Home …

by | Sep 29, 2015 | Life Between Sundays

Home again …

You’ll likely get tired of hearing that a long time before I get tired of saying it.  Elaine said to me several times over the last few days … even during the retreat in PEI, “I can hardly wait to get home.”  This makes me happier than I know how to express.  I have always wanted her to be happy wherever we found ourselves.

Even my dog is glad to be home.  This picture says it all.

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Thanks to all for giving us the time to attend this most beneficial gathering with other pastor friends.  It was above and beyond anything that you needed to do, this early into our relationship.  Our hope is that the investment will have an ongoing, positive spill-over among our church family.

We spent the entire weekend wandering around the Emmaus road account, trying to imagine what that experience would have been like for Cleopas and the “other” disciple.  The words, “but we had hoped” stay with me even this morning.  It was the death of a dream that that they vocalized to Jesus, as their grief kept them from recognizing His Presence with them … they were mourning their loss, failing to recognize their gain at the very same time.

Jesus was risen and still their dream was dead.  They were looking for a Jesus of their own making or imagination.  He was to be the political deliverer of the nation of Israel.  How many times do we miss God’s help and deliverance because we expect Him to function according to our dreams or dictates.  It is only as our own dreams are laid to rest that we find something new in Christ.  A bigger dream.  A better dream.

We’ll meet on Thursday this week and continue to contemplate God’s bigger, better dream for CLC.  In these days, let’s gently lay the past to rest and look to the future which is held in God’s hands.  He is doing a new thing, not a rerun.

And perhaps you may be grieving some loss this week as well.  Read though the Emma’s Road account and watch how Jesus comes alongside those who have lost hope.  We were among those Emmaus pilgrims but finally, after the death of our dreams, we found our way home.

Blessings on you all this week.

This Week

by | Sep 22, 2015 | Life Between Sundays, Weekly Bulletin

We leave this afternoon through next Monday midday.  Elaine is really disliking leaving the island, as do I.  When I allowed myself to want to return to Grand Manan it was like breaching a dam.  The pull was instantly overwhelming to me … to both of us.

I’ll be doing my regular work with HERG (Health Education Research Group) on Wednesday and Thursday.  HERG is a part of the education faculty at UNB.  If you are interested in some of the things that we do, browse the website, here  The actual HERG website is temporarily off line.

On Friday,we will be a part of a gathering of Nazarene pastors and wives, to be held in Cavendish, PEI.  This is a yearly event and the only time that my association with the Church of the Nazarene should take us away over a Sunday.  I also am the webmaster for the sites linked above.

Just a word on the sanctuary reset …

I LOVE interaction in our services.  To me, it says that there is a reason for everyone to be “on deck”.  To come and sit to merely spectate doesn’t make sense to me.  You can do that at home on your living room sofa.  We used to argue that coming and sitting in rows where you look at the back of someone’s head, was fellowship.  I had to admit some years ago now that we come to church on Sunday mornings for a variety of things but fellowship was one of the least obvious and seemingly least important.  Do you remember the days when “chatting” in pre-church was a disrespectful thing to do.  Again, that sort of nixed the fellowship thing.

Today, in all honesty, the pastor is not an expert by virtue of any formal training or position that he has gained.  We live in an information age in which any and all kinds of learning is available to everyone. I don’t think the position was ever intended to carry that notion.  A pastor is one of a group of people, a functional family (hopefully).  She/he has a viable role to play … just like everyone else.  Redefining the pastor is another necessary exercise for us today.

So I want people to participate.  I don’t want you to just come, sit, give and listen … to be an audience church.

We are leaving the sanctuary set with the table as a prominent feature in our gatherings … for a few weeks.  Some of the folks suggested this possibility after last Sunday’s service.  I loved the fact that I was not the radical voice that initiated that.  But I LOVED the suggestion.

You see, I believe that when we come together, everyone brings something to the table.

What then shall we say, brothers and sisters? When you come together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. Everything must be done so that the church may be built up. 1 Corinthians 14:26

We don’t come to church to defer to experts.  We come to engage together and when we do that something powerful emerges from our gatherings.

The table gives you a place to set your Bible and make sure that I am preaching from it.  It gives you a place to write notes or make funny drawings in the bulletin.  You can set a coffee cup on the table.  You can look across it or around it to see people’s faces and perhaps to hear their hearts as well.

You see, I am a Lifer now.  You have been for some time.  I am in it for life!

Together in the weeks, months and if God is good … and He is … in the years ahead, we will journey to places of intimacy with the Almighty that none of us might reach alone.  The African proverb says, “If you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together.”

One morning I might even dance.  If I do, you’ll know it is God, not me.

Love you guys.

First Post

by | Sep 15, 2015 | Life Between Sundays, Uncategorized

Well here goes …

You have to realize that I never … never … never imagined I would be pastoring again.  To be quite honest, I had lost faith in the church.  I was called into ministry and 34 years later I came to the conclusion that somewhere along the way I got a job.  In my naivete, I imagined that the ministry had something to do with “ministering” to people.

I found out that there was a lot of paper that needed to be pushed …

I found out that there were endless organizational details to be cared for …

I found out that sometimes Christians can be more difficult to get along with than those who make no such profession …

I found out that the pressure of performance lay squarely upon the pastor’s shoulders and that the most important performance seemed to take place on Sunday morning …

I found that we had lost the art of discipling men and women to Christ …

Need I go on?  I can.

Pastor Jeff asked us to fill in for him this summer.  I was happy to do that and really didn’t pray too much about it.  It wouldn’t require what that day to day grind of ministry often exacted.

The craziest thing happened.  I began to rub shoulders with Lifers.  You won my heart.  Your minimalist commitment to the organization was compelling and your maximal commitment to the organism … the Body and beyond.  Well that was something I had worked toward for 34 years and only rarely caught glimpses of it.  Without knowing it, Jeff and Marcia picked their successors.

Now I am home … in so many ways.  I feel a greater freedom than I have ever had in ministry.  It was the LAST thing that I expected to find.

You need to know that I believe in you.  Not your perfection or your “slick”.  We are pretty ordinary on Sundays and that’s okay.  But I think we are extraordinary between Sundays, where the Christian life is meant to be lived.

And you need to know that Elaine and I have fallen in love with you in a very short, unscripted period of time.

I believe that God is at work in all of this and we have no idea what he has planned for those that love Him.  That’s always been the case.  Are you ready for the new thing that God is doing?  Can you perceive it?