Devastation, Destruction and the Love of God

23 05 2013

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
his love endures forever. Psalm 118:1

This has been a week of devastation.  The tornadoes which ripped across the heartland of America, and particularly the unimaginable destruction in Moore, Oklahoma, leave us with a great deal more questions than answers about God and His ways.  Nothing seems safe…our cities, our homes, our children.  Devastating.

tornado damageIt is against this backdrop that I find myself meditating on my church’s Re:Verse passage this week: Psalm 118.  “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.”  Awfully hard to embrace in this context, right?

When I work with congregations in the midst of conflict, there is this same difficulty…finding God and trusting His promises in the midst of devastation.  Hopeless does not really begin to describe the feeling.  Trusting God when the path is smooth is one thing, but believing He is who He says He is and that He will do what He says He will do when our world has crumbled around us…well, that’s a different thing, isn’t it?

When your entire neighborhood is literally ripped from its foundation, leaving little evidence of ever having been there, it is hard to hear about God’s love.  When lifelong friendships are torn apart as a result of a church conflict, we struggle with notions of God’s promises to those who love Him, who are called according to His purposes.  When our children are sent safely off to school and then are horribly and suddenly taken from us, the love of God can feel like a completely foreign concept.

I think it is important to note that God’s Word does not promise to keep us from these things.  Rather, God promises to be WITH US in the midst of them.  In all of these instances, what happens next is the fulfillment of that promise.  The people of Moore, Oklahoma are already feeling the love of God through disaster relief workers and churches and emergency personnel and people who care.  In the days ahead, they will come face to face with God’s love which endures forever.  Similarly, in the aftermath of every church conflict, there is the birth of a new day in the life of the church…a day when God manifests Himself in fresh new ways.  Neither tornadoes nor church conflict catch God by surprise.  He sees them coming, knows the outcomes of them, and makes His presence felt in the healing and rehabilitation which follows.

It is that healing and rehabilitation for which we give thanks.  It is through the outpouring of relief efforts and through the reconciliation of friendships where we experience the love of God which endures forever.  The devastation is still there, our lives will never be the same.  The church is split, and it will never be the same.  But God is nonetheless good and is faithful to be there with us, just as He promised.

In all things and in all seasons, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good…and His love endures forever.

© Blake Coffee
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Blake Coffee.  Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Blake Coffee. Website: churchwhisperer.com

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Categories : Church Unity, conflict, Reconciliation

“Scoreboard, Baby!”

21 05 2013

Tuesday Re-mix -

I will not come against their cities.
They will follow the LORD;
he will roar like a lion.
When he roars,
his children will come trembling from the west.
They will come from Egypt,
trembling like sparrows,
from Assyria, fluttering like doves.
I will settle them in their homes,”
declares the LORD.  Hosea 11:9-11

“…and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.” Matthew 16:18b

scoreboard1It is a scenario which plays itself out in the sports world over and over again.  A frustrated player whose team is hopelessly behind with no chance of winning happens to make a good play or win one small skirmish against his opponent and begins to celebrate wildly.  His opponent simply points to the scoreboard and says, “Scoreboard, baby” (or some other word is sometimes used instead of “baby”).  The point is simple: knowing the outcome of the game ahead of time does change things a bit.

That is why words such as Hosea’s (above) had to be encouraging to Israel.  Though a horrible season was coming, it gave them a sense of what would be on the other side.  It is what God does for His people…He gives them hope of what is to come, even in the midst of judgment.  He still does.  The church today has similar promises to which we can cling.  We may go through horrible seasons ourselves (as a church), but we know how the story ends…we know Christ’s church prevails in the end.  ”The gates of Hell will not prevail against it.”  That is an important encouragement.

Often, when I am working with a conflicted congregation, I will encounter leaders in the church who are literally wild-eyed and crazy passionate about “defending” the church, or protecting it, or defending God’s truth or God’s Word, or otherwise saving the church from sure disaster.  I see or hear them say or do outrageous things, all in the name of Christ and His church.  I see them showing uncontrollable rage toward this particular threat or that particular threat.  I see in them a reckless fear of what might happen to the church if this group gains control or if that leader has his way.  They see themselves as the savior of the church…and it just makes me lean back and say, “Really?”

I think we would all do well to remember that Christ does not need us to defend His church.  And He does not need us to “save” His Word from the otherwise sure destruction of misinterpretation.  Not our jobs.  What He does call us to do is to be His church and to speak His Word…not out of some panicked sense of fear or hatred, but with love and with a peace that surpasses all understanding.  He calls us to conduct ourselves with confidence that His church will in fact prevail in the end and that His Word really will endure forever.

Every once in a while, especially when we feel ourselves getting all twisted up in a knot over things we see going on in the church today, we just need to glance at the end of the story and remind ourselves, “Scoreboard, baby”… His church wins in the end.  Relax.

© Blake Coffee
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Blake Coffee.  Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Blake Coffee. Website: churchwhisperer.com

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Categories : Church Unity, leadership

Being the Anti-Worshipper

16 05 2013

Come, let us bow down in worship,
    let us kneel before the Lord our Maker;
for he is our God
    and we are the people of his pasture,
    the flock under his care.

Today, if only you would hear his voice,
“Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah,
    as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness,
where your ancestors tested me... Psalm 95:6-9

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Romans 12:1

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????There are some of you reading this post who cannot believe there are still churches struggling with the “worship wars” of music and style and diverse forms of gathered worship.  You fought those battles years ago and have enjoyed a long time now of unity on that subject.  There are others of you who, frankly, cannot even imagine what it feels like to have that conflict in your rear-view mirror, because you are right in the middle of it now, with little hope for a friendly resolution.  Either way, whether those struggles are fresh for your church or long since forgotten, we all could use a gentle reminder about worship and what, exactly, are our objectives as we plan corporate worship.

The Psalmist from Psalm 95 does us a great favor, not only reminding us of the object of our worship, but also reminding us of what is NOT worship.  The references to “Meribah” and “Massah” in Psalm 95 relate to an ugly moment in Israel’s history documented in Exodus 17.  The people were complaining to Moses because they were uncomfortable…because they were not getting what they wanted.  There was a sense of entitlement in them…exactly the opposite from the contrite hearts which true worship demands.

True worship, you see, is about sacrifice.  This was true in the Old Testament and the New Testament alike.  Paul’s words to the Romans clarify this: offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.  Worship has always been about sacrificing what we want in order to acknowledge God.  The hearts of the Hebrew people at Meribah (i.e., the insistence that they get what they want) is, according to the Psalmist, exactly the opposite of worship…it is anti-worship.

Isn’t that the irony, then, of the worship wars?  At the very heart of that conflict is people clinging to what they want, to what they are comfortable with.  Just like at Meribah.  It is that very act of personal insistence about a style of worship which makes me an anti-worshipper.  When I hold fast to what I want in the music or the preaching or the other forms of worship, when I make worship all about my leanings and my preferences, I become the very antithesis of true worship.  It’s not about sacrifice at all.  It’s about me.

I’ve been speaking into this “worship wars” issue for some years now, but for some reason, I had missed this painful bit of irony.  Shame on me.  And shame on us.

© Blake Coffee
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Blake Coffee.  Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Blake Coffee. Website: churchwhisperer.com

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Categories : Church Unity, conflict, Worship Wars

Being One of the Cool Kids

14 05 2013

Tuesday Re-mix -

Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help,
who rely on horses,
who trust in the multitude of their chariots
and in the great strength of their horsemen,
but do not look to the Holy One of Israel,
or seek help from the Lord.  Isaiah 31:1

I pay $4.00 for a cup of Starbucks coffee, when I could pay half that elsewhere.  And I pay with my iPhone.  And I follow American Idol (sort of).  And I watch ESPN Sportcenter pretty much every day.  And I follow secular bloggers, like Seth Godin and Michael Hyatt.  I do most of these things because I want to be a part of this culture where I live…I want to understand it and to be accepted in it.  I want to have influence in it as well.  To be blunt, I want to be one of the cool kids.

I will also admit to you that I want this, even knowing that there are times and circumstances when it is not God’s first and perfect will for me.  What I mean by that is…being one of the cool kids may well be more important to me sometimes than it should be.  I try to be cognizant of that, but I am certain I sometimes miss the mark.  I know that I am capable of looking in the wrong places for my acceptance…making “alliances” for my security other than with the Lord.  In this regard, I am definitely still just a work in progress.

Judah did that with Egypt.  In the face of certain discipline from God (at the hands of the Assyrians), rather than turning toward God and taking their medicine, they turned toward Egypt for acceptance and security.  God’s path for them was going to be difficult and inconvenient and painful, and they wanted options.  It was a pattern for them and it is a pattern for us as well, don’t you think?

I sometimes worry that the church is likewise guilty of this.  I think we can work so hard to be culturally relevant (to be “one of the cool kids”), that we miss God’s intention for us.  I think we must be careful about our “alliances”, i.e., those from whom we find our acceptance or our security.  We may not be tempted by horses and chariots so much, but I do know I have seen churches turning to other worldly things for the preservation of their institution.  For example, I have seen churches turn to financial security for their preservation.  I have seen churches turn to political power for their preservation.  I have seen churches relying upon the popularity of their pastor for their security.  I have seen churches dilute the gospel in order to be accepted as “one of the cool kids” by their secular community.

The point is, the revolution Christ started is about being loving but is not about being popular…it is about being relevant and practical, but it is not about selling out to cultural supremacy…it is about meeting needs but it is not about feeding consumers.  Sometimes, the line between these concepts  is a fine line to walk.  But walk it we must, wouldn’t you agree?

© Blake Coffee
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Blake Coffee.  Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Blake Coffee. Website: churchwhisperer.com

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Categories : leadership, missional, The Church's Influence, the revolution

Meanwhile, Until We are Truly “Abiding in Him”…

9 05 2013

If you say, “The Lord is my refuge,”
    and you make the Most High your dwelling,
no harm will overtake you,
    no disaster will come near your tent.  Psalm 91:9-10

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”  John 15:5

Holy Scripture is filled with amazing promises.  But almost all of them come with conditions.  You know the formula…“IF my people…will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, THEN will I hear from Heaven and…” etc.  Or…“Trust in the Lord with all your heart…and He will make your path straight.”  Most of God’s awesome promises come with a condition of some kind or another, or at least an assumption or implication.  It seems to be one of His many wondrous ways.

I read all the wonderful promises of Psalm 91 in that same light. All those promises of God’s protection and provision all hinge upon the very first line (repeated in verse 9): If you make the Most High your dwelling.

baby feet in heartWhen I deal with conflicting parties within the church, I often hear both sides invoke the name of the Lord for their positions.  I hear both sides claiming that God is on their side, that He will prevail and that He will bring about what they want.  But I also hear both sides in very much a “win/lose” mindset, wherein they will not be satisfied unless they win AND the other side loses.  I recall working with a church some years ago wherein one group was very much wanting to get rid of the pastor.  They were acting as “God’s agents”.  Midway through the process, the pastor accepted a call to another church and resigned, whereupon that group became  angry!  They had won…but they also wanted him to lose, and he did not.  At that point, I’m afraid their true motives, their true hearts, became crystal clear.

Meeting God’s criteria for enjoying His promises is never as simple as merely doing something for God.  It will never be enough to say, “I have prayed about this” and therefore expect God’s armies to go before you and to smite anyone who gets in your way.  The criteria for God’s promises, more often than not, have something to do with abiding in Him…DWELLING in Him.  You cannot hold a handful of prayer meetings with those who all agree with your position and come away claiming God’s anointing and a superior handle on God’s will.

If you have never read Andrew Murray’s devotional book, Abide in Christ, you really must. It should be a part of every Christian leader’s library.  He does such a masterful job of exploring just what it means to “abide in Him”.  It is a mindset…a condition of the heart…a way of being…a lifestyle…and so much more.  I believe that person who is truly “abiding in Christ” actually does have a leg up in terms of wisdom and understanding God’s heart and God’s desires.  I know a few people whom I believe fit that description.  I trust them implicitly in matters of discernment.  But the rest of us will just have to continue doing our best to seek God’s will together and will continue to see “as through a glass dimly”.  We will just have to continue to rely on the cumulative effect of hearing God speak through his Word, through prayer, through His people and through the church.  And it will NOT be an nice, easy process.  It will take time…more time than we want to take.  It will require uncommon humility and extraordinary patience.

And when it is all said and done, you and I will both be better for having waited on the Lord and for having walked through the process together.  And if we step carefully and prayerfully, at the end of the discernment process, we may well find ourselves one step closer to truly “dwelling in Him.”

© Blake Coffee
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Blake Coffee.  Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Blake Coffee. Website: churchwhisperer.com

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Categories : Church Unity, conflict, Discerning God's Will Together, prayer

Your Calling to Do Hard Things

7 05 2013

Tuesday Re-mix -

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

 And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

 He said, “Go and tell this people: “‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’  Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes.  Isaiah 6:8-10

Believe me when I tell you there are parts of my work as an attorney which I do not like.  Likewise, there are parts of my work as a church mediator which are hard and not very rewarding.  Likewise, there are parts of my various assignments as a church leader which I would definitely rather not do…things I definitely do not feel “gifted” to do, but which my leadership requires nonetheless.

struggling-turtleIsaiah’s calling was almost certainly not to do something he enjoyed doing.  It was a calling to do a very hard thing…for over forty years…with practically no visible return whatsoever.

So, I hope my pastor friends will understand when I tend to look with some skepticism at their desire to just do the part of pastoring which they enjoy doing.  Some would like to just focus on the preaching and teaching without having to bother with the “pastoral care” parts.  Others would like to focus on the administrative aspects without having to do so much preaching and teaching.  Still others could be content just doing hospital visits all day long and never having to attend another insufferable committee meeting.

Shepherding God’s people includes all of those things.  You don’t have to be good at all of them…but you do have to do all of them.  If you don’t feel called to visit sick people and to counsel grieving people…you probably are not called to be a pastor.  If you don’t feel called to research, prepare and deliver God-honoring sermons, then you are probably not called to shepherd God’s people.  If your calling does not include a modicum of “interminable committee meetings”, then you are probably not called to lead in the church.  If relationships are just not what God called you to do, then you are definitely not called to be an influencer of God’s people.

If Isaiah teaches us anything at all, he gives us a glimpse of one central eternal truth about leadership among God’s people: it is a calling to do hard things.  The old saying is never any truer than it is with regard to leadership…”If it were easy, everybody would be doing it!”

Do the hard things.  It will set you apart, because nobody else wants to do them.  Besides, those hard things are not merely incidental to your calling…they are at its very heart.

© Blake Coffee
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Blake Coffee.  Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Blake Coffee. Website: churchwhisperer.com

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Categories : Everyone's a Minister, leadership

The Disgrace of Breaking Rank

2 05 2013

Lord, the Lord Almighty,
    may those who hope in you
    not be disgraced because of me;
God of Israel,
    may those who seek you
    not be put to shame because of me.  Psalm 69:6

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  Against such things there is no law.  Galatians 5:22-23

disgraceA revolution, pretty much by definition, represents a significant shift, a new way of proceeding, a new way of thinking.  Any significant shift requires intentionality and direction.  It requires vision and a strong sense of mission. And it requires a clear communication of that vision and sense of mission.  That means there will be some mantra which reflects some well-defined values to which all the “revolutionaries” ascribe.

The mantra of the American Revolution was “Liberty”, perhaps best captured by Patrick Henry’s famous quote: “Give me liberty or give me death.”  The mantra of the Mexican Revolution was “Tierra y Libertad”, or “Land and Liberty”.  Every revolution has some clear objectives in that regard.

When a rebel or soldier in a revolution “breaks rank” and places some other (personal) agenda above that of the revolution, it brings disgrace to the revolution.  It is treason, disloyalty of the highest order.  It is Judas “selling out” Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.  It is horrible and devastating by just about anyone’s standards.

Christianity is a revolution.  It has represented the single largest and most sustainable “shift” the world has ever known.  In the face of oppression and hardship, it has only grown more quickly and flourished.  In the face of suppression by governments and education systems, it only gains strength and sustainability.  It is perhaps the clearest example of “revolution” the world will ever see.

What is the “mantra” of this revolution?  What is it’s highest value?  Morality? No.  Doctrinal purity? No.  Truth?  Well, yes but no.  All those are high values to be sure, but none of those are the highest value.  None of those are the things for which Jesus said this revolution will be known.  Rather, any fair reading of the gospels and of the early church history will show that the clear and inescapable “mantra” of this revolution we call Christianity is…love.  It is unconditional, unreasonable, inexplicable love.

And, just to keep this from sounding like some shallow, worldly version of it (“What the world needs now is love, sweet love…”) let me give a little more detail.  At the heart of this revolution is the Spirit of God, living and manifesting itself through God’s people.  And the fruit of that Spirit, according to scripture, is love.  And joy, and peace, and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control.  Those are the kinds of qualities and characteristics which are earmarks of this revolution.

If these are the hallmarks of this revolution, why do you suppose we “break rank” and exhibit radically different attitudes with such alarming frequency?  How is it that, from the very beginning of this revolution, no matter how clearly Jesus illustrates what our attitudes SHOULD be, we are willing to bring disgrace to Him and to the revolution by rather exhibiting personal agendas, selfish ambition, fits of rage, bitterness, envy, and dissension?  Why is it that, in our very “fight” for the revolution, we break rank and treat even our fellow revolutionaries with disdain, not to mention those outside our ranks?  How can we justify that? And why do we shrug our shoulders with such shock and surprise when those outside our ranks point at us and laugh and scoff and call us hypocrites?

I’m meditating this week on the 69th Psalm.  I’m having some trouble.  Can you tell?

© Blake Coffee
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Blake Coffee.  Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Blake Coffee. Website: churchwhisperer.com

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Categories : Church Unity, missional, The Church's Influence, the revolution

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