Over and under selling

Picture this scenario. A friend has just seen a movie that they really enjoyed. They begin sharing their excitement with you. They tell you that this movie has everything, maybe that it is one of their top 10 favourites ever, and that you just have to go see it. You get all caught up in their excitement. Well after all if your friend enjoyed it, then surely you would enjoy it as well. But when you leave the theatre you are very disappointed. For whatever reason you hated it, or were bored by the movie. It was just not your cup of tea. You figure that your friend must be totally off his/her rocker to have enjoyed this movie. 

Has that ever happened to you? People tell you that something will be wonderful when it isn't wonderful but merely good or bad. This week I have been laughing all week. Someone invited me to a meeting that they have said will be extraordinary. Such an invitation is doomed to failure. If it is indeed a wonderful meeting all you can say is that the event lived up to its expectations. You will forget how wonderful it was just because the invitation already promised that it would be. The effect of that terrific meeting will have been lost because of the invitation. If the meeting is rather ordinary, you leave the meeting hall disappointed. It wasn't extraordinary at all. If the meeting is a good meeting but not terrific, you will have felt left down. The invitation was like my friend explaining their excitement over that movie- it built things up too much.

I think a worse problem though in the church is that we undersell our work too much. We are too self effacing. We forget about all the lives that we have touched and just put it down to "oh it is just something we did." We could share wonderful stories of all the work that we do, but instead we either forget about our stories or just refuse to tell them to others.

During the years 2008-2011, I worked for the National office of the United Church of Canada. My job was to promote the good news of all of the work that was being done by congregations, outreach ministries, global overseas partners, and the national church. It was indeed a work of love. And I was amazed at the thousands of lives that had been touched by our churches. Through the dedicated work of church men and women and the various church agencies, our United of Canada can and indeed made a difference in the world. But too often churches forgot to tell the world that they were doing this work. Not only were they not overselling their efforts, they were underselling their efforts or just ignoring them completely. We forget that others outside of our walls don't know that we struggled to make working conditions more humane, support the rights of children, support women's rights, work for peace in the world, empower people in the third world, feed and provide shelter for the hungry, and so many other things. People forget we are a vital part of our community because we forget to talk about the work we have done and are doing.

That is a great problem. We live in a world where we hear so much bad news. The community is seeking a respite from this doom and gloom. The world is looking for good news. The church's role is to preach the good news. And if we are unwilling to talk about the good news of the work that we have done, our world misses out. We need to stop underselling our works. Blessings.

Sometimes take a turn

I like to think of myself as a fairly organised person. When I make an appointment with someone, I arrive on time. Well if truth be told, I arrive early because I hate to keep others waiting. I make to do lists and I try to prioritise and make sure that I get everything done on my list. There are some days when I see what is on my agenda, I know what I have to do, and I work my way through it.

But the vocation of ministry is never quite that straight forward. Sometimes you receive phone calls when people ask you to come visit them and things need to be shifted. Sometimes a committee plans a surprise meeting. Things happen. Your schedule rarely goes to plan. You need to be flexible and adjust. You need to re-prioritise on the fly. 

I think the vocation of ministry is quite like life. You see we never quite know how each day will end up. There are always unexpected curves in everyone's life. A friend phones from out of the blue. You are offered your dream job, but it is hundreds of kilometres away. A loved one gets sick. You get fired. A downpour floods your basement. Your child makes excellent grades at school and the principal wants you to come in right away to talk about their future. There are those days when you get up and everything goes to plan. But they are indeed those rare days. Most days we can expect one unplanned event that will thwart our careful planning.

This is not a bad thing however. Scientists for instance, have tested stress on plants. The scientists had two sets of seeds. The first set of seeds was raised in the perfect environment. They were set in the richest of soils. They received just the right amount of light and the right amount of moisture each day. They were sheltered from the wind and protected from pests. The second set of seeds were not neglected by any means, but they were raised in less than ideal environments. They would go through times of drought and times of over abundance of moisture. They faced the occasional pest and times when they had a bit too much light or a bit too much shade. What the scientists found surprised them. The seeds raised in perfection did not perform nearly as well as the seeds that had just a wee bit of stress. A little bit of stress made the seeds hearty and strong. 

I do think it is best to be planned and organised. It just makes the world a bit easier to deal with. But no matter how organised we are, we need to be ready for those distractions that take us from our desired route. They make us strong. They make us hearty. They sometimes show us a new and exciting path. May many of your plans go well but hopefully you will enjoy life's detours as well.  Blessings.

I can't believe I said that

One would have to be living under a rock this week not to have heard foul words used by a candidate running for president of the United States in an interview in 2005. Whether one likes the candidate or not, and whether one was going to vote for him or not, the fact that he used such language has become a huge campaign issue. Undoubtedly, the results of the election will be affected somewhat by his poor choice of words. Some undecideds will now have made up their mind on the basis of those tapes. Some lukewarm supporters, as has been demonstrated already, will say enough is enough and change their voting preferences. Will it be enough to turn the election one way or the other- we will see come November 9th.

I don't like people who use language which denigrates someone else. Whether it is by race, creed, economic class, nationality, gender, what have you- I have come to learn in my 53 years on earth that words which slander are powerful weapons. How many dreams have been quashed, how many miracles have gone undiscovered, because some people have told other people that they are not good enough, not worthy enough, and not valuable enough to count. People who bully and intimidate prevent many people from living up to their potential. And because of that, the whole world suffers.

In saying this though, I realise that I have to be ever diligent in my use of words so as not to harm others. I have a vocation where I get to preach messages each week in front of people. My role as preacher is to share faith, to interpret, to get people to think, to challenge and to encourage. Sometimes I manage this, other times I don't. However, my role as preacher is never to harm others, never belittle, and to never bully. Hopefully, each person feels respected when they hear my messages whether they agree with me or not.

The same is true with my blog and my on line presence. I share my thoughts in order to encourage, to challenge, to provoke, and to hopefully bring some understanding to a chaotic world. On Facebook, I try to put up posts that describe who I am: a minister, a man, someone with a sense of humour, someone who is concerned with justice. I don't post foul language, because really I don't use that much foul language in my day to day life. I try to respect others because I have come to know that we get a lot more done when we treat each other fairly well rather than when we point fingers and say he did she did. I try to look for beauty in the world because when the days get cold and others seem cruel, its those bright sparks which will lead me out of darkness. I try to be respectful in my on line conversations and in posting responses because I know such things live forever and once said, you cannot put it back in the box.

Human beings have been given a wonderful gift- the gift of being able to communicate with each other.  But I think that politicians, teachers, preachers, parents, siblings, co-workers, and friends need to know is that the gift of communication is a powerful one. Communication and what's said has the power to change the outcome of everything. Our words also live on much longer than we do. So speak well to one another and let us change the future of our world. Blessings.

A moment of thinking, a moment for thanking

How often do we go through things just following the motions? I take for granted that my phone and my computer will work when I turn them on. I trust that my food will be cold in the refrigerator and cooked when I take it out of the over. I trust that when my traffic light turns green, yours will turn red, and I will be able to safely get out of the intersection.

But what if things didn't work out like that. Chaos ensues. We flush the toilet and instead of eliminating our waste, it overflows from the top. Traffic lights malfunction and there is bedlam on the streets. A switch doesn't work on the train tracks and thousands of lives are thrown out of kilter.

This means we should be thankful that 99% of the time these things work perfectly. I should offer thanksgiving that my morning orange juice is cold when I open up the fridge almost all of the time. But human beings are funny. We only remember the one day in six months when something doesn't work. That day becomes a disaster. We ignore the hundreds of other times when all was great.

Giving thanks. I think it is really hard when everything goes well for a very long time. When life is going along perfectly, quite quickly we become accustomed to that perfection. We assume that life should always be smooth. If I have never worried about whether the water I drink is free from dangerous pathogens, if I have never worried about where my next meal is coming from, if I have never had to be concerned about where I will sleep tonight, then it becomes easy for us to think that there will always be food, water, and shelter. We just assume that those things are a given.

But if one has been starving for a long time, imagine how grateful they must feel when they get a decent meal. If one has been unemployed for many years, imagine how wonderful it must feel to get a secure job. People who have been born with everything, lose it for whatever reason, then get rich again, also have a greater appreciation for what they have. But I think as soon as one begins to expect again that their plates will be full every night and that they will be in their own king size bed in their own place each night, we begin to forget to say thank you.

What I am trying to say is that all of us have much to be thankful for each day. During the average day, my heart beats over 100,000 times. Over 24 hours, I breathe thousands of times. It is impossible to say thank you for each of these miracles. During the average day, I will consume 8700 kilojoules of food. It is next to impossible to offer gratitude for each morsel. We need to take moments to say thank you. We need to recognise that so many times we forget to say thanks for that unfortunately is part of human nature. But we need to try ever harder to express appreciation for all that we have. Blessings