The Reset Button

I like the line in the movie from A Muppet Christmas Carol when Scrooge asks the identity and origin of the spirit of Christmas past; “…there have been more than 1800 before me…” comes the reply. Christmas is a birthday celebration. Once a year, every year, the date set aside to remember the birth of Jesus comes around.

But whether you celebrate Christmas for that reason and with that focus or not, an annual celebration can be considered a time to hit the reset button. We need it from time to time anyway. A time to regroup and rest because life gets busy, difficult, we lose sleep, we fight for policies and politics, we wrestle with our relationships with family and friends, we suffer losses and health issues, we don’t know what to do sometimes, we get tired. Even in the best of environments like we have here in the United States for opportunity and advancement in our pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness we still do life one day at a time and each day brings only so much we can actually control.

So, as Christmas is here, the annual birthday celebration of God becoming like us and paving the way to what a good and abundant life is intended to be, let’s take the day to use it as a reset button. Let’s evaluate our relationships, our time, our health, our passions and priorities, and most of all our heart and soul. Solomon wrote that out of the heart come all the other issues of life. So if my heart isn't doing well; if it’s stuck in a rut, or overwhelmed with grief and sadness, or fearful or angry, or even selfish, this could be the time of year to hit that reset button and re-evaluate how it’s doing.

Even with the humble and lowly circumstances at that first ‘Christmas’ with the Son of God born as a human baby lying in a bed made from a manger, the angels still partied in the skies saying, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace and good will toward men,” so, we too, can let the peace of God which passes all human understanding fill our heart and mind with the knowledge of God’s favor because He is for us!

Merry Christmas!

Sad Christmas Songs

“Merry Christmas,” “Happy New Year,” and “Happy Holidays” are common greetings of joy and gladness at this time of year. They are expressions of good will and hope for love in action to spread; for justice and mercy to be shown here and abroad and so much more. A pretty good thing considering the hope that Christmas represents. We are a broken world in need and we recognize it more at Christmas than any other time of year.

In regard to this merry, happy, and well-wishing season, some song writers have opted to go against the grain of the traditional feeling of joy and happiness with songs that tug on our heartstrings.

I was listening to a radio station the other day when they played a song I had never heard before. It was done by Nat King Cole, a wonderful vocalist for sure, but as the song progressed I heard the lyrics attempting to pull at my emotions to get me to feel something for this little boy it was talking about.

Maybe I wasn’t in the “Christmas spirit” or maybe I was being a “Grinch” or a “Scrooge” but my emotions turned to skepticism instead of empathy. As I listened to the beautiful arrangement of the orchestra and Nat’s smooth jazz vocal, the words just didn’t seem to sync with the rest.

It was Christmas morning; the little boy was out in the street looking for someone to play with. All the other little boys were out with their new toys and too busy to notice him. So he went back into his house to play with last year’s broken toys because Santa had forgotten this little boy. As the song continued it told me that this little “Laddie didn’t even have a daddy.”  Each verse seemed to make the situation more tragic and disappointing. I was skeptical. Is there a verse about his health next? Will there be another chorus with his momma not having any food in the house? I felt sort of sad for myself instead. Do I not have any empathy? Am I comfortable with my life and that’s good enough? Maybe that was what the songwriter was after – reflection.

I am not really sure but there are just some songs that I do not like. I’m sure you have your list too.

But this reflection is something to be considered. At Christmastime, we hope, we wish, we dream, we long for, we share, we bless, but most of all we reflect. Reflect on what? The classic words, “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas just like the ones I used to know” give us a model. There is something in the human heart that longs for purpose, justice, to love and be loved, to make life better for not only ourselves but for someone else. Solomon wrote that he wondered what people got for all their hard work in life and concluded with these words: “God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

Christmas is a season of good-will, joy, happiness, hope, love in action, dreaming, all the things that Jesus said He came to bring us because of God’s love and favor for us. It is available. And now we celebrate Christmas each year as a reflection of the longing, or eternity, that God has placed in our hearts. That eternity is more simply put as hope, joy, love, justice, righteousness, gladness, healing, grace and mercy and more than that they represent the character of God, actually, all the things our Christmas songs point to; even if they are trying to pull at our emotions.

The words to this traditional Christmas song say so much about that eternity in our hearts, that which we are reflecting on even if we don’t realize it, it’s what we hope for and really want for Christmas!

Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee

Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee

God of glory, Lord of love

Hearts unfold like flowers before Thee

Opening to the sun above

Melt the clouds of sin and sadness

Drive the dark of doubt away

Giver of immortal gladness,

Fill us with the light of day

All Thy works with joy surround Thee

Earth and heaven reflect Thy rays

Stars and angels sing around Thee

Center of unbroken praise

Field and forest, vale and mountain

Flowery meadow, flashing sea

Chanting bird and flowing fountain

Call us to rejoice in Thee

Thou art giving and forgiving

Ever blessing, ever blest

Well-spring of the joy of living

Ocean depth of happy rest!

Thou our Father, Christ our Brother

All who live in love are Thine

Teach us how to love each other

Lift us to the joy divine

Mortals, join the happy chorus

Which the morning stars began

Father love is reigning o’re us

Brother love binds man to man

Ever singing, march we onward

Victors in the midst of strife

Joyful music leads us sun-ward

In the triumph song of life

The Season of Joy

"It’s the most wonderful time of the year"… "Tis the season to be jolly, fa la la la la, la la la la"…"Have a holly, jolly, Christmas it’s the best time of the year"…"A very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Let’s hope it’s a good one without any fear" even the songs of the season that are not about the actual birth and celebration of Jesus contain lyrics of hope and joy and gladness. It’s inherent. Mankind longs to be free, to be whole; to wake up in the mornings feeling complete, like it is going to be a good day without fear and full of hope and joy.

But we look around at the real world in which we live and what we see with our eyes, what we experience with our relationships, what we are going through with our health, what we hear with our ears on the evening news doesn’t seem very capable of providing that place of hope, joy, and completeness. So we look forward to Christmastime with the anticipation reflected in the children singing the opening song from A Charlie Brown Christmas, “Christmas time is here. Happiness and cheer.” We hope. But even with hope being a good thing, I believe as a whole, our hope has been placed into what has become as the “season” of Christmas.

When the angel of the Lord appeared in front of the shepherds in the hills around Bethlehem two thousand years ago this was the message they heard: “Don’t be afraid. I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. The Savior – yes, the Messiah, the Lord – has been born today in Bethlehem.” (Luke 2:10-11) No fear? Good news? Great joy to all people? This is the stuff our Christmas songs long for!

But even more is the actual news, the event to which the announcement of and the anticipated hope for couldn’t compare, was that the Savior, the Messiah was here – born on earth! The Greek word here for Messiah is Christos which means “anointed one” referring to the coming of the Savior from the line of David as God had promised centuries earlier.

Luke, who was not Jewish, wrote the account of Jesus standing in the synagogue and proclaiming his purpose: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.” (Luke 4:18-19) As the “Good News” spread beyond the culture of the Jews and into the cities of the Gentile’s  the name Messiah was used less and less and the Greek word Christos began to be used more; Christ – Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Lord, the Savior, the promised one who would bring great joy to all people. This, this is the real stuff of the season of Christmas lore! The event. The person. The Son of God come to be among us as one of us to show that a right relationship with God (peace between us who were disobedient and God’s wrath against that disobedience) can be accomplished.

 “Christ is the visible image of the invisible God” and “God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ.” (Colossians 1:15, 19) Christ, Jesus, the baby in the manger, the Savior born in Bethlehem as the prophets wrote about, God loved us so much that he sent him to be born a human just like the rest of us and God, according to his faithfulness and promise to fix our broken relationship with him, chose to live in Christ while he was here as a man with flesh and blood.  It wasn’t because Jesus is the Son of God that God chose to live in him; it was because he chose not to sin and walk with God that God chose to live in him. It pleased God to do this. Jesus was modeling it for us in the flesh! God, in all his fullness, God, omnipotent, omnipresent, all encompassing and all consuming God chose to show us that it can be done! All of him can live in me! I need nothing else! There is nothing else I can find to fill the emptiness or calm the fear or fill with joy other than the fullness of God living in me! This, this, brings the season of joy for all people! This is what we long for!

So the next Christmas season song you hear, whether it says anything about the birth and event of Christ or not, let it remind you that the shepherds that heard the angels’ message that night near Bethlehem could have skipped with real joy all the way to town to see this amazing thing singing, Fa la la la la, la la la La!!!! Because it really is the season of joy! 

Real Life

In Wisconsin, along with preparing for Thanksgiving and the holiday season comes the annual gun deer season. Many a conversation around the Thanksgiving feast inevitably begins with, “Did you get your deer?” I’ve begun answering with the cliché that it’s called “hunting” and not “getting” for a reason and it’s the getting away and not the getting that is valuable to me. Pretty good excuses anyway. The trophy wall I can see in my mind of the ones that got away from me over the years is pretty impressive but it still doesn’t discourage me from heading to the woods each year with family to share and laugh and tell stories and dream a little.

I get lots of time to think too. To appreciate, to prioritize, to evaluate, to pray and to hear from the Lord in those quiet times; it’s a time to hit the reset button in my mind, my heart, and my life. I have begun looking for more than deer while out there too. In the beginning, God created man from the dust of the ground out in the wilderness and then made a garden and placed him in that cultivated and groomed place. I believe there is a time for doing the work a man is given and a time for adventuring out into the wilderness for a closer look at the big picture of life – even deer season has become more than about deer for me!

While out in the woods walking with my father, we came upon a cedar swamp with full grown trees rooted in the rotted stumps of their predecessors. You could see that the former trees were once huge and had been logged off a long time ago. The sun rays were shining through the branches; you could smell the cedar in the air, and we both looked at these new trees coming out of the cut-off stumps and thought the same thing – that it looks exactly like what God had said about Christ coming though the lineage of David as king but it would stop there and a new thing would begin; the very thing God had been up to all along.

It is found in the book of Isaiah 11:1-4 Out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot – yes, a new Branch bearing fruit from the old root. And the Spirit of the Lord will rest upon him – the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. He will delight in obeying the Lord. He will not judge by appearance nor make a decision based on hearsay. He will give justice to the poor and make fair decisions for the exploited.

Well, this made me think about my own life too. How many of us feel like we’ve been cut down at some point in life, or wounded in a way that hinders us from growing? Oh, it may have been a hurt from a friend, or a loss, or a dream that was crushed, or a disappointment, or our own sinfulness. Our kids may not be doing what we thought they would be doing, our parents may need us more than we can find time for, our bills may be piling up, or our retirement shrinking due to the current economic situation. We pray, we give, we do church, and we say we believe, we claim faith, we keep on keeping on with what we should be doing to be counted among the faithful, but it sometimes seems like it’s going nowhere. I submit that we are getting good at putting on spiritual clothes and walking around playing the role of a Christian, or Jesus followers, but when it gets down to the reality of it all we are finding it difficult to apply it to the life we have right in front of us every day. I am thinking we are getting our walking around this earth life mixed up with our real life!

Here’s the missing piece: 2 Corinthians 5:17 “…those who become Christians become new persons. They are not the same anymore, for the old life is gone. A new life has begun!” Paul also said that we died when Christ died, and our real life is hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3). I can see my old life as that stump, the stump is still there – anyone can see it; but my real life that is by Christ is a new tree growing healthy and alive the way he wants it growing because it comes from his life.

So, I’m looking at the old, rotted, cut down stump of a cedar tree that was once healthy and vibrant and growing. The old stump then became a place for the new tree to take root and begin a new life of its own. And if I were to apply that to my own life I can see that as a Christian I am no longer supposed to continue the old life but begin a new life. I am still me, I still have the same dreams and skills and circumstances as before but they are a place for the new life that comes with Christ to take root and make the new life I can live. “I am crucified with Christ. I myself no longer live, but Christ lives in me. So I live my life in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:19b-20)

Flowers vs. Cacti

The old saying, ‘You catch more flies with honey than vinegar’ is similar to what I’m thinking. 

Nobody wants to be around a cactus person, someone who is all prickly and hard to get close to; we like flower people, all pretty and they smell nice. I was saying this the other day and someone said to me that the prophets were all prickly so that set the example for Christians today…implying we have to be course and tough and hard and, well, prickly in order to separate ourselves from people who do not believe in Christ and to get our point across. It’s scary to me what that whole mindset points to. I chose to be a flower person and just walk away.

Jesus said that all the prophets were until John (Luke 16:16) and all they did and all they wrote pointed to him (John 5:39). He said he came to proclaim God’s favor for all of us who were poor, blind, captive, and oppressed (Luke 4:18-19). It’s a new day and a new way from him forward. No demands, no judgment, no condemnation, no finger pointing – no more prickly. 

His message of God’s favor was not a behavioral alignment with the laws of Moses that the Jews had assumed were the very “truths” of God (Mark 7:6-8); but a fulfillment of what behavioral adherence could NOT do – heal the hurts, repair the brokenness, remove the darkness, and forgive the sin of the human heart (Matthew 5:17). He came preaching and teaching that the sorrow we experience when we realize that dysfunction in our hearts is the Holy Spirit at work drawing us to the Father (John 6:44). He taught us that repentance isn't a bad thing but the very thing God is looking for (Luke 18:10-14)! That message, that we are ALL sinners in need of repentance, made him prickly cacti only to the religious leaders who thought they had all the answers. They continually prodded Jesus for an alignment from him to the way they stood up for the “truth” of their religion. They were so blind to what the “truth” really was that they couldn't even define who their neighbor was so they could fulfill their own idea of what the “law” or, “truth” as they saw it demanded of them (Luke 10:29-37).

Jesus turned the demand for behavioral alignment upside down and pointed to the human heart and our actions in a different way. When asked out of all the commandments and demands of the religious law which one is the greatest (which one should we really concentrate on to align with), his reply was to love God with all our heart and soul and mind and our neighbors as ourselves (Matthew 22:36-40) No prickly, no demands, just options and opportunity.

Instead of demanding alignment he paved the way for people to begin living with the Spirit of God in them. To see themselves and their neighbors as God sees them. That Spirit would reveal and direct them through and out of their sin and into a fullness of life never available through self justification from having believed certain things or even doing certain things. And some of that revealing takes time – it doesn't always happen overnight.

I believe we as a church (Branches in particular) need to assume this very same attitude that Christ had. LET THE HOLY SPIRIT DO HIS WORK! We want the people who do not have Jesus’ forgiveness and healing and life to find it but what are we doing about it? I believe the root of our anemic and powerless effectiveness in our culture is because we haven't experienced that godly sorrow, repentance, forgiveness and healing of our hearts fully ourselves. Oh, we do church, we sing songs, we pray, we give to the cause, we believe, we feel secure in our faith; but what are we actually doing about it? The role of the church in the dark world is not to turn on the light to condemn sin and godlessness, but to share how he has brought us out of that darkness into his light and life.

At Branches Church we want to be able to come as we are and continue our faith journey from there. That is available for everyone – gay or straight, rich or poor, greedy or generous, lustful or faithful, believing or unbelieving, addicted or clean, single or married, pro-life or pro-choice, citizen or alien, employed or unemployed, receiving welfare or self-sustaining, able to forgive or not able to forgive, loving or hateful, trusting or skeptical, all need to be able to start or continue their faith journey from where they are at without judgment or condemnation or prickly demands from God’s people so that the Holy Spirit can do his work in all of us. That means we have to accept people as they are and let them journey forward in their faith just like Christ allowed us to do when we first came to know him (or like the apostle said, rather, now that he knows us).

Is there definable sin? Yes. But that revelation and awareness comes from the Holy Spirit – not the church. You may say that people will not know if we don’t tell them. The only way I am going to listen to you tell me how you see, say, greed in my life and I need to repent of it is if you have earned my trust or friendship. This is what I mean when I say ‘what are we doing about it?’ We can say this is a sin or that is a sin all day long and we all can find a million ways to justify it or reason it out or redefine it so that it isn't.  But when the Holy Spirit reveals it to us, and a friend is there to help us through it using God’s word to confirm what the Holy Spirit is doing and saying in our hearts (John 16:13-15) we can identify what it is and repent, forgiveness removes it from our lives, we are justified before God, and we become a new creature. (2 Corinthians 5:17) Another step in the journey has taken place without the church demanding a behavioral alignment on the outside that does nothing to change the life on the inside.

I believe we will see more people come into the Kingdom of God because of being flower people rather than being cactus people. James said it best: “If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don’t cover up the truth with boasting and lying. For jealously and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind. But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving. Gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere. And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness.” – James 3:13-18

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!