The button was hidden between two bricks, so she again called across the street. I walked over and showed her the button. I walked back across the street – she was doing this by herself! – and finally she rang the bell. Then waited.

And we waited too. Watching as Ivy began a new stage in life – her own and ours as parents. Another level of independence and relationship.

In that moment I recalled the thousands of times I rang my friend’s door and asked, “Can Devin come out to play?” (Or whatever friend I was seeking that day.) It was a centerpiece of my existence as a kid. Play began when I overcame any hesitation and sought it out…

Of course today I do not ask if so-and-so can come out and play. Gracious, I rarely ask anyone to do anything. I guess I am more like Ivy than I care to admit. A little scared to push the doorbell and ask… but maybe today I will.

Occasionally, Meg will leave me with the girls, and in those moments the survivability rate drops significantly. Thankfully so far everyone has made it through unscathed… at least physically. Mentally you are never sure what you have done to your children. Along the path they are certain to inform you of all your mistakes… but I would guess the proof is in their adult lives.

Sometimes this image of a parent is how folks view the pastor*. That my role is to raise the congregation into adulthood (I guess the image is moving you from babes craving pure spiritual milk – to communion blood drinking adults?**). And this is true in some sense. I am the shepherd of the congregation – guiding you. But my central goal is NOT to take you to adulthood. Instead I am more like someone who works at an adoption agency. My role is to connect you with parents. Or more specifically with your Father.

And unlike me, He has a pretty good survival rate…

_______________

* “how folks view the pastor” ~ I wonder how the church does envision the role of pastor. Of course we all can regurgitate Sunday School answers. But often our theology of words does not line up with our theological actions (like profess we should love our neighbor, but we actually gossip about them). I would guess the range would move from a low view (a cruise ship director or maybe an indentured servant) to a high view (sage with a special connection to God). Both are ridiculous…

** “blood drinking” ~ This sounds very vampire-esque, which should help the church’s appeal in the age of Twilight… My sister, a middle school teacher, told me about one of her students. The girl felt hot, as though she had a fever, and she convinced herself that she was becoming a werewolf (fever is the first sign in the twilight books – so I am told!). She sat telling the guidance counselor of her problem, how she was not sure what she would do when she turned…

During the market crash it looked like the end of the auto industry here in America. The Big Three gathered in Washington to beg for a bailout and everyone was scurrying from their stock shares. Of course when everyone else is running, that is the time to buy. So my dad, my brother, and I pooled our Christmas money to buy shares of Ford (the first time I ever bought stocks). Soon enough Chrysler and GM would declare bankruptcy, leaving their shares worthless. But Ford strove along, refusing bailout money. And this summer we sold for 16 dollars a share, which we purchased 2.

Of course it could have easily turned out the other way (we also bought Bank of America, which has been a roller coaster). The great risk petrifies most. Disables most or cause them to flee. But stuck we are left without the reward.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” - Mark Twain

Each of our girls has a 529 for college.** They are set to adjust the level of risk as the kids near college. Many retirement accounts are set up in similar manner. Of course as the risk decreases, so does the chance for reward. But this reflects the teeter-totter of our own life. We arrive into life filled with energy and passion – risk takers, but also foolish. Yet as our wisdom increases, our passion slowly wanes.

The passion of youth is foolish enough to believe all things possible. In some ways the young do not even know the risks they are taking. With age we become more aware. We also have more to lose (not just Christmas money!). As we learn the ebb and flow of life, we see the chances of success and the possibility of failure. And our wisdom becomes percentages. So we now ask, “Does the reward outweigh the risk?”, because we no longer believe that all things are possible…

This wisdom keeps us from a great many mistakes. We avoid failure. But we also trade away our chance for great victories. So our decisions are not based on the possibility of good, but on certainty of safety…

“To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself.” – Soren Kierkegaard

*The thing I am most proud of this week is that I could not recall a website to get pop culture information. I guess people magazine probably has a site, but it is nice to know that my personal pop knowledge ceased in the twentieth century before the magazine’s demise.

By “Apple” I am not referring to the I-pad company, but Gwyneth Paltrow’s little girl. This knowledge could contradict my previous claim of star ignorance, but this trivia bit came from my sister. She still shops at American Eagle (No matter how often I mention her age! Not to mention she is writing her doctoral discertation and just interviewed to be prof at William Jewell – say a prayer, I would love for her to be in our area!). But more than just knowing the styles, she is often a step ahead of the trends. I can remember making fun of her for scarves years before every girl was wearing them… All to say, after the arrival of Apple, she declared she loved the name and would name her first little girl Pear. I asked, a little slowly, “A pair of what?”

Unfortunately it seems there are at least a pair of Ivy’s. But in the fourth grade I was a triplet. I went by Sean T, while there was also Sean W. and Shawn S. I suppose this is part of why I wanted original names for our girls. Something unique, to set them apart from the crowd.

Really, though, we could have found something utterly original. Even outrageous. A nurse mentioned a little girl born while we were in the hospital, Kansas Unique (K.U.). But we did not want to make our girls so different as to be laughable.

And in many ways this is how we live life as Christians. We want to be different, but not so different as to be laughable.

Odd phrases often fascinate us, when we tie them to their history. Take the idiom got off scot free. Though rumored to refer to the Dred Scott cases, then also the Scottish, it actually goes back to England. Where they borrowed a Scandinavian idea of the scot tax, tax given to the poor. The scot referred to the tax, the lot – allotment - referred to the amount given to the poor. So to get off scot free would mean you did not pay this tax. Eventually the phrase referred to avoiding any tax and the meaning continued to expand so today it can refer to avoiding any negative. (Source)

And this expanded idea is a powerful one. We love to avoid consequences. We even want to avoid natural flows of life. Whether it is staying young or finding a way to stop paying our mortgage! And this brings me around to Scott Free, brought to us by our very own. He left this comment on the blog from last week:

Scott Craven December 28, 2011 6:46 pm
Hey Sean, some people can make thousands of dollars each time they tweet. We could pay the Church off in no time. You just need about one million twitter followers.

I have an inkling that Scott is right – Twitter goes beyond just a tool to spread my gibberish. Through my brilliant tweets and your help getting a million folks to jump on the bandwagon we can be rid of the church’s mortgage Scott free… Admittedly this plan is half cocked. There is no way a million folks would follow me on Twitter, and I like to believe I would not sell out my tweets for money (though everything has its price – can I be bought?). So let me cut to the chase without any more idioms!

Nothing comes for free. Even the lottery is just a redistribution of wealth (an unhealthy version of the original scot tax, where often the poor seem to pay the tax and business gets the first cut!) . In the same way we will not find a magic fix for our church finances. Nor, for that matter, our personal finances, or broken relationships, or work performance, or …  While we have so many different problems, the root of healing begins in the same place. Relationship with God. As you fix this relationship, other things will fall into place. Not because of magic, but because God teaches you a new way to live. Finances are healed as you become less materialistic. Relationships are healed as you learn to love others with the love Christ has lavished on you. Work perfomance is healed as we learn to work in all of life as if we are serving God.

Not to say everything will be roses. We are only one part of the equation. But, the beginning of healing is in Christ. Even the beginning of THIS world’s healing. After all Christ brought the Kingdom to earth and we are the first fruits (hence my focus on Ezekiel 47). So we are called to live as Christ and in this we bring heaven to earth.

If we know and follow His will… too often the light of the world is in the dark when it comes to scripture. So I have started a twitter account. Beginning this Sunday I will give details on how everyone can follow my updates. Each morning I will post a scripture passage and a brief thought - obviously less than 140 characters!!! More importantly I will attach a link to the passage – so you can read it yourself. This will provide a simple reminder for us to get into scripture. NOT because you need more of my thoughts, but to set the stage for you to hear from God.

And when we do what He says… everything will change.

How to Follow me on Twitter… 

• My Twitter account is the same as the blog, plunge47. If you have a twitter account you can easily follow me. (Just use the link on the side bar!).
• But if you do not have a twitter account (and do not want one), you can also sign-up to get updates via your phone – as long as you have text messaging! Text “follow plunge47″ to 40404.
• And with Ryan’s help we have created a way to receive the tweets via email. You can sign up on the church web site (click here).

“That pretty little lake, the one you pass on the way into Kansas City International Airport? Its glassy azure surface is one of the first sights that newbies to Kansas City see…” Kansas City Star

The world we live in grows quicker by the minute. Sound bites are no longer the preview before a commercial break. Instead they are the whole story. A tweet reveals the day’s news. The 140 characters can sum up the value of a position, even define the life of person…

Obviously a tweet does not bring depth. Most people tweet to begin the conversation – with the intention of people diving deeper. But the messages fill our society and I am not sure anyone hears over all the chirping… We are not deep. But lately I am not even sure we are shallow. Most of us are just peering out onto the waters – listening to the bird calls.

No one even know what the water holds…

“But it turns out the lake may not be the best advertisement for the metro area. In fact, the lake is filled with airplane deicing fluid, and lots of it.” ~ Kansas City Star

Irony ~ My blog brings a surface rant on shallow tweets. I never went below the surface to question the cause. Because tweets can be conversation starters, if anyone was willing to have a conversation with the other side.

But we are not willing to sit down and discuss things. We would rather talk from afar. No matter that our gossip now reaches around the world… but why won’t we discuss things with the other side? Do we consider the other side to be evil? How do we overcome this breakdown in communication?

Or maybe it is just easier to put out 140 character soundbites? Because the answers are too complicated and difficult we would rather shout and rant, than actually deal with any problems.

Take politics and poverty. I often hear opinions that would cut back (or even cut off) poverty reduction efforts. “Those folks need to learn to work.” But imagine a complete cut-off. Poverty would increase. More troubling, everyone’s safety would decrease, as the violence we have conveniently cornered in government housing projects spread out. I can easily imagine European style riots…

But in the same breath I mentioned a major problem with our current strategy. We place folks into government housing bandaids. Situations that provide no healing. Just keep the problem cornered, in places we do not have to go.

Yet, try to have a conversation about this and the talk revolves around defending the status quo or ending the status quo. Viable options rarely arise.

What is more likely to arise is accusations. Words and phrases that perpetuate our thoughts of the other side as evil. Then up come barriers and separation…

BUT, this is not always the case. In healthy families the pattern plays out, even the accusations. But the barriers never form. Now topics may be avoided, but the relationships are not broken.

Why? Because in family the relationship is more important than the idea.

Now if I could just get the church to realize this… but how? Well I guess the first step is another dose of irony…  but would anyone follow me if I started a Twitter account?

funny. I only hear chirping…

“The baby makes noises.” – Phoebe

Phoebe arrived at the hospital and demanded to hold “her baby”. And I think in her reality Darcy is her possession. A new baby doll to have and hold. To occasionally toss… but this doll comes with a whole bunch of new features, one being that Darcy can make noise. This has endlessly fascinated Phoebe and she repeats the line again and again, “the baby makes noise.” I guess Phoebe really is impressed with the new line of baby dolls we are providing for her…

which leaves me a little nervous. I am not sure I should be trusted with a child – but I am certain Phoebe is not ready! Hence I repeated over and again, “be gentle” …”please do not touch her head” … “stay calm” …  actually the “stay calm” is probably for myself, because the picture reveals how well Phoebe listened to my commands!

Babies are thankfully resilient. They just survived birth, so little Phoebe is a walk in the park! And as parents we pray that our children will be more resilient. That they will be able to overcome and persevere – despite us!

And these prayers provide hope. Because as Ivy likes to say, “God loves me more than you do.” and it is true. Because the One who has come, continues to come beside and rescue us… and our children!

Want to see more pictures??
Check out our family blog ~ http://taylormadefamily.org/

“I pictured my pastor as a salesman or a magician, trying to trick the congregation into believing Jesus could make us new.” – Don Miller, Blue Like Jazz

As Christmas approaches I have become one of the relentless shoppers. Albeit one of those filling the crowded crowd-less internet. And everyday I watch the lightning deals on Amazon. This has resulted in me buying a few ridiculous items. My dad received a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree (which was then used for a sermon illustration). My family  received a boxes upon boxes of tissues at a low price. But beyond that there has not been anything too exciting. I do not have the devotion to get anything that is really wonderful and cheap. I alway find those deals sold out.

Yet I keep watching – which must say something about my valuable time… and last night I hit the jack-pot: an Obama Chia Pet… Seriously, I am kidding. Instead, I was left wondering who would want such a gift? At first glance it seems offensive (imagine the “hair” growing). So what Democrate would enjoy the gift? And yet I can not imagine Republicans lining up to pay for even the deal price of $14.24.

Of course 45% were already claimed when I made my discovery, so maybe I just do not understand this world?

But this is where my problem begins. In my highly skilled profession we set out to convince people of the gospel. Then we are left wondering why no one seems to hear what was spoken. Amen’s and head nods aside, following a sermon, we head home in the same ruts – unchanged.

Logically this seems ridiculous. Christians should live as Christ does – myself included. But in a Chia Pet Society – well, logic is left out of reality. We do things unexplainable. From materialism to racism (and Obama Chia may be a two for one deal! thanks Amazon!). So what is there to do?

Join me in prayer for this Christmas and New Year. That God will plant seeds of truth.

Because of this I find myself paying more attention to Tim Tebow. It seems a majority of the press world hates him. Not for anything he does on the field – though they are startled he wins. Instead they hate his constant witness. And I will confess, my first reaction is to cringe. I would rather not see Christians ridiculed in the town square. Plus I wonder if the witness is more show than effect. [Tim Everly sent me a great article on Kurt Warners reaction to Tebow - Which I agreed with Warner.]

Granted the NFL is all about show. Did you see Stevie Johnson’s touchdown dance, pretending to be shot in the leg. He was mocking Plaxico Burress who accidentally shot himself in the leg at a night club. From this perspective Tebowing makes more sense. While it would be ludicrous  for us to bow after a successful job running copies – everyone in the NFL is promoting themselves, so why not blatantly promote Christ?

It is rare for us to lament self-promotion – at least with the NFL. Most of the time I do not even notice. So why all the fuss about Tim?? Really why does anyone care? On this I read another article and it has a great line toward the end, “The level of discourse about religion in this country is frankly embarrassing, a b—— child of political discourse.”

Some might cringe at this quote, but it is truth (unfortunately, it can be true of discourse inside the church!). But because of everyone’s overreaction I am left wondering what is effective witness? As I see it play out in the press, with pro-Tebow and anti-Tebow shouting at one another – my Christian friends seem evenly divided by Tebow, I am left wondering what does God want? How does He want us to witness?

This is the place I think most Christians find ourselves. We want to witness, we know we are supposed to witness, but we are not quite sure how. Plus, what we see happening to Tebow, can happen on a smaller scale to all of us. Just bringing up God can end conversations. Can end friendships.

Now some of us will have answers. Live the life style of Christ. Build relationships. Be more bold in individual relationships, rather trying to shout in the crowd.

And yet, all of the polarization, has left many of us scared. Unsure. We debate all of Tebow’s words, but our own voice of witness is…

silent.

When get so passionate on one side of Tebow or the other we are debating the wrong question. There is no reason to ponder Tebow’s witness. Buying his t-shirt misses the point. Because our support is owed to another. So, instead of the Tebow debate, we should spend time pondering our own witness…

or lack there of.

When was the last time you witnessed to someone? Not invited them to church, but witnessed. Moved beyond an example of actions to words. Words that give meaning to your life. 

As we await the arrival of little Darcy many have reminded us that each child arrives a little quicker. The tongue in cheek comment is I should be ready to deliver (more likely I would pass out). My mom, the first of seven, related the story of her younger sister’s arrival in the upstairs of their house. Of course the hospital, not missing an opportunity, still sent a bill for the delivery. I can only imagine what Gramps said to them over the phone!

Not so long ago every baby was delivered at home. My Granny related the story of another birth. Growing up Granny’s parents did not share details with the children. So Granny, still little, did not know her mama was pregnant. The children did worry as their mom got bigger and they asked why? Granny’s mom responded, “I am filling up with water and if you children do not behave I will pop!” Thankfully, Granny was not around when her mom burst; instead, she remembers being outside when her dad called from the porch, “Do you want to come and meet…”

Can you imagine not having nine months to prepare for the arrival of a baby?

While the world moves faster and faster around us, the ebb and flow of God’s design is slower paced. It takes nine months for a baby to arrive and then years for the baby to slowly learn to be an adult (not that everyone takes advantage of this time). God realizes the importance of the journey, the mistake of shortcuts.

So, when God set forth to bring salvation He could have brought out of the dirt a fully formed person. The messiah could have wandered in from the wilderness and began to preach, “The Kingdom of God is at hand.” What was the purpose of the thirty years before?

For that matter why did the years have to be so challenging? Born under suspicion and into poverty. Soon a refugee… and he was just a toddler. It would be years before he would deliver the message.

There were easier ways. But the best is not easy. God could have snapped His fingers and made us submissive. This would have demonstrated He was God. But He did not come to deliver that message.

Instead He came to deliver the message that He is love. But love is not quick. It can not happen in a snap. Love is a journey. To know someone you must walk and toil together. Even struggle together. And to love, you must be willing to sacrifice.

In this love new life arrived – bursting forth to all of us.

_________

Rambling on… It is surprising that a faith built on such love: Such preparation. Such work and toil. Such sacrifice. That this faith wants things to be quick. Easy. We want to worship in Spirit and Truth NOW. We want salvation and life change NOW – especially for our neighbors.

And for that matter, we want it all outsourced. Why worry ourselves when we can hire someone to take care of the details? In this way we can arrive and be fed (rather than finding it ourselves)… but it is in this way that we are left with nothing to share.

Faith that delivers life is not easy. It can not be outsourced. It can only happen when we come together with Christ (as he came together with us). To work and toil. To sacrifice. To love.

Are you wondering why the church is not bursting? Why worship seems common? Why is there tension between groups? Or why…  Do not look outward.

It is easy to turn on others. But the answer is not them. The answer is you. Or as you read this – I write it – the answer is to say, “I am the one to deliver new life.”

Then we should ask, “Have I taken time to prepare?”