Waiting for a Message from God

I used to wait tables (off and on, for about 5 years). I also used to be a Christian pastor. So you can imagine my excitement when one of the headlines on my Yahoo home page teased something to the effect of “You won’t believe the message that a pastor left for a waiter!” I clicked. I read. I cried on the inside.

Apparently responding to automatically being charged an 18% tip, some pastor wrote on the charge slip, “I give God 10%. Why do you get 18?”

I read the initial report yesterday morning. Several times throughout the day, the story popped into my head. Each time, I shook my head and thought, “Why? What is to be gained, O brother in Christ?”

I got home that afternoon, and the story was still a headline on Yahoo. Only now, the waitress had been fired for posting the picture of the charge slip. Also, the pastor had been identified. My “brother” was actually a “sister,” and Pastor Alois Bell actually resides in my home city of St. Louis, Missouri. And there you thought that only Catholics had a voice in St. Louis! It seems that we Protestants were just waiting for the right situation to let our voice be heard.

A couple of clicks later, I discovered that not only was the pastor a Christian residing in St. Louis, but the Applebee’s where this incident went down is about 20 yards from my home church. (Just in case you think this will end with me discovering that it was my pastor who wrote the note… uh, no. That’s not where this is going.)

It’s a little surreal when an incident that took place at an Applebee’s on the same block as your church is the fourth “most trending search” on Yahoo.com.

In the past, I’ve wanted to write posts on current events, but I always wait too long to write them, and they stop being current. I was worried that had happened again, since I started this post on Friday, and now it is Monday, the day after Beyonce, commercials, Harbough v. Harbough, the blackout, and the retirement of Ray Lewis. Oh, and just for good measure, scientists found the remains of King Richard III under a parking lot in Leicester, England.

Rest assured, this information on the Applebee’s incident is still out there. It’s still the most popular story on stltoday.com, and easy to find on (for example) yahoo, usatoday, cnn, msnbc, foxnews, huffingtonpost, and (soon) willpreachforfood.com.

Having done my research, I can fill in a few more details.
What I believe to be factual details:
-Alois ate at Applebee’s in a party of either 8 (5 adults and 3 kids) or 10 (5 adults and 5 kids)
-Her bill was $34.93, and an 18% gratuity of $6.29 was added to that amount.
-Alois scratched out the $6.29 and wrote her message.
-Alois was alerted by a friend to the viral nature of her note, and called the Applebee’s to complain. A server—not the one who waited on Alois—was fired for posting the charge slip online.
-Alois has expressed something like regret over this incident. In an interview on a local station, she said, “I don’t know why I wrote it. It was a lapse in judgment. That was how I was feeling at the time. Would I do it again? No, I would not. And this didn’t even have to go this far when there are so many more important things we could be speaking about.” [note: I did not transcribe a couple of “um’s” in this quote, but believe it is an otherwise accurate rendering] In an interview with thesmokinggun.com, she said, “My heart is really broken. I’ve brought embarrassment to my church and ministry.”

Some things that are less clear:
-If Alois was “allowed” to scratch out the included gratuity—legally and/or according to Applebee’s policy. I.e., is refusing to sign for an included gratuity the same as pulling of a “dine and dash”?
-How many people Alois was paying for. $34.93 seems like a lot for one person to spend at Applebee’s, but not very much for a party of 8 or 10.
-If Alois left a cash tip. She says she did ($6.29) because she felt bad after writing her note. If she did leave a tip, then she obviously didn’t stiff anyone, contrary to almost every media report. In fact, if her scribbling out of the automatic tip had no bearing on what she was being charged (which may be the case), she may have accidently double-tipped her server.
-If Alois was trying to get her server fired when she called.
-If the server who waited on Alois was fired or disciplined, or if those actions were reserved only for the server who posted the message on the internet.

If I was waiting for something exciting to happen right in my back yard, this might be as close as I get—and it’s a topic whose sides I am familiar with. So, without further ado, my consciousness will commence streaming right now:

1. The media has, for the most part, not reported (let alone confirmed the existence of) Alois’ cash tip. Some of the other details have varied, as well. One report said that Alois was in a party of 20 and ran up a bill of about $200. It seems that the media has viewed this story as titillating enough to report, but not significant enough to, you know, check the facts on. It’s interesting to me that there exists a type of story that can be both important, but not THAT important. There may be more of these types of stories than I realize.

2. No matter what unrealistically generous explanation I could come up with for Pastor Bell’s note (I’ve decided against putting “Pastor” in quotes, unlike many sites reporting this story), I still wondered, “But what were you thinking?” When she finally got her turn to speak, she claimed that she herself didn’t know what she was thinking.

I’m skeptical. See, when I say, “I don’t know what I was thinking,” it’s usually because, a) I do something so spontaneously and mindlessly that I don’t even feel like any conscious part of me actually decided to do it (like grabbing the tongue of a dog), or, b) I fail to do something that I should have thought to do (like shovel the walkway after it snows). To say “I don’t know what I was thinking” regarding something that takes initiative and thought, like writing a note?  It sounds like a euphemism for “If I were to say what I was thinking, it would sound so much more worse and/or embarrassing than it seemed at the time, I just can’t bear to speak it.”

For example, maybe she was thinking that this note would be funny. I agree that it is embarrassing when you try to be funny and end up doing something SO the opposite of funny that no one even realizes that you were trying to be funny. When I do that, I prefer to say, “I don’t know what I was thinking” than “This was an attempt at ironic humor.” Or maybe she was trying to glorify God with her words, letting her unsaved server see how God wants to be involved in every part of your life, including your bank account. That would be another embarrassing misjudgment. On the darker side, maybe Alois was angry and resentful about having to tip 18% and figured she would take out her anger on someone who had nothing to do with setting the policy.

Regardless, I would bet that, deep down, Alois knows what she was thinking but can’t bear to say it. I understand and even empathize.

3. Servers can usually tell if their patrons are Christians. Servers usually don’t like waiting on Christians, because they are regarded as poor tippers and because they often don’t drink alcohol (keeping the check low). Servers usually prefer not to wait on tables with children. They are high-maintenance, low pay-off. If you are a server and your host regularly seats large parties of Christians with children in your section, your host may be trying to tell you that you need to tip your host a little more generously (or that your host just doesn’t like you). Chains like Applebee’s might have safeguards against this kind of expression of grudges. I don’t know.

4. As a server, I didn’t mind waiting on parties of Christians with children (in moderation), because there were some non-financial benefits. For example, it gave me a chance to practice joyfully serving others even when there were no financial benefits for doing so. Also, it gave me a chance to “spy on” my Christian brethren to see how they treated people like bussers and servers outside of a church context. And, every now and then, Christians would tip pretty well (although this almost NEVER happened in large parties; my best chance for getting an especially large tip from a Christian was if they were in a party of 2).

5. Most servers care--at least somewhat--if their patrons enjoy their dining experience, even apart from how well they are tipped. Of course, this varies greatly. I have seen servers politely thank a party, wish them a good evening, then walk into the waiters’ station, look at the charge slip, and cuss out the people they just smiled farewell to. This is the exception. More often, servers will just kind of shake their heads and wonder why people can be so friendly and still so stingy. Most servers consider a 15% tip to be pretty stingy. They just do.

6. I do not love the tipping system here in America, but I do not hate it, either. As a server, I liked feeling (perhaps naively) that I could influence how much I made on any given evening by how well I did my job. As a patron, having to tip prevents me from eating out more often. Because I know—and have known for a long time—that the tipping system, love it or hate it, exists. It is beyond ridiculous for me to go out to eat, then act surprised or put out by having to tip. An automatic gratuity for large parties is also not a recent development. It has been around for at least 20 years (maybe 30). The 18% automatic gratuity has been around for at least 10 years (maybe 15 or 20). If I don’t like it, I can eat at McDonald’s or St. Louis Bread Company or Fuddruckers (and I do).

I do not believe that the quality of food at a restaurant like Applebee’s is light years ahead of any of those restaurants I just listed (even McDonald’s!). So why would someone choose Applebee’s over any of those restaurants? I think—and this is just my opinion—most people like to be waited on. It feels good telling people what you want and having them get it. I’m not passing judgment on that. I agree that it is a good feeling. But I doubt most people would admit it quite that way, especially people who resent tipping, because to do so would effectively amount to, “I came here to be waited on hand and foot, and I resent having to pay for it.”

(As an aside, I wonder if for some people, on some level, “having to tip” destroys the illusion of feeling like they deserve to be pampered like a king.)

7. When I do eat out, I see it as a chance to bless my server—and perhaps even to reflect God’s love and generosity to them. Nine times out of ten, my server will either do their job well or demonstrate a sincere desire to personally connect with me as a person. In other words, they either perform or they care. Sometimes both. Rarely neither. So nine times out of ten, I feel pretty good about blessing them with a couple of extra dollars.

Minimally, I know that a couple of extra dollars can actually make their day. That’s a trite phrase, but it is true. I’ve had it happen. There were days when my boss was mad at me, patrons were rude and demanding, the table I almost had seated in my section ordered a $65 bottle of wine, and so on. And that’s just at the restaurant. A lot of servers—like other people—have crappy things going on in their lives outside of work. As a waiter, there were days when getting a $3 tip on a $12 bill really was the highlight, and really was what I would go home and tell my wife about, and really did spark in my soul a measure of perspective, gratitude, and hope. What did it cost my patron to bestow these things upon me? $1.20. On a $12 bill, that’s the difference between a 15% tip and a 25% tip.

As a patron, I know that I won’t miss that $1.20. In fact, I cannot remember a single time regretting tipping a couple of extra dollars. It is money I don’t miss. On the other hand, as a waiter, I can probably rattle off a dozen times when I felt truly blessed by someone adding an extra $1, $2, or even $5 to their tip.

It seems to me that Christians, of all people, should jump at this opportunity to bless people in this way. It’s easy. It’s cheap. It’s almost guaranteed to encourage someone. And it seems, you know, kind of Christian-y.

Which brings me to the last reason I tip well when I eat out. Remember #3 above? The one about Christians being regarded as poor tippers? This reputation exists for a reason. I think that sucks. Like, really, really sucks. What a completely sucky reputation for an entire religion to have—especially one based on the gracious outpouring of God.

So I tip well because of the debt that my brothers and sisters have incurred by tipping poorly. It’s not fair that I have to do that. Neither is life. Neither, it so happens, is Christianity. The God of the Bible does not give us Christians what we deserve. He gives us infinitely more. It’s not fair.

In short, I see tipping as a chance to:
-offer hope and blessing to someone who needs it
-adjust a well-earned perception of Christians being stingy
-imitate the unfairness of God

All for a couple of bucks. What a deal.

8. Alois’s efforts to fix this situation, while ringing more sincere than, say, Lance Armstrong’s, are still a work in progress. I already talked about, “I don’t know why I wrote it.”

She goes on to say, “It was a lapse in judgment. That was how I was feeling at the time. Would I do it again? No, I would not.” Right… See, the problem is that everyone already thinks that that’s how you were feeling at the time, which is why everyone is so mad. And saying you would not do it again? If you had added, "Because I hurt another human being," that would be a step in the right direction.  But it kind of seems like you "wouldn't do it again" because "doing it" in the first place brought high levels of inconvenience upon you.  So, yeah.  In that case, only a masochist would “do it again.”

Alois continues with, “And this didn’t even have to go this far when there are so many more important things we could be speaking about.” Though you didn’t say exactly what those things are, I couldn’t agree more. We could probably agree that, for example, "sex trafficking" is one of those "more important things". Here’s the thing, though: Nobody is talking about your note instead of talking about sex trafficking. They are talking about your note instead of talking about the Kardashians or the Golden Globes or how their day at work was. Your note already IS the "more important thing" that they are talking about. And the victim that people feel like they are defending is the server that got fired. For the masses, this injustice is more immediate than sex trafficking because everyone knows a server. Your note has not distracted anyone from “more important things."  It has distracted them from less important things, and because of that, it has allowed them to feel like they are fighting injustice more than they actually are.

If you really want people to talk about sex trafficking (or the grace of God!) you can’t bring these things up in such a way that seems like you are using them to deflect indignation directed at you. If you really want people to hear what you have to say about sex trafficking (or the grace of God!), you need to generously tip your server. Then people will listen to you.

What appears to be the most recent quote from Alois reads, “My heart is really broken. I’ve brought embarrassment to my church and ministry.” This quote sounds like something is sinking in.

Alois, I feel for you. On the one hand, I don’t believe you were kind and generous to your server, and that should be embarrassing for a Christian; it’s not so much that you don’t deserve the backlash you received as it is that all Christians deserve backlash for the bad things we do, and for some reason most of the rest of us don’t have to experience it in quite this manner.

On the other side of the coin, people have been mean to you, and that’s no fun. People in this country tend to build up large supplies of moral indignation then pour it out all at once on situations that strike a genuine collective chord, but are curiously removed from “more important things” (think: the backlash directed at Kanye West for dissing Taylor Swift at the Video Music Awards a couple of years ago). You are probably not the devil incarnate. You are probably a generally sincere Christian that let an unsanctified spot of evil slip out in an unfortunate way. We all do it. Why your slip made it onto every major news outlet in the country, I don’t know.

Fortunately, for what you have done, God offers grace; for what has been done to you, God offers comfort; and from the midst of the wreckage, God offers opportunity.

-THP

Inside Jokes and Other People's Emails: "A Hypothetical Eulogy for My Friend, Rod"

Beth and I have an inside joke from an episode of “Mystery Science Theater 3000.”  The movie that gets ridiculed in this episode is called “Squirm.”  In it, a pack (herd?) of killer worms picks off, one-by-one, a group of common-sense-challenged adults wandering in and around an isolated house in the woods.  At one point, the hero and his girlfriend decide that their best chance for survival is for the hero to retrieve boards from a known-stash of plywood.  The couple would then board themselves in the house until, uh…  OK, I don’t remember the details of the plan so much.

Anyway, the hero goes to fetch the plywood, and instead trips and sprains his ankle.  He limps back to the house, where his girlfriend calls out to him, “Did you get the plywood?”  At this point, the peanut gallery who is watching the movie for the purpose of ridiculing it yells out on behalf of the hero, “No, but I sprained my ankle!”

For Beth and I, “No, but I sprained my ankle!” has become a code phrase for, “I didn’t accomplish what I was supposed to, but in attempting to achieve the desired goal, I actually made things worse (or discovered that things are worse than we realized).”

For example:

BETH:  Did you fix the leaky drain?

ROB:  No, but I sprained my ankle.

BETH:  Oh no.  What happened?

ROB:  When I was trying to detach the plunger from the drain so I could snake it, I snapped the mechanism holding the plunger in place and scraped my hand on the faucet.

So that’s our joke.  Hold that thought while I shift to about a year and a half ago, around Christmas time.  At that time, I exchanged a flurry of emails with a friend of mine (Rod, married to Niccole) who had recently moved to Kansas City and was looking for a new job and a new church, all while trying to deal with his own “demons,” as he put it.

I had sent him an email, talking about some of my own struggles with adjusting to homemaking and church finding and depression.  This is a portion of the email he wrote back (that I share with his blessing):

…We have had a pretty eventful past few days.  Christmas went well, other than waking up at 3:30 in the morning with a horrible toothache.  We went to Springfield on Sunday and Monday to see family.  Unfortunately my toothache never subsided and by Monday morning, was forcing my body into a pretty uncomfortable position.  I woke up Monday with my hands and feet swollen, my head just wasn't working right (which I thought was the pain) and frankly I was having a hard time coping with life at that point.  Niccole rushed me to urgent care where they determined that I was dangerously close to sepsis which is basically blood poisoning from your body's inability to fight a bad infection.  Apparently your body starts shutting down and limiting blood flow to extremities and you can eventually die.  From a stupid TOOTHACHE!  Sheesh.  I need to listen to my wife more often, clearly. She had been pushing me to go to the doctor since Christmas morning.  ANYWAY, I received a shot in the bum with antibiotics, some serious pain and antibiotic pills and a stern warning from the doctor about not letting things like that go too long.  Yep, I'm a mess.  No surprises there though.  We are now home and this morning I woke up with MUCH LESS pain than the past few days which was NICE!  It's still sore and achy but at least it's better.

I'm sorry to hear that you and I are battling the same demons.  I try and make myself believe that nobody else could possibly be going through this same kind of crap but reality tells me that I'm not alone with this. I wish there were a better way of removing these feelings of not being worth anything to my wife and children other than counseling but as Niccole likes to point out, that's why it's there.  I'm not all that comfortable in telling people about my inner-most secrets and fears either. As a matter of fact, I sent a prayer request to what I believed was my pastor’s personal email for him to disperse appropriately.  In the prayer request, I put that I'd like it to be kept in confidence because I really poured out my heart and soul in this thing.  I even mentioned my feelings about how I think Niccole and my oldest daughter would be better off financially and such without me.  Imagine how surprised I was to receive a copy of this email a few minutes later.  As did Niccole.  And anyone else on the prayer request email list.  It got sent out because of a logistical error, but I started receiving all sorts of emails from people I don't know about my prayer request.  These emails I received were amazing.  People I don't know and who don't know me were reaching out and letting me know that I'm loved and that while they don't know me, they were willing to listen if I wanted to talk.  What an amazing feeling that was too.  And still is.  The pastor and I emailed back and forth a little bit about how it's quite possible that God not only wanted people to get that email but wanted to use that as a tool to teach me about the gift of receiving help when we ask for it.  Good stuff.

So I'm rambling quite a bit here which means I should go.  Thank you for your friendship and for allowing me to ramble on. Have a blessed and happy New Year!

Rod

About a week later, I wrote a poem for Rod.  I sent it to him, with an explanatory preface.  I then sent THAT email to Beth, also with an explanatory preface.

Around this time, I was getting ready to launch my blog.  I was pretty terrified.  It seemed like something God wanted me to do, but I was gun shy about committing any time whatsoever to writing.  My most recent attempts at changing the world through the written word had, by my estimates, succeeded in communicating mostly the opposite of what I had intended and had spawned far more pain and misunderstanding than they had clarity and vision (vague, I know).

Right now, as I’m typing these words, I don’t know if this post will communicate anything other than my penchant for prolonged and non-linear communication.  This may be one of those “It’s my blog and I’ll blab if I want to” posts.  My HOPE is that the hodgepodge of inside jokes and other people’s emails will exemplify the idea of writing (and reading) as a metaphor for leaning into the unseen work of God, even when the results are uncertain and the efforts seem futile.  Additionally, if God uses any part of this post to bring insight, joy, or conviction to anyone who reads it, then a theme of this writing may be that God can use even our most disjointed efforts and logistical mistakes to work for his good (a truth that I wrestle with almost every day).

Here, then, is the email I sent to Beth, which includes my response to Rod:

Hey, Beth,

This is what I was writing yesterday.  It’s a response to Rod’s update.  A couple of things:  First, I just wanted to share this with you, because I actually like it pretty well.  It was fun and it amuses me.  Second, I made a conscious choice to stick it out and finish it.  I was in the living room and had written about half of it, and started to get very antsy.  I kept thinking, "The house is a mess.  Clothes need to be put away.  Etc., etc., etc.."  I have told you before that, if I'm going to write, there will be some days where my "productivity" for the day will be "a paragraph", and maybe not even one that anybody will ever read.  And, if I'm lucky, the house will not be any worse than it was in the morning.  Having spent most of the last 3 years hating who I am for not being more productive and/or on top of things, choosing to ignore the "voice of the unfolded clothes" to do something like finish a poem is kind of a big deal.  It felt like a big deal at the time, even though I'm still pretty nervous about being able to tell when to listen to the "V.o.t.U.C." and when to finish the poem.  ("Did you get the clothes folded?"--"No, but I wrote a poem that maybe one person will read" sounds an awful lot like "Did you get the plywood?"--"No, but I sprained my ankle").  Anyway, all of this is to say what I did yesterday felt important and scary, and kind of like a dry run for what many of my days may be like if I'm going to write.  And I'm actually pretty pleased with the finished product.  So because of all that, I wanted to share it with you.  I'm also very, very glad that Rod liked it.  His short response--both the content of it and the urgency with which he shared it--felt like a divine affirmation.  That's all for now.  See you tonight.

Love,

Rob

Hey, Rod--

Not sure what this says about me, but after I read your last email, I started thinking about what if you had died, and then (more bizarrely) started writing a limerick of sorts that could have been read at your hypothetical funeral.  I had a window today to email you back, and ended up using that time (and then some) to actually finish and write out this little ode.  I realize this is, well, a bit odd.  ("Hey, I almost died the other day."  "Really?  Let me write a limerick about it!")  But it is what it is.  As darkly comical as it might be, I hoped it was poignant and affectionate as well, and that it goes without saying that I'm very glad that this is only hypothetical.  Do with it what you will, share it with whom you will.  I trust that we are enough on the same slightly-twisted wavelength that you won't find this offensive--or at least not in a long-term sort of way--so without any further disclaimers, here you go.  I'll copy 2 versions, the 2nd with the stressed syllables highlighted in case you want to read it out loud to people at dinner parties or something. 

Here lies Rod, a true servant of God, and a friend ‘til the end to Niccole

And though sleepless with sepsis poor Rod fought and kept his deep need not to cede his control

“I’ll be fine, it’s just pain,” to his wife Rod explained, puffy hands not withstanding this claim

“And if God wants control he will faintly cajole—not imbed in my head this great pain.”

Now he’s gone and we see that the pain in Rod’s teeth he ignored, from our Lord, was a call

With us still would he be if instead of his teeth had our God grabbed dear Rod by his balls?

Here lies Rod, a true servant of God, and a friend ‘til the end to Niccole

And though sleepless with sepsis poor Rod fought and kept his deep need not to cede his control

“I’ll be fine, it’s just pain,” to his wife Rod explained, puffy hands not withstanding this claim

“And if God wants control he will faintly cajole—not imbed in my head this great pain.”

Now he’s gone and we see that the pain in Rod’s teeth he ignored, from our Lord, was a call

With us still would he be if instead of his teeth had our God grabbed dear Rod by his balls?

Rob-

I am waiting for my daughter to get home so I can load her up to take her back to her mom's BUT I wanted to let you know I think this is AWESOME lol!! I am near tears from laughing so hard. I will try to email more later but thanks for this, it's just great!!!!!!

-Rod

Thanks, Rod.

And, reader, if you made it this far, I tip my cap.

-THP

Post Script: Rod’s response to my seeking his approval for this post:

Rob,

As a committed and diligent reader of your blog, I'm excited to get an insight on your blog before it's posted.  Even more so that you have included the limerick and some of our correspondence in it.  I wouldn't want you to change a word of it. I feel like God used those experiences and those difficult months to prepare me and to prepare Niccole for the ups and downs that were a mere six months down the road...foster parenting. I use the tooth issue as a reminder to see the doctor when my body starts telling me something is amiss.  My experience with thoughts of depression, loss and hopelessness helps me to both relate to our kiddos and get them the help they need. I see the hand of God when I get the chance to look back on emails and letters from days gone by. I see how He guided me, protected me and allowed me to learn so that I could be a stronger "me" now.  I pray you, Beth and the girls are all doing well. Hopefully we will see you soon!!

-Rod

Jubilee and Me

NOTE: I wrote the bulk of this post a year ago, but didn't post it.  It's been in blogatory since then, until I dusted it off, made a few revisions, then decided to go ahead and post it.  Enjoy.

My first post on willpreachforfood.com included a list of my best guesses of the tags that would be attached to subsequent posts.   This list was both to prepare you, the reader, and to provide myself with some direction.  Some of the tags have been more used than others, which I expected.  But some have been strikingly (to me) unused.  Here are two of the unused tags and their initial descriptions from that post:

7. God & the Bible. At the time of this writing, I’m not a pastor anymore, but am still a Christian. It’s fair to say I’ve been struggling with God for a few years now. Maybe my relationship with God mirrors my relationship with writing in some ways; both connecting with God and writing take time, focus, and are easy to put off for another day.

8. Church & Ministry. Not sure what I’ll be saying about this yet.

Many of the readers of WPFF know that I was an associate pastor for 4 years at a fairly new, gen-X-ish church in my hometown.  It took me about 2 years to get the hang of the job, and another 2 years to dramatically burn out and quit under the weight of escalating, poorly-understood, poorly-communicated, and poorly-addressed conflicts between me and some of the leaders at my church.  This weight was in addition to typical ministry stress, and I felt that my walk with God was being overwhelmed by conflict-born waves of frustration and disillusionment.

The church—comprised of my closest friends—was also suffering.  So was my family.  With the goal of preserving most of the things that mattered most to me, I walked away.

Initially, things were OK.  I could breathe again, and I could spend time with my wife and daughters without feeling like half my heart was battered beyond repair, and that the half that was still alive was looking over my shoulder, bracing for the next round of conflict.

While I was waiting for my walk with God and my passion for ministry to resurrect, I instead found myself looking back at how everything related to my departure transpired, and I grew sadder and more confused.

I also felt more and more “set up” by God.  An old friend of mine was once backing out of his garage on his way to school.  The problem was that he forgot to open the garage door before doing so.  And the jaw-dropping aspect of the event was that his sister was in the car with him, and knew that the garage was still closed—and didn’t say anything!

As I looked back, I increasingly felt like I had spent 4 years backing out of a garage with the garage door still closed, and that God was in the car the whole time and didn’t say anything.  Or at least not loud and clear enough for me to hear Him.

Without trying, I have retrospectively come to view most of the characteristics of myself (e.g., easy-going nature, desiring to connect with the marginalized, giftedness at writing)—that I had once valued as uniquely God-given strengths—instead as flaws that kept me from seeing the garage door.  Disillusionment and embarrassment have grown.  My walk with God has not.

Starting this blog was a huge step for me to tread into the waters of making use of my strengths again.  And when I wrote the first post, I thought that within a month, I would have fresh and exciting things to say related to the tags that I copied and pasted above.

I’m not there yet.  I still don’t know what I would, could, or should say.

Today, as I was thinking about underused tags in the WPFF archive, I thought about forcing the issue a little bit.  What could I possibly write about that could be tagged either “God & the Bible” or “Church & Ministry”?

I thought about our new church, Jubilee Church.  I still feel funny calling it “our church.”  I don’t know if I’ll ever feel comfortable calling a church that again.  But it’s the church that we’ve been attending for 2 1/2 years.

I thought that a safe, harmless, and edifying post—but one that could move me towards more individually substantial posts in the future—could be “things I like about our new church.”  So, without further ado, here’s some things I like:

1)  The Pastor.  Bryan is down-to-earth, conversational in his messages, and funny.  He actually carries himself a lot like I do, which is a trait I usually find pretty annoying in people, but Bryan pulls it off.  He once even wore a shirt identical to one that I own, and I am nothing if not world-renowned for my fashion sense.

He values people and the grace of God.  He really pushes the grace stuff, which is good.  He has experienced it, and he is eager to share it with others.  He comes across like a drifter who happened to get picked up by God and who is very thankful for it.

2)  The Sunday Morning “Schedule.”  I haven’t checked this lately, but when we started coming to Jubilee, the website gave the ending-time of the Sunday service in the form of a time-range.  When I first met Bryan, I asked him why this was.  His explanation was matter-of-fact and dripping with common sense:  No one at the church knew exactly what the Holy Spirit would be doing any given Sunday, and they figured they should at least give Him some time flexibility on finishing His work.  I loved it.

3)  The Approach to Money.  Money is a huge topic in the Bible.  It’s also a topic that scares a lot of people away from church, never to return.  So what’s a church to do?  At Jubilee, the approach is to talk about money with roughly the same frequency that it is talked about in the Bible, while at the same time making it clear that Jubilee as an organization couldn’t care less about YOUR money.  For example, Jubilee is footing the bill for anyone at the church to attend a regional church conference at the start of June.  Registration is around $100 per person, but Jubilee actually printed a code on their program for anyone to use on the registration website that completely waves the fee.  Jubilee is covering thousands of dollars of fees, trusting that God will take care of the church’s finances as He sees fit.

4)  The Facilities.  A few years ago, Jubilee moved into a building that had been a funeral home.  Turns out, funeral homes make great church buildings.  Big foyer, lots of kids rooms, large meeting room, plenty of parking.

The interior design is contemporary but not showy.  The signage and layout are functional but not sterile.  All very nice.

5)  Worship.  Full band, regularly including a favorite instrument of mine that is surprisingly neglected in some newer churches: the keyboard.  The worship leading is solid across the board.  Songs continue long enough to build momentum, but not so long to seem manipulative.  Typos and technical glitches are rare, and are quickly fixed.

6)  Diversity.  In most churches, anything more than token diversity is fairly difficult to achieve, especially in mid-west cities and towns that are generally fairly segregated.  But several different ethnicities, nationalities, ages, and socio-economic groups are represented at Jubilee, and the level of diversity is one I have seldom experienced in a church.

7)  Prayer.  After service on Sunday morning, attendees are invited to walk down to the front and pray with any of the team of pray-ers that gathers for that purpose.  It’s nothing dramatic or showy.  They’re just there, ready and willing to pray with and for you for whatever reason you’d like.

All in all, Jubilee Church has been a blessing to me and my family for the past many months.  I am grateful, and I am glad to share some of its strengths with you while I continue to sort out and make use of my own.

Blessings.

-THP

Stabbing an Evil King

About a week ago, I heard preacher give a talk on a passage out of the book of Judges, chapter 3.  A bad king named Eglon had taken over the Israelites, and the Israelites pleaded with God for relief.  God provided them with a deliverer very much like the Hungry Preacher himself in that he was left-handed.  This guy's name was Ehud, and I'm not making up the left-handed detail--it's actually in there.

In the story, Ehud hides a knife under his clothing and travels with a group of Israelites to give tribute to King Eglon.  They present the tribute.  The narrative is a little vague at this point, but it appears that the party--including Ehud--bids farewell and heads for home.  Upon passing some idols, Lefty Ehud sends his friends their way, while he pulls a 180 and heads back to the king.

This time, he tells the king Eglon that he has a secret message for him.  With assassination prevention tactics still being in their infancy, the king tells his royal court to run along so he can hear this message in private.  Ehud approached the king, then "reached with his left hand, drew the sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king's belly.  Even the handle sank in after the blade, which came out his back.  Ehud did not pull the sword out, and the fat closed in over it."  Ehud locked the doors then snuck away off the porch.  The king's attendents waited and waited, assuming that the king must be relieving himself (also actually in there).  "They waited to the point of embarrassment" and finally opened the door with a key to find their "lord fallen on the floor, dead" (at which point, we can assume they were doubly embarrassed).

It's a graphic and detailed story, one that--to my knowledge--not a single Vacation Bible School song has been written about.  And it's easy to get hung up on the reality that, in the Old Testament, God was often a bit more, well, "Old Testament" in how he brought justice to his people.

But the preacher had us hone in on the pivotal moment of Ehud's mission, when he pulled the 180 to head back to the king.  He suggested that Ehud was having second thoughts--maybe doubting his calling or his opportunity.  Realize that in the context of the Old Testament, this isn't a crazy man having second-thoughts about assassinating a duly elected leader.  This is a man clearly chosen by God to deliver his oppressed people from a tyrannical king.

Regardless of the details of his interior monologue, Ehud initially left the king alive, then decided to head back and follow through with what he knew God was calling him to do, even without knowing how things would turn out.

The preacher suggested that we all have little callings that we accept, then don't follow through on.  The "evil kings" that we need to slay are, of course, metaphorical.  But Ehud's example of following through should be a model and an inspiration.

Truthfully, I was not consciously thinking about this story 6 days later, this past Thursday morning.  I was running late for a meeting, and was walking briskly through the parking garage to the elevator.  As I approached the glass doors to get to the elevator, the elevator doors opened, and a man began to walk out.

It was an old man, and he walked slowly.  I resisted the urge to spryly slip through the glass door and shimmy around him into the elevator, even though there was a button he could have pressed to open the glass door.  Instead, I held open the door.

For the next 30 seconds, my life moved verrrry slowly as this man walked through the door.  The man was probably around 80, with the top of his head completely bald.  A ring of gray hair circled the sides and back of his head, and it needed a trim.  The man had sunken, brown eyes, and he looked sad.  He was a little overweight, but not obese, and for as slow as he was walking and as old as he was, he was surprisingly upright in his walk.  His eyes looked forward and down, but he held his head up.  He held a cane in his left hand and had a brace of some sort laced over his left ankle.  Each step moved him forward about a foot.

Behind him, there was a woman spotting him.  She was saying things like, "You've got it.  You're doing it."  All the while, she had her hands on his hips like in a conga line.  At first I thought she was his therapist or nurse, but she wasn't wearing any sort of uniform, and there was something deeply personal about her tone and disposition towards the man.  I wondered if she was his daughter.

She briefly thanked me.  I was glad that neither of them took my standing there waiting for them as a prompt to hurry things up.  I was intentionally taking this time out, but I was worried my eyes or body language would look impatient.  I didn't want that.  I wanted them to feel blessed.  I thought about saying to the man, "You're doing great."  But then I had the thought, "You don't actually know how he's doing."  That was true.  I didn't know if he was REALLY trying his best, or if he was just going through the motions to humor his daughter.  I didn't know if he could be doing more and was just taking it easy.  I also didn't want to sound patronizing.  He wasn't a baby.  What if my saying "You're doing great" embarrassed rather than encouraged him?

I didn't say anything.  They shuffled through the door.  I got in the elevator.  From the first floor to the third floor I had only a few seconds--not enough time to form a logical, rational case one way or the other for saying "You're doing great" to a guy I'd never even met.

Instead of forming a case, I gave myself a choice: "This could be a time that you made a sincere effort to bless somebody--even if you didn't know how it would turn out--or it could be just another time you thought about doing something nice, only to spend the rest of your life vaguely wishing you had but feeling somewhat justified because at least you thought about it."

With my left hand, I pressed the "P" button on the elevator.  When the doors opened, I was ready to sprint in front of any moving car if it meant stopping this man and his daughter so I could say "You're doing great."  I plunged through the door.  In the first spot, 5 feet away from me, was the man and the woman.  The man was in the passanger seat.  The woman was standing next to him, with the door open.  She may have been buckling him in.  Her back was to me.  Trying my best not to look like a mugger, I said, "Excuse me!"  The man turned only his head to the right to see me--moving his torso may have been impossible.  The woman turned around to face me straight on.

Her eyes were blue, and her hair was long, wavy, and stringy.  It was probably bright blond when she was a kid, but now it had faded into a weathered-looking shade of light brown.  Her eyes were bright blue, but didn't look very lively.  Really, she just looked sad.

I didn't want to just say, "You're doing great," so I opened my mouth to see if anything else would come out.  What I said was, "Hey, I just wanted to tell you that while I was standing there holding the door I had the thought, 'This guy is working his tail off.'  Then I got to the third floor, and I thought, 'Maybe he'd like to hear that someone noticed that.'  So I came back down.  Anyway, I saw you working your tail off, and I was inspired."  I paused to emphasize each word of my next sentence.  "Seeing you inspired me.  And, since probably not very many people would make it a point to tell you that, it's probably a safe bet that for every one person who actually tells you, there are at least another 100 people who are thinking the same thing."

At that last point, the woman's eyes filled up with tears.  She said, "Thank you so much for telling us that.  He had a stroke a year ago, and he's had to learn to re-learn how to walk."  The man was looking at me, too.  I was glad that, in looking in his eyes, I didn't see any self-pity or excessive pride.  He just looked like a man, a soul, hurting, trying to work through the trials in his life.  His eyes were also filled up.  He said, "Thank you for saying this."  I said, "Thank you, sir."  Then I said, "Blessings," and went on my way, back up to the third floor.

When I got there--now an extra few minutes late to my meeting--that was when I thought about Ehud again, how he appeared to walk away from an opportunity only to think, "I gotta go back.  I gotta do this."  Then he went back.  My 180 wasn't nearly as dramatic as his, but it's where I was at.  On that day, at that moment, I pulled a 180 and "stabbed an evil king." 

I have heard that there are many evil kings in this world, in my life and in yours.  Be watchful.  Be ready.  People are not blessed by what we "thought about doing."  And if you give in to inaction or compromise, don't be afraid to pull a 180.

-THP