I said it straight, they heard it crooked!

Like many people today I have a Facebook page and I try to update my status regularly. Most of the time I try and put something that will make people laugh or at least make them smile. But it seems I can't because when people call you "Pastor" they expect your Facebook status to be a scripture or something spiritual. I have been told several times by well meaning people that as a "Pastor" my Facebook status should be up lifting to the people who read it. Kind of makes me feel like a preforming monkey dancing around entertaining the crowd " I'm here to make you feel good about yourself", Whoa I just had a Zoolander flashback.


So being the loving and giving person I am, I decide to sit down and write a status that would make people say: " Ahhhh what a Pastoral status that was" or something like that. Little did I realize that people don't always see things the way you do. I wrote this as my Facebook status:

I have decided to start an occupy movement of my own. I am going to occupy my life. I am going to occupy my life with following Christ, loving family and friends and trying to change the world by being as much like Christ as possible. During the occupation of my life I am not going to blame others for my life and ask them to give me things for which I did not work.The occupation of my life will not be to take up space and interfere in the lives of others but to help others along the way as they occupy their lives.


 I thought this was acceptable and from the comments I received it all was going well until a friend of mine liked my status and copied it as their  status and gave me credit for it. This is where it went strangely wrong. My friend has a friend whom I do not know or have never met got extremely upset at my post and started ranting about me on my friends Facebook page. Here are a few comments of the comments by one person.


1. McClanahan's Jesus sounds an awful lot like a good enlightened liberal rather than the 1st century Palestinian prophet. Maybe he should get to know the Christ he purports to follow instead of using innuendo to insult the very people whose company Jesus preferred to the respectable status quo of which McClanahan apparently belongs.


2. McClanahan is misguided, mistaken. The blunt version is that, wittingly or not, he is using the name of the Lord in vain. 


3. McClanahan is only using the name of Jesus to insult the poor and those who work for justice. That's the wrong thing to do, and I hope your he repents.


4. The plain fact is that Pastor Steve (whoever that is) misrepresents what it means to follow Christ.


5.   I don't need to know Steve's heart to know what he stands for. 


And I will stop there because you can see where it was heading.


My friend let me know what was happening on her facebook page so I thought I would check it out. Little did I know my comments would cause such a fire storm of controversy, at least for one person. Several of my friends were defending me to this person I do not know and I wasn't going to get involved. But I couldn't resist the temptation to add fuel to the fire. I know that doesn't sound very Pastorly.  After a few exchanges of Ideas and thoughts,  mostly him telling me how I was wrong, I finally contacted him directly and we are actually started having a conversation.


What I have learned from this is it doesn't matter what you write someone is going to hear it differn't than how you wrote it. Much the same way people hear it differn't than how you said it.
I believe there are a lot of people who are the same way with Jesus.They hear Him talk about love and they like that so they grab on to it and forget all the other things He had to say. They like the love and don't want to hear anything else about Him.  I have the love why do I need Grace or Holiness  or Rightoeusness?  When we do this I believe we make for ourselves a small managable Jesus that we can handle. Like the young man that attcked my staus, his Jesus was the Jesus that went around forgiving debts, feeding the hungry and slamming anyone who had money.


 Jesus is much more than the attributes that we like about Him, you can't only love just a couple of things about Him you have to love all of Jesus , yes even the points that don't sit well with you or fit into your way of thinking.  When we love only part of Jesus we miss the whole that He has in store for us. 


Next time I change my status it's going to be about puppies, Unicorns, rainbows or flowers, how can anyone not like those things?


Stay Thirsty for the Lord my friends
Pastor Steve


P.S 
Sorry It has been so long since my last post. Sometimes life gets in the way of life. 

And the Band Played On

The war over hymn's versus choruses has been raging now since the early 70's. And people on both sides are very dogmatic about their style of music. Recently as I heard some people arguing over which music was more spiritual and should be be sung in church, it suddenly hit me. Like a bolt of lightning this thought went streaking through my brain and the answer to this age old problem became crystal clear. 

" IT REALLY DOESN'T MATTER". 

 I know you thought it would be some profound answer, nah that's not my style. You see, when we sing in church, in theory we are supposed to be praising God and giving Him glory,drawing closer to Him, at least that's what I've been told. If this true and we are praising God and it is for Him, how come we come to Him with music that we like? Aren't we making a big assumption that God likes the same music as us? 

What if God's favorite music is polka and we have it all wrong? What if we found out tomorrow that God's favorite music was the sounds that whales make. Would you be in church the next Sunday trying to make sounds like a whale looking like Dory in finding Nemo? Or would we continue to sing the songs we like and  say "I don't like that whale music it repeats to much" or " Those whale songs are old, slow and boring and I can't understand them". When did we become the arbiters of what God likes or dislikes. 

So I say it doesn't matter, because it is not about us. It is about worshiping, giving praise and glory and thanks to God our father. And just like a father that gets an ugly tie on fathers day and he tells his child this is the most beautiful tie I've ever seen. Our Father in heaven hears our singing whether it is a hymn or chorus and says "that was beautiful, that was the most beautiful song I've ever heard.  

 1 Corinthians 14:26 says What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church. Remember everyone has a hymn and our hymns may be different. I can see it now,100 years in the future people arguing about whether to sing choruses or this new music that has become popular called hymns.

Let me leave you with a joke:

 An old farmer went to the city one weekend and attended the big city church. He came home and his wife asked him how it was. “Well,” said the farmer, “it was good. They did something different, however. They sang praise choruses instead of hymns.” “Praise choruses?” said his wife. “What are those?”

“Oh, they’re OK. They are sort of like hymns, only different,” said the farmer.

“Well, what’s the difference?” asked his wife. The farmer said, “Well, it’s like this – If I were to say to you “Martha, the cows are in the corn”’ – well, that would be a hymn. If on the other hand, I were to say to you:

Martha, Martha, Martha, 

Oh Martha, MARTHA, MARTHA, 

the cows, the big cows, the brown cows,

 the black cows the white cows, the black and white cows, 

the COWS, COWS, COWS are in the corn, 

are in the corn, are in the corn, are in the corn,

 the CORN, CORN, CORN.

Then, if I were to repeat the whole thing two or three times, well, that would be a praise chorus.”

The next weekend, his nephew, a young, new Christian from the city came to visit and attended the local church of the small town. He went home and his wife asked him how it was. “Well,” said the young man, “it was good. They did something different however. They sang hymns instead of regular songs.”

“Hymns?” asked his wife. “What are those?” “Oh, they’re OK. They are sort of like regular songs, only different,” said the young man. “Well, what’s the difference?”

The young man said, “Well, it’s like this – If I were to say to you ‘Martha, the cows are in the corn’ – well, that would be a regular song. If on the other hand, I were to say to you:

‘Oh Martha, dear Martha, hear thou my cry

 Inclinest thine ear to the words of my mouth

Turn thou thy whole wondrous ear by and by

To the righteous, inimitable, glorious truth.

‘For the way of the animals who can explain

There in their heads is no shadow of sense

Hearkenest they in God’s sun or His rain, 

Unless from the mild, tempting corn they are fenced.

‘Yea those cows in glad bovine, rebellious delight

Have broke free their shackles, their warm pens eschewed

Then goaded by minions of darkness and night

They all my mild Chilliwack sweet corn have chewed.

‘So look to the bright shining day by and by

Where all foul corruptions of earth are reborn

Where no vicious animals make my soul cry

And I no longer see those foul cows in the corn.’

Then if I were to do only verses one, three and four and do a key change on the last verse, well that would be a hymn.

Stay Thirsty My friends

Pastor Steve

Things That Bother Me

As I sit here typing 18 days before my 53rd birthday I realize some things bother me.

1. People who cut into line at amusement parks
2. People who wont  turn right on a red light when it is safe to do so.
3. Justin Bieber (not really sure why, he just does)
4. People that think the world owes them something.
5. Decisions made in our denomination for political reasons

There are more things that bother me but the last on the list is the one that is clouding my mind today. In economic times like this you would expect decisions would be made to help keep expenses down.  However people seem to want there agenda to be implemented no matter what the cost to others. This is wrong no matter who you are, a lay person, pastor, district superintendent or general superintendent. 

 It bothers me because I don't sense Christ in the decisions being made, I can only feel agenda and that bothers me most of all. I am bothered because they either know they are going to retire soon and don't care or they want to position themselves to climb the denominational ladder of success. I am pretty sure Christ is also bothered by this as well. Of course me being bothered doesn't matter to them, they don't seem to care and that is the saddest part of all and the most bothersome.