Same-oh Same-oh -- Not

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

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

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

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