New Position

Hi again!  It has been a while since I have been posting regularly to this blog.  But it is time for that to change!  There have been many changes in my life and it is now time for me to begin blogging again. 

One of the big changes in my life has been a career change.  I am now working as a Family Service Advisor for Dignity Memorial, which is the largest funeral services company in the North America.  We have over 2000 locations in the USA and Canada, including funeral homes and cemetaries.  Essentially, my job is a sales position.  While I provide follow-up care to families who have recently experienced a loss, my main role is to educate people on the importance of pre-planning for their future funeral needs and to help them to purchase what is best for them and their family. 

So many people have told me that they can’t imagine working in the funeral industry because it is too creepy and too depressing.  But really, that is not true.  After you begin to experience seeing dead bodies and helping grieving families, you get used to it and it all becomes very normal.  Death is something that happens to 100% of the people in this world so it is a positive thing to build a healthy understanding of death and not to live in fear of it. 

I have gotten a HUGE education on death in the past month since starting this position.  Part of what I want to do as I continue to blog (though it will definitely not be the subject of each entry) is to demystify the subject of death and to give a view into the funeral industry.  Along the way, I will also be providing helpful tips so that all of my readers can learn what they need to know when they face having to interact with a funeral home…because everyone will at some time or another.  I want everyone to be prepared for when that time comes.

So I’m back to blogging!

Unleash the Barbarian (book review: “Unleashed”)

“Unleashed” by Erwin McManus takes a much different look at Christianity and faith than typical Christian books.  McManus discusses the concept of the “barbarian way”. Effectively, he makes the argument that Christians have been “domesticated” and have lost the point that such biblical figures as John the Baptist and Jesus Christ himself were trying to make. McManus holds nothing back when he challenges us to take our Christian walk seriously – not by going to church or being “good,” but by getting out there and living out our faith in a radical, unleashed way. McManus shares stories from his own life and that of his family to help illustrate that an ‘unleashed life’ can be lived by anyone – it’s a series of choices that we can make on a daily basis.

This is a short book (just 146 pages) and, as I understand it, a re-release of his book “The Barbarian Way”.  McManus has some great things to say in the pages of this book, though he leaves it to the reader to decide what it will look like in each of our lives for us to live in a barbarian way.

I give this book 4 stars out of 5.

I received a copy of this book free through Thomas Nelson’s Booksneeze program. I was not required to write a favorable review.

Review: “In Constant Prayer”

I chose to read and do a book review of Robert Benson’s book “In Constant Prayer” because I wanted to learn how the practice of the Daily Office could impact my prayer life.  I come from an evangelical background and I have very little experience with liturgical practices.  I didn’t even KNOW what “Daily Office” meant so I was coming to the ideas of this book with a completely blank slate.  It was with much expectation that I came to read this book.

Benson writes with a very conversational style and the book is easy to read.  It is a short book and he tells lots of stories in the book, making what could be a boring subject very easy to study.  Those are the pros.  But…

I was very let down by this book.  I felt that I really didn’t learn much about the Daily Office at all and I didn’t learn much about how the practice of it would impact my life.  The gist of the impact, as told by Benson, is that the discipline of practicing the Daily Office would pay off by causing your heart and thoughts to be drawn to God throughout your day.  That is a very obvious statement…every spiritual discipline does that.  Beyond that point, the stories in the book were general encouragements all pointing to the same idea:  it is good to do the Daily Office.  So I felt that there was a lot of repetition of that one general idea rather than a deeper look at the practice.  Because of that, I finished the book without really feeling drawn to the practice.  I might try it out but my desire to do so isn’t because I felt so drawn to the practice because of the book.  The book only helped me to understand a little bit more about the structure of the Office, but was not a compelling encouragement to practice it.

I give “In Constant Prayer” 3 out of 5 stars.

 

I recieved this book for free through the BookSneeze.com blogger program.

Pastors and Honesty

How honest do you want your pastor to be?  Do you want your pastor to be honest about areas of weakness, emotional ups and downs, theological ideas or struggles, or what is going on in his day-to-day life?

I read an interesting post on a blog today by Rachel Held Evans.  It is entitled “Dear Pastors – Tell Us The Truth”.  In it, a letter is written from a congregation to their pastor.  Here is what the letter says:

Dear Pastors,

Tell us the truth.

Tell us the truth when you don’t know the answers to our questions, and your humility will set the example as we seek them out together.

Tell us the truth about your doubts, and we will feel safe sharing our own.

Tell us the truth when you get tired, when the yoke grows too heavy and the hill too steep to climb, and we will learn to carry one another’s burdens because we started with yours.

Tell us the truth when you are sad, and we too will stop pretending.

Tell us the truth when your studies lead you to new ideas that might stretch our faith and make us uncomfortable, and those of us who stick around will never forget that you trusted us with a challenge.

Tell us the truth when your position is controversial, and we will grow braver along with you.

Tell us the truth when you need to spend time on your marriage, and we will remember to prioritize ours.

Tell us the truth when you fail, and we will stop expecting perfection.

Tell us the truth when you think that our old ways of doing things need to change, and though we may push back, the conversation will force us to examine why we do what we do and perhaps inspire something even greater.

Tell us the truth when you fall short, and we will drop our measuring sticks.

Tell us the truth when all that’s left is hope, and we start digging for it.

Tell us the truth when the world requires radical grace, and we will generate it.

Tell us the truth even if it’s surprising, disappointing, painful, joyous, unexpected, unplanned, and unresolved, and we will learn that this is what it means to be people of faith.

Tell us the truth and you won’t be the only one set free.

Love,

The Congregation

 

So what do you think about the letter?  Do you feel the same way as the author of the letter?

Interestingly, author Adam McHugh responded to Ms. Evans’ letter.  Here is what he said:

 

My friend Rachel Evans put up a provocative post this morning. Dear Pastors – Tell Us the Truth

In her post, and you should read it first, Rachel urges pastors to be honest with their churches about their doubts, weaknesses, and struggles.  Signing it from “The Congregation,” she says that a pastor who is transparent in front of others will lead them into freedom and will create communities that radiate grace, love, and truth. And it sounds great. Who doesn’t want that? There’s a big part of me that agrees with her sentiment. But I’ve also been the pastor who waved the flag of honesty and transparency and I’ve been burned by it.

When I first started preaching in 2000, I was the prototypical Gen-X pastor who committed to describing things like they really were. I refused to varnish life with religious platitudes and I threw out words like “authenticity” and “real” a lot.  I thought that if I could model these things then I would free others to put down the religious masks and to experience real intimacy, forgiveness, and healing. I openly expressed my specific struggles in my spiritual life and my relationships. And, honestly, it felt horrible. I felt exposed and vulnerable. I felt like I was giving things away that I would never get back. It felt a little like a public therapy session without the therapeutic elements. And then a few people in the church started using what I said against me. They usually did it in subtle ways, but they would mention shortcomings I had shared in public settings to undermine my leadership. One person, upon finding out I was in therapy, questioned whether I should be in ministry at all. Other pastors I know who are part of more conservative denominations have been fired for sharing personal struggles.

Pain is part of ministry, and I know that those of us who are called to pastoral ministry will experience pain. I know that we need to lose life in order to gain life. Jesus has demonstrated that quite well. But when I read challenges like Rachel’s I am reminded of those vulnerable experiences. As a result, now, when I speak in public, I am very careful with how I word things and I don’t share many details of specific struggles. I only share those aspects of my life with close friends and with my therapist and spiritual director. It feels much healthier. When I share with them, it feels healing for me, like I’m gaining something from it.

So, when Rachel signs her letter from “The Congregation,” I have to wonder which “congregation” it is who is eager for their pastor to tell the truth about life, faith, and relationships? Which congregation doesn’t only say they want authenticity and honesty, but will actually respond well to it and find God’s healing through those things?

My guess is that the congregation she is describing has these characteristics:

1. The church has a culture of grace. When people share honestly with one another, they are not condemned for it but are met with love and empathy. They hear “me too” more than “shame on you.”

2. The church has a lot of young people. The college students and young adults I’ve worked with over the years have been far more eager for honesty than others I’ve worked with. They are likely immersed in social media and its culture of sharing and are comfortable with opening up the intimate aspects of their lives with others.

3. The church is emotionally healthy. When confronted with weakness or struggle, they search inside of themselves instead of punishing others for what they’ve done.

4. The church wants to be challenged. Truthfully, a lot of people in churches are not looking to hear something hard or new. They don’t want to be led in new ways. They come to church to hear the things they already know and to be comforted. They need to want to be led and to be stretched in new directions in order to be open to the honesty that heals.

If we’re being honest, most churches do not have these characteristics. I don’t know how many Rachel Evans there are in most churches who would receive a pastor’s honesty with grace and self-reflection. And that’s why most pastors are unwilling to tell the truth.

 

 

So now you have two sides to this interesting discussion.  As a pastor, I understand and relate to a lot of the things that Mr. McHugh said in his response.

So what about you?  What are your thoughts on this issue?

Review: “The Way Home”

“The Way Home” stars Dean Cain (of “Superman” fame) and is a true story.  This Christian-based movie chronicles the story of Randy Simpkins, whose son Joe, disappears one day as the family is getting ready to leave on a vacation.  The movie follows the Simpkins family and the rest of the community as they desperately search for Joe.  Ultimately, the story is about Randy, the dad who was too focused on work to make appropriate time for his family and his distraction is what led to the events surrounding Joe’s disappearance.

The storyline of this movie is good, though it seemed like way too much time was spent on the search for Joe.  The movie has great themes and the Christian faith is the basis of what gets this family through such a difficult time.  My one criticism of the movie would be the poor acting.  Dean Cain is a fine actor but many of the others in the film are not.  The woman playing Randy’s wife was not a good actress at all and her portrayal of a mother desperate to find her son was quite emotionless.  Because of the poor acting, the movie ended up being a cheesy Christian movie that was based on a compelling true story.

On a scale of 1-5 stars, I’ll give this movie two stars for the effort.