Tag: Body of Christ

Why Church?

October 5, 2015 /

I’m supposed to like church.

I’m a “pastor” of sorts, and a “pastor’s wife”.

I grew up “going to church” every Sunday. No. Matter. What.

I’ve been a Christian since I was 14.

I’m supposed to “do” church. I’m supposed to like church. And I do.

Most of the time.

But there are days…

Days when I’m tired, or I don’t particularly connect with the person preaching, or we’re in a series on Revelation, or it’s a rare Minnesota summer day and “I want to worship God in nature dontcha know?”

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After all, what constitutes “legal” church? Your small group around the dinner table? Time in the woods reading your Bible? The 5 year olds Sunday School class you teach? Or is it only worship in the Big Church on Sunday? Continue reading

Why I Cry in Church

October 10, 2014 /

I cried in church again last week.

This happens often.

It wasn’t the sermon or the prayers or the music.  It rarely is.

It was the people.

Yeah, I know the church can be a dangerous place, a wounding place, a shaming place.  And it has been that, at times, in my life.

But also, at its best, the church is a place where the broken gather to be made whole again.  A place where we pick each other up, and forgive each other, and point each other back towards Jesus.

And so, last week I cried in church.  For the church at her best.  For the people in my faith community who pick each other up and point each other back.

It was the person who has been angry and critical, and wrote a mean email, walking forward with me to receive communion.  Together we were lifted up and turned around.

It was looking across the sanctuary and seeing the high powered executive who gave it all up to head a non-profit and help pick up the down and out in our city.

It was the bitter woman whose husband left her, and the person with the brain tumor both bravely coming back to Jesus and His community. Just showing up all vulnerable and needy and having folks enfold them with hugs and prayers.

It was seeing the man out of work, again, and the one with a job, reaching to help lift him up.

It was the toddler in the Great Room after the service who toddled the wrong way – separated from her parents but lifted and turned around – returned by a “stranger” who was really family just because we’re in this together.

The lifting, the encouraging, the helping to go in the right direction – this is a picture of the church at her best.

And then later I saw this and I thought how similar it is to what moved me to tears at church.

Today I pray each of you reading this has a faith community where you can see the goodness of God – a place where He uses all of us to help lift each other, and gently turn us around, like a mama caring for her toddler.

Saying the Last 10%

July 10, 2013 /

Monday I wrote about our culture of who’s in and who’s out.  About how often, subtly, we “disqualify” people for church.

Jesus says we’re all broken, but through Him we’re all “in”.  A messy community of sinners redeemed and being continually picked up, dusted off, and set on our wobbly feet to take a few steps forward before we tumble again.

Here’s the tough part about this.  In an effort to be inclusive, we’re often afraid to say the last 10%.  The hard truth that everyone’s included, but everyone is also in process and in need of forgiveness and redemption.

Somehow, in our culture, inclusion has become synonymous with approval.  Not only do you need to welcome me, it’s taboo for you to point out anything that would indicate that perhaps not everything I do is in line with God’s Word and will for me.

How is it that we can follow Jesus in this?  How can we love, welcome, and accept, but also be honest in saying “We’re on this journey together and none of us have arrived.  Let’s help each other out as we try to move towards holiness.”

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Three Things to Listen For

May 22, 2013 /

John and I “mentor” several young men and women, but I’m not crazy about that word.  Basically we’re all just travelers on a road trip trying to help each other find the exits, and the Culvers, scrape up enough money for tolls, and not crash.

All of us stumble and run and trudge along with each other.  Parent and child, friends of different generations, boss and staff, coaches, teachers, trainers…

Healthy or wounded or recovering, energized at times and weary at others, seeking sometimes, finding at others.  Discouraged or joy-filled we need each other.  

In all relationships I want to be present to God and to the other at the same time.  Kind of like when I’m in the Great Room at church after worship, talking to someone I can always discern John’s voice if he’s also in the room.  It’s distinctive and I know it.  How I long for that same ear attuned God’s voice while I’m in conversation with others!

Awhile ago I heard someone suggest that as we are present to God with others, there is often one of three things He may want us to listen for that may be needed.

1 Thessalonians 2:11,12 says “For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting, and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.”

Whether it’s a child or friend or co-worker, does this person need encouragement and affirmation?  A picture of what’s possible?  Celebration of what you’ve seen in them?  Naming their gifts?

Or do they need an empathic listening ear?  Someone to sit by their side and remind them they’re not alone?

Lastly, might they need a kick in the butt?  Maybe that takes the form of correction or facing hard truth, or setting the bar higher?

This being present to God and others doesn’t come naturally for me.  It takes practice and  paying attention.  And sometimes I just ask the person, “What do need most today?”

As I reflect over my conversations from yesterday, I was responsive to God’s nudging with friends who needed comfort and encouragement, but with the boy I tutor, I think urging – more challenge – was called for, and I missed it in the moment.

What about you?

Christmas Funeral

December 17, 2012 /

Dear Friends,                                                                                                                            I wrote this a couple of weeks ago, planning to post it today.                                             And then the Connecticut shooting happened.                                                                     And we’re reeling, wailing, mourning, grasping for answers and comfort.  No words are adequate.  So I want to be clear that this post is not in response to recent events, but nevertheless, I pray may be some small encouragement.

Here’s the thing.  I hate funerals.  I avoid them like a cat avoids water.  I really don’t like them.

I know they’re important and showing up to grieve with the family is good, but still…I’m just being honest.

Friday I had to go to a funeral.  The son of some friends of ours was killed riding his bicycle.  We love them and our kids grew up together.  It was just a freak accident, as they say.

Corey was a troubled young man who struggled with mental illness all his life, and so, in a sense, his death was a relief from his torment, an escape to peace with Jesus who he had claimed as his Savior.

Still…Both John and I had a hard time getting through the service.

As the words of Mark Shultz’s song “He’s My Son” bounced off the windows of our beautiful sanctuary decorated with greens and twinkle lights for Advent, we thought of our own girls, our own prayers, our attempts to protect them, our parenting mistakes…

I’m down on my knees again, tonight.  I’m hoping this prayer will turn out right…

Can you hear me?  Can you see him?  Please don’t leave him.  He’s my son.

How do you make sense of it all?  How do you survive the death of one of your babies?

I just don’t know.

But here was the biggest thing about Friday and that funeral...  In the midst of that tremendous, palpable pain at church, there was also an overwhelming sense of ….Emmanuel.

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On Being Full and Being Empty

November 26, 2012 /

I feel full.  Stuffed, in fact.

As I write this it’s the day after Thanksgiving in the U.S. and I’m in a Starbucks in a suburb of Chicago where all my extended family live.  Christmas music is on in the background and Katy and John are heading over to join me so all is right in my world.

I am full of of turkey and laughter, and hugs and stories retold again and again around the long dinner table.  And prayers.

In our family we are blessed.

Thanksgiving is about fullness…reflecting on the fullness of the past year and filling up with more of God’s goodness echoing from the voices and reflected in the eyes of ones who love us and love Jesus.

But life seems to be a process of both filling and emptying.

We are emptied.

Depleted from discouragement, draining relationships, and days that seem to require the patience and strength of a super-hero.  Fatigued with fear of failure or future or just busyness.

And we are filled.

With whispers of His Word, and glimpses of His beauty and love and faithfulness in the ordinary moments of life.

The “Jesusy answer” may seem pat and tired, and hard to understand…mysterious in a way that makes us resist it.  And incomplete this side of heaven.  Our cups get bumped and jostled and tipped over and the only One who can do a real filling is Jesus.

This year, there was a change in our Thanksgiving traditions.  We needed a time of filling.  For the first time ever, there were no games on “the” day.  Instead of Charades or Pictionary or Nertz, there was a time of anointing and prayer and scripture shower for our dear friend Lee who is fighting for her life with Pancreatic cancer.

I heard someone this week use the phrase

“the place where our theology intersects with our biography.”

And I thought, “That’s it!  That’s what we’re experiencing.”

And it is really hard.

As this disease depletes her body, God provides His Body to refill.

The church is Christ’s body, in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence. Eph. 1:23

We don’t understand, and we’d much rather “do” something that feels more problem-solving, but God says anoint.  God says pray.  Wait.  Trust.  Bow.

He emptied Himself to that we might be filled.  Again and again.

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s people,  to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Eph. 3:16-21

What about you?  Are you full or empty today?

What relationships, experiences, or practices does God use to fill you?

Who’s Missing from this Picture?

June 4, 2012 /

This was the backdrop for our all-church worship gathering Sunday.

81 year old grandpas who really prefer the organ, and 5-year-old girls who like to twirl to the music, and 28-year-old singles for whom 10:30 a.m. on a weekend would usually be considered too early even for God to be awake.

Side by side.  Singing Holy, Holy, Holy.  And How Great is our God.

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