Finding Your Faith

September 25

Grace meets you where you are, but doesn't intend to leave you there.

When I was in high school I played and lettered on the high school golf team. I was the 5th man of the 5 man rotation. Sometimes I got to play 4, but mostly I was a 5. I enjoyed playing golf a lot. That's probably due in some way to my natural aptitude. While I wasn't really ever a good golfer, I was a better golfer than just about anything else I was doing in my young life. I had some success at it, and that success boosted my self-esteem, and so I continued to play.

What I didn't do was work at it very hard.

When I had developed a certain level of skill I kind of plateaued. I played well enough to make the team, and that was good enough. I was offered a scholarship to play golf in college and I jumped at it. In college I worked at my game a little more, because the competition was greater, and I developed more skills. Still, I wasn't the hardest worker. Succeeding at a high level requires a high level of work, and I just couldn't force myself to stand on the range and hit golf balls for two hours every single day. I reached a peak and stayed about there.

The development of faith, a spiritual life, and biblical study skills require the same commitment and work that becoming an outstanding golfer require. For most of us though, we develop our faith and our spiritual disciplines to a certain level, and then we plateau and just live there. We get comfortable enough with the Bible. We go to church regularly enough. We find our comfort level, and there we stay until the day the Lord calls us home.

Finding one's faith, when one has become plateaued requires a commitment and some movement. First, we have to come to a decision that we are not satisfied with things as they currently are. Grace meets us where we are, but it doesn't intend to leave us there. That moment of deciding to practice faith in a deeper way could come through the mentoring of another person, through reading something that finally sends the water over the dam, by a difficult health moment. The decision to move is a big one. What to do next?

Second, we look for trusted sources to help us pursue our spiritual quest. Again, this could be a mentor, or a pastor, or a book. We look for trusted sources because in a world where everything is possible, there are every possible ways of looking at scripture, faith, and becoming the person God is calling us to be. We need, as Dr. Paul Jones of Transylvania University calls it, an accurate "crap detector." One way to work toward that, in my estimation, is to assume always that God tends towards creativity and love. If you are being taught otherwise, time to stop and look for a different source.

Third, we need to put in the work; the practice. We need to get ourselves out to the driving range of spiritual development and hit a bucket of balls every single day. Read the Bible. Read trusted sources. Meet with people who are looking to deepen their spiritual lives. Attend worship MORE REGULARLY. Practice. Practice. Practice.

Or you can just stay where you are. Remote control in hand. In the recliner. Comfortable with the faith you have, watching reruns.

Grace meets you where you are, but it doesn't intend to leave you there.

If you start the process of growth and skill development in faith and you have a little success, good! It will add a little wind to your sails, so keep going. Practice is what brings us closer to the Perfect.

Peace and Love,
Jerry

Why I Choose to Say, "I Am Grateful."

September 18

My post last week was about why I don't use the phrase, "I'm blessed." The post elicited a strong reaction from a couple readers. This week I am going to write about the phrase I prefer to use, "I am grateful."

When I say I am grateful I am communicating that events, people, thoughts, actions that have taken place have caused me to react with thanks; with appreciation for what is being recognized. I'm grateful doesn't imply that God has shown me any particular favor while allowing others to appear disfavored. If you read the post last week you know that is important to me.

Over the past week Hurricane Florence has wreaked havoc on North Carolina. People have died. More than 30 at the last count I heard this morning. It's likely there will still be fatalities from Florence, though the worst has passed. Pat Robertson of the CBN Network prayed on television a week and a half ago that Florence would steer away and do no damage to the United States. After the hurricane made landfall he claimed his prayers had succeeded because Florence didn't hit Virginia where the CBN headquarters are. Successful prayers, for my thinking, would have been no more hurricanes that killed anyone anywhere at any time. I wonder if those in North Carolina would agree with Mr. Robertson's assessment of the efficacy of his prayers. I wonder if the people in China who are still enduring Typhoon Mangkhut would agree.

It's this kind of privileged position that gives me great pause with the words I choose. In listening to an On Being podcast with Krista Tippett, Eugene Peterson said, "We cannot be too careful about the words we use; we start out using them and they end up using us.” This gets to the heart of why I am so cautious with language, and why I am much more comfortable saying, "I'm grateful," than, "I'm blessed."

Gratefulness is not just a feeling. It is a way of being in the world. That is, it is an outlook, a state of living in gratitude for all things that come our way from the worst to the best. It is possible to say that I am grateful for the sufferings of this world because much is to be learned from such strife. It is wholly strange to say, all the things I have suffered are evidence that I am blessed. Well, that's my opinion.

Even though the reality is that there are rough patches along my pathway; people I have hurt, things I wish I had not done, people that have hurt me, etc., i choose to be grateful. I choose to see in life the goodness God intends. I choose to believe that God created all that we see and experience, and even that which is beyond our experience, in love and with the idea that all things would work together for good -- eventually. The arc of the universe is long and it tends toward goodness. I choose to be grateful.

Scripture tells us that the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. Scripture did not speak this into existence. Scripture here simply makes an observation on how it sees human life unfold. I choose to use the phrase, "I'm grateful," even when the rain is falling. 

I am not pollyana-ish about this. I don't see the world through rose-colored glasses. Not at all. Hearing the news of the tragic death of a 4 year old child at a UK football game this week is stark enough reminder that some days stink. Accidents happen. Innocent lives are lost. Perhaps my being able to say, "I'm grateful," is privilege in action. Some would surely say that as a white male living a relatively wealthy life I have the space to be grateful. That may well be true, but I would rather use my privilege to be grateful than to claim any partiality from God, or to be cynical. I am grateful.

Peace and Love,
Jerry 

Why I Don't Say, "I'm Blessed."

September 11

Social media is the instrument of general proclamation about one's life -- if one wants to proclaim something. Social media is the 100,000 watt radio giant that bleeds into the frequencies of other stations if you want to broadcast something about your life. Some people choose to broadcast themselves. Thoughts about why that's the case will wait for another blog post. The reason I start with social media for this post is because that's where I so often see people proclaim, "I am blessed." 

Now, I don't get too judgy about things because I don't want to invite people to get too judgy with me. I have spoken too many hurtful words to others, failed to do what I should have done too often, and been less than I should have been enough that I have no ground from which I can stand in order to judge others. So, if you want to say, "I'm blessed," I am not going to challenge you. But as for me, it's not a phrase I want to use.

Here's why.

For me this goes back to reworking the destruction of July 31, 1976. It was on that day my cousin, Jeff Dallas, and I were on his motorcycle. A car pulled out in front of us. Not ironically, a Mustang. We slammed into the side of the car, at least that's what I am told. I had a head injury and do not remember any of the event. My cousin was killed. I was in the hospital for a few days. Head injury, deep gashes in my leg and a broken clavicle—in my estimation, relatively unhurt.

In the days and years that followed there was much change in the trajectory of my life. Some people of religious devotion were of great comfort to me. Some people of religious devotion were not helpful to me. Some of those would say, "God took your cousin for a reason." Others might opine, "God has a purpose for you. You are blessed to still be alive."

Processing my survivor's guilt, my PTSD, and where I was headed after the wreck, was a big job for me. It still is. As a 17 year old, it was overwhelming in a lot of ways. But the idea that God essentially killed my cousin was repugnant to me. And this became a baseline thought: God doesn't intentionally take anyone's life. If that is the case then God doesn't intentionally save anyone's life from death either because that would show preference. It would mean that God chooses life for some and death for others. That idea is repugnant to me.

Some people use this phrase, "I am blessed," after a wreck. "We were unharmed. We are blessed." Others might say, "God had HIS hand upon us," even in the face of someone else perishing in that wreck. "God saved us for a purpose." It all means that God chose not to bless someone else, to allow someone else to die, and that you are more special to God because God chose you to live.

You see, that's why I can't bring myself to say that phrase. I am not more special. I am not more worthy of blessing. It makes God preferential, and my God by nature cannot show preference in that manner. It changes the nature of God.

Again, I am not going to challenge you if you use that phrase, but now you have knowledge about why I can't.

Peace and Love,

Jerry

  

In loving memory. 

Jeffrey Scott Dallas 

9.5.1957 - 7.31.1976

FCC Sabbatical 2018: Stories I Can't Wait to Tell Rev. Jerry

9.4.2018

Our Children's Ministry Coordinator at First Christian Church is Shawna Mitchell. She is also a fourth grade teacher at Shearer Elementary. During the sabbatical this summer she shouldered a heavy load of programming, some of which I would normally bear. For her September Newsletter Column she wrote, "Sabbatical 2018: Stories I Can't Wait to Tell Rev. Jerry." I share it with you in its entirety.

* Getting goosebumps when a child leads the whole congregation in collective worship.

* Exciting shrieks from a preschooler at the bowling alley when a single pin falls.

* Book clubs and mushroom dip and Key Lime Pie and bear hugs.

* Summer-long game of tag running Sunday to Sunday to Sunday.

* Summertime, poolside, friend time and family time.

* Breathing and stretching and remembering and forgiving.

* Children on a doorstep. Shut-ins at the door. Cookies in between.

* Camp songs on the tongue. Naps on the way home.

* Tie Dyes and Church Vans and golf parties and being stuck in small parking lots.

* Youth room slime, water slides and petting on a starfish.

* Paint parties and fireflies. Night outs and fellowships.

* Children's books donations, and cleaned up spaces.

* Leading. Expanding. Growing.

* Praying, listening, seeking, finding.

* We missed him, but I think we also found a part of ourselves along the way......
    ........What tales of sabbatical will you tell?

Peace,
Shawna Mitchell

Here are some photos from the FCC Sabbatical>

First Christian Church has been active while I was away. A sabbatical for me was intended to be a sabbatical for them also, and it looks like that has proved to be. I am looking forward to hearing the stories, and being asked about mine.

I am grateful for First Christian Church and the kinds and types of people who make FCC what it is. Their kindness to me is quite humbling. Their faithfulness is striking. Their joy is blossoming. Lots of experiences. Lots of discoveries. Lots of stories.

Peace and Love,
Jerry