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Christmas Night of Worship

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It’s been a while since I attended a night of worship, but I think tonight qualifies as my first ever Christmas Night of Worship. There’s something powerful about declaring the might and majesty of God out loud with a multitude of other believers, especially in the season where we celebrate the arrival of Emmanuel who forever altered and changed the course of history.

There was a good mix of old and new with songs that were overtly Christmas-themed and songs that weren’t but felt very appropriate in the context of Christmas worship. It was the first but I believe not the last as I hope that this will be the new tradition at The Church at Avenue South going forward.

This is why gathering as believers is so vital. It’s one thing to praise God by yourself, but something almost miraculous happens when we stir each other in worship and community. Hearing all the other voices emboldened me to want to sing louder and more passionately.

I’m so thankful for such an amazing staff and worship ministry at my church. Not only to come up with the idea but to pull it off in the midst of a crazy and hectic December schedule blows my Baptist mind. I feel so blessed to call Ave South my church home.

I hope and pray that you belong to a community that doesn’t shy away from singing Scriptural worship music. I hope that you will be intentional this season about singing as loud as you can, whether you consider yourself a good singer or not. After all, the Bible tells us to make a joyful noise.

Being able to sing on key and in tempo is not a requirement to make a joyful noise. You don’t need a music degree or even any musical knowledge at all. All it takes is a heart full of gratitude and a reckless boldness to open your mouth and let your praises pour forth. The sweet aroma to God isn’t from the perfect pitch or the beautiful melodies but from hearts so captivated by grace that they can’t help but sing.

Showing the Way Out

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When your brain is french toast, sometimes it’s good to let someone else take over. In this case, it’s Uncle Mikey, a reference that us old Kairos faithful will understand while the rest of the world calls him Dr. Mike Glenn:

“I’ve long joked that sympathy is overrated. When things are going bad for me, I really don’t want someone to tell me they know how I feel. I want someone to come and say, “Yes, I know how you feel and I know the way out.”

I think we forget how completely sin messes up our lives. Sin not only messes up our lives, it messes up the way our minds and bodies work. Ever talked to people trying to justify their addiction? In their minds, they’re making complete sense. That’s what happens. Sin destroys relationships, bodies, minds, and souls.

That’s why telling someone what they’re doing is wrong without offering to help them get out of it is, well, pretty much a waste of time. You may feel better, but the person you’re talking to won’t. What’s more, they’ll probably just get mad and walk away, more committed to their destructive choices.

Jesus shows us another way. First, Jesus never confronted anybody without giving that person a way out. The religious leaders of the day, Jesus pointed out, were quick to make a lot of rules but never helped anyone keep them. Jesus would always point the person to the way out of bondage.

Second, Jesus walked with sinners as they found their way. The scandal of the incarnation is that God loves us so much that He came into our world. He walked into our lives and told us if we’d follow Him, He’d show us the way home.

Whenever I talk about abortion, I always mention our partnership with Hope Clinic, a crisis pregnancy center in Nashville. I always want people to know there are people eager and ready to help, no matter what situation they’re facing.

Since the beginning of time, God has been on a Divine rescue mission. We, the local church, are extensions of that work. Finding the lost is great, but telling them the way home—and then walking it with them—is even better” (Dr. Mike Glenn).

Homesick for God?

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“How many people have you made homesick for God?” (Oswald Chambers, Disciples Indeed)

That’s the key to evangelism, I think. It’s not constantly reminding people how sinful they are or ridiculing their worldview. I think in that approach we forget that we too were once sinful and had wrong beliefs about the universe.

What was it that won you over? What was it that made you want to know and love God? Was it really someone telling you what an awful person you were? Was it someone constantly berating your beliefs?

I think the key is to make people long for God to the point where they’re homesick for God. I think people seeing you loving God and living out of the overflow of God’s love for you will want to know God. People who see you loving others well the way God loved you well will crave that kind of love, even if they don’t have a name for it.

The way the early Church drew people was in how those believers loved each other. They loved lost people as well, but mainly it was in their love for each other that made people want to hear their gospel message.

If all you have is a well-defined set of doctrines and beliefs, no one cares. If all you have is a passion for making people as moral as you are, then no one wants to hear about it. But when you live transformed and let the life of Christ in you permeate everything you do, then people can’t help but see and be drawn to what they don’t have.

The key is to make people homesick for a home they’ve never known but want to go to more than anything or anywhere else. Make them homesick for God.

Back to the Lost Art of Porch Sitting

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A few months back I wrote about the joys of front porch sitting. Today, I had the chance to fulfill that wish in real time. I was able to sit in an honest to goodness rocking chair on an honest to goodness front porch and look down that winding gravel road.

Honestly, I’m not very good at it yet. I think I — like so many of us — am programmed with the urge to look at my device instead of looking up. But I think I’m getting better at it. I was able to put my phone face down and simply bask in the breezes blowing all around me.

Thankfully, it wasn’t 1000 degrees outside this time. I even thought for a moment that it might rain, which would have been especially pleasant sitting on that porch under a tin roof with the rain coming down. But alas, that didn’t happen.

Lots of houses still have front porches, but I rarely see anyone taking the time to sit on their front porch. We’re probably in the busiest time in the history of the world with people accomplishing the least (or at least hardly anything of true significance). We are slaves to the tyranny of the urgent (which is a great little book that everyone should read at some point).

But sitting on a front porch is simply the art of doing nothing. It’s choosing to exist in the moment that God made like Martha who chose to sit at Jesus’ feet rather than worry about so many distracting and competing tasks. And yes, I know that Mary also did a good thing in being a good host but Martha chose the better way.

It takes practice to sit on a front porch well. You almost have to retrain your brain for the slower rhythm and learn to see everything again. You almost have to become a little child again (although I don’t know too many little children who are good at sitting still for long periods of time) by remembering the art of awe and wonder at God’s creation.

From now on, I want to waste as much time as I can sitting on front porches, especially on near fall-like days like today.

Homesick

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I was listening to an 80s Truth record I picked up recently. I got to the song Homesick. It sounded vaguely familiar, but I felt I had heard or read the lyrics before very recently. Then I remembered I had seen a post with the very same song lyrics less than a week ago.

The song is the heartbeat of any believer who knows this world isn’t really home. A former pastor of mine once compared this life to a very nice, very clean bus station (or airport terminal, if you will). It’s not supposed to be your forever place to live, but a place to be until you can get to your forever home.

“They say home is where the heart is
And I’m finding out it’s true
‘Cause I long to be in heaven
Since my heart is there with You
Reading over letters
That You’ve written to me
Telling me of all You have in store
Makes me start to dreaming
Of the place I want to be
And I get that lonely feeling
Like so many times before

I get homesick
Longing for my home
And for Your open arms
Of lovе and comfort
Waiting for me there
I gеt homesick
Yearning for my home
And for the day
When all Your family
Gets together forever
Our eternal home sweet home

Lord, You living truth within me
Keeps me safe and warm
All its strength and all its beauty
Rise through every storm
Without its presence in my soul
I could not carry on
To face the many battles I find here
Lord, you keep the promises
I build my life upon
And as time goes by, I know
That I will always keep them near

I get homesick
Longing for my home
And for Your open arms
Of love and comfort
Waiting for me there
I get homesick
Yearning for my home
And for the day
When all Your family
Gets together forever
Our eternal home sweet home” (Larry Bryant, Lesa Bryant & Justin Peters).

It’s interesting to be homesick for a home we’ve never known, but that’s what it is. That’s why nothing here will ever completely satisfy the deep longing of our souls. Only God can do that. And our experience of God here is cloudy and partial. One day it will be clear and complete. We will know as we are fully known. And we will be truly home.

The Long and Winding Road

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“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to” (Bilbo Baggins, The Lord of the Rings).

I had another good night in Franklin. I hit all the usual places– McCreary’s Irish Pub, Kilwin’s, and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. I had to cut it short when it started to rain.

I also had to improvise a bit for my drive home. Franklin Road going north was blocked off for the Pilgrimage Festival, so I tried a new way. More accurately, I started to try a new way and resorted to GPS when my way led me into unfamiliar territory.

When you’re not sure where you are, i.e. lost, nothing feels better than finding a familiar landmark or street.

When I turned on to Berry’s Chapel Road, I knew I was finally heading in the right direction. It was literally the long and winding road that led me back home.

The faith journey often takes us into unfamiliar territory. Usually, God does that to increase both our awareness of dependence on Him and to grow our faith as we discover new aspects to God’s ability to come through in the clutch.

Sometimes, I’ve been guilty of viewing God as my GPS, a sort of last minute back-up plan in case my own way of getting home fails. Too many of us have prayer and God as a last resort after every other effort has failed.

The lesson from tonight is to start off with prayer. It involves less stress in the end. It also will save you from a lot of heartache and disappointment and distractions that your own “short cuts” inevitably lead to.

One other note: I’d have probably done better if it hadn’t been dark and raining. I probably missed a street or two from not being able to see street signs very well. I think sometimes when you’re tired and frustrated, it’s best not to figure things out because you can’t always see everything properly. And definitely hold off on those emails and posts until you’ve had a good night’s sleep. Just FYI.

 

Belonging

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“That’s plain enough, isn’t it? You’re no longer wandering exiles. This kingdom of faith is now your home country. You’re no longer strangers or outsiders. You belong here, with as much right to the name Christian as anyone. God is building a home. He’s using us all—irrespective of how we got here—in what he is building. He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation. Now he’s using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together. We see it taking shape day after day—a holy temple built by God, all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home” (Ephesians 2:19-22).

All of us have probably gone through times in our lives where we felt like we didn’t belong anywhere. Many of us have known what it’s like to feel unwanted and unloved (whether real or perceived).

Most of us have done and said stupid stuff- stuff we’d normally never even dream of saying or doing– in order to fit into a group. Nine out of ten times we found out that being in the group wasn’t worth the cost of wrecking our consciences.

Get this. In God’s Kingdom, you belong. I belong. We belong. Not because any of us are so great or special or wonderful, but because God wanted us to be there. Why? I can’t speak for any of you, but I have no idea why God wanted me, other than it gave Him pleasure for some mysterious reasons known only to Him.

That’s my motto for the evening. We belong. Of course, now I have that Pat Benatar song stuck in my head (one of the many perils of being a music nerd).

The best part of belonging in the kingdom of God is that there will never be a time where you and I no longer belong, where we are once again outcasts and misfits.

This belonging is forever.

 

What Is Your Second Mile?

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“If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles” (Matthew 5:41, NIV)

The gist of the passage is that back in ye olden Bible times, a Roman soldier could conscript anyone to carry his gear for up to one mile. Many Jewish people would put a marker exactly one mile from their houses so they would know precisely how much they were required to do.

Remember Simon of Cyrene? The Roman soldiers forced him to carry Jesus’ cross, probably based on this idea.

But pay attention to Jesus’ own words.

If anyone asks you to go one mile, go two. In other words, do above and beyond what is expected of you.

So the question that I heard today is the one I now pose to you: what is your second mile?

How can you serve where you’re planted in a way that goes beyond the minimum requirement?

It’s not necessarily about doing more, but about how you do what you’re doing. It’s all about your attitude.

Where you are, what you are doing, is your ministry, whether it’s in a church building or a seminary or a classroom or in a grocery store or in your own home.

I think the Apostle Paul nailed it when he said this: “Servants, do what you’re told by your earthly masters. And don’t just do the minimum that will get you by. Do your best. Work from the heart for your real Master, for God, confident that you’ll get paid in full when you come into your inheritance. Keep in mind always that the ultimate Master you’re serving is Christ. The sullen servant who does shoddy work will be held responsible. Being a follower of Jesus doesn’t cover up bad work” (Colossians 3:22-25, The Message).

That goes for any sphere of life for wherever you live,work, play, and serve.

Do it all as if you were doing it directly for Jesus Himself.

See everyone you meet as possibly Jesus in disguise and treat them like you would treat Him if you knew He was standing right in front of you.

It’s 11:15 on a Saturday

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It’s March 1, the day after my birthday. It’s also (wait for it) the first day of March and (wait for it) 20 days away from the first official day of spring.

Winter, it was fun and it was real, but it’s over. It’s time for you and your cold weather to go home. Don’t overstay your welcome.

And yes, it is Saturday, 41 minutes away from being Sunday. I got a few more Facebook birthday well-wishes today, which always makes my day better. Such fun.

Anyway, God is still in control. He’s still got a plan for me and He hasn’t abandoned me or forgotten about me. He still knows the plans He has for me and I can’t wait to see what they will turn out to be.

That last bit was just me reminding myself of a few things. Take whichever of these you need as helpful reminders in the event that you get anxious or discouraged. All of the above are true and all apply to you, too.

That’s all I have for tonight.

If It Hadn’t Been for Those Meddling Hypocrites!

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For some odd reason today, I thought about the movie Annie Hall and a great line. Woody Allen’s character says something to the effect of: “I wouldn’t want to be a part of a club that would have me for a member.”

Then I thought of all those people who stay away from church because of all the hypocrites. So here are my thoughts on that.

First of all, if you never went any place where there were hypocrites, you’d be at home alone in the dark with your pet ferret. You’d never go anywhere for fear of running into one of those hypocrites. You might even have a hard time looking in the mirror, because . . .

That’s right. You’re a hypocrite. So am I. We’ve all pretended to be something or somebody we’re not from time to time. We’ve played the calm dispassionate part when we’re falling apart and screaming on the inside.

Society teaches us to be hypocrites, to never let our true selves out but to only show what is culturally acceptable and normal. You can be yourself as long as that fits a certain cookie-cutter mold.

If there’s anyplace where you can be you, it should be the Church. If there’s a place where you can let your guard down and admit your hurts and flaws, it should be in the midst of the body of Christ.

Churches aren’t perfect because Christians aren’t perfect. As the old joke goes, if you find the perfect church don’t go there because you’ll ruin it with your imperfections.

Church is about doing life together and figuring it all out together. And if you’re not getting anything out of it, maybe that means you’re not putting in your fair share. Isn’t faith about more than just receiving? Isn’t there the part of giving and losing yourself?

I’m glad I’ve found a church where I feel like I belong, where I matter, where I can be a part of what God is doing in the world. I hope you find a place where you can feel like family, too.