The Church is for the World

For those of you who have been asking whether I will continue to write a blog post after this week, my last week as Senior Pastor at First Pres, Colorado Springs, the answer is yes.  I will keep the same web-address, and I would love to stay in touch!

This past week I have been battling a cold/flu/cough thing.  Actually, as I have spoken with literally hundreds of people this week, I am amazed at how many people have the same flu thing.  After hacking my way through the better part of the week, I finally broke down and got some antibiotics, and am doing better.  I recommend that if you are sick, you do the same.

Now, having taken these antibiotics - these magical little pills, penicillin, I am simply amazed at how effective this little invention is.  Underneath the red, sugar coated pills is a secret ingredient - mold.   We all know the story of how Alexander Fleming discovered that when these mold follicles were pitted against influenza and other viruses, the flu was attacked and nullified (picture above).  Penicilin was made for infection.  If penicilin is not applied to a sickness or a disease, it is useless.  Actually mold is quite disgusting in it's raw and basic form.  Just ask my refrigerator!

I have been thinking about another thing that is totally useless unless it is applied to the thing that it was made to help.  The church (and by this I mean, The Church, not any church in particular), is totally useless unless it is applied to the world.

The Church is For the World

When Jesus ascended into heaven on his fortieth day after being resurrected, he left the gift of the Holy Spirit.  Not long thereafter this, The Church was born.  Out of prayer and petition, and the moving of the Holy Spirit, the church was born.  We are told by Luke in the book of Acts, that in the upper room, where the disciples were praying, there were little licks of fire that appeared on people's heads.  At the same time, there was a Holy wind coming from God.  These things in and of themselves were interesting from an extraterrestrial, God encounter kind of way, but in and of themselves they were useless.  It wasn't until these disciples, filled with the Holy Spirit, descended the steps of the upper room and went into the streets of Jerusalem that The Church was born.

The Church is For the World

Churches are complex organisms.  They are made up of people, and all people have problems (myself included).  Churches are made up of administrative systems that are important for the functioning of the church.  Churches are made up of leaders who strive to seek the will of God as they lead.  Churches are made up families, all which come with their own sets of marital difficulties, adolescent misbehavior, and juvenile developmental challenges.  Churches are comprised of financial boards and oversight structures.  Churches have staff leaders and lay leaders, each of whom have their own individual visions of what is most important.  Churches are complex!

But The Church was not meant to exist for these functions alone.  The Church was not meant to reside in the upper room.  Church was not meant to sit in a pill bottle on the shelf.

The Church is For the World

And the world has so many things that ail it.  The world is full of war, calamity, brokenness, heartache, disfunction, corruption, and just plain hopelessness.  The world needs what the church offers.  Church is the pill in the bottle that has to be opened, and applied to the sickness that it confronts.  Otherwise it remains a sugar coated moldy thing that has no use.

The Church is For the World

All For Now,
GB

Unique

Not too long ago, I listened to a sermon from my friend Lloyd Ogilvie (I say friend, because my family and he have known each other for so long, but what I really mean is, "friend in Christ").  The main gist of Lloyd's message was that all people are made in a unique way by God and that all of us have a very unique contribution to offer to the kingdom.

Lloyd began his message by talking about how, when he took his first call in ministry (a large established call in the Chicago area), he felt quite intimidated to preach in the pulpit that he took.  The pastor before him was a legend in his own right.  Lloyd was then only in his 20's.  Though Lloyd had won the National Oratory Championship as a youth, and was a very gifted speaker in his own right, he felt un-equal to the task, un-able for the mission, I'm-perfect in the vocation of preaching in such a big pulpit.  Early on Sunday morning, many hours before church was to begin, or the sun had even risen on the horizon, Lloyd went on a morning walk.  His walk took him to a park, nearby to the church. Lloyd was not dressed in his characteristically sartorial splendor of Sunday morning, but rather he was wearing street clothes.  He was wearing on hood over his head on that crisp Sunday morning.  When he got to the park, he met a man who was sitting on a park bench.  Lloyd felt called to tell this man his woes.  "I have to preach in the pulpit down on the corner in about two hours time, and I feel totally unprepared (though I have prepared thoroughly) for the task."  The man sitting on the park bench said.  "Son, I am also a preacher."  Lloyd looked the man in the eyes and realized that he was one of the most famous preachers in Chicago (think DL Moody...or someone of the ilk, but not DL because he died in 1899).  DL said, "I have been preaching for years, and I have to preach to 5,000 people in two hours, and I feel totally unprepared as well."  Then DL (or someone of his ilk) said, "But son, I want you to listen to me.  God made all of us unique.  God made you in a unique way.  The message that you deliver in your church can only ever be delivered by YOU, because God will be speaking through YOU.  I could not deliver that.  Only YOU can do that.  So, I want you to go back and I want you to preach the best you can, to the glory of God."

Lloyd talks about what an impact that encounter had on his young burgeoning pastoral soul.

When I heard Lloyd's message I felt the same kind of liberation.  God made me in a unique way as well.  I am the only one who can carry out God's mission in the world in the unique way that I am able to.  And as I have been praying about this theme, I believe that all of us have a unique contribution to make.  Some people are preachers, others are teachers, others are bankers or accountants, or school teachers or business people, or writers or musicians or painters or homemakers.  All of us are made by God UNIQUELY, to do God's UNIQUE work in us.

To carry the point a bit further.  If we do not, each of us as UNIQUE beings made by God, carry out God's unique plans in us, then the world, the kingdom will be the lesser for it.  Let's put it this way.  God's plan, for the salvation of the world (literally the SAVING of the world) is to work through each of us.  God has done His work on the cross.  That work is finished.  But the continued work of sharing that good news falls to us.  God gave each of us UNIQUE ways of sharing that good news.  But we must do it.  We must not sit back and say, "I'm not as good as that person at the Bible," or "I'm not really very creative, God can't use me," or, "I can't contribute much," or "Let someone else do the sharing, I'll just relax."  That won't work.  God made each of us for His greater purpose, to be a part of God's greater purpose.  We are each:

UNIQUE!!

All For Now,
GB

Social

Here's a newsflash.  I get most of my really good ideas from two sources; God and David Brooks.  David is an opinion columnist for the New York Times, and God is, of course, God.  A week or so ago, David Brooks wrote an opinion column entitled "Archipeligo of Pain".  The article was about the extremely negative impact of social isolation. The article was an encapsulation of a book called "Social" written by Matthew Liebermann, a UCLA social scientist who teaches there.  Here is the gist of the argument:

Human beings need social interaction.  They NEED it, or else they will begin to fall a part, in every which sense of the word.  Social isolation has been used as a punishment mechanism in prisons for centuries.  Every year 80,000 prisoners in the United States are locked away in social isolation spaces (cells that are no more than 6 feet by 9 feet).  These times of isolation away from prison guards and other inmates usually lasts for 23 hours a day, and can last a week, a month, a year or even a decade.  What scientists have recently found is that extended periods of social isolation is equally as damaging to people's bodies, and psyches as actual physical punishment or torture.  People in extended social isolation often have the following symptoms: insomnia, organ depletion, heart failure, deep physical pain, agonizing migrane headaches, high blood pressure, bowel control loss, rocking back and forth, shock, blindness, hearing loss, insanity, and the sad list goes on.

So, here's what I have been thinking.  God knows that people, humans, need social interaction.  God wired human beings to be in connection with one another.  One of the most powerful activities that Jesus engages in in the Bible is reaching out to people who are in social isolation.  The demoniac named Legion, for example, who lived the tombs of Garadene, was totally isolated.  Nobody talked to him or gave him any attention.  Legion was going insane, living by himself in the middle of nowhere.  Jesus connected with him, cast out his demons, and made him well.  Most of the healings that Jesus enacts in the gospels are of people who, because of their physical maladies (leprosy, blindness, bleeding, paraplegia) have been cut off from normal social interaction.  Usually these people are in both personal and in social pain.  Jesus heals them, and reconnects them with society.  What Lieberman's research shows is that Jesus' desire to connect with people socially was a healing mechanism in and of itself.  Connecting with people socially actually healed them personally.

John Stott, the late 20th century evangelist and theologian said that church plays three fundamentally important roles in people's lives.   Church offers people connection to a higher power, it gives people significance and meaning in their everyday lives, and it offers people social connection (fellowship) with one another.  Stott viewed social connection as essential to a healthy person's entire being.

As a pastor, I have seen first hand the impact of social connection, and the power of the Holy Spirit in a person's life.  Every week in my Seeds Bible Study (10:30AM, Wednesday, Seeds Cafe, Colorado Springs), I encounter homeless people who have not been interacted with socially for a long time.  I will begin my Bible study, and then, one of them will raise their hand.  They will ask a question.  Sometimes the question is extremely insightful.  I will dignify their question, whatever it is, with the best answer I can muster at the moment.  This will happen week in and week out.  After months of this kind of dignifying social interaction, I can honestly say that I have seen people change.  They begin to heal.  Their thinking becomes more clear.  Their physical maladies disappear.  It is a living example of the power of social connection and the Holy Spirit in a person's life.

On a personal note, I have begun to realize how socially isolating it can be to be a pastor of a large church.  I am always, it seems, either working or hanging out with family (which is social in a way, but it is also not social).  Sometimes I can be so tired from work, or stressed out by a big decision, that when a friend calls on the phone, I don't pick up.  However, after reading Brook's NYT piece, I am realizing that picking up the phone call of a friend could be as important as getting a good night's sleep and three square meals a day.  So, I am trying to be more social, even when I don't feel like it.

What about you?  How does social interaction impact your health?

God made us for connection - with Him, and each other!

All For Now,
GB

Do You Have An Angry Car?

This morning, as I was driving my 5 year old daughter to school (my morning father/daughter bonding ritual), Haley said, "Daddy, you have an angry car!"  The question threw me off.  I wasn't ready for an automobile analysis at 7:45AM by the most inquisitive mind in my life.  "Your car, the front of it, the headlights, it just looks angry," she continued.  After dropping my daughter off, and looking at the headlights of my 2012 Toyota Camry, I had to admit that she was right.  A Camry is a working man's car if there ever was one - Willy Loman's wheels incarnate - but my car did...look angry.

After getting home, I did a little research into the subject and I found out that according to autoblog website that, "consumers these days prefer angry and dominant looking cars, to cars that are happy or cheery or uplifting in appearance."  Take this picture of the brand new Danish roadster the Zeno STI (enclosed with this blogpost).  This car definitely looks angry.  So here's my question to you;

Do You Have An Angry Car?

And why stop the question with our automobiles?  Do you have angry clothes?  I am told that as people live further and further towards the East Coast, rather than the West Coast, the amount of clothes that a person owns in the black color scheme grows exponentially.  Military gear and camouflage has become a common style that can be seen everywhere from high school playgrounds to fashion runways in Paris.  Is military gear angry?  Does the building that you work in look angry?  Marketing executive from McDonalds Restaurants work very hard to use warm red and yellow colors, to have children's playgrounds, to have insignia that looks friendly (the golden arches look like two big smiles, turned sideways).  McDonalds does not want an angry looking building.

Does the college that you attend look angry?  If you visit any college campus around the country, it is easy to detect the buildings that were built in the 1960's.  They are usually large cement blocks that have very few windows and have lots of pillars underneath them.  These buildings were reminiscent of military fortresses.  I lived in one of these dormitories at Macalester College that was built in the 1960's.   Rumor has it that college officials everywhere in the 1960's worried about whether students would attempt to take a building hostage (like happened at Kent State or Berkeley), and actually built buildings that could not be fortified.  The 1960's were the era of the angry college buildings.

This rather simple and silly question, "Do You Have An Angry Car?" raises for me a deeper question about how sometimes things that are out of our control (cars, clothes, buildings) can actually shape the way that other people perceive us.  Maybe rising tensions in the Ukraine, for example, could be nullified if the tanks the Russians drove actually looked less imposing.  What about tanks that looked like Volkswagon bugs?

What about church?  Do you have an angry looking church?  When I was pastor of Highlands Church in Paso Robles, the church building that we had built for us (by the Presbytery of Santa Barbara) actually looked like a barn.  This rather diminutive image of a building, a barn, worked in our favor in a town where people often thought of church as a domineering or imposing place to attend.   Initially our building was a source of ridicule.  "Ha Ha, you guys worship in a barn."  After a while though, we even capitalized on the image.  We said, "Welcome to the Barn," "Come to Church in the Barn."  On Christmas we had themes about how our God was, "Born in a Barn."  People loved it.  Nobody felt intimidated by a barn.  We did not have an angry looking church.

Who would have thought that a simple question from a 5 year old on the way to school would foment such a blogpost from me?  Maybe I will paint a smiley face on my car for when I pick up my daughter later this afternoon, and see if my car can get any happier.

All For Now,
GB