Distractions
There is a town near Daytona Beach called Port Orange, and when you go down the main street, you would never know there are large companies and businesses all around. The city mandates you can only have signs at a certain height, and there must be a tree buriers between the road and the industry. There are a couple of reasons they have put this in place, one to continue the beauty of the city and two eliminate distractions.
Driving down highway 98, 90 or I-10 everywhere you look something, or someone is trying to get your attention. You pull into a gas station, and the first thing that happens the TV screen on the pump starts advertising for Mountain Dew and telling me I could sure use a candy bar or a snack. You look anything up on, and before you can see anything, there is an Ad you can watch or skip in 5-4-3-2-1. Facebook, Msn, Yahoo is the same way. One thing that aggravates me is when you are watching your favorite TV program, and it goes to commercial the sound gets 30% louder to make sure you are paying attention. Hate that. I understand this is the world we live in, and I love technology, but there is a time and place.
It’s hard to believe that just 25 years ago Google was not a thing. To travel there was a thing called “roadmaps” which got you to your destination. Cell phones were beginning, and mostly the rich could afford them, and they were the size of shoeboxes. Hard to believe the operating system in our phones now is better than the computer, which navigated Apollo 13 back to earth. The unbelievable thing is people functioned. I know that is shocking. Please understand I am not against any device, which makes our lives more accessible. We all get anxiety when we lose our phone or our wallet, and when we find them, we have the big sigh of relief. But we cannot let them be the center of our universe.
“Jesus Prays in a Solitary Place
Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!”
Even in Jesus’s day, he was trying to find solitude, and he was being pulled from every direction. How many times have we turned off the radio, or sat down outside and just wanted to have some quiet time only to be pulled in a different direction?
It’s the relationship we develop here and now with the father which will give us peace.
My devotional reads: As you sit quietly in my Presence, remember that I am a God of abundance. I will never run out of resources; My capacity to bless you is unlimited.
“And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus”
It is not impossible to take out the distractions in our lives. It just takes us focusing on what is essential. Take the time to be in God’s presence.
Mike Conrad serves as our Worship Director. When he's not preparing for worship or playing an instrument, he enjoys spending time with his wife boating and fishing. Learn more about Mike here.
Even Marvel Isn't Infallible
If you haven’t heard, this past weekend Marvel released the most anticipated movie of the year with Avengers: Infinity War. Marvel has done extremely well for themselves the past ten years with movies since launching Iron Man back in 2008. Infinity War makes the 19th movie in the so far three phase story line, which means 18 movies have been building up to this moment. I can’t think of any other movie franchise that has had this type of success or been this dedicated to one overarching storyline.
However, not everything has been perfect. There are many who love to find the inconsistencies between the movies. There was a hidden easter egg in the original Thor of the Infinity Gauntlet located in Odin’s treasure room (so sorry for how nerdy that just sounded) that created issues for later writers and directors. There are plot holes, inconsistencies, and some bad logic that are ignored in an effort to make a better movie. This got me thinking though. If 19 movies, each that have hundreds of people working on them, can’t even get their stories straight within ten years, how did the 40 or so authors of the Bible manage to do such a good job over the course of 1500 years? And on top of that, before email, text messages or phone calls, even before the printing press.
This is one of the things that I think helps Christians have a solid ground in apologetics. It’s not a nail in the coffin by any means, but the fact that we have a Bible that is as accurate and consistent as it is a pretty miraculous thing. Even though there are some inconsistencies in the Bible, most experts are ok with this because it shows a lack of intentionally corroborating stories. In other words, if all the stories were the same, people would be suspicious that they had worked together to figure out how to say it is making it a story rather than a witness account.
Of course, there is the issue of confirmation bias, that is where you pay more attention to what confirms your beliefs than what challenges them. This is why we will often see things in the Christian community such as “Scientists find evidence that the Bible was right” or “The Bible claimed the Earth was round hundreds of years before scientists” or whatever else seems to prove that the Bible is right. You don’t see as many articles floating around in those communities with headlines of “Bible wrong about the sun standing still.” What this means for us as Christians though is that we tend to ignore those minor inconsistencies that we come across.
So here’s my challenge for you. Stop ignoring the inconsistencies. Instead, embrace them and figure out why they are there. There is a really good reason why in 2 Samuel 24 it’s the Lord who incited David to take a census, but in 1 Chronicles it’s Satan (I won’t spoil it for you here). There’s personality in the various gospel accounts that when you understand them to make them that much better than if they all wrote the exact same thing. We tend to learn more when encountering the unexpected than just repeating what we’ve already understood.
Nathan Persell serves as our Youth Director. When he's not leading devotions and playing basketball with teenagers, he enjoys disc golf and bike riding. Learn more about Nathan here.
Fork In The Road
When the time comes, and you have to make a decision on which path you should take, what path will you choose? What choice will you make? We all have the times in our lives where we are faced with a choice, or the choice is made for us against what we actually thought was right. Or we make the wrong choice even though everything in us says we are screwing up. But, we look back and see how God was guiding our lives and letting us learn from our mistakes.
For me, in my 20’s I wanted to be playing drums on the road with a touring band, and I finally got the audition in Nashville I had hoped for. If I got that job, my life would have been completely different. However, the night before I thought it would be ok if I drove 2 hours north to see a concert and drive back and sleep for 3 hours and drive for 4 hours for an audition. I know I brought it all on myself. But, that was a choice I made. And I admit not the best judgment. I see now how my path was altered because of the audition I botched.
Totally unprepared, thinking I could just go in and nail it. I didn’t. I told the leader of the band he did not have to say a word if I were him I would not hire me. Driving 4 hours back to my hometown was the longest drive of my life, and then to go back to all my friends and tell them I did not get the job. It was a huge dose of humility.
The next years of my life God guided me through a journey to prepare me for the rest of my life. What was your fork in the road moment? Or have had your moment yet?
“Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.”
We have all made choices we regret or choices we would like to re-do or take a mulligan. (For all the golfers)
Years ago my mother and I had a conversation about when she was young. She grew up on a farm in Southeast Missouri. Many times her dad would keep her out of school to help her brothers and sisters work the farm. Times were hard, and they were doing their best to survive. During our conversations, she never was complaining just referring to it as hard work. I spent summers working on the farm with my grandpa. He would always get me up just before sunrise, and we would be working in the field’s right after sunrise. I never heard him complain once, He had a job to do, and he was determined to accomplish it the best way he could.
One of my favorite passages is “live the life worthy of your calling.”
“As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. ”
Regardless of where you are on your spiritual journey, or if you have had the “Fork in the Road” moment or not. God urges you to live the life worthy of the calling you have received. During this path you are on are you honoring God?
Mike Conrad serves as our Worship Director. When he's not preparing for worship or playing an instrument, he enjoys spending time with his wife boating and fishing. Learn more about Mike here.
I Have A Dream Today!
April 4 seems like a fairly unimportant day this year. Easter is over, school still has a couple of months, and there are no major holidays on the horizon. But if you listen closely, you’ll find that NPR, NBC, and several other networks on tv and radio are talking about the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. If you are a little fuzzy on why they are talking about him today, it’s because 50 years ago on April 4, 1968, he was shot outside his hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. This day gets forgotten about often because we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. day on the Monday in January every year which falls around his birthday (January 15).
The events of the past couple of years have shown some of the ugly, forgotten or ignored sides of American culture. In fact, the number of Americans who now admit racism is a big problem has doubled from 26% in 2009 to 58% in August of last year. From stories of Michael Brown’s shooting in 2014 that sparked the Black Lives Matter movement, to a man in a car driving through a crowd of protestors, to people becoming more aware of systemic racism, it is hard to deny that we have a problem. Over 50 years ago Martin Luther King Jr. gave his most famous speech “I Have a Dream” that I’m sure many of us have heard either in school, movies, or TV. And that saddens me even more because, in the 50 years since he gave this speech, his dream is far from realized. We may have made some strides in civil rights since then. Blacks were allowed to vote, segregation was officially ended with Brown v. Board of Education, and we elected our first president of color in 2008. But we have not solved racism. It still exists, and it goes beyond just black and white. Read the words of King’s speech again, but this time read it through the lens of our current political and social lenses. Read it and think about the dozens of references in the Bible that say
“Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt.”
Read it while thinking of the story of the good Samaritan and Jesus’ second greatest commandment. I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free; one hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination; one hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity; one hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land.
So we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. In a sense, we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was the promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note in so far as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds. But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we have come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy; now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice; now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood; now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children. It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content, will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the worn threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protests to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy, which has engulfed the Negro community, must not lead us to a distrust of all white people. For many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.
There are those who are asking the devotees of Civil Rights,
“When will you be satisfied?”
We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality; we can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities; we cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one; we can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating For Whites Only; we cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro in Mississippi cannot vote, and the Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No! no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until
“justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi. Go back to Alabama. Go back to South Carolina. Go back to Georgia. Go back to Louisiana. Go back to the slums and ghettos of our Northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed,
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I HAVE A DREAM TODAY!
I have a dream that one day down in Alabama — with its vicious racists, with its Governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification — one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I HAVE A DREAM TODAY!
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low. The rough places will be plain, and the crooked places will be made straight,
“and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”
This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brother-hood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day. And this will be the day. This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning, My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my father died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring. And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire; let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York; let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania; let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado; let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that. Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia; let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee; let freedom ring from every hill and mole hill of Mississippi.
“From every mountainside, let freedom ring.”
And when this happens, and when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men, and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:
“Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”
Source: Martin Luther King, Jr., I Have A Dream: Writings and Speeches that Changed the World, ed. James Melvin Washington (San Francisco: Harper, 1986), 102-106
God’s Not A He Anymore
In church news this past week, one of the major headlines has been “Episcopal Church Votes to Stop Using Masculine Pronouns for God.” Some headlines use the word “ban” or “remove,” some say “gender references” instead of “masculine pronouns,” but they all get to the same basic point… The Episcopal Church has lost its mind! I wish that it was more of a joke than it is, but for the most part, I have read very few positive articles on the Episcopal Church’s decision. Many were quick to refer back to the Episcopal church’s decision to fully support the LGBTQ community, even electing the first openly gay bishop back in 2003. Because it’s often difficult to get to the bottom of what is going on in these quick news stories, I’m going to take a little bit of time to try to unravel some of this tangled web.
First of all, the headlines are slightly misleading. The most technically correct headline I could come up with is “An Episcopal Diocese Passed a Resolution to Avoid Using Gendered Pronouns for God in the Next Update of the Book of Common Prayer.”. It just rolls off the tongue, right? Now as someone who isn’t very familiar with the Episcopal church’s structure, I had no idea what a diocese was, but it sounds super official. To the best of my knowledge, in the Episcopal church, a diocese is something like one of our districts or annual conferences. So it’s not the entire Episcopal church. And it’s definitely not a final decision, even though it still could become an official decision by the entire denomination. But here’s what an Episcopal friend had to say about it.
"Y'all. Slow your roll. What they have done is to ask the Standing Committee on Liturgy and Music to consider the issue of expansive language for God as General Convention starts to think about revising the Prayer Book. It's a few steps shy of tabling the resolution entirely.
No diocese can unilaterally change the liturgy. It takes two successive votes of General Convention, six years apart, to amend the Prayer Book. Plus a study period beforehand that can go on for years and years. This is being misreported everywhere, and whether or not you think it's great or think it's terrible, it's important to understand what actually went down.”
So it’s not as bad as you might think. The Episcopal church has definitely not lost its mind. In fact, it’s very much trying to get a better image of God to come through. See, the Bible uses feminine imagery for God sometimes. In Hebrew the word for Spirit (רוה) (ruach) is feminine. But if you were to ask every kid in our church if God was a man or woman, they would almost all say man. And it seems obvious because we call him Father God and all our prayers and creeds use Father and masculine pronouns. Wait a minute... if the Bible uses several different gender connotations for God, why doesn't our prayers and liturgy do the same?
I’m not saying I agree with the diocese’s decision to update the Book of Common Prayer, but maybe they aren’t as crazy as the headlines are making them out to be. Maybe the resolution that says
“If revision of the Book of Common Prayer is authorized, to utilize expansive language for God from the rich sources of feminine, masculine, and non-binary imagery for God found in Scripture and tradition and, when possible, to avoid the use of gendered pronouns for God”
is the start of some serious conversations that we all need to have about who God really is.
