Category: personal

We are up to the hilt advocates of peace, and we earnestly war against war. I wish that Christian men would insist more and more on the unrighteousness of war, believing that Christianity means no sword, no cannon, no bloodshed, and that, if a nation is driven to fight in its own defense, Christianity stands by to weep and to intervene as soon as possible, and not to join in the cruel shouts which celebrate an enemy’s slaughter. Let us always be on the side of right. Today, then, my brethren, I beg you to join with me in seeking renewal.

(From An All-Round Ministry, a college address in 1880)

I’m just posting this here for my neo-reformed friends who love Charles Spurgeon but also seem to be very often pro-war.

If you profess Jesus as Lord then you profess an Ancient Near Eastern Jew to be the King of Kings and Creator and Sustainer of the universe and Lord of your life. Because of the Christian belief in the incarnation He will also always be Jewish. The Father and Spirit might be without race but the Incarnate Word was Jewish and remains Jewish. He didn’t give up His race when He was raised from the dead for the resurrection was just that … a resurrection. It wasn’t some purely spiritual thing. It was bodily resurrection. Jesus ate and allowed people to touch Him. He was still incarnate as a dark-skinned man and when He ascended into the presence of the Father He did so in that same body. So it makes no sense what so ever for a Christian to ever be racist or support white-supremacy.

Yet I know it happens.

We’ve all seen it happen.

But I still have hope because I believe the good news here is that the church continues to grow in its understanding of what our faith means. At one time the majority of the church supported slavery, but slowly the teachings of Jesus so convicted disciples of Christ that slowly but surely the church turned away from slavery and helped society to do so too.

Martin Luther King paraphrased a sermon of the Reverend Theodore Parker with the following famous line. “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” As King I believe that Jesus is reshaping the world away from its sinfulness and brokenness. One day He will finalize that redemption. Until that day we our lives should continually “bend toward justice”. Over the past century some parts of the church in the US have done better than other parts in understanding this. For example, that modern revolutionary Presbyterian minister Fred Rogers is a great example of racially bending toward justice.

And other parts of the church have been slower on the uptake here. My own denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, is an example of being slow in bending toward racial justice. Still the teachings of Jesus bend toward justice and that changes those who are honestly trying to follow Him. I am reminded of this when I often see prominent leaders within my denomination say things that I know will cost them with some people but continue to help us to “bend” as a denomination.

For example, Beth Moore

And Ed Stetzer

The arc is really long and I can’t see with my own eyes where it actually ends in justice. That horizon is simply too far away for my eyes to see. But I believe I know the dark-skinned One Who stands at the end of that arc and I believe slowly but surely He changes things in His church. I want to work towards the justice that I believe He bends the universe toward.

So let me state this as plainly as I can. If you profess Jesus as Lord and you hold racist views or vocally or non-vocally support white-supremacy then you are, at best, an idiot. At worst you are sinning and participating with the demonic. When I have done this I also have been an idiot. Thankfully I believe in a dark-skinned messiah Who forgives us our idiotic, at best, and sinful/demonic, at worst, ways, and our salvation rest in His faithfulness not ours. Still we are idiots when we hold or support racist views and actions.

Don’t be an idiot. Don’t be racist. Don’t support white-supremacy. Be like Mr. Rogers.

Ok this won’t actually be an ode, 1st because without looking it up I’m not exactly sure what an “ode” is (I just did. An ode is “a lyric poem in the form of an address to a particular subject, often elevated in style or manner and written in varied or irregular meter.”), and 2nd, now that I know what an ode is I also know that I don’t have the skill to write an ode (yes Pamela I hear you “anyone can’t write an ode if they just put themselves to the effort and don’t judge themselves for not writing like John Keats”).

Nope I just liked the sound of the phrase “An Ode to Small Churches” and thought I would use in the title of this post concerning how I love small churches. So let me start with this statement, I LOVE SMALL CHURCHES! In particular I LOVE MY SMALL CHURCH!

At one point in my life my idea of ministry was bigger and better.

I often heard the statement “healthy things grow” as the measure for success. The mindset being that if you are faithful as church you will grow in numbers. I seriously bought into this mindset. If your ministry was effective your church WAS GOING TO GROW.

The problem with the statement “healthy things grow” is manifold, but here are a couple of problems I initially have with the analogy: 1st it nullifies some of our true examples of successful ministry, the greatest of which is Jesus’ ministry. Jesus’s ministry probably peaked with Him having around 25,000 followers (This is an estimate derived from the feeding of the 5,000 and guesstimating the women and children who would have also have been followers) to around 500 followers right after His resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:6). In Jesus’s case healthy ministry shrank. 2nd the analogy doesn’t work in nature either. Healthy things only grow to maturity, if they continue to grow they aren’t healthy. Gigantism is a significant health issue. Organisms grow past their systemic capability and the organism sufferers as a result. We may still be enamored with such growth in organism (who doesn’t love photos of the world’s largest dog?), but we need to make sure and not mistake gigantism for being healthy – it isn’t healthy, it is suffering. Healthy things mature and maturity in nature implies a cessation of growth at least in size.

Please don’t hear this as a “megachurches” are bad rant. They aren’t. I was a part of a megachurch at one point in my ministry and I thought it was a great church. All I am saying is that megachurches shouldn’t be the goal. We need them and some people relate better to them, but that is simply a different style of church, not a better style of church. Small churches are different and that difference offers up some real advantages. Advantages that I love.

I think of megachurches and small churches as being like Starbucks and Ruby Coffee. Starbucks can do things that Ruby can’t. There are opportunities, especially of efficiency, with megachurches/big business. But there are also opportunities that Ruby has that Starbucks doesn’t, or small boutique businesses versus Walmart. I prefer small boutique businesses because of their advantages, other prefer Walmart. Both are fine by me. The same is true with small churches compared to large churches. Both have their opportunities. One isn’t necessarily better than the other. I think we should celebrate those opportunities, rather than the definition of success being that a church become a large church. This is one of the reasons that I loved that Mike Yaconelli, one of my heroes, used to describe his church as “the slowest growing church in America.” He celebrated the opportunities that came from his church being small, rather than striving for it to become “successful” (i.e. a big church).

So here are a few things that I love about our small church:

• Over the past week I know of at least 1/3 of the “threads” helping someone with significant service. This is the past week, not counting the week before when we had a major storm, when I know even more people were helping others. This was stuff that was organized by the organization church. Nope this was the members of the body making phone calls and sending texts to set something up themselves to help some. That’s a big deal. When I was at Parkview Baptist Church in Baton Rouge at its largest 1/3 of the attenders would have equaled 700 serving on their own initiative without the pastoral staff organizing a service event. Such numbers would have thrilled us.
• We were supposed to have a baptism gathering two weeks ago. The whole gathering was focused around these baptisms. Three days before the gathering an emergency came up and we had to rearrange everything on the fly. Know whose “panties got in a wad” over the change in plans? Absolutely no one’s, because this is what you do in a small community. The community is more important that the program.
• People can and do interrupt me during the message to ask questions, add something, or sometimes disagree and nobody ever thinks anything of it. I was at a large conference where someone once tried to ask a question and that question was shot down immediately. I was also at a service where a person went into cardiac arrest and the service continued while the person’s needs were taken care of. You know what would happen at most small churches if someone had a cardiac arrest during the service? Everything would shut down and focus on the needs of the person and his/her family.
• In the past year over half of the church has led in one form or another during our worship gatherings. This includes singing, preaching, reading scripture, playing instruments, etc.
• Here’s one that may seem different. I believe there is often more diversity at smaller churches. Small churches need everyone that is a part of them, so small churches often put up with a great deal more difference and uniqueness than larger churches. At a larger church if someone is different from you then you can just avoid them. At a small church that isn’t possible. At a small church you get used to the other person’s idiosyncrasies and love them for and in spite of them. “He’s not weird, that’s just Robert, we all know what he is like and love him.” I love the diversity that this leads to in Tapestry. We have people that are very different from each other in everything except for Jesus.
• Small churches are often noisy. This might sound like a bad thing but I think it is lovely. I love the fact that our gatherings are full of the normal noises of life. Babies crying, whispered jokes, bibles dropped, etc., etc. Sometimes there might so few people that you can actually hear someone’s stomach growl. You can’t avoid noise in a small church because there aren’t enough people to hide it. A large churches often try to shape the service to avoid distractions and “usher in God’s presence”, small churches remember that God is already present in the noise of everyday life because whether you want it to be or not there will be noise in a small church gathering. Our God is too big to be chased away by a stray sound.
• Because of our small groups I know that almost half the people at one of our normal Sunday gatherings have read at least the whole New Testament. That’s a huge percentage of the church and makes for some good interruptions during the message.

There are many other reasons that I won’t get into (we have homemade snacks at our welcome table, if something goes wrong a “thread” just gets up and fixes it, our kids regularly get to be a part of worship – from drumming during the music, to singing into mics that may or may not be plugged into the board) etc., etc., etc.) concerning why I love the small church that I get to lead. And again this isn’t putting down large churches. I am really thankful that there are large church for people to go to that need a large church. All I am saying is that rather than small churches being looked at as merely future large churches or failing, we should recognize that small is beautiful and often they are one of the best places for genuine maturity to happen.

Small churches are beautiful and this is a good thing since 60% of the churches in the US have less than 100 people actively involved in them.

I love my beautiful small church.

Pam and I were raised in and the boys spent their early years in hurricane country and yet last week was the first time I have ever had a house substantially damaged by a storm. Last Saturday we had straight-line winds that reached around 90 mph (which I now know is called a Derechos wind storm) and they tore down a healthy 75′ white pine which thought it would be a good idea to plop down on our garage and house. White pines are not known for their wisdom in finding places to lay down. So basically the garage is destroyed, but thankfully no one was hurt, the house itself is barely damaged, and we have insurance.

Noah and I blame the whole incident on the fact that we were watching “Boss Baby” on Netflix while the storm was going on. Darn you Alec Baldwin!!!!!! I can’t help but think that if we had been watching “The Outlaw Josey Wales” this would not have happened. The lesson here is never watch Boss Baby.

I’ve been a part of friends’ lives who have had similar, and much worse, situations, but I have never been through it personally. This past week I was reminded of how good my friends are. The day of the storm we had people just come over and help us. This doesn’t include the people who called and offered to help who Pam and I also very much appreciate. Nor does it include the people from out of state who reached out to make sure we were ok and even said to let them know if insurance didn’t cover something. We are surrounded by amazing friends and we are very thankful for y’all.

Thanks to those that showed up Saturday everything that could be moved by non-professionals was taken care of before evening came on the day of the storm. One of my neighbors had hired some landscapers to clean up his trees (he lost 6) and debris and I talked with them concerning coming over when they were done. There were 6 of them and they were charging $60/man hour (high but fair for the circumstances). We had so much help that I went back over to the landscapers and told them I wouldn’t need them, all the work they would have done was completed by friends who had come over to help us. Some of these were “threads” (Eric G is a beast with a chainsaw) and some from other churches. I know of many “threads” helping in other places and if you are interested I know of another spot in which we can help this week.

Unfortunately I also know of some circumstance were people tried to take advantage of the damage the storm caused. Unless my interactions in the near future change dramatically I will begin to steer people away from one local company because I don’t believe they have acted ethically. Charging 5 to 6 times your normal rate might be capitalistically good on the short-term but you probably lost one customer who would be using your service for the next 5 years and who loves to refer people to services he believes in.

Since last Saturday, and for the foreseeable future, we are now on the storm tourism tour. People stop in front of the house and take photos to send to others to convey what the storm was like. I get it because I have done it. I’m fine with it. Take your photos and be in awe of the power of God’s creation. Just please don’t pull into our driveway while we are working and stop us from working by trying to ask us questions to satisfy your curiosity (yes this happened). I’ve got work to do. If you would like to ask me about the storm I’ll gladly answer your questions if you put on a pair of gloves and start helping. Otherwise, just dry by slowing, pause briefly, and take your photos. Sorry, my grumpy old man side is peaking out.

Anyhow, as I said above, Pam and I have great friends and we are very appreciative for all of y’all.

Sunday morning at Tapestry I spoke out of Luke 22:47-53. In that passage three people/groups performed actions that looked one way but actually lived out the opposite.

• Judas looked like he honored Jesus with a kiss, but he actually betrayed Jesus
• Peter thought he was defending Jesus, but he actually did the opposite of what the Prince of Peace wanted.
• The leaders thought they were protecting Israel from a rebellion, but they were actually delivering Israel into the moment into darkness.

Looking or sounding pious is much easier than actually being pious. Faithfulness is the result of lots of small choices that point toward the One you have faith in. It is always easier to make grand proclamations than to actually live out the commitments that those proclamations concern.

I recently heard a on a podcast or read in an article (I can’t remember which) that every choice has pain and reward within it, and whichever comes later (the pain or reward) is usually the greater. So If I chose to abstain from donuts in the morning I face the pain of not enjoying the deliciousness that is a cream dunker, but I receive the reward of better health. That reward lasts longer than the brief pain of not tasting that little piece of deep fried heaven. Or if I chose to not cleanup after myself I receive the reward of a little rest, but the pain of a bigger mess to clean up later on. It is the old delayed gratification thing, one of the most valuable lessons any of us can learn.

I believe this fits into faithfulness:

It is easy to say something is most important to you, it is different to actually live like it is important to you. For example:

• Many people say family is most important to them …. few make the daily decisions to put their family ahead of themselves.
• Many people say they have found the love of their life … few make choices that actually put that love first.
• Many people dive into hobbies … few people put in the years necessary to actually become good at the hobby.
• Many post memes and images reflecting that they care deeply for a cause … few actually make choices that reflect that care.
• Many say they faith in Jesus shapes them … few actually let that faith shape their daily lives.
• Etc., etc., etc.

None of this means that the proclamations aren’t good, just that they aren’t really the goal. The goal should be faithfulness. Proclamations, bold gestures, symbolic activity, and specifically religious actions are good when they help us to be or become faithful. The good ones do this, when they are used properly.

I think faithfulness is partially why I like dogs better than cats. You know that cats would be all about bold proclamations that only lasted as long as the proclamation was helpful for the cat. ‘I love you when you scratch my chin. NOW STOP!!!!!!” Whereas a dog is going to be faithful. “You’re going to walk over there? Oh okay I’ll wake up and walk over there too.” Don’t get me wrong, I like our cats. I probably just don’t like your cats. Whereas I probably love your dog.

Anyhow I hope I make choices that lead to faithfulness. I know I usually want to do so.