What I Need

I decided not to go to church today.
Not because I wanted to be lazy or I wanted to avoid the pain. Although I must admit, when I reflect on my absence from church it got me to thinking.
From a leader's perspective, when someone missed worship I didn't give it much thought. I know that people have busy lives and that whether they were on a weekend getaway or just resting from a long week everyone is entitled to take the weekend off. In short, I never stood over people and asked where they were last week.
But I never considered that people (strangers) might find it emotionally difficult to come to church. We as leaders know of those individuals in our congregations who are going through trials in their lives. And we understand when they do not attend as regularly as they used to. We might even try to go to their home to minister to them.
But what about the people whose difficult life circumstance is unknown to us?
I have always thought that on any given weekend someone (and maybe more than one) is desperate to hear the Gospel...that is, "Good News" of hope. And so I always tried to craft my sermons in such a way as to give not only a tangible way to live for God but also to proclaim God's love for each of us.
I hardly ever conducted a strict, serious, super pious, worship experience; opting instead for a light, friendly and fun time with community and God.
I hope I did that well.
My reasons at the time were to make worship a positive, fun, energizing experience. I wanted to make 'church' a place you would WANT to get up, get dressed, and come to on a Sunday morning.
Does that seem stupid?
If I was a leader now....I would know how important this type of worship experience would be to those who might be suffering, for those who are looking for a special type of comfort.
Because it is what I long for.

Today we are always hearing about this or that ministry trying new things to spark growth or reach the 'unchurched' (for lack of a better phrase). Every gimmick under the sun is tried, from doing a coffee house to worshiping in non-traditional church locations.
All that stuff, is just that. Stuff.
I don't need that.
I'm hurting. What I need is a community that loves me unconditionally. A place where people are happy that they are there and happy that I came as well.
What I need is to laugh. Because I gotta tell ya...I don't find a whole lot to laugh about these days.
What I need, is to hear the Gospel. I need to hear hope, forgiveness and love, poured out on me by God.
I already know the law...because I broke it. I don't need anyone telling me the rules. Because I am being punished by them.
And I don't need a coffee shop, or a different building, or a podcast, or whatever else is the latest and greatest to attract me. Ultimately, how could all that 'stuff' possibly make me feel comfortable or take away my pain?

As a worship leader, this is a perspective I never considered.

A Chance

I wonder if sitting in my car with the engine running, locked in the garage, if that might end my pain.
It seems no one quite understands.
How this hurts.
If I could just do that right....just go to sleep.
A romantic notion.
My luck, I would wake up coughing and not be able to go through with it.
As I pondered this 'easy escape,' I had another romantic thought, that of meeting my Lord. And he said to me, "You never gave me the chance to set things right again....Why didn't you wait on me."

Ironic. Isn't it?

I cry out in my thoughts prayers and dreams that I might be given a chance to set things right with the Church, family, friends, the community and ultimately, God.
And yet, I dream of Christ crying out to me, "Why didn't you give ME the chance."

A Grim Reality

I was looking at Mark Driscoll's blog the other day. He has a 11 part series called "Death By Ministry" in which he speaks on the many pitfalls of pastoral ministry. In part two he appears in a video where a rather striking statement is made about theological education not translating to the secular workforce.
A fictitious scenario is offered about former ministers attempting to get a job stating their qualifications as: [I] "...can parse Greek verbs and I totally understand justification by faith..." The prospective employer responds by showing where the mop is located.
I wonder if Mark knows how brutally truthful his statement is. I say this after having just mopped the floor.
Don't get me wrong; it's not that I'm against menial labor. I have done far worse things on the mission field. But there I was glad to do it, no matter how filthy or difficult it was.
Now that type of labor is just a reminder: - of all my hard work and sacrifice.....coming to nothing.
- of God's gifts for the ministry of Word and Sacrament, sitting in a mop bucket.

A grim reality of my failure.

I can't watch TV.
So much of it makes me think about my sin.
Scan the channels and what do you find: promiscuous relationships, suggestive language, situational contexts, sexual situations of all types.....
"Adult Content"
That what we call it. And yet it is so incredibly pervasive that it would be impossible for our children not to see it. Impossible for me not to see it.
I never noticed that before.
But now that I have this 'new' perspective, I see how things really are, and how it is not easy to avoid.
Advertisers use sex to sell things no matter what it is. Since when does deodorant cause women to attack men?
(Which reminds me of the old "Hi Karate" ads)
Is it just humor?
Every sitcom has someone doing something they shouldn't.
And now our society is not satisfied with 'pretending.' We now have the same sexual situations in 'reality-TV.'
No more dating...lets just line up a bunch of women and watch them fight over one man. That's entertainment!
Was it that I never noticed...or did I just become numb to it. Or was I slowly being effected by it?
I did not watch a great deal of TV in the past. There was no time for it.
But now I am so paralyzed that I can't do much of anything. I have too much time on my hands - as the song goes.
So I blindly turn on the TV. And my sadness increases.
Yesterday I thought I could avoid it all by watching a documentary of the Amazon Rain Forest.

I was to find that it was really about the mating habits of the creatures of the rain forest.
There is no escape.