They call it Discipleship.
One writer penned: Discipleship is the intensely personal activity of two or more persons helping each other experience a growing relationship with God. Discipleship is being before doing, maturity before ministry, character before career.
My intention is to focus intensely on the process of discipleship during the next 8 weeks. My hope is that through study, godly counsel, conversations with our friends, and much prayer, that I can devise a discipleship strategy for New Hope that will radically improve what we are doing.
I'll be looking at the efforts of Willow Creek, Saddleback, Northpoint, Fellowship, Perimeter and the like. But I'll also be reading Wesley and Calvin.
We must get better.
Monday, October 30, 2006
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Just An Ordinary Sunday
It's just an ordinary Sunday.
We'll meet at the same old time, in the same old place, and may very well leave the same old people.
Or, there could be fire!
One family comes having been apart for two weeks and taking a first step toward reconciliation.
Another comes with heavy hearts knowing a brother is quickly fading away.
A teen wonders if life will get any better.
Two pews back, and 80 year old, without his wife for two years now wonders the same.
And I, praying like mad, desperate for God's power to be revealed...
preach, believing.
We'll meet at the same old time, in the same old place, and may very well leave the same old people.
Or, there could be fire!
One family comes having been apart for two weeks and taking a first step toward reconciliation.
Another comes with heavy hearts knowing a brother is quickly fading away.
A teen wonders if life will get any better.
Two pews back, and 80 year old, without his wife for two years now wonders the same.
And I, praying like mad, desperate for God's power to be revealed...
preach, believing.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
It's Always Something
My friend Randy Mathews and I used to work together almost every day of the week. We were just two of the 66,000 or so employees of Procter and Gamble, but there were times when we went at that work with a ferocity that would have made you think it all depended on us. Either of us could share stories to attest to that.
There were the times we'd leave Macon at 4:15 in the morning to be at Piggly Wiggly HQ in the sweet onion capital of the world, Vidalia GA. Or the time it was 6 degrees below zero, our company cars wouldn't start, and we made our rounds in his 1969 Skylark - vinyl roof flapping in the cold breeze. The "world's largest display of shampoo" or the "world's first color newspaper ad for Pepto Bismol" - that was us.
Randy was a born salesman. He was at his best around people. Sometimes I'd cringe at how outgoing he was. One of the things he'd do that would drive me crazy was that he would wish everyone "Merry Christmas" - ALL YEAR ROUND! But his sense of humor somehow just had to keep things stirred up - so people couldn't ignore him. He was a faithful member of his church, a good father and husband. Just a great guy.
I left Procter and Gamble after 9 years to pursue this calling, and Randy continued on. We moved down here and I lost touch with Randy. I had heard that he was on disability, but didn't know why, unless the dozens of NuWay hot dogs we ate or those "fresh french fries" he used to order had finally caught up with him.
When my father passed away, Randy wrote his condolences on the newspaper's tribute site. I saw that and replied. Randy told me he wasn't doing well, and asked me to pray for him. I wrote back and asked him to tell me more. It turns out that my friend has had two heart procedures and three spinal surgeries. He's in constant pain. And recently they've told him that unless he has another operation, he might lose his eyesight. I wrote him back expressing my disbelief and sorrow over what has happened and he replied "It's always something."
Sigh...
Do you remember the shortest verse in the Bible?
Ok, then do you remember the story it comes out of?
Jesus came back to Bethany, with a worried and puzzled group of disciples, only to be greeted by a woman wracked by grief. His friend Lazarus was dead.
Then He went out to Lazarus' grave,
and the second person of the Trinity,
He Who was and is to come,
the maker of everything that there is
- was rocked by His emotions.
The writer simply pens, "Jesus wept."
The people there that day made an assumption. That Jesus was grieving for what had happened.
What if Jesus was grieving for what was to happen - not just for Lazarus, but for Randy, for you and me, for every one of us who suffers?
Maybe the One Who gave His life for us was grieving, not because Lazarus was dead, but because the sin that entered the world with Adam's fall means we will all know heartbreak and loss - and it didn't have to be that way.
Jesus said as much, remember?
Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows.
And yet it is what He said next that can give everyone who believes in Jesus hope.
But take heart, because I have overcome the world." John 16:33 (NLT)
Our hope, our comfort, our ability to find peace in the midst of trials and sorrows can only be found in Jesus.
Yes, it's always something.
But thank God there's always someone - Jesus - Who is near.
Grace!
David Wilson
My friend Randy Mathews and I used to work together almost every day of the week. We were just two of the 66,000 or so employees of Procter and Gamble, but there were times when we went at that work with a ferocity that would have made you think it all depended on us. Either of us could share stories to attest to that.
There were the times we'd leave Macon at 4:15 in the morning to be at Piggly Wiggly HQ in the sweet onion capital of the world, Vidalia GA. Or the time it was 6 degrees below zero, our company cars wouldn't start, and we made our rounds in his 1969 Skylark - vinyl roof flapping in the cold breeze. The "world's largest display of shampoo" or the "world's first color newspaper ad for Pepto Bismol" - that was us.
Randy was a born salesman. He was at his best around people. Sometimes I'd cringe at how outgoing he was. One of the things he'd do that would drive me crazy was that he would wish everyone "Merry Christmas" - ALL YEAR ROUND! But his sense of humor somehow just had to keep things stirred up - so people couldn't ignore him. He was a faithful member of his church, a good father and husband. Just a great guy.
I left Procter and Gamble after 9 years to pursue this calling, and Randy continued on. We moved down here and I lost touch with Randy. I had heard that he was on disability, but didn't know why, unless the dozens of NuWay hot dogs we ate or those "fresh french fries" he used to order had finally caught up with him.
When my father passed away, Randy wrote his condolences on the newspaper's tribute site. I saw that and replied. Randy told me he wasn't doing well, and asked me to pray for him. I wrote back and asked him to tell me more. It turns out that my friend has had two heart procedures and three spinal surgeries. He's in constant pain. And recently they've told him that unless he has another operation, he might lose his eyesight. I wrote him back expressing my disbelief and sorrow over what has happened and he replied "It's always something."
Sigh...
Do you remember the shortest verse in the Bible?
Ok, then do you remember the story it comes out of?
Jesus came back to Bethany, with a worried and puzzled group of disciples, only to be greeted by a woman wracked by grief. His friend Lazarus was dead.
Then He went out to Lazarus' grave,
and the second person of the Trinity,
He Who was and is to come,
the maker of everything that there is
- was rocked by His emotions.
The writer simply pens, "Jesus wept."
The people there that day made an assumption. That Jesus was grieving for what had happened.
What if Jesus was grieving for what was to happen - not just for Lazarus, but for Randy, for you and me, for every one of us who suffers?
Maybe the One Who gave His life for us was grieving, not because Lazarus was dead, but because the sin that entered the world with Adam's fall means we will all know heartbreak and loss - and it didn't have to be that way.
Jesus said as much, remember?
Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows.
And yet it is what He said next that can give everyone who believes in Jesus hope.
But take heart, because I have overcome the world." John 16:33 (NLT)
Our hope, our comfort, our ability to find peace in the midst of trials and sorrows can only be found in Jesus.
Yes, it's always something.
But thank God there's always someone - Jesus - Who is near.
Grace!
David Wilson
Friday, October 20, 2006
Counseling
The heartfelt counsel of a friend is as sweet as perfume and incense.
Prov 27:9 (NLT)
A pastor wears many hats. We are told to pay attention to the work of the Word and to prayer. We are to manage the church well. We are to equip the saints for the work of ministry. We're to exhort, rebuke, and encourage.
That's not an exhaustive list, but it can be an exhausting one.
The visible parts of ministry - preaching and teaching - have no where near the demands on your heart and soul as do the work with - struggles with and for - people do. Helping people through the trials of life is a great responsibility and challenge.
As I look back over years of ministry, I'd guess that 90% of people who come to me to talk about something they are struggling with actually have already decided what they will do about it and just want to talk and/or to be told that what they are doing is okay.
It's frustrating because I know that God has to be in total charge for them to receive His best not just during the trial but after. And so many only want it to be over. They want to cut and run. So they will tell me they are praying for God to show them what to do when they have already made up their mind, many times ignoring clear instruction from Scripture.
If you cannot get a grip on when the Word tells you - to flat out "do this" or "don't do that", then what do you expect me to do for you?
I cannot twist the universe's laws to fit your predispositions.
I cannot cause anything that has been done already to be removed from memory or consequences.
But if you come to God in repentance and humility, asking Him to cleanse and lead - He will.
Just do it.
/rant off :)
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Practice
"Love from the center of who you are; don't fake it.
Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good.
Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle. "
Romans 12:9-10 The Message
Every Wednesday night, Ethel Jemima, Emmeline aka Emma-lemon, Kylie Coyote, Kelsey-Jane, Aaroneous, Kater-Tot, Julietta Violetta, Brittania, Amanda Hug n' Kiss, Lulu HooHoo, Kira Ball, and the rest of the New Hope worship team come together to practice the following Sunday's worship. Oh - the names? Every person has a nickname - mine is "Preacher-creature".
They all come early to be a part of this team. The ages? From first grade up. And for one hour it is controlled chaos bathed in love. I've been in a few choirs, and watched a lot of practices. But I've never experienced anything like this.
Last night, we were working on one particular song, an old Appalachian one with beautiful harmony parts. E.J. aka (Ethel Jemima) Huston, a middle-schooler with a wonderfully strong and true voice, apparently had committed a mortal sin in a previous life, so she was exiled to working with me on the tenor part. At one point, Bunny told her to sing directly at my ear, hoping that by the sheer force of her voice, I might be coaxed into singing the harmony part correctly. She tried. I turned to her and said, "you know I can't hear in that ear, don't you?" We laughed and sang and laughed some more. She worked hard at helping me do better.
I looked around and everyone there was smiling. Each time one group went over their part, the other groups were rooting for them, hoping that they would improve. When they got it, cheers broke out.
As a pastor, what you want from the music is help in telling the story of our amazing God and His love for us. Music can do that well, but music can also turn into performance. People can become so proficient that they lose sight of why they sing.
Not with these guys. They sing out of love.
New Hope is such an amazing place. How many other churches would put children and young people in worship leadership? But we're growing a generation of worshipers and leaders here. I looked around tonight and realized that not only were these kids learning how to sing, but they were practicing something far more important. How to love one another.
Friends, living with people, loving them, and being willing to play second fiddle is part of God's plan for each of us.
We learn how to love by... (get ready... serious insight ahead....) loving.
So go practice. Practice loving people. You are on the worship team too.
"Love from the center of who you are; don't fake it.
Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good.
Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle. "
Romans 12:9-10 The Message
Every Wednesday night, Ethel Jemima, Emmeline aka Emma-lemon, Kylie Coyote, Kelsey-Jane, Aaroneous, Kater-Tot, Julietta Violetta, Brittania, Amanda Hug n' Kiss, Lulu HooHoo, Kira Ball, and the rest of the New Hope worship team come together to practice the following Sunday's worship. Oh - the names? Every person has a nickname - mine is "Preacher-creature".
They all come early to be a part of this team. The ages? From first grade up. And for one hour it is controlled chaos bathed in love. I've been in a few choirs, and watched a lot of practices. But I've never experienced anything like this.
Last night, we were working on one particular song, an old Appalachian one with beautiful harmony parts. E.J. aka (Ethel Jemima) Huston, a middle-schooler with a wonderfully strong and true voice, apparently had committed a mortal sin in a previous life, so she was exiled to working with me on the tenor part. At one point, Bunny told her to sing directly at my ear, hoping that by the sheer force of her voice, I might be coaxed into singing the harmony part correctly. She tried. I turned to her and said, "you know I can't hear in that ear, don't you?" We laughed and sang and laughed some more. She worked hard at helping me do better.
I looked around and everyone there was smiling. Each time one group went over their part, the other groups were rooting for them, hoping that they would improve. When they got it, cheers broke out.
As a pastor, what you want from the music is help in telling the story of our amazing God and His love for us. Music can do that well, but music can also turn into performance. People can become so proficient that they lose sight of why they sing.
Not with these guys. They sing out of love.
New Hope is such an amazing place. How many other churches would put children and young people in worship leadership? But we're growing a generation of worshipers and leaders here. I looked around tonight and realized that not only were these kids learning how to sing, but they were practicing something far more important. How to love one another.
Friends, living with people, loving them, and being willing to play second fiddle is part of God's plan for each of us.
We learn how to love by... (get ready... serious insight ahead....) loving.
So go practice. Practice loving people. You are on the worship team too.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
So Close But Yet... So Near
He was near God's house everyday. He led thousands in worship of the most High God. People looked up to him as an example of how to live a life that pleased God. He had it all together.
Read what he wrote:
1 I yell out to my God, I yell with all my might, I yell at the top of my lungs. He listens.
2-6 I found myself in trouble and went looking for my Lord;
my life was an open wound that wouldn't heal.
When friends said, "Everything will turn out all right,"
I didn't believe a word they said.
I remember God—and shake my head.
I bow my head—then wring my hands.
I'm awake all night—not a wink of sleep;
I can't even say what's bothering me.
I go over the days one by one,
I ponder the years gone by.
I strum my lute all through the night,
wondering how to get my life together. Psalm 77
Have you been there? Are you there now?
You are not alone.
Many of the people we all look up to as shining examples of faith go through periods where they doubt, where they wonder where their certainty went. The writer of this Psalm was the leader of music of the temple in Jerusalem - the place where the presence of God lived. He literally worked in God's House. And yet he wondered...
7-10 Will the Lord walk off and leave us for good?
Will he never smile again?
Is his love worn threadbare?
Has his salvation promise burned out?
Has God forgotten his manners?
Has he angrily stalked off and left us?
"Just my luck," I said. "The High God goes out of business
just the moment I need him."
"Just my luck.." - how real is that? We can read the Scriptures and take them into our hearts, but we are still a mass of emotions and feelings. We still can find ourselves groping in what seems like darkness when God's light shines all around us. So what do you do?
Review God's record. Take time to remember the ways He has blessed, the ways He has rescued us before.
11-12 Once again I'll go over what God has done,
lay out on the table the ancient wonders;
I'll ponder all the things you've accomplished,
and give a long, loving look at your acts.
13-15 O God! Your way is holy!
No god is great like God!
You're the God who makes things happen;
you showed everyone what you can do—
You pulled your people out of the worst kind of trouble,
rescued the children of Jacob and Joseph.
And repeat this to yourself.
Whatever God has ever done He can still do.
Whatever He has done anywhere, He can do where I am.
Whatever He has done for anyone, He can do for me.
I will trust Him.
Do not sell God short. Read the first line Asaph wrote again.
"I yell out to my God, I yell with all my might, I yell at the top of my lungs. He listens."
Yes He does. Take some time. Yell. Speak your heart to the God who listens- who knows your name. He's the One who'll make things right. He's done it before. He'll do it again.
He loves you.
Grace!
David Wilson
He was near God's house everyday. He led thousands in worship of the most High God. People looked up to him as an example of how to live a life that pleased God. He had it all together.
Read what he wrote:
1 I yell out to my God, I yell with all my might, I yell at the top of my lungs. He listens.
2-6 I found myself in trouble and went looking for my Lord;
my life was an open wound that wouldn't heal.
When friends said, "Everything will turn out all right,"
I didn't believe a word they said.
I remember God—and shake my head.
I bow my head—then wring my hands.
I'm awake all night—not a wink of sleep;
I can't even say what's bothering me.
I go over the days one by one,
I ponder the years gone by.
I strum my lute all through the night,
wondering how to get my life together. Psalm 77
Have you been there? Are you there now?
You are not alone.
Many of the people we all look up to as shining examples of faith go through periods where they doubt, where they wonder where their certainty went. The writer of this Psalm was the leader of music of the temple in Jerusalem - the place where the presence of God lived. He literally worked in God's House. And yet he wondered...
7-10 Will the Lord walk off and leave us for good?
Will he never smile again?
Is his love worn threadbare?
Has his salvation promise burned out?
Has God forgotten his manners?
Has he angrily stalked off and left us?
"Just my luck," I said. "The High God goes out of business
just the moment I need him."
"Just my luck.." - how real is that? We can read the Scriptures and take them into our hearts, but we are still a mass of emotions and feelings. We still can find ourselves groping in what seems like darkness when God's light shines all around us. So what do you do?
Review God's record. Take time to remember the ways He has blessed, the ways He has rescued us before.
11-12 Once again I'll go over what God has done,
lay out on the table the ancient wonders;
I'll ponder all the things you've accomplished,
and give a long, loving look at your acts.
13-15 O God! Your way is holy!
No god is great like God!
You're the God who makes things happen;
you showed everyone what you can do—
You pulled your people out of the worst kind of trouble,
rescued the children of Jacob and Joseph.
And repeat this to yourself.
Whatever God has ever done He can still do.
Whatever He has done anywhere, He can do where I am.
Whatever He has done for anyone, He can do for me.
I will trust Him.
Do not sell God short. Read the first line Asaph wrote again.
"I yell out to my God, I yell with all my might, I yell at the top of my lungs. He listens."
Yes He does. Take some time. Yell. Speak your heart to the God who listens- who knows your name. He's the One who'll make things right. He's done it before. He'll do it again.
He loves you.
Grace!
David Wilson
Friday, October 13, 2006
When You Are Draining the Swamp
Recently, on an online forum of pastors - an intimate group - I was led (by what or who I am not sure) to publicly state what I would love to see happen here at New Hope. My friends there are all men who have put a lot on the line to follow Jesus. I value, love, and trust them. And when they read what I had written, they got all excited for my "vision".
Then I wrote, "but it isn't going to happen." And all heck broke loose.
Since then, I've been pitied, prodded, questioned and one friend even wrote and asked "you okay?"
One fellow even worried about me spiraling down into inactivity. I laughed out loud when I read that. Here's the idea that got me pounded:
So I wrote, "Vision and reality are not always friends."
And the pounding began.
Yet the reality is that we cannot at this time even seriously contemplate such a dream. We're 200K in debt, only own 2.5 acres, have no worship leader and are thin everywhere else. Land here is $100K an acre when you can get someone to sell it, which is hard considering two families own almost all of it that hasn't been developed.
So am I faithless, a coward for not aggressively pursuing the idea?
No. I just don't have time to waste when people are in danger all around me. If I fixate on buildings, I'll lose the focus on changed lives. It's sort of like the old adage, "It's hard to remember your objective was to drain the swamp when you are up to your armpits in alligators."
If through that God gives me the opportunity to see my idea come to fruition, I'll leap at the chance. But right now, I'm building... people.
Then I wrote, "but it isn't going to happen." And all heck broke loose.
Since then, I've been pitied, prodded, questioned and one friend even wrote and asked "you okay?"
One fellow even worried about me spiraling down into inactivity. I laughed out loud when I read that. Here's the idea that got me pounded:
I think it is a "vision thing." Hadn't really given it much thought. When I came here, I drove into the parking lot and saw a Little League field 50 ft away, and an elementary school 300 ft away. So I figured we should try to grow through reaching kids and partnering with those guys.So I was saying that my goal was changed lives. To reach into the homes through the kids and partnerships with the networks around us. Then I mentioned "If I had unlimited funds..." and the natives went nuts. They seized that last two paragraphs and got excited - overly excited.
Then as we did, we had neighborhood kids coming by the dozen - walking or riding bikes. We'll have 3-5 bicycles outside most any time. I really saw New Hope as a neighborhood church.
Valparaiso is about 1800 homes. Eglin AFB is snug against it. Then Niceville FL with maybe 8000-12000 homes borders us on the other side.
Niceville is covered with churches. 2 of them run 1000, one 2500 and a bunch of 150s. Breakout is 25% Baptist, 25% UMC, 25% Catholic and 25% nondenom. Probably 40% of the people would fall into one of those once a month.
Valparaiso is forgotten territory - that place you drive through on your way to somewhere else. Older homes, income level is less. AF Officers live in Niceville or Bluewater Bay, enlisted men with families live in Valparaiso or drive 30 minutes north to Crestview. There's no gym here, no HS here - that's in Niceville.
So my vision (pitiful though it is) really is to reach into Valparaiso's homes and help people find the Savior and through Him find real life.
If we moved, we'd lose kids. Then we'd lose the "door" they provide to their parents. Some of the kids we started with seven years ago are really coming along in their walk with Jesus.
If I had unlimited funds, I'd build a multipurpose building on our present property, and buy a coffeehouse that's for sale down the street. We'd open the multipurpose building to the community - call it the Valparaiso Community Life Center. And we'd have large group worship there. The coffee house would be our base of operations and provide office space and small group and intimate worship space. Those are big dreams for us and wholly impossible at present. But it's what I can see.
Neither location is in a great location. The coffee shop is just off the main drag and visible from it. We're only on Valparaiso's main street which isn't used by most. But I would probably not move away from our ministry's heart. Unless God thumps me.
So I wrote, "Vision and reality are not always friends."
And the pounding began.
Yet the reality is that we cannot at this time even seriously contemplate such a dream. We're 200K in debt, only own 2.5 acres, have no worship leader and are thin everywhere else. Land here is $100K an acre when you can get someone to sell it, which is hard considering two families own almost all of it that hasn't been developed.
So am I faithless, a coward for not aggressively pursuing the idea?
No. I just don't have time to waste when people are in danger all around me. If I fixate on buildings, I'll lose the focus on changed lives. It's sort of like the old adage, "It's hard to remember your objective was to drain the swamp when you are up to your armpits in alligators."
If through that God gives me the opportunity to see my idea come to fruition, I'll leap at the chance. But right now, I'm building... people.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Pollen and Preferences
This is how we've come to understand and experience love: Christ sacrificed his life for us. This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves. 1 John 3:16
One of the defining parts of my childhood was not a positive experience. This time of year, I'd find myself trapped in a world filled with pollen, which caused my body to react in a storm of sneezes, and outbreak after outbreak of hives. Folks, picture yourself as a geeky looking little boy, who's trying hard to find a place in the social network. The last thing you want to do is stand out.
Well, sneezing 30+ times in a row, or showing up for school with more bumps on your than a gator's back doesn't exactly help you fit in.
My parents tried all sorts of things to help, but the best things they ever did weren't involved with medical professionals. They ruthlessly tried to eliminate any and all allergens from anywhere near me. So feather pillows - gone. Wool clothing - gone. The food we ate was changed. At one point they even talked about moving to another state.
And my father went up and down the road we lived on, ripping up every goldenrod and flowering weed.
Years later, I was talking with my mother around that time of year. She was looking down the road, and she said "I just love this time of year, the leaves changing, the goldenrod - aren't these colors beautiful?"
I realized then that for them, their love for a wheezy little boy completely overruled their preferences for what was pleasing to them. Doing whatever it took to help me grow meant completely dropping something that brought them pleasure. They never let me know there was a cost.
Friends, as followers of Jesus and and as people pledged to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, how well are we doing at setting aside our preferences and sacrificially living to reach others with Jesus' love? Do this - spend a moment in prayer for your friend who doesn't know Jesus. Invest time in conversation with that neighbor or friend you never have time for. Give all the love you have received and watch Jesus work.
I've pretty much outgrown my allergies now, but I'll never outgrow my thanks for and my responsibility to love others like my father and mother loved me. And the love Jesus showed me, when I was sick with sin - dying really - I will spend the rest of my life trying to repay with my love for others who don't know Him yet.
Join me. We won't be perfect at it, but we'll be making a difference every time we do.
Grace!
David Wilson
This is how we've come to understand and experience love: Christ sacrificed his life for us. This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves. 1 John 3:16
One of the defining parts of my childhood was not a positive experience. This time of year, I'd find myself trapped in a world filled with pollen, which caused my body to react in a storm of sneezes, and outbreak after outbreak of hives. Folks, picture yourself as a geeky looking little boy, who's trying hard to find a place in the social network. The last thing you want to do is stand out.
Well, sneezing 30+ times in a row, or showing up for school with more bumps on your than a gator's back doesn't exactly help you fit in.
My parents tried all sorts of things to help, but the best things they ever did weren't involved with medical professionals. They ruthlessly tried to eliminate any and all allergens from anywhere near me. So feather pillows - gone. Wool clothing - gone. The food we ate was changed. At one point they even talked about moving to another state.
And my father went up and down the road we lived on, ripping up every goldenrod and flowering weed.
Years later, I was talking with my mother around that time of year. She was looking down the road, and she said "I just love this time of year, the leaves changing, the goldenrod - aren't these colors beautiful?"
I realized then that for them, their love for a wheezy little boy completely overruled their preferences for what was pleasing to them. Doing whatever it took to help me grow meant completely dropping something that brought them pleasure. They never let me know there was a cost.
Friends, as followers of Jesus and and as people pledged to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, how well are we doing at setting aside our preferences and sacrificially living to reach others with Jesus' love? Do this - spend a moment in prayer for your friend who doesn't know Jesus. Invest time in conversation with that neighbor or friend you never have time for. Give all the love you have received and watch Jesus work.
I've pretty much outgrown my allergies now, but I'll never outgrow my thanks for and my responsibility to love others like my father and mother loved me. And the love Jesus showed me, when I was sick with sin - dying really - I will spend the rest of my life trying to repay with my love for others who don't know Him yet.
Join me. We won't be perfect at it, but we'll be making a difference every time we do.
Grace!
David Wilson
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Courtship
Sunday afternoon is naptime around here. Since we do two Sunday services, and I either teach or lead music too. So we crash from 1-3:30. Last Sunday, I had just gotten up when I got a call from a person in Texas. He said he was from a small church outside Austin, and they had received my resume. Without missing a beat he said that their committee had decided to focus on one person at a time and I was that person. Then he said, "Are you interesting in becoming our pastor?"
...............................................
He must have sensed something because he asked, "If you had to answer today would you say yes or no?"
I said, "Well, given I don't know where you are, who you are, or what you are about, so absent an audible voice from God, no."
We were off the phone in a minute. I felt bad about it then, but what is a church thinking making me their number one candidate without ever making contact with me? I don't know where they got my resume, or how old that resume is. I'm not interested in going anywhere, but if I was, I'd sure like to know something about where God sends me before I go.
Crazy.
...............................................
He must have sensed something because he asked, "If you had to answer today would you say yes or no?"
I said, "Well, given I don't know where you are, who you are, or what you are about, so absent an audible voice from God, no."
We were off the phone in a minute. I felt bad about it then, but what is a church thinking making me their number one candidate without ever making contact with me? I don't know where they got my resume, or how old that resume is. I'm not interested in going anywhere, but if I was, I'd sure like to know something about where God sends me before I go.
Crazy.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
How Not To Deal With Church Conflict
In Colorado, the newcomers are taking over. All the people who were there before them want to do, is keep things the way they have always been. What should a leader do?
Deploy the Rodenator. HT: Scot McKnight
Okay, so the story is about prairie dogs and ranchers. You get my point.
In church wars, people frequently employ IED's against each other, and against the Body of Christ when they do. Many of these could have been prevented if leaders had been more proactive in defusing conflict before it gains momentum.
When we were transitioning to a more modern expression in worship, one lady (not one of the spiritual giants of our age, bless her heart) stormed out of practice breathing fire and accusations against the worship leader. One of our deacons was the recipient. But she chose her place poorly, for she did it right outside my door. In my first years here, I would have hesitated, but no longer. I told her that her speech betrayed a lack of love for the worship leader, her church, and Christ and she needed to go back and ask for his forgiveness.
Well, after that, she proceeded to say some other things that caused her to be in need of asking mine. I then asked the deacon if he heard correctly, and he said he did. Then I informed her that we would be bringing her before the church in a week for discipline unless she apologized to all involved.
She's been gone three years now, and we are better for it. It's like ranchers and wolves. When NPR did a story on it a while back, one rancher said, "I love wolves. They are one of God's creations and are truly amazing. Yes, I love wolves - but not near sheep."
As much fun as the rodentator would be, biblical discipline works better, and your people will appreciate it.
Deploy the Rodenator. HT: Scot McKnight
Okay, so the story is about prairie dogs and ranchers. You get my point.
In church wars, people frequently employ IED's against each other, and against the Body of Christ when they do. Many of these could have been prevented if leaders had been more proactive in defusing conflict before it gains momentum.
When we were transitioning to a more modern expression in worship, one lady (not one of the spiritual giants of our age, bless her heart) stormed out of practice breathing fire and accusations against the worship leader. One of our deacons was the recipient. But she chose her place poorly, for she did it right outside my door. In my first years here, I would have hesitated, but no longer. I told her that her speech betrayed a lack of love for the worship leader, her church, and Christ and she needed to go back and ask for his forgiveness.
Well, after that, she proceeded to say some other things that caused her to be in need of asking mine. I then asked the deacon if he heard correctly, and he said he did. Then I informed her that we would be bringing her before the church in a week for discipline unless she apologized to all involved.
She's been gone three years now, and we are better for it. It's like ranchers and wolves. When NPR did a story on it a while back, one rancher said, "I love wolves. They are one of God's creations and are truly amazing. Yes, I love wolves - but not near sheep."
As much fun as the rodentator would be, biblical discipline works better, and your people will appreciate it.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Grace - It Just Doesn't Add Up
1 "God's kingdom is like an estate manager who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 They agreed on a wage of a dollar a day, and went to work.
3 "Later, about nine o'clock, the manager saw some other men hanging around the town square unemployed. 4 He told them to go to work in his vineyard and he would pay them a fair wage. 5 They went.
"He did the same thing at noon, and again at three o'clock. 6 At five o'clock he went back and found still others standing around. He said, 'Why are you standing around all day doing nothing?'
7 "They said, 'Because no one hired us.'
"He told them to go to work in his vineyard.
8 "When the day's work was over, the owner of the vineyard instructed his foreman, 'Call the workers in and pay them their wages. Start with the last hired and go on to the first.'
9 "Those hired at five o'clock came up and were each given a dollar. 10 When those who were hired first saw that, they assumed they would get far more. But they got the same, each of them one dollar. 11 Taking the dollar, they groused angrily to the manager, 12 'These last workers put in only one easy hour, and you just made them equal to us, who slaved all day under a scorching sun.'
13 "He replied to the one speaking for the rest, 'Friend, I haven't been unfair. We agreed on the wage of a dollar, didn't we? 14 So take it and go. I decided to give to the one who came last the same as you. 15 Can't I do what I want with my own money? Are you going to get stingy because I am generous?'
16 "Here it is again, the Great Reversal: many of the first ending up last, and the last first."
It's happened again.
Someone has sat down and tried to calculate how God's grace and sinful people, who will never stop sinning, add up to salvation. This has been going on for a long, long time now. Those in the "know" ever so often look over Jesus' shoulder and decide that He doesn't know a thing about accounting.
Sure could see how you'd get that idea. After all, didn't Jesus make a big fuss about that irresponsible shepherd who left 99 perfectly good and cared for sheep to go look for that one runaway? That makes no sense at all - cut your losses, write it off. New Lambs will be here come spring.
Then there was that woman who came and dumped the perfume worth a year's wages all over Jesus. What was the point in that? Just a little dab would have done the job, and then we could have waited to see if He needed it tomorrow. Got to be smart about those things.
Oh yeah, and what about that time in the temple when Jesus was watching people give their offerings. The Pharisee came forward, stated his intention to bless God and proceeded to bless him real good with a wad of cash. You could hear those coins jingle across Jerusalem, I'd bet. Then a widow-woman quietly walks up, drops two coins in - didn't even go "clink", and Jesus says she gave more?
How does that work? Jesus sounds like a guy you could swap nickles for dimes with all day long, like a little kid who doesn't know what anything is worth, and figures bigger coins are worth more.
Then I was reading that story up above from Matthew, where Jesus compares God's way of doing things - His Kingdom - to a landowner who hired people throughout the day to pick grapes. Tough work -that. 100 degree weather, backbreaking work. But he paid everyone too much - a denarius was a Roman soldier's day's wages, not some migrant's fair pay. And to compound it all, he paid them all the same. Jesus was applauding a man who had just upset the whole migrant worker market for the season. It's crazy.
It just doesn't add up.
That's the point. "Grace is not about finishing last or first. It is about not counting at all." Philip Yancey
If God was still keeping score, doling out salvation on the installment plan - seeing how well we do and rewarding us accordingly - well we would be lost. But He's not.
19 For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people's sins against them. 2 Cor 5:19 (NLT)
So what part of "no longer counting" did I miss?
23 For all have sinned; all fall short of God's glorious standard. 24 Yet now God in his gracious kindness declares us not guilty. He has done this through Christ Jesus, who has freed us by taking away our sins. 25 For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God's anger against us. We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed his blood, sacrificing his life for us. God was being entirely fair and just when he did not punish those who sinned in former times. 26 And he is entirely fair and just in this present time when he declares sinners to be right in his sight because they believe in Jesus.
27 Can we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on our good deeds. It is based on our faith. 28 So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law. Romans 3:23-28 (NLT)
1 "God's kingdom is like an estate manager who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 They agreed on a wage of a dollar a day, and went to work.
3 "Later, about nine o'clock, the manager saw some other men hanging around the town square unemployed. 4 He told them to go to work in his vineyard and he would pay them a fair wage. 5 They went.
"He did the same thing at noon, and again at three o'clock. 6 At five o'clock he went back and found still others standing around. He said, 'Why are you standing around all day doing nothing?'
7 "They said, 'Because no one hired us.'
"He told them to go to work in his vineyard.
8 "When the day's work was over, the owner of the vineyard instructed his foreman, 'Call the workers in and pay them their wages. Start with the last hired and go on to the first.'
9 "Those hired at five o'clock came up and were each given a dollar. 10 When those who were hired first saw that, they assumed they would get far more. But they got the same, each of them one dollar. 11 Taking the dollar, they groused angrily to the manager, 12 'These last workers put in only one easy hour, and you just made them equal to us, who slaved all day under a scorching sun.'
13 "He replied to the one speaking for the rest, 'Friend, I haven't been unfair. We agreed on the wage of a dollar, didn't we? 14 So take it and go. I decided to give to the one who came last the same as you. 15 Can't I do what I want with my own money? Are you going to get stingy because I am generous?'
16 "Here it is again, the Great Reversal: many of the first ending up last, and the last first."
Matt 20:1-16 (MSG)
It's happened again.
Someone has sat down and tried to calculate how God's grace and sinful people, who will never stop sinning, add up to salvation. This has been going on for a long, long time now. Those in the "know" ever so often look over Jesus' shoulder and decide that He doesn't know a thing about accounting.
Sure could see how you'd get that idea. After all, didn't Jesus make a big fuss about that irresponsible shepherd who left 99 perfectly good and cared for sheep to go look for that one runaway? That makes no sense at all - cut your losses, write it off. New Lambs will be here come spring.
Then there was that woman who came and dumped the perfume worth a year's wages all over Jesus. What was the point in that? Just a little dab would have done the job, and then we could have waited to see if He needed it tomorrow. Got to be smart about those things.
Oh yeah, and what about that time in the temple when Jesus was watching people give their offerings. The Pharisee came forward, stated his intention to bless God and proceeded to bless him real good with a wad of cash. You could hear those coins jingle across Jerusalem, I'd bet. Then a widow-woman quietly walks up, drops two coins in - didn't even go "clink", and Jesus says she gave more?
How does that work? Jesus sounds like a guy you could swap nickles for dimes with all day long, like a little kid who doesn't know what anything is worth, and figures bigger coins are worth more.
Then I was reading that story up above from Matthew, where Jesus compares God's way of doing things - His Kingdom - to a landowner who hired people throughout the day to pick grapes. Tough work -that. 100 degree weather, backbreaking work. But he paid everyone too much - a denarius was a Roman soldier's day's wages, not some migrant's fair pay. And to compound it all, he paid them all the same. Jesus was applauding a man who had just upset the whole migrant worker market for the season. It's crazy.
It just doesn't add up.
That's the point. "Grace is not about finishing last or first. It is about not counting at all." Philip Yancey
If God was still keeping score, doling out salvation on the installment plan - seeing how well we do and rewarding us accordingly - well we would be lost. But He's not.
19 For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people's sins against them. 2 Cor 5:19 (NLT)
So what part of "no longer counting" did I miss?
23 For all have sinned; all fall short of God's glorious standard. 24 Yet now God in his gracious kindness declares us not guilty. He has done this through Christ Jesus, who has freed us by taking away our sins. 25 For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God's anger against us. We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed his blood, sacrificing his life for us. God was being entirely fair and just when he did not punish those who sinned in former times. 26 And he is entirely fair and just in this present time when he declares sinners to be right in his sight because they believe in Jesus.
27 Can we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on our good deeds. It is based on our faith. 28 So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law. Romans 3:23-28 (NLT)
And as sure as I am of "all have sinned, all fall short", I am equally sure and thankful that "our acquittal is not based on our good deeds. It is based on our faith."
Does it add up? No.
That's good, because we didn't have an integer in the hunt.
We have nothing with which to pay our debt to God.
So God did it for us through Christ.
Grace - not just amazing - it's scandalous.
Praise be to God!
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Aren't We?
Leviticus may seem like an odd Bible book to use in evangelism. But not in West Africa, where in April 2005 the first ten chapters were read to the Lobi—a people of subsistence farmers, animistic mask-makers, and poison-arrow warriors in Burkina Faso—in their own language.Many in the listening crowd were struck by the similarities between the sacrifices mentioned in Leviticus and those of the Lobi religion. This infuriated the son of a Lobi priest, who forbade the reading to continue, because it is taboo to speak of Lobi religious practices in public. But another listener shouted, "Well, it means that we, too, are descendants of this High Priest. Aren't we?"
The Whole Word for the Whole World - Christianity Today Magazine
An amazing article about the growth in translations of the OT.
George MacDonald, a translator in Papua New Guinea, said he would always remember the day his Dadibi friends dedicated their complete Bible in 2001. Living in a remote location and considered inferior by trade partners, the Dadibi had long looked down upon themselves. Yet they became one of the few groups worldwide to receive both an Old and New Testament in their own language.
"This indicates that God has certainly not forgotten them, but instead has looked with favor on them," said MacDonald.
Thousands turned out for the dedication ceremony—some walking for up to two days to get there. The national translators held the Dadibi Bibles up for the crowd to see. Thunderous applause arose, and one man let out a high-pitched yell reminiscent of the victory shout used by returning Dadibi warriors in days of old.
"...some walking for up to two days to get there."
I am humbled by this.
technorati tags:bible, translations
Blogged with Flock
Monday, September 11, 2006
Freaks
"Accept that your life is abnormal. Nothing about life as a ministry leader—from its emotional toll to relational demands and constant interruptions—is normal. Accepting that you are a freak with a freakish life will help you not to freak out.” Mark Driscoll
I feel better already.
Another quote: Freaks
"Accept that your life is abnormal. Nothing about life as a ministry leader—from its emotional toll to relational demands and constant interruptions—is normal. Accepting that you are a freak with a freakish life will help you not to freak out.” Mark Driscoll
I feel better already. LOL
Saturday, September 09, 2006
I'm Just Waking Up To The Fact That...
We need churches for old people whose friends and relatives are dead or dying and who can’t quite figure out how things are changing around them.
We need churches for dysfunctional people who are doing well just to show up for life every day. We need churches for prodigal Christians who are afraid they’ve blown it with God.
We need churches for secular people who never give God much thought at all.
So where does your church fit?
We need churches for dysfunctional people who are doing well just to show up for life every day. We need churches for prodigal Christians who are afraid they’ve blown it with God.
We need churches for secular people who never give God much thought at all.
So where does your church fit?
Thursday, September 07, 2006
The Wall
I was back home in Macon GA Monday afternoon. I arrived too late and way too out of shape to take part in the annual Labor Day Road race. Many years past, I ran it every year. Sometimes I ran the 10K and sometimes the 5K but I always ran it.
The first year I signed up for the 10K. I had never run over 4 miles in my life, but figured all I needed to do was slow a little bit and I was good to go. Funny thing happened. I forgot that at the 5 mile mark there was a hill - hills really. The run that had begun earlier slowed to a trot, and then to a walk. I had hit the wall.
Today I hit it again.
The last few weeks as my father declined rapidly combined with this week's trip and funeral left me with nothing to give today. Zip. I knew I was in trouble when I was trying to get ready for Sunday's text - the resurrection passage from Mark's gospel, and I couldn't get into it. Just flat. Emotionally spent. Intellectually dead.
Happens that I still have to preach Sunday. Somewhere I have to find my reserves.
The first year I signed up for the 10K. I had never run over 4 miles in my life, but figured all I needed to do was slow a little bit and I was good to go. Funny thing happened. I forgot that at the 5 mile mark there was a hill - hills really. The run that had begun earlier slowed to a trot, and then to a walk. I had hit the wall.
Today I hit it again.
The last few weeks as my father declined rapidly combined with this week's trip and funeral left me with nothing to give today. Zip. I knew I was in trouble when I was trying to get ready for Sunday's text - the resurrection passage from Mark's gospel, and I couldn't get into it. Just flat. Emotionally spent. Intellectually dead.
Happens that I still have to preach Sunday. Somewhere I have to find my reserves.
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Wondering
From Church Marketing Sucks:
I think church advertising is a waste of time...
The most powerful apologetic for Christianity is a local church body living the way it should.
See, even churches who try to advertise to unbelievers instead of to church people usually still fail. I speak even for my own church. Our thinking generally seems to run like this: "We must advertise so that people will perceive us in a favorable light and thereby be drawn to our Sunday morning services, where they will meet God."
This is nonsense.
We spend most of our time trying to "clever" people into the kingdom with advertising, when in reality they will more likely be drawn in a powerful way by the love we have for one another, the open confession of our sins and the compassion we show to those in need. This is what will awaken the desire in unchurched people to become part of the Christian community.
Friday, September 01, 2006
But he's already made it plain how to live, what to do,
what GOD is looking for in men and women.
It's quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor,
be compassionate and loyal in your love,
And don't take yourself too seriously-
take God seriously. Micah 6:8
The journey began 86 years ago on a sharecropper's farm near Sanford Florida. The midwife delivered a boy to Wiley and Belle Wilson, and Wiley Junior was welcomed into this world, as the only boy.
Growing up as the family moved with the crops to be harvested was a hard life. They frequently lived in tents, or in houses in such disrepair my father would say "you could lie there in bed and see the stars." Eventually they all migrated to Macon, GA where they got jobs in Mr. Willingham's Cotton Mill. It was hard, dirty, hot work, and Wiley hated it. So he got a job driving a produce truck back and forth from Central Florida to Macon. But then his mother got sick, and his family had troubles, so he enlisted in the Civilian Conservation Corps.
Hard work, discipline, and more hard work followed. It was the first time he had been away, and instead of the rolling hills of Macon, he was way back in the mountains of North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia. They planted trees, built bridges and cut roads. He found out about snow. He grew into a man.
World War 2 began, and like millions of other young men, he left home for an uncertain future. But not before marrying a young girl named Lodie. Their families knew each other from the mill village - literally on the wrong side of the tracks. They said their goodbyes knowing that theirs might be a short-lived bond. It lasted almost 50 years.
After breaking his ankle in preparation for a parachute jump over Normandy, he was reassigned as a cook. That was fun while it lasted, but the Army needed machine gunners worse than it needed cooks, and so Wiley was shipped to the Pacific theater. The native Southern boy knew heat and humidity, but not like this.
New Guinea, Saipan, Mindanao, Okinawa. He came ashore on islands where the fighting was so fierce he said you could walk across the beach and never touch the sand, as the bodies of GIs covered it. He fought in the jungles where death came without warning from a sniper's bullet. He manned a machine gun against human wave attacks by the enemy that were so fierce bodies stacked up like cord wood in front of his machine gun, and the barrel got so hot they had to pour water and whatever other liquids they could find on them to keep them from melting. The war ended, he and Lodie came home. The scar on his forehead was a hurt that had healed. The scars inside took longer.
It wasn't easy to make the adjustment. The world seemed different somehow. The two weren't the same people who left the mill village. They (as he put it "wound up") divorced. Then after a while, they got back together and remarried. They got jobs in civil service that they wound up staying at for over 30 years. Life was getting better. He built an indoor bathroom on the shotgun house on Roff Avenue.
Then they were blessed with the news that Lodie was pregnant with twins. Through nine months their hope built to a crescendo. Then the music stopped. You'd have to have known my father to know just how much it hurt him when they died a few days after their birth. And you'd have to have known him and my mother to know how much courage they had to try again.
I was born, then came my brother three years later. We were blessed with a father who loved to watch cartoons with us on Saturday morning, who loved toys and gadgets even more than we did, who took pure delight in not just buying things for us, but being with us. Whether it was playing baseball, fishing, shooting rabbits, or teaching us how to work on lawnmowers and lose tools, he was our daddy. We were his boys. When he disciplined us, I always felt it really did hurt him more than it hurt me.
We did all the stupid things boys do as they grow into manhood, and he endured them all. Broken windows, scrapes and bruises, and later fender benders got us a blessing out after a "you OK?" I got straightened out about marriage; I got straightened out about kids. Never was delivered with anger,always given in love. He only went two weeks into the sixth grade in school, and yet wound up teaching both of us lessons that still guide us today.
He watched as our boys came along, one then the other. There weren't two people loved more on the planet. It was like I ceased to exist except as a vehicle to connect him to Adam and then Sean. Now it was their turn to sit beside him and laugh at Bugs Bunny. It was their time to explore the toys at Toys R Us (sure beat the Hobby Shop). The grandchildren that followed from my brother and his wife never took anything away from anyone - his heart just expanded to hold them all closely.
He was 65 years old when he gave his life to Jesus. It wasn't that he wasn't a good man, because he was. But he had been too busy making a living, building a home, raising his boys to stop and really consider where he was in light of eternity. Growing up, church people hadn't treated his kind of people well. But he never let us stay home when our mother wanted to take us to church. One day a young preacher daddy liked came out to talk. When he left, daddy told us he had become a believer in Jesus and had forgiveness for his sins. He became a faithful attender, and he read his Bible everyday. I know he prayed for all of us.
For almost 53 years now, I have never had a day when I wasn't loved by my father.
Tomorrow I will.
He was a great father, an awesome grandfather and a good man.
What I know about keeping my word - he taught me.
How I know that you are to give a days work for a day's pay - credit to him.
The reason quit isn't in my vocabulary is because my father never quit at anything.
And the way I learned what humility and manhood have in common was watching one of the strongest men I have ever known tenderly admit he had been wrong.
Tom Brokaw coined my daddy's generation the greatest. They defeated the depression, fought a World War and a Cold War and won them both. He would always tell me that his grandchildren would do things he and I could only dream of.
It was never about him. Maybe the most unselfish person I have ever known.
I thank God for giving me a father to be proud of. I thank God for saving his soul. And I thank God that one day maybe I'll be standing there too in heaven, and a big hand will rub the back of my head and ask me "how are you getting along son?"
I'm doing okay, Daddy. But we'll all miss you. Tell Mother we love her for us, will you?
David
what GOD is looking for in men and women.
It's quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor,
be compassionate and loyal in your love,
And don't take yourself too seriously-
take God seriously. Micah 6:8
The journey began 86 years ago on a sharecropper's farm near Sanford Florida. The midwife delivered a boy to Wiley and Belle Wilson, and Wiley Junior was welcomed into this world, as the only boy.
Growing up as the family moved with the crops to be harvested was a hard life. They frequently lived in tents, or in houses in such disrepair my father would say "you could lie there in bed and see the stars." Eventually they all migrated to Macon, GA where they got jobs in Mr. Willingham's Cotton Mill. It was hard, dirty, hot work, and Wiley hated it. So he got a job driving a produce truck back and forth from Central Florida to Macon. But then his mother got sick, and his family had troubles, so he enlisted in the Civilian Conservation Corps.
Hard work, discipline, and more hard work followed. It was the first time he had been away, and instead of the rolling hills of Macon, he was way back in the mountains of North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia. They planted trees, built bridges and cut roads. He found out about snow. He grew into a man.
World War 2 began, and like millions of other young men, he left home for an uncertain future. But not before marrying a young girl named Lodie. Their families knew each other from the mill village - literally on the wrong side of the tracks. They said their goodbyes knowing that theirs might be a short-lived bond. It lasted almost 50 years.
After breaking his ankle in preparation for a parachute jump over Normandy, he was reassigned as a cook. That was fun while it lasted, but the Army needed machine gunners worse than it needed cooks, and so Wiley was shipped to the Pacific theater. The native Southern boy knew heat and humidity, but not like this.
New Guinea, Saipan, Mindanao, Okinawa. He came ashore on islands where the fighting was so fierce he said you could walk across the beach and never touch the sand, as the bodies of GIs covered it. He fought in the jungles where death came without warning from a sniper's bullet. He manned a machine gun against human wave attacks by the enemy that were so fierce bodies stacked up like cord wood in front of his machine gun, and the barrel got so hot they had to pour water and whatever other liquids they could find on them to keep them from melting. The war ended, he and Lodie came home. The scar on his forehead was a hurt that had healed. The scars inside took longer.
It wasn't easy to make the adjustment. The world seemed different somehow. The two weren't the same people who left the mill village. They (as he put it "wound up") divorced. Then after a while, they got back together and remarried. They got jobs in civil service that they wound up staying at for over 30 years. Life was getting better. He built an indoor bathroom on the shotgun house on Roff Avenue.
Then they were blessed with the news that Lodie was pregnant with twins. Through nine months their hope built to a crescendo. Then the music stopped. You'd have to have known my father to know just how much it hurt him when they died a few days after their birth. And you'd have to have known him and my mother to know how much courage they had to try again.
I was born, then came my brother three years later. We were blessed with a father who loved to watch cartoons with us on Saturday morning, who loved toys and gadgets even more than we did, who took pure delight in not just buying things for us, but being with us. Whether it was playing baseball, fishing, shooting rabbits, or teaching us how to work on lawnmowers and lose tools, he was our daddy. We were his boys. When he disciplined us, I always felt it really did hurt him more than it hurt me.
We did all the stupid things boys do as they grow into manhood, and he endured them all. Broken windows, scrapes and bruises, and later fender benders got us a blessing out after a "you OK?" I got straightened out about marriage; I got straightened out about kids. Never was delivered with anger,always given in love. He only went two weeks into the sixth grade in school, and yet wound up teaching both of us lessons that still guide us today.
He watched as our boys came along, one then the other. There weren't two people loved more on the planet. It was like I ceased to exist except as a vehicle to connect him to Adam and then Sean. Now it was their turn to sit beside him and laugh at Bugs Bunny. It was their time to explore the toys at Toys R Us (sure beat the Hobby Shop). The grandchildren that followed from my brother and his wife never took anything away from anyone - his heart just expanded to hold them all closely.
He was 65 years old when he gave his life to Jesus. It wasn't that he wasn't a good man, because he was. But he had been too busy making a living, building a home, raising his boys to stop and really consider where he was in light of eternity. Growing up, church people hadn't treated his kind of people well. But he never let us stay home when our mother wanted to take us to church. One day a young preacher daddy liked came out to talk. When he left, daddy told us he had become a believer in Jesus and had forgiveness for his sins. He became a faithful attender, and he read his Bible everyday. I know he prayed for all of us.
For almost 53 years now, I have never had a day when I wasn't loved by my father.
Tomorrow I will.
He was a great father, an awesome grandfather and a good man.
What I know about keeping my word - he taught me.
How I know that you are to give a days work for a day's pay - credit to him.
The reason quit isn't in my vocabulary is because my father never quit at anything.
And the way I learned what humility and manhood have in common was watching one of the strongest men I have ever known tenderly admit he had been wrong.
Tom Brokaw coined my daddy's generation the greatest. They defeated the depression, fought a World War and a Cold War and won them both. He would always tell me that his grandchildren would do things he and I could only dream of.
It was never about him. Maybe the most unselfish person I have ever known.
I thank God for giving me a father to be proud of. I thank God for saving his soul. And I thank God that one day maybe I'll be standing there too in heaven, and a big hand will rub the back of my head and ask me "how are you getting along son?"
I'm doing okay, Daddy. But we'll all miss you. Tell Mother we love her for us, will you?
David
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
When You Sing
On your feet now-applaud GOD!
2 Bring a gift of laughter,
sing yourselves into his presence.
Psalm 100 The Message
When the church meets to worship God - to applaud His glory and celebrate His grace - we sing. Some sing as if by rote, participating in a ritual. Others lean into it, smiling, raising a hand, even closing their eyes as if to close the gap within a private moment with the Almighty.
As I've watched this happen for years now, I'm amazed at how it has nothing to do with age. Octogenarians lift their voices, singing as if God was near. Little ones add to the chorus voices sweet and pure. Surely God must smile to hear His children.
After the worship service ends, sometimes people stop to talk. They speak words of encouragement to each other, or say their goodbyes until next time.
Carmen and Lily want to sing.
They're maybe five feet tall placed end to end, inquisitive, expressive, and irrepressible. I've watched them strain to see the screen during worship and seen them sing. Their voices may not carry two rows, but they reach heaven.
And after the service, they make a bee-line for the stage and the microphones. They just want to sing. This past Sunday, when I joined them at the front, Carmen was downcast. The microphones were off. "Sing Carmen. Sing me a song," I said to her. "No one will hear me", she replied. So I went and turned the power back on, and asked Carmen (who would stay there all day if she could) to sing me one song. Then I sat on the front row and listened. She had a song to sing.
I wonder. Is there a song within you? Something that you just have to sing? Something that people have to hear?
Or something that so moves you to think of God's glory, of His grace, that words are not enough alone? "He who sings, prays twice," St. Augustine said. When you sing praises to God, you can slip into His presence whether you are in a congregation or your car.
Take time to give voice to your heart and praise to our God.
Grace!
David
On your feet now-applaud GOD!
2 Bring a gift of laughter,
sing yourselves into his presence.
Psalm 100 The Message
When the church meets to worship God - to applaud His glory and celebrate His grace - we sing. Some sing as if by rote, participating in a ritual. Others lean into it, smiling, raising a hand, even closing their eyes as if to close the gap within a private moment with the Almighty.
As I've watched this happen for years now, I'm amazed at how it has nothing to do with age. Octogenarians lift their voices, singing as if God was near. Little ones add to the chorus voices sweet and pure. Surely God must smile to hear His children.
After the worship service ends, sometimes people stop to talk. They speak words of encouragement to each other, or say their goodbyes until next time.
Carmen and Lily want to sing.
They're maybe five feet tall placed end to end, inquisitive, expressive, and irrepressible. I've watched them strain to see the screen during worship and seen them sing. Their voices may not carry two rows, but they reach heaven.
And after the service, they make a bee-line for the stage and the microphones. They just want to sing. This past Sunday, when I joined them at the front, Carmen was downcast. The microphones were off. "Sing Carmen. Sing me a song," I said to her. "No one will hear me", she replied. So I went and turned the power back on, and asked Carmen (who would stay there all day if she could) to sing me one song. Then I sat on the front row and listened. She had a song to sing.
I wonder. Is there a song within you? Something that you just have to sing? Something that people have to hear?
Or something that so moves you to think of God's glory, of His grace, that words are not enough alone? "He who sings, prays twice," St. Augustine said. When you sing praises to God, you can slip into His presence whether you are in a congregation or your car.
Take time to give voice to your heart and praise to our God.
Grace!
David
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Laughter In the Walls
After all, what gives us hope and joy, and what is our proud reward and crown? It is you! Yes, you will bring us much joy as we stand together before our Lord Jesus when he comes back again. For you are our pride and joy. 1 Thess. 2:19-20
One of the great joys of my life has been being a friend and pastor to the people of New Hope. Over the last seven years, we've experienced a lot of life together. We've shared times of great joy and great sadness together, and through them learned a lot about our shared love for Jesus, and built a love for one another.
A group of us were exploring Exodus last night, learning about the Tabernacle God designed as a place for him to live. It was to be of the finest materials, constructed by the most skilled craftsmen. Nothing ever before or since has rivaled this. In the midst of thousands of tents that the Jewish people lived in, the Tabernacle stood out. It was different. It was purposefully made to reflect the character of God.
In trying to help that idea stick last night, I asked everyone to think about the ways that our homes reflected our character, whether intentional or not. We all laughed thinking about how the things we accumulated told stories about us. I then explained that since we moved recently, we had to shed an awful lot of things, and Bunny has taken the opportunity to try to reduce our natural tendency to over clutter. Our home is sparsely furnished compared to before, so much so that I sometimes referred to it as a "condo". Then I told them that I was having trouble with the change because (as the chief clutter architect) I cannot find any of my character represented here in the decorations. "You know", I said, laughing, "no pictures of Robert E Lee, no model cars, not even an animatronic bass hanging over the fireplace." Everyone shared some laughter at my expense, and then we moved on.
Well, this morning, when I went out to get the paper, it was on top of the hood of my car, along with.... "Big Mouth Billy Bass", a fine representative of robot fishdom.
These people are nuts! And my neighbors now think I am, because I was laughing my head off in my yard at 6:30 this morning.
But being in the company of people who love so extravagantly, and who can fill the church with laughter as well as pray with tears, is a real honor and joy.
Oh, and Big Mouth Billy Bass can be seen at any time you come to our garage. LOL
Grace!
David
After all, what gives us hope and joy, and what is our proud reward and crown? It is you! Yes, you will bring us much joy as we stand together before our Lord Jesus when he comes back again. For you are our pride and joy. 1 Thess. 2:19-20
One of the great joys of my life has been being a friend and pastor to the people of New Hope. Over the last seven years, we've experienced a lot of life together. We've shared times of great joy and great sadness together, and through them learned a lot about our shared love for Jesus, and built a love for one another.
A group of us were exploring Exodus last night, learning about the Tabernacle God designed as a place for him to live. It was to be of the finest materials, constructed by the most skilled craftsmen. Nothing ever before or since has rivaled this. In the midst of thousands of tents that the Jewish people lived in, the Tabernacle stood out. It was different. It was purposefully made to reflect the character of God.
In trying to help that idea stick last night, I asked everyone to think about the ways that our homes reflected our character, whether intentional or not. We all laughed thinking about how the things we accumulated told stories about us. I then explained that since we moved recently, we had to shed an awful lot of things, and Bunny has taken the opportunity to try to reduce our natural tendency to over clutter. Our home is sparsely furnished compared to before, so much so that I sometimes referred to it as a "condo". Then I told them that I was having trouble with the change because (as the chief clutter architect) I cannot find any of my character represented here in the decorations. "You know", I said, laughing, "no pictures of Robert E Lee, no model cars, not even an animatronic bass hanging over the fireplace." Everyone shared some laughter at my expense, and then we moved on.
Well, this morning, when I went out to get the paper, it was on top of the hood of my car, along with.... "Big Mouth Billy Bass", a fine representative of robot fishdom.
These people are nuts! And my neighbors now think I am, because I was laughing my head off in my yard at 6:30 this morning.
But being in the company of people who love so extravagantly, and who can fill the church with laughter as well as pray with tears, is a real honor and joy.
Oh, and Big Mouth Billy Bass can be seen at any time you come to our garage. LOL
Grace!
David
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