Thursday, August 14, 2008

A Pursuing God (pt. 3) Wrestling the Bear

Revive us, and we will call on your name Restore us, O LORD God Almighty; make your face shine upon us, that we may be saved.”-Psalm 80: 18,19

My first decade or so as a Christian were heavily influenced by a compassionate pastor who very much fit into the mold of the social justice theology that I had been introduced as a young person in the Methodist church. He preached frequently about one cause and then another; some of which I agreed with some others, well, I would give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, he was theologically trained, and I, well, I still rather rarely cracked open a Bible.

In the late 80’s this pastor started preaching and teaching a rather seductive doctrine of universalism. After all, if God is love, doesn’t that love extend to all people no matter what it is they believe in? And if God did not do that, would that not be unjust? And we all know that God is a God of justice. Frankly, Jesus Christ began to seem almost an afterthought in his teaching and to a point in my thinking. I know I was beginning to worry Susie more than a little bit. Then one evening, after not opening up a Bible in several weeks, I opened one up (I can’t remember why), and it opened up to John 14:6 –

"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me...”

In the electrical trade (I worked as an electrician for 22 years), when one has a difficult day, or more specifically when one spends a day terminated large, heavy and stiff wires, it called “wrestling the bear.” A day of wrestling the bear guaranteed a good night’s sleep. I believe at this moment when I opened up that Bible the Holy Spirit was chastising me, disciplining one of His own who was being led astray, God again was in pursuit. I remember needing to come to a decision. I had one heck of a bear to wrestle. Was I to believe what I was being taught (and what I wanted to be true) that salvation, or whatever you wanted to call it, was a given no matter how you did or did not approach God? Or were these words that I had read in the gospel of John for seemingly for the very first time, mean what they clearly seem to say? I knew I had to make a dreadful decision. Was I to trust the message of the world that had been creeping into my home church and into my life, or was I to trust the words of Jesus Christ, whom I professed to be my Lord and Savior?

I had a terrible choice to make, but in reality there really was no choice to be made. I believe that those who are in Christ will be tugged at and pursued by the Lord to stay on the right road, and that is what so clearly happened to me. Needless to say, I chose to believe and trust the plain words of Jesus, and that was the beginning of what I sometimes describe as the weird call of Christ on my life.

From that moment on in what time and energy I could muster, I became a student of the Way. Christ transformed me from what had been a worldly pursuit of the things of God into a gospel oriented Christ follower. In 1990 I read the Bible front cover to cover for the first time. Wasn’t easy, but I did it. I was determined to become a better educated and prepared elder in the church (having been ordained in 1985). To that end, my then interim pastor convinced me (after several tries) in 1992 to take a church history class at the Southern California extension of San Francisco Theological Seminary. My pastor added that I ought to consider continuing taking classes in case “God might be calling you into doing something else.” That something else, of course, would be ordained ministry. A thought that at the time I thought was rather funny; well actually the thought still is rather funny. But a pursuing Lord of the universe, sovereign and in control, was dead serious….

Like my parents, I am flawed and decent. And His.


I think there will be a part 4 to this series, but it will probably have to wait a bit. I'll be on study leave next week in Green Lake, Wisconsin. It's been a summer for car traveling. Got to keep the petrolium companies in the black....

Monday, August 4, 2008

A Pursuing God (part 2): In Clyde We Trust

Revive us, and we will call on your name Restore us, O LORD God Almighty; make your face shine upon us, that we may be saved.”-Psalm 80: 18,19

In my teenage years I was well engrossed in an unorganized agnosticism. For a short while, I hung with a small group of high schoolers that professed to believe that humanity had been placed on earth by benevolent space aliens that had crash-landed on this planet. So help me it’s true. Didn’t say I believed it! But it made a really cool story for a geeky high school kid. By the way, the original man’s name (via the space interlopers) was Clyde. There. You learned something new by reading this blog.

Yet even in those days I admired the few people that came into my life (as I look back now, people whom a pursuing God placed in my life) that were committed Christians. My first full-time job was at a department store, and there I was witnessed to by two of the kindest and gentlest people you could ever want to meet. One of them had been in a Hell’s Angel’s type gang in his younger days. I knew him as he eased into his mid 50’s; he was just an amazing irenic gentleman. Faithfully, God had used them both to plant seeds (I can so relate to Paul’s discussion about this in 1 Cor. 3). I can remember, as I went through some difficult times (mainly with relationships), praying basically out of hopelessness to a God that may or may not exist. Now that is true desperation. And I can remember, especially with a little retrospection, how those prayers were so vividly answered, and yet I was still blinded to the truth. God was after me, but I fought Him off as long as I could. Until…

In early 1980 (at age 23) I started attending a tiny Free Methodist Church about 35 miles east of Los Angeles; I like to joke that I attended a Free Methodist congregation because I didn’t want to pay to go to one. I can’t remember the sermon, nothing about the worship, I can’t recall the preacher’s name and the church itself has long since been closed. But at the conclusion of worship the pastor gave a gospel presentation that finally made both the emotional and intellectual connection that apparently I needed. Jesus Christ became real to me, my Lord and Savior. Even if I did not comprehend at that moment what it did then and what it eventually would mean to me, I knew that my life had been restored and revived, and that God’s face was shining upon me; that I had been saved. Although I was not about to walk forward for the pastor’s altar call, I knew at that time that God had pursued me and finally caught me. I was His, although the reality is I had been all along.

About a month later I met a fine Christian who happened to be a member of a great evangelical Presbyterian church (God’s providence again). Two years later Susie and I were married in the same Methodist church that we both had attended as youths (the one in which “The Graduate” was filmed), although we did not know each other way back then. Point of trivia: our wedding was officiated by Vic Pentz, Susie’s pastor at the time. He now is the senior pastor at Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, the largest church in the denomination. We gave him his start. And there was no need for Clyde anymore.

Friday, August 1, 2008

A Pursuing God (part 1): Methodist Bunnies


Revive us, and we will call on your name Restore us, O LORD God Almighty; make your face shine upon us, that we may be saved.”-Psalm 80: 18,19


Part of what I am posting originated from a request of the Pastor Nominating Committee of Third Presbyterian Church in Uniontown, PA. In the process of being considered for the position Senior Pastor, they wanted to read my testimony. It was a refreshing request; I had not written anything like one in quite a few years. And it told me volumes about the PNC in Uniontown. Volumes. I’ve had a chance now to revisit it, do some re-writing and updating…. This will get posted as time allows in a series of three or four parts….
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As I work on this in August of 2008, I have been a Christian, a Christ follower, over 28 years- over half of my life. It is good to look back and reflect, but I even more so look forward to the prize that we have in Lord Jesus in the future. Please know that what I write is not meant in any way to glorify me, for I have and continue to fall short of the Glory of God that is found in Jesus Christ. But what I write is meant more to reflect on the faithfulness of Christ in my life….
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After living my first three years of life in a dry wheat farming town in eastern Washington, my family moved for the economic greener pastures of Southern California. I was raised in a small Los Angeles suburb a by two flawed but decent people, my parents. They were always quick to state they, and therefore - we, were Methodists; we lived in a Methodist household. Their method was this: Christmas and Easter. Even though we lived but a block away from the Methodist church, the church, much less Jesus Christ, was not an integral part of the household and my upbringing. Oh we enjoyed the Christian holidays, Santa Clause and Easter Bunnies. Methodist bunnies I’m sure.
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And yes, I was at that nearby Methodist church frequently (it is pictured above); I spent one whole day hiding with my friends behind the bushes on the church grounds as the famous closing scene from the movie “The Graduate” was being filmed in the Sanctuary. Hiding behind some temporary artificial greenery that the film crew had wheeled in. We were looking for John Wayne. After all, who had heard of Dustin Hoffman back in 1967?
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I can remember occasionally attending the youth group (MYF) on Sunday evenings, more often when my interest in girls began to blossom I suppose. With the adult leadership of the youth group I participated in the very first Earth Day, in prayer-protests-vigils over the Vietnam War, and participating in other social justice events. And I was never introduced to Jesus Christ at that church.
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I like to say that I come from a distinguished line of agnostics, my mother’s family being involved in Unitarian churches and my Father’s family being two Sunday a year Methodists. As I entered my early adulthood I embraced that agnosticism; however I always wondered if, no, I really hoped that there was something more to life; that maybe, just maybe, there was a God. And that possibly that God could be known. Maybe there was more to life more than Methodists bunnies…..
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In my next post in this series, I’ll reflect on my early ‘spirituality’ (ha!) and how God pursued me anyway….