Rarely do I blog much about my husband Gary. Why is this? Well, perhaps because he is gone much of the day and when he's home he's usually tired and quiet--and working, most of the time, lately, on his computer. But I was thinking this morning and I want to give him kudos for having put up with me all these years. It hasn't been easy.
We've been married going on 25 years. Because of the life circumstances that we've gone through, it's been a bumpy ride. First number of years were heavily impacted by my mother-in-law, who neither Gary nor I knew how to cope with. She had been in a severe car accident when Gary was 12, was on pain medications the rest of her life, and her husband said she had never been the same from that time. I'm sure I never really knew her as she had been. Even when we moved up to the Puget Sound region from Portland, primarily to increase distance between her and ourselves, it seemed that she managed to be part of every conversation, which in effect made her part of many an argument as well.
We were not Christians and had no roadmap to cope with this--and it in fact was one of the biggest burdens that drove me to Christ, so for that I am thankful. In the Bible it says that affliction is good, that we might learn His decrees, and I can and will testify that this is the case!
There were also matters to do with job changes--I think Gary has had about 13 of them since we've been married. That has really built our faith. I don't fear the times between jobs like those who've never been through it, because I've seen that God does provide for His own. So in the process also, we had our share of financial struggles. Again, I've seen that God is our Provider and there's really no earthly explanation why our heads are above water financially. He is good!
We lived in an old house in Everett, and though it wasn't because of the house itself (just a couple of blocks from a hospital--good thing!), I associate that house with lots of illnesses and troubles: tough pregnancies, c-sections, loss of two pregnancies including twins, anemia, colic, a broken foot from a car accident, the death of various relatives...the list goes on. Gary's seen me lying on the couch physically unable to cope with basics of life for more time than I'd like to recall, and he has helped me through so much!
Gary's and my temperaments are opposite, and as dogged as I can be, that has not made it easy for him. I can be stubborn, opinionated, bossy, and there are times when I just don't know when to quit pushing buttons. Had Gary not been the type of guy who clams up (much to my frustration), we might still be arguing today on our first argument ever.
Considering that we knew nothing of Christian faith when we met, God has been so gracious to me. We had a neighbor in our old house who was on her second marriage. Her first husband had been a drug addict, and her second was an alcoholic. I was spared these awful things and many more, not because of any wisdom I had but simply God's grace. The thing that drew me to Gary was that he was kind and gentle (not traits that are the core of my being)--and I valued these traits because they are so different from anything I was familiar with in my family.
And so I am thankful for Gary, for his kindness and gentleness, for his ability to put up with me all these years without complaining about my figure, my housekeeping, my attitude, my many flaws. He's more than I deserve, and God is gracious.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Friday, November 09, 2007
The Problem of Church Size
I saw a lady today who I knew slightly from our previous church. She too had changed churches, a couple of years before we did, and was talking about the difficulties she had with the adjustment she was making. We'd changed churches after 6 years; her family had moved after 13 years. That's an investment! And she said she was a person who struggled with making friends, so for her a church change is all the more fraught with emotion and difficulty. Not only that, but they started in Lynnwood and ended up in Monroe at a daughter church start-up--so she hadn't only started getting to know people in Lynnwood, but then had to readjust to a new location over again. Still, I liked the reason she had to readjust: Their church had a policy of starting a daughter church any time they had more than 150 members. There's wisdom in that! There's more right in a small church, in my experience, than in a large one.
Since starting to attend a church that has about 80 people attending, including kids, I've come to appreciate the high level of fellowship and the close interaction that the congregation has with the leadership. It's important, it helps church growth and accountability, and I'm thankful to see that the leadership isn't lesser quality just because the church is small.
Still, Americans seem to value and take pride in anything large even if the size is crippling--reminiscent of the humorous style legendary of Texans. It would seem that a church can justify more pride and puffery the more members it has. I remember being in a mega-church start-up that on its first day had 800 people. That wasn't enough for the pastor, though--I remember him mentioning one morning that he'd counted the cars in the parking lot, in the context of church growth. Yikes! Even he jokingly admitted that it was more like a religious mob than a church.
In fact, when we walk around through our cul-de-sac, occasionally we talk with some neighbors who have recently started attending a seeker-friendly church in town. We talked about our churches, and we were telling them what our church was like and describing the ministry of our pastor, who prayed with us even on our first Sunday, and came out to visit us shortly afterward. With pride, they said they had never spoken with their pastor. They thought they were impressing us, and they were, but not as they intended. Shortly after that some friends came to our church and when we had coffee together afterward, they too proudly said they had never spoken with their pastor. Appalling! Not only appalling that they never had, but that they could feel that this was more ideal. What is happening to the churches in America? This is a grievous sadness to me. How can a shepherd rightly lead his flock if he doesn't even recognize his own sheep? How can he know what they are really up to, if he has never spoken with them? It could be that these people enjoy the anonymity, the lack of accountability that comes in such a huge church. They're under the radar, and they can live like the devil if they want to.
Our pastor recently showed me an article about the Willow Creek church and its recent "repentance" of its failed discipleship methods. Knowing that I like to blog, he suggested that I write about it. Not having followed the history of this church, I know so little about it that I couldn't write well about it, but found I kept referring to my own mega-church experience; it was all I had to relate to it. I didn't know how much I had pre-conceived notions regarding what traits the mega-churches are almost bound to share. Still, Willow Creek's old approach did sound rather familiar, in its small groups and the distance and delegated levels between pastors and congregation. What struck me as ironic was that the church found that its methods were not working--by questionnaire. Not by individual contact, not by the pastors' discussions with their congregation members. I think a big church will always have these unfortunate big church traits, and I can't imagine it was what Christ intended.
So I applaud the Lynnwood church for recognizing the importance of keeping its size within manageable limits and not seeking for visibility and enormity. It's a humble approach, far more in synch with the "out of the salt shaker, into the world" scattering that Jesus had His disciples go and implement.
Since starting to attend a church that has about 80 people attending, including kids, I've come to appreciate the high level of fellowship and the close interaction that the congregation has with the leadership. It's important, it helps church growth and accountability, and I'm thankful to see that the leadership isn't lesser quality just because the church is small.
Still, Americans seem to value and take pride in anything large even if the size is crippling--reminiscent of the humorous style legendary of Texans. It would seem that a church can justify more pride and puffery the more members it has. I remember being in a mega-church start-up that on its first day had 800 people. That wasn't enough for the pastor, though--I remember him mentioning one morning that he'd counted the cars in the parking lot, in the context of church growth. Yikes! Even he jokingly admitted that it was more like a religious mob than a church.
In fact, when we walk around through our cul-de-sac, occasionally we talk with some neighbors who have recently started attending a seeker-friendly church in town. We talked about our churches, and we were telling them what our church was like and describing the ministry of our pastor, who prayed with us even on our first Sunday, and came out to visit us shortly afterward. With pride, they said they had never spoken with their pastor. They thought they were impressing us, and they were, but not as they intended. Shortly after that some friends came to our church and when we had coffee together afterward, they too proudly said they had never spoken with their pastor. Appalling! Not only appalling that they never had, but that they could feel that this was more ideal. What is happening to the churches in America? This is a grievous sadness to me. How can a shepherd rightly lead his flock if he doesn't even recognize his own sheep? How can he know what they are really up to, if he has never spoken with them? It could be that these people enjoy the anonymity, the lack of accountability that comes in such a huge church. They're under the radar, and they can live like the devil if they want to.
Our pastor recently showed me an article about the Willow Creek church and its recent "repentance" of its failed discipleship methods. Knowing that I like to blog, he suggested that I write about it. Not having followed the history of this church, I know so little about it that I couldn't write well about it, but found I kept referring to my own mega-church experience; it was all I had to relate to it. I didn't know how much I had pre-conceived notions regarding what traits the mega-churches are almost bound to share. Still, Willow Creek's old approach did sound rather familiar, in its small groups and the distance and delegated levels between pastors and congregation. What struck me as ironic was that the church found that its methods were not working--by questionnaire. Not by individual contact, not by the pastors' discussions with their congregation members. I think a big church will always have these unfortunate big church traits, and I can't imagine it was what Christ intended.
So I applaud the Lynnwood church for recognizing the importance of keeping its size within manageable limits and not seeking for visibility and enormity. It's a humble approach, far more in synch with the "out of the salt shaker, into the world" scattering that Jesus had His disciples go and implement.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Dropping the Wheat, Dropping the Weight
At the risk of sounding self-oriented, I want to share something that has amazed me, in case it might help someone else! I have discovered that dropping wheat from my diet (generally--can't seem to excise every grain of it, but it's much less wheat) has impacted me more than I can say. I dropped it about 8 months ago, because it caused aches in my muscles, bones, and connective tissue, in other words, basically everywhere.
With the elimination of wheat, my aches lessened and then stopped. It took me a while to learn what else I could eat instead, and I still haven't learned it in detail, but I'm getting better at it. The surprise was that I have incredibly more energy than I had before, I'm feeling better, and though it took months to start happening, I'm losing weight--feeling good enough to exercise, and my appetite is so very much smaller than it was--I think the lack of energy caused by feeling so bad made me eat more to try to increase it. The smaller appetite has recently caused a much faster weight loss. I am just feeling the best and happiest (for that and many reasons) that I've felt in 20 years at least, and weigh less than I've weighed in 10 years, and just wanted to share that so that if it might benefit another, you have my report--if you're hurting or your appetite won't stop, dump the wheat and see where it takes you.
God is great! But of course, we knew that.
With the elimination of wheat, my aches lessened and then stopped. It took me a while to learn what else I could eat instead, and I still haven't learned it in detail, but I'm getting better at it. The surprise was that I have incredibly more energy than I had before, I'm feeling better, and though it took months to start happening, I'm losing weight--feeling good enough to exercise, and my appetite is so very much smaller than it was--I think the lack of energy caused by feeling so bad made me eat more to try to increase it. The smaller appetite has recently caused a much faster weight loss. I am just feeling the best and happiest (for that and many reasons) that I've felt in 20 years at least, and weigh less than I've weighed in 10 years, and just wanted to share that so that if it might benefit another, you have my report--if you're hurting or your appetite won't stop, dump the wheat and see where it takes you.
God is great! But of course, we knew that.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was, Alas, Frail Too
Wouldn't you know it--right on the heels of my including a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer in a blog post, I find that there's a blog article by Mitch Lewis, Bonhoeffer, Pacifism and Assassination, featured on Gospelcom.net describing his part in conspiring to kill Hitler. Now I realize that Hitler (like the rest of us but more perceptibly) deserved death, but Bonhoeffer's own writings show that he understood much better than I the importance of turning the other cheek in the extreme, against all odds. It shows the inconsistency and unreliability of man, that he can be famous, known for solid theology, and still live in a manner that opposes it. I know that, alas, many instances in my own life fall short of even my own limited understanding of God's truth.
It underscores the importance that we never put our trust in man...that doesn't mean to be mistrusting of those who by their actions you would deem trustworthy in a human sense; it doesn't mean that you have to go through life constantly, cynically expecting disillusionment from those close to you or in high positions, but it does mean that you don't hang your salvation, your soul, on any human being, and if or when they fall, you avoid following them into the pit. It does mean that you need to stand ready to rebuke, exhort, equip; to strengthen the joints that fail--you need to watch and help those who are weak as much as it depends on you. If they shove you away, that's one thing, but if they turn from their fall, you may save a soul from death.
It underscores the importance that we never put our trust in man...that doesn't mean to be mistrusting of those who by their actions you would deem trustworthy in a human sense; it doesn't mean that you have to go through life constantly, cynically expecting disillusionment from those close to you or in high positions, but it does mean that you don't hang your salvation, your soul, on any human being, and if or when they fall, you avoid following them into the pit. It does mean that you need to stand ready to rebuke, exhort, equip; to strengthen the joints that fail--you need to watch and help those who are weak as much as it depends on you. If they shove you away, that's one thing, but if they turn from their fall, you may save a soul from death.
What Wouldn't You Trade Hell For?
Society rarely gives an accurate, biblical concept of hell. The common notion seems to be that a person's "bad" friends will be there, so at least that will be some consolation; and that if bad people go there, then you can do bad things there continually without recourse, and Satan is there to host the event. To some that might sound appealing, something like a huge ongoing drinking party without fear of neighbors calling the police.
Throughout the Scriptures, God paints a very different picture of hell than what society pictures. I don't think most people would be able to so easily accept the idea of going to such a place as the biblical view. It is not a place to commune with friends; a person would be too occupied with the torment he was in to even notice them even if they were nearby.
Just as there is no heaven on earth, there is likewise nothing here to equate with the suffering and pain of hell. Picture the worst suffering you have heard of on earth and it does not equate--it simply cannot--with that of hell. I remember a news account about 8 or 10 years ago of some drunken teens walking in the dark through Yellowstone. As you might imagine, they fell into a firepot--though they pulled themselves out as fast as possible, they died. To me that is as vivid an illustration of a moment in hell as I can fathom anyone experiencing on earth--and they died in that short experience. Hell doesn't last only for that short time, but on through eternity, and the torment is ongoing. There is not the mercy of death there; that is past.
Unbelievers often say that they aren't ready to commit to Christ, which actually indicates that perhaps they aren't chosen by God, or their chosen time for salvation has not yet occurred. If it were only a matter of logic, it seems anyone could be argued into salvation...but it's not. If I were to choose an argument, though, I think clarifying what hell really is might be convincing.
What would you trade eternity in hell for? For anything, for nothing--were that possible. Trading that fiery furnace for an atom of matter or a momentary pinhole peek at heaven would be a worthwhile trade; keeping any habit or attitude that would knowingly secure your place in hell would be extreme stupidity.
On the other hand, the Scriptures assure us that the exchange would never be so meager; quite to the contrary! Instead, when a person accepts Christ as his Savior in faith, he no longer needs to live in fear of hell, but in full contrast becomes a child of God and an heir to heaven. He is made a new creation, equipped to serve Him, and gains God's approval. 2 Corinthians 5:20
Throughout the Scriptures, God paints a very different picture of hell than what society pictures. I don't think most people would be able to so easily accept the idea of going to such a place as the biblical view. It is not a place to commune with friends; a person would be too occupied with the torment he was in to even notice them even if they were nearby.
Just as there is no heaven on earth, there is likewise nothing here to equate with the suffering and pain of hell. Picture the worst suffering you have heard of on earth and it does not equate--it simply cannot--with that of hell. I remember a news account about 8 or 10 years ago of some drunken teens walking in the dark through Yellowstone. As you might imagine, they fell into a firepot--though they pulled themselves out as fast as possible, they died. To me that is as vivid an illustration of a moment in hell as I can fathom anyone experiencing on earth--and they died in that short experience. Hell doesn't last only for that short time, but on through eternity, and the torment is ongoing. There is not the mercy of death there; that is past.
Unbelievers often say that they aren't ready to commit to Christ, which actually indicates that perhaps they aren't chosen by God, or their chosen time for salvation has not yet occurred. If it were only a matter of logic, it seems anyone could be argued into salvation...but it's not. If I were to choose an argument, though, I think clarifying what hell really is might be convincing.
What would you trade eternity in hell for? For anything, for nothing--were that possible. Trading that fiery furnace for an atom of matter or a momentary pinhole peek at heaven would be a worthwhile trade; keeping any habit or attitude that would knowingly secure your place in hell would be extreme stupidity.
On the other hand, the Scriptures assure us that the exchange would never be so meager; quite to the contrary! Instead, when a person accepts Christ as his Savior in faith, he no longer needs to live in fear of hell, but in full contrast becomes a child of God and an heir to heaven. He is made a new creation, equipped to serve Him, and gains God's approval. 2 Corinthians 5:20
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