The Armor of God

Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand (Ephesians 6:11).

I recently read an article talking about the creation of “the warrior spirit” in the minds and hearts of our military men and women. It said, in part, “They must live fully in body and mind, aggressively engaged in the particular cause of defense.”

We too are called to be warriors. However, there is one very important item of which to take note. The purpose of armor is not offensive. The whole purpose of armor is defensive. You and I as soldiers of the cross are, or will be, under attack. We are not allowed to sit on the sidelines! If we are indeed involved with living out the call of Christ in the world around us, the Scriptures inform us that WE WILL INDEED ENCOUTER  OPPOSITION! We are called to preach justice in an unjust world. We are called to forgive our enemies when conventional wisdoms cries for us to destroy them. We are called to give to the ungrateful. We are called to do great things even when it seems impossible with the resources we have. We are called to push through the comments of the author of lies who tells us that we are too weak, too small, too ill equipped, too old, too young, too. . .Well, I think you get the idea. We are told to prepare ourselves to stand firm when all sorts of doubts and fears assail us. We are called to be ready. After you have done everything to stand. Stand firm then. . .(Ephesians 6:13).

The only offensive weapon given to us is a sword, The Sword of the Spirit which is the word of God. With all this armor to protect us we will survive, but if we are to win the day we must become acquainted with our offensive weapon. Is your sword more than an antique hung over the fireplace for display, kind of like your great grandfather’s favorite shotgun? Do you know how to use it? Are you familiar with how to clean it, how to load it, how to aim it for maximum efficiency? If you aren’t, you will survive because your defensive armor is strong, but do you want to do more with your Christian life than just survive the beatings the world can inflict on your faith? What soldier worth anything to his captain would run into the battle with ONLY his defensive armor in place, carrying no weapon to win the day for his commander? It is time to do weapons training. It is time to get to know that book that is in the drawer of the nightstand next to your bed, or on the coffee table, or up on the shelf in your library. It is time to open to read something other than the family tree that is posted in the front, to do something more with it than to add a baptism, a marriage, or a passing to the list already there.

In the year ahead, we will not be standing on the sidelines. We will take an active part in the advancement of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ on this earth. There are no reserves in God’s army. We are all active duty.

Pastor Craig

Reconnect, Recommit, Rejoice

This last week the Committee on Ministry of Grace Presbytery called and asked me to moderate the session of Central Presbyterian Church in Waxahachie. Their pastor, Rev. Anna Whitehead, is leaving to move to Alabama and they need someone to step in until such time as an interim can be found. It doesn’t take much, just one extra meeting per month, and it does give me the blessing of getting to see how another church works and conducts its business.

The first meeting I attended was Thursday evening. I was privileged to see a church dream. The session has been asked to create a vision statement, something that says what they feel God is calling them to do and be in the corner of the world where God calls them to minister.

Unfortunately, most times these statements are written simply to meet the requirements to get the church’s Church Information Form (CIF) circulated through the denominational channels. It rarely sees the light of day and is not generally implemented when the new pastor arrives on site.

How sad! To wrestle with the Almighty as Jacob did beside the river and to finally catch a glimpse of ultimate glory, only to leave it sitting in a filing cabinet along with old financial statements, meetings notes, letters of transfer, and previously paid utility bills.

All of us are the people of God trying to understand the vision and mission intended by the work of God to minister to the world God created. Once we find that vision, when we have a word from the Lord, we should move forward with determination. This isn’t true only for churches going through the process of filling out forms to find a new pastor. This should be the goal for each and every church each and every day.

This Sunday of Reconnect, Recommit, and Rejoice is something that we should pursue as a vision beyond a program for a single Sunday. We should be about seeking continual connection, transformational commitment, and enthusiastic rejoicing. As we are striving to do that we live out the call of Christ in our lives.

It is back to church, back to basics, restart Sunday. It is the time we ask ourselves, “If we could transform our church into anything we want, what would it be?” It is also the time we ask the follow up question, “Realizing that God gives us the grace and power to transform ourselves and our church into that which we dream it to be, why haven’t we already done it?”

It is time to heed the command to the Israelites and get up and move forward. They almost chose to stay still, cursing the darkness but refusing to light the candle of God’s grace. May we move more quickly to respond!

Pastor Craig

What I Miss About 9/12

None of us would ever wish anything bad to happen, even though great good may be seen in the aftermath of the evil. I get the privilege of writing to you on the anniversary of 9/11, arguably one of the darkest days in the history of our country. All of us were changed on that day. Some of us lost loved ones. Almost all of us knew someone who knew someone who lost someone dear to them. In the aftermath, we have endured 10 years of war.

In between 9/11 and the years of war was 9/12, one of the highlights in all of our nation’s history. It was a day when people poured forth from their homes to respond to the needs of their fellow citizens. Thousands upon thousands stood for hours to donate blood. Tons of food and clothing were taken in drives across the country. Hundreds marched immediately to their local recruiter’s office, some even lying about their age, to enlist in the defense of our country and see those who had planned such an evil upon our country brought to justice.

The best of all was the outpouring of people seeking meaning and purpose. Who could have done such a thing, and why? If there is a God up in heaven, and if He is God of the entire universe, what was He doing on that awful morning? Those are questions we will never fully understand. We have probably come to our own personal answers and that is the best we can do.

The important thing was that we gathered to the one place where we might possibly find meaning, purpose, and answers – the Church. In ten years since, we have gotten comfortable again. We have stopped looking for answers. We have stopped praying for country and countrymen, or at least the intensity of our prayers has greatly diminished. We have gone back to being Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Tea Partiers, or whatever else we may claim to be instead of being brothers and sisters. Our fellow countrymen in need have again become an inconvenience. Church is something that takes up our Sunday mornings. I would never want to go through another 9/11, but I sure do miss the positive aspects of 9/12.

Yet, God is still there. He still waits for your questions even if He doesn’t always give the answer you want in the detail for which you were looking. He wants to heal your hurts and pains. He has never left you, and never will. He has been faithful in His waiting for you. The question is, “What have you and I done with our relationship with Him over the same time?”

Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the great deep. O Lord, you preserve both man and beast. How priceless is your unfailing love! Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings. (Psalm 36:5-7 NIV)

Pastor Craig

Living With God

Do you believe that people can experience the presence of God as our Bible heroes did in the stories we love so much? I do. However, at the same time, I must say that I find those experiences rare. I think they were rare back in Bible times as well. We need to remember that the Bible tends to be a book ABOUT and FOR such encounters as opposed to everyday life, go to the store, pick up kids up from school encounters.

I think we are meant to live in an ongoing conversation with God, speaking and being spoken to. Rightly understood I believe that this can be seen in God’s visits to Adam and Eve in the Garden, Enoch’s walks with God, and the face-to-face conversations between Yahweh and Moses.  We see these times as highly exceptional moments in the religious history of humanity. Aside from their obviously unique historical role, however, they are not meant to be exceptional at all. Rather they are examples of the normal human life God intended for us: God’s indwelling his people through personal presence and fellowship. Given who we are by basic nature, we live only through God’s regular speaking in our souls and this “by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

While we no longer literally live with God in the garden, we have available to us many other methods of conversing with him. We communicate with God through worship, Bible study, communion, and prayer, to name only a few. You may have other ways you hear the voice of God. Take some time and list those many ways God has spoken to you and recognize how close he really is.

There are also hindrances to hearing God speak to us. We may have preconceived notions God has to fight his way past before we can hear the still small voice whispering his will and work to us. Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:1-13) found all sorts of ways to block God after their initial sin. Rather than admit their guilt and ask for forgiveness they immediately proceeded to the blame game, finally even blaming God for their failure.

The conversation God had with Adam and Eve hardly represents humankind’s proudest moment. They had just deliberately disobeyed the only rule God had given them. How would you have reacted if you were there? It is easy to think from a distance that we would have rejected that temptation. They had everything – companionship, food, meaningful work, face-to-face conversations with God. Before you are too hard on them, picture God coming to look for you after your sins, knowing all your flaws and failures. How far do you think you would run? The key is that God still came looking, wanting to be in relationship with them, wanting that personal and intimate relationship with them even more than they wanted it with him! Amazing!

Pastor Craig

The Gathering

I am sitting in the Grand Ballroom of the Doubletree Hotel waiting for the few minutes to pass before a new seminar is to begin. Roughly 2,000 Presbyterians are here from all over the country. They came for something called The Gathering. They came for different reasons.

In addition to this seminar there have been multiple small group discussion opportunities. My discussion group is #135. It is made up of pastors and lay people gathered from California, Arizona, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Colorado, Oregon, Georgia, and Texas.

One pastor is committed to sticking it out and ministering in place. One has a congregation that has voted unanimously to pursue a course of separation from the denomination, two pastors serve congregations that are divided if not conflicted on what to do, where to go, and how to respond. One person is newly ordained, only two weeks ago. Another is still in seminary and is exploring how to pursue God’s call upon his life. One is an Irish national pursuing God’s call to minister to a congregation within the United States. Another is striving to minister so boldly within his presbytery that it will transform the presbytery into something that addresses the slow death of the PCUSA. These are my brothers and sisters. They are yours as well.

This is the new reality in which we find ourselves and our churches at this time in the history of our denomination. This is the face of diversity. Diversity has been a term that has been used over the past several decades only to divide the church.

In the midst of this tremendous diversity what is there left to unite us? Historically, there is only one theme around which the Scriptures call us to unite. It is in fact the dividing line between authentic Christian doctrine and something else. It is salvation through Jesus Christ alone. It is the reason the pastor from Arizona has chosen to stick it out and “minister in place,” not because of the calling of Christ alone, but because of the unity the Spirit of God has been able to forge between evangelicals, conservatives, progressives, and liberals when all of them agree on what comes first – Jesus Christ. This is what we are called to as well, to minister where we are, not waiting for “the right climate or circumstances to fall into place, but realizing that people need Jesus NOW – not just when it becomes convenient for us to tell them about him.

The months ahead will bring changes within our structure. We will see or hear of changes around us. One thing will remain constant. Jesus Christ is Lord!

Pastor Craig

Remaking Church

If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears.

-- Glenn Clark

It is time to “remake” church. We have operated too long on too much of the same old traditions. We do that because they give us nice, warm memories about how wonderful it was long ago if not far away. We remember our times, or the times of our children in youth group. We think of retreats, lock-ins, camp songs, and special events. We remember how wonderful they were and we want to recreate that specialness again for a new generation. The problem is the new generation has moved on. They want to create their own memories, not simply relive ours. I do not intend to slam old traditions here. I have some very well entrenched traditions of my own. However, when it comes to where our congregation should be, I find myself quoting the words of Dr. Phil, “How’s that workin’ for ya?”

Youth and young adults these days are more direct than they were even in my generation. I was never allowed to call an adult by their first name, even if I tried to attach a Mr. or Miss to it. I remember VERY clearly being told to tell my father that Garland was on the phone and wished to speak to him. Well, I relayed that exact message to my father and was met with the following response, “That would be Mr. Disharoon for you. Please don’t forget that in the future.” Obviously, a comment and a tone that had a LASTING impression upon me.  

I’m not complaining about the new found familiarity that young people seem to have with adults. On the one hand, I think it helps us bridge the generation gap between adults, young adults, and youth. No, my point is simply that times have definitely changed. Yet, the church, consistently, is among the last place to change with the times.  

In response to my own comments, I am asking you to join me in a new effort in ministry at First Presbyterian Church. Carpathia will adopt the attitude of the RMS Carpathia which prompted the passengers and crew of that ship to put aside all other ordinary tasks when the call for assistance came from the Titanic, steam through the night, and work until all who could be rescued were rescued indeed. We will meet the first Thursday of each month at 6:30 P.M. in the church parlor. We will begin on Thursday, September 1^st. Come and join with us. Come with ideas, but come ready to champion your ideas through your own sweat equity as well. Together may we save all Christ will allow us.

Pastor Craig

COURAGE

“Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow.”

Mary Anne Radmacher

Courage is not just a good idea. It is not the action that is honored in the form of medals, tickertape parades, monuments, or plaques. It has been defined not as the absence of fear but as the clarity of mind and commitment to action in spite of that fear. Probably, for the sake of this brief writing, courage could best be defined as perseverance, possibly even faith.

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of thins not seen. (Hebrews 11:1). Faith involves courage. It is the step forward into the future, not because we know the future, but because we know the one who holds the future in His hands. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. I do not know what will happen next week. I know what is on my schedule, but I have no assurance the things I have written on my calendar will actually come to pass.

James 4:14 says, You do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little awhile and then vanishes away. We do not know how much time we get on this earth. Though our Creator loves us, we have no guarantee that our plans will succeed. Christian marriages sometimes end in divorce. Christian parents don’t always have kind, gracious, obedient, respectful, loving children. Some Christians are homeless. Other Christians are in prison. Still others do not recover from their illness in spite of all the prayers that are sent to heaven on their behalf. Just why are we Christians, then? What prompts us to faith, perseverance, and courage? I certainly hope it is something more than the fear of a negative afterlife.

Yet, as Christians, we do not hold back. We do not adopt a defeatist attitude. We are not without hope. For every time we fail we recognize Christ’s forgiveness and start fresh. We move forward with a confidence not based in our own abilities, but in the one who forgives us for our mistakes and rebelliousness. Though the day be dark, the one who created the day gives us a completely new one with each sunrise and encourages us to try again.

Pastor Craig