Roses are red…

We have a great tradition for birthdays at our house. Every year when a family member has a birthday, we make little signs and hang them all over the house in the evening after they’ve gone to bed. That way when they wake up on their birthday morning, they’re greeted by signs that exclaim, “What day is it today?” or “I can’t believe you’re one year older!” – things to that effect.

For years now I’ve been writing a “Roses are Red” poem for Karen each birthday as a part of her sign collection. It’s my yearly challenge to capture my feelings for Karen in simple verse. It always has a humorous touch, but some years the thoughts are more serious than others.

This year’s verse captures something of what is going on in both of our hearts. I asked Karen’s permission to share it in this context and she cheerfully agreed. So here’s Karen’s birthday poem for 2011:

Roses are red
Violets stay true
This birthday of yours
Came out of the blue.

Wasn’t it yesterday
You celebrated five-O?
Five years in a minute…
It seems to me so.

Now these 5 years have changed us
Some things have been jarring
We’re a little uncertain
Of the role that we star in.

It’s a new life, new place
New battle, new glory
New people, new challenge
New adventure, new story.

What gives me great hope
And my courage doth raise
Is to know we’re together
Till the end of our days.

Our story is one
That we write together
And we both know that means
That our story is better.

For God uses couples
In the power of three,
That marvelous threesome
Of God, you and me (pardon the grammar)

Back when we started
This story of us
We were young and naïve
But we got on the bus

Because we knew that the driver
Could be trusted utmostly
Even on journeys
When the pathway was ghostly.

That trust has been proven
To stand and to stay
Even when rocks are shaking
And the mountains give way.

I am always amazed
At your faith and your grace
You make me stronger
You help pick up the pace.

Your courage is great
Your confidence strong
You’re hopeful in trouble
Your suffering is long.

You’re the best I could wish for
You’re the partner I prayed for
You’re the love who I live for
You’re the wife I would die for.

So on this, your birthday
Please know that you’re cherished
It’s my joy to stand with you
Until the day our God takes us.

What about Lent?

I never thought much about Lent before we moved to Germany in 1989. To me, it was something the Catholics did and always seemed a little suspicious. After all, I didn’t want to get into a righteousness by works – sola fide and obligatory fasting didn’t seem all that compatible to me.

But in Germany, the practice of giving up something for Lent is more widely practiced among non-Catholics than it is in the States. Many of our Pentecostal friends made it a regular part of their spiritual tradition. I began to recognize the value of deliberately setting something aside in order to focus more intently on the work of Jesus on the cross for my sake.

Admittedly, the Lenten fast does have its dark side. Carnival is celebrated with vim and vigor in the Catholic regions of Germany… and it’s about more than floats and parades. The common understanding among many church goers is that Fat Tuesday is a day to let your demons have free reign before you enter into the fasting time on Ash Wednesday. The masks that are worn become excuses for all sorts of revelry. The partiers basically pretend to lose their identity and one night of craziness is winked at by the church – they’ll have plenty of time to go to confession once Lent comes.

It’s fascinating to me how often Satan manages to twist something that has so much potential for good. I’m not arguing that the Lenten fast is a biblically ordained practice, but it certainly is biblical to give up something for the sake of training in righteousness. Why is it that our minds get sucked into the deception that says, “If I’m going to give something up, then I’ve got to really indulge in order to make up for it!” That lie of the enemy is one of the most prevalent and most effective ploys in his arsenal.

It belies the truth that giving something up is actually the pathway to joy – “whoever loses his life, for my sake, will find it.” It’s in the finding that the joy comes, but it doesn’t come without the losing.

This year I’m giving up television for Lent. It’s not the first time for me to do this – and it will actually be easier for me this year than it was before; the kids aren’t around, so the TV is not on all that much. Nevertheless, I’ve been recognizing lately just how easy it is for me to turn to TV as a quick fix for boredom or restlessness. It’s easy; it’s always there; it doesn’t require much from me.

Actually, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that it’s requiring more from me than I’d like to admit. It’s like a silent vacuum, stealthily sucking my brain of its vigor and creativity and energy. Now that I’m writing about it, TV is sounding worse by the minute.

So bravo for Lent! Bravo for deliberately setting aside distractions. And more than all that, bravo for Jesus Christ, who gave up more than I will ever be able to imagine in order that I might find life.

Church and Football Playoffs

I looked at my blog log for the first time in months tonight. I was amazed to note that there are still people who check for new posts, week after week. That’s in spite of the fact that I haven’t posted an entry since September! Wow… if you’re someone who has checked my site in the past and still had enough hope to check it again, thanks. That makes me feel pretty good!

Today was a great service @ CCA. That is odd in a way. Today was the Seahawks playoff game with the Bears and I was feeling a bit bummed going into the service – bummed that we hadn’t been able to pull off some kind of tailgate party and all watch the game together on the big screen. As some of you know, at least two churches in our area did exactly that and even made it into the paper on Saturday and the evening news today. Pretty cool.

Anyway, I was feeling a bit like a non-progressive stick in the mud because we were having plain old normal church at plain old normal time. But in reality, our service was anything but normal. Our students were in the middle of their annual Winter Camp – something that takes place on our church campus. This year another church joined us, so for three days there are over 50 students running around the building, playing laser tag and dodge ball and just generally having a really awesome time with each other. Tonight is their last night and I’m sure they’ll be up till late-thirty and be absolutely dead in the morning.

This morning, they all sat behind me in our service and, as the singing began, I just felt the wave of worship rolling over me like a warm bath – it was deeply refreshing! There was no sense of “of what a bummer, we’re missing the Seahawks game!” It was just pure joy in Jesus. They were happy to be with each other and happy to listen to the word being preached (by Jeffrey Portman, who did an awesome job) and happy to know in their hearts of hearts that Jesus is very, very real.

It was a wonderful reminder to me of where joy comes from. Sure, it would have been cool if we could have pulled off some kind of football party – maybe we would have even made the 6 o’clock news. But I was so encouraged that, in order to serve up a real experience of true excitement and true joy and true connection to God and to each other, we didn’t have to. Plain old Jesus was more than good enough. I hope I always remember that.

The Fruit of Faithfulness

This last Sunday after service Karen and I had a group of friends from the old days of Calvary Chapel (the REALLY old days – the 70’s) over to our house for some great food and even better conversation. A whole group of them had come to Seattle from all across the nation to celebrate old friendships and to catch up on what God is doing in their lives.

I have to admit that, as a pastor, there are few things that encourage me more than to see people that used to be a part of our ministry walking faithfully with God. Since I see my calling as helping people to become more Christ-like and to walk in discipleship for the long haul, it’s especially gratifying when we can look back on more than 30 years of history and hear them say, “Yes, God really used those times to mold and form us. The experience in Calvary Chapel taught us what church life ought to look like.”

Now that I’m “advanced in years” (see my last post), it’s even more surprising to me to think about how much God used our church plant and that he entrusted me with the leadership when I was only in my 20’s! Good grief… I didn’t have the good sense to know how young I really was. It all seemed pretty natural back in those days. We were really just a bunch of kids, trying to DO church and to do it in a way that was authentic in two ways: we wanted to be true to the principles in the Word and true to what God had made us to be.

One of my prayers for my younger pastor friends is that, 30 years from now, they’ll have some of the same kinds of encounters that Karen and I just had. I hope they’ll have the same joy that wells up inside of them as the kids they are ministering to now sit down with them over a good meal, comment on their graying hair, and then say, “I’m praying that our kids who are teenagers now will have someone speak into their lives the way you spoke into mine back then.” When that happens, Tony & Ashli, Shelly, Jadon & Dani, maybe you’ll blog about it. And if I’m still alive and kicking and still walking around Greenlake with my cane, I’ll read your blog and say, “Good for you. That’s the fruit of faithfulness!”

Losing Momentum

In about an hour, our morning service will begin and I’ll be talking about our calling to serve the world. One of the things that prevents us from serving well is the loss of momentum that often sets in. It’s a problem in many churches like ours – churches with a grand history. For us, our rearview mirror is sometimes bigger than our windshield. We can look back to the glory days, but the days ahead look bleak.

When we lose momentum, we usually appear worse than we really are. Just like a baseball team that has lost momentum, it’s not as if all of the players are worse than those of the opposing team. It’s just that the tiny bit of extra effort to turn the double-play or to drive in the runner from third is missing. And a little less effort translates into losing games by just a hairsbreath. The more we lose, the more we feel like losers.

I’ve recognized my own personal lack of momentum when it comes to writing this blog. The farther out the last blog entry gets, the LESS motivated I am to write a new one. I convince myself that no one really cares about whether I write or not. And of course, the less often I write, the less motivated readers are to come to the site and see if there is something new.

Right now I am grabbing myself by the nap of my neck and literally forcing myself to write. That’s just one small element of the bigger picture of giving my best. It’s my prayer that in a dozen little ways, we as a church (the church local and the church universal) will take up the challenge to bring our A-game to the field. I’m hoping God will speak to our local body about that today.