Adventures of a City Boy Turned Country Pastor

The new visitor said: You know the little bridge on the Stockholm Road, just past the turn-off to Stottler’s house? Our laneway is the first left after that bridge. Those were about the clearest instructions I’d ever heard since coming to northern Maine where a good number of roads are un-marked or have multiple names, and if there is a nickname for the road, no one uses the road’s real name. But these instructions were crystal clear. I’d have no trouble making a follow up visit at the home of these new visitors to our church.

So on a cold bright Wednesday winter morning I headed off to do my pastoral duty. Stockholm Road. Over the little bridge. First left. Not strange at all that I couldn’t see the house from the road. Newcomers to northern Maine loved these little run-down houses hidden back in the woods. The running joke was that newcomers to the Maine Woods were probably either actual outlaws or in the witness protection program. So I pulled into the first laneway on the left after the bridge. Then my thought process went something like: “This is a pretty laneway! They haven’t plowed in a while. This isn’t a road!” And I sank up to my axels about 50 feet down a snowmobile trail.

I temporarily gave up on finding the hidden home of our new visitors. I hiked to a house of a guy I knew who had a pickup truck and a long cable, and it ended up taking two pickup trucks choo-choo trained together to tug my car off the snowmobile trail. And since it was Wednesday, and this was a country Baptist church, of course I gathered that evening with the faithful of First Baptist Church of New Sweden. And of course there was no hiding what I had done that morning. If anyone knew, everyone would end up knowing. So I shared the story at Wednesday prayer meeting. And a good time was had by all.

Hopes and Fears

With forgotten force
Little boy feelings return
Each December
As the year looks to turn
Hopes resurface
Forgotten dreams recur
To play the imagination
Hoping to be hoped again
But hopes must be met
With courage & joy—
A lot to ask a little boy.
While hopes return
Fears never went
And grow best in the cold
Fears – those bullies bold
Must be met
With courage & joy—
A lot to ask a little boy.
December’s turn of years
All these hopes and fears
Erupt in a little boy
Who seeks courage & joy
In cloth
In straw
In a little town
Where the hopes
And the fears
Of years and years
Are met.

The Leaves

Though I never hated you
I never cared to see you again
But here we are
In New Jerusalem
You’ve been here a while
And I’ve just arrived
You said let’s rake leaves
From the tree of life
By the river of the water of life
Flowing from the throne
Down the street of the city
We made a pile so big
We climbed the tree to jump in
We laughed and jumped for hours
Never got hurt or asthma or angina
We got plenty thirsty
And drank from the river
The Lord watched our fun
And shared his wine
I guess if I ever hated anyone
It was you
But the memory of our old ways
Only makes our healing
And our new friendship
All the sweeter

Rules of Adulthood

Rules of Adulthood

I did not pull these out of thin air. I learned each of them the hard way—by trying to grow up.

1-Every person is important
I need to learn that it’s not all about me. Every person who enters my life is important to God, so they should be important to me. Their story is just as precious to God as mine is. Everyone deserves my respect.

2-Every day is important
I need to learn that every day belongs to God, and every day contains special ways for me to grow. Work days are important. Weekends are important. Mostly I need to learn that ordinary days are important. God is all about doing special things in ordinary days.

3-I am responsible for my choices and only mine
I need to own each and every one of my choices, and to not own the choices of others. For my own choices, I have to stop saying “I had no choice.” And I have to stop saying “It’s my fault” when others make their own bad choices.

4-If it is important, do it no matter what
I need to learn that to delay obedience is to prolong disobedience. I have to stop saying “I’ll do it, Lord—just not today.” Over the days, weeks, and months, this becomes a slow disobedience. When windows of opportunity close, good things don’t happen. If it is important, do it now. No matter what.

5-When talking about someone, only say what you’d say to their face
I need to learn that there is no place for saying nasty things about others. If said as a joke, it’s a bad joke. If said in the process of dealing with a problem, it is unnecessary and ugly. It’s a beautiful thing to hear someone deal forthrightly with a problem, while speaking respectfully of all who are involved. I want to be like that.

6-Fear God and only God
I need to learn how to deal with fear, especially fear of people. The Bible commands us to fear God and to not fear people. I need to fear God, acknowledging him as utterly supreme. Then with God firmly in charge, I can be done with those other fears.

7-Live in the moment
I need to learn how to not worry. When I worry, I’m living in an imaginary terrible future, which is a place very different from the here-and-now. But if I want to be with God, I need to be where he is: in the here-and-now. When I start worrying, and I want God’s powerful presence, I just say “Lord, I’m staying right here (in the moment) with you.”

8-Find your voice and use it
I need to speak up. I’ve struggled beneath mountains of insecurity, and have lived with fear in social occasions (shyness) and public-speaking events (stage fright). I have learned that speaking up is one version of opening up. I know that I want to be a person who shares myself with others, and I simply need to remind myself that speaking up is one way to do that.

God and Evil

This world is a mess. If God is real, what’s his problem?

It is hard to reconcile the existence of this evil world with the existence of the God of the Bible. How do you believe in God when there is so much evil in this world? Is God evil too? (Too evil to care?) Or is he too weak to fix things? They call this field of study “theodicy” and this dilemma “the problem of evil.” It is simply the struggle to reconcile the God of the Bible with the obvious reality that his world is evil. The “problem of evil” is just this: given the reality of an evil-filled world, what is God’s problem? Is he evil or weak or fictitious?

In Genesis 1-11 (known as “the Primeval Narrative”) God “introduces.” He introduces us to himself and to ourselves and to this world. Here is a synopsis: God made it all; it was perfect; we messed it up. Mom and Dad (Adam and Eve) were put in charge of paradise, and with their first sin, paradise was lost. Human sin brought relational strife, labor pains, stubborn soil, thorns and thistles, brother killing brother, and death (mortality) for all.

Sin is contagious. Everyone caught it. So the LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them” (Gen 6:7). Taking the flood story at face value, God would have us know that he is plenty strong enough and plenty good enough to deal with evil. So while we struggle with “the problem of evil,” the Primeval Narrative has its own spin on the problem of evil: it is us. The solution is: we die. God is righteous enough to declare the death penalty for sin, and he is strong enough to enforce it. That’s the flood story.

So I think that the flood story contains a profound and often overlooked answer to the question “how can I believe in the God of the Bible when this world has so much evil?” The flood story says: “Here is what happens when an omnipotent God asserts his righteous justice on an evil world.” (Let us all be glad that it happened only once).

But what about God’s love? How does God’s love have any relevance if the problem of evil is “us” and the solution is “dead us”?

Noah and family emerge from the ark, Noah offers a sacrifice, and “the LORD said in his heart, ‘I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease’” (Genesis 8:21-22).

Here is the love. Despite the fact that people will be just as evil after the flood as they were before, God makes a promise: “I promise not to do that [that flood thing] again.” He promises to preserve this sinful world by withholding our well-deserved judgment. If people are still evil, it is an outrageous promise! Until you factor in the love. God has a love-plan.

God’s love-plan is stated in the first words following the Primeval Narrative. God picks a man named Abraham, and speaks to him the words that prove to be the Bible’s thesis statement: “in you all the families of the earth will be blessed” (Genesis 12:3).

The introductions have been given; the stage has been set; an outrageous promise has been made. Now the love story really begins.

New Sweden

We have now been in Caronport, Saskatchewan for the same length of time that we were previously in New Sweden, Maine. These past seven years in Caronport (summer 2003 to summer 2010) were preceded by seven years pastoring in New Sweden (summer 1996 to summer 2003). When I left New Sweden in 2003, I was not happy with myself as a pastor. When I left New Sweden, I left the pastorate.

Last night we watched a home video of scenes of New Sweden and footage of some church events. Watching that video, I was reminded of how good God was to us in New Sweden. God did very good things in my family during our New Sweden years.

Steve grew in some very important and lasting ways. In New Sweden Steve grew into owning his own faith in Christ and his own commitment to God’s truth. Steve came to New Sweden a young boy and left a young man. In those crucial growing-up years, Steve acquired a special sense of belonging to New Sweden, and now claims it as his home town. Actually, all of New England has captured his heart. He feels a gravitational pull to Boston, which I think is very cool. In New Sweden, Steve also became a guitar player, a scientist with a bent toward romanticism, and a lover of politics, mysteries, and theories.

Mike showed boldness and self-confidence in New Sweden that helped set his trajectory into adulthood. When he moved to Caribou High School from New Sweden Elementary, he was smaller and looked younger that most kids in his grade. He just had fun with it. When people asked him “how old are you?” he answered “I’m twelve – I’m a genius.” That kind of chutzpah has been Mike’s hallmark. Fear and anxiety don’t push Mike around, thanks to the inner growth spurt he took in New Sweden. Mike also became a fine pianist during his New Sweden years.

Eric, who now in his high school years is finding great pleasure in music and drama, first found “the stage” in New Sweden. Part of our New Sweden home video shows Eric hamming it up in the Sunday School Christmas program, and harmonizing in a duet with Mom. Until watching that video last night, I had forgotten that Eric never struggled with shyness or stage fright. And when Eric took up the violin, it wasn’t long before he was playing in church. He had such a good ear for music that once he knew a tune, he could easily cheat and not learn the notes on the page. Using his killer musical ear he cultivated his love of performing, thanks to encouragement from his New Sweden violin teacher and his church family.

New Sweden was very good for Anne and me. We worked together every day on one thing or another. Anne did not have a job outside of the home or church, but her ministry involvement was full time. She was involved in Sunday school, youth group, women’s events, visiting, and all things secretarial. Our praying together and encouraging each other was the lifeblood of our relationship. There was so much in our ministry life that brought us joy. People continually took care of us and prayed for us and blessed us.

As for me, I am counting my New Sweden blessings. Every aspect of the ministry of preaching and teaching was personally enriching. Days with baptisms I called the happiest days of the year. Being welcomed into a family circle during times of crisis and grief was a high privilege. I had the profound experience of sitting with families as a dying loved one breathed their last breath. In our traditional, rural area, people not connected to any church would simply expect me to talk about God, and I enjoyed those golden opportunities. Praying with people and hearing testimonies of God’s grace made God’s presence palpable. I have precious memories of times when we as a body walked together through times of challenge and times of joy.

My family’s New Sweden experience testifies to the great truth that among the many variables in the life of a church, God’s grace is the constant.

Pimples: A Love Story

Ages 14 to 24 I call my “decade of acne.” I went to the dermatologist every month, put goop on my face every day, and tried hard to avoid pimple food. This was before “Proactive.” The best we had was “Oxy 10.” The stuff my dermatologist prescribed was a useless, thick white paste that I smeared all over my face every night (and every night it smeared off onto my pillow). Three of those years were my Briercrest years, and the school was small enough that you knew everyone. So I can definitively report that in the pimples category I was top of my class three years in a row. In the 1978-1979 Briercrest yearbook (p.19) there is a picture of me working on my face in front of the mirror in the “B” Dorm second floor washroom. The caption says: “Mirror, mirror on the wall: is it a dimple or a pimple?”

I’m blogging in order to learn from my life’s experiences and from the Bible’s truths—to see how my experiences have bumped up against biblical truths, and how the Bible interprets my life. So now I would now like to share my reflections upon the adventure of a decade lived among the pimples.

I felt bad. This is my most vivid recollection. I felt bad about myself. (OK, I’ll say it again: some of my “hard times” stories are amazingly wussy. This is miniscule when compared to the suffering of so many. But I’ll also say again that my stuff is my stuff. Click away if you want. This is me). I felt bad about myself because I was blemished. When I saw the old movie “The Face Behind the Mask” I could relate to Peter Lorre, who plays a guy whose face was badly burned, and when he eventually meets a kind (and blind) woman he says “My face is aaagly; could you love meee?” I really catastrophized. I let the lowly pimple do a number on my self-worth. (Of course I had them a hundred at a pop). I was aware that I was wrongly judging myself, but I couldn’t shake the verdict. I related to good old Peter Lorre. I related to those Old Testament lepers: “Unclean!”

Of course I understood that God (and anyone else with any maturity) would know that it’s what’s inside that counts. God even said it to Samuel as he sought a man after God’s own heart to replace the superficially perfect man for the job King Saul. “For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart” (1 Sam 16:7). Yes, that’s right—it’s the heart that matters, not the skin. “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life” (Prov 4:23).

OK, my heart was pretty messed up too. The heart is the love zone, and I loved myself a lot. I loved myself according to sin’s normal promptings: pride, comparing, judging, needing to be at least above average. Typical sinful self-love. The flip side of this kind of self-love is self-loathing which I was excelling at it. God looks on the heart. Great. But just because you have an “acne motif” outward appearance does not guarantee you have a great looking heart. I didn’t.

While I was judging myself by my complexion, I was pretty consistent in judging everyone else by appearances too. Even at Bible College, though I knew better, I assumed the best people were the best looking people. I was getting what I was giving. The measure by which I judged others was the measure by which I judged myself.

I learned all the above. I learned how easy it is to catastrophize, making mountains out of mole hills. I learned that even when you understand that “it’s what’s inside that counts,” you can still feel like scum for the most superficial of reasons. I learned that a bad outward appearance does not guarantee a lovely heart. And I learned that if you set up wretched standards by which you judge others, you’ll probably judge yourself by those same standards.

But here’s my favorite thing that I learned: be loved. I’ve mentioned my sinful self-love. OK, so biblically, how should I love myself? Accept God’s love for me. Bask in it. Embrace it. Receive it. I don’t deserve his love but he loves me anyway, and I shouldn’t waste his good, good love. So I’ll open up my messed-up heart and be loved. When I was yielding more pimples per acre than anyone else at Briercrest, God loved me. A bunch of neat people loved me. Anne even fell in love with me. (I’d tell her in my best Peter Lorre voice “my face is aaagly—could you love meee?”)

Pimples became a love story. Just be loved.