Resurrection Life

Through the River: Understanding Your Assumptions About Truth by Jon & Mindy Hiebert with Dr. Paul Hiebert: A Review

I like the way people like Jon and Mindy Hurst work. I appreciate people who can take complicated and misused or abused concepts and place them in a context in which they might be rationally considered, discussed, and enacted. The Hurst's have done this with the hot-button concept of truth in their book Through the River. From Pilate's question to the arrested Jesus, "What is truth?" to our post-modern contemporary skirmishes between individuals and denominations, truth is a concept that often resists the close scrutiny we assume we must have all given it at some point in our lives. The Hurst's have come along with the analogy of River Town and the three populations that represent three distinct ways of looking at the truth. Assumptions that we make about ourselves and others views are the basis for many of the tensions that arise between people. The Hurst's ability to describe the philosophical areas of Positivism, Instrumentalism, and Critical Realism are a great launching point for serious communities to learn to engage each other with love to truly advance the cause of Christ.

I am, of course, concerned that those who most NEED this book will not be the ones who READ this book but one can always pray, right?

Technorati Tags: truth

Have you checked out Mt. Olivet Plymouth's new Wednesday night worship and education yet?

We have had a wonderful October with an all-new Wednesday evening schedule that includes a meal, worship and education. I am putting some pictures up from our worship time which is led by Jacy Pelstring and Eli Elstad and their band Clarety Drive.

Technorati Tags: life, liturgy, Lutheran, worship

What if? A Sermon on Acts 16

September 20, 2009

Acts 16: 25-34

Singing, Praying, Speaking the Word ‘til the Walls Come Down
Pastor Chris Enstad

Brothers and sisters, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

If you were thrown in prison under false charges and the walls of that prison were shaken by the hand of God so that your path to freedom lay right there in front of you, what would you? The answer to that question is at the very root and foundation of who we are being called to be as Christians in the world as individuals, families, and groups, from the very tiniest members of the body to the oldest.

The actions of Paul and Silas that we just heard read this morning are an example of two men with a faith that was alive, who were planting churches that they expected to be active in the world, and were representatives of a movement of a people who are grounded in the story of God and his Son Jesus Christ to the point that it had moved well out of the rational, head-located, knowledge based ideas of faith and theology into actual lives that lived in expectation that God was active in the world and that wherever God was stuff would happen. Amazing transformative stuff.. There is often a difference between hearing that Jesus died for you and seeing the result of that truth in someone’s life.

Paul and Silas had been thrown in prison for pulling a demon out of a young girl. That girl was being used to make money for her family by telling people their futures and so, by healing her, Paul and Silas were accused of taking away the family’s source of income… so, of to prison they were sent.

We come upon these two men in the text we just heard read singing hymns and praying to God. And the other prisoners were listening. Now, we don’t know much about how those songs were being sung or how those prayers were being prayed, but, I believe it is safe to infer that they were not singing and praying in fear and trembling because the scene of the other prisoners listening seems to suggest that there was at least a modicum of respect being shown these two men, again, falsely imprisoned, and singing hymns and praying to God.

The hand of God shook the prison so much so that not only were the doors rent from their hinges but the shackles fell off of the prisoners. They were free. And they stayed.

The guard, having dishonored his position, was prepared to kill himself when Paul and Silas called out. “We are still here!” Who are these men who, when the walls of their prison were torn down, and their shackles removed, had the courage and desire to stay right here? I mean, who does that?

Exactly. What kind of a person is so confident in their future, who is so sure of their status before God, who has placed their trust in their inheritance of everlasting life, that they would rather stay put then run. That they were prepared to speak the Word of Jesus Christ even to their guard who, if they had let him fall on his sword, would have made their escape even easier! What kind of person would be prepared to do such a thing?

Well, there is Paul. There is Silas. And, brothers and sisters, there is each and every one of you.

More on that in a moment.

After preaching to the guard he invited the two men to his house and had his entire household baptized that day. They shared a feast, the celebrated the conversion of the guard, a guard who, himself, had heard the word of God, seen its effect on how people live their lives, and his entire household was baptized that day.

Folks, when the Word of God is heard, read, preached, or taught, whether at church and even in our homes… stuff starts to happen. Lives are transformed, prison walls some falsely encaging us, some of our own making, start to shatter and fall, and rather than run, rather then let someone or something drive us hither and thither, we stay put to discern where God is going to use us, and all of that powerful stuff starts happening all over again.

Isn’t this an amazing God? Isn’t this an amazing story, a story of Jesus Christ that is a living Word, a Word that breaks into our lives with the power to create something new?

What if, what if we rose up people and families that had the power and presence to engage with the world like Paul and Silas did? What if we unleashed the members of this to truly take their authority as priests of God seriously and taught God’s word to their children, to themselves, and then went out into the world to share that Good News with others and made that service a priority ahead of all other priorities in their lives? What if?

Well, that is exactly what we are praying is going to start happening right here at Mount Olivet. Building on all of the great work that our families and staff have been doing for the past several years, this is the year we, as a family, are going to break out of the way things have always been done in the church, where the staff is the repository of all things Christian and we drop our kids off to receive this knowledge in the hopes not that they will be transformed as much as just that they learn to behave and be good kids. To a new, in fact old, way of being the church where we come to this place to worship God, to learn maybe something new about God, to hear and engage with this Living Word in community with each other, but then return to our homes to convert our very lives over to God and, in that conversion, engage with the world not out of our anxieties or tiredness or never-enoughness but with peace that passes all understanding, with joy and thanksgiving that God is active in the world saving others maybe even through our hands our hearts, and with the sense that all is good, there is always enough, and how could we not give to God the first fruits not just of our treasure but of our talents, our time, our hearts, and our hands each and every day?

Wouldn’t it be something for someone to walk into this place expecting to be spectators and instead they are invited to participate with us in our work together in God’s mission field?

Wouldn’t it be something for a youth to be a non-anxious presence in a kids life that isn’t one of the “cool” kids because they have little regard for what status others attach to them knowing that it is what God already thinks of him or her that really matters? And that they would live their lives that way?

We are inviting all of our families, young and old, with kids, empty nesters, our older wiser Lutherans, to join with each other in exploring new ways of finding the time, space, and priority to make God’s Word a regular part of our lives. Wherever God’s Word shows up, things start to happen. Is your family life really a picture of the walking dead? Is your marriage on cruise control? Are you spinning your wheels looking for purpose because you last child moved out and all of the sudden you have all of this time on your hands? Are you retired and feeling like you have so much to offer and no way to connect with these families that are moving so incredibly fast through life that they blow right by you?

Stay tuned, and show up.

Technorati Tags: sermons

God helps those who canNOT help themselves

I occasionally like to remind folks that the phrase, "God helps those who help themselves," is nowhere to be found within Scripture. That phrase was coined by Benjamin Franklin in Poor Richard's Almanack and unfortunately is the one thing NOT to be found in Scripture that has permeated itself into the essence of American Christianity. God helps those who canNOT help themselves. Lucky you and me first of all but as God's hands in the world we best re-examine our perspectives on the poor (in spirit, in treasure, in love, etc. etc.) from God's viewpoint and not Ben Franklin's. Why is it that this supposedly Christian nation has such a hard-time welcoming the alien among us? Illegal or not? Jesus couldn't even get into this country with the rules and regulations we have in place. Why is it that we have such a hard time giving up something in order to get all of our neighbors into some kind of health insurance coverage ensuring that they have access to the same quality of care as we do? And why are seniors so angry about anyone even daring to change social security or medicare when what they have right now is going to bankrupt their children and grandchildren very soon? Why?

Blessed to be a Blessing: Mission Trip Sunday 2009

Mission Trip Sunday 2009

Matthew 5: 1-12

Blessed to Be a Blessing

Brothers and sisters, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Today we are celebrating the return of our junior and senior high youth from their mission trip experiences this summer. I am always thrilled to hear the stories that young people bring back from these few days carved out of their busy lives and given over to education and service to their neighbors in the world.

Mission trips are a key part of our ministry today because they serve as an opportunity to pull people out of the hustle and bustle of their everyday lives to see what it looks like, feels like, to see what it lives like to be thinking about someone or something other than yourself. Our dominant culture is endlessly and precariously preoccupied with individual success and survival with little energy or thought given to other people both near and far.

So I was thrilled to see that our mission trip youth selected this Gospel text from Matthew 5, which is called the Beatitudes. Beatitude is a word that means happy or blessed and indeed Jesus is teaching his disciples where they will find blessedness but the impressive thing for me and how this text relates to mission is that the beatitudes of Jesus Christ are for a community that will not be formed along the expectations of the dominant culture but will speak another word to that world. This is the Word that we speak to our young people and it is a Word that we all were commissioned into in our baptisms. And so it begs a question: what is the mission to which we are all called? And are we to go about that mission individually or together? And, in this mission, are we allowed or are we even able to hold anything back for ourselves you know, just in case things don’t work out?

This text can be divided into four parts and if you look on your bulletins I invite you to do so either in your head or using a pencil. The first section is vs. 1-2 that set us up for what is about to happen. The next section is 3-6 then 7-10 and finally 11 and 12.

Jesus’ ministry is starting to attract large crowds and so he takes his committed followers with him up a mountain and then sits down to teach. What he is, in fact, doing is commissioning these followers to be his hands his feet his presence in the world but they don’t even realize it yet.

The next part is kind of the first verse of the hymn. You’re blessed when you are at the end of your rope. You are blessed when you have lost what is most dear to you. You are blessed when you don’t put yourself in the middle. You are blessed when you are hungry and thirsty for God, when you are most empty. So blessed are you when you have no hope, no joy, no ego, and are hungry. Wow.

Now many people would take that first part of Jesus’ talk as an instruction book and say, ooh boy, so all I have to do is get sad and hungry real fast and then God will bless me. Or, on the other hand they say, ooh boy, those things are too hard for me I want to sign up for the other kind of blessed and happy. I thought the purpose of life was to pursue happiness and to hold on to what we love and to strive to be all we can be and to keep our selves healthy, wealthy and wise.

And then you come to that second verse. You’re blessed when you care about someone besides yourself. You’re blessed when you get your own heart right with God instead of worrying about if someone else is doing a good enough job at it because then you will start seeing God in the world. You’re blessed when you actively work to reconcile people with each other. You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution.

Now there’s the instruction book. Here’s what Jesus is doing in these verses. He is telling his followers, he is showing you and me, just what the kingdom of God looks like and then that there is no sitting back watching it happen but that we have a part to play in that kingdom as well.

Because the truth of what Jesus is preaching to us here is that those who work for those second group of things are more often than not going to find themselves in the company of those in the first group. When we care for others before ourselves we may find that there can be moments of hopelessness. When we get our own heart right with God and notice that our eyes are seeing things in a new way and our hearts are feeling things in a new way that we might find ourselves without all of the things, people, jobs, money, whatever it is that today defines you as a person, gone and that is when we find ourselves embraced by God. When we become not just fans of peace but actual peacemakers then we find our own egos sublimated to the needs of those who are in struggle, anger, even war with each other. And when we remain committed to god no matter what other people say or do to us the persecution can become excruciating. Our hunger for God, though, becomes deeper and our thirst pervasive so that when we are fed and watered here at this alter in communion or in a remembrance of our baptism that it is the best food and drink we have ever had.

And then Jesus closes it out in fine form. Oh, and one more thing, count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or tell lies about you in order to discredit me. That’s what happens when people used to the dark are shown the great light. And even if they don’t like it, Jesus says, I DO. And all of heaven too. And guess what, isn’t that the kind of company you want to keep?

My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble.

Brothers and sisters, when was the last time you got into trouble because of your faith in Jesus Christ? And if you did was it for the right reasons? A lot of Christians call it persecution if someone gets mad at them but often it is because they have left themselves in the middle you see, they set themselves up as a judge over someone else and then claim to be wanting to help them but it isn’t about them at all it is about the person doing the acting.

So when was the last time you got into trouble because of Jesus? Has Jesus been calling you into a mission field that seems unsafe, where you might lose all that you have worked so hard to gain, where your status, reputation, job, everything that defines you as you are right now might go bye-bye? Have you ever been thirsty for God?

It is fun for us today to talk about these kids mission trips and those youth’s service but just as Jesus did with the disciples and followers, so I am now doing to you and turning the tables because yes, it is good to celebrate others who have “done service” but in the words of Christ that we are hearing this morning we are confronted with a reality that we are called to care, to get our minds and hearts right with God and not our boss or our spouse, we are called to be active reconcilers in the world and not spectators we cannot hear this word and remain watchers of others doing God’s work in the world. We are being called today to get in trouble on account of Jesus Christ… to speak the truth to power, to become a community that refuses to be shaped by what our culture expects and demands, and, finally, to find ourselves in the company of heaven not just one week a year but each and every day of our lives.

Technorati Tags: preaching, sermons

A Word About The Picture

I was thrilled to see the picture of these people launching their boat as an option on this typepad blog. One of the beautiful things that Tim Lull spoke of before his untimely death was about the "jewels in the Lutheran crown". His main point, which I took to heart and am carrying with me to this day, was that the Lutheran Church has built an amazing and beautiful boat. The theology is dead on, the craft would be able to hold the whole world if the flood were to return. And yet, and yet, we have never, as a Church, figured out how to get the thing out of the boathouse. Endless debates on trivial matters have held us back from transforming the world into a ragtag army of forgiven sinners out there serving our neighbor regardless of our own status, reputation or standing. I think the world likes us to remain mired in the litmus test debates because that keeps us safely in our boathouse. The world "likes" this and thus "likes" us. But we need to get into the business of being hated. How dare we associate ourselves with the least, the lost, the lowly, the excluded? Who do we think we are? I want to get the dang boat into the water and start fishing. How about you?

What Jesus Prays For, Jesus Gets. Oh-oh.

7 Easter 2009
John 17: 6-19

“What Jesus Prays For, Jesus Gets”
Pastor Chris Enstad

Brothers and sisters, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

I want to beg your pardon to try something with you this morning… a little experiment in interactive church. The early church didn’t have things like pulpits and set apart preachers but were places for mutual edification, people offering their different facets of faith and life to one another and in that way sharing in the Holy Spirit and the fellowship of God’s family that was given to them in baptism. So, that being said, I want you to turn to a neighbor and think about the last time either someone told you, “I’ll be praying for you” or you said that to someone else. What thoughts went through your mind when you heard those words being said to you or if you said them to someone else did you actually pray for that person and do you believe that God answered that prayer? Take a few moments to share with a neighbor.

Here’s another question, “Raise your hand if you have ever added yourself or someone you knew to a prayer chain here or somewhere else?” Keep your hands up how many others could or should have added himself or herself or someone they know to a prayer chain here or somewhere else?

Thank you.

I tried that first question out on a friend of mine. I asked him, “What do you think when someone tells you they will pray for you?” He answered me, “Yeah right”. There are several ways we respond when someone tells us they will be praying for us, sometimes we are thankful because we know we need those prayers and we are in a relationship with that person that means that we know that they mean what they say. But other times I will pray for you can sound like a safe way to close an uncomfortable conversation or to confront a reality that we don’t have any other words for. When someone says to us, “I will be praying for you” it usually will get some kind of a reaction out of us. Thankfulness, disbelief, uneasiness, gratitude, peace… knowing we are the subjects of prayer causes an emotional response.

Today we get to sit in on someone else praying and that someone is Jesus. And the amazing thing about this prayer is that he is praying it for you and for me, Jesus is praying for us. What does it mean for us to be a community for which Jesus is praying? What does it mean for us that we have landed on Jesus’ prayer chain? I think the implications for how we live our life together and in the world are huge. I mean here is God’s only begotten Son praying to his Father for us… do you think God would ignore that prayer? I titled my sermon today, “What Jesus Prays For, Jesus Gets” but I could have added two more words to that title, “oh-oh”. This morning I want to stop for a moment and examine just what it is that Jesus is asking God for on our behalf and then, yes, stop and think about what it means for our lives together and in the world.

The first prayer request is that God might keep us in his name, the name he gave to Jesus Christ and that Christ then gave to us in our baptism. So that we might be one, as Jesus and God are one.

Wow wow wow. Protect them in your name. How can we even pretend to go back to the way things used to be in our lives today, brothers and sisters, knowing that we are protected in the name of God? I get blown away and then I get sad and then I get blown away again when I realize just what this implies… that I have full right to go about my life on this earth under the protection of God’s name and not just a God or one of many God but God, the God who created heaven and earth. If God kept that prayer and our faith tells us that he has, then that family that asked you to help them a few weeks ago, they get your help, that sticky conversation with your brother or sister that you have been avoiding for lack of confidence or courage, you’re going to have it, that idea of I’m going to church has to go out the window because guess what, you are the church.

And Jesus’ prayer implies that we are doing all of this in unity. “So that they may be one, as we are one”. There is no solo actor here, no little group of individuals each of us doing what we think is right, there is a unity to the body of Christ and that unity is granted to us by God under his name. We don’t get to decide who is in and who is out and just like your regular families you might be surprised or even disturbed to find out who else shares your name and who just might be showing up at the family reunion but nevertheless, the opportunity to hear this prayer is also an opportunity for us to realize that we cannot waste time trying to be gatekeepers for God’s family or trying to protect God’s name from the people on whom it might land… Jesus has bigger plans for us then squabbles over who belongs and who doesn’t… Jesus’ body wasn’t broken and his blood was not shed for us to keep on giving ourselves over to the endless and demeaning debates on what it means to be a Christian because guess what, the job isn’t ours anyway. God protect them in your name and make them one, as we are one.

The other request that is so amazing to me is Jesus’ request for God to “Sanctify us in the truth.” And what is the truth? God’s word is the truth. That short little prayer request, that God might sanctify us in the truth and that God’s word is truth is so big and so bold and so full of grace and mercy that it makes me wonder why this prayer didn’t become the true Lord’s Prayer?

To be sanctified means to be made holy. So Jesus is asking that we might be made holy. The part that we often mess up is that we start thinking that the job of becoming holy is our job. So we set up all of these endless schemes and projects and systems of accountability to hold each other to principles that we have deemed to be holy and then we keep score don’t we? Who is the better Christian and who is not? The conversations that I have had with Christian leaders who are neck deep in systems like these really creep me out because they neglect the Word that is the truth and that Word is the Gospel and the Gospel is this, that while we were still dead in sin Jesus Christ died for us. The Gospel is that good news that God knows that we are sinners and there is no good reason for us to pretend otherwise. When we have confession and absolution at the beginning of our worship services we are merely saying aloud what God already knows. Whenever we even try we are more than likely to fail… if we try at all… and don’t even get us started on the things we should have done and don’t even know we should have done.

It is into this reality that Jesus was sent to proclaim the forgiveness of sins. We are forgiven sinners. There is no need for us to walk around moping or boasting that life is either too hard by God’s rules or that we have the whole life thing figured out and if we you only did what I do you would find yourself a happier, more prosperous, a more better you. No, the better us is the one who walks freely into the world not surprised that sin exists but equipped and protected by the word that God already knows all of that and despite the power of sin and death saved you and saved me. We are forgiven sinners.

And that isn’t even the main point of that amazing sentence. The power of sanctification is not to be overlooked but it is whenever I get mixed up in the idea that I am somehow responsible for figuring out what it means to be a Christian or get down on myself for not living as holy a life as some other guy out there Jesus prayer comes back into my head and I remember one thing. Jesus does not pray for us to sanctify ourselves in some kind of passive aggressive prayer that he knows we are overhearing, “God I pray that those wild kids might learn to follow your commandments.” No, the amazing thing about this prayer is that it reminds us that it is God who does the sanctifying. God, sanctify them in the truth, your word is the truth. Our job is to get ourselves to wherever this word is and then let God take over… this word of God is truly a living thing it is a powerful thing and it is a word that can bear little control from us.

And towards the end of those verses we heard read this morning we find that word “send” again don’t we. No matter how many ways we look at it Jesus refuses to allow us to think about our lives as Christians fulfilled by getting ourselves into this building once and awhile but reminds God and us that we are being sent into the world, just as Jesus Christ was sent into the world a world that knew him not and a world that will hate us. Are you ready to do that? Are you ready to live a life knowing that we are all screw-up and despite that God has done an amazing and beautiful and phenomenal thing for you and in that thing comes God’s eternal protection and the signature on that policy belongs to God? There is just absolutely no way around it, our lives as God’s children are out there in the world and to get that world to hate us. How dare we treat everyone as our equal, unified in the name of the Lord? How dare we hang out with the least the lost and the lowly with no question as to how they got there but sharing the love of God in word and deed with no concern for our own reputation or status? Who do we think we are, God’s called and sent people?

Brothers and sisters what Jesus prays for Jesus gets. I believe that the answer to Jesus’ prayer is you.

Technorati Tags: lectionary, Easter 7, sermons

Striving To Be All That We Are: 1 John 3:1-7

3 Easter 2009

1 John 3: 1-7

Striving To Be All That We Are
Pastor Chris Enstad

Brothers and sisters grace to you and peace from God our Father our Risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

“See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.”

Did you catch that? It’s easy to let it slide right by us as Bible verses read on a Sunday morning often do. “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.”

Hold on just a minute here ‘o author of John surely there must be something we must do first in order to earn the right to call ourselves God’s children. How can you say that we already are God’s children? But what about living good and virtuous lives? What about the rules, what about our traditions, what about judging each other as clean or unclean in or out, with- the- program or just not going along with the show?

Maybe what John meant to write is, “See what love the Father has given us, that we might be called children of God; and that is what we might be.”

For too long the Church has lived as though Jesus Christ didn’t really die for our sins. Well, sure, we say we believe but we live as though we still have the weight of the world and life on our shoulders. We like to think we follow the great commission, you know, how Jesus sends his disciples out into the world to baptize in the name of the Trinity… but the reality is that we kind of like the way our church feels now not too big, not too small with familiar faces showing up for things and no one too outside the norm showing up or asking the wrong kinds of questions or forcing us to think about ourselves in a new way.

Now that’s a harsh assessment of the Church, and it is ok if you get a little offended, but I want you to try it on for just a moment. Is the church a club where rules both written and unwritten are expected to be followed and where some kind of culture of we show up to be taken care of is at work or is it a mission training center that recognizes that you are already God’s children and that we are here to equip you to live even better and even deeper into who you already are and that includes talking about things like life and death and jumping into God’s story which involves a huge amount of risk but no, not really because all it means is that this place isn’t someplace you belong to but it is a place you come because you already belong to each other. It’s a family reunion and this is the gazebo in some ways… there’s fellowship, some kind of speech, some singing and dancing, a meal, and then you are returned to your lives refreshed and ready to go about your daily lives but always knowing that your name isn’t something you had to earn, that family crest, it is someone you already are.

And all of what I just said is just about the first verse!

Can I do one more?

“The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.” Matthew Henry, that great 17th century Presbyterian non-conforming British minister once wrote, “These poor, humble, and despised ones are the favored ones of God.” The children of God are not the honored, expounded, honored and celebrated in the world. Congregations of people who strive to be known in the world usually have rejected either implicitly or explicitly their true love, Jesus Christ. They live lives and do church in ways that their culture or community or world has decided is “Christian” and forget that the true life of a child of God is lived in the shadow of the cross… it is lived in the emptying out of reputation and status for the sake of the lost, it is the picture of the sheep going out of the fenced in pasture into the world knowing that their shepherd is the one who has claimed them and named them and saved them already. The world, in its current configuration, cannot figure out what to do with these rag tag armies of God’s children who seek to serve and to love and to save with little regard for their own status and reputation.

Brothers and sisters, we are living our lives between the font and the heavenly banquet table. In our baptisms we were joined to Christ and our membership in the family of God was bestowed on us not because of anything we did to deserve it or earn it but solely out of the love of Our Father who so loved us that He gave His only Son to die for us. And then, then we approach this table to receive this body and blood of Jesus, a foretaste of the feast to come when we will dine face to face with our Savior. The communion table is a waypoint in our journey; it is a touchstone where we are forgiven, fed, and nourished to return to our lives lived out there in the world.

And this church is being called to be out there. The life of this church is not restricted to Sunday mornings or Wednesday evenings or the myriad other programs or opportunities that have come to be seen as our “church time”. No, the life of the church is in the world. It is vulnerable, it takes risks, and it plunges headfirst into real life… and that’s a dangerous proposition because that means a life lived beyond our control, our goal setting, our expectations but it is a life lived knowing that we are baptized and fed with just a foretaste of the feast to come… a taste of everlasting life that is intended to leave us wanting, seeking, yearning for more.

So when the author of John moves on and writes about purity and sinlessness he is not talking about more rules and regulations, he is not even talking about morality, he is talking about the result of a life lived taking the promises of the font and the table and this very Living World seriously. If you have this name, “child of God”, how can you possibly not want to free yourself of any hindrance, and hesitation, and yes, any caution that would keep you from God’s presence?

So what does this mean for us here in this little gazebo called Mt. Olivet Lutheran Church of Plymouth? What does it look like to be a community striving not become known or even honored, what does it look like to be a community that wants its building not to be a club but an outpost where missionaries are equipped to live their lives in that striving to better be who they already are?

My sense is that just as with my own children it will be a descriptive and not prescriptive community… by that I mean that as anyone knows with children you cannot raise them in a one size fits all mentality, it just doesn’t work. Berit is not Liv and Liv is certainly not Berit and yet they share my name and they are a part of my family. What works for Liv does not work for Berit, what works for me probably won’t work for you. But I can describe what this family looks like so let me try one description for you:

One of the downfalls of a church that doesn’t take its bestowed identity seriously is that they get the “child of God” idea just fine but then becomes the child who has moved back into their parents basement and never quite gets its collective act together to move out and live their own lives! So how about a church that comes together to be equipped to live in the world? How about a church that wants to Jump Into God’s story but then recognizes that that story continues out beyond the walls of the church building but is fully present in the world? How about a community that isn’t satisfied with the consumer mentality of “getting something out of church” but is striving to learn and serve and grow into its identity as God’s children in the world, a world that will not know it? And that that becomes our worship? No longer can we ask each other “so what did you get out of worship today” but we can ask each other “So, what did God get out of our worship today?” The consumer of our worship life is not us but God. We give, God gets. The consumer of our life in the world, then, is not us but our neighbor. We give, they get.

Our identity is not something we earned or even chose but was bestowed on us at the font, “Child of God, you have been marked with the Cross of Christ and sealed by the Holy Spirit forever.” And the life we live between the font and the heavenly feast, that, that is our worship, our offering, our thanksgiving, our response to God’s crazy, amazing, lavishing love and grace.

Amen.

Technorati Tags: sermons

Thoughts on Organic Community

I am reading, finally, Joseph Myers book, "Organic Community: Creating a place where people naturally connect". I have been drawn to these ideas for some time and now, with my aforementioned new call, am hoping to explore them in a church that is wondering if there is more than being a "programmatic" church. The answer is yes. I will jot some thoughts as I move through the book and invite, as always, your comments.

I have been in a programmatic congregation for the past eight years. This is not a critique of that congregation but merely my thinking on if that is truly what a church is meant to be... is it the only way... and is it the best way?

Myers is pushing back, as I have been, against the current method of doing church which is to import business practices into church life without asking any deep or thoughtful questions about it. Full is good, busy is good, bottom line means more than the quality of discipleship. People become cogs in someone else's machine rather than sharing a sense of true belonging.

Is there a way to shift the thinking of those who are called to ministry to become environmentalists rather than programmers... in other words, instead of burning time, energy, talent, and good-will by ceaselessly creating more and bigger and faster and on and on programs, how can we begin nurturing environments where community can spontaneously emerge? Myers points out that to do so we must hand over our desire for control, our look for a check-list of "how" and our presumptions that we know best... as a church leader I can tell you that that is a huge task in itself.

Technorati Tags: Joseph R. Myers, organic community

A New Day

Well, it's nearly official. I have been given a call to a new church, Mt. Olivet Lutheran Church of Plymouth (no relation to Mt. Olivet, Mpls), as Pastor of Faith Formation. My last sermon at Normandale will be Feb. 8 and my last day is Feb. 15. I will begin my new ministry as of March 15! To have been in my first call for nearly 8 years is remarkable and I have many good memories to take with me and a new opportunity is exciting and scary at the same time!