Month: March 2024

Streaming Change Announcement

Good morning everyone!

***We are Easter people and tomorrow is Resurrection Sunday!!!!!! I can’t wait to worship our Risen Lord with you! 

We’ve gotten to the bottom of the livestreaming problem (sort of), and it will remain a problem. Facebook has implemented some qualifications/regulations on some businesses that affect their livestreaming capabilities. (Now, as far as I can tell, this is only affecting small-to-medium sized churches, but we won’t be reading too closely into that;) Until we have over 60,000 streams of 5,000 followers, we will not be able to stream on the Bridge Facebook page.

We have a YouTube channel that we haven’t used since COVID, and I will upgrade our status on that, and that will be our primary livestreaming platform. But I won’t do that by tomorrow, then I have some responsibilities coming up, so we will, most likely, have that up and running by mid-April.

I may create a Facebook page in my name to stream Sunday services on, as well, but I think YouTube will probably be enough.

Our Facebook page will still be active, we will post there, written posts, and links to YouTube videos will appear there. So, continue to Like and Share.

For this week: 

*The 7am sunrise 5 minute mini will be on Facebook, but it will be on Angel’s page (Angel Galloway Slabach). 

*The Easter Service will be a Zoom ‘meeting’ and here is that link – just click on the link after “Join Zoom Meeting” and you’ll enter a virtual waiting room and we’ll bring you in:

Chad S is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic:  Easter!!!
Time: Mar 31, 2024 10:30 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84167206082?pwd=U1pMWjVraERqZ21VNWdDSktPYWFwQT09

Meeting ID: 841 6720 6082
Passcode: 691894

[Social media can be a really beautiful way to connect, but sites sometimes change their policies, and we will need to be flexible to that as we move forward in an increasingly technological world. The best way around this is to show up in person, where Facebook’s nonsense won’t be an obstacle.]    

I’ll see you tomorrow morning at 7am from my porch and hopefully at 10:30 at the Bridge!!!!! (…or on Zoom, if you can’t be there to celebrate with us in person)

Love. Peace.

A Heartbreaking Disappointment

For Christmas, the past several years, I’ve taken my son to an NBA basketball game. We live in Pennsylvania, so we go to a game when the 76ers play the Dallas Mavericks.The Mavericks are his favorite team because Luka Doncic is his favorite player by a mile. Last Christmas, I thought it would be amazing to take him to Dallas (his first flight) to see them at their home arena, to play a team other than the 76ers – in this case, Steph Curry & the Golden State Warriors. This was a bigger decision than it might sound, because we can’t exactly afford a flight, hotel, car, and game, but sometimes paying for a debt all year is absolutely worth it. The game is next week, and the season has gone in a direction for both that makes it a very big game. How exciting, right?

Well, apparently the Dallas Mavericks and/or the NBA thought so, too, so they rescheduled the game. The first, the one I bought and gave as Christmas gift, was Tuesday, April 2, Warriors AT Mavericks. Yesterday, I received confirmation for my tickets: Friday, April 5, Warriors at Mavericks. Tuesday, the Mavericks are now going to Golden State. My game tickets are still good, the game has just been moved. Just.

Sometimes, NFL games are “flexed” and change times or even dates, depending on the importance of the game. That is usually ok with me, because, like everybody else, I don’t think much about the impact of a dumb game on others. Things mostly only matter to me in direct correlation to their proximity to me. In other words, I only care if it happens to me. I recognize that isn’t something exclusive to me, it’s a human disease, and if we are interested enough to change, we spend our whole lives taking baby steps to open our minds and hearts to notice and understand the lives of others.

I did think of those poor suckers who have sports tickets to a game to only get it flexed, or rescheduled, away. Today, I am that poor sucker. I am not the usual poor sucker, I know full well that tv contracts drive sports leagues far more than ticket sales. And I know the ticket sales of once/year fathers & sons really doesn’t move any needles at all. Yes, I know these things, and today, I don’t care. I think it’s awful. And I think it’s awful I have to tell my boy the biggest part of the trip we’ve been planning for months has disappeared. I wonder if it’s worth it to fly to Dallas to rent a car and stay at some hotel to eat a few meals out? I wonder if the trees or sun look different there. 

Of course, like everybody else, we’d like to see the stadium where the Cowboys play… Is it worth a year of debt? If they let us work out in the team weightroom with the team, maybe. But now that I think about it, I like the Cowboys because of the star on the helmet far more than the name on the back of the jersey (at least since Troy Aikman retired). If I don’t ever do curls with Dak Prescott, it’s not a loss I’ll regret. 

When I say it’s awful, I do it in full awareness that in the eternal scope of things, a family missing an NBA game is very low. But relativity simply doesn’t matter when it comes to heartbreak. When a teenage girl breaks up with a boy, the tears don’t come less because the Middle East is in a perpetual war. The diagnosis of a 90 year old woman in Tennessee certainly isn’t as big as the bombs in Ukraine that will kill many, many more over a line on a map (yes, it’s an oversimplification, but you get the point). But it’s not inconsequential to that woman in Tennessee or to her family. It’s seismic and earth-shattering. The boy who has lost his first girlfriend will find another, we all know that, but it doesn’t make it better, it never has and never will. 

Our pain is just that, ours. And it doesn’t have much at all to do with relativity. Yours is yours and mine is mine, and one moment spent comparing the 2 is pointless and disrespectful. A broken finger is not a fractured rib, but it still hurts like crazy. We talk honesty here, right? How many times has it made sense when a friend told you what they were walking through but didn’t want to tell you because others have it worse? None. Not one. Not now, not ever. 

Because we hurt doesn’t minimize their suffering. We can hold them all in our great big beautiful hearts. I’m angry and disappointed over this ticket catastrophe, but in no way do I confuse it as being a monumental global disaster. Or even as any bigger than it is. But I do think the God that created and loves me cares. A LOT. And is disappointed withus (not in us). I bet He saw that reschedule and all of the fathers & sons who will lose the experience and was disappointed. I bet He saw me when I read that email and longed to hold me with His human arms and ease the storm inside my chest. And that’s good enough for me.

So maybe I’ll see you in Dallas, on Tuesday, at some awesome bbq restaurant or working out with the offensive line. And maybe I won’t.

One Word

I have another website I write on. It isn’t always explicitly spiritual. Of course, it is spiritual; It’s me, and everything is spiritual, but I don’t always use specific verses and I sometimes just write about songs or movies or books. Anyway, the platform that hosts both sites (WordPress/Jetpack) gives a prompt every day, in case you don’t have anything to write about and want to write anyway. This is not usually a problem for me, but it does sometimes set me down an interesting path I didn’t know I wanted to walk. Today I was going to write about a familiar subject, the painful freedom of boundaries, how hard they are to keep, especially as we are all such soft-hearted loving souls. We don’t want to set them, and we second guess, sometimes being terribly rough on ourselves, and go back on them frequently. You see, I have a very good friend… (this is the conception of so many posts – my filthy pens and the beautiful people that are in them with me.)

The site prompt today is “What is one word to describe you?” Or we can modify it into “What one word would you want to describe you?” because I don’t want us even thinking of going down some self-loathing path the enemy has paved for us.

So, who are you, in one word?

It’s a coincidence (if you believe in that kind of thing – another very good friend calls them God-incidences) that I have been thinking about this, in a slightly different way. I want to be the kind of man who is taken for granted (I know that’s 3, but it’s my exercise, so I can use a phrase if I want). I want everyone to know I will always show up, give them my heart, my best, that I will love them, that they are safe and cared for. I want everyone to know I’ll make lots of mistakes, and say sorry & mean it afterwards, and then I’ll grow. I want my boys to forget to thank me when they have a game and I am in the stands, because I am just always in the stands. I want that to describe me. I want everyone to know I believe them, believe in them. That I don’t care who they think they were, but that I care a great deal about who they are, who they will become, Whose they are. I want everyone to take for granted that I am a Genesis 1 (and not Genesis 3) man.

But what started me down this path lately, is that when I am hurting and breaking, I begin to resent that I am taken for granted. It’s the big warning light on my dashboard. I consider closing the pen door, and opening it only for people who say “please,” and “thank you.” This is only for a second, maybe, or a day, but it magnifies who I am created to be, Whose story I am in, and quickly opens my eyes to who I want to become. Painful moments looking into a mirror are terrific teachers. There doesn’t have to be judgment, just conviction and a gentle invitation into this new creation I am. (That is a fairly new understanding.)

Who I want to be doesn’t change. The Gospel doesn’t change. I just turn a little, and I no longer like those sometimes smooth clean wide paths of the enemy. They are not for me, not even close. And I repent. (That is an example of a word I don’t use too much on the other site – I’d say “turn around,” but you know that’s what Jesus meant then, and what I mean now.)

So, what’s your word (or phrase)? Tell me what it is. I’ll show up, I’m safe, a terrific listener, and will be awfully careful with you. And you can take that for granted, please.

Colors

The youth group is going through some changes. (Sometimes, God answers prayers before you even know you have a need for the prayer.) A few weeks ago, the new leader asked a deeply profound question, and I’ll ask it here. We’ve asked variations of it a million times, but maybe that’s the point. Keep asking, seeking, knocking, until our perspective changes, until we change.

So, he says look around this room at all of the blue things. Then, after a few moments, he has them close their eyes, and he asks them, “Ok, what did you see that’s red?” Right?!!? Of course, nobody knows. There are plenty of red things, but none of them were looking for red things.

This is so important, because we find what we’re looking for. How many times have you been looking for that specific lost sock, and then, days later, look for a different sock, and remember that you’ve seen it, but can’t remember where? We find what we’re looking for.

Once, I went to a lecture/sermon given by a famous author named Shane Claiborne with some friends. He blew our minds with his talk of kindness, grace, simplicity, loving like Jesus in real life. His was one of those talks that left you different. You might not yet be sure how, but the you that walked out was very different from the you that entered. The 4 of us went out to eat afterwards and talk about what just happened, and ask important questions of ourselves: What did this mean, for each of us, how would we react tomorrow/next week/next year, what would our dreams look like now, and on and on.

One of us, though, stated, with more than a little offense, “I just wish he wouldn’t have slammed the Catholic Church like that.” None of us remembered anything like that, and when pressed, she referenced 1 line in the middle of a long story about something else entirely. We often find exactly what we’re looking for. We were going to be inspired, and she was going to be offended. We each got what we paid for, that night.

When you leave your house today or tomorrow or Sunday morning, what are you going to be looking for? Will the world be a dangerous place where people are selfish and untrustworthy? You will find that, to be sure, because some of us are dangerous, selfish, and untrustworthy. But what if your eyes were open for the opposite? What if you are searching for beauty and generosity and love? That, too, is there. I would suggest in far greater supply. But I would, wouldn’t I? Because, for me, that is always the “blue” of the exercise.

The question is, what are our blue’s and what are our red’s? Are they what we want them to be? Are they authentic, or are they simply reflections of someone/something else? Are they serving us well? Do they inspire us to love more and more, or limit us? Are our world’s bigger or smaller because of our blue’s? Do we need a shift in our perception?

Sure, it’s scary to reflect and question our tightly held ideas (that have become like our childhood security blankets, soft and comfortable), but we only grow when we choose to have the courage to turn the lights on and discover/re-discover the people we’re called to be. And things are much less scary with hands to hold.

Is It Worthy?

Last week, I wrote about dancing, romancing, and “killing grooves.” Today, it is occurring to me that there are some fundamentalist religious communities that seemingly exist to “kill the groove,” who don’t want us dancing and certainly would not encourage romancing. I don’t know why.

We make tons of rules and laws for living proper Christian lives, a simple remake of the Torah, based on our modern societal and moral characteristics. Am I allowed to dance? How close? How fast? How long? And with whom? My instinct is, obviously, to say, “YES!!! Dance!!! Dance now, today, and forever, for as long as we can!” But maybe that’s also pretty simplistic. Maybe none of this is that easy. Or maybe it’s even simpler.

We really like complex, and that’s probably so we have plenty of excuses and exit ramps. And we also love the idea that we are the ones who understand the complex, like a 2024 Gnosticism. “I have the special knowledge required to be a “good” Christian.”

[Here’s something I just noticed: I have never used the word “Christian” before without much consideration. It’s a loaded word with baggage in many of our lives. And we’ve somehow shoehorned it into a completely different part of speech, making it an adjective. It’s not, it’s a noun. It is a follower of Jesus Christ. And, like many other words – like church, sin, etc – to leave it behind because it’s been misunderstood as problematic is foolish and in desperate need of reclamation. We follow Christ, we are Christians. Nice.]

Ephesians 4:1 says, “live a life worthy of the calling you have received.” It is, at the same time, simpler and heavier, clearer and more open to interpretation. The question we all are invited to ask, through this verse, is, “is this (action, thought, word, post, meal, practice) worthy of my call?” And maybe it is, and maybe it’s not. Maybe you can have a drink with dinner and I can’t, based on a host of different factors. Maybe I can dance in a hot sweaty small room with flashing strobe lights, and maybe that’s a horrible idea for you. Maybe you can have an Oreo and I can’t. And timing is important, too. Maybe it’s time for you to add and maybe it’s time for you to subtract, and maybe the thing to be added or subtracted is the same thing.

I can’t tell you if you can dance or how close or for how long. I can’t say if those things hurt your soul and heart and take you farther from Your Creator. Maybe they do. And maybe they do today.

Of course, some things are always beneath us. Addiction, abuse, objectification, oppression, deceit, infidelity, and on and on, are unworthy of our status as children of The King. There is no circumstance where they are not, and that’s why we feel so gross when we participate in them.

This maybe business, this “live a life worthy” of your call, is not easy. It’s not a handbook that tells us in black and white. That might be frustrating, but that’s purposeful, too.

We can never forget that the point of all of this is relationship, a life lived WITH Him. We can’t do it on our own, weren’t supposed to, so we hold His (and each other’s) hand and say, “is this worthy?” We rely on Him to guide us, to show us where we’ve compromised, to tell us again and again who we are.

Then, we just have to believe Him. And dance. Or not. But probably dance.