Church Signs... Funny or not?

Please check out this video and then read my response. I'm interested in having some conversation about my concerns.



The Funniest Church Signs!!!! from churchsignslol on GodTube.


I enjoyed some of these. But I wonder if I'm SUPPOSED to be enjoying them. (Not that there's something wrong with my enjoyment, but rather shouldn't the public sign of a Christians church offer hope and invite the non-Christian into relationship with HIM? Signs that only a Christian insider can understand are probably lost on the ones we say we're trying to reach? And signs like "God doesn't believe in Atheists" and to the "dyslexic atheist" seem to be a deliberate snub or mocking of the atheist. And I was appalled to see a United Methodist Church sign mocking victims of natural disasters and blaming them on God. How does that do to help them receive the REAL message of Christ?

Babies crying during the sermon: A response

Earlier today, I ran across a blog post by Jon Acuff regarding babies crying during the sermon. The link is here.
Babies crying during the sermon. | Stuff Christians Like – Jon Acuff
I was so disturbed, I actually left a comment. (Not something I would normally do, by the way.)

This is what I wrote:

The gospels DO seem to record that some parents took kids with them when they went to listen to Jesus. And when Jesus recognized that there were adults (disciples) who were trying to keep them out of the way, Jesus SCOLDED them!
As a pastor, I LOVE that there are kids in church. The church I'm in right now does have a kids church about 1/2 way through the service, but not everyone sends their kids. And yes, there has been a crying baby a time or two. And my response is always "I believe the church assembled NEEDS to be able to hear the sounds of life! It is a pity to have a church that cannot hear them!'
If the message we are sharing is really all that important to real life, then that message better be able to withstand normal sounds of life. Including a baby crying.

Now that my blood is boiling, I'd like to know what some others do and what you thought after reading his blog posting.

My hope for the Church

Christianity Today has posted a question and invited ALL to respond. Check it out at 

http://www.christianitytoday.org/hope

Meanwhile, here is my entry:

I know it's a strange analogy, but I hope the church can become more like a bar. Now hear me out, a bar is perceived as a place where people, for whatever reason, can go to be refreshed, be able to "let their hair down" and be real, and a place where there seems to be no judgment. You can be honest about your problems and still be accepted in that place of business.

On the other hand, so many report their distancing themselves from the church because they feel judged, unlistened to, and a sense that you have to have everything in your life cleaned up before you can be a part of the church. And the perception is that the church is the last place where you would go to be free of your burdens, your problems, or your hope.

So what if the church really was more like a bar? What if it was the church where everyone new your name and really welcomed you. What if it was the church where you could go and not have to wear a false mask? Where you could open up about your problems and concerns? What if the church were the place where people didn't feel they were being judged?

My hope for the church is that WE, rather than some bar, become that place of honesty, of welcome, of acceptance, of listening, of freedom, and of hope!

Hidden Face of God

This article from back in 2008 was what I used for my Pastor's page of The Flame, the newsletter of Clarks Mills United Methodist Church this month.

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     In the introduction of Michael Card’s book The Hidden Face of God, there is a revealing story of Vincent van Gogh, the famous artist of the 19th Century.

     Van Gogh had once felt called to the ministry, but had never been able to pass the theological entrance exams. Instead, van Gogh opted for a more incarnational ministry… among the coal miners in a small town in Belgium. Bit by bit, over a three-month period, Card writes, van Gogh served God by reaching out to these poorest of the poor. In fact, he followed Jesus’ admonition to the rich young ruler to sell all his possessions and give the money to the poor. Paycheck by paycheck, as van Gogh saw more and more need, he gave away just about everything.

     Card then writes “So completely did he reflect the sacrificial simplicity of Jesus that he became known as ‘the Christ of the coal mines.’”

      “But those in the church who had authority over him did not feel this extravagance was appropriate, and he was eventually dismissed. It was a failure that hounded him for the rest of his life,” Card writes.

     Throughout the rest of his life, even as he discovered a ‘ministry’ of expressing himself through art, van Gogh struggled with a sense of failure… even though we now recognize he was a genius! He felt like a reject… and felt the church was the one who had rejected him. He no longer felt he could turn to the church for strength or support… and became estranged from the Lord of the Church as well… Jesus Himself becomes a stranger to this one who had once emulated him so completely.

     Card then draws attention to the last church painting van Gogh ever made, not long before his death: the Church at Auvers. Card writes:

“What many art critics have commented on is not the swimming colors but the ominous lack of a doorway leading into the church. Vincent painted a church that no one could get into. Having tried all his life to work hard enough to ‘get in,’ it appears that he could not imagine, in this last image of the church, a door that might allow him, with his enormous load of pain, to enter in…. Together with the scarcity of references to Jesus in his last letters, the absence of the door in the painting reveals his most fundamental fear: that there is no way into the church and, even more agonizing, that there is no One waiting on the other side of the missing door.” (pp. 12-13)

     Vincent van Gogh died on July 27, 1890, as a result of self-inflicted gunshot wounds from a suicide attempt two days earlier. His brother, Theo, was with him when he died, and reported Vincent’s last words were, translated: “the sadness will last forever.”

     How many times do we, today’s church, share our opinions and our thoughts about the way someone else is doing their job in serving Christ? How many of those times are we alienating those very ones who love Christ and are trying to serve him? How many end up like Vincent van Gogh... carrying an overwhelming load of pain and feeling abandoned by Christ and the Church?

     No small wonder that the author of Hebrews writes: “...encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.” (Hebrews 3:13, NIV)

     Not everyone will agree with the way everyone else does stuff… not even in the church. But we can make sure that we constantly show God’s love and compassion by encouraging one another… so that no one ever sees us as a church without a door.

     Who can you encourage today?

Thankful in All Things

Last night, I was the preacher for the Lakeview Ministerium's Community Thanksgiving Service at the Oak Grove Church not far from Clarks Mills. I repeated (!) a sermon I had used in 2006... Turns out the Bible hasn't changed since then!

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Thankful in ALL Things

Philipians 4:4-8

Thanksgiving. I love this holiday. It's one of the most peaceful, deeply spiritual holidays for me. Yeah, I know Christmas and Easter are the biggies in the realm of religious holidays, but this one is SPIRITUAL.... there's no big religious festival, no ritual, no special call to worship prescribed in some book. In the Revised Common Lectionary there's not even a special Thanksgiving set of passages like the other religious days.

It's not a religious holiday, because it's not one prescribed by the church... not the church throughout the ages, not the Roman Catholics, not the Eastern Orthodox churches, not the Protestant churches, not even my own United Methodist Church.

But it is a spiritual holiday... and for me it is a Holy Day.

Why? Because it calls each of us to consider our lot in life and to be thankful...But not even to just be thankful, but to go beyond being thankful and actually give thanks.  It's wonderful to be full of thanks, but you gotta do something with all of that thanks or else it means nothing except a warm feeling.

With Thanksgiving, as we have it here in America, our government asks us to give thanks to God....yes, I said the government asks us to give thanks to God.  They may not highlight that aspect, but that's where it comes from isn't it?  You go to Canada and this week is not Thanksgiving week. You go to Mexico and this week is not Thanksgiving week.  You go to Britain and this week is not Thanksgiving week. You go to Israel, the one place where God's religious holidays are still observed, at least in part, and you'll find that this week is not Thanksgiving week. Only in America, where we are ONE NATION UNDER GOD.

Why do we celebrate Thanksgiving?  If I ask school children, they might tell me stories of pilgrims and Indians and a cold winter and then a fruitful harvest and a big feast with plenty to spare and the pilgrims proclaiming a day to give thanks to God.  Yep.  That's part of what we remember this week.

After that first harvest was brought in, it was the Governor of the colony, William Bradford, in 1621, who proclaimed a day of thanksgiving and prayer.

It was an American President over two hundred years years later that asked us...."to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November."  And he did not ask us to just to be thankful, but listen to President Lincoln's actual words about this day. He wanted us to have a day of thanksgiving: "...as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens..."

And every year since then, whichever President is in that office has asked us to do the same thing. And so we celebrate Thanksgiving... and we give thanks and praise to GOD, because our government has asked us to.

Separation of church and state? Yeah, right.

Now, before you think this preacher is getting too strange, I just want to clarify something here.  I am not complaining that the government calls us to prayer.  I happen to like that a whole lot. 

(Although I'm not convinced that even us Christians use it as a day of prayer and giving thanks.  Unfortunately for many of us, if you watch us on this Thursday, you would think the day should be called THANKS-PIGGING, instead of Thanksgiving.)

My concern is much more Christian.... not governmental.

You see, I am afraid that since we find Paul and others reminding us so often to "give thanks" and then even the government of the United States has to set aside a day for us to give thanks, that maybe it is a sad indicator that we, the Christians, instead of entering the gates of our Lord with praise and entering His courts with thanksgiving, are actually nothing more than an ungrateful bunch of hypocrites.

Let's take a minute, shall we, and just do a reality check. Now, being a good Christian pastor, I won't ask you to raise your hands, but just consider with me the following items:

Ø When we pray, are we praising and thanking God...or just asking for stuff and for blessings or healings or whatever? Are we thankful people?

Ø When we are at church, are we in an attitude of gratefulness and worship...or are we looking for what someone else does wrong or does that annoys us? Or checking to see if the preacher makes a mistake? Are we thankful people?

Ø When we meet with the other people in our town are we focusing on the positives and the good things, the things someone has done well and praising them for a good job...or are we sitting there like vultures just looking for a weakness so that we may attack? Are we thankful people?

Ø Do we look around us in this country where we have the right to select our leaders, worship as we desire, and even are encouraged unwittingly by the government to have days of thanks and prayer and to praise God for a great land where we still live as One Nation Under God...  or do we deliberately badmouth and curse our leaders rather than pray for them? Are we thankful people?

The passage of Scripture I read a few minutes ago that says "THINK ON THESE THINGS" isn't just a nice suggestion... It is Scripture. There is a life-giving, life-fulfilling dimension of following the principles of Scripture. If we were to look at all aspects of our lives through the glasses of this Scripture, we truly could give God thanks and praise in all of life... no matter what may come our way... Because we would see things as God sees them.

It all boils down to a pretty easy mind-picture for me:

Imagine with me that we are at the mall in some other community where no one knows us and we are walking into a bookstore. There's the magazine section off to our left. We walk towards it and there are all kinds of magazines there, aren't there?

I am waiting for my wife to shop for whatever it is she's shopping for. I am bored stiff and so I have come to look through the magazines.... If I find one I really like, I may even pay money for it so that I can keep it.

What magazine to choose?  

 I see some of the titles: People, Us, Seventeen, Biblical Archaeology, Reader's Digest, Billy Graham's Decision magazine, Guideposts, US News & World Report, Teenbeat, Newsweek, Playboy, Penthouse... and the list goes on, because there are hundreds of magazines.

Now, do I begin picking up each and every magazine, reading it cover to cover?  NO! Because for me, some of those titles are AUTOMATICALLY ruled out, because they are advocate and support behaviors and actions that are contrary to what I believe.  I won't even consider buying them and I won't even consider looking inside them. I do not want my mind filled with the images that are contained in their pages.

That's EXACTLY what Paul's saying here, my brothers and sisters.  Every single day of our life, in every waking moment, we will choose things for our mind to dwell on and to think about.  And Paul says we, as Christians, need to be keeping our minds on the things that are true, pure, right, holy, friendly, and proper. The things that are worthwhile and worthy of praise.

To allow our minds to focus otherwise is a direct contradiction to what we as Christians are to do.

It would be just like you or I going into that bookstore and making poor choices in our magazine reading. 

That's how we can easily become thankful again... by deliberately choosing what we’re going to focus on in our minds, in our thoughts. Rather than looking for negatives (which is SO easy), we’re going to start focusing on the things in our lives the way God does...by looking for the good in each situation, the lovely, the pure… by looking for the “thanksgiving” moment in each situation… the part of the situation that we can turn into a praise to God.

Yeah, we'll still encounter people who annoy us and do things wrong...they may even do a job differently than we like.  And they may even do something in the church in a way that we think is ridiculous and so very inefficient. Oh well. Too bad.

God didn't ask you or I to be his efficiency experts, we weren't called to right all the other Christians in the world… let alone stand as their judge.

Rather, we were called to shine a light... so that everyone who sees us will want what we have.  If all we do is focus on the bad and focus on the faults of other people, then all the others will see in us is vinegar.... and instead of drawing others to our churches and to our God, we will see them staying away from us like the plague.

Paul hits this message pretty hard and pretty personal... because it's a message that we seem intent on forgetting.  God is to be approached with praise and with the giving of thanks... and we are to approach our very lives with praise and the giving of thanks... and that's pretty hard to do if we’re looking for the what’s wrong around us. 

Let's approach this Thanksgiving time, and then the season of Christmas which so quickly follows, with the positive, affirming, praising, thankful approach.

And maybe we won't need the government to remind us to give thanks.

What is the Church?

These are my notes for Sunday, July 7th's sermon at the Clarks Mills United Methodist Church (Clarks Mills, PA).

Please understand these are SPEAKING notes, which means they have commas, elipses, spacing, italics, and bold print to help me, the speaker, to remember to pause or emphasize certain areas. NO attempt has been made to properly punctuate or to use rules for proper grammar. 

ALSO, I refer to God in accordance with the rules of English which speak of masculine pronouns being used to denote masculine objects or objects which have no gender. (It is the same reason I use the Spanish la (the) with casa (house)... not that "the house" is a feminine object, but rather because that's what the rules of Spanish specify.) I do NOT believe God is a man or male in substance, any more than I believe a house is feminine, even in Spanish.)

SERMON: “What is the Church?”


There is a story about a new pastor who is just out of seminary at his very first church.
First week…preaches about helping the poor and reaching out to the needy…


PEOPLE'S RESPONSE?     “GREAT sermon…”


2nd week… again, a great sermon… but it’s word for word the same thing as week one…


3rd week…SAME sermon again…


Emergency board meeting is called to address this problem!


When asked, the pastor’s response: I didn’t want to move on until we had done the stuff from the first sermon… Wanted to wait until people “got it” & “did it”


OBVIOUSLY, the pastor and the people had different ideas about what the church was supposed to be about…

The people wanted a nice “presentation” each week… The pastor wanted to see people reach out. Nobody had moved from their seats… the gospel didn’t really affect them…

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One of the ongoing struggles between pastors and their people, between different denominations of churches, between the theologians and seminarians alike, is how exactly do you define “church.”

IN SOME PLACES, THE CHURCH IS SET APART BY A FAMOUS DEFINITION THAT SAYS THE CHURCH IS WHERE YOU GO TO RECEIVE THE SACRAMENTS… That’s pretty much the definition you hear from the I.R.S. as well… a “real” church has the administration of the sacraments and a “real” pastor is one who has those “sacerdotal” duties… he or she administers the sacraments. If that’s it, then why do we have YF groups and PrimeTimers or daycare or United Methodist Women or missions? And why bother with sermons and music? Just come and receive the sacraments…

And the church would never be outside these walls around us.

Thank God, there’s more to the church than just the sacramental duties… Those things happen, but it’s not the whole reason we’re here.

IN SOME PLACES, THE CHURCH HAS BECOME A SOCIAL GROUP… You go to church because that’s where you meet some good people that are fairly trustworthy and would make good friends… or future spouses… or potential customers for your business.

In reality, that’s not so much “church” but rather a group like the “Rotary” or the “Grange” or the “Lions Club” or any number of other very good, very respectable organizations organized for good friendships and community service…

Thank God, there’s more to the church than just friendships and community service projects… Those things happen, but it’s not the whole reason we’re here.

IN SOME PLACES, THE CHURCH SEEMS LIKE NOTHING MORE THAN A ‘PROPER GENTLEMEN’S CLUB’ … the members of their group felt like they were “above” those who weren’t members… you had to have the right credentials and the right skin color and the right status to become a member… and if you were a member of the right club then you were really something…. Prestige, honor, respect… and power… were yours…

In some places, it seems the church has become like that… If you belong to OUR church then you’re REALLY going to Heaven… If you are baptized the right way or do communion the way we like it, then you’re on your way…. If you line up with our doctrines in the right way and If you say the right prayer with all of the right words in the right order, and know exactly when to stand up or sit down, then you’re one of us…

…AND IF YOU DON’T, then you’re obviously going to Hell… and it serves you right!

Thank God, there’s more to the church than just doctrines and beliefs and prayers… Those things happen, but it’s not the whole reason we’re here.

IN SOME PLACES, THE CHURCH IS DISTINGUISHED BY WHETHER OR NOT THEY WORSHIP IN THE RIGHT WAY… Do you sing the old songs or new songs… (and the “old songs” might be hymns or for others the “old songs” are more like Gregorian chants out of the Middle Ages… and “new songs” might mean choruses written last week or a 500 year old hymn like “A Mighty Fortress is our God.”) Do we have the right rituals? DO we do things in the right order? Do we use the right version of the Bible…

Is worship led by the right people… maybe it’s led by a liturgist, or the organist, or the pianist, or a worship team, or maybe even the preacher himself…

But in that kind of church, it had better be done right!

Thank God, there’s more to the church than just pleasing people with our rituals and music… Those things happen, but it’s not the whole reason we’re here.

I’D LIKE YOU TO TURN WITH ME TO THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW to the record of one of Jesus’ encounters with the Pharisees… and I believe we’ll see one of the main reasons we’re here as a church… Listen and see if you can spot Jesus’ example for the church in this passage… FROM Matthew 9:9-13...

SCRIPTURE READING: MATTHEW 9: 9-13
Now understand, it’s the Pharisees that really get rankled by Jesus when he doesn’t do things the way they think they should be done… They spend their time at the synagogue, and later the Temple, watching to see what He’s going to do wrong next… They’re watching for mistakes… They’re focusing on form alone… and they find exactly what they’re looking for… Because Jesus couldn’t care less about the form of their worship… Or their rules… Because Jesus is concerned about the relationship with God the Father. That’s supposed to be the focus of worship… Experiencing God… connecting with Him as we praise HIM… and as we pray to Him… as we meet with Him and turn our thoughts to Him.

And if someone comes into worship with a need… spiritually or emotionally or even physically, then as they connect with God the Healer, Jesus sees it as perfectly acceptable to heal them…

And if they show up and have made a mess of their lives and are broken hearted or have had lives full of sin, then Jesus welcomes them into his presence… Because that’s his specialty… He is known as one who hangs out with sinners…

Jesus’ answer to those Pharisees, the religious leaders of His day, when they accused Him of eating and drinking with sinners is one of my favorite Biblical images of the church. The writer of Mark tells of Jesus’ answer this way: His answer simply was: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17).

I used to be an orderly in the Olean General Hospital and worked a few months between terms of school at the St. Vincent Health Center in Erie. When I get to this passage here in Matthew, and the corresponding spots in Mark 2 and Luke 5, the questions and concerns about “what is the church?“ start to fade away… BECAUSE THE CHURCH, AT LEAST IN PART, IS SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE A HOSPITAL!

In a hospital, there are supposed to be sick people and they are tended for by nursing staff and doctors who are subject to the very same maladies and destructive habits as the patients… and yet the sick can still go to a hospital to find healing and hope.

In a hospital, often the healing doesn’t come about in the same way the patient expected it to at their arrival, and sometimes, some people never are completely healed.

The church is like that….

The church is supposed to be a place to meet the Healer…. The one we call the Great Physician…. And those of us who man the stations and work the desk, are like those doctors and nursing staff at the hospital… we DON’T know everything that will cure or help and we may fall into the very same sins and addictions that you have come here to seek healing for… But together, like at the hospital, we the ones who are experiencing healing can help reach out to those who still need healing.

And that healing might come in the least expected ways, through some of the least expected people… but in the church… there’s hope for healing!

If the church is like a hospital, then we are called to be both a welcoming community and a healing community. We cannot help heal, if those in need of healing don’t feel welcomed to come in.

As a pastor, like a doctor in the hospital, I see my task to be to help the “patient” recognize the extent of their illness or injury and how they might begin to be healed. And just like in a hospital, I can help to facilitate that healing, but it will be God and the sick person that actually do the healing.

A COUPLE OF OTHER SIMILARITIES JUMP OUT AT ME AS WELL… You see, in order to be treated in a hospital, a patient has to actually physically show up at the hospital. ALSO, the patient has to actually recognize and admit that they really are sick or wounded and in need of healing.

A patient healing in the hospital also has to allow, and participate with, the life sustaining and restoring remedies doled out by the physicians and therapists.

In short, the one in need of healing must be willing to be healed.

Without that initial desire to be healed, to be made whole, no healing can happen, no matter how open and welcoming the hospital is.

I find the same to be true in the church. The church has opened its doors and welcomed all to come in.

For the one who suffers because of their own sin, repentance and a willingness to change will be the starting point for healing.

For one who has suffered a woundedness through the sins of others, the healing process will be more complicated, yet still possible, as issues of justice and forgiveness are sorted out and resolved.

Either way, healing can be painful, and still requires a willing participation by the ‘patient.’ But without a recognition of the need for healing and a willingness to participate in the healing process, there is little the church really has to offer that one.

That doesn’t limit anyone’s coming to the church, any more than not admitting illness or injury block’s one from visiting a hospital. There just simply is no way for the hospital to treat a visitor with its healing remedies, because the hospital visitor doesn’t allow themselves to become a patient.

To be healed, requires participation, not visitation or spectatorship.

Likewise, in order to receive all that the church has to offer, we must participate, in the remedies of repentance and forgiveness, (Ps. 51: 16-17).

As a pastor then, like that doctor, I must recognize that sin is a reality and not turn a blind eye when I am aware of sin, whether it is done by, or to, one of the “patients” or in our case, one of the parishioners.

Now understand, there’s a stark warning goes hand in hand with this view though: if you do not like being around people who are sick or wounded, then you really should never plan on going to a hospital for any reason... or to a church for that matter.

For these are places where the ill and injured are not only welcome, but they are the very ones who are expected.

The very existence of the church, like the hospital, is designed for the weak to become strong, the wounded to become well, and the sick to be restored.

Hospitals are not associations of whole people trying to keep from being injured, weak, or sick, although there are ways the hospital can help facilitate those very activities after healing has begun.

In the same way, the church is not designed to be a place where “good people” avoid sin, sickness, and woundedness, although once healing has begun, the church can assist each other in remaining free from inflicting or receiving the negative effects caused by sin.

But rather, a hospital, and a church, are both designed as places where sick people go.

A further comparison is possible between the church and a hospital. In a hospital, because virtually all are there have something wrong with them, it is almost always a place where you can accidentally be infected with someone else’s sickness, and where the wounded become even more susceptible to developing illness along with their injury.

Staff and patients alike must be on guard against the further transmission of disease. The church as well, being filled with sinners, runs the risk of “rubbing off on someone else” with their particular sinful tendency, thus creating more sickness, hurt, or injury from within the very midst of the healing community we call the Church.

So what does that mean for us today?

It means that we have to be very intentional about our ministry… Our focus can never be just about details of worship services or particular programs… Our focus must always be experiencing God ourselves and helping others come to that place too… For that, my friends, is a place of healing.

It also means that church is “messy” sometimes…. Things don’t go as planned… just ask an emergency room nurse about how often things go as planned in an E.R… but by their very flexibility to help each person wherever they are, in whatever situation they are in, they are agents of healing…

Can we as the church, be that flexible? Can we meet people where they are… or must they line up with the way we want to do things? Can they come “Just as I am” like we’re always singing?

Ultimately, there is more to the church than just being like a hospital, but one of our traditions I’m told is to not have three hour worship services… so this is enough for this day. But on and off, as the Holy Spirit leads, we’ll be talking throughout this next year about God’s leading and God’s expectations for us as a church… and for every church. I haven’t been here long enough to know what does and doesn’t apply to us yet, so be assured I’m not throwing darts at anyone…

But it just seems fair from the very beginning of our time together that you know and understand that part of the vision and burden that the Lord’s placed in my heart, is to see the church as a place of healing where people are accepted and where all can encounter this Healing God we serve.

For that is WHAT the church is… people worshipping God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And as we do that, we will also find healing.

How do we make sure people see us as a place to find healing… rather than just a place to play softball or eat great food or to take care of kids?

How can we reach out and make everyone feel welcome here?

I believe it is by doing all of those other things WITH A HEART OF DRAWING PEOPLE INTO THE CHURCH ASSEMBLED SO THEY TOO CAN FIND THE HEALER.

Jesus offered healing… and people who needed healing came to him because they knew him… and people who needed healing knew him because he hung out with those people… And hanging out with Jesus as one of his followers was like being in a hospital emergency room… never predictable, never boring, always surrounded by the injured and the sick… the really, really sick…

And that’s what I believe we the church are to do in order to really be the church.

And that’s not just a preacher thing… any more than a hospital is just about one doctor… Rather, we all together, open our hearts, and our minds, and our doors to those who need Jesus… and in so doing we find ourselves welcoming those who need help and there’s room there for you and me as well in that group isn’t there?

WHAT is the church?

The church is a lot like a hospital!

A Deeper Understanding of Worship... It Even Smells!

My wife, my son, and I went to an AWESOME worship experience!

Held at the Galloway UMC near Franklin, PA, it was a little bit concert, but a lot more of worship… yet not like a “contemporary” or “traditional” worship service.

Worship leaders Nic & Rachel Billman, of Shores of Grace ministries, were the primary vocalists, and Nic was clearly the team leader.

During the course of the evening, they shared from John 12:1-3, where Mary (the sister of Lazarus) came to where Jesus was and anointed his feet with a very expensive perfume. And Scripture says “The house was filled with its fragrance.” (NLT)

The Billmans explained that, as a church, we need to have our times of worship be like that time of anointing. Like Mary, what we do for Jesus so permeates the very air around us that even after we leave, people can still tell we’ve been with Jesus. What do we do in worship?? Is it about this person’s favorite hymn or that chorus those people like so much? Is it really supposed to be about the responses or the ways to commune or when the offering is taken?

NO! Worship is something WE do FOR Jesus! It is SO much like Mary anointing Jesus’ feet. She took a jar of “nard” (some kind of perfume) and lavishly gave it all for Him! In fact, I remember reading once that the cost of that nard probably would be akin to a year’s worth of paychecks for one of us now-a-days. She gave her all! She gave her best!

That’s the kind of worship we need in our times of gathering as the church. We so focus on him and expressing our love to Him, that there is a fragrance of sorts that clings to us as we go back to our everyday world after church services. But that requires that we give our best and give our all when we go to worship.

How? How about by doing what the Bible already tells us: Enter his gates with thanksgiving and come into his courts with praise?

Far too often, we have had a struggle to get out the door just to make it to the church building on time. (Especially if you have kids it seems!) We have had words with our spouse, or we had to jump the car battery, or ran into a grouchy person at the gas station en route. And of course there’s Mrs. McGillycutty who has that hideous hat on in the pew ahead of you. How can you enjpy worship with stuff like that going on?

And of course, then we bring all of that with us as we enter his gates and come into his courts. And so the worship experience is pretty flat for us.

The gathered worshippers in Galloway this evening were challenged to let all of that stuff go… and to offer our very best to God as we worshipped in listening and, occasionally, singing.

As we prepare for another Sunday morning worship time, let’s start the worship BEFORE we walk into the church building… Sing in your heart, think through (maybe even as a family) how God has been in your midst as you have travelled through this past week… and THANK Him.

Worship doesn’t come from a bulletin… it comes in with a worshipper. And as we lavishly pour out our worship on our Lord, we will walk away looking and talking and smelling like Jesus!

Christianity on the Gogh

This was my pastor's Easter letter this year. Clicking on the image ought to bring up a larger version.

The Missing Door

(This was my pastor's letter for the August 2008 edition of our church's newsletter: The Sound of the Trumpet)

- - -

In the introduction of Michael Card’s book The Hidden Face of God, there is a revealing story of Vincent van Gogh, the famous artist of the 19th Century.

Van Gogh had once felt called to the ministry, but had never been able to pass the theological entrance exams. Instead, van Gogh opted for a more incarnational ministry… among the coal miners in a small town in Belgium.

Bit by bit, over a three-month period, Card writes, van Gogh served God by reaching out to these poorest of the poor. In fact, he followed Jesus’ admonition to the rich young ruler to sell all his possessions and give the money to the poor. Paycheck by paycheck, as van Gogh saw more and more need, he gave away just about everything.

Card then writes “So completely did he reflect the sacrificial simplicity of Jesus that he became known as ‘the Christ of the coal mines.’”

“But those in the church who had authority over him did not feel this extravagance was appropriate, and he was eventually dismissed. It was a failure that hounded him for the rest of his life,” Card writes.

Throughout the rest of his life, even as he discovered a ‘ministry’ of expressing himself through art, van Gogh struggled with a sense of failure… even though we now recognize he was a genius! He felt like a reject… and felt the church was the one who had rejected him. He no longer felt he could turn to the church for strength or support… and became estranged from the Lord of the Church as well… Jesus Himself becomes a stranger to this one who had once emulated him so completely.

Card then draws attention to the last church painting van Gogh ever made, not long before his death: the Church at Auvers. Card writes:

“What many art critics have commented on is not the swimming colors but the ominous lack of a doorway leading into the church. Vincent painted a church that no one could get into. Having tried all his life to work hard enough to ‘get in,’ it appears that he could not imagine, in this last image of the church, a door that might allow him, with his enormous load of pain, to enter in…. Together with the scarcity of references to Jesus in his last letters, the absence of the door in the painting reveals his most fundamental fear: that there is no way into the church and, even more agonizing, that there is no One waiting on the other side of the missing door.” (pp. 12-13)

Vincent van Gogh died on July 27, 1890, as a result of self-inflicted gunshot wounds from a suicide attempt two days earlier. His brother, Theo, was with him when he died, and reported Vincent’s last words were, translated: “the sadness will last forever.”

How many times do we, today’s church, share our opinions and our thoughts about the way someone else is doing their job in serving Christ? How many of those times are we alienating those very ones who love Christ and are trying to serve him? How many end up like Vincent van Gogh... carrying an overwhelming load of pain and feeling abandoned by Christ and the Church?

No small wonder that the author of Hebrews writes: “...encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.” (Hebrews 3:13, NIV)

Not everyone will agree with the way everyone else does stuff… not even in the church. But we can make sure that constantly show God’s love and compassion by encouraging one another… so that no one ever sees us as a church without a door.

Who can you encourage today?

Son Harvest County Fair

Vacation Bible School starts this evening! And the entire church (with the possible exception of my office) looks GREAT!!!! Decorations of a country style... The curriculum is called SON HARVEST COUNTY FAIR. A great portion of the week revolves around the idea of the Bible's listing of the Fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23)

Carlie Gritzer and her team (from here at First Church and across town from the CMA church of Reynoldsville) have done an AMAZING JOB!!!

I decided to join in the spirit of the week and have adopted the persona of "Sunny D" one of the fruit farmers that comes to the County Fair... Check out my new picture taken this morning in character...

Come visit us! 6:30 - 8:30 each evening Sunday 7/20 - Thursday 7/24 and then a celebration at our church camp on Friday night 7/25! Need more info? 814-653-8593

Tour Confirmed

I LOVE what our United Methodist Center staff does with their annual conference center tours for the confirmation classes. Interactive and informative, these tours consist more of meeting people and hearing THEIR story, than in touring a physical plant.

Yesterday was the day our kids went for their tour. We have about 10 adults and 13 youth working towards membership... unfortunately, only 7 youth and 2 adults were able to travel down with me on this particular day. We did the tour, hit Cokesbury, and then stopped at Grove City Outlets where they all got to pick their own lunch and then they got to shop for an hour before heading home.

A special thanks to the staff at the UM Center and to Ken & Sandy Reiter for helping us pull this trip off! What a GREAT day!!!!

Kudzu

One of my absolute favorite comic strips is KUDZU by Doug Marlette. In it, a teenaged boy in the South named Kudzu, learns about the world around him. There are different characters one might meet in a Southern small town, but my favorite is Rev. Will B. Dunn. Every so often he begins a prayer to the Almighty as "It's me, Lord, Thy Will B. Dunn..." I love it!

Our local newspaper doesn't carry this comic strip, so I subscribe online by email. CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE GO COMICS SITE AND SUBSCRIBE.

This southern pastor is Kudzu's confidante, coachs the church league sports teams, writes an advice-style "Ask the Preacher" column for his local paper, and he preaches, buries, marries, and counsels the variety of people in the town.

In any case, this is today's strip and here are a couple of others that are favorites of mine.