Presby-Musings

I read a magazine article once that heralded the arrival of a prototype electronic translation device you wear in your ear, almost like a hearing aid.  This device provides real-time translation  of whatever language it is "hearing."   This device has the potential to allow people from different countries and origins to speak their own languages to one another without confusion.   I love the symbolism of the earpiece translator.  When it is used, it has the potential to connect, unify and heal--depending on the grace and peace of the words spoken and heard.    There's this passage of Scripture in the book of Genesis chapter 11 that tells the story of the Tower of Babel.  "Come, let us build ourselves a city," the people in the story exclaim, "with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves..."   They had discovered the "technology" of how to bake bricks to build huge walls and tow...

I spent the last three days of this week honing my leadership skills and learning some new ones with a group of lead pastors from around the country (and one from Canada).   I was the only Presbyterian in a room full of non-denominational, Pentecostal and Baptist leaders, which was a bit outside of my comfort zone.   Whatever our theological differences might have been, however, we didn't dwell on them.  Every single one of us in the room was after the same thing: We wanted to be better pastors and leaders--for the purpose of sharing the Good News with a world that needs to hear a word of hope.   Every so often I find myself grieving over the seemingly hopeless divisions between Christian groups, churches, and denominations.  And sometimes my grief turns to anger, and my anger leads me to create barriers.   The walls that have been up between Christians have done very little to advance the kingdom of God, which was the focus o...

I was scrolling through my Facebook feed yesterday, and came across a post from an old seminary classmate.  He declared that he was angry, and that in the coming days he was going to be posting things that some people might find offensive, but he didn't care if they did.   He went on to say something like, "If you no longer want to be my friend because of what I am going to say--so be it."   Lately, lots of people seem to have adopted that attitude.  I was watching a cable news channel the other day and the host of the program had two people on his show who had differing viewpoints on the recent election.   Neither one would allow the other to speak. They shouted over each other as they tried to make their own particular point be heard, which resulted in no one being able to understand anything they were saying.   Our culture is full of people who seem to only care about their own stories, and have little interest in listening to the stories of o...

These past few days after the presidential election have been interesting to say the least. Some people are still grieving the outcome of the election, and are being forced to come to grips with the fact that roughly half of their fellow citizens deeply disagree with them on the direction our country should take.   Still others are being confronted with the grief of their fellow citizens, and are struggling to understand it.  I've spoken with some of these folks, who are flummoxed and angered by the protests that are springing up in all over the U.S.   Being in community is not easy.   Accepting others and their differences is not something most of us do all that well, if we are being honest.   Most of don't do empathy with a great deal of ease, either.  And forget about identifying with others completely.  There are so few of us who are able to do that, it's shocking.   The Church ought to be a place where these things are the rule a...

The election is over.   I figured that no matter who won yesterday, there would be people I know and care about, who would wake up today and think the Apocalypse had come.  I also knew that there would be people I know and care about, who would be rejoicing.   Today I am reaching out both to those who are rejoicing this morning, and to those who are filled with dread.   First, to those who feel as though the world has come to an end.  It hasn't.  The sun rose outside my window.  Creation still speaks of the glory of God.  Jesus is still risen.  The fact that your candidate of choice didn't win doesn't change who you are, and more importantly who you are in the eyes of God.   You have work to do to be reconciled to those with whom you disagree, but if you must mourn, don't try to suppress it.  Mourn today, and then gather your strength tomorrow to be renewed in the Spirit as you take up once again the work of embodyi...

As I scroll through my Facebook feed each day I am always struck by the deep divides that exist between so many of my Christian friends.  I see Christians sharply divided over politics, Biblical interpretation, social justice issues and so much more.   The latest presidential debate sparked a flurry of Facebook posts within which many of my Christian friends both defended their candidate of choice, while excoriating the other. In one case, one of my friends offered an impassioned defense of support for the candidate they believed had "sinned less" than the other.    I think the problem that we are coming face to face with as Christians during this contentious election season is deep-seeded and difficult to address.  Both conservative and progressive Christians claim to be appealing to the same playbook, but are finding vastly different answers within it.   The problem is that we've come to see our Christian faith as a system of beliefs rather than ...

Years ago, I was facilitating a leadership retreat for an ecumenical group of students and adults when an argument started over whether Christians should have tattoos.   It didn't take long before the entire session we had planned was hijacked because of the debate.  The people who gathered for this retreat represented a number of North Florida church youth groups from different theological and denominational backgrounds--conservative, progressive, Baptists, Pentecostals, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, Non-denominational, and the like.      There were a few of us in the room who actually had tattoos, and our ability to lead was being called into question by some of the participants.  Lines were quickly drawn and before we knew it, that one argument grew into several arguments, and the group began to devolve into factions.   It was at that point that a young woman stood up with her Bible in her hand.  Everyone got quiet as she r...

This week we are continuing the sermon series "At The Movies" for the month of July--and if it sounds a bit familiar, you would be correct in assuming we've done something like this before.  I say like this, because this is actually the second year in a row that we have scheduled the sermon series "At The Movies" during the month of July.  We did this for a couple of good reasons:  First, July typically is the worst month of the year for church attendance and so most churches just fold it up for the entire month.  But not us.  We decided to ramp up this month for the most interactive, creative sermon series of the year.  The second reason why we are doing At The Movies again, is because as Christians we need to learn a powerful lesson about the universe:  Everything is Spiritual.  We need to be able to look at the world around us, at culture, at art, at theater, music and even movies and be able to find the spiritual core at the center o...

I'm learning patience this week.   You see, I am serving as a Commissioner to the 222nd General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA), and I am on one of the most challenging committees, with the largest workload.   Yesterday, we worked from 9AM until nearly 10PM with only a couple of hours of breaks for lunch and dinner.  We worked on very dense overtures to the Assembly, and we did so strictly observing Roberts Rules of Order.   At one point, I made a motion to amend a motion that was amended from an earlier motion, which we later perfected before approving it in lieu of the original motion.  If you can't make sense of that at all--I don't blame you one iota.    So back to this patience thing.   I have a hard time working in large groups with people who can't follow conversations, don't pay attention and who show up late in the midst of a discussion and raise controversial issues that derail the process.   Seriously, just...

I think I just might boycott cable television news for the next five months--maybe even longer than that.  Six to eight months might do it, to be honest.  By then the election will be over, and the madness with it.   The other day I made the mistake of turning on the TV in the morning to watch the news and catch up on what had been happening since the last time I'd watched.  It took me just a few moments to realize why I'd turned it off the last time.  I can sum it up in two words: Phony Outrage.   It felt like every single person on TV that morning was filled with phony outrage: presidential candidates, pundits, politicians, reporters, talking heads...  everyone.  It seems as though there wasn't a single topic, a single story that didn't evoke phony outrage from someone.     I've noticed this same kind of behavior among Christians, lately.  It's funny how the dominant Christian voices in our culture always seem to be decry...

The very first church I served as a youth pastor had once been a thriving, vibrant community of faith. By the time I arrived, however, those days were gone.  Arguments over worship styles, the pastor's sermons, elder nominations and a host of other issues had chipped away at membership, and worship attendance was well under a hundred.   An influential, vocal minority had exited some years prior to my tenure, and they didn't leave well.  There were no young families in the church by the time I showed up.  For a long while, my son Jay, who was not quite three then, was the only child in the nursery.   The story of that church is a story that is similarly told in churches all across America.  Petty quarrels, struggles over power, arguments over personal preferences, and even disagreements about denominational issues have devastated so many congregations.  Over 4,000 churches will close their doors this year, and the year after that, and perhaps eve...

For the remainder of this week we'll be reflecting on Gratitude--because it's Thanksgiving Week, brothers and sisters!   Tomorrow many of us will gather around tables with friends and loved ones, and we'll celebrate Thanksgiving.  We'll share a meal (or three), the many blessings we've been given and perhaps some laughter, too. More than a few of us will fall asleep on the couch afterward with football on the television, and the sounds of our family in the background.   While most Americans will enjoy Thanksgiving to the fullest, there are few of us who know the history of this great holiday.  It was, in fact, Abraham Lincoln who set aside the last Thursday of November as a national day of thanksgiving.  For the next 75 years each President would do the same--annually declaring Thanksgiving a national holiday.  In 1941, Congress finally acted to make Thanksgiving a permanent national holiday.  So why did Lincoln think it was so important to ...

Recently, I received an email from a former attendee of my church who expressed a great deal of anxiety over the state of Christianity in America.  He was of the opinion that the current debates over various social and cultural issues were tearing the Church in America apart.   He also believed that any deviation from what he identified as the "plain truth" of the Bible was a sign of the end times.  I didn't have the time or the space to share with him all of my thoughts, but I did my best.  The more I thought about it, though, the more I wished I'd said. The thing is, there have always been issues that have torn at the heart of the Church.     Consider the following quote from the 16th century reformer Martin Luther on the great controversy regarding the heliocentric theory of the solar system:   “People gave ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon. Thi...

There was this old parable told by a Scottish preacher about a meeting that took place between two men that had been healed of their blindness by Jesus. Apparently, the former blind man from the healing story in John chapter 9 met the former blind man from Mark chapter 8 and they began to compare notes. The man from John 9 told his counterpart of the way in which he was healed. "Jesus spit on the ground," he said, "and then he took the mud he made and put them on my eyes. When I washed the mud off, I could see." He went on to assert that this was the only proper way to be healed. The man from Mark 8 pooh-poohed this concept and declared that the only true way to be healed was without mud. Naturally they argued the point, and parted ways in anger. And naturally two Christian sects were born as a result. The Muddites and the Non-Muddites. Funny. It's funny because it's so like the way things really are. There's an old hymn that asserts, "They w...