To Be an Angel

I don't know how most pastors do it, but I begin thinking about my Christmas Eve messages a couple of months in advance of the big days (for us the days are Dec. 23 & 24). All messages are important, Christmas Eve is very important. It's sometimes the only chance a church has to convey the gospel in a hopeful, relevant and meaningful way for an entire audience of people who only come once a year.

So, the theme that I have been hashing out in my mind, over the past few months is that of Angels. Yes, this Christmas I want to talk about those gleaming, white, be-winged visages who mysteriously appear throughout the Bible.

I know, I know, I hear you. Angels are so passe, and frankly a little weird. Angels, in today's world have become a unique form of their own idolatry. Angel fetishes and icons are a hallmark of Hallmark stores and a focal point of New Age focus. I know, I feel the same way. However, in this season of challenge and economic recession, a real interpretation of Angels may be helpful to people, as heavenly beings we can learn something from. The hope that angels offer the world, the mission that angels give people from God, the singular focus on pointing people to Christ, is what we must do if we are to live out the call of God correctly in our lives. We need, "To Be Like the Angels", in a world that is so lost and fallen.

One of my favorite stories in the Bible about angels is found in the book of Judges - it's the story of Gideon. The text begins with a description of how far the Israelites have fallen from God's grace and God's vision. The Midianites are ravaging the land. One day, a boy servant by the name of Gideon is secretively threshing out wheat in a winepress, to keep his meal from his oppressors. The image of a scrawny, sad, dirty, Oliver Twist-like character comes to my mind, when I think of Gideon the way God finds him. The Bible says, "The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah," and simply observed Gideon for a little while. After watching him for an uncertain amount of time, the angel simply says, "The Lord is with you, mighty warrior." (Judges 6:11-12).

Gideon replies with incredulity, uncertainty and a lack of hope. "If the Lord is with me, then why is my life going so badly [sic]" (Judges 6:13). Gideon's reply is the is the cry of the world right now.

The angel then gives Gideon a great task. "Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian's hand." (Judges 6:14). Gideon argues back and forth with the angel for a good chapter or two, but God's messenger sticks with his primary task: encouragement, hopefulness, purposefulness.

Our task, our role as Christ followers is similar to the role of angels in the Bible. God wants us to meet people at their places of challenge. God wants us to simply "be a presence" in that place of challenge, before we even say a word. Then, at exactly the precise and right moment (God will tell us when that is), we are supposed to encourage the people we interact with. Most of all, people need to hear that "God is With Them" (Emmanu-El) God is with us in our uncertainty, our pain, our fallenness, our confusion, our alacrity, our finite selves. Finally, God wants us to give people something more to live for - a great mission to be a part of. God wants us to send people, "In the strength that they already have," to do great things for Him, and for the world

So, that's where I am going on Christmas Eve. Any comments or thoughts from you all are welcome as I process this message.

Log in with me for the next three weeks as I continue to explore how you and I can, "Be Like the Angels" this Christmas Season.

All For Now,

GB

Four Minutes After the Hour...This is God

The other day I was listening to the one classical station we have on the Central Coast (actually a pretty good one), and I was amazed to encounter something I have never heard before - an overzealous classical disk jockey - a Shock Jock Classical DJ. Now, I have heard many, many overzealous shock jock rock and roll DJ's in my life. Pushy DJs on rock radio stations are as common as blow up santas in the garden department of Walmart, or musical appearances by Taylor Swift at the American Music Awards. Rock DJs who spit out their words like bullets from a Saturday Night Special handgun are the norm not the exception. However, I have never heard an "in your face" classical DJ before.

The introduction to the classical song went something like this. "Four minutes after the hour, this is classical station, KSLO, and I am your host, Julia Flintoff (it wasn't Julia Flintoff, but it could have been). For the next hour we will be listening to the music of Max Bruch." Wow, I thought to myself, I love Max Bruch. I couldn't wait! "Here is music from his second symphony played in B minor by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra." (Play music). Then, literally 30 seconds later the classical DJ broke in; "Max Bruch grew up in a small village in the Black Forest of Germany, he was the child of gypsies and Moravian monks. Here is a little bit more of his music." (Play music. Sublime sounds). And then 30 seconds later, the DJ broke in again; "Max's mother was a Hungarian immigrant who never learned to read..." you get the picture. This regular interruption from the DJ would have been mildly amusing if I had not really wanted to hear Max Bruch, and not the commentator talking about Max Bruch. After about 10 minutes of listening to the commentator talk about Max Bruch, rather than listening to Max Bruch, I simply turned the channel to another Shock Jock DJ, on another bandwidth, on another radio station.

So, here's what I have been thinking about this week.

A lot of people come to church each week and they want to HEAR GOD. These people have had tiresome, belabored weeks - filled with work stress, marital struggles, family crises and financial woes. At the end of such weeks, all they want to do is to HEAR GOD. Unfortunately, what sometimes happens is they hear about God. Often, it is the case that well meaning but over bearing pastors, lusty choir directors, ambitious stewardship chairmen, impassioned missions team coordinators tell people about God, when all they want to do is to HEAR GOD. Like an overzealous DJ, each opportunity for a real life God connection gets interrupted by an explanation of God, and then, like I did they turn the channel to some other radio station with some other series interruptions.

So, here is what I am working on in my ministry. I am going to help my listeners HEAR GOD, and not about God. I am trying to remind myself this next week, when I lead church, to simply sit back in the studio (sanctuary, worship space) and let God speak. On Sunday, I will quietly introduce God and then go sit down; "This will be God for the next hour speaking to you," (play music).

All For Now,

GB

Don't Get Into the "Winning Game"

So, I am a little depressed this morning, since my favorite football team, The Boise State Broncos, just lost a decisive game to Texas Christian University this weekend (I say this with all deference to the Hornytoads), and by doing so, disqualified themselves from any chances of being a part of the BCS National Championship Game. The end of the game was epic and poetically painful in it's conclusion, since the loss was a result of a missed field goal kick, a near mirror image of another game to the University of Nevada just a year before. In reading the post game commentary though, I loved what the head coach of the Boise State Broncos, Chris Petersen, said of his team's loss; "This is real-life football. You don't win all of your games all of the time, as much as we've done that a lot here..." Essentially what Petersen was saying is that losing is a part of playing football. Not every weekend is a win. No matter how good your team is, no matter how many games you've won before, eventually, everyone everywhere is going to lose a game or two.

One of the big traps that I see a lot of churches and pastors fall into is the idea that every Sunday, every sermon, every program, every weekend, every stewardship campaign, every outreach effort must lead up to a big win. I have come to call this tendency - "The Winning Game." The Winning Game is the commonly held belief that there must be forward progress, upward growth, higher trajectory, increased numbers in every single church event or experience. The problem is that this church philosophy simply isn't realistic. Most importantly, this approach to religious leadership isn't, in the end, very Godly.

Not too long ago, I was having a conversation with one of the people that I respect in ministry, Dr. John Huffman, former senior pastor of St. Andrews Presbyterian Church, Newport Beach, California. I was, I am embarrassed to admit, waxing lyrical with John all about the successes and the "wins" of Highlands Church. After a moment, John said, "You know, I am really happy that you have had so many successes there. But you know...(and he paused) things won't always go quite as well as they are now there." At first, I sort of was taken aback. What a naysayer, I thought to myself. What a Grinch. But, then he followed up and said, "You can't always have growth, growth, growth. You can't even expect it all the time. If you do expect it, you will eventually just go insane." John Huffman was right. What John was actually saying was very similar to what head coach Chris Petersen said, "This is real life football....you don't win all of your games, all of the time..."

This is real life church....you don't win all of your games, all of the time...

One of the big frustrations that some people had with Jesus' ministry is that he didn't "win" enough. Really, it's true! Even though Jesus fed thousands of people, healed multitudes of followers, and performed unbelievable miracles, there were some who wanted Jesus to win even more. There were a group called the Zealots that wanted, expected, Jesus to win at every juncture. Their hopes were that Jesus would take up where Judas Maccabeas left off. Their dream was that Jesus would ride into Jerusalem, at some juncture, and take back the Jewish temple, overthrow the Roman palace, and establish the kingdom of God here on earth. For the Zealots, "winning" was something that happened in this time and in this place.

Jesus, of course, ultimately won through is death and resurrection to life through the cross. However, thankfully, while He was with us for those brief 33 years on earth, he didn't get into the "winning game." We shouldn't either...

All For Now,

GB

The Apostle Paul Has Died

Those who are regular readers of my blog post know that a few months ago, upon the tragic, but not so sudden death of the great evangelical thinker and churchman Dr. John Stott, I wrote a piece entitled; "The Pope Has Died." Today, upon the news of the tragic, and very sudden death of Dr. Tom Gillespie, former president of Princeton Theological Seminary, I want to offer a parallel piece; "The Apostle Paul Has Died."

This past Saturday night, The Rev. Dr. Tom Gillespie died in Princeton, New Jersey, where, upon retiring as it's 5th standing President, he lived with his wife and family, until he was called home to be with God. Tom was 83.

Tom Gillespie was like the Apostle Paul in so many ways. Though Dr. Gillespie would surely blush (dare I say wince) at the comparison of himself with the great apostle from Tarsus, they both resembled one another in so many significant ways.

First and foremost, Tom and the Apostle Paul were both new church developers. Dr. Gillespie started a new church in the 1950's in Garden Grove, California. Like Paul, Tom started a church in a town where a great and flashy preaching figure (in Tom's case it was Robert Schuller at the Crystal Cathedral) held sway in a very popular neighboring church. Tom had Robert Schuller, Paul had the fiery orator Apollos. Both men encouraged their followers not to listen to the flowery oratory of their would be rivals. Both men were momentarily overshadowed by their counterparts until the more sobering tonics of time and age had a chance to even the proverbial scales of balance.

Tom and the Apostle Paul both took strong moral positions and stands on sexual libertinism and homosexual promiscuity. From my own vantage point, I can say that I feel the world is a much better place because of their forthrightness and verbosity about the Christian faith's foundational stance on these issues. However, in similar ways, it could be said that neither Paul nor Tom always articulated their well grounded and bitterly fought positions with the most poetry or rhetorical dexterity. Sometimes it seemed, in an effort to make a difficult point, both men had the tendency to lose sight of the individuals who's lives were effected by their strong stances. The final product was, in the main, positive. What was occasionally lacking in the area of prose on issues of same sex fallenness, was always made up for in courage and pure resilience in the communication of such doctrines.

Tom and the Apostle Paul spoke in similar ways. They both could say things in ways that were so utterly brash and forward that an unintended heir of comedy and humor would often occur. One time, a friend of mine from Princeton Seminary asked Tom for the best advice the president could muster for a future pastor. My friend, expecting the usual platitudes about "keeping your head up," or "sticking close to the text," was flabbergasted when Tom Gillespie said; "Are you listening? I want you to remember this young man. The best advice I can offer for a future pastor is 5 words in length...keep your pants zipped up!!!" I believe my friend has actually kept that very good advice in his ministry and his life. Tom Gillespie can be thanked for so many similarly pithy, strong statements about life and faith.

The most powerful talk I ever heard Tom Gillespie give was at my own graduation as an MDiv from Princeton Seminary in 2000. Tom was offering the perfunctory parting words of encouragement from the President. Dr. Gillespie, referring to a great English statesman's rise to power (I think it was Lord Mountbatton), told this story. "Once a young politician visited a great preacher to talk with him about his career trajectory. The preacher asked the young politician, 'What are your plans for your life? The politician said, 'I plan to get elected mayor.' The preacher then asked, 'And then what?' 'Well, after that I am going to get elected to the governorship.' 'And then what' asked the preacher? 'Well then, I am going to be elected Prime Minister.' 'And then what' asked the preacher? 'Well then, I guess I will die.' 'And then what' asked the preacher? The preacher then looked the politician in the eye and said, 'That my young friend is the most important question of all to answer...what comes after death...and then what?'

My mentor and pastor and former president of Princeton Dr. Tom Gillespie will surely now, at this juncture of certitude and finality, have no trouble answering the question that he posed in his memorable commencement talk. Tom surely now knows the answer to the question, 'And then what?' Thanks to Tom's ministry and his pastorate, thousands of others can have the same assurance as they arrive at an answer the same question.

All For Now,

Graham Baird

Highlands Church

Paso Robles, California

www.highlandsadventure.org

7 Billion of Us

It's official. There are now, as of today, October 31, 2011, 7 billion people on the face of the earth according to estimates provided by the Official Bureau of Demographers at the United Nations Population Division (or OBDUNPD for short). In case you have grown numb, as I have, to the size of actual numbers, 7 billion in numerological terms looks like this; 7,000,000,000. (By the way, talk about a thankless job. "What do you do for a living?" "I count people...")

But actually counting people, or rather, the important idea that ALL PEOPLE COUNT, is the main thing I want to write about this morning.

Not too long ago, I was visiting the Walmart in Paso Robles where I live. Visiting may not be the right word since it was a Saturday afternoon, in the middle of the summer, and the string of people in front of me in the garden department looked more like a ticket line for a Coldplay concert. I stood in the line, frustratedly gazing, and cursing under my breath, at all of the people in front of me, and, I will admit, reminiscing about the lines that are inscribed on the tablet of the Statue of Liberty, "Give me your lame, your tired, your broken your poor...". ("Yes," said to myself, but why do the lame and the tired and the broken and the poor all have to be in front of me in the line at the garden department of Walmart on a sultry Saturday afternoon.) God will strike me down for that comment. "Forgive me Lord, I know not what I am saying."

But then, like a hand stretching down from the heavens and hitting me on the forehead (eg: "I could have had a V8"), this one sentence resounded and then echoed a hundred times in my brain. THESE PEOPLE ALL MATTER! I am not sure, but I think the words were God's own words, placed in my careless, feckless, thoughtless, and agitated mind.

The reason I think they were God's words is because Jesus said many similar things when he was with us on earth; "Jesus said, let the little ones [also translated as, 'these ordinary people'] come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these" (Matt. 19:14)

The concept that all people matter, all 7 billion of us, is at the very center of the Gospel of what it means to be a Christ follower. All people matter. Not just the people in our immediate circle, not just the ones who live in our neighborhood, not just the crew who show up for church every Sunday, not just the ones living on the North American continent, or Europe, or Africa. All people, means all people. They matter, as a whole and they matter individually. Each one person - 1 out of 6,999,999,999 - matters.

But it's more than that. More than simply "mattering", all people are "loved" by God, their creator, who made them, and us, in His image. God put a tiny part of Himself into every living soul that has ever been created. God lived for, died for, and lives for all 7 billion of us.

The poet and philosopher GK Chesterton wrote extensively about faith. However, the concept that all people matter was one of the hardest things for him to wrap his towering mind around. Chesterton took this radically difficult idea to another level when he wrote the enclosed poem about the size of the earth (the pebbles in the brook), the size of humanity (the hairs on our heads...think about that, God knows the number of hairs of all 7 billion people who are currently living on the face of the earth.). Here is the poem...

“I cannot count the pebbles in the brook.
Well hath He spoken: "Swear not by thy head.
Thou knowest not the hairs," though He, we read,
writes that wild number in His own strange book.

I cannot count the sands or search the seas,
death cometh, and I leave so much untrod.
Grant my immortal aureole, O my God,
and I will name the leaves upon the trees,

In heaven I shall stand on gold and glass,
still brooding earth's arithmetic to spell;
or see the fading of the fires of hell
ere I have thanked my God for all the grass.”
― G.K. Chesterton

In case you aren't feeling challenged enough in your faith this morning, by simply trying to live out the Law of God through the Mercy of Christ, try to wrap your mind around this one...

All 7 billion of us matter to God, and they should all matter to you and I as well...

All for Now,

GB

growmychurch.com

I was actually planning on writing a blogpost today which was entitled; "Was the Apostle Paul Left Handed?" (Really, I was...). The piece I was going to write for this week involved very interesting Biblical exegesis I have recently "exegeted" which makes the conjecture that Paul, being a Benjamite (of the tribe of Benjamin, not an updated version of Vegemite...), and of the tribe which was entirely left handed (by many anthropological and archeological evidences), might have been left handed himself. I was then going to make deep and heretofore undiscovered conjectures about how Paul's lefthandedness contributed to his overall ministry and his psychological makeup. But that blogpiece will have to wait for another day. Because, in the intervening period a much more interesting and important item has arisen (go figure...), and that is my conversation/interview with pastor and church growth development expert Chris Yaw.

Chris Yaw is a fascinating person! He is currently ordained in the Episcopal Church (USA), but was very involved with journalism and media, film and TV before going into the ministry. He attended seminary in the UK and in Los Angeles. Chris won an Emmy, while in television, as he says, "along the way." In Chris' own words: "I noticed the huge contrast between the superficiality of the spiritual leaders prevalent in the popular media and the depth and wisdom I was finding among these highly intelligent and lesser-known Christian voices. I remember listening to my New Testament professor and more than once thinking, "Now here's a guy who should have a cable show." [Chris Yaw's picture is shown here in the upper right hand corner of this blog].

Chris is currently carrying on conversations/interviews with pastors from many different church backgrounds and traditions and asking them about what secrets and insights they have about how to help churches grow. Chris is interviewing many very successful church pastors (myself not withstanding...) who have literally grown churches from 25 people to 5,000 in a matter of years. Chris also defines church growth in many more ubiquitous ways than simply numbers - by asking questions about Spiritual growth, theological perspective and business entrepreneurial spirit.

Check out growmychurch.com to listen to and watch some very interesting interviews/conversations with some very successful church pastors and leading church growth experts. My own interview with Chris will be available in a matter of weeks on the same web address...growmychurch.com

All for now,

GB

Jesus Wore Our Cap

I have lived in a lot of very sports oriented communities before, but never more-so than Paso Robles, and the Central Coast of California. I grew up in Boise Idaho, where the Boise State Broncos were, and still are an official member of the Holy Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy State). I was a chaplain and Campus Minister at the University of Michigan where Maize and Blue literally ran in the veins of students and alumni alike. I am from a Scottish family that loves the Glasgow Rangers in Soccer (Football). But nowhere is more athletically highly charged than Paso Robles.

And athletic symbology is very important here. Sports hats are of utmost significance!

For the first three months while living here, I made the very big mistake of wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap. Not only are the Yankees reviled here, like they were some Afghani militia intent upon blowing up our national buildings, but they are generally not liked. I wore the cap not knowing or appreciating the major statement that I was making.

The hat you wear for the team you support is not just a fashion accessory where I live, but it is a mark of territory, a totem of anthropologic alignment, an icon of ritualistic pride.

So, it was a big deal the other day when I broke down, after 6 years of living in Paso Robles, and bought a baseball cap with the insignia of the local High School team - the Paso Robles Bearcats. Don't ask me why it took me 6 years to buy the baseball cap of the home team where I live. Maybe I have commitment issues. But, I dawned the cap for the first time at the homecoming game of Paso High. It definitely felt like a major "coming out" (I use that phrase in the sense of a Southern debutante, and not in the other usage of that colloquialism). When Star, my wife, saw me wearing the Paso Robles Bearcat hat she said, "Wow, you are going Native." What she meant by that is that I was finally espousing the primary belief system of the people that I had come to serve and minster to. I was wearing their cap. Actually, the word "their" no longer applied. I was one of them. I was all in...

What am I driving at?

Jesus Wore Our Cap. After centuries of quibbling about the need for full intervention or comfortable separation, Jesus finally broke down and bought our main humanistic insignia - our personhood, our cap. Ultimately, he chose, to visit the cosmic concession stand. Jesus bought and wore our cap. The cap of our team!

The great miracle of the universe is not that God is great and sovereign and supreme. God is! It's not that God is able to relate with us on an every day basis. God can! But, even the Greek God's (Zeus, Athena, Dionysus and Aphrodite) were able to relate with humans - even though they were separate.

The great miracle of Yahweh is that He not only chose to become human and live among us, like some Mesopotamian deity striding upon the face of the earth. It's that Jesus went native. He lived with us. He was and is one of us. He marked himself in the same insignia that was, and is, important to us (master fisherman, carpenter, rabbinical wizard, theological superhero, miracle worker extraordinaire, friend, teacher, counselor, healer, preacher). After Jesus wore our hat, there was no going back to a comfortable separated distance of a royal, Pentateuchian godhead - three in one.

Jesus was all in...He Wore our Cap...He was one of us...

All For Now,

GB