Updates and Transition

For those of you who've been reading my stuff over the years, thanks!   There are lots of changes in the works for me and my family.  I have resigned my post as Senior Pastor at Willow Meadows Baptist Church in Houston.  I will be assuming the pastorate at First Baptist Church of Gaithersburg, Maryland in mid-April.  My last Sunday in the pulpit at WMBC will be April 5.

I'll be posting more details in the coming days.  For now you may still correspond with me at glong@wmbc.org.  I will continue blogging here, and you can look for a new weekly email column in mid-April.  I hope you'll keep reading.  I have new titles for this blog in the coming weeks, including "Daily Specials May Vary," and "Hey, Catholic Boy."  

Grace & Peace,

gl

More on Worship

So today I'm continuing to pray about the worship question for our church. We definitely need that in this season. Our church needs to have a more multicultural approach to worship given the demographcis of our community. If we're going to continue trying to reach white college educated middle-class adults, then SW Houston is going to be a harder and harder place to maintain a church. WMBC has needed to make a shift to reach the cultures around us for some time, but that shift is not so easy.

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.”