Yesterday my family and I headed to Mickey D’s after church to grab a quick lunch. While standing in line waiting our turn to order, I watched 2 couples heading toward the door. Well-dressed 60-somethings and all smiles, one of the gentlemen stopped and turned toward the workers behind the counter and offered a hearty, “Thanks for the lunch!”. No response. He waited 10 seconds or so then tried again: “Enjoyed the lunch! Thanks!” Even though I was captivated by his two rather loud and cheerful statements, not one of the employees even looked up. No acknowledgement whatsoever of his words or even his existence.

Finally, with a look of “oh well”, but still smiling, he turned and walked out the door.

I immediately thought, “That was weird.”
Then I immediately thought, “No it’s wasn’t.”

The reason why it wasn’t weird is because McDonalds is more machine than man. It’s a collection of cogs, not veins. Every franchise works the same playbook, and based on what I saw yesterday the playbook says nothing about making the customer feel like a person. I was so struck by the lack of anyone’s response to the gentleman that I nearly shouted, “You’re welcome!”

As you probably know, I live the life of a person in fulltime ministry. While the lion’s share of my time is based in student ministry, my experiences span much further than just that age group. I’ve seen a lot over the years and there’s a premise I hold to that connects with those few, awkward, embarassing moments in that McDonald’s yesterday.

I have heard (in the context of ministry and church leadership) the concept that pastors are in the business of “customer service”. While I always understand the reason those words are used and I believe the heart behind them is good, I seem to always wince when I hear them. I abhor the thought that those who attend, worship at, and are connected with the church I serve in are “customers” that I help to serve. Because the underlying thought is that I am here to serve the customers, that the customers should be my #1 priority, and that as the old retail adage says: “The customer is always right.” I just don’t see that in the Bible.

And truth be told, I have always had a “take it or leave it” style of leadership. (I use the word “style” simply due to lack of a better term.) I have never read in the Bible a time when Jesus pleaded with anyone to follow Him. It seems to me that Jesus invited people while he was walking past them. Whether he literally stopped in His tracks on the beach to say “Follow Me” isn’t as much the point than that sense that whether those fishermen left their nets or not wasn’t His concern. (Yes, I know He knew they would and that there’s much more to say about all that.)

So, while I lead those God has entrusted to my care, I want to do so with the love of God clearly seen in everything I do. I want it to be said of me that I cared for people, no matter what. I want to be remembered as someone who lived his life putting others first. I want my life to be unmistakably about serving people. But that none of that ever gets confused with a passion for walking with God.

To the one person who reads this blog:

Let’s get real.

It’s been fun, but this blog just isn’t able to be sustained by me anymore.
I currently write two (almost three) other blogs. Anyone who reads this can feel free to read two of those. (The third is by invite only)

So, here goes. In a blazing display of blogicide, I’m pulling the plug.

Comment if you want, but its time has come…

The other night, my wife and I were naughty. Really naughty.

We ate a “Bloomin’ Onion” from Outback.
That’s 2,310 calories.
134 grams of fat. (HALF a “bloomin’ onion” is your daily allowance of fat intake.)
And we knocked it out like champs.

But the bloomin’ onion had a strange effect on my wife that night.
She dreamed a really weird dream. And this is where it gets interesting. And strange. And freaky. And maybe even spiritual. I’ll let you decide.

So, we had wiped the dipping sauce from our chins and headed off to bed. Yep, nothing like downing 2,000+ calories right before laying down for 7-8 hours!

Toward the end of those sleeping hours, my wife had a dream that she told me about yesterday.

Before I get to that, though–I little background information: My wife’s sister has been battling stage 4 colon cancer for 4+ years. We’ve have been praying all that time for God to heal her. She has gone to the utmost lengths to show God how faith-filled she is as she humbly requests for His touch to remove the cancer.

So, my wife dreamt that her sister was going to live the lifespan of 42 bees. That’s right. Bees. As in buzzbuzz, make honey, live in a hive, bees. In her dream, my wife was told that her sister would live the lifespan of 42 bees. Are you wondering what the lifespan of a bee is? So was my wife, so she looked it up. A bee typically lives 1-2 years; the queen bees living longest, 2 years on average. Pretty strange dream, huh? Well, the story’s not over.

So my wife calls her sister, as she regularly does, and they were talking for a while, as they regularly do, and it was toward the end of the conversation when my wife’s sister says to her, “Oh, I went to a meeting the other night. Guess what kind of meeting it was.” My wife replies, “I don’t know.” Her sister said, “It was about learning how to raise bees.”

I’m not kidding. I don’t know about you, but that freaked me out. My wife had not told her about her bee dream, and to my knowledge they had never had any reason to discuss bees at all. But my wife has this dream about bees, and the very next day, her sister across the country goes to a meeting on how to raise bees. Are you kidding me?

I don’t know what God is thinking. I honestly don’t know why He hasn’t healed my sister-in-law yet. But I do know this: God loves her, and you, and even me with an everlasting love. And that no matter how many bee years we live, we will live them praising the Lord of the bees for who He is and all He has done.

I’m not huge into numerology (at all), but I’ve got to admit that what I read this morning slapped me in the face.

I was sitting on my couch reading God’s Word from the gospel of John, in chapter 6, which holds the well-known story of the feeding of the 5,000 with 2 fish and 5 loaves, Jesus walking on the water, and a very confounding teaching that Jesus gave. The crowd was diverse and included devout Jews, scribes, and Pharisees. And Jesus actually had the gumption to compare Himself to Moses.

Later in the chapter is where Jesus begins to call Himself the “bread of life” to the crowds that had been following Him. Because of such confusing and preposterous claims, people were conflicted, angered, and scratching their heads. In fact, some of the disciples were perplexed and upset, saying, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” (John 6:60)

And as I read on from there, I see Jesus drive the last nail in His “crazy talk” coffin by saying, “Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before!” (6:62)

Going on from there, He explains that the words He speaks are “truth” and “life”.
And that’s when it happened:

“From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.”

You want to know that verse that is? John 6:66. Now, I’m not someone who thinks much at all about how numbers fall in chapters and verses. I give numbers their due attention only when it is clear that God is making a big deal about it, such as the number 40 that is used all throughout the Bible in both Old and New Testaments, and the number 7 which repeatedly represents perfection. But remember that the Bible was not written with chapters and verses. They only came relatively recently for the sake of convenience and ease in finding a particular section of Scripture. So, when John wrote those words, he wasn’t writing verse 66 in chapter 6. He was just writing what he saw.

So, sitting there this morning, I was astounded that I had never noticed before that a verse that explicitly says that people turned away from Jesus and stopped following Him is found in chapter 6, verse 66.

Maybe that does nothing for you. But to me, that’s pretty crazy.

This morning after I woke and brushed my teeth (definite first order of business), and as I came downstairs for my Bible reading and coffee, I thought of something I had not thought of before. As my hand slid down the banister leading downstairs, I thought to myself, “I wonder how dirty this banister is.”

Not the most pleasant thought to start your day, but there you have it.

While we are long past the days of diaper changing in my home, we still have a healthy supply of baby wipes. So, I grabbed them from the closet and brought them to the banister. You wouldn’t believe what one swipe revealed. The wood of our banister is pretty dark, so it conceals the dirt that normal daily life brings in a house with 6 people living in it.

And as I continued my way up the banister with baby wipe in hand, I was amazed at the contrast that began to emerge. What once looked like a normal banister now looked like a clean banister. Once I was satisfied that I had gone over the entire banister, I got out some wood polish/protectant and gave it a healthy covering and worked it in with a rag.

I dare you to stand up right now and go to a place in your home that might be hiding a dirty little secret. Maybe its a banister, or handrail, or doorknob, or molding around a high-traffic door. Whever it is, grab a damp white cloth, give it a good wipe, and take a look at the cloth.

In the dailyness of our lives, we might get accustomed to a certain amount of grime or build-up in relationships, habits, attitudes, or in our spirit, and subconsciously let the need for regular confession slip into the same category as regular flossing. (A shout-out to all my fellow non-flossers out there! Whoop, Whoop!)

May it be that when I awake tomorrow, descend down the stairs, and run my hand along that banister, that I immediately am reminded of my need for the forgiveness and embrace of God–that is ever present and always free.

Yesterday, while at work I got a phone call on my cell phone. I looked at the screen to see who it was and saw the picture of my smokin’ hot wife I had assigned to her cell phone number. It’s a call I answer, pretty much no matter what’s going on. She happened to be calling from the pool we belong to. But I was surprised not to hear my bride’s voice, but that of my oldest son, Crews.