It is becoming more and more clear to me lately how we are created for community, and how much we need that community to live our lives. When we announced a month ago (though it seems like it has been much longer) that we were leaving Imago Christi Church, the primary reasons were a need to recalibrate and reprioritize. What I have started to see in the past month is how much the need for community played into our busyness and weariness.

Let me back up just a bit. While it was by no means the beginning of the issue, Becky and I had a long discussion on the way home from an Andy Osenga concert earlier this summer. (I’m stunned that I didn’t blog about it at the time, but I did post pictures to Flickr.) Andy introduced his song “Hold the Light”, as usual, by telling the story about his small group. They have gathered in somebody’s backyard every week for a couple of years, sharing life stories, praying, encouraging, and living life together. It’s a powerful song, and a powerful story. On the long drive home I found myself getting jealous of my friend Andy. How I would love to have a group of folks like that.

Over the past several years as a church leader I’ve been a part of dozens of discussions where we’ve talked about building community. How do we build community? We know we need it. How do we make it happen? Too often the solution seemed to be another program. Things like “let’s organize a small group book study” or “let’s start a group based around this particular interest”. We’d try to find leaders for the group, put out a signup list, and then get frustrated because the same people who were asking for community weren’t signing up for stuff.

Here’s where I think we, and many churches, have made the mistake: we focus so much time and energy on church programs that we rob ourselves of the time to just live life together. The best friendships and most supportive community I’ve experienced in my life haven’t come out of any church program; they’ve come from people deciding to get together around meals and activities to just live life. Meeting up at someone’s home to play basketball, eat a meal, watch football on TV. Taking off on the spur of the moment to help someone move a piece of furniture. Taking a Saturday to help someone move to a new house. What saddens me is how many times we’ve not done things like this because we were too busy - and usually too busy with church stuff.

This is easy to lament, but harder to correct. We’ve taken the first step by the only method we could see that would work. Now we’re looking for another church, and the place we’re looking for will need to place a high priority on this sort of community. I’m praying every day that God helps us find it.

This weekend I finished up reading Rules of Deception, the latest novel by Christopher Reich. I have read all of Reich’s novels and quite enjoy them; he does the spy/crime/legal thriller genre as well as most anybody out there right now. I had one real disappointment with the book, though (and OK, this is a bit of a spoiler, so be forewarned): the true evil villain, the mastermind who is willing to kill hundreds of people to accomplish his nefarious goals, is a “born-again”, “evangelical Christian”.

Now, I realize Dan Brown made it cool to rip on Christians and the church with The DaVinci Code, indeed, it seems nearly de rigueur these days to have Christians as the bad guys. And certainly as an author Mr. Reich is allowed to make whatever plot choices he wants to. He’s very even-handed with his other groups of people - there are good and bad CIA agents, good and bad Iranians, good and bad Americans, and etc, in his plot. But Christians? They’re all bad. And shadowy. And in lock-step. And willing to do anything, kill anyone, incite nuclear war, all for the purpose of “hastening the Rapture”. Ugh.

As I’ve been thinking about it, this is one of the reasons that Tom Clancy, one of the better authors in this genre a decade ago, had such good stories: he was willing to use the real-life bad-guys of the day and didn’t feel any politically-correct need to pick somebody else. Hence, during the Cold War, the Soviets were the bad guys, even though there were some good Soviets among them (The Hunt for Red October, The Cardinal of the Kremlin). Once the Wall fell and the new fear was Islamic Fundamentalism, Clancy went with it. In The Sum of All Fears there are good Muslims and bad Muslims, good Jews and bad Jews, heck, good Americans and bad Americans. But Clancy never felt the need to invent some other bad guys just to be politically correct.

So I enjoyed Rules of Deception, and I’m sure I’ll read Mr. Reich’s next book when it comes out. But I can’t help but wish that he’d take a more realistic look at the world when he does. Maybe a little more plot creativity next time?

Last Wednesday night we left the girls at church (Laura for AWANA, Addie to play in the nursery) and ran a few errands, then arrived back a few minutes early to pick them up. Becky went over to chat with one of her friends, and I, having a few minutes on my hands, wandered into the sanctuary to play the piano.

There are few things I enjoy more than the chance to sit down in a dark, quiet room and play a nice piano. I don’t get to do it very often any more. So I sat and improvised a little George Winston-esque jazz, just enjoying the sounds and textures. Occasionally someone would come through the sanctuary, hear the piano, look up, and nod or say hello, but otherwise it was quiet. Then Cubbies got out, and here came the three and four year olds.

I could hear them tearing down the hallway toward the sanctuary. Laura’s friends Abigail and Ella got to the door of the sanctuary first, but stopped short as the entered the doorway, saw the room dark, and heard the piano music. They looked up at me to see where it was coming from, then just stood there, not sure what to do, but intimidated by the room and the situation.

Then Laura reached the door. She followed their gaze to the piano, saw me sitting there, and took off at a full run up the aisle to the piano, yelling “Daddeeeeeeee!” at the top of her lungs. She crashed up to the piano, gave me a hug, and proceeded to show me the picture she’d drawn at Cubbies.

Now I’ve not used this blog to draw lots of devotional illustrations from my children thus far, but this one was so immediately obvious that I just couldn’t let it go. Hebrews 4:16 instructs us to “…come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” We aren’t to fear coming to God with our needs and concerns, quivering at the dark door like some ancient Israelite priest. Instead, we’re called to come in boldly, running up the aisle to the One who we know loves us like no one else can. Thanks, Father, for the vivid reminder.

…from a recent phone conversation.

We know that the storms affecting our lives and plans are under God’s divine control, and we accept them.  But we’re starting to get seasick.  God, can you send some Dramamine?

Last week Becky and I had a discussion about, well, a bunch of things, but the one thing that came out of it was an agreement that we needed to be inviting people over more. We enjoy having folks over to share a meal, play games, and hang out, but we do it far too rarely. So we discussed for a while what day would work best for us, (if we want to be consistent, we’re gonna have to pick a day and stick to it), and came up with Sunday evenings. We don’t have any Sunday evening church activities, and, we concluded, but 5 PM on Sunday we’re usually bored anyway and looking for something to do, so why not have folks over for supper? Having thus planned, we invited two couples (+ kids) over, and started preparing for Sunday night.

Now, normally for something like this we’d do a lot of meal preparation and house cleaning on Saturday, leaving us time on Sunday to rest and relax before having visitors. (I do love my Sunday afternoons to crash.) But this past Saturday was a softball tournament that went from first thing in the morning until mid-afternoon, and then left us so tired we had no motivation to start cleaning. “We still have tomorrow to get ready” was our motto.

So Sunday afternoon rolled around and it was time to get ready. So we picked up toys, vacuumed, snapped green beans, made lasagna, did the dishes, put the leaves in the table, and next thing you know, it was 5 PM and our guests were arriving. So much for our theory that “we’re bored by 5 PM anyway…”! 5 PM showed up and we hadn’t sat down all afternoon. Well, not quite true. I sat down to rip a few sermon recordings to mp3 for the church website. But that was it.

We had a great time with our guests last night. We ate plenty of good food, finished up with some to-die-for homemade chocolate-mint ice cream, sat around and swapped stories about growing up in small towns, raising kids, and protecting our homes from late-night marauding insects, and laughed hilariously at this video of Ringo Starr visiting the studio as Andrew Peterson is recording his new album. Look for the cameo appearance by Chris Sligh (formerly of American Idol) and Ringo’s quick wit when Chris declares himself “more of a Paul man”. (Andy Gullahorn is a genius, I tell you! A genius!) Time flew by, and by the time folks were leaving to get kids to bed and prepare for the upcoming week, it was nearing 9 PM. It was a wonderful evening.

Now I know that our guests from last night pretty much all read my blog (hi Roy, Bridget, Dave, and Barb!), so I want to say this up front: we had a great time, and practicing hospitality this way is absolutely something we needed to do and to continue to do. However, yeah, it was a challenge. First of all, we need our Sunday rest, and it was pretty well lacking yesterday. I will also admit to being kinda frustrated yesterday when it became apparent about 3:30 that there was no way we were gonna have time to sit and crash before folks came. So we need to make sure that we use our Saturday more effectively next time. Becky and I also need to make sure that we communicate our expectations well; when I’m thinking and working towards one thing and she’s got something different in mind, and then the time crunch hits, well, it has the opportunity to not be a lot of fun. We’re still learning this communication thing after 9 years of marriage.

What I will conclude from the weekend, though:

We need to continue the hospitality.
Dinners with friends are a lot of fun.
Chocolate-mint ice cream can be really, really good.
We need some time for Sunday rest.
The Cubs still managed to win without me watching them.
Sleep is sweet.

(Oh, and that Andy Gullahorn is a genius.)

Long, hot congregational meeting last night. Not a lot of fun.

Morning comes early.

Only 2 more work days until I pack up and go to Florida for a week.

Not a minute too soon.

I hate waiting. I really do. I’m impatient. It’s not a quality I’m proud of; it’s a fault that needs corrected. (”Lord, give me patience… and please hurry!”)

It’s worse when I have things I’m waiting for and impatient to get. In my current case, I’m waiting for two things. First, the Qwest DSL hookup information, which I had been anticipating last week Thursday. They promise it will get here today. It better. Second, my (second) refurbished iPod. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the guy at Best Buy remembered to put it into the system promptly; some time this week UPS should deliver another refurb; hopefully it has less problems than the last one did.

So for now I sit and wait, knowing that patience is a virtue that should be cultivated. I’m trying to learn.

As I updated my 2007 reading list yesterday, I became convicted about how many novels of dubious quality I’ve read (23 books in 75 days!) and how short my time in the Scripture has been lately. As such, I am making this resolution: for the next month (March 20 - April 20), I am going to restrict my reading to just the Bible. I want to read it in broad pieces, to try to pick up the sweep of the grand story of God’s work.

I don’t know how far I’ll get in just a month, but I have a feeling it’ll be a ways. So don’t expect any reading page updates for a while. I don’t think it’ll be a great loss.

In the midst of a church meeting last night discussing our church’s future plans, a question came up that I imagine we will be wrestling with in future weeks.  I’m not entirely sure what I think the answer is yet, so I’ll post it here to see if any of you have comments.

The question goes something like this: in the context of a church, which comes first?  Do people first have to get “the vision”, and then will respond with committment?  Or rather, do people first need to be committed to serve, and then begin to see the vision of the church ministry?

Still chewing on this one…

On my way home from work every day I pass a billboard that frustrates me. It’s a simple message, white text on a black background. It’s designed to look like a written note. The words:

One nation under Me.

–God

Undoubtedly this billboard was purchased by some well-meaning evangelical wanting to make a point about their beliefs that American was a Christian country, should continue to be a Christian country, etc, and remind us about the battle over the Pledge of Allegiance. I don’t want to debate those points at all. Not that I necessarily agree with them exactly, but there are people in my congregation that would wholeheartedly agree with them, and I don’t have time to write a full, thoughtful response to the ideas; nor do I want to offend them by giving a less than thoughtful answer. So let’s leave that particular question alone.

These signs with ‘messages from God’ aren’t something new - they’ve been a staple on billboards for the past several years, and on church signs for many years before that. Even the Life Magazine that came in today’s newspaper had a collection of photos of church signs, including the ever-popular “let’s meet at my house today before the game — God” sign. (As an interesting aside, one church is now using a reverse strategy: messages from Satan.) In general, my attitude is iffy-but-OK with this type of message. Many times they just come across as cheesy (such as the church sign example above), but sometimes they can manage to be thought-provoking instead.

But this particular billboard really bothers me. Why? Because, first of all, it’s not something God ever said. The “One nation, under God” phrase was added to our Pledge of Allegiance by Congress, back in the fifties. I guess it’s become all too common today to put our words in God’s mouth, but this seems pretty flagrant. Second, I’m not sure it’s a message that God would endorse. I don’t think God is worried too much about America becoming a “Christian nation” again. God is much more concerned with people, individuals, coming to Him and being a part of His kingdom. God’s focus is the Church, not the political system or national structure.

My call is that we set our priorities by His priorities. Sure, that’s easy to say, harder to work out. But there are some places where it can be pretty clear. Let’s put our focus on forwarding Christ’s kingdom, not in trying to restore a “Christian nation”. If God wills, our country will come around. If not, well, God knows what He’s doing. My guess it you’re not going to find out about it, though, from a billboard.