When tables collide

Yesterday I returned home from a short tw0-day trip to eastern Washington where I attended the annual conference held for pastors of our denomination.  It had been a few years since I had made the trek over and I was looking forward to seeing some old friend and hopefully connect with some new pastors. 

Looking back on the experience I can say that it was worth the time and cash to attend.  I was encouraged by some of my conversations…confused by the overall lack of vision spoken…excited about the increasing number of pastors who are planting churches.

There was one moment on Tuesday morning where the day started with a brief time of prayer and communion.  I emphasize brief since the majority of the morning was dedicated to the “business” meeting that takes place each year.  You know the routine…department reports, finances, voting on positions…the usual church business stuff. 

I happened to walk in the auditorium a little late.  They had already begun to serve communion.  I sat in the very back so not to be a distraction to anyone.  While sitting there and observing all that was happening, I couldn’t help but take notice to two tables.  One table was placed up on the stage.  On it were bottles of water, microphones, reports, and laptops.  The other table was on the floor and placed on it were the stacks of communion trays.

One was a business table and the other, the Lord’s table.

Two very different tables, representing very different things.  The truth is, that one table is vital to the church body while the other has too often been made more important than it needs to be.  It was in these few minutes of sitting and watching that I wondered to myself…which table are we pastors most familiar with? Is pastoral leadership becoming more about money, numbers, and meetings?  Are we becoming more familiar with the business table than the other, which represents surrender…sacrifice…repentance…and shared experiences?

Now, I know at first that may seem like a critical statement.  I only ask the questions since I know myself and how easy it is to make my ministry about church business and not seek the life of a shepherd.  In my experiences there have been many who have sat me down at one table and trained me to build crowds and manage budgets, but few have been a constant voice teaching me that my calling is formed at other table where truth and grace…and hope and healing are lived. 

We live in a day and age where the business table cannot be avoided.  We need it.  But, the Lord’s table is where we should want to be found.  It’s there that egos are checked and hearts are shaped.  I can only hope and pray that when my career as a pastor is done, that many more younger pastors will know which table is most important to their ministry and influence. 

Love and Peace.

Great video and even better song!

Take a three minutes and listen to this amazing song.  In fact, listen to it while watching the very cool video!  It comes from my good friend at Last Astronaut.  He has a great blog full of cultural insight, art, and life-exploration.  Make sure to check it out!

Love and Peace.

While we wait for the movie, let’s talk poverty

Most of us know by know about the US container ship that was attacked by Somali pirates and the captain being held captive.  Piracy off the shores of Somalia have been going on for quite some time now and only getting worse.  Most of world was fairly ignorant to these actions, until a US ship was attacked.  In fact, one french leader said that this was one of the best things to happen as any kind of attack on the US gains the attention of the world.  He was right…

A few days later, Navy SEALS shot and killed the pirates as they held our captain hostage.  The story unfolds like a movies script!  In fact, I was amazed at how many people I heard talking about the possibility of a movie coming out, telling the story of modern-day pirates battling the very cool Navy SEALS!  Admit it…this has blockbuster written all over it!

While we wait for the movie, it’s important to talk about the underlying issues of Somalia and its pirates.  Somalia has no government.  It dissolved several years ago leaving the people of this coastal African country to fend for themselves.  The result has been terrible violence, hunger and poverty,a nd it’s for this reason that Somalia has pirates.  This is what can happen to humanity when deep poverty begins to take over a people.  This kind of evil and violence has occurred for centuries whenever there has been inequality. 

When people feel forgotten…things get ugly.

The other night, I watched a news story on Somalia and it’s social / economic problems.  I couldn’t help but think about the Old Testament (books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus) and God’s instructions to Israel about Jubilee.  Jubilee was God’s plan for economic and civil equality.  The plan was that every 50 years, all debts were forgiven…land became available to occupy…food was free to everyone…and slaves were freed.  It was God’s way of protecting the wealthy from greed and over-consumption, while rescuing the poor and hungry from their demise…no matter how or why they found themselves in their poverty.

For God, Jubilee wasn’t about living nice and making things fair.  It was always about protecting peoples hearts.  When hearts are broken by poverty or decieved by wealth, God often gets left out of the picture.  The stories coming our of Somalia serve as a reminder of how God seeks to have our hearts.  Yes, the stories of modern day pirates make for exciting reading and story-lines, but it should also remind us that there’s something much deeper…much more evil at work here.  It’s incredibly an sad story…

Love and Peace.

Hope for the arts and my personal regrets

Did you ever play a musical instrument or sing a choir as a child or teenager?  Chances are you did.  The bigger question is, do you play that instrument or sing still today?  Chances are that you don’t.  Too many children and teens discover the desire to learn music only to give it up later in life.  That would be my story…and at age 37, I really do regret putting my saxophone away over twenty years ago. 

Today, the NY Times is running a story [Read Here] on a local school struggling to keep their arts programs alive, and how so many of their students are too poor to afford instruments or the time to commit because they have to work to help provide for their family.  I really hate reading stories like these!  It’s no wonder that America is falling so far behind the rest of the world in education!

I played the Alto Saxophone for several years and was fairly good at it.  I owned a guitar for a bit, but never took it too seriously.  Today, I wish I had kept playing the sax.  I got too busy with sports, school, and church stuff as a kid that music became more of stress for me than a joy.  Now that I’m a father to three children, I want them to have the opportunity to experience music.  I won’t have much to teach them musically, but i do have a few life-lessons to share that might help one of them pursue a musical dream.

So, is music a part of your past?  Why did you stop?  Any regrets?  Feel free to share your thoughts…

Love and Peace.

My birthday girl

We all love that Spring brings new life.  The leaves are budding and tulips are popping after a long and cold winter.  The sounds of lawnmowers in the late afternoon is always nice to hear, at least for a month or so before it becomes a nuisance.  Baseball is back and the grills are grillin’!  It’s a great time of year for sure…but it’s also a busy one for the Hamilton clan.

There’s Easter, spring break, and the barage of family birthday’s comes rushing forth!  Five birthdays from today till the first week of June!

Today, my wife turns 29!  Christalle is the love of my life and I can’t give words to how much her faithful love, support and strength means to me and our family.  She is truly a blessing from God and I’m so proud of who she is and wants to be.  She’s an awesome mother to our 3 young boys, a genuine example of Christ’s love, a dreamer, and a survivor. 

I love my birthday girl!!

Love and Peace.

The space between resurrection and ascention…

Happy Good Friday everyone!  What a sacred and important day for the church!  The violence, agony and weight of the cross…all as a sacrifice for the sin and brokenness of humanity!  I hope that you take, or have taken a moment to reflect and ponder today.

In my preparation for Easter Sunday, I have taken considerable time to study the stories of Jesus being with his disciples after the resurrection and before the ascension.  It’s clear that the Christian faith celebrates both the cross and the empty tomb, but we rarely speak of the space between God’s acts of love and power.  It’s not too common to read about or hear a sermon on Jesus’ interactions with Peter, Thomas, John and the others…because in a first glance of this, it’s seems just a simple piece to the story.  But it’s not…

In John chapter 21, we read about Peter and some of the other followers hanging out on the lake shore.  In fact, it says that they decide to go fishing when Jesus appears to them and calls them to him.  Together, they have breakfast.

There were numerous times when Jesus appeared to his disciples, and what’s clear is that Jesus is not in any way a ghost, or spirit.  He is fully alive as he was before the cross, and this is important to the story and to our lives today…

I like what the theologian, NT Wright, says in that for too many years the church has been in the business of “soul-making”.  Meaning that we have celebrated a risen Christ who then ascended to Heaven where he waits to one day bring the believers home to him. 

If this is our understanding of Easter, then we’re simply missing the point of the Story!  Jesus came to his disciples not as a ghost, but as a human who gave them understanding of their new life because of a risen Christ.  He rose from the grave to show them how the new humanity was to live in a world, that ready or not, was experiencing the invasion of God’s Kingdom! 

From this point forward, the church existed for the world!  Not just as “soul makers” who believed that it’s all about eternal security, but as disciples who had first-hand experience  of God’s Kingdom and the new life that came with it’s embrace.

The image of God’s son on a cross certainly leads one to repentance.  The image of a risen Christ gives us hope for both today and eternity.  But the Jesus in-between teaches us to be fully alive and to use this new life to display the risen Christ in a world seeking truth, hope, and love!

Love and Peace.

Be a voice…maybe even an angry one

Yesterday while eating my lunch I did what I often do when eating lunch by myself, reading either the Seattle Times or the NY Times.  I chose Seattle Times mainly because I wanted to check in on some local sports.  Part of me wishes I hadn’t read it at all…

The front page held the story of a rural family who had endured many years of trouble and abuse.  That all ended last week when the wife refused to come home to her husband for fear of being abused again.  She told him she would come the next day to get her things and their five kids.  The kids didn’t survive the night as their father shot and killled each of them before killing himself.  It turns out that the state new their was abuse going on in the house, but never protected the kids…this whole story of broken families and systems makes me very angry!

Every day there are horrible stories breaking that none of us really want to listen to, but if we don’t…we certainly become either ignorant, numb or we never find ourselves angry.

This morning, I’m thinking about an old U2 song called “Silver and Gold”.  It’s a song about slavery and as I was listening to a live version of it the other day I noticed that he breaks from the song…begins to speak out against apartheid and you can hear that Bono’s voice is being heard.  His voice is full of anger toward the inequality and violence that made apartheid such an evil existence in our world. 

At the end of the song, Bono asks the crowd, “am I bugging you?  I don’t mean to bug you!”  It’s as if he knows that he can’t help but being a voice of hope to the world, but at the same time there would be so many that would rather he just perform…just entertain…just keep to singing. 

Most of us know that Bono has become a loud voice in our world.  He’s angry toward injustice, hate, disease, and the way the wealth of the world chooses not to listen.  I’m sure many would still rather hear him sing than speak of hope and justice…

I woke this morning angry.  It’s not that I’m grumpy or emotional, but there’s an anger stirring in me about five children being shot to death by their father.  I’m angry at the mom for thinking of her own self and not going home to protect her kids.  I’m angry most of all about the growing world of domestic violence and that it continues to be something the church (mine included) are simply too silent about!

Jesus certainly showed us when anger confronts injustice, that healing and restoration can happen.  He became angry towards the silence of the religious leaders as they ignored a crippled man on the Sabbath.  His anger lead to complete healing for the man, and the Bible paints the picture of it all taking place in the presence of their silence and hardened hearts. 

This image of Jesus’ anger leading to healing is a message to the church.  It tells us once again that the church exists for the world, not the world existing for the church!  There’s a big difference between both ways of thinking…

Being a voice in this world isn’t easy.  I certainly know that if you begin to speak out about things, people will be annoyed and even call into question your faith, theology, and motives.  So to that I say…don’t try and be the next Bono, because you’re not.  Try and search the scriptures and understand what they say about God and His mission in our broken world.  Pray that your heart will be filled with a compassionate anger and that your voice will lead to action from you and the others who are influenced by what or who you feel convicted to speak for.

Love and Peace.

Resting in Love

It’s 6:30am, and I’m sitting at the ktichen table watching the sun rise over the distant tree-line.  One would think this is a perfect way to spend an early morning, except I’m not enjoying it all that much.  We have a 5 month old baby who is learning his way in the art of sleep and the last two weeks have been brutal!  Really, it’s been since before he was born that I had a night of uninteruppted sleep and it’s starting to catch up to me.  So…I wish I was in bed and not looking at a sunrise.

Now that I’m done complaining about me…there is one thing that I’m very excited about in life.  The journey of learning to sabbath.  I know…not very exciting, is it. 

Througout the grand-narrative of scripture, we see God’s plan and desire for restoration.  In both big and small ways, the Bible clearly paints a picture of people being spiritually restored back to a place where God’s presence becomes central to their existence .  Hearts, minds, bodies…being restored.

One of the plans God has restoration is through the discipline of rest, or Sabbath. The Sabbath as Jesus reminded the religious people of his day was made for us, not us for the Sabbath.  It was Jesus’ way of saying that God designed us to be people who work, but that all of our work and accomplishments will never make God love us more. 

God loves us not for what we do, but for who we are!

I’m at a time in my life where being a husband, a father of three young children, and a pastor to a church is both incredibly rewarding and stressful.  To be those three things in healthy, God-honoring ways is not easy!  I would love more sleep, but what I really need is rest.  I look forward to a week’s vacation next month, but for my heart and mind to be restored back to a place where God is central to my existence…I need a day each week where I learn to rest in God’s love. 

Yesterday happened to be a day of rest for me.  Spending the day outside (ferry ride, picnic, and park) with my family.  Work was far from my mind…I chose to see parenting as a blessing and not something to survive…I put away my lists of things I’m working on or thinking through…prayed and reflected on God’s unconditional love as much as I could.  This was Sabbath, and while I wish I were in bed right now catching up on months of lost sleep…I feel ready for a long week of work. 

A day of rest is something I need to practice.  I need to model it for my family.  I need to remember that God desires to use me and speak to me even when I’m NOT busy with work.  Sabbath is about knowing my place…to be restored back to my place of knowing God and His love…to remember that my work as a pastor could never define my existence in this world the way unconditional love desires to.  It’s a tough journey for me…

Love and Peace.

Opening Day…

I’m all for watching the Super Bowl with friends.  I love watching the first day of March Madness in the hopes of seeing an upset.  I crave Nascar…Oh, wait…I hate Nascar!  Anyway, today is the day that I look forward to all year.  Baseball’s Opening Day take place today and I couldn’t be more excited!

The only unfortunate thing is that my Seattle Mariners begin the season on the road so I’ll have to wait until the 14th to catch their home-opener.  Plus, both the Yankees and Mets have brand new state of the art stadiums (I happen to think the new Citi Field is amazing) and neither of them will open the season at home.  Oh well, there’s still the RedSox at 11am and the Reds at noon (ESPN, ESPN2).

The sun is out here in Seattle.  It’s warm.  The smell of fresh cut grass is in the air.  My boys were hitting off the tee this past weekend.  It must mean that Major League Baseball is here!

Love and Peace.