The Target

Ladies and Gentlemen, children of all ages, come one, come all!  Take your seats and prepare to see the most amazing and frightening performance of your lives.  As I blindfold myself and ready my throwing knives, my lovely assistant shall step up to the wheel and I will demonstrate the object lesson of today’s blog.  I recommend that those with delicate constitutions step out of the room as we perform this death defying trick. 

I used to love circus acts like that: the pretty lady spinning on the wheel while the blindfolded man throws razor sharp blades at her.  There was a sense of suspense, a tempting titillation, and a delicious desire for danger.  There was even a secret macabre hope that you just might see some blood.

Over the years, this act has lost its delight as I see it played out in the real world of ministry.  There are many things that are absolutely wonderful about leading a ministry, but there is one significant drawback that I’d like to share.  Being a ministry leader makes you the person spinning on the target.

There just never seems to be a lack of people who are willing to tell you what they think you are doing wrong or telling you how they want you to be doing things.  There is always someone willing to tell you how they believe you could have done better.  Perhaps you should have said __________ in your sermon.  Or, I don’t think that we should do __________ as a church.  Or, your church should be doing __________ type of ministry.  I don’t think we should play __________ type of music.

Often, these are couched as ‘suggestions’ by well-meaning people, but then they are hurt when you don’t take their suggestion, or if you offer a different point-of-view.  What’s even more common, the person giving the advice usually isn't even actively involved in the ongoing ministry of the church.  They just sit there and snipe at the pastor, music leader, elders, or other ministry leaders.  I have even had new people, after their first or second visit, tell me what they thought was wrong with me or our church, or even other churches.  I can even go further in saying that the people most likely to make these types of suggestions are the ones who are least likely to show evidence of an active and growing discipleship.

I write this piece, not to whine about how things are, or to grumble and complain; I write this to offer a better way.  (no, I don’t miss the irony here, I am suggesting another way of doing things, but the difference is, I am committed to being involved and living this out myself.)

1.       Encourage those in ministry.  Pray for them.  The jobs are difficult, the pay is low, and they are working very hard.  They love what they do, but it can be mental and spiritually draining to be criticized all the time.

2.       Instead of suggesting that ‘the church should do __________,’ as if ‘the Church’ somehow is an entity outside ofyou.  Why don’t you volunteer to make something happen.  Offer to do the fundraising, solicit and train volunteers, and make the ministry happen. 

3.       If you felt something was left out of the sermon or that it could be said another way, why don’t you go back and listen to what was actually there, instead of what you wish was there.  Perhaps the message had a different intent to it that you can learn something from.

4.       If you are focused on the type of music instead of the message of the music and the purpose of worship, then perhaps it is time to look at your own selfish desires and retrain them on God instead of on yourself. 

5.       Refocus your faith.  You should be serving God and serving His community, not being served by the church.  If you have been at your church more than a few months, you should be volunteering and becoming an active part of the family instead of being a passive consumer.   Church is not a business that sells a product to you, but a family, a body of people who work together towards God’s goals, not their own.

This isn’t to take anything away from the active, serving believer who offers gentle truth, a graceful critique, or sees a way to improve ministry and is willing to get their hands dirty to make a difference.  We need more of this and less of the other type.

It is time to take a hard look at how we do church.  In fact, let’s not do church anymore.  Let’s BE the church!  Let’s get rid of the petty, old-school ways of churchianity and begin living as selfless, loving, merciful, joyful, grace-filled servants of Jesus.   How powerful could it be if everyone in the small local church took the personal responsibility to serve and not to be served?  What if all of us decided to put our faith in action in the local community and not wait to be catered to? 

What could happen if each one of us gave sacrificially of our time, money, and abilities instead of waiting for someone else to do it?  Imagine a church where every single member was actively serving in a ministry that God called them to, regularly giving to God’s work, and committed to building a vibrant, loving, and welcoming community where those outside the church could come and encounter a safe place to seek God.

Perhaps that’s the target we should be aiming at. 

One Word

Broken.

That’s the only word I have for it.

Broken.

Broken pavement on the roads.

Broken windows in the houses.

Broken glass on the playground.

Broken hearts from the abuse, incest, and rape.

Broken families from the poverty and unemployment.

Broken lives from gang murder, drugs, and alcohol.

Broken.

Less than 2 hours from the jobs available in Phoenix, less than 50 miles from the affluent bounty of Superstition Springs Mall, is the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation.

Less than a day ago, I went with a ministry co-worker, Amber, for a tour of the reservation where we saw for ourselves the pain and desperation of this place. 

Stories.  We heard lots of stories.  A twelve year old boy murdered by gang members.  A pre-teen girl whose uncle got her drunk in an attempt to molest her.  A young teen boy who attempted suicide in a house full of his younger siblings and cousins.  Girls pregnant at the young age of 13-15.  Those same girls, grandmas at thirty, sobering up for the first time so they can take care of their grandchildren for their addicted daughters.  Corrupt politicians handing out free 40s of malt liquor in order to garner votes.  Husbands taking the $250 a month the family lives on to gamble at the casino only to lose it all.

We saw things too.  A mom, with her two children, whose only notable fact was she happened to be sober for once.  Graffiti and gang symbols everywhere.  Sheds, shanties, rusted out cars, and tarps where whole families live without electricity or running water.  A police officer’s home, with bars on the windows next to a drug dealer’s home.  Broken Colt 45 beer bottles on the kids playgrounds.

I have no words to describe the heartache that I felt from seeing and hearing all of this.

I do have another word, though.

Hope.

The ministry that gave us the tour builds homes for the homeless on the reservation.

They provide back-to-school backpacks and supplies for kids.

They provide Christmas stockings and presents to families.

They are working on a battered women’s shelter.

They have a bus ministry that we got to take part in.  The bus drives through the neighborhoods and stops periodically and toots its horn.  Kids come running from houses all around to get a chance to go on the bus.  It then pulls up in an empty field next to a basketball court and the kids sing, get a Bible lesson, eat a snack, and then take part in games and crafts.  I got to hand out otter-pops to 45 smiling children, teach a young boy named Jay how to roller skate, and play basketball with a couple of other boys.   As we were leaving, Jay came up and handed me a rock, saying, “I found this cool rock for you, thank you for helping me to skate.”

Children are the same everywhere.  In the midst of poverty and abuse, on a playground covered with shattered glass and trash, they are still able to play and smile.

All they need is a little hope.

It’s there, in the ministry of a few people who care enough to sacrifice lives of comfort and material comfort in order to minister to those who need.

Hope.

Hope for shelter and food.

Hope for a safe place to grow up.

Hope for an education that will someday provide for them.

Hope for healthy relationships and families.

Hope for freedom from addiction and abuse.

Hope for the future.

Hope.

If you would like to help out, visit www.azrez.org and donate your time and money.  Take a trip with them to build houses.  Donate school supplies and Christmas stockings stuffed with presents.  Donate Walmart gift cards or donate cash.

Are You Being Served?

Over more than a decade in ministry, I have watched an interesting phenomenon occur. There are a group of church-attenders who leave another church, show up at ours, stay for awhile, and then leave to go to a new church down the road. There, presumably they repeat the process.
Upon their arrival, they generally have something negative to say about their previous church and upon leaving, they generally have something negative to say about us.

The most common reason that I have heard is, “I’m wasn’t being fed.” This is then followed by some need that they have that wasn’t being met by the church: “no one came up to me and talked to me on Sundays” or “my marriage was in trouble and no one helped me” or I really want a small group for singles over the age of forty.”

Each of these reasons goes back to the original, “I’m not being fed.” Can you hear the selfishness and laziness of that statement? Several of the Proverbs speak of the ‘sluggard.’ My favorite is, "the sluggard buries his hand in the dish; he is too lazy to bring it back to his mouth.” I love the picture here of this lazy guy putting his hand in the bowl of food and just being too lazy to lift it back up to his lips. The application here is obvious. “I’m not being fed” translates to, I want someone else to fill my needs and I am too busy to do anything about it myself.

The writer of Hebrews says, “We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness.” Did you hear that? He says, “Quit being babies and grow up!” He tells them that they ought to be able to teach themselves and others by now, but they are so immature that they aren’t ready for it.

I cannot speak for every other church, but this one has some excellent teaching. Our preaching pastor is an expert in his field, he teaches other pastors how to preach. He is gifted at combining the art and science of hermeneutics and homiletics into an interesting and informative lesson. We also have small groups with good teaching in them. Also, almost every other church that I have visited falls into this category. The teaching is usually very good. It has been a rare occasion indeed when I have left a sister church taking issue with their teachings. This tells me that the food is there, it just isn’t making it to their lips.

The picture we need to get is of a giant Thanksgiving dinner. The whole family is there along with many guests. There is a spread of food on the table, enough to make it sag. There is turkey and dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce (the real kind with whole cranberries, nuts, and orange peels), green bean casserole, hot fresh bread with real butter dripping off of it, mincemeat, sweet potato pie, and all the other fixin’s that you could imagine. Much of the family and guests are eating, but there are a few that are just sitting there. Grown adults, salivating at the smells, their stomachs are grumbling, but they just sit there with their hands at their sides, their plates empty…waiting for someone else to put food in their mouth.

That is not what the Christian life is.

There is no call for servants of Jesus to sit there and let others do for them, in fact, quite the opposite. All of the New Testament is a call to action. It is full of verbs:
Make disciples, Serve one another, Be, Do, Love…

The message of God’s Kingdom is not, what has the church done for me lately; it is, How can I serve God and others. It has nothing to do with my own entertainment and everything to do with the sacrificial giving of my time, money, and self to God’s work.

In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul compares the church to a body. We are all parts (eyes, hands, feet, stomachs, etc) and all of us have parts to serve the body as a whole. It is time that we separate our consumer-driven culture from our church body. We are not a business, we are a Body, a community, a family.

Picture that Thanksgiving dinner again. This time, we work together. I’ll roast the turkey because I have a wonderful recipe for brining it that makes it extra juicy. Aunt Meg will bake the bread because that’s what she does. Dad will make the cranberry dressing using grandma’s old iron crank grinder bolted to the edge of the kitchen table. My friend Kris will bring over her fancy china and we’ll ask Denise and Hazel to make a beautiful centerpiece. Grandma Ruth Gonzeles will bring the giblet gravy and all the little girls will set the table while the boys bring in a bunch of mismatched chairs for everyone to sit on. Dan Vincent will make the pumpkin pies and Chip will say the blessing. Theo will show up bringing a homeless person that he just met and Earl will be ready to take the leftovers from the meal to the rescue mission. When the meal is done, we’ll all clean the dishes and then sit down on the porch and talk with each other while the kids play in the back yard.

That is the body of Christ, each person actively doing their part and all of us spending time in community…In communion.

If you want to be fed, pick up your Bible and start reading

If you want to be fed, volunteer at the church or at a service ministry.

If you want to be fed, begin introducing yourself to others at church.

If you want to be fed, join a small group Bible study.

If you want to be fed, stick around after church and get to know others.

If you want to be fed, you’ve got to do some of the work - feed yourself.

If you are one of those who tells me that you aren’t being fed, don’t be surprised if I don’t have a sympathetic ear. In this house, if you don’t work, you don’t eat! (2 Thessalonians 3:9-15)


Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms. 1Peter 4:10

When will they ever learn

This blog originally posted Friday, October 06, 2006

Current mood: contemplative Category: Life

The Kingston Trio, a 1960s era folk band had a song called 'Where have all the flowers gone'. Pretty song. Somewhat depressing and fatalistic. The refrain is 'when will they ever learn'.

One of the hardest parts about working in ministry is watching people self destruct. You get a ringside seat to watch people you care about make bad decisions, decisions that destroy their lives and/or damage the lives of others. Time and time again. Even more painful is that they often make bad choices, knowing what the right thing is.

Then, after the damage is done, as they look around the destruction and begin picking up the pieces, they come to some realization that what they did was a mistake. Often, people around them warned them, red flags where everywhere; but selfish pride kept them on the path they were on.

Usually these are financial or relationship issues. Should I buy that big ticket item? Should I marry that person? People always seem to make the choice that is easiest or the most fun in the short term. They pay for it later.

Sometimes, people (Christians especially) seem to think that life just happens. Christians blame the devil for all sorts of ills. Non-Christians just say it was bad luck or fate. The truth is, a great deal of what goes wrong in our lives are our own choices. Often these choices are made despite wise council to the contrary. Sometimes, random bad luck happens, sometimes the devil gets you in his sights, but, most of the ill that occurs in our lives comes from mistakes that were chosen.

It's like the insurance industry tells us. "There is no such thing as a car accident." All car accidents are really the result of a bad choice (either intentional or unintentional) of someone. They really should be called purposes, not accidents.

The same is true of our lives. An awful lot of purposes happen to us that are our fault or the fault of someone around us making a dumb choice. It gives new meaning to the book title 'The Purpose Driven Life.'

Maybe it's time to admit that we don't have all the answers ourselves. Maybe it's time to invest in a community of friends and family that support each other and give counsel. Maybe it's time to quit being so self-centered and prideful and realize that other people can be there for you. Maybe it's time to actually seek advice from other people who care about you when you are about to make a major decision. (for the record, seek someone who won't just tell you what you want to hear). Maybe its time to purposefully prevent the accidents of life that cause so much pain.

As I write this, I recognize that it probably won't matter. As you read this, you'll probably think 'Oh, that's a good point.' But, then you'll just go out and make a bad choice without giving it any thought. I probably will too.

When will we ever learn.