Parables

Even though we've been doing series with sets and skits and videos for 2-1/2 years, I'm still asked from time to time why we have the style services that we do. Are we trying to be trendy? Are we trying to be different? What's the point of it all? Why do we need all this stuff to have a worship service?

There are a lot of ways to answer these questions, but I think the best way to say it is that we're trying to be like Jesus.

The Bible tells us that "Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables; he did not say anything to them without using a parable. So was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet: I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden since the creation of the world (Ps. 78:2)." (Mt. 13:34-35).

The parable is clearly Jesus' preferred mode of communication with the crowds that came to hear him, so much so that Matthew tells us Jesus did not say anything to them without using a parable. The Bible records 39 parables of Jesus in the four gospels (20 in Matthew, 8 in Mark, 25 in Luke, and 1 in John--some are duplicated in more than one gospel).

If you were to visit dictionary.com for a definition of the word "parable" you would probably read that a parable is "a short allegorical story designed to illustrate or teach some truth, religious principle, or moral lesson." Although this is clearly an accurate definition, it doesn't give us a full insight into a biblical parable.

To better understand what a parable is, we need to investigate the origin of the word. The English word parable comes from the Greek word parabole which literally means "to place alongside." So a parable places two things next to each other for the purposes of comparing them. In Easton's Bible Dictionary this comparison is further explained as being a comparison of earthly things with heavenly things, making a parable an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. And that is exactly what Jesus did, in his parables he would compare an aspect of everyday life with a truth about the kingdom of God.

Why did Jesus speak to the people in parables? The Bible tells us there are two reasons:

1. "So was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet: I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden since the creation of the world (Ps. 78:2)." (Mt. 13:35). The first purpose of Jesus' parables is to disclose what was previously hidden to people. How did the parables accomplish this? Parables are puzzles, whose purpose is neither to (only) entertain or to perplex their audience, or to give them games to play. But rather, they are stories at whose heart lays a metaphor, like a narrative poem. Jesus was not doing stand-up comedy, nor was he trying to be difficult. He used the language of parable because he was speaking of something that was intangible. He was speaking of something unseen. And like the poet, he had the difficult task of making the unseen, seen. The best way to do that is to use the familiar things of this world that people already understand, in order to help them understand the unfamiliar things of God that have been, up to this point, beyond their grasp.
2. "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that though seeing, they may not see; though hearing they may not understand (Isa 6:9)." (Lk. 8:10). The second purpose of parables is to obscure and confuse. Often the meanings contained in Jesus' parables were left, for the moment, unseen. Even the disciples had difficulty understanding, and more than once asked Jesus to explain them. Scripture can be difficult. It takes work. Jesus wanted to reward those who wrestled with what he had to say, those who weighed his words carefully and pondered his message. For he knew that those who were engaged in the learning process would be better students in the end than those who had simply had their lessons handed to them.

It seems like these two purposes are at cross purposes with each other, but they actually work together. A minister once wrote, "Only the poetic imagination can understand the Bible. Like unsolved puzzles, the meaning of parables can lie hidden in the mind. Hindrances to our understanding abound--like bars on a door or locks on a gate. But one does remain curious about what lies on the other side." Parables open up new understandings for us that we had not seen previously, but only for those who are active, engaged participants in the learning process.

What does this have to do with our worship services? Our Sunday services are essentially parables. We take an ordinary, understandable, earthly theme and connect it with a heavenly meaning--an exercise gym (God's Gym), a movie (Marty Python), Commercials, a work environment (The Office), stock car racing (Driven). Every skit, every video clip, every set, most songs, and many messages are essentially parables--layered in meaning, providing us with the opportunity to see and experience God in a new and broader way than we ever had before, but only if we're willing to engage the eternal, spiritual truths that are hidden everywhere in the ordinary things of this world.

Driven

I myself am not a huge NASCAR fan, but I know that many people are, especially in this area. NASCAR claims 75 million fans worldwide--for more on this (perhaps inflated?) number, you can check this out--but whatever the actual number, it's significant.

This Sunday is the annual Father's Day NASCAR race at MIS, and it's also the launch of our new five-week series, "Driven." Not being a fan, I recently took advantage of the chance to visit with Tim Booth, the Director of Guest Services at MIS, and I learned a few interesting things.

• During the two weekend NASCAR races at MIS (consisting of 6 days of racing action), the facility plays host to a half million people.
• There are seven different campgrounds at MIS for people to camp at during the race weekends.
• The campground in the middle of the track (the infield) is the most popular. It even has its own convenience store!
• The average NASCAR team requires around $20 million in sponsorships to race a full season.

A lot of people pour a lot of time, money, and passion into auto racing. With the high speeds and the high stakes, it certainly is an exciting sport. But the drive for heaven and for an eternity with Christ is even more exciting! In fact, everything else pales in comparison. The apostle Paul put it this way:

"I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in him... Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."

This is what our new series is about--the race of our lives. It's about what drives us, what fuels us, what propels us forward. It's about our goals and crossing the finish line. It's about what it takes to take the checkered flag.

Because the reality is that everyone is driven by something. Every one of us has basic motivations that drive our decisions, our attitudes, and our actions. Some of us are driven by a desire to get ahead. Some of us are driven by a desire to get even. Some of us are driven by our fears. Some of us are driven by our egos. We’re taking five weeks to ask two questions: What drives me? and What should drive me? When you’re in the race of your life, you’ve got to know for sure.

I want to encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity to bring an unchurched friend to this series, especially any friends you might have that are into NASCAR. This could be an eternity-changing series for their lives.

Key Three

Ever since we introduced the Key Three, we've had a bunch of series that have revolved around communicating and reinforcing these ideas, and there are a couple more in the works:

• Key Three (Fall 2006)
• McFaith (Fall 2007)
• God's Gym (Winter 2008)
• Driven (Summer 2008)
• Unstoppable (Winter 2009)

In addition to these series, there have been numerous individual weeks where we've talked about the Key Three in detail, like we did this Sunday, relating the Key Three to communion. The Key Three are in our bulletins every week. In fact, the three symbols accompany every component of the bulletin, such as the scripture readings, the announcements, and the small groups.

The Key Three serve as the basis for our four Journey classes:

• Journey 101: Membership/Introduction to PCC
• Journey 201: Real Spirituality
• Journey 301: Real Community
• Journey 401: Real Story

The Key Three are essential in our church structure. We talk about them in staff meetings, elders meetings, and Church Council meetings. As a church, we don't do anything that does not relate to one of the Key Three, no matter how good it may be, and we run everything through the rubric of the Key Three.

The Key Three is not a program--something we do--it is something we are. This is what we live, breathe, and think every moment of every day.

It is a three-legged stool. You can't remove or truncate any one of them without throwing the entire setup off-balance. And I guess that's why it's so disheartening when we operate outside of the Key Three. Here are some of the ways I see us getting turned around from time to time:

• Real Spirituality means growing. A real relationship with God means we cannot stay in the same place week after week, month after month, year after year. Salvation = Transformation.
• Real Spirituality means taking responsibility for your own Christian life. It doesn't matter what church I attend, who the pastor is, what my baggage is. The only one responsible for my journey of faith is me. It's easier to blame the circumstances around me for why I "can't" succeed spiritually, but it lacks honesty.
• Real Community means having tough, honest conversations. Our church and every other church in America is plagued by chronic illness of pseudo-niceness, a disease that sugar-coats our relationships, greeting one another with smiley-sweet sappiness, while all the time hiding unspoken reservations, concerns, hurts, and needs. Whenever we withhold what is really going on in our lives, we are lying to the body of Christ.
• Real Community means committed relationships. It's not enough to belong to a church I rarely attend. It's not enough to be on a team I don't contribute much to. It's not enough to be in a small group that I go to when it's convenient. We can "do" all the church things and not get anything out of any of them. All these things are just tools; it's up to each of us to use them properly in our lives, and the proper use is with commitment. If we don't invest ourselves, we won't find any return in our lives.
• Real Story means words and actions. It's not enough to be attracted to the idea of people coming to Christ. We have to make room in our lives for unchurched people, show the love of Christ to them tangibly, and then verbally communicate that love. If we're not doing that, we aren't living Real Story.

The church is like a popcorn popper. All we can do is create the right environment for the kernels to pop. We make sure there's heat, make sure there's oil, but we can't control the popping process. Some kernels pop sooner, some later; some never pop at all. We can provide the environment that is helpful for spiritual growth, but the "kernels" have to respond to the environment.

You want to know what wears me out as a pastor? It's not working 50+ hours a week at two jobs. It's when I see people reject God's invitation to a fuller life, as they settle for convenience, ease, and mundane mediocrity.

Integrity

During this series on "The Office," we've been discussing the intersection of our faith and our work, and we've talked a lot about integrity. "Integrity" means "the state of being whole or undivided." It comes from the same Latin root as the word "integer," which refers to whole numbers (not fractions or decimals, which are numbers that are sub-divided). "Integrity" is also related to "integrate," which is to bring different parts of something together. We want to integrate our faith life and our work life so that we have just life, a life of integrity--wholeness, completeness, not a life that's sub-divided.

You see, God wants to be the God of our whole lives, not just parts and pieces. That means that God has something to say about every aspect of our lives:

• Our work
• Our finances
• Our relationships
• Our marriage and family
• Our hobbies
• Our time management
• Our entertainment

Every single choice that we make in every area of our lives has spiritual ramifications--everything is spiritual.

We need to break down this idea that God is only for Sunday mornings, for church, or whenever I happen to read my Bible or pray. If God is God, he is God all the time, God over the universe, God over my whole life. Everything I do matters to God, and he's not after our lip service--he's after our lives.

Yes, we often fall short of perfection. Our many weaknesses mock our dreams and aspirations. But a life of integrity continues to strive toward the goal, bringing every thought captive to Christ, so that every aspect of who we are will reverberate with his character.

We take a rest from work. We take a break from other people, sometimes. But there is no vacation in the Christian life. There's no time off. There's no part of us that "doesn't count." If we belong to God, we belong to him all the time--every moment, every day.

That may seem like a discouraging thought, if we've conditioned ourselves to equate God with the father that we could never please, or the boss who's always looking over our shoulder. But as we find success and grow deeper in our relationship with him, that realization becomes a comfort and an encouragement. God cares deeply about everything about us. He wants us to be the best we can be in every area. He has a purpose and a design for everything, and as we turn ourselves over to him, we find a purpose, a direction, a satisfaction that we've never known.

We've kind of made this new song an unofficial theme song for the series. It sums up this idea of integrity--where Christ becomes the center that everything else revolves around:

"Center" by Charlie Hall & Matt Redman

O Christ, be the center of our lives
Be the place we fix our eyes
Be the center of our lives

You're the center of the universe
Everything was made in you
Breath of every living thing
Everyone was made for you

You hold everything together
You hold everything together

O Christ, be the center of our lives
Be the place we fix our eyes
Be the center of our lives

We lift our eyes to heaven
We wrap our lives around your life
We lift our eyes to heaven, to you

United Brethren?

Those of you who are members of PCC know that our church is affiliated with the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, USA, a denomination of about 200 churches (located primarily in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania) headquartered in Huntington, IN. Those of you who don't know that are probably thinking, "What in the world are United Brethren?" We don't push our denominational label much because we believe it's our job to lead people to a relationship with Christ, not to lead them to a denomination. On the other hand, we affiliate with a denomination because we find it beneficial to do so for a number of reasons.

What probably none of you know is that the denominational offices have recently undergone a "re-branding." They no longer refer to themselves as the UB Headquarters, UB offices, or (for the more sarcastic among us) "Mecca." Instead, they are "Healthy Ministry Resources." This is how they answer the phone, what they put on the letterhead, and what they have on the sign out front. See??

Maybe you're one of those that thinks, "Big, hairy, flippin' deal. Who even knew what the old UB Headquarters sign looked like anyway?!" You probably don't spend hours perusing the UB website, and you don't call Huntington on the phone even on a weekly basis. Come to think of it, neither do I!

But this actually is a big deal whether you know it or not. This is not primarily about a sign, a logo, or how to answer the phone--it's about a philosophy. Our denominational leadership believes that the only purpose they exist is to resource the local church--to support, equip, and mobilize us toward health and fruitfulness. This is actually the opposite approach taken by most denominations, which seem to assume that the local churches exist to fund and resource the denominational structure.

As our bishop, Ron Ramsey says, "Jesus told us to go into all the world and make disciples. That is our mission. And the humble local church, existing in thousands of varieties around the world, is Christ's front-line vehicle for carrying out that mission... Healthy Ministry Resources is not a church. Jesus never said, 'I will build my denominational headquarters, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.' No, we are a man-made institution. The only reason we exist is to undergird local churches. It's not about us. It's about the churches we serve." (my emphasis)

Isn't that cool? As a result, the denominational offices are focusing exclusively on serving and resourcing local churches to be more effective in fulfilling the Great Commission. I think we can be grateful for denominational leadership that take such a humble approach.

I'd encourage you to take some time and check out what's going on. This philosophy really tells you everything you need to know about the United Brethren Church: it's all about being effective for Christ's kingdom.

• Healthy Ministry Resources
• Bishop Blog
• Global Ministries

Here are some other related websites:

• UB website (non-HMR denominational info/news)
• Huntington University

I Don't Believe In Camels Anymore

It was when I was a Worship Pastor at Hillsdale UB Church that I first heard about the "Law Of The Two-Humped Camel." This allegedly unassailable truth declares that church attendance unalterably follows predictable patterns that look like the humps on a bactrian camel.



According to this so-called law, attendance starts out low at the beginning of the year because of the bad weather, then spikes in the spring with Easter, followed by summer doldrums (due to good weather) and another uptick in the fall until the snowbirds leave for Florida at the end of the year.

According to "The Law," to fight the two-humped camel would require changing weather patterns, cancelling all graduations and weddings, assaulting the American vacation, removing Florida from the union, and converting all schools to a year-round system. It simply can't be done.


In my life, I've certainly seen the evidence for "The Law," and I can understand how "The Law" came to be. However, I've recently decided that I no longer believe in camels or their attendant laws. There are tacit assumptions behind "The Law" that I simply don't buy, such as:

• The only people who will ever attend your church are those who are already attending your church. If snowbirds leave for Florida in December, that should cause a downturn in attendance only for (northern) churches that aren't growing. But a church that is continually attracting new people shouldn't care what month it is.
• Church is not worth driving through the snow for. We brave the snow for groceries, doctor's appointments, holidays, family, and work! How is it we will go to work every day no matter what the weather is, but then expect people to stay home if there's snow on a Sunday morning? I think if a church isn't worth driving to on a snowy day, that's an indicator of other problems. (Disclaimer: obvious exceptions for exceptionally hazardous weather and the elderly)
• Church is not attractive enough to compete with summer fun. If camping, golfing, fishing, tennis, croquet, bocci ball, and swimming are more appealing than coming to worship, then what are we doing wrong with our worship services?

I refuse to accept that two families going on vacation at the same time should impact our worship attendance. What about the two new families who will be there that same week? They'll only come if we as a church don't coast for the summer.

As it turns out, we have a number of efforts targeted at reaching our community this summer:

• SPLASH (Single Parents Letting Another Supply Help): Starting on June 10, and running every Tuesday evening through the summer, this is a chance for single parents to have a break and connect with one another for support.
• Community Garage Sale: We're inviting all our surrounding neighborhoods to bring their junk to PCC for one massive flea market.
• Pathway Community Camping: A Saturday-Sunday overnighter at the church. Food. Games. Bonfire. Movie. Outdoor Service. Lots of fun.
• Lugnuts Baseball Game: Buy two tickets and invite a friend!
• Soccer Camp: Of course.
• And more!

I'm excited about all these initiatives! I believe that they will produce fruit, and I've even decided to pray that our attendance will go UP this summer. Maybe if you're daring enough, you will too. So long, camel! I hope you have fun with your new friend, the unicorn!

Fun, Sun, & Run

As most of you know, I was in Florida last week. Many of you have asked me how my vacation and conference were. So I wanted to share some of the highlights. I had vacation Thursday through Sunday, and in that time, I got to:

• Spend lots of time with my dad and brother
• Go to the beach (twice!)
• Play 18 holes
• See two minor league (class-A) baseball games
• Attend my brother's church in Tampa
• See Ben Stein's new documentary, "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed"

It was a pretty full four days! My dad, who lives in Lynden, WA, had to be in North Carolina around the time of my conference, so he arranged to take some extra days so that the three of us could be together. It was a great time.

On Monday morning, my dad drove me to my conference in Orlando. I was there Monday through Thursday afternoon, and flew back to Michigan Thursday evening. While at the conference, I got to spend a lot of time with other UB pastors in Michigan who are involved in church planting. It was great to get to know all of these guys a little bit better:

• Tom Blaylock, the UB Director of Church Multiplication
• Gordon Kettel, the planting pastor of Imagine This, LLC, in Grand Ledge
• Howard Matthews, the planting pastor of Homefront Church in Grandville
• Mark Ralph, pastor at Sunfield UB Church, one of the mother churches for a recent Wesleyan church plant in Portland. Mark has also planted churches in Alabama and Florida.

At the conference, I got to hear from some of the leading voices for church planting in our country--Ed Stetzer, Andy Stanley, Rick Warren, and many others. In addition, I got the opportunity to network and meet some of the denominational and Michigan District leaders in the Missionary Church. My hope is that establishing contact with them personally will make it easier to bring in Missionary churches to our inter-denominational church-planting network for Jackson County.

To sum up the conference in the space of this blog is simply impossible. I have so much information I can't even begin to distill it down into a paragraph or two, so I'm not going to try. What I can tell you is that I found my time there to be immensely beneficial, and I'm extremely grateful to the denomination for sending me--it's an incredible honor.

On a final note, it's been exciting to come back and see what's been going on in our church in my absence. There are all kinds of ideas flying around about how to get out into our community. Small groups, minsitry teams, and individuals have been taking initiative to make things happen, and I couldn't be more pleased! Soon, there will be a lot to talk about as plans come together. I hope you're ready to be a part of impacting our community, serving them and their needs in the name of Christ. This is the business he's called his church to be about.