Archive for January, 2006

Lament Service

Published
by
Mike
on January 18, 2006
in Church, Highland, family, grief and the wreck
. 20 Comments

I’ve been to holiday grief seminars that were helpful. Any time you get people together to admit grief and to process, it’s helpful.

But what happened Sunday evening wasn’t just intellectually helpful. It was healing. When people come together to lament, to remember, to cry out, to pray, to claim hope, to hug, to weep, to laugh, to light candles, to sing, and to listen to Christian music–it goes way beyond helpful.

It’s an experience.

No wonder the psalms of Israel aren’t tame. Maybe you’ve heard that there are psalms of lament, of thanksgiving, of praise, etc. That’s right. Sort of. But the truth is that many of them include more than one response. You can move, for example, from thanksgiving to lament to anger to praise. In other words, they are real. At least I know for me, my emotions don’t come neatly packaged, one at a time.

It’s not just head info about the grief process that brings healing. It is community . . . and worship . . . and emotion . . . and trust . . . and symbol . . . and hope . . . and lament . . . and memory . . . and prayer.

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Tonight in “Oasis” I begin a two-week series I’m calling “Tiptoeing through the TULIP: Five Small Problems With Calvinism.”

Why Was I Crying?

Published
by
Mike
on January 16, 2006
in Megan, family, grief and the wreck
. 34 Comments

I got caught Saturday. During the previews before “Glory Road,” Chris glanced over at me and saw big, fat tears falling off my face. He asked, “Hey, Dad, why are you crying?”

To Chris, no preview could justify those tears — unless they were tears of joy for the release of the next Bourne movie or perhaps a discovery that King Kong II was being filmed.

I gave him a short, brush-off answer. It wasn’t the time or place.

But what I wanted to say was:

Because we’re here. In the dark. In this theater. And you’re sitting next to me. All week it’s been coming, and now that we’ve slowed down and you’re sitting next to me, the dam burst.

Because you could have died a year ago. Because I can still hear your mom sobbing, “O God, please not again.” Because you were beaten beyond recognition. Because we heard the Bourlands crying out in the hospital when they were told that Brody had died. Because I can still remember those nights in ICU at Cook’s with the Bennetts and the Lemmonses. Because I held my breath for 48 hours, waiting to see if you’d breathe on your own.

Because Jon Westin’s still on crutches.

But also because you’re all right. Because you didn’t have to stay in that wheelchair or that back brace. Because I saw you play football this fall, and because you’re playing point guard now. Because you’re an incredible young man who is loved by your peers and by all younger kids. Because we’re back to wrestling. Because the five of us got to hike all over the mountains of Colorado this summer. And because I can lose to you every day in P-I-G.

Because of how close we feel to the other families impacted by the wreck. Because of our love for Sarah, our beloved youth minister, who on the sixteenth day of her first fulltime ministry had to break the news to me and who has been an amazing help to people–with maturity way beyond her years–the past twelve months. Because of the Highland church (like the hundreds who came to cry, hug, pray, light candles, and remember last night). Because of Scott B.’s pastoral care, as we met with the six of you (Beth, Amara, Chris P., Austin, Jon Westin, and you) on Wednesday nights for several weeks after we were all home from the hospital to help you process the tragedy. Because of our spiritual family all around the world who prayed for you and the others (as still partially recorded on my 1-16-05 blog). Because I can still feel your brother’s hug when we met at Cook’s after he flew from Houston and I drove from Abilene (since only one parent could fly with you and it would have gotten ugly fast if I’d suggested to your mom that she not get in that plane!). Because I still remember Jenna’s tears as she cared tenderly for you–her brother-in-law for only seven months at the time. Because Dr. Jim loaded up and drove to Ft. Worth to watch over the three of you and your families himself (while letting those ER docs do their jobs). Because one of our elders, a physical therapist, came over to hold you steady while you showered and carefully bound back up your wounds. Because another of our elders, a teacher at Lincoln at the time, met you to help you up and down the stairs.

Because there’s no better sight for me than seeing you and your brother playing together–catch or basketball or Play Station–when he’s home.

Plus, sometimes grief gets confused. And I still cry about Megan.

That would have been the long answer. But no seventh grader wants to hear that with a bag of popcorn and a great sports movie coming on.

Thanks so much for your prayers for our church this past year.

“Glory Road”

Published
by
Mike
on January 15, 2006
in justice and movies
. 7 Comments

The weekend before the Martin Luther King holiday was a fitting time to watch “Glory Road.”

It is, of course, a great sports movie. Josh, Chris, and I did all we could not to stand and yell for the guys from El Paso–even though we knew the outcome. Chris said he wanted to scream “he stepped out!” when Jo Jo White’s heel went out of bounds.

There is also the humor that we locals can appreciate when these young men are traveling through West Texas for the first time. One of them wants to borrow a quarter to call his mom so he can tell her he’s the first black man on the moon.

But the hard part is watching the horrible racism the team faced at home and as they traveled. There is a powerful scene where the black players are huddled together in a room trying to figure out whether Dr. King’s way (of nonviolence) is the right way.

I’m sure the vicious racism they received all over the country is accurate. Whether Coach Rupp’s racism (as depicted in the movie) is accurate or not, I just don’t know. I’ve read that in his forty years of coaching, he only recruited one African-American player to play at Kentucky and that was at the very end. But maybe all that means is that he missed an opportunity to be remembered as the guy who helped break the barrier.

It’s a good weekend to read again this essential speech from American history.

Saturday, January 14

Published
by
Mike
on January 14, 2006
in Books and General
. 23 Comments

Oklahoma Christian University has been in the headlines, having just announced a policy where campus workers going through a divorce could be fired. After sharp criticism, the policy has already been rescinded.

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Pat Robertson is becoming bizarre. Even for Pat Robertson.

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I just read a chapter on the spiritual discipline of singing in a soon-to-be-released book by Darryl Tippens, the provost of Pepperdine. It is phenomenal. I’ll let you know when the book is out.

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Winner of the Super Bowl? The Colts.

Friday, January 13

Published
by
Mike
on January 13, 2006
in General and the wreck
. 10 Comments

Let me encourage you to check in at harvestboston.net. Steve has been writing about his experience at CSC in Abilene, working with one of my elders, Jim Clark, whom Steve calls “perhaps the most prayerful person I know.” This is rich stuff Steve’s writing. It’s Kingdom Lit 101.

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I sense that dark clouds are forming over my head as the one-year anniversary of the wreck approaches. I’ll reflect on that Monday. This Sunday evening we’ll have a service of memory and lament as we remember our losses (not just the losses from the wreck) from this past year. Because I anticipate it being a very emotional time for my family, I’ve asked two of our elders, Rob Cunningham and David Lang, and one of our ministers, Sarah Campbell, to lead the service.

Buffett and Books

Published
by
Mike
on January 12, 2006
in Books, music and preaching
. 22 Comments

My name is Mike, and I’m a Parrothead. All right, maybe not a fullblown Parrothead. But I do like Buffett’s music. (I have one of my elders to blame.)

You’ve heard “Margaritaville” and “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” of course–along with “Come Monday.” Yeah, yeah. Probably even “Fins” and “Volcano.”

But how about “Tin Cup Chalice,” “One Particular Harbor,” “Migration,” “School Boy Heart” and “I Love the Now”? Maybe “Meet Me in Memphis” or Jimmy’s version of “Brown-Eyed Girl,” “Mexico,” or “Southern Cross”?

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One of my best reads last year was Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. The novel is a long letter from a 76-year-old minister to his 6-year-old son. John Ames married when he was young, but his wife died in childbirth (along with the daughter she was giving birth to). He remained single–and at the same church–for four decades, when he married a woman thirty years younger.

Near the end of his life, he writes to his son to tell him who he is (was) and to let the boy know about his grandfather and great grandfather, also pastors–one a big war-promoter and the other a pacifist.

There are so many things I love about this novel, but one of the most significant things to me was her insight about sermon preparation, about preaching, and about ministry. How could someone write this who hasn’t been a minister herself?

Here’s a sample:

“Your mother is respectful of my hours up here in the study. She’s proud of my books. She was the one who actually called my attentionn to the number of boxes I have filled with my sermons and my prayers. Say, fifty sermons a year for forty-five years, not counting funerals and so on, of which there have been a great many. Two thousand two hundred and fifty. If they average thirty pages, that’s sixty-seven thousand five hundred pages. Can that be right? I guess it is. I write in a small hand, too, as you know by now. Say three hundred pages make a volume. Then I’ve written two hundred twenty-five books, which puts me up there with Augustine and Calvin for quantity. That’s amazing. I wrote almost all of it in the deepest hope and conviction. Sifting my thoughts and choosing my words. Trying to say what was true. And I’ll tell you frankly, that was wonderful.”

And then this:

“I suppose it’s natural to think about those old boxes of sermons upstairs. They are a record of my life, after all, a sort of foretaste of the Last Judgment, really, so how can I not be curious? Here I was a pastor of souls, hundreds and hundreds of them over all those years, and I hope I was speaking to them, not only to myself, as it seems to me sometimes when I look back. I still wake up at night, thinking, That’s what I should have said! or That’s what he meant! remembering conversations I had with people years ago, some of them long gone from the world, past any thought of my putting things right with them. And then I do wonder where my attention was. If that is even the question.”

One more:

“A good sermon is one side of a passionate conversation. It has to be heard in that way. There are three parties to it, of course, but so are there even to the most private thought–the self that yields the thought, the self that acknowledges and in some way responds to the thought, and the Lord. That is a remarkable thing to consider.”

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And speaking of sermons, just a moment for preacher geek. I just finished Paul Scott Wilson’s Preaching and Homiletical Theory. I had already worked through his books God Sense: Reading the Bible for Preaching and The Four Pages of the Sermon, but I enjoyed this one much more. If you haven’t had a chance to catch up on works on homiletics for a while, this will provide a lot of help. The opening section on the Bible (with chapters entitled “Biblical Preaching,” “Exegesis for Preaching,” and “Homileticians and the Bible”) is excellent.

Healthy Aging

Published
by
Mike
on January 11, 2006
in Books and General
. 40 Comments

To start this new year, the one in which I will turn 50, I read Dr. Andrew Weil’s Healthy Aging. My favorite chapter is called “The Value of Aging.”

Weil points out that there are, for sure, problems with aging. But if we can resist the youth obsession of our culture, we can see what scripture recognized: that there are some advantages to aging.

So here are some of the things that age well and that serve as metaphors for him:

Whiskey and wine
Cheese
Beef
Trees
Violins
Antiques

Then he points out (working from these illustrations) that aging can:

“-add richness to life
-replace the shallowness and greeness of youth with depth and maturity
-develop and enhance desirable qualities of personality while lessening undesirable ones
-smooth out roughness of character
-enhance the mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of life by the same processes that cause decline of the physical body
-confer the advantages and power of survivorship
-develop one’s voice and authority as a living link to the past.”

Anyone out there who’s a little further down the aging path who can testify to his claim that aging has its advantages (besides coffee for $.35 at McDonald’s)?

Top 10 Ways to Improve Attendance

Published
by
Mike
on January 10, 2006
in Church and General
. 28 Comments

Love this church website that my buddy Mark Moore put up. Check it out. You might also want to look at kibogroup.org, which Mark, a former missionary in Uganda, also designed. (By the way, the name “kibo group” goes back to the time he and I and a dozen other friends climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro together. Kibo is the highest point.)

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I read these TOP TEN WAYS TO IMPROVE CHURCH ATTENDANCE IN 2006 (by Dave Tippett)

10. Watch Aslan the Lion take down a gazelle, live on the platform

9. More “open mic” opportunities during worship service

8. One of those fake shark fins in baptismal

7. Floating sermon points dance in front of your eyes via cool 3-D PowerPoint slides

6. Spiritual tech support guys will tell you not to just “re-boot your soul” every time you call

5. Sermon series: “Thomas Kincaid; the soft lighting Disciple”

4. Wi-Fi access for wireless hearing aides

3. Tazer the Sleeping Sound Booth Guy Day

2. Will start accepting coupons from non-tithing churches

1. Ability to TiVo the sermon

Anyone have any other suggests we should add to the list for 2006?

Jerry Jones

Published
by
Mike
on January 9, 2006
in General and memories
. 12 Comments

I’ve had several older men in my life through the years who have helped shape me into the way of Jesus. (To be honest, I still do: Clois, Wally, Grady, Landon, etc.)

But there is one I’ll never forget. There’s just something about those college years that are so important.

Jerry Jones was the chairman of the Bible Department when I was a student at Harding. He was also my homiletics instructor. I learned a lot of head stuff from him.

But his place in my life went way beyond the classroom. We became friends. We ran together in the evening–five miles of sweat talking about dating, scripture, marriage, preaching, sports. We played ping-pong together. I was better. Way better. But for some reason, he won. A lot. He had no offense. He just stood ten feet behind the table calmly returning slam after slam until I was worn out.

A couple times he took me with him as he drove out to preach in revivals at small churches.

Actually, I owe him even more. He preached in a gospel meeting in NE Ohio and there met Diane when she’d been out of high school a year or two. He convinced her that she should attend Harding, promising her that they’d find a way to make it work financially.

My life is richer, deeper, and more gospel-formed because this older man shared his life with me.

Still on Holiday Schedule

Published
by
Mike
on January 8, 2006
in General
. 8 Comments

A reminder to Highland members: today we’re at one service at 9:00 with the ministry fair to follow. There will be no adult classes; there is one combined class for high school and middle school students to welcome our new co-youth minister; and there will be shortened children’s classes (so the children and teachers can attend the ministry fair).

This is a bit confusing, perhaps, since the last two weeks (Christmas and New Year’s Day) we had one service at 10:00 with no classes.

Next Sunday (January 15): one service at 9:00 with Bible classes at 10:30.

Then on January 22 when university students are back we return to our normal schedule: assemblies from 8:15-9:35 and 11:00-12:20, with Bible classes 9:45-10:45.