On my desk sits a folding photo frame with a picture of my two sons as young boys on one half. The other half of the frame contains a quote that reads, "A truly rich man is one whose children will run into his arms when his hands are empty." I am proud to say that I am a very rich man.
Love cannot be measured in terms of material goods or dollar value. Yet love that is offered in the form of acceptance, encouragement, openness, support, and time made available is priceless in anyone's eyes. Father's Day is very special when memories include these qualities.
A father's love does not always involve condoning. It does not always involve sparing pain. It does not always involve providing a ready source for personal and immediate gratification. In fact many times it is just the opposite. A father's love can include learning through hard and painful lessons. It can involve clarification of boundaries and limitations not easily accepted. It can involve teaching cost, consequences, accountability, and personal responsibility. Love at times can hurt everyone involved.
Our heavenly Father gives us the best example of love. He has always found a way to show grace. He has always found a way to offer forgiveness and redemption. He has always found a way that will allow the object of his love to become more than they were before.
The Father's love must be revealed in the home and in the church. His love reveals himself and his hopes for his creation. His love reveals his power to control and his refusal to intervene. His love reveals his demands and his grace. His love reveals his requirements and his own willingness to sacrifice.
A church must practice such fatherly love. A congregation exists to reach out and include. It cannot compomise the nature of the One whose blood and Spirit established it. Neither can it stand as judge over those whose Creator has accepted them.
A church must be willing to sacrifice the material and the traditional so that the Truth may shine brightly. The Truth is a Person. His love that led to personal sacrifice on a cross cannot be buried beneath demands that separate the individual from God. A church is not in business simply to offer material goods or financial gain. To the world its arms may often seem empty. But for those who are seeking the Father's kind of love, they must be able to see the arms of the church filled with his forgiving Presence.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Distractions
People aren't the only "things" that can get distracted from their primary purposes or goals. Churches get distracted. Associations get distracted. I suppose that conventions, state and national, can also get distracted.
Different people and different entities have their own unique distractions. What distracts me might not receive a passing glance from another individual. What will take one church along a course it never intended would not gain the attention of another congregation. What might make an association or convention suddenly take a strange, new road would be absent from the agenda of another.
I am firmly convinced that churches, and associations, can have ADD just as much as an individual. The overt and seemingly obvious causes may be as varied as the congregations. From my experience the root problem, however, remains the same. To be or not to be! We are most often distracted by a felt need to survive, and not only to survive, but unfortunately to survive in the same form we have existed throughout the recorded past.
Faithfulness in this world to the cause of Christ always involves risk. Taking risks invariably brings change. Sometimes that change might involve deciding that survival holds a low priority level. Faithfulness takes focus. Thinking in worldly terms can easily distract a church from the faithfulness that is demanded. We are caught in attention deficit because the influences around us appear to be greater, brighter, more acceptable, more threatening, or more powerful than our prior commitments. We suffer spiritual ADD and we are thrown back into survival mode.
Churches can be distracted by the material concerns of buildings and property. They can be distracted by the numerical concerns of attendance and budgets. They can even be distracted by baptisms to the extent that they feel getting someone wet is the end all and neglect the part of the Great Commission that says, "teach them to observe (obey) all that I have commanded you."
Associations can also be guilty of distractions leading them away from their primary purpose. An association is not a local body of believers. It should not try to act like one. An association has become distracted if it begins to operate as a local church, trying to provide activities and ministries which need the context and personal involvement of a local congregation. In some measure the association should be equipping the local churches as surely as the ministerial leadership in a local church should be equipping the saints there. The local church should be the primary context of Kingdom work rather than the association or any other larger organization.
Vision/mission statements do have their place particularly for those of us as individuals or as organizations who have shown the tendency to be distracted from our calling. The Apostle Paul was adamant about his focus. He knew he could be distracted (Acts 16:16-18; Rom. 7:15-19; Gal. 6:17). Therefore several times in one form or another, he mentions his life focus and what he was willing to do to maintain that focus (Acts 20:24; Rom. 9:26-27; I Cor. 2:2; Phil. 3:13-14).
One church in New York City used a very simple technique to avoid some of the dangers of spiritual distraction. Each year on the anniversary date of their founding, they would read their mission statement as a part of their worship service. As a congregation they would recommit themselves to their purpose for existence. They refused to allow themselves to become distracted.
This would be good advice for every church, and every Christian with a life mission. Associations should regularly review why they exist and make sure every member church is also reminded. This world makes it very easy to lose focus as organizations.
Perhaps our churches, and our associations, would become more effective by recognizing that avoiding distractions can never be a one time action. Forget survival. It's overrated. None of us were intended to last forever on this earth anyway, people or institutions. Rather focus on the richness of our calling to be salt, light, and leaven in the world. If we have to empty the salt shaker or run out the batteries to do so, so what? God has something better waiting for us anyway. Take the risk. Give all you've got. Don't get distracted. Whatever it takes, it's worth it.
Different people and different entities have their own unique distractions. What distracts me might not receive a passing glance from another individual. What will take one church along a course it never intended would not gain the attention of another congregation. What might make an association or convention suddenly take a strange, new road would be absent from the agenda of another.
I am firmly convinced that churches, and associations, can have ADD just as much as an individual. The overt and seemingly obvious causes may be as varied as the congregations. From my experience the root problem, however, remains the same. To be or not to be! We are most often distracted by a felt need to survive, and not only to survive, but unfortunately to survive in the same form we have existed throughout the recorded past.
Faithfulness in this world to the cause of Christ always involves risk. Taking risks invariably brings change. Sometimes that change might involve deciding that survival holds a low priority level. Faithfulness takes focus. Thinking in worldly terms can easily distract a church from the faithfulness that is demanded. We are caught in attention deficit because the influences around us appear to be greater, brighter, more acceptable, more threatening, or more powerful than our prior commitments. We suffer spiritual ADD and we are thrown back into survival mode.
Churches can be distracted by the material concerns of buildings and property. They can be distracted by the numerical concerns of attendance and budgets. They can even be distracted by baptisms to the extent that they feel getting someone wet is the end all and neglect the part of the Great Commission that says, "teach them to observe (obey) all that I have commanded you."
Associations can also be guilty of distractions leading them away from their primary purpose. An association is not a local body of believers. It should not try to act like one. An association has become distracted if it begins to operate as a local church, trying to provide activities and ministries which need the context and personal involvement of a local congregation. In some measure the association should be equipping the local churches as surely as the ministerial leadership in a local church should be equipping the saints there. The local church should be the primary context of Kingdom work rather than the association or any other larger organization.
Vision/mission statements do have their place particularly for those of us as individuals or as organizations who have shown the tendency to be distracted from our calling. The Apostle Paul was adamant about his focus. He knew he could be distracted (Acts 16:16-18; Rom. 7:15-19; Gal. 6:17). Therefore several times in one form or another, he mentions his life focus and what he was willing to do to maintain that focus (Acts 20:24; Rom. 9:26-27; I Cor. 2:2; Phil. 3:13-14).
One church in New York City used a very simple technique to avoid some of the dangers of spiritual distraction. Each year on the anniversary date of their founding, they would read their mission statement as a part of their worship service. As a congregation they would recommit themselves to their purpose for existence. They refused to allow themselves to become distracted.
This would be good advice for every church, and every Christian with a life mission. Associations should regularly review why they exist and make sure every member church is also reminded. This world makes it very easy to lose focus as organizations.
Perhaps our churches, and our associations, would become more effective by recognizing that avoiding distractions can never be a one time action. Forget survival. It's overrated. None of us were intended to last forever on this earth anyway, people or institutions. Rather focus on the richness of our calling to be salt, light, and leaven in the world. If we have to empty the salt shaker or run out the batteries to do so, so what? God has something better waiting for us anyway. Take the risk. Give all you've got. Don't get distracted. Whatever it takes, it's worth it.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Remember Me
I am forced to admit that each time I read the final words of the thief on the cross (Luke 23.42), my eyes well up in tears. Here is a plea for one to live on at least in someone's memory when no such existence is deserved. It is a plea that should touch every heart and before God be uttered by every heart. "Remember me" is one of the most human phrases in our language.
Memorial Day has become one of three days in our American calendars on which we remember those who "gave the last full measure of devotion". As others have said, we need to remember that all gave some and some gave all so that we can enjoy freedom as few people on earth do or ever have. We repeat this call to remember on Independence Day in July and again on Veterans' Day in November. As one who can look back through his ancestry and see the record of family members who fought in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War (both Blue and Gray!), World War II, and in the Viet Nam conflict, I can with a certain measure of pride say that these have done what they felt was right for their country/state for well over 300 years.
At the same time I look at the calendars of our churches and the celebrations of remembrance by their members, and I see little that reflects any recall of the heroes of our faith, the martyrs who have watered the tree of divine, sacrificial love with their own blood. The Voice of the Martyrs (persecution.com) estimates 150,000 to 175,000 believers lose their lives each year because they carry the label of Christian. In most publicized cases this occurs in areas of northern Africa, the Middle East, and southern Asia. Yet it also occurs in many other nations where a Christian influence is seen as a threat to the reigning powers.
The second Sunday of November is set aside as the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. Let our society remember those who paid the greatest price to maintain the freedom of our country. Let us as individuals remember with words of comfort and deeds of support those families whose brave soldiers will live on only in their memory. Let us also take time to remember those who lay down their lives standing for the Kingdom of God. Jim Elliot's (martyred missionary in South America) words are wise for all, "He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."
Memorial Day has become one of three days in our American calendars on which we remember those who "gave the last full measure of devotion". As others have said, we need to remember that all gave some and some gave all so that we can enjoy freedom as few people on earth do or ever have. We repeat this call to remember on Independence Day in July and again on Veterans' Day in November. As one who can look back through his ancestry and see the record of family members who fought in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War (both Blue and Gray!), World War II, and in the Viet Nam conflict, I can with a certain measure of pride say that these have done what they felt was right for their country/state for well over 300 years.
At the same time I look at the calendars of our churches and the celebrations of remembrance by their members, and I see little that reflects any recall of the heroes of our faith, the martyrs who have watered the tree of divine, sacrificial love with their own blood. The Voice of the Martyrs (persecution.com) estimates 150,000 to 175,000 believers lose their lives each year because they carry the label of Christian. In most publicized cases this occurs in areas of northern Africa, the Middle East, and southern Asia. Yet it also occurs in many other nations where a Christian influence is seen as a threat to the reigning powers.
The second Sunday of November is set aside as the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. Let our society remember those who paid the greatest price to maintain the freedom of our country. Let us as individuals remember with words of comfort and deeds of support those families whose brave soldiers will live on only in their memory. Let us also take time to remember those who lay down their lives standing for the Kingdom of God. Jim Elliot's (martyred missionary in South America) words are wise for all, "He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."
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