Presby-Musings

I'm not a huge fan of Plan B. And what I mean by this is that I tend to enter into decisions, tasks, projects, new initiatives, changes and transformation without spending a lot of time pondering the implications of failure.  So, Plan B?  I don't want to think about it.  There is only Plan A.  What happens if Plan A doesn't work, you ask?  I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.  Because for right now--I just want to bend all of my will and energy to making Plan A work.  You with me?  Come on, let's do this! [charges out of the room] The reality is that sometimes Plan A doesn't pan out.  I know that from past experiences.  So there have been times when Plan A failed, and I didn't really  have a Plan B... because I was too busy trying to make Plan A succeed. Fortunately, I'm blessed with some awesome people in my life who typically have already worked out Plan B---mostly because they knew they'd better because I wasn't going to do

The other day I was reading an article about the rise of Christian fundamentalism in the late 1960's and early 1970's, and I  found myself feeling conflicted.  I was reading how many Southern, all-white, fundamentalist churches in the late sixties and early seventies launched Christian schools so that their children would not have to go to de-segregated public schools.  This hit home for me.  I've always  known that the Christian high school I graduated from in Central Florida was a school like that--one of many created out of fear, built upon a foundation of hate.  I was raised in Christian fundamentalism, and spent my formative years attending churches and schools where we were either implicitly or explicitly taught to fear "the world," and to exclude certain people from grace.  And yet, it was in those environments where I also first learned the story of how God so loved the world that God became one of us in order to rescue all of us.   I  was als

May I  more clearly see my filters, blind spots, and biases so that I might recognize goodness, truth, and beauty beyond them. - Justin McRoberts  This morning I read this prayer as part of my daily readings, and I kept coming back to it.  It's a simple prayer, but so incredibly profound.  I thought I would spend a few moments reflecting on it with you.  "May I more clearly see my filters, blind spots, and biases..." I feel like I can so easily spot the filters, blind spots, and biases in others.  It's often impossible for me to see my own, however.  I tend to feel that I am so very right about things--that the way I see the world is the right way to see it.   But nothing could be further from the truth.   The path to enlightenment and communion with God is not about being right.   It's about being open.  It's about letting go of the attachments we cling to that keep us from being our true selves.   And sometimes those attachments are centered o

My wife's little dog Elway got lost the other day.  He got out of the house somehow, and she left to go meet some friends not knowing he was outside. When she returned several hours later, he was no where to be found. So you need to understand the depth of Merideth's love for this little dog.  It's vast.  I'm not sure, because I don't want to ask, but I think she misses the dog more than me when she's away from both of us.  At first, I thought "He'll turn up any moment."  And then a long night passed, and then an even longer morning.  Nothing.  I started to despair that he was lost forever.  Merideth did, too.  Afterward, she told me that she had never felt so helpless.  There was nothing she could do.  "I didn't have a Plan B ," she said.  Miraculously, he was returned.  Her sorrow turned to joy.  The thoughts of what life would be without her dog (who is more than just a dog, he's a traveling companion, a faithful

When you think about God, what do you think about?  Do you focus specifically on one thing?  I feel like most of us do that pretty easily.  We'll say things like, "God is love."  Or we'll declare that "God is merciful."  But do we really know enough about God to start talking about what God is, or what God is like?   One of my favorite theologians is the Irish philosopher and author, Pete Rollins.  Pete wrote an entire book entitled How Not To Speak Of God where he asserted that anything we think or say about God diminishes our understanding of God.  It is an impossibility for us to comprehend the infinite, and any definitions we might use to help us, actually end up restricting us from the comprehension we desire.  I know, right?  It's messed up.   So what do we do?  How do we put our heads around this to get to a place where we are able to bend our hearts and minds toward God without feeling as though we are failing when we do?   Henri

Today we are concluding the sermon series that we started three Sundays ago--a sermon series that took us all the way through the month of January. The title of this series is "New" and it is centered on how we can begin the new year with a new focus, a new outlook and a new way of seeing ourselves and others. Transformation is in our DNA--we were created to grow and to change, but the best kind of change leaves a mark.  And this is where our imagery of tattoos comes in... So what do you do when you realize that the tattoo you got... isn't good at all?  You get it remade--just like the people on the short-lived show on the Lifestyle network entitled "Bad Ink."  It  ran for two seasons from 2013-2015, and it was glorious.  These two guys who were amazing tattoo artists in Vegas would actually go out and try to find people with really bad tattoos and would offer to make them over for them.  Here are some great examples of tattoos that desperately

One of the many issues that those of us who call ourselves Christians face is the fact that we seldom actually pay attention to the example Jesus set for his followers.  But when we are confronted by the radical truth of what Jesus taught, and the embodied truth of how he lived out those teachings... it can mess us up.  For some of us, it can change everything.   Let me explain---in a round about way by talking about swans, philosophy and Karl Popper...  In the Logic of Scientific Discovery, the Austrian philosopher Karl Popper asserted that we can never absolutely confirm any scientific theory.  But what we can determine with a fair amount of certainty is the opposite of the theory.  Using the example of the color of swans, Popper stated the following:  "No matter how many instances of white swans we may have observed, this does not justify the conclusion that all swans are white."   In other words, you can't assume with any real certainty the exact  color

I  was at a house concert the other night at the house of one of my church members, and the artist who was playing sang a song with a bit of a chorus that I  wrote down.   Here was the line he sang:   When my heart got bigger I could see you better. That line spoke to me, and I've been thinking about it for the past several days.  And I think I've finally figured out why it spoke to me so much.   I spent a lot of my life as a Christian thinking in small terms, and it kept me from seeing God in the world.     I believed that God's grace was small, limited and used sparingly on a select few.  I believed that people were excluded from God's kingdom based on a lot of arbitrary and capricious reasons---all of which reflected my own world view.   I didn't really care all that much about the poor, the friendless, the downtrodden.  I was too busy going to Bible studies, doing church-y things and feeling superior.   And then my beliefs got turned upside down,

One of the most frequent questions I get in my role as a pastor is a question that is centered on discovering one's unique purpose, and it goes something like this: "How do I know what God wants me to do with my life?"  It's an excellent question, and there's no easy, pat answer.  To be fair, I have lots of things that I  say when I'm asked that question, and most of them are prescriptive in nature. In other words, I typically give people guidance on disciplines, practices and habits that will enable them to be better positioned so that they can see their unique path more clearly.  In the end, I have to admit that anything I might have to say is highly subjective, and may or may not work for the person who is inquiring. You see, we are all unique, and are all gifted with particular talents, desires, longings and we are also gifted with a purpose to which we are specifically suited. But far too many of us spend an inordinate amount of time frett

Once in a while I've run across a piece of Scripture, a prayer or a poem that just captures where I  am in a particular moment... and when this happens I often sit with it for days, thinking about why it spoke to me. Here's a poem that I recently read by the Lebanese poet Said Akl that I've been sitting with for a while:   lord i  refuse to engage prayer as a weapon i  wish it to be like a river between two shores for i  seek neither punishment nor grace but new skin that can bear this world This prayer/poem spoke to me on so many levels.   As read this poem, I had a vision of prayer that was so beautiful and true that it made my heart ache.  I had never thought of prayer as a river before, but it made perfect sense.   But when you imagine prayer as a river it is easy to see how it truly is the flow between the "now" and the "not yet," and a moving demarcation line between heaven and earth.   The flow exists whether we acknowledge it or no

I often feel the presence of God through other people, which I think is one of God's most wonderful, surprising means of self-revelation.   I can feel God's presence when I see someone do something kind and gracious, giving and merciful.  I can feel it when someone reaches out to me with encouragement and unexpected affirmation.   As odd as it might seem at times, I can feel the presence of God when I'm gathered with friends laughing, talking, eating good food, enjoying great beverages...   I've also felt the presence of God when I've gone through tough times in my life and people reached out to me to share their own stories, offer sympathy, or affirm their support.   But there are some people who do much more.  These are the people (and there are precious few of them) who don't let me off the hook when I'm trying to put up my armor, and hide from the world.   They are the ones who will listen to every hard, bitter, angry, blasphemous

Today we are continuing the sermon series that we started two Sundays ago--a sermon series that will take us all the way through the month of January. The title of this series is "New" and it is centered on how we can begin the new year with a new focus, a new outlook and a new way of seeing ourselves and others. Transformation is in our DNA--we were created to grow and to change, but the best kind of change leaves a mark.  And this is where our imagery of tattoos comes in... There is a moment during the tattoo process when fear can get a hold of you.  You might even say to yourself, "What the heck have I just done, and now there's no going back?"  Interview people with tattoos...  ask them about the fear, and how they overcame it.  So this is a real thing, but once you're done and you stand up to admire yourself in the mirror... you realize something.  You made it.  You endured the pain.  You had a vision and now that vision is imprinted upon yo

Several years ago, I learned a valuable lesson about the influence that failure can have over an organization.  It all stemmed from a conversation I had with a group of skeptical members of one of my former churches.   It seems that they were less than enthusiastic about the new worship service that we were planning to launch, particularly because it was not at all like the more traditional worship service they'd grown accustomed to over the years.  "We tried that a few years ago," one of them told me.  "We tried that whole contemporary thing , and it just didn't work."  They said the words "contemporary thing" like they were trying to get a bad taste out of their mouth---which was pretty close to the truth.  The fact of the matter was, the previous attempt to add a new kind of service was not well-executed, not really supported by the former pastor and pretty much doomed from the start.  But in the minds of the folks in front me... it had