Trick or Treat

Americans love their Halloween holiday, at least that’s what their spending conveys.

• Costumes: $31.05 person; $3.2 billion total

• Candy: $25.37 person; $2.6 billion total

• Decorations: $26.03 person; $2.7 billion total

• Greeting Cards: $3.82 person; $390 million total

I’m scratching my head on the greeting card one. That’s a thing? I did not know that. Man, did I miss out when my grandmother was alive.

I don’t have a strong opinion on the whole Halloween thing with a couple of exceptions beginning with, I’m not spending $86.27 on a costume, candy, decorations, and a greeting card to Michael, Lauren, and their baby.

Some Christians have strong opinions about celebrating Halloween in any fashion. That’s completely understandable. They argue Halloween is a pagan festival in which Christians should have no part. Other Christians see the day as part of American culture; any connections to evil or spiritual darkness are the exception and not the norm. To them wearing an amusing costume and passing out candy to neighborhood children is simple fun. Wherever you land, there is a point at which all Christians should agree.

“I don't begrudge dress-up, can't complain about meeting neighbors and candy, but there's something sick about death as a decorating theme.” R.C. Sproul, Jr.

Dead figures swinging from front yard trees, decapitated bodies across the lawn, and the Grim Reaper silhouettes are the accepted Halloween trimmings in nearly every neighborhood. Otherwise sane people dress as vampires, It the clown, or the Headless Horseman either to scare the unsuspecting or to make a joke. Parents paint their children’s faces to look like bloody messes or ecstatically parade them around as Michael Myers . And the zombie craze…

Can we Christians agree that decorating ourselves or our homes with elements of death denies the very core of our Christianity? Death is our greatest enemy. Over and again the Bible tells us what we know by experience, death is coming for all of us. Abel died. Adam died. Seth died. They all died. The Bible tells us “It is appointed for man to die once” and “Death passed upon all men.” Death is part of God’s judgment upon humanity for its open rebellion against Him since the Garden of Eden. Why would anyone want to dress their little boy as a deliverer of death or their little girl as one who has already died? There’s something wrong with that.

Jesus conquered death. The celebration for Christians must be the victory Jesus achieved over death. As Paul wrote, “O Death, where is your sting?” Because of Jesus’s death on the cross, death no longer reigns in the human experience. Where man brought death by his sin against God, Jesus brings life by His obedience to God (Romans 5:19). Christians always celebrate life. We mourn at every death and every expression of death.

If you so choose to welcome to your front door the children and families in your neighborhood, have the best treats you can give away. Be the smiling, happy, generous guy or nice lady all the kids talk about in school on Friday. Meet and talk with your neighbors who never seem to have the time other nights of the year when you are trying to build a bridge that leads to gospel conversations. Just do not applaud death or any of its agents.

As always I welcome your feedback and any suggestions you might have for an upcoming Lunchtime Musing.

Mike VerWay
Pastor for Preaching & Vision

Boys Will Be Boys

Boys will be boys. Uh, no they won’t. Not if being a boy means you can’t win your gender’s cycling event.

Rachel McKinnon is a two-time Masters Track Cycling World Champion, capturing the 2019 title at the recent competition in Manchester, England, setting a women’s world record in a qualifying event. En route to the victor’s stand, McKinnon defeated every female opponent, an impressive accomplishment if McKinnon was a female like the other competitors. What makes the win significant is McKinnon is a biological man presenting as a woman.

A man beat a woman in an athletic event. In other news, snow is predicted for Minnesota from November to April.

Woke allies laud McKinnon’s bravery to compete on the world stage as a transgender athlete. According to McKinnon and woke devotees, if you do not support trans women dominating biological women in athletic events, you do so out of “irrational fear of trans women.” After the championships concluded, McKinnon tweeted “I have yet to meet a real champion who has a problem with trans women. Real champions want stronger competition. If you win because bigotry got your competition banned…you’re a loser.”

Boys will be boys. Uh, no they won’t. Not if you’re mom wants to ensure that you transition to a girl.

This week a Texas jury confirmed sole custody of a seven-year-old boy to the boy’s mother. Here’s the thing, mom has charged dad with child abuse because dad refuses to affirm his ex-wife’s decision to raise their son James as a girl. To mom and others, James is Luna. His teachers call him by that name. At school, he uses the girls’ restroom. Mom is determined that James transition from male to female, including medical procedures when he reaches puberty.

Jeffery Younger, the dad, has been ordered by the courts to refrain from any attempts to communicate with his son about religion or science related to gender and biology. If dad attempts to stop the transition, he can be found in contempt of court. As an added twist, James has a twin brother, Jude.

Boys will be boys. Uh, not they won’t. Wait, yes, they will if you can put a nine-year-old child on CNN to promote left ideology.

Last week, CNN displayed for the world and the benefit of presidential candidate, Elizabeth Warren, a child. At a “Presidential Town Hall” the candidate and the child’s mother beamed with excitement when Jacob – a fourth-grade girl dressed sharply in a blue suit, white dress shirt, and patterned necktie – identified herself as “a 9-year-old transgender American.” This little girl, with the approval of a United States senator and, worse, the advocacy and support her mother, believes she is a boy trapped in a girl’s body.

Few Saw This Coming

At the turn of the millennium, did anyone anticipate the approval and promotion of what it means to be male or female to come to this? Sure, we’ve debated for decades, maybe centuries or longer, what are the roles of male and female in our world. But look where we are now. Only an ignoramus believes there are two and only two genders determined by biology not by identity.

This is not a minor issue. In my mind this is even more significant for the Christian than same-sex marriage or a host of other moral issues. To embrace gender based on identity is to reject the creator’s design of male or female in every human he brings into existence. I can think of no other rebellion against the creator greater than this.

Thinking about what it means to be male or female, as a Christian you cannot stick your head in the sand. My personal opinion is the political battle and probably the cultural battle are lost. I cannot see a path of reversal. Further, I cannot see a way this does not impact the local church and your family. This rebellion is not just out there. I guarantee it is or will be in your home too.

Our churches, our parents, and our pulpits must know what God has revealed to us in his word about what it means to be human. We must teach God’s Word without apology and with confidence that God will bless the faithful teaching of his Word. We must believe that what God says is right and true and good and that all other teachings are wrong and lies and bad. We must discern the lies of the wicked one and cling to God’s grace when the attacks come with greater intensity and more severe consequences.

The Bible has told us that we cannot be the friend of God and the friend of the world (James 4:4). They are not compatible. The world is telling us if you are on the side of the Bible when it comes to what it means to be human, we will not tolerate you. But God will not abandon us, and he will fight for us. Do not abandon him.

Brothers and sisters, the attacks against God are not going to stop until Jesus returns and puts a stop to them. Therefore, determine that you will “stand firm…with the belt of truth buckled around your waist” (Eph 6:14).

As always I welcome your feedback and any suggestions you might have for an upcoming Lunchtime Musing.

Mike VerWay
Pastor for Preaching & Vision

Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow

They’ve said most of their goodbyes. Later this week, they will load the truck and the townhouse will be empty. In a few days, our dear friends and co-laborers, Thad and Nikki Yessa along with their little girls will be on their way to St. Louis, Missouri, where they will join the staff of a Baptist church in the west suburbs.

They are leaving us – exactly as we hoped and prayed they would.

Every church should play its role in the development of future churches. Some congregations plant new churches while others contribute in different ways. It’s true that our church may not plant a new church, but our church shares in the development of the future church by training the next generation of pastors and ministry families.

The sixty-four-year history of First Calvary tells the stories of people serving in local churches all across the United States having received a significant part of their training with us. Over the last nineteen years, nine men and their families have been with us as assistant pastors, ministry staff, or interns. Five of those now serve as senior pastors and four as assistant pastors. It has been our privilege to share in the lives of these men, both receiving from them and contributing to them.

It is hard to say good bye. With each family we quickly develop relationships that make the separation hard, but the benefits received are worth the pain of the leaving.

Who will be the next intern we train or staff member we embrace? That is an open question, but I hope our church will continue to fund and promote this joyful opportunity.

While we stay as others move away, the time will come when we will leave too. The facts of the matter are all pastorates are interim and all memberships are temporary. None of us is going to be here forever. All of us will leave for different assignments in God’s kingdom or go to be with the Lord at our deaths. Therefore, we must make the most of our time where God has us now, and we must leave the work better than when we arrived. We want to be in the chain Paul described to Timothy.

And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also (2 Timothy 2:2).

May God bless Thad and Nikki, and may God bless you as you serve Him in the place where He has you as long as He has you there.

As always I welcome your feedback and any suggestions you might have for an upcoming Lunchtime Musing. - Mike VerWay

It's Not Me, It's You

“Well, how’d you do?” His mom didn’t really need to hear his answer. His face gave the test results, no driver’s license for him today. Apparently, snapchatting while taking your driving test is an automatic fail.

As everyone knows, nothing about rejection is funny. It’s not funny to be rejected by a potential employer. There’s nothing humorous when rejected by a lover. Rejection from a medical school admissions department will not make you laugh. All seats saved in the school cafeteria is only funny to those already sitting in the seats. Rejection hurts. Rejection confuses. Rejection paralyzes. Rejection has no sympathy. Rejection takes no prisoners. Rejection embitters. Rejection endangers. Occasionally, rejection proves helpful.

Why Didn’t She Ask Me?

They’d been friends since tea party days. Most Thursdays their moms enjoyed good coffee, and the girls went downstairs to a world of dreams and fantasies. The dolls took their seats, and the girls poured them imaginary tea into cups perfectly resting on plastic saucers. Like their moms upstairs, they laughed and told stories only true in the world of make believe.

When the college years came, the young women went separate ways making promises of friendship they’d find difficult to keep. In high school they talked about their wedding days and the part each would have in the others, but when the day came for her lifelong friend to marry, she shared nothing. She wasn’t part of the bridal party. In fact, she wasn’t even invited to attend. Sure, they weren’t as close as they were when they were children, but had she forgotten their love for each other so that even a simple invitation was not extended?

I Was Passed Over

Seventeen years he’d given to the company, working for and with the same boss year after year. He worked hard, grew in his capacity, and took on more responsibility without recognition or increased pay. He cleaned up the messes others made, helped those new to the workgroup, and anticipated problems and solved them so his boss wouldn’t have to. His loyalty was unquestioned and his ethic beyond reproach.

For some time he knew change was on the horizon. His boss was moving on to a new opportunity and that meant the door was open to move up. Nobody knew the department and the product better than he did. While not a slam dunk, he was sure his chances were pretty good to take the career step. But there are no guarantees in business. He didn’t get the promotion. In fact, he didn’t even get an interview. Apparently, upper management already had their candidate, someone with an MBA that was going to do something to “bring a paradigm shift in line with the recent SWOT analysis delivering a change in culture that would prove more customer focused and results oriented.”

Whatever.

How to Handle Rejection

We do need to face the truth that not all rejection is bad.

Rejection can be a prompt to change where change is right and necessary. 2+2 does not equal 5. The sooner you accept the rejection of your answer, the better it will be for you. Not qualified is not an attack on your person. It can be a simple statement of fact. How can you become what’s needed to meet the qualification? Where rejection causes positive change in your work ethic, your character, or your relationships, embrace the rejection as a difficult but beneficial necessity in your life.

It’s not always possible to acquire what’s needed to overcome the rejection. If that’s reality, you will need to adjust your desires. As a child of God, you can trust him to walk with you through the painful reality or to grant you grace in your pursuit of the qualifications. The psalmist wrote, “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take care of me (27:10).”

Can your experience of rejection inspire your worship of our Lord?

To us Jesus is the most beautiful human being, but he wasn’t and isn’t to everyone. Isaiah 53 says, “He is despised and rejected by men.” To make matters much worse, our Lord cried out on the cross, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” Jesus Christ understands our rejection. He is all too familiar with our grief (Isaiah 53:3). He knows what it feels like to be passed over, humiliated, discarded, rejected.

His rejection was not for lack of qualifications or petty preferences. His rejection was because of the failed qualifications of others. His rejection was because of me and because of you. Can you see the wonder of Jesus’s love for you in the deep hurt of your rejection? Could his wounds bring healing to yours?

In the pain of your rejection, remember the words of Jesus, “Those the Father has given me will come to me, and I will never reject them (John 6:37).”

Rejection is the brutal experience of every human being. We cannot protect our children from it. We cannot execute a plan that always will deflect rejection. Rejection is part of this world, but rejection is not part of the world of Jesus for those who are his.

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38-39).

As always I welcome your feedback and any suggestions you might have for an upcoming Lunchtime Musing. 

I Love My Calling But Not Always My Job

As I wrote last week, God called me to the ministry of the Word of God, and I love my calling. My job, on the other hand, that's a different story.

What a calling looks like is not static, but often shifts over time. For 13 years my calling found expression as a youth pastor. God did not call me to be a youth pastor; he called me to the ministry of the Word of God. The exercise of the call was as a youth pastor. For the last 19 years God’s call on me has been as a senior, lead, or solo pastor. You’ve seen this, right? You probably know people who served in a local church and now serve in a missions context overseas or who served in a parachurch ministry and now serve in a local church. The calling remains constant, but the expression often changes. The same is true for your calling. It is not fixed. There is movement in the expression.

And that leads me to this thought: while I love my calling, I don’t always love the tasks of the expressions of my calling. Here I want to be careful but also helpful. I don’t want to come off as complaining. I fear that I might. Instead, I want to offer help and hope when the expression of your calling is difficult for you.

• I don’t like begging church members to participate in church life or to come to stuff that’s good for them. For years I’ve instructed younger ministry guys that they will spend much more energy getting church people to participate in church life than they will in the planning and execution of the ministry or the event. Frankly, it’s exhausting. Sometimes I think to myself, “What’s the use?”

• I don’t like the pressure of church finances. When I was a youth pastor, church finances were a blip on my radar. I didn’t concern myself with the accounting of church money nor with the income needs of the church. In my current role, I must engage for the oversight of the church. The problem is I feel woefully unqualified to do it. The reality is I feel unqualified to fulfill more than a few tasks that go with my job.

• I don’t like confronting sisters and brothers-in-Christ about unwise choices that apart from God’s grace will lead to heartache and consequences. Sure, I confronted teens when I was a youth pastor, but often the parents were glad I did! Many times it was parents asking me to talk to their kids. It’s not that way in my current job. In fact, when I ask to get together with someone, regularly they fear the time together, like I’m the mean principal or something. I want people to like me. I think I’m a pretty nice guy. When I’ve confronted people, too often I’ve lost a friend and the church has lost members. It hurts bad.

It’s not easy for me to overcome the challenges of my job. I want to ignore, deflect, or delay each of the tasks. Sometimes I have, and it didn’t work out well for me or for the church. But God gives grace to fulfill my calling in the current expression of it. And he will do the same for you in your calling. For example, if you have kids, God has called you to be a parent. You love being a mom or dad, but some parts about being a mom or dad at the present ages of your kids leave you, as I wrote above, exhausted, feeling unqualified, or deeply hurt. Like me, you love your calling but not necessarily your job. So, how can we respond?

Mental and physical fatigue in my job pushes me to find strength outside of myself. I don’t have any more to give. I am not omnipotent nor do I possess the patience to endure when met with obstacles. I need help to do what I cannot do on my own. What I need is Jesus to provide for me what I cannot provide for myself. I am learning to find in Jesus what I need to fulfill my tasks. I’m learning more about prayer to the Lord and reliance upon the Lord. It’s a slow process, but I think I’m gaining. I hope you can too.

I’m not Jesus and neither are you. I am not fully equipped to execute everything my current job requires me to do. I am not knowledgeable about every matter. I don’t possess the wisdom to make the correct decision on every difficulty or the foresight to anticipate every possible outcome. I cannot fix every problem nor right every wrong. These qualities belong only to Jesus. The recognition of my limitations compared to his boundless person has pulled my worship to a place I had not been before. I hope your limitations in your job cause you to embrace the limitlessness of Jesus.

Jesus loves me. When I experience deep hurt in the responses from people I am trying to help, I am growing in my belief that I am loved by Jesus unconditionally. More to the point, when I sin against my Lord and he loves me still and bears my wound against him, I marvel at his love for me. If he loves me despite the depravity of my actions, can’t I love others when they hurt me?

God did not make a mistake when he called you and me. He has uniquely equipped us for our callings, but that does not mean the jobs that come from our callings will be unicorns and rainbows. They likely will be full of challenges, obstacles, and unsolvable scenarios. When this occurs, we do not abandon the calling because of the job; instead, we fix “our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God (Heb. 12:2)”

As always I welcome your feedback and any suggestions you might have for an upcoming Lunchtime Musing.