Costa Rica Update 1 – 6/26/14

            I’m writing this from the front seat of a van on a freeway about two hours outside of San Jose, Costa Rica. For many reading this, the exciting portion in that previous sentence may be “San Jose, Costa Rica”. For me, the most exciting word is “freeway”. Any time previously, my travel experiences in Costa Rica consisted mostly of slowly moving uphill, trapped behind a black-smoke belching box truck, mentally counting down my average life expectancy with every breath I took. This freeway is wonderful – smooth roads, adequate speeds, and room to get around the box trucks. In the immortal words of someone I can’t remember who occasionally speaks immortal words – “We’re totally sitting in butter.”

The New Costa Rican Freeway

            Praise the Lord we’re here! Thank you so much for your prayers over the months leading up to the trip, and especially over these last few days. Crazy things have happened leading up to our departure – good and bad. Team members getting hurt. People blessing us with huge amounts of soccer balls and unexpected financial donations. Itinerary plans blowing up. A Frontier employee who decided to overlook the oversize nature of one of our bags. God is so good!

            Airplane stories are typically pretty boring. However (he writes, confident that his airplane story will be the one exception to the rule), our flight was God’s first test of “Do you really want to be down here?”

            An 11:59pm flight will shake up your world, even if everything goes perfectly. When things get wonky, though, then they really get wonky. We were greatly anticipating getting on the plane, listening to where the emergency doors were located from which we would calmly exit the plane in the off chance it crashed into a mountain, then promptly falling asleep. That was our plan. It was a good plan…

            Then, onto the plane came the Siren. I call him the Siren, because the first time he opened his tiny mouth, the ear-piercing sound that came out of his sugar-encrusted lips had me looking for shelter in a basement – a feature Airbus neglected to include on our particular airplane. Seriously, this kid has a future with the Aurora Department of Public Safety sitting on top of a pole looking for cloud rotation.

Photo shot from my aisle seat

            Mike, Zac, and Joyce sat toward the front of the plane – out of the immediate blast zone, but certainly not out of earshot (word is that Nepalese yak herdsmen sleeping on the lower roots of the Himalayas, at the first auditory assault, quickly grabbed their spears and formed a defensive wedge against an impending Yeti attack). Karen, Nancy, Madeline, and I sat toward the rear. The Siren, quite unfortunately, sat (then jumped, bounced, rolled, flailed, and tangoed) with his mom in the seat directly in front of me.

            When he screamed into his mom’s human buffer (i.e., her shoulder), it was just this side of lethal. However, when his head popped over the seat (outsmarting nature’s sound wall), I became like that guy in the old Maxell advertisement – what little hair I have on my head blowing back into my seat, my martini glass (if I had a martini glass, which I didn’t since Frontier Airlines’ new a la carte fare structure charges you for everything except the air you breathe [and I hear as part of their go-green initiative they’re working on a fuel-saving plan to cut the available cabin oxygen by half {first-class passengers will be given the option of using the drop-down mask for a nominal premium]) flying off my end table.

            An hour into my audible nightmare, I finally got out my phone, slipped on my ear buds, and cranked the music to full. The first song that came on was Jeremy Camp singing “We Cry Out”. Seriously. Who said God doesn’t have a sense of humor? However, by the time I was halfway through the third song (the second song – Carlos Santana jamming to a cover of Riders on the Storm – having finally sent me to my happy place), I realized that the Siren had stopped sounding. It was amazing. I pulled out my buds, and immediately my ears started dancing a happy dance – right there on the side of my head – just dancing (I’m so thankful that the cabin lights were out – that could have been embarrassing).

For those of you dozing over my story:
Madeline and Pastor Jose's daughter, Sharon

            Blissfully, I put my ear buds back in, turned the volume down, and prepared for a wonderful four hours of sleep. Unfortunately, the travel gods were not smiling upon our plane. No more than two minutes later, Siren Two: the Revenge of the Siren (this time it’s personal) picked up the cloak that had floated from the shoulders of Siren One as he was being ushered into the Sandman’s glorious presence on a chariot of fire, and followed in his mentor’s footsteps.

            Siren Two was a lesser prophet – he had the volume, but lacked the ear-pierceosity. One small blessing. Thankfully, also, Siren Two was not in the row in front of me. Not quite so thankfully, Siren Two was in the row behind me. Yes, that’s right – I (and by extension, my family and Karen) was the warm bologna sandwiched between two slices of auditory misery. Occasionally, Siren Two would be passed to a second parent across the aisle, which actually made it worse (see sound wall comment above).

            Eventually, Siren Two ran out of power and remained silenced until the last fifteen minutes of our flight, when he decided to bless us with a parting gift. It is at the feet of this utter lack of sleep last night and what I believe to be a resulting case of temporary PTSD that I lay the blame for this extremely long “blog about nothing.”

Quick Bites:

The Tico/American Dream Team

1.     We were met at the airport by the INCRESE team. Amazing group of folk! We’ve been traveling with them since, and had a wonderful hillside breakfast with them of Gallo Pinto, huevos, and Costa Rican coffee (FYI, heaven’s barista is Costa Rican – it’s in the Bible Code or something). I can’t wait to spend the next two weeks with them.

2.     Even the Ticos (Costa Ricans) think guanabana juice is disgusting – tasty, but disgusting.

Shot from our breakfast stop out to the Pacific

33. Flexibility is always the first word in missions – rather than Mike and me doing the pastor training over two days (Monday/Tuesday) – we’re leading it in an all-day session this Saturday. So, please be praying for that.

4. Costa Rica is the most beautiful country in the world. There are worse places to suffer for Christ.

Thanks all for your prayers. We’re heading to the hotel for a cold shower and a long nap. Then we’ll get together for dinner at the church tonight with the local team. I’ll shoot you more tomorrow.

The Fallacy of Fairness

          On Sunday, I preached about Jesus healing a man who had born blind (John 9). A part of that sermon has stuck with me, and I haven’t been able to shake it since. It has to do with the seeming unfairness of that man’s life, and the apparent cruelty of God.

            Sometimes bad things just happen because we live in a messed up, broken down world. With the bite of that mango or pear or nectarine, Adam brought death into the world. And with death came the gradual decay of our world. Prior to the Fall, would there have been a super typhoon wiping out 3200 people in the Philippines and causing 600,00 more to be homeless? With the limited information we have about the pre-Fall world, I don't think so. Bad stuff happens, and Adam was the bad stuff inaugurator.

            Other times God brings bad stuff on folks because He is punishing or disciplining or honing them. Punishing is bringing sin’s just retribution upon those who have not had it dealt with by Christ’s sacrifice. Disciplining, on the other hand, is God’s hand smacking the backsides of Christians who are not living the lives to which He has called them. Finally, honing is that process we find in Romans 5:3-4 where God is preparing us for deeper faith and greater service. Just like a chef runs his blade across a rough steel, God throws us up against hard times so that we can become sharper instruments in His hands.

            But then there’s this poor schlub in John 9. Jesus’ disciples automatically figure that the second option above is the explanation for his sad state - someone sinned, so this guy is paying for it. In today’s world, we typically go for option one - bad things happens - stinks to be you (using my “remember-pastor-people-in-your-congregation-are-going-to-read-this” vernacular). Jesus, however, bypasses one and two, and throws in a third option:

            “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” (John 9:3)

            So, let me get this straight - this man was born blind, and lived his whole childhood never being able to see his parents or his siblings. He never knew what a duck looked like; or a camel or a cloud or the color red. As he grew, he would have been ostracized from others his age - kept away from the fun and games - a defective outcast. Then, when he became a young adult, he was passed over when it came to apprenticing someone in a trade. After all, what could he do? Actually, there was one job he was suited for - one professional title he could claim - beggar. And that’s what he became.

            A sad life for a sad man. Was it divine retribution? No. Was it just bad luck? No. Instead, Jesus tells us it was an intentional decision on the part of God for this man to live so many years of sadness - for so much of his life to be wasted - all so, at just the right time, He could use him to make a point. Talk about being the ultimate pawn - helpless in the hands of what seems to be a very unfair God.

            What do we do with this? How do we respond to this seeming cruelty? The first answer is uncomfortable; it’s the one we find towards the end of the book of Job - “I’m God; you’re not. Shut up.” In other words, the Creator can do whatever He wants with His creation. You got a problem with what He’s doing? Get your own planet, then you can set your own rules (for my Mormon readers, that was a hyperbolic hypothetical - please don’t read too much into it).

            There is also a kinder, gentler (yet still somewhat uncomfortable) way of looking at this situation, and that is to realize that the concepts of “fair” and “unfair” really have no place in the Kingdom of God. When we see things through God’s eyes - with an eternal perspective, rather than our “tree trumps forest” view - suddenly those things that seem like the end-all-be-all of our existence quickly fade in importance.

            Let’s say you’re about to serve dessert to your two boys. You reach into the pantry, pull out a pie tin, and know immediately that you’ve got problems. There are only two pieces left, and one is noticeably larger than the other. Hoping for the best, you lever them onto a couple plates, and set them down in front of the kids.

           

            Now, what is the first thing that these little kidlets are going to do? Look to their brother’s plate. The reaction is as expected - one exults in the glory of being the favored child, while the other cries out, “No fair!” Mayhem ensues. You shake your head, because they just don’t get it. You know that in the grand scheme of things the size of a piece of pie simply doesn’t matter. The pie will be eaten, and life will go on. But to the boys, this apparent favoritism is the most important thing in their short-sighted existence.

            The phone rings, and, thankful for the chance to escape the melee, you snatch up a receiver and slip out of the kitchen, leaving the boys to attack each other with their plastic forks. On the line is a good friend of yours, who says, “Can’t talk long, but I’m so excited! Bob got the promotion! That means we can finally get all the way out of debt, and probably even build that house we’ve always dreamed of! I wanted to tell you right away, because I knew you’d be so happy for us.”

            After sitting down at your desk, you offer some tight words of faked elation, then say your good-byes. When you set the phone down, it settles on a stack of credit card bills and a statement from your landlord that he’s raising your rent. You look out the window at your fifteen-year-old beater that’s pushing 200k on the odometer. Your retirement strategy is “Work until I die.” Closing your eyes, you say, “God, it’s just not fair!”

            Meanwhile, God’s shaking His head, because you just don’t get it. He knows that in the grand scheme of things the size of a piece of pie simply doesn’t matter. The pie will be eaten and life will go on. But to you, this apparent favoritism this is the most important thing in your short-sighted existence.

 

            Our culture is all about fairness. We live in a “Wow, must be nice” world. Like Sally says as she’s dictating a letter for Santa to her brother Charlie Brown, “All I want is what’s coming to me. All I want is my fair share.” And, if our fair share is a little more than someone else’s, that’s okay. Just as long as it’s not less.

            Contentment will never come until we forget about the pie - until the words “fair” and “unfair” are expunged from our vocabulary. We are here on this earth for two reasons: 1) love God, and 2) love others. And, since real love is all about “you-first” sacrifice, if we are truly to love God and love others, then our lives need to be all about them. When we finally accept that and live it, then God promises that He will take care of our needs. Unfortunately, comfort does not qualify as one of our needs; neither do a nice house or a nice car or a retirement fund or health or a spouse or children or vacations or a perfect home life or anything else that we see others enjoying that we wish we had (I say “wish we had” because “covet” is such a nasty little word).

            If we don’t rise up to view our beautiful little forest of a life from God’s perspective, we’re going to spend all our days bumping into trees. If you’ve committed yourself to Christ, then you’ve got an eternity waiting when this life is over. And, during this life, we have the joy and privilege of serving God, of sacrificing all for Him. Along the way, He may bless us with some things - a little comfort, a happy family, a car that you don’t have to push then pop into gear to get started. But our call is to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, then let Him take care of all the rest (Matthew 6:33).

            Oh, and if you still feel a little shorted on the piece of pie that God’s served you, spend a little time on www.persecution.com, then get back to me.

I am an Island

            Last night, Nancy and I watched the premier episode of Church Rescue, a reality show on the National Geographic channel about this cadre of three guys (the Church Hoppers) who travel around the country saving troubled churches (think Restaurant Impossible with more God, less mold, and smaller biceps). Initially, I was a little put off - NatGeo makes its money off of finding the strangest freaks and geeks, then creating a series around them (“What, you build underground bunkers to protect against zombie attacks? Cool!” “What, you dance with snakes and drink poison and hold fire to your skin, so that you don’t go to hell? Excellent!” “What, you weigh 1400 lbs and have fathered a brood of Icelandic, chainsaw-wielding, tuna-fishing, UFO-hunting, foreign prison-surviving, vertically-challenged Alaska state troopers [sorry, I mean, you and your three wives]? Well, then, just smile into the camera with the few teeth you have left, and we’ll start rolling!”). Now that their lenses have turned to pastors in churches, however, that means that suddenly the freak appears to be me (well, me and my three wives).

            The episode was about Pastor Larry Roseboro and New Hope Baptist Church. Pastor Roseboro desperately wanted to build this big-old sanctuary, and it took the Church Hoppers to convince him to instead make better use of the facilities that he already had. He was resistant at first, but finally accepted their wisdom. At the end everyone was happily singing, dancing, and sweating in the little Bapticostal church. Good lesson - good show.

            As I was watching, one key principal stood out to me - a pastor can’t do it on his own. If he tries, the church will inevitably collapse around him. So, why do pastors try to do it on their own? Two reasons - both equally destructive: 1) they want to, or 2) nobody steps up to help.

            Pastor Roseboro was of the first type - he did it on his own, because he wanted to do it on his own. There were some circumstances that led to the position he was in. However, his pride and lack of teachability kept him in that position.

            Please don’t get me wrong - I’ve got nothing but love and respect for Pastor Roseboro. He was out in that country church doing the Lord’s work. I suspect he was simply working things the way that he was taught to work them. There is no doubt that he has a deep love for the Lord and a passionate love for his church. Also, after some initial push-back, he humbled himself and accepted the guidance of the Church Hoppers. That is major pastoral studliness!

            The church was never intended to be a sole proprietorship. Church, from the first century on, was about community. When there was disagreement in the early church, the Twelve didn’t appoint Stephen to take over and fix it. They appointed Stephen and Philip and Procorus and Nicanor and Timon and Parmenas and Nicolas to deal with the issue (Acts 6). Even the fact that there were Twelve leading the Church, as opposed to just Peter, shows that Church is a group project.

            Another reason the “led-by-me” pastoral philosophy is a mistake is because “led-by-me” most often becomes “all-about-me”. Leading a church of devoted parishioners without anyone around to anchor a pastor to the ground is a dangerous road for anyone to walk. The local church was not designed to be a dictatorship; it was designed to be a republic. If you are in a church where it is all about the pastor, you are in the wrong church - run away, run like the wind.

            Some control-issue pastors want to do it all on their own, but many more find themselves in that position through no fault of their own. As Malvolio once said in Shakespeare’s The Twelfth Night, “Some pastors are born ‘it’s-all-about-me’, some achieve ‘it’s-all-about-me’, and some have ‘it’s-all-about-me’ thrust upon them.”

            At my church, I’ve got a great board of elders, fantastic deacons, and a congregation well-stocked with godly servants. Many other pastors are not quite so blessed. Everyone has a calling in the Church of God and all have been gifted to fulfill that calling (1 Corinthians 12:7). However, if you could show me that even 50% were actually stepping up and fulfilling their role in the Kingdom of God, then I would gladly eat my shoe (although I might first argue with you that eating my shoe, in actuality, has nothing remotely to do with the situation at hand).

            Why don’t people serve? The excuses are legion. My personal top ten:

1.     I don’t know what to do.

•   Ask your pastor, ask an elder, ask the nice lady who sits next to you every Sunday. Better yet, ask God to give you some direction. I’m thinking that’s a prayer He’d honor. Also, it’s possible the calling God has given you lies outside of the church proper. I’ve often told my congregation that I don’t care where you serve, as long as you are serving somewhere. The Church is much bigger than just that building where we get together to sing and listen to the pastor pontificate.

2.     I don’t have any spiritual gifts.

•   Oops! Don’t you hate it when God lets folks slip through the cracks? He promised to give gifts to everyone, but that’s a pretty tall order, especially when you consider just how big “everyone” is. But God can be excused - eternity is a long time - eventually it’s got to catch up with Him. Even Jesus in his humanity is working with a 2000-year-old brain, right? Can’t you just picture Him tearing apart heaven, digging through all the cushions in the Throne Room, sending angels wading into the glassy sea, desperately looking for where he left the keys to His white Mustang (see what I did there? Yeah…)?

3.     I don’t have time.

•   Yes, you do. Fix your priorities, then get back to me.

4.     Isn’t that why we pay the pastor?

•   No.

5.     I’ve messed up so badly in my past, God could never use me.

•   Paul imprisoned, tortured, and murdered Christians, and God seemed to use him to a fairly large extent. Isn’t the grace, mercy, and forgiveness of our God wonderful? (Besides - little secret here - chances are that the pastor or teacher or elder you’re looking up to has got some pretty herky stuff in his or her past, too.)

6.     There are so many others who have so much more experience and are so much better at it than me.

•   "If a church only used experienced people to serve its ministries, Captain, it would, logically, die off in a generation" (said in a Spockian monotone). And, in ministry, “better” is a word that has absolutely no practical meaning.

7.     I need to work on my spiritual walk first.

•   God’s not looking for perfect servants, otherwise every pulpit would be empty and every boardroom table would be collecting dust. God knows who you are, and still He’s called you to serve Him. How cool is that?

8.     I’m too __________.

•   Old, young, new in my faith, infirmed, fat, thin, tall, short, smart, dumb, German, whatever word you want to put in that blank, write it in. Good, now scratch it out, because it’s a bunch of hooey. Now, over it, write, “…useful to God to not be serving.”

9.     My pastor wants to do it all himself.

•   No, he doesn’t. He’s doing it all himself, because you’re not helping. Now, if you happen to be in one of those megalomaniac-led churches we spoke of earlier, please heed my previous advice and hoof it on out of town.

10.  What if I find out that I don’t like what I’m doing or that I’m no good at it?

•   Then stop doing it, and find something else. No harm, no foul. Sometimes discovering your calling is like a neon sign. More often, though, it’s a jigsaw puzzle. It takes time and experiences to place piece after piece. But eventually you’ll see the whole picture. It took me forty-four years to find my way to a senior pastor position, and I still don’t know if this is the whole puzzle or just another piece (and I may never know this side of heaven).

            So, here’s to Pastor Larry Roseboro and New Hope Baptist Church. Here’s to all the small churches (and the big ‘uns, too) who are in the trenches doing the Lord’s work. Here’s to the pastors who are slogging it through day by day (often feeling alone, but knowing deep down that they are actually part of a much larger band of brothers and sisters). But, most of all, here’s to the people of the church - sacrificing their time, loving each other, serving their Lord. Those people right there, they are Church.