Just did a guest post on the Lord’s Prayer (also called “the Our Father”) over a Faithful Friends of God . It’s short and sweet, but I hope it will help you unlock this familiar prayer in new, deeper way. Hebrews rhymed ideas, not words. That’s why it sounds to our ears like they’re always repeating themselves. But it’s not just for show. Find out more here.
Q&A With Pastor Rob
Q: Any advice for kids going back to school?
A: Be yourself. Most people spend huge chunks of their life trying to be the kind of people they think the kind of people that they want to be with would want to be with.
Q: Huh?
A: Exactly.
Q: So what would you suggest instead?
A: Decide ahead of time that you can’t please everyone, and then be very careful about who you choose as friends. We all have a built-in need to fit in, but we also have the God-given ability to choose where. What you’re looking for is a small, trust-worthy crew, the kind of people who will tell you off, and then stick up for you two minutes later. Their opinion matters. Everyone else, you take with a grain of salt. Keep what’s helpful. Ignore the rest.
Q: What about my parents?
A: What about them? They’re not going to be in school with you. This is your first taste of the real world. Your parents will always love you, cheer for you, and be there for you as much as they’re able, but more and more they’re going to step back, not because they want to, but because they have to if you’re ever going to stand on your own. Love on them and learn everything you can from them, but in school, you need a crew.
Q: How do I find friends like that?
A: You start by being one.
“Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”
Don’t you love that? “Be kind to your enemies. It drives them nuts!” Stop apologizing for having feelings! It’s not like God is surprised. If someone is rude or cruel to you, you’re going to feel angry. That’s not evil. That means your sense of justice still works. You’re agreeing with God that there is a right and a wrong. Obviously, doing good maliciously isn’t the height of love, but if that’s where you’re at, it’s a whole lot better than taking revenge, right? Do what you can do.
What’s the best piece of practical advice you ever received? That’s the question I asked around town this week. Some responses were pretty standard. Don’t spit into the wind. Don’t lick a flagpole in the winter. Some were profound. Only have as many friends as you can count on one hand. Or, if people have to tell you they are something, they’re probably not. My favorite came from Dann Howitt.
He told me a story about his grandpa, an honest-to-goodness Canadian Mountie. One day, Dann and his grandpa were doing the dishes. Dann handed him a fork, and Grandpa said, “Is that as clean as you can make it?” Dann worked on it some more, and said, “That’s as clean as I can make it.” His grandpa dried it and put it away. The next day, they decided they were doing the dishes precisely. When they got done, Grandpa pointed at the clock and said, “See that? It took five extra minutes.” Dann remembered that the rest of his life. Five minutes was the difference between just ok, and outstanding.
After my recent article on Facebook in The Congregationalist magazine, I received a great email from a fellow minister. He gave me permission to share it here, but asked me to withhold his name.
Well, for starters, I’m one of the “old folks,” who haven’t yet learned all this techno stuff. What is the advantage of facebook, over what we’re doing right now, exchanging information via e-mail? I see it as a lot more work than just writing an e-mail to the same person.
Thank you for any help you can give. May you, your family and Church, have a blessed Christmas. Please keep the mission trip to Bangaldesh in prayer. The team will e-mail from Bangladesh, as time and electricity allow.
Here’s my response:
Let’s use the Bangladesh trip as an example. Assume you set up a public fan page for the trip. Instead of sending emails from the field to all the families, you post that same information on the Facebook page, and then email them a link to that page. If you know how, share photos or video too.
Now, the families are all in one spot, building connections, experiencing this together. If the people going on the trip are able, they can contribute content before, during, or after. (content they likely wouldn’t have shared otherwise, or if they did it would be scattered over various albums, journals, and computers.) If your posts, photos, or videos are interesting, there’s a good likelihood that people outside of that first circle of friends will see them too.
End result: your people feel more involved and supported, their families feel more connected and informed, and interested observers have a good reason, and a clear way, to help.
This article was first written for The Congregationalist magazine’s December 2010 issue. It is reprinted here with permission.
When I mention Facebook to fellow pastors, many of them echo Betty White’s recent Saturday Night Live monologue: “It sounds like a big waste of time to me.” Recent reports that third-party games hosted by the site collected and resold personal information only added heat to already simmering privacy concerns. Given all that, why bother? If Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest in the world. Half of its 500 million active members log in on any given day, making Facebook the 800-lb. gorilla in the social media room. But before we can talk about how it might be useful, we have to deal with these very real concerns.
ISSUE 1: Privacy
ISSUE 2: Productivity
Just like fishing nets of old, the Internet is only useful if you use it well. Only set up a personal profile if you’re actually going to take the time to respond to people through it. Only set up a Facebook fan page for your church if you have a tech-savvy person willing to be the administrator who will keep it up-to-date with info from your newsletter. Done well, a profile will help parishioners to see their pastor as a person. A fan page will help visitors get a feel for your church and help members stay connected. Best of all, it costs you nothing but time and attention
Guest Post by Barry Lucas, Pastor of First Congregational Church of Allegan.
Recently, Netflix posted its second-quarter earnings, showing that it continues to do well. You might know that this company began by sending movies to their customers in the mail, but according to tech-business analysts, their growing success is because Netflix recognizes that the future is in “Streaming”: sending movies directly over the internet to a customer’s computer or TV. In response to this, a prominent Christian leader used Twitter to remark, “Meanwhile, the Church has very little Web content.”
A Christian magazine to which I subscribe, (actually- and ironically- a “digizine”, since everything comes over the internet!) was prompted to wonder, “Is this because Pastors and church leadership don’t realize the potential of the internet, or are they uncertain about how to harness its power?” They concluded it was the latter, and had several suggestions for improving effective use of the Web to promote a church.
I had an immediate emotional response to this news, and honestly, it came mostly from my own rather cold relationship with modern technology. I am not very comfortable with computers; my familiarity with what they can do is limited to eMail and using it as a glorified typewriter. I also have very little patience to sit in front of it and “surf the web”.
Furthermore, I am increasingly mystified and occasionally irritated, that so much “social networking” is going on, when in fact there is less and less time spent between people in actual face-to-face conversations. There is a small rebellion against this trend going on among some businesses in the Holland and Zeeland area. There are groups of business representatives who get together once a month to eat lunch and (gasp!) talk, exchange business cards, and refer customers. How 19th-century can you get?
Despite my personal disaffection- or lack of interest, really- in modern technology, I recognize that many other people use the internet for their news, shopping, research and generally keeping up with others in their lives. I think it is because so many do, and increasingly more do every year, that churches and Christian groups think it is imperative that we get on board, and “take advantage of every opportunity”, as Ephesians 5:16 tells us. Of course there should be good Christian content available on the internet, but I believe that Christians should remember, and the content should stress, that an online experience is only a part- and a small one- of what an actual (as opposed to virtual) church experience should be.
That said, part of my negative reaction to the Netflix news was founded in more than just my personal flat-earth mindset. It also had to do with the mistakes that churches have made in the past when they have unquestioningly thought that “what works for business must work for us”. A church is not a business, and the Church is not a business. Businesses have very different outcomes in mind, and therefore their means may not be compatible with what churches should be doing.
Let’s go back to Netflix for an example: Netflix wants to maximize its profits by making it as easy as possible for someone to get their product without inconveniencing themselves in the least. Their success in pursuing this aim has pretty much dismantled the video store model. Why hassle with the rental place when you can have it brought to your mailbox? No bothersome human interactions there, unless you happen to bump into the mailman. What is the only thing that kept the video store on life support? Our impatience: if I have to wait 24 hours or more to get the movie I want, I may just run over to the rental place. Netflix then brought out direct-to-computer movies, which meant that a customer could get whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted it. This was the final nail in the coffin for the brick-and-mortar store, and Movie Gallery, the last big national chain, is the latest casualty.
Now, that’s business- it’s competitive, it’s dog-eat-dog, and while we may think it is sad to see a business like Blockbuster go under, it is the same thing that happened to stables and livery companies with the wide adoption of the automobile.
So, a key difference between business and the church is that they ultimately want different things: businesses want our money, and they will try to offer us a product or service priced, packaged and delivered in such a way that we will part with our money. That means, as Netflix recognized, that it can play to our laziness, our impatience, our selfishness and our personal convenience and that dovetails neatly with their making money.
Is any part of that philosophy consistent with the Church? Isn’t what God is asking people to do less convenient, less selfish, less lazy and less insulated than they would otherwise tend to be?
I saw a cartoon once depicting the “Lite Church”. Its sign in front advertised things like, “Home of the 7% tithe”, “Only 8 of 10 Commandments- your choice”, etc. It reflected the temptation every church faces to play the same game other businesses and services do, all in the name of attracting people and filling pews.
We should offer compelling reasons to get out of the house and be together, worship together, and work together, but those compelling reasons should not be targeted at our selfish inclinations.
Churches should try, within reason, to make it as easy as possible for people to access what they offer- handicap accessibility, parking, a safe nursery, listening assistance, etc. are areas where we have realized in recent years we have to pay more attention. Churches should try to avoid being dull, boring and routine, but they cannot make entertainment their priority. They should try to have engaging programs and curricula for the children, but they should never become Chuck E. Cheese. They should try to be “seeker friendly”, but they must not neglect the responsibility to make disciples. Neither should those who attend church expect that a church’s aims and methods are the same as those places that just want their money. If we are too quick to jump on every business, culture, or technological trend that comes along, we will sometimes be utilizing models and techniques that actually work against our very reason for being!
Netflix might honestly make the attractive promise that their customers can fully enjoy the benefits of their services with a minimum of messy human interaction. The Church must honestly promise that the full benefits of discipleship can only be realized with human interaction- joyful, supportive, inconvenient and sometimes messy. The Christian must ask him or herself, “Am I a customer, or a disciple? Are my expectations of the church those of a consumer, or a servant?”
It is in God’s plan and wisdom that we become more like Jesus in the company of others becoming more like Jesus. There’s no money in that- but there is eternal profit.
Last post, one of my sons took the car door and shut it on his brother’s head. Surprisingly, this situation wasn’t covered in the parenting book that Jess and I are reading. After diffusing the situation, Jess and I talked about it. Here’s what we decided.
Danny Silk suggests offering the kids a choice, “fun or room”. If they’re not fun-to-be-with they can come back when they’re ready to try again. This constantly puts the ball back in their court, teaching them to take responsibility.
We told the kids that there’s a new rule besides “fun-to-be-around”. It’s called “safe-to-be-around”. If you’re not fun, you get a choice: get fun, or go to your room and try again later. Safe is different. If you’re not safe, you already made your choice. You’re going to your room. You can come out whenever you’re ready to make things right. (as in restitution, not just an apology)
Maybe Danny Silk wouldn’t approve, maybe he would. I’m open to suggestions, but I feel like this is a good balance between safety and responsibility.
What Would Danny Silk Do??? In the heat of the moment I have to keep asking myself this question, because sometimes I honestly can’t think of a thing to do except send the little guy to his room. I grew up with spankings. I get that. You’re naughty, you get punished. That makes sense to me. I know it’s not the best path in the world, but it’s better than letting them get away with whatever.
So, What Would Danny Silk Do if his son smashed his brother’s head in the car door? The answer is NOT in the book. I read that cover to cover and I would have been prepared. It’s not in there. So, I have to go with some of the principles he talked about.
1. I need to remain in control (self control comes from power, love, and a sound mind given by God)
2. I am not trying to externally control my son (God doesn’t control me. My relationship with God is an internal experience).
3. I am not using punishment (punishment carries fear, and there is no fear in love)
4. I am trying to build a lasting relationship with my son
So, what would you do? Remember…time out, spanking, and grounding have been eliminated.
Check out the book Loving Our Kids On Purpose by Danny Silk or Join us at First Congregational Church Saugatuck Sunday evenings in September for the book group.
