Presby-Musings

I have a list of words that I would like to see eradicated from our cultural lexicon.  I don't ask for much--perhaps issuing hefty fines to people who use them until they learn not to would be a good place to start.  Honestly, if everyone listened to me on issues like this the world would be a better place.  So... to the words: "Bromance" - This is a word that is used to describe the affection that exists between two dudes who want to ensure that no one mistakes their relationship as something other than manly friendship---and so they use a word that combines "brother" and "romance," which honestly just makes the whole thing worse. "Foodie" - This word is used to describe someone who really, really, really likes food.  People will use it in a pretentious sort of way, "Oh, I really don't care to eat at Chipotle--I'm kind of a foodie, you know."  Oh, you like food?  So does everyone.  Find another word.  "Irr...

I am going to give some of the best advice you will ever hear from a pastor.  Are you ready for this?   I know that you came here today looking for at least one golden nugget of something like wisdom so you could walk out of here feeling like it was worth getting out of bed.   So here it is:  If you have a Jesus fish sticker on your car...   On behalf of all of the rest of us Christians without  a Jesus fish on our car, do us a favor... either learn to drive safely, politely, respectfully and without your blinker on for four miles, or take off the Jesus fish.  You are not helping us witness to people that Jesus is awesome because they see your Jesus fish and want to run you off the road.  Seriously. There is nothing worse than getting cut off on the freeway by some so-and-so and then seeing their Jesus fish stuck bold as brass on the back of their car.   Years ago, I had one of those Jesus fish on my car, and I decided that...

People often ask me why I sign all of my emails, and other correspondence with the words, "Counting it all Joy."  Today is Part 3 of that explanation which comes from the book of James 1:2: "...count it all joy when you fall into various trials."    Alexander Solzhenitsyn was a Soviet dissident during the Cold War era. He was thrown into a concentration camp by the communist government, which was for many a death sentence.   At one point he was breaking rocks and digging--hard labor that he knew would never end. All seemed lost, and hopeless.  He laid his shovel aside and sat down on a bench, knowing that at any moment a guard would most likely come up to him and beat him to death with the butt of a gun.  He felt a presence next to him on the bench and looked over to see another prisoner, a thin, drawn man who had been in the gulag longer than Alexander.  The man took a stick and drew on the ground in front of Alexander and then quietly got up...

People often ask me why I sign all of my emails, and other correspondence with the words, "Counting it all Joy."  Today is Part 2 of that explanation which comes from the book of James.   James (who was the brother of Jesus) exhorted Christians to consider it all joy when they encountered trials and tribulations.  Most of us struggle with this, and here's a compelling reason why. LOTS of Christians believe that God causes trials and tribulations.  That God is the author and finisher, not merely of our faith, but also of our pain.  And then the really church-y people in our lives will try to tell us that "God has a plan," and somehow that we won't be worthy of God's love unless we just accept this and soldier on...  So, does God really cause all trials and tribulations?  James, the brother of Jesus, didn't seem to think so.  Compare these two statements: "If God brought you to it...He'll get you through it."  "God do...

If you've ever wondered why I sign all of my emails, church newsletter articles and letters with the words, "Counting it all Joy," I'll give you an explanation... in three parts over the next three days!   This little tagline comes from the book of James.  Here it is in context:  2 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. 4 But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing  ( James 1:2-4) I use those four words every day to remind myself that I am speaking my way into believing them.  Because to rejoice when you are going through tough moments is not intuitive to most of us, and here's why:   In ancient Judaism the rabbis struggled to explain why human beings could contain both the capacity for great evil in addition to great good.  They developed the idea of the Yetser Hatob and the Yetser Hara .   Basical...

There is this stretch of road near my house that I have been driving on for most of my life. Over the past thirty years, I've driven that stretch of road countless times.  But yesterday when I drove it, I did so with a sense of sadness and loss.  You see, there was an accident on that road yesterday--an accident that took someone's life.   Two cars collided somehow on a curve in the road, and one of the cars ended up in the marsh on the edge of the lake. The person in that car drowned before emergency rescuers could reach them.   When I drove past the site of the accident yesterday, just hours after it happened, I could see the skid marks in the road, and the gouges in the mud near the lake where the car must have been, and where a wrecker probably removed it from the muck.  "Someone died here today." I said to myself.  "Right here."   I thought about all of the times I drove that road, thinking about other things: what I would have for dinner...

I've had more than a few conversations with people who were going through hard times, who desperately threw the whole thing on God.  "I don't know why God saw fit to put me through this."  or "I hope God knows what He's doing."   On more than one occasion I've counseled people who were stuck in a loop of bad choices with worse outcomes, and they will say to me, "I don't know why God doesn't take away these temptations.  Whey does God allow me to be tempted like this?"   There's this underlying assumption about God's involvement in the way we are tempted, tested and tried that I think has disjointed the way we understand God.  I heard a prominent Christian author and preacher say, "If God brought you to it, God will get you through it."   The assumption at the foundation of that quote and others like it, is that God is directly involved in our temptation and testing.  While there are certainly plent...

This week we are continuing the sermon series that will take us through the month of October--a series entitled, "Haunted."  The idea behind this series is something that we all share to some extent. No matter who you are, or what your background might be you have something in common with every other person who is sitting in here today:  At some point in time you have had something happen in your past that caused you pain.   Maybe you did something you regret.  Maybe you had doubts about your faith. Maybe you learned to be afraid.  Maybe you were hurt, wounded by someone.   And for many of us those experiences feel like they happened yesterday.  We've been haunted by them, and because we've been haunted by these experiences in our past, they are affecting how we handle our present, and perhaps are ruining our vision of the future.   Throughout this series we're going to be focusing on this simple, but life-changing truth: You ...

This week we're continuing the sermon series that we started a few weeks ago entitled, "Small Things Big Difference."  And the central idea that we've been lifting up each week is simply this:   It's often the small things that no one sees that result in the big things everyone wants. We all want abundant life .  We want to find joy in our work.  We want solid, life-giving marriages and relationships.  We want financial freedom.  We want a strong faith that will withstand the difficult trials of life...  And sometimes it seems that it will take more than we are able to give in order to change what we need to change so that we can live the life we want to live. The past few weeks we have learned that it doesn't take much to begin life-changing transformation--just a few small steps in the right direction.  In fact, I gave you all homework to begin those small steps.  I asked that you begin by shaping your thoughts with your one word...