Fear is Stronger than Hope?

"How do we know if we are making the right decision?"   That’s what the elder asked.  Good question.  An important one.  I suggested to her that the right decision needed to be related to a goal or a mission or some criteria.  If the goal is hospice, then the right decision has to do with comfort and non-heroic measures.  If the goal is survival, then comfort and non-heroic measures are the wrong decisions. 

"Well, don’t we need more information?"  That what the elder asked next.  Another good question.  I suggested to her this time that find out both how much information we have and how much time we have.  If we have five years, then we have time to get more and half the information we have will probably become obsolete by then anyway.  If we have five weeks, it’s another matter. 

And how much information do we have now?  “Well,” she replied, “there must be lots of different options.”  Ok.  Let’s brainstorm.  We came up with five.  “But there must be experts out there who could come up with a lot more.”  Probably.  Maybe not lots more.  But maybe more.  

Then I wondered to her, "Can we afford them?  Might some of them say contradictory things or different things?  It happens occasionally in medicine and other fields."  I don’t know if we have all the information but I am pretty sure we never will.  We live in an information age and there’s always more of it.  The amount of it and insecurity we have about making less than 100% perfect decisions, leads to questing for more instead of decisions and action.

"What if this change we make is bad?"  That’s another comment she had.  It could be.  But there is no option without change.  Staying as is will mean changes.  Going a different direction will mean changes.  Which is going to be for the better?

 

"Some people aren’t going to like what we decide."  Another comment.  True.  True.  So this is a reason not to do something??  No way.  That puts the naysayer or critic in charge of the church.  And someone will always be unhappy.  Even Jesus, the Son of God, who had only twelve faced one of them being unhappy -- Judas.  If someone’s going to be miffed period, let’s gird up our loins and make the best decision we can. 

This isn't far different from, "I heard people don't like program x, y, or z."  That's when I ask, "How many?"  Usually it is two or less.  Did you talk to the other 98 who were there?  So you don't know if they liked it or didn't like it?  It could be 98 to 2.   I also ask, pardon me, "Which people?"  Oh them, they're nuts and against everything.  Everybody knows that. And you saying that you heard some people don't like it helps the rest of us hearing it how?  Or does it spawn a rumor mill of dis-ease?  

Let’s focus not on the naysayers (although we don’t want to not hear or care for them) but let’s see the many who are willing, interested, and able.  Somehow we see the negative more easily than the positive.  Yes, fear unfortunately is stronger than hope sometimes.  But let’s go with the hope.  

What Industrious Churches Do

What industrious churches do at this time of year is

• Contact everyone from January to present about getting back into the swing of things at church as summer winds down.  Tell them what new Sunday School classes there are.  Invite anyone with musical interest to give the choir a try as they come back from summer break.  
• They start a new class or classes to invite everyone to.  
• They contact all the schools nearby and let them know that there will be special prayers said for them on the Sunday before school starts, that the staff and parents are invited to come, and that throughout the year the church is here to help.  If a staff member suffers a loss and has no church, if a student has a particular struggle, ... you are here. 
• They contact the PTO or PTA and communicate the same as above.  But also insert a message that parents and kids can "commission" the year together in church, get off to the right start with a prayer.  Education of the mind is only part of our education.  There's education of the heart as well.
• They let nearby hotels/motels/campgrounds know that you are here for their customers looking for church services.
• They let funeral homes know that if there are families without church support in a time of grief, that you are here.  
• They let nearby businesses know that you are here for another good school year and enjoy partnering with them to make this community a good one.  Let them know that if you can be of service to them or their employees in a time of need or for spiritual counsel or for a meeting place to do an in-service, you'd like to help.
• They put up signs if they haven't already that "XYZ Church is 1 Block" thataway.  
• They recommit to making the main event (worship) inspiring and start a new message series with the start of school.  

Anyone want to add to the list?  Please do!  Let's hear from you.

Good News

Last week I ended the blog saying, “Let’s never give up on sharing the good news of Jesus Christ.”  Many consider Christianity a moral code – teaching and advice on how to live.  But it is not first that.  It is first news.  There’s a big, big difference. 

Advice is something you believe someone should follows so that things go well for them.  It’s about the future.  News is about what has happened, the past.

Let’s say an army was approaching.  Advisors … advice-givers would tell everyone in the town, barricade this, build up that, store this, cover that, … archers here.  On the basis of worry, how might we save ourselves is the matter.  We live in a certain way based on advice rooted in effort.

The phrase “good news” is a translation of the word, “euangellion.”  See the prefix, “eu,” for “good.”  See “angel” in “angellion” and an angel is a messenger.  An euangellion was a technical term for a herald, someone who ran back from, say, a field of battle, to the hometown.  They’d shout, “Our King won!” People would then live a certain way but based on news rooted in someone else’s effort.

Christianity is all about good news.  Two thousand years ago Jesus rose from the dead.  It’s possibly harder to disbelieve the evidence than to believe it.  Based on that victory we live in a certain way.  Thanks be to God!

For info on the resurrection I recommend:  The Case for Easter by Lee Strobel and The Resurrection of the Son of God by Tom Wright.  The first is short and the second is long.  

New Christian

New Christian …

I was at a meeting today.  A guy named Joe asked Reuben and then me how we met Jesus.  He was asking because he just met him on May 23.  Someone asked him to church and out of politeness he went.  The message and the presence of Jesus hit him like a ton of bricks.  He became, in his words, “born again.”  He travels a lot and this was his first men’s disciple meeting.  He had a new Bible that was called, The Beginner’s Bible. 

He shared that he told a colleague about his experience and got the reply, “Oh yeah, I tried that once.”  After a bit, Joe was pretty confused and a little angry at some other ways the man was treating him.  Instead of taking it to him, he prayed.  He prayed because that was the first advice he got about being born again – you should pray.  A little while later the man apologized and Joe thought, “Man, this really does work!” 

I noticed the whole room nodding and encouraging Joe.  It was as if everyone was remembering anew, “Jesus does work!  I mean, truly.”  New Christians I have always thought are vital to churches.  Worship, it’s higher when you are standing next to a person who is feeling like, well, they have been born again.  Education, it’s real when you are the one teaching a brand new Christian what’s what.  (Joe said he’d been propositioned by three women in the last month and that had not happened to him in years.  The men in the room said, “It’s Satan trying to mess you up.”  See, they were teaching him.)  Fellowship, go to the nursery window of a hospital and watch the family peering in at the newborn.  Is that fellowship or what?  Evangelism, it’s higher because you see once more but up close and personal and now, Jesus is touching lives.  So off you go ready to share him convinced he’s who he said he was. 

Let’s never give up on sharing the good news of Jesus Christ.  

Still Time

There's still time to sign up for the Leadership Summit.  It is avaliable in every major city in the United States.  It is the one conference I go to year in and year out.

There's still time to volunteer to help with VBS at Cocoa.  We'll be doing it in conjunction with Celebration Tabernacle.  It starts this Sunday evening in Flaniken Hall.

I do a little volunteering at Civil Air Patrol, Merritt Island.  One of the first mini-lectures I gave was on the difference between the urgent and the important.  Do you know the difference?  It's critical to realize that the urgent feels important but may or may not be.  Conversely, the important may or may not feel urgent.  It is simply the road to ruin to not get that some very, very important parts of life are not and never will be urgent.

A deepening life with God is seldom experienced as urgent.  But is there anything truly more important?  Make room in today for the important.

Have you heard of C.S. Lewis' essay, "On Learning in War Time"?  He was in university when he was called up to WWI.  He took a little Latin book or something like that with him.  For everyone else, they'd get back to learning after the war.  For everyone else, the trenches were too dirty to read in.  For everyone else, the situation wasn't quite right.  He realized that in real life there is always something that makes it less than ideal to learn, some reason to say, "I'll do it tomorrow."  But learning is important.  It may not be urgent.  It is important.  And he made room in today for it.

Summer Reading

I found myself reading to my Sunday School class the other day from an old favorite, Devotional Classics by Richard Foster.  It got me thinking about summer vacations and reading and suggesting a summer reading list. 

Devotional Classics.  Three or four pages of sampling from all the masters from Ignatius to Nouwen.  With good reflection questions, too.

Winning on Purpose.  John Kaiser.  Short and some of the best common sense about churches around.

The Great Divorce.  C.S. Lewis.  The Screwtape Letters.  C.S. Lewis.  Both are short and sooo insightful!

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made.  Paul Brand.  This is an amazing book about God and how he made us.  Written by a doctor. 

To Be Successful

In our Sunday School class last weekend I asked not what must someone do to be successful.  That will get a general answer showing some perspectives and values.  We asked what must a pastor do to be successful.  That's a little different than what a dentist must do.  Or someone in another role.  We asked what must a pastor do to be successful here.  A pastor may be successful in a storefront church but not here, in a megachurch but not here, in a church in Montana but not in Florida.  After all, local situations are particular.

Two matters came up that I was grateful for.  Neither one will really say what the a pastor must do to be successful at Cocoa Presbyterian.  I do think a step towards success in that matter, however, is asking the question itself, "What must a pastor do to be successful here?"

The first matter that came up was what a pastor must do to be successful to me and to us.  Of course.  I and we are the nest.  I and we are the home team.  I and we are doing the calling.  I and we come to this church.  We are bringing the pastor here to do something for me and us.

So the pastor can do what that line of thinking will produce and he or she should.  To an extent.  The line of thinking does not necessarily, though it may, hit what will make the church successful in terms of God and the world he is seeking.  The issue to ponder is whether focusing on the needs of the 100 or 200 or whatever who are present in a church means that they are satisfied while 1000 outside the front door are missed because they have a different set of concerns than those inside.  The question to yoke with what a pastor must do to be successful with us is what a pastor must do to be successful with them.  A church is never present just for us but for us and them.

The second matter that came up was what must a congregation do to be successful with a pastor.  Isn't that a good question?  Pastors around the world are thinking, "Wow, and you are already a step in that direction just by asking the question."

As a pastor my short answer was and is -- love the pastor.  We already know that he or she is human and therefore does not have the whole package to do everything well all of the time.  Even Pastor Jesus had people leave his church, and worse, and he was God!  But if in a family the best thing a man can do is love his wife because that means good things for her, for the kids, for him, then that's the same in the church.  Do you know anyone who does better with judgment than encouragement, reservation rather than support, criticism rather than care?  We can still be truthful.  Even then, though, remember what some wag said, I think very rightly about most human being's psyche's, "One 'You Turkey' erases nine 'Atta Boys'."