Story #17 in the Covenant series

I’d like to leave the narrative of Covenant Baptist Church for a moment and talk about something rather odd that I’ve noticed about our church. At Covenant, everything seems to be upside down and backwards. We’re not trying to be different. We’ve never called ourselves an “alternative church.” We do things that seem right to us, but they seem to be the opposite of what most churches do.

Now before I write this, I want to state very clearly and carefully that I am NOT suggesting that any other church ought to do things the way we do them. There is certainly no shortage of “how to do church” books out there, with Dr. This or Reverend That revealing the deep, spiritual truths he has discovered that will increase your fold, or foster real intimacy, or kick-start your small group ministry, or blah blah blah in a postmodern blah.

If I wrote a book it would be called, “How to take a church from 14 families to 40 families in only 10 years of bivocational ministry.” Just kidding, though that title would be accurate. My “how to” church book would be a single index card. Written on it in pencil would be this:...

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The response to my various posts about my worship experiences in the Orthodox Church was surprising, to say the least. Over 15,000 reads on the original post. I surpassed my bandwidth allowance for this month. I woke up this morning and RLP wasn't coming online. I got a temporary upping of bandwidth, so no worries. And no added expense for me.

It's been fun. I've enjoyed the emails from various Orthodox Christians. And in response to some who asked, there is a link to all four pieces at the top. I'll leave it there for a week or so.

But I intend that last one to be, indeed, the last one. I don't want to make a spectacle of myself. I probably already have. And if I'm not careful, my worship will end up being blog fodder. So far that has never entered my mind. I've not gone to a church with the thought of writing anything.

So, it's time to move on. I am planning to worship in three Orthodox churches in July. And then I'm back to Covenant Baptist Church. But I think I'll just keep these next three experiences to myself.

rlp

I’ve been in the mountains of Colorado for the last two Sundays. There is no Orthodox church in Creede. I’ve been worshipping at a little UCC church here that I love. And I’ve been reflecting on the Sundays of my sabbatical.

I don't think it was an accident that I felt drawn to the Orthodox Church in this short season. And I think I understand why these Sundays have been so meaningful to me. When I walk into an Orthodox Church, I don't know anything. I don’t know the theology. I don’t know the language. I don’t know the practice. I don’t know the deep meanings behind the symbols, icons, and worship movements. It’s like being a child again. A few weeks ago I asked the nice lady at the back if I could light a candle too. I didn’t know if it was permitted for visitors to light candles, and I wouldn’t have been insulted if I hadn’t been allowed, so deep into my child-like state was I. Children are always being told that they can’t do things. We’re used to it. So when she said, “Yes,” I was thrilled.

     Yay for me! I get to light a candle.

You know how kids are with candles; we love to light them. So I lit my candle and put it in the plate of sand with the others. I felt proud to have done it, and I looked around to see if anyone was watching me. Kids always think people are watching them. I was a small part of the worship service that day. Just a tiny part of it. My candle was one among many in a service where the candles themselves are just a small part of the whole. I kept looking at my candle, watching it slowly burn down. Another man lit one at the same time and our candles burned at the same rate, remaining the same height throughout the service. He had reddish hair and was skinny and had friendly eyes and he said hi to me after the service. I felt like we were candle buddies, our candles having been

Story #16 in the Covenant series

My third daughter was born on the last day of 1996. Having had two children already, we were feeling very relaxed and at ease, so we named her Lillian. We were thinking of the famous passage in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus urged his followers not to be consumed with worry.

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. Matthew 6:28-29

I’ve often felt it was a blessing that we named her Lillian, because within two months of her birth it was obvious something was wrong with her eyes. The doctor told us she had Strabismus, a condition that was once called “lazy eye.” There is a small window of time, early in life, where our eyes learn to work together. For whatever reason, Lillian missed that window of opportunity. Surgery and glasses might help her look straight ahead, but her eyes would never work in together to produce a three-dimensional view of the world.

About that same time Jeanene and I had become convinced that Covenant Baptist Church was never going to grow large enough to be able to afford a building. We loved Covenant, but we simply didn’t have enough people to pay for something like that. We were in a bind. People in our culture are accustomed to attending churches that have a permanent home. Right or wrong, that is the expectation. Without a building it can be hard to attract people. But without people, you can’t pay for a building...

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I hope you’ve seen Pulp Fiction so this next part makes sense.

You know what the funniest thing about the Mac is? It’s the little differences. I mean, they got the same stuff over there that we got here, but it’s just, with a Mac, it’s a little different.

Example:

Well, the first time I started a program on the Mac, I couldn’t figure out where the menu was. There was a menu at the top of the screen called “Finder,” with the familiar file, edit, and view commands along with others, though clicking those wasn’t bringing up anything I understood. I saw a program called “TextEdit” on the dock, a shiny shelf at the bottom of the screen. I clicked it, and a text editing window came up. Cool. But it had no menu at all. I spent an hour opening programs with the finder window, but then having no idea how to run them. It was like there were no menus in this strange world.

“How the hell do these people open documents and save them and do all the stuff you have to do?”

...Read the rest of my essay at Spyjournal, Tim Miller's tech blog.

Story #15 in the Covenant series

Births, weddings, and funerals. These are hallmark events of any church. At Covenant we had seen a few births, including two of my own children, and a number of weddings. But as of 1997, there had been no funerals. The reason is obvious enough: our oldest member at that time was 53. New churches are often started by younger people, but I always felt a little out of balance in those days. In the churches of my youth, there were always plenty of gray hair in the pews. I asked Ben once what he thought we could do to attract some older people to Covenant.

“We might just have to grow our own gray heads,” he said. “And if the offerings keep looking like this, Luke and I will be our first.”

But, as we all know, the old are not the only ones who die. And so death made it’s inevitable first call to Covenant Baptist Church...

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Many of you who read this blog know that I've had to take a job on the side. For ten years or so I designed websites along with my job as pastor of Covenant Baptist Church. I picked up some writing and blogging income along the way and stopped doing web design for a time, which was nice.

But our family has some unique health issues. Just keeping us insured and purchasing our medications is now more than our house payment used to be. But I'm not complaining. We have insurance and medication, which means we're better off than many. So I've gone back to web design. This time working for a great company, Jethro Management. It's good honest work, so I'm glad to do it.

I did feel a little bad about losing time for my writing, which I have. But the truth is, if you must write you will. And if you're not driven to write, then you won't, even if you have all the time in the world.

I feel a little funny doing this, but the truth is, I need the work. So if you need a website, particularly if you want one that is easy to maintain and can integrate seamlessly with social media, please contact me. Or give my name to anyone who does. I'd appreciate it!

Okay, so I'm excited this week because two of my projects went live. Both are Drupal content managed systems, both make use of RSS feeds and social media for fresh content.

The first is AlzCare, a company that runs specialized care facilities for Alzheimer's patients. We had an outside theme designer do the Drupal theme for this, and I did the graphic work.

The second is Woodland Baptist Church, a church here in town that is, like my own church, associated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Their pastor is a friend of mine. I did all the work on this site, including designing the Drupal theme.

Gordon
 

This is a short piece I wrote for The High Calling.

People say they love the parables of Jesus, which is understandable. Jesus was a wonderful storyteller. But I sometimes wonder if anyone is actually reading them. I find many to be rather frightening. In fact, the harshest judgment is for those who call themselves children of God and do not live faithfully in their daily lives.

I sometimes think the parables should carry a warning. “Let the reader beware.” One such parable is found in Matthew 24: 45-51. It is often called “The Parable of the Faithful and Unfaithful Steward.”

"Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. But if that wicked servant says to himself, 'My master is delayed,' and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

The story is simple enough: A master leaves behind a servant, whom he puts in charge of the other servants. He is a steward of the workforce. He's the first century equivalent of middle management. Modern readers who exist in the business world on levels below and above middle management will probably enjoy this story. Middle managers themselves might find it a bit scary...

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Story #14 in the Covenant series

I would have to say that our time meeting at Fox Run Elementary was wonderful. Unfortunately, we were facing a hard deadline. The school district was very accommodating to churches that wished to meet in schools, but they would only allow a church to meet in their schools for two years. They weren't wanting permanent residents, so their policy made good sense. We hoped that we would grow while we were at Fox Run and reach a place where we could afford our own building. Unfortunately, though we added some wonderful families in those years, we also lost the last of the families from the Kenny era. By then there were only 2 families from the original church. Though the land was paid for, we did not have the money to even consider beginning a building project.

Our two years in the school would be up in the middle of 1997. As the date approached, we began looking for a new place to meet. We had even less money in our budget than we had when we left the Duckblind Lounge, and schools were no longer an option. I drove around our neighborhood, as I had two years earlier, looking for a place where a church could meet for a few hundred dollars a month. I didn't find anything. There were places, to be sure, but none that we could afford.

It was pretty discouraging, and I began to have renewed doubts about whether our church would be able to stay together...

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I am aware that a large number of Orthodox Christians have found my accounts of visiting the Orthodox Church. The Internet is mysterious. Sometimes a posting or article "makes the rounds," as they say. I want to thank the Orthodox brothers and sisters who came by and said hello.

Update 11 June: Father Early has posted a picture of us at Saint Joseph Orthodox Church last Sunday.

Last Sunday Jeanene and I continued our sabbatical Sundays at Saint Joseph Orthodox Church in Houston. They are a part of the Antiochian tradition of the Orthodox Church. Someone in the church mentioned a connection with Antioch of Syria, which is the place where the term "Christian" first came to be used. I've been told that a great many Arab Christians are a part of this ancient tradition.

The people at Saint Joseph were very friendly. A man came up to us