Dear Lutheran Church Missouri Synod

I wanted to title this blog “Dear Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, any church really, but mostly the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod because that is the type of church I have been placed in.”  Kind of a long-winded title, so I knocked it down a bit.  I don’t think I need to worry about receiving a rebuttle from them because any good LCMS-er knows there is a dash between the LC and the MS. 

Before I start this letter to my church body I want to squash an indescribably stupid argument.  “If you don’t like it, then leave.”  Pretty much the same argument people use when I talk about the United States.  Same argument (almost) the religious folks used on Jesus, except their argument was “If you don’t like it, then we will convince Rome to hang you by your hands.”  The argument didn’t work on Him and it won’t work on me. 

I really feel that your name should be changed to The Lutheran Church – More Stuff.  That way you can keep the LCMS shortening.  Why the name change?  Because it fits the personality of this church so well.  “Wait, we like our Church, we are the one’s who have it right…Faith alone, Scripture alone and Grace alone.”  Really?  Is that what you believe?

Jesus talks about a time when His Father will judge all men.  The Father asks both the righteous and the unrighteous similar questions.  He wants to know how they reacted, or tells them how they reacted, to Him when he was hungry and needed food, when He was naked and needed clothing or when he was in Jail and needed a visit.  Here are some questions He does not say:

I wish you had read more books.

I wish you were stricter with your close communion policy.

You didn’t have enough church meetings or rules in your church constitution.

I was hoping you would build bigger buildings.

I wish you would have separated  yourselves from other church bodies more.

It would have been nice if you could have spent more of your time telling everyone how their theology was wrong and yours was right.

You could have been more picky about the hymns and the type of songs sung in your “worship” services.

Speaking of worship services I wish they would have been more unlike worship and as far from service as possible.

I really wanted more Latin taught in my grade schools, and I wish you would have done it faster so that the people would be more likely to have their kids go to school elsewhere.  (This is a shout out to a small Lutheran Church in rural Wisconsin, and the nonsense that their egotistical impersonal “shepherd”/mouth of the enemy that is leading them.)

I wish you would have bickered more about how the church was run and who did what in church.

I wish you had voted more about My will in your church, I am a huge fan of the most popular opinion.

I wish you had spent more on candles, windows and ornamental robes.

I wish you had been more clever with Pro-life posters and advertisements.

I wish you had alienated “sinners” more.

I wish you had been smarter.

I wish you made people feel more like they had to go to you to have My Word explained to them.

I wish you had kept a bigger monopoly on my kingdom, thank you for grossly overestimating your part in the Office of the Keys.

I wish you had been more judgemental.

I wish you would have been even more upset when you found out Dave Ellefson of MegaDeath was going to school to be a pastor.

I wish you would were more unwilling to change with My Will.

I wish you would have spoken more about “giving” in the hour people were listening to you for My sake.

I wish you had been a bigger supporter of a Nation, of troops, of a government of policies and generally stuff that had nothing to do with My Kingdom.

Some of these things happen through most churches, but many of them are significantly Lutheran Church or Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.  We have a friend that would be classified as a “sinner” in church.  She actually did one of the pet sins that conservative American Christians look at as being one of the worst.  She went to church shortly after this.  She felt like everyone was staring at her and judging her and never felt more hated in her life.  Great story, right?  What if the church was actually known for love?  This is a judgment on the leaders of our church.  Shit rolls down hill and so does love.  You have fostered an environment that is so far from Christ, but yet you cover this up with a cheaply made, rubber mask of Jesus.

The environment that our church has created is not a House of Worship but it is an idol.  We have made the church the intercessor on behalf of the people.  Sounds like the Church that Luther broke away from.  A church is there to support THE CHURCH, the people.  A church is not there to rule the spiritual lives of the people.  You are not The Shepherd but just a sheep.  You are not The Light of the World but just a light in the world.  Stop hindering the work of His Kingdom here on earth.

There are some good leaders in the church though.  Notice I said some, not a lot.  If you think you are one of the good ones, then I am probably not speaking about you.  I recently read a letter to a church in California, that had been bickering between themselves about whether a pastor should be re-instated due to a problem in his life.  The letter was written by the president of the Southwest District.  This is a paraphrase, but it said something like this, “While you are fighting amongst each other, there are people dieing outside your church that do not know the Love of Christ.”  That is a great leader in Christ’s church.

My church has some fantastic leadership.  The pastor of my home church recognizes that he is a Christian leader first and a Lutheran Pastor second.  He realizes that a church that is here to maintain is a church that is on it’s deathbed, but that a church that is crying out to the community is a church that has Christ as the Head. 

It’s time to realize that being doctrinally or liturgically sound is garbage in Christ’s eyes, compared to Love and clothing, feeding and visiting His people (not “sinners”) when they need it.

And They Will Know We Are Christians By Our?

I’ve been whistling a lot lately.  I don’t know why.  I whistle while I work.  I whistle when I walk.  I whistle to my dog, Akon.  Yesterday I drove to the store and instead of listening to the radio, I whistled.  For some reason, yesterday the tune to “They will know we are Christians by our love” was in my head.

I came to a disturbing reality yesterday.  We are a people that no longer worship idols.  Isaiah speaks on God’s behalf and almost mocks the thought process of those that make idols.  He talks about how ludicrous it is that people worship things that he created.  Well, we in the American Church don’t have that so much anymore, but we still continue to worship His creation.  This new idol just isn’t made of metal or wood.  It is made of flesh and blood.

I often hear from our brothers and sisters in Christ that they hate the sin but not the sinner.  If this is true, why are we so quick to judge and hand over the sinner to The Enemy?  Your hate for any of the topics that the Conservative Right has battled against in each of the last decades has bled over the lines into a feeling of hatred and apathy for those you disagree with.

Jesus tells us to Love God and Love our neighbor.  When asked who our neighbor is, He tells a story to the Religious elite about a person that they view as lower than low, unclean, unworthy of entering their temple…a sinner.  So we are to Love those that we think stand for everything that we disagree with, so much so (according to the story) that it may affect our religious standing.

Let me give you an example of how The Church today is not living up to its call.  Yesterday I had a conversation with my boss.  She has a same-sex partner.  She goes to Church a couple times a year.  She has yet to go to Church with her family without getting petrified looks by those around her.  When I had applied, she was given a copy of my resume.  Most of the Schooling and volunteering and even work I have done in the last couple years has been Christ-Centered.  I asked her what she thought when she first saw all of that stuff.  She told me that she was afraid I was going to be like “the rest” of the Christians she had met.  When I was interviewed I stayed faithful to the Lord and spoke of love and acceptance when asked about diversity.  Now had I answered in a way that would “toe the line” of what Televangelists have been telling us since the TV was invented, I would probably not have been hired.  Not because I was a Christian, but because I would have been a disruption to everyone in the office.

Political beliefs, Church half-truths and self righteousness would have stood in the way of multiple chances to Love my neighbor.  Being a follower of The Way means loving and accepting and doing what it takes to be the Face of Christ to the World.  Because Christ has called my wife and me to live this life we have been his tool to many people over the last year and a half.

I wish I could tell you the number of lives touched by Him through us but after much contemplation, I feel like it would sound like boasting.  I will boast in the Lord but my writing style and limited vocabulary may not convey who I am correctly boasting about.

So how does this relate to our new idols of flesh and bone?  We are those Idols.  Christ calls us to love our neighbors as ourselves.  That’s it!  That’s our job.  When you look back over the last 30 years (I am only 32 so I can only look back so far, this probably goes back much further) it looks like loving our neighbor is an after-thought.  Almost like we will love our neighbor once they start believing what we believe.  The way we talk, the way we involve ourselves politically, the way we talk and the books we write all seem to say that we are on this earth to conquer Sin, Death and the Devil.  That’s not our job.  That’s Jesus’ job and oh by the way, He already did it!  Our job isn’t to abolish any sin, it’s to love our neighbor, feed the poor, care for the oppressed teach what Christ taught us and baptize.

Take a moment out of your day and think about your “favorite” sin.  You know the one.  The one that makes you vote the way you do, the one that pulls on your heart strings, and the one that you fight against.  Now look it up in the Bible.  Take a look at all the words surrounding it.  Chances are it is surrounded by a lot of sins that you personally struggle with.  Why are we fighting the one sin we see in others when we probably should be fighting the rest of the sins on that list in our own lives.

If the song that I have been whistling lately is true, then they will know that we are Christians by our love, by our Love.  Until we change the culture in our hearts and in our Church, maybe we should change the lyrics to “And they will know we are Christians by our judgment, anger, apathy, voting ballot, self righteousness and the ‘Jesus Fish’ on the back of our cars.”  It’s not as catchy and doesn’t work well with the tune, but in the Church and World today, it’s more realistic.

The Girl Next Door

I don't know if any of you have ever seen the movie "The Girl Next Door", and if you have an aversion towards cussing, nudity and rated R movies, you may not want to see it.

Here is a synopsis for you.  This High School nerd has a beautiful girl move in next door.  He falls for her and then finds out that she had been a porn star.  The industry tries to pull her back in, but he fights to keep her out.  Funny things happen.  Crazy things happen.  Sad things happen.

This movie that will never show up on the shame shelf as Veggie Tales and Fireproof taught me something I had been struggling to understand.  Many of the discussions I have been having lately have revolved around "discipleship' and all that the word means.

Here is a quote from the movie that I am going to adjust a little bit:

"Let's see here...um...can't speak a foreign language, so that's out. And uh, I certainly can't quote JFK now, can I Ryan? You know, it's funny--I have this whole speech prepared, and I've been practicing for weeks but you know what? I'm just gonna go with it. Discipleship...so, what is discipleship? I mean, it's funny, cause I used to think it was always telling the truth, doing good deeds...basically being a f'ing Boy Scout. But lately I've been seeing it differently. Now I think discipleship is about finding that one thing you really care about. That one special thing that means more to you than anything else in the world. And when you find it, you fight for it. You risk it all. You put it in front of everything--your future, your life, all of it. And maybe the stuff you do for it isn't so clean; you know what--it doesn't matter. Because in your heart, you know that the juice is worth the squeeze. That's what discipleship's all about."

I don't know how we got to the point where we believe making disciples means we watch the right movies, go to church every week, talk like a kindergarten teacher and buy pencils with "christian" sayings on them.  Discipleship is a dual process.  You, the disciple, is continually being refined while you, the maker of disciples, continually challenges, heals and encourages those around you.  There is nothing safe about this process.  If your "christianity" is getting in the way of making disciples you may want to take a trip down humble lane.

This morning I took a road trip to Humbleville myself.  I took my wonderful wife out to IHOP for breakfast.  We were seated in a booth next to another couple that seemed pretty unhappy.  Within a couple minutes they were quietly yelling at each other.  We really couldn't hear what was being said, but I could hear her calling him an a**hole multiple times.  We giggled.  

It seems that our contentment in being "better" than them made us smug.  Their anger and pain was entertaining to us.  Then I saw her punch him in the forehead from across the table.  Not as funny.  Then she kept berating him.  I peaked over the booth and saw his eyes.  They were looking somewhere far off and he was holding back tears.  

This is when I realized that Jesus did not send us into the world to be smug pricks.  He sent us into the world to make disciples.  He armed us with grace.  I immediately excused myself from the table and went up to the counter and gave them a gift card I had received for Christmas.  I told them it was for the couple that was fighting.  I told them not to say who gave it to them and just to let them know that sometimes people need free breakfasts on Monday.  The waitstaff was blown away.  They had overheard the couple and were avoiding them.  Now, I did not get up and start preaching, but they did taste the grace that has been given to me.  The waitstaff also got to see grace in action.

We will never know why we sat next to them.  We will never see what happened when they realized their breakfast was paid for.  We can only hope that Christ's kingdom found a crack in their hearts today and that it will lead to an insatiable light in their hearts.

This is not a story about what we did right.  This goes back to the movie.  She just wanted someone to see her as a beautiful, broken person.  The movie, breakfast and discipleship are all about this.  We are all porn stars that want to escape from our hurt, pain, choices and prisons.  We are all on the same side.  We all have the same loving Savior calling and beckoning us to His arms.  Let's start acting like it without letting our smugness, judgementalness and "better than you" attitude from doing what needs to be done.  Sometimes this means we have to get our hands dirty, we just need to realize that someone had to get their hands dirty for us.

The Sewing Machine

One of my wife's Christmas presents arrived today.  I got her a Singer 6160 Sewing Machine.  I know, I know...it's pretty nice.  It's kind of like the Nissan Versa of sewing machines, in other words, it's awesome!

Anyway, I am watching her try and figure out how to use it right now.  She pulled it out of the box and was super excited when she saw it.  She started pulling and things and opening things and asking, "What's this?"  I asked her if she was excited and her response was, "I don't know.  I don't know how it works and I don't want to read the manual."

This totally reminds me of a time right before God's grace crashed the gates of my heart.  I had the goal of becoming a Christian for about a year prior this.  I wanted what some of my friends had.  I wanted to care enough about something, that I would die for it.

I stopped doing drugs.  I stopped perverting my relationships.  I slowed down my drinking.  I started using Christian terms and saying the right stuff.  I was even more miserable than I was when I was oblivious.  It took a year for me to ask someone what I was doing wrong.  It only took my wife 10 minutes before she started reading the manual for her sewing machine, but it took me over a year to crack open a Bible.

Why would I read the Bible?  I went to Christian schools from the time I was 5 until that point as a 24 year-old.  I knew all the stories.  I knew all the "Christian" answers.  Hell, I listened to conservative talk radio most of my life.  I knew you had to vote Republican.  You had to be Pro-Life.  You had to love America.  I knew what it took to be a Christian.

My misery was killing me.  I worked 3rd shift alone, and I remember spending much of the night crying because I longed to be oblivious again.  I wished I could go back and dull my pain with anything.  

Then someone told me to start reading the Bible.  I took this literally.  That night, July 5th, I had a conversation with Jesus.  He helped me by taking all of the things I had been trying to control into his hands.  And then I read.  And then I prayed.  And then I read more.  And then I fasted and prayed and read.

And then Christ kicked in the gates of my soul.  He went all Chuck Norris on my greed, on my selfishness, on my lust and on all the crap that had been stored up there for 24 years.  

I didn't have to pray some little prayer.  I didn't have to know a certain amount of stuff.  I didn't have to go to any specific church.  I didn't have to do anything.

I am not comparing The Word to a sewing machine manual.  I am saying that Jesus was not messing around when he said he was a Lamp onto our feet and a Light onto our paths.  I think a better comparison would be this:

Would my wife be this excited and happy had I just gotten her a sewing machine manual?  Probably not.  You cannot separate The Word from His grace, love and forgiveness.  She will read the manual and she will sew fabulous things because she knows what to do.  Maybe when we are lost, depressed and overwhelmed and can't shake the funk, we should try looking to The Lamp, The Light and The Word.

I pray that you head to the Scripture as soon as possible.  I pray that His Grace overwhelms you so that you are opened to the unlimited possibilities He has before you.  My hope for you is that you find healing, love, forgiveness, wisdom and the Savior in The Word.  It's never too late and it's never to early, but every second is just right to crack open the old dusty Bible.

A Selection from the Book "Radical"

Well actually the book is called Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream: Radical.  I read this portion last week and I wanted to scream it out loud.  I think, perhaps, it affected me because earlier that week I had the displeasure of hearing a sermon that brought me to tears.  It was a regular old sermon but it passed through the filter of our Church's Capital Campaign.  Anyway, here is a great part of David Platt's book so far.

"This is where I am most convinced as a pastor in the United States of America.  I am part of a system that has created a whole host of means and methods, plans and strategies for doing church that require little if any power from God.  And it's not just pastors who are involved in this charade.  I am concerned that all of us - pastors and church members in our culture - have blindly embraced an American dream mentality that emphasizes our abilities and exalts our names in the ways we do church.

"Consider what it takes for successful businessmen and businesswomen, effective entrepreneurs and hardworking associates, shrewd retirees and idealistic students to combine forces with a creative pastor to grow a 'successful church' today.  Clearly, it doesn't require the power of God to draw a crowd in our culture.  A few key elements that we can manufacture will suffice.

"First, we need a good performance.  In an entertainment-driven culture, we need someone who can captivate the crowds.  If we don't have a charismatic communicator, we are doomed.  So even if we have to show him on a video screen, we must have a good preacher.  It's even better if he has an accomplished worship leader with a strong band at his side.

"Next, we need a place to hold the crowds that will come, so we gather all our resources to build a multimillion-dollar facility to house the performance.  We must make sure that all facets of the building are excellent and attractive.  After all, that's what our culture expects.  Honestly, that's what we expect.

"Finally, once the crowds get there, we need to have something to keep them coming back.  So we need to start programs - first-class, top-of-the-line programs - for kids, for youth, for families, for every age and stage.  In order to have these programs, we need professionals to run them.  That way, for example, parents can simply drop off their kids at the door, and the professionals can handle ministry for them.  We don't want people trying this at home.

"I know this may sound oversimplified and exaggerated, but are these not the elements we think of when we consider growing , dynamic, successful churches in our day?  I get fliers on my desk every day advertising entire conferences built around creative communication, first-rate facilities, innovative programs, and entrepreneurial leadership in church.  We Christians are living out the American dream in the context of our communities of faith.  We have convinced ourselves that if we can position our resources and organize our strategies, then in church as in every other sphere of life, we can accomplish anything we set our minds to.

"But what is strangely lacking in the picture of performances, personalities, programs, and professionals is desperation for the power of God.  God's power is at best an add-on to our strategies.  I am frightened by the reality that the church I lead can carry on most of our activities smoothly, efficiently, even successfully, never realizing that the Holy Spirit of God is virtually absent from the picture.  We can so easily deceive ourselves, mistaking the presence of physical bodies in a crowd for the existence of spiritual life in a community."

I feel as though that was a bigger section than i had anticipated and I hope I did not infringe on any copyrights.  Mr. Platt and company, if you are reading this, understand I want everyone to buy and read your book!  I also apologize if anything within the quotes is misspelled or if I just typed the wrong word.

Before I go, I have a question for those of us involved in the Church.  Why, in our meetings and what-not, do we pray for a minute or two at the beginning and end of our ministry related sessions?  I wonder how much could get accomplished if there was a time limit of 5 minutes for actual planning and ideas and 55 minutes of prayer and silent meditation?  Just a thought.

Tis the Season

"If you turn on the television and see the horrors that are happening to people in the world right now, I think there's no better time to strive to have some kind of hope through imagination. I think it's a time to close your eyes and try to make a change, or at least hope to make a change, or we're going to explode." – Johnny Depp

It's December, and something I strongly feel about is something most people look at as a joke.  I believe in Santa Claus.  That's right, a 32 year old guy that believes he is real.

I wonder…Why do most people when they find this out about me, either not believe me or laugh it off?  Most people believe war can solve things like Communism, terrorism and Nazism, yet they don't believe in fairies, unicorns and dragons.  I cannot comprehend this.  Most people believe they can fall in love and have a marriage that will last the rest of their lives, but they don't believe in leprechauns and werewolves.  War has never wiped out an idea and more than half of marriages fail.  There is proof that they are not real. There is however no proof that Santa Claus, fairies, unicorns, dragons, leprechauns, werewolves and vampires are not real.

I believe we pick and choose the lies we tell ourselves based on what best suites our needs.  Maybe I shouldn't have said lies.  We pick and choose our realities.  I think it is time for us to re-imagine our lives.

We were created in the image of God.  The idea of us, animals, plants and the universe being created shows us that our God has an imagination.  We however are quick to kill our own imagination.  We are also quick to kill the imagination of others.

I have a friend named Mark.  He believes that his whole life is being filmed, kind of like the Truman Show.  I believe it to.  Why not?  Anyone who knows him would not be able to argue that the situations in his life are true and unscripted.  Is there harm in us believing his life is a show?  I doubt it.  I cannot prove that his reality is or is not real, so I choose to believe it is real.

It is the same with all so-called "mythology."  No one will ever be able to prove to me that Santa Claus does not exist, nor will I be able to prove he does exist.  What's the harm in believing there is a Santa Claus.  None.  What's the harm in not believing in him?  I believe there are ramifications to this.

C.S. Lewis commented on his Chronicles of Narnia by saying that they were not theological children's books, but rather books that opened up the imagination of children to a possibility of God.  The more outrageous things that we choose to not believe in, the smaller the door, of imagining a God that would love us enough to sacrifice his own son, becomes.  We choke the hope out of life and rather than an adventure it becomes an existence.  I think we were created for more than that.

I never, in the entire Bible, see God telling us the words "just" and "can't."  People often use these words, but they are shown to be pitiful excuses to back out of adventures God puts before them.  Christ gave us the ultimate example of conquering "just" and "can't."  If Jesus would have said, "I am JUST a man," or "I can't do this," He would have been a liar.  When there was a storm he calmed it.  When there was a leper, he healed him.  

There was only one time where he was unable to perform miracles and that was because of the people's unbelief.  They had narrowed their idea of what a Messiah should be down so far that Jesus no longer fit through the door of their imagination.

You can choose what you want to believe, but I will choose to believe that this world is bigger than what we choose to believe.  What I see when my eyes are closed and when my eyes are opened are both valid realities.  I choose to live in an adventure rather than in an existence the world says is okay to believe in.  The world says here is a rock and that's okay for you to believe in because you can touch it and see it, but I believe that rock might have an amazing story that can only exist through imagination.  The world says here is a rainbow and its okay for you to believe it's there because we can see it, but I believe there might be gold at its end.  The world says there was a man named Jesus, and he was just a man, but I say he is the Son of God and my Savior.

I don't ask you to believe everything I believe exists, just believe there is a possibility that those things exist.

-  I wrote this blog a couple years ago and there was a great response to it.  I wanted to start off this new blog with a message of openness and discovery.  Feel free to comment.  Please also feel free to submit anything from random thoughts on theology, book reviews (any kind of book is fine as long as it grasped your soul and shook it up) a song or song lyric that Jesus sang to you on the way to work or anything at all.  I want this to be a place where those of us that don't feel heard, can shout!  Thank you.