Without Death There is No Resurrection

A few years ago I was asked to give a word of blessing to a congregation that was going through a tough time. This is a congregation with whom I served in my early years of ministry. They saw something in me that I didn't see in myself. God used them in tremendous ways to bless me. Here I was 6 years later asked to bless them. I took out some names and places. This is what I said.


Good morning church. Give me a second to connect with each of you visually
as a personal hello. I think about you guys all of the time...I even pray for you some. I
cannot express in words how refreshing it is to be back with you today.

Once in the fourth grade I had to iron some clothes so I went into my mom's closet to
get the iron out. I knew it was on the top shelf. When I opened the door of the closet I
looked up to see if I could see the iron. As I looked up the iron clobbered me in the face.
Sometimes reading scripture is kind of like that. You get what you need but it hurts.

_______ asked me to bless you guys. What a humbling thing it is to try and bless a group of
people who have loved and served my family relentlessly. I will do my best to describe
how significant my time at west hills was and how significant you are to me and my
family. But my disclaimer is, I cannot put into words the impact you had on us for the
good. But I will try.

Do you guys remember what the bible says about blessings?

Blessed are the poor in spirit => they shall see God
Blessed are those who mourn => they will be comforted
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness => they will be filled
Matthew 5:10-12

Are you sure you want to be blessed? It appears as though to be blessed is to hurt. To
be blessed is to feel pain.

Once I was going through a bumpy patch in ministry and was hurting. My spiritual
director told me, "There are two types of pain. Pain caused by neglect, abuse, or oppression. That pain is evil. There is also pain caused because the ego is dying. You need to lean into that pain".

I know this has been a painful year for this church family. I find that Jesus is drawn to
those who are hurting and to those who are suffering. He hurts with you. He weeps with
you.

Jesus told his followers to take up their cross and follow him. To take up one's cross is
to die. Death causes pain. But, the gospel proclaims that death has lost her sting...death
has not won.

You see, after death comes resurrection. But resurrection only comes after death.

It was 6 years ago that Tammie and I packed up a Uhaul and moved out to a foreign
land called _________. I arrived wounded and burned out from a rough first 3 years at my
previous church. I arrived dead. And through my relationships with you guys and my
time at seminary I was resurrected.

At ___________ I found love. I found cups of coffee, boat rides on homemade vessels,
buckets of berries, jars of jam, home made folk CD's, bowls of German dumplings, hikes
where the conversations left my head more exhausted than my shaky legs. I found
life. The holy spirit used you to bring about resurrection. I would not still be in pastoral
ministry without experiencing your ministry.

We all need a resurrection. But first, we must surrender our dreams, we must let go
of the good ole days, we must die to ourselves, and bury our bodies within the cave.
Without death, there is no resurrection. On the third day, the stone will roll away, Christ
will call us to come forth from the grave and to take off our grave clothes.

So I imagine many feel like Yesterday was good Friday. You experienced a traumatic
event that made you question everything about who you are and where you are
going. The man you thought was going to deliver you was killed. You are hurting and
confused. To you I say, be of good cheer. Tomorrow the stone will roll away. Tomorrow
is the resurrection.

Amen.

reThinking Short-term Missions: 5 Ways to Approach Youth Mission Trips in a Healthier Manner

Recently I was asked to address a class of undergraduate students who are studying to be youth ministers. The professor invited me to choose the topic. I am going to speak on Multiethnic Youth Ministry. I'll provide those notes later. He also asked me for ideas for how I'd teach a lesson on short-term mission trips. This is what I sent him.

Imagine that a group of people who have different skin color as you, who dress differently than you, and who do not speak your language came to you with a truckload of unicycles. The unicycles are this awful brownish color. Let's be honest; The color looks like throw-up. The people seem friendly because they don't stop smiling. They break into tears when they see how few children actually play outside in your neighborhood. You see them pointing at your Xbox and shaking their heads in disgust. 

The group stays in a gym in your neighborhood. They pass out food that smells funny and doesn't taste very good. They try to get you to ride a throw-up colored unicycle. They end up passing out these unicycles to all of the families. After five days of meeting with you and talking broken English with you, they come back in tears. They take a bunch of pictures and hug you. Then they don't show up the next day.

Later you realize they gave unicycles because they "knew" unicycles were the best way for kids to get exercise. They chose the throw-up color because it is popular among kids in their homeland. Even if throw-up colored unicycles are the best way to get kids in shape, you love your Xbox and you think unicycles are dorky. You leave the unicycle in your garage and never touch it.

While there are certainly churches that do mission trips in a healthy manner, the situation I described is the best case scenario for many short-term mission trips.This is particularly true for short-term trips to developing countries. A group of random strangers shows up in a neighborhood, sleeps at a house or a gym, passes out food that doesn't really belong in that community, diagnose a problem in the community, and try to remedy the problem. The worst case scenario is that this group of strangers actually does the gospel disservice by demeaning the community and passing out "gifts" that damage the culture. 

Short-term mission trips can be a powerful experience for your group. I'd much rather take 20 kids on a mission trip than to a week at camp on the beach. However, there are some things you need to do to ensure that you eliminate the likelihood that you will hurt the people you are trying to help.

1. Partner with healthy ministries that are already doing good work in the geographical area. This ensures that there is a long-term strategy in place. Spiritual growth thrives in the context of long-term relationships. Coming in for a week and leaving can be very harmful. Rather than just pick a random neighborhood in Mexico and go there and build houses, partner with a Mexican church in the community. Ask the people at the church to teach you cultural norms so that you do not offend the people you are serving. Partner with them in ministry. Exchange ideas. Exchange gifts.
2. Go as servants. Too often we go on these trips, teach these "poor people" about Jesus, build a house, and leave feeling really good about ourselves. The reality is, God doesn't need us. God is already at work in the community. He allows us the privilege to serve in these communities so that we may be transformed by what he is doing in and through the population. Which leads to the next point.
3. Go as learners. Sure, God can use you to teach, but you have much more to learn from the people you are serving than you have to teach. If you are going to serve on an Indian reservation, partner with a Native American church on the reservation. Let them do the Bible teaching to the community (there is a long and painful history of Euro-American missionaries doing very harmful things to the community). Ask them how you can be a better minister. Ask them what God has been doing in the community. Pray together. Study scripture together. Play together. I guarantee you would leave transformed and you would minimize the risk of being more harmful than helpful.
4. Articulate the purpose of the trip to the students. Teach them about the culture they are going to encounter. Help them understand that they are going as learners and servers.
5. Consider not calling it a mission trip. God does the saving, not you. Call it a Service - Learning Trip or a Work Camp. Call it Funky Monkey Week. Call it whatever you want. But consider not calling it a mission trip. Mission trip implies that you are going to save these rotten heathens. This can be very offensive, especially if Christians have had a negative impact on the community in the past.

In my 11 years of youth ministry, the best organization I have found that does short-term trips for students is S.L.A.M. Trips. They are on the Yakama Reservation in Washington. Check them out! Also, to read more about doing missions in a way that isn't harmful check out the book When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett & Brian Fikkert.

A Basic Bible Study of The Two Genealogies of Jesus

A few people asked me to post my lesson on the two genealogies that are found in the Synoptic Gospels. This lesson is not intended to be exhaustive. I only have twenty minutes to teach. There are books written on this subject. There are three reasons I am teaching this lesson.

1. I want to give the students a good foundation for the birth narratives.
2. I want the students to be able to approach the Bible with confidence when they come across different accounts of the same events in the Bible.
3. I want the challenge of making a text that we normally skip accessible and interesting to teenagers. This reason is secondary to the two above. I mention it for transparency. 

There are two documents from which I am copying and pasting. The first is my teaching outline. I tend to teach in a discussion format. Thus, my outline is primary stories and questions. The second document includes some of the key points that I want to address while facilitating the discussion. I have a final PDF document that I am not attaching. That document is Matthew 1 and Luke 3 set side-by-side with a few discussion questions. 

Lesson Outline

Topic: The Genealogy of Jesus

Passages: Matthew 1, Luke 3

Main Ideas: Help the students understand why Matthew and Luke approach the Jesus story from different camera angles. Help set the stage for a better understanding of the birth narratives.

Bonus: The week before the lesson, email this video to the parents. Watch as a family.

• Why are genealogies important?
• Do we do a good job remembering the past in our culture? Why/why not?
• How can a limited view of the past impact us as individuals and as a society?
• Why does the author want to make sure the readers know Jesus’ genealogy?

Tell Two Stories:

• This is a true story. When we first got married, Tammie and I lived in a rough part of town. One day, as Tammie was leaving the apartment, a guy in a minivan swerved towards her while she was sitting at the exit of the complex. He hit her car, knocking off the bumper. The driver of the minivan told her that he didn’t have insurance but still asked to trade numbers so that they could work things out. A few hours later he called and said he had a quote from a local auto body shop for how much it would cost to fix his van.
• This is also a true story. When we first got married, Tammie and I lived in an apartment that was right in between where I was going to seminary and where I was working. One day, Tammie called me and was very upset. She said, she pulled a little too far into the street and got clipped by a guy who was driving a minivan. Her bumper got knocked off. The guy did not have insurance. She felt bad so she agreed to pay for the minivan to get fixed.

Ask: How are these stories similar? How are they different? Which one is true?

Say: Both stories are true. They simply focus on different aspects of what occurred. One focused on the driver of the minivan having shady intentions. The other focuses on the tenderheartedness of my wife. As we’ve discussed over and over, the authors of the Bible always had a theological motive behind what they wrote. There are a few times when the Bible tells the same story in different ways. Skeptics have risen up to say, “Ah ha! This is proof that the Bible is full of errors.” The reality is, the stories that differently describe the same situations simply have different lessons or theological truths they want to teach. They simply approach the subject from different angles. Today we are going to compare and contrast the genealogies of Jesus.

Ask: Look at the two genealogies on this worksheet.

• How are they similar? How are they different?
• Why did the authors approach them the way that they did?
• Why do you think they included a genealogy in their respective accounts of the life of Jesus?
• Did you notice any surprising names on the list?

Conclusion:

The next two weeks we are going to look at the birth narratives found in Matthew and Luke. Matthew’s is from the perspective of Joseph. Luke’s is of the perspective of Mary. Both stories are true, they are simply shot from different camera angles.

Study Notes

Why Two Genealogies of Jesus?
Here is a simplified version of the three main theories:

• Matthew gives the genealogy of Joseph. Luke gives the genealogy through Mary. It would be unusual to trace the linage through a woman but then again, Jesus was born of a virgin. There is nothing usual about this story.
• Some attribute the differences to the "Levirate marriage" tradition. This means that if a man died childless, his widowed wife would marry his brother. The child birthed from the brother  and the wife would be considered “begat” by the man who died. In this theory, Luke is the legal linage of Jesus and Matthew would be the actual/biological blood line.
• Matthew is the royal line and Luke is the biological line.

Does it matter which is correct? While the authors were meticulous about record keeping, their records were driven by a theological motive. A better question to ask is, “What was the theological motive behind each genealogy?”

What is the theological motive behind the genealogy of Matthew?

• Matthew was written primarily to a Jews who had come to believe that Jesus was the Messiah.   Indeed, the book uses at least 40 formal quotations from the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament.
• A key theme to Matthew is proving that Jesus is the prophesied Messiah.  
• Matthew is sure to include people and events that would resonate with the Jewish audience (Exile, Abraham, Rahab, etc.).
•  It’s important for Matthew to reinforce the fact that Jesus was in the line of Abraham, the father of the Jewish people.

What is the theological motive behind the genealogy of Luke?

• The book was written to a diverse population. 
• A key theme in Luke is one of compassion for the marginalized (Gentiles, Samaritans, women, children, tax collectors, etc.). Another key theme is that Jesus is the savior of all of humanity.
• Jeconiah was not included in this genealogy. The group who thinks that Luke is the biological line use this as proof to prove their point. They argue that Jeconiah was cursed by God for being evil and could not biologically be connected to Jesus. 
•  It was important for Luke to reinforce the fact that Jesus was in the line of Adam, the father of all of humanity.

Why does it matter that Jesus was connected to David?

One key reason the authors would want to connect Jesus with David is because of the prophesies that proclaim that the Messiah will come from David’s line (Jer. 23:5-6, 2 Samuel 7:12-13, Isaiah 9:7)

The Eucharist, the Great Commission, and Destructive Leadership

As I am preparing to facilitate the Eucharist this week I am keenly aware of how partaking in Communion is relinquishing power. This flies in the face of how many of us "do ministry." Indeed, I  am realizing that many of us who consider ourselves evangelical Christians confuse the call to share the Gospel (aka good news) with our own desire for power and influence. Power and influence in themselves are not bad. But when we desire power and influence we can easily be seduced into an egocentric form of leadership that is destructive for us and all whom we encounter. 

Five Ways to Avoid This Destructive Approach:

1. Listen first and listen well.

2. Love because a person is an image bearer of God and not simply as a means to an end.

3. Give freely with no strings attached.

4. Be willing to give up your position of power in your ministry. Let's be clear that God doesn't need you (or me). We are called to share the good news because, when we do it well, God is glorified and we are transformed in the process. 

5. While listening, loving, giving, and surrendering, prayerfully think about a wholistic approach to the Gospel. What is the good news in that moment for that particular person spiritually, emotionally, and relationally?

Bonus: Remember that Jesus saves, not you.

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Here is a portion of my script for facilitating the Eucharist this week:

As I was preparing for Communion this week four words came to my mind: Let go and come.

Mark 10:45
"For even the son of man did not come to be served but to serve and give his life for many."

When we come to this table we are identifying with Jesus' choice to give up his life. When we come to this table we are relinquishing the destructive desire for control and power and we are embraced, enveloped, and transformed by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. 

We need only to let go and come.

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This passage also inspired this post:

2 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded,having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves,4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in very nature[a] God,
    did not consider equality with Godsomething to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature[b] of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
    and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:1-11

Facebook Status Update

Recently I "liked" a person's Facebook status. The status included 9 fun facts about the person. I enjoyed learning more about this person so I "liked" the status. Game over right? WRONG! Without knowing it, I had gotten sucked into this weird Facebook chain thingy. I don't even know what to call it. I usually hate these sorts of things. The guy whose status I "liked" sent me a message that said, "You have the number 9. Go!"

At first I ignored my assignment. I'm too cool for these stupid games. But, every time a friend of mine played the game, I loved learning about them. I thought, "What if I'm just perpetuating false humility? What if people actually would enjoy learning about me?" I gave in. Here's my post.

I was given the number 9.

1. I met my wife in the 9th grade at my locker. She's the only person I've ever dated and the only person I've ever kissed.
2. I once was on ESPN 2 because the college I played football for had 3 punts blocked. Each blocked punt was returned for a touchdown. Apparently that's some sort of NCAA record. "Come on, man!"
3. My sister caught my hair on fire when I was a kid. We were playing Little House on the Prairie and I was "sick." She tried to warm a tissue for my head by using a candle. I'll let you figure out the rest of the story.
4. My last play of regulation basketball involved me accidentally stuffing my own teammate as he was trying to shoot the game winning shot from 5 ft away from the rim. Oops.
5. I once punched somebody's chest so hard during a football game that my finger popped out of place. In the two seconds that it took me to realize I had a dislocated finger I happened to intercept a pass thrown by the opposing quarterback.
6. By my senior year of college I cost the school $15 a day in tape because of my various injuries. Apparently people under 200 lbs shouldn't play defensive line for 14 years. Noted.
7. The two items on the top of my bucket list are to build a house with my own hands and to sing backup for a bluegrass band.
8. I feel the happiest when I am on an adventure somewhere outside with my wife and kids. I can walk for miles while carrying one to two small humans who look like me.
9. My favorite parts of being a pastor include helping a person find true worth/value in the triune God, walking people through the marriage process, and grieving with people when they experience a serious crisis like the death of a loved one. These moments are real, raw, and intimate. In these moments I see the face of God.

10 Year Anniversary: Canaan Bound

10 years ago today all of my family and friends were assembling in Houston for my wedding. I asked my college mentor Brian Housman to coordinate and facilitate the service around the theme of faith and sacrifice. We chose the Abraham and Sarah story to be the channel for this theme. While a few people made fun of me for an Abrahamic wedding, Tammie and I thought it was perfect. I guess that's all that matters.

We chose Abraham and Sarah because their story is full of risk taking, doubt, mistakes, and supernatural intervention. I love the story because it is a raw look at humanity. It shows the beauty of humanity and the depravity. We talk about the story as though it was Abraham and Sarah who had great faith. And I guess they did. I mean, they left everything to follow Yahweh into the unknown. But it is God’s faithfulness that ultimately triumphs.

Towards the end of our ceremony we had my brother-in-law John play and sing Canaan Bound by Andrew Peterson (on a slide guitar). Since then, Tammie and I have made some huge leaps of faith. We have gone on many adventures together, the most recent being moving out to Seattle having only a part-time salary (here is a sermon where I share that story). I regularly listen to this song for hope and encouragement. I pray you find it to.

Come back in a couple of weeks to see some things I’ve learned about relationships and love since I’ve been married.

10 Year Anniversary: Midnight in Tunica

Note: My bride and I will celebrate 10 years of marriage in September. I've known her 18 years. That's 3 years more than I have not known her. In the weeks that we approach our 10 year anniversary, I'll be posting mental photographs of the development of our relationship. 

Let's all agree upon one thing. Sometimes I'm a wimp. I mean, yeah, I had no problem eluding 315 pound offensive linemen or running down QB's who run 4.5 40's. But, when it came to asking my girlfriend to marry me, I was a wimp. My plan was to ask her during spring break 2003 while we were hiking at Petit Jean State Park. But as we already established, I'm a wimp.

One night we were talking at my house at 1433 Goodbar Ave, and it all made sense to me. Why on earth would I wait another moment to commit my life and my love to this woman? So I asked her to marry me. There were no waterfalls. There were no horse back rides. There were no family members creepily hiding in the bushes taking pictures. But I'll never forget staring deep into her eyes as she said yes and wept for joy. It was a beautiful moment. 

I wanted to do something spiritual to help us transition into engagement. I know, typical Coby. I suggested that we spend the evening in prayer. Even though I was certain I wanted to marry her I was still really nervous about the whole thing. As we already established, I'm a wimp.  I figured prayer would help. 

I took her home. Then I drove around Rhodes' campus with the intention of doing a solitary prayer walk for a couple of hours. About 5 minutes into my prayer walk I couldn't contain my excitement. I went back to her house, picked her up and we did what every 20 something couple does when they get engaged. We drove to Tunica, MS to check out the casinos.

While we drove we dreamed about our future together. When would we get married? Where? How many kids? Where should we live? Christ met us in the midst of our dreaming. I guess I had my spiritual night of reflection after all. 

We drove back in the early hours of the morning. She slept as we disappeared into the darkness of the Mississippi highway. My wimpy fear subsided. I knew I was home.