Characters, Plots, and Story

The USA network is running one of the best commercials right now. It consists of vignettes of many of the actors in their lineup telling a little about themselves and ending with a run through again where each says "I'm a character."




Yes they are. And so are we.

We are all different.

Our experiences have colored us. The context we grew up in has formed us. There's a reason the smell of collard greens is wafting this way from the kitchen, and why I had to reach deep into the shelf at Publix to get a bag of black-eyed peas which are even now cooking alongside their leafy green brethren. We're Southerners. It's New Year's Day. Time to eat black-eyed peas so we'll have a prosperous New Year.

Yet not every year works out that way, does it?

The plots of our lives take strange and twisting turns at times. We can be headed in one direction and find that the living out of our lives take us in others not of our choice -not to our liking. The road we find ourselves on can lead through places of hardship - even pain.

Or we can find ourselves the beneficiaries of such surpassing joy that we can hardly contain it. Every day seems filled to the brim with possibilities for more.

And how can we...

know what or which will happen?

As a believer in and follower of Jesus, I am part of a bigger story than just my part in it. Yes, I'm a character in the story, and I have a role to live out that can somehow make a difference in it. The Author of the story knows all about me as a character in it, and regardless of how my choices direct the plot in one direction or another, can write the story to come to the conclusion in any way He chooses.

And He's chosen to work everything together for good.

But what does "good" mean?

Well, that depends on the character of the Author, doesn't it?

His best selling book tells us that He is the author of life and the author of our salvation - our rescue. It describes Him as the God of all compassion and comfort. It says that everything good comes from Him. In its pages He's described as just, as right, as truth itself - and as love personified. Not the kind of love that rushes in at the last minute, but the kind that knows everything about you and loves you anyway.

In 2010, I want to read more about the Author and His work.

And I want to be more of a character in it.

New Hope @ Worship 10 August 2008

Well, after being gone last Sunday I was looking forward to worship this week. When we're gone, three (okay two real ones if you subtract me) are out of the mix and it limits what we can do. So I was excited to be able to do these.

O Worship the King - awesome, awesome song to open worship with
How Can I Keep From Singing - again, just great
True Worship Song - I like it, but I wish I had chosen another - too big a drop off
Shout to the Lord - a golden oldie

And then for commitment, in my never ending search for something different but meaningful, Bunny suggested -

Nothing But the Blood, Matt Redman version

As for the message: As lead pastor, I'm not the only source of vision in our church, but I am the guy who has to constantly align our practices with our values. We had a Sunday while I was gone where it seemed the focus shifted back inside to us and from the people who are "not here yet." That cannot be. The church as institution has failed. It's a dead horse. The church as movement is where we have to be. God leads us ever out to engage the culture through relationships. He wants to use us in His Big Story of reconciling the world to Himself through Jesus - but we cannot let ourselves get sucked into believing it is about us.

It is about Him.

So if you listen to the sermon, you'll have the context - a serious effort to make sure we stay true to our mission of reaching people far from Jesus, and to get people to remember Who we are partnering with.

Imagine!

I laughed when I saw this picture, because though I don't have a chalkboard, lying all around me are sheets of paper on which I work out and through some of the ideas that come to me.

Yes, this is the digital era, and I was an early adopter. But I still have a tendency to work out my dreams and hopes on paper.

But here's the thing.

In my line of work, my hopes and my dreams are in the hands of others, namely:

God : For sure, or I'm way off track and those hopes and dreams wind up as wanting something for me, not for Him.

His people: It's the people who I live and work with that are entrusted with the majority of what I imagine could be - might be - should be. The church. The people.

My job as pastor is to love them and try to keep them open to the possibilities of life with God. To the vision of what the church we love can be. And aware of what we can do together with God.

And so I imagine.

I imagine a group of people so in love with God and each other that they can't wait to leave our worship gathering to go and tell others what God has done and is doing and invite them to see.

I imagine our church being on the speed-dial for the school principals, the older Americans council, the city commissioners, other nonprofits and the people in our neighborhoods because when someone needs a hand they KNOW we'll be there in a hurry.

I imagine getting a phone call telling me about a service ministry project that has already been done that I didn't even know about.

I imagine children and youth growing up learning about Jesus, becoming followers of Him, and taking their love for Him to their schools, and out in service.

I imagine young men and women leading us into worship, into service. Going off to school and instead of leaving church, coming back and investing their lives in it because they know God is at work there.

I imagine older people serving as mentors and helping out in the neighborhood schools, refusing to see retirement as anything but a greater opportunity to serve God and their neighbors.

And I imagine walking with them all through the joys and the heartaches, sharing our lives and our love for God together for the rest of my life.

New Hope @ Worship 05/18/08

We had an elderly deacon suffer a fainting spell in the men's SS class this morning and had lots of visitors - but they were paramedics and ambulance folks. He is one of the finest Christian men I have ever known and one of the most loved. Robert Hughes is doing better tonight, though in the ICU. That event did send us into worship with some shocked and sad people, but God is good, and met our request to meet with us today. Lots of visitors in worship too.

Music

O Worship the King - Tomlin - Just an awesome redo of a great song
Thank You Lord
Come Thou Fount - rearranged
Ancient Words - great modern hymn

O I Want To Know You More

I was led into bringing a message about what our mission is and what our vision is for accomplishing it. So to do that I used our motto - New Life, New Joy, and New Hope! We started late and I did cut some but I believe I was able to lay out the basis for why we do what we do.



Audio is available here: Church Cloud

Once again, into the breach

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility;
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood.
"Henry V" (5.3.44-51)


I do love Henry V. There's something about what Shakespeare portrays in that play of commitment lived out with passion, and men fighting for something bigger than themselves that has always reminded me of the job Christian leaders have for even greater stakes than a country's fortunes in war.

I'm about through with the powerpoint for tomorrow now. I'm an endless tinkerer and editor right up to the end, so that's not unusual. But for two weeks in a row, the work I did during the week on the next sermon in the "Blind Spots" series was put aside in favor of another more pressing need. Some things are happening in our association as well as in our area that could take our eyes off the path God has placed us on.

Friends, vision leaks.

Over time, regardless of how great your church began, even regardless of what you're doing, the reason you are doing those things begins to fade away. That doesn't mean that people stop caring, stop loving, stop serving. But what it does mean is that they begin to lose sight of the reason they are doing those things. And from time to time enough of them lose sight to cause a real breakdown if a decision needs to be made about the next step to take.

In those times, operating in rote muscle memory won't cut it.

This is one of those times.

So I'll be preaching tomorrow through the vision God gave us for the group of Christ-followers known to the world as New Hope. I am not using "us" in a Queen Elizabeth sort of way where "we" really means "me". What we are and what we hope to be has been forged together with the core of people who are the heart of New Hope.

Our motto is: New Life, New Joy, New Hope! That will be the springboard to launch into the Word tommorrow.

Like Henry, I'll be praying before the battle.

Hmmm

You don't drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there.

It's one of those quotes that makes you stop and read it again. Obvious. Simple. But chillingly true.

I've had the "benefit" of seeing that happen to a church. My home church, Bethesda Baptist, in Macon Georgia, no longer exists. My wife and her family were there from the beginning. I was on the cradle roll but went away for a few years. We were married there. At that time there were hundreds of people involved in a vibrant and growing church. I was ordained there in 1991. We loved those people - for a long time we were those people.

But it is gone, the victim of people paralyzed in the water. They knew that the culture was changing. They knew that the demographics around them were changing. And they did nothing. When they finally did roll over out of their sleep and realize they probably should do something, they bungled that too.

From my perspective, as someone charged with helping people live out Jesus' call on them and on the church they make up, what happened there was a succession of failures in leadership. First, in the church members who chose the pastors. But ultimately, those pastors failed to lead.

When you are approaching a point that a decision has to be made, you may be the only one that knows it. God shows you that a turn is in order before He does anyone else. That could be because you need to know, or it could be that you are so deep into the vision that your perch is a bit higher up and you can see farther.

But you know it's coming.

It is.

So climb out of the water.

There Are Bold Pastors and There Are Old Pastors, But...

It's Sunday night.

It's raining outside pretty steadily. Here at the laptop I can chose to listen to the rain hitting the fireplace vent, which sounds like someone hitting a thin pot with a spoon, or I can listen to the steady drips from the window behind be, which sounds for all the world like a hose being sprayed on said window.

It's been a day.

We had a young man come and sing today who really did a good job. We've had him before and I'd highly recommend him if you trend traditional and a little contemporary. Brent Vernon is his name.

I'm working on the new year's small group classes, my wife is getting the women's ministry spooling up again, we are looking at Easter worship and I'm planning some new outreaches and advertising initiatives.

It's pretty much what we've done the last year. It's built a warmer church, a deeper church, and increased our outreach through our networks of friends and neighbors.

But it occurred to me today... nothing we did last year was a risk for us. There was nothing at all that would have failed if God had not intervened. Nothing. Not one event. When I realized that today, it hit me in the gut. What happened to that guy who put his job on the line again and again to get this church turned from death toward life?

I remembered the old saw about pilots.

“There are old pilots and there are bold pilots but there are no old, bold pilots.”

Well, I'm not a pilot.

As a follower of Jesus - forget for a minute that I happen to be a pastor - I have to be pressing ahead. And as a pastor, maintenance work isn't what I am called to do. So either I find a way to get the people I love away from the center where it's safe and warm, and out to the edges where it's not either, or I have to find another way.

I watched the Chronicles of Narnia the other night. Was interesting. I'm sure if the boys were still little I'd have enjoyed their reactions immensely. The one part that I really picked up on was when the children first hear of Aslan.

The little girl in the story, Lucy, asks a friend, "Is Aslan safe?" to which the friend replies, "Safe? No, he's not safe…but he is good."

Yeah, that about sums up where I need to be.