faith

Tuesdays Are Good Again

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

As you know, I’m a greeter for Kairos, a contemporary worship event on Tuesdays at 7 pm. I realized tonight that this fall will mark nine years that I have volunteered by offering a smile and a hello as people make their way into Hudson Hall on the Brentwood Baptist Church campus.

I love what I do and I love that people know me as the greeter guy from Kairos. I truly think that my worship experience is all the greater for me having invested, however small, my time and my somewhat limited people skills. I’m not the world’s biggest extrovert who can walk up to any stranger at any time and start a conversation, but I can offer a friendly greeting to the person in front of me.

On some days, it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. I mean how hard is it really to wave at someone and say, “Hi”?

But then I think that maybe the person I’m greeting has had a rotten day or even a horrible week. I may be the first face that person has seen that isn’t cursing at them or sneering at them. Maybe that person will look at me and see Jesus smiling at them. Who knows?

I’ve been on the other end, barely making it through the week and badly in need of something– anything– positive. I know the power of a smile and a friendly greeting. I know the power of encouraging words, whether spoken or texted or posted. In fact, when I missed Kairos a couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine posted on my wall that she missed seeing me there. That meant the world to me.

You don’t have to have the Bible memorized or have your theology down pat to be able to serve. All you need are open hands and a willing heart. Sometimes, all you need is simply to show up and get out of the way so that Jesus can take over.

 

Psalm 57

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

“God, be gracious to me; be gracious,
for I have made you my refuge.
I shall seek refuge in the shadow of
your wings
until the storms are past” (Psalm 57:1).

I chose to read through the Bible again in 2015, this time using the New English Bible translation. I’m currently in the middle of the Psalms and I ran across one that I had to re-read and then re-read again because it was perfectly timed for the weather we’ve been having.

To be fair, this part of the country has seen mostly rain and not much in the way of actual storms. But storms don’t always mean lots of rain, lightening, and hail. Sometimes storms come in the form of losing a job or losing a loved one. Sometimes storms are seasons of life that are difficult. Those storms don’t always come and go within 24 hours. Some can last for weeks and months and even years.

But the same Jesus that spoke peace to actual winds and waves so long ago is just as capable of speaking peace to your and my storms. Often I’ve noticed that He will allow the storm to rage, but He will calm the child within the storm (and I’m fairly certain that is not original with me).

For me, storms have been the place where I’ve found Jesus to be most faithful. Even when I can’t see the end of the storm clouds and wonder if the sun will ever shine again, I know even then that the promises of Jesus are just as true in the darkest storms as they are on the brightest days.

I’ve read through the Bible more than once and yes, I have read the last page. There are no storms or thunder or trials or pain or suffering there. Only victory. Only peace. Only the joy that comes in the morning after a night of weeping.

 

 

 

A Legacy of Love That Includes YOU

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

“ Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!” (Hebrews 12:1-3)

I attend The Church at Avenue South. Somewhere in the neighborhood of two years ago, some members of Brentwood Baptist Church had a dream about reaching out to the residents of the Melrose and Berry Hill area for Jesus and set out to make that dream a reality. They were told that it was impossible to find a place in the area for a church to meet. God proved them wrong.

45 years ago, Brentwood Baptist Church was the dream in the minds of some people from Woodmont Baptist Church. People told them that to plant a church in Brentwood was a pipe dream– there would never be enough people to warrant a church in the area. God again proved them wrong.

In 1941, someone had the vision to start Woodmont Baptist Church itself. 74 years later, who knows how many people have been affected by that one simple act of obedience? Who knows how far the ripples will reach from that one stone’s throw?

You are part of a legacy of love. Even if you don’t know it, you have a crowd cheering you on and rooting for you. Whether that’s your physical family or your spiritual family or even those who have gone on and are watching from heaven, you have people who are on your side. Even Jesus Himself roots for you and intercedes for you.

It’s easy on the dark days to feel alone, that you don’t matter, that nothing you do makes any difference. It’s easy to think that nothing will ever change for the better, that this is as good as it will ever get.

Don’t let that be the final word. Let what Jesus has declared be the final word. What did He declare? That He would finish what He started in you, that He had plans for you not for barm but for hope and a future for you, that eye has not seen nor ear heard what God has prepared for those who love Him (and those He loves).

Let this Monday be the day that you run your race faithfully, knowing you have a legacy both behind and ahead of you, cheering you on and being inspired by you to run their own race.

 

Quotes I Love Part One

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I think this says it all.

“WE CAN SAY THAT the story of the Resurrection means simply that the teachings of Jesus are immortal like the plays of Shakespeare or the music of Beethoven and that their wisdom and truth will live on forever. Or we can say that the Resurrection means that the spirit of Jesus is undying, that he himself lives on among us, the way that Socrates does, for instance, in the good that he left behind him, in the lives of all who follow his great example. Or we can say that the language in which the Gospels describe the Resurrection of Jesus is the language of poetry and that, as such, it is not to be taken literally but as pointing to a truth more profound than the literal.

Very often, I think, this is the way that the Bible is written, and I would point to some of the stories about the birth of Jesus, for instance, as examples; but in the case of the Resurrection, this simply does not apply because there really is no story about the Resurrection in the New Testament. Except in the most fragmentary way, it is not described at all. There is no poetry about it. Instead, it is simply proclaimed as a fact. Christ is risen! In fact, the very existence of the New Testament itself proclaims it. Unless something very real indeed took place on that strange, confused morning, there would be no New Testament, no Church, no Christianity.

Yet we try to reduce it to poetry anyway: the coming of spring with the return of life to the dead earth, the rebirth of hope in the despairing soul. We try to suggest that these are the miracles that the Resurrection is all about, but they are not. In their way they are all miracles, but they are not this miracle, this central one to which the whole Christian faith points.

Unlike the chief priests and the Pharisees, who tried with soldiers and a great stone to make themselves as secure as they could against the terrible possibility of Christ’s really rising again from the dead, we are considerably more subtle. We tend in our age to say, ‘Of course, it was bound to happen. Nothing could stop it.’ But when we are pressed to say what it was that actually did happen, what we are apt to come out with is something pretty meager: this ‘miracle’ of truth that never dies, the ‘miracle’ of a life so beautiful that two thousand years have left the memory of it undimmed, the ‘miracle’ of doubt turning into faith, fear into hope. If I believed that this or something like this was all that the Resurrection meant, then I would turn in my certificate of ordination and take up some other profession. Or at least I hope that I would have the courage to” (Frederick Buechner).

-Originally published in The Alphabet of Grace

A Night in Franklin

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I spent my Saturday night in Franklin. I visited my usual haunts and got my Main Street fix for the week.

It started off with a friend chicken tenders basket, which would have been better if I had gone with two pieces and not three. Don’t get me wrong. The food was stellar, but there was too much of it. I suppose yet again my eyes were bigger than my stomach. It was sad to see all those tasty fries go to waste. I almost ate the rest out of pity.

I then headed over to St. Paul’s Episcopal Church for some peace and quiet. Very rarely am I ever in a place of silence that it seems strange not to at least hear some form of white noise.  I’ve decided that the last thing society wants is for you to be in a place of silence where you can actually think about your life. They want you constantly bombarded by ads and music and noise 24/7 until you comply with their ideas of what to buy, wear, eat. etc., etc., etc. But I digress.

I had my mug o’ hot chocolate at the Frothy Monkey. Yes, it was both hot and frothy. I got in a little people watching while I sipped my frothy concoction and pretended to be hipper than I really was. It was great fun.

If I could live in Franklin, I’d love it. Maybe I could do some extended house-sitting there someday.

In the mean time, I plan on returning there soon, although I may have to shake things up by varying my routine a bit. Puckett’s, anyone?

Celebrating the Return of the Wifis and Interwebs

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 2 Comments

I have interwebs again at the crib. Sure, it may be the slowest connection in the western hemisphere, but I am connected. And that is not a complaint. That is an observation based on how long it took to upload The X-Files on Netflix.

I am celebrating with a good quote from C.S. Lewis on what it means to become yourself by becoming more like Jesus:

“The more we get what we now call ‘ourselves’ out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become. There is so much of Him that millions and millions of ‘little Christs’, all different, will still be too few to express Him fully.

He made them all. He invented— as an author invents characters in a novel—all the different men that you and I were intended to be. In that sense our real selves are all waiting for us in Him. It is no good trying to ‘be myself’ without Him.

The more I resist Him and try to live on my own, the more I become dominated by my own heredity and upbringing and surroundings and natural desires. In fact what I so proudly call ‘Myself’ becomes merely the meeting place for trains of events which I never started and which I cannot stop.

What I call ‘My wishes’ become merely the desires thrown up by my physical organism or pumped into me by other men’s thoughts or even suggested to me by devils. Eggs and alcohol and a good night’s sleep will be the real origins of what I flatter myself by regarding as my own highly personal and discriminating decision to make love to the girl opposite to me in the railway carriage. Propaganda will be the real origin of what I regard as my own personal political ideas.

I am not, in my natural state, nearly so much of a person as I like to believe: most of what I call ‘me’ can be very easily explained. It is when I turn to Christ, when I give myself up to His Personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.”

From Mere Christianity
Compiled in A Year with C.S. Lewis

More of the Wifi-lessness

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I had a thought today that kinda blew my mind. Actually, it 100% blew my mind.

The more you and I become like Jesus, the more we each become our truest selves. You looking like Jesus will look different than me looking like Jesus, comprende?

Also, we can’t achieve Christlikeness by ourselves. It’s only in community that we bring out Jesus in each other. 

Mind. Even. More. Blown.

And no, I still have no wifi at the domicile.

Lessons from Being Wifi-less

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

So I still have no interwebs at the homestead on my laptop. It’s frustrating and annoying. I tinkered with all the tech again but to no avail. So I thought I’d take the time that I’d normally waste on Facebook to share a few lessons I’ve learned from the experience of being wifi-less.

1) IT is not my spiritual gift. That’s just not how I’m wired (insert rim shot here).

2) Life still does manage to go on. People lived without wifi or even the internet for many years. I even grew up without it, and look how I turned out. Ok, nevermind.

3) The Bible functions quite well without wifi. As much as I love the youversion Bible app on my swanky if outdated iPhone 5, nothing beats turning actual pages and catching a whiff of old ink on old paper.

So the moral of the story is that I’ll survive.And maybe I’ll be just a bit nicer to the IT people in my life and not tap on the glass when they’re working, i.e. playing World of Warcraft. And no more tech geek wisecracks either. 

The Worst 

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“Resurrection means that the worst thing is never the last thing” (Frederick Buechner).

I love that. 

When you have that moment of panic in the morning before your alarm is set to go off, when you toss and turn at night for thinking about all the stupid things you said and did that you wish you could take back, that’s not the end.

The moment you got fired, the moment your marriage ended, the moment you lost a friend, is not the last thing.

Because of the resurrection, God is working all things together (even the worst things) for good– even the best– for those who love God and are called according to His purpose.

That’s the last thing– the good that comes out of the worst, the victory that emerges from your defeat, the restoration of all you’ve lost over your life.

That is my kind of good news, especially on a dreary and rainy Tuesday night.

The Interwebs

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

Technology is wonderful. It makes life so much easier. I just love me some technology . . . until it stops working. Then I want to say some very non-Baptist words.

My wi-fi isn’t working and I can’t for the life of me figure out how to make it do right. I’ve tried all the magic words I know, including “pretty please,” and every possible combination of plugging those dratted cables in. I have come to face the reality that I may not be tech-illiterate, but I am close.

Funny. I don’t remember praying for patience this morning but got mine tested anyway. Still, I have to remind myself that I woke up this morning, I could get out of bed, I had a roof over my head and clothes to wear and food to eat . . . I have everything I need.

God sometimes allows these little wi-fi malfunctions to remind me that there is life outside the internet. In fact, Jesus came to give me the abundant life that isn’t found on a website but in a holy book.

And yet I still somehow manage to complain.