Our Rock in a Hard Place -

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. - Psalm 46:1

The Christian life was never meant to be lived only while sailing smoothly on calm seas. What advantage would there be to the notion that God is a refuge if we were never under attack? Would we ever know that God deigns to be our strength if we had never known weakness? And what of this idea of Him being our present help if we’ve not experienced the immediacy of pending trouble? Life in a fallen world begets trouble all around. In the world, the flesh, and the devil a sinister triumvirate looks to wreak havoc upon the sons and daughters of Adam. Jesus, not unaware, nor unfamiliar, with every trouble we would encounter gives us hope in the midst of gathering storms. His encouragement to His disciples is one of tenderness as the storm clouds approached. Their trouble was immediate anxiety. His word to them was "Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”(Luke 12:32). Imagine the relief that those four words brought- “Fear not, little flock”. This is real hope. Fear must flee at the word of the Good Shepherd. The world, the flesh, and the devil must bow at His command. Anxiety must give way to hope. Even death must ask permission. God can be trusted, because He is God. He is the absolute sovereign and therefore He can be our trustworthy refuge and strength. One has only to look at the Cross to see an assurance of God’s immediate help in trouble. That trouble that was far more vexing than anything the world, the flesh, and the devil could conjure up has been mitigated by the Son’s obedience to His Father. This is amazing love. This is the love of immediacy that binds frightened, troubled and anxious sheep to their Shepherd. It is my hope that you are resting in the Shepherd’s love, even when you see the storm clouds gather.  He is not unaware, He is our very present help.

- DJM

A Few Lessons in Church Planting from an Eastern Washington Graveyard -

For the last several years we have been in the halcyon age of church planting.  Everyone wants to be a church planter and it seems that for a long time every Sunday there was a new street level sandwich board advertising a new church with a trendy name.  The names are not descriptive of something substantive; in fact, out here in the Northwest we even have, The Coffee Church(!).  Moderately able worship leaders are in high demand and often move from one trendy new church to another.  During our church plant we even had musicians solicit us for a place on the team.  For them there was no philosophical or theological inquiry; simply a tight worship set was the draw.

Today we finished up a 5-day vacation with family in Idaho.  On our way home and just outside of Walla-Walla we got off the beaten path and drove to the Whitman Mission.  Every time I visit here it has a significant effect upon me.  If you don’t know the story of the Whitman Mission let me give you a little history.  In 1836 several Presbyterian missionaries made their way along the Oregon Trail and settled near Walla-Walla.   Of those who made the trip were Dr. Marcus Whitman and his wife, Narcissa.  They married on February 18, 1836 and the day after their wedding they left for the Oregon country.  They were convinced that they were called to bring the gospel to the Indians and to help them by educating them.  The Whitmans committed their lives to loving and serving the natives in the area.  Their life was not an easy one.  Their first winter was spent in a very small hut, and the second winter their home was flooded out and they had to move to higher ground.  Their only child Alice Clarissa was born in 1837.  At age 27 months she drowned in the river just outside of their home.  Their lives were characterized by privation, hardship, and backbreaking toil.  In 1844 seven children arrived at the mission that had lost their parents in the journey across the Oregon Trail from Missouri.  Marcus and Narcissa adopted them as their own.  Known for their hospitality, their home was place where those headed west often stopped, but they never lost sight of their first priority to bring the gospel to the native Indian tribes in the area.  On April 2, 1847 Dr. Whitman ended a letter this way,  he said,  ‘…we live at all times in a most precarious state….’  And then on  November 29^th, 1847, 11 years after they had begun their mission, Marcus, Narcissa and 11 others were killed and another 47 were taken hostage.  In a terrible misunderstanding and tragic circumstance the Whitman mission came to an end, and for almost forty years Presbyterian missions came to a halt in the Pacific Northwest.

Here are a few lessons from the Whitman Mission church planting efforts that likely will not be taught in college missiology classes:

1)    Sometimes signing up for ministry is akin to signing a death warrant.  Often there is no forward progress of the gospel without significant suffering and this should not surprise us.  After all, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.

2)    Sometimes the people God sends you to serve will not let you out alive.  It is an interesting tension biblically, but if you look at the life of Jesus there was a great deal of difficulty imposed upon His ministry by those closest to Him.  For another eye-opener do a little research on Jonathan Edward’s last days at Northampton. The servant is truly not greater than the master.

3)    The most thankless job in church planting is that of the church planting pastor’s wife.  Untold grief, tears, and hardship are sown by the church planter’s wife as she serves alongside of her husband, and God records every one.

4)    Bi-vocational church planting is profoundly difficult.  It requires a rare skill-set and often comes at an incredible cost to family and well-being.  Marcus Whitman was both a doctor and a missionary, and even wore several other hats as he toiled at the mission for 11 years.

5)    There are casualties in church planting. Sometimes this means reputation, sometimes relationships, sometimes our very lives, but anything worth something will require everything.  We are fools to think of church planting lightly, particularly knowing the gravity of what’s at stake.

6)    Sometimes it is impossible to count the cost beforehand.  There are some tasks that God calls us to that we would run far away from if we knew what they would cost us.  God gives grace in the moment and not beforehand.

7)    Church planting success cannot be measured in the here and now, but can only be accurately considered in light of eternity.  Sometimes success looks like failure and sometimes failure looks like success.  In the eyes of some the Whitman Mission was a colossal failure, and as a church planter it was a strong temptation to look at numerical growth as the yardstick for true success.  This is a fool’s errand.  Wood, hay, and stubble, as opposed to true gospel fruit, will be made known at the day of the Lord.

Walking around the Whitman Mission today I was reminded of Jesus’ words in John 12:24:

‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.’

I’m thankful for men and women like Marcus and Narcissa.  They paved the way for missionaries and church planters that would follow.  It may not be pretty as we consider the incredible cost, but they’ve showed us the inestimable value of bringing the good news.

-DJM

6/10/13

The Absolute Priority of Being Deeply Rooted in the Word - Advice for Church Planters from John Piper

Growing a Church Without a Heart for Doctrine

-John Piper, cited from Counted Righteous in Christ, pp. 22-23

To begin with, the older I get, the less impressed I am with flashy successes and enthusiasms that are not truth-based.  Everybody knows that with the right personality, the right music, the right location, and the right schedule you can grow a church without anybody really knowing what doctrinal commitments sustain it, if any.  Church-planting specialists generally downplay biblical doctrine in the core values of what makes a church “successful.”  The long-term effect of this ethos is a weakening of the church that is concealed as long as the crowds are large, the band is loud, the tragedies are few, and persecution is still at the level of preferences. 

But more and more this doctrinally-diluted brew of music, drama, life-tips, and marketing seems out of touch with real life in this world - not to mention the next.  It tastes like watered-down gruel, not a nourishing meal.  It simply isn’t serious enough.  It’s too playful and chatty and casual.  Its joy just doesn’t feel deep enough or heartbroken or well-rooted.  The injustice and persecution and suffering and hellish realities in the world today are so many and so large and so close that I can’t help but think that, deep inside, people are longing for something weighty and massive and rooted and stable and eternal.  So it seems to me that the trifling with silly little sketches and breezy welcome-to-the-den styles on Sunday morning are just out of touch with what matters in life.

Of course, it works.  Sort of.  Because, in the name of felt needs, it resonates with people’s impulse to run from what is most serious and weighty and what makes them most human and what might open the depths of God to their souls.  The design is noble.  Silliness is a stepping-stone to substance.  But it’s an odd path.  And evidence is not ample that many are willing to move beyond fun and simplicity.  So the price of minimizing truth-based joy and maximizing atmosphere-based comfort is high.  More and more, it seems to me, the end might be in view.  I doubt that a religious ethos with such a feel for entertainment can really survive as Christian can survive for too many more decades.  Crises reveal the cracks.

We Ain't Nothing, Really -

‘For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

- 1 Cor. 1:26-31

Sometimes having a chainsaw in my hand brings clarity to my thought life.  I’m not really quite sure how it works, but this evening as I was clearing brush I had a revelation…I’m nothing…really.  I was thinking of the Apostle Paul’s words to the Corinthians as he was reminding them that often God shows mercy to the nobody.  I cannot run like Usain Bolt.  I don’t have the intellectual capacity of Stephen Hawking.  I don’t have the oratorical genius of Martin Luther King.  I’m not wise, I’m not powerful, I have no noble birth; oftentimes I am foolish, I am frequently weak, and truth be known, God could have done much better by picking a more promising prospect.  It’s like signing a t-ball player to play in the World Series.  A far cry from Nietzsche’s Übermensch, I barely graduated high school. And yet, somehow, God glories in making Himself known through the weak and powerless….

Just let this settle in amongst the synapse…glory is revealed through the nobodies.

It really shouldn’t surprise us though.  A God that considers reconciling the world to Himself through the ignominy of a Cross would be able to find glory in the most unlikely places.  A God that shows grace through the foolishness of preaching and baptismal waters and the bread and cup is a God that will glory in the ordinary and mundane.  He is a God in whom the foolish and ordinary and outcast can believe.  In Christ the nobodies are given righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, because at the end of the day our boasting is found in Another. 

The fact of the matter is…we ain’t nothing, really.

-DJM    

None Like You -

‘Ain’t no woman like the one I’ve got.’

- The Four Tops, Ain’t No Woman

‘Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.’

- Proverbs 31:29

‘…to lose your life for another, I’ve heard, is a good place to begin.’

- Andrew Peterson, Dancing in the Minefields

Every year at this time there is a pause to reflect upon those women who have had significant impact in our lives.  Truth be known, I have been surrounded by amazing women…,

Grandma Rosie was her name, and she was my maternal grandmother. She passed away in 1993, but not before she made significant influence into the life of her children and grandchildren. She was deeply loved by those who knew her. She had a delightful smile and twinkling eyes, and her ability to cook up a storm was legendary. I'm not typically a fan of pumpkin pie, but hers had changed my mind. She also was a world-class knitter. There are still some sweaters and afghans around that bear her creative mark. She lived through the Great Depression and consequently lived a simple life in a modest home in Spokane, WA. She was beautiful and loved her family deeply.   

My paternal grandmother passed in 2014.  Her health was failing and her memory gone, and she lived to be 97.5.  She lived an amazing life.  Raised in the rough and tumble mining town of Anaconda, Montana, her life was never easy.  With the challenge of alcoholic parents at a young age she took care of her even younger siblings and when the authorities found out all of the children were placed in a state orphanage and were kept there until they could fend for themselves.  Life was much more difficult then.  She married my grandfather and their marriage was always a challenge.  Still, she soldiered on until my grandfather’s death in 1996.  My grandmother lived a life in service to others.  A while back I had a meal with a couple she and my grandfather befriended in the 60’s, the wife had escaped from East Germany and the husband had escaped from Czechoslovakia while both were under communist rule and they had no friends or family in the states. My grandparents 'adopted' them as their own. My Gramma Erma was full-blooded Swede and was tough as nails, but she loved her family. 

Judy’s mom Ramona passed in 2017.  Judy’s mom was an incredible treasure.  She could make me laugh like no other and her bold witness for Christ was unexcelled. I learned much from Ramona.  She has raised four children and worked hard as a farmer’s wife.  When the Minnesota winters got too cold she faithfully followed her husband to the Pacific Northwest.  And when her husband George died in 1984 Ramona only redoubled her efforts at loving and serving her family.  Always quick with conversation, you’d find that no one was a stranger to her.  Her life had truly been lived for others and her latter days were spent caring for her elderly friends.

My own mom is a rich treasure as well.  She raised three headstrong rambunctious boys and lived to tell about it.  She and my dad will soon be married 64 years and in case you’re counting that’s a long time.  She is a faithful Christian wife and mother and doesn’t mind speaking up about it.  She loves my dad, her church, and Christ. Her kids, grandkids, and great grandkids are always on the receiving end of her many kindnesses.  

I have four amazing daughters.  Each one unique and each one gifted in so many ways.  

Lydia, our youngest, is now a young married woman.  She and Renard have soon been married two years. She is mature and intelligent and has a sense of humor and wit that runs deep.  We can just look at one another and burst out laughing.  She has made it much more difficult for me to be serious about anything anymore (She once asked me how the motorcycle riding high-school flunkie got the high-school honor roll cheerleader! To which I still don't know the answer!).  Children and adults love her.  Her friends love her. Her nieces and nephews can’t get enough of her.  Her smile lights up any room.  Never concerned about herself, her life has been lived serving others as well.

Alexis in my daughter-in-law. She is the best thing to ever happen to my son Nate. Nate and Alexis have been married six years. She is incredibly bright and stunningly beautiful and she is the best mom to her two young daughters. Alexis has a very difficult job of her own as an emergency services dispatcher, but compounded with being the wife of a law enforcement officer she has a quite difficult role. She has a wonderful sense of humor, and is able to keep track of Nate's keys and wallet!    

Esther is my third oldest.  She and Tim have been married 17 years and they have four beautiful children.  Esther is quiet, pensive, bright, very capable, and opinionated.  She loves her family like a mama bear and heaven help the person that tangles with her.  She makes friends forever and is as true blue as the day is long.  She teaches her children well, is an excellent cook, and always makes sure we are well fed.  She has an amazing flower garden that is the envy of those that see it. We have great conversations, can incessantly tease one another, and we never really take one another too seriously.

Hannah is my second oldest; picture Sandra Bullock’s character in The Blind Side.  No one can make Judy laugh like Hannah.  She says and does hilarious things that manage to get to the most ticklish spot on our funny bone.  She is tough as nails but tender as well. Hannah and Jim have two beautiful children.  Jackson is the family athlete and ‘bella is Hannah’s ‘mini-me’.  Hannah is the diligent student in the family and has several degrees in nursing.  Hannah exudes kindness and everyone loves her as well.  If you are discouraged your cares are her cares.

Sarah is my oldest.  She is an entrepreneur, a businesswoman, and a tremendous help to her husband.  Sarah and Kevin have four beautiful children.  They are incomparably generous and are always looking for ways to help and serve others (Kevin and the two oldest boys spent the day here today installing a drip irrigation system for Judy for Mother’s Day).  Sarah’s boys work harder than most men I know, and Sarah and Kevin’s work ethic is the envy of the family.  Sarah is compassionate, serious-minded, plainspoken, articulate, and committed to her family.  She has a way of always getting to the nub of the matter.

Next is my dear wife Judy.  The reason our four daughters are the way they are is because of her profound influence upon them.  Judy is funny, reflective, smart, hard working, full of mercy, wise beyond words, longsuffering, quick to overlook a fault, a faithful friend, and is always glad to make sacrifices for others.  Our home bears the marks of her love and care, and her flower garden is stunning this year. Her life has been lived in serving her family and others.  She has shown us what it looks like to suffer well and to come through tremendous trials with her faith intact.  There is truly none like her.

In each of these women the grace of God is evident.  In each of these women I am blessed beyond measure.  Their worth is far above the richest treasure. 

-DJM

Mother's Day 2020