Things worth celebrating

In the words of the great theologian Ferris Bueller, "Life goes by pretty fast sometimes. If you don't slow down once in a while, you might miss it." In that spirit, I've decided that this morning, I should slow down and think about some of the great things God is doing in my life right now. Here's a partial list:

1. Pastoring. I'm entering my 11th year of life as a pastor and finding that the opportunities for ministry are just growing by the day. Every day brings fresh opportunities to share the gospel, build into the life of a younger believer, give counsel to those needing advice, encouragement to the beat down, and provide leadership to God's flock. Most days I wonder how and why God chose me (of all people!) to do these things, but I feel blessed to have the privilege.
2. Ordination. I got ordained the first time back in '04, three years into my first pastorate at an independent Bible church. Now I'm seeking ordination from the EFCA, the denomination to which my church belongs and the one I've decided to make my theological home. Since the processes are not the same, I've found myself having to do a significant amount of writing from scratch on the paper, but praise God, I've had time and space to think and write. Very often, I find the demands of life provide too little of either, so this is a true blessing. 15 pages in, 25 more remain till I hit the absolute limit they will accept.
3. Fathering. I got into Cub Scouts two years ago so I'd have an organized, planned, regular time to spend with the boys doing things I'd like to do with them anyway. Pinewood derby races are upon me, and I am frantically finishing up their cars, but it has produced a lot of good interaction along the way. The girls are reading and discovering fantasy literature, one of my semi-geeky fascinations and as they are growing up (way too soon, in my view. Time to oil the shotgun!), we're having really good talks, especially at night as we pray together and I tuck them in.
4. Husband. Karen the Fair and I seem to be entering into that stage of marriage I've heard other old married couples talk about, where you're content just to be in each other's presence and sharing life together. It's very good. She knows me as fully as anyone ever did, and still loves me, warts and all.

It's a blessed life. I'm glad I get to live it.

Podcasts

It has been my privilege to preach at Chilli Bible for the past 4 1/2 years. If you are wondering what I actually sound like or what a sermon by yours truly is all about, you can quench that desire over at http://www.chillibible.org/. Click on the "Resources" button, followed by "Podcasts." There are sermons going back to January 2009, I believe, from both yours truly as well as Pastor Jim (and other gifted men too!).

Blogging in the New Year

So no, I haven't died, dear reader. I've just realized in recent weeks that over the past couple years I have indulged my innate tendencies toward having a hyper-critical, cynical, crabby spirit, and that this blog had become a place where I allowed that to happen more than I should have. It's easy to criticize, hard to build up; easy to be cynical, harder to be hopeful. And it's hard to know when "wisdom" is just the name we give to being jaded and pessimistic. Moreover, I think that, as a Christian, whose eternal hope is secure and who present is carried by a loving Father, it's wrong for me to be so crabby. So while I hardly want to sound like this is my New Years' Resolution, it is my confession, which comes with a hope that this year and in years to come, my writing will be more reflective of my theology.

With that in mind, here are my BHAGs for 2012:

1. Read the entire Bible in 90 days. Anybody want to take up that challenge with me?
2. Take all of the kids hunting and to Disney World. This is part of my sacred responsibility as a Dad, not only to pass on the spiritual life to them, but to just have pure fun together.
3. Romance Karen through our 16th year of marriage
4. Finish my EFCA ordination process. I've been ordained since 2004, but i promised Chilli Bible that I would transfer my ordiantion to the Free Church, and I am a man of my word.
5. Finish the Mini-Marathon in Indy. I turn 39 later this year, so running farther at one time than I ever have in my life sounds like a good way to proclaim to myself that while I'm older, I'm a long way from dead!
6. Launch a 2nd service at CBC. This one isn't entirely dependent on me, as attendance would need to rise a little bit to justify it, and many people would have to be on board with it, but I'd love to see God's blessing on our ministry to the extent that we need to do this.
7. Personally introduce 10 people to Jesus. I've shared the Gospel with hundreds of people over the course of my life, but I've never personally been used to lead 10 to Christ in one year. I'd love that privilege. We'll see what God does...

I think I say this every year...

...but "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" is my favorite Christmas carol. It's my favorite for these lines:

And in despair I bowed my head:
"There is no peace on earth," I said,
"For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men."

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth he sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men."

Even at Christmas, it is easy to despair. Hate is strong and it mocks the song. The world we live in is continually coming unscrewed. As a pastor I have a front-row seat to the destructiveness of sin and see proved each day that "the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy," just like Jesus said. And in such times as these, it's easy to believe that, if there is a God, then He is on leave. For the world cannot exist as it does and there be a God out there who loves us and is strong enough to deliver, can there?

And yet...And yet...there is a Christmas, an annual reminder that we do not believe in a God who remained remote from His creation, who knows nothing of suffering and the hardness of the world. Rather, we embrace Jesus, the God-man, the God who came in the flesh, experienced all the worst the world has to offer, from grinding poverty, to disease, betrayal, torture, injustice, suffering, mockery, and death and yet through all that is bringing redemption to the world. It is not fully redeemed yet, nor will it be until judgment comes, but Christmas is our annual reminder that the world as it is is not how it will be and that we have a God of love and power who has not only experienced life like us, but loves us too much to let the world forever continue as it is. God is not dead and he does sleep. Do you hear the bells this Christmas?

Art and the common man

I've long suspected that most of what we call "art" in the modern era is unworthy of the term. And every now an then, you run across someone saying something you believe better than you ever could. Here's Jonah Goldberg, from his latest G-File:

I once read somewhere that architecture is the best example of an "artistic" school that has completely broken with popular tastes. Architects certainly seem to design buildings to please each other and the critics and not the public. The average intelligent person goes to the Louvre in France and marvels at the beauty of the 17th-century buildings. The average architecture critic yawns at the musty old antiques and gushes over I.M. Pei's glass pyramid. I don't hate the glass pyramid (okay, maybe I do a little). But I don't go to Paris to see a structure that I could see at a relatively upscale suburban mall. The phenomenon is even more pronounced when you look at modern architecture in more conventional businesses and houses. What's more appealing to the eye, stately Wayne Manor or the Hall of Justice?

Still, I don't know if architecture is the best example of the phenomenon. Modern art caters to popular tastes just as little as architecture. A great deal of performance and installation art strikes most normal people as a colossal joke or a straight-up con. And please don't tell me that my failure to appreciate three squares and a triangle or a blob of paint on a canvas is my shortcoming. If something isn't aesthetically pleasing or interesting, doesn't require skills I do not have, and makes a stupid point stupidly, I don't appreciate it as art. That doesn't make me a philistine. It makes me a non-rube.

Anyway, it seems to me that the more a relatively artistic field of endeavor caters to critics over consumers, the worse it gets. You can see this all over the place, from haute cuisine to music. Some of my best friends in college were music majors, and they would ramble on about how Philip Glass is a genius. Maybe he is. But I'll take Beethoven or the Beatles over him any day. I don't follow the literary world too closely these days, but my impression is that the same is true in the world of fiction. If you write for the critics, only the critics will read you.

Deer season

Deer season ended not with a whimper, or even a bang, but by simply ending. Tag sandwiches don't taste very good, and this is the first time I've eaten one in a while. Still, in a thought familiar to Cub fans everywhere, "There's always next year!"