The Oregon Adventist Pastor

Mea culpa

2010-10-22T10:39:00.000-07:00

I have a cold (or the flu, or an allergy to something, or just possibly pneumonic plague). At any rate, I'm not feeling well -- and since the antihistamines I'm using specifically warn me not to use heavy machinery while I'm taking them, I will belay posting until I feel better.

Odds & Ends

2010-10-14T20:16:00.000-07:00

I am thankful for the fact it was sunny and warm at the Oregon Garden; I am trying hard not to complain about the rain now that I'm back home at the Oregon Coast.

Preaching this week on James 5:7-20, I'm struck by the juxtaposition of patience and prayer. One is passive, one is active, but we need both in order to make it through tough times.

80% of your church's work is done by 20% of your church's members, and 80% of your church's troubles are caused by 20% of your church's members -- but ideally, those should be two separate groups. If they're not, then you probably need to pastor another church.

Teaching this week's Sabbath School lesson on Hannah -- do you focus God's gift of what she wanted, or Hannah's willingness to give up what she she wanted?

In Rowan William's Why Study the Past?: the quest for the historical church, he points out that most of the great heresies began when someone said, "this is too complicated; we need to make it simpler."

No doubt you're following my youngest daughter's blog about her time as a Student Missionary in Poland . . . but have you checked out the blogs of Anthony and Jonathan -- two young men from my church who are spending the year in Peru?

And I'll close with this quote from Mark Twain: "Anytime a fellow says, 'It's not the money, it's the principle of the thing,' it's the money."

Autumn haiku

2010-10-08T10:49:00.001-07:00

North winds bring gray skies
and a gift from Tillamook:
the smell of wet cows.

Odds & Ends

2010-09-30T20:11:00.000-07:00

We've had beautiful weather these past few days, with blue skies and temperatures in the 70s. As one of my church members remarked, "Some days, you're almost ready to forgive the Oregon Coast for what it put you through last winter."

Preaching this week on James 4:1-12 -- a passage that reminds me most church fights are not about music or evolution or the color of a new carpet; they're about power, i.e. who has it and who wants it.

Speaking of which -- I'm told Stalin loved to pick fights over arcane points of Communist philosophy that nobody really understood. If people agreed with him, then he knew they did so out of loyalty (and not personal conviction); if they disagreed, then he knew they were a potential rival (and should be eliminated).

Reading John Noble Wilford's The Riddle of the Dinosaur, it strikes me that one of the biggest problems we've had with this subject is just how quickly it developed. Radiometric dating wasn't common until the 1950s. Plate tectonics didn't catch on until the 1960s. Alvarez didn't come up with his theory for the extinction of dinosaurs until 1980. It's hard to know how you should react, in other words, when the environment is changing so fast.

Viz. this week's Sabbath School lesson: if I had to do it over again, I'd preach fewer sermons and tell more stories. As Philip Pullman points out, "Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever." So . . . ask the members of your class: "What stories in the Bible have been important to you -- and why?"

I'm slowly pulling together a resource-bank on ministry to senior citizens -- reason number one: there's going to be a lot of them. Reason number two: nobody else seems to be doing it. And reason number three: I'm not getting any younger myself. So far, one of my best sources for ideas has been this blog in The New York Times: "The New Old Age."

Teaching high school Bible, I've learned you need to do something new every ten minutes or you've lost them. I wonder if that is true of preaching too?

And I'll close with Murphy's Sixth-Law of Combat Operations: "If it is stupid but it works, then it is not stupid."

Odds & Ends

2010-09-24T13:00:00.000-07:00

It is raining, with the temperature in the mid-50s. Add ten degrees, and it would be summer. Subtract ten degrees, and it would be winter.

Preaching this week on Luke 2:41-52, i.e. the time his parents lost Jesus. I used to wonder how they could have done something that stupid . . . but lately, I've been discovering just how easy it is to lose track of God.

One thing I learned from the incredibly sad Los Angeles Times story about Harry & David: when the powers-that-be start pushing mission-statements, it's time to reach for your revolver. (h/t to David Neff)

I love the way Paul ends Romans with a long list of his friends in Rome; it's a reminder that truth isn't truth unless it's connected with people.

The Year 1000: what life was like at the turn of the millennium takes you through a "typical" year in England during the Middle Ages -- and along the way, you discover the hungriest time of year was July, just before the harvest. Who knew?

When did "loyal" become a synonym in our church for "conservative" (as in, "he's a loyal member of the church")?

And I'll close with this quote from Thomas Schelling: "There is a tendency in our planning to confuse the unfamiliar with the improbable. The contingency we have not considered seriously looks strange; what looks strange is thought improbable; what is improbable need not be considered seriously."

Odds & Ends

2010-09-16T15:29:00.000-07:00

Oddly enough, the weather here on the Oregon Coast has been exactly the same as the weather currently being enjoyed by my youngest daughter in Poland, i.e. it is cool and gray, with lots of rain.

It's difficult for me to preach on James 3 without feeling like a total hypocrite -- and maybe that's a good thing?

Speaking of my youngest daughter -- you can follow her adventures on her blog, "My Life as a Verb."

Regarding this week's Sabbath School lesson: the biggest problem with Paul's advice in Romans 14-15 is that it can turn into emotional blackmail, i.e. "I'm easily offended, so you must give in to me." So . . . how do we help the "weak" among us to grow up?

Having lugged two big bags of books around Vancouver Island on my last vacation, I finally broke down and bought a Kindle. My first download: H. G. Wells' The Time Machine. It was free -- and besides, it seemed appropriate.

If I'm not chairing a meeting, then I find it helpful to be the one who takes minutes. First reason: nobody else wants to do it. Second reason: it needs to be done. Third reason: it reminds me that I'm not in charge. And last reason: it provides an fairly unobtrusive way to coach a new chair through the process of running a meeting.

And I'll close with this quote from George MacDonald: "God is easy to please, but hard to satisfy."

Odds & Ends

2010-09-09T14:37:00.000-07:00

Blue skies and warmer weather, just in time for this evening's "Pizza Picnic" at our school. (And yes, it's probably just a coincidence -- but I'm still grateful.)

I'm preaching this week on James 2. Reading the text, it struck me how closely "the rich" of his day resembled the organized crime bosses of today. Like them, "the rich" were wealthy, powerful, and violent -- this was a time, remember, when landowners used hit men to keep peasants in line. In short, it's no wonder believers fawned over "the rich" when they visited church; if John Gotti had shown up for a potluck, then we'd probably have done the same.

Thanks to xkcd, I now know that Emily Dickinson's "The Carriage" can be sung to the tune of "Gilligan's Island." Is this a great country, or what?

In last week's Sabbath School lesson on Romans 9, Paul stressed God's control -- so much so, that you might think he believed in double-predestination (i.e. God chooses who will be saved and lost). Now in Romans 10, Paul emphasizes our responsibility; far from being puppets, we can choose our destiny. And while it may seem strange that Paul believes in God's sovereignty and our free will, most of us do the same. Looking back, after all, we have a sense of being led; looking around, we realize that we have choices to make.

Pacific Press says my Quickstart Guide to the Bible is now out of print -- but if the past is any guide, about 50-100 copies get bought every year for pastor's classes, college classes, and the like. Question: with this kind of market, is it worth self-publishing my book?

And I'll close with this quote from Martin Luther (with a h/t to Douglas Moo's commentary on James):

O it is a living, busy, active thing, this faith. It is impossible for it not to be doing good things incessantly. It does not ask whether good works are to be done, but before the question is asked, it has already done this, and is constantly doing them.

Whoever does not do such works, however, is an unbeliever. He gropes and looks around for faith and good works, but knows neither what faith is nor what good works are. Yet he talks and talks, with many words, about faith and good works.

Odds & Ends

2010-09-02T14:55:00.000-07:00

Blue skies and a warm breeze, but just offshore is a bank of clouds that will surely come this way. And yes, that describes both the weather and my ministry just now.

Paul believes in free will -- but in Romans 9, he focuses on God's free will, and not our own. So how will your Sabbath School class find a way to reconcile God's ability to act with our ability to respond? When you pray for somebody to be converted, in other words, just what are you expecting God to do?

I was expecting Ruth Downie's Persona Non Grata to be a great detective story; it's the third in her series about Gaius Ruso -- a Roman army doctor c. AD 118. But who knew it would give such an accurate (and moving) picture of early Christianity?

My wife has been visiting her parents in Australia; meanwhile, the lunches around here have pretty much consisted of "stuff over rice." My favorite "stuff" so far: Cuban-style black beans with banana chips.

Looking for demographic information about the Pacific Northwest (plus Montana)? Try Indicators Northwest. (h/t to Ridenbaugh Press)

And I'll close with this quote from Karl Barth: "Faith is not only God's gift, but God's assignment."

Odds & Ends

2010-08-26T15:13:00.000-07:00

Blue skies. Warm weather. Yup, things turned nice, just in time for the beginning of school.

I am puzzled by this week's Sabbath School lesson on Romans 8. A chapter about God's grace in the face of human suffering has become a pep talk -- one that says little more than "Jesus will help us try harder." Just as a suggestion, try including verses 18ff in this week's discussion; they add a lot (even though the quarterly did not think them worth mentioning).

I love what Eugene Peterson says about the Psalms of Ascent in his book, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. Unfortunately, I'm not finding anything in this book that I can use in a sermon . . . so I guess I'll just have to read it for my own benefit. (Sigh.)

I don't know anything that causes more headaches (and heartaches) than our local church's Student Assistance Fund (i.e. the program that grants scholarships to our local SDA school). I guess it's one of those things where you do it, not because it makes you feel good, but because it's the right thing to do.

Interesting article on the purchase of the University Baptist Church in Seattle by the Mars Hill Church. It would be easy to read this as "mainline vs. evangelical" or "traditional vs. contemporary" -- but I suspect the real story is "what happens when a pastor betrays a church's trust."

And I'll close with this quote from the United States Marine Corps: "If you want it bad, then you get it bad."

Odds & Ends

2010-08-19T18:06:00.000-07:00

The weather here on the Oregon Coast continues to be gray and cool, with temperatures in the mid-50s. The main difference between our summers and winters, in other words, is 15 degrees.

This week's Sabbath School lesson on Romans 7 can easily lead to despair. Tell people it is possible to overcome sin, after all, and you risk discouraging those who find this difficult -- but tell them it is difficult to overcome sin, and you risk discouraging those who hope it is possible.

The Oregon Conference will sponsor a Creation Summit, March 30 to April 2 -- and for my own benefit, I'm putting together a reading list. Any suggestions as to what should be on it?

Speaking of which, I'm enjoying Three Views on Creation and Evolution -- a book that gives evangelical scholars a chance to explain, defend, and critique views such as young earth creationism, old earth creationism, and theistic evolution.

In his discussion of legalizing cannabis, libertarian (and Atlantic columnist) Mark Kleiman points out that 10% of American adults drink half the alcohol sold in this country, while another 10% accounts for an additional 30%. Only 20% of American adults, in other words, drink 80% of the alcohol . . . which is why he says:

To the consumer, developing a bad habit is bad news. To the marketing executive, it’s the whole point of the exercise. For any potentially addictive commodity or activity, the minority that gets stuck with a bad habit consumes the majority of the product. So the entire marketing effort is devoted to cultivating and maintaining the people whose use is a problem to them and a gold mine to the industry. . . . [That's why] “an innkeeper loves a drunkard,” says the Yiddish proverb, “except as a son-in-law.” [h/t to Brainiac]

And I'll close with this quote from Mencius: "Before a man can do things, there must be things he will not do."

This week's lesson: Romans 6

2010-08-12T15:54:00.000-07:00

It's an issue we deal with all the time as parents, on school boards, and with our worship team leaders: it's the issue of what happens when we start changing things.

When Paul wrote about "the law," after all, he didn't just mean the Ten Commandments -- or even the Old Testament. No, Paul was talking about the whole system of written and unwritten rules that made up the Jewish way of life. In our language, we'd say he was talking about The Way We've Always Done Things Around Here (or TWWADTAH for short).

Then as now, some people feared any change of TWWADTAH. "You let people start messing around with the rules," they'd say, "and people won't know what to do. No, you let them start reading novels/drinking coffee/wearing jeans on Sabbath, and it won't be too long before this place starts looking like Ft. Lauderdale during spring break."

In truth, these people have a point. People need rules, after all -- especially children. And a culture that doesn't provide clear rules for its children shouldn't be surprised if they act as as though there are no rules at all.

Fortunately, Paul provides a way to deal with these issues.

To conservatives, he says that TWWADTAH doesn't work any more; it needs to be changed.

To the liberals, he says that change is no good unless we make sure it is a change for the better.

And to liberals and conservatives alike, he points out that our behavior will always fall short of God's expectations -- and that's why we will always need God's grace.

In short, there may be times we need to change The Way We've Always Done Things Around Here.

But God never changes the way He deals with us.

I'm back!

2010-08-04T16:08:00.000-07:00

Yes, I've been on vacation.
Yes, Canada was wonderful.
No, I did not try poutine.

Odds & Ends

2010-07-20T17:22:00.000-07:00

Tourists began coming to the Oregon Coast because it provided a refuge from the heat. But with this week's day-time temperatures in the mid-50s, I've had just about all the refuge I can stand.

How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth says flat-out that no Bible is based on worse manuscripts than the New King James Version -- in fact, it's so bad that nobody (cough) should ever use it (cough) for a study Bible.

Yes, we should ordain women . . . but while we're at it, let's see some more women college presidents. And academy principals. And Vice-Presidents for Education at the conference and union levels. These are all areas, after all, where we have lots of women working, but not enough women leading.

Lifehacker has an extremely thorough guide to moving -- something I don't need just now, but will bookmark for the day I do.

I'm puzzled by the Sabbath School lesson's insistence that "the righteousness of God" (Romans 3:21) is not the righteous nature of God, but the righteousness God gives the believer. Yes, Luther would agree -- but what about Wright?

And I'll close with this quote from Dale Dauten: "A meeting moves at the speed of the slowest person in the room."

Odds & Ends

2010-07-14T16:42:00.000-07:00

Beautiful weather here on the Oregon Coast -- sunny and clear -- but with temperatures in the mid-50s, you'll want to bring a sweatshirt when you visit.

The second biggest cause of headaches in the ministry: people who think the church is a gesellschaft, versus people who think it's a gemeinschaft.

Interesting article on the way iPhones are changing religion. (Can you say "distracted"?)

I'm preaching this week on I Samuel 12, i.e. Samuel's farewell speech. And no, he's not happy with the Israelites -- not happy at all . . . which leads to the topic of how we deal with people who disappoint us.

David Wilkinson's The Message of Creation: Encountering the Lord of the Universe does a nice job of pulling together the twenty Biblical texts that deal with this topic -- and no, it doesn't hurt that he's a Methodist minister with a background in astrophysics.

What I learned from this week's Sabbath School lesson: the easiest to make ourselves look good is to "dumb down" God's demands. I may be no good at loving my enemies, after all, but at least I don't eat cheese!

And I'll close with a quote from Sir Paul David Hewson: "Just because you have a past doesn't mean you can't have a future."

Odds & Ends

2010-07-06T15:33:00.000-07:00

You remember me saying the GC Session in Atlanta really needed some vuvuzelas? Well . . . who's laughing now?

We're having gorgeous weather here on the Oregon Coast, with blue skies and temperatures in the low 70s. (But there's a fog bank on the horizon, so I plan to enjoy it while I can.)

I'm preaching this week on I Samuel 10-11. Right now, I'm struck by the fact that Saul was called -- and his call was confirmed by both miracles and a public proclamation -- but he still needed to act on that call. (And yes, this is all tied in with this week's second reading of the report from our church's Nominating Committee.)

Alberto Angela's A Day in the Life of Ancient Rome is cheap, readable, and thorough; having read it, I now understand why Paul said some of the things he did in Romans 1. Be warned, however -- parts of it are definitely NSFW.

What should a pastor give for a wedding gift to church members when somebody else does the ceremony? (I used to give them a set of kitchen knives, but the factory-outlet store that sold them has closed.) Any thoughts?

Ask most church members what will happen to those who've never heard the name of Jesus, and they'll respond with something to the effect that "they'll be saved if they lived up to the light they had." It will be interesting to see how they reconcile that with this week's Sabbath School lesson; if there's one thing on which Paul insists, after all, it's that nobody lives up to the light they had.

I am fascinated by FlowingData's animated graphic about the growth of WalMart and Sam's Clubs in the USA. Has anyone ever tried something like this about baptisms?

And I'll close with this thought from William Goldman: "There is one crucial rule that must be followed in all creative meetings: Never speak first. At least at the start, your job is to shut up."

Odds & Ends

2010-06-22T15:39:00.000-07:00

From Mitchell & Webb comes this warning for all you church innovators out there: great ideas are useless without a context in which they can be used.

We've had three days of glorious weather here on the Oregon Coast. Unfortunately, this meant the local casino was able to celebrate its 15th anniversary with a fireworks display. My dog was not amused.

I'm fascinated by the Forbes map that lets you find out who moved where in 2008. My own Lincoln County, for instance, had 24 people move to Los Angeles County -- and 41 people move from LA County to here.

You know what they need at the General Conference session in Atlanta? Vuvuzelas. Just saying.

One thing I've learned from Carlo D'este's Warlord: A Life of Winston Churchill at War (1874-1945) -- great leaders are not always nice people. (And who would have guessed that Churchill always wore pink silk underwear?)

And I'll close with this quote from Bertholt Brecht (and no, I haven't yet figured out if it is a promise or a warning): "Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are."

Odds & Ends

2010-06-15T15:58:00.000-07:00

My eldest daughter spent a couple of months counting sea cucumbers in the Philippines; fortunately, she got back in time to graduate with a degree in biology from Walla Walla University.

It's been cool and rainy here on the Oregon Coast -- in fact, it's been one of the wettest years in history! And if that wasn't bad enough, the deer ate all my trillium. Stupid deer.

Two things I learned from Soul Searching: the religious and spiritual lives of American teenagers. First, the importance of parents in forming their children's beliefs. (Like the book said, "We'll get what we are.") Second, most children (and presumably, most adults) are what the book calls "Moral Therapeutic Deists" i.e. they believe God wants them to be good and God wants them to be happy -- but aside from that, God pretty much leaves them alone. (Oh yes, they also believe that bad people go to Hell. Salvation by grace, in other words, has been replaced with salvation by nice.)

Viz. this week's Sabbath School lesson: if you heal someone who's sick, then you're being merciful. But if you try to prevent someone from getting sick by asking them to make changes in their diet, then you're meddling. The first is thought to be good, while the second is thought to be bad . . . even though meddling would probably save more lives than mercy ever could.

Map lovers should check out Valpairaso University's on-line collection that tells you who believes what and where in the United States.Who would have guessed, for instance, there were so many Muslims in Oregon's Union County?

And I'll close with this quote from Martin Luther King Jr. -- and I should add this is one quote I never expect to hear at a graduation service: "Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted."

Marjorie Mae BrothersJuly 4, 1928 - April 14, 2010

2010-04-20T20:42:00.000-07:00

Even when she was a small child, Marjorie Mae Brothers wanted to be a teacher.

At the time, this must have seemed like an impossible dream. Marjorie was born in 1928, the second of John and Hattie Burch's four children. And even though her father was a mason skilled in brick and stone, the Great Depression made it hard for him to find work. There were times, as a matter of fact, when the only way the family survived was Hattie's job sewing sacks of sugar at the mill in Loveland, Colorado.

Yes, money was tight – too tight, it seemed, for someone like Marjorie to attend college and become a teacher.

But then she found out that all you needed to teach at that time in Kansas was a two-year degree . . . and with Marjorie working full-time in the college cafeteria, and her mother putting in a second-shift at the sugar mill, she was just able to get that degree in teaching from Southwestern Bible College in Waxahachie, Texas.

Other degrees would follow: a bachelor’s degree from Fort Hays State College, a master’s degree from Portland State University, and a doctorate in education, awarded jointly by Portland State University and the University of Oregon -- all gained in her ongoing efforts to become a better teacher.

In return, teaching gave her meaning . . . and purpose . . . and a family.

At her first teaching job, you see, she would be out on the playground with her children during recess, and the man who delivered milk to the school for the children’s lunches would whistle at her when he saw her. One day, this man asked her out on a date; his name was Robert J. Brothers. And just one month after their first date, the two of them were engaged to be married. This August, Robert and Marjorie would have celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary together.

Together, they would raise their children: Greg and Jana.

Together with those children, they went camping just about every place you could camp here in the West – everyplace from the Oregon Coast to Banff.

And when their children moved out and started lives of their own, then Robert and Marjorie traveled to places they’d always wanted to see – places such as Mexico and Norway and Greece.

Yes, it’s a long ways from Haddam to places such as these.

But the same God who gave Marjorie the dream of teaching . . . that God was with her all through her life.

Check back in May

2010-04-02T10:28:00.000-07:00

Sorry, but there won't be any posts this April; I'm going to be busy enough taking care of a family emergency.

Odds & Ends

2010-03-29T17:43:00.000-07:00

This is the time of year that gray whales migrate north past the Oregon Coast. The good news is that I finally took time to go look for them. The bad news is that the storms we'd had this past week meant they'd moved offshore a couple of miles . . . which made them very hard to see. Stupid whales.

Take a look at a Tufts University study on five pastors who are wildly out of sync with their church's beliefs, and tell me what you think.(What struck me is how isolated these pastors seem to be . . . which raises the question of just exactly where we can go with our doubts and questions.)

Something to consider the next time you preach on the parable of the talents -- the annual revenue of Herod Antipas from his tetrarchy was 200 talents; the annual revenue of Herod Agrippa I from all Palestine was 2,000 talents.

I'd avoided C. S. Lewis' Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer because I thought it nothing more than a collection of letters. As it turns out, the joke is on me -- the book is an "epistolary essay," i.e. like the Screwtape Letters, Lewis deals with a topic by giving us one side of an imaginary correspondence. And yes, it works . . . though I'm having a hard time figuring out just how necessary his Platonic views are to his apologetics.

And I'll close with this quote from Miroslav Volf: "To make a difference, one must be different."

This week's lesson: godliness

2010-03-25T17:25:00.000-07:00

It's a commonplace notion that our gods resemble us.

But it's worth pointing out the reverse is also true -- that as time goes by, we grow ever more like our gods.

Albert Schweitzer makes this first point in The Quest of the Historical Jesus -- the book in which he points out that most attempts to tell us what Jesus was really like usually end up telling us more about the author than the subject.

When a socialist writes about Jesus, for instance, he will tell us the Son of Man was a true friend of the working class.

But when a conservative writes about Jesus, it turns out the Son of God was a big fan of the free market.

And if I graduated from college believing that Jesus was a mild-mannered teacher with a strong interest in ethics . . . well, right there you can guess what most of my professors were like.

Yes, Schweitzer was right: we do create God in our own image.

And then He returns the favor.

Consider the impact of social networks -- those communities of like-minded people who are united by their love of Farscape, for instance, or their belief that Sarah Palin should be the next President of the United States.

Now if you don't share this point-of-view, then you probably won't join a group that does.

But if you join a group that does, then you're going to believe this point-of-view all the more.

That's one reason why groups of like-minded people tend to become even more extreme over time -- an effect called "group polarization."

So the left gets leftier . .

And the right gets rightier . . .

And since it's clear to one and all that God is on our side, that gives us all the more reason to . . .

Okay, I'm going to let you finish that sentence -- but for now, it's enough to point out two things:

You're not god.

So try not to follow a god who is.

Gone fishing

2010-03-23T16:40:00.000-07:00

It's spring break here on the Oregon Coast, so there won't be much in the way of posts this week.

This week's lesson: truth

2010-03-18T22:28:00.000-07:00

This week's lesson is about truth.

Honest.

And no, this doesn't mean your Sabbath School class needs to have a long, earnest discussion about how we know when we know what we know. Philosophers have spent the last hundred years hashing out the details of epistemology, remember -- and thus far, they haven't done much better than that old, old story about the blind men and the elephant.

Then too, I'd suggest you avoid the question of just how much "truth" someone needs to believe in order to be part of your particular group. In theory, this could be helpful -- but in practice, I've found that nothing makes people more set in their ways than a discussion of just how open-minded we should be.

Instead, you might want to point out that ἀληθείᾳ ("truth") can be more of an adjective than a noun -- in fact, it often used to describe someone who is honest, reliable, and trustworthy. When Paul said ἀληθείᾳ is a fruit of the Spirit, in other words, he didn't just mean Truth; he also meant truthfulness.

If a mechanic says your car will be fixed by Thursday, in other words -- and it actually does get fixed by Thursday -- then that's ἀληθείᾳ.

And if you have a witness on the stand who honestly, accurately, describes what she saw, then that's ἀληθείᾳ.

But if you have a church where people "talk the talk" but they don't "walk the walk," then the people in that particular church may have plenty of knowledge . . .

But they don't have ἀληθείᾳ.

And you can trust me on that.

Odds & Ends

2010-03-15T20:22:00.000-07:00

This past week we've had hail, wind, sunshine, rain, and regular warnings to stay off the beach because of the unusually high surf. Must be time for spring vacation.

Any suggestions on a nice place to spend a week? Thanks to our VISA card, we can get free plane tickets to any place in the contiguous United States . . . but we've no idea where to go! (And yes, whatever place you suggest does need to have a good used-book store.)

Parts of Walter Wangerin's Letters from the Land of Cancer are just a little too high falutin' for me . . . but parts are very good. Worth a look.

The average American walks 1.4 miles per week.

I'm not sure why the language of business has been so steadily infiltrating our church, but I've found the Ridiculous Business Jargon Dictionary to be helpful -- both in understanding what some denominational leaders are saying, and in making sure I never say anything similar.

And I'll close with this quote: "Maybe you can't make a new beginning to your life. But you can make a new ending."

This week's lesson: righteousness

2010-03-11T15:50:00.000-08:00

Look! Up in the sky!

It's a bird!

It's a plane!

No, it's the subject of this week's Sabbath School lesson!

To be sure, δικαιοσύνης ("righteousness") does not sound like the kind of word that belongs in a comic book. No, it's a "church" kind of word -- a word that summons images of people whose shirts are white, whose shoes are polished, and whose meals consist of tofu and tapwater.

Reason enough that Batman and Superman were never joined by "Righteousnessman."

But as the NIV Theological Dictionary of New Testament Words points out:

All the words in this group derive from dikê (justice, punishment). Dikê was the daughter of Zeus, who shared in his government of the world. . . . in order to make human life possible, he gave dikê, justice, whose implacable enemy is bia, violence.

The Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology adds that:

[Dikê] was the enemy of all falsehood, and the protectress of a wise administration of justice. . . . [She] appears as a divinity who severely punishes all wrong, watches over the maintenance of justice, and pierces the hearts of the unjust with the sword made for her by Aesa.

Kind of like Wonder Woman, only without the Lasso of Truth.

Now obviously, the concept of δικαιοσύνης is going to develop and change before it finds a home in our Bible -- but even there, it is more active, more public, and much more concerned with the state of our society than we usually give it credit for.

In short, the superheroes' "Justice League" was a league of δικαιοσύνης.

And this week's lesson tells us δικαιοσύνης is also something that God's people should encourage.

Even if we don't wear a cape.

Odds & Ends

2010-03-08T15:27:00.000-08:00

I've been known to mutter that people who buy Apple Computers have joined a religious cult. "You buy a Mac," I'd say, "and the next thing you know, they have you out on a street corner selling carnations." These remarks were grossly unfair and unkind, of course . . . so as a gesture of peace, I am running a video about Apple computers from the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theater.

We had gorgeous weather on Sabbath -- but a cold-front blew through on Saturday night, and took away all our warmth.

I didn't think you could say anything new about the Parable of the Prodigal Son, but Barbara Taylor Brown has done so in a terrific sermon -- one so good I will need to be very, very careful not to "borrow" so much that I end up guilty of plagiarism.

On average, American adults in 1820 drank one cup of whiskey every day -- roughly five times today's consumption. (Now you know why the Temperance movement got started!)

Short, but thorough. Respectful, but honest. Covers the basics, but has something new on every page. In short, I'm enjoying Brian Sibley's C. S. Lewis Through the Shadowlands: the story of his life with Joy Davidman.

My schedule has changed enough that I won't be able to post anything on Sundays for some time to come. So . . . expect a post of "odds and ends" on Mondays, and a reflection on the Sabbath School lesson every Thursday.

And I'll close with this quote: "Just because you can't do anything doesn't mean you're doing the wrong thing."

This week's lesson: self-control

2010-03-04T17:20:00.000-08:00

Anyone who talks about "getting in touch with your inner child" should try teaching high school.

I do.

To be sure, high school students are wonderful people -- but as any neurologist could tell you, their brains are still getting wired for concepts such as "doing this could put me in a world of hurt." Now add surging hormones (not to mention their almost perennial lack of sleep) . . .

And the results can be kind of like driving a Toyota, i.e. lots of accelerator, but not much in the way of brakes.

Never mind graduation, in other words -- simply keeping them alive is a matter of replacing the external controls of childhood with the internal controls of adulthood; it's teaching them that urge to "go for it!" may not always be a good idea.

In short, they already have passion; what they need now is something that will let them use that passion (instead of the passion using them). Yes, they need something the Greeks called ἐγκράτεια, or "self-control."

And no, there's nothing wrong with being spontaneous and passionate and hopelessly idealistic -- in fact, these are the things that make high school students so much fun to teach.

But if you're going to "get in touch with your inner child," then trust me:

That's when you need to make sure there's an adult around.

"Pastor, I'm wondering if we could get together and talk . . . "

2010-03-02T19:46:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it's a phone call; sometimes, it happens while I'm shaking hands after church . . .

But always, it's a church member asking that we get together and talk. Something has come up, in other words -- something heavy that requires my advice.

And I'm always glad to help -- but 90-percent of the time, they don't need to make an appointment. No, I can usually deal with it right then and there.

If I'm on the phone, I'll say something like, "I'd be glad to get together and talk; why don't you give me some idea of what's going on, so that I can be thinking about it."

And if it's after church, I'll say something like, "Well, I should be finished shaking hands in about five minutes or so -- if you're willing to wait here with me, we can talk about it then." (You'll notice, by the way, that I don't usually ask them to wait in my office; that's because I've found they tend to disappear before they get there. Instead, we usually end up talking on the front steps of our church.)

Now if turns out they need to make an appointment, then well and good.

But most of the time, as I said, I can get them the help they need, right then and there, in five-minutes or less.

(And next Tuesday, I'll talk about what to do when a stranger calls and asks for an appointment.)

Odds & Ends

2010-02-28T15:10:00.000-08:00

It's raining . . . now the sun has come out . . . now it's raining again. Oh well -- at least our camelias are in bloom.

Fox Conner's Three Rules of War for a Democracy are also pretty good advice for a pastor: 1) Never fight unless you have to. 2) Never fight alone. 3) Never fight for a long time.

I'm enjoying Jeffrey Burton Russell's A History of Heaven: the Singing Silence. As the title indicates, it's a history of Christian views on heaven, from the New Testament through the Middle Ages. One surprise: Christians have always wondered if we'll recognize others there -- and will we remember our sins?

When it comes to small groups and house churches, keep in mind that "flexible" easily morphs into "unstable." Just saying.

Looking for something to do? Go to Charity Navigator, and look up the salaries of people who work for non-profit agencies.

And I'll close with this quote: "The best of all prayers is: 'Bless them; change me.' "

This week's lesson: meekness

2010-02-25T20:09:00.000-08:00

"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."

Okay -- been there, done that.

It's worth remembering that some of this past century's nastiest governments did not come crashing down through violent means. No, it was not nuclear war that ended the Soviet Union; it was not guerrilla war that ended apartheid in South Africa. Instead, it the stubborn decency of million that brought down these regimes -- and others besides.

Think of "People Power" in the Philippines.

The Civil Rights movement in this country.

Mohandas Gandhi in India.

Or the "Bulldozer Revolution" in Serbia, the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine, the "Cedar Revolution" in Lebanon, the "Rose Revolution" in Georgia . . .

Well, you get the idea.

In short, the "meek" have been pretty busy lately -- busy enough to dispel any idea that "meekness" is a synonym for "weakness." No, as The NIV Theological Dictionary of New Testament Words points out:

In Classical Greek, praus [meekness] means friendly, mild, gentle. . . . Words of the praus group are used of things (e.g., mild words, soothing medicines), animals (tame), and people (benevolent). It is a quality shown by friends, while stern harshness may be expected from an enemy. . . .

[Both praus and its synonym, epiekes] are opposed to unbridled anger, harshness, brutality, and self-expression. They represent character traits of the noble-minded, the wise who remain meek in the face of insults, the judge who is lenient in judgment, and the king who is kind in his rule. Hence these words appear often in pictures of the ideal ruler and in eulogies on men in high positions.

In a world full of harsh and violent people, in other words, it is only the strong who dare to be meek.

To be sure, they've not inherited the earth -- not yet. And if the past is any guide, then the "powers that be" won't give let them have it without a fight.

But the meek can afford to be patient . . .

Because history is on their side.

Dare to Putter

2010-02-23T15:49:00.000-08:00

The last few months have been busy. Crazy busy. Oh-my-goodness-why-did-I-ever-say-I'd-do-this? busy.

Which can be kind of fun. Not only did it mean I got a lot of stuff done, but it gave me bragging rights with other pastors. (And have you ever noticed how often we try to justify our existence by carefully explaining just how busy we've been lately?)

But not this week. No, this week I can breathe in. Relax. Putter around the office. Read that stack of magazine articles that have been accumulating by my desk. And avoid that nagging feeling there's something important I really should be doing right now.

Because what I'm doing right now is important -- in fact, it's a process I compare to gardening.

For the last few months, you see, I've been planting, growing, harvesting; yes, it's been go, go, go, do, do, do, and rush, rush, rush.

Nothing wrong with that.

But now it's time to sharpen tools. Look through seed catalogs. Turn over the compost heap. And do all the other things that help me plan-without-planning for that next busy time.

In short, the work of Creation will go on.

But as for now, I'm enjoying a Sabbath.

Odds & Ends

2010-02-21T19:40:00.000-08:00

We have daffodils! On the Oregon Coast! In bloom!

Somebody once pointed out to me that the American (and Canadian) West is an "island civilization," i.e. most of its people live in urban "islands," separated by miles and miles of nothing much. For a good explanation of that thesis, check out Carl Abbott's How Cities Won the West: Four Centuries of Urban Change in Western North America.

21% of Americans surveyed believe the lottery is a good way to save for retirement.

The good news: it turns out that pastors can apply for as much as three months in family leave if they need time-off to take care of a spouse, child, or parent. The bad news: once your vacation-time runs out, you don't get paid for it (and it doesn't count as sick-leave). The good news: you still have coverage for health insurance. (Talk with your conference's HR director for details.)

Want to make big bucks as a blogger, but you don't know how to attract readers? The Boston Globe tells you how to write an incendiary blog post.

In 1908, the average American washed their hair once a month. The average in 2009 was 4.59 times per week.

And I'll close with this quote from Paul Koptak: "You can tell who you will be in five years by looking at the people with whom you spend time now."

This week's lesson: faithfulness

2010-02-18T17:44:00.000-08:00

Begin.

A sower went forth to sow . . .

Stop. Given current demographics, farming is no longer a useful source of metaphors. Try again.

He walked into the classroom and sat down, just in time to catch the shy smile of the woman sitting next to him. He could have said something. He could have introduced himself. He could have invited her to grab a cup of coffee with him after class -- and there, they would have discovered . . .

What?

We'll never know. Instead, he put his head down on his desk, and fell asleep.

Unsatisfactory. Try again.

Sitting there with a cup of coffee, he looked at her and realized, "This is it. This is the real thing. This is the kind of love that makes poets write, musicians sing, and movie producers try to sign somebody like Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts ('only younger') for the starring roles."

And then?

Well, the next two weeks were pretty intense -- but then they got tired of each other, and moved on.

Unsatisfactory. Try again.

They dated. They got married. They had kids, bought a house, worked hard . . . and then one day, they looked at each other and realized . . .

Please tell me this has a happy ending.

No. They looked at each other and realized . . . that somehow, over the years, they'd grown apart from each other -- and now they didn't love each other anymore.

Unsatisfactory. Try again.

They looked at each other and realized . . . they'd had their good times. They had their bad times. But through the years, their faithfulness to each other had been the soil in which their love had grown.

And great was the fruit of that love -- Amen..

2010-02-16T14:38:00.000-08:00

Okay, just so you know where I was last weekend -- here's a picture of my church's Sabbath afternoon hike to the Stein's Pillars near Prineville, Oregon. (This was part of our church's annual ski trip to Mt. Bachelor.)

And yes, I'm wearing ear-muffs.

This week's lesson: goodness

2010-02-11T16:37:00.000-08:00

Is it good to be excellent?

When the Greeks talked about "goodness" or agathos, after all, they meant more than just moral worth. No, they used the word to describe anything done well.

When everybody went back for seconds at a church potluck, for instance, then you could say the food was agathos.

Or when your child graduates from high school with a full-ride scholarship to a competitive college, then you could say their education had been agathos.

And when the person giving special music in church finds a way to move you, enlighten you, and help you see God's grace in a whole new way . . .

Then some might say that was unusual.

But all would agree it was agathos.

So when Ephesians 2:10 says "we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do," then it suggests we are called to do more than just slop through life with the attitude that "anything is good enough for God."

No, there is a call here for agathos in everything we do -- in our potlucks, in our schools . . . and yes, even in our worship services.

To be sure, God doesn't need our agathos to make Him look good.

But I'm not sure our lack of agathos makes Him look any better.

Just say "yes"

2010-02-09T16:07:00.000-08:00

Something to remember in these uncertain times:

If your Conference "suggests" it's time for you to move . . .

But the district to which they tell you to move is the worst possible match you can imagine -- the kind of place that make you wonder what were they thinking when they decided to move you there . . .

Then you first words that should come out of your mouth are, "I'm always happy to go wherever the Conference sends me."

Here's why: at least twice I've seen church employees offered this kind of call -- the kind where you can't blame them for turning it down.

So they turned it down.

And then they were laid off.

And when they asked about a severance package, they were told, "I'm sorry, but you were offered another job . . . and when you turned it down, that meant we could eliminate your job without any need to pay you all of that other stuff."

So . . . make it clear that any place the Conference wants to move you is just fine and dandy -- in fact, it's downright peachy.

Mind you, there are a few questions you have . . . and you'd like to work through a few details before the actual move takes place . . . and you may even want to explore the thinking behind this move . . .

But would you actually turn down a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity such as this?

Certainly not!

Odds & Ends

2010-02-07T17:47:00.000-08:00

Blue skies and temperatures in the low 50s -- with any luck, this is the start of that week or so of good weather we usually get this time of year, i.e. "The Thaw."

By the power vested in me as the author of this blog, I declare February to be "Super Simple Month." As defined by unclutterer, this means no new projects, no big events, no major purchases -- just stay home, hunker down, and catch up. (h/t to Lifehacker)

The Scots drink more alcohol than anyone else in the world -- and as the New York Times notes, the effects are only worse when they add caffeine to the mix.

If you were to pick one book that every Adventist pastor should read this year so that we could get together and talk about it at Campmeeting, then what would it be?

I finally broke down and bought the SDA Bible Commentary on CD -- and yes, I spent the extra $20 to get the complete writings of Ellen White as well. And while I agree that nothing will ever replace real books, I must admit I'm using the CD version more than I ever did the hardbacks.

According to the Boston Globe, three things make it easy to believe something is true: repetition, clarity, and simplicity. (What does this suggest about preaching?)

Jerome Groopman adds that three things lead to doctors [and pastors?] missing a diagnosis: anchoring, availability, and attribution. (Okay, that was neither simple nor clear -- but the article is worth reading, anyway.)

And I'll close with this quote from John Malin: "The secret of a long life is to contract an incurable disease at an early age, and then look after oneself."

This week's lesson: kindness

2010-02-04T15:25:00.000-08:00

"If only I had known."

We've all said it, of course -- usually after we gave somebody exactly what they deserved for being such a jerk.

But then we discovered (too late!) they'd just lost their job . . . or their father had just died . . . or they'd just found out they have Lou Gehrig's disease.

In short, there was a reason why they were acting like a jerk.

That's why I try to remind myself just how much I don't know about rude and obnoxious people -- how much I don't know that might explain their behavior.

Did they just get bad news?

Are they off their meds?

Is their behavior caused by Alzheimer's, a brain tumor, or some other medical problem?

And no, this doesn't excuse what they do; neither does it necessarily mean I let them "get away with it."

But it does help me keep their behavior in perspective, and not take it quite so personally.

Chances are good, after all, that even the person who's being a jerk doesn't know why . . .

But if they had known why, then maybe they would not have been such a jerk!

There's so much we don't understand, after all -- and so much we all would have done differently . . .

If only we had known.

More Odds & Ends

2010-02-02T16:18:00.000-08:00

We've had both sunshine and rain this past week -- and the weather's been about the same.

Can't remember who pointed me toward Ten Psychological Studies From 2009 Worth Knowing About, but I'm forever grateful. (Though I've long suspected the truth of #10, i.e. arguing with your spouse is bad for your health.)

It's easier to fire teachers than pastors -- but thanks to local subsidies and lower salaries, my back-of-the-envelope figures suggest you need to fire three teachers to equal the savings of firing one pastor. So . . . if a Conference needs to cut staff (and if it has already fired all the obvious people), then how should it divide the cuts between teachers and pastors?

I believe that some of the best books being written about the costs of following God in a fallen world are the novels of John le Carre. Case in point: A Most Wanted Man.

Anytime people tell me they love God but they don't like organized religion, I just steal a line from Sneakers and say, "Actually, it's not that organized."

Terrific article about grief by Meghan O'Rourke in The New Yorker. Bottom line: forget closure -- and forget those neat little "stages" of denial, anger, bargaining, et cetera. No, grief is messy, complicated, and open-ended -- but fortunately, most of us are pretty good at dealing with it.

And I'll close with this quote from John Wooden: "Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."

Odds & Ends

2010-01-31T18:39:00.000-08:00

This week's project:

1. Watch this video explain the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich August von Hayek.

2. Prepare a similar video that compares and contrasts the two sides of a theological controversy. Examples could include:

Calvinism vs. Arminianism.

A forensic view of the atonement vs. the Moral Influence Theory.

Creationism vs. Theistic Evolution.

3. Post, and await the applause.

(h/t to Brainiac)

This week's lesson: patience

2010-01-28T17:30:00.000-08:00

Over the years, few things have tried the patience of the saints more than the patience of God.

Don't believe me?

Think of Revelation 6:9f.

When [Jesus] opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, "How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?"

Or Psalm 74:10f.

How long will the enemy mock you, O God?
Will the foe revile your name forever?
Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand?
Take it from the folds of your garment and destroy them!

Then there's the complaint of Habakkuk 1:2-4.

How long, O LORD, must I call for help,
       but you do not listen?
       Or cry out to you, "Violence!"
       but you do not save?
Why do you make me look at injustice?
       Why do you tolerate wrong?
       Destruction and violence are before me;
       there is strife, and conflict abounds.
Therefore the law is paralyzed,
       and justice never prevails.
       The wicked hem in the righteous,
       so that justice is perverted.

And who can forget that final fit of pique in Jonah 3:10-4:3?

When God saw what [the people of Ninevah] did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.

But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. He prayed to the LORD, "O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, O LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live."

No, if we were running things, then judgment would be swift, sure, and automatic . . .

For other people.

Instead, we see God treating their sins with the same forbearance and compassion that He treats our own.

Needless to say, this really annoys us -- yet as we're reminded in II Peter 3:9 --

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

In short, God is patient with us.

That's why we need to be patient with God.

Odds & Ends

2010-01-24T17:20:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, the sun was shining. Today, it's raining -- but our newly-remodeled public library is now open, so that's okay.

I may be wrong, but it looks as though we're going to make it through the Great Recession without any major changes in the structure of the Adventist church or the way it allocates funds. Is this a bullet dodged, or a crisis wasted?

Among other things, the Pew Forum reports that 10% of all American atheists pray at least once a week. (h/t to GetReligion)

Important article in the New York Times about "The 3 Facebook Settings Every User Should Check Right Now." (Go ahead -- I'll wait.)

Looking for up-to-the-minute information on Haiti? Try this site. (h/t to Tom Ricks.)

Good news for goats: this December, church members gave $630 to my "Pastor's Goat Fund" -- add $20, and this was enough to buy ten goats for ADRA's work in Niger!

Just another reason to visit Walla Walla: it is the home of El Manotas -- a "lowrider" M1 Abrams tank. (h/t to Danger Room.)

If there's no post on Tuesday, then you'll know my trip to the dentist took longer than expected.

And I'll close with Matz's Maxim: "A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking."

This week's lesson: peace

2010-01-21T17:51:00.000-08:00

When it comes to church, there are few things that cause more trouble than our desire for peace.

We don't like trouble, after all. And we hate it when people argue with each other. No, that's not something that Christians are supposed to do!

So when somebody comes up with something that might upset the status quo, we hesitate. We wait to see who might object. We strive for consensus -- and lacking that, we give way to anyone who is willing to make a fuss.

The result is a church in which change is difficult, risk is shunned, and whatever conflict takes place is covert. Secret. Behind the scenes . . .

Until people decide that "enough is enough" -- and when that happens, then the gloves come off. A "holy war" is declared. And an issue that might have been settled with 25 minutes of heated discussion turns into our own, local version of Armageddon.

Not that this ever happens at my church, of course!

But I've found it helpful to remember that peace not the same as an absence of conflict. No, it is living life the way God wants it to be lived -- and sometimes, that means we need to work through some of the things that keep this from happening.

Just because we're not fighting, in other words, doesn't mean we're at peace.

And just because we are fighting, that doesn't mean we don't love each other.

Gray whales

2010-01-19T14:39:00.000-08:00

Looks like I missed the gray whales.

Again.

Every year, they migrate south from the Gulf of Alaska down to Mexico -- and every Christmas, tourists come from hundreds of miles to the Oregon coast, where they can watch the whales swim by. It is a beautiful, magnificent sight . . .

Or so I am told -- but even though I live less than half a mile from the beach, I've never bothered to go look for myself. It's not that I have anything against the whales. One of these days, as a matter of fact, I fully intend to take a look.

But as the New York Times pointed out in a recent article, the world is full of wonderful things that we never quite get around to doing.

Because we're busy.

And we're sure that we'll have more time to enjoy them tomorrow. Or the day after. Or someday . . . soon. Really. We promise.

But if there's one thing I've learned from twelve years of not watching whales, it's that God's blessings can pass right on by unless we take time to notice and enjoy them.

Yes, this is the day the Lord has made.

Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Today.

Odds & Ends

2010-01-17T19:15:00.000-08:00

"It was Sunday, and it was raining, and it was Oregon" -- John Steinbeck's Travels With Charley.

For the past month, I've given my Bible commentaries a rest -- I just read the text, spend the week thinking about it, and write my sermon on Friday. I wouldn't do this all the time (or with every text), but thus far, it's been a nice change.

If we all ignored Pat Robertson, then maybe he would go away?

The New Republic magazine has always been famous for its book reviews; I'm enjoying the way it has expanded this section online with The Book.

No, I haven't seen Avatar; I did not see Titanic either. And I'm not watching either movie until James Cameron apologizes for the way he ended The Abyss.

Kenneth Bailey's Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels is a kind of midrash on several gospel stories from an Arab Christian perspective. I wouldn't treat everything it says as gospel (ha!), but it does bring a new perspective to familiar passages.

My wife and I spent the first part of this week in Astoria, watching ships sail up the Columbia River. Best place for conversation: The Astoria Coffeehouse.

The New York Times notes that "Pastors in Northwest Find Focus in 'Green.'" Well . . . maybe. But I'm not sure if we're adding anything to the conversation, or simply trying to catch up.

And I'll close with this quote from George Burns: "I'd rather be a failure at something I enjoy than be a success at something I hate."

This week's lesson: joy

2010-01-14T10:53:00.000-08:00

Evening
by G. K. Chesterton

Here dies another day
During which I have had eyes, ears, hands
And the great world round me;
And with tomorrow begins another,
Why am I allowed two?

Odds & Ends

2010-01-10T10:38:00.000-08:00

Here on the Oregon Coast, the skies may be gray but it's stopped raining, and the forecast calls for temperatures in the mid-50s!

Step one: watch Saturday Morning Science Experiments: Science Party Tricks. Step two: adapt for children's story in church. Step three: repeat as needed. (h/t to boingboing)

The emergent church is dead, Willow Creek is rethinking, and Rick Warren has stopped wearing Hawaiian shirts. As a result, I'm fast running out of places where I can go to steal ideas!

Did I mention we're expecting temperatures in the mid-50s today?

Solid writing, careful attention to the text, helpful applications -- don't tell anybody, but I'm actually enjoying this year's devotional, Snapshots of God, by Richard Coffen.

Take the number of active church members you have, and divide it by fifty -- if my experience is any guide, that's roughly the number of funerals you can expect in a year.

Sure feel sorry for all those people at the Seminary who won't be enjoying temperatures in the mid-50s today!

We've been doing Exodus in the Bible class I teach; our final exam was to compare the text's picture of Moses with the one in Prince of Egypt. Bottom line: todays' consumers want a young, emo Moses with a sassy-but-beautiful sidekick. Coming up next: the story of Samson gets a happy ending!

Don't expect a post on Tuesday -- I'll be celebrating the 273rd-birthday of John Hancock.

And yes, it's so much easier to celebrate these things when you're enjoying temperatures in the mid-50s on the Oregon Coast.

And I'll close with this quote from Colin Powell: "You can't make someone else's choices. You shouldn't let someone else make yours."

This week's lesson: love

2010-01-07T15:59:00.000-08:00

All you need is love . . .

Unless, of course, you're part of your church's Student Assistance Committee . . .

And you're discussing a request for financial aid from parents who think the church should pay their child's tuition so that they can continue to afford their time-share in Cancun . . .

And if you don't approve their request, then they've stated they will pull their child out of school and stop attending church because you're all a bunch of meanies . . .

And did I mention that the child's grandfather is also the head elder of your church?

In short, love is patient and kind -- but sometimes, it is also perplexing. And figuring out just exactly what is the loving thing to do is not always easy. What's more, saying and doing the loving thing is not always going to be popular . . .

Especially if there's money involved.

Or children.

Or money and children..

That's why love is essential, but it is not enough. No, it requires wisdom. It requires tact. And sometimes, it requires that you confront people who can't understand why you won't let them go on hurting themselves and others.

If we only needed to love our friends, after all, then philos would be enough.

And if we only needed to love the people whom it is easy to love, then eros would be enough.

But if we want to love all kinds of people -- and if we want to love them the way God loves them . . .

Then it's going to take more than just love.

No, it will take everything we have.

Taming the Web

2010-01-05T18:24:00.000-08:00

The internet is a wonderful thing -- but it's also one of the biggest time-suckers in my life. Here's what I've done to keep things from getting completely out of hand.

Track use

Google lets you keep a detailed history of your time on the web . . . which comes in handy when you're trying to figure out why you didn't get anything done last Friday, and at least part of the reason is that you checked 172 web-sites after lunch. And just to keep me honest, I've asked my wife to check this on a weekly basis.

Time use

I keep a stopwatch by my computer. When I'm on the web, I start it. When I'm off the web, I stop it. At the end of the day, I clear it. And no, I don't do this in an effort to limit my time -- I tried that, and it didn't work. But just knowing how the time adds up does help me to control it.

Interrupt Use

I also keep a kitchen-timer by my computer --one that's preset to go off in ten minutes. When I go on the web, I start it. When it beeps, I reset it and keep working until it beeps again in ten minutes . . . at which point I usually say, "Okay, that's enough."

Schedule use

It's tempting to check favorite websites every 15-minutes or so, just to see if there's been an update. To avoid this, I've set up a "Daily Reading" folder for bookmarks to the sites I check daily (viz. The New York Times or Facebook), and a "Weekend Reading" folder for bookmarks to the sites I check Sunday mornings (viz. Lifehacker or Cool Tools). And yes, I suppose that I could still check those sites every 15-minutes if I wanted to . . . but just opening the folder is usually all it takes to make me pause and say, "not today."

Odds & Ends

2010-01-03T13:50:00.000-08:00

Gray skies, but it's stopped raining and the temperature has warmed up to 53-degrees. (That's an answer to prayer for all the students driving back to Walla Walla today!)

It never fails that, each and every Sunday morning, I feel like quitting the ministry and getting a job bagging groceries at Safeway. Fortunately, the feeling passes . . . which is just another reason why I try not to make any big decisions on a weekend.

Janet Soskice's The Sisters of Sinai: How Two Lady Adventurers Discovered the Hidden Gospels is a joy and a thing of beauty forever. (It has also given me a new respect for the Victorian Era -- those people were tough!)

There's good news and bad news in Barbara Stauch's article in The New York Times on "How to Train the Aging Brain." On the one hand, we're not as good as we used to be when it comes to remembering details. Then again, we get better at detecting the Big Picture.

And I'll close with this quote from Stauch's article -- one that strikes me as offering some very good advice to preachers:

Jack Mezirow, a professor emeritus at Columbia Teachers College, has proposed that adults learn best if presented with what he calls a “disorienting dilemma,” or something that “helps you critically reflect on the assumptions you’ve acquired.”

Dr. Mezirow developed this concept 30 years ago after he studied women who had gone back to school. The women took this bold step only after having many conversations that helped them “challenge their own ingrained perceptions of that time when women could not do what men could do.”

Such new discovery, Dr. Mezirow says, is the “essential thing in adult learning.”

“As adults we have all those brain pathways built up, and we need to look at our insights critically,” he says. “This is the best way for adults to learn. And if we do it, we can remain sharp.”

Preaching as a "disorienting dilemma" -- I like that!

This week's lesson: Fruits of the Spirit

2009-12-31T15:59:00.000-08:00

Every church is an experiment.

Most Christians agree that we should love God, after all -- and what's more, we'd agree that we should love His people too.

So far, so good.

But when it comes to the how of this love (not to mention the who, what, when, where, and why) . . . well, there's all kinds of ideas out there.

As a result, even the small town where I live has several dozen churches, fellowships, centers, and communities-of-faith -- all of which believe they've found the best way to produce the kind of love we all want.

Some are structured, and some are not.
Some are traditional, and some are not.
Some draw their authority from the Bible, while others take their cue from last Sunday's editorial in The New York Times.

No, you name it and there's a church that's done it -- and as a result, it's easy enough to check out the results of just about any idea or practice that might come along.

Want to know what happens, for instance, when you treat the pastor as the Final Authority on Everything? Or when your statement-of-beliefs consists of little more than "Follow your bliss"? Or when you think it would be unkind, unloving, and positively unChristian to do background checks on the people who work with children?

No, you don't need to guess the answer to any of these questions -- not when there's a church nearby that's been there, done that, and has plenty of leftover T-shirts to give away.

In short, churches are like gardens -- and while they may disagree on everything else, they all see the need for a crop.

And if you check out their "fruits" . . .

Then you just might figure out a better way to grow them yourself!

Visit to Portland

2009-12-29T18:15:00.000-08:00

I grew up in Portland, Oregon -- but every time I come back for a visit, I feel more and more like a stranger.

Burgerville now has a vegan option.

MAX now runs to the Clackamas Town Center.

And when I discovered the Fred Meyer's store at Hawthorne now has a sushi bar, I suddenly felt very, very old.

But then Portland got a half-inch of snow, and the drivers here responded in their time-honored way of going absolutely bananas on the freeway, and I realized that nothing important had changed, after all.

Yes, you can go home again . . .

Just so long as you don't drive faster than five miles-an-hour.

Odds & Ends

2009-12-27T14:50:00.000-08:00

We had awesome weather for Christmas -- blue skies, no breeze, temperatures in the mid-30s -- but now we're back to the usual murk.

Nice article in The Weekly Standard about George Frideric Handel -- as it turns out, he lived long enough to write The Messiah only because of a button.

Reading Deuteronomy, I'm increasingly puzzled by herem, i.e. the command to utterly and completely destroy Israel's enemies. The standard explanation is that "God had to meet the people where they were" -- yet the herem made no sense to them either! (NB how many times Moses, Joshua, or Samuel had to deal with someone who'd disobeyed by not destroying their enemies.) So what's going on here . . . and more to the point, how do you preach these passages?

Have you read LaVonne Neff's blog, Lively Dust? Most amazing!

The Network Advertising Initiative lets you opt-out of the data-mining that's being done on you and your use of the Web -- and even if you like the idea of somebody keeping track so they can figure out how to sell you more stuff, it's still a good idea to check out this site.

I know we're supposed to fuss about the commercialization of Christmas -- but if you turn off the TV and stay out of the malls, then it's really not all that bad.

theCheckoutLine offers advice for the terminally ill, as well as those who are living with them. I don't like its non-judgmental stance viz. physician-assisted suicide -- mainly because I think it's wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong -- but most of the other counsel it offers is pretty good.

And I'll close with this quote for the New Year: "You can't turn back the clock -- but you can rewind it."

This week's lesson: Numbers 35-36Talk Radio -- 1405 B.C.

2009-12-24T13:38:00.000-08:00

Okay, I'm taking calls about this new government program called "cities of refuge." Coddling criminals, or unfunded mandate -- you tell me.

Yeah, I'm wondering what this is going to do to the whole idea of "closure?" I mean, somebody dies, the go'el tracks down the killer, and that's the end of it. But with this new system, the family needs to wait until there's been a trial . . .

Good point -- what about the rights of the victim's family? Next caller, you're on the air:

I live in one of those so-called "cities of refuge," and the thought of all this "riff-raff" hanging around for who knows how long does not make me a happy-camper.

Not going to be good for your property values, I can tell you that. Next caller:

Hello?

Yes, you're on the air.

I think you need to put this in some kind of perspective. Just because somebody's dead doesn't mean that somebody else needs to die. What if it was an accident?

Oh, yeah -- right . . . like no killer ever says "it was an accident."

Yes, but sometimes it is an accident.

The real question here is who you trust to make these kind of decisions: the people who were there, or a bunch of strangers on some government "death panel" who don't know any of these people. Next caller:

I think we need to look at the real agenda here. We're talking about a government program that's a direct attack on traditional family values.

You're talking about an attack on the role of the go'el.

Exactly -- and once you start putting limits on who he can kill, that's just the beginning.

We're looking at the government getting involved in something that has always been a private family matter.

I'm saying we're just opening the door to government control of the family.

Faceless bureaucrats deciding who lives -- and who dies. Hello, you're on the air:

You know what really gripes me about these "death panels" is the guy behind it.

You're talking about Moses.

Yeah, and you know what he did when he was younger.

You're talking about the reason he left Egypt in the first place.

Right -- and didn't he always say that was an accident?

Good point, good point -- though I don't think we ever saw the death certificate on that one. Okay, we'll be right back after this break. Coming up next: The Year of Jubilee -- socialist plot, or just another unrealistic government intrusion into the rights of property owners?

Buy this book! (Better yet, buy me this book!)

2009-12-22T13:21:00.000-08:00

This just in: Connie Willis (whose To Say Nothing of the Dog is not only the greatest science-fiction novel ever written, but also a profound meditation on the nature of Providence) has an interview in Publisher's Weekly about her new novel, Blackout.

Stocking Stuffers

2009-12-22T11:09:00.000-08:00

Yes, I'm on Facebook. Yes, I'd be happy to be your friend. No, I don't want to help you build a dungeon in Merlin's Castle.

The Great Recession is causing some changes here in the Oregon Conference: they're talking about a 5% cut in pay for pastors and teachers, and maybe even no campmeeting . . . but no, I'm not seeing anything that looks like The End of Life as We Know It, or even The Beginning of Something New. Question: what kind of changes are you seeing in your Conference because of the economy -- and what kind of changes would you like to see?.

Just in case you decided to preach this year's Christmas sermon on December 26 -- no doubt you've read the news article that proclaims "first Jesus-era house located in Nazareth." And if you click on the "preview" page of Bible Study Magazine, you can read a pretty nifty article about the archaeological background to "Away in a Manger." (h/t to Monte Sahlin.)

And as I usually do this time of year, I'll close with this quote from the journal of Captain William Clark. Writing from Fort Clatsop on Christmas Day in 1805, he said:

at day light morning we we[re] awoke by the discharge of the fire arm of all our party & a Selute, Shoute and a Song which the whole party joined in under our windows, after which they retired to their rooms were Chearfull all the morning -- after breakfast we divided our Tobacco which amounted to 12 carrots one half of which we gave to the men of the party who used tobacco, and to those who doe not use it we make a present of a handkerchief. The Indians leave us in the evening all the party Snugly fixed in their huts.
I received a present of Capt. L. a fleece hosrie Shirt Draws and Socks,
a pr. mockersons of Whitehouse,
a Small Indian basket of Gutherich,
two dozen white weazils tails of the Indian woman [Sacagawea],
and some black root of the Indians before their departure . . .

And that is my Christmas wish for you -- that you may find time that day for "a Selute, [a] Shoute and a Song," and that you might end it "all Snugly fixed in [your] huts."

Merry Christmas!

Odds & Ends

2009-12-20T11:23:00.000-08:00

Looking back through my journal, I'm noticing that a typical day in April was 50-degrees and cloudy . . . a typical day in October was 50-degrees and cloudy . . . and today it's 50-degrees and cloudy.

Lifehacker's article on the "Top 10 Essential Items for your Wallet, Keychain, or Pocket" left me wondering what would be on your list of the "Top 10 Essential Physical Items that Every SDA Pastor Should Have." Conflict of the Ages series? NKJV Bible? Hand sanitizer?

Just a reminder to everyone out there whose blog is trying to reinvent, re-imagine, or possibly even reincarnate Adventist faith and practice: just because you're trying to be profound doesn't mean you should use the kind of obfuscating bafflegab they encourage in graduate school. I won't believe what you say, after all, if I can't understand what you say.

In the past, I've avoided Facebook, believing it to be one of the tools that will be used to round up humans when the aliens land in their giant turquoise saucers . . . but now the Oregon Conference tells me it will using Facebook to disseminate news of calls and such. So I'm wondering what I should know before I set up my own page. What should I be sure to do -- and what should I be sure I avoid?

So you're working on a religious liberty sermon, and you're looking for news updates on all the bad things that are happening to Christians? Try BosNewsLife.

Speaking of which . . . I'm beginning to believe that pastors who feel they need to speak out on political issues should be required to take the Intercollegiate Studies Institute's Civic Literacy Quiz. (The average American, for what it' worth, answered half the questions wrong.)

And I'll close with this quote from Wendell Berry: "To have given up illusory hope is not to be hopeless."

This week's lesson: Numbers 2-27

2009-12-17T17:00:00.000-08:00

In these chapters, Moses is doing what it takes to make his dreams come true. In fact, you can picture him with a clip-board, checking off the last few items that need to be done before his people will be able to enter the Promised Land.

Final report from the Census Bureau, complete with a survey of draft-age men? Check.

Preliminary report of the ad hoc Commission on the Distribution of Land? Check.

Public comments received and incorporated into the revised report of the ad hoc Commission on the Distribution of Land? Check.

Yes, all the tedious paperwork that makes administration so boring is complete; all the wearisome planning that makes it so necessary has been done.

Now just one task remains: finding somebody else to make it all happen.

All the while Moses was doing these things, remember, he did so knowing that somebody else would lead God's people into the Promised Land -- not him. No, he would die before this particular job was done . . .

Yet Moses kept on working. Kept on planning. Kept on following God -- and all this, even though Moses knew he would never live long enough to see his own, personal dreams come true.

Yes, even though he knew that he would never taste their fruit, Moses kept on planting trees.

Does this mean he was a failure?

No, it just means his dreams were too big for one lifetime.

How about yours?

Preaching Christmas

2009-12-15T12:25:00.000-08:00

Okay, so you've already been in your district for more than two years . . . and that means you've already preached Christmas sermons on Matthew 1:18-2:12 and Luke 2:1-20.

What are you going to do this year?

Six suggestions:

Isaiah 53 -- the humility of Christmas.

Daniel 7 -- the power of Christmas.

Matthew 1:1-17 -- the women in Christ's life

John 1:1-18 -- Christmas makes sense of the other 364 days of the year

Philippians 2:5-11 -- Christ's gift to us

Revelation 12 -- the danger of the manger

Odds & Ends

2009-12-13T10:20:00.000-08:00

Gray skies and damp -- but at least the temperature's moved above freezing. (This past week was cold!)

Nice column by Charles Blow on what he calls "America's Mr. Potato-head Spirituality," i.e. we just add on to our beliefs pretty much anything that catches our fancy: The Rapture, Reincarnation, Supply-Side Economics, whatever.

Two things I've learned from Roger Green & Walter Hooper's C. S. Lewis: A Biography. First, Lewis didn't care for devotional books -- he thought Brother Lawrence's Practicing the Presence of God was "unctuous." Second, he adored science-fiction, and thought Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End was "AN ABSOLUTE CORKER!"

Just like the headline says in the New York Times, "For Elderly in Rural Areas, Hard Times Get Harder." One thing the article got right: it's getting tougher for them to find a church that's still open. One thing it missed: it's getting harder for them to find medical care.

One of my newer church members startled me this Sabbath when he remarked how much he loves the Adult Sabbath School Quarterly. Given the amount of grumbling I do about some of our church's programs (such as the Quarterly), it's worth remembering that some people are still blessed by them.

And I'll close with a quote from Samuel Johnson, who died on this date in 1784. Having suffered the stroke that would eventually kill him, he wrote to a friend: "I will be conquered [by death]; I will not capitulate."

This week's lesson: Numbers 25, 31

2009-12-10T13:52:00.000-08:00

Let's set aside the questions raised by holy war, ethnic cleansing, and even the reported presence of 675,000 sheep in a smallish patch of semi-arid land . . .

Yes, set them aside for now, and ask yourself about the kind of people who thought the story in these chapters really needed to be told -- the kind of people who enjoyed hearing how the Israelites wiped out the people of Moab.

Were they blood-thirsty primitives?

Perhaps -- though I'm not sure an era which includes the Holocaust, the GULAG, and the firebombing of Dresden has much right to be throwing stones at others.

In fact, most of the people who've cherished this story were not victors but victims -- smallholders and shopkeepers who whispered it to their families as they waited for yet another knock on the door at night.

And there were always knocks on the door . . . from the Egyptians. From the Assyrians. From the Babylonians, and Persians, and Greeks, and Romans -- all of whom continually demanded that God's people hand over their money, their land, and their children.

Sometimes, the threat was annihilation.

And sometimes, it was assimilation.

For every young man killed by the goyim, after all, there were a hundred who took one look at the bright lights of the big city and decided that fitting in was better than fighting back. And if fame and fortune meant leaving God behind . . .

Well, Zimri ben-Salu wasn't the last man who tried to make good by marrying some shiksa.

In short, the story of the Moabites in Numbers 25 and 31 is a "bookend" to the story of Pharaoh in Exodus 1; both tell how Israel was put at risk by the loss of its sons to foreigners.

In Exodus, the threat is annihilation, while in Numbers it is assimilation.

In Exodus, the threat comes from a man, while in Numbers it comes from women.

In Exodus, the saviors are women, while in Numbers it is a man.

And while we'd much rather think of God's people as victims rather than victors, the fact is that both stories are stories of survival.

To be sure, the story here in Numbers does raise all kinds of questions . . .

But at least we're here to ask them.

Dealing with Depression

2009-12-08T13:09:00.001-08:00

It's that time of year when everybody runs an article on depression in the ministry -- so why should I be any different? Here's a quick list of what's helped me:

Prescription medicines: The good news is they worked for me. The bad news is that it took about two weeks for them to kick in -- and even at that, I was lucky. About a third of the time, after all, the meds they give you don't work, and you need to try something else. (And by the way -- talk with your doctor before you quit your meds. Coming off Effexor gave me a week's worth of panic attacks.)

Counseling: Some find this helpful; I never did. I'm told that Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy works best, but all I ever seemed to end up seeing were Rogerian-trained counselors who made me feel even more depressed.

Books: You could sink most self-help books in the sea, and the only harm done would be to the fish. The one exception is David Burns' Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy (Revised and Updated) -- I found it extremely helpful.

Exercise: It took three years on Effexor before I felt like trying this -- but it's kept me going ever since. Trust me: regular exercise is the single best way I've found to prevent and treat depression.

So what's the toughest part about dealing with depression?

Admitting you need help -- once you've done that, things do get easier . . . in time.

Odds & Ends

2009-12-06T14:28:00.000-08:00

We've had clear but cold weather all week here on the Oregon Coast (and by "cold," I mean "frost in the morning with a daytime high of 40-degrees"). No wonder the dog doesn't want to go outside!

Putting books on the Web raises troubling ethical issues . . . but not so many that I don't use the Google Books version of The Jewish Study Bible when I'm preparing sermons and Sabbath School lessons. It gives me a perspective I don't usually get -- one that is scholarly, liberal, and (surprise!) Jewish.

I don't get facebook -- and the more I look at it, read about it, and talk with the people who use it, the less I understand its attraction. What am I missing here? (And does this mean I've joined the ranks of the terminally fogey?)

crooked timber offers a "vaguely passive-aggressive post" about the ten types of comments people make about blog posts. Having read it, I'm going to stop writing out my comments on other people's blogs, and simply post the appropriate number.

Average hours spent watching TV by 14- to 25-year-olds: 10.5 hours per week. By 62- to 75-year-olds: 21.5 hours per week. (Source: YouthWorker Journal).

The Federation of American Scientists offers a nifty map of the 111 places where it thinks nuclear weapons might be stored. I'm using it (along with Nathan Hodge and Sharon Weinberger's A Nuclear Family Vacation) to plan this summer's camping trip.

And I'll close with this quote from John Calvin: "The chief part of the service of God consists in this, that the faithful should openly show that they acknowledge God to be the author of all good things."

This week's lesson: Numbers 22-24

2009-12-03T13:33:00.000-08:00

Who knew Moses could do comedy?

The story of Balaam, after all, is a burlesque -- a slapstick comedy about an utterly humorless "swell" who runs afoul of a fast-talking hustler. (Think of Margaret Dumont and Groucho Marx in Duck Soup, and you have the picture.)

And yes, the plot is pretty much what you'd expect: king hires prophet to curse God's people; prophet learns you cannot curse what God has blessed. Cue the closing music, and discuss.

What makes this story a joy and a thing of beauty, however, is its humor.

Think of the king's messengers, wearily trudging back and forth while Balaam tries to find some way he can go with them.

Then you have the donkey -- and to paraphrase an old saying, "It's bad enough you're talking to animals; it's even worse they're talking to you. But what's utterly unforgivable is that you should lose the argument!"

Finally, you have that long, Monty Python-like sketch . . . one in which an increasingly frantic king takes Balaam shopping for just the right place to curse the Israelites.

And all through this, notice, God stays off-stage -- letting others get the laughs while He feeds them their lines.

No, the only reason we don't see the humor in this story is that we're not used to the Bible being funny.

But if someone tries to curse the people whom God has blessed . . .

Then what else can you do but laugh?

How to raise perfect children

2009-12-01T13:33:00.000-08:00

Many people have asked how I managed to raise two wonderful, intelligent, kind, and hard-working children . . . and while I've often detected a note of incredulity in their question, I've decided it is time to pass along my tips on how to raise perfect children.

And did I mention my children are also talented?

Step One
Marry the perfect spouse. This will make your task much easier.

Step Two
Have children who make good choices. Again, this will make your task much easier.

Step Three
I've also found that Starbucks Gift Cards are helpful -- don't know why, but they are.

And did I mention that my children also have a sense of humor?

Odds & Ends

2009-11-29T12:13:00.000-08:00

Blue skies, and temperatures in the mid-40s -- perfect weather for students driving back to college after Thanksgiving break.

Making Light has a list of suggestions for bloggers who get a lot of comments . . . all of which add up to: "Deal with the trolls, or they will take over your blog." (h/t to Tom Ricks)

Anybody know if the church has taken a stand on medical marijuana -- and lacking that, does anybody have any thoughts about the ethics of church members using it? I'm guessing pastors in Canada and California deal with this more than most . . . but it's popping up here in Oregon too.

Somewhere along the way, David Hamstra's apocalupto has become the blog-of-record for what's happening at our seminary in Michigan. Now if I could just get him to post more often . . .

Speaking of which, I'm bemused by David Hamstra's remark that "the Sem has a pretty strict recording policy because what they teach is so politicized in our church." Seems like an excellent argument for tenure. As it is, "those who know do not speak, while those who speak . . . "

Harvard Business Publishing has a great article on "How to Stop 'Mean Girls' in the Workplace" -- and I'm guessing most of its advice would also work on gossips in church.

And I'll close with this quote from Charles de Foucauld: "We absolutely owe it to our Lord never to be afraid of anything."

This week's lesson: Numbers 20-21

2009-11-26T19:05:00.000-08:00

Strange but true: there was a time God saved His people with a metal snake.

You remember the story -- it's found in Numbers 21.

God's people are in the wilderness.
When they complain, God punishes them with poisonous snakes.
When they confess their sin, God tells Moses to make a bronze snake and put it on a pole, so that anyone who is bitten may look at it and live.

As I said, it's an odd little story -- but it's no odder than some of the other ways that God has saved His people. No, God has used sermons and summer camps, tracts and TV preachers, evangelistic series and academy Bible classes . . . and sometimes, He even finds a way to use on-line commentaries about this week's Sabbath School lesson!

In short, God can make a blessing out of just about anything.

Unfortunately, that doesn't mean it will always stay a blessing.

Take that metal snake, for instance. In II Kings 18:1-4, we read that:

In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign. . . . He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, just as his father David had done. He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. [Emphasis supplied]

The very object that had once saved God's people, notice, now had to be destroyed because it had become an idol.

Likewise, just because something was a blessing in the past doesn't guarantee it is a blessing today. And just because God used something in the past doesn't mean we should be using it today. No, there comes a time when even the most powerful channels of God's grace must be set aside, lest they become a snare and a delusion.

When it comes to people, after all, we don't believe in "once saved, always saved."

That's true of everything else as well.

Give a goat for Christmas!

2009-11-24T15:43:00.001-08:00

This year, I've asked my church members to buy me a goat for Christmas -- and not just any goat.

No, I want a real, live, go-to-school goat from the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA).

That's because one of the best ways to lift people out of poverty is to make sure girls go to school. But in the west African country of Niger, only 37-percent of girls are enrolled in primary school; the rest are kept home to work on family farms.

So ADRA came up with the idea of giving families in Niger a goat if (and only if) they send their girls to school.

It's a great plan -- but one goat (plus training the family to take care of it) costs $65.

That's where my church comes in. This December, I've asked members to write a check to our church, drop it in an offering envelope, mark it "Pastor's Goat Fund," and drop it in the offering. At the end of the month, we'll take the money that came in and write a check to ADRA.

And no, you don't need to write a check to my church to help. You can get in touch with ADRA directly -- or better yet, why not ask your church to do something similar?

Odds & Ends

2009-11-22T12:17:00.002-08:00

Last night's windstorm has given way to calm and sunshine. (There's a sermon illustration in there somewhere, but I can't think what it is.)

In its lessons on the Book of Numbers, the Adult Sabbath School Quarterly has pointed out that grumbling against Moses and Aaron was A Very Bad Thing -- and with this has come the obvious corollary that we should treat church leaders with respect. But in this week's lesson, Moses and Aaron are both held accountable for their mistakes. What kind of contemporary application does this suggest . . . and what are the chances the Quarterly will make it?

WikiHow offers a number of suggestions on how to deal with someone's habitual lateness . . . and yes, some of these might help you deal with people who continually show up late for Church Board. (Then again, if you are the person who's always late, maybe your Board should try some of these ideas on you!)

Ever since I saw them in GetReligion, I have been inexplicably charmed by the Lutheran socks that proclaim "Here I Stand." Now does anyone know where I can get a Methodist sweater, i.e. one in which my heart would be strangely warmed?

If I were the dean of an SDA School of Theology, I'd steal an idea from Gordon-Conwell Seminary and start offering classes, lectures, and chapels through iTunes U; I'd also borrow its idea of continuing eduction classes for people who are already in the ministry, but don't feel like pursuing another degree. I'm just saying.

And I'll close with this quote from Joel Garreau in his book, Edge City:

"The First Law of Demographics is: You cannot count on people to change. You can, however, count on them to die.

"That means that members of one generation should not try to predict the future based on their experience. As they die off, they will be replaced by a generation with different life experiences that have produced different attitudes. Not necessarily better, but certainly different. And in this fashion, questions that obsessed one generation sometimes never really get answered; they just end up sounding more and more archaic."

This week's lesson: Numbers 18-19

2009-11-19T11:58:00.000-08:00

What do I want to be when I grow up?

Strangely enough, that's one question the son of a priest or Levite never needed to ask himself. No, he knew what he was going to be: he was going to be a priest or Levite, just like his father!

And this seems strange to us -- strange because we're used to the idea that anybody can grow up to be anything they want to be. The idea that genetics determined destiny -- that only people with the proper breeding could could serve in the Lord's temple . . .

Well, it just seems un-American!

Yet the fact remains that choice plays a limited role in our choice of jobs. My career as a professional basketball player, for instance, has been cruelly cut short by the fact that I'm only five-foot nine-inches in height. (Then too, the fact that I'm near-sighted and clumsy probably hasn't helped.)

Likewise, our decisions have all been shaped by chance, genetics, the desires of our parents, and a host of other factors we don't know about -- much less understand. And once we hit your 50s, our ability to re-invent ourselves and our careers can seem just as limited as that of any Levite.

In short, many of us face the same choice as those would-be priests and Levites: the choice of what to do when a choice has already been made for us.

Do we make the best of it?
Or do we grumble and complain about what might have been?

Just like those priests and Levites, you see, most of us already know what we're going to be when we grow up.

The question is, what are we going to do about it?

Whither Tuesday?

2009-11-17T13:17:00.001-08:00

Okay, I'm looking for advice: what should I do with Tuesday's column on this blog?

Sunday is simple -- just slap together a list of the items and observations I've been collecting all week, and I'm done.

And Thursday is pretty straightforward -- all I need to do is carefully and lovingly handcraft an essay about the Sabbath School lesson for that week, and Bob's your uncle.

But Tuesday . . . Tuesday was meant to be a surprise. It could be a how-to, a product review, a short essay, or pretty much anything.

Unfortunately, there are plenty of other blogs out there that are narrowly focused on just one topic . . . and as a result, they're doing a much better job of covering that topic than I could in an an occasional column on Tuesday.

And that is probably the reason why my Tuesday column gets fewer readers than anything else I do.

So . . . I'm looking for advice. Should I:

a) drop Tuesday's column?
b) keep writing Tuesday's column?
c) keep writing Tuesday's column, but make it a regular column about _____? (And if you choose this option, I'd appreciate it if you filled in the blank.)
d) Forget the blog, and start doing something on Facebook.

Ideas?

Odds & Ends

2009-11-14T18:23:00.000-08:00

I'm back in Lincoln City. The thunderstorms have moved on. And I'll be spending most of Sunday at a local swim meet as the announcer. (It's a legacy of my eldest daughter's time on the swim team.)

One of the neatest Bible-study sites I've found is Biblos. Not only does it make it easier for me to check out a text in the original language, but I love the maps!

Why is it that some of the most innovative pastors I know -- the ones who pride themselves on being at the "cutting-edge of ministry -- are also some of the angriest pastors I know? Is it anger that drives their desire for change . . . does the anger result from the way people react to the changes they've made . . . or am I just imagining the whole thing?

Sad to say, I don't know much about Systematic Theology. That's why I'm enjoying Alister McGrath's Christian Theology: An Introduction. It's well-organized, easy to understand, and remarkably thorough -- just right for a beginner like me.

And I'll close with this quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson: "You can never do a kindness too soon, because you never know when it will be too late."

Odds & Ends

2009-11-07T20:09:00.000-08:00

We've had lots and lots of thunderstorms these past few days, and a tornado touched down last night in the north end of town and damaged 30 homes. (No injuries though.)

I've started sending my sermons to myself as a Gmail attachment -- that way, I've a copy out there in "the cloud" in case the hard drive on my computer crashes. (But you're doing this already, right?)

I'm making a list of books I should read in 2010 -- any ideas out there?

Ever notice how popular military metaphors can be in the ministry? We talk of campaigns, crusades, prayer-warriors, front-lines -- and even "life in the trenches." How would our concept of ministry change if we used metaphors drawn from gardening or cooking?

I'll be at Walla Walla University this week for the Andrews University intensive on I & II Peter . . . so if you don't here from me, it's because I wasn't able to find a place with free wi-fi.

And I'll close with this quote from Peter Drucker: "People who don't take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year."

This week's lesson: Numbers 15

2009-11-05T17:14:00.000-08:00

How do you turn around a losing team?

By the time we come to Numbers 15, after all, the Israelites have dropped the ball at least ten different times -- and as a result of their latest debacle, they've been condemned to wander the desert another 40-years before they'll be allowed to enter the Promised Land.

So if you're record is 0-10, then what do you do? Three things:

Make sure everyone is on the same page. If your people don't share the same goals, then they'll spend more time fighting each other than working together.

Crack down on offenders. Even misdemeanors are like broken windows -- if you don't deal with them, they send the message that nobody cares.

Dress for success. Sharp uniforms are no substitute for good leadership -- but they're one of the quickest, easiest ways to improve morale.

Granted, none of these things will turn around your group overnight -- no sooner does he implement them, as a matter of fact, then Moses faces the greatest challenge ever to his leadership . . .

But Moses has 40-years to build a winning team.

And given the way things have been going, that's just how long it will take for him to get things right.

Oregon Adventist News: 3 November 2019

2009-11-03T16:07:00.000-08:00

Just a reminder: associate-churches need to sign contracts for pastoral services with Oregon Adventist Ministries, 3ABN-Partners, or the WWU School of Theology by 1730 Monday, 2 December 2019.

Don't forget this weekend's seminar on "Reaching Out to Grandchildren" at the Beaverton SDA Church will also be carried live at its branch campuses: Beaverton-Southwest, Hillsboro, Milwaukie, and Troutdale.

Good news! Local planners have signed-off on construction of the new swim center at the Gladstone Adventist Convention Center. Not only will this provide even more recreational opportunities for Portland Adventist Academy at its new location, but it will help us expand the programs offered by Big Lake Day Camp. (And yes, the pool will be closed to the public on Sabbath.)

Pastors: please check "job openings" carefully before you bid on any vacancies listed. (We don't want to repeat last month's unfortunate incident in Medford.)

The live webinar on "Praise Bands: Time to Move On?" has been rescheduled to 0900 Sunday, 8 December 2019.

This quarter's House Church Jamboree will be Sabbath, 4 January 2010 at the Gladstone Adventist Convention Center, the Eugene Civic Center, and the Grants Pass SDA Church. Pastor Tunde Umar's topic: "Romans -- Predestined to Freedom." (Check the Conference wiki to see who's bringing what for the potluck.)

Monday is the deadline to sign-up for January's Spanish-language intensive at the Milo Retreat Center. This seminar will fulfill second-language requirements for Senior-pastor and Administrator certification.

Found: a black raincoat left behind at last week's "Women in Ministry Retreat" -- call the Conference AI for details.

Odds & Ends

2009-11-01T09:30:00.000-08:00

Blue skies on the Oregon Coast -- just in time for pastors' meetings! (But bring a jacket; right now it's 46-degrees out there!)

Speaking of pastor's meetings -- take a map of Tillamook, plug in the two-meter rise in sea level that's expected over the next century, and what do you get? Just another reason to stop and get some ice cream at the Tillamook Cheese Factory while you still can.

My prediction: ministry to senior citizens will be in the 21st-century what ministry to youth was in the 20th. (But without the lock-ins.) That's why I'm bookmarking articles such as "Helping Grandpa Get His Tech On."

I've been having fun preaching through the Book of Exodus -- but now I've come to Exodus 20, and I'm looking for ideas. Do I preach one sermon on the law, two sermons on the two parts of the law, ten sermons on the ten commandments . . . or so I give it a break and preach on something else? Any ideas out there?

And I'll close with this quote from Woody Allen: "History repeats itself. It has to. Nobody listens the first time around."

This week's lesson: Numbers 11-14

2009-10-29T21:05:00.000-07:00

And things were going so well.

The Israelites had spent almost a year near Mt. Sinai -- but now their time there was coming to and end. The tabernacle had been built. A census taken. And now the order had been given to move on.

But in less than two months, it all fell apart.

First, there was grumbling among the riff-raff -- grumbling bad enough that Moses threatened to quit.
Then Aaron and Miriam began a whispering campaign against Moses -- a campaign so serious that God had to reprimand the two of them in public.
And when the Israelites' chosen leaders came back from scouting out the Promised Land, ten of the twelve said they'd all be better off if they just went back to Egypt!

So what happened?

Change happened.

Leaving Sinai was a welcome move, after all, but it was a move -- a move that required the Israelites to set aside old habits and learn new ones. With their normal routines disrupted, it's no wonder that some of these people became irritable. Fearful. And desperate for something familiar . . .

Even if it was Egypt.

In short, change is not always welcome -- even if it's necessary. No, it usually brings with it a host of complaints (not to mention whispering campaigns). And all too often, it ends with a overwhelming majority voting to forget the whole thing and go back to the way it used to be.

Not that this will ever happen to you.

But it happened to Moses.

And eventually, things reached a point where all Moses could do was hunker down and wait 40-years for a new generation to come along.

No, things had been going well.

But that didn't mean the people were willing to move on.

The foolishness of preaching

2009-10-27T07:59:00.000-07:00

You never know just how your ministry will touch somebody's life.

I was talking with the woman who cuts my hair, for instance, and we were reminiscing about someone we both knew -- a long-time member of my church, now dead.

"She always loved your sermons," the woman told me.

"She did?"

"Yes. She said she always looked forward to the times you preached."

"And why was that?"

"She told me that, anytime you preached, she'd be home in time to watch basketball on TV!"

No, we never know just how our ministry will touch another person's life . . .

And perhaps it's just as well.

Odds & Ends

2009-10-25T15:26:00.001-07:00

A beautiful Sabbath -- sunny and warm -- but now we're back in the usual murk. (Sigh.)

The people who run our local Adventist Community Service Center tell me they're not giving out Thanksgiving food boxes this year -- given the state of our local economy, they'd rather put money into all the other kinds of assistance they offer. Question: how has the recession affected your church's Community Service program?

So what does it mean that the Catholic Church has opened its doors to unhappy Anglicans? In Britain, a lot. In this country, probably not all that much. Check out Get Religion for a round-up of how this story is being covered.

Two reasons I'm glad I'm reading Nick Reding's Methland: the death and life of an American small town. One is his explanation of just exactly why methamphetamines became such a big problem in small towns. (As James Carville said in a slightly different context, "It's the economy, stupid.") Then too, this is where I found out about the Daily Yonder.

I've been working on the textual notes for a couple of books in the Review & Herald's new study Bible . . . which is not the same as the study Bible they put out featuring comments by Ellen White . . . which should not be confused with the study Bible that's being prepared by the good folk at the Seminary. (Sigh.)

And I'll close with this quote from Steve Martin's Born Standing Up: "I learned a lesson: it was easy to be great. Every entertainer has a night when everything is clicking. These nights are accidental and statistical. Like lucky cards in poker, you can count on them occurring over time. What was hard was to be good, consistently good, night after night, no matter what the abominable circumstance."

This week's lesson: Numbers 9-10

2009-10-22T13:03:00.000-07:00

Manuscript Fragment, apparently meant as a footnote to Numbers 9:8

But even as Moses sought the guidance of the LORD, the elders did assemble and form the Interim Committee on Ritual Observances. And as was always the case, a grievous discussion did arise between those who did call themselves "The Party of Memory," and those who did call themselves "The Party of Hope."

"For if we should make an exception for those who are unclean to observe the Passover," said those in the Party of Memory, "then respect for the Law would cease, our family values would collapse, and our identity as a people would be in danger."

"And what would be the harm of that?" said those in the Party of Hope. "For the command that all should observe the Passover is obviously more important than all those other rules you continually cite. Indeed, this command speaks to our need for an inclusive community -- a community which . . ."

"Yes, yes -- we've heard all that before," interrupted a member of the other party (whose rudeness was only partially excused by the fact that he had, indeed, heard all this before). "But you're forgetting that our community is defined by its relationship to the Law.

"No, our community is defined by the way we treat each other!"

"But the Law tells us how to treat each other!"

"And there we have proof that people are more important than the Law!"

"No, you're just saying that people are more important than some laws -- and you reserve the right to pick and choose which ones!"

And so the discussion did continue in it's accustomed manner . . . until one who often came late to these meetings (and usually left early) did rise up and ask, "Isn't there some kind of compromise we could reach -- something that would include these people but still preserve our respect for the Law?"

And they were all silent as they did all look at each other . . . until finally, with one accord, they did shrug and say, "Nah -- that would take a miracle!"

The day after we ordain women

2009-10-20T13:27:00.000-07:00

I'm going out on a limb here and assuming the day will come when we ordain women.

And I'm also going to assume the experience of other denominations will hold true for our own, i.e. this decision will be followed by a surge of women into the ministry.

That's why I'd suggest we begin thinking now about the following topics, just so we're ready for them:

How do we decide who pastors where?
The experience in other denominations has been that women get hired to be associate pastors or to pastor small-church districts . . . but they don't get considered for the "top" jobs in big churches, not least because they're not part of the "old boys network." So how can we be more open and transparent in our hiring and placement?

How can we protect pastors from abuse?
Emotional abuse is common enough in the ministry -- but some women pastors in other denominations have suffered far worse from their members and church leaders. And yes, I'm sure this has already happened in our own denomination as well . . . which is all the more reason to come up with some clear policies on how we deal with this.

How can we promote family-friendly policies for the ministry?
What of the pastor (male or female) with small children who wants to work part-time -- or even take off a couple of years -- until they're old enough to attend school? What of the pastor (male or female) whose spouse's job makes it difficult to move frequently? Finally, what of the pastor (male or female) who needs time-off to take care of elderly parents?

Okay, that's my list -- any answers?

Odds & Ends

2009-10-18T12:06:00.000-07:00

We have two seasons on the Oregon Coast: cool and damp, or cooler and damper. This week's storms began the second season with a vengeance.

I'm not naming names, but I can think of half-a-dozen pastors who would love to get jobs teaching college. Guess what? If the Washington Monthly's article, "College for $99 a month," is any guide, that's going to be like trying to get a job in the newspaper business.

Speaking of education: total enrollment of for Oregon Conference schools (grades 1-12) in the 2005-06 school year: 3,124. In 2008-09: 2,686.

Have I mentioned that I will be attending the seminar on I & II Peter at Walla Walla University, November 8-12? Anybody else going to be there?

The Roman Empire didn't fall -- it moved! So says Lars Brownworth in his book, Lost to the West: the forgotten Byzantine Empire that rescued Western Civilization. No, it's not deep. Yes, it's a fun read. And I agree: any book that features characters such as "Constantine V the Dung-Named" and "Alexius V the Bushy-Eyebrowed" is definitely worth the $15 I paid for it at Costco.

And I'll close with this quote from Patricia Cornwell: "Too many people think they are sensitive to the feels of others, when, in fact, they are merely sensitive to their own feelings about others."

This week's lesson: Numbers 7-8

2009-10-15T13:25:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I'm reading the seventh-chapter of Numbers -- and I'm thinking, "wedding gifts."

I mean, it's all there: the new home, the presentation of gifts for the new home, the meticulous list of who gave what for that home: thus-and-so many platters, thus-and-so many bowls, thus-and-so many crock-pots, cheese trays, and pickle forks . . .

And yes, they gave duplicate gifts too!

Granted, the written record of who gave what is not all that exciting . . . but anyone who thinks it's not important has not been paying attention to the advice columns in their local newspaper -- advice columns that invariably carry a letter from "Angry in Atlanta" who's upset because she gave her niece a case of motor-oil for a wedding present, and even though it's been six months she still hasn't received a thank-you note!

No, gifts are important. Saying thank-you is important. Keeping track of who gave what is important -- even if it was nothing more than a plastic butter dish from your second-cousin in Oklahoma, or a young goat from one of those obscure tribes whose name you never could remember. (Gad? Naphtali? Something like that.)

So the next time you're in church . . . and you're wincing through special music from someone whose light really should have been hidden under a bushel-basket . . . then just remember:

This is a gift.

It's gift for God -- not you.

And no gift is so poor that God won't accept it, remember it, and thank the person who gave it . . .

Just as He did in Numbers 7.

DIY: Communion Kit

2009-10-13T13:32:00.001-07:00

Shut-ins and hospital patients often request communion -- but the communion kits you can buy are expensive, easily broken, and hard to clean. (This last point is especially important if you're like me, and tend to forget your communion kit and leave it in the car for several weeks at a time.)

That's why I made my own. It's not elegant, but my church members don't seem to mind -- if anything, it makes them feel as though we're having a picnic. (And in a way, I suppose we are).

So . . . starting from the upper-left corner, here's what's in it:

A. Gideon Bible with the passages marked I'll be using. (Generally, this will be Psalm 23 and I Corinthians 11:23-26.)

B. Yup, it's Tupperware.

C. Plastic bottles are difficult to clean; that's why I carry the grape juice in a glass bottle. (And yes, you're right -- this one used to hold Listerine.)

D. Plastic communion cups. (The plastic sleeve in which they're stored is the only thing that remains of the fancy communion kit my church once purchased for me).

E. Communion bread goes in the Altoids tin. (Okay, so it looks a little tacky -- but if I drop it, it won't pop open and scatter communion bread across the floor.)

F. A cloth napkin makes a nice tablecloth for a bedside table in a hospital or nursing home; it's also useful for mopping up spills.

G. Hand-sanitizer -- after all, I am handling food.

Not shown: olive oil for anointing. I've found it's best to keep this in a small, shampoo bottle (like the ones you get free in motels); anything with a larger mouth will tend to give you more than you wanted at the time.

Odds & Ends

2009-10-11T16:06:00.000-07:00

Beautiful weather -- blue skies, cool nights, and the leaves are just beginning to turn color as you drive the Van Duzer corridor.

Yahoo! has a nice article on how to handle illegal questions during an interview (viz. "So what would your wife do at her age if you took this job?") And yes, it happens.

I'll be doing one of the worships for the Oregon Conference Pastors' Retreat -- anybody have any ideas on what I should say?

4% of delegates to the Oregon Conference Constituency Session were under the age of 30; and 18% were over the age of 70. Hmmm . . .

Brian Wansink's Mindless Eating: why we eat more than we think is a fun read about a serious subject. Wansink ran a laboratory at Cornell University that did things like feed people chocolate yogurt in the dark -- and tell them it was strawberry! (Many reported it was the best strawberry yogurt they'd ever tasted.) He also gives three good reason why so many men hate tofu . . . and along the way, he explains why it's so easy to gain weight, and what we can do about it. Given today's epidemic of obesity, this is a must-read. (And it's also a great source of anecdotes for sermons.)

Does anybody know anything about the Oregon Center for Christian Values? Love the website, but don't know anything else about them.

Traffic was down last week, mainly because this site didn't get it's usual "bump" in readership on Friday. And yes, most of my readers came from the usual places: Oregon, Colorado, New York, and California in the USA, plus Finland and the United Kingdom. (But I did pick up readers this week in Uganda and Kenya!)

And I'll close with this quote from Robert Anderson: "In every marriage more than a week old, there are grounds for divorce. The trick is to find (and continue to find) grounds for marriage."

This week's lesson: Numbers 5-6

2009-10-08T14:36:00.000-07:00

Okay, so Numbers 5-6 tells us how to:

deal with various and sundry menaces to public health,
make peace for wrongs done,
judge a case of "he said/she said,"
provide a way for somebody to do something something special with their life,
and bless God's people in the proper manner.

And if you just added a School Board meeting and the purchase of a new copier, this would sound pretty much like my "to do" list for today.

Ministry is not just Thinking Great Thoughts, after all; neither is it just Doing Great Things. And even though Moses got to talk with God on a face-to-face basis, it would seem that they didn't spend all of their time discussing Life, the Universe, and Everything.

No, sometimes they talked about lepers.

And messy divorces.

And what to do if a Nazirite trips over a corpse.

And I'm sure there were times Moses walked away from these conversations, shaking his head and saying to himself, "God called me to do this?"

Well, yes.

Anytime you lead people, after all, you get to deal with a host of subjects -- from the ridiculous to the sublime, and back to the ridiculous again. One minute, you're trying the determine the date of the Exodus; the next, you're sorting out whose child is old enough to move from Kindergarten to Primary. (And if you think that first task is sublime while the other is ridiculous, then I can think of at least two parents who would disagree with you!)

To be sure, there's are times when we do get to Think Great Thoughts and Do Great Things -- times when our ministry has all the beauty of the blessing in Numbers 6:22-26.

But there's more to our job than just those verses. No, in order to reach that blessing . . .

We need to get through the other stuff first.

Church discipline: the when

2009-10-06T10:18:00.000-07:00

Last week's post on how to handle cases of church discipline got me thinking about when you need to do this. Here's my take on the subject:

There are really only three reasons to discipline a church member:

You need to keep this person from hurting people. Pedophiles are an obvious example; so too would a church member who uses their contacts with other members to run a Ponzi scheme.
You need to make sure this person knows what they've done is wrong. I once had a convicted rapist say what he'd done "couldn't be that bad," since he was still a member of our church. This gave us a chance to provide him with a "learning experience."
You need to protect the reputation of your church. In 30-years of ministry, I've never needed to do this . . . but if a church member was guilty of something like genocide, then it would be nice to find a way to let the public know that we don't approve of this.

You have six options for disciplining a church member:

You can ignore it. You're not a private detective, after all -- and in some cases, you have nothing but rumor to go on. So leave it be, and see what develops (if anything).
You can ask them to step down from church office. If you have a cantankerous Pathfinder leader, for instance, this may be your best option.
You can ask them to drop their church membership. They know they've done wrong, and they know they're not about to change . . . and sometimes, they just want to move on.
The church may vote to censure them. This removes them from church office, freezes any membership transfers, and gives them a limited time to make whatever changes are needed. At the end of that time-period, you revisit the case and decide where to go from there. (But no, you can't keep censuring them indefinitely.)
The church may vote to drop their membership. Churches hate, hate, HATE to do this -- and the pain of doing so will linger for years. But sometimes, what can you do?
You can tell them not to attend church. If you have a convicted pedophile who will not agree to whatever conditions you've set for that person to attend church, then you will need to tell that person they're not welcome to worship with you. And no, this isn't fun -- but I've done it, because the alternative was worse.

One last piece of advice: If you're going to vote on dropping a member, then decide in advance what kind of majority is needed to do so. In our church, for instance, we've decided . . . okay, it was my decision, but nobody has challenged me on this. Anyway, it's been decided that we don't vote to to accept a new member or drop someone's membership unless there's a three-to-one vote in favor.

Odds & Ends

2009-10-04T15:38:00.000-07:00

We had a sudden gust of wind and hail on Sabbath morning . . . but then everything cleared off and we had perfect weather for Saturday night's Barn Party.

Small-town pastors may be seeing more city-slickers in the pews -- that's according to the Oregonian, which reports that more and more baby-boomers are choosing to retire in small towns. But it also notes they only stick around until they're 75 or so; then it's back to the big city for medical care.

Mind you, life in a small town ain't always the way you saw it on The Andy Griffith Show. The Oregonian also reports that rural and small-town food banks are stretched thin . . . and if you've read Methland, you know how horrendous our problems can be.

Maybe it's just me, but the layout of the Oregon Conference's new questionnaire does seem just a mite confusing. When asked my gender, for instance, I was surprised to find my options were apparently "traditional" and "contemporary." Turns out, I was reading the answers to the question about my church's style of worship.

Traffic was down 5% this week -- and 44% of the hits I did get were from Portland, Oregon! Outside this state, the three top places-of-origin (POA) for North America visitors were Washington, British Columbia, and Colorado; the three top POAs for the rest of the world were Finland, Australia, and the United Kingdom.

And I'll close with this quote from Marvin Lee Aday (a.k.a. "Meat Loaf"): "You can't run away from your troubles, but there's nothing wrong with getting a good head-start."

This week's lesson: Numbers 1-4

2009-10-01T13:08:00.000-07:00

The Book of Numbers opens with a God's-eye view of His people -- and as you'd expect, the picture's one of a place for everyone and everyone in their place . . .

Just like Genesis 1.

Now on the ground, I suspect things looked a little different. No, anytime you put that many people in one place, you're going to get traffic jams, lost children, and a large delegation from the Tribe of Dan who don't understand why they can't move their tents to the south side of camp (where the dust won't aggravate their allergies) . . .

Just like Campmeeting.

Despite our best efforts, in other words, people are messy. Their lives are messy. And our best efforts to organize them on a rational basis will never be 100% successful (no matter how many PowerPoint presentations we give).

Just ask Moses.

Yet somehow and despite it all, God sees through the mess and the fuss and the chaos of everyday living . . . and God sees a people "fair as the sun, clear as the moon, and terrible as an army with banners."

Just as He does in Revelation 7.

Church discipline: the how

2009-09-29T13:01:00.000-07:00

My experience has been that a major case of church discipline comes up about once every 300 member-years. (You calculate "member-years" by multiplying the number of active members times years.)

A church with a hundred active members, in other words, generally deals with a major case of church discipline (i.e. adultery, fraud, child abuse) every three years or so, while a church with 30 active members generally deals with something like this about once a decade.

Okay, maybe my figures are off . . . but here's what I've learned from the situations I've been through:

Make sure the church secretary knows what to say over the phone before church members start calling to find out what's happening.

Call your elders personally and let them know what's happening before you meet as a group.

Decide at the Elders Meeting whether or not to take a "time out" at the Business Meeting so that you can discuss this without the person who's up for discipline being there.

Let church members know in advance what will be discussed at the Business Meeting without going into too details, i.e. "We will be discussing what to do about a problem that's come up with one of our members."

If the person involved asks to have their membership dropped, you must comply with their request -- and you should vote this without any discussion.

As always, keep a log of all phone calls and discussions -- and make sure your Conference officers know what's going on!

Odds & Ends

2009-09-27T13:16:00.001-07:00

Blue skies but cool, with daytime temperatures in the mid-50s; it's definitely autumn here on the Oregon Coast.

I don't know whether to be charmed or alarmed by this fact -- but here in the contiguous states of the USA, you are never more than 145-miles from a McDonald's. (h/t to Brainiac)

Am I being paranoid, or has the New King James Version become the unofficial authorized Bible of conservative Adventism? And if so, then why?

BioEd Online reports that conformity kills civilizations -- when conditions change, they have nowhere to go for new ideas. Be nice to the oddballs in your church, in other words; you may need them some day.

The New York Times says a lack of sleep may increase your chance of catching a cold -- and Reuters reports it may increase your odds of getting Alzheimer's. So when your church members complain that your sermons are boring, tell them the extra sleep they're getting is good for their health.

Traffic was up last week from all over. Most of my foreign visitors were from Finland, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Hungary; most of my domestic visitors were from Oregon, Washington, Texas, Michigan, and Colorado.

And I'll close with this quote from Poul Anderson: "I have yet to see any problems, however complicated, which, when looked at in the right way did not become still more complicated."

This week's lesson: III John

2009-09-24T13:32:00.000-07:00

Diotrephes, you know.

Every church has one (not to mention every workplace, every softball team, and almost every third-grade classroom). Bossy and opinionated, he's a back-stabbing control-freak who loves to cause trouble for anyone who gets in his way.

And no, you don't need to figure out just exactly what it was that angered the Diotrephes mentioned in III John. It could have been the kind of proto-gnostic heresy mentioned in I & II John . . . or it could have been something else entirely.

When you're dealing with a Diotrephes, after all, there's always something.

Or as one of my seminary professors put it, "Some of our church members are crazy!"

And some are.

But not all of them.

No, the Diotrepheses of this world we shall always have with us . . . but so too there will always be people like Gaius and Demetrius -- people who walk in God's truth and welcome God's people. To be sure, we don't always notice them the way we do a Diotrephes; they don't demand our attention in the same way as a Diotrephes.

But their friendship is as constant as their support -- and for that we should be glad.

So don't spend all your time worrying about the Diotrephes in your life -- and don't let him always be setting the church's agenda, either.

No, Diotrephes you know.

But when was the last time you noticed Gaius and Demetrius?

A simple, four-part exercise for pastors and other people in the helping professions

2009-09-22T12:36:00.000-07:00

Step One: Carefully examine your hands, paying special attention to the palm-area.

Step Two: See any scars? Any nail-prints? Any signs of crucifixion?

Step Three: No?

Step Four: Then guess what? You are not the savior of the world.

Repeat as needed.

Odds & Ends

2009-09-21T13:24:00.000-07:00

This is my favorite time of the year on the Oregon Coast -- blue skies, temperatures in the 70s, and no tourists.

Sociologists Patrick Carr and Maria Kefalas report that rural America is fast becoming an open-air slum -- and its most valuable export is its children. Maybe it's time for Adventists to flee from the country? (h/t Arts & Letters Daily.)

Three statistics from the Oregon Conference Constituency Session stick in my mind: 70% of the delegates there were over the age of 50 . . . 50% don't have access to an Adventist TV station (i.e. 3ABN, Hope Channel, or Better Living) . . . but only 10% don't have access to the Internet. Myself, I'm thinking there's room here for some "new media" pioneers. (And yes, I know that 3ABN etc. are all available on the Web -- but it's not the same thing.)

Need some practical advice on how to work with people who don't like you? Check out Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals: the political genius of Abraham Lincoln. Three things I've learned from it: don't hold grudges, don't be afraid of controversy, but don't be afraid to let them know who's boss.

Traffic was up a bit last week, mainly due to a lot of visitors from Portland, Oregon. And judging by the number of visitors from Washington, that state must be back on-line again.

And I'll close with this Yiddish proverb: "It is good to hope; it's the waiting that spoils it."

Technical difficulties

2009-09-20T21:22:00.000-07:00

Spent the day fruitlessly trying to hack into the WiFi system at Portland Adventist Academy -- I was there for the Oregon Conference Constituency Session (and no, I was not elected to anything). Right now, I'm writing an article about it for the NPUC Gleaner . . . but I hope to resume regular posting on the blog tomorrow.

Try to be brave.

This week's lesson: II John

2009-09-17T12:08:00.000-07:00

You never know who you're going to find in an Adventist church.

In my church, for instance, you'll find young and old, Republicans and Democrats, high-school dropouts and one, genuine rocket-scientist . . .

Not to mention church members who quote Bishop Spong, and others who pass out copies of Jan Marcussen's National Sunday Law.

In short, Sabbath mornings here in Lincoln City tend to bring together people who don't have much in common -- people who don't share the same politics, income, race, education, taste in music . . . or even the same views on Harry Potter!

No, just about the only thing we have in common is the fact that we all see ourselves as "Adventists" -- but so far, that's been enough to keep us together.

Sometimes, to be sure, it's been just barely enough . . .

But if we're clear on the things that unite us, then we're usually willing to let our differences slide.

That's why one of the best ways to ensure diversity in a church is to focus on the things we share -- to to focus on those things, in other words, where we don't allow diversity.

Otherwise, we'll end up with a church where everybody votes for the same candidates, listens to the same music, and earns just about the same amount of money . . .

And all because we have nothing else in common -- nothing else to draw in people who are different.

No, you never know who you're going to find in an Adventist church.

That's because we're all Adventists.

If I'd known then what I know now . . .

2009-09-15T14:48:00.000-07:00

"We are too soon old and too late smart" -- but if I could go back to the 1980s and begin my ministry all over again, here are seven things I'd do different (and seven I'd do the same):

Seven things I wish I'd done:

Prayed more.
Worried less.
Kept up on my Greek and Hebrew.
Learned Spanish.
Gotten more exercise.
Started saving $$$ on a regular basis.
Taken all my vacation time (and all my days off).

Seven things I'm glad I did:

Went camping with my family as often as I did.
Read at least one book per week.
Kept a journal.
Taught high school Bible classes.
Audited the seminary's continuing education classes.
Took three year's leave-of-absence to work on a doctorate in history (even if I didn't finish it.)
Learned how to preach the Bible's stories (and not just its doctrines).

Odds & Ends

2009-09-13T12:39:00.001-07:00

After considerable experimentation, we have finally achieved the perfect weather for a weekend on the Oregon Coast: nice weather on Friday (to bring the tourists here), rain on Sabbath morning (so they skip the beach and come to church), and a sunny Sabbath afternoon (so the kids can go outside).

I've always felt slightly guilty about the fact that I'm not one of those people who rise at 4 AM with a song in my heart and the desire to spend the next three hours in Bible study and prayer. But now it turns out those "morning people" generally crash and burn early on . . . while us "night owls" just keep churning out the work. (h/t to Lifehacker)

Do you know CPR? No, I didn't think I needed to know it either -- not until a woman collapsed after church. (Fortunately, she was just dehydrated . . . but she was almost trampled to death by the rush of people who came to her assistance!)

Interesting statistic from the Oregon Conference's statistical report: last year it spent $9 million on "pastoral resources" -- and over $12 million on "teacher resources." (Now I know why one administrator told me the only thing that kept him awake at night was the cost of Adventist schools!)

Traffic would have been down this week, but this site got an incredible number of hits on Friday from Brazil. Aside from that, the top spots for foreign visitors were the United Kingdom, Finland, and Russia (not to mention my first-ever visitor from Serbia). And the top spots for North American visitors were the usual suspects: British Columbia, Oregon, California, and Colorado. (So what's happened to my visitors from Washington -- have you people lost Internet service, or what?)

I'll close with this quote from Will Rogers: "If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?"

This week's lesson: I John

2009-09-10T15:47:00.000-07:00

Some of John's church members were not very happy with him.

I can relate.

In addition to pastoring a two-church district, I also teach two Bible classes at our local SDA high school. This means I get to talk about fun stuff (like love and grace and the seven last plagues); it also means I spend a lot of time hassling my students about not-so-fun stuff (like footnotes, missing class, and why it is not acceptable to write papers in glittery-pink ink).

And no, I don't fuss about this kind of stuff because I'm an obsessive-compulsive control-freak who loves to make my students miserable . . .

Though that may be part of it.

But I want my students to become the adults God wants them to be -- and letting them do whatever seems like a good idea at the time isn't always a good way to do this.

To paraphrase Monsters, Inc. -- "if I glare, it's because I care."

Likewise, it's clear from John's epistle that he had a long list of Things He Would Not Tolerate.

And every time he warned them against the world, the flesh, and the devil, I'm sure his church members would fidget and complain and mutter to each other that John just wasn't being very nice.

Okay, so maybe he wasn't -- maybe John wasn't always a fun guy to be around.

But looking back, nobody could doubt that John loved them.

Can they say the same about us?

Beating age discrimination

2009-09-08T13:02:00.000-07:00

Interesting article in The Oregonian about age discrimination -- when it comes to getting hired, it turns out that 50-somethings have a real disadvantage, i.e. we're seen as too old, too fat, too set in our ways, and utterly lacking in tech-savvy.

Ouch.

And no, this shouldn't be a problem in the ministry -- two-thirds of the pastors in my conference are over the age of 50, after all. Then too, the laws banning age discrimination do apply to pastors; this is one of the few areas where we are protected by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Still, not everybody knows this. (I can think of two churches, for instance, that openly advertised they were "looking for a pastor in his mid-30s.") And age discrimination is both extremely common and incredibly difficult to prove.

So here are a few suggestions for "pastors of a certain age":

Scrub your resume. The Oregonian recommends you remove both graduation dates and time-in-service at any jobs you've had -- in short, get rid of anything that will let them guess your age.

Update your look. If you're like me, you're still have the same haircut you did in 1986. (That's also when I decided Dockers would be the only kind of slacks I ever buy.) Guess what? As The Oregonian points out, your "look" is now older than some of the people who will be hiring you.

Lose weight. It's wrong. It's illegal, But as one employer admitted to The Oregonian, nothing says "medical bills" like a few extra pounds.

Keep up on technology. Even a few nods in this direction can make a difference -- one of my students, for instance, was absolutely amazed I had an iPod! So learn how to text. Learn how to Twitter. And yes, it may have jumped the shark, but you still need to learn how to do whatever it is they do on Facebook.