Because I Said So

Those are haunting words that make kids fume with anger and can give those of us who are no longer kids horrifying flashbacks of the times we have heard that phrase.  You ask, “why?” and Mom or Dad say, “because I said so.” 

When you heard this growing up, you swore on anything you could think of that you would never, ever say that to your kids.  You would give them reasoned, thoughtful answers to every question that they ever ask.  Ask why once, I will give you an answer.  Twice, thrice, quadrice (?), no problem.  They can keep asking why and you will hang in there with them and keep giving them good answers to the why question.

Then it happens, they push you too hard, too far or at the wrong time and you say it, “Because I said so!”  Maybe you have chosen to mask the phrase with it’s nearly identical twin, “Because I’m your dad/mom,” but nonetheless you said it.  They overreact and then you slink back into your bedroom, close the door and weep, despondent about the loss of the idealism of your perfect always patient, gracious and thoughtful parenting style.  You have in fact, become just like your mom/dad.

I have released this.  I have become my dad.  I parent very much like he did.  The most recent example occurred at the soccer field this weekend.  My daughter in an attempt to stop the other player from attacking the goal charged the player, missed the ball, but, in fact, did not miss the player.  Had someone from Cabot High School’s football program been there, he would have wanted to talk to me and get some info on this 3rd grade prospect.  The other girl goes down hard, and rightfully, starts to cry and is carried off.

Later on at home, my mom (my folks were at the game) ask me about the incident and would it have been OK for one of my girls to cry on the field.  (Half ?) Joking, I say, “you know how I was raised, what do you think?”  “Well, you do have girls, you know.”  “Yeah, but their playing sports.  Getting hurt is part of it.  Shake it off and keep playing.  If you don’t want to get hurt, let’s take a knitting class.”  (I’m not sure if that last line is sexist, insulting to people who knit or just funny.  You be the judge.)

We all to one degree or another parent as we were parented.  You know that’s not all bad.  You turned out OK, didn’t you?  At least in some ways.  The real question is do we parent like we were parented on purpose or accidentally?  Do we not parent like we were parented for good reason or just as a continuation of teenage rebellion?  Take the good from how you were parented and gladly reproduce it.  Analyze the weaknesses and make changes when you need to.  Talk to your spouse, friends, other family and invite them to help you evaluate how you are doing.  Pray, read Proverbs.  Parent on purpose with a strategy and with consistency. 

You know, every now and then a kid needs a good, “because I said so” because your authority should be enough and they need to know it (just don’t don’t tell your parents).

p.s.  I do let my kids cry when they are legitimately hurt.  You and I may just have different definition of “legitimately.”

Diversity, Choirs, Guitars and Excellence

You may be surprised to hear that I wasn’t necessarily intending on opening multiple cans of worms in posting about worship.  I didn’t necessarily feel that what I said was controversial, but I certainly do not mind it.  Discussion is healthy.  Disagreement is healthy.  The pursuit of God often is found in such ways.  To catch up, read the original post here. 

We are going to do something a little different.  Rather than respond to my thoughts, I want to hear you respond to something someone else said.  In one of the comments, a friend of mine from St. Louis brings up one of the trends in worship music:

The musical shift in the last 10 years has been frightening to watch. Churches now focus on having the cool, young, hip guitar player as the “music minister”, and if you play any instrument that would fall outside of a standard rock band, you are no longer welcome. Only the beautiful people need apply now – young, physically attractive, professional-level talent is all that is desired. The average person no longer has a place other than in the crowd. Most choirs are gone, and your average singers can’t pass audition in most churches. Read the music forums sometime for full-time worship leaders and see the types of things they discuss – it will give you chills. A lot of it is focused on how to keep everyone but hand-selected professionals off the stage, and how to keep the few people they do allow on the stage under absolute control. There is a reason why they want it that way……music in most churches has become all about performance.

What do you think?  Does a church have an obligation to use anyone who wants to be used in the music ministry?  Should a church provide a diverse range of styles so that a classical singer can be used as well as electric guitar player?  Has the striving for excellence in the worship music made the music more about performance than worship?  What do you think?

I Hate the Worship at That Church

What an incredible thing to say, but I’m sure that many of you have heard someone say it or something like it.  Maybe they don’t say hate, maybe they just say “didn’t like.”  Regardless, it is still a strange thing to say.  Several things strike me about such a statement. 

First, how did music style preference become such a huge controversy in church?  Sure there are some styles of worship music in churches that I might find cheesy or old fashioned.  But for everyone of me that thinks that there are dozens who are connecting their hearts with God and worshipping him.  Some may find the worship at our church a little, shall we say loud? Someone once described it as “loud and sounds like a rock concert.”  It took me just a second to realize that this person was not giving us a compliment.  I understand musical preference, but what I do not understand and cannot tolerate is castigating other styles of worship as “bad.”

Which gets to the larger point, worship is not the same as music.  You can have worship without worship music and you can have worship music without worship.  Right now I sit in the lobby of FBCLR and worship music is playing, but I am not worshipping to that music, I am typing.  Worship is not simply singing.  It is your heart connecting with God’s heart.  It is you demonstrating with your words and with your life that you love God and are completely devoted to God.  Worship is an expression of your heart.  If I walk into the most traditional of worship services and hear a hymn, I should be able to worship.  If the words and music of that hymn do not captivate my heart, then I assure you problem is not with the minister of music or the organist, it is with me.

I should be able to worship God in any style of music.  More than that, I should be able to praise and worship God when I see Lauren (my 9 yr old daughter) winning her soccer tournament.  I praise God for the beautiful, sweet, strong young lady she is becoming.  I should praise God just by waking up to another day, a day that is a gift from God.

Worship is so much more than being in a worship service where music is played that you prefer.  Worship is you from your heart appreciating and praising God for the amazing God that he is.

Making it Easter All Year Round

I want to give a huge shout out to everyone that made the weekend of Easter services at Fellowship Cabot incredible.  Really I want to give a shout out to all of Fellowship and really everyone who did something a little extra over Easter weekend to create great worship experiences for people last weekend.  I have heard incredible stories from pastors and friends all over the nation.  Great job everyone.

Some people came to the Saturday night service and then served all 3 services on Sunday morning.  They were at church for an hour and a half on Saturday and then over four hours Sunday morning.  People parked far away from the front door even though they got there early (isn’t that the perk of getting there early, along with fresher coffee?).  People sat on the front row.  Who would ever do that?  A lot of people did a lot of small things.  When you put all of the small things together, you have something really big that helps make for an incredble worship experience for people of all ages.

Here is a question?  How do we keep that spirit going?  I know that not every week is as big or heavily attended as Easter.  Easter is the best opportunity that churches have to minister to a large group of people who normally are not in church.  If everyone did as much on Easter every week, we would have a lot of tired people.  But what part of that attitude that drives us to do the little things on Easter can we keep alive all year long?

1) Make the serve one service, worship one service routine, an every week commitment.  More community is built in your serving team than just about anywhere.  You will be used by God every week in the lives of people you serve.  You will be considered a hero by the leader of that team.  If you are working with kids, then you will build deep relationships with them and provide much needed stability.

2) Attend the least attended service.  Often the smaller services are just a few families away from having enough momentum to really taking off.  You could make the difference.  Some people, on Saturday night services for instance, can only attend these “off-peak” services.  You worshiping with them is partnering to help minister to them.  It also provides more space for the peak, highly attended service.  Even if you only can do it every now and then, like once a month, it can still make a huge difference.

3) Consider yourself a greeter every week, even if you are not on the greeting team.  Be a friendly face for new people.  Show them God’s love and that your church loves people.

Those things may seem small, but again, a lot of small become big quickly and make a huge difference in the lives of people.

Disney World, Fayetteville, What’s the Difference?

Sorry that I have been away and not blogging.  I know that matters to, well, no one.  We went on Spring Break for a week and I made a commitment to not get on the computer any.  I didn’t.  I did have my pocket computer with me, read iPhone.  Barely tweeted or FB, played some Words with Friends, but for the most part was computer-free and family focused.

We went to Fayetteville for a few days to see some friends and then we went to Branson to spend a couple of days with my folks and go to Silver Dollar City.  At one point, Heidi and I had talked about taking the kids back to Disney World.  We (me) love going there and the kids of course love it as well.  However, it didn’t really work out schedule-wise.  I had a wedding the last weekend of spring break and it would not have worked well.  So what do we do instead?  Go to Fayetteville. 

That’s the same, right?  If not the same, close, right?  Let me tell you, in the minds of my girls, it was.  We stayed at the Hog Cottage, which is owned and operated by our friends.  Check it out here.  It is right off the campus.  You can see the stadium from the front yard.  My girls loved it, and asked multiple times while we there and more since we got back about staying there again.  They thought it was great.  They had their own bedroom!  Woo-hoo!  (They have their own bedroom at home, fyi.)  There was a TV! (Have one of those)  There were snacks! (Got those at home too).  We played lazer tag, rode a mechanical bull, rode go-carts and went out to eat.  It snowed 14 inches while we there and we went sledding.  Not exactly Pirates of the Caribbean and Space Mountain, but close.

What did they love that trip so much?  We were togtether having fun.  We were doing something different and they had my undivided attention.  I have worked very hard in the past to plan expensive, fun trips.  The girls love them, but they love these just as much.  I want to create big, fun memories for them, stuff that they will remember forever.  They want me to stop at Sonic for happy hour and buy them a drink. 

What do they want?  They want me.  Sure, they might prefer me at Disney World than me at Fayetteville, but not by much.  We’ll go back to Disney some day, but I don’t feel any pressure, because what they really want is me. 

BTW, please don’t tell them you read this.  Otherwise, they will start intentionally not having fun on vacations so we will go back to Disney.

Stuff Christians Need to Stop Saying #10

How do you wrap up a series?  You can kill off the main character and be done (Freddy, Jason).  The problem with that is, you can always figure out a way to bring him back.  “No, he didn’t really die.”  Lame.  You can wrap up the story, bring closure (Star Wars).  Then you still want to know what happens next and people write 7000 books about what happens next to the characters.  Most common?  Act like you’re closing down, and then see if does well and then bring it back anyway (Everything).

How does a math major do it?  Duh, don’t you have to stop at 10?

Set up:  Someone is struggling to figure out life’s purpose and meaning.  They are not sure what to do, where to go.

Response: When all else fails, reads the instructions.

I am going to start with the disclaimer here.  Read the Bible.  Reading the Bible is great.  God will speak to you.  You will be challenged, spurred toward growth, drawn closer to God, convicted of sin, inspired, many many things.  Don’t have a reading plan?  Use the Fellowship Journal.  Ok, are we settled?  Cloften.com greatly supports daily, frequent Bible reading.

Moving on.  Read the instructions?  Really?  If the Bible is an instruction book, it is the worst instruction book, ever.  The table of contents is completely unhelpful.  It gives you names you don’t recognize and is not at all helpful in directing me toward the issues that I am having with life.  Regardless, if I start reading from the beginning, looking for instructions I am going to be confused and disappointed.  “Uhh, I want to know how to discipline my kids and what I read was a story about two naked people and a snake.”

Even the parts of the Bible that are instruction-heavy, Leviticus and Deuteronomy, have been fulfilled in Jesus Christ and don’t apply to us directly (Acts 15).  The Bible is not an instruction book.  (It also is not a love letter) While it may serve the purpose of providing us with instruction and guidance and does reflect God’s love for us, to say that the Bible is an instruction book or love letter is to greatly minimize and diminish the power and beauty and depth of the Bible.

It has incredible stories meant to inspire us and some to scare us, with great models, terrible models and mostly mixed ones.  The Bible has beautiful poetry that will inspire you into a deeper love for God.  There are prophetic works of judgment and hope that can move us to a deeper faith in troubled times. 

The Bible is deep and rich and when you read it you will be drawn closer to God and will walk closer with him.  As you read and pray, you will notice the Holy Spirit convicting you where you are failing and encouraging you where are doing well.

However, if you approach the Bible as if it were simply an instruction book, you will miss out on the depth of relationship with God that you will get from study and interaction with him.  You also will be highly frustrated, because the Bible, like life, is just not as simple as reading the instructions on assembling a computer desk (Though I will confess the instructions for desk assembly are quite confusing). 

On the other hand if you approach the Bible as God’s Word meant to inspire us, challenge us and deepen us, and draw us closer to him, you will never, never be disappointed.

When the Pastor Gives His Daughter Away

So, I am with a friend the other day and he says, “You start a lot of your posts with the word, ’so.’”  Hmm, didn’t notice that.

So, we as a family are at a wedding Friday night, Seth Latture and Rachel Stockdale.  They have just recently started coming to our church.  He plays keyboard for one of our worship bands.  The wedding was at New Life Church in Conway, great church BTW, where they had been going for years and where her dad is one of the pastors.

There I am with my wife and two daughters and I am watching this pastor/dad walk his daughter down the aisle.  (Jim Stockdale is a great man and pastor and has the privilege of being the dad to four girls.)  Before he gives her away, the officiating pastor gives him a mic and he gives a blessing to his daughter and future son-in-law.  He talks about what a blessing his daughter has been and how he has been praying for this day, that God would bring the right man.  He then looks at Seth and commends him for the man he is and how proud he is to give his daughter away to him. 

Then he did it.  He gave her away.  He sat down and watched his daughter marry this guy.  Then right before the pronouncement, he got up and prayed for them.  Wow.  I teared up then.  Tearing up now.  As a dad of daughters and a pastor myself, I found myself walking in Jim’s shoes.  I will walk in those shoes someday.

The question is what am I doing to prepare myself and my girls so that when that day comes,  I will be as encouraged and want to give a blessing the way he did? 

What do my girls see in the way that I love them and encourage them and value them that makes them have high expectations for a man?

What do they see in the way that I treat their mom that sets the expectations for what a husband should be?

How am I pointing them towards God so that they will learn to trust him and follow him and expect that their husband will do the same?

Do I pray?

Do I go and have lunch at their school on a regular basis and intimidate boys so that they will be scared of me, and consequently my girls, and we can delay this process for as long as we can?

Well, maybe we don’t need the last one.  Regardless, that day is coming.  I will walk my girls down the aisle.  I will give them away to somebody.  Who that somebody is depends on me.

Knowing Who You Are Not

So yesterday, the staff of Fellowship Cabot got away for a day and did some planning.  The process at Fellowship is planning in the spring for a ministry year that runs with the school year (sort of) from July to June.  During this time, we talked about things that went well the last 12 months, things we could improve upon and then began to look ahead to next year.  We did this for about 8 hours.

I am going to let you in on a secret (which is really no secret if you know me at all).  I don’t really care for meetings.  I am not what you would call a “planner.”  So “planning” + “meeting” *8 hours = long day.  I love our staff.  I love our church, but the all day planning meeting is tough.

Here is the thing though, I called the meeting.  This was my idea.  I looked at our staff a couple of weeks ago, told them why we needed to do this.  We put it on the calendar and had the meeting yesterday.  This is my responsibility, and we did it.

However, I know that this is not my strength.  I know that.  Furthermore, not only do I know that, but I am also able to admit it…out loud…to my staff…and to the world (and by world, of course, I mean the 8 people who read this).  I have no problem at all admiting to you that this is a weakness.  I do not want to pretend otherwise.  What good do I do myself or the church if I pretend that I am the total package?  The answer is none.  In fact, I can do a lot of harm.  Important things will not get done and if done, will not get done well.

So what do I do?  The first step is admiting the weakness.  Then I look to surround myself with other leaders who are good at the thing with which I struggle.  Then I let them lead me.  Milk-a-what?  That’s right I have people that are technically my staff, where I am “the boss” and I let them lead me.   Scott Monnahan is far and away a better organizational leader.  You should have seen the color coded charts.  You should have seen the pieces of paper that he had taped all over the room.  It was beautiful.  You could have given me a month and limitless resources and maybe I could have done what he did.  He did it out of his back pocket.  Why would I not let him lead out during the detailed portions of our day yesterday?

I tell you why not, because I am an insecure leader who is intimidated by other people’s strengths and feel the need to pretend to the world that I am excellent at everything.  News flash: I am not excellent at everything.  News flash:  neither are you.

Know who you are.  Know who you are not.  Surround yourself with great leaders who are better than you.  Then watch your team conquer all the challenges that are put before you.  If you’re lucky, you might even get to see something as cool as this:

Stuff Christians Need to Stop Saying #0

Ah, the prequel.  You can tell me that it is terrible and it will not matter (Hannibal Rising).  I will want to see it.  A good series makes you interested in the characters and you just want to know how things got started (X-Men Origins: Wolverine).  It can be over 15 years later (Star Wars) and I will be ready.  Many of them were disappointing but I would be first in line tomorrow, if they made one about Qui-Gon (Liam Neeson). 

Love the prequel.  Often it answers the question, why? 

Set-up:  Someone you know is going through a hard time, facing a challenge.  Perhaps you are trying to instruct your child or a protege in what it means to follow after God.  Perhaps you are one of the 3 people in the world that looks forward to church signs for reasons other than irony.  Who knows?

Response: Some overly-simplified Christian slogan that can fit on a bumper sticker.

Some (and by some I mean the 7 of you still reading) may be wondering why have I been blogging this series.  People who know me think they know the answer and that it’s simple.  This brings three of my favorite things together:  helping people grow in faith, ranting, and random pop-culture references.  Add in eating cheesy, salty snacks and this could have it all.

However, there is something deeper that compels me to do this.  Way too often, we as believers take overly simplified approaches to God and faith.  We want answers.  We want steps.  We want to easily put our mind around the what, why and how of our struggles.   We wish that everything were as simple as this:

“Hmm, this guy at my work is really annoying me.  Should I kill him?”

“Well in Exodus 20:13 it says you shall not murder.”

“Oh, really?  Thanks.”

Life is not always that simple.  In fact, it rarely is that simple.  God is bigger than our formulas and bumper sticker theology and life is very complicated.  In order to follow after God and be the men and women he has called us to be requires faith.  That faith needs to run deep and we need to be willing to put in the mental, emotional and spiritual work it takes.

Philippians 2:12-13

¹²Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, ¹³for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

Slogans and quippy phrases may point us in the right direction, but they can only be the beginning point of a faith journey where we learn to follow Jesus deeply with continued reliance on the Holy Spirit to lead and guide us.  Always ask questions, always read, always pray.  Listen to God.  Let him challenge, deepen and strengthen you.

You will be amazed at what God will show you, and much of it will not fit on a bumper sticker.

I Always Feel Like Somebody’s Watching Me

So our Worship Pastor, Jason Merrick, AKA Dr. Worship, and I are having lunch at Quiznos yesterday.  (I call him Dr. Worship, because he leads worship at our church and is by profession a medical doctor).  Anywho, we are sitting there and “Somebody’s Watching Me” comes on, and of course, I stopped talking.  I had to take a moment.  So, I offer Merrick 2 points to name the artist.  How many points you get is based on difficulty.  I offer you the same points.  (Points can be redeemed for discounted blog posts on cloften.com)

That song at Quiznos reminded me of one of my favorite stories that happend to Merrick and I at Quiznos.  I have told this story before in sermons, so I apologize to those that have heard this.  (However, one of  the benefits of cloften.com for me is that it becomes a repository for my favorite stories).

Merrick and I eat there almost every Thursday.  Whoever gets there first gets in line and orders the sandwiches.  (That’s right we eat at the same place every week and order the same sandwiches every week.  You have a problem with that?)  Typically it’s me, what with him being a doctor and all.  This time he was there first and there was a line.  I go to stand next to him and after a minute the dude behind us starts getting angry.  I won’t say that he was yelling, but suffice to say it was loud enough for everyone in the small Quiznos to hear it.  “Oh I guess you guys just get in line wherever you want, huh?”  Merrick tries to explain to him that he was there first, we order together, etc.  “Whatever you want to call it, (obnoxious noise like a phhhhh)”  Just as Merrick was about to explain it to him a little more forcefully, Rufus there mumbles something else at us.  I look at him and apologize and have him get in front of us.  He shoots us a smug look and orders. 

If you don’t know this, Merrick and I are both high justice and quite competitive.  That was hard for both of us.  I leaned into Merrick and said, “The people that work here know that we eat here all the time and that we plan worship services here.  They are watching.”  We calm down, order, get our food and sit down.

The guy in front took his sandwich to go.  After he left, the manager comes over to us and thanks us for how we handled that.  She explained that he is a regular and he gives people trouble all the time.  She appreciated the grace and humility that we showed and thanked us again.  She walks away and I look at Merrick.  He says, “OK, you win.”

If you are a follower of Christ and people know it, know this–people are watching you.  People want to see if you live the same way you talk at church.  I always feel like somebody’s watching me, and they are.  Unlike Rockwell (there’s your 2 pt answer), it is not paranoid.  It is reality.

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