A Pastor Prays for His People

Good news—we now have copies of Wendell’s book A Pastor Prays for His People at the Sunday morning book stall.

Blessed Redeemer, beautiful Savior
Author of all grace and comfort.
We approach you with the deepest reverence
Not with any presumption, not with servile fear—
But with respectful boldness—because of your gracious invitation.
In days of yore, you met the invited penitent at the mercy seat.
There the sprinkled blood was a covering for sin,
Today, our needed blessings are to be found at the throne of grace.
Here it is that we find grace in every—every—every! time of need.

It is easy for us to elaborate our needs, as trouble upon trouble piles up on us:
fragmented friendships,
hostile relationships,
adversarial conditions,
financial roadblocks,
family nightmares,
unanswered questions.
Some of these heartburning situations have plagued us without relief,
and we have pled with you to alleviate—
Yet still we wait for divine answer.
Lord, we have nowhere else to go but to you,
And so we again cast ourselves upon your mercy.
Maybe you delay because of the insidious sins
we tolerate or turn a blind eye to!
Galatians tells of good old Barnabas and influential Simon Peter who were
Captured by flagrant hypocrisy.
Maybe that’s our sin today—protection of self—
Desiring the approval of the crowd rather than God
to wash away that sin.
We confess with tears all the times we played the hypocrite
and curried the world’s favor—in the world’s place—
and tried some face-saving, self-serving falseness around God’s people.
Forgive us, Lord, as we pray now for deliverance from such sin.

Thank you, Father; help us to never again indulge in hypocrisy.

As a Mother

Director of Childen's Ministries Diane Jordan shares this prayer for Mother's Day.

Almighty God, king of creation, who formed us in our mother’s womb, who knows us best but loves us still, we worship you.

We praise you for your protective love which longs to gather us under your wings as a hen gathers her chicks.

We thank you for your tender compassion as you comfort us as a mother comforts her child.

We stand amazed at the depth of your love for us—a love that paid the ultimate sacrifice—death on the cross, so we could be your children.

How precious is your steadfast love, O Lord.

As we celebrate Mother’s Day, we get a glimpse of your divine love—a love that is gentle yet fierce, humble yet strong, kind and true.

And we thank you for our mothers, and for those who have been like mothers to us—for those who show us in tangible ways what your unconditional love looks like.

May we honor, love and cherish those who gave us birth and those who have been spiritual mothers to us, who have nurtured us, taught us, prayed for us, cared for us and shown us the face of the Savior by their example of faith.

Strengthen them in their daily tasks. Give them wisdom as they teach, patience as they discipline and perseverance as they pour into others’ lives. Help them to see in every mundane task the eternal significance of what they are doing.

Help each one rest in the knowledge that they are but stewards of the children you have given them. Enable them to be strong women of faith, relying on you for their every need, living and loving in ways that point to Jesus.

Father God, we know that for some, today is a day of heartache, not celebration.

We pray for those who have lost a mother, a child, a loved one. We pray for those who are ill, whose bodies are failing. May the reality of the resurrection give them hope.

For those who have longed to be moms but never had children of their own, for those struggling with the process of adoption or infertility, for those dealing with shattered dreams, Lord, we ask that you mend their broken hearts and empower them to live, trusting in you for the future.

Lord, we lift to you those distressed over choices their children have made, for those with children who have turned away from you. We ask that you comfort them in the knowledge that your love is constant, your understanding is perfect, and your compassions are never ending. Remind them that you are a God who pursues the lost.

Father, the many seasons of our lives are marked by transitions and changes, but your nurture and affection for us remain the same. Your steadfast love never ceases. Your mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning.

May the power of the Holy Spirit enable each of us to love and live a life of faith that points others to you and your steadfast love.

For your honor and glory. Amen.

Drowning: Do you not care that we are perishing? By Wil Triggs

I did a lot of odd jobs growing up. Cutting lawns in exchange for the goods or services of others, painting my trumpet teacher’s stucco-sided garage in exchange for music lessons, but what seemed like my first real job was working at the day care camp at the YMCA in Torrance, California.

It wasn’t really a job job exactly. I wasn’t on their payroll. The official Y employees/swimming teachers also had a day camp program for little kids. I would go to the camp and hang out with the kids.

When it was time for them to go into the pool, there were too many of them. They had the day campers all roped off in about a third of the shallow end, while the regular swimming lessons for older students and adults filled the rest of pool with their activities. There were really too many people in that pool and only one lifeguard. So my job during pool time was to make sure that none of the day camp kids drowned.

I had no training in CPR. I don’t even know if there was such a thing. There was mouth to mouth resuscitation. I remember learning that. I’m happy to say that I never had to use it. I’m also happy to say that none of the kids drowned. But I do remember pulling up a lot of kids who seemed like they had been under too long, their heads breaking the surface of water, sometimes laughing smiling, sometimes coughing, choking. Ocassionally someone drank water and needed to sit with me at the side of the pool to catch their breath and take a break.

My pay was a few dollars every day and free high-level swimming lessons. They taught the dolphin kick and the butterfly. I swam with weight belts on my chest. Sometimes I'd sink.

With this job, when I first started, I was so excited. As I look back, I can see God preparing me for years of ministry to kids and students even at this young age. I took my role seriously—watching after the kids in the water. But even the exciting becomes rote, you sort of melt yourself into the routine of swimming pools and kids, and it's easy to forget what you're really there for.

One day when I was off, I went to, where else (?), a pool. It was the municipal pool in my city’s park—kind of like Northside Park. The pool bigger than Northside’s, at least it seems like that looking back. It was nice to swim on my own, no kids to worry about, no weight belts strapped on. I swam underwater a full length of the pool. I was great. Then I saw underwater bodies heading to the ladders and the sides, everyone all getting out of the water all at once. I surfaced and saw what I never had to do myself.

The lifeguard on duty in the water instead of his perch, a child in his arms. The lifeguard rushing to the side and resuscitation efforts beginning immediately. Everyone stood frozen, all of us looking, wanting, hoping to hear the cough, the choke, the catching of breath signalling life. But in the confusion, pool staff rushing everyone to get out of the pool and out into the park on the other side of the locker rooms.

Minutes that seemed like hours later, the child was wheeled out to the ambulance, her eyes open, looking very much alive.

The pool closed for the rest of the day.

You can believe that when I went back to work on Monday, I was more aware than ever of every child entrusted to my care—watching, checking more than I needed to, making sure that pool time was fun time the way it was supposed to be.

It seems like such a long time ago, and yet the memory and the danger still seems fresh. My mind wants to take the metaphor of drowning to the people around me who don’t know Jesus—while I might be drowning in stuff or tasks or fears or worries, what about people who think they’re fine, but don’t know the storm around us all? What kind of a lifeguard might I be today?

This Sunday morning, in our Kindergarten Bible School, we get to tell the story of Jesus calming the storm. It’s my favorite lesson of the year. We make the boat and the storm and act it out as a whole group. And with all of the waves and the storm going strong, we wake up Jesus.

Help us. We’re going to drown. Don’t you care?

Real waves. Real fear. An ocean roiling all around us, swallowing us into death. All of it happening in Room 001.

And then Jesus gets up and says, “Peace! Be still!”

The Kindergarteners all at once are silent (at least it’s always worked so far). The storm is stopped. Drowning averted.

Jesus asks, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?”

Word Sleuth: Lovingkindness by Wil Triggs

The word “lovingkindness” came into my head yesterday morning. A song based on Psalm 63:3 surfaced, dreamlike from my past, its chant-like 70s melody kind of annoying me. I could hear the girls' answering echo as we sang. It was sweet, but maybe a little too sweet. Nevertheless, there it popped into my head like the Wendy’s “where’s the beef?” TV commercial, or the Bears winning the Super Bowl. Did those things really happen?

But more than anything else, it got me thinking about this word.

God’s lovingkindness is better than life.

Whatever happened to lovingkindness? There aren’t too many people I could ask about this without sounding a little wonky. But one I knew would care about words like this and not laugh at me: Lee Ryken.

So I sent him a quick email. “Do you have any thoughts?" I asked. Where did the word come from and what’s happened to it?

Lee must have been on his email because he answered me right back: “William Tyndale introduced the word lovingkindness into the English language in his translation of the Bible,” and he send me a weblink with more.

Well, when someone says “Tyndale” to me, I naturally assume that they’re talking about the publishing house. I knew that’s not what Lee meant, but my brain, having a mind of it own, just went there. It’s like academics who say “Wheaton.” They are usually talking about the college, not the city.

Tyndale House Publishers began with the Living Bible.

I first saw the Living Bible on the dining room table of one of my aunts. This was a long time ago. She listened to Frank Sinatra on her hi-fi stereo. She watched soap operas. She didn’t go to church. But she always seemed beautiful and generous to me. She lived across the street from the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and I could hear them practice in the garage. I never heard this aunt talk about the Bible or Jesus or anything like that. She wasn’t part of the “religious” element of the family. (Happily, this situation has changed for the better between then and now.)

I used to go over to my aunt's house and mow her lawn Saturday mornings and play with Honeybee, her miniature white poodle. She and my mom would chat in her kitchen while I mowed and played. And she always had a can of Coke for me, which we almost never bought ourselves. So this was a treat for me in many ways.

One Saturday, suddenly, there it was—its dark green cover with engraved lettering and a design looking fresh and different. I had seen television commercials for it. The Living Bible sat prominently on her mid-century modern coffee table back when it was just a coffee table. Both Mom and I noticed it. My aunt announced that she was reading the Bible—the Living Bible—because it helped her understand and think about the Bible in a new way.

Those are my earliest recollections of Tyndale House Publishers. But before Tyndale House Publishers, there was a man named Tyndale. William Tyndale. That's who Lee was talking about.

What was it about William Tyndale that prompted Ken Taylor to name his company after him?

I asked Mark Taylor. And he replied almost as fast as Lee Ryken.

“Prior to the work of Luther (in Germany) and Tyndale (in England),” he answered, “the Bible had been available for more than 1,000 years only in the Latin Vulgate, and most people couldn’t read Latin. So the Bible was inaccessible to the common man. Ken Taylor had special appreciation for the work of William Tyndale, who made the Bible available to the English-speaking population.

“In the mid-20th century, Ken had the same concern—that the meaning of the Bible was essentially unavailable to the common man, since most people used the King James Version of 1611, which had antiquated language.

“Regarding William Tyndale, who was burned at the stake, Ken Taylor occasionally said, ‘I want to emulate William Tyndale in every way except his death.’”

Imagine a time when English-speaking people had no Bible. So William Tyndale was kind of like the Wycliffe Bible translator to English-speaking people, giving them a Bible they could read. (I’m not going to get into who Wycliffe was here, but feel free to research that if you like). Tyndale wasn’t from outside the culture; he was steeped in his native tongue plus he spoke six other languages. Before the King James Bible, there was the Tyndale translation.

So many words flowed from Tyndale’s work, phrases that are so loved by Christians that it never occurs to most of us that there was a man who first “coined” them. And that man was William Tyndale.

A link Lee sent me said that Tyndale also penned many other Bible phrases/terms. Here are just a few:
• Let there be light
• Ask and it shall be given; seek and ye shall find
• Salt of the earth
• Pearls before swine
• The patience of Job
• The Author and Finisher of our faith.

The list goes on and on. In fact, 80% of the KJV comes from Tyndale’s earlier translation.

We so easily forget history, especially when the 24-hour news cycle pushes us to disregard what happened last week or yesterday or even an hour ago, for whatever news alert is popping up on the phone right now.

Before sending my email question to Lee, I did an internet search and the always reliable search engines told me that lovingkindness is:
• associated with a Hebrew word on the one hand, but also
• some sort of eastern/Buddhist meditation practice (some kind of refinement on self-love) on the other.

Perhaps it is lost because something of God himself is easily lost. Lovingkindness as a word now seems more beautiful and amazing than ever. Just like God.

A few years ago, my Christmas gift to my wife, Lorraine, was The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. This caused a rift between me and one of my co-workers at Russian Ministries who couldn’t forgive me for giving Lorraine a dictionary for Christmas. Jewelry, yes. But a dictionary? I might as well have given her a broom my coworker scolded, looking out for Lorraine on Christmas morning. Fortunately, Lorraine loved this gift.

The definition of lovingkindness in that dictionary is “kindness arising from a deep personal love, as (in Christian use) the active love of God for his creatures.”

Perhaps, in this world where there seems to be more anger than ever, lovingkindness is a word that belongs to God way more than it belongs to his people. Yet it doesn’t have to be forgotten altogether. So thank you William Tyndale for giving us this word. I think it’s time to bring lovingkindness back into the Christian world and not surrender it to eastern thought. Can we practice lovingkindness? Can we seek to emulate the lovingkindness of God? This is something in God that, like the old song and the psalm says “is better than life.”

May this word, dare I say, this attribute of God, burn in our hearts afresh, like the words of Jesus on the road to Emmaus.

O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. Because thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee. (Psalm 63:1–3, King James Version)

Just Like Us by Lorraine Triggs

Throughout my summer trip to Italy with Operation Mobilization many years ago, we’d rotate days off, which translated into a few of us staying behind to do laundry for the team, shop for food and prepare the evening meal. We also had time during the day to read and write letters home on that marvelously thin par avion paper.

One day off, as my teammates and I hung wet laundry on the clothesline to dry in the church courtyard, we noticed two guys peering over the church gate.

“Hey, are you Americans?” one of them asked. We looked at each other. English? People other than teammates speaking English? We were overjoyed. In the small village in rural Italy, well, the only language we heard was Italian.

“And Canadian,” John answered, loyal to his homeland. By now, the five of us walked over to the gate and swung it open to these two Americans who talked like us, looked like us and had, what we would describe these days, as shared values.

We put their book satchels in the corner, and fed them lunch complete with cups of cold water. One of the guests asked if he could play the guitar that was lying around. We talked and sang earnest 70s folk songs. We invited them to stay for dinner. 

Soon, the rest of the team returned. We introduced our new friends to our teammates. They’re here in Italy, just like we are. We asked them to stay for dinner.

“No,” our team leader Arnie said firmly. “They need to leave.” He pointed to their satchels. “Now.” 

“But they are just like us,” we protested feebly. 

Arnie shook his head in dismay at his team.

The two young men picked up their satchels and made a hasty exit, no thank-you or good-bye.

“Why did you ask them to stay?” Arnie explained, “They are not preaching the gospel. They’re Mormon missionaries.” 

Oops. We learned that day that not all missionaries are like us no matter how much they look and sound like us.

Like it or not, I am still prone to the just-like-us mindset. I am more comfortable with people like me. It’s natural. You know, same-feathered birds being together.

But we weren’t in Italy to meet people like us. We were there to find people not like us and point them to Jesus.

I’ve been thinking about that lately, especially with this Explore God initiative that begins at church tomorrow. There’s an Explore God billboard on North Avenue that boldy declares: “We all have questions.”

Well, my question is do we only want people who are just like us to explore God, or are we ready to explore God with whoever—the weary, the wounded or the wanderer who might walk through our front doors or join our discussion group or live near us? 

It’s easy to give the right answer when it’s theoretical, but when there are real people standing before us, well, it’s different. Are we ready?

Keep Austin (I Mean Christians) Weird by Wil Triggs

At the Bible college I attended in California, we had missions festivals every year. The gym where we held chapel became a convention hall with guest speakers and inspirational preachers to motivate us to think about God’s calling to world missions. The back third of the gym showcased displays from mission agencies trying to recruit future missionaries.

As a laid-back Southern Californian, I was interested in missions as a concept, and the displays and brochures and information at many of the displays were nicely done for back then.

The question, however, that hovered, cursor-like, in my mind: Would I consider missions as a career?

It was something to think and pray about. I didn’t grow up regularly attending church, so this was new terrain for me. Why not, I thought to myself, as I wandered among the displays.

The problem was, well, the people staffing the displays. They were missionaries.

Again, the concept seemed great, but what I imagined a missionary to be and the reality of the people who were at the displays clashed. I imagined these heroic missionary people to look quite a bit different from the people I saw. To my SoCal eyes many of them just looked plain weird. The clothes were mismatched. How could caucasian skin be that white without being albino? Men in Bermuda shorts, and wearing black dress socks and shoes that didn’t match either the socks or the shorts. These days the get-up might be cool in the right coffeehouse, but back then, it just looked like multiple mistakes to me.

Would I consider missions as a career? Somehow these people were supposed to make me want to join them. It was dissonant. No way. I laughed a nervous sort of laugh, and some of my friends and I joked about the odd-looking missionaries. I couldn’t see myself doing that. I went back to my speech team and trumpet and the paper on William Faulkner.

Well, the joke turned out to be on me.

A few years later, I moved to the Midwest and lost my tan. And I did become a missionary and worked alongside people who probably looked every bit as strange as the people I met while in Bible school. I not only worked alongside them, but also grew to love them as deeply as any other humans I know.

I see their missionary lives as a fulfillment of those heroic lives I imagined missionaries to live. Only it didn’t have anything to do with the clothes they wore or how tan their skin was. It had to do more with belonging to God, possessed by him, what the King James Version called “a peculiar people” in 1 Peter 2:9.

Both Austin, Texas and Portland, Oregon have slogans to keep their cities weird. The world celebrates weirdness in its own way. But God calls us to lose ourselves in something bigger and grander. My prayer now is to be less me and more Jesus. Sure, I’m his creation, but so much of me is the opposite of him. And he’s ever so much more in every way than I can ever be. In him, I’m truly different.

So, let’s go wherever he wants us to—today, this month, year, decade. Let’s be Jesus-weird together.

As I’m writing this, an email message pops up. It’s from a member of one of our past short-term teams, who is now a full-time missionary himself. What a joy to be able to support him now in prayer years after we spent time together in Russia. To me, he’s cool, what he’s doing is one of the best things imaginable. But it’s a different kind of cool. This is a like-Jesus kind of cool that is the opposite kind of values from so much of what we as earthly creatures are naturally are drawn.

Let's be peculiar enough to want to talk about Jesus, especially this month, as we think about Explore God and short-term missions trips (applications for the short-term teams are due by the end of the month).

This year, let’s explore with the people around us—neighbors, friends, co-workers and family members—or consider getting up close with one of our missionaries for a few days in North Carolina or the Dominican Republic or Czech Republic.

Keep Christians weird.

My First Orchid by Cheryce Berg

Sometimes, especially in January, I see more death than life. What is supposed to be new looks old. I think New Year’s resolutions would fare better if made in May or even June.

Last June, I received the gift of my first orchid. It stood poised like a bride on my kitchen table for months, beautiful and motionless. I resolved to keep it alive, unlike every other living thing I’ve ever owned, except for children.

All I was told was to feed it two ice cubes every Sunday morning, the first day of each new week. The day we celebrate the resurrection of Christ.

Months went by before a petal dropped. Then another. My neighbor told me to be patient; the blooms would return when they were spent. Even if they didn’t, I was proud of my first orchid’s endurance and my accomplishment. But guess what?

Today it blooms again, even though it is January. And the blooms are the colors of bridesmaids’ dresses.

Out of curiosity, I recently looked up the care of orchids. A true gardener would be floored by my neglect in parenting these rather tender plants. The experts say to remove and re-pot, to fertilize and fan, to mist and move, to protect and prune. I have done none of those things.

The whole watching and waiting and releasing and rejoicing reminds me of Christ. How he lived and then died and then resurrected. How it is not by what I have done or can do that I am saved. It is by grace alone.

How because of it all, what is dead in me and around me is given the promise of hope and new life. How I shouldn’t stop watching and waiting for salvation—the salvation of my friend who gave me my first orchid last June, the season when what appears dead becomes alive.

Below is Cheryce's orchid in all its bridemaids glory.

(Almost) All Through the Night by Lorraine Triggs

New Year’s Eve watch night services don’t rank among my favorite childhood memories about the church where I grew up. I didn’t have an issue with the concept of ringing in the new year in church as much as I did with, well, ringing in the new year at midnight.

My internal clock and I struggled to stay awake during the six-hour service/event/ordeal.

I was good for the first half—a potluck supper, singing, musical performances and testimonies. It was the last few hours that did me in—a longer than usual sermon, and then we would pray in the new year. As I said, good in theory, but not in practice. Sometimes it was hard to even hear what people were praying.

All of my attention was focused on my gold Timex watch, willing the minute hand to creep faster to midnight and then home to bed and blessed sleep.

My disposition didn’t improve with age, especially given that our youth group scheduled an all-night after party that extended the longest service of the year, well, all the way to breakfast. I really, truly wanted to be fast asleep, not standing at the top of a toboggan run at two in the morning about to hurtle down the snow-packed chute in utter darkness. Combine that with my sleeplessness, and I was a bundle of exhaustion and anxiety.

Now decades have passed. We’re on the other side of New Year’s midnight. College Church lets me go to bed whenever I want as we usher in the new year.

So I’m happily into 2019.

But every December 31, I remember the sleepy feelings of the service that would never end and can’t help but think of people sleeping in the New Testament.

I relate well to the disciples, wide awake as waves crashed into their boat. This time it was Jesus who was fast asleep, and the disciples woke him up, yelling over the winds and the waves, “Do you not care that we are perishing?” If we’re honest, we echo the disciples’ wake-up call to Jesus when waves of disappointment, anxiety, fear or betrayal crash over us.

Don’t you care, Jesus?

Jesus didn’t answer the disciples’ plaintive cry. Instead, he rebuked the wind and addressed the sea. “Peace! Be still!” And they were. Nature had no doubt who Jesus was; it was the disciples who wondered, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

Does Jesus care? I also relate well to the disciples, fast asleep in the garden, eyes heavy, struggling to stay awake and not succeeding. More was at stake than just staying awake till midnight; Jesus’ hour had come. He didn’t want the disciples to sleep through it—literally and figuratively.

It was a grace that Jesus would wake them up. It’s a grace when Jesus wakes us from our spiritual sleep. The disciples were on the cusp of a whole lot more than a new year—Jesus was about to usher in a new age of hope and life and light. Their sleepiness did not keep them from God’s love and grace because it was all on Jesus after all. Maybe part of the point is that they—and we—can’t stay awake. Jesus sweats drops of blood, and we disciples fall into sleep while Jesus calls us to watch and pray.

As disciple-like as I am, I’d rather be like the wind and the sea and instantly obey Jesus. Then, waking or sleeping, I’ll have peace and will be still.

I can be like that. But I must confess that all too often I’m not the wind or the rain.

I’m a tired person.

All too often I’m more like Eutychus falling out the window. I’m surrounded by Pauls and I’m blessed and alive and, yes, resting in the goodness that only comes from God himself. That’s real and lasting rest for every day or every year.