Road Tested

My wife and I just bought a new car.  Well, new to us, at least.  That was some of the debate, in fact, during the whole “joyous” car buying process: Should we buy new or used?  There are advantages to both, of course, and as this isn’t a car-advice column I won’t get into that side of things too much.  So, for me, I admit that perhaps the biggest non-quantifiable factor I kept coming back to was, “How would the car do on long road trip?” 

Perhaps this is some erroneous thinking on my part, but I’m always worried about how my car will do on the ‘long trip’.  My thinking is that if a car breaks down close to home, I’ll be okay.  Sure, I’ll get frustrated, I’ll reach for my wallet, but in the end I know I will be fine.  After all, around home I have friends or family that can help me out.  Perhaps give me a ride, or loan me a car if I need it.  I have the mechanic that I know and trust to go to first, before I need to go anywhere else.  Around home, I have the resources I trust to get me through whatever my car problem might be.

            But on the road, well, that’s another issue entirely.  If my car breaks down when I’m far from home, suddenly I’m much more nervous.  I don’t have the family or friends to rely on, at least not in the same way.  I can’t ask too many people to drive hundreds of miles just for a lift.  And as for that trusted mechanic, he’s a ridiculously expensive tow-truck trip away.  I’m in trouble out on the road, which really is my big fear.  Again, right or not, this was my thinking, and it helped make my car buying decision.

            Since then, I’ve been thinking.  This feels to me more and more akin to how I feel about my faith as well.  Do you ever feel the same way?  My faith doesn’t worry me in the normal, day-to-day routines of my life.  When I go about a regular day: school, work, home, there is nothing that makes me think, “Oh, I hope my faith will hold up to all of this.”  I’m ready for everything, or at least so I think.  And if something were to put a bump into my path: I get a project at work that is a little more than I can handle.  Some stress at home affects my relationship with my kids.  In those times I know I have the resources around me to call on for help.  Family and friends, a local church perhaps, they’re all quickly at my disposal for just such a fix and overhaul.

However, it’s when I get out of my routine, when I go on the hard, long trips in my life that suddenly I begin to wonder if my faith will hold up.  When my road ahead suddenly has a long-term medical issue that is far beyond routine, I question if my faith is strong enough to hold up, and not break down along the way.  Or maybe I hit what I think is just a little financial pothole, only it turns out to be something much worse.  It’s a job loss that now means I’m on a long, scary road that I haven’t been on before and with no exit in sight.  Those routine check-ups I should have been doing, but have been skipping, suddenly worry me.  Time in prayer, growing closer in my walk with God, those things that would really give me assurance on my now tough road ahead.  Now I’m asking, “Did I do it enough to know that my faith is strong and ready?”  Is my faith read for a long hard trip, one that I might not even known I was about to take?

            These are the tough questions we should ask when it comes to our faith, but I feel that we rarely do.  Which is so ironic.  When you think about how much thought and energy I went into just to buy a car, shouldn’t I put the same energy and foresight into something far more necessary and important to my everyday life?

            How is your faith?  Ready for the long haul?  Ready to be road-tested?  And, if not, what can you do to be prepared for your next road trip?  It may be time for a tune-up.  Sure it will take time, but better now than after you’re already stranded on the road!

Don't go to church, Be the Church!

Bill Walles

Why I Love the Church

           Heard this one before?  “I love Jesus, but I just don’t like His Church.”  Or maybe this one: “Dear Jesus, save me from your followers.”  Now, I have to admit that second one is kind of clever, albeit awfully troubling.  It is also emblematic of an increasingly trendy idea, and one that I hear expressed more and more all the time.  There seems to be a great number of people who say they love Jesus, who think that what He said and what He stood for were great.  However, when it comes to the Church that claims His name so many years later, they want nothing to do with it.

Now, to be fair, I can appreciate where this comes from.  Let’s not kid ourselves, the church has done a number of things over the years that have been pretty unlovable (the Crusades come to mind.)  But it’s not just our past that’s the problem.  As nearly anyone with a news feed on their Facebook page can tell you, as a global church we still do a few too many things that are awfully unlovable today.  Hence the trend, and what has become one of the greatest challenges to face modern Christians.

So I’m here to say that, in spite of our past mistakes as a church, I want to buck the trend.  More than that, I want to boldly come out against it and say that I still love the church.  I realize that I may be in the minority on this.  I think even amongst those who would still call themselves Christians there’s less of a desire to admit you’re part of a church community, let alone claim a real love for it.  But not me.  I love the church.  In fact, in a weird sort of way, I think it is the flaws of the church that help remind me why I love it.

One of the biggest mistakes a church can make is when they start acting like a Cathedral for the Saints when nothing could be further from the truth.  The church has always been at its best when we remembered what we had originally been called to be: A hospital for sinners.  When you read the Bible and look at who Jesus called to be part of his original group of followers, the “original church,” they were all sinners.  People whose résumés were littered mistakes.  Résumés that didn’t improve all that much even after following Jesus, since they continued to make mistake after mistake.  But that was the point.  Perfect people didn’t need Jesus.  Only the ones with flaws and faults.  The ones who made mistakes and knew it.  People like the original followers.  People like me.

That’s my church, and why I love it.  It’s also why I hope people who want nothing to do with the church give it a second chance.  Maybe even a third, and a fourth after that.  Because no church will ever be perfect. In fact, the best ones will usually be far from it.  But if you’re looking for a welcoming group of imperfect people, the church is a perfect place for you.  As it turns out, Jesus designed it that way from the beginning.

Don't go to church, Be the Church! 

A New Year

Well, it’s that time of year.  The time to look back on the New Year’s resolutions you made a few short days ago, and see how many of them you’ve kept.  It’s an annual ritual, is it not?  In fact, it is the breaking of the New Year’s resolutions that seems to get more attention than the resolutions themselves.  There’s almost a perverse glee in the fact that it is a rare occurrence when someone is able to keep their resolution all the way through February.

So, I wanted to go a slightly different way with this ritual and instead, encourage you to try again.  If you’ve fallen short of a resolution, or didn’t even make one because you feel they’re just impossible to keep, try it.  And if/when you fall short try it again.  To whatever daunting resolution may lie before, with whatever negative history you may have with it, give it a chance, give it your all, and give it your best.  Especially if you’ve already been unable to keep at it this year.  Consider this your permission to try new, with a clean slate.

The word we use in the church for this is Grace, and it’s a wonderful and powerful word.  Grace means forgiveness.  Grace means hope.  Grace means, when you fall short, when you miss the mark, you are still loved.  It is the central theme of the Christian faith – Grace, and it is one we need to hear every year.  You see, the whole reason Jesus came into this world was because people like you and me kept failing.  We kept falling short of perfect, we kept messing up on our goals, our resolutions, on everything.  And so Jesus came to give all of us grace.  To say, you don’t have to be perfect.  You just have to be forgiven.

It’s a powerful message to hear, and one that we desperately need to hear again and again.  So, in your life, I encourage you to know and hear grace.  If that’s related to something like a New Years resolution, then fantastic.  Don’t beat yourself up about failing, know grace instead.  Know that there’s nothing stopping you from trying again.  And perhaps that will lead to something far greater.  Perhaps knowing grace in something as small as a New Years resolution will help you know that Jesus offers a grace far greater, and far more life changing to you every single day.  No matter where you are in life, no matter how short you think you’ve come, there is grace and forgiveness for you.   With good news like that, can anything be so bad?  And with that, I hope you all have a very, Happy New Year!

Bill Walles