Month: September 2023

Influence

The Halloween season is here again, and there is almost nothing I like about it. I don’t like giant spiders and killer clowns, hate being scared, and generally don’t appreciate the pall of darkness. The last horror movie I saw was Saw the week Samuel was born, who is now 18 years old. I can’t imagine the circumstances where I’ll ever see another – I turn the channel or look away when trailers come on tv.

I don’t hate handing out ever-shrinking sizes of candy to cute neighborhood children dressed like Woody & Buzz walking with their parents. But sometimes they’re vampires or clowns, and the fun of Halloween is gone.

Now, if you know me at all, just because I’m not a Halloween person doesn’t mean you can’t be. I don’t want to make clown masks or scary yard cobwebs and skeletons illegal. Enjoy. Perhaps you don’t love everything I love, either. It’s the differences that add texture and color to our lives.

There is a family who lives in my town who, every Halloween season, creates a horrific hellscape of death in front of their house, complete with life-size bodies hanging by their necks from a gallows along main street. Again, I’m not suggesting the township legislate just how creepy or disturbing anybody’s house can be, but it does have me thinking about the verse in 1st Corinthians 15, “bad company corrupts good habits,” and the many ways we’re influenced.

When my boys were very young, the Angel and I noticed a peculiar causation. When they would watch extended periods of Tom & Jerry, they would become increasingly aggressive and violent. We would put Kipper or the Backyardigans (NEVER Caillou!!!!!!) on instead, and the peaceful sweetness would immediately return.

The things we put into our ears, eyes, heads and hearts matter, they have the power to subtly (or not so subtly) change us.

I know, I know, we are not the type to be swayed. We are the exceptions. We’re “mighty,” like Thor (in Age of Ultron), unable to be manipulated, right up until the point where he is manipulated. There is a reason bazillions of dollars are spent on advertising & marketing. So, even though we are very mighty, it’s still very important that we pay close attention to what, and to whom, we are giving our time and attention.

Spend time with The Complainers at work, and see if we don’t begin seeing half-empty glasses all over the place.

We can think our marriages are boring and broken because the carefully curated marriages we see for hours scrolling through Facebook are soooooo wonderful, everybody’s perfect and totally fulfilled. Except they’re usually not.

If we watched tons of pornography, we might start to think it’s real, that sex is actually like that, or that we are actually like that.

It matters what food we put into our bodies. If we ate nothing but candy bars, that would have an effect on how we feel, how we think, what we do, right? Why are the songs we listen to or books we read any different? Or the people we follow, on TikTok or in real life?

They’re not.

The good news is that it works both ways. There are people who bring out the best in us, movies that inspire us, Instagram feeds that engage & push us forward. I think Paul probably had in mind this family in my town and their Halloween decorations when he wrote (in Philippians 4:8), “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

Here’s what’s interesting: maybe Halloween is “lovely” and “excellent” to you. Maybe this nightmare-ish scene inspires you and helps you to see the boundless creativity that God gave to all of us. Maybe you see Jesus as she plays her version of the Gospel song. Just because I don’t understand that doesn’t make it impossible. Tom & Jerry didn’t make me want to punch anyone. But we need to ask the questions for ourselves, with the guidance of The Spirit, we need to step back and look at what is going into our souls, what all of that input is doing once it gets inside, and if the effect is really a positive one.

We’ll just stay away from Caillou and clowns, though, ok?

Questions…

“…as we contemplate how we spend our time and money, it’s important that we realize that being a healthy member of a healthy church will have a direct impact on those issues as well. There’s nothing we can do for our families that will have a greater positive impact than making sure we’re members of a healthy local church.

I’ve seen evidence of this firsthand as I’ve had conversation after conversation with fathers and mothers who are committed to family discipleship, but who are struggling tremendously as they either attend an unhealthy church or no church at all. These families don’t testify of overwhelming joy and fulfillment because “family is enough.” On the contrary, they testify to struggle, strain, loneliness, fear, isolation, and despair.

Family discipleship is absolutely critical, but there’s no substitute for healthy membership in a healthy local church.”

Voddie Baucham Jr wrote that in a book called Family Shepherds. It’s the perfect kind of book; it’s convicting, challenging, an absolute call up to me (and, honestly, probably all of us), but it is also a book with which I don’t always agree. These parts engage me, invite me to dive a bit more deeply into what I say I believe, what I truly believe, if they are the same, and why I believe those things. Then I am satisfied because I still disagree (based on solid teaching, learning, understanding, and/or practice) or, in a very uncomfortable twist, I am left untethered to my own ideas (either because they come from a faulty theology, a cultural hijacking of my spirituality, or from nowhere at all, simply because I’ve never examined them) and have a decision to make. Do I let go of the known past and step into the unknown abyss? Or do I continue to cling to old, wrong, misguided baggage?

You already know which I’d prefer to choose. You also know which I actually choose.

This is not why I included the earlier quote, it’s just why I care about the book, and why I like it so much.

I included the passage because it confronts all of us, on some level or another. Do we belong to a local church? Should we? Do we take it seriously? What exactly is family discipleship? What do we testify to, in our own lives and families? Is it joy and fulfillment? Or is our story one of struggle, strain, loneliness, fear, isolation, and despair? What does it mean to have a “healthy” membership? What is a “healthy” local church? Is the Bridge one of those?

3 small-ish paragraphs that beg soooo many questions. Are we asking them or just turning the page? Are we wrestling with these concepts or falling asleep as we try to finish the chapter?

Is there really “nothing we can do for our families that will have a greater positive impact than making sure we’re members of a healthy local church?” It feels like a conflict of interest for me to ask these questions, because I happen to know of a local church that would love to have you. But if I take my job seriously, my purpose isn’t to increase Sunday morning attendance (well, I suppose it is a purpose, or part of a purpose, but it’s nowhere close to THE main purpose, which is to share the Gospel, point everybody to Jesus, tell & show them He loves us here and now, loving in the way I do all along the way). My professional and my personal missions happen to be the same, so my call is to ask questions that will lead us to who we really are, which will always, always lead us to Him.

Maybe there isn’t a clever last line to this post. I usually like to do that;) But maybe we’re just asking questions and figuring out if we’ll answer them honestly, and then, if we’ll move based on those answers. Who knows? I just love that we can find out together.

A Short Post On Perspective

All 4 of us who live in this house eat dinner together nearly every night, and I dream it’s the best part of each of our days. It certainly is, for me. I am very grateful. So last night, the boys shared a cool story of 2 local brothers making music on SoundCloud (a music sharing website). I can’t tell you how much I love the idea of everyone having the opportunity and space to share their God-given creativity.

The internet has so many dangers and vicious traps, but it also overflows with beauty and connection. It is a place of possibility.

The boys who made the songs are what I would kindly label, or what we would’ve labeled when I was young, “at risk.” They are often in trouble, of various kinds and of various severity. I have a small relationship with one who comes into the weight room, (the other not so much), and have real concerns about both. Different, but equally serious, concerns for each.

But this SoundCloud situation elated me. I didn’t imagine the songs would be particularly good, not something I’d ‘like,’ but that’s hardly the point, is it? They were expressing themselves in a positive fashion and not in any one of the million negative ways that are open to them. Knowing them fairly well, we laughed at the prospect of what they would consider art. Art is subjective, but let’s be honest, not all is awesome. We found their page and clicked on the first track.

What was funny and wonderful turned on the first word. Smiles immediately disappeared, as our hearts wept together.

One of the best things about artistic expression is that we can learn the things we’d never say out loud. I knew these boys were broken, but had no idea how deeply.

The point is this. The one I know is mostly quiet and lonely, which can come across as surly and disrespectful. The other is surly and disrespectful. Neither is particularly likable, they can be quite nasty and stand-offish. And that can drive us all away. After all, we don’t seek out people who are distant and mean to us.

But these kids are severely broken. We know the ones who appear to like others the least like themselves least of all. And it’s not even close. As followers of the Living Christ, we are called to love everybody, so what does that look like, in this circumstance? It surely won’t look the same for each of us, but the first step is shifting our perspective. They aren’t punk kids, or freaks, or anything else.

They’re our kids, and they’re hurting. Now what?

Teleological

“Don, all relationships are teleological.”

I asked him what the word teleological means.

“It means they’re going somewhere,” Al said. “All relationships are living and alive and moving and becoming something. My question to you,” Al said seriously, “is, where is the relationship you’ve started with this woman going?”

This is a passage from a book called Scary Close, by Donald Miller (who wrote Blue Like Jazz, which happens to be the very first spiritual book I ever read.) It’s about plans and visions. He later writes, “I would never walk into my office without a plan. As the leader of my company, my team depends on me to know where we are going and how important each of them are to the journey. I can’t believe I almost went into my marriage, which is infinitely more important than my business, without a plan.”

He’s writing about a romantic relationship, and his point is deeply convicting to me. It’s making me consider where my marriage is going, and if it’s actually where we think it is, and if it encompasses the values we both hold. Sometimes, we can start with a plan (loosely held, of course – God has a way of changing the plans written in pen) and over time, for whatever reason (busyness, distraction, laziness, success, career, taking the other for granted, and on and on), we lose or ignore our initial vision. Then we’re just moving mindlessly, hoping to end somewhere good.

But that’s not exactly what I want to talk about here, together in this space. The word teleological is used here to describe relationships, and that might be the only proper usage, but I haven’t really cared about proper usage before, so I’m not going to start now. Our own interior lives – physically, emotionally, intellectually, and I would suggest most importantly, spiritually – are teleological, too. We are going somewhere, and to pretend that we’re not, or that we can move in a certain direction without a plan, is itself a plan, but it’s a dangerous one that will lead nowhere.

We have 5 year strategic plans at work, but none for our greatest work of art; our lives.

It is confusing (and sort of maddening, if I’m honest) that we would be so resistant to change, if we choose to be intentional with our lives. We notice there’s food between our teeth, so we decide to floss (and then floss). That sounds reasonably obvious. But when we notice red lights on our dashboard or food between the metaphorical teeth of our soul, we completely ignore it, and we justify that, in ourselves and others, as being our fear of change.

We’re going somewhere. So, where is it? Are we leaning into a new future, holding on to the past, or just sitting down in the aisle like I used to do in the toy section of the Hills department store, hoping eventually to get what I want.

A plan doesn’t mean it’ll be easy or smooth, it simply means we get to choose our pain. Will the inevitable pain be meaningful, as we are on the road to becoming who we have been created to be? Or will it be random and chaotic, just turbulence on the dark road where we happen to find ourselves, with no purpose or significance?

But it does require examination, honesty, vulnerability, and courage; 4 characteristics that have been phased out by comfort, immediate gratification, and convenience. It’s really time to take them back, to take us back. We are Resurrection people, who desperately need to engage our imaginations, invite them back into our lives and dream again about where this could all go, if we would only show up.