What's Your ID?

Last week I sat at a conference table with the new chief of police in one of our neighboring suburbs. With us were other pastors and spiritual leaders from the community invited by the department to offer help to the officers. To the best of my knowledge, the chief does not know our Lord, but what she said next grabbed my attention for Christian reasons.

“The over-identification of officers with their job leads to vulnerability. The identification adds to their value as a human being, but what happens when that’s taken away, then what? Should they fail at their jobs, then what?”

By “over-identification” she means the officer looks in the mirror and sees first a cop. By “over-identification” she means the officer does nearly anything to promote the reality of being a cop to the exclusion of other responsibilities. By “over-identification” she means the officer will do what is necessary to protect the identity against any threat that would take the identity away. By “over-identification” she means the officer rejects any other identity as superior to the identity displayed by uniform and badge.

The chief’s observations must not be limited to the officers under her command.

Can you see the vulnerability for a man whose identity over the last 40 years has been in his job? Who is he when he no longer gets behind the wheel, stares at the monitor, reads a blueprint, or executes a plan? He ponders, “What value do I have for the remaining years of my life?”

What happens if the young or middle-age man fails in his career either through his own mistakes or the company’s demise? Is anyone surprised when he blurts out, “What am I going to do now? This is the only thing I know how to do!”

Can you see the vulnerability of a woman or man who is a spouse or parent who suddenly and tragically loses a mate or a child?

Can you see the vulnerability of a young athlete, vibrant, strong, and skilled, whose world is rocked by a devastating injury, a family move that takes him away from his school and teammates, or a new coach who doesn’t see his importance to the team like the previous coach did?

Can you see your own vulnerability in how you identify yourself?

Like the chief said, in each scenario the identification adds to the perceived value of life for every person. Because the identification resides in something temporal and finite, the identification can never deliver the hoped for satisfaction, and the identification will, at some future point, abruptly cease.

As the chief asked, “What then?”

For any human being how we choose to identify ourselves leads to extreme vulnerability, with one outstanding exception. You are a Christian, and, therefore, you have a choice to identify with something, someone eternal and infinite.

Over and again, the New Testament declares Christians are “in Christ.” The phrase affirms identity, teaching us our primary identity – who we are – is Christian. For example, “But now in Christ Jesus, you who were far away have been brought near by the blood of the Messiah” (Ephesians 2:13).

Fight back against the thinking that sees identification in title, status, accomplishment, or reputation. These are finite; they cannot deliver what you seek. These are temporal; any satifaction exists on a timeline with an abrupt end. Instead, find your primary ID in Christ.

When you identify first as a Christian, you eliminate vulnerability inherent to our world. No matter what is taken away from you, your identification in Christ can never be stripped from you. His work done for you will never abate. His love for you will never diminish. His promise to bring you to himself will be fulfilled. This is your primary identity – you are a Christian.

When you look in the mirror, look past the wearied face and troubled eyes and see first a follower of Jesus. No matter what the day, week, month, or year brings, who you are in Christ will remain.

As always I welcome your feedback and any suggestions you might have for an upcoming Lunchtime Musing.

You're Right, You Can't

It’s just too much for any person to realistically perform. No, not the new job description at your work or the calling to be a mom of three little ones, but The Law, Moses’s law as it is spelled out in the book of Leviticus. In social media language “I can’t even” is the appropriate response.

Over and over and over the book of Leviticus told the ancient Jews what made them “unclean” in God’s presence. In 92 occurrences the word unclean restricts diet, physical touch, the furniture where a person could sit or lie down to sleep, and even the plaster on an interior wall of your home. Should the mold in the house not pass the priest’s inspection, the priest would order the house destroyed to the foundation (Leviticus 14:43-45). If you think reading the book of Leviticus is hard as you go through your Bible reading plan, imagine having to live under the code. “I. Just. Can’t”

Instead of declaring how good they were by keeping every nuance of the law, every honest Jew would have to declare an inability to do what the law said. Daily failure in some area of the law would only add to the weight of the guilt a person bore. There simply was no escape from the law. Like Paul wrote, the law is a prison guard keeping the inmate perpetually confined (Galatians 3:23).

Paul masterfully explains what we were unable to do (keep the law), Christ did fully (Romans 8). God then applies Christ’s full obedience to the law to our lives as if we fulfilled all the law ourselves. This is grace, God gives us something we do not deserve and cannot acquire. Our Lord’s righteousness is ours, having obtained it by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9). “I can’t even” becomes “Jesus did.”

So we rest, not in our own good deeds but in Jesus’s.

And we read the laborious, repetitive, lengthy, and minute matters recorded in Leviticus and breathe a sigh of relief, “I don’t have to because Jesus did.”

And we live this life free from our old master whom we could never fully please and in joyful submission to our new master whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light (Matthew 11:30).

Be encouraged, Christian, Jesus did for you what you could not do for yourself leaving you free to live a joyful life to God’s glory.

As always I welcome your feedback and any suggestions you might have for an upcoming Lunchtime Musing.

Blessed Is the Person Who Has a Pastor

Blessed Is the Person Who Has a Pastor Today, those who love my pastor celebrate his birthday. Knowing him, he’s not making a big deal out of it, but that doesn’t mean I can’t.

I want to go beyond him and think about the three men whom I have called “pastor” in my 51 years. I should pause right there. In a day when the word privilege has become a derogatory term, how privileged am I to have had only three pastors in my lifetime! God has been good to me when I think of my pastors.

As a child and through my college years, I grew up under the genuine example of Pastor Bill Schroeder. Pastor Schroeder taught me to love the church, not the buildings or the programs, but the people who comprise a local church. He displayed his love for the people from the pulpit and in the lobby. While preaching authoritatively from God’s Word, I never recall him berating the church; rather, he tenderly admonished us to obedience of Christ fostered on Christ’s love for us and our love for him.

In the lobby when worship was over, Pastor Schroeder warmly welcomed each in attendance. That was no small task in a gathering of many hundreds. When he shook the hands of the young boys, he taught us to look another man in the eyes and greet them with a firm handshake. He recognized the innocence of the little girls and sought their protection in the home and in the church.

To him marriage and the home were of the highest Christian priorities and deserved all necessary attention to promote their success. His sermons and teaching on marriage and the family continue to be the bedrock for Brenda and me in our relationship and toward our children.

From his ministry tree grow branches of Christian testimony all across the United States and around the world. Conservatively speaking, there are thousands of souls headed to heaven or already there because of the “soulwinning” efforts of Bill Schroeder, his “preacher boys,” and the members of the church he served.

Now in his 80s, Pastor Schroeder continues pastoral ministry in a local church in suburban Chicago. I am privileged to call Bill Schroeder my pastor.

In reality few people outside of a small circle of very conservative Christianity know Pastor Tom Olney. This is a great loss for the rest of Christianity. Open a dictionary and search for the word “pastor” and there you will find a picture of Tom Olney. He is in every sense of the word, a shepherd.

It was the summer of 1988 when Pastor Olney brought me to the pastoral staff of Faith Baptist Church in Godfrey, Illinois, a city in the shadows of St. Louis, Missouri. Freshly graduated from seminary and recently married, I was chomping at the bit to get going. The church needed a youth pastor, and I needed a job. We were a match made in heaven.

Pastor Olney and I were together for only four years, but I cannot express how much I learned from him on a pastoral level and how much I gained from him on personal level. In the years I was with him, he bore many personal pains and too many pastoral burdens. Over and again, I watched him handle them with a graciousness and wisdom that was not of this world. He could laugh at himself while never laughing at other people. He loudly celebrated the accomplishments of others while never drawing attention to himself.

When he took up archery deer hunting, stories of the hunt became regular sourcing for sermon illustrations. My recollection is the stories were genuinely self-deprecating and always God praising. As the story unfolded, the rate of the spoken words increased too. “So, there I was sitting in the stand, and I saw this buck way across the field, and I began to pray. ‘Now, Lord, you know the freezer is empty and that deer is too far away for me to shoot.’ And then that deer turned in a way I’ve never seen a deer turn and started walking right toward me. Then he stopped at the end of my range, and he wasn’t coming any closer. So, I prayed. ‘Lord, I’m going to take this shot, but you know this is a long shot. You’re going to have guide this arrow.’ And well, there’s a deer in the freezer that God gave to me. Isn’t God so good?”

I could go on and on about his impact on my life via boxing, Volkswagen Beetle cars, tragic loss of life in the youth group, miscarriage in our little family, and watching him love his wife and point his five children toward Jesus Christ.

When I was a 23-year-old kid, Pastor Olney took a huge risk on me inviting me to join his pastoral staff and the work at Faith Baptist. His contributions to me, to Brenda, and to Michael in those four years far outweigh my contributions to the church.

Pastor Tom Olney began his ministry at Faith in the 1960s when he was in his 20s. More than 50 years later, Pastor Tom Olney continues to shepherd the only church ever to call him pastor. I am privileged to call Tom Olney my pastor.

Today is Dan Dickerson’s birthday. He and my mom were born months apart. Over the last 25 years, he has become my spiritual father. Should you hear me use the phrase, “my pastor,” I am likely talking about Pastor Dan Dickerson, the senior pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Midland, Michigan.

Brenda and I left southern Illinois to head north and join the pastoral staff where Pastor Dan led the effort. Leaving our former ministry was bittersweet but seemed to be the leading of the Lord. In hindsight no question remains in my mind that it was the Lord’s leading.

Each pastor has his strengths and his limitations. Some pastors are masters in the pulpit while others are masters around the kitchen table. Of his many strengths and gifts, none stands out more to me than Pastor Dan’s character. In my intimate knowledge of him for the majority of my adult life, no one has ever had an occasion to question his character. When Bible study authors comment on Paul’s words, “a bishop then must be blameless” (1 Timothy 3:2), they would be accurate to put in their notes, “See Dan Dickerson in Midland, Michigan, as an example.”

As a spiritual father to me, he modeled in words and deeds, both when he knew I was observing and when he did not know, what it means to be a Christian husband, father, and pastor. I grew more as a man in my nearly 10 years with Pastor Dan than at any point in my life before or since. Since our move to Minnesota more than 16 years ago, he remains my most trusted counselor. At any moment on any day, I can pick up the phone and call him, and he will do for me whatever is in his power to do. He is my example of what a pastor can be.

Like a wise father, he knew when to advise me, challenge me, prompt me, and rebuke me. Like a wise father, he never claimed to know everything on every subject, but was mindful to learn as much as he could on a subject so as to help me and others. Like a wise father, he bore problems not created by him but embraced by him for the good of the church. So much more should be written about his pastoral impact on the people of Midland, Michigan.

Pastor Dan Dickerson, blessed with good health but at an age where many have left the work of the Lord, continues to serve as the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Midland, Michigan. I love him, and I am privileged to call him my pastor.

Of note to me is how each of these men and their wives continue to serve the Lord in the latter years of their lives. Sure, time means they move a little slower, but not by much. Age means their bodies fatigue more easily, but not enough to stop them. They remain kind, loving, joyful, courageous, studious, and useful in their older years. I want this for myself, and I hope you want this too. Now in this time of their lives they continue to teach me what it looks like to be a Christian pastor, and more, what it looks like to be a Christian man.

God has been so good to me to give me a pastor. I thank my Lord Jesus for his special gifts (Ephesians 4:11-12).

As always I welcome your feedback and any suggestions you might have for an upcoming Lunchtime Musing.

Excuse Me, You're Sitting in My Chair

Church people are notorious for claiming ownership of their preferred seats in a church building. Maybe you’ve heard someone say to a fellow worshipper, “That’s my seat” as he hovered over the intruder.

Once, I witnessed one worshipper huff and puff out of the building, mumbling and stomping toward the parking lot because his seat was occupied. There is a measure of humor in the scene if you can get pass the lunacy, I mean, fleshliness. You drove to the building expecting to worship God and found someone sitting in YOUR seat. Instead of greeting the brother and his family warmly and amending your routine by simply finding a different seat, you walked out. I wonder how that car ride home was when the Mrs. turned on the local Christian radio station only to hear, “Years I spent in vanity and pride…”

The problem of church pews was so significant in 1844 that lawyer John Coke Fowler published Church Pews, Their Origin and Legal Incidents as a resource for how the Church of England might address their troubles. Did you snicker at the title, especially the Legal Incidents part? I guess the churches in Britain during the Victorian Era missed that part of the Bible where Paul told other Christians not to take each other to court (1 Corinthians 6:6-7).

How do you determine where you sit in worship? Does it even matter? From my perspective as a pastor, it matters more than you might think. Off the top of our heads, I’d suspect most pastors in churches less than 500 can easily pass a quiz on who sits where for worship. I’m not sure that’s a good thing.

With the normal disclaimers for medical issues, expectant moms or pragmatic matters like having to excuse yourself because you are the on call employee this weekend, here is one idea you might consider when you choose where to sit when you gather with God’s people: choose to sit WITH other worshippers.

It’s seems so obvious, doesn’t it. But for many, sitting with people stopped in high school. The normative behavior now is to sit in isolation in the same spot occupied week after week. That’s a wasted opportunity both to receive a blessing and to give one.

On any given Sunday morning, multiple hurting people enter a church auditorium. The childless couple sits by themselves. They give and receive friendly greetings, but who sits next to them as they watch family after family pour in the room wondering if God will give them one?

Middle age men, single again because of divorce or death, leave their empty homes and lonely apartments where they enter a church building and sit alone because no one chooses to sit with them or invite them to occupy an open seat with their family.

Too many in their 20s and 30s have never heard the crusty voice of a 73-year-old man sing historic songs of the church and new hymns because they’ve never sat close enough to him to receive the blessing of hearing him make a joyful noise to the Lord. I’m telling you, you’re missing out if you’ve never heard that.

New attendees to the worship of the church might know the wonder of the church’s love for others if the members of the church would choose to sit with them. Young professional singles might find it far less awkward to be in a church of married people if the married people would stop sitting in the exact same seats week after week and choose to sit with someone not like them.

What might it do for your young children to sit next to an older or even elderly Christian and watch that Christian receive God’s Word?

“Mom, did you see Mr. Jim’s Bible? He has writing all over it.”

“Well, son, Mr. Jim has been a faithful follower of Jesus for a long time. He loves Jesus, and he loves the Bible. We are blessed to have him in our church.”

What would it do for a person or family of color if you sat your lily white family next to theirs or invited their family to sit with you?

How much more likely might you be to engage actively in every aspect of worship if you sat next to someone different next week? Would you sing more joyfully? Would you stay awake during the sermon?

I don’t know. Maybe I’ve got it all wrong, but it seems to me that a simple act like choosing to sit with another Christian during worship has potential to do much good.

As always I welcome your feedback and any suggestions you might have for an upcoming Lunchtime Musing.

I Wish I Could Help Everyone, but I Cannot - a Response to the Refugee and Immigrant Problem

Long ago city planners figured out a way to make moving around the downtown blocks of Minneapolis / St. Paul in the dead of winter. Between many of the office buildings, hotels, parking garages, and entertainment venues is a maze of bridges and walkways where gloveless, coatless, hatless pedestrians walk from heated car to heated cubicles and heated retail stores.

Those same skyways provide a mobile home for many of the cities’ homeless. In the last week, I opened the door to the stairwell on the top floor of a parking garage and pushed the door into a woman squatting on the floor bundled head to toe. I apologized, we exchanged greetings, and I walked past her, wishing her well. When I left the stairwell, a man in his 30s hobbled toward me on his crutches. “Sir, can I have a minute of your time,” he said to the man and son who walked behind me. The dad declined. I didn’t have to say anything; the man on crutches didn’t speak to me. In return I said nothing to him

Over the last sixteen years living in Minnesota, I can count on one hand the number of times I have given money to someone on a street corner or in a skyway. There have been many opportunities, and I routinely feel bad each time I move past someone with an outstretched hand. Simply, I don’t have the resources to help every person who asks of me or every person I encounter. My time in the Minneapolis / St. Paul skyways is limited to a few stints a month. I suspect those who travel them daily can tell of similar encounters on a more regular basis.

Rarely does a week go by that I do not receive an email or phone call from a missionary looking for financial support. These are good people doing unenviable but necessary tasks, making contact with persons they often do not know asking for money to do kingdom work. The emails tell of orphanages and wells, seminaries and church plants, medical clinics and potential Bible translations. In the phone calls I hear passionate voices hoping to bring the gospel to locations where the people of the land may never hear the good news of Jesus Christ. I want to take on financial support of every missionary who contacts our church, but we simply do not have the resources to do so. I really don’t like those phones call that end with, “Sorry, I wish we could.”

Office phone rings.

Caller: Is the pastor in?

Me: This is one of them. How can I help you?

Caller: I have four kids and I am looking for some help…

I listen and ask questions trying to determine the need. Our church has been very generous to the people of our community through its benevolent fund. Our church family gives to our deacons and pastors the privilege to help as we become aware of needs. But that benevolent fund is not the widow’s oil jar. It runs dry. Some of the phone calls come from those who abuse the system. I don’t like putting the voice on the other end of the line through an interrogation to determine the need, but what choice do I have? If we give away to the scammer, what will we have for the genuine? As of today, a few hundred dollars remain in our benevolent fund. I suspect it will be empty by the end of February, and then I will tell all the callers, “I’m sorry. I don’t have anything to offer.”

Twenty years ago a group from our church in Michigan ministered in the mountains outside of Manilla in the Philippines. Like people I’ve met in villages in India where cattle dung is the fuel for cooking, these folks in the jungles possess little. The suffering moves even the hardest hearts. Early in the morning a beautiful dark hair, dark eyed girl latched on to me. She could not have been older than two. She was an orphan. I held her as morning passed to afternoon and cried over her as I her put her down when we left the remote village. I wanted to take her home with me. I knew Brenda, Michael, Jennifer, and Emily would love her. I knew our church would embrace her. But bringing her to our home was not an option for reasons both legal and logistical. If alive, she’s in her early 20s now. She, of course, has no memory of me, but I remember her. I trust the Lord has cared for the orphan because I could not.

As a Christian, I want to help people. I want to “give a cup of cold water in Jesus’s name.” I want to obey God when he says, “Therefore, as we have opportunity, we must work for the good of all, especially for those who belong to the household of faith (Galatians 6:10).” But sometimes circumstances, concerns for safety, and limited resources do not allow me to do what my heart wants me to do.Where I do have opportunity because of the resources and burden God has put before, I hope I act consistent with my claim of Christianity.

All of this brings me to the recent order from President Trump initiating a temporary immigration ban from places where jihadist conflict has torn countries apart or where jihadist ideology is the position of the ruling government.

I wish every little girl in a Filipino jungle village had the joys and opportunities of my two twenty-something girls. I wish every woman in a Minneapolis stairwell slept in a warm bed like my wife does. I wish every refugee could experience religious freedom, economic security, and political sanctuary. But my hopes are not realistic. The United States cannot help every refugee or hopeful immigrant. Security and resources do not allow for it. The executive branch led by the president must direct resources where they can be most effective and must exercise due diligence to insure the safety of the citizens they are charged to protect.

Because the American way of life provides amazing opportunities to the weakest, the poorest, and the least to become so much more than what some call “life’s lottery” has delivered to them, America remains a destination filled with hope for those outside our borders. Where the citizenry can help, the citizenry must help. However, the citizenry will not be able to help in every circumstance, a regrettable reality in a sinful world. Where our elected government can wisely help refugees and the oppressed across the world, we citizens should promote the help. However, I see nothing in the Scriptures that requires the US government to act beyond its resources or its national security. Nothing.

The role of the government is different from the role of the local church and the individual Christian. We are not charged with the protection of the citizenry (Romans 13). We are charged with the delivery of the gospel and the offering of good works. From refugees to the homeless, I hope we will take the resources God has given us through our labors, “doing honest work…so that (we) may have something to share with anyone in need (Ephesians 4:28).”

If the President’s order bothers you at some deep level, then do something about it, but do something more than write a letter to your congressman or post your rant on social media. Search the internet for a refugee organization you can support. Skip the coffee shop for the next three months and send them the proceeds. Walk the skyways and sit next to the panhandler and share lunch with her. Talk about life and talk about the gospel. Initiate an ESL class at our church building for a handful of the thousands of non-native English speakers that live within miles of our church building. Let the president do his job while he leaves us alone to do ours.

So why should I get involved in this discussion? Two reasons: (1) I want to help the sheep not to bite each other. I saw that over the weekend, and I genuinely wonder how members of the same church can greet each other on Sunday morning, let alone worship together or serve alongside each other; and (2) I hope to call us to wrestle with the Bible on the subject at hand. Like a grappler, sweat and struggle with what God says and what God doesn’t say. Embrace as our own the mandates he has placed on us and resist the penchant to mandate what might feel right to us but is not mandated by God. May God give us grace to know the difference.

As always, I welcome your feedback and any suggestions you might have for an upcoming Lunchtime Musing.