That’s What I Love About Sunday

Yep, that’s the title of a country song by a guy named Craig Morgan.  For the first time in several years, I really feel what that song is about.

As a Pastor, Sunday is my work day.  There are lots of good things that happen on Sunday as a pastor… preaching from God’s Word, catching up with people, shaking lots of hands.  The funny thing is, that is my job.  It’s my duty to do all of those things.  Those things are all good – I enjoy every part of a pastor’s Sunday.  It’s good for me to remember how everyone else (non-pastors) enjoys and relaxes on Sundays.

We’ve been in Evergreen for the past two Sundays.  On the first Sunday, we just chilled out at the in-law’s house (read between the lines – we skipped church – gasp!).  It was relaxing and refreshing.  It truly was a day of rest.  We went to church this past Sunday. I loved sitting under the trees (it’s an outdoor service) an listening to an encouraging, informative, challenging, uplifting sermon.  The church hosted a big barbecue VBS celebration (with a jumpy castle!) after the service.  Later than afternoon, 2 groups of friends and cousins stopped by to see baby Will.

Relaxation.  Rest.  Family.  Friends.  Fun.  Rejuvenating.

That’s what Sundays should be all the time.

For those of us that faithfully go to church every Sunday, it can often turn into a routine thing of duty.  God wants us to encounter Him and encounter each other in fresh, vivid ways.  He desires us to rest and relax in His presence… hopefully that can be in the presence of other believers as well. My challenge to you is to examine your typical Sunday experience.  Is it a time of duty?  Is it a time of routine predictability?  Or is it a time of refreshing and recharging?

For those of you that don’t go to church on a regular basis, I respect your need to rest. Weeks are long and we need to recharge.  God created us to need rest.  God also created us to need connection with Him and connection with other Christian brothers and sisters in a healty, wonderful way. My challenge to you is to find a church family that is connected to God and to each other.  Find a church home where you can plug in, where you can relax, where you can be yourself.

For those of you in our Branson church family, how can we be more refreshing for each other on Sunday and during the week?  Kind of related to that… where can we have an outdoor service out of the wind and under some trees?  That could be really fun.   Any ideas?

Navigating Storms with a Capital “S”

This has been a rainy week.

Literally. Grass is getting green. There are leaves budding on the trees. The iris plants in our back yard are blooming. It really is a beautiful time of year. What makes all of this beauty possible? Rain. What brings rain? Big dark scary clouds.

We all love rain. We pray for rain. Some cultures do rain dances. But truth be told, very people actually like to be out in the rain while its coming down. Rain is cold. It makes us shiver. Clouds are dark and looming. Clouds are gray – no one ever picks gray as their favorite color.

Joseph (the one that had the coat of many colors) faced a storm. A seven year famine was coming with the potential to kill thousands upon thousands of people. Pretty big storm.

He had a plan. He responded to what what happening – to what God had put into action. God allowed him to navigate the storm. That same God will help us navigate our storms.

I preached on this last week. Give it a listen if you have a few minutes. Here’s the link.

Rain makes beautiful things grow. Don’t forget that when your skies are gray.

Pre-Packaged Faith

Dell.com, you can’t entice me anymore.

No, I’m not lying. Dell used to be my weakness. Their monthly mailers with the sleek, stylish laptops… the weekly emails with killer deals… the cool commercials. None of it matters now. The wonderful experience I’ve had with my Dell laptop (which has been awesome, really) can’t convince me to ever give them another penny.

Over the last several weeks I built my own PC from the ground up and saved well over a thousand bucks on what I would have paid for a similar PC from Dell. I’m sure the Dell I had my eye on would have worked out great, but it was WAY out of my price range.

Not only did I save money, but I learned about the ins and outs of how my PC works. It was amazingly simple (although it scares the tar out of most non-techie people). I ordered all of the parts individually (TigerDirect.com and Newegg.com, if you’re curious) and got better quality parts than Dell uses. I got my hands in there and wired stuff together, creating exactly what I needed the way I wanted to do it. It was so much more rewarding and engaging than ordering a pre-packaged computer.

I think many of us view faith the same way. We see the value in having it. We see that others have it and we want what they have. Sometimes we hop around to different churches trying to find one that fits our style, our schedule, and our sense of humor. We want a pre-packaged faith.

Or at least we think we do.

When we try the pre-packaged variety, it doesn’t quite fit right. What works for everyone else (or so it seems) just doesn’t quite work the same for us. After a while we need an upgrade, or something else entirely.

Our walk with Jesus can only be a custom job. A journey we enter into with Jesus where we learn what parts we need, and what parts we need to get rid of – most of the time by trial and error. We learn that the experience Jesus has for us with himself is unlike everyone else’s – in fact, it can’t be just like everyone else’s because it’s a relationship, not a religion. Religion is cookie-cutter predictability. Relationship is anything but cookie-cutter. We learn that religion leads to frustration, where relationship leads to wonderful freedom. Freedom for ourselves and freedom from our expectations for those around us on their Jesus journeys.

Is your journey freeing or frustrating? Did you once desire the adventure of relationship, but found that you have settled for the predictability of religion? Good questions to ask yourself. They were good for me this week.