For a while I thought that if I heard one more confession from a pastor in leadership about how ingenuine their faith was and how little the rubber was meeting the road I was going to puke. Literally toss my cookies.
We've created two thousand years of enmeshed church culture that is so impermeable it is possible to be viewed by one's congregation as an excellent leader without an ounce of anything but lip service. It's possible to be a social worker with doctrinal language.
That isn't right on so many levels.
Please , please make the growth and development of your own faith the most important item on your agenda. Take an hour and go sit in that empty sanctuary and pour out the truth to God.
Yes, you can proceed, go forward, get the denominational pats on the back and awards for excellent and faithful service without being truthful about your own relationship with God. But why? Why live like that?
Are you afraid of the sacrifice?
I can tell you from personal experience anything you give up will be returned to you washed clean by God ten fold, one hundred fold.
In return, God can send people to you who will change your life because of the witness of their devoted faith walks.
It's so worth. I'll help you get started. Open the doors to the sanctuary. God sit wherever you are comfortable in the pews and start... "God, Lord, Jesus...I have a confession. I'm empty, and I can't live like this anymore." Then just keep talking. Pause and sit for the same amount of time you talked in silence. Listen to what is spoken in your heart. I'll bet the first words are something like, "Well done good and faithful servant". God loves the Truth. And it will set you free. That's the promise that helps you keep your vows.
Love
Deborah
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Preaching Off Script
I'm about to start advertising my new workshop big time. It's called Preaching Off Script. I've a passion to help pastors become preachers instead of readers. Oh my... did that pinch your toes or hurt your feelings? I know that pastors spend hours and hours and hours writing sermons. Then some even go so far as to memorize them. But what if you only took notes of your thoughts and let the sermon or homily flow from the currency of your faith?
More eye contact? More trust? More God.
Then I think about me offering this up to church culture. Oh shoot I just want to offer something popular and I so know this will not be popular. And yet my passion for the dynamic of immediate faith that will come from that which happens between congregation and pastor ( compatriot believer) when they are not being read to, no matter how passionately will change the world. Faith alive in action in the sanctuary.
And then I think of my friends who are excellent preachers who read their sermons and I think I am a bad person for placing judgment on what happens in the pulpit. Or am I a good person for believing there could be more in the twenty minutes that takes place ( or ten depending on your persuasion or the schedule of the service) ?
This is a good thing. This movement for pastors who preach directly from their hearts in real time.
I will proceed. Interested in learning how? Let me know.
Love
Deborah
More eye contact? More trust? More God.
Then I think about me offering this up to church culture. Oh shoot I just want to offer something popular and I so know this will not be popular. And yet my passion for the dynamic of immediate faith that will come from that which happens between congregation and pastor ( compatriot believer) when they are not being read to, no matter how passionately will change the world. Faith alive in action in the sanctuary.
And then I think of my friends who are excellent preachers who read their sermons and I think I am a bad person for placing judgment on what happens in the pulpit. Or am I a good person for believing there could be more in the twenty minutes that takes place ( or ten depending on your persuasion or the schedule of the service) ?
This is a good thing. This movement for pastors who preach directly from their hearts in real time.
I will proceed. Interested in learning how? Let me know.
Love
Deborah
Thursday, August 11, 2011
The Quiet Before the Storm
August...the last lovely lazy days before rally day. Start up. The march towards Advent. Not many people are around to have proper meetings. Sunday Schools operate on abbreviated schedules. Pastors are found soaking up new inspiration by streams, lakes, and cities other than their own residence.
So Jesus rested. Soaked it in. Renewed. Refreshed. Let God seep into his life like indirect sunlight.
Oh my... did you just argue with my theology? Did you take a moment and flip to some place of definition with regards to trinitarian schema and forget the picture of Jesus resting?
Hang with the picture. Linger in imitation of Christ the resting. Christ the renewed. Christ the just sitting one. Jesus the silent. Jesus the gazing.
Perhaps our greatest challenge is dropping the intentional focus and just being at rest.
Share where you are resting.
Love
Deborah
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
So how is it that October 2009 became July 2011? That's a pretty horrendous hiatus. Looks to me more like something went wrong. And so it did.
I had an opportunity to buy a house under special arrangements. Right before I was signing the papers I had this dream in which the whole house turned over on it's side and slipped into the ravine next to which it sat.
Did I pay attention? Heck no. My reaction was ... "I can't tell a realtor I can't go through with this because I had a dream". And what if the dream didn't come from God? And what if it just came from my fear. I knew all the answers to those questions. I knew the dream came from God. I knew I just had to , once again as we followers of Jesus always do, summon the courage to look foolish in front of a non follower and let God do the rest.
I punted. And by October the whole deal was beginning to unravel. I spent the worst winter in recent Northwest history in a uninsulated quasi cabin surrounded by people who could have cared less whether I was living in the family room running the unventilated dryer because it was the only way to stay warm.
So...to those of you who know the challenge of obedience I say....this is why church culture and tradition is so popular. We need those clear cut lines and rules and order of business and liturgy to keep us safe from the vast formidable territory of following the Holy Spirit in a mix with non, marginal, and once upon a time, believers.
The mercy of God in this story is that after that deal fell through I cried out to God, "You choose. I'm lousy at it" and two days later I ended up with a year and a half residence at the water's edge in a beach cabin. Once restored and invigorated to be faithful once more, I again needed to find a residence. I wanted God to choose again. Much as I surrendered, the only thing that happened was a choice between three houses. There was no clear cut winner.
Silence on the part of God ensued. Did God really trust me to choose? Was it a test? Could I pass it? I observed all that the options offered and after a month chose door number three. Bingo. I was home. I had learned to know myself and my situation in some degree the way God sees me. I had learned what was best for me.
We do notice the most authentic moments of being God's ambassador for Christ are when we have the courage to admit our failings. Remember to be a person today as you are going about being a pastor to whatever flock God has given you. You may look like a fool to your congregation occasionally, but God will be pleased. With that comes mercy and Grace, and 'blessings all mine with ten thousand besides'. Care to share?
Love Deborah
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
on hiatus
Having been involved in a very long drawn out move all summer, I am on hiatus until October.
DHA
DHA
Monday, April 27, 2009
Sabbath Rest or Sabbath Party
It was a hard Lent for me this year. I struggled with obedience at all levels. The simplest impulse from the Spirit found me chafing at the instructions.
Just so you can feel a bit dismissive, because it is the rare pulpit that does not discount my particular form of fasting, let me confess I give up chocolate for Lent each year. It is the one substance that truly keeps me from seeking God in deeper ways. Once a day, more faithfully than I am in the Word sometimes, I open the paper to break off two ounces of Trader Joe's 72% dark chocolate bar. I delight in the antioxidants. I relish the part that melts on my fingers. I thank God for sustenance in all manner, shape and form as I consume it. Since Lent is about opening up the door to God's presence more, that's what I have always done without. I have a God moment when I eat my chocolate. The point of my Lenten fast is to have the God moment without the physical trigger. Yea, right.
Each year there is an astounding spiritual insight, epiphany if you will, as a result. So each year I give it up again. The first time I gave it up I had an enormous insight into the nature and depth of the act of Hosanna. I understood for the first time what it meant to praise God no matter what. I remember the literal spot in the road where it crashed in on me. Ah... it was so worth going without. Each year I look forward to what the Lord will teach me in the abyss of emptiness going without my daily pleasure and comfort brings me.
It is an arduous fast. Within days, I am consuming every other form of sugar at ever unsatisfying levels of consumption. It drives me to an unprecedented awareness of my flesh and God's infinite Glory. What a weakling I am.
This year on Ash Wednesday I went to the combined services at the Methodist church here on our little Island. The pastor said something that altered my practice of Lent. A simple statement, he noted the importance of feast days.
So I tried keeping a feast day this Lent. Guess what. First week out...Radical life changing, theologically jarring, ohmygosh how could I have gotten this so cattywhumpus for so long, epiphany.
Suddenly Lent was not a forty day plus the Sundays endurance test. It was a week, and then a day of rejoicing. Guess what? Not once did I binge on chocolate. I chose one piece very carefully and savoured it like the host.
Like all the other lessons I've learned in Lent's past, I continue this wisdom as well. Sunday has become a feast day. Quite the 45 degree turn from the day of service and contemplation ( and a well deserved nap in my opinion) of all the years before. Sunday is now the day I celebrate God's presence in my life. I feast. I surrender care and worry. I rejoice. I indulge spiritually, socially, physically, in all ways. God is God and I am not. Praise Be!! Blessed Be the Name!!!
Now think about what your day is like on Sunday, the Sabbath. You begin it the night before by not staying up too late even if you haven't finished your sermon. Then you rise early and tweak a few things, square away your family concerns and head for the church. Did you remember to put your piety on? You know, the smile, the handshake, the nod of the head, the voice and resulting inflections? What if it was this? You rise early and make the family French Toast or Pancakes having prepared early in the week and let the Lord ferment your discernments like yeast in good dough. With all smiles all, you arrive at the church as if you were headed to the biggest party in town. Rejoicing in the faces you see, you let all the joy you feel in belonging to the Lord overflow. It is your most real day! It is your most transparent day ! It is your most human day! I mean really, what would happen. Could it happen? Might it happen? Feast again on all that the Lord has given you in calling you to full time service.
Love
Deborah
Just so you can feel a bit dismissive, because it is the rare pulpit that does not discount my particular form of fasting, let me confess I give up chocolate for Lent each year. It is the one substance that truly keeps me from seeking God in deeper ways. Once a day, more faithfully than I am in the Word sometimes, I open the paper to break off two ounces of Trader Joe's 72% dark chocolate bar. I delight in the antioxidants. I relish the part that melts on my fingers. I thank God for sustenance in all manner, shape and form as I consume it. Since Lent is about opening up the door to God's presence more, that's what I have always done without. I have a God moment when I eat my chocolate. The point of my Lenten fast is to have the God moment without the physical trigger. Yea, right.
Each year there is an astounding spiritual insight, epiphany if you will, as a result. So each year I give it up again. The first time I gave it up I had an enormous insight into the nature and depth of the act of Hosanna. I understood for the first time what it meant to praise God no matter what. I remember the literal spot in the road where it crashed in on me. Ah... it was so worth going without. Each year I look forward to what the Lord will teach me in the abyss of emptiness going without my daily pleasure and comfort brings me.
It is an arduous fast. Within days, I am consuming every other form of sugar at ever unsatisfying levels of consumption. It drives me to an unprecedented awareness of my flesh and God's infinite Glory. What a weakling I am.
This year on Ash Wednesday I went to the combined services at the Methodist church here on our little Island. The pastor said something that altered my practice of Lent. A simple statement, he noted the importance of feast days.
So I tried keeping a feast day this Lent. Guess what. First week out...Radical life changing, theologically jarring, ohmygosh how could I have gotten this so cattywhumpus for so long, epiphany.
Suddenly Lent was not a forty day plus the Sundays endurance test. It was a week, and then a day of rejoicing. Guess what? Not once did I binge on chocolate. I chose one piece very carefully and savoured it like the host.
Like all the other lessons I've learned in Lent's past, I continue this wisdom as well. Sunday has become a feast day. Quite the 45 degree turn from the day of service and contemplation ( and a well deserved nap in my opinion) of all the years before. Sunday is now the day I celebrate God's presence in my life. I feast. I surrender care and worry. I rejoice. I indulge spiritually, socially, physically, in all ways. God is God and I am not. Praise Be!! Blessed Be the Name!!!
Now think about what your day is like on Sunday, the Sabbath. You begin it the night before by not staying up too late even if you haven't finished your sermon. Then you rise early and tweak a few things, square away your family concerns and head for the church. Did you remember to put your piety on? You know, the smile, the handshake, the nod of the head, the voice and resulting inflections? What if it was this? You rise early and make the family French Toast or Pancakes having prepared early in the week and let the Lord ferment your discernments like yeast in good dough. With all smiles all, you arrive at the church as if you were headed to the biggest party in town. Rejoicing in the faces you see, you let all the joy you feel in belonging to the Lord overflow. It is your most real day! It is your most transparent day ! It is your most human day! I mean really, what would happen. Could it happen? Might it happen? Feast again on all that the Lord has given you in calling you to full time service.
Love
Deborah
Monday, March 23, 2009
The Big Muffin
Standing by the backside of the altar, my little cherubs, in preparation for their chime choir contribution to worship, were pulling themselves together after rehearsal. The congregation was filing in. The low buzz of pre worship conversations was intensifying.
With all the second grade inquisitiveness she could muster, one of the little angels who belonged to another church turned quickly to me and asked, "What's the big muffin for?"
She is the one who always volunteers to pray and displays all the authentic desire to be connected and in conversation with God she can muster.
Distracted by my last minute duties to the choir , I turned to see what she was talking about.
There it sat. The communion loaf.
"Ah...the Big Muffin" I exclaimed inwardlywith a joyful sigh of relief in my heart as I realized it was communion Sunday. "We will eat in later in the service as a reminder that Jesus loves us" I explained simply.
Her nomenclature of the most sacred metaphor of God's sacrifice for us reminded me how much I love conversing with new or non believers about faith and the elements of faith. We are so wedded to church culture and churchspeak and church tradition, we forget the uninitiated can sometimes bring the sharpest clarity to our faith.
The Big Muffin, indeed. That's what he died for. So we could eat the Big Muffin. Every time we eat the Big Muffin and slurp the Big Cup, we humble ourselves to the digestive derivative. He who supplies all our needs and offers us Grace and Mercy despite our best efforts to be our own little gods gives us the Big Muffin.
How many times have you stood there behind that altar and broken the Big Muffin, intoning Paul's words and lifted the Big Cup continuing on and felt the shift in the universe because not just death, but the daily feeding of our souls was overcome by that sacrifice. I hope often. I hope it's not about you doing the giving, but you modelling receiving.
That Muffin IS Big. Bigger than we could ask or imagine. It is a Muffin, full of the air of the Holy Spirit and the promise that we are a forgiven people. How is it fresh to you when you serve it?
All the theological debates and the use of wafers or pita or crackers or big chunks of white bread do not distract from the eternal reality it's a Big Muffin. And we wash it down with a slurp from the Big Cup, whether it's the sweet tang of juice that grabs our tastebuds at the side of our cheeks or the burning of wine as it slips down our throats.
If we forget post modern or emerging or digital , and simply tell them, it's a Big Muffin enough for all of us to eat. It doesn't stick in our throats and our mouths and we don't have to chew because it is followed by the slurp from the Big Cup, it is enough. They will get it.
Many mornings they eat a muffin and a hot drink. They get it that eating something like that is comfort and joy and hope and promise. Real or essential. They get it. Start there maybe when you are explaining. Start with the Big Muffin and the Big Cup. Start with what they know. Jesus did.
Love
Deborah
With all the second grade inquisitiveness she could muster, one of the little angels who belonged to another church turned quickly to me and asked, "What's the big muffin for?"
She is the one who always volunteers to pray and displays all the authentic desire to be connected and in conversation with God she can muster.
Distracted by my last minute duties to the choir , I turned to see what she was talking about.
There it sat. The communion loaf.
"Ah...the Big Muffin" I exclaimed inwardlywith a joyful sigh of relief in my heart as I realized it was communion Sunday. "We will eat in later in the service as a reminder that Jesus loves us" I explained simply.
Her nomenclature of the most sacred metaphor of God's sacrifice for us reminded me how much I love conversing with new or non believers about faith and the elements of faith. We are so wedded to church culture and churchspeak and church tradition, we forget the uninitiated can sometimes bring the sharpest clarity to our faith.
The Big Muffin, indeed. That's what he died for. So we could eat the Big Muffin. Every time we eat the Big Muffin and slurp the Big Cup, we humble ourselves to the digestive derivative. He who supplies all our needs and offers us Grace and Mercy despite our best efforts to be our own little gods gives us the Big Muffin.
How many times have you stood there behind that altar and broken the Big Muffin, intoning Paul's words and lifted the Big Cup continuing on and felt the shift in the universe because not just death, but the daily feeding of our souls was overcome by that sacrifice. I hope often. I hope it's not about you doing the giving, but you modelling receiving.
That Muffin IS Big. Bigger than we could ask or imagine. It is a Muffin, full of the air of the Holy Spirit and the promise that we are a forgiven people. How is it fresh to you when you serve it?
All the theological debates and the use of wafers or pita or crackers or big chunks of white bread do not distract from the eternal reality it's a Big Muffin. And we wash it down with a slurp from the Big Cup, whether it's the sweet tang of juice that grabs our tastebuds at the side of our cheeks or the burning of wine as it slips down our throats.
If we forget post modern or emerging or digital , and simply tell them, it's a Big Muffin enough for all of us to eat. It doesn't stick in our throats and our mouths and we don't have to chew because it is followed by the slurp from the Big Cup, it is enough. They will get it.
Many mornings they eat a muffin and a hot drink. They get it that eating something like that is comfort and joy and hope and promise. Real or essential. They get it. Start there maybe when you are explaining. Start with the Big Muffin and the Big Cup. Start with what they know. Jesus did.
Love
Deborah
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