Well, I woke to the Fox News banter of an imploding economy and natural diasters in both India and central North America.  On top of that, I sit in meetings where the drug problems are discussed while I remember that my own children attend those schools.  Gas has reached $3.79 a gallon and a loaf of bread is twice the price it was just one month ago. I watched a man mentally cuss a gas pump this morning.  Some would say this is a dark day... but I can't seem to go there yet.

For the last six months I had been a part of a spiritual movement that I haven't seen in several years.  I have led community residents to Christ in my office several times and have watched a spiritual hunger take place in the congregants that I pastor.  Something is happening and I have to say that this is the best of times to touch lives for God.

I am humbled by the work and move of God happening around me and confess that I have little or nothing to do with it.  I feel privileged to be a part of it and not every one likes what is going on, but that's just the way it always happens when good thing begin to occur.  But their clamouring is being drowned out by the prayers of hungry souls.

Non-traditional options are forming and new opprtunities are presenting themselves and my overwhelming inadequacies are haunting me.  But, I am reminded that I could be in a place where survival is the goal and altars are barren.

Thanks God.  I remember that I am filthy rags, but you still use me. 

Bruce... imperfect but climbing anyway.

Mike Warnke used to make a joke about terminology.  "Why do we park on driveways and drive on parkways?  Why do we call them apartments when they're all together?"  I can still remember laughing at these jokes 20 years ago in Louisville, Kentucky with a nod of relevant application to my current ministry in Valley Station, Kentucky.  I was pastoring a church that had seen a dramatic split before I arrived and many times I would lay my head on my pillow next to my new bride and say, "After seeing the behavior of these Christians, I probably would have left, too!"  I was still too young in the ministry to truly discern why some church attendees seemed to be so miserable, no matter how hard I would try to encourage them.  My wife and I tried very hard over the next three and one half years to love them, and our church grew during that time... never-the-less I was forever affected by the lessons I learned. 

But yet, I have often wondered if I was given the chance to pastor that church again, how would I labor differently?  Now that I have 20 years of ministry under my belt (what a weird way to put it), could I be more successful than I was?  I'm definitely more patient than I was.  I'm a better communicator than I was then.  My leadership has more pocket change than before.  How would I attack this small group of people with the love of Christ?

The answer is as obvious to me today as it was then... I would help them to narrow their focus.  Now I am not advocating a narrow form of judgmentalism or attempting to endorse a simplistic approach to what is a very complicated dilemma; I am now more than ever committed to the redefining of God's presence in the midst of His church.  The greatest need that little congregation had was to recognize their spiritual distractions and tolay down their right to be angry in the presence of an all loving, all energizing, all peaceful Savior.

I am old enough now to see the paradox of worship and the absence of wonder in our sacred hour (or two).  The more I look back and revisit the most successful moments of ministry, I can see God's people simplistically embracing the wonder of their transcendent Lord.  The best way I can express it is in the much publicized story of Mary and Martha and the dinner party they planned with Jesus.  Mary ended up at the feet of Jesus while Martha's things to do list was immediately doubled because of Mary's decision to "Hang Out With Jesus".  Martha was so upset at the injustice of task distribution that all she could think of was a deserved scolding from Jesus to her sister.  But Jesus ended up scolding Martha instead. 

Just like Martha, that little congregation was made up of a large majority of "Vote for Martha" campaigners.  They missed the joy for the distractions.  They lost the adventure of God's presence in the face of human failure... the distraction of fairness.  They had been hurt by people, and allowed that to override their hunt for purity.  But Mary knew the purpose of the dinner... to entertain and embrace God.

Have you ever wondered what would happen if we could all truly allow Jesus to drown out the distractions and let the brokenness and vulnerability of Christ become our adventure?  Me, too.

In Pursuit of that Myself,

Bruce