Category Archives: Personal

Personal, Ramblings

Turn out the lights the party is over.

Sunday worship is a time where we focus for an hour or so on God.  The order of service is very familiar: 15 minutes of spiritual songs, a few announcements, a message from the Bible, an offering, and a benediction.  Each is mixed well and served in a comforting way.  Sweet.  But when it is over, we are trust back into a world that is both common place and not quite so holy.

The people we mix with are not all heavenly apparitions of goodness. They are not all angels.  We have to live our lives among the heathen.  Sure I live in a Christian nation.  Even the money I carry in my pocket has “In God We Trust”.  But it does not seem like it most of the time.  The reality of it all we have to live in a world that, for the most part wants nothing of my Jesus.  We must mingle with those who do not love Christ.  There are times when life is just full of frustration and discouragement. The issue is we have to live through it.  We have to meet the day as they come.  Sometimes we would rather just pull the covers over our heads and stay in the silent warmth of our beds.

To live the life that Jesus demands of me I have to live within the rocks of the world.  To step boldly as the jagged edges of life try to break my stride is the goal.  Each step has to be taken.  It does not matter that the ground I tread is trying to break my ankles.  So how do I do it?  How do I keep on keeping on?  How do I keep the momentum going forward, when I want to just sit and reduce the threats?

Life has to be more than existence.  It is not enough to just sit and be protected.  We have to move on.  “If you are not living on the edge, you are just taking up space.”  Sure there are times we have to “be still and know” but most of the time we have to make progress. Life is to be a joy not a burden. The joy is not in the destination but in the journey.  It is the overcoming the rocks in our path but the victory is moving through them.

Life is more than surviving.  Life is more than getting along.  Life is more that existing until we get back into our cocoon of our beds to die for eight hours or so.  Life is to be lived to overcome our obstacles, to master our experiences, and to have sense of joy along the way.  There will be defeats. There will be rocks that bruise us. There will be injuries that seem to disable us from going any further.  But there will be times of walking along with the eternal in our steps.  We may well wish to be have a little more ease and a lot less of toil.  We may find hope that it will get better.  But really it doesn’t matter.  You see that every one of us must live in our own circumstances.  What we make of our lives is not a matter of changing our world but changing ourselves.

It would be cool if we had everything we wanted.  To have the whole world at our finger tips. Never to experience pain, disappointment, or sin.  How delightful it would be, never to have a care, or a cross or a single negative. But it just isn’t so.  Paradise, Shangri-La, and heaven is not here.  And longing for It will not make it any closer.  Restless discontent cannot change our place.  All those around us have their lives they are living and I have mine.  It is mine alone.

So out of the bed I go.  To live and I choose to live in victory over the boulders in life. I choose to grow and move in the world God has given me to live.  Sunday worship is a great place to bask in the glow of perfection but my victories don’t come inside of a church.  My life is more than that.

 

Life, Personal, Sermon Illustration

Ship on the Horizon

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Growing up with a father that always seemed greater than life was not always easy. He worked all the time.  If he wasn’t at Ordside Garage, he would be working on some other car for a neighbor or friend.  It was a rare treat to spend time with my dad alone.  One special Sunday I was invited to an adventure. We were to go to the Monterey wharf to see one of the last three mast sailing ships still working the coast of California.  I could not have been more than 9 or 10. We toured the ship just me and my dad.

It was amazing.  Tall masts with furled sails.  The hull was made of iron but the rest was all wood and rope. We toured through each berth and saw the cook in the galley. It was a wondrous time.  The smells and the sights were so much better because I was sharing with my dad.

But the tide was going out and we had to disembark.  So we watched as the brightly uniformed crew of that grand old ship pull all the lines in and set its grand white sails and moved into that arching blue bay.
It was going to San Francisco, its next point of call. That ship was an object of beauty and strength. We stood there until the white sails became nothing more than a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky came down to mingle with one another. Then someone in the crowd said, “Look, she’s gone”!

That day is often brought to memory.  My sometimes over shadowing Father, the perfect blue sky, and  while sails as they seemed to fall off the edge of the world. But it also brings to mind that exclamation from the crowd, “Look, she’s gone”.  But we must ask, “Gone where?” Gone from my sight, that is all. That grand ship with its large mast and hull was not any less strong or able to cut the waves. That ship was diminished size only because of my perspective.  That ship is “gone” because I can not see it any more.

My dad is no longer with us.  He has sailed over the horizon.  Is he gone?  I don’t think so.  He is just out of sight and never out of mind. In my golden years of retirement I often wonder how I will be remembered when I am “gone”.

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Life, Personal

Joseph Monson – My Dad

I posted this previously in a different media and I thought I might share it again.

Every time I open my hands and look at the grooves and line in my own hands, I see my father.  I have big hands: the hands of German English heritage. Just like my father’s hands, the digits are not well suited to playing the piano or sometimes even typing.  There are few images in my mind of my father which are stronger than the sight of his hands. My father’s hands were huge, but the most remarkable characteristic was the rough callousness of them.  My dad was a mechanic in the days before computers and smog control devices.  Being a mechanic meant you were tough, greasy, tolerant, and patient.
Those great big hands that would reach out to me to come and give him a hug seemed so coarse.  Years of working with hot engines, sharp tools, and caustic chemicals made them that way.  I remember dad when mom was in the hospital for a three day visit and trying to fix the kids something to eat, reaching out for a hot black iron frying pan from the electric stove top.  He had picked it up to take it to the table and he had gone five steps before he realized it was burning hot.  His hands were so desensitized to heat it took that long to set off the warning bells in his head.  With one giant throw, the pan and our dinner went into the sink splattering oil and our food all over the wall.
I guess the reason I remember my father’s hands so well is because as he suffered from the ravages of Alzheimer’s and the rest of his world shrank his hands were still the most remarkable thing to see. They bore the unmistakable signs of hard work.  Those thick, strong and rough hands did not shrunk with the rest of his body.  Those hands that had gripped steel, plunged thousands of times into gasoline and oil,  and pulled chains never seemed to change.  In his last days as his body could no longer keep up with demands of his shrinking world, his hands hung from his arms from still thick wrists that stretched any watch band he had ever known.  They were not the hands that should be idle in darkening days.  They shook and were increasingly awkward when he tried to wipe the drool off his  own proud chin.

Some day all will meet our ends in this world.  But today I will remember a grand man with big hands.

TWO GREAT HANDS

My Father was a man with two great hands,
The skin was rough as it could be.
Work was his life with its pulls and commands,
But he always made time for me.

Sleep and rest were not part of his clock,
There was always someone else in need.
Never did he stop, even when he could drop,
For there were many mouths at home to feed.

His bones were often tired and painfully uncured,
His hands often bandaged and red.
But a promise was a promise, and his bond was his word,
And everyone believed what he said.

He was my dad, and constant each day.
It amazed me how he could be ever so strong,
In his life, in his convictions and in his way.
In my eyes he would never do wrong.

Consistent in actions and strong were his words,
All were made better for walking with this man.
My hands are not as rough, or nearly as tough,
But my inheritance was his gentleness of his hand.

My Dad was a man with two working hands,
Until his life did stop with a beat.
Oh how I miss him, his hands and loving gentle soul,
But these hands I have will ever remind and keep.

Life, Personal, Ramblings

Church growth and electric screwdrivers

1 Comment

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I often see something that needs to be fixed around the house.  I have all tools, I have the ability to look up the solutions, and I have the desire to get it done.  The results are not always the best; if you looked at my work the new braces on the fence may not be very straight, and that engine on the old truck finally gave up after working on it for six months.

But what I would like to vent on today is often in the middle of one project, I get distracted with another.  While working on the fence and putting new slats with an electric screwdriver, a distraction presents itself.  The very tool in my hand becomes a distraction.  Reminders of other screws that need tightening are brought to mind.  Matter of fact everything around me seems too need my screwdriver touch.

The church, it seems to me, is caught in the same trap.  There have been volumes of writings on Church Growth.  Seminars, educations, blogs, denominational studies on church growth abound.  They have become the electric screwdrivers of Evangelical Christianity.  “We can solve all our problems with increasing numbers.” Massive outputs of time, talent and treasure have been invested in this Church electric screwdriver.

Why is bigger always better? Why has it become the go-to answer for every church.  For that matter, has church growth become a solution looking for a problem?

I look at the Bible for answers.  What should be the pattern for today’s church?  There are amazing similarities between the first century church and the church today.  They had large churches and small churches.  There were healthy, sick and dead churches. There were churches with strong leaders, weak leaders, and even sinful leaders.  These churches worshiped God in imperfect ways.  There were arguments over beliefs and practices.  Some were in homes while others were big enough to gather in communal gatherings.

If there ever was a picture of variety, it was in the early church.  The church in Jerusalem, Corinth, Laodicea, Thessalonica and Ephesus had little in common outside of following scripture and practicing communion and water baptism.  Their goal was not building new edifices to gather in.  Church growth was never a solution.  It was a natural evidence of something else.

When a church was in trouble, when a church was not living up to the standards of Jesus the New testament writers did not exhort them to get bigger.  They were told the argumentative to get along.  The immoral church was told to repent.  The sinning church was warned of impending punishment.  Not once did Paul, Luke, John, or Peter ever tell a church in crisis to expand.

No New Testament writer ever told a sick, dying, sinful or hurting church to get bigger.  Church growth and church health are not equal.

Church growth is not the electric screwdriver that can fix a church that is not what it should be.  No early church leader ever pointed to church growth as the fix for problems.

Yes, I know that Jesus said to go out and make disciples and that would mean growth.  But a sick church is not helped or maybe even harmed by an in swell of more people.  John, when he addressed the challenges, sins and blessings of the seven churches in Revelation, never told any of them to grow.  No early church leader ever told any church – sick or healthy – to structure for growth. Not every church was growing. Many were barely hanging on, while staying faithful. But there’s not even a hint that the apostles saw their lack of numerical growth as evidence of a problem.

In fact, unless you’re looking at the New Testament through a modern, western church growth lens, it’s impossible to miss the fact that small, suffering churches were given far more praise for their faithfulness than large, growing churches were given for the numerical increase.

With my electric screwdriver in hand and everything around me needing a wood screw, it is easy to be distracted from the fence that needs fixing.  I believe that churches are supposed to grow.  But I do not think then next Church growth tool is the answer.  I believe that health not size is the emphasis of the first church and should be the emphasis of my church.

I’m merely raising a much-overlooked point about where we place our priorities.  The fence needs to be fixed before we worry about that new deck that is planned.

Have to go, the battery on my electric screwdriver is now charged.

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