Last weekend at Calvary we talked about the value of a father’s heart.  A father’s heart is what every kid needs.  If you missed the message, you can listen here (

See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse. Malachi 4:5-6 (NIV)

In John’s gospel, Jesus said that John the Baptist was this Elijah sent from God. John the Baptist came to prepare the way for Jesus, which — think about it — which means that somewhere near the heart of Jesus’ mission…somewhere near the heart of the Gospel is the turning of the hearts of fathers to their children… and the turning of the hearts of children to their fathers.  Guys this is our great calling. God calls us to make a great commitment for children. God calls us to a heart-turning adventure. God calls us to a great battle for the hearts of our kids. This is a Father’s Calling.

So what does it look like when the hearts of father’s and their children are turned toward each other?  Well it looks like parenting that is filled with grace and truth.  I think we could graph all of our parenting
styles along a spectrum of those two words.  So if you look at the matrix with four quadrants…going up you are increasing in grace and going across you are increasing in truth.

So in the bottom left hand quadrant, you have a style of parenting that is low on grace and low on truth. In other words, it’s Indifferent.   The child is growing up with very little love and very little discipline or instruction.

Right above that in the box, you have a style that is high on grace and low on truth. In other words it’s an Indulgent parenting style.  It’s anything goes because we love you and even if you do wrong there is always grace.  In fact truth isn’t all that important.

Then to the right of that — upper right hand corner is a style that is high on grace, but also high on truth.  It is Inspiring.  It’s a style that breathes life into a child.  A love that gives grace in times of failure but doesn’t neglect to disciple or discipline.

Then finally there is a style in the bottom right hand corner that is high on truth and low on grace. That’s the Imposing style.  It’s Marine-Style parenting, heavy on the rules, low on grace, brutally honest, and filled with commands. Low on physical and verbal expressions of love. High on discipline and instruction. A lot of telling, not much listening.

Now if you think about those four styles — which one do most of us dads gravitate towards? We are drill sargeant wanna-be’s. Why? We’re busy. We’re action figures. Don’t have time to open up our hearts. When we come home at the end of the day, tired worn out and beaten up, it takes more time to give love and grace than it does to give direction. If a dad really worked hard, there’s not a lot of attention being given on the personal side, the more intimate side, the heart side. But dads still care, they want to do the right thing so they issue commands from above.

Now, if you go back and look at the research, it tells you which of those four styles are most healthy, in order. Here’s what they are: 1. The Inspiring Style full of grace and truth…high love, high discipline. That is the best environment for a child.  2. Interestingly, the second best parenting style is the Indulgent style.  High Grace, Low in Truth. Where there’s a lot of grace given with verbal and physical expressions of love, even when there’s not a lot of discipline and instruction, that’s second best. 4. The worst style of all, is the Imposing style — very authoritarian style. You know what’s interesting, you meet some one who is very anti-religious, anti-God, anti-Christianity, I mean they are vehemently angry toward religion. Did you ever meet somebody like that? Ask them, “Tell me the home you grew up in?” They will often describe a strict, religious home, where dad was constantly giving the authoritative, religious pronouncements. But they never saw his heart.

In fact the research tells us, that children raised high in grace based loving homes, in either the Inspiring or the Indulgent homes, were more likely to adopt the values of the families they grew up in. When they get to be adults, they are more likely to be responsive to authority figures. They have a greater sense of well being. Love creates that.

So guys how are your hearts towards your children?  Are you full of grace and truth as you parent them?

Last week we visited Lynn’s Grandmother (Mum Mum) for her 100^th birthday party.  She is really quite amazing.  She is remarkably healthy, remarkably sharp.  You don’t want to get into a discussion on politics with her because you will lose.  She has lived with Lynn’s aunt and uncle for as long as I’ve known her and up until a year ago, her apartment was on the third floor!  She was born in Norway and is Norwegian through and through.  In fact my one saving grace when I first started dating Lynn was that my grandfather was born in Norway.

While I was at her birthday party, I was trying to imagine all the changes that she has lived through.

She was born in 1912.  That year also saw the births of Ark Linkletter, Francis Schaeffer, Eva Braun, Lady Bird Johnson, Perry Como, and Wernher Von Braun, which gives some sense of the history through which she lived.

• The year she was born, the last Chinese Dynasty ended and the People’s Republic of China begin.
• The year she was born, New Mexico was admitted to the Union as the 47^th state and Arizona soon followed as #48.
•  The year she was born was the first time a man parachuted out of a plane, not coincidentally it was also the first time a man parachuted off the Statue of Liberty.  In 1912 the Titanic Sunk.  In 1912 there was no Cy Young winner, because Cy Young had just retired.
• She was a teenager before you could listen to music on the radio.  And she was already driving when the first red and green traffic lights were installed in NYC.  Imagine a time when green did not mean go.
• She saw a man named Hitler come to power in 1933 and twelve years later, after some 17 million soldiers and 60 million civilians, (including 6 million Jews) had died, she watched the Berlin Wall go up…and come back down.
• She saw the birth of rock-n-roll music and the discovery of Elvis, though I’m not sure she was a fan of either.  She can remember a time before penicillin and before Hiroshima.  She went from Kitty Hawk to the moon; from stories around the fireplace to facebook.
• When she was a teenager, a chip was something you found dried in the cow pasture, hardware was a store, and software wasn’t even a word.  When she learned to drive, you could buy a brand new Chevy Coupe with leather upholstery and specially designed windows for about $600, but who could afford one, which was a pity because gas was only about 11 cents a gallon.

So many changes, sometimes it seems like the only thing that never changes is the fact that everything changes.  Which made me pause to ponder the things that do not change, that never will change, at least not on this side of death; for example, the love of God, the character of God, the value of prayer, the importance of relationships, the value of people, the joy that comes when we see God@work around us, the Kingdom, the Gospel.  Stuff like that.

Every time we talk to Mum Mum, a certain liturgy is followed.  We say, “How are you Mum Mum?”  She says, “Oh not so good.  I thought I would be dead by now. I’m not sure why God is waiting so long.”  Then we say, “I think it’s because He wants you to keep praying for your family.”  And I would guess that there are only a handful of people who have prayed for me more the last 30 years.

I like change, but the only way to thrive through times of change is to be reminded of and invested in those things that never change.  Mum Mum is invested in those things that never change, that’s why she prays and why she is eager to be home in heaven.

So where is your life truly invested?

Last week at Calvary we finished up our teaching series, “Come Thirsty.” Really the whole series was all about being with God, life with God. I offered two words that shape our pathway to life with God. If we want to be with God, we need the right balance of Desperation and Expectation.

Last summer, I challenged Calvary to spend a day with God. The challenge came from David’s words in Psalm 84. He starts in verses 1-2, with, “How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.”

David just wants to be with God. He’s desperate for God. How lovely is your dwelling — probably a better translation is “how loved is your dwelling…” It’s not just lovely; like, “Oh, God you have a lovely house.” It’s loved. David would rather hang out with God than be at a Penn State football game. He would rather drink coffee with God than go camping, or shopping, or bar-hopping. David just wants to be wherever God is.

It’s not limited to church, but honestly today David say, “I can’t wait to go to church. I long to go to church. My soul yearns for church. When I get to church, I don’t want to end. I don’t want to leave. No place I’d rather be than church. If we are honest, that sounds weird in our ears. If someone said that to us, we might say, “You need to get a life!”

Last week 15-20 of us from Calvary and a few other congregations took an all day trip to Brooklyn Tabernacle in Brooklyn New York. During the day we attended sessions on prayer, but I’m certain that most of the people who went would say that the highlight was the prayer meeting. It starts at 7pm, but sometimes people start lining up around 4pm to get a good seat. The doors open at 5pm and by 6pm it was getting pretty full (~4000 seats in the auditorium). Prayer is already going on. People are lining up for prayer. And in the room, there is is this amazing mix of desperation and expectation.

They are desperate for God, and they have seen Him work so often that they are expectant for God. I love what Jim Cymbala writes about church,

Too much of our religious life is made up of programs and human ideas, talents and strategies. While these have value, they pitifully fail to meet the need of the house. What is missing today is something from heaven itself, something from God the Holy Spirit that fills and floods our lives. This has always been God’s design for His church.

Do you understand what Cymbala is saying? He’s saying if church is boring, something is wrong. If you want to leave church early and come late, something’s missing. If you were given tickets to a Taylor Swift concert (sorry Jake) or a seats on the 50 yard line to watch Penn State and Alabama and you can’t imagine trading those in for church, then somewhere along the line we’ve missed God’s design for the church.

In Psalm 84:10, David writes these words, “Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere. This phrase, the “courts of the Lord,” is woven thru the Psalms. It’s simply another to say “with God.” Being in the courts of the Lord is all about being with God.

David’s saying, “If I only had one day to live, I would live it with God.” Better is one day with God than three years without God. Better is a month of days with God than a lifetime without God. I know it’s a psalm, perhaps a bit of creative license. But don’t miss the delight, and anticipation, the desperation and expecation of what the psalmist feels when he says, “I would exchange a lifetime anywhere else for a month of days in your place.”

How about you? What is your best day?

Last weekend was CityServe 2012. Calvary joined with 10 other local congregations for a weekend of community service. In fact Calvary cancelled our worship gatherings to go out and be the church for the whole weekend. What a great weekend!

As we prepped for CityServe the weekend prior, we looked at Ezekiel’s vision of dry bones resurrected. The resurrection was more than just personal rejuvenation it was for the purpose of God’s mission. The resurrected bones became a living breathing army of resurrection in the valley. Then I said something like this,

Resurrection has been unleashed throughout the world, not just so our thirst could be satisfied. Remember a couple of weeks ago I said, it’s not just about us. There is a world of thirsty people out there who need resurrection. I know some of you here this weekend are in need of your own personal resurrection…and I so deeply hope that this vision of Ezekiel will spur on your hope and lead you to listen to God and cry out to be filled with his Spirit.

But far too many of us settle for being objects of resurrection when God calls us to be agents of resurrection.

An army of resurrected people going out to do good and spread resurrection throughout the valley. I know it seems like raking a yard or painting a bathroom, or cleaning a toilet does not even begin to compare to resurrection. But you just don’t know what a resurrection-God can do with your act of service.

One project was that of a woman who lives in a trailer in Julian. Her husband had died within the last few months. Her trailer was significantly damaged and she had no one to fix it. She said, “Everytime I see the holes in my trailer, all I can think about his what I lost.” When Kendra said that we would be happy to come and help, the tears started coming down her cheeks and she said, “I can’t believe it, no church has ever been kind to me like this before.”

Last weekend the church of the Centre Region was kind to her.

Last weekend the church of the Centre Region — about 840 volunteers — was kind to about 120 different individuals and organizations. Single moms, the elderly, people struggling with financial difficulties, nursing homes, firefighters, hospice workers and organizations like Stormbreak, the Pregnancy Resource Center, and Centre Peace experienced the kindness of the church of the Centre Region. People were visited. Parties were held. Houses were painted. Yards were raked. Bushes were mulched. Schools were cleaned. Trailers were fixed. Decks were (or will be) stained. I could go on and on.

Who knows what God will do with the seeds of kindness and hope that were planted.

But here is my challenge — don’t let it be a weekend event. Go out and tend the seeds in the garden that God has given you.

Ken and C. J. are a Christian couple who live in Bodaga Bay, a little town north of San Francisco. They run a deli in a store up there. A few years ago, Bodaga Bay was big enough to have one homeless man, the town tramp was named Garland. Garland dressed poorly, acted a little strange and slept in the city park. Being Jesus-followers, Ken and C.J. befriended Garland; offered him food and kind words. When their store was broken into and robbed most people in town accused Garland. Ken and C.J. — instead of accusing — prepared a very expensive gift basket for Garland and gave it to him.

The next morning the police showed up with Garland and the expensive gift basket; certain they had caught the burglar. To protect Garland from embarrassment Ken and C.J. said, “Oh, Garland! Thank you for bringing your basket back. We forgot to put some stuff in it we wanted to put in it. And by the way, here’s the change I forgot to give you.”

Ken made up a number — $38.67 — and in front of the police he opened the cash register and gave $38.67 to this homeless guy. The police let Garland go without saying a word. A few mornings later Garland died in the park in his sleep. Ken and C.J. were called to the attorney’s office. They were told that Garland had made them the sole heir in his will. He wrote, “The entire contents of my travel bag are entirely yours.”

Inside the bag was a bag of birdseed, a Bible and a bankbook. The names on the savings account were Garland and Ken and C.J. The last entry in the savings account was for $38.67 bringing the balance to well over three million dollars.

I’ve shared that story before but do you know what bothers me the most about that story? What bothers me the most is that the very first thought that came to my mind the very first time I heard it was something like, “Who would have ever guessed that that guy was worth so much!

What is the measure of the worth of a person? What is the measure of the worth of your neighbor? What is the measure of the worth of the people living in the margins of our community?

When I think about the cross and the empty tomb, I am reminded that Jesus values people so much that he was willing to wrap his arms around a cross. I am reminded that Jesus love is so great that resurrection power is let loose in the world. The cross and the tomb are living proof of a loving God.

Your neighborhood, the place where you work, your dorm, your apartment building, the softball diamonds where
your kids play…are filled with people who are the passion of Jesus heart.

There are times when God gives me just a little peak at the passion on his heart for people. I’ll be looking out over the
valley, or driving down 322, or walking through the grocery store, and my heart begins to fill up with emotion and tears come to my eyes, for people that I don’t even know. And it doesn’t come from me, like you sometimes I struggle to love well the people I know…let alone people I don’t know, but I think God just wants to remind me of how much He values people.

That is why we are doing CityServe. We are going to cancel church and go out into our communities to serve because when we serve we open our hearts to the passion of Jesus. We are going to cancel church and go out into our communities to serve because we need to be where Jesus is and when you go out and serve you are going to find some people around him Jesus has thrown his arms. We are going to cancel church and go out into our communities to serve in hopes that we might be living proof of a loving God.

Come join us, sign up at www.sc-cityserve.org

I don’t know about you but I’m still hanging out in Easter.

As I think back over the last 18 years of Easters here at Calvary, it’s hard to remember too many where there was a bigger need for hope; on an individual level, and a national level, and of course right here on a community level. People struggling in marriages, struggling with cancer, struggling financially, and in so many other ways. On the national level, the issues facing our country sometimes seem to have no solution. All we get is politics. And here locally we’ve gone through a difficult season, still in the midst of it. Who knows when things will get back to “normal” for our community after the events of the last few months.

When we pass through season like this, we find ourselves in need of hope, thirsty for hope, thirsty for something that will breathe life into our spirits. So many people, who a year or two ago felt like they were on solid ground, find themselves in circumstances that they never saw coming, and those circumstances bring worry, stress, even fear as we wrestle with decisions made or missed.

I’m fairly certain that none of us so value our seasons of difficulty that we schedule them in, right? It’s not on my google calendar. I schedule vacations not hope-draining times. But when they do come, one of the benefits is the way they make us pause and ponder questions like, “What can I count on? How will I make it through? Where can I find
hope? Am I building my life on something solid enough to make it through times that quake my soul?

That’s why we’ve been taking the time to walk thru this “Come Thirsty” series at Calvary. We are trying to answer those questions. Where do I go when where I’ve been going isn’t working? What we are really looking for is hope. There’s something very powerful, very lifegiving about hope. (In fact even the Hunger Games points this out, did you catch that momentary conversation about hope from Snow?)

That’s why I love Easter, it overflows with hope. It’s like the tomb was opened and hope gushed out in a life-giving stream that transforms all it touches.

John Ortberg describes Easter hope this way…

There was a man named Jesus. He taught like nobody every taught. He lived like nobody ever lived. He loved like no one has ever loved. He especially had a heart for people who were on the margins (for the sick, for the sinners, for the forgotten poor, for the despised rich, for the disliked soldiers, for the excluded). On Friday, His great courage got Him arrested. His great love led Him to the cross. His great heart stopped beating. On Friday, that which looked like a horribly tragic ending to such a wonderful life turned out to be the greatest sacrifice of love in the history of our
world.

On Saturday, there was a great silence, for the King was sleeping. Jesus entered into death and hell for you and me.

On Sunday, a stone got rolled away. On Sunday, death lost its sting. Grave lost its victory. On Sunday, hell was defeated. Death was dethroned. Darkness was derailed. The devil was de-motivated. On Sunday, the tomb was emptied and hope got fulfilled. On Sunday, faith was vindicated. The prophets were validated. The soldiers were aggravated. The disciples were animated. On Sunday, sin lost. Shame died. Hope soared. Love won.

On Sunday, you got something beyond yourself to live for, something beyond your life to die for, something beyond your death to hope in after you die. This is, therefore, the central proclamation of the greatest victory over the darkest enemy by the noblest hero for the loftiest cause in all of human history. If anything in this sorry, dark world is worthy of celebration, it is Jesus Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed!

In 23+ years of pastoring, I’ve never had this happen.  This week I sat beside two people — both living through the final stages of cancer — who wanted to plan their own memorial service.  Two women, one married and one whose husband recently died; both wonderful ladies with a long history at Calvary; both with family members surrounding them in what could be their final days, weeks or months; both with faith in Jesus.

They have both chosen different songs, different scriptures, different wishes, but some of the questions and the statements were the same.  Both of them had questions about heaven.  By the way, I’m convinced that most of our evangelical cartoons of heaven miss the mark.  It’s not puffy white clouds, harps and halos.  It’s not one insufferably long church service.  Imagine your best day on earth, it’s more like that…forever.  Heaven is more substantially real than earth, not less.  Most importantly if home is where you are loved the most, then heaven is home because no one loves you like Jesus.  Heaven is home.  Heaven is healing.  Heaven is adventure and growing and learning.  Heaven is glory.

Both of them had questions about heaven, but without knowing all of heaven’s details, both of them made this statement.  “I’m ready.”  “Dan I’m ready, when Jesus is ready to take me, I’m ready to go.”

Here is my question.  Are you ready?  Neither one of them would claim perfection, I’m sure both of them have a few regrets, few things undone, but both of them are ready.  Are you ready?  Some of us will make the transition from earth to heaven in an unforeseen moment, a tragic accident, a deadly slip on the soap in the bathroom, but most of us will have some time as we approach death to ask ourselves that question, “Am I ready?”

Of course I believe that the primary factor in answering that question involves Jesus.  Do I know Jesus?  Have I accepted his gracious gift of life, by accepting his sacrifice, believing in the resurrection and surrendering my heart to him.  This will give us a “yes-by-grace-I-am-ready” answer.  But having done that, being ready might involve a bit more.  It might involve questions like, “Have I forgiven completely?  Have I loved my neighbors, my friends, my family, well?  Have I taken risks to serve others? Have I done what God prepared me to do?”

If that is the case, then being ready… starts now.

What will you do today to be able to answer the “ready” question with a solid yes?

Our tour-guide — I’m sure this isn’t original with him — calls Israel, the fifth gospel.  It’s a good description.  You don’t have to go to Israel to know and understand the life of Jesus, no more than you have to read all four gospels.  But reading all four gospels can add depth to your knowledge and understanding, as can a trip to this place that carries such deep history.

Watch the son come up over the Sea of Galilee.  Then stop in the middle of this body of water and look back to a narrow valley to understand how the wind sweeping through that valley onto the water can cause tremendous storms and fearsome waves and you get a new picture of the night Peter walked on the water.

Sit for a few moments on the hillside where Jesus might have given that message we all know as the sermon on the mount, and read through the beatitudes and suddenly you are there as Jesus shares his core values with his disciples.

Drive through the hills of Bethlehem, steep rocky hills, try to imagine which hillside saw the heavens open up for a group of shepherds and you can almost here the war-host of angels singing, “glory…”

Walk down the Mount of Olives — a similar path to the one Jesus used to ride into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday — with Jerusalem and the temple mount staring you in the face and you can almost hear Jesus weep over the city.

Walk through a grove of Olive trees — the garden of Gethsemene — and down to a cave that likely functioned as both an olive press and Jesus home base while he was in Jerusalem.  Then kneel by a rock that pilgrims for almost 2000 years have identified as the place where Jesus prayed the night he was betrayed, and find yourself praying, “Jesus give us your glory so that we can be one.  Give us your heart so that we can love like you love.”

The fifth gospel reminds me that our story is also his-story.  Our faith has a foundation in historical events.  But the fifth gospel is also a reminder that it didn’t stop in history.  Live continues here in this place, as it continues in this world.  The fifth gospel is not a Disney attraction.  It’s a place where people live.  It’s a place where Jesus still lives.  And the story continues…

Lynn and I have the privilege of helping lead a group of 21 “pilgrims” to the Holy Land.  That’s what they call us…pilgrims.  All that comes to my mind when someone calls me a pilgrim is John Wayne, which I realize seriously dates me.  Though honestly compared to the antiquity of Israel, John Wayne is not really dated.

The age, the antiquity of everything here is quite unique.  It can’t help but capture your imagination.  We are looking at ruins that date back 3000 plus years.  We are driving through cities that were here at the time of Christ.  We are walking a path along the sea of Galilee.

Two days ago we were in Nazareth.  I half-expected that on the way into town we might see one of those large billboards celebrating their claim to fame.  You know… “Nazareth, Boyhood Home of Christ.”  Instead the first thing I noticed on the way into town — McDonald’s.  Then KFC.  Then Dominoos pizza. Nazareth exported Jesus to the world.  We have exported fast food.  I know, that’s not all we have exported, but we are known for it.

The city of Nazareth is a study in contrasts.  Thousands of years old, but McDonald’s has a presence.  Boyhood home of Jesus, current home to tens of thousands of Muslims.  In fact as we walked to the Church of the Annunciation (traditional spot where Mary was visited by the angel who told her she would give birth to Jesus) you couldn’t miss the evangelism billboards, not for Christianity but for Islam.  Perhaps evangelism billboards are another idea we have exported.

At first these contrasts were jarring.  I had a particular Nazareth image in mind, an image that I didn’t want to give up.  But as I have pondered the Nazareth of now…the contrasts are appropriate.  The world that Jesus entered was a world full of contrasts — we could start with the contrast of fully divine with fully human and take off from there.  But God keeps reminding me that this Jesus who was…is also the Jesus that is.

He has always and is always entering into a world of contrasts.  He came to redeem a world that was full of contrasts…and what he started then…is not finished.  He still comes.