St. Patrick Presbyterian Church, Epc

God’s people have always lived and been forced to reckon with the mystery of the way God works. I keep thinking I will get to the end of it and figure out what God is up too. But alas, even at my age I sometimes feel like Clark Griswold in Christmas Vacation, when his cousin Eddie shows up and asks, “You surprised to see us, Clark?” And Clark replies, “Oh, Eddie, if I woke up tomorrow with my head sewn to the carpet I wouldn’t be more surprised than I am now.”  The book of Habakkuk forces us to ponder the mystery of God’s ways. Our problem is, we think we have a right to know how our lives, or the world, ought to go. We live limited by time and geography, in a spot the size of a pin head, in the world. We also have devices that keep up in real time to all the human atrocities in the world, and yet we have no agency to do anything about them. We’re left to wonder, “How can this be?” And yet, God sees the whole story from beginning to end, and he can see and orchestrate his grand plan to glorify himself by usin

We are not people who can endure silence very long. Trained by iPhones and text messaging, when we hit send, we expect to have a reply immediately. The expected time for response to a message is very short and, if we don’t hear back from one of our loved ones, it is not long before we panic. What if something happened? They must have had a wreck? Maybe they are ignoring me? In our instant message world, we meet silence with panic.  Now historically, this was not true. Before cell phones, people didn’t assume the worse if they didn’t hear back from you immediately. Silence from a communication sent usually took a lot longer before panic set in. When Teri and I were dating long distance, over forty years ago, silence before a letter or a phone call communication was measured in days. Now, if I text her a question and she doesn’t answer in a few hours, panic sets in.  But what if heaven is silent? What if we pray and pray and we hear no word of comfort or assurance, and the overwhelming evidence around us is tha

This week our staff spent time at Mallard’s Croft in Byhalia, living into the vision of St. Patrick and dreaming of what’s next. We stayed in the 100-year-old manor house, laughing, praying, cooking, pondering, and feasting together. This retreat is a tradition we started several years ago as a way of celebrating the past year and strategically looking ahead at how to best accomplish our goals. It can be easy for anyone to forget how rare and special their situation is, so these opportunities to stop and savor together are a precious remembering that leads to greater unity and hunger for more and better. I have to say, we are having a blast saturating our neighborhoods with feasting families who tell a better story by setting tables of God’s grace for the lonely.  In light of both the previous and coming sermon series, we began our time together considering the first verse of Habakkuk. No one knows much about Habakkuk the prophet outside of the “oracle” he saw. Sounds a bit like science fiction, right? Actual

For the past five weeks, we have been looking at words that float around our community—words like “saturate,” “feasting families,” and “telling a better story.” Words matter. They not only articulate realities, but they shape reality. From the day we are born, we are awash in a sea of words that inform us and form us. I have always watched in wonder as my seven children learned to speak with words and am still amazed as Addison tries on new words to express not only her wonder at reality, but also her displeasure.  Any community that exists—large or small, institution or family, team or club—develops a vocabulary that is unique to them and which expresses the things it values the most. If you are a stranger walking into a new gathering of friends, you quickly realize that they have a unique way of expressing both delight and displeasure—sayings, quotes, nicknames and common stories that have shaped the group. This is true of believing communities, as well—because we share not only the common vocabulary of “th

Eugene Peterson called stories “acts of verbal hospitality.” He was rightly suggesting that when we use narrative to illustrate a concept, we're allowing people to walk around a bit inside our ideas, to inhabit and feel what we're saying instead of merely thinking about it. The words become flesh, and dwell among us. Sure, I could write you an essay about how incarceration forces you to find ways to thrive in a small space, or I could hand you Amor Towles’ modern classic, A Gentleman in Moscow. I think I know what the best bet is for encouraging empathy. The stories told in most families are a kind of propaganda,” claims Dan Allender. Whether consciously curated or not, our community’s treasury of stories codifies the culture. That’s good if the culture is healthy, and it's bad if it’s not. By picking and choosing what tales are repeated, embellished and celebrated, we reinforce the values and self-image we hold precious. So, too, when we allow other events and eras to remain hidden and forgotten, they become

Loneliness is not just an American problem, but also a global issue. Recent studies suggest that 40% of the world’s population feel lonely. The situation in Britain was such that Prime Minister Theresa May in 2018 appointed a Ministry of Loneliness. In our own context in America, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy published an advisory identifying loneliness as a new public health epidemic: “Our epidemic of loneliness and isolation has been an underappreciated public health crisis that has harmed individual and societal health.” Yea, loneliness will kill you. The body does keep score and, because we are made in God’s image, it means that being alone is not the way we are supposed to live. So odious to God is this idea of being alone that even in the perfect world, before sin enters, God utters the first (and I say it reverently) “not good” about his creation—and it is against aloneness. As if to highlight the idea that to be human is to be in relationship with others, where we know and are known. It is a powerful p

One of the things I know for certain is that we are more shaped by stories than anything else. I grew up in a home that was Christian, with deep roots in the stoical South. My early communities were more stoical than Christian but I saw and heard much the same thing. They were about Jesus and hard work, in that order. The men around me emphasized working hard and playing hurt. If hurt, we didn’t cry but “rubbed dirt on it” and “plowed to the end of the row.” We thought pleasure was suspicious and we were more virtuous when we were suffering. That shaped my early life more than anything I ever got from school or a textbook.  Along the way, when I really got to know the Author of the story personally and realized that he really liked me (even when I was not so good), it was like breathing rarified air. When a community of people took me by the hand and said, "Look! Taste and see, the glory of God is playing all around you!”, it felt like I was getting closer to the great Story we read about in the Bible.  I say

As I write this at 11:40 am, my attention is being hijacked by hunger. The discomfort and distraction in my tummy shouting: “you cannot ignore me.” I don’t even have a plan for lunch right now, but I know I’m craving hot wings again, and I won’t be sitting here for much longer. Like all other pains, hunger is designed to move living things to action. When a human senses any kind of pain, he or she has a few choices. We can anesthetize – pop a pill and move on with our day. The problem with this approach is that pain doesn’t exist for itself, but points to a need that must be addressed. So, the gift of anesthetics can often become the equivalent of unplugging a fire alarm and expecting the smoke to clear.  Another approach is to acclimate to the pain. This tactic sees pain as an unavoidable thing that must be adopted into our normal experience until we develop a tolerance for it. The problem here is the same: merely another way of ignoring reality. Imagine convincing yourself that the fire alarm is just the ca

Well, it is August. I don’t like August. In my opinion, it is up there with May on the list of worst months of the year. It is all transition—going from the more laid back, catch your breath, travel, long dinners late into the night lifestyle… to getting children ready for school and dealing with the expense, meetings, and preparation necessary to get back in more predictable rhythms and structure. Here at St. Patrick, we are also gearing up. My calendar is so jammed, I mistakenly thought I was out of town for the Burger Bash (which I missed last year because I was on Sabbatical). I only realized it when I scheduled Teri’s birthday dinner for this Sunday and got a text from my daughter Bethan, asking me if I was skipping it! So, realizing I was not out of town after all, I quickly met with my group and started conditioning my Blackstone for some delicious Smash Burgers. As we transition, we begin a new sermon series this Sunday called Saturate. During August, we will be preaching on various aspects of our vis

Over and over in the Bible, the idea of a great banquet or feast is used as a metaphor of the blessing, joy, and abundance of salvation. However, as we close out Proverbs, there are two feasts set before us—a feast of wisdom and a feast of folly. Both the architecture and ethos of the feasts almost immerse us in the taste, texture, and outcome of the tables we inhabit.  Solomon ends his primer on wisdom with an either/or proposition: two ways, two feasts, two outcomes. It is interesting that the invitation to both is the same to the simple and unlearned. This should not surprise us—we all start out as fools and are placed in the drama of life either by the wisdom or the foolishness of others. We are needy creatures, and everyone is inviting us to a way of life that offers satisfaction. But, as Solomon points out, the paths part; and we are asked to look beyond the surface of things into the deeper meaning of reality and what it means to be human.  Join us Sunday as we wrap up, The Book of Suburbs, and seek to

The church culture I grew up in was of the more legalistic branch. It is not that I am ungrateful —because of that experience, there has never been a day I didn’t know the gospel. However, it had its own set of proverbs and wisdom which could be summed up like this, “We don’t drink and we don’t chew and we don’t go with girls that do.” That is representative of how we tried to defeat sin in our lives. What we did was locate evil in a thing and abstain from it. We had long lists of them. As if lists and legalism can curb desire. The logic was simple—abused things like dancing, drinking, sex, money, and certain types of dress were put on a list of things that were sinful. You can see, we had no ascetic, no view of beauty or pleasure. Heck, if it was pleasurable, it must be sinful! But that was our view of holiness. Money was on the list. If you had too much, it must be ill-gotten gain. Which brings us to our subject matter for this Sunday—wealth and all things related to wealth. There are about 150 proverbs on

As I approach my fortieth birthday at the end of this summer, I’m haunted by Moses’ observation in Psalm 90, that a man is lucky to live to eighty. In the best scenario, that calculus puts me at midlife having officially missed my opportunity to get a tattoo without people assuming I’m suffering some sort of crisis. (Which I most certainly am, but I don’t want anyone to know, so please keep that between us.) It’s really not so much the tattoo. It’s that I ran out of time to outdo John Steinbeck’s writing The Grapes of Wrath before he was this age.  I’ve been asking some friends and family at the more extreme ends of the journey a few questions as I reflect on what wisdom there is for folks contemplating their mortality. “What’s the best thing about being your age?” One teen said, “freedom and no bills” and I felt the envy rise in my increasingly lactose intolerant gut. From the more seasoned, I got answers like, “Seeing my kids become adults and getting to spoil grandkids. Finally having some perspective. Fin

There's a beautiful map in my office that, to be honest, is there because we didn't really have anywhere in the house to put it. It's a bit peculiar. It's obviously hand-drawn and ancient, with vivid color and great detail. It looks kind of like a Lord of the Rings map. The labels all use our same alphabet, but the accent marks and strange words show that it's clearly in a different language.  When people visit my office, the more curious of them look at the map expecting to be able to figure it out. It usually starts with them saying, "Oooh, cool map. Don't tell me where it is." "OK," I say. "Let me know if you need a hint." Then their eyes scan it, seeing somewhat familiar features but still unable to lock it in. Almost without exception people need the hint, and after I tell them, everything clicks. "North is down," I say. Cue the sigh of dawning realization and the recognition of Italy's upside-down boot and the Iberian peninsula sticking up like a flag in the Atlantic. It's called the Veltkarte Des Idris

A new office meant blank walls in need of decoration. And that terrifies me. Not the blankness of the wall, but the infinite number of decorations from which to choose. Paralyzed by the options, I went with a quote wall that I could change as often as I’d like. My life after all, feels like a collection of quotes. Most of our dialogue around the house is a mixture of quotes from The Office, Parks and Rec, and Arrested Development. I considered filling my walls with some of the best: “His capa was detated from his body.” “Treat yo self!” “There’s always money in the banana stand.” But they were so deeply in my soul already that I didn’t need them on my walls. So I went with some meaningful quotes from some of the greats instead.Hanging behind my desk is a fitting quote for this season from John Calvin: "The whole world is a theatre for the display of the divine goodness, wisdom, justice and power, but the church is the orchestra, as it were, the most conspicuous part of it." If you’ve ever enjoyed a quality mu

The house next to mine stands empty. The family who dwelt there for the past four or so years – with whom we shared meals and celebrations, tools and toys – will be replaced by another very soon. For us, neighbors are not easily interchangeable units, but a special relationship. Yet before we allow ourselves to hope or fear who may next reside at our east, we take stock: Were we good neighbors? Did we represent Christ well to them? Treat them with dignity and honor beyond what simple good manners and the HOA covenant might demand? I hope so. At least I believe their assessment of us would be generous, were we to hand them an exit survey. Still, I wish I’d loved them better.  Scripture’s command to love our neighbors does, of course, mean more than just the people you share fences and streets with – but it certainly doesn’t mean less than that! The way we treat the people whose properties touch our own is actually a pretty reliable indicator of the way we treat all other people. Not that we have to become frie

Earlier today our new youth pastor Greg quipped, “12 years ago I went from being a dog trainer to a youth pastor and honestly… not much changed.” That was just the reminder I needed as I’ve been preparing to join over forty of our middle schoolers and leaders in Chattanooga next week for a conference called The Edge. Before we head out, you’ll hear me talk on Sunday about a dear friend I made while learning the ropes of youth ministry 20 years ago, and the profound impact he made on my spiritual journey. Shepherding teens may be a frenetic firestorm, but there was something about that foxhole that forged a fast and formative friendship between otherwise night-and-day personalities.  That has me thinking about how things have changed since I was making friends in my teens and early twenties. We did have the internet, but it was still an amendment to our analog lives, not the all-encompassing platform it has become. Phones didn’t do much of anything but call, or sometimes text very slowly at a rate per characte

This summer we are in the book of Proverbs and calling it, The Book of Suburbs. That is, how do we subvert the wisdom of the place we find ourselves. I happen to like the suburbs—I have lived there most of my life. But the problem is, there are many assumptions about living in the suburbs that will deform our souls so that we will live as lesser creatures than God intended and never know the true thriving and abundant life Jesus talks about, if we do not ruthlessly question everything.            This week we are talking about how to get wisdom or training in wisdom. As my title suggests, wisdom is like a school we attend—it is a long, slow process. Everything about gaining wisdom for living life well is counter-intuitive to what we are immersed in daily. We can’t get wisdom or power through technique. We can’t push a button, we can’t take a pill, nor can we go to a weekend seminar. The dream of our age is power without effort, influence without engagement with real people, and everything we need to know stuf

This summer we are considering the book of Proverbs. Why are we doing that, you might ask. Fair question. The title of our sermon series is called, The Book of Suburbs, as in: Because this is the place we find ourselves, how do we pull back the veil and really see what it is about our place that de-forms us. Proverbs is the true book of how to live and thrive in the suburbs by actually subverting the status quo and telling a better story of human thriving.  Strangely, in order to live well and love God, love people, and love life in our context (or any context, for that matter), we need more than Bible knowledge because the truth is that 90% of the decisions we make on a daily basis are not covered with a chapter and verse in the Bible. Think about it—the things that have vexed my soul throughout my life are questions for which there is no clear direction from the Bible. Things like: What is the best ministry context to use my gifts so that there is mutual thriving between pastor and people? What do I do when

Eleven years ago this weekend, Pentecost Sunday fell on May 27. I know this because Allie and I were expecting our second daughter and she decided to come before her due date. This is why I had to surprise my intern at 6 am with the news that he would be leading music in multiple massive services with no advance warning on his first day. He muttered utterances under his breath which I assume were “tongues” in the Spirit of the Holiday. Then I got in my car and headed to the hospital. Our church was on the cutting edge of livestreaming for those days, so we were able to watch the service unfold from our labor and delivery room. Andrew did a stunning job, providing sufficient evidence to support a theory I’m still musing on to this day: as far as my work goes, I am very replaceable.  I cannot help but think of the reported final words of the late Dr. Timothy J. Keller, a personal hero of mine and legend in modern pastoral work. As my ministry friends and I watched our Twitter feeds last week for updates, we des

Seafaring stories have long captured the imagination, and the Bible is no different. People might appear like gods walking on the firmness of Earth, but put them in even the largest ship on the vastness of the ocean and suddenly they seem small. Even the hubris that surrounded the Titanic, the “unsinkable” ship, was found wanting against the uncontrollable forces of wind and wave.             So, of course, we find Paul caught up in a seafaring tale that includes a harrowing dance with death and a dramatic shipwreck. From a literary perspective, Acts 27 is gripping—you can feel the hurricane-like wind that rips them from the safety of the lee side of the island and sets them adrift in the wine-darkened sea, heading helplessly into only God knows where. You can see panicked sailors scrambling up the mast to reef the mainsail, lash cables around the beam, and drop sea anchors into the water to keep the ship from running too fast with the waves. You can feel a ship that is doomed. It feels like something I have