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Perhaps An Unpopular Opinion

May 5, 2021 / / 1 Comment

I want to start by saying this will likely be unpopular with some of you and I respect your opinion. However this is something I am starting to believe more and more firmly as I watch my own home, church, community, country and the world as a whole. To put it short, the biggest challenge facing the world right now is not political, medical or financial. It’s about family.

Everything in our world right now is messed up and upside down and it has nothing to do with who’s in the White House or how imbalanced the sides of the aisle are currently. It has nothing to do with unemployment or national debt. The problems that we are facing by and large come from the breakdown and devaluing of the family unit and men it’s our fault.

Now before you go getting all upset and crankified hear me out.

Men have neglected their responsibility, and it’s killing families which in turn kills communities which in turn kills cultures which in turn is messing up the whole world in which we live.

If we want to really right the ship we’re all sailing on we’ll focus on raising men who know how to be men. We’ll raise a man who stays with his wife even when he disagrees with her. We’ll teach a man to be there for his family, not just abandon them or throw a paycheck at them. We’ll teach a man to claim responsibility for failures and mistakes. We talk about abortion but why not focus on teach the boys in our culture to keep their pants on! We talk about getting handouts from the government but why not teach boys to get jobs and stick with them!

The problem isn’t about jobs or politics or even race. It’s that we as a society have let men get off the hook with being pansies. We’ve let them stay boys in a world that needs men. We’ve let them run off and abandon their wife and kids. All this does is teach the next generation that this is the way you can treat a woman. And the cycle continues and spirals.

If we want a movement in our world that will really impact an entire nation and that balances presumed racial hate and elevates women, then we need to start teaching men how to be men. When men reach the top of our potential, we’re better able to lift the ceiling so that our wife and children can go farther and higher than we were able to go.

We’ll never grow as a society on the shoulders of weak men. We’ll never conquer the hate in our world be belittling anyone. You don’t empower one people group by putting another group down.

Men we haven’t lived lives worth following. We haven’t been worthy of the respect we so badly want from those around us. We’ve been weak and at time pathetic. It’s time to man up and raise the bar.

This weekend I challenged a group of guys to grow as men. I challenged them to journey with me in a study of what a man is supposed to be. I challenged them to gather in groups of three to work together and challenged each other to grow as strong men who take responsibility for their actions. Men you aren’t going to do it alone. Find a band of brothers to sharpen you. Find the group who can hold you accountable. Push each other to be present for your family. Raise you sons to be strong men of faith willing to serve those around you. It’s time we as men take our God-given responsibility seriously and man up before there aren’t any men left to stand.

What’s love got to do with it?

May 4, 2021 / / 0 Comments

I’ve said numerous times that the word love is one of my least favorite words. It’s so challenging because in our culture we love everything and yet love nothing at the same time. We can love our spouse and pizza and cars and workouts and all the things but do we really love those things? Which of those are real love and which are some glorified version of like a whole lot?

As we journey through some of these challenging questions we have to pause and think about the reality of our words. The biggest problem with our idea of love is that so often we think love has to do with us but really love has to do with the recipient not the giver.

Our world is simply full of selfish lovers. What’s in it for me seems to be the question asked before what can I do for you. Real love is focused on the neds of the other person not on our own needs. Now that doesn’t mean we let people walk all over us but we also don’t push our agenda on other people in the name of love. Because that just isn’t love.

This past week we focused on this very idea in a message at church. If you’re interested in how this plays out, check it out.

Say I Won’t

May 3, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Autopilot. It’s how most of us go through our lives. We get up and go through the same humdrum routine day in and day out. But there has to be more. There has to be more than just cruising through life, trapped in the prison of someone else’s dream.

We fall into autopilot when we seek something big and nothing happens. We nestle into autopilot when we compare our lives to those of someone else and feel we’ll never match up. We get stuck in autopilot when depression hits us and we just want to sleep life away.

There has to be a better way.

Today’s Music Monday is by MercyMe and it’s titled Say I Won’t. It’s a song that fights against the evils in our individual lives. The evils of what others say about us or how they treat us. The evils of being told we’re not good enough or that we’re a failure. The evils that tell us we’d be better off if we just threw in the towel and quit. And the message to all of these is I’m going to press on.

I’m going to rise above all of these. Not because I have it all together or even because I think I’m the best. I’m going to push through not because I have the strength or because I even believe I’m enough. I can do all of this because God says I’m enough. So I’m going to run and I’m going to fly.

Say I won’t. I dare you.

The message of this song is soft yet powerful. It’s a try me kind of message. Today I want you to stand in the confidence that the world can’t stop you. The people in your corner or opposed to you can’t hold you back. You will run. You will fly. You will succeed. I dare anyone to stop you when you have Jesus inside you.

So do you really love me?

April 29, 2021 / / 0 Comments

There’s a thing going around these days when some people like to tell other people how to love properly. It’s a pretty touchy subject actually. It’s been around for quite some time but has gotten worse through the challenges we’ve faced in 2020 and now into 2021.

The thrust of this kind of thinking is basically saying that one set of actions has to be done to actually demonstrate love for someone else. When actually we’re saying that set of actions would make me feel more comfortable. Some in our world are trying to make everyone express their kindness in the same way. But that’s just not how it works.

There’s a book titled the 5 Love Languages and it’s a pretty good book. Granted its primary focus is on marriage relationships but there’s a crossover in application to all relationships. We have to be aware not only of how we receive love but also how someone else, the recipient of our love, receives it best.

There’s nothing more frustrating than going out of your way to show someone you love them only for them to totally miss it. I mean if you’re the gift giving type and the person you’re trying to love could care less about gifts, then your efforts will fail to communicate what you’re trying to say.

The problem with saying you have to do this or that particular thing to demonstrate love for another person is that you are only taking into account how you prefer to show love for someone else and NOT how they receive it. There are some people who are totally different than you. Some people don’t see the world the same way you do. When you aren’t willing to show them love in the way they best can receive it then you’re really not loving them. You’re trying to force them to be like you.

I get it. This isn’t easy. As a matter of fact it’s freaking hard sometimes. But if you love someone you really don’t care how hard it is. You’ll go out of your way to love them, not how you want to love them or how you’d like to be shown love, but how they best see love.

Do some investigative work. Find out how that other person in your life receives love and show them in their language not in your own. It will make a massive difference.

I Don’t Want Normal!

April 21, 2021 / / 0 Comments

There are some buzz words from 2020 that are still lingering around almost a year later. I’m going to pick on two of these in a quick series over the next couple of days. We’ve heard words and phrases like: Unprecedented, pandemic, this is how you really love someone, and one of my least favorite New Normal.

What in the world is new normal all about anyway? And why would I want that?

The issue with new normal that drives me nuts is that we are a culture built on comforts. We want the comfort of consistency and predictability. The striving for a new normal really is our way of trying to go back to a time when things went as we wanted. We don’t want a new normal because that invovles change. What we want is the old normal on a new day. Let’s just be honest.

If you’re one of those people who’ve been using this phrase, then I likely offended you a little. And that’s ok it’s not personal. I like things to operate in a consistent pattern as well. I mean I have my own normal that I do everyday. I wake up, get dressed, head to the gym, home to shower, fire up the coffee, consume copious amounts of coffee, eat breakfast… You get the point. We all have a routine and that routine is what we think normal looks like. But routine and normal are not necessarily the same thing.

A routine is all about rhythm while normal is about controlling a situation and wanting your rhythm to be uninterrupted. I work in an industry, ok church isn’t really an industry but I didn’t know a better word. But I work in a field where normal or predictability and stability are really critical. We like our firm foundations and set structures. I mean many of us use systems that have been in place since the 1950s!

Now there’s nothing wrong with tradition but if you’re doing life the same way today that you did 70, 50, 30, heck even 10 years ago then you’re probably missing something really important! Part of my job is to serve as a pastor of a local church in central Ohio. The other part of my job on a very part time basis is to work for the larger organization that supports the local churches. So I get to see both sides of the spectrum. And what I’m seeing a lot of these days is a longing for days of old and calling it a new normal.

So many of our ways of doing things stopped being effective when the massive technology boom hit our culture more than a decade ago. Yet thousands of churches across the country were caught off guard when we had to swiftly pivot and launch some form of an online presence. We have focused so heavily on the in person gatherings that all we want is to get back to normal, but what if that isn’t the point?

Ok so don’t go all panties in a wad on me. Give me a minute. Why do we value in person large gatherings so much anyway? If we’re honest, then we’ll admit that what we measure as effective ministry is boards, budgets and butts. And we can’t do any of those well if we’re not in person in our buildings in large settings. We think that a good ministry is based on how many people are back in worship. Sure that’s a measure but is is the best measure of effectiveness?

The bible doesn’t talk about how many people are in a worship place. They talk about how many go out from that worship changed and live a different kind of life. The bible doesn’t tell us how many listened to Paul in the book of Acts but they do say that over 5000 were added to their numbers that day. Added to their numbers was NOT a phrase that meant church membership as a passive experience. It meant they were changed, transformed. They left that gathering as a totally different kind of person who saw Jesus and the power of the resurrection in all they did.

I firmly believe that for the church to be who we’re called to be we need to start focusing on changes lives and not how do we reopen our doors on Sunday or how good is our live stream. I really don’t think Jesus is going to stand at those pearly gates when we die and ask how well our online worship was or how many people came to church the Sunday after Easter.

So if the leaders want to serve the churches well and if the churches want to serve the people well, we need to all be focusing on what does life change look like. How can we help provide a clear path toward a more Christ centered life? How can we encourage and hold one another accountable to live a different kind of life as someone who gets the resurrection? We need to worry less about larger gatherings in our vastly underused sanctuaries and start focusing on connecting lives across generations and geographic locations.

If we as an Lutheran Church body, an Ohio District or a local congregation want to experience something truly abnormal then we need to be about the things the book of Acts describes. We need to value home gatherings, large and small group assemblies, spiritual growth through the spiritual disciplines. We need to grow deep in our faith and relationships not wide in surface level connections.

I do NOT want a new normal or an old normal on a new day because the Bible calls me to be abnormal. And I’d love to chat more with you about how we can live an abnormal kind of life together wherever you are.

Do you really know what love means?

April 21, 2021 / / 0 Comments

One of my least favorite words in teh human language is the word love. I can’t stand it. People throw it around like it’s just another word. We say we love our spouse then we love pizza and then we love our truck or sports team or friend. But do we really love those things? Is it love or like?

The cool thing about other languages is that they have multiple words that can be used in place of love that help you better understand what someone is talking about. This week I talked about the different words for love. We discussed family or relational love, intimate love, friend love, and a love we all want to have but honestly can’t and that’s unconditional or limitless love.

Now before I send you off to check out the talk on the different kinds of love it’s important to understand why this was our focus. You see there are some who will make you question love. In our relationships people tend to say one thing and do a different thing which makes love go out of focus to put it mildly.

But there are some churches and chruch traditions that will call into question God’s love for you based on what’s happening in the world, how good or not good of a person you are, or how you practice your Jesus life by going to church and stuff like that. So let me be very clear –

If you are part of a church tradition that causes you to question God’s love for you, then you are not in a Biblical church.

There’s no more simple way to put it. God is the one who loves you unconditionally. God is the one who cares for you without boundaries. His love is not based on your love for him or your practicing your faith life. God doesn’t need you to be a good person for him to love you. He just does. You can believe it or not but that doesn’t change his love either. This is so very important and foundational to our understanding of who God is and how we live our lives. Check out the video below.

Or here’s just the audio.

Do You Have Room?

April 15, 2021 / / 0 Comments

It’s been a while since I’ve been in a crowded place. No not because of covid but because I really don’t do crowds that much to be honest. But I remember the last time I was at Disney with my family, the ride attendant wanted everyone to move forward and fill all available space. Those words made me cringe. I don’t want to fill all available space. I didn’t want the sweaty man behind me pressing in closer to me. I didn’t want to lose any opportunity for air to flow through the hot line as we awaited entry on the ride.

We need to leave some room to breathe.

Maybe you’re not a ride person or have never been to a busy park like that. But what about reading. Have you ever read a book that had such tiny print and the margins were so small that there was literally no extra room on the page? Or how about when you take notes in class, were you the kind of person who filled the page in every possible direction and filled all available space?

We need to leave margin.

This is a really important principle that we need to really take to heart. Margin is critical. When we pack too many people into a small space and leave no extra room (aka margin), we can feel claustrophobic and have a hard time breathing. It can even cause a panic attack in some people.

The same is true in our schedules. If we don’t leave some margin in our lives, we end up pushing too close to the edges of our ability and have no room for emergencies or small changes in our schedules.

I find in my life, there are seasons when I run from place to place and fill my nights with meetings and games for the kids and projects around the house. When these things happen I have so little margin that I tend to miss some key moments in life. Or I miss just simple opportunities that pop up unannounced.

For a season I worked two full time jobs. I was gone all the time. From sun up to sun down and then after all went to bed I was on the go preparing for the next thing. I missed parties and outings and even some holidays. I had no margin. My neighbors and friends and family didn’t know who I was because I was never around. I missed being able to have a beverage with my neighbors around their fire pit. I wasn’t there to help a friend through a challenging time. I even missed some key moments in my children’s lives.

Living with no margin means we miss out on far too much important, spontaneous stuff in life. I’d like to challenge you to evaluate your schedule and be honest. What needs to go? What needs to stay? Who can do some of the things on your calendar that you really don’t need to do? What are the things that only you can do? And what are the things that someone else is just as qualified and just as capable of doing?

See if you can create some margin in your life. You’ll be glad you did.

Sorry That Relationship Is Here To Stay

April 12, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Whether you like it or not you can’t undo a relationship. I mean seriously, your parents will always be your parents. Your children will always be your children. You don’t generally get to choose your family members and those strong relationships while sometimes strained, don’t break.

That’s the same with our relationship with God. Whether you believe it or not, God is the source of your life. Believing it won’t make it true. Not believing it won’t make it untrue. Relationships don’t rely on proximity or belief. They are about position. Your relationship is an outcome of your position to someone else.

The bible talks about two things with great depth. One is relationships and we pretty much get how that works. But the other we get a little confused about. It’s called fellowship. The long and short of fellowship is about our proximity to someone not our position before them.

Fellowship is what happens when we share life with someone else. The bible uses the idea of fellowship to refer to a shared life in Christ. The proximity we share with one another isn’t based on agreeing on everything. Rather it’s based on the closeness we experience when we each draw near to Christ.

You see I am my parents’ son. And nothing including distance can change that fact at all. But what can change is how I share life with them. If I live close, I can be there on weekends and we can enjoy time together in a variety of ways. But if I were to move farther away and live hours away or across the country, I would still be their son without question. What does change though is how we communicate and how we share life. We can’t share life face to face but we do through phone and email and text and FaceTime and all those cool technological marvels.

The same is true with one another and with Christ. We are to draw near to Christ and inso doing we will draw near to one another. The focal point of our relationship isn’t our wants or theirs it’s who is Christ and who am I in light of his grace. When we see ourselves and one another through the focal point of the cross, then we can draw near to those and fellowship with those far away from us regardless of space and time.

Check out the talk I gave on the difference between relationship and fellowship below.

Keep On Hoping

April 12, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Man, I don’t know about you but it seems like the good days aren’t quite as good lately and the bad days are seemingly a little worse. The distance between those good and bad days is growing shorter. Life just seems to be getting harder than I can remember it being.

How do we keep on going through the mess of life?

One of the most important things in life is to be careful what voices you let in your head. Be careful who you give room to occupy your thoughts. The more worry and fear and sadness take up space in your thinking, the more easily they’ll come out in your words and actions.

With all of the voices vying for space in our thinking we need to remember some pretty key things. Today’s Music Monday can help keep the main thing in the place of priority.

God is still in control. Just because you are out of control, doesn’t mean that God has lost control. Actually the opposite is very true. It’s often when we are totally and completely out of control that we are best positioned to let God do his most powerful work.

God shows up when we need him most. What if the trouble and struggle is meant to help us see when God shows up? What if God is right around the corner? What if the miracle you need right now is just a moment away? Don’t give up now! You’ll miss the best part!

Know where your strength comes from. It’s true. Whether we like it or not the truth is that God gave us life and since he gave us life, we can be certain that he will give us the strength to keep going through the challenges and struggles in life.

Check out today’s MusicMonday. It’s a song about hope. Never give up hope because God is just moments away from showing up in a big way.

Praise The King

April 5, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Easter for those of us who follow Jesus is about so many amazing things. While some try to shun the bunny and the eggs, some of us can fully embrace these fun parts of Easter with the real meaning of this great day. For followers of Jesus, Easter is about Jesus. It’s about his resurrection and how he conquered the darkness and all the powers of evil in the world.

At Living Word Galena this Easter we focused on Jesus as our King. We talked about how he is the one true king this world needs. Knowing that we serve a King who’s not like other kings is pretty freeing. Knowing that Jesus is kind and compassionate and selfless and is willing to put himself aside for the those who follow him makes this day known as Easter even that much more special.

Today I want to leave you with a song that pretty much summarizes what we talked about this Easter. It’s a song titled Praise the King. I just heard this for the first time a few days ago and was struck by the power of the words.

Nothing flashy. Nothing over the top. Just Jesus as your king but then again that’s all you really need.

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