A Future Not Our Own

I read a prayer today attributed to Oscar Romero. In it he says:

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing this. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.

It had been a while since I heard this prayer. The last part stuck out to me. I think many times we want God to bless what we are doing instead of getting involved with the work that God is doing in the world. It was a great reminder that we are only workers and ministers. We are not the master builders and we certainly aren’t messiahs. We might be prophets of a future but it belongs to Him. He is the one who made it before the worlds were framed.

There is a sense of relief that I find in realizing that He is in control. I do have a part to play in helping establish His Kingdom but ultimately I can rest in the fact that this is not the end and one day He shall return and make all things new.

I found this interview with NT Wright on another blog. I think he is right in saying that people are wanting worship and the need to educate people on how to have private worship.

It’s Catching On!

This past Sunday night I spoke to our church about doing Acts of Random Kindness. I passed out cards that say, “This is just a simple way to say God loves you,” and encouraged people to give these out when they did a good deed for someone. This idea isn’t new to me. Cincinnati Vineyard Church has been doing this for a long time.

I believe it is catching on at our church. The day after the sermon I received several phone calls of people who were excited because they were already passing their cards out. They couldn’t believe how shocked people were when they gave the card to them. I’m excited because people are seeing the importance of serving. I really do believe that soon our church will be known for how we serve and that is a day I am looking forward to!

What are we known for?

I recently attended a conference where I was asked, “What if the church became known for what it was for, and not for what it was against.” I’ve thought a lot about that in the last couple of weeks. If you ask most people attending church I believe they could easily tell you what their church was against before they could ever tell you one of their doctrines. We have created a generation of people who know nothing of doctrine and creeds, but could tell you why certain politicians are bad and what they stand for. I will soon be preaching about this at the church I pastor and I hope that we can begin to understand this concept. We are a part of a pentecostal denomination that at one time was against women wearing pants and makeup and going to the movies (Thank God those things have changed for the most part). My hope is that we become known as people who love, serve, and offer hope. When people drive by our church in Purcell, OK I want them to think of the ways we serve instead of the things we preach against.

Back to School Bash

On Saturday August 9th, our church had a back-to-school bash for the community. We passed out 200 bags of school supplies, and they were all gone within the first hour of the event. We also gave away free food including 550 hot dogs, chips, free sno cones and refreshments. There was a moon bounce, face painting, dunk tank and several smaller games where children could win more school supplies as prizes. We have estimated that between 350-400 attended the event.

Our church has never done anything like this that I know of and so it was a stretch to believe we could pull it off. It took a lot of hard work and planning, but in the end we were able to give out school supplies to kids that really needed them. That fact alone made it a success. It was great to see how excited the church people became when they realized that we really could do something like this. Hopefully in the future we will continue to reach out to our community and make a difference in the lives of others.

Daytona Beach, FL

Florida. Beaches. Sun Burn. Salt Water.

I’ve spent the last five days in Daytona Beach, FL at Youth Quest with three of the young people from my church. We’ve had a good time and really enjoyed ourselves. This trip had many first. It was the first time any of them had flown. The first time two of them had seen the ocean. It was also the first time for them to be in Florida. I’m now ready to head back home and take care of my sun burn.

Music

Today I went to the lake with some people from my church. I had to drive about an hour to get home. On the way home I was reminded once again why I don’t care much for today’s music. I’m not trying to over generalize or stereotype all new music, but in my opinion music has changed.

The video above shows the 1963 Newport Folk Festival. A very young Bob Dylan sings his song Blowin in the Wind with Peter, Paul, and Mary, Joan Baez, and the Freedom Singers. The significant thing about this is that this recording is being done during the civil rights movement. The first  time I ever watched this was in Dec. 2006 at my uncle’s house in Arvada, CO. He had a video of this and as I watched this I started to cry. I am not one to cry much, but this video was very moving. Bob Dylan is very young. He isn’t singing to sell records or to please a label. He is singing about something that is very important to him and bringing these others on stage, especially the Freedom Singers, was a very deliberate way to show this. This song for me went from being something I just enjoyed listening to and instead became something prophetic that Dylan was doing.

I say all of that to say that I think today’s music, in general, has lost it’s authenticity. I think that instead of someone using this art to say something, it has become about marketing and your ability to sell albums. I try my best to listen to guys like Dylan, Cash, Willie Nelson, and many others because their songs are about a message. There are some people that are still trying to do this today, but they aren’t the most popular singers by any stretch of the imagination. Hopefully this video will move you to see the same things.

Relevance

Too often I looked at being relevant, popular, and powerful as ingredients of an effective ministry. The truth, however, is that these are not vocations but temptations. Jesus asks, “Do you love me?” Jesus sends us out to be shepherds, and Jesus promises a life in which we increasingly have to stretch out our hands and be led to places where we would rather not go. He asks us to move from a concern for relevance to a life of prayer, from worries about popularity to communal and mutual ministry, and from a leadership built on power to a leadership in which we critically discern where God is leading us and our people.

– Henri Nouwen

The more I am around church leaders the more I hear the topic of relevance coming up. New churches  are worried about being relevant. They want to make sure that their church name and building are culturally relevant so people will want to attend and listen to them speak. But when I see the life of Christ I don’t see Him being very relevant. If anything he was more counter cultural. For to long ministry has been about trying to give people what they want. Instead we as ministers need to give people what they need, and those two things will many times be drastically different. The life of ministry should not be one of adoration and praise, but instead one of service and love. True ministry and going to the places God has called us to go is no easy task. It’s definitely not popular, but in the end it is rewarding because we know we have done the things He is requiring of us. Breaking the mold of what people expect us to be and expect our churches to be can be very tiring and full of mental anguish. But if we can ever “critically discern where God is leading us and our people” we will find true freedom. When this begins to happen then relevance will no longer be our goal, but instead we will be about loving God and loving others.

Together

When I hear the word together it conjures up feelings of courage. It automatically brings a sense of encouragement knowing that I’m not doing something alone. Knowing that there are other people in this with me. We will experience the feeling of loneliness and we may even go through the “dark night of the soul”, as St. John of the Cross described it. But even during these times we must stay close to the community.