OUR Life Matters

It all began with a simple conversation.  A pastor’s wife told me how God had provided the funds to repair one of their air conditioners at the church, but they couldn’t make contact with the A/C company who had given them the original bid.

I called a friend (Mr. D) in the business, who has a great heart for ministry and mission, and asked if he would take a look.  The next day he was there and got them fixed up for about ¼ of the quoted price.  While he was there, he noticed that the church had absolutely no insulation in their attic.  He called and left a message for another mutual friend (Mr. M) to see if they could figure out a way to help this church.  That friend couldn’t answer the call because he was in a meeting with a representative (Mr. G) from a world-wide ministry at their Dallas-area facility.  In that meeting, Mr. G mentioned that he was trying to figure out what to do with a large donation of … wait for it … insulation.

(Photo credit: Photobucket)

So, Mr. M leaves the meeting and checks his voice mail.  Bingo!  He turns around and walks back into Mr. G’s office and says, “Have I got a deal for you!”  About four phone calls later, we had a plan.

So, last Saturday morning, Mr. D, Mr. M, Mr. G, Mr. Me, and about a dozen other folks representing these various ministries showed up at the church with a trailer full of insulation and a brand new insulation blowing rig.  Twenty one bags of insulation later, accompanied by a lot of laughter and friendship, we sat down and had lunch together and celebrated how God had provided for this small church.  What a great example of Kingdom partnerships at work!

I have been vague about names and ministries for two reasons.  One is that I didn’t ask their permission to use their names or the names of their ministries.  The second is the most important reason.  I don’t want anyone but God to get the credit.  Each of these men, and their ministries, would agree.  There will certainly be more opportunities for us to work together in partnerships and some of them may become more public, but for now, I wanted to just make it about the story of how God often looks at you and me and sees us.

When I say that our lives matter to God, we tend to see that as our individual lives mattering.  And they do.  He does see our individual lives and needs.  But He also sees the intricate intersections that we can’t see and He sees the collective potential.  So, we can also say OUR life matters.

Hebrews 10:24-25 says, “Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another.”

THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: Who is your one another?

Unplugged: Living Acoustically In An Amplified World

You might say that music and church, separately and together, have been two of the anchors of my life. I sang my first solo in church at the age of 3.  I started traveling and singing in other churches at the age of 13 and began balancing that with being my home church’s volunteer Music Director at 15.  That path continued through a Bachelor’s degree in music education from West Texas State(now A&M) University (go Buffs!) and a move to Fort Worth to attend Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Even when the path took an unexpected turn into preaching, it was “in addition to”, not “instead of” music. To this day, I still get asked to contribute musically in the churches I assist. 

In almost 50 years of singing and over 35 in leading worship, I’ve seen a lot of changes in church music.  I’ve lived through the days when the Jesus Rock & Roll music that I was listening to most of the time was being described as the Devil’s music in church.  I still remember the letter to the editor I read as a college student when someone wrote about their disappointment in the music at a Christian conference we attended.  “Rock-type music is wrong, no matter what the words say,” wrote this person. (Click here to hear the actual song that drew that complaint). I’m pretty sure nobody in church in those days could possibly have envisioned some of the music that is considered completely mainstream Christian music today.

Of course, it could be all that loud music in those days that has made “huh?” the most common word in my house these days. 

An interesting thing happened a few years back, when rock bands (both Christian and secular) started doing “unplugged” acoustic records. Who knew that all of us old rockers would have an appetite for a quieter, more natural fare?  Those of us who attended concerts in stadiums where the stacks of amplifiers had to be transported in tractor trailer rigs can also enjoy a single voice with an acoustic guitar in a coffee house.

Because music has been so interwoven into the fabric of my life, it is quite natural for me to use music stories and illustrations to talk about life in general.  As favorite son says, “My dad has a song and a story for everything.”

I’m thinking today about how plugged in and amplified our lives have become.  Facebook, twitter, email, LinkedIn, Google+, text messages, YouTube, iTunes, Dish Network, Netflix, Hulu … you get the picture.  And while they can be enjoyable, and even beneficial, we have to deliberately remind ourselves that they are not life. To do that, we need to make time to unplug—to live acoustically—so that we can clearly hear the subtleties of the way God communicates that our daily lives matter to Him.

I have chosen Friday as my “social media fast day” and am working toward getting more and more unplugged on that day.  

This Week's Question:  What day could you go acoustic and how would that help you refocus?  

Murder He Wrote: How to Murder a Conversation

I like a good murder mystery; a well-developed fictional story with a murder plot and lots of unexpected twists and turns.

As I have been pondering the topic over the past couple of weeks, I am thinking about the mysterious demise of Mr. Conversation.  He’s been bludgeoned, poisoned, and starved to death in living rooms, conference rooms, and bedrooms.  He’s died on the phone and in front of witnesses. And if all the suspects were to be arrested, you and I might be behind bars today.

I have used all three of those previously mentioned murder weapons.

Bludgeoning: This is a totally one-sided conversation.  As a preacher/writer accustomed to 30 minute uninterrupted monologues or 500 word uninterrupted newspaper columns, it is not surprising that I might need to give some intentional focus to being able to carry on a good conversation.  Mrs. Sweetie has been sitting in church pews listening to me preach for 29 years.  Amazingly enough, she is not interested in hearing a sermon at home.  In Vancouver last month, we visited with a church planter who is starting a church on the campus of the Universityof British Columbia.  He teaches his students the 20-20 rule for conversations.  Talk 20 seconds about yourself and let the other person talk for 20 minutes about herself. If we take that approach, the conversation has a great chance of balancing out.

Poisoning: This is allowing toxic substances to overwhelm a conversation; substances like gossip, criticism, humiliation, and whining.  “How are you,” is a bad question to ask a toxic conversationalist because you are going to walk away feeling worse than when it started.

Starvation: This is when we allow outside distractions to steal the conversational opportunities before us.  When our TV show or the work we brought home consume our entire evening, we run the risk of conversation starvation.  When we spend the entire mealtime answering phone calls and text messages rather than engaging with our dining companions, starvation is setting in.

The phrase “encourage one another” appears three times in the New Testament (1 Thessalonians 5:11, Hebrews 3:13, Hebrews 10:25).  I am not aware of a more effective way of doing that than by healthy conversation.  Our lives matter to God and should matter to each other.

Last week I invited you to conversation with me, especially in response to what you read in this blog or its newspaper column form.  Before I mention a couple of opportunities, let me encourage you to carefully consider engagement with content that comes to you through an intermediary source.  If you read something in a newspaper or magazine that blesses you, let them know.  If you appreciate a guest columnist or blogger, let the host know.  They often get bludgeoned.  Some encouraging conversation directed toward them would be a welcome respite.

Now, some quick ways to converse with me:  

1. You can email me with your questions or comments by using the "Contact Me" formto the right. 

2. To get a conversation started around something you read in this blog, you can post a comment below.  

3. My Facebook ministry page is www.facebook.com/thatllpreach. 

4. Follow me on twitter @harvestdom.  I’d love to hear from you. 

Now for the question of the week:  What is the number one thing you can do this week to contribute to healthy conversations?

Talk to Me ... I Mean It

I started writing Life Matters in 1996.  Back then, it was an opportunity to use relatively new technology (email) to share some encouraging thoughts with members of my congregation at Eagle Mountain Baptist Church, where I was pastor from 1991 to 2008.  As more friends and family members started using email and as church members found the dreaded “forward” button, the subscriber list expanded.  (Now, if I see the letters “Fwd”, I think it is an abbreviation for “Delete”).

Over the years, I occasionally would receive a short email response where someone would tell me they enjoyed what I wrote or they had a question about something I said.  Sometimes there would even be a few emails exchanged (almost like a conversation).  I loved the interaction, so when I re-launched Life Matters as a blog in 2009, I was hoping for a more interactive experience with my readers, but I still really didn’t know how to write in a way that made people want to respond (other than shaking their heads).  Admittedly, I’m still working on that.

A new door and chapter opened in 2011, when Life Matters began appearing as a weekly newspaper column. Talk about embracing new technology!  As of this week, I believe the past 130 or so editions have appeared in a local newspaper somewhere.  Even with all the technology that exists, I know for a fact that more people read my thoughts with an actual newspaper in their hands than they do sitting in front of a computer screen.  I am incredibly blessed and humbled by the opportunity to invest myself in the lives of local folks through that medium and hope the opportunity lasts for years to come.

But, I still crave interaction.  As a writer and as a preacher, I am accustomed to casting my words out for consumption and contemplation.  I hope to sometimes make you smile, sometimes make you laugh, sometimes make you think, and sometimes touch you deeply.   Proverbs 16:24 says, “Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.”  When I tell you that your life matters to God, I hope you believe it.  I also hope my words inspire you in some way to think about, and maybe even talk about, life in a new light.

That talking is what I want to invite you to this week.  I run into people all the time who tell me they enjoy reading my newspaper column.  I love that, but I don’t just want to know you enjoyed it.  I’d love to know how it made you think or how you apply it to your life.  I’d love to hear you expand on my thoughts and I’d love to learn from you.  Romans 15:14 says, “I myself am convinced, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, complete in knowledge and competent to instruct one another.”

Please leave me a comment below.  I can't wait to talk with you and not just to you.  More information about conversation coming next week.

While We're Eating, Let's Talk Death

I wrote this blog last week from a hotel room in Nashville, TN, where I was attending a conference for Church Consultants.  On Sunday morning, I worshiped with  The Donelson Fellowship.  It was actually a church I had wanted to visit for several years, since reading a couple of books written by their pastor, Robert Morgan. 

It was a great experience from the moment we drove onto the parking lot.  We donned our “church consultant lenses” and noticed great directional signage, a friendly and helpful parking lot greeter, more friendly and helpful greeters inside the door, and an inviting and welcoming atmosphere. 

During the pastor’s excellent sermon, he referenced a recent trend among Baby Boomers to get together over dinner and talk about death and dying.  These “Death Dinners”, according to a Bloomberg news article from a few weeks ago, are trending in New York, but were inspired by a group of master’s degree students and faculty at the University of Washington.  Their program, “Let’s Have Dinner and Talk About Death,” offers “talking points, reading material on death, and how to word a death dinner invitation. Since starting last month, about 400 people have signed up to host dinners, the group said.”

I regularly listen to a podcast called “This is Your Life” by Michael Hyatt.  His most recent blog and podcast topic dealt with tips for having better dinner conversations.  I can’t remember, “Would you rather be buried or cremated?” being one of his suggested questions.

However, as I read through the Bloomberg article online, it kind of made sense.  It seems a little creepy to have a “death” conversation when everyone is healthy, but that really is the point.  Medical technology, nutrition, and simply a better standard of living have increased our life expectancy and we have innumerable resources to help us prepare to live well.  I like to think of this blog as one of those resources.  But, how do we prepare to die well?

Death is often seen as the great Interloper, the uninvited destroyer of dreams and fearful heart breaker.  I think it is possible, rather, to view death as a commencement exercise or even a birthing chamber into life at its fullest.  But just talking about death and funeral arrangements won’t help us make that shift.  A will, medical power of attorney, or other advanced directives are helpful and advisable, but still do not transform our mental models of death and dying.

The fearfulness of a closed door is mitigated when we know what is on the other side. Jesus said, “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” (John 6:37) Our lives matter so much to God that He wants us to enter the next reality with assurance.  That assurance comes by knowing Him personally in this reality.

Now about that “Death Dinner” – home cooked or carry-out?

God Came Near

Note: Due to current work and travel schedule, this week's Life Matters is an "encore" edition from January, 2007 (pre-blog/newspaper column days) with slight editing. I think it is still relevant.  Hope you think so, too. - G.L.

Do you ever think of a witty and clever response about 30 minutes too late?  Do you envy those quick-witted folks who seem to have a response without having to think about it?  Favorite son has always been one of those.  When he was a young teenager, we were in a restaurant waiting for the waitperson (note the politically correct, non-gender-specific terminology) to take our order. My boy was constantly jabbering—but in such a low volume that the cacophony of voices and rattle of dishes in the restaurant made it difficult to understand.  Mrs. Sweetie finally asked, “What did you say?”  “Oh, I was just talking to myself,” he replied.  She responded, “Well, are you answering yourself?”  Without a moment’s hesitation he demonstrated that we were in the presence of wit-greatness.  “No,” he said, “I’m not feeling very talkative tonight.”  At this point I contributed to the conversation with guffaws and snorts.  It reminded me a little bit of the hand-lettered message favorite daughter once had on her bedroom door—“I would challenge you to a battle of wits, but you appear unarmed.”

One of the perplexities of life is that it sometimes seems that God is not feeling very talkative.  Now I’m not talking about hearing God speak out loud.  Most Christ-followers have never heard God audibly, but they have “heard” Him speak in other ways.

But, God can seem un-talkative when you read and read the Bible, but nothing seems to touch your heart and you pray and pray, but you feel no connection with God. I’m talking about when the circumstances of life make no sense and there are no words that make it any better.

In my years as a pastor I often had the occasion of conducting a funeral service for someone that spent most of his life making really poor choices.  In those times I wondered what to say.  What words could reframe this circumstance for a devastated family?  God seemed irritatingly un-talkative.

When there is another natural disaster or another terrorist attack somewhere in the world, what can we say that helps put it in perspective?  How can people of faith speak to the watching and listening world without seeming trite and rehearsed?  God seems irritatingly un-talkative.

Then I remember that God has spoken through sending One who was called Emmanuel—which means “God with us” (Matthew 1:23).  When God seems irritatingly un-talkative, we must remember that Jesus was God’s visible reminder that He is with us.  He constantly reaches out to us.  He is the God who comes near.

When my kids were babies they would sometimes wake up and cry in the night.  They did not need someone to come and explain to them why they should not cry. They needed a big someone to come and pick them up and hold them close and let them know they were not alone.

God may seem irritatingly un-talkative, but He hasn’t gone away.  Our lives matter and He is with us.  

This Is a Big Ol' Shower!

This time a year ago Mrs. Sweetie and I were right in the middle of the major renovation at our house that came to be known as the “Sweetie Suite”.  When the tile guy came in to do the shower he said that it may not have been the biggest one he had ever done, but it ranked right up there.  If we were the kind of people who did group showers, we could have some kind of party in there.

Now, while you try to get that image out of your head, let me tell you about another big ol’ shower.  This one is a baby shower and you are invited.  No, I am not using the forum to announce that I am about to be Dr. Grandpa (though that could happen at some time).  This one is a county-wide, week-long baby shower for a ministry I believe in and am happy to support.  (Note to readers outside Wise County:  Don’t stop reading.  I still have something for you at the end.)

Wise Choices Pregnancy Resource Center (www.mywisechoices.com) is an amazing ministry doing a great job saving and changing lives in this part of the world.  There are tons of statistics that I could share, but here are some highlights:  In 2012, they served 1176 clients, presented the gospel 321 times and had 59 professions of faith at the center. Also, 83% of abortion minded women changed their minds and carried the baby to term due to their efforts. It is also important to know that they are not just pro-birth, they are pro-life.  They care about and minister to the women and men who are involved and meet each one with grace and compassion.

Sycamore Baptist Church has organized this baby shower to be conducted October 6-13.  The items to be collected are: Diapers, Baby Wipes, Wal-Mart Gift Cards, and Financial contributions.  To keep Wise Choices from having to sort through the donations during the week, several local businesses have agreed to serve as drop-off locations.  To see a list of those, please go to www.sycamoredecatur.com/babyshower.  I want to use this forum this week to ask Wise County residents to make this The Biggest Ol’ Shower You’ve Ever Seen.

Now, I know that all my readers don’t live in Wise County.  I have been blessed to work with a number of Pregnancy Resource Centers over the past twenty years. Let me encourage you to find a Pregnancy Resource Center in your area and find out what their needs are and how you can bless them.  Don’t wait for someone else to organize something. In the Azle area, you can find the Eagle Mountain Pregnancy Help Center (www.emphc.org).  I am also a supporter of the Bowie Pregnancy Resource Center (www.myprc.org).

I know this column is a departure from what I normally write, but not from my foundational believe that every life matters to God.

Let’s make this a Big Ol’ Life Matters Party!