Dear Jon: Bible studies for couples.

Posted on February 2, 2012 by

“Do you have any suggestions for Bible studies for couples?”

That was a question this week from a friend. She has a friend whose parents just divorced. It scared her friend. Her friend wants to start some kind of Bible study with her husband, to strengthen the marriage.

I never know how to answer those questions. I’m not good at “Here’s a book of devotionals for couples.” I’m also not good at “Here’s a book of devotionals.” I wouldn’t be writing them myself.

That said, here’s what I said.

1. Have them read a solid daily book like My Utmost for His Highest (and online). Read it separately. Then, when they are casting about for conversation about something other than the kids and teething and school and bills, talk about the crazy thing that Chambers wrote and how would you ever put that into practice.

2. Have them just read the Bible wherever they want individually in areas that fit their personalities. One might be more poetic, so read some of the psalms. The other might be more story-driven and read through 1 and 2 Samuel. Then spend 5 minutes a day listening to each other talk about what has been cool about what was read recently. Because the reading matches personality, the observations may give insights into the spouse.

3. Have them read the Bible texts that were part of the previous week’s sermon. Or the text for the week in the lectionary. And then try to remember what the pastor said.

4. Take turns learning parables and telling them to the kids. One per week.

5. Without even talking to each other, talk to God about each other. Say, “God, you know what’s going on that my spouse is afraid to tell even me. Give me words that will encourage. Help me read what will help.”

Posted in bible reading, dear Jon | 3 Comments

A creed review.

Posted on February 1, 2012 by

We finished the creed.

The creed is the black lines of a child’s coloring book, waiting for crayons to color in the spaces, to give life.

The creed is the “Lord I believe”, waiting desperately for the answer to “Help my unbelief.”

The creed is the recalibration of the navigation system to remember where north is.

The creed is the standard weight used to test other objects.

The creed is the tags, the seo keywords for the Christian faith.

The creed is the poem you recite when you cannot remember the essay

The creed is the mnemonic, doing for the basics of the Christian faith what “Every Good Boy Does Fine” does for those trying to remember the lines of the treble staff or “Mozart’s in the closet, let him out let him out let him out” does for remembering the beginning of Mozart’s 40th Symphony or Roy G. Biv is the colors of the rainbow.

Each clause of the creed is a thread, leading us through the Bible like the lines on the floor of a hospital take you to ER or the birthing center or outpatient surgery or a research opportunity tracing “forgiveness of sins” from David’s relief in forgiveness

How joyful is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered! How joyful is the man the LORD does not charge with sin and in whose spirit is no deceit!

To John’s baptism

John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance for theforgiveness of sins.

To the offer of forgiveness from Jesus

And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.

Posted in creed | 3 Comments

death and life

Posted on January 31, 2012 by

It was a gift, actually. Death is an expiration date for brutality. Once Adam and Eve knew they could defy God, it would do no good for them to live forever in bodies. Breaking the tab on the back that said “trained service technicians only” meant the created was trying to act as the creator.

And so, once they knew what wrong was, they also knew what death was. Wrong-doing by an individual could not be inflicted forever. The eventual demise of villains gives hope in an odd way.

But all of us have villainy in our hearts. All of us have a desire to run things in our minds. All of us have “death” on our calendars.

Life matters, don’t get me wrong. God would not have put on human life if life did not matter. And three years with the disciples and the twelve, eating, drinking, laughing provides a seal of approval on the idea of living in conversation with God. It was a glimpse of the garden. There was table-talk of such delight that it created an appetite for a great feast someday.

The death and resurrection of Jesus, the one who lived in complete communion with the Father, suggests that there may be a different kind of actual body, a remarkable kind of living after death. No wings, no harps. Instead broiled fish and conversation and freedom. Maybe, just maybe, villainy can finally die and life as intended can happen. Forever.

And so, when at the last breath of the creed we say we believe in, “Life everlasting”, we are affirming a hope that goes back as far as people can remember. For bodies that don’t break. And for living that matters and can happen without villainy. And for conversation with God face-to-face. Freely. Fully.

Finally.

Posted in creed | 2 Comments

the resurrection of the body

Posted on January 30, 2012 by

Ted was 93. People who knew him for 40 years, 60 years, 20 years, talked about him. About his compassion, his encouragement, his hospitality. His leadership, his diligence, his career. His faith. We gathered for an hour and more. There were two hundred and fifty of us.

Much of my professional life was in that room, a room where I worked for seven years, worshiped for several more. A man I met forty years ago. People I taught with 25 years ago. People I went to church with, people I cried with, 10 years ago. People I work with now. People from every place I’ve worked for the past 25 years.

The funeral was a resurrection of memories. People I helped. People who helped me. People whose opinions I feared and curried and respected and ignored. That husband has died, who hired me and was mad at me and forgave me, and I him. That husband has died, who annoyed me but also grew in my respect. Those people left, those didn’t and the relationships have never been the same.

If the resurrection of the body we affirm in the creed is like this resurrection of memories, I’m not sure I’m interested. I lived them once, I’ve relived some of them too often. As Ricky Nelson wrote, “if memories were all I sang, I’d rather drive a truck.”

But a resurrection of the body, that’s different. A real touchable body. A body without the Alzheimer’s and pneumonia and allergies and age. A body that is somehow us, and yet not us now. A body that is not part of some collective consciousness, but is individual. A body that exists on an earth that exists even if this body was burned to ash and spread.

But all those molecules mingled would take a miracle to individually resurrect.

Precisely.

Posted in creed | 3 Comments

Saturday reflection: Row E, Seat 2

Posted on January 28, 2012 by

January 22, Hope, Nancy and I went to hear Donald Miller for the first time. We know him well, as well as you can know someone from the books he’s written, and the posts and the tweets. But we hadn’t heard him. Nancy and I drove the two hours to Mishawaka, Indiana, picked up Hope and drove the two hours on to Wheaton. Afterward, we dropped Hope hack at school and came home. It was a long Sunday.

Nancy talked about the presentation itself quite well. Hope talked about it in the context of her day and life. So what did I learn? Most of it I won’t list. You’ll hear it over the next decades. But I wanted to tell you a few things I learned, mostly about speaking.

1. I confess. I’m a Don Miller fan. (But he helped me write my dad’s eulogy). Before the event, I went for an autograph. There was an informal line. And when the people in front of us moved down the aisle, Don walked up, put out his hand, and said, “Hi. My name is Don.”

Lesson: Don’t hide, preparing for a performance. Walk around, preparing for a conversation. 

2. Jerry Root hosted the evening. After Jerry introduced Don to us, he introduced the college audience to Don. “This is the community where I live. These are the people that I love.” I quit taking notes then, overwhelmed by the idea of being rooted in community, of building a bridge that way.

Lesson: An audience is a family. Or can be. If you love them.  When you are introducing, make the speaker pay attention to the people. 

3. Don started with stories we already knew, Nancy and I, from A Million Miles. We were afraid that we’d come all this way for reruns. But the laughter said that many people hadn’t heard them Or loved to hear them again.

Lesson: Repeating stories is important. It orients the curious. It reaffirms the faithful. 

4. I probably never sat in Row E, Seat 2 before Sunday night. I did spend 30 minutes many weekday mornings for three years sitting in seats close to that seat. Unless I was late.

I’m a Wheaton grad (80). We had required chapel and we met in that room. On the drive home, it was easy to think, “Have I done anything of value in the last thirty years? Have I told the story that I could have told?” And then I laughed at the danger of the question.

In Row E, Seat 3 sat Nancy. We’ve been married for nearly 29 years. Three children, one buried. Job gains and loses, career changes, moves. Shared bed and board and many months of accumulated conversation. We have changed each other.

In Row E, Seat 1 sat Hope. I held her first almost 21 years ago, noticed her months before that. She has challenged us, blessed us, taught us how to be parents of a daughter.

And so, driving through the night to take my favorite two women home, I smiled, grateful for the story I’m in the middle of.

Lesson: when looking for new stories, don’t forget the one you are in the middle of. It may be the most important one you could find. 

–

My review of A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.

Posted in character, community | 12 Comments

creative.

Posted on January 27, 2012 by

Grab a generic black bird. Take a one-inch wide paint brush and a small bottle of white paint. Paint one white stripe across its back, about two inches from the end of the tail. Open a pint can of red paint, closer to crimson than maroon. Wrap some masking tape around the bird’s beak. Dip the bird head first in the red paint, to the line where it twists its neck. Quickly wipe its eyes. Set it up on a tree branch to dry.

Grab another generic black bird. Look for one a little smaller, a little rounder than the first. Take a small bowl, the kind you use for custard. Pour some of the white paint into the bowl. Dip the bird, feet first, into the paint. Like dipping molasses cookie balls into the sugar. Set it on the ground to dry.

Grab another generic black bird. Take another one-inch wide paint brush and the red paint. Dip the brush into the paint. Tickle the bird, under the wing. When the wing opens a bit, right where it attaches to the body, paint a small red patch. Put it on a cattail to dry.

Grab another generic black bird. Mix a little blue paint into the red paint. Add some black paint. Try for a midnight purple. Mask the beak of the bird. Dip the head of the bird into the paint, up to its shoulders. Put it anywhere to dry.

Grab another generic black bird, a little smaller than the last one. Using the rest of the midnight purple paint, pour it over the whole bird. Put it on a birdhouse next to a big open field with lots of mosquitos.

The woodpecker, junko, red-wing blackbird, grackle and martin will be grateful to their Creator for creative differences.

Posted in bible reading | 1 Comment

I believe in the forgiveness of sins.

Posted on January 26, 2012 by

As I sat down to write about the next part of the creed, I realized that I have talked about sin and forgiveness of sin a lot.

  • I wrote about Jesus and a sinner, a woman from a different culture and life than Jesus.
  • I wrote about the hard work of repenting, the process of turning around, of rebuilding relationship.
  • I wrote about Good Friday and the forgiveness in the middle of excruciating pain  I wrote about the same thing in Like God.
  • I wrote about Patrick’s forgiveness in going to Ireland, the land where he had been held captive (About the saint in Patrick).
  • I wrote about five ways that David journaled his prayer, including asking for forgiveness.
  • I wrote about the importance of personally acknowledging my sin (I did it).
  • I wrote about the Mary who poured perfume on the feet of Jesus (It’s okay to not know everything) in gratitude.
  • I wrote a whole series on the part of Matthew 18 where Jesus talks about how to handle sin in the context of church. (It’s here in one document: Matthew 18)

As I looked through these posts I see that apparently I believe in sin. That’s the first part of this clause. In order to believe in the forgiveness of sin, there has to be something to forgive, there has to be something more than a mistake, a slip up, an error. We’ve got to see that there is something that was wrong.

And then that there is someone that was wronged. someone who deserved right.

And then that the person wronged has the capacity to forgive.

And then that the person wronging asks for forgiveness.

It’s not complicated, this forgiveness of sin I believe it. But it’s often quite hard. Because it means I’m the one who wrongs.

Posted in belief, creed | 3 Comments

I’m tired of long sentences and parentheses about church

Posted on January 25, 2012 by

(part of the Creed series)

Every time I say “church”, I feel like I have to explain.

By church, I never mean “church service” or “worship service” or “worship gathering” or “Sunday morning service” or even Saturday evening service. Those events are important. They allow us to listen, to sing together louder than we can sing alone, to have our private spiritual space invaded. They force us (or give us the opportunity) to give greetings and hugs, to share tears and frustrations, to be confronted with people that we don’t like and may have treated us rudely when we visited their store this week, but who are just as much in need of grace and healing as we are. But going to church services isn’t church.

By church, I never mean “church building” or “school building we are renting until we can get a real church” or “don’t run in the building because it is God’s house” I never mean “the  place that spent too much on glass and chandeliers when people are starving” or “the place that ignores the fact that God created us with eyes and some of us with an aesthetic sense that is affronted.”

Places have value. Humans are created in time and space. Spaces take on meaning for us. Having a building makes it possible to share it for blood drives and immunizations and kids basketball and weddings and funerals and a week’s worth of activity. But going to the building isn’t church.

When I say “I believe in the holy Church“, I mean the church being made holy. I mean the people who have decided that they, imperfect as they are, will follow Jesus and will do it in community, as imperfect as it is, with the rest of the people who have decided that they will follow Jesus.

Posted in creed | 6 Comments

I believe in the Holy Spirit

Posted on January 24, 2012 by

(Part of the Creed series)

My friend messed up his marriage. He’s trying to clean things up. He wanted to help at church in a public way. His wife said it made her very uncomfortable. He wanted to know what to do, since helping at church is a good thing, right?

I said, “Imagine you and your wife were working in the kitchen together. Somehow, you cut her hand, pretty seriously. As the cut is just starting to heal, imagine walking over and poking your finger into the cut.” I said, “That’s what you’d be doing.” We both flinched. He understood.

I believe in the Holy Spirit.

I didn’t want to apply for the job. I was an obvious candidate, but I didn’t want to apply. “Nope, I never want to sit in that chair.” One day, walking through the building, after saying again “Nope, I don’t want to,” I thought “I don’t get to tell God that.” Later, I started writing an application letter to the search committee, explaining. Mid-paragraph, the committee chair walked in.

I believe in the Holy Spirit.

I didn’t get the job.

I believe in the Holy Spirit.

I sat next to the little coffin. As I waited, I was aware of a feeling in my chest. I know the feeling of butterflies, the anxiousness before speaking, before performance, before importance. I know that feeling well. This was the opposite. Not deadness, but a living, moving peace.

I believe in the Holy Spirit

Jesus was talking to the disciples, the eleven: “The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.”

I believe in the Holy Spirit.

I don’t understand. I can’t explain. But I believe. How could I not?

Posted in belief, creed | 3 Comments

the one who decides.

Posted on January 23, 2012 by

(We are going back to the creed. Here’s what we’ve written so far.)

Most of us think judgment should exist. We want an end to gang violence and justice for families wrecked by meth manufacturers. We want an end to child trafficking and justice for those who buy and sell children like property. We want an end to brutal dictators and corporate theft and people who take our place in line.

We want just justice. We want fair judges to make the decisions, people who won’t yield to special interests or political expediency, people who will decide on the merits of the case, people who won’t allow the guilty to slide by on a technicality.

We want merciful justice. We want mercy involved in judging so there is protection for people who didn’t know any better, who were seduced against their will, who didn’t understand anything. We want someone judging who understands how complicated it is to be human, with weak wills and confusing choices.

The creed talks about judging. We read in the creed From [the right hand of the Father] he [Jesus] shall come to judge the living and the dead. The room divides. The ones who think they’re right. The ones who feel judged by the ones they believe think they are right.

When the room divides, some linger. They know that the date of judgment isn’t in the creed, nor is there any detail when the day is.  They don’t try to figure out rapture and tribulation, Lake of Fire, Armageddon.

Instead, we say we believe that the person who was the only-begotten son of God, who was born miraculously, lived, died, rose again, ascended and is sitting next to God the Father is going to come and judge us.  Who understands abuse and underdogs. Who knows both human and divine. A judge who could be just. And merciful.

Posted in belief, creed | 2 Comments