theology

Looking for the Pause Button

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Sometimes, I wish life had a remote control, like in that Adam Sandler movie where he fast-forwards through the boring parts of his life.

Only I wouldn’t be looking for the fast-forward button. I’d want to pause my life.

Today, I went to the funeral of a friend’s dad. I hadn’t seen or talked to him in a long time, but I remember him as being a quiet, gentle man who loved his God and his family and who also happened to own the first PC that I had ever seen.

I saw him lying in the coffin, looking like a perfect wax replica of a person. Then I remembered that I was looking not at the man, but at the shell. The moment he breathed his last he was instantly in the presence of Jesus, fully alive and healthy and happy.

I heard where two Briarcrest students who were set to embark on their senior year of high school died Friday at the hands of a drunk driver who had four DUIs in the last five years.

There’s too much sadness and loss in the world. Too many people had to say goodbye to the ones they loved, while more than that never got the chance.

I sense more than ever how precious and fleeting this life is. I understand more how important it is never to take anyone in your life for granted.

I’m thinking about the quote from the movie The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel– “There’s no present like the time.”

I recall a pastor who said that at best this life is like a clean bus station. You don’t set up a bedroom suite and move all your belongings into a Greyhound terminal, because it’s only a stop along the way toward your final destination.

This life is so brief because this is not our final destination. Heaven is. As much as I keep forgetting, as much as I want that pause button to work, I know that I can’t stop that second hand from racing clockwise toward another tomorrow.

I can only choose to live each moment fully and to be fully present to every person in every place at every moment that I’m given. I can know that in God’s economy nothing is ever wasted and the good a person does follows after them. Your legacy will far outlive you and in the end, it won’t be what you did for a living or who you knew, but who you were and what you did with what God gave you.

 

Tuesdays Are Good Again

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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.

 

Jesus Knows

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This past Sunday, we celebrated Palm Sunday. On this day, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey while people laid palm branches on the road before Him and hailed Him with hosannas.

Five days later, these same people were calling out for His death.

Jesus knows what it feels like to be deserted in a time of need.

Jesus is with the woman whose husband walked out on her, saying he didn’t love her any more.

Jesus is with the boy whose friend suddenly acts like a stranger when the cool kids are around because he doesn’t want anybody to think he’s friends with a nerd.

Jesus is with that one whose friend who he counted on suddenly disappears from his life and he can’t for the life of him figure out why.

The beautiful part is that Jesus can do more than feel the pain we feel. He can actually do something about it.

That death Jesus faced on the cross was more than the murder of an innocent man and the hands of a mob.

It was God in the flesh laying down His own life for the ones who deserted Him, the ones who mocked Him, the ones who spit in His face, the ones who drove the nails into His wrists and feet. the very ones who killed Him.

Ultimately, it wasn’t sin that killed Jesus. It wasn’t the pain. In the end, He gave His life up willingly, a choice He had made from day one.

That means that no one need ever be alone again. Jesus’ death and resurrection means that one day every wrong will be made right and all the hurts and wounds of the world will be healed.

I love that Jesus never turns down anyone who earnestly seeks Him in faith. You and I didn’t find Jesus, because it wasn’t He who was lost. We were the ones who were lost, and Jesus is the One who found us.

And Jesus still knows.

 

 

Words of Wisdom

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Today, I learned something new. That applies to just about every day that I’ve been alive, since there is so much out there yet to learn (or in my case, to learn and to forget and to re-learn).

Matthew Page preached today instead of Aaron Bryant at The Church at Avenue South and that’s where I picked up this new knowledge. Although, I’d like it not to be just something else that I know intellectually, but something that profoundly affects how I live toward others from here on out.

Mr. Page said that not all of us will be accomplished preachers or evangelists. Not all of us will draw crowds Billy Graham-style or present a compelling defense of the faith a la C. S. Lewis or Josh McDowell.

But all of us can learn to love well. All of us can show the same love for those around us that Jesus showed us. In fact, that’s the most compelling argument for the faith.

People can argue all day long over the finer points of theology and politics, but no one can ever argue over the evidence of a changed life. No one can ever refute a testimony that’s not only spoken out loud but lived out loud as well.

Most of all, people can never deny those who love the unlovable, who go against human nature to forgive and release instead of harboring resentment and seeking revenge.

Those who were drawn into the early Church pointed to that kind of love as the reason. “See how they love one another,” they said of the early believers. They might have added, “See how they love those around them,” to the Christians who risked their own lives to care for lepers, who left the familiarity and comforts of home to take this new gospel around the world.

That’s my prayer both for me and for you: to love others as well as Jesus has loved us. I know it’s not possible unless it’s Jesus doing the loving both in us and through us. Even then, we will still get in the way most of the time. But I’m convinced that if the world saw a fraction of that agape love lived out and not just talked about, it would make a big difference.

 

Lessons from Van Gogh

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Tonight at Kairos, Michael Boggs did a bit of art history. I have to share what he said because it really does have implications for 21st century American Christianity.

Van Gogh started as a missionary living in a mining community. He totally immersed himself in their world tried to be Jesus to them. The result was that the church who put him there fired him because they felt his behavior wasn’t becoming of their standards.

He painted his famous church painting much later. The painting is beautiful, but also telling in what it leaves out. First, there are no lights coming from within the church. There’s not a path leading to the church. Finally, there are no doors anywhere on this church.

It was as if Van Gogh was communicating how he felt church leaders shut him out and how he couldn’t get back in. He felt like they put up barriers between him and God.

A question my friend posed (and one I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is, ” What would Jesus undo?” He even wrote a book by that title with just that question in mind.

I believe Jesus would undo the walls we put up to keep people out. Not the boundaries we put up to protect ourselves, but walls we use to ostracize those who think and act different than us.

Most of all, I think Jesus would undo the holy huddle mentality that has kept the lost people around it at arm’s length and shut its eyes to the dire need around it.

Jesus would undo the religious hyper-activity that keeps us too busy going to church throughout the week to be able to take Jesus to those around us who really need Him.

Jesus would definitely undo my smug superiority over those who sin differently than I do, reminding me that my sin is just as offensive as theirs. I need Jesus as much as anyone and it took just as much grace to save me as it took for any felon or drug addict.

I plan on buying the book, What Would Jesus Undo by Michael Boggs, and I hope you will, too. Shameless plug.

The Odd Blog

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I had an idea or two about what I was going to write about this evening, but at the moment, neither of them seem as compelling. Plus, I’m very tired.

I’m thankful for people. I know it’s an odd thing to say. Besides, people can be disappointing and rude and unkind at times. Even the best of people have their off days every now and then, not to mention periods of grumpiness and bad moods.

But life without people isn’t nearly as fulfilling as life with people. As much as I love my cat, she’s not the most stimulating conversationalist I’ve ever met. She tends to be a little short on words.

The right people in your life can inspire and encourage you to do more than you thought you could. They can keep you going when you by yourself would have given up.

That’s what I want. I want someone to say, “Because of you, I kept going. I didn’t give up.”

I’ve had those people come into my life at just the right moments. Some were only meant for a short season and some are still around. I thank God for all of them.

My assignment for you is this: find someone who needs encouragement and be that encouragement. Find someone who won’t believe that God loves them until they see it from you. Find people who doesn’t see much in themselves and help them to see that they too bear the Imago Dei, the image of God, and are intrinsically valuable.

In short, love people the way you want to be loved. Treat people like you want to be treated. And remember that God loved you at that moment when you were at your very worst, so you can love anybody.

God’s Yes: Tonight’s Takeaway from Kairos

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“For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ. And so through him the ‘Amen’ is spoken by us to the glory of God” (2 Cor. 1:20).

Most people see Christians as people who are against stuff. Kinda like the old saying: “I don’t smoke and I don’t chew and I don’t go with girls that do.”

Pastor Mike talked about how the church he attended growing up would get together and celebrate not having done anything bad. They didn’t drink or smoke or cuss or gamble. In fact, they celebrated having not done anything at all.

I believe God speaks a far louder YES than most people realize. When He says No, it’s only because He has a far greater Yes in mind for you. Or maybe it’s something you’re not quite ready for.

My mom wouldn’t let me stuff myself with candy before dinner. Why? Because she wanted to be a killjoy? More likely it was because a) I’d make myself sick from all the candy, b) I’d be a fat kid with cavities, and most importantly, c) I’d be missing out on something far more satisfying and beneficial.

I think even the No’s of God are a way of directing us to His Yes. To borrow from a C. S. Lewis metaphor, he takes us out of the slum where we’re making mud pies to offer us a holiday at sea.

God doesn’t want to repress you or depersonalize you. He wants you to become everything He created you to be. For you to be most fully alive and most fully you. And Who would know better how to do that than the One who made you?

I want God’s YES for me even if that means I have to say NO occasionally to my appetites and desires. Even if that means I chose the delayed reward over immediate gratification. Well, at least I do most of the time.

A Puritan Prayer on Contentment

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I have a book called The Valley of Vision. It’s essentially a collection of really old, i.e. 1600’s Puritan prayers. I chose one of them at random to share with you (and because it’s just so freakin’ awesome).

“Heavenly Father, if I should suffer need, and go unclothed, and be in poverty, make my heart prize Your love, know it, be constrained by it, though I be denied all blessings. It is Your mercy to afflict and try me with wants, for by these trials I see my sins, and desire severance from them. Let me willingly accept misery, sorrows, temptations, if I can thereby feel sin as the greatest evil, and be delivered from it with gratitude to You, acknowledging this as the highest testimony of Your love.

When Your Son, Jesus, came into my soul instead of sin He became more dear to me than sin had formerly been; His kindly rule replaced sin’s tyranny. Teach me to believe that if ever I would have any sin subdued I must not only labour to overcome it, but must invite Christ to abide in the place of it, and He must become to me more than vile lust had been; that His sweetness, power, life may be there. Thus I must seek a grace from Him contrary to sin, but must not claim it apart from Himself.

When I am afraid of evils to come, comfort me by showing me that in myself I am a dying, condemned wretch, but in Christ I am reconciled and live; that in myself I find insufficiency and no rest, but in Christ there is satisfaction and peace; that in myself I am feeble and unable to do good, but in Christ I have ability to do all things. Though now I have His graces in part, I shall shortly have them perfectly in that state where You will show Yourself fully reconciled, and alone sufficient, efficient, loving me completely, with sin abolished. O Lord, hasten that day.”

Those Puritans sure knew how to pray.

New Beginnings

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It happens in two weeks. Three at the most.

What am I talking about?

It’s a new satellite campus of Brentwood Baptist Church, called The Church at Avenue South.

Two weeks from now (hopefully), the church meets at its new location on Franklin Pike in the old Acuff-Rose building. It’s gonna be awesome.

I’ve been a part of this new congregation for a few months, not as long as some, but long enough to sense that something great is about to happen.

I’ve always wanted to be a part of the ground-floor movement of a church plant. Now I get to. I believe the neighborhood around this new church location will be different and better because we’ve been there. Or better yet, because Jesus will have been there.

I imagine it feels like when Paul went to a new city and started a church there. I realize that Nashville is the buckle of the Bible belt, but there are plenty of unchurched people living in this city. In fact, the vast majority of people don’t attend church at all.

Our job isn’t to fill seats with seats. Our job is to love these people around us, whether they respond favorably to our gospel or not. Our job is to love them the same way God once loved us– and still does– unconditionally.

I’m still not sure what my part will be in all this, but I feel very fortunate and blessed to even be a miniscule part of what is obviously a work of God. I know one day I’ll look back and say, “I was there when it all started.”

I still remember what I learned from Experiencing God, a Henry Blackaby Bible study. He said the key is to find out where God is already at work and join Him there. That’s what I’m doing.

Pray for this new church. Pray for the leadership for protection from moral failings and for wisdom and discernment. Pray that people will be irresistibly compelled to come through the doors at 2510 Franklin Pike to see what it’s all about. Pray that we as members will live in such a way that people ask about the difference in our lives.

More to come later.

 

Some 4th of July Thoughts

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I did my patriotic duty and witnessed a good fireworks display, courtesy of the town of Nolensville. That part was great. The drive home in the ridiculous traffic was not. Fortunately, I had some old-school Rod Stewart to keep me motivated.

I had some thoughts while I was staring at the taillights from the car in front of me that had little or nothing to do with being stuck in traffic (except for the abundance of time provided):

It doesn’t matter that you’re making really good time if you’re headed in the wrong direction. There’s no prize for getting to the wrong place early.

If you’re climbing that proverbial ladder of success, make sure it’s leaning against the right building. True failure is succeeding at things that don’t really matter while neglecting those that do matter. Like neglecting your family for the almighty dollar.

Cherish the moments you’re given, knowing that there will be more moments later, but none will be exactly like this one. Ditto for cherishing relationships.

I think that covers the extent of my enlightenment. Mostly, I was wondering how long it would take me to drive the distance that normally takes 15 minutes. And trying not to cuss. Just keeping it real, folks.

I’m thinking next year I may camp out at the fireworks site and drive home in the morning. Who’s with me?