TOO OLD

~Give a listen to John McCain's Answer~

I guess I should have seen this coming.

When I was in my teens and into my young adult years, there was a slogan. In our infinite wisdom, we decided that anyone over the age of 30 was basically socially retarded. They didn't understand life, the war in Viet Nam, Jesus People or good music. We had all of the answers and they were basically Hippieville. 

Now I fast forward forty years. I am now 30 x 2 and I am watching another generation walking away from the previous generation. The vast majority of people in my age bracket have no idea what has happened. They have seen our churches growing older and older and become smaller and smaller. A generation from roughly 16-29 have opted out of what we call the Church. My generation is ignoring this and clinging to what worked in the 1950's & 1960's. The Postmodern worldview is firmly established and it has said, "No", to our view of

Christianity. They see no absolutes in rules, structures or ethics. Things do not have to match up and in fact, inconsistency is embraced. A young person can have a bit of Buddha,  Krishna, Wicca, New Age, Astrology and Christianity and be perfectly content. We would go insane with all of the conflicting dogmas, they accept them all under the umbrella of spirituality.

This brings me to the topic of Too Old. This week I was told by a second church in the past year that I am too old to be their minister. I have been wanting to go back into full time ministry for the past year. I know I am 60 years old, but I also know that I understand and can communicate with this lost generation. However, getting past a search committee that has decided a younger minister would be more relevant and would attract this generation back is extremely naive. The problem isn't age, it is the message and the way the message is communicated. (By the way, I am still looking for a grace oriented congregation).

The umbrella of spirituality I mentioned tells me there's a hunger for something beyond us. Having a slick speaker and a contemporary worship worked in the past, but that is no guarantee for the future. Being able to relate in a non-judgmental accepting manner is needed by the church to this generation.

I will say this; at least the churches were honest enough to tell me I was too old. Most companies usually look at your graduation dates and find some other reason. In many ways, my generation is the "Lost Generation". We are here but no one sees us. We have wisdom but it is irrelevant. I have a few years left in me and I want to use them to reach out to this new generation and help them with their spiritual search.

May God Richly Bless You!

~Peace

Al

~I highly recommend you listen to this video~

BROKEN PEOPLE

~ Please Listen to This Song. There Too Many People Who Only See This as an Option~

As many of you know, I have been preaching on a fairly regular basis (not as regularly as I would like) at the Tammany Oaks Church of Christ in Mandeville, LA. In a discussion with one of the elders, he commented that people who I have met that were not church people -- liked me. I asked him how he felt about that. His response, laughingly (He was kidding), was he was concerned about that. So I said, those were the people Jesus spent his time with. In fact, if you were to make two columns; on one side Jesus's interaction with "those people" and the second, the Religious establishment's response to Jesus' actions or comments. Which column best describes most of our churches? Aside from the legalism and self-righteousness of the Pharisees and Priests -- they couldn't speak the language of broken people. 

I was raised in an alcoholic home, that has its own baggage. One of my earliest memories was my Dad taking me out. He said it was a surprise, it was - a bar. I remember I was little and he was going to let me play pool. That translated into him putting a coin in the pool table and putting the balls on top. He then lifted my up and I spent a long time rolling the balls around and he would resupply the table with coins. All the time I was playing he was getting shovel-faced at the bar. I remember growing up with my "Mom" passed out and me heating a TV Dinner and watching TV until the channels signed off, (Yes, they used to do that). I grew up on the streets around gang members, bikers, druggies, winos and just the general throw aways from our society.

So, when I became a Christian, a great deal of that baggage came with me. I tried my best to fit in. I would overhear the other young people, in the youth group, talking about going out for pizza, I would not get the invitation. So, I would just show up and act surprised. I had to FIGHT my way into our youth group. I knew I wasn't like them and they knew it too. I had been a violent teen and we didn't speak the same language. They had what I called, "Leave it to Beaver Homes". ( I had no idea of the dysfunction and family "secrets" that even plague those homes). I had no idea what it was like to come from a normal home. As a Christian, I failed over and over in ministry and with my family. It wasn't until I met a man named Lynn Anderson who taught me about the grace of God. Even through my failures, he was still there. He said I reminded him of King David. David messed up royally (really bad pun) but he "had a heart after God's own heart".

So now back to my affinity for the brokenness  Matthew writes these words about Jesus:

"When he saw the crowds, 

he had compassion for them,

because they were harassed and helpless,

like sheep without a shepherd."

(Matthew 9:36 - ESV)

I guess I understand why non-believers view Christians as having nothing to offer them. When I am talking to a person who does not share my faith -- I listen. I listen to their story and I listen to their happiness and pain. I have NO judgment in my heart toward them. For many, having a group of people who will love and accept them is all they want. That is why so many just hang out in bars. Remember the line in the theme song from the sitcom Cheers? 

"Making your way in the world today 

takes everything you've got.

Taking a break from all your worries,

sure would help a lot

Wouldn't you like to get away?

Sometimes you want to go

Where everybody knows your name,

and they're always glad you came.

You wanna be where you can see,

our troubles are all the same.

You wanna be where everybody knows your name.

You wanna go where people know,

people are all the same.

You wanna go where everybody knows your name.

That is the lie of bars, they just continue to equip people's addictions and they fall further and further into darkness. One the other hand, if I can persuade them to come to a group, class, meal or assembly - I pray they will feel accepted. If they stick around they will have questions about Jesus. Then it is time to share his grace with them. Too many Christians want to start right in quoting Scripture, most broken people are not ready for that -- it is a foreign language to them. They really are looking for belonging. If we can just love these people and be there to listen and allow God to open their hearts, they will follow Jesus. I think, since I have had so many personal failures in my own life, and being a broken person, I am a little bit more patient with people coming to faith. This is the start to fixing our churches.

Please pray daily for those you may know who do not know the Lord.

Peace

~Al

COME TO ME

Sometimes all we need are the words of a song to bring us to a place where we stop and remember how much God loves us.

May God Richly Bless You

~Peace

Al

HOPE

~Please Watch This Short Clip From Shawshank Redemption*~

*For those with sensitive ears, it does have one "bad" word in it


I have made it so you will be directed to You Tube so you can see it in full screen. Please come back and read below.

Hope. The Christian hope is not a wondering if something will happen, but the confident anticipation of what we know will surely come to pass. Some might find it ironic that I would use Stephen King to define hope. As Tim Robbins says, "Hope is within us". In today's vernacular, hope and wish have become synonymous. I hope it snows becomes, I wish it would snow.

Hope is deep within us, it is at our center, as a Christian I would say it is empowered by the Holy Spirit. Hope is what sustains us when the world is falling in around us. It is the True North Star that gives direction to our inner compass. We, and we alone decide if we will embrace hope or give in to fear.

In the concentration camps of Nazi Germany, their primary method of control was to destroy hope. "The Red Cross is delivering blankets in two weeks." Then nothing would come. "We are looking for skilled carpenters and plumbers." Then they would be gathered up and exterminated in the showers. You see, if you can build hope and then rip it away, you have a shot to get the person to give up - to lose hope. This was described in,  Man's Search for Meaning by Vicktor Frankl, as he recounted his days in the Death camps. During 1942 - 1945 he slaved in four different camps including Auschwitz.

http://www.amazon.com/Mans-Search-Meaning-Viktor-Frankl/dp/0807014273/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1330377543&sr=1-1

A great deal of us are facing troubles in our lives. We are uncertain about our jobs, homes and the economy in general. Hope tells me that I will preserver through these tough times. I have been through tough times before and I always wind up through them. I may not be where I wished I would be, but I am definitely where I hoped to be -- That being through the trouble. The passage in the New testament that gives me the most peace is in Romans 5: 2-5. Again I will share from The Message translated by Eugene Peterson:

"We throw open our doors to God

and discover at the same moment that he has already

thrown open his door to us.

We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand

-- out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory,

standing tall and shouting our praise.

There's more to come: We continue to shout our praise

even when we are hemmed in with troubles,

because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us,

and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue,

keeping us alert for whatever God will do next.

In alert expectancy (hope) such as this,

we're never feeling shortchanged.

Quite on the contrary--

we can't round up enough containers to hold everything

God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!"

All I can say is, do not let anyone or any set of circumstances rob you of the hope that is within you. Ask for help in your troubles. Ask God to help you see beyond them. Look to your North Star and plot your course - then launch out in faith that this too shall pass.

Peace,
~Al

DARKNESS

~Please Listen to my Short Introduction~

What do you do when you feel all of the depressing darkness around you? If you have spent any amount of time on this planet - you have screwed up. Yes, you can intellectually know that you are forgiven. You can know that you are doing your best to be at peace with those around you. Yet, in the midst of knowing those things, those mistakes and failures of the past have a tendency to pop up.

Darkness is a season. Darkness is Winter. It is a time to gather with those you love and feel the warmth of their love. Seasons are seasons, they pass. Knowing that it is just a season can help you know that Spring comes next. No matter how deep the Winter, it will eventually turn to Spring.

I get through darkness by getting up each day and I decide to put one foot in front of the other. Now you can stay in bed and have a royal "pity-party". Or you can get up and get on with your life. That is not an easy thing to do - every emotion in your mind is telling you to pull the blankets over your head. You have to make a conscious DECISION to get up. When you think that darkness will always be around, you have lost the battle. Albert Einstein theorized that there is no such thing as darkness, there is only the absence of light. There isn't enough darkness to extinguish one candle.

I shared my regrets that my kids do not share my faith. Yet, at the same time I am so thankful they are smart, critical thinkers. They have come out OK. They have faced divorce and even the death of their Mother. They are resilient and most importantly, they are young. When I step back and look at my regrets, I realize I am not being patient. I am not trusting the hand of God nor am I trusting my kids.

Darkness is a trickster. It makes you think that it is the only game in town. Darkness may have a hold of you right now. It is saying all is lost, you have failed -- give up! It is trying to mask all of the things in your life that are good. Even at the worst of times there are still things to be thankful. Go back to a time in your life where you actually felt the happiest you have ever felt. Picture that time in your life, see if you can even feel the emotions you felt then. Now focus on that time and only think of that. If you practice, you will start to feel those same happy emotions. When the darkness starts to wash over you, go back to that memory of happiness. One of the things I think about is hearing my kids laughing. There is no better sound to my ears than the laughter of children.

If you are a parent or are in a relationship - you have made mistakes. You also did some great things. Life isn't all or nothing. It is a lifetime that goes through season after season. Yes, Winter is here, but Spring is coming.

I hope you can see the beauty of seasons changing. All of the season we pass through are essential for us to become what God wants us to be.

Peace

~Al

Coming Home

PLEASE LISTEN TO THE WORDS OF THIS SONG BEFORE READING

There are a plethora of reasons we walk away. Sometimes it is words spoken in anger that can't be pulled back. Sometimes it's too much drama. Then again there is always a felt sense of betrayal or maybe just boredom.


When people leave the church or in some cases, God, walking away takes on a whole new significance. 

Churches are made up of people and that is their biggest downfall. People from all sorts of backgrounds and each with their very own baggage. The Catholic Church is currently being damaged by its apparent lack of accountability and even hiding pedophiles among their clergy. Evangelical churches seem to go from one fad to the next, trying to fill their pews and coffers. "Seeker Sensitive" was one of the buzz words floating around. You would get the best band and the most gifted motivational speaker/preacher. The up-tempo service would have wonderful stories and great drama - people would get goosebumps; but in the end it was just empty. People found out they could get just as fired up by going to a sporting event, concert or movie. Then there are those who feel the entire exercise is irrelevant to their lives.

Some, myself included, due to a sin or mistake they made in their life were viewed as a pariah. It doesn't take a great deal of time for that message to sink in. Some stop coming and no one ever asks them if they are alright or if they need help, they are just ignored. There are people all over this planet, who for one reason or not - walked away. The church did not seek them out or even, in some cases, realize they were gone. This is hardly in keeping with the words of Jesus when he talked about a shepherd with 100 sheep. He counted and there were only 99, so leaving the 99 in the field, went out in search of that one lost sheep.


Leaving God is a much more difficult thing to face. I was raised in an atheist home and came to faith at around 18. For me the idea of a Father who could love me for me was amazing. Never really having a positive father figure in my life probably made me attracted to this concept. Going on to study Theology at a Christian college and then on to a graduate degree in Theology from a respected seminary, I was caught off guard by the response to my failure. For me, it wasn't the church that let me down it was God. I knew the church had politics, flaws and agendas, but I had always taught love, acceptance and forgiveness. So when I was, in my mind, betrayed - I walked away.


Others have prayed for a relative who was severely ill and God didn't appear to be around or even care - and they walked away.


Others have lost a son or a daughter, even asking God to take them instead to only see death. (In our vocabulary we have the words "widow or widower" for someone who loses a spouse. We have "Orphan" for someone who has lost their parents. But we have no word for a parent losing a child, except excruciating pain) - They walked away


In my near six decades I have seen people who walk away from God mainly because of a sense of abandonment and aloneness or at a critical juncture in their lives.


Don't worry, I am not going to throw out some glib and stupid cliche. That would be insulting and far too typical. I know there is a great deal of pain we all face; some of us more than we deserve. I can only speak  from my own heart. I had for over a decade a gaping emptiness within me, it was as if there was a black hole sucking the joy out of my life. I crawled deeper into my cave and at times contemplated my very existence. I then decided to give God another try and over a period of a few years I had a number of false starts. I am now home. I preached to the Foothills Church of Christ in Reno, NV this morning and I was scared to death, I honestly do not remember the last time I actually preached a sermon. 


I can say now the emptiness is gone and it took a great deal of baby steps. It was difficult to allow my heart to be placed again in a position of vulnerability.


For anyone reading this who has walked away, spend some time thinking about where you are right now. Are you at peace? If so great. If not, you might try a few things:

• Start by trying to be thankful for what you have. (You have more than you think.)
• Try and make contact with people you trust.
• Reach out to people from your past, I used Facebook and it was good.
• If you lost a child, if you still have any children - lavish your love on them.
• If you have family try and reconcile with those who have hurt you and love  the rest.
• If you have left the church, find a small congregation or group, talk to the minister or leader and tell him/her your fears, doubts and reluctance.
• If you have left God, find something greater than yourself, as AA would say, "Your Higher Power".
• Above all, start the journey home.

This world is too tough and unforgiving to go-it-alone. Yes, there are people out there who will love you for you, you just need to find them. Let go of anger and resentment and seek healing - even the toughest people get hurt. Letting go of anger and resentment is not an easy thing to do. You might refer to my earlier blogs: "Fallen" and "Wastelands", in which spoke freely and candidly from my heart, about how hard it was to let go of these feelings.

I don't have all the answers, you should have caught me in my 20's for that :), but I do listen and would be happy to dialogue with you.

May the Lord bless you and keep you, may his countenance be upon you and give you peace.

~Al