Lights

Love everyone… This includes people who think differently than you, difficult people, and those who have hurt you.

Feed the hungry and give water to the thirsty.

Visit the prisoner.

Provide for the widow

Care for the orphan.

Invite in the stranger and immigrant.

Be hospitable.

Clothe the naked.

Care for the sick.

Stand up for the marginalized and defenseless ones.

Be humble.  Treat others as better than yourself.

Speak carefully.

Be slow to anger.

Don’t show favoritism towards the rich, famous, or powerful.

Don’t love money and don't be a slave to it.  Be wise and generous with your finances.

Practice justice.

Give mercy.

Shelter the homeless.

Don’t envy.

Don’t be selfish.

Make peace whenever possible.

Be gentle, kind, and caring.

Don’t be arrogant and boastful.

Be patient.

Use your gifts to help others.

Be self-controlled.

Don’t be hypocrites.

Speak the truth but don’t be a jerk about it.

Be trustworthy.  People should believe what you say.

Don’t talk bad about others.  Gossip and slander are destructive.

Do good deeds.  Even when it’s hard.  Even when others don’t.

Be respectable.  Live so you have a good reputation with others.

Do what is right, even if you suffer for it.

Don’t drink, eat, party, or anything else to excess.

Be clear-minded and alert.

Serve others even when it means sacrificing your own comfort, especially if it means sacrifice.

Treat those older than you with respect and those younger as brothers and sisters.

If someone has screwed up in life, restore them gently.

Don’t listen to liars, idiots, or those who stir up trouble.

Respect and obey the government so.  Even the ones you didn’t vote for.

Don’t fight with one another and don’t be quarrelsome and divisive.

Don’t sleep around, treat your body and others with respect.

Be a good example.

Take care of your own family, whether you like them or not.

Live with joy and contentment even in tough times.

Be generous and willing to share.

Respect your parents and treat your kids well.

Treat your spouse well.

Forgive those who have hurt you.  Quickly.

Don’t take what doesn’t belong to you.

Be honest in your business dealings.

Don’t be a slave to pleasure and entertainment.

Study God’s word and teach them to others.

Don’t put up with false teaching.

Pray.

It’s not about gimmicky services.  It’s not about ‘relevant’ music.  It’s not about being seeker sensitive.  It’s not about bigger and better props.  It’s not about rock star preachers and self-help messages.  It’s not about growth at any price.  It’s not about hooks to get them in the door so we can spring the trap on them.  It’s not even about us versus them. 

We shouldn’t have to paint up the gospel like a $20 hooker in order to try to attract people.  P.T. Barnum showmanship and used-car-salesman trickery have no place in the body of Christ.  If you believe that ostentatious glitter and flashy extravaganzas are what is required to for people to come to belief, then that suggests to me that you don’t believe that the gospel is enough yourself.

Neither should we be the obnoxious and arrogant evangelists who beat people with a twisted gospel or try to trick them into hearing it with cartoon tracts and baited questions.  Protest signs, angry words, and megaphones have no place here either.

It’s about a radically gentle, life-changing love that affects us enough to become living evidence to others.  It’s about individual, personal change and the struggle of daily turning towards God and His way, as evidenced in the list above.  It’s about walking together through good times and hard times.  It’s about turning away from the world of self-aggrandizement, self-enrichment, and selfish pleasure.  That was the message at the beginning and that is the only relevant message in a world of distraction and dissipation that we live in today.

If our lives actually reflected change, people might actually see our deeds and realize the truth of God’s message.  It’s almost as if that’s in the Bible (Matthew 5:16, 1Peter 2:12)

The message of the cross is offensive only because it acknowledges the evil in all of us, even those who think they are good people.  And,it offers grace to everyone, even those we don’t like or we don’t feel deserve it.  If we offend people with the gospel for any other reason, we are not being faithful to the message. 

Read the above list* again.  This is what a follower of Jesus looks like.  I think that the rest of the world would have much less problems with ‘Christians’ if more of us looked like this.

Do your deeds reflect God’s message? 

Do your actions demonstrate your faith?

Does your life show that you believe in something that matters?  Does your growth and discipleship demonstrate a way that might help others?  Do your actions exhibit a faith that is a light to others?

If your friends, coworkers, family, and neighbors didn’t know you went to church services, would they still know you were a follower of Jesus?

Perhaps it is time for each individual in the church and the church as a whole to take Peter’s advice in 1Peter 3:3-4.

³Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. ⁴Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight.

Let us become lights to this world through our quiet but active devotion to our God and to the people around us.  Let each of us be like a simple, single candle burning in the darkness instead of trying to be garish neon facades like the Las Vegas strip.

* this list is a compilation of exhortations and admonitions taken from the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament.

Truth Found in a Porta-John

The sounds of loud snoring came from the row of porta-johns as I went by. “That’s weird, I hope nothing’s wrong,” I thought. Then I decided, “Someone’s probably joking around, trying to freak people out,” and I went on by to return to my campsite.

To this day, I’m sorry that I did.

Several hours later, a woman came by our campsite. “Have any of you seen Petey?,”she asked.

None of us knew Petey and said so. She then told us that Petey was an old fella who was camping there that lots of people knew. “He’s not healthy,” she said, “and no one has seen him for hours. He has trouble getting around and has breathing problems.”

A terrible realization dawned on me as I told her about the sounds I had heard earlier.

When they checked the porta-johns, they found Petey. The sounds I had heard and ignored were the sounds of a man suffocating to death. After the door had closed, he had fallen in the little space between the door and the toilet and had been unable to get up, and so died suffocating in a porta-john.

I’m not entirely sure where this falls on the scale of ‘Bad ways to die,’ but I’m pretty sure it’s up there on the list.

Had I taken the time to investigate my suspicions, a man might not have died.

I bring this up because, this last Sunday, a woman was sitting in a pew at before church. It appeared she was sleeping and many people passed her by without noticing. Yes, I know it is customary to wait until the sermon to fall asleep, so this must have been unusual. Sharon, our church secretary didn’t pass by. She noticed that things weren’t right, and she saved a life. The lady wasn’t sleeping, she was in diabetic shock with blood glucose in the 20s!!! That’s barely enough to maintain life. If Sharon hadn’t taken the time to notice, then she could have died right then and there.

There is a lesson here that goes far past the issue of life and death. The deeper issue is our awareness of others around us. As we become more and more focused on ourselves and less aware of others, the sense of community dies. We become more and more separated and it becomes harder to care about anyone but ourselves.

Ecclesiastes describes this very situation almost 3000 years ago:

There was a man all alone;
He had neither son nor brother.
There was no end to his toil,
yet his eyes were not content with his wealth.
"For whom am I toiling," he asked,
"and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?"
This too is meaningless -- a miserable business!

Two are better than one.
Because they have a good return for their work:

If one falls down, his friend can help him up.
But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!

Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
But how can one keep warm alone?

Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.

A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

Ecclesiastes 4:8-12

The need to be a part of a community, to be loved, to be cared about is deeply embedded in our soul. The challenge then is this: How do we get our eyes off of ourselves and on to others?

This is not an easy thing to do.

People are difficult. Humanity is messy.

The task is to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. But what if our neighbor is a jerk? What if our family member is cruel? What if our coworker is weird?

It is a whole lot easier to love others if we can be truthful with ourselves. We too can be cruel, weird, and mean. If we can be loved, then we can love others.

I believe this is what the lies behind God’s call for us to love others. It is only by breaking out of our own selfishness and serving others that we begin to improve ourselves. Alone, we are nothing but self serving chemical reactions, but in a community, we become so much more.

Today, make it a point to love someone else.

It doesn’t matter if they share the same beliefs as you. Love them.

It doesn’t matter if they are nice to you. Reach out to them.

It doesn’t matter if they are outgoing or introverted. Pay attention to them.

It doesn’t matter if they have nothing to give back to you. Give to them.

Find yourself by serving others. It is an incredible gift to them and to yourself.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Philippians 2:3-4

The rest of the story:

Ironically, Petey turned out to be my first funeral as a minister. Because we were many miles back in the middle of nowhere, we had to wait for the Sheriff to come an investigate the death and the coroner to come and take Petey away. The lady who had originally come looking for Petey came back later and asked, “Wasn’t one of you a preacher or some such?” I said I was a new minister and she replied, “Well, we think Petey was a Presbyterian and figured he’d like it if someone said a few words.” So, 20 minutes later, I found myself doing an impromptu funeral in front of a porta-john, miles from civilization, with a newly dead body on the ground in front of me covered by a sleeping bag. Rest in Peace Petey.

Not a Spectator Sport

“Drumming is not a spectator sport, it’s something you participate in,” he said as he handed me two mallets and pointed me to a set of steel drums, "People don’t participate in music anymore, they listen to it on iPods, they go to concerts, and they watch Dancing with the Stars or American Idol. We've lost that participation in society."

I recently reconnected with someone I had played drums with in High School. I loved music and loved playing. But, during my senior year, I got ticked off at the band director and cussed at him before walking out of the room. Youthful hot-headedness leads to adult regrets. Sadly, I haven't played music since.

Facebook, through its magic, led me to find Wes again. He had been an amazingly talented drummer when he showed up his Freshman year. He went on to become a music teacher in local high schools and community colleges and now teaches private drum instruction. When I found him on Facebook, we agreed to meet over coffee, just to catch up. Over coffee, he told me group of people he meets with to play steel drums for fun. I asked if I could come watch, and he said, “Yes.”

And that’s how I found myself standing there being shown how to play steel drums, one of the few percussion instruments that I never got to play in school. He also put me on drum set and congas, neither of which I had played in 20 years. I didn’t do very well, but I had an amazing time. The music was pretty simple and the rest of the group was nice (and patient with my mistakes). What a blast!

His comment to me as I came in the room, though, got me to thinking. Music isn’t a spectator sport and neither is life. So many people spend their whole lives seeking to be entertained without actually joining in and participating. How many hours are wasted watching T.V. shows, listening to music, playing video games, going to concerts, and attending sporting events?

Why let a dozen guys on the field or court get all the exercise? Pick up a ball, find a friend and go play.

Why watch a band play music on stage? Take some friends and go to karaoke or a drum circle, or just sing some songs around a camp fire.

How much better would our society and our own lives be if we turned off the T.V., music, and video games; and, instead of going to concerts and sporting events, actually began getting involved and doing those things we used to watch.

Living is not a spectator sport, it’s something you participate in.

Thanks for the wisdom, Wes.

A Sharp Knife, a Police Officer, and a Christmas Lesson

So, I cut part of my index finger off. A little life advice here: don’t do that, it hurts a lot. Among many other things, this has interrupted my blogging. Even as I type this, I keep making mistakes. Such is life. Fortunately, I have spell check.

Here’s the story: Our church decided to do a service project for Christmas. We made a beautiful Christmas dinner with all the fixings for the 150 police officers in our precinct that got stuck working on Christmas day. No evangelism, no preaching, just serving those who serve us.

While doing prep work for this dinner, I sliced about 1” x ½” off of the front of my index finger. I was chopping celery and missed where the green part stopped and the pink part started. A trip to the emergency room and half a dozen stitches later, everything came back together. It was interesting trying to preach the Christmas Eve service with this great big white bandage showing on my finger. That's not distracting at all. I thought about tying a red bow around it to make it blend in.

The part that I want to share today is the response to the dinner. We have had some police officers stop in our office to thank us for doing this. One officer said that he always feels forgotten on Christmas, no place is open to buy lunch and no one seems to care that the officers are there. Pretty sad.

The comment that really got me was made by a Lieutenant who said that he had been on the Phoenix Police for more than thirty years and no one had ever done something like that for him. He said, “As a cop, you just get used to the fact that everyone hates you.” I think that qualifies as one of the saddest things I have ever heard.

These men and women, for the most part, are doing a hard job that they love because they believe in it. They don’t get paid much and receive far too little respect from the society that they protect. This is something that needs to change. As a parent, I have brought my daughter up to respect and trust police officers and to understand why they are there. We all need to do that.

Let’s be honest, there are a few bad apples, lawmen who do bad things… But that is true of every occupation. That’s humanity. The truth is, policemen put their lives on the line every single day they go to work so that you and I don’t have to worry about carrying a gun around every second of the day to protect ourselves. They enforce traffic laws so that we can safely cross the street or drive to work without risking death every time. They save lives, risk their own lives, protect us, and make a difference.

Let’s treat them as they deserve, with respect and admiration.

Next time you get pulled over for speeding, be polite. Admit that you made a mistake (this means being honest with yourself too). Apologize to the officer for risking his life and yours just to beat that traffic light and thank him for his time.

Next time you see an officer at the mall, thank him or her for their service. If you see some officers at a restaurant, quietly talk to the manager and pay for their meal without letting them know who you are (but let the manager know to pass along your thanks). If you are part of a local church, how about doing the same thing we did and provide a Christmas Day dinner for those officers in your local precinct. Let’s recognize our modern knights-in-armor.

The lesson here today is this, love your local police officers or get your finger cut off!

The Keys to the Church

Why do you go to church?

There are probably lots of reasons: worshipping God, seeing friends, learning about the Bible, tradition, getting a break from the kids, comfort, hope, or just a chance to eat some of Carol’s delicious ginger snaps at the hospitality table. All of these are excellent reasons, but I have two more for you to consider that are absolutely key to your walk with Christ.

Ask yourself a question, “What do I remember from last Sunday’s sermon?” Can you remember the scripture that the pastor preached? Can you remember any of his points? Was it inspiring, did it affect your life? Did the communion meditation touch you? If you have kids, did they learn anything in Sunday school?

Transformation is the goal of each of these examples of teaching God’s word, not information. When you study God’s word, it must lead to transformation, to growth within your life. Maybe not every time, but most times, there should be some sort of resulting growth from your encounter with God. This is the proverbial ‘AHA Moment’. The time when God’s Word and His Holy Spirit come together, making you realize that you need to change or grow.

Application is the next step. When you hear God’s Word, you are called to be obedient and do something about it. Scripture is full of action verbs: “make disciples”, “do as I have commanded”, “love one another”, “give generously”, “serve one another”, “use your gifts”. Christian life is not passive pew-sitting on Sundays, but an active way of life throughout your week. What we learn on Sunday transforms us in growth and we apply it throughout the rest of the week.
Transformation and Application go hand in hand. If you don’t come to some sort of transformation then you don’t realize how to apply what you have learned. Even better, as you apply what you have learned, it often leads to more transformation in your life.

Let me strongly encourage you to consider these two keys, Tranformation and Application at your next Bible study or when you come to Church next Sunday. Look at yourself and ask, “Am I growing and am I doing?” Then, make it a point to focus on what you are studying or what the sermon is about. Take notes. Go to lunch afterwards with a friend from the church and discuss the lesson and how to apply it in your lives. Decide together how each of you will apply the lesson this week and then talk about it next week to find out how you did. You will be amazed at how your life changes and at the excitement you will have in your Christian walk.

God loves you for who you are, but He wants you to grow and He wants you to do what His Word says. Take His calling to Transformation and Application seriously and you will have the keys to the church.

Originally written for 'The Mountain View' MVCC Newsletter 09/20/09
Copyright © 2009 Rodger S. Loar (rloar@mvccaz.com) All rights reserved.

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

Today

Today,

More than 20,000 children will die due to famine or poverty related causes

Thousands will be made orphans due to loss of parents due to HIV/AIDS

Many more will be made homeless refugees due to war

Soldiers will be injured and die in wars around the world, leaving loved ones behind

Hundreds of Americans will lose jobs and homes due to the economy

Elderly grandmothers and grandfathers will languish in loneliness

Oh yeah, and some dead famous singer guy will receive thousands of hours of media coverage.

I'm glad we focus on the important stuff.

Under the Hood

This blog originally posted 04/12/09 as an article I wrote for our church newsletter

I hate car repair.

There. I said it. I’m glad it’s out in the open.

Now you’ll probably want to revoke my ‘man card’ because guys are supposed to like tinkering on automobiles as if there is some mystic link between testosterone and grease. Maybe it’s genetic, but the sordid truth is: I hate car repair.

Wait, don’t take my man card yet. I have changed my own oil, I’ve put in new alternators in three cars, and even changed the clutch on a four wheel drive Jeep once. I can do it, I just don’t like it.

The thing that most bothers me about car repair is the constant maintenance. If you want to keep your car running, there are all these things that you have to do to keep your car running well. You are supposed to have regular oil changes, check the spark plugs, rotate your tires, and change the blinker fluid or some such.

What a pain. There always seems to be something that must be done. You have to remember to do it, schedule the mechanic, and then pay for it.

The funny thing is, with my new ministry job here at MVCC, I now have to deal with maintenance on the church van.

During the last couple of oil changes on the church van, the mechanic kept telling us that we had moisture in the oil. “Big deal,” I think, oil is wet, isn’t it? However, the truth is, since we only drive the church van a few miles each week and only take it on long trips about twice a year, the engine wasn’t getting hot enough to burn off the condensation in the oil. Our mechanic went on to say that, if we didn’t take the van out and really drive it once in awhile, the moisture would eventually damage the engine.

That seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it. You’d think that driving it more would wear down the engine faster and driving it less would make it last longer. However, it seems to be like a muscle, if you want to keep it healthy, you have to use it.

There is a truth here that applies to our lives. Generosity. Courage. Faith. Love. Kindness. All of the things about our humanity that we call good require us to get them out on the road and open them up once in awhile.

When you live your life wrapped up in yourself, never venturing far from your own needs and concerns, you begin to get moisture in your engine. Your goodness starts to rust. Your trust in others begins to break down. Your love begins to wear out.

Everyone knows the bitter person, the cynical pessimist, the miserable fellow who is old before his time. You just don’t want to be around these people because they seem to suck the very life from you. These are the people that failed to keep using their good gifts and they just broke down.

“So”, you ask, “how do I get these out on the open road?”
It takes action…purposeful action. You have to make the choice to say, “No,” to those things that focus on you and begin saying, “Yes,” to those that focus on others. Begin to follow the call of God in the Bible, serving others before yourself. In Philippians, it says, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but to the interests of others.” Following God is not about sitting back in church pews looking forward to heaven, it is about action, bringing a little of God’s kingdom here, now.

There are many practical ways to do this. This week, turn off the television and spend some time in real conversation with your family. Go to church and ask about ways that you can serve. Take the money that you were going to use to buy that new upgraded toy that you really don’t need, and donate it to church or a charity. Buy some groceries for the family in need up the street. Take your group of friends and volunteer at Habitat for Humanity or the Phoenix Rescue Mission. These things are a little hard at first, but with practice, you will be going longer and farther than you ever realize possible, and your life will be better and healthier for it.

The good news is, as we have taken the van out monthly for longer drives, the most recent oil change showed it to be in good shape.

The great news is that you can do this with your life too.