Sandy Hook

The events at Sandy Hook are a horrible tragedy.  The initial reactions of so many were, of course, an outpouring of horror and grief.  Then came other voices.  Sometimes it is better not to react but to respond.  Our reactions are not always our best moments.  A little time to reflect is helpful.  I am glad to have a few days to think and pray before wanting to respond. 

Some want instant revenge, but the perpetrator is dead.  Where will our revenging energy now direct?

Some are calling for gun control.  I am sure that conversation is appropriate and will no doubt happen. 

I think a conversation about the effect of saturation news coverage and the infamy that such deranged shooters seek – that conversation needs to be had. 

I think a conversation about mental health and how we make it OK to suffer mentally needs to be had.  

Also the issue of allowing loneliness in our crowded society – and the evil that loneliness is.  

Then the role of violent video games on growing minds.  We know advertising works  - it’s a trillion dollar industry.  So bathing young minds in games where they blow away people – that’s a conversation that needs to be had.  

Then the role of family, and the effects of family breakup (The murderer's parents had divorced three years ago).  

However, I am sure that the 24 hour news cycle will make this horror fade from view quite quickly.  When the funerals are over we will be into Christmas and then then Fiscal Cliff will be the next item of blanket coverage.

So let's see how we react to Sandy Hook: individually, community, nationally.  As for me, I want to be sure that no-one around me in isolated , lonely, or suffering mentally without recognition and help.  I will ensure my gun is well locked where only I know the location of the key.  i will listen out for the gun control conversation and make my views known. I will not use this wicked man's name, or feed his infamy in death. 

Then I will leave revenge to God.  Christ is the judge.  Will not the judge of all the earth do right?

Our Father, may Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Even so, come Lord Jesus. 

Celebrating Faithful Leadership

It was a poignant moment: my third Sunday not pastoring a church any more, and there we were at a friend's church on Sunday, as they celebrated the ten year anniversary of his pastorate. It was a good moment.  His church gathered around him and celebrated him, his wife, their children and the gratefulness they felt for him.

It was the Sunday before Thanksgiving, so it was even more special.  The District Superintendent had been invited and gave a nice speech, there was a letter from the presiding General Superintendent, and in classic Church of the Nazarene style, a significant church dinner.  Congratulations to my friend and 'brother in the Lord' Geoff DeFranca.  This is how a church should love their pastor - intentionally, and conferring dignity.  I have written elsewhere that real love always confers dignity on the person loved.  This was a great example of that agape-love at work. Well done Community Chapel, Nashua NH and well done Geoff.  Please invite me to your 20th also!

2 Corinthians 3:7 (ESV): Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end,  will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? 

This Sunday, the pulpit that has been my Moses' staff (my identity and my position, my prosperity - at least relationally) for the past decade, will have another preacher standing in it.  Like Moses, my time has faded, and the baton has passed into the hands of others, whomever they may be (I do not know).   As I read the above scripture this morning, I am reminded to have a sure and confident peace for the well being of Journey Church.  It is not the face in the pulpit that brings the presence of God into His Church, but rather it is the Holy Spirit.  

This past week I have read and heard so many deeply touching testimonies and thanksgivings for my time as pastor of Journey Church.  It's been quite overwhelming!  I am deeply thankful for such a celebration and such a real community of Christ-followers - each and every precious person.  Each of these kind words reminds me of two things: that the people of Journey Church love God, His church, His people, and those who do not yet know this Christian Way, and that also if there has been any glory, any fragrance of God, any presence of The Holy Spirit, it has had nothing much at all to do with me, and everything to do with Jesus.

Will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more Glory?

New Dawn

Today is my last day as Pastor of Journey Church in Derry NH.  It's been 10 and a half years of not just a role, but a very real identity - pastor. What a privilege, what a joy. I have loved almost all of it and even in the really bad days I have sensed the presence of God, and that has been enough for me.  I have learned a huge amount about Him, about people, community, public worship, leadership and what it is to lose oneself in the greater story and identity of Jesus Christ.  Beautiful.

Today will be a tough day.  My wife and I have been praying, preparing, bracing ourselves, grieving together, and daring to look ahead together.  Each step of the slow dislocation has been painful, but yet, but yet...

This morning I was up early as usual.  The cool morning air is crisp, the breeze shakes autumn leaves from the trees in the darkness.  It is a melancholy time of year.  Then I notice the dawn sky burning bright luminous red - grey clouds set aflame by the rising sun.  I stand and worship the God who gives gifts of light to those who see them.  It only lasts a few minutes before the sun is up and those clouds are scudding across the sky.

Change is coming to Journey Church and to me.  I have profound peace that as I leave, the God of the Dawn will gently care for His church, and for me.

Thank you Father for this life of gospel service.  Thank you for sustaining me, for Your faithfulness, for the privilege of seeing these wonderful people at their worst and at their best and for seeing You  in each one of them, all the time.  It has been a rich privilege indeed.  They call me pastor, and we call you Father. The first may change, but Your praises will be eternal.  In You we live and move and have our being.  May it always be so. Amen,

Gospel and Church

In The Church Between Gospel and Culture, Richard Halverson wrote: "When the Greeks got the gospel they turned it into a philosophy. When the Romans got it they turned it into a government. When the Europeans got it they turned it into a culture. When the Americans got it they turned it into an enterprise."
Quoted from Ed Stetzer

The point is: the Gospel is so powerful at redefining humanity both individually and corporately that it redefines and satisfies our ways of thinking about ourselves, truth and life (philosophy), our ways of relating to each other organizationally(government) our ways of being together artistically and relationally (culture), and even our ways of wanting to bring the best of ourselves to God's work (enterprise).  However. the gospel is more than all of those things. It is God's mission - the 'Misseo Dei' as it is now fashionably called by the insiders.  

Reflecting back on the last decade and half, I find myself turning to thinking about the Gospel in very simple ways.  I want to open my Bible with people who are outsiders, and to tell them the story of The God who is Father, who came as Jesus, loved us, died for us, and came again as Spirit to live within and among us.  I want to pass a cup of wine and break-open a loaf of bread.  I want to sing the songs of previously unknown love.  I want to be accepted, valued, nurtured and deeply loved by people who will look out for me, especially when I don't love as a I should. I want to do that for other people too.  That will be enough Church for me for the rest of my life.

Karl Giberson and unguided evolution

I have come to admire Karl Giberson as someone who robustly integrates his Christian Faith and his embrace of scientific understanding. As a leading thinker, co-founder of BioLogos, book writer, regular correspondent at the Huffington Post religion pages, he is clearly a shaker and mover in this area of thought.

I recently listened to a debate involving Karl:

http://www.faithandevolution.org/debates/can-a-christian-be-a-darwinist.php

In listening to this, I find I cannot embrace some of what Karl is saying. While I am certainly a Christian in the middle of the historical orthodox (small o) faith, and while I hold a very very high view of the Holy Bible as inspired scripture, inerrant (theologically) in it's autographs, and while I embrace science, especially biology and the wonderful advances in genetics and the implications of the human genome project... I have to say that I fully believe that God guided and indeed guides creation. I do not believe that God did/does not guide creation. Dr. Giberson seems to suggest an absent watchmaker approach - perhaps more theistic than specifically Christian, in which God sets creation in motions and then sits back to see what will happen. He suggests that God awaited to see which species would attain sentient, conscious awareness and that any such life form would enjoy a relationship with the creator. I do believe that God created actively (which might have involved evolution), and did not use evolution passively.

That said, it is entirely possible that God, on other planets spinning around other suns in our, or other, galaxies has created other races of persons and if so I would have no surprise if we find that Christ went there and died for their sins also. Indeed it would be entirely consistent with the self-revealed character of God we find in The Bible.

An ancient earth; micro evolution; common ancestry? I have no problem with that.

No historical Fall? I have a problem with that. I do not believe that God created a system that intrinsically needed death and suffering in order to exist. I see The Fall as having corrupted creation at the physical level as well as at the spiritual. 

I am grateful for this ongoing dialog. There is much work to do to continually understand the context of the timeless truth of the gospel within which our scientific discoveries sit.

Values at the Ballot Box

Yes it's Roman Catholic, but if you can get past that, I think this is well said:

http://youtu.be/D9vQt6IXXaM

I want an Administration in the White House and a Congress that has the humility not to either laugh and sneer at it's citizens, nor look down on the x% that lives the life at the bottom of the heap.   I'm not sure either option on offer works well for me.  That said, the big big issues - life, prayer, freedom of worship, are all in the mix.  As a pastor, I want you to vote.  As a Christian I want you to honor God in your choices over your own interests.  As an American, again, I want you to vote. Oh, and I approve this message. :-)