Carl Thomas: Recent Episodes
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I have some exciting news to share: my writing is moving to Substack! My blogging has shifted to seeing the marriage of the Word and the Spirit so my new blog at Substack is Spirit Word Power.
What Does This Mean for You? Seamless Transition: If you’re already subscribed, you don’t need to do anything. Your subscription will automatically transfer to Substack, ensuring you continue to receive my latest posts directly to your inbox. * Enhanced Content: Substack’s platform allows me to deliver more engaging and in-depth content, fostering deeper connections and richer discussions. * Interactive Features*: With Substack, we can engage in more meaningful conversations and build a closer-knit community.
Why Substack?Substack aligns with my vision of creating a space where we can connect more deeply and share in our journey of faith and life together.
Thank you for your continued support and engagement. I am excited about this new chapter and look forward to sharing it with you. And thanks for joining me on this journey!
We are again in the season of the NBA playoffs and the age-old question is once again being batted around. Who is the Goat (Greatest of All Time)? In recent years the debate has been between Jordan and Lebron. But you can’t forget Kobe, Magic, Bird, and Duncan.
But I am struck that this type of argument is only held in certain circles. You never hear questions about the greatest country singer of all time. Or who is the greatest guitar player. You don’t hear debates about who is the greatest philosopher or ballet dancer.
It seems to be part of human nature to want to be great, but the enemy has rooted himself in some contexts to an even larger measure by quantifying greatness as the only obtainable goal. Shaq was a 15-time all-star and won a fist full of rings but all that is irrelevant because he is not the greatest. Who benefits when we tear people down to make another great?
Part of the reason Jesus was so great was that He never entered these meaningless contests. He refused to list His top 5 greatest and never put Himself on any goat list. He quietly went about His business demonstrating to the people in the margins of society that the people who were considered powerful in society has no lasting power. He taught His followers that the truly great people are the people who flourished enough to make others great.
Jesus saw past the way culture wants to pit people against each other even when their only identity is found in which sports team they follow. It seems crazy to Americans when soccer fans get into physical altercations over their teams, but let’s be real, fighting over land, fame, and wealth is no less meaningless.
While walking toward Jerusalem and preparing for His death, the disciples themselves were arguing about which of them were the greatest. Some tried to curry favor so Jesus could put them in a place of greatness, but Jesus already showed them what greatness looks like.
To be great is not to have the most money or the biggest house, it’s flourishing enough spiritually and emotionally to kneel down and serve someone. It’s that person who can put their ego to the side and tell a coworker that their failure doesn’t define them.
It’s the mother who has figured that crazy mothering thing out, telling the frazzled mom in the restaurant that it took her a while to figure it out as well. Greatness is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking about other people more than you think of yourself. This is what Jesus did.
He saw the competition of the world, how they liked to pit people against one another, and opted out of that entire system.
When the Jesus was challenged to defend himself to Pilate, Jesus declined. He had no need to exert His dominance. He had no desire to make Himself great in the eyes of others through great oratory or displays of wonder. He had nothing to prove and no ego to protect.
Who is the greatest basketball player ever? My answer is, why does it matter? Aren’t they all better than you and me?
Imagine if we looked at the world this way. Imagine if we stopped seeing who we are better than, or seeing how we compare to others, and instead looking for how we can help share the little bit of greatness we have with the world around us.
I feel like that is the greatness Jesus is looking for.
I recently sent an email to a large company about a problem I had with their product. Seemingly the moment I sent the email I got a well-thought-out, compassionate reply. It was so well-thought-out and so compassionate I knew that there wasn’t time for a human to have written it. I just got a form letter reply to my genuine concern.
I understand why a company would do this. They want their customers to know that they care and truth be told, they probably have received this complaint many times before I reached out. But in their efforts to show concern, I couldn’t help but feel they were not concerned at all.
As a Christian pastor, I have similar conversations that I have to struggle to be present in. There are objections to following Christ that I hear but I want to give a form response to. There are ways of viewing the Scriptures that are not faithful to the tradition that I want to give a form response to. And there are people who blame their problems on God and want me to defend God who I want to give a form response to.
In these times I have to choose to be more present than ever. Because the opposite is to convey that their concerns are no concern of mine.
It seems that almost weekly, I interact with someone who finds the teachings of the Bible to be a stumbling block to following Jesus. Now I teach from the word of God every week. I fellowship with God through studying, reading, and memorizing the Bible. I love the Bible. But some people have been taught that the Bible is to have a place in their life solely reserved for the resurrected Christ.
When these people come to me with their concerns about this Scriptures, I have to deconstruct an entire way of looking at the Bible that is not faithful to what the authors of the Scriptures intended. These people have been formed by a culture completely foreign to the writers of the Bible.
We likewise have a problem understanding what the Bible is teaching. The Bible was written by a group of people we do not understand, to other people we do not understand, in a language we don’t understand in the midst of a culture we do not understand. The best we can do is try to study the background of the text, the people who wrote it, and the people receiving it to try to discern the meaning of the book we call the Bible.
As an American teaching Americans, there is a whole other layer to our difficulty in understanding the Bible.
Virtually the entire book was written by and to marginalized communities. And for many American Christians this is a foreign concept.
This is partly why admissions is so important to Western Christians. It gives us a glimpse into what the persecuted church looks like and how faith can thrive when society and even our bodies are suffering.
This week, Christianity today had an article entitled Haitians Are Ministering at the End of the World. It speaks of pastors who are risking their lives to carry the gospel in communities that are being completely destroyed by the effects of sin.
These men and women of God are faithfully carrying the grace that they have received to those on the margins of society. The article details senseless murders in marauding. Civil society has collapsed making way to a failed state. Haiti is ungoverned and ungovernable. And there is no easy answer in sight. When we read Christian journalism, we expect the articles to turn to a “but God” phase of the story. This one doesn’t. It just details the work of faithful Christians in the midst of unfathomable suffering. But this suffering isn’t for nothing.
In 1 Peter 2 we see the apostle begging new converts to live like these pastors in Haiti. The author of 1 Peter says that people will ridicule them and disparage them but he implores them to continue to behave as Christians. Why?
The Day of Visitation
Peter says that at some point Jesus is going to show up, and when He does, people will recognize Jesus because of the behavior of the Christians.
This is an amazing picture that every believer should pray and fast to lay hold of.
Jesus is going to show up to a group of people who do not know him, Peter says. And when He does, they will recognize Jesus because they had already seen Him in His followers. This is the work of Holy Spirit that we need today. This is how we should be praying and choosing to live.
We live in a sin saturated world and sinful desires get the biggest headlines and the most press. But Holy Spirit is working in the Church through her members discipling the world in the ways of Jesus. And one day soon, Christ will return and will be recognized because of the love His followers have shown.
As a man who is almost as passionate about college football as he is the gospel, I took great interest in a recent interview with Deion Sanders. For those who are looking to find how to fight the devil in our modern culture, Sanders showed what the devil is up to.
Throughout history, the church fathers gave us a blueprint in combating the forces of evil. They speak of fighting the devil, the flesh, and the world. Unfortunately, the way we fight the devil in most churches looks nothing like what we read in the pages of Scripture. Long prayer meetings with shouting, stomping and yelling our declarations of authority take the place of any real manifestation of authority.
When it comes to spiritual warfare, we focus more on the war than the heart. We settle for language of fighting instead of the actions of resistance. In essence, instead of living in the land of freedom, we visit the field of battle.
The DevilWhat’s lost on most of my tribe is that Jesus came as a Rabbi.
He didn’t come like Elijah calling down fire, or Moses turning water to blood, or Samson knocking over buildings. He was widely regarded as a teacher. And in that teaching we are told that he came to destroy the works of the devil.
I have been to a whole bunch of spiritual warfare meetings where there was a lot of screaming but very little victory. As 21st century Christians we need to forge a new Spirit-Filled pattern of spiritual warfare that stays true to our historic faith and actually works.
Satan’s primary weapon is the simple lie and the concept of truth is under attack in the West. This is way bigger than the current culture wars or political discourse. This goes to the foundation of societies and the Church.
Lies are always destructive even when we are deceived into thinking that lying will be an advantage to us. This was highlighted in a court ruling last month. Wherever you stand in the political spectrum is irrelevant for what the judge said in the recent civil trial that’s ongoing in New York against Trump Enterprises.
In his summary judgment, the judge wrote,
“In defendants’ world: rent regulated apartments are worth the same as unregulated apartments; restricted land is worth the same as unrestricted land; restrictions can evaporate into thin air; a disclaimer by one party casting responsibility on another party exonerates the other party’s lies…” Engoron wrote, citing multiple arguments made by defense to justify the allegedly inflated valuations of Trump’s assets. “That is a fantasy world, not the real world.” (emphasis mine)
As one commentator put it, “Trump resorted to a Postmodernist denial of objective truth.”
No one knows if any of us will be alive long enough to see the end of this proceeding making its way through the courts, but the truth itself is on trial. Is there absolute truth? Can we know the truth? Does it matter?
The truth not only matters, it is everythingThe idea that there is no absolute truth is an unchristian statement. It’s the opposite of who Jesus is and what He said about his life.
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me.” There is a wide way of the world and the narrow way of Jesus. The question is, will we choose the narrow way of truth?
Deion Sanders at the center of the warThis leads me to Deion Sanders and his recent interview on 60 Minutes. Sanders is known for being a flashy athlete playing football and baseball at the most elite levels. But make no mistake, Sanders has been known to play the fool for the press. In reality his football IQ coupled with his elite athleticism made him a Hall of Fame cornerback. A position eclipsed only by quarterback in complexity.
The interview was challenging Sanders on his coaching style. How he got rid of players once he came to Colorado and what he would do if a coach came into town telling his sons they weren’t any good and needed to leave the team.
You can find the full video here.
For those not trusting me enough to watch the video, Sander said,
“Truth is good for kids. We are so busy lying, we don’t recognize truth in society. We want everyone to feel good. That’s not reality.“
The judge said, “That is a fantasy world, not the real world.”
God is talking here.Our world is embracing a postmodern ethic where those who are willing to tell the truth are treated as if they were at fault and the lie that feels better is celebrated.
The Bible is pretty explicit in warning us against this.
But Jesus still stands as the pillar of truth. To those who lie he says,
You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he tells a lie, he speaks from his own nature, because he is a liar and the father of lies. John 8:44
Coach Sanders has been accused of coaching just so his son has a leg up in football as if that is something to shrink back from.
The reality is, Jesus celebrates when we tell the truth and Coach Sanders is letting it fly. And in this postmodern age, its leaders like that we need to celebrate.
Following God is risky business
Lots of people talk about the obedience necessary to follow God. Not as many people discover the vulnerability it takes to be truly obedient. We were never called to be followers of Jesus through grit and willpower.
Jesus said He would send the Helper. Holy Spirit draws us into the divine plan of God provoking us to believe beyond our understanding and seeing what we have never seen before.
He allows us to be disappointed at the failure of our own plans to help us to be amenable to His.
Photo by Kinga Howard on Unsplash
I have recently become struck by the concept of embodying the word of God. We understand that Jesus is the word that became flesh but even that is a more complex concept that at first glance. The writer of Ephesians tells us that before the foundations of the world, God [ … ]
There has been a move of Holy Spirit in my church as evidenced by people who are consumed with the Bible. I have seen several moves of God in my life but seeing people hungry for the Word is probably the coolest to be a part of. With that has [ … ]
From the exploitation of volunteers and wild lifestyles, to Christian nationalism, the Charismatic movement has dominated headlines recently for all the wrong reasons. Unfortunately these incidents are more feature than flaw as these movements have produced exactly what they were designed to produce. Like all fast growing religious movements, long [ … ]
I do a daily devotion based on the RCL daily reading. It is mostly for the folks I pastor, as a way of digital discipleship. I want people to engage the text both to understand the story in each writing and to see how Scripture is a unified story.
The RCL Daily reading is good at painting a picture that unfolds in three acts, Psalm, OT reading, and NT reading. I read and take notes in my devotion time then share them on several platforms.
On Saturday I do a longer dive into the week or on that day’s if so lead. I plan to do Saturday with someone else in the future. In case you want to follow along you can find today’s episode on Spotify here or follow the link below to find it on your favorite platform.
Here is a link to everywhere you can find the podcast: https://linktr.ee/spiritwordpower
I am teaching a foundations class that starts tonight. I have really wrestled with what to teach. My faith journey has had many distinct chapters so I am not inclined to a specific tradition. But through each I have kept a little and learned to avoid some as well. The [ … ]
I was once told that maybe I was called to the academy since I tend to obsess over things nobody cares about. I’m still not sure how to take that. But despite my Quixotic tendencies, I am still fighting the good fight of faith this time regarding if God is ok with rebaptism.
It seems that I’m part of a larger movement of Pentecostals moving toward sacramentology. My first formal foray into these waters was writing on water baptism (pun intended). I have made a conscious effort to shift our view of water baptism from a salvation graduation celebration, toward an entrance into the church after a period of study but short of a full catechism.
Historically in my church baptism serve two purposes. The first was a public celebration of people choosing to follow Christ. They confessed, we cheered, they came up wet. The second purpose was for an encounter with God. I could spend the day telling the stories of divine encounters people had in the waters of baptism in my years of ministry. More often than not, at the end of the baptism we would ask if anybody else needed to get right with God. People would run toward the waters and jump in.
Now I’m all for giving people an opportunity to get right with God any time anywhere, but I now liken that to asking at the end of a wedding if any couple there would like to be married and then marrying them on the spot. It’s not a recipe for longevity or success and diminishes what should be a sacred moment.
In our most recent baptism, it was the first water baptism I have done where I did not give people an opportunity to choose to be water baptized on that day. I know some readers have never done such a thing. In my world that was historically celebrated.
Instead, we required people go through a class, read a more formal teaching that I wrote on the purpose and function of water baptism, and then question their agreement with the Apostle’s Creed. On the day of the baptism, we called forth those who wanted to be baptized. We questioned them publicly on renouncing the works of evil, their saving faith in Christ, and their agreement with the Apostle’s Creed.
I was worried that somehow this would keep the Holy Ghost from showing up. I know that sounds crazy to the average reader, but it was a real concern. I was overjoyed when people had powerful encounters with the Holy Ghost in the waters.
So we had a far more formal, sacramental water baptism with one deviation. We allowed people to get rebaptized. And it would seem that this tips some sacramental sacred cows.
In Daniel Tomberlin’s Pentecostal Sacraments, he’s pretty vehement that people should not get baptized more than once.[1] Instead he proposes foot washing for people who are re-dedicating their life to God / recommitting / repenting of being away / getting right again. Honestly, that sounds more revisionist than getting a second dunk.
Foot washing could be sacramental for the one doing the washing. It is an act of humility and service. But it holds no connection to our current cultural context where everyone wears socks and people do not wash their feet when entering houses. Also, no large body of Christians has ever received foot washing as a sacrament or an ordinance and its New Testament evidence is ambiguous.[2]
So here are three areas where I am studying to find a theological landing spot for rebaptism:
- Will Pentecostal sacramentology look any different? I have not fully read Chris Green’s work on it but he details the two directions of Pentecostal sacramentology. One is to follow the broader Christian tradition, the other is to develop a unique and authentic Pentecostal account of the sacrament.[3] I have had too many people say they felt / wanted to / were told by an inner witness / thought it was right to get rebaptized after a season away from following God. And there is the rub. I can’t dismiss the testimony of so many people who felt a conviction to be rebaptized.
- There is biblical precedent for rebaptism. The New Testament details several occasions where people were rebaptized. This always was when the post-resurrection apostles encountered people who received “John’s baptism.” This was always in response to lack of Spirit reception at baptism. Andrew Williams makes some accommodation for the possible rebaptizing those baptized as infants.[4]
Is it possible for people to be baptized in the triune formula yet not receive the Spirit? Did the baptism of John only describe those baptized by John and his disciples or is it possible there are those who are only baptized today for repentance? What should I make of people who are baptized in the Spirit at a subsequent water baptism? - Both Ephesians and the Creed confess one baptism but that is not formulaic, that is a confession of one Church to be baptized into. Could an initial baptism be likened to a briss (Jewish ceremonial circumcision), and subsequent baptisms be likened to a mikvah (ritual cleansing)?
Why is this a big deal to me and why spend all this time on something so inconsequential? My greatest frustration with Pentecostal theology is its disconnect from Pentecostal praxis. Classical Pentecostals believe that there are no sacraments yet believe that miracles can happen through the laying on of hands, anointed preaching, intercession, anointing with oil, prophecy, and many other practices both Christian and pagan. We won’t even touch if giving has been elevated to sacramental in the Pentecostal / Charismatic church.
I just want to say I believe in what we do. I’m not following folklore or witchcraft. These are the ways that I have seen God move and I believe it is neither forbidden by Scripture nor is Scripture proscriptive of some other function. And on this journey, I’ve started with water baptism.
If you have other thoughts, I would love to hear them.
[1] Daniel Tomberlin, Pentecostal Sacraments: Encountering God at the Altar (Cherohala Press, 2019).
[2] Robert Webber, The Sacred Actions of Christian Worship, vol. 6, The Complete Library of Christian Worship (Nashville, TN: Star Song Pub. Group, 1994), 343.
[3] Chris E. Green, Toward a Pentecostal Theology of the Lord’s Supper: Foretasting the Kingdom (Cleveland, Tenn: CPT Press, 2012). My citation of Green here does not in any way denote his support of my thesis. I am fairly confident that he is against rebaptism.
[4] Andrew Ray Williams, Washed in the Spirit: Toward A Pentecostal Theology of Water Baptism (Cleveland: CPT Press, 2021). It’s important to note he is not a fan of the practice though.
(This post is redundant to my SubStack. But since Twitter does not play nice with Substack I post to both place. You can follow me on SubStack here.)
My week started with a call from the hospital. The kind nurse wanted me to know my wife was out of recovery and ready to be discharged after surgery to correct a hernia. She wanted to know how long it would be before I could be there to get her. I told her I was four floors above her with my mother who was suffering with cardiac malignant infusion from chemotherapy. Basically, her heart was weak from the six rounds of chemo to kill the non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and now it isn’t keeping up with the needs of her body. They had just drained almost a liter from one of her lungs and she was happy to be able to breathe.
Today, my son graduated from university Magnum Cum Laude. Life is crazy sometimes and unfortunately, Jesus does not insulate you from that. There are preachers who will sell you that story, but it wasn’t true for Paul. It wasn’t true for Stephen. It wasn’t true for Jesus. And it isn’t true for us. Here is what I’m trying to do in the midst of a life of uncertainty.
Live in the moment.
I don’t prescribe to YOLO carpe diem living. I also don’t prescribe living tomorrow’s troubles today.
I don’t have any fewer problems today than I had yesterday. In fact I just found out about a problem that is potentially serious. I also have people that I care about suffering greatly. But today, my son graduated from college. Our family will gather together and celebrate his great achievement.
I have stopped several times today already to absorb the environment. I like to be fully present in moments of celebration so I have the well to draw from in times of depression.
When we came home from the ceremony, our bellies were filled from brunch but my heart was filled with joy and I wanted it to get deep in my soul. So I laid down on the floor of my living room and I purposefully counted 20 amazing things happening right now.
You have to count the amazing things on purpose because the devil is constantly counting the bad things for you.
I need to keep those amazing things in front of me or else the bad things become the loudest voice in my ear.
Tonight I’m gonna watch my son navigate a room of people who love him and have cheered him on his whole life. I will probably tell him for the 30th time this week how proud I am of him. I will remind him that the job he is supposed to get will come when it comes. The focus for today is the achievement of the last four years.
Ain’t it like the devil to have you thinking about your need of a career on the day you are supposed to be celebrating the graduation from college?
But I have reminded my son just like I’m reminding you, life is crazy. Tough days are coming. Maybe you are in a tough season right now. But those are forever. Life is a winding journey and when you are riding that ride with Jesus who knows where it’s going?
But when that ride takes you on mountaintops and lush valleys, stop and take a picture with your soul. Carry it for the journey ahead.
Today I got a few snapshots my soul will carry forward. I pray you get a few this week as well.
God is moving in the churches of every pastor I know. It is astounding and it all started about the same time as Asbury.
Asbury did not start this move. Asbury was a prophetic sign about this move. It wasn’t started in the seminary, it was started across the street at the Bible college among students who wanted to be transformed by God.
It wasn’t started at a revival meeting. Of course, no revival has ever started in a revival meeting. It was started at a chapel where people were being challenged to be better.
I think we have a window of opportunity to encounter God in this season. There are a whole lot of man-made movements happening right now. I don’t say that to put them down or discredit them. But there are a lot of movements that have come out of our stream that focus more on our efforts (prayer, worship, intercession) then they are focused on God, His grace, and what He did so we can encounter that grace.
And Lord knows if our movement can build something, they can definitely promote it, market it, and make some leaders famous and rich from it.
Asbury the SignAsbury was none of these things. They simply let God do what he wanted to do and tried to keep everyone with an ulterior agenda off the stage. Jon Tyson, Pastor of Church of the City New York, said there was no hype in the meetings. He said he wished there was 20% more hype. It was just a “bad Baptist college service with a nuclear bomb attached.”
In other words, it was God among the poor in spirit. That is the sign. That is the fruit that can’t be produced with marketing, email blasts, or Instagram stories.
I hunger and thirst for a move of God like that. I am so tired of what our stream has produced. Every time God does anything it has been labeled an outpouring or revival or awakening. It’s been marketed on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook along with a handful of ways to make the leader more wealthy.
Early in the Asbury meetings they put up a sign not to stream the services. Can you imagine any of the famous people in our stream doing that? Not a chance.
It’s Time for Something NewI’m tired of celebrity apostles. I’m tired of prophets who put their hope in the American government. I am older now, and no longer need the bells and whistles of revival. I desperately want a move that produces people who love God and love their neighbor in radical ways. I desperately want to be in a room where people are convinced of their need for Jesus and convicted of their lust for the American dream.
I pray that I’m around long enough to see something pure and holy stoked again.
What in the world is a Pentecostal pastor doing leading a Lent devotional? Am I becoming Catholic? Was it the whole point of the Pentecostal movement to kill this dead religion? I am fully aware that people are fearful that one day I’m going to be using words like Advent and Lent and the next day I am going to be worshiping Mary and praying to pictures of dead people.
What kind of craziness am I involved in?My family moved to South Florida shortly after I was born. My mother was escaping an abusive situation and was protecting us. On the other hand, we were completely cut off from all of our extended family and I spent a lifetime only knowing my mother and sisters. There was an occasional visit from an uncle or my grandmother and I knew I had other family but I didn’t know any of them.
That is exactly what Pentecostal Christianity is. You know you have some sort of extended family, but you also know that you left them for good reasons even if you don’t know what the reasons are. What they do has nothing to do with what you do and their history has nothing to do with your history. You are a new lineage. You are in a new covenant. God is doing a “new thing” and you are at the center of it.
At least that’s how it’s portrayed.
A funny thing happened on the way to Seminaryin seminary I learned the rich Christian history Pentecostals descend from. We aren’t quite the reformers or trailblazers we think we are. We are standing on the shoulders of great Christians who stewarded the mystery of Christ for 2000 years. They debated the intricacies of theology that we now take for granted. They fought off heresies, false apostles, false revivals, the invasion of false religions, and diligently guarded the faith passed down for all the saints.
Early in my walk I would read Finney, Edwards, and Ravenhill and my heart would burn within me. In seminary I experienced a similar burning reading Athanasius and the Council of Chalcedon. From there I studied both earlier and later trying to answer the prophetic question, “How did we get here?” I consumed all I could about the theological history of our faith.
This lead me to the Didache which was also known as The Lord’s Teaching Through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations. Though it is pseudonymous, it represented with the early church believed the teachings of the apostles were and to my shock and disbelief they talked about how to do church stuff. I learned of Lectionaries and the Daily Office.
Us Pentecostals rarely have confidence in any plan, teaching, or ritual that was created more than five minutes earlier. We have elevated so-called revelation to the place of idolatry, and I saw how this was destroying believers’ faith.
So what is Lent?Lent is a 40 day period between Ash Wednesday and resurrection Sunday not counting the Sundays. More importantly, it is a time of introspection to see where we have fallen short of the promise we made at baptism. But it’s not doom and gloom. We look back and inward knowing that our God is waiting to not only restore us to our baptismal identity but to propel us forward into the identity he created us with.
I am convinced that the greatest problem in the Pentecostal church is we refuse to answer the question “How did we get here?” We walk blindly after our own lusts and passions claiming to go from revelation to revelation but in reality it is just systemic escapism.
Lent is part of the bigger church calendar which is designed to have us meditate on all aspects of the earthly ministry of Jesus, not just the parts they give us the warm fuzzy feelings and packed church services.
What is the Church Calendar?The church calendar, also called the liturgical year, keeps her focus on Jesus. A church that follows the liturgical calendar throughout the year teaches on the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus and the gift of the spirit every year. Year after year the same stories about the life of Jesus are taught in the church baptizing believers in a holistic understanding of who God is and why Christ came.
This isn’t sexy stuff. This isn’t the deep-fried Oreos you get at the state fair. Into that the liturgical calendar could get stale and boring. But it doesn’t have to be. There is plenty to get excited about, get people’s faith stoked with, and foster moments of divine encounter.
So this Lent I am expecting to encounter the Holy Ghost of God in a profound way as I look inward to see where I have fallen short, and look outward to the opportunities God has placed before me to be the person he’s called me to be.
What am I doing for Lent?Normally, the palm branches from Palm Sunday are saved and burned, and those ashes are applied to foreheads on Ash Wednesday. I’m not at a place where I am ready to do that. I don’t judge anybody who will walk around with ashes on their forehead today, it’s just not my tradition. Will I do it in the future? Who knows. But as of right now the ashes I bear our emotional and spiritual.
Traditionally Lent is a period of self-sacrifice. To that regard there are things I am abstaining from for my personal sanctification. Lots of people talk about what they give up for Lent but my Pentecostal heritage tells me to never talk about what you are fasting. I don’t judge anybody else who does, it’s just kind of a thing still stuck in my psyche. So there are things from which I will withstain.
My normal daily devotions circle around the revised common lectionary daily readings. So I am already reading scriptures surrounding this church season. In addition I am reading a Lent devotional with others. I am also praying into how I will do acts of charity and justice in this season.
What can you do? No matter where you are on your spiritual journey you can use this season to grow closer to God. Choose to abstain from something in this next 40 day period. You can join us on our devotional journey by clicking right here. You can also seek where the Lord may enable you to do acts of justice and charity.
But if you simply spend the next six weeks setting apart time with God asking the question, “how did I get here?” Ask, “What part have I played in the successes and failures of the last couple years and what can I do to be on the path God has for me going forward?” Maybe ask, “God, what is my life supposed to look like and how do I get on that path?”
This kind of spiritual housecleaning will set you up for the rest of year and launch you on a trajectory toward God’s blessings in your life.
I will leave you with a prayer from today’s Daily Office reading on this Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent.
Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
In the 1930s the property at 312 Azusa Street in Los Angeles was foreclosed upon and scheduled to be demolished. The once horse stable that hosted the revival that bore its address had sparked a movement that had already traveled the world. Before demolition, the building was offered to the Assemblies of God to be kept as a memorial. The response was that the church was “not interested in relics.”[1]
That’s too bad because I am. So is God. And so should you.
Last week I was stunned when I realized my adult daughter has only lived in two houses. She is a sophomore in college and has only lived in houses we owned. By her age I had been through bouts of homelessness and moved over 20 times. When I got saved in my 20s, I hoped that with God’s help, my future family would not have the life I did.
I can’t tell you how many nights I have sat in my back yard and thanked God for my home. I never in my wildest childhood dreams thought I could own a house like this. Childhood poverty has burned a scar in my psyche and year after year I am amazed I went another 12 months with my mortgage paid.
When we first bought this house, it was a testimony of God’s faithfulness. But now its more than that. It has gone through a kind of transfiguration. The longer I live in it the more it becomes a memorial to the God of heaven.
Memorials in the BibleThis morning I read of Jacob who had an encounter with God while on the run. In his sleep the heavens opened for him and God spoke promises that are alive to this day. When he awoke, he recognized that the place he was standing was special. To be clear, everything he experienced happened while he was sleeping, so it could be said it was all in his head. But the significance of that experience affected everything around him and he wanted to remember that.
He took the stone that supported his head and stood it up as a memorial and poured oil on it, anointing it as a pillar in memory of what God had done. Later in chapter 35 Jacob had another encounter with God where his name is changed to Israel, and he did the same again.
For Jacob, the act of moving the stone from supine to vertical was an act of worship and remembrance. I can imagine him stepping back, looking at that stone and being drawn to tears. For a moment in time He was fulfilled in God. How often can you say that? How often can you stand back, look at a memorial to what God did, and be transported to that holistic fulfillment that only God can provide? It happens to me in my back yard all the time.
In our fast-paced, information-overload society, how much more do we need unmovable visual reminders of the goodness of God in our lives? Like it or not, modern church buildings are more a monument to the leader than the God of the leader and statistics show the damage that happens to many pastors after building projects are completed. We all know they don’t bring that holistic fulfillment.
The accusation of idolatry has robbed whole generations of believers from the reward memorials can bring. Natalie Carnes writes in Image and Presence that the iconoclast (those rejecting icons honoring God) participates in an external iconoclasim unaware.[2] They are assigning a power to the icon the iconographer never intended.
What does that mean?In his book All Things Beautiful, Chris Green writes that in our fallenness, we disfigure creation when it becomes an object of worship. The sin is not in the creation, we were created in the image of a creator, the sin is in the worship of the created thing instead of the creator. [3] We were clearly instructed to not make the likeness of heavenly things as objects of worship. But in an effort to quiet the accusation of idolatry we have failed to honor God by having tangible memorials of his deeds, and we have failed to create locations of worshipful remembrance that transport us back to that moment of holistic fulfillment. `
This world has plenty of idols. It needs more icons.
Icons, relics, and memorials point us to remembrance. They are Holy Ghost bookmarks, spiritual shortcuts to the faithful God of breakthrough. I sit on my back patio and look into the night sky appreciating the God who kept my daughter’s life a little more stable than mine. Every December we hang on our Christmas tree snapshots of testimonies that mark the high points of our family. They aren’t sacred, but the memories they point us toward are.
I don’t intend to stir sentimentality.This is a purposeful counter cultural repudiation of the constant need for more, the disease of never having conquered enough, and an effort to dethrone the deep-seated inability to be satisfied. Relics remind us of the moments we were still with God and pleased with the outcome. They are the salve to the depression and anxiety of our day stealing glory from God. They stand upright as pillars of our faith that we may not see God at this moment, but He is surely at work in the world now as He was when I erected this stone.
Collect physical reminders of God’s goodness this yearIn 2023, be aware in those mountain top moments. Close your eyes and let them be seared in you psyche. Take a picture and use it as your lock screen. Tell the story to the people around you. Meditate on them when you lay down at night, resting your head on all the great things God has done. Make the decision to make obvious the testimony of God that might be lying dormant in your past and push up some new stones for generations to come.
[1] Vinson Synan, The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic Movements in the Twentieth Century, Subsequent edition. (Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 1997), 106. Let me add this caveat. Historically the Church kept relics that included pieces of dead people. Don’t do that. If you can’t get your mind past that aspect, substitute memento for relic wherever necessary.
[2] Natalie Carnes, Image and Presence: A Christological Reflection on Iconoclasm and Iconophilia (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2017), 7.
[3] Chris E. W. Green, All Things Beautiful: An Aesthetic Christology (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2021), 22–23.
I didn’t grow up in the church, but I was always being drawn by God. This caused me to read lots of religious texts growing up. Some were more biblically sound than others.
I once read a book on the saints of the early church and quickly looked up what would be considered my patron saint based on my birthday. As the title of this post already gave away, that would be Saint Stephen. Stephen’s feast day being on my birthday is not the point of this writing.
Stephen is known as the first martyr of the church. We find his story in the 7th chapter of the book of Acts. He was a deacon in the church but was also a mighty preacher. I don’t necessarily believe in patron saints, but I have often identified with the story of Stephen.
Stephen was made a deacon in Acts chapter 6 and was quickly known to be performing “great wonders and signs among the people.” That’s who I want to be, but the similarities don’t end there. Some people didn’t like this and started to debate Stephen. The Bible reads that “they were unable to cope with the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking.”
This is where I really start to resonate.
Young Angry PreachersIn my youth, that sounded like a win. Stephen made an argument they could not counter. As I grow older, I read that and cringe. Stephen was completely in the right, but he failed as a communicator. He was unable to communicate the resurrection of Christ in a way that resonated with his audience. It’s possible that they never would no matter what he said, but the fact remains, he left the people in a situation where they could not cope with his oratory.
I imagine that Stephen thought that he could throw so much knowledge at the people by exegeting the scriptures and pointing to the move of God among them in such an overwhelming manner that they could not do anything but agree that he was operating within God’s grace. Stephen soon found out that’s not how things work.
It’s been my experience that when you fail to comprehend the ignorance of your accuser, everything you say will be weaponized against you. They almost never point to their lack of understanding; they see their confusion as the byproduct of your scheme. The temptation is to give even more information, to overwhelm the doubt with a preponderance of the evidence showing that there is no other conclusion then the one you put forth. But ignorance is nothing if not long-suffering in its ignorant host. This does not produce introspection and contemplation; it produces anger, and ignorant anger must find a scapegoat. When this angry ignorance multiplies in a crowd bad things happen.
As true as all that is, that is not why I am sharing this story today, the day of the Feast of Saint Stephen.
The Mob of FoolsThe ignorant people became an angry mob and angry mobs magically produce liars to gain the acceptance of the mob. By the end of Acts 6, the same chapter that had Stephen elevated to the role of deacon, liars were on the scene reinforcing the accusations of the ignorant.
A kangaroo court is quickly assembled, and Stephen puts on his defense. He gave a survey of the Old Testament and concluded with showing the crowd how they were just like the people written about in the Scriptures. But instead of comparing them to Moses and David, he equated them with every person who led the people of Israel astray. An interesting tactic considering he was accusing the people who would determine his fate. And as fate would have it, they found him the bad guy and ruled his life would end.
This is the part I want to point out.
Grace That’s Only Revealed in SufferingAs was the law, they took him outside the city to murder him. Here, for the first time, a Jew cried out to the exalted Jesus as the author of his salvation. “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!” He then prayed to Jesus that they not receive judgment for their murder and died.
I am left to wonder how the witness of Stephen’s faith in death ministered more powerfully than his words of wisdom and study. We know that Paul would be converted after this event though we don’t know what part this played. But still I wonder.
How many times do we do everything we know to do to succeed for Jesus even though our efforts produce nothing? How often does our real witness come from how we suffer for Him?
Stephen preached the Scriptures to the crowd. He knew the story. Yet in his final moments he saw Jesus at the right hand of the Father and chose to cry out to Jesus. How did the Holy Ghost manifest in the hearts of the murderers in the days after that trial? How did Stephen’s suffering and death bring glory to Christ? Am I willing to suffer, in some small incomparable way, long enough for Jesus to get glory from it? Or will I continue to avoid all conflict that might bring pain in the name of pragmatism?
I hope on this day, we think about the sufferings of this world and the people enduring it the most and consider how it points to the glory of God.
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