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I’ve written the last few days about church: that’s it’s more than grand cathedrals and that its members are to be the church, not just go to church. For some of you, this may be a tough sell. It’s a different message from what you’re used to. For example, a pastor of a large church, bemoaning the drop in attendance because of bad weather, recently wrote:

Nothing can replace being here in person. The purpose of the church is to gather in worship and glorify the Lord together.

Really? “The purpose of the church is to gather in worship and glorify the Lord together” sounds good, but is that the purpose of the church? Not according to the Apostle Paul:

He handed out gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, and pastor-teacher to train Christians in skilled servant work, working within Christ’s body, the church, until we’re all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God’s Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ. (Ephesians 4.11 – 13, MSG, emphasis mine)

The mission of the church is to train, and there are few, if any, skills that can be trained in a large group environment. For example, we don’t learn to play piano by attending concerts! Concerts are important for inspiration and motivation, but the work of training people to make music happens in the teacher’s studio and the student’s practice room.

The pastor’s ministry strategy is not to put on a worship service every week. It’s to invest in people. And those people (“reliable”–not necessarily ordained, seminary-educated people!) train others. This is the counsel the Apostle Paul gave to the young pastor Timothy:

The things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others. (2 Timothy 2.2)

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Yesterday I wrote that Jesus didn’t die so we could go to church. He died so we could be the church. And we looked at one description of that in Ephesians 4.1 – 3, which basically tells us how to treat fellow believers.

But, of course, we can’t just stay in our holy huddles and relate to each other; God has put us in the world: our neighborhoods, our work, our schools, our families. And God expects us to be the church there also.

Through thick and thin, keep your hearts at attention, in adoration before Christ, your Master. Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you’re living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy. Keep a clear conscience before God so that when people throw mud at you, none of it will stick. They’ll end up realizing that they’re the ones who need a bath. (1 Peter 3.15, 16, MSG)

These commands are directly related to the events of Holy Week:

It’s better to suffer for doing good, if that’s what God wants, than to be punished for doing bad. That’s what Christ did definitively: suffered because of others’ sins, the Righteous One for the unrighteous ones. He went through it all—was put to death and then made alive—to bring us to God. (1 Peter 3.17, 18, MSG)

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As we move through Holy Week or Passion Week, it’s worthwhile to remember why Jesus died. The Apostle Peter was clear:

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. (1 Peter 2.24, ESV)

He died to take away our sins IN ORDER THAT we might die to sin and live to righteousness. He didn’t die just so we would have a free ticket to heaven but that we might live a certain way on earth.

Our pastor said Sunday, “Jesus didn’t die so that we could go to church. He died so that we might be the church!”

Here’s one picture of that that might look like. We might look at more in a subsequent blog.

In light of all this, here’s what I want you to do. While I’m locked up here, a prisoner for the Master, I want you to get out there and walk—better yet, run!—on the road God called you to travel. I don’t want any of you sitting around on your hands. I don’t want anyone strolling off, down some path that goes nowhere. And mark that you do this with humility and discipline—not in fits and starts, but steadily, pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love, alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences. (Ephesians 4.1 – 3, MSG)

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Like everyone, I am shocked and saddened at the fire that caused massive damage to the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. 

However, the extent of national mourning in France is a bit puzzling. John Kass, writing in the Chicago Tribune, observed the current dismal state of Christianity in Western Europe in general (selected snippets):

And [President Macron’s] oratory won’t save Christianity in a modern, left-dominated and secular Western Europe undergoing great cultural change. It is a Europe that is spiritually and culturally adrift, while holding Christianity firmly at a distance. And the European political class wishes that its arms were much longer…According to a Pew Research Center survey published in 2018, Western Europe has become one of the world’s most secular regions…And the wholesale rejection of Christianity by Europeans who say they were born and raised Christian is also part of that equation.

So what explains the strong reactions? Some, to be sure, mourn the damage to a church. But most, I’m afraid, see the cathedral as a great historical monument and a work of art, representing the best of French culture and architectural achievement.

The problem is we tend to get more excited about erecting church facilities than building people. And when we don’t make disciples, especially disciples who make other disciples, a church’s people die or move away, and they aren’t replaced by new believers. 

A headline in The Atlantic, November 28, 2018, says it all:  As Congregations Dwindle, Churches Sit Empty. What Comes Next? The article goes on to describe “America’s epidemic of empty churches…As donations and attendance decrease, many churches struggle with the cost of maintaining their large physical structures.”

God’s real temples are made of people, not bricks:

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (Ephesians 2.19 – 22, ESV)

And the work of the church is to build these people:

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. (Ephesians 4.11-13, ESV)

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This is going to be a hard one…I’m still working on the idea and can’t say that I’ve put it into practice, but I want to share it with you. Maybe some of you can provide some additional guidance in the comments.

I was reading Nehemiah and while I had always noted that his first action after hearing about the problem with the broken down wall (Nehemiah 1.4) was to go to prayer. But I never paid much attention to the prayer itself. After opening with a few sentences of praise, he goes to confession:

Let your ear be attentive and your eyes open, to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Even I and my father’s house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses. (Nehemiah 1.6, 7)

This appears to be a different from of confession than we’re used to. You may have been taught the ACTS acrostic as a good way to structure your prayers: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication, and Nehemiah seems to be following this pattern. However, and it’s a big however, Nehemiah is confessing sins of the nation. Daniel did the same thing in Daniel 9.5 – 15 which ends:

And now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and have made a name for yourself, as at this day, we have sinned, we have done wickedly. (Daniel 9.15)

Daniel and Nehemiah are confessing sins they didn’t commit! Sins that occurred before they were born. I don’t remember hearing any teaching on this kind of confession. Sometimes in a worship service there is a corporate confession using “we,” but it’s almost always sins that we committed or could have committed, like the standard, “We have done things we ought not to have done, and we haven’t done things we ought to have done.” Or, “We haven’t loved you or others as we should have; we’ve been selfish; etc.”

Many of us, for example, are opposed to abortion, at least to the seemingly unlimited access to abortion that’s happening today. However, I don’t think I’ve ever heard, “Lord forgive us for killing all those babies.” We more often seem to have the attitude of the Pharisee in Luke 18: “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.” (verse 11)

Maybe our confession, if it were to be more like Nehemiah’s might sound more like this:

• We have cheated to get our kids into certain colleges.
• We have aborted millions of babies.
• We have failed to come up with a compassionate, sensible immigration policy.
• We have failed to balance the budget.
• We imported black African slaves and then when we freed them kept them second class.

As I said, this is a new idea for me. However, the kind of sins that Nehemiah confessed to is inescapable. Perhaps it’s worth considering as we obey Paul’s command to pray for our leaders. Maybe we add confession to his list! And maybe, if we own and confess national sins, we’ll be more motivated to do what we can to eradicate them.

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. (1 Timothy 1.1, 2)

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It’s April 15, and in addition to being tax day, it’s the 100th consecutive day I’ve published a blog since the string began on January 6. (Those who write a blog every day say that the first 1,000 days are the hardest, so I’m 10% there!)

The daily discipline has forced me to pay attention to what God is saying and figure out how to succinctly pass it on to you!

Today, as we go into Holy Week, I’m thinking about Jesus’ prayer in the Garden as suggested by Gary Jansen in Station to Station: An Ignatian Journey through the Stations of the Cross. The prayer ends, as we all remember, with “Not my will but yours be done.”

What’s new for me is the obvious connection to the Lord’s Prayer’s “Your Kingdom come, your will be done.” Every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we’re praying the same thing Jesus prayed in the Garden, and that makes it serious business! Probably too serious to be recited glibly by rote in a church service, but that’s another matter.

As we follow Jesus this week to the cross and on to the resurrection, let’s remember “not my will but yours be done” applies to us, too.

Then he said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross daily, and follow me. (Luke 9.23, NLT)

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I had been having on/off pain in the top of my foot. When it kicked in, it was hard to walk on it. A few days ago, I was riding our air-dyne exercise bike while reviewing my scripture memory verses. Among them were a few verses on healing someone had sent after my knee replacement surgery.

I am the Lord who heals you. (Exodus 15.26, NIV)

Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am faint. Heal me for my bones are in agony. (Psalm 6.2, NIV)

I asked the Lord for healing for my foot.  A few minutes later I had finished my workout, and as I was taking my shoes off to put my sweat pants on, I remembered that the shoe salesman said I should be in thin socks, not the cushy thick socks I was wearing at the time. So I put on a pair of the thin socks he had sold me. Voila! No more pain. Praise the Lord.

You do not have because you do not ask! (James 4.2, ESV)

Today, I was encouraged as I reviewed another healing verse:

LORD my God, I called to you for help, and you healed me. (Psalm 30.2, NIV)

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I think this will be the last post from this year’s NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament…but no promises!

Immediately after the Monday night championship game where Virginia defeated Texas Tech, an analyst opened panel discussion with something like, “Well, it was a great game even though it wasn’t the match-up most people were hoping to see.” Charles Barkley emphatically interrupted:

This is sports! you don’t get the match-up you want, you get the match-up that you get. Sports is not about who you know or about what the public wants, it’s about what the teams do during the games. (My best recollection!)

It’s a good point. Where else might it apply? If you’re a pastor, you don’t get the congregation you want but the congregation you have! At work, you may not get the colleagues or clients you want, but the ones you have. Neighbors? Same rules apply. Even family!

Jesus prayed all night and chose twelve men.

One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles:  Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. (Luke 6.12 – 16, NIV)

Look at the list: a traitor, four fishermen, a tax collector (Matthew) and a Zealot who hated tax collectors. It’s not the group I would have chosen, but the eleven (after the loss of Judas Iscariot) changed the world.

Let’s stay with the relationships God has given us and see what he wants to do through us where we are and whom we are with.

Friends, stay where you were called to be. God is there. Hold the high ground with him at your side. (1 Corinthians 7.24, MSG)

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Friends of mine, Navigators in Colorado Springs, have accepted a call to be on church staff at a small town in Nebraska. Does it make sense to leave Colorado Springs, a city of nearly 500,000, to move to a town of 3,500? The short answer is, yes, of course, if that’s where God is sending you!

Jesus lived and ministered in a small country (six “Israels” will fit into the state of Alabama). And most of the time he was in Galilee, away from the power center of Jerusalem. After the resurrection, he told the disciples:

This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. (Luke 24.46-48, NIV, emphasis mine)

Lorne Sanny, second president of The Navigators, said, “Why did Jesus say, ‘beginning at Jerusalem’? Because that’s where they were! You certainly cannot reach the world starting from where you are not!”

That’s a perspective changer! No matter where I am, my mission is to reach the world from there. When we were in Alabama in the early 2000s, someone who had been in our ministry retired from the Air Force and was moving to Houston. When he told me, I said, “Great! I’ve been to Houston and have no desire to go back. But you will be there.” My mission was not to reach our church or even the city of Montgomery or the state of Alabama. My mission was to reach the world, starting from Montgomery.”

It goes on. Today we happen to be in Monument, Colorado. Our friends, in whom we invested when they were part of our Navigator team, are going to Nebraska. Others are in Nigeria, Haiti, India, Nepal, other countries, and many states. Some of those places we’ve been to, and some we haven’t.

So I’m excited for my friends’ new opportunity to reach the world from a small town in Nebraska, and I’m excited that God allows us to invest in people who then move!

…repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. (Luke 24.47, NIV)

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Years ago, a Christian leader challenged a group of us to pursue discipleship hard–practice the spiritual disciplines, be on mission, make disciples, etc.–you know, the kind of things I write about in this blog! I asked him afterward what the role of the Holy Spirit was, especially in making disciples. His answer shocked me: “I don’t know.”

I’m still working on that question, but I got some insight today. A priest, reflecting on a mass he bungled through in Spanish but which resulted in a powerful experience for all who were there, wrote:

As I stepped back and soaked it all in, I realized how the Mass was so much greater than me getting the words right. The Holy Spirit was stirring. (From The Ignatian Adventure by Kevin O’Brien.)

Ministry is more than our getting the words right. Maybe that’s where the Holy Spirit comes in.

When I was about 11 years old, a friend of my dad’s gave me a paint-by-number. Remember those? Well, I carefully filled in all the areas with the prescribed oil paints, and it came out looking something like the collie on the left. Then my mother, an artist, showed up. And when she finished blending the paints at all the borders, it looked more like the one on the right!

Maybe that’s the role of the Holy Spirit. He takes our crude efforts at using discipleship materials or teaching someone according to a template we were taught and turns it into something beautiful.

And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us. When we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths. (1 Corinthians 2.12, 13, NLT)