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Month: June 2015

Forced on a Journey

June 24, 2015 /

empty roadway

Dear Friends,

Over the last few months, I have been on a spiritual journey producing a struggle in my own faith.

I, like you, watched the media reports of rioting in Ferguson, Missouri following the shooting of Michael Brown by a police officer.

I listened to the reports of Eric Garner being choked to death while being arrested by officers of the NYPD.

I attempted to comprehend what could have happened for Freddie Gray to suffer injuries leading to his death in the back of a Baltimore police van.

Over and over again I watched the video of Walter Scott being shot in the back as he ran away from a North Charleston, SC police officer

I was stunned by the images from a Texas pool party of an out of control police officer rapidly escalating an already tense situation.

I wanted to see each incident as unique. I wanted to say that this is not what law enforcement is like. And I don’t think it is, but I cannot deny that these events have happened and our nation reels because of them.

I wanted to process and look at each of these events in isolation from the other. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it because I saw and read the responses to the events from colleagues and church leaders. Men and women who have much more experience than I. Individuals far smarter than me. I saw these people standing in solidarity with the African American community as they demanded justice. The presence of these men and women, whom I greatly respected, standing on a different side of the debate gave me great pause. I began to question if I was not in fact wrong.

So I started to listen to myself. What I heard myself saying sounded an awful lot like the words of my white predecessors who spoke against the civil rights movement of the past and any efforts to change the status quo.

I knew then that I was wrong. But I did not know how or understand why. This realization was when my journey began.

Many of us are quick to quote Martin Luther King Jr. but would we have been so quick to quote him and stand beside him if we had lived through our nation seemingly being torn apart by the civil rights movement? What about today, as we watch our nation appears to be taking a journey down this path again?

I have been on a spiritual journey these past few months and in the next several posts I want to take you on that journey with me. I have many questions and very few answers.

Let’s walk together,
Pastor Stephen

Functioning by Design

June 17, 2015 /

Manufacturing

Right after college I worked a little over a year at Hewlett-Packard doing technical support for their JetDirect network printing devices. I remember one day I received a phone call from a man in Indianapolis. He was not able to print to his printer in Paris. The man went into a description of network switches, subnets, satellite uplinks. On and on he went describing the complexity of his network. It was my first week on the job flying solo as a tech support agent. And I froze. I did not have one clue what the man was talking about.

After taking down all of the information, most of which I did not understand I put the man on hold. It was at that moment that my coworker, sitting across from me, who had been listening in on this call, asked one important question “Can they print to it in Paris?”

The answer was “yes.” He said, then it is functioning as it was created to function.

We can get bogged down in life with the complexities of life. People can tell you that this is a different world. And it is. They can tell about all of the changes. And they are many. But the ultimate question for each one of us is: “Are we living our lives, are we functioning as we were created to function?” If the answer is yes, then the rest really doesn’t matter.

Ultimately, the one who decides if something is functioning in the way it was designed to function is not the end user, but it is the one who created it. In terms of our lives. It is not our society or the talking head pundits who decide the chief aim of humanity. It is the one who created humanity himself: God.

When was the last time you asked him and sought his answer to the meaning and purpose of life?

Pastor Stephen

Moving from Performance to Legacy

June 10, 2015 /

Performance, always 100%

We are a performance-driven society. I don’t know of anyone who would argue against that statement. Our high levels of performance are often the product of an inner desire for significance. In short, a legacy. The quest for a legacy is a quest for our lives to have significance and influence long after our deaths. So we pour ourselves into achieving high levels of performance.

Performance alone will not create a legacy. Aaron Hernandez, former tight end of the New England Patriots, had performance. But he lacked in character and relationships. He will spend the rest of his life in prison. Bernie Madoff had performance. But he cheated people of their money and drew his family into his schemes. His son committed suicide and he will spend his life in prison.

No matter who skilled we are, no matter how big of kingdom we build, it will all blow away in the winds of time unless we have P, C, and R. Specifically, Performance x Character x Relationships = Legacy

A legacy is formed when we win in our performance, character and relationships.

Pastor Stephen

We All Need Legacy Moments

June 3, 2015 /

Stones in a PileWe all need legacy moments in our lives.

Legacy moments are markers of God’s ongoing faithfulness in the past and promises of continued faithfulness in the future.

In Joshua 4 we read of a legacy moment. For forty years the people of Israel have wandered in the desert, because of their disobedience. The time has finally come for them to break camp and enter the Promised Land. The priests hoist the ark and step into the flood waters of the Jordan River. Before them the waters recede and they step into the middle of the river, on dry ground. Quickly the people cross the river and for the first time their feet touch the soils of the Promised Land. Before the waters return to the flow one more act remains. A legacy moment. Twelve men walk to the middle of the river and pick up twelve large stones. These are brought to camp and set as a maker of remembrance.

“In the future when your descendants ask their parents, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’ For the Lord your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The Lord your God did to the Jordan what he had done to the Red Sea when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over. He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God.” (Joshua 4:21-24, NIV)

These stones are a reminder of the amazing thing God did the past when they crossed the Jordan River. They are also a reminder that it was not a single act, but it was one act in the line of God’s continuous faithfulness to his people when he led them across the Red Sea. They are a promise for the future. Whatever rivers are barriers might stand in the way of God’s promises they will be moved like the waters of the Red Sea and Jordan River.

We all need legacy moments, reminders of God’s ongoing faithfulness in the past and promises of his continuous faithfulness in the future. We need them because we quickly forget what God has done. These markers stand as a barrier to us when we are tempted to turn around and go back to our old way of life. It is not easy to walk past a legacy marker. They demand we turn back around and continue to press forward in the race that is set before us.

What are your legacy moments? Do you have markers of remembrance?

Pastor Stephen

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