Super Studs - Off the Court and Out of the Pulpit

I called an old friend to say happy birthday Sunday afternoon. He's a basketball coach at a high school here in Houston and we chatted about his season a bit. His boys went 22-9 and had a great team experience.

I asked how a certain "superstar" played this year. I was interested because I knew that Lute Olsen, Tubby Smith, and Mike "DOOKIE" Kerzipoopski had been looking at this kid. Turns out that the "superstar" had left the school and didn't play with them this year.

"Oh no!" I said.

"Turns out it's a good thing." he said. "My boys did better as a team without him. Everyone played harder than before, they played like a team."

That, of course, got me to thinking about leadership. Especially leadership in church. I move in a universe that tends to make super stars out of pastors. Some of my church family falsely puts me on a pedestal, a place I believe happens to be reserved for the real head of the church - Jesus. Pastors walk this fine balance between leading out of strength, focus, and determination with keeping everyone focused on the fact that Jesus is the leader of the pastor and the church.

Good church people confuse pastors and Jesus. And sometimes, so does the pastor. It's easy to see how it happens, too. No matter how humble we want to be, the pastoral ego is a hungry beast that feeds on the lavish praises of church-folk like a fat kid on chocolate cake. It's only after I've binged on the sugary confection that I realize the icing is smeared on my face and stuck to the back of my knuckles.

I don't mind the leadership required of a pastor. I enjoy exercising what I believe to be a gift God has given me. But I worry that modern American Christianity has created more of a cult religion than a true church where people follow pastors, not Jesus. The ministry of the church is restricted and unfulfilled when everyone on the team stands around watching a great player do all the work and get all the glory.

This isn't to say that pastors and basketball players should diminish their talent so that others around them feel better about their mediocrity. It's just that I'd rather have a balanced team where everyone does what they do best, always ready to assist the others on the team as they go. I, for one, am ready for pastors to step down off the pedestal and utterly resist the evil temptation of being put up their by their adoring fans.

Like in basketball, churches win as teams, not because of super stud individuals.

A Prayer for After Ash Wednesday

My friend Sharon Gould is a cancer fighter and so-far survivor. She was made a widow younger than most, so she's endured her portion of suffering. But her suffering doesn't define her, and that's one of the reasons I admire her.

She's a poignant and pointed person with a background in counseling. She's been a confidante and counselor to me and I watched her in action during Katrina relief, thankful that she was there to help the hurting and confused. She's an amazing lady, more so because she's raised two kids to adulthood without killing them.

She attended Ash Wednesday services at Willow Meadows where I preached the homily that is a post below this one. This is the prayer she composed after she wore the ashes and is allowing me to share with you:

ASH WEDNESDAY
(LIVE ASHES)

Dear Lord,

Ashes across my forehead; don’t wash them off!
Forge them into my brain; tattoo them onto my skin.

After church
I wore the ashes to the supermarket, somewhat unconscious of their presence.
As I smiled and said “You first” to an exhausted mother balancing baby and groceries,
I was uncomfortably conscious of my ashes.

The condemning thought was the radical hurt to Christ if I had barged selfishly ahead,

ignoring her need, while wearing the ashes.

But Lord, I am always wearing the ashes; sometimes more live and conscious than others.

Thank you Jesus for the defining dust.
Perhaps I should daily dust your invisible ashes onto my forehead as reminder to show the world your cross of salvation and your light of love for everyone.

“After the suffering of His soul, He will see the light of life and be satisfied.” (Isaiah 53:11)

Humbly and gratefully,
Your child.

Wounded Light

Ash Wednesday, 2007

Ash Wednesday is one of my favorite worship services of the Christian year. I know that’s dark, rather like saying I like bitter wine or funerals. Ash Wednesday is a time of confession. It’s also a harsh time. We dwell on our sin, we contemplate our mortality.

It’s got all the angst of a teenager watching a Fellini film after a break up. It’s like that line between Gomez and Morticia from the Addam’s Family. He asks her about the nature of her labor pains and she replies, “Exquisite.”

So why would I say this is among my favorite worship services? There are several reasons.

One is that I am able to experience the exquisite rush of forgiveness that only a follower of Jesus can know. Because of these moments wherein we identify with the atoning death of Jesus, I am transported over time and across space and beyond geography. In my soul I am with Christ in his suffering, and I see the wondrous love in his eyes. I bear witness to the power of the cross and the pain which Jesus endured so I might be able to stand before God, forgiven and free.

Another is that I learn better each Ash Wednesday how to mark my time on this planet. “Dust you are, and to dust you shall be returned,” says the minister when the ashes are imposed. When those grave words are uttered I feel my mortality, my finitude, and my finality. Man’s days are numbered, and they are fleeting. Ash Wednesday reminds me that each trip I take around the sun is a precious gift, and the people with whom I share the journey are equally precious. Ash Wednesday reminds me that each trip I take around the sun is pregnant with possibility and that without God can be barren of meaning. Ash Wednesday reminds me that each trip I take around the sun is mine to spend as I choose, so the ponderous weight of free choice presses down on my soul.

Another reason I like Ash Wednesday is unique to the office of pastor. As I impose the ashes I watch the face of each person. They all respond to this so differently. Some wish for eye contact with the minister, signaling something that seems like an assurance of the pardon I am promising from God. “Can this forgiveness be real?” their eyes question.

Still others look into the bowl of ashes and oil, contemplating who knows what? Their mortality? Their brokenness? Their breakfast?

Some approach the ashes dignified and somber, fully “in the moment” and steeping in the ritual and reality of the truth about the chasm between us and the lives of promise that God would lead us to if we’d only follow.

But all of these people remind me that what I like about Ash Wednesday is that we walk through our darkness and brokenness in community. Ash Wednesday reminds me that loneliness has its place in the Christian journey, but so does community. When I impose ashes on you it says, “You belong to this family. You belong to me. I belong to you. At our very core we see and say, “You’re not so different from me after all.””

Most of all, the reason I like Ash Wednesday is in the way it brings us to places of healing. It marks the beginning of Lent, a season of penitence, fasting, praying, and self-denying. Like the relief that comes from a lanced boil or wound, there is a painful letting and a powerful healing. Always, Ash Wednesday marks the doorway to Lent, which is the path to Easter. The older I get, the more convinced I become that the way of suffering, loss, and pain leads to deeper joy, gladness, and contentedness.

Once, my friend Lucinda told me that no minister was worth his salt unless he’d been through some suffering and loss. She said it helped the minister understand the pain of the persons for whom he cared. Not long after that, my mother passed away. And though it was not the first time I’d experienced grief, there was much pain because of the suddenness, and because of the state of my relationship with her.

It’s a kind of wounded light like we read of in Isaiah’s prophecy about Jesus:

Isaiah 53.5
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

And in 53.11 we read:
11 After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied;

Wounds that heal, suffering that brings light to life. I like that.

As I have healed over the years I’ve come to believe that Lucinda is correct. Suffering produces something in our lives that compares to nothing I know. Ash Wednesday calls us into the suffering of Christ, into the suffering of our world, and into the suffering heart of God.

And by going into these dark places we more clearly see goodness, justice, and mercy. By going into the dark places of death and despair we more clearly see the bright light of the resurrection story that will be told at the end of the journey we begin today.

Spectator Christianity

I love college basketball. From the pre-season to the final four, I could watch college basketball for hours and it doesn’t really matter who’s playing. The intensity, the speed, the fact that any given team could win on any given night are all exciting to me. I love to watch the sport and I am a great spectator of college basketball. Especially if the Tar Heels are playing.

It’s a good thing I love to watch, because I wouldn’t make a good participant. For starters, I’m no longer eligible to play by NCAA rules. I’m too old. I’m too fat. I’m too slow. I can’t shoot the basketball. Tommy Simons slaughters me at horse every time we play. I can’t dribble the basketball very well. I can’t rebound the basketball. You couldn't get a slice of pizza underneath my vertical jump.

I’m a far better spectator than participant.

Some might say the same thing about the Christian faith.

Like college basketball, there are two ways to view the Christian faith. You can either do it as a spectator or a participant. Spectator Christians don't have bad theology, they're not heretical, and they're not bound for hell.

So if spectators are not bad or wrong, what’s the problem? The issue is that, as a Spectator Christian, it's easy to miss significant amounts of the good stuff in the faith. We miss the fullness of life as a follower of Jesus. But sadly, Christianity in American has become very good at producing spectators and not so good at helping people to fully clench the faith as a way of being and doing life. This is a shallow experience of a deep and mystical faith.

When Jesus was on this earth he gave his disciples a message and he gave them a way to live it out. The American church (if there is actually such a monolithic being) in our time is largely living out the gospel in a way that Jesus never intended it. It seems to me that we have become a generation of religious spectators, when the gospel of Jesus clearly demands that we be a people who “DO” our faith.

So I wonder, how do others out there "do" their Christianity?

A Tribute to Bruce Metzger

Bruce Metzger died this past Tuesday. If you don't know who he is, don't worry. Unless you ever went to seminary or learned Biblical Greek you probably shouldn't know his name.

But I think my readers should know about him.

The reason you should know about him is that he provided leadership for one of the most academically reliable translations of the Christian scriptures into modern English. He was an intellectual giant on Biblical translation and critical study of the scriptures, as well as an expert on discerning the reliability of various Greek manuscripts that form the basis for all of our translations.

It's important for you to know who does the translating of your preferred version of the Bible. That's because all translators have a theological bent and no matter how hard they may try, their lenses affect the words as they migrate from original language to English. Metzger did the best job of any I know at keeping his theology out of his translations. The Revised Standard and New Revised Standard Versions of the scriptures offer the average English reader the best shot at a pure reading of the originals.

Thanks, Dr. Metzger, for dedicating your life to study - we are the downstream beneficiaries. I'm sure God welcomed you, "Well done, my good and faithful servant."

Here's the ABP story by Robert Marus:

By Robert Marus
PRINCETON, N.J. (ABP) -- Bruce Metzger, who was perhaps the 20th century's preeminent New Testament Greek scholar, has died at age 93.

The retired seminary professor reportedly died of natural causes in Princeton, N.J., Feb. 13.
Metzger helped translate both the Revised Standard Version and the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible. He served as general editor for the latter, which is the English Bible translation used for academic study of Scripture in all but the most conservative Protestant colleges, seminaries and divinity schools.

"Dr. Metzger was a towering presence on the campus of Princeton Theological Seminary during my days there as a student," recalled Michael Livingston, president of the National Council of Churches, according to an NCC press release. "Students used to say that Dr. Metzger 'wrote the Bible.' The comment reflected the high regard in which this gentleman scholar was held."
Both the RSV and NRSV translations were done under the NCC's aegis. The group's general secretary likewise praised Metzger's life and work.

"I don't think it is an exaggeration to say the RSV would not have happened had it not been for Bruce Metzger," said Bob Edgar. "His leadership and scholarship were the reasons there is a translation of the Bible we call the New Revised Standard Version."

Metzger, an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), earned a bachelor's degree from Lebanon Valley College in 1935, a bachelor of theology degree from Princeton Seminary in 1938 and his doctorate in classics from Princeton University in 1942.

He taught at Princeton for 46 years, beginning in 1938.
-30-

Servant Leadership

As a pastor who views church as a learning community, I am a teacher among teachers. Practically that means I sit under the teaching of my community with regularity. Tonight I participated in a group studying the book Lead Like Jesus.

The discussion was ably led and the conversation was good. The book is pretty much in the main of current literature and falls under the Robert Greenleaf umbrella of Servant Leadership. Indeed, Greenleaf's work is seminal to this school of thought.

I asked the question of the group tonight, "Do you buy this?" I asked because I'm not sure I totally buy it myself. I agree with the Lead like Jesus concepts, but the back story of servant leadership - at least from the philosophical point of view - is not one upon which I'm totally settled.

I think Jesus' leadership capacity came from a deeply rooted sense of self-definition and a non-anxious presence. I'm heavily influenced by Ed Friedman and Bowen theory, so if you know their stuff, you know my slant on how self-definition and non-anxious presence are the keys to leadership in any arena. In serving his disciples at the famous foot-washing, Jesus seems more about modeling the contrarian, upside-down nature of God's kingdom than about establishing a way for CEO's to increase the bottom line and employee happiness factors.

There are numerous tantalizing theological rabbits to chase on this. Some of the folk tonight mentioned their belief that Jesus knew his mission and purpose so clearly as to know the time and method of his death. However, I'm not personally convinced of this and if pressed, I can make a strong Biblical case for my position.

If we follow that strand of thinking we must deal with the issue of God intentionally planning for God's own death. Some theologians refer to this concept as either "The Suffering God" or the "Sacred Suicide." Purposing one's on physical death is quite the violent act - and some theologians purport that God's act of self-death was a guilt-offering to humankind.

While I'm not sure about all those theories, I go back to my position that Jesus as servant leader had a clearly defined mission, a clearly defined self, and in living fully in the image of God brought a revolution to the world. Jesus was by all accounts a non-anxious, self-defined presence.

My read on the Jesus of the gospels is that we're dealing with a guy who led from the inside out, was playing for an audience of One, and didn't give a rip about winning friends or influencing people. I'm convinced that if we are to truly lead like Jesus it will have more to do with sitting quietly with God and brooding over whom we are as a human before we can step into any arena we aspire to lead.

The Day The Pterodactyls Went Extinct

I don't know the exact day, but I know it happened in the last few weeks. Seriously, the pterodactyls just now went extinct. Let me explain.

The pterodactyls lived in the belly of the Youngest Sister quite comfortably for the last 5+ years. They were a friendly pair who made a growling noise every time the Youngest Sister got hungry. They were fond of apples and bananas and grapes. And popsicles and "Blue Doritos" and chicken (Chicken being anything that was cooked on the grill, of course).

The pterodactyls were also very clear about what they didn't like to eat. The Youngest Sister defended them against certain food choices by saying, "The pterodactyls won't eat that, Daddy." It became a running theme around our house, even the adults were trained to listen for the digestive opinions of the two pterodactyls. At the end of a meal when she asked if she could have dessert, the parental response was, "Are the pterodactyls full? Did they eat well?"

So yesterday after school I was curled up on the pillow in her room reading Corduroy the Bear and I asked, "Are the pterodactyls hungry?" which being translated means, "Do you want an after school snack?"

She said, "The pterodactyls are gone."

I exclaimed "What!? When did that happen!?"

She shrugged with an indifference I'm not accustomed to seeing in a 5 year old.

I pressed on. "Where have they gone?"

She answered, "I don't know. They just flew away."

I bit my lip to hold back a very unmanly sob, a sob driven by the rushing realization that the baby of the family is no baby at all. A sob propelled by my worry that her imagination had been somehow stolen by that thief of childhood named "Growing Up."

The extinction of the pterodactyl is just the beginning, sounding the death knoll for Santa and the Tooth Fairy. Stuffed bears and tea parties will give way to shoe shopping and mascara, cell phones and boyfriends. "Daddy" will become "Dad" and "Can we cuddle?" becomes "Can I go out?"

My soul is struggling with this because I do want her to grow up. I do. Really I do. Really really really. I'm not convincing you or me, am I?

That's because you and I fear what the extinction of the pterodactyls signals: Aging. Loss of innocence. Tempis fugit. Missed opportunity. Regrets.

This is more than a story about a daddy watching his little girl mature. It's not even quaint reluctance that squishes her on the top of the head as if to say, "Stop growing up so fast!" It's a story about grown ups "playing pretend" about the march of time, too willingly, too easily blinding ourselves to its passing.

If those dinosaurs go extinct so quickly, then how soon before I'll be the dinosaur? Did I miss the good stuff? Did I drink life to the lees with all three of my kids? With my wife? With my friends?

So I cling to those stupid pterodactyls because as long as they are around, I can be a child too. The Youngest Sister, if she could read this would say, "Oooooh, Daddy, you said the "s" word!" Maybe that's a sign that I'm not so close to being a part of the fossil record after all.

Almost Too Late For Breakfast

I've had a few requests lately for this post. It's an old one that people have heard about and had a hard time finding, so I'm re-posting it for your convenience. I'm glad I made it for this breakfast.



I have a teenage daughter who is a thing of beauty. The oldest of my three children, she’s fifteen years old next week. I was changing diapers on this woman-child only a few weeks ago. She took her first steps and then started Kindergarten last week. Yesterday she was a middle-schooler with braces and here, today, she is a leggy, hippy, mascara-ed high-schooler . The great torment and mystery and wonder of being a dad is how quickly fifteen trips around the sun pass me by.



Today the Oldest Sister had the morning off from school. I knew about it last week so I cleared my calendar and made an appointment with her.



“Where do you want to go for breakfast?” I asked her.




“The New York Bagel!” she answered with no hesitation.




The New York Bagel is an institution in Southwest Houston. You can get two eggs, a bagel, and hash browns for $3.50 and you can watch the neighborhood Jews play their stereotypes. Joe, one of the owners, works the crowd while sassy waitresses in short-shorts work the coffee pots. His wet lips smile through his bushy beard as he charms you despite his Bronx accent. I was pleased that she chose it.




She didn’t pick the chain (IHOP), she didn’t pick the trendy (La’Madeleine’s). She picked the place with character and it made me proud. We both ordered the special, I had coffee and she had OJ. The conversation ebbed and flowed with an easy rhythm. I watched her baby blues flash with joy as a girl friend from her high school showed up with her dad. He and I exchanged the knowing glance of fathers courting the affections of teenage daughters, hoping to woo a few words of connection from them.




As the Oldest Sister and I ate I got a few of those precious words from her. We talked about a boyfriend, her school work, her dance team. We talked about a book she’s reading for geography class, and I told her about a David Sedaris book I just finished. We even talked about the meaning of orthodoxy when I told her about the book A Generous Orthodoxy that I’m reading now. She acted interested, in fact she might have really been so.




Though the conversation was uninteresting to most, it was more precious to me than all the praises that come to one who occupies the pulpit. She gave me the same smile I saw when I was changing her diapers, and for a precious three cups of coffee she was still my little girl.




Reflecting on the day I’m left with this thought: I have three and a half more trips around the sun before the Oldest Sister leaves the home and if they go as fast as the first fifteen, then I was almost too late for breakfast today.

I Love this Town

My friend Carl Boerger took this shot this morning at sunrise. Thanks, for sharing, dude!

Houston is hot most of the year and humid all of the year. The traffic is bad, and the city is not known for it's beauty. But there is much to love about Houston.

I remember leaving town the first year I lived here and my return flight afforded me a similar view of our skyline. I liked the glad feeling in my heart that said, "I'm home!" and I always thrill to see this sky line when I fly back in. After all, lots of people I love live here!

Some days I pine for my home in North Carolina and I suppose I always will. There are lots people I love there, too. Mostly I think the pining is nostalgia, that funny emotion that operates between truth and perception, tricking us to remember things better than they actually were. Billy Joel wrote, "The good old days weren't always good and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems," and Thomas Wolfe said, "You can never go home." They are mostly right, I think.

Idealizing a person, place, time, or thing is the most treacherous game on the emotional playground, especially if you allow yourself to make decisions about real life with little basis in actual fact. Your old boyfriend/girlfriend was neither that great nor that horrible, your dead mother/father was neither saint nor psychopath, and your old elementary school is always, always, always smaller than you remember.

The old saying goes, "The grass is greener on the other side." I say the grass is greener were you water it, mow it, fertilize it, and weed it.

At least that's the way it works here in Houston.

When in Rome, Love

Does anyone remember The Promise Song by the band When in Rome? It's another of those "One Hit Wonders" but it's great - given a resurgence in popularity by its inclusion in the closing credits of Napoleon Dynamite.



My weekly column for church (Living Covenants, below) was on my mind and I thought about how fitting the lyrics are for a church. See if you agree

If you need a friend, don't look to a stranger,

You know in the end, I'll always be there.

And when you're in doubt, and when you're in danger,

Take a look all around, and I'll be there.

(chorus)

I'm sorry, but I'm just thinking of the right words to say. (I promise)

I know they don't sound the way I planned them to be. (I promise)

But if you wait around a while, I'll make you fall for me,

I promise, I promise you I will.

When your day is through, and so is your temper,

You know what to do, I'm gonna always be there.

Sometimes if I shout, it's not what's intended.

These words just come out, with no gripe to bear.

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and then it repeats the chorus a few times.

I long for a church where most of the relationships are reflective of what this song is saying. The Greek word is koinonia, the English word is fellowship. We Christians have reduced "fellowship" to a potluck meal in the fellowship hall, but there is more to it. Fellowship, to me, is loving each other the way Jesus loves us and I think I could make a pretty good Biblical case for my opinion.

The problem is, of course, that loving like Jesus is much harder than puttng on a meal. Glimpses of this kind of fellowship can be seen in my church, though, and it brings me joy. I wish I could tell you the stories, but to do so would break confidences. Suffice it to say that if you could get up on your tiptoes and peek through the window into God's kingdom work, you'd see God is still at work behind the scenes helping us love one another.

Now that's gospel.

Living Covenants

Not a Sermon - Just a Thought for January 26, 2007

In 1985 I was baptized into the family of Jonesboro Heights Baptist Church in Sanford, North Carolina. I remember lots about the church: The red carpet in the soaring sanctuary, the green paint in the basement fellowship hall, and the smell of Wednesday night potluck meals.

I had another memory, a fuzzy one, so I called my old church today to verify that, yes indeed, the church covenant hung on the wall in the sanctuary foyer. Hand painted letters on white wood, the full text of our promises greeted us each time we entered the sanctuary to worship.



The church’s covenant hung on the wall, but it lived in the people. The covenant came to life for me on camping trips with the RA’s. The covenant took on flesh as parents took turns as chaperones. I became a part of the covenant when I helped a widow by raking leaves with my youth group. The covenant shaped my calling when I got to preach my first sermon in that giant fortress of a pulpit at a Sunday night youth service in 1986. The covenant was birthed in me because other people were willing to make commitments, allowing Christ to shape and reshape their lives as they lived in community.



Today I serve as pastor of a covenantal church and I have a deeper understanding of my obligations to the community of faith than I did as a teenager. I appreciate my old church better in retrospect because I learned there that covenantal churches are able to:

• Build shelters from the storms of life,
• Build in us loyalties and allegiance to the Kingdom of God, and
• Build up their surroundings into better communities.

The gates of hell shall not prevail against a church where covenant keeping is the building block of faith and

I, for one, desire to live in such a community. How about you?

Meatloaf and Eschatology

It occurred to me today that Meatloaf is making an eschatological claim for all of us rock and rollers. In his Paradise by the Dash Board Light he sings, "Now I'm prayin' for the end of time."

If you don't know the song, take a good listen and get a good laugh. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0ns8t9iQck

For all you really conservative Christians, let me be clear. I am making a joke.

I've Got the Fever for Judge Judy and Ellen

I'm at home today, sick with a fever and head cold. I worked a little this morning and then turned on the mid-day news. I dozed, only to awake to Judge Judy being interviewed by Ellen Degeneres. I was left with a few questions:

• When did Ellen get a TV show? Perhaps the more relevant question is "WHY?" She's funny and I like her, but TV talk show host? It was too casual, too flippant, too full of her tangled-tongue mistakes. I don't mind that in a stand up routine, but I prefer my talk shows to be a little more professionally done.
• Where did that cult audience come from? They laughed at everything, even her baby-talk noises and dorky dance moves. The phone call to "Gladys" had no content except "how great Ellen is." Tomorrow's show promises to be a celebration of Ellen's 49th birthday. I like you, Ellen, you're really funny, but I barely send an email to dear friends on their special days. Honey, why must your show be about making you feel confident? Do you need to talk to a minister?
• Who the heck is Judge Judy? Turns out I've been more unplugged from pop-culture than I thought. The woman's show is the number one court room TV show on the toob and silly me, I didn't even know there was a competition. I thought the People's Court had filled all the programming slots for retired judges looking for a little TV time. I miss Rusty, the bailiff, but I must say Judy's better looking than Judge Wapner!

This isn't my jab at Judy or Ellen - girls, do your thing. It is a jab at America. I'm sure there are lots worse things to watch on television, but how uniteresting is your own life if you watch this stuff?

At least I had a fever.

If These Walls Could Talk

Not a Sermon - Just a Thought for January 19, 2007



This weekend marks 50 years since my church, Willow Meadows Baptist, dedicated the ground upon which our building stands. It is truly holy ground that has borne witness to life-changing decisions in the hearts of thousands over the years. As pastor, I’m frequently alone in the building and often last to leave at night. In the silence of this sacred space it’s easy to imagine the stories the bricks and stones tell each other when the building is empty of people. I wonder, what do they say?



Perhaps they remember the old names and faces. Maybe they talk about the laughter that has rung throughout the building as faithful Christians shared life together. I bet the organ pipes talk to the piano strings about the beautiful brides and handsome grooms who with hope-filled dreams began their married life in the sanctuary. The towering cross talks to the baptistery pool and names - one by one - the many that followed Jesus in the act of baptism. Even the pews remember the tears of the grieving widow or the repentant soul.



Yes, these 5.1 acres are holy ground, and we thank you God that you have seen fit to use this church.



When I’m last to leave I can almost sense the building breathing. Call me crazy, but I believe God inhabits this place. And I believe that late at night, when no one else is around to hear it, He says to the bricks and the stones and the steel, “Wait and see. Even as good as the past 50 years have been the best is yet to be.”



This Sunday we welcome our first permanent pastor, Dr. Ralph Langley, to the pulpit as he helps us celebrate fifty years of worship at 4300 West Bellfort. We’ll gather for Bible Study at 10:05 and worship at 11:10. You’d be welcome to join us, but please don’t tell anyone I told you the church building talks.

Carolina, Clemson, and Multigeneration Transmission

Murray Bowen, the pioneer of Family Systems Theory, could have predicted the outcome of tonight's UNC-Clemson game. Bear with me if you're not a sports fan.



Clemson University went into the game with their best shot of beating Carolina in years. They'd begun their season 17-0, matching their best start since Horace Grant wore the bright orange in 1986/87. They had the more experienced players. They certainly had a home court advantage with Littlejohn packed to the rafters.



But Carolina was a decidedly better team, silencing the crowd early on and their freshmen taking charge. They won 77-55 with the kind of authority of consistent winners. Say what you will about who's better, I say history played a part tonight.



Here's what I mean. Carolina has played the Clemson Tigers 137 times, counting tonight. They've won 118 times. Murray Bowen calls this multgenerational transmission.* He says that things are passed down from generation to generation. Things like behavioral traits, habits, lifestyles, professions, attitudes, dysfunctions, the list goes on ad naseum.



In other words, the Carolina family has learned to win over Clemson - decidedly and repeatedly. I guess you could say spanking the Tigers is in their blood.



*More information about Murray Bowen and Family Systems theory is easy to find at www.thebowencenter.org. If you're a church-type, I'd recommend the book Generation to Generation by Ed Friedman.

Boys and Men and Baseball

It was a Saturday from heaven.



The Younger Sister and the Brother had stayed up late on Friday night watching movies so they slept late, which meant I got to sleep late. The Oldest Sister was gone on a weekend trip with our church youth group and though we missed her, the house was quiet. Breakfast was Belgian waffles, sausage, and a tall glass of milk I’d put in the freezer about 15 minutes prior. The symphony in mouth was giving me a hint of how wonderful the day might be.



About noon the Brother and I headed down to the Rice University baseball field where we met Coach Hallmark for a batting and fielding lesson. With the Houston skyline for a backdrop I watched my son learn a four-seam throw and the fielder’s hop. We moved inside to the batting cage and for the next 45 minutes a spectacular coach connected with the Brother as they worked on batting basics.



His confidence increased as they worked on the fundamentals and you could see it on his face. He seemed to stand a little taller with every crack of the bat. His mouth took on that determined shape that borders on angry but his eyes were pure blue delight. But his joy was nothing compared to what he experienced later that day.



Like I said, it was a Saturday from heaven.



About 4pm we headed over to the Westbury Little League field for spring tryouts. It’s holy ground, a place where boys become men and men become boys again. The tryouts are the same every year, a liturgy performed by the kids, all in turn, for the royal priesthood of coaches. Catch three pop flies in left field, field three grounders at shortstop and throw to first, hit three pitches off of the pitching machine, and run the bases on the third pitch.



The fielding was first and the Brother completed each drill flawlessly. Next was hitting. He looked up at me in the bleachers and I cheered, yelling his name and giving him a big thumbs up. He stepped into the batter’s box and I could see his face no more. In the classic batter’s stance his lean body looked so much like a grown man that I had to blink to correct my brain’s obvious mistake.



He swung at the first pitch and missed. I now sat on my hands in the stands holding my breath and my tongue.



He connected on the second pitch and fouled it hard down the third base line.



He ripped it on the third pitch, sending the ball hard by second base and into the outfield. He ran hard around the bases, touching the inside of the bags with his right foot just-so. He had that same determined shape to his mouth and as he rounded third he looked up in the stands to find me. Our eyes met and I knew that he knew that I was proud. It would be easy to think of me as one of those baseball dads who are only proud when the son plays well, but read on.



When everything wrapped up he piled his gear in the car and hopped in the front seat beside me. He didn’t ask me what I thought about his tryout. He told me how he did. Not cocky, not arrogant, just plain and simple words. “I did really good on my batting.” Blue eyed delight.



I am proud because this boy gritted his teeth, dug in, and did something he’d been afraid to do during the last season. Most of all I am proud because he assessed himself, not looking to me or the coaches to tell him he was good. He looked inside and gave himself the grade. You see, this story isn’t about baseball; it’s about a nine year old learning to read his inner compass. Top that, Jack Sparrow!



Like I said, it was a Saturday from heaven.

Pick a Church, Any Church

Not a Sermon - Just a Thought

He called on me one morning as I was preparing a sermon, introducing himself on my parsonage doorstep. It was not uncommon in my country church for people to stop by unannounced needing to speak with a pastor. I poured us a cup of coffee to knock off the fall chill and we sat in my study, me not sure what to expect. He began by telling me he was looking for a new church to join; good news to an ambitious young pastor! I was new to my country church and any addition to the membership was sure to please our congregation.

I asked about his reasons for wanting a new church and I learned that he was coming from a church that I knew. The pastor was a friend of mine. In the distinctive Virginia Tidewater accent, he told me he’d “gotten sideways” with the pastor and thought it best to leave. I pressed him to find out if he’d spoken honestly with the pastor or any of the leaders of the church about the issue at hand, and admittedly, he had not.

Something came out of my mouth that surprised us both.

I told him I didn’t think it was good for him to leave his church and join mine without at least talking to his pastor. He got flustered and I could see his anger rising. Here I was, less than three minutes into the conversation with a man who wanted to join my church, and I was telling him he ought not to do that. As you would predict, the rest of the conversation went down hill.

I’d like to report the happy news that he went back to his old church, resolved things, and they all went forward happy. I later learned through the grapevine that he went to yet another church in the community and took all his emotional and spiritual baggage with him. He caused problems in his new church, and it leaves me thankful that God protected me and my church from his angst and anger.

I tell you this story because it illustrates a problem with many churches. I see a profound lack of spiritual and relational vitality in congregations where people come and go based on whims, worship style, or a charismatic pastor’s entrance/exit. Churches, when they live out their identity as the bride of Christ are people who make and keep promises to one another. Keeping promises is sometimes costly – like working out differences on hard issues – but living in covenant commitment we must sometimes pay the price without regard to circumstances.

It’s like an argument in a good marriage. Sometimes things get heated, sometimes there is a lot of yelling and angry silence. But in the end, the two partners stick together because the good things easily outnumber the disagreements. Church families ought to be the same way.

This Sunday at Willow Meadows Baptist Church we’re going to be talking about our promises to one another that are codified in our church covenant. I’m going to tell the story of Ruth, a woman in the Bible who made a difficult promise and kept it by unusual faith. For modern Christians living in communities of covenant, her story teaches us that we sometimes have to:

· Tolerate things that are difficult and frustrate us;
· Share a burden we don’t want to carry, and;
· Tell the truth to one another, even when it hurts.

We’ll worship at 9am and 11:10a.m. I hope you can join us if you’re in the Houston area this weekend!

More than Promises, Promises,
Pastor Gary

PS – Reference to the obscure 80’s band Naked Eyes comes free of charge. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9luwJyAXZM

Not a Sermon – Just a Thought is a weekly column written by Gary Long, pastor of Willow Meadows Baptist Church in Houston, Texas. You can learn more about this covenantal church at www.wmbc.org. You can be added or removed from this list by emailing me at glong@wmbc.org.

On the Last Day of Christmas

Today marks the last day of Christmastide. Tomorrow is Epiphany. I love it that no commercial entity has advertised a single sale in honor of the illumination - that I know of. This holiday belongs to those of us who see the Christ child for who he is.

I'm aware I'm exclusivist. That's fine by me because Epiphany is nearly the only holy thing left about Christmas in today's American culture.

Tomorrow the magi will be placed in the creche at Willow Meadows Baptist Church. As I pray and prepare for tomorrow's worship gatherings I have a single song line stuck in my head:

Arise, your light has come.

May I seek as the magi sought.

Before Promise Keepers

Not a Sermon - Just a Thought, January 5, 2007



Promise Keepers has the goal of teaching men how to honor their commitments as husbands and fathers. Candidly, I am perplexed as to why a para-church organization is needed to teach men what the local church already knows? Hey, even the rock band Journey exhibits an understanding of this in their great song Faithfully. All kidding aside, I do worry that the covenantal nature of churches is in decline if Christian men have to look elsewhere to figure out how to keep their promises.



When a church is covenantal in nature, all of its members should be learning how to make – and keep – promises. Churches are not like a club where there are membership dues and relationships of convenience, but they are groups of people who are together trying their best to understand and follow Jesus’ teachings. They are spiritual families who are committed to helping each other through hard times. They are spiritual families who value people not based on their money, good looks, or big brains. Instead, a covenantal church is a family, who stands out as a beacon of hope in a “disposable” culture each time they act as if every person is valued as a child of God.



In the words of one my long time church members, “My church is my family. Good, bad, and ugly.”



This Sunday we’ll take a close look at our church covenant as we build toward our Covenant Celebration service on January 28. We’ll pay close attention to God’s covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15. We’ll also look at the role of Jesus in bringing us a new covenant in Hebrews 8 in a sermon entitled “The Character of Covenant.” I’m hoping to convince you that being in a covenant relationship with other Christians is a good thing and that a covenant to a church calls us to:

• Exhibit faithfulness to God and one another,
• Submit to a “bonded-ness” to one another, and
• Live a sacrificial lifestyle in community.
  
  
  

In the words of Steve Perry, I remain,
Forever yours, faithfully,
Pastor Gary



Not a Sermon – Just a Thought is a weekly column written by Gary Long. To subscribe or unsubscribe to this column, email me at glong@wmbc.org, at which time I’ll quickly and courteously add or delete your name!

Here is the scripture I'm referring to:

Genesis 15.1-6

God's Covenant With Abram
1 After this, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision:
"Do not be afraid, Abram.
I am your shield,
your very great reward."

2 But Abram said, "O Sovereign LORD, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?" 3 And Abram said, "You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir."

4 Then the word of the LORD came to him: "This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir." 5 He took him outside and said, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be."

6 Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.

Hebrews 8.6-13

6But the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises.

7For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. 8But God found fault with the people and said:
"The time is coming, declares the Lord,
when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah.
9It will not be like the covenant
I made with their forefathers
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they did not remain faithful to my covenant,
and I turned away from them, declares the Lord.
10This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time, declares the Lord.
I will put my laws in their minds
and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
11No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,'
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
12For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more."

13By calling this covenant "new," he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear.



Covenant of Willow Meadows Baptist Church, Adopted April, 2006



I promise to make my relationship with God through Christ the first priority in my life. I will seek to “love God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love my neighbor as myself.”



I promise to discover what it means for me to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. I will engage in practices that will help me grow as a Christian. I will discover and use my spiritual gifts to find a place of service where I can offer Christ’s love to others through worship, ministry, discipleship, and fellowship. I promise to support the church financially in order for Christ’s mission to be fulfilled.



We promise each other before God that we will do these things together as a part of the body of Christ; we will be supportive of others, seeking reconciliation when needed, and will help others to experience their full potential in Christ. Together we will seek God's direction for our church and be open to His Leading.



Having confessed our sins, asked forgiveness, and received the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, we now enter into covenant with one another in this body of Christ. We want to be an other-directed, covenantal community of faith that dares to aid God in transforming Southwest Houston into a place more like the Kingdom of God. May it be so by God’s grace and to God’s glory. In Christ’s name, amen.

So This is Christmas...

And what have you done? Another year over...blah, blah, blah. Um, Yoko, could you take the microphone away from him?

It's not quite as lyrical as John Lennon's, but here is a New Year's Eve prayer for thee and thine as well as me and mine:

Giving honor to what is past, we thank you God for the completion you bring.
Giving hope to what lies ahead, we thank you God for each new work you begin.

May we in the next year:

• Love without care for risk
• Drink deeply from the cup of life
• Know sorrow only because we have lived & loved well

What, readers, would you add to my prayer for 2007?