Superhero Pastors

When theology meets the comics, you get this post.

Go there and come back.

::

And it doesn’t matter whether it’s Marvel or DC - all I know is that this list is pretty much dead on, and you’ve gotta like the suggestions by commenters that Tim Keller should be Professor X.

Of course, this gets me thinking as to what this list could look like if theology met Star Trek - how would the pastors line up with the Enterprise crew (regardless of TOS or TNG)?

One thing is for certain - I cannot come close to the sheer brilliance of the post that is referenced.  It is dead on right - especially as you get into the comments as to who could be Magneto.

Check it out.

Evolution

Got your attention?

Good.

If you thought this was going to be a post about whether the Earth is 6,000 or 6,000,000,000 years old, you’ve come to the wrong place.  We’ve had those discussions ’round these parts and frankly, I’m sick and tired of those discussions…mainly because they simply detract from the simplicity of the Gospel.  I find it rather amusing that so many Christians will waste inordinate amounts of time debating the age of this 3rd rock from the sun when so many folks out there remain spiritually lost, apart from Jesus.  Let’s face it, so many Christians waste more time in committees debating the merits of organs versus guitars rather than worry about the many folks out in our cities and suburbs who are spiritually lost, apart from Jesus.

Where is the sense of urgency that was apparent in the Church in the second chapter of Acts?  Who today has the faith of Cornelius in Acts 10, the very same passage in which Peter is told that the Gospel must be spread beyond the Jewish community and to the Gentiles?  If it weren’t for that event, you and I would likely be still those who are spiritually lost, apart from Jesus.

Our local churches need to get beyond our four walls and get dirty, covered in the muck and grime of our communities, to the places where folks are spiritually lost, apart from Jesus.  We should “be strong and courageous” (Joshua 1:9) reaching those who are spiritually lost, apart from Jesus.

A handful of us took our first steps that way on Saturday, as we handed out free bottles of water (unopened, of course!) to runners, walkers, and bikers at a nearby trail.  We also had a bowl of water (which we refilled a couple of times) for walkers with their dogs.  We handed out several bottles, most of which were received graciously - one couple had been hiking for a couple of miles, hadn’t brought any water, so were touched and excited to each receive a bottle as they returned to their starting point.

We had no agenda, other than to express the love of Jesus in a practical way.  We were simply showing kindness to our neighbor by giving them water (Mark 9:41).

I’ll admit - I was nervous when we first started on this little mission - but when we were finished an hour later, we all were beaming and excited at how God touched a handful of lives through us;  the simple act of giving away water planted new seeds.

And I see that my spiritual journey has evolved in a new direction…

So Much To Say, So Little Time

In the past several days and weeks blogging has taken a substantially lower priority in my life - and I admit to missing it on occasion, but also feel relieved that I haven’t had the same pace of writing as I’ve had in the past.  That said, there are a lot of thoughts that continue to percolate in my mind with the various pieces of theology and the like that I’ve read, along with the myriad podcasts from assorted speakers and teachers and pastors that I listen to on my commute into work.

With this One Prayer series, however, I have been exposed to speakers that I hadn’t considered hearing before, and more than one have been used to convict me of my need for a more consistent prayer life.  And so I find myself quietly praying on the train, sitting silently with ear buds, listening to a few tunes, Bible open, but not really reading, just mulling over a passage or two while praying for my family, for my friends, my church, my workday.  I get into a certain zone and start to connect with my Father, just letting my thoughts connect with His.

I admit I don’t usually hear anything, but sometimes a word or a phrase leaps out, especially as I move on in my Scripture reading.  Jentezen Franklin says, “Read the Book, and the Book will read you.”   In those solitary moments on the train, my Father reads me and pulls back layers of grime that haven’t been scrubbed in a long time.

So I pray a bit more.

Pray. Now.

I’ve been re-reading Craig Groeschel’s Confessions of a Pastor. In a chapter titled “I Hate Prayer Meetings”, he ends it with one of the best summaries I’ve read on prayer.

Pray. Pray creatively, openly, honestly. Pray long. Pray short. Sigh. Sing. Dance. Cry. Shout. Pray in the morning. During the day and in the evening. Pray in the car, while working, while doing chores. Laugh with Him. Cry with Him. Experience His presence. Let your attitudes, thoughts, energy, focus, attention, desire, and love be directed toward the One who loves you. Like breathing air, allow moment-by-moment fellowship to become a way of life - starting this very moment.

Go ahead.

Communicate.

Takeaways

I have had the privilege of being one of a handful of folks at our church helping to select messages for our participation in the One Prayer series.  As a result, I have been exposed to speakers and pastors that I had never heard, exposed to teachers who have an uncanny ability to draw us into Scripture, bringing to life the characters, the people, the teachings of Scripture, and giving us practical, 21st Century applications of a text that’s thousands of years old.

These people ask the questions related to the story that I usually miss - like what exactly did the formerly dead man say when Jesus raised him in Luke 7?  We can only speculate, but those questions help us to become part of the story.

So with the 4 messages that our church will be showing (correction, 1 has already been shown with 3 more to go), I have written down some key quotes and paraphrases from these speakers.  Here’s one, from Perry Noble, pastor of NewSpring Church in South Carolina:

I believe we ought to get speeding tickets on Sunday morning because we can’t wait to get inside the door going “I know what he did last week but I can’t wait to see what he did this week.” We’re not striving to get there 10 minutes early; we’re okay if we’re 10 minutes late. Now we wouldn’t do that to a movie; we wouldn’t do that to a Broadway play. But we’ll do that to our church.

Thoughts?

Fasting

(Fasting) is a way of denying ourselves and making a special space in our lifestyle for listening to God. It can be a way in which God shows us things that control our way of life, potentially restricting our communication with Him.

Jonathan Markham

Our church has just come out of a week of prayer and fasting as we began our first week of participation in the worldwide One Prayer series.  What I have found to be helpful is that the “fast” does not have to be about the “traditional” fast - it is really about taking something of value, of meaning, in our lives and going without for a prescribed period of time.

This past week it was a fast from meat, poultry and pork for me (I allowed myself fish, eggs, and dairy, however).  It’s the second time that I have done that, and I was surprised at how much I had to “think” as I chose my food.  At the sandwich shop in my building downtown, I went with the vegetarian sandwich.  At home, it was a PBJ, or toast and eggs, fruit and various vegetables.  Going out to breakfast with the kids on Saturday I ordered vegetarian omelette.  I really needed to think about my choices, because so often I would choose an option with meat, whether at home or at work.

The upshot to this?

My devotionals were clearer.  The Scriptures I read last week seemed to make more sense to me, seemed to have greater relevance for my life.  Passages that I might have previously glossed over jumped out at me.  There was a speaker I saw not long ago encouraging us to read the Bible, because it is a book that reads YOU.

I think it read me this week.

Fired Up

This weekend my church joined with over 1,400 churches to kick off One Prayer - a message series of unity, asking the question, “What would you pray if God would answer One Prayer for the church at large?”

It was a new step of faith for us to introduce video teaching - this past weekend, from Craig Groeschel of Lifechurch.tv.  His prayer?  “Make Us One”.  We are a small church with limited technology resources.  We do have laptops and a projector however, and when we initially did some tests, had problems with both audio and video. But we managed to work the kinks out and had a decent video image on our sanctuary wall with solid audio going into the sound system.

The response from our congregation?

Conviction.  Joy.  Hope. Inspiration.

The Body of Christ, with over 800,000 congregants, are praying, fasting, and learning together.

Check out “Make Us One” here.

A New Airline?

Check it out.

Then come back to discuss.

I Know, I Know…

I’ve been pretty scarce lately.  These waning days of the school year, combined with end of season functions in baseball, in the kids’ other activities, and with some ongoing activities with my church have made blogging time rather difficult for me as of late.

Now that the summer is approaching, my hope is to be able to write with a little more frequency…we’ll see.

In the meantime, I’ve been reading John Eldredge’s “The Way of the Wild Heart” today.  It’s maddening to me whenever I hear stories of men leaving their families in pursuit of that missing thing…another woman, perhaps, another job…but they leave thinking that their family is holding them back from that dream.

What a cop out.

We recently heard of some acquaintances who have split up, leaving behind a couple of young boys in the wake of this broken relationship.  We heard that the father, who moved out, had experienced the same thing as a boy…and now we see the cycle continuing, the father proclaiming to some of his friends, “Hey man, I’m still hot, I still got it.”

Man up dude.  You don’t “got it”.  As the writer of Ecclesiastes says, “It’s a chasing after the wind.”  It’s no wonder so many men and boys have a difficult time growing up, when so many fathers have skipped out on their responsibility, as men, to raise up the next generation of men.

Eldredge writes:

A boy has a lot to learn in his journey to become a man, and he becomes a man only through the active intervention of his father and the fellowship of men. It cannot happen any other way.

I would like to think that I am teaching Hank to be man - it isn’t easy, but I know that he’s around other men…other dads…through Cub Scouts, baseball, and our community of faith. He sees men stepping up to lead work with their sons, whether building pinewood derby cars or hitting ground balls or cooking breakfast early on a Saturday morning at the church.  He sees his grandfather repairing a busted pipe;  he sees his dad mowing the lawn.

But more importantly, I would hope that Hank will see that I am a man of God who is fathering him, that I am but one instrument that God is using to teach him to be a man, that he is not alone in this journey to manhood, that he has his Heavenly Father fathering him on his journey to be a man of God.

Do This in Remembrance…

We had known for sometime that our pastor was going to be out of town this weekend to officiate at his step-daughter’s wedding, and earlier this week he shared with us the plans and individuals who would help cover the various elements of our Sunday morning service in his absense.

Notably missing from the list was who was to cover communion - we usually celebrate communion on the first Sunday of each month.  Midweek I was copied on an email from a fellow member of our leadership team to our pastor, who suggested that perhaps I officiate over communion.

To which I responded rather like Bill Lumbergh of “Office Space”, “Uhhmmmm, yeah…about that TPS report…”

Hah.  Me?  Handle communion?  I think that’s a Call that I want going directly to voice mail.

I covered my ears singing the theme to the Banana Splits, trying in vain to avoid that Call.  My pastor responded back, saying that we could delay communion until the following week, but then I realized that we have too many other activities occurring on Sunday that communion would only serve to lengthen the service on an already busy Sunday.

Sure, I responded, I’m in.

Trepidation set in.  I have delivered a handful of sermons in recent years, but somehow, the thought of officiating over communion was more frightening than speaking for 20 to 25 minutes over some theological topics.

But as God seems to do more often than not these days, He reminds me that He’ll take care of it.  I calmed down, recalled a passage I read about the beauty of the communion meal in one of Donald Miller’s books, and coupled with the notes my pastor emailed me, I knew I had the approach.  Early on Sunday morning, I spent about 30 minutes reviewing the notes and asking Him for some guidance on what else to say.

So below is what I said and read prior to serving the communion meal as highlighted in the passage from 1 Corinthians 11:23-27.

We all come to the table every month but it is easy to forget what it really means when we hold the small wafer and a thimbleful of juice. I think Donald Miller, in his book “Searching For God Knows What”, reminds us so beautifully what it means:

“As I wait in line, go to the table, take the bread, and dip it into the cup of wine, I forget that the bread and wine I eat and drink are of absolutely no spiritual significance at all, that they have no more power than the breakfast I ate that morning, that what Jesus wanted was for us to eat the bread and drink the wine as a way of REMEMBERING HIM, the bread representing His flesh, that He was a Man who, come from heaven, walked the earth with us and felt our pains, wept at our transgressions and humbly beckoned us to follow Him; and the wine is a symbol of the fact that He was killed, that His body was nailed to a cross, and that He entered into death, dying to absolve our need to die, our need to experience the ramifications of falling away and apart from God.

How odd would it seem to have been one of the members of the early church, shepherded by Paul or Peter, and to come forward a thousand years to see people standing in line or sitting quietly in a large building that looked like a schoolroom or movie theater, to take Communion. How different it would seem from the way they did it, sitting around somebody’s living room table, grabbing a hunk of bread and holding their own glass of wine, exchanging stories about Christ, perhaps laughing, perhaps crying, consoling each other, telling one another that the Person who had exploded into their hearts was indeed the Son of God, their Bridegroom, come to tell them who they were, come to mend the broken relationship, come to marry them in a spiritual union more beautiful, more intimate than anything they could know on earth.”

So as we eat and drink today, let us be the disciples, let us exchange stories about Him, let us laugh with Him, let us cry with Him, because we are sitting with Him RIGHT NOW, thanking Him for mending our broken relationship with the Father, thanking Him for the intimacy of the love we share with Him.

After serving the meal, I ended with this prayer:

Thank you for your sacrifice, thank you for your resurrection, thank you for mending our broken relationship. May we continue to come before you, to listen to you, to obey you, to love you. Make us One with you, Father. - Amen.