Soul Surgery (& Prayer)

This week we're starting a three week series of messages looking at prayer.  I'll just be straight-up here and confess that prayer has never come easy for me.  That's not to say that I neglect talking to God, which I do quite often through the course of the day.  But prayer is not something that comes easily to me like breathing, walking or craving a chocolate chip cookie.  Perhaps I have spiritual ADHD.  Prayer often feels like more effort than it's supposed to be.   The father of the Reformation, Martin Luther, supposedly said, “I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours (of each day) in prayer."  I can't really imagine that kind of daily prayer focus.  When I pray for more than about 20 minutes, I get irritated, bored, and doubtful.  I start thinking, right in the middle of talking to the Almighty Creator of Everything, "I've got things to do.  Gotta run!"  That's not what you want your pastor saying about prayer, is it?  


I suspect that there are a lot of other followers of Jesus who are like me.  Charles Spurgeon, an English Baptist preacher in the mid and late 1800's, preached 130 sermons about prayer.  Is it possible that Spurgeon preached about prayer so often because he knew it's hard for the average person to pray?  I long to be someone who can relate to/with God like Moses in Exodus 33,  "The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend."  How great would that be?  


The more I think and even (gasp) pray about my prayer problem, the more I've come to realize that it is my misunderstanding of prayer that's the real trouble.  Even though I know better, I still tend to pray as if it's all about me telling God what I think he should be doing.  I may couch my prayers in a respectful formula (ie, the old ACTS prayer recipe . . . A=Adoration, C=Confession, T-Thanksgiving, S=Supplication - ah! At last supplication where I get to what I want!), but the truth is, I see prayer as all about me.  That, I fear, is the real trouble with my prayer life.  And so that's part of the reason I decided to preach on the Lord's Prayer this week (on the left side of this blog you can see the other sermons coming up).   I figure Jesus must know how to do this prayer thing pretty well, so that when he teaches us to pray he probably knows what he's talking about.  I like how straight forward he is about prayer and that he says, "...don't babble like the pagans because it's really annoying to my Father..." (my paraphrase, but that's actually what Jesus says). 


In worship this week we will unpack this most amazing prayer and try to tear off most of our preconceptions and misconceptions, and get a clear view of what Jesus is teaching.  One peculiarly fascinating possibility is that Jesus' prayer had a lot to do with the Hebrew Exodus story as the Jews were delivered from Egypt.  Could the Lord's Prayer be a later development of praying through our own deliverance from the things that enslave us?  That's one possibility we might explore.  
- Curtis  

What's God Up To? Giving You a Great Body

I completed my first "spinning" class this morning.  Yes, "spinning" sounds like a class that teaches you how to spin around in circles until you puke.  In reality, it's a cycling class where you mount a bike like the one in the picture here and follow the leader of the class as they put you through an intense, varied workout.  It was a mere 45 minutes, accompanied by the DJ/instructor who spoke to us from her mic and played a variety of songs meant to inspire us.  "Sheesh how hard can this be?" I thought.  I used to ride almost every day and I even did a few triathlons many years ago . . . before my 19 yr old daughter was born.  "I'm in good shape, there's nothing to fear."   I thought.

I was wrong.

Things started off well, with the gentle instructor telling us to keep the resistance on the bike low and simply spin.

"I can do this" I thought.

Soon we entered Stage One - our first "hill" as we turned the resistance dial up a few notches and then rose off our seats as though peddling up an ever steeper hill.

"I might be able to do this" I thought.

Stage One, with varying degrees of difficulty, lasted 10 very long minutes.  The music, which was helpful to start with, began to annoy me.  When the first stage was over, we fell back into our seats and dialed down the resistance.  Heavenly.

Barely a minute later Stage Two began and this time we were coached to "dial it up" and "chase the van."  I couldn't see a van, which told me that it was way too far ahead and I shouldn't worry about chasing it.  But the testy instructor, who evidently could see the van, yelled at us to chase it while increasing the resistance.  We backed off for 15 seconds, then dialed it up for a minute, backed off for 15, dialed it up. . . you get the idea.  Sweat poured off my head, dripped down my face, and hung on the end of my nose until the salty droplets leapt to their demise on the spinning wheel below.  I tried to see how many of the drops I could get to fall directly on the wheel, hoping a wet, lubricated wheel would spin more effortlessly.

"What am I doing here?"  I thought.

After a brief low- resistance rest time, we entered the final challenge, Stage Three.
"Alright people!" the instructor barked, "This is it.  I want to see you work!  I want to see your hands on that dial; bump it up!  We're going to do 10 more minutes with 8 rotations; 10 seconds in your seats, followed by one minute on your feet peddling as hard as you can!  Ready, 3...2...1.... GO!"  The music blared a feverish country tune about a spurned wife, and we peddled furiously.

"Is it possible for a heart valve to simply tear wide open and rupture?  How long are those valves good for anyway?  They can't last forever."  I thought.

On I peddled as the demonic coach told us to "give the dial two more clicks" and "push, push yourself!"  It wasn't me that I wanted to push.  I reached down as my inner poser made his appearance.  He grabbed the dial and twisted it ... except not really -  the stationary dial slid through my deceptive fingers.
"Is this what it takes to make me cheat? Spinning?!  Do I really need to fake this?"  
I looked around at the room of my fellow spinners:  A middle aged computer geeky guy who could stand to lose a few pounds, and an assortment of women of various ages and sizes.  All of them looked far less fatigued than I.

"I must finish this well."  I thought.

And so I did, more or less.  I dialed it up for real and soon Stage Three was complete.  The cool down felt like a reward.  As we stretched, our kind instructor gave encouragement to each participant saying, "Good job everyone! See you next time!"  


So what, if anything, does that experience have to do with this week's sermon?  Well, it actually occurred to me, between towel wipes, that the Church is not unlike a spinning class.  I have worked out on my own for years now, pushing myself hard, getting in good shape, I believed.  But most of my workouts have been on my own, alone.  I set the standards, the goals, the pace.  That's good as far as it goes but the problem is, it doesn't go nearly as far as it should.  The class approach has several advantages:

1. The instructor knows how to bring out the best in class participants.
2. The combination of an instructor and other spinners pushed and challenged me far beyond my normal limits.
3. I didn't feel alone, (even though we didn't engage each other much.)  We were spinning together.
4. I noticed good and rotten things about myself that I never see when I work out alone.
5. I thought about other people and my snap judgements/prejudices changed in subtle ways.
6. With consistent participation, I will be in much better shape. 

I believe that all of the same truths exist when we are participants in the Church.  Just substitute God or perhaps certain good leaders for "instructor" and serving/studying/worshipping for "spinning" and you've got a pretty good list of what's good about being a part of a church.  There's tons more to being a part of the Body of Christ, of course, but that's a start.  We'll explore more on Sunday when we look at 1 Corinthians 12 and Paul's teaching about being a part of Christ's Body.

Now, go spin!

- Curtis

What's God Up To - in Haiti?

Did you see the front page picture in the Oregonian today?  The picture (left) shows a reunion of a daughter and her mother who was, thankfully, pulled from a collapsed building in Haiti.   It's only been a couple of days since the terrible quake struck the poor, tiny nation and revealed once again how fragile we humans are.  We've quickly been swamped with hundreds of images of dead bodies and broken people searching for loved ones.  The ability to send massive numbers of these images and communicate instantly across the globe begins to numb us to the reality of the suffering.  Our gut reaction is to feel sorrow and a profound lack of hope.  What can we do anyway?  Maybe that's why the editor of the paper featured a picture of a successful rescue and reunion on the front page.  The image of someone rescued, reunited with family, rekindles hope.
We're lost without hope.

 ...my soul is downcast within me.

Yet this I call to mind 

 and therefore I have hope:

 Because of the LORD's great love 

we are not consumed, 

 for his compassions never fail. - Lamentations 3:20-22

Hope breaks through the numbness that so easily overtakes us - whether we are the sufferers, or the observers.  Hope invites us to expect God to act to us, with us, through us - again whether we are the sufferers, or those who can offer help.

The passage for this week's message is from Isaiah 62:1-5 and it is a word of hope for the hopeless.  Verse 4 has a message that will be so important for the people of Haiti to hear in the weeks and months ahead:

Never again will you be called “The Forsaken City”

      or “The Desolate Land.”

   Your new name will be “The City of God’s Delight”

      and “The Bride of God,”

   for the Lord delights in you

      and will claim you as his bride.

Despite Pat Robertson's bizarre ideas about Haiti making a "pact with the devil" (and the devil somehow having the inclination or power to keep "his end" of the bargain and free Haiti from slavery) and calling the quake a "blessing in disguise," we can be assured that God has not forsaken Haiti.  Because there is hope, God remembers his people and will be working to repair and recreate.  We, as his people, get the privilege of joining in this work with him.  Even if we're not going to Haiti, we can send resources to support those who are helping.  In the process, our prayers are answered and our hope begins to be restored.  Maybe our salvation is tied with our response to God using us to be a part of someone else's rescue and recreation as well.   If so, apathy not only spells doom for those we fail to help, but for ourselves as well.

On Sunday we'll study hope and Isaiah 62 as it relates to us personally - how God makes us beautiful.  Pray and respond generously for the suffering people of Haiti.

- Curtis

Out of the Box

Christmas Eve.  Here it is.
The week has been full for mostly good, significant reasons.  There are a couple of things I wish I'd done differently.  For example, yesterday I took a van load of food to Trihaven house.  It was surplus stuff from our Christmas Box program earlier in the week.  Trihaven is the residential facility for adults with mental and/or substance abuse troubles.  They invited us to their Christmas party, so that was an opportunity to take the food too.  What I wished I'd done differently was to get the word out more effectively so that I wasn't the only one who got to go.  I mentioned it to a few people ahead of time, but that really wasn't enough.  So I was alone due to my own lack of inviting.

I have to admit I really wasn't looking forward to it.  "One more thing to do in an already overloaded week."  That's what I kept thinking.  Then too, packing up all the food took more time than I planned.  By the time I got to Trihaven I was Scrooging (I hereby dub "Scrooging" a genuine verb - ie I Scrooge, you Scrooged, we Scrooge . . . I've been Scrooged).  But of course God had other plans.  I walked in and some of the residents recognized me, but others hadn't seen me before.  "Hi!  Who are you?  Why are you here!?" one young woman shouted across the room from her recliner.
"I'm Curt..." 
"Oh hi Curt!  I just wondered who you were.  Merry Christmas!"
And so it went.  My Scrooginess didn't last long.  The residents opened gifts donated by various organizations or purchased by staff, and they showed an appreciation that was profound and heartwarming.  "Wow!  Another gift for me?  This is perfect!"
When the gifts were all opened, we unpacked the van of food and I had a chance to talk with the facilities manager, Jim, the Trihaven Director, Carol, and Denise who counsels residents with substance abuse and anger issues.  Carol is a recent immigrant from Cameroon in Africa. She's a strong, faith-filled woman who oozes tough love towards the residents.  She's a powerful person; just what Trihaven needs.  Jim, who oversees several Sequoia (the mother ship organization) facilities, is one of the most compassionate, good people I've met.  He knows all the residents by name and interacts with them as a friend and mentor.  I doubt that's in his job description.  He walked around with cookie crumbs on his jacket and took pictures of everyone while brandishing a huge grin.  "Get over in front of the tree.  Big smile!  Got it!"

We talked for about an hour about the need for mentors, about Christmas, and about alienation from God and Church.  I was so glad I went.  It made me thik about my Christmas Eve meditation (and you might here a bit of this stuff again if you come to the Christmas Eve service).  We have a tendency to put Christ into our own box, and forget that he won't be kept there.   One of my boxes was my own agenda for the day, but Jesus would not be confined to where I thought he should be.  He has a knack of showing up in any way he chooses.  So why do we try to keep him in the box at all?  I pray you have a wonderful Christmas and perhaps I'll see you tonight as we do our best not to box him in.
- Curtis

Preparing for a Good Story

One of the truly great things about being a pastor is that no two days are alike.  It's really a dream job for someone with ADHD - which I don't think I have.  But who knows?  This week has been full of getting things done for the Christmas Boxes of Love (food from Barnes Elementary above) program and the final preparations for Christmas Sunday & Christmas Eve.  And then there's a wedding to work on and a sermon for Sunday... all quite joyous stuff (as I remind myself when I'm grumbling about having too many things to do).

It occurred to me this week that most of life is preparing for something which, when it arrives, is frequently not as wonderful as the actual preparation.  I'm not talking about let-downs or things that don't go as well as planned.  No, even the best of events are often not as meaningful as the preparation that lead up to them.  Our celebrations of Christmas are like that.  Christmas day is wonderful, but it's all the preparations that make it worthwhile --- the worship times, the decorating, cookie making, family coming together, presents, charitable projects, etc.  It all builds up like a huge life-crescendo ... and then it's over.  Christmas afternoon comes, we're stuffed again and passed out on the living room floor with a football game on (or is that just me??)

All of the running and work and preparations are exhausting, but they make the Christmas season meaningful.  There's always a story to tell.  The elements that make for a good story are the same things that create a good life (for a good book on this idea, try Donald Miller's A Million Miles in a Thousand Years).  The good deeds, busy times and people we connect with - these are what make this season a good story for us.  In fact, the more we sit around and try to make little cacoons of solitude or entertainment for ourselves, the more our story turns dull and unsatisfying.  I think that's why a lot of people suffer from depression - their stories become too small.

As soon as the angel told Mary about the story she would begin to live, she knew it was going to be good.  Her words in Luke 1:46-55 reveal that she had some small glimpse of what both her story and Jesus' story were all about.  What's powerful is that she seemed to realize (at a very young age), that she was a part of something so much bigger than herself.  Her glimpse of a bigger story tells us a lot about our story as well.  That's what we'll explore on Sunday.
- Curtis

Joy

Friday Night, December 11th
(Nope, the video above isn't mine, but it was similar to what I describe below)
I'm at PDX - the airport - writing tonight while I wait for Amanda to come home from college for Christmas break.  I ended up being here a bit early, so I'm waiting for Amanda where people walk by security after they get off their planes.  It's kind of cool to watch people as they arrive.  Most arrivals around Christmas are very joyful.

• A young soldier just walked through security, met by a  happy young wife and two excited children who look too young to really understand what's happening.  All they know is that they get to cling to a dad who's been gone for too long.  
• A woman just arrived and was met by her pregnant sister.  They hug and the happy future aunt bends over to kiss her sister's protruding tummy.  They smile and laugh.  Towering over them, in the background, is the soon-to-be dad.  He gazes at his growing family with great content.  
• Then there's the grandfather who has been trying to corral his three small grandkids for about 45 minutes.  It isn't working and his patience is just about gone.  These little monsters have been running around the rows of chairs.  They're all ready for momma to get back from a five day trip to somewhere.  When she arrives, they sprint to her shouting, "Mamma!  You're home! You're back!"  Grandad gets the last hug, but no one is happier to see mamma home than he.

I've noticed that romantic welcome-home hugs are long and close; often silent - as if it's finally time for a melding of flesh and hearts.  Friend hugs are shorter and people often sway from side to side while talking.  Women hold the hugee's face in their hands and step back to take a look at that face.  Men may give each other a hug, but men's hugs include hearty slaps on the back.

Joy seems to be the one constant in each of these reunions.

Zephaniah. When's the last time you thought to yourself, "Hey, I think I'll brush up on the old book by Zeph today!"  Can you even think of the last time you read anything from this "minor prophet?" Twelve prophets in the Old Testament are called "minor prophets" not because they are less important but because they are simply shorter books.  So why don't we read old Zeph more often?  Well, it might be because he delivered mostly bad news.  And although we seem to love bad news at 6 & 11 PM, we don't like it in the bible.  We want "gospel" (good news).

Tucked into the last chapter of all the bad news Zephaniah delivers is, at last, some good news.  More than that, it's Joy.  Promises that the story won't have a terrible, downer ending.  But that God will do what God always does - turn the saddest, most disappointing story into a very joy filled reunion with his people.  Joy is what we'll consider in the message this 3rd Sunday of Advent.
- Curtis

Generous Living - But maybe not ...

It happens from time to time.  I get started with the study of a passage for the upcoming sermon and then I realize, "What I thought this passage was all about isn't what this passage is all about."  That's happened this week.  The passage is from Mark 12 where Jesus spies a widow dropping her two small coins into the temple treasury.  An act of sacrifice and generosity, no doubt.  It was a significant offering, not due to the amount, but due to the extreme sacrifice.  That's the direction I've always taken with this story (retold almost identically in Luke 21).  Here's what one commentary says about it:

The Christian lesson of the widow's mites, as relayed in Luke (21:1-4) and Mark (12:41-44), is an enduring testament to the value of faith. A destitute widow has only a few mites to her name, and those she gave selflessly as her donation to the Temple. (Mites were ancient pennies, fairly worthless at the time). Jesus comments that her modest gift was worth more than the ostentatious contributions of the wealthy, for her mites represented all that she had. This virtuous woman had demonstrated true faith in God -- she could not know from where her next meal would come, but she believed that He would provide for her.

 But there's a glaring absence of comment in the actual story.  At no point does Jesus commend the widow.  Jesus actually says she "put in all she had to live on."  Was that a good thing?  The context of the passage, in respect to the events before and after it, is important too - and very revealing.  Another thing: What exactly was the "temple treasury" - where was the widow's money going?  These are things I started to wrestle with this week.  Have we been reading this story incorrectly all along?  And if this other direction for the sermon is right, what does it say to us today?  That's always the big question.  The answer might be disturbing for me as a "church leader" (I hate it when that happens).


The sermon title is printed, ready to go in the bulletin.  But if I could still reprint it, I'd title it differently.  Without spilling all the sermon beans already, I'd love to hear what you think the title should be.  Share your ideas!  And I hope your Thanksgiving was good.
- Curtis

This Will Not Change

 It's not just California... it's the whole world!
- John Cusack's character in 2012, the movie 

No, I haven't seen the movie yet.  Short on story, long on special effects I suspect.   But Hollywood knows we love a good end-of-the-world thriller every few years.  It taps into our social anxiety that things are just getting worse and worse. What's next - how about The END?!  I had a wonderful lunch with someone today  and we were talking about the state of things in the world.  They asked the Big Question: "Where's all this going to end up?"  Nobody really knows in the short term, of course.  My prediction: Things could get a lot worse.  Or they might get a lot better.  I'm pretty sure I'm right.

This week I'm preaching on Revelation 1.  Is this the start of a 26 week sermon series on Revelation, complete with charts and timelines and clear explanations of the "mark of the beast" and identities of four horsemen?  Hardly.  When I first became a Christian roughly 30 years ago, I dove deep into that stuff.  Hal Lindsay's The Late Great Planet Earth scared the crud out of me - and I loved it.  Maybe it was the mental rush of thinking I knew some kind of secret about God's timing or plans for the world.  Who wouldn't like to have a world-changing secret stashed away?  Automatically you're brilliant and everyone else is just a poor, ignorant fool.  There's an appeal to that.

In his book (published in 1979), Lindsay wrote that about 70% of the prophecies in the bible had already taken place, and that most of the rest seemed to be on the verge of fulfillment.  He then writes:

What generation [would experience the end times predicted in] Matthew 24:34? Obviously, in context, the generation that would see the signs -- chief among them the rebirth of Israel.  A generation in the Bible is something like forty years. If this is a correct deduction, then within forty years or so of 1948, all these things could take place. (Late, Great pg. 54)

Lindsay was careful to never predict the "day or the hour" but he seemed to support the idea that it would take place in the next decade or so (the 80's or 90's).  And there were many so-called scholars who believed that 1988 would be the most likely year for the rapture and Christ's return.

1988 came and went, and it hasn't happened yet.  Which isn't to say that the hope of Christ's return is untrue.  It is, in fact, at the very core of our hope in a resurrected Jesus.  The Bible is clear that things won't be made completely right - they can't - until Christ returns and transforms everything.  Paul puts it this way,

Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Romans 8:20-22 (NLT)

But does that mean we should get giddy when things get bad?  "Finally!  Wars! Pestilence! Hunger! Cataclysm - YES!  Jesus must be about to come back!"    No, that's not the attitude that would serve God or our world well.  Jesus calls us to be peacemakers, lovers of enemies, blessers of the poor - in other words do the work of recreation in the power of the Spirit until he returns and finishes the job.  But I've gotten way ahead of myself.  

The message this week won't go that for, most likely.  Instead we'll focus on  John, who sat rotting on the island of Patmos - and penned the book of Revelation.  He has a bead on how we can not only make it through, but perhaps even thrive as God's people in these "in-between times" - no matter how hard they get or what happens along the way. 

- Curtis

Dangerous Community

Acts 4:32-5:11

This week I'm preaching on one of the weirdest passages in the New Testament - the story of amazing love and community! And the story of Ananias and Sapphira (yup, 2 P's). The first story is the happy one to talk about. People caring for and loving each other sacrificially. It says, "All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had." Things are going well; love is all around - that's how chapter 4 ends.

Chapter 5: Ananias & Sapphira drop dead after lying about an offering they made to the church. They sell some property and give a chunk of the proceeds to the church to help others. But they lie and tell Peter that they've given the entire amount of the sale, not just part of it. That lie seems to be their downfall. They could have given whatever they desired, or nothing at all. But to lie and say it was the full amount when it was not - that was trouble. More trouble than we might expect too - DEATH!? What happened to grace, mercy, forgiveness? This is confusing stuff. It sort of makes you stop and think about writing that tithe check, doesn't it? (see ending of the video below) What's giving all about? Apparently more than we think.

In the sermon, we'll look at what this odd incident has to do with community and why following Jesus can be so very dangerous. Then we'll share some turkey and fun after worship at the Thanksgiving Dinner!

Let's hope we don't lose our appetite.

- Curtis

Disclaimer: I wouldn't share this in worship, but it drives a certain point of view home - check out this video:

Are You in a Funk? Maybe It's Cultural . . . and Curable

Deuteronomy 6:1-8; Mark 12:28-34

Message: Uncommon Community

I was reading about a study done at Northwestern University that provides some fascinating findings about individualism, community and mood - especially depression. You can find the actual study HERE but, trust me, it can be depressing just to sort through the pyscho-lingo in these things. (I think that one day they'll do another study revealing that those who do these studies are more likely to be depressed). This wasn't a People magazine pop-poll sort of thing; it was a real, scientific, brain-mapping, chemical, genetic, confusing study.

They looked at genetic markers for depression. It turns out that some people have a specific "short allele - a depression gene," that predisposes them to depression. So one part of the study looked for any sort of correlation between cultures/races that have a bunch of these pesky short alleles. Here's what they found:

• Some cultures have a significantly greater genetic predisposition to depression (the short allele)
• Some cultures have much higher rates of depression

The study also looked at where cultures are on the spectrum of individualism vs collectivism. In other words, are collective cultures (those that are structured more towards the community than the individual) or individualistic cultures more prone to depression?

Then they smashed all the data into a fat computer and hit the "go" button. Here are the surprising results:

• The culture with the genetic marker for depression has significantly lower rates of depression.

• The culture that, genetically, should suffer lower rates of depression - is the the one full of depressed people.

Huh? What's going on? It turns out that the cultures with lower rates of depression are the ones that live in greater community. People's lives are tied together more; they inherently value collective harmony, expression and support each other much more. Perhaps community is an adaptive way of dealing with a genetic predisposition towards depression. In fact, something about these cultures - maybe the community they enjoy - heals or prevents depression to some extent. Amazingly, 80% of people from these collective-valuing cultures have the short allele that makes them more likely to suffer depression. Eighty percent!! But they aren't as depressed as the long-allele-ers.

The part you've probably guessed by now is that we in the western cultures - especially the United States - are the ones who suffer the greatest rates of depression, despite the fact that we don't have the big genetic predisposition to depression. Amazing. On the other hand, Asian cultures (and probably other collective cultures) have a high genetic predisposition towards depression, but suffer it far less than we do in the west.

The study raises many questions about cause and effect and what (countless) other factors might be involved. But one clear possibility is that we would all do well to live in greater community.

Hey, wait a minute - doesn't the bible say something like that too? What do you know.

- Curtis

Got Poop?

Lessons Learned in a Recession # 2: Power & Light

We've all heard the phrase, "Hindsight is always 20/20," meaning that once we live through an experience, it makes more sense or we realize how we could have done things differently. From a faith perspective, the phrase also includes an understanding of how God accomplishes his will and purposes through events that take place. That's one of the great things about the bible stories. We get to see how things end up. It's like we travel through time and see how the pieces fit together, even though things might have seemed pretty lousy for those living through it.

The thing that amazes me about my own limited perspective is that, even though I know God always has purpose for the poop that life brings, I still tend to wallow around in that poop wondering if there really is a purpose and wondering what it could be. It doesn't matter that I've done this poop wallowing hundreds of times before and that, almost every time, I could eventually see how things worked out for the best. Or, at the least, I later came to a point of trusting that God was doing something I couldn't see or sense at the time; that he was at work in hidden ways. I know these truths quite well, but when I'm in the poop, I still wonder and wallow.

This week we study two people who handled life's lousy events far better. Bartimaeus was a blind man who cried out to Jesus even when others told him to shut up. What made him so strong and persistent? And then there was Elisha who was surrounded by enemy soldiers ready to kill him. But he was sure of victory, though he had only one frightened servant with him. He was confident something else was going on. No wallowing with these guys. That means, of course, there are some beautiful things we can learn from them.

Got poop? Bring it on Sunday and we'll all see what God does with it.

- Curtis

Too Close to Home

Mark 10:17-31

This week we start a new series of messages called, Lessons Learned in a Recession. Part of the plan was for me to intro each message with a short interview of someone who lived through the Great Depression and therefore has a wider view on what's happening in our world now. It seems to me we could use some of that perspective and their wisdom these days.

What I didn't count on was that these wonderful, humble old saints don't really want to be interviewed on video. Each one I've asked so far (maybe it's me!) has said, "Oh, I can tell you some things, but don't turn a camera on!" I need one of those 60 Minutes cameras hidden in a brief case button, but I don't carry a briefcase. I might try just audio interviews, but it's a little more fun to watch people. Anyway, all that is to say that I'll be starting the series off sans video interviews!

I started thinking about this series because everything I've been reading and hearing about the economy says that this "recession" may really be the start of a very long-term shift. We've all been looking at this economic situation as if it were a dislocated shoulder that economists can knock back into place with a few twists and pushes here and there. Painful, but things will be okay once it pops back. Now we're all waking up to the fact that it isn't going to be that way. Things have changed. There's a new normal ahead and it may not look like what we've been used to. We're nowhere near what it was like during the Great Depression, but we also don't know what's ahead.

When we start to realize that things have changed, it might feel discouraging. Dreams of security, college, travel, homes, retirement . . . are wavering and may vanish for many. But there are a lot of very good things that come out of such a shift away from our past experience of super-abundance. For instance we start to realize our interdependence and our dependence on God (hopefully). Along with new perspectives, we'll be studying some bible passages and stories that give us insight about better ways to live; what we can learn; what's important now. I hope you'll do more than just listen to these messages. Part of the lesson we're already learning is lean times mean we need each other more than ever. So share your thoughts and wisdom! And watch out, I may have a video camera rolling.

- Curtis

Doing Something Right

(Take the "evil" poll at the bottom of this post!)
Each week Garrison Keillor begins his weekly radio address with the words, "Well, it's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon Minnesota, my home town out there on the edge of the prairie..."

If this were an audio podcast I might start it with similar words, but instead of "quiet" I'd have to switch the "e" and the "t" - saying instead, "It's been quite a week in Cedar Hills..."

Most of you have heard that the church building was slammed into by a 20 yr. old young man who had been drinking heavily. His car was totaled, but fortunately he was not seriously hurt and no one was in the building at the time. It happened 11:15 Sunday night. The building has stood up well. There's a good sized hole that impacts 4 different rooms and some minor structural damage that we're having both contractors and structural engineers deal with. There are ongoing messes to clean up. But it could have been much worse - for us and especially for the young man who made some serious mistakes. I'm heading out today to get a copy of the police report and see if I can can contact him or perhaps visit him. Without exception, the people in our church family have expressed concern for him and hope we can make a positive, course-altering impact upon his life. So pray for openings into his life.

I can't help but wonder how that event might be related to something much more wonderful we were a part of the day before, Saturday October 10th. On Saturday about 12-14 people from Cedar Hills joined with hundreds of other volunteers from 20 Beaverton Churches to form Compassion Beaverton - a free clinic for uninsured people who needed medical or dental care. It was an amazing day! I've posted a video here on Youtube (above) of my perspective as I traveled around the clinic as a "flow" person - helping people fill out the right intake forms and then move along through the different steps in the process. Though there were hundreds of people who didn't get everything they needed, and many who were not able to be helped at all - still, there was a tremendous atmosphere of gratitude, grace and mercy that filled the air. God as tangibly present in the people serving and in those being served. It was a privilege to be a part of the day.

Now I'm not one to find Satan under every rock and behind every tree. But I do know that evil is personal; Satan is real. At times we credit him with too much power and, in the process, give him more power over us. Jesus acknowledged him, but never once feared him. More importantly, he overcame Satan and defeated his kingdom. And if Christ lives in us through the Spirit, there's no reason we should see evil differently. So when this young man took a terribly wrong turn in his life and smashed into our church, I don't know whether it is his own personal demons that were at work, or a sign that we're doing something right as a church family and Satan isn't pleased. Maybe it's both. Really, I don't know that it matters. It just means we have to stick with God, stay on the course he sets for us, extend forgiveness and Jesus' redemption to the young man, and pray that evil is bound and powerless. Then we get to see the old story retold in our lives: Evil defeated; God's glory shining brightly. That's what I'm counting on.

Friends, when life gets really difficult, don't jump to the conclusion that God isn't on the job. Instead, be glad that you are in the very thick of what Christ experienced. This is a spiritual refining process, with glory just around the corner.

So if you find life difficult because you're doing what God said, take it in stride. Trust him. He knows what he's doing, and he'll keep on doing it.

1 Peter 4:12-13; 19 (The Message translation)

Finally, I'm EXTREMELY happy to have Gavin Silaski preaching this week! What perfect timing with everything else that is going on! Gavin will be preaching from Jeremiah 9:23-24 (linked at right). His message is called, "Voiceless."

- Curtis

When God Lets Us Down

So I started this blog earlier in the week with a childhood story of dashed expectations. But it turned out so well, if I do say so myself, that I decided to use it as my opener for the message on Sunday. If you want to hear it, you'll just have to attend worship. Or listen once it gets uploaded to the podcast page. But I highly recommend worship for all other benefits that come from being together in God's presence. Of course, if you get your expectations up too high for a clever sermon-opener, those expectations might be dashed as well - leaving you with double-dashed-expectations. What could be better? So get your hopes up and I'll let you down, leaving you with the very point I'm attempting to get across.

Luke 7 contains lots more miracles by Jesus. And then something strange happens: John the Baptist sends two of his followers to ask Jesus, "Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?" We don't know what exactly led John to ask this question, but it's quite possible that he was dealing with dashed expectations. He was, perhaps, thinking that Jesus would be someone different or that he would do things that he wasn't doing. In the message we will explore what these expectations might have been. We'll also look at our own expectations for God and what happens when God disappoints us in some way.

- Curtis

Upside Down Living

No, the video doesn't have anything to do with the message this week. If you can make a tie-in, let me know. It's just pure, mindless fun - my dog rounding up his squeaky toy sheep. He's an Australian Shepherd, after all. Herd he must.

I don't have lots to tell you about the message this week (skip to the last paragraph if you want...). Hopefully that will change by Sunday, but there's lots of work to be done on it before then if that's to happen. Instead I'll fill you in on yesterday. Some plans for a Season of Service meeting fell through due to a slight dental emergency in our family. Becca had a filling (her first cavity ever) about three weeks ago. Although the dentist said it was a "small" filling, somehow a nerve in the tooth was nicked, it seems. She started having pain a couple of days after the filling and it didn't go away. We thought it was just normal kind of stuff, but when it intensified this week I called back in to get an appointment. That call, in itself, was an experience. I called the "emergency appointment" line and talked to a young woman who asked me a series of questions about Becca's pain, when it started, what it was like, etc. When I was done she put me on hold for awhile, then came back and said,

"Okay, we can get you in on the 12th of October."

"The 12th?" I said. "Hmm. That's a long way off. What if she can't wait that long?"

"Then you call back in and make an emergency appointment."

"I thought that this was the emergency appointment line."

"Based on your answers to the questions I asked, I scheduled the appointment."

"But I asked for an emergency appointment."

"Sir, I'm just following the protocol."

She started getting a bit snippy at this point, and I guess did too. Come to think of it, I probably got snippy first. She was, after all, doing her job. My job was to get my kid in to see someone who could help her.

"Well, I think my daughter probably has an abcess tooth developing and she can't wait until the 12th. Can we get in as soon as possible?"

"Let me check. Please hold."

After a few minutes, during which I contemplated how I would rant and rave until they squeezed us in, she came back.

"How's tomorrow at 9:45 AM?"

"That would be great. Thank you."

And so, to make this long story shorter, we got in. Indeed it turned out that Becca had an abscess. So the poor kid started her root canal yesterday. And just to make it even lousier, it was her 17th birthday. Poor kid. She's feeling better today.

Oh yeah, the sermon for Sunday - it's about living in an upside down world. We're looking at Jesus' Sermon on the Mount in Luke 6. We normally read this message as if it really isn't doable at all. Pie in the sky wishful thinking that will only apply in heaven. But we forget that the problems Jesus mentions here aren't going to be part of the reality in the new heaven and new earth that God restores. So it is about living these ways now. Which, of course, we don't do so well. What would it look like and be like to live as Jesus describes in this passage? That's where we're going in the message this week.

Grace,

Curtis

Snowflakes & People

Luke 5:1-31

Categories. We love categories. We put everything into them, perhaps because categorizing things gives us some sense of control over life. We categorize experiences, restaurants, cars, books, chairs and chewing gum among millions of other things.

Most of all, though, we categorize people. People fall into categories like friend, enemy, loud, shy, ugly, sexy, smelly, nice, gay, straight, smart, stupid, compassionate, rude, happy, cranky, successful, loser, cool, geek, Christian, lost, this race or that . . . the categories are endless. I'm not sure if our categories are all about trying to control people, or if we're just trying to figure them out. Placing people in a category gives us a sense of, "Well now, I've got that one figured out." And so it's easier to stop worrying about who they really are very much because we already have them placed neatly tucked away into our mental file cabinet. We can almost hear God saying to us, "My oh my. What ever will I do with you?"

When we look at Luke chapter 5 we find Jesus meeting several people for the very first time. Some will become his apostles, some he will heal, others will reject him. Each encounter is surprisingly unique. What does this tell us about God and ourselves? About our relationship with him? That's what we'll explore in this week's message. - Curtis

Sneak Previews

Luke 4:31-34

Up! Along with being a great movie, the previews for Up define what a good sneak preview is all about.

When I go to a movie, I like the sneak previews - the coming attractions - almost better than the feature film. Why? Because the previews almost always look good. They whet the viewer's appetite, even if the real film later turns out to be a letdown (which, of course, is common). Previews are exciting and fun.

I wonder if Luke thought of chapter 4 of his gospel as a sneak preview? It has so many of the major themes that come out in the rest of the story. Consider all he packs into one chapter:

• The big temptation by Satan
• Jesus' "this is what I'm all about" sermon in the Nazareth synagogue - and the rejection that comes along with it
• Driving out evil
• Healing people
• Preaching Good News

That's a pretty good preview of the whole story. And the best part is, while Luke whet's our appetite, we don't feel let down at the end of the story. In fact, we realize it's just a beginning - our beginning. - Curtis

Truth in Advertising

John 3:1-17

This is the "early in the week" version of the sermon blog. In other words, I don' t have much for you yet. But for starters... in John 3, Jesus talks with Nicodemus and discusses being "born again." More than any other phrase, "born again" has become wrapped in mis and pre conceptions. I think that's where my title, "Truth in Adversing" comes in. We get promised a lot of things when we come to faith, but how real are these? I don't know if it was ever really specifically said, but I got the idea that when I became a Christian I'd always be happy, and that I'd always feel God with me. I don't think I'm alone in thinking someone did the 'ole bait and switch on me. So what is the truth? More on that later in the week.

We'll take a fresh look at Jesus' talk with Nicodemus and where it leads us in our understanding of Jesus today.

- Curtis

Locksmith of the Soul

Mark 7:24-37

One of the great ironies of life with God is that we are so very reluctant to be fully known, and yet we desperately need and want to be known. Why do we fear something we crave so much? It's possible that the most heartfelt - and terrifying prayer is this . . .

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Psalm 139

This week we'll start a new series of messages called Getting Reacquainted with Jesus. The way Mark's gospel starts in the early chapters seems to point to a profound truth: We can't know God fully until we allow him to know us - or perhaps until we simply realize how deeply he knows us. The good and the bad; the light and the dark within each of us. It is Jesus who knows us better than we know ourselves. That's wonderful and frightening.

One of my current favorite songs explains this need and paradox well. It's Times, by Tenth Avenue North. The first part is a person's prayer to God; the second part is God's reply. Lyrics and song are below. See you Sunday - Curtis

Balanced Living

One of the recurring wishes of my life is that I wish I lived in in a more balanced way. Every vacation ends with an inner pledge something like, "I'm going to do things differently now. More of this, less of that. I will balance my life henceforth and live in peace!" And then, of course, I do more of this and less of that for about a day and a half, and within 36 hours life returns to the unbalanced mess that it always is. The same thing happens at the end of summer, the beginning of a new year, and pretty much anytime I go to the beach or look up at the stars on a clear night. You'd think I'd toss up my hands and realize that I'm never going to get it right. But I'm a dreamer and I keep seeking that balance in life.

I think that's why the passage from Ephesians 5 hit me as being about balanced living. Strictly speaking, from a theological point of view, it's not about balance. But the beauty of preaching is that this is where the passage hit me this week. Next week it could be about lawn mowing or baseball playoffs. So the sermon is growing into looking at Paul's answer to the question, "What does the Christian life look like?" He doesn't ask that, but that's sort of intrinsic in the passage. And the answer seems to me to be, "Balance your life in God." Not that God is the top priority on a list of priorities, but that a life lived in God will naturally be balanced. Paul even says, "Don't live like a fool." The NIV says "don't live unwisely" but a better translation is really, "Don't be an idiot, a fool." That sounds more like Paul anyway.

So maybe my perpetual problem of being out of balance is more accurately a problem of not truly living in God. Being a fool. Hmm. That's disturbing. - Curtis