Ponder this...

What do you expect me to do about this mess?

Think about the messy places in your life.

 

The kid’s bedrooms.

The bathroom counter.

The floor of your car.

Your thoughts. 

Your church.

Your relationships.

 

Do you ever feel angry or depressed when you realize how messy things are?

 

Do you ever get the sense that your life is being spent trying to clean up one mess after another?

 

Do you secretly believe that if you could get the messes all cleaned up things would really start to “work”?

 

Do the makers of the mess tick you off because you know you are just going to have to clean up after them?

 

Me too. Which is why this Proverb provides encouragement.

 

Where there is no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come from the Lord. - Proverbs 14:4

Tremper Longman summarizes, The meaning of this verse is that a productive life is messy.  One desires a neat and tidy life, just as the ideal stall would be clean.  However, a clean stall by the nature of things would mean an empty stall since oxen do not have to be in a stall long before it is messy.”

 

“A productive life is messy.” 

 

A productive church will be inefficient and lacking. There will be conflict, frustration and disorder.

 

A productive relationship contains miscommunication, hurts and unmet needs.

 

A productive spiritual life includes temptation, frustration and boredom.

 

A productive life finds God in the mess rather than praying He will take it away.

Friday Links

Barbara Brown Taylor is likely my favorite writer - check out this CBC interview.

Struggling to say "I'm sorry"?  maybe this will help!

A brief parable for those who think their sin is private.

Another good parable - slightly longer.

Why getting the kids to obey is not the primary goal of parenting.

Is it ok for failures to be fun?

Here is a good question for leaders to ask once in a while.

And finally, here are a few Barbara Brown Taylor quotes that may promote pondering:

• As a general rule, I would say that human beings never behave more badly toward one another than when they believe they are protecting God.
  
• Having been brought up with a definition of faith as adherence to a set of beliefs, I have more and more begun to turn instead toward a definition of faith as openness to truth, whatever truth may turn out to be.
  
• I know that the Bible is a special kind of book, but I find it as seductive as any other. If I am not careful, I can begin to mistake the words on the page for the realities they describe. I can begin to love the dried ink marks on the page more than I love the encounters that gave rise to them.
  
• It can be difficult to be an introvert in church, especially if you happen to be the pastor. Liking to be alone can be interpreted as a judgment on other people's company. Liking to be quiet can be construed as aloofness. There is so much emphasis on community in most congregations that anyone who does not participate risks being labeled a loner.
  
• Salvation happens every time someone with a key uses it to open a door he could lock instead.
  
• The poets began drifting away from churches as the jurists grew louder and more insistent.
  
• We're children of God through our blood kinship with Christ. We're also sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, with a hereditary craving for forbidden fruit salad.

Forgive

I spoke on forgiveness this past Sunday at Oak Park.  Here is a clip I came across while preparing...

Top Ten Things Church Hoppers say

I saw this list on Will Mancini's blog. Calgary is full of Church Hoppers and I've heard almost all of these as people come and go...

Top Ten Things Church Hoppers Say

   1. “But my old church…” This usually means they want your church to be like their old church.

   2. “I just need time to be fed.” This means, “I don’t want to do anything. I’m here just to sit and see what I can get out of this church, so don’t expect me to serve in any way, shape, or form.

   3. “I’m looking for a church that teaches the Word.” This means, “I’m looking for a church that dispenses lots of information without challenging me to do anything.”

   4. “We came here because we are looking for deep teaching.” This usually means their last church focused too much on actually obeying the Word. They want a church that just talks about the Rapture, the Second Coming, who the Hittites were and the identity of Theophilus.

   5. “I should know my pastor.” This means, “In my last church, I got to know the pastor, but when the church grew, and the pastor couldn’t have dinner with us every Tuesday night, I left and came here.”

   6. “We want a church that’s focused on discipling people.” This means, “I want a church that’s focused on me, not people who are lost.”

   7. “I wish you wouldn’t focus so much on what people need to do.” This means they don’t like commitment, they don’t like to be told the Bible actually tells them how to live and follow Jesus. They want to come to church, live in their sin and have no one tell them this is wrong.

   8. “I wish you wouldn’t talk about money.” This is the best way to tell a pastor “I don’t give.”

   9. “My old church/pastor was…” The way people come to your church is how they will leave. If your first conversation with them is all about their last church and pastor, that is how they will leave your church and how they will go to their next church.

  10. “Pastor, I’ve been talking to a lot of people and they all say…” Translation:  “Me, my spouse and my mother think…” If they start this way, 99.9% of the time they have no one else who thinks this way, it is just the best way to complain. If someone has a complaint and uses this line with me, they need to list all of the names or my best assumption is they talked to the same person 10 times.

Harmony's video tribute to Grandpa

Friday Links

This article by Pastor Pete (how's that for a handle?) is right on and ends with a great question.

Alternatives to talking behind someone's back

I'm getting back into the rhythm of this

and finally, here is a letter that has spoken to me this week by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, to his young neice

Patient Trust

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability—and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually–let them grow,
Let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be.
Give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.

Kids on Thankfulness

Shawn did a short video this past weekend of some of our church kids expressing their gratitude:

On introversion

Here's a bit from Jonathon Rauch that made me smile.

"The worst of it is that extroverts have no idea of the torment they put us through. Sometimes, as we gasp for air amid the fog of their 98-percent-content-free talk, we wonder if extroverts even bother to listen to themselves. Still, we endure stoically, because the etiquette books—written, no doubt, by extroverts—regard declining to banter as rude and gaps in conversation as awkward. We can only dream that someday, when our condition is more widely understood, when perhaps an Introverts' Rights movement has blossomed and borne fruit, it will not be impolite to say "I'm an introvert. You are a wonderful person and I like you. But now please shush."