Thanksgiving thoughts

For Thanksgiving, Jen, the kids, and I have made the journey to her parents house in eastern Connecticut. This time of year in Connecticut, it is pretty cold! As I sit here in the warm living room of her parents comfy, wooden home, I smell the sweet aromas of all kinds of different foods that are being prepared in the kitchen. I watch kids play games and laugh at the other end of the room. Ty and Kaelin have just come in to warm their hands after taking a ride around the property on "Money" the old, gentle, white horse. Football starts in a few hours. Life is good! I am blessed with a great wife, great kids, and a wonderful life. My belly will be full all day and my biggest challenge will be fighting off sleep long enough to watch the game. So much to be thankful to God for.

As I started thinking about this, I started considering the origins of this holiday. Pilgrims gathered with native Americans to have a feast in which they would intentionally stop and give thanks to their Savior, Jesus Christ, for keeping them alive. A group of Christians stopped and demonstrated their thankfulness to Christ in the midst of their non-believing neighbors...and compared to us, they had so little. They faced perils of many kind including the weather, the terrain, sickness, starvation.

Today, as we have been blessed by the fruit of the pilgrims sacrifice and the Christian heritage that they instilled in founding this nation, I cannot help but notice how far from our humble beginnings we have drifted. Our affluence and comfort have greatly increased, but has our praise and thanksgiving also greatly increased? I know this is something that each of us will choose for ourselves this season, and I pray that I lead my family in choosing to really "Give Thanks" on this day for all that we have! We are a blessed people! Thank you Lord for all you have given to us!

"Blessed be Your Name, in the land that is plentiful
When the streams of abundance flow, blessed be Your Name!

And blessed be Your Name, on the road marked with suffering,
Though there's pain in the offering, blessed be Your Name!"

Wherever you find yourself today, take some time to stop and give thanks!

Paradox of our beliefs

So recently I have found myself at times wondering about the tension between balancing faith in God's word with our responsibility to make the right decisions. As one who believes that God has given us the ability to express free will in our actions, I believe that we as individuals are empowered to determine how we will respond to God's leading. Will we choose obedience or disobedience. Deuteronomy 30:19 comes to mind, " This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live."

When we choose to be obedient, our actions are lining up with our belief about what God has said, and we act in faith. When we choose selfishly or contrary to God's word, we express our will over His perfect will for us by sinning. Sin leads to destruction, death, calamity, and many things that God desires us to avoid.

Ok, so on that trail of thoughts, how do I balance walking in faith with being responsible in planning. Where does the line get drawn between me trusting in my ability instead of counting on God to come through. One of the places I find myself constantly being stretched as a pastor is in walking the line between leading in faith, regardless of the obstacles, and planning accordingly to ensure a smooth and successful endeavor.

From a personal perspective, I have some growing up to do in the area of being patient and waiting on the Lord to do what He said He would do. I find that I want to be the one to determine the "season" between sowing the seeds and reaping the harvest. Haha. When I read what I just wrote I think, "Wow, how arrogant of you Freddy!" Guess that is why I needed to write it. But have a pretty strong feeling I am not alone on this one.

Galatians 6:9 has become a very special verse to me over the years. It says, "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." Key words for me right now..."at the proper time". The reality is that God gets to pick when the proper time is, not us :) So I am responsible to express my faith in actions, plan to the best of my ability in accordance with what God has told me to do, and then trust Him to deliver the results when the time is right. Easier to write than to do...but if it were easy, I guess everyone would do it right. I seem to recall Jesus saying something about a wide road and a narrow road :)

Huh, something to think about.

Spinning Plates

Have you ever seen someone who spins plates at the circus or at a half-time show or something. The term is used a lot to describe people who have so much going on that they feel like they are "spinning plates" trying to keep everything from falling. But if you have ever seen someone do this in real life, maybe you have noticed that plate-spinners don't ever look or seem stressed, worried, or frantic.

Maybe it is because they have dropped plates often enough to know that there is always another one to replace it. Maybe they understand that even the best "plate-spinners" drop them occasionally while they are learning how to spin more and more plates.

That is a skill I need to learn. HAHA. Not the plate-spinning part, but the part about being ok if one falls. Relaxing in the reality that there is another opportunity and that it isn't the end of the world.


The funny thing about plate-spinning is that the person spinning them is the only one who determines how many plates they will spin at the same time. Recently I have been realizing that the biggest expectations placed on me are the ones I am placing on myself constantly. Not sure why I push myself so hard sometimes, but I am looking into that right now as a matter of a fact :) Gonna downsize some of my own plates (unnecessary expectations), and learn to relax a little better. Reading another one of those books that is jacking me up. It is called Overcoming the Dark Side of Leadership by McIntosh and Rima. Good stuff!

The Nature of Pastoral Training

So i just finished reading a couple of articles about the shift towards cloud computing and different organizational approaches towards app consolidation in a magazine called Information Week. Before that I read a chapter of Sun Stand Still by Steve Furtick, and now I am going to continue reading in Ecclesiastes where I left off yesterday. As I was staring at my desk and considering the sources of information it all hit me at the same time...the nature of pastoral training has to continue to shift as our culture continues to shift.

Since arriving at church this morning, I have already had a conversation with one staff person about where they moved our DVD/CD duplication tower, another about how to maximize the use of their SD Card in their smartphone, and a third staff member about the potential liabilities of partnering with a certain organization by allowing them to use our facility for a meeting. And just now I had to stop typing because someone came in my office to share with me that they just got off the phone with someone who called to get more information about our church because of the message that was scrolling on our electronic sign. PTL!

I say all this to say that when I was in training for ministry, many of these things weren't even on the churches radar yet. What will church look like in 10 years? 5 years? Perhaps the more important question is, "What will society look like in 10 years? 5 years?" Because my concern is that ten years from now, most churches in America will finally be excited to have a working website, and perhaps a server.

Having been through seminary, it was my experience that by the time formal education adapts to the cultural trends, the culture has already shifted again. In a world of stream lined information, instant communcation, and social networking, we must redefine our training to reflect the redefined culture.

The reality is that the gospel never changes. The content of the message must never be compromised, adapted, or forgotten...but the language in which it is communicated is ever changing...and so should the training in how we, as the Church, will mobilize to meet the people where they are!

I will leave you with this thought...the best book about church growth strategies that I have ever read was "Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell. It is not about church, and it is not about Christianity, and it isn't even sold in Christian bookstores. But it is about people in our culture and how movements gain traction. I have implimented some of his concepts in our approach towards church growth and have seen amazing things happen!

Something to think about.

Under Construction

It is funny how a few blocks of construction can turn a five minute trip into a fifteen minute trip. Or how the Christmas season turns a quick stop by the mall into a stress-enducing, blood-pressure raising, challenge in self-restraint and patience. Well, I was on my way to a local bookstore a few minutes ago and I started thinging about this in relation to our spiritual journey with God.

Specifically, why is it that sometimes I grasp a Biblical concept so easily and act on the things that God is showing me rapidly, implimenting the change and sacrifice necessary as soon as the Holy Spirit pricks my heart through the word (the spiritual five minute trip to the new location). But then other times, things that seem like they should be just as easy to respond to find me struggling in a difficult journey of deliberation, compromise, or half-hearted attempts at obedience (the spiritual construction zone).

I guess the reality is that sometimes God pricks my heart through a particular passage of scripture that calls me to action. But it is only when I am on my way already that I discover some deeper things need to be dealt with in order for this journey to continue. "Under construction", "detour ahead", "no parking spots available". The reality is that God has not called us to a trip full of paved roads with all green lights. The scripture that comes to my mind is Romans 8:17, which says, "Now if we are children, then we are heirs-heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory."

There is no short-cut to going from "glory to glory" in our journey with Christ. It is a trip into the construction zone that causes us to place the journey above our own convenience. Sometimes things go quick and smooth. Sometimes the struggle between conviction and obedience takes longer. But it is on this journey where the spiritual "rubber hits the road", that we discover growth, victory, and purpose in life. One day we look back and realize we have been so occupied navigating the construction zone that we didn't even realize how far we have truly come!

Family Matters

So the other day I took my youngest son Ty to see Marmaduke. Just me and him. Considering that my wife and I have five children in our home, a little one on one time often has to be planned and calculated like a NASA space shuttle launch, but man is it worth it. So each kid gets personal time whenever possible, but more importantly, me and my wife get a weekly date night every Monday night! Man does that go a long way.

Well anyway, where was I...so me and Ty are at the movies. He loves dogs so he actually made it through the whole 1hour and 22minutes. But one thing never fails. Just like clockwork at the most pivotal climax in the plot, during the most intense part of the movie, his little 4 year old bladder has reached its limit and he taps me and says, "Daddy, I have to go potty. RIGHT NOW!"

So we make our way to the bathroom in record time and he takes care of business. We go back to the theater, find our seats, reposition our little bags of popcorn, and find ourselves watching the calm aftermath of the culmination of the most dramatic part of the movie (that we missed).

Without a care in the world he looks up at me, smiles, and just starts watching what is in front of him as if we have missed nothing. And then I realize it. He has missed nothing. From my perspective, we missed the most important part of the movie, but my perspective is off. From his perspective the most important part of the movie was just being there. It doesn't really matter what "scene" we are on. It just matters that we are there together. Sitting side by side, eating popcorn.

Then I started thinking. You know, that is how it is with God. The scenes come and go. The things we see as so climactic and important are often not the most important thing. The most important thing is stopping to realize that there He is, sitting right by our side, through every scene. And because of that we are going to be OK, no matter what the screen of our life looks like at the moment.

The Goodness of God

Recently I have been spending a lot of time reflecting on the nature of God. During the service last weekend God showed me some really amazing stuff and it just hasn't stopped since!

I find it startling that the church as a whole seems to be very quick to overlook something God was extremely intentional about demonstrating in His word....that HE is GOOD! This really was drawn to the light for me recently when a very televised preacher made some comments that implied that the Haiti earthquake was God's doing as a response to a "secret pact made with the Devil". This comment is a reflection of a deeper misconception about the way God relates to us. I also heard a different preacher say that God had sent Katrina to New Orleans because of the sins of the people of New Orleans, and yet another who said that 9/11 was God's judgment because of the sins of the United States.

People who ascribe to this type of theology say things like, "Well, if God doesn't judge America because of it's sin, He will need to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah!" When I read about the torture that Jesus endured on the cross to take "the punishment that brought us peace" (Isaiah 53:5), I can't help but think that if God is still pouring out His wrath on us, he would actually need to apologize to Jesus. Because in order for God to pour out punishment on us as a response to sin, He would first have to decide that what Jesus did was not enough!

It seems so much easier to get angry with people who offend us than it is to love them through differences in life, and unfortunately it seems that some Christians have tried to project this image upon God. But that is not the image that God gave us of Himself in the Bible. How did he represent himself?

I encourage anyone reading this to go to www.blueletterbible.com and type in the following word searches (under the NIV translation):
"slow to anger"
"goodness"

It is my prayer that the body of Christ begin to rise and stand against misrepresentations of our God. Let's seek ways to demonstrate His goodness to others. Our God is worthy of His children standing to ascribe to Him the praise that He deserves, and represent His goodness to everyone we meet!

Ephesians 2:4-9 says, "But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions-it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- not by works, so that no one can boast."

Selah