Monday, November 16, 2015
NEW SERMON: Free to Love
I had the privilege to preach at Crosspoint Community Church this past Sunday on Galatians 5:1-15. That sermon, "Free to Love" can be listed to here.
Thursday, November 5, 2015
Thoughts On Being In Guatemala City The Week Of All Saints Day
Sunday, November 1, 2015, I landed in Guatemala City for the Synergy Conference, a gathering of people from around the world seeking to love their cities. It seemed fitting to be arriving at a gathering of ministry practitioners - some working in very hard places - on All Saints Day.
All Saints Day is the celebration of all the saints, known and unknown, who have gone before us. In protestant churches it is not much remembered other than the very loosely connected Halloween night on the Eve of All Hallows Day (another name for All Saints / All Souls day). It is further obscured by the remembrance of Reformation Day coinciding with the celebration.
As the wheels hit the ground that Sunday morning my mind was bleary, foggy from a red-eye flight, I was excited to be joining with my friends, teachers and colleagues, from around the world. Little did I know that the significance of our gathering being on week of All Saints Day would only grow as the days went on.
After a day of the conference being contained within the walls of the hotel we ventured out into the city. The first stop was the Guatemala National Cemetery where were learned on a tour a bit of the history of the country and the wounds that exist from that history. A key part of the history is the 36 year civil war (1960-1996) that ravished the country. During that conflict an estimated 300,000 people "disappeared" as part of a terror campaign.
The next stop on the tour that afternoon was FAFG (The Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation) a non-governmental organization that recovers the remains of the disappeared (many found in mass graves) and seeks to identify them and return them to their families. To date they have recovered around 1% of these non-combatant victims of the war. As we stood in a laboratory that contained around two dozen skeletons, hearing about the work of the FAFG, it struck me that these executed people are a portion of the saints that have gone before us.
In the cemetery we also heard the very personal story of a young man who was one of the workers in the dump just over the bluff. During the rainy season he was caught in an avalanche of garbage and swept 12 miles away by the storm water that is drained into the landfill. That young man, who labored in the shadows of the graves of the most famous and wealthy of the country, is now in a simple grave in that same cemetery among the common people. There he is unknown to most of the world just has he had been largely unseen in life. But he is not forgotten by his friends (those leading our tour) or by his God. Another Saint that has gone before us. (for more thoughts about this saint see my friend Annette's Blog here).
The next day we were back out in the streets of Guatemala City. This time I was involved in meeting pastors from around the city and hearing about the churches role in transforming the city. One of the stops was to hear about the peace and justice work of the Catholic orders in the city. During that time we were told the story of Assistant Bishop Juan Jose Gerardi Conedera. He was the Bishop that delivered to the government the report from the Catholic Church exposing their findings about the "disappearances" during the civil war. Two days later, April 24, 1998, he was found beaten beyond recognition in front of his home. Another Saint that has gone before us.
That second day of the tours began in the conference room of a western style mega-church listening to Shorty who is a pastor and church planter in some of the hardest areas of Guatemala City. Shorty explained that he often calls his daughters before who goes into one of the neighborhoods, in case he is killed. He challenged us by asking, "Are you willing to die where God has asked you to go?" Again, my thoughts returned to those Saints who have gone before and found myself thinking about my commitment to the place(s) God has called me.
Will God, and my bothers and sisters in Christ, see me as a saint that went before?
Peace and All Good from Guatemala.
Joel K
All Saints Day is the celebration of all the saints, known and unknown, who have gone before us. In protestant churches it is not much remembered other than the very loosely connected Halloween night on the Eve of All Hallows Day (another name for All Saints / All Souls day). It is further obscured by the remembrance of Reformation Day coinciding with the celebration.
As the wheels hit the ground that Sunday morning my mind was bleary, foggy from a red-eye flight, I was excited to be joining with my friends, teachers and colleagues, from around the world. Little did I know that the significance of our gathering being on week of All Saints Day would only grow as the days went on.
After a day of the conference being contained within the walls of the hotel we ventured out into the city. The first stop was the Guatemala National Cemetery where were learned on a tour a bit of the history of the country and the wounds that exist from that history. A key part of the history is the 36 year civil war (1960-1996) that ravished the country. During that conflict an estimated 300,000 people "disappeared" as part of a terror campaign.The next stop on the tour that afternoon was FAFG (The Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation) a non-governmental organization that recovers the remains of the disappeared (many found in mass graves) and seeks to identify them and return them to their families. To date they have recovered around 1% of these non-combatant victims of the war. As we stood in a laboratory that contained around two dozen skeletons, hearing about the work of the FAFG, it struck me that these executed people are a portion of the saints that have gone before us.
In the cemetery we also heard the very personal story of a young man who was one of the workers in the dump just over the bluff. During the rainy season he was caught in an avalanche of garbage and swept 12 miles away by the storm water that is drained into the landfill. That young man, who labored in the shadows of the graves of the most famous and wealthy of the country, is now in a simple grave in that same cemetery among the common people. There he is unknown to most of the world just has he had been largely unseen in life. But he is not forgotten by his friends (those leading our tour) or by his God. Another Saint that has gone before us. (for more thoughts about this saint see my friend Annette's Blog here).
The next day we were back out in the streets of Guatemala City. This time I was involved in meeting pastors from around the city and hearing about the churches role in transforming the city. One of the stops was to hear about the peace and justice work of the Catholic orders in the city. During that time we were told the story of Assistant Bishop Juan Jose Gerardi Conedera. He was the Bishop that delivered to the government the report from the Catholic Church exposing their findings about the "disappearances" during the civil war. Two days later, April 24, 1998, he was found beaten beyond recognition in front of his home. Another Saint that has gone before us.
That second day of the tours began in the conference room of a western style mega-church listening to Shorty who is a pastor and church planter in some of the hardest areas of Guatemala City. Shorty explained that he often calls his daughters before who goes into one of the neighborhoods, in case he is killed. He challenged us by asking, "Are you willing to die where God has asked you to go?" Again, my thoughts returned to those Saints who have gone before and found myself thinking about my commitment to the place(s) God has called me.
Will God, and my bothers and sisters in Christ, see me as a saint that went before?
Peace and All Good from Guatemala.
Joel K
Thursday, October 15, 2015
NEW SERMON...
I had the privilege to preach on Galatians 3:1-14 this past week at Crosspoint Community Church. You can listen to the sermon, “Mirror or Mosaic or Do you have to be like me to be saved/a
Christian?”, here.
Joel K
Joel K
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Crying...again? Seriously?!?!
This past Monday morning I drug myself to the gym. I was starting the week tired, but that didn't keep me from the gym. I climbed onto the stationary bike to get my heart rate up before some circuit training and opened the book I have been reading for the past week or so. I cracked the binding of Accidental Saints: Finding God In All The Wrong People by Nadia Bolz-Weber looking for some inspiration to jolt me into some energy. That would not be the case.
As I began reading chapter 5, You Are Not "The Blessing," the story of the author pastoring a Bishop she had just met through his wife dying of cancer, a wave of emotion began to seep up from my very foundation. Because of my experience of having my wife battle cancer (she survived) cancer stories always swiftly dredge up lots of feelings and empathy. As I read I was resonating deeply with Bishop Bruce's story. However, it was a scene later in the chapter that caused me to breakdown into tears - in public - again(!).
Following the death Bishop Bruce's wife Bolz-Weber found herself at the visitation and funeral. She relays this moment in the book:
"...Bruce approached me at the funeral reception and asked if I would stay until everyone had left, I said yes. As we stood in an empty church fellowship hall next to the drained coffee pots and empty cheese trays, I asked, "So, Bruce, who pastors bishops?" "No, one," he said in almost a whisper, not out of secrecy or shame but out of the weighty truth of it."
Reading Bruce's answer, that no one pastors bishops, is the exact spot where I burst into tears - once more relating on a very deep level.
Pastors find themselves in a unique position as the spiritual caregivers of others. Our spiritual leaders are often the givers of care, but far too often not recipients themselves. Bolz-Weber muses on why this might be the case:
"Maybe we simply don't want our leaders to have needs. Maybe it's not only the leaders who think they should be perfect; maybe it's also the followers who expect them to have it all together. Maybe we want the people who care for us and lead us to not be like us, to not struggle like us, because if we realize they, too, are hurting and needy, then maybe the spell - the illusion that we're okay, and in good hands - breaks. Like how distressed I was when I saw Miss Kramer, my third grade teacher, walking out of the teachers' bathroom. Wait. You mean teachers also go to the bathroom? You mean, like me? I never saw her the same again."
October is Pastors Appreciation Month. I wonder if this isn't a good time for leaders and followers alike to think about the nature of being a leader. It's not an easy job being a Pastor. I know first hand the pressure of feeling like I need to have all of my stuff together. I also know that shock I once felt when my leaders shared their shortcomings. I was once floored by a Professor's admission that he struggled his entire life with wanting to do daily Bible reading and prayer.
Can we not only appreciate our Pastor's this month, but also think through how we can best be the community of Christ together?
Do we expect our leaders to be the perfect people Bolz-Weber describes? For the reason she offers?
Do leaders buy into that culture of leadership perfection as well?
And maybe the most important question, who pastors the pastors?
Joel K
As I began reading chapter 5, You Are Not "The Blessing," the story of the author pastoring a Bishop she had just met through his wife dying of cancer, a wave of emotion began to seep up from my very foundation. Because of my experience of having my wife battle cancer (she survived) cancer stories always swiftly dredge up lots of feelings and empathy. As I read I was resonating deeply with Bishop Bruce's story. However, it was a scene later in the chapter that caused me to breakdown into tears - in public - again(!). Following the death Bishop Bruce's wife Bolz-Weber found herself at the visitation and funeral. She relays this moment in the book:
"...Bruce approached me at the funeral reception and asked if I would stay until everyone had left, I said yes. As we stood in an empty church fellowship hall next to the drained coffee pots and empty cheese trays, I asked, "So, Bruce, who pastors bishops?" "No, one," he said in almost a whisper, not out of secrecy or shame but out of the weighty truth of it."
Reading Bruce's answer, that no one pastors bishops, is the exact spot where I burst into tears - once more relating on a very deep level.
Pastors find themselves in a unique position as the spiritual caregivers of others. Our spiritual leaders are often the givers of care, but far too often not recipients themselves. Bolz-Weber muses on why this might be the case:
"Maybe we simply don't want our leaders to have needs. Maybe it's not only the leaders who think they should be perfect; maybe it's also the followers who expect them to have it all together. Maybe we want the people who care for us and lead us to not be like us, to not struggle like us, because if we realize they, too, are hurting and needy, then maybe the spell - the illusion that we're okay, and in good hands - breaks. Like how distressed I was when I saw Miss Kramer, my third grade teacher, walking out of the teachers' bathroom. Wait. You mean teachers also go to the bathroom? You mean, like me? I never saw her the same again."
October is Pastors Appreciation Month. I wonder if this isn't a good time for leaders and followers alike to think about the nature of being a leader. It's not an easy job being a Pastor. I know first hand the pressure of feeling like I need to have all of my stuff together. I also know that shock I once felt when my leaders shared their shortcomings. I was once floored by a Professor's admission that he struggled his entire life with wanting to do daily Bible reading and prayer.
Can we not only appreciate our Pastor's this month, but also think through how we can best be the community of Christ together?
Do we expect our leaders to be the perfect people Bolz-Weber describes? For the reason she offers?
Do leaders buy into that culture of leadership perfection as well?
And maybe the most important question, who pastors the pastors?
Joel K
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Finding Balance
"I'll be working here forever,
at least until I die"
- Huey Lewis
We all have one day a week that knocks the wind out of us. For a lot of people it's Monday, but for me it is Tuesday. I've really begun to hate the second day of the work week. Due to the nature of my work schedule Tuesday often feels like the real start of the week. Most weeks as I slowly decompress over Saturday night and into Sunday I manage to forget the loads of work I need to get done. Monday I am usually hyper-focused on teaching Monday night at the dinner and discussion gathering we do at the teen center where I work. So when I wake Tuesday morning the to-do list I mentally put away sometime over the weekend comes roaring back into my consciousness. Adding to my Tuesday reality slap is a weekly mid-morning staff meeting. If I'm not feeling totally overwhelmed already by 11am Tuesday, I feel like I'm drowning by the end of this meeting. And so it was today. I really am starting to wish Tuesday didn't exist.
Recently, I have started doing yoga occasionally. I have made a couple of discoveries as I have tried to contort myself in to higher flexibility, strength and a relaxed mind. First, I am not flexible!!! Second, I dig the focus on breathing and that does help me clear my mind. But the biggest discovery is something the yoga instructor on the cell phone says during the session I have been doing with my wife. At one point the voice on the app says, "try to find the balance between effort and relaxation."
Did you catch that? "try to find the balance between effort and relaxation."
In the middle of days that feel very overloaded - days like Tuesday - I keep thinking about that simple phrase. What exactly does it mean to "try to find the balance between effort and relaxation?"
For nearly all of my life I have operated on one side of that equation, effort. I have always approached challenges, struggles or problems in life with effort. I would simply take the issues that presented themselves and work harder. It comes from being a part of a family, and sub-culture, where working hard and being busy were the things that got you into heaven. As I have gotten older what I have discovered is that all the effort has a price. The price you pay for being almost exclusively on this side of the equation comes to you when you least expect it. For me it comes out in tears and anxiety. I have a simple indicator from when I am overloaded - I cry. I don't "have a good cry." It is not something I plan. Crying sneaks up on me. I cry at something I hear on the radio, or some mildly touching song lyric, or while singing in church. It happened recently as I wrote a letter to a friend in a coffee shop and I found myself bawling like a baby. Crying is not something I do too much, especially in a public space. So I knew something was up. But the crying is not a big deal, or at least not as big as the toll all the effort takes in the long run. All the years of pushing through, powering on, working harder wears down one's soul. For me that slow sanding on my soul has left me tired and filled with anxiety. The product of always fighting, is that you end up with no fight left in you at all.
The other side of the equation is relaxation. I've never been too good at this. A couple years ago as I sat on a beach in Hawaii my wife asked me, "Are you OK? I've never seen you do nothing." That pretty much sums up my experience with relaxation.
So how does one "try to find the balance between effort and relaxation?" A clue might be found in the Biblical idea of Sabbath. God takes a day off after his work, and expects us to do the same. This practice is meant to teach us that God is in control and doesn't need us to make things happen every single day. God is perfectly capable of providing all we need without us making it happen. When we stop working - stop putting in effort - we are trusting that God will take care of it - whatever it is.
The motto of the college I graduated from is "ora et labor" (meaning pray and work). Is it possible that my alma mater's motto and "try to find the balance between effort and relaxation" are connected? Could they be the same thing? Are we to work / put in effort and also simultaneously relax into what my counselor calls "a restful reliance on God?"
All I know is this. On a day like today, where I feel like I am barely keeping my head above water, I find my mind wandering to that yoga voice saying, "Try to find the balance between effort and relaxation" and praying that I can find that balance in my life.
Joel K
at least until I die"
- Huey Lewis
We all have one day a week that knocks the wind out of us. For a lot of people it's Monday, but for me it is Tuesday. I've really begun to hate the second day of the work week. Due to the nature of my work schedule Tuesday often feels like the real start of the week. Most weeks as I slowly decompress over Saturday night and into Sunday I manage to forget the loads of work I need to get done. Monday I am usually hyper-focused on teaching Monday night at the dinner and discussion gathering we do at the teen center where I work. So when I wake Tuesday morning the to-do list I mentally put away sometime over the weekend comes roaring back into my consciousness. Adding to my Tuesday reality slap is a weekly mid-morning staff meeting. If I'm not feeling totally overwhelmed already by 11am Tuesday, I feel like I'm drowning by the end of this meeting. And so it was today. I really am starting to wish Tuesday didn't exist.
Recently, I have started doing yoga occasionally. I have made a couple of discoveries as I have tried to contort myself in to higher flexibility, strength and a relaxed mind. First, I am not flexible!!! Second, I dig the focus on breathing and that does help me clear my mind. But the biggest discovery is something the yoga instructor on the cell phone says during the session I have been doing with my wife. At one point the voice on the app says, "try to find the balance between effort and relaxation."
Did you catch that? "try to find the balance between effort and relaxation."
In the middle of days that feel very overloaded - days like Tuesday - I keep thinking about that simple phrase. What exactly does it mean to "try to find the balance between effort and relaxation?"
For nearly all of my life I have operated on one side of that equation, effort. I have always approached challenges, struggles or problems in life with effort. I would simply take the issues that presented themselves and work harder. It comes from being a part of a family, and sub-culture, where working hard and being busy were the things that got you into heaven. As I have gotten older what I have discovered is that all the effort has a price. The price you pay for being almost exclusively on this side of the equation comes to you when you least expect it. For me it comes out in tears and anxiety. I have a simple indicator from when I am overloaded - I cry. I don't "have a good cry." It is not something I plan. Crying sneaks up on me. I cry at something I hear on the radio, or some mildly touching song lyric, or while singing in church. It happened recently as I wrote a letter to a friend in a coffee shop and I found myself bawling like a baby. Crying is not something I do too much, especially in a public space. So I knew something was up. But the crying is not a big deal, or at least not as big as the toll all the effort takes in the long run. All the years of pushing through, powering on, working harder wears down one's soul. For me that slow sanding on my soul has left me tired and filled with anxiety. The product of always fighting, is that you end up with no fight left in you at all.
The other side of the equation is relaxation. I've never been too good at this. A couple years ago as I sat on a beach in Hawaii my wife asked me, "Are you OK? I've never seen you do nothing." That pretty much sums up my experience with relaxation.
So how does one "try to find the balance between effort and relaxation?" A clue might be found in the Biblical idea of Sabbath. God takes a day off after his work, and expects us to do the same. This practice is meant to teach us that God is in control and doesn't need us to make things happen every single day. God is perfectly capable of providing all we need without us making it happen. When we stop working - stop putting in effort - we are trusting that God will take care of it - whatever it is.The motto of the college I graduated from is "ora et labor" (meaning pray and work). Is it possible that my alma mater's motto and "try to find the balance between effort and relaxation" are connected? Could they be the same thing? Are we to work / put in effort and also simultaneously relax into what my counselor calls "a restful reliance on God?"
All I know is this. On a day like today, where I feel like I am barely keeping my head above water, I find my mind wandering to that yoga voice saying, "Try to find the balance between effort and relaxation" and praying that I can find that balance in my life.
Joel K
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
Here's Stephen Colbert...
I wrote in today's square (Sept. 8, 2015) on my calendar months ago, "Colbert starts the Late Show" noting that in tonight's broadcast of The Late Show on CBS Stephen Colbert will take the reigns from the legendary David Letterman. My daughters have commented on my calendar note with some concern. They might have a good reason to query me after witnessing my nearly daily viewing of Colbert's former show - Comedy Central's The Colbert Report - a daily satirical news show with Colbert's character, "Steven Colbert," parodying the bombastic style of political TV pundits.
I have always watched late-night TV. On the weekends I tuned into Saturday Night Live and still flip it on in time to catch Weekend Update most weeks. As for the weeknights, I was first drawn to Carson, then Leno and Letterman, and then O'Brian. However, once Leno lost his edge my interest wained and I boycotted him all together after he had O'Brian fired so he could re-join the Tonight Show. Subsiquently, O'Brian moved out of my reach since I don't have cable. Letterman settled in at CBS and ultimately began to just coast, then I drifted away. I have never really given Jimmy Kimmel a chance. So finally in recent years my late-night viewing moved to streaming late-night shows of a political bent during daylight hours. Having always loved satire and I found Comedy Central's The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. I fell completely in love with them during the 2008 U.S. Presidential Campaigns.
After the election I stayed, and I became an even bigger fan of Colbert. Two things sealed the deal. An interview on NPR where Colbert shared that he teaches Sunday School (when asked to share something people might not know about him), and a 2010 Christmas rant about faith, politics and poverty that ended with: “If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it.” I have been trying to figure out how to get this TV sermon into conversations, sermons, classes, and worship services ever since.
So now, as Colbert takes over The Late Show, there has been a lot of interest and speculation in who will show up - the real Stephen Colbert, or the finely crafted character used on his former show. The fascinating thing here is how well the satire has been done. With Colbert the satirical line between the real and the ridiculous has been blurred to a point that discussion about the nature of the real Stephen Colbert is a necessity. The irony for me is that in recent years what has made me admire Colbert the most has been his transparency in interviews - the times he has shown us who he really is. In particuar his openness about joy, suffering and humanity.
I have often quoted his statements in the 2009 RollingStone magazine feature on him.
Check out these truths:
"I have this on my computer [removes a piece of paper taped to his computer]. It says, "Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God."
"Not to get too deep here, but the most valuable thing I can think of is to be grateful for suffering. That is a sublime feeling, and completely inexplicable and illogical, but no one doesn't suffer. So the degree to which you can be aware of your own humanity is the degree to which you can accept, with open eyes, your suffering. To be grateful for your suffering is to be grateful for your humanity, because what else are you going to do – say, "No, thanks"? It's there. "Smile and accept," said Mother Teresa. And she was talking to people who had it rough. That's not how you make jokes, though."
" I have another little piece of paper back here [removes a piece of paper taped to the edge of his desk]. It just says, "Work," because nothing ever gets better unless you work. So I have "work" here and "joy" over there, and I try to put the two together somehow."
He was just as transparent over the summer in a GQ article. Note these insights:
“Tragedy is sacred,” he said. “People's suffering is sacred.”
"I'm very grateful to be alive, even though I know a lot of dead people.” The urge to be grateful, he said, is not a function of his faith. It's not “the Gospel tells us” and therefore we give thanks. It is what he has always felt: grateful to be alive. “And so that act, that impulse to be grateful, wants an object. That object I call God. Now, that could be many things. I was raised in a Catholic tradition. I'll start there. That's my context for my existence, is that I am here to know God, love God, serve God, that we might be happy with each other in this world and with Him in the next—the catechism. That makes a lot of sense to me. I got that from my mom. And my dad. And my siblings.”
Speaking on the death of his father and two brothers in a plane crash when he was 10:
“ ‘You gotta learn to love the bomb,’ ” he said. “Boy, did I have a bomb when I was 10. That was quite an explosion. And I learned to love it. So that's why. Maybe, I don't know. That might be why you don't see me as someone angry and working out my demons onstage. It's that I love the thing that I most wish had not happened.”
I love the thing that I most wish had not happened.
I asked him if he could help me understand that better, and he described a letter from Tolkien in response to a priest who had questioned whether Tolkien's mythos was sufficiently doctrinaire, since it treated death not as a punishment for the sin of the fall but as a gift. “Tolkien says, in a letter back: ‘What punishments of God are not gifts?’ ” Colbert knocked his knuckles on the table. “ ‘What punishments of God are not gifts?’ ” he said again. His eyes were filled with tears. “So it would be ungrateful not to take everything with gratitude. It doesn't mean you want it. I can hold both of those ideas in my head.”
So tonight when Stephen Colbert takes over the The Late Show I'll be watching. I'll be watching to see which Colbert shows up, but I'll also be watching the Colbert that knows "I am here to know God, love God, serve God," and the fellow traveler who has learned "to love the bomb" because what else are you going to do – say, "No, thanks"?
Joel K
Stephen Colbert was also a guest in the most recent season of the excellent show Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. You can see that episode here
Stephen Colbert was also a guest in the most recent season of the excellent show Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. You can see that episode here
Friday, September 4, 2015
WALK THE LINE - Sermon by Kirk Heynen
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