I Love You Like A Love Song Baby

My pre-teens, translate six year olds, are really into music. They have been listening to Christian music both hymns and contemporary since they were born and we try to expose them to as much Christian music as we can listening to the radio and playing CD’s in the car and at home. They also have grown up listening to a lot of secular music, my wife and I love 80’s rock and roll and yes even some country music. We for the most part are able to control what they listen to when we are around but we are not always around and so sometimes they get exposed to things that we are not really happy about. Unfortunately my son is gaga over Lady Gaga. There are a few other younger singers that we are not too pleased with either like Justine Bieber, sorry but I just don’t get how he is popular. One singer though that we kind of like because she was on Disney Channel for so long is Selena Gomez. She has now transitioned to making CDs and my kids are always listening to her songs. The latest and most popular of her songs is entitled “Love You Like A Love Song.” The main chorus in the song is “I, I love you like a long song, baby.” It is very catchy and I find myself walking around the house repeating the chorus.
When I stopped to think about it I realized I didn’t really know what that meant. So I went and looked up the lyrics on line. Most of the song is the chorus repeated over and over again, but there are two verses and a bridge that surround the chorus. So I thought well the lyrics will explain it right? Well, they do, but I am not so sure I like the explanation. I don’t have a problem with the lyrics I just think they are superficial, like I was supposed to expect anything else from a pop song. If you haven’t heard the lyrics, the first verse goes like this, “It’s been said and done Every beautiful thought’s been already sung And I guess right now here’s another one So your melody will play on and on, with the best of ‘em You are beautiful, like a dream come alive, incredible A centerfold miracle, lyrical You’ve saved my life again And I want you to know baby.” And then she transitions into the chorus.” Okay nothing offensive, which is a plus compared to some of them out there. Basically she is saying she looks upon him as a beautiful love song come alive in her life, heck I could even hear those lines included in wedding vows, not any wedding I would perform, but I could see it done.
So what’s my problem if they are not objectionable? Well my problem is not in what is there, but in what is not there. If the words of the lyrics are the basis for love, then that love is probably not going to last very long. Love songs come and go. In other words new ones are always replacing them. The lyrics even contain the line, “So your melody will play on and on, with the best of em.” So in other words there are other love songs and maybe other people as well. I know I am nit picking and for crying out loud it’s a pop song by a teenage girl. My goal is not to put down Selena Gomez, so far in my book she is a nice girl.
The problem is not Gomez and it’s not the song, it’s the fact that many people’s idea of love is as superficial as this song and most other pop songs about love. I run into the problem a lot when I sit down with young couples who are getting married. They are in love, he or she is perfect, they are that love song. And so I ask them how they met and what they like to do together and its’ always so wonderful. I usually let them go on for awhile about how wonderful it is and then I stop them and ask, so what are you going to do when it’s not so wonderful? What are you going to do when you realize that she or he is not perfect, matter of fact there are a lot of things about them that just flat irritate you? What are you going to do when the finances fall apart, when you can’t agree on how to raise the kids, when your mother-in-law drives you nuts? What are you going to do when the music stops?
Most of us who have been married for awhile realize that no matter how much we love our spouse, those things are going to happen. Every marriage that I have been around has gone through some sort of trial at some point and some have even been through the fire once or twice. So what are you going to do when that happens? Unfortunately we live in a society where too many people love their spouses like a love song by Selena Gomez. Those marriages usually fall apart. They have nothing to hold them together except some emotions, some good feelings. Loving someone like a love song is great when you are a teenage girl in love with a cute teenage boy, but it doesn’t work when you are an adult and married to a real person who has real faults just like you do. Very quickly that pop love song becomes a Mark Chesnutt country song with the words, “I’m going through the big D and I don’t mean Dallas.” I guess somewhere we need to find a balance between pop love songs where every relationship is perfect and country songs where every relationship ends in divorce.
As I said before my problem is not what is in the lyrics but what is not in the lyrics. What is not in the lyrics is the word commitment. Real love always involves commitment, because real love is more than an emotion it’s an action, it’s a way of living. When you love someone you don’t just feel good about them, you do things for them, you care for them, you support them, and you are there for them through thick and thin. Real love stays when the chips are down. Real love forgives, builds up and protects.
When I tell young couples that sometimes they look at me like I just took their CD out of the player and broke it in half. When I see that look I know I have done my job. I have introduced them to reality. If there is no C word there will no doubt be a D word somewhere in their future.
When I realize I have their attention and I sense they are a little worried I introduce them to another C word, Christ. Christ is the big C word because it is from him that we get the strength to be committed to each other. As sinners we humans had offended God in so many ways I don’t have time to name them. God had every right to just get rid of us, but in spite of all of our sin God continued to love us, he continued to be committed to us. The greatness of that commitment was demonstrated in his sending of his Son Jesus Christ to save us. Christ showed that commitment to us by going to the cross and dying for us, even suffering the pains of hell for us. Bottom line He saved us from eternal destruction because he loved us with real love, committed love. As believers in Christ we are now called to love others, especially our spouses, the same way. We love others because Christ first loved us. The chorus “I love you like a love song baby,” although not objectionable is so weak that it is pitiful and certainly not the basis for a real relationship. No real love, committed love that lasts says, “I love you like Christ loved me, baby.” Maybe it’s not as catchy but it’s the type of love you need in reality.

Pastor Fred

What Are You Thankful For?

Next week we will be celebrating Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is not an official Christian holiday but we usually do hold special services to commemorate it. We will be doing that here at 7 p.m. on Wednesday the 23rd and then we are going to have a Pie Social afterward. So if you are in the area join us for worship and some pie. I will be conducting the worship service and I preaching on how thankful we are to be, that is usually what pastor’s do for Thanksgiving services. I am not staying for the Pie Social though because I have to be in San Diego for Thanksgiving with my extended family. So we will be leaving a few minutes after the benediction. I am actually looking forward to the drive because I know the kids will fall asleep quickly and I won’t have to stop for sixteen potty breaks between here and California. Plus I like to drive at night when everyone is asleep, it lets me think my own thoughts and not be disturbed. Our CD player and radio went out in the van awhile ago so there will be no music either. It will just be me, the headlights, the ribbon of road, some wildlife and maybe a few illegal aliens trying to sneak across I-8 in the middle of the night. I have never seen that yet on the drive, although I often look over into Mexico at times when we are near the border. Whenever I see the hills of Mexico off in the distance I am reminded of Clint Eastwood in all those spaghetti westerns, which were really filmed in Italy, hence the name spaghetti western, but always seemed to end up in some dusty little village in Mexico. But that’s another topic, back to Thanksgiving.
I am looking forward to Thanksgiving because I am going to spend it with a large part of my family this year. That hasn’t always been the case for me. I have spent a number of Thanksgivings in other places in the country without family. I always had friends mind you but family was thousands of miles away. Over the years I have spent Thanksgiving with close friends in Nebraska, with congregation members in Michigan, North Dakota, and Indiana, all of them nice but not the same as with family. I had three Thanksgivings that were to say the least strange. The strangest one was in Cambridge England when I was going to school there. It occurred to my friend and I that the Brit’s don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. We didn’t know what to do. The Brits somehow picked up on our confusion and threw a Thanksgiving dinner for us with all the trimmings. That was nice, I still remember that. I don’t remember much about the dinner but I do remember with great thankfulness their hospitality and what it meant to my friend and me. I spent another Thanksgiving in a restaurant in North Dakota. I was supposed to join a farmer and his family for Thanksgiving but the night before it snowed two feet and they shut everything down. North Dakotans are a resilient group though and someone talked to someone who talked to someone else who arranged for the entire town to eat Thanksgiving dinner at the local diner together. There were 250 people in the town so it was a little confusing but again, it was wonderful. I will never forget my Thanksgiving on the road though. It was also in North Dakota but several years before the one I just talked about and before I was a pastor. Another friend and I left Idaho together, he was headed for graduate school at North Dakota State in Fargo and I was headed to Seminary in Fort Wayne Indiana. He was going to start after Christmas break and I was going to start after Thanksgiving break and so we decided to drive out together in the bad weather. We got caught in a horrible snow storm right before Jamestown North Dakota, in which we came very close to getting killed, and so we ended up staying the night there. The next day was Thanksgiving. As we filled up at the gas station we both grabbed a frozen burrito and heated them in the station’s microwave. We nodded to each other and said, “Happy Thanksgiving.” In this case it was just good to be alive. As we left Jamestown and headed East we realized how blessed we were, the roadside was littered with overturned trucks and cars. Many people have similar Thanksgiving stories; many probably have stories of Thanksgivings in faraway places such Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, or a number of other places that have left indelible memories. I have been blessed for the past fourteen years to spend every Thanksgiving with my family, sometimes it was just me and my wife but we were family. For the past six years it has been at the very least the four of us and there has also been a lot of extended family and friends at times as well.
I am looking forward to Thanksgiving this year because the four of us are going over to join my mom and my nephew and niece for Thanksgiving north of San Diego in San Marcos. As the years go on and I attend more and more funerals of family and friends I realize how important and precious times like these are. The people you value the most aren’t always going to be there. You never know when you are spending your last Thanksgiving with them. We have a tradition at Family of Christ here in Phoenix. Right after the sermon we ask people to stand up and tell everyone what they are thankful for. If you understand anything about Lutherans you know that is pushing the envelope. We Lutherans don’t usually talk about our feelings, especially in front of groups of people. Therefore I am always amazed at the number of people who do stand up and express, sometimes very emotionally, what they are thankful for. Many times what is expressed is that they are thankful for their families and for each other. I know that is what I am thankful for. I am thankful for my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the family he has given me both inside and outside the church. In fact I am thankful for so many things I have that I can’t begin to list them.
As I said before Thanksgiving is not a Christian holiday, at the same time thankfulness is a Christian virtue. We have so much to be thankful for. As Christians we have been adopted by Christ into his family. We have been saved from death and damnation through our faith in Jesus. If there was ever anything to be thankful that would be it. In addition to that he has given us so much more, namely our families and our friends that we share our lives with. He has also given us homes and jobs and health and food you name it. Too often we take those things for granted and we only think about them when they are gone. The holiday of Thanksgiving is a way of guarding against that. So this Thanksgiving wherever you are, gathered around the family dinner table with those you love, at a friend’s house, at a roadside gas station in the middle of nowhere, take the time to think about what you are thankful for, and also take the time to thank God for them, and then thank the people around you for being who they are in your life. Thanksgiving is not a Christian holiday, but maybe it should be.

Pastor Fred

I Have Found The Sinner and He is Me!

One of my biggest pet peeves in life are people that go through the drive thru lane at a fast food restaurant or someplace like Starbucks and then order for a bunch of people. They take forever to order and then when they get to the window it seems like they are never going to move. You know the scene, the person inside hands them a cup of coffee, and you think okay, but they don’t move, then the person inside hands them another cup of coffee and a bag holding some pumpkin bread or something. Still the car doesn’t move. Slowly another cup of something is handed to them, then the person inside leans their head out the window and you know they are listening to some complaint, and sure enough there goes a cup of coffee back to the server and the car doesn’t move. Several more minutes go by and then another cup of something passes through the window to the person in the car, obviously the replacement for the wrong drink they had received before. The worst part is that you know it was probably the person in the car who messed up the order in the first place, Aunt May wanted caramel in that drink and they forgot to mention that. So now you think the car is going to move but no the server sticks her head out the window again and the person inside the car hands them a wad of cash. Don’t they know everyone uses credit cards these days! Now the server is going to have to count them and invariable will count them wrong and there will be more conversation between the car and the window. This is one of my biggest pet peeves as everyone in my family knows all too well.
When this is going on I am saying things like, “Oh for crying out loud people, if you are ordering for more than two go inside, that’s what inside is for. Those of us out here in cars are in our cars for a reason, we are in a hurry, you’re in a car, you should know that, but NO, you’re too important to go inside, who cares if the rest of us have to wait, we really don’t matter after all do we?” “I mean how rude and inconsiderate can you get, I bet his guy also brings a full cart to the 15 or less items line at the grocery store”, another pet peeve of mine. My wife is always saying, “Please stop, it’s not going to speed anything up, we just have to wait.” My response, “You’re right we have to wait because that guy decided to order for the whole office in his car!” My kids by this time are laying back in their seats staring out the window, hoping no one hears my ranting. Patience is not a virtue of mine when it comes to waiting behind people who order for half the community in the drive thru. Now I don’t go through the drive thru at Starbucks every day, not even most days, but it seems that when I do, I always get behind one of these horrible sinful people who should know better.
Saturday Charlie had baseball practice early in the morning. After practice I usually like to take him someplace for a treat, and that morning I decided that I would get the whole family a treat, so after practice Charlie and I drove to Starbucks. I asked Charlie what he wanted. He said that wanted some of those pink birthday donuts that Starbucks serves and that he also wanted a drink. I though well if I get that for him, I also have to get that for Jasmine as well, and then I also need to get something like for Darla and come to think of it that sounds pretty good for me too. As we were pulling up to Starbucks Charlie said he wanted to go inside, I said, “No, not this morning, mommy and Jasmine are waiting and we have a lot to get done today we will just go through the drive thru.” So when I got to box where you order I put in my order of a Venti Americano with cream, a Grande strawberries and cream and two Grande hot chocolates, plus I also wanted six of the birthday donuts and a brownie. The voice in the box said, “I don’t know if we have six birthday donuts, let me check”, so I sat there in line while she checked. She came back and said, “No I only have three of those.” Oh I said, “Well how about those pink birthday pops, how many of them do you have?” She said, “Wait a minute let me check”, so I waited there while she checked. She came back and informed me she had plenty of those and so I said “Give me three birthday donuts and also three of the birthday pops and drop the brownie.” “You don’t want the brownie sir”; “No” I said “I don’t want the brownie.” “Okay” she said and then proceeded to run through my order with me. After she did, I said “No I don’t want cream in that Americano, I want whole milk.” “Oh I thought you said cream?” “No whole milk”, actually I had said cream because that is the way that I order coffee at Dunkin Donuts. So finally we were done. A few minutes later I found myself at the window. The server opened the window and started to hand me a drink, but I stopped her, and asked if she could please put all the drinks in a cup holder, so she took the drink back and closed the window. The window opened again and she handed me the tray of drinks which I put on the seat beside me and before I did anything else I took the Americano out and tasted it to make sure it was whole milk and not cream. I turned back around and she was handing me the donuts and pops. I took them and made sure I looked in the package to see if they were all there. Then I reached for my Starbucks gift card, which I had forgot to put in my wallet so I had to start digging through my pockets. Finally I found it and handed it to her. The window closed and then opened back up again and she informed me that I still owed a little over seven dollars. Not wanting to use my credit card I started rummaging for dollar bills in my pockets again. I finally end up with a wad of cash in my hand and I figured there was at least seven dollars in there and so I just handed it to her. She started to straighten it out and count it and then window closed again. Finally she opened the window and said I need another dollar. I didn’t have another dollar so I asked for my money back and handed her my credit card. As I did I looked in the rearview mirror and it hit me. Opps!

A Change in Seasons

A change in seasons has happened. Yes we even get changes in seasons in Arizona, although not quite as dramatic as in other parts of the country. In fact when you are new here you really don’t notice it that much. It is sunny pretty much every day in Arizona and it very seldom gets real cold. The first few years you are here all you really notice is that the heat finally goes away and it gets comfortable for several months before the heat gets turned back up again. After you have been here awhile though you start to notice the subtle differences in the seasons, in a sense you learn a new normal. Basically you learn to complain about different things and rejoice in other stuff that many people would think strange. For instance in the summer when the temperature drops to 99 you rejoice that finally you have a cool day. When it’s 109 you rejoice that after 18 days in a row it’s not above 110. When it drops below 32, which doesn’t happen often, panic and hysteria kick in because in Arizona most of the piping is outside and nothing is insulated from the cold so pipes start breaking throughout the community. I have lived in North Dakota, Indiana, Idaho, Montana, Michigan and even in Wyoming where it gets really cold and my pipes have never burst. So it was ironic that the day I arrived in Phoenix it dropped below 32 and my pipes broke in my house. I had lived through winters of weeks on end of 30 below without a problem, first day in Arizona with 32 above and I have a major disaster on my hands. But that’s Arizona, sunny, warm, hot, sometimes wonderful and always a little strange.
A change in seasons is about to happen in the church as well. In a little over a month we will be ending the season of Pentecost and entering the season of Advent and with that a whole new church year. For those us who follow a liturgical calendar we will be entering season B. It is a three year cycle of A, B, C and then we start the whole thing over again. As a pastor who went through his phase of trying to “be with it.” I used to make fun of the church year and all the colors and old traditions. At a certain point along the way I realized that I wasn’t “with it,” in fact I had probably lost it along the way but just can’t remember where, to loosely quote Johnny Carson. I know if you reading this and you are under 40 you are probably asking yourself, “Who is Johnny Carson?” More evidence I am no longer with it. I have relearned recently to deeply appreciate the change in seasons in the church. I know they are not in Scripture and they are certainly not points of doctrine, but that doesn’t make them unimportant. Right now we are in the season of Pentecost. This season starts with the Day of Pentecost which usually occurs somewhere in late May or early June, depending on when Easter is. It is day of red. Red represents the fire of the Holy Spirit coming down on the church. It is a color of power and strength. The Sunday after that is White because it is Trinity Sunday. White stands for purity, and sinlessness, perfect for a Sunday focusing on the three persons of the Godhead. The next Sunday the color turns to Green and remains Green for usually twenty some weeks. Green is the color of life and growth and the season of Pentecost focuses on the life of the Christian, it is also sometimes referred to as the non-festive half of the church year. There is one festival though that we as Lutherans celebrate and that is the usually the last Sunday in October when we celebrate the Reformation, where the color is Red again. The new Church years usually starts at the end of November with Advent. The color for Advent is Blue, which is a royal color and a color of anticipation. During Advent we celebrate the various comings of Christ. We celebrate his first coming at Christmas, we celebrate his coming into our hearts by faith and we celebrate his second coming which we are still waiting for. Advent is of course followed by the season of Christmas which is also White. The season of Christmas takes us into the New Year and is followed by the season of Epiphany which is Green. Epiphany means shining forth and during this time we celebrate the miracles of Jesus while he was here on earth. Jesus was both man and God but for the most part people just saw his humanity while he was here on earth, but at times he would perform a miracle and his divinity would shine forth out of his humanity. Epiphany is then followed by the season of Lent which is represented by the color Purple, which is a color of suffering. During Lent we walk with Jesus to the cross. We look at his coming suffering for us and it all leads up to Good Friday which is represented by the color Black, the color of sin and death. Thankfully two days later we celebrate Easter with the resurrection of Christ from the dead. The season of Easter is presented by the color of White. This season then leads us back to Pentecost where we started. Each of these seasons has a different color and a different focus. These seasons keep us on track and keep us in a rhythm. We also have special celebrations during all of this, unusual things happen in the church, sometimes some big event in the world will cause us to stop and take notice and related it to God in some way, but for the most part the seasons come and go and we continually get reminded of the law and the gospel. The law shows us our sins and the Gospel shows us our Savior. Each season looks at those two things differently but at the end of the day it all comes down to the fact that Jesus died for our sins and that he offers us his free forgiveness through faith in him.
I will admit that I miss the four seasons, I particularly miss the early fall. I believe there is even a Clint Black song that contains the line, “There is just something about the early fall.” Early fall in Arizona is not as different from summer as it is in other parts of the country. I make up for that by making pumpkin bread and drying pumpkin seeds. I also observe the seasons of the church which in fall begin to change as well. There is also something about the early fall in the church, the pace changes, the air changes, and I like that. A cold cloudy day wouldn’t hurt though. Just a special request.

Pastor Fred

PATIENCE SOUP

I love making soup. Typically when people think of soup they think of something that they eat in late fall or in the winter. In Arizona most people consider it too hot to eat soup in the summer. I mean who wants to eat soup when its 115 outside? I get that, I understand that, but I love soup all year round. I eat soup even when it is 115 outside. I stand over the pot stirring whipping the sweat off of my brow and then I eat it with more sweat pouring out. I just love soup. It probably helps that I also like hot weather, although sometimes 115 is pushing it. If I had my way we would eat soup every night I like it so much. The other members of my family though, are not quite as fanatically about it as I am. My wife likes soup. My kids are not big fans yet. I say yet because I am slowly working on their taste buds and they are starting to eat some of my soups. They particularly like my homemade chicken noodle soup. I have several soup books in my library. The books all have different approaches to soup. For instance I have one book entitled, “500 Soups”. It has a bunch of different categories like cold soups, meat based soups, and grained based soup etc… and then every soup has about 6 variations. The soups in this book are all very good and they usually only take at most 45 minutes to make. There is a soup in there called, “Chili beef soup with cheese topped tortilla chips.” I use lamb instead of beef and my family says it tastes just like the “Mexican Pizza” at Taco Bell. The difference the soup is healthy for you while the Mexican Pizza isn’t. The soups from the book are easy to make and don’t take a lot of time. We eat a lot of soup from this book.
I have another soup book though that takes a very different approach it is called, “The Best Soups in the World.” It literally has soups from all around the world and even from different time periods in world history. The recipes have ingredients that are sometimes hard to come by and the instructions can be very complicated and time consuming. Some of the soups in this book can take hours and hours to make and one mistake and you might as well pour it down the drain. Soups in this book have names like, “Basler Mehlsuppe” which is from Switzerland. “Armenian Trahana Soup” which is from Armenia and takes a week to make from start to finish. Then there is “Soupe de Poisson” from Marseilles which has recipes within the recipe. Whenever one of these soups is on the schedule my family takes a step back because they never know what is going to happen. They just know I am going to be obsessed with my cast iron Dutch oven over the stove for several hours and that I am not to be disturbed. I absolutely treasure this book. I don’t even let people turn the pages in it until I have a blood sample, social security number and their first born child as collateral. I usually only make two soups a month from this book, because of time constraints, I need to make sure there are no conflicts on the calendar and that I will have time alone to make the soup. These soups require preparation and great care and above all these soups require patience. With the “500 Soups” book you just kind of put it together and cook it and the soups are pretty good. With these soups though, much patience is require and the ending result is either something out of this world or it is horrible. The conclusion I have come to in the last six months is that really good soup, soup that causes you to forget where you are at and what you are doing and why you even exist, requires patience. Patience is a key ingredient.
The thing about a good soup is that it needs to slowly cook and certain ingredients need to be added at certain times. The amount of the ingredient is many times measured by taste and smell. You have to let it simmer, you can’t rush things, you can’t speed up the process and get really good mind blowing soup. Things need time to cook down, to cook together, and to release flavors. Spices need to be added in small amounts and herbs need to be stripped from the stems and crumbled just so between your fingers over the soup. If salt is being added, it can’t be put in until the last minute and then you can’t over salt because you can’t take it back. Pepper needs to be ground at the last minute also, but only to the point that its taste comes out and not to the point that people choke when they eat it. Patience and calm is needed in all of this.
I never have understood the concept of the angry soup maker that is sometimes portrayed on TV. After I get done making soup, I am the calmest guy in the room. All of my stress is gone and I am in a very good mood. I am also very patient at this point. I have taken ingredients and put them in a pot and added heat and over the course of a couple of hours I have added this and that, stirred endlessly with my wooden spoon, covered the pot and let it simmer on its own, checking every once in a while on its progress. If I have added wine, I probably I have also drank some, my hands smell of garlic and maybe mint, thyme, sage, pepper, basil and a few other herbs and spices. The house smells wonderful and now all there is to do is eat the soup that patience has created. The thing about this patience soup is that it seems to translate to other areas of my life as well. I tend to be more patient with people in general after I have been making soup.
Now I know the standard Christian response to this will be, pastor what you really need to do is read Scripture and pray if you want patience. I agree and I do that, but I also believe that God works through the common everyday things that we do. When we are in need of some quality like patience or kindness, he doesn’t just say take a couple of Bible verses and call me in the morning after you pray. He gives us vocations, avocations and sometimes vacations to keep us healthy. I need patience, therefore in addition to prayer and Scripture, I need soup. I think that is true of everyone. It may not be soup for you, but maybe it’s something else. Maybe it’s a hobby or a craft like cooking, but everyone has something. How do you slow down and focus and develop things like patience? If you don’t have anything right now what are some ways that you can start to find them?

Pastor Fred

STOP SO I CAN CATCH UP

Ever heard those words, stop so I can catch up? Ever heard them being said to you by you? This past weekend my family engaged in fall cleaning of the house, mainly because my mother-in-law is coming next week and my wife wants the house cleaned. We made some good progress; the problem is life does not stop to wait for cleaning. There was still all the other stuff that needed to be done. Meals still needed cooking, shopping still needed done, homework still needed done etc… The result, nothing really got done. The house actually looked worse on Monday then it did on Saturday morning. The result frustration. The problem is Monday brought a whole new bunch of stuff that needed accomplished. There were meetings, notice the s as in plural, there were practices to attend, there was dinner that needed cooked, again etc… As a result, the house even looked worse on Tuesday. The result of that and too many meetings, even more frustration. The result of that, the inner cry of stop so I can catch up or let me off this merry-go-round. As Regis Philbin used to say, “I am only one man!” The next question, when does the sheer exhaustion end? Or how can I make it end, and are the consequences of doing that bearable? I know I am not the only one in this crazy world that feels that way. When you get to that point I think that there are only three options.
One, you can continue on the road that you are on and eventually you will either crash and burn or just walk out of the door of life and disappear someday. You know one day you are stressed to the max and the next day you wake up and you are in another country washing dishes and speaking Portuguese to a bunch of people that call you Padrozah, which means, “Strange guy that wandered into village one day looking lost.” Makes for a good book or a movie but not exactly a very good life.
Two, you can totally change directions and avoid it all, which is some cases can be good, but in most cases results in disaster, because you are just avoiding the problems that you need to be dealing with. The result even more stress as you look back and realize you really messed things up by running away from your problems and now you spend all your time dealing with guilt and regret and the situation you are in is even worse than the one you wanted out of. Makes for a good setting to learn more about yourself and God, but is horrible on the central nervous system and family relationships. Not a good option.
Three, you can deal with reality and realize that you can only do what you can do, and most importantly you can take it to God and leave it at the foot of the cross. It means dealing with the reality of the situation and realizing some things are not going to get perfectly done. If the house is not perfectly clean when my mother-in-law gets here, well so be it. At the end of the day, kids need to be fed, homework needs to be done and jobs need to be accomplished, the rest is gravy. It is the same with any situation, the important stuff needs accomplish and the less important stuff will be done if there is time and if there is energy. As they say no one says on their death bed, “I wished I had spent more time at work.” Or, “I wish I had run another program, or had a cleaner house.” People talk about their relationships with their family and the important things that they did in their life. So in other words the best way to deal with a crazy out of control life, is exactly that, deal with it. Don’t walk away, don’t avoid, face it and prioritize it and deal with it and hand the stress over to God, and let the chips fall where they may. Sometimes you need to stop so you can catch up.

Pastor Fred

REMEMBERING SEPTEMBER 11TH

When I was growing up I remember my parents talking about Pearl Harbor. For my parents born in the 1920’s Pearl Harbor and then the assassination of President John Kennedy were the defining moments of their lives. My parents could both tell you exactly where they were at and what they were doing when they heard about those horrible events. It was seared into their memory. I remember listening to their stories of how they reacted to it and what happened as a result of it in their lives. Pearl Harbor literally turned their lives upside down. My dad would end up joining the Navy and spending time in the Pacific and on the island of Okinawa. My mother would marry a man who would go into the Army and would learn to grow up fast. The results of World War II would remake our nation and my parents lives would be shaped forever by those events. Pearl Harbor and the Kennedy assassination were unifying events for us as a nation. Everyone it seemed was affected in some way and everyone came together as one. After those events it seemed another event of great magnitude would never happen to us again as a nation. There was of course the Korean War and the Vietnam War but neither of them had a huge national event that unified the nation. There was also the landing on the moon but it didn’t really unify people or bring them together. There was the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan but he survived. There was the shuttle blowing up on takeoff in the mid 1980’s but nothing of the magnitude of Pearl Harbor or John Kennedy.
Then 911 happened. Like Pearl Harbor it felt like a punch in the gut to the nation as a whole. The vast majority of Americans were nowhere near the tragic events that unfolded that day and yet we all felt like it was in some way aimed at us. The real time coverage of the event made it even more so. I like you remember the events of that morning in very clear detail. It was a Tuesday morning and I was living in Fort Wayne Indiana. My wife had already gone to work and normally I would have been in my office at the time as well, but I woke up with a sore throat and decided to stay home for awhile. I had just sat down on the couch and turned on the TV. Katie Couric was about to sign off on the morning show when she announced that a plane had just crashed into one of the Twin Towers in New York. They began to show live video of the smoke coming out of the building and starting talking about how it must have been a small cargo plane. Suddenly right over Couric’s shoulder on the video screen I watched live as the second plane crashed into the next tower. It was then that we all realized this was not an accident. I watched the TV for several more hours that morning as the nation went into panic mode, as another plane flew into the Pentagon and yet another went down in field in Pennsylvania and as both of the towers went down. I don’t think I even went to the bathroom that morning and at times wondered if what I was watching was actually real. Could such a horrendous thing as this actually be happening? I eventually went to work that day but there was no escaping it. The videos, the pictures were everywhere. I don’t think any of us knew what was going to happen, if this was the end of it or if there was more coming, but we did all know one thing, our lives would never be the same again. There was a bad wind blowing and we could feel it we just didn’t know what the ending result would be.
Ten years have now passed since that tragic day and how our country and our world has changed. Even if you were not close to the events of that day, and even if you didn’t know someone who died that day, in the last ten years you have been personally touched in some way by the events that followed. Around five thousand Americans have been killed in the war against terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan and several other places, and many times that have been wounded. I think everyone in the country knows someone who has served in harm’s way in the last ten years. How we travel has drastically changed. I find now when I tell a story about travel by air I have to say this was before or after 911 because getting from point A to point B on a plane anymore is very different. Security for public events is also very different and how we view other people has changed. We are not as trusting as we once were. This Sunday at Family of Christ we want to recognize that and the sacrifices that have been made by so many over the past ten years. Therefore we are holding a special service at our regular time of 9:30 a.m. that will be a service of remembrance and also a service of worship of the God who has sustained us over these years. There will be special videos and our school kids will be singing God Bless America. So we invite you to join us this Sunday as we take a moment to think about those who have given so much.

Pastor Fred

LEARNING TO TIE YOUR SHOES

One of my kids made an achievement this morning. It wasn’t a remarkable achievement in fact I thought it was something she had already accomplished. Jasmine my 6 year old learned how to tie her own shoes. I know that is not a big thing for a six year old, like I said I thought she already knew how to do it. A lot of her shoes have been the Velcro type through the years and I guess without really thinking about it I have just always tied her other shoes, usually because we are in a hurry to get somewhere. She demanded to tie her own shoes this morning and I was like okay, so how long is this going to take, I am not known for my patience when trying to get my kids to school in the morning so I had to take a deep breath and say to myself, “Breathe deeply it’s going to be okay”. I had already been told by her mom that she had asked the same thing the night before and the lesson hadn’t gone so well. So once the shoes were on the feet I took one foot and showed her how to do it. She tried it a couple of times and just couldn’t get the concept. That was the end of my patience so I very quickly tied both and said, “Okay let’s get going we are late.” After I took Charlie to his classroom I went to Jasmine’s class to check on her. I found her sitting on the floor trying to tie her shoes again. She was not giving up. So I sat down next her and said, “Okay let me show you this again.” She watched and then successfully did it herself. Learning to tie your shoes might seem like a minor thing in life, but I still remember when I first learned to tie mine and how proud I was, I could see that same pride in Jasmine’s eyes this morning. Plus there is a freedom in knowing how to tie your own shoes; you are no longer dependent upon someone else to do it for you. I also experienced a little sadness because what’s next? What else is she soon going to learn that I will no longer have to do for her? Before I know it she will have a driver’s license, then she will be out of high school, graduating from college and moving to some other part of the country. Okay maybe I am being a little dramatic, but the fact is I want my kids to always need me. It’s a stupid worry because no matter how much we achieve in life we still need our parents in some way. Even when we are completely independent we still value their advice, their wisdom and their amazing love of us. The fact is no matter how old we get we are still the kids and they are still the parents, even though the roles may be dramatically different.
My children have provided me with a different view of God lately. When I look at the relationship I have with my children and how much I love them, no matter how bad they act at times, it brings me comfort, because God the Father loves us even more than that. No matter how much we love our children, God loves them more and loves us more, I personally find that comforting. I also realize just as my children learn to be more independent they will always in some way be dependent upon me, even if it is just for emotional support. In the same way we are even more dependent upon God. We may think we can handle everything on our own, but that is not the truth. The big difference between our children and us as children of God is that we never really grow up. We are always dependent upon God for everything. We never really learn to tie our shoes. We are perpetually children before God the Father. As much as my sinful nature rebels against that thought, my new nature relaxes in that knowledge that Dad is always there handling things. In many ways I still provide all of that for Jasmine. I may have lost the tying the shoes job, but I am still her ride to school, at least for another 10 years.

Pastor Fred

What's The Fusion About?

Fusion is a new old chic word that most people thought they knew the meaning of. Well I should say they knew what the idea was, maybe not the actual definition. When you used to mention fusion people would immediately think of nuclear fusion. Again they may not have understood it well but they had heard it enough to recognize that the two went together. Today if you mention fusion you will get a number of different responses. People may talk about a car or they may talk about business or they may talk about food. The dictionary definition of the word is that it is a fusing or melting together. A union of different things by or as if by melting; blending. Nuclear fusion is defined as, “The process by which two or more atomic nuclei join together, or fuse, to form a single heavier nucleus. This is usually accompanied by the release or absorption of large quantities of energy.” And here I thought nuclear engineering was supposed to be complicated. I mean it’s not rocket science, well then again maybe it’s harder. But I digress. For foodies fusion has become the new word that gets everyone excited. Fusion Cuisine is defined as the combining of elements of various culinary traditions which not being categorized per any one cuisine style, and can pertain to innovations in many contemporary restaurant cuisines since the 1970’s.” Quite clearly not nuclear science, but it tastes a lot better.
Now if you have read this blog before you know I am not going to talk about nuclear fusion that would just lead to confusion. You know that I am going to talk about fusion cuisine. If you are going to talk about fusion cuisine you have to mention the name of Richard Wing, who in the 1960’s combined French and Chinese cooking at the former Imperial Dynasty restaurant in Hanford, California. Unfortunately for Richard he was not good at marketing himself and so has become a footnote in culinary history. I mean have you ever heard of him? Here is a name that you have heard, Wolfgang Puck. Wolfgang, the short chef from Austria, is the most famous pioneer of fusion cuisine. Puck’s restaurants are known for combining foods from different countries into new dishes. From Chinese and Italian, to Japanese and French you name it, Puck has probably done it. The result of fusion cooking has been new recipes and new tastes that people had never experienced before. Where cuisine used to be regional it is now becoming global. The lines between Italian, French, Vietnamese, Japanese, Indian, and whatever regional food you want to name, have begun to disappear. Another good illustration of this is Bobby Flay who has never lived outside of New York City and yet cooks Southwestern U.S. food with a California – New York understanding. This movement has traveled down to those of us who cook at home as well. My wife and I have taken her fantastic spaghetti sauce and have southwesternized it by adding chili powder to it among other things. I won’t tell you the other things, that’s a secret.
Fusion also applies to the human race. If you live in a larger city like I do you see this all the time. The Europeans are not just hanging out with Europeans anymore and neither are the Asians or the Hispanics or the Africans. To take it a step further the Europeans are not purely Europeans anymore and neither are Asians or the Hispanics, or the Africans purely Asian, or Hispanic or African anymore. In my family we have seen a wonderful fusion happen over the years. My close family of my wife and children and brothers and sisters-in-laws and nephews and nieces includes people with ancestry from Europe, Asia, Africa and South America. Many of those family members are products of at least two of those different regions. The result, a very interesting blending of cultures, languages, music, art, and yes food. I was eating Japanese noodles with a side of baked potatoes and a salad containing seaweed long before Puck came around. I love the fusion in my family because it makes life interesting.
So what’s my point? Fusion is important in the church as well. The early church struggled with that. It was primarily a Jewish church. It was not an easy thing to let the Gentiles in because they were different. Their food was different, their music was different, and their choice of words was very different. God had to perform a miracle to convince the church leaders that God wanted this done. This fusion thing has been a hard thing for the church to swallow throughout its history. Many of the church bodies that we have today came into existence because of ethnic differences instead of doctrinal differences. That is why you see historically black churches or historically Polish churches you name it. People groups through the years have found it easier to worship with people like them, but this is not the way God intended it. Jesus’ constant prayer for the church is that it be one. Paul talks about how now because of Christ there is no difference between Jew and Gentile and you could apply that to every people group. I have worshipped in churches that were primarily full of people from Africa, from Poland, from India, from Mexico, and I have spent my life in churches that are full of people primarily from Northern Europe. I have enjoyed all of those experiences and learned from them, but at the end of the day I have always thought something was missing. God was there, but the representative church as a whole wasn’t. It needed some fusion. Even though I grew up in a part of the country that is primarily of European stock I have always loved diversity, probably because from an early age my family was diverse. I really love diversity in the church. Unfortunately diversity is largely lacking in the church today. As someone once said, I forget who, Sunday morning is the most racially divided day of the week in America. I hope someday that will end. I don’t know how to end it, I don’t have a plan, but I do hope it ends. I love walking into a church and seeing people from all around the world in it. I think it is a little glimpse of heaven. In heaven there is only one church and it is the ultimate fusion church, everyone thrown into one pot and stirred up. Fusion, let’s let it happen.

Another School Year of God's Grace

Today is the third day of the new school year for us here at Family of Christ. My son and daughter, who are first graders and therefore too old for our school are actually in their third week already. They go to a school with a different calendar which leads to some confusion every year in our family. Today was our first big chapel at Family of Christ and I was Bible Man who had “come to save the day” with his huge Bible. I wear a disguise but I think the kids have figured out that it’s really Pastor Fred who is Bible man. At the same time it is exciting for them and it’s a good way to lead them into thinking about God’s Word. Our chapels are very energetic with lots of singing and dancing and praising God. We have a truly amazing staff and director who keep the kids on the edge of their seats. As I have walked though the classrooms the last few years I have observed this energy and joy that the teachers bring. One word I have never heard about our school is boring. Education should be exciting and the presentation of God’s word should always be filled with hope and grace.
At Family of Christ we have two things we want to accomplish with our kids. The first one is providing the best quality education that we can. The second one is presenting the gospel of Jesus Christ to every student and family in our center. We want to give head and heart knowledge at the same time. We want to have an eternal impact on the children that pass through our doors. We see that impact many times in how God moves in the children’s lives and in their parent’s lives. It is one of the reasons there is so much energy and excitement around here on a daily basis. God is at work and we get to watch. So we rejoice at the beginning of yet another school year, another year of God’s grace and love, another year of growth.
Pastor Fred

To Compromise or Not To Compromise

In the last month we have heard a lot of talk about compromise and we have seen a lot of people not willing to compromise. The result, a stalemate. The way the stalemate got solved, compromise. I am referring here to the recent debt ceiling issue that our government has dealt with and also the negotiations between players and owners in the National Football League. Thankfully both of those issues are solved, no one wanted to see the effects that a default would have on our country and I think we all want to see a little football this year. These stalemates though have brought up another issue, compromise. Some people say that compromise is always good, and some say that compromise is always bad. I think we should compromise and find a middle ground between both of those statements. I think they are both equally wrong and I won’t compromise on that fact. I am not going to get into the political issues going on in D.C. and I personally couldn’t care less what deal the owners and players came up with I just want to see them play, but I do want to look at what God says about compromise.
For God the issue of compromise depends on the situation. There are some situations where compromise is called for and there are some situations where God clearly says there can be no compromise. The trick is figuring out where what applies. For instance in Ephesians 4 Paul calls for us to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. He follows that up by telling husbands and wives to submit to one another as well. In other words compromise with one another when you have different ideas of what you want to do. When there is not compromise in personal relationships you do not have healthy human relationships. You either have two people who can never get along and are constantly fighting or you have one person controlling the other person, neither of which is good. We have all dealt with that person who refuses to compromise on anything and we know how impossible they are to work with or be around. I have usually either walked away or ended that relationship. To compromise with someone is to show respect for them. Most successful businesses and all healthy relationships practice compromise. Without compromise most things do not get done.

At the same time there are situations where there can be no compromise whatsoever. God clearly says there can be no compromise when it comes to his word or the doctrine that comes out of it. There are situations where the lines need to be drawn in the sand. When Scripture for instance says that something is immoral there can be no leeway given. It doesn’t matter if the culture has changed or if society has accepted it or if we are related to a person doing the immorality it is still immoral, end of argument and not an inch of ground can be given. For instance where there might be compromise in a business deal over price, there can be no compromise if one party asks the other party to do something that would be defined as stealing or otherwise unethical. In the church there might be compromise on how a worship service is conducted but there can never be compromise on the doctrine that is taught in that worship service. In the church there may be compromise on how programs are carried out but there can never be comprise on the mission and vision that God has given to that church. In the family there might be compromise when a child is going to clean their room but there cannot be compromise on the fact that the child is going to clean their room. In the family there can be compromise with the kids on when and what church they are going to, but there can never be compromise on the fact that the child is going to church, whether they like it or not is not an issue, it is a Scriptural command to parents to make sure it happens.
To compromise or not to compromise, well let’s compromise and say it depends on the situation. Wisdom is knowing when each applies, on that fact there is no compromise.

Pastor Fred

PROCESSED FAITH

American cheese is very un-American. Yes you read that correctly, American cheese is about as un-American as you can get. America is the land of opportunity; it’s the land of self starters with original ideas. America has even been called the “great experiment.” What is the experiment? Can you put a whole bunch of people from different races, backgrounds, and beliefs together in one place and have them get along and actually be successful? Although we have had our share of bumps along the road, I think we would have to say that so far the experiment has been producing good results. One thing about America is that it has never been boring; it has never been a copy of something else. That is why American cheese is un-American. If you were to read up on your cheeses you would find that of all the major cheeses that we consume, American cheese is the only one that is processed, some would say it isn’t even a real cheese; it’s made in a factory. It is complete and utter garbage in my opinion. I love cheeseburgers but the cheese has to be something else than American cheese. I personally think the name should be changed because it is so bad it is an insult to our great country. It is unoriginal, boring and bad for your health. American cheese though is just a symptom of a larger problem, and that is processed foods.
When I refer to processed foods here I am talking about how industry takes natural good foods and puts in additives and preservatives to make the product look better and give it a longer shelf life. Processed foods do provide convenience and if you are in the middle of nowhere it does help the food last longer. The problem though is that is destroys the true taste of the food, and it puts chemicals in your body that medical research has shown to be harmful to you. Processed foods also contain a lot of salt and fats to make up for the loss of taste in the pure product, hence the obesity problem in America and the rise of diabetes. The biggest problem though in my opinion is not the health issue; everybody is going to die of something some day whether it is processed food or stepping in front of a bus. No the biggest problem with processed food is that it is boring and unoriginal, two cardinal sins in my book. This boring and unoriginal processed movement has taken over just about everything, from the supermarket to a lot of so called restaurants. Many restaurants today do not make their own food, they just mix together some ingredients they got out of cans at Costco and then heat them up and serve them to you as if they made it. All I can say is boring! My purpose here though is not to take on the processed food market but to talk about another thing that is sometimes processed, and that is our lives.
In particular I am addressing our spiritual lives. The basis of our spiritual lives as Christians is the Word of God and nothing else. The Bible is the Word of God in its pure form without any additives or preservatives or other stuff to make it taste or look better. From the Bible we get God’s grace and love and forgiveness and salvation through the Gospel. We also get all of our doctrine that teaches about who God is and what he has done for us and how he expects us to live in response to that. Doctrine is extremely important but it needs to be doctrine that is drawn from the pure Scriptures. Unfortunately people want to process the Word of God to make it look better to people, to keep people coming back to hear it and they want to add stuff to it thinking it will go down a little easier with people in our world. There is a huge demand for this so there are many out there willing to provide it. The original food, the Bible gets thrown to the side.
What do I mean by this? People have always wanted to modify what Scripture says because they are afraid that it might offend people, so they change the word to fit what sounds good to most people. They take out the things it says about sins that we like or lifestyles that are popular. People also like to add things to the word and make it address issues that it doesn’t like politics or bizarrely enough, what you should eat. The result is a processed faith that doesn’t resemble what the Bible teaches at all and gets in the way of providing the necessary spiritual nourishment that we need. One of the biggest culprits of this movement, although certainly not the only one, has been the modern Christian bookstore which at this time is by and large going out of business thankfully. It has provided books to Christians written by athletes and business people who teach their philosophy and lifestyle instead of what Scripture teaches. It has also provided the jewelry and t-shirts and other stuff that Christians are told that a good believer should wear. They have also been the leading promoters of pre-formatted one size fits all church programs. Just buy our DVD and you don’t have to read the Bible, we will tell you what to think.

The result has been disastrous. Cookie cutter Christians who dress alike, vote alike and quote their favorite authors and teachers more than they quote the Bible. It has also produced churches which have nothing original about them, they are just knocks offs of another popular church in another city. It is the spiritual version of obesity and diabetes. This processed Christianity is killing the church in America. So maybe it’s time to get rid of the all the additives and preservatives and go back to the original source. My family has slowly been making the transition from processed foods to fresh ingredients. As we have made that transition we have been pleasantly surprised to find that the food tastes better, we don’t eat as much and we feel better. Our taste buds have also been revived and we are experiencing new things in natural flavors. We rarely eat at fast food restaurants and have stopped eating at some other restaurants after we discovered that they were just heating things up. It’s time to do the same with our spiritual lives. It is time to go back to the Bible alone. When we do we will find that there is no Christian look, there are no Christian politics, and no Christian food among other things. It is time to stop consuming processed Christianity. It is time to stop doctoring the Bible to make it less offensive or more inviting and just let it speak for itself. When you do you will find that you will be closer to God and you will experience him in ways that you never imagined.

THE HABOOB FROM HELL

Throughout the years of living and traveling throughout the country I have experienced some very interesting weather. A week or so ago though we had a storm here in Phoenix that some people have called a hundred year storm, meaning you only get one like that every hundred years or so. The city of Phoenix basically lies in a bowl in the middle of the desert. Most of the time that just means we get some really hot days like 115 to 118 in the summer. Phoenix is basically known as a hot and dry place which is it is most of the time. I say most of the time because we have a thing here called the monsoon season. Now when I think of monsoons I think of Southeast Asia and places like that, but certainly not the hot dry desert of Arizona. So I was surprised when I moved here and found out about it. Now admittedly our monsoon season is nothing like those in other wet places in the world where it rains for days and weeks on end. Our monsoons come out of nowhere packed with rain that falls for 5 minutes or so and then is followed by a huge wind bringing dust and dirt. Usually the whole event takes 15 minutes and then you go outside and start to clean up the mess it left. These dust storms are called haboobs. The one we had a week or so ago though was the Haboobs of all haboobs. When it arrived it was daylight and the sun was brightly shining. I live in the very southeast corner of Phoenix bordering the city of Chandler so my house was one of the first ones hit. My neighbor took pictures of it coming and they are amazing. At 7:23 you see it looming in the background of a beautiful sunny day with everything at peace. One minute later it is looming over my house like an angry monster looking to devour everything. One minute after that the sunny day has become pitch black the trees bowing in the wind and things flying through the air, absolutely terrifying. The storm went on for over an hour without letting up. The aftermath thankfully to my house was just a lot of dirt and dust everywhere. In other places there were trees down, power lines taken out and people without electricity. Overall for such a monstrous storm it did very little damage. The images of the storm though are other worldly. I spent that storm in my office working and watched it at times through the front windows of the church.
Yesterday we had another haboob, this one not near as bad. I was home and saw it coming and took several pictures which I posted on Facebook. Although it was a minor storm compared to the monster it was ominous watching it come. Here is my best description of it. The sun is shining and then you start to see a brown cloud in the distance. You walk outside and realize it’s not a cloud but a haboob. As you are watching you realize that it is taking in everything. You look to the right and to the left and it takes up your whole view. Suddenly the wind picks up, and your phone rings and it's someone you know telling you to be prepared that a haboob is on the way. You say, “Yeah I know, I’m watching it.” By this time the cloud seems to be right in front of you and the palm trees are bending and the dust is starting to fly, so you step back into your house and watch it through the glass. In ten minutes, it’s gone. It’s an amazing thing to watch, exciting and yet terrifying at the same time. Watching the one yesterday got me to thinking though. Is this how the end of the world is going to be like? Many people in the last few weeks have told me they have also thought about that. It’s a good question. I don’t know the answer of course. I do know from what Scripture says that one day the end is going to come.
As a Lutheran I don’t subscribe to a rapture or to anything everyone read in the Left Behind series of books that came out many years ago. Although I will have to say unlike so many of my fundamentalist friends who do hold to those teachings I actually read all of the books of the Left Behind series. I found them poorly written and a horrible twisting of Scripture, but I gutted it out and read the whole series just so I could tell my fundamentalist friends that I had read the whole thing when they hadn’t, so there! Actually I love my fundy friends and look forward to spending eternity with them in heaven, where I will jokingly keep pointing out how wrong they were. As a Lutheran I believe that Scripture teaches that Jesus will come back someday, I don’t know when and neither does anyone else, and the end of the world will happen. Scripture tells us it will come when we least expect it and it will be sudden. Jesus even told the people to look up when the end came because their redemption was drawing near. I thought about that as I looked up at the haboob the other day. Is this how the end is going to come, with Jesus in the front of a storm gobbling up everything? That would certainly be a scary sight. And yet from what I read in the Bible I am not afraid of the end of the world. No believer in Christ should ever be afraid of the end of the world; it just means we are going home to be with God. So many church leaders though try to scare people with this, they write books, do movies that lead people to fear the end. As a believer in Christ I look forward to the end, I know where I am going because of Christ’s death and resurrection. I once said in a sermon that to try to scare a Christian with the end of the world is like trying to scare an overworked guy with the fact that vacation might be coming next week.
I don’t like the Haboobs we experience here because they are a pain to clean up after, so the fewer of them the better. At the same time I look forward with great anticipation to the final great Haboob that Jesus will bring. In the words of John from the book of Revelation, “Amen, come Lord Jesus! The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen.”

FINALLY A GOOD USE FOR CHURCH PEWS

From the last entry in my blog you know I am a foodie. I love to cook, I love to read about cooking and I love to watch others cook. I recently found a restaurant that makes a dish that brings back old childhood memories. I grew up on pasties. Pasties basically consist of pie type dough filled with things like meat and potatoes and some root vegetables. My mom grew up in Butte Montana where pasties are famous as the food that miners took into the mines with them. They kept well and they tasted good. My mom made them all the time when I was growing up. I thought everyone ate them so I was surprised after I left home that nobody seemed to know what a pasty was. Therefore I have always longed for pasties. I have even learned how to make them myself. When I found out that there was an authentic pasty place in Mesa well I had to go. I was not disappointed. They have taken the basic pasty and have found ways to come up with a variety of different favored ones.
I love this new place called The Pasty Company for a number of reasons. First it makes great pasties. They have the basic Oggie which is steak and potatoes, onions and root vegetables. I personally like the Lamb and mint which has lamb, potatoes, rutabaga, onion and fresh mint with a side of wine gravy. They also have Bangers and Mash. Secondly it reminds me of many of the pubs I spent time in when I lived in England. You can get Strongbow Cider, Franziskaner Hefe and even Oak Creek Nut Brown Ale from Sedona. Thirdly, well it has spunk, a little bit of rebelliousness with a tongue in cheek attitude about it. For instance since the owners are from Northern England you can get Car Bombs as a drink for 3$ or Skull Splitter Ale. Not to mention that happy hour is from 3 to 6 and 10 to close everyday and its happy hour all day on Sunday. How can you beat that? I have joked to my wife though that if we are going to keep coming here we are both going to have to get tattoos and some nose piercings to fit in better. The entire staff looks to all be in their twenties. They are all tattooed, pierced and have various shades of hair coloring and at first glance a hardness to them. You soon discover though that they are also very cheerful and warm to their customers. But there is an edge here and it is in the customers as well who are an assortment of people, many looking just like the staff, and still others from various walks of society, but there are no suits here, no ties. If you’re going to come here you better leave that at home. I love this place so much that I thought about writing Guy Fieri about it so that maybe he could come out with his Diner, Drive-Ins and Dives team and do a show on them. But then I realized this is not a Guy Fieri place. In fact if Guy were to walk through the door with his phony spiked white hair and sunglasses and over the top attitude he would soon be grabbed by the ear and shown out the other door and told to get lost. And it probably wouldn’t be the male six-four bartender doing the honors but the close to six foot female waitress wearing a t-shirt with some band’s name on it that no one over thirty has ever heard of. No this isn’t Guy’s place; no this is the land of Anthony Bourdain of No Reservations fame. Anthony would be loved here, he would be invited into the kitchen here, this is his type of place from the tattooed waitress to the Church pews for seating.
Yeah that’s right I said church pews for seating. The first time my wife pointed that to me I responded well finally someone has found a good use for church pews. Anyone who has spent anytime around me knows I hate church pews, at least in churches. I have led worship in a multipurpose room that looks nothing like a church for eleven years now and have enjoyed it. I am not a fan of the traditional church building. I figure why spend money on something you are only going to use a few hours on Sunday when you can spend money building something you will use all week. I really don’t have a good reason for my disdain, except well, other people’s attachment to these things. I grew up in a traditional church setting and I like most things about the traditions of the church. They provide stability and they keep things constant. The traditions also carry with them good practices that have endured hundreds even thousands of years now. I like things like times of prayer and good order and flow in the worship service. I am not against tradition in the least. I guess you could say I just have a problem with furniture. Well it is more than that. I have a problem with any tradition that has outlived its usefulness but people still keep demanding that it be kept because, well that is the way we have always done it. I have found that most church people have no idea for instance why we have pews, why we have flowers on the altar, why we have altar rails, why we have stained glass, why we have altars, or eternal lights. They could not tell you why those things exist, but if you tried taking them away they would throw a fit because it would be change.
Maybe that is why I like the Pasty Company, they are very traditional and yet living outside the box. Notice I didn’t say thinking. They are not just thinking outside the box, they are living outside the box. There is a big difference. They are making the traditional pasty and serving traditional English food, but they are doing it their way. They have invented new recipes; they have challenged the status quo. Most of all they are having fun serving food that I remember when I was kid. It’s a taste of my childhood with a twist. Jesus himself was a bit of an Anthony Bourdain. He spent a lot of time hanging out with the Pasty Company crowd and he loved them, and they loved him. Jesus was not concerned about furniture or a steeple, he was concerned about people. I think he would laughed at the church pews as well. Jesus isn’t concerned about what you are sitting on when he is talking as long as you are listening. Jesus interestingly enough provided meals many times with his preaching, and did much of teaching between bites as he was eating with the people. Maybe we should build a restaurant like the Pasty Company to have Church services in, but then I would want to get rid of the church pews.

Pastor Fred

OF PICTURE BOOKS AND STAINED GLASS WINDOWS

My six year old son was looking through a book the other day entitled 100 Bible stories. It’s a book put out by Concordia Publishing House that in short form tells 100 of the most important Bible stories from both the Old and New Testaments. It usually has the story on one page and then on the next page is a picture of what is going on in the story. My son can’t read yet but he seems to understand the stories by simply looking at the picture, so kudos to CPH for the great artwork. The other day he came up to me and showed me the story of the fall in the Garden of Eden. He said to me, “God is mad.” I asked him how he knew. He said because Adam and Eve had sinned. He had gotten the whole story from the simple picture. He then proceeded to show me other pictures and tell me the stories that went along with them. I have to say I was pretty amazed. I guess I shouldn’t be that amazed though, telling stories by pictures is part of church history that gets largely ignored today. All you have to do is look at some stained glass windows to see it. Or I guess I should say you have to look at some old stained glass windows to see it. Most stained glass windows today are just some coloring and maybe some flowers or butterflies mixed in. They basically serve the purpose of changing the lighting in the church and making some feel like they are, well, in church. Old stained glass on the other hand told stories. They contained pictures of the Biblical stories that were very vivid. There was a reason for this most of people hundreds of years ago couldn’t read. They received the Word of God two ways, one through hearing it read and preached to them and two through the stained glass windows that they looked at during the church service. In those ancient stained glass windows they saw both the law of God and most importantly the Gospel of God. They saw their salvation in pictures every time they were in the church. It seems that people in the church never got tired of that, stained glass was a constant thing in just about every church that was built for hundreds of years. People were comforted looking at those pictures Sunday after Sunday. I don’t know for certain what lead to stain glass’s demise or the change of it into just different colors with worthless symbols in it, but I would venture to say it had to do with more and more people learning to read. It wasn’t needed as much anymore. Thankfully we still have picture books for kids.
Picture books for non-readers serve the same purpose. My son can’t read so he gets the Word of God one of two ways. He hears it read to him either in church or at home and he has books with pictures which he carries around with him. Like the people with their stained glass he never gets tired of it. One of the stories my son always goes to in his book is the death of Jesus on the cross. The cross is very important to him. He asks me all the time why Jesus died on the cross. I tell him a few different things. Number one I tell him because we are sinners Jesus had to die to pay for our sins. He struggles with that a little, so sometimes I just tell him because Jesus loves him, but still he continues to ask me. Like most people, I don’t like being asked the same question over and over again, so at first it bothered me that he asked me the cross question so much but then I began to slowly realize he likes hearing that Jesus loves him. He takes comfort in that fact that Jesus went to the cross for him. He likes looking at the picture, he likes hearing me tell him the same story of God’s love over and over again. Really he is like all of us. We like hearing that same story over and over again. It is why we read our Bibles; it is why we come to church. We need to hear that we are sinners in need of forgiveness, but more than that we need to hear that we are forgiven and loved by God. We need to hear that story of the cross and of the resurrection over and over again. It just never gets old. It never gets old because it is so important to us as people who one day are going to die and see our God. We like the story, because it’s a good story and it has a happy ending. Thank God for old stained glass and picture books.

Food is next to Godliness

I know it's supposed to be "Cleanliness is next to Godliness" but you haven't seen my kitchen so I decided to change it. I have always loved to cook. First of all I love food, I am skinny guy with a fat man trying to get out. In fact I have cooked since I was seven years old. There are advantages to being a latch-key kid, you learn to do a lot of stuff other kids don't. When I got to college I ate full meals every day that I cooked myself, I knew how to do my own laundry, how to iron a shirt and sew on a button. Cooking though has always been something that has brought me great joy. When we were getting ready to graduate from Seminary our professors told us that we needed to get a hobby otherwise we would get in a rut or burn out or both. Following their advice I tried exercise at the local health club, but I found it to be more boring than tiring. You stand in a room on a machine going a million miles an hour and getting nowhere. I have belonged to five health clubs in 18 years of ministry, and I hardly went to any of them, might as well of poured the money down the drain. So then I tried collecting old books, but I soon found that original copies are very expensive, so much for that. I tried Karate, interesting but required way to much self discipline. I am a reader so I tried military history, interesting but with a family of four, reading time was not a luxury, plus what do you do with it? Oh I have also tried bike riding, which I still do some but again not that interesting, at least to me. I have also tried hiking, loved it but my knees and my heart complained way to much, plus I really don't have the time in the mornings and in Arizona you don't hike in the afternoons. I think you see where I am going with this. As far as any type of art or pottery or wood work, well I draw stick figures, so not happening.
That brings me back to cooking. I have always cooked, but until recently my wife did most of the dinner cooking and I cooked on special occasions. My wife's hours changed recently and so I found myself in the kitchen every night cooking. I quickly realized that I loved it. In fact it was like therapy, by the time I was done cooking I was relaxed. Slowly cooking went from something I needed to do to feed the family to something that I looked forward to everyday. It has now become my hobby. It is in fact the perfect hobby. I can read and research about cooking, it's history, techniques etc... I can physically do the cooking and practice new things and best of all my family eats good food. It is a win, win. The family needs to eat so any money spent is money that is going to be spent anyway. Plus I have found that I spend less now because of planning and buying in advance and learning how to work with food in more economical ways.
I also read the Bible differently now. I am blown away how so much of Scripture is centered around food. They are always eating and if they are not eating they are complaining about not eating. Jesus is shown eating all the time as well with all types of people. In fact some of his best sermons happen around food. And you wondered where the church pot-luck come from. In the Old Testament treaties and covenants were sealed with food or some sort of sacrfice that involved food. Jesus speaks of himself as food in the New Testament and right before his arrest instituted the Lord's Supper using food. Because of that our church's liturgy has involved the eating of food, bread and wine for over 2000 years now. Food is next to Godliness, we even get picture language of heaven being a great banquet. Therefore I think food and preaching go together hand in hand. Now if I could just get my hands on some of those recipes for the food in heaven.

Making Things New

If you are reading this blog you also have seen our new website. God talks about making things new many times in Scripture. Primarily he is talking about the New Covenant he has made with us through his Son Jesus Christ. Well we are making some new things here at Family of Christ as well. This website is part of it. You will notice that it has a lot of information on it and also that it is very easy to navigate around. It is still a work in progress, in the coming weeks and months there will be many pictures added to it and it will be improved as people offer suggestions. One of the things we wanted to emphasize on this website is the integration of the our school and church, that is why the front page is basically divided in half. The school is owned and operated by the church but we didn't want people to have to go and look for school information inside the website. We hope you enjoy our website and we also invite your comments.

Pastor Fred