Book Review

The Power for Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal, by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz(New York:  The Free Press, 2003)

Interval training matters as much in life as it does insports.  This is the straightforward conviction contained in this book about finding fulfillment in life and leadership.  Our ability to expend and import energy in a such a way that we are neither sapped nor over-supplied is critical to maintaining balance in life. 

Starting with physical energy upon which emotional energy supports mental energy by which ultimate spiritual energy is imported and exerted, Loehr and Schwartz build a case for self-care I have not found in many other leadership books.  This is a great read.

As for me, I am putting the physical energy principles to work.  Eating smaller, regularly-interval-ed snacks throughout the day to keep my blood sugar and caloric energy count consistent (no more wild metabolic swings).  Additionally, taking time every 90 minutes or so for a walk outside or some stretching keeps my mind engaged and fresh—more elastic to the pressures of pastoring a congregation the size of Concordia, Kirkwood.

I’ll have more to say in weeks to come, but for now, go out and get the book…it’s quick and easily digestible with lots of stories to match the power of the ideas offered.

Hearing “Yes” When All You Hear is “No”

Mark 7: 24-37

By Rev. Dr. Scott Seidler, Senior Pastor

Was the word “no” in Jesus’ vocabulary?

Yes and no, depending on where things stood with you.

Try and prevent the Lord from moving toward the cross and bodily resurrection, you were liable to get told no and labeled as Satan at the same time (Matthew 16:16-25)

Try to turn God’s house into a den of robbers, you were likely to have your wares overturned and your backside tanned. (Mark 11:12-19)

On the other hand, come as a pauper to the king of heaven, reach out in faith for gifts no human being deserves, and trust that He will ultimately give gifts beyond our wildest imagination—to such as these Jesus hollers “YES!” from the top of the mountains to the valley of our sins below.

Chris Rice had a great song, “Untitled Hymn”, several years back.  “Weak and wounded sinner, lost and left to die, raise your head for love is passing by.  Come to Jesus…and live”

Come in faith and repentance and here God in Jesus Christ say “Yes!” to you and your desire to be renewed by Him.

Dealing with Shingles

Mark 7:24-30

By Rev. Dr. Scott Seidler, Senior Pastor

I’ve had chicken pox.  I understand shingles are much worse.  These are not the shingles I want to talk about.  Nevertheless, the shingles I have in mind can be equally burdensome and painfully itchy.

These particular shingles are the ones which figuratively hang on the side of our lives.  Having these out invites others to come in, sit a spell, and unload their burdens upon our ears and hearts.  As human beings, we have to be especially self-centered not to have at least at times “our shingle out.”  The very fact we are community-based beings requires us to be sympathetic to others and their tales of woe at least some time.

But what about when you are tired of having your shingle out?  What about when you need to find a shingled soul who will listen to you and help you unburden the weight of your worries?  What about when the person calling on your shingled status repulses you, even if their particular problem isn’t really that problematical?  Or, what about when you’ve tried every way to put someone off, but they just keep coming back to you?

In Mark 7:24-30 a repulsive shingle-seeker came questing for Jesus.  Her daughter was sick and Jesus was tired.  His shingle was shuttered for just a bit as he caught up on some much needed Sabbath.  To no avail.  The mom just kept coming and coming until finally Jesus acclaimed her faith and spoke healing to her daughter.

Two points to keep in mind.  Jesus’ shingle is always out inviting us to come and unload on Him.  Repulsive as our sin makes us, we nevertheless have full access to Him and His power because of His grace.  His death and resurrection are our entry fee to his shing-ular service. 

More, his invitation enables our shing-ular mission to touch people with Jesus Christ for healing and for service.  We can leave our shingle out longer, and tolerate even the most repulsive of people in light of how Jesus perseveres with each of us.

How Was Worship this Weekend?

John 4:23-24

By Rev. Dr. Scott Seidler, Senior Pastor

Consider three types of people.

The first type consists of those whose hearts were bent toward God this past weekend in Christian worship.

The second type consists of those who attended a worship service in a Christian church, speaking and doing all the right things, but whose hearts never were truly bent in devotion toward God’s Son.

The third type consists of those who are a combination of some aspects of the first two.  These are the ones who neither attended a Christian worship service nor experienced the bending of their hearts toward God in faith.

Question:  Which of these three is to be most pitied?

Some might say group one, those whose hearts were bent toward Christ.  For though their hearts were bent, their fellowship with other Christians is not evident.  Corporate worship—worship with other believers—is a mark of Christ’s church.

Others may identify group two as especially sad.  Taking our cue from Mark 7, we note lips that utter God-honoring sentiments, yet without the deep conviction of the heart.

Finally, group three may be most pitied because they neither know Christ nor shared time with His children.

In John 4:23, Jesus said, “A time is coming when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.  God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”

The fact is, God could find fault with any of our worship, including the worship of this pastor.  By grace through Jesus Christ, God accepts us our deficient worship, qualifying us to stand in His presence and give glory to Him with our lips and the hearts which stand behind them.  The point is for us to strive and struggle to match our lips and hearts as perfectly as humanly possible.  Then, we leave the rest to God who in Christ more than makes up the difference.  This God-given faith in His Son is the truest form of worship we can experience.

Book Review  

Food Rules:  An Eater’s Manual by Michael Pollan, (New York:Penguin Books, 2009)

Metabolism is such a fickle friend.  In my teens and twenties the amount of food—any food!—I could pack into my 150 pound frame was quickly, easily, and efficiently digested with no apparent poundage left behind.  My thirties were all that—everything that a man’s thirties are supposed to be and what I heard.  150 turned quickly to 160, then 170.  Now at the dawn of my forties my metabolism has come full circle, does nothing, as my frame learns to manage 180.

Twenty years ago, food really didn’t matter.  Now food matters more than I ever imagined.  This short, humorous and insightful book helpfully challenges people to live by some simple food consuming rules—about 64 of them.  Written in a “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff” style, the goal is for the reader to adopt the ones which are most “sticky”, as Pollan says, a handful of them at first.  The thesis is that living by even one of these rules will change our eating habits and consequent life for the better.

Take for instance Rule #2:  “Don’t eat anything your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.”  Consider her picking “up a package of Go-GURT Portable Yogurt tubes--(without a) clue what this plastic cylinder of colored and flavored gel could possibly be.”  Humorous, simple and best of all forgiving of our sweet human disposition.

If you want to make a dent in your diet and ever so slightly tilt the method by which you satisfy your hunger, Food Rules is a great tool in your health toolbox.

Getting Mouthy with God

By Rev. Dr. Scott Seidler, Senior Pastor

May the words and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.—Psalm 19:14

What cannot be missed on a perfectly starry night is the awesomeness which is a perfectly starry night.  Unaffected by light pollution from planet earth, taking in the heavens takes many, Christian or not, to a place where hearts wonder about eternal things.  “The heavens declare the glory of God.”  This first verse of Psalm 19 is matched and mirrored by the last verse.  “May the words of my mouth…”

Light pollution obscures what the heavens tell us, how the stars speak.  Worse, the pollution of our hearts, the sin within each of us, obscures our human speech.  Thankfully, God speaks a heavenly Word that changes hearts and corrects our speech.  Through his death and bodily resurrection Jesus Christ makes our words pleasant—centered on Him who is the very glory of God himself.

Spend some time reading Psalm 19.  With its help, discern that pollution hidden deep inside us.  Then, pray our Rock and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, would forgive and empower us so that our hearts and mouths act in perfect harmony and expressing the glory of God in Jesus Christ.

Holy Discontent Revisited

Mark 7:1-8

By Rev. Dr. Scott Seidler, Senior Pastor

Those words, “holy discontent”, need to be a ready phrase in every Christian’s vocabulary.  The sentiment expresses a very real, soul-felt friction—a disconnect between what is and what should be. 

A Christian couple knows the self-giving gold standard of Christian marriage, but can hardly muster between them a civil conversation after the kids go to bed.

A high school junior tastes the first winds of freedom that come with an extended curfew, but learns first-hand the temptations which linger when school parties go long.

What is and what should be—that differential is where the measure of one’s Christianity is determined.  God invites us to a holy discontent until that differential is obliterated.

Jesus, through the prophet Isaiah, observed, “People honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”  With this observation comes the invitation, again, to uninterrupted holy discontent.

Until the difference between our hearts and our lips is but a breath, we are at odds with the God of Heaven and Earth.  Christ will ultimately deliver us from this God-forsaken difference in the resurrection at the end of days.  Nevertheless, the end of our earthly days—the purpose for which we still live—is in service to holy discontent until what is and what should be are one and the same.