drop at the weekly worship gathering but inthose first few weeks I segued into rants during my sermons enough tocatch the attention of those closest to me. “You sound angry,”Renee told me privately. I argued that I had a right to be sinceeverybody else seemed indifferent about the whole matter. “Ithappens,” I actually heard someone remark. To wit I shot back,“Shouldn't we care? Is this best we got for all those young girlsin our midst, “It happens”? At the same time, while Lizhad made her way back to group, I emotionally distanced myself fromher. She had betrayed my trust, spurned my counsel and I was not inthe mood to carry on as if what had happened was no big deal.

It was somewhere around that time thatGlen called me one Wednesday night before group. He was on staff atthe local YWAM campus and he and his family worshiped regularly withus on Sunday mornings. We were not especially close but werecolleagues in ministry and so we had a mutual regard for oneanother's work. But he wasn't calling to shoot the breeze. He calledto get in my face. He, too, had picked up on the spirit behind someof the things I had been sharing on Sunday morning. At first, formeryouth pastor that he was he commiserated with me appreciating thedisappointment I was experiencing. But as our conversation evolved hedeftly turned the focus off what she had done to how I was reactingto her actions. And then he said something that hit real close tohome: “The day you can say to someone, ‘Blowhot or blow cold, I'm for you’ - that's the day you know you are apastor.” I don't remember anything more of thatconversation but in retrospect that 20-minute phone call became aturning point in my development as a pastor.

As I thought on that comment over thenext few weeks, I realized what had happened. In some subtle way,over the last year or so I had begun to use Liz as a means tovalidate the effectiveness of my ministry. After all, wasn'tit after she began attending Uhf that she returned to the God of herchildhood years? Hadn't she, of her own accord, gone public in herintent to remain pure until marriage? Didn't she accompany us on ourmission to Mexico? And now that she was pregnant she was making melook bad, as if her situation was a referendum on my calling as apastor. In fact, it was but not in the way that I was, at the moment,consciously aware of. If there was anyone who was in need ofrepenting it was me. In fact, sometime after this realization I wentto her privately and asked her to forgive me for distancing myselffrom her. Her response was touching, “Don’t worry, PastorJeff. I know you love me.” Frankly, I don’t think I deservedthat.

Which is not to say that this was theend of the matter. I was still wrestling with what our response as afellowship was supposed to be. I knew that there was a time whencongregations like ours required the offending parties to go beforethe fellowship and declare their sorrow for engaging in such sin butwhat if they didn’t want to do as much? Wouldn’t it be the sameas telling one of your kids to tell their sibling they’re sorrywhen it was clear they weren’t very sorry at all? Mercifully, Jillsettled the matter for us. She called me one Saturday afternoonweeping. She felt so bad over what had happened and blamed herselffor her daughter’s circumstance. She wanted to say something to thefellowship but by this time my heart was free of rancor and I simplytold Jill that I couldn’t make that call on my own. But given thatour board was meeting that very night I invited her to come and shareher story with us. And come she did and shared with us her journeyfrom divorcee to cohabiting with another man for a season to whereshe was now. Again and again she was adamant about the fact thatgiven the way she was living when Liz was coming of age, she made herpredisposed to engaging in such a lifestyle. As she was nearing theend of her sharing, I asked myself – What are we supposed to dowith this? – and suddenly a Scripture was dropped into myconsciousness: “If you forgive anyone hissins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are notforgiven” (John 20:23, NIV). I realized then and there that inmatters like these, Jesus defers authority to the designated leadersof a given fellowship, regardless of how unspiritual they may feel,to decide if a person is truly repentant and declare them so. So Irecognized immediately then what needed to be done. Persuaded of hersincerity, one by one, the board members needed to affirm Jill inthis manner: “The Lord Jesus forgives you.” It started with meand by the time it got to Harvey, the fifth man, he was weeping andcould hardly get the words out. The presence of Jesus was thick atthat table. Having concluded this matter by praying over Jill we thenasked the obvious: “Is this it? Is this all we need to do?” ButJill was insistent. Now that she had shared with the leaders, shefelt obligated to share with the rest of the membership. Shesuggested that the next morning, she and Liz would stand before thecongregation and share an abbreviated version of what she had justshared with all of us. And given that she was willing to do this, wewere willing to go there with her.

It was CommunionSunday – the one Sunday in a given month at which we celebrate theLords’ Supper. I remember we were hosting friends who werepastoring a small fellowship in northern Minnesota and were with usfor a little bit of R&R. I don’t remember if he preached thatday or was just part of our worship gathering. But at some point inthe service, after sharing some preliminary words, I invited Jill andLiz to come forward and share their story. There they were, motherand daughter, standing hand in hand, single mom with one who wouldsoon be a single mom, before all of us and drawing us into theirjourney. When Jill was done, I shared with the congregation what hadtranspired the night before and so for the congregation’s sake Irepeated what had been the consensus of the leadership: TheLord Jesus forgives you, Jill. Andthen I turned to Liz, and said the same to her at which point I sawsomething physical break in the spiritual realm – I saw a yoke thatwas weighing heavily down upon her break in half and fall off her asshe hung onto me for dear life. I then turned to the congregation andinvited them now to do as I had done and affirm Liz and Jilltogether. I was not prepared for what happened next. Those gatheredarose out of their seats and began to form a line – a line thatstretched from the front of the sanctuary all the way into theentryway. It was like a reception line at a wedding as one personafter another came up to them, affirmed them and loved on them. Andthen we had communion like we have not celebrated in many servicessince then. It was the Supper of the Redeemed, those forgiven andcleansed by the Lord Jesus. There was a palpable sense of joy in theplace and truth be told, as worship followed the sharing of the Meal,it was the first time I ever danced in the weekly gathering – butnot the last.

By publiclyaffirming Liz and Jill, we released the fellowship to embrace themand walk with them through the months leading up to the time when shedelivered a healthy, beautiful daughter. I realized through thisepisode in the life of our congregation that church discipline wasnot for the purpose of punishment but for the sake of restoration –and thankfully, Jill and Liz were wanting to be restored. At the sametime there was another single young woman in our midst who becamepregnant while away at college. She had been a “good” church girlbut she and her boyfriend “just got carried away.” Her mother wasdeeply mortified by her daughter’s condition but instead ofinviting us into their trouble, her family chose to keep it a“family” matter and conveniently, her daughter remained “away”until the day she married the father of her baby. How different thejourneys – on the one hand we were free to love on Liz all the waythrough her pregnancy but with the other we could do nothing but tryand console the parents who really didn’t want to talk about itanyway.

People makemesses, messes that are not always easy to clean up. And some messesare such that they often opt to go into seclusion until their lotimproves. In modern parlance, they drop out of church until the babycomes or their situation is not so personally embarrassing. In onesense, they become lost. A good shepherd, however, goes looking forhis lost sheep. He leaves the flock and searches diligently until hefinds it. And when he does, he hoists it upon his shoulders and makesthe long journey home whereupon he calls upon his friends to help himcelebrate the finding. As Jesus put it to his original audience, “Itell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heavenover one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous personswho do not need to repent” (Luke 15:7). I stumbled my way tofinding my lost sheep. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Glen I’mnot sure I would have ever even thought to find her but only wish shequietly fade from our fellowship. But thankfully God was better to methan I deserved and the sheep was found anyway and brought home wherea big party was held in her honor. She taught me that being a pastoris way more than preaching or visiting people in the hospital ororganizing a youth group activity. It’s being there, in themiddle of the storm when the outcome is not certain and it’s notclear yet whether or not the lost one will come home.

"What is going on here?"

2011-11-03T14:15:00.000-07:00

As a rule, Charismatics don't do it this way

As a rule, we Charismatics like to pride ourselves on the fact that, unlike our liturgical brothers, we have no liturgy that we are bound to. But, truth be told, that’s just not so. Of course we have a way of “doing” church – we just don’t put it in the bulletin (to post the order in our circles is definitely NOT PC). At Refuge, most Sundays of the month our order of service runs thusly: opening song, meet and greet, offering and announcements, worship (usually 3-4 songs) which involves an invitation to the altar for personal prayer and ends with a corporate time of intercession led by various individuals of the congregation, message and, usually, response. On Communion Sunday, which is on the first Sunday of the month, we reverse-order things and hear the Word first and then worship in preparation to receive the Lord’s Supper. That’s how we “do” it and we don’t vary from that order too often. Which is not to say there are not occasional Sundays where we definitely “off road”-it a bit, an unexpected extended time of worship or prayer or an altar call that takes us way beyond the 12-bell. But most who belong to Refuge expect about the same from their worship experience week-in and week-out. And most would agree they like it that way.

This is more our style

But this past Sunday was different. On Sunday the normal stream at Refuge broke into a river bed that has been known to run at Focus (the youth fellowship that meets at our place on Wednesday nights) from time to time but hardly ever at the Sunday morning gathering. But last Sunday the river overflowed its banks a bit and coursed through our sanctuary. The night before as I was pulling songs for the gathering, with each song a greater anticipation of the coming worship service welled up in my heart. In fact, as I ran through the songs on my Fender I just had an increasing sense that something out of the ordinary was going to happen as we gathered together the next day. During our warm-up on Sunday morning, I was hacking chords and progressions on a few of the songs but when my sixteen year-old daughter Emma, my accompanist, and I prayed together right before the service, I felt as if the waters were rising. And upon the very first strums of my guitar, for me the banks overflowed – my legs began to inadvertently shake to the point that I was sincerely concerned that I might topple over. On Saturday night I had already decided then to set aside our normal order of service and spend the first 15 minutes or so just in extended worship. People were not expecting this – they were, in fact, caught a bit off-guard but instead of drawing back they were lured in by, I assume, the Spirit of God on me.

I consider myself a cheerleader when it comes to worship. I believe I am called to exhort people to extol the Living God all the while recognizing that you cannot force worship or coerce devotion. I do not intentionally manipulate emotions but I admit there is something that goes off in me when we are singing songs such as “Our God”, “Revelation Song” and, even, “I Exalt Thee” and people continue to sip on their Lattes indifferent to the words we are professing corporately together.

Our God is greater, our God is stronger, God you are higher than any other.
Our God is Healer, Awesome in Power, Our God! Our God!

It's at moments like these I want to shout, “EVERYBODY DOWN ON YOUR KNEES….NOW!!!”
Of course, I restrain myself and instead either kneel or encourage people in polite fashion to lift up their voice to the King within our midst.

This past Sunday, after our normal meet and greet, offering and announcement break, I referenced Genesis 18. It’s the heat of the day and Abraham is dozing in the shade of his tent when he looks up and sees the Lord passing by. The narrator doesn’t elucidate how Abraham recognized “the Boss”; rather, he focuses on Abraham’s reaction to the fact that Yahweh was outside his door. He runs and throws himself down upon the ground and begs him to stay for dinner. He runs to Sarah and tells her to bake a cake just as fast as she can. He runs to his servant and tells him to pick a choice calf out of the pen. He is in earnest to lay before his Lord a sumptuous meal. Commentators like to point out that his actions reflect customary Bedouin hospitality and while I have no reason to question them I am simply struck by his posture – everything is done with alacrity. There is nothing casual or familial in this encounter. So I challenged everyone present at the gathering that in our worship this morning to copy Father Abraham in his response to the reality of God passing by his tent. Their instructions are simply to respond in whatever way they find appropriate.

As we resumed worship, several got out of their chairs and came to the altar and knelt down. A few others went to the back of the sanctuary and stood with hands lifted up. Despite the fact that one of our deacons had grabbed a stool for me in case I was feeling the need for it, my legs no longer were shaking and, unlike many Sundays, my fingers never tired of moving over the frets of my guitar. And we just continued to worship. I really didn't know where we were headed other than we were doing pretty much what the agenda was for this gathering. Nearing the end of the songs I had pulled and having played through all of them several times, I asked if anyone was feeling if they had a “word” for the fellowship that would be beneficial for everyone. That question is greeted with silence so I resumed playing at which point one of the guys thought maybe he did, after all, have something to say. Jeff suggested that if anyone was wanting to enter in but felt unable to do so to allow the Body of Christ to pray for them. Whether it was the word of the Lord or not, it was good counsel. Only a few raised their hands – one got up from their seat and came to the altar – but otherwise worship went on. Janet made her way to the floor mic and during a lull in the music simply shared that she was feeling the same thing Jeff had and then shared what had happened to her at the altar earlier in the gathering. And the band played on…and then our daughter, Emma, began to weep and pray over her mic for all those in our midst who needed healing. Apart from a little more commentary on my part as to what was happening that morning, we played on dismissing those who felt they needed to go. Most got up to leave although perhaps a quarter of those present remained soaking in the moment. Once again, Emma extended an invitation to those who wanted healing to come to the altar so that she could pray for them. Only one responded.

When it was all over and we moved into that afterglow time of the worship gathering of those who remained many made a point to tell me in superlative terms how they felt about the morning. And of those who left as soon as they were given pastoral permission to do so, nothing was said; i.e., their quick departure from the sanctuary was not necessarily commentary on their response to what had happened. (If you ask me, any time a sixteen year old - albeit a very spiritually mature one - invites people to the altar to be prayed over for healing everyone else present should be asking, “What gives?”) But here’s my take: In August, during a 24 hour prayer vigil held at Refuge in which only a very small percentage of the congregation participated in, the word we received was “wake up.” In response to that, in early September we began a twice a month worship and intercession gathering on Friday night. With a few exceptions, only the elders have been present but collectively we feel we have been digging a new well for Refuge. A week after beginning, Kees, a friend of mine from Holland, was in town and preached at the Sunday morning gathering. His message? “Wake up.” About the same time, I was challenged to begin intentionally pray in my prayer language 15 minutes a day and since then, not counting a day or two, I have done just this. Two weeks ago during our worship gathering, someone from our fellowship who had been longing to be filled with the Spirit, suddenly began to speak in tongues. And then we have what happened last Sunday at the gathering. The sum of these things taken together tells me that while we haven’t hit water yet we’re getting closer. All the more reason for us to keep digging, to keep asking, to keep knocking, to show up this Friday night at MORE (what we now refer to the Friday night gathering) and ask the Father for more. To be content with same-o, same-o is to reveal just how much asleep we really are.

Turning Points: Third Installment - Manifestations Happen

2011-10-21T20:17:00.000-07:00

At the fellowship I'm a part of, it'snot too uncommon to hear phrases like this bantered about: “I got adownload from God last night” or “God really down-loaded on mewhile in prayer this morning.” It's 21^st Century lingoto describe those “light-bulb moments” (yes, a 20^thCentury descriptive phrase)when we suddenly have personal insight into a verse of Scripture orthe character of God. As much as I get what they mean, my experiencesuggests that God rarely deposits truth into our soul in toto asyou would get a string of binary code in a software program; rather,he sows a seed into the soil of our heart that in time, given thesoil is good, bears fruit. But the moment the seed is cast a subtleturning pointin your spiritual development occurs even though you may or may notbe cognizant of that fact at the moment. But the truth remains thatsomething new is growing in secret.

Turning Point : Fall1993 – Manifestations Happen

This was the sanctuary I was used to

Iwasn't raised in Pentecost. I was raised Lutheran (ALC, for those whocare). So whenI began attending Madison Gospel Tabernacle (MGT), a Pentecostalassembly, following my graduation from high school I was not only anew Christian but new to Pentecostal culture as well. Instead ofstanding sober in a chancel of wood and stone, people worshipedexuberantly with hands raised in a carpeted, modern sanctuary.Instead of the pastor leading us reverently from the Lutheran Book ofWorship, a happy-go-lucky worship leader flanked by his band ofguitarists, drummer and back-up singers led us joyously in gospelchoruses projected on an overhead. Unlike a normal worship gatheringof Lutherans where everything was done according to the book, many atMGT felt compelled to belt out a “Praise the Lord!” or“Alleluia!” during worship as the whimsy suited them. Frankly, ifthe worship hadn't made me feel so alive inside, I might havesneaked out the back door for all the noise.

And this is the one I moved to

But there were other things that took getting acclimatedto as well, namely prophecy, tongues and interpretation of the same.At many of the Sunday evening worship gatherings of MGT, a person ortwo would speak out in tongues and either give the interpretation orsomeone else at the gathering would. It took some time getting usedto. I don't recall hearing anything that I felt personally applied tome but often after the tongue and interpretation were given severalpeople would cry or give thanks to God for speaking to them. Itdidn't seem to do me any good but I was new to the group andapparently this is the way church “was done.” Shortly after Ihad become a Christian, I had been baptized in the Spirit and spokenin tongues myself but the experience was anything but ecstatic. Infact, in the first two years of my Christian experience in Pentecost,I attended a lot of prayer meetings, special services and wentwitnessing on Thursday nights but for all that I don't recall anyspecific “encounters” that made me open to the life of theSpirit. So, by the time I left for Bible school in the fall of 1982,in retrospect I was a Pentecostal who knew some of the lingo butlacked personal experience of the same.

Iattended Christian Life College (CLC), a small Pentecostal Bibleschool in northwestern Chicago whose forte was preparing people forministry. There was a prayer room there though as I recall it, it wasrarely used. The main officers of the Bible college were committedPentecostals, spoke in tongues frequently during chapel and in theworship services of the church that the school was connected to butfor all that I don't remember a lot of out-of-the-norm spiritualactivity. If anything, I heard a lot of mildly sarcastic commentsfrom some of my instructors, many of whom were pastors, about,frankly, weird people in the congregations they used to serve. Wewere required to take a class called “Pentecostal Distinctives”but it was only 1 semester in 4 years and its focus was on pastexperiences as opposed to modern occurrences of the manifestation ofthe Holy Spirit in the life of a local congregation. I cannot speakfor the rest of my classmates but for me the cumulative affect of allthis was that by the time I graduated from CLC, my basicunderstanding of Pentecost was the “crazy”-stuff was behind usand as a movement Pentecost was becoming more mature and, er,palatable to the uninitiated.

This is my normal worship mode today

What this all meant, ultimately, was that five yearslater when I arrived at Chetek Full Gospel Tabernacle (CFGT), I wasill-equipped to deal with the committed Pentecostals in our midst. AsI shared in the last installment of this series (Turning Points: Perspective), we were at that time an odd assortment of old-timePentecostals mixed in with a lot of former Lutherans, Catholics andMethodists who were drawn to the non-liturgical style of our worshipservice. One dear lady named Grace who dressed odd and sounded likeshe was from somewhere way south, felt persuaded that it was herministry to prophesy in every service and when she did there was noneed for her to use a microphone. Her, “Yeah, thus saith the Lord”swere like a freight train coming through our little sanctuary. Herhusband was a decidedly quieter man but I remember being weirded-outfor awhile by the fact that he seemed to reference the prophecies hefelt he had received in prayer and recorded in the back pages of hisBible as much as he referenced Scripture. The adult Sunday Schoolclass, that met in the sanctuary right before Sunday morning worship,to me often felt like listening to “Dueling Banjos” as two women– one “old school” Pentecost and the other from the Charismaticrenewal of the 60s and 70s – would verbally spar over varioustopics as it related to the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our midst.I liked them both and that old school lady and her dear husbandenriched my life on those Friday afternoon visits at their home westof town in my early years in Chetek. But personally my agenda becamehow to nudge sacred cows like tongues and prophecy out to pasture –or at least to a pasture that was not visited on Sunday morning. Inever spoke out against them but people who were close to me knewthat I had issues when either or both or people of their ilk didsomething to disrupt the service I had planned.

Sometime during 1993, however, I struck up a friendshipwith a pastor from Cumberland and we began to meet regularly forprayer and fellowship. Kent pastored a fellowship size-wise much likeCFGT but his background was very different than mine. Unlike me, hehad lots of experience with manifestations of the Spirit –prophecy, deliverance, healing and the like. In fact, what soendeared him to me is that here was guy who I could relate to, wholaughed at some of the silly things unique to our Pentecostaltradition, but made the life of the Spirit sound so...well...normal.So in the fall of 1993 when he invited me over on a Sunday night fora series of revival meetings his fellowship was hosting, I went. Ihad no idea what was in store for me nor how pivotal that night wouldbecome in my personal journey as well in the life of ourcongregation.

There were about sixty people present and after a fewsongs, Kent introduced the speaker – Robert Fisher – who thoughfrom the States had spent a lot of time in South Africa and so therewas at times a slight Afrikaaner lilt to his accent. He was a lankyguy dressed in a sharp suit but he looked like he was here to makehay. After he stepped into the pulpit he didn't attempt any smalltalk or share a humorous anecdote to endear himself to the audience.No, as I recall it, he went right for the jugular. “You thinkyou're hungry for God?” I recall him asking rhetorically, “Well,you're not and here's why.” In the span of fifteen minutes heshared whatever message he was going to share in John-the-Baptistfashion. And then he invited anyone who wanted to come forward torespond to his message to do just that. After giving us a dressingdown like he did, I didn't think he would get many takers – if any.

It was like this but even more bodies

Acrossthe aisle from me was a heavy-set lady who was quietly crying. Shegot up and using a pair of crutches hobbled her way forward to Mr.Fisher. He didn't lay his hands on her or touch her in any way. Hejust leaned in and prayed this prayer: “Fill her, LORD!” And inshort order she fell backwards. Fortunately, there were two guys onhand who obviously had been cued in to expect this very thing.Honestly, my initial response was to inwardly smirk at this displaybut it wasn't my place and she was, after all, a woman (I neverattended a Woman's Aglow meeting during my years in Chicago but I hadbeen told that this was a very common experience in that circle).After she had been laying there for a few moments, she stoppedcrying, was quiet and then, began to giggle. Meanwhile Robert wasbusily praying for others in the same manner he had prayed for herwho, by this time, had ceased giggling and was now heartily laughing.Just like her, people were falling over left and right and the frontof the sanctuary was beginning to pile up with prone people all ofwhom were laughing. That first woman was laughing so hard now thatshe was actually rolling on the carpeted floor. And at that moment Ifinally got where the term holyrollercame from and thought, “Oh, no...now I'm in for it!” From simplya sensory point of view, the night got sillier and sillier what withall the falling, laughing, rolling, guffawing and other antics goingon. But inside of me I wasn't feeling creepy as in “This is tooweird”; I was feeling joy. It feltright.

I was like the guy on the right

I'mnot exaggerating when I state that this meeting went on in just thisway for several hours. That lady who was the first to fall downlaughed uncontrollably for two hours. (I never saw her again but Ioften have wondered if her gut ached terribly the next day for thatremarkable display of laughter). By 10:00 p.m. the sanctuary was fullof stricken people laying all over the place. What's more, theoriginal catchers had long since joined the people on the floor andfor the last 45 minutes or so I was the one doing the catching untilI became the last man standing at which point Robert looked at me andsaid sternly, “What about you, brother? Do you want prayer?” Tosay “No, I'm good” would not only not have been protocol it wouldhave been untrue. As much as my eyes were being offended by what Iperceived as some kind of mass emotional experience, I was willing tobe prayed for if only for the sake of receiving a taste of whatclearly many of them were experiencing. And so with a few wobblyushers to catch for me, he prayed, “Fill him, LORD!” and I, too,joined everyone else on the carpet. The moment he prayed, Iexperienced a gentle wave of, for lack of a better word, electricitythat began in the soles of my feet and moved steadily northward untilI released myself to fall back. I never lost consciousness. I did nothave an out-of-the-body experience. I was fully aware of mysurroundings. But when I finally picked myself up from the floor andlater after I said my goodbyes to Kent and Robert, all I know is thatI drove home very conscious of an incredible new-found passion forJesus. I just loved him like I hadn't in a very long time. On that40-minute drive home I worshiped, spoke in tongues and enjoyed hisawesome presence like I hadn't since my first steps over ten yearsbefore.

Itwas a turning point for me, a seminal moment of change in philosophy.I was so excited about what had happened I told Linda, Randy, who atthat time was serving as president of our board of trustees, andMary, my barber and fellow-member of a small prayer group that met onTuesdays and within two nights they joined me as I returned toCumberland for another evening of ministry with Robert. Followingthis gathering, I told Randy I wanted to bring him to Chetek and withhis blessing within theweek,Robert pulled up in his mammoth RV to camp-out on our lawn for aSunday thru Wednesday night ministry event. Few came after his“go-for-the-throat” Sunday morning message – perhaps 15 to 20each night – and those gatherings felt like he was breaking up hardcement but stuff happened and a new dye was cast for CFGT and formyself albeit in embryonic fashion.

People with issues like mine should read this

Inthat moment of lying prostrate before the Lord in that Cumberlandchurch, my love for Him had grown exponentially far more than all theyears of quiet times, devotional reading and studying had everaccomplished. And while I lay there I also was cognizant that I hadnot just been ignorant of spiritual things but willfully so which isthe greater sin. A few weeks later I confessed as much to ourThursday night small group and then to the whole family on a Sundaymorning. As Job had recognized, I, too, had “spoke of things I didnot understand, things too wonderful for me to know...therefore Idespise myself and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:3,6). And fromthat time on until the present there has been a growing sense ofwanting God regardless of what it does to the neatness of our Sundaymorning gathering or who may be scared off by that untidyness (and ithas scared others away). Early on, two books were very instrumentalin firming up that fledgling recommitment to the life of the Spirit –TheBeauty of Spiritual Languageby author-pastor Jack Hayford and Whenthe Spirit Comes With Powerby psychologist John White. Both men whetted my appetite for more andto not be satisfied with anything less than the supernaturallynatural life. It's a journey I'm still on all these years laterwanting maybe more than ever for the Holy Spirit to come in whateverway he wants to.

A great read for those thirsty for more

Turning Points: Second Installment - Perspective

2011-10-13T15:23:00.000-07:00

In my previous blog, I began a seriesof sorts of reflections of my philosophical development as a pastorover the past two decades. Along the way there have been seminalmoments where my ministry outlook began to morph into somethingaltogether different. These turning pointssignaled subtle departures from the path I was on which ultimatelyhave led to the outlook I now hold.

Turning Point: Month 4 (January 1992) Perspective – Itreally is all about how you look at it

Honestly, ever since arriving in Chetekback in 1991 I've never acted like Dorothy in The Wizard of Ozlooking over the fence of her backyard and wishing to be somewhereelse. I've never had any board member of another church in anothercity call me up and slyly ask me “to pray about” sending them aresume or gone looking in the ministerial classifieds if only out ofcuriosity. No, I have been contentedly here theentire time. But about six months into my tenure as pastor of whatwas then Chetek Full Gospel, a seminal thought that has contributedto my longevity in Chetek was deposited into my heart while listeningto a college classmate of mine preach from my pulpit.

Inthe early and mid-1980s, Pat and Diana Sheahan and I had all attendedChristian Life College located in suburban Chicago – Pat a yearahead of me and Diana one behind. Following Pat's graduation, theyhad married and if memory serves me right moved out to South Dakotato serve at their first church. It had been a very challenging seasonin their lives and in the winter of 1992 that was behind them and nowthey were in that oh-so-difficult place to be in ministry, the placeof “inbetween”. As a teenager, he had fished the waters of theChain – had even had something of a spiritual experience out onPrairie Lake once – and given that we were now living here gave himample reason to pay us a visit. Since he was in town for the weekend,I invited him to preach. I don't recall his text but I do rememberthree things about his message: 1) all his points were alliterated(each of his five points began with “W”), 2) at some point in hismessage he left the pulpit and walked half way down the center aisleto re-enact how he had done this very thing for dramatic affect athis previous church one Sunday morning only to forget why he had leftthe pulpit in the first place and 3) his allusion to a scene in KevinCostner's award winning move, DancesWith Wolves.

Lt. Dunbar heads West

Again,I'm prodding foggy-bottom here but as I remember it he was talkingabout perspective and how it affects the quality of our ministrywhatever that ministry happens to be. In Wolves,Lt.John J. Dunbar wants to see the frontier before it's gone or so hetells the half-crazed military official from whom he receives hisorders. So as requested he is assigned to Fort Sedgwick “at thefurthermost post of the realm.” As John Barry's epic musical scoreplays, Dunbar's small wagon train moves slowly westward onto thevastness of the Great Plains. When they finally arrive at FortSedgwick, which is essentially two shacks literally out in themiddle of nowhere, the loathsome mule skinner Timmons takes one look,spits and says laconically, “Ain't much of a goin' concern, is it?”But then Dunbar gets down from the wagon, looks around and says,“Alright...let's unload the wagon.” Timmons, of course, thinkshe's crazy or something. “Ain't nothin' here lieutenant. Everyone'srun off or got themselves kilt” to wit Dunbar says firmly, “Thisis my post.”To Timmons, who is just an opportunist, this really is crazy-talk.“This is my post...?” But Dunbar is resolute and says in nouncertain way, “This is my post! And these are the post provisions”and while his hand comes to lightly rest on the butt of his servicerevolver he adds, “Now get your [butt] off that wagon and help meunload.”

Fort Sedgwick

Idon't know how many times since Pat shared that story back in thewinter of 1992 I have thought of that scene. At that point we werehere all of six months and still very much in the honeymoon-period ofour ministry when everything still feels new and ripe withopportunity. Times change. Just like in life, the honeymoon passes.And while in twenty years I have yet to reach the place of wanting atransfer, there were moments in those early years when I would gazeupon my own Fort Sedgwick and have to tell myself determinedly forwhat seemed like the tenth time, “Thisis my post.” Backin 1992, our sanctuary had asphalt tile floor with a strip of burntorange carpet down the middle. The altar area was covered with darkmahogany paneling and everything about our décor screamed “the70s!” While our speakers were high end our mics were RadioShack-quality. We had an odd-assortment of old-school Pentecostalsmixed in with some former Lutherans, Catholics and Methodists whichmade our worship experience often feel, for lack of a better word,schizophrenic. We had a trustee who tithed his money to otherministries because - as he had no qualms sharing publicly - only“tithed his time” to CFGT and there were several people in thecongregation who definitely considered him the most spiritual guy onthe board. Sister “Amazing” Grace felt led to prophesy EVERYSunday and usually did in screech owl fashion. Yeah, “this is mypost” indeed.

Afew years later I was in Calgary for the annual convention of thenetwork of churches we belong to and I heard H.B. London preach forthe first time. I don't recall what he said but he encouraged me somuch that a year or so later when our local Christian radio stationgifted area pastors with a copy of one of his books that he hadco-wrote – The Heart of a Great Pastor: How toGrow Strong and Thrive Wherever God Has Planted You (©1994 Regal Books) –I read it soon after. The title of chapter 1 - “Every Assignment isHoly Ground” - is pretty much Lt. Dunbar's perspective of where hehas landed in biblical parlance.

SaysLondon,

Pastors findthemselves in situations they dislike, in towns they despise andworking among people unlike any they have ever known. Endurance mustbe transformed into adventure. Resignation is better than rebellion,and a stiff upper lip is better than subtle resistance. It's easy tochoose tears, self-pity and complaints. But joy and fulfillment andunconditional involvement can be chosen. We can unpack our bags, stoplonging for greener pastures and assume spiritual responsibility forour place of ministry. We can claim the territory for God andrighteousness. (p.27)

Perspective really is everything

AsI mentioned earlier, since Day 1 of our years in Chetek I have lovedmy post warts and all. But Lt. John Dunbar and H.B. London's wordshelped me embrace the city even stronger than I thought I had. LikeDavid, I echo the words of Psalm 16, “Yourboundary lines mark out pleasant places for me. Indeed, myinheritance is something beautiful” (v.6, GOD'S Word Translation). Perhaps to my colleagues who labor in theTwin Cities or in far more affluent and influential parishes in otherlocales Refuge may appear to be “not much of a goin' concern”,just a ramshackle post on the edge of the frontier. But to me, thisplace is not only the place that God has assigned to me but also homeand therefore worthy of my very best. Besides, I like to think thatlife and ministry here is one of the best kept secrets out there.

Turning Points: First Installment - The Numbers Game

2011-10-08T17:17:00.000-07:00

Now that I have been in pastoral ministry for twenty years (+ 7 days), it gives me some perspective on seminal moments in my development as a pastor that have shaped my personal philosophy towards pastoral ministry. By no means do I consider myself an expert. Hardly. (Besides, I'd have to leave home and go somewhere where no one knows me in order to be considered somewhat smart about these kinds of things.) No, I'm just a guy twenty years into his chosen profession and still trying to figure it out. But looking back over two decades of pastoral work I can say with some degree of authority that there have been definite turning points where I began to look at ministry differently than I had before I became a pastor. Because I can't think of any hipper name or descriptive phrase than this I'll leave at that – turning points in my philosophical development. For ease of reading – and interest – I think I'll attempt to offer them installment-wise not necessarily in the order that they occurred but in the manner that they come to mind.

Turning Point: Months 1 & 2 (October-November 1991) – The Numbers Game

Because I never throw any records away, I can still recite here how many people were in attendance October 6, 1991 – my first Sunday as pastor of Chetek Full Gospel Tabernacle: 73. In our sanctuary, which probably holds at comfortable capacity 125 people (providing they are not Norwegians in need of a lot of personal space bubbles), that's a good showing. One week later there were 79 in the house. By my third Sunday, we dropped down to 70 but the Sunday of my installation service – October 27 – we hit 85. Since I didn't start journaling regularly until November 1, I have no record of what I felt the next day but it's a sure thing I felt better than that Sunday that we only had 70 present. (Keep in mind that we had several out-of-towners on hand for that special day among them my folks, my brother and my grandmother.) Looking over my hand-made spread sheets that I made for the benefit of our board members at the time, they show that for that first six months or so attendance at CFGT spiked and for a few months we were averaging 80s, 90s and – once in a while – a 100+ Sunday or two. That's strong medicine for a young pastor who hopes that every increase is directly related to his performance and worth. I was doing some things right – or so I concluded (and hoped my congregation agreed).

But eventually the bubble popped and our averages began to descend and come back down to earth. Strictly speaking averages, in fact, our attendance ran higher during the final year of my predecessor's term here in Chetek than at any time in my first year as pastor of CFGT – or, really – since. At the same time I was in my rookie season, a good friend of mine was in his albeit in Oakland, California. We would call each other once a week or so to talk shop and share progress reports. At the time, our congregations were approximately the same size but in a few months his church began to grow steadily and break the 100-barrier (which is something like breaking the sound-barrier in aerodynamics) and stay there. Admittedly, after awhile those weekly phone calls became personally inwardly tenuous for me as I learned of one more new breakthrough after another for my California brother. He wasn't bragging. There was no bravado in his voice. I, however, was feeling insecure about the fact that while he was regularly having over a hundred people in his sanctuary we were bouncing between 50 and 70 per Sunday as we have for twenty years now.

In that first month as pastor, I began reading Gordon MacDonald's book Ordering Your Private World. It was something of a must-read back in the 80s and now that I had the time for such reading, it was my turn to work through it. It was in Chapter 5 (“Living as a Called Person”) that a seminal thought was slipped into my heart that began to take root. In that section of his book, he spends a lot of time speaking about the life of John the Baptizer specifically as someone who knew his place and his role. As he elaborates in the pages of this chapter, when John shows up on the scene he is all the rage. People come from all over to hear this compelling prophetic voice in the desert and be baptized by him. You can almost feel the energy in those crowds that came from all points of the compass straining to get a look at this one who perhaps is the one they have been waiting for. He's like a rock star complete with security personnel (like Andrew) and a mesmerized audience. And then Jesus shows up and the crowds begin to thin and his star, as quickly as it rose, begins to fade. But do we find a man jaded by the fickleness of the masses? Not at all. When questioned by his followers if he isn't a little put out by the crowd beginning to flock to Jesus, he replies

John the Baptist preaching by Breugel

“A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven. You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, ‘I am not the Christ,’ but, ‘I have been sent ahead of Him.’ He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. So this joy of mine has been made full. He must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:27-30, NASB)

In other words, increasing or decreasing are not my department, says John. Being faithful to what I am called to do is. Of course, MacDonald's words are far more fluent than my own but that was the gist of it. In my rookie season, that ten page reflection on the life of John the Baptizer had a profound influence on my perception of my own experience as a pastor of a small church in a small town. As MacDonald put it:

Whether I increase or decrease is His concern, not mine. To order my life according to the expectations of myself and others; and to value myself according to the opinions of others; these can play havoc with my inner world. But to operate on the basis of God's call is to enjoy a great deal of order within.

(Ordering Your Private World, p. 61)

I typed that very quote up on a piece of paper and taped it to my bookshelf and for years it was a regular reminder to me that there were certain things that were under my control and certain things that were not. I don't say that I embraced this truth immediately. Any day there was a snow storm or just a low Sunday, inwardly I fretted about the attendance. When my fellow rookie pastor and neighbor began to experience significant growth at his church as much as I slapped him on the back and gave him an “attaboy” , inwardly it distressed me a bit that his church was growing and mine was not. But gradually over time, I experienced more and more peace and internal freedom as the truth of this statement came to roost in my psyche. Whether there were 51 or 101 in the house didn't in itself mean anything about my value as a person or as a pastor. There was no need to hang my head in shame when around colleagues with far larger congregations. That day sitting my office reading chapter 5 of MacDonald's book was a foretaste of the greater feast of inner peace to come.

Twenty Years Later

2011-10-01T16:36:00.000-07:00

CFGT as it looked in Sept 1991

In August 1988, I was traveling north with my father-in-law, my pastor and one of his staff to attend Duluth Gospel Tabernacle's annual summer convention. Linda and I were living in Whitewater in the southern part of the state at the time having just moved back from Illinois with the intent of planting a church in nearby Fort Atkinson. I went along on this ride north because my father-in-law offered to pick up the tab and my pastor suggested it would be good for me. After about four hours on the road, we pulled off of Highway 53 into a town I had never heard before – Chetek – in order to gas up. We pulled into a place called the Keg 'n Kork and while my pastor filled up, I got out to stretch my legs. He began sharing that the Fellowship of Christian Assemblies – the small network of independent churches that we belonged to -actually had a church in this town. I recall him mentioning the current pastor – John Tuttle – and the founding pastor – Runar Mattson – but what I remember most about that moment is that while he talked I looked down the main drag – Second Street – and distinctly said to myself, “I”d never want to live in a place like this.” That's a true story. I'm not making that up or embellishing it one iota. Three years later, on October 1, 1991 our little caravan consisting of me driving a 24-foot U-haul (and towing an 8 foot trailer) and Linda trailing in our Pontiac station wagon with Christine (3) and Charlie (1) nearly buried among all the other stuff we had managed to cram into it, pulled into Chetek to begin our ministry here.

The house at 636 Banks looks the same today

It was a Tuesday and we came into town around 7 P.M. four hours overdue. But the receiving crew consisting of Dave Cartwright, Art Harelstad and Dale Waterhouse were on hand to help us move in all the same. As I remember it was nearly 11 by the time we got the main stuff into the rented house at 636 Banks Street. We couldn't get our box spring up the narrow staircase and so later that week, we had to take the storms off of one of the upstairs windows and by rope and muscle lift it up to the second story. The next night – Wednesday – I met with the current board of trustees – Dave Cartwright, Art Harelstad, Arlie Schomburg, Dale Waterhouse and Randy Waterhouse. It must have just been an informal meeting because I have no agenda or notes from that gathering. But I do recall somewhere in our discussion asking a few practical questions. “Who does worship here?” There was an awkward silence, a few looks shared between the guys and then one of them timidly offered, “Well, Pastor John used to do most of the time.” “Okay,” I said. And then, “Who does youth?” Again, an awkward silence followed and then they informed me that the couple that had been leading youth fellowship had just left to do a Discipleship Training School in Montana. I was on my own here and starting with that meeting beginning to learn one of the realities of the small church: You are not the Senior Pastor; you are the Everything Pastor – preacher, Sunday School teacher, youth group leader, worship leader and, in a pinch, called on to sweep out the place. But the truth of the matter was I was so excited to be anywhere that taking on these responsibilities did not seem burdensome whatsoever. And so our ministry in Chetek began.

The sanctuary as it looked October 1991

The night of our installation

I would have to re-read all my journal entries from that first year or so or go through my board meeting agendas from the same time to reconstruct my mindset at the time. I'm pretty sure though I sincerely believed that with some leadership on my part and some sprucing up of the place and God's blessing (probably in that order), Chetek Full Gospel Tabernacle would begin to grow exponentially. The funny thing is that it did. During those first few months in Chetek we picked up a family a month – the Schaffs, the Kellens, the Knights, Rae Olson and her son, Aaron. In retrospect, that our weekly attendance grew by nearly 20 people a week had very little to do with me. Oh, God used that little growth spurt to put some confidence in this rookie pastor but I don't believe we weren't necessarily growing because of my efforts to grow it. I think I just lucked out and happened to be on post when these families were in search for a fellowship to call their own. Twenty years later, our attendance levels ebb and flow in 2011 pretty much as they did in 1991. - between 50 and 70 on any given Sunday. Like most fellowships in the United States of our size, we cannot seem to get past the 100-mark our best prayers and efforts to the contrary. Truthfully, I have come to the conclusion that much that was touted as “church growth” in the late 80s and all of the 90s were marketing ploys that only by chance made a few disciples and a lot of religious consumers and most of them lived in suburban America not in places like Chetek. Here I was trying to grow oranges in northern Wisconsin instead of taking care of the apple tree that others had left for me to nurture.

Christine, Charlie and I that first Christmas in Chetek

Refuge as it looks today, Oct 1, 2011

Well, that was then. I'm grateful that my best laid plans to put Chetek Full Gospel Tab on the map did not come to fruition. But with the loving patience of that congregation who invited me to lead them, some godly mentors, and a boatload of God's grace, I began to un-learn what I thought was required of me. It seems like I did a lot of un-learning those first years. I was going through my ABCs of on-the-job training and while I didn't get a lot of As, I managed to pass enough lessons to keep them retaining me. And two decades later that is another reality of ministry I've come to understand: if you keep showing up and loving those you are called to serve not as you want them to be but as they are, they'll hold on to you.

When I recall that inner monologue I had that day in 1988 I leaned against my pastor's Cadillac pulled up to the pump at the Keg 'n Kork, it always brings a smile to my face. I think it must put a smile on God's face, too. Now, truthfully, I can't imagine living anywhere else. I've been here long enough to see three of my four children graduate from Chetek (now Chetek-Weyerhaueser)HS, to buy our first home and totally remodel it (and some of it, twice!), to see Chetek Full Gospel Tabernacle embrace our new name – The Refuge International - to take part in launching new endeavors like The Garage and The Well and helping projects like the referendum of 1999 that brought nearly 10 million dollars worth of improvements to our school buildings become a reality. Those things are secondary, however, to the web of relationships that have developed between fellowships and individuals over that same span of time. So much, as I have come to appreciate, flows out of relationship – our relationship with God the Father and then our relationship with each other. We can do more together and if there is anything I am grateful for it's that network of life-giving relationships that enhance the contour of our lives here.

Runar and Ruth served here and our buried here

"There is a time to be born and a time to die"

Simply speaking longevity, I have now surpassed Runar Mattson, the founding pastor of our fellowship. He and his wife began their ministry in 1955 and he served faithfully until his untimely death on January 1, 1975. But remaining in Chetek is not about setting any kind of record. Ultimately, the bottom line is that if we have ministered here steadily for two decades it is because the Lord has sustained us and graced us to do just that. Brianna, the young woman who is currently living with us, said to me this morning: “I'm not living here 20 years, Pastor Jeff.” Yeah, I don't think she will either. But God has hard-wired my heart for this little place and twenty years from now if I am still here it'll be because God has continued to grace and sustain me with the ability to do just this. So until further notice, I will continue to echo the words of Psalm 16:

“LORD, you alone are my portion and my cup;
you make my lot secure.
The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely I have a delightful inheritance.
I will praise the LORD, who counsels me;
even at night my heart instructs me.
I keep my eyes always on the LORD.
With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.” Psalm 16:5-8, NIV

Epic

2011-09-22T09:57:00.000-07:00

Assuming the "CHARGE!" position

Since 2008, I have had the privilege of coaching the Chetek-Weyerhaueser HS Cross Country team. Our team has a tradition of sorts come race day. After their warm-ups and their run-outs, after stretching and getting their spikes on, after huddling up for a group prayer, they get in their assigned starting lane and await the countdown of the official. In CC, the starter will announce “5 minutes to race time”, “3 minutes to race time”, and so forth. At the ten second mark he begins the countdown which after he reaches 5 goes silent. At that moment, our kids – both girls and boys – raise their right hand into the air, make a fist and at the retort of the pistol yell as loud as they can, “CHARGE!” I believe this started my first year as coach. I didn't come up with the idea but my only requirement now is that their CHARGE be not wimpy but shouted with authority. (In fact, we actually have a drill called, “Run and Scream” where we practice the C-W Charge so that it is yelled appropriately.) In any case, this is what our kids do at the start of every race.

The "CHARGE!" 2010

A week ago we ran in the Rice Lake Invitational, what I refer to as the Über-meet where perhaps 1,000 runners converge on the grounds of UW-BC to run a series of races fielding several hundred runners each. For our JV guys' race, however, due to injury and vacation, only Austin was able to run and so all by his lonesome he took his place in our designated starting lane. Austin is a kid who a year ago could hardly run without walking, arguably the slowest kid in CC in this part of the State. He was born with hydrocephalus (i.e., water on the brain) and has some other physical limitations. He also has two sets of upper teeth the result of which it is very difficult to understand what he's saying much of the time. He came out last year and we agreed that our one goal for him was to run a complete race – something he achieved at the conference meet later that fall. In the spring, he went out for track but due to the fact that Coach Buchman can only race so many guys he didn't see a lot of action. But this year he is running stronger and longer. In fact, he's already had a race or two where he wasn't last – something that's not important to me but is to him. At Rice Lake, after I prayed with him and stepped off to the side, he looked so forlorn among the hundred or so other runners lined up all around him.

The "CHARGE!" at Spooner 2011

Even though my 35mm SLR camera is always at hand, I had put it away in my case. After shooting the start of the previous five races there was going to be nothing unusual about the start of this one. But when the ref hit the 5-second mark and went silent, automatically Austin's hand went into the air, made a fist and when the gun went off I could clearly hear him yell, CHARGE! above the assorted yelling of the bystanders. Incredible. I wouldn't have said anything had he not chose to do this. After all, he was running all by himself in a race that he was most likely going to come in last. But what a beautiful moment that was when in a sea of runners here was my guy bravely making known our presence out on that field as if some fierce compatriot of William Wallace at Stirling Bridge. When I think of the challenges this kid has both physically, mentally and economically seeing him valiantly charge out of the box with his fist in the air it was decidedly, as the kids like to say these days, epic. One physically impaired young man against so many on a field where he would indeed run dead last that afternoon but also set a new personal record for himself. It was a race that began with panache and ended with a flourish. And my only regret is that I didn't capture the start on film.

William Wallace would approve

Though I do get paid to coach my kids, it's moments like these that are part of the true payoff in this job: helping young people look adversity in the face and run recklessly to it. It's the kind of mettle Austin is going to need to overcome the limitations he has been born with and into. But last week in that field across the road from the UW-BC campus his display of courage brought a tear to my eye and gave me hope that he may get there yet.

Go, Dog, Go

9/11 Memory

2011-09-11T04:08:00.000-07:00

It was a Tuesday and it was a beautiful late summer morning in northern Wisconsin the day the Towers fell. I was at Roselawn Elementary here in Chetek reading to kids as I have been doing since Christine was in kindergarten. I had just left one classroom and was heading down the west wing when Mrs. Neuman, a third grade teacher there, stopped me in the hall and said, “Have you heard? The World Trade Center has been hit by a plane?” That is my first memory of 9/11 and the second was wondering how could that happen to such a tall building. Like a lot of people far removed from New York City, I did not realize until later that day that the WTC was, in fact, seven buildings not one.

As soon as I was done reading that morning, Linda and I were scheduled to meet up with Don and Chris Fritz, friends of ours, and drive to Eau Claire to pick out and purchase a new keyboard for our fellowship. When I got home, they were sitting in their vehicle listening to the news on their car radio. We listened enthralled to the report the entire 45 minute drive. At the time – 10:00 o'clock in the morning-or-so CST – there was a lot of information being passed along that had not been confirmed. I recall one little bit of trivia – beyond realizing that we were talking about 7 towers and not 1 – that each tower had its own Zip Code and at capacity could have up to 25,000 people within. I remember thinking, “50,000 people! That's like the entire population of Eau Claire!”

Meanwhile in Eau Claire...

Perhaps the most prominent memory I have of that day, however, occurred at Morgan Music where our salesman was making his pitch about which keyboard would be best for us. He had us wander around the showroom and sample the different models. Half way through this little exercise I remember asking the rest of our small group, “Is anyone bothered by what we're doing?” When they all looked at me quizzically I said, “I mean, half a country a way 50,000 people may be dead and we're plunking on keys listening to tone quality.” It was and still is bizarre to me. But we continued our sampling and before we left had purchased the keyboard that now sits in our sanctuary. It arrived just in time for Troy and Tina's wedding that was held that Saturday.

Like everybody else that day, I sat mesmerized in front of the TV watching the news feed of the Towers falling, the Pentagon burning and the smoking remains of the plane that landed in that Pennsylvania field. I called my dad that night to talk about the events of the day and tell him I loved him. And when I tucked my kids into bed, I prayed with them and gave them an extra long hug good-night.

While local news carried reports of churches being opened for people to pray, in Chetek that wasn't the case. However, the next day Pastor Keith from Chetek Lutheran and I spoke together about them hosting a community prayer gathering on Thursday night. 50 people showed up – and mostly old people at that. It was, in my mind, a curious response to such an emotionally overwhelming week

Lynsee playing on the keyboard we bought that day

Last summer, while we were vacationing in D.C., we rented a van for a couple of days. We had drove out to Mount Vernon earlier in the day and we were hoping to get to the Iwo Jima Memorial before dark. I got turned around on the Beltway and had pulled off to get directions at a convenience store. The man behind me was wearing a Pentagon I.D. badge and must have overheard me because when he came back to his vehicle he stepped over to me and said, "Hey, have you seen the Pentagon Memorial?" When I told him I didn't even know that there was one, he suggested that if we had the time we should take a few minutes to

stop by and see it as it was just over the hill and around the corner. It was a serendipitous find while lost just outside our nation's capital. But it brought back that weird juxtapositional feeling I had that morning of plunking on keys while meanwhile half a country a city was in turmoil and our country was now at war.

His love endures: A meditation on Psalm 107

2011-08-04T06:28:00.000-07:00

Wood Oaks Green Sled Hill in Northbrook, Ill.

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good!
      His faithful love endures forever.
Has the Lord redeemed you? Then speak out!
      Tell others he has redeemed you from your enemies.
For he has gathered the exiles from many lands,
      from east and west,
      from north and south. Psalm 107:1-3, NLT

My final semester at Trinity College (now Trinity International University) Dr. Graddy gave our class a life lesson that I have thought on and passed on to others over the years. He would start most of his classes with a devotional thought – sometimes a prayer – but that afternoon in the spring of 1988, in his laconic way, he reported a stunning discovery he had made just that morning. On his morning commute to TC that day he passed the same sites he always passed. Traffic moved along in its own sputtering manner typical of morning rush hour in Chicago when all of a sudden he was captivated by a sight that shocked him: a massive hill seemingly overnight had grown up alongside I-94. He then related how the City of Northbrook had apparently made a decision to build a toboggan and sled hill a year previously. Given that Northbrook like so many other communities in that part of northern Illinois is astoundingly flat, the only way to add a sled hill to your town is to build one. And so a great project had ensued of bringing in dirt in order to do just this. Dr. Graddy related how every day on his way to and from the college, he observed dump truck after dump truck bringing in dirt but in his mind very little progress had been made. Until that morning, when, in comparison to the landscape all around, a mountain suddenly loomed out the window on his passenger side. “My goodness,” he said, “where did that come from? And then, it occurred to me, it's like everything else in my life: one truck-load of dirt at at time.” Even at 25, I was too young to appreciate the wisdom in those words. But now years later I realize how true they are. The mountains that we deal with – be it debt, be it marital or family dysfunction, be it our own moral failures – don't usually appear overnight but slowly and subtly while we are busy with other things.

Dr. William Graddy

A week ago during a long afternoon of visiting with several inmates at the Barron County Justice Center, I found myself with each visit turning to Psalm 107, the first in the fifth book of the Psalter. Every individual I met with that day has issues – problems with the law, problems with their lawyer, problems with those on the outside and a few with problems with their fellow inmates on the inside. In a word, their lives are messy. Young as they are, they have already built some large hills in their back yard. Those who choose to meet with me are looking for something – looking for hope, for assurance, for comfort, and, sometimes, just someone to talk to who is not locked up as they are. They are discouraged, afraid, angry and frustrated. They talk about their case or their disappointment that their family doesn't write or visit them. And they talk about matters of faith – about being lost and wanting to be found.

Some wandered in the wilderness,
      lost and homeless.
Hungry and thirsty,
      they nearly died.
“Lord, help!” they cried in their trouble,
      and he rescued them from their distress.
He led them straight to safety,
      to a city where they could live.
Let them praise the Lord for his great love
      and for the wonderful things he has done for them.
For he satisfies the thirsty
      and fills the hungry with good things.

On this day, the majority of those I meet with grew up in some kind of church. They talk about the days when they went to Sunday School or Bible club – a distant memory for them now. Were they to show up at most churches this Sunday, however, it wouldn't feel like home. They haven't been associating with the Sunday-going crowd in a very long time. While each of their stories is unique they are one and the same – they fell into bad company and wandered away. Obviously their intention was never to land in the county jail but the path they chose took them there.

Some sat in darkness and deepest gloom,
      imprisoned in iron chains of misery.
They rebelled against the words of God,
      scorning the counsel of the Most High.
That is why he broke them with hard labor;
      they fell, and no one was there to help them.
“Lord, help!” they cried in their trouble,
      and he saved them from their distress.
He led them from the darkness and deepest gloom;
      he snapped their chains.
Let them praise the Lord for his great love
      and for the wonderful things he has done for them.
For he broke down their prison gates of bronze;
      he cut apart their bars of iron.

Unlike prison where inmates can get outside or work-out in the gym or go to school via the internet, jail is long time. There are programs available – A.A., Breaking Barriers, and various Bible studies as well as the weekly worship services. There is a T.V. in every dorm and inmates can get regular visits via the video kiosks located there. But mostly there is a lot of down time - a lot of time to stare at the walls and think of the course of your life. Or worry about your case, or your girlfriend or boyfriend or kids or family. For people who have medicated themselves by imbibing heavily with alcohol or smoking dope, all that time on your hands can drive you mental. Guys play cards or read or talk about what they're going to do when they get out. Due to the fact that there are no windows in the place and inmates have limited access to the Multi-Purpose Room, many of them just start to sleep a lot one day looking so much like the next.

Some were fools; they rebelled
      and suffered for their sins.
They couldn’t stand the thought of food,
      and they were knocking on death’s door.
“Lord, help!” they cried in their trouble,
      and he saved them from their distress.
He sent out his word and healed them,
      snatching them from the door of death.
Let them praise the Lord for his great love
      and for the wonderful things he has done for them.
Let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving
      and sing joyfully about his glorious acts.

Most of the people I have visited with over the years of my chaplaincy at the Justice Center are pretty candid about the things they did to get them there. Some it seems to me, however, have a difficult time of “owning” their sin. They want to blame someone else for the trouble they find themselves in. A friend of mine serves up at the La Coutre Oreilles Reservation near Hayward. The tribal leader told him once that the greatest need of the Ojibwa people who live there was for fathers. Too many inmates I have met with have the same need – they either have never met their dad or don't want to know their dad or their dad, like them, is somewhere in the system. One young Native woman I meet with shares with me that she began using when she was two. Her mother is an alcoholic and as her mother would party, she would drink from the same can as she did. She never had a chance. She's 23 now and this is her 13^th stay at the JC. She's already made the rounds to many of the treatment centers in this part of the state. That fact alone makes me fear that she needs something like a miracle or she'll never make it on the outside. But certainly blaming her mother will not help her because now she's a user and dealer herself.

Some went off to sea in ships,
      plying the trade routes of the world.
They, too, observed the Lord’s power in action,
      his impressive works on the deepest seas.
He spoke, and the winds rose,
      stirring up the waves.
Their ships were tossed to the heavens
      and plunged again to the depths;
      the sailors cringed in terror.
They reeled and staggered like drunkards
      and were at their wits’ end.
“Lord, help!” they cried in their trouble,
      and he saved them from their distress.
He calmed the storm to a whisper
      and stilled the waves.
What a blessing was that stillness
      as he brought them safely into harbor!
Let them praise the Lord for his great love
      and for the wonderful things he has done for them.
Let them exalt him publicly before the congregation
      and before the leaders of the nation.

“Willie”, a kid who grew up in a good Bible-believing church, graduated from high school and went right into the army. He later served in Afghanistan. While he was in field, he never saw combat but he must have fallen into the wrong crowd. While on leave last year he got doped up one night and with a buddy went on a spree of sorts. Things got out of hand and hear he sits at the Justice Center waiting to be sentenced. He wears regret like a shirt and I'm touched by his sincerity. So we turn to Psalm 107 and we read it together

Some wandered in the wilderness,
lost and homeless....

Some sat in darkness and deepest gloom,
imprisoned in iron chains of misery.
They rebelled against the words of God,
scorning the counsel of the Most High...

Some were fools; they rebelled
and suffered for their sins....

Some...reeled and staggered like drunkards
and were at their wits’ end...

All of them, the author tells us, do the same thing

“Lord, help!” they cried in their trouble,
and he saved them from their distress.

The lost, the imprisoned, the rebels, the adventurer far from home, all of them in their distress cry out to God and how does he respond?

...he saved them from their distress...

I ask Willie that based on this psalm who he thinks are the people God is collecting to wit he replies, “It's like, all the losers.” We share a brief laugh and I add, “Definitely not what we would call 'the A-Team'.” “Exiles” is how they are referred to at the beginning of this poem. Those banished and far from home. And yet these the very ones Yahweh delights to save, deliver and heal because, regardless of how others feel about them or they feel about themselves, he loves them with covenant, extravagant and enduring love. It's Luke 15 all over again.

Those hills remain. They do not go away because we wish them, too, or pray a prayer of repentance. But if we can grasp the fact that He is for us than those sled runs will become our trainers in righteousness that we may, in fact, one day bless for teaching us how to walk humbly with our God.

Being born again on Sunday

2011-07-28T12:06:00.000-07:00

“Here the Beaver's voice sank into silence and it gave one or two very mysterious nods. Then signalling to the children to stand as close around it as they possibly could, so that their faces were actually tickled by its whiskers, it added in a low whisper – 'They say Aslan is on the move – perhaps has already landed.'” from “A Day with the Beavers” in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

This past Sunday at Refuge we had a pretty unusual thing occur during our weekly worship gathering. In fact, in nearly twenty years of pastoring I have never experienced this sort of thing - a guy asked to make a public confession of Jesus Christ. Over the last two decades serving Chetek Full Gospel/Refuge we've had a fair amount of people who at the request of some evangelist or myself have closed their eyes, bowed their heads and raised their hands to receive Jesus into their heart. I think of Kale, one of our worship leaders, or my son, Ed. But never have I had an individual make such a deliberate request to do so in such a public manner. And when he did even the ones who tend to get drowsy during the scope of our usual two hour service sat up and took notice.

Most fourth Sundays of the year I'm here

I'm a volunteer chaplain at the Barron County Justice Center. Once a month since the place opened up back in 2004 – and always on the fourth Sunday – I have been leading one or two worship gatherings in the afternoon depending on how many sign up for church. Usually, I have follow-up requests from inmates to visit either once or regularly until they are released. When it comes to the worship gatherings, I never prepare a text or a message. I just bring my Bible and my guitar, strap it on, begin playing and see where things take me. Like off-roading for ATVers. So this past January, on the fourth Sunday, what I remember about that particular day is that there were two services at the jail and at both I shared my faith story. As those things go, mine's a pretty bland tale – no drugs, no booze, no loose women. Just a good church-going kid, who for the most part kept his nose clean in high school but did not know God. But that warm Friday night back in April 1980 when I met Bill I had a conversation that changed the course of my life.

Bill asked me two things – If I were to die tonight would I go to heaven? (“Yeah, I think I would...”) and If I were to die tonight and I were to stand before God and he were to ask me, “Why should I let you into my heaven?” how would you answer? (“Um...I'm a good person?...ah...I go to church?...I..ah...am the president of my youth group?...”) I don't remember much of the rest of that conversation but I can vividly recall driving home that night and being certain of this: Up until that moment, I thought I knew God. But after meeting Bill I realized I only knew about Him while he actually knew Him. And so I prayed a prayer that went like this, “God, I want to know You like that man knows You.” A week or so later, Bill's daughter gave me a gospel tract to read which had a prayer attached to it to receive Jesus into my heart - which I did. But I think my pilgrimage really began that night driving home from Bill's house. So, this is what I shared on that fourth Sunday of January a few months ago.

What I also recall about that afternoon was that my needle, as it were, was stuck. I hammered the point home that a person, no matter how good they are, is not good enough for heaven on their own merit. Troy was in that service that day and by Tuesday afternoon – two days later – we were meeting in Personal Visitation #2 to discuss the very things I had addressed on Sunday afternoon. Troy is a 40-year old guy who began using when he was six. Since he turned 18 he's been in and out of jail for alcohol-related charges. In early January he had violated the terms of his probation putting him back inside once again. Down and discouraged though he was, with a little gentle prodding by one of his dorm mates he had reluctantly signed up for church that day I came. My story captivated him. And scared him because he was convinced that he was not ready for heaven.

Over the next several months, Troy and I met every Tuesday for 30-45 minutes discussing spiritual things. During March I was out of the country and by May, he had graduated to Huber privileges. Scheduled to be released on May 29, he wanted to meet with me one more time. I really needed to give myself to Ed's graduation party prep but wanting to touch base with him I agreed to do so. “My plan is to be at Refuge this coming Sunday.” Every time I'm at the jail I always extend the same invitation: “When you get out of here, if you don't have a local fellowship we want you to know that you are more than welcome to try us out. We may not be your cup of tea...but if you want to be healthy you're going to have to find some place to drink tea!” Over the years I've only had a few guys take me up on that offer but save one, they have never stayed. Troy was released on a Friday and that Sunday he showed up for worship just as he had promised. I had tried to prepare him for what he should expect but he had no church rubric to compare with given that he had only attended a Methodist church when he was a little guy. But when I opened up the altar for prayer that Sunday morning, Troy made a B-line for it, bowed down and began praying. With the exception of the 4^th of July weekend when he was working he has been doing the same every Sunday since.

A few weeks after he got out I suggested that we resume what we had been doing when he had been “inside” - meet together to study the Bible and pray together. He readily agreed and so most Fridays since we have done just this. Sometimes his wife joins us and sometimes his son, Alex, but mostly it's been Troy, his pug dog Mack and me getting together, opening our Bibles and finding what the Spirit has to share with us. On the week we took Ed to IHOP, we met on a Tuesday since we would be leaving the following morning. And that was the day he asked me, “Del told me he was born again. So what does it mean to be born again?” Del had been one of his dorm mates – the same guy who had encouraged Troy to go to church that fourth Sunday in January. Even though I'm sure we had discussed this before, we turned to John 3 and began to review the story again:

“There was a man named Nicodemus who was one of the Pharisees and an important Jewish leader. One night Nicodemus came to Jesus and said, "Teacher, we know you are a teacher sent from God, because no one can do the miracles you do unless God is with him."

“Jesus answered, 'I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot be in God's kingdom.'”
“Nicodemus said, 'But if a person is already old, how can he be born again? He cannot enter his mother's womb again. So how can a person be born a second time?'”
“But Jesus answered, 'I tell you the truth, unless you are born from water and the Spirit, you cannot enter God's kingdom. Human life comes from human parents, but spiritual life comes from the Spirit. Don't be surprised when I tell you, “You must all be born again.” The wind blows where it wants to and you hear the sound of it, but you don't know where the wind comes from or where it is going. It is the same with every person who is born from the Spirit.'” John 3:1-8, NCV

We talked at length of Nicodemus' predicament – here's a religious guy who knows the Law backwards and forwards and has met the first requirement of heaven – he's been born. But one thing he lacks – his spirit made dead by sin must be born anew by the Spirit of God. “I think you're probably there” I suggested even though he and I had never officially prayed together about that very matter. “No, I don't think so,” he countered. “Nope. I'm not there yet.” So, I left it at that for the time being.

The following Sunday morning while I was sitting in the sound booth helping Kale level out the mics he came up to me and said, “I can't get it out of my head. Ever since we spoke it's been bugging me so I think I want to be born again.” Understand, I don't get told that sort of thing very often. In fact, I get that request hardly ever. So I looked up from what I was doing and asked, “Now?” “No, I think I want to be born again next Sunday.” On the principal of carpe diem (i.e., seize the day) I gently persuaded him, “Why not today?” To wit he replied, “I want my family here to see this and they said they would come if I would be born again.” Then I asked, “Do you want to do it before the service or after it?” “No,” he said, “During the service would be good.” So, we set the date accordingly. Later that morning, he was particularly being touched at the altar and a few of the guys attempted to pray with him to receive Jesus but he gently held to his original decision: “I want my family here to be a part of it,” he insisted.

Last Friday, Linda was with me and as we walked up to their trailer, I half expected to find that he had talked himself out of his decision. But on the contrary we found him more determined than ever. His wife, his son and his daughter from Barron was planning to be present as well as her kids. Knowing how our mutual enemy likes to rain on people's parades, I warned him to not be surprised if his family has a big fight that morning taking whatever want-to to attend worship together right out of them. But he was adamant: “Even if they won't come with me, I'm going to be born again on Sunday. To me, I figure it's like getting married. You can't be private about that sort of thing.” Clearly, Troy has another Teacher who has been schooling him in these matters.

Lost kid gets found

So Sunday morning came and as promised here was Troy and a good many of the members of his family present to witness him be born again. It was a small crowd – many were gone on vacation or elsewhere – but we worshiped and, as his habit has been, he came to the altar to pray during that time in the gathering. I think he was the only one, in fact, but he came all the same. When it was message-time, I opened up to Luke 15 and began to share about meeting Troy at the jail and how we had been talking about spiritual things for quite awhile. I then invited him up and over the next 15-20 minutes I interviewed him. Troy was very candid about his story and about his failures but was ready now to make a profession of faith. Before we did, however, I opened the floor to those gathered and encouraged anyone who wanted to offer him any encouragement as he took this step. As expected, several people responded with filial counsel as ones who are trying to walk with Jesus as well. I then invited Troy to stand at the altar and any who would stand with him. Over a dozen Refuge-es came to stand around him and join him as he prayed my made-up-on-the-spot version of “the sinner's prayer.” When it was over, people began to clap spontaneously – one even stood to their feet – joining in with celebration that was no doubt going on in the heavenlies at that very moment.

Last Sunday was the fourth Sunday of July which meant that once again I was heading to the Justice Center that afternoon. Just like a guy who's learned that he's just become a dad, I went excited to tell those inmates who had signed up for worship that day what God had did that morning. Such was the power of Troy's story that even telling it second-hand it provoked six people make first-time requests to see me this past Tuesday. It took me all afternoon too meet with these drug dealers and users and a few others who after hearing about Troy found it possible to hope for themselves again.

I love going to jail

For me, one of the coolest things about his story is that little tid-bit about his dorm mate, Del. Del is a Christian who got into some trouble (not all of it his own making) and will be inside until this fall. Prior to going in, a relative connected with Rick and Sandy, a couple from Refuge, asked if they could meet with him prior to his incarceration. They met with him three or four times praying for him and asking that God would use him while he was locked up. He had been at the Justice Center maybe six months before Troy arrived. It was Del who had encouraged Troy to sign up for worship that fourth Sunday in January and when his heart had been pricked with conviction of the Holy Spirit who did he have to turn to? Del, of course. In fact, those first few weeks of meeting with Troy was made easier simply having a man on the inside fielding his many questions. Though we hardly knew each other we were working in tandem to point this man to Jesus. How cool is that?

Jesus is still saving people. He's still healing and ridding people of unclean spirits. He's still traveling from burb to burb teaching and preaching “the gospel of the kingdom and healing every sickness and every disease among the people” (Matt 9:35, KJV). Though it may feel at times like we, personally, are working in the middle of a Narnian winter devoid of Christmas, Aslan is, indeed, on the move. Jesus said as much, “My Father never stops working, and so I keep working, too” (John 5:17, NCV). And every time we are graced to partake in helping someone make a profession of faith or pray for someone who begins to experience freedom from tormenting devils it's a reminder that the Kingdom of God is at hand.

When the chicks begin to fly the coop

2011-07-24T21:03:00.000-07:00

Fly the coop (mainly American)

to leave somewhere, especially to leave your home for the first time in order to live away from the family thefreedictionary.com

Last night we went to bed with a house with only four people in it – Charlie, Emma, Linda and I. It's not like it hasn't happened before. Through the middle school and high school years camp, school outings and the occasional sleep-over have reduced our household by three or more. But last night, maybe for the first time, Linda and I experienced what will be our new normal at least for the immediate future. We have entered the beginning stages of becoming “empty-nesters.”

Packed and raring to go

A week or so ago, we drove Ed down to Kansas City, MO so that he could begin a six-month internship at the International House of Prayer there. On a hot, Thursday morning we moved him into his apartment, helped him get his clothes and things situated and then connected at Applebees for lunch with our friends the Lamberts who were there to do the same with their daughter, Sarah. It was like a collective “last supper” together. After lunch, Sarah jumped in our car and together we went in search for a Wal-Mart to buy things like laundry soap and the like. Then after dropping Sarah off back at the House of Prayer, we tooled over to Justin and Tara's house, former Refuge-es, to rest a bit before dinner and the orientation to follow. The plan had been to join Ed for dinner in the cafeteria at the main complex on Red Bridge Road with all the other interns and their parents but apparently there was a little mix-up between the kitchen and administration because when we arrived, the queue was decidedly all interns. Not wanting to seem like we needed to hold Ed's hand, we told him we would meet him after dinner and we stepped outside and grabbed something at Higher Grounds next door (as well as ran into our girls who were down in Kansas City attending the Fascinate Young Adult Conference).

Outside the door of his new digs

After dinner, we drove over to IHOPU to attend orientation. Linda became quiet and pensive knowing that the time for saying good-bye was nearing. Orientation was held in a large room that was already buzzing with idle chatter as we entered. The set-up was awkward to say the least. They had arranged 9 large circles around the room for the interns to sit and be oriented by what is referred to as their Core Leaders. There were chairs for parents placed just outside the circle so that we could listen in but it felt like we were spectators at some kind of athletic event. The guy who is over the Onething Internship (OTI) introduced himself as well as a dozen other leaders and asked each to share their heart for the next six months. Almost to a man (there were women leaders as well), however, they each said the same thing: “We hope your son or daughter has encounter with the God who loves them.” Well, duh...that's why he's here. I'd rather had heard what a normal day in the life of an IHOP intern would look like and what kinds of classes he would be attending. And then the guy said, “We're going to be filling out forms and the like for the next three hours. You're welcome to stay but we just want you to know it's going to be awhile.” And just like that it was clear this was the time to exit stage right. So, I whipped out my video camera, had him record a few thoughts and then hugged him and we exited the room. We drove over to Justin and Tara's home and they took us out for ice cream but that night as we lay in bed, the pang of separation was keenly felt by both of us.

Ah, those were the days...

Christine's new place

Last Friday, we helped Christine move her things and clothes into the house she will be sharing with Hope, a young woman from Refuge. At 23 years of age, she has been despairing that she would ever get out of the house but about a month ago Hope approached her with an offer. While she's not out of Chetek yet, at least she's one block further away from home. Grandma Martin bought her first two new pieces of furniture – a nightstand and dresser – but assembly was required. The nightstand was easy but the dresser became a consuming event for Friday afternoon and evening. We may have not been making clocks, as the guy who remodeled my house loved to always quip, but we put that thing together at least twice before we moved it into her room.

Moving day

Emma stayed with her Friday night but last night was her first night “on her own” in her new home. Of course, a severe thunderstorm came through our area around 10:30 p.m. causing the sirens to go off and when lightning struck a nearby utility pole knocking out power all over town, I realized we had never discussed where she should hide in case of such a scenario. So I tried to reach her on her cell phone to no avail. She called around 11 asking for the number for the power company but we assured her that they were aware and were working the problem. The rain was coming down in a torrential downpour and the wind was gusting and suddenly I had the urge to run down the street and stay with her until the storm passed. But, she sounded okay on the phone and reckoning that sooner or later she would have to deal with just this kind of trouble, I turned over and went to sleep.

After 10 days of not hearing anything from Ed other than the few items he posted on his Facebook page, he called yesterday. He sounded good and he was excited to share with us some highlights from his life at IHOP thus far. Linda was on one extension and I on the other as we plied him with questions ranging from how he was adjusting to his roommates (“great!”) to his first successful completion of his laundry (“Mom, is it better to put my pink shirt with whites or darks?”) He told me he had figured out a running route down there but when he told me his plan to run between “the House,” as it is frequently referred to, and FCF (Forerunner Christian Fellowship), I immediately reminded him to run facing traffic knowing how busy both Red Bridge and Grandview Roads are and suggested he try a few of the quieter neighborhoods nearby. This letting-go thing isn't easy.

When we had three in diapers (three! - and all in cloth diapers at that), sweet old ladies at church would pat Linda on the shoulder and say, “Enjoy these years, honey, because one day you'll miss this.” To wit Linda would often mutter when they were out of earshot, “I can't wait to miss these days.” For years, my dad has been warning me, “Enjoy your kids and all this activity because one day your house is going to be a whole lot quieter.” I never disagreed with him. In fact, I have thoroughly delighted in the litany of concerts and plays and athletic events our kids have been involved in through their growing up years (okay, I admit, I wasn't a fan of the traveling basketball team that Christine was on when she was in middle school). Back in May following the conclusion of the Sectional track meet where Ed ran his last race as a high school athlete, both Linda and I felt like weeping (and did) because we realized that it was over. While there will be other Chetek-Weyerhaueser athletes to cheer for, never again will our son wear the purple and black. Last night, as Linda and I laid in bed listening to the rain pound upon the roof she said, “Two of our babies have left the nest.” Yeah. And this is just the beginning – by next summer, Emma will be posing for her senior pictures. Where does it go?

Our last meal together for awhile

When we were down in Kansas City, a good friend of mine messaged me on Facebook and asked me how it was going. I shared with her some of the emotions we both were experiencing to wit she replied,

“It's hard but I guess that's what we raise them to do. Most of our life is an adult. The window is so short that we have them. We forget it's a gift.” It's so true. We take for granted what a blessing it is to sit down with your family and enjoy a simple meal. Like we did the night before the girls left for Fascinate. It was a Monday night and fish sticks were on the menu. It suddenly occurred to me that this would be the last time we would all be together for awhile – the girls were leaving in the morning, we would be traveling to Kansas City the day afterward and when we returned, Christine would be moving out. I'm sure we're going to have dinner together again but we have crossed a certain threshold. After dinner we walked down to Dairy Queen for dessert, quoting movie lines, laughing and playing an impromptu game of tag as we have played for years running (Charlie has long since lost any pleasure in the thing). When we got back home, the kids were heading off to the drive-in when Ed suggested we pray together as a family given this would be the last time we would be together for awhile. As he began to pray, he also began to cry thanking God for his family and all the wonderful times we have shared together through the years. His tears provoked a chain reaction in the rest of us – save Charlie – as we each took our turn in giving thanks. Charlie's response to this display was pragmatic: “Can we go now?” He was eager, after all, to see Cars 2 at the drive-in. And that's how our last evening together for awhile ended – with the kids piling into the van and driving off to the movies and mom and dad busying themselves in the garden or sweeping off the porch.

Oh, that terrible storm we had last night? Lightning not only struck the utility pole near their house – it struck their house. Christine first called home early this morning describing a very blackened outlet. Since I wasn't there she reached me at the office and she reported it being “a little smoky” and that it was “sparking a bit”. Honestly, I didn't think too much about it but before I drove home to get cleaned up for worship I stopped in at her place to check things out. When I walked into her kitchen, I knew something was amiss. There was a tinge of burnt something in the room and the outlet had definitely been fried. When I hit the breaker to reset power to the kitchen, however, fire flared out of the outlet. It died down right away but I took her cell and quickly dialed 911. I just wanted someone from the fire department to look at it. But within five minutes there were two fire trucks, an ambulance and a full complement of EMTs, a police officer and about a dozen firefighters on scene. One night out on her own and already we have drama (though not of her own making.) They suspect that thing had smoldered all night long so it could have been far worse.

Ed will be back come Christmas after the completion of his internship. And so may Christine depending on the job market or other unseen factors. But there's no turning back the clock. Our little chicks are flapping their wings in anticipation of flying the coop. And as my dad reminded me just tonight, not only are they getting older I am too.

Pontooning with the Breakfast Club

2011-07-21T06:12:00.000-07:00

“The left front pontoon went under the Agnes D, stopped dead in the water and turned to port. They had reached the edge of the laws of physics. They lurched to the starboard side and both pontoons went under and there – in full view of the town – the boat pitched forward and dumped some ballast: eight Lutheran ministers in full informal garb took their step for total immersion.” - from “Pontoon Boat” in Leaving Home – A Collection of Lake Wobegon Stories by Garrison Keillor

One of my favorite stories from Lake Wobegon has got to be “Pontoon Boat”. It's the rather farcical tale of how twenty-four Lutheran ministers on a tour of rural Minnesota studying the pastoral needs of small towns end up on Wally Bunsen's 26-foot pontoon boat out on Lake Wobegon. “Sprinklers” the lot of them, by defying the laws of physics they briefly dabble in the domain of the Baptists when Wally's boat, the Agnes D, capsizes. As Keillor explains, there they were “...twenty-four ministers standing up to their smiles in water, chins up, trying to understand this experience and its deeper meaning.” Ever since I heard it the first time, I can't take a ride on a pontoon boat without thinking of this yarn. So the other day when Pastor Norm suggested that we conduct our weekly prayer meeting from his pontoon boat, I was chuckling already at the prospect of joining the brethren out upon the waters of Lake Chetek.

Our usual Tuesday digs

For eight or nine years now “the Breakfast Club” (as I refer to ourselves) have met at the back table at Bob's Grill every Tuesday morning for prayer and fellowship. This is no meeting. This is a gathering of brothers and sisters who share a common faith in the Lord Jesus and a desire to see his transforming love visit the town we all call home. Our agenda is always the same: enjoy breakfast together and then pray for one another and for His work in our community. Over the years our numbers have waxed and waned depending on appointments, vacations or other obligations or what Keillor would refer to as “the shyness” of a particular minister. Frankly, there are some guys who are just not “joiners.” They prefer to keep to themselves or to their own kind. But most who throw in their lot with us find friendship and a sense of common cause in the work of Jesus' ministry in this city.

Pastor Norm, our skipper

A few years ago, Pastor Norm invited us all to join him for a ride on his pontoon boat and from that platform we saw our town from a different angle and with a fresh perspective. So as he drove us around we talked and prayed and worshiped and asked God to pour out His Spirit on our area. The waters of Lake Chetek by mid-summer are typically green – too much algae, not enough rain fall, not enough oxygen in the water, too much nitrogen and phosphates finding their way to the lake. In fact, most of the locals don't even swim here. And I don't know a pastor who baptizes any in our waters, either. The one and only time that I did (very early in my ministry here), I recall shooing the five individuals up to the bathhouse to shower off right away lest they contract “swimmer's itch.” There's something oxymoronic in that when you have just referred to the cleansing waters of baptism. But inspired by 2 Chronicles 7:14 (i.e., “If my people...will pray...and turn...then...I will forgive their sins and heal their land”) and George Otis, Jr.'s Transformation Videos (here's a link to a trailer of one of them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBvxWl7jXr0) that speak of documented revivals from around the world that have resulted not only in conversions but in the very transformation of the landscape, we have been asking God to heal our waters as well as the spiritual contour of our community.

Last week, Norm suggested we ride the waters again and so the day before yesterday, on a humid, gray morning, eight of us climbed aboard his boat to engage in conversation and prayer. As our skipper slowly steered our boat in the direction of the dam, instead of engaging in light-hearted banter as we are often wont to do, the quietness of the lake provoked a comfortable silence among us. Norm, a 78-year old stalwart soldier of Jesus who this past January lost his beloved wife of 52 years, Karen, began talking about “the thinness” of the veil that separates us from what Paul refers to as “the heavenlies” and what we know as corporeal reality. He got a little misty-eyed as he shared about how near God actually is though we often proceed through our day totally unaware of his presence. I was struck with the quiet authority in his voice and whether it was that most of us hadn't had our morning coffee yet or the stillness of the lake, for a moment it felt like he was our rabbi and we his disciples and class was in session. As we slowly puttered up and down the lake between the dam and the long bridge our conversation meandered casually between spiritual matters, the depth of the lake, how church had gone last Sunday and the history of certain homes.

I laughed with the guys about the thought I was struck with last Sunday morning before our worship gathering began. It occurred to me that our congregation would be made up of loosely of two groups that morning: the group returning from Kansas City afire with enthusiasm from their recent encounter with Jesus there and those showing up dead on their feet hoping for a good worship experience that morning to pick them up. The contingent of those returning from the Fascinate young adult conference had just spent nearly a week with 5,000 others being led into worship by accomplished and talented leaders and sitting under anointed teaching. While they were there, they had drank deep of God's manifest presence and he had, as we Pentecostals like to say, “showed up.” Now as they walked into the sanctuary at Refuge on hot, humid morning, there would be no band, no lights, no smoke, no temperature controlled room, no Matt Gilman or Corey Asbury. It would be just Kale on a guitar backed by his wife and my daughter as singers. And it was warm in the sanctuary. Instead of Mike Bickle or Corey Russell or Lou Engle (there is only one of him!), it would be just Pastor Jeff as usual. On the other side of the aisle, there were those who were not coming to worship “tanked up” but profoundly dry and with that look in their eyes that says, “Move me.” The thought of it made me laugh as we circled up to pray before the gathering began. It would be like two storm fronts converging and whichever was the strongest would most likely hold sway. Which brought us back to the conversation topic of the moment, the nearness of God in our everyday life. So often for me, he doesn't feel that near or close.

Looking toward the dam

A little ways before the dam, we began to pray as we do every Tuesday morning, praying together in concert that God would send, in Pastor Kirk's favorite expression, “a heaven-sent, Holy Ghost revival” - a move of God that not only would fire us up but transform the very culture of our city. Every summer thousands of tourists come to our area to recreate, to relax, to find solace away from their lives in Chicago or the Twin Cities. In some way, Chetek is already a city of refuge – certainly it is for those who summer here. We asked again the other morning that God would make us that in the spiritual arena as well – believing for a day that thousands come to our area and experience repentance “...that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19, NASB). In fact, none of the things we prayed for the other morning were any different than the things we have prayed for on countless Tuesday mornings before – just some guys who minister primarily in small congregations asking as Isaiah once did himself, “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down...” (64:1).

the long bridge

After we landed, we said our good-byes wishing each other a good day and a good week. Each of us had things that needed our attention or people to tend to and while it's impossible to gauge how effective our prayers were out upon the lake that morning, we certainly left built up and encouraged in our work. Pastoring is difficult work at times. You often feel like a lone cheerleader in front of the home crowd whose team is getting their butt kicked again trying to rally everyone to lift up a shout. You sometimes identify with Elijah exhausted and dejected in the cave complaining to God, “I'm the only one left...” It's not true. No matter how it looks sometimes devoted saints may be found all over the place who remain faithful to the Lord Jesus and who love their pastor and the church they belong to. But this group of guys (which includes Pastor Carrie) encourages me in my work simply by being with them and tooling around on Norm's pontoon. We didn't go overboard that morning but when the ride was over we were all, like those fictitious Lutheran ministers standing in Lake Wobegon, heading up the hill with smiles on knowing that we, too, though perfectly dry, had been touched by the goodness of God.

The Breakfast Club (minus Pastor Carrie and few others)