Suicide.

"Marcus" died a few months ago. He leaves behind his wife, "Cindy", and their two grown children.

Marcus killed himself.

The family released very little information about their loved one's death. The paper said he'd suffered from cancer (he did), and the church announced that his death was "unexpected" (it was). But no one told the truth - Marcus committed suicide.

There are still so many stigmas in the church. We claim to be all-forgiving, all-accepting, and all-understanding, but there are still taboos - things we don't admit or share. 

Some moms can't publicly acknowledge that her child is living a homosexual lifestyle. I know a dad who teaches a Bible study, but hasn't talked to his only son for many years. He's too ashamed to even ask for prayer. He misses his son terribly, but can't talk to anyone about his anguish. What would people think of him?

My heart breaks for people with deep gaping wounds, and who feel they have nowhere to share their grief. Some are simply too embarrassed to admit the "blight" on the family name.

Suicide is just such a blight.

Well meaning people have told Marcus's wife that she should be comforted by the fact that he's in a "better place". Others rejoice because his death was the end to his earthly suffering. Meanwhile, Cindy is feeling guilty and asks herself what she missed, and if there was something she could have said or done to keep Marcus from ending his life.

She feels she has nowhere to turn.

Get off the pew. Open your hearts and open your arms. Be someone who gives others a safe place to land - a place wherein they can tell the truth with no fear of judgment, condemnation, or behind-the-back whispers.

Get off the pew!

Clueless Cleric

Our children decided when they were teens that they wanted nothing to do with The Church. Pastors, parishioners, and pew sitters were judgmental hypocrites who would rather point fingers than build relationship.

That, sadly, was our church experience.

The other night I went to an event and sat at a table with a former nemesis – the pastor who decided I should be fired from my church job because I got involved with community theatre. Our kids were devastated when they watched the pastor's critical condemnations break my heart and spirit. I was angry at the time, not only because of how he treated me, but because his actions so profoundly and negatively affected our kids and their faith.

Despite the pain of the past, I'm always cautiously open to restoration. My former boss asked about the kids. I shared their comings and goings, including the fact that one of our kids is an atheist.

"You know," said the man, "one of our sons had doubts about his faith when he was fired from a church and treated so unfairly."

Now, at this point in the conversation I could have said, "Hmmmm....what a coincidence. You're the one whose actions caused my children to lose their faith." 

But I chose to listen.

He proceeded to tell me just a bit more about how hurt his son had been and how he again found his faith. I realized that he's clueless as to how his behavior affects people. He doesn't see himself in the actions of others.

I love the book UnChristian by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons. The book reveals the results of research that exposes how church outsiders see Christians, and how very clueless we are about how we are being perceived. I could've written that book a decade ago, and I don't need the Barna Group to give me research data. I've witnessed unimaginable hypocrisy first hand. According to the book and the data they collected, church leaders are woefully unaware of how their actions negatively impact both insiders and outsiders.

Get off the pew and look in the mirror. We are being watched, examined, hated, loved, emulated, and shunned. We're going to mess up, and when we do, we need to fess up. Being Jesus with skin on isn't easy, but it's who we ought to be.

Get off the pew!

When Pastors Choose Our Friends

Is it ever okay for a pastor to tell a parishioner who said parishioner can and cannot have as a friend?

An acquaintance of mine was in the middle of a casual conversation with her pastor the other day, when he told her that he would rather she not be friends with someone. She became understandably defensive.

“Are you really telling me with whom I can be friends?”

“I’m just telling you to be careful.” He went on to explain how the person in question was an inferior Christian and therefore – inferior friend material.

Jesus modeled for us the example of how to be friends with people we “ought not” be friends with. Jesus was totally politically incorrect when he approached the Samaritan woman at the well. He talked with her, encouraged her, challenged her, and then sent her off to become the first evangelist.

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” John 4:39

When we stand in the way of friendships, we reveal our own insecurities, judgmental heart, critical spirit, and phobias. So many pastors have become arrogant and prideful. They seem to truly believe they and they alone know how to make right and good choices. 

The number of pastor/teachers who seem to believe it’s their God-given right to literally direct every aspect of the believer’s life shouldn’t surprise me. I see it all the time.

Get off the pew and go make an unlikely friend today. Go. Go!

No Suit Required

“This pastor is changing things and we don’t like it. He wants people to stop wearing suits to church!”

A couple in their mid-40’s had only been coming to the church for a couple of months when they decided to go to one of the weekly dinners that are served on the large campus. They ended up sitting at a small table with a suit-wearing, sour-faced, ugly-talking older man and his wife. The crotchety couple didn’t waste time giving their tablemates an ear full.

They were, they boasted, founding members of the church and there are rules—ways of doing things around here. The new pastor, they said, didn’t respect the “traditions” of this old church.

The church I attend hired a new pastor/teacher eight months ago. The much beloved preacher he replaced retired after 44 years at the same pulpit. The outgoing leader was the only minister many in the congregation had ever known.

The new guy is a very young 48 years old. The man who retired was in his 70’s and he definitely came from a different era. His preaching style reflected his this-is-how-you-do-it confidence. No one could deliver a hellfire and brimstone sermon like the old-school minister.

Most of the staff pastors at the mega-church have been around for many, many years. They are used to doing things their way, and true accountability has kind of fallen by the wayside. A “good ol’ boy” mentality prevails.

So, in comes someone new and he’s ready to move the parishioners into the modern era, even if he has to drag the old-fashioned church kicking and screaming into the 21^st century. He brings change to the table and, let's be real, change is met with opposition 100% of the time.

Pastor New Guy offers weekly “get to know me” gatherings. I’ve been to several of these small group meetings where people are allowed to ask questions, raise concerns, voice their objections, and discuss the challenges that come with this type of transition.

The husband and his wife raised their hands and asked the pastor the question, “Are you really telling men they can no longer wear suits to church?”

“What?” Pastor New Guy was truly shocked. “Who told you that?”

The visitors related the strange conversation they’d had only an hour before. They told us they were sitting alone at a small table where the dinners are served when the old man and his wife asked if they could join them. As soon as the gray-haired man learned the younger couple was new to the church, he began bad mouthing the new pastor.

As I sat listening to this tale I was getting angrier by the second. Luckily, I didn’t have to open my mouth. Our lead pastor was plenty enough outraged.

“I didn’t say they couldn’t wear suits to church. I said they have the freedom to not wear suits to church.”

“If we hadn’t been Christians for our whole life, we might have been really offended by them.” The couple was being sweet about the ugly encounter.

“How do they know?” Pastor’s frustration was palpable. “How do they know you’re not a new believer? This is the way the ‘founding members’ of the church are talking to new attendees?”

No wonder the church stopped growing 10 years ago!

Listen up; Jesus doesn’t care whether or not you wear a suit to church! He doesn’t care about designer shoes, name-brand labels, or smart jewelry. Jesus just wants to love you like you’ve never been loved before.

Most of us have heard that church is a hospital for the sick and Jesus is the healer. A pastor friend of mine takes that analogy further. He says churches are like hospitals—you have to be extra careful to not contract an infection worse than the one you came in with.

Have you been infected with negativity, gossip mongering, pride, a judgmental attitude, or legalism? Get off the pew and take it to the great physician. Come to Jesus just as you are…no suit required! Get off the pew!

We're Game Changers

(This is a guest post. Written by Elizabeth Stoeckel. You can find her blog at lizbydesign.blogspot.com)



Last night some 25 women gathered at a beautiful home in the gorgeous “Van Ness Extension” neighborhood in my hometown. We came together for the purpose of brainstorming and thinking outside the box.

The girls who showed up last night share a dream—a desire to create a Valley wide Christian women’s group. It was inspiring to be in the company of so many amazing, talented, beautiful, and creative ladies—true game changers!

There’s a disturbing trend in churches today to separate and divide the church family into tiny little subgroups. Large gatherings, events, and Sunday school classes have given way to small groups. I don’t mean groups of say…50 people. I’m talking about clusters no larger than 8 or 10 people. Groups numbering more than that are encouraged to divide.

“The Church”—that is, the world church—has already been broken into denominations. The denominations then break off into factions. The Mennonite church, for example, has several sub-groups. There’s the (Old) Mennonite Church, the General Conference Mennonite Church, the Mennonite Brethren Church, and the Amish.

If I were a Baptist, I could choose to be a Southern Baptist, a General Baptist, a Calvinist, or a Seventh-Day-Baptist, just to name a few. Whether you consider yourself a liberal Christian, a conservative, or a legalist, there’s a church out there for you.

Further, we’ve divided ourselves over music, food, jewelry, make-up, and public education. Jesus called us one body. We fight, argue, gossip, condemn, and judge the very same people we share the pew with on Sunday morning.

Paul wrote this in Colossians 3:14-16 (NIV): And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.

When people are divided they fight. Where there is unity, there is appreciation and respect. “United we stand, divided we fall” is more than just a clever cliché. It’s the truth!

So, we hope to gather thousands of women together from all over the Central Valley to support, love, encourage, and challenge one another. I hope California is ready to be nurtured and cared for in a whole new way!

Look out Central Valley. The girls are uniting! We’re gonna love on you big time—ready or not!

Boycotts

Christians love to boycott! We march outside abortion clinics and adult bookstores. We carry picket signs and deliver passionate speeches on street corners in hopes of swaying voters. We boycott products and companies, movies and television shows. Back in the day we would send passionate letters and flyers to pastors and church deacon boards in hopes that they would warn their parishioners about reading a particular book, voting for a distrusted candidate, buying an ill thought of product, or seeing a morally bankrupt movie. Today we’ve got tools like email, Facebook, cell phones, and Twitter to get our message out to the masses in a nanosecond.

For years Christians have been encouraged to boycott anything Disney because, “Few companies have demonstrated as much of a callous disregard towards the concerns of Christians as Disney has” – this according to a “how to boycott Disney” website. The belief is that Disney promotes the homosexual lifestyle. In 1989 a woman named, Terry Rakolta led a boycott against the then fairly new television show, “Married With Children” after viewing an episode that oozed sexual innuendo (didn’t they all). She started a letter writing campaign urging advertisers to drop their support of the show. Ironically, it was her boycott that made more viewers aware of the floundering show and the ratings soured. In fact, “Married With Children” enjoyed high ratings from then on and was kept on the air until 1997. So then, the boycott was a bust? Yeah, I’d say so.

Listen, boycotts are not bad things. I often say that bad things must happen to good people so that good people will rise up and effect change. A boycott will often shine the light of truth on a particularly unjust situation or law. I love a quote from Jonathan Acuff from his blog, “Stuff Christians Like”. #149 addresses boycotting stuff and he points out that he’s not completely against boycotts. “I would rather have a well done boycott spread light on a real issue,” says Mr. Acuff, “than have hatemongers wearing Christian masks be the only thing the world sees when it comes to a boycott.” He’s right. The world tends to see us as hatemongers wearing Christian masks.

I submit to you that we ought to shine a brighter light on some of the junk that goes on behind the church doors. Let’s use our sign making skills to boycott gossip, judgment, divorce among Christians, name calling, and wars about what kind of worship songs we should be singing! It’s not a bad thing that we want to clean up our neighborhoods and cities, but our own house is a mess!

Get off the Pew and speak up! Speak up when the church busybody talks smack about the couple going through a rough time. Speak up when a high school student chatters on about the Sunday School “slut”. Speak up when the pastor preaches something that you believe is in opposition to the inerrant word of God. Speak up when the televangelist begs and cries for money then goes home to his multi-million dollar house on a hill. Speak up when the family with the incarcerated son is kicked out of church, or the single woman is told she must quit the choir because someone saw her at a bar! When we present a clean and orderly house, the visitors will be drawn to us, and ultimately to God Himself.

Get off the Pew, put down the picket signs, and clean up God’s house. Get off the Pew!

Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely!

“Maria, you are on a dangerous path.” Today, several years after hearing those words on the other end of the phone line, the memory still stings. Maria had asked a question of a pastor and now she was being warned by an associate pastor to stop asking such questions! Unbelievable!

Absolute power corrupts, absolutely! Who among us would challenge that statement? I submit to you that none of us would! After all, we only have to look at politicians to see living examples of how power corrupts. Surely power and corruption never happens in the church…right? Well, we all know the answer to that question. Corrupt happens! Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Baker, Ted Haggard, Dr. Jeremiah Wright – these are high profile religious leaders whose names and less than flattering stories come immediately to mind. These men have corrupted their families, friends, and the reputation of God, His people, and His message. These men didn’t start out as powerful spiritual leaders, but like all of us, they started simply and quietly. As their ministries grew, their power grew. As their power grew, people around them stopped asking questions. The only way to avoid pride-fuelled corruption is to keep people close to you, and then give them permission to be honest and to hold you accountable.

Pastor H. had seen Maria’s gifts and talents in the area of the performing arts, and he had enlisted her help in growing the ministry in his church. There were several other people on the creative arts team, as well. Maria loved being a part of the team and these people were more than colleagues – they were friends. For several months before the phone call, however, there had been discontent stirring among the team members. Why is it that the choir and drama ministries in churches are always so full of…well…drama? Okay, that’s a whole other blog, for sure! Anyway, one day Pastor H. called Maria up and asked her to step down from the team. When she asked why he said, “I’m in charge and I don’t want you to make me feel like I’m in a box. This is my decision.” Maria wasn’t questioning the pastor’s authority, “but,” she said, “you’ve just made a decision about my life and my ministry and I want to know why.” “Because I’m in charge.” And, that was that.

It was soon after that conversation with Pastor H., that his associate, Pastor B. called Maria. “You are on a dangerous path. You should not question men in spiritual authority over you. This trend is very dangerous.” Um…. that could not be further from biblical truth! 1 John 4:1 tells us to “test the spirits and see if they are from God” because “many false prophets have gone out into the world”. Listen friend, if you’ve got a pastor who won’t let you ask “why”, that is a major red flag about the man and his ministry. He should be able to support his decision with scripture. Matthew 23:13 warns teachers and church leaders with these words, "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.” If Maria had been a baby Christian she might very well have walked away from God altogether. After all, when a religious leader says, “do this ‘cause I said so”, that’s really cult-like and I would advise any young Christian to run screaming from that leader, and into the arms of a more mature believer!

It would be several years before Maria learned the truth. It seems that one of the other creative arts team members was saying things behind her back and that team member eventually won the leadership position that Maria had once held. Maria not only lost a ministry she cared deeply about, but she lost a family she had trusted and loved.

Is there discontent on your church team? Settle it! Are you a pastor in leadership over a rowdy rag-tag group? Look, it is your job to seek the truth, follow the principles of reconciliation found in Matthew 18, and to teach your team to work together as one body. Is someone coming to you with suspicions or gossip about another believer? Remind both the gossiper and yourself of the truth found in 1 Samuel 16:7, “man looks on the outward appearances, but God looks on the heart.” I’ll go one further here – man can ONLY see the outside, God ONLY sees the hearts. Don’t make assumptions about your team members, as that’ll destroy a team faster than anything. Get of the pew! Be seekers of truth and peace!