Am I There, Yet?

I ran into this entry at Don’t Call Me Veronica.  I thought it was interesting in light of my recent reflections on church.  Just wanted to share.

Sorry about the stupid quizzes yesterday.  I felt like I had to do something to feel normal again, and since I can’t talk very much I thought I’d do quizzes…’cuz that didn’t hurt my throat.

I think I have strep throat.  I’ve had it before, but for some reason it feels worse this time around.  I can’t talk.  I can’t eat.  I tried to swallow an Advil last night and it felt like a boulder was being forced down my throat.   I really just want to go back to bed, but Josh is at work and I can’t leave the kids alone upstairs.  I made that mistake yesterday.  Josh went to work at around 4:00 and the kids and I lay down to take a nap.  My daughter was up at 5:00 and my son and I slept until 6:30.  My little Miss Independent took good care of herself while I slept, but I did find the yogurt upstairs, which I wasn’t too happy about.  At least she was able to feed herself without my help.

Speaking of my nap…when I was falling asleep I swear that I heard George Bush (Sr.) speaking to me.  It was so audible and realistic that I said out loud, “What?”  I’m still trying to remember what he said because he didn’t repeat himself.  Then I remember hearing the microwave beep, which wasn’t possible because Josh wasn’t here and both kids were in their rooms.  The only drugs I took yesterday were Claritin and Nasacort in the morning and the Advil I took last night.  I’m amazed at how much a physical illness can affect my mental, emotional and spiritual well-being.

My mom is sick.  My dad is sick.  My son is sick.  My daughter is sick.  My husband isn’t feeling 100% either.  This is ridiculous.  My mom is concerned about my grandma.  If my grandma catches any of this, she’s not going to have the strength or energy to fight it.

Did I mention that this is so ridiculous?  We didn’t get sick at all last year and it seems as if we are making up for it this year.

So, I was joking with my girlfriends last weekend about how I don’t go to church anymore.  On February 12^th I was sick.  I was battling a sinus infection, so I didn’t go to church.  On February 19^th my son was sick.  He had a high fever, so I didn’t go to church.  On February 26^th I went to church.  Josh was the preacher that weekend.  On March 5^th I went out of town with my girls, so I didn’t go to church.  This was a planned vacation and was on the calendar for quite some time.  Today, March 19^th, I’m not at church because I’m sick again.  I’ve only been to church once in the past 5 weeks.  I don’t feel guilty about it because it’s purely circumstantial.  O.K.  That’s not completely true.  I feel about 10% guilty, but that’s just my flesh.  I don’t think the guilt is coming from God.

Being away from church has allowed me to reflect on the importance of it in my life.  Do I miss church?  Yes and no. 

I miss the worship.  Yes, people…I like the worship experience at our church and if I hear one more complaint I’m going to scream.  Whah whah whah whah whah…save it for somebody who cares.  Well, I won’t be screaming today, but when I get my voice back I will.  It’s an attitude, people!  If you have a worshipful attitude, you could worship God anytime, anywhere, with any style of music…or no music at all!  And who are you to judge other people using their gifts (that God gave them) to the best of their ability to worship Him?  People used to whine about low-quality worship…now people whine about high-quality worship.  It’s not about the quality of the musicianship…it’s about your attitude!!!  Argh!!!! 

O.K.  That’s all I’m going to say about that.

I miss seeing my church family.  I have a ton of great relationships in the church.  I love to see and interact with people at church.  I especially enjoy seeing the women that I go to Bible Study with at church on the weekends.  I feel a special bond there.  I love to have friends who are nothing like me.  I love to have friends who are much older than I am and who are at different life stages than I.  There’s something so fulfilling and endearing about it.  I love their hugs and smiles and questions.  They know where I’m at in life.  They don’t ask me the generic, “How are you?”  They ask me the specific, “How’s your son feeling?” or “How was your doctor’s appointment?” or “Did you finish knitting that shrug this week?”  J 

I don’t miss the busyness.  I don’t miss Josh always having to be here or there or figuring something out or taking care of this or that.  It would be nice to go to church and experience church as a family some times.  But, I guess that’s what vacation is for.  For 2 weekends a year, we get to pretend that we are normal and go to a church and enjoy it as a family.  It’s just too bad that we can’t do that at our own church.  I think it’s impossible.  We would have to wear signs that said, “Don’t bug me…I’m on vacation.”  I don’t think that would be appropriate.  We have to go elsewhere to be anonymous.  One time we were on vacation, but we were still in town, so we decided to attend a different church in town on Sunday so that we could truly be on vacation.  We were checking our daughter into her class and all of a sudden we heard somebody say, “Pastor Josh, can I speak to you for a minute?”  So much for anonymity.   We’ll wear a disguise next time we do that.  Josh would look cute in a thick mustache and beard.  LOL!!! 

I don’t enjoy going to church when church becomes a chore.  I don’t enjoy going to church when there’s tension and stress in a relationship.  It’s hard for me to sit there and try to focus on God and worship Him, when I know that certain people are angry at Josh or angry at me for whatever reason.  It’s hard to see them smile and say, “Hi!  How are you?” at church when I know they are seething at me or my husband on the inside.

Is our church perfect?  Of course not.  It’s not perfect because we’ve got people in our church and we’ve got people running our church.  No church is perfect because no person is perfect.  That’s why I don’t understand church hoppers because they’re just trading in one set of imperfections for another set of imperfections.  It saddens me when people judge God because of a negative church experience.

On a side note, I just heard a story about a pastor who was fired because of something he wrote on his blog.  It was a personal joke meant for his mother-in-law, but some people didn’t understand it and didn’t like it.  Apparently they were looking for a reason to get rid of him anyways, this was just the excuse.  But, it’s sad to me that people won’t allow their pastors to be human.  Once they catch a glimpse of their pastor’s humanity, they rush to judge him.  I’m so grateful to be in a church where people allow us to be human.  The best compliment of all times is from people who tell me that they forget I’m a pastor’s wife because I don’t live up to the stereotypical picture of the perfect pastor’s wife.  I’m grateful for friends who let me be who I am without judging me…well, most of them.  The others can sit on their judgment.  Their judgment is not going to change who I am…who God made me to be.

I’ll get to go to church for the next three weekends and then I’m off on vacation.  That’ll be 5 out of 9 weekend church services that I’ll miss.  That makes me laugh because that’s how often the average church attendee goes to church…once or twice a month.

“And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.  Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”  Hebrews 10:23-25  (NIV)  I love how The Message puts it, “Let’s see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out, not avoiding worshiping together as some do but spurring each other on,”  Is church just about the weekend services?  Of course not.  Are the weekend services important?  Yes, I think so.  It’s because of the weekend services that I get connected with people in my small groups (past and present) and it’s because of the weekend services that I get to worship with music with my church family.  It’s because of the weekend services that I’ve been able to meet people who have taught me how to connect with God and have given me tools to enhance my relationship with Him.  It’s because of the weekend services that I’m encouraged to continue on when life seems tough.  Do I always feel like going to church?  Of course not…but sometimes the most rewarding things happen when I do the opposite of what I feel like doing.

In case you hadn’t heard, this movie opened last Friday.  No spoilers here, I just wanted to recap our experience with this movie.  Last Thursday night we had the privilege of going to a special premier showing.  A local businessman made arrangements to have the movie shown in a theater ahead of the scheduled release time and gave away tickets to other business owners and pastors in our community.  It was an interesting mix of VIPs of the Christian sub-culture.  It was very country-club…a place to see and be seen.  There were people working the crowd…running up and down the line to see who was there and who wasn’t.  I guess I didn’t get the dress code memo because I wore jeans when many of the other women wore dresses.  The joke’s on them though, because it was below freezing outside…literally taking my breath away as I exited the theater.

There was a strange tension in the crowd.  Maybe it was just me, but there seemed to be a large pink elephant in the room that nobody wanted to mention.  What I mean is this…our community has an unusually large number of church hoppers, for some odd reason.  Maybe it’s because this is a retirement community and people are in the age of “serve me…I’ve done my time.”  Maybe it’s not…I’m just guessing.  But, here’s Pastor A from such and such a church.  He’s recently lost church members to our church.  And then there’s Pastor B from this and that church.  We’ve recently lost church members to his church.  Then there’s Pastor C from the largest church in town.  Over there is Pastor B from…well, you know…that church.  LOL!!!    Anyways, it was a bit uncomfortable.  It’s sad, because none of us are in competition with each other.  We’re all on the same team.  I think people have a hard time not comparing and a hard time not taking it personally when a church member leaves ones church to go to another.

Once inside we had free chocolate, live music and an MC.  We even got a free book at the end of the movie.   

The theater was packed so we didn’t get the usual elbow room one normally gets inside a theater.  The pastor and wife from my grandmother’s church sat right next to us.  I tried to make eye contact and be friendly, but she apparently doesn’t want to know anybody else in town, because I got no reciprocation.  Then, here’s the shocker (ooooohhh…I feel as if I’m gossiping!)  She uses her cell phone to apparently call her house.  She leaves a message saying, “We are at the movies, call me as soon as you get in.  My phone is on vibrate so I’ll know that you’re home.”  I’m thinking, “O.K.  I guess it’s O.K. for her phone to be silent…not a big deal.”  Well, apparently her phone vibrated because right in the middle of the movie I hear her dig out her phone and say, “Are you home?  Good.  I’ll call you later.  I’m at the movies.”  WHAT????  You didn’t just answer your phone, did you?!  Come on, lady!  Don’t ruin it for me and your other neighbors.  Couldn’t you just feel the vibration and know that your child is safely home???  Can’t your child just leave a message?  Anyways, I got over it and focused back on the movie.  About 45 minutes later, SHE ANSWERS HER PHONE AGAIN!!!  All of a sudden I hear a very loud, very irritated whisper saying, “STOP CALLING ME!  I’m in the movies.”  WHAT?   Again????  If you would turn your phone off you then your child couldn’t irritate you by continuing to call.  Grrrrrrr….. 

So, here’s the moral of the story.  If the movie theater asks you nicely to please turn your cell phone off, then please TURN YOUR CELL PHONE OFF!  You are NOT that important.  Moral #2…you just may actually run into a lion, a witch and wardrobe while seeing this movie.  (Did I say that outloud?)

Anyways, it was a great movie and I’d really like to go see it again.  I don’t think my kids are old enough to watch it, yet.  They’ll have to see it on DVD later.

Speaking of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, I thought this post was funny by the fugly girls. 

I ran across this post on a blog recently and it was so good I had to copy and paste it.  I couldn’t pass it up.  In the deepest darkest part of my heart I’d love to email this to about everybody that I know…but I won’t.  I’ll just post it on my blog.   

Closer?

Josh got a package today from Amazon and made me promise not to steal the books before he got a chance to read them.  Two of the books are written by a couple of his professors through the Fuller/MAGL program.  One was Leadership Next by Eddie Gibbs and the other was Emerging Churches by Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger.  The third book was written by George Barna and it is called Revolution. 

Josh is asleep right now so I snuck them away from his side of the bed and have spent some time browsing through them.

No worries…I’ll give them back.  I’m still working through Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy.  And besides…those books will continue to feed my discontent.  I ask myself, am I brave enough to “take the red pill, go down the rabbit hole, and enjoy the ride”?  (Karen Ward as quoted in Gibbs & Bolger’s book, Emerging Churches)

Actually, that may be the wrong question.  It’s not about bravery…it’s about obedience and doing exactly what it is that God has called us to do…even if that means giving up every comfort that we now know.  This would be where I reference The Barbarian Way by Erwin McManus.  If you haven’t read it…go get it.  NOW!

O.K.  So I said all of that in order to post a question.  Here is is:  Is there such a thing as “righteous discontentment?”

Feedback requested…

I read an interesting article over on Monday Morning Insights this morning.  It was actually written by a man named Dan Reiland.  He was discussing a group of people that he called “Professional Christians.”  Here’s his definition: 

 “Professional Christians are believers, but have no intention to roll up their sleeves and serve. They are looking, in contrast, for a church to feed them, meet their needs, serve their schedules, and offer many of the latest and coolest programs in town. If you felt a little heat there, it is intentional. The consumer mindset in the local church is killing us.” 


A few years ago I probably would’ve argued this seemingly callous definition, but now I have no argument.  Question of the day:  If you are a church-goer, are you a “professional Christian”?  Do you have a problem with this definition?  Why or why not?  Is being a “Professional Christian” necessarily a bad thing?

I may have mentioned that I am reading a book by Rob Bell called Velvet Elvis.  J  It is not a book about cheesy 60s art of Lisa Marie’s daddy.  But, if you are interested in that velvet Elvis, there are several on eBay at this very moment.

If you want to know why it’s titled Velvet Elvis, you will have to pick up the book or check out this. 

As I mentioned before, there are several passages in this book that tend to jump out and bite me.  Last night it happened again.  And I was up for a long time rolling this over in my brain.  I have been sharing this with everybody that I have talked to today so I thought I would mention it here, too.

Movement Six:  NEW + Two Realms (pgs. 147 – 150)

Wow…I think I already intuitively knew all of this stuff but not put together in terms like this.  The basic premise of this is that we, as Christians, should be bringing heaven on earth to those living hell on earth.  Hell being described as “a way, a place, an event, a realm or situation absent of how God desires things to be.  Famine, debt, oppression, loneliness, despair, death, slaughter they are all hell on earth.”

Here’s what Bell says:

For Jesus, the question wasn’t, how do I get into heaven? But how do I bring heaven here?

Jesus’ desire for his followers is that they live in such a way that they bring heaven to earth.

What’s disturbing then is when people talk more about hell after this life than they do about hell here and now.  As a Christian, I want to do what I can to resist hell coming to earth.  Poverty, injustice, suffering—they are all hells on earth, and as Christians we oppose them with all our energies.  Jesus told us to.

Jesus tells a parable about the kind of people who will live with God forever.  It is a story of judgment, of God evaluating the kind of lives people have lived.  First he deals with the “righteous”, who gave food to the hungry, gave water to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked, and visited the prisoner.  These are the kind of people who spend forever with God.  Jesus measures their eternal standings in terms of not what they said or believed but how they lived, specifically in regard to the hell around them.

The judge then condemns a group of people because they didn’t take care of the needy and naked and hurting in their midst.  They chose hell instead of heaven, and God gives them what they wanted.¢

EXACTLY!!!  Why in the world are today’s Christians so satisfied with just attending church in their pretty church buildings on the weekend and going to the Bible studies and discussing their wealth of knowledge with others who agree with them and feel all happy and warm and deeply spiritual inside and IGNORE the most important thing???  LOVE is the most important thing.  There’s this misconception that all we have to do is fill our brains with knowledge and that will make us a good Christian.  That is so wrong!  There’s nothing wrong with studying your Bible, but if you place that above actually living what the Bible says then it’s useless.  Nothing.  The Bible even says as much.  Read 1 Corinthians 13.  Prophecies, tongues, knowledge – love = nothing.  I’m not talking warm fuzzy love.  I’m talking painful love.  Loving the unlovable.  Sacrifice of money and time.  Heart breaking love. 

has enough resources to end world hunger.  I’m not talking government …I’m talking you and me .

Did you know you could build an orphanage for $10,000 in Africa ?  (Or, so I’ve heard, don’t quote me on that one!  Either way, what’s $10,000 to save children off the streets?  Nothing!) 

I’ve gotta change the subject…my heart is beating too fast.  I gotta go calm down.

Oh, and I learned a new word today.  Theolingo.  It is a made up word, but it basically means the words and terms that seminary students and graduates use to impress the rest of us of their knowledge, but really just make us dizzy and/or nauseaus.  Ha!

Yes…I’ve blogged too much today.  I told you…I’m going to be lazy all day.  That’s twice this week.  I think I’m due for a vacation.  Oh yea, I’ve already mentioned that.

I’m reading Velvet Elvis:  Repainting the Christian Faith by Rob Bell.  It’s a great book.  It’s as good as Erwin Raphael McManus’ books.  Go out and get it today…especially if you are as fascinated by the emerging church conversation as I am.  I love this book and in actuality, you may hate this book, but you’ll never know until you read it.  J

O.K.  So, have you ever read a book and then all of a sudden something you’ve read jumps out at you and you feel as if you’ve been bit?  And you feel as if the author has a weird sense that you’d be reading his or her book and knew that you needed to hear an exact something at the exact moment you’ve read it?  Well…this entire book has been like this for me. 

Here’s one of the many quotes that resonated with me:

Central to the Christian experience is the art of questioning God.  Not belligerent, arrogant questions that have no respect for our maker, but naked, honest, vulnerable, raw questions, arising out of the awe that comes from engaging the living God.

This type of questioning frees us.  Frees us from having to have it all figured out.  Frees us from having answers to everything.  Frees us from always having to be right.  It allows us to have moments when we come to the end of our ability to comprehend.  Moments when the silence is enough.

The great Abraham Joshua Heschel once said, “I did not ask for success, I asked for wonder.”

The Christian faith is mysterious to the core.  It is about things and beings that ultimately can’t be put into words.  Language fails.  And if we do definitively put God into words, we have at that very moment made God something God is not.

Most of us are conditioned to think of mystery in terms of a television show or a novel or a film in which the mystery is solved at the end.  Often right before the credits we find out who did it, or who is actually the long-lost son of whom, or that she is actually a he.  Or that Bruce Willis was dead for most of the movie and we just now figured it out.

Mystery is created when key facts are hidden from the viewer.  What the writer/director/creator does at the end is pull back the curtain and show us the things that had previously been hidden.

So the mystery gets solved and our questions get answered.

But the Bible has an entirely different understanding of mystery.  True mystery, the kind of mystery rooted in the infinite nature of God, gives us answers that actually plunge us into even more…questions.

Isn’t that true?

On a side note, I’m in an online reading group that is studying this particular book.  It’s funny because it seems as if some people take certain passages in the book and slightly twist them to say what they want it to say.  I can just imaging the author reading their comments and scratching his head thinking, “Did I really say that?”  It got me thinking about how some of us read the Bible.  We focus so much on 1 or 2 passages and milk them for all they are worth and I sometimes wonder if God listens to our discussions of these passages and thinks, “Did I really say that?” 

Anyways…go get this book.  Now.  I’m serious!  What are you still reading this for?  Go!  Here…I’ll make it easy for you:  Barnes and Noble.com

I had a ouch moment this week.  Lately I’ve had no tolerance for people who call themselves Christians and yet are so inward focused (and justify it though spiritual language, i.e., “God wants me to rest in Him right now.”).  It’s called self-centeredness.   I’ve been convicted about the importance of serving people in love.  I’ve been convicted about not filling my schedule so full that I have no time to do the things that really matter. 

Well…I blew it.  Tuesday mornings tend to be one of the busy times of the week for me.  I attend a women’s Bible study at my church on Tuesdays.  This Tuesday my day started out pretty normal.  I overslept (and so did my kids…which was a good thing until I had to wake them up.)  I jumped in the shower and then spent some time on the computer printing out some things I needed for the morning.  I got a phone call from a friend of mine who was supposed to bring a snack to Bible study, but was running out of time and wouldn’t be able to get the food to the church on time and also get her kids to preschool on time.  She asked me if I could meet her somewhere to pick up her food so she could get back to the church on time after dropping her kids off.  I agreed, woke up the kids, got them dressed, fed and out the door.  That’s when it happened…

As I was buckling my daughter’s seatbelt I briefly noticed somebody near my neighbor’s trash can.  I didn’t really think anything of it.  Tuesday is trash day and I figured it was my neighbor bringing her can to the sidewalk.  I got in the car, pulled out of my driveway and in my rearview mirror, I noticed that this person was an elderly woman (not my neighbor) and she was digging through the trash cans on my street.  I live in an upper middle class neighborhood and this kind of thing is not common.  I had a brief moment of compassion, but then quickly stifled it because I was too “busy” to do anything about it, and besides, what would I do or say to this woman?  I didn’t want to embarrass her.

I still feel sick about these thoughts as I type this.

I drove off to meet my friend and go to Bible study.

I’m still teary eyed over this.  I had a bag of apples in my car.  How difficult would it have been to hand her my bag of apples?  They were set aside for Bible study snacks, but would they really be missed and who needed the snack more?  The women at the Bible study or this woman who was digging through stranger’s garbage cans looking for who knows what? 

This woman has a name.  She is a daughter.  Perhaps she is a sister, mother and/or friend.  What’s her story?  How is it that she came to a place in her life where she needed to dig through garbage cans?

As I was telling my husband about this I observed that these things always happen when least expected.  Had I been forewarned that there was going to be a lady in my neighborhood digging through trash cans, I could’ve planned out what to say, how to say it and what to do.  But, of course these things don’t come with a warning or a manual on how to behave.

I came to a fork in the road and chose the easiest path…I chose to do nothing for the woman who probably needed me most.

Are we so overscheduled with all of the so-called important things that we miss out on what is truly important?