I suppose if a church were to sponsor a tractor pull, it would raise some eyebrows. If we were to host a UFC fight in our sanctuary, questions would be raised. So, I can understand that a church hosting an art show and music coffee house is an odd and unusual thing which begs for explanation.
This event was sponsored by Hope Presbyterian Church as a community oriented event celebrating God’s creative gifts. So, Friday and Saturday nights of last week, our auditorium was transformed into an art gallery / coffee house. Couches and tables set off the music side of the room, and displays of local artists adorned walls and tables on the other side.
Through the course of both nights, local musicians played sets of 45 minutes to an hour. We did not require that the artists or musicians be Christians. Our heart was to build bridges to communities which have developed suspicions of conservative Christianity. We simply wanted to provide a venue where artists could have their work seen and heard. Art was for sale, and some sold. Music was provided free, and some tips were received. Generally both nights we had a consistent presence of at least 60 constantly rotating people in the room at one time. At the high point on Friday night, we estimate that a hundred people were in the room, most of whom would have been people who never before had set foot in our church (and perhaps any church).
Certain risks attach themselves to any such effort, of course. That the final song in the wonderful set by the group Haitz was a lively acoustic version of “Rock ‘n’ Roll All Night” by Kiss was somewhat of a surprise. Truth be told, I enjoyed it.
This event does not appeal merely to art ‘snobs’. It does attract the artistically oriented, of course. One man who is now a member of Hope Church includes our hosting of this event as one of the reasons he was attracted to us in the first place last year. He is an artist whose presence has greatly blessed us. But it’s appeal is broader than the artistic community. We find that it appeals to people who are just looking to enjoy a fun evening. Hope’s associate pastor Geoff Henderson had several friends from his kayak fishing on-line forum attend and they commented on what a good time it was.
I believe that we did bless the community. And, in return, the community blessed us. At best such an event is pre-pre-evangelism. And as such we cannot always count our success in terms of ‘souls saved’. But we pray that God is using this labor to build bridges which will give the world a far more positive view of the church and, ultimately, of the Christ who is our Lord.
I understand the financial crisis that print news is facing as the internet plunders their readership and advertising dollars. As a result, the newspaper showed up at our house today in a new format. It is thinner (by my estimate, 1.5 to 2 inches) and may be shorter. There are no additional pages, the type is reasonably the same size and shape.
The publisher explained these changes in this way, roughly paraphrased: “We are giving you less in a smaller package, for the same amount of money, and this is good for you.” (For example, the smaller format makes it less likely my open newspaper will flop in my wife’s cereal bowl over breakfast.)
I understand the need for the changes, and I understand the need to try to explain these things in as positive a way as possible. But sometimes honesty can be more powerful than spin. I wonder if the paper considered an article that explained the changes as necessary in the light of a shrinking readership and advertising stream, presuming upon the readers’ loyalty and good sense to keep them on board?
It reminds me of a letter we received once from a bank explaining to us why the increase of fees they were instituting were good for us.
And it reminds me that I need to examine my own heart and my own leadership. Good news is easy to communicate. Painful news cries out for spin, and spin is not always the best policy.
The following story is true. No names have been changed.
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Wednesday, April 29, 2009, 11:33 AM: Wife in crisis calls me to tell me that she had just gotten off the phone with Apple support and it had been confirmed that her 250gb iMac hard drive was dead. Tears bespoke her desperation.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009, 1:46 PM: Randy searches internet desperately for technical help on how to replace the hard drive on an Intel iMac, discovering that Apple does not WANT average Joe’s performing such delicate surgery.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009, 2:04 PM: The local Apple service center offers to replace the hard drive for ~$200. $100 for the identical 250gb drive and $100 for labor. Randy is incensed.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009, 4:27 PM: Randy detaches the iMac from its cabling, lays it on the kitchen counter, and searches for a means of access. Notes that only certain types of drivers will loosen the screws.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009, 4:44 PM: In a fit of desperation, Randy watches a ten-minute YouTube video of some guy changing the hard drive on an iMac on his bed.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009, 4:54 PM: Randy orders a 640gb hard drive from Amazon.com for $67 including overnight shipping charges.
Thursday, April 30, 2009, 11:46 AM: Randy buys set of mini-Torx drivers at Sears for $10 on way to lunch appointment.
Thursday, April 30, 2009, 4:00 PM: Wife calls to report that the hard drive has been delivered.
Thursday, April 30, 2009, 4:23 PM: Armed with YouTube knowledge, new set of Torx drivers, and shaky confidence, Randy begins surgery with the help of the lovely Nurse Barb.
Thursday, April 30, 2009, 4:42 PM: Having found his way in and out of the patient’s vital areas, the final Torx suture is applied to the iMac, and he is hauled back to the desk where he resides. Upon being powered up, he begins to restore the operating system.
Thursday, April 30, 2009, 4:43 PM: Randy becomes a huge fan of YouTube videos. (And of automatic backups to external hard drives. They say there are two types of people in the world: those who back up their data and those who wish they had. Three times now, in the past fifteen years, we are glad that we had backups.)
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NOTE: I was really impressed with myself, being able to do this with the help of a YouTube video. However, this story trumps my own. I plan to stick to hard drives.
Robert Wright begins his article “One World, Under God” (see here and here) with an idea that many find compelling. He says:
“For many Christians, the life of Jesus signifies the birth of a new kind of God, a God of universal love. The Hebrew Bible—the “Old Testament”—chronicled a God who was sometimes belligerent (espousing the slaughter of infidels), unabashedly nationalist (pro-Israel, you might say), and often harsh toward even his most favored nation. Then Jesus came along and set a different tone.”
No doubt, when the scriptures are read, some come away with the idea that the god of the Old Testament is different god than the one found in the New Testament.
The shame is that few reflect deeply about what it would mean if that were so. If this god waffled once from harsh to gentle, what is to keep him from flopping back to his former harshness under certain unforeseen future circumstances? Nothing.
Of course, if that is what the text reveals, then it is our authority. We must learn to live under the shadow of that monstrous uncertainty. However, there is a different and more satisfying way of reading the data which is worthy of consideration.
When I google ‘god’ I get about ‘about 510,000,000’ results. Rightfully, googling ‘man’ generates an appropriately lesser 200,000,000. (Although, curiously, ‘woman’ returns ‘about 525,000,000’ results. Conclusions, anyone?) And then, of course, googling ‘Randall or Randy Greenwald’ would lead you to about 155,000 destinations, only a couple of which would actually be me.
All of which is to say that God is big; I am not. Which is only part of my point.
Martha Budd Greenwald was a school teacher in Loveland, Ohio. For many years she taught girls health and physical education, and occasionally English, at Loveland Junior High.
She was good at what she did. And she was tough. She made students work. She would put up with no back talk or disrespect. She would coach younger teachers (like me, her son) to begin each school year with a firm hand, letting up only when respect and control were established.
Occasionally, she would be thinking deeply about something, and students would look at her and assume she was angry, whether she was or not. Her serious face was a mean face. This only added to the mental perception students had of her. And that is the only way some students remember her. Mean, tough, demanding.
So, I googled her. The top hits for her were at ‘meanteacher.com’ and other results favor the words strict’ and ‘harsh’ and ‘mean’ next to her name.
Just kidding. I made that up.
In reality, I expected no hits since she has been dead for over ten years. Surprisingly, there she was, generating a half dozen links on the first page of results, every one of which having to do with some kid who was heading off to college with a $500 scholarship provided by an endowment my mom set up before she died. Dozens of kids have benefited from this small gift which was the result of her caring foresight.
Other than being touched by this (I’d forgotten about the fund she had set up), what do we learn from this?
Let me ask it this way: is it appropriate to draw the conclusion that since she revealed herself as strict early (in her career or school year) and as caring later that she changed? Should we speak of a ‘Martha’ who was fundamentally and essentially different in one era than in a former era? Would we say that her latter years “signified the birth of a new kind of Martha”?
We could. But such a conclusion would only be warranted if all the evidence pointed to it.
A better way of interpreting the data would be to understand that at a particular stage in this woman’s relationship with those under her authority, she felt it most wise to emphasize certain aspects of her personality. Then, later she found it wise to emphasize other dimensions. All the while, she is the same essential person who has not changed. When strict, she was also capable of and revealed great tenderness, and when tender, one knew there was a firmness underneath that was to be respected.
This latter interpretation, of course, is actually the true picture of my mother.
It is also the true picture of the God of the Bible.
God did not change when he graduated from the Old and entered the New Testament. In a variety of situations and settings, the emphasis in revelation falls upon different aspects of his essential being. But he is the same God whose character never changes.
For mankind to come to grips with its rebellion and sin, it must see God as a holy and terrifying God of judgment. God reveals his holiness in the Old Testament (though even these books are slathered with God pictured as a shepherd caryring injured lambs close to his bosom or as a mother hen spreading her protective wings over her brood). God in the Old Testament clearly chooses to emphasize his holiness.
The burden of the New Testament is to show how this holy God invaded time in the person of Jesus Christ with the intention of drawing rebellious sinners out from his wrath and into his favor through great acts of sacrificial love. It is no surprise that the emphasis here falls upon his love and grace. All the while, this loving, redemptive God of love does not cease to be a consuming fire.
If we come to the Bible with the preconception that it is a collection of human stories about a god idea, then either interpretation will do. It’s all an academic game, anyway. But if we come to the Bible and find it to be a book in which God is revealed, it is hard to read it in any other way than as a full orbed God revealing himself in time according to the wisdom of his purpose.
And one aspect of the beauty of that picture is that this God never changes.
(And, yes, that picture above is a shot of one of the streets in the small town in which I grew up.)
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Tim Keller is a pastor and author in Manhattan. After the publication of his book The Reason for God he was invited to address the employees at Google on that subject.
Some of you might find some value in listening to this presentation.
Some of you began January with grand visions – reading the Bible, getting exercise, praying, having a new neighbor over each month, or something similar.
It is now the end of April, and you see that your visions faded into fantasy. And with that, you have lost hope.
Don’t.
Why not begin again? Tomorrow is the first day of May. If you were on a ‘through the Bible’ reading plan, pick up tomorrow with the reading that is for May 1 and go on from there. Whatever your goal, you can begin fresh tomorrow. Forget what is past. Start again.
All is not lost.
May 1 is the new New Year. (Which, of course, makes April 30 the new New Year’s Eve! Yeah!)
Members of Hope Presbyterian last night hung art, moved tables, and decorated space in preparing for the fourth annual Art show and coffee house, transforming a room into an art gallery and leisurely music venue.
And boy, does it look nice.
Make plans to be in attendance Friday AND Saturday nights. The art won’t change, but there is a different lineup of local musicians each night.
One of the delights of Sundays for us is company. We love to have people home for lunch and talk with them and sometimes to hear their stories. One such story emerged this past Sunday.
Bill K told the story of his chain-smoking grandfather. This man was a South Carolina butcher who, one day, had pretty much cleaned up his shop and was ready to go home, when in walked a woman looking for a chicken. So, he happened to have one in the cooler beneath the counter which he could give her without having to delay his leaving. So he reached down and pulled it out. She looked at it and said, “I was looking for something a bit plumper.’
Slyly, he took the chicken down, put it in the cooler, and squeezed and massaged it until it looked plumper, and then brought it up and set it on the counter – the same chicken. The woman was pleased with this one, and said, “I think I’ll take both of them.”
(We have been requested to post the following warning.)
WARNING: DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU’VE HAD BREAKFAST!
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I’ve been hungrily changing header pictures recently taken from pictures of the Cinnamental cinnamon and pecan sticky buns. The newest one is from a new format of the cinnamon roll which is half the size of the traditional bun. Here’s the whole bun, for those of you (mostly family) who are interested in the evolution of the Cinnamental bun:
NOTE: Clicking on the picture may have some ‘enlarging’ results.
This Friday and Saturday night, Hope Church in Bradenton, the church I pastor, will metamorphose into an art gallery and coffee house. We’ve done this for four straight years, and each year it gets bigger and improves.
Our heart here is to build bridges into the community by providing a venue for local artists and musicians to display their work. A number of local artists and local musicians will be displaying their art and performing their music in a coffee house atmosphere that we think is absolutely unique in the Manatee / Sarasota County community.
Here is our flyer for the event (click for a larger image):
This is not a strictly ‘Christian’ event. Some of the art is by artists who are Christians, and some of the music, but not exclusively so. Our desire here is to simply say to artists of all stripes that we care about what they do and to provide them a venue to display and play.
That’s where you come in. You can help show your appreciation for local art and music by coming. The atmosphere will be relaxed. Come, sit on a couch, stroll among the art, listen to the music, sip on some Starbucks Coffee (graciously provided by our nearby SB), and snack on some fine pastries. It’s a great date night.
We (and the artists/musicians) would love to see you both nights.
I am not a novelist and imagine being so in only the briefest of delusional fantasies. However, those who write say that one writes best about what one knows best. So, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings set The Yearling in the central Florida setting of her childhood. Success, acclaim, and the Pulitzer Prize followed.
So if I were to write some kind of novel, what do I know best? I’ve been a pastor for 23+ years. I suppose the story would have to center on a pastor’s life, but how would one make such a story captivating?
I don’t have to worry about it. The book has already been written, by a woman, by one who has never been a pastor, by one whose father was not a pastor, but by one who has so inhabited a pastor’s skin that this pastor was captivated.
I’m speaking of a novel called Gilead, written by Marilynne Robinson, which was published in 2004 and received not only the Pulitzer Prize but also the deep affection of readers from diverse backgrounds.
It is the story of family and pastoral life in small town Iowa from the time of the civil war to the mid-1950s. However, it is not the plot which dominates, as it might be in many novels. The story is told through a series of letters written from an aged pastor to his seven year old son, a son born to him late in life, a son he knows he will never get to see into adulthood. And so we eavesdrop as he tells family stories and shares reflections and thoughts with his son as he would expect a father to do, but which he knows he will not be able to do. We hear him struggle to come to grips with apostasy, suffering, family division, and the prospect of death and the hope of heaven.
Rare is the cultural product which paints pastors sympathetically, but that is what Robinson has given us here. John Ames is a man of character and devotion. He is a man who struggles with what he should think and how he should respond to others. And when he struggles, he prays. He is a man whose beliefs are sincere and deep and whose love for others is genuine and not feigned. Time and again in reading the book I felt that this woman had spent time in my head listening to my thoughts and puzzlements and exultations. And in her writing she shows an acquaintance with the Bible that is natural and of the depth that one would expect of a pastor. It was hard to imagine that this was NOT being written by an aged pastor.
The story unfolds in a non-linear fashion, which can be disconcerting for some readers. I’m a sucker for the Tom Clancy novel where action barrels ahead with unrelenting momentum. I’m always in a hurry to finish what I start. This book did not let me. It forced me to slow down and ponder what I read. (That this is difficult for some of us is a fault in us the reader, not in the book or its author.)
I finished reading the book today as I lay in my bed recovering from a 24-hour virus. I feel like I’ve bid farewell to some friends. If I were to open up the newspaper and read that the Rev. John Ames of Gilead, Iowa had died, I would be sad. But he never lived. At the same time, he has lived and lives in churches large and small throughout this world.
I suppose if a church were to sponsor a tractor pull, it would raise some eyebrows. If we were to host a UFC fight in our sanctuary, questions would be raised. So, I can understand that a church hosting an art show and music coffee house is an odd and unusual thing which begs for explanation. 
Certain risks attach themselves to any such effort, of course. That the final song in the wonderful set by the group Haitz was a lively acoustic version of “Rock ‘n’ Roll All Night” by Kiss was somewhat of a surprise. Truth be told, I enjoyed it.
