40 Days of Looking at Ourselves

‎"In many cultures there is an ancient custom of giving a tenth of each year’s income to some holy use. For Christians, to observe the forty days of lent is to do the same thing with roughly a tenth of each year’s days. After being baptized by John in the river Jordan, Jesus went off alone into the wilderness where he spent forty days asking himself the question what it meant to be Jesus. During Lent, Christians are supposed to ask one way or another what it means to be themselves."  ~ Frederick Buechner

Spending the 40 days of Lent each year pondering one’s life and faith is a wondrous thing.  Spending the intentional time reconciling oneself to their sinful nature and their need for redemption is essential.  Spending time in prayer and fasting is good for the soul. 

Spending time differently by adding reading scriptures, working at a charity organization, or taking on some other self-reflective or activity is an important part of a Lenten Journey. Some of my friends and colleagues take on some very special projects during Lent – thereby giving up other things they might be doing during that time of service.

Spending time pondering life and faith during a time of sacrifice and denial can be amazingly renewing.  Although giving something up you dislike already can be less inspiring – in my humble opinion.  (A friend is giving up mean people, artichokes, and standing in line.)  Many folks give up very significant things during Lent to remind themselves of the sacrifice needed to prepare for Easter still to come.

Asking oneself, as Buechner suggests, what it means to be oneself is good for the soul.  But it can be a difficult thing to do.

Looking within is sometimes tough.  Looking within means seeing the rawness of our sinfulness, the wounds of our mistakes, and the abject need of redemption and reconciliation in our lives.  Looking within can bring us to a place of serious need … to examine our lives and to recommit to the journey of faith.

This Lent my prayer is that you take the time to look within, to evaluate what your life is about, and to find a way to see yourself differently when Easter Morning comes this year.

The time is now – to spend the next 40 days looking within.  You might not like all that you see, but now is also the time to change that. 

Asking what it means to be you as a person of faith can be tough but it can also be a gift.  May your Lenten Journey of self-discovery be a blessed one. And may this season bring you closer to the One who created all that you are.

Sharing Something worth Sharing

One of my friends posted John Wesley’s Holy Club Questions today on Facebook.  I had not read them recently and they instantly brought me right back to my UM Polity and Doctrine course in seminary at Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri.  It was an amazing moment of memory and connection.

If you are not familiar with them, here they are:

• Am I consciously or unconsciously creating the impression that I am better than I really am? In other words, am I a hypocrite?
• Am I honest in all my acts and words, or do I exaggerate?
• Do I confidentially pass on to another what was told to me in confidence?
• Can I be trusted?
• Am I a slave to dress, friends, work, or habits?
• Am I self-conscious, self-pitying, or self-justifying?
• Did the Bible live in me today?
• Do I give it time to speak to me every day?
• Am I enjoying prayer?
• When did I last speak to someone else about my faith?
• Do I pray about the money I spend?
• Do I get to bed on time and get up on time?
• Do I disobey God in anything?
• Do I insist upon doing something about which my conscience is uneasy?
• Am I defeated in any part of my life?
• Am I jealous, impure, critical, irritable, touchy, or distrustful?
• How do I spend my spare time?
• Am I proud?
• Do I thank God that I am not as other people, especially as the Pharisees who despised the publican?
• Is there anyone whom I fear, dislike, disown, criticize, hold resentment toward or disregard? If so, what am I doing about it?
• Do I grumble or complain constantly?
• Is Christ real to me?

Several of these jumped out at me, but the one that constantly brings me up short asks, “When did I last speak to someone else about my faith?” 

Sharing something “important” in our lives takes place hundreds, if not hundreds of thousands of times, on Twitter and Facebook every minute of the day.  People tweet what they are doing in 140 characters or less even if it seems trivial or pointless to others.  People update their status on Facebook whether it is about an awesome cup of coffee, a gripe about their job, or a life changing event.  We sit around dinner tables at home and in restaurants telling others about things that we did during that particular day.  Sharing daily events happens all the time.

But faith is something we could be sharing more often than most of us currently are.  The question asks, simply, are your talking about your faith with others?  And more pointedly, when was the last time you did so?

My faith is vital to who I am.  Living my faith is a daily activity.  Walking with God is essential to my life.  Being part of a community of faith is my lifeblood.  Taking time to pray is a daily ritual.  Being a servant for justice makes my faith walk and talk in the world.  Following the example of Jesus is something I strive to do always.

But again, Wesley asks, “When did I last speak to someone else about my faith?”  For me it’s easy.  I had a talk about my faith on the plane coming back from Texas earlier this month after my seatmate asked what I do for a living and got curious.  But before that - and outside of the classroom or pulpit - it has been a while. And I need to be better about that.

Sharing our faith is an important part of our lives as Christians.  But we often fail to do so.

Why?  Fear, lack of experience, discomfort sharing personal faith stories, lack of relationships with those who we could share with, anxiety about sharing too much, tensions in our own faith lives, and many others keep us from sharing our faith.

Sharing our faith starts with creating relationships – in our work places, in our communities, in our families, in our social networks, etc.  Being ourselves and sharing who we are as people of faith can be as simple as sharing a prayer on Twitter or Facebook, as personal as talking about our church or faith community with friends, or as profound as bringing another person to faith through our words and witness.

We have to start somewhere.  So this week … share your faith with others.  Do it in subtle, simple ways to gain confidence … then you will feel even more comfortable sharing your faith story with others down the line.

Sharing has to start sometime.  What better time than now?

Winter at the Beach!?

Going to the beach in the winter is not something I had ever thought much about.  In the best of circumstances I am not really a beach person.  I do not like the feel of sand in my clothes or between my toes.  I do not drink tropical drinks with little umbrellas in them.  I am not a super strong swimmer and the rough surf beats my knees up.  And I do not like to be in the sun too much.  I have, however, been on a number of beach vacations with family and friends.  Mainly I go to the beach because of my son and my friends.  They like the beach – in fact, they love the beach.  My son loves the water, making sand castles, riding a boogie board on the waves, and flying kites at the beach.  Me ... not so much.

I like being comfortable. I like TV, the Internet, my comfortable chair, and good leisure times.  But roughing it is not something I do.  And my definition of roughing it is pretty narrow.  I always say roughing it is staying in a hotel without room service.  So beach going is not really my "thang."

So when I found out the second leg of my Wabash Pre-Tenure Seminary Faculty group was meeting at Mustang Island in Texas – in the winter - I was less than thrilled, but open to going to a place 60 degrees above where it was at home when I left. So I thought I would give winter beach going a try (plus we are required to attend as part of our fellowship).

So off I went to the beach ... in the winter ... in Texas.

The first afternoon I walked the beach with one of my Wabash colleagues and caught up on job and family stuff.  It was a great visit.  I took pictures of birds, waves, and sand dunes.  I listened to the surf and watched the sunset.

The next morning I woke up to the sounds of waves and birds from my room.  It was amazing.  We had been told that if we wanted to get in the water there were two things to remember:  1) the water is VERY cold and 2) you have to do the "stingray shuffle" to avoid getting stung by the stingrays in the water.  The cold water was enough to keep me away.  Then they warned us about stingrays in the water and rattlesnakes in the brush.  So now I was completely ok with staying out of the water, on the boardwalk, and in the safe places.

But this place was growing on me.  How could it not?

God is in the rhythm of the waves, the beat of the birds' heart and wings, the gentle touch of the breeze, and the laughter/conversation with my friends.  I am taking the slow approach to being at the beach in winter.  There are no children needing to be entertained, no sand castles to be judged, and no bogie boards to go retrieve from the waves – which is the usual pattern of my family time at the beach.  It's just me and my thoughts (and sometimes my friends with me).

One night I took pictures of the sunset and we had a bonfire on the beach.  It is still not my favorite thing – cold, sand and wind.  But it was a blessed time with God.  We looked at the constellations and told stories.  I did not stay long but it was fun.

The last full day we did a group “5K Run, Walk, Crawl, Drag” on the beach.  Everyone participated in some way and everyone was so supportive of each other.  What a joy to be on the beach all together in God’s amazing creation.  That last night we sat around playing games and laughed until we almost could not stand it anymore.  We had a blast.

Honestly, this weekend did not sell me on time at the beach – especially in the winter.  But it once again gave me time with nature and with the Creator God who made it all possible.  It was a time of renewal and rest, a time of recreation and rejuvenation.  And all of us need that. 

So offer me time away with God and opportunities to be in the midst of nature, being with good friends, eating amazing food, having sights to see, and getting time for rest – and then tell me it is in the Winter at the Beach – and my response will now be, “Ok, sign me up!”

Worship is Not Just for “Natives”

The other day I was asked by a pastor friend why some of his newer members sometimes ask “clueless questions” about worship.  “They should know this stuff,” he said.  It was an “aha” moment for him when I asked if these folks had grown up in the church.  They hadn’t.  Then he said, “Well, I guess I’m the clueless one.”  It was an odd conversation because I would think it was obvious – but all of my church visits over the past few years have proven how out of touch many of our churches are with those who did not grow up in the church.

I have led, participated in, and sat in worship services all of my life.  I was raised as a Preacher’s Kid and have been a United Methodist clergyperson for 20 years.  Being part of that means I have been in a lot of worship services.  One thing I have worked very hard to keep in mind as a worship leader is that not all of the folks sitting in the pews know the language, practices, and rituals of worship.  Many worship services assume a level of understanding that is just not true anymore.

People are not as denominationally loyal today as they once were and many have not grown up in the church.  When they do make the effort to come to church seeking a connection to God we should do all we can to welcome them and make the worship service as accessible as possible.  First and foremost we need to create worship that is awe inspiring and praises God.  We need to create worship that connects us to God, makes the Gospel story of Jesus Christ come alive, and empowers us with the Holy Spirit.  We need to create worship that is rich with the sacred and ritual that help us experience God’s presence.

However, we too often create worship that is for “natives” – those who are part of the insider culture of the church.  We too often create worship that is not inclusive of children and folks not part of the traditional church culture.  We often create worship that does not speak fully to the needs of the people in our pews and definitely does not speak to the needs of those who are not usually present.

I am not saying we do worship poorly.  We often do amazing worship.  We frequently create and participate in worship that feeds the people present.  We often lay out a banquet of Gospel and Grace that nourishes and enlivens.  However, too many are still walking away starving.  Our worship is regularly too heady and lacks passion and engagement.  And often it assumes a level of experience and knowledge that is dangerously unaware.  We use books for worship that can be confusing and difficult to use – and we do not help people with them.  We use prayers and litanies that insiders know and others do not – and we assume those not used to the words will figure them out.  We use language that not everyone in the room understands – and hope they “get it.”

I think we all need to examine our worship and our preaching to make sure it is accessible to folks who may not know the secret handshakes or have insider status in our churches.  We need to use language and images that bring life and depth to our worship and preaching that anyone could understand.  We need to enrich our worship and spirituality with rich spirituality.  We need to create environments of welcome and are multi-sensory. 

We definitely need to feed the folks in our pews, but if we starve those who show up without experience in our faith traditions – we have failed them.  We can do better.

A recent article on United Methodist Communications website addresses this topic and offer 5 trends in worship to address the needs of those who are not traditionally part of our worship.  You can see this article at -http://www.umcom.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=mrLZJ9PFKmG&b=6084879&ct=11231005&notoc=1