Snapshots and Synapses

In 2004 / 2005, the Lord started speaking to me about some changes. He gave me this picture of fallen leaves, where the leaves were people and where trees represented churches. The leaves fell from all sorts of trees. They were different sizes and shapes, having come from different church trees. But they all had at least one thing in common: they no longer belonged on the tree. In some cases, the leaves were no longer attached to the tree, even though they remained on the tree for a period. The visions stretched out for months and were echoed in the circumstances of my own life in the church; I had become a “fallen leaf”. The visions stretched out, beyond the present to times in the future, some of which I see happening now, and some of which are yet to occur. Now the fallen leaves in my visions did not fall to the ground, dry up and crumble to dust like the leaves we typically see. These leaves drew their nourishment directly from the ground, remaining supple yet turning coppery in c...

Years ago, as a freshman in high school, I landed the title role in the musical “Oliver”. I was excited about the part, but as opening night approached, my voice started to change. The shortest kid in school, I had anxiously awaited for puberty to arrive, but it came at such an inopportune time! One of my solos was a song entitled “Where is Love”, which I sung to an audience that heard one cracking note after another. On stage, I was smiling, but inside I was totally embarrassed. My response at the time was an inner vow to not sing a solo in public again, and for nearly ten years, I was silent. I didn’t think of it at the time, but “Where is Love” was really an appropriate title for the moment. In reality, love is something that we strive for, and yet despite our best efforts, we can’t always hit the right notes. Life’s twists and turns sometimes cause us to sing off pitch or to crack on the high notes so that the intended melody results in relational discord. With the painful memory ...

I did a search at biblegateway.com for the phrase: “This is the day which the LORD has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” I hear it so often in Christian circles that I expected it to be scattered throughout scripture. But unless I did something wrong in my word search, I only found it listed once: Psalm 118:24. I started searching for this phrase because I hear it frequently enough in Christian circles as an admonishment to rejoice in each and every day. But I see a lot of suffering going on around me, and I can’t honestly say I rejoice in each day. Let me give you a few sound bytes from my past week: A friend’s nephew, a young adult, is in a coma other friends of mine are close to being evicted from their home I hear a phrase repeated in the workplace “Pick your ‘O’… overtime or out-of-work!” So I did this search to get some context for what it means to rejoice and be glad in “this day”, thinking that it’s probably found in multiple places. I wanted context to underst...

I often feel as if Father’s Day is forgotten in our society. We are careful to remember Mother’s Day, and we should – it’s a big deal! Parenting is hard, and mothers play an indispensible role in the lives of their kids, but so do fathers. Annually, I’ve observed church services recognize mothers, recognizing their role and giving them the credit they are due. But a month goes by, Father’s Day comes, and… nothing. Now, that’s not the case everywhere and every year, but I think Dads need a little more recognition. I’ve talked to other Dads and they’ve had the same impression. I’m not trying to promote another victimized special interest group, but I wonder why Father’s Day doesn’t get equal recognition? Perhaps it’s because so many households are lacking fathers. For various reasons, kids are growing up without a man in the house. Or perhaps we don’t have a vision of what a good father looks like. Men are different from women. We think differently, we act differently and we have di...

This past week I’ve had several perturbations, which as I write the word, it sounds like some physical activity that would inspire a juvenile boy to snicker. So making sure I have the right word, I looked it up in Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary: perturbation noun 1. the action of perturbing : the state of being perturbed 2. a disturbance of motion, course, arrangement, or state of equilibrium; especially : a disturbance of the regular and usually elliptical course of motion of a celestial body that is produced by some force additional to that which causes its regular motion ( http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/perturbation ) Yep. That’s the word alright. Per-tur-BA-shun.  So first an update on my life: I started a new job… and the kids - being kids - are on their way to adulthood… and the frenetic activity that accompanies parenthood has had me a bit perturbed. The job is going fine, and I work with some great people, but it’s different from consulting, and I’m st...

“You mean to tell me God became a baby… and that he was born in a sheep stable… And then after becoming a baby, he was raised in a blue collar home? He never wrote any books or held any offices, yet called himself the Son of God… He never traveled outside of his own country, never studied at a university, never lived in a palace, and yet asked to be regarded as the creator of the universe… And this crucifixion story… he was betrayed by his own people? No followers came to his defense? And then he was executed like a common junkyard thief… And after the killing, he was buried in a borrowed grave… And according to what’s written, after three days in the grave he was resurrected and made appearances to over five hundred people… and all this was to prove that God still loves his people and provides a way for us to return to him … Doesn’t that all sound rather… Doesn’t that all sound rather absurd?” “Yes. Yes, I suppose it does sound absurd... “ How absurd to think that such nobility woul...

"Illegitimi non carborundum is a mock-Latin aphorism meaning 'Don't let the bastards grind you down'". ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegitimi_non_carborundum ) When Jesus started His ministry, He knew his target audience: the lost sheep of Israel. The church of His day was sick in many ways, reflected by the fact that His only words of criticism were for the religious authorities: “Listen to them but don’t be like them!” He warned. (Matthew 23:3) How much is this like the church in America? We usher in new converts to build a work-force that can be used to further increase church numbers, justifying the “fruit” of the ministry by statistics that validate and promote the value of our organization. The growing crowd shouts: “We’re building the Kingdom!” But is that really building the Kingdom or is it building a program? Some years back, I was initially excited to take a group of kids to a youth conference. I was struck by the professionalism of the first few s...