Presby-Musings

  “We become what we love, and who we love shapes what we become.” —St. Clare of Assisi Recently, I was watching my fifteen-year-old son warm up on the sidelines in preparation for a football game.  I was sitting next to his oldest brother, who is sixteen years older than him, and who played football on the same field long ago.   At one point, I nudged my oldest son and said, "Look at how your brother is standing.  He looks just like you did at that age."  It was uncanny.  If you had photos of the two of them side by side from the same vantage point, you would be hard-pressed to determine who was who.   It's hard to say just how that happened.  Some of it could be genetics, but I think most of it is imitation on my youngest's part, brought on by years of being around his older brother and by his subconscious desire to be like him.   This got me thinking about what it means to do our best to imitate Jesus, which is the kind of...

“The wound is the place where the light enters you.” —Rumi Over twenty years ago, I got some advice from a fellow pastor that I have ignored ever since.   We were talking about preaching, and he had some criticisms of the way I shared my doubts, fears, mistakes, and brokenness in some of my sermons.   He told me that I shouldn't be so vulnerable in front of the congregation about my struggles, and that doing so undermined my pastoral identity with them.  Then he said something very telling:  "Never let them see the cracks in your armor."   I felt like there was something entirely off about that approach, but I never really could articulate why until some time later, when I read a poem by the 13th-century poet Rumi, and the line that is quoted above:  “The wound is the place where the light enters you.”  I quickly substituted "crack" for "wound" and found the very reason the advice I was given was off the mark.   We spend much...

“Sometimes God shatters what we thought was whole so that we can become truly complete.” —Unknown. Everything was going great.  I was approaching ten years of serving as the lead pastor of a church I loved and had poured my heart and soul into.   Sure, there were challenges, but by every way that you could measure success, things were going swimmingly.  Worship attendance, giving, and membership were at all-time highs.  For a church that was nearly 130 years old, I was serving during its most significant moment of growth and community impact.   And then I began to feel the inextricable, troubling sense that I needed to leave.  I didn’t understand it, but I decided to at least explore the possibility.   Months later, I received a call to serve my current church, and to make what some folks thought was a foolish move, halfway across the country.  I have to be honest, I had more than a few moments of doubt about it, too.   ...

“Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out.” — Václav Havel There was a season when I nearly lost hope. It came quietly—less like an explosion, more like a slow leak. Each day, the air of expectation seeped out of my soul. Ministry felt heavy, progress elusive. The prayers I’d once prayed with confidence now felt like they hit a ceiling and fell back to the floor. The congregation I was serving had all kinds of ideas about what I should be doing to grow the church, attract young families, increase giving, and the like.  Almost all of those ideas were ones they had tried and failed to do in the past.   And any ideas I had were summarily dismissed by half of the lay leadership, who honestly wanted nothing to change.   One evening, after another discouraging meeting, I went to sit alone in the sanctuary. The lights were off, the stained glass dimmed by the night sky....

“Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable.” —David Augsburger A little over two years ago, I was going through one of the worst seasons of my life.  I felt like my entire world was falling apart because, in a sense, it was.  My marriage of 32 years was coming to an end, my family was never going to be the same, and along with everything, I was facing serious financial challenges. As a pastor, I try my best to be there for anyone in my church family who is going through hard times, to offer my prayers, guidance, and presence.  But I have serious issues asking for help for myself.   Even so, I reached out to a friend during the whirlwind of those days, and ended up talking for a couple of hours.  I don't think she said more than a couple of sentences to me while I poured out everything that was on my troubled heart.  Nothing got solved.  The hurt didn't go away.  The situation didn't...

It’s Reformation Sunday !   (And Still Pentecost ) We are teaching through a sermon series in October, entitled “ A New Way .”  The inspiration for this series comes from what the early followers of Jesus called themselves.   Early Christians were called “ Followers of the Way ," meaning the " Way of Christ ."  Now more than ever we need to be reconnecting with this ancient notion of what it means to follow Jesus.      Today, we’re going to read a passage in which Jesus tells a pointed story to people who firmly believed they were right.   (Spoiler alert: they weren’t) The Psychology of Self-Righteousness Before we dive into our text, let's talk about the psychology of self-righteousness.  Because there is one, not surprisingly.    Characteristics of a self-righteous person:  Judgmental attitude: tendency to judge others harshly for differing beliefs or behaviors. Lack of Empathy: Difficulty in understanding or valuing th...

“If you can’t take time to rest, your rest will eventually take you.” —Unknown. I've been working nonstop over the past several days as I prepare to relist my house with a new realtor, who hopefully will be able to sell it soon.  My dad and stepmom have been right alongside helping me with painting, landscaping, cleaning, and the like.   Today, a photographer came over to shoot video and to take photos for the listing.  Before he arrived with the realtor this morning, I was still bustling, trying to get the place photo-ready.   As I sit here this moment, I feel like I'm completely wrung out, and I've got a bunch of non-house-related work to do.  And I'm beating myself up for not getting more done.   Also, I've told at least four people how tired and busy I am already today.   We live in a world that glorifies exhaustion. Our culture applauds busyness, rewards overwork, and subtly convinces us that our worth is tied to our productiv...

I've shared a great deal over the years about my experiences growing up in the fundamentalist Baptist world.  There was a lot to be critical of, to be sure.  It's a testament to the grace of God that despite everything, I came back to the Church and do what I do.  I have to confess there have been more than a few times when I've looked down upon the people and places that were a part of my upbringing from a high and haughty distance.  But I owe a great deal to so many people from that time in my life.   I am thinking today of kind-hearted Sunday school teachers who put up with my incessant questions and demonstrated God's grace and patience.  I'm remembering my youth director and basketball coach from high school, who spent time with me and encouraged me.   I'm also thinking of my parents, who did their very best to teach me good values, instilled in me a love for the stories in the Bible, and encouraged me to read it cover to cover. ...

Over the past many years, I have used a phrase in sermons, Devos, and even my bios on social media and the books I've written that has resonated with more than a few people.  "I'm stumbling after Jesus."  I've written about that phrase before, but I don't recall ever sharing where it came from until now.  I was working on something not too long ago, and I came across a passage from Brennan Manning's Ragamufin Gospel  that I'd highlighted years ago:  “ What makes authentic disciples is not visions, ecstasies, biblical mastery of chapter and verse, or spectacular success in the ministry, but a capacity for faithfulness. Buffeted by the fickle winds of failure, battered by their own unruly emotions, and bruised by rejection and ridicule, authentic disciples may have stumbled and frequently fallen, endured lapses and relapses, gotten handcuffed to the fleshpots and wandered into a far county. Yet, they kept coming back to Jesus . ” So now you know the ori...

I saw a video the other day of an older man shouting at some protesters at one of the hundreds of recent protests across the U.S. He said some awful things and used vile epithets to refer to someone off-camera and to the person filming him.  A young man on a skateboard flashed by the man and swiped the sunglasses off his face, and a short-lived chase ensued.  The older guy face-planted in the middle of the street and stumbled around with his face bloodied before falling again.   Some protesters appeared to be trying to calm the man down and guide him away, telling him he was hurt.  It was a pitiful moment that exemplified the level of rage in our culture.  You could argue that the man hurling despicable insults got what he deserved, but it was a hollow victory at best.  You could also argue that he was provoked by being assaulted and robbed, and was a victim in this scenario.  The fact is, in that one incident and the thousands of other moments li...

For years of my life, I had an inner voice that spoke to me like a bad recording of the worst song ever written, played at half speed just to make it even more creepy and awful.   The voice would say things like, "I hate myself," "You're such an idiot," "Look what you did," and sometimes, when things were really bad, the voice would speak with mock longing about what my life could be by saying, "Don't you wish...?"   When I was alone, the voice would speak out loud through me, so I could hear it.  And it never shut up.  It was a constant companion that I could never be rid of, no matter how hard I tried.   I'm happy to say that the voice of my inner critic has grown mostly silent over the past couple of years, and only occasionally resurfaces.  When it does, I have learned to acknowledge it, and then dismiss it with extreme prejudice.   It's not an easy thing to silence that nasty voice inside us that wants to remind us we aren...

Let’s check… Yes, It’s Still the Season of Pentecost And it will be for a while, at least until November, when we shift to the season of Advent.  These historic rhythms of the Church help us to stay connected to our ancient traditions, all the while re-imagining them through the lens of our historic moment.   We are teaching through a sermon series in October, entitled “A New Way.”   Early Christians were called “Followers of the Way," long before they became known as Christians, and now more than ever, we need to reconnect with that idea of following in the way of Christ in a divided world where it's often difficult to know what it really means to be a Christian.   Today, we’re going to read a story Jesus told about an unjust judge and a persistent widow to learn the power of persistence and prayer.   How Do We Define Persistence In Our Current Culture? Do we give up too easily in a world of immediacy?  When things become difficult, and our plans...