Lining up to see Oprah?

In case you missed it, Toronto was met with its own ‘mania’ on Monday:  Oprah-mania!  People were lined up outside the Metro Convention Centre, winding around several corners in the core of downtown Toronto, for many hours before the popular talk show host came out on the stage.

Now, I and many other Christ-followers have profound issues with the syncretistic nature of a lot of what Oprah supports.  (Two of her gurus, Deepak Chopra and Eckhart Tolle, teach things directly in opposition to the Christian faith.)  Much of what she purports looks very much like a spiritual buffet table.  You line up, get a plate, take a little bit of this and a little bit of that – all stuff that we enjoy and makes us comfortable, of course – and create your spiritual meal of niceties (no indigestion allowed).

All of this got me thinking, though:  we don’t see that kind of lineup outside churches, with people waiting for the doors to open to worship God and hear his Word expounded.  (To be fair, if there were only one church in the world, the lineup would be much longer than Oprah’s.)  If Jesus were to show up in town, what would the lineup be?  Would the crowd be enthusiastic?

There’s also a word of instruction for the church here.  What most struck me about that group of people lined up to see Oprah was their abject excitement at being in the same room with their hero.  How many of us, followers of Jesus, are excited when we gather together to worship the King of Kings?

Now, there are some of us who don’t get “excited” about much, just because that’s our personality.  But too many of us don’t show by our demeanour just how much our Saviour means to us.  Friedrich Nietzsche once said to Christians, “I will believe in your redeemer when your people look more redeemed.”

Can people tell that we are followers of Jesus?  Do followers of Oprah look more redeemed than we do?  Don’t feign your enthusiasm, but consider what the Lord has done for you, and respond as God has blessed you.  It can make a difference.

“For you make me glad by your deeds, O Lord; I sing for joy at the works of your hands” (Psalm 92.4, NIV).

TAKE A VOW: New Marriage, Same Spouse

Pictured at right is a photo of two people, taken September 12, 1992.  The lady looks exactly the same today as she did then.  The guy, well, he’s changed an awful lot over those years…

Have you ever wanted to have a new marriage with the same spouse?

This message offers us three ideas from the Bible that can help that to happen.  They’re not the only ideas, of course, but they are three that can make a big difference in your relationship with your spouse.

Based on Genesis 2.18-3.19 and 2 Corinthians 5.17-21, you can listen to “New Marriage, Same Spouse” by clicking here.

Do you suffer from tridecaphobia?

Do you suffer from tridecaphobia?

That’s the irrational fear of the number 13.  It doesn’t get much press, except on days like today:  Friday the 13^th.  Motorcycle enthusiasts in southern Ontario love Friday the 13^th, because it gives them an excuse for a road trip.  (Many motorcycle enthusiasts meet on Friday the 13^th in Port Dover, Ontario, for a rally.)

Some folks, though, get a bit tied up about the number 13, to the point that they won’t stay in a hotel room with that number, or buy a house with that number, or put a 13^th floor in a building.  It’s a bit of an odd phobia, if you ask me.

The word phobia just means ‘fear’.  And in theological terms, ‘fear’ has two opposites:  ‘faith’…and ‘love’.  As Scripture says, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love” (1 John 4.18, NIV).

Followers of Jesus have no reason to fear anything, but especially something like the number 13.   So what makes us afraid of things?

We live in a sinful world, in which seeds of fear and doubt have been sown in abundance.  Jesus came, and lived and died and rose again, because God loved the world just that much.  His purpose was to redeem us from the sin to which we are enslaved, which includes our fears.

The antidote to fear is faith.  Trust the Lord, and give him your fears…even your fears of Friday the 13^th.

TAKE A VOW: A marriage made in heaven

Some think it strange to preach about marriage on Easter Sunday, but in beginning this series on marriage – which I like to do on a Sunday when there will be a few more folks around – I relate the gift of marriage to the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection.  The message is based on John 3.1-17, and you can listen to it by clicking here.  At the end of the message, I showed this video.

Stay tuned for the rest of the series, in which we will look at God’s purpose for marriage!

The significance of (seemingly) little things

So, according to this week’s federal budget, Canadians will soon be penniless.  (I don’t mean we’re all going to end up on welfare, I mean we’ll literally be without pennies:  they’re being taken out of circulation.  Apparently, they cost more to produce than their face value.)

Most of the initial reactions I read to this had to do with the cost of thoughts increasing (i.e., “A penny for your thoughts” will have to become “A nickel for your thoughts”).  My first reaction was, “What will I use to weigh down my freight cars on my model railroad?”

There will be some significant ramifications for Canadians once this move takes place.  Since credit and debit cards are used for so many transactions nowadays, it may not matter as much as we initially think, but when paying with cash, will figures be rounded up or down?  Even if prices are rounded off, the addition of taxes will force the need to round up or down again.  (And you can bet your bottom dollar – since you won’t have any pennies anyway – that the bulk of the rounding will be “up”.)

There will almost certainly be other smaller, less noticeable changes necessitated by the removal of the penny.  But it reminds us that even something as lowly and seemingly insignificant as the penny, to which we pay little heed today, will, with its disappearance, cause societal problems in our land.

There is something else to which most Canadians pay little heed which, if it disappeared, would also cause societal problems:  the church of Jesus Christ.  A lot of people think the church is out of touch with society and should be abandoned entirely, but this arrogant concept is lobbed out quite thoughtlessly.  Even to those who do not believe in God, the church plays a significant role in society, advocating for the family, providing community, and providing for the needy – among countless other important responsibilities.  For those who do believe in God, the church needs to be a treasured organism, since it is God’s means of providing hope to the world through its proclamation and embodiment of the truth of Jesus Christ.

We who are the church do well to live, love and serve as those who are instruments of the Holy Spirit in providing hope to the world around us.  Being an organism – not an organization – is key to fulfilling this responsibility.  An organization tends to live for its structure; an organism lives to grow, and ceases to live when it stops growing.

“Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’  Jesus replied…’Now I say to you that you are Peter (which means ‘rock’), and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it’” (Matthew 16.16-18, NLT).

Let’s live and grow as the church, which matters to God, and matters to our world – even if it’s not yet noticed by many around us.  God is at work.

How do you invest in others?

How do you invest in others?

This question is on my mind right now, as I have been spending some time preparing a brief lecture for a group of students at Tyndale Seminary that I will present next Wednesday evening.  The topic is “clergy self-care”, about which I have a fair bit of experience, both positive and negative.  I look forward to sharing my experience and insights with these people from varying backgrounds who will be out in the field as pastors themselves before too long.  I look forward to helping them learn from my mistakes!  Sharing what I’ve learned along the journey of twenty-plus years of ministry is a great way to invest in others.

I seek to do the same with the good people of St. Paul’s, Nobleton each Sunday, and through the week, in every aspect of my ministry.  Whether it’s a message or a prayer during worship, a chat at Tim’s, the post office or the study, or even at a meeting – my goal is to invest in people so that their walk with the Lord may be enriched somehow.

So how do you invest in others?  One way you can do that is through a simple invitation to worship.  A few times a year, the Outreach Team at St. Paul’s does its best to make that easier for our gang by sending mailers out to the community.    (One side of this Easter’s postcard, thanks to lifechurch.tv, is pictured.)

What we’re sending out isn’t so much an invitation to come to church at Easter, though the timing of it is quite intentional that way:  I find that beginning a new series – one that should be of interest to the community – on a ‘major’ Sunday like Easter not only attracts attention for Easter itself, but also for the whole series.  This year’s Easter season series is on marriage – “Take A Vow”.  (If you’re wondering how I’m going to tie a message on marriage to the resurrection of Jesus, well, you’ll have to show up to find out!)  Rest assured that this series is not just for married people.  It’s for everybody, including those who have never been married, were married and aren’t anymore, and everybody else.  There will be a challenge and a word of encouragement for all people in this series (even if your marriage wasn’t or isn’t all you’d hoped it would be.)

I hope you’ll find this mailer to serve as good ‘support’ for you as you invite your friends to worship at St. Paul’s for Easter or any other Sunday.  It will be distributed to all households in Nobleton, the rural routes north of town, and some of the homes in Schomberg.  If you invite a friend who receives it, each will reinforce the other and the possibility of your friend attending will be greater.

If you find it difficult to invite a friend to church, ask God to give you the courage and the strength to do it, and see it as an investment in eternity for your friend.  Many people have found their lives changed through one simple invitation to worship.  I know you can do it!

Inspired by Percy Saltzman

Until I was called to ministry, my career goal was to be a meteorologist.  Yep.  One of those people who gets a paycheque even when they “get it wrong.”  (Don’t be too hard on the weather people.  Forecasting, even with computer-generated models coming from a variety of sources, is still rather an inexact science; I really don’t know why they try to forecast anything beyond two to three days, when you consider the variables involved.  But I digress.)

Because of my childhood love of meteorology, I developed a “pen pal” relationship germane to the field:  it was with Percy Saltzman.  He was a TV weatherman, working for the CBC for many years, and later in life at Global.  Even in the early days of computer forecast models, Percy still used a chalkboard with a map of the country, and big, thick pieces of chalk to draw cold fronts and warm fronts and to put temperatures on the board for various communities.  I think I might still have a few satellite photographs that he sent me when I was in about Grade 8.  I learned a lot from him.

One of Percy’s choice pieces of wisdom was this simple poem:

Whether it’s cold or whether it’s hot,

We will have weather, whether or not.

(Hey, he was a weather forecaster, not a poet.  Cut him some slack.)

This week has certainly shown us the anomalous side of the weather.  Who’d have guessed we’d be out in shorts, t-shirts and flip-flops, washing vehicles as March Break came to a close?  We’ve been breaking weather records almost daily for the past week or so.  (Is it global warming, or is it because of two people in my community whom I know bought snow blowers this season?)

Irrespective of the weather, though, Percy Saltzman’s sage wisdom holds true:  no matter what it’s like, there will be weather.  On that we can rely!  If there were no weather, it would be like living on the moon:  we’d have no real atmosphere to speak of, and life would not be sustainable.

As long as there is life, there will be weather.  God is like that.  (You were wondering when God would show up here, weren’t you?)  We can’t predict what God will do, but we can be certain of his presence.   And without God’s presence, there could be no life.  As the apostle Paul said to the council in Athens,  “He is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn’t live in man-made temples, and human hands can’t serve his needs—for he has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need. From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries.  “His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us.  For in him we live and move and exist. As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’  And since this is true, we shouldn’t think of God as an idol designed by craftsmen from gold or silver or stone” (Acts 17.24-29, NLT).

God is not predictable, but he is always present.  Or, as C.S. Lewis wrote of Aslan, the Christ-figure in his writings, he is not safe, but he is good.

We will always have weather, whether we like it or not (and I think we have liked it this week, mostly); and we will always have God.  Will we embrace him, and walk with him in faith?

“A Christian alone is no Christian”: a brief excursus

Yesterday, I tweeted a great quotation from Tertullian, one of the church’s earliest theologians; he lived in the late second and early third centuries in north Africa.  He said, “A Christian alone is no Christian.”

This generated a fair bit of conversation on Facebook, so I thought I’d take a moment to expand a little on what that means, as I see it.  Remembering that Tertullian wrote in the years before the Christian faith was established and had any credence with society at all, the church had a much stronger sense of community.  Under persecution, the church experienced the value of community in ways that it generally doesn’t appreciate when it is not persecuted.

If you need an example of how community is cherished in persecution, consider the Jews.  We tend to think of how they ‘stick together’ and look out for each other in the shadow of the Holocaust, but in reality, this has been true since the diaspora in the second century.  Anytime a Jewish person or family is in crisis, it is the Jewish community that tends to the needs first.

What Tertullian is telling the church is that we could learn from our Jewish friends.

But this is true not just in a practical sense, but in a theoretical, theological sense, too:  with the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost in Acts 2, never again in the New Testament are Christ-followers highlighted positively except in connection with a  community of faith, the church.  Without other Christians, it is virtually impossible to be a Christian.

This is why Sacraments are celebrated within the community of faith.  This is why church membership so strongly emphasizes participation in church life.  This is why the genius of Presbyterian polity involves the whole leadership of the church, not just the pastor, in the care of the congregation.

Can we be Christians in isolation?  If our faith is strong and our isolation is mandated, perhaps; but if we intentionally isolate ourselves from fellow believers, it is unlikely that our faith can stand.  We were made for Christian community.  And that’s what Tertullian would have us know, in brief.  The church may not be perfect, but it is the beautiful Bride of Christ, and it’s “part of the deal” when it comes to engaging as followers of Jesus.

God’s Invitation To Doing

Last week, I spoke about how God invites us simply to ‘be’ with him, to spend time with him in Sabbath, solitude and silence.  This week, the message is about how God invites us to ‘do’ – to put our faith to work, and to ensure that we ‘do’ for God out of the strength of our ‘being’ with God.  Based on Matthew 12.46-50, you can listen to the message by clicking here.

Seeing others through God’s eyes

You never know what burdens people are carrying.

Last Monday, my wife and I were out for a drive, and we stopped at a big-box plaza to allow her to pick up some needful things.  I waited outside, and watched people – a fun avocation that I recommend everyone try.  One woman came out of a store with a toddler in tow, very obviously doing everything she could do to hold back tears.  As she loaded the child into her vehicle and prepared to get into the driver’s seat, I could see that the dam was breaking and she began to weep.

Being a perfect stranger and from another community, it didn’t seem the appropriate thing to inquire as to how I might have helped her.  Instead, from the isolation of my vehicle, I took a moment to pray for her, not knowing her plight, but realizing that it seemed to be taking a toll on her.

This experience illustrated for me the value of trying to see the best in people.  I have not always found this easy; in fact, I still find it a real challenge.  Once we’ve been ‘jaded’, we find it hard to bounce back to that place where we can see the best in others.

Here’s a thought:  instead of trying to see the best in people on your own, why not look at people through God’s eyes?  I’ve used this video a couple of times in the past to illustrate this idea.

To be sure, this isn’t easy, either.  It’s far easier to take someone’s grumpiness personally, and assume the person has a hate on for us or is just naturally of a poor disposition.  We have a tendency to think of ourselves first.  But if we can think of the other person first, and her or his predicament, it may help us to see the person as God sees him or her, and to realize that the problem isn’t natural grumpiness or anger at us.  There is a deeper struggle that shows itself in a mood.

When we see others as God does, it helps us love them as God does.  After all, God does not just love us; Jesus said, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3.16, NIV).

Who knows?  Maybe our attempts to love others as God loves them will result in some people accepting that love from God, and becoming disciples of Jesus.  Even if that doesn’t happen, though, God calls us to love people.  And Jesus is the perfect model, the perfect embodiment of God’s love.

Keep on loving!  You’re making a difference.