The Wedding

Posted on May 13, 2024 by Joe Chambers

When they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.” John 2v3

Most thirty-something singles who attend a wedding at some point imagine their wedding day.  Is this happening for Jesus as he watches the wedding feast at Cana of Galilee? He sees the joy, His eyes dance, and he laughs with everyone else.  He hears the music, claps, and sways to the strum of the instruments, and perhaps grabs His mother’s hand and takes her on a twirl around the dance floor.

Maybe he’s a little out of breath from the dance, his face flushed from the wine, and as He makes His way back to His seat, he says to Himself, “I will have a wedding one day. It won’t be with a girl. It will be with a people.”

But then, in an instant, the bright joy is chased away by the dark knowledge of what will have to happen to make that wedding possible. Every time John uses the word “hour” in his Gospel, he is referring to Jesus’s crucifixion. So, while everyone at this gathering is celebrating a wedding, Jesus knows that in order for Him to go to His own wedding, He has to pass through a funeral. That was what was on His mind.

As He puts the golden chalice to His lips to sip the new wine, a single drop falls onto the white linen tablecloth, and the crimson spot begins to spread as the cloth absorbs the wine. He knows that one day, his blood must be spilled. The sweetness of the joy of the new-wine moment is traded for a sharp tang of the coming sour wine offered on a hyssop branch.

He is very aware of the barrier between the Lover and the beloved. And He thinks, “If I am going to raise the cup of festive joy at my wedding feast, I am going to have to drink the cup of the Divine wrath of God. I have to go through that ‘hour.’  I will have to provide the wine if I am ever going to have this spousal love with my Bride – – – my people, I have to pass through a funeral, and the wine must be spilled; that wine is my blood.

I will strip naked for my beloved—on the cross.

I will offer my heart up to the point of breaking—on the cross.

I will be hacked to pieces so that my beloved will be restored—on the cross.

I will become ugly so that my beloved may become radiantly beautiful—-on the cross.”

When I see the extent and depth of love that occurred on the cross for me, a promiscuous lover – – – it changes me; it makes me want to please my heavenly Lover.

For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.  2 Cor. 5:21

As a pastor since 1984, I’m not going to lie; I’ve seen my share of ugly brides. But do you know who has not seen an ugly bride? The groom. It doesn’t matter what a girl looks like in street clothes; in a wedding dress, she is radiant and beautiful.  You and I are not much to look at from an eternal perspective.  In fact, I am not sure we could even say we are plain.  From a holiness perspective, we are rather hideous.  But we have a Groom who went to a funeral and passed through that dark veil of death and is welcoming us into the bridal chamber today.

In His nail-scarred hands, He holds the unspoiled linen of His righteousness, ready to wrap around our sagging shoulders. He is looking at us with the longing eyes of our heavenly Lover, and no matter what we look like in our street clothes, we are beautiful to our Groom.

So…

I will arise and go to Jesus,

He will embrace me in His arms;

In the arms of my dear Savior,

O there are ten thousand charms.

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The Hope of Darkness

Posted on March 25, 2024 by Joe Chambers

From noon on, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon.  Matthew 27v45

On February 14th, 1884, Theodore Roosevelt lost his beloved mother and, a few hours later, lost the love of his life, Alice, after giving birth to their only child. Upon her death, he wrote in his diary: The light has gone out of my life.

Grief brings darkness.

Sometimes, darkness enters our hearts because of guilt. Something I did caused me to feel a bleakness that can only be cured by absolution. I need forgiveness.

But also, my heart is far darker than I want to admit. Or, as the late poet Mary Oliver has said, the heart has many dungeons. Bring the light! Bring the light! She is right. My heart is complicated. I can have a room called melancholy, regrets, or depression.

Sometimes, my internal darkness is caused by things I have done, sometimes by the circumstances I find myself in, and sometimes by physiological factors beyond my control.

Would it surprise you to know that Jesus experienced darkness in his life?

As I meditated on this idea of noonday darkness at the crucifixion, I was reminded of a relatively recent discovery in physics. It is called a singularity or a black hole.

A black hole is a region in space where gravity is so strong that light and other electromagnetic waves cannot escape. This happens when matter is squeezed into a tiny space, which can happen when a star dies. The boundary of no escape is called the event horizon.

Jesus draws our sin, brokenness, and darkness deep inside his own holy and pristine soul. This moment is so profound and powerful that it becomes a singularity for daytime light.

Jesus is laying down his life in death to bring us into a new life with God.

This was not just a unique moment in history—like the day Abraham Lincoln was killed. This moment of disappearing light, sin, and evil was for you.

The good news of the story is that at this cross, the vortex of darkness swirling around the infinite soul of Jesus means your bad decisions from years ago, last week, or last night, have already been absorbed into the sinless man hanging here on this cross.

Jesus is for you. This cross is for you. The good news of this story is that you are never too far gone for the grace of God because of what Jesus did on that day in this darkness. No matter what you have done with your life, because of Jesus’ death on this cross, you are not too far gone from God.

My brother’s church in Sumner, Washington, attracted the misfits of the community. That included me and my family. One of my favorite church members from 20 years ago was a fella named Roger. Roger was an addict. He was not addicted to any one thing but to almost anything.

We would have testimony services on Sunday evenings, and Roger would often say, “I praise God that I am 6 years, 7 months, and 8 days sober from alcohol. I’m 45 days sober from cigarettes, and I am 4 years, 3 months, and 2 days sober from gambling!” We would all applaud and encourage him.

Then, the next time we had testimonies, he’d say, “I praise God that I am 6 years, 7 months, and 15 days sober from alcohol. I’m 55 days sober from cigarettes. I am one day sober from gambling!”

We would all applaud and encourage him. This routine happened many times.

Christ Church of Sumner was a place for people who knew they were a mess, a hot mess. They knew Jesus was for them, and so were we.

We might do a little better job of hiding our issues than the church in Sumner, but the truth of the matter is we are just as messed up as Roger.

That’s why we need someone to bring the light. And Jesus did just that. He took the singularity of our lives’ darkness and let it ravish his pristine soul because he was for us.

This darkness happened in Jesus on Friday.

But Sunday’s coming, and with it comes the Light!

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Enemy Love

Posted on March 12, 2024 by Joe Chambers

(Judas) came up to Jesus and said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” and kissed him. Jesus said to him, “Friend, do what you are here to do.” Then they came and laid hands on Jesus and arrested him. Matthew 26v49-50

One day Ernest Hemingway was having lunch with friends, and they were talking about the importance of writing with brevity.

Hemingway bet everyone at the table ten dollars each that he could craft an entire story in six words.

After the pot was assembled, Hemingway took a napkin and wrote down the following six words:

“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

Everyone paid up without saying a word.

Saint Matthew does a pretty good job of coming up with his own version of Hemmingway’s barroom story.

Then all the disciples deserted him and fled. (Matthew 26v56)

In this story of betrayal, the disciples desert Jesus. When Jesus called his disciples to follow him towards the beginning of the book of Matthew, these same men “deserted” their vocations, homes, families, and friends to apprentice with Jesus.

Once they left everything for Jesus. Now, they leave Jesus so they can hang on to everything. Everybody in this story is either an enemy, a betrayer, or a disappointment.

Everybody.

And Jesus walks straight into a sacrificial death for all of them.

When Jesus preached his most famous sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, these same disciples were sitting on that grassy hillside on the north shores of the Sea of Galilee in Matthew 5 and heard,

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven.  (Matthew 5v43-45)

You don’t defeat enemies, Jesus says, you love enemies. That’s what Kingdom people do.

That’s what Jesus said in a sermon and that’s what Jesus does in this dark garden in front of a mob of men with torches, clubs, and disappointing disciples.

In this election year, with our unprecedented polarization, it is easy for evangelical Christians to say, “That way is naïve and impossible to live in the real world. If we don’t win this November, we will lose the America I love. We have to fight. We have to win at all costs!”

Bertrand Russell who was a 20th-century atheist and philosopher said, “The Christian principle, Love your enemies is good. There is nothing to be said against it except that it is too difficult for most of us to practice sincerely.” 

He’s right.

You and I, on our own, can’t work up enough moral sweat to live this way. And that is why we have to receive what Jesus does for us into the center of our being.

When Lynette and I were in Israel in 2018, we stood in this garden and one of the things that became clear to me as I stood there facing Jerusalem and the Temple Mount is that Jesus would have been able to see and hear this mob coming for about an hour. He would have had all kinds of time to make his escape if he wanted to.

That isn’t what Jesus did. No fight or flight with Jesus. He watched the people who are coming to kill him and welcomed them.

If evangelicals are ever going to regain the moral authority that we have lost through scandals, political atrocities, and moral relativism, I believe it will happen when the one who welcomed his enemies in a dark garden occupies a deeper place in our soul than our enemies.

If not, we will end up behaving like the world and voting for people who legislate policies and values that veer away from normative and historic Christian values or a candidate who’s behavor is a violent violation of normative and historic Christian values.

Either way, our country deserves a better version of ourselves than what we’ve shown in recent years. If not our country, then the one who loved enemies, betrayers, and deserters.

It’s time to write a different story.

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Grace in the Garden

Posted on March 3, 2024 by Joe Chambers

(Jesus) threw himself on the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not what I want but what you want.” Matthew 26:39

We all will go through a time of deep sorrow in our lives. Jesus was not exempt from deep sorrow either. As we peer into this late-night garden scene, we see that he doesn’t want to drink the cup. He doesn’t want to go to the cross. Jesus is deeply honest in his prayers.

I think that this dark prayer in the garden illuminates for us a profound paradox about Christian praying. Praying your doubts, your tears, your anger, and your desperation is not a sign of a LACK of faith; it is an ACT of faith.

These words give us a vocabulary to yell for help to the living God when we are in the middle of our troubles, vulnerabilities, anger, and confusion. The garden prayer gives us words to speak to God smack in the middle of our messy lives.

I invite you to kneel before God and turn your pain and your tears into prayers.

Jesus expressed his honest desires and immediate desires—let this cup pass. But then he expressed his deepest desire—Your will be done. And as followers of Jesus, he leads us to learn how to do the same.

I know I needed to pray this garden prayer this last week as I attended my 42-year-old niece’s memorial service in Tacoma, Washington.

At Carly’s memorial service, there were probably close to 600 people in attendance. The eulogy was beautifully written by her twenty-year-old daughter, Clair. One of the things shared in that eulogy was that when Carly was in 2nd grade, she became a Christian and was baptized. Unknown to her parents, she took her baptism certificate to school for show and tell. She stood in front of her entire class and showed the class her certificate and told them about being baptized.

The pastor shared a gospel message. And as he closed his sermon he talked about how, when Carly was graduating from the 6th grade, she wanted to give a gift to her teacher and so she wrote her a letter. In the letter, she said that the best gift she could give her was to tell her about Jesus. So, Carly told her about Jesus and how she could become a Christian. The pastor read the letter to all of us. When he was finished Lynette leaned over to me and said, “The pastor should have skipped the sermon and just read the letter.”

Soon after that, they played an audio recording of Carly singing the song 10,000 Reasons.

Then the last verse came, and Carly sang,

And on that day when my strength is failing
The end draws near and my time has come
Still, my soul will sing Your praise unending
Ten thousand years and then forevermore

My tears were flowing. At that point, I was overwhelmed by grief. My father was seated behind me, and I stepped out into the aisle, turned to him, got close to his ear, and said, “I’m not very happy with God right now.”

I was reading this text over and over this past week and it occurred to me that I needed this garden prayer. I needed to take my cues from Jesus and follow him into that garden, to be honest with God and trust in his good, good heart.

I’ll bet that you do too.

I think that is why I could tell my earthly father that I wasn’t very happy with my heavenly Father last Saturday. I have learned to pray what’s in my heart, not what ought to be in my heart. And I learned that right here in this dark garden.

Would you follow Jesus into your Gethsemane?

Here’s Carly’s letter to her 6th-grade teacher.

Dear Mrs. Masino,

This present that I have given to you may be nice or fun (I made it all by myself) but I’d like to share with you the most precious gift ever known to man, a gift I experienced over four years ago.

In January of 1988, I became a Christian by asking Jesus Christ to become my personal Savior forever. He died on the cross to pay for my sin and whenever I know I do something wrong, I ask Jesus Christ to forgive my sin because He is the one who died for me and rose again to prove He was the Savior of the World. I have found a scripture verse in the Bible that explains this.

          “In (Jesus) we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sin.”

Redemption means to be freed from the punishment and sin.

When I received this precious gift, I prayed and asked Christ to forgive me of all sin and that He would be the Savior of my life. Now I pray constantly to Him for strength, forgiveness and that I could touch those who are hurting.

Christianity is not a religion but a relationship between me and my Savior. People all over the world want peace to be on earth. I know the only way peace can be on this earth. If every person on earth received Christ as their personal Savior, there would be no more fighting or hate.

1 John 4:21 says “and this commandment we have from Him; that he who loves Christ must also love His brother.”

I am an ambassador for Christ, and I am supposed to tell the world about Jesus Christ and His precious gift to us – His death and His life. I hope you can understand the message in this letter. I love you Mrs. Masino and I felt that God wanted me to share this precious gift with you. He has always been a friend and a Savior, and I know I will live eternally with Him because that is what heaven is about – Jesus Christ.

                               Love,

                                      Carly

And so, friend, hear the good news, that because of Jesus, we can trust that God is good and at work in our lives even when we can’t see how God is at work in our lives.

Bless the Lord, o my soul, o my soul
Worship His holy name
Sing like never before, o my soul
I’ll worship Your holy name

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Grow Into Your Calling

Posted on January 26, 2024 by Joe Chambers

For each one of us, there is only one thing necessary: to fulfill our own destiny, according to God’s will, to be what God wants us to be. – Thomas Merton

I entered a relationship with Jesus that I was aware of when I was seven years old. I can still see my tears falling into the green gold shag carpet in my preacher father’s study where I said “the sinner’s prayer.” And I think I can still hear the tone in my little brother’s voice when he learned that I had been saved, “I hope it takes.”

Two years later my family moved from Texas to Colorado, and I went to youth camp at the Ponderosa Camp just outside of Colorado Springs. It was a week of learning about Jesus, the proper handling of a .22 and making lanyards for our moms.

Every night we gathered in an open pavilion for a chapel service complete with an altar call. On the last night of the week, I listened to the preacher, but I heard from God. I heard him in my heart. I never heard words. It was more like a whisper—but it wasn’t a whisper of words. You might say it was a “calling.” It was very vague, almost ethereal and I was troubled by it.

I eventually became a preacher. It seemed to be the natural progression in my family. My dad was a preacher. My grandfather had been a preacher. Folks at church would always ask me, “Are you going to be a preacher like your dad?” I don’t remember what I said, but I remember what I felt, “I hope not.” I didn’t want to be a preacher.

But that night at the camp, God whispered to me. He wanted me to pastor his people. I was called to my first church in 1984. I was twenty-six years old. I had no clue what to do. I knew how to preach, but I didn’t know how to be a pastor. That was nearly forty years ago. I have a clue now. And the reason is because God’s grace grew me into who he wanted me to be.

There is a movie called Becket that stars Peter O’Toole and Richard Burton. It’s about how two drinking buddies change over time. Peter O’Toole plays the character Henry II and Burton plays Thomas Becket. Becket was a low-level priest and loved his friendship with Henry.

Though a priest, Beckett was corrupt just like Henry II. He was just as hotheaded and sensual as Henry.

Then one day the Archbishop of Canterbury died, and Henry thought, “I’ll make Thomas the Archbishop of Canterbury! Thomas is just a regular guy. He’s not going to tell me how I have to live my life. He will not oppose me in any way. He’s just a regular guy. Finally, I’ve solved the problem of church/state relations.”

So, he makes Thomas Becket Archbishop of Canterbury.

But something happened to Thomas Becket. Thomas is shaken because he knows that even though it has come through Henry for all the wrong reasons, and even though he’s completely corrupt and completely unholy and completely unworthy and completely unqualified, now he is the bishop of England. He suddenly realizes a sense of the call of God in his heart. He realizes how unworthy he is of it, and it changes him.

He becomes a good person. A man of integrity. He begins to represent the gospel. He begins to call out Henry for the things he’s doing wrong. This infuriates Henry. He is filled with conflict because he loves Thomas, yet now he’s so mad at him because Thomas has become a good man. He grew into his calling.

Finally, one night in frustration, Henry says out loud to his knights what he had been thinking in his heart, “Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?” The four knights look at each other, and they strap on their swords and go to the cathedral.

As the knights approach Thomas with swords drawn and he realizes they are there sent by Henry to assassinate him, he says with no guile, “Poor Henry. Poor Henry.”

The call had made him holy. The call had made him like Christ when Jesus said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

That’s what the call of grace does to our lives. God’s grace qualifies us for God, and it changes us. We spend the rest of our lives living into and out of our calling.

And now you will excuse me because I have to work on Sunday’s sermon.

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This Is the Time to Be Slow

Posted on January 9, 2024 by Joe Chambers

This is the time to be slow,

Lie low to the wall

Until the bitter weather passes.

Try, as best you can, not to let

The wire brush of doubt

Scrape from your heart

All sense of yourself

And your hesitant light.

If you remain generous,

Time will come good;

and you will find your feet

Again on fresh pastures of promise,

Where the air will be kind

And blushed with beginning.

by John O’Donohue

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Inside-Out Living

Posted on January 8, 2024 by Joe Chambers

“Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God. - Jesus

This week a man came by my study at the church. I was the only one there. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t recall his name.

He said, “I’m trying to get a hold of Jerry. I’ve called him many times and he doesn’t answer his phone. I don’t know if you remember, pastor, but I lost my wife a couple of years ago and I know Jerry lost Shirley too. We became pretty good friends during those sad days. So, how can I get in touch with Jerry?”

I said, “Jerry passed away last spring.”

He turned his face away and stared out through the glass doors. Then he swallowed hard, slowly shook his head, and without looking at me asked, “Was it that cancer on his face?”

“Yes.”

He continued to stare through the glass towards Mt. Princeton.

“He was such a good man.”

“Yes, he was,” I said, “I was with him just a few hours before he died. We prayed together and he told me he was ready to see Jesus.”

Deep sigh.

I said, “Jerry died exactly the way he lived. Filled with faith, hope, and love.”

He said, “Yeah, what was in him on the inside showed up on the outside.”

I agreed.

He said, “I wish I could live that way,” as he pushed open the door to leave.

I said, “It’s not too late. Come back sometime and we will talk some more.”

He waved without looking back, got in his car, and drove away.

What is on the inside showed up on the outside. When the gospel takes root down deep, where the knobs are, it shows up in a simple child-like faith.

What was it about the way Jerry lived that made it possible that what was on the inside showed up on the outside? He trusted God—like a child.

I think that one of the main reasons children are so important to Jesus is to show us that, like babies, we don’t bring anything more to the table with God than a screaming little kid with a poopy diaper.

The difference between adults and children, Jesus says, is that little children are aware of their need for help.

Having a three-year-old granddaughter living in my house has brought such delight and reminded me of the gospel on more than one occasion. One of her favorite things to do is sing. She sings a lot and often gets the words wrong to familiar songs like Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder how I are.

Or the other day she was playing with her doctor set and checking my health with her stethoscope, and I had about enough so I pretended to be irritated with her and said,

Me: I think I am better now.

Cora: Get out, Papa.

Me: It’s my house.

Cora: Get out.

Me: You are bothering me.

Cora: No, you are bothering you.

But my favorite happened last summer when we were left home alone together, and I went out to work on my woodshed. We were out there all morning on a Saturday. At some point, she fell and skinned her knee, and I could see her some ways away from me crying, and then her hands just went up in a motion that indicated she wanted me to pick her up and hold her.

She just expected that I would come to her rescue. She knew she needed help.

Jesus says that is exactly how you enter into life with God. And that is exactly how you grow deep, wise, and strong in the with-God life.

Moment by moment trusting in God is what surfaces our faith. God-dependency is what makes what’s on the inside show up on the outside.

“…I am continually with you; you hold my right hand.” Ps. 73:23
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Love Hurts

Posted on December 12, 2023 by Joe Chambers

“Ministry that costs nothing accomplishes nothing.” – John Henry Jowett

A man is thinking about leaving his wife because she is difficult. He is correct. She is a very harsh woman. But we pray together, and I listen, and he stays with her.

Another man tells me of a pornography addiction that has escalated into group sex with strangers and random sexual encounters with men. I listen and pray with him for weeks and months; I give him Biblical wisdom about such things, and I meet with him as long as he is willing.

A woman has an affair with a co-worker and the husband finds out. My wife and I spend hours, days, and weeks meeting with them. I get calls and texts in the middle of the night for months from one or both of them because their hearts are on fire with pain and betrayal.  We pray, listen, and give counsel from the Bible. We declare to them both that we will walk with them to a marriage of restoration. They stay married.

A man comes to faith in Jesus, I baptize him, and I spend hours drinking coffee and teaching him the basics of the Christian life. We pray together, we talk, and we walk together for months and then years. He grows and grows in his understanding of the faith.

Two young couples with their kids come to church and declare that they have found the church for which they have been looking all their lives. We pray together and enfold them into places of service within the Church. Their children grow and learn about Jesus.

Another family joins the fellowship and begins to serve in the church. I meet with the man for coffee hours and yet he and his wife begin to drift apart, and he begins to date a married woman, so I ask him to take some time off of serving in the church until he settles his marriage status. I pray with him and show him the teachings of the scriptures about divorce.

A man who is addicted to pornography comes to me and asks if I can help him. I say I will help him until there is a complete restoration of his soul. I pray with him and show him what the Bible says about lust and intimacy. We met weekly for months.

A recovering alcoholic and I meet for coffee and great conversations about life, Rock and Roll music, and Jesus.

A woman and her daughter begin coming to our Church and breathe a sigh of relief at finding a safe place from which they can recover from a toxic church relationship. They are enfolded deeper and deeper into the Church and begin to serve. The younger woman was having difficulty getting pregnant. So, we pray and pray and pray for the couple to conceive and give birth to a healthy baby. We pray for the husband to begin to attend Church. He begins coming and is faithful to come even when his wife is too ill with morning sickness. He begins to serve in the Church. A healthy baby is born to this lovely family.

A middle-aged couple begins attending and starts serving at the Church. I visit them in their home. We have them in our home. We pray with them.

A single mother and her daughter attend and serve. I go to her place of employment with the horrible news that her father has suddenly died. I carried her in my arms to her car and drove her home. My wife and I pray with her and care for her.

A man comes to church for years without his wife and daughter. He serves faithfully in a vital place of ministry at the Church.

A couple comes to our home to share several meals, she sings on the worship team, and at one point the husband tells his wife I am a fake Christian.

And now I must stop. For the tears are flowing and the pain is deep. In eighteen months, they all left my previous church. Some attend other churches, prettier and sexier churches. Others just don’t go to church anymore at all.

But I know their names.

When I was a young man, Anwar Sadat was president of Egypt. He was in the news a lot due to the complications of the Arab and Israeli conflict. He had a small dark spot high on his forehead. I asked my father what that was, and he said it was a prayer bruise. Said that Sadat knelt and faced Mecca five times every single day and touched his forehead to the ground in prayer to Allah. It was a bruise that never went away because of his devotion.

The longer I live and the more I care for the souls of pastors, I have come to believe that pastors who are faithful to the people in their communities are going to have bruises on their hearts. Those bruises will come from criticisms, misunderstandings, betrayals, and sometimes the meanness that sheep have towards their shepherds.

But what do we do? We pray for those who take from us and then leave.

We pray.

Read this from the late John O’Donohue,

For the Priesthood

May the blessings released through your hands
Cause windows to open in darkened minds.

May the sufferings your calling brings
Be but winter before the spring.

May the companionship of your doubt
Restore what your beliefs leave out.

May the secret hungers of your heart
Harvest from emptiness its sacred fruit.

May your solitude be a voyage
Into the wilderness and wonder of God.

May your words have the prophetic edge
To enable the heart to hear itself.

May the silence where your calling dwells
Foster your freedom in all you do and feel.

May you find words full of divine warmth
To clothe the dying in the language of dawn.

May the slow light of the Eucharist
Be a sure shelter around your future.

Living with a bruised heart is not the same as living with a broken heart. When my heart is broken, I spend some time with a licensed Christian counselor. But when my heart is bruised, I find a life-giving friend (or friends) and share what’s going on in my heart.

And then I spend some time on my knees so that I can get back on my feet.

For I am a pastor.

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Soul Care: Pay it Forward

Posted on December 4, 2023 by Joe Chambers

Dear friends,

Some of you are aware that I have a ministry of soul care to ministry leaders called The Sacred Journey. For the last several years I have served ministry leaders from all over the country through retreats, soul care intensives, and online soul care sessions.

In the spring, summer, and fall seasons each year, we host 4-6 couples for high-quality retreats here in Buena Vista, Colorado. We call it The Sacred Journey Retreat. At these retreats, we offer encouragement and rest for the souls of ministry leaders and pilgrims of the Jesus way from all over the country. If you want to know more about this retreat, you can click https://youtu.be/c_0jx6g1H_4?si=pN00ytxSJvj_2PFk.

At this time, we are not charging for these retreats. We want them to remain accessible for ministry leaders no matter how large their ministry (church) might be. And so, while they don’t cost participants anything, they are not without cost. Each retreat costs us about $3,000. Our funding for these is a mystery. Sometimes past participants have donated funds to ‘pay it forward.’ Sometimes the church’s participants have included us in their annual budgets. Yet most of the time we don’t know where the money comes from.

We desire that it remain this way. That being said, I wrote a book this last year with the specific idea in mind that any monies donated for the devotional book would go towards the ongoing cost of keeping The Sacred Journey Retreats affordable to anyone who wants to attend. The book is called, Walking Ancient Paths: A Daily Liturgy for the Sacred Journey. I created a short video about it, and you can watch it by clicking here https://youtu.be/D_4JoMDS-fg?si=MbT0e7VovvM-GPUO.

Each book costs us about $7.00 to print and be shipped to our church and then shipped to anyone interested in supporting this retreat ministry. We are asking for a donation to Mountain Heights Church “Soul Care” for $15-25 per book.

If you or your church are interested in receiving one of these books (or a case) and donating to The Sacred Journey Retreat, you can do so in the following ways:

Mail a check to:

Mountain Heights Church

P.O. Box 786

Buena Vista, CO 81211

Give online at our website:

mhbc.life

In both of these cases, please designate your gift “Soul Care” or “Joe’s book.” Also, I will need to know what address you will want the book(s) shipped to.

The book is unique in that it is a 31-day liturgy, intended for repeated use. It might not fit everyone’s sensibilities. However, it is the method that works well for me in my walk with Jesus. If you have any questions, please reply to this email or give me a call.

Blessings,

joe

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The Groans of this World

Posted on October 30, 2023 by Joe Chambers

For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Romans 8:22

Over two decades ago I summited Mount Baker in the northern Cascade Mountains in Washington State. At 10,781 ft. in elevation, Mt. Baker is the second most glaciated peak in Washington, only behind the much taller and comparatively more challenging Mt. Rainier.

My climbing group and I camped at about 9 thousand feet on one of the glaciers. While eating our evening meal before we summited the next morning, we heard a loud rumble. It reminded me of thunder, but there were cloudless skies. We all looked at each other and someone said, “The mountain is groaning tonight.” We determined that it was the movement of the glacier we were camped on that was causing the deep rumble.

We live in a world that is groaning for new birth, new creation, and new wholeness. The wars in Ukraine and Israel. The earthquakes in Afghanistan.

There are more people in slavery today than at any time in human history. The best estimate, according to the U.S. State Department, is 27 million, and that does not include bonded labor.

There is an estimated 75 to 199 million tons of plastic waste currently in our oceans, with a further 33 billion pounds of plastic entering the marine environment every single year.

In the year 2023, there have been 643 mass shootings. According to Mass Shooting Tracker, they define a mass shooting is an incident of violence in which 4 or more people are shot. Of course, the latest high-profile shooting is the mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine. Where a single gunman killed 18 people and injured another 13.

The objectification of women and the exploitation of children. The sexual abuse coverups in institutions like the Boy Scouts of America, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Southern Baptist Convention. And on and on and on it goes.

God loves this world. And God wants to save it, redeem it, and heal it.

I remember hearing a preacher say, “We don’t need to worry about the spotted owl, because after the rapture God is going to burn it all away. Besides, why should we leave anything of any beauty and value for the Anti-Christ?”

Here’s my problem: What if that particular interpretation of the second coming is wrong? We will be mismanaging God’s world because of questionable theology.

What do we do with the covenant that God has established with the earth?

In Genesis 9:16 we read,

Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”

So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.”

God established a covenant with Noah and this good earth. Do you know what is included in “all life on the earth”? Spotted owls.

People are always criticizing the theology in today’s modern praise songs. But I have a problem with the theology in some of the old hymns. Here’s an example.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in his wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of his glory and grace

I think Paul would say, that when you turn your eyes upon Jesus, the things of this earth will become crystal clear. Christ is the light of the world. Christ lights up this world so that I can see it more clearly than ever before. I can see its beauty and I can see its heartbreaking brutality. I become much more sensitive to it.

God loves this world. In fact, the most popular and often quoted verse in all of the word of God reminds us of this great love:

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

That’s why Jesus came into this world. And that’s why we need to listen to the groans. Because God is looking for people like you and me to make God’s dream real for this world.

What is groaning in this world right now that has grabbed your heart? What is groaning in this world that God is nudging you towards so that you can do something about it?

Are young families that need mentoring? Are senior adults lonely? Are there people of color in our communities that need to be invited into our homes. Is there anyone struggling with mental health issues that needs an advocate? Are there after-school programs that need volunteers?

And the list could go on and on.

Can we hear those groans? Or am I just caught up in my own world?

What will change the world? I believe it will change incrementally when we look away from the fearmongers on the left and the right and start looking to Jesus the author and finisher of our faith. And while we are looking to Jesus, listen for the groans of this world.

One way to discern a groan God might be calling you to is to ask yourself, “What issue makes me weep or pound the table?”

I believe with all my heart that every single follower of Jesus has been given a unique calling. I love the way the late Frederick Buechner put this:

“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

What is the groan that gets hold of your heart and your life?

We find our ministry and we find our vocation — we find our role in God’s dream in this world—when we are able to hear the groans of the world.

The world is waiting to be born.

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