Happy Fourth of July!

Happy Fourth of July! With all the frustrations that can be felt over healthcare and budget and politics in general, especially during an election year, I can still mean it when I say, “Happy fourth of July!”

I know it’s easy to complain and worry over our election process – like who gets in and who gets left out, who spends what and who says they won’t – but I am reminded that this same election process has gotten us this:

I can still call the fire department when my house or land is burning and they will come and put it out.

I have an armed police force at the tip of my finger ready and willing to protect me, my family, and our property just for asking.

I have the freedom to travel from state to state whenever I want without citizenship papers or language barriers.

I have an armed, trained, and capable Coast Guard patrolling our shores for enemies of our way of life risking their lives every day trying to quench drug paraphernalia and illegal infiltration of criminal activity.

I have a military that defends our way of life and the right to argue our convictions and religion and politics to the last man so I can go about my life daily with the freedom to think and speak as I see.

I have zoning offices and local government offices that have mapped out the difficult work of the land and its uses for me when I want to build a house or make improvements to my existing driveway so that everyone is safe.

I have local municipalities that make sure I have clean, healthy water running in my home and a food and drug administration keeping watch over what becomes available to the general public.

I have friends and neighbors who have used their resources and freedom to do business as they see it to open grocery stores and gas stations so that I can get these items just down the street from my house. And, I can expect that same thing as I travel through neighborhoods across this country.

I can go to school whenever I want to.

I have more money in my pocket to go see fireworks and eat an ice cream tonight than most people in the world have to live on for a month. (and there is something wrong with that!)

I have insurance that protects the money that I put in the bank – as well as my life and property.

I can get the current news on multiple channels of media.

I can take a vacation and relax without the fear of losing my job or being harmed or kidnapped by drug lords or guerrilla fighters opposing the government.

I get to work without being a slave and it’s acceptable to take holidays like July Fourth to play! So, Happy Fourth of July everybody!

Going to Camp

If you’ve ever spent a week at a summer Bible camp secluding yourself away from your ipod and cell phone, taking time to hear from the Lord, making friends and having a ball, then you know that this next week for me is going to be a lot of fun!


I have been helping with the counseling, music, teaching, and speaking at Senior High Alive at Lake Lucerne WI for about a decade now and still don’t get tired of it. The friends, the ministry connections, the camaraderie, the way we all want to see lives transformed and growing in Christ, all make for a week of hard work of harvest but worth every effort.

The friends I’ve made there over the years have been solid. They have turned out to be friends that have changed the course of my life – literally! Branches Church exists as a member of the Association of Related Churches because of my connections through Senior High Alive. Ministry partners from camp are now on our Board of Overseers that hold me as the lead Pastor at Branches accountable and on track and encouraged. One of our former Children’s Directors was connected with me through this camping ministry – I say former because marriage and school and career have placed her and her husband in Minnesota. I have watched boys who had me as their counselor years back grow into strong and faithful young men who are using their vacation time from work returning and counseling the boys now as staff.

So say a prayer for us at Senior High Alive this week that God would show Himself faithful and true to each and every person setting aside their schedule of work and summer in order to be among a group of Christians who want to see lives changed and made Alive!

What I Learned from Harry Shay

During the late 1930’s and early 1940’s while Europe was embattled in the beginnings of WWII most of America was assuming a posture of isolationism. Basically, let’s not get involved in another European conflict; let them deal with it themselves.


The reasons were plenty. Two decades after the war to end all wars America just wanted to get through its depression and get back on its feet again. It’s hard to worry about what the neighbors are doing when you are worrying about finding enough for the kids to eat or keeping the family farm.

With this past Memorial Day weekend and June 6th coming in next week I’ve been taking a few moments to reflect. This is what I’m thinking:

On June 6th, 1944 my grandfather’s younger brother, Harry Shay, was in a landing craft headed toward Omaha beach as part of the third wave of soldiers to assault the German defenses. As I visited with him just last year (right before he passed away) he spoke of the difficulties of making headway through the pounding the Germans were throwing at them and the friends he lost that day. His wife, Lorraine, said that he had been recently waking in the night screaming names of people she had not heard of before. When I asked him about what was happening he told the gruesome details of how friends were killed and the guilt he felt of decisions he made that now made him ask, “Why am I the one who is alive?”

He told of the artillery, the noise and mayhem, the beach held no safe place and the tide coming in on them. He told of the machine gun fire crisscrossing the fields as they reached the top of the bluffs. He told how they reached the hedgerows and found that the Germans had the best fortified positions by just using the giant hedgerows as a natural shield and barrier from the American assault. He said that they couldn’t move without exposing themselves to the gunfire.

“It was us farm boys from Wisconsin, I’m proud to say, that said, ‘get us a torch and a welder up here and we’ll put some teeth on these tanks and bust through these hedgerows!’” He said. But with every story he had of a victory or a good idea he had one of loss and trouble and death too. But it was the initiative of those individual soldiers, the citizen soldiers as author Stephen Ambrose called them, that was able to get them through the difficulties of not only that day but it’s what shook America out of its isolationism.

I said, “Harry, why did you volunteer to sign up in the first place?” His answer kind of surprised me. He said, “The whole world was in trouble and we knew it. If we didn’t do something about it we were all going to be in trouble. So, me and my three buddies went down together and signed up…that’s all there was to it. We had to.”

We had to… I thought. No you didn’t. You guys chose to. Stephen Ambrose contends that Hitler gambled that the sons of a dictatorship would be better soldiers than the sons of a democratic society. He figured that the boy Scouts couldn’t produce the kind of man that his dictatorship could. He was wrong. The difference? Initiative.

Initiative awakened America out of its isolation to see the need. Initiative caused Harry and his pals and tens of thousands of others to march down to the recruiting offices and sign up for the fight. Initiative kept them going when the task or sight before them was more than bearable. Initiative allowed their training to kick in and apply it to their dangerous situations. Instead of hiding behind the obstacles trying to stay away from the machine gun fire and artillery burst initiative caused them to move forward and get to the tidal wall out of the line of fire. The men who tried to stay out on the beach and hide behind the obstacles were more likely to be killed.

I believe the church can take a lesson from this today.

Christians are always tempted to stay away from the “bad” things going on around us and keep to ourselves, to crawl into an attitude of isolationism, or safety, to hide behind our personal convictions or political affiliations or even Christianity itself. DON’T DO IT! It’s not what we are called to do. We are called to be salt and light in a dark and troubled world. When we became a follower and disciple of Jesus we signed up. Not to get away from the trouble, but to contend with it! When we begin to recognize that the whole world is in spiritual trouble, lost and wandering aimlessly without God, then we’ll have been awakened by understanding and ready for initiative which is not based solely on training and memorization of tactics, or God’s laws, but on wisdom from God. Solomon explains why he wrote the proverbs down for us:

Proverbs 1:2-7 Their purpose is to teach people wisdom and discipline, to help them understand the insights of the wise. Their purpose is to teach people to live disciplined and successful lives, to help them do what is right, just, and fair. These proverbs will give insight to the simple, knowledge and discernment to the young. Let the wise listen to these proverbs and become even wiser. Let those with understanding receive guidance by exploring the meaning in these proverbs and parables, the words of the wise and their riddles. Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.

Solomon wants to equip us with wisdom and understanding so we may take some initiative with confidence and DO our life with God instead of hiding from the turmoil around us hoping to get through safe and sound.

Proverbs 3:5-7 Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend in your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take. Don’t be impressed with your own wisdom. Instead, fear the Lord and turn away from evil.

Fear of the Lord recognizes total dependence on God for everything, including knowledge and wisdom. Fear of the Lord is the basis of all knowledge. How can we understand life without knowing the most fundamental truth about it – that it is God’s creation? It is not just a mental attitude but involves service, love, and obeying God’s laws and some initiative on our part to be awakened to the trouble around us and get involved.

Thanks, Harry, for choosing wisely and setting a good example for me to follow! RIP.

Put It on Your Calendar

One of the core values of Branches Church is to be authentic. Real people, real lives, real Jesus is a catch phrase we’ve committed to so we might never become an isolated group of religious people who are irrelevant to the community around us. This week’s blog is dedicated to that core value. We have a long way to go but we are committed to getting there…one person, one conversation, one event at a time.


When [Jesus] saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. (Matthew 9:36)

This kind of compassion is rare. Oh, we talk a good talk about it. We even expect it from others to do something about (name an injustice). This kind of compassion that Jesus was moved with comes from more than an emotional response to an injustice. This kind of compassion comes from deep within a person, from the core of who we really are.

This kind of compassion causes a young man or woman to forego starting their career until after they’ve joined the Peace Corps or a mission assignment for their church. This compassion causes the cancer survivor to give their time to fundraising for a cure. This compassion moves a family to spend time on a holiday volunteering for others at the shelter instead of sleeping in and staying home. This kind of compassion is more than words.

It’s no wonder we often avoid it. Who is comfortable with such an emotion that comes from so deep within us that it causes us to change our schedule, re-evaluate our leisure time, ask our family to sacrifice, or give up our Saturday to-do project to go across town and do something for someone else? Yeah, rare.

There are three things that will get you a job: having the talent, or ability; having the desire, or want to; and having the schedule, or time in your life for it. Any one of which, if missing, will take you out of the running for said job.

The same goes for compassion. We have the ability to see injustices, we have the ability to see needs, and we have the ability to see those who need help all around us. But if we took a look at our desire to do something about it, to actually be moved with compassion about these things, it involves more than seeing – we have to have the desire, or want to.

If we were to admit it, we really spend more of our effort complaining about what we see than being moved from deep within to do something about it. We may feel we can do nothing about it, it may seem like too big a problem, or it seems hopeless, or we don’t feel qualified, or their opinion and worldview is different than mine, or it’s against my religion…or whatever.

The ability to see the weary multitude like lost sheep, and the desire to do something about it if moved to compassion, causes us to change or adapt our schedule to accommodate the needs. This is the fruit of compassion.

The conclusion of Jesus’ compassion as Matthew recorded it?

He said to his disciples (the church), “The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields.” (Matthew 9:37-38)

Nobody really wants to know of your personal convictions or beliefs by hearing complaints of what you see around you; that’s wearying. Show me your schedule, show me your compassion, show me that you not only see it, but you are willing to use who you are with what you have and put it on your calendar!

Seeing Their Faith

The house where [Jesus] was staying was so packed with visitors that there wasn’t room for one more person, not even outside the door. And he preached the word to them. Four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a mat. They couldn’t get to Jesus through the crowd, so they dug through the clay roof above his head. Then they lowered the sick man on his mat, right down in front of Jesus. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “My son, your sins are forgiven.” – Mark 2:2-5


I love the line that Mark uses when he writes, seeing their faith. Jesus obviously had to of heard the commotion put into tearing a hole in the roof, He saw the sick man, He knew there was a needy person there, this was all happening right above His head and in front of him. But what caught Jesus’ attention, as well as Mark’s observation, was the faith of the four guys.

Four unnamed guys, four men who could have been home doing chores, hanging with the kids, at work getting more done, taking their wife out to lunch, working on their own needs.

God knows that there are hurting people, broken people, and sick people inside and outside of the church. That’s why Jesus came in the first place! What was it He said His mission was; “…to preach Good News to the poor…to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the downtrodden will be freed from their oppressors, and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.” (Luke 4:18-19)

If we want to get God’s attention, it is better suited for us to show Him our faith than to try and show Him our troubles. He already knows our hurts and pain and dysfunctions and injustices; that’s why He sent His Son in the first place. It’s when we skip placing our faith in His Son that puts us in a faithless posture and turns us into a consumer with needs. He sees our need, our sickness, our helpless state!

Apostle Paul said, “This same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from His glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:19)

This is a given to God’s children but…

“It is impossible to please God without faith.” (Hebrews 11:6)

So, as we at Branches Church are being real people living real lives in relationship with a real Jesus, we can know our needs are being met by God who loves us and sees us and knows our need; but does He see our faith?

What we do to get others who are sick and hurting and helpless into the presence of Jesus so they can hear the Word may cause a commotion, a bit of interruption for those in the room, a bit of awkwardness as we may set someone in front of Jesus in an unconventional way…but it will get the Lord’s attention as He sees our faith so that the kingdom of God can grow!

Act Like the King!

When you are the king, or the coach of a team, a department leader at work, or a dad, a husband, a mom, a wife, a mentor, a local or national political leader, any position that gives you a kingdom to influence and take care of, you are there to use your God-given place to benefit others. But with King David, there were times he used his influence, position, and resources for selfish purposes rather than for the people.


This week at Branches we looked at what it took for King David to act like the king. It took a tough talking friend and a guilty conscience, both of which he was willing to listen to.

David didn’t go to “king school” to learn how to do this leadership thing God had called him to. No. God had taken him from tending sheep in the pasture and selected him to be the leader of His people. (2 Samuel 7:8)

This shows loud and clear in two particular instances: when David’s son Absalom is killed by David’s army for trying to overthrow the kingdom and when David disobeys God by taking a census of Israel. Both scenarios show David being able to be the king by remembering that he is the shepherd. It’s an attitude adjustment that affects his behaviors.

As David is weeping uncontrollably over the death of Absalom, his friend, Joab, comes to him and challenges him to act like the king. He says that the people that David is king over are afraid to come back home again because his sadness makes them feel as if they have done something wrong in eliminating David’s opposition. “You make us feel ashamed of ourselves.” (2 Samuel 19:5)

Here is the king, thinking that all is about him, all should be for him, and all should go his way – I’m the king, all should go well for me! It doesn’t. Getting everything to go our way doesn’t make us the king, or the dad or mom, a good coach, a benevolent leader, an effective mentor, or a thoughtful husband or wife. How we respond to not getting our way can lead to being a good king, the dad or mom whose advice is sought after, a good coach, a benevolent and influential leader, an effective mentor, and a cherished wife and respected husband!

When Joab confronted his friend David with his selfish attitude I believe David might have finally remembered that he was there for the people in the same way he was there for his sheep years earlier. It hadn’t been that long ago when he had stood before King Saul and said he was willing to go out and face the giant Goliath with confidence because he had faced the lion and the bear that were after his father’s sheep. Having defeated them he knew he was able to defeat this giant too.

Later, when David chose to fall into the hands of a merciful God for his punishment for sinning against God’s command not to take a census of Israel rather than fall into the hands of his military enemies, he is astonished at the devastation that the people of Israel are under for his sin. 70,000 people are dead in three days by the hand of the death angel that God had sent. By the time the angel had reached the outskirts of Jerusalem, David makes an extraordinary statement: When David saw the angel, he said to the Lord, “I am the one who sinned and done wrong! But these people are as innocent sheep – what have they done? Let your anger fall against me and my family.” (2 Samuel 24:17)

Here again, David had learned how to act like the king by remembering that God had made him a shepherd. A shepherd not to rule over the sheep but to take care of them.

A shepherd can take one of two attitudes in their work. The sheep are there to build up and get me what I want or, the sheep are there for me to nurture so they can be all they are able to be. The end result is that the shepherd gets the sheep to market and that is ultimately why it is done. But the attitude in approach to how they are brought to that point changes everything.

That is why the apostle Paul writes to us this:

“Don’t be selfish; don’t live to make a good impression on others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourself. Don’t think only about your own affairs, but be interested in others, too, and what they are doing. Your attitude should be the same that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not demand and cling to his rights as God. He made himself nothing; he took the humble position of a slave and appeared in human form.” (Philippians 2:3-7)

This is Jesus being a good shepherd; a good king. He is here on behalf of others. He had the right to descend to earth and demand obedience, submission, and conformity – he is God, all things were created by him and for him, he gave us life itself. (John 1:3-4) But Jesus chose to humble himself on behalf of others, give up his rights, live as human as the rest of us, and pave the way for a right relationship with God for us all! “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (John 10:11)

So we can see the precedent laid out in the Old Testament Scriptures with the life and attitudes of David, and Paul setting up Jesus as our example of humility in how to treat those in our sphere of influence. Our thoughts, attitudes, and actions are to become more and more like those shown by Christ. As we reflect honestly on our lives, can we be humble enough to admit our faults, let alone the complaining of someone else’s? When we realize, like David, that we are to act like the king, we can then begin to use the experiences we’ve lived, the knowledge we’ve gained, and the understanding of our relationship with a gracious God to influence others – not demand their conformity to our thinking, beliefs, and convictions.

It’s giving up our “rights” and taking on the attitude of Jesus that we are here to live our life for others - whether they "conform" or not. I know it’s upside down in a world that is obsessed with “rights’ and selfishness…but herein lies the foundation of the behaviors and attitudes of the Christian faith: Do for others as you would like them to do for you. (Matthew 7:12)

To be honest, I have yet to see this evident in the whole of Christianity today. We should start to act like the king!

Even Good Guys get it Wrong Sometimes

Looking into the life of David as we go through the books of Samuel, Chronicles, and the Kings, allows us to see both the “Good Guy” David and the “Bad Guy” David. It’s hard to think that this is the “man after my own heart” that God chose to lead His people when we see his life laid out in detail.

We love the stories about success and triumph, obedience and loyalty, like his conquest of the giant Goliath or his friendship with Jonathan. We love to hear about his thirty mighty men who were his personal bodyguards and kept him alive on the battlefield, and how he rescued Abigail from a life that was beneath her abilities and brought her into his palace so she could become all she was meant to be. We like to read the Psalms he wrote when he is recounting the lovingkindness and unfailing love of the Lord and his passion to worship. We like to hear about his benevolence to the less fortunate in his kingdom. This is the “Good Guy” David; the one that makes sense to us that this is the kind of man God would choose.

David’s life is filled with the everyday things of real life. He’s the youngest of eight boys; he’s a talented musician; he’s brave and responsible; he’s got a great work ethic; he’s a friend, a husband, a father, an employer, a soldier, a lover, a thinker and a writer and yet, impulsive. He’s generous yet selfish. He’s a builder and a money maker and provider; he’s a leader and a mover and shaker. He has surrounded himself with good and capable people but still needs to be alone.

I do not envy the fact that David’s life has been laid out for all of history to see in detail. I would not want that for myself. David said to the Lord once, “Who am I? What can I say? You know what I’m really like.” And God let us all in on what He saw in David – the good, the bad, and the ugly because even good guys get it wrong sometimes.

His adulthood seems to have started here. In all his passion as a lover, he seems to have blown off his first marriage to Michal, Saul’s daughter. The bible says that she loved him very much. They were newlyweds when they were separated by trouble in the kingdom. She helps him escape with his life and covers for him so he can get to safety. He never returns for her. She starts over with a new life, a new husband, and a new town. When David realizes after eight years that it cost him plenty to have her as his wife he wants her back. He rips her from her new life and family and places her back into his home. But this woman has gone from loving him to despising him. Who could blame her? She has gone from number one in his life and risking it all for him to being number three in a growing list of wives. Then, even though he is the man of the hour, good guy David setting up worship for the kingdom of Israel, good guy David blessing all the families of the land and feeling pretty good about himself, Michal lets her contempt for him and his duties show. His reply? “Don’t forget that God chose me over your dad and brothers!”

There! That ought to put her in her place! Wow! One minute he’s blessing the households of his kingdom and the next he’s spitting out curses to his own. David and Michal never reconciled the relationship. The bible says that she died bitter and childless. This is the “Good Guy” David getting this one wrong.

It happens to us all the time. We misuse our time, our money, our judgment. We say selfish things, we do selfish things. It’s not that we don’t mean well or want to do the right thing. But, sincerity and good intentions without self-reflection cannot be used as an excuse for selfishness. It will get us into trouble most every time! Just like David.

When I read about David and see the bad along with the good, I think about his predecessor Saul; God rejected him as king of Israel because he sinned and was selfish too. What’s the difference I ask myself? Saul continued in his selfishness and it became his demise. David continually came back to the Lord repenting of his sin and disobedience and God seems to have had room in his heart for that!

David writes in Psalm 51, after one of his episodes of sin and disobedience, “Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart.”

The apostle Paul reminds us in Romans 5:20-21, “As people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful kindness became more abundant… giving us right standing with God resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ.”

God’s grace exists because even good guys, and gals, get it wrong sometimes!