Monday Morning Letters

Today the letter came.  Pastors get "Monday Morning Letters".  Invariably they are eruptions of frustration and festering discontent that range like downwind birdshot - indiscriminately peppering the relational landscape of the community.  They happen on Mondays because we have such outrageous and unhealthy expectations of Sundays - and the least little nudge can tip the balance and cause the emotional detritus to cascade forth.

People who write Monday Morning Letters always send them late Sunday night.  They let them loose after a day of stewing and festering, and because they can't sleep with the monster they have wrestled with - they exorcise it onto the page and release it.  I imagine they sleep well.  Their recipients won't for many days afterwards.

Monday Morning Letters are always beside the point.  Like pointing out Hitler was a vegetarian, or that Jesus was a carpenter's son.  What they aim at is hardly ever the real story.  But they do illuminate that something needs to be addressed.  What follows is often a singularly twisted hunt for relevance and truth.  And the conclusions that Monday Morning Letters precipitate are never as useful in the long run as they seem in the moment.

Monday Morning Letters are seen as a natural right of expression for the people who author them.  Never mind that, for Christians particularly, talking is always preferable.  Instructions, recipes, shopping lists, driving directions, general information almost always makes sense enough written down.  Emotional eruptions regarding unmet expectations and perceived inequities never make sense in prose.

For pastors these Monday Morning Letters are the "black marks" of ministry.  They get dealt with in the short term, but leave a lasting stain that hinders slightly.  Like that scratch on the fender of your car - too small to bother to buff it out, but eventually part of the reason why the car is no longer suitable to the owner's needs.

Monday Morning Letters carry phrases like "for a long time", "no idea", "what we are paying for", "doesn't understand", "can't know", "always been", "never been", "others agree", "should", "shouldn't", "huge", "big", "awful" - and it goes on.  The implications are always that something has been amiss for some time and the leadership has been collectively (often wilfully) unaware.  Something must be done.

Monday Morning Letters never offer solutions - yet they indicate that drastic measures are invariably needed.  Pressure is applied.  Something has to give.  Satisfaction is the ultimate goal! Never understanding. And reconciliation is as unlikely as it is unmentionable.

I have had a couple of small Monday Morning Letters in the 26 months I have been at this place.  Let me remember - one regarding preaching about stillness, solitude and contemplation of God and His word (I was too "New Age").  One about calling God "The Big Guy" - a term of endearment for me, not for some though.  A complaint about not protecting the "study hour" because we allowed an ad hoc choir to practice for Easter. And now today's Big Monday Morning Letter - two and a half pages, of which I was the subject of only the first two paragraphs. Twenty-five and a half months into my service here.

Monday Morning Letters start chains of events that their authors have no conception about.  They always start countdown clocks in ministry.  Countdown clocks to the end of the service of the person they are about. April 14, 2013 - and the clock is running on my service here.  How long it ticks until the alarm goes off will be determined by how many more Monday Morning Letters mark me.

No Shalam
No Shalom
Today

Re-Membering

I belong to an evangelical baptist church that belongs to a group that has a 100+ year history in North America. OK, I pastor said church (we ain't 100 yet, but we will be 50 in 4 years).

In a recent update from our national leadership it was revealed that "membership" issues will be discussed at our next national conference. I know that local churches have been debating this for some time now. Doctrine is difficult to change.

Here's my position:

I'm a Christian - specifically a Protestant, and I'm a convinced baptist. I am in favour of adult believer's baptism by full immersion in water as the best way to follow scriptural instruction.

However, I know several folks who were not "immersed" although they were baptized (my wife is one) who are as devout and authentic as you can find in the faith. I was baptized by my United Church Minister parents (yup, both of them) as an infant.

As a teenager I sinned my weaselly little butt off - and I did a fair amount of that as an adult, too. When I realized - really realized who Jesus is and what baptism meant I, and my wife, were convicted and convinced about our need to willing be obedient in baptism. No problem. We were baptized by immersion but we understood that we were already "in". What was needed was an act of obedience and worship that would stand against our former disobedient witness and mark for ourselves and others our new direction. We needed it.

But I know folks who haven't strayed as we did since they openly confessed Jesus as Savior. As a note: all churches that practice infant baptism also require that young adults (or older ones if it takes longer) make a full public confession in keeping with Scripture. "If you declare with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." - Romans 10:9. Martin Luther would have called that act "receiving your baptism properly". And some of these folks need no new "marker" as we did. Their lives have already been a better testimony that ours, even if we live another hundred years.

So I believe that anyone and everyone who follows Christ will have to be obedient to the command to be baptized. But I am becoming more convinced that the method and mode can be understood and accepted in a wider vein.

I still will teach, preach and recommend believer's adult immersion baptism, but I recognize all who belong to Jesus and are my brothers and sisters. Now to help my conference, association and local church recognize the same thing and find a gracious way to deal with it. Pray for us.

Shalom

Join the Conspiracy

Conspiracy from "conspire" from the Latin - "to breathe together".

This is an important audiobook: A Networked Conspiracy: Social Networks, the Church and the Power of Collective Intelligence

Open up your mind, listen and join the conspiracy.

Bill Kinnon is the author.

Shalom

Fine Print

I read Post Secret every Sunday morning.

This morning this postcard got my attention.

It's pretty personal because we just faced this same situation, but as the recipients of the work this person does. And it's personal because God does not say, "Thou shalt not kill." His Word says, "You shall not murder."

I've done a little work on this and I can say that the Hebrew word used in this passage is best translated as "murder" rather than "kill". I won't go into getting too technical here, but I will say that this is one of my favorite reasons for suggesting that it is well past the time we retired the King James Version of the Bible.

To put it simply, every copy of the Scriptures not in the original languages is a translation and that in itself poses some difficulties because of the limits of human language. We always think of our native language as being up to any communication task we may put it to, but we all need a little bit more humility in this, I think. After all, it is an accommodation of the highest order that God Almighty should acquiesce to allowing something as pitifully limited as human language to attempt to encompass His Truth - especially a language as pitifully limited and downright weird as English. As Dave Kellett of Sheldon puts it on a t-shirt I am definitely going to buy, "The English Language - carefully cobbled together by three blind dudes with a German dictionary."

But I digress - one of the few things I do well.

Elsewhere on God's word it says there is "a time to kill". If "killing" is utterly forbidden by God then it would be beyond strange how Jesus dealt with at least one soldier who came to Him for help. He never berated him for his vocation. He did not deny him. In the end He asked His Father to forgive the soldiers who crucified Him.

Sometimes killing is necessary. Sometimes it is a mercy. But we must be very cautious because it is so very, very easy to do. When it comes to pets and the time has come for them to be "put down" in love rather than suffer - it is "a time to kill". When it comes to the thousands upon thousands of animals destroyed by humane societies and animal control agencies all over North America - let alone the rest of the world - because they are abandoned, neglected, the offspring of animals left by their "owners" to breed indiscriminately or otherwise uncared for - it is a sin that offends the nostrils of God. But the executioner doesn't bear the guilt of it. We all do because we allow our selfish lifestyle to create such a problem.

I get a bit intense over this both because of the recent pain of taking responsibility for our own pets and because when I was around 10 years old I spent a week in hospital for a post-tonsillectomy infection and there was a 6-year-old boy in the bed next to me whose face was a horrific road map of stitches because he had been mauled by a pack or roving dogs in our northern Alberta town.

What we do and allow is bad enough without adding to the angst of those who must clean up after us by handling the "fine print" of God's Word and Truth poorly.

I'm a bit frustrated because I can't figure out how to send a message to Frank Warren at Post Secret to let this poor person - who does this thankless and unfortunately necessary work for us - know that their soul is most definitely NOT in jeopardy. So I'll console myself with my little rant on my little blog and pray that someone who is actually thinking will speak the words of encouragement this person needs to hear.

"Thank you for showing mercy and grace every day in your work and for being willing to do what must be done because so many of us are unwilling to live lovingly and responsibly. Your reward will be far greater than any of us can imagine."

Shalom

Can We (Should We) Come?

The iMonk has a thought-provoking post up today. Read it, please. I'll wait.

Thanks.

Now - I'm pretty comfortable in church these days. I should be, it's my workplace. But I'm always going to be comfortable in church and in church community - except when stuff happens that excludes or hurts people. And it does happen - all too often.

I think it all has to do with our expectations and forcing others to accept those expectations as rules of conduct rather than seeking community and grace as we learn about each other. What I mean is if I have a certain expectation of what kind of behavior is acceptable, or what king of person is acceptable in our worship services and in our community then I set up barriers that hurt and separate.

The examples the iMonk talks about in his post are probably pretty familiar ones - or at least they have been referenced in pop culture enough that most of us recognize them. What can be ironic is when those same unfair prejudices get turned inward. I know of a pastor's wife who has young children. She keeps them in the service because the church they serve doesn't have a nursery and also because no one complains - even if the kids can be a bit noisy and disruptive sometimes. But this summer a supposed "christian" couple who visited the church chastised her for how her children "spoiled" their worship experience.

How hard must we (I) work to shed this "welcoming for some, but not for all" characterization of the Christian church? How much will it take for us to reach out across these barriers to those who are curious, or searching or feeling rejected? A lot more than this little blog I'm guessing - but it's a start.

The truth is that everyone who is seriously dealing with spiritual issues and their relationship with God will come under the feeling of conviction about their lifestyle and personal choices. I don't need to add to that burden. Note - it's not inappropriate guilt I'm talking about here, it's about those moments when each of us truly realize we are wrong on some attitude or behavior. That is always going to be part of seeking truth and finding it. God is truth - and sometimes the truth hurts. But in that process, no one needs the added stress of being scrutinized and judged unfairly.

The Christian church has a poor track record in this area I admit. But not every church has this problem. Indeed, most churches have members with much more humility, grace and care than you might guess. Surprise! Some of us have been listening and contemplating how Jesus treats people. And it's rubbing off.

Christmas is one of those times when lots of folks will go to a church when normally they wouldn't. The Nativity story is compelling, or maybe it's just that your niece is in the church play. Whatever the reason, you should come. And maybe you should give the place - and more importantly the people there - a chance to show what love can do.

I find it funny that God invented the "taste test". And I find it very humbling that he lets me be one of the folks manning the free samples booth.

This year, if you try one of our "free samples" why not come back for more. They're all free samples.

Of course you can and should come. It would be our honor to be with you, share with you and serve you.

Shalom

The Fat Shall Never Lead Us

This article caused my own personal, deeply painful and utterly mind-numbing angst to rise up in yet another attempt to strangle my spirit.

Here's the 'skinny' on how this affects me. I am 'morbidly obese'. I'm somewhere around 120 lbs overweight. I have a reason. I'm hypothyroid. I have lost around 25 lbs in 2009 and I'm working on losing more, but it is exceptionally difficult for me (check out symptom # 3). And in the mean time I keep running into this attitude in the 'christian culture' - "Obesity is a spiritual/moral issue and evidence of (choose one or more):

1. Lack of Faith
2. Lack of Moral Consistency
3. Evidence of Sin (particularly 'Gluttony')
4. Evidence of a Lack of Qualification for Spiritual Leadership

On the opposite side of this are the common 'christian' axioms - "God Loves You Just as You Are"; "God Uses People Who Don't Measure Up by Worldly Standards"; "It's Not About Who You Are But Where Your Faith Lies"; "Don't Judge" and so on.

This drives me crazy!

Oh, it hurts, too.

I was at a Willow Creek Leadership Summit around 2000 and Bill Hybels was interviewing Chuck Colson. At the time Chuck was getting on in years and the conversation turned to personal health. Chuck mentioned a new piece of exercise hardware he had just purchased and the two of them were sharing a moment when their guards came down and one of them said something to the effect that you couldn't really be an effective Christian leader if you were overweight. Suddenly Hybel's brain cut in and he realized that they had crossed a line. They backtracked but the damage was done for me. From that moment on, I noticed that everyone on the platform at Willow Creek (and at the church in Calgary where we were watching the satellite feed) were all skinny, good-looking folks. I have nothing against skinny, good-looking folks - but where was I represented in that conference as a Christian leader?

As if to add insult to injury, at that time the only really well-known North American Christian leader of ample proportions was Jerry Falwell. You can insert your own cynical comment here. And if you look around at the lineup on any Christian summit/conference/shindig poster all you will see is skinny, good looking guys and gals. If you go to the websites of any major evangelical, protestant church much more often than not the senior pastor will be a well-proportioned white guy.

Now I freely admit there is a good point about doing what we can to live healthy and be fit. It's a good thing. Our bodies are gifts. We should care for them. And I freely admit that I abused my body in my life. But the actual shape I'm in shouldn't be used as a measure of my love and commitment to Christ or as a measure of my fitness to serve Him.

I love Christ.

I've answered His call on my life (after I developed hypothyroidism). I've spent nearly 15 years really working this out in my life. And I believe in a Kingdom that welcomes in the marginalized and sinful. But we still keep on following human biases in how we perceive each other. And lately, it's felt like the next thing that going to move from immoral to illegal is obesity.

And I'm a fat deer caught in the headlights of opinion and judgment.

So for the time being I console myself with the thought that all of the disciples couldn't have been perfect physical specimens. I imagine that at least one of them - who up until he met Jesus was spending most of his time collecting money in a booth others came to, was making a way above average income and probably enjoyed a richer diet than the rest - looked like me.

What would it do to your ideas about Christianity if the first Gospel was written by a fat guy?

Hey Saint Matthew! Word Brother!

(Not so much)
Shalom
(this morning. Sorry.)