I don’t remember where I was, but I was attending a conference of some type.  Let’s say it was Milwaukee.  My wife was with me and we had the afternoon free, so we decided to stroll around a bit and we saw a huge charter bus (as if there are small ones) with a bus-length “Discover Card” graphic on the side.  There was a welcome mat kind of thing at the door, and someone standing there obviously waiting for someone like me to stroll by.  And since I can’t possibly turn down a guided tour through anything, let alone a huge luxury cruise bus, I walked right up and walked right in.

As soon as I entered the mammoth vehicle I was immediately whisked away to a land where the fridge is stocked with glass bottle Coca-Cola, where chocolates are found by the basketfuls, and where Discover card hats are free for the taking.

I made my way along the center aisle/corridor of this behemoth bus and looked through to the back of the bus and saw a dude sitting at a table.  I didn’t know the dude, but I thought, “I guess that dude is somebody.”  What gave it away was his debonair looks repeated on the stack of 8×10 inch glossies he had of himself.  Next to the glossies was a bunch of Sharpie markers; presumably so the dude could write his autograph on the glossy and give it to people like me.  This guy was set.  He had a sweet luxury bus to hang out on, he had all the Coca-Cola he could dream of, he had a stack of hats, glossies, and markers, and he even had a flat-screen tv to watch sports on (which is what he was doing when I entered the room).

Before I could even take it all in, he looked over to me as I entered, grabbed a glossy,and scribbled his autograph while asking generically, “What’s your name?” and “How you doin’ today?”  He handed me my glossy, I took a few more Cokes and hats, and I made my way back to the front of the bus.

As I stepped off the bus, I looked down at the photo in my hand.  It was a picture of a professional hockey player that looked a lot like the dude; kind of one of those “in action” photos that was probably staged, but you’re not quite sure because he’s the only one in the picture, skating aggressively on some ice.  In the lower corner of the photo, I read “To my friend, Jerry”

We can view God like that sometimes.  We come into His presence, aware of the fact that He’s got some power (like my “friend” on his bus), aware that we should probably recognize who we’re talking to, but often feeling rather distant–or even foreign–to the idea of a true “friendship” with Him, despite the fact that if we really knew who we were dealing with, we would gush with excitement, unable to contain ourselves.

And perhaps when we find that our worship of God is weak, we can often trace it to the reality that we don’t really recognize who this God is.  We don’t have any kind of discernible friendship with Him.  Imagine if that hockey player really was my friend.  Imagine if I had known exactly who he was, that we had a history, and that we had plans to hang out later that day; after the whole Discover card promo bus gig was over.  I certainly wouldn’t have approached the bus as pensively as I had.  I would have bounded on, shouting my friend’s name, confident that he was in there and that me stopping by would make his day.

Have you ever thought, “I’m going to be spending some one-on-one time with God later on.  We’ve got plans.”  When I think about a date with my wife happening sometime this week, I have a hard time concentrating on the work I have to do in front of me.  I just about want to jump up on my desk, grab the hands of the clock on the wall, and spin them around and around in an effort to bring the time of our date closer.  Do I do that with God?  Do we think about grabbing a cup of coffee with our Creator this afternoon?  Do we see Him as close friend or unfamiliar celebrity?

As you read this today, I’d pray that in your near future, you’d have an opening in your schedule that would allow you to meet up with God somewhere and spend some time with Him.  Let that meeting encourage you, refuel you, and set your soul ablaze with a passion for an intimate friendship with Him.

Let’s be honest.  For those of us who have been around “church” and “worship services” for any amount of time, we can sometimes approach worship like a vending machine.  We seem to “enjoy” a worship service most when it has certain qualities such as a) that song/those songs I like, b) that style of music I prefer, c) a person up front that I connect to, d) a comfortable temperature in the sanctuary, e) a sermon that I find useful or funny or comforting or entertaining or (sometimes) thought-provoking or able to keep my attention, f) a seat/row/section that everyone understands is “mine”, g) not too much talk about money, h) not too convicting, i) a good volume level, j) no babies crying (“Don’t they know we have a nursery?), k) people around my seat who are friendly/likable/good singers/don’t smell bad, l) a preacher who has just enough fire, but without too much brimstone, m) clearly marked exits, n) not too many “crazies”, o) nothing that’s going to make feel uncomfortable in any way.  (I’ll save p-z for another time).

Is this the way worship services today are meant to be?  Here in America we seem to walk a tightrope balance of having nice amenities to bring people in (gifts for visiting, java-drenched atmosphere to make you comfortable, special parking spots, etc.) balanced with enough _________ and not too much __________ to ensure that they’ll return next week.

The worship service is one of the central components that create a local church’s identity.  When you invite someone to your church, one of their first questions is undoubtedly going to be “What’s the worship service like?”  And if you don’t have some good adjectives to use like “casual” or “welcoming” or “amazing music” or “friendly” or “comfortable” then you might not see them darken the door.  But has the modern worship service evolved into something it was never intended to be?  Does God have anything to say about how HE’D like to see worship services happen?

I once heard a question asked when I was in college that I don’t think I could forget if I wanted to.  A chapel speaker once asked “If the Holy Spirit left your ministry, how long would it take for you to notice?”  In other words, are we so busy planning, preparing, doing, and going that we leave  God’s Spirit entirely out of the whole equation?  As a pastor, believe me there have been times when I’ve gotten so busy doing things FOR God, that I stopped doing things WITH God.  Oh, I was doing pastoral ministry kinds of things, but God was nowhere in sight.  How messed up is that?

And I suppose a similar type of question could be asked about our worship services: “If God decided He wasn’t coming to the worship service you attend this week, would anybody notice?”  Are we so entrenched in our routine machine that we completely leave out the One who is supposed to be at the center of it all?

I have countless blogs that I’ve begun and haven’t finished.  I have learned about myself that if I don’t publish a blog post in one sitting, I’m likely not going to come back to it and complete it.  So, here’s a great stopping spot.  I’ll come back and do a “Part 2” kind of thing, but in the meantime, I’d like to invite your thoughts on what you’ve read so far.

I don’t recall many of the details about what day it was or what time, but I was a newly married youth pastor at home  by myself; perhaps home for lunch when there was a knock at my front door.  I hadn’t learned the “pretend I’m not home” trick yet, so I opened to the door to an early-twenty, eager, bright-faced young man.  He had a small duffel bag over his shoulder and a squirt bottle in his hand.  With a proud smile and before any greetings could be exchanged, he blurted out: “Take me to your worst stain!”

I think I responded, “Hi.” and then a few seconds later, “Okay.”

I led him down into the basement where our laundry room was.  It never occured to me that in his duffel bag could be rope, or a gun, a candlestick. or a lead pipe.  Looking back, I could have been walking to my death.  Turns out,  I wasn’t.  Turns out, he really did want to know where my worst stain was.

We had copper pipes that ran along the wall of our laundry room.  They had become corroded and nasty with a nice green fuzzy funk on them.  I turned to him and said, “There it is.”  With a few quick squirts of his bottle ‘o magic whateveritwas, those copper pipes were shining like a new penny.  He turned to me and said, “This cleaner will clean absolutely anything…and watch this!” He then proceeded to unscrew the trigger nozzle top, pulled the straw out that extended to the bottom of the bottle, wrapped his mouth around one end, and wiped the straw through between his lips.  “It’s completely safe and non-toxic!”

I deliberately stalled with some chit-chat for a few minutes to see if he’d drop dead in my laundry room but no such luck.  We walked back upstairs, I bought a bottle of the concentrate that allowed me to make a billion bottles of the stuff, and he walked out the door and out of my life.

While I don’t have the faintest clue where the “worst stain” is in your life, I can absolutely guarantee that Jesus knocks at your door with the power to take it away.  He’s done everything necessary to wash away the worst mess you can possibly make.  Let Him in, give it a shot, and see if I’m not right.

Yesterday while sitting at my desk, I get an email from my boss (well, one of them).  It simply reads: “Can you come see me?”

“Oh crap.”  My mind starts racing trying to figure out what I did wrong.  In the <1 minute it took to get from my office to his, my brain came up with exactly nothing as to why I might be summoned to the big guy’s chambers.  I walk in confidently (I learned its always a good idea to walk in anywhere like you own the place) and say, “Hey, Wynne.  Did you need me?” all the while thinking “Of course you don’t need me. Few people do.”

Turns out he was just asking me if I’d be willing to lead prayer meeting the next morning in his absence.  I like prayer, so I said, “Sure thing, I can do that.” with a slight twinge of “I knew I wasn’t in trouble” attitude in my swagger as I walked out his office door.

And as I prepared to gather with my fellow pray-ers–okay I was in the shower–I had a thought.  I began to think about the expression “Heaven help us.”  In my experience, its been a light-hearted expression of someone saying something in somewhat of a humorous manner like, “Aunt Brenda is cooking the turkey this Thanksgiving?!? Heaven help us!”  But the more I thought about it, the longer my shower took. And since I like long showers, I thought about it some more.

When we pray, we become the very conduit of heaven’s connection to earth.  When we pray we become channels of heaven’s blessing right down here on good ‘ol “terra firma”.

When we pray we are closing the gap between “up there” and “down here”.  When we pray, we speak to the One who made the earth we stand on and yet we are in His throneroom, on His terms, because of His mercy that makes the conversation possible in the first place.  When we pray, we are literally calling on God in heaven to help us.  If not for Jesus–how dare we?  But because of Jesus–oh, we dare!

The image of God as a celestial scrooge is one that I suppose some might hold; that He’s like a galactic grump waiting to pounce on you for no good reason.  But the God I love and serve and talk with is a loving Father, who instructs me to “come boldly before the throne of grace, so that I can find HELP in time of trouble.” (Hebrews 4:16)

So, this morning I led those who weren’t with Wynne at staff planning (those I lovingly referred to as “The Remnant”) in prayer for people all over our community.  We prayed, we sang, we shared, and we called on heaven…to help us.

Last night at our adult small group while several in the group were sharing some things they’d like us to join in prayer for, we came to Heather who shared about her and her husband’s struggle to get their new house completed, so they can receive their “Certificate of Occupancy” given by the county.  As she shared the stress from the many (yet smallish) unfinished projects that were holding them back, not to mention the new adventures of their new baby boy who is just months old, something became blatantly obvious to me and I believe everyone in the room.

While Heather has only been to our small group for the past three weeks, I can say that she already feels like a “regular”.  So, as she was sharing about the grout that needed to be put down, the few feet of hardwood floor still that needed to be laid, the few inches of dirt that needed to be spread around the yard, and the grass seed that needed to be thrown around, I thought privately to myself, “So, are we going to be a group of people who get together weekly to study the Bible and eat or are we going to be the Bible for each other and show God’s love in “Let’s do this” kinds of ways?  Clearly, it must be the latter.

So, with a sincere belief that everyone else in the room was thinking the same thing, I spoke up as soon as Heather finished and in no time at all, we had a plan in place not only for the very next Friday night, but for several individuals to go over to the house throughout this week and be an extra set of hands and feet to get this punchlist done in short order.

James 2:15-16 speaks directly to that situation we faced in our small group last night.  “Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food.  If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?”

This is that well-known section of the book of James with the sobering statement “faith without works is dead.”  Imagine if Heather had finished sharing last night about the heavy weight of these projects, put on top of the challenges of caring for an infant, put on top of the strains of work schedules; imagine if after she shared all this and we as a group responded with, “Wow Heather, that really sounds like a lot to bear.  We’ll certainly pray for you about all that.  Let us know how things are going when we meet together again next week.”  In my opinion, we should all have turned in our Christian ID cards then and there.

So, this week will find parts of our small group going each day to help Heather knock these projects out and next Friday night will be “1-2 punch” of the men in our group to handle the projects that remain.  I’m excited to be a part of a small group of believers that not only gather to study and discuss God’s Word and eat cheesecake, but also get into each other’s lives and enjoying true spiritual community.

Oh, if you could see the list of unfinished blog posts hidden behind the curtain of this site.  I’m great at starting.  Everyone is.

But you’ll likely never read those, simply because they’ll probably never been completed.  Starting well is fine.  Finishing well is really the point though. 

When my wife and I were newlyweds, we excitedly joined a gym so that could get up together early each morning before work and exercise.  The gym was only about 5 minutes across our small town, so it was very convenient.  The problem was there was a McDonald’s directly in our path.  More often than I might care to admit, we’d ditch our exercise plans in exchange for a breakfast burrito!  And after finishing the burrito, did we THEN go to the gym to work it off?  Nah.  We usually went back home and got back in bed.  Everybody starts well.

The letters in the Bible written by Paul are full of encouragements, exhortations, and challenges to finish well.  But what does finishing well in my faith look like exactly?  Well, from what Paul explains, here are a few things included:

1. Face forward.  If we’re going to follow Christ, we’ve got to be focused on Christ.  Have you ever been driving along in your car and something to the side catches your eye?  Like a fender bender?  Or a yard sale?  Or a jogger?  You turn your head to look and before you know it, your car is veering in the direction you’re looking!  Like it or not, the trajectory of your life follows the direction of your focus.

2. Unremember.  God is not a forgetful God when it comes to our sins; He simply “chooses not to remember” our sins.  He doesn’t misplace my sins like I misplace my keys.  On the contrary.  He knows EXACTLY where my sins are!  They are nailed to a Roman cross on a hill called Golgotha.  I am free from their grip, their penalty, and their condemnation because of Jesus sacrificial death on that cross.  But I’m awfully good at stewing in my own sin, crippled by shame and guilt rather than, like God, remembering no more my forgiven sins.

3. Look around.  Now, I’m not trying to contradict #1, but I do believe there is great value in looking into the stands of those who have finished before us.  Hebrews 12 speaks clearly and beautifully about the “great cloud of witnesses” that surround us, cheer us, and await us.  I used to be a pitcher in little league.  I recall vividly the times when my coach had a forlorn look on his face in the dugout because of my too-slow fastball, or my way-too-straight curveball, or my “meatball” as it was called–the slow lofty one that hit the center of the strike zone; perfectly placed for the batter to knock the snot out of it.  But I also remember my parents in the stands.  I remember their look of love and interest and even pride.  I remember that no matter how well or poorly I was pitching or playing that game, they were going to take me home anyway.  We need to be reminded of those who are cheering us on, so that we don’t feel alone.

4.  Press on.  The concept of “pressing on” that Paul talks about is a “leaning forward”.  Have you ever seen a foot race in the olympics where two or more runners are crossing the line at almost the exact same time?  At the very last stride, they LEAN or even lunge forward in order to be the first one across that finish line.  Paul is using this word picture to illustrate how we are to live lives that lean forward!  Lunging to victory!  Do I have that fire as I go about my every day?  Do I have such desperation for a victorious life?  How well do I “press on”?

The truth is, as we run this race, we don’t have any clue when the finish line will appear right in front of us.  No one is promised tomorrow.  My finish line might be only minutes away from right now, and so might yours.  I want to be the kind of person who not only leaves the starting blocks with a bang, but crosses the line with a lean!