What It Means To Be The Hands And Feet

I have for a long time believed that the mess this country is in right now is due mainly to the American culture. The American culture I am speaking of is the one that states that I deserve something, and someone else has to give it to me, or I want others to do things that I myself should be doing. Much to my dismay, this attitude has made its way into the Church (by Church, I mean the collection of all believers, not a denomination, not a building, but the people itself). I was recently part of a conversation where it was believed that the pastor of a congregation should be doing most of the work of the church (this time I mean the congregation). One of the tasks that was unofficially assigned to the pastor was to visit those who are in the hospital. I would like to take you through the events of January 27th and 28th, 2004, as well a few months after that.

For those of you that don't know, my brother was in a car accident on January 27th, 2004. He died about 24 hours later. You can read more about that in one of my previous blog posts. The point of the blog post is what I have learned about God since then. Well in the past few days I have reflected on this and have learned some more. I remember starting my lunch break at work in the evening when I got the call from my mother who was crying and telling me Brad had been in an accident and I needed to come home. I told my boss what had happened and I hurried home. When I got there, I say my mother, and two of her friends from her church at the dinner table, who were going to give us a ride to the hospital. When we got there, we were met by some more people from her church. It was not until about half an hour until the pastors arrived. They met with the doctor, and then gave us the news that Brad would most likely not live, and if he did he would be a vegetable. Two hours later my father arrived. When all this was happening, he was in the air returning from a business trip. When he landed in Saint Louis, he was me at the airport by some of his friends from church, who drove him to the hospital.

We stayed the night in the hospital, as did some friends from church, as well as family who had made emergency flights and drives from Indiana and Michigan. The next morning I called my wife (at the time my fiancee) who was not familiar with the area around the hospital, and to be honest neither was I. Another friend of from church who was going to come to the hospital to visit volunteered to give her a ride. One or two pastors came back around 4:30 that afternoon. At this point, there were about 40 or so people, a combination of people from church and various family members. This was the time when all the paperwork had been taken care of and Brad could become an organ donor, and he could be taken off of life support. There was a quick prayer around my brother, everyone came in to say goodbye, and we were asked to leave. Shortly before 6:00, the doctor and one pastor came into our waiting room and said that Brad had passed. We then made our way to the hospital's chapel, where we said a prayer, and then we went back to our house. Almost all of us. (Side note: A friend from church had stayed behind and cleaned our house knowing that everyone would soon descend on it).

We got home, and we were not alone for about two weeks. There was always someone with us, whether it was people from church, or family. We did not cook, all meals were provided by people from church. I should also note that it was this outpouring of love that made my die-hard athiest uncle feel the presence of God. In the weeks that followed, my parents both sought the help of Steven Ministers. For those that don't know what Steven Ministers are, they are lay people (meaning not pastors) who have been trained to help people in difficult situations.

Reading all of this begs the questions: How much different would this story be if everything was placed onto the three pastors involved? How much time would we have spent alone? Who would have driven my grief-stricken father, mother, and myself to the hospital? Would my wife had ever made it to the hospital? Would my parents ever have received counseling? Would my uncle have ever found God?

I don't know the answers to these questions. But what I do know is that there was an immeasurable amount of good that came from normal people during the darkest part of our lives. For crying out loud, people I have never met and have not seen since were bringing me breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, and toilet paper (I want to personally thank the person who brought us toilet paper, so if someone familiar to this situation could let me know who that was, I would greatly appreciate it).

We are called to be the body of Christ, to be the hands and feet. At the end of an Anglican worship service, we are dismissed with the words: Go in peace to love and serve the Lord. Countless people did the on those two days and the months that followed. While I still grieve at my brother's passing, and found it hard to hold back the tears while writing this, I take some comfort in having this lesson learned in what it means to be the hands and feet.

Amen.

Reflection Of The Past Year

The past year has been a crazy one. With the down economy and the negative job market, it has more and more people going over to the half glass empty side of the argument. Over the past few months, I have been looking at my bank account going down, my bills going up, illness and tension in the family, craziness at work, as well as other overall stresses of life.

At the end of the year, a lot of people and websites do the news of the year in a five minute segment or whatever. It's funny how many of them focus on war, disaster, death, destruction, and other such negativity. In fact, if you turn on the local news here in Saint Louis on any given day, at least one of the first three stories will be about how someone was murdered, or died in a house fire. That may just be a Saint Louis thing, I have no idea. 

With all this negativity around us all, it is easy for us to forget that there actually is good occurring in this world. For example, all those things that I mentioned in the first paragraph of this post, have overshadowed everything that I have been blessed with, and that I truly am blessed. If you have a second, scan over to the right of this page and look at the "About  Me" section. In the first sentence, I have mentioned three of the greatest blessings that I could have ever asked for. The first being my wife, and the second two being my two beautiful children, who all love me with their whole heart. On top of this, even in this economy, I do have a job, as does my wife. We have a house, and even though our bank account is dwindling, it is still there and we do have enough coming in to get by. We each have a car, they have a few problems now and then, but nothing that can't be easily fixed. 

I was thinking about all of this the other day, and it came to me. There are people out there that would kill for this kind of life, there are those who fight and die so others can have this kind of life. The things in my life that I have and take for granted are things that my neighbors long for. And what do I focus on when I go to prayer? "Lord, please give me more of this...." or "Lord, please grant me more of that..." 

It's easy to forget that God has blessed us. I invite you to take the next few minutes, hours, or whatever, to reflect on what you have instead of what you think you may need. Then go to God in a prayer of thanksgiving. If you feel comfortable doing so, you can leave some of your thanksgivings in the comments section of this post.

Lord, we thank you for the blessings that you have bestowed upon us, and ask for your continued grace in all of our lives. We further ask for your guidance in using your gifts given to us to bring the joy that only you can provide into the lives of others. Amen.

Battle

Hello blog. It's been a while.

It's Christmas time. Or the holiday season as some tend to call it. In my own reading across news sites and other internet sources, I've seen a great deal of people trying to change "Christmas" into "the holidays" or something to that effect. Whether it be forcing cities and towns from removing nativity scenes from city property, to even people forcing nativity scenes from private property. And that's just in this country. I read recently in Arab countries that attacks on Christians tend to intensify around Christmas. Not to mention North Korea promising violence in response to South Korea allowing Christmas trees to be put up along the border to where North Koreans can easily see them.

Whether you like it or not, or want to admit it or not, Satan is at work here. He uses people in whatever way possible to water down or completely eradicate the message of the birth of Christ, and the message that He has come in order that your sins may be forgiven.

As you may know, I listen to a lot of Christian radio. One of the more popular songs out there right now is Battle by Chris August. The song basically deals with this topic, but on a more personal level. The devil is after society as a whole. To win society over, he has to start with the individual person, meaning you. 

There's a battle between good and evil

And it's raging inside of me

There's a struggle - It's God and the devil

It's love against the enemy

It seems overwhelming that the devil may be attacking you. The thing is, you don't have to fight the battle alone. Not only is there a community of the faithful willing to help you, but God will come to your aid as well. In fact, if you ask God to help you, the outcome is already determined. 

Life's a fight of wrong and right 

That's tearing me apart

Oh but what the cross has done

Yeah the world will try to battle for my heart

But the war is already won

It may seem impossible to be able to fight against the devil and win. But God has done and will continue to do the impossible. Even the circumstances of the birth of Christ were impossible. That God would be born in human form to a virgin! That this baby would grow up to cure the blind and the deaf, make those who couldn't walk to get up and walk, and also cast demons out. The God who did all of this can extinguish the battle raging inside of you. The world is competing for your heart, but the war is already won, and Christ and those who choose to follow him, are the victors.

Is The Bible Up For Interpretation?

I hear this, and see that a lot. People believe that what is written in the Bible is up for debate, or that it's meaning can change over time, or that it can mean different things to different people. Is any of this true?

I remember back in high school and college when every semester we were given a bunch of short stories, poetry, novels, or whatever, written by classic writers. A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare, Moby Dick by Herman Melville, The Judgment by Franz Kafka, and so on and so forth. The students would read these and other stories and then discuss them in class. Each student would give what they thought the story meant, or at least the ones who read the story and weren't afraid of giving a wrong answer, would speak up. After a discussion, the teacher, who knew the answer from a combination of experience and a teacher's edition textbook, would give the correct answer.


Well, who determines originally what the correct answer is? Well, the answer has already been given in this post. You see, the original author of the work has the correct answer, as it was when he or she wrote the piece. As it is with the Bible, the meaning was determined by the author, at or before the time it was written.


This leads to the biggest question of all. Who wrote the Bible? Ahh, good question, even if I do say so myself. The answer lies in 2 Timothy 3:16. It says "all scripture is God-breathed," meaning that God gave the words, but man wrote it down. Kinda like when a company CEO gives a memo, but the administrative assistant types it, and signs the CEO's name to it. In this way, God is in fact, the author of the Bible.


The common atheist/agnostic/non-Christian/and sometimes Christian argument would be "anybody wanting to fake a religious text would somewhere in the text claim that the book was written by God." Which is true, if I wanted to fake a religious text, I would have in there somewhere that God wrote it. 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 basically says that if you believe something other than the Gospel that has been preached (in the Bible), you have believed in vain. Essentially, if any part of the Bible is false, then the rest of the Bible is baseless, and it is useless to believe any of it.


Back to the original point: Is the Bible up for interpretation? The answer is no. Just like when Kafka wrote his works, he knew what the meaning was going to be about. Just like the words of Shakespeare have no different meaning now than they did when he wrote them. Just like Melville's words do not mean anything different now just because society has changed. The Bible, like God, is constant. The meaning is constant. It does not sway with times, it does not change with the ages. As I think about this when I am typing, it kind of makes me feel good, sort of at peace, that in a world with constant change, it is good to know that something as good as God and His Word, remain the same.

As usual, rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Why Can't I Just Learn About God On My Own?

Ah, yes, the ever popular question. A lot of people I run into refuse to step into a church because 'they prefer to worship on their own' or 'they read the Bible on their own.' Something like that. So what's wrong with that? You may ask.


Well, before I begin, I am not in any way trying to insult anyone's intelligence, but trying to learn something on your own just doesn't work. I'll explain. I took a couple of online classes to get my bachelor's degree. The idea for these classes was that I would read the books, watch their DVD's, and after doing this, take their tests. Yeah, I didn't do it quite that way. I printed out the test ahead of time (not against school policy), typed all the questions into Google (not against school policy), got the answers from Google, then put the correct answers into the test when I actually took it. I didn't score less than 75% on any test, and got as high as a 95%. I wasn't technically cheating, so what's the problem?


First off, I didn't learn anything. Second, and more importantly, I want you to pay attention to the scores on my tests. They ranged from 75% to 95%. There were three reasons for this:


1) Google didn't have the answer,
2) Google had the answer, but whoever wrote the answer gave the wrong answer on accident,
3) Google had the answer, but whoever wrote the answer gave the wrong answer on purpose.


Now, let's apply this to reading and studying the Bible on your own. First off, it is a good thing to read and study the Bible at home. In fact, I recommend it. However, there are bound to be questions that come up when you read, some things may not make sense to you. So what do you do in this situation? Go to Google. What's the problem with going to Google for the answers? They might not have it (which would lead you astray), someone might give the wrong answer accidentally (which would lead you astray), or someone might intentionally be targeting people like you and give you the wrong answer to purposefully lead you astray.


So how does this get fixed? Again, let me stress that reading and studying the Bible on your own is a good idea. However, when questions arise, there is a support structure in place that helps with questions. First off, in my case, the priest of my church is only a phone call away. In some of the larger churches, this may not be the case, but in a good church someone knowledgeable about Scripture is usually easy to reach. 

Online college classes are structured in such a way to facilitate more learning than what I did. They usually have a discussing forum, where you are required to answer a question posted by the teacher, and respond to comments of one or more fellow students. Also, if you have problems, you can e-mail the teacher. I leave you with this: is even this amount of support available when you try to learn the Bible on your own? In addition, a church is a place to go to find help from people other than the pastors, but other people just like you.

As usual, rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Amen.

What A Shame

I was listening to the radio the other morning and heard a girl call in who was ashamed. She had made a few mistakes, and was now pregnant. For those that are wondering, that is not what I am talking about when I mention the title of this blog post. What is a shame is that she is already attending a church, and is afraid to tell anyone at the church because she is afraid of what they would think.


Now that is a shame, but it does feed into a stereotype of what non-Christians, and even some Christians, think a church is. Some think a church is a place for people that have everything figured out, have all the answers, and have nothing to be ashamed of. 


This cannot be farther from the truth, and we'll look at John 8:2-11 to see why. It starts with Jesus preaching in a temple. A group of people brought a woman to him, saying she had been caught in the act of adultery. They state that the punishment for such an act is to stone her to death, and asked Jesus' opinion on what to do (they were trying to trap him, as they tried before and after, unsuccessfully). Jesus then tells them that the person who has no sin may start throwing rocks at her. Not surprisingly, no one did, and they all left.


This goes to show that the church (or temple in this case) is not a place for perfect people to congregate. In fact, the only person there that day, and any other day before or since, that had no sin was Jesus. The truth is, anyone who attends a church has something in their past that they are ashamed of. Romans 3:23 reinforces this by saying "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."


Okay, so you do go to your congregation and admit your faults. What happens next? Jesus picks back up in verse 11 of the first passage. Jesus tells the woman "go now and leave your life of sin." We already know that people need to repent of their past sins, but what does this have to do with the congregation?


When most people unfamiliar with church try to explain a church, they usually say something to the effect that it is a place where you dress up and go to learn about the Bible, pay some money, maybe have some doughnuts and coffee, do some praying, then leave until next week. The church is more than just these things. A local church should be a community, or even like an extended family. Yes, it is a place for learning, but equally important it is a place for gathering, encouragement, and help. Since, as I said earlier, the church is full of not perfect, but broken people, you might be surprised to find that there is someone in your own local congregation who has been through circumstances similar, or even identical to your own.  


As Christians, we like to talk about how God works in our lives, but it is also important to remember that the devil sometimes does as well. He doesn't stop when you commit the sin, he takes it to the next level. A common ploy of the devil is that when you commit a sin, he tries to make it sound like such a big deal and that nothing can undo it, and no one will understand, so you might as well give up. I don't know what happened to this woman when she told the people in her church, or even if she did. What I do know is that after her story was aired, many other women called up the station and said the exact opposite of what the devil was trying to convince her of, the fact that they had been there.


The truth is, if you need help with something, you need to go to God in prayer, and you need to seek the help of others. The ideal place to find help would be to go to a community, or a family, or in other words, a church. If you don't have a church, I would like to invite you to mine (had to put it in there, I hope you understand). If you don't live nearby me, I urge you to find a local church immediately. And as always, pray and keep in the word.


Amen

Do Everything

Steven Curtis Chapman - Do Everything


Yes, yes, I am blogging about a Steven Curtis Chapman song. I am ashamed. No matter what you think about him, he does what some "Christian" artists don't, and that is tell the Gospel  straightforward. Anyway, I digress.


Anyway, the second verse is the one I will be talking about. It talks about two people, with two completely different lifestyles. One being at the higher end of white collar, the other at the lower end of the blue collar spectrum. The lyrics are as follows


You may be that guy with a suit and tie
Maybe your shirt says your name
You may be hooking up mergers, cooking up burgers
But at the end of the day 
Little stuff, big stuff, in between stuff 
God sees it all the same
While I may not know you
I bet I know you wonder sometimes, does it matter at all?
Well let me remind you, it matters just as long


As you do everything you do to the glory of the one who made you
'Cause he made you to do 
Every little thing that you do to bring a smile to His face
Tell the story of His grace, with every move that you make
In everything that you do.


Basically, he is saying that it doesn't matter if you are a chemical engineer (you know who you are), a fraud investigator (you know who you are), or just a meat cutter (you know who... nevermind, that's me). You have a place here on Earth to do God's will. Everybody has different gifts that can be used for the glory of God. Some people think that one set of skills is more important or more admirable than another. Isn't it God who grants everybody their gifts? So how can one set of talents that God has granted to someone be better or worse than another set of gifts that God has granted someone?


1 Corinthians 12:12-20 says the same thing:


The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body - whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free - and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.


We are all called to spread the Gospel of Christ around the world. You may think that because you are not a priest/pastor/minister/whatever, that you cannot tell people about Christ and spread the good news. Not true. In fact, a wise priest (you know who you are) once said that a priest is not above the people in the parish, that he is there to serve the people, just as Christ came to serve us. What are your spiritual gifts? I don't know, but they  sometimes parallel what you are good at normally. Maybe you're good at teaching others, perhaps teaching a Bible study at church or in your home would be up your alley. Perhaps you are good at talking to people you barely know, volunteering at a local nursing home could be a good fit for you. Perhaps you are good at sitting in front of the computer going to various social networking and Anglican related websites for hours on end. START A BLOG!


Regardless of your gifts or your Bible knowledge, God does have a plan for you and the gifts that He has given you. Keep in the word and pray often. Pray that God will help reveal His gifts that He has given you, for His glory. And always, do everything for the glory of God.


Amen.