what a weekend...

it was a weekend of...

• tracing memories that elicit smiles,

• enjoying much good and edifying family togetherness and interaction,

• gorging ourselves on loads of great food,

• relishing the most perfect november weather one could wish for,

• living and dying with all the ups and downs of an amazing football game,

• wiping away the tears of realizing that this is the last time we'll attend a sporting event on a home field for one of our children,

• swelling up with pride for all that our son is becoming, and continuing to pray that he and our other children will find themselves, through christ, established in life, established in faith, and filled with love for what is good,
  

• being grateful for family and friends that have supported and encouraged us throughout the years,

• worshiping with gratitude on sunday and praising the true and living god, who created all things good and gave them to us to enjoy with thanksgiving.

"For what God gives I thank indeed;
What He withholds I do not need."
(Martin Luther)

why you should be very scared...

some folks think i'm too hard on the evangelical church at times, but i was referred to something recently that sent me into a funk of untold depths.

i will not mention the name of the author or where i found what he wrote. suffice it to say that these are the words of a "pastor," who from all appearances is a fairly typical contemporary evangelical church-planting leader. for reasons i don't know, he is no longer on his church staff or involved in vocational ministry. i'm not interested in besmirching his name or criticizing his church or anything like that. but i have to confess that when i read his list, my mouth dropped open in unbelieving amazement.

the title of his article refers to the move from being in church leadership to having to function in the "real world". in his piece he lists some of the lessons he has learned in this transition. i paraphrase some of his reflections...

• he testifies that, until he left the pastorate, he had absolutely no idea about the financial, job, and family pressures most of the people in the church were facing in their lives.

• he realized after leaving the ministry that getting up and preaching what people should do is easy, but living it out is not.

• he realized after no longer being in the pulpit that he will never preach a lot of his sermons because he sees now that it is not possible to actually live any of it out in real life.

• he apparently had no idea that he was asking too much of people to do all the volunteering he was asking for after they had worked long hours at work. by comparison, he realized how little he himself had been working while on a church staff.

• he testifies that, when he was a pastor, he truly had no idea how many hurting people there are in the world.

• as a pastor, he really didn't know that a lot of people actually hate the church.

• now he realizes that as a pastor, he completely shielded himself from criticism, something he cannot do now that he's in the real world.

• he confesses how much he really looked down on women and was sexually inappropriate in his thoughts, words, and perspectives.

• he has now learned the value of the apology. as a pastor, he would never have said, "i'm sorry," because he thought he always had to be right.

• he had a lot of fake friendships when he was a pastor.

• now he's thinking that it will take a different kind of church to reach a community. when he finds out what it is, he will get back into trying to start one.

i'm practically speechless. this guy called himself a "pastor"? for heaven's sake, i think i would have known more than this as a new christian fresh out of paganism 35 years ago!

where did this guy get his training? who affirmed his calling and authorized him to stand in front of people and open the bible? did anyone ever check his theology? his ideas about what it means to minister to people?

it's obvious he never visited a parishioner at home—never even considered people who attended his church parishioners in the first place! probably never darkened the door of a hospital room. surely he never prayed at the bedside of the dying. did he ever pray with anyone? about any real life issue? did he ever stop planning cool church events long enough to listen to any real person? it's obvious to me that this guy was doing his own thing from the start and was as clueless as homer simpson about what it means to be a church leader, especially a pastor.

if this is the state of the "pastorate" today, may god have mercy on us all.


today's van gogh
two thistles, 1888

the cruelest month...

t. s. eliot was wrong—it is not april, but november.

it is november that sucks the color out of the world.

it is november that brutally strips the brilliant textured sweater off the tree and leaves it naked, shivering against the gray, cold wind.

it is november, when sky becomes steel, earth becomes stone, grass a wire brush, breath fog, each day a more rapidly drawn shade.

it is november, when time changes, and daytime suddenly drops into darkness before our supper is prepared.

it is november, when baseball ends, gloves are oiled, grass is covered, and stadiums sit silent and empty, too bleak even for ghosts to want to have a catch.

it is november, when the porch is stripped of furniture, the hose and bird bath put up lest they crack, the gutters emptied of fallen sky, a stretch of street with yards forsaken like the dormitory hall at lights out.

it is november, all gray and brown.

it is november, hangover after the harvest party, period of mourning after autumn's exquisite expiration.

it is november, the time between—between the joy of ingathering and the wonder of incarnation—when darkness gathers, unwilling yet to be dispelled.

the month, of course, has its joys but they are humble—smell of wood smoke rising, tears for the young gone off to war, college football's rivalry games and the beginning of basketball, a homely and heartwarming feast of thanksgiving, the quiet inauguration of advent and a new year to live within god's story.

three of the most wonderful women in my life have birthdays in november—my mother, my wife, and my oldest daughter. this november will mark the final season of watching my children play on sporting fields, as my oldest son completes his college football career. life will move more and more inside closed walls. we'll begin rehearsing our annual worries about how to keep the heating bill down and what we're going to do for the holidays. the shivering begins.

november is the cruelest month. between time, gray and brown, it sucks the color out of the world.

Yea, I have looked, and seen November there;
The changeless seal of change it seemed to be,
Fair death of things that, living once, were fair;
Bright sign of loneliness too great for me,
Strange image of the dread eternity,
In whose void patience how can these have part,
These outstretched feverish hands, this restless heart?

William Morris, "November"

today's van gogh
lane in autumn, 1884

the weekly discussion—november 1

feeling "left behind"? yesterday we had a stimulating discussion in our adult class about eschatology, the teaching of the end times. it was all saints day, and the subject fitting. i have had a long and winding journey through the eschatological landscape.

• my early christian training through bible college was of the dispensational, "left behind" variety; you know—first the pretrib rapture, then the tribulation, rule of the antichrist, the second coming, 1000-year reign of christ (millennium), loosing of satan, white throne judgment, lake of fire, new heavens and new earth.

• in seminary i moved more toward a "classic premillennial" position. christians go through the tribulation. some of the other stuff perhaps not so clear.

• now i embrace amillennialism. christ is reigning now, in the heavens and in his people, inaugurating the Kingdom in this world here and now. when he returns at the end of the age, he will judge the living and the dead and put all things to rights in a new heavens and new earth.

what has your journey been as you have considered what the bible says about the future? and where are you now? how have the churches of which you've been a part handled this area of doctrine?


today's van gogh
starry night over the rhone, 1888

the lord's day—november 1

22nd sunday after pentecost
all saints

today's lectionary readings
(readings for all saints)
Isaiah 25:6-9
Psalm 24
Revelation 21:1-6a
John 11:32-44

today's bach cantatas
bwv 109, "i believe, lord, help my unbelief!"
bwv 38, "out of the depths i cry to thee"
bwv 98, "what god does, that is done well"
bwv 188, "i have put my trust"

today's van gogh
the church at auvers, 1890

today's good news
i wait all year for this sunday, so that i can join in singing one of my favorite hymns:

For all the saints, who from their labors rest,
Who Thee by faith before the world confessed,
Thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

Thou wast their Rock, their Fortress and their Might;
Thou, Lord, their Captain in the well fought fight;
Thou, in the darkness drear, their one true Light.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

For the Apostles’ glorious company,
Who bearing forth the Cross o’er land and sea,
Shook all the mighty world, we sing to Thee:
Alleluia, Alleluia!

For the Evangelists, by whose blest word,
Like fourfold streams, the garden of the Lord,
Is fair and fruitful, be Thy Name adored.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

For Martyrs, who with rapture kindled eye,
Saw the bright crown descending from the sky,
And seeing, grasped it, Thee we glorify.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

O blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
All are one in Thee, for all are Thine.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

O may Thy soldiers, faithful, true and bold,
Fight as the saints who nobly fought of old,
And win with them the victor’s crown of gold.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,
Steals on the ear the distant triumph song,
And hearts are brave, again, and arms are strong.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

The golden evening brightens in the west;
Soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest;
Sweet is the calm of paradise the blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

But lo! there breaks a yet more glorious day;
The saints triumphant rise in bright array;
The King of glory passes on His way.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

From earth’s wide bounds, from ocean’s farthest coast,
Through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,
And singing to Father, Son and Holy Ghost:
Alleluia, Alleluia!

Words by William W. How, 1864; Music by Ralph Vaughn-Williams, 1906

these words remind me that i walk with christ in living communion, and not only with him, but also with his immense family of "faithful witnesses"—those who have gone before in time (hebrews 12.1), as well as those who dwell in all places around the world (1corinthians 1.2).