The Blond Maid (Part 3 from Boston)

So again, we took our seats, this time on a plane. An aisle to my left, my friend to my right, and a blond middle aged lady against the window. My friend asked her if she was from Boston.

I used to be. Now I live in Ft. Lauderdale.
Oh, I lived in Tampa for twenty years. Now we’re both pastors in Atlanta. (I nodded.)

He held out the book he was holding, The Question of God, “So what do you think?”
She laughed lightly, “I think so. I grew up Catholic but now I’m sort of nothing.”

Then gently over the course of two hours my friend asked her questions and articulated the wonderful freeing news of Jesus (not religion) to this sweet lady desperately lost. She was on her third man, with children coming from each. Her latest is not her husband though they’ve lived together in commitment for 16 years. She cleans houses and he is a mover. She believes in God but only from a distance.
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Tags: evangelism, love

The Small Black Lady on the Subway (Part 2 from Boston)

The friend that I went to Boston with is brilliant at loving people and speaking truth into their lives. Pretty much I rode his coattails for two days.

The Small Black Lady on the Subway

We took our seats on the subway. Two open seats to my left, my friend to my right, and a small black lady to his right. My friend leaned her way, “So, are you going to work?”

Yes.
Do you work full-time somewhere?
No, just part-time, but I’m also in school.
Man, that’s a load.
Yep, it is.
I hear an accent. Where are you from?

Haiti.

Do you have…
Yes, they are living in the streets and have no food or water. I talked to them this morning and wired some money.
I’m so sorry to hear that.

Our stop came, and she too got up to exit. As she walked in front of us my friend reached into his back pocket, pulled out his wallet, emptied out the contents, perhaps a hundred or two hundred bucks, and folded them tightly. He caught up to the lady, “Can you give this to your family?”

Oh, I…
Just tell them it comes with the love of Jesus.

Overwhelming gratitude covered her face. We made it four or five steps away when my friend looked at me, “Do you have any cash, because I don’t have any?”

The French Hostess at the Restaurant

The hostess was short and around fifty. My friend asked her how to get to New Life Worship Center. He told her we were pastors and were scheduled to be there in an hour. The lady said her son goes to church there. My friend quickly asked, “Oh, so do you go to church there?”

No, I’m Catholic.
Oh, well that’s okay, you could still go to church there.

She seemed relieved and smiled.

The Lesson

I tell those two stories because, well, the first story is fantastic, and the second one drives home my point, which is that we don’t always have to tell the whole story of Jesus. For years I felt guilty if I didn’t fully explain all the ways of God and the redemption someone can have through Jesus (check out Lie #1 for that). So I’d turn inward and say nothing, or attempt to say something and sound more rehearsed than loving.

Sometimes there are glorious moments when you get to share the full story of the gospel. But there are other moments when you may simply speak an encouraging word, or open your wallet and speak his name.

Tags: evangelism, love

The Pretty Lady in the Pub, Crying

I went to Boston this weekend with a friend, another pastor from our church. I’m going to take this week and write about four people (which yes happen to be all women) we encountered – the pretty lady in the pub, the small black lady on the subway, the French hostess at the restaurant, and the blond maid on the plane.

The Pretty Lady in the Pub:

We were having lunch just off of Boston Common with two staff members from Park Street Church. My friends were talking about the fifty or so colleges in Boston when I noticed her. She had brown hair hanging to her shoulders. She was well-dressed with her coat still on, her scarf hung over the back of her chair. She was on the other side of the small room, but I could still see her lip quivering. Her eyes were watering and she shielded her face with her right hand. She’d speak something and then wipe her tears.
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Tags: evangelism, love

Lie #12: We don’t need any new songs.

The worship leader concluded the familiar song and strummed his guitar as he spoke about a new song, one he’d just written and wanted to sing with us. So he began, and we followed. After a verse or two it felt as if we’d been singing it for years. Which raised the question in my little busy brain: why create a new song with pretty much the same words, meaning pretty much the same meaning, as all the other old songs?

I wrestled with this question, for I too rearrange words in different patterns and rhythms for people to embrace. The cynic in me said this is just our consumeristic tendencies – another song, another album, another book, another blog – same words, different arrangement, more money.

Then the Lord reminded me of the Psalms. It’s the eighty pages in the middle of my Bible. It looks like it’s probably the longest book in my Bible. There’s 150 psalms. Not 22 or 47 or even 93. 150! Praises, poems, and laments to the Lord. Most of them have similar words, communicating pretty much the same themes. Many are penned by different authors or sometimes the same author in a different season of life.

So why not 7 psalms. I think we could condense the grand themes of the psalms into 7 psalms, or maybe 23. I could definitely widdle it down to under 50.

But God wanted 150.

Perhaps some of us need all 150 to finally get the message. I think the writers needed to write all 150 and probably many more. I know I needed 150 to get the point about new songs – that we need new verses and voices. We need to be reminded again of His goodness in a different way, with a different chorus and a different line.

The vital things in life need to be resaid.

The vital things in life need to be resaid.

Tags: church, consumerism, lies

“The Bachelor” Article

Shoot over to my latest article:

Beloved, The Bachelor is Below You at Burnside Writers.

Christians are like…

I heard two quotes last week. I’m not sure who originally said them, and they have a little cheese on top:

“Christians are like manure – keep us together and we stink, spread us out and we make things grow.”
“Christians are like snowflakes – authentic, pure, and cold.”

Though both of these quotes sting a bit I find them amusing. I think it’s easy to stay huddled together and never really live amongst our neighbors. And it’s easy to ignore people, to be about our own agendas and become cold towards others. At least it’s easy for me.

About a year ago my brother-in-law told me a quote he read, “If your theology doesn’t lead you to love, then you have the wrong theology.” I think that’s pretty true, though I do think it’s possible to have bad theology and still love. But I think it’s impossible to have right God-centered theology and not love people well. If you find you aren’t loving towards others then you probably are believing something wrong – about yourself and your helplessness, about God and His rescue, about the world and our role in it.

At the end of the day if we haven’t cared for someone, then what are we doing here.

Tags: evangelism, faith, love

New Articles at Relevant and Burnside

I have a few new articles up:

At Relevant Magazine I have an article entitled Jesus Will Let You Suffer.

And at Burnside Writers two articles just went up:

- Pages Can Breathe: become more attentive to the stories around us

- Chris Tomlin or the Gospel: a plea to quit worshipping worshippers

Click over, take a read, and leave a comment.

Lie #11: Christians can keep secrets.

My experience has been pastors are good at keeping their mouths closed when it comes to confidentiality, probably because pastors feel it’s part of the call of God on their lives, and perhaps also because it’s the way in which pastors keep their jobs.

But for many of us Christians, when it comes to secrets, our trust in each other is the downfall of confidentiality.

I tell you something private and ask you to tell no one else because I trust you. But you trust several other people, and your best friend is a sweet lover of Jesus whom you trust unto death so you tell her but admonish her not to tell anyone else. But she too trusts several other people, and she happens to have a godly dad. So she shares the news with her dad as to get his thoughts on the matter. And before you know it the world knows my news because we each trust a few people.

I know the lure to talk – I feel it when I hold some piece of news that others have yet to hear. It’s easy to want to speak it – there is a momentary inner surge of control and power. But there is a greater fulfillment when we become the types of people who don’t need to talk, who can be a vault, and hold a secret.

And later after the news is made public you can say to your friend, “Oh, I already knew that.” And they will know they too can trust you when they need a friend to listen.

Perhaps you’ve read this before, “A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy man keeps a secret” (Proverbs 11:13).

Tags: church, lies

A Message from the Squirrels

Yesterday Thomas, my big golden retriever, and I were walking on our street at the foot of our driveway when I noticed a squirrel (let’s call him Rudy) running on top of a branch high up in an oak, perhaps sixty feet up. He was speedily ascending a branch. I looked ahead of him and saw the gap. A long gap. It would be a huge jump. Then Rudy made the leap. He cleared eight feet or so and landed on a wiry branch from another oak stretching from the opposite of the street. Rudy casually ran down the other branch as if the high flying acrobatic was no big deal.

Here is a pic of our street and the mighty oaks:

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A year ago Thomas and I were walking along this same street when…SPLAT…a squirrel (let’s call this guy Leonard) fell from above and slapped the asphalt two feet in front of us. Leonard’s body slammed the pavement hard and loud. He laid limp. Thomas jumped, all four feet off the ground, and I screamed like a little girl. There were a few seconds of us staring at the motionless squirrel. Thomas leaned in for a sniff. Then Leonard managed himself to his four feet and scampered off.

So yesterday, when I saw Rudy make that leap, I wondered if it was Leonard from a year ago. I wondered if Leonard had regained his confidence and began to live in such adventure again. Or perhaps Rudy and Leonard knew each other, and Rudy heard about Leonard’s fall, perhaps all the squirrels in our neighborhood heard about Leonard’s fall. Perhaps all the squirrels had resigned to safe living after Leonard’s fall, until Rudy’s leap set them free again. Or perhaps the squirrels kept living and leaping because that is what squirrels do – they run up trees and make leaps of faith.

At least when they fall they know they have lived.

Tags: faith

The Worst Church Name Ever

There’s a church a few miles from my house named The Perfect Church. For years I thought that was the worst possible name for a church, or at least the most ridiculous. Then this morning I saw a church van driving through a parking deck. It was the classic long white van with the name plastered across in maroon letters…

Effort Church.

I hoped it was the name of their town, and in a horrible mistake they didn’t think through the meaning of the name and how absolutely anti-Christian in message it is. But it wasn’t the name of their town and it was, and still is, a horrible mistake of a name. Jesus and Paul had other ideas about effort.

Paul in Ephesians 2:8-9, “8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast.”

Not works – not effort. Grace.

Jesus in Matthew 11:28-30, “28″Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Not weary and burden – not effort. Grace. The gift of righteousness comes living, like a person, not a vase. Meaning, when it is given to us by God, without our effort, it starts moving around in us producing changes. Effort has little to do with it.

Take a read of my previous post on the gospel rescuing us from our effort.

Tags: church, gospel, grace