An Urban Memory and a Tribute to a Fallen Urban Soldier

As you walked up I could tell you still were high from drinking all Saturday night. We talked for a bit and you said how drinking just wasn’t cutting it and you wanted something that the drinks couldn’t give you but you didn’t know what. You wondered if maybe someone could fix what you felt had always been broken.

As we talked other people kept going past us into this old church building. You asked what I thought about how you could love your girlfriend better and if you could be a good dad like you wanted to be. I shared with you how all our human relationships are connected to how our relationship with God is going. You said you never heard that before but it sounded right. You nodded for me to go on and so I did. I said that God created you to have a relationship with Him. You shook your head as a tear came to your right eye. I said how because of the wrong thoughts and wrong actions that we each do, each one keeps us forever separate from God and no matter how hard we try we can’t make it right. Soft tears were in both eyes as you nodded. I said that God loved us so much that he drew you here today to hear that He loves you so much that He sent His only Son to take the consequences of all the wrong you had ever done and instead of you being forever separated from God by spiritual death, He had taken your wrong doing and wrong thinking and carried it into death. I said you deserve to be punished for every wrong thought and every wrong action but God loved you so much that He had put all that crap on His Son Jesus and then God punished Jesus instead of you. Although Jesus suffered and died for you, because He is God‘s Son He rose from the dead three days later and said that whoever believes that He died and rose from the grave, agreeing with God about their wrong thinking and wrong actions, and turning away from that stinking thinking and turning away from those wrong actions, can receive God‘s gift of eternal life and have total forgiveness. Because Jesus paid the price for you, you are cleansed of all you did wrong and if you believe in Him and what He did for you, then you can have that good relationship with God that God created you to have.

At some point you had quit looking at me and hung your head. When you looked up I saw that tears in your eyes had spilled onto your cheeks. You smiled and turned to your left and walked up the steps into the church building.

I stayed out here a while and greeted late comers as the band played.

As you walked in this door, you apparently were welcome by a tall African American friend of mine named Aaron who saw your tears and you talked with him and you prayed with him as the band was playing and people were worshipping God through singing and prayer. I heard about this part later because I was still outside.

Then apparently you walked to the front and stood with Aaron in front of everyone to tell people that you had received Jesus as your Savior because you knew you couldn’t fix stuff in your life and that only Jesus could fix it. At point someone came outside and told me to “get in here! You gotta see this!” As I entered I saw you with your head bowed, Aaron’s left hand on your right shoulder, and he was praying for you.

I’ve been thinking about this all week. Ever since people asked me to be praying for you because of a freak accident. I’ve been praying but God said no to my layers to heal you. I don’t like it when God says no. I do like it when He says yes and when He shines His light into our hearts to give us the strength to say yes to Him. I am glad you let Him shine His light in your heart to say yes to Him at that little church building on the corner of W45th & Bridge.

We will miss you here on earth but we are glad that if we also hope in Jesus then we will see you again when Jesus returns and when we I’ll all rise from the dead to physically live forever with Him and with one another.

I’ll see you then friend. I’m looking forward to it.

Leading Past CoronaVirus

A lot of people in the world get it. But do God’s people get it? God has given the church a wake up call. Our idolatries are before us. What will we do with them?

In the next phase of church life, we have an opportunity from God to increase cooperation between the centralized church models of the last few decades with decentralized models as part of a deliberate turning toward greater gospel distribution.

What would it look like for church leaders to be equipping…

1. every believer to be able to cross a culture,

2. every believer to be able to invite others to repentance,

3. every believer to be able to clearly communicate the Good News,

4. every believer to be able to provide pastoral care,

5. every believer to be able to teach the basics of the faith.

Perhaps the next wave of church will be equipping every believer to humbly exercise the authority of Christ to distribute His forgiveness all over the place.

We really can empower believers to live out the Great Commission in dependence on the Great Companion by living out the Great Commandment.

Gotta Move On!

Some thoughts about the world’s response to this pandemic and a path forward we each may want to initiate on purpose.

Clinically, I have had a lot of experiences with people who have been handed bad news. I have been the one who had to tell them the bad news. Had to walk with others on the journey through The valley of the shadow of death. I have myself also experienced deep grief. In almost all of my experiences, the stages of grief have proven to be a classic pattern that held true for a pathway toward healing. In this time when our global community is grieving, we each are also on this pathway. The parts of grief proposed by Kübler-Ross are: 

• Denial: “This can’t be happening to me.”

• Anger: “Why is this happening? Who is to blame?”

• Bargaining: “Make this not happen, and in return I will ____.”

• Depression: “I’m too sad to do anything.”

• Acceptance: “I’m at peace with what happened.” 

Sometimes the stages happen in a stepwise fashion. Sometimes not. But the point is that each part is experienced. 

Globally we have seen denial as world leaders failed to act quickly enough on knowledge they had. Some denying for a time that the Coronavirus was going to be a problem. 

We see bargaining as societies try to negotiate with the pandemic and find ways to protect high risk individuals. 

All along we have seen blaming as conspiracy theories (correct or not) erupt on the internet in search of someone to blame for this grievous pandemic.  Most recently we are seeing anger as groups protest, act out, even use violence against those trying to protect them. 

Are we seeing global wide depression yet? With whole societies too sad and overwhelmed with death, joblessness, and financial crisis to do anything, depression seems a matter of course. How do we respond in each in each of these stages? We, as individuals, as well as a community, are each going through these stages. We can be gracious with one another to respond in love and patience, to others and to ourselves. This response may require strength from outside of ourselves, a strength from Someone who understands grief deeper than we do.

Everyone moves through grief at a different speed. For some societies this grief will trigger other griefs and fears that lay close under the surface. But at the end comes acceptance. Acceptance that this pandemic is real, that the tragedy is happening, and that we must adjust our lives moving forward because there is no going back to “the way things were before.”

-- by Karen Ammari DNP, MSN, APRN

Criticism or Perspective Check

A few years back I was making mistakes in my job. I didn’t know I was making mistakes but I was about to find out. A trusted friend in the work environment confronted me but did so in a manner that violated my trust. You see, this friend wrote a detailed letter of how I screwed up and sent it to me AND to my direct report.

OUCH.

Yup. That hurt. Interestingly, my direct report disagreed with my friend and thought I had not made any mistakes and was doing just fine. I met with my friend and after a hard conversation, this friend severed the friendship. A seven year long friendship was over and I was crushed.

Then I came across this…

Search me, God, and know my heart;
    test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting. - Psalm 139

Hm. So I prayed and asked God to show me if there was any offensive way in me. The thought I had was to get some perspective. I drafted a couple of questions and shot them off via email to a variety of trusted people. These people are those who have been used of God to encourage me or challenge me over the years. The list of people included mentors, pastors, professors, and friends. The result was excellent.

The perspective that I gained from hearing from trusted people turned the criticism of one friend into the perspective check I needed from a bunch of friends. Little did I know that I would need to repeat this perspective check a couple more times in the years ahead. Each time I did repeat it, I was both encouraged and challenged. Each time was rewarding in every way.

If you’ve been criticized and want to delve into a similar perspective check, consider copying these questions into an email and sending it to a few trusted people. It was risk for me to do so. It turned out to be a risk worth taking that paid rich dividends. Perhaps it will pay of for you too.

1.      What is your perception of my reputation?

2.      Do you feel that I am in a truly healthy place in life?

3.      Do you believe that I am a whole person?

4.      Where do you see that I may be unwhole?

5.      What are the strengths you’ve seen in me that I need to continue to cultivate in order to continue to be effective (in my work/ministry/service, or in my family, or in my friendships)?

6.      What are the weaknesses that you’ve seen that could undermine my effectiveness (in my work/ministry/service, or in my family, or in my friendships)?

Criticism or Perspective. Maybe it’s time to check.

My Last Marriage

It all started when...

I was first asked to do a wedding! I wrestled with the idea that God called me to make disciples and preach the Gospel, not fulfill social institutions that could be done by anybody. Then it occurred to me, why can't I make disciples through premarital counseling! 

Ever since the Spirit of God gave me that idea (and I am sure I'm not the first one He gave that idea to), I've always seen a wedding day as a carrot to move a pair of lovebirds (or people living together who want to finally get married) toward God's will for their lives as disciples of Christ. In my years as the pastor of a local church, many people have come asking if I would "do their wedding." Invariably, I would ask them to ask their spouse to be if the two of them would meet with me so I could explain the price required to hire my wedding services. Since many people charge fees in US Dollars, the couple often assumed that's what's coming. 

In fact, the fee for me to do someone's wedding has become a kind of running joke as evident by a couple people saying I need to have t-shirts printed for each married couple who endures the premarital counseling. The t-shirt they've repeatedly suggested is "We survived Premarital Bible BootCamp with Juri." :-)

So what's in this plan? It's basic disciple-making. Basic disciplemaking is all about learning to listen well so as to grow in depth of relationship with God. Of course, this is measured by how we are growing in depth of relationship with others. (c.f. 1 John 4)

In the context of premarital counseling, in order for me to do a wedding, I require the couple to go through

1. The Getting Ready for Marriage Workbook,

2. read (or listen) to the entire New Testament,

3. plan the details of their wedding ceremony (except for the homily which is my last Bible study with them), and

4. agree to meet with me for "well marriage checks" at approximately the 3 month, 6 month, and 12 month anniversaries.

This then is my fee: 10 sessions with me (or a trained representative of mine) covering the workbook, reading the NT, planning their ceremony, allowing me to "preach" during the homily, and agreeing to the well marriage checks. 

During the sessions I'll start by asking each one to share one thing they've learned from the Scripture. If they seem attentive to God's leading (regardless of whether or not they've trusted in Christ), I'll asking them if they heard from God through the Scripture & if so have they done what He's put on their heart. We'll review the workbook briefly & I'll set up the next chapter with them to make sure they understand what the next chapter is asking of them. Of course, specifics of each meeting change but that's the basics.

Once the workbook is complete, I'll give them a copy of The Christian Wedding Planner and show them how to select the order of service and the specific word choice they would like me to use. If they do not like anything in that chapter (Chapter 13 I think), then they are welcome to write their own ceremony. Of course, I remind them they can have me say almost anything they want and they can say and do almost anything they want, but I get to share a short sermon (homily).

Throughout the weeks that we meet, I repeatedly ask each of them if they are sure they want to continue down this road. I ask them this same question at the rehearsal and before I pray with each of them the day of the wedding. I guess if I can't talk them out of it, then they might just make it! If they've taken to heart the ideas of learning to listen to God through His Word, learning to listen to one another as an expression of their love for God, and putting them into practice, then they have a pretty good foundation to build a life together on.