Verse:

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. Romans 8:5-6.
 

Meditation:

How you live is a by-product of what you think. We are reminded of this truth in today’s scripture and I am reminded of an old proverb.

Sow a thought, reap a deed
Sow a deed, reap a habit
Sow a habit, reap a character

If your life is reflective of the Spirit, then it is almost assuredly true that your reflect on the things of the Spirit in your mind. If you life does not reflect the Spirit then it is time to take a hard look at the focus of your mind.

So what are things of the Spirit upon which we should focus our minds? The first thing that comes to mind for me is unity. When Paul addressed the conflict between Jews and Gentiles in the first letter to the Corinthians he noted,

For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body— Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. (1 Corinthians 12:13)

He also urged the Ephesians to maintain peace saying,

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. (Ephesians 4:1-3)

Obviously, walking in the spirit involves actively working on peace and unity. The journey toward community begins in the mind. You first judge a person in your mind. You first speak a hurtful word in your mind. You first lie, gossip or slander in your mind. You first consider forgiving in your mind. You first consider letting go of a hurt in your mind. To win the battle for peace, you must surrender first to the peace of the Spirit in your mind.
 

Prayer:

Holy Spirit, take captive my every thought of my neighbor. May I only think that which will lead to greater unity, greater encouragement, and greater love.
May every ugly thought be tempered by your grace.
May every angry thought be softened and washed away by your unconditional love.
May every envious thought be satisfied by the knowledge that all I need you have already provided.
May every impure thought be purified by your holiness.
May every judgmental thought be abandoned for words of encouragement.
Holy Spirit, by your holy fire forge within me a burning passion for peacemaking.
Amen.
 
If you are new to this series of post you may want to read the post, A Protestant Novena, A Dose of the Ghost.
 
 

Volunteers serving at St. Paul's Chapel following 911 attacks

 
Ecclesiastes makes us mindful of the rapid passage of life.  I was tangibly reminded of this yesterday when I visited ground zero where the World Trade Center once stood.  Even now nearly 8 years later, the sound of bulldozers and dust fill the air as the ground is prepared for a memorial site.  Visitors continue to flock by the dozens.  There is hushed grief as people relive the memory of that day and viscerally feel the loss of life in the many quotes captured on picture boards lining the inside of St. Paul’s Chapel, an episcopal church immediately adjacent to ground zero.  Five high school girls kneel in prayer at a rail near the front of the church.  They kneel together but are lost in separate thoughts and prayers.  Slowly each peels away in their own time wiping away tears as they reverently leave the others to finish their prayers.  You can over hear visitors recalling where they were when they heard the news as they quietly shuffle with friends and family past haunting memorabilia.
 
Two thoughts emerge as I pass picture upon picture of aid to relief workers and read timelines of the events of that day.  First, life IS very fleeting.  I think of the thousands who died that day thinking the day would be like any other day.  I think of the families who said goodbyes in the morning, clueless that they were voicing a final farewell.  I think about how today truly could be our last day for anyone one of us and we have absolutely no control over that undeniable reality.  With those thoughts comes an urgency to live life very well.  To honor God in all things.  To walk with great care and kindness.  Tinges of regret for wasted moments tug at the edge of my mind and then I realize what a waste it would be to wallow in something that cannot be changed only to miss what is now.  The words have become nearly cliche yet still ring with truth…”Your life is God’s gift to you.  What you do with it is your gift back to God.”
 
A second thought fills my mind as a read quote after quote of relief workers voicing gratitude for the ministry to by volunteers in St. Paul’s Chapel.  As a pastor I try to imagine dealing with the logistics of managing thousands of volunteers providing relief to the hundreds of firemen, police officers, and other relief workers for 8 continuous months.  I think of the thousands of hours and dollars spent by the church unconditionally loving whomever crossed their threshold.  One fire fighter expressed it this way,

When I come in that door, I’m covered with blood, sometimes, and they hug me.  They love me, they take care of me, they treat me as a real human being.  And then they feed me, and they massage me, and they give me adjustments.  These are my people.  This is my place.  This where I come to be with God.

 
As my mind is numbed by the enormity of love laid out, I realize that everyday Christians are pouring themselves out to help the least of these and they go unnoticed or persecuted.  As I leave the grounds I talk with my pastor friends who are there and express my frustration that so many people are opposed to being a part of the body of Christ citing, ‘organized religion has been the cause of more wars than anything else.’
 
I realize in their rationalization they are clueless to the reality of the daily life of Christians holding chaos at bay in communities.  I have come to realize that many unbeliever’s have no clue or concept about the massive hours spent by churches, feeding, clothing, sheltering, counseling, and caring for hundreds of thousands of needed people.  Not to mention the countless schools and hospital founded, funded, and/or operated by Christians.  Nor to mention how often Christians are the dedicated core restoring order in places like New Orleans, Haiti and New York.  A petty side of me secretly wants to say, “Fine.  Every Christian is going to take the next month off and you deal with the needs of the world. And lets see how it goes.”  I am not sure that many people grasp the tsunami of need that would engulf us and the chaos that would likely ensue.
 
I can hardly fault my unbelieving friend’s who are lost in their grasp of the functional reality of the average church or christian.  I realized as I spoke with one atheist friend that by and large the only real grasp he has of the church is from the media.  Unfortunately, the media only reports about scandal or outrageous extremists that hold little resemblance to normative Christianity.  It is no wonder that he sees the church as a collection of hypocrites and nuts.
 
I am not sure how we go about shifting this other than to visibly demonstrate over and over again Christ’s gracious love to a broken and dying world.  We also, must be less overly modest in sharing the great news of the many ministries and missions of local churches. Christians laboring in love are perhaps one of the best kept secrets of our modern culture.  The keeping of that secret veils the great news of God’s love for us in Christ.  So, let us be bold in love and sharing each day, for today truly could be our last chance to honor God and others may never do so if we do not.
 
Blessings from New York from The Practical Disciple
  

I visited someone’s blog whom I met recently. Unfortunately, I met them because I was officiating their mother’s funeral. While it was a sad way to make someone’s acquaintance; nevertheless, I feel blessed to have met this person and their family. I feel blessed for a moment to have vicariously met her mother.

Moments, like these, moments of remembering loved one’s with a family, give pastors an opportunity to regularly reflect on the fragile and fleeting nature of life. It is a mixed blessing, but undoubtably a blessing. This blessing that comes with watching life pass was punctuated this evening as I went with my wife to watch a stage version of the wonderful book, Tuesday’s with Morrie. For those of you who don’t know Tuesday’s with Morrie is an endearing story of a professor’s life who is ending and precious moments spent each Tuesday with one of his students from his past. Many life lessons about what is truly important are passed on during those Tuesday sessions.  Morrie, says something to the effect of, “I wish I had been more aware of death, during my life.”  I don’t think that’s the quote exactly, but that is the essence of what he says.  I also think this is the blessing that comes with watching people’s lives end.  Watching life passing helps us value life so much more deeply.

Tuesday’s with Morrie is a story that will almost surely prompt you to examine your priorities and/or stir up any regrets lurking beneath your surface. I don’t have a mountain of regrets. Frankly, even at only 44 I think I have lived a rather rich and diverse life with a lot of love and limited hardship. Of the things that I regret the most, are those moments when I have filled my plate too full and allowed life to pull me into a place where I am not happy with myself.   Specifically, the times where my threshold has been surpassed so that with my family, friends or most importantly my children and wife I have failed to be the best John I could be. Don’t get me wrong I haven’t been some intolerable ogre, nor am I prone to being ugly toward people, but I regret those times when I didn’t manage my life well enough to be a patient, kinder John.

“LOVE IS PATIENT, LOVE IS KIND”

These words from 1 Corinthians 13 are only a small fraction of the description of love within that chapter. Yet, I find that even just these two small qualities could possibly be a life time of homework.  I began this post mentioning that I visited a blog of someone I had met recently.  Her name is Mary Jane Ballou and she has a lovely blog called Sacred Miscellany. I would love to know how she finds the rather eclectic mix of links and media she shares.  The video at the top of the page is one of those heart nudging pieces.  To me it is a quiet reminder that “Love is patient, live is kind.”  I hope it stirs you to patience and kindness as it did me, for these are the things that matter the most as life passes.
p.s. Check out Mary Jane’s blog

Ash Wednesday is just two weeks away now. Tonight, our church launched a new discipline for people to adopt during Lent that I am very excited about.  We have 17 members who are homebound or in nursing homes.  Our Evangelism Committee asked people to consider adopting one or more of these members during the six weeks of Lent.  We have a very distinct mission for our adopters.

At the beginning of Lent we are giving each family in the church a decorative handmade wooden table cross that is about 12 inches tall with a devotional guide.  Each week during Lent we will give out a symbol to add to the cross.  The symbols are relate to Jesus last hours and crucifixion. There is a devotional thought for the week associated with each symbol explained in the devotional guide.  We want to include our homebound members in this congregational activity.  So some people are adopting a shut-in and bringing him or her a cross and then returning each week with the next symbol.  We hope that the symbol will be a tangible reminder throughout the week of God’s love for them and our love for them as part of our church family.

Even if your church isn’t doing anything like a cross project it doesn’t mean that you couldn’t adopt an elder in need of some companionship.  Lent runs from Ash Wednesday, Feb. 17th until Easter Sunday, April 4th.  During those six weeks imagine the joy that a visit would bring someone.  You may enjoy it so much that it continues far beyond those six weeks.  Or perhaps, you could just decide to visit a different person each week.  You could be the grace of Jesus Christ to them.  You could be the love of Jesus Christ to them.  It’s something to consider.

If you want to know how we set it up at our church it was quite simple.  I printed out a half sheet that explained the project and at the bottom it said, “Yes, I will adopt….___________________”.  We put the name of a different shut-in on the blank line of each sheet.  We grouped some together that stayed in the same nursing facility that we thought people may want to adopt together.  People just picked up the sheet of the person they wanted to adopt.  We recorded the names of the adopters next to their adoptees on a list we had of our shut-ins.   We did that to make sure that we didn’t miss anyone and also if we have to recruit a few adopters I didn’t want to be needlessly asking a bunch of people who already had someone.  I think we only have few left but we have two weeks to find someone willing to adopt them.

I placed a two copies of our handout on the Lent Page.  If you would like to see or adapt one just click here.  I saved it both as a PDF file and as a Word Document.  The PDF is to make sure that anyone could access it.  The Word format is for anyone who would like to adapt it.

I have a couple more ideas for Lent that I am working on posting before the weekend.  I would love to hear from other people about things they give up during Lent or spiritual disciplines that they take on.  Even if you are from a church or denomination that does not observe Lent I would encourage you to look at the disciplines on the Lent Page because they are all spiritual exercises that benefit someone at anytime.

Blessings to You

Most of us know the story of the prodigal son.  A young man, probably full of late adolescent angst or early twenty know-it-all syndrome, tells his daddy.  ”I can’t wait until your dead to get my money.  Give it to me now.”  Forgive me for the tremendous paraphrasing but you  get the idea.  Dad gives him the money.  The young man then heads out on his own.  He squanders his money and finds himself yearning to go home.  He realizes that even life as a servant at home would be better than the life he has made for himself.  When he comes home his dad is exuberantly overjoyed.  Dad kills the fatted calf and has a big ol’ party much to his other son’s dismay.  The other son feels very slighted.  He has stayed at home and been a good obedient son.  He feels passed over to say the least.  Dad and the good son have a talk and the dad tries to explain his extreme joy.

THE PRODIGAL FATHER

We almost always refer to this as the prodigal son.  The word prodigal according to one online dictionary is defined as:

“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope, to Timothy my loyal child in the faith: grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.”

So begins the first letter of Paul to Timothy.  The words “my loyal child in the faith” leap out at me.  Paul had adopted Timothy spiritually.  He had taken upon himself a commitment to Timothy as if he were Paul’s own child.  He felt a commitment to pray for him, instruct him and hold him accountable.  How many Timothy’s do you have in your life?  I am asking myself the same question.

Many churches are trying to create disciples via curriculum and program.  We are looking for an automated magic formula of education that will transform people into whole-hearted committed disciples.  Most the programs though lack discipling.  They lack a component of people adopting people as either their children in Christ or brothers and sisters in Christ.  Whom have you adopted?

You may feel inadequate to that task and that is okay.  Adoption is more about love than expertise.  Many years ago, when I was in early college I was passionately involved in youth ministry.  I had a simple mission statement for myself.  ”I will love these kids, so that someday they will realize God loves them.”  We did all sorts of programs: dinner clubs, lock-ins, retreats, Bible studies, etc.  I used to tell people that youth ministry never happened in the program.  The program was just an excuse to get together.  The real youth ministry happened in the 15 minutes before and after youth ministry while we waited for parents or ate meals.  That’s when I loved them.  That’s when I asked them about what was going on with school.  That’s when they raised some tough question of faith that they were reluctant to voice in front of everyone else.  That’s when I affirmed and encouraged them.  Real ministry often happened when I gave them a ride home from taking them roller skating and they were the last one to be dropped off and we had a few minutes to ourselves to laugh, cry or whatever was needed.

This past week I saw one of those “kids” for the first time in almost 20 years.  She isn’t a kid anymore.  She is a full grown mature godly woman with a great family.  As I meet and get to know her husband and her children I feel my family circle expanding.  I can’t think of her anymore as a daughter, but more a sister and that makes her kid’s my niece and nephews.  In some way she is part of my spiritual lineage.  I doubt she remembers too many lesson plans, but we both remember vividly car rides and meals shared.  We both remember vividly stopping at McDonald’s and playing on the play ground that we were way to big for.  She still has in a box somewhere a little paper frog I folded from a McDonald’s placemat.  I still have treasures she made for me as well.  Somewhere in those moments and little treasures. she got the message that I loved her and that God loved her.  It wasn’t the only place she got that, but I like to think that it was one of the critical places.

That’s how spiritual adoption works.  It isn’t some big fancy program.  It’s time spent and invested in people.  It’s time laughing and celebrating when life is good.  It’s long phone calls and warm hugs when life stinks.  It’s gabbing openly about what God’s doing in your life.  It’s challenging someone when they are being stupid, but loving them anyways.  It’s asking, “How are you?” when they have the big break up.  It’s calling on a birthday.  It’s listening when they blow it and get grounded by their parents.  It’s staying up really late and talking about everything and nothing all at the same time.  Adoption is loving someone so that they understand God loves them too.

Lastly, adoption isn’t something you put on your calendar with start and stop dates.  When you adopt, you are in it for life.  Your spiritual children will grow up and change, but you will always be committed to them.  You may have phases where you wander apart.  That is part of what kid’s do.  Nevertheless, the commitment of heart is still there.  My “kid” who is now my friend can count on me to be there.  As her children grow, if a time comes when they are in need and I can help, then I’ll be there.  Who knows, may be someday I’ll even get to take them roller skating like their mom.

Can you see that adoption isn’t a five point program that lasts for six months?  It’s a life long commitment to someone’s spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical well being.  Adoption isn’t thinking of someone as a fellow member at your church, but as a member of your family.  So, who are your “kids” right now?  They don’t necessarily have to be children.  You can adopt someone as a brother or sister.  If you are not sure, then whom do you think God is calling you to love right now in a way that they will someday understand God loves them?

Blessings to you my extended virtual family of faith.

Truth be told, I am not sure I have any real enemies. I am sure there are some people out there that don’t like me. I have had people say ugly things behind my back and then glad hand me on Sunday morning. I also have had a few people that suck the life out of me.  I not so affectionately call them my “crazy makers”.  Truth be told though I am not sure I can say  I have enemies who are out to get me. If that day ever comes I hope I have the courage, humor, and perseverance of a pastor persecuted by the Ku Klux Klan that is spoken about in this video. It’s only about 4 minutes long, but it is a very powerful testimony of “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”  This video gave me pause to think of the many times that I have quipped off with sarcasm, anger or a demeaning comment when I felt treated unfairly, when humor and love where choices I could have made instead.