Don’t Call Me “Preacher.”

Who is the one who prays at the family gatherings over meals? Who is the one who prays at family night suppers at church? Who else … but … “the Preacher.” Recently I was at a birthday party for a rather classy chap. Half-way joking he said to me, “You’re the professional, you pray.”

Typically I find several attitudes towards “The Preacher” in the Southern Traditional Church.

• One is that the preacher is a Lucky Rabbit’s Foot, a spiritual talisman. If you’re sick, if you’re having a bad day, make sure the preacher is around. His presence alone can ward off the evil spirits and bring good fortune. Too bad this doesn’t work for the non church world … I could make a killing at the state fair!
• Another similar but somewhat different attitude is that the preacher is a magic silver bullet. If we’re stumped, if we’re sick, if we’re feeling bad, then go and get the preacher … for heaven’s sake. He is THE SOLUTION. After all preacher prayers work better than common, vulgar prayers. If your congregation is dying … no problem … just bring in a young whipper-snapper and he can pull a dynamic congregation out of his hat.
• The preacher is an Old Testament prophet/seer type. You can run to him and God will tell you through him the answers to all your problems. Leave a tip in the offering plate and he will forcast your future for you. (I certainly could make a killing off that one at the state fair.)
• The preacher is God. What he says is law. What he thinks is not simply opinion. It is mathematical law. It is his way or the highway … to hell. Turn or burn baby! It’s his job to call the adult-sized, adult-aged teen-agers to order … because they can’t do this themselves.
• The preacher is an island god. We dress him up, bring him out at fancy dinners, call him fancy names like “Reverend” and “Minister”. We take up generous collections for him at Christmas … while only giving the elderly shut-ins fruit baskets. While we smile and nod to him now, we’re really fattening him up simply to eat him later.
• The preacher is the scape goat for all problems flowing from the above thinking.

While most people certainly mean well, there’s simply no ignoring the elephant in the sanctuary. The preacher is the paid professional Christian on staff. It is his job to do church stuff, while it is my job simply to live right and stay out of jail. The preacher does the church stuff, and I as the “lay” person simply consume the product of his hands. After all I’m not as smart as the preacher … until it comes to particular social issues that I simply think he is crazy wrong about.

Please, don’t call me preacher. Everything I do (or should do) flows from my heart of worship as an “ordinary” Christian … and not simply because I’m paid to eat fried chicken and sip iced tea with the old ladies for a living.

Coming of Age Can Come at Any Age

Just a few days ago my wife and I saw the recently released film, “Nim’s Island.” Trust me … do yourself a favor and see this at least once … if not twice.

A research scientist, Jack, lives with his 11-ish year old daughter, Nim, on a volcanic island in the middle of the South Pacific … away from the public … completely away … well almost. They receive shipments occasionally and communicate with the scientific community and National Geographic via satalight. Early in the movie Jack launches out into a two day expedition, leaving Nim alone … with her animal friends … and adventure novel featuring legendary hero, Alex Rover. Think Jason Bourne with Indiana Jones’s personality and swave. Well, maybe not Jason Bourne … as the kicker with Alex Rover is his famous escapes from impossible predicaments. On the other side of the world Alex Rover … the real Alex Rover … Alexandra Rover is attempting to complete yet another novel in her long-running series.

While Jack is out at sea doing research a surprise monsoon hits, keeping him stranded with no communication back to Nim. Nim is left to fend for herself and her animals … and her island. With Alex Rover as her archetype (the picture in her mind she’s striving make reality for her life) she faces brave challenges with swash-buckling courage.

Meanwhile a monsoon hits of another variety. Alexandra Rover is past her deadline for turning in yet another novel … and she is marooned on the island of writer’s block. If she could only get out for a while, perhaps she could scavenge up some fresh ideas. However, Alexandra … the mind behind Alex Rover … suffers from some variety of agoraphobia and possibly obsessive-compulsive disorder. In other words due to the workings of her brain, mind, and heart, she is physically paralyzed by fear to leave her apartment. She fears germs. She fears any food but Progresso Soup. Some kind of “progress” huh?

At any rate Alexandra and Nim make contact. Alexandra, believing Nim to be in trouble gets brave and decides to go to her. Meanwhile, Nim, believing her island is under attack by modern-day pirates, decides to live the Alex Rover life and fend her island off from the “invaders” (who are really tourists from Australia on a Pirate-themed cruise. So while Nim is leading the swash-buckling life created by Alexandra … Alexandra herself takes on swash-buckling courage just to turn the door knob of her front door.

One of the high points of the movie for me … and there are many … was seeing Nim and Alexandra (who does eventually make it, by the way) meet. Alexandra just about reaches the island, when her stolen row boat acquires a huge gash from some rocks. Nim, thinking Alexandra to be her still-missing father, swims out to save her from drowning. Once on the beach Alexandra informs Nim that she is the real Alex Rover.

Nim … looking paternalistically and quite disappointingly at the frail and pathetic Alexandra … is simply in disbelief. “No, Alex saves people. He doesn’t need saving.”

Yet over time Nim opens up her mind and heart to this wafe, who opened up her mind and heart to the wide world to come to her so that Nim would not be alone. Both females came of age, despite their age … and backgrounds.

What a lesson for us in the church … in particular those of us in dying, gray-haired, traditional churches. Jesus wants very badly for us to take him at his word and live a dangerous Christianity. There is still time, despite our ages and backgrounds, to come of age.

There are many other parallels and metaphors that could be discussed, which makes this movie so much richer in content, meaning, value, and values than what is normally put out by Hollywood. I’ll be meditating on this movie for some time to come. Please, do yourself a favor and see this movie at least once … if not twice … if not thrice.

Patrick, a 5th-Century Inspiration of Hope for Our 21st Century

Bill O’Reilly interviewed Dr. Shannon Fox of Mom*Logic last night on “The O’Reilly Factor.” Mom*Logic is dedicated to helping on-the-go moms to be more in-the-know when it comes to being a mom in today’s racy culture. Last night’s topic was a mini-expose on the brash drugged out and banally, sexed-up week that is Spring Break.

A couple of points of interest:

• The kids in Dr. Fox’s video were quite brazen and brash about their “pastimes,” despite their knowing the video would be shown on national TV.
• One girl displayed a brash “like-uh-what…ever” attitude when it came to one of her Vaction-mates being raped. Laughing, she estimated their might have been as many as 30 guys in the room at that time.

What has struck me in working with mostly older and elderly adults in my churches, is the near-absolute fear these precious people have of this particular banal youth culture. Okay, I have to admit that I’m fairly overwhelmed myself. Yet, there is a growing excitement in me that is salivating at the possible future opportunities and challenges of working in that culture. My emotions will likely be clashing for quite some time.

One obscure man from an era long bygone continues to fuel my fire in reaching out to utterly pagan and banal people, especially youth. When we commonly think of St. Patrick, we typically want to run to our closets for that green sweater to avoid being pinched. Many of the particular youth being discussed would likely think of funneling green beer by the newly-dyed green river front.

However, Patrick is one of those who will likely sit next to Jesus a bit longer than most of us will in heaven. He is a giant of orthodox Christianity. If he were living today, it is likely he would be considered an Evangelical, charismatic Roman Catholic. At any rate, he grew up in 5th Century Roman-occupied Britannia. His father was presbyter in their church … and … he was a spoiled brat, avoiding all the priests teachings. At the ripe old age of 16 he was captured by Irish raiders along with many others and taken into slavery. During his enslavement he embraced the Jesus his spoiled-bratness has rejected. Passionately did he embrace Jesus. He was able to escape 6 years after being kidnapped. Yet instead of living out the rest of his days in Christian-comfort, he went into the priesthood and obeyed the call to return to Ireland on Holy Spirit, Gospel Mission. Ireland’s rich Celtic Christian legacy … passionate Christian outreach to mainland Europe owes her soul to Jesus … and to Patrick … a former spoiled brat who flippantly rejected the Jesus he eventually gave up his homeland for.

Here are Patrick’s own words from his Confessio:

• Now it is too tedious to give an account of my labours, in whole or in part. Let me relate briefly how the most holy God has often freed [me] from slavery and from twelve perils whereby my soul was endangered, besides numerous treacheries and “things which I am unable to express in words.” Nor shall shall (sic) I bore my readers, but I have God as my authority, who knows all things even before they come to pass, that me, a poor little pupil, an ordinary person, [his] “divine answer” would frequently warn. “Whence did this wisdom [come] to me,” which was not in me, who knew neither “the number of my days,” nor did I have any discernment about God. When [was given] to me afterwards the gift so great, so salutary, to know or to love God wholeheartedly, but at the loss of country and kindred? (trans. Maire B. de Paor, p. 245 & 247; underlining mine)

If the Holy Spirit can capture the heart of a flippant, spoiled brat teen from yester-year, certainly he can do so this year. I’m afraid that … as in Patrick’s day … such a movement of the Holy Spirit might just require so many of our creature-comforts to be stolen by the leprechauns and hidden away at the end of the rainbow. However, I certainly don’t wish destruction on anyone.

Here is the video of Bill’s interview with Dr. Fox:

Grace that’s Truly Amazing Is Grace that Transforms and Fuels a Passion for God and His World

Perhaps the most popular “churchy” song is “Amazing Grace.” What amazes me is that while we often sing it quite passionately … we don’t believe it. Consider the first line … and the author who wrote the song:

• Amazing grace! how sweet the sound, That saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see. –John Newton, former slave trader

John Newton, who wrote the song was a former slave trader, a vile man, having no love for God nor his fellow man. By his own words, he was a wretch. Yet, amazingly, he responded to the Holy Spirit’s wooing him. Not only did he embrace Jesus as his Savior, he embraced a call to pastoral ministry. He considered himself “Evangelical,” when that label was wretched among the supposed classy church folk of the day.

What is amazing about the grace that saved Newton is that it not only saved him from an eternal hell … it also saved him from the wretched lifestyle he was currently living … it also saved him for Gospel ministry in the here-and-now of his day.

We see this pattern in Paul’s epistle to the Romans. In chapters 9-11 Paul discusses his anguish over many of his fellow countrymen (the Jewish people) rejecting God’s messiah to them, Jesus. He discusses how God had elected them by his grace as his people, but they at the current time have rejected his messiah they sent to him. By grace God is now bringing those who we’re his people, the gentiles, into his remnant/elect status. The vulgar grace we know today is that which we trumpet, quite arrogantly, that we are now going to heaven and can simply hang out in our holy ghettos, isolated from the world, until we make heaven.

However, a particular point needs to be emphasized. Paul, speaking of the Jewish people rejecting Jesus and the Gentiles accepting Jesus, carefully warns:

• They (those Jewish people rejecting Jesus) were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did no spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. Note then the kindness and severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you (those gentiles accepting Jesus), provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off. And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. (Romans 11:20-23, ESV)

God grace saves, but it is our perseverance that propels us to “stand fast through faith” and to “continue in his kindness.” God’s grace is an unmerited gift of extravagant proportions … but we must unwrap his gift.

Lastly, following Paul’s discussion in Romans 9-11 on God’s saving grace, he writes in:

• I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. (12:1, ESV)

Having been saved by his grace we are to “present (our) bodies as a living sacrifice … which is (our) … worship.” Grace was never intended to save us from the world … just so we can hide out in our churchy-ghettos and watch the world go to hell in a hand basket. Rather Grace that saves us was intended to fit us for Holy Spirit ministry in the church to fellow believers (vs. 3-8), live holy out in the world (vs. 9-21), as well as serve the world (13:1-14).

Any type of grace that doesn’t transform and fuel one’s passion for God and his world is far from amazing … it is amusing and rather pathetic.