my ordination, my dad

This past Sunday i was ordained as a minster of word and sacrament in the PCUSA and my dad, Rodger Woodworth gave me my charge and I share it with you:

Thousands of pastors are leaving the ministry each year and 80% of pastor’s wives wish their husbands were doing something else. Discouragement and despair come with the call. Even John the Baptist experienced this. Read Luke 7:18-23

From prison John sends a message to Jesus – are you the one or should we be looking for someone else. While this is surprising from the one who said of Jesus behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world and I am not even worthy to carry his sandals – there will come a time (if not already) when from the prison of disappointment and despair you will cry out and ask Jesus are you the one or should I look elsewhere.

Understand John’s pain – pointed thousands to Jesus – given his life to that mission – willing to decrease so Jesus could increase so why the disappointment? He hears from his disciples – Jesus was giving sight to the blind, healing the sick, raising the dead and preaching to the poor (note – right next to giving life to the dead is giving the living a way to live). What bothered John was what Jesus was not doing. He was not fulfilling Johns’ expectations.

Disappointment comes when Jesus doesn’t fill our theological expectations – when he doesn’t act in a way we think God should act (or the way seminary taught us).

John had announced Jesus would come with a baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire – expectations form the O.T. prophets. Pour out the Holy Spirit on God’s servants and fire on God’s enemies. Jesus would baptize the righteous with the Holy Spirit and the wicked with fire – baptize the good guys and burn up the bad guys and it would happen all at once. The separation of the wheat and chaff and the chaff would be burned up. But instead Jesus was hanging out with the chaff – the wicked - the bad guys. This didn’t fit John’s turn or burn theology.

BJ, there will come a time when Jesus acts in a way that just doesn’t fit into your theological framework and it will cause you to doubt such promises that his word never returns void or that the already of God’s Kingdom never seems to change into the promised not yet of His kingdom and you will ask with John are you really the one Jesus. This is normal – it comes with the call because you are called to spend most of your time helping people see the not yet of God’s Kingdom – to paint a picture of a preferable future – to give assurance that what is hoped for is going to happen – to provide evidence of things that cannot yet be seen – preaching that the Kingdom of Heaven is near.

But John’s disappointment was not just theological it was also personal – disappointment also comes when Jesus doesn’t fill our personal expectations. John was lying in a cold prison cell because King Herod didn’t take kindly to being called an adulterer. And Herod is upstairs getting drunk and still having his affair and Jesus is having dinner with prostitutes and tax collectors. So John has got to be asking Jesus if you‘re King why am I sitting in prison.

The personal questions of faith are never more prevalent then in the pastorate. You and our family have already faced a big one – if you are Lord why did Matt (my brother-in-law) die? Why does someone’s spouse leave, why does a parishioner abuse drugs, why is there not enough money to support the ministry. Below the surface of most theological controversies lies a deep personal disappointment. We know God’s in charge but our personal experience differs. Jesus’ response on the surface wasn’t anything that John didn’t already know but Jesus ties together words and phrases from the prophet Isaiah to say “John I am fulfilling the role of the Messiah, I am just not doing it in the way or time you expected. God has stretched out the already and the not yet of His coming Kingdom.

The journey you will lead people on is like climbing a mountain. You stand at the base and see the peak you’re climbing to and it looks simple. But soon you realize that climbing is a series of ups and downs, peaks and valleys, while often losing sight of the peak. It is a journey of joys and sorrows, of hope and disappointment accompanied by the Holy Spirit and the terrible tares - weeds in your field, people and circumstances that will reject you and hurt you, sin against you and let you down. Tares that you are called to tolerate and not root out because in our attempts to remove the bad we may harm the good. And as Bob Lupton says, “you don’t need to be concerned about how it appears to others that there are tares in your field; the Lord of the harvest can handle his own public relations. You don’t need herbicides that make the fruit appear bigger and the troubles benign.” BJ never let anyone question the validity of your ministry based on the tares in your field. Nor should you begin to ask Jesus if he is really the one when it appears there are more tares then wheat.

Jesus’ response to such a question is simple – he says I know you may be disappointed but I am asking you to trust me. You see even if Jesus had struck Herod with fire, freed John from prison and pulled up the other tares in John’s life, he would never have been truly free apart from a deep trusting relationship with Jesus.

Jesus said, “Blessed are those who are not offended by me – or stumbling over me”. We may be tempted to stumble over people and circumstances, pain and disappointment but we’re really stumbling over Jesus, offended by Jesus because he’s moving too slowly or because he hasn’t removed the tares in our life and the real temptations to look for something else – a better method, a new program, another seminar or a field with less tares – or even worse, tempted to join the thousands of pastors each year who give upon their call. My son – stay the course – have a burning patience – that quality of faith which keeps you living in the already and not yet – that will give meaning and strength to your ministry. Disappointments and even failures will come but you have a vision of the splendid city – you have hope – and just like the prophet Jeremiah, “before you were born God set you apart and appointed you to be his spokesman to the world.”

Lastly in order to stay the course and to continue knowing Jesus is the promised One:

• Build your identity on Christ and not on His church
• Pursue faithfulness and not success
• Always walk in repentance and faith

And know that you have both a heavenly Father and an earthly father that loves you unconditionally.

Happy New Year from the Woodworths

yogi missiologilist

I love my wife for many reasons and most recently (the past year or so) because she teaches me what it means to do and be be a good missiologist. She is a yoga instructor and has been working hard and wrestling to integrate her her faith in Christ into her work and the world of yoga which is predominantly New Age in the West and Hindu and Buddhist and the East.

This past Sunday she taught our community on the surrender of Mary and offered 2 prayer stations that related yoga postures and surrender to God. She is wise sensitive and brilliant at what she does and I am thankful for her witness to me and others in her passion in following in the way of Jesus.

Check it out or better yet try it out.

Here are some suggested poses that may help us get our bodies into a posture of surrender.

Corpse pose: lying on your back, focus on your breathing for 2 minutes: breathing in and out, becoming aware of the breath expanding your ribs and belly. With each exhale, surrender to gravity, feeling the heaviness grow in your muscles as gravity pulls you to the earth. Ponder these questions as you rest, imagining yourself in the palms of God; surrounded by His glory, love and grace all at the same time. Ask Him to help you trust Him; to stay in His palms and rest in His love.

Child’s pose: Getting on all four’s (knees and hands), sink your hips back toward your heels as if curling into a ball. Bring your hands along side your legs. Rest your forehead to a block or to the mat. Take 2 minutes to focus on your breath. Allow deep breaths to fill your whole torso – front and back ribs. Breath into your lower back, imagining your breath surrounding your kidneys and sides of your body. Ponder what it means to be a child of God. Mary was just a child…given such big responsibility in carrying God’s Son. What is He saying to you? Is He telling you to participate in the coming of His Kingdom in some way? Does this seem overwhelming?...challenging?...scary? Are you willing to surrender into His palms, trusting Him to accomplish His will through you?

Alexander the mystic wonderer

My son Alex asks the greatest thought provoking questions about God and life from his perspective. Last night as he was going to bed he asked, and I quote, "how can Jesus see every one in the whole wide world with only two eyes?" Yes my son that is a great question.

And kudos to Katrina for the cool effect on this picture of Alex staring into the campfire.

a new kind of conversion

Recently my son Zachary informed me that when he gets bigger Jesus is going to change his name and will also transofrom him into spiderman. If we only had the faith of children!

39 things I love...

9 days ago my beautiful wife Katrina turned 39 and I wanted to share with you 39 things that I love about her...

I love her out loud laughing
I love her crazy faces
I love her passion for yoga
I love her hospitality
I love her athleticism
I love her prophetic voice
I love her artistic creativity
I love her insatiable desire to learn new things
I love her spontaneity
I love the way she teaches our children
I love her clavicle
I love her thirst to study the Bible
I love the way she mis-quotes cliches
I love her silliness
I love her gardening
I love her amazing interior design sense
I love her discernment
I love the way she invests in others
I love her honesty
I love her willingness to challenge me
I love her cooking
I love her cleanliness
I love her flexibility and carefree heart
I love that she is my wife
I love the way she drools on her pillow when taking a power nap
I love her beautiful skin
I love when she childishly plays with our kids
I love her independence
I love her naivete
I love her smile
I love her strength
I love her wisdom and insight
I love her integrity
I love her eyes
I love how she seizes the moment
I love her nose ring
I love the creases on her face when she wakes up in the morning
I love her faithfulness to me
I love her more today than when I met her 19 years ago

I love you Katrina!

chilin wid' da' boys

my head is exploding

Tuesday night I stayed up late to studying for a Greek quiz. Then about 2 am (an hour after I fell asleep) I got the worst feverish chills ever. I was literally shaking in my bed and I was so cold I did not want to move or get out of bed. God love my wife Katrina. She got me an extra blanket (on top of our down comforter that tells you how cold I was). About every 2 hours I would wake up in drenched in sweat and then two hours later shivering from chills. This repeated itself for the next 12 hours. No I did not take my Greek quiz and boy I really needed another good grade before I hit finals in two weeks - grace abounds. I finally got out of bed (having been nursed with liquids by my beloved bride) at about 5:30 pm. Today she got it. This all started last week with Kyra getting sick Thursday then Elena, then Alex and then Zach and finally us. This sucks! I hate being sick. I hate being sick and taking care of sick people. Katrina is so much more gracious and care giving when it comes to this stuff. Thanks to Nathan Darity who brought us pot roast and Garret Bruce who made us pancakes for dinner!

You might want to get a mask before you come over to the leper colony.

kyra, elena, alex and zach

As a church leader and as a seminary student I spend my days working out what it means to be a missional emergent postmodern, post-evangelical, post-liberal generously orthodox, ancient future, relevantly reverent, church community who follows God in the way of Jesus. my brain hurts from thinking so much!

I come home and am greeted by twin 4 year old boys who tackle my in my groin, buckling me over, wanting to play hide and seek and throw Frisbee; a 6 year old daughter who wants to hug and kiss me and snuggle with me on the couch; and a 9 year daughter who is wants to tell me about her homework and her latest conversation with her 4th grade girlfriends. Ahhhhh... I love my kids, they are blessing to me, they teach me to play and be silly, to not take life so seriously and to slow down and just be with one another. Thanks be to God for the gift of my children. Thanks be to God!

what IS your wood worth

A friend told me that if I ever recorded a CD, even though I am not a musician, the title of my first realize should be - what is your wood worth? I am not really sure what it means but I like questions that cause one to ponder. So.. what is your wood worth?

I just got back from vacation in Deep Creek, MD. It is one f my favorite places on earth. I am sure there are many other places with more majestic beauty that literally takes your breath away, like the Grand Tetons but this place has history. My family has been going there for 8 years now. That is, my wife Katrina, daughters, Kyra and Elena, sons Zach and Alex, mother Wende and dad Rodger, sister Brooke, nieces Maddie, nephew Jackson and until this year my brother in law Matt. This past January Matt (who was the brother I never had) lost a ten month battle to colon cancer. At the age of 33 it was devastating to say the least. This past week was filled with telling stories, tears, remembering Matt and mourning his absence. Death sucks and robs not only the individual of his life but it robs family and friends of time that was not supposed to be taken away at such a young age. As I have wondered and wrestled with God as to why he took Matt home to be with Him I have come up with no answers that satisfy my wondering heart and mind, especially as I see my sister, a widow at 32 and my nieces and nephew fatherless. But I know that Matt lived more in 33 years than most of do in a lifetime. It has made me wonder what my wood is worth? With what am I building? How am I living? Am I building with things that are valuable and worthwhile? Am I contributing or am I just breathing? Matt's LIFE and his death reminds me of something the Bible says. Each one should be careful how he/she builds. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light (1 Corinthians 3:10-13).

What is your wood worth? Build carefully! Thanks Matt for teaching what my wood is worth, how to live and how to die!

If you want to read more about Matt's journey through his battle with cancer check out his blog:http://www.mattsupdates.blogspot.com/