The Problem with Waiting Too Long
I wrote an article last week about waiting. I want to tell you why I have such a bee in my bonnet about that messaging and how wrong it is.
It’s not just that I have been encouraged to wait around a lot (as you might expect) being told as a young person starting in ministry that I was too young for everything I was ready to do, and needed to wait around until i satisfied someone else’s criterion for minimum age.
It’s not just a personal concern. It’s also a pastoral one.
Me? Who’s me. I don’t matter, I’m weird anyway. But I have seen this idea impact my congregants negatively, sometimes fatally.
I want to tell you the story of my friend Rick. Rick was in his 50s when I met him, and he had not been active int he church for a long while, but he came by one day asking if he could borrow some tables. I fortunately was in the office and was able to help him, and through that small act of generosity a new friendship was formed and he started attending again.
Rick was young for his age, both in good ways and bad ones. He was vibrant and active, and a little immature. he had a drug problem early in his life and those sorts of things often lead to stinted development, but he was clean now and seeking to walk the straight and narrow.
Rick would often tell me about hos it had been his lifelong ambition to be a full time minister. To preach the gospel, and how, in the short term he hoped to start a mission ministry to serve the poor near him. I said that sounded great.
He also said, many times “You know, when I was younger I would sometimes get out ahead of God, and the preachers would have to reel me back in, get me to not go so fast” at one point I got kind of annoyed by this “god is really fast” I said “god is faster than you, you can’t outrun him” but he had been taught this enough times to internalize it.
”I have so much I want to do, so much God has left for me” he would say “I don’t feel like this is the end” Rick had terminal cancer.
He believed (bargaining) that God would keep him alive, because surely he still needed to fulfill all the promises he had made to god his whole life long, promises which he wasn’t procrastinating on, so much a piously and obediently waiting to be given permission to begin. The man was twice my age, with a year to live, and still hoping to get started at some nonspecific day in the future.
Rick became a deacon at our church, he served as a wonderful member. But he never got to become the preacher he could have been, nor start the mission, nor spread his art and his poetry beyond our little family. He waited too long
The Constipation of Evangelical Waiting
They will tell you to wait.
And wait, and wait.
If you grow up in the Christian church you will no doubt be told over and over again that you are not ready for things, that you should practice more discernment, and that it is a holy and laudable thing to “wait upon the lord” for the “appropriate time” to so any manner of things, and that in the mean time you need to simply be a religious consumer, and an attendee at whatever vague program they are currently looking for attendees for,
It is a lie.
It’s a lie from the pit of hell and it results in thousands if not millions of Christians who outta be out changing the world, instead sitting around trying to practice a nonexistant spiritual discipline.
That word, in Isaiah 40:31, the one that was translated “wait upon the LORD? It doesn’t mean that.
The original Hebrew word is קָוָה which means to be strong, to be tense, to be ready. Enduring, awaiting. The image is of a warrior with his sword drawn, because he is waiting for the moment to act within the next couple seconds.
It is the exact polar opposite of someone waiting around doing nothing, which is what the image conjures today. But in the early 1600s when the KJV was written, that’s what “wait” meant in English. It’s where we get the idea of a “waiter” as someone who serves. We are to “wait on the LORD” meaning serve him. A waiter is not someone who is idle. A waiter is someone who is standing ready to help and to serve, anticipating your needs, looking for anything they might be able to bring you.
But over time we grew to like the wrong meaning of that verse (it served the selfish needs of religious leaders) and now when new translations come out, they tend to keep that English word the same, even though the language has moved on and it doesn’t mean the same thing anymore.
Also, Jesus wasn’t a carpenter in the sense we know carpenters today. he was a carpenter in the 1600s sense. A builder.
Extraordinary Claims
Let’s take a break from our broccoli scriptures for a moment and go back to regular apologetics. I want to pick on another silly Meta-debate that occurs regularly in circles where people attempt to speak rationally about Jesus. The claim that “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”
This idea came from Carl Sagan who, I have to say I am an enormous fan of. He is a brilliant man and a passionate and patient teacher of science, so much so that I am willing to completely and totally ignore the fact that he sounds like Kermit the Frog.
His series Cosmos dropped this line, along with other all time showstoppers like “We are made of star stuff” and “If you want to bake an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe”
And like most of the things he says, he is right. Extraordinary do indeed require extraordinary evidence. Specifically, the context in which he spoke about this was with regard to tales of alien encounters. Certainly an interesting claim, and one which would be very significant if true, but with what evidence?
Sagan of course is no friend of religion. (a point of some irony considering his famous series is taken from a common biblical word meaning an ordered and structured world. So it’s hard to accuse his quote from being taken out of context when it is applied to God…. But it totally is.
I mean listen. I haven’t read every Sagan book or watched every Sagan interview, and maybe he did attempt to apply the so called “Sagan Standard” to the question of God personally. I have seen him do similarly irrational things when the topic turned to religion. But to do so would be to cheapen the actual meaning of the phrase enormously.
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” is the lesson of a spectacular teacher exploring his students to think! and to never stop thinking. It is the word of a man fascinated by UFOs but disciplined enough in his thinking to model for us an approach to that idea which asks more, and searches more.
When it is used in Christian contexts it is used to shut down conversation.
To end thinking.
To insist that the reality I prefer (that God would not exist) is the true and final reality unless you my rhetorical opponent can provide evidence which I consider “extraordinary” because that is what I have decided that your claim is. It’s intellectual laziness, is what it is.
Sagan investigated UFOs he investigated horoscopes, he was familiar with all the evidence that was presented, and he rightfully, sadly, found it lacking. He didn’t conclude that aliens do not exist or that they have not visited. Quite the opposite, he remained “agnostic” on the subject, but fairly weighed the evidence before him and found it light.
So few of us do the same thing for our metaphysical assumptions. So few of us take time to regard and to analyze the cosmological, axiological, historical and philosophical arguments for theism and it’s related ideas.
To illustrate this. Consider the opposite claim. Setting aside any unjustified gag reflexes you hay have taught yourself regarding the burden of proof consider the claim (and yes, is it a claim) that every religion of the world is essentially wrong. That the supernatural itself, does not exist. That there is no mountain all faiths are climbing differently, nor is there one that is climbing the right mountain, but that mountains do not exist.
That’s pretty extraordinary.
I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Actually i think the claims that atheism makes are really advanced in terms of anthropology and culture in a lot of interesting ways. But it runs counter to everything everyone has believed for pretty well always. So where is the extraordinary evidence of that wonderful idea?
I
That’s a shame
Because a really good teacher taught us an important phrase about a standard of thinking, which reminds us all to be disciplined in not jumping to easy assumptions or preferred answers, and instead to keep on thinking and streaking and looking for answers to difficult questions and I think it deserves more respect than that. Because it’s true.
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”
German Style Boardgames
Juergen Moltmann said that the way to change the world is by playing games.
So I want to talk a bit about the Board Game Renaissance. That is going on in the world right now, and it’s theological importance. A lot of it comes from a new way of thinking about board games, which began in Germany and has since expanded internationally.
American Style board games like Battleship, Risk, and Monopoly, tend to feature militaristic themes, with direct player interaction, player elimination and zero-sum win conditions. This is not only emblematic of certain cultural values, it’s also practically problematic especially in family situations because "Daddy just shot you dead and now you can’t play, you have to sit and watch Daddy and Mommy destroy each other" isn’t fun and doesn’t lead to happy memories.
Monopoly in particular was devised as a thought experiment to teach children how horrible and destructive capitalism is. You are supposed to feel desperate and frustrated, that’s a feature of the game.
German Style board games, by contrast, deal with primarily agricultural and economic themes, avoid player elimination, indirect competition and often cooperation, and victory points (non-zero-sum) The strategy of these games is usually quite a bit deeper, and less dependent upon luck.
The most popular one which you are probably familiar with is Settlers of Catan, By Rio Grande Games 
I have a love-hate relationship with Settlers. I love it because it introduced millions of people to German Style games. I hate it because among these games it is one of the worst. The winning strategy is easily discernable after the first game or two and after that it’s boring. With that said, everyone loves it, your family probably will too, so if you are looking for a game, consider grabbing it.
I can more recommend more heartily, Ticket to Ride, by Days of Wonder 
This one involves building transcontinental railroads (What continent depends on the edition, but the United States edition is really good). Everyone plays until the end, and players strategize over when to claim the best routes, but never attack one another. The strategy for this one is actually really deep despite the rules being simple enough for small children.
Another really good one is Tokaido, By Passport 
The story of this one is that all of the players are fellow travelers on the road from Tokyo to Kyoto, and you compete to be the player who enjoys their peaceful journey the most. This involves seeing the most views, eating the best variety of food, and buying impressive collections of souvenirs. Because there are so many opportunities along the Tokaido, it takes a practice game to cement the rules, but once you learn them it is a lot of fun. One of my favorite things about this one is that there are absolutely no dice. You decide how far you move.
Too much kid stuff? Ready for a darker theme? Pandemic, By Z-Man
In this game all the human players work together. There are several diseases that have broken out, and only you, the agents of the WHO can save the world from total destruction. You each have different abilities, and try to save the world "better" than one another, but mostly you just try to prevent the apocalypse. Everybody wins if you cure the diseases, nobody wins if the outbreak exterminates all human life.
One last one just for fun, Fluxx, by local Austin Game studio, Sam Jackson Games
There is almost no strategy possible with this one, because the win conditions can change at any moment. It’s just ridiculous fun. There are theme editions available for whatever your family likes, like Pirates, Oz, or Monty Python. As far as I am aware there is no "Reformed Theology Fluxx" at least not yet
Accommodating People, Ignoring People
It really REALLY annoys me when someone suggests that we should do more to accommodate tech illiterate people during this time.
For the last 6 months of my life, I have been working really hard to engage people with church in a new way. In a season of Covid19 I have moved the Sunday Worship Service online, inventing along the way what that might look like.
I made important choices, for instance I eschewed livestream in favor of prerecorded services on YouTube, because livestreaming (while familiar to church leaders) does not make sense when there is not a present audience watching something live, and because with prerecorded and premiered content, we can provide better content, at higher resolution, that is enjoyably rewatchable, and easier to access. We don’t have users dealing with downtime and that sort of stuff.
I have rebuilt the church website, I have invented online tithing for our church (although we still get most of our donations in the mail) I’ve started ministries online and gone to meetings on zoom, made tutorial videos, and been on phone calls, revamped my social media, the church’s social media, and our email communications. And in everything I did I had an eye, to how each of these changes would effect change-averse elderly parishioners who were not comfortable with tech, and yet were the most vulnerable to this virus.
And there are people out there saying that what I really ought to do is focus on those people sommore.
NO!
You do not understand.
Like it or not this has been a time we have been forced to embrace tech, and this is what it looks like when we do that in the most familiar, novice-friendly, accommodating way possible. If i was ignoring people who disliked tech, I would just have opened a Discord day one. Everything is on discord, install it, get yourself a mic, we are going to play Tabletop Sim a lot together, so pick up a copy, let’s leverage telepresence and meet new people.
I haven’t done that.
It’s a golden hour for the church to reach gamers, bloggers, YouTubers, influencers… generally all of generation Y and Z. And most churches haven’t done any of that. And the reason they haven’t, is because they have been working full time to simulate the church experience they used to have in person which appealed to Baby Boomers in a way that was safe for them.
We do not need more ways to coddle and comfort older parishioners.
That’s important work that needs to be done. It has been done. It cannot be to the exclusion of all else. No. Not more of that.
Actions speak louder than words. Words speak too.
As a church, in this time, both our actions and our words are shouting that Boomers matter, and Zoomers don’t.
And that’s why your churches have no young people involved.
Spinal Tap: The Best Movie Ever, Ft. Rev. Dr. Walk Jones
In my second foray into this format, I met with my friend and fellow pastor Walk Jones to talk about his favorite movie Spinal Tap and what it is about it that makes him love that movie so much, and why that matters.
AMA | Are Some People at an Advantage to Believe the Gospel?
Here’s the latest video
Church and Non Church
So one of the odd realities of having a blog about ministry is that there are a lot of things that come up worthy of reflection in my daily life, which really aren’t wise to talk about, especially not right then. I have talked about this before. So let’s circle back and talk about some of what was going on as I wrote that article which I couldn’t talk about then,
Basically I was planting a church. Until I wasn’t.
I got out of seminary, I was called to minister, called to preach. I didn’t have a job but I had plenty of time, and I went to work, finding people who would listen to me, people I could serve, Jesusy things to do, and I tried, Oh! how I tried so hard to follow all the rules and expectations of the PCUSA as I sought ordination following my degree.
I was weak and vulnerable, I didn’t want to tick anyone off at the moment when they were “assessing my readiness for ministry” Now that I am ordained I have no such concerns. It’s really hard to defrock someone, and you can’t do it just because you disagree with them or they annoy you. Then, not so much.
Anyway I started this church-like-thing. I preached sermons with some people, lead Bible Studies, did mission projects, but it was disorganized. Some people who did the mission projects did not come on Sundays, some people who came to Bible Studies were also at other churches.
Presbyterians (who dislike disorganization) have come up with a name for these church-like-things so that they do not have to conform to all the expectations of a normal PCUSA congregation (having elders, an ordained pastor, a filed 501c form and so on) we call them New Worshipping Communities (NWCs)
So fine, I went about trying to become an official NWC so that I wouldn’t be coloring outside the lines. I met with a committee. I met with another committee, they gave me a grant to take a trip to Florida, which lead to a trip to California, then we met back in another committee. The whole time the ministry in Texas was growing (at least it was for the weeks I was permitted to actually BE in Texas) I counted about 50 people involved, 30 of which regularly attended monthly potlucks at our tiny apartment. I was ready to take a major pay cut and work towards ordination to this emerging ministry. But the latest committee told me I wasn’t ready for that yet, that I should take more training at my own expense before moving to the next threshold. “What’s after that?” More thresholds “How many?” we’re not sure “What do I get at the end?” We aren’t sure of that either.
It came to be that as an unemployed person I had two full time jobs, one building the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and one going on trips and committee meetings and filling our forms to try to legitimate that work to people who had never visited, never seen my context, and who, by the way, had never successfully planted anything themselves.
”What would you do, as a committee” I asked “If you ever decided I was good enough?” and then came the reply “We are still figuring that out” so there it was. Turtles all the way down. Becoming an NWC, and then a Presbyterian church was not a file bound up in red tape, but rather a Gordian knot consisting of red tape entirely
So what did I do?
There is a move in Sumo called a “henka” which is perfectly legal, but considered dishonorable. When your fellow athlete comes against you full speed, you simply get out of the way.
”I’m sorry I wasted your time” I eventually said. “I thought I was planting a community that could be a church some day, that it matched what it is that a NWC is supposed to be. Really it’s not like that. It’s just a group of people who love Jesus and help each other, I’m not planting a church I’m just being a Christian, doing regular kingdom work like everyone should be doing”
They had nothing to say against that. It didn’t require any more forms or meetings. Granted, I never got any money or recognition our of them, but I wouldn’t have gotten much of that otherwise and I would have had to earn it against bias. For the hours I would have put in, I would have gotten more of both working at Starbucks.
It turns out, that there is no real way to define a church, and no real way to say what isn’t a church. A church is a gathering of people who are curious about God, so is your average 8th grade field trip, or softball team, or collection of people at a bus stop. We try to make rules and draw lines, but that’s all it is. Us making rules and drawing lines.
AMA | What You Were Raised to Believe
Today I answered a internet question challenging Christianity on the basis that we only believe this because we were told do when we were younger. Here’s my hot take: Does that really matter?
Pastor Ryan Gaffney 