What's Graham Reading???

This week, the Baird family are all in La Jolla (pronounced la hoya, as in oscar de la hoya, no matter what the gps system on my rental car says).  In addition to toting along an entire collection of baby parapranalia; pack and plays, bottles, strollers, baby backpacks, and formula, I have strapped in about 6 books that I am trying to be through, before we return on Wednesday.

Whenever I get a chance, I like to know what people are currently reading.  The answer to this question gives me a sense about what people are thinking, who they are currently being influenced by, or if they are thinking at all.  This is my thanksgiving reading list for 2012:

"The Generals; American Military Command from World War II to Today", by Thomas E Ricks.  Living in Colorado Springs, I thought I might learn something about leadership from the likes of Omar Bradley and Stormin Norman Schwartzkoff.

"The Book of Job; When Bad Things Happen to A Good Person" by rabbi Harold Kushner.

"Every Good Endeavor; Connecting Your Work to Gods Work", by Timothy Keller

"Life, God and Other Small Topics" by Eic Metaxas

"Midnight in Peking" Paul French.  Hey, all work and no play makes a pastor a dull boy....

"The Book of Books; The Radical Impact of The King James Bible", by Melvyn Bragg.

I think that about does it.  Oh yeah, I've been reading one more book quite extensively, "Barbar Goes On Vacation," Haley's new favorite tome....

See you when I return, unless I find another book shop in La Jolla and buy some more books....

All For Now,
GB

A Mission Statement

At the risk of possibly offending a few more blog post readers again this week by touching on the area of politics (I can't help myself, I was a Political Science undergraduate, and this recent election is just too tantalizing not to talk about), I want to try to draw one more lesson from the recent Presidential election that we just experienced.

BTW:  For those of you trying to figure out my own political party or leanings, you won't be able to.  I have worked for Republicans on Capitol Hill and I have voted for Democrats in my life.  Most important, I gave up politics when I entered the Ministry of the Word and Sacrament, a vow of political celibacy if you will, and a personal avowal never to focus on such things as a career path again.  It has always been my firm belief that healthy churches must be "a-political", and that, as the Bible says, "The nations are as a drop in the bucket" compared to the unending power and glory of God (Isaiah).

But here's my thought for the week...

E.J. Dionne (a Progressive columnist I must add), recently wrote an op-ed piece for the Gazette in which he outlined the strategy that the Republicans must take if they are ever to win major election again.  The strategy, interestingly enough is known as the "Colorado Strategy" (E.J. is from Washington, writing about Colorado).  The "Colorado Strategy" is the the strategy that purportedly the Democrats used to help to win Colorado as a state in the electoral college.  The strategy goes like this; "It's a view that a  political party's long term future depends on moderate, younger and suburban voters, especially women, combined with a growing Latino electorate."  That's it.

Now, here's my big thought.  E.J.'s "Colorado Strategy" is not simply a wise strategy of action for a political party, it is also a wise strategy of action for a church or congregation that wants to have a lasting impact on the face of Christianity.  It is, simply put, a mission statement for a church that wants to remain viable.  A healthy evangelical church must focus on;

Moderate People:  Most of the world, statisticians will tell us, are actually moderate.  Moderate right or moderate left, but most people are in the middle.  Historically, Evangelicalism has done very well with very conservative people, but not done as well with people who are basically in the middle.  Now, I want to be clear about what I am not saying.  I am not saying that the evangelical church should give up any of it's orthodox views about any number of issues (same sex, incarnation of Christ, a culture of life, etc...).  However, what I am saying is the the church needs to make as it's mission focus people who are less politically right leaning than we have historically done.

Younger People:  This goes without saying.  The church needs to get younger.  However, a healthy church doesn't just want to attract younger people to sit in the "pews" but, rather, also to participate in active service at all levels of church leadership.  The church needs younger people preaching (as in people in their 20's and 30's), it needs younger people greeting, ushering, teaching, endearing, deaconing...etc.

Suburban People:  Suburban neighborhoods have actually become the new enclave of huge "non-denominational" churches.  Willow Creek, Saddle Back, Mariners, and many other huge churches are basically suburban neighborhoods.  What I think is often missing from evangelical pushes and reaches into suburban neighborhoods, however, is that there is often a huge lack of "earthiness" (for lack of a better term), with suburban churches.  There is often a lack of a dirty, gritty, down to earth, grimy, realistic, salty theology, and faith.  This is where downtown churches (like First Pres Colorado Springs) can, I think market and utilize it's natural downtown "earthiness" to meet the needs of those living in brand new suburban neighborhoods.

Women:  This is the aspect of Reformed Theology that I am most proud of.  Women have always been a central voice, presence, and witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Women have the ability and authority to be in leadership at all levels of the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA, and ECO) movement.  This obviously must continue to be a mainstay.

Latino People:  Again, this last election's Latino population are what most political scientists suggest was the single most important factor in swaying the election.  California, alone has a Latino population that is now over 50% of the general base.  This natural melting pot dynamic of Latino people moving to the country is something that the evangelical movement simply cannot take for granted very much longer.  All churches who want to remain viable heading into the next millennia, need to take Latino (my friend Israel Gonzales sort of bristles at this term Latino, and prefers Hispanic) people seriously!

That's all.  Now, I'm going to San Diego for Thanksgiving, where I will hopefully not have to think about politics again, at least for another four years....

All For Now,
GB

Money Can't Buy You Change

This week, I want to wade ever so carefully and gingerly into the world of politics.  No, I don't want to make any outright political prognostications, or statements - except to say that the city of Colorado Springs, in general (99% Republican), is in a deep state of grief and loss about the election results of this past Tuesday.  I have literally altered my sermon outline for 2013 to include an entire series entitled; "Restore - Coping With The Grief and Loss that All of us Face."  (This new series is prompted in part by the grief experienced from the election, for many people in my community).

No, in this week's blogpost, I simply want to reflect on the age old truism that money cannot create change.  To paraphrase the Beatles who sang about how, "Money Can't Buy You Love," I want to state emphatically that;

Money Can't Buy You Change!

Here's the Facts: More money was spent on this recent Presidential election than any other Presidential election in United States history.  Depending upon the source that one sites, the amount spent by both Presidential candidates hovers somewhere between $5.8 billion dollars (Politico), and $2.4 billion dollars (Time).  Each candidate individually spent cash (as opposed to money given to Superpacks) in ranges hovering just below the $1 billion mark [$934 million Obama, $881.8 million Romney].  And here's the thing I am hoping to drill home.  What did this money buy the candidates?  Effectively, the change of only two states in the entire electoral college map (Indiana and North Carolina.)  Indiana and North Carolina were Obama states in the first election in 2008, and they went to Romney in 2012.  No other states changed from the election year 2008 until 2012.  None.  Nearly $6 billion was spent to change two states...

One wonders if it might have been more worthwhile to simply pay individual residents of the states of North Carolina and Indiana to vote a certain way.  The payout for residents of both states would be something in the range of $20,000 per person.  That would have been a lot of college loans, credit card debts, mortgage payments, that could have been paid off.

Now, I am not saying that money can't buy you something.  Money can buy you a whole lot of stuff.  Money can buy great vacations, money can buy dream houses, money can buy wonderful cars, money can buy awesome clothes, money can buy a lot of food for starving people in third world countries.  Money can buy a lot, but money cannot buy change.

Jesus knew this.  Jesus knew that change (META - turning) (NOIA - thinking) only really happens from above.  A wise preacher once told me that repentance, "metanoyia", is like God pulling the strings on the puppets that we occupy as humans.  We can't move/change ourselves, only God can.  Jesus also knew that one of the seductive qualities about money is that it seems powerful enough to change almost any earthly dynamic.  When the rich young ruler comes to Jesus and finds that he is lacking in the area of revenue generosity, Jesus says, "It is harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."  Jesus knew that one of the reasons for this is that the very thing, commodity, that we humans feel is a change agent, is the same thing that is also a corrupting force.

So, how does real change occur in an individual or a system?  My experience has been that it requires time.  Change requires diligence.  Change requires a fine attention to the souls of individuals who want to change.  The leadership of an institution or an individual body must be willing to change.  Change happens from above.  Change requires full commitment or a group effort.  An organization cannot change on a level that outpaces the leader's ability to change.  Change requires two steps forward and one step backward.  Change, to quote the poet, William Butler Yates, "comes dropping from the veils of the morning, dropping to where the cricket sings."  Change happens slowly.  True change happens permanently.

Most of all, change requires the presence and the active participation of the Holy Spirit!  But, Money Can't Buy You Change...

"Everybody tells me so..." (Beatles)

All For Now,
Graham

Thin Places

Just a strong caveat before I begin this week's blogpost - my Free-Kirk (definition: very conservative Presbyterian Scottish Reformed theology), Scottish grandmother who is now in heaven would not like this one.  She would have been very suspicious of all things related to "Celtic Spirituality."  I am about to write about Celtic Spirituality.

So, Sorry grandma...

Recently, while reading Tony Campolo's book, "Letters to a Young Evangelical" (A good book, but be prepared to argue out loud with it vociferously at times), I came across the term - "Thin Places".  Thin Places, is a term derived from Celtic Spirituality which describes a place or a state of being where God is particularly connected with an individual.  So called, "Thin Places" are places where the distance between heaven and earth are relatively thin, where there seems to be a closer connection between God and God's followers.  In the words of a pastor who is more familiar with the term than I am, “A thin place,” is a place where the boundary between heaven and earth is especially thin. It’s a place where we can sense the divine more readily.” 

Certain characters from the Bible seem to have experienced thin places during certain moments of their lives.  Moses seemed to experience a thin place on the top of the mountain while speaking with God through a burning bush.  Abraham seemed to experience a thin place when three visitors encountered him in the middle of the wilderness, and told him he and Sara were about to have a child.  Mary, the mother of God, experienced a thin place when an angel of the Lord met her and told her, "not to be afraid," that she was to be with child, and that his child was going to be the savior of the world.  One might argue that everywhere Jesus walked in the first century land of Judah was, in itself, a thin place.

As I have ministered to people over these past 12 years of ordained call, I have witnessed many people who were in the midst of thin places.  Most often, people seem most connected to God when they are in the midst of, or when they have just passed through some great spiritual test.  The death of a loved one can be an example of just such a spiritual test.  The loss of a job, the transition to a new city, the beginning of a new venture, the ending of a life chapter, the birth of a new child, the movement from work to retirement can all be examples of thin places, where God seems especially close, or rather, we seem especially close to God.

At the risk of using the most cliched story ever told, the famous story of the man who walked along the beach and saw two footsteps in the sand, and then the period where he saw only only set of footsteps in the sand, and then wondered why God had abandoned him at that moment.  And then God saying, "That's when I was closest to you, I was carrying you, those footsteps were my own."  This is a perfect example of a thin place, where God is literally closer to us, when we need Him than ever before.

The reason I am writing this blogpost, I suppose, is because I feel that I am in just such a thin place in my spiritual walk right now.  I feel like my heart is a great hubble telescope, searching the heavens for images, thoughts, ideas, concepts, meaning and theological truth.  And, like the hubble telescope, my heart is picking up sooo many rich ideas and concepts and truths, I feel which are being sent to me by God.

So, I'm in a thin place.  This thin place will not last forever, but I'm going to make the most of it while I am in it.

Again, sorry grandma,

All for Now,
GB

Do You Love Yourself?

A week or so ago, I came home from work, with my briefcase slung over one shoulder - my clothes were rumpled and creased from a long day at work.  My four year old daughter greeted me at the door with a hug (sometimes leave it to Beaver isn't just a TV show).  After she hugged me, Haley looked intently up into my eyes and said, "Daddy....do you love yourself?"  It was sort of one of those deep and jarring moments a parent sometimes has around an awkward question.  I might have been less thrown off by my daughter's question if she had asked, "Daddy...will you tell me where babies come from?"  Something about Haley's question pierced deeply into my soul.  Do I love myself?  Is it ok to love myself?  Can my daughter tell that I don't always love myself?  Is it that obvious?  How did she get so smart?  I tried to recover with a similar and parental retort; "Yes, I think I do Haley.  Do you love yourself?"  And Haley shot back with an instant smile and a "YES...daddy."

But let me put the same piercing question to you today.  Do you love yourself?  If you are like me the question meets you with a strange mix of of self-consciousness and embarrassment.  But why?  We are told by psychologists that unhealthy self love can develop into a kind of self-adoration (or narcissism) [Actually narcissism the way it is classically understood by the DSMIV is not a developed personality trait but an ingrained behavior disorder].  Loving ourselves, as we often think about it seems strange and aberrant.  However, the Bible is clear that loving ourselves is a central part of our ability to love God and to love others.

When Jesus is asked the trick question by the pharisees, "What is the most important law?" [Side note, there were two separate arms of pharisaism/sadducism in the first century.  There were those who felt that the first four commandments were the most important, those relating to God.  And there were those who felt the second set, 5-10 were the most important, those relating to humans.  Jesus does not fall for this trick.]  Jesus response was, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength," and the second is like it, "love your neighbor."  The final piece is the one that relates to the love of ourselves...."love your neighbor AS yourself."  The Greek word for AS here is tough to pin down, but the notion is that we should love our neighbors "IN THE SAME WAY AS" we love ourselves.  And the fact that Jesus suggests we should love God in same way that we should love our neighbor (in like manner), the suggestion is even more stark.  We should love ourselves in the same way that we love God.

And of course, the implication here is just as startling.  If we don't love ourselves in the same way, or with the same amount of "heart, soul, mind and strength" as we love God and we love our neighbor, we are not hitting the mark of perfection that God seeks from us.  Actually, one fundamental form of fallenness for humans is the inability to love ourselves as we love God and we love our neighbor.  Great, I now have another thing to ask forgiveness for, not loving myself as God wants me to love myself.

About an hour later, I found my daughter Haley playing with her stuffed animals in her room.  I came in and I asked, "Haley, can I ask you a question?"  She said, "yes,"  "Do you love yourself?"  Haley said, "Daddy, I already answered that question.  Yes I do."  Quite right!  Multiple answers to the question of whether we love ourselves or not might imply that we are somehow insecure about the answer, and that we need to work on that healthy God given form of self love.  And so, I will just write it down as a beginning point of self-discovery...

I LOVE MYSELF!

There I feel better...

All For Now,
GB

Refocus on the Family

For this week's blog post, I am inserting a section of a new book published by my friend, Jim Daly, CEO and Director of Focus on the Family.  Jim's book is full of great insights about how evangelicals should engage the larger culture on issues that we hold dear and upon which we have strong convictions.  Jim kindly uses an illustration from my own ministry (enclosed here) to help illustrate how loving Christ followers need to interact with people who come from all different areas of dysfunction and brokenness.

The following incident actually occurred at Highlands Church while I was serving as founding pastor there in about 2009.  The example represents the kind of church that I feel God is calling us all to be - loving and full of mercy!

Excerpted from “ReFocus: Living a Life That Reflects God’s Heart” (Zondervan)

The law was brought in so that the trespass
might increase. But where sin increased,
grace increased all the more.
ROMANS 5:20

The Reverend Graham J. Baird is the senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Colorado Springs. Prior to coming to Colorado, Graham served as the founding pastor of Highlands Church in Paso Robles, California. The ministry started with twenty-five people in a drive-in movie theater and has since grown to over two thousand weekly attenders. Graham’s philosophy has been to pull down the barriers and make it easier for those wanting to come to church to learn about God. He has done a good job. Wherever he’s been a pastor, whether in rural California or the front range of the Rocky Mountains, he has led with a straightforward ministerial motto: “No perfect people allowed”—pastor included.

During his time in Paso Robles, Graham encountered a variety of family scenarios, including a lesbian couple married in a state where same-sex marriage was legal. They began coming to his church and eventually had twins via in vitro fertilization. He had an opportunity to lovingly share the Bible’s perspective on human sexuality. They continued to attend. When the couple asked to have their children baptized, he had a dilemma on his hands. According to his Reformed theology, the baptism of a child does not “save” a person but represents a commitment from the Christian parent to raise the child—or children—in the faith. Graham explained that given the couple’s same-sex relationship, he couldn’t ask them to present the child and make that commitment since they weren’t actually members of the church. They were disappointed. Graham asked why they didn’t simply find a church that would accommodate their request. Their response was powerful. “This is the only church where we have felt loved in,” they told him. The children were later presented for baptism by their grandparents, who were members of the church.

Graham went on to explain what I believe strongly—that people know very quickly whether or not they are loved. The fact that this couple continued to attend—even though the church’s theology with regard to sexuality was at odds with their personal actions—suggests that Highlands Church truly loved them for a variety of reasons, but especially for this one: They know that nobody is beyond the reach of God.

All For Now,

GB

Spiritual Rhythm

This past week I discovered a new Spiritual truth about life - rhythm is more important than rest!

So, because I have a new 7 week old baby in my life, and because I am new on the job at First Pres as it's new Senior Pastor, I have been sort of "scrambling" over the past month or so to figure out how to juggle it all (I hasten to add that it's been a fun juggle!).  My regular day off is Friday, but because I have had several weekend work related tasks on Friday and Saturday, this past week I took Monday off instead.  Again, I figured that it would be easy to change one day for another, to trade out one slot with another slot, to switch days off, move them around, like cards on a poker table.  What I found, of course, was exactly the opposite.  I found that that since I usually take days off on Friday, my system, by body was used to Friday as a day off, and since I usually work on Monday, my system is used to Monday to work.  So, even though I working on Friday, my system was really resting, and even though I was resting on Monday, my system was actually working.  The rhythm of my life had superimposed itself on the attempt to find rest in my life.  I discovered the need for

Spiritual Rhythm!

For the past five years, our country has been dealing with a financial crisis like no other it has experienced since the Great Depression.  The Harvard economist, Nial Fergason, has called it the "Great Recession."  One of the things that has been so hard for American economists, strike that - world economists, in dealing with this crisis has been the unpredictability of it all.  No one guessed this would happen.  Economists have called it, "A rogue wave" of financial trouble.  "Rogue wave" is a term borrowed from oceanographic study - RV's happen in the ocean when great huge waves come along that nobody can predict or pinpoint on a weather chart or map.  Nobody knows where they come from, how they originate, how they formed.  The hard part about both economic rogue waves and real ones is that they are out of sink with the rhythms of natural weather phenomenon.  When rhythm disappears, so does a sense of balance, equilibrium, wholeness  - SHALOM, SHABBAT.

SHABBAT is a good word to use here.  SHABBAT (the phonetic variant of the Hebrew word for rest), was something that we learn about for the first time in the book of Genesis.  SHABBAT is something that God takes for himself after creating the world for six whole days:  "Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast away.  By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested (SHABBATED) from all his work.  And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested (SHABBATED) from all the work of creating that he had done," (Gen. 2:2-3).  There are several fascinating features to God's SHABBAT.  First, notice that God's SHABBAT is totally disconnected from His need for rest.  God doesn't need to rest, God is all powerful - omnipotent.  However, God does need rhythm.  Even God needs rhythm!  Second, SHABBAT is a holy experience.  The Bible calls the seventh day - holy, because God made it so.  SHABBAT, rhythm then is a holy experience of our lives.  Finally, there is the rhythmic nature of SHABBAT - it must occur every seventh day, on the seventh day, like clockwork for it to work.  The moment that the SHABBAT is invaded, so also is the holiness of that moment.

Are you tired and depleted right now?  Is the pace of your life overtaking the presence of God in your life?  Are you too busy?  The answer for me (to that question) is an indefatigable yes.  However, what I have learned is that much more than the need for rest in my life is the need for re-established rhythm.

All for Now,
GB