This morning someone didn't comment on my blog post yesterday.  No news there except that I dreamed they did.  I woke from a very vivid dream this morning where someone had left a comment on Facebook in response to my blog post yesterday concerning "Rotten People".  While I don't remember the comment exactly, it boiled down to saying that sometimes you just have to fake it.  That got me thinking and today's post was born from a dream comment.  :)

Does loving other people require faking it?  NO!  That is not to say that people don't fake it.  There are plenty of Christians out there, and I think that fully includes pastors, that are faking it.  They feel there is an expectation on their behavior, they may feel the pull of the Biblical mandate on life, and decide that the most important thing is to show it, no matter what.  They may be very sincere in this desire.  Pretend to like someone, pretend to have this Christian life/personal life/family life thing figured out and nailed down, at least in the basics.  After all, we are to be witnesses and examples.  We might hurt people's feelings.  We might hurt the cause of Christ!  So we fake it.  Maybe a little, maybe a lot, but we put out there what it should look like, even if it means concealing or papering over what is really there.

I think it is all too common.  It is also wrong, and more destructive than people realize.

First, faking love is like faking electricity (not that I have any idea how you "fake" electricity).  There's no real power there, but it looks like there is.  It is all human effort and nothing of God.  1 Corinthians 13 makes it very clear that all the minstry in the world without love is worth nothing.  It is just noise.  If I simply pretend to like people in the church, simply pretend to like the individuals or churches that are difficult, I might make it look convincing, but there will be no power behind it and the Holy Spirit will do no work.   I believe part of the reason that we don't experience the Spirit's power in the church today is that we forfeit the powerful love that is the essence of God and is the key to the work of the Holy Spirit.  We are nice to each other and we fake it, but there is no power, no electricity.

Second, faking your walk with God, whether in big or small ways, destroys the chance of real ministry.  The appearance of ministry may still take place.  Church functions and programs can be planned and carried out with efficiency and success.  Attendance may be fine.  Real ministry, where lives are changed and disciples made, will not take place, and that is the true work of God.  That is true ministry.  Church activity is nothing but busy-ness unless disciples are being built and disciplemakers equipped.   In 1 Thessalonians 2, Paul makes it clear that an important part of his ministry to them was the sharing of his life.  He makes it clear to Timothy that watching how Paul lived was part of how Timothy was to learn to be a disciplemaker.  When we give a fake version, a cleaned up, sanitized, dishonest view of our lives, we completly remove that primary and crucial ministry tool.   When it comes to the men that I am discipling and equipping, if I can't display and discuss my failures, my shortfalls, and my struggles, than I have nothing to offer in terms of life-changing ministry.

You can fake it, but you must not.  Faking it produces fake ministry and fake results, which is a fancy way of saying, nothing real will happen.  So, I guess we have to truly learn to love our enemies, to love and forgive those that hurt, disappoint, spitefully use us.  When the spiritual babies, when the christian sheep, poop all over us, we must, through the awesome real power of the Holy Spirit, truly love and delight in them.  The power of ministry will suddenly surge and disciples will begin to appear.

I am sure the title grabbed your attention.  Depending on your experience, you might even have suspected terrible things about the content of this post.   After all, you don't have to spend much time around church people before you can find someone who will have such an opinion about a church or even the church.  Sadly to say, you can all too often find pastors or other ministers who express, either publicly or privately, the same sentiment.

I would not be one of those people.

Now if you want to protest at this point and say that there are churches that are rotten or people that are rotten, then you are missing the point.   I have now served twenty years in the rural Maine church.  I grew up in the rural Maine church.  I have seen a lot.  I have seen power struggles.  I have seen people push change, fight change, make change, decry change.  I have heard people bemoan the lack of newness in the church and bemoan the loss of tradition.  I have watched pastor's abuse and be abused.  I myself have been hurt by people, pastors included and have been caught in other people's plots.  I have listened to pastors, sometimes at pastor get togethers, not only tell war stories, but complain to each other about people in general and people in particular.   I have also heard plenty of complaints about pastors, usually in particular.

I am far too human to claim that I have never complained.

Yet these days, I find that I am increasingly uncomfortable with this negative sharing, no matter how accurate or emotionally satisfying it is.  As pastors and ministers we have two main forces that should guide us.  Love for God and love for people.  When we complain and display such negative attitudes, we are practicing neither.  It does not matter that our complaints may be all too true.  There is really no justification for rehearsing, rehashing, and bemoaning the sinful attitudes that we encounter in the church.  It just takes their sinful attitude and joins it with one of our own.

Jesus told us how to respond.  Bless those that persecute you, bless and curse not.  Love your enemies.  Be kind to those who mistreat you.  Do not repay evil for evil but overcome evil with good.  When we begin to complain about that person or those people in church as pastors, we display a total lack of Holy Spirit power which enables us to love as Christ loves.  As a speaker once encouraged a group of pastors, "Don't bolt when the sheep poop on you."   Sheep poop.  So do babies.  Pick your metaphor.  You may not enjoy the experience, but if you can't handle it with grace then you shouldn't be shepherding or parenting.    Listening to Nate and Charlene laugh as they tell stories of their baby peeing on them during diaper changes, it reminds me that when you delight in someone, even their lack of control, their mess, can be an opportunity to love and celebrate, even if the experience itself isn't enjoyable and smells bad.

I am thankful that my experience at Bean's Corner right now makes celebrating our church easy.  But that is hardly the point.  No matter what you experience from others, you have the power to have a loving and positive attitude through the power of the Holy Spirit who fills us with the love of Christ.   In everything give thanks, rejoice in the Lord always, all things work together for the good for those who love God and are called to His purpose. Let no unwholesome word proceed out of your mouth but only what is good for edification.  If your focus is on Christ, and it is His church, then there are no rotten people and no rotten churches.  Just some that take a lot of power to love.  Fortunately, God is omnipotent and He has freely given us the power of the Love of Christ in the Holy Spirit.  Time to reflect that.

As I get back to making more regular posts to the blog, it is good for me to remind myself, and any of you that read, what the purpose is for my blogging.

Part of this is deeply personal as I work out on the screen the thoughts that often swirl around in my head.  It helps formalize and analyze things I am thinking and develop ideas that I have.

Being able to share different thoughts I have on issues hopefully serves to encourage others as well as pushing me in my walk with Christ and my walk through this world.

Most importantly, I hope that this blog gives an honest picture of who I am and who we are as a family.  When I first gave the blog the title "Pastor's Window" it was with the idea of looking at the church and the world that goes past  from my office window.  It was a metaphor for my outlook on all that went on in life and ministry.  That is still true, but like any good (normal) window, those outside can see the person inside.  In this respect, the blog becomes a window looking onto the pastor.   It allows you to see the thoughts, feelings, and actions of my life.  You can see my interests, my weaknesses, my hurts and my joys.  My quirks no doubt become apparent as well as my struggles as I seek to follow Christ.

I have noticed that sometimes of late I have been more serious than fun on the blog and have stopped posting little things of interest like following the Red Sox or other humorous things.  I can get a little to "devotional" and preachy sometimes.  I'm not sure that will stop just because I often am seeking to find biblical pictures in day-to-day life.  But I'll try to make sure I don't lose track of the fun side of things.  :)

So, as of February the blog is four years old.  Can't believe that much time has flown by.  Its going to be an amazing spring as God continues to mould, shape, and refine.  Thanks for sharing in all this with me.

Having three young kids, Sarah and I know all about the need to discipline.  What is the trick is method.  At the risk of being a bit simplistic, there are two extremes.  There are those that emphasize love and affirmation to the point where kids run free and do what they want and there are those that emphasize obedience to the point where the kids are almost in prison.   If these are the two extremes, then common sense would say that a "balanced" approach would be a mix of some obedience and some love and acceptance.   I submit that that approach would be wrong too.

Although this is a complex subject with many intricacies, you can boil Sarah's and my approach down to two simple propositions.  Obedience must be absolute.  So must love.    In other words, disobeying is not a tolerated option in our house.  I am not saying that it doesn't happen, but that it is never permitted to go unanswered or uncorrected.  Teaching our kids that obedience is optional and avoidable would do them a terrible disservice and leave them in danger. HOWEVER, if that was it, we would be a police state, which we are not.  Love must be absolute too, and by this I don't mean simply that we tell our kids we love them (although we do.)   It means that the obedience we require is done in love, for love, and through love.  In fact, the more you discipline, the more love you must employ.   This is modeled on how God cares for us.  The Bible tells us that "the love of Christ controls us." (2 Cor. 5:14).  "Control" in this context means to constrain, to hold together.  Today my youngest (post-birth) child needed some discipline.  He got it along with a double helping of love and reassurance.  We are pretty strict here but we are not harsh.  Obedience becomes of matter of love, not fear of punishment.  As our children get older, we will lose the ability to punish them easily.  They will get big and independent and certain punishments will lose their value.  Love doesn't lose its value and even after they are completely independent of us, the bonds of absolute love will continue to bind our kids to us and make what we say matter.

Being vigilant with absolute obedience and absolute love is a difficult task for parents.  We want to take a break, or give reign to our frustration and tiredness, but we must not. (And when we do, love must drive us to our children in repentance, begging forgiveness in humility).  Although we are imperfect and growing in our execution, Sarah's & my goal for our household is a group of people bound together by love and constrained in their behavior by love for Christ and for each other.  Love makes us better parents and makes our kids better proto-adults.

I don't know about you, but I can be a major responsibility shifter.  If I'm late, its someone elses fault.  If something goes wrong, I can probably find someone who in some way caused it to happen, no matter what my role may have been.  Maybe it didn't even really go wrong, you just think it did.  See, its your fault.

This can also work for things that need doing.  It is so much easier to see what someone else ought to be doing.  I can assign work to others no problem.

In both of these cases, I am helped when the other person really did cause something to go wrong or should do something.

The problem comes when you are a leader.  As a husband and father, I am the leader of my home.  As a pastor, I am a leader of the church.  In both cases, it can be easy for me to assign blame to people and assign work to people.  The house is a mess....its the kids' fault.   There's division at church...its that person's fault.   You know what you should be doing?!

One issue with this approach.  It is unBiblical.  The Bible emphasizes a different approach to leadership.  That of the servant leader.  It means that I don't lead the way the world does.

But Jesus called them to Himself and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. "It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; (Matthew 20:25-27)

So when it comes to my home or to church, if there is a problem, what I need to do is not focus on others, but focus on me.  If the house is a mess, I need to serve harder.  If there is conflict at church, I need to serve harder.  This is easier and more difficult than the world's way.  More difficult because I have to do the work myself instead of passing the buck and the blame.  Easier because I access the power of the Spirit by serving and because people will respond very differently to a servant than to a dictator.

How you serve may take many forms, but it always starts by dying to self.  Instead of first getting after the children or my wife if something at home isn't the way it ought to be, I start by taking the responsibility and the initiative, whether or not it was my fault to begin with.  Then from a position of servanthood, I lead them into the new or better habit.

At church it is the same thing.  I have to take responsibility for the conflict, even if I didn't start or cause it.  From that position, you eliminate defensiveness in others because you are modeling humility.  You lead toward solution instead of trying to pin blame on the other person, even if you think it rightly belongs there.

That is what Jesus did.  There was a huge problem.  There was rebellion and wickedness.  Jesus' solution? Serve Harder.  He took responsibility for the fault and took care of the solution Himself.  It hadn't been His fault at all.  Not even a little.  He repented of sins not His own as if they were His own and paid the price for them.  He leads us in repentence now as we follow in His footsteps and die to self.

Frustrated with someone?  Serve Harder!