Planting Seeds of Faith

by Robert Rynders on October 19, 2011

in Christianity

Not too long ago, blogger and author Rachel Held Evans posted a short, but wonderful piece titled “I Don’t Want an Easy Faith.” In the post she writes:

I want a faith that takes risks, that asks questions, that experiments, that evolves, that thrives amidst change and obeys amidst doubt. I want a faith that engages both my heart and my head, a faith that operates out of love, not fear, a faith that leaps when it needs to and crawls when it has to.

I thought these were great reflections on the complexity and difficulty, but also the novelty and wonder of what it means to have faith. Rachel’s piece was posted just around the time that we came to the parable of the sower this fall, during our study of Luke :

Luke 8:4-15

When a great crowd gathered and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable: ‘A sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell on the path and was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up. Some fell on the rock; and as it grew up, it withered for lack of moisture. Some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew with it and choked it. Some fell into good soil, and when it grew, it produced a hundredfold.’ As he said this, he called out, ‘Let anyone with ears to hear listen!’

Then his disciples asked him what this parable meant. He said, ‘To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God; but to others I speak in parables, so that

“looking they may not perceive,

and listening they may not understand.”

‘Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. The ones on the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. The ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe only for a while and in a time of testing fall away… 

It’s interesting to read this parable and think about where we fall amongst Jesus’ analogies. Did we not even try and risk that relationship with God? Or did we try it out, but maybe something didn’t click or it seemed too difficult or demanding, and we drifted away? Then there is the category that many of us probably fall into:

 As for what fell among the thorns, these are the ones who hear; but as they go on their way, they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.
Maybe we take our faith seriously, however, it’s difficult to develop and be active in our faith because of the competing interests in our lives. We may find some occasional reward from faith, it may make a difference in our lives, yet we eventually end up back in a comfortable space and routine which allows our faith to dwindle.Of course, the goal is to fall  into Jesus’ final category:

But as for that in the good soil, these are the ones who, when they hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance.

Take note of the phrase “patient endurance.” Jesus is not looking for one time believers. He is looking to build a movement and he wants people who are in it for the long haul. Indeed, this is the type of faith that is the hardest yet most rewarding. It comes with its own challenges and is not built overnight.

I’m training to run my second half marathon. My goal is to finish the 13.1 mile race averaging 10 minute miles. When I started training for my first race last year, I could barely jog to the end of my block. At one point I was able to run 6 miles without stopping, but then I got distracted around the holidays and lost some of my fitness. I made it through the race, though my fitness was not where it should have been. I literally stumbled across the finish line because my calves were cramping so badly.

This year I vowed to do better and my training started off great. By the beginning of September I was down to 12 minute miles. Then I got sick. Really, really, sick and couldn’t train for almost three weeks. I’ve been back on the program for awhile now; however, when I first started back I was running slower than I was before I got sick. I was really discouraged and thought about just giving up. Then I realized that, well duh, this is a marathon, not a sprint. Despite the setbacks, I needed to regroup and keep my eye on the goal I set for myself. I needed to learn how to endure through the struggles, roadblocks, and setbacks. And I’m actually a stronger runner for it. I started training again; however, I started slower, stopped worrying about how fast I was going and just focused on sticking to my training schedule, without over doing it. Now, I’m just about back to where I want to be and can feel myself getting stronger and faster. I know there will probably be more setbacks, but I also know that no matter what, I can work hard to get back to where I want to be and crossing that finish line is going to be worth it.

On the journey of faith, life will throw everything it has at us and we can choose to let it overwhelm us or we can choose to see faith as a marathon, not a sprint. We can let those seeds of life that God gives us be swept away, we can refuse to allow them to take root, we can let them be choked out by all those things that distract us, and destroy the life within us.

OR

We can open ourselves to a life with God through Christ. We can take that risk and be a part of a movement to change the world. We can take those seeds of life and nurture them within us through prayer, community, study, worship, and service. However, we also have to be planters, with God, of these seeds throughout the world. We must plant seeds of love, peace, and forgiveness, and nurture those seeds so they too may grow and bear fruit.

When we are open to faith we are willing to risk a relationship with God, a relationship that needs to be nurtured and cared for, a relationship that others will try to ruin, a relationship that will suffer challenges and setbacks. However, God sows these seeds of faith in us and they grow in us like new life, offering transformation, renewal, healing, opportunity, and possibility. A faith that bears fruit is one that leads us to a better life and ultimately, to a better world. These are rewards that make the struggles, challenges, and setbacks of faith well worth it.

 

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National Coming Out Day

by Robert Rynders on October 11, 2011

in Christianity, Religion

Post image for National Coming Out Day

This past Sunday, our youngest son was baptized, by our bishop, at North Scottsdale United Methodist Church. After the baptism, Rev. Nancy Cushman, the senior pastor at NSUMC delivered a powerful sermon about what it means for the Church to affirm God’s love for us. She talked about the recent suicide of a teen who, for years, had been constantly bullied, because he was gay. Nancy pointed out that it isn’t a secret that the church is not a safe place for LGBTQ teens (or adults for that matter). Instead, it is celebrities like Lady Gaga and TV shows, like Glee, that confer love, value and affirmation on these teens. It’s embarrassing any time the Church takes a back seat to pop culture, however, it is especially deplorable that, regardless of where we fall on this issue, the Church is often the last place to tell these teens that God loves them, they don’t deserve to be bullied, and that their lives matter.

This is not a Church I want either of my sons to grow up in. This is not a Church where its leaders, including myself, can choose to remain neutral or silent on the issue of bullying.

Recently, a college student came out to me, and when he did, he admitted that I was one of the last and hardest people to come out to. Even though he knew that I would love and support him, and that our ministry would do the same, he still felt like the Church was not a safe place to be the person he truly is. That moment was truly heartbreaking for me and made me realize that even when we think we are inclusive, we may not be doing enough to show that we are serious about it.

There are a lot of people who disagree with me on this issue and I realize there’s not much I can do to convince them otherwise, however, there are a lot of folks out there who are afraid to speak out in support of the full inclusion of LGBTQ folks in the church. It’s to those folks that I challenge to make your faith community a safe place for all people, a place where people know that they are loved by God. And to my brothers and sisters who are struggling with coming out: I hope and pray, that one day, the Church will be one of the first and safest places you can share about being the person God created you to be. Until then, we must continue the struggle to truly make the Church a place for all people.

Congratulations to all those who made the brave decision to come out, today. May we all be as brave to love and embrace you, just as wonderfully as God loves and embraces you, exactly as you are.

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Leaving Your Church to Follow Jesus

by Robert Rynders on October 6, 2011

in Christianity, Ministry, Theology

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Have you ever had to leave something you love? Sometimes we don’t have a choice in the matter. For some reason we are forced to uproot because of a conflict, a job, family situation or a crisis. Some people are forced from their homes and loved ones by violence or political situations.

Over the past few years I have paid particular attention to those students who are undocumented citizens and are attending college. These students came here with their parents at a very young age and it wasn’t until they were teenagers that they realized they weren’t even citizens. I’ve met some of these students who are aspiring to be doctors, lawyers, teachers, artists, and non-profit directors. Many of them only remember Arizona as their home. Some students in similar situations, however, are facing the threat of deportation and some of them have already been deported.

In a recent article published by Arizona State University, a graduate student reported the results of her research on the effects on undocumented Mexican children when they are sent back to Mexico from their home in the US. She found that even if these children are accepted into their extended family, they are often ridiculed, rejected, and bullied at school, even by the administration. They are not seen as Mexican, but as American.

Leaving your home, your family, your friends, your comfort zone is one of the most painful things to do, especially when you don’t have a choice in the matter.

This brings us to Luke 5:1-11:

Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, ‘Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.’ Simon answered, ‘Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.’ When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signalled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!’ For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.’ When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.

In this scripture passage, the disciples experience something with Jesus that is so powerful, they would voluntarily leave everything and devote their lives to him and call him Lord. They are not being forced, but invited, to be a part of a new movement, a new community that would proclaim the coming of a new kingdom on earth. Can you imagine some guy coming up to you at work and saying, “Hey I’m about to change the world forever, how about you drop everything and help me do that?”

For me this call to discipleship came while sitting on the edge of a mesa in southern Utah, watching the sunset. I was reflecting on the summer I was spending working on the Ute reservation working with suburban church youth groups repairing homes on the reservation. While sitting there, all of the sudden, the stories and teachings of Jesus made sense. Jesus wasn’t calling me to go to church every Sunday. He was calling me to serve and to be part of a movement to change the world.

We follow Jesus so that one day we no longer have to live in a world where people are forced from their homes and their families, whether that be undocumented college students or those escaping famine and violence in the Horn of Africa, or anyone else affected by similar situations. Many of us who are called to follow Jesus have the luxury and privilege to make decisions that will radically change our lives. We can choose to leave the things we love for something bigger, to give our lives for God and for others, however, we are rarely forced to. This is perhaps the biggest cost of discipleship. However, it may also be the biggest privilege of discipleship and it comes with a huge responsibility.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been reading the blog posts from Shaun King, a successful new church start pastor who had everything going for him, until he realized that what he was doing wasn’t about making disciples, it was about putting butts in pews. So, he quit.

In his post titled “3 Extremely Hard-Earned (Trust me) Lessons on Starting Something New, Change and Discipleship,” King writes:

Few disciples of Jesus Christ actually exist in the world.

I’m not even saying I am one and nobody else is. I have to fight the battle for my own discipleship daily. What I am saying is that church attendance, Sunday morning services, sermon-listening (or even sermon preaching), song-singing, hand-clapping, amen-saying and all of the things that “Christ-ians” have lifted up so high look so little like Christ himself that I am utterly convinced that we are completely off base with what discipleship means.

Considering all of this, I think I have given up on church as I knew it. Big buildings. Huge crowds. Few disciples. I’m not with it. It’s inefficient and just doesn’t feel right with my soul. This is not a rejection of big buildings or huge crowds, but an indictment on how few disciples are being made in the process of it all. A better way has to exist.

To me this is a Jesus calling the disciples moment. How much courage must it take to walk away from something the American Church sees as extremely successful, because that thing you created has nothing to do with Jesus or being a disciple?

I think we have to ask ourselves: Do we have what it takes to leave what is safe and comfortable to join Jesus on a journey of discipleship, a journey where we proclaim good news, liberation, healing, a new social order to a broken and hurting world?  Are we willing to take a risk to leave “business as usual,” behind and start something new, something that looks, feels, and sounds more like the type of discipleship that Jesus is calling us to? If Jesus came up to you on a Sunday morning while you were sitting in your seat waiting for worship to start and said, “follow me, let’s leave this place forever,” what would you do?

The question and perhaps even the answer, many of us would give, is terrifying.

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Jesus the Messiah: It’s Not What You Think

by Robert Rynders on September 22, 2011

in Christianity, Sermons, Theology

This fall I have been asking students in our ministry the question “Who is Jesus?” As we continue our journey through Luke, in this passage we see Jesus as liberator, healer and Messiah.

Luke 4:31-41 (NRSV)

He went down to Capernaum, a city in Galilee, and was teaching them on the sabbath. They were astounded at his teaching, because he spoke with authority. In the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, ‘Let us alone! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.’ But Jesus rebuked him, saying, ‘Be silent, and come out of him!’ When the demon had thrown him down before them, he came out of him without having done him any harm. They were all amazed and kept saying to one another, ‘What kind of utterance is this? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and out they come!’ And a report about him began to reach every place in the region.

After leaving the synagogue he entered Simon’s house. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked him about her. Then he stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. Immediately she got up and began to serve them.

As the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various kinds of diseases brought them to him; and he laid his hands on each of them and cured them. Demons also came out of many, shouting, ‘You are the Son of God!’ But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Messiah.

Here, Luke’s Jesus goes directly from proclaiming his mission statement to directly doing what he says he is going to do. He basically walks onto to the scene in Capernaum and he is immediately recognized by a demon, and then, later on in the story, more demons recognize him as the Messiah. Jesus, however, is concerned not only with exorcising these demons and healing the people they inhabited, but he is also concerned that these demons don’t give away who he is. Some biblical commentators and scholars suggest that this is because Jesus didn’t’ want people to get the wrong idea about his role as Messiah. In Jesus’ context, when most folks heard the term “Messiah,” they would have thought of a mighty military ruler coming to liberate society from its oppressive rulers through a violent battle. Jesus, however, already told us earlier in chapter four that this was not his mission. Jesus was coming as the Messiah who would bring liberation, healing, justice, and a new kingdom brought about, not through military victory, but through God’s love and forgiveness.

In this passage, Jesus is putting the forces of evil on notice, their ways of death and destruction are coming to an end. Jesus is proclaiming that God is doing something new and a new social order is about to be established. Jesus is not just proving who he is through these exorcisms, he is showing that he is serious about what he said he was going to do.

When Jesus comes into our lives, he shows us that God wants to set us free from the things that demonize or bind us, so we can become whole again. Jesus puts our own “demons” on notice that their time is short and that God is about to do something new and transformative in our lives.

Where do you need liberation and healing from the things that bind and demonize you in your life?

 

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Finding Your Mission Statement

by Robert Rynders on September 8, 2011

in Christianity, Theology

The beginning of a new school year has always seemed like a good time to get a fresh perspective on life. It’s a time to create a vision and dream of what the next year might look like in my life and ministry. A few weeks ago when our worship services started up I began a sermon series on the Gospel of Luke. I didn’t start at the beginning, however. Maybe I’m conditioned to but I feel like I can’t preach on the first few chapters of Luke until Advent arrives, and I can’t preach Jesus’s time in the wilderness until Lent. Go ahead; accuse me of being too closely tied to the liturgical calendar!

I started instead with the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Luke 4:16-21 states:

Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.

When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’

Jesus’ ministry in Luke begins with his quoting of Isaiah, which serves as Jesus’ mission statement. This mission that Jesus proclaims is evident throughout the rest of Luke’s gospel as Jesus teaches, heals, liberates, and indeed brings good news of God’s love and forgiveness to a hurting people.

Before Jesus headed out on the road to begin his ministry, he made his mission clear. I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately. It can be so easy for us to start something new with a clear mission and vision and an excitement for all the new things that will happen on our journey. Then, sometimes, we get comfortable, distracted, or discouraged. What was once such a clear vision now seems cloudy, uncertain, or too much effort to attain. This is the time when we need to go back and take a look at our own mission statement. What am I here to do? What are the guiding principles in my life? What is the reason I got myself into this mess in the first place?

I think it’s easy and safe to say that, “well, my mission is Jesus’ mission.” Yet, Jesus didn’t say that his mission was everyone’s mission but that his mission was going to usher in a new reality that would bring healing and wholeness to everyone.

And maybe that’s what we need if we have lost sight of our own mission. In order to get back on track maybe we need to take a step back and be healed, maybe we need to be liberated from something that binds us or holds us back from our own mission. Maybe we just need to be set free, to re-evaluate, restructure, and renew or mission statement.

I’ve being reading a lot of stuff lately that is pretty negative about what the Church has become and I’m really struggling with what the Church is, in practice, and the vision and mission of what the Church should be. So I’m taking a step back to look at my own mission as a follower as Christ, as a pastor, and as a husband and father. I’m not sure where it will end up; however, to guide me, I am putting my faith in the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, as seen through the lens of the writer of Luke. As I preach through Luke I hope to share the reflections of this journey, here.

So what’s your mission statement? How is it guiding your life? How are you struggling with it?

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Racing to Save Lives

by Robert Rynders on August 4, 2011

in Personal Stuff

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This week I have started training for the PF Changs 2012 Phoenix half marathon. This will be my second half marathon and while it is a great way to get in shape I am also doing it to raise money for cancer research. Back in 2009 my wife, Melissa, was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and thankfully, because of treatment, she will be two years cancer free in October! You can read the full story of how we found out about Melissa’s cancer by clicking here and about the day we found out the cancer was gone by clicking here. You can also click around throughout the family blog and read about her chemo and radiation treatments and lean about just how awesome my wife is.

If you would like to support my efforts this year, you can do one of two things: Your first option is to strap your running shoes on and join us in in January for a little 13.1 or 26.2 mile walk, jog, or run through Phoenix (contact me for more info on how to sign up) OR you can make a donation to Team in Training by clicking here and help fund cancer research, the same type of research that probably helped treat Melissa’s cancer and continues to save lives each year.

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