Keep Pointing in Waterloo

when there will be no more funerals.

I attended a funeral yesterday.

For most folks, funerals are those things that you attend during those crises moments of your life. Your loved one passed away. Your friend died unexpectedly or after a long battle with a disease. Then, for an hour or so, you are transported to a service at a church or a funeral home, then over to a gravesite, then maybe to a luncheon, then you abruptly reenter into life without them.

The whole thing is momentary and surreal.

But, because of my profession, funerals are less momentary and more normal. I've attended many of them. I've sang at a few of them. And I've officiated a few of them.

And the more I attend or play a part in, the more I think this thought:

This is not right.

It's not right that we have to die. It's not right our bodies decay and succumb to disease. It's not right that tragedy can snuff out a perfectly healthy child or mom or grandma.

It's not right that a wife has to look towards her remaining years with the burden of the label "widow." It's not right that a son has to muster up whatever words he can while choking back tears to properly eulogize the most significant man in his life.

It's just not right.  

It's normal, no doubt. It's the one thing all of us will have in common. We will all be there one day, and we've all seen others go before us. Death is, at this point in our history, a part of all of our lives.

Nevertheless: it's not right.

This is not how God designed this world, this life, this humanity. He did not design it with death as the outcome, much less the norm. Instead He designed it to be one where we live with him and one another fully, purely, righteously, and perfectly, forever.

This reality, this picture of the world is so foreign - so unlike the world that we've grown so accustomed to, that it inspires almost no emotion in us. It's like the number 15 trillion. That number is so foreign to what I experience personally everyday that it's less real to me.

But it was that way once. Death was once the number 15 trillion. Death was the thing that was so foreign that it wasn't real to us.

And death will be that way again. We'll eventually remember death not by its sting of loss, but more like a distant and murky past that has been washed away from our present life.

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Today at the funeral I wondered:

How many funerals has God been to as He's watched over us for these last few thousand years?

How many processions? How many tears? How many holes dug in the ground? How much hopelessness, helplessness, sorrow, and cries of grief?

How heavy his heart must feel in those many moments. For us, they are a few heavy moments over the course of a life. For him, He has seen these and felt these by the thousands and perhaps millions every single day.

As I imagine that, I think I begin to feel what Jesus must have felt in his heart when he went to a funeral of his close friend, Lazarus. From John 11:

When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 

³³ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.

This is one of those places in Scripture where I think translators have sentimentalized or sterilized the language a bit too much. The first phrase that described what Jesus felt, "deeply moved in spirit," has in the original language an aspect of agitation or even anger. The second phrase, "troubled," is to be stirred up on your spirit with troubling questions - agitated at something that just doesn't seem to make sense.

John 1:1 tells us that in the beginning was the Word - Jesus. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God.

When Jesus looked upon his dead friend and into the eyes of his grieving friends, he saw past what they saw, and instead saw what it was once like. He remembered a world without death. He was there when it was created. And he could see through his death the day death would no longer be.

In fact, Jesus was the only one on earth for whom death was not normal or expected. It had no hold on him, for he was sinless. It had no claim to him, for he was righteous. It wasn't the great equilizer for him. Death was instead an opponent that stood defiantly against his Father's intentions, notching on its belt the lives of every single one of God's creations since Adam.

And while we know from Scripture that the looming cross leaned heavily upon Jesus' spirit as it approached, I can't help but think that Jesus had on his mind more than its pain.

He had on his mind every funeral that ever had been and ever would be.

And he had on his mind the day when there would be no more of them.

So the next time you have to watch a casket be lowered into the ground, and you feel the apparent finality of that moment, remember this:

If it houses a redeemed child of God, it will indeed one day be reopened.

Just like the one of the One Who Defeated Death.

Joe Paterno and why we need grace

Sports fan or not, most of us have undoubtedly heard about the passing of longtime Penn State football coach, Joe Paterno, ending his short battle with cancer.

Paterno had a resume unlike any other college football coach: he was with the same team as a coach for 62 years - 46 of them as the head coach.  He led his team to two national championships.  And despite all of the criticisms sports talking heads would level against him about his age, relevancy, and abilities, "Joe Pa's" Nittany Lions were a perennial force to be reckoned with on the football field.

Paterno's motto, "Win with Honor," summed up everything that was good about college football, especially in an era where scandals amongst coaches and boosters have been rampant: improper recruiting practices, paying of players underneath the table, and ethics seemingly out the window at all of the major successful college football programs.  Paterno was one of the lone bright stars in his class, standing as someone who did the right thing and still succeeded.

But then, in this past year, it was revealed that a longtime assistant of his, Jerry Sandusky, had allegedly levereged his position to sexually abuse several children at various sports camps.  What's even worse: Paterno knew about those accusations, including one in particular that was brought to his attention by one of his graduate assistants who claimed that he witnessed it happening on campus.  

And after passing the accusation along to his superiors and watching them fail to act appropriately on them, Paterno did little to nothing to follow up or sound any sort of alarm.

And now his life has ended, and the discussion about his life begins.

Maybe you've seen a few of your friends post their brief thoughts about it on facebook or twitter.  Most of my friends who have posted about it have been very positive towards the coach, encouraging me and others to look at the sum of the contributions of his life, rather than look on his entire life through the lens of this past year.  

But it's hard not to.  It's hard not to because of how ugly those alleged abuses are.  It's hard to imagine something worse than an adult using his or her position to sexually abuse a child.  And although it wasn't Paterno himself who is the accused, he failed to do what any responsible adult should have done - especially one who stood for what he did: step in and put a stop to it.

And so we're left in this place where everyone loses.  Those kids, if the allegations are true, have lost something that they'll never regain in this life. Jerry, if convicted, loses his freedom and his reputation for the rest of his life.  And Joe Paterno's legacy will, like it or not, forever be asterisked by what he failed to do when it mattered the most.

This is what it's like to live in a world that is marred by sin.  The innocent are preyed upon.  Those in power abuse it.  And even the best of us fail to do what is right all of the time.  Everyone loses.

This is where the story ends for most of the folks in this world.  Sin is.  And depending on the person talking about it, we either need to recognize that sin is ("Sandusky should rot in hell for what he did" or "Paterno's just as guilty - period"), or we need to stop making that sin such a big deal ("But look at everything good Paterno did").

But neither of these two presciptions are where this story ends for the Christian.  At least, they are not where the story should end.

Christians experience this thing called grace.  And grace refuses to either bow to sin or to manage around it.  

Grace is an often used but often misunderstood thing.  I've heard a few definitions of grace that I think reclaim it from its sterilized (mis)understanding.

"Grace is doing something for someone that they could never do for themselves." - Dallas Willard

And:

"Grace is giving someone something that you have every right to demand of them." - David Benner

Each of these three - the victims, the accused, and the coach - find themselves in need of grace - in need of someone doing something for them that they can't do for themselves.

Those kids (some who are now adults) need care, safety, understanding, and ongoing counseling to process through what happened to them.  Ultimately, they need to discover the grace of Jesus so that they can find forgiveness for what has been done to them.  Otherwise, they will forever suffer under the burden of not only the crimes that have been committed against them, but also from the anger, the neverending quest for justice, and the hatred that will inevitably arise in their hearts towards the person who abused them.

Mr. Sandusky, if he did these things and is convicted, not only needs to pay whatever price the justice system levels against him for what he's done.  He also needs a heart of truth and contrition, and the humility to scorn the shame and instead admit that what he did to those kids was terribly wrong.  

In fact, they need that.  They deserve it.

But someone's heart doesn't just magically go from calloused and deceptive to soft and open.  Hearts change because God changes them.  And God changes them as changed people offer grace to those who do not deserve it - because they themselves didn't deserve it either when God gave them grace.  I firmly believe that Jerry Sandusky's heart can only really change if God through Jesus and God's people extend grace.  Jerry doesn't deserve it, but needs it.  Just like you and me.

And finally, although we are no longer talking about Joe Paterno's eternal destiny, for a few of us, the coach is in the same camp as the accused.  He should have done what was right, but did not.  Will we settle for hurling justified accusations at his legacy, or will we be the type of people who see his life as an example for why we need grace?  What will flavor how we talk about him?  What will shape how we interact with people who are like him?  

Will we be people who settle for the story ending with the reality of sin, or will we be people who continue to open and write the chapter of God's grace?

Will we give people the very thing that we have every right to demand of them?

Will we be people of grace?

immersion sometimes feels like drowning.

No, this isn't a post about baptism.  (Although I have baptized more than one person whose major fear about being baptized was a fear of drowning.  But that's probably a different post.)

This is a post about a different kind of immersion.  I'm talking about this kind of immersion - from dictionary.com:

concentrating on one course of instruction, subject, or project to the exclusion of all others for several days or weeks; intensive.

Part of a missions course I took in seminary involved an immersion experience. We spent an entire semester reading and learning about the story and plight of the Lakota Sioux tribe in South Dakota.  Then, near the end of the class, we spent an entire week on the reservation - immersed in their culture, their world, their community.

It was intense, and at times uncomfortable.  But very illuminating.

During these past few months, and especially since our move to First Lutheran, I've had a chance to be immersed in several different ways on "this side of town" with "these people over here."  And without naming each of them like some sort of merit badge list, let me just say this:

At times it has felt more like drowning than immersion.

Sometimes the cultural gap has felt bottomless.  Sometimes the challenge of connecting one community to another has left me feeling powerless.  And sometimes the social, economic, systemic, and familial issues are so immense that it feels suffocating.

But as I continue to be immersed, I realize that I am not drowning at all. Rather, I'm learning to swim.

I'm finding that I sometimes am not really looking to serve, but rather looking to serve the interests of my church or my own need to be significant, useful, or comfortable.  

I'm finding that it's more important to figure out how to go to the people than it is to figure out how to get them to come.

I'm finding that I need to stop asking, "How can I be involved?" and instead ask "What do you really need?"  Then, just do that for them or with them.  Or, decide to stick around long enough to help them figure out what they really need.  Then, do that for them or with them.  I can't just dismiss someone because their needs don't fit my calendar, my preference, or my timeframe.

That's the gift of immersion.  You start to actually see what you need to see, feel what you need to feel, and learn what you need to learn, so that you can do what really needs to be done.

You just can't substitute immersion for another book, study, group, class, or anything else.  Immersion forces you to learn how to actually swim, rather than just listen to another message on why it's important to learn how to swim.

My wife and I took my son swimming for the very first time in his 19 month life this past weekend over at the Wellness and Recreation Center at UNI.  We strapped the infant lifejacket on him, waded into the shallow end, and watched him stand on the edge of the water, looking at it like it might kill him if it touched him.

And we coaxed.  And we asked.  But really, we just let him have some space to take it all in.

Finally we persuaded him to get close enough for us to grab him and slowly dip his toes in while we held him in our arms.  We were waist-deep; he was toes-deep.  Still pretty cautious.  But willing, for the most part.

Then came the first dip - neck-deep for us, waist-deep for him.  We shed a few tears there; but we made it.  We got used to it.

His lip started to quiver a little bit, and his teeth started to chatter.  That was a new feeling for him - getting used to the cold water all around him. 

But then, I flung him up in the air a few times, caught him, then grabbed his beach ball and let him bat it around a bit in the water.

And pretty much from that point on, we were good.  In fact, I'd say he enjoyed it. He even let us lay him on his back a few times, lifejacket propping him up.

At first he thought he was going to die, and that nothing good was going to come of this whole pool thing.  

But by the end, he was splashing around just like every other kid was.

Immersion feels like you're drowning when you first experience it.  But in the end, it changes you.

Which of course leads us to the question: As it relates to our mission in Waterloo and immersing yourself in our community, where are you?

Standing on the edge of the pool holding on to life as you've always known it?

Taking your first deep breath and fighting off the teeth-chattering cold of the water, realizing that some of your fears were indeed well founded?

Being tossed up in the air by your heavenly Father, encountering again his familiar presence, and enjoying a revitalizing experience?

Splashing around as you have become familiar with a new environment?

Making your part of the pool a little warmer, and hoping nobody swims near you until the chlorine has done its job?

(Sorry.  Couldn't resist that last one.)

good vs. good

Sometimes I feel like people in the church make it their primary mission in life to pit one good thing against another good thing.

It's better to go deep in your church services.  No, it's better to make your services attractive to guests and non-Christians.

It's better to do loud, fast, emotional, high-energy rock songs.  No, it's better to do time-tested, theological, reverent hymns.

The church should be all about discipleship.  No, the church should be all about serving the poor.

The megachurch is really missing the boat.  The organic church really lacks a direction.

And I haven't even broached the subjects of what well-meaning, passionate, biblically-minded Christians are bickering about when it comes to science vs. religion, women in ministry, and politics.

Why am I even writing about this?  I don't know.  I think partly because I'm frustrated by it, and I need an outlet to process through it.  Partly because I can't open up facebook or twitter these days without seeing 1 out of every 4 posts about some video or quote from some famous Christian (Piper, Chan, Driscoll, Warren, Moore, Meyer, Chandler, Platt, Furtick, Hybels, Stanley, or a favorite quote from your favorite theologian).

But I think the real reason that I'm writing is this:

I'm finding out that none of it matters nearly as much as everyone thinks it all matters.

Don't take that as an attack on critical thinking, or on the value of holding to and articulating personal convictions.  And don't take it as an attack on the character or the views of any of those above, named or unnamed.  In fact, many of those named are incredible people of God, serving with wisdom and pure hearts.  I've been personally blessed by them as I've listened to them speak or have read what they've written.

I'm just finding more and more that I don't live in that world.

I've had a handful of experiences in this last week that have made that world - the world of the "which model/which conviction/which theological tradition/which worship style/which devotional practice" - more and more irrelevant.

First: I started teaching a Junior Achievement at East High.  It's me, a teacher, and 30 freshmen of mixed ethnicities and varying backgrounds and abilities all crammed into a tiny room where the thermostat doesn't work really well.  It took about 10 minutes for the teacher to get them corralled into the seats.  Seriously.  (And it was a fantastic experience, by the way.)  I don't see how that world is relevant to this world.

Second: I met with an East High teacher and a representative from Waterloo Community Schools about our church becoming a Partner in Education.  The teacher first asked for prayer.  (Yep.)  Then, we talked mainly about how it's challenging to get families to participate in anything.  Doesn't matter the program, the initiative, or the model.  Now, they have some great kids.  But it's a struggle to feel like you're getting anywhere at times.  It's hard to see how that world is relevant to this world.

Third: Earlier this week I had lunch with a husband and wife pastoral team who have been pastoring a church that started as a ministry to the poor and addicts in a city park.  I bet few of their congregants are asking a lot of the same questions that some of my peers are so fervently debating.

Finally: I had lunch today with my wife and son at a Mexican restaurant close to my neighborhood.  Food was amazing.  We were the only white folks there.  It was about 1:30 in the afternoon.  A few of the tables were packed with young adults - some maybe teenagers - each of them downing beer after beer.  I began to wonder: "What is any church doing to reach them?  Would I even attend a church that made it their mission to reach them?"

It just seems like there is a disconnect.

Have you felt this?  Maybe you have.  Maybe sometime this past year you've wondered:

Why don't I feel more compelled to serve the marginalized?

Why don't I feel more compassion in my heart for the plight of many in my community?

Why don't I share my faith more?

Why don't I put my faith into action more?

Those are hard questions.  And there aren't easy answers.  And I'm becoming sure that the answers aren't found in another book, study, song, or sermon.

I think you have to begin to obey to find those answers.

I think you have to go to these places.

I think you have to talk to these people.

I think you have to wrestle with these questions.

I think you have to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

I think you have to love your neighbor as yourself.

Then maybe we'll start influencing the world that we live in - connecting where right now there is a disconnect.

Those last three things sound familiar, don't they?

it's that time of year again

A couple of times a year, things start to get buzzing at a pretty high rate around Prairie Lakes Church. One of those times is in the fall, right after the summer as school begins.  The other time is now - after the holiday season ends, and we all get into the rhythm of a new year.

So, here's a few things that you should be aware of as we kick off a new year of programming at Prairie Lakes Waterloo:

Campus Connection - If you have any questions about our campus, what we're doing, baptism, classes, our vision and direction - whatever - then stop down in the Chapel at First Lutheran after this weeekend's service.  Pastor Carl and I will be there to greet you and answer any questions you might have.

Membership - We will be holding our next membership class on Thursday, January 19, from 6:30-8:00 p.m. in the Chapel at First Lutheran Church.

Baptism - We will be holding our next baptism on Sunday, January 29, after the service across the parking lot at East High.  Sign up online if you're interested in being baptized.

Classes - Prairie Lakes will be kicking off several of its classes this spring at both the Waterloo and Cedar Falls Campus.  For a complete list, click here.  Of special interest to you might be Pastor Carl's Urban Compassion Class.  If you haven't taken it yet, or even if you might have, it'd be a good idea to check it out, as we've been learning different things and changing the content of the class as we go.

Groups - in a few weeks, we'll be launching a few more small groups at Waterloo.  Stay tuned for that if that's your next step.

Think that's it for now, friends!

are you acquainted?

This spring, I'm going to be teaching the spring semester of our School of Church Leadership at our Cedar Falls campus.  It's one class that will be meeting on a few weekends during the spring.  The topic?  Spiritual formation - God's process of transforming us into the image of Christ for the sake of others, and how we are able to partner with him in that process.

One of the books I'm reading to prepare for the class is David Benner's Surrender To Love: Discovering the Heart of Christian Spirituality.  In it he makes a statement that caused me to stop and think:

Ask Christians what they believe about God, and most will have a good deal to say. However, ask the same people what they know about God from direct personal experience, and most will have much less to say.

Is that true of the people you do life with?  Is it true of you?

Benner goes on to explain why he thinks this is - this time quoting from A. W. Tozer:

A. W. Tozer notes that most of us who call ourselves Christians do so on the basis of belief more than experience. We have, he argues, "substituted theological ideas for an arresting encounter; we are full of religious notions but our great weakness is that for our hearts there is no one there."

Finally, Benner makes this statement:

Any authentic spiritual journey must grow from direct, personal experience of God.  "Knowledge by acquaintance," Tozer affirms, "is always better than mere knowledge by description."

Maybe you've never thought about it that way.  Maybe for you, your primary knowledge of God has always been more about what you believe about him ("Am I accurately describing to you what the Bible says about him?") more than it has been about what you have experienced of him ("Can I tell you how the God of the Bible has intervened in my life?").

Don't get me wrong.  Let's not throw right belief out the window.  I've got a seminary degree and some sizeable student loan debt that says I value right belief.  People make God into whatever image they desire, and to their own peril. It's important to rightly describe him.

Nevertheless: you can accurately describe someone without knowing them, can't you?  I bet there are people who know more about the facts and figures of my wife's life than I do: her nuclear family, college roommates, maybe her co-workers.  But I bet no one knows her as well as I do.

So, if you're in this predicament of being able to describe what you believe about God, but aren't really able to tell as many stories about how you've experienced him, what do you do?  

1. Well, take the class.  (Shameless self-promotion.)
2. Grab Benner's book.  (By the way, Amazon's Kindle is available as an app either on your phone, laptop, or tablet.  It's fantastic.  And Kindle books are cheap.  Oh, and the app is free.)
3. Do some journaling.  Think prayerfully, in conversation with God, about why this might be.
4. Have a spiritual conversation about this - maybe with your spouse or your small group.  See what the Spirit brings up as you do.
5. Do something that God says he's already doing: caring for the disenfranchised, loving his enemies, forgiving those who have sinned against him. You're bound to encounter him in those places.

Anyways, that's what's got me today.  Would love to know your thoughts.

diversity outside my window

My office sits on the corner of Kimball and Park Lane, just down the road from Hoover Middle School on the southern side of Waterloo.  I've got a wall of windows to the north and a wall of windows to the west which allow me a great view of what's going on outside.

Normally it's pretty quiet around the office - usually just me, maybe with a few of my staff dipping in and out.  But around three in the afternoon every day, it gets noisy - and not because of what's going on inside the office.  It's what's going on outside.

Hoover lets out at around this time.  And because of the unseasonably warm weather, kids are walking home.

At the time of me writing this, there 10 kids from Hoover walking down the sidewalk towards the neighborhoods across Kimball - the exact same neighborhood that I grew up in.

Five white kids.  Five black kids.  All yelling, screaming, joking, playfully pushing and shoving, relating.

Being from here, it's easy to think that this city hasn't changed in forever.  But it has.  Diversity is everywhere.  I'm more and more amazed at how I used to simply not see it.

be it resolved

Sometimes I wonder, if Jesus were pastoring a church, what type of message he would preach on January 1st.

I wonder what he would think about when he thought about the New Year, our sentiments towards it, how we approach it, and how it measures up against the life that he lived and taught about.

What parts of our New Year's tradition and celebration would he celebrate along with us? What would he pick up on as illustrations of what life with him is like?

Which parts would he choose for speaking words of correction or admonition?

What would Jesus decide that we needed to hear from the pulpit on January 1st?

Here's my best guess as to what Jesus' bulleted outline might look like if he was the one preaching today:

• I love that you love what is new.  I do too.  I love seeing things go from broken, worn down, and hopeless to new and alive.  You love what is new becuase I love what is new. I'm always trying to make something new. I'd love for you to join me.
   
• You are right: everything is possible.  I love to see your optimism restored, your faith renewed, and your resolve strengthened.  You should be optimistic.
  
  
• But you are misguided on why everything is possible; this is why your optimism is often so short lived, and why your resolutions so often turn into monuments to your failure.
  
  
• Your New Year and the possibilities therein rest too heavily on you: your will, your power, your resolve.  If there is one lesson that I had hoped you would have learned from last year (and every year before that), it was this: that your will is weak - too weak to bring about the change your heart craves.
  
  
• Here's what I hope you don't forget: everything is possible because my Father raised me from the dead, and has been raising dead people to life ever since.
  
  
• Stop and think about that: I was raised to new life because I died. And before I physically died, I willfully died.  I surrendered control of my life to my Father.  I became absolutely dependent on my Father.  I obeyed Him perfectly.  And that wasn't always easy.
  
  
• But oh, was it abundantly good!   Except for that brief moment on the cross, I faced every circumstance of my life - from the feeding of the 5,000, to Judas' betrayal, to the stone rolling away, to my ascension into heaven - in my Father's presence.  Really connected.
   
• In fact, that's why I was able to do and experience so many incredible, supernatural, life-changing things: I died to myself.  It was the Father through the Spirit doing those things through me.
  
  
• So this is what I hope for you in 2012.  I hope that you will forsake your hope in yourself - your abilities, your power, your will, your desire to do what is right.  I hope that you will give more of your will to my Father - that you will die the same death that I did.  And I hope that you savor the power of my resurrection, as your death will bring about my life and my power and my love in you, so that through you your world may be changed in my name.

Be it resolved.