The First Day of the Rest of His Life

It happens every year at the end of the summer. It is both full of anticipation and anxiety. We make preparations for it, talk about how great it’s going to be, and console the participants after Day 1.

It, of course, is the transition from elementary school to middle school, middle school to high school, high school to college, and children’s church to big church.

Nobody Knows

Some parts of church life just kind of appeared. We know children’s Sunday School began in Britain in the 1780s. Not long after, Sunday School was the norm in the U.S as well. Back in the day, every kid went to Sunday School.

Children’s church, junior church, primary church or whatever you call it doesn’t have so clear a history nor has the idea been as broadly embraced in the Christian church. In fact, outside of Baptist, Bible, and non-denominational churches, many denominations frown on the idea of waiting until children reach a certain age before they sit with mom, dad and older brothers and sisters in the worship service of the church.

There’s no static plan or program for children’s church. In a few churches minors through high school meet in age specific programs while their parents and the other adults are in the worship services. In other churches, children participate in children’s church through a specific grade level, say grade 6. In some churches, the children in children’s church do not participate in any part of the worship, while in other churches, the children are dismissed to children’s church at some specific point in the order of service.

We do know this: there comes a certain time in every kid’s life where he must transition to big church. What step can parents take to help their children transition to worshippers of the living God?

Before

Two words help: prepare and promote. Approach the Lord’s Day with the thought Sunday morning begins Saturday night. A good bit of the conflict and complications of Sunday morning can be alleviated by Saturday evening preparations. Get Sunday clothes – including those hard to find matching socks and shoes – ready the night before. Let your child participate in what she will wear the next day. Find Bibles and Sunday School material and have them near the front door or even put them in the minivan. Put bowls, spoons, and cereal on the table before going to bed.

Do whatever will take off some of the pressure to get the family out the door on time on Sunday morning before going to bed on Saturday night. That goes for the adults in the house as well as the kids.

We talk about the things that our family gets to do, anticipating the experience to come, “Tomorrow we are going to the zoo…to grandma’s house…to the Mall of America…to the big game.” Talk that way about going to worship, “In two days we get to go to worship.” As Sunday approaches ask your children, “What are you looking forward to about Sunday?” Then offer in reply, “Here’s what I am looking forward to.”

When Sunday comes, be happy on Sunday mornings. The devil will do devious work to destroy your morning. Your own flesh will cry out for more sleep or tell you the day can be spent doing something more beneficial than heading to worship. The realities of living in a broken world with all its broken people who get on your nerves and don’t appreciate your life and circumstances may contribute to coldness about God and God’s people. Don’t let that happen. Make the choice to be happy on Sunday. You’re about to meet God.

During

Well, you made it to the church building. And it’s the first day in big church. Now what? First things first: take junior to the bathroom. Once you’ve found your seat, determine to stay and not give in to the, “I have to go potty” mandate. Where your family sits is more important than you might think. Sit near the front, no farther back than the second or third row. The back of a huge room is full of distractions and what three-foot tall boy wants to look at the back of the giant bald head sitting in front of him?

Help with distractions and inattention. Most of us have removed spiders, ticks, and other creeping, crawling things making appearances during worship. Mom and dad may need to sit between children to provide maturity to the row. Like cell phones for adults and teens, toy cars and soldiers, favorite dolls and stuffed animals do not belong in worship. They are distractions. The sooner you act bravely and break this practice, the better it will be for you. Food, sippy cups, your coffee mug or water bottle all vanish before worship begins.

Set the pace. Open your Bible, sing with the congregation, give in the offering, stay awake, hold it until the worship is done (if that’s a problem, maybe stop drinking coffee before worship), and respond to word of God. Who do you want teaching your children how to worship the living God? What are you teaching your children about how to worship the living God?

After

You made it! A head count in the SUV determines all are accounted for, in some families this is no small matter. The worship gathering may be over, but your work as a parent of children who worshipped with you is not. Just like you talk about the school day or the work day, talk about the Lord’s Day.

Here are some conversation starters:

Ask, “What do you remember from our worship?” “What were some songs we sang?”

Do not ask, “What did you like about church today?” We do not want to train our children (nor practice ourselves) that the Lord’s Day experience is interpreted by what we liked.

Ask, “Who do you see…talk to today?”

Ask, “What did you learn about Jesus?”

When you’ve heard your young one’s answers, offer your answers to the same questions or to questions your young one asks of you.

Our hope is that our children will, by God’s grace, be faithful followers of Jesus Christ the whole of their lives, right? What we make of the Lord’s Day plays a major part in their commitment to Jesus Christ for the remainder of their lives. The task of showing children Jesus may be the greatest accomplishment you will make in your life.

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

The Day the Towers Fell

Across the Internet today are nearly endless stories and accounts of the events of 9/11/2001. That makes sense. Each American alive at the time has a different take on the events of that dreadful day.

Here in the Midwest, the first jet slammed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City at 7:45 a.m. Across the fruited plains, many were on their way to work, most school children had yet to leave home or were finishing breakfast, and some parents were pulling out of the drop off line when the radio broadcasters or morning television shows broke in with what appeared to be a freak accident.

A commercial airliner hit a skyscraper. Weird, but o.k. we supposed it could happen. Really tall building, mechanical failure with the plane, something wrong in the cockpit. Tragic, but it made sense.

Then it happened again, and that made no sense. This could not be mere coincidence. Eighteen minutes following the first attack a second airliner fully loaded with jet fuel penetrated the South Tower.

At 8:45 a.m. a third jet tilted nose down ramming into the Pentagon in Washington, DC. Twenty-five minutes later a fourth jet would crash in a Pennsylvania field when its passengers mutinied against their terrorist captors not allowing their flight to be the next attack on the American people and the American way of life. Their sacrifice cannot be measured.

By 9:30 a.m. both towers at the World Trade Center were reduced to mere rubble after collapsing. The fire at the Pentagon was out of control. Every airborne plane flying in U.S. airspace was ordered to land immediately. The combined air power of the U.S. military took to the skies with orders to shoot down any and every aircraft non-responsive to the order to land. The mainland of the United States was under attack from an enemy we could not identify, and, therefore, could not defend ourselves against. Everyone was a potential threat, and all of us were potential targets. It was a terrifying day.

In less time than it takes to drive from St. Paul to St. Cloud, the United States of America changed.

I remember the morning with clarity. It was a blue sky, crisp autumn day here in Minnesota. Driving to my office at the church building, the radio broadcaster reported the first bits and pieces out of New York City. By the time I sat down in my office chair, the second tower had been hit. I quickly grabbed an old television and worked to get reception from any broadcast channel. When the third jet bored into the pentagon, I told my administrative assistant I was heading home. There I found my 10, 7, 4, and 2-year-olds and their mom watching the live feed. It wouldn’t be many days after that our little boy reenacted with his toy cars and planes, building blocks and miniature people what he saw on the screen.

I struggled with how to minister to the people of our church in the days immediately following. The worship on the following Sunday morning was somber. I didn’t know what to say to the people in front of me. In my study on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, I pondered what the Lord would have me convey to the confused, emotional, angry, and fearful who would gather on Sunday.

Nothing in my seminary training nor anything in my thirteen years as an assistant pastor had prepared me for how to be a pastor under this circumstance. I’m somewhat embarrassed to say I preached a sermon borrowed from an online presence. It wasn’t a particularly good sermon. In my defense, I was 36-years-old and had been in the pulpit for less than ten months. I had no idea what to do or say.

In retrospect here are eight ideas I wish I would have conveyed.

1. Evil is real, and sin is its source. We struggled with how this could happen. “Why did they do this?” was the question we pondered over and again. Before the geopolitical answers, we must align with God that the heart of every human being is desperately wicked. Right and wrong are absolute ideas. They are not subjective, nor arbitrary, nor left to one’s personal beliefs. 9/11 happened because man is evil and did evil acts. Among their other acts of iniquity, they murdered thousands. Driven by our sin natures and influenced by The Deceiver any of us can commit any sin if given the opportunity.

2. Our world is broken beyond repair to the point that image bearers hate and kill other image bearers. 9/11, Pearl Harbor, Auschwitz, the Gulag, African slave ships, the Cambodian Killing Fields, John Wayne Gacy, Gary Ridgway, Herod the Great, Cain and so many more have demonstrated the depth of our depravity. All of us retain the same stamp – we bear the image of our creator. Yet, we hate each other to the point of killing each other. For the millennia of our existence, we have not been able to identify a solution. We need a remedy not attributable to us. Maybe our creator would be merciful and step in.

3. There is no security system that can safeguard you or those you love against all expressions of evil. In place on 9/11 was the most lethal military force on the plant. For centuries our oceans have served as gigantic moats against would be threats. New York City’s finest patrolled its streets and airports. American intelligence agencies, despite its flaws, worked 24/7 anticipating, identifying, and thwarting would be assaults. From China to India to Israel to Scotland Yard, the world watched and intercepted before tragedy could strike. On 9/11 none of it mattered. Evil on this scale like sin on the individual level cannot be managed, contained, easily recognized or ignored. Evil and sin must be eradicated. But how?

4. Do not lay up for yourself treasure in this broken world because in moments you can be robbed of all of it. 9/11 took our money. In 2017, “the total (annual) expenditure on anti-terrorism reached $174 billion in the U.S.” Estimates blow past ten trillion dollars (that’s twelve zeros) when considering the immediate and subsequent worldwide cost of the attacks on 9/11. That’s a lot of money that could have been used to better the lives of earth’s billions of inhabitants. In addition 9/11 took our people, thousands in New York City, Washington, D.C., and the field in Pennsylvania; thousands more in Iraq, Afghanistan, and around the world. I suspect there are many more treasures 9/11 took from us.

5. Wealth is worthless on the day of wrath; therefore, possess something better when wrath comes. Solomon, who knew a thing or two about wealth, said this (Proverbs 11:4). The list of high power, large financial holdings companies occupying the towers on 9/11 is beyond impressive. Yet, the collective wealth meant nothing. Wealthy people and employees of lucrative firms made decisions to jump to their deaths from hundreds of feet above the city streets thus abandoning all of their accumulated assests. There wasn’t enough money in the world to stop the fury of the terrorists. We need something we can possess that will prove invaluable on a day of wrath.

6. Death is a thief but death is not a victor. Death robbed spouses of their soulmates, children of their parents, parents of their sons and daughters, and friends of those they love. Death stole health, identify, joy, security, lifestyle, and freedoms. Death was, is, and always will be humanity’s greatest enemy. Yet, death need not be the victor for any human being in any circumstance. Because Jesus Christ died like we do and for us, and then because he rose again to life, we who are now aligned with him through his cross share in his victory over death. Between now and the end of our lives, death will steal from us over and again. It is a wretched villain, but it is not a victorious villain. Christ’s resurrection assures your victory over death. In the not too distant future, you will not have any consequences because of death.

7. Christians should be the first to sacrifice this life to save the lives of others. Because death holds no victory over us, we hold the physical lives we live loosely. Like the opposition on Flight 93 that crashed in the Pennsylvania field or the hundreds of firefighters, EMTs, and police offers that stormed the two towers, our temporal lives can be offered in sacrifice to rescue others. We take this approach not only in life and death scenarios but in lifestyle too. We hold our money loosely, the proximity to our children and grandchildren loosely, our personal comforts loosely, and our dreams loosely. We sacrifice all matters related to self to serve and save the lives of others. The sacrifice of the passengers on Flight 93 and the first responders was no small matter nor will the sacrifices you make as a Christian. But we can and must as we saw them do.

8. Love now, later may never come. I can only imagine the regrets of many of the victims and their survivors, “I wish I would have (fill in the blank).” I’d be surprised if any of them said, “I only wish I would have bought that car before today.” Likely, their regrets focused on people close to them. Remorse centered on words unsaid, love withheld, forgiveness not attained or not granted, or touch not conveyed or not received. We have been loved immensely by our Father, by our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit who dwells within us. Ours is to love in kind. You will never regret loving should a day of wrath come. In fact, it was on a day of wrath that you were loved supremely when Jesus bore the wrath that was due to us. He has never regretted loving you and me. We will never regret loving either.

I hope and pray that I never again will face the task of preaching to people who experience an event like 9/11. I hope and pray we will never sit under preaching after such an event. Still, I know as sparks fly upward from a fire pit, man is given to trouble. When that happens, I trust these truths will guide us.

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

Prayer for the First Day of School

For many in Minnesota, it is the first day of school, so we pray.

For Our Children

Father, this morning our youngest image bearers entered the classroom, some for the first time as those in K-5 sit at oversized desks while others for the final time begin the last year of higher education.

On their behalf, we pray that they would grow in wisdom and knowledge even as our Lord Jesus did. We pray for grace because we know “knowledge puffs up” and can easily lead to arrogance and pride. We pray their young and influential minds would not be deceived by a worldview that opposes the Bible. We pray the knowledge they gain will lead to skill development that produces amazing outcomes for the glory of God and the good of His creation. May their knowledge gained teach them how to subdue the earth as you have given command.

We ask for your protection from physical threats - from would be assailants to classroom bullies looking to dominate the playground. We pray the strong among our children will come to the aid of the weak. We pray our children will show kindness to the lonely and embrace the marginalized. We pray they will be thankful to you for what they have received as you bring them home to us each day.

For the Teachers

Father, we pray for those will teach our children. We thank you for their interest in the lives of our children. We remember all teachers are people as are we. They too have challenges at home and at work. We pray that our children would be sources of joy and encouragement to them when the weariness of the job weighs them down. Help our children to display the love of Jesus to their teachers.

Father, assist every teacher in every classroom where our children learn to teach their discipline well so that our children have every occasion to learn well. Give insight to the teachers to know what methods are best for the class as a whole and for the individual students. As they teach, help them only to teach truth in science, history, the arts, philosophy, and the rest of the academic spectrum.

As we prayed for our children, we pray for our teachers. Protect them from those who would do them harm. Some may wish to cause physical harm and others may wish to damage or end their careers. From any and all who would pursue injury on them, we ask for your sovereignty over the people who teach our children.

For the Parents

Father, we pray for ourselves. For those of us who are parents, we pray we would please you in how we guide our children through these days of school. We lack the necessary wisdom to answer all their questions. We do not possess the power to solve all of their problems. In our finiteness we cannot be present at every moment they have a need. None of these restrictions lies with you. Do for our children what we cannot do. Help us to remember we are not God and cannot be God to our children. Help us to affirm to ourselves and help our children to believe they need you infinitely more than they need us.

As we interact with teachers, we pray we will always reflect the person of Jesus. May our emails be kind and our words sweet to hear. Guard our hearts against any thoughts, our mouths against any words, our hands against any action, and our feet against any haste that would make the job of teaching our children difficult or that would diminish the reputation of Jesus. When we interact with other parents, give us wisdom to solve problems between our kids and give us understanding to know when to speak and when to remain silent.

Father, help us as parents to encourage, support, and pray for parents who choose educational options different than the one we have chosen for our children. Forgive us for any expression of superiority and humble us before each other.

Thank you, Father, for our children and thank you for our children’s schools. When next summer comes, may we look back and see your good, great, and gracious hand on every day of the school year.

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

What Do You Know About Money?

I know only a very few Christians who are abounding in money.

There are those believers who, like Abraham (Genesis 23:16) or Lydia (Acts 16:14, 40), have more than enough resources to live and still have disposable income to give away. Churches, Bible colleges, seminaries, and Bible camps benefit from wealthy contributors.

But those who abound in money are not the ones who fund ministry. Paul wrote, “Therefore I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren to go to you ahead of time, and prepare your generous gift beforehand, which you had previously promised, that it may be ready as a matter of generosity and not as a grudging obligation. But this I say: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work (2 Corinthians 9:5-8).

• Paul did not appeal to the wealthy in the Corinthian church. He appealed to the saved in the church.
• Paul taught that giving is not merely a matter of how much income or expenses one has; rather, giving is a matter of how much grace one has received.
• We give out of gratitude for the grace we have received.

For example, in our church four times each calendar year we take Abounding In Thanksgiving offerings. It is important to note these are not named Abounding In Money offerings.

Our AIT offerings are giving that is above and beyond our systematic support of the local church of which we are members. Our AIT offerings are GIFTS TO GOD in grateful response for His gift to us. Our AIT offerings are sacrificial.

To give in an AIT offering likely means a giver chooses not to use that money for something else. It may mean no eating out for the next two months. It may mean putting off the purchase of new phone, a new dress, a laptop, a television, or new carpet.

For most of us, participating in an AIT offering will not be because we have an abundance of money. For most of us, participating in an AIT offering will be because we have an abundance of gratitude.

This is why we encourage everyone to participate. We all have been the recipients of God’s grace, and we are thankful to Him for His gift to us.

But we not only display our thanksgiving to God in our financial giving; we display our thanksgiving to God in the abundant offering of every resource we have. For example, none of us abounds in time, but to serve the Lord requires we relinquish our limited time to do the work of a disciple. To connect, care, converse, or chase requires time, a limited, not an abundant resource. When we give of that precious commodity to the work of the Lord and His gospel, we can abound in thanksgiving to Him.

Jesus talked a lot about money. Jesus talked about money more than he did heaven and hell combined. Jesus talked about money more than anything else except the Kingdom of God. We know our Lord regularly taught in parables. Of the 39 parables recorded in the New Testament, 11 address money.

Admittedly, many pastors find preaching on money as difficult as preaching on divorce. We are self-conscious that our hearers will conclude our preaching on money is self-serving. Still, Jesus taught with authority on the subject and so should those who echo his words to his followers.

Coins and bills have no moral value. They are metal and paper, nothing more and nothing less. Having or not having money neither makes a person unrighteous nor righteous. The place we give to money is a moral matter and requires the teaching of Jesus to give ethics to how we earn money and how we spend money. Acquiring, giving, using and spending money is a moral issue. We need Jesus’s teachings to direct our thinking about money.

What do you know about money from the teachings of Jesus? The point of this Musing is not to tell you everything Jesus says about money but to prompt in your mind the question, “How does the teaching of Jesus impact my comprehensive approach toward money?”

Some suggestions:

• Type “Jesus and money” in your search and broaden your understanding of what Jesus said about money.
• Ask a Christian friend, mentor, or fellow church member, “What do you know about money from the teachings of Jesus?” Listen to the answer and talk about Jesus’s teaching.
• Pray for your pastor as he endeavors to preach the teachings of Jesus, including his teachings on money.

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

Can You Dream It Too?

Her: What did they ask you?

Me: They wanted to know my vision for the church. What did they ask you?

Her: They wanted me to tell them what your vision was for the church.

The same question came from so many different people and in so many different settings I concluded the question had to be coordinated, not intentionally probably, but coordinated in some way by a strong voice or group of people.

Brenda and I were visiting the small group of Baptists in South St. Paul, Minnesota, who were looking for their next pastor. Among the wide array of queries that came my way, the repeated question was, “What’s your vision for the church?”

Prior to meeting the search committee and the people of the church, I had been to Minnesota exactly once in the whole of my life. I spent an afternoon at the Como Zoo before leaving the land of hot dishes and “You betcha’s.” Neither Brenda nor I knew a soul in Minnesota nor much about the state beyond its claim to 10,000 lakes and its then current governor, who turned out to be a better pro wrestler than leader of the state’s executive branch.

I had no substantive answer to their recurrent question. How could I? I knew nothing of the community, little of the church’s history, and virtually nothing about the church’s resources and gifts. But that was more than seventeen year ago. Fast forward to today.

None of you needs me to tell you how broken our world is. From...

• The shocking revelations of sexual abuse by priests of the Church of Rome to
• The heartbreak of a murdered college coed to
• The strangulations of a mother and her children at the hands of a parent to
• The senseless death by her own hand of a fourteen-year-old girl to
• The bullying middle school boys and girls will receive over the next two weeks to
• The growing epidemic of opioid addiction to
• The quest for identity and acceptance in gender fluidity to
• Women who kill their babies in their wombs to
• Fathers who abandon their women and children to
• Tensions between ethnicities rising to levels that must soon burst from pressure to
• The astonishing and horrifying sexualization of our culture and our economy, and
• So much more,

We conclude our world is broken.

Is there any place a broken person can turn for help?

Is there anyone who cares enough to love another broken human?

Can someone provide hope why any of us should seek to live one more minute in this mess?

Is there a real, genuine safe place where a woman or man looking to offload their burden can find relief?

As I read the New Testament, I conclude Jesus intended for a church, a local group of Christians who covenant together to follow the teachings, ordinances, and commands of Jesus, to be the place where other broken human beings find the help they need.

We have in our possession the gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news that mends broken people. We can love broken people because we were loved when we were broken. We can offer hope to broken people because Jesus offered hope to us when we were broken. We can show how to find relief from the burden of sin because the burden of sin we once carried no longer rests on our shoulders.

We once were broken too, but not any longer.

Yes, we still battle against all the stuff that comes from living in a broken world, but we are not broken. Jesus changed who we are and what we are when he saved us by his work on his cross.

In the days, months, and years he gives us as we anticipate being with him - where no brokenness of any kind exists - we search for other broken human beings to help and we welcome every broken human being looking for healing.

Would you join me in helping broken people?

Would you sacrifice time, comfort, money, ease, and the American Dream to help other broken people? Would you be a local church that stands with outstretched arms receiving any and all expressions of brokenness? Would you be a local church that goes out and finds broken people wherever they might be and deliver to them healing in Jesus’s name?

Me: Want to hear my vision for our church?

Her: Sure, what do you have?

Me: Your brokenness welcome here.

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