Sea World San Antonio Trip Report (How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Kids)

This was a Trip Report I posted on CoasterBuzz.com.  It contains a little bit of coaster nerd jargon and makes an assumption of knowledge of a few coaster nerd things, but I thought it might be interesting to post something from my personal life and it's still an entertaining read.

Warning: Extreme use of parentheses ahead.

Schools out (for us, yes it's way early) and not for San Antonio Independent School District. What better way to celebrate than a trip to San Antonio for some kid based relaxing...oh yeah, and that new Iron Rattler coaster at Six Flags Fiesta Texas. After a couple of screw ups with travel, we finally settled on the week before Memorial Day Wed-Sat (with the drive back up on Saturday afternoon). I wanted to take the kids to Sea World because,...it's Sea World, but both Sea World and Six Flags were only open on Friday and Saturday and we have passes to Six Flags and Sea World is pretty pricey for a family of 4. So we originally planned to do Six Flags on Friday (which would be nice because it was a school day) and just take a leisurely drive home on Saturday.

Now, on Thursday afternoon after a trip to the zoo (which was great) we were hanging out with some friends in the evening and they mentioned cheap tickets to Sea World were available through Groupon...plus there's a magic promo code you could enter to get an additional 15% off. So I told my wife, "If we want to go to Sea World, it's a possibility. We could do Six Flags on Sat." by which I meant "I don't want to have to fight Saturday of a Holiday Weekend Lines to ride Iron Rattler" but she took to mean "Yes. Please buy us some tickets to Sea World."

So we had some crazy hair brained plan for Friday in which I would leave Sea World half way through the day, zip over to SFFT, bang out a couple laps on IR and return before anyone missed me.

So we pulled up to Sea World just as the national anthem was playing and headed to Shamu Express (which I had never ridden and actually needed the credit on). My older son, Caleb (4), is totally into kiddie coasters and he loved it. It's quite a bit more aggressive than Canyon Blaster at Six Flags Over Texas which I think made him like it more. We hit a few other kids rides and the Sesame Street show.

We caught the Sea Lion Show (and the accompanying sea lion tanks featuring a 10 month old sea lion), then the Shamu show (which was mobbed...we had to split up to find seats). I thought both shows were very good, though I always find the schmaltz on the Shamu show a little over the top (not to say it doesn't move me, it's just...let me just watch aquatic mammals flip around and stuff without being reminded that we're all one big family).

Aquatic mammals flipping and doing cool stuff along with
humans trying to make you feel sentimental

Took the long way around the park including walking under the Great White coaster and the younger son, Micah (2), conked out in the stroller. We stopped for lunch (we abused an all you can eat kids bracelet and fed a family of 4 with it...thus starting my son on a long life of crime) and then played on the playground for a bit. By this time Micah was up so he got to eat also. This was about when I had planned to ditch for SFFT, but I was having so much fun and didn't want to dump on my wife, that I decided to stay and just enjoy the day instead of being so worried about getting lots of laps on Iron Rattler. We'll see what happens tomorrow when we go to Six Flags, though.

So instead, I nabbed my 1 adult coaster ride of the day on Steel Eel which still holds up. I don't know what Morgan did differently building this ride, but it is great. The first few hills have serious air and the MCBR is so high up that the last section is really cruising.

We went over to the Dolphin Cove (near the former site of the hospitality house, the home of the free beer while Busch still owned the park. I would pour out some beer in its memory, but there isn't any free beer anymore) which was awesome. The trainers were having the dolphins swim right up to the edge of the pool and you could almost reach out and touch them. (To actually reach out and touch them was $15. I'm not kidding). Very cool. Caleb did not want to leave, even after the dolphin had swum by 4 or 5 times. We went into the Shark Reef which was also impressive.

After stopping for dinner (yep, still on one bracelet...sorry Sea World) we grabbed a quick lap on Shamu Express and watched the Azul show (a combination of dolphins, beluga whales, divers, acrobats, and synchronized swimmers). It was also incredibly impressive. I had a pit in my stomach for some of the dives that were happening and I found myself cheering along with my kids whenever the dolphins would come out and jump.

At this point it was nearing park closing and we had done just about everything we wanted to do. We pulled up to the bathroom to make sure everybody was ready for the drive home and while mom was going I pulled out the map. Caleb asked me what I was doing and I said, "I just want to make sure we did everything." He said, "But I didn't do that many rides." I replied, "You did all the rides you could...except Journey to Atlantis (this is the 100' Mack splashdown ride, not the hybrid flume/coaster)." He said, "I want to ride that." (Keep in mind that the 20' mini-mine train at SFoT is the biggest coaster he's ridden to this point).

"Umm....okay son. Are you sure? If you're scared at any point, we don't have to ride it."
"Why wouldn't I want to ride it?"

Alright then. Off we go. Mom took Micah to ride the carousel (and apparently run through some fountains) and we went to Journey to Atlantis. There was barely any line and every 5 seconds I turned to Caleb and asked, "Are you sure you want to ride this?" He always replied that he did.

Journey to Atlantis

So we got into the second row of a boat, strapped in and off we went. He was not phased at all by the height but as soon as we started rolling backwards through the dip, he latched onto the lapbar with one hand and me with the other. "This is not fun." was his resigned assessment.

As we rotated forwards, I reassured him that I was there and nothing would happen and once we got off he wouldn't have to ride it again. I gave him the play by play of what would happen as we started creeping towards the edge of the big drop. He tightened his grip on my hand and down we went. A big drop and a decent splash later and he immediately exclaimed, "That was awesome!" So proud of my boy. We'll make an enthusiast out of him yet. As we entered the station, he was laughing about how he didn't get wet because he was sitting behind a big man and I got soaked because I was sitting behind a little girl. We got out and I asked him if he wanted to do it again. "No" was his simple reply. But he wanted to watch a couple boats come down and each time when they hit the splash he would re-narrate his own ride, "That's the scary part. Then you go down the big drop and you hit the splash and then you go 'This is actually fun!'"

So that was it. I put him on my shoulders and we went off to meet mom and found the car.

Our day was fantastic. One of the best days I've had at a park in a long time and probably the best I've had with all 4 members of my family together. The shows were great, the rides were great (with a good selection for all ages), the park was clean and well decorated, the animal attractions were great, the staff was great. Oh and the price was right. I really couldn't have asked for more. Could I have created such wonderful memories at a different park or under different circumstances? Perhaps. But Sea World just made it that much easier. I'll be trying to bang out some laps on Iron Rattler tomorrow morning, but even though it was the main reason for me to take this trip to San Antonio, I can already call the trip a success.

Big Tent 2013 Notes

My overall experience of Big Tent was very positive once again.  This time I got more out of the fellowship and encouragement (worship especially) than out of the workshops themselves.  I feel like they were focused on an introduction to 1001 and I feel like I'm already well down that path.  Perhaps some presenters outside the PCUSA or some "advanced" workshops for folks already on the journey of planting an NWC would have been more helpful.

Big Tent Keynote 1

Frank Yamada, President of McCormick Seminary

Putting God’s First Things First

Matt 6:33 – Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God, then all these things shall be added unto you.

Frank asked the question, “How do we put God’s first things first?”

He talked quite a bit about distractions and how they take us away from the true purpose of life.  He mentioned Csiksentmihalyi’s concept of flow in which a person is so engaged in a task and is working at optimal productivity that time seems to suspend.  We might call it being “in the zone.”  He said attention and focus turn us into extraordinary creatures.  But he said the enemy of attention and focus is worry and distraction.  “You cannot serve 2 masters” meaning you cannot focus on a task and a distraction at the same time.  “Do not worry about what you eat, what you will drink, what you will wear…”  Worry is a distraction.  Here he defined worry as something over which we have no control.  (I began to ponder what are the things we worry about that distract us.  Is it our meals?  Our drinks?  Our clothes?  Is it security?  Status?)

 Frank went on to say that idolatry is putting our focus on the wrong God.  He also made a metaphor that I distraction is a seed, then worry is the soil, and social pressure is the greenhouse.  When we are in a society the puts pressure to value the wrong things, and when we are preoccupied by things that we have no control over, then we are prone to distraction.

He also said that he thought Jesus’ use of metaphors from creation was appropriate here.  The birds do not worry about what they will eat.  The lilies do not worry about what they will wear.  Etc.  He said that creation is fundamentally good, in fact it is very good (Genesis 1 and 2).  And above all, the creation story and creation itself tells us that we have value in God’s eyes.  He said that the thing which we worry about most and are distracted by most is our value and how we measure our value and if we recognize how valuable we are to God we will be able to avoid distraction on focus.

“The simplicity of the gospel is a salve for an overly complex, distracted world.”

Workshop 1

Evangelism and Justice (Compassion, Peace and Justice Track)

Joseph Johnson, Chair of Self-development of People

The premise of this workshop was to address the dichotomy that we observe in the mainline church between justice and evangelism.  Does it have to be that way?  Why is it that way?

We started by looking at Mark 1:14-2:12

                The world was sick.  The teachers were boring and hypocritical.  The people were desperate.  And they had never seen the power of the gospel.  Joseph said it was a massive criticism of the people of God of the time that, when Jesus told the man to get up and walk and he did, the people said, “We have never seen anything like this!”  Joseph asked, “What were they doing all that time??!?”

We talked about what the word repent means and how we don’t really use it.  What do we have to repent of?  What was Jesus calling to repent of?  What is repentance?  Joseph suggested that repenting was more a changing of orientation rather than a changing of action.  He proposed (borrowing from Bruggeman) that to repent is to “Stop accepting as normal the narrative of chaos.  The way we have been told the world is is wrong.”

(Here he did some interested exegesis of some bible passages.  When Jesus said the poor will always be with you, the emphasis was on you.  Meaning, if you’re doing justice and evangelism, the poor will come and find you.  He also talked about a living wage and how the parable of the workers in the vineyard was really not about how long the workers had worked but about the owner realizing what they needed.  The justice wasn't equal pay for equal work, it was giving people what they needed to live.)

Ultimately, the bottom line of the workshop was the idea that justice and evangelism are both encapsulated in the idea of being good news to people.  When we build relationships, when we help and serve, when we love, then we are doing justice and evangelism.

Joseph said we should not be ashamed to say we come and serve in the name of Jesus.

Some questions to ask of a community that we’re trying to minister to?

“What is God’s good news for this community?”  “What are the sickness, death, leprosy, and demons in the community?”

More ideas from Bruggeman: “Evangelism is the authorizing of people to give up false and distorted stories of life and reality in exchange for the biblical narrative as the defining story of life and reality.”

“Justice is the liberation from that which destroys and oppresses and the destruction of the corresponding systems.  This is good news to all who are under the yoke of those systems.”

Lunch Panel

Vera White – Former AEP of Pittsburgh Pres. over NCD’s (and a bunch of other stuff)

Dylan – Elder at Hot Metal Bridge

Steve Yamaguchi – Executive of Los Ranchos Presbytery

I wasn’t taking notes since I was busy eating, but a couple of things that resonated for me from this panel:

·         A new church development/new worshipping community needs to be given permission and to help accountable.  It may seem like a contradiction, but they need to space to try new things and to fail, but they also someone to say, “You say you believe in this.  How are you putting that into action?”

·         It’s all about call.  No amount of seminary training, experience, people, or money can replace call.  People who want to plant NWC’s because it’s cool or because they’re burnt out on institutional church will not succeed.

·         It’s hard work.  It requires sacrifice.

         The Anglican church talked about mixed economy of church – it’s not that the inherited church (established) is bad or failing and the fresh expressions of church (new plants) are good or successful.  The church needs to be expressed in different ways in different contexts for any of it to work.  When new plants are successful, they inspire inherited churches to rekindle their love.

Plenary 1

1001 overview

                There wasn’t much here that hasn’t been on the website or discussed before.  If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably familiar with the 1001 initiative.

Some interesting takes on 1001

                Jerry Beavers talked about UKirk, a movement to start 101 of the 1001 NWC’s on college campuses and the transformed understanding of campus ministry to be about community, relationship, and mission instead of program.

Plenary 2

1001 for mid-councils

                Steve Yamaguchi talked some more about fresh expressions in the UK.  He said, “The most important thing a presbytery can do to support a NWC is take the pastor out to lunch once a month.”  There was also some discussion of the role of the NWC leader and specifically about his/her training.  It’s often not an ordained teaching elder, but a Commissioned Ruling Elder or even a “lay person” wanting to start a community.  It’s important that they have the theological anchor, but perhaps the role of the teaching elder is changing.  Maybe the teaching elder is becoming the “theologian in residence” while the pastor can be a ruling elder or someone else.  (I’ve always thought it was strange that we require/expect our pastors to be teachers, preachers, caregivers, administrators, evangelists, scholars, accountants, and leaders, not to mention plumbers, construction workers, day care workers, etc.)

                Hector Rodriguez, Marisa Galvan, and Lionel <something> talked about some of the particular challenges of NWC’s with racial/ethnic minorities and immigrant communities. 

The grand conclusion was “There is no silver bullet model.  You cannot skip the work of being with the people, getting to know them, and loving them.”

More Plenary

Ray Jones – Evangelism Coordinator

Disciple making for NWC’s

How do we make disciples?

•  If we develop disciples, we will get the church, but if we simply try to start a church/structure, we won’t necessarily get disciples.  Discipleship is about intentional relationships in which we walk alongside other disciples in order to equip, encourage, and challenge one another in love to grow toward maturity in Christ.
•  Invest in core leaders through engaging scripture, one another, prayer
• Ray’s question to a PNC: Would the leadership of the church be willing to meet every week around word, share, prayer?  Or at least twice a month?
• Invest in community/prayer walks
•  Invest in people in the community – invite them into our meals, our lives, our service, our prayers
• How discipleship works
• Information – teaching, theology, ecclesiology, history
• Imitation* – Mentoring, close relationships, life on life, authenticity
•  Innovation – New person in our life, new community speaking to us, new ministry idea, etc…
• “When we engage our stories and God’s story, we grow in our need for Jesus’ resources.  Discipleships becomes the way in which we are nurtured in our faith and equipped for God’s mission.  Through worship, prayer, scripture, fellowship, and spiritual practices, we are encouraged and challenged to live Jesus’ way.”
• 5 gifts from Ephesians 4: Apostleship (starting things), evangelism (heart for reaching people for Christ), prophetic voice (course correction), shepherds, teachers

Acts 17:16-34

We went over Paul's sermon in the areopagus and his work leading up tho that point:

•  Starts in the synagogue – we have to start with ourselves and get equipped
• Into the marketplace – he wins the right to be heard
• His heart broke because of all the idols
• Is authentic and respectful
• Goes to the meeting where they talk about ideas
• Authentic preaching
• Meets them in their context (the unknown God)
•  3 results as determined by the Holy Spirit: Some sneer, some want to know more, some become followers

How are we helping one another shape our lives around God’s love of us?
Acts 2:42-47

• Teaching
•   Prayer
•   Koinonia
•  Worship
•  Breaking bread together
•  Hold all things in common

Ray talked about the 3 movements of discipleship: 

Doxological (Up), koinonial (in), missional (out)

He showed us a video – what are you looking for as you go about your life?

Even More Plenary 

What about existing congregations?

Ann Philbrick

The question Ann sought to address was the role of existing congregations in the 1001 NWC movement.  In particular, a lot of existing congregations complain that we're putting all this effort into these new NWC's when they are struggling.

(Somewhere during the weekend, the terminology of "inherited churches" and "fresh expressions of church" was introduced, which I thought was helpful in showing that these two types of church are not opposed to one another).

NWC's are our R&D Lab – our decline as a denomination is directly correlated with our cessation of new church plants.

Fruitfulness – From a biological perspective, fruit is not just a sweet apple, but another tree.  A fruitful apple tree results in another apple tree.

Launching and supporting is not a matter of size, it’s a matter of inspiration and imagination.

Ann used a couple clips for Toy Story to illustrate her points:

Toy Story – the universal search for belonging and purpose (Woody and Buzz realize they are toys and they belong to Andy and their purpose is to love and be loved by Andy.)  Faith sharing is telling the story of God loving and claiming us.

Toy Story 2 – Woody faced the decision between being loved by Andy and eventually being discarded or being preserved exactly the way he is in a museum.  For Jessie, the decision was to be vulnerable to love and be loved again.

This is the same struggle for congregations.

You may have to start with internal evangelism.  Do our people still remember their love for God and the purpose in the world?  Ann said, "The problem with our churches is they have more memories than dreams."

What will motivate your people?  Dreams?  Threats?  Scares?  Theology?  Creating a sense of urgency/sell the problem.

Workshop 2

Engaging Discipleship

Stan Ott – Acts 16:5 Initiative

Ed. note: By this point in the conference I was having trouble retaining information, so here's what I wrote but I don't exactly remember what a lot of it means.

The woman with internal bleeding: “Are you touching Jesus?”

How do we grow each other and ourselves in discipleship?

First, how are we doing?  Not so well.

In PCUSA, men who were 60 showed no more love for God than 20 year old men.  Women did (because they weren’t working), but now women’s spiritual growth is the same (bad).  

Everything we do today to make disciples, we did 40 years ago.  Sunday school, choir, youth programs, camps and conferences.

“The twentieth century is the name of a train that no longer runs.”

Flux.  Discontinuous change.  Things change rapidly and unpredictably.

Some things don’t change.  The love of the God who sustains us.  The love of the people of God who encourage us.  Our love for those to whom God sends us.

“In times of rapid change, what you know can mislead you.”

Some things will fail, which is okay.  You have to be willing to experiment.  

Toxic: “I told you it wouldn’t work.”

Neutralize advocacy, emphasize inquiry.  (We don’t already know the answer.  If we did, we wouldn’t have the problem.)

Americans are stupefyingly dumb about what they are supposed to believe.” – Prothero

Why focus on discipleship?

A: You hear the word of Jesus and know the heart of Jesus

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore, The great commission.

The heart – Jesus was moved with compassion

People eyes – what do you see when you look at someone?  Can you really see the hurt of the people in around you.  Who do you see around you?  Who do you ignore?

“Your programs will not outlive you, but the people you have developed will.”

Growing disciples with an end in mind – having a well-attended church/program is not the end.  Discipleship is the end.  What are the 20 or so things that someone needs to know to be a healthy, mature disciple?  THEN what are the things we’re going to do to get them there?  Acts 4:13=> from programs to relationships.

3 areas of Christian growth – loving God and being loved by God, loving and being loved by church, loving and being loved by world (Doxological, Koinonial, and missional).  The great commandment, the great commission, and the new commandment.

Discipleship a lifestyle to be lived before it is a program to be run.

The first disciple to grow IS you BY you.  Take responsibility for your own spiritual life.

What to Do When God Stops Existing

For the past 3+ months, I have had a hard time believing in God.

On October 28th, 2012, the church I had served for 7 years closed its doors.  Surprisingly, this, in and of itself, did not challenge my faith at all.  However, the ensuing transition in my life caused major havoc on my faith.  I began teaching math and science in a private school to pay the bills while trying to start a new worshiping community out of my living room.  Something about the new career, new role, new life, one could even say new identity - it really got me all confused.  

Now don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying in any way that I am unfortunate or unlucky or suffering or anything.  I have a steady job that pays the bills (that I happen to enjoy very much), a wonderful family, a church that immediately took me in as family, and an exciting opportunity to serve God in a new and creative way.  But something just didn't feel quite right.  Not being in the pulpit on Sunday, having to make time for devotion, having to spend a large portion of my day in an intentionally secular environment, losing (as much as they sometime drove me crazy) my primary faith community - all of these added up.  I suppose you could say that change always comes with grief and grief always comes with doubt.

I began (and in ways, continue) to really struggle with the idea of God’s existence.  It just seemed so…convenient.  It seemed like the kind of thing a parent would tell a child because they were afraid of telling the child the truth.  The more I thought about it, the more I really began to wonder if it was just something we tell ourselves so we don’t have to face the cold, hard, emptiness of the universe.  Even recalling all the miracles I had witnessed, all the miracles that I had been a part of, all the theological and philosophical arguments, and the fact that many great minds had no trouble believing in God, I found it harder and harder to accept the idea of an all powerful, all knowing, eternal God.  The line between coincidence and providence is very thin.

My first response was to try harder: more prayer, more bible study, more fellowship, more service, more giving.  I told myself if I just remained obedient, God would appear in a way I could not deny.  I thought that if I worked harder to connect with God, I would find the connection I was looking for but missing.  I kept thinking of all the heroes and heroines of the bible who faced “dry spells” and remained obedient: Moses, Elijah, Job, Isaiah, even Jesus himself on the cross cried out, “Father, father, why have you forsaken me?”  It seemed that obedience was the key to connection.

Sadly (though probably not surprisingly), this did not work.  The harder I tried to connect with God, the more futile my efforts seemed and, consequently, the more I resented God.  If God existed and I was putting in all this effort, why wasn't he doing his part?  Where was my burning bush or booming voice?  I could not help but think the only reasonable conclusion was that God didn't exist at all.

Last night, my wife and I started talking.  She could tell that something wasn't quite right (I had been behaving erratically with regard to the family’s finances) and we finally got around to talking about my faith and my struggle to believe in God’s existence.  I told her about my resentments, my efforts to connect with God, and ultimately that I was doubting that God existed at all.  She asked me a question that, somehow, in the midst of all this soul searching, I had failed to ask myself: “Do you believe God loves you?”  It seems like one would have to believe that God exists before one could believe that God loves, but somehow, after a few moments of ruminating, I could honestly say, without doubt, “Yes, God loves me.  He might not exist, but he definitely loves me.” 

Lindsay proposed that all the beauty that I see in the world wasn't supposed to be evidence of God’s existence (an argument I have trouble with), but evidence of God’s love (an argument I have no problem with).  When I teach math and science (both of which I love) the beauty and order in them is not God’s way of saying “I exist.”  It’s God’s way of saying “I love you and I made this for you to marvel at and enjoy.”  We do not obey God out of obligation or to earn God’s favor (a sermon I have preached many times, but failed to apply myself) or even in order to see God.  We obey God out of joy and overflowing love and a sense of awe and wonder at what God has done.

Somehow, reframing the question from “Does God exist?” to “Does God love me?” answered both questions.  I still doubt.  I still struggle.  This dry spell is not over, but I am struggling with very different and much less troubling questions.  Most importantly, I am once again beginning to experience joy, awe, wonder, and most importantly love.

Does God exist?  I’m still not sure.  Does God love me?  Without a doubt, yes.

Closing a Church, Appendix

Here are the sermon's I preached on the closing Sunday of Oakhurst Presbyterian Church.  The first was the regular morning service, the second was the official closing service in the afternoon.

I AM the Resurrection and the Life

          Jesus wept.  The shortest verse in the whole bible, but I also think one of the most profound.  God knows our pain.  God has felt loss, sadness and grief.  God has seen death and even with the knowledge that death has no victory, he still saw the pain of his friends, felt the loss of Lazarus and wept.

          I think sometimes we set pain in opposition to faith.  We assume that if we’re truly faithful we won’t experience pain.  We comfort each other and are comforted with phrases like, “Everything happens for a reason” and “It’s all part of God’s plan” as if true faith means denying death, loss, and grief.

          Often times we are our own worst critics, convincing ourselves that we should feel a certain way or that some feelings are okay and other are not.  Today we may feel sadness and loss, we may feel pride and joy, we may feel relief, or we may feel anger and resentment.  All of these feelings are okay.

          In the passage, Jesus encounters all kinds of emotions in his journey to Lazarus’ tomb.  Both sisters remind him that if he had been there, Lazarus would not have died.  Martha approaches him with confidence in his rising on the last day.  Mary approaches him with desperation, kneeling at his feet.  The Jews are sorrowful but some of them are confused – “Couldn’t he have prevented this?”  And maybe we ask Jesus the same question this morning – “Why did God let it get to this point?  Couldn’t he have done something?  Couldn’t he have come and prevented the closure of our church?”

          Jesus’ response to the question is “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?"  which is theologically accurate, but not emotionally satisfying.  Why did Jesus chose to let Lazarus die and whereas he healed so many other people, sparing them and their families the pain and grief of loss.  In the same way, why did God choose to bring Oakhurst Presbyterian Church, Fort Worth, TX to a close on October 28^th, 2012 and yet seems to have performed miraculous revitalizations in other churches.  Of course it’s for the glory of God as Jesus said, but why does our church have to glorify God by dying while other churches get to glorify God by growing and expanding?  Sadly, we will never know.  We cannot understand the mysteries of God’s wisdom and providence and really have no answer but to trust God.

          We do however, know one thing: when we grieve, God grieves with us.  When we lament, God laments with us.  When we weep, God weeps with us.  God is not an impassive, impersonal, inhuman entity.  God is not arbitrary or detached or aloof.  God sees, God feels, God knows, and God cares.  One of the most profound differences between the triune God of the Christian religion and the God of other world faiths is that our God suffers – not just when we hurt others, but when we hurt.

          But even in the midst of that hurt, even as God grieves with us, he does not leave us without hope.  God offers us hope of what might be, visions of what could be and promises of what will be, not to deny our grief, but to offer us comfort during our grief.  Jesus reminds us, saying “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”  Jesus himself is the resurrection of all things, in all times, and all places.  Not only did he raise Lazarus, not only did he raise the little girl, not only was he himself raised, but he has raised all of us.  Jesus has raised each of us out of broken lives of fear, regret, hopelessness, and despair.  Jesus has raised each of us out of our shame, our inadequacy, and our loneliness.  We know Jesus is the resurrection because we have been resurrected.  We know Jesus is the life because of the life he has given us.  We know that even though we die, we will live because we have already died to our old selves and been born again as new creations.  We have been raised and we live, so we know that Jesus is the resurrection and the life.

          And so as we bid farewell to Oakhurst Presbyterian Church, we know that it too will live.  We know that Jesus’ promise of resurrection and eternal life are not just for individuals and not just for after we die, but are for organizations, churches, relationships, traditions, and legacies.  Jesus reminds us that he is the resurrection and the life, not to deny our grief, but to give us a hope, a vision, and a promise in the midst of our grief.  To remind us that he is here weeping with us and also that things aren’t over until he says they’re over and that he always gets the last word.  Jesus reminds us this morning that he could not be stopped with a whip, he could not be stopped with a cross, he could not be stopped with a rock, he could not be stopped with a tomb, he could not be stopped by death, he could not be stopped by sin, he could not be stopped by Satan himself – no, nothing in all creation can stop him.  Jesus lives and so we live and so our church will live.  Our church will live on in the relationships we maintain, in the experiences that formed us, in the knowledge we carry from Sunday School lessons, in the joy we shared in fellowship events, in the comfort we offered each other at funerals, in the humility we learned when we messed up and the grace we experienced when we were forgiven.  Our church will live on in the $350,000 dollars we gave away to the Night Shelter and Children’s Home and Union Gospel Mission and the Presbytery and Mo Ranch.  Our church will live on in Templo as they reach this neighborhood and bring the good news, and our church will live on in the congregation that buys this building and continues to use it to do God’s work and serve God’s people.

          Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is the hope, the vision, and the promise of Jesus Christ.  Oakhurst Presbyterian Church, Fort Worth, TX, even though it dies, will live and Oakhurst Presbyterian Church, Fort Worth, because it believes, will never die.  Because Jesus is light of the world.  Jesus is the bread of life.  Jesus is the good shepherd. Jesus is the gate.  Jesus is the vine.  Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.  And above all because Jesus is the resurrection and the life.  Brothers and sisters in Christ, members of Oakhurst Presbyterian Church…friends…In the name of Jesus Christ, the risen son – live.  Amen.

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To Be Continued…

          Here’s how you know you’re a dyed in the wool Presbyterian – you have favorite lines in the Book of Order.  One of my favorites was taken out when the new Book of Order was approved, but I think it still applies.  In the section on the mission of the church, the old Book of Order details all the different things the church exists to do, all the ways it can help people, all the goals and reasons that we believe God has for the church and then it ended with this paragraph:

The Church is called to undertake this mission even at the

risk of losing its life, trusting in God alone as the author and

giver of life, sharing the gospel, and doing those deeds in the

world that point beyond themselves to the new reality in Christ.

          What a challenge!  The church is called to do God’s work in the world, even at the risk of losing its own life.

          Now I know your relationship with the presbytery in the past has been shaky.  You are a, shall I say “unique” church.  Sometimes there has been distrust, sometimes resentment, sometimes frustration.  And maybe I only speak for myself, but I don’t think I do when I say that we can also add admiration.  Members and friends of Oakhurst Presbyterian Church, you are to be commended and admired for taking the challenge in the Book of Order seriously.  This time you are unique in the Presbytery for your outstanding faith and courage: the faith and courage to dissolve a financially solvent congregation in order to follow a vision from God in which this building, your financial assets, and the time and talent of your people can be put to further use in other ways and in other places.  The Book of Order called you to serve God’s mission even at the risk of the life of the church and you have responded.  At the last supper Christ said, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” and you have shown such love.  You are to be commended.

Now, of course Christ was speaking about the coming crucifixion when he too would give his life to answer God’s call.  He too had to die in order for God’s will to be done through him.  On Good Friday he was betrayed, arrested, tried, sentenced and executed and in the gospel of Mark in the passage we just read, we hear the story of what happened on Sunday.  The women came to the tomb and found the stone had already been rolled back.  A young man in a white robe was sitting in the tomb and told them that he had been raised and had gone ahead to Galilee.  And the last line of the gospel’s original ending reads: “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”  That’s it.  No resurrection appearances, no ascension into heaven, no great commission.  Mark does not have a happy ending, no “fade to black and roll credits”, no “happily ever after.”  Instead, Mark ends his gospel with a “To be continued…”  He is challenging us, the reader, the disciple, the Christian to finish the story with our own lives.  Mark is asking us, “Do you believe Christ lives on?”  “Do you believe the story continues?”  “Do you believe the work of Christ is still being done today?”  “Do you believe we are forever called to proclaim in word and deed the legacy of Jesus Christ?”  And so as we say goodbye to Oakhurst Presbyterian Church, I, like Mark, do not see today as an ending, happy or sad, but as a “to be continued...” and I challenge us all with the same questions: “Do you believe the Oakhurst Presbyterian Church lives on?”  “Do you believe that the story continues?”  “Do you believe the work of Oakhurst Presbyterian Church is still being done today and will still be done tomorrow and next week and as long as we are all still serving God?”  “Do you believe that we are forever called to proclaim in word and deed the legacy of Oakhurst Presbyterian Church?”

Brothers and sisters in Christ, friends and members of Oakhurst Presbyterian Church – the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were only the beginning of the story.  We know that Christ was raised, we know that the Holy Spirit descended, we know that the Body of Christ has grown and spread and proclaimed and ministered and we know that God lives and God’s mission goes on.  Rome could not stop it, Judas could not stop it, a cross could not stop it, a tomb could not stop it, a stone could not stop, death could not stop it, sin could not stop it, and hell itself could not stop it.  God’s mission lives.

As we go forward and grieve the loss of our beloved congregation and plug into new congregations, we will be faced with a choice.  Like the women at the tomb, we have the choice to say nothing to anyone because we are afraid – afraid of change, afraid of new people, afraid of abandonment, afraid of rejection.  We can let this be the end of the Oakhurst story and we can say “They lived sadly ever after.”  Or we have the choice to proclaim the good things God has done in our lives and in our world through the legacy of Oakhurst Presbyterian Church.  We can take what makes Oakhurst, Oakhurst and we can carry it into new places with new people to serve in new ways and make lives new.  We have the choice to make today a “to be continued…” and to write the rest of the story with the way that we, the member of Oakhurst Presbyterian Church, Fort Worth, TX continue to serve the living God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  So, just as the young man in white challenged the women at the tomb, I challenge you today: “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Oakhurst Presbyterian Church, which has been dissolved.  It is not here but it has been raised.  This is the place it used to be, but go and tell everyone that it has gone on to Hurst and Arlington and downtown and Jacksboro and Ridgelea and to Texas and the United States and the world.  There you will see Oakhurst Presbyterian Church, just as you have been told.  It is not here.  It has been raised.”  In the name of the risen Lord, Jesus Christ, Amen.  To be continued…

Closing a Church

Yesterday (10/28/12) I led the closing worship service for Oakhurst Presbyterian Church, Fort Worth, TX ending 84 years of ministry.  I am still a bit raw, so my thoughts will also be so.  I am in no position to write a polished piece that ends with a nice bow tie, but perhaps this will make a more interesting read anyway.

Just for background information, I've served on staff at OPC for 7 years: 2 as the youth director and 5 as the called and installed solo pastor.  The church closed because we realized our assets, time, talent, and treasure could all be used to better use for God's kingdom if we moved on than if we continued to slowly but inevitably dwindle while our expenses and required time commitment increased.

Some assorted observations:

• My key ring is a lot lighter.  I've been carrying around the keys to the church in my pocket everyday for the past 7 years.  I turned them in today and there is an actual physical sense of lightness, now that they are gone.
• I don't have to think about my next sermon.  For 7 years (I was preaching regularly, even as the youth director) I've always been looking for the next sermon idea.  Even when I was on vacation, I was always percolating the next sermon idea or two because coming up with something worth saying every week is just hard to do.  I get the feeling that I when I hear someone say something wise, I will instinctively think "That would make a good sermon.  I should preach that." before I realize that I no longer have a pulpit.
• The things I miss are not the things I thought I would.  I spent a lot of the last 7 years dreading visiting old ladies in nursing homes.  The visits were very nice, and I did them because I knew it was important, but it's just not a part of ministry that really blows my hair back.  Strangely, I think this will be one of the things I miss most. There's just something sacred about sitting down with a 90 year old lady, listening to her stories and praying with and for her.
• The church is not the building, but the building still has meaning.  I found it just as hard to drop my keys off to an empty building as I did to say goodbye to all the people yesterday.  There's something much more final about saying goodbye to the building, because I know for a fact that I will never have the same relationship to that building.  I can kind of convince myself that my relationship with the people won't change, but I can't do the same for the building.
• 84 years is a long time.  Not only was I not alive 84 years ago; my parents weren't alive 84 years ago.  As a bright eyed idealistic first call pastor fresh out of seminary, it was easy to discount "tradition" and inertia and to constantly wonder why change was so hard, but to see all the people who had been impacted by OPC over the years gathered in one place yesterday was a reminder that all the things I discounted had served OPC and its members very well in the past.
• 7 years is a long time.  I have never stayed anywhere in my life for 7 years.  Elementary school was 6, middle school was 3, high school was 4 (broken up into 2 schools for 2 years each), college was 5, seminary was 3.  I have been a Christian for 12 years and I spent 7 of them at OPC.  It is the closest thing to a home church I've had.  Though I haven't spend 50 or 60 or 70 years there, it is a significant part of my journey of faith.
• The pastor is always the pastor.  For better or worse, I will never be just friends with the people of OPC.  Even if I happen to bump into them 10 or 20 years down the line, I will still be their former pastor and not just their friend.
• Grief sneaks up on you.  In all the busyness and anxiety of closing and in dealing with all the relief after years of confusion and sometimes frustration, I did not notice that I was grieving until about 3 weeks before the closing.  I just assumed that I was feeling fine (in large part because of denial) until I started feeling really depressed and couldn't understand why.  Then my wife was like, "Um...you're closing your church" and it dawned on me that I was grieving.
• Grief is a funny thing.  I realized yesterday morning that I was looking to pick a fight with my wife.  I was moping around the house, resenting the dirty laundry on the floor and the kids toys everywhere and thinking all about how my wife was such a slacker.  Thankfully, before I did anything stupid, I recognized that this was also part of the grief process and I was looking for a scapegoat and a conflict to take my mind off the pain.  Acknowledging and naming it took its power away.
  
  Also, the weirdest memories came back to me.  Memories from years ago of just random stuff like playing Dance Dance Revolution with the kids of the church and funerals of people I hadn't thought about in quite a few years.  I guess endings tend to do that.
• I cannot not proclaim the gospel.  Whether the church I serve is doing fine or closing, or whether I'm serving a church at all, I cannot help but proclaim the goodness of God.  In Luke, when Jesus makes his triumphal entry into Jerusalem "some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, 'Teacher, order your disciples to stop.'  He answered, 'I tell you, if these were silent, even the stones would shout out.'"  I am one of the stones.

To all those who have supported and prayed for me and Oakhurst Presbyterian Church over the years, "thank you."  To all the members and friends of Oakhurst Presbyterian Church, "Well done good and faithful servants.  You have been trustworthy in a few things.  I will put you in charge of many things.  Enter into the joy of your master."  God is up to something new and I can't wait to see what it is.

Overdramatic title about Higgs-Boson and how science killed God

With all the hoopla about the discovery of the Higgs-Boson, the unfortunately nicknamed "God particle", the question of the relationship between science and religion is once again brought to the fore.  An interesting and helpful dicussion of the Higgs-Boson in particular can be found at:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/philip-clayton-phd/relationship-between-scie_b_1653976.html

But more generally, as someone who grew up atheist/agnostic and who came to faith doing a Masters in Computer Science at MIT of all places, I've often struggled with that interaction between faith and science.  Hopefully, I can put some of my thoughts to words and maybe even put forth a reasonable conclusion.

To start, a quote from the above article which in turn quotes a conversation on the Colbert Report:

The perfect example of this debate was played out in a Colbert interview with Lawrence Krauss recently; it's worth re-watching in the wake of the Higgs. Krauss, the New Atheist, touts his new book, "A Universe from Nothing." There are three kinds of nothing, he insists, and according to the laws of quantum mechanics, each one left to itself will produce the something that we see around us. "It sounds like the ultimate free lunch," Krauss admits, but there you have it; it's just science. "The universe is more remarkable than the fairy tales that were talked about by Bronze Age illiterate peasants."

"Why does it have to be an attack on my God?" Colbert asks. "There's just no evidence for God," replies Krauss, "All I've said is that you don't need Him."

For starters, I actually completely agree about the part about Bronze Age illiterate peasants.  Religious texts in general and the bible in particular were never meant to describe the unimaginably complex and beautifully elegant scientific realities which we have since discovered.  There's a reason that the bible doesn't say "On the first day, God created the quark, the neutrino, the lepton, and finally smashed them all together and made an atom."  It's because the authors of the texts (and to be quite frank, most of us, even with strong scientific backgrounds) couldn't begin to fathom what that meant.  When the bible says, "God said 'let there be light'" it is not speaking in opposition to the idea that "some number of nano-seconds after the big bang, some quantum electro-dynamic wave collapsed to form the first photon."  (Note: I know just enough about this stuff to write sentences like the above which sound like they describe the creation of light, when in fact, I just stuck a bunch of words together.)  Instead, the bible is positing that God is the creator of light.

Now of course, Krauss would argue that we don't need God to create light - that light creates itself out of nothingness (and if I understand correctly, so does matter, which is whole point of the Higgs-Boson) which I think brings us to the crux of the matter:

When a child asks, "Why does a tiger have stripes?" there are many possible answers to this question:

Baby tigers are cute and have stripes

1) The tiger parents have DNA which they passed down, which creates proteins which create pigments in the skin of a baby tiger in a particular pattern.

2) Years of evolution have culled all the tigers that didn't have stripes, leaving only those that do have stripes.

3) So they can effectively hide while stalking prey.

4) Because God made them that way.

Note that these answers do not necessarily preclude each other.  All four of them may or may not be true, somewhat independently of the others.  In particular, the fourth answer addresses a question that none of the other three even approach - "is there a greater purpose or design behind the tiger's stripes?"  Science doesn't need God to answer its questions, but similarly, regardless of the genetic, biological, and evolutionary understandings of  how tiger got its stripes, science doesn't even claim to have insight into a greater purpose or design.  Many scientists (Krauss and Dawkins among them) claim that such a question is meaningless; because it cannot be answered by science, it is not a useful question to ask.  And yet, as human beings, we find ourselves asking that very question, not just about the tiger's stripes, the higgs-boson, or evolution, but about the universe itself.  Is there a greater purpose to quantum mechanics?  To the vast expanse of space?  To whether I rob a bank or give to charity?

For all science's wonderful advances, it has never made me feel less alone in the universe, it has never given me peace in times of anxiety, and it has never assured me that what I do matters.  Perhaps Krauss doesn't need God to answer the questions that he asks, but I certainly need God to answer the questions that I ask.

Postscript:  I have no idea what to do with supernatural miracles in the bible like the virgin birth or the resurrection of Christ from a scientific perspective.  It seems pretty important that these things happened or else God has no power in the world, but it also seems highly unlikely that the physical laws of the universe were suspended for brief moments in time 2000 years ago but not since then.

Pittsburgh NCD Tour - House of Manna

Met with Eugene “Freedom” Blackwell and his wife “Free” at House of Manna and Homewood Rennaisance.   (A missional faith community and a non-profit – the describe it as two buildings with a bridge across).  They do super intentional relational ministry in a poor African-American neighborhood called Homewood.

Rev. Blackwell started as the pastor of a church which had been in the neighborhood for a long time, but as the members became more financially well off, it became a commuter church which didn’t serve the neighborhood any more.  Rev. Blackwell decided to start a ministry which would  really be of, for, and in the neighborhood.   They worship out on a street corner during the summer and have a building but are really intentional about merging their service work with their spiritual work and in particular about building trust and relationships in the community.  They started out by doing a ton of service work in the neighborhood and by going door to door, doing food and toy drives, and just hanging out at bus stops, street corners, etc.

Their worship is very participatory and very fitting for the community.  They use spoken word, hip hop, a DJ, and sometimes Rev. Blackwell preaches, but he has a team that rotates. They were really hard on discipleship and leadership development.   He develops 3 or 4 people at a time and sends them to develop other leaders themselves.

They said that one of the things they were the most proud of about their church is that when people come into the neighborhood and ask on the street “Where is House of Manna?” their members say “How can I help you?” rather than pointing them to a building or giving them Rev. Blackwell’s phone number.

They also said one of the things they believe in is not judging suburban churches who just want to give money to their project or who maybe send mission trip but don’t really commit to the neighborhood.  Everyone is where they are and they want to serve however they can and God uses that to further everyone’s ministry.  That said, they did have to turn down an offer for $100,000 one time because the restrictions that were on it did not match the identity of their ministry.

Because they serve an economically depressed neighborhood, most of their funding comes from other churches, grants, the Presbytery, etc. and they don’t necessarily see that changing in the near future.

They also really talked about their own personal spiritual journeys and how they really felt like the way they started the church put them through a spiritual refinement process where they were forced into relying on God because it was too overwhelming and too scary to think they could do it on their own.  They emphasized being spiritually centered and remembering that God is ultimately the only one that the church obeys and being faithful and taking leaps of faith is how God’s work gets done and how we get to see God’s glory revealed.  I felt like it was an appropriate last visit in that it was humbling, encouraging, and challenging.

They also had to launch multiple times with different groups and different parts of the community, so they said not to get discouraged if there were false starts.