Blog Archives - PASTORFROGGE

04-30-23

4/30/2023

ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
April 30, 2023
As I shared a few days ago, today is Youth Sunday. If you are anywhere near Cypress Creek Christian Church, I believe you would be blessed to experience what the youth have prepared. Though it has been many years, I can remember the Youth Sundays when I was a youth. In my younger years, I welcomed people and passed out bulletins. In late Jr. High, I had a very small part in a skit. By the time I was a Junior and Senior in High School, I was giving part of the sermon and presiding at the Communion Table. People were so kind to me after worship, providing affirmation and encouragement. Those words were not the most significant part of my call to ministry, but they were most definitely a component of God’s nudging. I’m not suggesting any of our youth who we will hear speak today will go on to ordained ministry, but I’m not saying one or two of them won’t. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians about how God enabled them to live out God’s good purposes (2:13), and I believe God uses the church (the individual members of the body) in the work of enabling and empowering. I hope what we are doing right now with our youth will continue to have an impact in twenty years as some of them will find themselves called to sing in worship, serve as a Sunday School teacher, visit the hospitalized, volunteer at NAM, serve as a leader on a youth mission trip, counsel at church camp, etc. Of course, some of our youth are already doing a number of these things. In every moment, the church is about encouraging, enabling, and empowering the individual members of the church, no matter their age, for the good purposes of God.

For what needs to be accomplished in this world, O Lord God, we trust your Spirit at work in the community of the faithful. Part of our task is to encourage and empower one another, and with Jesus as our model, we pray for this task to be done. Amen.

04-29-23

4/29/2023

ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
April 29, 2023
My car registration sticker had been sitting on the dining room table for a while, yet the end of the month was approaching, and it needed to get put in its proper place. I don’t know about you, but there are certain things where I get 92% of it done but don’t quite get it past the finish line. The inspection was done, the online registration was paid for and completed, and the sticker arrived in the mail. The simplest part was all that remained. But it took me nearly two weeks to pick up the sticker that sat on the table, walk out to the garage, remove the old one, and place the new one where the old one had been. The whole thing might have taken two minutes of my life, yet why did I procrastinate? I’m sure the answer to that question might require the help of a good therapist, but it does make me wonder how many other places I've done something similar. How often have I not completed what needed to be completed because I kept on telling myself that I’d get to that final step tomorrow? There have been moments when I wanted to make my opinion known to a politician. I wrote what I felt to be a thoughtful and well-researched letter/email, but never looked up the address for the politician. I wonder if there is any place in our faith journey where we have done something similar. We have done some good work, set the stage well, but we didn’t actually take the final step. Now, I believe God is gracious no matter our lack of follow-through, but the real impact our faith has on the world is most often found in that last step. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians, "I’m sure about this: the one who started a good work in you will stay with you to complete the job by the day of Christ Jesus" (1:6). My faith tells me that God will stay with me, but there is still a responsibility on my part to help bring the task to completion.

Wherever I am coming up a little short, Merciful God, bring your Spirit alongside with the intention of giving me the necessary nudge. Amen.

04-28-23

4/28/2023

ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
April 28, 2023
More than a year ago, Donna and I heard that “To Kill a Mockingbird” was coming to the Hobby Center, and so our Christmas gift that year (even though tickets were not yet on sale) was dinner and a play. From age 15 to 40 or so, I read “To Kill a Mockingbird” at least once every year. It continued to reveal new truths and challenges, and though I have only read it a couple times in the last decade, I was beyond excited about seeing it live. And it did not disappoint! Now there are many folk who have complained, if not outright trashed this version, but I found it powerful and equally discomforting. Among the many changes and modifications to the play, there is a line added to Mr. Raymond’s short monologue, where he says: "When horror comes to supper, it comes dressed exactly like a Christian." Many have said that a book challenging prejudice was modified to speak prejudicial words against Christians. I might join those who were offended if the words added were not so true. Whether it was the 1930s or the last nine months, some pretty horrific hate has come dressed in Christian clothing. We may not like it, and we might even shake our heads in distaste, but many will lump us together under the title of Christian. A majority of those who have pulled away from Christianity, whether they now call themselves agnostics or simply spiritual, would describe Christianity as a religion of hate, bigotry, and misogyny. The Christianity I know, and see expressed at Cypress Creek Christian Church, seeks to counter hate with love, bigotry with inclusion, and misogyny with the honoring of all gifts. The Apostle Paul put love first, while never being timid in calling out what might undermine the very love he was called to share. Too much horror has come to supper dressed as a Christian, and as we name it for what it is, we also need to make sure we are offering a clear alternative.

O God whose love is immeasurable, challenging, and redemptive, we seek your Spirit of power as we strive to offer an image of Jesus that is welcoming, compelling, and transformative. May this embodied expression show up at supper with grace, kindness, and mercy. Amen.

04-27-23

4/27/2023

ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
April 27, 2023
This Sunday is Youth Sunday! It is a great Sunday, and not simply because I don’t have to preach. It is a great Sunday, as we have the opportunity to witness our youth giving expression to their faith. Since coming to CCCC, and specifically under the leadership of Rev. Mariah Newell, Youth Sundays have been powerful. What we’ve experienced in recent years puts to shame the Youth Sundays I oversaw as a Youth Minister. But even the biggest flops under my leadership were celebrated by the congregation I served, a sign of grace. The old saying from George Bernard Shaw, "Youth is wasted on the young," is entirely inaccurate when I think of the youth at CCCC. The compassion and care and convictions of our youth are being used well and faithfully. In II Timothy 1:7, we read: "God didn’t give us a spirit that is cowering but one that is powerful, full of love, and focused." The spirit alive within our young people is powerful, full of love and focused. Thank God!

We give thanks, O God, for the amazing people who choose to serve you in love, but today we are especially thankful for the children and youth who provide a strong witness to your goodness and grace, a witness from which we adults can learn. Amen.

04-26-23

4/26/2023

ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
April 26, 2023
Yesterday, I wrote about the cost of doing business as a church… literal costs. As I write this Etching, my desk is a mess. And so many of the items sitting in front of me are brochures and advertisements for some newfangled software to help organize church ministry or an online video library that would be available at the press of a button or a new high-tech children’s curriculum that will put a smile on every face or a fog machine that will make your worship even more cool than it was before. There are moments when I sit at my desk looking at these advertisements, whether delivered by snail mail or emailed, and I say to myself, "Jesus would be embarrassed at what we have done with his vision." Now I’m sure I sound like an old cantankerous minister who is reflecting, with great nostalgia, about the good old days. But where do we draw the line? When is something helpful for the Jesus movement, and when does it actually undermine our purpose? Different people are going to have different answers, in part, based on what is defined as that purpose. Some will argue that the purpose is conversion at any cost, using whatever method is necessary. Others, and this is where I find myself, would argue that the ultimate purpose (goal, objective) should be embodied in the process. If love, justice, simplicity, and mercy are some of the things that are central to that purpose, then all those things should be part of the process. How you choose to get there will determine where you actually arrive. I sort of wonder if how we (using the pronoun broadly) are currently doing church is determining our destination, which in fact is not very close to where Jesus was hoping we’d go.

What am I doing? Am I currently being helpful to you and to the work you set forth in Jesus? I make this request, O God, as I am serious about aligning how I am doing ministry with what you desire ministry to accomplish. Amen.

04-25-23

4/25/2023

ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
April 25, 2023
There are days in ministry when I envy Jesus wandering the hillsides and small towns with a small group of followers. No buildings; no power surges that wreak havoc on elevators and AC units; no workers’ comp insurance; no bank fees for depositing money into the bank, etc. Church is a lot more complicated today, yet despite my complaints about the hassles and costs of doing business, there are extraordinary benefits to having buildings and staff. And Cypress Creek Christian Church, and the Community Center model, open these buildings to so many groups and organizations that would not otherwise be able to do the work they do. The physical buildings are instruments of God. And the staff and the Leadership Team (I’m excluding myself from these comments) are quite exceptional in what they do and the lives they impact. So much of ministry, by its very nature, is not seen by the larger congregation. Yet people’s lives are being touched by the Gospel, and those who have felt injured for whatever reason are experiencing the Spirit’s capacity to mend. In light of all this, I think about the words from I Peter 4, "Open your homes to each other without complaining. And serve each other according to the gift each person has received, as good managers of God’s diverse gifts." So much of what we do is about managing the gifts with which we’ve been entrusted.

O Giver of All Good Gifts, provide me with a heart made available to the gifts you are seeking to bestow, and then give me the courage to put forth those gifts for the work of healing and wholeness. Amen.

04-24-23

4/23/2023

04-23-23

4/23/2023

ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
April 23, 2023
About a month ago, as I was driving to church on Sunday morning around 6:30am, I dropped by the convenience store for caffeine. I was dressed up, wearing a tie, and someone in the store made a comment. I said, "I’m headed to church." He says, "Oh, it is church day." I laughed, but that phrase sort of bothered me as the day progressed… even though I’ve probably used it at some point myself. To assign church to a single day of the week is a mistake, even if what we are intending to say is worship. When we begin to imply limitations and restrictions on when and where the church exists, there is a problem. The church will gather today in settings around the globe, and then the church will disperse, but in that dispersing, it will be no less than it was when it gathered.

Holy God, whether those who follow Jesus are sitting in the same space or not, let us never forget that each of us is the church, the manifestation of the Gospel in the world. Amen.

04-22-23

4/22/2023

ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
April 22, 2023
Like you, I am heartbroken and angry and dumbfounded, along with a handful of other emotions that have no words. I’m talking about the shooting of Ralph Yarl (and others recently), the 16-year-old from Kansas City. It is one more window through which we must pause and glimpse the fear-driven hatred still prevalent in our society. I know the area of the shooting well, as it was not far from the congregation I served in Kansas City, and my first apartment was just 7 or 8 minutes away. I say that because Clay County, Missouri (where Kansas City is located), though filled with some amazing human beings, was and is an area dealing with the ugly and demonic reality of racism. How does one person feel so threatened by another human that he perceives the need to open the locked door and shoot?

Since the shooting of this young man, I have had two salespeople come to my door, and they were both black. And what struck me was how far they backed up from the door. Later, after the first one left, I did a sort of estimation of how far it was, and it was around 22 feet. I tend to step back from a door after ringing the doorbell, but I estimate that I step back about 6 feet or so. I’m certain those two young men were taught or instinctively knew that some people were going to judge them based upon the color of their skin, a potential interaction that could be dangerous. How is it that we have become so fearful, so fragile, so insecure that a 16-year-old is left injured?

I was just listening to the musical Wicked, and a line from the well-known song "For Good" really struck me. They sing:

Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
I have been changed for good

It appears that Jesus wanted us to understand the power of getting to know "the other," the one whose story we do not know or have misunderstood. Instead, we too often allow our fear-based assumptions to drive our decision-making. We also allow the anxiety of what we do not know to keep us from being changed for both the better and the good.

Forgive us, O God, for the way baseless fear still manifests itself in hate and violence. History should teach us, yet we too often dismiss it as something of no consequence. We, as humans, have been making the same mistakes ever since the first humans made their first mistakes. Help us to evolve, even just a little. Amen.

04-20-23

4/20/2023

ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
April 20, 2023
Toward the end of Paul’s First Letter to the Church in Corinth, he writes: "Keep alert, stand firm in your faith, be courageous, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love" (16:13-14). I find it interesting how Paul connects standing firm, being courageous, and being strong to doing all things in love. You would think that doing everything in love would only create friends, happiness, and good vibes. Of course, Jesus is the one who disproves that connection. But what appears to happen is that those who live in love, and so generously share love, find great strength through that love. People who feel loved, who feel embraced by this love simply for who they are, are much more confident and bold in their capacity to share that love. I think part of our problem (emphasizing the word ‘part’) is that too many people feel insecure about their value and belovedness in this world, and from that place of insecurity, love becomes a commodity in short supply. Scarcity is never a healthy starting place for anyone, and a sense of scarcity when it comes to love creates a multitude of problems.

As I ask for strength and courage, O Lord, I realize I’m asking for a new infusion of your love. My faith says it is given without condition and in immeasurable abundance, so today I pray for this gift to take hold in my life. With it comes strength and courage for the good work of living this love, even when it is dismissed or seen as a threat. Amen.