“The Greatest”

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Matthew 22:37-39) Sometimes, when we walk our dog Ragna, he decides he wants to eat grass. And then he gags, and it just gets ugly. And so, we made a law: No eating grass. But then one day, we were walking and he took a bite out of a small plant that was growing by the side of the trail. Now, he felt that he was justified in eating this. After all, the rule was no grass. It never said anything about plants. And when we pressed him on it by saying, “You know what we meant,” he totally disregarded us and threatened to call his lawyer. And so, before we went walking

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“Bearing Fruit”

“This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” (John 15:8) One summer, I worked at an apple orchard. I loved it, but after a month, I was offered a job that paid three times more money and required three times less exertion. And so I moved on, even though, at my new job, I couldn’t eat any of my work. For years, that’s all I knew about bearing fruit. But if we want to be disciples of Jesus, bearing fruit must become our priority and our passion. Right in the middle of the Farewell Discourse in John 15, Jesus begins to talk about fruit. Specifically, he talks about bearing fruit. And he hits it hard. He says that if we don’t bear fruit, we will be “cut off” (verse 2a). And even if we are bearing fruit, but not nearly enough, we

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“So That”

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17) Sometimes, reading the Bible is an adventure in missing the point. 2 Timothy 3 has been a favorite passage of mine for years, but my focus has always been on those first four words; “All Scripture is God-breathed.” Now, I can make a good argument for why the focus ought to be on those words. After all, the inspiration of Scripture is of critical importance, and scholars wrestle with the meaning of almost every word in this clause. But if that remains our sole focus, we will miss the whole point of the verse. See, the point of the verse is not found in the first four words, but rather on those two small words that appear almost in

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“Follow Me”

“Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.'” Matthew 16:24 One would never believe that defining what it means to be a disciple of Jesus could be so confusing. Jesus seems to make it very clear here in Matthew 16 (and twenty-one other times in the four gospels). It is comprised of denying ourselves, taking up our crosses and following him. Here’s my problem. For most of my life, instead of emphasizing Jesus’ command to “follow me,” I stressed his invitation to “believe” in him. In other words, instead of focusing on living like Jesus, I centered on thinking properly about Jesus; and my discipleship became a matter of having right theology. And while I may never have admitted it, right thinking was more important to me than right living.  Now, “believing” is important and understanding theology

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Decision Tools

Decisions, decisions, everyone loves making decisions! With our ad for a new pastor out in a number of locations, it’s time for the River’s Edge Pastor Nominating Committee to nail down exactly how to evaluate potential candidates. That is, we have to decide how to decide on the candidate to nominate. Oy vey! This was an area where, once again, we found ourselves blessed to be working with such good friends and ministry partners as we brainstormed ideas and methods and scoring thoughts galore. After tossing around a lot of ideas with seven backseat drivers making suggestions at one Excel Spreadsheets operator, a set of ideas did ultimately click and we’re now all set to consider and discuss applicants to our ad! We have two sets of criteria that we can use as tools to evaluate each candidate: 1) One spreadsheet has a list of good questions to consider while

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Hot Wisdom for Desert Living, 5

Today, we conclude our series on the Desert Fathers. And we conclude with a call to action. Henri Nouwen writes: “Precisely because our resistance [to pursue God and to pray] is so great, we need disciplines. We need very concrete ways of living by which we can keep inner space open for God and grow into the new self. But as we struggle with the demons, we will discover that we are not struggling on our own but that it is the power of Christ himself who makes us victorious and it is that power that transforms us into new people. Indeed, God re-makes us.  “That is paradise: the new life in God.” Throughout the centuries, Christ followers have used various methods to “grow into the new self.” And while, we do the hard work of striving to grow in Christ—a task that involves dying to self, putting off the

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Surveys Tell Stories

Thank you so much for all the responses to the congregational survey that the PNC asked River’s Edgers to complete! We feel like we gleaned some really good insights from this. Some information we have already used to update our wording and requirements on the job listing. Some congregational preferences we’re filing away to reference again when it comes time to evaluate and interview applicants. And some information may be useful for the current and future Session to have ideas on growth and refresh opportunities. So thank you again for your time and ideas!   Since you all may want to see results too (I know I was chomping at the bit to see the overall summaries!), we want to make these available to you now. While most of the entries were filled out on paper - as we requested - the team divided up the task of entering the

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Hot Wisdom for Desert Living, 4

Let’s be honest: we don’t want to go into the desert. We don’t want to confront our demons. In fact, we don’t want to grow, at least not at the price that the desert fathers required. But true spirituality calls us to die to self and give ourselves completely to God. But that seems a bridge too far and so we constantly put it off until tomorrow, but tomorrow never comes. There’s a great scene in CS Lewis’ The Great Divorce. A ghost (a person) has a lizard (his rabid sin nature) on his shoulder. The lizard is constantly spewing out lies and tempting the ghost who is more than willing to listen. An angel comes and offers to kill the lizard, but the ghost is unwilling to let him do so. He can’t imagine life without his sin. The angel asks, “Can I kill it?” To which the ghost

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Hot Wisdom for Desert Living, 3

We normally don’t consider the desert to be both a wilderness and, at the same time, a paradise, but the desert fathers saw things from a unique perspective. For them, life in the desert was one of great spiritual richness and abundance. But the desert was also a place where we confronted our darkest demons.  Henri Nouwen writes: "Thus the desert is the fearful wilderness inhabited by the demons and the paradise where the first human beings lived in harmony with God and creation. We find here the core reality of the spiritual life. The spiritual life is the life in which we come to see God, but also the demons. "I have often wondered why there is such an immense resistance in us to be with God. Why do we find prayer so hard; why do we always prefer to be busy instead of praying? If God really exists

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Hot Wisdom for Desert Living, 2

There is no doubt that the desert is a wilderness. It is a place of scarcity and seclusion and struggle. I get that. But the desert is also a paradise. And that, I don’t get. Henri Nouwen writes: “There is another side to the desert. The desert is also a paradise. The monk does not just withdraw from the world, but is en route to paradise.  “The best way to think of paradise is to think about it as a life in Christ. By being in the desert, the fathers sought their own true selves in Christ. The proximate end of all their striving was ‘purity of heart,’ a clear unobstructed vision of the true state of affairs and an intuitive grasp of one’s own inner reality as anchored in God through Christ. A pure heart is a heart that is not attached to anything, or anyone, except God. “We

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Story About Surveys

“Surveys show that surveys never lie.” ~ Natalie Angier “Latest survey shows that 3 out of 4 people make up 75% of the world’s population.” ~ Stephen Hawking "Surveys show that the #1 fear of Americans is public speaking. #2 is death. That means that at a funeral, the average American would rather be in the casket than doing the eulogy." ~ Jerry Seinfeld   In April, the Pastor Nominating Committee (PNC) got to take a survey of our own. We discovered some interesting things but also realized there were still questions we needed help answering. Here is that process documented: Among the resources that ECO offers as our new denomination is their Flourish Ministry, which has a component focused on churches in transition, like we are (https://flourishmovement.org/churches-in-transition/). We agreed as a team it would be wise to invest part of our team’s budget in leveraging this help and got

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Hot Wisdom for Desert Living

Seriously, what spiritual benefit is there in moving, of all the places, to the desert?  Henri Nouwen writes: “Desert spirituality is a movement toward a different type of place—the move to the desert. The desert has two aspects: wilderness and paradise. On the one hand, the desert is a dry and sterile place. It is the place of the demon. (‘When the unclean spirit goes out of a person, it wanders through waterless countries to look for a place to rest’ – Luke 11:24). And whenever God appears, the evil one is also present. . . . In the city, with its compulsions and compromises, the lines between God and the demon become blurred. Good is called evil and evil good. But in the desert the true struggle becomes clear. In the desert, where compulsions no longer rule us and we no longer can borrow an identity from the world,

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Hot Wisdom for Escaping Sin

Before we begin, here’s a quick reminder of the plan. We will start with a question, or if necessary, a short paragraph to introduce the theme. Then we will present a quote from Henri Nouwen’s epilogue in Yushi Nomura’s book, Desert Wisdom (Orbis Books, 1982). Today’s quote will be longer than most. After reading the quote, we will present one or two stories from the desert fathers from Nomura’s book or from Benedicta Ward’s The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: An Alphabetical Collection (Cistercian Publications, 1975). Today is “bonus story day.” You get three quick stories or sayings from the desert fathers. And then, we will close with a few questions to ponder. With that squarely in place, let’s begin.  Why would anyone run off into the desert in search of a true and deep spirituality?  Consider this. During the years when Christianity was outlawed by the Roman Empire, many

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The Hot Wisdom of the Desert Fathers: Introduction

Let’s take a quiz. Suppose you want to go all in on your faith and really get serious about knowing and serving God. Where do you think would be the best place to live in order to do that most effectively? Would you move into the inner city? Would you move downtown? Would you move to the suburbs? Would you move to a rural region? Would you move to the desert? Oddly enough (at least to me), beginning in the third century, numerous people who really wanted to know God thought it best to move away from the crowds and into the desert. We know these desert-dwellers as the Desert Fathers and Mothers. And while I might quibble with their choice of the desert over being closer to people, I have to take my hat off to their wisdom. In short, they were a remarkable group of saints. Maybe some

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3-3-3

Question: What is more important than a good question? Answer: An important quote about the importance of good questions! What do you think of these? “It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.” – James Thurber “It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.” – Eugene Ionesco “You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.” – Naguib Mahfouz “There are no right answers to wrong questions.” – Ursula K. LeGuin Let me be honest, this whole series has been in response to two questions I found in Dallas Willard’s book, The Great Omission. He wrote: “Since making disciples is the main task of the church, every church ought to be able to answer two questions: What is our plan for making disciples? Is our plan working?” Now, the

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Defined Pastor Nominating Committee

As we have been meeting over a few weeks now, all of our research has encouraged us to define some items as a group operating together before we start defining the job description for a new pastor. Both the book, Search: The Pastoral Search Committee Handbook, as well as guidance from ECO’s website strongly recommended that we agree on our group’s vision and values. So this post is to document a few things specifically about our group. We are what ECO calls a PNC - a Pastor Nominating Committee - as our role is to bring before the congregation a candidate that we nominate for consideration to be called by River’s Edge members. So we have updated our self-naming to switch to our new denomination’s label. While we have been introduced a couple of times during the Sunday morning service, here’s a listing of the committee members here: Allyson R

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Let’s Close with Prayer

I don’t know if this is true or not (and frankly, it sounds suspicious). And I can’t give proper credit to whoever this story comes from because I have no idea who that might be. Nevertheless, it is a good story. Apparently, a new club that featured exotic dancers was nearing its grand opening. Half-a-mile down the road was a very active church that was deeply concerned about the influence this club would have on their community if it opened. And so, they began to hold regular prayer meetings to pray against the club. One week before the club opened officially, they decided it would be wise to conduct a prayer walk around the building site, both as a form of prayer and of protest. Their march even made the news. Interestingly, two days after the club opened, lightning struck the building and the club burned to the ground. The

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Engagingly Relevant

Who towers above all the other saints in antiquity? Who holds the highest spot of spirituality in the ancient world? Without a doubt, it has to be Simeon Stylites. Simeon was born in the Turkish province of Adana which, in 395 AD, was part of the Eastern Roman Empire. Before he was 16 years old, he entered monastic life; and he took to it with reckless abandon. In fact, he embraced the austere lifestyle with such fervor and passion that the other monks judged him to be unfit for community life, and they dismissed him from the monastery. But who needs a monastery to practice solitude and silence when you have a hut in the desert. For the next year and a half, Simeon enjoyed a life of quiet seclusion in search of a special spirituality highlighted by going without food or drink for the 40 days of Lent (people

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Let’s Be Authentic

Let me be totally transparent and honest: I do not like the trend where young people today wear their pajamas to work or to school. Yes, I am old, but in my opinion, pajamas were designed for the bedroom and not for public consumption. Plus, if your clothes are so uncomfortable that you feel the need to replace them with pajamas, the solution is not to restock your closet with nightwear, but to go out in your big boy and girl pants and purchase some comfortable clothes. There are thousands of options on display in all your local retail centers. Pajamas are for inside your own house (and that’s a concession; I would prefer to restrict pajama use to the bedroom in case someone drops by unexpectedly) and not for street use. And let’s all agree here: that is the way it has always been! Pajamas are for sleeping in;

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Some Things Go Together

Some things go together. For instance, consider these sayings: You could have knocked me over with a feather. These hemorrhoids are a real pain. He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I can read him like the back of my hand. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. Unfortunately, some things don’t go together. Take, for instance, these misguided comments: You could have knocked me over with a fender. These hemorrhoids are a real pain in the neck. He’s a wolf in cheap clothing. I can read him like the back of my book. It’s like looking for a needle in a hayride. Some things go together and some things don’t. Sometimes, the connection is obvious. Sometimes, it isn’t. Take last week’s core strength, for instance: “We are called to grow.” Now, as core strengths go, it is rather straightforward and uncontroversial. If there was any doubt, 2 Peter

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