Good God

2003-06-05T10:22:00.000-07:00

Jeez, almost two months since I've been around here.
Smokin' conference near Santa Cruz (and like a rookie I didn't bring a board or wettie), another in Austin (nothing like rooting for the Lakers against San Antonio down in the nation of Texas). Fried a hard drive - down for a week, then of couse the waves / weather have been exceptional here...
The traditional day to celebrate Pentecost is this Sunday which should help the worship services here quite a bit - they must be drunk!
Recent reads: "Most Moved Mover" by Pinnock - very interesting / provocative / persuasive. "essential christianity" by berkley - a good basic book that will go to our h.s. grads. "The God who risks" by Sanders - following similar lines with Pinnock.
Dang - next one might be "Creation and the persistence of evil" by Jon Levenson, looks like an interesting one.
Keck, give me a call sometime.
Peace

2003-04-21T16:13:00.000-07:00

Perhaps the Adversary is trying to discourage me with the recent trend of Sunday swells… Calm winds, good tides, strong swell on Easter Sunday… easy come, easy go. Waves never seems to pose too big a problem for Jesus and I do want to follow in his ways…
So today, the day after Easter my encouragement comes from his Victory. And Jesus said, “Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection.” Lk. 20:36
Children of the Resurrection have better things to look forward to than good waves, and besides, the Lord will grant me some good ones soon enough.

2003-04-18T14:32:00.000-07:00

Just amazing how people connect, and don’t connect, with worship services.
Of course its Good Friday today, and so we had a service. It was unique in that it was ecumenical, put on by our local Christian Council. It was really nice, right up to the end when two things happened, a blessing (benediction) and a reproach. The reproach is a traditional element of Good Friday services in the Reformed tradition. The idea is that we generally don’t get it. We don’t connect with the crucified God, we are not in touch with the abandoned Messiah, and we should think and pray long and hard about that. It’s presumptuous to imagine that we’d be among the very few who stayed at the foot of the cross with Jesus dying above them. It is much more likely we’d have ditched the scene like the disciples, or tried to stick around only to betray and deny him. In fact, it’s highly likely we’d be standing on the sidelines concurring with the leaders’ slander that Jesus saved others so he ought to be able to save himself. Or perhaps we’d have left the spectacle and gone on with whatever else we’d planned for that afternoon. This is exactly what just about everybody who attended our Good Friday service did – went merrily on with their Friday afternoon. We’d been asked to leave the service in silence (which most did not do) and to take a little different journey over the next 48 hours or so and think about God Crucified. For my part there were a few moments of silent reflection, most of which revealed to me just how out of touch I am with the events that unfolded that day – but I too went on to my list of things to do – chief among them being a swell and surf check. What a bummer that was, there won’t be good waves here for another two days or so… The disgrace…
The Reproach
O my people, O my church,
What have I done to you,
or in what have I offended you?
Answer me.
I led you forth from the land of Egypt
and delivered you by the waters of baptism,
but you have prepared a cross for your Savior.
Lord, have mercy.

Holy God,
Holy and mighty,
Holy immortal One,
have mercy upon us.

My peace I gave, which the world cannot give,
and washed your feet as a sign of my love,
but you draw the sword to strike in my name
and seek high places in my kingdom.
I offered you my body and blood,
but you scatter and deny and abandon me,
and you have prepared a cross for your Savior.

Lord, have mercy.

2003-04-15T15:38:00.000-07:00

I was asked by one of the administrator / counselors at our local high school to speak to a class of juniors this morning about choosing a career in ministry. Two other professionals joined me, a banker and an architect. It was kind of a unique / funny thing to do as ministry is so different from other careers. Fist one needs to be a believing Christian, which cancels out a lot of people. Then one needs to sense a call from God to go into ministry as a vocation / occupation. Then one needs to go through (in the case of the Presbyterian Church) a sort of series of checks and balances – or filters – to have the community of faith help discern if it really is the right direction to go – which is obviously a flawed process staffed by flawed people – evidence being Presbyterian ministers who deny the sufficiency of salvation in Christ, or who view Jesus as one of many ways to God, or who believe that sin is an outdated concept that we’ve got to get rid of – who would rather send people to therapy instead. OK, enough of that….
Anyway, the students at Ilwaco H.S. generally didn’t know what to make of having a preacher speak to their career class. So I gave them the top three reasons they should consider a career in Christian ministry.
3. (Simpson’s reference) Reverend Lovejoy can be your hero too!
2. As a minister your never more than a few offering plates away from vacationing in Cancun.
1. Of all the professions that require advanced degrees, ministry has the shortest workweek – one hour, Sunday Morning.
There were a few laughs, then on with the class. The Q&A was funny; the best question was “Are you supported by the Government, do they pay you?” Overall it was an interesting exercise. Now, back to Holy Week…

2003-04-14T11:45:00.000-07:00

What a lot of time has passed since I’ve blogged.
Perhaps it is a mistake for pastors to schedule retreats, vacations or study leaves in the days and weeks following Easter. For me it seems to be distracting from the ministry opportunities of Holy Week.

I’ve been thinking a lot, and reading a little, about the providence of God for a few months. I’m very intrigued, perhaps close to being persuaded, by the so-called “open” view of God’s providence. The funny thing is that one of the things that so pleases me about the model, that our God can be prevailed upon in prayer and that prayer really does affect our world and even our God, is also the thing that I’m finding increasingly difficult to engage in. Petitionary prayer. This may be because I so often think of petitionary prayer as something that would be done in larger chunks of time – in the prayer room / closet for hours each week – that sort of thing. It is quite easy for me to pray throughout the day as I’m busy with the things that I’m charged to do as pastor here, but those prayers follow closely my own wandering thoughts. I don’t deny that God may at times guide or even inspire my wandering thoughts, and so make them a little less arbitrary, but I do recognize that such a pattern of prayer is severely limited in scope. The most balanced prayer times are when Heidi and I have the “Prayer at the Close of Day” which is a service of prayer in the book of common worship. It’s a tremendous resource and a great way to end the day – but presently it is an inconsistent endeavor – mostly because of the changing and challenging sleeping patterns of our young children. Of course those patterns will change relatively shortly, which will bring to us a whole host of benefits, prayer being only one. One obvious option would be to include the “morning prayers” of the bcw in my morning spiritual reading. Each day at my office I begin by reading the selection for the day out of the “One Year Bible,” and then the selection for the day from the Book of Confessions. Its generally good stuff and good for me. Perhaps I’ll add some of the sections of the Morning Prayer this week. Its funny, I used to do that quite often, but somewhere along the way gave it up or took a break…

2003-04-04T15:18:00.000-08:00

that sucks. blogged a bunch only to lose it because of msWord's lameness. ugh. so, highlight some text from a blog post prior to publishing, hit cntl X, and you can cntl V it all you like, but cut the same text while in explorer and then start Word and the text gets lost. starting word clears the clipboard? that's lame.
I deeply dislike microsoft products & practices.

2003-04-03T17:24:00.000-08:00

I was reading some of the links keck put on this blog site of mine and there was considerable overlap with my sermon prep study today.
John 12:25 "Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life."
"This statement points not to the reprehensible character of this life in itself, but to its destiny in eternity..." Herman Ridderbos, "The Gospel of John." (Eerdmans, 1997)
To "hate" here also being a Hebraism pointing less to the hating of this life and more to a single minded loyalty to Jesus (after all, those who follow Jesus' pattern of losing life as the condition for an emerging new life "keep" the life they "hated" for eternity.)
So the idea seems to be to value the life that Jesus promises will continue after death over the lives we could live prior to our deaths. Eternal life then is not the goal, rather it is the destination. Living this life with a single-minded loyalty to Jesus is the goal from which life after death will emerge in Christ, leading to life after life after death - or the resurrection.
To that end resonate with Schnackengburg (quoted in one of Ridderbos' footnotes), "the 'life' to be won not to be merely an eschatological existence in the future, but life in the present which extends into the future," and that is something I can really dig.
Typical with sermon preparation however, though the learning journey can be very cool it somehow must arrive on Sunday morning with something understandable and applicable for those who have been on very different journeys all week. Ah, the challenge...
Lord, please give a life-giving Word to your people come Sunday.
Peace

2003-04-01T14:36:00.000-08:00

I'll say this; Eric Keck has surprised me many times before. Certain things are burned into my memory. One is the first time I met Eric. I had only been living like a child of God for a few months. Part of the story of my turn-around is the small group I got involved with. Mike, Drew, Todd, Steve, and Jason started a little group and wanted me to be a part of it. One of the ideas was to have a time of worship, prayer, encouragement and preparation on Friday afternoons. The time slot was key. Most Friday afternoons in Isla Vista were scenes of preparation, thousands of UCSB students preparing to party. I was quite used to that ritual, only that spring of 1990 I was living a very new and different life - trying to follow the King. So instead of getting kegs filled or buying other party materials I started going to this Bible study / worship meeting. It was all very new for me and though at times it seemed awkward I was very into it. Especially since we would go to dinner and then go to parties afterward - only our mission would not be to get laid or get hammered, but rather to talk about Jesus or perhaps help out some sick wobbly mess of a student. Then one Friday afternoon as we're praying there's a knock at the door. Hmmm, not expecting any visitors to our little gathering. The door opened and in walks this huge guy, thick as a tree and wearing the most obnoxious hugger shorts, some cut up tank top and a bright yellow & orange headband around his messy long hair. None of us had ever seen him before, and I know for a fact that at least one of these Christian guys was immediately afraid of Mr. Keck. So Eric tells us he saw a poster for a Christian fraternity, which blew his mind because he was a brand spanking new believer and he'd never heard of such a thing, and that he'd asked around at that frat to see if there were any Bible studies he could go to and somehow had been directed to our meeting. We were not a part of the frat and I suspect those guys just wanted to get Keck off their premises. We eventually got on with our singing and praying and Eric starts to rock and roll and basically take us all by storm. The next few months Eric and I bonded quite a bit, partly because we were both relatively new to a Christian lifestyle and still converting as it were, and partly because he was on a mission to surf. That was fine with me; I'm all about riding waves. The latest surprise from Eric is this whole blog thing. I'm finding that its really a good tool for me in many ways, and though it takes up a bunch of time that I probably would have said I didn't have, it is an energizing experience for me. I look forward to refining my own blog page, learning some tech stuff that will help as I'm the supposed editor of our church web page too. I'm even trying to get a bunch of my other buddies on if only to stay current and encouraged. Keck, thanks for insisting I blog. And thanks for losing the hugger shorts of your youth. Peace.

2003-04-01T11:25:00.000-08:00

I'll say this, Eric Keck has surprised me many times before.
Certain things are burned into my memory. One is the first time I met Eric.
I had only been living like a child of God for a few months. Part of the story of my turn-around is the small group I got involved with. Mike, Drew, Todd, Steve, and Jason started a little group and wanted me to be a part of it. One of the ideas was to have a time of worship, prayer, encouragment and preparation on Friday afternoons. The time slot was key. Most Friday afternoons in Isla Vista were scenes of preparation. Thousands of UCSB students preparing to party. I was quite used to that ritual, only that spring of 1990 I was living a very new and different life - trying to follow the King. So instead of getting kegs filled or buying other party materials I started going to this Bible study / worship meeting. It was all very new for me and though at times it seemed awkward I was very into it. Especially since we would go to dinner and then go to parties afterward - only our mission would not be to get laid or get hammered, but rather to talk about Jesus or perhaps help out some sick wobbly mess of a student.
Then one Friday afternoon as we're praying there's a knock at the door. Hmmm, not expecting any visitors to our little gathering. The door opened and in walks this huge guy, thick as a tree and wearing the most obnoxius hugger shorts, some cut up tank top and a bright yellow & orange headband around his messy long hair. None of us had ever seen him before, and I know for a fact that at least one of these Christian guys was immediately afraid of Mr. Keck.
So Eric tells us he saw a poster for a Christian fraternity, which blew his mind because he was a brand spanking new believer and he'd never heard of such a thing, and that he'd asked around at that frat to see if there were any Bible studies he could go to and somehow had been directed to our meeting. We were not a part of the frat and I suspect those guys just wanted to get Keck off thier premisis. We eventually got on with our singing and praying and Eric starts to rock and roll and basically take us all by storm.
The next few months Eric and I bonded quite a bit, partly becuase we were both relatively new to a Christian lifestyle and still converting as it were, and partly because he was on a mission to surf. That was fine with me, I'm all about riding waves.
The latest surprise from Eric is this whole blog thing.
I'm finding that its really a good tool for me in many ways, and though it takes up a bunch of time that I probably would have said I didn't have, it is an energizing experience for me. I look forward to refining my own blog page, learning some tech stuff that will help as I'm the supposed editor of our church web page too. I'm even trying to get a bunch of my other buddies on if only to stay current and encouraged.
Keck, thanks for insisting I blog.
And thanks for losing the hugger shorts of your youth.
Peace.

2003-03-31T16:09:00.000-08:00

Thankfully God is paying attention.
I wrote last week that we're going to need a movement of the Spirit here - particularly since my own vision for ministry here has been blank.
So as I wrote the "order of worship," which itself is a fairly new thing as I'm accostomed to a much more loose worship structure, I included some Holy Spirit stuff. Nothing too surprising, just a mention of the hs in the call to worship and one hymn from the "pentecost" section of the hymnal. It actually felt a bit lame as I did it, it seemed such a pathetic portal for the spirit - a bulletin, an order of worship, with what sometimes simply seems like fleeting words & moments in our worship service. Perhaps thats how it is for people.
Then Sunday morning rolls around and I'm definitely not feeling it. A few moments of weak prayers for inspiration or something... And next thing I know its time for the service. Granted this is a fairly typical small presbyterian church service, I think the word would be 'traditional,' but that's beside the point. The point is that I began to notice in a sort of amused way that the Spirit was all over the service. That is, each 'movement' of the service seemed to praise or petition or acknowledge the Spirit. By the end of the service I was beginning to sense a little bit of vision emerging in my heart & mind for ministry here. Nothing intense or elaborate, just a few ideas and more importantly, a sense of hope or optimism or energy. A cheerful kind of energy.
Upon reflection I doubt this past Sunday will prove to be the turning point of anything. Perhaps its just enough for me to notice God working in my own heart through the worship of this particular cong. Then again perhaps the ride is just beginning here. Maybe we'll see Spirit momentum and be able to get on with it.
For the time being I'm a bit more encouraged than I was last week, and I'll say its because God pays attention and is trying to help.

2003-03-27T15:02:00.000-08:00

I'm ready for a break, and good thing its coming after Easter.
Seems I need some space to reflect on what it is I should be doing as a solo pastor.
We've got a faithful cong here, and God seems to be doing some good things in me /my family / the cong and community, so thats fine.
Tough part for me is the solo job description (case in point - I'm supposed to write it).
Technically I'm a "minster of word and sacrament" but frankly more often feel like a minister of administration and frustration. I know one of my more important goals is to help this place become more active in ministry. We've got the typical 10% doing 90% and its just gonna take time and persistance and a handful of committed team mates to get the change on. Thats all so typical. Probably what is most challenging is the rural setting. And the whole geriatric thing. And the blog. Being reminded that I'm not serving alongside a bunch of other forward thinkers is a bit of a reality check.
Funny, for a long time working in so cal I kept thinking that community was so hard to get at. Things were so fluid, the pace rapid, and there were so many choices. Not diggin church? Go down the road to the next hip service. Frustrated with people, have a 'busy' month, its not like you'd have to see anyone at the market or post office. I remember postulating that it would be easier to do the hard work of being kingdom people if we actually had to live in a small / tiny town context where it wasn't so easy to avoid problems & problem people. So here I am and I'm longing for the faster pace and whatnot of city life. I suppose the question for me now has to do with how to move intentionally toward some authentic church community now that I'm (stuck?) in a tiny rural town. Lately I'm thinking its going to have to be a pentacost thing 'cause I'm not seeing any other way to light it up.
The break will be good.

2003-03-26T12:15:00.000-08:00

I work in the most unique setting. Ocean Beach Presbyterian Church owns 50% of the Peninsula Church Center. We own the offices, fellowship hall, kitchen, and classrooms. The rest of the Peninsula Church Center is owned by St. Peter's Episcopal Church, that is, the chapel, sanctuary, choir room & "fireside" room. The Church Center is run by a joint committee made up of members of both churches. Oh, don't forget that the Church Center rents the chapel to St. John's Lutheran Church. So, each Sunday there are three separate worship services here, along with Sunday school and a couple coffee & snack times. I never felt a particular interest in 'ecumenism' and yet now I live it.
I've been thinking about it lately because of some things I'm working on for our local youth. The Four Square, A.G., Baptist, Episcopal and Presbyterian pastors & youth pastors are banding together to do youth events that none of us could do on our own. My basic feeling is that the more high school and jr. high school students we can bring the gospel to and the more believing students we can encourage the better. I'm personally not too concerned which youth group any students end up going to, just so long as they get connected with God and some peers who believe and want to grow in their faith.
One thing thats becoming interesting is that we're in uncharted territory as far as funding this new youth work. We want to do an outreach of sorts at the high school on monday evenings starting during holy week using the "Quest" video series (which has been very well recieved by our mediavore kids and their friends in smaller settings - check it out). Planning this thing has put me in the weirdly unfamiliar place of trusting God for finances. All the years of working on a large church staff, and even now of being the solo pastor, I've become accustomed to working within budgets. It is nice and enables lots of stuff - its just that it has been ages since I've been sent into a ministry situation thats not already been funded. It was fun last night to pray with the Baptist youth pastor about our plans and needs for funding and flash on the sense of risk and excitement that was brewing within me. Then I thought about blog and keck.
I've not been in this position since eric (and then eric and beth and zion) lived in so. cal. Then I thought how cool it is that suddenly I'm in touch again with those cherished folks via blog. Then I began to wonder what God was working on with all this. Then I thought about how lame the former name of my blog was - hence the change - then I wanted to pray and worship some more and hopefully surf this afternoon. later.

2003-03-24T14:23:00.000-08:00

Turns out the best waves we've had recently came yesterday while I was preaching, uhg.
Got the "you shoulda been there" call after church, yea.
Flip side is Kingdom waves surely will be m u c h better.
On to more important work.

2003-03-20T10:16:00.000-08:00

wow, this could eat a lot of time!
I like it though - I thanks for the verbage ek.
later

2003-03-20T10:06:00.000-08:00

I'm wondering if this will keep me tuned into keckworld, and vice versa.
I'm reflecting this morning on how different it is to be the solo pastor of a smaller church in a rural area (with killer surf). The urban/suburban large church setting is so dang different-worlds apart.
The good part is the opportunty for ministry in all settings, from youth worker last night to sermon writing today to visiting the elderly or hospitalized this afternoon (hopefully). The other thing is that in a small town I'm known. Thats way different. Anonymity has some advantages, but so does the lack thereof.
One or two mornings a week I'm at the local high school just hanging out. The local pastors have been invited to hang out before & after school, & at lunch, to be a presence and available for 'couseling' should any student want it. Its all in response to two h.s. suicides this school year, plus at least one attempt, a mysterious youth death and two local recent high school graduates who killed themselves. Plus a highschool suicide across the river in Astoria, and a host of other extreme stuff. So, I hang out and talk to kids, pray for them, etc. Anyway, its different being so known and visible. This morning some student I didn't know comes up & says, "hey, I saw you putting your trash cans away this morning while I was on the bus on the way to school - who are you and what are you doing here." It may not be much but where I'm from in So. Cal. that kind of thing pretty much didn't happen. Long & short - pray for the youth around here, its been a crazy year.
It does seem we're on the cusp of some new ministry here though. Hence "surge." Surfing the tidal surge here is nuts, the volume of water surging in the Columbia estuary makes the sandbars... insane. Seems the Spirit may be on the way like that - ride or get worked. And just like surfing up here, if one isn't in shape/prepared the odds of getting worked are high. A healty & vibrant spiritual life is a nonnegotiable.

2003-03-19T12:55:00.000-08:00

2003-03-19T12:50:00.000-08:00

surf

2003-03-19T12:38:00.000-08:00

whatever

2003-03-19T12:30:00.000-08:00

I'm testing this out 'cause the waves are too small today

2003-03-14T19:25:00.000-08:00

welcome bro