Declaring Your Major

Many young people, upon the completion of high school, head off to continue their studies at college.  In the United States, something like 75% of high school students attend some form of college after high school, and the majority have no idea why.  What I mean by this is that many students enroll and begin attending college with no idea of what they want to study or what they want to do with this education upon the completion of the degree.

These students begin their college careers as "undeclared students".  They are students but not following a particular course of study.  So they take classes on writing and literature and science and history and art and math and generally expand their knowledge across the board.  The goal of doing this is two fold.  One, There are a certain number of general classes that are required for all majors and this way when a major is decided upon, the general classes will already be completed.  And two, the hope is that along the way, something will spark an interest and then they will know what the major should be.

But being undeclared can only work for so long.  Eventually they run out of general classes and they need to declare one way or another.  You can't graduate and still be undeclared.  

It's a little like buying a house.  You shop and look at the listings and talk to realtors and visit perspective houses.  But at some point you have to make the declaration.  This is the house that I want to buy, I am willing to pay so much and if the offer is accepted, I am prepared to move.

Or maybe it's like joining the military.  You meet with recruiters, read the information, take the tests, get a physical, and explore potential assignments.  Eventually, you raise your hand and take the oath, or you head out the door for other things.

   

Politicians make quite the show out of their declarations.  You can get on the ballot to run for office by filing a form in the appropriate office, but that's not what they are going for.  They turn the declaration into an event.  There are crowds and speakers and music and speeches.  They want everyone to know that they have begun the next phase of their quest. 

The Christian journey is much like this.  We can flirt around the edges.  We can make commitments in secret and start the transformation, but like looking at houses or taking basic classes, you  get to the point where that has stopped moving you forward.  If you want to take the next step, then you have to declare.  As Christians we need to be willing to say, "Yes, I am a Christian and the world can know it."

In some parts of the world, that declaration comes with great personal risk.  There are places where professing to be a Christian is inherently dangerous.  Not so in the United States.  But still many want to hide in the shadows of the undeclared.  Many of us fear the impact in all of our relationships that would come with openly saying that you are committed to a new way.

Watch this video clip from Pastor Mike.

Christians are called to come out of the shadows.  We are not secret agent Christians.  It is our hope that others will see the love of God through us, but that is only possible to the extent that we declare ourselves openly to be His.

Open for Business

I was once eating in a restaurant and thinking to myself that it was a great new restaurant, hoping that they would do well.  I asked the server how long they had been open, thinking that it had been a few months.  The reply was "four years." This place had been open for four years and I had never noticed.  Granted, this place wasn't in my town.  In the small town that I live in the opening of a restaurant is big news.  But still, I did go by there often enough and some how I missed the change.  When businesses are open, they need to get the word out.

I have also had the experience of looking for a business and being unable to find it.  This isn't a question of being aware, it is about geography.  Some business lack a noticeable sign or are set far back off the road.  You can know that they are there some place, but finding where can be a challenge.

Some businesses never set up a store front or advertise one bit.  These business rely on word of mouth to grow their business.  I knew a house painter who prided himself on having never advertised.  He believed that if he gave people a fair price and took pride in his work that his customers would tell their friends and the work would sell itself.  And as far as I know, he has been right.  But this isn't the same thing as being invisible.  When people ask about his work, he is quick to respond.

But even someone who is self employed, at some point has to make the decision that what they are doing is a business.  That they are painting houses and that they are going to charge money for the services and that this enterprise is going to be called something.

Most businesses make it official by filing a DBA.  A DBA is a form filed with the local government that says that you are in business under a specific name.  These business names and owners are listed in the local paper or on line.  It is an official declaration with the powers in charge that it enterprise is a business and this is what they do,

As Christians, we need to declare ourselves open for business.  That is we need to make the decision and say that this is who we are.  Becoming a Christian is a life transforming experience.  We are under new management and it is time for a grand re-opening.   And just like there are all kinds of people and all kinds of businesses, there are all kinds of Christians.

Some Christians wear their faith on their sleeves.  They are all out there and can't meet a person without sharing a testimony.  Others are more of the quiet word of mouth types.  They don't say much but people can see that there is something different about them.  And when asked, they are quick to respond about the influences of their life. 

What we don't want to be are invisible Christians.  We don't want to be like the business set way back off the road that no one can find.  We don't want it said of us, "Really, you've been a Christian for four years?  I never noticed." Now that would be a tragedy.

Watch this video clip from Pastor Mike.

At some point we need to make the decision that we are doing our business as a Christian.  We are part of the family of God who have been redeemed through His Grace.  We may have day jobs as house painters or restaurateurs,  but first and foremost, we are servants of God,  And there will be no hiding it.

T Shirt Christianity

The attention span of our society seems to keep getting shorter.  The news reports have long been know for boiling the news down to the sound bites, those 10-15 second clips which they try to use to sum up the positions of the candidates.

It has long been hoped that twenty-four hour news channels and in depth analysis in the blogosphere would take the discussion to new depths.  Unfortunately, that just hasn't been the case.  While the coverage has grown a mile wide, in most places it is still only an inch deep.  We don't hear more of what the candidates say or analyze the policies to a greater degree, we only hear the sound bites more often.

The problem is that many of the issues that we care about cannot be summed up in 10-15 seconds.  Education, national security, energy, the environment, the economy are all complex issues that affect our lives.  The sound bite scratches the surface but doesn't really enlighten.  And in each of these issues, the details are what is most important.  After all, everyone wants a strong national defense, a booming economy, a healthy environment and world class schools.  The trick is in balancing all of these needs.

None of their plans are perfectly good or perfectly bad.  Most plans have parts that will be a benefit and part  that will cause pain.  We can debate which part is which, but it is all there.  But the debate can't happen with bumper stickers, internet memes and 140 characters.  We have to go deeper.

And as bad as it is to have only a surface level understanding of national issues, I think that it is worse when we have the same approach to our faith.  Christian apparel is a $1.5 billion dollar industry in America.  Many people like to profess their faith by wearing a whitty slogan.  The problem is when our faith never gets deeper than the whitty slogan or internet meme.  

As Christians, we need to embrace the difficult issues.  We can't be afraid of the hard passages or the challenging concepts.  We need to accept the idea that serious believers can have differing opinions is some areas, but we are still no less brothers and sisters in Christ.  We need to embrace the uncertainty and allow the Holy Spirit to shine through the confusion.  When it is done, our faith will be stronger as a result,  We need go beyond the Christian t shirt lingo and develop a true relationship with God.

Watch this video from Pastor Chris.

Our relationship with God should go deep into our very being.  The nature of God, our salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the guidance of the Holy Spirit are not easy concepts that can be summed up in a tweet.  And the thing is, no matter how deep we go, no matter how expansive our understanding of God, we will never understand it all.  We can all go deeper still. 

House Keeper Prep

Do you ever hire a cleaning person to help around the house?  Some people do.  They come in now and then to help with things like dusting and vacuuming, that sort of thing.  I can't say that I have a lot of experience in this area, but I have heard it said that it is common for people to want to clean up their houses before the cleaning person arrives.  On the surface this seems pretty ridiculous, after all cleaning is what you are hiring the person to do.  To a certain extent it makes sense.  You don't want to pay the person to straighten things up or for putting away clutter.  And you certainly don't want the cleaning person thinking that you are a slob.  But still, it seems like you could be creating more work and stress by hiring the cleaner.

Well, maybe not....

There are many situations in which it seems there is a lot of prep work just to get going.  As a teacher, a day off starts with writing lesson plans for a substitute teacher.  And we teachers aren't alone.  Many people say that on a day off, the work piles up until their return.  Or business owners talk about all of the preparations needed so that the business can function for a day without them.  

Maybe the king of "work just to get started" is a construction project.  Long before the first nail is put into a board, the plans begin.  There are schematics to draw, materials to buy and deliver, helpers to organize.  Then and only then are you ready to begin.  If you have ever worked on a project that has been poorly planned, you see immediately how important prior preparation is.

There is one area in which making preparations is not only unnecessary, but it can actually be a hindrance.  That area is our relationship with God.  There are many people who long for a deeper relationship with God, but want to get their life together first.  It is as if we feel that we are unacceptable in our current form.  We don't want God to see what a mess we've made of our life.  

But the thing is, God knows and He's accepts us anyway.  We can never make our lives "good enough" to impress God, but it is not necessary.  Allowing ourselves to think that we can only come to God once our life is in order is like thinking that we can only go to a doctor once we stop being sick, or that we can only go to a mechanic after we fix our car.  

Through the redemption offered by the Grace of God through Jesus Christ, we can transform our mess of a life from the worst house on Hoarders to a mansion from Life Styles of the Rich and Famous.

Watch this video from Pastor Chris.

Our relationship with God restores us, and we are ready to begin or expand that relationship right now.  No prep is needed.  Let's go.

Extreme Restoration

On the History Channel there is a popular program called "Pawn Stars".  It is set at the Gold and Silver Pawn Shop in Las Vegas and features the store owner, Rick, his son and father as they run their business.  During the show, customers bring in unique objects to sell or pawn and along the way their is discussion of the history of the objects and of course, haggling over the price.

Sometimes the thing that is brought in doesn't appear to be in particularly good condition.  It might be an old Coke machine or a vintage juke box and it looks like a wreck.  It has taken a beating from the weather, and it is showing the scars.  And while I wouldn't think that it would be worth very much, they buy it all the same; sometimes for what seems like a pretty substantial amount of money.  Where some people see junk, others see potential.

They then take the rusty old broken machine to the restoration guys.  These people clean off the dirt, blast off the rust, add add some more paint and make the workings work again.  At the end, what they have is nothing short of a thing of beauty, a true collector's item.  What's more, when they total up the costs of buying the original and the cost of restoration, they still make money on the deal.  Restoring the ruined isn't easy but it is profitable.

On the show, the episodes featuring the restorations were so popular that they spun off a couple of shows centered only on the restoration.  One show is about the place that restores things like pop machines and gas pumps and the other is about the place that restores old cars.  We just love to see the run down come back to greatness.

This story of restorations should seem particularly poignant to those of us in the Christian faith.  We come to God damaged and broken.  And as we surrender to Him, we are restored in something unbelievably special.  Society may look at us and see the junk in our lives and we may too.  Most of us are our own worst critics.  But not God.  Where others see junk, where others see ruin, where others see failure, God sees potential.

Watch this video from Pastor Chris.

God restores.  God makes us new again.  God wants to take us on a journey of purpose, growth and renewal.  Like all restorations, it isn't easy, but it is worth it.

Go -- No Go

So you are driving along a dirt road and in front of you is a large mud puddle.  What do you do?  If you don't like mud puddles, we could substitute a big sandy spot or maybe a snow drift in the road if you like.  It is the same question, what do you do?

Of course you size up the situation and consider the vehicle that you are in, and then you decide.  As you approach the puddle, at some point you have to commit.  You have to decide if you are going through the puddle or turning around.  One thing is for sure, inching your way through the puddle is a sure recipe for getting stuck.

It's a little like when NASA is preparing to launch.  At Mission Control they list off the critical systems and at each point they are asked, "Go-No Go?" Are you in?  The people in charge of each critical system must declare that they are good to go.  They must commit.  If any of the systems declares a "no go",  The launch is called off,

Some things are like that.  You are in or you are out.  You can't inch through a puddle.  You can't kind of launch a rocket.  The airplane is either taking off or staying on the ground.  As Yoda said, "Do or do not, there is no try."

This Go-No Go philosophy is one that we as Christians should embrace.  As a Christian we can't dip our toe into the Holy Spirit and see how it feels.  We need to decide if we are in or are we not.  And if we are in, we need to be all in.  We need to commit.  Like inching our way through a mud puddle, dabbling in the Christian faith is a good way to get trapped.  

We can get trapped in the ways of the world.  We can get bogged down by sin and never feel the freedom that awaits us.  We have to decide if we are going to live our lives for our self, or are we going to surrender to the will of God.  As long as we are living for our self, we will be slaves to the bonds of sin.  To find true freedom we need to commit.

Watch this video from Pastor Chris.  

When we live for ourselves we are slaves to sin.  We can only have one top priority in our life.  If we are most concerned with accumulating the things of this world, then our top priority can't be our relationship with God.  So which will it be?  Are we a Go or a No Go?

Trying to Help

When India was under colonial rule by the British, there was a problem with cobras.  Too many of them, if that was not obvious when I said the word "cobra".  Their solution was to put a bounty out on cobras.  Anyone who turned in a dead cobra was paid some money.  But pretty soon the good people of India figured out that it was much easier to raise cobras than catch cobras.  So a number of secret cobra farms sprung up around New Dehli.  Eventually the British rulers realized that their bounty system was not fixing the cobra problem and ended the program.

So what became of the cobra farms?  Because there was no money to be made in raising cobras, the cobra farmers let the snakes go.

Economists have a name for this.  When due to unintended consequences a possible solution actually makes matters worse.  It's called, "The Cobra Effect."

The point of the story is that everything that we try is 100% improvement.  Sometimes in spite of our best intentions, things go horribly wrong.  The prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s was meant to reduce alcoholism and its negative effects, but it led to a massive increase in organized crime.  Widespread use of antibiotics have cured many diseases but have created super germs in their wake.  The automobile has brought the freedom of transportation to many and with it a host of environmental concerns.

In each of these examples, there were no pros and cons to weigh out.  People never saw the downside coming.  It would be an example of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called and "Unknown-Unknown".  It is a case where we don't know what we don't know.

So what's a person to do?  Doctors may have it right in the Hippocratic Oath when they pledge to "First Do No Harm".  And that isn't a bad place to start, but do we not feed hungry children because we don't want to foster a culture of dependency and entitlement.  Somehow that doesn't feel quite right.  

I think that first and foremost, we need to be ever mindful of the still small voice of the Holy Spirit.  We need to seek out God's will in everything that we do.  As Christians we need to be secure that God has a plan and we are part of it.  We need to be secure that God has a best path if we have the faith and patience to discern it.

And we need to be aware that in this world, some problems don't have perfect solutions.  Just like some medicines come with side effects, some problems come with unintended consequences.  So let's all agree to be a little generous with each other.  Let's all agree that  when things are up in the air we need to come down on the side of Grace, We need to come down on the side of Mercy.  We need to come down on the side of Love.

Watch this video from Pastor Chris.

We are called by God to help relieve suffering in the world.  We are called to lift up those around us so that they can see God's love through us.

Ready

Happy Labor Day.  And if like I you are a public school teacher, then you think of Labor Day as New Years Eve.  Except that you go to bed early and get up and go to work the next day.  And there is no party in Times Square.  And no Bowl Games.

So maybe this isn't the best analogy that I have ever constructed, but I'm not giving up.  For a teacher, each new school year is a fresh start.  Class begins on day 1 and with that is a fresh of goals and intentions for the new school year.  You might even call them, Resolutions.  And like the resolutions made on January 1, many school year plans won't work out.  But if you're not optimistic on Labor Day, you are in for a long year.

 

Are you ready?

As a teacher, that is the question during the month of August.  If I had a dollar for every time that I've been asked that question, I could fight the chronic under funding of public education.  In other words, I get asked that a lot.  I think that it's mostly a way for someone to make small talk or to commiserate in my expected misery.  And they always seem a bit taken aback when I give them my answer.  YES.  

Sure, I enjoyed the break like anyone else.  But it's time to start.  I like what I do.  I am ready.  There will be challenges in the year to come, but that's the job.  So ready or not it's time to start.  And I am ready.

Over the years I have noticed that there are two types of people who go into education.  One type is the person who likes young people and wants to help them grow and develop.  They want to challenge the students to be the best version of themselves that they can be.  

The other type is someone who likes being the smartest person in the room.  This group seems to get more satisfaction out of showing the class how clever they can be and less satisfaction out of their students' achievements.   The problem is that if we lift ourselves up, in showing off our own cleverness, it has the tendency to put others down.  Fortunately, these people tend not to last.

As Christians, we need to make sure that our walk is more like the former and less like the latter.  We need to be focused more on living a life that is outwardly focused so that others can see God's love for them through the actions of His people.  There is no prize for being the most religious person in the room.  And putting someone down is no way to lift them closer to God.

Watch this video from Pastor Chris,

So it's time to get started.  For all of my friends in teaching, both those I know and those I don't, may you have a blessed year.  May you have an impact on your students and may your efforts show a ten fold return in the lives of your students.

And to all of us, may we be committed in the months to come to show God's grace through the way we live each day.

Are you ready?

Fake Homeless

Have you ever heard stories about homeless people who really have a lot of money?  The story goes one of two ways.  Either the person is just choosing to be homeless, because they want to live that way, or they really aren't homeless at all.  In the second version, they sit around playing homeless collecting money from sympathetic passers by then go home.  To their home.  Which exists.  Because they aren't really homeless. (Get it.)

Personally, I don't buy it.  I know, I know, I know.  You saw a news story.  Someone told you.  Your friend totally knows someone who made a lot of money doing this.  I know.  And sure, maybe it can happen in some small way.  But not really.  

I think the real problem with the stories is that it makes us look upon all of the needy with suspicion.  We can walk by a person in a doorway and think, "that person thinks I'm a sucker."   The possibility that this person may not really be in need but is trying to take advantage of your kindness is enough to pollute our attitude towards helping anyone.

 

This extends not just to the homeless, but to our attitude towards the rest of the world.  When we hear of refugees needing of a safe haven, our reaction isn't to do all that we can.  Our reaction is that maybe they are really terrorists out to get us.

As Christians we are called to extend our hospitality to those in need.  If the person really isn't in need, that's between them and God.  That's not on us.  We are called to help those around us and there are no penalties for accidentally helping someone unnecessarily.  

Watch this video from Pastor Chris.

We are called to show love to those around us.  We are called to be gracious in a way that they see the love of God through our actions.  And that is something that everyone needs.  Even if you have plenty of money.