Advent Words of Waiting

This poem is by my friend Phuc Luu. He is a lecturer in the religion department at Houston Baptist University, and a PhD student at St. Thomas.


anxious waiting
dangerous waiting
unexpected
being conceived
a plan
drawn in stars
and darkness
and fleeing
and inhospitality

as in the seventies
when in the middle of the night
taking off for another country
unaware
while artillery shells find new born babies Herod always hunts the Christ

beth-lehem
to bake bread for all
body
blood
the one to feed the world
will come crying
to suckle

to be God

to smell like new born deity
wrapped in soft skin

a mother and child at a metro stop
with a transfer
holding grace, homeless grace
looking at her, I try to read the plans on her face
dark constellation
to see God wrapped up anywhere
as I drive away, not knowing what waiting was really about

If you like cool pictures...

If you're a fan of photography, I encourage you to check out a relatively new magazine called JPG. The photos are all user-submitted and thematically organized. Some of them are typical "I got lucky with my point and shoot" type, but there are quite a few beauties. They're found online here.

I've submitted a few photos there myself. You can find them here.

A Timid Preacher's Secret

It's 10:39 on a Sunday morning, the Second Sunday of Advent, 2007. In a few minutes I'll put on a clergy robe and don the blue stole that is identical the ones the other ministers in our church will wear. They were all hand-made by a dear saint in the choir.

I'll go out for a microphone check and line up with the choir for the processional. For the next hour and a half in that robe I'll be speaking on God's behalf, I'll be an objectified symbol of religion for some, and a hopeful sign of the possibility of God for others.

It is a mantle I have accepted, but not one I would choose.

I wouldn't choose it because every Sunday morning I am sick to my stomach. I've preached nearly 500 sermons in my life, and yet I spend 30 wrenching minutes in the bathroom every time. I do it because I am afraid. Now don't go thinking you can talk me out of this - others have tried, and frankly I think the fear is somewhat healthy.

It's not that I'm afraid of speaking in public. I do that lots, and if it's not in worship then I don't get sick. Honestly, I'm afraid of God. I'm afraid of hurting someone. I'm afraid of saying something that would distract from God almost as much as I fear having nothing to say at all. I fear that people will see that blue stole as a costume cover up for the fact that sometimes I am a doubting Thomas, sometimes I am a cynic about religion, and that sometimes I am closer to leaving the pulpit than to staying.

I don't want to do anything to injure someone's faith. So lean in here, and I'll tell you the secret of how and why I get up and preach Sunday in and Sunday out despite all these fears. If you were near me I'd be whispering now. The secret is that God does this work through frail humans like me and you despite our fear. When I walk into the sanctuary in a few minutes I'll pray that same prayer as last Sunday: God, I've done what I can to prepare for this, the rest is up to You.

Amen.

No God, No Peace - No Kidding!

This photo is by Sandra Bello, found at this website. The sign says "No Peace - No God. Know God - Know Peace." Follow the link to see it more clearly.

No God, No Peace - No Kidding!

I despise bumper sticker theology. After all, how can you condense the Holy One to a sound-bite? One that I see frequently is “No God – No Peace. Know God – Know Peace.” Frankly, it annoys me, because it’s only half true. “No God, No Peace.” Check. I agree with that idea. But there are quite a few Christians who “Know God” but do not know anything about peace. Not in their homes, not in their souls, not in their world.

We await a peaceable kingdom that Jesus intends to bring to earth, but the human bent toward self makes true peace impossible in the world as we know it. Peace requires us to give up some of ourselves, our ideals, and even some of our wealth – and most of us are reluctant to change the things that make us un-peace-able people. We can’t get peace between ethnic groups because we refuse to give up our un-peace-able stereotypes. We can’t get peace in our marriages because we refuse to give up our un-peace-able notion that love is all about feeling good. We can’t get peace between nations because we refuse to give up our un-peace-able levels of status, comfort, and consumption.

Peace will not come until the Prince of Peace exerts the power of the gospel of love in a fulfilled kingdom, a kingdom for which I yearn more and more as I age. I criticize warring nations – including our own – but governments can no more beat cruise missiles and combat vehicles into plowshares than I can beat my own un-peace-able behaviors into pruning hooks. And until we Christians can manage to bring peace to our homes and churches, we cannot even begin to imagine peace in the Congo or the Middle East or even in our own Senate.

What we need is the one who frames our Advent waiting – a coming messiah who will rule with justice and mercy and who will lead us to intentionally move toward unity by way of an oh-so-subtle drift toward grace. Only then will we truly be able to say that when we “Know God” we “Know Peace.” But until then, you and I can strive to get rid of the un-peace-able planks in our own eyes so that, upon seeing more clearly, we can look with love and peace at others. That’s the fodder for the sermon this Sunday – it’s called All the Earth Awaits Peace and it comes from Isaiah 2.1-5. We worship at 11:10 am this week and I hope you’ll join us.

Shabbat Shalom,
Pastor Gary

Not a Sermon – Just a Thought is a weekly email written in hopes of getting you to think about your faith and your everyday world. If you wish to no longer receive this email, or would like to receive it every week delivered free to your e-box, shoot me an email at glong@wmbc.org. I’m the pastor at Willow Meadows Baptist Church in Houston, Texas, and you can find more info about us at www.wmbc.org.

Isaiah 2:1-5
2:1 The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
2:2 In days to come the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it.
2:3 Many peoples shall come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths." For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
2:4 He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
2:5 O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD!

Have You Ever Been There?

An office mate at WMBC sent me this:

DADDY'S GONNA EAT YOUR FINGERS

I was packing for my business trip and my three year old daughter was having a wonderful time playing on the bed.

At one point she said, "Daddy, look at this", and stuck out two of her fingers.

Trying to keep her entertained, I reached out and stuck her tiny fingers in my mouth and said, "Daddy's gonna eat your fingers", pretending to eat them. I went back to packing, looked up again, and my daughter was standing on the bed staring at her fingers with a devastated look on her face.

I said, "What's wrong, honey?"

She replied, "What happened to my booger?"

No Walt Whitman, but...

I think that I shall never see,
A sight as beautiful as a tree.

But those men from out of town,
Chopped the whole darn forest down.

So I guess I’ll sit here on my rump,
And write a poem about a stump.

Don't know where that poem came from, I think perhaps I read it in Mad magazine when I was a kid and it stuck in my brain. Funny how somethings are so easily remembered, ay? Why couldn't I ever remember my Greek or Latin conjugations so easily?

Stumped?

So I published this piece today about the tree stump on Braeswood Blvd near my new house. It wasn't quite useful for the topic hope, but this site I found is fun. Take a look at The Stump Online.

To the person in charge of the site I ask, "Does your boss know how you're spending company time?"

Of Winter and Stumps

I've moved to a new house recently, so my commuting paths have changed. As such, I've noticed more details while I'm driving around home. One detail is a water oak in the median of the street I drive most. It is among a group of eight or so trees. Some time ago, I can't tell exactly how long, it was cut off about 5 feet above the ground. Now, it has a year or two's worth of growth out of the stump, and it's coming up kind of scraggly and rough looking. It’s ugly, but there’s still life in it.

This tree recalled a bit of forgotten farm folklore for me, although I can't cite the source of this tidbit: Never cut a tree down in winter. That's because, in winter, the tree always looks dead from the outside, even if there is still life going inside. If you cut a living tree in the winter, the stump will send out shoots in the spring when the sap rises with the temperatures.

The point is - In the winters of life we are tempted to cut down dreams, hopes, and ideals but you can never really tell if a thing is dead when the situation is at its worst. Nature teaches us that a thing isn't necessarily dead just because you can't see life in the winter. God taught nature to be that way. Seems that's part of the Holy One’s nature.

In Isaiah 11 there is a promise that a shoot will come out of the stump of Jesse. All of Israel believed that they were in decline and that foreign oppression was their fate. They were ready to cut down the tree, when Isaiah bursts in with "Wait! Something better is coming. Wolves are going to lie with lambs, and the root of Jesse will be a banner over all the people of the earth." And in just the right time, God delivered on his promise that was to come from the family of Jesse - his name was Jesus. And as surely as all of Israel awaited God's salvation, all the earth awaits something even now.

God's methods aren't always easy to understand, and sometimes life throws us curve balls that look like winter time. Advent reminds us that hope isn't hope if it doesn't have to wait and the God of Advent urges us to stop cutting down trees in winter time so that, when spring comes in its many forms, our dreams, hopes, and ideals will still be standing as trees of righteousness in the Kingdom of God.

What do you await? Love? Security? Kindness? Acceptance? Forgiveness?

Whatever you await this Advent, keep on waiting - for that is hope, and that is what we celebrate beginning this Sunday. I'll be preaching a sermon called All the Earth Awaits Hope based on Isaiah 11.1-10. We'll gather for worship at Willow Meadows Baptist Church at 11:10 a.m. and I'd be honored if you join us this week.


Waiting on the World to Change,
Pastor Gary

Not a Sermon – Just a Thought is a weekly column by Gary Long. I’m the pastor of Willow Meadows Baptist Church in Houston, and you can subscribe or unsubscribe by contacting me at http://webmail.logixonline.com/images/blank.png. Feel free to pass this along to a friend or family member who is awaiting something in these days. Encouragement and optimism cost you nothing but they are worth the world to someone else!

Forming Faith in a Missional Church

Here's a story that circulates the email vortex a little too often, but for this week's sermon it was cogent:

A boy went to church for the christening of his younger brother. Going home, he sat in the back seat quietly weeping. His father asked him, “Son, what’s wrong?”

Bravely, the boy replied, “Well, the pastor said he wanted us raised in a Christian home, and I wanted to stay with you guys.”

Funny! Or not so funny?

After all, do Christian parents know what it takes to make a home specifically Christian? Do parents know what spiritual formation is? And for that matter, how many Christians – adult or child – are being spiritually shaped at all? There are a whole bunch of preacher-types out there who tell me that church should be “missional” and go out into the world, but what should be done to spiritually prepare people for this kind of sending?

In last week’s sermon I suggested that a missional faith should be holistic and apostolic, but how do we acquire such a faith? Or, put a different way, how can we be shaped by God to live the missional faith to which we are being called? The answer lies in seeing souls as beings that need to be shaped and changed, not merely “educated” with lots of knowledge about God, but rather encounters with God. Instead of pouring Bible facts and doctrinal statements into our minds, a missional faith is best shaped by experiences with God that aim not only at head knowledge, but heart-level change. This means that that you and I may have to change how we seek God, listen to God, and imitate God’s ways.

We may also discover that our familiar ways of Christian education are inadequate for preparing us to live missionally. Sunday School is a start, but do all the Bible facts we’ve learned through the years change our ways of living? Does missional faith require something more? Yes.

That’s what I’m talking about in Sundays’ sermon entitled Change Your World – By Allowing God to Change You, based on parts of Psalm 119. We’ll explore some ways that you and I can be changed by God (spiritually formed) for missional living, and you may be pleasantly surprised to find that you’re already doing some of these things – and that they’re actually fun!!! Things like conversation, art, hospitality, or exercise, games, or sharing life with others. It all boils down to the fact that God is already working in our lives on multiple levels and in varied ways – we simply need to see things that way and be changed by it.

Hope to see you Sunday,
Pastor Gary

Not a Sermon – Just a Thought is a weekly column written by me, Gary Long. I’m the pastor of Willow Meadows Baptist Church in Houston, Texas.

Psalm 119. 1-8 and 33-40

1 Blessed are they whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of the LORD.
2 Blessed are they who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart.
3 They do nothing wrong; they walk in his ways.
4 You have laid down precepts that are to be fully obeyed.
5 Oh, that my ways were steadfast in obeying your decrees!
6 Then I would not be put to shame when I consider all your commands.
7 I will praise you with an upright heart as I learn your righteous laws.
8 I will obey your decrees; do not utterly forsake me.

33 Teach me, O LORD, to follow your decrees; then I will keep them to the end.
34 Give me understanding, and I will keep your law and obey it with all my heart.
35 Direct me in the path of your commands, for there I find delight.
36 Turn my heart toward your statutes and not toward selfish gain.
37 Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to your word.
38 Fulfill your promise to your servant, so that you may be feared.
39 Take away the disgrace I dread, for your laws are good.
40 How I long for your precepts! Preserve my life in your righteousness.

With Friends Like That, Who Needs...

A few years ago I asked God to send me some good friends. You know, the kind you can call at 2 a.m. if you need 'em, the kind who will show up and feel welcome to rummage through your fridge, the kind who are there to celebrate big and small stuff.

I was at a birthday gathering for my wife on Saturday night, and caught this photo of me and two such friends . Looking through the photos today, I realized: Answered prayer. That would be the caption for each of these photos. There are a lot more folk in my life who fit that bill, but were not available for the photo.

The biggest sports news the first of November didn’t get much press. An NBA player signed a contract for less money than he could have gotten! Granted he won’t be starving, because the contract was for $13 million a year. But he went against his agent’s advice and took a lower amount of money.

Al Jefferson signed a contract with the Minnesota Timberwolves for about $2 million per year less than he could have negotiated for. "I didn't even think I was worth max (money) this year anyway," Jefferson said at a press conference on Thursday (11/107). "I would've been a fool to go up there and ask for max, having not really proved myself for that. So the number I got was the number that was my goal from Day 1. And I think it was a win, win situation."

You just don’t hear about this kind of thing very often in our cash crazy country. I was discussing this with a friend and he said, “Yeah, but come on, he’s got $13 million a year, how much more does he need?”

Fair question – for Jefferson and for you and me.

How much is enough money for us to live? And how much of our money should we use to sustain our lifestyle and how much should we give away?

Fair question, but hard question. And a timely question.

This weekend Willow Meadows Baptist Church begins our annual offering for world missions. We’ll be raising money for missionaries, theological education, orphans in Moldova, churches in Mexico, and food for the poor in Southwest Houston. There are even more good causes that I don’t have room to list.

We make these contributions over and above our regular giving to our church and other charities, and I challenge you to ask and answer the question my friend raised about an NBA player: How much is enough?

I challenge each of my readers to consider this as the end of the year spending spree called Christmas approaches. I challenge you to spend less on yourselves and your family and to put your money where your faith is - support your favorite churches and charities generously.

This Sunday I’ll be preaching a sermon called Change Your World – Splot by Splot. My November sermons will focus on how to “Change Your World – For Good” by not only giving money, but by adopting a missional lifestyle. That’s a lifestyle were our faith is wholistic, incarnational, and apostolic. Find out what those words all mean by reading 2 Timothy 1. 3-14 and joining us for worship if you’re in Houston this weekend. We gather at 9:00 a.m. and 11:10 a.m.

Show me the money,
Pastor Gary

A Prayer for Today

I was reading some stuff on missional thinking on this blog today, and found that this prayer provided me with a bit of spiritual sustenance for the frenzy of my life:

May God bless you with discomfort
At easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships
So that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger
At injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people,
So that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with tears
To shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger and war,
So that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and
To turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness
To believe that you can make a difference in the world.
So that you can do what others claim cannot be done
To bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.

If you're ever in Refugio...

Do two things:

1. Pronounce it (ruh\fury\o). I know, it makes no sense to me, either.

2. Eat at this restaurant/bus stop. It's the best Tex-Mex I've ever had - and I've eaten me share o' Tex-Mex.

The Lectionary

Last week our church staff made a decision that we would follow the lectionary for corporate worship at my church. We agreed to begin with the first week of Advent and stick with it all the way through Advent 2008.

For those of you who don't know this, the lectionary is a three year systematized way of reading most of the Bible in depth. The schedule follows the church year.

For those of you that know me, you can guess several reasons why this is a seriously hard commitment for me, and why I'm twitching.

1 - I don't usually plan that far ahead. Without my wonderful assistant I wouldn't hardly know what I am supposed to do today.
2 - I'm more like the wind that I care to admit. This commitment means that I don't get to waver off course because the whole team is planning and working alongside me on this.
3 - I fight structure at most every turn. I'd prefer to be loose and free wheeling in my approach to all of life, even my sermon planning.

We'll see how this goes. Any of you readers follow the lectionary in your church? Would love to hear how you make it work. Of course, I'm telling you all so that I'll be more accountable to actually doing this!

Is Something Wrong With This?

I got an email this week about promoting a "Christian Cruise" to raise money for my ministry. I learned that I can make money for my ministry and possibly even get a free cruise for myself.
If you can't view the picture very well, the flyer says, "Come and be blessed as you enjoy pampering at sea, quality time, Christian concert performances, life changing seminars..."

This is blatantly "Consumer Christianity." I challenge the idea that being blessed equals "pampering at sea." Yes, Jesus says "My burden is easy and my yoke is light" but he also teaches that the way of the cross is difficult and that blessing from God is not always about pleasure, comfort, or whatever perceived need we have.

Am I alone in my thinking?

Where'd You Learn to Talk Like That?

A while back one of my children got busted for foul language.

At church.

I got the news leaving the chapel after Wednesday night Bible from a children’s worker. In her sweet Alabama accent she said, “Pastor Gary, I don’t want to get [name withheld to protect the not-so-innocent] in trouble, but I thought you’d want to know. [Your child] went down the slide saying, ‘Holy s%&!, Holy s^%$, Holy s#%!’ I corrected [your child], but thought you might follow up at home.”

Fatigued, I pulled out my go-to response, humor. “At least [my child] said it three times – true Trinitarian formulation!”

It wasn’t received well.

At home I gave the standard lecture about using good words and bad words, and my wife followed up with the old-fashioned “I’m gonna wash your mouth out with soap.” Literally. Later that night we wondered where [our child] had learned to talk that way. I tried to blame her, but the answer was in the mirror.

Children imitate their elders, especially their parents. They learn the language of cursing and the language of blessing depending on the example we choose to set. Same is true at church. If our children see adults worshipping by singing strongly, praying sincerely, and engaging the teaching deeply, they will follow suit.

Something like that was going on in Matthew 21. You know that passage because it’s where Jesus ran out all the money changers. But don’t skip over an important detail. There were children shouting in the temple, calling Jesus the “Son of David” and saying “Hosanna!”

Where did those kids learn to talk like that?

I’m guessing they picked it up “on the street” when Jesus entered Jerusalem and they heard the grown ups shouting “Hosanna.”

The kids were annoying the “real” religious people there, the stuffy sort of people. They were telling the truth about Jesus and it was driving them crazy because it defied their authority and challenged the order of things. The chief priests and scribes did what all religious posers do, they complained about the noise. “‘Yes,’ replied Jesus, [quoting Psalm 8] ‘have you never read, “From the lips of children and infants You have ordained praise”?’ Then he “vamos-ed” out to Bethany.

So here’s the point. Maybe our quiet, orderly worship services are not all that impressive to God. Maybe we grown ups need to follow suit and shout a few hosannas in the temple this Sunday? Maybe we could learn a thing or two about authentic worship from a little kid who isn’t restrained in showing passion for God because of familiarity, or social acceptance, or the fear of being seen as silly. After all, to most of the world the cross already seems foolish – why not confirm just how “crazy” we Christians really are?

We’ll be unpacking this more in a sermon this weekend called Shouting in the Temple. We gather for worship at 9:00 a.m. and 11:10 a.m. on Sunday. You’ll have to shout in the later service as we’ll be holding our annual “Blessing of the Bikes.” It’s a raucous good time of worship and prayer, an annual event where we welcome motorcycle riders from around the area to join us in worship and have their machines blessed. We feed ‘em and send ‘em on a ride into God’s glorious Sunday afternoon. That is a happy group!

Get your motor runnin’,
Pastor Gary

Not a Sermon – Just a Thought is a weekly email column to connect you to the sermon topic for this week. If you want to subscribe or unsubscribe, contact me at glong@wmbc.org. If you want to discover more about our church go here. If you want to read more of my writing, go here or here.

Matthew 21.12-17

12Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13"It is written," he said to them, " 'My house will be called a house of prayer,' but you are making it a 'den of robbers.'"
14The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. 15But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple area, "Hosanna to the Son of David," they were indignant.
16"Do you hear what these children are saying?" they asked him. "Yes," replied Jesus, "have you never read, " 'From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise'?"
17And he left them and went out of the city to Bethany, where he spent the night.

Sweet 16

Dear A#1,

You know who you are. There have been days of your life that I've anticipated and dreaded, like the first day of school or first time I took you for a vaccination. Today, October 25, 2007, is one of them. I want to reach out and squish down on your teenage head, just like I used to do when you were a toddler saying, "Stop growing so fast!"

"No way, Jose!" you'd say. Of course you pronounced it "Hooozay."

Your eyes have always danced, a rare and brilliant blue beneath that canopy of curls. The joy for life that your eyes display makes me enjoy my own life, too. Your mouth has always smiled, a disarming yet pouty smile that destroys distance and gives us all energy. Your life has always been a miracle and a gift for which I thank God daily, and you have helped me to grow up and be a man in a thousand little ways you'll never know or understand.

At the same time I recognize that you are not uniquely mine to possess. No human can truly be "owned" and I wouldn't want that for you anyway. Your irrepressible spirit is not meant for confined spaces, you were meant to fly free.

I have held you tightly, sometimes too tightly, but please forgive my reticence at letting go too quickly. I know a thing or two about this world, and that is why I continue to squeeze, sometimes tighter than you'd like. If I seem overprotective or too restrictive, it's only because I want to delight in you for many moons yet to pass.

According to house rules, today marks the day you became old enough to date a boy, drive a car, and stake out more territory of independence. But remember, you're never too old for correction or discipline, you're never too strong to need your family, and you're never so bad that you can't come home. House rules aside, you will always be my little girl.

Promise me we'll never make it to that hundred and first "Dalmation kiss?"

With love,
Daddy-o

Kentucky Football

OK - I'm a huge UNC fan, but this time of year all I can do other than watch baseball is wait for basketball to ramp up. Woo-hoo, UNC is a preseason #1 in roundball, but they suck all the air from the entire universe on the gridiron.

So today I watched the UK vs Floridahhhh football game, rooting for the Wildcats. I figure it works to my advantage to do so because, after all, I married a girl who is a true wildcat - I'll leave the editorial comments on that to you.

I was rootin' for the 'cats and thought they were gonna hang one, but unfortunately, no. Sorry guys. I may detest the gaturrr's more than all you fair folk in Lexington. I'm still more than a little sore that they won the NCAA men's b-ball tourney this year.

So it leads me to ponder aloud: just when did the Frenchies decide to export their two good athletes to Florida? And, just out of curiosity, doesn't coming to the U.S. on an athletic scholarship give you enough appreciation to at least stand up for the Star Spangled Banner? Oui, the preacher is harkening back to the contemptible Joakim Noah who thumbed his nose at the country which created a public system of higher education that created the opportunity for him to ply his skills at an ultimately irrelevant sport and get a free education. This is the same punk-kid who wouldn't even stand for the country's national anthem that put him on T.V. to act like an idiot.

At the very least, Billy Packer should have pronounced the "J" in Joakim. The hard "j," as in jerk.

Sorry, 'cats. Luv you unless you're playing the 'Heels and I thought you made a great and valiant run today.

Love Song for Traveling Lovers

The Cure has a wonderful tune called Lovesong that's great for lovers who have to spend time apart. Here's to you, T, doing the "single parent" thing this week:

Whenever I'm alone with you,
You make me feel like I am home again.
Whenever I'm alone with you,
You make me feel like I am whole again.

Whenever I'm alone with you,
You make me feel like I am young again.
Whenever I'm alone with you,
You make me feel like I am fun again.

However far away, I will always love you.
However long I stay, I will always love you.
Whatever words I say, I will always love you;
I will always love you.

Whenever I'm alone with you,
You make me feel like I am free again.
Whenever I'm alone with you,
You make me feel like I am clean again.

However far away, I will always love you.
However long I stay, I will always love you.
Whatever words I say,
I will always love you;
I will always love you.

The Youngest Sister Speaks Again

The family (minus the oldest sister) was settling in to watch Rise of the Silver Surfer on Friday evening after a glorious birthday dinner for yours truly. The previews were rolling for Die Hard Volume 8,065, or however many they're up to now.

The voice over guy with that deep voice is doing his job and he comes to the tag line, "Live free [dramatic pause], or die hard!"

The youngest sister, straight-faced and convicted, responds as if he's in the room giving her the choice. She states matter of factly, "I choose 'live free.'"

I laughed out loud and asked, "Why did you choose that one?"

She replied, "I don't want to die at all!"

Me either, kiddo. Me either.

Members Only

I stepped out to 64 degrees this morning. It was glorious after the long hot summer we've had in Houston. It took me back to the day in seventh grade when it was finally cool enough to don my "Members Only" jacket. It was deep purple with an inside vest pocket and those cool shoulder straps that all you 80's fans know and love. Yes, I see you smiling.


And no, that's not me in the photo, it's some playwrite named Rob I found on the net. Mine was purple like his.

I'd worked hard that summer in the tobacco fields and saved enough money to buy all my school clothes. I bought a pair of Nike's - no more "Trax" from K-mart for this kid. And I bought that "Members Only" jacket, it was my prized posession, and even now, at 37, I think about that coat when the first cool air of fall hits.

You see, that coat was about a lot of things. It was the reward of hard work, a struggle for identity, and "fitting in" with other kids. To a degree, it was about independence because my mother didn't like it.

I wore that coat when it was really too hot to wear a coat. I wore it when it was really too cold and I should've been wearing my heavy coat. I wore it to high school football games, I wore it the night I kissed a girl under the bleachers, I wore it the night I first smoked a cigarette, and I wore it to the party where I slow danced to Truly by Lionel Richie.

Like so many things of my adolescence, the coat is gone but the memory remains, as crisp and clear as those glorious 64 degrees this morning. Did you ever have a coat like mine?

Which Would You Choose?

If you were of a mind to go to church, which of these would appeal to you more? Please leave a comment about your choice.

Irony

I'd just published my post about my church turning fifty this weekend (see "She's Gold that Doesn't Glitter" below) when I got an email just moments later - literally. I want to share it with you. I'm on a distribution list at Willow Creek Church and the pastor their, Bill Hybels, sent this out:

Dear Enews Friends, Today is October 12. That might not mean much to most of you but for a small band of us it is a date we will never forget. It was on this day 32 years ago that a handful of people unloaded a truck outside the Willow Creek Theatre in suburban Chicago, took a deep breath and trusted that someone would show up for a church service. One hundred, twenty-five people did and we were thrilled! We were less thrilled when attendance dwindled to embarassing levels later on, but let's focus on the positive for now. That opening day is emblazoned on my mind. We worked ourselves into near exhaustion preparing the room. We cleaned, set up a few lights, patched a sound system together and pleaded with God to be gracious. One distinct memory that I carry is that I was not pleased with my sermon. We had all worked so hard and sacrificed so much and prayed so fervently...and then came the much anticipated inaugural message. Frankly, it was weak. I had never given a Sunday sermon before and it showed. The fact that anybody came back the next week is positive proof of the grace of God.

Bad preaching aside, October 12 was a watershed day for us. We had dreamed so intensely about starting an Acts 2 church. We had sold tomatoes door to door to raise the money to rent the theatre. Lynne and I had signed personally to pay for our tiny rented offices on Vermont Street. All of us in that core group had invited everyone we knew. And all of that activity culminated on that brisk, sunny day in early October.

Fast forward... I am sitting at a desk right now in downtown Moscow preparing to speak to hundreds of Russian pastors about the local church being the hope of the world. Wrap your brain around that irony. Three decades ago our two countries were squared off against each other with an intensity that threatened the existence of the entire human race. If you would have told me on October 12, 1975, that Willow would someday be a flourishing ministry on 200 acres of land, with state-of-the-art facilities and four regional campuses, I would have wondered what you were smoking. Further, if someone would have told me that we would be entrusted with a worldwide church renewal ministry that would train hundreds of thousands of pastors and church leaders all over the globe, I would have known for certain what you were smoking (and that you were inhaling!). And, if someone would have said that on October 12, 2007 I would be in Moscow preparing to train pastors at a Willow-sponsored event called The Global Leadership Summit, I may have been tempted to take a puff myself (but I would never have inhaled). All this to say that on this day I am undone by this whole thing God birthed in a movie theater. As I type this on my trusty BlackBerry, I fight off tears of sheer gratefulness that God included me in such an odyssey...words fail me. You should all know that the three buddies that sold tomatoes with me and worked every bit as hard as I did in those early days are still on staff at Willow--Joel Jager, Scott Pedersen and Tim VandenBos. True heroes who are rarely recognized but should be permanently inducted into Willow's Hall of Fame. Scores of others who were in the theater on that October day in 1975 are still serving in our church as well--Dr. B, Laurie Pedersen, Nancy Beach, Scott and Jan Troeger, Bruce Horgan...the list could go on. There are Elders and Board members who serve us today that found Christ in the tacky seats and sticky floors of the Willow Creek Theater. Who would have thought... Ecclesiastes 3:1 reminds us that there is a right time for every purpose under heaven. On this sunny morning in Moscow, it is the right time for me to sign off and fall to my knees and say for the ten thousandth time...Only God.

Happy Anniversary, Willow! Bill

Now let me be clear - I like Bill Hybels. I figure he's the worlds best actor or the "real deal" who has inspired lots of churches get out of their velvet ruts. I lean toward "real deal." I admire the work of Willow Creek and am thankful for all they've done. I've used various Willow curriculums and I've learned much about leadership from Hybels.

But let's be honest. There are thousands of unsung churches out there who do the good work of God week in and week out. There are capable and caring ministers out there who are giving it their all to 50 people, who live in parsonages that most of you readers wouldn't tolerate as housing. They preach masterful sermons, pray faithfully by sick-beds, and labor long among the poor. These churches and their pastors will not get national recognition, in fact most weeks the pastors will go without congregational recognition.

The problem is that our church culture in America has put so much stock in the mega-models that we now equate successful churches with places like Willow Creek and Lakewood. But there is more to being a successful church and successful pastors than the numbers.

I had lunch yesterday with nine other pastors here in Houston who shared, to a degree, this lament. We, to a person, were discouraged about our church's economic struggles and our institutional stability. We griped about our fatigue with denominational infighting. And, with only one exception, every pastor at the table described in some fashion how a mega-church had leeched away his church members. It reminded me of the small town business owners I knew when I owned a main street restaurant...they all bemoaned the arrival of Wal-Mart and what it would do to the small town economy.

"Consumer" religion is an easy target. After all, if restaurant chains that peddle crappy (but consistent) food in a Disney style atmosphere can make gads of money, it would make sense that a franchise style church should be equally successful in attracting people who go for the trendy comidas y bebidos. No slams here, just reality. Some people really like chain restaurants (I wonder if sociologists have cross-tabbed this: the percentage of Ruby Tuesday customers who go to a mega-church?).

But I think that perhaps "consumers" of religion are too easy a target. Perhaps we clergy-types have some burden of guilt, too. Careful self-examination will possibly bare the truth that it is often our ego's that drive much of this. After all, there is a lot of head-rush in being invited to preach or write because you have a large or growing congregation. There's a lot of "mine is bigger than yours" stuff going on at most pastors' meetings when the inevitable question comes, "What are you running?"

Worship attendance at my place hovers around 320, sometimes we hit 400. My answer to the question is always, "We have about 75 who are really committed." Inevitably, my church is the "smallest" and the other guys treat me better, more like an equal. And I like that, because i am their equal...but they wouldn't think so because they have 200 in worship.

I'm looking for some help here, because I'm sick of it being about the numbers. Tell me if you're bothered by these same things (Now the sarcasm kicks in):

• It's not really about us making ourselves popular through our preaching, it's really about "being relevant."
• It's not really about solidifying the church so we'll have a good paycheck, it's really about "giving to the kingdom."
• It's not really about wooing people and manipulating them with ear-teasing, it's really about "authentic conversation."
• It's not really about building a name for our preaching-selves, it's really about "spreading the word."

So, I'm gonna start making good on a promise I made to myself years ago. When I said "yes" to what I perceived to be an invitation from God to be a vocational minister I did so with two conditions:

1. I wouldn't be slick like all the other preachers. I'd be who I am, take me or leave me.
2. When it stops being fun, I'm getting out. I really mean "joyous" here b/c not everything in ministry is "fun," nor should it be.

In the last few years I've found myself polishing my words a little more carefully, trying to keep everyone in the church happy. And fun? This numbers thing isn't fun. And it isn't ministry. And lately, much of what we do in church isn't fun. But if I'm gonna survive in this work for an entire career - and that's questionable at this point - I'm going to stop pretending to be someone I'm not and I'm going to do those parts of ministry that I do best and bring me joy.

Anyone care to join me? Hey Hybels, you in? Hey Joel Osteen, want go to lunch next week and talk about what you're doing in ministry that brings you joy? Or how about you, regular church-going Christian? Do you have the guts to visit your pastor and say, "let's stop counting and start having fun/joy/meaning in ministry?"

She’s Gold That Doesn’t Glitter

Not a Sermon - Just a Thought - October 12, 2007

Maybe you’ve met her. She looks pretty good for fifty. Her joints sometimes bother her, and she could stand some improvement to her physique, but she doesn’t really show her age. And if you’re into comparisons, she’s really a young thing next to some of the ones she runs with.

Outer appearances aren’t the only measure of her worth. On the inside she is full of all kinds of beauty. If you knew her history, you’d know how she’d spent a lifetime trying not to judge others, welcoming some into her life that weren’t always welcomed elsewhere. She’s patched up her share of lives, that’s for sure. A little cash here for someone who has lost a job, a little food there for someone who’s having a hard time making ends meet. She’ll cloth just about anybody who shows up, and sometimes opens her doors for complete strangers. She can be a risk taker from time to time, but she’s not a sell out.

She’s also been great to her children, very nurturing. She taught them life skills and nurtured her faith in their lives. As teenagers, they actually like to hang around her, and her “all grown up and moved away” children still come around to see her almost every Sunday. She’s fed them thousands of times, sometimes with food and sometimes with the Word. She has encouraged and forgiven, mended and sewn, served and saved.

Some think it scandalous that she is still a bride “in waiting” after all these fifty years, yet she’s no single mom. Her groom is always helping her do these things I’ve been talking about. He’s a first class husband-to-be, some would say he’s the best possible choice for a husband in all the world. He goes by lots of names. The old-timers called him Joshua, in Greece he picked up the nickname “Christopher,” but most folk around her house today just call him Jesus. Maybe you know him, and maybe you know his fifty year old bride named Willow Meadows Baptist Church.

Her official birthday is tomorrow, October 13. It was on that day in 1957 that the Willow Meadows Baptist Chapel first met in the cafeteria at Red Elementary School. We’ll celebrate her birthday this Sunday with a special worship service at 11:10 a.m., and a luncheon to follow. We’ll have a special guest preacher, Dr. Charles Wade, who is the executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. We’ll sing our praises for the past and we’ll say prayers for our future, for we, Willow Meadows Baptist Church, are that bride of Christ. We may not always glitter like the things of the world, but with God we are golden.

Happy 50th Willow Meadows Baptist Church!

Grace & Peace,
Pastor Gary

Not a Sermon – Just a Thought is a weekly column by me, Gary Long. I’m the pastor of Willow Meadows Baptist Church in Houston, Texas. You can learn more about WMBC at our website, http://www.wmbc.org/. I’m a polite guy, so if you want to be added or deleted from this mailing, just contact me at glong@wmbc.org.

Almost Vacation Time

Just a little longer and I'll be on vacation, where this sight is a daily occurrence. I probably won't be posting much during the next few days but hope to come back with stories galore.

I Can Already Taste the Relaxation

Hey, the big stores have the Christmas Crap on display already, so I thought it would be ok to talk about Thanksgiving in September. So why the talk about thanksgiving? I'm preaching about the 10th leper this Sunday (see the "At Second Sight" post below), so I'm working on counting the things for which I'm thankful.

One of the things I'm thankful for is the holiday of Thanksgiving. It's my favorite holiday. Things are calm at church, the kids are out of school, the wife is relaxed. On top of that, there is no gift-giving to distract us from a great feast, giving thanks, and taking note of people we love. It's a perfectly relaxing time and the UNC basketball season is just getting underway, who could ask for more?

Add to it the family that comes to see us, like this guy:

That's "Uncle Jack" who is always asking good questions like "Does life imitate art, or art imitate life?" He'll be here for T-giving with his wife, "Aunt Debbie, the house-elf" and we're all looking forward to it.

I'm also thankful for meaning in my life and work, healthy kids, great friends.

How about you?

Bad News

It's just about lunch time...

Smooth Operator

I’m not sure if the news is big nation-wide, but Priscilla Slade’s trial here in Houston is certainly a hot topic these days. She is the former president of Texas Southern University and is being tried on “two counts of misapplication of fiduciary property of more than $200,000.” Prosecutors allege that she used more than $500,000 of the public university’s funds for personal expenses, including a bar tab over $140,000.

Allegedly, Dr. Slade entertained staff and friends on TSU’s dime, throwing extravagant parties in her 17,000 square foot home that featured, among other things, a sofa paid for out of university funds and worth more than my two cars put together. There is more: manicures for the staff, extravagant trips, center court seats for Houston Rockets games. All purchased with money that came from the Texas taxpayers’ pockets.

The details about her “mis-expenditures” are readily available on the web and in the news, but the highlights alone are enough to cause some serious head-scratching. A public university president is a fiduciary for the state’s money – meaning basically that we trusted her to handle it well. Just how did this happen? And what was she thinking? Dr. Slade is a trained CPA, did she really think her gross abuse of public money would not come to light eventually?

Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t. Or maybe she picked up her methods from the Bible.

Take a good look at one of the hardest parables Jesus ever told and you’ll see what I mean. In Luke 16.1-13 we read the story about a mid-level manager who knew the boss’s axe was going to be swinging at his feet soon. So he invited in all the people who owed his boss and cut their debts substantially. Misapplication of fiduciary property, I think it was. Cut a few hundred gallons of olive oil here, a few hundred bushels of wheat there. He was thinking if he cut the debts of those who owed his master that when he got fired, those people would take care of him. Pretty crafty.

And Jesus praises this dishonesty, as does the manager’s boss. It makes no sense to me. What can Jesus be thinking? I’m not saying Dr. Slade deserves praise, in fact I’m angry at her. But the fact that Jesus tells the story tells me that the children of light should probably borrow some methods from the culture, as well as be willing to take some initiative and dramatic action for the sake of the Kingdom.

Luke 16.1-14
The Parable of the Shrewd Manager
1Jesus told his disciples: "There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. 2So he called him in and asked him, 'What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.'
3"The manager said to himself, 'What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I'm not strong enough to dig, and I'm ashamed to beg— 4I know what I'll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.'
5"So he called in each one of his master's debtors. He asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?'
6" 'Eight hundred gallons of olive oil,' he replied. "The manager told him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred.'
7"Then he asked the second, 'And how much do you owe?' " 'A thousand bushels of wheat,' he replied. "He told him, 'Take your bill and make it eight hundred.'
8"The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. 9I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.
10"Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. 11So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? 12And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own?
13"No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."
14The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. 15He said to them, "You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight.

At Second Sight

Not a Sermon - Just a Thought for 9.28.07
On Friday mornings I usually give you some type of illustrative “just a thought” to get you thinking about the sermon for the coming Sunday. Today, I want to challenge you to think more deeply with me than usual. Hang with me – deep thought may hurt on a Friday but it will give you a new way of thinking about life, faith, and the things that matters most to you.

Take a sip of coffee and read on.

Paul Ricoeur was a French philosopher who combined high-brow philosophy with hermeneutics - a fancy word for “how we interpret meaning from things.” His lifetime of teaching and writing helped a lot of preachers understand how to interpret things to their congregations, especially the Bible. One of his greatest concepts is how we come to accept or reject ideas. If you over simplify his concept, it works like this (advance apologies, Dr. Ricoeur):

1. When we encounter a new thing or idea, we are naïve about it and must work to understand it. Makes sense, ay?
2. Then we think about the idea, we test it against what we already know, against history, science, and so forth. Still making sense?
3. Finally we come to appropriate the idea for ourselves and something happens at the end of that – we come to hold the thing or idea not based on factuality but on its very existence. That state is what Ricoeur calls “second naïveté,” meaning that we accept an idea because it just is.

I thought of “second naïveté” in preparing for this week’s sermon about the tenth leper who returned to thank Jesus for being healed. You’ll find the story starting in Luke 17. 11-19 (copied below). It is a story of healing but, more importantly, it’s a story about seeing. The first sighting in this story is done by Jesus. He sees the lepers – really sees them – and gives them instruction to go to the priests.

Then the second “seeing” occurs: “… and as they went, they were cleansed. One of them, when he saw that he was healed, came back, praising God…”

It’s a story about Jesus seeing the human condition of the lepers and the one leper truly seeing his condition as a healed man and returning to give thanks. I imagine that the leper went through all three of Ricoeur’s stages of appropriation of the idea healing and came back with excitement and gratitude because his healing didn’t need to be proven by history or science or fact. In his mind, the healing just was. The existence of healing was all that mattered and reveling in the fact fashioned him into a remnant of “thanks.”

Oh that we would be that thankful remnant, too.

We have all been “seen” by our God in our human condition. We have also “seen” all that God has done for us. But for “seasoned” Christians it is possible to lose sight of the grace and restoration that has changed us and we do well to go back to that place of “second naïveté” and take a second look at how much we’ve received. That’s where the seed of gratefulness in all of life is planted, tended, and blossoming.

I’ll be preaching a sermon called At Second Sight this Sunday at 9:00 a.m. worship gathering called Jubliate! We’ll gather also at 11:10 a.m. for Overflow where we’ll be wrapping up the sermon series Desperate Sex Lives by talking about marriage and forgiveness. If you’re in Houston this weekend, I hope you’ll join us.

Grace and Peace,
The Tenth Leper Leaping

Not a Sermon – Just a Thought is a weekly column written by me, Gary Long. I’m the pastor of Willow Meadows Baptist Church in Houston, Texas. You can find former editions of this column at http://www.thefellowship.info/resources/for_you/notasermon.icm, that’s the website for the good folk at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

Luke 17.11-19

11Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. 12As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance 13and called out in a loud voice, "Jesus, Master, have pity on us!"
14When he saw them, he said, "Go, show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were cleansed.
15One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. 16He threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.
17Jesus asked, "Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? 18Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" 19Then he said to him, "Rise and go; your faith has made you well."

The Best Spanish Words

I feel like I should tell you the outcome of an earlier post entitled Lo siento. I followed through on the offering of an apology. And I'm glad I did it.

My wife helped me cobble together a few words of Spanish that I hoped, along with a forlorn look, would convey to some of our subcontractors my heartfelt regrets for blowing my cool last week.

I had been going to the house once or twice a day to check on progress, usually early in the morning on on my lunch break. But after my blow up I didn't go to the new house for two full days while the workers were there because I dreaded seeing those guys. I felt like a third grader on the school bus taking home an "F" on a spelling test. When finally I could put it off no longer, I went to the house and sought them out one by one.

My tongue tangled as I offered the Spanish apology, and my hands were hot with shame as I offered it out for a handshake. All three of the men shook my hand and smiled. One said, "De nada."

I found the last one quietly sanding the base board on the stair well. After my "speech" he said in broken English something to the effect of, "No problem, it happen to all person."

Latching on to his response, I tried to explain that I was tired, I was stressed, and so forth. He smiled and nodded like he understood, but he didn't. It was all lost in translation, but not from English to Spanish. It was lost in the translation from one economic strata to another. It was lost in the translation from my stress about a the color of my floor to his stress about making ends meet. It was lost in translation because there was no real reason for me to behave like a horse's ass.

I knew it was lost in translation so I gave up, and went back to the phrase I'd learned. Lo siento. I am to blame. Mea culpa.

He shrugged and went back to what he knew. "De nada." His eyes and slight smile told me that he got the message, so I quit.

The taste of grace and regret mixed in my mouth on the way home, oddly enough like new paint and the dust of wood being sanded. The words "de nada" are all at once bitter and sweet and they are the best Spanish words I know.

Start Me Up

The day we are born, argues Rob Bell*, we newborns cry because we sense that we are disconnected. We travel through life and discover that we are disconnected in a thousand ways from each other, from God, from ourselves, and from our world.

Is it possible then, that there is a spiritual side of our sexuality that is about reconnecting with our humanity and the humanity of others? Is it possible that the temptation to sex outside of the covenant context is really about our deep spiritual hunger not to be lonely, not to be isolated, not to be disconnected?

If I’m right then it’s easy to see why sex sells so well. It is physically gratifying and has the potential – in the right context – of being spiritually sating. It’s also easy to see why we struggle with addiction to sex and its commercial substitutes like pornography, prostitution, and strip clubs. Ultimately, sexual temptation is the temptation to trade God for a God-substitute. The illusion of intimacy is at once convincing and appealing in a disparate existence.

The haunting Kris Kristofferson tune Help Me Make It Through the Night sums up the longing for connection that I’m talking about:

Take the ribbon from your hair,
Shake it loose and let it fall,
Layin' soft upon my skin.
Like the shadows on the wall.
Come and lay down by my side till the early morning light
All I'm takin' is your time.
Help me make it through the night.
I don't care what's right or wrong,
I wont try to understand.
Let the devil take tomorrow.
Lord, tonight I need a friend.
Yesterday is dead and gone and tomorrow's out of sight.
And it's sad to be alone.
Help me make it through the night.

The challenge for Christians, if we’re honest, is that we want something we can see, taste, or feel and God’s presence in our lives doesn’t always provide that in the way we’d like. Sexual temptation is all around us and to deny we struggle with this is one of the best ways to give such temptation power.

So if you’re in Houston this weekend, join us on Sunday at 11:10 am for worship. I’ll be preaching a sermon entitled Start Me Up and I’ll toss out some ideas for how you and I can deal with our all-too-human sexual temptations. It’s part of a four part series called Desperate Sex Lives and will continue through the end of September.

Directions to my church can be found in the link on the sidebar.

Tempted like you,
Pastor Gary

*Rob Bell is the author of Sex God – Exploring the Endless Connections Between Sexuality and Spirituality. The idea I mention is found in chapter 2, “Sexy on the Inside.”

Lo siento

If you don't want to see the human side of a pastor, stop reading now.

Ok, you've been warned.

So I finished prepping the concrete floors for stain about 2am on Wednesday morning. If you've been keeping up, you'll remember that I was set back on the project because I injured my thumb on Monday and couldn't work with the concrete grinder very well.

On Wednesday at 8am I walked through the house with one of the subcontractors, pointing out to him the freshly prepped areas and stressing the importance of keeing them clean and free of paint, sheetrock mud, debris, and so forth. Apparently some things were lost in translation with my Spanish-speaking friend.

I worked at the church all day Monday and checked in on the house about 5pm. A quick walk-through revealed that the shower pan in the master bath was installed and that tile work was proceeding well. It also revealed that the carefully prepped floor in the master bath had not been so carefully treated - sheetrock mud was splattered everywhere in the room.

And I lost it.

I literally came unglued in an old-style red-neck hissy-fit that would've made the dysfunctional side of my family proud. I did a quick check and could count on one hand all the times I've lost it like this in my entire life. I just don't normally blow it like this.

I cursed. I yelled. I chewed out every worker in the house. Fortunately, none of them spoke enough English to really get what I was saying. They basically got this message: patron es loco.

I was so angry I even through one of my very best UNC hats on the floor. If you know me personally, that should be your biggest sign that there was a huge vergence in the force. Then I stormed out.

I'm going to learn from this, I know it.

First, I know that, in the words of Rob Bell, "This is really about that." "This" was not really about the mess. The mess could be cleaned up easily in a half hour or less. No one had committed an injustice against me, no one was sabatoging me, no one was trying to cause me more work intentionally. I was really angry about the whole process, the delays, the fact that we're in a rental house and have to move twice, and that I can't deliver a sleep-over party promised to the Brother who turns 10 today.

"This" was about "that" and the presenting issue was only a symptom, not the cause.

Second, I know that I have to apologize, probably in Spanish, to the people I blew it with yesterday. I'm dreading it. I woke up this morning nauseated by my memory of the blow up, literally sick to my stomach with remorse and contrition.

As readily as I can own my failure to myself (and ironically on a blog to God-knows-whoever-reader-you-are), I'm having trouble with the fact that I have to go to real people and say I'm sorry. A real apology has to be offered to real people, and I'm saddened at me because I'm discovering that deep down I have a dangerous hubris. I know that a reluctant apology is not truly an apology, so I'm praying that I get my heart behind my practical theology on this one.

Maybe you could pray, if you do such things, that I would do the right thing with the right motivation.

Sweet Dreams and Concrete Machines in Pieces All Around

I've not been posting much lately because the Longs are moving to a new house. We've nearly finished remodeling a large old home in Southwest Houston, but we sold our old house and had to be out the day after Labor Day. Alas, a double-move.

I've done a few small parts of the renovation myself and I'm about to tackle the flooring. Flooring is one of the last things to be done and I'm resurfacing some of the concrete floors in preparation for staining them. So I rented a couple of big concrete grinders, the heaviest of which landed on my right thumb while loading it up yesterday. It made my flesh "flap" and dripped blood steady for the better part of two hours.

Needless to say it still hurts and I didn't get finished with the floors. Hopefully I'll finish tonight!

Thanks for continuing to read this blog. Please be patient, I'll be back in full swing soon.

Reversing Course When You’re Wrong.

Eric Brinker had to reverse course on a major issue last year – snack mix.

He is the director of brand management and customer experience for Jet Blue airline. He had switched the usual snack, Munchie Mix, to a healthier alternative in response to the request of some passengers. Little did he know he would incite a near riot.

Customers complained vociferously, writing things like, “[Munchie Mix] is the only reason I flew Jet Blue!”

So he back-tracked with a “Save the Munchie Mix” campaign that read, “Some pinhead in marketing tried to get rid of the Munchie Mix.”**

Brinker is not the first corporate guy to lead a change that later necessitated a reversal. Remember “New Coke?” Or “Pepsi Clear?”

The granddaddy of product flops was the Edsel. Never heard of the Edsel?

The Edsel was rolled out by Ford as a mid-priced luxury car. For weeks before it hit the market on September 4, 1957, Ford promoted “E-Day” in newspapers, magazines, and all three television channels nationwide. Folk stormed dealerships on E-Day, but rolled right back out as soon as they saw the Edsel.

The reasons for rejection were many. For example, the push buttons for the automatic transmission were placed right in the center of the steering wheel – right where’d you reach to blow the horn. Some said it looked like “a Mercury sucking a lemon.” What’s worse, a lot of the cars were delivered with a list of missing parts taped to the steering wheel. Mix in an economy that was fading into recession and the fact that the Edsel was made for richer times and you can predict what happened even if you weren’t alive then.

Within three years the Edsel limped into the scrap yard on the two wheels of bad design and bad timing.

Bad timing and designs aren’t limited to the business world. Just ask the prophet Jeremiah. He had a front row seat for one of the great “Edsel” moments of Israel’s history. Idolatry and apostasy had diverted Israel away from Yahweh, the covenant, and the law. The people didn’t see that their hopes, ambitions, and dreams had been completely misplaced as they’d whored out their trust in God to other gods “who are not even gods.” Jeremiah urged them to turn back to the ways they knew before it was too late, before their failure became epic in scale.

What are the “Edsel’s” of our own lives? What are the dramatic or not-so-dramatic failues you need to reverse course on and put in the past? I hope you can find ways to lean from your “Edsel’s" and have the courage to make the necessary changes.

This piece was based on Jeremiah 2.4-13.

The "F" Word

The F Word

Amy Biehl would have been forty years old at the end of August. In the early 1990’s she was a student of Stanford University doing Fulbright Scholar work at University of Western Cape Town in South Africa, and as an anti-apartheid activist she met an untimely and grisly death. On August 25, 1993, a mob of angry blacks pelted her car with rocks, someone hit her in the head with a brick and dragged her from the car. She was beaten and stoned and stabbed to death by her attackers as they hurled racial slurs at her.

Her death was common in those dark ages of apartheid, but this story has an incredibly uncommon ending. You see, four men were convicted and condemned to life in prison for their crime. But remarkably, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommended their pardon after serving only five years. Even more astounding is that Amy’s parents supported the pardon. Peter, her father, took the stand as a witness at the hearing and said this:

“The most important vehicle of reconciliation is open and honest dialogue...we are here to reconcile a human life which was taken without an opportunity for dialogue. When we are finished with this process we must move forward with linked arms. ”

The courts granted the pardon for all four men. The story doesn’t end there.

Two of the four men are now working for the Amy Biehl Foundation. Easy Nofemela and Ntobeko Peni have dedicated their lives to the work of the foundation – to prevent violence among youth in South Africa. Linda, Amy’s mother, says,

“I have come to believe passionately in restorative justice. It’s what Desmond Tutu calls u-buntu: to choose to forgive rather than demand retribution, a belief that ‘my humanity is inextricably caught up in yours’…I can’t look at myself as a victim – it diminishes me as a person. And Easy and Ntobeko don’t see themselves as killers. They didn’t set out to kill Amy Biehl. But Easy has told me that it’s one thing to reconcile what happened as a political activist, quite another to reconcile it in your heart.”

This is the same hard truth that Jesus taught about forgiveness. He hinted at the wideness of God’s mercy for humans when he said we should be generous in forgiving one another “seven times seventy.” He illustrated uncommon determination to forgive rather than demand retribution when he stood silently before his accusers and later died an innocent death. And in the story of Peter – the disciple who thrice denied Jesus only to be later forgiven and restored – we marvel at how the gospel of grace forever changes the course of a life.

The amazing power of the gospel of grace lies in this one truth: That the reconciliation of all three of these men – Easy, Ntobeko, and Peter – led to them change from within and become champions for the vision of the one they’d betrayed.

So what about you and me? Do we champion the cause of the Christ who has forgiven us much? Are we as quick to forgive others as we should be? Do we see how failing to forgive others diminishes us as a person? And having been reconciled with another, how do we then “move forward with linked arms?”

I think we need to "Drop the F bomb" more often.

The Ever Emergent Church

Some people talk about the movement called “Emergent Church” but I am growing to resent that title a bit. You see, in my way of thinking, the church has always been emergent, being reborn and reshaped to work in the culture thrust upon it since 2000 years ago when Jesus said to Peter, “Upon this rock.”

Emergent means that it is unfolding, being unveiled a little at the time – and that seems to be God’s secret formula. And the real secret in the secret formula is that nobody knows the full story. Only God. Even Jesus said he didn’t know the details about how the kingdom of heaven would finally come about.

What’s true is that we live in between times, and that in between these times the light is shed slowly on the path before us. I'll be "emergent pastor" for a moment and tell a story about what I mean.

Growing up in southeastern North Carolina, I lived across a cornfield from my cousin, Brian. One night I was sent by my father to Brian's house on an errand. I was walking the corn field on a new moon in November with a kerosene lantern (yes, I really had a lantern for camping, and besides, what 10 year old boy doesn't like to play with fire and fuel?).

It was a completely dark night, the clouds snuffing out all the stars. For you city folk who have never seen full darkness, you need to know that a cloudy night on a new moon is so dark that you can't see your hand in front of your face. Friends, it's so dark you couldn't scratch your...ok, that's a little too genuine for this blog. The point is that was terrifyingly dark.

That walk was scary, I tell you. There was no beam of a flash light to shine way out ahead, only the radiant glow of the lantern that would iluminate about four feet in front of me and that was all. Slowly the path opened up for me, but only as I moved forward. I imagine today what I looked like that night from my cousin's porch, a soft circle of emergent light, slow and steady moving forward to light my little corn field world.

That seems to me to be the way the church moves through time. A journey that is in some generations sometimes plodding and plotting; in other generations it is erratic and radical reform. Nadirs and wagon ruts, she still moves forward, emerging, emergent. There has never been a time when the church wasn't "emergent."

So, to my friends and colleagues who are on the razor sharp front of "where" the church is headed next, please redefine things carefully and choose your terms and labels with equal caution. The church as "emergent" is not new, she is doing as she always has.

All that Junk in my Trunk

I have to rant. I seldom do this, so grant me this one moment.

I publicly criticize stores like Lifeway because they market so many Christian trinkets. I thought/hoped that some of the postmodern/emergent Christians might be feeling the same way, sick and tired of the crap that marketers try to pawn off on us in the name of Jesus.

Check that ideal at the door, though. I just leafed through the latest issue of Relevant magazine, a publication I’ve enjoyed in times past. Maybe the magazine has always been like this, but for some reason this week it really struck me how commercial and “hip” the Christian faith is presented on those glossy full-bleed pages.

The issue is more ads than content and the content that’s there is poor. Most of the writing is so overwrought as to be exhausting and the 20-something expression of Christianity on the pieces seems a lot of fluff, not to mention more than a little pretentious – and a little bit of that goes a long way. Even the interview with Anne Lamott was disappointing (sorry, Anne, love your books – love it, love it, love it – but you came off flip and scattered).

And then there are the products being advertised. The message on the products is anti-consumerism, pro-orphans, live like Jesus, and so forth. All good ideas, but still I’m being asked to buy CD’s, t-shirts, attend music festivals, and buy Christian-designed art and blue jeans. The product and advertising contradict the message. Someone is profiting from competing interests and the suffering of orphans ought not be putting funds in somebody’s pocket.

I believe in Christianity being relevant. Connecting Christ to culture is good. Helping Christians see Christ in culture is great. No problem there at all, but it seems to me that Relevant has missed the point that relevance is not a tool, a raison d’etre, or a goal. Sorry to the gang at Relevant, I don’t see any difference between you and your publishing predecessors from modernity.

In all fairness to the gang there, there may not be a postmodern philosophy in your goal to be relevant, so I tread carefully in my waters of assumption. Plainly, there is no deconstruction of faith, just a slick new way of pushing the same products as those who brought us CCM and all that Jesus junk.

Whatcha gonna do with all that junk, all that junk down in my trunk?

See, I’m relevant.

The batter swings and the summer flies

– from the pop song The Riddle

Sports enthusiasts are mourning the tragic deaths of two coaches. Thirty-five year old Mike Coolbaugh died after being struck in the neck by a foul ball while coaching first base for the Tulsa Driller’s, a minor league baseball team. Skip Prosser, the 56 year old head coach of the Wake Forest University men’s basketball team died in his office yesterday, apparently of a heart attack.

I don’t want to offer commentary on the safety of baseball or the stress of a division I NCAA coaching job. Plenty of pundits will do that. Today I am simply reflecting on things in light of my faith.

First, both of these guys were doing something they loved. Coolbaugh floated around the minors for a decade and only played 37 games in the “big show” of Major League Baseball. When he died he was a hitting coach for a minor league team in Oklahoma, and while I’m no expert on coaches’ paychecks, I have a sneaking suspicion that he was not in the same pay grade as Barry Bonds and the boys. Yet there he was, his last day of life on earth – doing what he loved. The same is true for Skip Prosser, he died doing what he loved.

Second, we know what they loved doing. We are clear on their priorities in life. One of Prosser’s players was quoted saying, “It's tough for me right now. I can't explain it. Here today, gone tomorrow. The one thing about Coach Prosser is that he cared about his players — and would do anything for us." Similar quotes abound for Coolbaugh. These guys loved the game and saw coaching as a way of pouring themselves into others’ lives.

Third, we know that time that matters is in short supply. It’s an unpleasant reality, but death is inevitable. How will I prioritize and spend my one and only life?

It reminds me of the story about the rich young man who came to Jesus asking, “What good thing must I do to inherit eternal life?” Stay with me and you’ll see why.

A conversation ensued about following the commandments wherein the young man claimed he kept all the important ones. So then Jesus said he should go and sell all his possessions and give to the poor, and then spend his time following Jesus. You might guess that the young man walked away saddened because he didn’t want to give up his great wealth.

Some interpret this as a story about money and possessions. I read it beside these coaches’ deaths as a story about priorities. Jesus was asking the rich young ruler to make following him the top priority in his life – beyond his wealth and beyond the commandments of Judaism.

First

Numero uno

The “main thing”

I don’t know if Prosser or Coolbaugh were men of faith but I do know what their priorities were. The haunting question for this pilgrim is, “If I died today, would people know clearly what my life priorities were?” Will they know that I tried hard to follow Jesus, love my family, and serve the world?

Sudden deaths, as well as encounters with Jesus can:

• bring our priorities into focus,
• help us admit that we do have a list of priorities, and
• confess that sometimes those priorities get out of whack.
  

We’ll talk more about life priorities by looking at this rich young ruler in worship on Sunday at Willow Meadows Baptist Church. If you are in town please make worship attendance a priority in your life and join us at 9am or 11:10am.

See you Sunday,
Pastor Gary

Not a Sermon – Just a Thought is a weekly email from me, Gary Long. I’m the pastor at Willow Meadows Baptist Church, on the web at www.wmbc.org.


Matthew 19.16-30 New International Version

The Rich Young Man
16Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, "Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?"

17"Why do you ask me about what is good?" Jesus replied. "There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments."

18"Which ones?" the man inquired.

Jesus replied, " 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, 19honor your father and mother,'[d] and 'love your neighbor as yourself.'[e]"

20"All these I have kept," the young man said. "What do I still lack?"

21Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

22When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.

23Then Jesus said to his disciples, "I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

25When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, "Who then can be saved?"

26Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."

27Peter answered him, "We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?"

28Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 29And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother[f] or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. 30But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.

The Best Day of My Whole Life

At Ocean Isle Beach, NC the week of July 4th my father and I rolled out his old fishing boat. It's about 13 feet long and has been in the family since I was a teenager. That makes it, ummm, something more than 20 years old.

It has a smoking motor, a crack in the inside hull lining, and a plywood motor-mount. She's a good little craft with "men" and "ladies" stickers on either side of the stern, but honestly she's seen better days.

But with The Younger Sister and the Brother on board, you would have thought we were on the QE II. They loved the boat ride down the intracosatal waterway and they didn't even notice the big luxury fishing and ski boats flying by and leaving us bobbing in their wake.

Kids are that way.

They don't seem concerned with the things upon which we grown ups fixate. A simple boat, a beautiful sunny day, people you love, and the salt and sand there for the enjoyment. It was all about the thrill of being on the water with their dad and their "pa" and the possibility of catching fish for dinner.

It was in the midst of learning how to cast her rod that the Younger Sister taught me a thing or two about life. She looked up at me with those big browns and said, "Dad, this is the best day of my whole life."

We didn't catch any fish big enough for dinner, but I got the message from God. For one moment in time I was without doubt that I have netted the best catch in life in that one moment, brilliant and shining and radiant.

I believe and pray that all three of my kids will have more "best day of my whole life" type days, but I sure hope the Youngest Sister always remembers this one. I know I will.

Preaching Gig

I'm preaching at a cool church on Sunday night. My church will worship with City of Refuge, pastored by my friend Rev. Rufus Smith. Hope you'll investigate this innovative multi-cultural church at www.cityofrefuge.org. We'll gather at 6pm, if you're in Houston, please join us!

You Say It Yahweh, I'll Say it Mine

I'm stunned. I just got the news that Doug Marlette, the creator of Kudzu was killed in a car wreck yesterday while on his way to help out with a high school production of a musical based on his cartoon strip.

Marlette's cartoons were brilliant. They were warm with humor and affection for human life and they were seasoned with his genious satire. The affable "Reverend Will B. Dunn" tried his best to show us the higher road, but didn't always pull it off too well - an accurate depiction of the church.

I've been a fan of the cartoon for ages, and about two years ago my dad gave me an autographed copy of his novel The Bridge. That novel meant a great deal to me, not just because it was a gift from my dad, but because I identified deeply with the character's chase for family history. I particularly liked the way Marlette painted the South in his cartoons and his books. It was pointed and sometimes painful, but it was also true and beautiful at the same time.

My favorite strip was a Sunday edition where Rev. Will B. Dunn (allegedly based on Will Campbell and James Dunn) was preaching and naming the names of God according to the great theologians:

Mysterium Tremendum
"Unmoved Mover"
"Ground of all Being"

and then his closing line, "But you say it Yahweh, and I'll say it mine."

May God rest your satirical soul, Doug. You said it your way.

The Poison is Working

My friend Tommy says that coming back to work after a good vacation is like taking a poison back into your body. Your body fights it, but it's too strong - eventually you succumb and the poison takes over until you're numb and go mindless back to the work at hand.

Today, the poison is working. Back to the grind.

Everybody's Got a Hungry Heart

Written July 4, 2007

I was alone watching the charcoal burn down enough to grill the steaks here on vacation last night. I watched a kid of probably 13 or 14 ride his bike around the circle of beach houses something like 12 times in a 6 minute period. He scanned all the houses, watching the various people and he looked lonesome. What was he looking for? Company? Friendship? Someone to ride along? Someone to stop and talk to?

I've seen the same kid several times already this week doing the same thing. Lonesome and restless he was looking for someone to hang out with, something new, something exciting, so he pedaled on. Everybody’s like that in some way, especially the restless ones – always looking for the next thing, the next friendship, the next thing to conquer, the next possession to obtain.

There’s little contentedness in life for a restless person, and this kid’s got it bad. Riding that bike around the circle of beach houses, he looked like some adults I’ve seen going around the big circle. Always pedaling harder and harder – if they just go around the circle one more time they’ll find something new, something exciting, something to satisfy that hungry heart.

Only thing is, kid, that’s an illusion. What little satisfaction for the hungry heart exists is elusive, so you just keep riding around the circle until you realize it’s not on this block. So you move on to the next circle of little houses. And when you conquer that one you realize there’s no satisfaction there, so you move on to the next one. You find bigger circles to pedal around madly until, if you're lucky, you realize that no loop is going to satisfy the hunger.

You might expect the preacher to talk about the satisfaction that God brings. You might expect me to talk about the “peace that surpasses all understanding.” You might expect me to quote Augustine with, “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.”

But not today. Today I’m content to sing along with Bruce and just be a hungry heart with that kid.

Lay down your money and you play your part, everybody’s got a hungry heart.