Jesus Christ is Coming to Town

Ok... so all I did here was take out "Santa Claus" and put "Jesus Christ" in his place in the classic Christmas song "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." Why does it sound so creepy and ominous when it is Jesus instead of Santa? When the kids sing this song, there's such joy and smiles on their faces. Switch out Jesus for Santa and it has a whole different feel. Or is it just me?
I thought putting Jesus in would be a good thing... perhaps a children's sermon in the making! Now... I'm not so sure.

You better watch out
You better not cry
Better not pout
I'm telling you why
Jesus Christ is coming to town
He's making a list
And checking it twice;
Gonna find out who's naughty and nice
Jesus Christ is coming to town

He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake!
Oh! You better watch out!
You better not cry
Better not pout I'm telling you why
Jesus Christ is coming to town
Jesus Christ is coming to town

You Down with GCR?

Ok... so I had 30 minutes to kill and I really needed an outlet. Then I saw Bruce Reyes-Chow's tweet about "look who's with BRC," and the tune OPP from Naughty by Nature popped into my head. I went from BRC to GCR (for the God Complex Radio Show) and well... here's what came out the other side of my work break:

GCR (to the tune of OPP)

GCR, how did they dream it

I'll take you stream by stream it

To have y'all downloading and a playin’ it

G is for God, C is for Complex scratchin’ temple

The last R...well...that's not that simple

It's sorta like another way to hear it and to listen

It's a podcast sucka don’t go dissin' here

You get on occassion at the iTunes store yo

With a strong Spirit seems I gotta start to explainin'

Bust it

You ever heard three Prezbies greeting guests with a nice hello

You get a Bruce, a Carol, and then a Landon real mellow
You get home, wait a day, they’re what you wanna download now
Then you sync up and it's church leaders, theologians oh

It's not a front, F to the R to the O to the N to the T

It's just progressives on your pod (Boy, that's what is scary)

It's GCR, tell other people where you get it

There's no room for your heresy there's just room to hit it

How many Christians out there know just what I'm gettin' at

Who thinks it's wrong 'cos I'm loadin' and group-listnin' at

Well if you do, that's GCR and you're not down with it

But if you don't, here's your membership

Chorus:

You down with GCR (Yeah you know me) 3X

Who's down with GCR (Every last homie)

You down with GCR (Yeah you know me) 3X

Who's down with GCR (All the homies)

Story of Blessing from Workcamp

Mrs. B, as I will call her, was blessed this summer with a new porch and some painting work through our Group Workcamp. The week was a very special experience for her and her family members. In particular, her sweet little granddaughter became special friends with the older team of teenagers who worked on her grandma's house. We'll call her Jenny. Jenny has epilepsy. And when she has seizures, she falls.
Recently, Jenny was out on the newly built porch that the workcampers had constructed for Mrs. B. The old porch did not have railing and stood nearly two feet over an area with plenty of concrete and other hard objects. While Jenny was on the porch, she had another seizure and grandma was not within reach. When Jenny started to go down, the newly installed railing caught her fall. God's blessings sometimes come in small doses... like a railing on a porch constructed by a group of teens that had no idea what they were doing. But those small doses have powerful effects. Thanks be to God.

LifeServe: Big Opportunities for Small Churches

Just got back from LifeServe 2010, the greatest opportunity for equipping and externally-focused leaders to come together for training and networking. I attended LifeServe 2009 and received an excellent introduction to the basic principles of equipping ministry. From that, I read Sue Mallory's "The Equipping Church" and formed a study group to read through "The Equipping Church Guidebook." I took time to read other great books on equipping and missional churches. Our team came to the conference ready to receive a booster shot before digging deeper.
So, you can imagine my surprise when we started our first LifeServe session in a question-answer with Sue Mallory only to hear these words, "Put down the book." When I asked Sue Mallory how we could translate equipping ministry principles to the small church setting, she said, "Put down the book." She went on to explain that small churches have it easier when it comes to equipping ministry because we have the advantage of already being relational. I can see the different parts of equipping ministry flourishing within our church's external-focus on our community. However, we, like many churches, lack a bit of organization to maximize the impact and support of our incredible volunteers.
At LifeServe, our team made great connections and acquired many great resources. I think small churches are often shy about attending conferences like this. We are often shy about standing up and asking "What about us?" when church movements are on the move. With the majority of churches in America being small churches, it would seem as though we should command the conversations in church renewal. However, we don't. Is it shyness? Is it shame? Do we feel inadequate when we don't have a food court in our atriums? We practically invented the idea of small groups because many of our churches ARE small groups, and yet, we have not harnessed our power. Our God does great work with small groups. The Bible shows us that. Where are all the bold, small churches?
I will be seeking to build a network of small churches looking to work out of their strengths. So far, I have found Small Church Net (www.smallchurchnet.com). I know there are more voices out there. If you are one of those voices, comment here or come find me on Twitter (@PastorRobD).

Dancing With Our Stars

For those of you who would like to see just how much my wife and I enjoy dancing together, here is the video of our routine for the Girl Scouts of Southern Illinois fundraiser.

To Explore and Amaze

If I go back and read previous email announcements, newspaper articles, newsletter entries and such that I have written to promote the activities of our church, I find that I like to use the word "explore." I like the idea of exploring faith as a group activity. I like the idea of exploring what God is doing in the world. I like the idea of exploring new ways to be the Church.
Exploring is a great activity. It has a sound of expectation and hope. It has a sound of excitement and adventure. When we were kids, we did not visit the woods behind our neighborhood... we explored it. I suppose it is that childlike bias within me that has shaped so many of our church publications.
I think words are important. I think they say a lot about who we are and where we are going. I'm glad that "explore" is a subliminal favorite. I want to be that kind of Christian. I want to be part of a faith community that explores.
Another word that I say way too often is "amazing." That one gets a lot of air time in my conversations and sermons... I know that. Just can't help it. I'm sure there is a bunch to unpack about that as well. I'd love to hear what are the "most used words" for other people. With the capture of ideas and wonderings over Facebook and Twitter, we should be able to find an app out there that will analyze our postings and tell us what our favorite words are. Now that would be interesting!
I hope your day is filled with exploring amazing things.

"Intro to Our Church" Series Coming

We are starting a new series called “Intro to Our Church.” Over the month, we will explore the basic beliefs and structure of the Presbyterian Church as well as our particular church here in Mt. Vernon. The bigger picture of taking the time to do this is an effort to share the vision of our church’s mission in Mt. Vernon. Who are we called to be as individuals… as a congregation? What are our values and our ministries that reflect those values? This will be a fantastic experience for long-time, new, and prospective members of the church.

August will include a 9am discussion time and a 10am worship time where topics will be explored. As a sort of warmup, I would like to share with you the following explaination of worship from the latest issue of Presbyterians Today magazine on the “Building Blocks of Worship.” The following is a summary of that article.
For Christians in the Presbyterian/Reformed tradition, worship contains the following elements:
PRAISE As God’s people gather for worship, we focus our attention on God and away from ourselves.
CONFESSION We cannot come into the presence of our holy God without realizing our own sinfulness. When we confess, we do so for ourselves and for the church as a whole.
ASSURANCE Scripture calls us to confession and then assures us of God’s forgiving love.
ILLUMINATION Before attempting to listen for the Word of God, we pray for the Holy Spirit’s help to open our ears to hear and our hearts to receive what God is saying in the Scripture and through the sermon.
WORD The Word of God comes from Scripture. Interpretation of God’s Word comes through Spirit-inspired sermons, dramas, music, dance, or other forms of communication.
PRAYER Part of our response to God’s Word in prayer, which can come in many different forms and formats.
THANKSGIVING Our greatest rejoicing comes around Communion. We also express thankfulness in our offerings to God. We believe that our offerings are simply a return of a portion of the blessings received from God.
TRUE WORSHIP When the worship service is concluded, our true worship begins. Everything we know about God teaches us that our true worship is in the daily glorification and enjoyment of God. We seek to live the Word in our lives.

Broken Shells

Just got back from a vacation to Myrtle Beach, SC. What a fantastic time of rest and renewal! As we sat in the sand and enjoyed the days, my children worked hard on building sand castles and shell collections. Joining them for shell collecting was an exercise in patience and open-mindedness. Whereas I was careful in selecting shells with peculiar colors and near-perfect shapes, they were engaged in grabbing just about anything that popped out to them. Many were odd shapes and sizes. Some were not even shells but rocks or pieces of garbage worn down by the waves for who knows how long.
It was an extraordinary exercise of my will not to reject what they found, resisting the urge to change their minds about the treasures they found. I wonder how many times we are the same way in the Church. We have an idea as to what kinds of people we welcome as members or help with benevolence. And then God sends us one that doesn't match our profile... one that seems not worthy of our collection. Those are the times when we need to have God's prophets among us celebrating and encouraging the entire church to enter into the celebration. Like the older son in the story of the prodigal son (the one who stayed home faithfully and did not waste away his inheritance in wild living), we need to be encouraged to enter into the celebration for one that was lost is now found. And this one is not just a child of God but also a brother or sister of ours!
And the other thing we should all remember about shells on the seashore as well as people in the pew... we are all broken. What we call "whole shells" are really just broken shells with neat edges, split apart in ways that we recognize. We are all broken shells. Thanks be to God that Christ walks the shorelines and sees the beauty in all of us.

Fuzzy Love

I really like this photo. It shows the front portion from one of our Mt. Vernon Group Workcamp worship gatherings. That night over 350 voices were joined to celebrate what God was doing in the community and in their lives. The picture is a bit fuzzy and blurry. And as the week after Workcamp starts, I am aware that my own memories are becoming like this photo. Filled with hope and love... but getting fuzzy and blurry.

How do we maintain that mountain top experience?

I think part of the answer is "Don't stop." Whatever you were doing in that moment, don't stop doing it! Now, we can't have a year-long workcamp going on in our community, but we can continue to find ways to express this love that God has for all. For me, the workcamp brought three essential elements:

1) The community received love from God through the people of God. As Christians, we should continually seek ways to be the hands and hearts of Christ, reaching out to the community. For some people, it has been a long time since they saw the people of God sharing God's love with them. We want to blame them for not coming to church, but why aren't we blaming ourselves for not going to them more often?

2) Ministry opportunities were created for the local body of Christ. In our church, over 95% of the regular attenders were involved in this ministry... 95%!!!! That is phenomenal. The key was generating a host of ways for people to contribute (applications, site selection, material deliveries, handing out drinks, prayer team, snack coordination, delivering groceries, taking tours to encourage workers, etc.). We tried so hard to create opportunities for all. Other ministries of the church could use that same attitude.

3) The greater body of Christ was connected to the ministry. We were able to involve multiple churches, local foundations/organizations, our presbytery, Group Workcamps Foundation and people from over 10 different states in attending the workcamp. We may not be able to regularly attract outside groups to come to our town, but we can use the resources of regional and national ministry organizations so that we do not continually reinvent the wheel. Also, why don't we partner with other service clubs to do Christ's work? They may be shy, but if we can make it easy for them to participate, they are often looking for ways to have effective community impacts.

Well, I better go look at a few more photos... try to hold on to the fuzzy memories of God's love. And then, we'll start looking for ways to participate in a few more new memories.

Rev. Dyer Goes to Springfield

Recently I was invited to give the invocation for the Illinois State House of Representatives. I was the guest of Rep. John Cavaletto. He was very gracious and spoke with me at some length on the House floor about the challenges of our state. I have included a copy of my prayer here. Note that I was asked to give an invocation that would be appropriate for a gathering of people from different faith traditions... hence, the lack of specific references to God and no Jesus in the prayer. Here is what I offered:

Invocation Prayer for the Illinois State House of Representatives
March 24, 2010

I would like to invite all who are gathered here this day to do the good work that has been laid before them, to serve the strong and resilient people of the state of Illinois, to join me in a time of prayer as we seek power and guidance far beyond what any of us could hope to do on our own. Whatever your faith tradition is, I invite you to use your personal faith to empower through prayer all who seek to do goodness, justice, and righteousness.

Let us pray…
To the great Divine that surpasses our understanding and rises above our collective wills to the heights of a perfect will of wisdom. To You we raise this collective prayer, each praying out of our own personal faith, and pouring that individual faith into this collective prayer so that goodness, justice and righteousness might reign within this assembly. Grant all who serve within these walls, we pray, the wisdom and clarity of thought that are necessary to address the needs and concerns of the state of Illinois and its people. We are surrounded with such a poverty of hope. Help us all to see beyond that poverty of hope into the light of eternal possibilities that only the Divine Spark can ignite within us. Help us all to see beyond the burdens of today into the solutions of tomorrow.
But we also pray to You, our Divine Inspiration and Holy One, for the strength and the courage to never forget those who are suffering right now. Help us never to forget those who are hungry today. Help us never to forget those who are without shelter today. Help us never to forget those who are imprisoned today. Help us never to forget those who are huddled in the darkness of their own despair, unable to perceive that there is an opportunity for hope.
In the shadows of our state’s challenges we especially want to remember the over 20,000 teachers, aides, staff, and administrators who are facing the darkness of unemployment this year. We lift each of them and their families up to you, o Great Divine Spirit of Re-Creation. And we pray not only for a clear path of hope for them, but we pray for guidance and wisdom for all who gather here to find solutions so that no school is left behind, so that no teacher is held back from their calling, and so that no child is denied the kind of quality education that will propel them into the clear skies of their divinely ordained destiny.
With remembrance for those who are suffering, with a yearning for strength and courage, with a hunger to move beyond the poverty of hope, with a desire to see the light of eternal possibilities, and with the pouring of our individual faiths into this collective prayer, we stand before You and the people of the great state of Illinois eager to serve with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our might. Grant us this we pray. Amen.

The Cross, The Economy, and Laser Death Beams

I recently watched a lecture online from Professor Thomas James of Union Presbyterian Seminary. He and a host of other professors there offered lectures on faith and the economy from different perspectives. In that lecture, I was challenged to look at the economic crises of our time from the perspective of the cross. What does the cross teach us about the current situation? You see, the cross is not just a simple historical event or symbol of faith. God chose to use this particular instrument to bring salvation to humanity. God chose this particular instrument for a greater reason. God chose this particualr instrument because it orients our thinking and challenges us to look beyond our own simple notions of the way the world works.

So what does the cross teach us? Well, many things, but here's one of the biggies: it teaches us that often innocent people suffer for the risky behaviors of others. Jesus died on that cross for the risky behaviors of human beings past, present, and future who would risk their relationship with God by making choices that seem to say "Thanks for the advice, God, but I think in this particular case I will be doing my own will." This is more than a condemning statement against all of us terrible sinners. (Me included!) It actually challenges our basic view of the world. We have this moral rationalism that says that good stuff gets you good things and bad stuff gets you bad things. And then we find ourselves lost when bad things happen to good people and when good things happen to bad people. Why are we so lost? Doesn't the cross teach us that "fairness" is not the universal principle?

Instead, the cross's first lesson, that innocent people suffer for the sins of others, teaches a different set of principles... that our lives are connected, that such suffering may lead to opportunities, that "redemption" may be the universal principle.

When we see the cross, it should draw us together as a community, making moral designations like guilt and redemption into community issues instead of issues for individual justice. If we get angry at bailouts from the government, have we stopped to think of the alternatives or the consequences? Are we ready to put aside our distaste of someone avoiding their punishment in order to help the innocent of the situation which may involve workers who need the jobs or the poorest among us who need the government programs to provide for their family's basic needs? The cross makes us brothers and sisters who focus on redemption, not justice, because that is where God focused his attention when faced with similar problems of irresponsible behavior and risky actions. Good enough for God... good enough for me.

Uh oh... I think I almost talked about social justice for a second. Sorry, Mr. Beck. I think I may have some people fearing that I am an advocate of socialism because that's the new dirty word in American politics. Perhaps I need forgiveness for being much more interested in a world that takes care of one another instead of seeing the toughest survive. The cross just makes me see the world in ways that are disturbing and perhaps overflowing with grace and dreams of redemption. Oh, it would have been so much easier if Jesus would have roamed the earth pointing out sinners and blowing them to bits with laser death beams from his eyes! Then I could look at the world and its suffering as products of "those people's mistakes." But now I have to see it as suffering because we as a community are suffering. And now I have to see myself as a fellow sinner looking for ways to join God in redeeming my whole community. Ugh! So perhaps the model for faith is not Rambo, Jack Bauer, or the Terminator. Perhaps I cannot spend my time in moral judgement but instead invest my time in community solutions that breathe with the divine breath of re-creation and redemption.

And the real noodle-baking brain-teaser of all of this is that the cross may also be teaching us that these great crises of our lives (including the economy) may be more than meaningless events that are outside of God's plans. If God uses the rule-breaking, morally irrational ugliness of the cross to bring redemption, then perhaps such terrible crises may be opportunities to show the world exactly who God is. The cross is the clearest revelation of who God is when we combine it with the redemption and hope of the empty tomb on Easter morning. And likewise, the great crises and wrongdoings may be giving us opportunities to clearly reveal who God is to the world, but only if we bring with these modern-day crosses, the messages of redemption and hope.

So, how will we solve the economic crises of our lives? I have absolutely no idea. However, the cross teaches me that it probably has something to do with grace, forgiveness, redemption, hope and re-creation. And it probably has something to do with looking beyond our own personal needs and into the needs of the community. And it probably has very little to do with laser death beams that blow the guilty into bits...probably.