According to a new study reported on LiveScience.com, “Loneliness, like a bad cold, can spread among groups of people.”

It’s like a virus.  While H1N1 can spread through handshakes, people catch the loneliness bug through negative interactions with other people.  A lonely person will be less trusting of others, essentially “making a mountain out of a molehill,” said study researcher John Cacioppo, a psychologist at the University of Chicago.  An odd look or tone of voice, or word-choice, that wouldn’t even be noticed by a friend-full person could trigger a whole cycle of negative interactions by a lonely person.  Those negative interactions then would cause that person to lose friends. 

In essence they are unfriending themselves.

But it doesn’t stop there.  When they unfriend themselves from someone else, that person who has been unfriended, will now feel the loneliness bug and may begin to interpret other people’s actions as being unfriendly…and so both people end up taking steps towards the relational fringes.

I love how closely the report (published in the December issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology) comes to Biblical truth when it suggests that  loneliness is not a character trait, as in “that person is such a loner,” but more of a state such as hunger.

The reality is that God designed us with a connection requirement.  Our hearts are hungry for friends.  So what does God do?  Psalm 68:6 says that “God places the lonely in families.”   Church is a family of sorts, as is your lifegroup, as maybe your workgroup, as maybe your roommates, or maybe even just your circle of friends.  God has placed you in a family to disrupt the loneliness virus.

On facebook it is pretty easy to unfriend someone, click a button and they are no longer connected to your social-media-relationship world.  Unfortunately in life it is sometimes equally easy to unfriend someone.  The harder, but more rewarding work comes when we be-friend someone.  Then instead of starting viruses, we are satisfying heart-hunger.

Maybe God has put a lonely person in your family?  Don’t pass on the virus, feed their hearts.

I have never unfriended anyone on facebook.   So I decided I needed to experiment, just to see what happened…see how it felt.  So I tonight I unfriended someone — okay, it was my son Josh, pretty safe.  I went to my friends tab, found his name and there is a great big X next to it.   When I put the cursor on the X, it says, “Remove Connection.”

That’s what unfriending is all about, removing a connection.  It didn’t even show up on Josh’s facebook.  I guess when you unfriend someone, the hope that they aren’t paying attention.  The goal is to unfriend without commotion.  The goal is to unfriend unseen.

The goal of being a friend is to pay attention.  The goal of having a friend is to be seen.  When we were in Myanmar, we were asked one question all the time, “Do you remember me?”  Just another way of saying, “Do you see me?”

Anybody here remember how much you always wanted your parents to watch you when you were little?   At the local pool as a kid?  Watch this daddy, rate my dive daddy?  Daddy watch me… one more time!!!”  Anxious for a little parental approval, parental pride, or just attention of any kind.  Knowing Mom or Dad was watching made us feel special, safe, courageous.

Then came adolescence.  I could turn my girls into curled up balls of fear with five little words…I’m driving you to school… and yet even though they don’t want to be seen with you…they still want to be seen by you… don’t miss my game or my concert…please come, just don’t do something to embarrass me, like hug me, or sing. But please watch me.

Leonard Sweet has noted that some of the most tragic events in our postmodern culture have occurred because a lonely person convinced themselves that there was no longer anyone watching them, caring about them, keeping an eye on them. In a majority of the recent school shootings it has been a lonely kid, a kid who felt bullied, isolated, cast out, and rejected, who pulled these horrifying “watch-me” shoot-outs.

When someone unfriends you I guess they are saying, “I don’t want to watch you anymore.” So if you have ever been unfriended — on facebook or in life — here is the point of this post.

God is watching you.  God’s eyes are on you, and they aren’t just waiting for you to screw up.  God’s eyes are on you because he loves you so much, he just can’t take his eyes off you.  Attention is one of the most powerful forces in the world, that’s why we pay it.   It is a supreme way of saying, “I care about you.”

God is paying attention to you.  In a 100 different ways every day, He sees you.  Maybe you have a boss who always demeans you.  Maybe you keep getting passed over for the promotion.  Maybe it’s a divorce — the ultimate unfriending.  Maybe someone moved away.  Maybe a family member is upset with you.  I just want you to know that God sees you.  God pays attention to you, because He can and because he is good and He loves who he made you to be.

In fact Psalm 139 says that God pays such close attention to you, that you can’t even put a number to His thoughts about you.   Don’t worry.  He’s not a stalker.  He’s a father.  He loves you.

Francisco Hernandez is a 13-year-old boy with a form of autism called Asperger’s syndrome.  Back in October he was missing for 11 days.  Apparently Francisco got into trouble at his middle school.  Rather than go home and face his parents… he took the battery out of his cell phone and descended the steps to the New York City subway.  He spent the entire 11 days lost in the NYC subway system.

Your first thought might be “strange kid,” but if you know anything about Asperger’s Syndrome, you might understand.  The syndrome makes it difficult for him to interact socially.  As a result he found it difficult/impossible to ask for help. He mostly sat and slept, frightened, until he was found and returned to his extremely relieved parents.  For 11 days, he ate candy, drank bottled water, used the public restrooms, and sat/slept on the subway.  11 days after he descended into the bowels of the subway system a police officer found him sitting in the Coney Island station and ultimately returned him to his frantic parents.

• – It isn’t so odd to me that Francisco ran from fear of facing his parents.  I had a daughter who ran away from home once.
• – It isn’t so odd to me that Francisco got lost on the NYC subway system.  I lived in NY for a while, rode the subway to work.
• – What’s odd to me is that no one ever figured out that Francisco needed a friend.

Isn’t that odd?  He sat, walked, and wandered in the midst of thousands of people for 11 days.  Nobody was curious that this 13 year old was alone.  Was there never a time in 11 days where he looked like he was in need of a bed, or a meal, or a shower?  Was there no one in 11 days who was curious about the fact that they had seen him multiple times on the same train?

Nobody had unfriended him, but nobody befriended him.

In fact, here’s my bet.  I bet there were people near him who were connecting to to others through social media.  I bet there were people who were twittering from the mobile phone, doing a status update from their iphone, or texting from their new droid.  Thousands of people around him connected to thousands of i-friends, but nobody saw someone who needed a friend.

Now — I like facebook.  I twitter — not sure if I like it yet, but I do it.  I blog and use google analytics to see how many are reading my blog and where they live.  So I’m not a social-network-phobe.

But in reality, studies show that about 55% of communication comes from what we see — body language, facial expressions, etc — about 38% comes from what we hear — tone of voice, passion, etc — and 7% of our communication comes through words — like text messages, status updates, twitters, and blogs.

Here’s what I’m hoping — I’m hoping we don’t lose 93% of what we need to know about those around us; I’m hoping we don’t lose our ability to listen to what those close to us (either in proximity or heart) are saying to us through our eyes and ears, because we are too focused on the texts of social media.

May I never miss a Francisco sitting next to me…

Have you ever been Unfriended?   If you have, don’t feel bad, the action is common enough that the New Oxford American Dictionary made “unfriend” it’s Word of the Year for 2009.   Words it beat out include:

• Hashtag which is the hash sign added to a word or phrase that lets Twitter users search for tweets about the same subject.
• Intexticated for when people are distracted by texting while driving.
• Birther meaning conspiracy theorists challenging President Barack Obama’s U.S. birth certificate.
• Deleb referring to dead celebrities, and
• Zombie bank — a financial institution whose liabilities are greater than its assets, but which continues to operate because of government support.

For those who have not yet entered the social media world, unfriend is a verb that means “to remove someone as a ‘friend’ from a social media network.  So a possible sentence using the word would be, “I decided to unfriend my roommate on Facebook because she is a frequently intexticated birther who supports zombie banks and is obsessed with delebs.”

Now listen, if you’ve ever been unfriended, don’t get too discouraged.  The reality is that most of us have too many facebook friends anyway.  Facebook is a front-porch for relationships.  You sit out on the front porch for a few moments every evening to see who walks by.  You don’t know everyone who walks by equally well.  Some folks, you don’t even know their names, just their face.  But they walk by and you wave, or maybe they give you a brief status update and then they are on their way.  But the reality is that if you had a 1000 people walking by your front porch, it would be called a parade route not a neighborhood.   Facebook is a good front porch, it’s only so-so as a parade guide.

I enjoy facebook.  I use it to take an occasional walk through neighborhoods filled with people I know, some better than others.  Some front porches I stop by for a moment, some I just give a wave, sometimes no one is home.  Then some nights I just stay home and let others walk past my porch.

BUT here’s the deal — don’t settle for only front-porch friendships.  Make sure that you know the inside of a small handful of those homes that you walk by… and make sure a few of those front-porch friends have had a cup of coffee in your kitchen.

More later on facebook friends.

The year was 1636, it was the worst of times in Europe and the people in Pastor Rinkhart’s parish experienced the worst of the worst.  They were in the midst of the “30 Years War, and the enemy had already invaded their town three times, destroying almost everything of value.  Pastor Rinkart is said to have buried 5000 people in his parish that year, an average of 15 a day!  How would we handle such circumstances?  I’m not sure how I would handle fifteen funerals a day, let alone the deaths of those I care about.

Martin Rinkart sought God’s strength in deep soul-searching prayer and in that dark night of the soul he sat down and penned this table prayer for his children.   Over the course of my lifetime it became one of my favorite thanksgiving hymns.

Now thank we all our God with heart and hands and voices;
Who wonderous things have hath done,  In whom his world rejoices.
Who, from our mother’s arms, hath led us on our way,
With countless gifts of love and still is ours today.

Isn’t that incredible?  Almost unbelievable…an attitude of gratitude in the midst of the junk of life.   The living did not warrant thanks giving…and yet there it was.  Can real people be grateful when real life is hard?

I’ve seen it in Myanmar and the Dominican Republic when I’ve traveled there to serve.  I’ve seen it when I’ve sat with a family who have lost someone they love and they sit around alternating between tears and laughter as memories flow from lips.  I’ve seen gratitude not only arise, but bring healing, when a couple struggling in their relationship have taken the time to make a g-list.  (G is for gratitude.)

In fact let me say this, with all my heart I believe that gratitude is the pathway to wholeness for those who are currently living with fragmented hearts.

Not many years after Martin Rinkart wrote his thanksgiving hymn.  A church outside of London was built.  On the church a plaque was engraved with these words.. “In the year 1653, when all things sacred through out the nation were either demolished or profaned, Sir Robert Shirley Baronet founded this chrch whose singular praise it is to have done the best of things in the worst of times…”

Sometimes the best of things that we can do in the worst of times is practice gratitude.  What’s on your g-list?

Thanksgiving was only 8 days away. Michelle, who teaches Bible in a mid-week children’s program, decided to ask her preschoolers about the upcoming Thanksgiving Holiday.  She thought it would be effective to have the class playfully correct some of her wrong ideas about Thanksgiving.   “Now let me see,” she said. “Thanksgiving. That’s the day when we think about all the stuff we have. And how we want more things than anybody else has. And how we don’t care about anybody but ourselves. And… ”

“No!” the kids started to yell. “No-o-o!”  Then one little guy called out, “That’s not  Thanksgiving, Miss Michelle, that’s Christmas!”

What is the true story of Christmas?  It almost seems like there are two competing stories; the Christmas story of Consumption, and the Christmas story of  conception… the invasion of God’s presence into the reality of life on earth.  Which story of Christmas will be written in our hearts this year?

It’s an important question because it’s Thanksgiving — day of gratitude, football, and stomachs full of turkey.  Then comes Black Friday, first real day of the shopping season. So let me take you for just a moment or two to a Christmas Psalm.  It is a psalm written by a man named David… but inspired I think by the Christmas heart of God.  The words have touched a chord with millions of people through 1000’s of years.  Around the world, Psalm 23 is one of the most well-known, most well-loved passages of scripture you will ever find.

The Lord is my shepherd; I will lack nothing.  He lets me rest in green mdws; he leads me beside peaceful streams.  He renews my strength. He guides me along right paths, bringing honor to his name. (read the rest)

The Lord is my shepherd; I will lack nothing. I have everything I need.  I lack nothing. I can be content.  I can even be grateful. The Psalm 23 Christmas message:  No Lack. Now there’s a Christmas banner that will strike fear in the heart of the retail sector!  :)   We live in a country that has built, 16 1/2 sq ft of mall space for every man, woman and child in the country today. Last year the Minneapolis Mall of America had more visitors than the Grand Ole Opry, the Grand Canyon, and Disneyland combined!  I was there twice!

If the Lord is my Shepherd…I will lack nothing.  Imagine what would happen if consumers got ahold of that truth!  Psalm 23 is the trump card to every ad ever created.  And I know the struggle, as a parent I struggle with this feeling inside that I don’t want my kids to be disappointed,  by a smaller Christmas…. as though less stuff could shrink the true Christmas.

Here’s the deal.  The dangerous detour of Christmas is not in giving gifts…the dangerous detour of Christmas is in wanting stuff…stuff that does not bring life.  The true Christmas story is about the moment in time when Jesus came and brought all we need for life.  If Jesus is my shepherd, I lack nothing.  If that’s true, I have a lot more to be thankful for this Thanksgiving…and a lot less I need this Christmas.

I have so much for which to be thankful this year.  My dad has a re-built heart.  All my kids are home for thanksgiving.  I work with a staff team that I could even go on vacation with.  I have friends to laugh with.  I serve a church that has a passion to make a difference in the world, the humility to know that we can’t do it without God, and the grace to offer to broken people.  I have a wife that is my best friend, my partner and my heart.   And as completely amazing as all that is… if it was all taken away… because I have Jesus, I would still lack nothing.

Have a great Thanksgiving.  I’m going to eat well.  Watch football.  Laugh with my family and tell God thanks.

I don’t know if these commercials have been on tv or not.  If they have, I’ve been missing them.  But maybe they are just a youtube deal.  Anyway it is a series of story-commercials set in the Post Shredded Wheat Factory.   They are really quite good.  Listen to this one, it’s actually episode 2 in the series.

You can find the whole series at The Palace of Light.  If you listen to all of them you will hear certain themes like…”progress is overrated,” “don’t fix what isn’t broken, ” and “we have one honest ingredient.” What isn’t broken for Mr. Druffel is their “one honest ingredient.”  Nothing else matters and nothing can improve upon it.  So let’s put the “NO in innovation.

Now if you know me,  you know that I like change — and I’m not talking about the kind you find in your pocket, I can rarely hang on to that kind of change.  I like the kind of change that moves from old stuff to new stuff.  At the same time, like Post Shredded Wheat — followers of Jesus have one honest ingredient that simply cannot be improved upon.  That’s Jesus.  Paul says that we should get worried about anything that leads us away from our pure and simple devotion to Christ.  (2 Corinthians 11:3) Progress that makes it difficult to prize Jesus is not just highly overrated, it is heart-dangerous.

So I’ve been thinking about that balance between a pure devotion to one thing — knowing Christ — and a pioneering spirit that is willing to “be all things to all people so that by ALL MEANS we might win some to Jesus.”  (I Corinthians 9:22).

Not too long ago, at Catalyst I heard Chuck Swindoll say these words.

Traditions are the living faith of dead people. Traditionalism is the dead faith of living people.

So meaningful traditions that celebrate the living faith of those who in years past were devoted to Jesus — that’s a good thing.  Saying, “we can’t do that, we’ve never done it before,” — maybe not so good.  Being willing to change methods and strategies in order to awaken people to a passion for Christ is a good thing.  But so is hanging on to rituals that connect us to those who in years past were a model of a living-faith passion for Jesus.

Progress is overrated, but so is traditionalism.  Traditions might be life-giving, but innovation and change might be just as life-giving.   Perhaps the key is this…

Is the tradition, or the innovation leading us to a deeper, sometimes more risky, always more joyful experience of living faith that finds it’s end in more highly prizing Jesus? If not, let’s stop the tradition and not expend energy on the innovation.

A blog post by Mark Batterson reminded me of this verse from Habakkuk 2:1, “I will climb up to my watchtower and stand at my guardpost. There I will wait to see what the Lord says.”

Where is your watchtower?  I’ve had a few: a cemetery across the road from the first church I pastored, a lookout tower that sat beside a lake, Mt. Nittany — only for those once a year special watchtower moments :),  a few well placed benches at Harvest Fields.  For many years, Lynn and I would pray and listen together late on Saturday night in the worship room at 1250 University Drive.  Where do you go to wait and see what the Lord says?

Do you have a place?  It doesn’t have to be far away.  But it should be a no-distraction zone, someplace where you are more likely to get good God reception.  Right now, perhaps my best watchtower has simply been the deck off my office.  It gives me an incredible view into the city and another view down the valley.  Looking in both directions, God renews my heart for the people in our region.  Looking and listening God gives me fresh perspective on the God-sized dreams He is dreaming for His Kingdom in these interconnected valleys.  For example, a few weeks ago in our UNchristian series I was talking about being too political…it was watchtower-time that turned a sermon on politics into a vision about the Kingdom of God.  (

Where do you go to get perspective? What places help you dream bigger dreams? Where do you go to hear the voice of God more clearly?

Susanna Wesley (mother of John & Charles Wesley) had 19 children in the 1600’s, no fancy watchtowers were available so she would sit in the corner of her kitchen, and pull her apron up over her head.  That was her watchtower-listen-to-God time, and the children knew you did not bother mother when she was in the corner with her apron over her head!

Let me encourage you, if you don’t have a place, choose one.  Spend some time there at least once a week, for at least an hour for the next few months…maybe God has something to say to you, and He’s just waiting for you to start waiting.

Today (Saturday) is my dad’s first day home from the hospital.  He was supposed to go home on Thursday, but his potassium was low so he had to wait.   You know there is an awful lot of waiting that goes on in a hospital; waiting for a doctor, waiting for a meal, waiting for pain medication, waiting for a visit, waiting for sleep.

I was able to able to hang out with my mom and dad for a few days this week, and as I was making one of my many trips back and forth between dad’s room and the waiting room — that’s where the free coffee was — I was thinking about waiting.  An intensive care waiting room is different from most other places in the world.  There is a hush in the room, some emotion, but mostly even the emotion waits.  In a waiting room, people are a bit more ready to help each other out, a bit more polite, everyone is in the same boat.  In the waiting room, we are all wondering what the future holds, we are all thinking about someone we love.  And everything is focused on the doctor’s next report.  We are hoping for a good report.

It’s an interesting thing about the Biblical word for hope. In the New Testament, the word hope is the same as the word wait. Biblical hope is not an I-wish-kinda-hope. It’s trust-filled waiting upon the one who can save us.

In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word most frequently translated as hope is the word qawvaw.  The word literally means… cord.   Hope is a cord.  Hope is a connection.  Hope is nothing more tying yourself to something solid.

Put them both together and hope is waiting for God, while tied securely to God. Some of us are struggling with hope right now aren’t we?

So what do we need?  We need to find a connection that will not be shaken no matter what we go through; strong cords tied to something substantial.  We don’t need a watered-down feel-good “Chicken-Soup-for-the-Soul” God.  We want strong cords anchoring us to an unmovable, unshakable, rock of a God.   Psalm 62:5-6 states, “I wait quietly before God, for my hope is in him. (My cord is attached to him.)  He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will not be shaken.”

Jenni Bateman is a God-passionate, people-loving artist.  Some of her work is on display at the HUB. She has a piece that started me pondering hope.  The piece is entitled Hanging by a Thread. It’s about hope in hurting times.  Nobody enjoys hanging by a thread, but sometimes those hanging-by-a-thread seasons lead to a whole new experience of hope.  Looking back we realize that the thread was really a cord, and the cord was attached securely to the rock of God.

When it comes to hospitals — it doesn’t matter how nice they may be — there is no place like home.  But sometimes seasons of waiting add strength to our homes, don’t they?