Oh, Lord- how faithful they are

One of the frustrating things about being a pastor is a rainy Sunday.

They told us in seminary that if it rains on a Sunday, you can expect up to one-third of your people to stay home. That probably harkens back to the days when transportation was by horse-drawn carriage and no one wanted to go out into the field and hitch up the team in those kinds of conditions, let alone travel on a muddy road where you would most likely get stuck in your Sunday best clothes.

It is unbelievably frustrating for pastors to see people sidelined by rain. On Sundays when it rains, such as yesterday, it is difficult to not get angry at people who would go to work in the rain, go to school in the rain, go to a UK basketball game in the rain, but not to church.

Well, this isn't a blog castigating people who stay home when it rains. Quite the opposite.

One of my long-time mentors told me, when I asked him what was one regret he had in ministry, "I wish I would have spent more time appreciating who was there rather than being mad at who was absent."

Yesterday, on a dark, rainy Sunday morning, there were tons of people at church. There were lots that were missing, but there were many more who WERE there than who weren't.

Oh, Lord, how faithful they are.

Every Sunday, people set aside time in their Sunday morning to come to Catalyst to worship, to participate in the community, to fellowship, and to be part of the Body of Christ.

Oh, Lord, how faithful they are.

Every Sunday, people give of their hard-earned money to support the church. We don't scare people into giving. We don't say that they will burn in hell if they don't. The people give of their own free will and their own choice. And each week we have enough to meet all our needs.

Oh, Lord, how faithful they are.

We've been a church for almost eight years now. We have never missed a Sunday; never called off worship for Christmas or rain or snow or ice. There have been people attending Catalyst Christian Church for four-hundred and fourteen Sundays in a row.

Oh, Lord, how faithful they are.

We have Catalyst members who are foster parents, who are adoptive parents, who do missions in Honduras, Haiti, Jamaica, Kenya, India, and Nepal, who support foster and adoptive parents, who fill backpacks full of food to feed hungry kids on the weekends, who teach fatherhood skills in prisons, who serve on the worship team, who volunteer in children's ministry, who volunteer in our youth ministry, who greet and usher on Sunday mornings, who prepare communion, who prepare the baptistery for baptisms, who share their faith with friends and family and bring them to Christ, who are discipling their children in their homes, who gave Thanksgiving and Christmas to children of inmates, who serve and serve and serve and never ask for any recognition whatsoever.

Oh, Lord, how faithful they are.

We have a congregation who gave of their treasure, above and beyond their normal giving, in order to move into our first building in 2009 and now into our current building in 2014.

Oh, Lord, how faithful they are.

We have people who give of their time to lead community groups to pastor and teach people, and people who give up a night a week to host and attend these groups. They are growing each day closer to the Lord.

Oh, Lord, how faithful they are.

I could go on. The faithfulness of the people in the church is amazing. What I listed was just a small portion of what goes on daily in the lives of Christians. No media, no front page news, no announcement or plaques or awards given. Just day to day faithfulness of the believer in Christ.

When I'm tempted to get upset at people who stay home on a rainy day, Lord, remind me of the amazing amount of faithfulness demonstrated by the people. Pastors, I encourage you to do the same. Remember the words of my very wise mentor:

"I wish I would have spent more time appreciating who was there rather than being mad at who wasn't."

The Power of Twelve Short Words

We speak a lot of words. Experts tell us that the average man uses between 8000 and 10,000 words a day. The average woman uses 20,000-plus words per day. Most words we speak are rather meaningless; they don't carry life-changing truths or convey great thoughts or really make a hill of beans difference in the end.

That's why when special words come along they have such power. 

I do a lot of counseling, both personal and family. I do marriage counseling. I do parental counseling. As a pastor, people come to me for advice, for God's perspective on their problems, for help, for just about anything, really. I've seen a lot of advice and given a lot of advice (some good, some bad), but I always come back to these twelve words that I discovered several years ago.

I have found that those who are able to consistently do what these twelve words say, day in and day out, live wonderful lives. They are good fathers. They are good mothers. They are good employees. They are good bosses. They are good husbands. They are good wives. They are good at just about everything entailing human interaction. They have a remarkable ability to relate, to connect, to have good marriages, happy homes, and effective careers. All by following twelve simple words.

What, pray tell, ARE these twelve words that will almost certainly guarantee success?

Here they are. Straight from the Bible. The book of James, actually. James 1:19:

                  "Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry."

Rather underwhelming, isn't it?

Yet, so true.

Think about it. What would your marriage be like (if you are married) if you and your spouse, every day, practiced these twelve words? What if you were quick to listen? What if instead of jumping to conclusions or speaking out of turn, you instead were quick to listen and slow to speak? What would your marriage look like if you, instead of becoming instantly angry, were slow to anger?

I'll tell you what your marriage would look like. It would be wonderful.

What would your interactions with your children be if you practiced these twelve words as a parent? What if you were quick to listen to your children instead of being the one who was always talking? What words have you spoken out of haste or out of anger that have caused major damage in your relationship with your children? What words would you do anything in the world if you could just take them back?

Twelve words. Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.

I counsel couples that I marry to do this. I counsel couples that come to me with marriage problems to do this. I counsel parents to do this with their children, and children to do this with their parents. It really seems fairly obvious, doesn't it? 

Yet, how many of us practice it? How many of us not only neglect this advice but actively do the opposite? How many of us would describe ourselves as people who are slow to listen, quick to speak and quick to become angry?

I would say that is far more common. Look at the results of it in our homes, our schools, our workplaces, our marriages, our friendships.

Today, write these twelve powerful words down and vow to practice them every day. Today, look for a situation where you can be quick to listen. Look for a chance to be slow to speak. Look for an opportunity to be slow to anger. You'll be amazed at how different your interactions with people will be. You'll be amazed at the peace and calm that settles in your home. You'll be amazed at the results you see in life.

The power of twelve simple words. Use them to change your life today.

Why Ash Wednesday is Essential to the Christian Life

I'm from a tradition that doesn't make a big deal out of Ash Wednesday.

I'm not Catholic or Lutheran or Episcopalian. I don't pastor a liturgical, traditional church. I'm an evangelical, non-denominational pastor, so traditional days like Ash Wednesday are rarely even mentioned in the circles I run in.

However, this has been to our detriment.

Evangelical Christians do a lot of things well. We give to all kinds of charities and causes. We are excellent at reaching others for Christ. Out of all segments of Christianity, we are the ones most likely to attend church, to give regularly, to be involved in Bible studies, to volunteer, to adopt children, to go on mission trips, and to generally carry on the work of the church.

As you notice, the emphasis on that list is "DO."

Evangelical Christians are great at "doing" the work of the kingdom.

However, we've missed a big part of our faith. We're so concerned with doing the work of the Kingdom that many of us have missed the relationship with Christ that drives that work.  The biggest key to that relationship, the starting point of that relationship, is repentance.

We as people are broken, sinful people. We are self-centered. We disobey God's commands regularly and with very little remorse. We use the Lord's name in vain, we lie, we purposefully seek out porn, we routinely live together before marriage, we actively condone evil; we do all kinds of things that should never be present in the life of a person under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

This is nothing new. This has been present since the very beginning of humanity. People have always recognized this as part of the struggle of being a faithful believer in Jesus Christ.

However, the language of repentance, once so widely practiced and used in Christian circles, has all but disappeared from American Christianity. Where are the sermons calling people to repent? Where are the messages from pastors to their people to fast, to mourn, to feel the weight of their sin? Where are the people who routinely confess their sins and weep over their brokenness and rebellion against the Lord?

If those things are around, I sure don't see any.

What I see are pastors bending over backwards not to offend, to try to put a positive spin on sin, to not speak about it at all for the risk of offending someone. On the other hand, I see Christians leaving churches because a pastor dared to CALL a sin a sin. I see Christians angered over the fact that a pastor would dare to preach on something that is present in their lives. If you doubt me, ask a pastor to preach on gluttony. Or greed. Or envy. You'll see how popular he is by the amount of anonymous letters he gets and the decrease in numbers the next Sunday.

Yes, we have stripped the language of repentance, self-denial, and brokenness out of the church. We have embraced the political correctness of our world that says there is no evil, there is no good, everything is equal. We have bought the line that daring to call sin a sin and suggesting that a person needs repentance and change is "judgmental" and of course, Jesus never judged anyone.

So, what we are left with are a bunch of churches who have been made as comfortable as possible on their road to hell. Jesus said it Himself in Luke 13:5, "Unless you repent, you too will perish." It doesn't get much clearer than that.

That's why Ash Wednesday is essential to the Christian life. It is the one day of the year we focus on repentance, on brokenness, on being reconciled to God, on turning from our sins, of weeping over the sin in our lives and in our world, and beginning to deny ourselves instead of indulging ourselves.

Think about this as you enter the Easter season. Without repentance, no one will see the Kingdom of God.