Everything matters

Text for the week: Colossians 3:17

Well, that about does it, right?  That’s about all that needs to be said.  We’ve transitioned and turned the corner.  Because of where we are in the semester, we find ourselves thinking about Thanksgiving break and all that goes with it.

I think of Thanksgiving Day (the first day Christmas music is allowed in my home), putting up Christmas decorations, watching the Lions lose again, eating turkey till I bust, and the traditional clash between my beloved Buckeyes and the boys wearing the ugly helmets north of the state line. (Got your attention on that one, didn’t I?)

I’m not sure how you are, but I compartmentalize my life pretty easily.  It’s natural for me to just move on and forget what I’ve just done because it’s done, over, finis (thought I’d throw a little French in there). It’s already getting colder, getting dark early, and everything seems to be rapidly moving us toward the end of the semester and on to Christmas.  So, before our minds wander too far away from topic, here is one last thought: Whatever you do for God matters.

This semester, I know we’ve talked a lot about going, but I want you to know that whatever you do and wherever you do it, matters.  When Tony Campolo was here, he challenged us to go where we are needed — not where anyone else could do what we do.  I think he said it something like this:  “Why would you go someplace and do what you do, if a lot of other people can do it, instead of going someplace where what you do is needed, and no one wants to go?”

Before we put a bow on this box and put it under the tree, I hope you will think about that challenge one more time.  I don’t care where you go.  I just want you to find God waiting for you when you get there.  I don’t care what you do — that’s not my call.  I just want you to do the very thing that God created you to do, and that’s between the two of you. 

I trust God to help you discover what that is, and where you will do it.  I believe He is capable of speaking that into your heart, if you’re listening.  I don’t think we necessarily need to do anything differently to hear Him, just be attentive to the ways He is speaking to us every day.  It’s the little things that matter most.  Whatever we do for God matters. It makes all the difference in the world. 

Bigger hands

Text for the week: Exodus 3:13-4:5

A couple weeks ago, I had a conversation with two professors and we wondered together how God was going to use one of our guests in chapel.  What would God say to us through them?

During the course of the conversation, I said something — maybe in an attempt to ease my mind as much as to come up with a response.  In a moment of inspiration, I made this statement:  “Bigger hands are shaping this semester than mine.”  It was intended to be a statement of faith, but is one I believe has become a reality to us.


Since then, I’ve thought about that conversation and my response several times.  I’ve actually used that phrase often, maybe with some of you.  The further we move into the semester, the more profound it has become to me — not because I said it, but because it is true.  The evidence is right in front of us, again showing up this week through three of our own faculty and two alumni. 

Bigger hands have been shaping this semester than mine — than all of ours.  This is a not-so-subtle reminder that we aren’t in charge.  God is, and He will do what He will do, when He wants to do it.  We can plan, pray, and do everything we can, but ultimately, this is His.  We believe that God is ever-present, but it has been apparent to me, and many of you, that He has chosen to be close to us as well. 

Yet in the midst of saying that, we need to also be reminded that He sees us; He sees you and me.  He is aware of the deepest desires of our hearts. As we seek Him, He wants us to not only find Him (Jeremiah 29:13), but find those desires met. 

I had this conversation with a student just this week, reminding him that God doesn’t jerk us around, doesn’t play games with us concerning the things that matter most.  He desires to shape us, helping us to experience life that is more than we could ever imagine in our wildest dreams (Ephesians 3:20, The Message Translation).


So, the question of the semester remains: What will you do with what God has placed in your hands?

Lessons from a ballpark

Text for the week: Jeremiah 29:10-14

I’m a recovering baseball fan.  The strike of ’91 hurt, but the strike of ’94 killed me.  I know, ’94?  The team with the best record in baseball before the strike of ’94 was the Montreal Expos. Again, I can hear a resounding, “Montreal Expos?”

But, it’s not the teams I want to talk about today. It’s the stadiums they played in: Olympic Stadium in Montreal. Municipal Stadium in Cleveland. Old Candlestick in San Francisco. The Big “A” in Anaheim. Three River Stadium in Pittsburgh. Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. The Astrodome in Houston. And even my beloved Tiger Stadium in Detroit. 

None of these stadiums are standing anymore, but do you know what else they had in common?  They were large, cavernous stadiums built to get as many people in them as possible.   Not much personality.  As a matter of fact, you could almost say that if you’ve been to one, you’ve been to them all.  Big, oval, concrete structures that, once inside, you couldn’t see beyond their walls to the outside world.  You didn’t go to the game for the ballpark, you went in spite of it. 

It’s why people value the older stadiums like Fenway and Wrigley, with their personality, charm and individuality — remembered for things like ivy and “a green monster.”  People still go to watch those teams, just to visit the ballparks.  It doesn’t really matter how well the Cubs are doing; they still draw over 2.5 million because of the ballpark. 

So, if you visit the stadiums that have replaced the ones listed above, you will see that they are all built with a different purpose in mind.  They are all individually shaped not just for the team, but even around the city they inhabit. 

Did you see the arch cut in the grass of Busch Stadium during the World Series, showcasing not just the Cardinals, but the entire downtown skyline of St. Louis?  Or have you been to The Great America Ballpark in Cincinnati, where you are on a river walk once you walk out of the seats in right field?  Or how about the new Miller Ballpark in Milwaukee, where every time a homerun is hit, Bernie slides into a huge stein, and every fifth inning you have the mascot race, made up of a brat, sausage, hotdog, and polish?  See what I mean?

Each is creative and individual, having its own personality, experience, charm and even story.  Just like us.  I don’t think I’m being romantic, either — because we matter!   We are wired by our Creator to long for meaning and purpose and to see ourselves as He created us to be.  And like we were reminded this week, not one of us is wired the same, and that’s okay.  (I’m glad I wasn’t called to math, either!)

Just like the new generation of major league ballparks springing up across the country, maybe their rebuilding is expressing the greater longing within each of us to find our own meaning and purpose for this life.   Maybe we can learn a lesson from a baseball park, because maybe they are betraying our hearts.   

What are you hearing?

Who’da thunk?

Text of the week: Luke 13:18-19 and Ephesians 3:20-21

Part of my journey this semester began over the summer, with a small parable embedded in Luke’s account of the parable of the mustard seed (see Luke 13:18-19).  So that you don’t feel like you’re reading an exegesis paper, let me just say this: a mustard tree is more like a gnarly, ugly-looking bush — not a majestic tree.  This is not the way Jews envisioned the Kingdom of God showing up.  They would have envisioned something more like a cedar from Lebanon, or an oak, like the oaks of righteousness from the psalmist, representing what the Kingdom would look like.  A mustard tree is a bush — a shrub, even.  This story is easily overlooked because Jesus certainly didn’t mean the Kingdom is like a gnarly, ugly bush. Or did He?

What if Jesus is saying the Kingdom comes in ways we don’t expect —on His time table — to wherever He wants it to come.  I like to call these “who’da thunk” moments.  For instance, when Susan Kizzee walked on this campus as a freshman art major, did she think she would be called to live overseas, doing graphic design for a company with her husband, helping raise funds for their ministry, while at the same time using her artistic talent to beautify a developing office compound in India?  I think we could put that in the “who’da thunk” category.  I’m sure Susan didn’t see that coming, but now wouldn’t have it any other way.  That’s the way God works.

The Kingdom doesn’t always appear in ways that we can predict.  Maybe if we stopped trying to predict how the Kingdom is supposed to come (i.e. telling God how to do His work), we would actually recognize Kingdom work more often.  Early in the semester, we started engaging our imaginations in the process of listening to what God has for us, and now we are right back to where we started.  For us to hear God, maybe we need to think outside the boxes we’ve created for Him.  Maybe we need to remember that this is His work, not ours.  Maybe we need to re-imagine what the Kingdom is about.   Maybe we need to be reminded that it isn’t about us.  And remember, this is most effective and meaningful when it happens in community.

So, we’re back to where we started.  We have come full circle.  We’re looking for “who’da thunk” moments.  We’re looking for the ways that God works in and among us that we didn’t see coming and couldn’t predict, allowing Him to create His dreams for us, as we partner with Him to build His Kingdom.

So, the questions we’ve been asking each other throughout the semester are still there:  What are you hearing?  How is God re-shaping your dreams?  Have you seen any mustard plants lately?

Rediscovering the joy in the everyday

Text for the week: Colossians 3:17 and John 14:1-14

It’s a Thursday morning, and I just met with a student visiting our campus who will be a freshman next fall.  He has a sensitive spirit, and is asking questions about what God would have him do with his life.  I had the privilege of sharing with him that God calls in a variety of ways, and that he didn’t have to buy into the fact that you have to do something big or noticeable for it to be significant.  I also shared with him that he isn’t less of a person if he doesn’t have a classical call to ministry (e.g. pastoral, youth, missions, etc.), but that God can and will use him regardless of how he is wired.

Sound familiar?

I also shared some of the early story of Mother Teresa.   When she left her position as principal at a high school in Calcutta, she thought she was leaving a position of influence.  She was giving that all up to go live and serve among the dying.  What do you think motivated her?  Acclaim?  Recognition?  Title?  I don’t think so.

She saw a need, wanted to do something about it, and did it in Jesus’ name.  Why?  Do we really think she did it for the praise she would go on to receive?  Did she do it so she could be quoted from her speeches given in front of presidents and world leaders?  To give her a platform to write books?  I’m sure one of the things running through her mind was receiving the Nobel Prize for working among the dying, right?  You wouldn’t think there would be much said about someone who goes to live in the slums of Calcutta, to help the dead and dying, would you?

But that isn’t the way the Kingdom works.  The secular world, at times, even acknowledges that.  She didn’t do it for recognition.  There was nothing glamorous about what she was doing.  She was holding hands, washing bed sores, changing soiled beds.  I don’t think she ever believed she was doing anything special.   She wasn’t doing anything you or I couldn’t do.  But it was significant, and there is a difference.

Mother Teresa discovered joy in the every day.  She said, “I have a feeling that we are in such a hurry that we do not even have time to look at one another and smile.”  The joy given from a smile; the difference made in someone’s life because of a birthday party, a card, a word, or a hug.  It’s rediscovering the joy that comes in the mundane, ordinary, everyday experiences in life.  Loving and serving the needs that are around us today — right now.   Never forget, whatever you do now in Jesus’ name, matters.

Community is key

Text for the week:  1 Corinthians 12:12-26 

A friend of mine is executive pastor at a church in Valparaiso, Ind.  He and his wife both grew up around Tuscaloosa, Ala., and her mom teaches at the University of Alabama.  When the tornado ripped through Tuscaloosa and other towns nearby, they felt it.  The same thing happened when hurricane Katrina went through southern Mississippi and Alabama — they were hurt by what happened in their home state and by the devastation that occurred along the Gulf Coast.  They felt it.  Why?  Because it was home.  These were their people.   It affected their friends, their families and their neighbors; and they responded in kind.

I’m not sure how many trips they have taken to Tuscaloosa to help with the repair and rebuilding efforts, but I can guarantee, when they aren’t there physically, they are there in spirit.

Nouwen says, “As individuals we cannot be everything to everyone, but as a community we can indeed serve a great variety of needs.” 

Compassion fatigue

Text for the week: 1 Corinthians 12:4-11 

I get tired of hearing I’m not doing enough, in the middle of my trying to do something.  There is so much pain, hunger and tragedy all the time. How can I help meet all the needs that are out there?  Just thinking about it makes me tired. (See paragraph 2, pg. 77 of Quitting Church)

What would you say if I told you that you didn’t need to?  What if you could be an active participant in the Kingdom of God without responding to every need that presents itself?

Remember what happened this spring with the devastations in both Tuscaloosa and Joplin?  I remember the personal guilt I experienced because not only did I not go, I never felt compelled to go.  Am I heartless?  Some might say yes.  These came right on the heels of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

Come on, how much can one person take?  How much can humanity be expected to respond to?

Henri Nouwen says, “When there is no community that can mediate between world needs and personal responses, the burden of the world can only be a crushing burden.  When the pains of the world are presented to people who are already overwhelmed by the problems in their small circle of family or friends, how can we hope for a creative response?”

So, I ask again: How much are we expected to respond to?  All of it.  That’s right — all of it.  Not me, but you and me together.