September 3, 2010

• Where are the 10 best cities to live in during the next decade? Here are Kiplinger's picks.

• Best cities for raising families? Here's that list. (Discerning eyes will note a similarity.)

• Gary Walter continues to inspire as he unpacks and re-articulates the identity of The Evangelical Covenant Church. He's doing a series of columns in The Covenant Companion and it's great stuff. Here are his columns available online (so far): March, April, May, and June. I am proud to call him friend and leader.

August 18

-A great article about my family, The Evangelical Covenant Church, in a Duke Divinity School publication. (via Don)

-Miles had a great week this summer at Lions Camp. They do camp weeks for kids with cancer, kids with disabilities, kids recovering from burns - and kids with diabetes. It was Miles' first stay-over camp. He was resistant for years and went under protest this year - but came back with plans in place to return next year. If you know anyone who is a member of the Lions Club, tell them they are doing a great thing with their camps.

-Something big is happening in my life on August 30. God is teaching me how much I need to learn patience - by showing me how impatient I am.

Peter and Christine Kyhn is blogging on worship

This will be worth following...

My Utmost - May 31

My favorite line from today's reading:

God came as a baby, giving and entrusting Himself to me. He expects my personal life to be a “Bethlehem.”

A great turn of phrase. Bethlehem was the place into which God the Son was born. It is the place where His presence on earth was first revealed, and from which He moved, into other places, living a life that would grow in influence and extend God's gradce, love, healing, blessing and forgiveness to all.

MY life (and yours) is intended to be like Bethlehem - revealing Christ's presence on earth, carrying God's presence with us into other places, allowing our lives to influence the world in good and gracious ways, communicating love, healing, forgiveness and blessing.

Some days I definitely feel that I am doing that. What would the world look like if everyone who loves Him could live that way all the time?

My Utmost - May 27

My Utmost for His Highest

I resonate with this. "Tarry"... Wait. I don't like waiting. But the disciples are told to wait.

Oswald writes "Our waiting is not dependent on the providence of God, but on our own spiritual fitness."

I don't like reading that but I accept it as true. There is work God is doing in me right now that He feels is necessary.

"The attitude of receiving and welcoming the Holy Spirit into our lives is to be the continual attitude of a believer. When we receive the Holy Spirit, we receive reviving life from our ascended Lord."

Had a friend in England who I remember for saying that if someone asks if you are filled with the Spirit, the correct answer is "If you have to ask, I must not be".

Remember the illustration: What does a glove do when it is not filled with the hand? Nothing. But when the hand fills the glove, the glove's actions are identical to the hand's intent and action.

Let me be a filled glove today.

My Utmost • May 19

My Utmost for his Highest
I love this passage about being secure in the love of Christ. And I like where Oswald takes us: to realize that our experience of being "more than conquerors" comes to use when we are in all of these trying experiences.

I don't like going through trying experiences. But the times I have most experienced God's power to save and lift me have all been in times of trials. And what greater trial is there than the knowledge that I am lost? What greater lift than the lift I experience by trusting in Him?

My Utmost - May 18

My Utmost for His Highest

I can't count the number of times when I have been stressing about some circumstance or other in my life (and like everyone, I have plenty) as I am driving down the road, when my attention will be caught by the flight of a bird, and I will recall the words of Jesus:

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

...and I think to myself, how small is my faith. How quick I am to question, to doubt God's faithfulness. I like Oswald's remark,

So often we impair God’s designed influence, which He desires to exhibit through us, because of our own conscious efforts to be consistent and useful. Jesus said there is only one way to develop and grow spiritually, and that is through focusing and concentrating on God. In essence, Jesus was saying, “Do not worry about being of use to others; simply believe on Me.” In other words, pay attention to the Source, and out of you “will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38 ).

My Utmost • May 17

I remember processing with a friend years ago the whole concept of the ascension of Jesus. Something about it just seemed not quite right. What was it? Was it that it seemed so other-worldly? So different from any experience we might have? That felt like part of it. After all, a Jesus who goes fishing with friends, I can relate to. A Jesus who eats bread and drinks wine with his buddies, I can understand. I've fished; I've enjoyed bread; I've shared evenings with friends over a glass of wine. That part, I get.

But on further reflection, that's not the "bind". I've gone fishing, but I haven't calmed a storm, or any of the other miracles Jesus did, and yet they don't bother me.

Finally we arrived at the real issue. I didn't like the idea of Jesus leaving - being gone - in essence, what feels like abandonment.

And once I named it, I realized this was the turning point. Because the Jesus who ascended, seemingly leaving His friends, is the Jesus who said "I will never leave you or forsake you".

My friend Doug Hanks wrote about it in a song that I've always appreciated. The chorus:

"I'll never leave you or forsake you;
You will never be alone;
I'm with you always,
until I bring you home".

The presence of Jesus is mine through the person he promised and sent: The Holy Spirit of God. And that's Oswald's point today. Because Jesus was ascended, he through the Holy Spirit is present to me moment by moment. And to you as well.

My Utmost • May 15

I have been away from blogging for a season and considering how to jump back in and decided that I am going to resume by responding to Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost for His Highest", which I read almost daily.

Today's reading is in many ways an expansion and continuation of yesterday's counsel. There I read these words:

It is adversity that makes us exhibit (Jesus’) life … The only thing that will enable me to enjoy adversity is the acute sense of eagerness of allowing the life of the Son of God to evidence itself in me. No matter how difficult something may be, I must say, “Lord, I am delighted to obey You in this.”

You must keep yourself in the proper condition to allow the life of the Son of God to be manifested in you, and you cannot keep yourself fit if you give way to self-pity. Our circumstances are the means God uses to exhibit just how wonderfully perfect and extraordinarily pure His Son is. Discovering a new way of manifesting the Son of God should make our heart beat with renewed excitement. It is one thing to choose adversity, and quite another to enter into adversity through the orchestrating of our circumstances by God’s sovereignty. And if God puts you into adversity, He is adequately sufficient to supply all your need.

Delighting in obeying, in following - even when difficult, even when painful. That is a challenge. I have gotten pretty good at accepting, at following. But not at finding joy in it.
 
So today Oswald coaches us on "rising to the occasion". For me these are the key words:

May God not find complaints in us anymore, but spiritual vitality—a readiness to face anything He brings our way. The only proper goal of life is that we manifest the Son of God; and when this occurs, all of our dictating of our demands to God disappears ... We are here to submit to His will so that He may work through us what He wants. Once we realize this, He will make us broken bread and poured-out wine with which to feed and nourish others.

And this is precisely my cutting edge. Incredibly, once I get that into my head, a change in attitude is following, and joy is more readily showing up.
 
The one passage that causes me to wrestle is this:

You did not do anything to achieve your salvation, but you must do something to exhibit it. You must “work out your own salvation” which God has worked in you already ( Philippians 2:12 ).

How does this challenge to "work it out" relate to the reminder of Galatians 3:3 -

After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?

In other words I wrestle with the call to invest energies into the process of sanctification, while also wanting to embrace the certainty of Philippians 1:6 -

being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Willy Wonka Clips

Groundhog Day plus 1

• Here is a great little piece by my friend whom I have always called "Stevie Baby". (I don't think anyone else does. Don't ask me why, I just have.). He is a terrific guy, a great man and a great blogger, and this is worth reading.

• Miles is preparing a display. The assignment is supposed to simply tell about himself, and here are some awesome pictures he chose to tell his story:

Good Reading

A good week for freedom

The fall of the house of Kennedy

Now the hard work begins

The emergency rescue efforts in Haiti will be wrapping up in the next day or two. This week the efforts will start to shift more toward creating longer term relief systems to care for the earthquake survivors. In the months which follow community development projects will emerge to help people not only rebuild but also to improve on what they had.

I am priveleged to be a part of Covenant World Relief, an extremely efficient compassion and mercy network which works through all phases of such crises. Before most of us were aware of the magnitude of the Haiti earthquake there were already CWR operatives en route. Within hours, through our partners, we were busy rescuing men, women, and children. Now we're providing water, food, and shelter to thousands. In the coming months and years CWR will be there to assist in rebuilding -- just as we were after the hurricanes along the Gulf Coast, the tsunami in Asia, the turmoil in Sudan, and the list goes on.

Covenant World Relief is a grassroots Christian relief agency. Because we work with churches and through in-country partners we don't have a lot of the overhead expenses incurred by many organizations. Because we operate through the natural bonds and connections within the Evangelical Covenant churches we don't have to spend a lot of money or energy in marketing. This means that donations go quickly, quietly (without a lot of hype and fanfare), and directly to areas of need.

If you would like to share in this ministry you can:

1. Make an online donation to the CWR Haiti relief effort. (Do it now - even if it's only 5 bucks)

2. Read more about CWR at their website.

3. Follow their blog.

4. Pray
(via) - Thanks Brad for expressing this so well!

What a good article

Thanks, Beth B and Brad B (no relation) for linking to this wonderful article and for getting my attention with this quote:

" Jesus doesn't call us to make a difference in the world, let alone to transform the world. In the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:13-16), he does tell us that we will be "salt"—that is, we will preserve the world from complete self-destruction. ...Salt and light—that's about the extent of our ...effectiveness. Nothing about transforming the world through our efforts. Make no mistake: Jesus does indeed call us into the world to do stuff: preach, baptize, teach, and heal. But he does not promise results. Faithful diligence in such tasks will sometimes change lives and change communities. Whenever this happens, we can rejoice that God has permitted us to see him at work! But a lot of times when the church has obeyed faithfully, we've only received hardship—violence that seems to make things worse for victim and perpetrator alike."

Thanks, John Michael Talbot, for a wonderful evening of music last night. (John is in Houston for all of January, and will be doing small concerts like last night many more times; also doing THursday night teaching which ElenaClaire and I hope to attend at least once.

Word of the year: Global

"The dangerous idea that the democratic accountability of national governments should simply be dispensed with in favour of "global agreements" reached after closed negotiations between world leaders never, so far as I recall, entered into the arena of public discussion. Except in the United States, where it became a very contentious talking point, the US still holding firmly to the 18th-century idea that power should lie with the will of the people." Read more

An "18th century idea". My, aren't we backward here.

Help us serve a family in need

When we met her 11 years ago she was a single mom who had escaped an abusive ex-husband. She's lived a hard life but was finding strength to rise above the circumstances of her past. Life is still challenging but she in walking in faith. Yesterday her house and all its contents burned to the ground. She and her teenaged kids lost everything including 2 pets.

Help us redeem this tragedy. Make a paypal donation to rlindholtz@yahoo.com or write to us at that address if you can help in other ways. Details are still coming in. The kids are a boy, 18-19, and a daughter, 15-16. Donations can also be made to Christ the King Lutheran Church designated for the "Christensen Fire". Donations made in that way are fully tax deductible.

Some good Reading this morning...

• On the Nobel Prize, from the WSJ
• On Global Warming, from the BBC

If you need a passport...

In advance of my trip to Canada I sought to get a passport.

Online I learned that there is a Passport BOOK and a CARD. I phoned to learn the difference and I was told, nearly verbatim, “The passport card is being phased in and is currently only good for Canada and Mexico”.

The person I spoke with left out one important detail: that it is useless for air travel. That would have helped me make a better choice.

Foolishly I decided based on their input to get the card. Of course, when I got to the airport on Sunday I learned I could not get on the flight nor make it to my meetings that day.
I had to get an expedited passport the next day. I also had airline fees related to my changed flight plans. My out of pocket expense due to this inconvenience is almost $300 in total.

Yes, after the fact, I discovered that there is one page on the State Department website that alrets you to this issue. It ought to be clearly stated on any page that references the passport card.

I am only posting this to caution potential future travellers. If you need a passport, get the passport BOOK unless a) you live near the border and will be driving across, or b) you will be on a cruise.

Re-Visioning

I have the privilege of attending the Re-Visioning Retreat, September 20-25 in Cochrane, AB.

Sponsored by my ordaining body, The Evangelical Covenant Church, and underwritten by a grant from the Lilly Endowment, the retreat is designed for those in ministry who are seeking to renew their friendship with God, reignite their pastoral imagination and explore their call in a deeper way. Each retreat is limited to 10 applicants, so I feel very blessed to have this opportunity.

EC hospitalized

To my blog-reading and facebook-reading friends,

Please pray for our family and especially for EC who is hospitalized again. Pray that the delicate balancing of medications can be accomplished; pray that other therapies can have their intended results; pray that God's own hand reaches and touches her heart and mind in a real and healing way. We do not know at this time how long this in-patient experience may last.

Pray also for Alicia and me, and pray for Miles, who worries about his sister whom he loves so much.